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scribed. But the remarkable positions of Sagalassus and Cremna were still but imperfectly known, and his description of these interesting localities is accompanied with sketches of their plan and elevation which add materially to our knowledge. At the same time, this line of route led him through scenery of the most splendid character, and the descent through the vast forests that clothe the slopes of Mount Taurus to the plain of Adalia, which resembles the Campagna of Rome alike in its general aspect and its unhealthiness, appears to equal, if it does not surpass, any similar scene in the Apennines. A considerable portion of this descent lies along the ancient Roman road, which is still in such good preservation that it needs but little repair to render it as good as ever. But that little is not done. A bad mule-road is the only communication that exists with the important seaport of Adalia; and though there is a talk of a railroad, we entirely agree with Mr. Davis that it will be very long before a railroad is carried through the defiles of the Taurus.

Mr. Davis tells us that the desire to visit Anatolia was first aroused in him, when a boy at school, by receiving a copy of Sir C. Fellows's Asia Minor and Lycia. Hence, a visit to Lycia naturally formed part of his original scheme of travel, and he had proposed to proceed from Adalia through the south of Lycia to Xanthus and the Gulf of Makri; but already (though it was but May 10) "the heat was intense, the danger of malarious fever was every day becoming greater, and it was most probable they would find the villages along the coast deserted." They were, therefore, compelled to strike again into the uplands of the interior; and after visiting the highly interesting ruins of Termessus-first discovered and described by Lieutenant (now Admiral) Spratt in 1842-they proceeded through the highlands and mountain districts on the borders of Lycia and Caria until they rejoined their former route in the valley of the Meander. We are not aware that any traveller had traversed this tract of country since it was first explored by Messrs. Spratt and Forbes more than thirty years ago.

Mr. Davis has given us detailed and careful descriptions of the extant remains on the ancient sites which he visited, and as in several instances the localities had only been examined by one or two other travellers, these details possess considerable value for the purpose of comparison with the accounts already published. But the chief interest of his book will be found rather in the picture he gives us of the existing state of the countries which he traversed, than in his contributions to our archaeological knowledge. It is only from the observations of unprejudiced and intelligent travellers that we can form any just estimate of the real condition of the provinces of Asiatic Turkey; and Mr. Davis appears to us eminently entitled to claim this character. His long residence in the East, as consular chaplain at Alexandria, had moreover prepared him to judge of what he saw in Anatolia, from a different, and in some respects a juster, point of view than could be taken by a traveller fresh from the civilisation of Europe.

He began his tour in Asia Minor-as will

probably be now the case with most visitors to that country-by following the line of railway into the valley of the Maeander, a district of surpassing beauty and fertility, and which may vie in both respects with the richest plains and valleys of Italy. Nor are these natural advantages altogether thrown away. Both Aidin and Nazli are populous and flourishing places, and afford favourable specimens of Turkish towns:

"There is even a good road, enclosed with walls and well-kept hedges in most parts, and on either side of it are olive grounds, vineyards, &c., in the highest state of cultivation; and it is this district that supplies the finest figs and raisins for the Smyrna market" (p. 63).

The tourist who pays a mere passing visit to Aidin, and looks down from the ruins of Tralles upon the beautiful and well-cultivated vale beneath him, will hardly be disposed to credit the accounts he has heard of the poverty and decay of Asia Minor. But very different is the result of a wider field of observation :

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"I have seen" (he says) "few spots more gloomy and depressing than the old Thermae of Hierapolis. The rich gifts of nature are still there, but in place of the flourishing city with its polished and wealthy citizens, only the black tents of a few wandering shepherds, and the poor peasants of Pambouk Kalassi are left " (p. 112). The remark may appear a trite one; but it is one that is perpetually impressing itself anew upon the mind of the traveller in Asia Minor.

That much of this poverty and decay is owing to the government cannot, we think, be denied. The taxation is oppressive, and the manner in which it is levied renders it doubly injurious. At the same time nothing is done for the people by the government: no roads, bridges, or other works of public utility are constructed for their benefit. The unhappy villagers are drained of all their resources, and are compelled to place themselves in the hands of merciless moneylenders, in order that the revenues extorted from them may be squandered in building palaces on the Bosphorus, or applied to the maintenance of a disproportionate fleet and army. "In short, the provinces are sacrificed to the capital, and while there is an air!

of prosperity at Constantinople, the country is in a state of miserable decay" (p. 316).

