CHAPTER I.--THE STUDIO.

BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCXLI. MARCH, 1844. VOL. LV.

CONTENTS.

ETHIOPIA,

A WORD OR TWO OF THE OPERA-TIVE CLASSES. BY LORGNON,

THE PIRATES OF SEGNA. A TALE OF VENICE AND THE ADRIATIC. PART I.,

COLONEL DAVIDSON'S TRAVELS IN INDIA,

BELFRONT CASTLE. A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW,

DUMAS IN HIS CURRICLE,

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART IX.,

THE OLYMPIC JUPITER,

A ROMAN IDYL,

GOETHE,

HYMN OF A HERMIT,

THE LUCKLESS LOVER,

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION--THE CORN LAWS,

* * * * *

ETHIOPIA[1]

[1] _The Highlands of Ethiopa._ by Major W. CORNWALLIS HARRIS, H.E.

I.C. Engineers. 3 vols.

From the various circumstances of our day, the impression is powerfully

made upon intelligent men in Europe, that some extraordinary change is

about to take place in the general condition of mankind. A new ardour of

human intercourse seems to be spreading through all nations. Europe has

laid aside her perpetual wars, and seems to be assuming a _habit_ of peace.

Even France, hitherto the most belligerent of European nations, is

evidently abandoning the passion for conqest, and begining to exert her

fine powers in the cultivation of commerce. All the nations of Europe are

either following her example, or sending out colonies of greater or less

magnitude, to fill the wild portions of the world. Regions hitherto

utterly neglected, and even scarcely known, are becoming objects of

enlightened regard; and mankind, in every quarter, is approaching, with

greater or less speed, to that combined interest and mutual intercourse,

which are the first steps to the true possession of the globe.

But, we say it with the gratification of Englishmen, proud of their

country's fame, and still prouder of its principles--that the lead in this

noblest of all human victories, has been clearly taken by England. It is

she who pre-eminently stimulates the voyage, and plants the colony, and

establishes the commerce, and civilizes the people. And all this has been

done in a manner so little due to popular caprice or national ambition, to

the mere will of a sovereign, or the popular thirst of possession, that it

invests the whole process with a sense of unequaled security. Resembling

the work of nature in the simplicity of its growth, it will probably also

resemble the work of nature in the permanence of its existence. It is not

an exotic, fixed in an unsuitable soil by capricions planting; but a seed

self-sown, nurtured by the common air and dews, assimilated to the climate,

and strikig its roots deep in the ground which it has thus, by its own

instincts, chosen. The necessities of British commerce, the urgency of

English protection, and the overflow of British population, have been the

great acting causes of our national efforts; and as those are causes which

regulate themselves, their results are as regular and unshaken, as they

are natural and extensive. But England has also had a higher motive. She

has unquestionably mingled a spirit of benevolence largely with her

general exertions. She has laboured to communicate freedom, law, a feeling

of property, and a consciousness of the moral debt due by man to the Great

Disposer of all, wherever she has had the power in her hands. No people

have ever been the worse for her, and all have been the better, in

proportion to their following her example. Wherever she goes, oppression

decays, the safety of person and property begins to be felt, the sword is

sheathed, the pen and the ploughshare commence alike to reclaim the mental

and the physical soil, and civilization comes, like the dawn, however

slowly advancing, to prepare the heart of the barbarian for the burst of

light, in the rising of Christianity upon his eyes.

The formation of a new route between India and Europe by the Red Sea--a

route, though well known to the ancient world, yet wholly incapable of

adoption by any but an Arab horseman, from the perpetual tumults of the

country--compelled England to look for a resting-place and depot for her

steam-ships at the mouth of the Red Sea. Aden, a desolated port, was the

spot fixed on; and the steam-vessels touching there were enabled to

prepare themselves for the continuance of their voyage. We shall

subsequently see how strikingly British protection has changed the

desolateness of this corner of the Arab wilderness, how extensively it has

become a place of commerce, and how effectually it will yet furnish the

means of increasing our knowledge of the interior of the great Arabian

peninsula.

It is remarkable that Africa, one of the largest and most fertile portions

of the globe, remains one of the least known. Furnishing materials of

commerce which have been objects of universal desire since the

deluge--gold, gems, ivory, fragrant gums, and spices--it has still

remained almost untraversed by the European foot, except along its coast.

It has been circumnavigated by the ships of every European nation, its

slave-trade has divided its profits and its pollutions among the chief

nations of the eastern and western worlds; and yet, to this hour, there

are regions of Africa, probably amounting to half its bulk, and possessing

kingdoms of the size of France and Spain, of which Europe has no more

heard than of the kingdoms of the planet Jupiter. The extent of Africa is

enormous:--5000 miles in length, 4600 in breadth, it forms nearly a

square of 13,430,000 square miles! the chief part solid ground; for we

know of no Mediterranean to break its continuity--no mighty reservoir for

the waters of its hills--and scarcely more than the Niger and the Nile for

the means of penetrating any large portion of this huge continent.

The population naturally divides itself into two portions, connected with

the character of its surface--the countries to the north and the south of

the mountains of Kong and the Jebel-al-Komr. To the north of this line of

demarcation, are the kingdoms of the foreign conquerors, who have driven

the original natives to the mountains, or have subjected them as slaves.

This is the Mahometan land. To the south of this line dwells the Negro, in

a region a large portion of which is too fiery for European life. This is

Central Africa; distinguished from all the earth by the unspeakable

mixture of squalidness and magnificence, simplicity of life yet fury of

passion, savage ignorance of its religious notions yet fearful worship of

evil powers, its homage to magic, and desperate belief in spells,

incantations and the _fetish_. The configuration of the country, so far as

it can be conjectured, assists this primeval barbarism. Divided by natural

barriers of hill, chasm, or river, into isolated states, they act under a

general impulse of hostility and disunion. If they make peace, it is only

for purposes of plunder; and, if they plunder, it is only to make slaves.

The very fertility of the soil, at once rendering them indolent and

luxurious, excites their passions, and the land is a scene alike of

profligacy and profusion. To the south of this vast region lies a

third--the land of the Caffre, occupying the eastern coast, and, with the

Betjouana and the Hottentot, forming the population of the most promising

portion of the continent. But here another and more enterprising race have

fixed themselves; and the great English colony of the Cape, with its

dependent settlements, has begun the first real conquest of African

barbarism. Whether Aden may not act on the opposite coasts of the Red Sea,

and Abyssinia become once more a Christian land; or whether even some

impulse may not divinely come from Africa itself, are questions belonging

to the future. But there can scarcely be a doubt, that the existence of a

great English viceroyalty in the most prominent position of South Africa,

the advantages of its government, the intelligence of its people, their

advancement in the arts essential to comfort, and the interest of their

protection, their industry, and their example, must, year by year, operate

in awaking even the negro to a feeling of his own powers, of the enjoyment

of his natural faculties, and of that rivalry which stimulates the skill

of man to reach perfection.

The name of Africa, which, in the Punic tongue, signifies "ears of corn,"

was originally applied only to the northern portion, lying between the

Great Desert and the shore, and now held by the pashalics of Tunis and

Tripoli. They were then the granary of Rome. The name Lybia was derived

from the Hebrew _Leb_, (heat,) and was sometimes partially extended to the

continent, but was geographically limited to the provinces between the

Great Syrtis and Egypt. The name Ethiopia is evidently Greek, (burning, or

black, visage.)

There is strong reason to believe that the Portuguese boast of the

sixteenth century--the circumnavigation of Africa--was anticipated by the

Phoenician sailors two thousand years and more. We have the testimony of

Herodotus, that Necho, king of Egypt, having failed in an attempt to

connect the Nile with the Red Sea by a canal, determine to try whether

another route might not be within his reach, and sent Phoenician vessels

from the Red Sea, with orders to sail round Africa, and return by the

Mediterranean. It is not improbable that, from being unacquainted with the

depth to which it penetrates the south, he had expected the voyage to be a

brief one. It seems evident that the navigators themselves did not

conceive that it could extend beyond the equator, from their surprise at

seeing the sun rise on their _right hand_. The narrative tells us--"The

Phoenicians, taking their course from the Red Sea, entered into the

Southern Ocean on the approach of autumn; they landed in Lybia, planted

corn, and remained till the harvest. They then sailed again. After having

thus spent two years, they passed the Columns of Hercules in the third,

and returned to Egypt." Herodotus doubted their story--"Their relation,"

says the honest old Greek, "may obtain belief from others, but to me it

seems incredible; for they affirmed, that, having sailed round Africa,

they _had the sun on their right hand_. Thus was Africa for the first time

known."

Thus the very circumstance which the old historian regarded as throwing

doubt on the discovery, is now one of the strongest corroborations of its

truth.[2] There appear to have been several attempts to sail along the

west coast, by ancient expeditions; but to the Portuguese is due the

modern honour of having first sailed round the Cape. From 1412, the

Portuguese, under a race of adventurous princes, had extended their

discoveries; but it occupied them sixty years to reach the Line, and

nearly thirty years more to reach the Cape, which they first called Cabo

Tormentoso, (Stormy Cape.) But the king gave it the more lucky, though the

less poetical, title which it now bears.

[2] Reunell, p. 682.

The triumph of Columbus, in his discovery of the New World in 1493, raised

the emulation of the Portuguese, then regarded as the first navigators in

the world; yet it was not until four years after, that their expedition

was sent, to equalize the stupendous accession to the Spanish domains, by

the possession of the East. In July 1497, Gama sailed, reached Calicut May

2, 1498, and returned to Portugal, covered with well-earned renown, after

a voyage of upwards of two years.

Having given this brief outline of the divisions and character of the

mighty continent, which seemed important to the better understanding of

the immediate subject, we revert to the intelligent and animated volumes

of Captain (now Major) Harris.

A letter from the Bombay government, 29th April 1841, gave him this

distinguished credential:--

"SIR--I am directed to inform you that the Honourable the Governor in

Council, having formed a very high estimate of your talents and

acquirements, and of the spirit of enterprise and decision, united with

prudence and discretion, exhibited in your recently published travels

through the territories of the Maselakatze to the Tropic of Capricorn, has

been pleased to select you to conduct the mission which the British

Government has resolved to send to Sahela Selasse, the king of Shoa, in

Southern Abyssinia, whose capital, Ankober, is supposed to be about four

hundred miles inland from the port of Tajura, on the African coast."

[Then followed the mention of the vessels appointed to carry the mission.]

(Signed) "J.P. WILLOUGHBY,"

"Secretary to Government."

The persons comprising the mission were Major W.C. Harris, Bombay

Engineers, Captain Douglas Graham, Bombay army, principal assistant, with

others, naturalists, draftsmen, &c., and an escort of two sergeants and

fifteen rank and file, volunteers from H.M. 6th foot and the Bombay

Artillery.

On the afternoon of a sultry day in April, Major Harris, with his gallant

and scientific associates, embarked on board the East India Company's

steam ship Auckland, in the harbour of Bombay, on their voyage to the

kingdom of Shoa in Southern Abyssinia, in the year 1841. The steam frigate

pursued her way prosperously through the waters, and on the ninth day was

within sight of Cape Aden, after a voyage of 1680 miles. The Cape, named

by the natives, Jebel Shemshan, rises nearly 1800 feet above the ocean, is

frequently capped with clouds, a wild and fissured mass of rock, and

evidently intended by nature for one of those great beacons which announce

the approach to an inland sea. On rounding the Cape, the British eye was

delighted with the sight of the Red Sea squadron, riding at anchor within

the noble bay. The arrival of the frigate also caused a sensation on the

shore; and Major Harris happily describes the feelings with which a new

arrival is hailed by the British garrison on that dreary spot, their only

excitement being the periodical visits of the packets between Suez and

Bombay. In the dead of the night a blue light shoots up in the offing. It

is answered by the illumination of the block ship, then the thunder of her

guns is heard, then, as she nears the shore, the flapping of her paddles

is heard through the silence, then the spectral lantern appears at the

mast-head, and then she rushes to her anchorage, leaving in her wake a

long phosphoric train.

Wherever England drops an anchor a new scene of existence has begun. At

Aden, the supply of coals for the steam-ships has introduced a new trade;

gangs of brawny Seedies, negroes from the Zanzibar coast, but fortunately

enfranchised, make a livelihood by transferring the coal from the depots

on shore to the steamers. Though the most unmusical race in the world,

they can do nothing without music, but it is music of their own--a

tambourine beaten with the thigh-bone of a calf; but their giant frames go

through prodigious labour, carry immense sacks, and drink prodigious

draughts to wash the coal-dust down. Such is the furious excitement with

which they rush into this repulsive operation, that Major Harris thinks

that for every hundred tons of coal thus embarked, at least one life is

sacrificed; those strong savages, at once inflamed by drink, and overcome

with toil, throwing themselves down on the dust or the sand, to rise no

more. This shows the advantage of English philosophy: our coal-heavers in

the Thames toil as much, are nearly as naked, nearly as black, and

probably drink more; but we never hear of their dying in a fit of rapture

in the embrace of a coal-sack. When the day is done, drunk or sober,

washed or unwashed, they go home to their wives, sleep untroubled by the

cares of kings, and return to fresh dust, drink, and dirt, next morning.

The coast of Arabia has no claims to the picturesque: all its charms, like

those of the oyster, lie within the roughest of possible shells. Its first

aspect resembles heaps of the cinders of a glass-house--a building whose

heat seems to be fully realized by the temperature of this fearful place.

England has a resident there, Captain Haynes, named as political agent.

That any human being, who could exist in any other place, would remain in

Aden, is one of the wonders of human nature. An officer, of course, must

go wherever he is sent; but such is the innate love for a post, that if

this gallant and intelligent person were roasted to death, as might happen

in one of the coolest days of the Ethiopian summer, there would be a

thousand applications before a month was over, to the Foreign Office, for

the honour of being carbonaded on the rocks of Aden.

The promontory has all the marks of volcanic eruption, and is actually

recorded, by an Arab historian of the tenth century, to have been thrown

up about that period. "Its sound, like the rumbling of thunder, might then

be heard many miles, and from its entrails vomited forth redhot stones,

with a flood of liquid fire." The crater of the extinguished volcano is

still visible, though shattered and powdered down by the tread under which

Alps and Appennines themselves crumble away--that of Time. The only point

on which we are sceptical is the late origin of the promontory. Nothing

beyond a sandhill or a heap of ashes has been produced on the face of

nature since the memory of man. That a rock, or rather a mountain chain,

with a peak 1800 feet high, should have been produced at any time time

within the last four thousand years, altogether tasks our credulity. The

powers of nature are now otherwise employed than in rough-hewing the

surface of the globe. She has been long since, like the sculptor, employed

in polishing and finishing--the features were hewn out long ago. Her

master-hand has ever since been employed in smoothing them.

