I send this with a messenger to Alexandria, from whence it will be forwarded by Col. Missett. It has been my peculiar good fortune to have met in Syria and in Egypt with such men as Mr. Barker and Col. Missett. The latter is now on the point of retiring from office, for his infirmities increase rapidly, and the climate of Egypt is little calculated to remove them. His public and private virtues are such as will ever make him regretted by the Europeans of this country, whose zealous protector he has often been, in most trying circumstances, and to many a kind benefactor. I have known few men who treat and know Turks so well as he does. His rigid integrity, his accuracy in business, and his inflexible firmness, are the only checks which Mohammed Aly has experienced in his relations with European governments, for the other Consuls are under such great obligations to him that they never dare uphold their nation’s interests when they are in opposition to those of the Pasha. Nevertheless, the urbanity and generosity of the Colonel’s character conciliated the friendship of all the Turks who were known to him, and he departs sincerely regretted both by Egyptians and Europeans, but particularly by myself, who have always experienced from him the most friendly solicitude. _Cairo, 18th April,_ 1816. I depart the day after to morrow for Mount Sinai. The plague has declared itself in this town, and all the Franks are shut up. I should not like to imitate them, and still less to expose myself to the infection. As the disorder is likely to spread among the villages on the Nile, I have thought that I could not do better than retire while it lasts to the Bedouins, who among their many advantages over the settled Arabs, enjoy a total exemption from the plague. I shall endeavour to push on as far as Akaba, and trace the direction of the eastern gulf of the Red Sea, which, as far as I know, has never been seen by European travellers. In the following letter Mr. Burckhardt furnishes the Association with a short account of the result of his journey in the peninsula of Mount Sinai. _Cairo, 1st July,_ 1816.