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"In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage,
and the green banks interspersed with innumerable flowers,
sweet to the scent and the eyes, stars of pale radiance
among the moonlight woods; the sun became warmer, the nights
clear and balmy; and my nocturnal rambles were an extreme pleasure to me,
although they were considerably shortened by the late setting
and early rising of the sun, for I never ventured abroad during daylight,
fearful of meeting with the same treatment I had formerly endured
in the first village which I entered.
"My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily
master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly
than the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed
in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate
almost every word that was spoken.
"While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters
as it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me
a wide field for wonder and delight.
"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of Empires.
I should not have understood the purport of this book had not Felix,
in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this work,
he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation
of the Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained
a cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires
at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners,
governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth.
I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius
and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue
of the early Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline
of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard
of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie
over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.
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