beach, where they find long black boats, apparently empty, yet sunk so deeply in the water as to be nearly level with it. The moment they enter, a large white sail streams out from the top of the mast, and the barque is carried out to sea with irre. sistible rapidity, never to be seen by mortal eyes again. The belief is that these boats are freighted with condemned souls, and that the fishermen are doomed to pilot them over the waste of waters until the day of judgment. This legend, like many others, is of Celtic origin, and is related by Procopius. Such are a few of the salient superstitions of a people not yet embraced in the girdle of modern civilization, who have derived none of their notions from books, and who realize in their living faith all those characteristics of Romance which we are too apt to believe, in our sober England, have long since passed out of the world. To the Breton, the elements of that Romance are part and parcel of his daily existence; he breathes the very atmosphere of the middle ages, which are not revived, but continued in him; and acts to the life the whole round of their enchantments, without being in the slightest degree conscious of the performance. How long the people are destined to preserve these peculiar attributes is a problem rapidly has. tening towards solution. Two great railroads from Paris-the one stretching to Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and the other to Orleans, on the banks of the Loire -have just been thrown open. The railroad is the giant annihilator of old customs and provincial manners. The moment its fiery chariot touches the boundary line of Brittany, we may take our last look upon the Armorica of the ancients. RELIEVO MAP OF ENGLAND AND WALES.(Dobbs & Co.)-It is eminently characteristic of English integrity and enterprise, that almost every improvement introduced amongst us is speedily carried farther and farther on the road to perfection. This embossed map is a useful and beautiful illustration of the fact-the first, it is announced, of an intended series. What with the proportionate elevations of the mountains and the aid of color, the eye at once distinguishes all the principal features of the geography of the land; and we obtain at a glance as much information as it would take us days to gather from description or reading. The design is excellent, and the execution most laudable.-Literary Gazette. "HONOR TO WOMEN." FROM SCHILLER. HONOR to women! entwining and braiding, Man, and his wild spirit strives, The restless phantom of his dream. Man is ever warring, rushing Onward through life's stormy way, Pluck the moment's brief flowers as they wander More free in their limited range, richer ever To the godlike power of Love,— O wakened like harp, and as gently, resembling Breathes woman's fond soul, and as feelingly too: Touch'd lightly, touch'd deeply, O ever she borrows Grief itself from the image of grief, and her sorrows Ever gem her soft eyes with Heaven's holiest dew. Man, of power despotic lord, In power doth insolently trust; Combat spoilers wild and dread, Where the charities have fled. But gently entreating, and sweetly beguiling, Calming down the fierce discord of Hatred and Teaching all whom the strife of wild passions would DR. FRANCIA AND SOUTH AMERICA. From the Foreign Quarterly Review. 1. Funeral Discourse delivered on occasion of celebrating the Obsequies of his late Excellency the Perpetual Dictator of the Republic of Paraguay, the Citizen Dr. José Gaspar Francia, by Citizen the REV. MANUEL ANTONIO PEREZ, of the Church of the Incarnation, on the 20th of October, 1840. (In the "British Packet and Argentine News," No. 813. Buenos Ayres: March 19, 1842.) 2. Essai Historique sur la Révolution de Paraguay, et le Gouvernement Dictatorial du Docteur Francia. Par MM. RENGGER et LONGCHAMP. 2de édition. Paris. 1827. 3. Letters on Paraguay. By J. P. and W. P. ROBERTSON. 2 vols. Second Edition. London. 1839. 