before sunrising in the morn. ing, about noon, the middle of the afternoon, about sunsetting, and again two or three hours after the sun has set; this makes five times a day, washing themselves, at least their face and hands when they have water, before praying; when they cannot get water, they perform their ablutions by substituting sand.

"The Arabs always wash when it is in their power before they eat, nor does any buIsiness divert them from a strict observance of their religious ceremonies. While pursuing their journies and going on in the greatest haste, when the time of prayer arrives, all stop, make their camels lie down, and perform what they conceive to be an indispensable duty; praying, in addition to their usual forms, to be directed in the ́right course, and that God will lead them to wells of water, and to hospitable brethren, who will feed them, and not suffer them to perish far from the face of man; that he will enrich them with spoils, and deliver them from all who lie in wait to do them mischief. This done, they mount again cheerfully and proceed, encouraging their camels by a song, a very lively one, if they wish them to go on a trot; if only to walk, something more slow and solemn.

"The men are very quick, active, and intelligent-more so taken collectively than any other set of men I had ever seen in the different parts of the world I had before visited.

They are the lords and masters in their families and are very severe and cruel to their wives, whom they treat as mere necessary slaves; and they do not allow them even as much liberty as they grant to their negroes, either in speech or action. They are considered by the men as bcing without souls, and consequently they are not permitted to join in their devotions→ and are seldom allowed to speak when men are convers. ing together. The continual · harsh treatment and hard drudgery to which they are subject have worn off that fine edge of delicacy, sensibility and compassion, so natural to their sex, and transformed them into unfeeling and unpitying beings, so much so, that their conduct towards me and thy companions in dis tress was brutal in the extreme, and betrayed the extinction of every humane and generous feeling.

The Arab is high-spirited, brave, avaricious, rapacious, revengeful; and, strange as it may appear, is at the same time hospitable and compassionate. He is proud of being able to maintain his independence, though on a dreary desert, and despises those who are so mean and degraded as to submit to any government but that of the Most High. He struts about sole master of what wealth he possesses, always ready to defend it, and believes himself the happiest of men, and the most learned also, handing down the tra dition of his ancestors, as he is

years. He looks upon all other men to be vile and beneath his notice, except as merchandize. He is content to live on the milk of camels, which he takes great care to rear, and thanks God daily for his continual mercies.-They considered themselves as

much above me and my companions, both in intellect and acquired knowledge, as the proud and pampered West India planter fancies himself above the meanest new negro, just brought from the coast of Africa.

"I never witnessed a marriage among them, but was told that when a young man sees a girl that pleases him, he asks her of her father, and she becomes his wife without ceremony.

They all learn to read and write. In every family or division of a tribe, they have one man who acts as teacher to their children. They have boards of from one foot square to two feet long by eighteen inches wide: On these the children learn to write with a piece of pointed reed. They have the secret of making ink and that of a very black dye. When a family of wandering Arabs pitch their tents they set apart a place for a school here all the boys who have been circumcised of from 8 to 18 or 20 years old attend, and are taught to read and to write verses from the Koran, which is kept in Manuscript by every family on skins. They write their characters from right to left-are very particular in the

merica.

५

There appeared to be no kind of sickness or disease among the Arabs of the desert during the time I was with them and they appeared to live to a vast age. There were people I saw belonging to the tribe in which I was a slavetwo old men and one woman, who from their appearance were much older than I had seen. These men and the woman had lost all the hair from their heads, beards, and every part of their bodies-the flesh had wasted away, and their skins appeared to be dried and drawn tight over their sinews and their bones like Egyptian Mummies ; their eyes were extinct having totally wasted away in their sockets; they had lost the use of their limbs and appeared to be deprived of every sense.

An undutiful child of civilized parents might here learn a lesson of filial piety and be

nevolence from these barbarians: The old people always received the first drink of milk, and a larger share than even the acting head of the family, when they were scanted in quantity. When the family moved, a camel was first prepared for the old man, by fixing a kind of basket on the animals back; they then put skins or other soft things into it to make it easy, and next lifting up the old man they place him carefully in it, with a child or two on each side to take care of and steady him during the march. As soon as they stopped to pitch their tents, the old man was taken off and a drink of water or milk given him, for they take care to save some for that particular purpose. The remarkably old man I am speaking of belonged 10 a family that always pitched their tent near to ours, so that I had an opportunity of witBessing the manuer of his

treatment.

