in 1718, and died in 1854, aged sixty-ninethat she wrote a certain letter when seventyfour years old, and that important events in her career happened on February 29, 1845. An eminent pedestrian, we are informed, walked from Canterbury to London Bridge twenty-seven years before he was born; while a distinguished blind joiner had bat sixty years of life, though he was born in 1808 and died in 1873. We feel the less hesitation in drawing attention to these curious facts, as they are quoted from the second edition of the book, and thus after an opportunity had been afforded the author of correcting them, if untrue.

J. J. CARTWRIGHT.

NEW NOVELS.

The Golden Shaft. By G. C. Davies. (London R. Bentley & Son, 1875.) Lisette's Venture. By Mrs. Russell Grey. (London: H. S. King & Co., 1875.) Mr. Vaughan's Heir. By F. L. Benedict. (London: S. Tinsley, 1875.) Mademoiselle Josephine's Fridays. By M. B. Edwards. (London: H. S. King & Co., 1875.)

The Old House at Alding. By E. C. C. Steinman. (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1875.)

Ax anecdote is told of Charles Baudelaire of which we only mean in this place to repeat the first part. When M. Baudelaire used to do occasional notes for the Corsaire, the editor of that periodical considered him a model contributor, for his mots always kept on the safe side of propriety. This reticence was due to the fact that the author had a young lady friend to whom he read his manuscript, and when he saw that she disliked a passage he suppressed it. Mr. Davies, the author of The Golden Shaft, would do well to get some such censor as M. Baudelaire found so useful. He has written nothing in that novel that would shock his own very free and easy heroines, but it is probable that most actual young ladies would blush themselves into an apoplexy if they

heard the tale read aloud.

The Golden Shaft has the merit of straightforward, naked simplicity. It recounts the adventures of Mr. Harold Featherston

haugh, who is a kind of low Pendennis, but

more fickle and less educated than that typical youth. When first we make Mr. Featherstonhaugh's acquaintance, he is a boy of sixteen, addicted to poaching, and to sending articles to magazines. His first adventure is to meet with a lady named Jenny, who nurses him after a fall, and whom he kisses at sight. This practice he keeps up through three volumes, observing that "five girls out of ten will let you do just as you like with them." Erasmus remarked on the facility of Englishwomen in this matter, and Harold was lucky enough to live in society as easy as that which Erasmus described. The results of his love-making are rather tragic now and then, but on the whole encourage British youth to be bold, and woo in the manner of " Mr. O'Brian from Clare," in Lever's song. The descriptions of yachting, rowing, and mountainclimbing are bright and praiseworthy; but the account of the fight with a rough is

rather in a rococo style. The Golden Shaft is not precisely a book for girls, but it is likely to be a favourite with a not very nice sort of boys. It is also useful as a manual for persons about to make proposals of marriage. There are about five examples in the book, and we could wish that Mr. Davies would write a shilling primer on this interesting and difficult topic.

If Mr. Davies writes for boys, it is to virgins that Mrs. Russell Grey appeals. Her story of Lisette's Venture is full of beautiful applied morality; witness this passage, so consoling to girls who have failed in woman's highest ideal, who have not married lords,

"and very likely will be none the less happy! Well it is for us that there is a higher, an unerring Power and Wisdom to order and overrule events

for us; happy indeed that our destinies, as well as the fates of those dearer to us than ourselves, are removed out of our weak hands, though it is often hard to take this thought for our comfort, when our own vain hopes and schemes are frustrated." Hard indeed; and that girl must be unusually well brought up who turns to theology for consolation at the end of a blank season. Lisette, Mrs. Russell Grey's heroine, has hands by no means weak, and wins over an old lady who wants to prevent her marriage by getting into her house in the disguise of a lady's maid. There is much talk of the fashions, of pepla, and other mysteries, in Lisette's Venture, which will interest not only ladies, but ladies' maids, to whom we heartily recommend it.