Aden's reputation for barrenness is an old one--"Aden," says Ben Batuta of

Tangiers, "is situate upon the sea-shore; a large city without either seed,

water, or tree." This was written five hundred years ago; yet the ruins of

fortifications and watch-towers along the rocks, show that even this human

oven was the object of cupidity in earlier times; and the British guns,

bristling among the precipices, show that the desire is undecayed even in

our philosophic age.

Yet the Arab imagination has created its wonders even in this repulsive

scene; and the generation of monkeys which tenant the higher portion of

the rocks, are declared by Arab tradition to be the remnant of the once

powerful tribe of Ad, changed into apes by the displeasure of Heaven, when

"the King of the World," Sheddad, renowned in eastern story,

presumptuously dared to form a garden which should rival Paradise. The

prophet Hud remonstrated; but his remonstrances went for nothing, and the

indignant monarch and his courtiers suddenly found their visages simious,

their tongues chattering, and their lower portions furnished with tails--a

species of transformation, which, so far as regards visage and tongue, is

supposed to be not unfrequent among courtiers to this day. But this showy

tradition goes further still. The Bostan al Irem (Garden of Paradise) is

believed still to exist in the deserts of Aden; though geographers differ

on its position. It still retains its domes and bowers--both of

indescribable beauty; its crystal fountains, and its walks strewed with

pearls for sand. It is true, that no living man can absolutely aver that

he has seen this place of wonders; but that is a mere result of our very

wicked age. This has not been always the case; for Abdallah Ibn Aboo

Kelaba passed a night in its palace in the reign of Moowiych, the prince

of the Faithful. Lucky the man who shall next find it, but unlucky the

world when he does; for then the day of the general conflagration will be

at hand. In the mean time, it remains, like the top of Mount Meru, covered

with clouds, or, like the inside of a Chinese puzzle, a work of unrivaled

art, conceivable but intangible by man.

In this pleasant mingling of fact, visible to his shrewd eye, and fiction

drawn from ancient fancy, Major Harris leads us on. But Aden is not yet

exhausted of wonders--an island in its bay, Seerah, (the fortified black

isle,) is pronounced to have been the refuge of Cain on the murder of Abel;

and its volcanic and barren chaos is no unequal competitor for the honour

with the rocks of the Caucasus.

But England, which changes every thing, is changing all this. Within the

next generation, the railway will run down the romances of Nutrib; a

cotton manufactory will send up its smokes to blot out the celestial blue

by day, and shoot forth its sullen illumination by night, over the

anointed soil; the minstrel will turn policeman, and the sheik be a

justice of peace; political economy will have its itinerant lecturers,

enlightening the Bedouins on the principles of rent and taxes; the city

will have a lord mayor and corporation of the deepest black; the volcano

will be planted with villas; turnpikes will measure out the sands; a hotel

will flourish on the summit of Jebel Shemshan; and Aden will differ from

Liverpool in nothing but being two thousand miles further from the smoke

and multitudes of London.

The Arab is still the prominent person among the native population of this

territory. Major Harris describes him well. The bronzed and sunburnt

visage, surrounded by long matted locks of raven hair; the slender but

wiry and active frame, and the energetic gait and manner, proclaimed the

untamable descendant of Ishmael. He nimbly mounts the crupper of his now

unladen dromedary, and at a trot moves down the bazar. A checked kerchief

round his brows, and a kilt of dark blue calico round his frame, comprise

his slender costume. His arms have been deposited outside the Turkish wall;

and as he looks back, his meagre, ferocious aspect, flanked by that

tangled web of hair, stamps him the roving tenant of the desert. It is

curious to find in this remote country a custom similar to that of the

fiery cross, which in old times summoned the Celtic tribes to arms. On the

alarm of invasion, a branch, torn by the priest from the _nebek_, (a tree

bearing a fruit like the Siberian crab,) is lighted in the fire, the flame

is then quenched in the blood of a newly slaughtered ram. It is then sent

forth with a messenger to the nearest clan. Thus, great numbers are

assembled with remarkable promptitude. In the invasion under Ibrahim Pasha,

sixteen thousand of these wild warriors were assembled from one tribe.

They crept into the Egyptian camp by night, and, using only their daggers,

made such formidable slaughter, that the Pasha was glad to escape by a

precipitate retreat.

The Jews form an important part of the population, as artizans and

manufacturers. Feeling the natural veneration for the Chosen People in all

their misfortunes, and convinced that the time will come when those

misfortunes will be obliterated, it is highly gratifying to find, that

even in this place of their ancient sufferings, they are beginning to feel

the benefit of British protection. Hitherto, through their indefatigable

industry, having acquired opulence in Arabia as elsewhere, they were

afraid either to display or to enjoy it; but now, under the protection of

the British flag, they not merely enjoy their wealth, but they publicly

practise the rights of their religion. Stone slabs with Hebrew

inscriptions mark the place of their dead. They have schools for the

education of their children; and their men and women, arrayed in their

holiday apparel, sit fearlessly in the synagogue, and listen to the

reading of the law and the prophets, as of old. It is a great source of

gratification to the philanthropist to find, that wherever England extends

her power, industry, commerce, and peace are the natural result. Aden,

barren as the soil is, is evidently approaching to a prosperity which it

never possessed even in its most flourishing days. Emigrants from Yemen

and from both shores of the Red Sea, are daily crowding within the walls,

through the security which they offer against native oppression. In the

short space of three years, the population has risen to twenty thousand

souls. Substantial dwellings are rising up in every quarter, and at all

the adjacent ports hundreds of native merchants are only waiting the

erection of permanent fortifications, in token of our intending to remain,

to flock under the guns with their families and wealth. The opinion of

this intelligent writer is, that Aden, as a free port, whilst she pours

wealth into a now impoverished land, must erelong become the queen of the

adjacent seas, and rank amongst the most useful dependencies of the

British crown.

The mission having remained some time at Aden, to purchase horses and

stores, sailed on the 15th May; and, on losing sight of Aden, the members

of the mission characteristically took the "Pilgrims' vow" not to shave

until their return. On the 17th they opened the town of Tajura, on the

verge of a broad expanse of blue water, over which a gossamerlike fleet of

fishing catamarans already plied their craft. Their pilot, an old Arab,

was a man of fun, and the specimens of his tongue are good. In some

reference to the anchorage, he said, "Now if we only had two-fathom Ali

here, you would not have all these difficulties. When they want to lay out

an anchor, they have nothing to do but to hand it over to Ali, and he

walks away with it into six or eight feet without any ado. I went once

upon a time in the dark to grope for a berth on board of his buggalow, and,

stumbling over some one's toes, enquired to whom they belonged. 'To Ali,'

was the reply. 'And whose knees are these?' said I, after walking half

across the deck. 'Ali's.' 'And this head in the scuppers, pray whose is

it?' 'Ali's; what do you want with it?' 'Ali again!' I exclaimed; 'then I

must even look for stowage elsewhere.'"

The sight of a shark in the harbour let loose the old jester again. "A

friend of mine," said he, "pilot of a vessel almost as fast a sailer as my

own, which is acknowledged to be the best in these seas, was bound to

Mocha with camels on board. When off the high table-land betwixt the Bay

of Tajura and the Red Sea, one of the beasts dying, was hove overboard. Up

came a shark ten times the size of that fellow there, and swallowed the

camel, leaving only his hinder legs sticking out of his jaws; but before

he had time to think where he was to find stowage for it, up came another

tremendous fellow and bolted the shark, camel, legs, and all."

In return for this anecdote, the major gave him the story of the two

Kilkenny cats in the saw-pit, which fought, until nothing remained of

either but the tail and a bit of the flue. The old pilot doubted. "How can

that be?" said he, revolving the business seriously in his mind. "As for

the story I have told you, it is as true as the Koran."

After a short stay and presentation to the Sultan of Tajura, a slave-port,

with a miserable old man for its master, the mission once more set forth

for Shoa; yet even here we glean a specimen of Arab speech. "Trees attain

not to their growth in a single day," said an Arab, when remonstrating

with the sultan on his inordinate love of lucre. "Take the tree as your

text, and learn that property is to be gathered only by slow degrees."

"True," said the old miser; "but, sheik, you must have lost sight of the

fact, that my leaves are already withered, and that, if I would be rich, I

have not a moment to lose."

The packing up for the journey was a new source of trouble; every

camel-driver found fault with his load. However, at length every article

was stowed, except a hand-organ and a few stand of arms. At length, a

great hulking savage offered to take the arms, provided they were cut in

two to suit the back of his animals. We have then another instance of Arab

drollery. "You are a tall man," said the old pilot; "suppose we shorten

you by the legs." "No, no," said the barbarian, "I am flesh and blood, and

shall be spoiled." "So will the contents of these cases, you offspring of

an ass," said the old man, "if you divide them."

The progress to the interior from the port of Tajura, led them over

immense ranges of basaltic cliffs, where the heat of the sun was felt with

an intensity scarcely conceivable by European feelings. In this land of

fire, the road skirting the base of a barren range covered with heaps of

lava blocks, and its foot marked by piles of stones, the memorials of

deeds of blood, the lofty conical peak of Jebel Seearo rose in sight, and

not long afterwards the far-famed Lake Assad, surrounded by its dancing

mirage, was seen sparkling at its base.

The first glimpse of this phenomenon, "though curious, was far from

pleasing"--"an elliptical basin, seven miles in its transverse axis,

filled half with smooth water of the deepest cerulean hue, and half with a

sheet of glittering snow-white salt, girded on three sides by huge

hot-looking mountains, that dip their basins into its very bowl, and on

the fourth by crude, half-formed rocks of lava, broken and divided by

chasms. No sound broke on the ear, not a ripple played on the water. The

molten surface of the lake lay like burnished steel, the fierce sky was

without a cloud, and the angry sun, like a ball of metal at a white heat,

rode in full blaze."

It is scarcely wonderful, that among a people devoted to superstition,

those terrible passes and sultry hollows should be marked as the haunts of

the powers of evil. Adyli, a deep mysterious cavern at the extremity of

one of those melancholy plains, is believed to be the especial abode of

gins and _afreets_, whose voices are heard in the night, and who carry off

the traveller to devour him without remorse. A late instance was mentioned

of a man who was compelled by the weariness of his camel to fall behind

the caravan, and who left no remnants behind him but his spear and shield.

Major Harris well describes this spot as one which, from its desolate

position, might be believed to be the last stage of the habitable world.

"A close mephitic stench, impeding respiration, arose from the saline

exhalations of the stagnant lake. A frightful glare from the white salt

and limestone hillocks threatened extinction to the vision, and a

sickening heaviness in the loaded atmosphere was enhanced rather than

alleviated by the fiery breath of the north-westerly wind, which blew

without interruption during the day. The air was inflamed, the sky

sparkled, and columns of burning sand, which at quick intervals towered

high into the atmosphere, became so illumined as to appear like tall

pillars of fire. Crowds of horses, mules, and camels, tormented to madness

by the poisonous gad-fly, flocked to share the only bush; and, disputing

with their heels the slender shelter it afforded, compelled several of the

party to seek refuge in caves formed below by fallen masses of volcanic

rock, heated to the temperature of a potter's kiln, and fairly baking up

the marrow in the bones." The heat in this place, with the thermometer

under the shade of cloaks and umbrellas, was at 126°. It is only

surprising how any of the party survived. Certainly if Abyssinia is to be

approached only by this road, the prospect of an intercourse with it from

the east, appears among the most improbable things of this world.

One of the advantages of continental travel has been long since said to be,

its teaching us how many comfortable things we enjoy at home; and it

appears that no Englishman can comprehend the value of that despised fluid,

fresh water, until he has left the precincts of his own fortunate land:

but it is in Africa, and peculiarly on this Abyssinian high-road, that the

value of a draught of spring water is to be especially estimated. "Since

leaving the shores of India," says Major Harris, "the party had gradually

been in training towards a disregard of dirty water. On board a ship of

any description, the fluid is seldom very clear or very plentiful. At Cape

Aden, there was little perceptible difference between the sea water and

the land water. At Tajura, the beverage obtainable was far from being

improved in quality by the taint of the new skins in which it was

transferred from the only well; and now, in the very heart of the

scorching Tehama, where a copious draught of pure water seemed absolutely

indispensable every five minutes, the mixture was the very acme of

abomination. Fresh hides stript from the he-goat, besmeared inside as well

as out with old tallow and strong bark tan, filled from an impure well at

Sagallo, tossed and tumbled during two days and nights under a distilling

heat," formed a drink which we should conclude to be little short of

poison. However, the human throat learns to accommodate itself to every

thing in time, and the time came when even this abomination was longed for.

But the worst was not yet come. It was midnight when the party commenced

the steep ascent of the south-eastern boundary of the lake, a ridge of

volcanic rocks. "The north-east wind had scarcely diminished its parching

fierceness, and in hot suffocating gusts swept over the glittering expanse

of water and salt, where the moon shone brightly; each deadly puff

succeeded by the stillness that foretells a tropical hurricane. The

prospect around was wild--beetling, basaltic cones, and jagged slabs of

shattered lava."

The path itself was formidable, winding along the crest of the ridge over

sheets of broken lava, with scarcely more than sufficient width to admit

of the progress in single file. "The horrors of this dismal night set all

description at defiance." The hope of water, though at the distance of

sixteen miles, excited them for a while; but at length even this

excitement failed. And "owing to the heat, fasting, and privation, the

limbs of the weaker refused the task, and after the first two miles they

dropped fast into the rear. Under the fiery blast of the midnight sirocco

the cry for water, uttered feebly and with difficulty by numbers of

parched throats, now became incessant; and the supply for the whole party

falling short of a gallon and a half, it was not long to be answered. A

tiny sip of diluted vinegar for a moment assuaged the burning thirst which

raged in the vitals; but its effects were transient, and, after struggling

a few steps, they sank again, declaring their days to be numbered, and

their resolution to rise up no more. Dogs incontinently expired upon the

road, horses and mules that once lay down were abandoned to their fate;

while the lion-hearted soldier, who had braved death at the cannon's

mouth, subdued and unmanned by thirst, lay gasping by the wayside, hailing

approaching dissolution with delight, as the termination of tortures which

were no longer to be endured. As another day dawned, and the "round red

sun" again rose over the lake of salt, the courage even of those who had

borne up against this fiery trial began to flag: "a dimness came before

the drowsy eyes, giddiness seized the brain, and the hope held out by the

guides, of water in advance, seemed like the delusion of a dream."

In this crisis, at which our chief wonder is, that Major Harris and his

explorers were ever heard of again, or had left any memorials of

themselves but their bones, a wild Bedouin was seen, "like a delivering

angel," hurrying forward with a large skin, filled with muddy water. This

well-timed supply was divided among the fainting people: a quantity was

poured over the face and down the throat of each; and at a late hour,

"ghastly, haggard, and exhausted, like men who had escaped from the jaws

of death, the whole had contrived to straggle into a camp, which, but for

the foresight and firmness of the son of Ali Abi,(who had sent the water,)

few individuals would have reached alive."