4. Francia's Reign of Terror. (By the same.) 5. Letters on South America. (By the same.) ma, have swallowed this brave Don Augustin vate caruit sacro. And Bolivar, "the Washington of Columbia," Liberator Bolivar, he too is gone without his fame. Melancholy lithographs represent to us a long-faced, square-browed man; of stern, considerate, consciously considerate aspect, mildly aquiline form of nose; with terrible angularity of jaw; and dark deep eyes, somewhat too close together (for which latter circumstance we earnestly hope the lithograph alone is to blame): this is Liberator Bolivar :-a man of much hard fighting, hard riding, of manifold achievements, distresses, heroisms, and histrionisms in this world; a many-counselled, much-enduring man; now dead and gone, of whom, except that melancholy lithograph, the cultivated European public knows as good as nothing. Yet did he not fly hither and thither, often in the most desperate manner, with wild cavalry clad in blankets, with War of Liberation "to the death?" Clad in blankets, ponchos the South Americans call them: it is a square blanket, with a short slit in the centre, which you draw over your head, and so leave hanging: many a liberative cavalier has ridden, in those hot climates, without further dress at all; and fought handsomely too, wrapping the blanket round his arm, when it came to the charge. THE Confused South American revolution, and set of revolutions, like the South American continent itself, is doubtless a great confused phenomenon; worthy of better With such cavalry, and artillery and inknowledge than men yet have of it. Seve- fantry to match, Bolivar has ridden, fightral books, of which we here name a few ing all the way, through torrid deserts, hot known to us, have been written on the sub- mud-swamps, through ice-chasms beyond ject: but bad books mostly, and productive the curve of perpetual frost,-more miles of almost no effect. The heroes of South than Ulysses ever sailed: let the coming America have not yet succeeded in pictur- Homers take note of it. He has marched ing any image of themselves, much less over the Andes, more than once; a feat any true image of themselves, in the Cis- analogous to Hannibal's; and seemed to Atlantic mind or memory. think little of it. Often beaten, banished Iturbide," the Napoleon of Mexico," a from the firm land, he always returned great man in that narrow country, who was again, truculently fought again. He gainhe? He made the thrice-celebrated "Plan ed in the Cumana regions the "immortal of Iguala;" a constitution of no continu- victory" of Carababo and several others; He became Emperor of Mexico, under him was gained the finishing "immost serene "Augustin I.;" was deposed, mortal victory" of Ayacucho in Peru, where banished to Leghorn, to London; decided Old Spain, for the last time, burnt powder on returning;-landed on the shore of in those latitudes, and then fled without reTampico, and was there met, and shot: turn. He was Dictator, Liberator, almost this, in a vague sort, is what the world emperor, if he had lived. Some three times knows of the Napoleon of Mexico, most over did he, in solemn Columbian parliaserene Augustin the First, most unfortunate ment, lay down his Dictatorship with WashAugustin the Last. He did himself publishington eloquence; and as often, on pressmemoirs or memorials, but few can read them. Oblivion, and the deserts of Pana ance. "A Statement of some of the principal events in the Public Life of Augustin de Iturbide: written by Himself." London. 1843. ing request, take it up again, being a man indispensable. Thrice, or at least twice, did he, in different places, painfully construct a Free Constitution; consisting of "two chambers, and a supreme governor for life, with liberty to name his successor," was appointed to do it. By way of preparation, for he began from afar, San Martin, while an army is getting ready at Mendoza, assembles "at the Fort of San Carlos by the Aguanda river," some days' journey to the south, ail attainable tribes of the Pehuenche Indians, to a solemn Palaver, so they name it, and civic entertainment, on the esplanade there. The ceremonies and deliberations, as described by General Miller, are somewhat surprising; still more the concluding civic feast, which lasts for three days, which consists of horses' flesh for the solid part, and horses' blood, with ardent spirits ad libitum, for the liquid, consumed with such alacrity, with such results as one may fancy. However, the women had prudently removed all the arms beforehand; nay, the reasonablest democratic constitution you could well construct; and twice, or at least once, did the people on trial, declare it disagreeable. He was, of old, well known in Paris; in the dissolute, the philosophico-political and other circles there. He has shone in many a gay Parisian soirée, this Simon Bolivar; and he, in his later years, in autumn 1825, rode triumphant into Potosi and the fabulous Inca Cities, with clouds of feathered Indians somersetting