to realize as an actual incident of the nineteenth century;[320]—the adventures of an amateur antiquarian, who was made captive by Corsairs and carried into Barbary. The hero of this adventure was a Milanese ecclesiastic, Father Felix Caronni. He embarked at Palermo for Naples, in a small merchant vessel laden with oranges, but had scarcely quitted the shore when a pirate-ship hove in sight. The crew, as commonly happened in such cases, took to the boat and escaped, leaving Father Caronni and eighteen other passengers to the mercy of the Corsairs, who speedily overpowered the defenceless little vessel. Caronni, as a subject of the Italian Republic and a French citizen,[321] would have been secured against capture; but his passport was in the hands of the captain who had escaped; and thus, notwithstanding his protestations, he was seized along with the rest, and, under circumstances of great cruelty and indignity, they were all carried into Tunis. Here, however, at the reclamation of the French, supported by the Austrian Consul, Father Caronni was saved from the fate which awaited the rest of the captives—of being sold into slavery,—and at the end of three months, (part of which he devoted to the exploration of the antiquities of Tunis and the surrounding district,) he was set at liberty and permitted to return to Italy. Being at a loss, while preparing the narrative of his captivity for publication, for a translation of the papers which he received at Tunis when he was set at liberty, he had recourse to the assistance of the Abate Mezzofanti, as he explains in the following passage. “No sooner,” says he, “had I obtained the _Tiscara_[322] [passport,] than I made an exact copy of it (with the exception of the Bey’s seal,) in the precise dimensions of the original. It was not so easy, however, to obtain a translation of this document in Italy, both because it had been hastily written with a reed—the instrument which the Moors employ for that purpose—and because there were introduced into it certain ciphers which are peculiar to the Arabs of Barbary. These difficulties, however, were happily overcome, thanks to the exceeding courtesy, as well as the distinguished learning of the Abate Mezzofanti, Professor of Oriental Languages in the Institute of Bologna, who is commonly reputed to be master of more than twenty-four languages, the greater number of which he speaks with fluency and purity. He has favoured me (in four long letters which contain as much information as might supply a whole course of lectures) with a literal and critically exact version of it, accompanied by copious explanations, as also by a free translation in the following terms:— “‘THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, AND MAHOMET IS HIS PROPHET.’