Butter milk Raib الرَّايبْ White Bëad اْبيضْ A black El Abd العبدْ Eggs Baid البَيضْ Afar-off Baid ابْعيدْ A pig Helloof حلوڢْ An oath Hellef احلڢْ Feed for horses Alf العّلڢ A thousand Alf الڢْ It is difficult for any one who has not accurately studied the Arabic language, to imagine the many errors which an European commits in speaking it, when self-taught, or even when taught in Europe. Soon after my arrival in Africa, when I had not attained the age of eighteen, I happened one day to be in the house of an European gentleman who had then been in the country twenty years; an Arab of the province of Tedla came in, when the former (at all times desirous of exhibiting his knowledge of their language) addressed him, and after making a long speech, the Arab very coolly replied, “I entreat thee to speak Arabic, that I may understand thee (_tkillem Eaudie b’lorbea besh en fhemik_).” This was interpreted to me by a friend, who was present, and it made such a strong impression on my mind, that I resolved to apply myself assiduously to discover the reason why a person who spoke the language tolerably quick, should be altogether so little understood, and I was some time afterwards, by making various observations and trials, convinced that the deficiency originated in the inaccuracy of the application of the synonymous letters. The ain ع and the غ r’gain cannot be accurately pronounced by Europeans, who have not studied the language grammatically when young, and under a native; I have, however, heard an Irishman,[169] who did not understand it grammatically, but had acquired it by ear, pronounce the latter equally as correct as any Arabian; but this was a rare instance. He was in England whilst Elfie Bey was here, who, as I was afterwards informed, had declared, that he was the only European whose Arabic he could easily understand. The aspirated _h_, and the hard _s_, in the word for _morning_ (sebah), are so much like their synonymes, that few Europeans can discern the difference; the one is consequently often mistaken for the other; and I have known a beautiful sentence absolutely perverted through an inaccuracy of this kind. In the words rendered _Hatred_ and _Harvest_, the two synonymes of س and ص or _s_ hard and _s_ soft, are indiscriminately used by Europeans in their Arabic _conversations_, a circumstance sufficient to do away the force and meaning of any sentence or discourse.