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CAPTAIN BASIL HALL.

The embassy of Lord Amherst to China was, as we have related, comparatively a failure; but the return voyage was rich both in discovery and in romantic interest. The voyage was made, not along the coast of China, but by Corea and the Loo-Choo islands, and accounts of it were published in 1818 by MR MACLEOD, surgeon of the Alceste, and by CAPTAIN BASIL HALL of the Lyra. The work of the latter was entitled An Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great LooChoo Island. In the course of this voyage it was found that a great part of what had been laid down in the maps as part of Corea consisted of an immense archipelago of small islands. The number of these was beyond calculation; and during a sail of upwards of one hundred miles, the sea continued closely studded with them. From one lofty point a hundred and twenty appeared in sight, some with waving woods and green verdant valleys. Loo-Choo, however, was the most important, and by far the most interesting of the parts touched upon by the expedition. There the strange spectacle was presented of a people ignorant equally of the use of firearms and the use of money, living in a state of primitive seclusion and happiness such as resembles the dreams of poetry rather than the realities of modern life.

Captain Basil Hall has since distinguished himself by the composition of other books of travels, written with delightful ease, spirit, and picturesqueness. The first of these consists of Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, being the result of his observations in those countries in 1821 and 1822. South America had, previous to this, been seldom visited, and its countries were also greater objects of curiosity and interest from their political condition, on the point of emancipation from Spain. The next work of Captain Hall was Travels in North America, in 1827 and 1828, written in a more ambitious strain than his former publications, and containing some excellent descriptions and remarks, mixed up with political disquisitions. This was followed by Fragments of Voyages and Travels, addressed chiefly to young persons, in three small volumes; which were so favourably received that a second, and afterwards a third series, each in three volumes, were given to the public. A further collection of these observations on foreign society, scenery, and manners, was published by Captain Hall in 1842, also in three volumes, under the title

of Patchwork.

MR H. D. INGLIS.

One of the most cheerful and unaffected of tourists and travellers, with a strong love of nature and a poetical imagination, was MR HENRY DAVID INGLIS, who died in March 1835, at the early age of forty. Mr Inglis was the son of a Scottish advocate. He was brought up to commercial pursuits, but his passion for literature, and for surveying the grand and beautiful in art and nature, overpowered his business habits, and led him at once to travel and to write. Diffident of success, he assumed the nom de guerre of Derwent Conway, and under this disguise he published The Tales of Ardennes; Solitary Walks through Many Lands; Travels in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, 1829; and Switzerland, the South of France, and the Pyrenees in 1830, 1831. The two latter works were included in Constable's Miscellany, and were deservedly popular. Mr Inglis was then engaged as editor of a newspaper at Chesterfield; but tiring of

this, he again repaired to the continent, and visited the Tyrol and Spain. His travels in both countries were published; and one of the volumes-Spain in 1830-is the best of all his works. He next produced a novel descriptive of Spanish life, entitled The New Gil Blas, but it was unsuccessful-probably owing to the very title of the work, which raised expectations, or suggested comparisons, unfavourable to the new aspirant. After conducting a newspaper for some time in Jersey, Mr Inglis published an account of the Channel Islands, marked by the easy grace and picturesque charm that pervade all his writings. He next made a tour through Ireland, and wrote his valuable work (remarkable for impartiality no less than talent) entitled Ireland in 1834. His last work was Travels in the Footsteps of Don Quixote, published in parts in the New Monthly Magazine.

SIR FRANCIS HEAD.

SIR FRANCIS HEAD has written two very lively and interesting books of travels-Rough Notes taken during some Rapid Journeys across the Pampas, 1826; and Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau, 1833. The Pampas described is an immense plain, stretching westerly from Buenos Ayres to the feet of the Andes. The following extract illustrates the graphic style of Sir Francis:

[Description of the Pampas.]

