You will be much interested in hearing that at this moment an attempt is making to explore the Interior of Africa; and that I have, unknowingly, entered upon my expedition as rival to a gentleman who is probably by this time in the scene of action. I was allowed the perusal of a letter from Dr. Seetzen to Mr. Barker, who is a merchant of Malta, and brother to the British Consul at Aleppo. Dr. Seetzen is a German physician, who was sent five or six years ago by the Duke of Saxe-Gotha into the Levant, to collect manuscripts and Eastern curiosities. He has resided for a considerable length of time at Constantinople, at Smyrna, at Aleppo, at Damascus, and for the last eighteen months at Cairo, from whence his letter to Mr. Barker is dated on the 9th of February last. After remarking that he had sent off from Cairo to Gotha a collection of fifteen hundred manuscripts and three thousand different objects of antiquity, he informs Mr. Barker that he is waiting for the next caravan to set out for Suez; that he means to go down the eastern coast of the Red Sea, and then entering Africa to the southward of the line, to explore its interior parts. Such are his expressions. The late Bey of Tripoli is at present a fugitive at Malta: he is a much respected old man; his name Akhmed Karamaly: five or six years ago he was dispossessed of his throne by his brother, the present reigning Bey. I take Akhmed to be the Bey mentioned in Horneman’s letters. He has at length come to a compromise with his brother, who has ceded to him the province of Derna, and promises not to molest him there, provided he keeps quiet himself; and Akhmed is now going to take possession of his new territory. I had never heard before that Derna was a dependency of Tripoli; the country was generally, I think, supposed to be inhabited by free tribes of Arabs. It is much to be regretted that the whole extent of that coast, from Mesurata to Derna, and almost as far as Alexandria, should still remain unsurveyed; no accurate soundings have been taken along the shore, and its inland parts, even those nearest the sea, are totally unknown. I am assured that there are three safe anchoring places between Derna and Alexandria; the harbour of Bomba,[1] formed by an island lying across the bay, is particularly spoken of as able to contain almost any number of ships and of any size. When the French fleet, under Admiral Gantheaume victualled Corfu last year, and escaped the vigilance of Lord Collingwood’s cruising squadrons, they were hid for some time, with their fore and top masts struck, behind the island of Bomba, and were passed unnoticed. The Malta pilots are perfectly well acquainted with all the inlets of the coast, but their intelligence is little to be depended upon, because the safety of many of their privateers depends upon an exclusive knowledge of that part of the Mediterranean. An English traveller might, under the protection of the governor of Malta, and of the