After traversing this terrible desert of fifty miles--a barrier to all

general and commercial intercourse, which we should think impassable,

however it might be overcome by a small party of bold and hardy men, well

led, furnished with every supply, water excepted, which could sustain them

through its horrors, (and which yet, through that single want, had nearly

perished)--they persued a long and dlifficult march through a dreary

country, scantily peopled, dotted with robber clans, and exhibiting

impediments of all kinds in the knavery and villany of the native

authorities; until they reached the borders of Abyssinia. We had by no

means been aware that volcanoes had made so large a share of this portion

of Africa. The whole border seems to be volcanic, and to retain in its

blasted and broken surface, evidence of its having been, in remote ages,

perhaps in the earliest, the scene of most intense and general volcanic

action.

In Major Harris's animated description--"singular and interesting indeed

is the wild scenery in the vicinity of the treacherous oasis of Sultelli.

A field of extinct volcanic cones, vomited out of the entrails of the

earth, and each encircled by a black belt of vitrified lava, environs it

on three sides; and of these Mount Abida, three thousand feet in height,

whose cup, enveloped in clouds, stretches some two and a half miles in

_diameter_, would seem to be the parent. Beyond, the still loftier crater

of Aiulloo, the ancient landmark of the now-decayed empire of Ethiopia, is

visible in dim perspective; and, looming hazily in the extreme distance,

is the great blue Abyssinian range."

In any part of Africa a river of tolerable magnitude is an object of the

most anxious interest; and the approach to the Hawash, the boundary river

of the kingdom of Shoa, was looked to with eager speculation. At length

the height was reached from which was obtained "an exhilarating prospect

over the dark, lone valley of the long looked-for Hawash. The course of

the river was marked by a dense belt of trees and verdure, stretching

towards the base of the great mountain range, of which the cloud-capped

cone, which frowns over the capital of Shoa, forms the most conspicuous

feature." The mission now began to exalt:--"Though still far distant, the

ultimate destination of the embassy appeared almost to have been gained,

and none had an idea of the length of time that must elapse before his

foot should press the soil of Ankober." A day of intense heat was as usual

followed by a heavy fall of rain, which, owing to the unaccommodating

arrangement of striking the tents at sunset, thoroughly drenched the whole

party.

The new difficulty was, how to cross the Hawash, "second of the rivers of

Abyssinia, and rising in the very heart of Ethipoia, at an elevation of

8000 feet above the sea. It is fed by niggardly tributaries from the high

bulwarks of Shoa and Efat, and flows, like a great artery, through the

arid plains of the Adaiel, green and wooded throughout its long course,

and finally absorbed in the lagoons of Aussa. The canopy of fleecy clouds,

which, as mid-day dawned, hung thick and heavy over the lofty blue peaks

beyond, gave sad presage of the deluge that was pouring between its

verdant banks from the higher regions of the source."

The party now descended to enjoy the real luxuries of shade and water, in

a region where they had hitherto seen nothing but salt and lava. At first

thinly wooded, they found the soil covered with tall rank grass, from

which, however, the perpetual incursions of the robber tribes scare the

flocks and herds. Deeper down, they entered among gum-bearing acacias and

fruit-trees. "Guinea-fowl rose before them, groves of tamarisk, ringing to

the voice of the bell-bird, flanked every open glade, and the fractured

branches of the nobletrees gave proof of the presence of the most

ponderous of the mammalia."

Forcing their way, with some difficulty, through this jungle, they

obtained their first near view of the river, a "deep volume of turbid

water," covered with drift wood, and rolling, at the rate of three miles

an hour, between clayey walls twenty-five feet in height. The breadth fell

short of sixty yards, but the flood was not yet at its maximum. Willows,

drooping over the stream, were festooned with recent drift, hanging many

feet above the level of the banks; and it was evident that the waters had

lately been out, to the overflowing of the country for many miles. The

river, now upwards of 2200 feet above the level of the ocean forms, in

this quarter, the nominal boundary of the kingdom of Shoa.

They were now on "the spot which exhibited the forest life of Africa." In

a lake adjoining the river, the hippopotamus "rolled his unwieldy carcass

to the surface, and floating crocodiles, protruding his snout to blow a

snort that might be heard at the distance of a mile." An unfortunate

donkey, which had been partly drowned and partly strangled, was thrown out

of the camp. No sooner had night fallen, than this prey roused the

appetites of the whole forest, the howl and growl of wild beasts was heard

at their banquet on the donkey throughout the night. Lightening played

over the woods; the "violent snapping of the branches proclaimed the

nocturnal movements of the elephant and hippopotamus;" the loud roar and

startling snort were constantly heard; and by morning every vestige of the

dead animal, even to the skull, had disappeared.

Africa, in all its provinces, is the scene of the boldest field sports in

the world--India and its tigers, perhaps, excepted. But Africa excels even

India in the variety and multitude of its mighty savages--lions, elephants,

panthers, and hippopotami; the sands, the forests, the jungles, the rivers,

the marshes, every thing and place abounds with brute life, on the largest,

the boldest, and the fiercest scale. Africa, with the human race on the

lowest grade, has the brute on the highest, and its true name is the great

kingdom of savage nature.

A two-ounce ball had been lodged in the forehead of hippopotamus on the

evening of reaching the Hawash; but the animal having dived, the natives,

in some jealousy of the skill of the British rifle, declared that it had

not been mortally struck. The next dawn, however, decided the question,

for the "freckled pink sides of a dead hippopotamus were to be seen high

above the surface, as the distended carcass floated like a monstrous buoy

at anchor." Hawsers were carried out with all diligence, and the "colossus"

was towed ashore amidst the acclamations of the whole caravan. Then came a

native scene. A tribe of savages, who had waited, squatting, to see the

arrival of the monster, threw aside their bows and arrows, and, stripping

its thick hide from the ribs, attacked it with the vigour of an African

horde. Donkeys and women were laden with incredible despatch, and,

"staggering under huge flaps of meat," the savages went their way.

The soil now became swampy, yet only the more filled with animal existence.

LE ADO, (the White Water,) a lake which they skirted, of two miles'

diameter, was the haunt of countless wild-fowl, geese, mallards, teal,

herons, flamingoes. A party of Bedouin women deposed to having seen

another "party" of elephants taking a bath in the spot half an hour before,

and the prints of their huge feet in the moist sands corroborated the

testimony. Hideously withered women followed the march of the mission,

carrying curds, and covered over with marsh-flies. Above, vast flights of

locusts, which had stripped the coast, were pouring in towards Abyssinia.

"They quite darkened the air" where the caravan halted; and above them

again were a host of adjutant birds, sometimes bursting down through the

mass, and then stooping to the ground, and stalking along to devour the

killed and wounded. This is the land, too, of the hurricane. Nature is

queen or tyrant here; the thunder tears the sensorium; the lightning burns

out the eyes; the rain is a cataract; the hall is a continued volley of

ice; the clouds stoop to earth, and bury the daylight like a shroud; the

rivers become torrents; the dry plain becomes first a swamp, and then a

sea. Tents and tarpaulins are useless to keep out the deluge from above,

or are beaten down by its weight on the heads of the unfortunates who

trust to them for shelter, until at length the caravan, stripped of all

covering, has no resource but to bide the pelting of the pitiless storm,

and, shivering and shelterless, wait until the hurricane has howled itself

away.

At length they reached the city of Furri, loaded, for the thirty-fifth

time, with the baggage of the British embassy. The caravan, escorted by a

detachment of three hundred matchlock men, with flutes playing, and

muskets echoing, and the heads of the warriors decorated with white plumes,

on the 16th July entered the frontier town of the kingdom of Efat.

Clusters of conical-roofed houses, covering the sides of twin hills, here

presented the first permanent habitations that had greeted the eye since

leaving the sea-coast--rude and ungainly, but right welcome signs of

transition from depopulated waste to the abodes of man. The African seems

a robber by nature, and the sight of the bales and boxes excited the

national propensity in a most violent degree. Even the royal ministers and

courtiers seem to have felt a passion for looking into those prohibited

treasures, which evidently tempted their virtue in a most perilous degree.

Meanwhile a special messenger arrived, bearing reiterated compliments from

the Negoos, (king,) with a horse and a mule from the royal stud, attired

in the peculiar trappings which belong to majesty. Those animals awoke all

the loyal curiosity of the people. At the sight women and girls, enveloped

in blood-red shifts, who had thronged to stare at the strangers, burst

into a scream of acclamation. A group of hooded widows thrust their

fingers into their ears and joined in the clamour. The escort and

camel-drivers placed no bounds to their hilarity. A fat ox, that had been

promised, was turned loose among the spectators, pursued by fifty savages

with their gleaming _creeses_, and hamstrung by a dexterous blow, which

threw it bellowing to the earth in the height of its mad career, and

tribes of lean curs commenced an indiscriminate engagement over the

garbage.

The neighbouring nations look upon the population of this province with

great contempt. They say that their tongues are long for lying, their arms

are long for stealing, and their legs are long for running away.

The mission now approached another region, perhaps the finest in Africa.

Every change in the climate and soil in Africa is in extremes, and

barreness and unbounded fertility lie side by side.

"As if by the touch of the magician's wand, the scene now passes, in

an instant, from parched wastes to the geen, and lovely islands of

Abyssinia, presenting one scene of rich and thriving cultivation. The

baggage having at length been consigned to the shoulders of six

hundred grumbling Moslem porters--for here the camel, from the

steepness of the hills, was useless--and forming a line, which

extended upwards of a mile, the embassy, on the morning of the 17th,

comnenced the ascent of the Abyssinian Alps; the flutes again played,

the wild warriors of the escort again chanted their songs. It was a

cool and lovely morning, and an invigorating breeze played over the

mountains' side, on which, now less than ten degrees from the equator,

flourished the vegetation of northern climes. The rough and stony

road wound on, by a steep ascent, over hill and dale, now skirting

some precipitous ascent, now dipping into the basin of some verdant

hollow, where it suddenly emerged into a succession of shady lanes,

bounded by flowering hedgerows."

All this is so like England, and so unlike Africa, that we should suspect

the major's memory to have been as active at least as his observation. But

the work contains so much internal evidence of accuracy, independently of

the confidence attached to the character of the intelligent writer himself,

that we must believe the heart of Ethiopa to possess secnes that would be

worthy of the heart of our own fresh and flower-bearing island. The scene

which follows is quite Arcadian.

"The wild rose, the fern, the lantana, and the honeysuckle, smiled

round a succession of highly cultivated terraces, and on every

eminence, stood a cluster of conically thatched houses, environed by

green hedges, and partially embowered amid dark trees As the troop

passed on, the peasant abandoned his occupation to gaze at the novel

procession; while merry groups of hooded women, decked in scarlet and

crimson left their avocations in the hut to welcome the king's guests

with a shrill _ziroleet_, which ran from every hand. Birds warbled

among the groves. At various turns of the road the prospect was

rugged, wild, and beautiful. The first Christian village was soon

revealed on the summit of a height. Three principal ranges of hills

were next crossed in succession. Lastly, the view opened upon the

wooded site of Ankober occupying a central position in a horseshoe

crescent of mountains, still high above which enclose a magnificent

amphitheatre of ten miles in diameter. This is clothed throughout

with a splendid vigorous, and varied vegetation."

The embassy now halted, waiting for permission to enter the capital, and

taking up their quarters in a town three thousand feet above Furri, on the

frontier. The escort of the troop fired a salute on entering, and, as they

marched along, performed the war dance. A veteran capered before the ranks

with a drawn sword between his teeth, and the martial song was chorused by

three hundred Christian throats. The prospect from this elevated point

naturally struck the travellers with astonishment and admiration. The site

of the town is only one of the thousand cones into which the mountain side

is broken as it approaches the plain. The prospect over the plain was

boundless, and countless villages met the eye upon the mountain slope.

Wherever the plough could go, all was cultivated. Wheat, barley, Indian

corn, beans, peas, cotton, and oil plant, throve luxuriantly round every

hamlet. The regularly marked fields mounted in terraces to the height of

three or four thousand feet, becoming, in their boundaries, more and more

indistinct, until totally lost in the shadowy green side of Mamrat (the

Mother of Grace.)

This mountain is a wonder, shrouded in clouds whilst all was sunshine

below. It is clothed with a dense forest, and ascends to an elevation of

13,000 feet above the sea. Here are collected, for security, the treasures

of the monarch which have been amassing since the re-establishment of the

kingdom, one hundred and fifty years since.

After remaining some time in the market-place, the governor of the town

appeared, and conducted the mission to the house of an old Moslem woman,

where they were to lodge for the night. The names of the three daughters,

Major Harris observes, were worthy of the days of Prince Cherry and Fair

Star. They were Eve, Sweet Limes, and Sunbeam. The ladies vacated the

house with great good-humour; but it was low, intolerably filthy, and

without bedding or food. The unfortunate mission had thus to spend a night,

probably unequaled by their sufferings in the open field. Though so near

the equator, they felt the cold severely; rain set in with great violence,

pouring through the roof, and entering into the threshold. A fire was

indispensable, yet they were nearly suffocated with smoke; they were

devoured with insects, and in this torment and fever tossed till dawn. At

the arrival of morning they received the disappointing message, that the

king could not yet visit his capital, but that they might either seek him

among the mountains, or wait for him where they were.

Major Harris imputes this disappointment to the accidental opening of one

of the boxes of presents. Royal cupidity had been so strongly excited by

the conjectures of their contents, that the king had evidently been

anxious, in the first instance, to hasten their delivery as much as

possible. Gold and jewels were probably uppermost in the royal conceptions;

but the box happening to contain only the leathern buckets belonging to

the "galloper guns," the spectators were loud in their derision. "These,"

they exclaimed, "are but a poor people! What is their nation compared with

the Amhara? for behold, in this trash, specimens of the offerings brought

from their boasted land to the footstool of the mightiest of monarchs."

The rainy season was now setting in, and the situation of the embassy

became more comfortless from day to day. Notes were written, and answers

received from the monarch, but the royal interview was still postponed,

partly by the artifice of the knavish governors, who kept a longing eye on

the presents, and partly by the barbarian etiquette of showing the natives

the scorn with which their king was entitled to treat all the nations of

the world.

The residence of the mission in this comfortless place, however, gave a

opportunity of acquiring considerable knowledge of the habits and commerce

of the interior. The chief traffic is in slaves, but coffee is exported

extensively from Hurrna, and large caravans three times in the year visit

the ports, Zeyla and Barbara, laden with ivory, ostrich feathers, ghee,

saffrons, gums, and myrrh. In return are brought blue and white calicoes,

Indian piece goods, Indian prints, silks, and shawls, red cotton yarn,

silk threads, beads, frankincense, copper wire, and zinc.

A fortnight rolled away painfully in this detestable place, which was

named Alio Amba, when a summons came from the monarch in these formal

words:--"Tarry not by day, neither stay ye by night; for the heart of the

father longeth to see his children, and let him not be disappointed."

