YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY From the estate of the late JOHN CHRISTOPHER SCHWAB through his children KATHARINE FISHER AND NORMAN VON POST SCHWAB 1924 THE CHRISTIAN LIBRARY. A REPRINT OF POPULAR RELIGIOUS JW^f .«*¦•«« v W O R K S. x .,- UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE FOLLOWING CLERGYMEN: Rkv. Jonathan Goino, of the Baptist Church, Rev. J. F. Schroeder, of the Protestant Episcopal Church Rev. J. M. Krebs, of the Presbyterian Church. VOLS. V. VI. NEW-YORK: THOMAS GEORGE, JR., SPRUCE STREET 1836. CONTENTS OF THE VOLUME. TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND, AND OTHER PLACES MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. BY REV. R. SPENCE HARDY, TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE; THROUGH THE NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND, NORTHERN ITALY, AND FRANCE. BY DANIEL WILSON, D. D. NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO THE ZOOLU COUNTRY, IN SOUTH AFRICA. BY CAPT. A. P. GARDINER, R. N. ¦i "•?,"¦- >¦¦¦ ' CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES.IN. SYRIA AND PALESTINE, IN FURTHERANCE OF THE OBJECT'S &&VHEi' CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. BY REV. "WM. JOWETT. THE MARTHAS ; OR, THE VARIETIES OF FEMALE PIETY. BY REV. ROBERT PHILIP. THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT, TRACED IN HIS WORK. BY REV. ROBERT PHILIP. THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY, AS DELIVERED IN THE SCRIPTURES. BY JOHN LOCKE. LIVES OF THE APOSTLES. BY WILLIAM CAVE, D. D. REMAINS OF REV. RICHARD CECIL, BY JOSIAH PRATT, B, D. TRAVEL S IN THE HOLY LAND, AND OTHER PLACES MENTIONED IN THE SCRIPTURES; in 1832-33. BY REV. R. SPENCE HARDY. NEW-YORK : THOMAS GEORGE, JR. SPRUCE STREET. 1836. PREFACE. The present volume is presented to the world with much diffidence, as it can lay no claim whatever to depth of thought, and but little to originality of il lustration. The writer set sail for the island of Ceylon, as a Wesleyan Missionary, in the early part of the year 1825 ; and having received per mission to visit England, from the committee of the society to which he has the honor to belong, he returned by what is called the overland passage, — the extra expense above the sum usually grant ed to missionaries returning from the East being defrayed from his own resources. It was hoped that in this route more frequent opportunities of usefulness would present themselves, and that some information might be gained that would be inte resting to those engaged in the great work of evan gelizing the world. He endeavored to remember, in ali places, that he was commissioned from on high to preach the gospel to eveiy creature ; and he was therefore desirous to embrace every possi ble opportunity of making known " the unsearcha ble riches of Christ," either by the distribution of tracts, or by familiar conversations with the peo ple. He kept a journal of his travels ibr the use Brook House, near Bradford, Yorkshire, Dec. 19, 1834. of his own personal friends, from which the present publication derives its origin. The descriptions and reflections are principally in the exact form in which they appear in the notices kept during his actual wanderings, written many times under most unfavorable circumstances ; and a few historical remarks have since been inserted in different parts of the work, as it was supposed, from the humility of its pretensions, that its circulation would be chiefly confined to a class of persons who have few other means of acquiring information on the sub jects embraced in these pages. The publication has been delayed some time since the completion of the MS. from circumstan ces with which it is unnecessary to trouble the reader. It is the principal aim of the writer to illustrate the Bible ; and if by this work one doubt of the unbeliever be removed, or one ray of light be shed upon any passage hitherto thought obscure ; if one mind be brought to understand the blessed Book more perfectly, or one heart be brought to love it with greater sincerity, to the living God shall be all the praise. THE HOLY LAND. INDIA. In ancient times the pilgrim from the Holy Land was regarded with a reverence bordering upon superstition. He was welcome alike to the cas tles of the great, and the cottages of the poor. When the aged minstrel, with his harp and voice, had recited the story of some virtuous fernale or warrior brave, the excitement was continued by the palmer's tale,' as the members of the family, from the highest to the lowest, assembled before the blazing fagot, at a greater or less distance from its cheering influence according to their rank ; and bright eyes wept over the history of sufferings endured upon spots that had been consecrated by the bodily presence of the Son of God. The vil lage green was at another time forsaken by its noisy occupants, when the pilgrim rested for a moment upon his staff, and was surrounded by a rude auditory, who gazed with mute astonishment upon his mysterious figure, whilst he repeated the tale of victories won by red-cross knights over pa gan usurpers, and solicited the aid of charity, afforded with the greatest readiness to the wearied stranger. The times are now changed, and the simple tale of the traveller, no matter where he may have wandered, fails to excite attention, un less there be combined with it the discoveries of science, or the flashes of a vivid imagination, or the recital of dangers and deaths. I shall in these respects be pronounced one of the most unfortu nate of travellers, having neither discovered a new- pyramid, nor been wounded, nor robbed, nor made captive ; and if the countries I have visited fail in themselves to create interest, I fear that my read ers will soon pass me on from their gate, without granting me even an equivalent to the pilgrim's fare, though all he required was a pallet of straw on which to repose, and a loaf in his scrip to sa tisfy the cravings of hunger. I had always, from comparative infancy, a great desire to visit Jeru salem, and do not now regret the toils I have en dured to accomplish my wishes. I should other wise have been for ever a stranger to thoughts and associations as interesting as they are pure, and if I can succeed in imparting to the minds of others, even a small portion of the same salutary instruction, I shall consider that the greater task of telling my toils to the world, will not have been undertaken entirely in vain. ' I embarked from Colombo, the capital of Cey lon, in a Prench ship, on the mornmg of Nov. 28, 1832, with feelings that are not to be described. The most important period of my life had been spent upon the shores I was then leaving. I had studied the language of the people, examined their religion, and become intimately acquainted with their manners and customs; I had lived where there were no other associates ; labored among them as the servant of Christ ; travelled exten sively pver their mountains and plains ; and I had to thank God, that although the years spent among them were not -without some trials, I had never spent one melancholy hour, though often in soli tude, and had been most mercifully preserved from serious illness, though often exposed to the burn ing sun by day, and tainted air by night. We touched at several places upon the continent of India, and upon the Malabar coast had evidence of the extent to which Roman Catholicism pre vails among the people, as I counted at one time, with the help of a small telescope, no fewer than fourteen churches, all visible from the deck of the ship. In Bombay and its neighborhood I remained about a fortnight, and among other places visited the celebrated cave temples of Kennery and Ele- phanta. On Thursday, Jan, 10, 1833, 1 embarked for Kosseir in Egypt, in the Hugh Lindsay, a steamer belonging to the East India Company, commanded by Captain Wilson, accompanied by ten other passengers, on their return to England. The history of India might be considered as connected with that of the Scriptures, inasmuch as it was in this region the systems of idolatry, which it was one object of revelation to destroy, assumed a power more extensive, more awful, and more ma lignant than in any other part of the world : but as the name of India occurs only once in the Old Testament, and then incidentally, I shall resist the opportunity that so temptingly invites me to en large, and confine my observations within the pro per limits. It was probably at first peopled -by the descendants of Ham. The customs of the people alter not with the course of time, and many parts of the earlier books of the Bible are greatly elucidated by tne common practices that are even now every day witnessed among the Hindoos. The gospel is said to have been introduced into India by the apostle Thomas, and the pretended place of his burial is still shown near Madras. The island of Ceylon is supposed by the Per sians and Arabs to have been the site of Paradise, and is by them called Serendib. There is a moun tain in the interior, rising more than 6000 feet above the level of the sea, on the summit of which is an indent not unlike the impression of a foot, said by the Buddhists to be that of Buddhu, and by the Mussulmans to be that of Adam. There are others who think that our venerable forefather was brought to this island after his expulsion from Eden, and died upon the mountain that bears his name. — Bochart has endeavoured to prove that Ceylon is the Ophir of Scripture, celebrated for the fineness of its gold. To this place the ships ot THE HOLY LAND. Solomon traded. They sailed from Eziongeber upon the Red Sea, and returned after an absence of three years, laden with gold, precious stones, peacocks, apes, spices, ivory, and ebony. All these things are common products of the island, and at this day articles of export, except the first : it has diamonds and pearls, but the more precious metals are never found upon its shores. ARABIA. The name of this country occurs in the Scripture with less frequency than might have been expect ed from its contiguity to the Holy Land. This arises from its peculiar character, which is alone among the nations of the world. It was never united under one king, and in consequence never presented itself to the sacred historians, except in single and divided masses. Hence we find that in this the volume of inspiration is remarkably consistent with the truth ; as we have individuals and tribes frequently introduced to our notice, without being led to form the least idea of conso lidated empire. The distinctive form we give to Arabia arises, perhaps, principally from its geo graphical position, as the same language is spoken in Egypt and Syria, and in both these countries are found nomadic tribes, deriving their origin from one common source. It extends 1500 miles from north to south, and 1200 miles from east to west. The population is taken at 12,000,000. . Within the limits of Arabia we find Sinai, and the range of Seir, with the district of Horeb, the land of Mi- dian, and the countries of Edom, Amalek, Seba, and Sheba. The most intense anxiety was manifested by the passengers in our steamer to gain the first sight of Arabia. We made the mountains near Kisseen point, on the south-eastern coast, Jan. 20 ; and as they form part of the region called "the Blessed," we anticipated the sight of a land of surpassing beauty. In this we were disappoint ed, as all was sterility, and we could not discover the least sign of life, either vegetable or animal. The next day we anchored in the port of Macul- lah, to take in ooals sent previously from England by way of Bombay. The town has a pleasing appearance from the sea, like one vast castle, with towers in every direction, from one of the highest of which the red flag of the false prophet was soon hoisted in our honor. The hills, of a red colour, barren, and broken into large flakes that seemed to threaten destruction to tne inhabitants beneath, rise immediately behind the houses, and are crowned with watch-towers, Those who wish to fall in love with an Arabian city, must be content to admire it from the distance, and leave the imagination to fill up all its interior charms. The houses, on a near approach, are found to be built of clay, or of bricks burnt in the sun, and carelessly plastered over with a preparation of lime. They are some of them three or four stories high, with flat roofs and latticed windows. The streets are narrow and irregular, the common re ceptacles of every nuisance. The slave town is separated from the other, and is composed of mi serable huts. The sheikh's house stands alone, and near it is a small mosque. The bay is well sheltered during the winter monsoon, and affords good anchorage close to the shore. There are a few native merchants from India resident here, and under a good government it might be made a place of considerable trade. We found two American whalers at anchor, that had put in, as we were told, for " vegetation." The crews of both vessels belonged to temperance societies, and one of them had not had a single drop of spirits on board since they left their port, yet the men ap peared to be in excellent health. Near the town we saw several encampments of Bedouins, with herds of camels, goats, and sheep. The camel is the principal beast of burden, and is here fed upon fish. We saw one horse, but not a single dog. We spent a day at some wells a few miles distant from the shore, on which the town is entirely dependent for water. It is conveyed in skins, sometimes upon the backs of the women, but more commonly upon asses and camels. The stream of water from which the wells are supplied runs down a ravine, in which a few date-trees are planted, upon patches of earth kept together by a parapet of stones. The date season is welcomed here with the same feelings that the harvest-home excites in other parts of the world. We could see some distance into the interior, but could discover nothing more than naked mountains, with a few trees and small villages in some of the valleys. The dis trict is governed by an independent sheikh, ex tremely infirm, and both blind and deaf from old age, so that the affairs of the state are conducted by others, and the principal minister is a mean and avaricious parasite. The vessels that put in for trade are not unfrequently detained until a large present has been extorted for permission to depart. Wherever I went I was saluted with the cry of hakkim, doctor, with many imploring signs from the people, that I would enter their houses, and from that time until my last departure from a Mussulman shore, I might have been constantly occupied in listening to details of disease and pre scribing remedies, had I known any thing of the healing art. The men are armed with knives in their girdles, a sword, a spear, or matchlock, and a small round shield of rhinoceros' hide. The heir presumptive to the government came on board, quite a youth, and was as mean in his appearance as the rest. The women are close muffled up, with only two small apertures in their coarse veil. The slaves are principally Somaulies, from Africa. They leave only two tufts of hair on the crown of the head, of a brown shade, perhaps from some preparation used in their toilette. Their features are regular and agreeable, and their countenances manifest an elasticity of spirits that all the hard ships of slavery are unable to depress. From Macullali the steamer coasted within sight of land, and entered the Red Sea through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, or Gate of Tears.— Many an Arab mariner has here called to his re membrance the fresh water and delicious dates of his native valley, and has wept when he thought that he might see them no more ; and the same eyes have again wept, with still more copious streams, when he has returned from his voyage of years, and his bark has again entered upon the sea that washes with its waves the very shpre THE HOLY LAND. where he bade a long farewel to the wife of his affection and the son of his pride, and expects soon to be received by them again with a kind warm welcome. We passed within sight of Mo cha, so celebrated for its excellent coffee. The coffee imported immediately from this place is less valuable than that which is procured from other ports of Arabia, as it is mixed with berries of an inferior description brought over from Abyssinia. The sun shone full upon the white buildings of the town, and had we not already been deceived with a similar appearance, we should have gazed with admiration upon the apparent splendor of its minarets and towers. We could distinguish the tomb of a Mussulman saint who opposed the cru saders most stoutly at the siege of Acre. A date- grove extends some miles on the southern shore. The British factory which formerly existed at this place has been abandoned some years. The strong north-wester, that soon afterwards set in, obliged the captain to put into the port of Hodeida, as we could make no head against it, and were burning our coals to no purpose. The town is smaller than Mocha, and is protected by a range of castles. We found the place in pos session of a party of Turks, who had rebelled against Mahomet Ali, pacha of Egypt, under pre tence that they were unable to procure their ar rears of pay. They were headed by Toorkee Bilmass. They first siezed upon Mecca and Djuddah, from both of which places they were driven by the regular troops. On evacuating the latter place, they took with them the whole of the pacha's fleet in this sea, consisting of Beveral large ships. They had taken possession of several hundred miles of coast, including the towns of Mocha, Hodeida, and Zeebed. These places have been nominally under the government of the imaum of Senaar, an idle and effeminate chief tain. The rebels had hitherto conducted them selves with caution, but some of their party having had a previous quarrel with Seyd Adduflah, go vernor of Mocha, required that he should be put to death. Three shots were fired through him, his body was carried a little way out of the town, and when his friends, the Wahabees, came to treat for his ransom, his body was shown to them, and they were told he had been shot in an at tempt to make his escape. We paid a visit to the governor of the town, Hussein Aga, who ap peared to be in ill health, as did nearly the whole of his followers. It struck the mind with a feel ing of melancholy to look at these men, and then at the peril of their situation : they were rebels against a more successful usurper, and the angel of death seemed already to be rejoicing over their blood, either from the hand of the private assassin, or the sword of the Egyptian on the battle plain. The aga conducted himself with great dignity. — He was seated on a raised couch, attended by his soldiers, who stood without order around him, proud and powerful men, and added to the wild interest of the scene. When pipes had been passed round, we were presented with coffee, in small vessels, about the size and shape of egg cups, with gilt stands. We walked through the bazaar, and our appearance attracted a great number of gazers, who were prevented from an noying us by the attendants sent with us by the aga. Soldiers were stationed in all directions, who appeared to keep the people in great sub mission, a lesson they much needed, from their extreme rudeness and constant disposition to quar rel. The houses are some of them highly orna mented, especially the entrances and windows. — There are dwellings made entirely of the fibre of the date, interwoven upon a wooden frame. The Turks had some fear that the East India govern ment might assist the pacha to reduce them, and it was perhaps to conciliate us as much as possi ble in their favor, that they paid us greater at tention than in general they are willing to pay to strangers. In the night of Feb. 2d, we were off Djuddah ; but as it is surrounded by a number of reefe, it was not possible to approach it in the dark. In the morning it was still difficult to distinguish the reefs, as there was a perfect calm, arid the sea reflected the rays of the sun like a mirror. The man at the mast-head suddenly called out, " Hard- a-port !" and from the poop, where I was stand ing, I saw through the gang-way the point of a rock that we had escaped by only a few feet. — There was not much danger of our being lost ; but the steamer might have been so much injured as to have been unable to proceed. We waited upon the governor, and found him to be a stout man, with a countenance indicative of much good nature. He conducted himself with more ease, but less dignity, than the aga. The room in which he received us looked towards the sea, and we sat in a recess lined with crimson cushions. The effendi excused himself from partaking with us of the coffee and pipes, as it was the fast of the Ramzan ; but he chatted with us a considerable time, principally relative to the rebellion at Mocha and the successes of Ibrahim Pacha against the sultan. Upon taking leave, a servant was in at tendance with sherbet. We next proceeded to the house of Malam Yuseff, an Armenian, the English agent. At all the principal ports, per sons are appointed as agents by the nearest con- guI or resident, to assist travellers and protect the interests of the nations they represent. They re ceive no salary, and deem the honor and collateral advantages a sufficient recompense. During the late wars, when Christian blood was flowing in copious streams around, the flag of an European power flying over a native dwelling often pro tected the female from violation, and the man from death. The importance of Djuddah arises entirely from its vicinity to Mecca, from whenoe it is distant about 40 miles. It is the port at which all the pilgrims arrive who come by sea. The bazaar is well supplied. In one shop I saw spectacles, steel pens, knives, scissors, and many other articlee of European manufacture. The houses are built of coral from the sea-shore, in the style we attribute to the times of the crusaders. The passages are narrow and steep, and would be more agreeable if more frequently cleansed. The coffee-houses are lighted up at night; and this is the time of enjoyment after the languor of the day, when striking groups of soldiers and citizens are seen sitting together in circles, listening first to the news of the day, then to some tale of blood, and afterwards to a recitation from some aneient poet THE HOLY LAND. or historian, who unfolds the glory of their country in brighter days. The fortifications of the town are perhaps the most extensive in Arabia. Upon the plain towards the north is a building that pur ports to be the tomb of our mother Eve. It has become ruinous ; but the pacha has given orders that it shall be repaired, at the expense of 15,000 piasters. There are several Italians resident here, in the employ of the pacha. One of them is mar ried ; and his wife, when she walks out, is obliged to muffle herself up in the close dress of the coun try, out of respect to the prejudices of the people. She is young and interesting, and I could not but pity her, not having a single female companion of her own rank or religion with whom to converse. We bad an opportunity of hearing the band of one of the pacha's regiments. It consisted of twenty performers, all natives of Egypt. They played several European tunes, all from notes; and though the execution was a httle violent, it did th«m great credit. The troops are dressed in coarse red calico, — a close jacket and loose trow sers ; but have not the soldier-like appearance of the native regiments of India. The officers are more respectable : they are dressed in the same form, but in good woollen cloth, with an additional jacket, something resembling that of our hussars. They, as well as the men, have a red cap, but no turban; and mustachios, but no beard. They are well paid, but are usually several months in arrears. No Christian until lately was allowed to go out of the gates of Djuddah, but they may now ap proach even to the entrance of the holy city with out molestation. The pilgrims to Mecca are every year becoming less numerous. The desecration of the Wahabees, and the late siege it has under gone, will tend to bring it into greater disrepute ; and we may hope that the Kaaba will soon be broken in pieces, and its fragments mingled in undistinguishable confusion with the sands of the forsaken desert. I could perceive the hills in the neighborhood of Mecca from the deck of the steamer, but the time allowed for taking in coals did not permit us to proceed far from the shore. It was the birth-place of Mahomet, who was born in 569, of the tribe of the Koreish, and was bu ried at Medinah in 632. Both places are con sidered sacred, but Mecca is the most considera ble town, and is resorted to by a far greater num ber of pilgrims : they come from very distant parts, from China in the east, and from the pillars of Hercules in the west. It will be seen from these notices, that the places upon the coasts of Arabia partake of the character generally exhibited by towns under the dominion of Mussulmen rulers. The inhabitants are occu pied in trade, and among them are turks, Egyp tians, Hindoos, slaves from Africa, and a few Ar menian and other Christians. The Arabs of the towns have lost many of the distinctive features of their race. In the division of Arabia Felix, a num ber of independent sheikhs rule over districts dif fering much in their extent and resources. The imaum of Muscat is at present the most powerful prince of Arabia. In his navy are several men-of- war; and they are seen at times even in the most distant ports of India. After proceeding about 30 miles from the shore, this district is found to be well cultivated, and its coffee is the finest in the world. From its extreme richness, it was long thought that the spices, silks, and other treasures exported by its mariners from India, were its own native produce. The ancient inhabitants of Arabia were idola ters, and adored the sun and moon, and the stars of the firmament. "If I beheld the sun when it shined," says an Arab of old, in clearing his cha racter from the sins of his country, " or the moon walking in brightness ; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand ; this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge ; for I should have denied the God that is above." — Job xxxi. 26 — 28. The worship of the black stone of the Kaaba is of far earlier date than the origin of Islamism. In the first cen turies of the church, the spread of Christianity in Arabia was rapid, but it sunk too soon into heresy, and was entirely swept away by the sword of Ma homet. It is an affecting thought, that with the exception of the monks near Mount Sinai, I know not that there is at the present time a single Chris tian minister of any description whatever, through out the whole of proper Arabia. The language of Arabia is one of the most co pious in the world, and its ancient poets and his torians yield to none in the strength and beauty of their style. I was not able to penetrate far into the desert, but a single glance into its wastes may almost tell the tale of a thousand miles as to distance, and three thousand years as to time. It is here alone that the Arab is seen in his primitive simplicity, free as the gazelle, and both as swift in his speed, and unsettled in his dwelling-place as this beauti ful wanderer upon the same plains. We are car. ried back at once to the age of the earliest patri archs. The forms we see present unto us the pic ture of these ancient fathers, with scarcely a sin gle alteration. We may listen to their language, number their possessions, partake of their food, ex amine their dress, enter their tents, attend the ceremonies of their marriage festivals, and present ourselves before the prince, still all is the same. At the well they water their flocks ; they sit at the door of the tent in the cool of the day ; they take ".butter, and milk, and the calf which they have dressed," and set it before the stranger ; they move onward to some distant place, and pitch their tent near richer pasturage ; and all the treasures they possess are in camels, kine, sheep, and goats; men servants and women servants ; and changes of raiment. We may stand near one of their en campments, and as the aged men sit in dignity, or the young men and maidens drive past us their flocks, we are almost ready to ask if such an one be not Abraham, or Lot, or Jacob, or Job, or Bil- dad the Shuhite, or Rebekah, or Rachel, or the daughter of Jethro the Midianite: we seem to know them all. The mountains, and valleys, and streams partake of the same unchangeableness : not a stone has been removed, not a barrier has been raised, not a tree has been planted, not a vil lage has been collected together. The founder of the race might come to the earth, and he would THE HOLY LAND, recognize without effort his own people and his own land. It is doubted whether any tribes are yet left of the aborigines of the country, though there be many that claim this distinction. The families of the desert are the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham. It was said unto Hagar, concerning her son, by the angel of the Lord, " I will make him a great nation," Gen. xxi. 18; and again, "He will be a wild man ; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him ; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his bre thren." Gen. xvi. 12. These prophecies have been literally fulfilled. No nation has ever been so great that could trace its origin to one single head. The Roman empire was more extensive, but it was one empire composed of many nations. There are kingdoms in our own day whose ma jesty is brighter, but it is produced by the concen trated glory of many distinct families and tribes, and cannot be claimed by any single people. The Arabs are wild men: their hand is against every man, and of necessity every man's hand is- against them. It is no protection to speak the same lan guage, or to profess the same religion. The cara van on its pilgrimage to Mecca is considered to offer as lawful a booty as the bales of the rich mer chant, or the stores of the infidel stranger. Of only one among all the streams of population by which this earth has been covered, was this pro phecy uttered ; and of only one would it have been true. The surrounding countries of Egypt, Syria, and Persia, have once and again changed their rulers and their race. Arabia has ever continued thesame. The march of conquest has been around her, but has never penetrated into her wilds : still she has retained her identity, an oasis of freemen amidst a desert of slaves. That which was true concerning her in the time of Moses, has been equally so m every subsequent period of time ; and will still continue, until another prophecy be ful filled, -and even ''Arabia's desert ranger" shall bow before the power that is supreme : then the horse shall no longer stand ready caparisoned to pursue and plunder the passing traveller; "Holi ness unto the Lord," shall be inscribed upon its bells : then shall Isaac and Ishmael again meet together in peace, to worship at one altar the God of their fathers, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent: their hand shall be wdth every man, and every man's hand with them. There is one tribe that deserves a more ex tended notice from the Christian recorder. I was not so favored as to obtain an interview with any of its people ; but my information is derived from a gentleman who was many years the English re sident for the East India Company at Mocha. — There was this promise given to the descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, of the family of Jethro, in the days of Jeheiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah : " Thus saith the Lord of Host, the God of Israel ; Because ye have obeyed the com mandment of Jonadab, your father, and kept all its precepts, and done according to all he hath com manded you: therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel ; Jonadab, the son of Re chab, shall not want a man to stand before me for ever." Jer. xxxv. 18, 19. Jonadab had command ed his sons not to drink wine, nor to build houses, nor to have vineyard, nor field, nor seed, but to dwell in tents. These commands they have strict ly obeyed, and the promise of God has been re membered. The Rechabites still exist, a separate people, glorying in their independence, and are called by the same name. They are excellent horsemen, and seem to fly through the desert with the speed of the winds. They acknowledge the law of Moses, but maintain that they are not Is raelites. About 300 years ago a great number of them were driven from Yemen. Some of them are now found near the Gulf of Acaba. They fre quently rob the caravans of pilgrims, and are much hated by the other Arabs and by ali Mussulmans. It appears as if there was written upon every page of Arabia's extended history, and graven upon every rock in her deserts, with a pen more powerful than iron, "All Scripture is given by in spiration of God." Let him who readeth, under stand. THE RED SEA. This sea is supposed to have taken its name from the country of Edom, which borders upon it, and signifies " red." Others derive the name from the red sea-weed that is discovered in large quantities upon some parts of its surface. We passed seve ral extensive portions of this weed between Djud dah and Kossier. It is called " Yam Suph," or " the weedy sea," both by Moses and David. It was thought by a recent German traveller that the color of the sea is caused by a species of oscil- latoriee, one of the small plants that are interme diate between animals and vegetables. We en tered the sea through the straits of Bab-el-Man- deb. There are two passages of unequal width, divided from each other by the island of Perim, which was taken possession of by the English dur ing our war in Egypt, but is entirely destitute of water. The Red Sea is about 1500 miles from one extremity to the other. We could never dis tinguish the land on both bows at the same time. It is visited by a few European vessels, that trade principally to Mocha ; the pacha of Egypt main tains a small fleet upon it for the passage and pro tection of his troops ; and the vessels of the bor dering countries are seen skimming along in all directions, laden deep with passengers, with high painted prows, and the ropes and sails made of the fibres of the palm. The coasts are lined with coral, sometimes of most beautiful construction ; and when the day is calm, or the night is dark and stilL the mariner might think himself transported to some enchanted land, the water is so clear, the coruscations of light are so radiant, and the coral beneath so extensively ramified ; but the coasting vessels are often from the same cause in extreme danger, and though they are furnished with a false keel, this is not always proof against the violent strokes they have to bear. We were visited dur ing our progress by a few locusts and quails. I landed from the steamer at Kossier, in Egypt, Feb. 9, and consequently did not proceed so far north as the place where the passage of the Israel ites was effected. It was more properly through an arm of the sea than the main ocean, as must be THE HOLY LAND. evident from its having occupied only one single night. At the spot where it is supposed to have taken place, the gulf of Suez is about 12 miles across. We found at Kossier, the Palinurus, Capt. Moresby. She has been employed some years by the Bombay government in surveying the northern coasts of the Red Sea. The officers are attentive and intelligent, and have made some interesting discoveries upon the shores. They were kind enough to show us several of then- drawings. They have visited Sinai, and reject the opinion of Burckhardt, who would place the sacred mount in another direction. The Benares has been employ ed upon a similar survey towards the south, and it was expected that the whole would be finished in a few months. The wind most frequently blows from the north-west, and at times with great vio lence. The waves are short and troubled, and the vessel that has to brave them seems to trem ble like a frightened steed. The great number of reefs adds to the danger of the navigation, and some of them are almost in the centre of the sea ; but many of these difficulties will now be removed by the great care and accuracy with which it is intended that the new charts shall be completed. The steamer was much longer than usual in performing the voyage, the stipulated period being 22 days, including the necessary stoppages. From Bombay we steamed 2,727 miles, and were 22 days, 7 hours, in actual progress, being an average of little more than five miles per hour. The tim bers of the Hugh Lindsay are of teak, which has become heavy from constant saturation. This prevents her from making much way ; nor are her build or engines at all adapted to the purpose for which she is used. It seems desirable that the Red Sea should again become the usual route to India, the saving of distance being so great ; and though I fear that the schemes at present on foot will prove abortive, I look foward with confi dence to the period when British skill and capital shall be allowed to exercise themselves in a free trade with the eastern portions of our empire. ABYSSINIA. This country is in the Scriptures denominated Cush and Ethiopia, though the same names appear to be used with great latitude of meaning and refer sometimes to places far distant from each other. It was from hence that the eunuch baptized by Philip, treasurer of Candace, queen of Ethiopia, went up to Jerusalem. There is a strange mixture of Jewish rites observed among the customs of this people, and some of them pre tend to derive their origin from Solomon and the queen of Sheba. The church of Abyssinia is of high antiquity. In the 15th century attempts were made by the Jesuits to establish themselves in the country, but after various successes and reverses, and after the sword of persecution had been reddened with blood, they were finally ba nished by command of the king. The Scriptures have been published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the vernacular languages of the country. In the evening of the day before we passed the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, the hills of Arabia were visible on one bow of our vessel, and the hills of Abyssinia On the other. The principal port is Massowah, and is supported by a trade in slaves, cattle, and ivory. It was offered to the British government some years ago, on certain conditions, with an expressed desire that the slave trade should cease, but the offer was declined, probably from the known unsettled state of the people. The civil wars, which have been waged for so great a number of years, still continue, and there is at present no acknowledged ras. The coasts of Arabia are supphed with cattle from this coun try. The sheep are small, with large tails, but the mutton is extremely delicious. When we approached the port of Djuddah, there came from the shore in the same boat with the pilot, a tall man, with a flowing beard, in the costume of the country, and of an appearance so interesting, that we ai crowded to the gangway of the ship to gafce upon the stranger. He step ped upon deck, and after making a salaam, we were surprised to hear bim address us in English, though with a foreign accent. He informed us that he had come from Abyssinia, and as I soon discovered that he was a missionary, our mutual de light in meeting a Christian brother at such a time, and in such a place, may be more easily conceiv ed than described. I gained from this excellent man, the Rev. J. Gobat, some information con cerning the present state of religion in Abyssinia. He is a native of Switzerland, and was sent out by the Church Missionary society about five years ago. He speaks Arabic like a native, as well as Tigre and Amharic, and several European lan guages. He visited the country at first to see what prospects there might be for the establish ment of a permanent mission, and not having heard from his committee for two years, in conse quence of the difficulty of communication, he pro ceeded by the steamer to Suez, from thence in tending to make the best of his way to England. Mr. Kugler, his only fellow laborer, died from a mortification in the arm, produced by the burst ing of a gun, and departed happy in Christ. Mr. Gobat reported favorably of the people, and lived among them in perfect security, though Gondar, the place at which he principally resided, was the seat of war. There are some in whose hearts he trusts a work of grace is begun. The principal access to the people is by means of familiar con versation, as they know nothing of regular preach ing. The priests administer the sacrament daily, and in this consists nearly the whole of their reli gion. They refuse it to the people for the most frivolous reasons, and as the poor creatures imagine themselves to be under excommunication when this rite is refused, they suppose it is little matter what additional sin they commit, and thus give themselves up to the commission of many crimes they might otherwise avoid. It is not given to soldiers when they have killed an enemy. The Abyssinian church has hitherto acknowledged the supremacy of the patriarch of Egypt, from whom they have always received their abuna, or head, and it is an established law that he shall be a foreigner. It is a natural consequence, that as he has to govern a people whose language and cus- THE HOLY LAND. 9 toms he does not understand, he is Uttle more than a mere cypher, and can exercise no proper author ity. Since the death of the last abuna they have not applied to Egypt for a successor, and it is not improbable that they will choose one from among themselves. Bruce is correct in his general state ments, but not even the oldest inhabitant can be brought to say, that he ever heard of the cruel practice of cutting steaks from the living animal. They eat raw flesh at their brind feasts, and in the way they prepare it, with a large quantity of pepper and spices, it is said not to be very unpa lateable even to an European. EGYPT. The first mention of Egypt in the Old Testament, except as a comparison, occurs Gen. xv. 18, where it is referred to as being one boundary of the land promised unto Abraham ; and it is more or less intimately connected with Scripture history from that passage to the book of Revelation. Its name in Hebrew is Mizraim, supposed to have been received from Mizraim, the son of Ham, by whom it was originally peopled. It is still called Masr by the Arabs. It is in vain to seek for the origin of the word Egypt among the conflicting opinions of the learned, nor will those at all wonder at the circumstance who have had an opportunity of marking the modern perversions of native names. It contains at present less than 3,000,000 inhabi tants. Its extent, from Assouan to the Mediter ranean sea, is about 500 miles. The whole of the land now under cultivation is said to be less than half of the whole area of Ireland. THE DESERT. We entered upon the desert immediately after leaving Kosseir, the port at which we landed. — In Hebrew, the word desert, or wilderness, does not always mean a waste of sand, but is equiva lent to our moor or common. The Psalmist speaks of "the pastures of the wilderness :" and it was in a desert that Moses fed the flocks of Jethro. In other places the same word means literally a sandy plain, dry and barren. The de sert to which we now addressed ourselves is situat ed between the Red Sea and the Nile, and is the same as that which the Israelites entered upon immediately after their dismissal by Pharaoh ; and though the track to be described is upwards of 200 miles from the one taken by Moses and his people, as the general character of one route may be considered as equally applicable to the other, the reason will soon be discovered why the child ren of Israel murmured against their leader, when he had brought them far away from the rich pro ducts of the cultivated valley, and there appeared to be no other prospect before them, but "to die in the wilderness." The steamer proceeded forward to Suez, leav ing eight of her passengers at Kosseir, who di vided themselves into two parties. The party to which I was attached consisted of a colonel, a . 51—2 major, a doctor, and myself. The town of Kosseir is destitute of good water, and would soon be abandoned were it not for its advantages as a sea port. The pilgrims for Mecca embark from hence, and it is from this place the grain is shipped, by which the coast of Arabia is principally supplied. It is said that the summit of Mount Sinai may sometimes be distinguished from the shore : it is often covered with snow. The English agent, a stout Arab, is an excellent representative of his nation. To every thing he replied, "It is good;" but threw constant obstacles in our way, that he might extort from us more money. I was obliged to apply to the governor to procure a servant. though hundreds were ready at call, who would have been glad of the situation. We saw a prince from near Bornou, in the interior of Africa, who had come on a pilgrimage, and was attended by a great number of slaves. He was an old man, and was approached by bis people on their knees, though his personal appearance was mean. Feb. 12. The camels were brought, and we prepared to cross the desert,' but the tumult that ensued was such as to lead us to expect that the consequences would be serious. The camels and men were all screaming at the full pitch of their voices, the narrow street was crowded with ani mals and Arabs, and cries and blows were re sounding in every direction : it seemed like " con fusion worse confounded." The Arabs can do nothing without noise, and it is the wisest method to leave them to their own way, as in a httle time they work themselves into quietness, and have all things ready for departure. I had heard so much of the difficulty of first mounting a camel, that I almost dreaded to make the attempt, and tried to procure a donkey in its place, but was not able to succeed. To increase the excitement, I was told that all the saddles in the place were in use, and that only a common pack-saddle could be given me. On looking at it, it appeared almost impos sible to ride upon it, as there were two pieces of wood, placed as if on purpose to goad me ; but there being no remedy, I threw my boat-cloak over the saddle, mustered all my courage, and placed myself in my seat: the camel gradually rose, and I found myself actually mounted, with out the slightest difficulty. The animal kneels down to "receive its burden, and the knee is tied, that it may not rise before the proper time : it first half raises its fore legs, then its hinder ones, then the fore legs again, and it is necessary to know this that the rider may not be precipitated to a distance. My companions had by this time start ed, and as I knew nothing of the language of the country, I made the people understand by signs that I wanted some rope of which to make stir rups, as my legs were hanging down in a position that I knew would soon be painful. Without my perceiving it, they took for this purpose the rope that fastened the saddle to the animal, and I had not gone far before some Arabs in the street call ed out to me, but as I did not understand them, I went on. I soon found out what they intended, as I slipped from the camel behind, and came to the ground, but without sustaining any injury. — My stirrups were returned to their original occu pation, and I again mounted. When I had got well into the desert my camel stopped, and would 10 THE HOLY LAND. not move a step further. The rest of the party were by this time nearly out of sight, and as I was afraid lest I should lose the road, I dismount ed and ran towards them, half determined rather to walk the whole way than to have any more annoyance from camels. My animal was how ever soon caught, and brought up, proper rope was procured, {ventured once more upon its back, and in a few minutes found myself as comfortable as I could wish. We had in all 20 camels, and gave about three shillings each as the hire from Kosseir to the Nile. We pitched our tents for the night near Bier Inglis, or the English Well. 13. We set off at sunrise, and after four hours arrived at Seid Suleyman, where we halted for a little time. The well is deep, and has been re cently dug, apparently at the expense of three English gentlemen, as their names are cut upon a stone at the entrance, but the water is not good. After four hours more we arrived about sunset at Abul Zeeran. We rode at a quicker pace than the camels with the tents and provisions, and usually arrived at our station about an hour before them. The camel drivers collected the dung of their animals for fuel, which may explain a passage in Ezekiel, and take away from the seeming harshness of the command given to the prophet. The country through which we passed .consisted of plains varying in extent from a hun dred yards to two or three miles, bounded by ranges of hills, of different forms and elevation, but composed principally of sandstone. In what ever direction the eye wandered, it was met by a picture of complete desolation, unrelieved by a single blade of grass. In some of these plains there are perhaps as many as four httle stunted trees, half covered with sand, and in perfect keep ing as trees of the desert. There are marks of torrents, though rain falls only after intervals of years. The ground is hard, with stony places here and there, and as the camels are tied to each other, and follow their leader in the same path, there are from ten to twenty narrow tracks pa rallel to each other, worn smooth by their feet. — The bones of dead camels that have perished in the road, are very frequent. Near all the passes, on the summit of the rocks, are little watch-towers, nearly all of them in ruins. We passed several large heaps of stones, that have formerly been caravanseras, but we could not learn by whom they were built. There was one at the place where we halted for the night, with many ruined apartments, and a well in the centre, now filled up. Therm, at noon 70°. 14. The thermometer was as low as 35° a lit tle before sunrise, and we felt the cold to be ex treme, as I never saw it in Ceylon at a lower range than 69°, except upon the mountains. — After a hasty breakfast of biscuit and eggs we mounted our camels, and in three hours passed the well Seid, in a rocky defile. Soon afterwards we observed for the first time hieroglyphics cut in the rock, and they had so fresh an appearance that one of our party supposed they were the woHi: of some passing traveller, who had wished to puzzle the learned ; but in a Httle time they became too numerous for this position to be tena ble. They appeared as if eaten into the rock by some chemical preparation. In three hours more we arrived at Hammanat. Our guide had re mained behind, and we could only see a woman tending a few sheep, though what they could get to eat we were unable to discover. We made several ineffectual attempts to cause our animals to kneel down, that we might alight, but at last succeeded. We sheltered ourselves under the shade of a rock. When the other camels came up, we were told that we must proceed two hours further, to Jeyf-al-Ujul, and were by no means pleased with the intelligence, as we were already much fatigued. We passed, during the day, several caravans on their way to Kosseir with provisions. Near the rock, where we encamped, there were numerous hieroglyphics, but rude both in design and execution. 15. We set off a httle earlier than usual, and passed through a plain several miles in length. We had a fine specimen of the mirage, and could scarcely persuade ourselves that there were not before us streams of water, and islands and trees. In five hours we arrived at Legatta. In the even ing we walked over to an Ababdie village. The dwellings of this wretched people were made of a few mats, and were quite open on one side, but they said this was their only home. 16. In three hours from Legatta we had the grateful sight of verdure in the distance. The camels walked well, as our guide said they scent ed the waters of the river, and a cool breeze had sprung up, which added to the delight. It was near noon when we arrived at Bier Amber. The women brought milk, bread, and fowls for sale, and were very importunate that we should pur chase. Their manners form a striking contrast to those of the females in Arabia. They have no covering for the face, but their features are coarse. We saw the Nile from the summit of a low hill that we ascended. There could not be a greater contrast than was formed by the luxuriance before us, and the sterility we had left. 17. We rode along the skirt of the valley, and all nature seemed to be keeping one glad holi day. There were camels, horses, buffaloes, cat tle, sheep, and goats, all feeding in the richest pasturage, and the air was almost alive with the many flights of birds that were darting through it in the full enjoyment of existence. vVe passed several villages, and in five hours arrived at Ken- nah, on tlie banks of the Nile. We did not meet with the least difficulty during the whole of our journey across the desert, and my old pack-saddle proved at last to be so comfortable, that my com panions adopted it in preference to their own more elegant furniture. I shall not soon forget the nearness of access to the throne of grace I was permitted to enjoy, in passing through some of these mighty solitudes. The passage of the de- sert might easily be accomplished in a httle more than three days, and as the camels travel at the rate of three miles and three quarters an hour, the whole distance may be stated at 106 miles. THE NILE. The Nile is called "the river," and sometimes " the sea," by the inspired penmen. In some of THE HOLY LAND. 11 the most ancient languages the word nil, signifies blue, and it may thus have been denominated the Blue River. _ It rises in the mountains near Abys sinia, but it is thought that the place about which Bruce writes with so much eloquence, is not the source of its principal branch. It was the largest river lmown to the ancients, and flows upwards of 1200 miles without receiving a tributary stream. The rise of the Nile is occasioned by the heavy rains that fall in Abyssinia, and commence in June : it reaches the maximum about the time of the autumnal equinox, and then gradually decreases until April, from which time it remains at nearly the same level until again renovated by the Ethio- pic floods. The color of' the waters varies at different seasons of the year. In Upper Egypt the average rise is about 35 feet, but at Cairo not more than 24 feet, and near the sea still less. In those years in which the waters do not rise to a certain elevation, a famine is the necessary con sequence. It is difficult to make a comparison of the present rise with the ancient, from the differ ence of the standard measures in the two periods, and it has always been the policy of the govern ment to deceive the people in the accounts that have been officially published. The bed of the river has risen considerably, from the deposit it is constantly receiving, or the old monuments and temples would be admirable criterions by which to decide the matter : we can tell how much higher the water rises than it did in the ancient times, but what part of the rise is formed by de posit, and what by water, we are unable to ascer tain. The water is clear, and its taste excellent, after it has been allowed to settle, and it is com pared by the Mussulmans to the well of Paradise. The stream is not rapid, even when the water is at the greatest elevation, compared with the rivers of India. The ancients speak of seven principal mouths, but there are now only two, and these are constantly changing their position. The divi sion of the waters takes place a Httle below Cairo, and the expanse of land between the streams was compared by the ancients to the figure of .the Greek delta A, but by the moderns, more properly, to that of a pear. The mud brought dowm by the stream is continually adding to the extent of the Delta, and is found as far as 24 leagues out at sea. We embarked for Thebes at Kennah in a canja, with two immense lateen sails, striped blue. It had two apartments and a bath, and was rowed by six men, but rather required twelve men from its size. It had been sunk some time under water before we entered it, to free it from vermin. From Thebes we proceeded to Grand Cairo, visiting all the principal antiquities by the way, and our voy age occupied nine days. Near Denderah the wind blew agamst us with such strength, that the boatmen were unable to keep the prow of the canja to windward, so they put down their oars, and allowed her to float with the stream. The mountains in some places run paraHel with the river, at a few miles distance, but near Girge they come close to the water, and seem as if reel ing in drunkenness, from the singular confusion manifested in the dip of their strata. The even ing we were off Ekmim was one of the stillest I ever remember, and the only sound that disturbed the silence was the cry of a distant hyssna. On passing a boat deeply laden with slaves, one of the men, who appeared to have been ill-used, appeal ed to us most vehemently, but we could not un derstand what he said. Near Siout the wind and stream were both in our favor, and as we flitted along at a delightful rate, the objects upon shore, as they receded from us, appeared Hke the moving scenes of an endless panorama. Soon afterwards the wind changed, increasing in violence, the air became darkened by the clouds of sand, and long before the sun had sunk below the horizon, the atmosphere assumed an appearance like that which the imagination forms over the dark waters of the Dead Sea. It was no small punishment threatened against the Israehtes that the rain of the land should be powder and dust, and not many sorer trials can be conceived than that inflicted upon the Egyptians, when the dust became Hce throughout all the land. Below Manfaloot the river passes under a range of hills, elevated and precipitous, and as we sailed slowly by them, the different birds by which they are inhabited came forth and flew at a Httle distance from their clefts, round and round, as if on sentry, until they deemed that we intruders were too far distant to injure them. Those more bold than the rest dashed down to the water, almost close to the oars, to pick up little substances floatmg down the stream. Upon a bank formed by the falling of the earth from above, we found several crocodiles basking in the sun, though it is said they are never seen below Girge. They differ from the Indian alliga tors, which I was accustomed to see almost daily, the tail being more stunted, and not so round. We saw two eagles upon a shoal near the same place, perhaps male and female, as one of them was much larger than the other, with its legs fea thered. They were magnificent creatures. Se veral birds of a small size were near them, proba bly waiting to partake of the remains when their majesties had finished their repast. A party of Algerines at a village where we purchased some bread asked us to give them a passage to Cairo in our boat, and when we refused they threatened to shoot us, but we knew they would not dare to put their threats into execution. Our canja fre quently struck upon sand-banks ; sometimes they were above water, and when so, were in general covered with birds, some kinds of which I often saw stand in rows, and in one particular position, perhaps upon one leg, or with the head under the wing, with as much formaHty as the hieroglyphics upon the walls of the temples. The valley of the Nile, which includes nearly the whole of cultivated Egypt, is in few instances more than 20 miles broad, will in general average less than one-half of that extent, and in many places the sands or mountains approach close to the banks. The produce is entirely from irriga tion, and where this ends verdure ends, and the desert in aU its sterility commences." The vil lages are numerous, and by contmued waste are a Httle more elevated than the surrounding plain. They are usually surrounded by a mud wall. The houses are built of mud bricks, and many of them have small turrets, with sticks at the outside, in which pigeons are reared, principally to procure their dung for manure. The whole of the valley 12 THE HOLY LAND. is never covered by the Nile, and to the higher grounds the water is raised by artificial means. The wheels for this purpose on the banks of the ri ver are numberless, and are turned round by oxen. In some instances a lever, to one end of which a skin is attached, is used for the same purpose, worked by men ; and in places where the banks are steep, I have seen four pairs of these instru ments, one above the other. The water falls into a canal, and is from thence conveyed at will in aU directions, at every division the stream becoming less, until the little rill can be guided to each sepa rate plant, and the peasant, making a Hne with his foot, thus waters the garden of herbs. — Deut. xi. 10. The food of the people is stiU the same as that which was remembered with weeping by the children of Israel, — " the cucumbers, and the leeks, and the melons, and the onions, and the gariic." It is wonderful that the Egyptians in ancient days did not make the Nile their sole deity, in preference to the multitude of buUs, birds, beetles, cats, crocodiles, and onions, that they adored. They had no blessing that did not come imme diately or otherwise from this beneficent source : when its supplies were withheld the whole land was a desert ; when it poured forth its riches, the same land was the garden of the world. It must have puzzled them sorely to know from whence it originated, as, year by year, it came in kindness, and irrigated their fields, and left upon them a rich deposit to receive the seeds of life and in due time smile with the ripened grain. It were hard to attribute to mere chance this ailmirable adap tation of river to country, and country to river. The river overflows, and there is no rain, because rain would be an injury : in other countries there is rain, and the rivers overflow not Hke this river, because were they to do so it would be an equal injury. These events may be added to the other instances of design, wisdom, and goodness, that are constantly manifested in the works of God. The rise of the waters is watched by the peasant with great impatience, and when the elevation is ac cording to his wishes, with his flocks safe folded and the former harvest secured, he looks around upon the extended sea, and rejoices in his confine ment : then the palm that spreads its grateful shade over his dwelling-place exhibits its richest green, and the viflages of the neighborhood are converted into islands that appear in the distance verdant and beautiful. The Nile may be design ed to impart far greater blessings to the world than have yet been drawn from its beneficence. The desert that commences on its western bank extends nearly to the Atlantic ocean, a distance of more than 3000 miles. The waters of the Nile and of the Niger may in part be one day turned upon this desert ; that which is now lost in the sea may supply nourishment to milhons ; and Egypt may still be " as the garden of the Lord," from the advantages that will be derived from new im provements in machinery and new discoveries in bydrauHcs. These two rivers, the sources of which have been an object of equal interest from time immemorial, and have alike eluded the search of every traveller, appear as if formed for the ex press purpose of bringing into cultivation the largest desert in the world, when the exigencies of mankind may require an extension of habitable surface. In places where a human being never yet breathed there may thus arise a countless population, and winds that have never yet been charged with any sound but the groan of the wan derer as he ventures to cross its parched wilds, may convey the praises of the Lord from the glad and grateful hearts of many worshippers. It was from the river Nile that " the seven well- favored kine, and the seven other kine" came up, of which Pharaoh dreamed : in the flags of the river's brink, Moses was placed in an ark of bul rushes: and into this river the Israehtes were commanded to cast their male children by the king " who knew not Joseph ;" but the river thus pol luted, though worshipped by the Egyptians as a god, manifested the anger of the Lord against the sins of the people, when its waters were turned into blood, its fish died, and it brought forth frogs abundantly. The " seven streams " are referred to in the prophecy of Isaiah. In the same book, chap. xix. 7, it is said ; " the reeds and flags shall wither; the paper reeds by the brook, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shah wither, be driven away, and be no more." There is at present a remarkable des titution of reeds throughout Egypt, though we might suppose the country admirably adapted to their production, and we know that they were once so plentiful as to supply the world with papy rus, and so large as to supply materials for the making of ships, naves. It was in one of these "arks of bulrushes" that the mother of Moses placed the goodly child. It is said again in the following verses, "the fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish : moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be con founded : and they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish." There are now very few fish in the river, and those of an inferior quality, which is another con trast to the abundance of ancient times ; and that they were abundant we have evidence in the mur murings of the children of Israel, who remember ed the fish as well as the vegetables, so that it must then have been the common food of slaves. In these lands, many passages of Scripture appear to be invested with a pecuhar beauty, and none more so than those which compare the condition of the righteous to " a tree planted by the rivers of waters." " Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is ; for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shah not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green ; and shaU not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." — Jer. xvii. 7. NO, OR THEBES. The city which in our version is rendered No, is by the LXX. called DiospoHs, or the city of Jupi ter. It is called Amon No in the Hebrew, im properly translated "the multitude of No." It is supposed to be the same city as the Thebes of the ancients. Its description may not only be consi- THE HOLY LAND. 13 dered interesting as belonging to a place mentioned by the prophets, — Jer. xlvi. 25 ; Ezek. xxx. 15, 16, — but more particularly as illustrative of "the wisdom of the Egyptians " about the time of Moses, as there can be httle doubt that some of the monu ments we shaH notice are of an age not much more recent. I was up betimes on the morning of Feb. 23, and mounted the most elevated station I could find, that I might see the sun rise upon the plain of Thebes, but was disappointed, as the atmo sphere was obscured by vapors. It seems a strange place to choose for the erection of a metropolis, when looking at the map, but all wonder vanishes upon a personal inspection of the site. The Nile divides itself into two branches a Httle higher up, and these again uniting, spread their waters into an imposing breadth, and then form a noble bend in the centre of a valley bounded by two ranges of hills. At the confluence of these branches, close to the water, on the eastern bank, stands the ruins of Luxor. The propylon, or en trance gateway, is 200 feet in width, and on one side of the entrance is a square obelisk, said to be 80 feet high, composed of one piece of granite, and covered with hieroglyphics cut deeply into the stone. Its fellow, that stood on the opposite of the entrance, has been taken away by the French, to be. erected in some pubhc spot in Paris. There are also two colossal statues, mutilated, with coni cal head-dresses, cut out of one block of granite, of differently colored strata. The facade of the propylon is covered with sculpture. On one side is cut the figure of a gigantic warrior, and near him are groups of his puny enemies, some in the act of battle, and others dying or dead. On the other side he is seated upon a throne, and is re ceiving the homage of his routed foes, and the congratulations of his friends. The early sun shone full upon the wall at the time we were look ing at it, so that we were able to trace the differ ent circumstances of the history with ease. The ascent to the top of the propylon . is more like a climb in a stone quarry than among materials brought together by human hands : and it must be remembered that every stone of this and of every other temple has been brought from a considerable distance. The top is as usual covered with the names of visiters. The interior of the edifice is occupied by the dwellings of the natives ; and I observed a mosque, and a school near it, in which an old man was teaching about a dozen noisy scholars. Several pillars with sculptured capitals are daubed over with mud, and others are seen in the walls of the houses. The principal court is supported by seven pillars on each side, which, with the frieze, are all its remains. Further on there are other capitals of a similar description, but smaller jdimensions, which appear to have be longed to the cloisters of a square entered from the temple. We had to pass through several na tive houses before we could conclude the examina tion, and strange to say, the people made no ob jection, and asked for no present. The houses near the river are built over columns and smaUer apartments of the temple. They were occupied by the French during the time they were employ ed in taking down the obelisk. There are four granite figures near them, aU more or less mutilat ed. The pier is supposed to be of Roman work manship, and in some parts is in good preservation. Karnac is situated on the same side of the river, a Httle more than a mile from Luxor, and further from the water. The approaches to the temple are lined with rows of sphinxes, about twelve feet distant from each other : they are of sandstone, and so far crumbled into ruin that it is difficult to make out their original form. The propylon to the temple of Isis is one of the most magnificent I have seen. Some of the stones in the passage leading to the top of the pronaos contain hiero glyphics, turned upside down, from which it would appear that they belonged to some former temple, out of the ruins of which this was either bmit of repaired. There are four columns on each side, and five interior apartments. The four propylons that present themselves at a Httle distance, conduct to a larger temple, that far surpasses all the others in extent and gran deur. I must here cease to particularise either columns or temples, so numerous are they that only to name them would be tedious. We enter ed towards the northern end, which is compara tively modern, and the figures are less free in their execution. The piUars in the centre are of one stone, forty feet high, and probably supported busts or statues, as upon the top of one of them a pede stal stiU appears. Near them is a gigantic figure in granite. Upon ihe waU are sculptured the figures of boats, one of which is upwards of fifty feet long. The French have cut in another part the latitudes and longitudes of the principal places in Egypt ; but I am told they are not correct. The pilars in the interior court are many of them ele ven feet in diameter. One of them has fallen against another phlar, but is prevented from com ing to pieces by the immense weight of the frieze, which stiU retains its place. The ribs in one of the upper windows of the western wall, are stiU perfect, and have so Hght an appearance, that at first I took them to be of wood. It is a deUghtful thought that the gods, to whom these matchless structures were erected, have not now a single worshipper, and that even a later generation of deities has shared a similar fate. Osiris and Apis, Jupiter and Venus, and Woden and Friga, are alike forgotten. The mind seems to require some thought of this description to reHeve it from the majesty of the scene, when the reflection comes that it is pure ly heathen. The most imposing view is from one of the transepts in the principal court, and when the setting sun sheds its latest rays upon these remains of departed greatness, and shows them in that " dim religious Hght," which is the favorite shade among aU ruins, there are few places upon earth where purer strains can be heard of that music which, amidst scenes like these, strikes with such force upon the soul, when all earthly sounds are silent. StiU there is a danger lest the imagination should be led away by some pleasing and profitless fiction, though the granite obelisks, the mutilated statues, the sculptured walls, the massy columns, and the quarries of hewn stone that he scattered in confu sion around, throw in a chord of graver tone, and teU us we are passing to the grave. When pro ceeding to look at some other wonder, column after column presents itself on every side, of the most gi gantic proportions, as if the hand that had upreared 14 THE HOLY LAND. them could never be satisfied with the manifesta tion of the resources it could command. The inte rior of the temple is a forest of columns. There are two obelisks, each made of a single block of granite, upwards of seventy feet high. The hiero- flyphics are nearly as perfect as when first cut. — 'urther on, we can only glance for a moment at the different apartments and figures that present them selves. Upon one of the walls are cut the figures of the gifts that were presented to the temple, with an account of the number and value of each. Some of the vessels are not improbably of the very 6ame shape and description as the chargers, bowls, and Bpoons, presented unto the Lord by the princes of Israel, at the dedication of the tabernacle in the wilderness. The next temple is in better preserva tion. The ceiHng is painted an azure blue, studded with stars. The figure of an old saint, painted upon one of the columns, greeted us at our en trance ; and I looked round with no common emo tion, as it is evident that this erection was used in former times as a place of Christian worship. The worshippers, "where are they?" Echo answers not with an uncertain " where V Those who wor shipped in sincerity are, no doubt, with the throng in a more magnificent temple, where there is no need of the setting sun to give it beauty, neither of the moon to shine in it, "for the Lord is with them an everlasting Hght." The names of several bi shops are written upon one of the piUars, in Greek ; and this rude scrawl, it has been conjectured, is the record of some ecclesiastical council held in the tem ple. StiU further on, there are many other statues, columns; walls, apartments, and temples ; but after seeing so much, the eye was for once satisfied, and we were not sorry to find ourselves at the extremi ty of the sacred enclosure. The whole length is said to be nearly two thousand feet. There is a character about these ruins that belongs to no other . I saw in Egypt. There are no native habitations near them, and but few remains of those httle mud dwellings with which the men of later times have been contented. They are alone in their simpHci- ty, and the broken fragments around aU belong to theh own former grandeur. I could scarcely bring myself to beheve that their age is to be numbered by thousands of years. They appear as if the work of yesterday. Looking at the more perfect parts, I could fancy that the workmen were only absent on some holiday occasion ; and, looking at the more ruinous, I could suppose that an earth quake, the tremulous motion of which was only now subsiding, had just passed in its fury as the messenger of God, and hurled from their founda tions these impious structures. The principal temples on the western side of the river are those of Gornou, Northern and South ern Dair, the Memnonium and Medinet Abou. The temple at Gornou, not far from the river, is remarkable for its simplicity, and were it not for the sacred character of the hieroglyphics with which it is covered, might be supposed to have been a grand hall used bythe monarch on state occasions. It has seven perfect columns in front, and one broken. In the interior there are three columns on each side, and the roof is nearly per fect. There are several other apartments, some of them nearly filled with rubbish. The propylon of the Memnonium is in ruins, and appears as if it had received a wrench from the hand of some mighty destroyer, who had strength at once to shake it through every stone. On the western side of it are represented the stirring scenes of a battle in the usual spirited style, wdth a waUed town and aU the horrors of a siege. Be tween this and the temple are the remains of a statue, from which the edifice derives its name, measuring upwards of twenty feet across the chest, and all the other parts in proportion. There are statues composed of separate stones joined to the columns in the same space, that have suffered from the hand of man, in common with the other parts of the fabric. Upon the waUs of the temple there are other battle scenes. It consists of seve ral apartments, and is much larger than that at Gornou. The whole is about 600 feet long, 200 feet broad, and contains upwards of 150 columns. It was from this place that the statue was taken now in the British Museum, and improperly called the Younger Memnon. The temple of Medinet Abou, about a quarter of a mile distant, is in better preservation. It is built upon a plan somewhat different to that which is usuaUy foUowed. The columns at the western end are only exceUed by those at Karnac, and the court must have been a delightful place of retire ment for the priests in the days of its magnificence. The hieroglyphics are cut very deep into the wall, and some of the colors are as bright and fresh as if just laid on by the painter. In aU the other tem ples I visited, the figures have been mutilated by the iconoclasts : in this temple there are whole groups of figures quite perfect. They appear to owe their preservation to the modern buildmgs by which they have been covered, and which were probably Roman, as those stiU near them are, from their form, supposed to be of that age. This would prove, if the position be correct, that the mu tilations are not the work of Cambyses, as is gene raUy imagined, but either of the early Christians or the Mahomedans. It has been a task of incredible difficulty to deface so many thousands of idolatrous emblems, and the zeal of the parties cannot but be admired, whatever a mere love of art may say of their task. On the northern exterior waU is repre sented another battle scene, in which the antago nists of the larger figure are upon the water in boats. Some are swimming for their Hves, some falling overboard, and others are employed in res cuing their perishing companions. The style in which these sculptures are designed much resem bles that of the prints in the common historical works published about 200 years ago ; but they are worthy of examination, as the garments, wea pons, and so forth, are no doubt exact representa tions of those used at the date of the erection of the temples. On the same side are several figures of Hons. Not far distant is the humble chapel of a few famiUes of Coptic Christians. The temples of Dair are of inferior interest. There are many other remains of walls, statues, and apartments, in different parts ; but it is an exaggeration of travelers, that the whole plain is covered with ruins from one chain of mountains to the other. The objects which almost surpass aU others in interest are the two statues in the centre of the plain. They are sitting upon a kind of throne, THE HOLY LAND. 15 with the hands resting upon the knees, and are looking towards the east. They are about fifty feet high. Both of them have smaU statues at tached to their lower extremities. The figure towards the south appears as if cut out of a single block of granite, but of this I cannot be positive, as what I take to be injuries may be joints in the stones : it is the most perfect. The other is the celebrated vocal statue of MemnOn. It is covered with inscriptions principaUy in the Greek charac ter, but many of them are now iUegible. One is said to record the names of several of the maids of honor in the suite of the Empress Sabina, con sort of Hadrian, when she visited these antiqui ties. It creates a singular sensation to come so closely into contact with these ancient great ones, as to be employed in looking with the same inte rest at the same object, after a lapse of 1600 years. Another inscription laments the injury done to the statue by C ambyses. Some record that they have heard the sound, and others write in the present tense, that they are listening to it at the very time. The upper part is much broken, and an attempt has been made to repair it with separate stones. These were probably once covered with cement, so that the fracture was not to be distinguished ; but this, has faUen off, and they have now a very clumsy appearance. The statue was vocal after its fracture, as weU as in its perfect state. It is said to have emitted sounds, particularly at the rising of the sun, Hke that heard at the breaking of the string of a harp. I cannot bring myself to think it possible that it ever possessed such a pro perty, and attribute the whole to the artifices of the priests. The geographer Strabo heard the sound, but was unable to teU whether it proceeded from the statue or from the people near it. These statues afford an exceUent test for measuring the rise of the river, as they are surrounded by water during the inundation ; and, it is wonderful, con sidering their immense weight, that they have not long ago sunk deep into the earth. I was disappointed in the tombs of the kings. — ¦ I remember being greatly interested some years ago with the plates of two harpers, in the travels of Bruce. They are taken from the tombs, are in beautiful perspective, and the countenances of the figures have a placid expression that I have seldom seen equalled. I took these as a speci men, and supposed that the other paintings would be something like them. The tombs are situated near the summit of the mountains, and the road leading to them is in exceUent keeping with the purpose to which it has been appropriated. It is a deep ravine, with rocks and loose stones, and appears as if shunned by every thing that has life : not even the goat, with aU its love of the high peak and giddy precipice, ever ventures upon these barren hills ; it knows too well that there is no grass upon which to browse, no young leaves to crop from the tender branch : aU is nakedness and desolation. It winds round the deserted sides of the mountain : in silence, as if to teach men to think ; in ruggedness, as if to remind them that in their passage to the grave they must expect to meet with crosses, and difficulties, and pain ; and in steriUty, as if to teU them that whatever honors the monarch might have previously received, he was now to stand in all the nakedness of truth, bereft of his companions and crowns, before the throne of the Eternal Judge. The scene must have been mournfully grand, when the funeral procession disturbed the usual stiUness, and the cries of the mourners re-echoed among the rocks, as they passed with the royal corpse to the habi tation it was destined to occupy, hoUowed down deep in the earth. It needs only to refer to Scripture to realise something of its power. When Joseph, who was only less than monarch, went up from Egypt to bury his father in the cave before Mamre, he was attended by " aU the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and aU the elders of the land of Egypt, and aU the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house .... and there went up with him both chariots and horse men, and it was a very great company. And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a very great and sore lamentation." Gen. 1. 7' — 10. » The entrances to the tombs are not distinguished above ground by any erection. The same plan is pursued in nearly all. A passage, about eight feet high, and as niany broad, leads down into the heart of the mountain by a gradual descent. The sides are covered with hieroglyphics, some in relief and others painted. There' are breaks and steps at convenient distances. After proceeding a httle way, there are square apartments on each side of the passage, covered with paintings. Then comes a room of larger dimensions, containing a stone sarcophagus. The roof is supported by square pfllars, and the painted figures are larger than life. From this place branch off different passages, that lead to other rooms, and from each of these rooms there are again passages that lead in the same way to' other apartments of a similar description. In some of the rooms there are niches for mum mies, and shelves aU round. The contents have aU long since been carried away. The paintings are not aU devoted to mythology. There are articles of furniture, such as chairs, couches, thrones, and vases, many of them of the patterns most admired in the present day : there are also the different operations of agriculture, ploughing, sowing, and reaping ; pots of flowers, instruments of music, and weapons of war. I observed several serpents with wings and feet. There are nu merous pictures of the gods, and of the various ceremonies of sacrifice. In the drawings from the tomb opened by Belzoni, Dr. Young discover ed the names of Necho, king of Egypt, and of Psammis, his son. Pharaoh Necho conquered Jerusalem and Babylon, and it has been thought that there is reference to this fact in one of the historical paintings in the same tomb. The sub ject is a mihtary procession, and the Jews and Persians may be easily distinguished by their form and dress. This tomb has suffered the least from time, and shows the colors as fresh as when just completed. Some of the apartments are unfinish ed, from which cause we can discover the manner in which the artist proceeded. The figure was first roughly pencilled out with red chalk, a bolder hand then drew the perfect form, and the colors were afterwards laid on. There is no shading or perspective, and I could safe httle of that expression in the countenances that has thrown some tra- veUers into perfect raptures. Some of the passa- 16 THE HOLY LAND. ges have been traced upwards of 300 yards, and may probably extend to a much greater distance. It is to be feared that in a comparatively Httle time these remains of antiquity will be destroyed, as the natives break off large pieces of the rock, to seU them to traveUers ; and there are many unsightly gaps afready in the walls, caused by this unwarrantable traffic. The most ancient of the existing temples is said by the interpreters of the hieroglyphics to have been erected about the year 1778, B. C. ; and, in turning over our Bibles, to search for the contem porary sacred history, we find that about that time Jacob was wooing his beloved Rachel, at the weU of Haran. The city is mentioned by Homer as "the hundred-gated." I had an opportunity of seeing the sun set from a situation in the western range of mountains, that commands a view of the whole plain. As I was proceeding towards the place, the people came running out of their sepul chres with curiosities to dispose of, that they had found among the ruins. These people Uve in tombs, sleep in coffins, and gain their food by seU- ing the bones and flesh of men. One old feUow brought out the dark mummy of a man, without any covering ; but it was too disgusting an object to look upon : the skin and form were quite per fect. The desiccating quahties of the place are wonderful. An Italian died here some time since, and his body soon became so dry, that it was sold to a certain traveUer as an ancient mummy ; but on being brought to Alexandria, the features were recognised by some of bis friends. The ground is perforated with mummy pits, like the cells of a honeycomb, and it required some Httle care in guiding the animal on which I rode among them, lest we should both faU in and be buried aHve. I had no wish to be exhibited some years hence as a genuine Egyptian mummy, and to be addressed by some poet as having shaken hands with Pha raoh, or seen the departure of the Israehtes. — Higher up the mountains are the tombs of more respectable persons, now inhabited by the people. They are excavated in rows, one above the other, and in the evening the flocks are brought up to them by steep paths, after feeding upon the rich pasture m the plain. I dined in one of the tombs with an English gentleman, who has been located in this strange habitation several years. By the time we reached this place, the sun had set to us, but was shining upon the plain through a pass in the mountains. I never at any time saw so many birds as were now returning from a distance to their resting places for the night. It seemed as if the spirits of the milhons of the dead who had breathed their last in the vaUey had suddenly be come embodied, and were hovering in dark masses above their deserted city. There was the majes tic Nile in the centre of the expanse, its banks covered with a mantle of the loveHest green, from the midst of which arose the white waUs of a tem ple in every quarter to which the attention was directed. The temples of Karnac were nearly hidden by a grove of dates. The columns of Luxor showed themselves in splendor, and wor shippers might have been imagined as standing among them, bowing ,to the fancied Lord of Heaven, as he might seem for a moment to veil his majesty before them, or shed upon their pray ers his last bright ray. The two statues of Mem- non were sitting in silence, as if too gigantic in their imaginings to be attracted by any scene in this lower world, as they were far away in then- colossal proportions from any thing that pertains to man. From this plain the monarch might once summon to his standard, through each of the gates of the city 20,000 fighting men, and 200 chariots ; now scarcely a single habitation is to be seen. — " Where are they, where are thy wise men 1 . . . . Why are thy valiant men swept away ;" asks the prophet ; and the same prophet answers, " They stood not, because the Lord did drive them." Jer. xlvi. 15. ON— NOPH, OR MEMPHIS. These cities both stood in the neighborhood of the pyramids, and the whole of the vaUey on both sides of the river may be considered as sacred ground. The prince whose daughter Asenath was given to Joseph in marriage, was priest of On. It is caUed Beth-shemesh by Jeremiah, and is translated HeHopolis by the LXX., by which name it was known to the Greeks, both of which signify " the house, or city, of the sun." On the opposite bank of the Nile stood the ancient city of Noph, caUed also Memphis, by the prophet Isaiah. There are few places mentioned in ancient history whose site has been laid down with more minuteness of circumstance, yet the learned are very far from being agreed as to the exact spot where Memphis stood. The controversy may have arisen from the vast extent it occupied, which may possibly have been so great as to bring places at a consi derable distance from each other, within the Hmits of the ancient metropolis. The name is stUl re tained in an Egyptian viUage ; for when I asked a native, whom I hired as an attendant, the place of his residence, he rephed Memf, and afterwards pointed out to me the place, within sight of the pyramids. Memphis was the capital of Egypt previously to the time of the Ptolemies, who trans- ferred to Alexandria the seat of empire. It con- tinued to retain a part of its former magnificence until the Fatimite caliphs became masters of Egypt, and bunt near the same place, but on the eastern bank of the river, El Kahirah, " the victorous," the present Grand Cairo. The remains of On are nearly reduced to one single obelisk, and as the description of Memphis would consist of Httle more than mere conjecture, the objects most worthy of attention as iUustrative of the present history of these places, are Grand C airo and the pyramids . The notices given of the present capital of Egypt wfll be considered as addi- tionaUy interesting if brought into contrast with the account given of Thebes, the former capital of the same country. Grand Cairo consists of two towns, distinguish ed by the names of Old and New, though the lat ter is only modern, in comparison with the former. Besides these two places there is Boulac, the river- port of the city, and fast rising into importance. The whole population of Cairo S stated at 600,000 souls, from a recent census. New Cairo is by far the most extensive of the THE HOLY LAND. 17 three places. It is entered, when coming from the river, a distance of about two miles, by a sub stantial gateway, and after passing an extensive barrack on the left, the road opens upon a square, the only one in the city, called the Esbequieh. It is in turn a lake, a morass, and a corn-field, as it communicates with the Nile by a canal. The streets are so narrow that I could frequently touch the . houses on both sides by stretching out my arms. The place seems as if bunt on purpose to favor the ravages of disease, and on passing through its dark, dirty, narrow streets, the name it has received of " the city of the plague," struck me as being particularly appropriate. The halls of merchandise are protected by chains at the en trance, and have an imposing appearance. I •wandered from street to street, through turnings and windings innumerable, Hngering at places where any thing of interest was exposed for sale, and scarcely any article can be mentioned, either for use or ornament, that is common among Euro peans or Turks, of. whatever degree, that cannot be purchased in some quarter or other of this ex tensive mart. The dresses of the Turkish ladies were the most splendid articles I noticed. Except in the Frank quarter there are no shops : you must stand in the street to make the bargain, though sometimes the salesman wiU invite you to mount up, and take part Of the mat upon which he is sitting. Narrow as the streets are, the crowds that pass through them are incredible. I gene raUy rode a donkey, and the boy with me kept continuaUy calling to the people to mind their feet ; but in spite of aU our endeavors to give warning, my awkward boots were always getting entangled among some of the manifold habiliments in which the Women are enveloped, and I either turned them half round before I could get free, or made a rend that brought down upon my poor head many an ungracious wish. But I was made to suffer in my turn : first a Turk upon horseback gave my knee a stroke with his great stirrip, then a camel came with a load so large that there was no possibiHty of getting past without a crush against the waU, and before I had weU had time to exclaim against the want of manners in the animal, my feet were graz ed agamst the projecting boards of a bazaar. Soldiers are stationed in aU directions, and fre quently add to the confusion by their efforts to pre serve order. The mosques, of which there are about 300, would some of them have a magnificent appearance if they could be seen from a httle dis tance, but they are now buried among houses and common bufldings. I had a peep into some of them through the windows : the space between each arch of the principal aisle appears to be par titioned from the rest, and to be a place of worship perfect in itself, so that the effect is lost that would be produced by a view of the undivided whole. They have sometimes buildings attached to them with brass lattices, erected with considerable taste, at which water is distributed to passengers by persons appointed for the purpose. The houses are five or six stories high : the lower part built with stones of a large size, and many of them hav ing arched entrances, the ribs of which are chastely ornamented. The citadel has of late received great attention, and every effort has been made to render it im- 53-3 pregnable, but the stone of the fortifications is too soft to resist the effects of cannon. It contains a telegraph that communicates with Alexandria. The divan of the governor is very splendid. An erection of marble has been commenced by the pacha, in memory of his favorite son Touissan. There are now no remains of the places formerly shown as the haUs of Joseph and his steward, ex cept a few piUars. Joseph's weU is 272 feet deep, and a passage, several feet wide, winds round it, cut in the rock, with openings towards the weU at certain intervals for the admission of Hght. The water is drawn up by two wheels, one at the top and the other some distance down, turned by oxen in the usual manner. The water is brackish, from the sand through which it filters, but it might be used in case of necessity, and would be the only supply for the garrison during a siege. The place where the Mamelukes were massacred has been much altered since this deed was perpetrated, one of the darkest of modern times. We had some difficulty in making out the spot, as the Turks are wishful to bury aU traces of the transaction in ob- Kvion. I almost shuddered as I trod the stones where so many brave men were murdered in cold blood. Near this place is an extensive manufac tory of arms. We -passed through aU the work shops and foundries, and were everywhere treated with great attention. The army is suppUed from hence with swords, pistols, guns, and cannon. The overseers are principaUy Englishmen. The walls of the citadel command the finest view of the city, particularly of the mosque of Sultan Has san. It appears scarcely possible that so large a population can be crowded into so smaU a space as the city occupies. There is an asylum for lunatics attached to one of the mosques. It contained at the time of my visit twelve men and thirteen women. The men have separate cells that look into an open court, to the bars of which they are chained. One was continuaUy passing himself from side to side of the grating, as I haye seen hysnas, when under con finement, and caUed out incessantly, " Francisco, Francisco." Others were sitting in moody silence. The description of the women's apartment I re ceived from the keeper, deterred me from visiting it. The slave market is an open square, with rooms on each side, and apartments above for the more valuable females. The rooms were most of them closed, but they were aU thrown open on our ap proach, and the poor creatures were shown as if they had been so many horses or cattle. They set up a loud laugh, but though there was laughter upon the Up, it came not from the heart. I stood some time in the gaUery, looking at the different groups, and felt for them sincere pity. There was something pecuharly forbidding about the countenances of the old feUows who appeared to be the principal proprietors. The greater part of the slaves then in the market were Berberries, and nearly aU chndren. Their hair grows in ringlets, and has been compared to a natural wig. These were aU merrily warming themselves round a fire, and it is possible might be reaUy destitute of aU painful thought on their situation. It shaU be a glory unto Britain, more durable than that of her conquests, that slavery has ceased throughout 18 THE HOLY LAND. her dominions, a fact the more interesting, because without a paraUel in the annals of nations since the chain was forged that bound in fetters the first slave. In the court leading to the market cur- bashes are sold, thongs made of the skin of the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, a cut from which is so severe that it becomes a powerful weapon. I never failed to make my way through a crowd, when I had one in my hand, though I never struck any one a blow. The tombs of the caliphs and Mamelukes have been much admired, but they are very inferior to many of those erected by the Mussulmans in India during the existence of the Mogul empire. Between new Cairo and the old city, after crossing an extensive burial ground and some gardens, there is an aqueduct with 317 arches, not at present in use. In the same direction is one of the palaces of the pacha, in which, as in aU other modern Egyptian architecture, there is a strange mixture of refinement and barbarism. The glory of Old Cairo is completely ecEpsed by the superior grandeur of the New, but it is more conveniently situated in every respect ex cept for defence, being near the river. There is here shown the place where our Saviour is said to have Hved during his residence in Egypt, and several other places of a similiar description, fruit ful sources of revenue to the monks. The island of Rhoda is formed by a division of the Nile, and is occupied by the gardens of Ibra- ham Pacha, to which the wealthier Turks delight to retire in the cooler hours of the day and Hsten to music. At the southern extremity is the an cient Nilometer, from which the official account cf the rise of the river is ascertained. The palace of Shoobra is situated on the banks of the Nile, and is approached from Cairo by a broad road shaded with trees. The gardens are laid out with some taste, and have walks pebbled with different devices. There is a fountain, sur rounded by a court paved with marble, to which the pacha is sometimes accompanied by the ladies of his harem. The giraffes brought from the in terior were aU dead but one, and the dim eye and languid movements of the survivor betokened that it would soon foUow its companions. I was accompanied to the pyramids by the Rev. J. Bartholomew, of the Wesleyan society, who had come to the capital on business connected with the mission. We mounted the donkeys of the country, active and useful Httle creatures, on the western bank of the river, and after an hour's quick ride were at the foot of one of the seven wonders of the world, and the only one of the seven at present in existence. The cultivated plain approaches these ancient structures within a few hundred feet. The ground upon which they are buUt is somewhat elevated, which adds to their imposing appearance from the distance. The viUages we passed in our ride each sent one or more of its inhabitants to accompany us, and before we had proceeded far we were surrounded by a noisy crowd, aU of whom had something to say why they in particular should have their ser vices accepted ; and if we insisted upon their re turn before we would proceed one step further, it was only to see them come back again after a Ht tle time, perhaps in increased numbers. It was in vain that we cast a look towards the pyramids, to contrast their appearance under different lights, and at different distances ; our attention was soon caUed away from Cheops and his monument of 3000 years to the reiterated claims of our nearer attendants. I was anxious to proceed to the top of the highest pyramid before the sun's rays had become too powerful. I was assisted by two Arabs in cHmbing the steps-, which at the com mencement are upwards of a yard high. It is a difficult task for muscles not accustomed to the attempt, but by no means so formidable as has been represented. It is not unusual for females to accompHsh the undertaking, and a party had engaged to accompany us, but in the mean time one of them had been taken iU. Not long since some English traveUers, with that love of frolic which is their general characteristic, had a donkey taken to the summit, and then, withthat thought lessness and cruelty of which they are too often guilty, had it precipitated to the ground, by which it was, of course, dashed to pieces. It is during the ascent that the magnitude of the erection first comes home to the mind with proper force ; to look down, and then towards the summit, it seems impossible that so immense a pile can be entirely the result of human labor. It is about 700 feet in the length of its base, and is 461 feet high, being 227 feet higher than the cathedral of York, and 117 feet higher than St. Paul's at London. It is ascended by 206 layers of steps, of different di mensions. I did not myself make any admeasure ment, and must take for granted the declarations of former traveUers, or I should have taken the elevation at a greater number of feet, allowing the number of steps to be correctly stated, as there appeared to me to be more tiers that were above three feet in height than there were under this size. There wiU always be a difference in the computations of traveUers, because many of the steps are broken, and the sand at the base does not always accumulate to the same eleva tion. At the apex is a flat space, about 30 feet square, upon which are cut the names of its ad venturous visiters. I added my name to those of three other missionaries, aU of whom are now no more. The multitude of events that rush at once upon the mind, when standing in this elevated position, produces an indistinct and mdefinite ex citement, half fearful, half joyous, and utterly in describable ; a something that was never felt be fore, and cannot be expected ever to be felt again. The stones that are there placed have occupied the same spot an unknown period, more than half the age of the world. We may teU every name written upon the scroU of history, every event re corded among the archives of the world, every empire whose faU has been wept by its bereaved children, however ancient that name, or distant that event, or extended the sweep of that empire ; and whilst aU these were the passing wonders of the day, this erection was standing as it now stands, in the same form and the same position. The day was most favorable to the fuU enjoyment of the prospect. At our feet were other pyramids of equal antiquity, and the pyramids of Saccarah and Dashoor were seen in the distance. The minarets of Cairo were to be distinguished over the NUe, with the citadel frowning from tne Mo- THE HOLY LAND. 19 kattam. The river was presented in a long con tinuous Hne, and the earth did her homage as she passed by, arraying her banks with flowers, and trees, and a mantle of green. It is more - than probable that the first miracles of Moses; includ ing aU the plagues, from the turning of the river into blood to the death of the first-born, were per formed within the Hmits commanded by our vision. On the opposite bank had stood the city of On, to which Plato and many other of the Grecian sages resorted to learn lessons in good government and phUosophy. On the flight into Egypt, there is Ut tle doubt that Joseph and Mary, with the holy chUd Jesus, resided for a time at the same place, as we know that "great numbers of Jews were located there at that period, though the exact spots consecrated by the presence of the Saviour may not be known. The nearer vaUey had once been covered with the houses, palaces, and tem ples, of an extensive city, not a vestige of which now remained. The prophecy of Jeremiah has been HteraUy accompUshed : "They did cry there, Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise : he hath ¦passed the time appointed. As I live, saith the king, whose name is the Lord of Hosts, Surely as Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shaU he come. O thou daughter dwelling in Egypt, furnish thyself to go into cap tivity; for Noph shaU be waste and desolate, without an inhabitant." — Jer. xlvi. 17 — 19. The thoughts glance at these different events, and aU connection with the present age is for a time for gotten, until the Arabs become impatient, and re mind you that they consider their expected pre sent of greater consequence than aU the longs and cities that have ever existed. The descent is less difficulfto the muscles, but a greater trial to the nerves.- An English gen tleman was thrown down about three years ago, and was kiUed, as the wind was violent, and he refused the assistance of the Arabs. The entrance into the interior is at some dis tance from the base, but is approached by an ac cumulation of sand and stones. We descended to the distance of about 70 feet by a graduaUy inclined plane, from whence the principal passage ascends with a shelving ledge on each side, and we could distinguish the roof by the light of our dim tapers. The ascent is attended with some difficulty, and would be almost impossible, were not holes cut in the stones for the hands and feet. The passage terminates in a chamber 32 feet long by 16 feet wide, and said to be 19 feet high. In the centre of the chamber is a sarcophagus of red granite, without any inscription. We sang the doxology, — " Praise God from whom aU blessings flow," — to the' usual psalm, and the effect was very grand. Our two voices seemed to be sweU- ed to the compass of a multitude, as if some of the old Egyptians who had been there entombed had also taken to themselves a voice, and joined in the song of praise. There were many other passages breaking off in different directions to less or greater distances. Some of them have been explored to the extent of several hundred feet, and it is pro bable there are many others, the entrances to which cannot now be ascertained. There have been a great many opinions as to the design with which the pyramids were erected. There can be no doubt that they were tombs, and perhaps they were nothing more. If it be objected, that it would be absurd to suppose the Egyptians lavish ed so much expense upon buddings that had no other design, we need only refer to their mummies, their catacombs, and the tombs of the kings at Thebes. In the centre of the pyramid the body of the founder was probably deposited, and the passages would answer the same purpose for the bodies of- his family and descendants. They might afterwards be used for deeds of darkness that the Hcentiousness of later periods introduced into the world. The absence of hieroglyphics in every part of the structure may arise from their antiquity, as they may have been built before the invention of these symbols : but it is more proba ble that the cause is to be found in the known opposition of the founders to the existing hierar chy, who alone had the key to this secret manner of writing ; as Herodotus, in speaking of Cheops, expressly states that " he barred the avenues to every temple, and forbade the Egyptians to sacri fice to the gods." It has been assumed, with a great- appearance of probability, that the IsraeKtes assisted in the erection of these artificial moun tains ; and to support this argument, many distinct series of proofs have been brought forward both from sacred and profane history. There are two other pyramids at a Httle dis tance, one of them of a much smaUer size. The nearer of the two was opened by Belzoni, after a close of some ages, but he was disappointed in finding that it had been previously explored, and deprived of its most valuable remains. An at tempt has been made to destroy it, as the steps are aU broken nearly half-way up to the summit. There are several other buildings in the plain, half-buried by the sand. The paintings in one of them might represent a grand gastronomic pro cession, as there are aU the operations of cooking. At a Httle distance are several beautiful sarco phagi cut into the shape of the human body, with the Hds entire and the inscriptions as perfect as if just prepared for some one that was about to be interred. The sphinx is cut out of the rock where it stands, and the head only can now be seen. I could not discover so much beauty in the features as many travellers profess to find. There are said to be many inscriptions on the lower extremi ties, and the whole mass, if cleared away entirely from the sand, would be upwards of 100 feet long. The Arabs continued to throng about us, in spite of aU our efforts to drive them away. They have been designated robbers, and aU manner of evil has been said against them, but a set of merrier or better natured feUows I never met. with, and a few piastres distributed among them were ac knowledged by a thousand thanks. Some of them Uve in the excavated parts of the rocks, where they have comfortable shelter in this favored cKmate. On our return we caUed at what our guide de nominated " a manufactory of chickens ;" and after recrossing the river, visited one of the pa cha's schools. There were 1700 boys under a course of instruction, nearly aU of whom were boarded upon the premises. We saw the kitchen, bath, and hospital. Nearly aU their studies are in Turkish, which I do not understand r but they 20 THE HOLY LAND. were proud to show us several plans and sketches, as well as drawings of fortifications and of different pubhc buildings in Cairo, the execution of which was very respectable. We had no letter of in troduction, but were treated with great politeness, and were shown through the whole of the premises. The masters appeared to be aU Turks. I was kindly entertained during my stay in Cairo at the house of the Rev. W. Krusie, of the Church Mission. There were at that time eight Protes tant ministers in Cairo, perhaps an unprecedented occurrence ; a clergyman of the Church of Eng land on his travels ; Messrs. Leider, Krusie, and Mulier, stationed in Egypt ; Mr. Gobat, on his way from Abyssinia to England ; Mr. Iesenberg, on his way from England to Abyssinia ; Mr. Bar tholomew, and myself. I had the privUege of partaking with my brethren of the holy Sacra ment, and on the Sabbath preached to a small congregation in English. The missionaries are principaUy employed in the superintendence of schools, but were in treaty for a place in which to attempt a pubhc service in Arabic. ALEXANDRIA. This city was founded by Alexander the Great, under the direction of the same architect who re- bmlt the temple of Diana at Ephesus. It was the capital of Egypt during the reignof the Ptolemies, and contained a population of 300,000 freemen, with the same number of slaves. It was. second only to Rome, among aU the cities of her empire. It was intersected by two magnificent streets, 2000 feet broad, one of which extended from the sea to the lake, and presented to the admiring passenger the sight of ships riding at anchor near both of its extremities. It holds a prominent place in history, especiaUy under the early emperors of Rome. The ship belonged to this port in which Paul was wrecked at Melita. When taken by Amrou, the general of the caHph Omar, it had 4000 palaces, 4000 baths, and 400 places of amuse ment. The commerce between this city and Rome was considerable. The discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope de stroyed the maritime superiority of Alexandria, and it can only be restored by a return of the east ern trade to its old channel of communication. The present city may be compared to an an cient lady, painted, patched, and powdered, and trying to play the agreeable under her gray locks and wrinkled forehead. New waUs are carried over extensive ruins ; Turkish palaces look out upon Roman monuments ; and hospitals and gra naries are buUt with stones cut by hands that many centuries ago forgot then- cunning. It is situated upon a strip of sand between the Medi terranean sea and the lake Mareotis. It commu nicates with the Nile by a canal dug by the pre sent pacha, at immense expense, 47 mues long.' — The place bears marks of present prosperity, many large houses being in the course of erection, and the numerous flag-staffs that distinguish the resi dences of tho European consuls are evidence that the interests of many nations are connected with its commerce. The present population is stated ] at 20,000, about 5000 of whom are Franks There are 3000 persons under the care of the British consulate, principaUy from Malta and the Ionian islands. At certain hours of the day, a greater number of Europeans than of natives is to be seen in the streets. The column caUed "Pom pey's PiUar," is placed upon an eminence, and is seen to greatest advantage when emerging from the city m the direction in which it is situated. — It is one of the largest masses ever elevated by man, as the shaft is 90 feet long, and is composed of one entire piece of granite. The capital is 10 feet high, of the Corinthian order, and is the work of a much ruder period. The site is favorable to the supposition that it stood in the centre of some vast edifice. It was perhaps to commemorate the placing of the capital, or the re-erection of the column, that the inscription was cut, which has excited so many disputes among the learned, and given honor to men who little deserve it. The obehsks caUed " Cleopatra's Needles," are close to the sea-shore, one erect, and the other faUen, and nearly covered with earth. They are similar to those I saw in Upper Egypt, but the hiero glyphics are much less distinct, from their expo sure to the sea breeze. There are several other places to which the name of Cleopatra is attached, with about equal authority. Another pfle of ruins is said to be the site of the celebrated Hbrary destroyed by Omar's command. The catacombs are at some distance, and cannot be explored very far without difficulty : my other engagements did not allow me to visit them. In tho convents are shown several reHcs, such as a picture painted by St. Luke, and the pulpit in which St. Mark preached. There are considerable spaces within the outer waU not occupied by any budding, but mound after mound presents itself, the residue of what once was looked upon with wonder ; and in the excavations that have recently been made, to procure stone for bunding, many piUars, capitals, and waUs of extraordinary strength, have heen laid open to the day. The city is stiU supphed with water by the ancient aqueducts, built with arches under the streets. The European inhabitants are principaUy of the Roman CathoHc persuasion. There are also many Greeks, and a few famiUes of Copts and Arme nians. The convents appear to flourish under the Hberal sway of the pacha. The Jews are a nu merous body. The Rev. J. Bartholomew, of the Wesleyan mission, was the only resident Protes tant minister. I preached in the chapel to-about fifty persons, in Enghsh; but the performance of service was not generaUy known, as Mr. B. had only arrived from the country the day before.— There was a school in connection with the mis sion, in which were 33 boys, of whom 16 were Greeks, 9 Italians, 5 Armenians, and 3 Arabs.