People who like to be thrilled will find what they want in Mr. Vaughan's Heir. Darrel Vaughan is a charming villain, a bigamist, a forger, a thief, a member of Congress, an opium eater, and a gentleman who sells the site of his wife's mother's grave to a railway company, which drives a cutting through the sacred spot. The wife herself is a kind of Dorothea, who finds a Will Ladislaw in her husband's cousin. All of them are deeply interested in wills, codicils, stolen gems, forged cheques, and a mysterious female convict called Milady, who is drawn after the manner of Mr. Bret Harte. In a different group are Nathalie, a giddy French girl, who developes into a sort of Madame de la Crûche-cassée, her elderly husband, and her mother, a repentant lady who certainly had much need of repentance. When we first meet the characters in Switzerland, the story seems full of promise, but the villains spoil it all from a natural inability to draw the line when once they have entered on their wild career. The author of Mr. Vaughan's Heir may write a good novel yet; his present work is not a bad specimen

in its own genre.

It can scarcely be said that the author of Kitty has done wisely in republishing Mademoiselle Josephine's Fridays, with some other tales which have appeared in journals. The tales are, one may guess, early attempts, and we have made a list of solecisms, and long words used at random, which it is scarcely worth while to print, but which the curious may see on application. The novelette which gives its name to the collection, tells how four men of weak mind-an Englishman, a Scotchman, an Italian, and a Frenchman-fell in love with the same

Italian girl. In a little Sunday book of travels called Near Home, we read in childhood's hour that all Scotchmen wear kilts, and play the bagpipes. Knowing from personal observation that this was not so, our early doubts were awakened as to the veracity of a companion volume called Fur Off, which described the social habits of Fiji and Thibet. In the same way, Miss Betham Edwards's Scotchman is so very unnatural, that we can't believe in her Italian, her Frenchman, or even, with the best will in the world, in her ghost, or her young bride who buys 1,500l. of jewellery without exciting a passing remark from her husband. Thus the book fails to please us, though perhaps people with more imagination may think it very attractive.

Conjectures are dangerous things, as Mr. Matthew Arnold said, when he guessed that his Westminster reviewer was the author of

Supernatural Religion. It was not so, and we, too, may be wrong in our belief that Emma C. C. Steinman, whose name is on the title-page of The Old House at Alding, was the author of a wild story Tower Hallowdeane, which we reviewed a year ago. Both works are in blank verse with a lyric strophe here and there, as "All was plain sailing now, how blithely went The Master to his work; to feed, to cheer, To soothe, to investigate the bitter past,

The Teacher's sad career." (page 40.) After this, specimens of blank verse fall tame and flat. Why does not Miss Steinman write a poem all in verse? It would give her no trouble, whereas she obviously finds it impossible to confine herself to the prose which came so naturally to M. Jourdain.

MINOR HISTORICAL BOOKS.

A. LANG.

Memoir of Margaret Countess of Richmond and Derby. By the late Charles Henry Cooper, F.S.A. Edited for the two Colleges of her Foundation. (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co.) This volume contains a good deal more than appears upon the title-page. The work of the late Mr. Cooper was written some years before 1840, and even that is of considerable interest, being decidedly the best biography that has yet appeared of the mother of King Henry VII. But it is only right to state that more than half the matter of the volume has been contributed by the editor, Mr. J. E. B. Mayor, of St. John's College, Cambridge, who, his own name upon the title-page, has greatly enthough he has modestly refrained from putting

hanced the value of the work by copious annotations and extracts from documents in an Appendix. To Mr. Mayor we are indebted for an exhaustive account of the MSS. relating to Lady Margaret at St. John's College, and for transcripts of all the hitherto unprinted matter that is of any interest. give us a complete text of Lady Margaret's will, We are a little sorry that in this place he did not which has never been fully edited, rather than a mere extract necessary to fill up the gap left by previous editors. But he has done so much to make the work complete in other things that it really seems ungenerous to complain of the one thing that does look like a slight imperfection. Besides abstracts and copies of unpublished MSS. he has availed himself to the full of all the light shed upon his subject by the most recent publications, even to the extent of reprinting from Professor Brewer's Calendar every notice of a grant or lease by Henry VIII. of the lands of his deceased grandmother. It was certainly well worth while thus to bring together all the information that could be found relating to the Lady Margaret. Not only

was she herself no ordinary woman, whose place in history is scarcely appreciated as it ought to be, but the times in which she lived are generally so obscure that collections on any subject relating to such a period are welcome. The work is made additionally valuable by an admirable glossary and a very full index.