They now ascended through a country of romantic beauty, to Machalwan, the

place appointed for the interview. The Abyssinian in charge of the embassy,

was now sent forward to obtain permission to fire a salute of twenty-one

guns on the arrival of the troop at the royal residence. This request

seemed to have alarmed his majesty in no slight degree. The most romantic

reports of the ordnance had gone before them. It was currently believed

that their discharge was sufficient to set fire to the ground, to shiver

rocks, and to dismantle mountain fastnesses. Men were said to have arrived,

with "copper legs," who served those tremendous engines; and in alarm for

the safety of his palace, capital, and treasures, the suspicious monarch

still peremptorily insisted on withholding the desired license, until he

should have seen the battery "with his own eyes." It rained incessantly

during the night which preceded the day of presentation, and until the

morning broke; when a great volume of white mist rose from the deep

valleys, and drifted like a scene-curtain across the summit of the giant

Mamrat. The whole troop now began to ascend the mountain; and, as they

approached within sight of the stockaded palace, the escort commenced to

fire their matchlocks. The view here is described as very lovely, and

giving some conception of European variety of vegetation, with tropical

luxuriance. Farm-houses, rich fields, foaming cascades, and bright green

meadows covered with flowers, met the eye on every side; and above all

towered the great Abyssinian range, some thousand feet perpendicularly

overhead, with its summits crested with clouds. The crowd of spectators

was immense, and were repelled only by strokes of the bamboo. At length a

large tent was pitched for the reception of the embassy, the floor was

strewed with heath, myrtles, and other aromatic shrubs; and the weather

having cleared up, "the mission, radiant with plumes and gold embroidery,

moved on." As they reached the precincts of the palace, the artillery

fired a salute, which equally awed and astonished the multitude, the

discharge being followed by universal shouts in the native tongue

of--"Wonderful English! Well done, well done!"

After several further stoppages, they entered the reception hall. It was

circular, and showy. The lofty walls glittered with a profusion of silver

ornaments, emblazoned shields, matchlocks, and double-barreled guns.

Persian carpets and rugs of all sizes, colours, and patterns, covered the

floors; and crowds of governors, chiefs, and officers of the court, in

their holiday attire, stood in a posture of respect, uncovered to the

girdle. Two wide alcoves receded on either side, in one of which blazed a

cheerful wood fire, engrossed by indolent cats; while in the other, on a

flowered satin ottoman, surrounded by withered slaves and juvenile pages,

and supported by gay velvet cushions, lay "His most Christian majesty,

Sahela Selasse!" The Dech Agulari (state doorkeeper,) as master of the

ceremonies, stood with a rod of green rushes to preserve the exact

distance of approach to royalty; and as the British entered and made their

bows, pointed them to chairs, which done, it was commanded that all should

be covered.

The monarch was not unworthy of figuring in this pomp. Forty summers, of

which eight-and-twenty had been passed on the throne, had slightly

furrowed his forehead, and grizzled a full bushy head of hair, arranged in

elaborate curls. But, though wanting the left eye, "the expression of his

manly features, open, pleasing, and commanding, did not belie the

character for impartial justice which he had obtained far and wide; even

the robber tribes of the low country calling him a fine balance of gold."

After the delivery of the ambassadorial letters, the exhibition commenced,

which had so long been the envy of the courtiers, and probably the

conversation of the kingdom. The presents were displayed. A rich Brussels

carpet, which completely covered the hall, Cashmere shawls, and

embroidered Delhi scarfs of resplendent hues, excited universal admiration.

The finer specimens were handed to the king. As the various presents

succeeded, the delight increased. A group of Chinese dancing figures,

produced bursts of merriment; and when the European escort, in full

uniform, with the sergeant at their head, marched into the hall, paced in

front of the throne, and performed the manual and platoon exercises, amid

ornamented clocks chiming, and musical boxes playing "God save the Queen,"

his majesty appeared quite entranced. "But many and bright were the smiles

that lighted up the royal features, as three hundred muskets, with

bayonets fixed, were piled in front of the royal footstool. A buzz of

mingled wonder and applause arose from the crowded courtiers; and the

monarch's satisfaction now filled to overflowing. 'God will reward you,'

he exclaimed--'for I cannot!'"

But a more serious and a more striking display was still to follow. The

artillery were to exhibit their powers; and the crowd rushed out, and

scattered over the hill to see its practice. A sheet was attached to the

opposite face of the ravine, the valley rang to the roar of the guns; and

as the white cloth flew in shreds to the wind, under a rapid discharge of

round shot, canister, and grape, amid the crumbling of the rock, and the

rush of falling stones, shouts of admiration rang from hill to hill. This

eventful evening was closed by testimonies of the king's satisfaction, in

the shape of a huge pepper pie from the royal kitchen, with his commands

that his children might feast; and a visit from the royal confessor, a

dwarf enveloped in robes and turbans, and armed with silver cross and

crosier. Seating himself in a chair, he delivered a speech, which affords

as good a specimen of court oratory as any thing that we remember; and

also shows the powerful effect of the presents on the courtly

sensibilities. The speech was as follows:--

"Forty years have rolled away since Asfa Woosen, on whose memory be

peace! grandsire to our beloved monarch, saw in a dream that the red

men were bringing into his kingdom, curious and beautiful commodities

from countries beyond the great sea. The astrologers, on being

commanded to give an interpretation thereof, predicted with one

accord, that foreigners from the land of Egypt would come into

Abysinia during his majesty's most illustrious reign; and that yet

more and wealthier would follow in that of his son, and of his son's

son, who should sit next upon the throne. Praise be unto God, that

the dream and its interpretation have now been fulfilled! Our eyes,

though they be old, have never beheld wonders until this day; and

during the reign over Shoa of seven successive kings, no such

miracles as these have been wrought in Ethiopia!!"

The embassy were now fixed under the protection of the monarch; and they

were invited to join in the various displays and festivals of the new year,

which the Abyssinians begin on the 10th of September. Of these, the

cavalry review was by far the most showy, as well as the most suited to

the gratification of the British officers. Some parts of this display

seemed to have been borrowed from the days of European knighthood. The

king's master of the horse advanced at the head of his squadrons of picked

household cavalry, "the flower of the Christian lances." Ayto Melkoo,

their leader, was arrayed in a party-coloured vest, surmounted by a

crimson Arab fleece, handsomely studded with silver jets. A gilt embossed

gauntlet encircled his right arm, from the wrist to the elbow; his targe

and horse trappings glittered with a profusion of silver crosses and

devices, and he looked a stately and martial figure, curveting at the head

of his well-appointed lancers.

This warrior, advancing with his line, galloped up in front, and made a

speech in the manner of old heroic times, vaunting his past prowess and

his present loyalty, his troopers accompanying the more succcessful parts

of his speech by striking the lance upon the targe. At the close, he threw

his spears upon the ground, unsheathed his two-edged falchion, gave a howl,

which was answered by a roar from his horsemen, and a discharge of

fire-arms; and the whole made a dash, and charged across the parade.

At the royal command, the British now fired a salute of twenty-one guns,

to the great wonder and astonishment of the wild Galla and the multitude

of spectators. Thirteen governors, (of provinces, we presume,) clothed in

the skins of lions and leopards and covered with silver chains, cuirasses,

and gauntlets, emblems of their gallantry in the field, next passed before

the king, each at the head of his troop, and each making a harangue.

Abyssinia must be a very oratorical country. Last of all, came the tall,

martial figure of Abegoz Moreteh, chief of the tributary Galla of the

south, at the head of his legion, three thousand in number: this "sea of

wild horsemen" moved in advance, to the sound of kettle-drums, their arms

and decorations flashing in the sun, and their ample white robes and long

sable hair streaming in the breeze. At the war-hoop of their leader, "with

the rush of a hurricane the moving forest of lances disappeared under a

cloud of dust." From _eight to ten thousand_ cavalry were in the field;

and the spectacle, which lasted from nine in the morning until five in the

afternoon, was "exceedingly wild and impressive." But the most impressive

display of all was to be supplied by the British. With fire-arms the

people were acquainted already. The "brass galloper," though viewed with

"wonderful respect," was still only an engine on a larger scale than those

to which they were familiarized. But the rocket was a formidable and

splendid novelty. Night had now thrown her mantle round the field, and, by

the king's command, the rocket practice began; the first brilliant rush

into the air was matter of amazement to all. When the rocket started with

a roar from its bed, men, women, and children fell on their faces--horses

and mules broke from their tethers--and the warriors who had any heart

remaining shouted aloud. The Galla tribes, who witnessed the explosion,

ascribed the phenomenon to "potent medicines," and declared, that since

the Gyptzis (British) could, at pleasure, produce comets in the sky and

rain fire down heaven, there was nothing for them but submission to the

king's command.

The review was followed, at some interval of time, by a more substantial

display. Thrice in the year the king summons his rude militia for an

inroad into some of the neighbouring lands; and, as he was particularly

anxious to have the presence of the embassy on this occasion, and as they

conceived it to offer the best opportunity of seeing the country, they

accordingly accepted the invitation. As it is to be presumed that they had

no intention of taking any personal part in this marauding expedition, we

are not disposed to criticise their acquiescence; otherwise there could be

no doubt whatever, that they had no right to assist the king of Shoa in

his foray on his neighbours, more than they would have had a right to

assist his neighbours in their attacks upon the king of Shoa.

The march was peculiar, and even pompous, in its kind. It was

extraordinary to see it preceded by a copy of the Holy Scriptures, under a

canopy of scarlet cloth, and borne on a mule; but, it must be owned,

accompanied by the "Ark of the cathedral of St Michael," which works

miracles, and is regarded as a pledge of victory. Then came the king on a

specially caparisoned mule, surrounded by his guard of shield-bearers, and

flanked by matchlock-men; then came forty damsels, royal cooks, painted

with ochre, and muffled in crimson-striped robes of cotton--a troop

rigorously guarded by attendants with long white wands. Beyond these, as

far as the eye could penetrate the clouds of dust, every hill and valley

teemed with horsemen, camp-followers, sumpter-mules, and men carrying

sheaves of spears, and leading caparisoned horses, all mixed in the most

picturesque confusion. After a march of fifteen miles, the female cooks

halted, like a flight of flamingoes, in a pretty, secluded valley. It was

evident that the day's march was now at an end, and the army halted to

bivouac for the night. In the centre of this straggling camp, which could

not be less than five miles in diameter, was raised a suite of royal tents,

consisting of a gay party-coloured marquee of Turkish manufacture,

surrounded by twelve ample awnings of black serge, over which floated five

crimson pennons, surmounted respectively by silver globes. There was

something of African, or perhaps European, pomp in this proceeding. Until

the royal tents were enclosed from the vulgar eye, the Negoos, ascending

an adjacent eminence with his chiefs and an escort of picked warriors,

remained seated on cushioned _alga_, and under the crimson canopy of the

state umbrella.

When night fell, rockets were fired by the royal command, "to instil

terror into the breasts of the Galla hordes;" and the peak which ran near

the headquarters, was chosen as the most central spot for the display. The

effect, brilliant every where, was here all that even Majesty could have

desired. The "fire-rainers" (the picturesqe name which, we presune, Major

Harris has adopted from the natives) produced delight, wonder, and terror,

in all their degrees; and if the Galla nation were present, they must, to

a man, have solicited chains, rather than be roasted alive by those flying

monsters, which the people seem to have taken for the works of magic, if

not magicians themselves. The display was followed by a repast in the old

heroic style, and which will not be forgotten, should Abyssinia ever give

the world a sable Homer.

"The chiefs and nobles sat down to their feast in the royal pavilion,

where hydromel, beer, and _raw_ flesh were in regal profusion!! After

supper, speeches were made in the Homeric style, boasting of what the

warriors had done, and intended to do. A fragment of one of the

speeches; addressed to the English as the party broke up, gives a

fair idea of Abyssinian table eloquence, 'You are the adorners,' (the

orator had been decorated with a scarlet cloak;) 'you have given me

scarlet broadcloth, and behold I have reserved the gift for this day.

This garment will bring me success; for the Pagan who sees a crimson

cloak on the shoulders of the Amhara,' (Abyssinian,) 'believing him

to be a warrior of distinguished valour, will take, like an ass, to

his heels, and be speared without the smallest danger.'"

The march, and the foray into the country of one of the Galla tribes, are

admirably told, and perhaps are among the best descriptions in the

volumes--exact without being tedious, and deeply coloured without

exaggeration. But we must hasten to other things. This was the monarch's

eighty-fourth foray; and on this we may conceive something of the horrors

of barbarian life, and of the tremendous evils which nations have escaped

whose laws and principles tame down the original evil of man.

We are glad to find that the embassy refused to take any share in this

horrible work, though they fell into some disrepute with the troops, and

even with the monarch, for their remissness. The king had even reserved an

unlucky Galla in a tree, to be shot by his guests. But this they declined,

first, on the pretext of its being the Sabbath, and next, more distinctly

on the ground, that--"no public body was authorized by the law of nations,

to draw a sword offensively in any country not at war with its own." They

then offered the compromise, "that an elephant was esteemed equivalent to

forty Gallas, and a wild buffalo to five, and that they were ready to

shoot as many of both as his Majesty pleased." But the embassy did more

effectual things; the sick and wounded received relief from them to the

extent of their means, and they even prevailed on the king to liberate all

his prisoners. The troops in the foray amounted to about 20,000.

On the return of this destroying expedition, which seems to have turned a

very fine country into a desert, the king made a kind of triumphal entry

into his capital. His costume was splendidly savage. A lion's skin over

his shoulders, richly ornamented, and half concealing beneath its folds an

embroidered green mantle of Indian manufacture; on his right shoulder were

three chains of gold, as emblems of the Holy Trinity,(!) and the

fresh-plucked bough of asparagus, which denoted his recent exploit, rose

from the centre of an embossed coronet of silver on his brow. His dappled

war-horse, in housings of blue and yellow, was led beside him; and in

front his "champion" rode a coal-black charger, bearing the royal shield

of massive silver, with the cross upon it, and dressed in a panther's hide.

The two chief officers of his army rode either side of the crimson

umbrella; at the palace gates, a deputation of priests in white robes

received the conqueror with a benediction and a volley of musketry

announced his arrival. The leader of the royal matchlock-men performed a

war dance before the Ark as it was borne along, and in the inner court the

principal warriors, each carring some human fragment on his lance, flung

then on the ground before the royal footstool, and shouted their war

praise.

The embassy at length attained personal distinction by the death of an

elephant, which one of the party brought to the ground by a two-ounce ball.

The "warriors" were all in astonishment at this feat, to which all had

predicted the most disastrous termiration; and "Boroo, the brave chief of

the Soopa," exclaimed in his delight, "The world was made for you, and no

one else has any business in it!"

