NORTH AMERICA, SIBERIA, AND RUSSIA.[A]

The circumnavigation of the world is now a matter of ordinary occurrence

to our bold mariners: and after a few years it will be a sort of summer

excursion to our steamers. We shall have the requisitions of the

Travellers' Club more stringent as the sphere of action grows wider; and

no man will be eligible who has not paid a visit to Pekin, or sunned

himself in Siam.

But a circuit of the globe on _terra firma_ is, we believe, new. Sir

George Simpson will have no competitor, that we have ever heard, to

claim from him the honour of having first galloped right a-head--from

the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Pacific to the British

Channel. One or two slight divergencies of some thousand miles down the

smooth and sunny bosom of the Pacific, are to be reckoned as mere

episodes: but Sir George soon recovers his course, plunges in through

the regions of the polar star; defies time, trouble, and Tartary;

marches in the track of tribes, of which all but the names have expired;

follows the glories of conquerors, whose bones have mingled five hundred

years ago with the dust of the desert; gives a flying glance on one side

towards the Wall of China, and on the other towards the Arctic Circle;

still presses on, till he reaches the confines of the frozen

civilisation of the Russian empire; and sweeps along, among bowing

governors and prostrate serfs,--still but emerging from barbarism--until

he does homage to the pomp of the Russian court, and finally lands in

the soil of freedom, funds, and the income tax.

What the actual object of all this gyration may have been, is not

revealed, nor, probably, _revealable_ by a "Governor of the Hudson's Bay

territories," who, having the fear of _other_ governors before his eyes,

dedicates his two handsome volumes to "The Directors of the Hudson's Bay

Company;" but the late negotiations on Oregon, the Russian interest in

the new empire rising on the shore of the Northern Pacific, the vigorous

efforts of Russia to turn its Siberian world into a place of human

habitancy, and the unexpected interest directed to those regions by the

discovery of gold deposits which throw the old wealth of the Spanish

main into the shade, _might_ be sufficient motives for the curiosity of

an individual of intelligence, and for the anxious inquiries of a great

company, bordering on two mighty powers in North America, both of them

more remarkable for the vigour of their ambition than for the reverence

of their hunters and fishers for the _jus gentium_.

Those volumes, then, will supply a general and a very well conceived

estimate of immense tracts of the globe, hitherto but little known to

the English public. The view is clear, quick, and discriminative. The

countries of which it gives us a new knowledge are probably destined to

act with great power on our interests, some as the rivals of our

commerce, some as the depots of our manufactures, and some as the

recipients of that overflow of population which Europe is now pouring

out from all her fields on the open wilderness of the world.

This spread of emigration to the north is a curious instance of the

reflux of the human tide; for, from the north evidently was Europe

originally peopled. Japhet was a powerful propeller; and often as he has

dwelt in the tents of Shem, he is likely to overwhelm the whole

territory of the southern brother once more. The Turk, the Egyptian, the

man of Asia Minor, the man of Thrace, will yet be but tribes in that

army of the new Xerxes which, pouring from Moscow, and impelled from St

Petersburg, will renew the invasions of Genghiz and Tamerlane, and try

the civilized strength of the west against the wild courage and

countless multitudes of Tartary. Into this strange, but important, and

prospectively powerful country, we now follow the traveller. Embarking

from Liverpool in the Caledonia, a vessel of 1300 tons and 450 horse

power, he was amply prepared to face the perils of the most stormy of

all oceans, the Atlantic. The run across lad the usual fortunes of all

voyages, and within a week after their departure from _terra firma_ they

saw a whale, who saw them with rather more indifference, for he lay

lounging on the surface until the steamer had nearly run over him. At

last he dived down, and was seen no more. Next day, while there was so

little wind, that all their light canvass was set, they saw the

phenomenon of a ship under close-reefed topsails. This apparent timidity

was laughed at by some of the passengers, but the more experienced

guessed that the vessel had come out of a gale, of which they were

likely to have a share before long, a conjecture which was soon

verified.

On the morning of the 9th day, the captain, discovering that the

barometer had fallen between two and three inches during the night, due

preparations were of course made to meet the storm. It came on in the

afternoon, a hurricane. Then followed the usual havock of boats and

canvass, the surges making a clean breach over the deck; the passengers,

of course, gave themselves up for lost, and even the crew are said to

have been pretty nearly of the same opinion. However, the wind went down

at last, the sea grew comparatively smooth, and in twenty-four hours

more, they found themselves on the banks of Newfoundland. The writer

thinks that it was fortunate for them that the storm had not caught them

in the short swell of these shallow waters, as was probably the case of

the President, whose melancholy fate so long excited, and still excites

a feeling of surprise and sorrow in the public mind.

It was lost in this very storm. Next day came another of the sea

wonders. The cry of land started them all from the dinner table; but the

land happened to be an immense field of ice, which, with the

inequalities of its surface and the effect of refraction, presented some

appearance of a wooded country. On that night the cry of "Light a-head,"

while they were still several hundred miles from land, excited new

astonishment. "All the knowing ones" clearly distinguished a magnificent

revolver. The paddles were accordingly stopped to have a cast of the

lead, but in another half hour it was ascertained that the revolver was

a newly risen star.

At length land was really seen, and after a run of fourteen days, they

cast anchor in the harbour of Halifax. But as Boston was their true

destination they steered for it at once. Their progress had been rapid,

for they entered Boston Bay in thirty-six hours from Halifax, a distance

of 390 miles. Boston is more English looking than New York. The gently

undulating shores of the bay, highly cultivated, bring to memory the

green hills of England, and within the town the buildings and the

inhabitants have a peculiarly English air.

As speed was an object, the party immediately left the town by the

railway, passing through Lowell and reaching Nashua. This is one of the

rapid growths of America. In 1819 this place was a village of but

nineteen houses. It now contains 19,000 inhabitants, with churches,

hotels, prisons, and banks. Here the party went off in two detachments,

one in a sleigh with six horses, and the other rattled along in a

coach-and-four. At the next stage the author exchanged the coach for a

sleigh, a matter of no great importance to the world, but which may be

mentioned as a caution against rash changes. For the first few miles the

new conveyance went on merrily, and the passengers congratulated

themselves on their wisdom. We must now let him speak for himself.

"The sun, as the day advanced, kept thawing the snow, till at last, on

coming to a deep drift, we were repeatedly obliged to get out, sometimes

walking up to the knees, and sometimes helping to lift the vehicle out

of the snow. However, at length we fairly stuck fast, in spite of all

our hauling and pushing. The horses struggled and plunged to no purpose,

excepting that the leaders, after breaking part of their tackle,

galloped off over the hills and far away, leaving us to kick our heels

in the slush, till they were brought back after a chase of several

miles."

The road now passed through Vermont, the state of green mountains. The

country appeared striking; and Montpelier, where they breakfasted, seems

to be a very pretty place, looking more the residence of hereditary ease

and luxury, than the capital of a republic of thrifty graziers. It is,

in fact, an assemblage of villas; the wide streets run between rows of

trees, and the houses, each in its own little garden, are shaded by

verandas.

In that very pleasant little book, the "Miseries of Human Life," one of

those small calamities is, the being called at the wrong hour to go off

in the wrong coach from a Yorkshire inn. Time and the railroad have

changed all this in England, but in America we have the primitive misery

well described.

The author, after forty-two hours of hard jolting, goes to bed at one

o'clock to obtain a little repose, leaving orders to be called at five

in the morning. He is wrapt in the profoundest of all possible slumbers,

when a peal of blows is heard at his door. "In spite, however, of

laziness, and a cold morning to boot," he says, "I had completed the

operations of washing and dressing by candlelight, having even donned

hat and gloves, to join my companions, when the waiter entered my room

with a grin. 'I guess,' said the rascal, 'I have put my foot in it. Are

you the man that wanted to be called at two?' 'No,' was my reply.

'Then,' said he, 'I calculate I have fixed the wrong man, so you had

better go to bed again.' Having delivered himself of this friendly

advice, he went to awaken my neighbour, who had all this time been

quietly enjoying the sleep that properly belonged to me. Instead of

following the fellow's recommendation, I sat up for the rest of the

night." Whether the author possessed a watch we cannot tell, but if he

was master of that useful and not very rare article, he might have saved

himself his premature trouble, and escaped shaving at midnight.