Like all travellers who have wandered in the more secluded parts of Asiatic Turkey, Mr. Davis has been led to form in many respects a favourable estimate of the Turkish peasantry. They are hospitable, kindly to travellers, and in general strictly honest. The perpetual cry for " backsheesh," so troublesome to the tourist in the neighbourhood of Constantinople or Smyrna, is unknown in the interior. Nor are they wanting in industry. It is rather the skill to direct their industry that is wanting. The peasant himself, as in almost all countries, is ignorant and narrow-minded, wedded to the old routine to which he has been accustomed, and indisposed to believe in what are called "improvements." Unfortunately there is no superior class to enlighten him, or to lead the way to a better system. The utter want of comfort or convenience in their dwelling-places, which are mere hovels of the most wretched description, is a fact that must be painfully apparent even to the passing traveller; and no signs are to be found of a desire to improve them. It is true (observes Mr. Davis) that there is a deeper reason for this; for the least appearance of wealth or comfort would but make him a mark for the oppression of his superiors.

"What inducement is there for a man to work

whose property is never secure, who is exposed to extortion if he has the appearance of wealth, and who is contented with a very moderate amount of comfort? Let but the Turkish peasant have some prospect held out to him, some inducement for exertion, and we may well believe that the motives which influence other men would not be without effect on him" (p. 315).

We are afraid that Mr. Davis's account of his travelling experiences in Anatolia is not calculated to attract any but enterprising and energetic travellers to follow his example. It is not as yet a land for the mere ordinary

tourist.

"In Palestine and Southern Syria " (he observes) "the traveller finds little or no difficulty. The Syrian and Egyptian dragomans are well acquainted with the country. The stations for encamping are well known. The people readily bring supplies. It is easy to procure what the European stranger requires. In consequence, tent life there is possible-even agreeable in fine weather. But it is altogether different in Asia Minor. It is impossible to find a dragoman acquainted with the country, and the supply of provisions is scanty and bad" (p. 300).

To travel in Anatolia, he elsewhere remarks, "a man needs the digestion of an ostrich, the skin of a rhinoceros, and the strength of a horse." These hardships are undoubtedly mitigated, if one travels en Milordos with tents, plenty of attendants, and ample supplies; but even then there are many unavoidable privations, while the traveller can gain but little acquaintancewith the people. But if he has courage to brave these discomforts, he will be amply rewarded by the picturesque beauties of a country which Mr. Davis (with perhaps a pardonable exaggeration) does not hesitate to rank "far before Italy in general," and many districts of which he considers even to equal the far-famed environs of Naples.

But discomfort and privations are not all that the traveller has to fear in Asia Minor. Besides the ever-recurring danger of malaria,

which is not confined to the sea-coast, though it there assumes its most treacherous and deadly form, he runs no small risk from brigands. It is true that brigandage does not assume in these Turkish provinces the professional and chronic character which it possesses in Greece, but outbreaks of it are not unfrequent, and are sometimes of a formidable description. Mr. Davis himself and his travelling companion had in one instance a fortunate escape. They had intended returning from Adalia to Aidin by way of Makri and Moollah, but were induced by the fear of heat and malaria to change their route, and proceed through the mountains by Cibyra. Had they taken the route originally proposed, they would have arrived at Makri on the very day that a band of mountaineers, seventy or eighty strong, came down and pillaged the whole neighbourhood, blockaded Makri and Levesi, captured several Greek vessels, and drove off the government troops and douaniers who attacked them in the first instance. Nor were they defeated and dispersed till a detachment of regular troops was sent against them. Very much the same state of things is described as existing in Lycia in 1854; and although Mr. Davis found no molestation in the course of his tour, and was able to write that there appeared little danger from robbers in that portion of Anatolia, he adds in a subsequent note that all this was changed; and the Constantinople journals for the latter part of the year 1873 were full of accounts of brigandage and robberies from all quarters. We hear so much less of brigands in the Turkish provinces than in Greece, that many people are apt to suppose that the former enjoy an immunity in this respect, which is certainly far from being the E. H. BUNBURY.

case.

Ten Years of Gentleman Farming at Blennerhasset, with Co-operative Objects. By William Lawson, Charles D. Hunter, F.C.S., and Others. (London: Longmans & Co., 1874.)

THIS is a book altogether sui generis. The subject of it is an establishment which existed from 1862 to 1872 at Blennerhasset, "a village of about 200 inhabitants, on the south side of the little trout stream, the Ellen, about eighteen miles west of Carlisle, and about ten miles east of Maryport," and which "included a farm, extensive farmbuildings, a market garden, artificial manure works, steam-ploughing machinery, a laboratory, a free library, a free school, and several grocery shops"-several of the above branches extending to other places besides Blennerhasset, even so far as Newcastle and Carlisle-and of which the owner was Mr. William Lawson, son of the late, and brother of the present Sir Wilfrid Lawson. The book may be inferred to have in all seven authors, named and unnamed (though two are only critics), and two of them seem to have exercised editorial functions; for although Mr. Hunter appears to hold himself "responsible for the matter and arrangement," Mr. Holyoake not only writes the introductory chapter, but annotates the volume to the end. The latter-named gentleman is also responsible for the publication,