THE ninth volume of Cassell's Illustrated History of England (Cassell, Petter, & Galpin), tells the story of the American civil war, and the German invasion of France in addition to the history of our own country from 1861 to 1872. The time has not yet arrived when it is possible to write a history of these stirring times in the proper sense of the word. But many will be glad to have what is as yet accessible told in a compendious form, and the author has exercised a sound discretion in allowing the personages who appear on the scene to express their opinions as far as possible in their

own words.

Manufacturing Arts in Ancient Times, with special reference to Bible History. By James Napier, F.R.S.E., &c. (Hamilton, Adamis & Co., 1874.) Mr. Napier some time ago published a little book called Ancient Workers in Metal, in which he applied his practical knowledge of metallurgy to his explanation of passages in the Bible and in ancient writers which refer to the art. He has now extended his enquiries, so as to embrace other manufactures, and this volume contains the results. The practical part of the work is admirably done, and the information is given so clearly, that it will be of considerable use to scholars. But we cannot say so much for some of the interpretations of biblical and classical passages; in fact, Mr. Napier does not profess to be a scholar, and only offers his suggestions for what they are worth. He is a little too much fascinated by enormous numbers, e.g., he reckons the gold and silver accumulated by David for the Temple as worth nearly a thousand millions sterling. He finds a difficulty in understanding how Noah navigated the Ark, and suggests that he had a great many servants, both male and female, with him. But these matters apart, his account of the metals used in antiquity, and of the methods of fusing them, is really excellent. We may especially refer to the sections on copper, tin, and bronze. It may be remarked as to the Greek word for tin, rangirepog, that the Sanskrit kastira, from which some would derive it, only occurs very late, and is itself probably derived from the Greek word (as is also the Arabic khasdir). Pictet's attempt to etymologise it as ka-stiva, "how malleable," has shared the same fate as his derivations from that useful prefix ka. Our author's remarks on Mr. Gladstone's translation of "The Shield of Achilles" are ingenious, c.g., "The word translated trench by him, and pit by others, we believe refers to the mould in which the different plates of the shield were cast; and this mould was made of bronze, and such a mould would certainly typify a dark colour (kuanos), as such moulds when used become very dark. That

bronze moulds were used in very early times has been clearly proved by such being discovered in ancient ruins."

J. F. Böhmer, Regesta Imperii VIII. Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Kaiser Karl IV., 1346-1378. Aus dem Nachlasse Johann Friedrich Böhmers herausgegeben und ergänzt. Von Alfons Huber. I. Lieferung. (Innsbruck: Wagner.) The value of Herr Böhmer's Regesta is so well known that their continuation is certain to be gladly welcomed. That industrious author commenced his labours in 1831; and he has produced a work which, while indispensable to the student of the history of Germany during the Middle Ages, presents to other writers a model as yet unsurpassed. When he began his labours, he had no conception of the length to which his work would extend. A quarto volume of less than 300 pages comprised the period from Conrad I. to Henry VII.-—i. e., from 911 to 1313. Two years later appeared the

Reyesta Karolorum, and six years subsequently to this those of the time of Louis of Bavaria, 13141347. Meantime Herr Böhmer became conscious that it was necessary to institute a complete revision of his imperfect early researches. In 1844, together with the last part of his first work, he published the Regesta belonging to the period death of Henry VII., i.e., from 1246 (the date of from the overthrow of the Hohenstaufen until the the election of the opposition king Henry Raspe) till 1313. In 1849 he published a work on the period previous to that contained in the above volume, comprising the interval from 1198 until 1254, from the death of Henry VI. to that of Conrad IV., son of the Emperor Frederick II. Herr Böhmer devoted himself unceasingly to the progress of his work until his death in 1863, partly by completing the portions which had already appeared by means of supplements, partly by entering on the investigation of special Regesta, of which those relating to the house of Wittelsbach (from 1180, the date of the acquisition of the dukedom of Bavaria until 1340), were completed and published by himself, while among the papers left behind him were found materials for those of the Archbishopric of Mayence, &c., of which his successors have availed themselves.