The chief object of the embassy was still to be accomplished--the

formation of something that approached to a treaty of commerce. Beads,

cutlery, and trinkets, had been received from the coast; but the beggary

of the nobles for those things was perpetual and intolerable. They called

those ornanents pleasing things, and the cry was constant, "show me

pleasing things," "give me delighting things," "adorn me from head to

foot." It is scarcely surprising that the natives should be enamoured of

European conmodities; for, though an old commerce had subsisted with

Arabia, the supplies brought by the English were of the most exciting kind.

Detonating caps were in great request; treble strong canister powder was

also much in demand. Yet there was some ingenuity amongst themselves; for

a young fellow was taken up for making dollars of pewter. Every spot and

letter had been closely represented with punch and file. "Tell me," said

the king, on the case of this culprit being mentioned to him, "how is that

machine made which in your country pours out the silver crowns like a

shower of rain?" The hand corn-mills, presented by the British Government,

had been erected within the palace walls, and slaves were turning the

wheels with unceasing diligence. "Demetrius, the Armenian, made a machine

to grind corn," exclaimed his majesty in a transport of delight, as the

flour streamed upon the floor; "and though it cost the people a year of

hard labour to construct, it was useless when finished, because the priest

declared it to be the devil's work, and cursed the bread. But, may the

Sahela Selasse die--these engines are the work of clever hands."

The monarch, elated with his knowledge, now determined to build a bridge,

which in three days was completed; and, as was predicted by the quiet

English spectators, in three hours fell down on the very first fresh

produced by the annual rains.

Weaving excepted, the people manufactured nothing; but British commerce

has long been known, though evidently of the coarsest kind. At length, on

his majesty's being told that five thousand looms would bring him more

wealth than ten thousand soldiers, he gradually consented to form a

commercial treaty. The crown had hitherto appropriated the property of

strangers dying in the country. The purchase or display of costly goods by

the subject had been interdicted, and a maxim exhibiting the whole

jealousy of savage life had been established, that the stranger who once

entered was never to depart from Abyssinia. By the articles of the

commercial treaty, all those barbarous prohibitions have been abolished.

As the monarch returned the deed, he made a short speech sufficiently able

and appropriate: "You have loaded me with costly presents, the rainment

that I wear, the throne on which I sit, the curiosities in my

store-houses, and the muskets which hang round my great hall--all are from

your country. What have I to give in return for such wealth? My kingdom is

as nothing."

The hereditary provinces at this day subject to the King of Shoa, are

comprised in a rectangular domain of 150 by 90 miles; an area traversed by

five systems of mountains, of which the culminating point divides the

basin of the Nile from that of the Hawash. The Christian population of

Shoa and Efat are estimated at a million; and the Moslem and Pagan

population at a million and a half. The royal revenues are said to amount

to 80,000 or 90,000 German crowns, arising chiefly from import duties in

slaves, merchandise, and salt. As the annual expenses of the state do not

exceed 10,000 dollars; it is presumed that the king, during his thirty

years' reign, has amassed much treasure, which is regularly deposited

under ground.

We recommend the enquirers into the truth of Herodotus, to examine the

curious illustrations stated in these volumes; and, among the rest, the

kingdom of pigmies. The geographer will find ample interest in tracing the

course of the Gochob, a sort of central Nile; and the naturalist, botanist,

and entomologist, will find abundant information in the very interesting

and complete appendices on those subjects. The history of the Christian

missions of early ages is an excellent chapter, and the general statistics

of religion.

The practical religion of the Abyssinian Christian is of the very lowest

degree of formality. Fasts, penances, and excommunications, form the chief

discipline; but the penitent can always provide a substitute for the two

former, and the latter is always to be averted by money. Spiritual

offences, however, are rare; for murder and sacrilege alone give umbrage

to the easy conscience of the natives of Shoa. Abstinence and largesses of

money are equivalent to wiping away every sin. Their creed advises the

invocation of saints, confession to the priest, and faith in charms and

amulets. Prayers for the dead, and absolution, are indispensable; and, as

a more summary mode of relieving the burdens of the flesh, it is

pronounced, that all sins are forgiven from the moment that the kiss of

the pilgrim is imprinted on the stones of Jerusalem, and that even kissing

the hand of a priest purifies the body from all sin. A creed of this order,

which makes spiritual safety dependent, not upon personal purification of

mind and divine mercy, but upon forms which are unconnected with either,

and which even can be executed by a substitute, of course excludes the

necessity for morals of any kind. All is corruption--"Born amid falsehood

and deceit, cradled in bloodshed, and nursed in the arms of idleness and

debauchery, the national character almost defies the missionary."

There are some strange remnants of Judaism still lingering amongst the

tribes of these highland regions. The Galla have a tradition, that their

whole nation will one day be called on to march, _en masse_, and reconquer

Palestine for the return of the Jews. The king of Shoa regards himself as

a direct descendant of the house of Solomon, calls himself king of Israel,

and the national standard bears the motto, "The Lion of the tribe of Judah

hath prevailed." They believe the 45th Psalm to be a prophecy of Queen

Magueda's visit to Jerusalem; whither she was attended by a daughter of

Hiram, king of Tyre. The Jewish prohibitions against the flesh of unclean

animals, are observed by the Abyssinians. The sinew which shrank, and the

eating of which was prohibited to the Israelite, is also prohibited in

Shoa. The Jewish Sabbath is strictly observed. The Abyssinians are said,

by Ludolf, to be the greatest fasters in the world. The Wednesdays and

Fridays are fasts; the forty days before Easter are rigidly observed as a

fast; and from the Thursday preceding Easter till the Sunday, no morsel of

meat is to enter the lips, and the prohibition against drink is equally

rigorous. St Michael and the Virgin Mary are venerated in the highest

degree; St Michael as the leader of the hosts of heaven, and the latter as

the chief of all saints, and queen of heaven and earth, and both as the

great intercessors of mankind.

Like the Jews of old, the Abyssinians weep and lament on all occasions of

death; and the shriek ascends to the sky, as if the soul could be recalled

from the world of spirits. As with the Jews, the most inferior garments

are employed as the weeds of woe; and the skin torn from the temples, and

scarified on the cheeks and breast, proclaims the last extremity of grief.

As the Rabbins believe that angels were the governors of all sublunary

things, the Abyssinians adopt this belief: carrying it even further, they

confidently implore their assistance in all concerns, and invoke and adore

them in a higher degree than the Creator. The clergy enjoy the price of

deathbed confession; and the churchyard is sternly denied to all who die

without the rite, or whose relations refuse the fee and the funeral feast.

Eight pieces of salt are the price of wafting a poor man's soul to the

place of rest, and the feast for the dead places him in a state of

happiness, according to the cost of the entertainment. For the rich, money

procures the attendance of priests, who absolve, and pray continually day

and night. The anniversaries of the deaths of the six kings of Shoa are

held with great ceremony in the capital; and once every twelvemonth,

before a splendid feast, their souls are absolved from all sin.

Major Harris expresses himself ardently and eloquently on the hopes of

commerce which might be maintained by Great Britain with this little-known

but productive part of the world. It is notorious that gold and gold dust,

ivory, ostrich feathers, peltries, spices, wax, and precious gums, form a

part of the lading of every slave caravan; notwithstanding that the

tediousness of the transport, and the penuriousness of the Indian and Arab

merchant, offer but a small compensation for their labour. No quarter of

the globe abounds to a greater extent in vegetable and mineral productions

than tropical Africa; and in the populous, fertile, and salubrious

portions lying immediately north of the equator, the very highest

capabilities are presented for the employment of British capital. Coal has

already been found; cotton, of a quality unrivaled in the whole world, is

every where a weed, and might be cultivated to any extent. The coffee

which is sold in Arabia as the produce of Mocha, is chiefly of wild

African growth; and that species of the tea plant which is used by the

lower orders of the Chinese, flourishes so widely, and with so little care,

that the climate would doubtless be found well adapted for the

higher-flavoured and more delicate species. If, at a very moderate

calculation, a sum falling very little short of a hundred thousand pounds

sterling, can be annually invested in European goods, to supply the wants

of some of the poorer tribes adjacent to Abyssinia, what important results

might not be anticipated from well-directed efforts, adopting the natural

neans of communication in Africa?

Another winter passed--a dreary time for the mission in Ankober. Torrents

rushed down the mountains, every footpath had been converted into a stream,

and every valley into a morass. The season was peculiarly tempestuous; the

heavy white clouds constantly hung on the mountain pinnacles, and the

torrents swelled the Hawash to such an extent, that the land for many

miles on both sides was inundated. There must have been some difficulty in

spending the time of this solitary confinement among the hills; but the

author was well employed in writing his volumes, and engineers were

employed in erecting a Gothic hall, to the great delight of his Abyssinian

majesty. He would allow them to do every thing except paint his

portrait--the national idea being, that whoever takes a likeness,

immediately becomes invested with power over the original. "You are

writing a book," he said. "I know this, because I never enquire what you

are doing that they do not tell me you are using a pen, or gazing at the

heavens. That is a good thing, and it pleases me. You will speak

favourably of myself; but you shall not insert my portrait, as you have

done that of the King of Zingero."

The English had new wonders for him; they shaped planks out of trees in a

fashion new to the Abyssinians, who waste a tree on every plank. "You

English are indeed a strange people," said the king, as he saw the first

plank formed in this economical style. "I do not understand your stories

of the roads dug under rivers, nor of the carriages that gallop without

horses; but you are a strong people, and employ wonderful inventions."

At length the Gothic hall was complete. It may be presumed that nothing

like it was ever seen in Abyssinia before; for the mission not merely

built, but furnished it with couches, ottomans, chairs, tables, and

curtains; doubtless a very showy affair, though we camot exactly

comprehend the author's expression of its being furnished after the manner

of an English cottage ornee. The king, however, was delighted with it. "I

shall turn it into a chapel," said his majesty, patting his chief

ecclesiastic on the back. "What say you to that plan, my father?" As a

last finishing touch, were suspended in the centre hall a series of large

coloured engravings, representing the chase of the tiger in all its

various phases. The domestication of the elephant, and its employment in

war or in the pageant, had ever proved a stumbling block to the king; but

the appearance of the hugest of beasts in his hunting harness struck the

chord of a new idea. "I will have a nunber caught on the Roby," he

exclaimed, "that you may tame then, and that I too may ride on an elephant

before I die!"

Another of those fearful displays of barbarian plunder and havoc took

place at the end of September. Twenty thousand warriors, headed by the

king, made an inroad on the Galla. Those unfortunate people were so little

prepared, that they seem to have been slaughtered without resistance.

Between four and five thousand were butchered, and forty-three thousand

head of cattle were driven off. A thousand captives, chiefly women and

children, were marched in triumph to the capital; but they were soon

liberated, apparently on the remonstrance of the British mission.

But a terrible disaster was to befall the palace and the people. The

dweller amongst mountains must be always exposed to their dilapidation;

and a season of unusual rain, continuing to a much later period than usual,

produced an earth-avalanche.

"As the evening of an eventful night (Dec. 6th) closed in, not a

single breath of wind disturbed the thick fog which brooded over the

mountain. A sensible difference was perceptible in the atmosphere;

but the rain again began to descend, and for hours pelted like the

dischage of a waterspout. Towards morning, a violent thunder storm

careered along the crest of the range, and every rock and cranny

re-echoed from the crash of the thunder. Deep darkness again settled

on the mountains, and a heavy rumbling noise, like the passage of

artillery wheels, as followed by the shrill cry of despair. The earth,

saturated with moisture, had slidden from their steep slopes, houses

and cottages were engulfed in the debris, or shattered to fragments

by the descending masses, and daylight presented a strange scene of

ruin. Perched on the apex of the conical peak, the palace buildings

were now stripped of their palisades, or overwhelmed: the roads along

the hill were completely obliterated. The desolation had spread for

miles along the great range: houses, with their inmates, had been

hurried away."

Before the mission took its departure, it did honour to the character of

its country by one act which alone would have been worth its time and

trouble. The horrid policy of African despotism condemns all the brothers

of the throne to the dungeon, from the moment of the royal accession. The

king had exhibited qualities of a very unexpected order in an African

despot, and, under the guidance of the mission, had made some advances to

justice, and even to clemency. At this period, he was suddenly seized with

an alarming spasmodic disorder, and he apprehended that his constitution,

enfeebled by the habits of his life, was likely to give way. On his

recovery being despaired of by both priests and physicians, he suddenly

sent for the British mission.

"'My children,' said his majesty in a sepulchral voice, as he

extended his burning hand towards them, 'behold I am sore stricken.

Last night they believed me dead, and the voice of mourning had

arisen within the palace walls; but God hath spared me until now.'"

It seems to be the custom for the king's physician to taste the draught

prescribed for him, and an attenpt being made to do this by the British,

the sick monarch generously forbade it.

"'What need is there now of this?' he exclaimed reproachfully. 'Do I

not know that you would administer to Sahela Selasse nothing that

could do him mischief?'"

The reader will probably remember an almost similar act of confidence of

Alexander the Great in his physician. An opportunity was now taken of

urging him to an act of humanity, however strongly opposed to the habits

of the country, and to the interests of the man. It was represented to him

that his uncles and brothers had been immured in a dungeon during the

thirty years of his reign, and that no act could be more honourable to

himself, or acceptable to Heaven, than the extinction of this barbarous

custom.

"'And I will release them,' returned the monarch, after a moment's

debate within himself. 'By the Holy Eucharist I swear, and by the

Church of the Holy Trinity in Koora Gadel, that if Sahela Selasse

arise from this bed of sickness, all of whom you speak shall be

restored to the enjoyment of liberty.'"

Fortunately he did arise from that bed of sickness, and he honourably

determined to keep his promise. The royal captives were seven, and the

British mission were summoned to see their introduction into the presence.

They had been so exhausted by long captivity, that at first they seemed

scarcely to comprehend freedom. They had been manacled, and spent their

time in the fabrication of harps and combs, of which they brought

specimens to lay at the feet of their monarch. This touching interview

concluded with a speech of the king to the embassy--

"'My children, you will write all that you have seen to your country,

and will say to the British Queen, that, though far behind the

nations of the White Men, from whom Ethiopia first received her

religion, there yet remains a spark of Christian love in the breast

of the King of Shoa.'"

We have thus given a rapid and bird's-eye view of a work, which we regard

as rivaling in interest and importance any "book of travels" of this

century. The name of Abyssinia was scarcely more than a recollection,

connected with the adventurous ramblings of Bruce, for the romantic

purpose of discovering the source of the Nile. His narrative had also been

wholly profitless--attracting public curiosity in a remarkable degree at

he time, no direct foundation of European intercourse was laid, and no

movement of European traffic followed. But giving Bruce all the credit,

which was so long denied him, for fidelity to fact, and for the spirit of

bold adventure which he exhibited in penetrating a land of violence and

barbarism, the mission of Major Harris at once establishes its object on

more substantial grounds. It is not a private adventure, but a public act,

rendered natural by the circumstances of British neighbourhood, and

important for the opening of Abyssinia and central Africa to the greatest

civilizer which the world has ever seen--the commerce of England. There

are still obvious difficulties of transit, between the coast and the

capital, by the ordinary route. But if the navigation of the Gochob, or

the route from Tajura, should once be secured, the trade will have

commenced, which in the course of a few years will change the face of

Abyssinia; limit, if not extinguish, that disgrace of human nature--the

slave trade; and, if not reform, at least enlighten, the clouded

Christianity of the people.

