grunting steam-ship, full of cockneys. "They call this steamy torturer the Lotus, too-adding insult to deep injury; a pretty specimen of thy sacred flower begrimed with soot, and bearing fifty tons of Newcastle coal in its calyx!"

The victorious city, Misr al Kahira, is gained.

"Protean powers! what a change!-a labyrinth of dark, filthy, intricate lanes and alleys, in which every smell and sight, from which the nose and eye revolt, meet one at every turn, and one is always turning. . . . . A string of camels, bristling with fagots of firewood, sweeps the streets as effectually of passengers as the machine which has superseded chummies does a chimney of its soot. Lean, mangy dogs are continually running between your legs, Beggars in rags,

quivering with vermin, are lying in ever corner of the street," &c.

At length, the illusion is fairly broken; and Mr. Warburton exclaims, in downright distress: "How comes it, that almost every event of vivid romance, and visible chivalry, and poetry of action, belongs to the olden time of man ?"

Simply because we attach such ideas to the past, to the manifest neglect of, and injustice to, the present. History is not encumbered with the details of life, which are everywhere the swamp of chivalry and poetry; and it is only the temperament of genius that can find aliment for such, amidst the utilitarianism and matter-of-fact tendencies of actual life. We rejoice, then, to travel occasionally with a couleur-de-rose companion; he may not inform the judgment, but he widens the sympathies; he may not satisfy the intellect, but he gratifies taste and feeling, and rouses the passions; and we rejoice when, with a pertinacity worthy of the cause, he will not be disillusionized, but perseveres in seeing everywhere beautiful women, gorgeous apparel, rivers, and palm groves, amid sunshine in all its Oriental blush; and cities crowded with water-carriers, calendars, Armenians, barbers,—all interesting, not as such, but as being the dramatis persone of the Arabian Nights.

The only thing we object to is, that they all follow the same path. As to Syria, they just kiss its shores, like the blue Mediterranean; and if they do venture inwards, it is to Jerusalem, or Damascus, to Baalbec, and the Cedars, to the Dead Sea, and Betedín, the palace of the Druse. Up the Nile is worse, for there you have to make the ascent-and a long navigation we generally find it to be-and then to come back again over the same ground, with visits to those spots which were neglected on the ascent, leaving you in dire confusion as to what was examined, and what was not.

At Cairo, Mr. Warburton witnessed the magnetic performance of the celebrated Sheikh Abd-el-Khadr Moghribu, but with some trouble, as he had been recently kicked down stairs by a party of young Englishmen for a failure in his performance. He was not more successful on this occasion; but Mr. Warburton takes the opportunity of discussing magnetism in its remote antiquity, as practised by the Egyptians, and is above that prejudice which condemns what is not immediately comprehensive, or scoffs at what is not always successful.

The journey up the Nile is full of beautiful pictures. It is what the author intended it to be-a panoramic sketch, for the details to fill up which, the reader may consult more laborious writers. We were certainly somewhat startled at passing Beni Hasan, Eilethya, and a

host of other antiquities, without even a mention made of their names; and it was, in truth, an oversight to walk into the Temple of Esneh, and not to notice those astronomical signs of far greater antiquity than those at the Macedonian Denderah; to sail past Edfu, with its grotesque and fantastic sculptures, and the most perfect sample of the Propylon, both in the ascent and on the return, without landing to see it. It was a mistake, also, not to notice the domestic scenes figured in the tombs of Beni Hasan, or the equally remarkable paintings of the grottoes of the Eilethya; to make Rhampses forty feet in length; and not to stop at the tomb of Thotmes III., the Pharaoh of the bondage. But Mr. Warburton says, with a rare candour:—

"By this time, we had been so be-templed and be-ruined, that we looked on a city of the Pharaohs with as much indifference as on a club-house in Pall Mall, and read the glowing eulogies of antiquaries as unmovedly as if they had been puffs of some noble residence,' by George Robins."

We can comprehend this: enthusiasm for travel and novelty there might be; but any real sentiment of antiquity there could be none, or it would not have been so easily palled.

Further on it is remarked

"However visionary the pursuit, and however faint the approximation to the truth, it is still pleasant to be humbugged by the priests with Herodotus; to go body-snatching in kingly tombs with brave Belzoni; or even to pick beetles, and read handwriting on the walls' with Rozellini, Champollion, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson ;-pleasanter would any of these subjects be, than the dry discussion of common-place life in these common-place times. But the attempt to introduce such subjects into these slight pages would be as vain as to embroider muslin with Cleopatra's needle. A glimpse at men and things of our own times is all that I can hope to offer; and if it be not vivid and comprehensive, it shall be at least faithful as far as in me lies."