as having had "no hesitation in thinking that the story of Ten Years at Blennerhasset' was worth printing;" and a debt of gratitude is due to Mr. Holyoake for so thinking. For although the work will be "caviare to the general," it will-to say nothing of the value for purposes of scientific agriculture of its elaborate details and statistics of farming experiments-be appreciated by all who can relish a narrative of the quaintest social experience, prompted by genuine benevolence, and told with transparent candour, and with an almost constant undercurrent of quiet humour, in thoroughly good English. One thing to be regretted is, considering the kind of intellectual seasickness which figures produce in many minds, that the work could not have been divided into two volumes, or at least into two distinct portions, to the latter of which might have been confined all accounts and statistics. As a concession to human frailty, it may be mentioned that, after the first chapters, comprising 220 pages of the book, its interest is almost purely technical. Yet even the latter chapters, besides the detail of some interesting experiments in farming without cattle, contain facts of the highest value as to the cost of labour in farming: the results of Blennerhasset experience being that every 1s. increase on 16s. wages, or say 1s. 3d. in the pound, will only increase the cost of production by about 34d. in the pound. And it is remarkable that, from 1866 when it was at its maximum, the cost of labour per acre went on constantly diminishing, from 51. 1s. 31d. to 11. 16s., although in 1867 the hours were reduced from ten and a half to nine. It is not, indeed, stated expressly whether this reduction of hours was or was not attended with one of wages, and, curiously enough, amidst the numerous tables in the book, there is none showing the fluctuations, if any, in the rate of wages, nor is there any express statement of the average rate; though as the figures of a week in 1870, varying for men from 2s. to 3s. 2d. per day, are given as those of an average week, the inference is both that there were no substantial fluctuations in the figures, and that there was no reduction consequent on the reduction of hours in 1867; which, in other words, means that there was an important virtual rise in wages on that occasion. The general conclusion is, therefore, that the cost of labour sank while its price rose.

This conclusion seems further borne out by the fact that the great fall in the cost of farm labour (from 51. 1s. 34d. per acre in 1866 to 21. 10s. 4d. in 1867) nearly coincided with the establishment of a bonus system, although none was in fact paid before 1869. The writers, one is bound to say, express themselves very guardedly on this point: "From the steady nature of this improvement" (in the cost of labour per acre), "I think co-operation should be credited with a share in it. I know that after the first taste of bonus money in 1869, there was more faith exhibited in it by the workpeople, and in many instances a real endeavour was made to keep down the expenses and further the business." Again :

"As far as mere figures go, co-operation seems not to have been without effect on the labourers, so marked is this decrease in the cost of labour."

But when the nature both of the farming and of the co-operation practised at Blennerhasset is considered, the wonder is not so much that there should be any doubt as to the influence of the latter in stimulating the exertions of the labourer, as that it should have exercised any influence at all. Mr. Miller Tiffin, one of the authors, in a graphic chapter on "The First Steam-Plough in Cumberland, its Adventures and Vicissitudes," tells us that 1,510l. was paid “in finding out what would answer, by_first finding out what would not answer." What he says of the steam-plough is in fact applicable to the whole system of Blennerhasset farming, which may be said to have consisted of a series of agricultural experiments, extremely valuable to those who did not carry them on. Mr. Lawson, writing with that candour which is pre-eminently characteristic of the book, says :

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"The labourers had been accustomed all their lives to have their labour dealt with by those who simply tried to buy it as cheap and sell it as dear as possible, and were, of course, unable to fall in with an entirely different order of things at a But if they doubted my will to benefit them by co-operation, perhaps they were still more doubtful of my ability to đo so. They saw me buying and selling, but not getting gain; and under these circumstances it was not to be wondered at if simple-minded labourers supposed that no contrivance could make my co-operation profitable to them. Moreover, they probably considered my practice of trying experiments upon the farm a great objection to co-operating with me. For not only were the experiments I thought proper to have tried expensive-without the prospect of direct profit to myself-but the great importance to the public of intelligently tried agricultural experiments did not then seem to be realised by farmers generally, much less by farm-labourers not at all accustomed to scientific investigation, or even to calculation of any sort."

It was probably at least premature to ask the farm-labourers to co-operate in agricultural experiments "without the prospect of direct profit" to the trier himself, and the offer of one-tenth of his profits under such circumstances might well fail to stimulate their exertions. But the very peculiar form which co-operation soon assumed for Mr. Lawson must now be shown.

