quench his thirst, might never be wanting to the
traveller in that part of the desert. Could
philanthropy—Christian philanthropy—be
exhibited in a more touching shape than by this
sheikh of the wilderness?

The physician of Uahl Bey of Zaitoun, the
son-in-law of Veli Pasha, is Mr. Dellapietra,
from Zante. He is as highly educated a man as
it is possible to find, having had the advantage
of twelve years under the best masters in Paris.
To these recommendations are added a
penetrating intellect, habits of observation, and the
most lively interest in the pursuit of knowledge.
He has the most delicate sense of truth
and honour, his conduct is eminently virtuous,
and he is exempt from religious and popular
prejudices. He always endeavours to find a
natural solution for phenomena which startle
not only the vulgar and ignorant, but even the
most enlightened men. Mr. Dellapietra told me
himself, that during his stay in Paris, he fortified
his habits of incredulity to a degree that placed
him on a level with the best-known sceptics of
France. These ideas he brought with him to
Turkey; but as a worshipper of truth, an
observer of nature, and, indeed, as a philosopher,
he could not refuse to yield conviction to
evidence. He began by feeling that his negative
system was not so excellent as to exclude all
others, and that there were cases which it could
not explain; and he finished by seeking in
unknown causes the solution of certain events,
which from their rarity are termed supernatural
by uninstructed people, and rejected as empty
chimeras by the self-sufficiency of our proud
savans.

Mr. Dellapietra related to me the following
facts:

Some time since he was sent for from Zante
to attend upon a Turk who was suffering from
illness at Pyrgos, in the district of the ancient
Elida in the Morea. During his stay in this
little town he made the acquaintance of one of
the Greek residents, a Mr. Agholoz, a gentleman
living on his means. He confirmed what
Mr. Dellapietra had previously heard stated to
him by several other persons; namely, that Mr.
Agholoz had in his possession a book, written in
Arabic, with Arabic letters in one column, and
in the other column the same words in Arabic
with Greek letters. This book had been in the
family for many generations, passing from father
to son, and by means of the utterance of certain
words which are marked in this ancient volume,
Mr. Agholoz is in the habit of curing the maladies
of cattle, which are brought to him for the
purpose from many miles round; and more
especially in summer, when serpents abound in
the Morea, and when men and beasts are daily
bitten by them, a cure is instantaneously effected
by the use of these cabalistic words.

The possessor of this book is not a credulous
man, and he is free from any special leaning to
his art; and while he laughs at his own practices,
he only lends himself to the work from
complaisance. He cannot but admit, however, that
his method is infallible, although unable himself
to account for his success. What he does,
moreover, is entirely gratuitous.

           THE MODERN GENIUS OF THE
                          STREAMS.

WATER to raise corn from the seed, to clothe
the meadow with its grass, and to fill the land
with fruits and flowers; water to lie heaped in
fantastic clouds to make the fairy land of sunset,
and to spread the arch of mercy in the rainbow;
water that kindles our imagination to a sense of
beauty; water that gives us our meat and is our
drink and cleans us of dirt and disease, and is
our servant in a thousand great and little ways:
it is the very juice and essence of man's civilisation.
And so, whether we shall drag over cold
water, or let hot water drag us, is one way of
putting the question between canal and steam
communication for conveyance of our heavy
traffic. The canal-boat uses its water cold
without, the steam-engine requires it hot within.
Before hot water appeared in its industrial
character to hiss off the cold, canals had all the
glory to themselves. They are not yet hissed
off their old stages and cat-called into contempt
by the whistle of the steam-engine, for canal-
communication still has advantages of its own,
and canal shares are powers in the money-
market.

Little more than a century ago, not only were
there neither canals nor railroads in this country,
but the common high roads were about the
worst in Europe. Corn and wool were sent to
market over those bad roads on horses' or
bullocks' backs, and the only coal used in the
inland southern counties was carried on horseback
in sacks for the supply of the blacksmiths'
forges. Water gave us our over-sea commerce,
that came in and went out by way of our tidal
rivers; and the step proposed towards the
fostering of our home industries was a great one
when it occurred to somebody to imitate nature
by erecting artificial rivers that should flow
wherever we wished them to flow, and should be
navigable along their whole course for capacious
flat-bottomed carrying boats.

The first English canal, indeed, was
constructed as long as three hundred years ago at
Exeter, by John Trew, a native of Glamorganshire,
who enabled the traders of Exeter to
cancel the legacy of the spite of an angry
Countess of Devon, who had, nearly three
hundred years before that time, stopped the ascent
of sea-going vessels to Exeter by forming a
weir across the Exe at Topham. Trew
contrived, to avoid the obstruction, a canal from
Exeter to Topham, three miles long, with a
lock to it. John Trew ruined himself in the
service of an ungrateful corporation.

After this time, improvements went no
further than the clearing out of some channels of
natural water-communication, until the time of
James Brindley, the father of the English canal
systems.