Another traveller of a singular description passed here two years ago. He called himself Aly Bey, and professed to be born of Tunisian parents in Spain, and to have received his education in that country. Spanish appears to be his native language, besides which he spoke French, a little Italian, and the Moggrebyn dialect of Arabic, but badly. He came to Aleppo by the way of Cairo, Yaffa, and Damascus, with the strongest letters of recommendation from the Spanish Government to all its agents, and an open credit upon them. He seemed to be a particular friend of the Prince of the Peace, for whom he was collecting antiques; and from the manner in which it was known that he was afterwards received by the Spanish ambassador at his arrival in Constantinople, he must have been a man of distinction. The description of his figure, and what he related of his travels, called to my recollection the Spaniard Badia and his miniature in your library.[3] He was a man of middling size, long thin head, black eyes, large nose, long black beard, and feet that indicated the former wearing of tight shoes. He professed to have travelled in Barbary, to have crossed the Lybian Desert between Barbary and Egypt, and from Cairo to have gone to Mekka, and back. He travelled with Eastern magnificence, but here he was rather shy of shewing himself out of doors; he never walked out but on Fridays to the prayers of noon, in the great mosque. One of the beforementioned Dervishes told me that there had been a great deal of talking about this Aly Bey, at Damascus and Hama; they suspected him of being a Christian, but his great liberality and the pressing letters which he brought to all the people of consequence, stopped all further enquiry. He was busily employed in arranging and putting in order his journal during the two months of his stay at Aleppo. _Aleppo, 2nd July,_ 1810. My long stay in Syria having been determined upon, in consequence of the absolute necessity of my familiarising myself with the idiom of these countries, I shall deem it my duty to send you from time to time some vouchers of my application to Arabic literature. I have for some time past been engaged in an Arabic exercise, which has proved of great utility to me; it is the metamorphosis of the well known novel of Robinson Crusoe into an Arabian tale, adapted to Eastern taste and manners. A young Frank born at Aleppo, who speaks Arabic like a native, but who neither reads nor writes it, has been my assistant in the undertaking. I take the liberty of sending you here inclosed a copy of this travestied Robinson, or as I call the book in Arabic, Dur el Bahur, the Pearl of the Seas. Of the merits or defects of the translation I can claim at most forty per cent.; the handwriting excepted, which is my own.