The example given us by Herr Böhmer in this department, as well as in the publication of historical records or chronicles, was all the more fruitful because with the increasing zeal for mediaeval research the mass of such materials has accumulated to a vast extent. The need of a safe guide through this wide field of original documents was apparent to all, and many similar attempts have been made with more or less success to give a chronological abstract of the essence of those innumerable records, in order to obtain a sure foundation for history. Thus Herr Chmel has devoted himself to King Rupert and the Emperor Frederick III., Herr E. Birk to the House of Habsburg until Maximilian I., Herr Erhard to the Westphalian documents, Herr Raumer to those of Brandenburg, Herr G. W. von Goez to those of the Archbishopric of Treves, &c., to which must be added the very important works of Herr T. Sickel on the Carolingians and of Herr K. F. Stumpf on the Chancellors of the German Empire. What these effected for Germany, Herr Jaffé and Herr A. Potthast (the former of whom, alas! was too soon cut off by death) undertook on behalf of the Popes: the former treated of the time from the Apostles until 1193; the latter, whose work is approaching its close, carries on the history until 1304, the eve of the translation of the Papal see to the south of France.

The work of Professor Huber is similar both in point of execution and of external appearance to his predecessor's volumes, with the single typographical difference that the notes are printed at slightly greater intervals apart, which is an advantage to the reader. Dates taken from contemporary historians and other authors are annexed to the extracts from the documents, so that we

have here a connected view of existing authenti

cated materials for the history. The first section, which is now before us, embraces the years 13461354, which must always be regarded as a significant era, since the history of Charles IV. is important in relation to the later empire, not only as regards Germany, where the Imperial Constitution was definitively established, but also as regards Italy, where, after the fruitless wars of Henry VII. and Louis of Bavaria, this emperor paved the way for a state of things in accordance not with the old Imperial régime, but with the actual political condition which was henceforth to remain un

altered, and so, to some extent, secured a good understanding between the two countries.

EDITOR.

NOTES AND NEWS. PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER has gone to spend March and April in Italy on account of his health.

We understand that Mr. Browning's new poem is not, as has been stated, a translation of any work of Aristophanes, but an Aristophanic poem, in which the Greek poet-or the English one in his person says some things about himself that Mr. Browning thinks have not been said, though they want saying. The book is more than half night. through the press, and is expected within a fort

MR. A. R. WALLACE has been at work for

several years on an elaborate book about the Geographical Distribution of Animals, and it will be published before very long by Messrs. Macmillan. It will be in two volumes, illustrated with two general maps, and many other maps and woodcuts, all designed to meet fully the requirements of study in this increasingly important subject.

PROFESSOR HENRY MORLEY has in the press for Messrs. Cassell and Co. a companion work to his First Sketch of English Literature, consisting of a series of extracts from all the authors he mentions in his "First Sketch," with such further critical and other notices as he thinks necessary. The curious poverty of the standard books of extracts in the earlier part of our literature is too well known to need more than mention; and we understand that this want will be remedied in Professor Morley's new book.

WE are glad to hear that the Manuscripts of Peter Sterry, one of Cromwell's chaplains, and one of the best known mystics of his time, have been found in the hands of some descendants of his, by Mr. J. Tindal Harris, who has long been a diligent enquirer into the history of the English mystics, and has from time to time set on foot searches for additional traces of Dell, William Law, and others. Beside the MSS. mentioned in the second volume of Sterry's Works, a number of his letters have been found with them. Mr. Harris is an independent member of the Society of Friends, and lives at Englefield Green, opposite the site of Mr. Holloway's proposed College for Women. He has been long honourably known in his neighbourhood for his charity and personal kindness to the poor, by whose sick beds he is an unremitting visitor. And years ago, before building his own house, he put up near it, in his own grounds, a library and lecture-room for his poor neighbours, with dwellings for some of the aged poor whom he did not like to see end their days in the workhouse.

DR. HAKE, the author of the Tales and Parables, is likely to bring out another volume of poetry pretty soon. The writer has lately been in Italy, and some of the poems show that the recent direction of his mind has been partly towards the

arts of form.

WE understand that Professor Stanley Jevons will contribute to the "International Scientific Series" a work entitled Money, and the Mechanism of Exchange. It will be a popular description of the functions of money, the substances employed at various times to make it, the actual systems of money used at present in different countries, international currency, schemes, &c; but the author will endeavour to avoid theoretical discussions on currency questions.

WALT WHITMAN, the American poet, has pub lished in an American newspaper his estimate of the poet Burns, in lieu of attending a Burns cele bration somewhere. Whitman's opinion will be

This circumstance, as is well known, has led to a new and lively discussion in the country where the discovery was made, but it is to be regretted in the highest degree that Professor Schlottmann's position and the character of his paper have there been placed in a false light. We shall not enter on this matter at present beyond stating that we ought to wait for new communications which are expected from America." THE Rev. Thomas McClatchie, of Shanghai, formerly Consular Chaplain at Hankow, has in the press a translation of the fifty-ninth section of the complete works of Choo-foo-tsze (Choo IIsi), containing the system of Cosmogony. This he has illustrated with copious notes, diagrams, &c. The work will be published almost immediately.

