traverse it, receive their hospitality for months, pass on to others, study their resemblances and differences, follow them from the gardens of Damascus to the banks of the Euphrates and the confines of Persia, and raise the veil which still hangs over the civilization of the desert,--a civilization where our chivalry had its birth, and where it must still exist: but time presses, and we may see but the borders of that ocean whose whole no one has yet crossed. No traveller has penetrated amidst those innumerable tribes, whose tents and flocks cover the plains of the patriarchs; one only man attempted it, but he is no more, and the notes which he had collected during ten years’ residence amongst the people were lost with himself. I desired to introduce M. de Lascaris to my readers: the following is a sketch of his character. M. de Lascaris was born in Piedmont, of one of those Greek families which settled in Italy after the conquest of Constantinople: he was a knight of Malta when Napoleon conquered the island. M. de Lascaris was then a very young man; he followed him to Egypt, attached himself to his fortunes, and was fascinated by his genius. Highly gifted himself, he was one of the first to perceive the lofty eminence reserved by Providence for the young man who was imbued with all the spirit of Plutarch, when the human character seemed worn out, shattered, or false. He perceived more: he perceived that the great work to be accomplished by his hero was not perhaps the restoration of power in Europe; an effect which the reaction of men’s minds rendered necessary, and therefore easy; he felt that Asia presented a far wider field for the renovating ambition of a hero; that that was the scene for conquering, for founding, and for renovating on a scale incomparably more gigantic; that despotism, brief in Europe, would be lasting, eternal, in Asia; that the great man who could there apply the principles of organization and unity would effect more than Alexander,--more than Bonaparte in France. It appears that the young warrior of Italy, whose imagination was luminous as the East, undefined as the desert, wide as the world, held some confidential conversations with M. de Lascaris on this subject; and directed one ray of thought towards that horizon which was opening to him his destiny. It was but a ray, and I lament it: it is evident that Bonaparte was the man for the East, not the man for Europe. This will provoke a smile; it will appear paradoxical to the world. But consult travellers. Bonaparte, who is looked upon as the man of the French revolution and of liberty, never understood liberty, and wrecked the French revolution. History will prove it in every page, when written under other impulses than those which at present dictate it. He was the incarnation of reaction against the liberty of Europe: glorious and brilliant, it is true; but no more. What proof shall I advance? Ask what remains of Bonaparte in