The great plain, or Pampas, on the east of the Cordillera, is about nine hundred miles in breadth, and the part which I have visited, though under the same latitude, is divided into regions of different climate and produce. On leaving Buenos Ayres, the first of these regions is covered for one hundred and eighty miles with clover and thistles; the second region, which extends for four hundred and fifty miles, produces long grass; and the third region, which reaches the base of the Cordillera, is a grove of low trees and shrubs. The second and third of these regions have nearly the same appearance throughout the year, for the trees and shrubs are evergreens, and the immense plain of grass only changes its colour from green to brown; but the first region varies with the four seasons of the year in a most extraordinary manner. In winter the leaves of the thistles are large and luxuriant, and the whole surface of the country has the rough appearance of a turnip field. The clover in this season is extremely rich and strong; and the sight of the wild cattle grazing in full liberty on such pasture is beautiful. In spring the clover has vanished, very the leaves of the thistles have extended along the ground, and the country still looks like a rough crop of turnips. In less than a month the change is most extraordinary: the whole region becomes a luxuriant wood of enormous thistles, which have suddenly shot up to a height of ten or eleven feet, and are all in full bloom. The road or path is hemmed in on both sides; the view is completely obstructed; not an animal is to be seen; and the stems of the thistles are so close to each other, and so strong, that, independent of the prickles with which they are armed, they form an impenetrable barrier. The sudden growth of these plants is quite astonishing; and though it would be an unusual misfortune in military history, yet it is really possible that an invading army, unacquainted with this country, might be imprisoned by these thistles before it had time to escape from them. The summer is not over before the scene undergoes another rapid change: the thistles suddenly lose their sap and verdure, their heads droop, the leaves shrink and fade, the stems become black and dead, and they remain rattling with the breeze one against another, until the

violence of the pampero or hurricane levels them with the ground, where they rapidly decompose and disappear-the clover rushes up, and the scene is again verdant.

M. SIMOND.

M. SIMOND, a French author, who, by familiarity with our language and country, wrote in English as well as in his native tongue, published in 1822 a work in two volumes-Switzerland; or a Journal of a Tour and Residence in that Country in the Years 1817, 1818, and 1819. M. Simond had previously written a similar work on Great Britain, and both are far superior to the style of ordinary tourists. We subjoin his account of a

[Swiss Mountain and Avalanche.]

After nearly five hours' toil, we reached a chalet on the top of the mountain (the Wingernalp). This summer habitation of the shepherds was still unoccupied; for the snow having been unusually deep last winter, and the grass, till lately covered, being still very short, the cows have not ventured so high. Here we resolved upon a halt, and having implements for striking fire, a few dry sticks gave us a cheerful blaze in the open air. A pail of cream, or at least of very rich milk, was brought up by the shepherds, with a kettle to make coffee and afterwards boil the milk; very large wooden spoons or ladles answered the purpose of cups. The stock of provisions we had brought was spread upon the very low roof of the chalet, being the best station for our repas champetre, as it afforded dry seats sloping conveniently towards the prospect. We had then before us the Jungfrau, the two Eigers, and some of the highest summits in the Alps, shooting up from an uninterrupted level of glaciers of more than two hundred square miles; and although placed ourselves four thousand five hundred feet above the lake of Thun, and that lake one thousand seven hundred and eighty feet above the sea, the mighty rampart rose still six thousand feet above our head. Between us and the Jungfrau the desert valley of Trumlatenthal formed a deep trench, into which avalanches fell, with scarcely a quarter of an hour's interval between them, followed by a thundering noise continued along the whole range; not, however, a reverberation of sound, for echo is mute under the universal winding-sheet of snow, but a prolongation of sound, in consequence of the successive rents or fissures forming themselves when some large section of the glacier

slides down one step.

We sometimes saw a blue line suddenly drawn across a field of pure white; then another above it, and another all parallel, and attended each time with a loud crash like cannon, producing together the effect of long-protracted peals of thunder. At other times some portion of the vast field of snow, or rather snowy ice, gliding gently away, exposed to view a new surface of purer white than the first, and the cast-off drapery gathering in long folds, either fell at once down the precipice, or disappeared behind some intervening ridge, which the sameness of colour rendered invisible, and was again seen soon after in another direction, shooting out of some narrow channel a cataract of white dust, which, observed through a telescope, was, however, found to be composed of broken fragments of ice or compact snow, many of them sufficient to overwhelm a village, if there had been any in the valley where they fell. Seated on the chalet's roof, the ladies forgot they were cold, wet, bruised, and hungry, and the cup of smoking cafe au lait stood still in their hand while waiting in breathless suspense for the next avalanche, wondering equally at the death-like silence intervening between each, and