On crossing into the Canadian territory, he encounters one of those

evidences of popular liberty which belong to rather the American than

the English side. In the village of St John's, some of the party went

a-head to the principal inn, and as it was late at night, and their

knocking produced no effect, they appealed to what they regarded as the

most accessible of the landlord's susceptibilities, his pocket, by

saying that they were fourteen, more coming, with a whole host of

drivers. This appeal was the most unlucky possible, for the landlord had

another sensibility, the fear of being tarred and feathered, if not

hanged. On the door being opened at last, the landlord was not to be

found; his brother wandered about, the very ghost of despair. The

establishment was searched upside and downside, inside and outside, in

vain; and they began to think themselves the cause of some domestic

tragedy; but it must have been a late perpetration, for on looking into

his bed, they found the lair warm.

However, after a short time, mine host returned with a face all smiles.

The mystery was then explained. The election had taken place during the

day, and the landlord, having taken the part of the candidate who

eventually succeeded, was threatened with vengeance by the losing party.

The arrival of the travellers convinced him that his hour was come, and

he had jumped out of bed and hidden himself in some inscrutable corner.

But a good supper reconciled every thing.

The author crossed the ice to Montreal, and had a showy view of the

metropolis of the Canadas. A curious observation is suggested by

Montreal, on the different characters of the English and French

population. In the days of Wolf and Amherst, it was all French; but

John Bull, with his spirit of activity and industry, has quietly become

master of all the trading situations of the city, while the French have

as quietly retreated, and spread themselves through the upper sections

of it, to a great degree cut off from its commercial portions.

From Montreal the travel began. The heavy canoes were sent forward some

days before, under the charge of some of the Company's officers, the

light canoes waited for the author, with Colonel Oldfield, chief

engineer in Canada, who was going up the country on a survey of the

navigation, and the Earls of Mulgrave and Caledon, who were going to the

Red River, buffalo-hunting.

All was now ready in form, and on the 4th of May the two canoes were

floating on the Lactrine canal. The crews, thirteen to one vessel, and

fourteen to the other, were partly Canadians, but principally Iroquois.

Those _voyageurs_, as they are called, had each been supplied with a

feather in his cap, in honour of the occasion, and evidently expected to

produce a _sensation_ on shore. But a north-wester blowing prevented the

hoisting of their flags, which mulcted the pageant of much of its

intended glory. These canoes are thirty-five feet in length, and five

feet wide in the centre; drawing about eighteen inches water, and

weighing between three and four hundred pounds; capitally fitted for a

navigation among rocks, rapids, and portages; but they seem most

uncomfortable in rough weather. The waves of the St Lawrence rolled like

a sea, the gale was biting, and the snow drifted heavily in the faces of

the party. In this luckless condition, we are not surprised at the

intelligence, that at St Anne's Rapids, notwithstanding the authority of

the poet, "they sang no evening hymn."

This style of travelling was not certainly much mingled with luxury.

Next morning, after "toiling for six hours," they breakfasted, "with the

wet ground for their table, and with rain in place of milk to cool their

tea." On this day, while running close under the falls of the Rideau,

they seem to have had a narrow escape from a _finale_ to their voyage;

their canoes being swept into the middle of the river, under an immense

fall, fifty feet in height.

They now learned the art of _bivouaching_, and after a day of toiling

through portages, reserving the severest of them, the Grand Calumet, for

the renewed vigour of the morning, they made ready for the forest night.

The description, brief as it is, is one among many which shows the

_artist_ eye.

"The tents were pitched in a small clump of pines, while round a blazing

fire the passengers were collected, amid a medley of boxes, barrels,

cloaks, and on the rock above the foaming rapids were lying the canoes;

the men flitting about the fires as if they were enjoying a holiday, and

watching a huge cauldron suspended above the fire. The whole with a

background of dense woods and a lake."

Yet, startling as this "wooing of nature" in her rough moods may seem to

the silk-and-velvet portion of the world, we doubt whether this wild

life, with its desperate toil and its ground sleep, may not be the true

charm of travel to saint, savage, or sage, when once fairly forced to

the experiment. The blazing fire, the bed of leaves, the gay supper,

made gayer still by incomparable appetite, and the sleep after all, in

which the whole outward man remains imbedded, without the movement of a

muscle and without a dream, until the morning awakes him up a new being,

are fully worth all the inventions of art, to make us enjoy rest

unearned by fatigue, and food without waiting for appetite. "The sleep

of the weary man is sweet," said the ancient and wise king who slept

among curtains of gold, and under roofs of cedar; the true way to taste

that sleep is to spend a day, dragging canoes up Indian portages, and

lie down with one's feet warmed by a pine blaze and one's back to the

shelter of a forest.

But, as the time will assuredly come when this "life in the woods" will

be no more, when huge inns will supersede the canopy of the skies, and

down beds will make the memory of birch twigs and heather blossoms pass

away, we give from authority the proceedings of an evening's rest, which

the next generation will study with somewhat of the feeling of reading

Tacitus De Moribus Germanorum.

As the sun approached his setting, every eye in the canoes, as they

pulled along, was speculating on some dry and tolerably open spot on the

shore. _That_ once found, all were on shore in an instant. Then the axe

was heard ringing among the trees, to prepare for the fires, and make

room for the tents. In ten minutes, the tents were pitched, the fires

blazing in front of each, and the supper preparing in all its

diversities. The beds were next made, consisting of an oil-cloth laid on

the ground, with blankets and a pillow; occasionally aided by

great-coats, _a discretion_. The crews, drawing the canoes on shore,

first made an inspection of their hurts during the day; and having done

this, the little vessels were turned into a shelter, and each man

wrapping himself in his blanket defied the weather and the world.

But this state of happiness was never destined to last long. About _one_

in the morning, the cry, of "_Leve_, _leve_," broke all slumbers. We

must acknowledge that the hour seems premature, and that the most

patient of travellers might have solicited a couple of hours more of

"tired Nature's sweet restorer." But the discipline of the bivouac was

Spartan. If the slumberer did not instantly start up, the tent was

pulled down about him, and he found himself half-smothered in canvass.

However, we must presume that this seldom happened, and, within half an

hour, every thing would be packed, the canoes laden, and the paddles

moving to some "merry old song." In this manner passed the day, six

hours of rest, to eighteen of labour, a tremendous disproportion, even

to the sturdy Englishman, or the active Irishman, but perfectly

congenial to the sinews and spirit of the gay _voyageur_.

A few touches more give the complete picture of the day. About eight, a

convenient site would be selected for breakfast. Three-quarters of an

hour being the whole time allotted for unpacking and packing, boiling

and frying, eating and drinking. "While the preliminaries were

arranging, the _hardier_ among us would wash and shave, each person

carrying soap and towel in his pocket, and finding a _mirror_ in the

same sandy or rocky basin which held the water. About two in the

afternoon, we put ashore for dinner, and as this meal needed no fire,

or, at least, got none, it was not allowed to occupy more than twenty

minutes, or half an hour."

We recommend the following considerations to the amateur boat clubs, and

others, who plume themselves on their naval achievements between Putney

and Vauxhall bridges. Let them take the work of a Canadian paddle-man to

heart, and lower their plumage accordingly.

"The quality of the work, even more than the quantity, requires

operatives of iron mould. In smooth water, the paddle is plied with

twice the rapidity of the oar, taxing both arms and lungs to the utmost

extent. Amid shallows, the canoe is literally dragged by the men, wading

to their knees or their loins, while each poor fellow, after replacing

his drier half in his seat, laughingly strikes the heavier of the wet

from his legs over the gunwale, before he gives them an inside berth. In

rapids, the towing line has to be hauled along over rocks and stumps,

through swamps and thickets, excepting that when the ground is utterly

impracticable, poles are substituted, and occasionally also the bushes

on the shore."

This however is "plain sailing," to the Portages, where the tracks are

of all imaginable kinds and degrees of badness, and the canoes and their

cargoes are never carried across in less than two or three trips; the

little vessels alone monopolizing, in the first turn, the more expert

half of their respective crews. Of the baggage, each man has to carry at

least two pieces, estimated at a hundred and eighty pounds weight, which

he suspends in slings placed across his forehead, so that he may have

his hands free, to clear his way among the branches and standing or

fallen trunks. Besides all this, the _voyageur_ performs the part of

bridge, or jetty, on the arrival of the canoe at its place of rest, the

gentlemen passengers being carried on shore on the backs of these

good-humoured and sinewy fellows.

For the benefit of the untravelled, we should say, that a Portage is the

fragment of land-passage between the foot and head of a rapid, when the

rush of the stream is too strong for the tow-rope.