— Mr. B. preached on board one of the ships in the harbor every Sabbath. Many persons of different nations caUed upon him to converse on religious subjects ; and in this way it was hoped some good was done. There are many vfflages in the Delta, near to each other, in which the Copts are nu merous. It would be weU if schools could be estabUshed among them, as by this means access would graduaUy be gained to the people, and they might be brought under the preaching of the word THE HOLY LAND. 21 of God. The smaU force of the mission at pre sent precludes the possibihty of an attempt that might be attended with the brightest results. . I embarked for Beirout, in Syria, in the Ran ger, and when we got1 under weigh, I looked to wards the shore, and thought on the many impor tant events that had there taken place. The palace of the pacha stands upon a peninsula be tween the two harbors. The site of the ancient Pharos has been swept into the sea. The ships anchor in the harbor furthest from the town, and it was then fiUed with ships of different descriptions from the western ports of Asia and aU the princi pal ports of Europe. The number of men-of-war displaying the red flag with the crescent, one of which carried 130 guns, proclaimed the maritime power of the pacha. The harbor is difficult of ac cess, having a bar of rocks at its entrance, and the coast on both sides is too low to be seen at any distance. We skirted the bay of Aboukir, in which was fought the battle of the Nile. Since its foundation by Alexander thegreat, . and its reception of his remains in a sarcophagus of gold, Alexandria has been alternately a queen among the nations, and a slave to the oppressor, and its history is not without Stirling pages that claim deep attention. In the time of the Ptolemies it was the metropolis of Egypt, it drew from proud Tyre her resources, and became the mart of the commerce of the East : it was near this place that Pompey was murdered within sight of his wife Cornelia; and-that the great Cassar and the un fortunate Marc Antony yielded themselves captive to the charms of the worthless Cleopatra : it gave birth to ApoUos, the mighty in the Scriptures : the evangelist Mark here preached the humbling doctrines of the cross, and sealed them with his blood: it afforded refuge to 100,000 Jews, and under Nero its streets were red with their blood : it was here that the translation of the Septuagint was made, opening the volume of truth to the whole of the then civilized world, and that the most ancient copy of the Scriptures now in existence was penned by Thecla, a noble virgin ; it was here that the monastic life originated, that Arius denied the divinity of his Redeemer, Athanasius de fended the truth, and Origen commenced his aUe- gories, all of which have had their different influ ence upon the church : it was here that the eclectic phflosophy flourished, the corrupter of the simpH- city of the gospel : its skies have been blackened by the smoke of 700,000 volumes thrown to the flames by the bigotted Omar ; then come Saladin, and Richard the lion-hearted, and the crusaders, and as a grand conclusion, Nelson and Napoleon have fought, and Abercromby died, within a few mUes of its waUs. I quitted Egypt with some regret that it was not in my power to spend a longer period in inves tigating its antiquities ; but I remembered that I had duties of a higher kind that required my at tention. No man with eyes to see, and a heart to feel can look upon this country in its present degradation, and compare it with its former great ness without learning an instructive lesson. It once sat in majesty, and kings came to do it homage, and great men came to learn from it wisdom : its temples were crowded with worshippers, and its river was covered with the sweffing sails of its multitude of vessels ; it is now " the basest of king doms." The oppressions that the people have suffered have known no limit. Inhabiting one of the richest countries under heaven, the soU of which requires scarcely any culture to render it productive, they are destitute of the necessaries of Ufe. Their moral condition is equally to be de plored. The Turks are the lords of the land, and no where have they been more proud or more cruel. The viUagers are sunk into an awful de gree of depravity : in no other place have I seen such shameful exposure of the person, both among males and females ; and it is said, that there are crimes commonly committed among them to which I dare not more distinctly aUude. The sight of a ruin under any circumstances, is an impressive sign of the instability of the things of earth ; but in contemplating the columns of Egypt, it cannot be forgotten that, not merely a few generations have passed away since their erection, but that everithe mightiest empires the world ever saw, were founded, and flourished, and feU, within the same period : thus the voice with which they speak gathers fresh energy {*om every century that is added to their age ; and we not only ask, What is man 1 — we ask, too, What would man be, were even a thousand years added to his threescore aiid ten'! The e.ju1 then feels its need of some support that is eternal, and cleaves with the greater firmness to Him who is the same, and whose years faU not, thankful that He who alone can save is wiUing " to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Jesus, seeing he ever liveth." In the infancy of the human race, Egypt rose to a situation of great pre-eminence among the na tions of the world. Its climate was a deUghtful mean between the extremes of heat and cold. There being little rain, the labored erection -of substantial dwellings was not necessary: the plains required little trouble to cultivate them, and their riches could never be exhausted. The wan dering habits of the patriarchal famiUes were here first repressed, as it was impossible that they could proceed further to the westward on account of the Libyan desert, and it was equally out of their power to migrate in the vaUey of the Nile, the constitution of the soU being adapted for tiUage rather than for pasturage, and requiring a fixed settlement in those who were wishful to reap its advantages. This may have been one reason why " every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians." Under a paterhal government, the people of Egypt might have been the happiest nation upon earth, but as in too many similar instances, that which appeared to be their greatest advantage prov ed their greatest bane. They had leisure, and their thoughts, free from the anxieties of other lands, were sweUed to compass that which was magnificent, from looking by day at the majestic fronts of their numerous mountains, which though of no great elevation have much in them of the sub- Hme, and from gazing. by night at the bright lumi naries of the sky, through the clear firmament un der which they reposed. The leisure and the mag- 22 THE HOLY LAND. nificent thought were both seized upon by the kings and priests, and employed in works that required the bending of united strength to one common object. They first scooped out caves, then cut the rocks into columns, sanctuaries, and gigantic sta tues, of one single stone ; and by degrees exhibited greater boldness and science, and upreared tem ples. There is great simplicity about aU their productions, and a heaviness in their conceptions, compared with the more luxuriant imaginations of the Indian architects. There is Httle about any of their remains that expands the mind with that force it feels when looking at an extensive prospect in nature, or that excites the pleasurable emotions it experiences when examining a finished work of art. The thoughts dweU only on the buUder : we are astonished at what he has done, but the soul feels as if burdened by the mass of materials that are crowded together, and cannot move with free dom, or be prompted to grandeur in its reveries. It was because the ancients were unacquainted with the principle of the arch, that aU theh tem ples are either too narrow, or too crowded with pfllars. The temple at Karnac is to be excepted from these conclusions, as time has robbed it of its massy roof, and opened an inlet for the admis sion of " the thoughts that wander through eter nity." The tale has been often repeated that the sepoys that joined the British army in the war against Napoleon, performed their devotions in the temple at Denderah, as if they had taken it for one of their own places of worship. The anecdote, perhaps, rests upon too strong proof to be questioned ; but it is contrary to the known customs of the Hin doos. They do not acknowledge a place that has once been desecrated, and the wonderful cave temples near Bombay have no attendant priest hood, and scarcely a single worshipper. I did not discover so much sinhlarity between the Brami- nical temples and the Egyptian as to prove an indentity of rehgion, though I must confess that I am not deeply versed in either superstition, being most conversant with Buddhism. The most pro minent examples I observed were the lingam, the lotus, and the hanshaya, or king of birds. The unsightly symbol of the phaUus is exhibited in aU its grossness in many places, particularly at Karnac, and its popularity in India, as the common form of an idol, I need not repeat. In history a few more particulars may be noticed, such as the use of bra zen vessels, cleaned every day ; the shaving of every part of the body by the priesthood ; theh confinement to one mode of dress ; their frequent ablutions ; theh veneration for cows, and their abhorrence of swine. These observances, common to both religions, may prove that they derived their origin from one source, but were differently modified to meet their different circumstances. The simplicity of the Egyptian architecture may argue its superior an tiquity. To express power, the Deity was formed in colossal proportions, and the Hindoos used the same method for the same purpose, but in addition gave to the idol a multitude of arms, an idea which was probably intended to be a refinement upon the African usage. The thought might be extended, but the controversy cannot be entered into within the narrow limits to which these observations are intended to be confined. The hieroglyphics upon the temples of Egypt have ever been regarded with great interest Their meaning was for many ages involved in ob scurity. Clemens Alexandrinus spoke of a de scription of writing "by means of the initial sounds of words ;" but it was not known until lately what was the meaning of the author. In 1814, the French discovered, near Rosetta, a slab, with an inscription in three different characters — the sa cred, the vernacular, and the Greek. By a com parison of the three it was found that the hiero glyphics represented names by the initial letter of the word that expresses the figure drawn upon the stone, in the common language of the country. — Thus, in our own language, to express the term lion, the hieroglyphics might be a lotus, an ibis, an octagon, and a negro. The names of princes are encircled in an oval, and I was able to make out, from the published alphabet, the result of much pa tient investigation, the names of several princes known in history. Mr. Salt, by this method, dis covered the name ofTIRHAKA, which occurs, 2 Kings, xix. 9, of whose existence the enemies of revelation had affected to doubt, because it is not mentioned by any profane historian. There are also two other descriptions of hieroglyphics, that may be caUed the simple and the metaphor ical. The simple is the most ancient, and gives a direct representation, as a man for a man, or a bird for a bird. The metaphorical is more com plex, as it gives a scarabeus to represent the obHque course of the sun, or the act of mundane formation, or the reproduction of the world after the destruction to which it is periodically subject The initial must have been used after the inven tion of the alphabet. The grounds upon which it at present rests are questionable, and Uttle pro gress has been made beyond the discovery of a few proper names; but it is hoped that further researches wiH complete the system, and render it appHcable as weU to abstract terms. It is much to be regretted that some one of com petent abihties does not spend a short time in Egypt for the express purpose of Ulustrating the Scriptures. This regret came to me with pecuEar force when examining the caves of Beni Hassan, the paintings in which are of the most interesting description. In one cave there are figures of wrestlers, in at least a hundred different attitudes, and various other games are represented in sepa rate compartments. A number of females appear to be playing at the rough game of leap-frog, and others at baU. There are washermen beating the clothes against a stone, and others wringing them out ; blacksmiths, hunters, and fishermen ; houses, flowers, and musical instruments ; men exciting buUs to fight, and driving cattle as if to market ; children nding upon asses in panniers ; the sacri ficing of bulls and human beings ; the various pro cesses of ploughing, sowing, reaping, treading out the corn, and housing it in the granary ; groups of cattle, antelopes, asses, and dogs; Hons and tigers ; men shooting at game with arrows ; weigh ing in a balance, hauling boats, and rowing ; mar riage processions ; in fact, a peep is given at most of the common transactions of Ufe as they took place in the olden timej not after the crude ima gination of a modern painter, but in aU the force and fire of living truth. There are two harpers, THE HOLY LAND. 23 with instruments of a form more simple, and per haps more ancient, than those in the tombs of Bruce. The dresses, the manner of carrying bur dens suspended from the end of a stick placed upon the shoulders, the way of guiding boats by an oar instead of a rudder, are exact representa tions of the present customs of India, proving the simUarity of manners in the early ages, and the antiquity of the usages of India, where to say " it is customary," is thought a sufficient excuse for acts in themselves the most absurd. The sooner a mission is commenced for the preservation of these and other reHcs of antiquity, the better, as they would throw great Hght upon many passages of the Bible, and every successive day adds some thing to the destruction of these valuable records. In some of the same caves the piUars are cluster ed with ribs bound round by a cord near the capi tal, and a wedge driven within the cord to render it tight ; the whole cut out of the rock, as if to re present the clustering of the stems in the wooden piUars then used .in the common houses. In the same way, it has been supposed that the arch and clustered piUar of Gothic architecture have been taken fromthe view presented by a vista of palms. 1 have often been struck with this idea whilst walking through a grove of young cocoa-nut trees by torchlight, and have almost fancied myself to be treading the aisles of some ancient monastery or cathedral. The present aspect of Egypt is not more inte resting to the moraHst, the man of science, and the biblical student, than it is to the poHtician and the phUanthropist. The pacha has thrown off tlie yoke of the sultan ; his son Ibrahim has conquer ed Syria ; and it was only the interference of the Christian powers that prevented him nom enter ing the gates of Constantinople. Mahomet AH, though upwards of 60 years of age, retains aU the vivacity of youth, and is as restless, as active, and as attentive to business, as at the time when he en tered upon his first intrigue. He was indefatigable in raising supplies for the army of his son. He ap pears not only to sustain by his own single strength the whole machine of government, but also to pay personal attention to the progress of every separate movement. I saw him in his dock-yard,- where he had a temporary place erected to which he daUy resorted to superintend the building of three ships of the line, then upon the stocks. There is nothing of majesty in his appearance, and there were no ornaments about his dress : he is low in stature ; he has a grave, care-worn countenance, with a long gray beard, and a sinister expression about his eye, which must be keen and piercing when lighted up with interest or flashing with the fire of anger. There are dark spots in his character, but when Compared with any other of the pachas who have for a time successfully braved the pow er of the Sublime Porte, such as the djezzar of Acre, or the robber of Ioannina, he deserves our praise, and almost commands admiration. The provinces under his command are ruled with vi gor, and in what does not concern his own advan tage, the inferior chiefs are required to execute justice without partiality, and to defend the peo ple from oppression. To Egypt he has been a scourge, and the restlessness of his ambition has brought grief into almost every fanuly within its Hmits. The conscription for the army has been one of the greatest hardships they have suffered. We saw many viUages in succession, where the only inhabitants were old men, women, and chUd- ren. To prevent themselves from being pressed, they subject themselves to aU kinds of mutilation : the boatmen of the canja in which we sailed were one morning busy in pulling out each others teeth, and when we inquired the reason, they said it was to prevent their being taken to serve as soldiers when they arrived at Cairo. The pacha has caused pro vincial assembHes to be formed, with a central as sembly that is, composed of deputies from aU the provinces, and has regularly met in the capital since 1829. He has divided the country into de partments, and has promulgated a penal code. A newspaper has been established at Cairo in Turk ish and Arabic, and another at Alexandria in French, in which some interesting papers have appeared on the present state of Egypt and Syria, the Nile, the pyramids, the Druses, &c. There is religious toleration ; the pacha is known to have read parts of the Scriptures, and is supposed to be favorably disposed towards Christianity. Several schools are in vigorous existence, in each of which are more than a thousand boys, educated, clothed, and fed, at the expense of government. Tele graphs and steam-boats are in ' active operation, and gas has been introduced into the palace at Shoobra. In some of the hospitals there are ac commodations for upwards of a thousand patients ; and connected with them there is a school of ana tomy, and a vaccine establishment. The quaran tine laws are not a mere nominal restraint, as the plague was last year kept out of the country, though it was brought by the pilgrims, and num bers died of it in the lazaretto at Alexandria. The pacha has erected large cotton manufactories in aU the principal towns ; at Cairo he has extensive manufactories of cannon, fire-arms, swords, gun powder, caHco, and cotton prints ; the granaries at Alexandria are the most extensive I have ever seen ; and the dock-yards exhibit a scene of ac tivity not often to be equaUed. He has many art ists, engineers, and mechanics in his employ, from England and other parts of Europe, who are Hbe- raUy paid, and the latest inventions are imme diately adopted. Several youths have been sent to England and France to receive instruction in the arts and sciences. The canals have been im proved, and the cutting of the Machmoudieh from the NUe to Alexandria, is in itself sufficient to im mortalize his name. Every faciUty is offered to the establishment of a steam navigation with In dia ; wells have afready been dug in the desert ; and it is intended soon to fit out an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile. It is not allow ed that any article shaU be imported that can pos sibly be made in the country, and its resources are made to teU to their greatest possible exterit. These things would excite our warmest admi ration, were the end to which these mighty ener gies are directed in - any way conducive to the happiness of his people; but money and men, with a profusion that knows no bounds, have been sacrificed at the altar of his own ambition, and treasure has been wasted, and blood has been shed, to gain a name among the nations, that may be the wonder of a moment, and then pass out of 24 THE HOLY LAND. remembrance for ever. There is a monopoly of cotton, silk, flax, sugar, coffee, tobacco, and almost every other article of commerce, and the pacha has been pronounced the greatest merchant in the world. In agriculture he is equaUy great, as the country is one vast farm, and aU the peasants are his laborers. These measures of pohtical economy partake of the old school in which he was educated, the restraints of which he has not been able entirely to set aside, and by their nar row policy they oppress his people and impoverish his coffers, whilst they seem to be an act of great ness and the readiest means of producing the most extensive good. The pacha is now in re ality independent, and as peace has been pro claimed, if his life should be spared, he wiH have a favorable opportunity to repay the Egyptians for the eminence to which they have raised him : and if he now turn his whole attention to the in ternal concerns of the state, and bend the ener gies of his mind to the promotion of theh welfare ; if he give them Hberty, and raise their minds by education to a standard commensurate with his own pohtical rank ; above aU, if he permit the free distribution of the word of God, and the pub lic preaching of "the unsearchable riches of Christ," all that they have hitherto suffered may be forgotten, and he may go down to the grave amidst the tears and lamentations of a grateful people. There are few sovereigns at present in existence who have greater personal power than Mahomet AH, the son of an Albanian aga, and when it is remembered from what he has raised himself, and by what means, it must be acknow ledged that he is a great man : he has a mind that can form extensive plans, a courage to attempt theh execution, and a wisdom to coUect together the resources by which they may be brought to a successful end. The people of Egypt are divided into Copts, Arab FeUahs, and Bedouin Arabs. There are also living among them many Turks, Jews, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, and Berberries and other blacks. The language at present. spoken is the Arabic. The Copts are Christians, and are sup posed to be the descendants of the ancient Egyp tians, though there is Httle resemblance in their features to the ancient statues. Their popvdation is stated at 160,000, but I should think that this number is below the truth. The FeUahs are said to amount to 2,250,000, and the Bedouins to 150,000 : they are aU Mussulmans. The Turks are the rulers of the people, the Copts are the secretaries of government, the Jews, Armenians, Syrians, Greeks, and some of the Copts, are mer chants, the FeUahs constitute the peasantry, the Bedouins wander in the deserts, and the Berber ries and other blacks are household slaves. The Copts are most numerous in Cairo and the vfllages of Upper Egypt. They are known by theh dark turbans, and have generaUy a melan choly expression of countenance. The Coptic is an ancient church, has had some bright orna ments, and suffered much persecution. The priests are ignorant, never being educated for the office, and drunkenness is a common crime among them. They do not prohibit the circulation pf the Scriptures, but this is perhaps more from .in difference than good will, as they seldom road them. Like aU faUen churches, they are much attached to days and forms. I attended their worship in Cairo, and was pleased to find that the service was conducted in Coptic ind Arabic, though I fear that the style is too antiquated to be generaUy understood. I had to pass through a long narrow passage before I entered the church. It had pictures, but was less splendid than the churches of the Greeks. The dresses of the priests are comparatively plain, and a great part of the service was read by boys. There might be about 200 persons present. The women were separated from the men by a latticed screen. In cense was very plentifuHy burnt, both before the altar, and before some old men, whom I took to be dignitaries of the church. The people were atten tive, and had long crutches to lean upon if fa tigued by the length of the prayers. The Roman Cathohc priests are sent to Egypt as a place of banishment, when they have subjected themselves to punishment, and it is not to be expected that with such men at its head, popery can be pro gressive in the land. There are a few Abyssi nian convents upon the NUe, but they are not very numerously tenanted. The Armenians are the most, wealthy and respectable of the Christian bodies not already noticed. Little direct impres sion has yet been made in Egypt by the mission aries, either upon the Mussulmans or nominal Christians, but schools are established, many pri vate conversations have been held with natives of aU classes, and tracts and copies of the Scriptures have been extensively circulated. The good men who are here laboring in the cause of Christ de serve an especial interest in the prayers of the church. It must always be an arduous task to exer cise the ministry in a foreign language and a foreign land, but in places Hke Egypt, where men live for years, and after aU their exertions and aU their pray ers, see Httle' apparent success, the task is increas ed to an arduousness that none can understand, but those who have felt the same ; and when the ser vants of Christ are stiU found at their posts, continu ing theh apparently useless exertions, and their ap parently unheard prayers, there is evidence of a sin cerity, and of a love for perishing souls, that ought to command our sympathy, and excite our grati tude to God, whose grace is thus manifested in them. Some sixty years ago, Egypt was visited by two Moravian missionaries, men of great enterprise, one of whom was bastinadoed by Osman Beg, that the money in his possession might be extort ed from bim, but he bore bravely the utmost rigor of the sentence, and stfll refused to give up the important trust that had been placed in his hands : the other died at Cairo. They met with some success among the Coptic viUagers, but appear to have had Httle direct intercourse with the Mussulmans. The prophecies relative to Egypt were many of them fulfilled immediately after their announce ment : there are others, the force of which con tinues to our own day. It was declared by the Lord, through the mouth of Ezekiel, " I wiU scat ter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries." It is evident that there must at some time have been a great dis persion of the people, or a general and most cruel THE HOLY LAND. 25' oppression, as the pure descendants of the ancient Egyptians do not at present amount to more than 200,000, at the highest computation. It is said by the same prophet, " It shaU be the basest of the kingdoms ; neither shaU it exalt itself any more above the nations : for I wiU diminish them, that they shaU rule no more over the nations." Ezek. xxix. 15. It is also said, "There shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt." Ezek. xxx. 13 : and again, " The sceptre of Egypt shall depart away." Zech. x. 11. The land of Egypt rose to great eminence at an early period ; it ranks among the greatest of the nations, and in some respects is to be placed at the head of aU. She had no model that she could imitate, no foun tain of knowledge previously flowing to which she could resort, her poHty was all her own. It is because the records of her deeds are so scanty, that she holds so inferior a place in the pages of the historian : she is obscure from the long vista of years through which alone we can examine her, and only appears diminutive because so dis tant. Could we trace with minuteness the gra dual rise of her kings to the fuU extent of their power, or the gradual progress of her arts tn the erection of the pyramids and temples ; could we relate the wars then waged by her warriors, or the triumphs achieved by her men of science ; could we peruse the numbers of her poets, or lis ten to the eloquence of her orators, or attend at the schools of her philosophers ; Greece would be robbed of many of its glories, and the majesty of imperial Rome would have a rival to dispute our homage. These distinctions have aU passed away, and it is most affecting to contrast its pre sent state with its ancient greatness : no nation so wise as this was once, ever became so base as this is now. The last prince of Egypt purely native was Psammeticus, who died b. c. 500 years : and what is most remarkable, he was the next monarch who ascended the throne after the utter ance of the prediction by Ezekiel, if his accession was not indeed previous, as we do not know the exact year hi which the prophecy was declared. Thus there has been no native dynasty for the space of more than 2000 years. The land has even been ruled by slaves, but stiU no native ever dared to oppose their tyranny, and seat himself upon the throne. It has been said that in the early ages the course of things shadowed forth the consequences that ensued, and that a wise foresight, taking advantage of these characteris tic indices, ventured to foreteU future events, and caUed its predictions the message of God. But we ask, what mind, however vast its capacity, or quick its perception, could foresee that for so great a number of years there should be no native king of a country over which a native monarchy had ruled with absolute power? a circumstance too without a paraUel among any other people in the universe. No mind could have foreseen aU this, but one that was omniscient ; the man who re vealed it must have been under the inspiration of Heaven, and the book in which it is contained must be the record of eternal truth. The victo ries recently gained by Mahomet AH form no ex ception to these conclusions, as the pacha is of foreign birth, and the groans of the Egyptians, robbed of their hard earnings to defray the ex- 53-4 penses of the war, proclaim that they are stiU dimi nished, and that their land is yet " the basest of the kingdoms." The Christian church is animated in its efforts for the conversion of Egypt by the sure prospect of a brighter day. There were dweU ers in Egypt among the three thousand souls who gladly received the word at the first outpouring of the Spirit. — " In that day shaU there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a piUar at the border thereof unto the Lord And the Lord shaU be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shaU know tbe Lord in that day In that day shaU Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria ; even a blessing in the midst of the land : whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance." — Isaiah, xix. 18 — 35. THE HOLY LAND. The country given to the Israehtes by the ex press gift of God, is mentioned in the Scriptures under different appeUations, most of which are too obvious in their origin to require explanation. — The two names by which it is now most generaUy known are both of very ancient usage. It is caU ed "Palestina" by Moses, Ex. xv. 14, though this name, in strict propriety of speech, ought to be regarded as referring exclusively to the district inhabited by the Philistines. In the prophecy by Zechariah it is caUed " the Holy Land," chap. ii. 12. It is situated in Asia, and nearly in the centre of the ancient world. It is bounded on the north by Libanus and Anti-Libanus ; on the south by the deserts of Arabia ; on the east by the de serts of Syria ; and on the west by the Mediter ranean sea. In size, it is less than England, be ing about 170 mues long, and 80 miles broad. It has been calculated that it included about 26,000 square miles at the period of its greatest extent, a space sufficient for the support of several mil- Hons of men, if brought under proper cultivation. The kingdom of David and Solomon extended far beyond the Hmits here named ; but this was only a " splendid parenthesis" in the historic page of the Israelites. BEIROUT. I landed at this place after a rough passage of three days from Alexandria, Mar. 25, and was received with great hospitahty by the Rev. J. Bird, of the American Board of Missions. It is an ancient city, and though not included within the borders of the Holy Land, is supposed to be referred to in Scripture ; but there is no other authority to identify it besides the similarity of sound in a name. The houses are better built than those of Egypt, in towns of the same impor tance. The streets of aU the Syrian cities aro narrow, as they are surrounded by waUs, and the inhabitants have been obliged to make the most in their power with the narrow compass by which they are limited. The pavement is of large une- 26 THE HOLY LAND. ven stones, and in the centre is a channel, which takes away from the width of the streets, already too contracted, though it is conducive to cleanli ness. The facing of the pier is almost entirely composed of ancient columns. The principal buddings are in ruins, but from the soHdity of the walls, and the strength of the cement by which they are bound together, it may yet be many years before they fall into complete decay. The use of the arch is so common that there is not a single house that does not contain one in some shape or other : its intention is not, as with us, the throwing of an extended span, but the saving of timber. Without the present walls, I traced the foundations of an ancient street, with the chan nel in the centre, nearly perfect : there are also many ancient cisterns, partly hewn out of the rock, with a smaU aperture at the top from whence to draw the water. There are several inscriptions in the Greek character, but too much defaced to be read. Berytus was celebrated under the Greek em perors for the study of the law. It is sometimes called " the happy colony of Augustus." Herod, at this place, accused his two sons before an as sembly of 150 judges. It must at that time have been a city of great importance, as it gave 1500 auxiHaries to Varus when hs passed through it on his way to Jerusalem. A theatre was erected here by Herod Agrippa, at the dedication of which 700 condemned malefactors were compeUed to fight to the death with an equal number of their fellow prisoners. The house of Mr. Bird commands an extensive view of the bay : the ships anchor in the winter season at some distance, near the mouth of a smaU river. It is the principal port to Demascus ; and if a passage to .India could be accompUshed by the ancient route, it would soon rise to be a place of immense importance. There are a con siderable number of houses in the suburbs, that, appearing by themselves, each with its Httle gar den, present an idea of comfort and security that is most rare in these unsettled lands. The prin cipal occupation of the people appears to be the production of silk, as the whole country is covered with mulberry trees. The branches are cut down every year, leaving only the stem of the tree, and the earth between them is dug in furrows, that the rain may be carried more equaUy to the roots. The mountains of Lebanon are seen towards the north, rising from the coast with great majesty, in bold and extended masses. Theh summits were then covered with snow, a sight that afford ed me the greater pleasure, as I had not for nine years seen this grand spectacle of nature. It was by the narrow pass between these mountains and the sea that the first army of the crusaders enter ed the Holy Land, under Godfrey of Bouillon. — They afterwards proceeded along the same route to Jerusalem that was pursued by myself and my companions. The mission estabUshed here has recently re ceived a valuable reinforcement from America. — The missionaries were for a time obliged to flee from the country, owing to its dangerous and un settled stpte during the war with Egypt ; they have now returned, with additional facuities for the promotion of the great cause. They are at present engaged in a severe contest with the Ro man CathoHcs. The most hopeful of their con verts have been cut off by death, and one of them may be pronounced a martyr. They are obliged to proceed with great caution, from the extreme jealousy of aU the sects by whom they are sur rounded. They have commenced a regular ser vice in Arabic, at which the attendance is en couraging. The beggars, who come for alms on one particular morning of the week, are pubHcly addressed on the great truths of Christianity. — The mission-house seems to be considered almost as public property, as the people are permitted to enter it at theh wUL from the kind wish of its in mates to conciliate them as far as possible, and even the bed-rooms of the ladies are invaded with out the least ceremony. The usual mode of traveUing is upon mules, which were then so much in request for the use of the army, that it was with difficulty they could be procured. My servant, after much trouble, heard that there were some at a distance of three hours, and having made a bargain with the mule teer, I obtained, through the consul, a note from the governor to free them from government duty ; but when brought to the town they were instantly seized by the sentry at the gate, and we had great difficulty in obtaining their release. I was ready to commence my journey at sunrise, but in the night the animals had again been taken, and there was another delay of nearly three hours, when they were once more returned, after which I had no more annoyance. I traveUed in company with the Rev. W. Thompson, of the American Board, who had recently arrived in the country, and the Rev. J. Nicolaison, who has been stationed there some years, and speaks fluently aU the languages required to be known. The mulberry trees ex tend only a Httle way from the town, and we ther came to a desert of sand that is making encroach ments upon the cultivation, and threatens in time to overwhelm the city. On our left the ground graduaUy declines for some distance, and on the opposite side of the valley rises the first range of Lebanon. In tho low ground "live trees are nu- merous, and on tlie mountain's side are two small vfllages. The hiUs then approach nearer the sea, and are principaUy composed of bare rock, with patches of earth at intervals. We forded the Radhir, or "the treacherous," the bridge ovei which is broken down. There are stones near the road, that in many places bear evidence of arrangement, as if there had at some period been a paved way along the shore. After six hours is the village of Naba Yoonas, said to be the place where Jonah was thrown up by the fish. At a Httle less than an hour from Sidon, we crossed the Owlah, over which there is a bridge and a khan near it ; the water turns a miU. From this place to the town the country is occupied by mulberry trees. The season was much later here than at Beirout, as the soil is of a colder description.— The gates of all the towns in these countries are shut immediately after sunset, and I have seldom watched its decline with greater anxiety than I did this day. We were just in time to secure an entrance, and had we been about a minute later, should have had to remain all night outside the walls. THE HOLY LAND. 27 SIDON. This city, now caUed Saide, is supposed to have been founded soon after the flood, by Sidon, the son of Canaan. So early as the time of Joshua it is caUed "great Zidon." It flourished during many ages, and became one of the most extensive cities of ancient times. Its inhabitants are said to have been the inventors of crystal glass. " None were skiUed to hew timber hke the Sidonians," and they assisted Solomon in his preparations for the buUding of the temple. It is several times mentioned by Homer. The goddess of the Si donians was Ashtoreth. There is some approach towards magnificence in the distant view of the present city. It has a castle upon a rock in the sea, connected with the main land by a bridge of several arches. There is another castle upon an eminence that commands the town. The harbor is now of little use, and had in it only one vessel. The streets are many of them more Hke courts, as the houses are bmlt over them after the first story, and the wonder is, not that the plague sometimes effects an entrance, but that it is ever kept out. There is an aque duct of ancient construction from the river, in most places covered ; and near the town the water rises into piUars, from whence it is conveyed to the different streets. The house we occupied has a cistern in the centre of the interior court, into which a smaU stream is constantly running. — There are also several pubUc cisterns in the streets. Near the gate by which we entered, out side the city, we observed a pavement of rude mosaic, perhaps of some house or court ; and co lumns and other remains of ancient buildings are common. The coasts of Tyre and Sidon, though they formed part of the inheritance of Ashur, never appear to have been peopled or governed by the Israehtes. In the reign of Solomon, the most pow erful of the monarchs of his race, Hiram, king of Tyre, was an independent prince. Our Lord vi sited these coasts, and here it was that he healed the daughter of the woman of Canaan ; but we do not find that he ever entered into either of the cities. Sidon was visited by St. Paul, in one of his journeys towards Jerusalem. We remained here one day, as it was the Sab bath. The place is said to contain 2000 Mahome- dans, as many Christians, and 200 Jews. The Christians are nearly aU of the Greek Catholic church. We visited some famiUes upon the hills at a little distance from the town. Mr. N. had commenced the buUding of a house in this direc tion, but was ordered to desist by the emir of the mountains, at the instigation of the priests, untU permission was obtained from the pacha of Egypt, before whom the case was then pending. The site commands a view of the town, sea, and the vaUey on each side. Mr. N. had a long argument with an Armenian, in whose heart, we trust, is the beginning of good things. An old priest was present. The houses we entered were clean, with mats upon the floor, and of one story. The roof is hung with dried fruits and herbs, and in one room I observed a clock, a common mirror, and the shelves were ornamented with bottles, glasses, and coarse earthenware. The chUdren appeared to be remarkably pretty, but it must be remem bered that I had been absent from Europe some years. They had on the forehead an ornament made of coins, something resembling the clasps by which the helmets of the mihtary are fastened. The hah of some of the females is of a golden color, and appears as if it was dyed. There is a great profusion of compliments among the people, pass ed with a gravity that to a stranger is quite amus ing. The servant, when he presented the coffee and sherbet, repeated a form, and there was an appropriate reply, and when we drank we had to look at our host and nod, and stroke our breasts, and give thanks. We visited the grave of Wirti- bet, an Armenian, one of the converts of the Ame rican mission, who died of cholera in September, 1832, a man of great zeal, fervent piety, consider able talent, and vaHant for the truth. The old priest we saw in the morning came to our house, and had some further conversation. He acknow ledged that the priests of the country -are like the Pharisees : they neither enter in themselves, nor aUow others. We had a visit from another priest, a Maronite, who complained that we have no pe- cuHar dress : he said that he did not kiss my hand when he entered, as is the custom, because he could not know that I was a minister. Several persons meet together in the evenings, to read the Scriptures, and the remarks they make give evi dence that their eyes are opening to receive the Hght of heaven. The tracts that were distributed during our stay were received with great thank fulness. There were some Russians here, with a bishop, dissenters from the estabUshed church,who Hve by the labor of their own hands, but lay too much stress upon tradition. The eccentric lady Hester Stanhope resides in this neighborhood. TYRE. The road from Sidon to Tyre passes through a rich vaUey, in many places more than a mile wide, which requires only a little industry to render it extremely fertile : and the gHmpses with which we were favored into the interior, through the breaks in the chain of mountains, convinced us that this vaUey is not alone in its fertiHty. Not far from Sidon we saw a prostrate column, with a Latin inscription : my eye caught the names of Septimus and Verus, as we passed, but I had not time to copy it. There are many towers along the coast, said to have been erected by the em press Helena, from Jerusalem to Constantinople, that the finding of the true cross might be commu nicated by telegraph, with the least possible de lay. We passed over a bridge, the arch of which is composed of only one layer of stones. The site of Sakepta is near, where Ehjah dwelt with the widow woman, blessing her barrel of meal that it did not waste, and her cruse of oU that it did not fad, until the Lord restored plenty to the land. It was the son of the same woman who was raised from the dead by the instrumentaHty of the pro phet. We examined a number of cavities in the sides of the hiUs, cut out of the rock with much care : they have each two or three httle cells, scarcely so long as a man's body, with an arch rising about three feet. We could not find any 28 THE HOLY LAND. inscriptions. The rock is in some places embed ded with small pieces of bone. Near them are evidently the remains of a considerable town, as we saw columns, cisterns, and pieces of marble and glass. Eleven upright stones near the sea, are said by a foolish tradition to have been as many laborers, who blasphemed the Saviour when he passed the field in which they were at work, for which they were immediately converted into stone, as a monument of the divine anger against them. In the valley we observed several animals, rather larger than a gazeUe : the dogs of the shepherds drove the pretty creatures into the mountains, but they were unable to come near them. This ani mal is probably the tzebi of Scripture, translated in our version, the roe. Some of the inspired al lusions to it, among which those in the Canticles may be particularly noticed, are invested with a great beauty to those who have seen it in its na tive freedom. The Kasmiye river, over which is a bridge, comes from near Baalbec, from whence it pursues its course between the two Lebanons. The khan near it is ancient, and is weU situated. Some fine horses were grazing below, full of met tle and mischief. We arrived at Tyre early, April 1, and took up our abode at a Greek convent, but were miserably accommodated. The history of the city is most affecting, and it has been said with much force, that " the noble dust of Alexander, traced by the imagination till found stopping a beer-barrel, would scarcely afford a stronger contrast of grandeur and abasement than Tyre, at the period of being be sieged by that conqueror, and the modern town of Tsour erected on its ashes." It was probably a colony of the Sidonians, as it is caUed " the daugh ter of Sidon." From its present name appears to have been taken the general name of Syria. Its first mention is in Joshua, where it is caUed " the strong city Tyre." At an early period it became the mistress of the seas ; traded even to Britain, and planted colonies in different parts of the Medi terranean, among which Carthage became the most celebrated. The costliness of the Tyrian purple is weU known. We have little insight into its private history, but in the prophecies that are uttered against it a few things are said in its favor that deserve om- notice. — " Thou wert upon the holy mountain of God : thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wert perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee." From their proximity to the Israelites, the Tyrians must of necessity have had some knowledge of the one true God ; and it would appear from this declara tion of the prophet, that for a time they reverenced his laws, and walked according to the way of his commandments. The mercy of God may thus be seen in the state of commercial eminence to which this city and Sidon were raised. Their mariners traded to aU parts of the known world, their colo nies were extensively founded, and it is not impro bable that by this means a knowledge of God was often imparted to the heathen nations, and that by the beams thus carried from the fountain of divine light, some semblance of the truth was preserved in lands that would otherwise have been for ages in the grossest darkness. It has been reasonably supposed, that it was from this source the phUoso- phers of Greece derived their most correct notions | of the attributes of God. The history of Tyre is I more especiaUy interesting to the Christian, from ¦ its connection with prophecy, and from the striking eloquence with which inspiration has described the majesty of its brighter days, and the impressive ' circumstances of its destruction. It was also re ferred to by our Saviour, when he pronounced wo upon the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida, because they had seen his mighty works and re pented not. Her merchants were princes, her traf- ficers the honorable of the earth. She heaped up silver as dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. The boards of her ships were of the fir- trees of Senir, her masts of the cedars of Lebanon, her oars of the oaks of Bashan, her benches of the ivory of Chittim, her sails of fine linen, broidered work from Egypt, and her awnings were of purple. Her heart was lifted up, and she said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas.— Such is the description given in sacred writ of the pride and magnificence of ancient Tyre. Now, in the language of the same authority, the noise of her songs is ceased, and the voice of her harps is no more heard : her walls are broken down, her pleasant houses are no more, she is made Hke the top of a rock, a place to spread nets upon : she is built no more. The city consisted of two separate places, one upon the continent, and the other upon an island ; and the circumference of the whole is said by Pliny to have extended 19 nhles. Tyre upon the continent was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar 573 b.c, after a siege of 13 years, one of the longest re corded in history. The inhabitants then fled to the island, about half a mile distant, and soon re gained theh former wealth and prosperity. The insular town was besieged by Alexander the Great. 332 b. c. To accomplish his designs he had to make a mole from the continent to the island, the career of his conquest was stayed, for the space of seven months his war-steed could only paw the ground in madness without power to pass onward, and it was not before bis army had had to suffer almost incredible tods that he effected an entrance into the place. It once more rose from the dust under the Grecian kings of Egypt, and was after wards invested by tlie Romans with the privileges of a city. It was more than once visited by Paul on his way to Jerusalem, and on one occasion " he tarried there seven days." The shores had wit nessed many splendid spectacles, but none so beau tiful as that which they presented upon his depar ture. " When we had accompUshed those days, we departed, and went our way ; and the disciples all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city : and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed. And when we had taken our leave one of another, we took ship, and they returned home again." — Acts xxi. 5, 6. It was a metropolitan see at an early period, and possessed " a famous temple, budded with most gorgeous furniture," erected by Paulinus. In praise of the munificence of this prelate, Eusebius wrote " a solemn sermon," which is yet extant. It was per haps at this period that the brighter predictions of the prophets received their accomplishment:— " The daughter of Tyre shaU be there with a gift." —Psalm xjv. 12. " He that remaineth, even he, THE HOLY LAND. 29 shah be for our God." — Zech. ix. 7. " Her mer chandize and her hire shaU be holiness to the Lord." — Isa. xxiii. 18. The historian of Csesarea gives this delightful character of the church then m existence : " Comely rites and ceremonies of the church were celebrated ; here, with psalmodies and other songs of praise deHvered us from above ; there, with divine and mystical ministry the secret pledges of the Lord's passion were solemnized ; and withal, men and women of every age, with all the might that in them lay, with cheerful mind and will, in prayer and thanksgiving, honored God, the author of aU goodness." In the persecutions, many spirits fled triumphantly from Tyre to join " the noble army of martyrs." Under the crusa ders, the first archbishop was an EngHshman, Wfflidm of Tyre. The prophecies of Ezekiel are particularly de finite : — " Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am agamst thee, O Tyrus, and wiU cause many na tions to come up against thee, as the sea causeth bis waves to come up : and they shaU destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers : I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock : it shaU be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea ; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God I wiU make thee like the top of a rock : thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon : thou shalt be built no more, for I the Lord hath spoken it, saith the Lord God I wiU make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more ; though thou be sought, for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God." Ezekiel xxvi. 3, 4, 5, 14, 21. The Saracens and Turks were the unconscious instruments who car ried these prophecies into theh fulfilment : they utterly destroyed Sidon and Tyre, that they might not afford further refuge to the crusaders. There were two harbors, formed by the island ; one to wards the north, and the other towards the south ; and there was a passage between the island and the shore from the one to the other. The island is represented by Pliny as having been four miles in circumference, but the peninsula upon which the present town is situated, is of much less ex tent. It would therefore appear that it is buflt for the most part upon the mole thrown up by Alex ander, including a smaU portion of the original island. There is thus enough of the rock left in existence for the fishers to spread their nets upon, whue the principal area, once mantled with pa laces and ahve with a busy population, has been swept into " the midst of the water," and can be built no more. The disappearance of the island has caused the destruction of the harbors ; and as aU protection to shipping is now taken away, Tyre can never again rise to eminence as "the mart of nations." There are stiU two smaU rocks in the sea, to which the island probably extended ; and as the fishermen's boats can approach them in calm weather, they seem to invite the spreading of nets upon their surface. I and my companions saned over the present harbor in a smaU boat, to examine the columns that may clearly be seeii under the water on a fine day, but the sea was too rough to aUow us to discover many of them. The present town is waUed, and is of very modern date. The space inside is in a great measure open, and the houses are mean. The governor's residence is the only respectable building. There are many columns near the smaU harbor, and others on the opposite side of the peninsula, but there is no ruin of ancient date, the plan of which can be traced. We saw in a garden a granite column of one block, that measured 80 feet in length, and the diameter was in proportion. The eastern end of the cathedral is still standing. We ascended to the top of the ruin by a spiral staircase, and from thence had a view of the town. The burial-ground is near. From this situation the houses had a singular appearance, as the roofs are aU flat, and were then verdant with a rich covering of grass. Upon the plain there are the remains of an extensive aqueduct. The mole appears hke a mere collection of sand, but beneath there may be some construction of more enduring materials. "Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre ? The Lord of Hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of aU glory, and to bring into contempt aU the honorable of the earth." — Isa. xxiii. 7 — 9. The stirring scenes of a sea-port exhibit a picture of more constant excitement than can ever be presented by any other place. The arri val and discharge of ships ; the cries of the cap tains as they direct their ready mariners ; the songs of the boatmen, the dash of the oars, and the roU of the sea ; the soHtary female, whose eye catches every speck that appears white in the horizon, and never leaves it till one after another of its inmates have been carefuUy numbered, that perchance she may discover among them the father of her dis consolate children ; the faltering step of the aged saUor, whose battles have been fought, and whose victories have been won ; the tears of those who are bidding fareweU, and the rapture of those greeting the arrival of a long-absent friend ; the anxious assembhes of the merchants, either speak ing of traffic, or proclaiming theh good fortune, or lamenting the loss of some fair ship in a destruc tive gale ; the reckless merriment of the seamen, as they enjoy upon land a Httle respite from theh constant toils: — aU these, and a thousand other scenes of noise, and joyousness, and wealth, have been exhibited upon these shores. They have passed away, Hke the feverish dream of a disturb ed sleep. Ships may be seen, but at a distance ; no merchant of the earth ever enters the name of Tyre upon his books, and where thousands once as sembled in pomp and pride, and there was beauty and splendor, and dominion, I could discover only a few children amusing themselves at play, and a party of Turks sitting in gravity, and sipping theh favorite coffee. With these reflections it was impossible not to think of another people, stiU more favored in their privileges, and whose commercial transactions are as extended as the world. Cities of my country, shaU it ever be said of you, that ye are no more 1 The patriot may sing exultingly over his cups the praises of Britannia, ruler of the waves, but the Christian wiU fear and tremble, and offer up prayer to God, that what we deserve in justice may be withheld from us in mercy. There was one sin chargeable against Tyre, from which England is now happily free : she dealt in slaves. " They have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Yea, and what have 30 THE HOLY LAND. ye to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, and al the coasts of Palestine? The chUdren of Judah and the chUdren of Jerusalem, have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye ¦ might remove them, far from theh border. Behold I wih seU your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shaU seU them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; for the Lord hath spoken it." Joel hi. 1 — 8. The recent aboUtion of slavery by the parUament of England is the most glorious na tional act ever yet registered upon the pages of history, and the most generous national sacrifice that the angels of heaven ever yet witnessed among the sons of men. PTOLEMAIS, OR ACRE. We passed along the plain of Tyre, which ex tends to the distance of a Httle more than an hour's walk from the city, until we arrived at the ex tremity of the bay, near which place continental Tyre is by some supposed to have stood. We saw some columns and other memorials of depart ed greatness. From hence we had to pass over the extremity of a range of hiUs, and from the highest part of the road we had a fine view of the city, bay, and plain of Tyre, and in the extreme distance could discern the snow-clad mountains of Lebanon and Hermon. We were twice stop ped by soldiers stationed at khans to protect the road, but when' we informed them that we were EngHsh traveUers, they aUowed us to pass on. I never saw any place so rich in flowers. Within the distance of a few yards I counted more than 20 different kinds, and such was theh profusion in Rome places, that the hiUs had more the appear ance of a flower-garden than of a wUd nook in the wddernesg. The road contmued at a considerable elevation above the sea for some hours, and there are evidences, from faUen piUars and masses of hewn stone, that the merchant princes had chosen these delightful spots as the places of theh retreat from the noise of the city. We passed another khan, and the plain of Acre, bounded by the range of mount Carmel, burst at once upon our sight. — I had been accustomed to consider the plains of Palestine as Httle better than sheep-walks, but was agreeably surprised to find them extensive tracts of rich land, cultivated in some places, and capable of cultivation in aU. We rested a httle time near a stream of water. An old woman first came up riding on an ass, with most piteous moans ; her friends were taking her to receive medical advice, but I fear that no skiU could avad for her recovery. Some Armenian pilgrims were there before us, who offered us for sale an ancient Greek coin : and a fine old Bedouin soon afterwards joined our party. About two hours from Acre we observed the commencement of an aqueduct, and before we had arrived at the city, I counted more than 400 arches in it, aU buUt of stone, and some of them upwards of 30 feet high. Near the town the water is raised in piUars as at Sidon. It was repaired by the late pacha, after its partial de struction by the French during the siege of Acre. We met an ItaUan physician in the service of the pacha not far from the gates, who kindly invited us to spend the night at his house. He was pre sent at the battle of Navarino, and gave us an account of it somewhat different to the received version. We visited a palace bmlt by Addullah pacha, about a nrile from the town. It is in imi tation of the Kiosks of Turkey. The gardens are laid out with some taste, and there are several Httle summer-houses that approach towards beau ty. A tank is surrounded by a marble walk, upon which are many vases of the same material from Italy. The pacha is now a prisoner at Cairo, and is almost a soHtary instance, at least in modern times, in which the life of an enemy has been spared by a Turkish conqueror. We visited Acre on the morning of April 3rd. It is caUed Acchoin Judges, and PtOlemais in the Acts of the Apostles, from one of the Ptolemies by whom it was enlarged. The army of Titus assembled here previous to its march upon Jeru salem. It is celebrated in the histories of the crusades for the number and length of its sieges, and was the last fortified place yielded up by the Christian powers. Buonaparte received here his first reverses, from the valor of Sh Sydney Smith. It stood a siege against Ibrahim pacha on his way towards Asia Minor, and was defended by Ad dullah pacha on the part of the sultan. It is a place of considerable extent, and its principal ad vantages are derived from its situation, which is comparatively good, though the vessels in the harbor are much exposed. It still retained many marks of the late siege, though the outer walls had been rebudt with an expedition that appears wonderful, when we consider the numerous other calls upon the attention of Mahomet Ali. The castle was the principal object of the besiegers' vengeance. It had been almost one soHd mass of masonry, but was then httle better than a heap of ruins. The upper stories were entirely shot away, and there was nono of the outer facing of the lower walls. The walls, minarets, and dome of the mosque, formerly very magnificent, were riddled tlirough and through ; the trees were leaf less and without branches ; the roofs of some of the houses were gone, and tbe sides of others had faUen in ; and remains of gun carriages, balls, and sheHs, were scattered about the streets in every direction. In an open shed near the castle we observed the remnants of marble vases, sinhlar to those at the palace, not fewer than 30 of which must have been thus destroyed. A few marble piUars were all the remains we saw of an ancient date, probably brought from the ruins of Csesarea. The bazaars have had arched roofs of stone that extended the whole length of the street ; a great convenience, but they must have assisted decep tion by making the places obscure. WTe visited the bazaar to procure a few necessaries for our journey, and several persons were very importu nate to purchase a common French shawl I had round my waist. Few of the inhabitants had then returned, and the streets were almost desolate. — The repairs of the fortifications were carried on by peasants from the viUages, superintended by soldiers. We passed a number of them on the road, and from the exertion required by the guard to keep them together, it was evident that they came to the work with no good wiU. THE HOLY LAND. 31 CARMEL. The wind was high when we left Acre, and blew the sand about with such violence that we had great, difficulty in making our way. The ,bay to the southward extends to mount Carmel, and we were three hours in skirting its shore. We first forded the river Belus, the sand of which has been much used in the making of glass, and then came to " that ancient river, the river Kishon," im mortalised in the song of Deborah and Barak, over which we were ferried by a Jewish boatman. The saddles are never taken off the horses in these countries during a journey, either by day or night. They were now taken from the animals that they might not be wetted in crossing the river, and the backs of the poor creatures had been so chafed by them, that I felt unwilling to mount mine again. After passing some sepul chres in the rocks we entered the town of Hypha, and were detained some time by the guard, until one of our party waited on the governor, and ob tained our release. There were several brass cannon upon the walls, aU ready for action. The vessels have here better shelter than at Acre, but the water is shaUow. This town is nearly at the foot of mount Carmel, which extends about 30 miles, in a south-eastern direction from the sea, in nearly an equal ridge, and at an elevation of about 1600 feet. It is often referred to in Scrip ture, and was once covered with trees, but it is now nearly bare, and " the exceUency of Carmel" has withered before the curse of heaven. It was the usual residence of the prophets EHjah and EHsha. The place where the false prophets of Baal were discomfited and slain was towards the other extremity, nearer Jezreel, to which Ahab retired ; and at some point near which it is ap proached by the Kishon. We may stand at the top of Carmel, as did Gehazi, and look towards the sea, but alas ! there is now no " Httle cloud like a man's hand ;" stiU there is the promise of a shower, and in due time the streams of divine mercy wiH again faU upon this thirsty land, and men shaU again liken themselves in their pros perity to " the exceUency of Carmel and Sharon." Near the point that overlooks the sea there is a monastery of Carmelite friars. It was destroyed a few years ago by Addullah pacha, that he might convert the materials to his own use, and though he was ordered to rebuild it at his own expense by the sultan, when a proper representation of the circumstance had been made to his court, no atten tion was ever paid to the mandate. The monks are now rebuilding it themselves in a very splen did manner, and one of the fraternity is the archi tect. At a lower elevation on the same point, is a palace recently erected by the pacha. There is a small buUding near the sea, said to cover the cave in which EHsha dwelt, but as the door was locked we could not gain admittance. CiESAREA. It was with difficulty we could keep on our horses at the time we left Carmel, the wind blew with so much violence. We then entered upon a beau tiful plain. We saw the viUage of Syra in a break in the chain of mountains to the left. There is a ridge of rocks between the road and the sea, and in many places there are ruins. At one point the road is cut through them, and there are yet the ruts in the stone made by the ancient wheeled carriages. It opens upon a magnificent ruin of considerable extent, upon which the rays of the declining sun were faUing from a dark cloud, which added to the interest of its appearance. — It is caUed Athlek by the natives, a few of whom find shelter near it. There are the remains of a strong castle, an extensive church, and many other buddings. The walls are some of them 15 feet thick. Its history is not known, but it is sup posed to have been erected under the Greek em perors. I have seldom been more powerfully struck than I was by the first sight of this place, but much of the impression may have arisen from the pecuHar character of the evening, as it threat ened a thunder-storm, the force for which was gathering in dark masses round the tower, whilst the sun shed one last glorious ray upon the vene rable pile that had braved the shocks of so many centuries, and now appeared as if devoted to sud den and complete destruction. The muleteers were desirous to remain here for the benefit of the fine grazing for theh animals, but as there was yet a Httle time before sunset we were anxious to proceed. The rocks on our left were cut in many places, and we saw many caves and remains of towns. I amused myself as we rode slowly along with looking at the rocks, and in the Hght of the moon with which we were favored, it was easy for fancy to form castles and towers, and people them with the ideal beings of another age ; at times the iUusion was complete, and I almost be lieved in the phantoms I had myself conjured up. We lodged at the sheikh's house at Tortura, but as my companions were unable to sleep from the incessant attacks of certain Httle blood-thirsty in mates of the estabhshment, that assaUed us under every possible form, we resumed our journey at an early hour, stiU assisted by the friendly moon. Soon after dawn we crossed the river Zirka, upon which was formerly an Egyptian colony, and it is said by traveUers that crocodiles of a smaU size are stUl found here, the descendants of those brought over from Egypt as deities. Our progress was now slow, from the depth of the sand. The shore was covered with shells, in some places to a con siderable depth. The first notice of our approach towards Csb- sarea, was at an hour's distance from the Zirka, when we discovered a number of arched apart ments close to the shore. They were probably in former times used as store-houses. Six are open, one is in ruins, and several others are buried under the sand. They appear to have extended a con siderable distance, in the dfrection of the city. — Josephus speaks of "several arched vaults, that served for seamen's cabins," near the harbor, but these must be of more modern construction. The city was founded by Herod, and every buUding in it, whether pubUc or private, was of marble. The haven, which appears to have been almost entire ly an artificial formation, was larger than the Piraeus at Athens, and was defended by a break water. No remains of it are now to be discover- 32 THE HOLY LAND. ed, though some of the si ..,es used in its erection were 50 feet in length. In the time of the apos tles it was the principal city of Syria, and the re sidence of the Roman governor. It was a dis pute respecting the possession of this city that gave rise to the war with the Romans ; the Jews claiming it because it had been built in their own land, and the Greeks, because it had been dedi cated to the heathen gods. Vespasian was here first proclaimed emperor by his soldiers, after which he hastened to Alexandria, and from thence to Rome, and Titus took the command of the army which was destined to carry into effect the awful predictions that had been uttered against Jeru salem. The city of which these are the remains was buUt in the time of the crusaders. The walls can he easUy traced, in an oblong form, the extended side towards the sea. There are many apart ments, piUars, and parts of arches, in the area of the city ; there is an arched vault near the sea ; and in another direction, the remains of two oval recesses may have belonged to the eastern end of the cathedral. The ruins of a castle stand upon a small peninsula, and granite columns are scattered along the sea shore in great profusion. Without the city, on the southern side, are several mounds of ruins, overgrown with grass and brush wood. The amphitheatre stood in this dfrection, where Herod Antipas was smitten by an angel of God, and eaten of worms. WhUst I was occu pied in taking a sketch of the place, my compa nions picked up several pieces of marble, upon one of which was a flower, weU executed, and upon another a Greek inscription. There are many holes in the ground, made by the pachas of Acre in digging for the marbles by which theh mosques and palaces are decorated. The aqueduct is nearly buried in the sand. There is not a single inhabitant near the place, nor any modern buUding, a circumstance which gives it a purity of character seldom presented to the traveUer. A few birds and Hzards are the only living possessors we saw of this once crowded city, and these are not often disturbed in theh abode, as the road usuaUy pursued passes at a Httle dis tance. PhUip, the deacon, resided here some years, with his four virgin daughters. It was here that Cornelius, the centurion, beheld the vision of an angel, and that Peter declared to him and his house this cheering truth, that " God is no re specter of persons, but in every nation he that fear eth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." Acts x. 34, 35. Paul was imprisoned here two whole years ; and at other times visited the place on his way to and from Jerusalem ; and it was here that Felix trembled before him, and that Agrippa was almost persuaded to be a Chris tian. As it was the usual residence of the Roman governor, it was the scene of more numerous cru elties than any other part of Palestine during the heathen persecutions. The ecclesiastical histo rian Eusebius was bishop of this place. The famous Origen resided here some time, and whilst yet a layman, was permitted to preach before bi shops. A walk through ruins where scenes so memorable have been witnessed, could not but rouse the duUest soul into excitement, and awaken many trains of most profitable reflection. The woes of the prisoner and the triumphs of the per secutor had alike passed away ; and where the simple eloquence of an apostle was once heard, and its power was acknowledged by an unjust judge and an ambitious monarch, no sound could then be distinguished but the gentle murmur of the sea. There was a single boat passing at the time, with its smaU white sail, to remind us of the thousands that once bore themselves proudly upon the same waters, laden with the produce of aU climes. This spot is particularly dear to the mis sionary, as it was consecrated by the baptism of the first GentUe convert, at that time a wonder without a precedent. Now the children of the adoption are Hving under the wrath of God, and the despised "barbarians," from almost every na tion among men, are admitted into the favor of the Lord, and have the promise that they shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. At such a place, the solemn caution of tbe apostle comes home to the mind with additional force ; — " Be not high-minded, but fear, for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee." Rom. xi. 20, 21. The road along the sea-shore continued to be tedious until we turned into the vale of Sharon, which appeared as if covered with a rich carpet of many colors, from the numerous flowers that flourish in its fertile soU. There are other valleys of the same name, and it is not known which of them was celebrated for the production of the rose. Our animals being tired, we remained for the night near a brook, and spreading our clothes upon the ground, slept in the open field. I thought of Him, who in the same country " had not where to lay his head." JOPPA. We were up long before day-break, April 5th, and continued our course along the vale of Sharon, at a greater distance from the sea. The whole of this region belonged to the tribe of Manasseh. — We passed two small villages of mean appear ance. As we approached Jaffa, we entered into the tribe of Ephraim, and the ground became more uneven, with many mounds of unequal size. We were overtaken by a sharp shower of rain near a bridge we had to cross, but it soon subsided. We saw a viUage of some extent on an elevation near the sea. We left our animals near the gate to graze, and one of the mules died soon after our arrival. Jaffa, the ancient Joppa, is situated upon a hill of a conical form, with a castle on the summit. It presents fewer ruins than are usuaUy found in the Syrian towns. We took breakfast with the Eng hsh consul, an Armenian. His house was for merly a convent, and is upon the same spot, ac cording to tradition, as the residence of Simon, the tanner. There feU a heavy shower of rain during our stay, attended with high wind. The vessels in the harbor rocked about as if they had been in the open sea, though they were moored very near the shore, in a narrow channel formed by a ledge of rocks. When Vespasian approach ed the city, the inhabitants, who were all pirates, THE HOLY LAND. 33 fled to their ships, but a storm coming on, upon these rocks they were dashed to pieces. There are about 4000 inhabitants, 800 of whom are Christians. The neighborhood is celebrated for the exceUence and richness of its fruits, particu larly oranges. It is the Joppa of Scripture. Tra dition would carry us far back in the history of Noah, who is said to have bmlt the ark at this place, and even to the fabulous ages, in the his tory of Andromeda, who was here chained to the rock, and of Perseus, who here washed the wounds received in his combat with the centaur. The cedars floated from Lebanon for the buUding of the temple were landed at this port. The pro phet Jonah embarked here for Tarshish, with the vain wish to flee from the presence of the Lord. In this harbor Judas Maccabeus burnt the Syrian fleet. Peter here raised up Tabitha to life, and " tamed many days with one Simon, a tanner," upon whose house-top he saw the vision of the descending sheet, and received the message from Cornelius. In modern times, Jaffa has been ren dered famous, or rather infamous, by the massacre of the Turkish prisoners, which was ordered by Napoleon, and carried into execution under cir cumstances of great cruelty. The importance of this place has continued unto our day, from its being the nearest sea-port to Jerusalem. The different European powers have each theh repre sentative consul, whose office is principaUy to as sist the pilgrims. ARIMATHEA. Upon leaving Jaffa, we passed through numerous gardens presenting a rich appearance from the re cent showers, after which we entered upon an ex tensive plain, with slight undulations, and weU cul tivated. We saw the viUage of Loud, on our left, at the distance of a few miles, the Ltdda of Scrip ture, and caUed by Josephus, " not less than a city in largeness." In a Httle more than three hours from Jaffa, we observed a tower, which was once attached to a monastery, dedicated to the forty martyrs who perished in Armenia. We then en tered Ramla, the Rama of Ephraim, and the Ari mathea of the New Testament. The crusaders found here one of the principal cities of the country, and under theh rule it continued to rise in impor tance from its convenient situation, at the base of the hiUs along which winds the principal road to Jerusalem. Robert, the reckless count of Nor mandy, was appointed bishop of this place, and St. George, the patron saint of merry England, is by some said to have died here. There is a Latin convent, in the possession of Spaniards, and many ruins of strength and extent. There is a greater appearance of comfort, and more trees, than are usuaUy found in the interior towns of Syria. Our muleteers were longer than usual in load ing the animals, on the morning of the day we ex pected to see Jerusalem, which made our depar ture rather later than we had intended. We were stopped in one of the streets of Ramla by an old sheikh, who demanded a smaU tribute. I rephed that I was an EngHshman, and that we were not pU- 53-5 grims, and whilst a discussion was going forward, I pushed on, as I was the first of the party, and was followed by aU the others except the mokara, or principal muleteer, who was detained by the old man. Mr. N. returned to effect his release. The Sheikh wished to refer the matter to the superior of the Latin convent, but Mr. N. demanded to be taken to the governor. They went towards his residence, but he was in his harem, and could not be disturbed. The sheikh then lowered his de mands, and asked only for a smaU present, when he was told that he might take any thing he chose from our baggage, but should hear of it next day from the governor of Jerusalem, in a way that would not be agreeable. We were at last allowed to depart, without either pay or present. By this time the pUgrims were ready, to leave the town, and we traveUed on together, forming a far more motley cavalcade than that of Chaucer's worthies on their pilgrimage to Canterbury. The poorer pilgrims, some of whom were not too much bur dened with clothes, were aUowed for a smaU sum to ride a number of spare horses on theh return from Jaffa. The name of a noted robber was of ten mentioned in their conversation, and they bran dished their clubs in defiance. There were many Greeks from Anatolia, weU armed and clothed in a more respectable manner. An Armenian priest, with his dark turban and mantle, was one of the most conspicuous of the party. The females, with their faces veUed, trotted along as boldly as the rest, and two of them were sitting in a most awk ward manner, in a pannier basket, slung across a mule. We were joined too at times by Turks and Bedouins, who reined their fine horses for a moment to have a passing salutation. There might be about a hundred of us in aU. There was plenty of shouting, singing, and laughter, and mirth seemed the order of the day, until the clouds dark ened, and soon sUenped the noise, by pouring down upon us a plentiful shower of rain. We had by this time begun to ascend the hills. The road is one of the worst I ever traveUed, though I had passed over some rough ones since my departure from (England. There were loose stones, masses of rock rendered sHppery by the rain, mud, and puddles of water, and my old horse had great difficulty to keep his feet. Some better mounted cavalier would try to pass me, but the narrowness of the path would not aUow it without an unpleasant concussion. The hiUs are not high, and are rounded off at the summit, as if a number of immense cupolas had been thrown in confusion upon each other. At times we wound along their sides, and then rode along. the pass formed at the base by theh junction., They are composed of rocks partiaUy covered with earth, with a few oHve trees and a little brush-wood growing in favored spots. At , every hiU we came to, it ap peared as if the next would be the summit of the range ; but we passed one defile after another, and were stiU disappointed. We crossed the brook from which David is said to have taken the pebbles, with one of which he slew the giant. We passed Karia Abougosh, the castle of a chief of that name, who was once the Robin Hood ot the Holy Land, and the terror of aU pilgrims and traveUers, but is now a powerless prisoner at Da mascus. The viUage occupies a commanding si- 34 THE HOLY LAND. tuation at the head of an extended vaUey, upon the opposite side of which there is a castle upon the peak of a high hill, in which the robber some times shut himself, and bade defiance to the world. It is said by some to be Modin, the burial-place of the Maccabees ; but from the Apocrypha it would appear that the sepulchres of these brave men must have been much nearer the sea. At the viUage is a substantial church, erected by the crusaders, stiU in such repair that it might be fitted up with Httle difficulty as a place of Christian wor ship ; and though it be now used only as a shelter for cattle, and is filthy in the extreme, I am not without hope that it wUl again resound with an thems of praise unto the Lord. It has a centre nave, separated from the side aisles by arches, and much resembles some of the parish churches in England. The style is simple, and almost with out ornament. We passed the foundations of another budding, apparently on a simUar plan, not far from Jerusalem. The only annoyance we met with was from some shepherd boys, who threw stones at us, and caUed us names that I did not understand ; but my servant was so irritated by them, that he drew his pistol, and matters might have been serious if we had not interfered. The road became more and more rugged and dreary as we approached Jerusalem. The rocks had gained the mastery, and refused to cherish the little earth that at a lower range stiU maintained its disputed possession, and tried to cheer the eye with a flower, or refresh the traveUer by a fragrant shrub. An eminence was before us, and as I was told that when this was gained we should see the holy place, I hastened on to the head of the party, but was disappointed. There were yet other rocks to be scaled, and the road was aU but im passable to our jaded animals. The moments seemed to be hours, and brought with them almost a feverish excitement. To effect an entrance into Jerusalem, more tears have flowed, and more hearts have throbbed, and more hardships have been endured, and more blood has been shed, than for any other spot in the world. I felt, that the most interesting period of my travels was now ar rived. StiU, aU my former ideas had been so much at variance with the reahty of the scene, that when 1 did catch the first sight of the actual walls of the city, I felt httle of that emotion that might be supposed to arise at such a moment. There was nothing in keeping with the solemnity of the time. The pilgrims were discharging their fire-arms, that had happhy never been caUed into more seri ous play, and the only persons we saw consisted of a group of dancing girls, who assailed us with rude and unseemly gestures. As we came nearer aU appeared to be wrapped in sUence and soh- tude, there not being a single thing in sight that had life. Of Jerusalem we could see Httle more than a high waU built of light-colored stone, and the deep stillness seemed to say that it was protect ed by other powers than the common defences of man. By those thoughts the mind was calmed, and I had time to dwell for a moment upon the wonderful events that had here taken place, some of which are without a paraUel, and had the whole hierarchy of heaven to behold them. I did not in quire which was Calvary, or which was the site of the temple, the crowd of thoughts that rushed with confused impetuosity into my mind, prevent ed my attention to locaHties. It was about three in the afternoon of the 6th April 1833, that we entered the gates of Jerusalem. We had a letter of introduction, but found that it was to a member of the Latin convent, with which we did not desire to have any connection. Whilst the servants were making inquiries, we remained with our animals in an open space near the castle, but soon resolved to proceed to the Greek convent of Mar Michael, the usual resort of missionaries. We were told that the superior was at the church of the Sepulchre, to which we immediately repair ed, and saw some of the imposing ceremonies of their worship. We were taken into the sacred place near the altar, set aside for the bishops and priests, and I was much ashamed, as we were still in our traveUing dress. We obtained permission to lodge at the convent, and were shown into a low room, damp and dirty, along with a number of pUgrims, but on remonstrating with the superior, he vacated his own room for our use, after he had tried in vain to turn some other pugrims out of a good apartment they occupied. The weather was many degrees cooler than upon the coast, from our more elevated situation. JERUSALEM. It has been said by an eloquent writer, when speaking of Jerusalem, " Never was subject less known to modern readers, never was subject more completely exhausted." I feel the fuU force of this remark. It had been the wish of many years that I might visit the holy city : when I first offer ed myself as a missionary, it was with a desire to be sent to this place : I had read much about its locaHties, and tried as far as possible to realise them in my mind ; yet after aU that I had read, and thought, and dreamed on the subject, the city that I pictured in my imagination was entirely different to Jerusalem as it really exists ; and though I shall now attempt to give some idea of what I saw, I do not expect to be more successful than my predecessors, and fear, that with aU these warnings before me, I shaU stiU produce many erroneous impressions. The walls of Jerusalem are not traced upon any uniform plan, this not being permitted by the de- cHvities of the biU along which they are carried: their extent, on a rough calculation, may be set down at a little less than tliree mileB. When coming from any distant place, the phrase of Scripture would be used, "to ascend," but it must not on that account be understood as com manding an extensive prospect, or that the ground upon which it stands is high, when compared with the hills in its immediate vicinity. It is built upon one of the elevated surfaces of a range of mountains presenting all sizes and shapes. On the north side it is bounded by a plain, which ex tends upwards of a mile before the higher ground commences. On the eastern side the walls arc built close to a ravine, at the bottom of which is the bed of Kedron, which gradually deepens as it approaches and passes the city ; and on the oppo site side of the vaUey is the range of mount OHvet THE HOLY LAND. 35 On the south-eastern side the ravine is continued, and is deeper and broader. On the west side there is another ravine, which at its deepest part joins the valley of the Kedron, at the foot of mount Sion, and from thence rising by a gradual ascent, at last loses itself in the plain on the north side of the city. The summits of "the mountains round about Jerusalem" are not more than a good arrow-shot from the walls, and are not much higher than some parts of the hUl on which it stands. — The appearance of the hiUs is rugged : they have a few olive trees upon them, but Tittle cultivation : theh sides in many places present the bare rock, and the sod is covered with loose stones. The mount of OHves has a more pleasing aspect, and its sides are sown with grain, but it partakes in some degree of the general character. Between' this mount and that of Evfl Counsel there is an open vaUey, and the view in this direction is more extensive than from any other part of Jerusalem. The circumference of the ancient city was a little more than four rmles, and must have extend ed more towards the north than the present Jeru salem. From the account of it given by Josephus, it would appear that the site of the city was much more uneven than it is now. He speaks of a vaUey between the city and temple, and of another vaUey that seems to have run nearly along the centre of the city, and particularises the hiUs Sion, Moriah, Acre, and Bezetha. The ground is stiU uneven, but there is no part within the walls that could with propriety be catted a vaUey. It has been supposed, though it would seem upon insufficient authority, that after the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, there was always in an cient times a visible appearance of the shekinah, or symbol of the divine presence, that it was pre served by Noah in the ark, and afterwards by the patriarchs. The place appointed as the perma nent abode of the presence was by divine com mand. We learn from the book of Chronicles, that when God appeared unto Solomon, and gave him permission to erect a house " for the name of the Lord God of Israel," he said, "I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there." The mount of Moriah had aheady been conse crated, the mount of Sion was the residence of the king, and Jerusalem was in a convenient di rection for the approach of the different tribes, when they came up three times a year to present themselves before the Lord. It was also in a po sition of great strength, which in those lawless times was a matter of the highest consequence. We have here another of those coincidences so often presented in Scripture, which were to the Jews, and must be to us, strong and satisfactory proofs that the attention of the divine mind had from the earHest ages been directed towards theh state, and been preparing the thoughts of men for the coming of the Messiah. Upon that same mountain, upwards of 800 years previous to the erection of the temple, God had commanded Abra ham to sacrifice his son Isaac, a type of the daUy sacrifice that was to be offered upon the altar, and of that greater sacrifice that was to be offered in due time near the same spot, " once for all." From the time of David, Jerusalem was the constant resort of all those who were desirous of consulting the holy oracle, or of presenting before the Lord the different sacrifices required by the law. On the three great festivals of the year, its streets were crowded with jieople from the most distant parts of the land, and during the periods in which these festivals were celebrated in theh purity, they must have tended in an eminent de gree to promote harmony and good feUowship among the tribes, and have fiUed theh hearts with gladness and gratitude. The great number of priests, Levites, and teachers of the law, who con stantly resided here, or attended in their regular courses, would confer upon the city a sacred and reHgious character. The prophets added much to the solemnity of its aspect, as they mingled with the crowds in theh austere garb, and Hfted up their voice to reveal the will of heaven. When the fulness of time was come, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, and within a few miles of the city the voice of the angels was heard praising God, and saying, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good wiU towards men." In the time of our Saviour, Jerusalem must have presented one of the most magnificent sights ever seen upon earth. The most favorable situation for viewing this prospect with effect would be from the mount of OHves, and at the very place where Jesus, on beholding the city, wept over it At one sudden turn in the road from Bethany, the city comes at once into sight. Between this mountain and the city was a deep and contracted ravine, then as now used as the place of burial, studded with the whited waUs of the sepulchres erected to the prophets, and referred to by Christ as emblems of the Scribes and Pharisees, hypo crites, which did indeed appear beautiful outward, but were within " fuU of dead men's bones and aU uncleanuess." The city was defended in the weaker parts by a triple wall, and towers, monu ments, and palaces, proudly presented themselves in every dfrection. On the opposite side of the vaUey, the hiU of the city rose perpendicularly near 500 feet, and was built up with immense stones, some of which measured 23 yards square. The temple stood upon the summit of this preci pice, and our Saviour being raised a httle above it, would be able to look over its waUs into the courts by which it was surrounded. We are told that Herod had employed 10,000 men during the space of eight years to strengthen, restore, and enlarge it. It was at this time of greater extent, though perhaps of less exquisite workmanship, than it had presented at any earHer period. It had a portico of white marble, the columns of which were each of one stone, and 44 feet long. It had nine gates covered over with sUver and gold, and another that was stiU more precious, made of Corinthian brass. The parts that were not gUded were beautifuUy white, so that it ap peared at a distance like a mountain of snow. It was covered in front with plates of gold, and When the sun shone upon it, and Hghted it up into glory, it was impossible to look at it from its brightness, and it then shadowed forth the Deity that was worshipped within, " whom no man hath seen, or can see." The Jerusalem of modern times is not the city of the Scriptures, any more than that it is built upon the same spot. The walls are of hewn stone, 36 THE HOLY LAND. about 40 feet high, and without any mole or but tresses. They have battlements, and have long and narrow embrasures, with projecting towers at irregular distances oT the same form and height. There are several Arabic inscriptions upon them, the purport of which was not explained to me. — Some of the stones are very large, and were pro bably used in the ancient city. The gates through which there is admittance are four in number : the Damascus gate, that opens towards the plain on the north ; St. Stephen's gate, that opens to wards the eastern ravine ; Zion gate, upon the hiU of the same name ; and the gate that leads towards Bethlehem and Jaffa. Tbe other gates are now walled up. They are aU formed of point ed arches, with an entrance-tower, but have Httle sculptural decoration. On the outside it is possi ble to walk aU round the city, close to the walls. In the interior of the city there are few va cant spaces. The houses are built of large rough stones, close to each other, and are two stories high. Little more is seen towards the street than a plain waU and a mean entrance. Every house has one dome or more, the roofs being universahy built of this form, as no timber can be procured except from a great distance. Most of the budd ings, the convents excluded, are falling into decay, but there are not many that are so far in ruin as to be entirely deserted. The streets are narrow, paved with flat stones, and many of them on a decHvity. The public buildings are not numerous, nor are any of them, except the mosque of Omar, very magnificent. Near the Jaffa gate is a castle, formed of two strong towere, caUed the castle of David, or the tower of the Pisans. A few cannon are here mounted, and it is surrounded by a dry moat. There are not many mosques in propor tion to the celebrity of the place even in Mussul man estimation. They are all falling into ruin, and no efforts are made to repair them. The convents are for the most part situated in the north-west quarter of tho city. The Greeks have thirteen, and the Roman CathoKcs, or, as they are here caUed, Latins, tho Armenians, Sy rians, Copts, and Abyssinians, have each of them one. They each contain a chapel, and a number of small rooms for the use of the pilgrims. They are supported by contributions from aU parts of Christendom. The pugrims are aUowed the free use of them, and in some they are provided with support for a certain number of days or weeks. — The Armenian convent is situated near the hiU of Zion. It is by far the most extensive, the most splendid, and the most HberaUy endowed. It is usual with English traveUers to remain at the Latin convent. The accommodations are more comfortable, but some of our countrymen have died here, and others have been taken iU, which has excited suspicion against the monies. I had no intercourse with them, as they are declared enemies to us and our cause. The different orders of monks, for many centu ries the only representatives of the Christian church near the spot where the divine Victim was sacrificed for the sins of the world, awaken feelings that are not without interest, though connected with much of melancholy and sorrow. I am not so uncharitable as to suppose that some of them may not have had the love of God in their hearts, and have obeyed in sincerity the Saviour whom they ignorantly worshipped. They have suffered much from the oppressions of the Turks, but though persecuted and exposed to death, they have been firm in theh post ; and when one has perished, another has always been found ready to stand up and supply his place. Theh principal employment is the chaunting of the appointed ser vices, the song of which is heard without ceasing in the church of the Sepulchre, at aU hours of the day and night, and a more unfavorable situation can scarcely be conceived for the keeping alive of the spiritual affections. It is affecting to wit ness the rude zeal of the deluded pilgrims ; but I have felt far more, when I have seen the priests and monkB, in some of whose countenances a beam of intelligence seemed to shine, bowing down before a picture or stone, and appearing to pay it adoration. The pilgrims usuaUy arrive about Christmas, and continue here until Easter. There is now a much smaller number than were present in for mer times. The pUgrhnage is httle calculated to benefit their souls. They have a long season of leisure, which might be brought to some advan tage, but they employ it too often in smoking, drinking, gambling, and other occupations equally adverse to spiritual improvement. We appointed a time to wait on the patriarch of the Greek church, but on that day a messenger had arrived from the pacha, to claim the usual share of the offerings, and he could not receive us. The pd- grims are now subject to much fewer exactions tlian they formerly were, though even theh pre sent annoyances are sufficiently great. They have to purchase tuskaras, or passports, and are continually required to show them to the officers of government. ; and if they have them not at hand, they are detained until another can be pro cured, for which they are required to advance an additional sum. The principal source of theh vexation arises from the natives of the country, as they are cheated in every bargain they make, and they have no redress, without submitting to stUl greater insults. Some camel-drivers having brought a number of women to the beginning of a dangerous descent, in the road to Jericho, refused to proceed without an immediate present, but I interfered in theh behalf, and was for the time successful. When the pilgrims had bathed in the Jordan, many of them were not aUowed to remount their animals until another sum had been extorted from them. Besides visiting the sacred places, they have their arms marked with a cross and other devices. It appears to be considered as a religious ceremony, to receive tho indeUible mark, as a kind of hymn is constantly sung during the operation, though no priest is present. On their departure from Jerusalem they receive a printed paper, certifying that they have acted as good pilgrims, and granting them absolution in conse quence. With this paper, a candle lighted at the holy fire, and a dress dipped in the Jordan, they fondly imagine that no harm can come near them for ever. Those who have visited the stations THE HOLY LAND. 37 are dignified by the name of hadgi, after the man ner of the Mussulmans. There are now few Greeks from the Morea, the greater part being from Russia and Asia Minor, where the march of inteUect has not yet extended. As Imowledge increases, the number of pilgrims wiU lessen in proportion, the convents wUl have no occupants, and one scandal wiU be wiped away from the Christian church. Not far from the Jaffa gate is a pool of water which dries up in summer. There is always to be seen a number of Jews, particularly females, seated near it. I inquired tho reason from a Jew, but he would give me no definite answer. I was told by . others that they expect the Messiah to appear near that spot. Near St. Stephen's gate there is another pool, said by some to be that of Bethesda, and by others to be the dungeon into which Jeremiah was let down by cords : perhaps both accounts are equally correct, and it may be neither the one nor the other. There are three arches in it, now waUed up. Not far from the same gate I visited the ruins of an extensive con vent. The church has be%n subsequently used as a mosque. It is stiU so perfect, that with a little repair it might again be used as a place; of wor ship. The palace of the governor is entered from the same street. The front looks towards the site of the temple, and it is said to occupy the same spot as the palace of Pflate. Near it are several mosques and large buddings in ruins. The via^doloroso leads from the judgment-haU of Pflate to the place of our Saviour's death. Con nected with it are the houses of Pilate and H^rod ; the window from whence the governor presented Jesus Christ to the people, when he said, " Be hold tlie man !" the place where the cross was taken from the shoulder of Jesus and laid upon Simon, the Cyrenian ; a hole in the waU, made by the fingers of Christ when he rested for a moment by the way ; the place where the cock crew at the denial of Peter ; and many other places of a simUar description. But the greatest of aU won ders, and from whence some idea may be formed of the credit that is due to these traditions, is a stone hi the wall of a convent, with an opening miraculously formed, by which it received power to speak when our Saviour repKed to the insinua tions of his enemies against the disciples : "If these should hold theh peace, the stones would imme diately cry out!" The mosque of Omar is by far the most magni ficent edifice in Jerusalem. It is buflt upon the site of the temple, and probably with some of its ancient materials.- It was commenced by Omar, the caliph who took Jerusalem, and was finished by his successors. The inclosure in which it is situated, caUed the Haram Schereff is said to be 1489 feet long, and 995 feet broad, and includes a large proportion of the whole city. No Christian or Jew is aUowed to enter it upon pain of death ; but Dr. Richardson, a recent traveUer so far in gratiated himself with an Effendi, upon whom he successfuUy performed a surgical operation, that he was permitted to visit and examine it four suc cessive times. He is the only Christian who has entered it as such since the crusades. It may be seen from mount Olivet, and from several situa tions in the city I looked tlirough the entrances at the green grass in its open courts ; but even for this, the Turks grumbled at me, and warned me to proceed no further. An air of beauty stfll rests upon the place, that is presented by no other part of Jerusalem. The Sakhara. is the principal buUd ing. It is an octagon, each side of which con tains seven windows, and is said to be about 60 feet long. It has four entrances, ascended by spacious steps, over which are lofty arches, and is surrounded by an elevated platform of marble. — The dome lias been much admired. It is said to be 93 feet high, and 47 feet in diameter. The next buUding in importance is the mosque El Aksa. The windows in the dome are of painted glass. The four orthodox sects of Mahomedans have each theh appointed places of prayer. — There are many other buildings within the inclo sure, some of which are inhabited by dervishes. — Next to the temple at Mecca, this is considered as the most sacred place in the world. It is the gate of Paradise, and the spot where Mahomet alighted when he came from heaven in a single night. At an early period of his career, he direct ed his followers to turn theh faces towards Jeru salem in prayer, as they now do towards Mecca, and the city is caUed by them, "El Koodes," or the Holy. It contains, among other curiosities, the throne and judgment-seat of Solomon marks made by the fingers of the angel Gabriel, the sa cred stone that Mahomet carried upon his arm in battle, a print of his foot, and the stone upon which he is to sit at the judgment. There is also a series of naUs in a block of marble, one of which is said to be miraculously withdrawn at the con clusion of every grand event in the universe : they were at first eighteen in number, but they are now reduced to three and a half. It was upon the stone containing the print of the foot, that the ancient prophets sat when they delivered their predictions : it made an attempt to ascend to heaven when the spirit of inspiration departed from man, but was detained by the angel Gabriel, from whence the marks of his fingers, until Mahomet came, and fixed it for ever upon this spot. The church of the Sepulchre, which is the only remaining object within the city that deserves at tention, has of late years produced a great differ ence of opinion among the traveUers by whom it has been visited. It is maintained by many that it does not occupy the site of the places by which it professes to be rendered sacred. I have ex amined the question with some care, but after aU find it difficult to decide either one way or the other. I cannot learn at what period the chain of tradition can have been broken. It has been said that the early Cliristians were not so superstitious as to encourage the fooleries by which the church in later times has been unhap pily distinguished ; but they were perhaps less pure, in this respect than some individuals would be disposed to aUOw. The churches of Smyrna have this passage in theh account of the martyr dom of Polycarp, which took place in the year 167: — "The centurion, perceiving the malevo lence of the Jews, placed the body in the midst of the fire, and burnt it : then we gathered up his 38 THE HOLY LAND. bones — more precious than gold and jewels — and deposited them in a proper place, where, if it be possible, we shaU meet, and the Lord wiH grant us, in gladness and joy, to celebrate the birth-day of his martyrdom." At the end of the same cen tury it was a common practice among the behev- ers to go up to Jerusalem expressly " to visit the sacred places," and the Christians were never pre vented from living within the city, even when the severest edicts were issued against the Jews. On the other hand, we know that the city was entire ly destroyed by Titus ; and it would appear that the exact site of the sepulchre at least was not known in the reign of Constantine. " When Jle- lene, the emperour's mother," says an old trans lation of Eusebius, " founde the auncient Jerusa lem, lying all wast, in a heape of stones, as it is in the prophet, she searched diligently for the se pulchre of Christ, in the which he was layd, and out of the which he rose againe, and at length, al though with mdch adoe, through the helpe of God, she found it. And why it was so hard a matter to finde, I wiU declare in fewe words ; even as they which embraced the faith of Christ highly esteemed of that sepulchre, and monument of his passion, so of the contrary, such as abhorred Chris tian rehgion, heaped in that place much earth, and raised great hiUoks, and buylded there the temple of Venus, and having suppressed the remembrance of the place, they sette up her idole. This have we learned of olde to be true." That which follows appears to have arisen from the craftiness of the priests, such as the finding of a sepulchre and three crosses, and future ages have been willing to be duped by the creduhty of the old empress. The place of the crucifixion cannot have been far from the palace of the go vernor ; it was "nigh unto the city ;" it could be seen " afar off;" it was " without the camp," or city ; it was probably on an elevation, though of this we have no certain evidence, unless the name Golgotha, " the place of a skuU," be understood as referring to its shape and appearance ; it was near a public road, as "they that passed by re- vfled him;" it was near a garden, as, "in the place where he was crucified, there was a gar den ; and in the garden a new sepulchre, where in never man was laid — there laid they Jesus." It appears to me impossible the present sepulchre, or pretended sepulchre, can be made to agree with these plain statements of Scripture, more espe ciaUy with that which places Golgotha without the city. I repeatedly examined the site, and from every possible direction, but the result of aU my observations was the same, that it must of necessity have been included within the walls of the ancient Jerusalem. AU the other arguments that have been brought against it, and which it would be to no purpose to repeat here, may per haps be set aside ; but this appears to me unan swerable, and must throw the strongest suspicion upon every other kind of proof that may be at tempted in its favor. Were we to take Scripture for our only guide, the scene of the crucifixion would be placed near the gate of St. Stephen, and would overlook the vaUey of Hinnom, from the op posite side of which it might have been witnessed by the women, whilst the high priest saw it from the walls. The garden was probably more in the I form of a grove or orchard, than a place for low ers and pleasure, and there are yet in the same spot many sepulchres "hewn out in the rock." — It would be a work of no mean service to Chris- | tianity, could it be proved that the monks and pd- grims are utterly in error ; and it is weU the sa- credness of the places can be caUed in question {by arguments so powerful as those within our I reach. They have ministered to foUy, superstition, and I actual crime ; whilst they have promised a plena- ! ry forgiveness of sin, they have added to that sin, ! rendered its stain deeper, and its punishment more severe; and whUst they have professed to mag nify the death and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, they have taken from them aU theh power, by substituting a personal visit to the supposed Cal vary in place of an apphcation by faith to the Son of God in heaven. It was in mercy that the tomb of Moses was hid from the knowledge of the Jews, and it has been m equal mercy that the exact si tuation of the tomb of Jesus has been bid from the knowledge of the church, as it has thus been saved from the desecration of the thousand sins that have been committed under the sanctity of its name. The church of the Sepulchre is approached by a narrow entrance, that leads from a smaU street into an open court nearly surrounded by convents, and used as a bazar. There are money-changers and venders of curiosities from Bethlehem, such as rosaries, crosses, and pictures worked in mo ther-of-pearl ; persons beating brazen cups to an nounce that they have sherbet for sale ; the blind and maimed crying out in mournful accents to ex cite the compassion of the pilgrims ; and on the ground are exposed to view, clothes, spices, fruits, wax tapers, and cutlery. The exterior of the church is not imposing. The entrance is formed of two pointed arches, one of them walled up. — The stone over the open door- way has a weU-ex- ecuted sculpture, partly broken, which appears to be ancient, and to represent some historical event, in separate compartments. On entering the church, a party of Turks are seated near the large door, smoking and chatting, and laughing at the folHes of the people. They are always present when the church is open for pubhc worship, to preserve order ; but it can be opened at any other time by an apphcation from the superior of a convent. The first open space is a large haU or chapel, for the buUding is very irregular in its form. Opposite the entrance is a marble slab, said to mark the spot where the body of our Lord was laid to be anointed for the burial. The people were lmeeling down to it continually, to kiss it, and wipe the dust from its surface. It has three immense wax tapers at each end, and eight lamps suspended over it. In the waU at the right hand are three doors. The third leads to a recess, where a fissure is shown in the stone, said to have been made when the rocks were rent at the crucifixion. It is defended by a grating, so that I could not examine it very closely ; but it is supposed by those competent to judge, that it is a natural fissure, made by a convulsion of the earth. It is immediately under the place where the cross stood, say the monks, and the skuU and some bones of old Adam were found in it by the empress Helena. THE HOLY LAND. Near the wall opposite the entrance, on the right hand, there is a narrow passage. At its commencement, a flight of steps, about twenty in number, leads to the chapel of Calvary. It is di vided into two compartments, separated from each other by arches. At the end of the first division is an altar, near which is shown the very hole in which the cross of our Saviour was placed, and also the holes of the crosses of the malefactors, not a yard distant from each other. There are many Hghts, pictures, and ornaments, and the pulpit from whence the Latins preach on Good Friday. The floor is of variegated marble. At the end of the other division is also an altar, intended to mark the place where Jesus was nailed to the tree. On descending again into the passage, and pro ceeding along its course, there are altars in it erected to commemorate the places where Christ was scourged, where the soldiers divided bis gar ments, where they arrayed him in a mock robe, and so on, for almost every circumstance narrated by the evangelists relative to the death and burial of" om- Lord. At the end of this passage, a few steps lead down to the chapel of St. Helena, where the true cross was found by the empress, the wood of which has been so miraculously multipHed, that from it another ark might be built of equal dimen sions with the ark of Noah. It is more plain and more ancient than any other part of the church. When the Easter of the Latins and Greeks falls at the same time, there is sometimes a battle ec clesiastical to gain possession of this place. From the entrance hall, a wide opening to the left leads into a larger chapel, surmounted by a dome, and surrounded by 16 piUars, square and plain. There are galleries nearly all round, and under them are different chapels and apartments. The sepulchre stands under the centre of the dome, in shape Hke a church, with a small cupola for the steeple. It is buUt of coarse marble, has an inscription in Greek round the top, and is orna mented with pictures and artificial flowers. At the outside of the western end, there is an open chapel for the Copts, Syrians, and other Chris tians who have no separate place of worship. The entrance to the sepulchre is from the eastern end, and is defended by a railing. We were here re quired to take off our shoes. The interior is di vided into two apartments. The floor is of mar ble, and smaU marble piUars are let into the walls. In the centre of the first division is a marble pillar, said to mark the place where the angel stood to announce the resurrection to Mary Magdalen and the other women. The place was crowded with people, and after much crushing and confusion, we at last effected an entrance into the sanctum. It is lighted by forty lamps, and the crowd within rendered the heat so insupportable that I remain ed in it only a few moments. The tomb is of white marble, without ornament, and about six feet long. The stone which waj rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre was many years ago carried off by the Armenians, and is now shown in theh chapel upon mount Zion. The sepulchre, it wiU be said, was " hewn out in the rock," and to this the monks will reply, that there was here a large rock, but that it has been cut away, leaving only the sheU of the sepulchre, which is cased over by the mar ble walls of the present building. The Greek church is opposite the entrance in to the sepulchre. It does not differ from the other churches of the Greeks, except in being more splendid. When Hghted up by the numerous candles and lamps, it presents one blaze of magni ficence. Some of the pictures are in better taste than those usuaUy seen. In the middle of the floor, is a short marble piUar, said to be placed exactly in the centre of the world. Even to this the people were offering Hghts, and bowing down, and kissing it. The churches of the Latins and Armenians are smaUer, and have less of ornament. The ancient church of the sepulchre was destroyed by fire in 1808, and the present structure having been prin cipaUy buUt at the expense of the Greeks, they appropriated to themselves the largest and most convenient part of the edifice. It is principaUy at Easter, when the services of the church particularly aUude to places within compass of the sacred enclosure, that the fuU splendor of the priesthood is brought to bear upon the religious ceremonies connected with the time. Pilgrims from very distant parts now assemble to offer up their prayers at the sepulchre of the Saviour, on the anniversaries of his death, burial, and resurrection. Were there any thing of real devotion apparent in the minds of the people, were the influence that might be supposed to rest upon these haUowed spots, more manifest, I might be tempted to record at length the different proces sions, prayers, masses, and sermons, but under present circumstances I should deem all this a waste of time both to him who writes, and those who read. In one of the Greek processions I counted upwards of eighty priests, aU clothed in magnificent garments of crimson and gold. The Turks made way for them through the crowd, and laid on most unmercifuUy with their whips and clubs. They had many banners, with parts of Scripture and of fooHsh legends painted upon them. The bishops had rich mitres, sparkling with jew els ; their robes were held on each side by an attendant ; and incense was burnt before them. They held in theh hands a cross, which they moved to and fro, and the people bowed them selves as they passed. Some of the priests carried books in rich bindings, others had large crosses, others had sUver shrines of the chapel of Calvary, and others were employed in chaunting the ap propriate service. On the Sunday before Easter the pilgrims car ry palm-branches in theh hands, many of them cut or platted into various devices. These are the real palms, such as were actuaUy used at the triumphal entrance of Christ into the city, so dif ferent from the palms used in England on the same occasion, that I cannot account for their choice, unless the palm be the only tree that blos soms at this early period of the year. On the Saturday before Easter, the farce of the fire is exhibited to the pilgrims. I went early that I might secure a good place for seeing the exhibition. The church was crowded in every part, the women standing near the waU, and the men in the body of the building. I attempted to take my station near the females, as the men were beginning to be a Httle noisy ; but they stoutly opposed me, untU a good old lady spoke a few 40 THE HOLY LAND. words in my favor, and I was permitted to re main,. The scene had very Httle resemblance to a Christian assembly, met together in a Christian place of worship. The Turks were quietly smok ing theh pipes, and smiling in derision ; and others were beating the people without fear or favor to preserve order. Bread and water were carried about for sale, as some of the pUgrims had been aU night in the church. The noise was like the uproar of an ale-bench at a viUage feast. Many were running round the sepulchre with all theh might, and others were carried round on the shoulders of men, waving their hands as if bless ing the people. They clapped theh hands, leap ed, and shouted ; threw their caps into the ah ; and at times they set up the shrill whoop they make at funerals, — a sound that is indescribable, something Hke the quick hooting of an owl, but the effect is awful. As the time passed on, the noise and uproar increased. They lifted up their hands to heaven, to suppHcate the hastening of the miraculous gift. All eyes were directed towards a smaU hole in the side of the waU of the sepulchre, where it was known that the fire would appear, and whenever the noise received addi tional force there was a general rush towards it. Every person present had a wax taper in the hand, which was held out towards the same spot. The miracle at last appeared, and in a few mo ments every taper in the place was Hghtedby the, senseless multitude. I cannot'describe the scene. I thought of the furies, of the mad dances of the ancients at their idolatrous feasts, but I can find no comparison rightly to describe it. They shout ed louder, and leaped higher, and waved theh burning tapers in the ah : add* to these the smoke, the awful glare, the moving about of the immense mass, and a faint idea may be formed of this open desecration of the house of God. The sepulchre is sealed the day before, the superior bishop of the Greek church now enters the place, and offers up a prayer, and after a Httlo time a flame appears at a smaU hole in the wall, opposite the entrance into the Latin church, which the people most firm ly beUeve is miraculously lighted from heaven. I am told that the bishop was accompanied into the sepulchre by a Turk, but of this I am not certain, as I did not see him enter, nor did any of the party, though they stood in a different direction. - Pliny Fisk, the American missionary, requested permission to enter with the bishop, stating that the conversion of an unbehever would increase the celebrity of the fire by confirming its truth, but he was told that if he were present with the bishop at the time the fire appeared, his instant death would be the consequence. The people maintain that the fire wiH not burn those who be lieve in its powers ; hence some of the men pass ed it quickly over their beards, and put it under their clothes, but in such a way that any other fire would be equaUy harmless. The women near me passed it along garments they had brought for the purpose, as they believe it to have a mighty influence, and in these they intend to be buried. It was affecting to see the poor creatures thus preparing theh own grave-clothes, with as much earnestness as if the eternal salvation of theh souls was secured by the act. They also preserve the tapers they have lighted, as many of them light a number, and immediately extinguish them, and there is no kind of virtue they do not think them to possess. I was in the midst of the tumult, and being asked why I had no taper to Hght, I had an opportunity of expressing my disapprobation of theh conduct. At the close of the -ceremony, the Jews were publicly cursed, then the Mahome- dans, and probably others whose names we could not distinguish. It is said that the practice of the deception can be traced back to the times of the Greek emperors, when the church was involved in a darkness that' in these countries is yet felt. It has been opposed, both with keen ridicule and powerful argument, by several modern Greeks, and among others by the celebrated Coray, who died lately in Paris. The priests themselves would probably be glad to be weU rid of the scan dal, if it could be done without reflecting upon their predecessors. A pigeon was formerly let fly from the dome, to represent the visible coming of the Holy Ghost, but this part of the mockery is now abandoned. The fire continued to burn some minutes, but not always with the same bril liancy, and during this period the people continued to Hght their candles at the original source, but it seemed to be considered equaUy efficacious at the second or third hand, as it was in this way the greater part of the people received it. I have at tended many descriptions of heathen festivals. I have seen the devil-dancers apparently under Sa tanic influence, and the Mussulman devotees shout round their fires at the feast of Hussein Hassan, but I never witnessed any exhibition that excited in my mind feelings of deeper disgust, and this too in the name of Christ, and in a place probably not very far distant from the sacred spot where he bowed his head and died. On Easter Sunday, after the ceremonies were concluded in the church of the sepulchre, service was performed in the chapel of the principal Greek convent. The Gospel was read in different lan guages, to commemorate its introduction to as many different nations by the apostles. At the end of each part a beh was tinkled. The people again held tapers in their hands, and a priest offer ed) one to each of us, but we declined to counte nance so foolish a custom, though we were seated next to the bishop. The bishop officiated in his robes, and the priests in order, after prostrating themselves before a picture of the Saviour, knelt before him with theh heads to the ground, then rose and kissed his hand, and again bowed them selves to the earth. It would have been an amus ing sight, could we have looked upon aU this as the play of a parcel of chUdren, but when old men in priests' garments, and long white beards, en gaged in it, and called it a religious ceremony, it excited feelings of the sincerest pity. The con gregation were very stiU, and there appeared in some of their minds a degree of solemnity, and it might be devotion. The greater part of mount Zion is without the present walls of the city. There is a mosque upon its summit, said to be built over the tomb of David. Near it is a room in which our Lord is said to have eaten the last supper with the disciples. In THE HOLY LAND. 41 an Armenian chapel is the stone that covered the sepulchre. Upon this hill, under the walls of the city, is the burial ground of the Christians. The different denominations are separated from each other even in death, and in theh own plots they await the sound of the last trumpet, when it will not be asked of what shape they made the cross, but in what way they loved Christ. A Latin in scription in the Roman Cathohc ground announces, that an Englishman in his last hours was brought from error to the bosom of the true church. There is one Protestant missionary quietly sleep ing with the rest, Dr. Dalton, who is probably the first of many whose bodies are to be here deposit ed. The mount is not much higher than some other parts of the city, which have probably been elevated by the number of ruins they bear. The descent is very steep towards the valleys of Gihon and Jehoshaphat. Near the bottom there are terraces, upon which a few olive-trees are grow ing, and there are single trees in other parts of the slope. The city of David stood upon this hUl ; it contained the royal palace, and appears to have then been the strongest part of Jerusalem. The rides of the hUl, that once bade defiance to the invader, are now brought under the plough, though their cultivation must be attended with some dif ficulty. " Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shaU become heaps." Mic. iii. 12. The valley of MUlo extend ed from this mount to the hUl of the temple, and though it was fiUed up by David and Solomon, its situation is still apparent. The objects of interest that are situated with out the walls are much more numerous and more worthy of attention than those within. It may be weU to leave the city by the Jaffa gate, and ex amine first the plain towards the north. The ground graduaUy rises until it reaches the north west corner of the waU, from whence it decHnes as far as the north-east corner, when it becomes more equal. Near the waU are the remains of a dry moat, not cut with regularity. Towards the Damascus gate, is a cistern of water, in arched compartments, under ground, and near it, now used as a trough, is a stone coffin of the same description as those found in the sepulchres of the kings. In the same direction is a place catted Jeremiah's grot, where the prophet is said to have resided, and of late inhabited by a band of der vishes. The surface of the plain is uneven, in some parts cultivated, and it has many olive-trees growing upon it. The city formerly extended it- Self in this direction, and it would not be difficult to trace its probable boundary. There are some caves, and remains of buddings and towers. About a quarter of a mUe from the city, on the Jaffa road, is a Turkish burial-ground, and near it an ancient pool for water, about one hundred yards long and eighty broad. The sepulchres of the kings, as they are caUed, are situated on the right hand of the Damascus road, about a nule from the gate of the same name. The first place that is seen is an open court, cut in the rock, Hke a dry pool, about thirty yards square. On the south side there is a portico in 53-6 the rock, with a sculptured frieze that runs the whole length of the opening. The sculpture con sists of flowers, fruits, and other ornaments, work ed with some taste, but now fast falling into decay. The opening to the sepulchre is at tlie left hand, nearly closed up with stones. It is not improbable that there are other entrances, perhaps on« in the centre of the portico, and another opposite the en trance now open. We had some difficulty in effecting an entrance ; as we had to crawl at fuU length, Hke worms, with Hghts in our hands. We soon arrived at a room about eight yards square, from whence we passed into several others, into some of which there is a descent. There has been displayed more art and care upon these caves than upon the common sepulchres, but some of the latter have required an equal degree of labor. In nearly all the rooms there are ledges in the sides for coffins, of which many remains are in exist ence, bat all much broken. They are of white stone, and the lids are ornamented with figures of grapes, garlands, and simflar devices, apparently more appropriate for a wassaU-bowl than for a coffin. In the floors of the rooms narrow channels are cut, as if to receive the water that is continu aUy dropping from above. The doors are aU thrown down and broken. They were of one en tire stone, turning upon two swivels let into the rock, and of exactly the same form as the paneUed doors now in use. Near this court is another of a simflar description, with caves at the sides. We entered one of them, but found in it nothing re markable. Josephus speaks of "the sepulchral caverns of the kings" in this dfrection, from whence these caves have derived theh name, but the authority is not sufficient to settle aU doubts upon the subject, nor, indeed, is it known aright what kings are intended by the historian, as the monarchs of Judah were buried upon mount Zion. We proceeded a Httle distance after we had examined the tombs, whether royal or not, and then descended into a ravine, which is near the commencement of the brook Kedron, at that time vrithout water. It begins a Httle more to the north-east, and passing between the plain and mount OHvet, forms the eastern boundary of the city. It deepens as it proceeds, and forms an an gle opposite the temple, then takes a south-west direction, and passing between the yiflage of Si- loam and the city, runs off towards the Dead Sea. The ashes of the idolatrous vessels and altars, burnt by Josiah, were cast into this brook, and it received the blood from the sacrifices of the tem ple by a drain. From the commencement of the ravine unto the end, with the exception of the slopes under the temple, its side are perforated with sepulchres "hewn out in the rock," which were no doubt the tombs of the ancient citizens. We examined a great number ot them, and found them to be nearly all of a simUar character. Some have only one room, and others have eight or ten, of aU sizes, from two yards square to twenty. In general they are so high, that we could walk in them upright, and some are lofty. There are several that have been used as dwellings. They contain no ancient sculpture or inscriptions, though some of the waUs are covered with Hebrew cha racters, written by Jews, who have visited the places from curiosity. The floors of most of them 42 THE HOLY LAND. are even with the entrance, but into others there is a precipitate descent. The roofs of the large rooms are supported by piUars, and some of them have entirely faUen in. In one of them we found the dead body of a man, nearly naked, who had, perhaps, crept in for shelter, and perished from famine or disease. Pursuing the bed of the Kedron, we arrived, as it were, under the city, at the north-east angle. On the slope nearest the city there are many Turkish graves, that continue a Httle further than the gate of St. Stephen. This part of the vaUey was caUed Hinnom, in which many cruel and idol atrous ceremonies were performed, and chUdren were passed through the fire to Moloch by theh unnatural -parents. It was also called Tophet. The filth of the city was here coHected and con sumed, and from the fires that were continually kept burning for this purpose, its name was chosen to designate hell " where their worm dieth not, and tbe fire is not quenched." It was defiled by king Josiah, that no more human sacrifices might be presented in it to the demon of blood. The brook is croEsed by a bridge, over which the road passes from the city to the mount of OHves and Bethany. Near the bridge is the roof of a church, even vrith the ground. It is built over a large cave, in which are the supposed tombs of the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and Anna. The objects that next attract attention, after pass ing the garden of Gethsemane, are some ancient sepulchres. The rock has been cut away from two of them, so that they appear as if erected in the usual manner; but they are each of one stone, and with their columns and ornaments have been cut out of the rock where they stand. They are attributed to Absalom and Zechariah. That of Absalom appears as if supported by six columns on each side. The ornaments on the frieze are of the same character as those on the portico of the royal sepulchres. It is surmounted by a roof formed of a separate stone, circular, and graduaUy tapering towards the summit, where it finishes in a knot or knob. The body of the tomb of Zecha riah is of a simflar description, but the roof is of one stone with the tomb, and rises in the form of a plain pyramid. The rock is cut away from them to the extent of a few feet, so that there is space to walk round them. There has not origi nally been to either of them any visible entrance, though holes have by force been made in theh sides, and it is probable that they were entered from under ground. There is another tomb, attri buted to James, a plain cave, with the frieze of the portico sculptured, and supported by four round columns, so that it resembles the front of a smaU Grecian temple. It is absurd to attribute these monuments to the persons whose names they bear. The pillar of Absalom was " reared up," we are told expressly, and this monument, on the contrary, is cut out of the rock. " Now, Absalom, in his Hfe-time, had taken and reared up for him self a pillar, which is in the kings' dale : for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remem brance ; and he caUed the pUlar after his own name ; arid it is caUed unto this day, Absalom's place." 