After I was redeemed in Mogadore, I asked my master Sidi Hamet of what age he supposed this old man to have been, and he said about eight zille, or Arabic centuries. Now an Arabic century, or zille, is forty two lunar years of twelve moons in each year, so that by this computation he must have been nearly 300 He also told me > years old. that it was very common to find Arabs on different parts of the great desert, five zille old,retaining all their faculties, and that he had seen a great many of the ages of from 5 to

8.-I then asked him how they knew their own ages, and he answered-Every family keeps a record of the ages and the names of its children, which they always preserve and pack up in the same bag in which they carry the Ko ran. The Arabs who live on the desert, said he, subsist entirely on the milk of their camels; it is the milk of an animal that we call sacred, and it causes long life; those who live on nothing else, have no disorders, and are particularly favoured of Leaven. But only carry these same people from the desert and let them live on meat and bread and fruits, they then become subject to every kind of pain and sickness when they are young, and only live to the age of about two zille and a half at the most

while a great many die very. young, and not one tenth part of the men or the women live to the age of one zille.'

"Most of the Arabs arc well armed with good doublebarrelled French fowling pieces, and with good scimitars or knives-They are ever ready to attack an inferior, or even an equal force, and fight for the sake of plunder-They attack the small towns in the vicinity of the desert, on all sides-if successful, they put all to the sword, burn the towns and retire again to the desert with their spoil, Such is the wandering Arab of the great African Desert. hand is against every man, and consequently every man's hand is against him."

His

MR. EDITOR,

April, 1818.

SHOULD you consider the following observations worthy of a place in "The Christian Disciple" you will please to insert them.

Matthew xvi. 19. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in, heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shalt be loosed in heaven.

By the keys' we are unquestionably here to understand the christian dispensation, the preaching of which was to be the means of intro

ducing men into the kingdom of heaven,' They are said to be given to Peter in particular as he was to have charge of the flock-he was to be the first preacher of the Gospel both to the Jews and Gentiles, and upon him Christ declared he would build his church.

But the proper meaning of the latter clause of the séntence under consideration is not so obvious

It may refer to articles of the Jewish law, such as those concerning circuncision and eating of meat, which articles the Apostles should have authority to annul; or to their power of regulating the church their preaching of the gos, pel, making known the ternis of salvation, and thereby determining who should be bound and who loosed accord

ing to their respective charac

ters.

I think it not impossible that all which I have mentioned may be implied in the expréssion. Yet on comparing the passage with one in St. John with which I conceive it to be nearly parallel, I am of opinion that something more must also have been included to justify the strength of the expression; and that the passage. may, with some restrictions, be understood in the literal sense of that referred to in John, to wit, "whose sins soever ye remit, they are remitted to them; and whose sins soever ye retain they are rctained."

This interpretation will not make it necessary to suppose that the Apostles had power to forgive or retain the sins of ' every man, nor those of any particular person or persons. Our Saviour did not himself, feel at liberty to bestow his favours upon all indiscriminately, but only upon certain persons and upon certain conditions. The Apostles were doubtless to observe the same regulations, in the respect which Christ prescribed to himself.

I should therefore understand by their expressions not only that the Apostles were authorised to make known the terms of salvation, and to prcscribe fules for the regulation' of the Church; but, that they were able also, in certain cases at least, te discriminate

between those who did or would, and those who would not accept the gospel, and that consequently they had power of making particular and definitive applications of its blessings and of its denunciations--the latter of which I do not know but Annaria and Sapphira are examples.

I hope, Mr. Editor, if I am mistaken in my explanation of the above passage of Scripture, that you will have the good

ness to explain it to me, for as it respects religious truth I am merely

A COMMON ENQUIRER. NOTE-The above article has been several months in our possession. We now give it, not as being perfectly satisfied with the exposition, but in the hope that some correspondent will be induced to favour us with a critical examination of the important text.

THE following verses are founded on the story of an English gentleman and lady who were on their passage to the East Indies, in one of the vessels of an English fleet. For some particular reasons they left the vessel and went on board the Admiral's ship, leaving two young children in the care of a negro servant, who was about 18 years of age. In a violent storm, the ship containing the two children was fast sinking, when a boat arrived from the Admiral's ship for their relief. The crew eagerly crowded to the boat-but the negro lad, finding there was only room for him alone, or the two children, generously put them on board, and remained himself on the wreck, which with the generous boy was immediately ingulphed in the ocean: [N. Y. Adv.

BY AN AMERICAN.

TREMENDOUS howls the angry blast! The boldest hearts with terror quake!