the thundering crash which followed. I must own, that while we shut our ears, the mere sight might dwindle down to the effect of a fall of snow from the roof of a house; but when the potent sound was heard along the whole range of many miles, when the time of awful suspense between the fall and the crash was measured, the imagination, taking flight, outstripped all bounds at once, and went beyond the mighty reality itself. It would be difficult to say where the creative powers of imagination stop, even the coldest; for our common feelings-our grossest sensations--are infinitely indebted to them; and man, without his fancy, would not have the energy of the dullest animal. Yet we feel more pleasure and more pride in the consciousness of another treasure of the breast, which tames the flight of this same imagination, and brings it back to sober reality and plain truth.

When we first approach the Alps, their bulk, their stability, and duration, compared to our own inconsiderable size, fragility, and shortness of days, strikes our imagination with terror; while reason, unappalled, measuring these masses, calculating their elevation, analysing their substance, finds in them only a little inert matter, scarcely forming a wrinkle on the face of our earth, that earth an inferior planet in the solar system, and that system one only among myriads, placed at distances whose very incommensurability is in a manner measured. What, again, are those giants of the Alps, and their duration-those revolving worlds-that space-the universe-compared to the intellectual faculty capable of bringing the whole fabric into the compass of a single thought, where it is all curiously and accurately delineated! How superior, again, the exercise of that faculty, when, rising from effects to causes, and judging by analogy of things as yet unknown by those we know, we are taught to look into futurity for a better state of existence, and in the hope itself find new reason to hope!

We were shown an inaccessible shelf of rock on the west side of the Jungfrau, upon which a lammergeyer (the vulture of lambs) once alighted with an infant it had carried away from the village of Murren, situated above the Staubbach: some red scraps, remnants of the child's clothes, were for years observed, says the tradition, on the fatal spot.

MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY-MR JOHN BARROW-
REV. MR VENABLES,

Since the publication of Dr Clarke's first volume, in which he gave a view of Russia, that vast and in many respects interesting country has been visited by various Englishmen, who have given their observations upon it to the world. Amongst the books thus produced, one of the most amusing is Recollections of a Tour in the North of Europe, 1838, by the MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY, whose rank and political character were the means of introducing him to many circles closed to other tourists. MR JOHN BARROW, junior, son of the gentleman already mentioned as author of a work on China, and who has, during the last few years, devoted some portion of his time to travelling, is the author, besides works on Ireland and on Iceland, of Excursions in the North of Europe, through parts of Russia, Finland, &c. 1834. He is invariably found to be a cheerful and intelligent companion, without attempting to be very profound or elaborate on any subject. Domestic Scenes in Russia, by the REV. Mr Venables, 1859, is an unpretending but highly interesting view of the interior life of the country. Mr Venables was married to a Russian lady, and he went to pass a winter with her relations, when he had an opportunity of seeing the daily life and social habits of the people. We give a few descriptive sentences

H

[Russian Peasants' Houses.]

These houses are in general extremely warm and substantial; they are built, for the most part, of unsquared logs of deal laid one upon another, and firmly secured at the corners where the ends of the timbers cross, and are hollowed out so as to receive and hold one another; they are also fastened together by wooden pins and uprights in the interior. The four corners are supported upon large stones or roots of trees, so that there is a current of air under the floor to preserve the timber from damp; in the winter, earth is piled up all round to exclude the cold; the interstices between the logs are stuffed with moss and clay, so that no air can enter. The windows are very small, and are frequently cut out of the wooden wall after it is finished. In the centre of the house is a stove called a peech [pechka], which heats the cottage to an almost unbearable degree; the warmth, however, which a Russian peasant loves to enjoy within doors, is proportioned to the cold which he is required to support without; his bed is the top of his peech; and when he enters his house in the winter pierced with cold, he throws off his sheepskin coat, stretches himself on his stove, and is thoroughly warmed in a few minutes.

