golden snake, the whip snake, the Tommy Goff, and the barber's pole -the bite of the two last being venomous-with perhaps a snap from a jaguar. Should the emigrant have nerve and hide strong enough to encounter such teeth and suckers, he will yet do well to consider whether he has stamina for those diseases which especially attack strangers, such as agues, intermittent fevers, or a stroke of the sun; the cure of which by the Spaniards and Ladinos is effected, on the authority of an English merchant and others, by a very strange process.

They take a glass phial with a large mouth and half fill it with water, tying a piece of calico, &c., over the mouth, so that when it is turned over the water is prevented from escaping. They place the phial in the dew all night, and in such a situation as to be exposed to the influence of the sun till twelve o'clock next day; it is then applied to the head of the patient mouth downwards, moved about gently till the place is found where the sun has struck, which will be known by the water in the phial bubbling up, and strange to say, it relieves the patient in a few minutes.

As to the aguish intermittents, let the emigrant as he values his temporal comfort and happiness, beware of them-we know by painful personal experience the lingering torments from that slow poison malaria, and that there is no remedy but time, and a removal to an air in quality the very reverse of that which inflicted the disease. But there are other fluids, it appears, equally fatal with malaria, and one, especially, which has been celebrated by Dibdin.

Nothing like Grog.-One of them sung out, in pretty good English, "How do? me glad to see you-long time you no come!" to which one of our countrymen who had been in the country before, and who knew the Indians, replied "Tokoy, plenty English come live with you, bring plenty every thing, too much;" on hearing which they testified the most lively satisfaction, not however, forgetting to ask for grog.-p. 12.

And again,

Several Indians were luxuriously swinging in their hammocks, made from the bark of a tree called maho, while others were squatting down by a wood fire, smoking their short pipes. Now and then one would cry out, "Ouple taple ourike," (Friend, give me grog.)-p. 14.

It is

The population of the Cape must have been at one time numerous. said that they could once produce 1000 men capable of bearing arms; now they cannot muster 150, the small-pox and drunkenness having committed woeful ravages. I may well say, in the words of a celebrated writer, "Unfortunate people! to have strangers come among them as friends, who have proved their deadliest foes. Unhappy countries! where man, for the sake of gain, destroys by liquid poison so many of the human race!”—p. 24.

Unhappy indeed! But oh! what will Father Mathew say-oh, what will Mr. Buckingham say,-what will all the temperance men and the teatotallers say what will any body say, to drams of the firewater being associated with spiritual instruction!

A short time back a missionary arrived for the purpose of giving them some idea of a future state: a house was speedily found for him, and he commenced preaching, and for a few Sundays he gave some of the chiefs a glass of grog each to entice them to hear him. At length, one Sunday, a great number of the natives attended to hear the white stranger talk. On this occasion the worthy and eloquent gentleman was more than usually eloquent, when one of the chiefs arose, and quietly said, "All talk-no grog-no good!" and gravely stalked away, followed by all the natives.—p. 29.

The Influence of the Moon.-Great precaution ought to be observed in the use of fish, especially when the moon is at or near the full, when they must be eaten perfectly fresh. I know by experience how soon fish becomes unfit for Two or three times the natives have come in after hauling the seine at

use.

twelve o'clock at night. I have had each fish cut open, cleaned, dried, salted, and separately hung over a line, and well protected from the moon's rays, and yet in the morning they have been perfectly unfit for food, the moon having so much greater power here than in England. The same remark applies to pork when killed at the full. I have been told, that if a mahogany tree is fallen at the full, it will split, as if rent asunder by some extreme force.-p. 60.

With the above precaution, the settler on the Mosquito coast may feast like an otter, the sea and river furnishing, amongst others, mullet, calipever, snook, drummer, sunfish, angel-fish, jewfish, topham, sheephead, stone bass, grouper, kingfish, baracouta, snapper, yellow and red mouth grunts, rockfish, parrot-fish, trunk-fish, carvalho, Spanish mackerel, June-fish, butter-fish, and old wife. Moreover he may have turtle for the catching, or in barter, a green one, of three hundred weight, for eight yards of Osnaburg, value two dollars. Then for flesh, fowl, and fruit but the catalogue is too long to quote, and we must refer the outward bound to the book itself, a small one indeed, but into which Mr. Young has crammed a great deal of information. It seems written with perfect good faith, without, as he avers, any "distortion, exaggeration, or suppression of the truth," and will therefore prove an useful guide to such bold, thickskinned, or phlegmatic, persons as may propose, in spite of the gnats, sand-flies, chegoes, fire-ants, and weewees, to settle on the Mosquito coast.

