* * * * * ALEXANDRIA: Dec. 27, 1825. 'MY DEAREST FATHER, 'Although I cannot write as long a letter as I intended and wish, for lack of time, yet, as there are several vessels in this harbour on the point of sailing for England, I must, after so long an interval, put pen to paper in your behalf. 'By the finish of my last letter to you which I trust was prolix enough I was at Smyrna, and had informed you of my visiting in this country its nobles and princes: and I think mentioned something of a visit I paid to Ali Bey, the Governor of Idun a country to the Nd. of Smyrna, whose capital is Magnesia, where the residence of the Governor is. I twice visited this Prince, and, so much was he pleased the first time, that he invited me to come a second when there was to be a hunt of birds and beasts. On the 13th of September, Forrester the Surgeon, Weatley my 2nd Lieutenant, and myself with a young Armenian as an interpreter and a Janissary for a "Garde du corps," started "au point du jour" from Smyrna, and arrived in the afternoon at Magnesia, one of the prettiest Turkish towns I have seen. Our journey slow, over bad roads, did not afford any circumstances much worth relating. We found our new acquaintances Turk and Christian, both in their way agreeable; the Armenian, young, sensible, and an extraordinary linguist, speaking nine languages though not twenty years of age. The Old Turk, funny, fat and good-natured. The latter part of our journey lay thro' a pass in the mountains from the summit of which the Valley of Magnesia suddenly burst on our view, with the town on the eastern side at the foot of a perpendicular rocky mountain very like the rock of Gibraltar, but if anything higher, more craggy, and bold: the valley that lay before us, bounded on the W. by a ridge of regular round topped hills, and to the Nd. the eye could not reach the extent of this immense plain, which is covered with vines, and fig trees, corn, and tobacco, the best in Natolia. On my arrival, I sent my Janissary from the Kane I put up at to say I was arrived, when an officer from the Bey came, and marched us thro' the street till we stopped at one of the best looking houses I had seen; we were ushered in, and I was then informed we were to live here and that if I did not like it and was not comfortable that I should have another. But I soon found out we could not be better off; the Bey having sent us to the house of the Primate of the Greeks, who was obliged to receive us whether he liked it or not, it being sufficient that a Turk orders it. But in truth, I believe the old Patriarch was very proud of the honor for no hospitality could outdo his: the fatted calf was killed and we feasted sumptuously. Fingers were now called into requisition as knives and forks are no part of the necessaries of these Oriental nations. Such tearing of fowls and tucking up of sleeves! After dinner the water, and then the Alpha and