At one of the halting-places on Lake Superior, a curious tale was told

of the Indian's belief in a Providence, of which it had been the scene.

Three or four years before, a party of Salteaux, much pressed for

hunger, were anxious to reach one of their fishing stations, an island

about twenty miles from the shore. The spring had unluckily reached that

point, when there was neither clear water, nor trustworthy ice. A

council was being held, to consider the hard alternatives of drowning

and starving, when an old man of influence thus spoke:

"You know, my friends, that the Great Spirit gave one of our squaws a

child yesterday; now, he cannot have sent it into the world to take it

away again directly. I should therefore recommend the carrying the child

with us, as the pledge of safety."

We wish that we could have to record a successful issue to this

anticipation. But the transit was too much for the metaphysics of the

old Indian. They went on the treacherous ice, it gave way, and

eight-and-twenty perished.

The Thunder Mountain on their route, struck them as "one of the most

appalling objects" which they had seen, being a bleak rock twelve

hundred feet high above the level of the lake, with a perpendicular face

of its full height. The Indians say, that any one who can scale it, and

"turn three times on the brink of its fearful wall, will live for ever."

We presume, by dying first.

But the shores of this mighty lake, or rather fresh-water sea, which

seemed destined to loneliness for ever, are now likely to hear the din

of population and blaze with furnaces and factories. Its southern coasts

are found to possess rich veins of copper and silver. Later inquiry has

discovered on the northern shore "inexhaustible treasures of gold,

silver, copper, and tin," and associations have been already formed to

work them. Sir George Simpson even speaks of the future probability of

their rivalling in point of wealth the Altai chain, and the Uralian

mountains.

From Fort William, at the head of Lake Superior, the little expedition

entered a river with a polysyllabic name, which leads farther on, to the

"Far West." The banks were beautiful. When this country shall be

peopled, it will be one of the resemblances of the primitive paradise.

It is all picturesque; the river finely diversified with rapids, and

with one cataract which, though less in volume than Niagara, throws that

far-famed fall into the background, in point of height and wildness of

scenery. But we must leave description to the author's pen. "The river,

during this day's march, passed through forests of elm, oak, birch, &c.,

being studded with isles not less fertile and lovely than its banks. And

many a spot reminded us of the rich and quiet scenery of England. The

paths of the numerous portages were spangled with roses, violets, and

many other wild flowers--while the currant, the gooseberry, the

raspberry, the plum, the cherry, and even the vine, were abundant. All

this bounty of nature was imbued, as it were, with life, by the cheerful

notes of a variety of birds, and by the restless flutter of butterflies

of the brightest hues." He then makes the natural and graceful

reflection--

"One cannot pass through this fair valley without feeling that it is

destined to become, sooner or later, the happy home of civilised men,

with their bleating flocks, and their lowing herds--with their schools

and their churches--with their full garners, and their social hearths.

At the time of our visit, the great obstacle in the way of so blessed a

consummation was the hopeless wilderness to the eastward, which seemed

to bar for ever the march of settlement and cultivation, but which will

soon be an open road to the far west with all its riches. That

wilderness, now that it is to yield up its long-hidden stores, bids fair

to remove the impediments which hitherto it has itself presented. The

mines of Lake Superior, besides establishing a continuity of route

between the East and the West, will find their nearest and cheapest

supply of agricultural produce in the valley of the Kaministaquoia."

One of the especial hazards of the forest now encountered them. Passing

down a narrow creek near _Lac le Pluie_, fire suddenly burst forth in

the woods near them. The flames crackling and clambering up each tree,

quickly rose above the forest; within a few minutes more the dry grass

on the very margin of the waters, was in "a running blaze, and before

they were clear of the danger, they were almost enveloped in clouds of

smoke and ashes. These conflagrations, often caused by a wanderer's

fire, or even by his pipe, desolate large tracts of country, leaving

nothing but black and bare trunks, one of the most dismal scenes on

which the eye can look. When once the fire gets into the thick turf of

the primeval wilderness, it sets every thing at defiance. It has been

known to smoulder for a whole winter under the deep snow."

Another Indian display quickly followed. After traversing the lake, they

were hailed by the warriors of the Salteaux, a band of about a hundred,

the fighting men of a tribe of five hundred. Their five chiefs presented

a congratulatory address on their safe arrival, requesting an audience,

which was appointed, at the rather undiplomatic hour of _four_ next

morning. But, while the Governor was slumbering, the Indians were

preparing means of persuasion more effective, in their conceptions, than

even the oratory on which they seem to pride themselves very

highly--"while they were napping, the enemy were pelting away at them

with their incantations."

In the centre of a conjuring tent--a structure of branches and bark,

forty feet in length by ten in width--they kindled a fire; round the

blaze stood the chiefs and "medicine men," while as many others as could

find room were squatted against the walls. Then, to enlighten and

convert the Governor, charms were muttered, rattles were shaken, and

offerings were committed to the flames. After all these operations the

silent spectators, at a given signal, started on their feet and marched

round the magic circle, singing, whooping, and drumming in horrible

discord. With occasional intervals, which were spent by the performers

in taking fresh air, the exhibition continued during the whole night, so

that when the appointed hour arrived they were still engaged in their

observances. At length the two parties met in the open square of the

fort. The Indians dressed in all their glory, a part of which consists

in smearing their faces entirely out of sight with colours--the

prevailing fashion being, forehead white, nose and cheeks red, mouth and

chin black.

The Governor and his party of course made their best effort to meet all

this magnificence. Lord Caledon and Lord Mulgrave exhibited in

regimentals; the rest put on their _dressing-gowns_, which, being of

showy patterns, were equally effective. Seated in the "hall of

conference," the pipes being sent round, hands shaken, and all due

ceremonial having been performed, the Indian orator commenced his

harangue in the style with which we have now become familiar. Beginning

with the creation, &c. &c., which Sir George cut short, and suddenly

dropping down into the practical complaint, "that we had stopped their

rum," though our predecessors had promised to furnish it "as long as the

waters flowed down the rapids." "Now," said he, in allusion to our empty

casks, "if I crack a nut, will water flow from it?"

The Governor replied, that the withdrawal of the rum was _not_ to save

expense but to benefit them. He then gave them his advice on temperance,

and promised them a small quantity of rum every autumn. He also promised

a present for their civility in bringing their packet of furs, for which

they should receive payment besides. Then followed a general and final

shaking of hands, and the Congress between the English and Chippaway

nations broke up to their mutual satisfaction.

The Red River settlement, of which we heard so often during the quarrels

between Lord Selkirk and the Company, will yet be a great colony; the

soil is very fertile (one of the most important elements of

colonisation,) its early tillage producing forty returns of wheat; and,

even after twenty years of tillage, without manure, fallow, or green

crop, yielding from fifteen to twenty-five bushels an acre. The wheat

is plump and heavy, and, besides, there are large quantities of other

grain, with beef, mutton, pork, butter, cheese, and wool in abundance.

This would be the true country for emigration from our impoverished

islands, and will, of course, be crowded when conveyances shall become

more manageable. A railroad across Canada must still be a rather Utopian

conception, but it might be well worth the expense of making by

government, even though it produced nothing for the next half-dozen

years, for the multitudes whom it would carry through the heart of this

superb country in the half-dozen years after, and for the wealth which

they would pour into England in every year to come.

The settlement, however, meets, in its turn, the common chances of an

American climate. In winter the cold is intense. The summer is short,

and the rivers sometimes overflow and drown the crops. Still what are

these things to the population, where food is plenty, the air healthy,

and the ground cheap, fertile and untaxed. In fact, the difficulties, in

such instances, are scarcely more than incitements to the ingenuity of

man, to provide resources against them. The season of snow is a time of

cheerfulness in every land of the north. In Denmark, Russia, and Canada,

when the rivers close up, business is laid by for the next six months;

and the time of dancing, driving, and feasting begins. Food is the great

requisite; when that is found, every thing follows.

In addition to agriculture, or in place of it, the settlers, more

particularly those of mixed origin, devote the summer, the autumn, and

sometimes the winter also, to the hunting of the buffalo, bringing home

vast quantities of pemmican, dried meat, grease, tongues, &c. for which

the Company and voyaging business affords the best market.

The party now proceeded, still with their faces turned to the west, and

marched for some days over an immense prairie, which seemed to them to

have been once the bottom of a huge lake. A rather striking circumstance

is, that nearly every height in this region has its romance of savage

life. We give one of murder, for the benefit of the modern school of

novelists.