2 Sam. xvni. 18. From the style of their architecture, which is substantially Doric, it has been conjectured that they were built about the time of the Maccabees, and it is possible that they may have belonged to some of the high-priesta who governed Judea previously to the rise of the Asmonean family, as the tombs of the Maccabees were at Modin. I had a convefsation with an Irish gentleman of great intelligence, in the church of St. Peter, at Rome, on the subject of these se pulchres, and he suggested an idea that, to me, was original. He thought that the Ionic volute was first taken from the architecture of the Jews, and with them originated in the design to imitate the form of the scroH containing the law, when placed upon a pfllar, as the manner was, to keep it open at the proper place of reading, whilst some other part of the service was carried on. The scroU and pfllar would present ths exact appear ance of the Ionic column. About and above these sepulchres there is a countless number of separate stones, that mark the burial-places of the modern Jews. Nearly aU of them have Hebrew inscriptions. This val ley was used as the place of interment in times as ancient as the reign of Josiah, as we read that " he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kedron, and burned it at the brook Kedron, and stamped it aU to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people." 2 Kings. xxhi. 6. On the side of the hill, towards the city, is a fountain, supposed by some to be that of Siioam. It is descended to first by a flight of broad steps, when there is a landing-place, and some narrower steps lead from thence into the water. Several Jews were bathing themselves in it when we ap proached. The depth of the water varies at dif ferent periods, but the stream was now scarcely perceptible. " Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah, that go softly." Is. viu. 6. The course for the water is hewn out of'the rock, and it would be an interesting attempt to examine it as far as possible with Hghts, as at the entrance it is high enough for this purpose. The taste of the water is not very exceUent, though not abso lutely disagreeable. The Mahomedans have a tradition that the spring comes from the celebrated weU Zemzem, at Mecca, which, they say, is proved by this circumstance, that a water-vessel was put into the weU of the prophet, and after wards found here. A Mussulman related this account to us upon the spot. It appears from Josephus that there were other springs without the city, but this was the principal stream. On the same hfll, a Httle further on, is another fountain, which is approached by a narrow entrance cut in the rock. Near it is a tank, and another opening to draw water, and the ruins of a small mosque. The pool is about fifty feet long and twenty broad. The sides are of wrought stones, and there are the remains of several piUars. A tanner was washing some skins in it when we were present. Tins is also called by some the pool of SUoam, but it is probable that neither of them is the ancient pool : they may be upon tlie same stream, but not in the same spot. The viUage of Siioam is in the steep sides of the opposite hfll. Most of the houses have been tombs, and some of them are hewn out in the rock, in one sohd mass, in the same way as the sepul- THE HOLY LAND. 43 chres already described. It may contain about four hundred inhabitants. On this side of the city the descent was perpen dicular, mth a strong waU from top to bottom, and immense outworks. So many ruins have been thrown down it, that it may now be ascended with out much difficulty. The whole slope is intersect ed by'a number of paths, and between them the ground supports a few olive trees, but is princi pally ploughed for grain. The vaUey is occupied by gardens, watered from the stream that supplies the pool, the whole of which is soon lost in the numerous Httle rflls into which it is divided. This is the only part near Jerusalem that assumes any thing of a cheerful appearance, and it is supposed, with some probability, that the king's gardens were in this direction. Near the place where the gardens terminate, there is an old mosque and a small tank. The ravine between the city and the mount of OHves is called the valley of Jehoshaphat, and it is beUeved by the Jews that the last judg ment wiU here take place, from a passage in the prophecy of Joel. " Let the heathen be awakened, and come up to the vaUey of Jehoshaphat, for there wifl I sit to judge aU the heathen round about." Joel hi. 2. The space occupied by tbe gardens is formed from the union of the vaUeys of Jehoshaphat and Gihon. The hfll that rises from thence to the city is mount Zion. The valley of Gihon, here deep and broad, is graduaUy contracted as it rises to wards the plain on the north. The side opposite the city is formed by the hfll of Evil Counsel, upon the top of which are some buildings that I neglect ed to examine. The water-course from the pools of Solomon, near Bethlehem, runs along this slope, and here we are again presented with tombs. In some of them the roof is cut in a manner similar to the ornamented circles from whence chande- Hers are usuaUy suspended, and they have sculp tured entrances. At the outside of some of them are carved, by a modern hand, the words t THC A HAC CIWN + In others we observed paintings of saints, which show that they must have been in the possession of Christians. Many of them are now used as stores by the persons whose gardens are near, and some of them have been inhabited at a recent period. The potter's field was probably in this direction, as it is the only place in which I ob served any appearance of clay. There are the remains of a church under ground, perhaps the same that traveUers represent as having been built by the empress Helena, and as being the re ceptacle of corpses that are thrown into it from a hole in the top, and consumed in the space of for ty-eight hours. We did not observe any bones, but the practice may be now discontinued. The west end is formed of the natural rock, and the arches of the roof are out of their proper level Further on, there are large cisterns, of separate stones, connected with the water-course. The vaUey is crossed by two strong ramparts, built of wrought stones, over which the road passes to wards Bethlehem. They were probably erected to preserve the water that flows in this dhection from the hills around. They are undoubtedly of ancient construction, and may be the place to which Hezekiah brought the upper water-course of Gihon. The walls of the city are here built up with a strong mole, and have a more formidable appearance than in any other part. We have now completed the circuit of the city, and may return home by the Jaffa gate, from whence the course of our observations commenced. The range of the Mount of OHves is seen from almost every part of the city. The highest part may be nearly half a mile from the walls, opposite the temple. It is not much higher than the most elevated parts of the city, from winch it is divided by a deep ravine. The tessera used in ancient times to form mosaic floors are found here, as weU as in other parts of the suburbs of the city. The 5th and 10th legions encamped upon this moun tain during the siege. The ascent is gradual. It has three summits, the furthest of which is over the vfllage of Siioam, and is composed of bare rock, in which many cisterns are cut. The mid dle summit is the highest, and it contains a mosque and some houses. The Turks show a chapel of an octagonal form, with small marble piUars, in the floor of which is a cavity, said to be the print of one of our Lord's feet, left at the time he as cended from this place, and the everlasting doors received the King of Glory. The pilgrims are eager to take casts of it in wax. It has at present no resemblance to a foot, but may have been much wom away by the kisses of its deluded visiters. The other footstep was formerly shown. It was an ancient belief that these marks 'could never be hid by a pavement, or covered by a roof. In the court are altars, at which the different bodies of Christians offer up theh prayers. From an ele vation not far distant, there is a commanding view of part of the vaUey of Jordan, the Dead Sea, and the mountains of Moab. At a lower range than the mosque, in the direction of the city, is a smaU vault, built of stone, and covered over with ce ment. The sides are divided into compartments by the ribs of a rude arch between each. It is supposed to have been used as a place for secret and idolatrous worship, but this is there conjec ture. It may be the cave referred to by Eusebius, as a place where our Saviour communicated to his disciples many mysteries. On the same hill are many broken columns. The other summit is covered by a coUection of stones, and there is a large cistern cut in the rock with several openings. The report was very loud, and the reverberation long continued, when we put our heads into one of them and shouted. The water at the bottom was perfectly clear. The fields on the slope are divided from each other by stone walls, and are principaUy sown with corn, interspersed with a few of the trees most common to the country. — Near the foot of the centre mountain, not far from the burial cave of the Virgin, a small plot of ground is walled off, said to be the garden of Gethsemanei It has a few ohve trees growing in it of venerable appearance. The exact limits may not be known, but it is highly probable that the hallowed spot was not far from this place. — We know that Christ went over the "brook 44 THE HOLY LAND. Kedron, where was a garden," and that this gar den was upon " the mount of OHves." Not con tent with probability, the monks pretend to show the exact spot where our Lord prayed, and where the disciples slept. The space in which the trai tor Judas walked, when he betrayed his divine master with a kiss, is walled off from the rest, and looked upon as accursed. Though ohve trees are found near other parts of the city, they are here so comparatively abundant, that the mount may stiU with propriety retain its ancient name. I brought away a few branches from the garden as remembrances of the place. The road to Bethany winds along the foot, and passes over the southern extremity. Jerusalem has lost its rank in pohtical import ance. It was once the head of a pachaHc, and until lately the office of governor was considered to be a respectable situation, and was entered upon with great pomp ; but it is now fiUed by a person from the immediate neighborhood, and of comparatively low rank. I was much surprised at the smaU number of soldiers in the city. The guard at the gates is not regularly maintained ; but such is the terror of the pacha's name, that the people are now kept in greater tranquility than they have been for ages, when it was thought necessary to support an immense miUtary force. It is difficult to state the population with any degree of certainty. From the observations I was enabled to make, though it was the busiest period of the year, and there were at least two thousand strangers present, I think that in the statements before the pubhc the truth is exceeded. I should estimate the numbers in this proportion: — 6000 Jews, 3000 Mussulmans, and 3000 Christians. — The interior of the city would accommodate 30,000 people upon its present plan. By far the largest assembly I saw, was on the slopes of the bill near St. Stephen's gate, on the morning that the go vernor and his guard accompanied'the pUgrims to the Jordan. Jerusalem is one of the duUest places I ever entered, and if the traveUer did not come here to converse with the dead, rather than the Hving, he would be much disappointed. It has no commerce, few manufactures, and when the pilgrims are ab sent, little intercourse with other people or cities. There are three descriptions of persons within its walls, all of whom have a rooted antipathy to each other. The Jew despises alike the Mussulman and the Christian, and regards them both as in truders upon the soU given to his own nation by God. The Mussulman, with a consciousness of greater pohtical dignity, and with a supposed free dom from the degrading superstitions that the others practise, looks upon himself as so far above the Israelite dog and the Nazarite kaffer, that he would not wilHngly aUow them to tread the same earth, or breathe the same ah. The Christian, with equal pride, curses the hand of the Islam oppressor, under which he constantly writhes, and turns from the child of Abraham as from one who would defile his purity, or steal his purse. Ne cessity obliges all to come at times into contact, but there is no common interest in which they have all one heart and one wish. They worship in separate churches, though aU profess to caU upon God ; they Uve in separate quarters, though citizens of the same place ; and at theh homes they speak a different language, though inhabi tants of the same country. This is, indeed, the fact in almost every city of Syria, but in Jerusalem it appears with greater prominence, and strikes the mind with more melancholy force. The bazars are arched over, dark and gloomy, and are more like the aisles in some ruined and desolate monastery, than marts in which com merce is to be carried on, and wealth procured. — The pavement is of immense stones . In the goods exposed for sale there is nothing attractive, nor any attempt to display to advantage the few arti cles that are coUected together. There are a few mechanics, such as smiths, tinners, carpenters, saddlers, and shoemakers ; but no extensive sale rooms. The butchers exercise their calling in a manner more disgusting than I have elsewhere witnessed, and by their filthy habits contribute not a httle to the general offensiveness of the streets. Many of the bazars are partiaUy deserted, and as these places are made the receptacle of every nui sance, a mass of impure matter is daily accumu lating, that wiH soon render its removal out of the power of the supine authorities, and be the death of numbers who have to move in its desolating vicinity. To the sincere Christian, a residence in Jerusa lem is connected with many circumstances that wiH tend to depress his sotd, and remind him of the righteous judgments of God. He looks abroad, and the only men who assume an independent carriage, or present a respectable appearance, are without exception enemies of Christ. The two extremes meet, for we may look away from the man that rushes past on his fiery steed to the miserable being who crawls along in indigence, and he too cherishes an enmity, and an enmity stiU deeper, towards the same Redeemer. The Christians may profess an outward love to the blessed Name that the others reject as evil, but there is no communion with his Spirit, and the worship that they offer is offensive in his sight. — We may try to shroud ourselves from these dis tressing scenes, but sounds wUl fbUow us to our retirement. There is a call to worship at the shrine of Christ, but it is not the tone of the cheer ful beU ; it is a duU stroke upon a plank of wood, an acknowledgment of degradation, a voice that dares not to speak out lest the infidel should be roused, and as such more painful far than would be absolute silence. There is another can, pro fessing to invite men to worship God, but it is from the minaret of a mosque, and the name of the false prophet mingles in its cry, at such a place scarcely less startling than the sight of a spirit of darkness would be among the hierarchies of hea ven. The cry of the muezzin is always affecting, but when heard in Zion, as it passes from minaret to minaret, at the hour of prayer, and comes in loud accents through every part of the city, and is re-echoed from spots where He once taught who spake as never man spake, there is no soul that can listen to it without tears. THE HOLY LAND. 45 " Who but must weep ? ¦ For where, Above thy bulwarks fair, Once floated Judah's banners to the breeze, Shadowing thy fanes and palaces ; Now, with malignant beams, The lurid crescent gleams, And chills and blasts the springing sap of life ; O'er hordes of abject slaves, The bannaret of Mecca's prophet waves, And holds with truth and virtue ceaseless strife.1 Mrs. Bolmeb. The Jews occupy a portion of the city that bor ders upon the temple. They are said to be prin cipaUy old people, who come here to die. In the appearance of many of them I could not distin guish that pecuHarity of feature we are accustomed to attribute to theh nation ; but there are others who might sit to the painter, and theh portraits would be immediately recognized as intended for Moses or some of the other ancient worthies. — The women are fair, and less afraid to be seen of men than the other eastern females. The child ren are pretty : on being introduced, they kiss the hand of the visiter, and touch it with theh fore head. The houses of the more respectable per sons are clean, and the principal room has a divan with rich cushions and carpets. Many of the Jews have a synagogue in theh own house. I partook with them of the bread of the passover. — On the last day of the feast, I visited the principal synagogue. It is divided into many rooms, and is mean in its appearance. Service was performed in aU the apartments at the same time. There are both Spanish and German Jews, but the latter are comparatively few. There might be present about 600 men, a small proportion of the whole population, as there were many others assembled at the same time in private places of worship. — The women sat on the steps at the entrance, and in the outer court. The service was chaunted, in general by the voices of the whole assembly. — Nearly aU had books in theh hands, and they moved theh bodies to and fro continuaUy, in con formity as they say to the words of David : — " All my bones shall praise thee." It was mournful to see old men suddenly, and with an expression near to agony, lifting up theh long, thin, fleshless fin gers towards heaven, and crying aloud, as if to say, " Lord, how long ?" Some parts of the same ser vice have been performed in the same city, and in the same language, and by the same people, since its first erection, but how different was the sight now witnessed to that which was presented when Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, and they offered unto the Lord 22,000 oxen, and 120,- 000 sheep, at the dedication of the temple : and the people " blessed the king, and went unto theh tents joyful and glad of heart for aU the goodness that the Lord had done for David, his servant, and for Israel, his people." When shaU that Jesus, whom with wicked hands theh forefathers cruci fied and slew, be again declared unto them with power ? The Jews being now comparatively free from oppression, great numbers are flocking from aU parts, especiaUy from the northern states of Africa, towards the city, and there will probably soon be a greater number of the chUdren of Israel located in Jerusalem, than there has been at any given period since its destruction by the Romai' power. We had several conversations on religious suh jects, during our stay at Jerusalem, with different classes of individuals. It has been visited by Pro testant missionaries, and some have remained here a few months, but theh principal attention was of necessity directed towards the pilgrims, among whom they distributed many tracts and copies of the Scriptures. The brethren whom I accompa nied here, Messrs. Nicolaison and Thompson, took a house not far from the Jaffa gate, and intended to remove here with theh famines, and make it theh permanent residence. They had hopes of being able to establish a school. They need no'. apprehend any danger from the government, and individuals are kept in, too much fear to do them harm. In the city I retained the European dress: and it may now be worn writh safety. The only insults we met with were from women and chil dren, who caUed us monks, pilgrims, Jews, dogs, and devils, and would sometimes spit upon the ground as we passed. The mount of OHves wiH ever be the favorite resort of the Christian, when he wishes to drink in the inspiration of the place, and to draw wisdom from the instructive pages of its eventful history. We wiH pass over Kedron, and tread on this holy ground. In aU other parts of the city there is doubt, and in too many disgust, but when standing upon this famous eminence, it is as if we Hstened to the words of some messenger of truth, furnished from heaven with sure and certain evidence of his high commission. There have been those who have doubted of the truth of prophecy, but let them accompany us in our present exercise, and they can doubt no more.. "Doubt no more," did I say? Nay, they may stUl doubt, for men in this very spot have doubted of miracles that they saw performed with theh own eyes, and prophecy is only the standing miracle of the present and future ages of the church, that grows in power as it grows in years. "When we read the account given by Josephus, of the immense stones that were used in some parts of the city, borne out by the words of the disciples, " Master, see what manner of stones, and what buildings are here !" and then turn to the bold language uttered by our Saviour in re ference to the same, "Seest thou these great buildings ; there sh.aU not be one stone left upon another, that shall not be thrown down :"— we almost tremble to think, lest the words of the prophecy should have been overcharged in the fervor of inspiration, and lest we should find, upon a personal examination of the facts, that they are in some degree contrary to the declarations of Scripture. Our fears may cease, for nothing can be more true. We know from undisputed au thority, that the prophecy was HteraUy fulfilled at the siege of Titus ; and looking now on the city as it Hes beneath our feet, we cannot point out one 46 THE HOLY LAND. single building, or part of a building, not even so insignificant a ruin as two stones together, that the most zealous antiquarian can suppose to have existed in the time of Christ. Other cities have been sacked and partiafly destroyed, but the ruin has not been total. I have seen the Parthenon at Athens, the Colosseum at Rome, and there are temples stUl standing even at Thebes : here rage hath done its worst, and there is no present edifice over which the Jews can weep, and say, Our fa thers reared these walls. The sepulchres alone have come down to our time, but they are hewn out of the rock and not buUt, and it is only with the stone that contains them they can perish. So pitiless has been the angel of destruction, as he swept from the face of heaven the guilty city, so complete the exercise of his commission, that were it not for these certain memorials, we might al most doubt the identity of the place, and for this purpose what could be more appropriate than tombs, once consecrated by affection and tears, but now stripped of theh love-tokens and orna ments, and thrown open to the careless tread of the passing traveUer? The site of Jerusalem is pecuharly adapted to have appeared in beauty, when its hulls were ter raced after the manner of the east, and were ver dant with the oHve, the fig-tree, and the vine ; but that which was then its beauty now adds to its deformity, and the bare and blasted rocks seem to say that God in his anger has passed by, and cursed the city for its sins. There are rocks, but they have no subHmity ; hills, but they have no beauty ; fields and gardens, but they have no rich ness ; vaUeys, but they have no fertflity ; a distant sea, but it is the Dead Sea. No sound is now heard, but that of the passing wind where the au dible voice of Jehovah once spoke in thunder ; the sky is now cloudless and serene, where the angel of the Lord was once seen in glory ; the paths are now deserted, where the tribes once approached from the most distant parts, to the festivals of the temple, the old man, and the venerable matron, and the beloved son, and the beautiful daughter, weeping for very gladness as they came ; and in that city, where once was the monarch, • his brow encircled with the golden diadem, and in his train the noble and the wise, there is now no higher power than a delegated governor, and its own people are the most despised of men. There is no part of the city that has not its own separate history, each of which is without a paral lel. Upon that distant mount Titus encamped, and it was there that his active mind planned the stratagems of the siege. Upon that nearer plain tho Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, the caHph of Mahomet, the Christian crusaders, the Saracens, and the Turks, have aU encamped in battle array, and displayed theh ban ners before the sun. The guUt and the woes of the city itself are of too awful a description to be written in words. The aggregate of its groans, and tears, and blood, is too immense to be calcu lated. Death has here held his richest festivals, and has caUed with glee to his crimson banquet, the dog from the plain, and the worm from the earth, and the vulture from the sky. But it was here too that death was overcome, and the victory wrested from his fatal grasp. In some part of that area, Jesus Christ suffered for our sins. We must not for a moment associate his sufferings with that of the sinful men who have here perish ed ; he suffered in our stead, but we are not to look upon the thorns of his crown or the nails of his cross as the sole ministers of his sorrow. He gave his soul an offering for sin. Without pry ing with too curious an eye into the particulars of place or pain, enough is it for me, that my soul was there ransomed, and that I may now be cleans ed from aU sin by his blood. No city upon earth has been so guUty as Jerusalem, yet it was here that our Lord offered himself as a sacrifice for re- belHous man, and when the offers of salvation were commanded to be made to aU the world, so far from being excluded from the hope of forgiveness, it was here, in the centre of iniquity, that the apos tles were told to begin the exereise of theh gra cious commission. Who then need despair? The history of the temple alone would detain us long to trace the whole of the events we know concerning it. It was the place chosen by God for the placing of his name. On that spot, to which the sound of our voice might be heard, the temple rose in silence, ribbed with cedar, and adorned with gold, and the glory of the Lord fiUed its courts. In the splendor of its worship might once be seen the priest in his gorgeous robes, and the various vessels of untold value. The solemn ritual, the swelling music, the grateful incense, and the prayers of a thousand votaries, ascended from thence to heaven. The sacrifice was there slain upon the altar, an emblem of "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Its treasures were the ark of the covenant, with the rod that budded, the pot of manna, the brazen ser pent lifted up in the wflderness, and a copy of the law. There were also the Urim and Thummim, the sacred fire upon the altar Hghted from heaven, and the divine presence in the holy of hoHes. In that court Solomon offered up his consecration prayer, and blessed the people, " with his hands spread up to heaven ;" and along its paths, kings, and priests, and prophets, and apostles, and mar tyrs, have come to suppHcate before the Lord. — In after times, when this erection had been de stroyed, amidst the opposition of the enemy, an other edifice was built about which we have this affecting testimony : " Many of the priests and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before theh eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discover the noise of the shout of jot from the noise of the weep ing of the people." Though in metals and gems the glory of this latter house might be less than that of the former, in essential glory it was far greater, for its courts were visited by " God mani fest in the flesh." In-the siege under Titus, the temple was the principal scene of battle from its great strength. The Roman general was wishful to preserve it, but God had ordained otherwise, and a soldier having thrown into it a Hghted brand, it was speedily consumed. It was then their house, forsaken by God. The sun stiU shines upon the same spot, and there is a temple, a book, and worshippers, but the temple is a mosque of the false prophet, the book is the Koran, and the THE HOLY LAND. 47 worshippers are the haughty Moslem, " The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to her solemn feasts : all her gates are desolate From the daughter of Zion aU beauty is departed. .... She spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her Is this the city that men caU .the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" There is a voice comes from the ruin, and whispers of hope, and teUs us of happier times. The restoration of the Jews may not take place in aU that fulness that some have supposed, but we cannot doubt that the city, now " trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gen tiles be fcdfUled," in a spiritual sense at least wifl arise again from the ashes, and be as a queen among men ; the now rejected Saviour wUl then be received as the Messiah, and the now despised Israehtes wiH be among the honorable of the earth. Let us therefore pray for the prosperity of Jerusa lem, for they that love her shall prosper'. The mount upon which we stand is, if possible, stiU more interesting in the details of its story. There are yet a few ohve-trees that maintain their ground, though in nation, language, and re ligion, theh owners have once and again been changed. Some of them appear very ancient, with gnarled branches and hoUow trunks, and though not so old as Christianityj they may be lineally descended, by not more than one remove, from the trees that here flourished when Christ trod upon the same spot. In this direction David retired from the city on the rebeUion of Absalom, with the priests and the Levites bearing the ark of the covenant of God. " And David went up by the ascent of mount OHvet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went bare foot : and aH the people that were with him, co vered every man his head, and they went up, weep ing as they went up." This mount was the favor ite place of rethement to our Saviour and his dis ciples from the noise and distraction of the city, of which we have many evidences in the gospels. " As he sat upon the mount of OHves, over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, TeU us, when shaU these things be ? At night, he went out, and abode in the mount that is caUed the mount of OHves — Jesus went unto the mount of Olives And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives." In passing to Bethany, where Jesus appears generally to have lodged during his visits to the city, he would have to cross this mountain. It was probably along that path, which stfll leads from the viUage, that he rode in triumph, attended by acclaiming thousands ; and at that turn in the road, where the city in all its magnitude bursts at once upon the sight, that he wept. " When he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! But now they are hid from thy eyes." Beneath us is the garden of Gethsemane. Let us here kneel meekly upon our knees, for it is sacred ground. Here Jesus prayed, and " being in an agony he prayed more earnestly, and he sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground." In such a place, how deep appears the love of God, how unfathomable the mystery of our redemption, how infinite the debt of our gratitude ; but how cold our own affections, how earthly our desires, how languid our efforts, how small the sacrifices we are willing to make for Christ. " And shall we then for ever live At this poor dying rate ? Our love so faint, so cold to Thee, And thine to us so great ! " Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, With all thy quickening powers ; Come, shed abroad the Saviour's love, And that shall kindle ours." Above us, is the place of the Ascension. " And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he Hfted up his hands, and blessed them : and it came to pass while he blessed them that he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven — Then re turned they unto Jerusalem, from the mount caU ed Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey." The heavens received his glori fied form from the sight of his sorrowing disciples, and he is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God, " to be a Piince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins." We cannot now look upon the actual body wound ed for our transgressions, but we can come boldly to the throne of grace, and receive freely, without money and without price, the pardon of sin, and be fiUed with aU the fulness of God. We may now retire from this memorable posi tion. It appears to us as if invested with attri butes that are not of earth, Hire some land that is midway between earth and heaven, the story of which obtains an equal prominence in the records of angels as in the more perishing pages of our own poets and historians. It has been said of the reflective mind, that it " Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." And admitting the general truth and beauty of the sentiment, we may ask, what trees can discourse with such eloquence as the venerable olives in the garden of Gethsemane ? what brook unfolds a volume Hke that of Kedron, and what stones can preach sermons so powerful as the masses scatter ed at the foot of mount OHvet, that have been hurled from theh foundations by Jehovahy monu ments at once of his anger against sin, and that the words of Scripture are the words of the Hving God ? In taking the last look of the city, we may pray, that as we now behold from hence the Jeru salem desolate, we may one day behold " the holy city, new Jerusalem," the gates of which are of one pearl, and the streets of pure gold, where God shaU wipe away aU tears from aU eyes, and there shaU be no more death. JERICHO.r-THE JORDAN.— THE DEAD SEA.— BETHANY. We mounted our horses soon after sunrise, April 16, to accompany the pilgrims to the river Jordan, and found them assembled near St. Stephen's 48 THE HOLY LAND. gate, awaiting the arrivalof the governor and his guard, who soon afterwards made their appearance, and had with them two banners and a rude band of music. The slopes that overlook the Kedron, both on the side of the city and of mount OHvet, were crowded with people who had come to wit ness the procession. When we reached the bed of the brook, we were in a vast amphitheatre, and looking upwards, we found ourselves surrounded by long lines of females, row above row, aU in white dresses, and the sights, the shouts, the mu sic, and the freshness of the morning breeze, tended to raise the spirits into gladness, and give animation to the otherwise desolate rocks : but a single stumble of the horse's foot soon dissipated the ihusion, for it had struck upon a lettered stone, and we were passing over the graves of the dead. The thoughts were carried back at once to the olden time, and after all, what was this to- the spectacle the same site must then have presented, when the sound of the sflver trumpets sweUed to the sky, and Jerusalem poured forth a free and happy people from her gates, and the destroyer's hand was far away from her terraces and towers, and the mercy of God rested upon her tribes. The guard observed no kind of order, nor were they distinguished by any particular costume. They fired their muskets without ceasing, which rendered them dangerous, even to theh friends, as they always fire with ball, and are among the most careless feUows in existence. I observed one of the groups of women thrown suddenly into confusion, and smUed at what I supposed were needless fears : but one of them had been shot dead upon the spot by accident, and I was the next individual to the man who had committed the deed. When we had proceeded a httle distance, the guard waited for the rest of the pUgrims, but we thought it better to push onwards, that we might avoid the general confusion. We passed through Bethany, from whence we descended in to a narrow vaUey, at the entrance of which is a fountain, where it is probable our Saviour and his disciples often refreshed themselves on theh way to and from Jericho. The scenery is wilder, the hills are more preci pitous, and the ravines are deeper, than in the road by which we approached Jerusalem from Jaffa, but there is here more cultivation, and the rocks are covered with richer verdure. As we proceed ed, the dangers of the road gradually opened upon us, and we were soon surrounded by desolation. It haB been weU observed, that a more appropri ate place could not have been chosen as the scene of the parable of the good Samaritan, compared with which, as to simpHcity, and beauty, and power, aU the far-famed allegories of the east ap pear only like stories to amuse children, whilst the moral of this is divine. It is easy to taUc about mercy and compassion, but in what shaster, in what chapter of the Koran, is the duty to our neighbor exhibited in a Hght that strikes upon the soul with equal force ? It makes the best of us, when reading it, feel ashamed that this sacred law has been broken by us in so many instances. The hearts of the Levite and priest must indeed have been caUous, that they could refuse the offices of charity under circumstances so distress ing ; and the piety of the good Samaritan seems here to shine with a more beautiful lustre, as he was at a distance from his own city, among strangers, seen by no one who could teU it in the circles from whence alone applause was grateful, and the wounded man belonged to a people who regarded every individual of his own nation with the bitterest scorn. About three hours from the city there are the ruins of a convent and khan, erected upon the spot where it is said the inn of the parable formerly stood. The monks have taken it for granted that the facts actuaUy occur red, which is not improbable, though to the proba- bflities of the case they pay httle regard, as in some place not far from this, they show the tomb of Moses, though he was not permitted to enter the promised land, and " no man knoweth of his sepul chre unto this day." The neighborhood is still infested with thieves, and had we been alone, or had we stepped but a little way out of the com mon path, it would soon have been 6aid of each of us ; " a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and feU among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and depart ed, leaving him half dead." There would I fear have been this difference, that no Samaritan would have passed that way ; to have compassion and bind up the wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and to set us on his own beast, and bring us to an inn, and on the morrow when he departed, to take out two pence, and give them to the host, saying Take care of him ; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I wiH repay thee. From this place the rocks are principaUy calca reous, with scarcely any vegetation, though the rains had only just ceased. The precipices along which we traveUed were steep and dangerous ; in one place the road has been cut through the rock ; and in some directions the hills were above us threatening the traveUer with destruction by theh projecting cliffs. In two hours more we saw be neath us the plain of Jordan, nearly the whole of it barren, and on the opposite side the mountains of Moab. The question was asked, almost unvolun- tarily, Can this be the same scene that Moses saw from the top of yon Pisgah, which the imagination paints as aU that is fah, and lovely, and luxuriant, and which was showed him expressly by the Lord as a last privilege upon earth before he entered heaven? The sins of the Jews have changed the scene ; and every rock and every vale seems to be possessed by a spirit that year after year and century after century mutters aloud one fearful lamentation, an echo of the words of God : " Curs ed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field : cursed shaU be thy basket and thy store : cursed shaU be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep : cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out." We soon reached Jericho, where we sheltered ourselves under the leaves of a spreading fig-tree, near a tower said to be built over the spot where the house of Zaccheusformerly stood. The present town does not consist of more than thirty houses, of most miserable appearance, each of which is defended by a barrier of dried thorns, and a stran ger might easfly suppose of the whole town, that it is merely a heap of sticks and dead branches of THE HOLY LAND. 49 trees coUected out of the plain to be burnt. The season was here far advanced, and the heat many degrees greater than at Jerusalem. There are one or two palms, the only representatives of the large forests that formerly existed. I pur chased a bottle of the ofl called by the natives zhaccum, thought to be the famous balsam of the ancients, and the origin of the friar's balsam so much used at present. Its virtues have been tried since my return, and the effect was such, that in the strong language of my informant, it was Httle less than miraculous. It was at one period in so great demand, that it sold for its weight in silver. The neighborhood of Jericho is called by Josephus, " the most fruitful country of Judea, which bears a vast number of palm-trees, besides the balsam tree, whose sprouts they cut with sharp stones, and at the incisions they gather the juice which drops down like tears." The palm-trees were given by Marc Antony, in the extravagance of his love, to Cleopatra, the beautiful queen of Egypt. Jericho is caUed in Scripture "the city of pahns," it was the first place taken from the Canaanites by Joshua on this side of the Jordan, and at one period it was inhabited by 12,000 priests, and was the second city of Judea. It had a royal palace, in which died Herod the Great. There was here a school of the prophets, and it was blessed by a visit from Christ, who healed here two blind men. The governor and some of the more respecta ble pflgrims had tents pitched upon the plain, and towards evening we joined the multitude for the sake of protection, and slept upon the ground in the open ah. A great number of Bedouins were called in from the surrounding country, under the pretence of forming a guard, but in reahty to pre vent them from becoming our plunderers. They kindled a large fire, and danced round the flame, shouting aloud, and clapping their hands together with great force. It was a beautiful star-Hght night, without a cloud. The sky was one clear blue, and rested on aU sides upon mountains that presented theh forms in rugged outline, and of the darkest possible shade, the circle of which was only broken towards the south by an expanse of stiU water, forming the Dead Sea. When the Hghts were aH put out, the sounds were all sflent, and one after another of the pilgrims was stretch ed upon the ground, as if in the sleep of death, un til there was only one soHtary being seen wander ing about, just to be distinguished in the gloom ; he seemed Hke the last man seeking in vain for a companion that yet had life, and then in his disap- pointmemt passing towards the Dead Sea to drink the waters of oblivion, after which the same stfll- ness and darkness were to continue undisturbed for ever. The associations of the plain, indepen dent of its actual appearance, were among the most interesting that could be conceived. The waters to the south brought to the remembrance the visits of the angels to Abraham and Lot, and the burning of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The lulls to the west included Nebo, Peor, and Pisgah, and it was impossible to look at ¦ them without thinking of the wanderings of the Israel ites, the altars of Barak, the prophecies of Balaam, and the death of Moses. The river Jordan told of the dividing of its waters by Joshua, FHjah, and I 53—7 EHsha, the passage of the Israehtes, the cure of Naaman, the baptism of Christ, and the preaching of John. Upon the near bank was GilgaL where Joshua set up the twelve stones, the children of Israel were the second time circumcised, the manna ceased, and the people first ate of the old corn of the land ; here too the angel of the Lord, in the time of the Judges, came up to speak unto the chUdren of Israel, and they lifted up theh voices and wept ; and to this place Samuel came from year to year, that he might hold the annual assize of justice. In the plain, the patriarchs had pitched theh tents ; the battle of the four kings against five was fought, in which Lot was taken prisoner ; David smote 18,000 men of the Syri ans, Amaziah slew 10,000 men of Edom, and Ze- dekiah was taken prisoner by the princes of Baby lon. Near the miserable village that presented itself, the waUs of Jericho had faUen down at the noise of the voices of the people and the trumpets of the priests ; there was a school of the prophets, EHjah and EHsha performed many miracles, Zac- cheus entertained our Lord, and Bartimeus was restored to sight. It could not be far distant from us that EHsha was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, when he was anointed prophet by EHjah at the command of God. Towards the north, were memorials of the cities of Gibeon, the siege of Ai, the sin and punishment of Achan, and the feeding of EHjah by the ravens, near the brook Cherith. To the mountains at the east it is supposed that Jesus was led up of the Spirit to be tempted of the devU, and that it was from the nearest sum mit, that Satan showed him " aU the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. " The sky above us was not without its share of interest, as from thence was the translation of EHjah to heaven in a chariot of fire ; and it was in the same expanse that the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended like a dove, lighting upon Jesus ; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am weU pleased." These, and many other circumstances of a simi lar description, had all taken place within the bound of our vision, and it was no wonder that in such a place one of my companions was unable to sleep during the whole night. The camp was in motion long before day-break, and the pilgrims hurried towards the Jordan. It was quite dark, and there were only eight or ten torches to several thousand people. In this un certain Hght we appeared Hke a multitude that no man could number, wandering among the shades. We could easily imagine how every man's sword might be raised against his feUow, as in case of an attack it would have been impossible to distin guish friend from foe. We arrived on the banks of the river a Httle before sunrise. The pilgrims immediately rushed into the water, men, women, and children, in the utmost confusion, and the scene was Httle calculated to produce the hallow ed affections of the original institution. The clothes in which they are immersed are after wards regarded as sacred, not again to be used until they are dressed for the grave. Whilst I was looking on, two men, a Russian and a Greek, were overpowered by the torrent, and as neither of them could swim, they clung to each other, and were soon under the water. The Russian was 50 THE HOLY LAND. entangled among the roots of the trees, and rose to the surface, but though he seized some over hanging branches with the grasp of a perishing man, the current was too strong, and he was again carried away by the stream. He was how ever saved at some distance lower down, but the Greek was never seen after he first sunk. I was told that a Turk was also drowned at the same place, but I did not witness the circumstance. It excited Httle attention among the people, and they continued to enter the water with the same fear lessness as before. The Jordan, though the principal river of Ca naan, is but an inconsiderable stream, at this place not more than 20 yards across, muddy, and very rapid. Its whole course is about 130 miles : it rises about four mfles north-east of Banias, passes through the waters of Merom and the lake of Tiberias, and discharges itself with great im petuosity into the Dead Sea. The banks are about twelve feet above the water. On the east ern side there is a lower bank in addition, covered with reeds, wfllows, and oleanders, in which the wild beasts find a shelter in the dry season, but are forced from theh refuge at the swelling of the river by the rains. The Jordan overflowed all its banks aU the time of harvest, in the days of Joshua, a circumstance which never occurs at present. I know it is said that the lower bank alone is here meant by the sacred writer, but why' then does he expressly say "all its banks?" There must therefore have been a greater quan tity of rain in former times than now, which ac counts for the apparent discrepancy between the present state of the land, and the glowing descrip tions of the prophets. The IsraeKtes had many promises given unto them, that if they obeyed the commandments of the Lord theh God they should receive the rain in due season, and a scarcity of rain was to be the punishment of theh disobe dience. The plain of Jordan during the summer heats cannot be better described than in the pro phecy of Moses : " The heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shaU be iron." It was long doubted by what medium the waters of the Jordan were discharg ed previously to the formation of the Salt Sea, but recent discoveries have led to the supposition that they were carried into the Red Sea through its eastern gulf. The place at which the pilgrims bathed is about four mfles from the mouth of the river, and fhe spot where they suppose that Christ was baptized by John. It appears that after the temptation of our Lord, John was baptizing "in Bethabara, be yond Jordan." The word Bethabara is said to mean in Hebrew, "the place of passing over," and in Scripture there is frequent mention of a common ford or ferry, by which, in times very distant from each other, the people were accus tomed to pass to the opposite bank. This ford was "right against Jericho." The exact place of our Lord's baptism is not stated in the New Tes tament ; but as some of the chcumstances men tioned by the other evangelists as immediately previous to the baptism, are said by John to have taken place at Bethabara, we may safely conclude that it was at this place the sacred rite was re ceived by Christ. The situation was admirably chosen for the purpose, as there must of necessity have been a great number of persons constantly passing from one region to the other, and the gradual slope of the bank, and the comparative shaUowness of the water, would render the exer cise less dangerous than in places where the stream was rapid and the bank precipitous. It was near the same spot that the children of Israel passed over the river, and thus the ark of the covenant must have rested near the place where Christ was baptized, who is received as "the mercy-seat," by which the children of the adop tion now receive power to enter into the promised land of the heavenly Canaan. The spot chosen by the Greeks is some miles to the southward o. the bank opposite Jericho. From the Jordan we accompanied some Enghsh traveUers to the Dead Sea, and were attended by a guard of soldiers. The hills we passed have much the same appearance as those in the vaUey of the NUe, and are equally barren. As we ap- proached the shore, all traces of vegetation began to cease, and the last mile was over sand, upon which were incrustations of salt. There was a gloom over the sea, which continued during the whole of our stay in its neighborhood, and pre vented us from seeing more than four miles over its surface. It is bounded on the east and west by mountains, and in this part, which is a kind d bay, may be about twelve mfles across. The beach is covered with logs of wood, and other matters, brought down by the Jordan, and as I observed these only close to the water's edge, I should not have supposed, from inspection— though aU tra veUers seem assured of the fact — that it rises and falls at certain seasons. There was a very gentle ripple upon the surface, but not the slightest ap pearance of a wave dashing on the shore : its ap pearance may be best compared to an immense sheet of ice when seen through a fog. It must not be supposed that this stillness is constant, though Tacitus says " the wind raises no waves there," as at the time it was visited by some friends of mine, the waves were so high that they were afraid to bathe. We observed almost close to the water a pile of large stones, that appear to have been squared, and some have supposed that they once belonged to the cities of the plain. The fa ble is exploded that no bird can fly over it, as we saw several skimming its surface with as much apparent ease as in any other place, but we ob served no signs of fish, and I am inclined to the beHef that there are none in it. Upon the shore were a number of shells, but this proves nothing, as I have seen the same in aU parts of Judea, and they are probably brought down by the river or washed from the mountains. It was now our turn to bathe, and perhaps there might, be in our minds something of the same feeling as that for which a Httle time before we had been accusing the pil grims. The water was so buoyant that, in swim ming, we had great difficulty to keep our legs under it, and I had to hold my head back like a sphinx, in order to breathe. It was so dense, that we could not swim to any distance without using great exertion. We could remain in the water without the least motion, and did not sink- I could not dive, though more expert swimmers might perhaps succeed. The taste is most nau- THE HOLY LAND. 51 seous, and in places where my skin was exco riated by exposure to the sun, the smart was ex cessive. The skin had an uncomfortable sensa tion for several days after, and it required an im mensity of soap and water to free us from the par ticles we had imbibed. The water is clear, and it is said to contain one-fourth of its weight of salts. The surface is said by Josephus to change its appearance three times every day, according to the dfrection of the sun's rays. He speaks also of there being ships upon it, which shows that its consuming power is not so great as some have imagined. In 1818, some Enghsh traveUers made the circuit of the sea, and by theh account, it is not more than thirty miles in length. I have visited many scenes of desolation, but this surpasses them aU ; yet this very spot, we are assured by Scripture, was once " as the gar den of the Lord, like the land of Egypt." The sea is caUed in sacred writ, the Salt Sea, the Sea of the Plain, and the East Sea. It occupies what was formerly the valley of Siddim, in which stood the five cities of the plain, Sodom, Gomorrah, Ad- mah, Zeboim, and Bala. These guUty cities were utterly destroyed by the righteous vengeance of the Lord, and their very sites have been hid from the face of heaven by waters that are alone among all the waters of the world. The awful prophecy of Moses must needs, when considered amid the scene that here presents itself, bring fear to the. mind, of the sinner, and conviction to that of the skeptic. " The stranger that shall come from a far land shaU say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses, which the Lord hath lain upon it, and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth there on, Hke the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath ; even all nations shah say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto the land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men shaU say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of theh fathers." Deut. xxv. 22, 25. The Israehtes re fused to listen to the warning voice, and the pro phecy has been fulfilled in the utmost force of its terrible import. " It is a fearful thing to faU into the hands of the Hving God." The guard hurried us away from the sea, as they pretended to be afraid of the Bedouins. We returned by a different route. The surface of the ground is a mere incrustation, and as the feet of our horses went through it, they were in constant danger of a fall. There is a low shrub very com mon, much resembling thyme, with a beautiful small flower. It was not my good fortune to meet with any of the far-famed apples of Sodom, nor with any thing that I could suppose had given rise to the account. Nearer the camp the ground is marked in a most singular manner by the ants, so as to resemble the lines and chcles drawn in plans of fortification. The pilgrims were aU in quietness by the time we joined them. I was de lighted, whilst reclining under the shade of a thorn bush, to hear the voice of the cuckoo, after an in terval of years : it brought home-scenes very powerftuly to my remembrance. Towards evening we took a walk upon the plain. On the N. W. of Jericho there is a high moun tain, very precipitate, from the summit of which it is said that Satan showed our Lord the kingdoms of the world at the temptation. The ruins of a convent are seen at the top, and in the sides are many ranges of caves, one above the other, now inhabited by Bedouins, some of whom came out, and said they would aUow us to approach, on the promise of a present. I went part of the way to wards them, but as no one would foUow me, there was no alternative but to return: There are the remains of a khan and castle at the foot of the hfll. It is thought by many that the ancient Jericho stood in this dhection ; indeed, the conjecture is highly probable, as Josephus says, " It stands in a plain, but a naked and barren mountain of very great length hangs over it." — There are several large tumuH. Near one of them is a fine fountain of water, which there can be Httle doubt is the same that EHsha purified, at the request of the sons of the prophets. Josephus says of this fountain, that " it arises near the old city." A tree spreads its branches over the wa ter, and it contains some smaU fishes. The stream irrigates several acres of land, that produce doura and other kinds of grain, and appear from their richness like an Oasis in the desert. It has for merly been carried to considerable distances by aqueducts, of which there are still many remains, and over a ravine near the camp is one of nine arches, that might stiU be used. The thorn is abundant, and affords shelter for many small birds. We slept at night as before. Our servant having accidentaUy set fire to the dry grass, the flame spread several miles, and produced a fine effect. The camp broke up about midnight to return to Jerusalem. The few torches tended only to dazzle our sight, and render darkness visible. The road was dangerous by day, and to pass it in the night seemed to be an absolute impossibflity. I was afraid that the people would hurry forward, and not seeing what was before them, would pre cipitate one another into the deep ravines. This was happfly prevented by the narrowness of the road at the entrance, for as only one person could pass at a time, the crowd was kept back, and as we were among the first, it was no hinderance to us, and the road was afterwards comparatively free. There was another stream of people that proceeded by a different range of hiUs, but we could hear theh shouts, and see theh torches across the dark vaUey between us. The Bedouins had lighted a fire near the khan of the good Sa maritan, round which many of them were sitting upon parts of the ruins. When we approached, as fuel, was heaped on, and the flame rose for a moment, we could trace theh forms ; and as we saw them in their wUdness, with their firelocks in theh hands, and the knives in theh girdles reflect ing the flashes of the fire, we could not but feel thankful that their obedience was secured. I was not sorry when daylight began to appear. The view of Bethany was pleasing, the sides of the hfll upon which it is situated being cultivated in terraces. We went a Httle way from the road to visit the tomb of Lazarus, a cave, and descended to it by twenty-five steps. The houses of Lazarus and Mary Magdalene are also shown. The iden tity of those places may be fabulous, but it is no 52 THE HOLY LAND. fable that Jesus here wept, and that he is stfll moved with the same sympathy, mercy, and affec tion. " For we have not an high-priest which cannot be touched with the feehng of our infirmi ties ; but was in aU points tempted Hke as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Heb. iv. 15, 16. The viUage is now inconsidera ble, but the situation is most agreeable. The view of Jerusalem, with which we were soon after wards presented, was more imposing than usual, as the rising sun was shining with great brilHancy upon the walls, domes, and minarets. The hills were again covered with females to witness the return of the pilgrims ; but we turned off near Siioam to avoid the confusion, and entered the city through the gate of Zion. BETHLEHEM. I and my servant rode over to Bethlehem, April 20, a distance of about six mfles. It was with some difficulty that I made my way through the gate of the city, as the avenue leading to it was crowded by the horses and camels of the pUgrims, who were detained by the soldiers until theh pass ports could be examined. A Turk took hold of my horse's bridle, and did aU he could to assist me, perhaps with the expectation of receiving a pre sent for his services. We crossed over the upper part of the valley of Gihon, and having ascended the opposite hfll by a rocky path, found ourselves upon a cultivated plain, which extends about four mfles, and is the only pleasant portion of road I had seen near Jerusalem, aU the other paths being either situated on a decHvity, or obstructed by rocks, or covered with loose stones. There are many erections in the plain, weH buUt, with large stones, some of them having ornamented windows : they might pass for watch-towers, or castles ; but I was told that they are all tombs. There are others of a similar description in the plain on the north of the city, but they are more ruinous. At the convent of Mar EHas, near which the cultiva tion ceases, there is a well of most excellent water, and the road then passes over surfaces of rock. The mountains of Moab were seen upon our left, and between them and us the gloom indicated the near position of the Dead Sea, but I could not from any part perceive its surface. We passed what is caUed the tomb of Rachael, which may possibly be the place of her interment, but the building is modern. There is a conical hfll in the direction of the sea, which is supposed by some traveUers to have been a volcano, and the instru ment by which the cities of the plain were des troyed ; but a friend of mine, who visited it, as sured me that there is no appearance of a crater near it, and that on its summit there is a very ancient ruin. It may be the Massada of Josephus, situated on a steep rock, which was fortified by Jonathan, the Asmonean, and rendered impregna ble by Herod. It was taken possession of by a noted band of assassins, and when they in theh turn were besieged, they slew each other by lot, and the last survivor set fire to the castle. The neighborhood of Bethlehem produces the oHve and fig, in comparative abundance, with the trees planted in terraces. The situation of the place would be agreeable, if the country over which it looks were brought under cultivation, or . planted with trees. The valley around it is not large, nor is the hfll elevated upon which it stands, as it is in " the hiU country," and the summits of , many other hills are seen from it, at nearly the same elevation. j The interesting transactions related with so much simpHcity in the book of Ruth, took place in this neighborhood. . It was in the gate of Bethle hem that Boaz sat, when his kinsman came by, unto whom he said, " Ho such a one, turn aside, sit down here : and he turned aside and sat down ;" and then before ten men, elders of the city, he redeemed the possession of Naomi, and received with it the hand of Ruth, the affectionate Moabi- tess, who had said unto her mother-in-law, " Thy people shaU be my people, and thy God, my God." The sweet singer of Israel upon these hills tended his flocks, and here have been heard the soft tones of his harp, and the glad breathings of his voice, as he caUed upon aU creation to praise the name of the Lord. It was in one of these vaUeys that the glory of the Lord appeared unto the shepherds by night, when they heard the rapturous music of the heavenly host, as they ushered in the Saviour's birth with a song, the appropriate burden of which was glory, and peace, and good-wiU. In aU these coasts mothers have wept over theh murdered infants, refusing to be comforted, when the sword of Herod was red with blood, and every stain was from the blood of 100006006*. It is almost impos sible to visit these scenes without referring back to the period when they afforded materials for some of the most beautiful compositions ever writ ten by man, even when under divine inspiration. The heavens, as before, declare the glory of God, and the firmament, in characters as clear as ever, showeth his handy work ; but it would be like a mockery of mirth to call upon these barren hills, or desolate valleys, or deserted streams, now to rejoice, for if it were in theh power to take to themselves words and reply, they would answer, " How shaU we sing the Lord's song under the rule of the heathen oppressor?" The poetry of the land has gone, but the voice of instruction has taken its place, and seems to say to the Christian, in whose heart the Redeemer of Bethlehem again tabernacles in mercy, " Let him that most assur edly standeth, take heed lest he fall." With these events to reflect upon, I wanted no guide to excite my smile, or perhaps my indignation, by some story as probable as a fairy tale ; though even with these tales there is connected a melancholy inter est, from theh having been repeated for ages, and beUeved by many thousands of deceived pilgrims j with as much confidence as the written word. The town is situated upon the summit of a hfll, stretching from east to west, and may contain 1 about twelve hundred inhabitants, a good propor tion of whom are Christians. The convent built over the supposed birth-place of our Lord is the most conspicuous object in the view, and with its strong walls and massy buttresses appears to be Httle m accordance with "the peaceable fruit of righteousness," intended to be the consequence of THE HOLY LAND. 53 the Messiah's advent. I visited it with Httle inter est, having no faith in its pretensions. The low entrance-door opens upon an extensive church, the body of which is ornamented by two rows of Corin thian piUars on each side, ten in each row, and some of them have figures of saints painted upon the shaft. The roof and waUs are plain, and the edifice does not appear to be used at present for reHgious pur poses. I was taken through a passage narrow and dark, I suppose for the sake of effect, and thence was ushered into a cave, flluminated with many lamps, the walls of which were hung with pictures, and the floor was paved with marble. The place of the birth of our Saviour is marked by an altar, under which is the inscription — " Hie de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est ; " and a few paces from it) cut out of the rock, is the manger in which the holy chfld Jesus was laid. The exact spot where the star stood to point out the place to the wise men from the east, is now occupied by a re presentation of the luminary, but it is not his star. There are separate churches for the Latins, Greeks, and Armenians ; the first is the most splendid. I was shown the cave in which Jerome made the translation of the Scriptures into Latin, known by the name of the Vulgate, ahd also that into which the bodies of the infants were thrown after the massacre, and different other tombs and sacred places ; but it was well that I was careless about theh history, as the old Arab who accom panied me was not one of the most inteUigent of The superior of the convent was at first a Httle distant, as I had put on a coarse Arab dress that I might not attract attention, but he soon relaxed his features into pleasantness, and ordered an ex ceUent breakfast to be provided for me in the re fectory, though it was a fast-day, consisting of fried eggs, cheese, boiled beans, omelet, salad, and wine. I purchased a few of the curiosities made here in mother-of-pearl, brought from the Red Sea, and from the sale of which the people of the place derive theh principal support. They chiefly con sist of rosaries, crucifixes, and scaUop shells, carved with devices from sacred history and the traditions of the saints. I was shocked to see many intended representations of the Father, as the famfliarity with which the people are brought to regard these mysteries is too manifest in the levity with which they treat all sacred subjects. There was a school belonging to the convent, in which I was pleased to see about eighty boys learning to read and write. In the valley there is a well, supposed by Dr. E. D. Clarke, to be the same as that from which the three mighty men procured the water which David would not drink, but poured out before the Lord, because it was the blood of men that went in jeopardy of theh lives ; but the doc tor has been most unfortunate in nearly aU his attempts to fix the localities of the Holy Land. The Bethlehemites are often at variance with the reigning power, which renders it impossible at times for traveUers to visit the place, but they were then happfly at peace with the men of Jeru salem, and we returned in safety. The country to the south of Bethlehem is weU worthy of atten tion, but it was in too disturbed a state to be visited without danger. In this direction are the pools of Solomon, Hebron, the plain of Mamre, the cave of Macpelah, and other places of interest. It is said by a recent traveUer, that the water ascends in the water-courses of Solomon, though it has been supposed that the principle in hydrau- Hcs by which fluids find theh own level, was un known to the ancients. From Bethlehem to Beer- sheba, the southern extremity of the promised land, is a distance of about thirty-four mfles. GE RIZIM.— SHE CHEM. We prepared for our departure from Jerusalem, April 23, and bade fareweU to the superior of the convent, after settling aU demands. We went first to the Damascus gate, as being the most convenient, but were informed by the sentry that he could allow no one to pass, as he had received orders to that effect from the governor. We told him that we were English traveUers, and the or der had reference only to the pilgrims. " I can not help it," said he, " the English are not God." There being no remedy, we retraced our steps with some reluctance, and made towards the Jaffa gate, which we were aUowed to pass without a single inquhy. We crossed the bed of Kedron on the north-eastern side of the plain, and had a fine view of the city from an eminence, which has, in some respects, an advantage over that from mount Olivet. The bare aspect of the city is re lieved by the appearance of the hills, which, from the position we occupied, are a prominent object in the back ground, whilst the cupolas of the houses, the minarets of the mosques, and the for tified towers, were seen in a light more favorable to effect ; but although the city, as seen from this place, presented a more perfect picture for the painter's hand — the poet, and I may say, the Christian too, wUl love to look upon it from a situation where the different events connected with its history strike the mind with greater power, from the ease which the sites where these events have taken place can be distinguished. I here paused for a moment, and, turning my face once more towards the holy place, bade it a long fareweH, probably for ever. "For my brethren and companions' sake, I wfll now say, Peace be within thee." The road contmued over slopes of mountains, others of greater elevation being at a little distance, formed in many parts of bare rock, and in the cultivated patches covered with small stones. We passed several vUlages. Towards evening we arrived at a pass between two moun tains, the rocks on each side of which were high and nearly perpendicular, yet some goats were fearlessly browsing on the verge of the abyss. — We had from hence a view of a more romantic and better cultivated country than that through which we had passed. We remained aU night at Ain Brood, and slept under an olive tree near the weU. The neighborhood does not enjoy a very good reputation. Soon after it was dark, a man Game towards us, under the pretence that he was in search of some stray cows. We were appre hensive that, in reality, he had come to number our force, and see whether we were armed, but the angei of the covenant encamped about us, and we were safe. We had with us a German me- 54 THE HOLY LAND. chanic, who had been in the employ of the pacha of Egypt. He was now on his return home, and travelled in company with us that he might have our protection. There is an appearance of indus try about Ain Brood that is not common. The stones are aU carefully gathered up from the ground, the vines are properly trained, and the gardens are protected by good walls. The site of Bethel is not far distant, where Jacob saw the vision of the angels, and Jeroboam set up the golden calves. The tribe of Benjamin extended some mfles further to the westward, eastward as far as the Jordan, and southward as far as Jeru salem. In the time of the patriarchs these hills probably belonged to the Jebusites. We left the weU about sunrise, April 24, and tbe face of the country improved as we advanced. We passed many fertile vaUeys, with villages upon the hills. We had a steep descent to Khan Lebn, now a total ruin, and soon afterwards en tered upon a vaUey of greater extent, with the green corn moving in graceful waves from end to end when agitated by the gentle breeze. At noon we were upon an extensive bed of Hmestone, and the white ground reflected the rays of the sun so strongly as to render our eyes almost useless. — WeU wearied with our ride, after passing the re puted tomb of Joseph, we entered the pass that separates mount Gerizim from mount Ebal. It was here the affecting ceremony took place that was commanded by Moses, carried into effect by Joshua, and never afterwards repeated. Six of the tribes stood over against Gerizim to bless the people, and the other six upon Ebal to curse. It would appear that the whole of the law was read over by Joshua, and that the Levites spoke unto aU the men of Israel with a loud voice the words of the curse, to which the people answered, and said, Amen. " And all Israel, and theh elders, and officers, and theh judges, stood on this side the ark, and on that side before the priests the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as weU the stranger, as he that was born among them ; half of them over against mount Gerizim, and half of them over against mount Ebal ; as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. And afterwards he read aU the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to aU that is written in the book of the law." — Joshua viii. 33, 34 ; Deut. xxvii. 11. A better situation could not be conceived for this purpose, as the hills are at such a distance from each other that the hosts of Israel might stand between, and the voice from either side be heard distinctly on a calm day throughout the whole as sembly. It must have been an imposing specta cle : the ark of the covenant in the centre, sur rounded by the elders, officers, and judges, with the venerable Joshua at their head, the banners of the tribes marking their different positions as appointed by God, which they were now to occu py for the last time, and the miUions of Israel ex tending in firm phalanx as far as the eye could reach : it must also be remembered that every individual of that vast company had but a Httle time before beheld the most striking wonders per formed in theh own behalf, — the faffing down of the walls of Jericho, and the dividing of the stream of the Jordan,-^-and when the men, women, chil dren, and strangers, thinking on these things, with one voice shouted Amen, the acclaim must have reverberated among the rocks around with true subUmityj and have sweUed in majestic volume towards heaven. The whole would form a fine scene for the pencil of Martin. The hiUs are of equal height, about 600 feet, and are neither of them cultivated, but Gerizim has the more pleasing appearance. From the top of this mountain, Jotham addressed his fable of the trees to the men of Shechem, when they made Abimelech king. According to Josephus, the first temple erected here was by Manasseh, after the captivity : it was dedicated to the worship of God in association with the worship of idols. — , " They feared the Lord, and served theh own gods." 2 Kings xvii. 33. Upwards of 11,000 Samaritans were here slain by Cerealis, com mander of the 5th Roman legion. The ancient Shechem of the Old Testament, and Sychar of the New, stood near the site of the present Nabloos, a corruption of Neapolis, in the same vaUey, under the northern side of Gerizim. It may at present contain about 6,000 inhabitants : soap is the principal manufacture, and cotton the principal product of the fields. The gardens by which it is surrounded had a richer appearance than any I had seen since leaving the vaUey of the NUe. It was here that God first appeared to Abraham after his entrance into Palestine, and " he buflded an al»r unto the Lord, and caUed upon the name of the Lord." There are some ancient sepulchres in the rocks of Ebal. Jacob bought here " a parcel of a field, where he had spread bis tent," and erected an altar, and it was the prince of this city who caused the destruction of his people at the hands of Simeon and Levi, assisted probably by theh own immediate ser vants and friends, for the insult he had offered to theh sister Dinah. The bones of Joseph, which the clhldren of Israel brought up out of Egypt, were buried in the parcel of ground bought by his father. Shechem was one of the cities of refugev It was here that our Lord held the interesting conversation with the woman of Samaria, in which this subHme truth was communicated to the world, " God is a spirit : and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." John iv. 24. There has been a great difference of opinion about the exact sites of aU these places, and especiaUy about Jacob's well. Some of the wells are too far from the city, others too near, and others not " deep." This is almost the only place I saw in Palestine where such a question could be enter tained, as a city thinks itself favored if it have one good spring at a convenient distance, but here there are several. A Jew informed us he had read in an old book that there are three hundred springs near this place, which he regarded as a romance until a few winters ago, when there was a greater quantity of rain than usual, and springs appeared in every direction. There is a well near the present road from Jerusalem, at the en trance of the valley, and nearly in the centre, the situation of which answers better than that of any other to Jacob's well, but it is at present shallow, and requhes "nothing to draw with." It has been supposed by some high authorities that the THE HOLY LAND. stones of memorial written by Joshua are yet in existence, and that theh discovery may one day afford additional proof of the authenticity of the ancient books of the Scriptures. " And he wrote there, (in mount Ebal, or as the Samaritans read, in mount Gerizim,) upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrrote in the presence of the children of Israel." Joshua viii. 32. There are stfll a few Samaritans resident in Nabloos, who " worship God upon this mountain," and retain the- faith of theh fathers. They are strict in their attention to such parts of the law as they acknowledge, and expect a Messiah. — They read in theh version of the Pentateuch that the altar was erected by Joshua upon mount Gerizim, and not upon Ebal, which reading is de fended by Kennicott, and they repair at stated times to the supposed site of the temple to per form acts of worship. The synagogue is plain and clean, and among other ancient books they have a copy of the Pentateuch, which they regard with peculiar veneration, and affirm that it was written by the grandson of Aaron. They suppose that there are many Samaritans in England and other parts ot Europe. There are a few families of Jews who reside in a smaU court near the ba zar. Justyn Martyr was born here. We halted in an oHve grove, about a mile from the town, near Bier Sheba, a spring that sends forth a stream of water of sufficient volume to turnamfll. We were nowin the tribe of Ephraim. This tribe may be considered as one of the most celebrated of the twelve. Joshua was anEphraim- ite, and was buried " ih the border of his inherit ance which is in mount Ephraim." It was with in the borders of this tribe that the words of the law were solemnly read before the people, and that Shfloh was situated, where the ark of God rested from the days of Joshua to the death of EH. Je roboam, the first monarch of Israel was of this tribe, and it contained the royal cities of Thzah, where the first kings resided, and Samaria, where they resided from the time of Omritothe destruc tion of the state. SAMARIA. We passed several mills, April 25, upon the stream of water produced by the springs near Nabloos, and not far from a ruined aqueduct of twelve arches, we turned off to the right, and began to ascend the Wis. An hour's ride brought us with in sight of Sebastie, the ancient Samaria. It stands upon a rounded hfll of moderate and gentle ascent, in the centre of a vaUey, surrounded at a few miles' distance by mountains of considerable elevation. The whole of the vaUey is at present cultivated. In a south-east direction are the walls of a castle built upon a steep hfll, formed of layers of rock with scarcely a particle of earth upon tttem. Between this castle and the town we passed under an aqueduct. Sebastie is situated on the eastern slope of the hill, and has an inte resting appearance from the remains of an old convent that rise up among the meaner buildings by which they are surrounded, Hke a prim old schoolmistress sitting in the midst of her rude and ragged clhldren. The erection is in a very elabo rate style of architecture. Beneath it are several vaults, which probably opened into the sides of the hill-. The eastern end is nearly perfect, which confirms the remark made by MaundreU, that if any portion of a church is left standing in these parts, it is certain to be the eastern end. It has a pentagonal projection, the windows of which have arches above them, and are separated from each other by smaU piUars with Corinthian capi tals. In the interior, the projection is spanned by a pointed arch, the ribs of which have been work ed into a variety of figures, with more labor than good taste. The southern waU is supported by buttresses, and towards the eastern end is buflt upon a mole. The walls are not aU of the same date. In the area inside is the domB of a smaU mosque, with marble slabs before the entrance. It is built over a smaU cave or dungeon, in which it is said that John the Baptist was beheaded. The tomb of John was shown in the time of Julian the apostate, when the inhabitants of the city are said to have opened it, and burnt a portion of his bones, preserving the rest as reHcs. Higher up the hiU, stone columns are seen in every direction, but without capitals. We counted eighty in an upright position, besides many that are prostrate. The summit of the hfll appears to have been scarped, as there is a steep ascent nearly all round, and in this place may have been the citadel. We have here another of those places near which we can stand as upon vantage ground, and look back upon the men and deeds of other times with an absolute certainty of the truth. It com mands an extensive view, and the Mediterranean may probably be seen from it on a clearer day than that with which we were favored. Under pre sent appearances, it would seem to be preferable to Jerusalem as the site for a capital city, and capable of being more strongly fortified, but we must remember the many changes that the posi tion of Jerusalem has undergone : the beauty of Zion is departed, the crown has faUen from her head, and woe is unto her, because she has sinned. It is seldom that we have an account so certain of the origin of an ancient city as we have of this place. Omri, king of Israel, " bought the hiU Sa maria, of Shemer, for two talents of silver, and buUt on the hfll, and caUed the name of the city which he buflt after the name of Shemer, owner of the hfll, Samaria." 1 Kings xvi. 24. From this time it was the capital of the revolted tribes. It had the winter house, and the summer house, and the houses of ivory. The wicked Ahab erect ed upon this hfll an altar to Baal ; in this plain Benhadad, king of Assyria, was routed ; in the gate of this city sat the king of Israel and the king of Judah, each in his robes and upon a throne, when the false prophets delivered tkeir ambiguous prediction, and Micaiah, declared the word of the Lord : in that pool the dogs Hcked the blood of Ahab as they had formerly Hcked the blood of Naboth his enemy : up that ascent have often toUed the prophets Elijah and EHsha, bearing messages of wrath from the most High : within these walls there has been a great famine, so that " an ass's head sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and a woman bofled her own son, and did eat him . " 56 THE HOLY LAND. it was from hence that the host of the Syrians fled, because the Lord made them to hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, leaving the camp as it was, a prey to the famished Samari tans : it was here that Jehu slew the worshippers of Baal, and brake down theh images : it was after enduring a siege of three years in this capi tal that Hoshea, the last of its kings, was carried away captive by the king of Assyria : it contain ed the royal sepulchres of Israel ; the gospel was here preached by Phflip, and confirmed by Peter and John, to whom Simon, the sorcerer, offered money that he might receive the Holy Ghost : and it suffered in common with its more guilty rival, when Palestine was subdued by the Roman power. The present inhabitants of Sebastie appear to be miserably poor, but they showed us every at tention in their power, and retired without asking for a present. After a slight breakfast, at which we had no coffee as usual, because sufficient fuel could not be procured in this once populous metro polis to boil our kettle, we descended into the plain, and then mounted the northern range of hills. From one point we had a view of the sea, and on our left was a sheet of water of considerable ex tent. We passed over many hflls, through passes at different elevations, and along plains graduaUy increasing in extent as we proceeded, in one of which we counted fortyploughs at work at the same time. The vUlages are numerous, and are situated on the brows of the hills. When we arrived at the plain of Esdraelon, as it was too late to attempt to cross it, we turned off towards Jen- nin, and spread our clothes for the night under the leaves of one of the largest mulberry trees I ever saw. This place contains many ruins, but none of them apparently of a very ancient date. It is supposed, with some plaiisibflity, to be the Jezreel of Scripture, where the kings of Israel had a pa lace, where Naboth was murdered, and Jezebel was precipitated from a window. The residence of the witch of Endor was in this neighborhood. We had now crossed fhe possessions of the half- tribe of Manasseh, which extended westward as far as the sea, and entered upon those of Issachar. THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON. The rising sun, April 26, found us already upon the plain of Esdraelon, the most extensive in Pa lestine. It is about fifty mfles long, and twenty broad, and is also caUed the Great Plain and the valley of Jezreel Before us were the mountains of Galilee ; on our right, mount Tabor, upon which, as is generaUy supposed, our Lord was transfigur ed, and mount Gflboa, where the beauty of Israel was slain upon the high places, and the daughters of the uncircumcised triumphed ; and on our left, mount Carmel, visible through the whole extent of its chain as far as the extremity that overlooks the sea. Tabor differs in its appearance from the general character of the mountains, being in sulated, and conical in its form. It is about 1200 feet high. We again crossed the bed of the Ki shon. The city of Meroz, the inhabitants of which were cursed because they came not up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, was situ ated in this direction. In this plain, Sisera and his host were overthrown by the prowess of a woman ; here " Saul died, and his tliree sons, and his armour-bearer, and aU his men, that same day together;" here Josiah was slain by Necho, king of Egypt ; here Holofernes was slain by Judith, the variant widow ; and here the three unclean spirits, coming out of " the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet," shaU gather together " the kings of the earth and of the whole world," to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. The name of the plain appears to have been pro verbial as a place of mourning and destruction, and perhaps few places in the world have been so often saturated with human gore : there have been but few nations of consequence, the names of which do not appear in the pages of its history, and Napoleon Buonaparte is associated with De borah, the prophetess who judged Israel. The soil is in some places more than six feet thick, and exceedingly rich, and were the plain weU cultivated, it would be one of the most pro ductive in the world. There are a few smaU vil lages scattered over its surface, but not perhaps a hundreth part of the number it is weU able to sus tain. One of my companions crossed the plain in the depth of last winter, when it was covered with snow. The sumpter mule of the party being de layed by the difficulties of the road, was attacked by robbers, and a rich booty carried away. A complaint was made to the pacha, who imme diately issued an order for fuU restitution to the chief of the nearest viUage, on which nearly the whole of the stolen articles were returned, and the rest of the amount was made up by a general levy upon the people. We passed at some dis tance the viUage of Nam, where our Lord raised the young man to Ufe, " the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." It was lately destroyed by the pacha, on account of the disaffection of its inhabitants. In four hours from leaving Jennin we began to ascend tho hiUs of Galilee. This district, in the time of Josephus, was celebrated for its fruitful ness, and abounded with aU descriptions of trees, a strange contrast to its present nakedness and sterflity. It contained many towns, the least of which had above 15,000 inhabitants. We had to pass over a steep and difficult road, in the bed of amountain torrent. This brought us to Ain Emir, whence we again began to descend, and soon en tered the vaUey of Nazareth, where we halted a few hours during the heat of the day. NAZARETH. Nazareth may at present contain about 3,000 inhabitants, a great number of whom are Chris tians of the Greek church. The shops are well supphed, especiaUy with articles of clothing, though they are scattered in different places, and there docs not appear to be any regular bazar. The houses stand upon the dechvity of a hill, and over look a smaU vaUey the beauties of which have been much exaggerated. We aU agreed in one THE HOLY LAND. 57 opinion, that the females were the best looking, both in figure and face, that we had seen in the country, and we several times expressed to each other om- admhation of the grace and dignity with which they moved, as they passed us on then- way to the well of water. The Latin convent, a massy structure, is built over the reputed dwelling of Joseph and Mary, which is of course a cave; The present edifice is about a century old, but remains of a building much more ancient may be observed. The church is highly ornamented, and contains an organ, and the waUs are hidden by hangings of silk presented by some of the monarchs of Europe. It has the appearance of one vast altar, divided into three compartments, the middle one even with the ground. The cave of the Annunciation contains the very spot where the foot of the Virgin rested, when the " Ave Maria" was first pronounced, that has since been so often repeated by other than angel Hps. From hence we were led to the kitchen and bed-room of Mary, both caves, and without any apertures for the admission of Hght. The monks, who are generaUy from Spain, were per forming service at the time we visited the place ; theh voices were good, particularly that of the bass, and the effect would have been dehghtful to our minds, could we have hoped that the truth re vealed to a woman of Samaria by Jesus Christ was remembered. The house of the Virgin, or santa casa, is said to have been miraculously trans ported through the air, in the 13th century, from Nazareth to Dalmatia, and thence to the forest in the neighborhood of the position it now occupies, in which it several times changed its place, and was at last fixed at Loretto, in Italy. I afterwards visited the church at Loretto. The venerated chamber appeared to me to be much larger than the place whence it is said to have been taken at Nazareth, though there are tablets hung up in dif ferent languages, which attest that persons were sent into Palestine on purpose to make admea surements, and that they found the size of the two places to be exactly the same. In other parts of Nazareth are shown Jo seph's work-shop ; the synagogue in which Jesus preached ; and a large round stone, upon which our Lord was accustomed to dine with his disci ples, both before and after his resurrection, " ac cording to regular tradition, never interrupted, and known to aU the nations of the east." There are many other places shown to the pilgrims, but my faith was already taxed far beyond its capacity. — The Greeks have built a church over the spring, whence the viUage is supphed, as they say that the Virgin was drawing water at the time of the annunciation. It is not improbable that this weU was frequented by Mary, as the distance is conve nient, and our Saviour and his disciples may haye refreshed themselves from its stream. The hill shown as that whence the people vainly endea vored to cast Jesus down headlong,, is too far from the city, and there are brows of the hfll whereon the houses now stand that would be equaUy eligi ble for theh wicked purpose, one of which was no doubt the identical spot, but which of them cannot now be ascertained with exactness. After all that the old empress Helena, and the equaUy credulous but more crafty monks, have 53-8 done to take off the mind from truths that would amply repay its attention, Nazareth is stUl a place of great interest to the true Christian pilgrim. We know little of the early Ufe of our Saviour, but that little brings to us sources of profitable reflection ; and as we look upon the hills where he walked, and meditated, and prayed, and held communion with the Father, the wish to examine these things more closely than is possible with our present means of information may perhaps be pardoned. The district of Galilee was favored above all others with the presence of the Saviour during his resi dence among men. It might be that there was something in the disposition of the people, or in the pohtical state of the country at that period, more congenial with the interests of his divine mission. In Jerusalem there were fierce conten tions between the parties in the state, and it was there that the pride of the Pharisee, the infidehty of the Sadducee, the rapacity of the lawyer, and the wickedness of the priest, were manifested with the most open effrontery : in GalHlee there was comparative tranquiUity, and the virtues of the lowly Jesus, seen only by the simple people of a country viUage, excited not the envy of those who might otherwise have sought to take away his Ufe before his ministry was commenced. It was in Galilee that the angel of the annunciation appear ed to Mary, and afterwards to Joseph ; the holy family abode here after their return from Egypt, and Jesus continued with them until he began to be about thhty years of age ; here he first preach ed, and though from this time to his death he iti nerated among the principal cities of the land, his more constant residence was in Galilee, and it was here that he first appeared to the apostles after his resurrection. Nearly ah the apostles were " men of Galilee.'' In more ancient times, the same country belonged to the tribes of Issachar, Zebulon, and NaphtaH. Upon the death of Herod the Great, the tetrarchy of Galilee feU to the pos session of Herod Antipas, who was the same He rod that beheaded John the Baptist, and ridiculed our blessed Saviour when sent unto him by PUate. On retiring from the city, and looking back upon the vaUey from an eminence, it appeared more beautiful than we had thought it from the town. We passed the village of Rane, and after wards Cana, where one of the water-pots is stfll shown in which Christ is said to have converted the water into wine at the marriage feast. We saw some water-pots upon the heads of the women near the weU, and there are others of a larger description that they keep in theh. houses, but they are aU of too brittle a material for one of them to have survived without injury near 2000 years. This was the birth-place of Nathanael, afterwards caUed Bartholomew, the disciple, and our Lord was at this place when the nobleman from Capernaum besought him in behalf of his son, and heard from him the cheering words,- " Thy son Hveth." We soon afterwards entered upon another plain, and traveUed until the sun had set, when we arrived at the viUage of Lubia, and slept under a fig-tree, after receiving a plentiful supply of exceUent milk1 from the inhabitants. In the centre of the plain is a cistern of wrought stones, and near it are many remains of wells and exac- vations in the rock, that deserve a more parti- 58 THE HOLY LAND. cular examination than they appear to have yet re ceived. TIBERIAS— THE SEA OF GALILEE. The plain continued some distance further, April 27, when we passed upon our left the mount upon which it is said that Jesus Christ deHvered his sermon, when he perhaps disappointed the ex pectations of some of his auditors, who were de siring to hear inculcated a system of obHgation the very reverse of peace,, and meekness, and po verty of spirit. It has been said that the hfll is too high, but we ire not told that Christ ascend ed to the sumiiiit, and its gently sloping sides would be admirably adapted to the com enience of an assembly listening to an address. The ob jection is more plausible, that it is further from the city than we should suppose our Lord would have brought his disciples. We soon afterwards had a sight of the northern part of the sea of Galilee, and after passing down a deep descent, arrived at the city of Tiberias. It stands close to the lake, in a bad situation for de fence, and is waUed, with round towers at certain distances, but the waUs in some places are falling down. There are two gates, one only of which is at present in use, and the other is partly waUed up. The castle is the only building of any consi derable appearance, but there is also a mosque, with a minaret and several clean white domes, and a few date-trees flourishing near, which in vite the followers of the false prophet to stillness and devotion. Only a smaU part of the space within the walls is occupied by houses. The best of the buildings are but wretched, and the greater number are in ruins. The city may contain about 3000 inhabitants, of whom the Jews are by far the more numerous body. It is one of the four sacred places of the Talmud. The last session of the Sanhedrim is said to have been held here : the Mishna, or text of the Talmud, was here reduced to writing ; and here the noted MassOrites carried forward theh minute investigations. There was formerly at this place a rabbinical coUege, and even some of the present inhabitants are deeply engaged in the study of the law and of Hebrew literature. They are supported principaUy by contributions from Europe, as there is no com merce connected with the place. We remained at a Roman Cathohc church, ap parently very ancient, dedicated to St. Peter, for which various reasons are assigned, some of them contradictory. Its walls are four and a hah feet thick, the roof is vaulted, and it has much the ap pearance of a modern powder-magazine, not hav ing a single ornament in its construction. There are four windows on each side, those on the south closed up. On one of the stones in the front there is an inscription, but I could not approach near enough to it to see in what character. The en trance is modern. There are several picture? at the eastern end, aU except, one very rude; but what is somewhat remarkable in a Latin church, there is not a single image. The service-books are all in Arabic. I counted fifty people at ma tins, which speaks weU for them, and may give some idea of the number of Christians in the place. We had a long conversation with the priest, and there appeared to be something good about him, though aUoyed with much ignorance. The city was built by Herod Antipas, in honor of Tiberius the Roman emperor. It submitted to Vespasian on his approach, and he altered his in tention of putting aU the inhabitants to the swOrd, at the request of Agrippa. On the south of the town the mountains are very abrupt, and approach near to the shore of the lake. In the sides are excavations, some of which we examined, but found nothing of interest. The shore, to some distance from the town, has been occupied by buildings, as we found the usual traces of a Ro man city. We passed the ruins of a church, a sheikh's tomb with an inscription in ancient Ara bic, and several prostrate columns and detached capitals ; and after a walk of about an hour, ar rived at the hot weljs of Emmaus. The baths are in ruins, especiaUy the division aUoted to the females. Several Jews and Jew esses were bathing, as is their custom every Fri day, to prepare themselves for the Sabbath. There is a magnificent bath in the course of erection for Ibrahim Pacha, at a Httle distance from the for mer building, surrounded by an open colonade, which is supported by marble piUars taken from ancient ruins. The springs are numerous, and some of them send forth a plentiful stream. The mercury in my thermometer, when dipped into the water, immediately rose to the top of the tube, 135° of Fahrenheit, but this is said to be about the highest temperature. I could not bear to keep my hand in the water above a moment. The taste is that of salt, and the smeU that of sul phur. The stones in the streams are dyed yeflow and green. Vespasion pitched his tent near this viUage. We bathed in the lake, and found the water to be exceedingly cold, from the melting of the mountain snow. In Httle less than two hours' journey from the baths, we passed the viUage of Karak, situated upon a plain that in the rainy season is formed into an island, and soon after wards arrived at the place where the Jordan is sues from the lake, and begins its course towards the Dead Sea. It is a very rapid stream, and at that place is about 14 yards across. There are the remains of a bridge, but the stream is now passed by a crazy ferry-boat. Some horses were taken over as we were looking on, and there were several head of cattle on the other side. We did not venture over, as we were afraid that, h the people got us to the other side, they would be un willing to bring us back again without extorting something as a present. At a little distance is the viUage of Semakh. The island, which ap pears to have been once covered with buddings, commands an extensive view. The valley of the Jordan extends to the horizon, and bears the marks of having been many times overflowed. It is cultivated, and appears to be extremely fertile. The lake can be seen from this place through its whole extent. It may be about 18 miles long, and in its widest part about 6 miles broad. The shape is irregular, something resembhng a boy's kite or a bird flying. It is called in the Old Tes tament the sea of Chinnereth, and in the New, the sea of Tiberias, the sea of Galilee, and the THE HOLY LAND. 59 lake of Gennesareth. Its appearance is striking, but rather disappoints the traveUer, as it differs entirely in its character from the beautiful imagi nations with which it is always associated. I could have wished to see more wood upon its shores, less ruggedness in the aspect of its moun tains, and a greater softness and warmth in its general features. The mountains in some places come close to the water, and towards the north we could discern a far higher chain, their dark sides, and stiU darker bases, presenting a fine con trast to the robe of snow in which their lofty sum mits were enveloped. The waters are clear, and were then perfectly stfll ; but from their situation between hills and ravines, they must be Hable to sudden squalls, and to great agitation during vio lent gales. The expanse that unfolds itself from this place is perhaps Httle changed since tlie time of our Lord. The works of man are imposing to day, but in a little time they are deserted, and in ruin : temples, palaces, and even cities are des troyed, and no investigation can discover the spots where they onced flourished, though the detail of the events that took place within them may be famfliar to our minds : but mountains and seas have been named "everlasting," and as they look ed a thousand years gone by, so look they now. It was upon this sea that our Lord sat in a boat, and thence taught the people standing upon the shore : and what a sight it must have presented, to have seen the boat in the water, and the Prince of Life, and the Hstening multitude lining in rows the slopes of the ascent, as if in an immense am phitheatre, all so stfll that the Httle birds would not be frightened from theh course in approaching the solemn audience, and the whole reflected up on the clear waters at theh feet. On the opposite coast " the herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters." It was upon this sea that Jesus walked, Hke a spirit, in the fourth watch of the night, when the wind was boisterous and the waves were high ; and it was to these waters he spake, when he said in majesty, " Peace, be stfll," and the rebuk ed wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Not a single boat is ever seen upon its surface in our day, and the fish that do not approach the land are never molested by any of the devices of man. Josephus teUs us that the water of this lake was so cold, that it could not be warmed by setting in the sun, even in the hottest part of the year ;' but it has now lost this vhtue, and in summer becomes warm and offensive. This lake was the scene of an engagement under Vespasian, in which some thousands were slain. We returned to Tiberias much pleased with our excursion, and remained1 aU night in the churph ; but as I had only an oil-cloth under me, the cold from the stones would not aUow me to enjoy my usual sound sleep. I was disappointed in not bemg able to procure animals to take me to Damascus, as I had intended to skirt the east ern coast of the sea, and examine some parts of the ancient Bashan. To the northward of Tiberias, on the shore of the lake, there are remains of buildingB, but none of them worthy of description. At a Httle less than an hour from leaving the town, April 28, we crossed a stream of very clear water, from which I promised myself a delicious draught, but on tast ing it, I found that it was strongly impregnated with salt. Near it are three round buildings, that we supposed from the distance were towers of defence, but on mounting to the top they proved to be baths, with water in them, deep and clear. We had some difficulty in crossing the next plain, , on account of the great number of streams by which it is intersected. The towns of Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin, must have been in this direction, but traveUers are not agreed as to theh exact site. They were once exalted to heaven, but they heeded not the day of theh visitation, and they are now desolate. It is a solemn fact, the voice of which ought to be listened to with attention, that there is no place mentioned in the New Testament, as having rejected the mission of the Saviour, or refused the offers of mercy made to it by himself and his disciples, or as having afterwards become corrupt in Ufe or doctrine, but bears evidence, in a degree beyond aU others, either in its history or present condi tion, of the wrath of God : and as surely as the denunciations of old were fulfiUed against the guilty cities that put out from their dwellings the candle of the Lord, so surely, we must remember, wfll stfll more awful threatenings be fulfiUed against us, if we neglect to profit by the Hght that shines at present so brightly upon the world. We had intended to visit some extensive ruins northward of the plain, but our time would not aUow of so long a digression as this would have required. Before we began to mount the hflls, we passed a stream of water, broad but not deep, on the banks of which were' many curious speci mens of petrifaction. Branches of trees, reeds, grasses, and other substances, were firmly bound together, and in aU, the change from the original character was complete, though the grain and fibres of the wood were perfectly retained. Soon after our commencement of the ascent, my companions, who were some distance behind me, saw on their left a large cave, and descended from their horses to explore it. I crossed over to meet them, when I heard a rustling in the grass, and they caUed out to me, but I was too distant to hear what they said. On coming up to them, I found that they had started a Hon, when within a few feet of its lair, which sprang down the ra vine, and plunged along the waters of the stream at the bottom, until they lost sight of it in the dis tance by the projection of a rock. They had so near a view of it, and saw it for so great a length of time, that they could not be mistaken, and the eye of Mr. T. is particularly keen. There were several places in the grass where a large animal had evidently rested, and near one of them the remains of some creature, about the size of a cat, which appeared to me to be more Hke a lion's cub than any other animal with which I am acquaint ed. We pursued our course towards the cave, but took the precaution to caU first for our fire arms. We descended to the bottom of the ravine, and had presented to us a scene of surpassing wildness. The principal cave is near a hundred feet high at the entrance, and is carried a con siderable distance into the mountain, graduaUy decreasing in size as it proceeds. Near it, and within it, m aU parts of the sides, are many other 60 THE HOLY LAND. cavities. In one place, pegs are fastened into the waU at convenient distances, that are no doubt used to ascend to the smaU caves we saw near the roof. I could have wished to examine them, but our force was not sufficiently strong. A more convenient place for the resort of a banditti can scarcely be conceived ; and I can never hear of a robber's cave, but my thoughts wiU immediate ly fly to this soHtary ravine in the mountains of GaHlee. In about two hours more, the road passed by the foot of a very high precipice, near which we counted a dozen eagles, and one of them had a nest in its mouth, the contents of which were pro bably intended as a niorsel for its young. There is a tradition that the sacred vessels of the temple were buried here by Jeremiah. The path along which we rode is steep and dangerous, and in one place a considerable part of it had given way, and roUed into the vaUey, In another hour we arriv ed at Saphet, and took up our abode in an olive- grove. An Arab came to us with a long com plaint against a Jew, and showed us a portion of his beard, that he said had been violently torn from his chin. The dehnquent Jew is under the protection of another Jew, who was born at Gi braltar, and consequently enjoys the privileges of a British subject : presuming upon this, a Jew, the servant of a Jew, had dared to beard one of the faithful, in his own land ; and from this Httle cir cumstance may be inferred the amazing extent of British influence. SAPHET. The town of Saphet is situated upon one of the highest eminences of GaHlee, and is thought to be the Kitron of Scripture, a city of Zebulon, which the Israehtes were unable to subdue. It may be seen from a great distance, and on this account it may be that it is said to be " the city set on a hfll," that was pointed at by our Saviour in his sermon on the mount. The apex of the hfll is occupied by a castle, a very formidable structure, and of great antiquity. It must have been proof against assault under the old system of warfare. The erection in the centre was for merly capable of affording accommodation to a large garrison, as appears from the mass of ruins around it. The centre tower is stfll in existence, and looks like a gaunt old warrior mustering his best courage to bid defiance to the enemy, but a few balls from the eminence opposite would soon tumble it into ruin. It was once in possession of the knights-templars, and was taken by the renown ed Saladin, after a protracted siege. Some pri soners were confined in one of the rooms, who in- treated us to intercede for them with the governor. A venerable old man, who was guarding them, told us he had acted as guide to the French army during their occupation of the country. The town is buflt upon the low hiUs that sur round the castle, and is divided into separate quar ters by the Httle vaUeys between them. There is another castle, of less extent, and apparently not occupied. The governor's house has a respecta ble appearance. The inhabitants, including aU classes, may amount to 8000. The houses are built upon the slopes of the hills, so that the streets above are, in many places, formed by the roofs of the lower tier of dwellings, and the passengers are sometimes in danger of obtruding into the privacy of a famUy against their own wish. The gardens are principaUy used for the growth of vines and olive-trees, and indigo-dying appears to be a com mon occupation. I observed several females la menting over tombs recently constructed, some of whom were refusing to be comforted because theh children were not ; and there was scarcely one of these memorials of the dead beneath that was not ornamented, either with flowers or some other token of grateful remembrance. The affection of the mother for her child appears with pecuhar strength in these countries, where the love of the husband has to be received in portions divided among many. There are numerous places in this neighborhood that are venerated as having been in the posses sion of the patriarchs, such as the wells of Isaac and the cave of Jacob ; but no reHance can be placed upon these traditions. Not far from the castle is an old bath, now in ruins, that has once had several apartments attached to it, and been a place of some splendor. There are a few Chris tian famiUes resident here, but the Jews form the greater proportion of the inhabitants, as they con sider the place to be sacred. For this they have several reasons. Some of theh most celebrated rabbies were buried not far distant, and they ex pect that the Messiah wfll establish here the capi tal of his kingdpm. They have a printing esta blishment, which I visited ; but the master was absent at the time. He has two presses at work, and two others in the course of erection. His type and furniture, I was told, were aU made here under his own direction. The execution of his works is respectable, and there are near thirty persons employed in the different departments of composing, press-work, and binding. The roof of the castle, to which we were aUow ed to ascend, commands a most extensive pros pect. We saw the greater part of the sea of GaHlee, with the mountains of Bashan, the range of C armel, and the bills near Nazareth. We took the bearings of aU these places, but I neglected to preserve the account. On the north and west the view is obstructed by mountains of higher eleva tion than the hiU of the castle. FROM SAPHET TO DAMASCUS. I had some difficulty in procuring horses to oen- vey me to Damascus. There are three roads : one was said to be obstructed by snow, another was distant, and the third was said to be infested by Bedouins. After some delay, the last route was chosen. My companions departed for Bei- rout about day-break, and I was once more alone, with the most dangerous part of my journey yet before me. Some smart showers feU in the morn ing, against which my only defence was the trunk of an old tree. At noon, April 30, the horses being ready, I and my servant, accompanied only by a guide, began THE HOLY LAND. 61 to ascend the hfll to the northeast of Saphet, and in Httle more than an hour we found ourselves in the plain of the sea of GaHlee. There were no houses in sight from the hflls, but in different places we could see the shepherds keeping watch over theh flocks. We soon came upon an encamp ment of Bedouins. I counted about fifty tents. As we approached the place, ten or twelve ghls came towards us, dancing and singing. Two of the stoutest of them seized hold of the bridle of the guide's mule, and he had some difficulty in rescuing it from theh grasp. Two others came toward me for the same purpose, but as they ap proached, they seemed unable to teU what to make of me, and gave back. I was a little afraid lest we should be under the necessity of treating them roughly before they would aUow us to pass, ui which case the men would have interfered, and the consequences might have been serious ; but I was soon informed that it was one of their festival days, and all they wanted was a present. I never saw a more merry group, ahd theh rosy cheeks and open countenances reminded me strongly of the country ghls of England. I gave them no present, as I knew that it would be only the sig nal for fresh importunities. There was a poor feUow close behind us, who appeared to come off less easily than ourselves : he took up stones to ~ defend himself, but they held him by their united force, and he was stfll in confinement when we left the camp. The tents are aU of a dark color, and from a distance may be caUed "black, but comely," Hke the tents of Kedar. There is a division formed by a hanging of coarse mat, on one side of which is a private apartment, and the other side is open to the breeze, but they probably admit of some alteration in more severe weather. The camp is guarded by large dogs that ran to wards us with great fury, but were caUed away by the men. In two hours from the foot of the hfll, during which our animals were sorely annoyed by gnats and flies, we arrived at a bridge over the Jordan, caUed Djiser Beni Yakoub, or bridge of the sons of Jacob. We slept at night upon the banks of the stream. There were several persons assembled near the bridge, and five camels, but as they had none of them fire-arms, it was agreed that we should aU wait here one day, in the hope that by additional arrivals a more respectable caravan might be formed. I was not sorry for the detention, as it gave me an opportunity of copying out the notes of my journey from Jerusalem, and my ser vant was able to wash me a few clothes. The bridge has three arches, the stream is very rapid, and nearly the same breadth as in its more dis tant course. A tax of three piastres is imposed upon every loaded camel, two upon every mule, and one upon every ass. The tax was last year farmed for 20,000 piastres. I was much interested by watching the move ments of the Bedouins, great numbers of whom crossed the bridge during the day in theh gayest apparel on theh way to escort a bride to the tent fit her intended lord. They scour along the plains at fuU spesd, their flowing garments floating in the breeze ; the rattle of their horses' hoofs is heard upon the ground, and in another moment they are away and away, like the wind. The inspired account of the wfld ass has been thought to be descriptive of the habits of the Bedouins, " Who hath sent out the wfld ass free ? or who hath loosed the bands of the wUd ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the bar ren land his dwelling. He scorneth the multitude of the city ; neither regardeth he the crying of the exactor. The range of the mountains is his pas ture, and he searcheth after every green thing." Job xxxix. 