As the author was commissioned, not merely as a discoverer, but a

diplomatist, it is to be presumed that on many interesting points he

writes under the restraints of diplomatic reserve. But he has told us

enough to excite our strong interest in the beauty, the fertility, and the

capabilities of the country which he describes; and more than enough to

show, that it is almost a British duty to give the aid of our science, our

inventions, and our principles, to a monarch and a people evidently

prepared for rising in the scale of nations.

We have a kind of impression, that some general improvement is about to

take place in the more neglected portions of the world, and that England

is honoured to be the chief agent in the great work. Africa, which has

been under a _ban_ for so many thousand years, may be on the eve of relief

from the misery, lawlessness, and impurity of barbarism; and we are

strongly inclined to look upon this establishment of British feeling, and

intercourse in Abyssinia, as the commencement of that proud and fortunate

change. All attempts to enter Africa by the western coast have failed. The

heat, the swamps, the rank vegetation, and the unhealthy atmosphere, have

proved insurmountable barriers. The north is fenced by a line of burning

wilderness. But the east is open, free, fertile, and beautiful. A British

factory in Abyssinia would be not merely a source of infinite comfort to

the people, by the communication of European conveniences and manufactures,

but a source of light. British example would teach obedience and loyalty

to the laws, subordination on the part of the people, and mercy on that of

the sovereign.

But we have also another object, sufficiently important to determine our

Government in looking to the increase of our connexion with Eastern Africa.

It is certainly a minor one, but one which no rational Government can

undervalue. The policy of the present French King is directed eminently to

the extension of commercial influence in all countries. To this policy,

none can make objection. It is the duty of a monarch to develop all the

resources of his country; and while France exerts herself only in the

rivalry of peace, her advance is an advance of all nations. But her

extreme attention, of late years, to Africa, ought to open our eyes to the

necessity of exertion in that boundless quarter. On the western coast, she

had long fixed a lazy grasp; but that grasp is now becoming vigorous, and

extending hour by hour. Her flag flies at Golam, 250 miles up the Senegal.

She has a settlement at Gori; she has lately established a settlement at

the mouth of the Assinee, another at the mouth of the Gaboon, and is on

the point of establishing another in the Bight of Benin; when she will

command all Western Africa.

She is not less active on the eastern shore. At Massawah, on the coast of

Abyssinia, she is fast monopolizing the trade in gold and spices. She has

purchased Edh, and is endeavouring to purchase Brava. Her attention to

_Northern_ Abyssinia is matter of notoriety, and we must regard this

system, not so much with regard to advantages which such possessions might

give to ourselves, as to their prejudice to us in falling into rival hands.

The possession of Algeria should direct the eye of Europe to the ulterior

objects of France; the first change of masters in Egypt, must be looked to

with national anxiety; and the transmission of the great routes of Africa

into her hands, must be guarded against with a vigilance worthy of the

interests of England and Europe.

If the river shall be found navigable to any extent, what an opening is

thus presented to both the Merchant and the philanthropist; a soil

surpassed by none in the world, a climate varying only 1º in the mean

temperature of summer and winter, and presenting an average of 55-1/2º,

and a population who could hardly fail to feel the advantages of commerce

and civilization. From such a point as Aden offers, access is promised to

the very heart of Africa, and thence to the sources of the mighty rivers

which find an outlet on the western side of the continent; thus not merely

benefiting the British merchant in a remarkable degree, but rapidly

abolishing the slave trade, by giving employment to the people, wealth to

the native trader, and a new direction to the powers of the country and

the mind of its unhappy population.

On the whole consideration of the subject, we feel convinced, that Eastern

Africa is the safe and the natural point for British enterprise; that it

is the most direct and effective point for the extinction of the cruel

traffic in human flesh; and that it is the most promising and productive

point for the establishment of that substantial connexion with the

governments of the interior, which alone can be regarded as worth the

attention of the statesman.

Insignificant stations on the coast, to carry on a peddling traffic, are

beneath a manly and comprehensive policy. We must penetrate the mountains,

ascend the rivers, and reach the seats of sovereignty. We must, by a large

and generous self-interest, combine the good, the knowledge, and the

virtue of the population with our own; and we must lay the foundation of

our permanent influence over this fourth of the globe, by showing that we

are the fittest to communicate the benefits, and establish the example of

civilized society.

To those who desire to go into more minute details, we recommend an

accompanying volume by the missionaries Isenberg and Krapf--the latter of

whom acted as interpreter to the embassy. A capital geographical memoir is

also given by Mr M'Queen, the well-known African geographer.

On the whole, it is highly gratifying to our respect for British

soldiership; to see works of this rank proceeding from our military men.

They have great opportunities, and may thus render national services in

peace, not less important than their enterprise in war. The East India

Company offers inducements of the most important order, to the

accomplishment and scientific activity of its officers; and Major Harris

must feel the distinction of having been selected for a mission of such

interest, as well as the high gratification of having conducted it to so

benevolent, solid, and satisfactory a close.

* * * * *

A WORD OR TWO OF THE OPERA-TIVE CLASSES.

BY LORGNON.

"Vai, ch'avete gl'intelletti sani,

Mirate la dottrina che s'asconde,

Sotto queste coperte, alte e profonde!"--BERNI.

In the course of social transition, professions, like dogs, have their day.

A calling honourable in one century, becomes infamous in the next; and

vocations grow obsolete, like the fashioning of our garments or figures of

speech. In barbarous communities, the strong man is king:--

"Le premier roi fut un soldat heureux."

Where human statute is beginning to prize the general weal, the legist is

of high account, and the priest paramount. Higher civilization engenders

the influence of the man of letters, the artist, the dramatist, the wit,

the poet, and the orator. Or when, with a wisdom surpassing the philosophy

of the schools, we tumble down to prose, and assume the leathern apron of

the utilitarian--the civil engineer, or operative chemist, starts up into

a colossus. Sir Humphrey Davy, and Sir Isambert Brunel, are the true

knights of modern chivalry; and Sir Walter--our Sir Walter--never showed

himself more shrewd than in his exclamation to Moore--"Ah, Tam!--it's

lucky, man, we cam' sae soon!" Great as was his influence, equaling that

of the other two great Sir Walters, Manny and Raleigh, in their several

epochs of valour and enterprise, it is likely enough, that, if born a

century later, the MSS. of the Scotch novels would have been chiefly

valuable to light the furnace of some factory!

So much in exposition of the fact, that, so long as the world possessed

only three of what we choose to call quarters, an executioner was an

officer of state; and that, now it possesses five, the female of highest

renown, and greatest power of self-enrichment, is the _danseuse_, or

opera-dancer!

Many intermediary callings have disappeared. The domestic chaplain of a

lordly household is now nearly as superfluous as its archers or falconers;

and the court calendars of former reigns record a variety of places and

perquisites, which, did they still exist, would be unpalatable to modern

courtiers, though compelled to earn their daily cakes, however dirty. Just

as the last golden pippin of the house of Crenie was preserved in wax for

the edification of posterity, a watchman has been deposited, with his

staff and lantern, in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, or the Museum of the

Zoological, or United Service Club, or some other of your grand national

collections, as a specimen of the extinct Dogberry or Charley of the

eighteenth century; and in process of time, as much and more also will

probably be done to a parish beadle, a theatrical manager, a lord

chamberlain--and other public functionaries whom it might not be

altogether safe to enumerate.

Among them, however, there is really some satisfaction in hinting at the

hangman!--For, hear it, ye sanguinary _manes_ of our ancestors:--"_Les

bourreaux s'en vont!_" Executioners are departing! We shall shortly have

to commemorate in our obituaries, and signalize by the hands of our

novelists--"the last of the Jack Ketches." In these days of

ultra-philanthropy, the hangman scarcely finds salt to his porridge, or

porridge to salt.

_Exempli gratia_. In the course of last year, a patient of the lower class

was admitted into the lunatic ward of the public hospital at Marseilles,

whose malady seemed the result of religious depression. In that

supposition, the usual means of relief were resorted to, and he was at

length discharged as convalescent; when, to attest the perfectness of his

cure, he went and hanged himself! A _procès verbal_ was, as usual, made

out, and the supposed fanatic proved to be the ex-executioner of Lyons!

Tender-hearted people instantly ascribed his melancholy to qualms of

conscience. But it appeared in evidence, that, since the accession of the

citizen king, the trade of the hangman had become a dead failure; and the

disconsolate bankrupt was accordingly forced to take French leave of a

world wherein _bourreaux_ can no longer turn an honest penny!

Yet, less than three centuries ago, his predecessors were men of mark and

consideration. Our own King Hal took more heed of his executioner than of

half the counties over whose necks his axe was suspended; while Louis XI.,

a _legitimate_ sovereign of France, used to dip in the dish with Tristan

Hermite and Olivier le Dain. A few reigns later, and the hangman of the

French metropolis (who shares with its diocesan the honour of being styled

"Monsieur de Paris") was respected as the most accomplished in Europe. The

treasons of its civil wars had created so many executions, that a Gascon,

wishing to prove that his father had been beheaded as a nobleman, instead

of hanged like a dog or a citizen, asserted the decollation to have been

so expertly executed _en Grève_, that the sufferer was unconscious of his

end. "Shake yourself," exclaimed the executioner; and, on his lordship's

making the attempt, his head rolled into the dust.

This adroitness was the result of competition. In that day there were

degrees of hangmen, and promotion might be accomplished. Not only had the

king his executioner, and the Lorraines theirs--the court and the

city--the abbot of St Germain des Près--the abbot of this, and the abbot

of that--but various communities and Signories, having right of life and

death over their vassals, kept an executioner for purposes of domestic

torture, as they kept a seneschal to carve their meats; or as people now

keep a _chef_ or a_ maître d'hôtel_. In those excellent olden times of

Europe, hangmen, doubtless, carried about written characters from lord to

lord, certifying their experience with rope and axe--branding-iron and

thong. So long as the Inquisition afforded constant work for able hands, a

good hangman out of place must have been a treasure! Had there been

register-offices or newspaper advertisements, there probably would have

appeared--

"WANTS A SITUATION--An able-bodied, middle-aged man, without encumbrance,

who can have an undeniable character from his last situation, as headsman,

hangman, and general executioner. He is accustomed to the use of

thumbikins and the most approved and fashionable modes of torture; and

officiated for many years as superintendent of the wheel of a foreign

prince, renowned for the neatness of his rack. Drawing and quartering in

all their branches. Pressing to death performed in the most economical

style. Impalement in the Turkish manner; and the pile, as practised by the

best Smithfield hands, &c. &c. &c."

Independent, indeed, of the high prosperity and vast perquisites of such

posts as executioner of the Tower of London or the Grève of Paris, there

was honour and satisfaction in the office. A royal master knew when he was

well served. Henry III. stood by, in his chateau of Blois, to see, not

only the heads severed from the dead bodies of the Duke and Cardinal de

Guise, but their _flesh cut into small pieces_, preparatory to being

burned, and the ashes scattered to the winds. "His majesty," says an

eyewitness, "stood in a pool of blood to witness the hacking of the

bodies."

This Italian _gusto_ for the smell of blood, appears to have been

introduced into the palaces of France from those of Italy by alliance with

the Medici--those ennobled pawnbrokers of the middle ages, whose _parvenu_

taste engendered the fantastic gilding of the _renaissance_, which they

naturalized in the Tuileries and at Fontainbleau, in common with the

stiletto and acqua tofana of their poisoners, and the fatalism of their

judicial astrology.

But enough of Catharine de Medicis and her sanguinary son--enough of Henry

Tudor and his savage daughters--enough of the monstrous professions

flourishing in their age of monstrosities. And turn we for relief to the

exquisite vocation completing the antithesis--the vocation whose execution

is that of _pas de zéphyrs_, and the tortures of whose infliction are the

tortures of the tender heart!

The calling of the _danseuse_, we repeat, is among the most lucrative of

modern times, and nearly the most influential. The names of Taglioni and

Elssler are as European, nay, as universal, as those of Wellington and

Talleyrand-Metternich or Thiers; and modern statesmanship and modern

diplomacy show pale beside the Machiavelism of the _coulisses_.

With what pomp of phraseology are the triumphs and movements of these

_danseuses_ announced, by the self-same journal which despatches, with a

stroke of the pen, the submission of a province or revolution of a kingdom!

One poor halfpenny-worth, or half a line, suffices for the death of a

sultana; while fiery columns precede the departure and arrival of the

steamer honoured by conveying across the Atlantic some ethereal being,

whose light fantastic toe is to give the law to the United States. Her

appearance in the Ecclesiastic States, on the other hand, is announced in

Roman capitals; and her triumphal entry into St Petersburg received with

regiments of notes of admiration!!!

Were Taglioni, by the malediction of Providence, to break her leg, what

corner of the civilized earth but would sympathize in the casualty? Or

were Elssler epidemically carried off, on the same day with the Pope, the

Archbishop of Dublin, a chancellor of an university, an historiographer,

or astronomer-royal--_which_ would be most cared for by society at large,

or to which would the public journals distribute the larger share of their

dolefuls?

Nor is it alone the levities of Europe which have encompassed with a

gaseous atmosphere of enthusiasm these idols of the day. We appeal to our

sober, plodding, painstaking brother Jonathan. We move for returns of the

sums he has expended on his beloved Fanny, and for notes of the honours

conferred upon her, not only on the boards of his theatres and in the

publicity of his causeways, but amid the august nationalities of his

senate! "Fanny Elssler in Congress" has become as historical as the name

of Washington! As if for the purpose of proving that extremes meet, the

democrats of the New World were demonstrating the wildest infatuation in

favour of one dancer, while the great autocrat of the Old was exhibiting a

similar fervour in honour of another. La Gitana became all but

presidentess of the Transatlantic republic; La Bayadère depolarized the

tyrant of the Poles! But, above all, the Empress of Russia--albeit, the

lightest of sovereigns and coldest of women--was carried so far by her

enthusiasm as to fasten a bracelet of gems on the fair arm of Taglioni;

while the Queen-Dowager of England conferred a similar honour on the

Neapolitan dancer Cerito!

Now, what queen or princess, we should like to know, has lavished necklace,

or bracelet, or one poor pitiful brooch, on Miss Edgeworth or Miss Aitkin,

Mrs Somerville or Joanna Baillie, or any other of the female illustrations

of the age, saving these aerial machines which have achieved such enviable

supremacy? Mrs Marcet, who has taught the young idea of our three kingdoms

how to shoot; Miss Martineau, who has engrafted new ones on our oldest

crab-stocks, might travel from Dan to Beersheba without having a fatted

calf or a fatted capon killed for them, at the public expense. But let

Taglioni take the road, and what clapping of hands--what gratulation--what

curiosity--what expansion of delight!

