“I have the most lively recollection of many descriptions of the structure of the universe, and accounts of eastern countries, which he used to tell me instead of fairy tales, when he took me on his knee before I went to bed. The history of Mohammed; of the first califs, particularly of Omar and Ali, for whom he had the deepest veneration; of the conquests and spread of Islamism; of the virtues of the heroes of the new faith, and of the Turkish converts, were imprinted on my childish imagination in the liveliest colours. Historical works on these same subjects were nearly the first books that fell into my hands. “I recollect, too, that on the Christmas-eve of my tenth year, by way of making the day one of peculiar solemnity and rejoicing to me, he went to a beautiful chest containing his manuscripts, which was regarded by us children, and indeed by the whole household, as a kind of ark of the covenant; took out the papers relating to Africa, and read to me from them. He had taught me to draw maps, and with his encouragement and assistance I soon produced maps of Habbesh and Soudan. “I could not make him a more welcome birthday present than a sketch of the geography of eastern countries, or translations from voyages and travels, executed as might be expected from a child. He had originally no stronger desire than that I might be his successor as a traveller in the East. But the influence of a very tender and anxious mother upon my physical training and constitution, thwarted his plan, almost as soon as it was formed. In consequence of her opposition, my father afterward gave up all thoughts of it. “The distinguished kindness he had experienced from the English, and the services which he had been able to render to the East India Company, by throwing light upon the higher part of the Red Sea, led him to entertain the idea of sending me, as soon as I was old enough, to India. With this scheme, which, plausible as it was, he was afterward as glad to see frustrated as I was myself, many things, in the education he gave me, was intimately connected. He taught me, by preference, out of English books, and put English works, of all sorts, into my hands. At a very early age he gave me a regular supply of English newspapers: circumstances which I record here, not on account of the powerful influence they have had on my maturer life, but as indications of his character.”