DURING the present year there will also be published at Shanghai a volume, containing the histories of those provinces of China in which the treaty-ports are situated, that is to say, those on the sea-board and in the valley of the Yang-tsze Kiang. The MSS. by the various foreign Commissioners of Customs at the open ports are already in the printer's hands. This work, which promises to be of a most valuable and exhaustive nature, will be issued from the Customs' Press at Shanghai.

PROFESSOR DE GOEJE, of Leyden, has printed some interesting Contributions to the History of the Gipsies. He accepts the view propounded by Pott as early as 1853 that the Gipsies are closely related to the Indian Jatt (a name which the Arabic historians transform into Zott), and to the Lûri's or musicians presented by an Indian king to the Persian monarch Behrâm Gûr (fifth century). He confirms this by numerous references to Beladsorî, Ibno-'l-Athîr, Abu-'l-Mahâsin, and other printed and unprinted Arabic authorities. Dr. Trumpp has already pointed out the close resemblance between the European Gipsies and the Jatt of the banks of the Indus. Professor de Goeje offers two etymologies of the name Zigeuner, which he traces either to Shikari, i. e.,

hunters, a name of the nomad, as opposed to the settled Jatt of Scind; or to tsenj, a musician or dancer, the plural of which in Persian would be tsjengan. This was properly the name of the calling of the gipsies, but in the Byzantine empire was transferred to the race. The first band of gipsies or Zotti's were deported, according to Tabari, by

the Rûm, or Byzantine Greeks, in 855. So vanishes part, at least, of the mystery which inspired the freshest and most delightful of Oxford Prize Poems.

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

WE are glad to hear that influential efforts are being made to secure the appointment of a geologist to the Arctic Expedition. It appears that the mistake was made of recommending a young botanist as one of the scientific civilians, and geology remained unprovided for. Now the medical and other officers of the expedition are perfectly competent to collect all the plants of the region they discover, and to make accurate notes of their localities. It would not, therefore, be right to send out a civilian for this duty alone, as he would be taking the place of an efficient working hand. But assuredly the geological results of an exploration of the Polar region will be among the most important, and they can only be secured by a competent travelled geologist, who has paid attention to Arctic questions connected with his science. With a thoroughly efficient zoologist and collector in one ship, and a good geologist in the other, the interests of science, so far as they cannot so well be furthered by the officers of the expedition, will be fully provided for. We believe that the Duke of Argyll and other influential geologists have strongly represented the matter to the Admiralty, and that it has been re-referred to the Royal Society. We trust, therefore, that one of the most important measures for securing all the valuable results to be

derived from Arctic research will now be adopted, and that a geologist will be one of the two scientific civilians in the expedition.

ARCTIC literature has received a most useful addition in the shape of a small work entitled The Arctic Navy List; or, a Century of Arctic and Antarctic Officers, 1773-1873 (Griffin & Co.). The list is alphabetical, and gives in the shortest possible form a biographical sketch of each name, with a record of the distinctions acquired, the ships and expeditions in which the officer served, and a detailed record of all exploits performed in the Arctic regions, not forgetting the characters supported by each in the "Royal Arctic Theatre," a descent to minutiae which the author justifies able qualifications for Arctic service is aptitude for by giving as his opinion that one of the most valutaking part in those winter amusements which give life to the expedition during the months of

forced inaction. An examination of the beadroll will prove instructive, and points convincingly to the value of Arctic service as a school for our Take such names navy. as Back, Hooker,

To the owner and captain of the ship, Feodor Woronic, has been presented a silver medal of merit with the riband of the Order of St. Anne, while the seamen Basil Jeftinchoff and Iwan Klewin, who first caught sight of the travellers and brought them on board, have received the silver medal and riband of St. Vladimir's Order, assigned for acts of humanity, together with a sum of 50 silver roubles, which has been given to each of the crew. The Emperor of Austria has likewise shown his sense of Captain Woronic's services by decorating him with the gold cross and crown of good service, and presenting him with a purse of 1,000 florins.