and war-whooping round him,*-and "as the famed Cerro, metalliferous Mountain, came in sight, the bells all peeled out, and there was a thunder of artillery," says General Miller! If this is not a Ulysses, Polytlas and Polymetis, a much-enduring and many-counselled man; where was there one? Truly a Ulysses whose history were" five or six of these poor women, taking it worth its ink, had the Homer that could do it, made his appearance! by turns, were always found in a sober state, watching over the rest ;" so that comparatively little mischief was done, and only one or two" deaths by quarrel took place. Of General San Martin too there will be something to be said. General San Martin, when we last saw him, twenty years ago or more, through the organs of the The Pehuenches, having drunk their arauthentic steadfast Mr. Miers,-had a hand-dent-water and horses' blood in this mansome house in Mendoza, and "his own por-ner, and sworn eternal friendship to San trait, as I remarked, hung up between those Martin, went home, and-communicated to of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington." his enemies, across the Andes, the road he In Mendoza, cheerful, mudbuilt, white- meant to take. This was what San Martin washed town, seated at the eastern base of had foreseen and meant, the knowing man! the Andes, "with its shady public-walk, He hastened his preparations, got his artilwell paved and swept;" looking out plea-lery slung on poles, his men equipt with santly, on this hand, over wide horizons of knapsacks and haversacks, his mules in Pampa wilderness; pleasantly on that, to readiness; and, in all stillness, set forth the Rock-chain, Cordillera they call it, of from Mendoza by another road. Few things the sky-piercing Mountains, capt in snow, in late war, according to General Miller, or with volcanic fumes issuing from them: have been more note-worthy than this there dwelt General Ex-Generalissimo San march. The long straggling line of solMartin, ruminating past adventures over half the world; and had his portrait hung up between Napoleon's and the Duke of Wellington's. diers, six thousand and odd, with their quadrupeds and baggage, winding through the heart of the Andes, breaking for a brief moment the old abysmal solitudes !-For Did the reader ever hear of San Martin's you farre along, on some narrow roadway, march over the Andes into Chile? It is a through stony labyrinths: huge rock-mounfeat worth looking at; comparable, most tains hanging over your head, on this hand; likely, to Hannibal's march over the Alps, and under your feet, on that, the roar of while there was yet no Simplon or Mont-mountain-cataracts, horror of bottomless Cénis highway; and it transacted itself in chasms;-the very winds and echoes howlthe year 1817. South American armies ing on you in an almost preternatural manthink little of picking their way through ner. Towering rock-barriers rise sky-high the gullies of the Andes: so the BuenosAyres people, having driven out their own Spaniards, and established the reign of freedom, though in a precarious manner, thought it were now good to drive the Spaniards out of Chile, and establish the reign of freedom there also instead: whereupon San Martin, commander at Mendoza, * Memoirs of General Miller. before you, and behind you, and around you; intricate the outgate! The roadway is narrow; footing none of the best. Sharp turns there are, where it will behove you to mind your paces; one false step, and you will need no second; in the gloomy jaws of the abyss you vanish, and the spectral winds howl requiem. Somewhat better are the suspension-bridges, made of bamboo and leather, though they swing Alas, the "deliverance" of Chile was but commenced; very far from completed. Chile, after many more deliverances, up to this hour, is always but "delivered" from one set of evil-doers to another set! San Martin's manœuvres to liberate Peru, to unite Peru and Chile, and become some Washington-Napoleon of the same, did not prosper so well. The suspicion of mankind had to rouse itself; Liberator Bolivar had to be called in; and some revolution or two to take place in the interim. San Martin sees himself peremptorily, though with courtesy, complimented over the Andes again; and in due leisure, at Mendoza, hangs his portrait between Napoleon's and Wellington's. Mr. Miers considered him a fair-spoken, obliging, if somewhat artful man. Might not the Chilenos as well have taken him for their Napoleon? They have gone