5 — 8. We were passed by a long string of camels, on their way from Damascus to Egypt, laden with the treasures of the east. On the opposite bank of the river is an exten sive khan, or caravanserai, in ruins, an account of which may serve as a general description for buildings of this kind. It is square, and about thirty feet high. . There is a large open area, or court yard, in the centre, for the animals, in the middle of which formerly stood a buUding upon piUars, used as a place of recreation by the more respectable traveUers. Around the area, and open towards it, are arched rooms, in which the goods were deposited for the night, and the ani mals might be admitted into it in inclement weather. At the corners are closed apartments, used as eating and sleeping-rooms. The en trance-gate is stfll perfect, and is lined with hon. Near the top of the waU are loop-holes for de fence, and in cases of necessity it might stand a good siege. It is probable that it was in some similar place our Saviour was born, and there be ing no room for Joseph and Mary in the inn, or private apartments, they were compeUed, on ac count of the influx of strangers into the city, to occupy an open court with the animals and goods. Between the bridge and the sea of GaHlee, which may be about four mfles distant, there is an old fortress, for what purpose built I cannot teU, unless the Jordan be sometimes fordable at that place. About two miles to tlie northward is Bahr-el-Houl, or " waters of Merom," four mfles broad and six mfles long. The banks are low, and the whole presents the appearance of a marsh. A few mUes from this lake stands Cesarea Philippi, now caUed Baneas, and long supposed to be the source of the Jordan. It is the Dan of the Old Testament, in which Jeroboam placed one of his golden calves, and was at the northern ex tremity of the land of Israel, from whence the ex pression "from Dan to Beersheba." No additions having been made to our party, May 2, we proceeded on by ourselves. The road was over an extensive plain, diversified by low hflls, with many single trees scattered over it, principaUy of thorn ; but though abounding in ex ceUent pasturage it is forsaken by man. The stones are coflected together in some places, and there are many signs that it was once under cultivation. There are the remains of a paved way, which we crossed and recrossed several times, but it is not now used by traveUers. The land on the eastward of this part of the Jordan belonged to one of the half-tribes of Manasseh, and in the time of our Saviour included Decapolis and Iturea. We had not travelled above five hours when an alarm was given that a party of Bedouins had appeared in the distance. We endeavored to hide our animals behind a mound of earth that was 62 THE HOLY LAND. near, but camels have necks so long that it is a matter of no smaU difficulty to conceal them. — We placed ourselves in the best posture of de fence we could, and scouts were sent forward, wbo crept along by the trees, and came at inter vals to report on appearances. There were eight Bedouins, all on horseback, and they came in the direction in which we were standing, but when at a httle distance they turned off towards the south, probably without having observed any of our party. A merchant from Saphet had been murdered here a few days previously, because he had dared to shoot one of the horses of the Bedouins, in de fending himself from an attack. The pacha of Damascus had ordered reprisals to be made upon them, for which purpose there was then a con siderable force in the field, and we were thus in the midst of a mortal feud. We soon afterwards passed a Turcoman en campment. The men and women are more re spectably dressed than the Bedouins, the tents are more comfortable, and the flocks more numerous. They are said to be peaceable, and we passed among them without fear. We remained for the night in the open ah, near an extensive khan in ruins. On our north was Hermon, covered with snow ; on the west, a lower hfll, with the tomb of AH Abou Nuda on the summit, and on the south east the plain extended as far as the eye could reach. This plain is mentioned by Ezekiel as "the coast of Hauran," and even in times com paratively recent it was considered from its fer tility as the granary of the Turkish empire. I felt the cold severely during the night. — Therm, at sunrise, 42. There was now less luxuriance in the pasturage of the plain, May 3d, as we passed along within sight of the snows of Hermon, at a distance of about 20 mUes from its base. The road was for a mile over one continued rock. We saw several extensive flocks of sheep, attended by theh shepherds, some of whom were trying to beguile the soHtude by playing upon a reed. I rested about two hours under the shade of a tree, near a respectable khan that was the first public building I had seen in the country in a tolerable state of repair. It contains a mosque, a fine stream of water runs nearly round it, and several famiUes reside within its waUs. From this place cultivation is more general. We crossed the same stream several times, and the road was often on its banks. A woman and child, and five camels, perished here last winter from the snow and cold, in attempting to cross the plain. We Blept on the bank of a stream, near a smaU viUage. We were roused by our guide at midnight, May 4, and pursued our journey, though with some difficulty, by the Hght of the moon. I could distinguish a strong castle on our left towards the dawn, when we passed two vfllages. I entered Damascus with some fear, as the inhabitants have a rooted antipathy to all Christians, and especiaUy to Europeans, and are only prevented from injur ing them by the strong arm of the law : and as the pohtical circumstances of the country were then very precarious, I did not know whether the individuals actually in power would be able to protect me in case of insult. I had to traverse the whole length of the town before I arrived at the quarter aflotted to the Christians. I fancied that aU eyes were directed towards me as I pass ed through the crowds, but no one said any thing to me, good or bad, before I arrived at the house of a gentleman from Scotland, to whom I had a let ter of introduction from his brother in Alexandria. DAMASCUS. Damascus is one of the most ancient cities in the world, being the same place that is mentioned in the history of Abraham. In has been called "one of the four paradises of the east," and " the right hand of the cities of Syria." The emperor Julian, in one of his letters, mentions it as being "the true city of Jupiter, the eye of the whole east, pre-eminent in every thing — in the elegance of her sacred rites, the happy temperature of her climate, the beauty of her fountains, the number of her rivers, and the fertUity of her soil." It is said to contain 180,000 people, and even 300,000, with the villages in its immediate neigh borhood. It was for many centuries the capital of the kings of Syria. The city is long, but of inconsiderable breadth. On entering it I passed through a street upwards of a nhle long, and broad in proportion. In the principal streets there is scarcely a single buUding that does not display some taste in the manner of its erection, and the mosques and public edifices are without number. There is nothing very splendid in the appearance of any one particular place, but there is a charm produced by the purely oriental cha- racter of the whole, that tells powerfuUy of the days of the cahphs, and gives something Hke re ality to the fictions connected with theh history. The houses are built of bricks burnt in the sun, and are composed of Hght-colored clay. In the narrower streets they have a mean exterior, but within they display all the magnificence of the east. A narrow passage opens into a court, sur rounded by buddings, the waUs of which are paint ed with alternate lines of blue, white, and red. — In the centre is a marble fountain, and the ah is scented with flowers, or shaded with trees of cu rious or beautiful foHage. At one side is a recess that reaches to the roof of the building, entirely open towards the court, and spanned by a broad arch : and round it are splendid cushions, upon which -visiters are received and the members of the family assemble during the hours of recrea tion. The rooms are finished with great care, having paintings upon the wall, and illuminated sentences from the Koran, and in some instances there is no part to be seen that is not wrought in Arabesque. The streets are nearly all pro tected at theh entrances by strong doors. The mosque of St. John is the principal resort of the Moslem worshippers. It was built by the caliph Walid, in 717, and seven years' revenue of the whole caliphate is said to have been consumed in its erection. The bazars are exact representations of aU that we are accustomed at home to attribute to places of this description. Among the multitudes who throng them are persons in almost every possible variety of dress. The rich turbans and flowing robes of the respectable merchants are THE HOLY LAND. G3 finely contrasted with the rude sheep-skin cover ing of the mountaineer and the dark abba of the wandering Arab. The ladies dress in plain white when they waUc out in the streets, and it is only when making purchases in the bazars that theh faces can be seen. I was taken into a large building on horseback, and I became somewhat alarmed, as I at first supposed that it was a mosque, and knew that I must pay dearly for such a presumption. The roof was composed of a large dome, the windows of which were formed of glass cut in different shapes, and protected by a trellis work of hon, and under the centre was a marble fountain. I soon found out that it was nothing more than a khan, a place somewhat si mUar to the exchanges or halls of commerce in Europe. The Damascus blades are no longer of superior value. The principal manufacture is silk. An immense number of persons is employed in making up dresses, as it is from this place nearly the whole of Syria is supphed. The city has given name to the Damson plum, the Damask rose, and the Damask silk, as they were aU origi nally brought from this place. Damascus is situated at the foot of one of the ranges of Hermon. Upon an eminence that over looks the city there is the tomb of a sheikh. The old man was approaching the place from the di rection of the sea, and the road by which he came was one continued scene of desolation, with the exception of a few trees in the hoUows, where the melting of the mountain snows had swoUen the water into streams. In a moment, without any token whatever of what was to foUow, he came to the verge of the precipice, and beheld at his feet the pure white edifices of Syria's magni ficent capital. He started back, as if struck by the sight of an angel, and exclaimed, "I wiH die here ; I wfll proceed no further lest I be unable to enjoy Paradise." Tradition assures us that he kept his word, and never entered the city. From this situation the view of the city is one of the most interesting that can be conceived. The clay of the houses seems transformed into marble pu rity by the illusion of the distance, and the whole appears Hke one congregated mass of minarets, turrets, and domes. Surrounding these, to the extent of many miles, are gardens presenting a mantle of the most gorgeous green, the uniformity of which is reHeved by the dark cypress trees that rise from among them in aU directions. There are few objects upon earth that come nearer to the ideal form that the mind gives to the New Jerusalem. The plain extends as far as the eye can reach, and at the time I mounted this eleva tion, and looked upon the enchanting sight it commands, the sky and the clouds were exhibit ing those varied tints that make any prospect beautiful, and rendered this almost divine. I could just distinguish the waters of the Bahr-el-Margi in the extreme distance, by the reflection of the sun's rays from theh surface, which added aU that was wanting to the perfection of the scene. In the Canticles, tbe nose of the bride is compar ed to " the tower of Lebanon, that looketh towards Damascus," and may not this expression refer to the prospect from this place, and mean, surround ed by beauty ? The waters of the river Barrady are divided into seven streams, which are carried through the city. Numberless rflls pass through the gar dens, and to these they are indebted for theh fer tility. They are adorned with waflcs, summer- houses, and fountains, and the ladies spend in them a great proportion of their time. They are here in some measure free from the restraints of the harem, and they appear to have great merri ment in making their remarks upon passing ob jects, and perhaps in attempting in theh way some Httle witticism or severe hony. An incredible quantity of fruit is annually preserved, and ex ported to the city of Constantinople and other parts of the Turkish empire. The place is stfll shown where Saul was ar rested by the voice of Jesus, as weU as the house of Ananias, the house of Judas with whom Saul lodged, and the waU whence the apostle was let down in a basket. The rivers of Abana and Pharphar cannot now be traced. The pachalic of Damascus at present includes the whole of Syria. It was expected that Ibrahim Pacha would make it the seat of government. The law is administered with the utmost strict ness, and in the most summary manner. The criminal is sometimes arrested, tried, condemned, and executed, within a very few hours of the per petration of his offence. The head is struck off in the presence of the governor, at a given signal, often unknown to any but the executioner, and the bleeding corpse is aUowed to remain some time exposed in the vestibule of the palace, as a terror to aU simUar offenders. I crossed a bridge, whence the females who are unfaithful to theh lords are precipitated into the water, sewed up in sacks. This barbarous practice is said to be by no means uncommon. I visited the ruins of the palace of the late governor. The people rose up against him,- being irritated by his extortions, overpowered his guard, leveUed his palace with the ground, and massacred him and the whole of his family and dependants. The people were disaffected towards Ibrahim Pacha. When under the nominal government of the Sultan, they could act according to their own wishes, as they were so far removed from the seat of power, but they are now ruled with a sceptre of iron. Ten days before my visit to the city there was a report that the pacha had met with some reverses, and though the men had been forbidden to carry arms under pain of death for the second offence, they now carry them con cealed under their clothes. Had the inteUigence proved to be true, they would probably have made an attack upon the governor and his guard, and they swore that the Europeans should be the first to TaU. The force ot Ibrahim amounted to 2,000 Egyptian soldiers, encamped near the city, but the inhabitants are noted cowards, though they brag at so brave a rate. The people of Damascus have long been cele brated for their bigotted attachment to Islamism, and for theh hatred and persecution of the pro fessors of aU other rehgions. Theh principal source of revenue has been from the pilgrims, who assembled here from the interior provinces of Asia to form the caravan for Mecca, and remained here some months. The number has sometimes amounted to 70,000. Last year and the present 64 THE HOLY LAND. no caravan was formed, in part owing to the dis tracted state of the country, and the commerce of the city suffered much in consequence. No Eu ropean was allowed, even within a few months of ray visit, to wear a white turban in pubhc, or ride on horseback, and I am told that a brother mis sionary of my own society, the Rev. J. Cooke, was compelled to enter in disguise, and in the darkness of the night, during the early part of the year 1824. I wore the prohibited badge, and rode several times through the principal streets and bazars, and though there might be a few murmurings in an under-tone, I received no open insult. The change has arisen from the greater protection and encouragement that Europeans derive from the new government, which I trust wiU lead to nobler results than the mere setting aside of a few sumptuary regulations. The kind friend whose hospitahty it was my privilege to experience, is connected with a mer cantile house in Manchester. He, Ins brother, and a friend, had retained the European dress, which afforded no small amusement to the natives, particularly the hat, as they compared it to one of their cooking utensils. Mr. T. is one of the exceUent of the earth. He is supphed with bibles from tbe British and Foreign Bible Society, and at his khan has sign-boards to announce the sale of this inestimable treasure in at least a dozen different languages. When he walks out he carries a bible under his arm, which being differ ent in its form to theh own books, attracts atten tion, and affords him an opportunity to introduce it to the notice of the people. Some time since a sheikh read a few sentences in it in the bazar, and then pubHcly expressed his high admhation of its contents. The governor of Syria bought a copy, and other great men of the city accepted the Scriptures as presents. The people have al ready begun to make a distinction between real and nominal Christians : the latter they call Na- zarines, and the former are designated by a word that signifies " foUowers of the Messiah." There are about 4,000 Christians in the city, who Uve in a quarter by themselves. By some of the early missionaries a great number of Bibles and Testa ments were distributed among them : these were afterwards coUected by the principal of the Ro man Cathohc convent, and aU committed to the flames, and it is said that three whole days were employed in that infamous occupation. When an EngHsh traveUer arrives at the convent, he is first asked if he be a missionary, and then if he be concerned in the distribution of Bibles, and if he answer in the affirmative, he is refused admit tance. AU persons connected with this good work are excommunicated. Notwithstanding the efforts of Satan thus to hinder the spread of divine Imowledge, some seeds have been sown, both among Mahomedans and eastern Christians, that it is hoped wfll, before many days, bring forth good fruit unto the Lord. There was a man of Tarsus who came towards this city, " breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disci ples of the Lord," and a simflar spirit appears yet to work among the people ; but as we know that the same individual soon afterwards " preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God," we have encouragement to believe that the spirit of this people will also be changed, and that each one wiU ask in humflity, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? " LEBANON.— BAALBEC. I left Damascus a Httle before noon, May 7, and was taken by our guide some distance on the Bei- rout road, until we came to his own viUage, which was probably done for his own convenience., The friend I employed to hire our animals, made an agreement for them by the day, and not for the whole journey, which is generaUy the cause of endless disputes. I was accompanied by the bro ther of my late host, who was desirous to visit the ruins of Baalbec. We ascended mount Heimon, not far from the town, and as the sun was sbining in its fuU strength, we saw the extensive prospect it commands to the greatest advantage. Hermon formed part of Anti-Hbanus, and in ancient times it was inhabited by the Hivites. The road was over hiUs and tlirough valleys, and in some places was very steep. The moun tains are barren, but the banks of the streams in the defiles are covered with gardens and fields, which afford by theh rich green a fine contrast to the bare rocks above them. I had usuaUy looked upward to see the vfllages we passed, but here they were beneath us, and the flat roofs of the houses being covered with grass, they had very Httle of the appearance of human dwelhngs. In about two hours from leaving Damascus we had a shower of hail, which continued near forty mi nutes : the stones were by far the largest I ever saw, and my horse was alarmed by theh pelting upon his skin so fast and so thick. Hail-stones are a common allusion among the inspired writers, but the only instance recorded of an actual shower within the borders of the Holy Land, was at the defeat of the Canaanites under Joshua. We slept at the viUage of Firazeit, and were accommodated in the house of an Arab, as the ground was too wet to aUow of sleeping in the open ah. The female part of the family consisted of a young wife, and the daughter of a former wife. The good lady kept her old man in com plete subjection ; for though he was willing to as sist us as far as he was able, the frowns from his better half soon taught us that we could expect from him but little, and must receive that Httle by stealth. In the room in which they slept one part of the floor was raised into a kind of platform, and in the lower division the horses were accommo dated. There was a fire-place in the corner, and some sheep-skins spread before it, on which eat the master and mistress of the house, and the other members of the family sat at a Httle distance. The men ate theh food by themselves, and I par took with them. The principal ingredient was lebn, or sour milk, and the taste was not disagree able. Each had a smaU wooden spoon, and we aU dipped into one common bowl. From an in spection of the corn and other provisions in theh store, it appears that theh circumstances are com fortable ; they have also changes of raiment for inclement weather and for holyday occasions, and seem to have all the necessaries of Ufe that would be possessed by smaU farmers in England. THE HOLY LAND. 65 We pursued the winding course of a mountain stream, May 8, and had to ascend a considerable time before we could emerge from the defile we had entered. The scenery is grand, from the bold . scale on which it is formed, and the dashing and foaming of the stream added to the general inte rest. A bridge bestrides the waters near the place where the mountains are at theh highest elevation, and in the rocks near them are many excavations, in which the early Christians are said to have taken refuge in times of persecution. We soon afterwards entered a valley, or sKp of table land, bounded on one side by Lebanon and on the other by Hermon. Both ranges had snow upon them, and the mountains of the latter are high and precipitate. I again heard the note of the cuckoo, and the voice seemed to come from the snow. This vaUey appears to have been the northern confine of the conquests of Joshua, as it is said that " he took all that land even unto Baal-gad in the vaUey of Lebanon under mount Hermon." Josh. xi. 17. We passed several viUages, but were not dis posed to make many observations, as it continued to rain during the whole of our progress through the valley. After traveUing eight hours we ar rived at the viUage of Soorkiye, and again remain ed with an Arab famUy. Bemg mountaineers, the females were not ashamed to show their faces, but sat round the fire, and entered into conversation without fear. My companion was dressed partly in European costume, and the dame of the house, who was as good tempered as we could wish, said she had never before seen so extraordinary a creature. They aUowed us to watch them at theh work. They were baking bread. The oven is formed of mortar, in a conical form, open at the top, and the fire is kindled inside, according to the Hteral expression of Scripture, "cast into the oven." The dough is worked by the hand into a thin cake, which is then thrown with a Httle vio lence against the side of the oven, and aUowed to remain there until it is sufficiently baked. It is caUed hubs, and when I had become accustomed to the taste, I preferred it to coarse broad. When not otherwise engaged, they spin cotton, with a clumsy wheel, but on the same principle as our own. The men are employed out of doors. They cultivate corn for bread, and barley for theh horses. They have also fruit-trees and vineyards. Being Mussulmans, they make no wine of theh grapes, but form them into a substance that much resem bles honey, caUed dibs, which can be preserved a long time, and is exceUent when taken with bread. I had with me an Indian coverHd, under which I slept, which attracted the attention of the old lady, and I had many hints that a few inches cut from it would be an acceptable present. We slept round the fire-place with the family, but the younger females and children went to the house of a neighbor for the night. The road continued, May 9, to exhibit much of the same character as the day before, until we be gan to ascend a mountain at the end of the plain. We proceeded along the sides of elevated moun tains, graduaUy descending until we came, in about five hours, to the great plain in which Baalbec is situated. We crossed two streams that appear at one time to have been deep rivers, and as we 54—1 caught the first view of the ruins, rain came on, but not with violence. We apphed for shelter to the superior of a smaU convent, but as he refused to take us in without the promise of an exorbitant present, we proceeded to the temple, and tried to accommodate ourselves as weU as we were able in one of the best of the ruined apartments. The origin of the celebrated temple of Baalbec is lost in obscurity, but it is attributed by the peo ple of the East to the genii under the dfrection of Solomon. From modern writers it has received a date in much later times, and is supposed by them to have been erected about the reign of An toninus Pius, at which time the style here used was prevalent. From the almost universal adora tion of the god Baal, or Bel, in these countries, the word is used in the composition of many of the names of places mentioned ih the Scriptures. One of these cities at least, Baal-hermon, was in this neighborhood, and it has been supposed that the Birkath-Aven of the prophet Amos, chap. i. 5, refers to this identical city. The temple was dedi cated to the sun, and by tlie Greeks was caUed HeHopoHs. The ruins are surrounded by a moat. We first entered upon a court fiUed with large stones and broken columns. At one end, six columns are standing in a Hne, with part of theh entablature, about 70 feet high, and each composed of three separate stones. The principal court is upwards of 300 feet long, and is surrounded by an arcade, with niches, recesses, and smaU apartments, aU of elaborate sculpture. There is one temple nearly perfect in its outer waUs, that has been surrounded by a portico and columns. Many of the columns are stfll standing, and the situation of afl the others can be traced. They are of the Corinthian order, with an appropriate frieze, and the interior of the roof of the portico has been ornamented with heads in regular compartments, the features of which might stfll be traced on a near approach. The temple itself is roofless, and the moulding and other ornaments of one side are entirely eaten away, probably from their exposure to the stronger breeze, but the other parts are in good preserva tion. It is nearly 200 feet long, and about 100 feet broad. The centre stone over the entrance has shpped from its place, and hangs apparently without any support, as if to threaten with instant death the adventurous traveUer who shaU dare to enter this deserted sanctuary. It is ornamented with the figure of an eagle. Near this is a build ing that bears marks of Saracenic origin, and was perhaps buflt out of the ruins of the former erec tion. Some of the stones in the waU of the tem ple are 58 feet long, and there is one at the quar ry not removed out of the place where it was cut from the rock, upwards of 60 feet long, and said to weigh more than a thousand tons. In the magnitude of these remains my expecta tions were more than reaHzed, but I was disap pointed in the effect. It was the first ruin of Gre cian architecture I had ever visited, and having been accustomed from my earHest days to asso ciate with this style aU that is chaste and beauti ful, I do confess that I expected the temple of Baalbec would have excited in me greater enthu siasm. I saw it in different Hghts, and from dif ferent situations, but the voice with which it spoke 66 THE HOLY LAND. to me was always the same. The moss and ivy of the ruins in England give them an inexpressi ble charm, the massiness of the Egyptian struc tures strikes the mind with awe, and even the caves and temples of India have something about them that attracts and fixes the attention ; but in looking at these immense stones and columns, the feeling was one of melancholy alone, that Time should have been so merciless in his devastations, without adding any of those telling touches that in other places make us almost forgive him for his deed. The simplicity of the Grecian architecture appears to me to be lost when exhibited in pro portions so colossal. At a Httle distance is a smaU circular temple, of the same order of architecture, once used by the Greek Christians as a place of worship. The town itself is one mass of ruins, and there are very few of the houses that are tenantable. There are several mosques, one of which contains a great number of pillars and capitals, put together with out order or taste, and in the court are some pros trate columns of very beautiful granite. We had intended from this place to visit the cedars of Le banon, a few of which are stiU standing, of an im mense size, but we were told that the road was impassable from snow. The mountains towards the west exhibited the coldest and most cheerless appearance I had seen for many years. None of the evil sphits visited us in our solitude, nor did any robber think it right to make an attack upon our Httle band. I had a large stone for my bed, and lay down with the intention of rising in the night, to enjoy by the Hght of the moon the power of our singularly awful situation, but I slept so long and so soundly, that the dawn had already commenced before I was roused from my slumber. Early in the morning, May 10, three men, arm ed, came to demand what they caUed the usual acknowledgment from traveUers. I refused to give them any thing, saying that I had not yet done it in the whole of my journey, and upon this they made many pretensions that they were the governors of the place, amenable to no other power, and not like the other chiefs I had seen. As my young companion could speak Arabic well, we asked them if they had ever heard the name of Ibrahim Pacha, and they then lowered their tone, and merely requested a small present. I stfll refused to comply with their wishes. They swore by the holy prophet that we should not leave the place unless some present was given. I was the only person unarmed, and expected they would seize me, but I quietly mounted my horse, and when they saw that I was firm, they went away, muttering curses as they went. We were perhaps among the first travellers who had dared to resist their demands : no thanks to our courage, but to the vigor of Ibrahim's administration, who has declared that no European shall in this way be molested within the Hmits of his dominion. At some distance from the city we passed a tomb, buflt in the form of an octagon, with stones and granite piUars brought from the temple, but in very rude style. We rode along an extensive plain, about six or eight miles broad, extending as far as we could see. It is well cultivated, and contains many smaU viflages. We had much trouble with our guide, who acted more foolishly than a child, and even shed tears if we did not do exactly as he required us. We were proceeding at Httle more than three mfles an hour, the usual pace, when he seized the bridle of my servant's horse, and would allow him to go no further. — We had a long altercation, in which we were as sisted by some persons who were passing at the time with fuel, and in a few minutes afterwards the man struck upa merry tune, and during the rest of the journey rendered us every possible attention. In nine hours we arrived at Zahala, romanti- caUy situated in a glen, and surrounded on three sides by high mountains. It contains about 8000 inhabitants, nearly ah of whom are Christians. There are several convents, the beUs of which are rung without fear. The bazar is much resorted to by the mountaineers. An old priest visited us, and invited us to his convent, but we were too fatigued to accept bis invitation. We rose soon after midnight, May 11, and after some delay in the bringing of the horses, we set off on our journey by moon-light. For some hours we had one continued ascent. When we had proceeded some distance, the beU of a distant con vent sounded to matins, the effect of which was extremely pleasing at such a time and in such a place. I walked a-head of the party for a Httle change, and turning down a wrong path, had a good run over the rocks before I could rejoin my companions. At the summit of the pass we were surrounded by snow. We saw several caravans on their way to and from Damascus. From one point we had a view of the sea, and after descend ing some time, we passed on our right a very pre cipitate and romantic vaUey, with two villages in its bason. The earth was in some places red, and in others of varied colors. There were stunted trees upon the hflls, the slopes were of different incHnations, the rocks were bold, and the moun tains of majestic elevation, and the whole present ed a scene of peculiar grandeur. I have often remarked how different are the feelings, when we look at mountain scenery from beneath, to what they are when we gaze upon the same objects from above. In the one case, we are awed into reverence by the proud bearing of the everlasting masses that seem as the old monarchs of creation : in the other, we feel as if we were spirits of power that wanted only some sudden impulse to enable us to flee away in a moment to one of the many resting-places beneath our feet. Lebanon is caUed in Scripture " a mountain upon a mountain," or a double mountain, and is di vided into two ranges, distinguished by the names of Libanus and Anti-Hbanus in the writings of the ancient geographers. The valley between them is caUed Caelo-Syria, or HoUow-Syria. The east- em ridge extends from near Antioch to the plain of Hauran, and as it approaches the latter place, it is called Djebel Sheikh, which is the ancient Her mon. The western ridge is less extensive, and runs almost paraUel with the coast. The summits of Lebanon are much higher than any other part of Syria, and as they may be seen from a great distance, they add much to the interest of every extended prospect that is presented throughout the land. The basis of the mountain is limestone, and in several places, both at a Httle distance from THE HOLY LAND. 67 the sea and at a great elevation, I picked up many impressions of shells of different species, formed in clay of a Hght color, reHcs of the antediluvian age. The sides present every variety of soil and ch- mate, and some of the summits are said to be always covered with snow. The inhabitants of Lebanon have among them representatives of many different tribes, but the most numerous and the most remarkable are the Maronites and the Druses. There is much that is interesting relative to both these people, but as I was unable to gain any new information respect ing them, from the rapidity of my passage through their country, I shaU be brief in narrating their history. The Maronitis are Christians, but we have no true account of theh origin or conversion, and little authentic is known about the Maro, from whom they profess to derive their name. They have a form of worship pecuhar to themselves, but have acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope since the 12th centuiy. They have sheikhs of their own, who are independent in the internal re gulation of state affairs ; but an annual tribute has always been paid to the power in possession of Syria. The district they inhabit, caUed the Kesrouan, is only a few hours journey across, but it supports a population of upwards of 100,000 souls. The Druses reside more towards the south, and were formerly included in the pachalic of Acre. They derive theh origin from Hakem, the third caliph of the Fatimite dynasty, who mounted the throne of Egypt in the year 996. He gave himself out to be an emanation from the Deity, and had many foUowers throughout the whole of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia; but they are now exclusively confined to mount Lebanon. They are divided into two parties. The rites of the first are secret, and are not to be divulged upon pain of death, but the other party is the more numerous. Their rehgion is a compound of Islam- ism and Christianity, partaking of both, and ex actly agreeing with neither. The men have one wife, and are remarkable for theh hospitality. The first mention of Lebanon is in the prayer of Moses, when he besought the Lord that he might see " that goodly mountain, and Lebanon." It was then inhabited by the Hivites. There is frequent reference to the fountains, weUs, and streams of Lebanon, as weU as to its vines, flow ers, roots, fir-trees, box-trees, and cedars, and in one description of the latter-day glory, it is said that "the fruit thereof shaU shake like Lebanon." The aUusions of the prophets appear very striking to those acquainted with the circumstances of the place. We learn from Hosea that Israel shaU one day be as " the vine of Lebanon," and its wine is stfll the most esteemed of any in the Levant. What could better display the foUy of the man who had forsaken his God, than the reference of Jeremiah to the " cold flowing waters" from the ices of Lebanon, the bare mention of which must have brought the most deHghtful associations to the inhabitants of the parched plain? The Psalmist declares that "the voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars ; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon;" and a more sublime specta cle can scarcely be conceived than the thunder roUing among these enormous masses, and the lightning playing among the lofty cedars, wither ing theh foliage, crashing the branches that had stood the storms of centuries, and with the utmost ease hurling the roots and trunks into the distant vale. But by Isaiah the mountain is compared to one vast altar, and its countless trees are the pUe of wood, and the cattle upon its thousand hflls the sacrifice ; yet if a volcanic eruption were to burst forth from one of its summits, and in torrents of Hquid fire to enkindle the whole at once, even this mighty holocaust would be insufficient to ex piate one single crime, and the sinner is told that " Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof for a burnt-offering." The trees of Leba non are now comparatively few, and with them are gone the eagles and wild beasts to which they afforded shelter ; and it is of its former state, and not of its present degradation, that we are to think, in reading the glowing descriptions of the pro phets. " The glory of Lebanon shaU come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box to gether, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I wiU make the place of my feet glorious." We halted about two hours at a khan, and when near the foot of the mountain had a fine view of the plain, town, and bay of Beirout. The road is in some places difficult, and in aU unplea sant, as the people throw into it the stones they col lect from the adjoining fields. It is singular that no attempt appears ever to have been made to repair it, though it must have been constantly fre quented upwards of 3000 years. We had this day been on our horses at least 14 hours, and I have seldom felt more fatigued. The sun had set when we reached the gates of the mission-premi ses, and it was with feelings of sincere gratitude to Almighty God that I once more entered the house of my American friends, as I had departed from it with some fears that my journey would be attended with difficulties, and that my Ufe might be exposed to danger. At an early period the Holy Land was peopled by the descendants of Canaan, who were separat ed into distinct nations. It was divided by Moses into twelve tribes, and after the death of Solomoa they composed two rival sovereignties. The king dom of Israel or the ten tribes, which had Sa maria for its capital, feU in the year 721 b. o. The kingdom of Judah, which included also the tribe of Benjamin, and had Jerusalem for its capi tal, was finaUy subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, in the year 588 b. c. From this period, Judea was subject in turn to the Chaldeans, Medians, Per sians, and Greeks. The kings of Syria then ob tained possession, till John Hyrcanus shook oft* their yoke, and it had a dynasty of native princes, who reigned amidst much opposition, until about the time of Christ, when it was subject to the Romans. At this time it was divided into five provinces, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Perea, and Idumea. Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus, a. d. 71. It was taken from the emperors of the east by the Saracens in the 7th century, and from the Saracens by the crusaders in the 12th century. The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem existed about eighty years, and mll87 Syria was conquered by Saladin ; in 1317 it feU into the possession of the Turks ; in 1831 it was taken from the Sultan by 68 THE HOLY LAND. Ibrahim Pacha, and is now subject to Egypt, which, however, is itself nominaUy under tribute to the SubUme Porte. The whole of Syria is now included in one pachaHc, the head of which is Da mascus, and Jerusalem is governed by a moulsel- lim, an inferior chief. In all these changes, every ancient place mentioned in these notices has taken part, and this rapid historical sketch must be considered as apphcable to almost every town and city throughout the country. In the time of our Saviour the Holy Land was in circumstances somewhat different to aU that preceded and to aU that may foUow. There was a pause in the course of events between the pe riod of prophecy and the period of accomplish ment, which was the fulness of the prophetical time, and the beginning of the kingdom of God. The sera was come when the polity of the Jews was to receive a mighty disruption, in which the tribes were to be blended into one undistinguisha- ble mass, and the chosen of the Lord were to be come "an astonishment, a proverb, and a by word, among aU nations whither the Lord shaU lead them." The tribes were then separate, but the people resided in what part they chose, and were only required to resort to theh own cities on certain occasions connected with the affairs of government. Thus Joseph, the carpenter, of the tribe of Judah, resided at Nazareth, in the tribe of Zebulon, but resorted to Bethlehem to be en- roUed at the general taxation. The country promised to the posterity of the patriarchs was to be " the glory of aU lands," "a land flowing with milk and honey." Under the sway of the Canaanites, amidst aU theh wicked ness, it brought forth in such abundance, that the spies sent forward by Moses were constrained at theh return to say concerning it, " It is a good land which the Lord our God doth give us." In the time of David the population must have amounted to several miUions, as the men able to bear arms were numbered, at the lowest computa tion, and after an imperfect census, at 1,300,000. In the time of Jehoshaphat the men of war, in Judah alone, amounted to 1,060,000. That there was no exaggeration in these statements we may •infer from the writings of Josephus, whence we leam that in his time the cities of the land were numerous and extensive, and that at one celebra tion of the passover, in the reign of Nero, there were present at Jerusalem 2,700,000 persons. — Individuals among the Jews were extremely rich, whilst the condition of all appears to have been comfortable, as Nabal had 3000 sheep and 1000 goats, and David left towards the buUding of the temple £21,600,000 in gold, besides some millions in silver. Such men as Boaz the Bethlehemite, Araunah the Jebusite, and Naboth the JezreeHte, were an honor to a nation, men worthy to stand before the king. Wise men have struck out from the regions of fancy Utopian commonwealths ; but in grave and authentic history we meet with no country so happy as the promised land in the more prosper ous periods of its existence, and had the people been faithful to the commands of the Lord theh God, there would have been reahzed amongst tbem all that the imagination has fabled of the golden age. Ihe spot cultivated by the husband man (and nearly all were of this occupation,) was his own ; it had belonged to his family for cen turies ; he was surrounded by the homesteads of his immediate relatives ; from father to son were transmitted a thousand little traditions which con secrated every stone and stream, and made every field and tree a part and parcel of his existence ; and aU that affection treasured up in the memory was more or less connected with the sphere of his dafly occupations — which included as weU the place of his birth, the spring at which he first drank, the tree that produced the fruit of which he first ate, the garden in which were cultivated the flowers he first admired, the altar where he first held communion with the Lord, and the hal lowed nook that was the burial-place of bis fathers, and where he hoped that Lis own grave would be dug when his form was to be again numbered with the clods of the valley. But there are also other associations besides those of birth and kin dred that the human mind has been formed to cherish with gladness, and there wUl stfll be a void felt in the heart where the exercise of these is wanting, how sweet and lovely soever may be our proper home. When families have been lo cated for ages in one particular place, and have Httle intercourse with the rest of their species, they become the slaves of habit, and are preju diced against all that is exterior to theh own nar row circle ; change is considered as almost sinful ; and aH that is noble in charity becomes selfish in its tendency and circumscribed in its operation. The Israelites were happily preserved from these unfavorable consequences by the forms of theh rehgion. The priest and Levite, and often the prophet, itinerated from viUage to viUage, and thus kept up an intercourse between the different famUies of the same tribe ; and aU the males were required to present themselves three times a year in the place of the Lord's presence, by which the connection was kept up between tribe and tribe ; and the news they then heard, the incidents they then met with, the few luxuries they then pur chased, would furnish them with subjects of thought and conversation, until the period again came round for theh pilgrimage, which was ex pected with equal impatience, though from differ ent motives, by the old and young, the female and the male. We confine ourselves now to what might be denominated the civil advantages of the people, as we should be caUed upon to essay to ourselves a far loftier mood, were we to speak of theh religion as a revelation from God, and as providing a priesthood and an altar, which could promise to the. transgressor that his sacrifice should make " an atonement for the sin he hath committed, and it shaU be forgiven him." We may borrow the lyre of the Psalmist, and exclaim, " Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance : happy is the people that is in such a case, yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord." In relative situation the Holy Land had many advantages, as it was at no great distance from any of the kingdoms most celebrated in ancient times, and yet not so necessarily connected with them as to make its position dangerous. It had enough of mountain, and stream, and lake, and THE HOLY LAND. sea, to render it complete in its own resources. — j It admitted of easy defence against invasion either by sea or land. Nor must it be forgotten, that its position, almost in the centre of the three great continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, was the most desirable that could have been chosen when the fulness of time was come, and the blessings of revelation and redemption were to be scattered among aU the dweUers upon earth. The relative appearance of the country has been most accurately described by Moses. " The land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs ; but the land whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hflls and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven." Deut. xi. 10, 11. The outline of the hflls is bold, and the vaUeys are strictly plains, presenting few of the undulations that give so much beauty to the scenes nearer home. The vaUeys are composed of a deep rich soil, free from stones. The rocks are principaUy of gray limestone, and they con tributed greatly towards the sustenance of a large population, as they were terraced in aU dhections with embankments buUt up with loose stones, on which grew melons, cucumbers, and other creep ing plants, as weU as the vine, the fig, and the ohve. In summer the heat is oppressive, more particularly in the plain of the Jordan, and in win ter the snow Hes some days upon the ground, both at Jerusalem and at places of much lower eleva tion, as the plain of Esdraelon. There are no rivers worthy of the name besides the Jordan.— The towns are nearly all buflt upon the hflls, partly for defence, and partly for the more con venient growth of the vegetables most used as food by the people. They are many of them waUed, but none of them would be able to make a long defence against an European power. The plains are open, not separated by hedges or walls. The roads are carried through the corn-fields, and it may frequently happen that in the sowing of grain, different portions of the same handful may faU by the way-side, and upon stony places, and among thorns, and into good ground. There is scarcely a single tree throughout the whole land, except the fruit-trees cultivated near the houses of the inhabitants. I did not visit the tribes on the eastern side of the Jordan, though they are far less known to Europeans than the parts I have described : they have the pre-emi nence in the splendor of their scenery and in the interest of theh ancient remains, but they are much inferior in historical importance. The mountains of the Ammonites and Amorites pre sent a singular character from the distant point at which I saw them, and reminded me of the sacred expression of mountains fleeing from the presence of the Lord : they have a larger superficies of ta ble land, without so much as one soHtary peak, and appear as if trying to compress themselves within the smaUest possible compass. There is Httle in the present appearance of the people to put us in remembrance of those periods of Scripture history that are most dear to us, as the Bedouins can only represent the patriarchal age, though they do it to the life, and we look in vain for some one to remind us of the prophets and the apostles. There is no commerce, and the general occupation is the same ; but even here there are blanks that bring keen disappointment, as there is not a single fisher-boat upon the sea of GaHlee. The costumes have probably under gone Httle alteration by the lapse of time ; but from the associations arising from this source we derive Httle pleasure, as our painters and sculp tors have arrayed their sacred characters in Gre cian garments, and it would be difficult for us now to fancy them under any other form. In aU other respects, there is a sacredness connected with aU we hear and aU we see ; there is a divinity that stirs in every visible object ; and the language of the poet assumes a power that is not equaUy ap plicable to it in any other country of the world : " The meanest flower that blows, can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." The sight of a lily carries the mind to the mount of the beatitudes, the expectant people, the dis ciples, and the preaching of him who " taught as one having authority ; " the camels convey us to the times of the patriarchs ; the vines remind us of one who has said, " I am the true vine," and of the precious blood of which its juice was chosen to be the sacramental emblem; the diminutive ants, as they move along in numerous armies, raise the thoughts to Solomon, the man of three thousand proverbs ; the lamb speaks of the daily sacrifice, of the preaching of John, and of the meekness of the Redeemer, when led to the slaughter, and wounded for our transgressions : and the eye can fix itself upon no spot that is not the taHsman of thoughts too big for utterance. Near every viUage there are caves, and cis terns, and sepulchres, cut in the rock, women grinding at the mfll, oxen treading out the corn, groupes of females seated near the well, shepherds abiding in the field ; the bottles of the people are made of leather ; their beds are a simple mat or carpet, and even a chUd may take them up and walk ; the grass is cast into the oven, people Hve in the tombs, there are lodges in the garden of cucumbers, grass grows upon the tops of the house":, and the inhabitants walk, and sleep, and meditate upon the roofs of theh dweUings. These customs, and a multitude of others that might be named, stiU cling to the homes where some of them have been practised near four thousand years. There are the same fruits, flowers, trees, birds, and animals ; and milk and honey are stfll a chief article of food among the people. It is man alone that seems out of his place ; all other objects remind us of the Scriptures, and throw Hght upon some of its facts ; we reverence the very pebbles : " And all, save the spirit of man, is divine." It would be wrong to argue the former capabi- Hties of the Holy Land from its present appear ance', as it is now under the curse Of God, and its general barrenness is in full accordance with pro phetic denunciation. The IsraeHte in our street, whose appearance was delineated with graphic precision by the legislator prophet, in the 15th century before Christ, is not a surer evidence of the inspiration of the holy volume, than the land 70 THE HOLY LAND. as it now exists, cursed as it is in all its products, its heaven shut up, and comparatively without rain. Deut. xi. 17. The prophecies concerning Canaan are numerous, and have been so HteraUy fulfiUed that they may now be used as actual his. tory. " Your high-ways shaU be desolate .... I will make your cities waste, and bring your sane. tuaries into desolation .... And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dweU therein shaH be astonished at it Then shaU the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it Heth desolate, and ye shah be in your enemies' land even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sab baths." — Moses. " The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoUed .... The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, aU the merry hearted do sigh : the mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth .... There is a crying for wine in the streets, aU joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone : in the city is desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction Upon the land of my people shaU come up thorns and briers." — Isaiah. "I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by bis fierce anger ; for thus hath the Lord God said, The whole land shaU be desolate : they shaU be ashamed of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the Lord." — Jeremiah. These prophecies might be taken one by one, and many others might be added to them, and from the pre ceding statements there would be for each some evidence of accomplishment. It has, indeed, been matter of dispute to what period some of them re fer, and it is possible that they may have received some inferior accomplishment before the coming of Christ, but the full weight of the woe that they denounce was reserved for these last days. There are prophecies of another description, that present visions of hope to the now abject Jew, and are too important to be passed by without no tice. " I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee ; though I make a fuU end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet wfll I not make a full end of thee, but I will correct thee in measure." — Jeremiah. " The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without tera- phim : afterwards shall the children of Israel re turn, and seek the Lord theh God, and David theh king ; and shaU fear the Lord and his good ness in the latter days." — Hosea. These pre dictions also may be included among those that have a double character, a first and a secondary ful filment ; and though we cannot go the same length that some good men would wish us, as touching the restoration of the Jews, we can have no doubt that they wfll one day be restored to the favor of the Lord, and that theh land wiU again receive the blessing of the Most High. There are at present in Palestine all the mate rials requisite for the forming of a prosperous peo ple ; it possesses the framework of a mighty nation, but the spirit of its existence is fled ; and though a form once powerful and features once beautiful be there, the form is now motionless, the features are marred by a mortal convulsion, and the breath of its life is away. It was the opinion of the ancients, that all that the lightning touched was sacred, and that they who were kiUed by its flash were speciaUy regarded by Heaven ; and it is a feehng arising from a simUar source, that causes the traveUer to look upon the Holy Land with something of the same reverence. We gazed upon it as the old prophet of Bethel gazed upon the carcass of the man of God that had been slain by the Hon, and which he took and laid in his own grave, mourning over him, and saying, "Alas, my brother ! " But if the thought partake too much of superstition, we may call to our remembrance the tenet of a purer faith, that enables us, by the promise of a resurrection unto eternal Ufe, to awa ken " a joy in grief," and to look upon the remains of our dearest kindred with chastened exultation, and speak of " the lovely appearance of death." The sure word of prophecy has promised unto Judea a glorious resurrection, and has described it in "colors dipped in the rays of heaven ; " and though its words may refer as weU to a spiritual Israel, extended as the world, they are the better for aU this, and we wfll utter them with a louder voice and a gladder heart. It is because of sin that the land is thus desolate ; but amidst aU the afflictive dispensations writh which it is visited, though it be now comparatively treeless and streamless, a glory shines upon its rocks that gilds not the towers of the noblest of earth's palaces. The inheritance of Israel is " at rest ; " in the ner vous language of inspiration, it is "the Sabbath" of the land : — one woe is past, and a second and a third have been endured : — the clouds that now envelope the mountains of Lebanon and Hermon shall soon be dispersed, and beams aU-cheering as the bow of the covenant shall play upon theh sum mits, and shaU descend lower and lower, as the Sun of Righteousness rises in the firmament, ga thering richness as they descend, until they burst in a flood of glory upon the lowest of tbe valleys, and from limit to Hmit fiU the whole of the promised possession : — the breath of the Lord shall then breathe upon the mass, and every hfll, and field, and stream, shaU teem with a new existence, and the breath as it breathes shall receive instant ho mage from the lily bending in its loveliness, and the rose of Sharon shaU give to it the fragrance of its leaves ; — the sky shall be like the heaven it but partiaUy hides, the air aU fragrance, the hflls shall put forth the sweetest of the fruits, and the vales shall be covered with the corn, and the oil, and the wine ; — the waters of the stream shall murmur praises unto the Lord, the whispers of the winds shaU be hymns to our Emmanuel, and the sounds when they cease upon earth shall be carried on by the angels of heaven. " The wil derness and the sohtary place shaU be glad for them : and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose : it shaU blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing : in the wUderness shaU waters break out, and streams in the desert, and the parched ground shaU become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water : and the ransomed of the Lord shaU return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon theh heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." " The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." THE HOLY LAND. 71 It wfll perhaps be asked of me, what are my thoughts as to the effect produced upon the mind of the Christian by visiting the sacred places ; whether it tends in any measure to quicken the spiritual affections by seeing with the bodily eye the exact spots where the wonders of redemption were made manifest? To this question it would be difficult to give an answer that would be equally apphcable to every inquirer. The minds of men are differently con stituted, and where one would receive pure and salutary instruction, another would receive equal disgust, and would turn away as from an unclean vessel or a poisoned chalice. There are indivi duals, more especiaUy among men Httle acquaint ed with the Scriptures, who seem to requhe some outward and visible sign by which to quicken theh faith, and when that sign is given them, they throw into their faith the whole fervor of theh souls, and embrace it as a boon from Heaven. Such cha racters may perhaps be profited by a sight of the mountain vfllage where our Lord was born, or of the sudden turn in the road from Bethany, near which he wept over Jerusalem, or of the mount upon which he triumphed over the grave and snatched the victory from death. Indeed there is no behever in these things who wiU not find him self influenced more or less by a sight of these me morable places : but in the far greater number of minds there wfll be no benefit at aU adequate to the loss that wfll be sustained by an absence from the regular means of grace, by having of neces sity to mingle much with men of the world and heathen men, and by meeting continuaUy with those disappointments and annoyances from the people of the country, that tend to bewilder the mind, and to deaden the best affections of the heart. I have now seen most of the places whose his tory teUs with the most tlirflling sensations upon the soul ; but at the time I visited them, I did not feel that deep and awful interest in them that I previously expected. I had many inquiries to make before I could teU what to beUeve and what not : I was sometimes fatigued by the distance, or by the intense heat of the sun, or by climbing of rocks ; there was so Httle to see that at aU comport ed with the simpHcity of the actual truth ; there was among the bystanders so little manifestation of a feeling in unison with the grand transactions they were professing to reverence ; that all these things, single or united, tended to unfit me for that "flow of soul" I might otherwise have sup posed would spring up within me as a mighty flood of the purest and most refined enjoyment, when standing, for instance, upon the mount of OHves or the mount of Zion. It is necessary too that a distinction be made between the different kinds of events of which this land has been equaUy the theatre. I can witness the horrors of the road to Jericho, and the good ness of the Samaritan appears to me greater than I before could have conceived ; I can wind along the vaUey of Elah, and the patriotism of the shep herd boy with the five smooth stones in his scrip, touches my soul with power ; I can wander among the ruins of Cssarea, and listen with more intense dehght to the stirring oration of the apostle ; I can stand near the site of the temple, and feel with the fathers, the ancient men who had seen the first house, when they wept with a loud voice, and shouted aloud for joy, because the foundation of this house was laid before theh eyes. There are, in addition, many circumstances connected with the history of Jesus Christ that may be class ed among the same series, such as the greater part of his miracles, the delivery of the sermon on the mount, the riding in triumph into Jerusalem, and even the raising of Lazarus. No man can visit the country where these several events oc curred, without increasing his perception of their interest. But when we come to the birth of Christ in the stable, bis temptation in the wilderness, his prayers upon the lone mountain, his agony in the garden, his death upon the cross, and his resur rection from the grave ; in a word, when we come, not to those things which were done for the ex plaining and confirming of his mission, but to those that regard the great mystery of our redemption, and that can nevei be understood by us in the fuU immensity of theh import, the mind shrinks from too near an approach towards the haUowed scene, and feels as if it were diving into secrets forbid den to be contemplated by man. There was a woman, in the house of Simon, permitted to wash the feet of our Lord with her tears, and to wipe them with the hair of her head, but after his re surrection, even to Mary Magdalene was this com mand given, "Touch me not." It is not "after the flesh" that we are now to know Christ : the mind may be affected by a recital of the death and passion, whilst the heart retains its uncleanness ; it is that spiritual sight of the victim slain which enables me, as an individual, so to look upon it, that it becomes the received atonement for my own transgression, that wfll alone be accepted by God, and this may be better exercised in the re tirement of the closet than amidst the glare of the lamps and ornaments of the pretended Calvary. The pilgrim to the Holy Land would generaUy be better employed in visits to the throne of grace ; and would derive more wisdom from searching with sacred awe the oracles of the word, than in gazing for a time upon the spot where these ora cles were delivered, or the events were transacted that they record. I do not, after aU, regret that I have turned aside for a Httle time to see these great sights. I have witnessed the degradation into which the professed churches of Christ have faUen, a degra dation more deep, more awful, and more distress ing, than I could possibly have conceived without being an eye-witness ; and I am not without some hope, that my imperfect representations of these things may tend to induce the inhabitants of a more favored land to make some attempts to res cue them from theh errors, and impart unto them a knowledge of "the truth as it is in Jesus." I seldom ooen my Bible, more especiaUy the histo rical parts, without reading its pages with greater interest, from the more vivid perception 1 have of its scenes : I have been present at the first esta bhshment of a mission at Jerusalem, which I trust wfll never cease its operations tiU the city be a praise in the whole earth : and in looking at some of the barren hflls of Judea, where the beast wan ders not, the bhd flies not, and the grass grows not, I have seen the impress of the curse of God, in more dreadful characters than are to be seen 72 THE HOLY LAND. elsewhere on this side the grave ; a sight render ed still more striking by the beautiful flowers, and the patches of flourishing grain, that here and there present themselves, as if to show what the land was once, and what it again may be, when the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon the city and upon the field, and the labor of man's hand shaU be refreshed by the former and latter rain. THE ISLES OF THE MEDITER RANEAN. This sea is caUed in Scripture the Great Sea, and the Sea of the Philistines. It is not much noticed in the Old Testament, except as the western boundary of the Holy Land, and the cedars used in the building of the temple were floated upon it from the foot of Lebanon to the port of Joppa. It was upon this sea that Paul was shipwrecked, and several of the other apostles sailed upon it in their voyages of mercy. It extends from the coast of Syria to the Straits of Gibraltar, a distance of more than 2000 miles. It is one of the most celebrated coUections of water in the world. It has been looked upon by nearly all the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and by Jesus Christ. It has carried upon its breast almost every warrior, philosopher, and poet, both of ancient and modern times ; and could the spirit of its winds coUect together at one place all the characters they have wafted along its surface, there is scarcely a single name of note written upon the pages of history that would not be included in the assemblage. Upon its waters were fought the battles of Salamis, Actium, Le- panto, and the NUe. Upon its shores, or at a little distance from them, stood the cities of Jerusalem, Tyre, Troy, Athens, Alexandria, Rome, and Car thage ; and among the mighty empires of the an cient world, whose -wings were dipped in its wa ters, were Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome. It includes within its limits several minor seas, and many islands of celebrity both in sacred history and profane. CYPRUS. I embarked in a Sardinian brig for Larnica, in Cyprus, May 14, and on the 18th we were off the port of Famagousta, the ancient Salamis, men tioned by Homer, where Paul and Barnabas " preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews." We were not able to make Larnica before the 19th, though the same voyage id some times performed in a few hours. There being no immediate opportunity of em barking for Greece as I had expected, I made a tittle tour into the interior, in company with a friend. The plains were cultivated to some ex tent with barley and wheat. In some places the barley was reaped, and the crops were expected to be large, from the plentiful supply of rain that had fallen during the winter. We saw great numbers of locusts, and to the fanner they must be a terrible scourge. After passing several vUlages, in about eight hours from Larnica we arrived at Nicosie, a forti fied town, and tlie present capital of the island. The principal mosque was once the Greek cathe. drai of St. Sophia. Cotton prints arc extensively manufactured here, but the bazar is as duU as Turkish indolence can desire. 1 had a letter of introduction from the British counsul to the patri arch of the Greek church. He is a stout heavy man, destitute of aU energy, and was placed in his present office by the Turks, that they might re ceive as Httle opposition as possible to their op pressive schemes. He signs his name with pur ple ink, and as no law can be legaUy promulgated in the island without Iiis consent, he has it in his power greatly to protect his people, were he not too subservient to the masters who have placed him in his present situation. He did me'the honor to say that the convent should be mine during my stay, however much it might be prolonged. It has been said that 10,000 people were massacred here by the Turks at the commencement of the Greek revolution, but the statement is greatly ex aggerated. The patriarch, bishops, and about 150 of the more respectable ecclesiastics and other inhabitants were summoned to the house of the governor, under pretence of having to hear read to them a document from the Sultan, and were aU massacred. About 300 persons perished in other places. The houses of the sufferers are yet in ruins, and the melancholy aspect of the town seems to say that there is a curse upon it for the treach ery of its masters. In the evening we again mounted our horses, and in three hours arrived at the convent of St. Chrysostom. On the way we met the harem of a respectable Turk. A black attendant rode for ward, and ordered us to leave the path until the ladies had passed. The convent is situated on the side of a steep hiU, and has the appearance of a strong fortress. The monks waited on us at table as servants. The visiters had music and dancing, and were as riotous as if they had been at an inn, but the monks did not join in theh sports. An archimandrite, who had been in Eng land, was playing at cards, but be was ."eproved by one of his brethren. I returned to Larnica on the 25th, as I was afraid that I might be absent during some opportunity that might present itself for me to leave the island. Larnica is the principal sea-port of Cyprus, and is weU frequented by ships of aU nations that put in for provisions, as they are plentiful and cheap. There are two towns, and that near tlie sea is caUed the Marino. The space between them is said to have been once occupied by houses, the inhabitants of which fled to other places to escape oppression. There is a small castle, but not of any strength. A mound of fragments and stones is said to have been formerly surmounted by an acropoHs. About a mile to the southwest of the town is a smaU lake, whence salt is procured : an aqueduct and tonib are seen on the opposite side, and the view of it at sunset was almost tlie only sight of interest I met with in my rambles. There was one day a feast to commemorate, as I was told, the deluge. The roadstead was gay with THE HOLY LAND." 73 streamers and music, and the beach was lined with crowds of people, all dressed in their holyday apparel. Citium, the birth-place of Zeno, is at a few mfles distance, and retains its ancient name. Cyprus is the largest island connected with Greece, except Candia, or Crete, and was cele brated in ancient times for its attachment to the licentious worship of Venus, who was fabled to have here arisen from the froth of the sea. It was visited by Paul and Barnabas, who landed at Salamis, and went "through the isle unto Pa- phos." Barnabas is thought to have been the first bishop of Cyprus, and there is a church dedicated to him at Larnica, which is said to be built over his tomb. The island contains at present about 60,000 inhabitants, 10,000 of whom are Turks, and the rest are Greeks. It pays 3,000,000 piastres annuaUy as tribute to the Sultan. The principal exports are wine, cotton, and silk. The govern ment is as oppressive as that which is exercised in other Turkish provinces, and some think even worse. A new governor was daily expected from Constantinople, who was in office some years ago, and is remembered as having been extremely cruel in the exercise of his functions. The more respectable Greeks are anxious to have a missionary stationed among them, princi pally to establish and superintend schools. They offer to raise 8,000 piastres a-year towards their support, but I fear tbat theh wishes cannot at pre sent be compUed with, as there are many other places of much greater population that are desti tute of instruction. A number of youths have formed themselves into a class for the purpose of studying ancient Greek. An intelligent young Greek, who was educated in England at the in stance of Mr. Wolf, has commenced a school at Larnica, but he does not meet with the encour agement his abihty and good intentions deserve. I embarked in a Greek brig, June 11, for Smyr na. We passed Paphos on the 13th, formerly celebrated for the most ancient temple in the world dedicated to Venus, and now for its hun dreds of churches. Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul, whose name was assumed by the apos tle of the Gentiles, resided here, and it was here that Elymas, the sorceror, was struck with blind ness. " Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga, in PamphyHa ; and John departing from them, returned to Jeru salem." Acts xiii. 13. On the 17th we passed in sight of Mtra, in Lycia, whence the apostle embarked in the ship in which he was wrecked at MeHta, and on the 19th we passed in sight of Patara, a maratime city of the same province, where the apostle, on his way from PhUippi to Jerusalem, found a ship bound for Phoenicia, in which he sailed. Acts xxi. 1. During this little voyage, I was presented with a fine opportunity of studying character. We had about fifty souls on board, Turks, Greeks, and Jews, one Egyptian, and several female slaves from Africa. I occupied a little box on deck, over the helm. tThe Turks took possession of the larboard side of the deck, and the Greeks of the starboard : the Jews were in the forecastle, and the negresses in the long boat, where, in spite of theh situation, they were the merriest group in the party. There was something imposing in the 54—2 gravity of the Turks ; in the constancy with which they offered up their prayers at the canonical hours, with theh faces towards Mecca, no matter what other scenes were presented around them ; and in the studied importance which they always assumed, even in such common acts as the wash ing of their hands and the Cooking of theh vic tuals ; and aU this was the more striking when contrasted with the laughter and recklessness of the Greeks, who were aU day long trolHng some catch, or playing at games of chance, or showing themselves adepts at aU kinds of sflly tricks and buffoonery. The poor Jew moved among them without fellowship, and on his countenance was written too clearly the mark of dejection and care. One of them came to me as I was standing near the carpet of a Turk, which he happened to touch with his toe, for which' the old Moslem, seeing the pollution to which his carpet was exposed, railed at the son of Abraham with a bitterness that made me feel keenly for him in his degradation. RHODES. We anchored about noon, June 20, in the harbor of Rhodes. The city has a good appearance from the sea, with its towers and castles, and rises graduaUy from the shore. I counted at one time upwards of thirty windmifls. I had a walk through the principal streets, attended by the dragoman of the consulate, who had informed me that he had been interpreter to Sir Sydney Smith during the late war. I was now in the land of chivalry, and the town is so -Httle altered in appearance since it was deHvered into the hands of the Turks by the knights of St. John, that I might almost have ex pected to jostle with some steel clad warrior on turning a corner of the streets, or to see the joUy face of some ancient warder on passing under the entrances to the venerable castles. Rhodes was taken from the Greeks by the knights of St. John in 1310, and they kept posses sion of it until 1523, when it was besieged by Soli- man with 200,000 men, and yielded after a brave defence of six months. The moats, waUs, and towers are stfll formidable. The street of the CavaHers is the most perfect and the worn pave ment at the sides bears evidence that it has been trodden by the feet of many generations. It is narrow, and buflt upon an ascent. The arms of the knights are emblazoned upon shields over the entrances to the wards, together with the arms of the nation to which the ward belonged, and some of these heraldic emblems are stfll entire. The arms of England are opposite the entrance into the castle of the Grand Master, in which the massy door is yet upon its hinges, and the arch by which it is surmounted is formed of many ribs of elaborate sculpture. The entrance from the street to each ward opens upon a passage that leads to a court, planted with trees, and round the court are gaUeries or cloisters, from which the apartments are severaUy entered. At the higher end of this street are the remains of a church, now roofless. Nearly aU the old castles and houses are inhabited. The streets are paved with smaU peb bles, and have a neat appearance. There are 74 THE HOLY LAND. many stone balls, of different sizes, scattered in aU directions, said to have been used during the siege. The quarter of the Jews contains about 150 houses. The city was supposed to be the finest in tbe world in the time of Alexander. There are two har bors, across one of which the celebrated colossus probably stood, but its exact situation is not known. The island was visited by St. Paul, on his way to Jerusalem. Acts xxi. 1. It is 40 miles long, and 15 broad, very healthy, and might be exten sively cultivated, were the government of a dif ferent character. It does not contain more than 30,000 inhabitants. The principal exports are honey and wax, and last year there was a consi derable trade in oranges, as the crops in other parts had failed. A Greek brig entered the roads, June 20, bound for Syra, and as this port was more convenient for me than Smyrna, I made an agreement with the captain, and took leave of my old friends from Cyprus. I thus lost the opportunity of seeing Smyrna,' and perhaps some other of the Asiatic churches, but my voyage to Greece was much shortened. The passage between Rhodes and the continent of Asia is about 20 mUes in width. In the evening we could distinguish a great num ber of islands, nearly aU of which are celebrated in the mythology of the Greeks. They rise bold ly out of the sea, but are destitute of trees, and greatly disappointed me in theh appearance. - We were off Cnidus on the 25th, and the heat was most oppressive, as we had a dead calm nearly the whole of the day. St. Paul was in similar chcumstances near the same place. — " When we had sailed slowly many days, and scarce were come over agamst Cnidus." Acts xxvii. 7. I foUowed the course of the apostle in his voyages and travels, and often prayed that I might follow him more closely in his holy ardor in the cause of Christ. I seemed to be able to real ise the appearance of the apostle more power fully on board ship than in any other place : we were saUing upon the same seas, looked abroad upon the same islands and mountains, and our mariners spoke nearly the same language. We sailed by Cos on the 26th, visited by St. Paul, and celebrated as the birth-place of many eminent men. On the 27th we were within a short distance of Crete, mentioned in the Apo crypha and by St. Paul. Titus is said to have been bishop of this place, and to have resided here when the apostle wrote his epistle, in which he says, " the Cretans are always Hars, evil beasts, slow beUies," quoting as his authority one of their own authors. Titus i. 12. That " this testimony was true," we have ample evidence in the writ ings of the ancients. The next day we saw Samos, also visited by St. Paul, and the birth place of Pythagoras. It is separated by a narrow channel from the Ionian coast, and Ephesus is only a few mfles distant. PATMOS. We were close in with " the isle that is caUed Patmos" several hours, and I had a good oppor tunity of examining its appearance, so far as is possible from the sea. It is about 20 miles in cir cumference, and its aspect is forbidding and cheer less* The shores are in most places steep and precipitate, and from our vessel it appeared as if the inhabitants would be in constant danger of roUing down into the sea. The highest part of the island is surmounted by a monastery, dedicated to St. John, round which are buflt the houses of a - respectable town. We could discover very few trees. The sailors were lavish in theh praises of the inhabitants. It was with unutterable feeHngs I gazed upon this dreary rock. The situation of the weeping exfles was before me, who were banished from the pleasures and applauses of imperial Rome, and were sent to inhabit this dull and distant re gion, with none to converse with but sufferers in the same calamities, whose very attempts at con solation would only add still deeper sorrow. — What must they have felt, and how must they have wept, when they beheld from the horizon the Httle speck that was to constitute their world?— There was one among these exfles that I seemed to know, whose brow was cahn, whose eye was bedimmed by no tear, and from whose counte nance seemed to beam the serenity of a spirit in bliss. It was the beloved disciple of the Lord. — The banishment of the venerable apostle was from a cause perhaps different to that of any of the exfles who had preceded him, as it was " for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." Standing upon one of the eminences of the island, and turning towards the continent, St. John would be able to distinguish mountains that might also be seen from the whole of the seven churches of Asia ; and as he had planted some of them with his own hand, and probably visited aU of them, can we doubt he often would stand thus, and looking towards these interesting spots, lift up his hands to heaven, and pour out his soul in prayer, that he who walked among the golden candlesticks would continue to visit them in mercy, and save them from the power of the antichrist that was to come. It is one of those thoughts upon which the mind so much deHghts to dwell, that from this rock, surrounded only by other simflar rocks, and looking out upon distant moun tains, there should have been an insight given into futurity, further and clearer than in any other place was ever afforded unto mere man. I remained in quarantine fifteen days at Syra, visited Hydra and iEgina, and saw many other islands of inferior interest, but shaU not here at tempt to describe them, as they are not in any way connected with sacred history. The island of Rhodes was the last spot upon which my foot touched Mahomedan ground, and I am caUed upon to take some farewell notice of the remarka ble people whose territories I had now forsaken, for the most recently constituted of the kingdoms of Christendom. The foUowers of Mahomet, in their manners and customs, long resembled the laws of the Medes and Persians, they altered not ; and the Turk sitting THE HOLY LAND. 75 in silence upon his carpet, utterly unmindful of the scenes by which he was surrounded, was a true emblem of the character of his nation. In the countries professing Christianity there has been a gradual progress in art and science during se veral centuries, but throughout the whole of the Mahomedan empire, the minds of men seemed to be sinking into a lethargy more and more pro found, and aU the signs of activity presented else where under a thousand different forms were un able to arouse them from their slumber. There was the invention of printing, the introduction of the Newtonian system, and numberless other discoveries arising from the estabhshment of the inductive philosophy, the application of steam, and a revival of rehgion more pure and more extensive than had been witnessed from the times of the apostles, but not one of these events, each of which might exert a power sufficient to shake the world, influenced in the least the mass of the Mahomedan population. Witliin the last few years the sleep of centuries has been drawing to wards a close, but the effects of the powerful opiates that have been taken are evident upon the system, and the present excitement is but as the awakening that precedes death. The rehgion of Mahomet was established by the sword ; it is now perishing by the same process : and the sword of its destruction is drawn from its own scabbard, and wielded by its own arm. The recent rebeUion of Egypt has thrown the Ottoman empire into the hands of a Christian power ; other Christian powers have only to refuse interference, and its downfaU would be the work of Httle more than a single day. It would be in vain to bring out the old garment of the prophet, the elevation of which would once have been answered by the flashes of a miUion scimitars, as the virtue of its inspiration has gone for ever. There is a trem bling in the hearts of the people, produced by the very power that once gave them courage for the conflict. They then believed that it was written in the book of fate that they must conquer; they now believe that it is written in the same book, in characters equaUy imperishable, that they must fall. The changes that are taking place are the more interesting, because among such a people any change is wonderful, and a change for the better is almost beyond the Hmits of behef. Some of these innovations have not been effected without the shedding of much blood, but the opposition has ceased, and the Turks see daUy the most se rious inroads upon the customs of theh ancestors, without a single conservative movement. The great doctrine to which much of their apathy was to be attributed, has been openly disregarded in the adoption of quarantine, and the establishment of schools of anatomical dissection. The comT mands of Mahomet have been at all times evaded, but it was in secret : now, they are broken by ali classes without shame, or the least attempt at concealment. In an hotel at Alexandria, I saw a party of Turks, high in office, drinking to each other's health in bumpers of champagne. The fast of the Ramzan was last year publicly broken by no less a personage than the governor of Da mascus. In some minds there are indications of excitement and enterprise. I met a respectable Turk, attended by a numerous party, near the top of the highest of the pyramids, who manifested all the eager curiosity of Franks. The prejudices of the people generaUy have been lessened by the great number of Europeans in the employ of go vernment, and the principal insults that the travel ler now receives are from women and children. Ibrahim Pacha has, perhaps, adopted the modes of thinking common among Europeans to a great er extent than any other Mussulman chief since the establishment of Islamism. The battle of Na- varino taught him that the fangs of " the Chris tian dogs" were not to be despised. It is difficult to form a just estimate of his character, as the ac counts are contradictory of th^se who have had access to his presence. The exercise of cruelty is more frequently accompanied by the forms of law than in his younger days, but it may be equal ly severe and extensive. It appears from the pub- He prints that he has this year visited the convent at Nazareth, and was present at the celebration of Easter in the church of the Sepulchre at Jeru salem. The charges are numerous that might be brought by the Mahomedan world against the church of Christ, and there lies at our door a mass of accu mulating. guUt, that caUs upon us loudly to exert ourselves by every means in our power to effect its removal. The nations conquered by the first cahphs were nearly aU infested with the heresy of Arius. There have been Christian churches among them in aU periods of their history, but these churches are faUen, and have the form of rehgion without the power. Then comes the im portant question, By what means were the Ma- homedans to receive the true Hght that shineth from heaven, and be rescued from their error, and led into the way of peace ? The Arians had put out the Hght from before theh own eyes, the Greek and other churches had it stfll in possession, but it was hidden in deep recesses to which no one could approach, and the Protestants looked on with criminal indifference. The recent expansion of Christian benevolence has extended as far as Con stantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria, and many other places similarly situated, but the work has been hitherto of a preparatory nature ; the missionaries have not yet been able to make any concentrated attack upon the strong holds of Mahomet, and the body of the people have never had Christianity brought before them in its pure simpHcity and na tive power. It is well known that there is a law in existence, that any Mussulman who renounces his reHgion shall be put to death. Under these circumstances, the principal efforts must at pre sent be made by the estabhshment of schools, by private conversations, and by the distribution of tracts and of copies of the Scriptures ; but mis sionaries must be at hand to instruct more fuUy those who, by such means, have received "the Hght of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," and prepare them for an open profession of the cross, and the consequences of that profession. It is to be feared that without great watchfulness on our part, tho spread of knowledge by the instrumentality of the presses now established, wfll be only the prelude to a more open profession of infidehty ; and skepticispi, as in too many parallel cases, wfll take the place of su- 76 THE HOLY LAND. perstition. Ibrahim Pacha was asked by a friend of mine whether he himself would put to death one of his own people who might embrace Chris tianity, and his reply was this : — " It is a hard question : we have laws ." Jt is the opinion of those competent to judge, that neither Ibrahim nor Ah Pacha would carry this law irrio execu tion, but it is probable that the first native con verts might suffer from private revenge or a gene ral attack of the people. It was one of the noblest triumphs ever achiev ed by the gospel, when the hordes who burst from their fastnesses in the north of Europe upon the Roman emphe, and established themselves even in the centre of the imperial city, were converted from idolatry to the religion of Christ. With these conversions the victories of the cross appeared to cease. The conquerors of the Roman empire were many of them conquered in turn, by the Turks and Saracens ; but in no place was the re ligion of the victorious Mussulmans abandoned for that of the vanquished Christians. For the space of nearly one thousand years there was not a sin gle instance of a national conversion to Christian ity. The front of cruel and relentless hostility was exhibited hy the Moslems towards the Naza- rines, whom they suffered to exist within the bor ders of theh land, and their opposition was so suc cessful, that the law against conversion slumbered in its concealment, and few have been the spirits from among the foUowers of the false prophet, who, for Christ's sake, have been willing to suffer death, or found worthy to join the noble army of martyrs in heaven. It is, however, to be hoped that there have been conversions in secret, that were known only to God. A fellow traveUer in formed me that a muleteer, with whom he entered into conversation in Greece, confessed to him that he was a convert from Mahomedanism. When travelling between Ancona and Loretto, in Italy, I was told that at one of the villages through which I passed, a Turk had a few days before been pubHcly baptized. The signs of the times are in some respects fair and promising, and though there is much to depress the servants of Christ who are laboring in these regions, there are other circumstances, in the book of prophecy, as weU as in the opening volume of providence, that demand a continuance at the post of danger, and encourage the expectation of better and hap pier times. The march of the Mahomedan con querors was first arrested in France ; they have since been driven from Spain and Hungary ; they have been annihilated in Greece ; they have been weakened in Turkey and Persia ; tlie mightiest of theh empires now tremble at the prospect of an approaching dissolution ; and though the future be dim, there may be discovered in the distant horizon, by the eye of faith, the form of the cres cent wasted to an almost viewless streak, and it is setting in darkness behind a mighty pile of prostrate walls, ruinous domes, and faUen mina rets ; whilst, in the opposite sky, the sun of righte ousness proclaims its approach by tints of Hght that play at intervals along the firmament, and a voice breaks forth from the silence, as the sound of many waters, " There is no God besides Jehovah, and Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and the Re deemer of the world." GREECE. The northern boundary of Greece cannot be de fined with precision, as its extent was not the same at aU periods of its history ; but its southern boundary was at all times the Mediterranean sea. No place in Greece Proper is mentioned in the Old Testament, but among those places to which reference is made in the New, are included Achaia, Athens, Berea, Corinth, IUyricum, Macedonia, Phihppi, and Thessalonica ; and if the term Greece be extended to aU the places inhabited by Greeks, it wfll also include, in the provinces of Asia Minor, Bithynia, Cappadocia, . Cilicia, Colosse, Galatia, Iconium, Lycaonia, Lycia, Myria, Mysia, Pam- phyha, Phrygia, Pontus, Pisidia, Tarsus, and the seven churches of Asia. By the prophets Greece is caUed Javan. Isa. lxvi. 19 ; Ezek. xxvii. 13, 19; Daniel xi. 2. In the vision seen by Daniel, he beheld a he-goat that came from the west, that had a notable horn between his eyes ; and he teUs us, " the rough goat is the king of Graecia, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king." Dan. viu. 21. The prophet Joel charges the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon with having sold the children of Judah and Jerusalem to the Grecians. Joel hi. 6. In the Apocrypha there are several references to Greece. The word Greek is sometimes equivalent to Gentile in the writings of St. Paul The ancient states w-ere many of them weU peopled, but the population of the mo dern kingdom of Greece does not much exceed a miUion souls, and its superficies has been calcu lated at 1100 geographical square mfles. ATHENS. I sailed from iEgina, July 24, in company with a, Belgian gentleman, who had espoused the side of the king of HoUand during the late war. The sailors of our caique manifested great pride in pointing out to us the spots in sight, that had been consecrated by the deeds of theh fathers. There was not a cape, or cove, or island, that has not been written in words that wfll never die. The weU-known letter of Servius Sulpicius to Ci-. cero, came with great force to my remembrance. Before us was Athens ; behind us, Corinth ; on our right, iEgina ; and on our left were Megara, Salamis, and Eleusis. The sun was setting as we entered the Pirseus, and when our Httle bark had ghded into smooth water, we had leisure to give ourselves up to thoughts of other years. We slept in the vessel, as several robberies had of late been committed in an ohve-grove, through which we must have passed before we could enter the city. The Pirseus now contains only a miserable coffee-house and a smaU bazar, though it once ri- vaUed Athens in the splendor of its edifices. In the morning we rode forward to Athens, a distance of about four miles, upon mules tbat in the mean time had been procured for us from the city. I was kindly entertained at the house of the Rev. Jonas King, of the American Board of Mis sions, to whom I had brought a letter of introduc tion from his brethren in Beirout. The ancient city is said to have been founded THE HOLY LAND. 77 by Cecrops, a little before the time of Moses. The rock of the Acropolis was first occupied, and it was an admirable position, both for beauty and security, as it is situated in the midst of a plain, and commands an extensive view ; but the city itself, independent of the protection it may receive from the citadel, possesses few advantages. It was connected with the Pirseus by a road defend ed on each side by strong walls, and had two other harbors, Munychia and Phalerus. The Acropolis is an insulated rock ; the ascent to it is not difficult, and part of the propylsea, or ancient entrance, is stfll in existence. The remains of antiquity are nearly afl disfigured by the addition of more mo dern buildings. The Parthenon is stfll grand amidst its ruin, though the columns of the front and part of the lateral porticos are aU that remain. The interior was used as a mosque by the Turks, and since theh expulsion it has been occupied as a barrack by the Bavarian soldiers. Not far dis tant are the temples of Minerva PoHas and Nep tune Erectheus, both of exquisite workmanship, and near them are the celebrated female figures called Caryatides. I ascended to the top of the Parthenon, and had from thence a fine view of the city, mounts Anchesmus and Hymettus, the three harbors, the islands of jEgina and Salamis, the sites of the Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle, and many other places of equal inter est. The richest relics have been taken away from the Parthenon, but whether theh removal shall at length prove a benefit to the arts or a loss, time only can decide. I wfll not attempt to des cribe my feelings whilst looking at this " perfec tion of beauty." I cannot analyse that which passed in my mind so far as to trace each feeling to its separate source ; perhaps I am wanting in the vocabulary of taste, or the technicalities of science ; but suffice it to say, for the purpose of conveying some impression of my thoughts, that I never derived equal pleasure from the contempla tion of any object that was purely the invention and execution of man, as from the sight of this ex quisite temple, considered in the abstract as a work of art. The marble retains its original pu rity, and is yet clear and white after the lapse of twenty-three centuries. There are the remains of two theatres at the foot of the AcropoHs, one of which was dedicated to Bacchus, and the other was the Odeium of Re- gflla. The temple of the winds is an octagon, and each side contains a colossal figure in reHef, but by the accumulation of the ruins around, the spec tator is brought too near the figures, by which they appear out of proportion to the building on which they are placed. There is a smaU tower about which the critics are not agreed whether it be the lantern of Diogenes, or the monument of Lysicrates. The temple of Theseus is nearly per fect, though the roof is modern, and it has been consecrated as a Greek church. The sculptures on the frieze represent the combats of the hero with the centaur, 'and are executed with great sphit. The stones of some of the columns have been wrenched from theh proper place by an earth quake. The ancient measures, which were the standards of the time, stUl exist in stone, near the agora, or marketplace. There is scarcely a house or garden within the city that does not contain some reHc of antiquity. The Pnyx, where the assemblies of the people were held, maybe traced with ease, and the stage on which the orators stood, with many other places cut out of the rock, is nearly perfect, but the voice of Demosthenes is no longer- heard. The waU of the present city passes over the hfll of Mars, which is a rock of no great elevation, near the entrance to the Acropo Hs. It was here that Paul stood before the as sembly of tbe Areopagus. Three caves, or dun geons, are shown, in one of which it is said that Socrates drank the poison. The monument of Philopappus, stands upon the hfll of the Museium. There are now only sixteen columns of the tem ple of Jupiter Olympus, though it could boast of upwards of one hundred at the time it was finished by Adrian ; and upon one of the entablatures are the remains of a narrow apartment, buflt by a monk, to which he ascended by a rope, and there lived in perfect soKtude. The IUissus was dry at the time of my visit, but there are several springs of exceUent water in its bed, at a convenient dis tance from the city. The form of the Stadium, 680 feet long, is preserved, but the marble benches on which the people sat during the spectacles have disappeared. The present city is Httle better than a mass of ruins, as it suffered most severely in the late war with the Turks. It is intended that it shall be the capital of the new kingdom of Greece, and the arrival of the court wfll soon change its appearance. The plan of the city has been decided upon by the king, and it is so constructed that many of the principal remains of antiquity in the lower city wfll be brought out into view, in one long street that is to pass through the centre, and finish at the ancient entrance. The population is at present small, but it is daily increasing, and wfll soon be considerable. The ah is remarkably pure, and the moon-light is weU worthy of all the praises that have been lavished upon it by the poets. There is an extensive oHve-grove in the suburbs, which affords almost the only article of commerce connected with the place. The vacation prevented me from seeing the mission schools. The Rev. Messrs. Robinson and HiU, of the American Episcopal Mission, appear ed to be much respected, and to be deserving of the respect they receive. They have pubUshed from theh press many tracts and elementary works in Romaic, as weH as a few of the writings of the philosophers in ancient Greek, such as the Memo rabilia of Xenophon. The mission from the Ame rican Board had been recently reinforced by the arrival of the Rev. J. Rigg. AU the American missionaries with whom I have come in contact in India, Syria, and Greece, are men of great zeal and extensive acquirements. I preached at the house of the Rev. Jonas King, to a smaU congre gation in Enghsh, and attended divine service in Greek at the same place. The Episcopal mission aries do not aim at the formation of a separate church, but wish to revive the interests of pure rehgion among those who continue to be members of the present establishment. There was a time when Athens was the city of my soul, and its great men the idols of my imagi nation ; and many an hour did I steal at school from less pleasing occupations to read over on the 78 THE HOLY LAND. pages of history the thoughts, and words, and deeds, of its immortal citizens. A more extensive acquaintance with the teachings of a diviner re cord, takes much away of the admhation we once felt toward the characters of antiquity. We learn to pierce the halo that was tlirown around them by our immature conceptions, and whUst in youth we are too apt to look only at that which we supT pose is of the heavens, heavenly, in later age we are perhaps too much disposed to dweU upon that wliich is of " the earth, earthy," in the character of man. The ancient Athenians may be less wise and less good than we once supposed them ; but the alteration in our sentiments never extends to that which belongs to the powerful in inteUect or the beautiful in taste. The most lovely imagina tions ever revealed by the pencil or struck from the stone were once coUected within the walls of the Parthenon, and its visiters were the master spirits of the universe. Nor are we in these re spects in danger of being deceived by those mists with which time, and distance, and ignorance, so often lead us astray. We can yet Hsten to their magic numbers, their phflosophy is the exhaust- less quarry from which men of meaner inteUect continue to hew systems, we can walk among the columns of theh matchless porticos, and the blood yet creeps, and the life yet radiates, in the forms that were thrown from theh sculptors' hands. It was here too that the tree of Hberty was first planted, wliich was afterwards carried to Rome, then disappeared from the sight of men during an age in which, from century to century, there was but one cold and comfortless winter ; and after various fruitless attempts to spring up in other places, it at last struck root in an island probably unknown to the wisest of the sons of Athens, where it flourishes in luxuriance, and offsets have afready been carried from the parent stem that it is hoped wfll one day be famfliar to every soil, and overshadow every land. Were this the only world, and this the only Ufe, it might have been a duty incumbent upon every worshipper of the beautiful to make a pilgrimage, once during his existence, to the Acropolis ; but revelation takes away from its glory, and invests with far subhmer interest a Httle hfll at its foot, that would otherwise escape our notice, and is hidden by its shadow at the rising of the sun. It was apparently by accident that the apostle Paul visited this city. " The brethren at Berea sent away Paul, to go as it were to the sea and they that conducted Paul brought him to Athens." In aU places he remembered the divine commis sion he had received as the apostle of the Gentiles, and as he waited for his companions that were expected, " his spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city whoUy given to idolatry." It would seem that for some time no official notice was taken of his proceedings, though he not only disputed in the synagogue of the Jews, and with devout persons, but also in the public market. It has been questioned whether Paul appeared before the Areopagus as an accused person, or merely as a stranger with whom the philosophers wished to have some further converse ; and it must be confessed that he was at first treated with great courtesy, and even afterwards, though the charge might have been easily proved, if it was a charge that was preferred against him, we are simply told, that " Paul departed from among them." The topics chosen by the apostle were admira bly adapted to the chcumstances of his situation. The thoughts of the Grecian sages, as they sat in silence, must almost involuntarily have essayed toward " a feeling after God," when the apostle extended his hand towards the horizon, and point ed at mountain, and island, and sea, and spake of the " God that made the world and aU things therein, that he is Lord of heaven and earth, and dweUeth not in temples made with hands : " and when he turned away from this magnificent scene of earth and ocean towards the AcropoHs, studded as it was in every part with images and temples, the contrast must have exhibited one of the most splendid triumphs ever gained by truth, as he pro ceeded in his argument, and cried out, fearlessly, within the very precincts of the most sacred spot ever consecrated to idolatry during the long sweep of its empire over men, " Forasmuch then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." It is enough to say that the preacher was Paul, that the place was Athens, and that the auditors were philosophers and the stern judges of the Areopa gus, and there is matter for deep thought ; but the scene presents a stfll grander aspect, when we look a Httle forward, and mark some of its im portant consequences. The young students from Rome would join in the mockery with their old and brow-furrowed preceptors at the earnestness of Paul, and at the strange doctrines he taught ; but Httle did they think, as they turned from the figure of the apostle towards the monuments of theh own greatness, to indulge in the smile of de rision without observance, that the time would come when the unknown God should be ac knowledged as the only God throughout theh ex tended dominion, and when that Parthenon, and theh own stiU prouder Capitol, and aU the deities, heroes, and devils, they contained, should not have upon the whole earth one single votary to come even by stealth and do them homage or whisper their praise. It cannot be said, that in the early ages Christianity shrank from a contest even with the most enhghtened men of whom the heathen world could then boast : in the infancy of its existence, when as yet it received no aid whatever from name or numbers, it thus grappled with the mightiest of its opponents in the centre of theh own citadel, and was triumphant. CORINTH. I landed at Kalamanchi from Athens, July 80, near the site of the ancient Cenchrea, at which Paul embarked for Ephesus. I and my com panion had some difficulty in procuring animals, and we were furnished at last with an ass, a mule, a pony, and a camel. We crossed the isthmus in about three hours, where the Isthmian games were formerly celebrated, to which frequent allu sion is made by the apostle Paul in his epistles to the Corinthian church. The situation is weU adapted to the purpose for which it was appro- THE HOLY LAND. 79 priated, presenting an extended plain, ih a cen tral position between the capitals of aU the more celebrated states. In the evening we arrived at Corinth. The city of Corinth lays claim to an origin nearly as ancient as that of Athens. It appears as if intended by nature to be the -seat of an ex tensive commerce, as it comd communicate with the jEgean sea by the port of Cenchrea, and with the Ionian sea by the port of Lechseum. It was at one time the most extensive city of Greece, and hi palaces, temples, and statues, could chal lenge the world. Its Hcentiousness has passed into a proverb. In the time of the apostles it was the residence of GaUio, brother of the celebrated Seneca, and deputy of Achaia, which included nearly the whole of the Peloponnesus. The Acro-corinthus is a steep rock, at a Httle distance from the city, that rises upwards of 2,000 feet. There may be seen from it the provinces of Thebes, Attica, Achaia, Argohs, and Arcadia, the acropolis of Athens, the mounts HeHcon and Parnassus, and the view includes the birth-places of many of the principal warriors, sages, painters, architects, and sculptors, whose names are re nowned in Grecian history. Independent of aU these associations, had the country around it never been inhabited by man, it would stiU be thought to stand almost without a rival, in the clearness of its atmosphere, the soft azure of its sky, the ma jesty of its hflls, and the many sinuosities of the many waters that encompass its islands and roll upon its shores. The present city is more ruinous than Athens, without the ancient edifices to reHeve the charac ter of its desolation. There are a few Bavarian soldiers, who have nothing to protect but ruins ; there is a market, but scarcely any thing in it ex posed for sale ; and the miserable inhabitants have no visible means of present support or future sub sistence. Eight columns standing together, not of the Corinthian order, are all the remains of an tiquity I observed, with the exception of a few capitals and piUars, seen in detached fragments among the ruins of modern houses and mosques. It is said to be the intention of the king, when his minority shaU expire, to make Corinth the capital of his dominions, in opposition to the regency, who have fixed upon Athens. There needs not a mo ment's thought to discover which is the mOst eh gible position for the capital of the Greeks, whose shipping must for some time continue to be theh principal interest. Upon the opposite side of the gulf of Corinth, I could distinctly see the mountains of HeHcon and Parnassus, but was not tempted from my course to drink of the classic spring, or consult the Del phian oracle. I was more interested by objects nearer the city, which must have been looked upon by the apostle Paul, as he resided here " a year and six months," being encouraged by a vision from the Lord ; and even after this time, "he tarried here a good while." It was upwards of 200 years after the destruction of the city by the consul Mummius, and during the existence of the Corinth of JuHus Caesar, that the apostle "de parted from Athens, and came to Corinth." In Athens he had contended with the worshippers of inteUect, with men who, professing themselves to be wise, had become fools, and he had now to ad dress himself to the victims of sensuality, and warn them that "the end of these things is death." Aquila and PriscUla, who had come from Rome, received him into theh house, and he wrought at theh occupation, for they were of the same craft, being tent-makers. The Jews, to whom he tes tified that " Jesus was Christ," having opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and saying unto them, " Your blood be upon your own heads," he turned unto the Gentiles, and dwelt in the house of Justus, " one that worship ped God." The chief ruler of the synagogue hav ing been converted, as weU as many of the Co rinthians, the Jews made insurrection and brought Paul before GalHo, the deputy, but he refused to listen to their dispute, and " drove them from the judgment-seat." The two epistles that were afterwards written to the Corinthians, bear strong internal evidence of authenticity, as the corrup tions for Which they are reproved, are precisely such as we might suppose would arise from the peculiar temptations of the people. The city has been many times destroyed since the Acts of the Apostles were penned ; but amidst aU its changes, it has ever retained a profession of the faith of Christ ; and although " the church of God, which is at Corinth," is at present of smaUer extent than it has been in any previous period of its history, the thought is at least gratifying, that the only place of worship now attended by its inhabitants is dedicated to the service of the same Lord who appeared by night unto the apostle, and said, " I have much people m this place." The evening on which I first approached the shores of Greece was one of the loveliest I re member to have ever seen. The sun was setting behind the mountains of Arcadia, as I saUed up the gulf of Argolis, and before its final departure. the sea, and the sky, and the hiUs upon which so many great men have walked, appeared as if aU converted into gold. I have witnessed scenes more splendid, but none more beautiful, as I could look on the whole without pain, though every ob ject was glowing with tints of the deepest rich ness. It afforded a striking contrast to the gor geous sunsets that are exhibited in the tropics. The scenery of Greece presents almost every variety of character. The vaUeys sometimes flow in gentle undulations, and are capable of the highest cultivation, whilst the hiUs above them rise in majesty towards the clouds, and are broken at intervals into precipitate ridges, covered with firs and other simflar trees. Some of the ravines through which I passed were thickly set with oleanders, which contributed much to the anima tion of the scene, as they were then in fuU bloom. The harvest was just concluded, and in many places the horses were treading out the corn. — On one floor I counted seventeen horses in one Hne engaged in this service. On the northern coast of the Morea vineyards are numerous, and the low vine is cultivated from which our dry cur rants are produced. The peasants often present ed me, without soHcitation, with bunches Of grapes when I passed through their vfllages. THE HOLY LAND. The language spoken is Romaic, a corruption of the ancient Greek, and the uneducated classes are not able to understand even the New Testa ment in the original. The prayers of the church are equaUy unintefligible to the great body of the people. The interests of literature have been ahnost forgotten during the war ; the coUeges were destroyed, and the students scattered ; but the return of peace has brought with it a thirst for instruction, and the means of acquirement will soon be placed within reach. The whole of Greece, with few exceptions, was laid waste during the struggle for independence, and few efforts have yet been made to repair the devastation : the houses are in ruin, and the fields comparatively without cultivation. Napoli di Ro mania, the present capital, is the only town I saw that is free from masses of ruin, and Patrass also is fast rising from its falL as it is a place of much commercial importance. The calamities of the people have known no bounds. The Turks have been utterly exterminated. In the victories of tlie Greeks there was a general massacre : in the victories of the Turks there was a massacre of the men, and the women were carried away to endure in many instances cruelties more severe than death. I saUed from Rhodes with an interesting Greek female, who had been for several years a slave in Egypt ; she was then returning to her own vUlage, as her freedom had been purchased from her Mahomedan master by a relative. The Greeks have been the subject of great mis representation, both from those who have depre ciated them and those who have praised. They have been gaUed by the hon chain of oppression, and though their fetters have been snapped by the sword, the cicatrice of the wound they left is yet apparent. The crimes that they copied from the example of their masters may be expected to pass away, whilst theh own inherent virtues wfll shine forth with greater lustre and purity. We must wait some time before we can pronounce with certainty upon their national character, as they are at present under circumstances that are cal culated to make them suspicious and discontent ed ; and it is to be expected that many of the existing generation will regard the present go vernment in the Hght of a foreign usurpation, and as affording but a poor return for the blood they have shed to rescue their country from the tyrants under whom they were born. Men who have for some time been accustomed to live on plunder seldom become contented citizens. These disad vantages wfll every day diminish ; the people will become more accustomed to the presence of the Bavarians, and the Bavarians wfll be able to assi milate themselves more fuUy to the manners of the Greeks ; the houses now in ruins will arise from their ashes : and it is to be hoped that judicious enactments will promote commerce, and enable the people by honest means to gain a comfortable maintenance. There was a charm about some of the Greeks that interested me greatly in theh favor, whUst there were others, in comparison few, who exhibited tokens of the grossest brutahty. There is a spirit of jealousy subsisting between the inhabitants of different states and islands that partakes of the character of feud, and prevents them from working together with that heartiness which is requisite in theh present situation ; and this feeling is fostered by the habit that obtains among them of caUing each other by the name of the place from whence they derive their origin. — They show a pardonable complacency in convers ing of the former days of their country. I heard a female speak .of " our ships at Salamis.]' It is perhaps to be regretted, for the interests of Greece, that prince Leopold did not accept the offer of the crown. There would then have been an influx of Englishmen into the country, who would have expended money and promoted trade. The Protestant faith would also have been the religion of the court, and much good might have resulted to the Greek church from the juxtaposi tion of so much purer a system. The present king, Otho, was born June lst, 1815, and is the second son of the king of Bavaria. I saw him land at Syra, from a British frigate, amidst the loud acclamations of his people. He visited the school in that island under the superintendency of the Church Mission, and after the children had sung a hymn, and repeated many of their lessons, ho expressed himself as being much pleased with what he saw and heard. He appears to be of an amiable disposition, and report spoke favorably of bis attention to study. I had an interview with his confessor at Athens, who is friendly to the inte rests of the Bible Society, and was on good terms with afl the missionaries. A number of Capu chins arrived at NapoH by sea, and offered them selves to the king as the instructors of youth ; the king informed them that he had no funds he could devote to such a purpose ; they then promised to be of no expense whatever to the government, but they were told their services were not requir ed, and were ordered to return without delay. It was pontic not to rouse the jealousy of the Greek priests, by the introduction of so powerful a body of opponents. The king was accompanied to Greece by 7,500 Bavarian soldiers, and it was in contemplation to estabhsh a native force, but the Greeks manifested great reluctance to enter into the regular service. The principal chiefs are disaffected, as they have necessarily been deprived of much of their power, and the prospects before the king are not without dark shades, that must at times make him regret that he has accepted the dangerous distinction. — The merchants are a numerous and respectable class, but the rest of the people are poor in the extreme. The Bavarian soldiers complained bit terly of the hardships to which they were exposed at the out-stations, as in some places they were unable to procure even the common necessaries of Hfe. I heard much of banditti, but there was probably more fear on this subject than real dan ger, as I was never molested, though I often tra veUed without a single companion. The Greek church is awfully faUen from the high position it once maintained, when it could enrol among the names of its professors some of the most eminent of the fathers. There is little public preaching in the churches, and both priests and people are ignorant of the essentials of Chris tianity. The churches are filled with pictures, to which the people appear to pay the most profound adoration, though they abhar images with a per fect hatred, and flowers are thrown before these THE HOLY LAND. 81 pictures in the same manner that I have seen them thrown before the idols of the heathen. — They pay great regard to the Virgin and to the saints. Every house, and every vessel upon the sea, contains the picture of some saint, before which a Hght is kept burning continuaUy. The cities and islands have each theh patron saint, about whom they have invented a thousand ab surdities. I was at Corfu during the festival of St. Spiridion, the patron saint of the island ; and there was a grand procession in his honor, attend ed by a great number of priests, and by some of the British soldiers from the garrison. The body of the saint is preserved with great care, and on one occasion it is said to have suddenly stayed a fatal pestilence. Upon one particular mormng of the year the shoes on its feet are found to be co vered over with mud, and the people most firmly beUeve that during the night the saint has been taking a walk through the world. The fasts are religiously kept, and even the common sailors wUl not violate them, though I sometimes unconscious ly tempted them, by asking them to partake with me of the food I had provided for my Httle voyages. The crew of a Maltese vessel were murdered by a company of Greek phates during the late war. The Greeks upon entering the principal cabin, found that refreshments had been prepared, and they began to partake of them, but the captain, on witnessing theh conduct, called out that it was a fast day, and they instantly threw down the food in the utmost consternation, as if by this simple act they had committed the unpardonable sin, though theh hands were yet reeking with the blood of the murdered Maltese. There have been as yet but few splendid tri umphs produced by the labors of the missionaries, but a leavening influence has begun to operate among the priesthood, by the distribution of the New Testament in Romaic. The Greeks have at least one advantage over the Roman Catho lics — that they are aUowed to read the Scriptures without note or comment. The Old Testament has never been printed in Romaic, but it is now in the course of translation. I was introduced to the principal native translator, professor Bambas, and it was never my privUege to converse with an individual of more genuine Christian simpHcity. It was intended to separate the churches of Greece from the patriarchate of Constantinople, for which purpose a synod had been assembled. The Greeks are enthusiasts in the cause of education, and mission schools might be establish ed with effect in any place where the population is sufficiently numerous. The school under the care of the Rev. J. Hildner, at Syra, contains 450 children. I heard about a dozen girls read flu ently in the New Testament, and many were ab sent, as it was a festival. They sang a doxology at the conclusion, and I thought at the time that I had heard nothing so affecting since I left my native land. In the same place, which is the most flourishing town in Greece, though of recent ori gin, and which contains a population of 30,000 people, there is another school, under the superin tendence of the government, in which 300 children are educated. The schools at Athens are weU attended, and have already produced much good. I was at Vostitza, upon the gulf of Lepanto, 54—3 Aug. 7, and at the same time the Rev. W. O. Croggon, of the Wesleyan mission, then stationed at Zante, was passing through the same vUlage, but we knew not of each other, and did not meet. I have regretted this the more, as my exceUent brother would have had presented to him a sight of some interest ; I was seated under a spreading plantanus, which is said to be upwards of 2,000 years old, and the trunk is nearly forty feet in cir cumference ; at a Httle distance were numerous fountains, from which the females of the viUage were taking water to their homes ; upon the gulf were many Httle barks and a few vessels of larger dimensions ; and on the opposite shore were Par nassus and Delphos, and the place of meeting for the council of the Amphyctions. I took out from my bag a parcel of tracts that had been furnished me by my kind friends at Athens, and presented one to a feUow traveller who was resting under the same tree, but he regarded the gut with suspicion, until he had opened it, and seen something of its contents. I had soon a num ber of apphcants, and the plane-tree was surround ed as it perhaps never had been before, venerable as it is for years, by Greeks who Were sitting in deep silence, and reading with much apparent in terest the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. It was gratifying to find that nearly aU could read, and that none refused to receive the tracts after they had leamt the nature of the subject upon which they treated. In the Ionian islands, which are principaUy in habited by Greeks, the Greek church and the church of England form the estabhshment, but the Roman CathoHc is speciaUy protected, and aU others are tolerated. The absence of Mr. Croggon from Zante, on account of fll health, pre vented >me from visiting the mission schools du ring my short visit to the island. There is a flou rishing school at Cephalonia, conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Dixon, under tho auspices of the British and Foreign School Society. I am greatly in debted to the kindness of the Rev. D. Lowndes, of the London Missionary Society, stationed at Corfu, one of the learned translators of the Old Testament into Romaic. He has established several female schools in the capital and the sur rounding viflages, which are patronized by the principal inhabitants, and are weU attended. The ghls are taught needle-work, in which they have made great proficiency, and the New Testament is used among them as the common lesson-book. Female education has hitherto been much neglect ed among the Greeks, and I met with many re spectable females who were unable to read. Mr- Lowndes, in addition to the regular services con ducted within the city, makes occasional tours in the interior of the island, and is sometimes aUow ed to preach in the viUage churches. The Jews are numerous, and before the Enghsh took pos session of the islands, they were greatly perse cuted by the Greeks, who beHeve that the Pass over cannot be celebrated -without Christian blood, and that on this account a chfld is annuaUy stolen from their, famflies, and afterwards murdered. From aU that I have seen, notwithstanding the character of the present times, I entertain bright hopes of the future prosperity of Greece. The time may never come in which it will maintain a 82 THE HOLY LAND. position among the great nations of Europe ; but the period I trust is not far distant when its claims to relationship and brotherhood wfll be so power ful as to gain ready acknowledgment from the princes of Christendom. The people are athirst for knowledge ; they manifest a laudable deshe to emulate the attainments of theh fathers ; they have men among them who are able to teach, and they are willing to be taught ; the rising genera. tion has aheady acquired the first principles of the truth ; and a work has begun that wfll give them possession of the true sophia, or wisdom, a word that is every moment upon theh lips, and bring them into that noble communion, " where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncir cumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is aU and in aU." ITALY. The word Italy occurs only thrice in the New Testament. Rhegium, PuteoH, the Apii Forum, and Rome are in Italy, but there is no other place in it of which mention is made in sacred writ. We have no evidence in the record of inspiration that it was visited by any of the apostles besides St. Paul and St. Luke. The states of Italy are at present divided among the kingdoms of Naples and Sardinia, the emphe of Austria, the States of the Church, the grand duchy of Tuscajjy, and some other smaller powers. The population amounts to about 20 miUions. ROME. I entered Rome by the Flaminian way, Sept. 13, in the Diligence from Anconia, where I had per formed a quarantine of 15 days, after landing from the Ionian steamer. The States of the Church are thinly peopled, agriculture is without encou ragement, and the neighborhood of Rome has be come an extensive desert, from the prevalence of malaria. It would be in vain to attempt a particular des cription of the city, as there are single edifices in it that would require more ample space than the whole of this volume. It is as true now, as in the days of its ancient splendor, that it is — " Terrarum dea, gentiumque Roma, Cui par est nihil, et nihil secundum." Mart. 1. 