The extent of this disgraceful
ignorance would be scarcely credible, were there not proofs beyond
doubt, that our principal seats of learning are as deficient in
472 this knowledge as the public in general[275], and that letters or
public documents written in that language, have been in vain sent
to them for translation. What I have long considered as chiefly
tending to diminish the desire of acquiring this language, is an
opinion dogmatically asserted, and diligently propagated, that the
Arabic of the East and West are so different from each other, as
almost to form distinct languages, and to be unintelligible to the
inhabitants of either of those regions respectively; but, having
always doubted the truth of this assertion, I have endeavoured,
from time to time, _during the last ten years_, to ascertain
whether the Arabic language spoken in Asia be the same with that
which is spoken in Africa, (westward to the shores of the Atlantic
ocean,) but without success, and even without the smallest
473 satisfactory elucidation, until the arrival in London last winter,
of the most _Reverend Doctor Giarve, Bishop of Jerusalem_, who has
given such incontestible proofs of his proficiency in the Arabic
language, that his opinion on this important point cannot but be
decisive; accordingly, on presenting to the reverend Doctor some
letters from the Emperor of Marocco to me, desiring that he would
oblige me with his opinion, whether the Arabic in those letters was
the same with that spoken in Syria, the Rev. Doctor replied in the
following perspicuous manner, which, I think, decides the question:
_"I can assure you, that the language and the idiom of the Arabic
in these letters from the Emperor of Marocco to you, is precisely
the same with that which is spoken in the East."_

[Footnote 275: See page 408. respecting a letter sent to our
late revered Sovereign, by the Emperor of Marocco. In
consequence of the inattention to that letter, the Emperor
determined never to write again to a Christian king in the
Arabic language; and, with regard to Great Britain, I believe
he has faithfully ever since kept his word! Some time before
this letter was written, I being then in Marocco, the Emperor's
minister asked me if the Emperor his master were to w