For some years the system of distributive co-operation as usually practised in the North, in which,-after a payment of a fixed dividend of 5 per cent. per annum on capital, surplus profits are divided either solely among shareholders in proportion to their purchases, or partly also to non-shareholders in the like proportion (with the exception in some cases of a percentage for educational purposes),-was sufficient for Blennerhasset, and Mr. Lawson and some of his coadjutors seem to have done some vigorous missionarizing in Cumberland on its behalf. But nearly from the first another system (if it may be so called) was proposed, which came to be known as the " Timothy Tarbucket system of shopkeeping," from the name of an ideal shopkeeper, viz. that of appointing "some person shopkeeper for the public good, paying him a certain fixed rate of interest on such capital as he would have to devote to the business, while he was to supply goods to the public at large at the cheapest possible rate. He was to render

public accounts, periodically, of all the transactions of the shopkeeping business he would thus be conducting, as the public servant, for the public good." It is transparent that "Timothy Tarbucket" could be none other than William Lawson; and accordingly, though the former was voted down for some time at meetings, in favour of the Rochdale system, "free co-operation," as it was termed, at last carried the day. In 1867, Mr. Lawson tells us,

"I published a statement declaring that all the profits over 24 per cent. per annum on a stated amount of my capital, during a certain time, would be devoted to the public good, and I invited everybody who was able and willing to co-operate with me for that end, to do so in any way that occasion might offer, and particularly in the matter of making, for the public use, as much profit as possible on the capital devoted to the public good,

on the terms above mentioned."

But, remarkably enough, when in 1868 he realised a profit even beyond what had already been spent in advance for "the public good," and consulted his neighbours, in public meetings at Blennerhasset, Ireby, and Aspatria, how the balance was to be spent, "the strongest desire was shown that this profit be given to those who made it, meaning that it should be given proportionately to the workers employed in the establish

ment."

However, Timothy Tarbucket was not to be baulked, and accordingly a shop was set up on his principle at Newcastle-which after five years was wound up with a loss of 5447. 10s. 2d.; one at Carlisle, wound up after three years with a loss of 2001. 178. 4d.; one at Ireby, wound up after a year with a loss of 481. 11s. 23d.; and one at Blennerhasset itself, handed over in 1872, after six years' existence, and a loss of 431. 9s. 1d. to "The People's Shop Company (Limited)," a company which, after paying 7 per cent. on capital, gives profits to purchasers. Thus the "free co-operation" principle resulted in every instance in loss, and in the one case in which it did not lead to entire failure, yielded the day to a system which gives 50 per cent. more profit to capital than the Rochdale one, without the same guarantees for the purity of articles and fairdealing.

But Timothy Tarbucket had a larger sphere of action still than the shops. The whole estate was virtually worked on his principle-and at the discretion of Mr. Lawson. The crowning experiment was that indicated in the last extract, of farming with the advice of all the world. A practice of calling together for consultation some of the head officials grew into one of summoning to council all the labourers, male and female, and then into an " open council," where "the right to discuss and vote was not limited to the workers, but any one was welcome to attend and give the benefit of his or her advice;" and which eventually took the name of the "Blennerhasset Parliament," and was held at the school-room. It is remarkable that while even the " open council" lasted, the workers seem to have taken their part as co-operators in farming au sérieux, as is shown by motions like the following, brought forward by labourers at the third meeting: "That we clear our meadow of sticks and stones before the mowing

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season; "that the twitch be taken out of the land." But, as Mr. Lawson says himself, the workers grew "tired of counselling,' and the village parliament became apparently a very original kind of debating society, in which the affairs of the farm were indeed discussed, but rather as part of Blennerhasset affairs in particular, and of those of the world in general, than on their own bottom, and which appears to have been invested with a special control (how far absolute is nowhere stated) over the expenditure in the "public good departments." As summed up by Mr. Hunter, the expenditure under this head between 1866 and 1872 amounted to 1,3017. 12s. 10d., which was applied to the following purposes: "Cooperative meetings, agricultural experiments, free library and reading-rooms, free school. ing, free bath-room, noble temple, public assistance," and "festivals and trips."

But after 1867, a year known as the "great bonus year," when a balance was found on the right side of 1,7157. 4s., and 5461. 4s. 74d. of this was awarded as bonus to the workers, making 10l. 19s. 11d. to every full-time worker, Mr. Lawson seems to have been very little upon or near his farm. In 1871 a double misfortune fell upon the concern. The potato disease was particularly bad, when the acreage laid down in potatoes had been increased to nearly a quarter of the whole farm, and the farm buildings were burnt down. It seemed clear to Mr. Lawson that his farming "was very far from becoming remunerative, and from giving prospect of becoming so." He had had "a pretty good spell" of it, and therefore sold the whole concern to his brother. The free library and reading rooms still remain, and the testimony of a former bailiff to the parliament is, that many young men

are indebted to it "for much of the know

ledge they possess." Mr. Holyoake bears witness of "the undoubted regard in which Mr. Lawson was held among the common people," and the modest judgment which Mr. Lawson passes on his own work should disarm hostile criticism :

:--

"My hope is that if it shall appear that my objects were right in the main, and the ends I sought to accomplish justifiable in themselves, others may not be discouraged from prosecuting them with better knowledge and judgment."