The animus is still more strongly developed, when the author enumerates all the scenes consecrated by the power and poetry of ancient times which he has witnessed. The Hill of Tara, the highland glens, the battle field of Hastings, the plain of Tours, the oak tree of Guernica, the Valhalla of the Teuton, the capital of Imperial Rome, the acropolis of republican Athens, and last, not least, Thebes. We can understand the feeling awakened by presence on the field where our Norman robber ancestors helped to triumph over the freedom which they afterwards restored with interest to the Saxon; but we cannot equally appreciate the poetry that Thebes would suggest where its mighty relics were not understood.

"Little," says Mr. Warburton, after two pages devoted to ruins of antiquity that are unequalled in all the world's wonders, "did the anxious embalmer of an imperial corpse think what pains he was bestowing to please Paddington or Cheapside; little did the expiring Pharaoh dream that Mr. Tomkins should be his resurrection angel! "One glimpse at Luxor, one gallop over the plain of Carnak, and

away!"

The Lotus steams the lower Nile; and it appears that a railroad is wanted in its upper portions for the researches of New England. The promised glimpses at men and things bring out fruit:

"So it is, however, as any traveller will bear witness: England is expected, in the East, where, hitherto, she has never planted a standard (every one understands by the

East, those countries which he may happen to visit in Asia, or even Africa), except in defence of the crescent, and the integrity of its dominions. That she will ever come forward to vindicate the cross, where her best and bravest blood was shed in its defence six hundred years ago, is very problematical. However, gold wins its way where angels might despair,' and the interests of India may obtain what the sepulchre of Christ has been denied."

Reflection on this fact has often made us shudder to think that the day of retribution may arrive. To sacrifice the prostrate Christianity of Syria and Palestine for the sake of upholding the crumbling and ruinous power of the Ottomans, for what can never be but a temporary political advantage, is a policy as short-sighted as it will be ultimately destructive. In Palestine, the Egyptians gave us permission to build a church at Jerusalem; we drove them out, to make way for a more barbarous rule, by whose orders the building of the church was immediately stopped, and has never been proceeded with.

"Had it been a factory," says Mr. Warburton, "that was interfered with, or a commercial right that was invaded, England's sword would long since have severed the Gordian knots into which the Ottoman policy is ever weaving its contemptible cobwebs."

We doubt it-witness Bokhara. Of Lady Hester Stanhope's death, Mr. Warburton relates:

"Mr. Moore, our consul at Beyrout, hearing she was ill, rode over the mountains, accompanied by Mr. Thompson, the American missionary, to visit her. It was evening when they arrived. and a profound silence was over all the palace; no one met them; they lighted their own lamps in the outer court, and passed, unquestioned, through court and gallery, until they came to where she lay. A corpse was the only inhabitant of the palace; and the isolation from her kind, which she had sought so long, was indeed complete. That morning, thirty-seven servants had watched every motion of her eye; but its spell once darkened by death, every one filed with such plunder as they could secure. A little girl, whom she adopted and maintained for years, took her watch and some papers, on which she set peculiar value. Neither the child nor the property were ever seen again. Not a single thing was left in the room where she lay dead, except the ornaments upon her person; no one had ventured to touch these; and even in death she seemed able to protect herself. At midnight, her countryman and the missionary carried her out by torchlight to a spot in the garden that had been formerly her favourite resort, and there they buried her." ·

Such was the end of that extraordinary person, who annihilated a village for disobedience, and burned a mountain chalet, with all its inhabitants, on account of the murder of two French travellers, who had been under the protection of her firman; whom the sultan addressed as "Cousin ;" and whose weaknesses, only exceeded by his own vanity, it remained for Lamartine to ridicule.

Speaking of travellers' vanities, it appears that Mr. Stephens, the American traveller, carved his name at Philæ, on the slab that bore the inscription written there by Dessaix, in 1799, to commemorate his arrival with a French army, in pursuit of the Mameluks. Now, after Mr. Stephens, came a French traveller, who thought it bad taste, even in an American, to obtrude himself into the company of the French general-the rather, perhaps, as there were some acres of spare wall equally available for the purpose. He, therefore, carefully eradicated the name of Stephens, and appended, moreover, the following sarcastic remark: "La page d'histoire ne doit pas être

salie!"

At Beirut, Mr. Warburton found a British officer of distinguished birth and gallantry, who has married a Maronite lady of great beauty, and settled in the country. Is this Colonel Nr? If so, his pleasant sketches have terminated in real romance. On being introduced to the bride-"I no longer wondered," Mr. Warburton says, "that he had abandoned his career-fame, fortune, everything, in such a cause."

