Mohammed Aly wished to know my opinion respecting the number of troops necessary for defending Egypt against a foreign army. I answered, that I knew nothing of war, but from what I had read in books. “No, no;” he exclaimed, “you travellers always have your eyes open, and you inquire after every thing.” He persisted in his question; and being thus forced to reply, I said that twenty-five thousand chosen troops would probably be able to resist any attack. “I have now thirty-three thousand,” said he--a false assertion, for I am quite certain that he had at that time not more than sixteen thousand men, dispersed over Egypt and the Hedjaz. He would next explain to me the Nizam Djedyd, or new system of discipline and military regulations He said it was only the avidity of the chiefs, and not the dislike of the common sol­diers, that obstructed the institution of a well-organised army in Turkey, and opposed the mustering necessary to prevent the officers from imposing on the public treasury. “But I shall make a regular corps of negro soldiers,” he added. This his predecessor Khurshid Pasha had attempted, but with little success. The subject of the Nizam Djedyd was resumed as soon as Mohammed Aly returned to Egypt from this expedition; but the revolt of his soldiers, who plundered his own capital, obliged him to abandon the undertaking, which had been badly planned. In the defence of Egypt, he said, he should principally use his cavalry and horse­artillery; the former should destroy all the provisions in advance of the enemy, as the Russians had lately done; and the latter would harass them on all sides, without ever attempting to make a stand. [p.81] During my stay at Tayf, letters arrived from Constantinople, across the Desert, by way of Damascus, bringing to the Pasha a Turkish translation of the treaty of peace concluded at Paris. After having read it several times, he ordered his Turkish writer to explain it to me in Arabic, word for word. This occupied us in a private apartment several hours. I then returned to the audience, and was desired by the Pasha to tell him my opinion of the treaty. Referring to a Turkish atlas, copied from European maps, and printed at Constantinople, he made me point out to him the new limits of Belgium, the islands Mauritius and Tobago, the position of Genoa, &c. &c. With respect to the latter place, a curious mistake occurred. It had been stated to me that Genoa was ceded to the Swedes, which I could not credit. Upon inquiry, I found that Geneva and Switzerland were meant; a town and country which, I am sorry to say, were not comprised in the geographical knowledge of a Turkish viceroy. The mistake, how­ever, was easily made; for in Turkish, Geneva is written like Genoua, and Sweden is pronounced Shwit.