farther, and, as yet, fared little better! like see-saws: men are stationed with las- then, in pitched fight, after due manœuvres, sos, to gin you dexterously, and fish you into total defeat on the "Plains of Maypo,' up from the torrent, if you trip there. and again, positively for the last time, on Through this kind of country did San the Plains or Heights of "Chacabuco;" Martin march; straight towards San Iago, and completed the "deliverance of Chile," to fight the Spaniards and deliver Chile.as was thought, for ever and a day. For ammunition waggons, he had sorras, sledges, canoe-shaped boxes, made of dried bull's-hide. His cannons were carried on the back of mules, each cannon on two mules judiciously harnessed: on the packsaddle of your foremost mule, there rested with firm girths a long strong pole; the other end of which (forked end, we suppose) rested, with like girths, on the packsaddle of the hindmost mule; your cannon was slung with leathern straps on this pole, and so travelled, swaying and dangling, yet moderately secure. In the knapsack of each soldier was eight days' provender, dried beef ground into snuff-powder, with a modicum of pepper, and some slight seasoning of biscuit or maize-meal; "store of onions, of garlic," was not wanting: Paraguay tea could be boiled at eventide, by fire of scrub-brushes, or almost of rocklichens, or dried mule-dung. No further baggage was permitted: each soldier lay at night, wrapt in his poncho, with his The world-famous General O'Higgins, knapsack for pillow, under the canopy of for example, he, after some revolution or heaven; lullabied by hard travail; and sank two, became Director of Chile; but so tersoon enough into steady nose-melody, into ribly hampered by "class-legislation" and the foolishest rough colt-dance of unima- the like, what could he make of it? Alginable Dreams. Had he not left much be- most nothing! O'Higgins is clearly of hind him in the Pampas,-mother, mis- Irish breed; and, though a Chileno born, tress, what not; and was like to find some- and "natural son of Don Ambrosio O'Higwhat, if he ever got across to Chile living? gins, formerly the Spanish Viceroy of What an entity, one of those night-leaguers Chile," carries his Hibernianism in his very of San Martin; all steadily snoring there, face. A most cheery, jovial, buxom counin the heart of the Andes, under the eter- tenance, radiant with pepticity, good hunal stars! Wayworn sentries with diffi- mor, and manifold effectuality in peace culty keep themselves awake; tired mules and war! Of his battles and adventures chew barley rations, or doze on three legs; let some luckier epic writer sing or speak. the feeble watchfire will hardly kindle a One thing we Foreign Reviewers will alcigar; Canopus and the Southern Cross ways remember: his father's immense glitter down; and all snores steadily, be- merits towards Chile in the matter of highgirt by granite deserts, looked on by the ways. Till Don Ambrosio arrived to govconstellations in that manner! San Mar- ern Chile, some half century ago, there tin's improvident soldiers ate out their probably was not a made road of ten week's rations almost in half the time; and miles long from Panama to Cape Horn. for the last three days, had to rush on, Indeed, except his roads, we fear there is spurred by hunger: this also the knowing hardly any yet. One omits the old Inca San Martin had foreseen; and knew that causeways, as too narrow, (being only three they could bear it, these rugged Guachos of feet broad,) and altogether unfrequented in his; nay, that they would march all the the actual ages. Don Ambrosio made, faster for it. On the eighth day, hungry with incredible industry and perseverance as wolves, swift and sudden as a torrent and skill, in every direction, roads, roads from the mountains, they disembogued; From San Iago to Valparaiso, where only straight towards San Iago, to the astonish- sure-footed mules with their packsaddles ment of men ;-struck the doubly-astonish- carried goods, there can now wooden-axled ed Spaniards into dire misgivings; and cars loud-sounding, or any kind of vehicle, Had you seen this road before it was made, Wade ! tice somewhat nearer! commodiously roll. It was he that shaped | Natural-son O'Higgins, he, as we said, had these passes through the Andes, for most almost no success whatever as a governor ; part; hewed them out from mule-tracks into being hampered by class-legislation. Alas, roads, certain of them. And think of his ca- a governor in Chile cannot succeed. A suchas. Always on the higher inhospitable governor there has to resign himself to the solitudes, at every few miles' distance, stands want of success; and should say, in cheera trim brick cottage, or casucha, into which ful interrogative tone, like that Pope elect, the forlorn traveller introducing himself, who, showing himself on the balcony, was finds covert and grateful safety; nay, food greeted with mere howls, "Non piacemmo and refection, for there are "iron boxes" al popolo ?"