12. ep. 8. The space enclosed by the walls is said to be about 13 miles in circumference, but a great part of the city is waste, or occupied by gardens and vineyards. There are many remains that pro claim the majesty of Rome under the different masters by which she has been held in subjection, whether kings, consuls, or emperors; but there are few ancient edifices that can be seen in their original form, as the more perfect have been con verted into churches, and the more ruinous have been deprived of theh principal ornaments, that they might be used in the decoration of palaces and other buildings of modern times. The cloaca maxima, constructed by the Tar- quins, has resisted the shocks of 2,500 years, and is stfll used to carry away the refuse of the city. Some of the aqueducts of the emperors are in so perfect a state as to be in use at the present time. The forum has been covered with ruins, but they are now in part cleared away, and columns are seen, some of them of great magnificence, with their pedestals many feet lower than the present elevation of the ground. There are fragments in it of baths and temples, and triumphal arches, but the mounds of earth, the shops and houses of the present Romans, and the construction of the churches that present themselves on every side, half heathen, half Christian, take much away from the interest of the place ; and amidst such a scene it is difficult to imagine the presence of the magistrates, or the voice of the orator, or the as- sembKes of the people. The Tarpeian rock would stfll be a formidable precipice, if the houses be neath it were taken away. The triumphal arches of Septimus Servius and Constantine proclaim the prowess of the men in whose honor they were reared: the one fought in Britain, and died at York, and the other was the first emperor who professed the rehgion of Christ ; but we pass away from these to another erection, which tells, in the centre of the Roman forum, of the truth of prophecy and the anger of God. The arch of Titus was raised after his death, to commemorate the victories he had obtained in the east. The bas-rehefs represent the pageantry of his triumph, which was the most splendid that had been wit nessed at Rome, and in one of them are figures of the golden candlestick with seven branches, the table of show-bread, the golden trumpets, and other treasures taken from the temple at Jerusa lem. The remains of the baths present proofs of the great extent of Roman extravagance, as they have for centuries afforded materials for building to the princes and ecclesiastics, and there is yet sufficient in some of them wherewith to erect ex tensive palaces. The house of Nero retains much of its ancient form — the colors in some of the pas sages are almost as fresh as if the work of the pre sent year ; and the number of rooms, the admirable contrivances, and the general arrangement of the whole interior economy, afford an insight into the luxury of the times in which it was built, that can scarcely be equafled by the inventions of our own age. The Pantheon has been consecrated as a church, and has a portico in front of sixteen co lumns. The style combines simpHcity with ma jesty : I could not obtain an entrance into the interior, though I made several attempts, as I was told that the. members of the Academy were searching for the skull of Raphael, who was here interred. The wonder of ancient Rome is the CoHseum, wliich it has been said can only faU with the world. It is 1,612 feet in circumference, and would seat 90,000 spectators. It was erected un der Vespasian, soon after the conquest of the Holy Land, and we are told that it was built in the in credible short space of one year, by the compul sory labor of 12,000 Jews. In the silence of the evening hour, the Christian can steal away to this place from the mockery of the churches and the revelry of the palaces, and when the moon shines THE HOLY LAND. 83 brightly through " the loops of time," there is a voice comes from the deserted ruin that tells of the cessation of the sports of the gladiators, and speaks more powerfully, by one single utterance, of the true triumphs of the church, than the tiara of the three worlds, or a pope kneeling upon the neck of an emperor. The area was sometimes filled with water, and mimic sea-fights were ex hibited ; and the whole could be covered with curtuins to keep off the sun and rain. In the in terior circle are crucifixes and pictures, and ser vice is performed before them in honor of the martyrs who here perished in the early persecu tions. The late popes have been at great expense in the erection of buttresses to preserve the ruin from further dilapidation. When the emperor and his court were present, with the senators, the soldiers, and the populace, and there was he'ard the expiring cries of innocent men, and the roar of infuriated wild beasts, and the shouts of the multitude mingled with the sound, the amphithea tre must have presented a spectacle of brutaUty and blood in comparison with which even war, with aU its cruelties, seems Hke a rational conten tion between man and man. In Rome, the mind experiences a difficulty in grappling with the past, that is not felt to the same degree in any other city of the world ; and this arises not so much from the indistinctness of the impression as from its extent, and the diver sity of its character. We can watch the rise of the city from a single cottage ; we can accompany it in the march of conquest, north, and south, and east, until all Italy bent, crouching at its feet ; it rested not here, but stfll grew, and extended its emphe as it numbered its years ; the snows of Germany could not arrest its progress, nor the suns of Africa, nor the patriotism of Britain, nor the wisdom of Greece ; it passed onward without ceasing, and wherever it passed it claimed the possession as its own : no Hmits appeared to satisfy the cravings of its ambition, 'and in the full vigor of its existence it was deemed co-equal with earthly space, and to name the emphe was to name "the world." We have been taught to look at the individuals by whom this dominion was gained as more than men; and it is true that many were brave, and some were eloquent, and a few were virtuous ; in power they were supreme, as they could frown in anger, and distant kings confessed theh fears; and they could issue an edict, and crowns were distributed or countries confiscated ; but we must not deceive ourselves by thinking that aU this influence brought peace to its possessors, or raised them above the weak ness and wickedness of our common nature. We may confine ourselves to one definite period, and it shaU be that which occupies the broadest page in the empire's records, when the greatest of its sons were yet in active existence, and the lesson we shall learn wfll be instructive. The philosophy of the Greeks was at this time studied by the Romans, and it was by this that they professed to be guided in theh thoughts and acts ; it had been cuUed by Cicero, and the best of its precepts were made known to the world in some of the most eloquent periods ever penned by man ; it had the most extended of aU theatres on which to exercise its might ; and aU the moral power it is I possible for the loftiest inteUect to put forth, was brought into activity. We have evidence of the results in the writings of contemporary poets, his torians, and moralists ; and they unfold to us a series of facts so offensive in their nature, that we could not have believed theh existence, had we not been furnished with other testimony that none can deny. Nine years after the destruction of Jerusalem, whilst one of the apostles of our Lord was yet aHve, there was an eruption of mount Vesuvius, by which the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were covered with ashes, and the inhabitants perished. The same cities were discovered in the 18th century, and the houses, the furniture, the utensils, and the ornaments of the inhabitants, were found in perfect preservation. They are now deposited in the museums of Italy, but many of them are of such a description that they cannot be exhibited to general view; there are figures of the vilest abominations, the most monstrous corruptions, that were objects of daily sight and constant usage. It might have been wished that the ashes that covered these cities had never been disturbed, did we not learn from their removal, in characters more clear than can be produced from any other earthly source, the deep depravity of our nature, and the necessity of a divine revelation. It appears like the act of a gracious Providence, that at the commencement of these times of departure from the volume of the word of God, we were furnished with a warning so powerful against trusting to the imaginations of men. We now learn to appreciate character by an unerring standard, and must thus confess that the greatest of Roman citizens was one who was unknown to the senate, or if known despised, and that the most important of aU events con nected with the history of the empire was an act of one of its procurators, in a smaU and distant province. The apostle Paul could claim the pri vileges of a Roman, and it was a Roman governor who condemned Jesus Christ to the death of the cross. The city retains much of its magnificence, part of which is drawn from the oresent, but more from the past: " And they who come", admire, As we admire the beautiful in death." The population is stated at about 150,000. The streets are regular, and the houses are for the most part respectable in their appearance. The squares are ornamented with obelisks, many of which were brought from Egypt, but the columns of Trajan and Antonine are the most worthy of attention. The Tyber, with its yeUow waters, runs through the city, and some of the bridges by which it is crossed are of ancient construction. The foun tains are numerous, and some of them most beau tiful, and they are as useful to the people as they are ornamental to the city. There are almost innumerable palaces, vfllas, hospitals, convents, and coUeges. I visited with most interest the coUege of the Propaganda, from whence many great and good men have been sent as missionaries to heathen lands. The modern Capitol is ap proached by a noble flight of steps, near which are statues of Castor and PoUus, and some ancient 84 THE HOLY LAND. trophies. The buildings occupy the three sides of a square, in the centre of wliich is an equestrian statue of Marcus Aurehan, in bronze. In front is the haU of the Senators, with a fountain before it, and three colossal statues that represent Rome, the Tyber and the Nile. On the right is the haU of the Magistracy ; and on the left is the Museum, filled with ancient inscriptions, busts, vases, altars, and statues. I was most interested with the apart ment appropriated to the philosophers. The dying gladiator is the most celebrated of the statues. The churches amount to upwards of 300, nearly aU of which would be regarded as objects of wonder hi any other place. The Church of St. John La- teran, the fagade of which is most elaborate, is the cathedral of the popes. The Scala Santa is said to contain the very steps by which our Saviour ascended to the judgment-haU of Pflate, brought hither from Jerusalem. They are nearly worn away by the devotion of theh numerous visiters, who ascend them on theh knees. Under the church of St. Sebastian are the famous catacombs, in which the early Christians sometimes found refuge ; they are said to extend several miles. The Church of St. Paul, in which the apostle is said to have been buried, was burnt down in 1823, but is now in the course of re-erection, and if continued on the same scale, wfll be one of the most imposing erections of the present age. The church of St. Peter is tlie most magnificent shrine ever erected by man for the worship of Christ. It was commenced in 1506, gradually rose during eighteen pontificates, and was com pleted in 111 years. Its cost, if such a building had now to be erected in England, has been esti mated at 36 millions sterling. The admeasurement, inside the walls, is 615 feet in length, and 448 feet in breadth : and the dome is 464 feet high, nearly one-third higher than the dome of St. Paul's in London. The first sight .almost always creates disappointment, which is graduaUy succeeded by admiration at subsequent visits. The colonnade in front, and the Vatican at the side, take much away from its apparent size, by their own gigantic proportions. The grand fagade is without an equal, but it seems to make the church all entrance, with no structure to support the character of its im mensity. The effect of the interior is not com mensurate with is actual size. The waUs are lined with marble ; and there are rich altars at nearly every window, over which are mosaics copied from the most celebrated masters. The whole is by far too gaudy for a house of prayer. The aisles are fiUed with monuments, few of which are in good taste ; but two lions, by Canova, must be except ed ; and the monument, by the same hand, erected at the expense of the British nation to the unfor tunate Stuarts, is neat and simple. There is the figure of a female in the monument of Alexander VII., so beautiful that it has been partly covered with a robe of bronze. Under the centre of the dome is the reputed sepulchre of St. Peter, sur mounted by a magnificent canopy, with pUlars of bronze, 122 feet high, taken from the Pantheon. Near the sepulchre is the grand altar, at which only the pope and cardinals are allowed to officiate. Beneath the floor of the present building are vault ed passages, which retain tlie pavement of the j original church, and in these are the tombs of the I exiled Stuarts, and of many other distinguished mdividuals. The space appropriated to divine worship is a recess in one of the transepts, and at one of my visits I saw a great number of dignitaries and other ecclesiastics, who officiated in their ap propriate robes. The dome is ascended without any difficulty, by a spiral stahcase. From one of the galleries that open into the interior, there is the most striking view of the vast proportions of the edifice. The people walking below scarcely ap pear Hke men, and the colossal statues of the mo numents sink into far less than the natural size. It was only by actual admeasurement that I could | realise the fact, that this structure so far surpas ses aU others in magnitude ; the eye deceives the mind, and it is not until it has been comprehended in parts, and well studied, that a just idea can be formed of its claim to our special admhation. I retained the same impression I had felt at Baalbec, increased by having seen the temples at Athens, that the simple grandeur of the Grecian style of architecture is m some degree lost when apphed to large erections. The prejudices of early years must account for the fact, that I can feel more in the cathedral of York than in the church of St. Peter at Rome. It is the most pleasing thought connected with the history of this pile, that it was in part the cause of the Reformation. Indulgences were granted to coUect money for its erection, and' the sale of these indulgences first attracted the attention of Martin Luther towards the unwarrant ed pretension of the Romish priesthood, which ended in a complete separation from its hierarchy, and in a revival of religion that will not cease to ex tend until the universe be filled with the riory of God. * The palace of the Vatican stands by the side of the church of St. Peter, and is 1300 feet long. It is not now inhabited, but is used as a receptacle for works of art. Its two chapels, the Sixtine and Pauline, contain some fine frescos, particularly the Last Judgment, by Michael Angelo. The Hbrary extends the whole length of the building, and con tains 160,000 volumes and 40,000 MSS. The books are shut up in cases. I saw many old MSS. and early editions of printed works, but could not obtain' a sight of the celebrated Codex Vaticanus, as I was told that an express order was required from the chanceUor for the purpose. The museum contains a countless coUection of antiquities, and may be caUed a wUderness of wonders. The ApoUo Belvidere and the Laocoon are named among the finest productions of sculpture ever given to the world, and they are weU worthy of all the praise they have received. The pope resides in the palace of Monte Cavalo, on the Qnirinal full. In the square before it are two horses, one of which is said to be the work of Praxiteles, and the other of Phidias. I heard a favorable character of the present pope, Gregory XVI., as he is accounted a man of liberal senti ments ; but this avails not towards any pubhc ad vantage, as all the powers of the papacy are in vested in the coflege of cardinals. I did not make any attempt to gain a sight of his hoHness, so called, as I was told that he was confined to his palace from iU health, but I afterwards found that he had celebrated divine service in pubhc during my stay in the city. THE HOLY LAND. There has been a change for the better, in some respects, since the time of Luther, or if the licen tiousness of the priesthood be equally great, it is not equaUy apparent. The presence of the great number of strangers who are constantly visiting the city may have had some effect in producing a greater attention to pubhc decorum. In 1829, there was nearly 40,000 persons returned hi the census who were not members of the Roman Cathohc church. The ecclesiastics, regular and secular, amount to about 5000. The ceremonies of the church are couducted with great pomp, but there is Httle to affect the heart or inform the mind. There is no one to warn the people of their sins, or to explain to them the plan of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. They have altars, stations, churches, and cathedrals ; incense, candles, ban ners, and processions ; rehcs, pictures, images, and crosses ; fasting, pflgrimage, confession, penance, extreme unction, high mass, and many sacraments ; friars, nuns, priests, bishops, and cardinals ; con fessors, martyrs, Madonnas, and saints : these are the hopeso f the people, and trusting impHcitly in the merit they bring, they eat, and drink, and die, but the sign they make at death is too seldom the acceptable sign of the Lord. The errors of the church of Rome have been among the most destructive ever suggested by the great deceiver to the mind of man. They throw theh awful shade over a thousand years, and in volve in their darkness a great proportion of all that have ever professed the rehgion of Christy — The pope at an early period stole the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and he proclaims the fact openly to the world without shame, by exhibiting theh forms on every possible occasion ; and mil lions of immortal souls might have gained an en trance into the way of truth had they not been prevented by this bold assumption of divine au thority. The gate of heaven being thus closed, the word being taken away by which alone the way of access to the throne of mercy could be understood, the popes attempted to array theh own forms in the attributes of deity, and set them selves far above aU that is called God. They ex acted homage from kings, recklessly trampled on the rights of nature, banished the word of life, granted indulgences for the worst of crimes, shed the blood of the innocent, and infused poison into the sacramental cup of the Lord's Christ. The evil spirits might have laughed at the success of theh schemes, and have thought, that though they could not seduce Christ by temptation, nor destroy him by death, nor confine him by the grave, they could nevertheless, by the aid of theh faithful emissaries at Rome, take away from the earth aU knowledge of the atonement he offered to in finite justice for the sins of mankind, — the only power that can bring peace to the troubled breast, or cleanse the heart from the poUuiton of its sins. But there was one copy of the Scriptures they could not destroy, one ray of light they could not intercept, one mighty spirit they could not chain by all the force of theh fatal speUs, and from the university at Wittenberg there came forth a cham pion of the Lord, who, by divine assistance, re turned the keys of heaven to many cities and ex tensive countries, and called away the minds of men from a feeble priest to "the only begotten of the Father, fuU of grace and truth." It may be said that the sanguinary sphit for merly attributed to the Romish hierarchy no longer exists, but be this as it may, there is the same love of darkness, the same complacency in the ignorance of the people ; and the great mass of the inhabitants of aU Roman CathoHc countries are as destitute in our own day of aU knowledge of the essentials of Christianity as in the darkest periods of the middle ages. Not long ago, in a certain district of France, the tracts and Scrip tures distributed by one of the Wesleyan missiona ries, were commanded to be brought to the priest, who committed them to the flames, and cried out, as the sparks ascended towards heaven, " So pe rish aU thine enemies, O God." I am stfll far from wishing to throw back upon the Roman Catholics their own tenet ; they assert that there is.no salvation out ot their church, but I wiU not say that there is no salvation in it. I was pleased, in the country towns of Italy, to see the peasantry, when they came to market, enter the church, and placing theh baskets by their side, kneel down, and appear for a few moments to be absorbed in sUent prayer. There are many who I trust are building upon the right foundation, though the superstructure they erect be composed of only "wood, hay, stubble ;" and we know, that when the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is, " if any man's work be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by fire." I was presented by a respectable member of the Roman CathoHc church with the translation of a document given to him by a canon of one of the principal cathedrals in Italy, whom he had con sulted at the instance of a Protestant friend. — The foUowing extracts are in the language of the translator, an Italian : — " There is great rivalry and jealousy between the monastic 'orders, but the Capuchins are the most popular among the people The Jesuits are leagued with the pope, not for the sphit of worship, but to make him the head of an universal dominion, at which they aim The translation of the New Testament into the vernacular tongue would be very advan tageous. The people are very ignorant, and know nothing but the forms to which they are attached by habit and convenience The pre lates and other directors of Catholicism measure the faith of the people by the deference shown to the church, and by their voluntary subjection to its form : as to the rest, they pay no regard, and the people are not instructed in theh duties. — They make sermons during Lent for the pomp of chatting, but for the most part they are not intel- Hgible to the people. The other sermons are commonly on miracles, or on subjects that concern neither instruction nor morals Besides the forc ed and cunning interpretation of some passages, the people beheve in the pope from traditionary habit ; but if they were never to hear any more about him, they would not mind it." The neighborhood of Rome is one scene of ge neral desolation. The malaria is making rapid progress within the walls of the city, causing the silence of death as it advances, and it threatens to leave this once populous capital without a single THE HOLY LAND. mhabitant, before many more years have been added to its age. In some parts of the city the predictions of the apostle are already accompUshed : " The voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pi pers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee ; and no craftsmen, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee ; and the sound of a mfllstone shaH be heard no more at all in thee ; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at aU in thee ; and the voice of the bride groom and of the bride shall be heard no more at aU in thee." With equal fataHty to the papal in terest, but in great mercy to the world, the spread of divine Hght, by means of Bible and Missionary institutions, is daily banishing from some part of the world the darkness of Roman superstition, creating the activity of life as it advances, and it promises to bring the knowledge of salvation to all who have wandered from the fold of the true Shepherd. Soon shaU the sound, already whis pered by the stiU smaU voice of prophecy, be caught by the saints, and martyrs, and elders, be fore the throne ; they shall shout aloud, and the song shaU be heard " as the voice of many waters, and the voice of mighty thunderings ;" and seraph shall answer to seraph, and harp to harp, saying, " Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen : allelwah : for the lord god omnipotent reigneth." The cities and countries through which I pass ed, after leaving Rome, are not connected with the Scriptures, except as being partakers in com mon of the general redemption purchased by Christ. It is therefore time that I doff my pil grim's weeds, and lay aside my scaUop-sheU and sandal shoon. The history of the past may have been painful, and that of the present may have brought discouragement, but it is a delightful thought to the Christian traveUer, that however far he may wander, whatever land he may visit, every vaHey and every hul he sees vriU one day shine brightly with the glory of the Lord. " Bless ed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things : and blessed be his glo rious name for ever : and let the whole earth be filled with his glory ; Amen, and Amen. The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." — Psalm Ixxii. 18—20. CONTENTS. Page. India 3 Ab a bu 4 The Red Sea 7 Abyssinia 8 Egypt 9 Tbe Desert 9 The Nile 10 No, or Thebes < 12 On — Nopb, or Memphis 16 Alexandria 20 The Holy Land 25 Beirout 25 Sidon 27 Tyre 27 Ptolemais, or Acre 30 Carmel 31 Caesarea 31 Joppa 32 Arimathea 33 Jerusalem 34 Page. Jericho — The Jordan — The Dead Sea- Bethany 47 Bethlehem 52 Gerizim — Shechem 53 Samaria 55 Tbe Plain of Esdraelon 56 Nazareth 56 Tiberias— The Sea of Galilee 58 Saphet 60 From Saphet to Damascus 60 Damascus 62 Lebanon — Baalbec 64 The Isles of the Mediterranean 72 Cyprus 72 Rhodes 73 Patmos 74 Greece 76 Athens 76 Corinth 78 Italy 82 Rome 82 TRAVELS CONTINENT OF EUROPE; THROUGH PARTS OF THE NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND, NORTHERN ITALY, AND FRANCE, IN THE SUMMER OP 1823. BY DANIEL WILSON BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. FROM THE FOURTH LONDON EDITION. NEW-YORK : THOMAS GEORGE, JR. SPRUCE STREET. 1836. PREFACE, The author, ventures to hope that no objections wfll be raised against the importance which he at taches to the principles of religion hi themselves, or against the frequency and warmth with which he commends them on various occasions to others. Tomake such objections is quite another thing from condemning the harshness of a transition, or ar raigning a fault in matters of taste. We need only refer to the constant tenor of the Holy Scriptures, and the deliberate judgment of the best Christians in aU ages, in order to show that religion should fiU and possess the whole heart. Surely if any tiling distinguishes a merely cold accuracy of sentiment from spiritual and vital Christianity, it is this very point. It is easy to admit the truth of every doc trine of Scripture, and yet follow the world, give our affections to the things of time, be, supremely desirous of the applause of our feUow-creatures, and shun reproach for the name and doctrine of Christ. A rehgion which seldom appears but on public ' and fixed occasions, and which mixes but httle with the habitual actions of the Ufe, is far from resembUng that holy, animating principle which the Scriptures are designed to implant, and of which they furnish such splendid examples. A mind penetrated with the astonishing truths of revelation, and grateful for the inestimable bles sings of pardon and grace, cannot be mdifferent. Lukewarmness in such a case is treachery. The world asks nothing more of us than to be tame and heartless in our rehgion. Gratitude and love to God, if genuine, must and will appear in theh na tural fruits. Nor can even a sincere regard to our feUow-creatures consist with the sflence on the things of eternity and the souh which is now so much extoUed as a dictate of prudence. The heart which is at aU moulded to devotion, cannot but be recaUed to its great object by the diversified scenes wliich arise around it. And the new situ ations and circumstances of a foreign tour will necessarily excite, in an uuusual degree some of these better feehngs of piety and thankfulness. The author is deeply convinced, that our danger in the present day, is not that of regarding God too much, in our travels and our various other concerns, but too httle. If we are to " love God with aU our heart, and soul, and mind, andstrength," the first and spontaneous associations of our ideas wfll connect us with Him ; and our most familiar trains of thought wfll involuntarily lead us to some thing relating to his providence, his commands, his mercy, his wrath, his holiness, his glory. That is, the governing affection wfll in this, as in every other case, draw after it all the rest. The conversation with individuals, whether at home or abroad, wfll accordingly assume the same tone ; and the free and unpremeditated Letters written under the influence of such a principle, will and must, and ought, to partake of a like character. 54—4 AU this is so indisputable in the view of every thoughtful Christian, that the author is almost ashamed to dwefl on such a point. He is persuad ed, that no one admitting the truth of revelation, would have ever objected to religion's occupying aU our best time and thoughts, if there were not in the minds of men that secret alienation from the love of God, which the Scriptures lay down as a primary fact in the history of our faUen nature, and which is the source of so many other fatal incon sistencies. It is very possible, indeed, to err by submitting to the public eye hasty effusions in which religious topics are introduced injudiciously and feebly ; and the author is far from saying that he may not have been guilty of this fault in the present pubhcation. But without including his own small work in the vindication, he would beg leave to say, that mis takes in judgment of this nature ought not to be too severely visited. Men make simflar mistakes on aU other subjects, without incurring contempt. Each one speaks and writes according to his mea sure of natural talents, and acquired faculties and powers. Piety does not confer these adventitious endowments, nor exempt from the ordinary con sequences of defects in them. The paramount duty of connecting the great Author of our being with the perpetual blessings of his bounty, is not to be hghtly sacrificed to inferior and doubful questions. The heart which overflows with love to God and man, though it may incur some reproach for minor errors, is mfinitely more pleasing to God, than a judgment, however refined, if employed to disguise irreligious principles. But the author~has insensibly advanced towards a grave and important question, and he almost shrinks from the consideration which it seems to demand. The truth is, that his smaU work has excited anew those objections against what is termed in reproach, Evangelical Religion, which have in aU ages foUowed the sincere profession of the Gospel. Such objections rest on the funda mental distinction between vital Christianity and the mere external forms of it. They have been answered a thousand times — they answer them selves, when the mind is once duly in earnest in the humble study of the Bible. As, however, the author has proceeded so far, he wfll go on to offer some suggestions tin the great topic which he is quite aware is vhtuaUy involved in what he has been stating. It is objected, then, that by this warmth in re ligion, and the habitual language which we hold concerning it, we claim an immediate and pecuhar protection of the Deity, and place the proof of the correctness of om- doctrines and practice, not on theh conformity to the Holy Scriptures, but on abstractions, imaginations, and feelings ; that we presume to invest ourselves with a sort of infal- 3 4 PREFACE. hbflity, and neglect the common means of moral culture and improvement ; and are thus steeled against the force of those reasonings which might reduce us to a more sober habit of thought — that, in short, we are actuated by a spirit of party which has its own terms, insignia, and objects, distinct from those which necessarily accompany genuine Christianity. To these vague accusations it might be suffi cient to reply generaUy, that every one of them rests on misapprehension or prejudice. No such things are done. No such undue heat is excited. No such claims are asserted. No such party is formed. The views of those ministers and private Chris tians, whom the author supposes to be attacked in these accusations, are precisely the same, as to aU substantial truths, with those taken by the Universal Church of Christ, — with those which Augustine vindicated in the fifth century, and the noble army of Reformers in the sixteenth. CaU them by what name you please, they are the old verities of the Bible, and the foundation of the Reformed churches. The utter faU and corrup tion of man by sin — his reasonable and accounta ble nature — his impotency of himself to what is sphituaUy good — the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity — the meritorious sacrifice of Jesus Christ — the gracious operations of the Holy Ghost in regenerating and sanctifying the heart — the duty and necessity of real repentance — justification by faith only — the indispensable obligation of good works and of a Ufe of prayer, watchfulness, and separation from the evils of the world — the as cription of our salvation entirely to the merciful wfll of God — the authority and sufficiency of Holy Scripture — the resurrection of the dead, and eter nal judgment — these are the commanding features of Christianity. But the objection is not commonly urged against these doctrines thus largely stated, but to the ap phcation of them, to the urgent manner in which they are enforced, and the commanding influence they are required to have over the heart and con duct. This is only in other words to maintain, that for men to act fully on the great principles of religion as those who solemnly believe them to be true, and know they must be judged according to them at the last day, is an extravagant course of conduct ; a position which common sense and the very first dictates of conscience may refute. — The doctrines of Christianity are not a specula tion, but deep practical principles — they are to be felt as weU as understood — and when they are felt, they produce a corresponding effect on the character — they place eternity full before the con science — they lay man prostrate in pemtent con trition — they raise him with the hope of pardon and salvation through a Redeemer — they require, they encourage, they produce new and holy views and pursuits, pains and pleasures, fears and joys. TiU they do this, they do nothing ; and that they may do this, the Holy Sphit sheds his grace like dew upon the church, to soften, and fertilize, and bless it. And the sincerity and ardor with which the ministers of rehgion press these truths on the attention of mankind, is one of the chief means which the Holy Sphit employs in his sacred ope- rations. But the doctrine of the particular providence of God is accused as enthusiastic, and we are said to claim an immediate and pecuhar protection of the Deity. Undoubtedly we hold the Scriptural doctrine of an over-ruling Providence. We be Ueve that " God is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out aU our ways" — that " the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps" — that " the Lord or- dereth a good man's goings, and maketh his way acceptable to himself" — that " not a sparrow faU- eth to the ground without cur Father" — that " the hairs of our head are all numbered" — and that " his angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that are heirs of salvation" — Undoubtedly we not only admit these encourag ing truths, but believe, embrace, rely on them under aU the sorrows of Ufe. Undoubtedly we endeavor to give fuU life and efficacy to them, and bring them into the habitual tenor of the spirit and conduct. But then the whole Bible proceeds on this doctrine of a particular providence. One essential difference between Scripture history and every other, is, that the history of Scripture re presents the world as God's world, to use Bishop Butler's expression — where God is the author of every thing, and aU the hearts of men are con- troUed by Him according to bis supreme pleasure. The Bible lifts up the veil which shrouds human affairs, and shows us God's hand at work where we are accustomed to see only the conflict and confusion of human passions. The histories of Abraham, of Jacob, of David, assign all events, even the smaUest, to the divine wfll : and the de votional and prophetical parts of the Old Testa ment are comments on the historical in the same view ; whilst the New Testament joins on upon the Old, and exhibits the same providence as di recting aU the various and most minute occur rences in the fives of our Lord and the Apostles. The same providence overrules aU things in every age — or the promises of God to the church have failed. We have not indeed now the in spired comment on the designs of this providence, we have no miraculous directions of the Spirit in concurrence with it, we have no assurance of the results of each particular undertaking. And here in Ues much of the distinction between Patriarchs and Apostles, and the ordinary Christian. The scrutiny of the Divine Providence is as minute and penetrating now as in former times ; but in the interpretation of its purposes, we have no longer an extraordinary guidance — nor do we claim any. We foUow the rule of the moral law of God, and the apparent duty resulting from the combination and comparison of aU our circum stances. We act under the dhection of ordinary Christian prudence in the choice of our measures. We wait for the long event of things in order to in fer the wfll of God. We dfligently notice aU the numerous incidental points which concur to a law ful end, in order to warrant even any probable conclusion as to the divine purposes therein. But this is no more than to say, that the Chris tian now lives in an ordinary period of the church. StiU the doctrine of a particular providence is not less his comfort and stay. He is not less sure that nothing escapes the vigilance, nothing eludes the power, nothing defeats the designs of his Al- PREFACE. mighty Father and Friend. He is not less per suaded that the japreat God sits, as a moral Go vernor, on " the circle of the heavens," and ruleth by an ever wakeful providence aU the affahs of men — that he stoops to the smaUest and most in considerable matters, as weU as regulates and comprehends the greatest — that he provides for the growth of the lily, whilst he orders and mar shals the stars — that he guards the humblest in dividual Christian as " the apple of an eye ;" and at the same time stflls, in his general and univer sal government "the noise of the seas, the noise of theh Waves, and the tumult of the people" — that to Him nothing is great, nothing is little — that aU space is one undivided point, and aU time, one eternal now. In contemplating this stupendous agency of the Divine hand, we have only to avoid the dangers before aUuded to. The infirmity of man may mistake or abuse the purest truths. We must check every appearance of presumption. We must not allow any concurrence of circumstances to induce us to depart from duties of primary obli gation, arising from the revealed wfll of God. Nothing in itself morally wrong, can become right, because Providence may seem to us to favor it. We must also guard against hastily interpreting the designs of God as favoring our own projects in the course of our affahs, however just and good in themselves. We must likewise be particularly cautious, in applying the doctrine of God's providence in a marked and express manner, to those slight, and comparatively trifling occasions, which are of per petual occurrence in human Ufe. The reason is, that if we act so, we give them a disproportionate importance, and distort our view, by an attention to smaU things, from a due regard to much greater ones. A general feeling of dependence and gra titude, in this respect, is aU that, with our con tracted minds, we seem capable of exercising aright. We should also abstain from those terms and expressions in speaking of the providence of God, which may reasonably endanger the solem nity of rehgion, and expose it to contempt and ri dicule. But these are merely suggestions as to the proportion and manner of bestowing our thoughts on the proceedings of the Divine Provi dence, and are designed to strengthen, not dimi nish, the faith with which we hold the truth itself, and apply it wisely and habitually to all the course of human events. Such cautions are constantly given by the ministers of rehgion, not only as to this, but also as to every other great doctrine of the Bible ; they clearly prove that we do not abuse these doctrines in the manner objected ; and there fore they confirm what we assert as to the purity of our general principles. But I pass on to another class of objections. It is said that we place the proof of the correctness of what we beUeve and practice on feelings, and imaginations, and abstractions, and not on theh conformity to the holy Scriptures. A charge ut terly groundles. The contrary is so entirely the case, that there is nothing on which we more in sist, than on the danger of relying on affections and feelings, to the exclusion of the written word of God. The proof of the correctness of what we beUeve and practice is the holy Scriptures, and the holy Scriptures only. We have no other cri terion, no other standard — " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this rule, it is because they have no light in them." Nor is it easy to divine from what mistake this singular charge has arisen, unless it be from con founding the due use of the affections in subser viency to holy, enlightened reason and faith, with the wild dominion of those affections when left without guidance or restraint — two things about as distinct as any that can be named in the com pass of practical theology. Certainly we maintain that the affections, that aU the affections of the soul must be engaged in rehgion, as weU as the understanding and will. We maintain that we are to love God as weH as obey him ; and in order that we may obey him, we maintain that the in finite benefits of Christ warrant, demand, excite, enkindle correspondent acts of acknowledgment, gratitude, love ; we maintain that rehgion is a spiritual thing, the offspring of grace, implanted by the Holy Ghost, and rising far above morals, and nature, and philosophy, and the unassisted powers of man. But then we constantly appeal to the Holy Scrip tures as the authority, and standard, and rule, to which all these affections are to be referred, and by which they are to be judged. And the proof of the correctness of this judgment we ultimately place, as the Bible does, in the proper fruits of holy tempers, obedient conduct, watchful self-de nial, every good word and work. We esteem the affections and require the exercise of them, in pro portion as they produce, and because they were designed by our Creator to produce, the vigorous efforts of a righteous and benevolent life. Wc only transfer them from the service of sin to the obedience of God — that is, we do not spike the cannon and dismantle tlie waUs of the subdued fortress ; but make them available to new uses, and direct them against the common enemy. The charge of assuming a species of infallibility may be refuted in a sentence. For who ever claimed any thing Uke an infallible accuracy of judgment in the things of rehgion ? Where and when were these presumptuous rights asserted? What ! is aU the humility of the true Christian, all his self-abasement, all bis distrust and meek ness, aU liis fear of God and man, come to this ? that he vindicates to himself unerring prudence, and stands on an equality with prophets and apos tles ! No ; we are not so vain nor so wicked. We presume not on any extraordinary, miraculous, plenary inspiration of the Spirit. We presume not to found a new rehgion, or abrogate an old ; to plant a novel church, or prescribe fresh rules of truth and duty. We claim only that ordinary and sanctifying influence of the blessed Sphit, which our Lord promised as the abiding consola tion of his foUowers, and which accompanies and distinguishes his church in every age. We claim only those secret, imperceptible, gentle influences of grace, which, in a manner agreeable to our reasonable nature, enable us to understand the Scriptures, perceive and know our danger, flee from impending wrath, lay hold on Jesus Christ for salvation, and honor and obey him front a prin ciple of gratitude and love. The mistake has possibly arisen from confounding that assurance PREFACE. of these great truths, which faith communicates, with a claim of personal infaUibflity. For cer tainly we have an assurance of the main doctrines of the Gospel, which rises far above the confidence of speculative deduction, and which gives a per suasion that cold reasoning cannot produce. Cer tainly we apprehend the vast discoveries of Christ, not by rational conclusions merely, but by a hvely faith, which gives a demonstration and substance to things unseen, and renders near and palpable the distant objects of hope. Certainly we have a full satisfaction of mind in the verities of the Gospel, which is above and beyond, though never contrary to, reason, and which sheds forth a light and glory which reason cannot bestow, and knows not how to appreciate. These observations prepare an answer to the fourth objection, that we neglect the means of moral culture and improvement, and are steeled against the force of the soundest reasoning and argument. For the truth is, we honor reason, and cherish it by the most careful education and discipline. We cultivate aU the means of moral improvement. We train, we instruct, we warn, we exhort, we persuade. We strengthen the opening faculties, and form them to investigation and argument. We check aU the luxuriance of a young, and aU wildness of a hasty and vagrant imagination. We consider that God makes use of means, both in moving the affections, and in informing the understanding. We endeavor, therefore, to invest religion with aU that is vene rable, and attractive, and generous, and engaging. We seat her in the noblest powers of the soul. We surround her with the rational evidences and credentials which become a divine rehgion, and by which it claims the obedience of man. We deduce with solicitude aU her tenets from the holy records. We weigh, we compare, we receive, We embrace, all the various parts of the inspired volume. We give to every new suggestion, as to the import of its instructions, aU the attention which it can demand. We listen to the remon strances even of an adversary, and deduce from them, if it be possible, some practical directions for our future conduct. We aUot to reason and moral culture all that wide province which they are capable of occupying. But, after all, we rely for the efficacy which is to sanctify and save, on what they cannot give, an influence from above, the grace of the Blessed Spirit. We do not for- fet the doctrine of original corruption on the one and, nor of the divine grace on the other. And we so attend to the means of moral improvement and the force of reasoning, as to recoUect theh in efficiency, under the actual circumstances of man, except as subordinate to the fllumination of the primary; teacher. In human literature and matters of outward decorum and discipline, we assign them a transcendent office ; in divine learning and the renewal of the heart, a minis terial only. This, this is the dictate of the best reason ; this, this is Christian Philosophy ; to honor, but not to deify, the powers of the under standing ; to use, but not to rely on, .moral suasion to raise and strengthen, in short, the efforts of man by a simple recurrence to the grace of God ; to add fllumination to reasoning, and Sanctifying influence to morals ; and never to rest tfll the one is transformed into faith, and the other elevated and purified into holiness. But we have not yet removed the whole of the objections against spiritual rehgion. We are ac cused of cherishing a sphit of party — we are said to have our petty marks, and terms, and oDJects, distinct from the accompaniments of genuine Christianity — an accusation plausible, perhaps, to a hasty or inaccurate reasoner, because it may be readily aUeged against any body of persons who think alike, and who therefore wfll commonly act together ; — plausible, because, when every fair objection is silenced and all soUd grounds of rea son taken away, it is the cheap resource of an exhausted mind, and serves to cover the disgrace of discomfiture — plausible, because when a revival of pure rehgion commences, and the number of truly holy and active Christians in any church has been for a time smaU, a broad, fundamental dis tinction of character is unavoidable and praise worthy, is the result and proof of a divine opera tion, and the test of a sincere return to God — plausible, because when the minds of men are prejudiced by the secret love of the world, and do not discern the infinite moment of evangelical truth and evangelical practice, they naturally as cribe that to the effect of party-spirit which flows from contrition of heart, love to Christ, and cha rity towards those who obey bis Gospel : not to say that the objector thus eludes the force of con viction, and turns aside the shafts of exhortation and rebuke. But to resolve ah that is peculiar to vital Christianity into a spirit of party, is pre cisely to beg the question in dispute — to shut out the entrance of repentance, and .to bar up the mind against the hght of truth. But plausible as this objection may be, to some, how weak is it when attentively considered! What is there of the culpable spirit of party in the clergy or the private Christians who are the objects of the imputation ? Do they insist on any certain terms and expressions as supplying the place of conversion? Do they excuse or palh- ate moral evils when committed by those who side with them 1 Do they push any truths and doctrines to such an extent as to exclude others ? Do they prefer their petty interests to the pubhc good of the church or tbe community ? Do they connive at popular mistakes or excesses in order to subserve theh cause t Do they place the proofs of piety and love, in inferior, doubtful, iso lated matters ? Do they condemn indiscrimi nately and harshly those who differ from them ? Do they aim at the persons, not the errors, of their opponents 1 Do they exclude from theh love and esteem those who are not within a certain pale, however exceUent 1 Do they cherish a narrow, selfish, personal feeling, in opposition' to the ex panded, disinterested charity of true religion 1 Have they any peculiar and unworthy pursuits, and dishonorable and hidden schemes which they endeavor to compass — any tiling distinct from the discharge of their high duties to God and their neighbors ? But why do I pursue these inquiries ? For how contrary is the spirit of every pious Christian to the conduct which is implied in such questions ? We appeal to all who know us. We appeal to our Uves and conversation, to our parishes and PREFACE. neighborhoods, to our sermons and writings. No : it is not a sphit of party which animates us. We delight in charity and peace. We rejoice in opening wide our arms to all who love and serve our Saviour. We labour continuaUy to break down all separating walls, to remove obstacles, to lessen differences of opmion, and promote good will and amity. It is our aim to place reUgion on the broad, cathoUc, intelligible ground, where Apostles and Prophets left it, and from which con troversialists have too often dislodged it. If any thing of a party-spirit appears, we discourage and repress the evil with more dfligence than almost any other. And on this and every other subject we keep our minds open to conviction, and correct continuaUy whatever is found to be doubtful or in expedient. We abstain from many things on the principle of not giving offence — we endeavor to become, in matters indifferent, " aU things to aU men, that by all means we may gain some." What gives occasion, perhaps, to the charge is a matter high and spiritual, and touching on the deepest mysteries of redemption. For there is undoubtedly in every age a mystical " body of Christ," " an assembly and church of the first born," " a people of God," a " chosen heritage," who are distinct from the merely visible and ex ternal communities professing the Christian name. These form the sphitual and invisible church of Christ, extending over all the earth, animated by grace, glorying in the cross of theh Lord, and known by theh spirit of penitence, love, separa tion from the world, benevolence, zeal, holiness, joy. These constitute, not a party, contracted and jealous, sunk in some inferior interests, and bound together by prejudice or passion, but the faithful servants of God, who love and serve him in truth, who share his favor, and are heirs of his kingdom. They have the closest communion with each other — they are united by the holiest ties — they pursue the greatest and noblest ends — they confer on aU around them the most substan tial benefits — they give every proof of sincerity by their constant labors, and, if caUed to it, by theh patient sufferings. To belong to theh fel lowship, is to be a Christian. The entrance to it is by penitence and faith. The clue to aU its secrets is holy love. The insignia which it bears, is the mysterious doctrine of the cross. The lan guage it speaks, is the soft learning of benevolence and meekness. The fruit it produces, is " righte ousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." And this, in fact, brings us to the true spring of all the objections against the zeal and warmth with which we propagate truth, as wefl as against the particular doctrines of the Gospel with which they are connected, and on which they rest. There is an opposition in the human heart to the humfliating yoke of Christ. The pride of man resists the doctrines, and the sensuality of man the precepts and restraints of revelation. " The carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." And this resistance, disguised under the mask of objections, more or less plausible, is the hidden source of the opposition raised against what is now termed in scorn, evangelical religion. In every age this has been the case. Truth has made its way but slowly, and amidst reluctant disciples. In a Protestant country, indeed, and in a church whose principles are purely scriptural, much is conceded. A national creed is defended. The great outlines of redemption are espoused. But stUl men deny these very truths in the real extent and apphcation of them as laid down in holy Scripture. They deny the full plain state ment of the faU and corruption and impotency of man. They refine and dispute against the real truth of our justification by faith only in the merits of Christ. They plainly resist the doctrine of the Holy Ghost as the author of spiritual life, and the source of all light and grace. They exclaim against those imperative calls to separation from the foUies of the world, and to a holy, devout, watchful, self-denying life, which the Gospel ad dresses to us. They spurn at the idea of loving God and holding communion with him by medita tion and prayer. They know nothing of the en tire dedication of aU and every faculty, and power, and talent, to the glory of God and the good of mankind, as the element and happiness of the renewed soul. The consequence is, that these various truths are curtailed, Weakened, omitted, denied, as occasions serve, and the current of pubhc sentiment allows. A standard of orthodoxy is raised which suits weU with a tame reUgion, and passes as reputable amongst men ; but which leaves out or despises spiritual and fervent piety. Names of reproach are invented to designate what is termed excessive devotion; and men in general learn to join in the cry, and satisfy them selves with a cold external Christianity, correct perhaps in its tenets, but lifeless and uninfluential in its sphit ; whilst they mask the real hatred they bear to truth, by representing it to be a mass of extravagant or weak opimbns. Just in proportion as rehgion is made practical, and is exhibited in the conduct and life, is it dis tasteful to mankind. The doctrine of a particular Providence — the exercise of the affections on the Divine Saviour— the humble assurance of faith — the expressions and fruits of holy love— active zeal for propagating the Gospel around us- — the consistency of a Christian behaviour in all the details of Ufe — are beyond measure offensive, for the plain reason that they disturb men jii their indifference, place God and eternity fuU before them, and remind them of the judgment which we all must so soon undergo. Such being the case, let me entreat any reader who has been listening to the misrepresentations which spring from these sources, and of wliich the objections current in the present day, and already considered, are only one unavoidable effect, to pause before he ventures to dismiss so momentous a subject. Let me entreat him to enter himself seriously on the business of reUgion. I do not want now to combat his particular objections, but to gain his attention generaUy to the first simple commands of Christianity. Let him place himself as before that throne where we must quickly ap pear. Let him begin the great work of repentance for himself. Let him study the rule of God's law, that he may attain the knowledge of his sins. Let him try to affect his heart with that sense of them which the Scripture requires. He wfll soon dis cern his difficulties — the reluctance of his nature — the perverseness of his wfll — the rebeUion of his 3 PREFACE. passions — the feebleness of bis purposes — his own impotency to what is spiritually good. He wiH find that his prayers, his efforts, his resolutions, wiU be insufficient to overcome his sins and form his habits to holiness. In this painful extremity, let him read the declarations of Scripture as to the grace and work of the Holy Spirit. He wfll perceive that this is precisely what he needs. Here is a promise of bestowing a tender heart, a divine principle, a superinduced and holy bias, a new framing of the soul, a heavenly birth. Let him then go on to implore these blessings for him self: and in the diligent use of all moral culture, and the various means of grace, he wfll obtain the proffered aid. He wiD graduaUy be "a new crea ture in Christ Jesus ; old things wfll pass away, behold all things will become new." Nature wfll be melted down, as it were, and recoined. The strong man armes, wfll be bound and cast out of the fortress, and the Saviour enter and reign there. The penitent is thus brought, so to speak, into a new world ; he discerns and appreciates spiritual things, and rises as far above mere reason, as reason is elevated above the animal powers. What is the result 1 A new and holy character is graduaUy created — new habits, new pursuits, new affections, a new course of conduct. Whilst the convert is learning these practical lessons as to the necessity of grace, he wfll also acquire a correspondent knowledge of his need of the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God. His tender conscience compares aU his actions and pursuits with the holy law which demands perfect and uninterrupted obedience. He discerns his guilt. He finds that one sin exposes him to tlie just anger of Almighty God. What then must his innumerable daily offences of thought, word, and deed, deserve ? These considerations pre pare him for welcoming the glad tidings of pardon and acceptance in the propitiatory death of the Divine Redeemer. Christ now arises as the Sun of Righteousness upon his view. The incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God, his life, his suf ferings, his resurrection, his glory, become the object of aU his trust. He understands the great mystery of God being " just and the justifier of him that beheveth in Jesus." He " counts all things but loss, that he may win Christ." Thus does his religion assume a totaUy different charac ter. He actuaUy reposes on the merits and death of his Saviour for justification, and implores fer vently and constantly the aid of the Holy Spirit for strength to obey God. He renounces his own righteousness as to the one, and his own power as to the other ; and the consequence is, a new ardor and purity of life and devotedness to God's service. AU the springs of gratitude and love are touched. The heart is gained. Christ is en throned in the affections. That love of God with wliich man was filled at his first creation, and which was extinguished at the faU, is now rekin dled. Christianity has produced a surprising re covery. The faUen creature is restored. God becomes his Lord, his Sovereign, his Master, his end by a new and willing choice. Henceforth " he lives, not" as he formerly did, and as all men by nature do, " unto himself," but " unto Him that died for him and rose again" — and he does this, " constrained by the love of Christ ;" that is, actuated by the efficacious motives of the Gospel, and elevated and purified by its grace and be nefits. The degree of activity and self-denial which we have above insisted on as essential to real Christianity, now appears to him natural, obliga tory, practicable, delightful. AU is in its place. The superstructure suits and becomes the founda tion. The edifice rises grand and proportionate in afl its parts. The duties and affections which appeared to him extravagant and impossible, whilst he was far from God and immured in the pursuits of the world, now seem necessary and easy. They agree with his acquired habits, they are the spontaneous actings of his new principles, they are produced by lively faith, they are soften ed and lightened by holy love, they are maintained by the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, they conform him in his life to the example of his Sa viour, and they prepare him in his hopes and ex pectations for the eternal purity and joy of heaven. He has received not a new creed, but a new Ufe. AU the parts of Christianity hang together. The doctrines prepare for the temper and spirit. Holy obedience flows from this temper. The effectual grace of God produces and unites both. Good works attest the sincerity of the change. The blessed fruits of peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost form the best comment on the whole. The sohd experience of God's gracious aid by his providence, the stable tranquillity of a mind puri fied by the sacrifice of Christ, the actual happiness inseparable from the love of God, the large mea sure of holy 7bedience attained by the principle of faith, the calm patience under the trials of life, and the joyful anticipation of death and judgment communicated by the promises of God — all con firm the truth and reafity of this scheme of Scrip ture doctrine, and show also the inadequacy of every other. In the meantime, the numerous imperfections which the Christian discovers in his best efforts, the temptations to which he feels himself exposed, and the daily defects, errors, and foUies of wliich he is conscious, tend to produce in him that genuine humility and contrition of spirit which is the last finish of the character, which keeps him always dependant on gkace, and grace only, for every hope of present succor and future salvation, and which renders the gospel the potent, and suitable, and most welcome remedy for aU his moral maladies and disorders. Here is, then, the easy solution of all the com- pUcated difficulties and objections which may at one time have perplexed his mind. A sincere trial of what rehgion is, affords the effectual an swer to theoretic mistakes. Let the reader make the experiment only, and he shaU be an example of my remarks. " If any man wfll do God's whl, he shaU know of the doctrine." Let him, with his Bible in his hand, pursue the great object of bis own salvation, and he shaU soon see the clouds and mists of prejudice dissipated from his mind. Nay, the very points in Christianity which he once viewed as difficulties, shaU appear the chief helps and glories of the discovery ; and he shall learn to "count aU things but loss for the ex ceUency of that knowledge of Christ" which formerly he thought " foolishness." But he shaU at the same time find, that he is becoming PREFACE. 9 to others the occasion of the very objections and remarks which he at one time entertained him self. In short, he wfll see that it is not any mi nute mistake, any charge of a party-spirit, any trifling abuse of terms, any subordinate misunder standing of a doctrine or a precept,- that can ac count for the wide differences of judgment and conduct between the Christian and the worldly person. The causes he deeper, and are more firmly fixed. The question involved is the funda mental distinction between the service of God and the service of sin — between the love and faith of Christ, and barren morahty — between the obe dience of the whole heart to rehgion, and an exter nal form — between the being alive as to God and eternity and the soul, and the being dead — be tween the walking in the narrow path which con ducts to Ufe, and in the broad which leads to de struction — in a word, between the rising up to the high vocation and transcendent ends of Chris tianity, and entering into its stupendous mysteries and designs ; and the sinking down to the low standard of unaided nature, and the doubtful, in efficient canons of prejudice and fashion. But the author wfll not proceed further. He has been drawn on thus almost insensibly by the earnest desire of removing some of those extra neous hindrances to a sincere conversion to God which the industry of polemical writers, and the indisposition of man to spiritual religion, have ac cumulated. He appeals for the truth of aU these statements, to the unerring standard of Holy Scriptures, to the united testimony of aU good men in every age, to the effects of divine teach ing and grace in each individual heart, and to the sohd fruits of godliness which evangelical truth produces — he appeals, finaUy, and above all, to the omniscient eye of God, and to the expected decision of that last great day, when the secrets of aU hearts shaU be disclosed. It is httle for the writer of these pages to say, in conclusion, that the foUowing Letters convey but very imperfectly his views of these Scriptural truths, and exhibit stfll more feebly his ideas of Scriptural holiness. Such, however, as they are, they may serve perhaps in some measure to show the sort of feeling with which the Christian tra veUer should, as the author thinks, habitually en deavor to acknowledge the hand and providence of God during a foreign tour ; and the sphit and manner in which he should aim to conduct him self, as the servant of God, on the various occa sions wliich such a tour continuaUy presents, to try the force of his principles, and put to the test the meekness and fortitude of his character. It is only for the sincerity of his -attempt at doing this, that the author presumes to answer. How far he succeeded, and whether his representations may be beneficial on the whole to others, he leaves to the opinion of the candid reader — or, rather, he refers it to the sentence of that God, who accepts the weakest effort to trace and adore the proceed ings of his providence, and who has condescended to say, " Trust in the Lord with aU thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding ; in aU thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Islington, July, 1826. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. LETTER I. Calais, June 2d. — Gand, June 23, 1823. Dover — Dunkirk — Pave — Mount Cassel — General Vaudamme — Lille — Duke of Marlborough — Courtray — Pulpits — Sunday at. Gand — Popery — Foreign Travel — King of England. Ghent, Saturday, June 21st, 1823. We are now fixed, my dear sister, for the Sun day; and, therefore, I have leisure to give my beloved mother and you some account of our movements. We arrived this morning at Gand, or Ghent, in the kingdom of the Netherlands, about eighteen leagues from Ostend. We had a delightful drive to Dover on Monday, and found good accommodations at the Union Hotel. Our passage to Calais in the steam vessel on Tuesday was calm and favorable. We almost aU suffered from sea-sickness ; but by four o'clock we sat down to dinner in exceUent spirits at the Bourbon Hotel at Calais', and began to forget our troubles. It was late on Tuesday evening before we had hired two carriages for our tour ; for we found that one would be inconvenient and unsafe. About eleven o'clock on Wednesday, we were on our way to the Rhine. The road annoyed us a good deal, being paved with large rough stones ; and the wind was not less unpleasant, blowing fresh from the sea. We passed Gravelines, a place of considerable strength, with five lines of fortification. We started involuntarily at driving, for the first time in our fives, through the formi dable works, and hearing tho rattling of the hon draw-bridges under the wheels of the carriages, and hardly believed ourselves safe. About five we reached Dunkirk, formerly the object of so much prevarication and perfidy on the part of the court of France. It is a large, noble town, with a fine port, a handsome church, streets spacious and clean, and the appearance of a good deal of trade. There is a great ah of comfort and neatness about this part of French Flanders ; but the most deplorable superstitions are preva- lentevery where. Enormous, ill-formed crucifixes stare you in the face on the public roads : the figure of our blessed Lord being exhibited in the most forbidding, and even disgusting forms ima ginable. And the moment you enter into conver sation with the people, you are surprised and af fected at the degree of ignorance and superstition which they betray. At this town, some of the peasants we talked with actually caUed the Pro testants Jews, confounding them indiscriminately with aU who reject the Roman Cathohc faith. The adoration paid to the image of the Virgin Mary quite appals the mind ; the worship of our Saviour is comparatively forgotten. In fact, the Virgin seems almost to engross the veneration of the Papist, and to supersede every thing else. On Thursday we set off for Mount Cassel, a beautiful spot, seven leagues from Dunkirk, from the lofty summit of which thirty-two towns and four hundred vfllages are said to be visible, though I could not discern near so many. The view, however, was magnificent. A vast panorama stretched aU around. Nature was arrayed in her most beautiful atthe, and the eye was dehghted in attempting to trace out the variegated wonders of the spectacle. On one side of the hfll, to wards its foot, General Vaudamme has erected a noble edifice, and laid out a considerable space of ground in gardens and pleasure walks. The spoils of war are displayed in different parts with much taste ; but I confess the reflections they awakened in my mind, very much lessened my admhation of them : I could not help thinking of the injustice and cruelty with which most of them were acquired. No glory is sohd which violates the first principles of morals. We reached the celebrated town of Lflle about nine in the evening. It was almost dark, and we were afraid the gates would have been shut. It contains sixty-two thousand inhabitants ; its works render it a fortress of the first rank, and its citadel is second to none in Europe. The Duke of Marlborough's siege is perhaps the best enco mium on these works. Indeed, what mingled re- coUections are excited in the mind, when travel ling over these scenes of former conflict and glory ! An English family driving peacefully and undis turbed through Dunkirk or Lflle, is quite an im portant event, when one remembers the history of the two last centuries ; and the indignation or alarm which the very names of these towns kindled in the breasts of our forefathers. Thank God for those national mercies which are con nected with the annals, however mournful in themselves, of past warfare ! The preservation of the Protestant religion in Europe, and the estabUshment of that reUgion, and of aU the other blessings of our glorious revolution of 1688, in England, where the effects of the hard-fought fields of the incomparable British commander — I said incomparable, hut I check myself, for the splendid triumphs of Wellington, place him on a level with England's greatest captains. I caUed on the Protestant minister at Lille — only about two hundred and fifty Protestants- feeble, alarmed, dejected — Popery surrounding and watching them with a jealous eye — the French government contracting theh privileges-— the sphit of the Reformation almost fled. Stfll there is a Bible Society, which is always a seed TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 11 of future blessings. The place is famous for its manufactures. The men gain three or four francs a day (the franc is now worth ninepence or nine- pence halfpenny Enghsh,) the women one franc, and the children nearly the same. Food is about a third part cheaper than in London. The wo men are without bonnets ; a sort of high cap sup plies the place of them ; the wooden shoe is common. We came on Friday to Courtray, a beautifuUy neat town ; but, alas ! the whole place seemed given up to superstition. Lamps are suspended throughout the streets before the images of the Vho-in, as if she were a guardian deity. In Eng land we have little idea of the state of things in Cathohc Europe, or of our own blessings. Here, as weU as at Gand and a village lying between them, we have seen some of those fine pulpits which are so much admired, and so justly, in the Netherlands. You see I am adverting to a professional topic — every one understands best what relates to his own calling. One pulpit re sembled a palm tree, the trunk concealing within it the stahs ; the fohage forming the sounding- board, and an immense sort of pumpkin the pulpit itself, which an angel supported underneath. The next was sustained by four female figures as large as Ufe ; the sounding-board was surmounted by a cherub raising the cross ; angels stooping around to admire. The third was almost entirely of the finest white marble ; an angel underneath opened the Bible to an old man, at these striking words, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shafl give thee Ufe." Another angel at the sounding-board was blowing the trumpet of the Gospel ; whilst a third was sus taining the cross. If any thing Uke pure doctrine were deUvered from these pulpits, aU would be weU. But what a contrast is there between the magnificent pulpits and the mean and unworthy tenets inculcated from them ! We are reaUy quite melancholy at witnessing the scenes around us. It seems whoUy unaccountable, how men, with the New Testament in their hands, should be deluded and bound down by so gross an imposture as Popery. But I forget myself ; the New Testament is not in theh hands. The Pope first shuts that sacred book, and then imposes his own traditions. And besides, the Scriptures represent Popery as the " power of error," as " a strong delusion," as "the deceivableness of unrighteousness," as "the working of Satan with signs and lying wonders," as a judicial blindness for the neglect and abuse of light and knowledge, " because men loved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." There is accordingly a fixed, unalterable attach ment to Popery in the minds of the people, a kind of devoted, unsuspecting aUegiance, " a bowing down of the soul," that theh spiritual tyrants " may go over." But I must bid you fareweU for to-night. We have come forty-five leagues, about one hundred and forty-four English mfles from Calais. One of our carriages gave way at Vive St. Eloi, about seven mfles from Courtray, a bar of hon behind being broken through by the pave. We paid four francs for some cords to repair it, which were worth five sous — about sixteen times their value. 54—5 This accident detained us two hours on the road, and wfll keep us here, perhaps, over Sunday: otherwise we should have reached Antwerp to night. The post does not go out tfll Tuesday, so that I may add a word or two to-morrow, or Mon day. Gand, Sunday Night, June 22<£— We found to-day an English service at the Protestant church. The prayers were well read, and the sermon was tolerable. The clergyman dined with us after church, and gave us a great deal of useful infor mation. He was a pleasant, and, I hope, a pious man. As there was no Protestant service in the afternoon, I went to one of the, Catholic churches. It was the first time I had ever witnessed the full display of Popish ceremonies. ReaUy the proces sions, prostrations, bells, incense, music, chaunt- ings, &c. made up a sort of stage-effect, of which I had had no conception. It seemed to me to be just calculated to deceive mankind. Animal emotion and bodily 'services were put for faith and the obedience of the heart. The senses were charmed and seduced, instead of the understanding being informed, and the passions subdued. Every thing was not merely unfavorable to spiritual worship, but almost irreconcilable with it. Stfll the dfli- gent attention of these poor people to their cere monies, and their apparent devotion and serious ness in the performance of their religious duties, are examples to those who boast a purer creed. We never entered a town, but many were at prayers. Yesterday evening the chujches were fiUed. To-day you can scarcely enter them for the crowd. The Catholics have no idea of being caUed Christians, and yet neglecting the public worship which Christianity enjoins. The com mon people, at least, are sincere and in earnest. Their principles are obscure'and superstitious, but they are firmly fixed in theh mjnds, and they act upon them. It is difficult for a Protestant traveller to recover from the surprise excited by these degenerate forms of reUgion, and to divest himself so far of his habitual associations as calmly to weigh aU the effects and circumstances of the system which he is contemplating. Unquestionably, large aUow- ances are to be made for individual piety, under the disadvantages of early habit and education, in a Cathohc country. But I must say, that Pope ry, as a whole, disgusts me more now I see it in act, than when I had merely read of it. Undoubt edly, its worst and most prominent feature is, the idolatry of the Virgin Mary ; an immediate con sequence of this is, the indirect or open denial of aU the chief doctrines of the Gospel ; the corrup tion of the rule of Christian morals* foUows al- * As to the denial of Christian doctrine, hear the language of Luther : " In confession, the Papists make no mention of faith, or the merits of Christ, but only enjoin human satisfactions and merits ; as may be seen in the following form of absolution, which the monks use, and those the most devout amongst them, and which I willingly copy out, that posterity may understand the infinite and ineffable abominations of Popery. " May God spare thee, Brother, " The merit of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Mary, always a virgin, and of all the saints, the merit of your order, the 12 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. most of course ; and the effect of aU this is, the tacit but certain encouragement wliich is given to skepticism and infidelity. I leave out a hundred other topics — indulgences — transubstantiation — infaUibility — traditions — persecution — exclusion from salvation of all not within its pale, &c. &c. Thank God for the Reformation ! In the evening we had service in our family — the evening prayers of our church, and a sermon. I was much inclined to offer to preach this morn ing at tlie Enghsh service ; but I abstained from a sense of duty — my health is now my first object. My heart and thoughts have been continuaUy at St. John's. * Gand, June 23d. Monday morning. — We have had an excellent night — aU weU to-day. We are now going to visit the principal curiosities of this ancient town ; and shaU probably set off for Ant werp in the afternoon. To-morrow we hope to be at Brussels, and on Wednesday to be pressing on towards the Rhine, the magnificent scenery of which river is a great attraction to us. We mean to enter Switzerland by Schaffhausen. Our move ments are too rapid to derive any thing like the fuU advantages of what is caUed foreign travel. We are come out only for our health. ' StiU we make aU the observations we are able, on the habits and customs, the language and government, the poh- cies and religion of different people. We try to study and contemplate men, as Bishop Hurd, I think, expresses it, as they present themselves on the great stage of the world, in various forms, and under different appearances ; and we compare every thing with what we have seen or read at home. AU this will enlarge, as I hope, our minds, without too much dissipating the attention. It wfll a7so tend to lessen undue national prejudices. It wiU teach us to appreciate the blessings of a free government ,and a pure religion, and will send us' home better fitted to discharge our ordinary duties, and more eager to communicate spiritual benefit to others. I should tell you that the roads are shocking. Indeed, I need not say this, after having mention ed the pave ; for this forms aU the middle part of the roads, and is beyond measure worse than the stones of London streets, or those on our Cheshire and Lancashire- roads, whilst on each side you have commonly a deep sand. Carriages break weight of your religious duties, the humility of your confession, the contrition of your heart, the good works which you have done and will do for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, obtain for thee the remis sion of thy sins, the increase of merit and grace, and the reward of eternal life. Amen. Comm. in Gal. p. 117. Ed. Witenberg, 1535. Of the corruption of the rule of duty, let the Je suits stand as witnesses. Who can have read Pas cal's Provincial Letters without having been asto nished at the profligacy of their code of morals, or rather at the virtual overthrow of uprightness, pu rity, and truth amongst men, which that code occa sions and patronizes ; and on which their conduct, as an order, for nearly three hundred years, has been too frequently the comment"! I say nothing of the worship of the Virgin, or the secret prevalence of infidelity, because these evils are acknowledged. * St. John's, Bedford Row, London, at that time the author's chapel. down constantly; sometimes the first day; and generally before the end of the week. We wore informed at Lflle, that when his majesty the king of England passed through, the year before last, on his way to Hanover, the royal carriage broke down just at the entrance of the town, and that the king was glad to accept the offer of a French nobleman, who made a tender of his own. FareweU. BeUeve me your affectionate Brother, D. W. LETTER II. Brussels, June 27. — Liege, July 1, 1823. Gand — Nunnery — Ch rysostom — Lou is X VIII . — Lord Gambier — Antwerp — Bonaparte — Scheld Brussels — St. Gudule — Popery — The Martyr Tyndale — Namur — Village of Waterloo — King of England — Coster— Battle of Waterloo— Huy- Liege.. Brussels, Friday, June 27, 1823. My dear sister — I sent off my first letter from Ghent, on Monday, June 23. I begin a second letter against the next post-day. We took our view of the city of Ghent on Monday morning. — It stands upon twenty-six islands, connected by three hundred small wooden bridges. It has above sixty thousand inhabitants. A nunnery, where six or seven hundred females maintain themselves by spinning, and other Uke works, much gratified us. There is less of superstition in this establish ment, and more of obvious usefulness, than in any I have yet seen. Charity and diligence seem united, as they ought to be. The nuns are the nurses of the whole town, making it theh busi ness to visit and assist the sick. The public li brary is one of the finest buildings in Europe ; en tirely of black and white marble. An inscription, taken from St. Chrysostom, very much pleased me, Lectio Scripturarum munitio est adversus peccatum ; " The reading of the Scriptures is the defence against sin" — no obscure testimony a- gainst the present practice of the church of Rome. The Cathedral is sumptuous and superstitious beyond aU imagination. We ascended the tower by four hundred and sixty-four steps, and thence obtained a rich coup-d'oeil of the whole city. It has all the marks of departed grandeur. It was once the rival of Paris, and the capital of the Bcl- gic provinces. It boasted of being tho birth-place of Charles the Fifth, and of containing the largest area of any city on the Continent.* It has now a duU and deserted appearance. Its power and glory are gone. Other cities echpse its fame. It is thus that all earthly distinctions fade away, and that legislators are taught that the proudest emi nence of national prosperity may be undermined and destroyed. Gand has acquired a temporary interest of late, from Louis XVIII. having fled to it during the usurpation of the hundred days ; and from our brave Admiral Lord Gambier having * The circuit of the walls is little less than fifteen miles. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 13 heTe met the American Commissioners, and con cluded the late treaty of peace. At two, our carriages being repahed, we set off for Antwerp ; eleven leagues, thirty miles English. As we approached it, t" : magnificent tower of the Cathedral appeared irectly in our view — 466 feet high, of the most ;• elicate architecture, and rising at the top to the finest point imaginable — one of the most splendid things of the kind in Eu rope. The Scheld river, however, flowing be tween us and the city, we had to pass a quarter of a league in a ferry-boat before we could reach it. As we walked up to the inn, gaudy images of the Virgin offended us at the corner of almost every street ; forty or fifty of these, with lamps suspended before them, are scattered over the city, and priests and friars meet you at every turn. The town is most handsome and noble, like the former papital of European commerce. The har bor can contain a thousand vessels. The Scheld here seemed to me broader than our Thames at London ; it flows close up to the place. We saw a beautiful pulpit, in the church of St. James, sup ported by female figures as large as life, repre senting Truth, Faith, Theology, and Learning; an union exceUent and comely. It requires only that these should be practicaUy embodied in the doctrine of the Roman Cathohc church, to pro duce a second Reformation. But what most interested us were the exten sive docks and naval storehouses begun by Bona parte in 1803, and carried on tfll the period of his fall. These were to surpass aU that Europe could produce, and were to contribute to the overthrow of British commerce and British power. It is with a mixture of surprise and triumph that English men survey the defeated schemes and half-accom plished projects of that extraordinary man, and most bitter enemy of theh country. At three the next day, Tuesday, June 24, we drove off to Brussels, where we arrived at nine in the evening. On our way we passed through Vflleforte, where our English Reformer, Tyndale, is said to have been imprisoned. He was after wards burnt by the procurator of the emperor's court at Brussels, in 1536. His crime was the translation of the New Testament into Enghsh ! This is the first trace we have seen of that noble army of martyrs to whose labors and sufferings we owe the blessings of the Reformation. We have been now detained at Brussels three days for repairing a second time the carriages— dislo cated, weakened, shattered almost, with these paves. The city is beautifuUy situated, partly on a hfll and partly in the valley ; it has one hundred thousand inhabitants, with boulevards encircling it, which will, when finished, be about six mfles in extent. The chamber of the Etats Generaux, or States General is reaUy quite charming, much more elegant and commodious than our English house of commons. The only misfortune is, that, with aU this exterior beauty, the life of pohtical institutions is wanting — that spirit of regulated freedom — that happy balance of the different pow ers of the state— that independence and hberty of discussion — that influence on pubhc opinion, which render the British parUament the glory of the world. CathoUcs and ProtestantB sit indiscrimi nately in the chamber of deputies. The royal palaces at Brussels and at Lacken, three miles from the town, are pleasing. The chief church of St. Gudule is, like all the other Cathohc churches, loaded with images of saints and the Virgin. It has sixteen chapels. A priest showed us the cliief curiosities, and told us, with perfect sangfroid, that some Jews having, four centuries ago, stolen the host from the church and stabbed it, blood miraculously issued from it and destroyed them ! The pulpit here again is exquisite ; it is supported by figures of Adam and Eve driven out of Eden by an angel, with Death triumphing over theh ruin. The stairs and'oack of the pulpit represent the garden of Eden, with the different animals around. The sounding board represents the descent of the Holy Sphit, and is surmounted by our Saviour, and what always ac companies him, the Virgin. The museum and U- brary are fine ; one hundred thousand volumes, and many exquisite pictures of Rubens. We here saw the first book printed at Brussels, in the year 1476, entitled Speculum Conscieniiai. We have been introduced to a very pious Pro testant gentleman, who has shown us the great est kindness. To him we owe the obligation of examining our carriages, and recommending us to a respectable coaojimaker. We have been sadly imposed upon. An Enghshman should, if possi ble obtain an introduction to some merchant at Calais or Brussels, or he will probably bo put off with miserable, ruined vehicles, decked up for the occasion, which wfll fail him, as ours have done, the very first day or two of his journey. This gentleman talked to us much on the state of reh gion. He loves England. He considers that things are rather improving.upon the whole here ; stiU the gross, heavy superstition of Popery weighs down the consciences of men, and darkens the fair front of Christianity. Bonaparte is the idol and the present government unpopular ; but Popery, after all, is the permanent obstacle to rehgious improvement. My friend ardently hopes, as I am sure I do, that the pure truth of the Gospel wfll once more spread through Europe ; and silently, but effectually, dissipate aU anti-christian errors, whether on the side of infidelity or superstition. Namur, Sunday, June 29.— A city almost en tirely Roman Cathohc ! Twenty thousand souls, and scarcely a Protestant family ! Not so much as a single sermon that I could hear of, in any of the parish churches throughout the day, for the people of the town ! Thank God, the mihtary from HoUand and Switzerland have Protestant chaplains and services in a chapel built for them by the present King of the Netherlands, who is himself, as you know, of the Protestant reUgion. As soon as breakfast was over, we had the morn ing prayers of our own church and a sermon ; our Uttle congregation was seven as usual. At twelve, I went to the Mihtary Chapel, to hear the Ger- " man sermon, of which I found I could not under stand a word — I have lost my German. I con versed afterwards with the chaplain, who spoke pretty good French ; he was a sensible and pious young man. I said all I could to encourage him in a bold and manly profession of the gospel. In the afternoon, we went to the Cathedral— Popish service— building fine— pulpit of beautiful, though unadorned, marble. • We are now about to have 14 TRAVELS ON TILE CONTINENT. our second domestic service. How I pity these CathoUcs, brought up to worship, not the God and Father of all, but the Virgin Mary and the Saints ! — Farewell. Namur, Monday morning. — We are now going off for Liege ; we hope to be at Spa on Wednes day ; at Aix la ChapeUe, Thursday ; Cologne on the Rhine (where the pave ends,) Saturday. At Brussels, we engaged with a Swiss voiturier, who had come here with four horses from Rome, to conduct us to Berne. We left Brussels at nine on Saturday, and at eleven were on the field of Waterloo. The smaU vfllage church contains twenty-two monuments of English officers who feU on that memorable spot, with suitable inscrip tions — a most affecting sight. In an adjoining plot is the burial ground of four hundred of our brave soldiers. His Majesty the King of Eng land was most minute in his inquiries, when he was here two years back. He even visited the garden where Lord Anglesey's leg was interred. The field of Waterloo itself is covered with corn ; but the hedge leading to Ohain, the farm of Haie Sainte, Huguemont, Planchenoir, &c. remain. — The spot where the last attack was made on the Enghsh by the Imperial Guard, is marked by a pfllar, and also that where General Gordon feU. The Wellington tree was brought to England two years ago, and is at the British Museum. Jean Baptiste de Coster, Bonaparte's guide, was ours. We took great pains in distinguishing him from a multitude of impostors who deceive the unwary, by claiming his name. He is an elderly man, full of enthusiasm in his description of the battle. We spent an hour with him on this fear ful scene of England's glory. He led us to the very spot where the hottest part of the battle took place. It is impossible to give you any idea of the horrors which he described. The mind shud ders at the thoughts of the sufferings of our brave men, and of the wide-spread desolations of that terrific day. Even now the corn displays a rank luxuriance on the ensanguined field. The bones of the dead are dug up by the rude hand of the laborer.* The marks of the baUs may stfll be traced on many of the trees, and rehcs of the spoils are offered you at every turn. What a de liverance for Europe was wrought on those plains ! What praises do we owe to God for the security, happiness, and power which were aU achieved or confirmed to Britain by that mighty conquest. ReaUy, when one reflects on the character of Bonaparte, on his prodigious successes, on his confessed skfll as a general, on his prodigality of human Ufe, on the efforts which he then made, and on the possible consequences of his gaining the field, one's heart swells with gratitude and .thanksgiving to the God of battles, who fortified the breast of our noble commander during the fearful struggle, and crowned him with the most important victory which the annals of history, an cient or modern, can boast. It is a curious cir- * Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro, Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila, Aut, gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris. Ymo, Georg. I. 493. cumstance, that the Duke of Marlborough, a hun dred years before, had fixed on the same plains for giving battle to the French army, and was only withheld from engaging by the timidity of the Dutch Deputies. We reached Namur at nine, after a journey on paye of forty-four miles. It is a strongly fortified place, celebrated for the long sieges which it sus tained at the close of the last century but one ; and, like aU frontier towns, has been the perpetual scene of bloodshed and misery. Forty thousand soldiers were quartered here in 1815 under Grou chy. It stands on the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse or Maese ; behind it a fine moun tain rises adorned with hanging wood, and crown ed with tremendous fortifications. It forms the back ground of the picture. The walk by the river side is exquisite, Huy, Twelve o'clock, Monday, June 30. — We have been four hours and a half coming to this beautiful town. The road has been by the side of the Meuse, seventeen miles. The hanging woods, the rocks, the vihages, the windings of the river, the ruined castles, and a road of fine smooth earth, not pave, formed one of the most striking and beautiful drives I have ever taken. The cliffs and woods, in some places, were sublime. — The rain of yesterday had laid the dust, and bright. ened the verdure on the face of nature. The pe culiar feature was the trees and woods, inter spersed amongst the rude rocks in the most pic turesque manner. At this place we ascended the fortress, which Lord Wellington, as we were told, has been six years directing several thousand men to construct, and which is considered to be im pregnable. The walls are in some places ten or eleven feet thick. Liege, Tuesday, July 1. — We arrived here last night, the road continuing equally beautiful ; but the heat of the day, especiaUy in the morning, was very great, and we find ourselves a good deal fatigued. To-day is the post, and therefore I close this letter. I found no letters from England at Brussels, but hope to receive some at Cologne. We are all weU. I am, &c. D. W. P. S. We have underrated the distance we have traveUed ; the leagues are two miles and three quarters Enghsh; so that we have now gone about two hundred and seventy-five miles from Calais. We have two coachmen, and two beautiful white horses to each carriage. liege contains nothing very remarkable. It stands in a picturesque spot on the side of a hiU ; a small river banked with stone walls, runs through it ; and the gardens coming down to the river, are beautiful ; a promenade, with trees, affords a de- hghtful walk aU around. In coming here we saw the sides of the mountains, for the first time, co vered with vineyards. We had occasion to caU on a clockmaker in the Great Square. He seem ed an acute, sensible man. A deeply fixed dis content was apparent, notwithstanding his at tempts to conceal it. The recoUection of Bona parte was vivid in his mind. So we find it every where almost. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 15 LETTER III. Spa, July l.—Coblentz, July 10, 1823. Road to Spa— Verviers— Aix la Chapelle— Charle magne— Relics— King of England— Juliers— St. Austin— Sunday at Bergheim— Cologne— St. Ur sula—Tomb of Magi— Bonn— University of Ca tholics and Protestants— The Rhine— Drachens- fels — Remagen — Andernach — Coblentz — Tim ber-float — Spy. Spa, Tuesday, July 1, 1823. My dear sister — We have safely arrived at this beautiful spot — a romantic watering place, weU known by fame to you and every one else, for its min eral springs. The road from Liege is mountainous, and in many places highly picturesque ; and as we approached Spa, we traveUed along a deep hoUow with lofty cliffs on each side of us covered with hanging woods. Below the road ran a small but rapid river, winding along the valley, which hav ing been swoUen by the recent rains, was inimita bly beautiful. On our road, we stopped an hour at a smaU inn, in the chamber of which I found a sort of chapel, dressed up with a crucifix, and many superstitious ornaments : underneath, how ever, was a copy of verses so pious, that I tran scribed them, and send them for your benefit. I think them admirable : possibly they may be an extract from Corneflle's Translation of Thomas a Kempis. Ca Sainte Volonte de Dieu; la Folie de la Croix; ou, Maximes de la Sagesse Evangelique. Domptez vos passions, faites-vous violence ; Mortifiz vos desirs, cherissez le silence. Croyez sincerement chacun meilleur que vous ; Jugez de tous au bien, soyez affable a tous; Ne vous pr^valez pas du mai que font les autres; Excusez leur defauts, humiliez vous des votres. Detournez votre esprit des objets curieux; Menagez vos momens, car ils sont procieux. Evitez avec soin l'amitie trop humaine ; Elle trouble le coeur, et ne produit que peine. Obeissez gaiment, ne murmurez jamais ; Votre ame jouira d'une solide paix. due cette paix seroit durable et salutaire ; Si l'on n'avoit le cceur qu'a son unique affaire. Et si l'on savoit bien graver dans l'esprit ; Glue le monde n'est rien, si l'on n'a Jesus Christ. Heureux qui prend le temps comme Pieu le lui donne ; Des biens, des maux presens, sait faire son profit ; Et qui pour l'avenir au Seigneur s'abandonne, Disant, content de tout, Dieu le veut, il mffiti Spa, Wednesday, July 2. — We have had a beautiful day. This vfllage is surrounded with the finest rides and walks imaginable. The wa ters were known to the Romans, and afe men tioned by Pliny. They were in repute through out Europe, a» early as the fourteenth century. They spring from the adjacent hflls, which are said to be formed of calcareous earth, mixed with silicious substances. They are aU a strong cha lybeate ; and some of them are impregnated with sulphur. Theh flavor very Uttle differs from that of common water, except that they have a taste of iron. The water from the Poulion spring is the strongest, and is exported to almost every part of the world. The place has fallen off since the last war, and is now apparently going to decay. The German bathing-towns are superseding it. We shaU stay here over to-morrow probably. Little did I think I should ever spend a birth day at Spa ; but so it is. I am forty-five to-day. With how many mercies surrounded ; with how much to lament in myself! Time how swift ! This world how vain, how unsatisfying ! May the salutary springs of this place lead me to recoUect and to thirst more ardently for "that fountain of "living waters, which springeth up unto everlast ing life!" Aix La Chapelle, Saturday, July 5. — We left Spa on Thursday after dinner, and came by a de lightful road to Verviers, a town, eleven mfles dis tant, remarkable for a small river, the waters of which are used in dying clothes. The town is situated in a vaUey ; a promenade made half way up on one side of a hfll commands the place, and affords an exquisite prospect. The town is be fore you, overtopped by the green hflls behind it ; between the town and the foot of the hiU are the gardens of the houses in the main street, running down to the river, over which bridges are thrown, that add much to the whole effect. The number of inhabitants is about ten thousand. We saw a multitude of persons in the evening kneeling down on the outside of one of the church doors, uttering miserable cries before the image of a saint. We are now come to German servants, and find our French of httle use to us. On Friday morning, at seven o'clock, we came to Aix, twenty-five mfles ; here we enter the do minions of the king of Prussia. This city is as sociated with everything grand in modern Eu rope. The peace of 1748 was signed here ; and at the Hotel de Vflle is an immense picture of aU the ambassadors who were present on that occa sion : unfortunately they are not portraits. A tower of this building was erected by the Romans. The baths of hot sulphureous water, of the heat of one hundred and forty-three degrees of Fahren heit, gave the town the name of Aix, a corruption from aqiue, waters. The cathedral was buflt by Charlemagne in 804, and yet preserves his throne of white marble, in which thirty-six emperors of Germany have been crowned. Over his tomb is a plain stone with this simple inscription, Carolo Magna. The pulpit is not remarkable for its architecture ; but around the sounding-board are these words, " But we preach Christ." Alas ! the fact is, they now preach the Virgin Mary ; before whose im age we saw, what may be seen every day, a per son kneeling with uplifted hands in prayer. The rehcs of this church are enchased in immense shrines of silver gilt, set with precious stones. A priest gravely showed us a nail and several pieces of the wood of the cross ; the sponge, in which the vinegar was offered to our Saviour ; a part of the girdle of our Lord ; a link of the chain with which St. Peter was martyred ; an arm and some of the hah of John the Baptist ; a tooth of St. Thomas ; some bones of Simeon, &c. It was 16 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. with the utmost difficulty I could keep my counte nance. I asked the priest if aU these tilings were matters of faith. He rephed, " No, but they rest on the most undoubted historical evidence" — which, for my part, I always thought was the pro per ground of faith as to a matter of fact. These rehcs are pubUcly exhibited for fifteen days once in seven years. About 40,000 persons daily crowd to see them during that time. In 1545 more than 100,000 came every day for this purpose. How gross are the impositions of this corrupt church ! May the blessed Spirit of Grace hasten the time when truth shaU once more triumph over its Papal, as it did over its Pagan foes ! Aix is surrounded with beautiful boulevards ; and the adjoining hfll of Louisbourg commands a fine view of the city. The allied monarchs were here for three months, four years back ; and our own beloved king tbe year before last. His affa- bflity and generosity won every heart. Enghsh newspapers are, I am told, prohibited throughout most of the Prussian states — we could find none. Every creature is brim-fuU of discontent ; and much beyond the occasion, I should think. Bergheim, Saturday evening, July 5. — We have finished our journey for the week. We left Aix this mornmg for Juliers, eighteen miles. Here we were shown an ancient portrait of the greatest of the Christian fathers, St. Austin, with this inscrip tion, " Saint Aurelius Augustinus, the pillar and teacher of the church, the abyss of wisdom, the terror of heretics, the restorer of the apostohcal life." If the doctrine of Austin had but been pre served uncorrupted in the church, there would have been no need of a Reformation, eleven cen turies after his death, to revive the evangeUcal truth which he taught. After dinner, (which now costs us twenty-pence a head,) we set off for this viUage, where are six hundred and fifty souls, and scarcely a Protestant. It is a Sweet, calm place ; the hotel clean, people attentive, beds comfortable. Our host was a fine young man, one of Bonaparte's soldiers, and not at aU disguising his hatred of the Prussian government. In the house opposite, the royal family of France received the news of the detention of Louis XVI., at Varennes, in 1792. Farewell, for to-night. Monday morning, July 8. — Yesterday we had our English service twice, as usual. My coUege friend, whom I shaU often have occasion to speak of, preached to us most exceUently. A Protestant eermon is doubly deUghtful now we are annoyed and disgusted with Popish doctrines and corrup tions on aU hands. The church here is filled with superstitions ; a procession of two hundred persons came eighteen miles, yesterday, to sing hymns in honor of the Virgin. StiU the attention of the people at church was very great ; theh prayer- books are in Latin and German. Under an image of our Lord, we found these words, " Thou who passest by, honour always the image of Christ ; but adore not the image, but him whom it repre sents." It is thus precisely that a heathen priest would have excused his idolatry. We inquire aU we can as to the state of the people. The chil dren in the Prussian states aire forced to go to school; aU read and write; the men are husband men, and get six or seven francs a week, and their food ; the women three francs. The people are discontented. They eoneeive themselves de graded by being taken from France, a leading power in Europe, and made an appendage on Prussia. Theh trade and wealth have sensibly diminished. Bonn on ihe Rhine, Tuesday, July 9. — We left Bergheim yesterday at seven, and came to Co logne by ten, fourteen miles — for we never go more than about four miles an hour. We spent seven hours in visiting this most ancient and cu rious city, Cologne. The Rhine here first burst upon us ; a noble, broad, rich flood, rushing from the Lake of Constance, and flowing on with a graduaUy retarded stream, to HoUand, more than seven hundred mfles — I should rather say, rush ing from the Grisons through the lakes of Con stance. Cologne was a city buflt by the Romans, of whom many memorials remain. A large room in the old Jesuits' CoUege is filled with Roman sarcophagi, altars, bas-rehefs, and inscriptions found in the town and neighborhood. The venerable Professor Walraf, after fifty-five years spent in the coUection of antiquities and speci mens of the fine arts, stfll fives to enjoy his repu tation. On the fiftieth anniversary of his profes sorship — which is soon approaching — a fete is to be given him by aU the authorities of the town. The churches, convents, &c. are numerous: amounting, it is said, to one hundred and eighty- five in number. The Cathedral is a stupendous unfinished edifice, which was two hundred and fifty years in buUding. Here we were shown— can you imagine it"! — the tomb of the three wise men who visited our Lord. ActuaUy so ! The front of the tomb in which theh pretended sculls are placed, is of gold, enriched with oriental to paz. Theh names, Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, are fixed beneath in letters of rubies, theh bodies are enshrined in massy silver gilt, adorned with precious stones. Yet three centuries back this - city was aU but Protestant. The Archbishop, Herman Comit de Wied, had actuaUy espoused the Reforminon. But the Popish party prevailed ; the pious archbishop was deprived of his see, and the dawning hght was smothered or extinguished. What guilt is incurred by those who trifle away the " time of theh visitation !"* We visited the church where Rubens was bap tized, and that where St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were interred.f The town is strongly fortified, has fifty thousand souls, and one thousand three hundred Protestants; amongst whom, I am told, there are many most exceUent and spirituahy-minded persons. The city is an- * lean refer now with great pleasure to tbe inte resting details on this subject in the Rev.. J. Scott's able continuation of Milner's Church History, 1836. t " The hugest fraud of this kind (as to relics) that ever was practised, was when the contents of a whole cemetery were brought forth as the bones of eleven thousand British virgins, all bound from Cornwall, to be married in Armoriea, carried by tempests up the Rhine to the city of Cologne, and there martyred by an army of Huns under Attila. Even this legend obtained credit* all parts of Christendom were eager to acquire a portion of the relics, and at this day a church may be seen at Co logne, literally lined with the bones." — Sodthey's Book of the. Church, vol. i. p. 293. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 17 nexed to Prussia. We noticed a most magnifi cent organ in one of the churches — the gallery composed entirely of marble, with statues of the apostles and patriarchs in the front of it — the whole supported by marble pillars, and filling up an entire corner of the church. It is splendid beyond conception. Remagen on the Rhine, Tuesday evening. — We have had a most charming day. At Bonn, I en quired after a Lutheran clergyman with whom I had made some acquaintance in England, a most pious and sensible man. The person whom I addressed, immediately said he knew him, and that he had just sent around his letter to announce his approaching marriage — for I found that it is the custom of aU respectable persons here to write circular notes to their friends, to inform them of the day of theh intended marriage — in England we rather conceal such an intention. I soon met with my friend, and he conducted us over the University of Bonn, founded, in 1819, by the king of Prussia — five hundred and twenty students, half Protestant and half Catholic — eighteen pro fessors — library, fifty-five thousand volumes. — The eoUege, a former palace of the Elector of Cologne, of immense extent. There is said to be a. considerable revival of piety among CathoUcs and Protestants here. The estimate of real Christianity rises, its vital truths are better appre ciated, and circumstantials less vehemently in sisted on. There is an exceUent Bible Society ; and in consequence the nature of spiritual reU gion, as weU as its obligation, is understood. The leading CathoUcs are sensible men, and their churches here are almost entirely free from altars and images. StiU Popery in itself is the same ; and as soon as a Cathohc priest preaches the Gospel purely, he is, somehow or other, removed or banished by his superiors : though he cannot be further perse cuted, as the king is a Protestant. I hear that one priest in Alsace has been the means of con verting forty famiUes in his parish. The kings of Prussia and the Netherlands are Protestants. This is a great point, and is working consider able good, and would work more, if Protestant princes understood better the great principles of the reformed faith, and felt more deeply the obli gation of acting upon them. At the period of the Reformation, rehgion actuated the counsels of kings, and entered into the poUcy of affiances ; and ministers of state took into account their re- sponsibflity to God for the cause of the pure faith of Christ committed to their care. Our drive from Bonn to this place, Remagen, by the banks of the Rhine, was exquisite ; words can give you no idea of it. A fine river, five or six hundred feet broad, with continual windings, opening into bays; on each side vfllages, with beautiful spires ; vineyards, crags, corn-fields, in terspersed : the scenery now rising with magnifi cence, now sinking into softer beauty ; distant mountains bounding the prospect ; nothing can be conceived more splendid and lovely. We alighted at Mehlem, and crossed the Rhine at Kosnigs- winter, to ascend the lofty mountains of Dra- chensfels, one thousand eight hundred feet above the level of the river, and commanding an asto nishing view. A monument is here erected in remembrance of the passage of the Rhine by the German troops near this place in 1814. As soon as the guide reached the summit, he exclaimed, " Glory to God in the highest" — Gloria Deo in excelsis — a pleasing remnant of ancient piety. As I walked down the hfll, I asked our guide if he had a Bible. He told me he had, and that he read it constantly. — I asked him a few questions about the Old and New Testament history ; when I discovered that his Bible was a pamphlet of 18 or 19 pages, drawn up by the priests. He had no idea that there was any book such as we mean by the Bible — so sad is the ignorance of these poor people. The corn harvest is begun. The vintage is not tfll the middle of October. Every thing here depends on the vine : the landlords let por tions of land to tenants for hah the crop of grapes of each year ; the punishment for eating any grapes is five francs the first offence, and four days' im prisonment the second. The wine is thirteen pence the bottle. During the brief time of the vintage, the people employed eat as many grapes as they Uke. Coblentz, July 10, Wednesday. — We have just arrived at this town, which, from its immense for tifications seems to be the key of Germany. We left Remagen at nine this morning, and dined at Andernach, near which place it is thought that JuUus Csesar crossed the Rhine. The dinners here annoy us ; nothing is simple and plain ; hashes, stews, oils, dirt. Andernach is a curious town — very old — full of remains of Roman antiquity — a gate buflt by Augustus. But it is the road along the Rhine wliich is most interesting ; for ten or twelve mfles the diversified scenes, and beauty of the views, exceeded all the conceptions which I had previously formed : vineyards, rocks, moun tains, every thing that can enchant the eye, and fiU it with gratitude to the Author of every blessing. Here we intend sleeping. We are four hundred and forty mfles from Calais, and all weU, and sur rounded with the goodness and mercy of God ! We have now smooth roads, without pave, and the weather is charming. Coblentz is beautifuUy situated on the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle. A bridge of boats crosses the Rhine. The view on each side is exquisite. The river flows with a strong current, and is, I should think, about one thousand feet wide at this part. We here saw some of those timber floats, for which the Rhine is so celebrated. When the various smaUer floats are united, they form an immense raft, about 1000 feet long, and 90 broad, which is managed and piloted in its course by 400 men, and when sold in HoUand produces about 10,000Z. sterling. The vast pieces of timber are firmly joined to each other, and temporary wooden houses are buflt on them for the accommodation of the men. We hope to be at Franckfort on Saturday, and at Basle sometime about Tuesday week, July 22. I am yours, D. W. P. S. After dinner, as we were sitting in a cafo here in Coblentz reading the journals, a gentle manly-looking man, seeing us to be strangers, ad dressed us. He began by asking me some com mon questions ; but soon turned the conversation to pohtics, and inveighed warmly against the 18 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. existing Prussian government, and the want of freedom amongst the continental nations. He went on to extol the hberty and riches of England. His manner surprised me ; and having heard that spies were often employed to induce strangers to disclose theh sentiments, I was very reserved. Upon this he plainly asked me what I thought about the Holy Affiance, and the invasion of Spain by the French. I rephed, that I was a minister of rehgion : that my information was far too slight to enable me to give a correct opinion ; that as a stranger I took no part in the pohtics of the countries through which I traveUed ; but cultivat ed a spirit of good-will towards aU nations. He was evidently chagrined, and rudely turned away from me. I thus escaped, as I imagine, the sur- vefllance of the poUce, or perhaps a summary order to leave the country. Sh Henry Wotton recom mended our great poet, Milton, when about to travel on the continent in 1638, "to keep his thoughts close and his countenance open " — advice not inappropriate after a lapse of nearly two cen turies. LETTER IV. St. Goar, July 11. — Carlsruh, July 19, 1823. Scenery of Rhine — Ehrenbreitstein — French Monu ment of Campaign in Russia — Discontent — Hirt- zenach — Jew — Bingen — Vineyard — Weisbaden —Violation of Sabbath — Mentz — Franckfort — English Newspapers — Conversion of Priest — Go- the — Revival of Religion — Darmstadt — Leander Van Ess — Oppenheim — Storks'-nests — Heidel berg — Martin Luther — Professor — Castle — Man- heim — Flying Bridge — Schwetzingen — Carlsruh —Floods. St. Goar, on the west bank of ihe Rhine, 460 miles from Calais, Friday, June 11, 1823. We are now, my dear sister, in the very heart of the most beautiful part of the Rhine. From Bonn to Mentz, ninety-seven utiles, the route is by the side of this majestic flood. Magnificence and beauty are united in the highest imaginable degree. The loftiest rocks, craggy, crowned with ancient and dilapidated towers, rise before you, so as some times to darken the scene, and are then joined and softened by a perpetual garden. The profusion of vegetation all around, especially the luxuriant vines, carried up every chink and crevice where the sun can reach ; the beauty and freshness now shed over them, together with theh fragrant smeU as they are flowering, compose a scene quite in conceivable to those who have not witnessed it. Hundreds of smaU vfllages also, with sphes tower ing above them, and perhaps an old fortification and gates, or a ruined chateau, are scattered on the banks on each side, whilst the ever-flowing Rhine, deep and rich, expands itself into a lake, or presses on between abrupt rocks, or embraces, every now and then, an island filled with fruit- trees and vines ; — conceive of all this, and you wUl aUow me, without blame, to be a httle enthusiastic. The noble road which the French have raised by the margin of the stream, and without pav6, in creases the pleasure of this part of our journey. I think I never felt such warm emotions of grati tude to the Almighty Giver of aU good, as since I have been passing through this scene of won ders. The spot where we now are, (St. Goar) for example, is enclosed on aU hands by the most variegated mountain scenery. The ruins of Reich- enfels are above the town ; at our feet is the Rhine ; on the opposite shore is Goarhausen, crowned with a Roman fortification. The sun is shedding its glories on all sides, whilst the broken rocks and vaUeys receive or reject his rays, and create the most grateful alternations of light and shade. Last night we hired a boat, and ascended the river to witness the setting sun and observe the two shores in unbroken luxuriance. Every reach forms in fact a superb lake : we passed from one to an other, comparing the different beauties wliich each presented to us with a lavish hand. The scene was majestic indeed ; and the last rays of the orb of day tinging the mountain tops, and throwing a glow over the waters, completed, so to speak, the picture. But I must, absolutely, tear myself from this topic to teU you, that at Coblentz we ascended the heights of Ehrenbreitstein, an impregnable fortress, commanding a prospect beyond measure extensive. The point of greatest beauty was the junction of the Rhine and the MoseUe. The Mo- seUe, with its deep red stream, meets the yellow waters of the Rhine ; and the combat between the two is most surprising. They do not mix. At the mouth of the MoseUe, the division of the two waters is so strongly marked, that you would think a dam had been interposed ; but the Rhine forms, with its larger current, an overpowering barrier against its weaker neighbor, whose waters creep along the shore tiU they are graduaUy lost in theh course. We visited only one church at Coblentz, St. Castor — for the beauties and simple majesty of the divine works in creation, gave us no great taste for the superstitions of a church which has been employed so many hundred years in deforming the greatest of all the works of God, redemption. A noble fountain, however, attracted our at tention ; it was buUt by the French in 1812, and bears this inscription : " 1812, Memorable pour la Campagne contre les Russes." — Beneath this, the Russians, in 1814, added these words : " Sous le prefecture de Jules Doazan, vu et approuve par nous, Commandant Russe de la ville de Coblentz, lst January, 1814." A mixture of great good and great evil seems to have foUowed the rule of France for twenty-three years over the Pays Bas, and the countries on the Rhine. The convents are abolished ; the Protestants have churches ; the cities and roads are improved and beautified ; education is promoted ; knowledge and truth have entrance ; Popery has received a deadly blow ; commerce, art, industry, property, are revived and quickened. But, what a painful catalogue of miseries, injustice, ruin, infidehty, vice, must be drawn up on the contrary side ! On the whole, it must be admitted, that the population is stfll fa vorable to the French, and would wish to return to them as masters. The memory of Bonaparte is too much cherished, loved, adored every where. May God, the Sovereign Ruler and Saviour of mankind, educe good from the confusion and tu- TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 19 mult of human passions and conflicts ! The peace ful Gospel of Christ is the only remedy for a dis tracted sinful world. At Hhtzenach, a vfilage near St. Goar, we halted at a smaU inn, where the master was a Jew, who refused to give us plates and knives, &c. be cause we were Christians ; and looked anxiously into our tin boxes, to see what food we had with us. The first article was part of a ham. How ever, with unaccountable inconsistency, he went to a neighboring house, fetched aU we wanted, and placed them before us. I read to him from his Hebrew Bible some prophecies of the Messiah, which he seemed very Uttle to understand, and stfll less to take any interest in. Last night our supper here (St. Goar) was curious ; first, soup, something worse than water-gruel ; next, boiled veal ; then chicken, stuffed with bread pudding, and accompanied with cherry sauce and salad ; then cold salmon, cut in slices ; next, roast mut ton ; lastly, cakes and cherries. We are now in the heart of the wine country. The finest white wine is here exactly thirteen pence (twenty-six sous) the bottle ; and for large bottles, twenty pence (forty sous). Bingen, Friday evening, July 11. — We have now quitted Prussian Germany, and entered the Grand Duchy of Hesse Darmstadt. We are four hundred and seventy-seven mfles from Calais. — We spent this morning in taking a second excur sion on the Rhine, at St. Goar, for three hours, where new beauties continuaUy presented them selves. At half-past twelve we dined at the Ta ble d'Hote, and at two came on seventeenjnfles to this town, Bingen, of four thousand souls. It stands on the confluence of the Rhine and the Nahe. The waters of the Rhine, being here con fined by shelving rocks, form a narrow strait. — The road to it was actuaUy one garden for sweet ness, whilst its rude, magnificent scenery sustain ed an awful grandeur aU around. We arrived at six, and have been taking, for the first time, a walk in a vineyard ; it belongs to a gentleman of Bingen, and covers about five acres, on a lovely hfll, commanding beautiful views of the Nahe and the Rhine ; and on the summit presenting the ruins of a Roman castle. These five acres yield nearly seven pipes of wine, of one thousand two hundred bottles each, selling in retail at about thirteen pence the bottle. As we returned to our inn, at half-past eight, we stepped into the church, the religious gloom of wliich, just as the evening was coming on, was inimitably fine. Adieu. Weisbaden, in ihe Duchy of Nassau, Sunday, July. 13, 1823. — This is our fourth Sunday since we left London. We hoped to have reached Franckfort yesterday, but the horses could take us no farther than this German watering-place, so celebrated for its hot baths. We have had our private service twice, but could find only German Protestants for public worship. We are now in the dominions of a Protestant prince ; but what a state of things for a Sunday ! The shops all open — a baU at our inn this evening — music at dinner — pubhc places crowded — the whole village in disorder — not an appearance of devotion ! This blotting out, as it were, of the Sabbath from the days of the week, is quite frightful — it is hke the blotting out of the covenant of mercy between 54—6 God and man. I have hitherto had chiefly to teU you of Cathohc superstitions — but, alas ! the name of Protestantism, what is it 1 All is here as bad, or worse than in Popish towns, with a criminality infinitely deeper. I speak of the impression made on a traveUer. Doubtless there are many ser vants of God who are keeping holy the sacred day in the rethement of theh famiUes. But Gand, Namur, and Bergheim — Cathohc towns — had a far more devout aspect than Protestant Weisbaden. Monday, July 14. — At Mentz, where we spent some hours on Saturday, we observed a visible decay in the cathedral ; it was nearly burnt down in the revolution, and the riches plundered ; the marks of the bombs are stfll apparent on many parts. Indeed, generally we remark, that Popery, though stfll formidable in so many respects, is on the decline where the French have ruled, as to its power, wealth, tyranny, and influence. The Archbishopric of Mentz was suppressed in 1802. It is stfll a Bishop's see ; but has long been va cant. Perhaps all is preparing for the revival and prevalence of pure Christianity once more. The city of Mentz is a fine one, with. astonishing forti fications; but the churches were much injured during the war, and the marks of the shells thrown into it at the siege, remain. We were in the same room at the Three Crowns, as the Duke of Welhngton and aU our Princes occupied, in pass ing through the town. It has thirty thousand inhabitants, and a fine bridge of boats over the Rhine. I should have told you that we were much an noyed at Weisbaden with a loquacious, forward young man, who happened to sit near us at the Table d'H6te. His officiousness quite perplexed us. We had the utmost difficulty to elude his pry ing questions. He talked too much to be a spy ; but his pertinacious recommendation of an inn at Franckfort betrayed his secret. He must have been a man sent round to the watering-places to coUect guests for particular hotels. ReaUy one cannot be too much on one's guard abroad., Franckfort on tlie Maine, 522 miles from Calais, Monday evening. — We arrived here to-day at one o'clock. Many things concur to render this one , of the most interesting places we have visited. — It is a free city, with its own domain, burgomaster, senate, and laws — fifty thousand souls — perhaps the first commercial city in Germany — fine wide streets — large and noble private and pubhc build ings aU about — every appearance of wealth and activity. We had here the pleasure of meeting, for the first time since we left home, with English papers, a sure indication of a free state. Indeed, every thing breathes that sphit of hberty, that cheerfulness, and that prosperity, which make this town one of the most noble spots on the Continent. French, Swiss, Itahans, Turks, Enghsh, aU as semble in it far the purposes of commerce. It is a Protestant city ; at least three-fourths of the inhabitants are Protestants. An entire equality is afforded to aU the different confessions of Chris tians. It has seven thousand Jews, and many of them very opulent. The French Protestant Mi nister is a delightful man — pious, discreet, amia ble, weU informed. He has been with us several hours this afternoon. The police is exceUently managed. Vice and wickedness are discounte- 20 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. nanced. The pubhc places of amusement are few, and no suspicious females permitted to fre quent them. What a contrast does this last point form with the disgusting indecency of our London theatres ! There is here a Bible Society, and a Jews' Conversion Society. In the pubUc hbrary is a copy of the edition of the Latin Vulgate Bible, printed upon veUum in 1462, by Fust and Schoilfher at Mentz. It is the first edition of the Bible with a printed date, and is an extraordinary effort of the art in its earUest day. The first Bible indeed ever printed, was begun at Mentz in 1450, and published in 1455 or 1456. It is caUed the Mazarine Bible, from hav ing been in the library of the celebrated cardinal of that name ; and is not only the first edition of the sacred text in any language, but the very first book printed with metal types. The beauty and re gularity of the press-work are highly extoUed by Mr. Dibdin, who speaks of it as a master-piece of skfll. I cannot but dweU with dehght on the first suc cesses of the noble invention of printing, in circu lating the Bible, and thus paving the way for the Reformation in the foUowing century. There are no foreign troops at Franckfort. I should teU you, that at Mentz there are seven thousand troops, half Prussian and half Austrian ; whilst the duke of Hesse Darmstadt, to whom the town belongs, has only one hundred men to keep the police. 1 learnt here some particulars of the conversion of the Catholic priest whom I men tioned in my last letter.* He lived near Pforz heim, and became impressed with the truths of real Christianity by reading the Scriptures. He then began to "preach Christ crucified." The lord of the village and forty-four famiUes, containing be tween two hundred and three hundred souls, were graduaUy awakened by God's mercy. The priest was summoned before his superiors for preaching against the Popish ceremonies. At length he and aU his flock pubhcly renounced the church of Rome. The duke of Baden heard of him, and went to one of his sermons. He was so much affected, that he declared he had seldom heard so edifying a discourse. He invited the priest to > Carlsruh. There is another priest, I am told, near Valenciennes, who has followed the same course. May God multiply the number, and a second re formation wfll soon begin. Opperilieim, between Darmstadt and Heidelberg, Wednesday evening, July 16. — I had much con versation with my friend the French minister, be fore we left Franckfort this morning. I was also introduced to one of the senators, an exceUent man, president of the Bible Society. A human philosophy apphed rashly and presumptuously to religion, is the poison of German divinity among the Protestants : — endless refinements, imagina tions, corruptions of faith, tending to skepticism or atheism. Things are mending, but it is incredible what daring impieties are currently received. The first genius of their country, Gothe, a native of Franckfort, is an absolute idolater of what he caUs fe beau, in Christianity, in Mahomedanism, in in fidelity, in every thing. Thus unbelief stands more fataUy opposed to the faith of Christ than even superstition. The calamities, however, of the late * Page 48, supra. long war have been the means of checking this incursion of infidel principles, and of bringing men back to that pure doctrine of the Gospel which only can give peace and consolation. It is a re markable fact, that such has been the decay of aU Scriptural truth amongst the Protestants, that many of the Roman Catholics have surpassed them in real piety. The hght has shone brightest in- the Catholic parishes. Those who were concern ed for theh souls, and panted for the doctrine of pardon, found some relief at least, in the dis courses of the priests. So true is it that super stition, bad as it is, may consist with the life of God in the heart, but that a proud infidel philoso phy cannot. The one overloads and encumbers the foundation ; the other digs it up, and destroys it altogether. But to return to my narrative. We arrived safely at Darmstadt, the capital of the grand duchy of that name, at twelve to-day. 1 hastened to the house of Leander Van Ess, with whom I had been sometime in correspondence in England ; he had left the town in the morning early to go to Cologne, and would not return for a week ! A greater disappointment I scarcely ever felt. I saw, however, the study of this exceUent man ; I sat in his chair ; I visited his coUection of Bibles ; I conversed with his secretary. Leander Van Ess was fifty-one the eighteenth of last month. He has left the University of Marburg, where he was professor, and lives now under the Protestant grand duke of Hesse Darmstadt. He has had a spitting of blood for four years, which prevents his preaching ; but he gives himself up to the propa gation of the GospeL though he remains a Catho lic priest. He has printed fourteen editions of his New Testament ; each of an immense number of copies. He has circulated altogether four hun dred and ninety-four thousand eight hundred and sixty. No funds but those of an institution like the noble British and Foreign Bible Society, could have supported the expense of printing such an incredible number : and the liberakty and wisdom with which that society assists in publishing Cathohc translations of the Scriptures, cannot be too highly praised. Versions by far inferior were the chief means of effecting the glorious Refor mation. I do not speak of the Apocryphal books, because the reading of them is admitted to be useful by Protestants. The desire for the Scrip tures among the Catholics at the present time, priests as weU as laity, is greater and greater. Sometimes Van Ess circulates seven thousand in a single month. Lately, a priest in one parish sent for two thousand New Testaments — the par ish is in the Schwarzwald, or Black Forest. The secretary presented me with his picture, and a copy of his New Testament. What a blessing is such a person ! what cannot the grace of God do in the most corrupt church ! how chari table should we be in our judgment of individuals ! This admirable man, though he calls himself a Catholic, has almost the spirit of a Reformer. He dwells on nothing but the great and necessary doctrines of Christianity. It is impossible to read bis correspondence without perceiving a strength and clearness of judgment, an independence of principle, a love of truth, a superiority to the pre judices of education, a zeal in the diffusion of the TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 21 Gospel, a disregard of personal sufferings, a hardy appeal to the first fathers of the church, and a readiness to aqt with Protestant societies, which are quite surprising. Above aU, there is a firm ness and undauntedness in aU he does, which re minds us at times of Martin Luther. Let us pray that many, many such Catholic professors may be raised up in every part of the continent, and " the traditions of men" wfll faU of themselves. I can hardly persuade myself to_ turn from this subject to say, that Darmstadt is a flourishing town ; with ail the marks of that activity and prosperity which, as at Franckfort, distinguishes a free from an oppressed population. We came on to Oppenheim, twenty miles, (five hundred and sixty from Calais,) this afternoon. The viUage is obscure, though populous. The country is pleas ing. The peasants are without shoes and stock ings. The men wear large hats like our English dignitaries— what we call shovel-hats ; the asso ciation in our mind is very humorous. But the storks'-nests are most curious ; these enormous birds are in almost every viUage ; they build on the steeples of churches, or the top of a chimney, with a large nest like a basket, stretching over on aU sides. They .are never disturbed, much less kflled. They are superstitiously reverenced. The people think the house wfll never be burnt where a stork builds. The stork feeds on insects, frogs, mice, &c, and never injures the corn. To see these enormous birds, half as taU as a man, strut ting about on the top of a house, as if on stilts, is very strange to us. Heidelberg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Fri day morning, July 18. — We arrived here yester day, at eleven o'clock. The town is beautifuUy situated on the Neckar, fifteen miles from Oppen heim. The chief attraction is the ancient elec toral castle, which Louis XIV. laid in ruins at the close of the seventeenth century, in his ambitious war against the Palatinate. The remaining walls were much injured by Ughtning sixty years back. It is stfll perhaps the most magnificent ruin in Germany. The keep and outward waU of the platform are entire ; and a beautiful semichcular walk runs through a plantation adjoining. It is situated on the side of a fine mountain, the base and summit of which are ornamented with hang ing woods. Before it, the Neckar, the bridge, the town, the adjoining hfll covered with vines, the distant Rhine, and the Vosges mountains, are stretched as in perspective. The extreme steep ness of the mountain on which it stands, aUows of those sudden turns of scenery in the gardens and pleasure-grounds surrounding the castle, of which nothing else can admit. In short, the whole thing is the noblest of the kind we ever saw ; we spent five hours in admiring it. A venerable professor of the university con ducted us ; but the difficulty of finding a common language was extreme. We attempted a mixture of French, EngUsh, and Latin ; but at last Latin was our only language. It would have amused you to see my coUege friend and myself brushing up our old Latin, and adapting our pronunciation as weU as we could to the German — and this after dinner — overcome with heat — and mounting ap a tremendous hfll. The sentiments of the pro fessor were evangelical, and his temper and spirit most charitable. It was delightful to converse with a man so weU instructed in the great truths of salvation. 1 caUed on him at his own house in the evening. He was very diligent in inquiring after the real state of spiritual religion in Eng land. I see plainly that my beloved country is looked up to as the glory of the Reformation, and the hope of the nations of the continent. The university is open to CathoUcs and Protestants — six hundred and fifty members. It is the oldest university in Germany, having been founded in 1382. The valuable hbrary which had been pre sented to the Pope, when the town was taken by the Bavarians in 1622, and deposited in the Va tican, was restored in 1815. The grand duke is a Protestant ; and fuU liberty of worship is en joyed. There is here a Bible Society ; and reU gion seems, on the whole, flourishing. It was in this place that Melancthon began bis studies ; that Luther came on foot from Worms, and disputed with the Augustins, in 1518 ; and that the famous Heidelberg catechism'was after wards pubUshed. I speak of this catechism with a peculiar pleasure, because it has been familiar to me from early youth. It was reprinted about twenty years back by the university of Oxford in the Syfloge Confessionum. I confess my mind lingers on these continental towns, where the no ble army of reformers laid the foundation of aU the religious blessings which we now enjoy. Manheim, Friday, July 18. — This is a beauti ful city, first founded in 1606, as a refuge for the persecuted Protestants of the Netherlands. It was entirely destroyed by Louis XIV, in 1689 ; so that the present city is a new one, of twenty thousand souls, half Protestants and half Catho Ucs; the streets are regularly laid out in one hundred and twelve squares. It is situated on the confluence of the Rhine and the Neckar, and is considered the finest town in Germany. The old palace of the grand duke of Baden is very spacious, but dilapidated : it is something hke our palace at Hampton Court. One of the most cu rious things at Manheim is the flying bridge across the Rhine. It is difficult to give a clear idea of it. But it seems formed of six or seven boats fastened together at such a distance from each other, as to extend in a slanting dhection over half of the river. The extreme boat at one end of this series is fixed firm in the middle of the river by an anchor : the extreme boat at the other end reaches the shore, and is fastened to it. When any one wishes to cross the river, he en ters this last boat, which is then loosened and carried by the stream to the opposite shore ; the fixed boat preserving it from being carried down the current. The dhection which the flying bridge takes, is Uke that of the pendulum of a clock. We slept last night at Schwetzingen, cele brated for a pleasure garden of the duke of Baden, of one hundred and eighty acres, laid out in the French and Enghsh manner. The most sump tuous building in it was a mosque, resembling that at Mecca, the waUs of which have inscriptions from the Koran, with translations in German ; the whole must have cost an immense sum. Not withstanding this magnificence, the approach from the vfllage is shabby, from the utter neglect 22 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. of cleanliness in the court of the chateau itself, by which you enter ; grass grows on the pave ments, and the chateau is much dilapidated. In deed, an unseemly union of finery and untidiness marks many of these foreign palaces. The pa lace at Manheim is larger than any English one, but almost in ruins from inattention : kings and dukes aim here at more than they can support. , The real dignity of a prince is the prosperity of his subjects. A free state, where education and morals are duly cultivated, and the pure Gospel of Christ is preached, needs no gaudy and half-finish ed trappings to adorn it. Carlsruh, Saturday, July 19. — We arrived here to-day, after a journey of thirty-one miles. We are now 624 from Calais. This is a beautiful town, which has sprung up about the ducal pa lace of Baden, around which aU the streets unite like rays of the sun. The weather is .fine, and sometimes rather cold ; the roads generaUy ex ceUent ; the inns vary in accommodations. The diet is strange to us, and unfavorable to health ; the bread often sour, and the meat indifferent. But stfll, we are all weU ; and can we be grateful enough to the divine hand which sustains us con tinuaUy and scatters so many blessings upon our path ! During a foreign tour, the recoUections of what we owe to our heavenly Father daily, are much more hvely and affecting than they are at home. We perceive more his constant care in the new and untried scenes through which we pass. The reflections also which are suggested by the comparison of our institutions and habits in England with those of other countries, would touch our hearts even more than they do, if we were more under the teaching and grace of the Holy Spirit. A Saturday evening abroad brings a crowd of thoughts into the mind — but I must conclude.* Your affectionate D. W. * I cannot but add here an expression of regret upon a subject alluded to in the above letter. The Apocryphal question, by the heat and irritation at tendant upon it, has gone further to chill tbe spirit of unity and love at home, and the zeal and success of such distinguished individuals as Leander Van Ess abroad, than any thing that has occurred during the last 30 years. Thank God, the public mind is returning to a sounder state on a point, which, con sidering the avowed non-inspiration of the Apocry phal books, on the partof the Protestant bodies, and the implied admission of the same fact by the Ro man Catholic writers of all classes, has been exag gerated beyond all reasonable limits, aDd has in truth created more of evil in a [ew months, by call ing public attention to those neglected books, than the books themselves had probably occasioned in three centuries. As the Reformers directed these ancient, and in some parts instructive writings, to be publicly read in churches, there surely was no reason for the clamor raised against the Bible So ciety for allowing them to occupy the same position —or, if the utter removal of these works was judged desirable, there was still less reason for accompany ing the act with severity and suspicions. If the Apocrypha was injurious, the whole Protestant church, with Luther at its head, and not the British and Foreign Bible Society, were to blame.— March, 1827. LETTER V. Rasiadt, July 20.— Shaffhausen, July 27, 1823. Union of Lutherans and Calvinists — Pastor Hen- hofer — Importance of Gospel— Rastadt — Ulm — Kehl — Strasburg— Cathedral— Letters of Reform ers — Emmendingen — Manner of Travelling — Food — Hoellenthal — Bad Inn — Black Forest — Donaueschingen — Danube — Mr. Canning — Swit zerland — Schaffhausen — Innkeeper — Fall of Rhine — Swiss Sunday. Carlsruh, July 20, 1823, Sunday afternoon. This is the fifth silent Sunday, my dearest sister, which we have spent since we left England. The town is chiefly Protestant, but German is the only language. I went this morning and spoke to the Lutheran minister, after church, but it was with the utmost difficulty we could understand each other, as he spoke neither French nor Latin; the church was weU attended, and is a most beautiful edifice, built by the grand Duke of Baden, and is some evidence, I hope of the increased regard paid to rehgion here. I could neither understand the ¦ prayers nor the sermon — a good knowledge of German and Italian is almost as essential as that of French, to a tour on the continent. The Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, after three centuries of division, have at length begun to unite. I hope this is another token for good. The dispute about consubstantiation wfll now no longer be the reproach of the Protestant commu nities. Few things did more harm to the infant cause of the Reformation than this sacramentarian controversy — there was so much of heat, asperity, violence, mingled with it — and this upon a point where most of the parties meant nearly the same ; and which, after aU, was not a fundamental one. On no occasion, perhaps, did the great Luther so far forget himself. The warmth of controversialists is generaUy in an inverse ratio to the real import ance of the question in debate. Love is the key to truth as well as holiness. I learn here, that the name of the converted priest whom I have mentioned to you before, is Henhofer, and the place where he now lives, Graben, near this town; his former abode was Muhlhausen. We observe that the Cathohc church. es in Protestant towns, are far more simple, and less superstitious, than in other places. Here and at Franckfort, there are scarcely any altars or images— in fact, the Cathohc church in this town is less ornamented than the Lutheran— but this is an inferior point — I perceive more and more that the main blessing wanted in every place is the grace of the Holy Sphit of God. I am sure we have httle idea in England of the state of things abroad. We amazingly overstate the comparative amount of good effected by our societies ;— the world is stfll "dead in trespasses and sins,"— vast tracts of barren Protestantism, or untiUed and fruit less Popery, stretch aU around us. May that hea venly dew descend which only can soften, penetrate, and sanctify the soU ! The value of our religious advantages in England is more than ever impressed on my mind. A Sunday at home, what a blessing ! The importance also of the Holy Scriptures, and of dwelling on the plain, practical, necessarv truths TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 23 of the Gospel, strikes me in a most forcible manner. I see that aU languishes and fades as the Gospel is forgotten or unknown. This is God's great re medy for faUen man ; and nothing else wiU touch and change the heart. Men's devices, controversy, cold statements of truth, superstition, enthusiasm, have no efficacy to save man. The doctrine of a crucified Saviour, delivered in simple dependance on the grace of the Holy Ghost, is " the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation" now, as it has been in every age. Rastadt, 17 miles from Carlsruh, Monday July 21, eleven o'clock. — We have just arrived here for om- morning stage. The heat has been intense ; 20 degrees, I should think, higher than on Satur day. Carlsruh, which we have just left, is a neat, beautiful town of fourteen thousand souls, founded as late as 1715. From the palace as a centre, thirty-two Unes are drawn on aU sides ; twenty or more of these are walks in the forest, and gardens behind it ; and the rest streets, composing the town ; so that from the tower of the palace you command the whole circle. Dukes here do as they please ; towns must be buflt as objects ; but I prefer our Enghsh freedom, though our cities are somewhat irregular. Rastadt, where we dine, is a town of three thousand souls, on the river Murg, celebrated for the congress between France and the emphe in 1798 ; when two of the French envoys were murdered on theh journey to Strasburg. There is a magnificent old chateau, in which we saw a most interesting portrait of Melancthon, and a large engraved head of the first WiUiam Pitt in 1766. The people in this part of the duchy are poor — few manufactures — little pubhc spirit ; in other words, Uttle Uberty. The Duke takes more care of his palace than of his people. The duchess- dowager is an adopted child, or a niece, of Bona parte. Presents from Bonaparte abound in the palace ; especiaUy, we noticed a tea-service of superb china, with coffee-run, &c. of soild gold. The dress of the peasants here continues the same, except that the women wear amazingly large straw bonnets, flapping down before and behind — chil dren of four years old, and women reaping, have these enormous umbreUa bonnets. The houses here are built with two or three jutting shades or roofs over each row of windows, formed of tiles, and have a very singular appearance. Vim, thirteen miles from Rastadt, Monday even ing. — This is a smaU viUage on our way to Kehl. The thermometer, at six this afternoon, was 83° in the shade ; on Saturday, it was 55° or thereabouts ; for we were glad to put on cloaks and great coats. We have come thirty miles to-day, and travelled seven hours. Ulm is only a mile from the Rhine. The Black Forest stretches Uke an amphitheatre behind us, from Heidelberg to Basle. The coun try is flat, and withont vines ; but abounds in corn and fruits. It produces a good deal of to bacco. Kehl, on ihe Rhine, Tuesday evening, July 22d. — We came here this morning, seventeen mfles, in order to pass the Rhine, and visit Strasburg, We crossed by a bridge of boats of the extraordi nary length of 3900 feet. The old wooden bridge is half destroyed. We did not take the carriages, because of duties, searchings, die. on enteriiv France. We spent about six hours there. It is a city of fifty or sixty thousand souls, half Protestants and hah CathoUcs. It has been part of France since the middle of the seventeenth century ; but the manners of the people, their dress, theh food, theh employments, their taste, aU are German. The difference between them and the inhabitants of France is quite striking. The fortifications have been newly increased and strengthened. It was the Argentoratum of the Romans, and abounds with Roman antiquities ; for instance, there is a mile stone and other memorials of the reign of the emperor Trajan. The cathedral is one of the very finest in Chris tendom : it was founded in 510. The tower is four hundred and seventy feet ; forty-six feet higher than St. Peter's at Rome ; * it is said to be the loftiest building in the world after the pyramids of Egypt. It is a masterpiece of architecture, being built of hewn stone, cut with such delicacy as to .give it some resemblance to lace. As you ascend, one half of what, in other towers, are walls, is here open work, with single hon cross bars ; the ascent is rather fearful : but the view of the Rhine, of the 111, and the Brensch, (rivers here faffing into it,) of the city, and aU the sur rounding country, is most beautiful. The. day was very wet, so that we could not reach the extreme summit. The entrances of the- cathedra] are par ticularly fine from the exceUent preservation of the rich stone- work with which they are adorned ; the figures ornamenting in groups every part, are stfll perfect, and have a striking effect — in short, we could not satisfy ourselves in beholding this monument of the arts, which combines the most elegant symmetry of parts with the most en tire solidity and the greatest magnificence. We visited St. Thomas's, a noble Protestant church, fine, simple, majestic. A monument in white marble, to the memory of Marshal Saxe, adorns one end of the nave. We saw two bodies of the families of the counts of Nassau, preserved many centuries, and placed in coffins with glass at the top; one female, one man; each in fuU dress, the woman most gayly atthed ; the rings of pearl too large for the withered fingers ; the face aU in powder, faffing on the bones of the skuU ; the whole an affecting lesson of mortality, and of the inefficacy of aU attempts to hide the deformity of death by a splendor, which only increases it by contrast. Nature shudders at dissolution ; the real victory over death is by faith in the triumph ant and risen Saviour. There are ten other churches in the city. We visited the royal palace, the cabinet of natural history, the museum, and the hbrary. This last pleased me exceedingly — one hundred and fifty thousand volumes ; MSS. of the New Testament, and of the classics, of the ninth and tenth centu ries; early editions, &c. What most gratified me was a coUection of MS. letters of Luther, Me lancthon, Bucer, and the other Reformers. I could not but gaze with veneration on the very hand- writing of these holy men, into whose labors we have entered. The hand-writing of our queen EUzabeth was not half so interesting to me. In * St. Peter's is 424 feet high ; St. Paul's at Lon don 340. 24 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. the same hbrary we noticed with pleasure forty- three volumes of Bibles, presented by the British and Foreign Bible Society ; great care was appa rently taken of them. I cafled afterwards on the secretary of the Bible Society here, to try to en courage him a little in that sacred work ; the im portance of which strikes me more and more, as I observe every where the fatal effects of the ne glect of the Scriptures. The secretary was evi dently gratified, and wished much to engage me to attend a special meeting of the committee. We also saw here the Bible printed at Strasburg in 1466, supposed to be the first ever printed in Ger many ; which is undoubtedly a mistake. The university of Strasburg contains thirty pro fessors, and nine hundred students, CathoUcs and Protestants. This union throughout the parts of Germany we have visited, is one of which I am anxious to ascertain the real tendency. When I ask, I am uniformly told, that no jealousy, no de bates foUow, between the professors and students ; but moderation and peace, though without inti macy. It seems an extraordinary thing how mo dest and reasonable, comparatively speaking, Pope ry can become, when stripped of its temporal power and divested of a party spirit. It never has stood, it cannot stand before the Holy Scriptures. The New Testament contains nothing of the pecuhar dogmas of Popery. Those who read that sacred book learn a totally different doctrine. The cir culation of the Bible seems to me the most inof fensive, and yet efficacious, means of sapping su perstition and idolatry now, as it was in the six teenth century. Our host to-night has given us a melancholy account of this village, Kehl. It is on this side of the Rhine, as Strasburg is on the other ; three times it was burnt down in the last war ; there were formerly two thousand inhabitants, there are now six hundred. It was pillaged whenever the armies passed. It is a place of great importance, in a mihtary sense, for the defence of Strasburg, and for operations on the Rhine. What a bless ing is peace ! Commerce is not active here ; the people say the taxes overburden them at home, and the English underseU them abroad. Wednesday morning. — We were awoke this morning at five with the noise of cannon. The whole house shook : it was only the soldiers exer cising ; but I cannot describe how frightful it was to peaceful and unpractised traveUers ; what must, then, the horrors of war itself be ! Emmendingen, 33 miles from Kehl, Wednesday evening, July 23. — We have had a delightful drive to-day, through nineteen towns and villages, near the Rhine still, though not within sight of it. In some places the prospect was magnificent ; the loftiest mountains in varied outline before us, and a sweet fore-ground of vfllages, spires, and woods. Occasionally we have vineyards ; but hemp and hops abound. The houses are sometimes painted in front with various devices of flowers, balustrades, and other ornaments. The signs at the inns are of cut or cast hon figures, with gilded ornaments. Some of the women wear long hair, plaited, reach ing behind almost to the feet, or else two long rib bons in a similar way. As we enter the vfllages, sometimes a whole band of peasants take off theh hats and salute us, with the utmost complaisance. The town we are now at is just below an im mense mountain, the Kandelberg, three thousand nine hundred and three feet high, with the Vosges on the right, which divide Germany from France. The Rhine is seven leagues off. The cultivation here is not weU managed ; there are no hedges ; and patches of com, hemp, hops, potatoes, vines, seem aU intermixed in one spot. It would be amusing to you to see our cavalcade as we go on. We are nine in aU, in two landau- lets ; Mrs. W., my Uttle daughter Eliza, and my self, in one, and the servant on the box with the coachman ; our friend and feUow-traveUer with j my two sons in the other. My boys change about with me from time to time. We have three horses | in one carriage, and two in the other. Our chief coachman is of the Pays de Vaud ; a civil, oblig ing, sensible, clever man, thoroughly acquainted with his business. He talks French, German, and Italian. We pay him forty-eight francs (about two pounds) a day when he works, and twenty- four francs when he rests. We generaUy rise in the morning at five, and start at seven, and go a stage of four or five hours, sixteen or eighteen mfles ; dine at twelve, or half-past, staying three hours ; and then take our second stage of four or five hours, tfll seven or eight ; thein we drink tea or sup, as we Uke, and retire to our rooms at nine. We generaUy find one person in the inn who speaks a kind of French, and then aU goes on smoothly ; but sometimes you would laugh at the figure we all make in a German 'inn, without a soul to understand us : I, with my dictionary, en deavoring to recaU my old forgotten German, as weU as I can ; tfll at last, Mrs. W., our friend, the boys, the inn-keeper, the chamber-maids, and the coachman, are aU in the room together, before we can make out what we want. Then the kind of beds we meet with — some times not a blanket in the house ; sometimes an unpleasant odor pervading the chambers; often floors grimed with dirt, no curtains, no window- shutters, no carpets ; smaU, hard, narrow beds, on an inchned plane, so that we have to manoeuvre almost aU night to keep ourselves from rotting out. But our greatest annoyance is the food loaded with sauce and grease ; meagre meat, without nourishment ; fowls like pigeons : we had some yesterday, with a sort of custard sauce. I reaUy beUeve our health suffers from want of good, sub stantial, plain diet. I give orders myself for mut ton chops, without butter, gravy, sauce, pepper, &c. ; they bring up veal cutlets as hard as a board, and covered with onions and Cayenne. Those who travel for theh health, would do wefl to re member how large a deduction must be made on the score of change of food. We should have done infinitely better, if, instead of our Swiss maid, we had brought one of our EngUsh servants with us, who understood something of our mode of liv ing at home. At Franckfort, however, we reaUy met with exceUent meat. We hope soon now to be at Bem, fixed for a time ; and then my first care wfll be to get good food for my dear family, who are reaUy wonderfully well, considering we have now come seven hundred and eleven miles, and traveUed near six weeks. The roads are very smooth, and without pave. I Hoellenihal, or ihe Infernal Valley, between Frey- TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 25 burg and Neustadt, Thursday night, July 24. — We set off this morning, from Emmendingen, and came eight miles to Freyburg, a town of eleven thousand souls, on the entrance of the Black Forest. We were much delighted with the cathedral, which, though smaUer than that of Strasburg, is more beautiful. The open-work of the tower is really surprising ; ' I observed, as we mounted its five hundred and thirteen steps, that five open spaces in the watts occurred for every closed part ; the tower being supported by these closed parts, and the stone staircase which runs up within it. It is just as if the Monument in London were built, not with closed waUs, but with five-sixths of them in open-work ; it really is quite incredible. After dining, at half-past twelve, we came, in five hours, fifteen mfles, to this vaUey, from which I am writing. I was not prepared to expect any thing beyond a common drive ; but the extraordinary magnifi cence of the scenery was such as to dispute with the finest parts of the Rhine. For ten or twelve miles the road foUowed the windings of a lovely stream, the Treisam, through a vaUey adorned on each side with craggy mountains of stupendous height ; on the sides of which, the hanging woods of dark fir were beyond measure grand and sub lime. The views on the Rhine had indeed more of softness joined with grandeur — the noble river and vineyards were peculiar to them — but the scenes to-day had something more of wild and rude nature in her most majestic forms. Our hotel to-night is a deduction from the varied plea sures of the day ; we are crowded into a close, low, miserable bed-room, where we had to eat our supper. For a tea-urn we had a common open sauce-pan and ladle ; in fact, the inn is the end of a large building like a barn, and the rooms are so low, we can hardly stand upright in them ; all is a contrast to the beautiful scene stretched be fore our view by the hand of Nature. The houses here are curious : a large roof stretches beyond the walls, on aU hands, ten or twelve feet ; under this projecting roof a gaUery runs along on the outside of the first story, and sometimes a second gaUery at the second story. The rooms are so aUotted, as to provide stable, wood-house, carpenter's shop, &c. &c. under the same roof. The houses are entirely of wood, which exudes a gum with which they are stained ; the galleries are for entrance when the winter snow blocks up the ground floor. The women now begin to appear in stockings, but these are of a deep red ; they have no gowns, but theh under-dress is turned up like a pudding-sleeve gown, short round the arm ; they wear large hats of an immense circumference, with the rims stretched out in an immovable circle. AU is Ger man stiU ; so that I can obtain Uttle moral or rett- gious information. We had our coachman up mto the chamber this afternoon, as our interpre ter. It was impossible to do without him. Friday morning. — Our meeting this morning at breakfast was most curious. My friend report ed that he had been thrust into a miserable hole of a room, into which people were continuaUy en tering — his bed intolerable — scarcely any sleep. My boys were almost suffocated, and had httle rest. Ann and I had beds with double inclined planes and ridges. EUza's account was the most satisfactory ; she did not know how she passed the night, for she had not awoke once. In the mean time, the servant girls were clearing out the boys' room, to get the breakfast ready for us. — We started between seven and eight, and came eight miles to Neustadt, where I am now writing, a small town on the Black Forest. A tremendous hfll, called HoeUensteig, or the Infernal HiU, led to a more open country, on the bosom of which cottages were sprinkled, with here and there a chapel entirely of wood, about four yards square ; we entered one — the cross, an altar, and rude offerings, were within. We soon passed one or two comfortable hotels. We ought to have press ed on to one of them last night, and not to have impUcitly foUowed the advice of our voiturier, who has fuU as much regard for his horses as for us. — In fact, with a large party Uke ours, and two car riages, it would be far better to divide, when we have to spend the night in smaU vfllages, than to crowd into one miserable inn. This Black Forest covers fifty leagues of coun try ; it was the cradle of those formidable Gelv mans who annihilated the Roman Emphe. Sis- teen thousand souls Uve in it, in insulated cabins ; these cabins have long roofs covering the galle ries, and reaching down to the earth behind the dwelling-house ; the bam is over the house ; the whole is buflt of beams crossed and tied together, without bricklayer's work ; and the ceilings of the rooms are wainscot, and they use sttps of fir for candles : they trade in wood-work, which finds its way even to America. Dondueschingen, 21 miles from HoeUensteig, 13 from Neustadt, Friday night. — This is a smaU town, consisting of two thousand souls, at the ex tremity of the Duchy of Baden. It is beautifuUy situated on elevated ground. Near to it rises the Danube, the noblest river in Europe, wliich washes in its course fifteen hundred mfles of the territo ries of Bavaria, Austria, and Hungary, tfll it emp ties itself in the Black Sea. Some of its springs are in the court-yard of the Chateau, in an en closed basin of thirty feet square ; whence a rivu let flows, which joins the Brigach and the Breg (two far more considerable streams,) and is caUed the Danube. We jumped over it with ease. — From what obscure causes do the mightiest effects flow ! A river celebrated throughout the world, and rolling by some of the noblest cities, is here feeble and inconsiderable ! It is thus the current of evU from a single individual, small at first, some times swetts as it flows, till distant regions are desolated with its waves. The sources of the widest blessings to mankind have also their first rise in small and unnoticed beginnings. Nay, the first bursting forth of that " wett of water which springeth up into everlasting life" is small and inconsiderable. No wise man undervalues the beginnings of things. We have now pursued the Rhine three hundred and fifty mfles in its majestic and fruitful course, and have visited the Danube in its first feeble and unperceived struggles. Thus the two noblest and most celebrated rivers in Em-ope are asso ciated in our minds in their origin or theh pro gress, and will be connected with the numerous events of ancient and modern history, which our 26 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. reading may furnish. It is a pleasing and instruc tive part of foreign travel, to visit the scenes fa- mfliar to us from our earUest reading. It fur nishes fresh materials of thought. It gives a life and locaUty, as it were, to our knowledge. It embodies and realizes history. We have now left the Black Forest, the moun tains, the cabins, and all the magical scene. Our inn to-night is exceUent. Mr. Canning was here two years ago ; and our host seemed never satis fied in teUing us of the dignity of his manner, the acuteness of his questions, and, above all the cor rectness of his French — in which, however, our informer was no great proficient himself. Our friend slept in the room wliich this distinguished statesman occupied. Adieu. Schaffhausen. 778 miles from Calais, Saturday evening, July 26. — Thank God we have entered Switzerland, in health and peace ! The road from Donaueschingen, twenty-two mfles, is ex tremely beautiful ; rich vaUeys crowned with ver dure, mountains rising in noble boldness on each side, the road winding with continual change of scenery, brought us to the first of the Swiss can tons. As we passed beyond the Baden frontier, the improvement in agriculture, and general ap pearance of the vfllages, was striking. Hedges, weU-cultivated fields, neat farms', met our eyes for the first time since we left England ; every spot of land is now employed to the best purpose, and with neatness and cleverness. As we entered this land of freedom, the asso ciations awakened in our minds were most pleas ing. An inconsiderable country — rude and bar ren — apparently doomed to bondage and obscu rity — has raised itself by valor and conduct to be the admiration of the world. It preceded England by two or three centuries in the march of hberty ; and, except during the twenty years of the French domination, has been acquiring for more than five hundred years an almost unparalleled measure of national glory — from education, industry, com merce, a free government, pubhc spirit, virtue, and, since the Reformation, from the light of pure Christianity. There is something so noble in aU this, that it fills the imagination, and imparts an additional charm to the natural beauties of the country itself. Schaffhausen contains about seven thousand souls. Many of the fronts of the houses are co vered from the top to the bottom with the devices which I have before mentioned. Several statues of Swiss heroes adorn the pubhc places. The son of the principal innkeeper talks very good English. He spent six months in England for the purpose of learning the language. He spoke to me with great feeling of the kindness of Dr. Steinkopff; and there evidently appeared to be a strong religious impression remaining on his mind, from what he had seen of the zeal of our societies for the propa gation of the Gospel, and of the high tone of Chris tian doctrine and practice in om happy country. We have an introduction to a professor of theo logy here, who is an example of primitive kindness. Soon after our arrival, we took a cabriolet, and drove three mfles, to see the celebrated fall of the Rhine. The road leading to it is exquisite ; vine yards stretch over aU the sides of the mountains, and the country h open and variegated. The road leads along by the Rhine, which is here of a deep green color. I am not sure if I was not a Uttle disappointed at the first coup-d'oefl of the faU itself. My imagination had been heated by de scriptions, and I thought the descent would have been greater. But as soon as I had time to re cover myself, and recottect how much the width of the river took away from the apparent depth ot the faU, I was better prepared to view the wonder ful sight. It is truly astonishing. A multitude of rocks first impede the flow of the river ; through these it makes its way, till, having overcome them all, it rushes down about eighty feet, with an impetuosity, a rage, a boiling foam, which literatty darken the air, and create a con stant mist and shower. The body of water which falls, and the fury, the incredible fury, of the de scent, make this a wonder of nature. The thun der of the cataract is so loud, that it absolutely drowns the voice — you cannot hear yourself speak. Immediately above the faU, four immense, ragged, overhanging rocks stretch at considerable inter vals quite across the flood. These divide tho tor rent for a moment into five parts, without lessen ing its fury. Ages back they doubtless formed a complete barrier which the stream had to sur mount, and which made the depth of the fafl dou ble what it is at present. Many falls in Switzerland are more picturesque, but none so terribly majestic as this. It impress es quite an awful conviction of the power of God, and how soon aU nature would be dissolved, if he were to permit. We observed the fall, first from a gaUery overhanging the side of it, and watered with its dashing stream ; then in a boat from the middle of the river; next, from a window of a house on the opposite side ; lastly, from a sum mer-house commanding the height of the river just before its fall. We had likewise the pleasure of seeing it in a camera obscura. It added greatly to the deUght of this excursion, that my dear Mrs. W. was weU enough to accompany us ; indeed, the real beauties of our tour have lain open to her inspection as much as if she had been ever so strong. It is chiefly the interior of buildings, which she has been unable to visit. Sunday, July 27. — " My soul is athirst for God, yea, for the Uving God ; when shaU I come and appear before the presence of God 1 " says the in spired Psalmist ; and such would I wish to be my feelings on this my sixth sflent Sunday. I have been to the Protestant German service, (all the canton is Protestant;) a venerable clergyman, seventy or eighty years of age, preached. I would have given any thing to have understood him ; his manner was so earnest, so impressive, so affec tionate, so impassioned ; his voice majestic, and yet sweet. The service began with singing, (which was vociferation rather than singing;) then a prayer by the minister, who came from the gaUery into a sort of tribune opening from it; after this a sermon and prayer ; singing concluded. The service began at eight in the morning. Se veral persons in tlie congregation sat with their hats on. During the sermon, two officers were going round coflecf.ng money, in bags hung at the end of long poles. There was a large con gregation, and aU seemed very attentive. After breakfast we had our Enghsh liturgy, and a ser- TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 27 mon. At twelve, we went to the catechising at the cathedral ; it was very pleasing to see one or two hundred children seated in order, whilst a minister heard them a portion of the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the most exceUent of all the Protestant formularies. After the children had answered, the minister began to put questions to one of them ; and then, apparently, to explain the portion to the whole body of children — I was de lighted — this is the reasonable, intelligent worship of God ; but it is late, and I must wish you adieu for to-night. I am yours affectionately, D. W. LETTER VI. Zurich, July 18. — Basle, August 1, 1823. Bridge— Swiss customs — State of Religion — Profes sor — Fall of Rhine— Eglisau — First view of Alps — Zurich — Reformers — Inn L'Epee — Antistes Hess — Mr. Wilberforce — Z uingle — Documents of Reformation — Clergy — Bible Society — Lava- ter's Forgiveness of his Murderer — Aarau — Good done by an English Clergyman — Basle — M. Blumhardt — Stoves — Fountains — A Divine — Tombs of Erasmus and Ecolampadius — Holy Alliance — Council of Basle — Likeness of Eras- ZurIoh, Monday evening, July 28, 1823. My dear sister — Before I quit the subject of Schaffhausen, I must teU you, that this morning we examined a curious model of the bridge over the Rhine here, burnt by the French in 1799. It was built by a common carpenter, with only one pier, over a space of three hundred and sixty-four feet, aU of wood ; the pathway being suspended under, not placed over, the arches, so that it qui vered with the slightest movement of a passenger. I may as weU mention also, a few other things which struck us by their novelty during our stay there. We observed a funeral, where the proces sion consisted of several hundred persons ; every friend of a deceased person attending in a mourn ing robe. The churches, though noble, majestic buildings, are absolutely devoid of ornament, hav ing been stripped to the bare waUs. There was a nakedness about them which offended the eye. I prefer the wisdom and moderation of our English Reformers in this, as weU as other respects ; but the Protestants here are of the Calvinistic, not Lutheran, persuasion. The Cathohc pilgrims who visit Einsiedeln and other celebrated places of pil grimage, walk hand in hand, with bouquets in theh hats, singing as they pass the streets : on Saturday thirty-two passed in this way through the town. The Swiss keep unusually good time ; beginning the day in summer at three, dining at twelve, and shutting up their shops at seven ; and their clocks happen now to be an hour and ten minutes faster than those at Paris. Every youth who chooses may become a soldier to defend the state. We saw a number of little lads exercising this morning. So far as to the customs of the place. Its moral and rehgious state I endeavored to ascertain from the professor. The Protestant cantons arc very strict and firm in their peculi- 54—7 arities, more so than I have hitherto observed in other parts. There are thirty or forty clergy in the smaU canton of Schaffhausen. The atten tion paid to the catechising of the children, and the preparing them for the Holy Communion, is excellent. We might learn much from the Swiss on this subject. AU the chUdren of the canton are obUged to attend and learn their catechism ; and there are ministers especiaUy appointed for theh instructors. They seem to have no idea of leaving the young, as we too much do in Eng land, m ignorance of the principles of Chris tianity. Rehgious education is, in theh view, the very first duty they owe theh children ; and the only foundation of a tranquil, wett-ordered, vir tuous community. The laws are strict, and the magistrates also exercise a salutary influence over public morals ; but I doubt whether spiritual reh gion, with its holy fruits, is now actuaUy flourish ing. The Sacraments are, however, weU at tended. In a town of seven thousand souls, there are four or five hundred communicants, at two or three churches (perhaps one thousand five hun dred or two thousand in all) communicating once or twice a year. Still I fear that all this is too much of a mere form, and that the chitting theo logy of Germany has infected the canton. May God raise up a new spirit of faith and love among them! I did all I could to make the professor under stand om- views of reUgion in England ; and to encourage him in openly foUowing the doctrines of the Reformation, as the only hope of a revival of true Christianity. It is a dehghtful thing to be able in any measure to strengthen the hands of a brother in the Gospel. I can do but httle ; but what- I can do, I feel bound not to omit. He spoke to me about the R^glement at Geneva. He expressed himself with great reserve, but evi dently regretted that measure. He was very curious to know something about our English universities, and tlie plan of literary and rehgious education in them. I satisfied his inquiries, and reaUy felt gratified that I should happen to have' about me a list of the officers and heads of col leges in Oxford and Cambridge to present to him. You cannot imagine with what pleasure he re ceived it. We left Schaffhausen at eight this morning, for Zurich, twenty-five miles. On our road, we stopped again at the fall of the Rhine, and once more admired its unequalled terrors. The Rhine is a continued flood — a torrent, from the dissolved snows, where it springs, till it loses itself in Hol land, after a course of seven hundred mfles — so that a vessel, when first going down the stream from Switzerland, shoots hke an arrow. The width of the fall is four hundred and fifty feet ; the least depth sixty feet, the greatest eighty. It differs from the Niagara in two respects ; in vo lume of water it is inferior ; in majesty it sur passes it. The Niagara is two thousand seven hundred feet wide, and one hundred and fifty-six feet high ; but it merely turns suddenly down the fall in a continued stream, as from a lock ; where as the Rhine, with unparalleled fury, dashes from rock to rock, till- the spray and foam obscure the view. At EgUsau, a lovely viUage on our way, where 28 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. we dined, we saw, for the first time, a covered bridge, erected in 1811, over the Rhine (the French having burnt the former one ;) you walk over under rafters and beams, windows on each side opening upon the river. It is entirely co vered at the top with a roof, and enclosed on the sides, so that you are, as it were, in a house ; whilst the rafters, &c. make you think it is the roof a country church. These covered bridges abound in Switzerland. As we approached Zurich, we caught a first view of the distant Alps, about Zug and Schwitz. The hills first in view were shaded by the after noon sun ; over these, brilhant volumes of clouds were discernible ; and from amidst the clouds, the peaks of the Alps were easily distinguished by theh defined outlines, sharp summits, and the bright whiteness of the eternal snows with wliich they are covered. We entered Zurich, the capi tal of the canton, about five o'clock. I could not but be sensibly affected. This is the first town in Switzerland that separated from the church of Rome three centuries back — it was the favorite asylum of our Enghsh Reformers during the va- ciUating and tyrannical reign of Henry the Eighth, and the bloody persecution of queen Mary. It is supposed to have been the place where our great Cranmer, soon after he' had been raised to the primacy, caused the first complete edition of the English Bible, Miles Coverdale's, to be printed, in the year 1535.* The town contains eleven thou sand souls ; the canton one hundred and eighty- three thousand ; nearly aU Protestant. It is amongst the most thickly peopled tracks of the continent of Europe ; which is owing chiefly to the long-continued enjoyment of good govern ment, and to consequent habits of virtuous in dustry. The beauty of the country accords with its re putation. We are at the inn caUed L'Epee. Ima gine a room fifty feet by thirty, of which two sides are a continued window, overhanging the broad deep-blue torrent of the JLimmat, which, rushing Uke an arrow from the lake of Zurich, seems hurrying to pour itself into the Rhine. The old wooden bridge which leads across it is immediately before me, and is wide enough for the market, wliich is just now in amusing confusion, and presents a most characteristic scene of Swiss costume and manners. The noble churches, quays, and pubhc buildings on the other side of the river diversify the prospect. In the distance on my right a second bridge appears, with a tower buflt in the midst of the torrent for state-prisoners — whilst stfll further on, my eye is lost in foUow ing the beautiful lake itself, tfll I discern at length the Alps rearing theh majestic heads beyond it in the utmost horizon. — Such is the room where I am writing this letter ; I suppose it is one of the most beautiful in the world. It is curious, that in order to reach this splendid chamber you have to * The New Testament had first been published by Tyndale about 1526 : the Pentateuch appeared in 1530; Miles Coverdale completed the arduous task under the auspices of Cranmer, in 1535. This Bible is in a folio volume, printed in double columns, in what Mr. Dibdin terms, a foreign secretary-gothic type. It was executed, as it is generally thought, at the press of a Zurich printer. defile through stables, voitures, horsemen, voitu- riers, ostlers, post-boys, and smells of aU kinds, by a dark, narrow passage ; for the entire ground floors of the Swiss inns are occupied by thtS sort of miseries ; partly, I suppose, on account of the frequent inundations from melted snow, or over flowing rivers. Last night we ascended a bastion, near the town, and beheld the magnificent scene of the range of Alps illuminated, or rather gilded, by the setting sun ; it was, reaUy, as if all the snows were sud denly set on a blaze, the fiery meteor was so bright and so extensive. As the sun further declined, the magic scene lost its enchantment. It is sin gular, that this is the first night this summer that the Alps have been thus visible. My friend tra veUed four years ago in Switzerland, and never saw any thing Uke it. Indeed, we have been fa vored all our journey. The weather has been un usually cool, with the exception of a day or two, and we are aU now in comfortable health. May we have the additional blessing of a thankful, humble, holy, theachable heart, to see God in every thing, to love God because of every thing, and to be led up towards him by every tlhng ! I should just mention, that on our road to Zurich we crossed a part of Baden, when the same appearance of neghgence and misery returned which I before noticed. As soon as we regained the Swiss ter ritory, aU was again neat, convenient, industrious, and happy: such is the difference between the effects of civil and religious freedom, and of an arbitrary government. Zurich, Tuesday, July 29. — I have been intro duced, to-day, to the celebrated Antistes Hess; he is eighty-two years old, a venerable, pious, holy man, on the verge of heaven ; with a heart fuU of love to the Saviour, and to the souls of men. I took my three children to him, that he might bless them. The Antistes spoke to me much of Mr. Wilberforce, whose book he had read with delight : he begged me to convey to him his Christian re gards : it was delightful to me to see this aged disciple. He is one of the persons whom I was most anxious to know. You are perhaps aware, that Antistes is a Latin word, meaning nearly the same as President. It is a title often given in ecclesiastical writers to bishops, though sometimes to simple priests. In tlie Swiss Reformed churches, it is applied to the ecclesiastical head of a canton. The government of these churches, though not episcopal, differs considerably from what is catted Presbyterianism. I met at the house of the An tistes, an aged magistrate of this place, who com mended to me the cause of Switzerland, and beg ged of me again and again to represent to my coun trymen the state of his canton; pressing on me that Switzerland had been the cradle of the Refor mation. We next visited, with much pleasure, the city library, abounding in original unpublished letters of our Reformers. The history of that interesting period, after all Burnet has done, might, undoubted ly, be much enriched from these stores. Such an undertaking would require great zeal discretion, knowledge of ecclesiastical history, and, above aU, a commanding and pious mind ; but its success would be sure. We saw the three weU-known Letters of Lady Jane Gray, written to Buffinger, in 1551. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 29 The Epistles of St. Paul in Greek, transcribed entire in the hand of ZuingUus in 1517, just as he was first discerning the chief corruptions of the church of Rome, were most interesting to me, not only as an ancient manuscript, but as tracing the Reformation to its true source, a deep study of the New Testament. Zuingle, amongst all the noble body of Reform ers, seems to have been one of the most able and acute. He was born Jan. 1st, 1487. He soon began to discover the real force of the chief doc trines of Scripture. He not only copied out the text of St. Paul's Epistles, but also committed them all to memory, and earnestly sought by prayer the teaching of the Holy Sphit ; comparing Scripture with Scripture, and explaining the obscure pas sages by the more clear. In 1581 he was elected by the chapter to the office of preacher ; and on Jan. 1, 1519, he deUvered his first discourse in the cathedral of Zurich before an immense auditpry. His wisdom and penetration were so remarkable, and the influence which he acquired over the coun cil and aU the inhabitants of Zurich was so great, that he was soon able to carry the canton along with him in a firm but gradual profession of the evangettcal doctrines, ft is remarkable, that he had laboured his way out of most of the errors of Popery, and had attained to the hght of Reformed truth in Zurich, at the very time that Luther, without design or concert with him, had been car rying on tlie same holy work in Germany. The present pious and holy Antistes Uves in the same house where this great Reformer dwelt ; in the garden of which is a room UteraUy fiUed with unpublished archives of the Reformation. The honor in which Zuingle is held here is remarkable. I observe, that God has often brought about the greatest works of mercy by a few distinguished individuals in a town or country, raised up by his Spirit, embued with the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and armed with zeal fortitude, wisdom, and love ; Zuingle at Zurich, Ecolampadius at Basle, Bucer at Strasburg, Calvin and Beza in France and Geneva, Luther and Melancthon in Germany, Cranmer and his noble associates in England. May men of a Uke spirit be raised up again ! May divines and professors transcribe and study, like Zuingle, St. Paul's Epistles ! Soon would Protestantism revive, and Popery fade away before it ! It is known that our Enghsh Reformer, Ridley, committed to memory early in life, almost aU St. Pauls Epistles, as weU as the Cathohc ones ; the benefit derived from which he acknowledged with gratitude, just before his martyrdom. In the afternoon we took a safl on the lake, deUcious beyond description. The evening how ever, was not so favorable for viewing the setting sun, as last night. I am much grieved to say, that my impression of the present state of real rehgion in some parts of this canton is not so favorable as its former celebrity would lead one to expect — in one parish, St. Peter's, four or five hundred only attend at church, out of five thousand inhabitants, for forty-eight Sundays in the year ; and two thou sand five hundred for the four remaining Sundays, the sacrament days, which seem almost supersti- tiously reverenced — many of the clergy of Zurich meet the magistrates and gentlemen at a club, once a week, to smoke and talk pohtics; these are not promising symptoms. I do not pretend, as a stranger, to judge. I take my account from the confession of one of the clergy, who told me these things without the slightest idea of their improprie ty. I am quite distressed that Mr. Gessner, the son- in-law of Lavater, is not in Zurich. The superior talents and eminent piety of this exceUent minister make me exceedingly regret that I am unable to see him. He forms a bright exception to the me lancholy statement just given. I trust there are many others. O how different a thing is real spi- rituaUty of heart from the name of religion, whether Reformed or Cathohc ! Zurich, July 30, Wednesday. — My dearest Ann accompanied me to-day to the benevolent and pious Antistes. His amiable and truly Christian temper appears in aU he does and says. When he took leave of my wife, he presented her with one of his smaUer works, and prayed that peace and grace might be with her, and that her sons and her daughter might be her comfort and support. He then added, " We shall never meet again in this world, but we shall meet in another, to be with Jesus : that is our proper country ; there is peace, holiness, and joy." The institution for the blind in this city, and that for orphans, much interested us. It was affecting to see the blind write, and do sums in arithmetic by letters and figures impress ed on the paper with an hon pen ; so that they knew them by the touch. The singing of the or phan children was very beautiful. I caUed on the bookseUer of the Bible Society ; that noble insti tution, though less flourishing now, has accomplish ed much good, considering the limited resources of a single canton. We visited the arsenal, and several other objects of curiosity. The people marry very young in Zurich, and are betrothed yet earher. The taxes are light: theh largest bookseUer pays four Napoleons a year (about 21. 3s.) for every thing. * The tomb of Lavater in St. Peter's church much affected me ; he was wounded by the hand of a common soldier during Massena's invasion in 1799, and died after fifteen months of extreme suffering. His benevolence and tenderness of heart had been remarkable amidst all the eccen tricities of his opinions through life ; and they ap peared conspicuously on this trying occasion. He not only did aU in his power to prevent the crimi nal from being discovered; but left him at his death the foUowing affecting testimony of his for giveness : " Memorandum to be given after my death, with an affectionate letter, if it be possible, to the grenadier (D'Elsass, as I think,) who shot at me, Sept. 26, 1799— but care must be taken that his name be concealed. May God pardon thee, as I from my heart pardon thee ! O, may you never suffer what I suffer through you ! I embrace you, my friend ; you have done me a kindness without knowing it. If you see these fines, may they be a seal to you of the grace of * There are several print-sellers here wbo have most extensive and beautiful collections of Swiss engravings. I bought what are called the One Hun dred Views, and also the Fifty Views. I gave thirty or forty shillings for the two sets. I may as well add, that the duty on colored prints at Dover is reduced from two shillings each to two pence. 30 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. the Lord, who forgives penitent sinners ; who de Uvers them, and makes them happy ! May God enable me earnestly to pray for you, so that I may never doubt that we shaU one day embrace each other before the presence of the Lord !" — Surely this paper breathes something of the spirit of the martyr Stephen. The murderer is said to have previously received favors from Lavater. Aarau, Thursday night, July 31. — We left Zurich with regret this morning, and came twen ty-eight miles to this town, the capital of the can ton of Argovie. It has three thousand inhabitants, chiefly reformed. It stands pleasantly on a hfll on the Aar river, the two banks of which are united by a covered bridge. We were surprised to find that the same church is used here for CathoUcs and Protestants : we entered it ; there were no superstitious ornaments. The Protes tants meet at eight, the Catholics at half-past nine, on the Sunday. We dined at Baden, where there is a most beautiful village on the banks of the Limmat. At the table-d'h6te I met two strangers from Basle. After a good deal of con versation, the lady turned out to be a friend of an English clergyman of my acquaintance, and beg ged me most earnestly to remember her to him, and to assure him that she had not forgotten his advice, but read every Sunday one of the sermons he gave her : it was dehghtful to me thus to trace some fruit of the advice given by my dear friend. What good might not be effected, if English tra veUers were studious to lose no opportunity of honoring God theh Saviour, on the occasions, however shght, which continuaUy present them selves. An impression may often be left on the mind of i. foreigner by a kind and appropriate re mark, which nothing can efface. An English man has pecuhar advantages for this, from the weight attached to his country aU over the Con tinent. Basle, 26 miles from Aarau, Friday evening, August 1.— We have had a charming ride to-day ; the road from Aarau to Stein (a lovely village on the Rhine) lay through a noble picturesque coun try. Some of the vfllages were more character istic than any we have yet seen. From Stein the road ran by the Rhine ; and when we had come within nine miles of Basle, we sent on the car riages and came down, or rather were flooded dqwn, the Rhine, in a boat ; the stream earned us the nine miles in an hour and a quarter — a rather hazardous voyage, as our friends at Basle told us. Basle is a very ancient city, situated at the angle where the Rhine turns northward for Germany. It contains sixteen thousand souls, almost all Protestants. The same hberty prevails here as at Zurich, the same habits. Bread is three half-pence the pound — meat, two-pence three farthings the pound — wages, two shillings a day. There are eight churches. Mr. Blum- hardt, of the Missionary Institution, called upon me this morning — a most devout, dehghtful man. How refreshing to the mind, to meet with a Chris tian brother in a foreign land, whom one can un derstand : for Mr. B. speaks French and English weU. Travelhng from canton to canton, it is curious to see the changes in the villages — some Popish, some Protestant : the latter are always the more comfortable, neat, industrious ; but they aU seem to live together in peace ; and a reasonable hber ty appears equaUy dear to aU. The dress of the women varies in each canton : the hah of the Zurich women is neatly combed and parted : they have no gowns, but theh underdress expands over the shoulders, something Uke a surphce ; they have a stomacher of cloth, with braids of scarlet crosswise ; they seem of a strong, fine race, com pared with the French and German women. At Aarau, yesterday, we observed the houses, aU along the main streets, with jutting roofs, only not shelving to the ground ; each house has its own roof advancing perhaps ten or twelve feet ; so that we walked under them during the rain quite defended ; the roofs differ in height, shape, color, &c. so as to make a most singular appear ance. 1 beUeve I have not mentioned the Ger man and Swiss stoves, with which almost every room is furnished ; these are sometimes of hon, of a moderate size ; but oftener of tiles, stone, or Chinaware, and then they are eight or ten feet square, standing on thick legs, which raise them a few inches from the ground, and reaching in a turret form to the ceiling. The fire is placed in them from the passage, through an opening in the partition- waU of the room : there is no grate nor flame seen, but the warmth is produced by the whole mass of the tower being thoroughly heated ; the China stoves are of green, blue, or yellow. — The fountains also in this country are curious ob jects ; every town and village, however small, has its fountain. The Cathohc adorns his with saints, the Protestant with heroes : there is no such thing as water conducted to each house, as with us ; all depends 'on the fountains, which are commonly large stone enclosures, from twenty to fifty feet round, with two, four, or six jetsd'eau, which fall so as to meet conveniently the tubes, Ate. placed on the margin of the basin. Around these basins are coUeeted women, washing garden-stuff or clothes, horses drinking, servants extending jugs, &c. At Stein we were at the singular hotel, looking fuU on the Rhine, of which M. Simond speaks in his Voyage with warm commendation. We showed the landlord the book in which men tion is made of him : he was not a little astonished that his sotttary house should be thus celebrated. Perhaps one of the most singular persons we have seen since we have been abroad, was a Pro testant clergyman of one of the towns we have lately passed through ; pompous, good-tempered, officious, confused ; with a mixture of pride from his station and family, and of familiarity from an affected condescension towards others ; the high priest, and yet the friendly, kind, obhging man ; tedious withal ; dawdhng, never seeing the good sense of a thing, and having no tact in discover ing the inconveniences which his conduct occa sions ; a worthy, bustling, unintettigible personage. But all this would have been nothing, if it were not that this same person is a divine, nay, the di vine, the great man in theology, whose reputation spreads through the neighborhood, who talks per petually of the Reformation, and whose opinions gain credence. I reaUy was quite nervous in his company : after many trials I could get no one good sentiment out of him ; he did nothing but talk to me of his church, his parish, his house, and TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 31 four or five portraits of himself. A negative cha racter is not enough for a clergyman in a dying, guflty world. The minister of Jesus Christ has a high message to deliver, a vveighty stewardship to discharge, a solemn trust to guard. He has to teach by his doctrine and his conversation. He is not to sink down to the standard of tho world, but to rouse that world from its torpor, and awaken it to the unseen interests of the soul and eternity. Basle, Saturday evening, August 2. — The ca thedral here interested us greatly this morning. It is one of the noblest Protestant churches of the Continent. It is buflt of a fine red stone ; simple, yet majestic in its ornaments, with numerous aisles and monuments, and a remarkably curious cloister. The tombs of Erasmus, and of Eco- lampadius, the Basle Reformer, much delighted us. The town is neat, and seemingly full of bu siness. The pubhc Ubrary contains thirty-two thousand volumes, and manuscript letters of most of the Reformers. Ih the afternoon we spent two or three hours with the exceUent Mr. B. The first Foreign Bible Society was formed here in 1804, the very year when the original institution began in London. At the third centenary of the Reformation, New Testaments were given from the altar of the cathedral to aU the children of the town — above two thousand were distributed. What an appropriate gift ! The missionary insti tution contains thirty-four students, and is about to be enlarged. The lecture rooms and cham bers are simple and unadorned. The state of true religion is, on the whole, im proving in Switzerland and some parts of Ger many. Truth, holiness, and unity increase, hun dreds of CathoUcs receive Bibles and attend Pro testant churches. The Lutherans and Reformed have begun to unite in the common term evan gelical. The Antistes and most of the clergy preach and Uve according to the Gospel. On the other hand, the court of Rome threatens, the Pope is aroused ; he thinks the Protestants have begun to propagate theh views by Bible and mis sionary institutions ; and he is determined to op pose them. The Jesuits are the Pope's house hold troops ; they are spreading every where, and resisting, hi the most open manner, every attempt at Scriptural education. The holy alliance is thought to favor the Pope and the Jesuits, by act ing on the idea that all societies are dangerous.* In the mean time, the friends of the truth are ac tive and humble, leaving events with God. Mr. B. was exceedingly struck with London when he visited it for the first time last year. He says it took him six months, on his return, to cool and coUect his scattered and astonished ideas, and * I find from friends who have returned from Rome since the publication of the second edition of this work, that nothing can exceed tbe present bold ness of the Catholic hierarchy there — except their folly. Open claims of infallibility are made, indul gences placarded, the Bible and education spurned, the certain perdition of heretics avowed, the autho rity of human traditions asserted and vindicated as strongly as ever. In short, all the comparative mildness of Pius VII. and Gonsalvi is forgotten, and a new reign of intolerance commenced. — The Jesuits direct every thing. digest what he had observed. He thinks Paris is only a viUage compared with London. He com plained, however, of London fogs, London water, and London cookery — the .fine mountain air, the Rhine, and the ordinary food of Switzerland ; these are what he wanted to complete his happi ness — he scarcely once saw the sun the first six weeks he was in London. But he forgot aU this in the inteUectual and rehgious festivals in which he participated. I omitted to say, that we saw at the cathedral to-day the very hall where the council of 1431-47 held its sittings ; the self-same seats and other furniture remain. That council was convoked to prevent the Reformation ; but the scandal raised by the vices of the bishops, who composed it, had the effect of convincing men of its necessity, and of hastening its approach. It happened curi ously, that on the very benches where the Pope's legate and the other members of the council sat four centuries back, the trophies of the Reforma tion were placed, which had just been displayed at the celebration of the third centenary of that great event. Yours affectionately, D. W. P. S. Before I shut up my letter, I must add, that, in the old divinity school of the cathedral, we saw a likeness of the celebrated Erasmus, scratched apparently by an idle student with the rough point of an hon nail, on the common wooden desk which was before him, during lec ture. Three centuries have rendered this roguish trick a great curiosity. The lines are beginning to be faint ; but the likeness is stfll strong. You wfll please however to observe, that Erasmus is not one of my prime favorites. He had talents, wit, and learning in abundance ; but he wanted the heart of a Reformer. The important aid which he at first rendered to Luther, was more than neutralized by the bitter opposition to the Gospel, in which he at length openly joined. LETTER Vn. Moutiers, August 4. — Bern, August 11, 1823. Sunday at Basle — View from table-d'hote Room — Valley of Moutiers — Anabaptists — Soyhier — Court — Cormoret — Rock Pierre Pertuis — Obser vations on Swiss Government — Neufchatel — Re former Farel — Bienne — Island of St. Pierre — J. J. Rousseau — Seedorf — Bern — Voiturier — M. Wyttenbach — The great Haller — Swiss Diet- Sunday at Bern — Pastor Henhofer. Basle, about 963 miles from London, Sunday, August 3, 1823. My dearest sister — We are now closing our seventh absent Sunday ; and have, for the first time, met with French service. We at tended twice ; at nine o'clock and at three. I endeavored to hear the sermons with that candor and sincere desire to derive instruction and comfort, which become a Christian, and especiaUy a foreigner; but reaUy they were 32 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. so inclifferent, or rather so unscriptural, that I was grieved at my very heart. Man is the same every where. It is not a mere freedom from supersti tion and infidelity which is enough. It is spiritual life which is wanting — that sensibility and per ception which is the gift of the Holy Sphit, and without which a moral death pervades aU the powers of the soul — no due sense of sin, no real penitence, no faith in Christ for justification, no holy love, no communion with God, no dedication to his service, no separation from the world, no true obedience. I hope the strong impression I receive abroad of the necessity of the Gospel in its simplicity, wfll never be effaced from my mind. What is Protestantism, without the truth on which it rests, and the Holy Sphit by whom alone that truth can be taught or blessed ? I cannot but mourn over the decay and desolations of the Pro testant churches, as I pass from place to place. At Basle it is the French churches of which I speak; for the German here, thank God, are prosperous. The sixteen Lutheran ministers, with scarcely an exception, truly preach the Gospel. The Sabbath, therefore, generaUy, is much better observed than in Germany; the shops shut ; no amusements ; great order and decency. Monday morning, August 4. — Basle was cele brated in the fourth century ; it is capable of con taining a hundred thousand inhabitants, but it has now only sixteen thousand. It is superbly situ ated on the Rhine, which here becomes naviga ble. The larger houses in the town have the front doors made of open wire- work, so as to ad mit the ah. Many of the inhabitants have a swoUen neck ; arising, as Mr. B. informs us, from the nature of the water ; but, as others think, from the moist, foggy atmosphere. In the Valais, this disease becomes a protuberance, and is often accompanied with idiotcy. On the whole, Basle much delights us. The table-d'hOte room over hangs the Rhine ; with the noble bridge over it, connecting great and httle Basle, on our right, fuU in view. The prospect from one of the bas tions surprised us quite unexpectedly one evening, as we were walking on the fortifications. At a sudden turn of the path, the most picturesque view burst upon us as by magic — The Rhine — the bridge — a part of the town — the tower of an old church — a beautiful weU-wooded country — a thou sand various objects interspersed — the whole ex quisite. It is, in short, the simphcity, industry, piety, and happiness of the people, together with the hberty of theh country, and its uncommon magnificence and beauty, which endear it to Eng lishmen. Switzerland is the land of moral and inteUectual freedom, and one of the chief glories of Reformed Europe. Court, between Basle and Neufchalel, Monday night, August 4. — We have come to-day thirty- two miles. This is the third time I have been sur prised with a richness of scenery wholly unex pected. Nothing is so difficult to describe. Lan guage — at least my language — is unable to foUow the inexhaustible variety and profusion of beau ties in Switzerland. For nine hours to-day our attention and admhation were excited so perpe tually, that we were fatigued under the continued effort. It was not the Rhine, it was not the Ho- ellenthal, — the former, with its majestic flood and exuberant vines, js unequalled in its way; the latter in wfld and awful scenery appeared to us at the time incomparable — but the valley of Moil- tiers, where we now are, is of so new and grand a character, so considerable in extent (twenty- two miles,) so varied at every turn throughout its course, that, though different from aU the prece ding scenery, we must allow it to be one of the very finest things we have yet seen. We are indebted to our good friend who has traveUed in Switzerland before, for the exceUent choice of our road on this and other occasions. Few English men ever think of HoeUenthaL or the valley of Moutiers. If a traveUer has not time to study weU the best books before he leaves home, he should by aU means obtain the company of a friend who has a thorough knowledge of the coun try, and judgment and taste to direct his attention to the most deserving objects. Otherwise he will infallibly lose some of the most interesting points. The vaUey of Moutiers is a sort of fissure or chasm in the immense chain of the Jura moun tains. The river Birse flows through it in a ra ther smaU, but clear, impetuous, and diversified stream ; its numerous cascades, its various bridges, and endless windings, create an inexhaustible fund of pleasure. The rocks of immense height — vertical — paraBel — answering to each other on the opposite sides of the chasm, sometimes Uke leaves of a book, and bearing on every side smal ler or larger trees, apparently without any super incumbent earth — vast ravines in these masses, down which the torrents at times rott — overhang ing fragments, threatening, as it were, to fall every moment, together with the sinuosities of the valley, formed a scene of wonder and delight. The foliage also, now of dark fir, now of lighter underwood ; at one time filling up the vaUey, and hiding the bursting river ; at other times rising up the mountains ; and almost always spreading out on the rent masses of granite, added continued beauties, — whilst the enormous bodies of rock here and there forced down by the winter tem pests, or loosened by the thaws and floods, almost closed the road, and blocked up the river. Along this valley the Romans formed a road, which, after having been more than once obstructed by the falling rocks, was opened again for the last time in 1752. The foUowing inscription, in Latin, is engraved on a stone on the side of the road : "Joseph WiUiam, of Rincius, prince bishop of Baldenstein Basiliensium, opened this road, which had been shut for a long time, by breaking through the rocks and opposing mountains, and casting bridges over the Birse, with a labour worthy of the Romans." This boasting inscription, like too many others of the same class, is far from being true. The bishop took no other part in this en terprise, but that of claiming the honor of it. The inhabitants of the valley raised the money, and effected the laborious task. The road now is exceUent. We met as we drove along some venerable old men in great sim phcity of attire, and with long flowing beards. They were part of the community of Anabap tists, who were banished from Berne in 1708, be cause, they refused to take oaths and to bear arms. What an odious thing is persecution, es peciaUy in free states, and most of all where the TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. Protestant religion is professed ! There are about 1000 of these good people here — industrious, meek, and religious — capable of being a blessing to any nation. They have no similarity of sen timent with the German Anabaptists of the six teenth century. I have been naturaUy led to reflect to-day on that awful disruption of the deluge, which was doubt less the origin of the amazing scenes through which we passed — the face of the creation bears marks of that signal judgment of Almighty God on a sinful world. I endeavored also to meditate on the goodness of God in furnishing man with sources of pleasure in the wonders of creation, and spreading-over the wrecks of the world the sweet foUage and fortuity, which are more delightful from these contrasts. When the last breaking up of nature shall come, and the rocks and moun tains depart, may we inherit a new and brighter world wherein dwelleth righteousness ! The people now speak French. We are in the canton of Berne, containing two hundred and fifteen thousand souls, chiefly Protestants. We dined at Soyhier, a smaU Catholic village, where aU the tombstones have cups or basins hanging by them, I suppose for holy water. In the corner of the churchyard is a smaU building filed with the bones of the dead, with an aperture or win dow, open to the ah, by which you may see them, and touch them, if you please. The villages in this valley are curious, from the very low cottages of only one story, very wide, with roofs of wood, and large stones placed here and there upon the roof, to prevent its being blown away. Cofmoret, Tuesday morning, eleven o'clock. — We left Court this morning at seven, and came on here, sixteen mfles, through a fine open country, bordered by mountains. At a place catted Pierre Pertuis, we stopped to see the source of the Bhse, whose stream had afforded us such extraordinary pleasure yesterday : it gushes from the side of a rock with such force as to turn three mills almost immediately. Above this source a lofty rock is pierced to admit the road : the opening, of about forty-five feet by fifteen, was known to the Ro mans, as an inscription cut in the rock,* and al most obhterated by time, testifies. It is situated at the foot of the mountain Vion. We were over taken by a most violent storm as we approached this viUage, Cormoret, and here discovered the advantage of Swiss architecture ; for the host of a smaU auberge no sooner saw us, than he opened the door of the bam, and we drove in under co ver, first one carriage, then another ; a door in the side opened into the house, and stairs, steep as a ladder, conducted us to the salle-a-manger, or dining hall, over the said barn, where we now are. The ceiling, walls, floor, are aU of the same * The inscription is as follows : Numini Augus- torum Via facta per Titura Dummium Paternum 11 Virum Col. Helvet. " To the divine Augustus, this road, made by Titus Dummius Paternus, Duovir of tbe colony of Helvetia, is dedicated." materials, unpainted wood. Our cold meat is brought out, which we put into our tin boxes at Basle. We have also Kirchinwasser (eau de ce rise,) together with fresh eggs, warm milk, bread, aU set out on an immense table, which sun-ounds three sides of the haU, and has no particular ap pearance of having been lately cleaned. In this style we are now about to dine, at half-past eleven, Swiss time. Twelve o'clock. — As the storm continues, and we have finished om" frugal meal, I wfll now go on with such remarks as occur to me. Switzer land formerly contained thirteen cantons, but at present twenty-two, confederated together by an act of congress, 1814 ; by which the actual limits and rights of the different states were as nearly as possible preserved. The Swiss date their free dom from the first efforts of the canton of Uri, Switz, and Underwald, to throw off the Austrian yoke in 1308, under the heroic guidance of Wil liam TeU ; of whom I must teU you something, if possible, when we come to the scenes of his ex ploits. Though a repubhc, Switzerland has never, like Rome or Athens, formed one great commu nity ; but has remained a confederacy of smaU states, managed by a general diet of deputies from each canton. It is by far the most mountainous country in Europe, having in fact only one large tract of level ground towards Basle, Zurich and Bern. If you are traveUing in some parts, you may eat on the same day the fruits of the coldest and of the warmest climates — the apple and pear, with the grape, almond, and fig. Switzerland contains one million seven hundred and fifty thou sand souls, of whom above a million are Protes tants. Basle is the largest city, Geneva the most populous, and Bern the most beautiful. The can tons differ from each other materially in religion and in form of government ; but a sphit of inde pendence, activity, industry, pervades the whole, and makes them the freest and happiest country in Europe, after Great Britain. Neufchatel, Wednesday morning, August 6. — The storm clearing up yesterday, we set off at half-past one. We soon came to a hfll very steep, but apparently moderate in length ; the two coach men, with aU our party, except Mrs. W. and EUza, walked up. It turned out to be a genuine Swiss mountain, at least three miles long, and three thousand feet in height. We were more than an hour ascending, and as the boys and I foUowed a countryman by what he catted a shorter route, we had the happiness to clamber up a side so preci pitous, that we were obliged to cling to the roots of trees to prevent our falling backwards. At the top we saw a smaU auberge ; we entered it by the bam, and from that turned into the kitchen, where a moderate fire was burning, not on the hearth, but iii the open raised sort of oven, which is usual in this country. We sat down to dry our feet whilst they prepared us some coffee ; happening to look up, we saw that the whole fire-place, ten feet by fifteen, gradually formed the chimney, which was all of wood, forty feet high, ending in a square at top, on which was a board raised on one side to aUow the smoke to escape, by a pole which descended the whole length, and was hung 34 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. by cords at the side of the oven. As we were sitting, the door opened, and in came our good friendj who had foUowed the main road, aUured by the same hope of relief as ourselves. Eliza arrived soon after, and then Ann. We had a re freshing cup of coffee, in the salle-a-manger — which, by the bye, was all of wainscot, and with double windows ; a defence against the winter storms ; five months' snow fatting most years. We arrived at the capital of the canton of Neuf- chatel at eight, after thirteen hours' journey, and forty-four mfles. The weather was rainy in the afternoon ; so that we could see little as we descended to the town, except the fine lake ex panding its deep-blue waves on aU sides. Had the weather been fine, the Alps would have crown ed the horizon. We observed the vfllages had stfll the low cottages, with wooden shingles for tiles. The water-pipes were not placed against the houses, but led off about twenty feet, so as to carry off the water beyond the front gardens into the road. We noticed also extraordinary large dung hills caked with much care, cut aU around, appa rently ten years old each, and placed in the gar den precisely under the bed-room windows, I suppose, from the value attached to them by this frugal people. We had exceUent beds after our fatigue last night, the best since we left England : my own chamber seems a sort of ball-room, thirty feet by twenty-five — these measures are, of course, in the way of conjecture ; as aU my remarks on Switzerland, in some degree, are. I am no pro fessed traveUer. Bienne, on the lake of the same name, Wednes day evening, August 6. — We left Neufchatel at eleven this morning, after seeing the cathedral, fountains, and vineyards — it has three thousand souls. The sepulchral stone of the Reformer Farel is in the church yard. The Alps, which on a fine day are seen stretching on the opposite side of the lake and bounding the view, we could not dis cern. We came on to Cerher, twelve miles, to dinner ; and then leaving the carriages, embarked in a boat on the lake of Bienne. We soon landed at the smaU island of St. Pierre, about a mile in circuit. It abounds in beautiful scenery. The single house on the island is an auberge, formerly a monastery, and of late years celebrated as the refuge of J. J. Rousseau for space of two months in 1765. The watts of his room are actuaUy co vered with inscriptions. A trap-door in the floor remains, by which he escaped from unwelcome visitors. A book for entering the names of stran gers is kept. I was determined to accompany my signature with some token of disagreement from the sentiments of this pernicious writer. I there fore wrote, " D. W. qui, tout en admirant le genie de Rousseau, en deplore les erreurs, et les suites si funestes au Christianisme, et a. la morale." It is quite impossible that true religion should revive in France and Switzerland tiU the undis- cerning encomiums of mere talent be superseded by a just and manly estimate of moral and intel lectual exceUency. Brflliancy of wit only aug ments the guilt of those who employ it to the cor ruption of mankind. In the case of Rousseau, not only do we see the finest powers of mind uncon trolled by religion, but positively left wild to the impulses of vanity, selfishness, and impurity, with out one redeeming quahty. Yet men are intoxi cated with the enthusiasm of his powers, utterly forgetful of the infinite mischiefs which he spent his whole Ufe with a malicious diligence in scat tering around him. The consequence of this sickly admiration of his genius is, that thousands of youth read his sophistical writings — catch hold of some specious objections to Christianity orto mo rals — aUow theh faith to be weakened or over thrown — take no pains to re-invigorate it by care ful study and practical obedience to truth — insen sibly commence infidels — and are lost at length in the vortex of sensuality and skepticism. But to return. There are fine vineyards on the island, which are let to fifty famiUes, who have half the grapes for theh labor : last year, this ht tle island, or rather a third part of it, yielded one hundred and sixty thousand bottles of wine ; some years it yields only twenty-four thousand. Such is the uncertainty of the vintages in this country. We re-embarked, after a slight refreshment, and sailed to the town of Bienne. The wind was fa vorable, and the prospects on each side of the lake were charming ; but the agitation of the vessel produced in some of us a qualmishness which in terrupted our pleasure. Bienne is a smaU town of two thousand five hundred souls, at the foot of Mount Jura. The fosse or moat of the fortifications is turned into gardens — a circumstance wliich we have often seen, and which always fills me with an indescri bable pleasure. I remember as we drove out of LiUe, it was deUghtful to me, after passing four or five Unes of frightful fortifications, to turn my eye down and see a number of gardeners and hay makers at theh peaceful occupations at the bot tom of the fosse. Bienne abounds with fountains ; the stone figure of one of which represents a good and evil angel struggling for the soul of man: Satan has horns and an enormous tail. Over another is a Swiss patriot, immovable as the pe destal on which he stands. The gate-way has an extremely old bas-relief of two heroes, the pecu- Uar undauntedness of whose countenances and attitudes bespeaks the Swiss bravery. The chief manufactory in this neighborhood is watches : a good workman can gain about eight francs a day, an ordinary one three or four. Bread is three halfpence a pound, meat threepence. Out of forty-nine thousand souls in the canton of Neuf chatel, there are only two prisoners now confined in jail, and these for robbery. The punishment of death is scarcely ever inflicted. We hope to be at Bern to-morrow, where letters from England await us ; I cannot but feel anxious, after a total silence of nearly eight weeks, to hear of my belov ed family, and beloved congregation ; the duties also before me may materially vary in conse quence : may God grant us aUjieedful dhection, and vouchsafe us the grace which sanctifies and saves ! Bern, Friday morning, August 8. — We arrived here yesterday afternoon, after a delightful jour ney of twenty-four miles from Bienne. We are' now about nine hundred and eighty-seven miles fi-om Calais, and one thousand and eighty-seven from London ; and having reached what may be TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 35 caUed the capital of Switzerland, and our resting- place in this enchanting country (for Geneva, if we go much there, is but two or three days' jour ney), I would raise, if I may be allowed to make the attusion, my memorial, and caU it "Eben- ezer ;" and say, " Hitherto hath God helped us :" we have traveUed aU this way without a single accident, properly speaking ; and with only those variations in health which occasional heat and over-fatigue have brought on. The weather has been, on the whole, more favorable to us than it would have been during any other summer for several years. Here we intend first to wait, and entirely rest ourselves, and then form the best plan we can for our health, comfort, and instruc tion during our remaining tour. Thank God, 1 found letters from England at the post, with no thing but good news. I received six letters alto gether. We dined yesterday at Seedorf, a lovely viUage, commanding one of the finest views we have yet seen. The road from Bienne was almost one con tinued succession of mountains ; which you will readUy believe, when I tell you that Bern is situ ated one thousand seven hundred and eight feet above the level of the sea. It is indisputably the finest city we have seen, from the beauty of its site, from the nobleness and regularity of its main streets, from the fine white free-stone of wliich it is built, and from the arcades or piazzas, which adorn not merely a market-place, Uke our Co vent Garden, but absolutely all the chief avenues throughout the city; added to this, a beautiful stream of water flows through the streets, with fountains at convenient distances. It more re sembles Bath than any place I have seen abroad. It stands on a lofty hfll, surrounded almost entire ly by the Aar ; about five degrees more south than London. It is one of the most modern cities in Switzerland ; for though it was rebuilt entirely after the destructive conflagration of 1405, the chief buildings are not older than the middle of the last century. Friday evening. — We have been settling to-day with our voiturier, who here leaves us. We have paid him one thousand seven hundred and four francs for forty-one days, at the rate of forty-eight francs for thhty days' travelling, and twenty-four for eleven days of rest. The distance he has brought us is seven hundred and ninety-two miles ; wliich is about one shilling and ninepence half penny a mile, for five horses and two carriages — but then we have the hire of the carriages, two hundred francs a month each, to pay when we re turn to Calais ; so that the rate of traveUing is, on the whole, sufficiently expensive. I have been to-day introduced to the Rev. M. Wittenbach, cousin of the celebrated editor of the Plutarch, pubUshed some years since by the Uni versity of Oxford. He has been fifty-two years a pastor in this town — a truly delightful person — fuU of good sense, piety, kindness, playful numor, cour- teousness, and anecdote. I am not sure I ever met with such a man. He reminded me very much of the late Rev John Newton, the friend of Cowper — so sensible, affectionate, entertaining, and venerable. He traveUed to the Alps every summer for thirty-two years, tfll the French revo- 54—8 lution closed the series. He was known to our Coxe, who was here in 1776. He founded a Bi ble and Tract Society in Bern in 1792, and is the father of the British and Foreign Bible Institution in Bern. He took us over the library and the museum this afternoon. The cathedral stands on the summit of the hfll on which the town is buflt. overlooking the Aar ; on the side next the river a terrace has been erected, with immense but tresses to support the waU, which is above one hundred feet high, and which a Swiss writer, in the warmth of his patriotism, has compared to the watts of ancient Babylon. The promenade is as delicious as the prospect is magnificent. I doubt if'Europe can match the scene. The female pea santry here have a costume extremely peculiar. They have ornaments of black lace fixed on the back of the head by a sort of close cap, from aU sides of which an enormously deep black frill sticks upright like saila ; the higher this rises, and the more stiffly it rears itself, the more fashionable is the dame who wears it. The weather to-day has been wet and cold. Saturday morning. — I must preserve a saying of the great Haller. M. Wittenbach had been speaking to him of the difficulty and importance of finding the middle line, the line of true wisdom, amidst the conflicts of mankind. The venerable Haller rephed — La ligne de milieu, la ligne de sa- gesse, c'est une ligne mathematique qui n'a pas de largeur — " The middle Une, the line of wisdom, is a mathematical line which has no breadth." This exceUent man was a native of this city, and a de scendant of HaUer the Reformer. He died here in 1778 ; and is deservedly caUed the great HaUer, on account of his surprising talents, his success in every kind of study, his love to bis country, and, above aU, his piety towards God. A monument was erected to him in the Botanical Garden in 1808. The Diet of Switzerland, composed of deputies from the twenty-two cantons, is now sitting. — When one recollects the amazingly small weight which this Diet has in the affahs of Europe, one cannot but smile to see the members walking in state every mornmg to the Diet in bag- wigs, cock ed hats, and dressed in black ; each preceded by two marshals in black, with their swords, and then- hats off, adorned with cloaks of rich variegated cloth. In contrast with all this, it is painful to think that the ancient independence of the Swiss Diet is supposed to be sinking before the influence of the Holy Alliance, which dictates to it the poh tical measures to be adopted, and wfll hear of no remonstrance. Switzerland will soon begin to de cay, if its noble spirit of Uberty be fled. It has just suspended the liberty of the press for a year, and enacted laws for banishing foreigners — steps which a century back no power in Europe could have induced the Swiss patriots to take. These false steps wfll infallibly lead on to worse ones. — To-day the Diet has suspended its sittings to at tend a national festival for wrestling ; a relic, and the only one in Europe, I suppose, of the wrestlers in repubhcan Rome. In the cathedral choh are displayed, during their sessions, the trophies gain ed in the fifteenth century, over Charles duke of Burgundy. The cathedral is a plain, but noble 36 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. building. Bern is so healthy, that from the year 1663 to 1700, out of 4225 deaths, there were 29 persons who died between 90 and 100, and 1081 between 70 and 90, years of age. Out of four in fants bom, one commonly attains the age of 70. Sunday evening, August 10.— I have this day had the most dehghtful Sunday since I left home. The French Protestant service began at ten. The church was crowded. The minister preached a most excellent sermon on sanctification as flow ing from our justification before God. At two o'clock there was a baptism of his child : the ser vice was pubhc. A liturgical office was read ; godfathers and godmothers named ; vows under taken ; and excellent prayers offered up. The in fant was dressed in white, in a sort of bag closed at the feet. The water was poured by the clerk from a silver ewer into the hand of the minister ; a sermon admirably good was then preached by a second minister. There is no solemn reading of the Scriptures in these French churches, which I think an essential defect, There is also very little pubhc confession of sin, or prayer. Indeed aU I see abroad raises my esteem of our English liturgy. The foreign churches, in their ardor to recede as far as possible from the church of Rome, seem to me to have too Uttle consulted the interests of devotion, and to have attended too exclusively to pubhc preaching. We are always in danger of extremes. The primitive church was in nothing more remarkable than in the spirit of contrition, meekness, and humility which pervaded it. The hidden life of the Chris tian was the main source of divine prh tiples and practice. The church of England, whe her true spirit is imbibed — her doctrines and her . evotional forms — her evangelical instructions, and her pray- ers-*-perhaps comes the nearest of aU the reform ed communities to the practice of the first Chris tians ; and is best adapted to such a creature as man. After the morning sermon, a curtain, which se parated an entire portion of the church opposite to the pulpit, was withdrawn, and lo, a popish al tar, with two chapels, and a pulpit ! For, the estabUshed religion being Lutheran, the Calvinists and Cathohcs use the same church. At half-past four, our feUow-traveUer preached us an exceUent sermon in our chamber. Thus the day has been refreshing to my mind. What a tender plant is reUgion in the human heart ! how soon does it wither ! what constant need of the heavenly dew ! Lord, be thou, by thy grace and Spirit, as the dew unto us ; renew, penetrate, soften, fructify, bless ! — I introduced myself to the two ministers here, and found them charming persons : they lent me the work of the converted priest ; the title is, " The Christian Confession of Faith, of the Pastor Henhofer, of Muhlhausen, who, with forty famiUes, his former hearers, turned from the Cathohc to the Evangehcal Lutheran Church : Sphe, 1823." Muhlhausen is a viUage belonging to the Baron Gemmingen. two mfles from the Baron's chateau at Steineyg, which is situated near Pforzheim, be tween Carlsruh and Stutgard. Monday morning. — The weather has now be come beautifully fine ; and my friend, and the lads and I, are going off to Thun and Lucerne, for what is caUed the Oberland Mountain Tour, for about ten or twelve days. We leave dear Mrs. W., the child, and our Swiss maid-servant here till we return : the traveUing on mules over moun tains is not suitable to theh state of health ; whilst I am assured it may exceedingly contribute to the further re-establishment of mine. FareweU ; may God preserve us all to his heavenly kingdom ! I am yours most affectionately, D. W. P. S. — I should have told you, that one of the most characteristic views of Swiss manners I have yet beheld, was from the window of our inn, the Falcon, on the main street of Bem. It was mar ket-day. The crowds of persons, each in the cos tume of theh neighborhood; theh strange ap pearance and language ; the variety of fruit and flowers exposed to sale ; the constant change in the groups moving before you ; the strong, heal thy, robust look of every creature ; the ah of in dependence and freedom in theh countenances, struck us with admhation. NOTICE OF THE PASTOR HENHOFER. I here subjoin some further particulars of the conversion of the pastor Henhofer, of whom I have made mention in another letter. I extract them from the " Archives du Christianisme," for 1824. M. Aloyx Henhofer was Catholic cure of the communes of Muhlhausen and Steineyg. In pro portion as he studied the sacred Scriptures, with a conscientious deshe to fulfil his pastoral duties, his preaching began to savor of the doctrine of Clirist ; and he gradually proclaimed the Gospel with so much unction and force, that multitudes came from the most distant villages to hear him. He was soon cited to appear before the Ecclesias tical Authorities at Bruchsal to give an account of his doctrines. It was on this occasion he pub lished the Confession to which I have alluded.