at Orsova. This sinking of the water-line of the

AT a recent meeting of the Geographical Society of Vienna, Councillor Wex drew attention to the decrease of the water supply from rivers and springs. It appears from a reference to the necessary tables that during the last fifty years the decrease in the water-level of the Elbe and the Oder has been seventeen German inches, that of the Rhine twenty-four, of the Vistula twentysix, and of the Danube as much as fifty-five inches, principal rivers in Germany had been commensurate with the decrease in the water-supply from springs. The lecturer, after showing how these unnavigable, unless some stop can be put to them, drew attention to the injurious effects produced by the present reckless system of cutting down woods, and denuding hill-sides of their natural covering, by which means all the rain and moisture is carried rapidly off the bare surface of sloping ground, instead of being attracted and arrested by leaves and branches, and carried gradually into the earth, where it serves to feed river beds and springs. In addition to this powerful cause of the diminution of existing watersupplies, the lecturer was disposed to believe that no inconsiderable influence was exerted by the system of artificial drainage now so generally adopted by farmers, and by the draining of lakes, ponds, and other collections of water.

conditions must tend to make the German rivers

IN reporting upon the trade from the southern shores of the Black Sea, the principal ports through which the foreign traffic passes being Ineboli, Samsoon, Trebizond, and Batoom, Mr. Gifford Palgrave notes, as a remarkable fact, the total absence of any British trading firm or agency there. While, on an average, two-thirds of the imports consist of articles of British

sible to refrain from the conclusion that in their cases, and in many others, this hardy training has proved the stimulus as well as the stepping-stone

to future distinctions. Nay, a greater name than these is to be found, for though he never wintered within the Arctic circle, Horatio Nelson took part in a summer cruise to Spitzbergen in H.M.S. Carcass, and is therefore duly recorded in these pages. The volume has appeared most opportunely, and though perhaps a little more explanatory detail might here and there enhance the interest of the lay reader, the idea of starting such a compilation deserves as much credit as the promptness with which it has been completed. Mr. Clements Markham deserves the thanks of all who take interest in our approaching Arctic Expedition for this interesting little work.

THE Allgemeine Zeitung states that a party, composed of University and Gymnasium Professors, will leave Munich in the spring to undertake a scientific expedition to Greece and Asia

Minor.

It is understood that the party will be under the special direction of Professor Christ, of the University of Munich.

exports is sent eventually to England, in not one of the four ports above-named is there a

single British house, store, or shop of any kind, not even a counter behind which English is spoken, nor a single British subject or person who understands English throughout the entire length and breadth of Mr. Palgrave's consular district. It seems that in consequence of this utter absence of the English element the merchandise passes, both at the ports themselves and at Constantinople, through the hands of native traders, agents, or brokers, mostly Greek or Armenian, and is consequently "crippled, overweighted, and distorted by the commissions, extra charges, and sometimes adulterations," to which it is subject at the hands of these middlemen. Trebizond was once the centre of a great Persian trade, but a fatal blow has been dealt to it by the opening the new and rival Perso-transit route through Russian Georgia.

of

NOTES OF A TOUR IN THE CYCLADES AND CRETE. III. Crete.

in

the midst of Greek and Italian titles, and sounded still more out of place in the mouths of our Greek boatmen. We were due at Khanea, the capital of the island, which lies on the northern coast, not far from its western extremity, at noon the following day, but the badness of the weather caused us to be five hours late, and gave us ample opportunity of justifying the truth of the old Greek proverb, πολὺ τὸ Κρητικὸν πέλαγος. Late in the afternoon we passed the promontory of Acrotiri, which forms the eastern boundary of the bay of Khanea, and an hour later were lying off the port. For some time it was doubtful whether we could enter, for the narrow entrance has been so silted up, in consequence of long neglect, that the passage is often dangerous in bad weather; in this case we should have had to land at Suda, on the further side of the Acrotiri peninsula; fortunately, however, we succeeded in passing the bar. No sooner had we cast anchor than we were first surrounded and then boarded by a motley crowd of Taisy Cretans in picturesque dresses, interspersed with Nubians, many of which race have been settled in the island ever since the time of Ibrahim Pasha. The appearance of the town was striking, as its irregular wooden buildings rose up the hill sides from the sea, interspersed with palmtrees, mosques, and minarets. There was no mistaking that we were once more in Turkey. The whole place is surrounded by a Venetian wall of great massiveness, and the harbour is enclosed by extensive moles. Over the sea-gate stands the Lion of St. Mark. Behind, at no great distance off, lay the mighty wall of the Sphakian mountains, deeply covered with snow, though the summits were veiled by masses of cloud.