J. M. LUDLOW.

Social Pressure. By the Author of "Friends in Council." (London: Daldy & Isbister.) SIR ARTHUR HELPS' books, if they possessed no other merit, would still be valuable to our hurry-skurry age by recalling to us the sense that there is-or used to be-such a thing as Leisure somewhere on the globe. Over all of them there broods the peacefulness of one of those fine old gardens, wellsheltered and sunny, with broad straight gravel walks, wherein it was permitted to saunter for hours, now pausing to look at the old stone sun-dial, now stooping to pick a pink from the border, and now and again diverging to the lichen-covered red brick wall along whose summit the peacock was marching, and select the most luscious of peaches or the richest of figs. Merely to think of gentlemen of the calibre of " Milverton " and

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Ellesmere," and "Cranmer" sitting down in our day to enjoy what Dr. Johnson used to call a "good talk," seems to put back the clock of time for a century; but when Sir Arthur Helps proceeds to represent them as actually composing elaborate essays for no other purpose than to read them to one another, and then put them aside, we instinctively cry out, "It is too much!" The anachronism is beyond the licence of fiction. Who is there in our time who dreams of such "idlesse as this except the sanguine young lady who gets up a " Pen and Pencil," and asks a celebrated writer, whose lightest MSS. are so many cheques, to favour her with a little tale, or a piece of poetry, he could do it so beautifully?" It is all about as probable as that a distressed needlewoman should amuse her leisure moments with crochet-work; and though we have learned entirely to believe in the Ellesmere and Milverton party, and feel them to be familiar "friends in council" indeed, we reject the authenticity of their reputed essays with scorn, and are convinced Mr. Johnson has forged them himself in the

66

intervals of his duties as librarian and secretary.

Putting aside the improbability that in a company of five English gentlemen and two English ladies, three of the former should nearly monopolise all the talking, and the ladies meekly consent to keep a golden silence, except when their husbands suddenly chance to refer to them about some trivial subject within their feminine sphere; the management of these dialogues is, as usual, excellent and ingenious, and we do not remember any volume of the series containing more suggestive passages or touching on more interesting themes. The fault of the book indeed, if fault it have, is that it skims over too many matters on which we should like to know more of what Sir Arthur Helps thinks, and that we regret to see one topic slide off into another before the first has been exhausted. There is, if we mistake not, a good deal of the mellower wisdom of increasing years and knowledge of human nature revealed in these pages, both pleasant and profitable to consider. Take, for example, the dissertation on Growing Old, towards the close of the present volume. How good are the remarks, that we begin only in later years to "find out the truth in trite sayings, of sayings which were little more than so many well-connected words to us at our outset in life;" and that "the great affections of the mind, Hope, Fear, and Love, have only changed their objects, but not lost their force!' Still deeper goes the observation that "the im mortal soul does not grow old in seventy years.

Often it feels itself to grow younger, because it thinks less about itself, is less perplexed about its own doings, is less socially sensitive, and has therefore wider sympathies, and enters more heartily into the enjoyments of others." To these remarks the great lawyer, "Sir John," adds, that if he is ever to be tried for a crime, he trusts there will be many elderly men on the jury, for he has observed that they are far more indulgent, as well as just, than younger ones. "Milverton" also thinks that in later years we come to lose some of our over-apprecia

66

tion of showy gifts of eloquence and wit, and estimate better more sterling qualities. Finally, a very important conclusion is that, in looking back over life, we find that our fellow-men are after all much better fellows than from history and biography or our first impressions they appeared to have been." A Prime Minister it seems once received as a legacy of experience from a great statesman before him this summary of his opinion of mankind: "Oh, they are capital fellows-much better fellows than you would imagine, but deuced vain you know!

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deuced vain! We must confess to have

proceeded so far towards the stage of life
indicated by Sir Arthur in these remarks as
to have arrived entirely at this opinion.
There are a great many sound political
hints and reflections in the book with which
we shall not meddle, save to note the
specially true remark that, while a small
political question (such as the Ballot),
sets the nation in a ferment for years, a
great social or sanitary reform, such as
the improvement of our cities-can scarcely
obtain a hearing. It is absurd to hope that
the legislators in Westminster, who are so
entirely indifferent about the smoke which
is defacing their own new Palace, should
trouble themselves much to remove similar
nuisances at a distance. They are wholly
occupied with political concerns. Between
the party who cry "Make men free, and all
will go well," and the party who cry "Make
men clean, comfortable and sober, and all
will go well," there seems to be no room for
the rational medium, or any plan extant by
which the two sets of aspirations may work
side by side.