[Employments of the People.]

of the interior are valuable, for, as he remarks,
'even in the present day, when the passion for
travel has become so universal, and thousands of
miles are thought as little of as hundreds were some
years ago, the number of Englishmen who venture
to the south of Moscow seldom exceeds one or two
every year.' Mr Bremner is a lively scene-painter,
and there is great freshness and vigour about all
his descriptions. The same author has published
Excursions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, two
volumes, 1840. Before parting from Russia, it may
be observed that no English book upon that country
exceeds in interest A Residence on the Shores of the
Baltic, Described in a Series of Letters (1841), being
more particularly an account of the Estonians, whose
simple character and habits afford a charming pic-
ture. This delightful book is understood to be from
the pen of a young lady named Rigby.

The most observant and reflecting of all the writing travellers of our age is undoubtedly MR SAMUEL LAING, a younger brother of the author of the History of Scotland during the seventeenth century. This gentleman did not begin to publish till a mature period of life, his first work being a Residence in Norway, and the second a Tour in Sweden, both of which abound in valuable statistical facts and welldigested information. Mr Laing resided two years in different parts of Norway, and concluded that the Norwegians were the happiest people in Europe. Their landed property is so extensively diffused in small estates, that out of a population of a million there are about 41,656 proprietors. There is no law of primogeniture, yet the estates are not subdivided into minute possessions, but average from forty to sixty acres of arable land, with adjoining natural wood and pasturage.

The riches of the Russian gentleman lie in the labour of his serfs, which it is his study to turn to good account; and he is the more urged to this, since the law which compels the peasant to work for him, requires him to maintain the peasant; if the latter is found begging, the former is liable to a fine. He is therefore a master who must always keep a certain number of workmen, whether they are useful to him or not; and as every kind of agricultural and out"The Bonder, or agricultural peasantry,' says Mr door employment is at a stand-still during the win-Laing, each the proprietor of his own farm, occupy ter, he naturally turns to the establishment of a the country from the shore side to the hill foot, and manufactory as a means of employing his peasants, up every valley or glen as far as corn can grow. This and as a source of profit to himself. In some cases class is the kernel of the nation. They are in general the manufactory is at work only during the winter, fine athletic men, as their properties are not so large and the people are employed in the summer in agriculture; though, beyond what is necessary for home as to exempt them from work, but large enough to consumption, this is but an unprofitable trade in most afford them and their household abundance, and even parts of this empire, from the badness of roads, the superfluity, of the best food. They farm not to raise produce for sale, so much as to grow everything they paucity and distance of markets, and the consequent eat, drink, and wear in their families. They build difficulty in selling produce. their own houses, make their own chairs, tables, ploughs, carts, harness, iron-work, basket-work, and wood-work; in short, except window-glass, cast-iron ware and pottery, everything about their houses and furniture is of their own fabrication. There is not probably in Europe so great a population in so happy a condition as these Norwegian yeomanry. A body of small proprietors, each with his thirty or forty acres, scarcely exists elsewhere in Europe; or, if it can be found, it is under the shadow of some more imposing body of wealthy proprietors or commercial men. Here they are the highest men in the nation. * * The settlers in the newer states of America, and in our colonies, possess properties of probably about the same extent; but they have roads to make, lands to clear, houses to build, and the work that has been doing here for a thousand years to do, before they can be in the same condition. These Norwegian proprietors are in a happier condition than those in the older states of America, because they are not so much influenced by the spirit of gain. They farm their little estates, and consume the produce, without seeking to barter or sell, except what is necessary for paying their taxes and the few articles of luxury they consume. There is no money-getting spirit among them, and none of extravagance. They enjoy the comforts of excellent houses, as good and large as those of the wealthiest individuals; good furniture,

The alternate employment of the same man in the field and in the factory, which would be attempted in most countries with little success, is here rendered practicable and easy by the versatile genius of the Russian peasant, one of whose leading national characteristics is a general capability of turning his hand to any kind of work which he may be required to undertake. He will plough to-day, weave to-morrow, help to build a house the third day, and the fourth, if his master needs an extra coachman, he will mount the box and drive four horses abreast as though it were his daily occupation. It is probable that none of these operations, except, perhaps, the last, will be as well performed as in a country where the division of labour is more thoroughly understood. They will all, however, be sufficiently well done to serve the turn-a favourite phrase in Russia. These people are a very ingenious race, but perseverance is wanting; and though they will carry many arts to a high degree of excellence, they will generally stop short of the point of perfection, and it will be long before their manufactures can rival the finish and durability of English goods.