— In this he declares, that aU the time he was cure of Muhlhausen he never said a word contrary to the principles of the Catholic church ; and when he preached against the abuse of ceremonies, it was only to combat the errors of some of his pa rishioners, who thought to satisfy theh consciences by merely observing the exterior forms of rehgion. The authorities of Bruchsal deprived him of his living ; declaring, that by bis " Confession" he had pronounced his own separation. The Baron de Gemmingen, lord of the parish, with all his household, and the cure Henhofer at the head of forty families, comprising about 220 persons, soon after pubhcly separated themselves from the church of Rome. They made a pro fession of theh faith in the evangehcal doctrines, in the Baronial chapel of Steineyg ; and then, as many of them as were adults, received the Holy Communion according to the rites adopted since the reunion of the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches. This affecting ceremony was cele brated in a Catholic country, in the midst of a crowd assembled from aU the neighboring places, with doors and windows open, without the sUghtest TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 37 interruption or disturbance — a proof of the excel lent temper which prevails between the two com munions in the Grand Duchy of Baden. As about half the parish of Muhlhausen re mained CathoUcs, and the new converts had of course no claim to the revenues of the Uving, nor to the use of the parish church, they have for the present joined themselves to the parish of Urbain de Pforzheim, and divine service is celebrated in the chapel of the castle of Steineyg. M. Henho fer has not at present thought it right to remain as theh pastor, on account of the umbrage it would give the CathoUcs. Nevertheless he was examined as a Protestant candidate, April 11, 1823, and was ordained the following day. He is a pious, calm, amiable man, who has acquired surprising influence by his personal character. — His publication has created a hvely sensation in Alsace, and the Cathohcs read it with even more eagerness than the Protestants. The Baron de Gemmingen has addressed a let ter to the inhabitants on his estate, from which I give an extract as a specimen of the truly evan gehcal principles on which his conversion rests. " Some have said, that the motive which has determined us to embrace the Evangehcal ReU gion is, that it is more convenient ; and that we should not have thought of it, if it had imposed more difficult duties. Such language can only proceedgfrom the most profound ignorance, and has no need of refutation with men of understand ing. Without doubt a Catholic, who knows no thing but his own church, may be led to think, in seeing the small number of rites practised in the evangehcal reUgion, that this reUgion is more easy, more convenient, according to the judgment of this world, than that of the church of Rome. But, my dear friends, the man who attaches himself only to the exterior of rehgion, who foUows the usages of such or such a church, without possess ing the interior hfe of grace, without having re ceived Christ into his heart, without ever seeing in him, his Redeemer, his only benefactor ; with out being penetrated with a gratitude towards him which inflames his whole soul, and which in creases in proportion as he discovers more his own corruption ; this man, to whatever commu nion he belongs, is an useless member of the body of Jesus Christ, a branch dried up, which cannot produce any abiding fruit. The interior hfe, or the new birth of the man, is the essential condi tion, without which no one can enter into the kingdom of God. Our Lord himself has explain ed this truth with great force in his conversation with Nicodemus by night. To put off the old man, to strive against one's passions, is a task more difficult than the observing of these exterior practices, from which interior Christianity has but too often suffered." Such are some of the circumstances of this re markable conversion. The Scriptures studied with humble prayer, seem, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, to have been the only guide. — May the same sacred book, in the hands of that Sphit, lead more and more, both of Catholic and Protestant pastors, to the true knowledge of Christ : soon would the wilderness of this world blossom and flourish, and the visible church regain its primitive hohness and glory. LETTER VIII. Lauterbrunnen, Aug. 12. — Grimsel, Aug. 17, 1823. View from Inn at Lauterbrunnen — LakeofThun — Interlacken — Unterseen — St. Beat — Staubbach — Anecdote — Wengen Alp — Chalets — Avalanches from Jungfrau — Grindelwald — Anecdotes — Gla ciers — Sheideck Alp — Miserably wet Journey — Reichen-bach — Valley of Meyringen — Lake of Brientz — Fall of Giessbach — Mud Torrents — Handeck — Grimsel— Sun day Reflections — Italian Nobleman — Lord Byron. Lauterbrunnen (Clear Fountains) in ihe Oberland of Bern, Tuesday, August 12, 1823, 44 miles from Bern. My dear sister — I am now sitting at the window of the saHe-a-manger at Lauterbrunnen. On the right hand of the view which is before me, the celebrated Staubbach, a faU of water of eight hundred feet, is descending in foam and spray ; the perpendicular rocks present no jutting shelves to break its fall ; it is a soft, gentle, elegant stream, the sport of every wind, and, as it reaches the earth, lost in vapor. Immediately beyond the nearer rocks which rise all around, the Breithom Alp, with its never-melting snows, rears its head ; it seems quite close to me, from the brightness of the snow, iUuminated with the afternoon sun ; but it is, in fact, twenty mfles off. Next in the pros pect a mountain appears with a streak or two of snow at the top ; and then the Jungfrau Alp, which is twelve thousand eight hundred and seven ty-two feet above the level of the sea, lifts its snowy top above the masses which hide my view of the rest of its vast form. In the ne arer ground are the cotta ges of the vfllage, creeping up the habitable parts of the hflls, and interspersed with beautiful meadows and foliage ; whilst the roaring of the Lutschinen river, which roUs through the valley, alone breaks the deep silence which reigns all around, and com bines, with its noble cascades, just under my eye on my left hand, to complete one of the most beautiful and majestic views imaginable. The scenes of Zurich and Basle must yield in attraction and grandeur to this ; for here the rudest and most savage mountain-prospect is united with the eter nal snows of the Alps, and the sweetest picturesque home-scenery. You would wonder that I could write thus cheerfully, or even write at all, if you knew that I have been twenty mfles or more in a smaU country car this morning, exploring the beau ties of the valley, of a single point of which, as seen from the inn, I am now speaking ; my senses are overpowered with wonders. My friend, the two boys, and I, left Bern yester day in a hired car, and came on to Thun, fifteen miles, where we embarked on the lake of that name, and reached Interlacken at seven. The lake is itself one thousand seven hundred and eighty feet above the level of the sea, and is embosomed in the midst of the Alps, which raise theh lofty sum mits in aU directions. It is esteemed one of the most beautiful in this romantic country. We stop ped in our voyage to ascend to the cavern of St, Beat ; a dark cave which hes on the side of the lake, and is said to go a league under the; earth. A river gushes through it. The popular tradition is, that in the first century, the earliest Christian 38 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. missionary to Helvetia finished his days and was buried here. We landed at Neuhaus, hired ano ther car, and passed through Unterseen, one of the most romantic towns we have visited. We slept at Interlacken, which lies between the lakes of Thun and Brientz, and affords a view of a pro digious chain of Alps from the Haslerberge to the Niesen. The situation of the viUage is most love ly ; but the place has much faUen off during the last four or five years — the inn bad — the walks overgrown with weeds — every thing neglected. Even the walnut-trees, once the finest in Switzer land, seem to languish. We set off to Lauterbrunnen this morning at seven ; and on entering the valley were astonish ed at every step, at the scenes which opened be fore us. When he approached the Staubbach (dust-stream) we found it was composed of an im mense mass of water which the great height dis perses as it falls. After proceeding in the car two leagues, we ascended on foot an enormous rock, for an hour and a half, to see the cascade of Schflt- waldbach, rushing between two mountains with a surprising force. It would have amused you to see our faint and weary steps toiling up the rock under a burning sun ; I was the worst of the party, and leant most heavily on the arm of the guide. When we reached the top, some cold chamois and beef, with water from the stream, dashed with eau de cerise, served to recruit our strength. We lay along on the grass or rocks, under the shade of an overhanging mountain, for more than an hour, con templating the new scenes before us, and medita ting on the greatness and goodness of our heavenly Father apparent in the operations of his hands — " O Lord, how wonderful are thy works ; in wisdom hast thou made them aU ; the earth is full of thy riches." On our return, we saw another cascade, not equal in height to the Staubbach, but surpassing it in other respects. An immense body of water pours, or rather dashes, out of an aperture, which it seems to have opened in the side of the rock ; the foam is so greati, that two rainbows are formed by its spray ; one near the ground, the other at its first rushing upon the edge of the aperture, per haps one hundred feet up the rock. As we were coming home, our guide, who speaks Enghsh, said to us, " Shs, do you see the row of firs growing on that shelf about eight hundred feet from the ground, just below the summit of the rock over against ts 1 " — " Yes." — "Last winter, a cottager hearing that his goats were on that ridge, went down after them ; it was in January,' and snow covered aU its surface ; he trod on a stone which had ice under the thin snow ; the stone gave way as he trod ; he shpped, fell, and was UteraUy dashed to pieces." Such are the tremendous accidents perpetually occurring in Switzerland. We were petrified with horror. May we be ever ready for death, whether it meet us by some unexpected calamity, or steal gradually upon us ! Such is man's self-flattery, that in point of fact, death comes unawares on most.* * I have often reflected on the admission of Gib bon1 ttiat the possibility of unusual and sudden modes of death should not be without its influence on the mind.; " MtLjiuffon," he says, " from our disregard of the In the pairsh of Lauterbrunnen (the sweet httle church is just below) there are three hamlets, Murron, Grindelwald, and Wengen, on the top of the mountain ; they are about five thousand feet above the sea, and contain thirty houses each, where the cattle are fed during the summer. The old people of seventy and eighty come regularly to church every Sunday, three or four leagues, when the weather aHows ; for during nearly six months, the whole parish is covered with snow, and tor rents roll down every path. The people are Pro testants ; but there is an ah of untidiness and roughness about them, arising from theh manner of life. The cottagers gain sevenpence halfpenny a day and theh food. A farm-house, with all kinds of rooms and offices, can be buflt for about six hundred francs, twenty-three pounds ; but then it is all of wood. The river here is a cascade of snow-water, flowing from the glaciers above ; a thick, dirty, foaming stream. The people eat no bread, but Uve on potatoes, milk, and cheese, with meat occasionaUy. These mountains produce nei ther corn nor wine. The hay-harvest is now beginning, August 12th. The inn at Lauterbrun nen is extremely good : far, far better than that at Interlacken. The landlord was butler to the celebrated Madame de Stael. Wednesday, August 13th, 1823, Grindelwald, 5 afternoon. — Wfll you beheve that we have actu aUy crossed one of the fearful Alps to-day! By nine o'clock this morning we had traveUed three hours, and were seated on the roof of a chalet (a hut) taking our early dinner. You may judge of the height we had reached, when I say, that for three hours we mounted almost perpendicularly, as fast as our horses and mules could carry us ; we had, in fact, ascended six thousand feet above the level of the sea. Before us was the Jungfrau Alp, with only one unbroken vaUey between us ; it is of the enormous height just mentioned ; * but from the chalet it appeared even loftier than it had done at Lauterbrunnen, because all intervening objects were removed. Our view from the roof of the chalet was most magnificent. On our extreme right was the Silver Horn Alp, with an unvaried cap of snow. On our left was the Monk Alp ; and last, the Eiger Alp. Before us was the Jungfrau or Virgin Alp, so called, because no human foot has ascended it. It appeared in inexpressible dignity, and seemed to command proudly all the neighbor ing summits. We could clearly discern on it the Une of perpetual snow; the crags and shelves ; the precipitous sides ; the glaciers and torrents. As we were eating quite gaily our meat and bread, with milk which the herdsman brought us, and were admiring the sublime scenery around possibility of death wih tin the four-and-twenty hours, concludes that a chance which falls below or rises above ten thousand to one, will never affect the fears of a reasonable man. The fact is true, but our cou rage is the effect of thoughtlessness, rather thanof re flection. If a public lottery were drawn for the choice of an immediate victim, and if our name were in scribed on one of the ten thousand tickets, should we be perfectly easy 1 " How strikingly is this applicable to the subjeet of religion ; and how much does it illustrate the wisdom of habitual preparation for death ! * 12,872 feet. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 39 us, wliich the superb fineness of the day greatly augmented, we suddenly heard a sound hke dis tant thunder — we started — the guide told us it was an avalanche, or faU of a body of snow, from a lofty, precipitous ridge of the Jungfrau, to the next projecting cliff below. We turned round, and could see nothing — we resumed our meal. Soon the guide with the utmost eagerness bade us look towards the place to which he pointed — we now saw an immense body of snow rushing down to the shelf beneath — in an instant we again heard a noise like a tremendous clap of thunder — the more startling from the perfect stillness on the face of nature — our food involuntarily quiver ed in our hands — the impression for the moment was alarming — a kind of apprehension seized our minds for which we could scarcely account. The fact is, the snow which we beheld in its faU was an amazing mass ; and the depth of its descent was at least a thousand feet ; whilst the report of the concussion was greatly increased by the echo. We saw, after two or three great avalanches, the loaded snow on the lower shelf begin to flow down like a river into the valley beneath. These avalanches, when they fall near the pubUc roads, which is often the case, are most destructive and dangerous. But it is time for me to teU you that we rose at half-past four this morning, and at six were in cavalcade on two horses and two mules, with a guide, and two servants to bring back the beasts ; aU hired over-night for the passage of the Alps, the guides at six francs a day, the animals nine — our bags were tied on behind us ; the guides car ried our staves, umbrettas, and provisions. My eldest lad went first, then our kjndfeUow-traveUer, each on a mule ; my younger son and I foUowed on horses. We ascended by a narrow winding path, sometimes by steps, then across a quag, then over a little champaign country, but mostly over loose stones. After an hour's ride, we had ascended tliree thousand four hundred and fifty feet, (Lauterbrunnen, where we slept, is two thou sand four hundred and fifty feet above the sea,) and passed a viUage of about forty houses, buflt of wood, occupied by small proprietors of land, and peasants. After two hours' further ride, we reach ed the chalet of wliich I have spoken ; we were then on the top of the Wengen Alp — for every Alp has its name. These chalets are inhabited for three months and a half only of the year, by farmers' servants, who first drive up theh cattle by the same road we came, and then feed them there during the sum mer, and make cheese of the milk. The chalets are wretched sheds, of beams uncut, without chimneys, the roof of wood, secured by rows of large rough stones. The people Uve on milk and cheese, and have a sad, unhealthy look. No oc cupation can be imagined more solitary and de plorable. But the Swiss peasant can read, and the Bible can cheer, and, I trust, in many instan ces, does cheer, his lonely hours. We stayed nearly two hours at the place to rest the beasts, as well as ourselves. Soon after eleven, we began to descend, when the inconveniences we had found in our ascent, were nothing compared with what we now had to experience. I can only liken it to the going down the roof of a house. The ter ror was increased by the additional feehng, that bridles were useless, and that you must give your animal his head. The edges of precipices, rivers, narrow bridges of only two beams, stones yielding to the foot, gaps of road descending by steps — you could not help yourseK The guide told you it was nothing ; the animals went on at the rate of three mfles an hour unconcerned, stopping to crop the grass and flowers as they passed ; and, after three hours and a half of descent, we were landed safely at the valley of Grindelwald. This valley is three thousand one hundred and fifty feet above the sea — about the height, I think, of Snowdon in Wales.* As we were coming down to it, we ob served a wide-spread desolation ; trees torn up by the roots and stripped ; meadows covered with smaU rock or dust; the road obstructed; vast masses of stone between us and the nearest Alp, the Wetter-horn : we inquired the cause. A dreadful mass had burst off from the rock last win ter, during the night, and had literally destroyed every thing which it met in its course ; happily no Uves were lost. No words can describe the scenes of this day. How great must that God be who formed aU these wonders, and who sustains them aU ! " Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man that thou visitest him ? " The people here are Protestants, and each parish has a church. As we ascended to Wengen, the women and chil dren came out and sung us a hymn very sweetly. The beauty and magnificence of nature could not but heighten our feelings of religious awe, grati tude, and love. Devotion seemed to be aided by the majectic temple by which we were surrounded. The inn is just under the Mettenberg Alp. The weather yesterday and to-day has been the finest since we left England ; not a cloud, and yet not too hot ; twenty parties have crossed the Wengen Alp this summer, ladies as weU as gentlemen. The snow has faUen, so lately as this month, about twenty-three feet deep. I forgot to teU you, that two of our beasts were named Gabby and Manny ; for a long time we supposed these were the real names ; at last our guide rather shocked us by saying, that the first was caUed Gabriel, and the second Immanuel ! Our journey to-day was twenty-one mfles, in eight hours and a half. We have now a simple luxury of the most refreshing kind ; ice in a basin, wliich we put into our wine or milk, and which gives a coolness quite surpris ing, now that the thermometer is eighty. The ice comes from a neighboring glacier, which wo visit ed this afternoon, tired as we were. It was the first glacier we had seen, and a most astonishing siglnWan inclined plane of a league or more, covered with congealed snow, ice, and water, according as the summer sun, the heat of the earth, the storms, and the rush of superincum bent matter, have been more or less. From this plain, the glacier descends a precipice or ravine, filling up the cavity, with the same combined ma terials of snow, ice, and water, till it reaches the vattey of Grindelwald, where we saw it. It ap peared to us an enormous rock of cleft masses of ice, perhaps one hundred feet above the earth, with caverns worn by the water at the bottom. * Mr. Pennant fixes the height of Snowdon at 3568 feet. 40 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. From this sort of caverns the snow-rivers rush from which the Rhine, Rhone, &c. are suppUed. A Swiss Protestant minister was lost here a few years back, by incautiously stooping to examine a gaping fissure. He lost his balance, and in one instant perished. In the year 1790, the innkeeper at Grindelwald, named Christian Boren, feU into a crevice, as he was conducting his flock of sheep from Baniseck. Happily he sunk near the great torrent which flows within the glacier ; and fol lowing its bed underneath the caverns of ice, ar rived at length, almost by a mhacle, at the foot of the glacier, with only one arm broken. He Uved many years after. Every thing in Switzerland is mixed up with sudden catastrophes. Thursday evening, August 14, Meyringen, chief place cf the Valley of Hasli, in the canton of Bern. We have had a completely wet morning ; four hours' ride over the same sort of unaccountable road as yesterday, with the gratifying accompani ments of being soaked with rain, and of having the beauties of the journey entirely obscured from our view by the clouds. The day promised to be pretty fine when we started at six this morn ing, and continued wdthout rain as we ascended the Sheideck Alp, (six thousand and forty-five feet above the level of the sea ;) but when we came to the brow, instead of enjoying a view of the beautiful vaUey of Meyringen, we found our selves enveloped in thick clouds which rose in masses from below, and met us full in the face. We had three umbrellas ; but these, on horseback, with a pelting rain, were not of much use ; our great coats were, however, of essential service. We rested about an hour at a wretched hut, only better than a chalet. The eau de vie de Cognac, with which our guide was furnished, was a real benefit to us in this emergency, as weU as the hot milk we obtained bere. We mounted again in woful plight, for three hours more of rain, fog, clouds, swolen rivers. As we approached Meyrin gen, our guide, without saying a word, directed us across a meadow to visit some cascades, as calmly as if nothing had happened ! They were grand enough ; but my sad state of wet and fatigue deprived me of all pleasure in the sight. The fact, however, is, that the Reichen-bach, rotting with a fine stream, pours into the valley of Mey ringen by five cascades of eighty or one hundred feet each, and then joins the Aar, which flows tlirough Meyringen. I must tell you, disconsolate as I am, that soon after we left Grindelwald we came to the second or upper glacier; for there are two at that place. We alighted and went on the enormous flakes of ice : the water was dropping all around ; and when we came off them, we could see the hoHows which the water had scooped out under neath. As we went on our way, we had a stfll better view of these moutnains of ice from above. They are the most remarkable things we have seen ; the upper one has advanced, that is, in vaded the land, two thousand feet in the last twenty years. The tradition of Grindelwald is, that there were formerly fertile vaUeys in the spot now choked up with these masses of ice. Gla ciers, says M. Ebel, are, in the first instance, vast beds of ice formed above the limits of perpetual snow, and which are sometimes enclosed in tlie valleys of the high mountains, and there held im movably ; and sometimes, when they are not held there, descend by the sides of the vaUeys. This motion is produced, in part, by the weight of the ice, which draws it on when it loses its equili brium ; but chiefly, by the melting and diminution of the ice beneath, and on the sides, where the glacier (or body of ice) touches the earth or rocks. The glacier, thus losing its centre of gravity, bursts asunder with a dreadful noise, and ghdes down the declivity tfll it finds a new support. There are about 400 in the chain of Alps from Mount Blanc to the Tyrol ; covering a space of about 1000 square miles : the depth of which varies from 100 to 600 feet. Meyringen, Friday, August 15. — This morning, instead of the guide calling us at four o'clock, he did not come to our rooms till half-past seven. The clouds and heavy rain had gained us this prolonged repose. Ten hours' sleep was by no means disagreeable to us. After breakfast, the day cleared up a Uttle, and we hired a car, and drove nine mfles, to the lake of Brientz. The vaUey of Meyringen, through wliich we passed, is esteemed one of the most beautiful of aU the Swiss vaUeys ; the rocks on each side are so lofty, the intervening vale so lovely (about one or two miles broad,) the outline so variegated — but the special beauty is the number of cascades descending the sides of the overhanging cliffs, and divided into separate falls. At one spot, we had in vie w at the same time four or five cascades, each falling one or two hundred feet. The vil lage of Brientz is romanticaUy situated on the lake, with one thousand five hundred inhabitants ; two good inns, and a third unfinished. In fact, the visitors to Switzerland, since the peace, are multiplying, and improving the inns every where. We took a boat to cross the lake, and visit the faU of the Giessbach, about two mfles. We were rowed by an old woman near seventy, her daugh ter, and her Uttle grand-daughter, about eight or ten years old ; one man steering. The Giess bach descends from the Schwarzhorn Alp, and is one of the finest cataracts we have seen ; it has ten separate descents, the beauty of which is heightened by scenery the most varied and ro mantic. At two or three points of view, we had the impetuous torrents on our left, reheved by a foreground of the most picturesque foliage, and contrasted with the soft tranquillity of the lake on our right ; while the head of the faU was con cealed by lofty firs. As we returned, the owner of the adjoining land, with his children, enter tained us with some delightful music. A New Testament was in the room. It is, indeed, most pleasing to find, throughout this country, Bibles and books of devotion : I saw in a miserable cha let on the mountain, yesterday, Arndt's excellent work on True Christianity. AU places are alike to the God and Father of all ; and some of these simple peasants, perhaps, who know nothing but their Bibles and theh mountains, may be happier than most of the inhabitants of Paris or London. Christianity is a universal blessing for ruined man ; and to trace its effects and encourage in some degree, however smaU, its professed fol lowers in obeying it, is one of the noblest duties of an Enghshman on a foreign tour. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 41 I should teU you, that it is on the borders of the lake of Brientz that some of those tremendous torrents of moistened clay rush from the Alps, and carry every thing before them. They are formed by the pools of water coUected in the clayey portions of the rocks, which accumulate tfll they burst theh barriers. In 1797, thirty- seven houses and a great number of gardens and meadows were literally buried under one of these turbid muddy streams. The vfllagers of Schwen- di and Hochstetten escaped only by going up on the most elevated part of the roofs of their houses. The lake was several months in recovering its usual purity. Saturday, August 16, three o'clock, afternoon. — We are just arrived on the wildest of all the Swiss mountains, the Grimsel, six thousand feet above the sea ; twenty-four mfles from Meyringen. We are at a lone house, caUed the Hospice, and the only one for ten more long mountainous leagues. The danger of not meeting beds was, therefore, so alarming, that we sent on a courier this morning at three o'clock to engage rooms. The man had gone the eight leagues on, foot, and had returned about three of them, when we met him, at one o'clock ; that is, he had run, or walk ed, thirty-three mfles in ten hours, over a road, which if you had seen, you would have thought that none but goats could pass. We have been nine hours and a quarter going, on horses and mules, the twenty-four mfles. Nothing more sur prises me than the inexhaustible variety of grand outline and beautiful scenery in this wonderful Switzerland. But I find it is one thing to have some relish for the beauties of nature, and another to be able to describe them. I am altogether in capable of the task. We have, in fact, passed to-day, a country quite as deserving to be seen as any thing we have already visited, and yet utterly different. The character of the vaUey of the Aar is wild and sa vage grandeur ; desolation upon desolation ; a road, or rather crag, which aU the sagacity of our mules could scarcely overcome ; sometimes, rude stone steps ; then, the smooth sUppery back of a rock ; then, loose pebbles ; then, quagmire ; then, enormous sharp stones, from which the winter torrents had worn away all the earth, and left only holes for the beasts to tread in. Stfll upon this road, the mules passed with perfect safety. We followed the course of the Aar the whole of the way, which 'forms continual cascades, foaming furiously over rocks which frequently almost fill up its bed. By, the bye, I found that our mules had been this road thirty or forty times already, and this encouraged us to set off; and most am ply have we been rewarded. The fall of the Aar, called the Handeck, is magnificent indeed. The body of water is immense, another river uniting with it at the fall ; and the peculiarity is, that a scooped rock, or rather a narrow basin, or chasm of rocks, opens an abyss of two hundred feet to receive the torrent. To look down it made me quite giddy. We are now so high, that it is ex cessively cold, though the sun shines, and we 'eft Meyringen at a thermometer about seventy. We had, indeed, passed over ground as high both on Wednesday and Thursday ; but this is the first time we have stopt at such an elevation. Our friend has not accompanied us, as he passed the Grimsel four years ago, and he wished to improve the time, by visiting some places new to him. My dear sons and I, with two mules, a horse, a guide, and a servant who tends the mules, are now the whole party. I must, before I finish to-day, translate for you a Latin note out of the strangers' book here : "We were first overcome by heat and fatigue ; then, by rain, wind, cold, and the badness of the roads ; we came here without having seen what we traveUed on purpose to see ; and aU hope of better weather being lost, we departed, imprecating every thing evil against mount Grimsel." Such is the angry record of two gentlemen, one from Petersburgh, the other from Leipsic. Sunday, August 17. — This is my ninth Sunday, and we are in a situation the most desolate and gloomy, as to outward things, possible — in a lone house, twelve mountain miles from any church — not a tree nor shrub to be seen — nothing but bar ren rocks piled one upon another — not a creature that understands Enghsh, and only one who un derstands French. Stfll, if God is with us, it is enough. We have our morning service, in a quiet, tranquil room, with a fire, (for it is just like a keen December day ;) using as many of the church prayers as I could remember — for we have only a pocket bible with us— reading some psalms and lessons, and closing with a sermon, or rather ex position. We then went to take a Uttle turn to warm our feet ; and now my dear sons are em ployed in writing on a subject which I have given them, till our afternoon service. I cannot do bet ter than foUow theh example. The first reflection that occurs to me, whilst meditating in this solitude, is the greatness and goodness of that God who upholds and governs afl this wfld and stupendous scene around us — that God who "sits on the chcle of the heavens," and before whom " the mountains are as nothing." But aU this divine glory in nature is accompanied with marks of his wrath ; the effects of the con vulsions of the deluge are every where visible — the fountains of the great deep have been broken up, the mountains have been rent asunder, the earth has been shaken out of its place. How good, then, is our heavenly Father, who stfll spares a wicked and ungrateful world, which he has shown that he could instantly destroy ; nay, farther, how much more gracious is He, who, in stead of destroying the world as it deserves, has given his only-begotten Son, to offer himself up as a sacrifice for our sins ! May the works of crea tion ever lead up our minds to God in Jesus Christ our Lord ! It is thus that our Saviour teaches us to employ aU the objects of nature, in his divine discourses. The next thought that strikes my mind is, the many blessings which have accompanied my family and me on this journey. Every thing has turned out for our good ; the weather has cooled the season, and made our traveUing safe and agreeable ; delays have proved benefits. Ever since we set off we have had blessing upon bless ing. In the next place, how unspeakable is the com fort of prayer ! Wherever I am, my family can pray for me, and I can pray for my family. 42 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. The "throne of grace" is accessible at aU times, and in all places. My dear Mrs. W. and chfld now at Bern, my affectionate mother and famfly at London, my large and beloved flock at St. John's, are united to me by the bond of prayer ; aU may confer benefits and receive them, by in tercession to that God who is every where present and has aU things in his hands. Again, let me reflect on the duty of content ment and gratitude ; I see nothing abroad, but what makes me more thankful for the lot Provi dence has appointed i*e at home. Switzerland is beautiful to visit in a summer tour ; but England is the happier land in aU respects, ifshe knew her privileges. Consider the famfly in this inn. In July last, the snow was twenty-three feet deep behind the house. For nine months in the year, the family are compeUed to leave it to a man and two dogs, and go down to the plain of Meyringen ; and when they are here in the summer, they have to pass twenty-four mfles of steep mountain road, whenever they go to church. Once more, let me make a remark on the place itself where I am writing. It is catted an Hospice or Spital. It was enlarged last year with eleven new rooms by tlie government of Bern ; and the innkeeper is obUged to entertain stran gers, to receive the poor gratis, and keep the house open aU the winter, for fear any traveUers should be passing. May not this remind me of that true hospice and refuge, which our Saviour has set up in the Gospel, for the wandering tra veUer'! The names of the persons who enlarged this house are painted in great characters on the watt of the dining-room ; should not this teach me to engrave, as it were, the Saviour's name on the tablet of my heart, and record the memory of his grace there 1 Further, let me consider the charity with which we should regard these simple people. The poor cottagers come from Munen, six leagues, six thousand feet of descent and ascent, to Lau terbrunnen church, even when seventy or eighty years old. Many of the houses have not only the names of the builder, but texts of Scripture, writ ten on the outside. In a small inn at Guttanen, four leagues off, where we stopped yesterday, I found inscriptions on each side of the door of the chamber ; one of which was to this effect, " On God's grace and good blessing, aU man's success depends ; and without his help and mercy, aU man's doings are vain." I find in this inn, the Grimsel, a very exceUent book of prayers, and a pious French tract ; given, probably, by the Basle Tract Society. There are a man and his wife and seven children here, and six servants. I have been talk ing to the only daughter, who understands French, and have given her a Testament ; she was very attentive to what I said, and asked me if I knew Dr. Steinkopff, whom she saw some years ago. I am far from dwelling on such small circum stances ; but surely they may lead us to hope, that God our Saviour has many true disciples in these wfld deserts — many who love, and fear, and obey him in simpUcity of heart. The most enlarged charity is ever the duty of a traveUer. Lastly, I cannot but reflect on the unspeakable importance of Englishmen acting consistently as Christians, when abroad. We- met here last night, at supper, (at five) an Itahan nobleman, a Florentine, and two English gentlemen of family ; to-day, though it is Sunday, all have gone on theh journey. Now, if every Englishman would but keep holy the Sabbath, and show what the Pro testant religion is, in his conduct, unnumbered blessings might fottow. The Itahan nobleman seemed a man of reading and acuteness. He spoke rather contemptuously of the Pope, and the supposed designs of the see of Rome. He was acquainted with our English history, and did not conceal his admhation of our free constitution, on which he offered some comments that showed an independent, discriminating mind. In short, he discoursed without reserve on every subject that was started. EspeciaUy he joined in abhorrence of the principles of lord Byron. He admitted the charms of his poetry ; but there seemed to be a strong impression on his mind that such a man was reaUy most pernicious and despicable. I was glad to hear him say, that no persons of character in Italy or elsewhere would associate with him. It is impossible to foresee what good might be done by the ten or fifteen thousand British travel lers who are scattered over Europe, if they acted an open, kind, consistent, religious part, as they ought ; but if they are ashamed of theh principles, and conform, one in one thing, and another in an other, to the wrong practices of the Continent, they share in its guilt, and, indeed, are answerable for afl the evil which they might have prevented, or remedied, by the manly discharge of theh duty as servants of Christ. I am yours most affectionately, D. W. LETTER IX. Furca Alp, August 18. — Bern, August 2A, 1823. Glacier of Rhone — Furca Alp — Realp — Capuchin Friar — Hospital — Cold — Valley of Reuss —De vil's Bridge — Amstag— New Road— Altorf— Wil liam Tell — Fluellen — Lake of four Cantons — Switz — Mount Righi — Storm — Mount Pilate- Ruin of Goldau — Stranger's Book — King of Eng land — Italians and Russians — Kusnacht — Lucem — William Tell — Wooden Bridges — Pere Girard — Luther — Zofingen — Herzogenbuchs — Bern — Sunday — Fast — English Service — Government of Bern and England. Hospital of Hopendal, {place for ihe recep tion of strangers and travellers,') at the foot of Mount St. Golhard, in the Canton of Uri, Monday, Aug. 18, 1823. We set off| my dear sister, this morning, from the Hospice of the Grimsel, at a quarter before six : the morning was duU, but without rain for some time. As we ascended the remaining part of the Grimsel Alp, we looked behind us and saw a thick white cloud completely filling the valley, and rising graduaUy up the mountain. We had nearly three thousand feet to go before we reach ed the summit, by a road far worse than any we had yet passed. We had continuaUy to cross masses of snow, quagmires, and torrents without bridges. We had stones in the manner of 6tahs TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 43 on Saturday, but to-day we had stones in the manner of falls and pits ; so that when the mules stepped down, it was with a plunge : we had, also, many shppery backs of rocks. You may judge of the sort of difficulties by, this circumstance, that as soon as we began to descend, we were obhged to alight, and walk down the whole of this fright ful Alp. Immediately in the valley between the Grimsel and the Furca Alps is the glacier of the Rhone, which has its source here. This glacier far sur passes in extent and grandeur those at Grindel wald — it is as if an immense sea, when rushing down the valley, had been suddenly turned into ice, with aU its agitations. I conjecture, from my eye, that it may be about eight hundred or one thousand feet wide, four thousand long, and five or six hundred deep. Imagine yourself only at the foot of such a sea of broken ice, from beneath which twenty or more turbid snow-streams are bursting out, which form the Rhone. As soon as we had crossed the valley, through which the Rhone passes, we began to ascend the Furca Alp, eight thousand eight hundred and eighty feet above the level of the sea, and two thousand eight hundred and eighty above the Hospice where we had slept. As we mounted up, another glacier appeared on our right. The cold was yet more intense than on the Grimsel. Our Umbs were completely benumbed. The rain also now began to faU, so that we lost the noble view of the distant Alps, which in fine weather is incomparably grand. As soon as we had reached the top, we were obhged to alight and descend, not a mountain of earth, but an immense mountain of snow, over which we slid and walked as weU as we could.— I can quite understand now, why the snow is per petual on the higher Alps : we were almost frozen at eight thousand feet ; what, then, must be the intensity of cold, at twelve or thirteen thousand feet! After a journey of fire hours and a half (four of which were in the rain), we reached the first inha bited house, the hospice of Realp. When we came to the door, I was surprised to see the guide ring the bell, and then humbly take off his hat, when the door opened ; and much more to see a venerable Capuchin friar come out with a long beard, a brown garment of the coarsest cloth, reaching to his feet, with a large hood hanging behind, and girded round his waist with a thick common cord ; whilst a deep fritt of coarse linen feU a good way down his breast. He wore no stockings, and only rough sandals on his feet. — He came gravely up to us. He could not speak French ; but his look was benignant, and he show ed us into his room with much courtesy, brought us a bottle of a light sweet Itahan wine, spread a cloth for us, and then retired, whilst we ate the provisions we had brought with us. As we were dripping wet, we begged to have the wine made hot : it was done in the most comfortable manner possible. We had time during dinner to look round the room — furniture old, but convenient — figures of our Saviour — a printed Ust, several feet long, of the abbots of his order — holy water — a stove — and in a very smaU cupboard his hbrary and bed. I tried to make the friar understand me in Latin, but without success. We paid for our 55—1 entertainment, gave something for the poor, set off again about twelve, and came on here, two leagues, making twenty-four miles, which, with the Alps and the rain, made a formidable day's journey. We are now at a comfortable inn at the small CathoUc vfllage of Hospital, in the canton of Uri, four thousand five hundred and forty-nine feet above the sea, (therefore, cold enough, I assure you,) with thirty-four houses, a church, and chapel. At the top of the viUage stands a half-ruined castle, which once belonged to the lords of the Hospital, or hospice ; for aU the vfllages on these Alps seem to have been designed as refuges for travellers. — Through the village flows the arm of tlie Reuss river, which springs from the Furca glacier.— The viUage is on the road for Mount St. GOthard. The weather has been unfavorable to-day, but we have had no fogs to obscure materiaUy our pros pect, either of the glaciers, or of the wfld scenery through which we have passed ; only we lost the view of the distant Alps. We have now overcome one of the grand diffi culties of the Swiss tourist, the passage of the Grimsel and the Furca. The boy who went with my friend to Stanz returned to us last night, say ing that his master was weary of the passage of tlie mountains, and had sent him and the horse back, determined to make his way to Lucern by cars or by the Lake. In these mountainous places the weather is commonly bad. Hospital is the highest pubhc inhabited vfllage in Switzer land ; and the inn-keeper's brief description of the weather is, that they have frost and snow for nine months in the year, and rain for the remain ing three. There are no trees in this valley, not even the hardy fir ; all is one wfld surface, with out fohage. Every stick of wood for domestic use is brought up some leagues, from Amstag. The cows and goats feed on the grass, which just now looks a little pleasant ; but even these animals have a wild, rough appearance, especially the cows. The lakes here are too cold for fish. The poor inhabitants of this, and other villages around, suffered extremely during the war. The Austrians and French fought in the very streets of Hospital ; our innkeeper tetts me the scenes were dreadful beyond description. How frightful and horrible is this to all our best feelings and ha bits ! How implacable is the ambition of man ! What a scene must it have been, to behold the natural terrors of the Alps aggravated by the mi series of war ! But so it is. There is hardly a rock or precipice in Switzerland, which has not been the spot of desperate conflict. Surely, an Enghsh traveller cannot hear of these things, and reflect on the events of the late revolutionary war, without some gratitude to God, for having exempt ed his happy country from such calamities. And the gratitude wfll be increased by comparing the climate and general circumstances of these Alpine regions, with those of his native land. Hospital, Tuesday morning, 7 o'clock. — For so long the weather has aUowed us to rest. We have had an exceUent night; we were in bed about half-past eight. These dinners at eleven, and suppers at five, suit us. I never was better in my hfe. The breakfast is now coming in, and the weather has suddenly cleared up ; so that the 44 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. sun is mounting over the Alps before our window, and is throwing this romantic village into a beau tiful picture of Ught and shade — and hurries us off for our day's journey. Amstag, one o'clock, Valley of the Reuss, sixteen miles from Hospital. — I am now Bitting, faint with heat, at one of the windows of the dining haU of the inn, with a burning sun fuU on the four open windows of the room ; — such is the effect of a de scent of two or three thousand feet in this marvel lous country — yesterday as cold as Christmas, to day as hot as Midsummer. But this is nothing ; I must positively employ half an hour, while dinner is preparing, in giving you some idea, if I can, of the extraordinary vaUey tlirough which we have been passing. It is catted, by the inhabitants, Krachen- thaL Roaring VaUey, on account of the tremendous noise with which the Reuss rushes from rock to rock. It is certainly one of the wonders of Swit zerland. We rode about two miles, on leaving the Hos pital, in the wide open valley, without a tree, the Reuss rolling along its course ; when we came to a mighty rock, wliich seemed quite to stop the road. As we approached, we found a tunnel or gallery had been bored through the sohd granite, fifteen feet high, twelve broad, and two hundred and twenty long. This is better than the bridge hung with chains, and dangling on the outside of the rock over the torrent, which was the old road. We now descended by a narrow paved way, ten feet wide, to what it caUed the Devil's Bridge, thrown over the faU of the Reuss, which here meets with tremendous precipices, and foams as it rushes down them. The bridge seems buflt in the ah, from its elevation and boldness; itis one hundred feet above the river. Its span is seventy-five feet, and the faU of the Reuss under it, in a slanting dhection, is at least three hundred feet. The architect is not known ; and the extreme frightfulness of the cataract over which it is thrown, has probably led the common people to ascribe it to fairies first, and then to the evil spirit. The scene is, perhaps, unparaUeled for sublimity and terror. The road after this continues to descend the valley, like stairs for steepness. It is built against the perpen dicular rock, and sustained in many places by arches and waUs on the side of frightful gulfs. For a league this miraculous sort of tract extends. During aU this time the roaring Reuss continues toroU its agitated torrent. I think this is the most romantic of all the Swiss rivers. It never ceases its rage. From rock to rock, from precipice to pre cipice, it dashes forward, with a succession of falls ; sometimes lost among the masses of stone, then appearing again in redoubled force. We soon came to Goeschinen, where a new road, passable for carriages, begins, and goes on nearly four leagues, to Amstag, the place where I am now writing. It is a surprising undertaking for a smaU Swiss canton, (Uri) to have formed a road, twenty-five feet wide, by the labor of several thou sand hands in three years ; I know nothing in England like it for hardy and dangerous enterprise. It is as smooth as our Bath road ; and has been formed by blowing up rocks, dividing places dan gerous to traveUers, throwing bridges over the torrents, (there are seven or eight) stfll keeping the wchuation so gentle, that it descends only about seven feet in one hundred. Conceive our delight in witnessing this bold undertaking, espe ciaUy when you consider that the vaUey itself is one of the most picturesque we have yet seen ; noble mountains ; the river winding, now its fright ful, and then its gentle, course ; ravines intersect ing the valley, and carrying down the smaUer tor rents ; meadows and orchards delighting the eye as we descended lower ; a forest of firs, varying the scenery for a mile or more ; villages, with theh Uttle chapels, now and then appearing : the whole augmented by one of the finest days nature ever presented to man, with a gentle north wind to mo derate the heat. I was grieved to see that in many places the new road was already injured by the torrents and falling masses of rocks, so that a con stant expense wfll be incurred — but dinner inter rupts my story. I resume my letter at Altorf, ihe capital of the canton qf Uri, half-past seven, Tuesday evening, after a ride of three hours and a half. I was speak ing of the expense and labor which this new road will require, and wliich heighten the merit of the enterprise. I should add, that it very much protects passengers from the danger of the avalanches from the mountains, which were often destructive. Such was the terror of them, that formerly traveUers were not aUowed to speak in certain parts of the road, lest even that slight agitation of the ah should occa sion a faU of snow.* It further facilitates the im mense traffic carried on between Lucem, Milan, and Northern Italy. We met a drove of noble oxen, and many teams of mules laden with casks. Milan is twelve or thirteen days' journey from Hospital. The people in these vfllages seem to me untidy and poor. The meadows are rich ; and they use a high wooden frame for drying hay, which raises the grass above the ground, and makes it in twelve or fourteen hours. In coming on to Altorf, we stopped at Burglen to visit a chapel built on the spot where WiUiam TeU was born. It is decorated with pictures re lating to the events of his life. Altorf is a small Cathohc town of one thousand six hundred souls. It abounds with monuments of WilUam TeU. The tower, the fountains,— every thing is designed to commemorate him. His history is connected with ah the hberty of Switzerland. We met on our way to-day many peasants laden with wood for the vaUey of Ursern, where Hospital is. As no trees grow there, all theh wood (coals are unknown) is brought up three leagues. On our road, also, we met our friend and companion, who, after spending his Sunday at Stantz, came to Altorf last night, and was going to visit the Vale of the Reuss ; we are now at the same hotel. He reports that he remained at Stantz on Saturday, not because he was weary of the mountain road, but because his horse and boy were equaUy bad, so bad that he despaired of reaching Lucem by theh means. He thinks the new road which I have so much commended, takes off! in some places, from the picturesque beauty of the scenery, as he beheld it four years since. * I am sorry to see from the Swiss Journals that the devastation occasioned by the avalanches this winter (1824) has been particularly great. The val leys of Gauli, Gadmen, and Guttanen, are stated to have suffered severely. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 45 Switz, ihe capital qf tlie canton of that name, (and from which the whole of fhe country is called,) Wed nesday, quarter before 10. — We set off this morn ing a quarter before six, and saw the melancholy effects of a fire at Altorf, in 1799. The ruined houses remained yet unrepahed. We came to Fliielen in an hour, and there embarked on the lake of Lucem for Brunnen. The passage of two hours was exquisite, from the noble and grand character of the scenery of the lake. We stop ped a moment at the spot where WilUam TeU escaped from the boat in which they were convey ing him to prison, and where a chapel is now built. I promised to teU you something about this ex traordinary man. It was in November, 1307, that the Austrian bailiff Gesler, having placed his hat upon a pole, at Altorf, and ordered every one who passed to salute it, WilUam Tell nobly refused. He was condemned, as you may remember, to shoot at an apple placed on the head of his son. He struck off the apple ; but Gesler, observing a second arrow in the hand .of TeU, asked him what he meant to do writh it : "It was destined for you," repUed he, "if I had kflled my chfld." He was seized instantly, chained, and thrown into a boat which was to convey the governor back to bis castle at Kiissnacbt. A storm feU on tbe lake. In imminent danger of perishing, they released TeU from his chains, and suffered him to take the gui dance of the vessel. The hero leaped on shore upon the rock where the chapel now stands ; out stripped Gesler ; waited for him in a hoUow path, and transfixed him with an narrow. The Linden tree, at Altorf, against which the chfld stood, re mained till 1567, two hundred years after the death of TeU, wliich happened in 1356. His family was not extinct until the year 1720. A chapel stands on the spot, at Grutli, where the confederation oath was taken, in January 1308. Thus was the foundation of liberty and knowledge, of national virtue and piety, laid in Switzerland. The Refor mation two centuries after, so far as it extended, completed the deUverance. We landed at Brunnen at nine, and came on to Switz. The lake we have crossed is, perhaps, the finest in Switzerland — eight leagues long, four and a half wide, bordering on the four forest cantons, Switz, Uri, Underwald, and Lucern. Between Brunnen and Switz, we passed the bridge, cover ed as usual, of Ibach, where the battle took place between Suwarrow and Massena, in 1799. Twelve o'clock. — I never dined better in my life at eleven o'clock, than I have here : we are now going to ascend mount Righi. This town of Switz is in a garden of natural beauties. The vast rocks Behind it are like giant sentinels to guard it. Wednesday evening, top qf Mount Righi. — I must write a Une to you to-night, though hi a saUe-a-inanger crowded with French, German, Swiss, Enghsh, aU talking together, in a hotel on the summit of the Righi, six thousand one hun dred and fifty-six feet above the sea, and four thousand five hundred above Switz. The pecu liarity of this mountain is not so much its great height, as the accessible and yet commanding point in which it terminates, which gives it, when the weather is clear, one of the noblest and most extensive views in the world : the consequence is, that almost every traveller ascends it. It is not the road to any town, as the other Alps I have crossed are, but an insulated spot, which has be come celebrated from the comparative easiness of the approach. The moment a fine day appears, aU the world hurry forwards to the only inn and only house on the extreme summit of this vast ele vation. The scene at the table-d'h6te is comic beyond description. We were between five and six hours coming up the mountain, in many parts by stairs so steep, that we ascended at a rate of forty feet in a hundred. The heat added to the fatigue ; but the extraordinary scene, now we are at the top, surpasses aU my conceptions, even of what Switzerland could produce. The eye has an un impeded view aU around. It is a sort of natural panorama. The main disadvantage (which yet adds, perhaps, to the interest of the excursion) is the uncertainty of finding a bright, unclouded sky at this great elevation : either the valleys or the tops of the mountains are commonly obscured with a dark mantle of clouds. As we were at supper, we were hurried out to ascend a wooden platform, forty or fifty feet high, raised on the edge of the precipice, to behold a gathering storm. We were astonished at the subline sight. One quarter of the horizon was ffiuminated with the setting sun in the softest beauty, whilst in another quarter the most gloomy storm shrouded with all its hor rors the tops of the adjoining mountains, and was approaching the Righi — but I must absolutely stop. Righi, five o'clock, Thursday morning. — I was compeUed to break off last night by the excessive noise in the dining haU : I had half a dozen peo ple talking to me at once, and therefore was soon wearied out, and retired to rest. My friend and I were crowded into a smaU room, the feet of our beds touching each other ; presently the house became more noisy than ever with the company going to theh chambers, (for these wooden houses shake at every step,) and soon after, the storm which was lowering in the evening, began to de scend—the hghtning, thunder, and rain were tre mendous ; I really thought the house would have fatten. It is now five in the morning, and the rain and the broufllard completely obscure the whole scene ; nevertheless aU the house is in motion, and families are going down tlie hill. Fifty-one persons slept here last night — twenty-four gentry; twenty-seven servants and guides ; in the course of yesterday, there had been fifty-two gentry. — The house is very small. I find a New Testa ment of the Bible Society in this Cathohc solitude, with an inscription to state that it was left by Messrs. Treuttell and Wurtz, "for the use of Christians whom the bad weather might prevent from seeing and admiring the great work of the creation, and adoring the Creator, by mounting towards him by the help of his works." In the strangers' book I was startled to see the name of his present majesty, George IV., who assuredly never ascended this mountain. When the weather is fine, fourteen lakes are visible here, and the sun rising upon the range of the Alps is magnificent. They may be traced from the Glarnish on the east, to the Oberland Bernois on the southwest ; whilst on the north, 46 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. your eye may range from the lake of Constance to that of NeufchateL AU Switzerland, to the east and north, is open before you ; and much further, into Suabia. The only hfll we could dis tinguish last night was Mount Pilate, which is caUed properly Mons Pileatus, or Mountain with a Cap, because a cloud generaUy rests on its ex treme top, even hi the finest weather. The com mon people say that Pontius Pflate came here and threw himself down the precipice in despah, for having condemned our Saviour. As the morning is so unfavorable, and breakfast is not ready, I must teU you a sad story. — As we ascended the Righi yesterday, we passed over the melancholy ruins of the vfllage of Goldau. In 1806 an immense mass of earth from the Rossberg, gra duaUy loosened by two or three months' ram, feU down with scarcely a moment's warning: it was the 2d of September ; four villages, of which Gol dau was the chief, lay at the foot of the mountain. AU was buried in an instant — two churches, one hundred and eleven houses, two hundred bams, &c, and four hundred persons, with three hun dred and twenty-five head of cattle, were over whelmed ; and a new ruinous mountain, one hun dred and fifty feet high, was formed by the vast mass. The loss was estimated at three miffion eight hundred and forty thousand liyres of France. Those who had been aware of the dangerous state of the mountain, and the probability of some disaster, were not warned in time. Two old in habitants who had predicted the calamity, when some one rushed into theh cottage, and told them the rock was actually fatting, disbelieved the mes sage, and were lost. A party of ten persons had been two months waiting for fine weather to visit Mount Righi. They set off for Switz the day of the catastrophe ; five of them staid a moment be hind the rest, to take some provisions ; the instant the others entered Goldau, the enormous ruin car ried them away. A physician from the neighboring vfllage of Arth, Dr. Zay, has published an account of the calamity. During the whole day the ah was darkened with clouds of rock and earth. Entire forests, and large blocks of the mountain, were borne through the air as swiftly as an arrow. — Houses, cattle, men, aU were dragged along, and seemed to fly in the midst of the heavens. Seve ral females and children were almost miraculously preserved. Two women were forced into a pit fifteen feet deep, and thus escaped. A maid ser vant, Jeanne Ulrich, with Marianne, a httle girl five years old, were overwhelmed. The maid was torn from the child, and hung suspended among beams of wood and ruins, which crushed her on aU sides. Her eyes were filled with blood. She thought the last day was come, and betook herself to prayer. She heard the cries of the chfld. Two hours passed ; a neighboring church clock struck, but no help arrived. The cries of the child became fainter and fainter, and at last ceased. — The girl, thinking she was dead, made desperate efforts to Uberate herself, and at last freed her legs from the mass of ruins. Soon the httle Ma rianne began again to cry ; she had fatten asleep, and on waking renewed her lamentations. Two hours more elapsed, when the child's parent, Vi- guet, who had carried his two sons to a place of safety, returned to deliver the rest of his family. He searched amongst the sad remains of his house ; a foot appeared above the ruins ; he ap proached, he recognised a part of his wife's dress ; he uttered the most piercing lamentations, which reached the ears of the servant and Marianne, who instantly redoubled theh cries. The father knew his child's voice, and rescued her with only a broken Umb. The maid was afterwards taken out, scarcely ahve. They both recovered. It is remarkable, that in this very neighborhood, an entire street of Zug, with a part of the towers and walls of the town, sunk, without a moment's warning, into the lake, in the year 1435. Sixty persons then perished. The infant son of the keeper of the archives, Adelrich Wikard, who was found floating in his cradle on the waters, was rescued, and became afterwards the father of a famfly which deserved weU of the state. O God, how unfathomable are thy judgments ! thus is it that thou alarmest a sleeping world, and callest man to prepare for sudden death, and sud den judgment ; whilst the grace of thy Gospel sets before them a dying Saviour, whose redemption no falling rocks nor sudden destruction can over whelm; nay, which wfll appear most glorious "when the heavens being on fire shaU be dissolv ed, and the earth shaU melt with fervent heat '." It is astonishing and terrific as you ride over the place where Goldau stood; the ruins are above one hundred feet deep ; the adjoining lake of Lowertz was fitted up for fifty feet. Many per sons beheld the ruin from the top of the Righi ; and were compeUed to witness the destruction of theh own lands and houses, without the possibih ty of giving any aid. Only a few bodies and man gled limbs have been dug up after seventeen years. Such was the tremendous impetus of the fatting rock, that prodigious masses were carried by the rebound many hundred feet up the opposite hill, i. e. perhaps three or four leagues from the sum mit whence they fell. Such a scene I never wit nessed. Still, the love of theh native spot is so deeply fixed in the Swiss, that two or three new houses are beginning to rise in the midst of the ruins. One of the churches has been rebuilt ; the grass is now hiding by degrees the frightful spec tacle, and even some strips of meadows are form ing here and there. Righi, 10 o'clock. — The morning is actually clearing up. Eleven o'clock. — No : aU our hopes are disap pointed ; the valley is fitted with clouds ; fogs are rising and covering every thing with one mantle of deep and impenetrable obscurity. Thus we shall be compeUed to leave this queen of moun tains without seeing all its magnificence of pros pect. I may as weU tell you, before I lay by my letter, that in cdming up yesterday, we visited the convent of St. Mary in the Snow, four, thousand two hundred feet above the sea, where a small convent of Capuchin friars, for receiving strangers, is supported. The little church adjoining is cu riously adorned ; and in the sinaU vfllage two inns have been built within three years. In the strangers' book on Mount Righi, I find so many fictions, that I have now no difficulty in accounting for the insertion of the name of the king ; but I have called in all the people of the TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 47 house and examined them, and they stoutly affirm that our king was here, and wrote with his own hand his name and date, October, 1816, and that he came with three ladies and , four gentlemen in his suite. Such is the vanity of these good people ! Perhaps I cannot employ myself better than by going on to say, that the keeping of a strangers' book is one of those foreign customs which one cannot but approve of. It is, perhaps, a httle gaU- ing at first to an Englishman, to be obliged to put down his name, age, country, famfly, time of ar rival, place of destination, motives of journey, &c, as soon as he drives into a town. But the plea sure is so great to see what countrymen or friends are before you on the road, and to look back and read the names of traveUers in past years, that you are soon dehghted with the plan. In frontier towns the book is often under the regulation of the police ; but in small towns in the interior, and places of fashionable resort, as the faU of the Rhine, Mount Righi, &c., it partakes more of the nature of an album, in which travellers write down any sentiments they please, together with theh names. Sometimes an opinion is given of the country they have passed through, or advice as to inns and roads ; at other times a short poetical effusion is inserted, or a stroke of wit and drollery. You meet occasionaUy with very admhable thoughts, and bursts of real genius. My friend transcribed a striking copy of verses. It is curious even to look over the hand-writing of celebrated indivi duals. The strangers' book, further, enables you to compare the number of traveUers from different countries. I counted once or twice, and found the English four or five times as numerous as those of any other nation. It is much to be regretted, that the unpardonable license of a few persons, I am afraid chiefly Englishmen, is rapidly tending to put an end to this innocent and gratifying cus tom, or at least to the confining of it to the dry re cord of the pohce towns. Righi, twelve o'clock. — We are in as miserable a plight as ever poor creatures were : a dreadful wet day — shut up in a close room, as in a prison — scarcely able to breathe — five or six leagues to reach Lucem — no prospect — nothing but rain and fog. Some of the party are endeavoring to throw a ring, suspended by a cord from the ceiling, upon a hook fixed at a suitable distance in the wall of the room — rs. trait of genuine ennui. For my own part, I have been amusing myself with talking with two Itahan gentlemen — well informed — admirers of England — discontented with their existing government — ready for change —with no great attachment to Popery ; really this is the case with all the foreigners we meet. Ty ranny, in a day of general information, galls the mind, and defeats, and must defeat, its own pur pose. I endeavor to give the best advice I can ; dwelling chiefly on the importance of the Scrip tures, and the elevating nature of true Chris tianity. I have been deeply interested also, with two students from St. Petersburgh— amiable, scholar-like young men ; they spent last winter in England. I shall not soon forget theh surprise, when they happened to discover who I was. They had frequently heard me preach in London. The meeting thus with occasional auditors, on a sudden, in the heart of Switzerland, appals me. I feel, as it were, quite uncomfortable, lest I should have fafled in giving them a faithful impression of the Gospel of Christ ; and yet, if these young Russians have heard me, so may others from other lands. What a responsible office is that of the sacred ministry! What diligence, what solici tude, what uprightness, what simplicity in foUow ing the Holy Scriptures, what humility and fer vor in imploring the grace of the sacred Com forter, does it require ! Lucern, Friday morning, seven o'clock. — We arrived here last night ; the weather a Uttle cleared up after dinner yesterday at the Righi, and at two we mounted our beasts to descend ; three hours brought us to Kiissnacht, a town on the lake of Lucern ; and three hours more to this town. The weather was rainy, but stfll tolerable. The views of the surrounding country, as we came down, were lovely: we had the lakes of Lucern and Zug full before us. The road from Kiissnacht was positively through a garden, by the side of the lake, with just those gentle rises which gave us the sweetest views imaginable. We have now finished our Oberland tour of two hundred and forty-nine mfles ; only it hap pens, that we are landed at a town nearly °eventy miles from Bern, and have thus two days' journey to reach my dear family. We visited yesterday a third chapel of William TeU, built by the go vernment, on the spot where he slew Gesler the Austrian governor. So that there is a tower, as I have before mentioned, at Altorf, on the place where WiUiam TeU's child stood with the apple on his head ;' a fountain where the father stood ; a chapel on the site of his house at Burglen ; a second where he escaped from the boat conduct ing him to prison ; a third where he slew the op pressor of his country ; and another where the oath of confederation was taken at Grutli — at this last place, an English wag has written on the waU, "Cato street conspirators!" Thus is the love of hberty nourished in the breasts of this fine people : CathoUcs and Protestants seem the same in this respect. There is a pubhc spirit, a hardy courage, a patriotism, an independence of mind, about the Swiss, connected with a ready subjection to lawful authority, and a sense ' -f mo ral and rehgious obUgation, which are the true foundations of national prosperity. Theh adhe rence to all their ancient usages, even in their dress, is observable ; each canton has its costume. At Switz, the women have caps with two high white frflls, plaited, and standing nearly erect on their heads, like two butterfly's wings ; quite dif ferent from the Bernois, yet equaUy fantastical and inconvenient. This Oberland country has, on the whole, fitted me with wonder, astonishment, and gratitude. " How glorious, O God, are thy works, and thy thoughts are very deep." O that, in this glo rious creation, man did but love and obey Thee as he ought ! Lucem, where we now are, is the capital of the canton, and romanticaUy situated on the north west banks of the lake of four cantons. It is just in the heart of Switzerland. It is one thousand three hundred and twenty feet above the sea. The fine river Reuss crosses it, over which there are three bridges. The name is probably derived 48 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. from the Latin word, Lucerna, alamp or light house ; as the most ancient building is the great tower where the hght was formerly suspended ; possibly in the time of the Romans. It contains six thousand souls. It is the great mart of commerce between Switzerland and northern Italy, the road over St. Gothard beginning at Altorf, the other side the lake. The Catholic reUgion is here pre valent ; so that all up mount Righi we found sta tions and crucifixes for pilgrims. Many of the priests are said to be men of piety and informa tion, and to have been on the point of embracing Protestantism a few years back. Some pohtical events unhappily interfered to delay the execution of this good design. In these free states, a reformation may be ef fected with comparative ease, if once the minds of the leading magistrates and clergy are duly in formed and impressed with divine truth. They depend on no foreign potentate. A majority of the senate determines all questions. What they once resolve on, they never want courage to per form. It was thus that the reformed doctrines were received at Zurich, Bern, &c. in the six teenth century. The German language prevails through the Oberland ; so that I have had no great means of gaining information on the general state of morals and reUgion. I can speak indeed of particular facts which fall under my own ob servation ; but when I come to reflections on a whole canton, I remember the diffidence which becomes a stranger on such subjects. Still, I cannot but avow, that the general appearance of these Cathohc cantons is strongly against them ; whilst in Bern all is industry and cleanliness, and not a beggar to be seen. Zqfingen, thirty miles from Lucern, half-past nine, Friday night. — While supper is preparing, I wfll write something of the occurrences of a most delightful day. After breakfast this morning, we went to see a model of Lucern and the neighbor ing country, on a scale of about thirteen inches to a league. It was most gratifying to trace out part of the tour we had just made. Our attend ant pointed out the model of one Alp, the TitUs, on which the ice lies one hundred and seventy-five feet thick in summer. General Pfyffer spent his life in traversing the mountains, and executing this model. A portrait of him, in his traveUing dress, adorns the room ; and his camp-seat, of a most simple but admirable contrivance, was shown us. We next visited the arsenal, and saw the sword of Zuingle, the Reformer, (for he was compelled, by the law of the repubhc, to bear arms, and he feU on the field of Capelle, in 1531 ;)* and then the Jesuits' church and the cathedral, where the tawdry ornaments and superstitious 1' *I cannot but just add here, that undoubtedly there was too much of secular politics mixed up with the higher principles of the Swiss Reformers. An interference with the temporal governments proved one very lamentable impediment to the advance of the Reformation. The character of Luther stands pre-eminent, above all the Reformers, in this respect. His wisdom, spirituality of mind, subjection to " the powers that be, as ordained of God," and moderation on doubtful points, (except in the sacramentarian controversy,) placed him on an elevation, to which I am not aware that any of his contemporaries can images of the Vhgin re-awakened that pain of mind which the Protestant cantons had soothed. A noble monument just erected to the Swiss re giment, who perished at Paris, in defending Louis XVI., August 10, 1792, very much interested us ; it is a Uon, 28 feet long, cut out in the rock, and the names of the officers inscribed beneath. The three covered bridges in the town are sur prising structures ; the first, that of the Court, is one thousand four hundred feet long ; the second, one thousand one hundred ; in the spaces between the beams of the first there are two hundred and thirty-eight paintings from the Old and New Tes tament ; and of the second, one hundred and fifty- four from the lives of the heroes and saints of Switzerland. A thhd bridge has thirty-six pic tures from Holbein's Dance of Death. The river Reuss is here of a deep blue-green color, very rapid, and so clear that you may count the stones at the bottom. We ascended two hflls which commanded magnificent views of the town, the lake, the adjoining hills, and distant Alps : per fectly enchanting. Zqfingen, Saturday morning. — It was eleven o'clock before we were in bed last night; the fact is, we spent aU the morning in seeing Lucem, and had a journey of six hours and a half to take after three o'clock^ in order to reach Bern by Saturday night. I have only further to say about Lucern, that the views from the bridges and the neighbor ing bills are some of the very finest in Switzer land. Zurich and Lucern are the most enchant ing towns we have seen. The road hither ran by the side of the lake of Sempach ; but by seven the evening came on, and we could see httle of the prospect ; a fine moon-light, however, aided us. At the town of Sursee, whilst we were taking some refreshment, I saw a portrait of Pere Girard of Fribourg. The son of the aubergiste had been his scholar : I sent for the boy in. He had been five years at school — seemed a fine, clever lad — spoke in the highest terms of M. Girard. He tells me, M. G. had five classes, and four or five hun dred children, at Fribourg ; and that he gave lec tures on the catechism, and taught the children the New Testament. He was, in truth, too good for the Papists ; — they raised an opposition — the Jesuits aided — and Pere Guard's whole estabhsh ment is now broken up. This aubergiste had sent his son fifty-five miles to this good school master. These individual cases of piety and zeal continually occur. The intrepidity and faith of such men are of a character which we have httle conception of in England, surrounded by Protest ant connections and protected by Protestant laws. Surely charity should peculiarly rejoice in such triumphs of the grace of God, in the midst of the corruptions of Popery. be raised. Religion was with him a matter of the heart, and the reformed doctrines the consolation of his aroused and most tender conscience; and all this in a very peculiar degree. Others may have had more learning, as Melancthon ; or more acute- ness, as Calvin or Zuingle ; but for deep, affecting views of religion, superiority to secular politics, and experience of inward temptations, united with magnanimity of mind, and uncommon powers of eloquence, none can be compared, I think, with Mar tin Luther. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 49 The town of Zofingen is in Argovie, and is Pro testant ; it contains about two thousand souls. A house was destroyed by lightning, in the storm of Wednesday night. The women in Lucem wear, not caps, but immense straw hats, with very smaU flat crowns, and four bows of ribbon, two green and two red, with sometimes a bunch of flowers. Our voiturier (for we were obliged to hire one at Lucern to take us back to Bern) feeds his horses with bread ; when we stopped yesterday, we saw 1 boy with a loaf of bread, (of the same sort as we tad ourselves,) cutting it with a knife, and giving hst one horse a shee, and then another, which they seemed to eat with much pleasure. Herzogenbuchs, seventeen miles from Zqfingen, twelve at noon. — We have had a pleasing drive of four hours through a fruitful country. The vfllage is neat and clean, and the whole place is crowded with men and women who have been attending a funeral, and are now going to dinner. We are in a Protestant canton, and within seven leagues of Bern. The vfllage contains about five hundred inhabitants ; two or three hundred of whom are dining, or about to dine, at this funeral. Bern, Saturday evening, half-past seven. — Thank God, I find myself again with my dear Ann ; and thank God also she is remarkably well. The fort night's entire quiet, though dull to her in some respects, has restored her to wonderful health and strength. She has also now become accustomed to the food and place, and knows better what she is about, and how to manage the people and tilings in Switzerland. How great a blessing is this ! We had a beautiful ride from Herzogenbuchs to Bern, twenty-one mfles. Almost all the country from Lucern to Bern is well cultivated, the views beautifully mild, herds of cattle feeding in different spots, the meadows yielding four or five crops a year, the farming buddings large and convenient — the whole reminding us of beloved England — which could not, of course, be the case in the mountain regions we have left. As we approached Bern, a noble range of Alps stretched themselves before us. We passed Hofwyl, the celebrated spot where M. FeUenberg has his school and his establishment for agriculturists ; but it was too late to stop. We have been, in this Oberland tour, three hun dred and fifteen mfles in twelve days, and above two hundred of it on mules. Never did I derive so much benefit to my health, as by these moun tain rides. We propose now to go on to Lausanne on Monday. We shaU set off for Paris (please God) by ihe lst of October, at latest ; stay there tfll the 23d, and be at home on Friday the 31st. I had the particular pleasure of finding a letter from you, dated August 6th, and received August 21st, on my return here. Your account of our deal- relative grieves me to the heart. My prayers shall be united with yours, that these severe and repeated afflictions may become real blessings to him, by awakening Mm to more seriousness, de termination, and earnestness, in seeking the sal vation of his soul, which is the grand concern of man, and without which we are lost and miserable, though in the utmost outward prosperity. Bern, Sunday evening, August 24, 1823. — We have had to-day a delightful Sunday ; twice have I not only attended pubhc worship, (which we always do,) but heard ' the glorioijs Gospel of the blessed God," as St Paul expressed it, from the Ups of his ministers. The difference between a cold harangue on ethics, and the gracious message of peace and joy in Christ Jesus, is immense. Duty must follow, not precede, much less exclude, salvation by faith. The morning subject was John, v. 44. " How can ye beUeve, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only ! " — the afternoon, Heb. x. The church was crowded in the morning, and the attention of the congregation most pleasing. No tice was given of a public fast for Sept. 11, " On account of the sins of the people, and in order to render thanks to God for his benefits." The lan guage of the notice was very pious and appropriate. After recounting the various public blessings of Almighty God to tlie repubhc of Bern, it proceeded to mention " the most exceUent of aU God*s gifts, the holy religion of Jesus, which is an inexhausti ble source of truth, virtue, and consolation, to so many thousands of souls." It then dwelt on the ingratitude and sins of the people, and exhorted them " to fly to the grace of God in Jesus Christ, and seek from Him the pardon of their sins by un feigned repentance, a hvely faith, and a true con version." It ordered, lastly, that all the shops should be shut after tliree o'clock the preceding day. At half-past four we had our private service. Three English families joined us ; so that we were eighteen in aU. I was not in the least acquainted even with the names of my auditory ; but an op portunity occurring, I had just mentioned to two families, at the table-d'hote, that I was about to have Enghsh service ; and, as we were beginning, a third famfly, a clergyman's, begged permission to come in. They aU seemed intensely attentive. My subject was from 1 Thess. i. 5, " For our Gos pel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much as surance." I hope some good was done. One family was, at the least, better employed than on the preceding Sunday, when they were at a play at Lausanne. This the father, of it had told me with perfect sangfroid ; adding, that he had been properly punished ; for they were late, and could obtain no good sittings. It was this conversation which led me to propose to them to join our Eng hsh service. How lamentable is it that British travellers have so slight a sense of the obligation of keeping holy the Sabbath ! So far as I can lparn, there is much of true re hgion in this important canton. It quite delights me to be able to say this. I have so often had to give you unfavorable accounts, that I have a dou ble pleasure, when truth allows me to unite with charity in my reports. The education of the chil dren is strictly attended to — indeed every parent is compelled to send his children to school and catechism. In this respect the Swiss governments possess a real moral power. In the police of the towns ; the suppression of vice ; the prohibition of theatres ; the banishing of bad persons at once, and without ceremony ; the laws against luxury, &c.; it is amazing what a salutary influence some of these states exercise over their comparatively diminutive territories. The town of Bern contains about a ninth part 50 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. of the population of Liverpool or Manchester ; and all the canton not a fourth part of the population of London — indeed the twenty-two Swiss cantons are not much more populous than that one im mense city.* Every thing therefore falls imme diately under the notice of the magistrates, and may be checked at its Jrst appearance. And this sort of paternal, though perhaps somewhat arbi trary, restraint, being connected generaUy with the faithful preaching of the Gospel, aU seems to be done, that any government can do, for the sup pression of pubhc immorality and the encourage ment of piety and virtue. Whereas in England things are on a very dif ferent footing. The overgrown population of the metropoUs, the extent of the other commercial towns and cities, the jealousy of theh civil rights which pervades att ranks, the measure of pohtical and religious hberty wliich they claim and enjoy, the influence of pubhc opimon on parUament and ministers of state, the tone of religious sentiment given by the bishops and clergy, att combine to prevent the interference of an arbitrary disciphne, and to leave things at the disposal of law and the general feeh'ngs of the nation. Undoubtedly this has degenerated too often into negligence and dis order, especiaUy in the permission of blasphemous and seditious publications, in the neglect of the education of our poor, and the inadequate provision for the pubhc worship of God. Nor has the faith ful preaching of the reformed doctrines in theh simplicity and vigor, been always so general with us, as it seems to have been in the Swiss churches. StiU, in England there is a principle of renova tion implanted, and concealed, as it were, in aU our free institutions, which revives whenever the mercy of God visits our country, and which was never, perhaps, more powerfully at work than at present. The standard of religious sentiment is rapidly advancing, our clergy are rising from theh torpor, and are preaching and living according to the Gospel ; the influence of pubhc sentiment is turned, in a considerable degree, to the side of piety and good morals ; our government favors the progress of this mighty change ; ParUament itself begins to move ; our Bible and missionary institutions are in some proportion to om- wealth and commercial greatness. Now, in the smaU governments of Switzerland, I suspect that much more must depend on the personal character of the members of the government, and much less on pubhc opinion. And if a spirit of negligenoe as to morals, or of persecution as to religion, should pervade the minds of the chief persons in a canton, there would be far less hope of a recovery than in England. But I am indulging too much in this sort of re flections, for a stranger ; the state of things in the canton of Bern is at present delightful ; and, after all, under every form of government, the extent of real spiritual rehgion in the heart and life, must ever depend on a higher cause — the pure preach ing of the doctrine of Christ, and the grace of God's blessed Sphit. May that grace descend more and more on our own happy country and att * Switzerland contain? 1,750,000 inhabitants ; London, 1,-371,600; Bern 13,340; Liverpool, 118,972; the canton of Bern, 215,000 Christian nations and churches, yea, on all man kind! I am your affectionate brother, D. W. P. S. As I have been speaking on the subject of strangers' books, I cannot close my letter without mentioning the two ingenious sentences which were written in the time of our James I. by the celebrated Sh Henry Wotton, whose ad vice to Milton I noticed in a former letter. The first is a keen satire ; and would have been more complete if the ambiguity of the Eng lish word, Ue, could have been expressed in the Latin : " An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." — "Legatus est vir bonus peregrfi missus ad mentiendum re- publicae causa," The other is more grave, but not without a touch of humor ; for I suppress the long solemn Ust of Sh Henry's titles, and of his various em bassies, which precedes it : " Henricus Wottonius, Sue,. &c. &c. tandem hoc didicit, Animas fieri sapientiores quiescendo." — " Henry Wotton, &c, &c. Sic. at length learned this, That souls are made wiser by being quiet." The first was written early in Sir Henry's Ufe, and was printed from the Latin copy, eight years afterwards, and maliciously transcribed on several glass windows at Venice, where he then resided as Enghsh Ambassador. The other was the cool and weighty result of experience, after a long life spent in diplomatic services. I wish all the sentences written now were as well worth remembering. NOTICE OF THE PUBLIC FAST AT BERN. This pubUc rehgious service is annual m the Swiss churches, and is attended to with much solemnity by aU classes. Surely other churches might do weU to imitate so good an example. — What cause have we in England, at the time I am writing this, (February, 1825) for thanksgiving as weU as for humiliation — for thanksgiving on account of the unnumbered blessings which God has vouchsafed to us ; blessings almost unparal leled in the history of nations — for humiliation on account of our, alas ! too flagrant and aggravated national sins. Surely the growing sense of reh gious obligation which marks the general body of people in England, would support the venerable heads of our church in so seasonable an appoint ment. The highest pitch of pubhc prosperity al ways touches on the most fearful reverses, by leading to pride, luxury, vice, and forgetfulness of God. I insert the whole of the valuable document from which I have given a passage or two above. I never saw a copy of it in this country. Nous avoyer et conseil de la ville et republique de Bern, assurons not chers etfideles ressor- tissansde notre grac ieuse bienveillance, etleur faisons savoir : Q,ue, de concert avec les autres Etats reformfe de la Confederation, nous avons arrfite de faire ce- lebrer, Jeudi 11 Septembre prochain,u n jour so- lennel d'actions de graces, de jeune et de priere. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 51 Et qui de nous, chers et fideles ressortissans, ne se sentirait avec nous porte a remercier Dieu publiquement, et du fond d'un cceur touche, en re- flechissant a tous les bienfaits qu'fl a repandus sur nous pendant cette ann£e si pleine d'evenemens ! Une paix profonde regne au sein de notre patrie, et dans les contrees qui nous avoisinent ; tandis que dans d'autres pays plus 61oign£s le fleau de la guerre trouble la prosperite des peuples : et de cette tranquittite decoulent pour la vie domestique et pubhque d'inombrables benedictions qui splen dent sur tous les etats et sur tous les ages. La terre a ete fertile au-de la de toute esperance, et par ses riches productions a confondu les inquie tudes de ceux, auxquels la temperature variable et pluvieuse de l'ete faisait craindre le retour de la disette. Et si par-ci par-la des orages ont oc- casionne quelque perte, que ce dommage est peu de chose en comparaison de tout le bien que nous avons recue de la main du Seigneur ! ce n'a ete en quelque sorte qu'un avertissement pom- nous rappeler pu'fl est en sa puissance de nous donner ou de nous enlever ce qui nous est le plus necessaire. Et pourquoi ne ferions-nous pas mention du plus exceUent de tous les dons de Dieu, de la sainte rehgion de Jesus, qui est enseignee purement dans les eglises et dans les ecoles, et qui est une source intanssable de verite, de vertu, et de consolation pour tant de mflliers d'ames 1 Si l'experience journaliere de cette grace du Seigneur qui se multipUe sur nous de tant de ma- nieres, doit a juste titre nous animer a la celebrer avec joie ; nous ne saurions cependant vous le ca- cher, un regard jete sur l'etat rehgieux et moral de notre peuple, ddvoile une grande corruption, qui en verite nous rend indignes d'une telle grace. Une legerete sans bornes se manifeste dans les vittes et a la compagne sous une multitude de formes ; dans l'mdifference thouchant la connais- sance et l'adoration de Dieu, chez plusieurs dans un total abandon des temples du Seigneur, dans l'oisivete, le gout du luxe, et une vie dereglee, qui entrainent la mine de families entieres, comme aussi des individus en particuUer. Et a cdte de cette deplorable et crimineUe legerete, n'avons- nous pas la douleur de voir dans quelques contrees des hommes pervers continuer a. faire un horrible abus des choses divines, de tout ce qu'fl y a de plus saint, pour tromper les simples, pour seduire les faibles, et se livrer a la plus grossidre immoraUte! Des iniquit£s aussi graves ayant Ueu, ainsi que tant d'autres transgressions qm ntinent insensible- ment la prosp£erite pubUque et domestique ; le soin patemel que nous devons prendre du salut de nos re- fiortissans nous obUge a les exhorter serieusement, de recourir a la grace de Dieu en Jesus Christ, et de chercher aupres de lui le pardon des p6ehes par une repentance non feinte, une foi vive, et une conversion veritable, se rappelant soigneusement qu'il ne faut pas s'en tenh a la simple promesse de s'amender, mais que le sacrifice agreable au Tres-Haut, c'est une vie Chretienne selon la verite, la puret£, et la charite, Nous attendons avec confiance, que quiconque deshe le bien de la patrie, et son propre avantage, ne manquera pas au jour de jeune prochain, d'im- plorer pour cet effect de l'amour eteniel le secours d'enhaut, et la conservation des biens precieux dont nous jouissons. 55—2 Mais pour prevenir autant que possible tout ce qui pourrait troubler la devotion pendant ce jour solennel de jeune, nous ordonnons enfin serieuse ment, que durant tout ce saint jOur, et la veflle depuis les trois heures de l'apres-dlner, toutes les auberges et pintes soient fermees pour chacun, excepte pour les voyageurs etrangers ; nous de- fendons en mdme temps les courses indecentes d'une paroisse dans une autre, et entendons que chacun frequente l'eglise de sa paroisse. Veuille l'Auteur de toute grace lui-meme faire servir cette institution a sa sainte glohe, a la pros perity de la patrie, et a l'avancement du bonheur de chacun en particulier. Donn6 le 18 Aoiit, 1823. Chancellerie de Berne. LETTER X. Moral, August 25. — Lausanne, August 31, 1823. Battle of Morat — Avenche — Paye me— Lausanne — Reformation — Translation of Scott — Lake of Ge neva — Lodgings — Calvinism — Nion — Coppet — M. Neckar— Madam de Stael— Geneva — Rhone — Steam Boat— Death of Missionaries Johnson and Palmer — The Pope — Ferney — Voltaire — Sunday at Lausanne — Preachers — Persecution — Calvin's Will — Arrete at Lausanne. Morat, canton of Friburg, 15 miles from Bern, Monday, August 25, 1823. My dearest sister, — At length we have left Bern, eighteen days after our arrival. We have been driving to-day through a sweet country, though of necessity less striking than the Ober land, which stfll captivates my imagination. On reflection, I feel more and more gratified at hav ing had health and strength to visit it. The Jungfrau, the Avalanches, the Giessbach, the Gla cier of the Rhone, and the vaUey of the Reuss, seem quite to fiU and overwhelm my mind. Even the Righi, bad as the weather was, has left a strong impression on my recollection. Next to a perfectly clear day, I conceive nothing could have been finer than the beholding the tremendous storm gathering in the horizon, hours before it burst upon us, contrasted with the sweet sunshine on the opposite side. I must teU you, that good old Mr. Wyttenbach caUed on us before we left Bern, and gave us his blessing: and that three young ladies out of our congregation yesterday, seemed a good deal affected with the discourse ; they spoke to us this morning with evident inte rest and anxiety. It is impossible to reckon on the impressions made by a single sermon ; but atten tion to truth is always a hopeful sign, and may lead on to consideration, repentance, conversion ; — " faith cometh by hearing." It is, perhaps, scarcely worth adding to what I have said about Bern, that the founder of the town was a duke of Zaffiringen. He is represented over one of the gates, in a colassal form, twenty feet or more high. In att these towns and can tons, you should know, that the walks and varied beauties of nature are opened to the pubhc, and you are sure to find shady paths and convenient 52 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. seats for your repose ; nothing is usurped as of private use. I forgot to say, that at Lucem, all the dogs in the town are secured with muzzles of brass or iron, placed loosely over the mouth ; no thing could be more curious, than to meet ten or twelve of these poor animals in every street, thus deprived of hberty. Morat, where we now are dining, is beautifully ! situated on the lake of that name ; it is one thou- j sand four hundred and sixty feet above the sea, ! and has a thousand inhabitants. It is celebrated for one of those great battles, by which a small number of Swiss heroes overcame France ond ' Austria, and established their independence. The I battle of Morat was fought June 22, 1476, against Charles duke of Burgundy. Two thousand heroes kept an army of seventy thousand French in check, at Morat, till the Swiss confederates could arrive — Couriers were despatched in aU directions to hasten theh march — In three weeks thirty-five thousand men were collected — They at once re solved to attack the enemy's camp, and they gained a complete victory. Three-and-twenty thousand of Charles's army perished on that day ; and the duke escaped with difficulty, with three thousand cavalry, to Morges. The Swiss loss was four hundred killed, and six hundred wounded. The lake of Morat, is only six mfles long, and two broad ; but abounds in a fish caUed sabet, said to be the largest of aU the fresh water kinds. We have had a fearfully hot ride of four hours and a half. This is the' fourth fine day we have had in succession. Payerne, Canton de Vaud, half-past nine, Mon day night. — We left Morat at half-past six, and soon came to the spot where the battle of Morat was fought. A building formerly stood there, forty-four feet by fourteen, containing the bones of the Burgundians who feU, with this truly Swiss inscription : " The army of Charles, duke of Bur gundy, besieging Morat, was slain by the Swiss, and left behind them this monument, in 1476" — "hoc sui monumentum reliquit." The building was destroyed by the French, in 1798. A new and simple column was erected last year, with this inscription, " Victoriam, 22 Jun. 1476, patrum concordia partam, novo signat lapide Republica Fribourg, 1822." " The victory obtained by the union of theh forefathers, 22d June, 1476, is marked with a new column by the Republic of Fribourg, 1822 — a simple and sublime record ! About half-past seven we passed through Avenche, the ancient Aventicum, founded 589 years before Christ, and a most flourishing city and a capital of Helvetia, under the emperor Ves pasian, from A. D. 69 — 77. It was destroyed by Attila in the fifth century. We saw the ruins of the Roman tower, walls, amphitheatre, altars, temples ; and drove for a mile over what formerly constituted Aventicum. An inconsiderable vfl lage is aU that now remains of what was once the metropolis of Switzerland. Thus the glory of cities passes away. The spot abounds with an cient inscriptions ; one is too curious to be omit ted. Tacitus relates, that Juhus Alpinus, chief magistrate of Aventicum, was massacred by or der of Aulus Ctecina, in the year 69 ; in spite of the prayers of his daughter. An inscription has been found in the antiquities of the town, which remarkably confirms this historical fact. It is an epitaph, most simple and touching, on this very daughter, and supposed to be written by herself. " I, Julia Alpinula, here lie, the unhappy offspring of an unhappy father. I could not avert by my entreaties the death of my father ; the fates had appointed him an evil death. I lived XXIII. years."* It is thus that incidental circumstances Corroborate the truth of history. The Scripture annals have been confirmed a thousand times in a simflar manner ; and though they embrace a pe riod of several thousand years, and touch on the history of all countries, and have lain open to the misrepresentations of unbeUevers in every age, nothing has ever been estabUshed to weaken theh authenticity. Moudon, Tuesday morning, August 26. — We set off this morning at half-past eight. Before breakfast, we went to see the church of Payerne, where there is a tomb of queen Bertha, who built, in 962, the cathedral from the ruins of Avenche ; the edifice is now used as a barn. We saw also, the curious saddle which she used, made of wood cased with iron, and with a high framework, like a child's go-cart, so as to defend and fix the whole body. We are now at a small town called Mou don, twelve miles from Payerne — one thousand four hundred souls — buflt by the Romans, on the Broie river, which joins the lakes of Morat and Neufchatel. The country here is much more tame than in the Oberland (indeed you must ex pect duU letters after the wonders of the Alps,) but stfll fruitful, variegated, agreeable. Now let me answer your inquiries about the beds in the Pays Bas and Germany (for my letters are misceUanies indeed :) lst. We were in dan ger of rolling out, from the inclined, shelving form of the high, thick, awkward, trebled mattresses ; the beds inclined both from one side to the other, and from the head to the foot. 2d. If you kept in bed, then you were in danger of losing all the scanty clothes at once, by the shghtest change of position. 3d. If you laid hold of the clothes to prevent this, then you infallibly uncovered your feet ; and in rising to adjust the clothes, the whole bed became deranged. 4th. When other things were settled, you had to search about with your hands in the straw of the mattresses, and push down some of the principal bumps as weU as you could. 5th. The curtains being suspended on a ring or hoop, from the top of the room (the beds having no posts,) you were in danger of putting down the whole canopy upon you, if you drew the curtains round you. 6th. All these dangers be ing over, you were exposed every minute, till the house was quiet, to persons of all descriptions coming into your room ; for the lock would some times not turn, and you had no bolts. Then, 7th. The servants knew not one word of French ; and, lastly, the beds themselves were so small, and so beset with hard wooden sides and ends, that you were infaffibly exposed to injuring your hands, or arms, or head, by violent blows. Now we are in Switzerland, the beds are generally better. * " Julia Alpinula hie jaceo infelicis patris infe- lix proles. Exorare patris necem non potui ; male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos, XXIII." — Grut. Inscrip. Tac. Hist. L. 1 et 2. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 53 Lausanne., capital qf Pays de Vaud, Tuesday night. — We arrived here at eight o'clock. The drive of twelve miles was fine and beautiful. We crossed Mount Jorat, two thousand seven hun dred and seventy feet above the sea. The moun tains on the other side of the lake of Geneva were clearly visible ; but Mount Blanc (the great popular curiosity of Switzerland, or Savoy, pro perly speaking) was obscured with clouds. As we approached Lausanne, the lake and adjoining country opened beautifuUy before us. The pea sants have here a new variety of bonnets — a straw one, rising above the head in turrets, and ending in a sort of handle at the top, something hke a beU. Lausanne is a town of eleven thousand souls ; Protestant ; one thousand six hundred and eighty feet above the sea. It is situated on three hflls with theh intermediate valleys, so that many of the streets are steep. It is fiUed with voitu- riers and carriages of all sorts, and claims a kind of privilege of furnishing traveUers, who com monly enter Switzerland by way of France, for theh Swiss tour in the summer, and theh Itahan in the winter. The lake of Leman, or Geneva, on which it stands, is the largest in Switzerland, after that of Constance. It is above forty miles long, and ten broad ; forty smaU rivers, besides the Rhone, fall into it ; Geneva is at the other end of it. A steam-boat has just begun to sail in it, for the first time in Switzerland. We heard yesterday and to-day of the effects of the dreadful storm on Wednesday night, when we were on the Righi : seven houses and many heads of cattle were destroyed. What thanks do we owe to a good Providence for preservation ! — One stroke of Ughtning might have summoned the crowded guests of our inn, and us amongst them, to theh eternal account ! You have no idea, in England, of the storms in these warmer climates. Lausanne, Wednesday, 3 o'clock. — We have taken lodgings for a month, with hberty to quit at a fortnight. A kind, exceUent Swiss friend, whom we knew in London, has been indefatigable for our comfort. We have a suite of four rooms on the first floor, looking full on the fine Lake of Ge neva ; a sitting room about twenty-five feet square ; three bed rooms, and a cabinet ; all neat, and even elegant ; with an approach through a gate way and yard, from the main street ; so that we have the most exquisite view imaginable on the one side, and aU the comforts of a town on the other. We have a nice Uttle garden, to which we descend from our parlor ; from this we look down upon a sweet garden belonging to another house ; from which the vineyards begin still lower down the hfll, and these vineyards extend to the lake itself. We pay two hundred and forty francs a month, about two pounds ten slutting a week. — It is no recommendation to us, but we are inform ed, that Gibbon inhabited our lodgings for six weeks, before his own house was ready for his re ception.* * Gibbon thus describes the situation of his house ; which is quite appicable to our charming lodgings : " I occupy a spacious and convenient mansion, con nected on the north side with the city, and open on the south to a beautiful aud boundless horizon. A Thursday, 6 o'clock, morning, August 28. — Lausanne is by no means a fine town in itself, but it is most beautifuUy situated. It stands above five hundred feet above the lake, and is a fine object from a distance. There are charming wattes just beyond it, on one of the hflls, command ing a view of the lake, and of the part of the town which stands upon a second and nearly pa- raUel hfll. The intermediate vattey is fitted with vines. Noble trees and seats increase the plea sure of the promenade. It was amongst the ear liest towns to embrace the Reformation in the six teenth century. The proverbial dissoluteness of manners of the Popish clergy of that era, is stfll talked of in Lausanne. The church of St. Anne, and the houses of the priests, were, in fact, turned into places of the grossest and most abandoned profligacy. It was thus, that the enormity of the evU, prepared men to receive the remedy. Never was any point of history more clearly made out than the necessity of the Reformation. Christianity was almost forgotten, both in its doc trines and duties ; and a frightful code of super stition, united with manners the most corrupt, was rapidly obliterating every trace of its genuine cha racter. Even as the Roman Catholic religion ex ists now, a reformation would have been indispen sable. But we are to judge qf the importance of that great event, not by what Popery actuaUy is, after the tacit influence on it of three centuries of evangehcal truth, in the Reformed churches ; but by what it was before Martin Luther sepa rated from it, and by what it would have been, long before the present day, if that heroic Re former and his noble associates had not acted as they did. And we are to recoUect, that besides the gross errors, both in faith and practice, which disgraced it then, and wliich disgrace it stfll, it cherishes a sphit of persecution, insists on aU its absurdities as matters of faith, imposes its hon yoke on the conscience, and wfll hear of no re monstrance, no advice, no correction.* The Panorama in London gives an accurate and pleasing view of the entrance to Lausanne from Geneva. In the evening, the dear children and I spent all the time in our sweet Uttle garden, garden of four acres has been laid out by the taste of M. Deyverdun ; from the garden a rich scenery of meadows and vineyards descends to the Leman lake, and the prospect far beyond the lake is crown ed by the stupendous mountains of Savoy." * This tyrannical dominion is one characteristic of the fallen church of Rome. " We offer the Pa pists every thing we ought, and more than we ought," says Luther, " we only claim to ourselves the liberty of conscience, which we have in Christ Jesus. We will not be compelled or bound in conscience to any work, so that by doing it we should be righteous, by omitting it condemned. , We will willingly use the same meats with them, and observe the same feasts and fasts, if they will only permit us to keep them of our free choice, and cease from these threatening words, by which they have hitherto terrified and subjected the whole world : ' We command, we in sist, we excommunicate,' &c. Here we will, and ought to be rebels, and pertinacious ; otherwise we should lose the truth of the Gospel, and our liberty, which we have, not in Csesar, in kings in princes, nor in the Pope, the world, and the flesh, but in Christ Jesus."— Comm. in Gal. p. 71. Wittenb. 1535. 54 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. or rather terrace, for we have a wall and hon rail ing which supports the ground of which it is com posed ; and this railing prevents our falling down thirty or forty feet into the next terrace-garden, which is immediately below us towards the lake. It is now six in the morning : the three windows of our saloon are open ; the sun is mounting over the hiUs on the other side of the lake, and shed ding a lovely tint on every object. Our kind fel- low-traveUer and my eldest son are going with me, in a car, to Geneva, (thirty mUes) that I may not lose a moment in seeing after the translation of Scott. You know that I have been some time engaged in assisting to have this admirable practical com ment on the Scriptures translated into French. — The whole body of French Protestant Theology affords no one plain, spiritual, solid exposition of the Holy Scriptures. With immense difficulty I have found a translator well skilled in Enghsh, accustomed to hterary occupation, master of a good style, and of the same sentiments with my author. He has nearly translated the Gospel of St. Matthew. The warm approbation of the de sign from aU quarters exceedingly encourages me to go on ; and the tendency to enor and excess amongst some pious persons here, makes it more and more important. StiU I feel a great doubt whether so large a work will succeed, in the pre sent state of things, on the continent. At the utmost, I only expect it may consphe, with other more efficient and adequate measures, to aid the revival of religion. May God order, direct, and bless ! I approach Geneva (for which I am now setting off) with feelings of pecuhar veneration. The name of Calvin stands high amongst the Reform ers, divines, and scholars of the sixteenth century. There is no man to whom I owe so much as a commentator. The reproaches cast so liberally on what is called Calvinism in England, are, for the most part, (as moderate men of all parties now agree in allowing) either the effect of pure igno rance, or of dislike to spiritual religion. The ex cesses and daring spirit of too many modern reli gionists, have no warrant in the writings of Cal vin. A more sober, practical, holy writer, gene rally speaking, does not exist. There was, un doubtedly, something harsh in his character ; he carried bis acuteness too far in his system of di vinity, so as to overstep, in my judgment, the exact moderation of the Sacred Writings ; and in his scheme of church government, he followed, not the Episcopahan, but the Presbyterian model. His virtues bordered on severity. But, after att these deductions, he was amongst the very first men of his own or any age ; and the objections raised against his writings in modern times, have little or nothing to do with his failings, but might be almost as weU raised against what the Scnptures state of the fall of man, of salvation by grace, of justification by faith, of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and of holy obedience as the fruit of love* In fact, these are the things in which tme religion consists ; and, therefore, they are distasteful to the pride and sensuaUty of fatten man. This dis- * I place the preamble of his will at the end of this letter. Uke sometimes assumes one disguise and some times another ; but it is only a disguise — the dis like as to vital godliness itself. What is now op posed in England as Calvinism, was opposed in the preceding age under other names ; and wfll be opposed in the next age under names stfll vary ing with the fashion of the day. Nyon, on the road to Geneva, 21 miles, 1 o'clock, Thursday. — We are sitting in a garden, at a most beautiful spot on the lake, which, with its deep- blue waters is rippling before us. We set off in our car at seven this morning, my son driving, and my friend and I going inside. The day is hot, but beautiful. We have driven most of the way through vineyards, which have Uttle or no fence to them. The grapes are now large, and in some few spots ripe ; but the vintage wfll not take place for a month. We passed through Morges and RoUe, two lovely towns, situated each ou a bay of the lake, and affording, as you approach them, a charming view. We are now at Nyon, the spot where Caesar, after defeating the Helvetii, founded the first Ro man colony, fifty-six years before the birth of our Lord. AU here is fertflity, industry, and fruitful ness. This lake of Geneva is diversified by per petual bays, towns, chateaux, vineyards, orchards, country-houses. I observe, in the towns, that the shopkeepers, in their signs, give not merely a sin gle figure, as in England ; as of a man, a boot, a bottle, a hat, Sic. ; but a long board fitted with all the figures of different sorts of boots, bottles, hats, which they happen to seU ; so that you have quite an historical painting — in wretched style of course. About six mfles before we came to Geneva, we passed through the beautiful village of Coppet, celebrated as the residence of M. Neckar, and of his still more distinguished daughter, Madame de Stael. I much wished to have called at the cha teau, to which I had been invited by the kindness of the present possessor, the Baron de Stael ; but I found it was impossible. You will be charmed to hear that the Baron with his noble and amiable sister, are blessings to the neighborhood. Theh benevolence and piety are such, that they acquaint themselves with the circumstances of all the poor famiUes around them, and administer rehef to theh bodies and minds. It is quite delightful to think, that the descendants of one of the most able states men of France, and of perhaps the most brilhant writer of her age, should be devoting all theh ta lents to the diffusion of the truest philosophy, the illumination and moral elevation of theh fellow- creatures, by the knowledge of the Holy Scrip tures, and of the blessings of real Christianity as purchased by our Lord and Saviour. It was with extreme regret I found myself unable even to make a Bhort stay in this attractive spot. Geneva, Thursday night, nine o'clock. — We arrived here about six, after a very hot, dusty, dis agreeable journey in point of fatigue ; our Uttle low car placed us, as we approached the city, iu the midst of the dust ; and we met a continued < succession of carriages. The country continued j sweet and beautiful. The view of the cathedral, and other buildings of the city, from the hfll, is very fine, chiefly from the circumstance of its be- | ing placed at the extremity of the lake, just where I its waters flow out and form the Rhone. This TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 55 noble river, which I saw springing from the gla cier, between the Grimsel and the Furca, and which was then a stream of mere turbid snow water, enters the lake of Geneva at Boverat, nearly of the same muddy white color ; but when it flows out and enters France, it is of the clearest deep-blue color, pure to the bottom. It seems to be nearly as wide here, as the Thames at London. As it rolls on to Lyon, it receives several rivers as large as itself, till at last, in its approach to the Mediterranean, it surprasses, in volume and ra pidity, the Rhine. It is, altogether, one of the noblest rivers of Europe. It rushes through Ge neva, in two or three large streams from the lake ; and convenient bridges are thrown over them. Geneva is very ancient; it is mentioned by Csesar as the last town of the Allobroges, and the nearest to the borders of Helvetia. It now con tains twenty-five thousand souls, in about one thou sand houses, which gives a much larger proportion for each house than any other place I am ac quainted with. The houses are accordingly very high — five or six stories. Many of the streets have a peculiarly awkward appearance from the roofs, at this extreme height, jutting out over the streets ten or twelve feet, and being propped up by poles, or wooden pillars, fixed on the ground below, and then secured midway by cross-beams. Nothing can be so awkward ; and what increases the awkwardness is, that small rows of shops run opposite the houses between the foot-way and the street itself.* It resembles somewhat our ancient city of Chester. The town is famed for education, talent, industry, and commerce. Watchmaking is particularly foUowed. Numbers of English are here, and in the neighboring vfllages, and country- houses, and theh opinions and example have the greatest weight. I wish I could report that the tendency of them was uniformly good. At the table-d'h6te, at supper, we had the mor tification to find that the new steam-vessel sailed from Lausanne to-day, and brought nearly one hundred passengers, without heat, dust, &c, in six hours, what took us nearly twelve ; nay, that the ah was so fresh on the lake, that many per sons put on theh great-coats. We were the more vexed, because we had inquired about the boat, and were misinformed. The fact is, the steam boat is so violently opposed by voituriers and inn keepers' servants, that there is no learning the truth concerning it. It is a ten or twelve horse power, built by a Scotch engineer, with a crew of Italians ; burns wood ; goes the tour of the towns on the lake once a week ; and answers uncom monly well, having fifty or sixty passengers most days. I wrote a note to my translator last night, and am to see him this morning. Friday morning, seven o'clock. — I am now writ ing in my room at my inn at Geneva, five stories high, with three windows overlooking the Rhone and the lake, and a view of the town and rising hills on the opposite shore. By being at this height, I am lifted up out of the smells, closeness, and heat of the streets at this hot season ; and therefore ascend my eighty weary stairs, and cross the eight landing-places, contentedly. ?This obstruction is, I understand, about to be gradually removed. Friday, half-past nine. — I have sent to the post, and received your welcome letter of July the 29th ; many, many thanks for all your intelligence. I have written a note to Cologne to recover your first. Present my kindest love to our friends of the Church Missionary Society ; tell them to be of "good cheer in the name of the Lord:" these sad deaths amongst the missionaries, of which your letter gave me the account, are the way to life. Johnson and Palmer are names dear to the churches of Africa. I knew them both. Johnson attended me for some time before he went to Africa, to receive such advice and instruction as I could give him. The surprising success of his labors has often fitted my heart with gratitude.* His simplicity and devotedness were seldom equatted. Palmer was also a man of peculiar faith and love. He had won my heart. In early Ufe he had been in the army. In the retreat of Sh John Moore to Corunna he was quite a boy, and would have perished, if an officer had not rolled him in a blanket and thrown him on horseback behind him, and thus rescued him. He was at the battle of Waterloo ; I remember the vivid description he gave me of that dreadful field. He described to me the majestic figure of Lord Wellington as he hastened on his fine charger, with his telescope in his hand, and his loose Spanish cloak floating be hind him, to different parts of the line. At the close of the war, he devoted himself to another and a higher service ; on that service he had just entered, when it pleased God thus to caU him to himself, with his wife and infant chfld. How in scrutable are the ways of Providence. Johnson was removed in the midst of his eminent success; Palmer in the dawn of future promise. Johnson from the four or five hundred converts, and the seventeen hundred hearers whom he had been the means of coUecting around him ; Palmer from the crowded population of Free Town, where a wide field of probable usefulness was opening before him. The loss of two such men is a heavy stroke, and was meant to be felt ; but may that God who has inflicted it, sanctify, support, overrule, com fort ! The more my own health has failed, the more do I learn to feel for my friends in England under sickness and sufferings. I am myself, indeed, wonderfully better : I eat, sleep, and bear fatigue well ; stfll I am not without feelings of weakness at times — and as Ufe flows on, I see eternity more vividly before me. The news has just arrived here that the Pope is dead, at the age of eighty-two or eighty-three. There is said to be a current prophecy at Rome, that whatever Pope shall reign twenty-four years, he will be the last. This Pope has reigned nearly twenty-four years. Would to God he may be the last ! One o'clock. — I have been three or four hours with my chief translator. He is evidently an amiable, pious, sensible, scholarlike young man ; but dejected, feeble in health, and of a tender, and perhaps somewhat scrupulous, mind. St. * He left a congregation of 1700 people at Regent, a town near Sierra Leone, and schools of above 1000 children. The communicants were 450, all con verted Negroes, who had been liberated from slave vessels. 