The young gentleman who writes the following letter to his friend in London is, as may be seen, interpreter to the Expedition. We have understood, further, that he is connected with the young man who writes for the Morning Chronicle, and conducts the Critical, Argumentative, and Geographical departments. Some say it is the young man himself, who has assumed a feigned name, and, under the disguise of a Turkish dress and circumcision, is gone, at the express instigation of his employers, to improve himself in geographical knowledge. We have our doubts upon this subject, as we think we recognise the style of this deplorable young man in an article of last week’s Morning Chronicle, which we have had occasion to answer in a preceding column of our present paper. Be that as it may, the information contained in the following letter may be depended upon.
We cannot take leave of the subject without remarking what a fine contrast and companion the vessel and cargo described in the following poem affords [sic] to the “Navis Stultifera,” the “Shippe of Fooles” of the celebrated Barclay; and we cannot forbear hoping that the Argenis of an author of the same name may furnish a hint for an account of this stupendous Expedition in a learned language, from the only pen which in modern days is capable of writing Latin with a purity and elegance worthy of so exalted a theme, and that the author of a classical preface[[294]] may become the writer of a no less celebrated voyage.
TRANSLATION OF A LETTER,
(IN ORIENTAL CHARACTERS)
FROM BAWBA-DARA-ADUL-PHOOLA,[[295]]
DRAGOMAN TO THE EXPEDITION,
TO NEEK-AWL-ARETCHID-KOOEZ,
SECRETARY TO THE TUNISIAN EMBASSY.
Dear Neek-awl,
You’ll rejoice, that at length I am able,
To date these few lines from the captain’s own table.
Mr. Truman himself, of his proper suggestion,
Has in favour of science decided the question;
So we walk the main-deck, and are mess’d with the captain,
I leave you to judge of the joys we are wrapt in.