The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-09-10 00:00:00

MEHEMET Am.—He was born at Cavalla, in Roumelia,
and he told me he was the youngest of sixteen children. He
was much indulged by his father and mother, and'was a
great favourite‘bf his brothers and sisters. He once said to
tne " Do not wonder if I am sometimes impatient, and want
to have my own way. 1 was never used to contradiction.
I have scarcely ever known misfortune. I was born under a
smiling star, and that star has smiled upon me all my life
through." I should tell you, that Mehemet Ali was forty-
six years old before he had learned tither to read or to write.
This he told me himself. I have heard that he was taught
by his favourite wife: But he is fond of reading now; and
one day when I entered his divan unannounced, I found him
quite alone, with his spectacles on, reading a Turkish vo-
lume, which he was much enjoying; while a considerable pile
of books were by his side. "It is pleasant relief," he said,
" from public business ; I was reading some amusing Turkish
stories" (probably the Arabian Nights) " and now let us
talk—what have you to tell me ?" There is a great deal of
sagacity in Mehemet Ali's conversation, particularly when
he knows or discovers, as he usually does, the sort of infor-
Mation which his visitor is most able to give. He discourses
with engineers about mechanical improvements—with mili-
tary men on the art of war—with sea officers on ship build-
ing and naval manoeuvres---with travellers on the countries
they have visited—with politicians on public affairs. He very
willingly talks of foreign countries; and princes, and st- tes-
men ; and is in the habit of mingling in the conversation of
all sorts of anecdotes about himself, and .the events con-
nected with his history. His phrases are often poetical ; and
he, like most (Mental!, frequently introduces proverbs and
imagery. I heard hit once say, speaking of the agriculture
of Egypt, " When I came to this country, I only scratched
it with a pin ; I have now succeeded in cultivating it with a
hoc • but soon I will have a plough passing over the whole
land." You asked me, George, if he were not a cruel prince;
and that he certainly is not, for many a generous deed has
he done, and seldom will it be found that the reign of a Turk-
ish sovereign is so little stained with bloOd: Mehemet Ali's
great pride is Ibrahim Pacha; a victoriotis leader is always
an object of tichniration among Mussulmans, and Ibrahim
Pacha's career has been one of brilliant military sucdess.
His father is fond of talking of his first born son, and in-
tended successor. " I did not know him," he said. " I had
not an unbounded confidence in him for many, many years
no, not till his beard was almost as long as my own, and 'even'
changing its colour," said the pacha to nib; but now I can
thoroughly trust him." On the part of Ibrahim Pacha,
though in rank above his father (for the pacha of the holy
cities is the first pacha of the Ottoman einpire), there
,is al-,
ways the utmost deference to Mehemet Ali's will. For the
most difficult circumstances of his life he has always referred
to his renowned sire for advice ; and whenever he ha's been
pressed by the representatives of the great powers of Europe,
he has invariably answered; that he should abide by the in-
structions he received from hi! father.—Bowring's Minor
Morals, Part 3.

THE DELUGE UNIVERSAL.—Dr. Keith, author of " De-
monstrations of the Truth of Christianty," published in New
York, on the subject of the flood, says :—" The memory of
the deluge was not lost by any nation from the one extremity
of the globe to the other; and in proof that the tradition was-
maintained through many ages, evidence of the same fact has
been borne in modern times from China,' HituloStan; tlk
islands of the Pacific, Mexico, and Peru, which concurs with
the testimony, remote in time, as in place, which" Chaldea,
Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome, anciently supplied: 'The
people of Mechoacan have preserved a tradition, according
to which Cox-cox, whom they call Tezpi, embarked in a spa-
cious acalli with his wife and children, many animals and
grain, the preservation of which was dear to the human race.
When the Great Spirit commanded the waters to retire, Tcz-
pi sent forth from his bark a vulture. The bird nourished by
dead flesh, did not return on account of the great number of
carcasses which were scattered upon the newly dried earth.
Tespi sent out other birds, of which the humming bird alone
returned, bearing in its beak a branch covered with leaves.
After which Tespi, seeing that the soil began to be covered
with new verdure, left his bark near the mountain of Colhu-
acan." Everywhere' adds Humboldt, 'the traces of a
common origin, the opinions concerning cosmogony, and the
primitve traditions of nations, present a striking analogy
even in minute circumstances. Does not the humming, bird
of Tespi call to mind the dove of Noah, that of Deucalion,
and the birds, according to Cerosus, which Xisutrus sent forth
from the ark, to try if the waters bad subsided, and if as yet
he could erect alters to the God of Chaldea.—Humboldt,
Vines des Cordilleres, p. 227. The raven, no less than the
dove, and the order no less than the name, the first, the ra-
venous bird not returning ; the second, for ever afterward
the bird of peace, re-appearing and retiring, identify each
narrative as the self same fact with a speciality of circum-
stances, which sober reason cannot misinterpret or mistrust.