Many summers ago, a party of Assinabaians fell on a party of Crees in

the neighbourhood of the Beatte a Carcajar, a conspicuous knoll in this

neighbourhood, and nearly destroyed them all. Among the assailants was

the former wife of one of the Crees, who had been carried off from him,

in an earlier foray, by her present lord and master. From whatever

motive of domestic memory, this Amazon rushed into the thickest of the

fight, for the evident purpose of killing the original husband. He,

however, escaped; and while the victors were scalping his unfortunate

companions, creeping stealthily along for a whole day under cover of the

woods, he laid down at night in a hollow at the top of the Knoll. But

his wife had never lost sight of him, and no sooner had he, in the

exhaustion of hunger and fatigue, sunk into a sound sleep, than she sent

an arrow into his brain. She then possessed herself of his scalp, and

exhibited it as her prize to the victors. The title of the slain savage

was the Wolverine, and the spot is still called the Wolverine's Knoll.

The Indians assert that the ghosts of the murderess and her victim are

often to be seen struggling on the height.

Human nature, left to itself, is a fierce and frightful thing; and the

stories of savage life are nearly all of the same calibre, and all

exhibit a dreadful love of revenge. About twenty years ago, a large

encampment of Black-feet and others, had been formed in those prairies

for the purpose of hunting. The warriors, however, growing tired of

their peaceful occupation, resolved to make an incursion into the lands

of the Assinabaians. They left behind them the old men with the women

and children. After a successful campaign, they turned their steps

homewards, loaded with scalps and other spoils, and on reaching the top

of the ridge that overlooked their camp, they gave note of their

approach by the usual shouts of victory. But no shout answered, and on

descending to their huts, they found the whole of the inmates

slaughtered. The Assinabaians had been there to take their revenge.

On beholding the dismal scene, the triumphant warriors cast away their

spoils, arms, and clothing, and then putting on robes of leather, and

smearing their heads with mud, they betook themselves to the hills for

three days and nights, to howl and moan, and cut their flesh. It is

observed, that this mode of expressing public grief, bears a striking

resemblance to the customs of the Jews. The track towards Fort Vancouver

exhibited a country, which may yet make a great figure in the American

world,--immense valleys sheltered by mountain ridges, and containing

beautiful lakes. In one instance, their tents were pitched in a valley

of about five hundred acres enclosed by mountains on three sides, and a

lake on the fourth. From the edge of the waters there arose a gentle

descent of six or eight hundred feet covered with vines, and composed of

the accumulated fragments of the heights above; and on the upper border

of this slope there stood perpendicular walls of granite of three or

four thousand feet high, while among those dizzy altitudes, the goats

and sheep bounded in playful security. This defile had been the scene of

an exploit. One of the Crees, whom they had met a few days before, had

been tracked into the valley along with his wife and family by five

warriors of a hostile tribe. On perceiving the odds against him, the man

gave himself up for lost, observing to the woman, that as they could die

but once, they had better die without resistance. The wife, however,

said, that "as they had but one life to lose, they had the more reason

to defend it," and, suiting the action to the word, the heroic wife

brought the foremost of the enemy down to the ground by a bullet, while

the husband disposed of two others by two arrows. The fourth warrior was

rushing on the woman with uplifted tomahawk, when he stumbled and fell.

She darted forward, and buried her knife in his heart. The sole

surviving assailant now turned and fled, discharging, however, a bullet

which wounded the man in the arm.

They had now reached that rocky range from which the eastern and western

rivers of those mighty provinces take their common departure. Here they

estimated the height of the pass to be seven or eight thousand feet

above sea-level, while the peaks seemed to be nearly half that height

above their heads.

Of course, the party often felt the torture of mosquitoes, but one

valley was so pre-eminently infested with those tormentors, that man and

beast alike preferred being nearly choked with smoke, in which they

plunged, for the sake of escaping their stings. But we advert to this

common plague of all forest travel, only for its legendary honours.

"The Canadians vented their curses against the OLD MAID, who had the

credit of having brought the scourge upon earth, by praying for

something to fill up the leisure of her single blessedness." And if, as

the author observes, "the tormentors would confine themselves to

nunneries and monasteries, the world might see something more of the

fitness of things in the matter."

At the close of August, the party reached Fort Vancouver, having crossed

the Continent, by a route of five thousand miles, in twelve weeks'

travelling.

They now made a visit to the Russian-American Company's Establishment of

New Archangel. This exhibited considerable signs of commerce. In the

harbour were five sailing vessels from 250 to 350 tons; besides a large

bark in the offing in tow of a steamer, which brought advices from St

Petersburgh down to the end of April. An officer came off conveying

Governor Etholine's compliments and welcome. The party landed, and were

received in the residence situated on the top of a rock. The Governor's

dwelling consisted of a suite of apartments communicating, according to

the Russian fashion, with each other, all the public, rooms being

handsomely decorated and richly furnished. It commanded a view of the

whole establishment, which was, in fact, a little village. About half

way down the rock, two batteries frowned respectively over the land and

the water. Behind the Bay arise stupendous piles of conical mountains

with summits of everlasting snow. To seaward, Mount Edgecumbe, also in

the form of a cone, rears its trunk-headed peak, still remembered as

the source of smoke and flame, lava and ashes, but now the repository of

the snows of an age. Next day, the Governor, in full uniform, came in

his gig to return the visit to Sir George on board his steamer. The

party were invited on shore, where they were introduced to Madame

Etholine, a pretty and lady-like woman, a native of Finland. They then

visited the schools, in which there were twenty boys and as many girls;

the boys were intended chiefly for the naval service, nor did religion

seem to be neglected any more than education. The Greek Church had its

bishop, fifteen priests, deacons, and followers, and the Lutherans had

their clergyman. The ecclesiastics were all maintained by the Imperial

Government. Such is Sitka, the principal depot of the Russian-American

Company. It has various subordinate establishments. The operations of

the Company are becoming more extensive, and at this period the returns

of the trade amounted to about 25,000 skins of beavers, otters, foxes,

&c.

Among the company at the Russian Governor's, was a half-breed native,

who had been the leader of an expedition equipped some years ago, for

the discovery of what would here be styled the North-East passage. The

Russians reached Point Barrow shortly after the expedition under Mr

Thomas Simpson had reached the same point from the opposite direction.

The climate seems to be sufficiently trying, and during the four days at

Sitka there was nearly one continued fall of rain. The weather was cold

and squally, snow had fallen, and the channels were traversed by

restless masses which had broken off from the glaciers. In short nothing

could exceed the dreariness of the coast.

This shore, of which so much has been said and written during the late

Oregon negociations, is described as the very scene for the steam-boat.

Here are the Straits of Juan de Fuca; and here Admiral Fonte penetrated

up the more northerly inlets. They are the very region made for the

steam-boat, as in the case of a sailing vessel their dangers and delays

would have been tripled and quadrupled. But steam has also a power

almost superstitious on the minds of the natives; besides acting on

their fears, it has in a great measure subdued their love of robbery and

violence. It has given the savage a new sense of the superiority of his

white brother.

A striking instance of this feeling is given. After the arrival of the

emigrants from Red River, their guide, an Indian, took a short trip in

the Beaver. When asked what he thought of her, "Don't ask me," was his

reply. "I cannot speak; my friends will think that I tell lies when I

let them know what I have seen. Indians are fools, and know nothing. I

can see that the iron machinery makes the ship go, but I cannot see what

makes the iron machinery itself go." This man, though intelligent, and

partly civilized, was nevertheless so full of doubt and wonder that he

would not leave the vessel till he had got a certificate to the effect

that he had been on board of a ship which needed neither sails nor

paddles,--any document in writing being regarded by the Indians as

unquestionable. Fort Vancouver--which will probably be the head of a

great colony, is about ninety miles from the sea, the Colombia in front

of it, being a mile in width--contains houses, stores, magazines, &c.

Outside the fort, the dwellings of the servants, &c. form a little

village. The people of the establishment vary in number, according to

the season of the year, from one hundred and thirty to more than two

hundred. Divine service is regularly performed every Sunday in English

to the Protestants. But at the time of this journal there was

unfortunately no English clergyman connected with the establishment.

Sir George himself now visited California, the region which the Mexican

war is bringing into prominent notice. The harbour of San Francisco is

magnificent, the first view of the shore presented a level sward of

about a mile in depth, backed by a ridge of grassy slopes, the whole

pastured by numerous herds of cattle and horses, which, without a keeper

or a fold, fattened whether their owners waked or slept.

