MR. PATON'S MAXELUIES. * THIS fiction is a novel of Eastern

adventure, intended to describe manners in Cairo and to sketch the history of the Mamelukes towards the end of the last century, as well as to furnish a notice of the Syrian tribes known in history as "the Assassins," whose

head was the "old Man of the Mountains." For this object the story of the novel is well enough planned.

Khaled, the son of a chief of the Assassins, accidentally meets the daughter of an Italian Frank and a Greek lady, who were resi- • The Mamelukes; a Romance of Life in Grand Cairo. By A. A. Paton: Author of "The Highlands and Islands of the Adriatic," "The Modern Syrians,' &c. &c. In three volumes. Published by Bentley. dents of Aleppo. There is somewhat of unlikely cultivation and elevation in the character of the heroine Melasina, and probably in Xhaled; but this is a necessity of romance that must be over- looked. An attachment springs up between the pair, followed by a betrothal ; and at an early stage of the business Melusina gives Whaled a New Testament. Its pure morality and its humility, so different in many points from the heretical Mahometanism of his tribes, and still more from their ferocious practice, make a great impression on him—especially when read with the knowledge that his old creed is an impediment to his love. Before Khaled has time, however, to renounce his Islamism, such as it is, the love affair is discovered by the relations of the lovers. Kha- led's father, in a passion of rage and horror at his son's degeneracy and apostasy, is too happy to have occasion to send him off to Cairo, to place him at the disposal of Abd-el-Azib, the head of his sect, that worthy wanting somebody to commit an assassination. In the mean time, Moro, the Venetian Consul and the uncle of Melusina, in ignorance of Khaled's whereabout, carries off his niece to Cairo ; and there the complexity and variety of the story begin. Xhaled is cheated by sharpers on his arrival, and being suspected as an accomplice gets into prison. He is released by the generosity of Sheik Cassim, the man -whom it turns out he was sent to assassinate. This, of course, he declines to do ; takes service with a Mameluke, Nasif Bey, who is plotting against his brother Beys ; and on the failure of the conspiracy, is engaged with Me- lusina in effecting his master's escape,—the lady being a friend of Fatimeh, Nasif's favourite wife. Still the difficulties are too great to be ended without machinery : and that is nothing less than the French invasion under Napoleon ; the victor at the battle of the Pyramids interfering to overcome the repugnance of Signor Moro to the marriage of Khaled with his niece. In the conception of Oriental character, and the selection of scenes to exhibit Oriental life, the same cleverness is shown as in the general planning of the tale ; but that connexion of parts which produces a whole is wanting. The story is rather the contrivance of critical reason than the product of instinctive imagination : it is the work of a man whose object is distinct, and whose knowledge of his materials has been derived from life, but whose genius is not naturally adapted to prose fiction. The scenes are independent of each other ; often they contribute little or nothing to forward the story ; and 'whatever interest they may have as pictures of Eastern life and manners, they have frequently none as regards the for- tunes of Khaled or Melusina. When the hero is carried before the Cadi, as an accomplice of sharpers, trying to cheat the camel- driver of his fare, whereas he has been robbed even of his bag- gage, and afterwards sent to prison, the purpose of the writer seems less to interest the reader in the misfortunes of Khaled than to pre- sent a sample of Cadi justice and the interior of a Cairo prison with prisoners ; and of course the reader feels a very subordinate interest in Khaled. In like manner, when the hero is among the chief of the Assassins and his lieutenants, it is they rather than Khaled that are the principal persons. So, in many of the scenes Khaled is present at, he is there as a spectator ; a sentence or two might have told the result so far as he or the progress of events is concerned ; while some of the scenes have no relation to the story. In the grand episode of the tale, the plot of Nasif, the Bey is the hero, Khaled but a subordinate person, even when he does appear. When his- tory is introduced into romance, it is proper rather to indicate the actual events than to let them supersede the fiction, but there should be enough told to explain the plot ; which is not the case in The Matnelukes. There seems no sufficient reason for

Bonaparte's interference in Khaled's favour, or why he should favour him at all.

This peculiarity of the book renders the movement slow, because there is no interest to hurry the reader along;. but the work has the great merit of truthfulness. The Moslems are not painted from the fancies of one who knows nothing about them, but drawn by a man familiar with their merits and °defects, their vices and their virtues. They are drawn too in great variety, and with much skill; the most atrocious crimes seeming natural to the actors : the manners partake of the true Oriental cast, though perhaps somewhat coloured by those of Europe—or it may be only in the translation of their language. Khaled's robbery has been effected in the desert near Cairo, by a pretended dervish, who has stupified the victim with drugged drink, and robbed him of his purse ; an ac- complice carrying off his luggage from what we should call the booking-office, by means of his seal-ring. Khaled, on awakening,

follows the caravan to Cairo, and reaches the rendezvous.

"Khaled had asked his way to the well-known point, and again inquiring for the convent of the Rose Garden, a portal was pointed out to him a few yards off, with high steps, leading into a court-yard ; and standing at the door, a Dervish, twirling his amber beads, and laughing very loudly, with a muscular ragged Circassian pilgrim from Mecca, whose upper tunic was frogged with little flutes for cartridges, like the galowas of a drummer's jacket. He asked him if Youssouff was here.