The first essay in the book relates to the evils to man and beast caused by the exorbitant dimensions of London. It is, we think, as hopeless for Sir Arthur Helps to set them so cleverly in array, as for the pious Fénelon to endeavour to deter his young friend (who was desperately in love) from marriage on the ground that "Le mariage est un

état de tribulation très pénible auquel il faut se préparer en esprit de pénitence." We may be assured that London is very dark, very smoky, very unwholesome; that people who are ill or wounded here do not recover as rapidly as they used to do in the hospitals; that gilding is tarnished and furniture ruined, and horses worn out, and that Sir Rutherford Alcock brought over two bricks which had stood unhurt on the Wall of China for a thousand years, and which have disintegrated and are crumbling away after two years on his balcony not half a mile from Westminster Abbey. It may be all very true, and it may be a state of "tribulation" in which we live; still, as Mr. Pecksniff would have said, we love this "humble village in which we take the liberty to reside," and, narrowing our poetical and patriotic fervour within the limits of the Metropolitan Police Act, each of us says in his secret soul,

"London! with all thy faults I love thee still;" or, as Arthur Locker has it

"I hope I'm fond of much that's good,

As well as much that's gay;

I'd like the country if I could,

I like the Park in May."

He who has once felt the attraction of the

mighty magnet-who has touched the throb-
bing heart of the world-would count it some-
what of a banishment even to be sent to the
"Isles of the Blessed" themselves.

FRANCES POWER COBBE.

History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient
Commerce. By W. S. Lindsay. In Four
Volumes. (London: Sampson Low,
Marston, Low, & Searle, 1874.)
MR. LINDSAY has undertaken a great work
in writing the history of merchant shipping,
as it is the history of human enterprise
under one of its most interesting forms, and
there is hardly any branch of human science
which that enterprise has not made tribu-
tory to its advancement. The subject also
is very vast, regarded from the point of
view from which Mr. Lindsay has proposed
to treat it, namely, in immediate connexion
with the commerce both of the ancient and
of the modern world, and with the great
changes which have taken place in the over-
sea carrying trade since Vasco de Gama
doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and Colum-

bus discovered a new world in the far West.

"Many years," writes Mr. Lindsay (Introduc-
tion, p. xvii.), "have already been employed in
collecting materials for this work, but hitherto
time has been wanting for the study and elucida-
tion of a subject which, from the nature of my
avocations, can hardly fail to prove interesting to
myself, whatever it may be to my readers. To
trace the origin of navigation and to detail the
numerous steps by which the merchant vessels of
the great trading nations of the world have
reached their present state of perfection; to record
those discoveries in science and art connected with
navigation, which enable the mariner to cross the
ocean without fear and with unerring certainty; to
dilate upon those triumphs of man's genius and
skill whereby he can bid defiance to the ele-
ments; and to enter in these pages the names of
the men who have benefited mankind by their
maritime discoveries, or by affording greatly in-
creased facilities for intercourse between nations,
is to me a task of the most gratifying descrip-
tion."

We have no doubt that the research which
distinguishes this work has been to its
author a labour of love, and that his pro-
fessional knowledge has invested with pecu-
liar charms the enquiry, with which his
work commences, into the maritime com-
merce of the Prae-Roman world.

One of the most remarkable features in
the history of merchant shipping is the fact
that the maritime carrying trade of the
world has been, at successive periods, vested
in the hands of small states, insignificant in
territory and in population as compared
with their neighbours, yet by reason of their
maritime activity more powerful than them.
Phoenicia may be cited as a leading instance,
for its average breadth never exceeded
twelve miles, and its extreme length was
about 225 miles; and Mr. Lindsay justly
remarks that "to trace the course of the
extensive maritime trade of the Phoenicians
is to elucidate the progress of navigation in
ancient times." Mr. Lindsay is of opinion
that modern research fully confirms the
judgment of Herodotus, that

"the Phoenicians were really immigrants from
the shores of the Persian Gulf; thereby in them-
selves affording an illustration of that great law
of migration westwards of which that of Abraham

and of his family, and that of Chedorlaomer from Elam to the valley of the Jordan, are the earliest recorded instances."

Mr. Lindsay is also of opinion that the "Cassiterides Insulae" were unquestionably the Scilly Isles, and that they were frequented by Phoenician vessels, and that "it seems not improbable that the Phoenicians, while still in their old homes on the Persian Gulf, may have found their way in prae-historic ages to India, and may there have met with tin, as it is abundant at Banka in the Straits of Sumatra," and that as the Sanskrit name for tin is kastira, "when in later days they found it again in even greater abundance in England, they gave it the name they had previously adopted from the far East."