The harbour displays a sheet of water of about thirty miles in length

by about twelve in breadth, sheltered from every wind by an amphitheatre

of green hills. But this sheet of water forms only a part in the inland

sea of San Francisco. Whaler's Harbour, at its own northern extremity,

communicates by a strait of about two miles in width with the bay of San

Pedro, which leads by means of a second strait into Fresh Water Bay, of

nearly the same form and magnitude, and which forms the receptacle, of

two great rivers, draining vast tracts of country to the south-east and

north-east, which are navigable for inland craft, so that the harbour,

besides its matchless qualities as a port of refuge on this surf-beaten

coast, is the outlet of an immense, fair, and fertile region.

But the beauties of nature are useless when they fall into the hands of

idlers and fools. Every thing in those fine countries seems to be

boasting and beggary. Every thing has been long sinking into ruin,

through mere indolence. The Californians once manufactured the fleeces

of their sheep into cloth. They are now too lazy to weave or spin, too

lazy even to clip and wash the raw material, and now the sheep have been

literally destroyed to make more room for the horned cattle.

They once made the dairy an object of attention, now neither butter nor

cheese is to be found in the province. They once produced in the

Missions eighty thousand bushels of wheat and maize,--they were lately

buying flour at Monterey at the rate of L6 a sack. Beef was once

plentiful,--they were now buying salted salmon for the sea-store for one

paltry vessel, which constituted the entire line-of-battle of the

Californian navy.

The author justly observes, that this wicked abuse of the soil and

consequent poverty of the people results wholly from "the objects of the

colonisation." Thus the emigrants from England to the northern colonies

looked to subsistence from the fruits of labour; ploughed, harrowed, and

grew rich, and civilized. On the other hand the colonists of "New

France" a name which comprehended the valleys of the St Lawrence and

Mississippi, dwindled and pined away, partly because the golden dreams

of the free trade carried them away from stationary pursuits, and partly

because the government considered them rather as soldiers than settlers.

In like manner Spanish America, with its _Serras_ of silver, holding out

to every adventurer the hope of earning his bread without the sweat of

his brow, became the paradise of idlers.

In California the herds of cattle, and the sale of their hides and

tallow, offer so easy a subsistence, that the population think of no

other, and in consequence are poor, degenerate, and dwindling. Their

whole education consists in bullock hunting. In this view, unjust and

violent as may be the aggressions of the American arms, it is difficult

to regret the transfer of the territory into any hands which will bring

these fine countries into the general use of mankind, root out a race

incapable of improvement, and fill the hills and valleys of this mighty

province with corn and man.

At present the produce of a bullock in hide, tallow, and horns, is about

five dollars, (the beef goes for nothing) of which the farmer's revenue

is averaged at a dollar and a half. This often makes up a large income.

General Vallego, who had about eight thousand head of cattle, must

receive from this source about ten thousand dollars a-year. The former

Missions, or Monkish revenues, must have been very large; that of San

Jose possessing thirty thousand head of cattle, Santa Clara nearly half

the number, and San Gabriel more than both together.

It must be acknowledged that the monks had made a handsome affair of

holiness in the good old times. Previously to the Mexican revolution

their "missions" amounted, in the upper province alone, to twenty-one,

every one of course with its endowment on a showy scale. Every monk had

an annual stipend of four hundred dollars. But this was mere

pocket-money; they had "donations and bequests" from the living and from

the dead, a most capacious source of opulence, and of an opulence

continually growing, constituting what was termed the pious fund of

California. Besides all these things, they had the cheap labour of

eighteen thousand converts. But the drones were to be suddenly smoked

out of their hives. Mexico declared itself a republic; and, as the

first act of a republic, in every part of the world, is to plunder every

body, the property of the monks went in the natural way. The lands and

beeves, the "donations and bequests were made a national property," in

1825. Still some show of moderation was exhibited, and the names and

some of the offices of the missions were preserved. But, in 1836, the

Californians took the whole affair into their own hands, threw off the

Central Government, and were "free, independent," and beggared. The

Missions were then "secularized" at their ease. The Mexican government

was furious for a while, and threatened the Californians with all the

thunders of its rage; but the vengeance ended in the simple condition,

that California should still acknowledge the Mexican supremacy, taking

her own way in all that had been done, was doing, and was to be done.

The travellers had now an opportunity of seeing the interior of a

Californian mansion, the house of the chief proprietor in this quarter,

General Vallego.

We must acknowledge that Sir George Simpson would have much improved his

volumes by striking out the whole of this description. It is evident

that he was received with civilities of every kind;--he was provided

with horses and attendants;--he was taken to see all the remarkable

features of the estate and the habits of its people; he was _feted_,

introduced to wife and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, sung

and danced for, and smiled on and talked with, as if he had been a

prince; and yet his whole account of this hospitality throws it into the

most repulsive light imaginable;--cold dinners, bad attendance, rude

furniture, and so forth, form the staple of his conceptions; and if his

book should ever reach General Vallego's hands, which it probably will,

through the zeal of American republication, we can easily imagine that

he will become cautious in his hospitality for the time to come. We, at

least, shall not extend the vexation of this Spanish gentleman by

quoting any part of this unfortunate _bevue_. We say this with regret.

But this style of repaying generous hospitality cannot be too distinctly

reproved, for the sake of all future travellers who may want, not merely

hospitality, but protection.

The next subject of description is Monterey, which has lately assumed a

peculiar interest, as one of the objects of the American invasion. The

Bay of Monterey forms a segment of a circle with a chord of about

eighteen miles. Monterey had always been the seat of government, though

it consisted of but a few buildings. But, since the revolution of 1836,

it has expanded into a population of about seven hundred souls. The town

occupies a plain, bounded by a lofty ridge. The dwellings are the

reverse of pompous, being all built of mud bricks. The houses are

remarkable for a paucity of windows, glass being inordinately dear; even

parchment almost unattainable, and the artists in window-making charging

three dollars a-day!

But, to the Californians, perhaps this privation of light is not an

evil. While it makes the rooms cooler, it cannot, by any possibility,

interfere with the occupations of those who do nothing. The bed affords

a curious contrast to the rest of the furniture. While the apartments

exhibit a deal-table, badly made chairs, probably a Dutch clock, and an

old looking-glass, the bed "challenges admiration by snowy white sheets,

fringed with lace, a pile of soft pillows, covered with the finest linen

or the richest satin, and a well-arranged drapery of costly and tasteful

curtains." Still this bed is "but a whited sepulchre," with a wool

mattress--"the impenetrable stronghold of millions of----." We leave the

rest to the imagination.

The history of "Political Causes and Effects" would make a curious

volume; and it would admirably display, at once the profound agency of

Providence, and the shortsightedness of human policy. It would scarcely

be supposed that the devastation of Europe, and the sack of Berlin,

Vienna, and Moscow, found their origin in a Spanish treaty, on the banks

of the Mississippi, half a century before.

The power of France in the interior of America, which had extended from

Canada to Louisiana, and which formed a line of posts for its boundary

along this immense internal _frontier_, kept the British Colonies in a

state of constant alarm; and, by consequence, in a state of continual

dependence on England. But the English possession of Canada, in 1763,

and the cession of Louisiana to Spain at the same period, as they

lessened the alarms, loosened the allegiance of the British colonies.

The next steps were more obvious. The war of the United States, in which

France was an auxiliary, inflamed the French population with the hope of

breaking down the strength of England and the aristocracy of France. But

the expense of equipping the French allied force fell heavy on an

exchequer already burthened by the showy extravagance of the Regent

Orleans, and by the gross profligacies of Louis XV. To relieve the

exchequer, the States General were summoned; and from that _moment_

began the Revolution. The European war was the result of a republican

government, and the conquest of the Continent the result of placing

Napoleon on the throne of the empire. What further results may be still

preparing are beyond our knowledge; but it can scarcely be conceived

that the chain is yet finally broken.

But before we take leave of California, we must do it the justice to

speak of San Barbara, which, as the author _rather_ emphatically

expresses it, is to Monterey "what the parlour is to the kitchen."

The bay is an unfavourable one, being exposed to the "worst winds of the

worst season." But the town having been selected as the favourite

retreat of the more respectable functionaries of the province, Santa

Barbara exhibits the charms of aristocratic manners. The houses,

externally, are superior to any others on the coast, and, internally,

exhibit taste in their furniture and ornament. The ladies excite the

author's pen into absolute rapture; their sparkling eyes and glossy

hair, are, in themselves, sufficient to negative the idea of tameness or

insipidity, while their sylph-like figures exhibit fresh graces at every

step. This is supported by the more important qualities, of "being by

far the more industrious half of the community, and performing their

household duties with cheerfulness and pride."