Excursions in the Interior of Russia, by ROBERT BREMNER, Esq. two volumes, 1839, is a very spirited and graphic narrative of a short visit to Russia during the autumn of 1836. The author's sketches

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bedding, linen, clothing, fuel, victuals, and drink, all in abundance, and of their own providing; good horses, and a houseful of people who have more food than work. Food, furniture, and clothing being all home-made, the difference in these matters between the family and the servants is very small; but there is a perfect distinction kept up. The servants invariably eat, sleep, and sit apart from the family, and have generally a distinct building adjoining to the family house.'

The neighbouring country of Sweden appears to be in a much worse condition, and the people are described as highly immoral and depraved. By the returns from 1830 to 1834, one person in every forty-nine of the inhabitants of the towns, and one in every one hundred and seventy-six of the rural population, had been punished each year for criminal offences. The state of female morals, particularly in the capital of Stockholm, is worse than in any other European state. Yet in Sweden education is widely diffused, and literature is not neglected. The nobility are described by Mr Laing as sunk in debt and poverty; yet the people are vain of idle distinctions, and the order of burgher nobility is as numerous as in some of the German states.

Every man,' he says, 'belongs to a privileged or licensed class or corporation, of which every member is by law entitled to be secured and protected within his own locality from such competition or interference of others in the same calling as would injure his means of living. It is, consequently, not as with us, upon his industry, ability, character, and moral worth that the employment and daily bread of the tradesman, and the social influence and consideration of the individual, in every rank, even the highest, almost entirely depends; it is here, in the middle and lower classes, upon corporate rights and privileges, or upon license obtained from government; and in the higher, upon birth and court or government favour. Public estimation, gained by character and conduct in the several relations of life, is not a necessary element in the social condition even of the working tradesman. Like soldiers in a regiment, a great proportion of the people under this social system derive their estimation among others, and consequently their own self-esteem, not from their moral worth, but from their professional standing and importance. This evil is inherent in all privileged classes, but is concealed or compensated in the higher, the nobility, military, and clergy, by the sense of honour, of religion, and by education. In the middle and lower walks of life those influences are weaker, while the temptations to immorality are stronger; and the placing a man's livelihood, prosperity, and social consideration in his station upon other grounds than on his own industry and moral worth, is a demoralising evil in the very structure of Swedish society.'

Mr Laing has more recently presented a volume entitled Notes of a Traveller, full of valuable observation and thought.

Travels in Circassia and Krim Tartary, by MR SPENCER, author of a work on 'Germany and the Germans,' two volumes, 1837, was hailed with peculiar satisfaction, as affording information respecting a brave mountainous tribe who have long warred with Russia to preserve their national independence. They appear to be a simple people, with feudal laws and customs, never intermarrying with any race except their own. Farther information was afforded of the habits of the Circassians by the Journal of a Residence in Circassia during the years 1837, 1838, and 1839, by MR J. S. BELL. This gentleman resided in Circassia in the character of agent or envoy from England, which, however, was partly

assumed. He acted also as physician, and seems generally to have been received with kindness and confidence. The population, according to Mr Bell, is divided into fraternities, like the tithings or hundreds in England during the time of the Saxons. Criminal offences are punished by fines levied on the fraternity, that for homicide being 200 oxen. The guerilla warfare which the Circassians have carried on against Russia, marks their indomitable spirit and love of country, but it must, of course, retard civilisation.