When we landed, all our books, to our great indignation, were confiscated, and carried off for inspection to the residence of the Pasha, including Bradshaw's Railway Guide, which, no doubt, was regarded as a highly cabalistic volume. On enquiring the cause of this-for we had never been the victims of such a proceeding in Turkey before -we found that suspicion reigned supreme among the authorities, owing to the meeting of the Emperors, which had taken place shortly before, and which was supposed to bode no good to Turkey, and, in particular, to the rule of that power in Crete. Even our insignificant visit, as we found on our return from the interior, was interpreted as having a political meaning. It was discovered from our passports that I was a clergyman and my friend an officer of militia, and hence the remark was, "What can a priest and a military man want in the island if they have no political object?"

The only locanda in the town-a place which from its filthiness was far worse than the bare walls of a Turkish khan-bore the highly Cretan but hardly encouraging title of "The Rhadamanthys" (O Padánav9vg). It had, however, the advantage of nearness to the British Consulate, from the inmates of which we received very kind attention. Before coming to the island, we had often been asked whether travelling would not be dangerous there, from the wildness of the population and the general disaffection that prevailed; but our former experience of travelling in Turkey had taught us that the traveller is safest in the wildest and remotest districts, because there he is respected as a strange animal, and his value in exchange for a ransom is not known. In answer to our enquiries on this head, we were told that any stranger would be safe in every part of Crete; but that towards the English there existed such a kindly feeling that we should be especially well received: this was fully confirmed in the course of our subsequent journey. We learnt that an earthquake had been felt the night before, and that these are not uncommon here, a circumstance which they attribute to their nearness to the unquiet Santorin. But the absorbing subject of interest at this time was the extraordinary severity of the season, the like of which had not been felt for forty-three years. I have already spoken of

this as being remarkable all over the southeastern portion of the Mediterranean; but the island of Crete seemed to have been the focus of this area of cold. The distress thus caused was very great. The natives of the upland villages were escaping in great numbers over the snow, and arriving daily in Khanea; but in some cases the snow had hemmed them in too closely in their valleys to admit of their escaping, and many of them were starved in their homes. The same cause had lately brought down several of the large and rare Cretan goats, which are the representatives of an almost extinct species, from the mountain summits, to which they have now retired, and which they rarely leave. Before starting from England I had cherished a strong wish, though but a faint hope, of obtaining the skin and horns of one of these valuable ibexes; but when I mentioned this to the dragoman of the Embassy, Mr. Moatsos, a Greek gentleman, well known for his attention to English visitors, he at once presented me with a very fine specimen, which had been killed a few days before; this is now in the Museum at Oxford. A living specimen of the animal, which was caught and sent over, may be seen in the Zoological Gardens in London. The colour is brown, with a dark stripe down the back; the horns are long, curving gently backwards, and slightly divergent, with pointed tips. The only other places in which it is known to exist are the island of Anti-Melos, an uninhabited rock to the west of Melos, and two of the islands which run off in a chain from the extremity of Mount Pelion, viz. that called Scopelos in ancient times, and that now called Joura. In these it is very scarce, and will probably soon be extinct; but the specimens that have been brought from these places, though varying in some slight points from the Cretan goat, bear a sufficiently close resemblance to it to be regarded as the same species. Naturalists consider that it is nearest akin to the Persian goat, but far removed from that of Sinai, and the European ibexes. It was probably dispersed over all the Greek islands in ancient times, and Ludwig Ross met with an engraved stone on Melos, on which the figure of the animal, and especially its horns, are very clearly represented. From the length of the horns it seems highly probable that it was a goat of this class which, Iomer tells us (Il. iv. 105), furnished Pandarus with a bow. Of this we are told, that it was formed of the horns of a "bounding wild goat" (aλov alyog dypiov), which the hero had stalked and killed among the rocks; that the horns were each sixteen palms, .e. four feet, in length; and that they were polished and fitted for a bow by a worker in horn.

