rs whom Major T. is organizing for the Pasha. Major T.'s
son is just arrived from India, and he also is going to organize a
body of horse; in fact, every thing is tending to the establishment
of an European influence, and it may be the Lord's pleasure thus to
prepare the way for his servants to publish the tidings which the
sheep will hear. This tendency to adopt European manners and
improvements, is not only manifested in the military department, but
in others more important. The Pasha has a great desire to introduce
steam navigation on these two beautiful rivers. A proposal has been
made from an agent of the Bristol Steam Company, to the Pasha, through
Major T., to have a steam vessel in the first place between Bussorah
and this place; and secondly, if possible, to extend the navigation,
either by the old canal or by a new one, into the Euphrates and up
to Beer. This navigation will bring one within three days of the
Mediterranean,[9] without the fatigue, danger, and loss of time to
which travellers are exposed in the present journey. It will be a most
important opening for missionaries; for should this mode of conveyance
once get established, the route by Constantinople would almost cease,
and some arrangement would soon be made for going from Scanderoon to
the different important stations in the Mediterranean.

[9] Impossible--within three days of Aleppo must be meant.

There is a gentleman here on his return to England, a Mr. Bywater,
whom Mr. Taylor wishes to undertake a survey of the Euphrates, from
Beer to the canal, which connects it with this place. Till within
about twenty years, heavy artillery came to this place by that river,
so there can be but little doubt that a steam packet would be able to
go; though it might not be of the same size as the one between this
and Bussorah. The voyage between these places backwards and forwards,
it is proposed to do in eight days, which now takes about six or seven
weeks, and during the whole of the returning voyage, which is long,
being against the current, you are at present exposed to the attacks
of the Arabs every hour, whereas the steam packet would have nothing
to fear from them. In fact, I feel the Lord is preparing great changes
in the heart of this nation, or rather from one end of it to the
other; and the events which have taken place in that part of the
empire around Constantinople, have tended to the hastening on of these
changes.

Among the boys that com