A Winter in the Azores, and a Summer at the Baths

of the Furnas, by JOSEPH BULLAR, M.D. and JOHN BULLAR of Lincoln's Inn, two volumes, 1841, furnish some light agreeable notices of the islands of the Azores, under the dominion of Portugal, from which they are distant about 800 miles. This archipelago contains about 250,000 inhabitants. St Michael's is the largest town, and there is a considerable trade in oranges betwixt it and England. About 120,000 large and small chests of oranges were shipped for England in 1839, and 315 boxes of lemons. These particulars will serve to introduce a passage respecting

[The Cultivation of the Orange, and Gathering the Fruit.]

to several

March 26.-Accompanied Senhor B of his orange gardens in the town. Many of the trees in one garden were a hundred years old, still bearing plentifully a highly-prized thin-skinned orange, full of juice and free from pips. The thinness of the rind of a St Michael's orange, and its freedom from pips, on the age of the tree. The young trees, when depend in full vigour, bear fruit with a thick pulpy rind and an abundance of seeds; but as the vigour of the plant declines, the peel becomes thinner, and the seeds gradually diminish in number, until they disappear altogether. Thus, the oranges that we esteem the most are the produce of barren trees, and those which we consider the least palatable come from plants in full vigour.

Our friend was increasing the number of his trees by layers. These usually take root at the end of two years. They are then cut off from the parent stem, and are vigorous young trees four feet high. The process of raising from seed is seldom if ever adopted in the Azores, on account of the very slow growth of the trees so raised.

Such plants, however, are far less liable to the inroads of a worm which attacks the roots of the trees raised from layers, and frequently proves very destructive to them. The seed or 'pip' of the acid orange, which we call Seville, with the sweeter kind grafted upon it, is said to produce fruit In one small garden eight trees of the finest flavour. were pointed out which had borne for two successive years a crop of oranges which was sold for thirty pounds.

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The treatment of orange-trees in Fayal differs from that in St Michael's, where, after they are planted out, they are allowed to grow as they please. In this orange-garden the branches, by means of strings and pegs fixed in the ground, were strained away from the centre into the shape of a cup, or of the ribs of an open umbrella turned upside down. This allows the sun to penetrate, exposes the branches to a free circulation of air, and is said to be of use in ripening the fruit. Certain it is that oranges are exported from Fayal several weeks earlier than they are from St Michael's; and as this cannot be attributed to greater warmth of climate, it may possibly be owing to the plan of spreading the trees to the sun. The same precautions are taken here as in St Michael's to shield them from the winds; high walls are built round all the gardens, and the trees themselves are

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Travels in New Zealand, by ERNEST DIEFFENBACH, M.D. late naturalist to the New Zealand Company (1843), is a valuable history of an interesting country, destined apparently to transmit the English language, arts, and civilisation. Mr Dieffenbach gives a minute account of the language of New Zealand, of which he compiled a grammar and dictionary. He conceives the native population of New Zealand to be fit to receive the benefits of civilisation, and to amalgamate with the British colonists. At the same time he believes in the practice of cannibalism often imputed to the New Zealanders.

Suddenly we came upon merry groups of men and boys, all busily engaged in packing oranges, in a square and open plot of ground. They were gathered round a goodly pile of the fresh fruit, sitting on heaps of the dry calyx-leaves of the Indian corn, in which each orange is wrapped before it is placed in the boxes. Near these circles of laughing Azoreans, who Life in Mexico, during a Residence of Two Years sat at their work and kept up a continual cross-fire of in that Country, by MADAME CALDERON DE LA rapid repartee as they quickly filled the orange-cases, BARCA, an English lady, is full of sketches of dowere a party of children, whose business it was to pre-mestic life, related with spirit and acuteness. In pare the husks for the men, who used them in pack- no other work are we presented with such agreeable ing. These youngsters, who were playing at their glimpses of Mexican life and manners. Letters on work like the children of a larger growth that sat by Paraguay, and Letters on South America, by J. P. and their side, were with much difficulty kept in order by W. P. ROBERTSON, are the works of two brothers an elderly man, who shook his head and a long stick who resided twenty-five years in South America. whenever they flagged or idled.