The only wonder of all this is, that we should wonder about the matter.

Dancing constitutes that desideratum of the learned of all ages--an

universal language. Music, which many esteem much, is nearly as

nationalized in its rhythm as dialect in its words; whereas the organs of

sight are cosmopolitan. The eye of man and the foot of the dancer include

between them all nations and languages. The poetry of motion is

interpreted by the lexicon of instinct; and the unimpregnable grace of a

Taglioni becomes omnipotent and catholic as that of

"The statue that enchants the world!"

Who can doubt that the names of these sorceresses of our time will reach

posterity, as those of the Aspasias and Lauras of antiquity have reached

our own--as having held philosophers by the beard, and trampled on the

necks of the conquerors of mankind--as being those for whom Solon

legislated, and to whom Pericles succumbed?

Pausanius tells us of the stately tomb of the frail Pythonice in the Vica

Sacra; and we know that Phryne offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes, by

Alexander overthrown. And surely, if modern guide-books instruct us to

weep in the cemetery of Père la Chaise over the grave of Fanny Bias,

history will say a word or two in honour of Cerito, who proposed through

the newspapers, last season, an alliance offensive and defensive with no

less a man than Peter Borthwick, Esq. M.P., (_Arcades ambo_!) to relieve

the distress of the manufacturing classes of Great Britain! It is true

such heroines can afford to be generous; for what lord chancellor or

archbishop of modern times commands a revenue half as considerable?

Why, therefore--O Public! why, we beseech thee, seeing that the influence

of the operative class is fairly understood, and undeniably established

among us--why not at once elevate choriography to the rank of one of the

fine arts?--Why not concentrate, define, and qualify the calling, by a

public academy?--since all hearts and eyes are amenable to the charm of

exquisite dancing, why vex ourselves by the sight of what is bad, when

better may be achieved? Be wise, O Pubic, and consider! Establish a

professor's chair for the improvement of pirouetters. We have hundreds of

professor's chairs, quite as unavailable to the advancement of the

interests of humanity, and wholly unavailable to its pleasures. Neither

painters nor musicians acquire as much popularity as dancers, or amass an

equal fortune. Why should they be more highly protected by the state?

To disdain this exquisite art, is a proof of barbarism. The nations of the

East may cause their dances to be performed by slaves; but two of the

greatest kings of ancient and modern times, the kings after God's own

heart and man's own heart--David and Louis le Grand--were excellent

dancers, the one before the ark, the other before his subjects.

Never, perhaps, did the art of dancing attain such eminent honours in the

eyes of mankind, as during the _siècle doré_ of the latter monarch. At an

epoch boasting of Molière and Racine, Bossuet and Fénélon, Boileau and La

Fontaine, Colbert and Perrault, (the fairy talisman of politics and

architecture,) the court of Versailles could imagine no manifestation of

regality more august, or more exquisite, than that of getting up a royal

ballet; and the father of his people, Louis XIV., was, in his youth, its

_coulon_.

How amusing are the descriptions of these _entrées de ballet_,

circumstantially bequeathed us by the memoirs of the regency of Anne of

Austria! The cardinal himself took part in them; but the chief performers

were the young King, his brother Gaston d'Orleans, and the maids of honour,

figuring as Apollo and the Muses, or Hamadryads adoring some sylvan

divinity. Who has not sympathized in the joy of Madame de Sevigné, at

seeing her fair daughter exhibit among the _coryphées_! Who has not felt

interested in the _jetées_ and _pas de bourrées_ of the _ancien régime_,

when accomplished at court by Condés, Contis, Montpensiers, Montmorencys,

Rohans, Guises! The Marquis de Dangeau first recommended himself to the

favour of the royal master whose courts he was destined to journalize for

posterity, by the skill of his _pas de basques_; and long before the all

but conjugal influence of the lovely La Vallière commenced over the heart

of the _grand monarque_, his early love, and more especially his passion

for the beautiful niece of the Cardinal, may be traced to the rehearsals

and _rondes de jambes_ of Maitz and Fontainbleau.

The reign of Madame de Maintenon (_la raison même_) over his affections,

declared itself by the sudden transfer of a ballet-opera, expressly

composed by Rameau and Quinault for the beauties of the court, to the

public theatre of the Palais Royal. No more noble figurantes at Versailles!

Louis le Pirouettiste's occupation was gone; and the _maître des ballets

du roi_ arrayed himself in sackcloth and ashes. But, lo! the glories of

his throne took wing with the loves and graces; ballets and victories

being effaced on the same page from the annals of his reign.

During the minority of Louis XV., the same royal dansomania was renewed.

The regent, Duke of Orleans, entertained the same notions of kingly

education, on this head, as his predecessor the cardinal; and Louis _le

Bien-aimé_, like his great-grandfather before him, was the best dancer of

his realm. Such dancing as it was! such exquisite footing! In the upper

story of the grand gallery at Versailles, hang several pictures

representing these court ballets; Cupids in coatees of pink lustring, with

silver lace and tinsel wings, wearing full-bottomed wigs and the riband of

the St Esprit; or Venuses in hoops and powder, whose _minauderies_ might

afford a lesson to the divinities of our own day for the benefit of the

omnibus box.

Some of these groups, by Mignard, Boucher, and their imitators, are

charming studies as _tableaux de genre_. But in nothing, by the way, are

they more remarkable than in their _decency_. The nudities of the present

times appear to have been undreamed of in the philosophy of Versailles.

That simple-hearted, though strong-minded American writer, Miss Sedgwick,

who has published an account of her consternation as she sat with Mrs

Jameson in the stalls of our Italian opera, might have witnessed the royal

performance unabashed. On being told, as she gazed upon the intrepid

self-exposure of Taglioni, "_qu'il fallait être sage pour danser comme

ça_," Miss S. observes, that it requires to be more or less than woman,

and proposes to divide the human species into men, women, and

OPERA-DANCERS, little suspecting that half her readers translate such a

classification into "men, women, and ANGELS;" or that they would see

herself and her sister moralist go down in the _President_ without a pang,

provided Elssler and Taglioni were saved from the deep!

Natural enough! we repeat it--natural enough! To create a good dancer,

requires the rarest combination of physical and mental endowments.

Graceful as the forms transmitted to us by the pottery of Etruria and the

frescoes of Herculaneum, she must unite with the strength of an athlete,

the genius of a first-rate actress. That even moderate dancing demands

immoderate abilities, is attested by the exhibition of human ungainliness

disfiguring all the court balls of Europe. There may be seen the

representatives of the highest nobility, tutored by the highest education,

shuffling over the polished floor with stiffened arms and bewildered

legs--often out of time--always out of place--as if acting under the

influence of a galvanic battery. Not one in ten of them rises even to

mediocrity as a dancer. A few degrees lower in the social scale, and it

would be not one in twenty. Amid the shoving, shouldering, shuffling mob

of dancers in an ordinary ball-room, the absence of all grace amounts even

to the ludicrous. Forty years long have people been dancing the quadrilles

now in vogue, which consist of six favourite country-dances, fashionable

in Paris at the close of the last century, and then singly known by the

names they still retain--"La Poule, L'Eté, Le Pantalon, Le Trenis," &c. &c.

To avoid the monotony of dancing each in succession, for hours at a time,

down a file of forty couple, it was arranged that every eight couple

should form a square, and perform the favourite dances, in succession,

with the same partner--a considerable relief to the monotony of the

ball-room. Yet, after all this experience, if poor Monsieur le Trenis

(after whom one of the figures was named, and who, during the consulate,

died dancing-mad in a public lunatic asylum) could rise, sane, from the

dead, it would be enough to drive him mad again to see how little had been

acquired, in the way of practice, since his decease. The processes and

varieties of the ball-room are just where he left then on his exit!

Previous to the introduction of quadrilles and country dances or

_contredanses_, the inaptitude of nine-tenths of mankind for dancing was

still more eminently demonstrated in the murders of the minuet. For (as

Morall, the dancing-master of Marie Antoinette, used passionately to

exclaim)--_que de choses dans un minuet_! What worlds of modest

dignity--of alternate amenity and scorn! The minuet has all the tender

coquetry of the bolero, divested of its licentious fervour. With the

minuet and the hoop, indeed, disappeared that powerful circumvallation of

female virtue, rendering superfluous the annual publication of a dozen

codes of ethics, addressed to the "wives of England" and their daughters.

All was comprehended in the _pas grave_. That noble and right Aulic dance

was expressly invented in deference to the precariousness of powdered

heads; and its calm sobrieties, once banished from the ball-room,

revolutionary _boulangères_ succeeded--and chaos was come again! The

stately _pavon_ had possession of the English court, with ruffs and

farthingales, in the reign of Elizabeth. With the Stuarts came the wild

courante or corante--

"Hair loosely flowing, robes as free"--

and if the House of Hanover, and minuets, reformed for a time the

irregularities of St James's--what are we to expect now that waltzes,

galops, and the eccentricities of the cotillon have possession of the

social stage? WHAT NEXT? as the pamphlets say--"What will the lords

do?"--what the ladies?

Thus much in proof, that the boss of pirouettiveness is strangely wanting

in human conformation, and that there is consequently all the excuse of

ignorance for the wild enthusiasm lavished by London on the operative

class. Ten guineas per night--five hundred for the season--is the price

exacted for a first-rate opera-box; and as the exclusives usually arrive

at the close of the opera, or, if earlier, keep up a perpetual babble

during its performance, they clearly come for the dancing.--"_On voit

l'opéra, et l'on écoute le ballet_," used to be said of the Académie de

Musique. But it might be asserted now, with fully as much truth, of the

Queen's Theatre, where the evolutions of Carlotta Grisi, Elssler, and

Cerito, keep the audience in a state of breathless attention denied to

Shakspeare.

In two out of these instances, it may be advanced that they are consummate

actresses as well as graceful and active dancers. Elssler's comedy is

almost as piquant as that of Mademoiselle Mars. Nor is the ballet

unsusceptible of a still higher order of histrionic display. We never

remember to have seen a stronger _levée en masse_ of cambric handkerchiefs

in honour of O'Neill's _Mrs Haller_, or Siddons's _Isabella_, than of the

ballet of "Nina;" while the affecting death-dance in "Masaniello" is still

fresh in the memory of the admirers of Pauline Leroux. We have heard of

swoons and hysterics along the more impressionable audiences of La Scala,

during the performance of the ballet of "La Vestale;" and have witnessed

with admiration the striking effect of the fascinative scene in "Faust."

Of late years, the union of Italian blood and a French education has been

found indispensable to create a _danseuse_--"Sangue Napolitano in scuola

Parigiana;"--and Vesuvius is the Olympus of all our recent divinities.

Formerly, a Spanish origin was the most successful. The first dancer who

possessed herself of European notoriety was La Camargo, whose portraits,

at the close of a century, are still popular in France, where she has been

made the heroine of several recent dramas. To her reign, succeeded that of

the Gruinards and Duthés--in honour of whose bright eyes, a variety of

noblemen saw the inside both of Fort St Evêque and St Pelagie; the opera

being at that time a fertile source of _lettres de cachet_. To obtain

admittance to the private theatricals of the former dancer, in her

magnificent hotel in the Chaussée d'Antin, the ladies of fashion and of

the court had recourse to the meanest artifices; while the latter has

obtained historical renown, by having excited the jealousy, or rather envy,

of Marie Antoinette. Mademoiselle Duthé appeared at the fêtes of

Longchamps, in the Bois de Boulogne, in a gorgeous chariot drawn by six

milk-white steeds, with red morocco harness, richly ornamented with cut

steel; and thus accomplished the object of incurring the resentment of the

court, from the prodigality of one of whose married princes these

splendours were supposed to emanate--splendours exceeding those of the

Rhodopes of old.

But the greatest triumph ever achieved by _danseuse_, was that of

Bigottini! The Allied sovereigns, after vanquishing the victor of modern

Europe, were by _her_ vanquished in their turn. At her feet, fresh

trembling from an _entre-chat_, did

"Fiery French and furious Hun"

lay down their arms! The Allied armies appeared to have entered Paris only

to become the slaves of Bigottini!

In our own country, devotees of the _danseuse_ have done more, by

promoting her to the decencies of the domestic fireside. In our own

country, also, even Punch was once purchased by an eccentric nobleman for

the diversion of his private life. But as Demosthenes observed of the cost

of such a pleasure, "that is buying repentance too dear!"

We are perhaps offending the gravity of certain of our readers by the

extent of this notice; albeit, we have striven to propitiate their

prejudices by the peculiar combination and juxtaposition of professions,

selected for consideration. But we are not acting unadvisedly. Close its

eyes as it may, the public cannot but perceive, that the legitimate drama

is banished by want of encouragement from the national theatres, and that

the ballet is brandishing her cap and bells triumphantly in its room.

Such changes are never the result of accident. The supply is created by

the demand. It is because we prefer the Sylphide to Juliet, that the

Sylphide figures before us. Shakspeare was played to empty benches; the

Peri and Gisele fill the houses.

We repeat, therefore, since such is the bent of public appetite, let it be

gratified in the least objectionable way. Let us have a royal academy of

dancing. We shall easily find some Earl of Westmoreland to compose its

ballets, and lady patronesses to give an annual ball for the benefit of

the institution. Do not let some eighty thousand a-year be lost to the

country. An idol is as easily carved out of one block of wood as another.

Let us make unto ourselves goddesses out of the haberdashers' shops of

Oxford Street; and qualify the youthful caprices of Whitechapel to command

the homage of Congress, and of the great autocrat of all the Russias.

Properly instructed, little Sukey Smith may still obtain an enameled

brooch or bracelet from her Majesty the Queen-Dowager! Let us "people this

whole isle with sylphs!" Let Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden flourish;

but--thanks to Great Britain pirouettes!--the art of giving ten guineas

for a couple of hours spent in an opera-box, will then become less

criminal; and we shall have no fear of the influence of some Herodias's

daughter in our domestic life, when we see the Cracovienne announced in

the bills "by Miss Mary Thomson." The charm will be destroyed. The

unfrequented _coulisses_, like Dodona, will cease to give forth oracles.

Under the influence of an "establishment," we shall have to record of

opera-dancers as of other professions, that "the goddesses are departing!"

The _danse à roulades_ of Fanny Elssler will be voted vulgar, when

attempted by a Buggins. Let Mr Bunn look to himself. He may yet survive

his immortality. We foresee a day in which he will be no longer styled

Alfred the Great. With the aid of George Robins, and other illustrious

persons interested in the destinies of theatrical property, we do not

despond of hearing attached to "a bill for the legalization of the Royal

and National Academy of Dancing of the United Kingdom," the satisfactory

decree of "LA REINE LE VEUT!"