THE CHINESE WAR.*

In our notice of the first edition of Captain Bingham's "Narrative of the Expedition to China," we expressed an opinion that the historical interest and value of the work would command for it a permanent place in our libraries, after its momentary popularity had passed away, and our prediction is confirmed by the early call for this new edition. It will be recollected that, up to the present time, Captain Bingham's narrative has not been superseded by any more recent or more copious account of the naval and military proceedings to which it relates, and that even had any such appeared, the present narrative being for the most part a personal one, placing before us matters in which the writer was himself engaged, or of which he was an eye-witness, no subsequent accounts can materially impair their interest and value. Moreover, as the opium question has, since this publicity, attracted an added degree of importance by the pending negotiations respecting it, and will continue to attract such attention till it is finally settled by our plenipotentiary, the long and able historical sketch of that question, which occupies a preliminary portion of these volumes, will be read with new interest, as also will the sketch of the war previously to the arrival of Captain Bingham on the spot to take part in it.

This new edition has been revised and corrected throughout by the author, who has added some new details, bringing down the narrative of the war to the latest possible moment. It is, moreover, enriched by a beautifully coloured portrait of his Celestial Majesty, the Emperor of China.

Narrative of the Expedition to China, &c. By Commander Bingham, R. N. Second Edition. 2 vols.

THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

A BLACK JOB.

BY THE EDITOR.

No doubt the pleasure is as great,
Of being cheated as to cheat.

HUDIBRAS.

THE history of human-kind to trace

Since Eve-the first of dupes-our doom unriddled, A certain portion of the human race

Has certainly a taste for being diddled.

Witness the famous Mississippi dreams!
A rage that time seems only to redouble-
The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes,
For rolling in Pactolian streams,

That cost our modern rogues so little trouble.
No matter what,-to pasture cows on stubble,
To twist sea-sand into a solid rope,

To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble,
Or light with gas the whole celestial cope-

Only propose to blow a bubble,

And Lord! what hundreds will subscribe for soap!

Soap!-it reminds me of a little tale,

Tho' not a pig's, the hawbuck's glory,

When rustic games and merriment prevail

But here's my story:

March.-VOL. LXVII. NO. CCLXVII.

X

Once on a time-no matter when-
A knot of very charitable men
Set up a Philanthropical Society,
Professing on a certain plan,
To benefit the race of man,
And in particular that dark variety,
Which some suppose inferior-as in vermin,
The sable is to ermine,

As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster,

As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow,
As blacking, or as ink to "milk below,"
Or yet a better simile to show,
As ragmen's dolls to images in plaster!

However, as is usual in our city,
They had a sort of managing Committee,

A board of grave responsible Directors-
A Secretary, good at pen and ink-

A Treasurer, of course, to keep the chink,
And quite an army of Collectors!

Not merely male, but female duns,

Young, old, and middle-aged-of all degrees—

With many of those persevering ones,
Who mite by mite would beg a cheese!

And what might be their aim?

To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters!

To save their bodies from the burning shame

Of branding with hot letters

Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes, Their necks from iron yokes?

To end or mitigate the ills of slavery,

The Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery?

To school the heathen Negroes and enlighten 'em,

To polish up and brighten 'em,

And make them worthy of eternal bliss ?

Why, no-the simple end and aim was this-
Reading a well-known proverb much amiss-
To wash and whiten 'em!

They look'd so ugly in their sable hides;
So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot

Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and besides,
However the poor elves

Might wash themselves,

Nobody knew if they were clean or not-
On Nature's fairness they were quite a blot!
Not to forget more serious complaints
That even while they join'd in pious hymn,
So black they were and grim,

In face and limb,

They look'd like Devils, tho' they sang like Saints!

The thing was undeniable!

They wanted washing! not that slight ablution
To which the skin of the White Man is liable,
Merely removing transient pollution-

But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing
And scrubbing,

Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head
With stiff, strong, soponaceous lather,
And pails of water-hottish rather,
But not so boiling as to turn 'em red!

So spoke the philanthropic man

Who laid, and hatch'd, and nursed the plan—
And oh! to view its glorious consummation!
The brooms and mops,

The tubs and slops,

The baths and brushes in full operation!

To see each Crow, or Jim, or John,

Go in a raven and come out a swan!

While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Russels,

Black Venus rises from the soapy surge, }

And all the little Niggerlings emerge

As lily-white as mussels.

Sweet was the vision-but alas!

However in prospectus bright and sunny,

To bring such visionary scenes to pass

One thing was requisite, and that was-money! Money, that pays the laundress and her bills, For socks and collars, shirts and frills, Cravats and kerchiefs-money, without which The negroes must remain as dark as pitch ;