“‘We have liberated Father Felix Caronni. He is hereby permitted to embark from Goletta for the country of the Christians, at the intervention of the French Consul, through the medium of his Dragoman, in consideration of the payment of ninety-nine sequins mahbub, and by the privilege of the mighty and generous Hamudah[323] Basha Bey, Ben-Dani, whom may God prosper! “Second Giomada, in the year 1219.’ “_Giomada_[324] is the name of the sixth month of the Arabs, and the year indicated is the year of their Hegira.[325] And, as the Oriental writing runs in the reverse order to ours, (that is, from right to left,) it is necessary, in order that the words of the translation may correspond with those of the original, to take the precaution of reading it backwards, or, what will answer the same purpose, in a mirror. What will strike the reader, however, as most strange, (as it did myself when first the Tiscara was translated for me) is its particularizing the ‘payment of ninety-nine gold mahbubs,’ which, at the rate of nine _lire_ to each, would make eight hundred and ninety-one Milanese _lire_: whereas this is utterly false as far as I am personally concerned, and the French commissary did not give me the least intimation of any payment whatever. The Abate Mezzofanti suggests with much probability, that it may be a part of the _stylus curiæ_ of these greedy barbarians to boast in their piratical diplomacy that no Christian, and still more no ecclesiastic, has ever been made captive by them without being, even though a Frank, supposed to be a lawful prize, and consequently without being made ‘to bleed’ a little.”[326] This is the first published notice of Mezzofanti which has come under my observation; and it is particularly interesting as an early example of his habit of cultivating not only the principal languages, but the minor varieties of each. The knowledge that, when he had barely completed his thirtieth year, he was reputed to be master of _more than twenty-four languages_, may perhaps prepare us to regard with less incredulity the marvels which we shall find related of his more advanced career.