The men are a handsome race, and the greatest dandies imaginable,

completely modelled on the Andalusian Majo, and displaying the finest

linen, the most embroidered pantaloons, and the most glittering jackets

in the western world. Of course, it cannot be expected of any Spaniards

that they should do much, and beaux so fine cannot be expected to do any

thing. Accordingly, his day is spent in riding from house to house, on a

horse as fine as himself, a living machine of trappings, and the nights

in dancing, billiard-playing, and flirting.

In all countries where serious things are habitually turned into

trifles, trifles become serious things. "The balls, in fact, seem more

like a matter of business than any thing else that is done in

California. For whole days beforehand, sweetmeats are laboriously

prepared in the greatest variety, and from beginning to end of the

festivities, which have been known to last several successive nights, so

as to make the performers, after wearing out their pumps, trip it in

sea-boots, both men and women displaying as much gravity as if attending

the funeral of their friends."

A still more humanising portion of their tastes is their passion for

music. The guitar is heard in every house. Father, mother, and child are

all playing and singing; and, to the praise of their taste be it spoken,

playing nothing but the fandangoes, seguidillas, and ballads of Spain;

the truest, purest, and most touching of all music; well worth all the

_hammered_ harmonies of the German school, and all the long-winded and

laborious bravuras of the Italian. The Spanish music is the most

refined, and yet the most natural, in the world.

We are glad to see this experienced judge of men and things speaking of

the Californians as "a happy people possessing the means of physical

pleasure to the full," even though he qualifies the opinion by their

"knowing no higher kind of enjoyment."

It is true, that the Englishman, who knows what _intellectual_ enjoyment

is, will not abandon that highest, though most toilsome, of all

gratifications, for inferior indulgences; but it would be a fortunate

hour for the Englishman when he could get rid of some portion of the

toil that wears away his life, in exchange for the lighthearted

pleasures and simple occupations of foreign existence. Nor is there any

man who less prefers the dogged round of his cheerless exertions, or who

is more genuinely susceptible of essential enjoyment. We even think that

the cultivated Englishman has a finer relish for enjoyment than the man

of any other country. The caperings of the Frenchman, or the grimaces of

the Italian, have but little connexion with the mind. All foreigners

seem wretched when they have no physical excitement. There is not a more

miserable object on earth, than a Frenchman wandering through the

streets of London on a Sunday, when he can neither see the print shops

in the day, nor go to the play at night. The German is heart-broken for

the same reason, and shrouds himself and his sorrow in double clouds of

smoke. The Italian would worship Diana of Ephesus, or the Great African

Snake, if its pageantry, or puppet-show, would enable him to get through

the day of closed shops and _no_ opera! Yet, contemptible as this

restless hunting after nothings is, it would be fortunate for us if we

could qualify the severity and constancy of our national toil by some

mixture of the lighter pursuits of the Continent.

The fertility of California is boundless; it produces every thing that

human appetite can desire. In the Mission-garden of San Gabriel were

produced grapes, oranges, lemons, olives, figs, bananas, plums, peaches,

apples, pears, pomegranates, raspberries, strawberries, &c. &c., while

in the adjoining Mission were found in addition, tobacco, the plantain,

the cocoa-nut, the indigo plant, and the sugar cane.

But Nature is nothing, in this country, without a miracle; and the

history of every village probably furnishes its legend. The Missions,

however, may be presumed to be the peculiar favourites of Heaven.

"When Padre Pedro Cambon, and Padre Somera, were selecting a site for

the Mission, escorted by ten soldiers, a multitude of Indians, armed,

presented themselves, and setting up horrid yells, seemed determined to

oppose its establishment. The fathers, fearing that war would ensue,

took out a piece of cloth with the image of our Lady upon it, and held

it up in view of the barbarians. This was no sooner done, than the whole

were quiet, being subdued by the sight of this most precious image; and

throwing on the ground their bows and arrows, their two captains came

running to lay the beads, which they had round their necks, at the feet

of the Sovereign Queen, in proof of their tender regard." We recommend

the trial of this holy Cloth on General Taylor.

But there is no limit to the richness of this region. The valley of the

Zulares, in the neighbourhood, would support millions of people. Its

lakes and rivers all abound in fish, its forests have all kinds of

trees, some of them growing to a size which, but for the force of

testimony, would be incredible. One of these is stated by Humboldt as of

one hundred and eighteen feet in girth. "But this is a walking-stick

compared with another at Bodega, as described to Sir George by Governor

Etholine, of Sitka." It is thirty-six Russian fathoms (seven feet each)

in span, and seventy-five in height; so that, if tapered into a perfect

cone, it would contain nearly twenty-two thousand tons of bark and

timber. In addition, the valley contains immense herds of wild horses,

in troops of several thousands each. What a country will this be, when

it shall fall into the hands of an intelligent people!

The last of the five posts, San Diego, is, next to San Francisco, the

best harbour in the province. Thus, Upper California contains, at its

opposite extremities, two of the best harbours on the Pacific Ocean;

each of them being enhanced in value by the distance of any others

worthy of the name, San Francisco being nearly one thousand miles from

Port Discovery in the north, and San Diego six hundred miles from the

Bay of Magdalena in the south.

That in the hands of any vigorous possessors this country would form a

most powerful kingdom, is beyond all question; and Sir George Simpson

evidently thinks that it might easily be acquired, and with a

legitimate claim too, by England. But the still higher question is the

policy of a perpetual increase of territory. England already has in

America a larger extent of territory than she can people for five

hundred years to come. But the possession of California, and perhaps of

the whole extent of the Mexican provinces, is on the eve of decision;

the American invasion has found no resistance that can deserve the name.

The Mexicans fly in every quarter, and a few discharges of cannon put

them to flight by thousands. At this moment the whole Mexican Republic,

equal in size to half a dozen European States, appears to be crumbling

into fragments. The rambling expeditions of the Americans are ravaging

it in all directions with impunity, and armies which might have been

long since annihilated by a mere guerilla war, have been suffered to

march from city to city, with scarcely more resistance than a

cattle-stealing skirmish. By the last intelligence, San Juan d' Ulloa

has fallen, and Vera Cruz has capitulated after a siege of only three

days and a half. The castle is the strongest fortification in the

Western World--and, as Napoleon said of Malta, "It is lucky that it had

somebody inside to open the gates for us:" the garrison of this fortress

seems to have been placed there merely for the purpose of surrendering

it. But, whatever may be the fate of men who had such a fortress to

defend, and yet whose defence actually cost the assailants but

_seventeen_ killed! there can be but one feeling of commiseration for

the unhappy inhabitants of Vera Cruz, on whom was rained, day and night,

a shower of shot and shell amounting to more than seven thousand of

those tremendous missiles. It is computed that the slaughter, and that

slaughter chiefly of women and children, amounts to thousands. These are

terrible things, even where they may be supposed the _necessities_ of

war. But here we can discover no necessity--Vera Cruz was _no_

fortification, it was nearly an open town. We recollect no similar

instance of a bombardment. In Europe, it has long been a rule of

military morals, that no open city shall ever be bombarded. We believe

it to be the boast of the first living soldier in the world--and we

could have no more honourable one--that he never suffered a city to be

bombarded; from the obvious fact, that the chief victims were the

helpless inhabitants, while the soldiery are sheltered by the casemates

and bomb-proofs.

At all events, we must regard the contest as decided. The Government has

exhibited nothing more than a sullen resolution; and the people little

more than the apathy of their own cattle; the troops have exhibited no

evidence of discipline, and the only resource of the Finance has been in

the wild projects of an empty Exchequer. Whether the United States will

be the more prosperous for this conquest, is a question of time alone.

Whether the facility of the conquest may not make the multitude frantic

for general aggression,--whether the military men of the States may not

obtain a popularity and assume a power which has been hitherto confined

to civil life,--whether the attractions of military career may not turn

the rising generation from the pursuits of trade and tillage, to the

idle, or the ferocious life of the American campaigner,--and whether the

pressure of public debt, the necessity for maintaining their half-savage

conquests by an army, and the passion for territorial aggrandisement,

may not urge them to a colonial war with England,--are only parts of the

great problem which the next five-and-twenty years will compel the

American Republic to solve.