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A quantity of the leaves being heaped together near the packers, the operation began. A child handed to a workman who squatted by the heap of fruit a prepared husk; this was rapidly snatched from the child, wrapped round the orange by an intermediate workman, passed by the feeder to the next, who (sitting with the chest between his legs) placed it in the orange-box with amazing rapidity, took a second, and a third, and a fourth as fast as his hands could move and the feeders could supply him, until at length the chest was filled to overflowing, and was ready to be nailed up. Two men then handed it to the carpenter, who bent over the orange-chest several thin boards, secured them with the willow band, pressed it with his naked foot as he sawed off the ragged ends of the boards, and finally despatched it to the ass which stood ready for lading. Two chests were slung across his back by means of cords crossed in a figure of eight; both were well secured by straps under his belly, the driver took his goad, pricked his beast, and uttering the never-ending cry Sackaaio,' trudged off

to the town.

The orange-trees in this garden cover the sides of a glen or ravine, like that of the Dargle, but somewhat less steep; they are of some age, and have lost the stiff clumpy form of the younger trees. Some idea of the rich beauty of the scene may be formed by imagining the trees of the Dargle to be magnificent shrubs loaded with orange fruit, and mixed with lofty arbu

tuses

Groves whose rich fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, and of delicious taste.

In one part scores of children were scattered among
the branches, gathering fruit into small baskets,
hallooing, laughing, practically joking, and finally
emptying their gatherings into the larger baskets
underneath the trees, which, when filled, were slowly
borne away to the packing-place, and bowled out upon
the great heap. Many large orange-trees on the steep
sides of the glen lay on the ground uprooted, either
from their load of fruit, the high winds, or the weight
of the boys, four, five, and even six of whom will
climb the branches at the same time; and as the soil
is very light, and the roots are superficial (and the
fall of a tree perhaps not unamusing), down the trees
come. They are allowed to lie where they fall; and
those which had evidently fallen many years ago were
still alive, and bearing good crops. The oranges are
not ripe until March or April, nor are they eaten ge-
nerally by the people here until that time-the boys,
however, that pick them are marked exceptions. The
young children of Villa Franca are now almost uni-
versally of a yellow tint, as if saturated with orange
juice.

The Narrative of the Voyages of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle (1839), by CAPTAINS KING and FITZROY, and C. DARWIN, Esq. naturalist of the Beagle, detail the various incidents which occurred during their examination of the southern shores of South America, and during the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. The account of the Patagonians in this work, and that of the natives of while the geological details supplied by Mr Darwin Tierra del Fuego, are both novel and interesting,

possess a permanent value.

Notes on the United States during a Phrenological Visit in 1839-40 have been published by MR GEORGE COMBE, in three volumes. Though attaching what is apt to appear an undue importance to his views of phrenology, Mr Combe was a sensible traveller. He paid particular attention to schools and all benevolent institutions, which he has described with care and minuteness. Among the matter-of-fact details and sober disquisitions in this work, we meet with the following romantic story. The author had visited the lunatic asylum at Bloomingdale, where he learned this realisation of Cymon and Iphigenia-finer even than the version of Dry

den!

In the course of conversation, a case was mentioned to me as having occurred in the experience of a highly respectable physician, and which was so fully authenticated, that I entertain no doubt of its truth. The physician alluded to had a patient, a young man, who was almost idiotic from the suppression of all his faculties. He never spoke, and never moved voluntarily, but sat habitually with his hand shading his eyes. The physician sent him to walk as a remedial measure. In the neighbourhood, a beautiful young girl of sixteen lived with her parents, and used to see the young man in his walks, and speak kindly to him. For some time he took no notice of her; but after meeting her for several months, he began to look for her, and to feel disappointed if she did not appear. He became so much interested, that he directed his steps voluntarily to her father's cottage, and gave her bouquets of flowers. By degrees he conversed with her through the window. His mental faculties were roused; the dawn of convalescence appeared. The girl was virtuous, intelligent, and lovely, and encouraged his visits when she was told that she was benefiting his mental health. She asked him if he could read and write? He answered, No. She wrote some lines to him to induce him to learn. This had the desired effect. He applied himself to study, and soon wrote good and sensible letters to her. He recovered his reason. She was married to a young man from the neighbouring city. Great fears were entertained that

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