While in Syria and Palestine, Mr. Warburton visited most of the places of note; and he gives favourable accounts of the progress of the protestant episcopacy at Jerusalem, and of the Syrian Medical-Aid establishment. He afterwards returned by Constantinople, Greece, and the Ionian islands.

The novelty of personal experiences has always a charm about it, however beaten may be the track through which it leads us; and in the present case, there is a fine poetical imagination, tempered by a well-trained intelligence, that frequently elicits beauties, where others would have passed them by. Thought, feeling, and passion, manifest themselves in every page; and the East is still, and will be yet for a long time, an admirable vent for the steam of restless genius.

ANTICIPATIONS OF 1860.-PLEASURES PENAL.

BY R. B. PEAKE.

PHILOSOPHY and utilitarianism having gradually brought the minds of men to the point that the choice pleasures and amusements of our artificial society are to be made punishments for crimes and misdemeanours,-laws, in several sessions of parliament, were enacted to that effect, accordingly.

Scotland being our birthplace, and having in the education of our early youth acquired the northern gift of "second sight," we are enabled to report faithfully several of the first convictions under the

new act.

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT, FARRINGDON STREET,

February, 1860.

Saul Fejee, a New Zealand flax-merchant, who had hitherto borne a high character for integrity, of a simple and unsophisticated manner, educated entirely by the missionaries, was indicted for stealing a Bible, to which he pleaded "Not Guilty;" but admitted he had taken it out of a pawnbroker's window, in Tottenham-court-road. He stated that he had, in a fit of passion, (because he could not devour the cabin-boy, with whom he had quarrelled,) thrown his own Bible overboard in the passage to England, and that he now wanted another.

From observing so many of the volumes in the pawnbroker's shop, he concluded it to be an emporium of the society, and smashing the window with the thigh-bone of his grandmother, (which he always carried about with him, as an especial mark of dutiful affection,) he

abducted the Bible, and was making off with it, when he was pursued and given in custody.

The recorder in summing up, regarded the offence of the prisoner as one of a very grave nature; and he should, therefore, inflict the heaviest punishment the new law permitted.

Saul Fejee, the New Zealander, was sentenced-" To attend a House, to which two hundred and fifty fashionables were invited, and to stay all the time it lasted."

soirée at

This dreadful sentence was summarily carried into effect.

Now, the state of misery the prisoner endured was almost beyond description; accustomed all his life to the clear and open air, and to perfect freedom in his limbs, he was compelled to attire himself at his own expense, in a very elegant and tight-fitting suit of clothes, white kid gloves, white cravat, and boots of polished leather with pointed toes. (The prescribed dress under the sentence.) His hair was also disarranged from the New Zealand fashion, and curled and combed by a Parisian artist. He was at eleven o'clock in the evening conveyed in a close carriage in custody of the officers, and delivered over to his destiny. This was the more perplexing to Saul Fejee, as it was considerably past the period that he was accustomed to lie flat on his back, and fall into profound slumber for the night. The guests now began to arrive, most of them using eye-glasses, the ladies bearing bouquets, and wearing perfumes, the scent of which was overpowering to the unsophisticated child of nature, who was unaccustomed to any aromatic stronger than an oyster or a muscle in a state of decomposition, unless it was in the gradual baking and drying of the stuffed head of his enemy.

The ottomans were now occupied; scandal, satin, and silk disseminated in every direction; the gentlemen flattered and fanned the ladies; satirical whispering and giggling prevailed. Music, uncouth to the ears of the interesting foreigner, was heard, and produced the same effect that certain harmonious bars have on the nerves of a hound, only that the New Zealander, though he was anxious to howl and yell, dared not in such company. His irritability was augmented by the distinguished male and female visitors forming themselves into quadrilles, in which both sexes, without the slightest animation, walked or half-slid through precisely the same silly figures for many hours. Saul Fejee thought of the war-dance of his own beloved nation; and the movement he was now sentenced to endure suffered greatly by comparison, because the ladies and gentlemen did not commence singing in a low tone, and gradually becoming more and more agitated in their movements, until their whole appearance was excitingly frightful and hideous. They, poor, spiritless dancers, did not bend their bodies backwards, roll their heads, thrust out their tongues, foam at the mouth, and stamp their feet, while their eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets. No; it was the one uniform, tame approach, retiring, and walking round each other, without a smile on the countenance, from twelve o'clock until five. And this was the intellectual amusement of a portion of the most enlightened nation in the world, which cannot even boast of its own national dance, unless the ancient morrice-dance can be so called-and that is never practised in polite society. The rout cakes, the orgeat, the lemonade, and other refresh