At the same time, we cannot avoid looking upon the invasion of Mexico as

a portion of that extraordinary and mysterious agency which is now

shaking all the great stagnant districts of the world; which has already

awaked Turkey in Europe and in Asia Minor; which has brought Egypt into

civilised action; which has broken down the barbarism of the Algerines,

and planted the French standard in place of the furies and profligacies

of African Mahometanism. Deeply deprecating the guilt of those

aggressions, and condemning the crimes by which they have been

sustained, we cannot but regard changes so unexpected, so powerful, and

so simultaneous, as the operation of a higher power than man's, with

objects altogether superior to the shortsightedness of man, and amply

bearing the character of working good out of evil, which belongs to the

history of Divine Providence in all the ages of the world.

There is one peculiarity in these volumes which we cannot sufficiently

applaud, and that is, the thoroughly English spirit in which they are

written. Without weak partiality, for the reasons are every where

assigned; without narrow prejudice, for the facts are in all instances

stated; and without derogating from the merits of other nations, the

work is calculated to give a just conception of the value of England to

the world.

On his return from the Sandwich Isles--an interesting portion of his

travels, to which we have not now time to advert in detail--and

preparing to start from the Russian post of New Archangel by a five

months' journey through the Russian empire, he gives a glance at what he

has done.

"I have," says he, "threaded my way round nearly half the globe,

traversing about 220 degrees of longitude, and upwards of 100 of

latitude, barely one fourth of this by the ocean. Notwithstanding all

this, I have uniformly felt more at home, with the exception of my first

sojourn at Sitka, than I should have felt in Calais. I have every where

seen our race, under a great variety of circumstances, either actually

or virtually invested with the attributes of sovereignty."

After a few words on the vigour of the English blood, as exhibited in

the commerce, intelligence, and activity of the United States, he

returns to the immediate possessions and prowess of England. "I have

seen the English posts which stud the wilderness from the Canadian lakes

to the Pacific Ocean. I have seen English adventurers with that innate

power which makes every individual, whether Briton or American, a real

representative of his country, monopolising the trade, and influencing

the destinies of California. And lastly, I have seen the English

merchants of a barbarian Archipelago, which promises, under their

guidance, to become the centre of the traffic of the east and the west,

of the new world and the old. In saying all this, I have seen less than

half the grandeur of the English race. How insignificant in comparison

are all the other nations of the earth, one nation alone excepted.

Russia and Great Britain literally gird the globe where either continent

has the greatest breadth, a fact which, taken in connexion with their

early annals, can scarcely fail to be regarded as the work of a special

Providence. After the fall of the Roman empire, a scanty and obscure

people suddenly burst on the west and east, as the dominant race of the

times; one swarm of the Normans making its way to England, while another

was establishing its supremacy over the Sclavonians of the Borysthenes,

the two being to meet in opposite directions at the end of a thousand

years."

He regards the gigantic power of Russia as in an unconscious

co-partnership with England in the grand cause of commerce and

civilisation. He also makes the curious and true remark that,

notwithstanding the astonishing successes of the Normans in Europe, they

were never numerous enough to establish their language in any of the

conquered countries. Their unparalleled successes, therefore, seem to

express the idea that those feeble bands of warriors were strengthened

every where to accomplish the purposes of Providence.

We now come to the overland journey to Siberia. On the 23d of July, they

reached the port of Ochotsk, where, however, they were met by masses of

floating ice. Here Sir George had the first intelligence from England,

which brought to his English heart the glad tidings of the birth of a

Prince of Wales. They found this settlement a collection of huts on a

shingly beach. The population is about 800 souls. A more dreary scene

can scarcely be conceived than the surrounding country. Not a tree, and

even scarcely a green blade is to be seen within miles of the town. The

climate is on a par with the soil. The summer consists of three months

of damp and chilly weather, during great part of which the snow still

covers the hills, and the ice chokes the harbour, and this is succeeded

by nine months of dreary winter. But when men find fault with such a

climate as this, the fact is, that the fault is their own. Those

climates were never intended for the residence of man; they were

intended for the white bear, the seal, the whale, and the fur-bearing

animals. To those inhabitants, they are perfectly adapted. If the rage

of conquest, or the eagerness for gain, fixes human beings in the very

empire of winter, they are intruders, and must suffer for their

unsuitable choice of a locale.

The principal food of the inhabitants is fish. On fish they feed

themselves; their dogs--which are equivalent to their carriage

horses--their cattle, and their poultry, are also chiefly fed on fish.

All other provisions are ruinously dear. Flour costs twenty-eight rubles

the pood,--(a ruble is worth about a franc, the pood is thirty-six

English pounds.) Beef is so dear as to be regarded as a treat, and wines

and groceries have to pay a land carriage of seven thousand miles.

Here, too, the people drink tea in the style in which it was introduced

in more primitive days into Europe. It is of the kind known as brick

tea, being made up in cakes, and is consumed in great quantities by the

lower orders in Siberia, being made into a thick soup, with the addition

of butter and salt.

On the 27th of the month, they began their journey across Siberia. After

leaving the shore, and boating the river Ochota, to an encampment where

they were to meet their horses, hired at the rate of forty-five rubles a

horse, on an agreement to be conveyed to Yakutsh in eighteen days, they

struck into the country, which exhibited forests of pine, their progress

being about four or five miles an hour. The Yakuti appear to be very

industrious; young and old, male and female, being always occupied in

some useful employment. When not engaged in travelling or farming, men

and boys make saddles, harness, &c.; while the women and girls keep

house, dress skins, prepare clothing, and attend to the dairy. They are

also remarkably kind to strangers, for milk and cream, the best things

they had to give, were freely offered in every village. This was the

10th of July, yet the snow was still partially lying on the ground. From

day to day they met caravans of horses; and one day they were startled

by the shouts of a party at the head of them. Their next sight was a

herd of cattle running wildly in all directions, and the cause was seen

in a huge she-bear and her cub moving off at a round trot. On this

route, the bears are both fierce and numerous. The country had now

become more fertile; there was no want of flowering plants, and the

forests were enlivened by the warbling of birds, which, contrasted as it

was with the deathlike silence of the American woods, was peculiarly

grateful to the ear. In the course of the day, the vexatious incident

occurred of meeting the courier, with the letters from England, which

had been looked for so anxiously on the arrival of the travellers in

Siberia; but the bags of course could not be opened on the road.

The presence of the Cossack, who attended the party, was of great

importance in quickening the movements of the natives; but they seemed

kind and good-natured, full of civility to the strangers, and not

without some degree of education. The Yakuti have a singular mode of

estimating distances. In Germany, a common measure of distance is the

time that it takes to smoke a pipe. In this part of Siberia, they take

as their unit the time necessary for boiling a kettle of a particular

sort of food. They tell you, that such and such a place is so many

kettles off, or half a kettle, or, as the case may be, only part of a

kettle.

At last they arrive at the Lena. This is described as one of the

grandest rivers in the world. At a distance of thirteen hundred versts

from the sea, (three versts are equal to two miles,) it is from five to

six miles wide. Its entire length is not less than four thousand versts.

The word Lena implies lazy--a name justified by the circuitous flowing

of its stream. At Yakutsk, the seat of the Governor, they were received

with great civility in this capital of the province, latitude sixty-two

north, and longitude one hundred and thirty east. The extreme

temperature of summer and winter is almost beyond belief, the

thermometer having, risen in the shade to 106 deg. of Fahrenheit, and in

winter having fallen to 83 deg. below zero--making a difference of 189

deg. In this district are the enormous deposits of mammoth bones. Spring

after spring, the alluvial banks of the lakes and rivers crumbling under

the thaw have given up their dead; and the islands opposite to the mouth

of the Yana, and, as there was reason for believing, even the bed of the

ocean itself, teems with those mysterious memorials of antiquity. The

question is, how do those bones come there? Sir George, after giving the

opinions of some of the professors of geology, conceives the most

natural account of the phenomenon to be, that those animals or their

bones were swept from the great Tartarian pasturages of Cobi, by the

waters of the Deluge, towards the ocean. We must acknowledge that this

has long been our own opinion. It must be remembered that the Scriptural

account states the rising of the Deluge to have been gradual. The rain

fell forty days and nights. All living things would of course make their

way to the heights to escape the rising inundation of the valleys. The

cattle thus grouped together in immense herds, (the buffalos in the

prairies at the present day sometimes exceed five thousand in one

pasturage,) thus gathered into one mass, would be finally submerged, and

swept away in whatever irresistible current rushed over the spot on

which they stood. The frost of the region, which penetrates the earth to

the depth apparently of some hundred feet, would thenceforth preserve

them from decay. The tusks form an article of considerable trade, the

ivory selling from a shilling to one and ninepence a pound, according to

the perfection of the tusks.

