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By Root 668 0

that quarter; and as for those from parts beyond seas—O! my masters, ye shall hear more from me anon. Heaven help this unhappy town! hath it not goslings enow of its own hatching and rearing, that it must be overwhelmed by such an inundation of ganders from other climes? I would not have any of my courteous and gentle readers suppose that I am running a muck, full tilt, cut and slash, upon all foreigners indiscriminately. I have no national antipathies, though related to the Cockloft family. As to honest John Bull,q I shake him heartily by the hand, assuring him that I love his jolly countenance, and, moreover, am lineally descended from him; in proof of which I allege my invincible predilection for roast beef and pudding. I therefore look upon all his children as my kinsmen; and I beg, when I tickle a cockney, I may not be understood as trimming an Englishman;—they being very distinct animals, as I shall clearly demonstrate in a future number. If any one wishes to know my opinion of the Irish and Scotch, he may find it in the characters of those two nations, drawn by the first advocate of the age. But the French, I must confess, are my favorites; and I have taken more pains to argue my cousin Pindarr out of his antipathy to them than I ever did about any other thing. When, therefore, I choose to hunt a Monsieur for my own particular amusement, I beg it may not be asserted that I intend him as a representative of his countrymen at large. Far from this; I love the nation, as being a nation of right merry fellows, possessing the true secret of being happy; which is nothing more than thinking of nothing, talking about anything, and laughing at everything. I mean only to tune up those little thingimys,s who represent nobody but themselves; who have no national trait about them but their language, and who hop about our town in swarms, like little toads after a shower.

Among the few strangers whose acquaintance has entertained me, I particularly rank the magnanimous Mustapha Rub-a-dub Keli Khan, a most illustrious captain of a ketch,t who figured, some time since, in our fashionable circles, at the head of a ragged regiment of Tripolitan prisoners.u His conversation was to me a perpetual feast; I chuckled with inward pleasure at his whimsical mistakes and unaffected observations on men and manners, and I rolled each odd conceit “like a sweet morsel under my tongue.”

Whether Mustapha was captivated by my iron-bound physiognomy, or flattered by the attentions which I paid him, I won’t determine; but I so far gained his confidence, that, at his departure, he presented me with a bundle of papers, containing, among other articles, several copies of letters, which he had written to his friends at Tripoli. The following is a translation of one of them. The original is in Arabic-Greek; but by the assistance of Will Wizard, who understands all languages, not excepting that manufactured by Psalmanazar,3 I have been enabled to accomplish a tolerable translation. We should have found little difficulty in rendering it into English, had it not been for Mustapha’s confounded pot-hooks and trammels.

LETTER FROM MUSTAPHA RUB-A-DUB KELI KHAN,

CAPTAIN OF A KETCH, TO ASEM HACCHEM, PRINCIPAL SLAVE-DRIVER TO HIS HIGHNESS THE BASHAW OF TRIPOLI

Thou wilt learn from this letter, most illustrious disciple of Ma homet,v that I have for some time resided in New York; the most polished, vast, and magnificent city of the United States of America. But what to me are its delights! I wander a captive through its splendid streets, I turn a heavy eye on every rising day that beholds me banished from my country. The Christian husbands here lament most bitterly any short absence from home, though they leave but one wife behind to lament their departure; what then, must be the feelings of thy unhappy kinsman, while thus lingering at an immeasurable distance from three-and-twenty of the most lovely and obedient wives in all Tripoli! O Allah! shall thy servant never again return to his native land, nor behold his beloved wives, who beam on his memory beautiful