Before we start for the interior, it may be well for me to say a few words as to the character of the country generally. This long and narrow island-for it is 160 miles in length, while its breadth varies from 40 to 6 miles across- -is the principal link between the south of Greece and of Asia Minor, smaller stepping-stones being formed by Cythera on the one side, and by Casos, Carpathos, and Rhodes on the other. It is mountainous throughout, having a long backbone that runs through it from end to end, but its highest summits gather themselves up into three great groups

lofty enough to be clearly visible in fine weather from Santorin, which is sixty miles distant to the north. These are, the Dictaean mountains, as they were called in ancient times, towards the east; in the centre Ida, or, as it is now called, Psilorites, or the "lofty mountain” (¿ŋλòv opoc); and to the west the White Mountains-Aurà oon in antiquity, now "AT a Bovvá, with the same meaning though in the interior of the country they are more commonly known as Zokirika Bowra, or the mountains of Sphakia; that being the district inhabited by the Sphakiotes, who are well known as the most warlike and independent of the modern Cretan tribes. The two last mentioned of these mountain groups rise to the height of between 7,000 and 8,000 feet above the sea. From what

we had heard and read beforehand we expected to find large parts of the island well wooded, and had pictured to ourselves such glades and dells as may be seen on the peninsula of Athos, or on the slopes of Ossa and Pelion; but here we were doomed to disappointment. Cultivated trees, indeed, may be seen abundantly, especially the olive and the orange, and the fruit of the latter is so fine, that Cretan oranges are famous throughout the Archipelago, and a great quantity is exported; but of natural vegetation there is extremely little, and the mountain uplands are for the most part bare.

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On the morning after our arrival, having hired horses, and recovered our books through the dragoman of the Consulate, we left Khanea, passing through a gateway in the massive Venetian walls. The youths who accompanied our horses were two Mahometans, named Ali and Saideh, the former a Cretan, the latter a coal-black Nubian, with tattooed temples and cheeks. His history was a curious one. He had been carried off from his native country as a slave at seven years of age, a did not remember the process of tattooing, or rather gashing, by which his face had been marked, so that he could not tell us whether it was done with the knife or by firing. After this he had been sold several times to different masters, until a Turkish dignitary brought him to Crete, where he obtained his liberty. He was a fairly intelligent fellow, and very superior to his companion, Ali. He spoke Turkish and Arabic, but his ordinary language was Greek, for in Crete, alone among the provinces of Turkey, that language is spoken by all the population, whether Mahometan or Christian. This arises from the Mussulmans, with the exception of a few in the towns, being renegade Greeks, who retain their native tongue. In Thessaly, where the Greek population is very numerous, the official proclamations are in Greek, but the Mahometans, who are Turkish immigrants, speak Turkish. After ascending a little distance from the town, we found ourselves on a plain of some extent, which reaches to the foot of the Rhiza, as the lower slopes of the Sphakiote mountains are called. At the sides of the road aloes of prodigious size were growing, the leaves of some of them reaching to the height of eight or ten feet. The soil of this tract was very rich, and was covered with extensive plantations of olives, which, to judge from their size and the broken wood of their trunks, must be of great age; among these stood konaks or villas of Turkish grandees, surrounded with cypresses and pine-trees, and some with ruined walls. In forty minutes we reached the dilapidated village of Murnies, the decay of which was somewhat softened by the fine orange trees and other cultivation in its neighbourhood. This is a place of melancholy memories, as the scene of one of the worst of the many acts of treachery of which the Turks have been guilty in the island. As far as the circumstances can be summed up in a few sentences they were follows. At the conclusion of the Greek War of Independence, during which the Cretans had struggled vigorously for freedom, and seemed on the point of forcing the Mahometans to leave the country, it was decided by the Allied Powers that Crete should be annexed to the dominions of Mehemet Ali, and assurances were given to the inhabitants by the British Government of the system of order which that potentate would introduce. In the summer of 1833 the Viceroy of Egypt visited the island, and immediately after his departure a proclamation was published, which tended to make a great part of the landed estates throughout the country his property. To protest against this, several thousands of the Christian population assembled at Murnies, which from its position close to the foot of the Rhiza and in the neighbourhood of the capital, has frequently been the scene of such meetings on the part of the mountaineers. After some delay, promises of redress were given, and the assembly, which had throughout been peacefully conducted, dispersed with the exception of a few hundreds. When,

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