-and thereupon proceed cheerof pounded beef or other provender, iron fully to the next fact. Governing is a rude boxes of charcoal; to all which the travel- business everywhere; but in South Ameler, having bargained with the Post-office rica it is of quite primitive rudeness: they authorities, carries a key.* Steel and tin- have no parliamentary way of changing der are not wanting to him, nor due iron ministries as yet; nothing but the rude skillet, with water from the stream: there primitive way of hanging the old ministry he, striking a light, cooks hoarded victual on gibbets, that the new may be installed! at even-tide, amid the lonely pinnacles of Their government has altered its name, the world, and blesses Governor O'Higgins. says the sturdy Mr. Miers, rendered sulky With "both hands," it may be hoped,-if by what he saw there: altered its name, there is vivacity of mind in him: but its nature continues as before. Shameless peculation, malversation, that is their government: oppression formerly by Spanish officials, now by native haciendados, It affects one with real pain to hear from still at a great distance from them, says land-proprietors, the thing called justice Mr. Miers, that the War of Liberty has the sulky Mr. Miers!-Yes, but coming half ruined these O'Higgins casuchas. Pat- always, answer we; every new gibbeting riot soldiers, in want of more warmth than of an old ineffectual ministry bringing justhe charcoal-box could yield, have not scrupled to tear down the door, door-case, himself has to admit, certain improvements Nay, as Miers or whatever wooden thing could be come are already indisputable. Trade everyat, and burn it, on the spur of the moment. where, in spite of multiplex confusions, The storm-staid traveller, who sometimes, has increased, is increasing the days of in threatening weather, has to linger here somnolent monopoly and the old Acapulco for days, "for fifteen days together," does not lift both his hands, and bless the Patriot Two good, or partially good measures, the ship are gone, quite over the horizon. very necessity of things has everywhere brought about in those poor countries: clergy, and emancipating of the slaves. clipping of the enormous bat-wings of the Bat-wings, we say; for truly the South American clergy had grown to be as a kind of bat-vampires: readers have heard of that huge South American bloodsucker, which fixes its bill in your circulating vital fluid as you lie asleep, and there sucks; ble leather wings into ever deeper sleep; waving you with the motion of its detestaand so drinking, till it is satisfied, and you do not awaken any more! The South American governments, all in natural feud with the old church-dignitaries, and likewise all in great straits for cash, have everywhere confiscated the monasteries, cashiered the disobedient dignitaries, melted the superflous church-plate into piasters; and, on the whole, shorn the wings of their at least have a chance of awakening before vampyre; so that if it still suck, you will death! Then again, the very want of soldier! Nay, it appears, the O'Higgins roads, even in the plain country, have not, of late years, been repaired, or in the least attended to, so distressed was the finance department; and are now fast verging towards impassability and the condition of mule-tracks again. What a set of animals are men and Chilenos! If an O'Higgins did not now and then appear among them, what would become of the unfortunates? Can you wonder that an O'Higgins sometimes loses temper with them; shuts the persuasive outspread hand, clutching some sharpest hide-whip, some terrible sword of justice or gallows-lasso therewith, instead, -and becomes a Dr. Francia now and then! Both the O'Higgins and the Francia, it seems probable, are phases of the same character; both, one begins to fear, are indispensable from time to time, in a world inhabited by men and Chilenos! As to O'Higgins the Second, Patriot, * Miers. |