Mr. Lindsay in his fourth chapter examines very carefully the question whether the

Phoenicians discovered the route from India

round the Cape of Good Hope, and is of opinion that the weight of evidence is in favour of the discovery. That it should have remained unprofitable until the Portuguese opened out the route at the close of the fifteenth century after Christ, would not of itself justify our disbelief in the story, which Herodotus narrates, of the famous voyage of discovery undertaken by Phoenician mariners in the reign of Pharaoh-Necho. Mr. Lindsay very appositely remarks that the circumstance, which led Herodotus himself to disbelieve the story from his ignorance of spherical geography, "affords the strongest confirmation of the report of the Phoenician mariners;" for in sailing westward, south of the line, the sun would at noon appear on the right hand of the observer, and not on his left, as in sailing westward in the Mediterranean.

Mr. Lindsay has not omitted to call attention to the fact that the greatness of Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia, was in all probability not only due to her geographical position, and to the circumstance that her people understood both how to build ships and to navigate them better than their neighbours, but likewise to the free and enlightened policy of her merchants. They were the first to establish the system of factories or agencies in foreign countries. "They admitted the merchants of other countries freely to their markets," and "to the Tyrians belongs the credit of the establishment of the first regular colonies, some of

which, such as Carthage, probably far surpassed in wealth and power the mother city; nay, what is more, they succeeded in planting their colonies on terms so liberal as to retain throughout all time an affectionate remembrance from their children; for we know, that as Tyre refused the aid of her fleet to Cambyses when he wished to attack Carthage, so Carthage offered a refuge to the inhabitants of Tyre when besieged by Alex

ander."

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bargemen rather than seamen," and however numerous they may have been, they were employed chiefly in boats on the Nile and on the canals.

"We may presume," writes Mr. Lindsay, "that till the time of the Ptolemies the Egyptians did not build any large sea-going ships, one reason of this being that Egypt, within her own territory, had no forest timber adapted for such a purpose. Hence, as is well known, arose the sanguinary wars so long and so fiercely waged between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae-the inheritors from the Tyrians of the forests of Lebanon, who, mindful of the elder time as well as of the value of their property, were little inclined to give the Egyptians the means of becoming a powerful maritime people."

Mr. Lindsay has illustrated his work with several interesting drawings of extraordinary vessels, and among the most remarkable of them is a drawing of the great ship of Ptolemy Philopator (i. 62); but Mr. Lindsay has not furnished the reader with a representation of the vessel as described by Athenaeus. Like the great Athenian dramatist, whose custom it was to represent men as they ought to be, rather than as they are, Mr. Lindsay has represented the Great Eastern of the Ptolemies in the form best calculated, according to his nautical knowledge, to fulfil "the requirements of a structure meant to float in safety," but for this purpose he assumes that there is a mistake in the measurements handed down to us by Athenaeus. Ptolemy's ship is described by Athenaeus, after an account drawn up by an Alexandrian historian named Callixenus, as measuring 280 cubits in length, 38 cubits in breadth, and 48 cubits in depth, while the highest part of her poop was 53 cubits above the water. Mr. Lindsay considers the proportion of the length and beam of the vessel so described to accord very well with those of the large ships of our own time, but he considers it hardly possible to conceive that the depth of the hold was so great, or that the highest portion of the poop of the vessel was about 80 feet above the water; "the depth," he says, was much more likely to have been 28 cubits, for which 48 has, through some misapprehension, been substituted." Mr. Lindsay has accordingly given us an imaginary drawing of the vessel on this assumption, and it is calculated to make the constructors of our modern leviathans hang down their heads in despair to outrival the graceful lines of such a model. It is, however, permissible for the student of classical antiquity to have some misgivings as to the alleged error in the narrative of Athenaeus, and as Mr. Lindsay himself admits that Ptolemy's vessel could hardly have been meant for sea-going purposes, those of his readers who may have seen the towering stern of the Chinese junk, which floated some few years ago on the waters of the Thames, may be disposed to think that a Chinese ship-carpenter would have readily undertaken to build a vessel after the description furnished by Athenaeus, and would have warranted her to float in safety, if that was to be the modest limit of her capability. A more decided view of the account of Athenaeus has been advanced by M. Jal in his Archéologie Navale, Mémoire No. 1, which has not been noticed by Mr. Lindsay, although it is a work of no mean

66

authority. M. Jal does not hesitate to repudiate the whole story about the "big ship" of Ptolemy, and observes that if there had been men foolish enough to build such a vessel, there would certainly not have been found men fortunate enough to navigate her. We do not think it necessary to adopt this extreme view, and to repudiate the whole story, in declining to accept Mr. Lindsay's correction. The Great Egyptian was, in our opinion, a huge barge with an enormous deck-house, and the conception of such a floating monster was in accordance with the colossal character of all Egyptian structures. "There is no reason," Mr. Lindsay adds, "to question her existence. Such a vessel might have remained moored in the Nile, or in one of the great lakes or canals, as a pleasant place of resort during the hottest months of an Egyptian summer." One of the most interesting chapters in Mr. Lindsay's first volume is the ninth, in which he suggests a novel solution of the much vexed question, how the galleys of the ancients were classed and rowed. His theory is

sembles in her structure (though materially im"that the paddle-wheel steamer of to-day reproved and possessing the vast advantage of mechanical power) the row-galley of the ancients. Her machinery and coal-bunkers are distinct and separate from the hold, cabin, or any other portion of the ship, while the engines and paddlewheels take the position and act the part of the

rowers and their oars."