" ' What Youssouff?" said the Dervish. " Youssouff, the Dervish of the Goolshany, or Rose Garden/ said Khaled. "'Here is some mistake,' said they. 'Itfe have had no Youssouff in this convent of the Goelshany these four years come next festival of the Neseem, when our Youssouff died

'Strange and singular,' said the youth : made a journey hither with one Youssouff, a Dervish, dressed as you are dressed, who invited me to the mid-clay meal.' . " 'Adjaib-!—Strange,' said the Dervish. 'Could it be an Afreet---the semblance of the dead Youssouff!'

"'Perhaps,' said the Circassian, ' a Dervish at another convent.' "'Nor said Khaled : the Goolshany opposite the mosque of Moved.' " This is the Goolshany,' said the Dervish, ' and there is the Moped,' pointing to the mosque of that name through the door-way ; in whicla-di- rection Khaled now looked, and saw thecamels with which he had passed the desert, and the camel-man; who came forward, and -sainting Khaled with glee, took him aside, and said that before they dined with the Dervishes, Its should be obliged by letting him have the rest of his hire, of which he had only an instalment in starting at Gaza. "Khaled mechanically put his hands into his pocket to take out his purse and pay the hire of the camel-man ; but finding it gone, stood, as it were, fixed to the spot. The whole truth flashed-upon him • and, at length, he became convinced that the pretended Dervish was a thief and an iro Ashamed to tell the Dervish at the convent that he had been bubbled by some one in their guise, he mechanically wished him good day, and related to the camel-man the circumstances of his sleep and the disappearance of the Dervish and his purse, as well as the ignorance of the people of the Goolshany of his whereabouts ; and proposed that they should go at erme to the Kitchen of Black Honey, where his baggage was deposited,: when he would pay the camel-driver. At the first moment the camel-driver frankly expressed his surprise and regret at the circumstance ; but us they went along he grew thoughtful, and it was evident that his suspicions were excited, and that he kept his eye on Khaled, and seemed unable to make out the mystery. " After a quarter of an hour's walk they tame to the hfudbach As.sal-el- Essouad, or Kitchen of Black Honey ; and en entering it Khaled wondered at its meanness and shabbiness. Formerly famous for a particular honey pastry, which was renowned through Cairo a century before, it was now be- come a khan for the people of the Fayouin. Khaled looked surprised, and saw in one corner an old peasant of that part of Egypt, with deep brown tanned skin and white bushy eyebrows and beard, splitting wood ; beside him was a woman milking a goat; and at the other, two donkeys tethered together ; while all the rafters were black with the smoke of fire kindled for cooking.

" Where is my baggage ?' said Khaled to the porter. " Your baggage !' said the porter. How should I know ? '

"Khaled turned round, and said to the Bedouin, To what room was my baggage consigned ?'

To that one in the wooden gallery,' said the Bedouin, pointing to the first floor.

" I understand you not,' said the porter; that was the baggage of Khaled ebn Sheikh iobar, who came here and took away his baggage. I doubted his word, asked for his seal-ring; and he showed it me, as well as to the Coptic miller, who can read, and said it was his ring.'

"Khaled felt for his ring, and missing it, took a turn in the court-yard, in the utmost agitation ; while the porter hinted to the camel-'inan that he suspected Khaled to be one of the band of thieves and impostors whose ingenuities and depredations had baffled all the skill of the Wally and police- officers for several months. The mind of the camel-man once set in this direction, he began to call to mind the evasive answers that he had given relative to his business in Egypt; his silence and reserve on the route—the strange and apparently intimate acquaintance he had suddenly struck with the Dervish ; and adding a variety of other circumstances, insignificant and unimportant in themselves, including the small carpet of the pretended Der- vish being at that moment slung on the arm of Khaled, he arrived at the conclu- sion that it was a joint affair between the Dervish and him ; that he had been in some adventure of plunder in Syria ; and on Khaled coming forward and declaring that he had no money, and had been robbed, the Bedouie. broke out with violence, believing that his object was to cheat him out of his , camel-hire.

" admirable journey,' said he, have we made from Gaza to the guarded city of Cairo, and the Bedouin should serve for nought—no hire for the Bedouin—no fodder for the camel—no camel for the merchant—by Allah ! The world would come to a strange pass. No, no ; I will have my right, if it be out of your flesh. To the Cadi—to the Cadi!'

" Nay,' said Khaled, you have received my baggage, and are respon- sible, or else this porter.'

" There is no power but in God Almighty!' said the porter arising with rage from the ground on which he, ,harl been seated, and putting down his black short chibouque, without a mouth-pie6e. What ! you doubt the security of the Kitchen of Black Honey ! Hear him, you Moslems? Hadji,' continued he, crying aloud to the man splitting the wood, did not the man of the baggage show me the seal-ring, in presence of yourself and your wife and the Coptic miller ? Did he not, on my again doubting, open the -bag, telling me beforehand what was in it ? No doubt you are the prince of im- postors."

" No doubt,' said the Bedouin, this is all a trick to swindle me out of my hire ; so away to the Cadi, where you will, at least, have my debt to pay.' "