One of the travellers' especial wishes was, to have visited the town of

Kiachta, the place of commerce between the Russians and the Chinese. But

a note from the Governor mentioned that the Chinese had suddenly stopped

all communication. But a few words may be given to a commerce so

peculiar. By the treaty of Nertshinsk, a reciprocal liberty of traffic

was stipulated; and accordingly caravans on the part of the Russian

government, and individual traders, used to visit Pekin. But the

Muscovites exhibited so much of the native habits in "drinking and

roystering," that, after exhausting the patience of the Celestials

during three-and-thirty years, they were wholly excluded. But a

cessation of five years having taken place, the Russians in 1728

obtained a treaty, by which individuals were permitted to trade on the

frontier; and Kiachta was built. But public caravans were permitted to

go on to Pekin. At length, in 1762, Catherine fixed the grand emporium

at Kiachta.

This town, standing on a beach of the same name, is within about half a

furlong of the Chinese village of Maimatschin, (about the fiftieth

parallel of latitude,) being one thousand miles from Pekin, and four

thousand from Moscow. Such are the enormous distances through which the

eagerness for money-making drives the children of men.

The materials of the Russian traffic are furs, woollens, cottons, linen,

&c., with articles in tin, copper, iron, &c.--the whole amounting to

about nineteen millions of rubles. The Chinese products are tea, silks,

sugar-candy, &c.--nominally to the amount of seven millions of rubles,

but probably rising to thrice the value. The chief time of the market is

the winter. To the chief Russian merchants this is a species of

monopoly, and a most thriving one, some of them being _millionnaires_,

and living in the most sumptuous manner, the "merchant princes" of the

wilderness!

We had some curiosity to know the condition of the exiles to Siberia

from this intelligent eye-witness. But he gives little more than a

glance to a subject on which the public mind of England is at present so

much engaged. In Russia corporal punishment is much in use; but

criminals are seldom put to death. They are marched off to Siberia for

every kind of offence, from the highest political crime to petty

larceny. The most heinous offenders are sent to the mines; those guilty

of minor delinquencies are settled in villages, or on farms; and

those guilty of having opinions different from those of the

government--statesmen, authors, and soldiers--are generally suffered to

establish themselves in little knots, where they spread refinement

through the country. The consequence is, that "all grades of society are

decidedly more intelligent than the corresponding grades in any other

part of the empire, and perhaps more so than in most parts of Europe."

Many of the exiles are now men of large income.--"The dwelling in which

we breakfasted to-day," says the traveller, "was that of a person who

had been sent to Siberia _against his will_. Finding that there was but

one way of bettering his condition, he worked hard, and behaved well. He

had now a comfortably furnished house and a well-cultivated farm, while

a stout wife, and plenty of servants, bustled about the premises. His

son had just arrived from St Petersburg, to visit his exiled father, and

had the pleasure of seeing him amid all the comforts of life, reaping an

abundant harvest, and with _one hundred and forty persons_ in his pay!"

He adds, "In fact, for the _reforming_ of the criminal, in addition to

the punishment of the crime, Siberia is undoubtedly the best

_penitentiary_ in the world. When not bad enough for the mines, each

exile is provided with an allotment of ground, a house, a horse, two

cows, agricultural implements, and, for the first year, with provisions.

For three years he pays no taxes whatever, and for the next ten, only

half the full amount. To bring fear as well as hope to operate in his

favour, he clearly understands, that his very first slip will send him

from his home and family, to toil in the mines. Thus does the government

bestow an almost paternal care on the less atrocious criminals."

Yet with this knowledge before the British Government,--for we must

presume that they had not overlooked the condition of the Russian

exiles; and with the still more impressive knowledge of the growth of

our Australian colonies, and the improvement of the convicts; the

new-fangled and most costly plan is now to be adopted of reforming our

criminals by keeping them at home! Thus we are to save the national

expenditure by building huge penitentiaries, which will cost millions of

money, and to secure society from depredation, by annually pouring out

from those prisons, as the time of their sentences expires, the whole

crowd of villany to live on villany once more;--making the very streets

a place of danger, and filling the country with hungry crime.

The only argument on the opposite side is, that the free settlers are

offended by finding themselves in a population of convicts. But to this

the obvious answer is, that the colonisation of Australia was originally

intended as a school of reform--that the convicts have been to a great

extent reformed, which they never would have been at home--that the

convicts were in the colony first, and that the settlers going there,

with their eyes open, have no reason to complain.

We then have a Notice on another subject, which is at present engrossing

the speculations of all Europe, namely, the gold-country on the

Yenissei. Krasnoyayk, the capital, stands in a plain in the centre of

the district, where the mania of gold-washing broke out about fifteen

years ago. Some individuals have been singularly lucky in their search.

One person, after having laboured in vain for three years, and expending

a million and a half of rubles, suddenly, in this very year, had hit

upon a depot which gave him a hundred and fifty poods of gold--worth

thirty-five thousand rubles each, or five millions and a half of rubles.

Gold here measures every thing: a lady's charms are by weight, "a pood

is a good girl, and two or three poods are twice or thrice as good as a

wife." _This_ province alone has, in this year, yielded five hundred

poods of gold.

Ekaterineburg is the centre of the mining district of the Uralian

mountains. The population amounts to about fourteen thousand, who are

all connected with the mines. The town has an iron foundery, a mint for

copper and silver coin, and various establishments for cutting marble,

porphyry, and polishing precious stones. The neighbouring mountains

appear to be nature's richest repository of minerals, yielding, in great

abundance, diamonds, amethysts, topazes, &c.; gold, silver, iron, and

platina. These inexhaustible treasures chiefly belong to Count Demidoff

and M. Yakovleff. The Count is said to receive half a million sterling

a-year from this princely property.

Hurrying now towards England, with the anxiety which every one feels to

reach home as the end of a long journey seems to be nigh, the traveller

passed through Kazan, second in national honour to Moscow, but found it

in ashes from a late fire. He then hurried on to Nishney-Novgorod, the

place of the greatest fair in the world, where the traffic brings

traders from the ends of the earth, and where the trade amounts to

nineteen millions sterling a-year. He then traversed the property of

General Sheremetieff, an estate of _two days' journey_, with a hundred

thousand serfs--a comfortable race when under a good master, each head

of a family having a farm, and paying its rent, part in produce and part

in work. The people appear to be a gay race--singing every where;

singing on the roads, singing at work, and singing at cutting up their

cabbages for the national luxury of _saurkraut_.

At length was seen looming in the west, with all its steeples and domes,

the queen of the wilderness, Moscow the Magnificent--the most

frequently-burned of all cities, and, as Sir George observes, the most

_retaliatory_ on the burners--it having been burned to embers _four_

times, and each time having seen the incendiary nation ruined. It must

be admitted, however, that the revenge, however sure, was slow, for it

seldom occurred in less than a couple of centuries!--Napoleon's fate

being the only instance of promptitude on this point.

From Moscow to St Petersburg, a macadamised road of seven hundred versts

conveyed the traveller to the northern city of the Czar, where, on the

8th of October, he terminated a journey from Ochotsk, of about seven

thousand miles. In eight days from St Petersburg he reached Hamburg, and

in five days more arrived in London, having rounded the globe in a

period of nineteen months and twenty-six days!

We have given an abstract of this work with the more satisfaction, that

it not merely supplies a certain knowledge of vast regions of which the

European world knows little; but that it gives a favourable view of the

condition, the habits, and the temper, of the multitudes of our fellow

men, spread over those immense spaces of the globe. Personally, of

course, a man of the official rank and individual intelligence of the

writer, might expect the hospitality of the Russian employes. But he

seems to have been met with general kindness--to have experienced no

injury, no obstacle, and no extortion; and, on the whole, having

exhibited the good sense which disregards the _inevitable_ annoyances of

all journeys in distant countries, to have escaped all the severer ones

which an ill-tempered traveller naturally brings upon himself. But the

feature of his volumes on which we place the still higher value, is the

honesty of his English spirit. He knows the value of his country; he

does justice to her principles; he gives the true view of her power; he

vindicates her intentions; and without depreciating the merits of

foreign nations, he pays a manly tribute to the truth, by doing deserved

honour to his own.