In other words, Mr. Lindsay considers that "the rowers on board the first-class galleys, even when they amounted to 300 men, did not occupy a larger space in the ship than would now be required for a steam-engine of 150 horse power and her fuel for twenty days." He suggests, accordingly, that the first-class galleys were divided into compartments, and were only decked fore and aft, the midship portion, which the rowers occupied, being left open for ventilation. Mr. Lindsay has illustrated his theory by an excellent design (i. 293), and it certainly obviates one great difficulty, as it keeps the fighting men apart from the rowers, and allows the latter to be berthed in that part of the ship, in which there would be space for their bedding and scanty apparel without interfering with the accommodation and the munitions of the fighting men.

Mr. Lindsay is disposed to trace the preeminence of the Rhodians in maritime jurisprudence to their descent from the Phoenicians. That there should have been a Phoenician element in the Rhodian civilisation is highly probable, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that the island of Rhodes was a centre of maritime commerce, holding a position in the Aegean Sea, after the fourth century before Christ, analogous to that which the island of Wisby occupied in the Baltic Sea in the fourteenth century after Christ, and that the Rhodian sea-laws, of which fragments are incorporated in the Digest of Justinian, were not enacted by the islanders, but were a collection of usages observed by the mariners and merchants of the Levant, who frequented the port of Rhodes, and which commended themselves to other nations from their intrinsic equity and convenience. Mr. Lindsay has com

mitted an oversight in a note (i. p. 392), in which he represents M. Pardessus as an authority for attributing the compilation of the Maritime Law of Wisby to Magnus, who became King of Sweden in A.D. 1320. The laws which M. Pardessus has attributed to Magnus Ericson, and rightly so, are a very different body of laws, namely, the Wisby Stadt-Lag, and the capital contention of M. Pardessus is that the Maritime Law of Wisby is a compilation of German, Flemish and Dutch maritime usages.

Mr. Lindsay has not attempted to solve the problem how the Phoenicians made their way to England-whether they hugged the shores of Spain and of France, as their Carthaginian descendants hugged the western coast of Africa on their voyages to the island of Cerne, which Mr. Lindsay rightly identifies with the island of Arguin, in 20°5' N. lat. ; or whether they trusted to their discovery of the Cynosure (called after them Phoenice), the last star in the cluster of the Little Bear, to which Mr. Lindsay refers as enabling them to give superior fixity to their observations at sea; neither does he suggest, so far as we are aware, any measure of the time which they occupied in their voyages to the coast of Cornwall out and home.

He has observed that the fleets of Tarshish are represented in the Chronicles of the kings of Judah as "coming once in every three years," and it may be not a rash conjecture,

that the trade of the Phoenicians with the West was carried on similarly by periodical fleets, whose voyages from the Pillars of Hercules to the Cornish coast, going and returning, occupied at least a year, if not two years.

We know from the curious narrative of Abraham Farrisol, a learned Rabbi of Avignon, that so late as in the fifteenth century after Christ the galleys of Venice, which traded with Flanders, hugged the coast the whole of the voyage, and that they were generally absent from home for eighteen months, and in some cases for two years; yet the Venetian navigators of that period used the mariner's compass as distinguished from "the sailing stone," notwithstanding which advantage they never ventured out of reach of the headlands. It is not, therefore, very probable that the Phoenician mariners, whose knowledge of the loadstone may be doubted, would have ventured to steer by the stars into the open waters of the Bay of Biscay on the expectation of striking the mouth of the English Channel by the help of some rude method of dead reckoning.

We regret that Mr. Lindsay has disposed of the invention of the mariner's compass in a brief note (i. 233). He is, we think, perfectly justified in stating in his introduction (p. xlii.), that there is no good warrant for the idea that the Chinese were acquainted with the mariner's compass in remote ages; but when he intimates his opinion, that Amalfi has no claim to the invention of the mariner's compass, and that "it was most likely a northern discovery "-induced, perhaps, to adopt that view by what Wachsmuth, whom he quotes, has stated as to its being in use in Sweden in A.D. 1250-he has overlooked, we think, the distinction which is to be drawn between the mariner's compass and

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