One of the most curious sights we saw among these curiosities, was the famous Mr. Montagu, who was performing quarantine at the Lazaretto. All the English made a point of paying him their compliments in that place, and he seemed not a little pleased with their attention. It may be supposed that visitors are not suffered to approach the person of any who is performing quarantine. They are divided by a passage of about seven or eight feet wide. Mr. Montagu was just arrived from the East; he had travelled through the Holy Land, Egypt, Armenia, &c., with the Old and New Testaments in his hands for his direction, which, he told us, had proved unerring guides. He had particularly taken the road of the Israelites through the Wilderness, and had observed that part of the Red Sea which they had passed through. He had visited Mount Sinai, and flattered himself he had been on the very part of the rock where Moses spake face to face with God Almighty. His beard reached down to his breast, being of two years and a half growth; and the dress of his head was Armenian. He was in the most enthusiastic raptures with Arabia and the Arabs. Like theirs, his bed was the ground, his food rice, his beverage, water, his luxury, a pipe and coffee. His purpose was to return once more among that virtuous people, whose morals and hospitality, he said, were such, that were you to drop your cloak in the highway, you would find it there six months afterwards, an Arab being too honest a man to pick up what he knows belongs to another; and, were you to offer money for the provision you meet with, he would ask you, with concern, why you had so mean an opinion of his benevolence, to suppose him capable of accepting a gratification. ‘Therefore, money,’ said he, ‘in that country, is of very little use, as it is only necessary for the purchase of garments, which, in so warm a climate, are very few and of very little value.’ He distinguishes, however, between the wild and the civilised Arab, and proposes to publish an account of all that I have written. In 1765, Wortley Montagu (while sojourning at Pisa), wrote his well-known account of his journey to ‘The Written Mountains’ in the East. It is a clever and modest record; his conclusion being that the rock inscriptions were undecipherable, and probably would not, if interpreted, be worth the outlay of means. This account was read before the Royal Society. In March 1766 he was still at Pisa, whence he wrote to M. Varsy, a merchant from Marseilles, established at Rosetta, and married to a sister of Mrs. Feroe, or Mrs. Montagu, as the Tuscan judges might decide. The letter in French (now, with others quoted below, in Lord Wharncliffe’s possession,) contains the following personal matter:--