* * * * *

THE PIRATES OF SEGNA.

A TALE OF VENICE AND THE ADRIATIC. IN TWO PARTS.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.--THE STUDIO.

It was on a bright afternoon in spring, and very near the close of the

sixteenth century, that a handsome youth, of slender form and patrician

aspect, was seated and drawing before an easel in the studio of the aged

cavaliere Giovanni Contarini--the last able and distinguished painter of

the long-declining school of Titian. The studio was a spacious and lofty

saloon, commanding a cheerful view over the grand canal. Full curtains of

crimson damask partially shrouded the lofty windows, intercepting the

superabundant light, and diffusing tints resembling the ruddy, soft, and

melancholy hues of autumnal foliage; while these hues were further

deepened by a richly carved ceiling of ebony, which, not reflecting but

absorbing light, allayed the sunny radiance beneath, and imparted a sombre

yet brilliant effect to the pictured walls, and glossy draperies, of the

spacious apartment. Above the rich and lofty mantelpiece hung one of the

last portraits of himself painted by the venerable Titian, and on the dark

pannels around were suspended portraits of great men and lovely women by

the gifted hands of Giorgione, Paul Veronese, Paris Bordone, and

Tintoretto. Regardless, however, of all around him, and almost breathless

with eagerness and impatience, the student pursued his object, and with

rapid and vigorous strokes had half completed his sketch--totally

unconcious the while that some one had opened the folding-doors, crossed

the saloon, and now stood behind his chair.

"But tell me, Antonello mio!" exclaimed old Contarini, after gazing awhile

in mute astonishment at the sketch before him; "tell me, in the name of

wonder, what kind of face do you mean to draw around that lean and

withered nose and that horribly wrinkled mouth?"

Antonio, however, was so unconcious of the "world without," that he

started not at this sudden interruption of the previous stillness.

Regardless, too, of the serious and indeed reproving tone of the old man's

voice, he hastily replied without averting his gaze from the canvass.

"Hush, maestro! I beseech you. Question me not, for Heaven's sake! I

cannot spare a word in reply. The original," continued he, after a brief

interval of close attention to his object, and drawing as he spoke; "the

original is still firmly fixed in my memory. I see its sharp outlines

clear within me, and, as you well know and oft have told me, a feature

lost is lost for ever. Alas! alas! those lines and angles around the mouth

are already fading into shadow."

After he had thrown out these words, from time to time, like interjections,

and with Venetian rapidity of utterance, nothing was audible in the saloon

for some minutes but the young artist's sharp and rapid strokes upon the

canvass.

"No more of this, Antonio!" at length exclaimed the old painter with

energy, after gazing for some time at the gradual appearance of an old

woman's lean and winkled features, dried up and yellow as if one of the

dead, and yet lighted up by a pair of dark deep-set eyes, which seemed to

blaze with supernatural life and lustre. At each touch of the artist, this

mummy-like and unearthly visage was brought out into sharper and more

disgusting relief, when Contarini, no longer able to control his

indignation, dashed the charcoal from his pupil's hand. "Apage, Satanas!"

he shouted, "thy talent hath a devil in it. I see his very hoof-print in

that horrible design."

Startled by this unexpected violence, the young artist turned round, and

beheld with amazement the usually benign featutes of his venerable teacher

flashing upon him with irrepressible anger, which was the more impressive

because the Cavaliere had just returned from a visit to the Doge, and was

richly attired in the imposing patrician costume of the period. Around his

neck was the golden chain hung there by the imperial hands of Rodolph the

Second, and he wore the richly enameled barret, and lofty heron's plume,

which the same picture-loving emperor had placed upon his head when he

knighted him as a reward for the noble pictures he had painted in Germany.

There was a true and fine air of nobility in his lofty form and

well-marked features--a character of matured thought and intellectual

power in the expansive brow, and in the firm gaze of his large dark eyes,

as yet undimmed by age--with evidence of decision and self-respect, and

habitual composure in the finely formed mouth and chin. Thus splendidly

arrayed, and thus dignified in form, features, and expression, this

distinguished man recalled so powerfully to the memory of his imaginative

pupil the high-minded doges of the heroic period of Venice, and the

imposing portraits of Titian's senators, that, with a deep sense of his

own moral inferiority, he obeyed in silence, and with starting tears

removed the offending sketch. Then placing before him a small picture of a

weeping and lovely Magdalen by Contarini, which he had undertaken to copy,

he began the sketch, patiently awaiting a voluntary explanation of this

unwonted vehemence in his beloved teacher, who, seated in his armchair,

leaned his head upon his hand and seemed lost in thought.

And now again for some time was the deep stillness of the studio

interrupted only by the strokes of Antonio's charcoal, which, unlike his

rapid and feverish efforts when sketching the old woman, were now subdued

and tranquil. As he gazed into the upraised and pleading eyes of the

beautiful Magdalen, his excitement gradually yielded to the pacifying

influence of her mute and eloquent sorrow. This salutary change escaped

not the observation of Contarini, whose benevolent features softened as he

gazed upon these tokens of a better spirit in his pupil.

"I rejoice to see, Antonio," he began, "that you already feel, how ever

imperfectly, the soothing and hallowed influence of the Beautiful in Art

and Nature, and the peril to soul and body of delighting in imaginary

forms of horror. If you indulge these cravings of a distempered fancy, you

will sink to the base level of those Flemish artists who delight in

painting witches and demons, and in all fabulous and monstrous forms. You,

who are nobly born, devoted to poetry and fine art, and possess manifest

power in portraiture, should aim at the Heroic in painting. Make this your

first and steadfast purpose. Devote to it your life and soul; and, should

the power to reach this elevation be wanting, you may still achieve the

Beautiful, and paint lovely women in lovely attitudes. But tell me,

Antonello!" continued he, resuming his wonted kindness, "how came that

horrid visage across thy path, or rather across thy fancy? for surely no

such original exists. Say, didst thou see it living, or was it the growth

of those distempered dreams to which painters, more than other men, are

subject?"

"No, padre mio! it was no dream," eagerly answered his pupil. "Yesterday I

went in our gondola, as is my wont on festivals, to the beautiful church

of San Moyses, which I love for its oriental and singular architecture.

When near the church I heard a melodious voice calling to Jacopo, my

gondolier, the only boatman in sight, and begging a conveyance across the

canal. Issuing from the cabin, I saw a tall figure, closely veiled,

standing on the steps of the palace facing the church and occupied by the

Archduke's ambassador. Approaching the steps, Jacopo placed a plank for

the stranger; but, as she stepped out to reach it, a sudden gust caught

her large loose mantle, which, clinging to her shape, displayed for a

moment a form of such majestic and luxuriant fulness--such perfect and

glorious symmetry, as no man, still less an artist, could look on unmoved.

In trembling and indescribable impatience, I awaited the raising of her

veil. Another gust, and a slight stumble as she bounded rather than

stepped into the boat, befriended me; the partial shifting of her veil,

which she hastily replaced, permitted a glimpse of her features--brief,

indeed, but never to be forgotten. Yes, father! the face which surmounted

that goddess-like and splendid person, was the horrid visage I have

sketched, lean and yellow, drawn up into innumerable wrinkles, and with

black eyes of intolerable brightness, blazing out of deep and faded

sockets. Staggered by this unearthly contrast, I fell back upon the bench

of the gondola, and gazed in silent horror at the stranger, who answered

not the blunt questions of Jacopo; and, as if ashamed of her astounding

ugliness, sat motionless and shrouded from head to foot in her capacious

mantle. I followed her into the church; but, unable to hold out during the

mass, I left her there and hastily returned to sketch this sublime example

of the hideous before any of its points had faded from my memory. Forgive

me, father, for yielding to an impulse so strong as to overwhelm all power

of resistance. Yet why should I abandon this rare opportunity of

displaying any skill I may have gained from so gifted a teacher? Pictures

of Madonnas and of lovely women so abound in all our palaces, that a young

artist can only rise above the common level by representing something

extraordinary, something rarely or never seen in life."

Contarini gazed with sorrowing and affectionate interest upon the flushed

features of his pupil, again excited as before by his own description of

the mysterious stranger. One less acquainted with human nature, would have

mistaken the flashing eyes and animated features of the youthful artist

for the sure tokens of conscious and advancing talent; but the aged

painter, whose practised eye was not dazzled by the soft harmony of

features which gave a character of feminine beauty to Antonio, saw in the

excitement which failed to give a more intellectual character to his

countenance, sad evidence of a soul too feeble and infirm of purpose to

achieve eminence in any thing, and with growing alarm he inferred a

predisposition to mental disease from those morbid and uncontrolled

impulses, which delighted in portraying objects revolting to all men of

sound and healthy feelings.

He arose in evident emotion, and after pacing the studio some time in

silence, he approached Antonio, who, yielding to his eccentric longings,

had seized the sketch of the old woman's head, and was gazing on it with

evident delight. "Give me the sketch, Antonio!" resumed the painter in his

kindest tone, "'Tis finished, and the hunter cares not for the hunted

beast when stricken. What wouldst thou with it?" "What would I, maestro?"

exclaimed the alarmed youth, hastily removing his sketch from the extended

hand of the painter, "Finish the subject of course, and place this

wonderful old head upon the magnificent form to which it belongs."

"But, saidst thou not, Antonio, that the poor creature in the gondola

hastily concealed her features when accident revealed them, as if ashamed

of her unnatural ugliness? And canst thou be so heartless as to publish to

the world that strange deformity she is doomed to bear through life, and

which she is evidently anxious to conceal? Wouldst thou add another pang

to the existence of one to whom life is worse than death, and whose

eternal veil is but a foretaste of the winding-sheet and the grave? Thou

wilt not, canst not, my Antonio, make such unheard-of misery thy

stepping-stone to fame and fortune." This impassioned appeal to all his

better feelings at length reached the heart of Antonio. For a short time

he continued to withhold the drawing; but his kindly nature triumphed.

Tearing his sketch into fragments, he threw himself into the extended arms

of his beloved teacher, who with deep emotion placed his trembling hand on

the curling locks of his pupil, and implored the blessing of Heaven on his

better feelings and purposes.

With a view to improve the impression he had made, the painter led Antonio

round the studio, and sought to fix his attention upon several portraits

of lovely women which adorned it. "Here," said he, "are heads worthy to

crown that striking figure in the gondola. Behold that all-surpassing

portrait by Giorgione, of such beauty as painters and poets may dream of

but never find, and yet not superhuman in its type. Too impassioned for an

angel; too brilliant for a Madonna; and with too much of thought and

character for a Venus--she is merely _woman_. Belonging to no special rank

or class in society, and neither classical nor ideal, she personifies all

that is most lovely in her sex; and, whether found in a palace or a

cottage, would delight and astonish all beholders. This rarely gifted

woman was the daughter of Palma Vecchio, and the beloved of Giorgione, one

of the handsomest men of his time; but her sympathies were not for him,

and he died of grief and despair in his prime. She was the favourite model

of Titian and his school, and the type that more or less prevails in many

celebrated pictures.

"How different and yet how beautiful of its kind, is that portrait of a

Doge's daughter, by Paris Bordone! Less dazzling and luxuriant in her

beauty than Palma's daughter, she is in all respects intensely

aristocratic. In complexion not rich and glowing, but of a transparent and

pearly lustre, through which the course of each blue vein is visible. In

shape and features not full and beautifully rounded, but somewhat taller

and of more delicate symmetry. In look and attitude not open, frank, and

natural; but astute, refined, courteous, and winning to a degree

attainable only by aristocratic training and the habits of high society.

In apparel, neither national nor picturesque, but attired with studied

elegance. Rich rows of pearls wind through her braided hair, in colour

gold, in texture soft as silk. A band of gold forms the girdle of her

ruby-coloured velvet robe, which descends to the wrist, and there reveals

the small white hand and tapering fingers of patrician beauty. All this

may captivate the fastidious noble; but, to men less artificial in their

tastes and habits, could such a woman be better than a statue--and could

love, the strongest of human passions, be ever more to her than a

short-lived and amusing pastime?

"From these immortal portraits, my Antonio, you may learn that _colour_

was the grand secret of the great Venetian painters. _Their_ pale forms

are never white, nor their blooming cheeks rose-colour, but the true

colour of life--mellow, rich, and glowing; both men and women strictly

true to nature, and looking as if they could turn pale with anger or blush

with tender passion. From these great men can best be learned how much

charm may be conveyed by _colour_, and what life and glow, what passion,

grace, and beauty it gives to _form_.

"But I weary thee, Antonio; and after such excitement thou hast need of

repose. To-morrow, let me see thee early."

The exhausted youth gladly departed from a scene of so much trial; and,

hastening to his gondola, sought refreshment in an excursion to the Lido.

Returning after nightfall, he landed on the Place of St Mark's, and

wandered through its cool arcades until they were deserted. In vain,

however, did he strive to banish the graceful form and grisly features of

the stranger. The strong impression he had received became so vivid and

absorbing, that at every turn he thought he saw her gazing at him as if in

mockery, and lighting up the deep shadows beneath the arches with her

glowing orbs, which seemed to his disordered fancy to emit sparks and

flashes of fire. No longer able to resist the impulse, forgetting alike

the paternal admonitions of the old painter, and the promises so sincerely

given, he quitted the piazza and hastened to the palace of his father, the

Proveditore Marcello, then absent on state affairs in the Levant.

Retiring to his own apartment, he fixed an easel with impetuous haste, and

by lamp-light again began to sketch the Medusa head of the old woman.

Yielding himself up to this new frenzy, he succeeded beyond his hopes; a

supernatural power seemed to guide his hand, and soon after midnight he

had drawn to the life not only the appalling head, but the commanding and

beautiful person, of the mysterious personage in the gondola. After gazing

awhile upon his work with triumphant delight, he retired to bed; but slept

not until long after sunrise, and then the extraordinary incidents of the

past day haunted his feverish dreams. A female form, youthful and of

surpassing beauty, hovered around his couch, but ever changing in

appearance. At first her head was invisible and veiled in mist, from which,

at intervals, flashed features of resplendent loveliness, and eyes of

heavenly blue, which beamed upon him with thrilling tenderness; and then

the mist dispersed, and the beauteous phantom stooped down to kiss his

cheek, when suddenly her blooming face darkened and withered into the

death-like visage of that fearful stranger, and her long bright hair was

converted into hissing sepents. Starting with a scream of horror from his

troubled and exhausting slumbers, he again sought refuge in his gondola,

but returned, alas! to make his sketch into a picture, which the hues of

life made still more hideous and repulsive. After several days thus

occupied, he sketched in various attitudes the imposing figure of the old

woman, and endeavoured to fit this beautiful Torso with a head not

unworthy of it. But herein, after many attempts, he failed. His excitement,

so long indulged, had risen into fever. His diseased fancy controlled his

pencil, and blended with features of the highest order of beauty so many

touches of the old woman's ghastly visage, that he threw down his pencil,

and abandoned all further efforts in despair.