And the leafy twig in the bill of a little bird needs but to be
traditionally brought back again from the extremity of the
globe, where without the possibility of being transplanted
anew, it had flourished for many ages in order to prove, at
last, as fresh a testimony, to the old world and to the new,
of the truth of the fact, as at first it was a sure token to the
inmates of the ark, that they should soon tread on the reno-
vated earth. How, but as coming from the only surviving
family of man, could the tradition have been preserved, sim-
ple and uncorrupted, in the midst of the remotest regions so
long undiscovered. Oneof the world was unknown to the
other, but the twig that a bird did bear was remembered by
both ; nor was the leaf forgotten. It survived like the ark,
in a
bud again deluged
where wor
afore ild 1 ant
was blasted ."d it alone may show that faith may
A POTTEEN SMUGGLER'S DARLINT.—A man who was
known to have a large mountain farm and extensive home-
stead in these hills, was observed very frequently to ride into
the town of B— ; and he never made his appearance with-
out a woman, supposed to be his wife, jogging steadily and
uprightly on a pillions behind him. Ile was tall and gaunt
in look ; she large and rotund, and encumbered, as is the
mode of all country wives, with a multitude of petticoats
they always rode into the yard of a man who kept a public-
house ; and before they alighted off their horse, the gate was
carefully shut. It was known, moreover, that. this publican
acted as factor for this farmer in the sale of his butter : and
so for a length of time things went on in 'a quiet• and easy
way, until one day it so happened -(as indeed it is very porn-
mon for, idlers in a very idle country town to stand -making
remarks on the people as they come by) that the ganger, the
innkeeper, and a squireen were lounging away their day,
when the farmer slowly paced by with his everlasting wife
lkhind him. " Well," says the squireen, "of all the women
I ever see,v bumping on a pillion, that lump of
,aevornan sits
the awlewerdest ; she don't sit like a natural born crathur at
all; and- do you see how modest she is ?. What with her
flapped down beaver hat, and all the frills and fallals about
her, not an inch of her- sweet face-is to be seen', no more
than an owl from out the ivy. I have a great mind to run
up alongside of her, and give her a pinch in the toe, to make
old buckram look about her for once.' " Oh, let her alone,"
says the innkeeper ; " they're a dement couple from Joyce
country. I'll be bound, what makes her sit so stiff is all
the eggs she is bringin' in to Mrs. O'Mealey, who factors
the butter for them." There was, while he said this, a cun-
ning leer about the innkeeper's mouth, as much as to denote
that there was, to his knowledge, however he came by it,
something mysterious about this said couple ; this was not
lost on the subtle guager, and he thought it no harm just to
try more about the matter; and so he says in a frolicsome
way, " Why, then, for curiosity sake, I will just run up to
them, and give the mistress a pinch--sonnewhere ; she won't
notice me at all in the crowd, and maybe then she'll look
up. and. we'll see her own purty face." Accordingly, no
sooner said than done : he ran over to where the farmer was
getting on slowly through the market crowd ; and on the side
of the pillion to which the woman's back was turned, at-
tempted to give a sly pinch, but be might as well have pinched
a pitcher; nor did the woman even lift up her head, or ask
" Who is it that's hurting me ?" This emboldened him to
give another knock with his knuckles; and this assault he
found not opposed as it should be by petticoats and flesh,
but by what he felt to be petticoats and metal. This is
queer, thought the guager : he now was more bold, and with
the butt-end of his walking-stick he hit what was so hard a
bang which sounded as if he had struck a tin pot. " Stop
here, honest man," cried the guager. " Let my wife alone,
will you, before the people ?" cried the farmer. " Not till I
see what this honest woman is made of," roared the guager.
So he pulled, and the farmer dug his heels into the colt. to
get on, but all would not do ; in the struggle down came
wife and all into the street ; and as she fell on the pavement,
the whole street rang with the squash, and in a moment there
is a gurgling as from a burst barrel, and a strong-smelling
water comes flowing all about ; and flat poor Norah lies,
there being an irruption of all her intestines, which flowed
'down the gutter as like potteen whiskey as eggs are like eggs.
The fact was, that our friend from the land of Joyce had got
made, by some tinker, a tin vessel with head and body_the
shape of a woman, and dressed it out as a proper country
dame ; in this way he carried his darlint behind him, and
made much of her.—Otway's Tour in Connaught.