56 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. Matthew is translated in the rough, and part of it is copied. I have been able to contradict a re port which has been prevalent here, that I was actually dead. My friends were solemnly as sured of the fact the other day ; I believe they are now convinced that the report was prema ture. Lausanne, Saturday, August 30. — I spent the evening, yesterday, with my translator at Geneva ; saw what he had done in the translation, and fixed a meeting with some friends on the same business for next week. I met in the course of the even ing several persons of much piety and tenderness of spirit. Afterwards I walked about many parts of the city, which is surrounded with a beautiful country. A new wooden bridge, suspended by hon whes, twisted together like cords, and carried over three stone gates or arches, is very curious. It leads across the fortifications and fosse, to a lovely point for seeing Mont Blanc, which, how ever, the cloudy weather forbade us to behold. In the evening my friend and companion, with my son, drove out to Ferney, where Voltaire Uved. The portraits of Milton and Sh Isaac Newton are in his room ; his tomb was destroyed by the Aus trians ; but he ordered a bust to be erected at Femey, fifty years after his death — 1828. The mischief which he did to Switzerland, and especi aUy to Geneva, is not to be described. A pre vious decline in spiritual reUgion, and in the great doctrines of theh reformers, had disposed the Ge nevese to receive the poison of his writings and example. He boasted that the magistrates and clergy dined commonly with him; that all honest men were Deists, though some few Calvinists, out of a city of twenty-four thousand free-thinkers, remained ; and that he should soon gain over the whole place. Howard, our celebrated philanthro pist, said, in 1770, that he then found that " the principles of one of the vilest of men (so he de scribes Voltaire) had greatly debased the ancient purity and splendor of Geneva." The fact is, that some even of the ministers of religion corresponded with Voltaire, and aUowed him to jest with Chris tianity in his letters to them. They were not ashamed also to be present at his private theatre, with aU its corruptions and profaneness. The con sequences need not be stated. When Bpeaking on this subject, it is impossible not to lament, that the Christianity which Voltaire beheld, whether in France or in Geneva, was not calculated to give him a right impression of its high and holy tendency. Gross superstition, and a careless Protestantism, almost equally concealed from him the commanding grace and blessedness which the doctrine of a divine Saviour, and the rale of Christian holiness, are designed to convey. The extreme profligacy of the French court, un der the regency, and throughout the reign of Louis XV. must have aided also in maturing his infidel and demorahzing principles. This morning at six, my friend and I returned to Lausanne, in the steam-boat, leaving my son to drive home the car. Instead of eleven hours of sun, dust, and fatigue, we had six hours of cool, agreeable, tranquil passage over the lake. We reached Lausanne at twelve o'clock ; and I found my dear family all well, and most happy in theh nice lodgings. The heat is very great. The Swiss say, each such day is a ton of gold in ripening the vintage. In the evening I walked with my old Lausanne friend to a beautiful hfll, caUed The Signal ; it presents a panoramic view of the town, lake, and adjoining country. The ascent is by a lovely winding path in the midst of mea dows and vineyards. Sunday morning, August Sist, Lausanne, ele ven o'clock. — I have been aheady twice to church : at half-past six, the parish church near us was fitted with people ; and I heard a pretty good dis course from that admhable text, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be Ufted up ; that whosoever believ eth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." John, iii. 14, 15. The fault of the sermon was, the being too superficial, too general, too declamatory. At nine, I went to the cathedral, to hear the first preacher in the canton. He is a doctor of divinity, of great respectability, and of a venerable appearance, about sixty-five years of age. The service began by a young student of the college ascending the pulpit, and reading, rather carelessly, three chapters of the Bible, whilst the congregation was assembling. He then read the Ten Commandments, and the sum mary of them given by our Saviour. Upon this he left the pulpit, and the preacher mounted it, who began by giving out two verses of a hymn. An organ led the immense congregation, whilst a chanteur, a sort of clerk, standing up in the mid dle of a pew (the congregation, I am sorry to say, sit in singing,) sung with a very loud and distinct voice. Then the preacher read an exceUent, but brief confession of sin, and some prayers. The whole of this part of the service was good ; but, as I thought, vastly inferior to the simple and edi fying liturgy of our own church. He next deUvered a discourse of twenty-five minutes, from 1 Cor. xi. 26. — " As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come." His divisions were clear and appropriate. First, Ye show forth the merit and propitiation of the death of Christ ; se condly, Ye show forth the infinite love of Christ in that death, and the obligation we are under of loving each other ; thirdly, Ye show forth your be- Uef in the future coming of your Lord, and the fulfilment of aU his promises. The whole was admirably good ; striking, eohd, elevated, instruc tive, evangelical — perhaps it wanted something as to the application to the heart and conscience towards the close. After the sermon, the reve rend preacher read a prayer for aU states of men ; the creed ; and a concluding prayer. The clerk very much offended me by sitting with his hat on during the service. The cathedral is a fine old large building. Nine at night.-*-! resume. The venerable pro fessor's sermon at the cathedral this morning was so good, that I lament to hear his doctrine is not equaUy so at all times, and above aU, that he joins in a persecution of a few very pious, though pos sibly not altogether discreet, persons who have lately appeared in the canton. What an incon sistent thing is human nature ! Here, in this smaU republic, which boasts of its freedom, al most inquisitorial powers are assumed by the ma gistrates and clergy. This is exactly what I feared TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 57 when speaking of Bern. As soon as any per son gives offence, the magistrates make no scru ple of banishing bim at once. They allow no dissidents from the establishment ; not a soul. A minister who is suspended cannot preach at all. Now, at Geneva, non-conforming ministers, and meeting-houses are tolerated, at least for the pre sent. And yet at Geneva, the church has openly denied the faith, whilst at Lausanne, the main •eatures of orthodoxy are strongly insisted on : aU these things furnish much matter for reflec tion. Perhaps one may say, that ^difference natu rally leans towards toleration ; and prpud nominal orthodoxy towards persecution. Indifference in clines towards toleration, because it undervalues the importance of all rehgious sentiments; and because it is aware it needs for itself the forbear ance it claims for others. But orthodoxy, when separated from the true spirit of the Gospel, is often self-righteous, bigoted, proud — proud of ta lents, proud of what it thinks the correct form of truth, proud of holding others in subjection, proud of crashing opposition, proud of erecting itself as a Pope in its own circle ; it therefore leans to wards persecution. These incidental evils do not at aU lessen the immense importance of truth ; in fact, they are not evils belonging to truth, but to the want of a practical, affectionate, humble apprehension of it, in att its extent. At half-past eleven, this momuig, we went to the Enghsh service, and heard an excellent ser mon from an English clergyman, who was passing through the town. At two, I heard a fourth ser mon, pretty good, from a professor of the cathe dral — But I am weary, and must again say, adieu. Believe me your affectionate, D. W. P. S. We think of taking a tour to Chamou- ny and the Great St. Bernard next week, after my meeting at Geneva ; leaving Mrs. W. in this beautiful house, where we have one of the finest, softest views in Switzerland. PREAMBLE TO CALVIN S LAST WILL. I subjoin, as a specimen of Calvin's theological views, as well as of his sphit and character, the preamble to his last wfll, dictated just before his death in May, 1564. " In the name of the Lord, Amen. I, John Calvin, minister of the word of God in the church of Geneva, being so oppressed and afflicted with various diseases, that I am futty induced to think that the Lord God has determined shortly to take me out of this world, have ordered to be made and written my testament and my last will in the form that follows : " First of all I give thanks to God that he had mercy on me (whom he created and placed in this world,) and not only dehvered me from the pro found darkness of idolatry in which I was sunk, and brought me into the hght of his Gospel, and made me a partaker of the doctrine of salvation, of which I was most unworthy ; and not only, with the same mercy and loving-kindness, bore with my many faults and sins, for which I deserv ed to be rejected and cast off by him ; but also , that he hath exercised such gentleness and kind ness towards me, as to deign to make use of me in preaching and promulgating the truth of his Gospel. And I testify and profess that it is my wish and intention to spend what may remain of my hfe in that same faith and rehgion which he dehvered to me by bis Gospel, nor to have any other hope or refuge for salvation than his gra cious adoption ; on which only my salvation rests. And I embrace with my whole soul the mercy which he has vouchsafed me for the sake of Jesus Christ, by making propitiation for my sins by the merit of his death and passion ; so that satisfac tion might be made for all my sins and transgres sions, and the memorial of them be blotted out. I testify also and profess that I humbly beg of him that he will so wash and purify me by the blood of that supreme Redeemer, poured out for the sins of the human race (effuso pro humani generis pec catis,) that I may be permitted to stand before his tribunal in the image of the Redeemer himself. Also I profess that I have diligently laboured, ac cording to the measure of grace and loving-kind ness which God has bestowed on me, purely and simply to preach his word both in my sermons and in my writings and commentaries, and faith fully interpret his Holy Scriptures. I testify also and profess that in all the contentions and debates which I have had with the enemies of the Gospel, I have made use of no tricks nor sophistical and bad methods, but have acted candidly and sin cerely in defending the truth. " But, wo is me ! all my labor and zeal (if they deserve the name) have been so remiss and lan guid, that I confess that innumerable things have been wanting to the right discharge of my office, and that unless the unbounded loving-kindness of God had aided me, aU my labor would have been useless and vain. Yea, moreover I acknowledge that unless the same loving-kindness had helped me, the gifts and blessings of my mind which he vouchsafed to me would have more and more brought me in guflty, before his tribunal, of sin and negligence. On wliich account, I testify and profess that I have no other hope of salvation except this one, that God, as he is the Father of mercies, will show himself a Father to me who acknowledge myself a miserable sinner." ARRETE OF LAUSANNE. Since my return to England, I find an Arretk has actuaUy been published at Lausanne, in the precise language that persecutors have almost universally adopted since Louis the Fourteenth's revocation of the edict of Nantes. It forbids all private rehgious meetings ; and directs magis trates to dissolve such meetings by force. Every person found guilty of beingpresent at these meet ings is to be punished with fines, imprisonments, Sic. And is it in Switzerland — Switzerland, the nurse of the Reformation — Switzerland, the coun try of Zuingle and Ecolampadius, and Beza — 58 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. Switzerland, the last favorite refuge of rehgious hberty in E urope, that this has taken place ! Who can too strongly express his detestation of such intolerant and unchristian measures ! For the calumniated persons, who are the objects of it, are acknowledged on all hands to be peaceable members of the repubhc, unexceptionable in theh moral conduct, and pious and devoted Christians. What trifling faults they may have committed, or what errors even they may have fatten into, I do not know, nor wfll I trouble myself to inquire ; — it is enough for me to know that such infirmities and foibles, supposing them to exist, are no palli ation whatever of the abominable guilt of perse cution. But so it is. The clergy, when they re fuse to accept of divine grace, have always been the worst of enemies to real spiritual reUgion. AU experience declares this, and especiaUy the history of the sufferings of Christ our Lord. I subjoin a copy of the Arrete, as a most cu rious document, and a sad specimen of what a Protestant government is capable of enacting : — "Le Conseil d'Etat du Canton de Vaud. " Vu les rapports parvenus depuis quelques an- nees, sur les principes et la conduite d'une nou- velle secte en matiere de rehgion, vulgairement appelee des Momiers, qui s'est introduite dans le canton ; ainsi que sur les assemblees ou reunions de cette secte qui, dans certains lieux, se tiennent aux mfimes heures que le service du culte pubhc ; "Considerant que si l'autorite n'a pas as'occu- per de ce qui concerne les opinions religieuses des individus, en tant qu'eUes n'influent pas sur l'ordre publique, il est neanmoins de son devoir d'intervenir, lorsque ces opinions se manifestent par des actes exterieures qui tendent a troubler cet ordre pubhc ; " Considerant que la nouveUe secte dont il s'agit, a donne, lieu sur divers points du Canton a. des desordres plus ou moins graves, qui, s'ils n'etaient arretes dans leur premiere cause, pourraient avoir par leur developpement ulterieur de facheux re- sultats ; " Considerant que ces sectaires ont declare par l'intermediaire de ceux qui s'annoncent comme leurs chefs ou directeurs, qu'ils se separent de 1'eglise Nationale et se rendent independans des institutions et ordonnances qui la regissent, pour former une eglise nouvelle ; " Considerant que les actes qui se font dans leur assemblees constitueraient ainsi un veritable culte, etranger a la religion de l'etat ; "Considerant que les principes erronn6s ou exageres professes dans les dites assemblees et hautement avoues soit par les sectaires, soit par ceux qui se presentent comme leurs Chefs, sont absolument subversifs de l'ordre social, tant sous le point de vue de l'union dans les famiUes, que sous celui des rapports qui derivent des institutions civiles et religieuses ; "Considerant, enfin que les dits sectaires se placent, par leurs discours, leurs demarches, et leurs actes de proselytisme, dans un etat d'aggres- sion ouverte contre 1'eglise nationale ; "Ou'i le departement de l'interieur Ar rete. "Article 1. Les Assemblees ci-dessus mention- nees sont expressement defendues, commes con- traires a l'ordre pubhc et a la paix religieuse. " Art. 2. Les Juges de paix et les municipaUtes specialement charges de faire dissoudre immedi- atement toute assemblee ou reunion de ce genre, et cela par les moyens que la loi met a leur disposi tion pour le maintien de l'ordre pubhc. " Les Juges de paix et les municipaUtes feront sans delai rapport au conseil d'etat des mesures qu'ils auront prises en execution du present article, et des circonstances qui auront provoque des me sures. " Art. 3. Toute personne reunie a une de ces assemblees probibees, qui n'aura pas obei de suite a. l'ordre de se separer et sera convaincue d'avoir, par sa resistance, mais l'autorite dans le cas d'em- ployer la force, sera poursuivie pour etre punie conforraement a Particle 53 du Code correctione] (trois jours de prisons) sans prejudice des peines plus graves auxquettes les suites de cette resistance pourraient donner lieu. " Art. 4. Seront poursuivis pour etre punis con- formement a l'article 58 du Code correctione] (600 hvres d'amende, ou dix ans de prisons) sui- vant le prescript de l'article 11 de la loi du 2 Juin, 1810, tous les individus dont les demarches tendrai- ent a gagner des proselytes a une secte contraire it la paix religieuse et a l'ordre pubhc. Tout in dividus qui fournhait un emplacement quelconque pour y tenir des assemblees prohibees, sera envi sage, comme comphce et poursuivi comme tel. "Art. 5. Seront egalement poursuivis, pour etre punis des peines mentionnees a l'article precedent tous les individus reconnus pour avoir provoque ou dirige une assemblee probibee, ou pour avoir foncti- onne en qualite de Chefs, ou de Directeurs, ou de tout autre maniere semblable. Art. 6. Le present arrete sera imprime, publie, et affiche. II sera transmis aux lieutenants du con seil d'etat, aux Juges de paix, et aux municipah'tes charges de vefller et de tenir la main a son execu tion. " Donne sous le sceau du Conseil d'Etat a Lau sanne le 15 Janvier, 1824. " Suivent les signatures et le sceau." Thus is the Inquisition of Spain transferred to Protestant Switzerland; and the noblest gift of the Reformation, liberty of conscience is open ly violated. As this part of the volume is again going through the press,* I take the opportunity of giving some further information on the above most distressing subject, partly taken from letters lately received from Switzerland, and partly from other authentic sources. It is quite lamentable to see to what a length some of the Swiss protestant govern ments have actually carried the sphit of persecution. I first give a copy of the law passed at Lau sanne last May, four months after the above Arrete, and embodying the enactments of that decree : — "Le grand conseil du canton de Vaud, sur la pro position du conseil d'Etat. " Considerant que quelques personnes exaltees cherchent a introduhe et il propager une nouvelle secte reUgieuse : » March, 1825. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 59 " Voulant reprimer les actes de cette secte, qui troublent l'ordre pubhc, decree : "Article 1. Toute assemblee de partisans de cette secte, formee de personnes etrangeres a la famflle, pour y exercer le culte, ou y celebrer quel- qu'une des ceremonies de Peghse, est defendue, et sera immediatement dissoute. " Art. 2. Les personnes qui auront preside ou dirige ces assemblees, y auront officie, ou auront fourni le local, seront responsables et punies de l'une des peines qui suivent. "Art. 3. Toute acte de proselytisme ou de se duction, tendant a gagner a cette secte, est inter- dit ; et celui ou ceux qui s'en seraient rendus cou- pables, seront punis de l'une des peines ci-apres. " Dans l'appreciation de la gravite du debt, et dans l'apphcation de la peine, les tribunaux prend- ront en consideration la seduction exercee envers les instituteurs des colleges ou ecoles, envers les personnes du sexe, ou celles qui sont sous l'autorite de parens ou tuteurs. " Art. 4. Les contraventions aux articles 2 et 3 ci-dessus seront punies, ou par une amende qui ne poun-a exceder six cents francs, ou par la defense d'atter ou de sejourner dans telle commune, ou par la confination dans.une commune pour un temps qui ne pourra exceder une annee, ou par une prison de discipline qui ne pourra exceder une annee, ou enfin par un bannissement hors du canton qui ne pourra excoder treis ans. Art. 5. La defense d'aller ou de sejourner dans une commune sera eonvertie en confination du condamne dans sa commune, pour un temps qui ne pourra exceder une annee, dans le cas ou fl aurait enfreint cette defense. La confination dans une commune sera eon vertie en prison de disciphne pour le reste du temps, si le condamne avait enfrient sa confina tion. Le bannissement hors du canton sera converti en prison de disciphne pour le reste du temps, si 7e condamne avait rompu son ban. Art. 6. Toute cause qui aura pour object un des debts prevus par la presente loi, sera necessaire- ment soumise au tribunal d'appel. Art. 7. Le conseil d'etat est charge de la pub hcation et de Pexecution de la presente loi. Donne sous le grand sceau de l'etat, a Lau sanne, le 20 Mai, 1824. Such is the harsh and inconsistent law of a Pro testant Swiss canton, in the enactments of which neither is the sect weU defined, nor the crime clearly pointed out, nor the punishment invariably fixed, but all is left to the interpretation of tribu nals and the eagerness of informers. It seems that if a single person, not of the family, should be pre sent where the Scriptures are read by a parent to his children and servants, the whole number would be considered as guilty. This is far more inde finite and oppressive than the French laws, bad as they confessedly are, which prohibit the periodical assembly of more than twenty persons without the authority of the government ; and thus at least define precisely the act which is to be considered as criminal. And above all, what is this prohibition of prose lytism! Are not men to be aUowed, by reasoning and persuasion, peaceably to propose their senti- 55—3 ments to others! May men talk of politics, litera ture, philosophy, and" is reUgion alone — ihe one thing needful— to be banished from theh conversa tion. But I proceed to give some account of the ac tual execution of this unjust law. M. Charles Rochat, minister of the Gospel, of the canton de Vaud, of a respectable famfly, and whose brother is one of the national^ilergy of the canton, is the first on whom the severity of the new law has fallen. Five persons were found seated around a table in his house, with the Bible open before them — the wife of M. Rochat, a com mon friend, with two of his sisters, and a young person, a stranger. This was the whole crime. M. Rochat was found guflty of reading in his own house, before his wife ahd four friends, a chapter of the New Testament ! For this he was at first condemned to three years' banishment, which, however, the tribunal of appeal reduced to one year. Next, M. OUver was banished for two years by the sentence of the, same law. Like judgments have been pronounced against M M. Chavannes, Juvet, and Fivaz, of whom the two former were previously confined ten weeks in PRISON. Two females were also banished by the juge- ment de premiere instance of the tribunals of Orbe and Yverdun, on the charge of simflar meet ings bemg held at theh houses ; one of whom, however, has been since acquitted at Lausanne, as it was proved that she lived with her mother, and, consequently, that it was at her mother's house, and not at her's, that some friends after dinner had read the Bible together. But it is not merely in the canton de Vaud that these enormous instances of injustice have oc curred ; at Neufchatel an act of arbitrary power has just been committed, almost incredible from its severity. An old law, long obsolete, has been discovered, which it seems was passed two or three hundred years back. A simple agriculteur has been made the first victim of its revived pow ers. He received into his house M. Juvet, one of the condemned ministers of the canton de Vaud, and allowed him to administer the sacrament. For this crime he was thrown into prison for three months, and was then brought up in chains and with a rope drawn tight round his neck to receive sentence. Ten years of banishment was the punishment pronounced ; and if he shall attempt to return before the expiration of this term, he is to be marked with a hot iron for the first offence, and for the second to be hung. No passport was given him; so that he is left to be hunted about from place to place like the most degraded criminal. This worthy man, whose name is Magnin, has a wife and three children, for whom he has now no means of procuring support. Such is the account which has just been re ceived. Possibly some slight circumstances may be inaccurately stated, from want of/more com plete information on the part of my correspondents ; but of the main facts, no doubt whatever can be entertained. Grosser acts of unqualified persecu tion have seldom been perpetrated, since the glo rious Reformation first burst the chains of Popish darkness and cruelty. Nor can any one thing, in my opinion, be so deeply criminal in the eye of 60 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. that God who is the sole judge of the consciences of his creatures, and who has committed to civil governments the duty of restraining and punish ing open immorahty and vice, and upholding piety and virtue ; but not of erecting a tribunal over the feelings and various judgments of men in minor points of rehgious practice ; much less of abusing the sword of justice to purposes of base and wan ton cruelty, in matters purely mdifferent. Our Warburton has nobly shown that for the magistrate to meddle with Christian doctrine and disciphne, in the detail, must be the source of end less confusion. To maintain reUgion in its ele mentary principles, as the spring of pubhc morals, and to protect the national profession of it from insult and outrage, whilst a full toleration is grant ed to those who peaceably differ from the majority with regard to the form of it, is the very utmost .'imit of the magistrate's power; aU beyond is per secution. The low state of the Protestant churches has long been lamented by every serious mind. But still the free toleration which for more than a cen tury they have afforded to the true servants of God has, at least, honorably distinguished them from the tyranny and ambition of the church of Rome. Liberty of conscience is the badge of the Reformation, and has now been fully under stood and generally acted upon for a series of years, in Protestant states ; whilst persecution and cruelty have been left, as by general consent, to be one of tlie characteristics of the great Papal apostacy. Other evils have, it is true, too much infected the Protestant bodies — these we do not pattiate or conceal — but the peculiar guilt of persecution has hitherto been abhorred amongst them. Indiffer ence, skepticism, Socinianism, impiety, vice, must be confessed to have too widely prevailed. Some of the reformed churches have, alas ! lamentably declined from evangehcal truth and vital rehgion, and have been long verging further and further from the strictness of the Gospel in every respect, except as this one blessing of religious freedom has supplanted the monster persecution, and has left an opening for the " witnesses to prophecy," as the Apostle speaks, "in sackcloth." So long as this was the case, a hope of a revival of rehgion might always be entertained ; because true Chris tians were still allowed, by theh pubUc and private labors, to endeavor to persuade and convince man kind. Declines, in spiritual religion, are the fruits of our fallen nature generaUy, and are quickly re medied as often as the mercy of God returns to a people, and a continuance of rehgious freedom allows that mercy to operate. Thus, in England, the generous spirit of tolera tion left open the way for the extensive revival of real Christianity which is now going on amongst us ; and has attended, in every step of itsprogress, the diffusion of the evangehcal doctrines on wliich that revival rests. But if persecution be once per mitted to resume its baneful influence — if the wit nesses for Christ and his grace, in a corrupt world, be banished or imprisoned — if the peculiar doc trines of the redemption of the Gospel, which brought our forefathers out from the church of Rome, are proscribed in the very churches which were formed by that separation — if we unite a lukewarmness about divine truth, or rather an ^difference what errors are maintained, provided men are not living and preaching according to the true faith of Christ, with a sphit of intolerance and persecution — that is, if we join the worst in cidental evils of Protestantism, with the foulest direct enormities of Popery — the consequence wfll be, that our " candlestick will be removed out of its place," — Rev. ii. v — and the fearful arm of the Saviour be soon aroused in the defence of his violated cause. Soon wfll "judgment overtake us" — soonwiU "the ambassadors of peace" be recalled — soon will national calamities "avenge the quarrel of God's covenant " — soon wfll the ministers of grace be sent to other people " bringing forth the fruits thereof" — and the Protestant churches be left " as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city — and then the strong shaU be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark ; and they shaU both burn together, and none shall quench them." — Isaiah i. 8. 31. I know it is aUeged, in extenuation of severe enactments, that enthusiasm and disorder are the consequences of unlimited toleration — but I know how weak and futile are such allegations. Un doubtedly, most great revivals of religion are at tended, through the mfirmity of our nature, with some extravagancies and excesses — no wise man can expect it to be otherwise — but what is the true remedy of such evils ! Not persecution, but the force of reason and right conduct — the influ ence of sound and holy doctrine — the persuasion of Scriptural warnings and admonitions — the calm and friendly treatment wliich experience and wis dom furnish to youth and indiscretion — and es peciaUy the preaching of the fufl truth of the Gos pel, in all its sobriety and force, by the established ministers of the church. Against such weapons enthusiasm has never been able to stand. It soon dies away. The minds of men are graduaUy in formed. The Scriptures are seen to abound with the most suitable examples and instructions against it. The new teachers of rehgion acquire growth and solidity — a distinction is made between true and false zeal— the consequences of intemperate warmth are observed in the fotty of those who are most heated with it — and, at last, a genuine and sound piety of principle and conduct is generally recognised and cultivated. Such is the natural course of things. Whereas, if the sword of vengeance is raised against pious and unoffending citizens, on the ground of reli gious opinions and practices, all is thrown into confusion — the innocent and conscientious are punished — the sanctity of truth is outraged — the progress of reformation stopped — the Spirit of grace quenched and dishonored — the chains of ignorance, indifference, and vice, forged and pre- pared — all inquiry into real reUgion checked — fhe timid part of the clergy, induced by fear, to con ceal and abridge the truth of the Gospel — every thing reduced to a formal and stationary routine — a dead calm spread over the church — and every thing lost as to vital piety. Thus the surest foundations of national prosperity are dug up — ¦ the spring of virtuous enterprise broken — morals left to mere natural motives — arts, science, com merce, discouraged and enervated — and, above all, the blessings of Almighty God withdrawn. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 61 I trust that the remonstrances of Protestant Eu rope may prevail with the Swiss governments to reconsider theh proceedings ; and that ere long this foul blot on the Reformed churches may be wiped out, and the true spirit of rehgious hberty and toleration again distinguish and bless their communities. It is understood, that many of the clergy of the Canton de Vaud bitterly regret the steps which have been taken ; but are at present borne down by the magistrates in the council. — Whether those clergy might have prevented the enactment of the law, if they had boldly and fully protested against it from the first, it is now im possible to say, and in vain to inquire. I can only hope, that the repeal of it wfll as speedily as pos sible obbterate the memory of the lamentable facts which have been just related. Such a hope is not too sanguine. Already has a most forcible remonstrance been presented to the government, signed by twenty-six ministers. This cannot but produce good. The document is valuable, both as it explicitly avows the adhe rence of so large a part of the clergy to the ad mirable Helvetic Confession, (which, next to our own Thirty-nine Articles, is perhaps the best of all the Protestant Confessions,) and also as ex plicitly disavows the principles of persecution. — The following are extracts : — " Nous declarons done ioi solennellement que nous regardons la confession de foi Helvetique comme conforme aux paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte, et a. la doctrine de notre Sauveur Jesus-Christ, regies invariables de notre foi ; et que, loin de precher ni d'enseigner rien qui lui soit contraire, nous l'adoptons sincerement et en suivons fideie- ment les directions, nous y tenant pour obliges, devant Dieu et devant les hommes, par notre con viction intime et par le serment que nous avons prete en consequence." — — " Nous pensons que le Christianisme ne doit s' etendre et regner que par les armes de la per suasion, rendues efficaces par la grace de l'Eter- nel notre Dieu; que, de plus, les rigueurs pour raient aigrir et eloigner davantage ceux que la douceur eat peut-etre ramenes ; que les lois, pour peu qu'elles fussent severes contre des separa- tistes, pourraient pr£ter des armes trop redoutables aux hommes moins eclaires que les legislateurs, et qui auraient a. en faire l'application ; qu'eUes pourraient enfin influer d'une maniere fachouse sur le jugement du peuple moins eclaire encore : opinion que nous ne pourrions que trop justifier par l'histohe des demeles religieux de tous les temps et de tous les tteux. Ainsi, repoussant de toutes nos forces le reproche de persecution dont le clerge est si souvent l'objet, nous demandons, du fond de notre cceur, a notre Dieu et a notre Sauveur, qu'U incline a la clemence le cceur de nos souverains magistrate ; qu'ils se regardent comme les peres de tous ceux qui ont le bonheur de vivre sous leur gouvernement, et les protegent egalement ; que s'ils croient devoir deployer la severite des lois, suivant leurs attributions, ce ne soit jamais pour gfiner la (Conscience de leurs ad- ministres, dont eUe est le domaine sacre et invio lable ; qu'ainsi, abandonnJnt a- Dieu le soin 'de punir les offenses qui ne regardent qui lui, ils lais- sent ->u temps, a la grace et a la persuasion qui decoule de la sainte parole, le developpement de leurs salutaires effets." — With a protest containing such sentiments, I do not despair of the Swiss churches. Truth will revive and spread. The doctrines of the Refor mation wfll flourish the more for this attempt to oppress them. The consciences of men will be awakened ; and persecution will again fail, as it ever has done, of crushing " the Gospel of the grace of God." The immense importance of the case wfll, I am sure, plead my excuse for these observations and extracts. Protestant Switzerland stands on the edge of a most fearful precipice. The conduct of the church of Geneva wfll be considered in a future part of this work, and therefore is not here adverted to.* LETTER XI. Geneva, Sept. 2.—Martigny, Sept. 6, 1823. Translation of Scott — Cathedral at Lausanne — Pere Girard — Mont Blanc — Conversation with Gene vese — Savoy — Bonneville — VaUey of Cluse — Goitres — St. Martin's— Chede— Sprvoz — De Saus- sure — Chamouny — Glacier of Bossons — Accident in ascent of Mont Blanc — Italian Gentlemen — Montanvert — Couvercle — Mer de Glace — Alps — Infamous sentence in Strangers' Book — Tete Noire — Trient — French Emigrants. Lausamw, Tuesday morning, Sept. 2, 1823. My dearest sister — Yesterday I was employ ed the whole morning in examining two chapters of the translation of Scott, which I had brought with me from Geneva, t went over it, Une by hue, and word by word. It gave me satisfaction ; it is, so far as I see, faithful clear, simple ; nothing is omitted, nothing changed. But I am no kind of judge. A good translation is a task of incon- * I leave the above pages unaltered in the present edition. The facts I believe, are correct, and the observations still too applicable to the existing state of things. The last accounts with which I am ac quainted are those stated in the Christian Observer for November and December 1826 — Three years of continued persecution, in the face of Protestant Eu rope, afrer all the means employed in various ways for awakening a sense of shame in the minds of the Lausanne authorities, is a portentous event ! But I have had an opportunity of conversing with one or two persons of influence in the Pays de Vaud, and the incurable prejudices against all spiritual religion which seemed to possess their minds, convinced me of the real cause of the persecution, and of the hope lessness of remedying the evil by mere argument. — Divine grace, the influence of truth, remorse of con science, conversion, the holy lives and deaths of the sufferers, the rapid spread of the proscribed doc trines, the removal of the chief persecutors by sick ness, or change of abode, or the hand of death — these are the means which a good Providence will employ, in its own time, for the relief of the injured and oppressed. In the mean while, may earnest prayers be poured out by all those who love the Sa-- viour, in behalf of the sufferers, and of the sacred cause in which they are engaged. — March 1827. 62 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. ceivable difficulty. The value of the original work rises in my view every time I consult it — such so lidity ; honesty ; strong sense ; originality ; theo logical knowledge ; evangehcal purity of doctrine ; simple foUowing of the mind of the sacred writers ; freedom from party sphit ; discretion ; sound and manly criticism ; acute resolution of difficulties ; practical and holy tendency throughout. I real ly know of no commentary, except, perhaps, Cal vin's, which is equal to it. What I most want, is more steady, competent laborers ; there is stfll very, very much to be done before St. Matthew wfll be ready for the press. I am going off to-day to meet our friends at Gene va, about the work ; and then to proceed to Cha- mouney. It is possible we may go on to Martigny, and even Milan, and return by Lyon. The wea ther is most inviting. In going to the cathedral yesterday, I found it was built on an extremely high hfll ; you first as cend a street exceedingly steep, and then come to a singular, covered staircase (in the open street) of one hundred and seventy steps; so that the church stands quite on a pinnacle ; the view which it presents of the sun-ounding country is of almost unequalled extent and subhmity. The academy is near the cathedral. It was founded in 1537. Henry Stephens and Beza were formerly profes sors in it. It has now about two hundred stu dents. The hbrary is remarkable for the books left to it by Don Jacynthe de Quires, a Spanish gentleman who, in 1750, quitted the church of Rome, embraced the reformed rehgion, and be came professor of ecclesiastical history at Lau sanne. At one o'clock yesterday I visited a pious fami ly, two or three miles from Lausanne, at a house beautifuUy situated in the midst of vineyards, and commanding a fine view of the lake. I had a most affecting conversation with them. The father, mother, sisters, all seem quite in earnest about their salvation. But, unhappily, they have few wise, enhghtened guides. Too many of the mi nisters at Lausanne, with much orthodoxy and zeal, are said to want that humble ?nd practical /knowledge of the Gospel, as a concern of the heart, without wliich they cannot direct others. On the other hand, a pious minister (who has lately been silenced,) has fatten into the danger ous error of always dweffing on the mysterious doctrine of the divine election, &c. ; so that the serious people are almost as sheep without a shep herd. What a delight is it on a journey to be able to advise, comfort, and strengthen, in any degree, the minds of distressed brethren in the faith ! I could scarcely tear myself away from this family. At Geneva, tilings I am told are much worse than here, as to the public doctrines taught by the clergy. The decline in rehgion began in that city about eighty years back, when the subscrip tion to the formulary of the Swiss Reformers — the noble and most scriptural Helvetic confession — was abolished ; then came in Voltahe as a re sident in the town ; next, the catechism of Calvin was done away with ; lastly, a reglement was is sued about six years since, drawn up with adroit ness and caution, but plainly intended to prevent the ministers from preaching expUcitly and fuUy on the divinity of Christ, original sin, grace, and predestination — the three former of which articles contain the very sum and substance of the Gospel ; and the latter of which is undoubtedly an import ant scriptural doctrine. Thus, from being the flower of the Reformed churches, Geneva has (for the time, and I trust it wiU be only for a short time,) faUen into the gulf of deism and Soci- nianism. I have obtained a copy of the pamphlet publish ed by the friends of M. Girard, the schoolmaster at Fribourg, giving an account of the whole of hia proceedings. It is authorized by the municipal council. It seems that the charge alleged against him was, that his schools of mutual instruction were hostile to religion. The statement, however, of M. Girard proves that the principles of religion, and reUgion too of the Roman Cathohc form, en tered into aU his arrangements. The Cathohc catechism of the diocese was the chief book, and bis schools were warmly approved of by the bi shop. Stfll the Jesuits were dissatisfied because some good sense and sincere piety were apparent in M. Ghard's method. His crime was, that he made faith working by love the end and founda tion of his instruction ; that he was attached to the principles of Fenelon and Rolhn, and avoided aU mere mechanism in education ; that he labor ed, as he states, to place reUgion in the under standing and in the heart of the children. The municipal council of Fribourg, notwith standing the arts of the Jesuits, solemnly assure him of theh approbation. They teU him " that theh Master-instructer, the divine Redeemer, ne glected not, in his instructions, the forming of the heart ; his manner of teaching was never a dry theory. You are, then, reverend father," they continue, "misunderstood; the expression is too weak ; but truth at last will resume her rights. — Man proposes ; God disposes. We think, that because God loves our school, he has been pleas ed to visit it with chastisement. " The municipal council, faithful to its oath, wfll fulfill its duties, of which it feels the honor and the importance ; not one of its members would charge himself, as it respects the present and future gene rations, with the responsibility of being indifferent at such a solemn moment. Let us hope ! God, whom we invoke, will protect our children, and save them from the abyss." Nothing can be more affecting, I think, than this touching appeal. An address from the heads of families in Fribourg closes the pamphlet, testi fying to the same facts. " Our conviction," say they, " ought to be of some weight in the scale ; we have a right to express it. And who are the best judges ! those who blame the school without knowing it, or the fathers of families, the earliest teachers of their children, who have constantly their eye fixed on theh morals, theh docility, theh progress, and who can compare the present with the past!" The pamphlet was pubUshed at Fribourg about four months since. It affords a further illustra tion of the good which is going on in Catholic countries, to an extent we nave Uttle idea of in England ; but, at the same time, of the spirit of the Jesuits and chief rulers in the present coun cils of the Popedom, Geneva, Wednesday morning, 5 o'clock. — We TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 63 had a dettghtful sail yesterday in the steam-boat. The only drawback on our pleasure was, that my dear Mrs. W. was not with us ; her health obliges her to remain tranquil during this our second mountain tour. The view of the banks of the lake, as we sailed by, was exquisite, especially as the evening drew on. We passed the chateau of Prangins, where Joseph Bonaparte resided after his Spanish dream of royalty. The Mont Blanc was visible above the mountains of Savoy, almost the whole way ; and at sunset, it remained illu minated, or rather gilded by the sun, fuU twenty minutes after every other mountain was in the shade. Its height is not apparently greater than that of the Jungfrau Alp ; but its extent, size, va rious ridges, enormous platforms, &c, make it in finitely more majestic ; it appears UteraUy a re gion of ice and snow. During our passage, I had a long conversation with some respectable young Genevese, on va rious religious topics. It was grievous to see how the poison of the prevailing sentiments at Geneva had infected theh minds. They seemed to have no fixed principles, except a loose general notion that the Bible was the word of God. AU the evangehcal doctrines they thought harsh, doubt ful, or unimportant — moral instruction was aU that man required — -every one had a right to put his own sentiments on the New Testament, as the Reformers had put theirs — all opinions were equaUy good, if men's conduct only was con formed to them. Such is the sophistry by wliich the stupendous revelation of a divine Redeemer, dying for our sins, and sanctifying us by his Spi rit, is evaded, and the dregs of heathen ethics alone retained — that is, the whole Bible, as the standard of truth, is overthrown, and "the ima ginations of man's own heart" substituted in its place. At our landing, our kind friends were waiting for us on the shore, and I had a conference with them for two hours. They met me again for three hours, this morning at seven. We are gra dually arranging the plan of the pubhcation of St. Matthew. I agreed to provide a person to copy the MSS. fair for the printer ; fixed January the first for the time when all should be ready for the press ; and promised to meet them again in about three weeks, on my return from Chamou- ny. These Genevese friends seem men of the deepest piety and sweetest sphit of love ; I was delighted and edified. I forgot to say, that our lodging-house at Lausanne is Maison Miliquet St. Pierre, premiere etage ; it is quite worth re cording, in order to inform any friends who may be coming to Lausanne. Bonneville, 18 miles from Geneva, half-past two. — We are now in the duchy of Savoy, attached to the kingdom of Sardinia. The capital is Tu rin, which we hope to see before we return. Our road has run through the valley of the Arve. The country has been singularly beautiful, some thing Uke the vaUey of the Reuss, only that the river Reuss incomparably surpasses the muddy, straggling, wandering Arve, whose shores are de solation itself. Savoy is Catholic; and negligent, indolent, and in many parts, dirty. The vines, instead of being regularly planted and supported in rows, as in the neighboring lands, are positively allowed to grow at random, in the most scramb ling manner, on the ground, with potatoes or wil lows rising among them. This smafl market town of Bonneville has six hundred inhabitants. Just before I left Geneva, your parcel arrived from London. I had time to send it on to Lau sanne without a moment's delay. St. Martin, near to Sallenche, 36 miles from Geneva, eight o'clock. — We have had a most charming drive. The valley of Cluse opened upon us about two leagues from Bonneville. Cluse (the Roman Clausum, because, according to some, it appears to close up enthely the valley) is ro- mantically situated on the Arve. The craggy mountains are in contrast with the sweet fertility of the vattey, and vary so perpetually in theh out line, site, and appearance, that it is impossible for words to convey any adequate idea of them. At one particular spot, three small cannon were drawn up by some peasants and fired, to give us the pleasure of hearing the repeated echo of the mountains. Two things distressed us to-day, one a natural, the other a moral defect — almost every second person here has a swoUen neck ; sometimes so as to distort the whole figure ; it almost amounts to a goitre ; children often have it. Besides other inconveniences, I conceive it must materiaUy im pede the poor in then- labors. The other defect is, the lamentable misery and superstition of these parts. We actuaUy saw on a cross, by the road side, this notice, " The archbishop of Chamberry and bishop of Geneva grants forty days' indul gence to aU those who shall say before this cross, a pater, and an Ave-Maria, with an act of contri tion, 1819." And yet this bishop of Geneva ruled that fine canton tfll the Reformation ; and it was only in 1754, that the duke of Savoy relin quished his claims upon it. O what a blessing is dehverance from the monstrous domination and errors of the church of Rome ! The duke' once made, as perhaps you know, a base attempt to seize the town, in 1604, in the dead of the night, and during a profound peace : the heroism of the Swiss, however, was not to be overcome ; and they repulsed the invaders. The river Arve, by which we have been traveUing, is a torrent spring ing in Savoy, and pouring into the Rhone, near Geneva ; it swells so suddenly at times, as to cover all the adjoining fields, and do great mis chief. Servoz, on the road to Chamouny, 11 o'clock, Thursday, Sept. 4. — We set off at eight this morning, after wretched beds, and a wretched breakfast ; but aU has been repaid by the magni ficent view we had of Mont Blanc, in" aU its splen dor. The mass, or rather chain of Alps, bearing the general name of Mont Blanc, covered with perpetual snow, rose over the intervening moun tains. The contrast between the snowy terrors of the Alps, immediately above us, and the rich ver dure of the valley, the profusion of trees on the hflls, and the lovely meadows creeping up theh sides, by which we were passing, was reaUy in credibly striking. The outline of the fir-crowned mountains, in the near prospect, was surmounted with the snows of Mont Blanc, apparently quite close ; so that it seemed impossible that we should be melting with heat, so near to tremendous ice 64 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. and cold. At one point, we had first the small lovely lake of Chede at our feet ; then its banks, gently rising and presenting themselves above ; next the verdant mountains ; and lastly, Mont Blanc, of wliich the vast snowy summits were beautifuUy reflected in the clear surface of the lake. Before, however, we came within view of this astonishing Alp, we stopped to visit a fine cascade at Chede vfllage. The tonent faUs altogether above one hundred feet ; but it is divided into five different branches or beds, which the stream has worked for itself. It was very curious to see a beautiful rainbow, as early as nine in the morning, formed by the spray, and wliich, from the point where we stood, was nearly an enthe circle, be ginning in the rain upon the grass on one side, continuing over the torrent, and then returning to the grass almost under our feet on the other. But I can think of nothing but Mont Blanc ; it so much surpasses aU my expectations. When our good friend was here four years ago, the day was wet, and he saw nothing ; the weather to-day is superb, and we see every thing. The very vil lage where we now. are is romantic beyond de scription. I am sitting at the door of the inn, writing on a rough wooden table, which shakes at every movement of my hand — the vfllage church just, in view — a few scattered houses around it — three noble mountains guarding it behind, on which some fine clouds are just resting — fruitful ness apparent aU around — whilst company are driving up to the village, on the same errand with ourselves ; and the sun from behind the moun tains is casting the prospect into alternate light and shade. Astonishing indeed are the works of the great God — impressed with the footsteps of his majesty, power, and grace. We only want a heart con stantly raised up to him in gratitude, and seeing him in aU the operations of his hands, to complete the duty, and enhance the pleasure of such a scene of wonders ! Chamouny, seven o'clock, Thursday evening, 24 miles from St. Martin's. — After leaving Servoz, we soon entered the vaUey of Chamouny, which, as late as 1741, was almost enthely unknown. Two Englishmen then explored it. In 1760, M. de Saussure undertook his first journey to it. The ascent of Mont Blanc by that enterprising tra veUer, in 1787, brought it at length into notice ; and nearly one thousand strangers soon visited it annually. The reputation of the valley, and the conveniences prepared for travellers, have been increasing ever since ; so that we have found here one of the very best inns in Switzerland. Chamouny is separated from aU the great roads, and seems quite cut off from the rest of the world. It is about twelve miles long, and a mile broad. At the entrance of the vattey is a monument erected to a naturalist, who feU down a fissure a few years since, by neglecting his guide, and was lost. Such warnings perpetually occur. A lad with a trumpet astonished us, at a particular part of the road, with the echo which the Alps return ed at every blast. About a league from Chamouny, we came to the smaU village of Bossons, above which is a most noble glacier, so situated, that travellers are able to cross over it. We ascended the conti guous mountain, excessively steep, about two thousand five hundred feet. We then passed over the heap of loose stones, cast up by the last eboulement, which lay between us and the gla cier, and thus came on tbe solid mass of ice and frozen snow. There was one great fissure in it which it was terrible to look down ; and at the bottom of which roared a torrent of water ; aU the surface of the glacier was shppery, from the heat of the sun upon it. It was cold as Decem ber. The scene was very fine. After making our way across, we had a much more difficult heap, or rather ruin of stones and loose rocks, first to ascend and then to descend, before we could find the path which led again to Bossons. Part of the road which we took was that by which De Saussure, with his eighteen guides, ascended, in 1787. Indeed we may be said to have been at the foot of Mont Blanc aU the afternoon. I see one of its summits (fifteen thousand five hundred feet, the highest ridge in the old world) at this moment from my chamber- window. On a ridge of the Alp, perhaps two thousand feet above me, a fhe is just now hghted, as a sign of rejoicing that no animal has been lost during the day in driving down the cattle for the winter. Almost the first person I saw in the inn here was a gentleman from England, who three years ago ascended Mont Blanc, in a company of six teen. They reached the grand plateau of the Alp, (thirteen thousand five hundred feet) the fourth day, after incredible fatigues, from rain, snow, cola, and the hard rocks, with only a cover ing of leather to protect them during the night. — They were obhged to send down two guides, the second day, for food. On this vast plateau, or ledge, they found an immense quantity of fresh fatten snow, not frozen ; it was extremely labo rious to walk on, the snow was so deep ; still none of the guides apprehended danger. But on a sudden the whole field of snow on which they were treading gave way, and overwhelmed the unfortunate travellers ; theh footing sunk ; and they were covered, rolled along, borne away, by the enormous avalanche. The snow lodged in the next fissure, or crevasse, which it met in its descent. Three guides unhappily perished ; the other thirteen persons extricated themselves with infinite difficulty— or rather were preserved by the mercy of God. Still persons are frequently ascending ; or at tempting to ascend, for they seldom reach the real summit. Six guides went up with a single EngUshman the day before yesterday ; and some friends have been all to-day watching them from the inn, with a telescope : they are expected down to-night. The first persons who ever reached the summit of Mont Blanc were James Balma and Dr. Paccard, in 1786. The foUowing year M. De Saussure, with eighteen guides, attained the same eminence. He spent five hours there. The rarity of the ah was such, that his pulse was above 100 ; he had no appetite, and suffered much from intolerable thirst. The winding path is between fifty and sixty mfles altogether, of steep ascent. We have met here an Itahan gentleman, with TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 65 whom we had made a slight acquaintance at Basle ; a quick, ready, sensible man — talking French and English tolerably weU — one who has for above twenty years spent his summers in tra velling — neat in his person — about forty years of age — equipped with aU the smaUer conveniences which so long an experience could not fail to give him — he has read a good deal of history and po litics, and is very communicative. He has one very good practice ; he never sets out on a tour tfll he has devoted six months to a thorough study of all the best writers on the country he is about" to visit. A turn to satire gives a point to his re marks. His admiration of England is extreme ; but I can observe, that he takes a pleasure in re lating httle anecdotes to the disadvantage of indi vidual Englishmen. He has coUected five stories in his present tour. I suppose he calls himself a Cathohc ; but he has clearly no just impression of the importance of rehgion. He speaks on the subject with levity, and even indecorum ; mingling the tenets of his church with the essential truths of Christianity, and laughing at both. He was just how teUing one of the guides, who he heard would not eat flesh on Fridays, that the Pope be ing dead, (as I mentioned in my last) he was at liberty to eat meat whenever he liked ; but that if he had any fears, he would give him a billet to Jesus Christ. I could not help remonstrating with him for the latter part of this sentence ; ob serving, that though I was a Protestant, and of course did not hold the Cathohc Fasts, I stfll agreed with the Catholics in the great truths of our common Christianity, and especiaUy in adora tion and love to our divine Saviour. He received the hint with perfect politeness, and dropped the subject. I remember the Itahan nobleman at the Grimsel said something, in the same ironical way, of the Holy Ghost choosing a new Pope. Secret infidelity is widely spreading in Italy. Friday morning, half-past 6, chalet on Montan- vert, 3,150,/eeZ above Chamouny. — We were called this morning at half-past three, and started at half- past four, for the Jardin on the Mer de Glace, in a party of thirteen ; a guide and mule for each, with boys, &c. We have been ascending two hours in fearful cold and wind, on a road steep beyond description, three leagues long, amidst the rains of fallen trees and rocks. Twelve o'clock, Couvercle, Merde Glace. — I am now writing on a spot, where, perhaps, never man wrote before, and whence I can scarcely look around me without terror. We have been walk ing and chmbing, for five hours, ten or fifteen mfles up hills and mountains of ice, snow, and impene trable rocks, amidst chasms and torrents hundreds of feet deep. I am now on the heights of the Mer de Glace, nine thousand two hundred feet above the sea, seated on the ground, with my letter and pocket ink-horn before me, a rock for my writing- table, and my smaU pocket-book placed under my paper, to keep it a httle steady. We have been surmounting immense fatigue and danger, ever Isince we left the chalet at seven. All other diffi culties are nothing compared with those which surround us ; and we have a descent of seven hours, not a httle dangerous, to make, before we reach our inn. Stfll the extraordinary magnifi cence of the scene above, below, around us, when one can calmly look at it, seems to recompense us for every thing. If we get back alive, however, one thing I can venture to assure you of, that the fatigue and terror are such as to prevent our ever coming up again. Chamouny, 8 in the evening. — Thank God we have aU returned safe. Let me now give you some notion of the day's journey. We were four teen hours and a half on the road, and went forty mfles ; ten mfles on mules, and thirty on foot ; winch thirty were in a perpetual course of ascents, descents, sliding and jumping. After leaving the chalet on Montanvert, in the morning at seven, we descended and crossed the eboulement or vast heap of granite and sand, which intervened be tween that and the glacier. The path was fre quently on the surface of a shelving rock of slate, three inches wide, with a precipice at our feet. — When we came to the glacier, or Mer de Glace itself, we had new difficulties of every kind to sur mount ; and in the course of our progress three vast eboulements to climb over. When we reach ed the summit of the mountain, which is caUed the Couvercle, about noon, (nine thousand two hundred feet) we were so exhausted with heat and fatigue, that we threw ourselves on the scanty grass growing on the rock, as if we were dead. — After an hour and a half's rest, and a dinner on the provisions carried for us by the guides, we set off on our return. Nothing can describe the day's journey ; the simple fact of walking thirty miles on ice and rock, with declivities, crevices, gulfs, ice-torrents, &c. seems sufficiently terrific, but can convey to you no adequate idea of the real scene. Enough, however, of our fatigues. Now, to give you some account of the Mer de Glace. It is an enormous glacier, forty-five miles long, and two wide, and rising to an inaccessible height. — We only ascended to the point commanding the finest view. It gave me the idea of a sea in a storm suddenly frozen, or choked with snow and ice. We saw nothing but congealed waves or rather mountains of frozen water. The ice is not clear and smooth, but mixed with sand and stones, and on the surface alternately melted and re-frozen every twenty-four hours. In aU this sea, changes are continually taking place, from the causes I assigned in a former letter : — a single day's rain or snow alters infattibly a variety of places. The most fearful things are the fentes, crevices, or fissures, some fifty feet wide, others just beginning to form themselves ; others Uke a weU, three or four hundred feet deep, with an impetuous torrent pouring down them, and working like a mill at the bottom ; together with thousands of rivulets formed by the summer's sun on the surface. As the masses of ice descend, the superincumbent rocks and stones descend with them. These are gra dually carried along ; some travel five hundred feet down the immense glacier in a single year. , The foot of the Mer de Glace is in the valley of ¦ Chamouny, whence the river Arvehon flows, which joins itself with the Arve, and pours into the Rhone, near Geneva. To travel on this sea of wonders was in itself dangerous enough — a single inadvertent step might have been fatal — the extraordinary skill and experience of the guides, however, (for each per- 66 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. son has his separate one,) make accidents ex tremely rare. The views which we witnessed were enchanting. The deep azure of the sky in one of tlie finest days ever seen ; the vast region of ice which the sun gilded with his rays, and the panorama of snow-clad Alps, rising stupendously all around, are reaUy beyond my powers of descrip tion. They made us forget all bur fatigues. The union and contrast of the scenes in nature appa rently the most irreconcilable — and aU beheld for the first time, and under the most favorable cir cumstances — produced an impression in which what was wonderful and pleasing had an equal share with the subUme and stupendous. In three spots I sat down, penetrated with admhation, and made my guide tell me the names of the Alps around me ; I give the names as accurately as my ear could catch them : lst, Characoux ; 2d, Gra- pon ; 3d, Mont Blanc ; 4th, Le Geant; 5th,Tamla; 6th, Grand Jorasse ; 7th, Petit Jorasse ; 8th, Le Sehon ; 9th, Les Courts ; 10th, Aiguilles Rouges ; 11th, Gemme Verd ; 12th, Le Moine ; 13th, Aiguille de Dru ; 14th, La Flechiere ; 15th Le Breveut. I just add that the guides here are respectable, weU-informed men; mine is called The Bird, L'Oiseau. He has been thirty-eight years a guide. The most respectable Swiss writers cor respond with them. They speak very good French — the language of Chamouny is a patois. There are forty of then! at Chamouny, and seventy mules. Every thing is regulated by the govern ment, even to the order in which the guides go out. Chamouny contains near fifty hamlets, three churches, and three thousand souls. It is a Ca tholic priory ; but our guides were inteUigent, and seemingly in earnest, on the subject of rehgion. I talked with my own a good deal. He clearly dis- tinguished.between the essentials of rehgion and morals, and the ceremonies and usages of his own church. He spoke of judgment and eternity, and the sin of man, and the death of our Saviour, with some feeling. There seemed also a conscien tiousness governing his mind, which gratified me a good deal. I have not myself met with any Catholics so wett informed. Chamouny, I must say, deserves all its populari ty ; two thousand two hundred and fifty visiters came to it last year ; out of whom, about forty only went to the end of the Mer de Glace ; which is some commendation of our corn-age, but, per haps, not of our prudence, at least so far as I am concerned. The day has been beautiful — not a cloud. And now may it please God to fill my heart with praise for his works, adoration of bis awful majesty, gratitude for preservation, and a humble desire to see his love, his wisdom, his providence, his power, his glory in all things ! I am sure re hgious feehngs are the appropriate consequences of such a day's excursion. It is most painful to me to say, that one Englishman* has for ever dis graced himself here by attaching to his name, in the strangers' book, an unblushing avowal of atheism. He has not, however, escaped a suitable' and most severe and striking retort from one of his countrymen. He had annexed to his name * Percy Bysche Shelley. these horrid words, Sji/ioKpaTiKO^ tpiXavdpbnroTaro? Kai U0COS-* Immediately under them this thriUing re proof, in allusion to Psalm xiv. l.fis now inserted, E( nev r1 aides' \sytl, fltiipo?' u Se jirj, ipevuTt]^.t Trient, canton of Valais, Switzerland, three o'clock, Saturday afternoon. — We set off this morn mg, twenty minutes before nine, and have been six hours and ten minutes coming eighteen miles. We have passed through the valleys of Chamou ny, Vai Valorsine, Chatelet, where Switzerland and Savoy divide, and Trient, where we now are. Often as I have expressed my astonishment at the variety of Swiss and Savoy scenery, I must repeat the same language. Certainly nothing can ex ceed the surprise we have felt all this morning. We have crossed a barrier called Le Tete Noire ; and all the way, especially in passing the moun tains, there has been nothing but wonders. Val leys sowed, as it were, with the fragments of fallen rocks ; villages of romantic beauty, and of archi tecture the most rude; noble firs crowning the mountain sides ; several glaciers descending in the ravines from the common source of the Mer de Glace ; the path now sinking into the deepest val ley, now rising into a frightful precipice, sometimes leading by rude stahs of rocks, at other times by torrents and sand ; the whole way diversified with the rnins of falling firs, the effects of the tre mendous storms of the winters, so as at places to obstruct the path ; lastly, the torrent of the Trient rotting along to disgorge itself into the Rhone, whilst the alternate succession of barren scenery and cultivated meadows, like mosaic-work, in the vaUey and up the side of the mountains, completed the pieture. But words fail when they are attempting to describe Switzerland. One apphes nearly the same terms to the vafley of the Reuss, the HoeU- enthal, the vattey of Moutiers, the Chede, and the vaUeys seen to-day; and yet they are all widely different from each other ; and each utterly in conceivable, except to one who has visited them for himself. Jt was by this almost impracticable road of the Tete Noire, that hundreds of French emigrants escaped into the Valais, when the French invaded Savoy, in 1792. Countesses — marchionesses — carrying themselves theh infants — officers — priests — in the midst of them the bishop of Nismes, a venerable old man, eighty years of age — formed this long and pitiable caravan. It rends the heart to reflect on the miseries of that period. The rule of the French on the Rhine, was followed, as I have told you, with a mixture of great good amidst the horrors unavoidable on revolutions ; but their rule in Switzerland seems to have been one unmixed calamity, Liberty literature, mo rals, religion, private and public happiness, wi thered at their approach, and have only begun to revive since the restoration of the old state of things in that fine country. Bonaparte is, gene raUy speaking, detested here, as much as he is in other places adored. * Democrat, philanthropist, arid atheist. t " The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." t If he speaks truth, he is a fool, if not, a liar —See Christian Observer, vol. for 1824. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 67 Saturday evening, half-past six. — We are just arrived at Martigny, in the Valais, twenty-seven miles from Chamouny. D. W. LETTER XII. Great St. Bernard, Sept. 6. — Brieg, Sept. 10, 1823. Jardin of Mer de Glace— Forclaz—Bas Valais— Martigny — Deluge of the Dranse — Sunday at Martigny — Sermon — Popery — Orsieres — Lyd- des — Pious Admonition on Eternity — Great St. Bernard — Dogs — Monks — Chapel for Dead — Lives saved — Provost— Sion — Valais — Prayers at Great St. Bernard — Catholic Admonition. Martigny, Bas Valais, Switzerland, Saturday night, Sept. 6, 1823. My dear sister, — I was quite mortified in sending you my last letter ; it was written in such inexpressible hurries, and seemed to me, when I read it over, so sadly unconnected and incomplete. Indeed, this has been more or less the case with att my letters. I know, however, that your love wfll excuse the defects of my rapid accounts. I beheve I did not tell you that the particular points of the Mer de Glace which we went to visit were the Couvercle and the Jardin, or garden. The Couvercle is an immensely high rock, to which you have no access but by crossing the sea of ice, as we did, and which, from its height and position, commands an unbroken view of Mont Blanc and eleven other Alps. From the Couvercle there is a twenty minutes' walk to the Jardin, which is a rock rising above the Mer de Glace. A slight stone enclosure marks out the garden, which is covered, during the brief summer, with vendure and flowers. The contrast with the snowy mantle concealing the face of nature aU around, is very striking. This Jardin we did not reach ; I reaUy was overcome. There are eighteen immense glaciers, formed from the Mer de Glace, in different ravines, and thirty smaUer ones. The Enghsh gentleman, whom I reported as having ascended Mont Blanc returned safely ; he accomplished the task in thirty- seven hours ; but his fatigue was so great, that he was at last literaUy obliged to bo pushed up by the guides. At the summit, a tremendous storm of snow and wind had nearly carried them aU away ; he remained there only five minutes, and could scarcely see any thing. His object was not sci ence ; but simply pleasure, or curiosity : he had made no preparation, had no instruments with him, and was unaccompanied by a single friend. Such exploits are regarded by every one as hazardous and useless, instead of being entitled to admha tion. My old guide (who went up with De Saussure in 1786, and was named by him L'Oiseau) tells me the accident wliich occurred on Mont Blanc, as I have aheady mentioned, in 1820, arose, as he thinks very much from the youth and inexperience of the guides : a whole day's rain and snow fell whilst the party was ascending, and made the peril of an avalanche almost certain. The oldest guide 55—4 now at Chamouny is Balma, aged seventy-six, nam ed by De Saussure, "Mont Blanc." My friend and fellow-traveller's guide was the son of the Syndic, or chief magistrate of the viUage, which said Syndic we met, with a scythe on his shoulder, in primitive simplicity, going to mow, as we ascended Montan- vert. The guides have seven, eight or ten francs a-day ; those who go up Mont Blanc thirty or forty francs a day, and sometime'; oi';;h. more. They also rear and keep the io-ies, which are worth twenty or twenty-four Louis each (from nineteen to twenty-three pounds.) In fact, the whole ap paratus of Chamouny is unequatted : there are twenty-four porters, for carrying ladies only. I suppose, during a good summer of four or five months, a guide may get eight or nine hundred francs, (about thirty-six pounds) besides his food ; some much more — which is almost a fortune in Savoy. In our journey to-day to Martigny, we observed perpetual fragments of rocks scattered every where in the fields, so that the farmers coUect them in great heaps in different spots, in order that the grass may have room to grow at least on some of the land. To overcome or lessen difficulties, is the perpetual task to which man is caUed by att the various disorders on the face of nature : and in no country so much as in Switzerland and Savoy. When we left Trient, at four o'clock, we began to ascend the mountain Forclaz, from the summit of which, and in the descent, the view of the Va lais (an immense valley, about a hundred miles long, reaching from the lake of Geneva to the Grimsel) was most enchanting : the plain with all its varied beauties, as far as Sion — the Rhone rushing through it — the Alps of the Oberland gird ing it around — and all illuminated with the after noon's sun — nothing could be more exquisite. Martigny, where I am now writing, is a smaU town, one thousand four hundred and eighty feet above the sea (Chamouny is three thousand one hundred and fifty.) In the time of the Romans it was caUed Octodurum. On descending to it, we had to cross the devastations occasioned by the bursting of the river Dranse, which quite sadden my mind when I think of them. The melancholy story resembles that of Goldau, except that the loss oflives was not so considerable. It arose, I understand, from the Dranse, which rushes down the mountains about eighteen miles from Martigny, becoming first obstructed, and then stopped in its course, in the vattey of Bagnes, by the falling of mas ses of ice from the Glacier of Getroz. A most enor mous lake was thus formed, thirteen thousand feet long, and from one to seven hundred feet wide ; the mean depth being two hundred ; anfl the whole mass of water eight hundred millions of cubic feet ! The country was soon alarmed at the tidings of this accumulation of waters : and a tunnel, or gallery, was cut through the barrier of ice, to facilitate the escape of the river by its usual channel. The lake was actuaUy reduced forty- five feet ; but this was not sufficient to prevent the calamity. For on the 17th June, 1818, the waters burst in a moment, without the least warn ing, through the barrier of ice, and rushed forth with such fury, that in one hour they had reached Martigny, eighteen miles. The torrent destroyed fifty-two houses at Champsee, and overwhelmed TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. a surprising number of fields, houses, barns, ma nufactories, &c. at Bagnes and Martigny ; all was swallowed up in an instant. An entire forest was rooted up by it ; and damage done to the amount of one million one hundred and nine thousand se ven hundred and sixty francs of Switzerland, about two hundred thousand pounds Enghsh. How instantaneous, as weU as awful, are the judgments of God ! What an uncertain, treacherous scene is this passing world ! And what deductions do such events make from the pleasures of a re sidence in this country, however enchanting in many respects ! — But I must conclude for to-night ; it is past eleven, and I have been traveUing hard for two days. Martigny, Sunday, eleven o'clock. — Again in a Catholic town, with not a single Protestant, as I am told. This, my twelfth Sunday, is distressing to my mind. We have been to the Cathohc church, (for there is no other) and heard a sermon in French ; for French is the language all through the Valais. As we entered the churchyard, we saw a priest uttering some prayers, and then sprinkling water on the people who were kneeling around. On coming into the church itself, we found it crowded with people. I asked a lady to lend me a Prayer-book ; but she could not tell me, nor could I find out, where the priest was reading : one thing I suspect, that but few in the church could understand a word of the prayers — those near me were muttering theh aUotted Pater nosters, without- any reference to the pubhc pray ers, and, when I asked them, could give me no idea where the priest was — it did not seem to en ter theh minds — indeed, inteffigent worship was clearly no part of the object for which the con gregation was assembled. The music undoubted ly was beautiful. After half an hour, the priest gave notice that the Pope was dead, and exhorted the people to pray for his soul, and to beg of God to grant him a worthy successor. He then read notices of Saints' days, and of the nativity of the Vhgin Mary, which falls to-morrow. Next, another priest, the prior, I believe, of the parish, ascended the pulpit, and deUvered a ser mon on our Lord's words, " Render unto Csesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." His subject was, the duty of restitution. After his introduction, I was surprised to obseive, that he not only paused and kneeled solemnly down in the pulpit himself, but that the whole congregation knelt down also in secret prayer, before he entered on his discussion. The pause was pecuharly impressive, I assure you, and what I never saw before ; though the intercession of the Vhgin, undoubtedly, corrupted it sadly. The sermon was admirable, as an ab stract explication of the particular duty of resti tution, chiefly drawn from Chrysostom and Au gustine. There was a degree of talent, a force, an acumen, a dignity in all the preacher said which arrested attention. The whole made a powerful impression. I saw some countrywomen who stood near me in the aisle, positively quake for fear. There was nothing Of Popery, properly speaking,, in it — it was a good ordinary discourse on its topic. Stfll, it was defective, and even un scriptural, as the instruction of a Christian divine — there was not a word as to the way of obtain ing pardon for our breaches of this duty ; nor a word of the grace of the Holy Spirit, as neces sary to assist us to keep it for the future ; nor a word of the necessity of watchfulness over the corruption of the heart, as the spring of all sin and evil. Nay, he plainly said, that good works, that is, the performance of this and other moral duties, would save us, in dhect contradiction to the whole tenor of the doctrine of redemption. The sermon was delivered from memory, and in terspersed with striking anecdotes. When it was over, I Mt the church, and was surprised to find that the churchyard was filled with people, kneel ing or sitting, apparently very devout, though they could neither hear nor see any thing. But this, bad as it is, is the faher side of Po pery ; if you go into the complicated system of its corruptions, you find that superstition even' where fills up the place of Scriptural Christianity ; and that Jesus Christ is almost unknown in his holy salvation from sin and guilt. Even what is true in Popery is spoiled by the manner in which it is disfigured or curtailed; for instance, the peo ple are not taught the ten commandments as we have them in the Bible ; but an abridgment, in which the second, that is, the commandment agahist idolatry and image-worship, is positively left out, and the tenth divided into two ; and to which are appended what are caUed the com mandments of the church, six, I think, in number, which are given in the same form, and with the same solemnity as those of the decalogue ; and are infinitely more insisted upon by the priests, and observed by the people. The whole founda tion of what the priests inculcate is, moreover, not the authority of the inspired revelation of God, but the authority of the church — they " teach for doctrines the commandments for men." Then only consider the many incredible errors and superstitions, wliich they have by this means contrived to affix on real Christianity — pilgrim ages, traditions, prayers for the dead, veneration of relics, intercession of saints, indulgences, dis pensations, pretended miracles, purgatory, the sa crifice of the mass, transubstantiation, the denial of the cup to the laity, penances, auricular con fession, image-worship, cehbacy of the clergy, monastic vows, infallibility of general councils, supremacy of the Pope, implicit submission to the church, lost estate of heretics, prayers in an un known tongue, tyranny over the conscience, vir tual prohibition of the Bible. Such, avowedly, is Popery in itself; though many individual Roman Catholics know little about it, and are pious and simple-hearted Christians. But amidst all these corruptions nothing seems to me so flagrantly unscriptural as the adoration of the image of the Vhgin, and the trust reposed in her by the great mass of the people. I con ceive this idolatry to be much more displeasing in the sight of God than tho worship of the queen of heaven, so vehemently reprobated by the pro phet Jeremiah, or the prostration of the Pagans before their idols, which St. Paul and the other apostles so indignantly condemned.* Indeed, when I think of the peculiar jealousy of the in finitely glorious Jehovah on the subject of any See Jer. xliv. and Acts of Apostles passim. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. approach to idolatry, I see in this one feature of Popery, the infallible mark of an open apostacy from the faith. The extraordinary fondness of the people for this worst part of theh creed, only in creases this conviction in my mind.* O, may the time be hastened when these fatal errors shall cease, and Christ alone be again ac knowledged to be Lord by all Christians ! And may Protestants walk in the blessed hght they enjoy, and not sink, in avoiding Popery, into the fatal gulfs of indifference, skepticism, and infidel ity — the carelessness, divisions, and irreligion of professed Protestants are the scandal of Chris tendom. I have heard many, many worse sermons from Protestant pulpits than the one I have just told you of. May the blessed Sphit descend upon the universal church once more, and dispel Popish and skeptical darkness, as he once did Jewish and Pagan ! AU we want is His inspiration and His book. Send the Bible, we pray thee, O Lord, into every famfly, and attend it with thy sacred influences : and then truth and holiness will again flourish in the earth, the inventions of men dio away, and charity become the bond of peace amongst thy disciples ! So far as I recoUect, this is the first Sunday where I have found no church of any kind except the Cathohc : as it is certainly the first time I have heard a French Catholic preacher. On the Grimsel there was no church at all ; but every where else I have found some Protestant service, and attended it, though in German. In this town there is possibly not a creature who ever read the Bible — a large proportion of the people would not know what I meant by that sacred book — many would have even no idea that God has given an infallible written revelation of His will to man for bis guidance and salvation. Sunday, two o'clock. — We have just had our Enghsh divine service ; never did the prayers of our truly Protestant and Reformed church appear to me more scriptural and more edifying, nor the psalms and lessons more consoling and instructive, than after having witnessed the Popish ceremo nies. I expounded Luke xiii. 1 — 5. Lyddes, canton of Valais, Monday morning, Sept. 8, eleven o'clock. — At half-past three this morning our guide came to call me. But the weather was duU ; and we were so long delibera ting whether to set out or not, that it was a quar ter to six before we were on our mules. We have now gone sixteen mfles on the way to the cele brated hospice of the Great St. Bernard. Our road has been through the valley of Entremont. For the first few mfles we were passing over the * The Virgin Mary is, beyond all comparison, more adored than the ever-blessed God — the wor ship paid to her is universal in all places, and by all people. After the Virgin, some of the principal saints seem to be the most worshipped; then our Saviour; and lastly God, our heavenly Father. " Shocking as this may appear," proceeds the writer from whom I quote, " it is too true. I am sure I do not exaggerate when I say, that throughout Italy, Spain, Portugal, and every country where the Ca tholic is the exclusive religion of the people, for one knee bent to God, thousands are bent before the shrines of the Virgin and the saints."t t Rome in the nineteenth century, vol. i. 22. desolations occasioned by the bursting of the Dranse. It reatty reminded me of what the Scripture speaks of the universal deluge, when God swept away every Uving thing from the face of the earth, it was melancholy to see the val ley, described as once so lovely, now choked and covered with masses of rocks and heaps of sand. It has been actually necessary to make a new way in many places, and in one spot to cut a gal lery or tunnel, about one hundred and fifty feet long, through the granite ruin which stopped the road. It is said, that above fifty persons perished in that calamity. As we were going through the village of Or- sieres we heard voices singing in the church, and on entering, found it crowded with people — it is the nativity of ihe Virgin Mary, who is, as I have said, the chief object of the Papists' devotion. AU along the road the people are going or return ing from mass in crowds. In Lyddes, where we now are, the mass being over, the street is fitted with idle folks. Business and labor are whoUy suspended. It is curious, that att the men in these villages have coats of the same color, a snuff brown, with large cocked mihtary hats. If the men in these towns were taught to labor, to im prove theh roads, repair their hedges, and culti vate their land, instead of praying to the Vhgin Mary ; and if the women would mend their clothes and wash their children, and keep theh houses tidy, instead of making caps and petticoats for the same lady, we Protestants cannot but think they would be better employed than they now are. But every great departure from truth is attend ed with accumulated moral evils in one way or other. I forgot to teU you, that at Martigny we saw a celebrated tower, built by the Romans (for Ceesar was at Octodurum ;) a beautiful cascade, caUed the Pisse-Vache, and the faU of the Trient into the Rhone, by a crevice - or fente between two rocks, so narrow as scarcely to admit of the stream to pass. I have been much deUghted here (Lyddes) with a religious admonition on the subject of eternity, printed in large letters, on a folio sheet, and hung up in the salle-a-manger ; a similar paper is placed in every house in the parish ; it quite re lieves my mind to see some one great truth of Christianity plainly taught, and without supersti tion. I have obtained a copy, from which I give one extract — " Understand well the force of these words — a God — a moment — an eternity ; a God who sees thee ; a moment which flies ; an eter nity which awaits you : — a God whom you serve so fll ; a moment of which you so little profit ; an eternity which you hazard so rashly." I dweU with pleasure on this paper, because after what I have been just observing, these are the things which moderate one's depression, and teach one charity towards the persons of individual Catho Ucs. They lead us to hope that there are in the church of Rome numbers of humble and contrite disciples of the lowly Jesus, who substantially un derstand and feel the awakening truths of Chris tianity, who put aU theh confidence for salvation in the atoning blood of their Saviour, and who are guided by His Sphit in the paths of true obe dience — these "do not worship the beast, neither 70 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. his image, neither receive his mark upon theh foreheads or in their hands." Rev. xx. 4. Hospice, au Grand St. Bernard, Monday even ing, Sept. 8, eight o'clock. — We arrived here about five, after a journey of eleven hours — twenty-eight mfles. The road became more and more wfld as we ascended, tfll at last aU vegetation seemed to have ceased. We are now at the celebrated re hgious hospice of the monks of St. Augustine, of which you have heard so much. My curiosity is greatly excited ; and as my sons could not conve niently take their journals with me, they entreat me to be as full as I can in my account to you. It is eight thousand three hundred and fourteen feet above the sea — the highest spot in Europe which is inhabited all the year round. It was founded in the year 962, by St. Bernard de Meu- thon, who was the provost for forty years, and died in 1008. It is on the high Alps which sepa rate Le Valais from Piedmont ; and it was, before the Simplon and Mount Cenis' roads were made and improved by Bonaparte, one of the greatest passages between Switzerland and Italy. It is stiU a very considerable thoroughfare, especiaUy for the poor Piedmontese, who cross every spring to Switzerland and France for employ. This hos pice has twelve monks, and six domestics, con stantly resident to receive the poor without pay ment, and succor the distressed traveller. They are bound to entertain these travellers for three days, and in case of illness, to nurse and attend them tfll they recover. The domestics go out almost every morning during the winter, on different routes, to search for pilgrims who may have lost theh way. They take with them dogs of a Spanish breed, catted the St. Bernard dogs, very large and powerful, who have a sagacity so unerring, that they disco ver and follow the tracks on the mountains, though covered with eight feet of snow. They go before the domestics, clearing a path with their heads and feet ; and as soon as a traveUer is near, they invariably smeU him out, and lead the servant to him. The domestic is furnished with bread and wine ; and sometimes a dog is sent out alone, with a basket tied to his neck, containing these necessaries. The number of Uves saved is incre dible. Last winter an old man was found quite frozen, whom they restored to life. Two other men had been carried away by an avalanche of snow, and would undoubtedly have perished but for the hospice. One single dog has saved the lives of five persons ; his name is Jupiter ; there are four others, named Lion, Turk, PaUas, and Castor. We had them called to us, that we might caress them, for they are good-natured and generous animals. In the course of last year twelve thousand traveUers passed some time at the hospice. Last night there was four or five hundred persons who slept here. It was a dou ble festival. AU the chambers, halls, passages, floors, were crowded with guests. The snow falls almost att the year ; it freezes commonly in the morning, even during the height of summer ; and the lake behind the house is frequently frozen over even in July. This afternoon the thermo meter was 44 ; whilst yesterday at Martigny it was nearly 80. There are not above ten days in the year when the sky is perfectly clear through out the day. Thirty horses and mules are em ployed nearly half the year, in fetching wood from the forests, twelve or fifteen miles from the con vent. Close to the hospice was formerly a Roman temple, dedicated to Jupiter Penninus ; on the site of which various antiquities are continually found. We were shown a large collection of them — amongst which were many medals of great value. When we first arrived, a monk, in a loose habit of black, buttoned down close in front, with a black cap, received us and showed us first into the din ing-room, and then to our chambers. Soon after another monk walked out with us, and pointed out the chief beauties around. At one place he show ed us the division between Switzerland and Italy ; and made us tread at the same time on both coun tries. He bid us mark several spots where the dogs had discovered frozen travellers, and had been the means of saving them : one he particu larly pointed out, where they had discovered a peasants famfly perishing in the snow; upon which one of these noble animals had contrived to take up an infant, and place it on its back, and then hastened to the hospice, to fetch persons who might rescue the unhappy parents. The story af fected us almost to tears. It is not only the frosts and snow which create the danger, but the dreadful storms of wind, which come on quite unexpectedly and carry away the traveller. The Itahan courier passed, a few win ters ago, from Aoste to the Great St. Bernard, on a very inclement afternoon. The monks en deavored to persuade him to abandon all thought of going forward. He was determined to proceed. They then sent two servants with him, to direct him on his way. As these did not return when they were expected, another domestic, with three dogs, was dispatched in search of them. The dogs refused to move, though they were the best of the whole number : this was the sure sign that ex treme danger was on the road. However, life was at stake, and the dogs were at length forced to go. That night neither men nor dogs return ed ; and some days afterwards they were all dis covered buried under an avalanche, about half a league from the convent, perfectly dead. To sup port theh expenses, the monks in the summer en tertain visiters, who make presents to the institu tion. Last Wednesday, forty strangers, mostly English, breakfasted here. At seven o'clock this evening the bell rang, and we were ushered into the saUe-a-manger. I was aU eagerness to observe theh manners and cus toms. All the monks, or chanoines, as they call themselves, were present. Latin prayers were said with much devotion ; the English staring. — The monks each placed one or two of us between them at the table, and an excellent supper was served up— abundant without extravagance; it consisted of soup, various hashes, and some game. The wine Ught, but good. The conversation was most friendly and agree able. I was placed next the provost. I conceiv ed that our hosts might be men of some theolo gical learning, and turned the conversation to the subject of reUgion, and to the doctrine of Augus tine, the founder of theh order. I told them I agreed with that great writer in his defence of TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 71 the doctrine of grace and his opposition to Pela- gius, and generaUy in his exposition of Christian truths and duties. I added, that St. Augustine was esteemed by Protestants as one of the great lights of the church ; and was constantly appealed to in theh articles and confessions. The provost immediately asked me if I was a minister of reU gion, and what became of my parish during my absence. On my teUing him that I was a master of arts of the university of Oxford, that I had been ordered to travel abroad on account of my health, and had committed my duties at home to a valu able and pious feUow-clergyman, who would dis charge them with conscientious fidehty, he pur sued his inquiries no further. There was an in tense curiosity apparent in all he said. I assured him that all good Protestants loved theh Cathohc brethren who, like Nicole, and Pascal, and Fene lon, believed truly in our Saviour, and obeyed simply and humbly his commands. I added, that I hoped the time would soon come when the Holy Spirit, being poured out on Christendom, a gene ral agreement on essential truth would prevail, and a holy charity as to non-essential. I could not discover, however, from his rephes, that he was much acquainted with these topics. Prac tical benevolence seems the only business of these worthy monks, whose early education and se cluded habits must leave them to the full influence of first imra-essions. One of them, however, on the other side of the table observing my conver sation with the provost, began to talk with me on the French preachers, and the striking sermons of Brydayne, just published. He agreed with me, in admiring the fine, affecting appeals which abound in this writer ; but still I did not observe any distinct ideas of devotion or spiritual feeling in what he said, even in the sense of the Roman Cathohc writers, though I was really quite delight ed with him and my other hosts, and anxious to judge of them in the most favorable way. The provost afterwards told me that, in the year 1800, Bonaparte passed the Great St. Ber nard. He had sent over thirty thousand men from France to Italy, with artfllery and cavalry, who were three weeks in crossing. The cannons re quired sixty or seventy men each to drag them up the ridge. Many horses perished in the precipices. He came himself afterwards on a mule, for which he gave thirty louis at Martigny ; it stumbled on the way, and, but for the guide catching him in his arms, he would have fallen down the precipice. He afterwards rewarded the man for his prompt ness, who was known ever after in the village by the name of Bonaparte. Napoleon staid two hours and a half at the hospice ; he was dark and thoughtful ; said only a few words ; ate of the pro visions he had brought with him ; accepted a httle of theh wine ; appeared lost in silence ; asked if they knew the strength of a neighboring fort; went down to Italy, and fought the battle of Ma rengo! He treated the convent as well as he could ; but the monks lost every thing during the war, even to their linen and furniture. After supper, Latin grace was again said ; the provost beginning, and the other monks making responses. We retired to our rooms directly after supper. I conceive there are few institutions so valuable, in a humane point of view, as this. It is painful to think, that some impOstors went about Europe a few years since collecting alms, as they pretended, for the hospice. They came to Eng land and were at Oxford. They were Piedmon- tese. Efforts were made by many benevolent persons to raise subscriptions for them ; but the fraud was at length detected. The provost re quested us to state, that the hospice never collects contributions, except in their own country, Swit zerland. I just add, that a regular journal of the state of the weather at the hospice, with the prin cipal events that occur, and especially the fives saved, is published once a month in one of the pe riodical works at Geneva, I think the "Biblio- theque Universelle." It is generally observed, that when the thermometer is 62° at Geneva, it is 32° here. It is impossible to keep oneself warm. My friend even found his breath a good deal affected this evening. You would be amused to see me at this moment sitting trembling vrith cold in my smaU Popish chamber, attempting to write at an old wooden desk, affixed to the wall by binges which have this instant given way and overturned my paper, ink, and whole apparatus. But I must hurry to rest, after such a fatiguing day ; it is past eleven, and I was awake between three and four this morning, and have been writing now nearly two hours. I wish my dear Ann and Eli za could have been here. My sweet httle girl would have so liked to have seen these fine dogs, which are almost as large as heifers, and Uve upon a sour sort of soup, made on purpose for them ; theh fame is spread throughout the world, and pictures of them are multiphed. One of them, who saved twelve or thirteen persons, was stuffed after his death, and is now at Bern. I saw a beautiful engraving at Paris, of the dog in the act of saving the infant before mentioned. Lyddes, half-past twelve, Tuesday morning. — We had a simple breakfast provided for us this morning by the monks at St. Bernard. We visit ed the chapel, which is neat and commodious ; and my friend and I, between us, dropped, with delight, five louis d'or into the poor's box. The hospice itself was built in 1550, and has been enlarged several times. The walls are enormously thick the ground floor is all arched ; and the watts are strengthened by strong buttresses on the side of the lake. In the chapel is a monument erected to the memory of General Dessaix, by Bonaparte. Our chambers were convenient — the furniture old — the beds good — the windows with double glass sashes — crucifixes in the rooms. The pro vost, or head of the convent, together with the prior, breakfasted with us ; the rest of the monks had each a pewter dish of soup, which they ate standing. We again saw our friends the dogs before we went ;, two are of a brown speckled co lor, and three white, with fawn ears ; theh heads are very large ; enormous teeth ; necks thick, and with flesh hanging down like a butt's ; front feet amazingly strong ; they stand very high upon their legs ; .the haunches and hind legs are hke those of hounds ; they add to att their other quali ties, that of being excessively gentle. Thus have we visited this remarkable establish ment, which has afforded us more pleasure, per haps, than any thing we have seen during our 72 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. whole journey. Two or three hundred years of uniform and laborious beneficence has raised this convent to an unequaUed height of celebrity. The monks seldom are able to live many years at St. Bernard. The provost was going down to the lower lands to-day. The hospice is very damp for a considerable part of the year. Some attempts are making to raise a fund for rebuilding it. Win ter will set in in ten days. Sometimes all the do mestics, all the dogs, and all the monks, are out in the middle of the night for hours, when travel lers are in particular danger ; and it has happened that an avalanche, as I have said, has carried them aU away, without the possibihty of theh being succored. One building which the monks showed us was the chapel of the Bone-House — an apartment where the bodies found in the snow are deposited, in order to be owned by theh friends. The good monks perform the funeral service, indiscriminate ly, over all that they find ; and the cold is so in tense, that it is many years before the bodies are dried up, for decomposition seldom takes place. We looked through the sad grating of the room, and distinctly saw the heaps of bodies, Uke mum mies, covering aU the place ; it was a melancholy sight. The benevolence and courage of this kind fraternity amount, therefore, to a sort of devotion quite extraordinary. This is the only convent which Bonaparte spared. It is curious, that by this same route, by which Bonaparte invaded Italy, Hannibal is supposed, by some, to have led the Carthaginian forces, for a similar design, two thou sand years ago. Such are the vicissitudes of hu man glory and ambition ! Martigny, six o'clock, Wednesday morning. — We returned here last night at seven, and found one of our carriages sent, as we had requested, to meet us from Lausanne. Thus has our second httle tour to Chamouny of eight days terminated. The weather has been most fine the whole time, We have seen some of the greatest curiosities in Switzerland and Savoy : the VaUey of the Cluse, Chamouny, Mont Blanc, the Mer de Glace, and, above all, the Great St. Bernard. We might now return to Lausanne in a day ; but we are tempt ed to make a detour into Northern Italy ; we are only about three days' journey from Milan; whither our kind fellow-traveller wishes us to ac company him, on his way to Rome. We are go ing off then, not on mules, but in the carriage with post horses, towards this splendid city. May God be pleased to direct, over-rule, and bless this extension of our journey, to the further instruction of our minds and establishment of our healths ! Sion, Wednesday noon, September 10. — This is 1'ie capital of the Valais — two thousand five l.i'dred inhabitants. A most ancient city; the Romans found it already a considerable place, wher. they first penetrated into Helvetia. We arrivd here at half-past ten to dinner. The road has been beautiful, between the rocks which crown each side of the valley. Any one of this range would form an object of extreme interest ; but we are here so surrounded with beauty and grandeur, rhat it is impossible to dweU on the details. Brieg, at ihe foot qf the Simplon, seventy miles from Martigny, seven o'clock, Wednesday evening. — We have arrived here, after twelve hours' driv ing. We have come post. By voituriers we should have been two days and a half. At Sion, where we dined, I went to see the cathedral and the church of the Jesuits, (for they have been re stored,) who have the dhection of the education here ; they have built a new church within these three years. I met several of the young Jesuits in the streets. We eyed each other with mutual surprise. They were quite young men, florid, in telligent, firm in theh love. They wear the cleri cal dress. The most striking proof perhaps of theh sphit is, that there is not one bookseUer in Sion ; no, nor is there one in aU the canton of the Valais, though containing a hundred thousand souls. The fact seems incredible ; -but I was so lemnly assured of it by the printer at Sion, to whom the guide took me when I inquired for the bookseUers. This printer, by the by, is allowed to work only under the dhection of the Jesuits, and prints nothing but books of Cathohc devo tion. After leaving Sion we passed the Diablerets Mountains, where eboulements are often falling : two in 1714 and 1749, ravaged the neighboring vaUey. An old man hved three months there in his overwhelmed cottage, before he could effect his escape. The agriculture of this lovely vafley is sadly neglected ; aU is left to wild nature. The Rhone is not banked ; the lands are not drained ; a large part of the valley is a marsh. The vines are, however, so far attended to, that terraces are formed for theh creeping up the mountains to an extreme height. The number of vfllages and pri vate houses built in the most romantic situation?, on the sides of the mountains, is very great, and strikingly beautiful. They seem like nests built by birds. On the utmost heights are often raised smaU chapels ; to which processions are made in crowds, on certain festivals, by the poor supersti tious people of this canton. On the whole, this vattey, the largest in Swit zerland, reaching from Geneva to the glacier of the Rhone, and bounded by chains of diversified mountains, with snowy Alps perpetually rising above them, fertile beyond conception, and water ed by the Rhone, has more than equaUed aU our expectations, except as the foUy and vice of man have impeded the bounties of a kind Providence. ' The inhabitants are proverbially indolent, negli gent, and dirty. No branch of trade flourishes.— Even as to agriculture, they are far behind theh neighbors. Theh fertile plains are left exposed to the inundations of the Rhone. The canton is exclusively Catholic. The doctrine of the Re formers had gained many adherents in the six teenth century ; but early in the seventeenth they were aU banished. Education is neglected.— Every thing seems on the worst footing. The day has been most fine, and nothing but the dust has annoyed us. The goitres now are quite distressing ; we have seen some literally hanging down upon the breasts of the sufferers'. The thermometer has been about 80°. We have had to regret the indisposition of our friend, who has been attacked with pain in his face ; my dear sons and myself are quite weU. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 73 May God fitt our hearts with some sense of his manifold bounties and goodness ! The lessons we have the opportunity of learning are most numerous and most important. This deplorable canton speaks for Itself to all who are in love with Jesuits and bad government. I am your affectionate D. W. NOTICE OF PRAYERS AT GREAT ST. BERNARD. A friend has given me a copy of the following beautiful hymn to the Holy Spirit, which he trans lated from the Latin prayer-book of the Great St. Bernard, probably composed from some of the writings of St. Augustine, the founder of theh order : " Come, Holy Sphit, and send from heaven a ray of thy hght ! Come, thou father of the poor, thou giver of gifts, thou hght of the World, the blessed comforter, the sweet guest of the soul, and its sweet refreshment ; thou, our repose in labor, our coolness in heat, our comfort in affliction ! — Oh, most blessed Sphit, fulfil the hearts of thy faithful people ! Without thy influence there is nothing in man which is not weakness and guilt. Oh; cleanse that winch is sordid ; bedew that which is dried up ; heal that which is wounded ; bend that which is stubborn ; oherish in thy bo som that which is cold ; guide that which is wan dering ; and grant unto thy servants, putting theh trust: in thee, the merit of thy righteousness ; grant them final salvation, grant them everlasting joy ! O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto thee-,!" In this sublime and affecting prayer, there is not an expression in which the devout Protestant would not heartily join, except, perhaps, that which implores of the Holy Sphit "the merit of his righteousness," which savors of the sentiment embraced by St. Augustine, and held tiU the pe riod of the Reformation, that justification was a habit of grace infused into the soul — an en-01-) however, which, when united with an exclusive "trust in the forgiving mercy of God, through the death of Christ, for everlasting1 salvation,1 cannot be thought to be fundamental. "- I add another prayer from the same offertory, free from any savor of superstition ; the expres sions concerning our Lord's body being warranted by the terms of Scripture, though they may be open to abuse, and are, in fact, abused, as we know, by the Catholic interpreters : " O blessed Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that thy most holy name may be the last word that my mouth shall ever utter ! O gracious Jesus, I pray that thy most sacred body may be my last refresh ment, and the sustenance which I shall enjoy and feed upon for ever ! O gracious Lord, I pray that my last sigh may be the. last pain I shall endure toiall eternity ! O gracious Lord, I pray that thy most blessed face may be the1 first object wliich my soul shall behold, when it is released from this mortal body ! O gracious Lord, I pray that thou thyself woiildest be my guide and my companion from this land of exile, to my eternal home and country ! Amgn !" , , LETTER XHI. Simplon, Sept. 11.— Milan, Sept. 14, 1823. Brieg— Simplon — Road— Persal— Descent into Ita ly— Domo d'Osola — Priests— Contrast between Swizerland and Italy— Lago Maggiore — Bor- romean Isles — Colossal Statue of Borromeo — .Milan — Scale of Vegetation on Alps— Marble Cathedral — St. Ambrose — St. Austin. Brieg, 296, miles from Lusanne, Sept. 11, 1823, Thursday morning, half-past 5. This town of Brieg, my dear sister, is of consi derable extent ; I should think it has three hun dred houses; it is about two thousand feet above the sea. It is one of the most beautiful spots in all the Valais. The Jesuits' church is conspicuous, being covered with a brilliant green stone, striped with bright yellow. The houses of the place are tiled with a white slate ghttering like silver. When the sun gilds the mica-roofs, the view from the windows of the inn, which is on a hfll, is quite novel. It is here that the celebrated road of the Simplon properly begins, though it may be said to com mence as far back as Geneva ; the road from Ge neva to Brieg having been widened and improved, at the same time that it was carried on over the Alps to Italy. Simplon is the name of a village on a mountain of the Haut Valais, in the chain of Alps between Switzerland and Italy. The road was begun by Bonaparte in 1801 ; he employed thirty thousand men upon it for four or five years. The side next to tbe Valais was executed by French engineers ; that next to Italy, by Itahan. These last had the greatest difficulties to sur mount, from the hardness of the rocks. It is twenty- five feet wide everywhere — a prodigious work, ri valling the labors of ancient Rome. The highest point is six thousand one hundred and seventy-four feet above the sea, and the ascent is only of about two inches and a hah in six feet, a rise so gradual as to be easy to the heaviest wagons. Persal on the Simplon, half past 10. — We have now come the first stage on this celebrated road, which is gentle in its rise beyond all conception ; and as smooth as our Bath road. The plan in forming it was adjusted with such skfll and care, by following the sides of mountains, as always to preserve the same gradual ascent. Large portions of the road were made by blowing up rocks, and building terraces from the valleys, with bridges over the ravines. Granite stones are placed at short intervals on each side, with strong raffing on the edge of precipices. The prospects, as you ascend, are soft and pleasing. The valleys and the town of Brieg stretching before the view at an immense distance below, varying with the dif ferent turns of the scenery, form a new and en chanting picture at every tenth step. The moun tains of firs form a sort of back ground. The con ception and execution of this road', reflect an honor on the name of Bonaparte, which all his military schemes never deserved. E very traveUer of every country, forgetting his ambitious motives, applauds the ingenuity, hardihood, and usefulness of the interprise. Domo d'Osola, in the Valley of Osola, six o'clock., Thursday evening. — We have now passed the re- 74 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. mainder of the Simplon. It really rises in my estimation. Not only is the road of a convenient width and excellent smoothness, but ten or twelve refuges are buflt for traveUers overtaken by bad weather. In one of these we dined, at half-past ten. We had boiled mutton, roast veal, potatoes, salad, and very good hght wine for four of us, for eight francs, about eighteen pence a piece. In continu ing our route we had the Alps constantly in view. There are six or eight tunnels, or galleries, cut through sold rocks, to form part of the road ; one gallery is six hundred and eighty-there feet long, with enormous windows opened in the rude granite to give hght on the path. I observed at another place four beautiful cascades faffing down the cliffs, winch are carried under the road by aqueducts. Bonaparte began a new hospice : it has fourteen windows in front, and five on each side. The work has stood still since 1814. An immense pillar of granite hes neglected along the road, in another part, designed for his triumphal arch at Milan. It attests, in the most affecting manner, the total change which his fall instantly occasioned. Not a creature has cared to remove it out of the way, or apply it to any other purpose. We were six hours and a half in attaining the highest point of the road. The zig-zags which it takes, to pre serve the gentle ascent, are surprising. After passing the village of Simplon, we began to descend towards Italy through a valley magni ficently and sublimely rude. The horrors of the impending rocks — the immense masses broken off by the storms, and lying scattered around — the perpendicular crags of theh lofty sides — united with the infinite variety which reigns in ever^ part, reaUy penetrated my mind with astonishment ; ac customed as I have lately been to unusual gran deur in the works of nature. Then the descent is so gradual, that we drove a fast trot all the way. In short, it would be worth while taking a journey to see this country, if there were no beautiful road ; and it would be almost worth while taking the journey to see the road, if there were no beau tiful country : the combination of the two is un equalled, as 1 suppose, in the world. At four we entered Italy, properly so called, for on the conti nent, Savoy is commonly considered as part of Italy. The name of the first Itahan vfllage is San Marco. The plain of the VaUey of Osola is beautiful. It is the first Itahan plain we have seen ; it differs from the Swiss, in its greater fertility, softness, and beauty ; the meadows are more rich, the trees in finer verdure. The town of Domo d'Osola has about three thousand inhabitants. There is no bookseller in the place — I mark this fact, where it occurs, as implying a thousand consequences — the pubhc mind is bound down in imperturbable ignorance and self-satisfaction. As we passed Isella, the second village in Italy, our baggage was searched; and the officer told us plainly, the objects he looked after were books of religion and pohtics — morals are left to themselves. On driving into the town, I was surprised to see priests, in theh peculiar dress, but somewhat shab bily attired, standing about idly, or sitting in the market place, at the doors of cabarets, in company with the common people. Their jovial, careless sort of look, struck me as characteristic of the manners of too many of that order of persons in Italy. The chief church here is of modern, Greek architecture ; there are three altogether, and about fifteen priests. A convent of C apucbins, suppressed by Napoleon, has just been restored. When we asked the innkeeper what curiosities there were in the town, he said there was only a Calvary — a chape], or temple, on some mountain, with a superstitious representation of our Saviour's pas- gfon — a trait perfectly conclusive as to the general state of opinions and information in the place. We are now in Italy. But, how faUen ! How melancholy is it to think of the actual condition of this queen of nations ! Ignorance, poverty, indo lence, vice, superstition, misery, are but too visible on aU sides. Half the time, in fact, which God assigned to man for labor, is consumed in super stitious festivals of saints ; whilst the one day of sacred rest is desecrated to folly and sin. AU this is the more deplorable, when compared with the beauty of the country itself. The ah is delicious — the balmy atmosphere soothes and enchants you. Then the recollections also of past glory rush upon the mind. Italy is associated with all our earliest learning. It is the country of poets, and artists, and orators, and warriors. Scarcely a spot is to be found that has not been the theatre of some celebrated action. The stupendous ruins wliich adorn it, impress the mind with lofty ideas of the skfll and perseverance of man, and at the same time teach us the perishableness and vanity of all his works. The towns are famed for the conspi cuous characters to whom they have given birth; whilst Rome — once the mistress of the Pagan world ; then the first see of the Christian church: and lastly, the source of the gross western apostacy from the faith — giyes a deep interest to the whole country where it is situated. I confess, a mixed feehng possesses my mind, for which T cannot distinctly account. Curiosity, surprise, veneration, sorrow, fear, compassion, all have a part. Though I am not going to Rome, yet I seem to share att the emotions of travelling for the first time in Italy — and the impression is deeper from the coun try I have just left. In Switzerland, all was the grandeur and ma jesty of nature ; in Italy, it is the splendor and perfection of architecture. In the one, the towns were of themselves nothing ; in the other, they are every thing. In Switzerland, the modem efforts for religion and hberty, and the fine spirit of the inhabitants, attract your chief attention ; in Italy, the ancient memorials of past power, and the remains of science and hterature. In Swit zerland, you connect the works of nature with the men ; in Italy, the men with the works, not of nature, but of art. The Swiss have for five cen turies been raising theh poor and desolate coun try, by theh industry and good government, to be the praise of Europe ; the Italians have for twelve centuries been depressing, by theh indolence and bad administration, the most fertile and luxuriant, to be its reproach. Switzerland, in short, is the land of freedom and of the purest form of Chris tianity ; Italy, of slavery and of the most corrupt state of the Christian doctrine. But I am in dulging in an endless strain of reflection. To return. The vines are here very different, in point of luxuriance and beauty from those of TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 75 the Rhine or of Switzerland ; they are raised on trefllises, often of granite, and always in regular order, high enough to form arbors ; so that the grass or com grows beneath, and the field is one bower. Where this is not the case, you have beech, maple, or peach trees hung with vines, joined from tree to tree by branches, suspended on ropes ; at other places, the terraces rise, load ed with vines, all up the mountain-side. The view of the rich black grapes, hanging under the treflhs-work, is incomparably beautiful. We were, perhaps, a httle partial in our judgment, because the grapes of Switzerland, when we left it, were as hard as stones ; whereas here the branches hang in rich, ripe clusters everywhere, so that our postfllion, as he walks up a hilL or a boy conduct ing us to a sight, gathers large bunches unasked, and brings them to us. I conceive, that Italy must be something like to ancient Palestine, though doubtless much inferior to it, Arona, 41 miles from Domo d'Osola, 8 o'clock, Friday evening, Sept. 12. — The weather is most propitious. We have had only one wet day (Au gust 31) since the storm on the Righi : to-day there has been a soft dehghtful temperature, with out excessive heat. We set off at seven this morning, and have been traveUing a great way by the margin of the lovely Itahan lake, called Lago Maggiore ; its waters are smooth as a mir ror, so as" to reflect every thing on its banks ; towns on each side, mountains in varied outline, crowning the prospect — the near scenery soft and lovely, the distant bold and magnificent. It is, in some parts, one thousand eight hundred feet deep. Eels abound in it, of the weight of thirty pounds. From Baveno, we embarked to visit the Borro- mean Isles, so called from the ancient Itahan family which possesses and has adorned them. — They are two, Isola Bella and Isola Madre. The principal one is a mile and a half round ; originally a barren rock, but now covered with gardens, grottos, and tenaces, raised on arches and arcades. In some parts the arches are ten stories high, one over another, raised from the lower part of the rock to the highest terrace ; which is one hundred and twenty feet above the surface of the lake, and forty feet square. A pegasus placed on the sum mit gives the whole island something of the ap pearance of a pyramid. The aspect of these arches and terraces from the road was most beau tiful — there was something quite novel in the view of the mass of gardens and buildings rising at once out- of the water, as by enchantment. Nor were we disappointed when we came near er. We saw in the gardens, cedars, myrtle trees, cypresses of enormous girth, aloes, Egyptian grapes, serpentine cucumbers a yard and a half long ; a plant from the Canaries, which grew twenty-four feet high in thirty-two days ; but the most abundant species of trees were the citrons, which lined the walls of the terraces, and had large cabbages planted at theh roots, to protect them from the intense heat of the sun. There were also vines, ohves, and orange trees in profu sion. More than thirty thousand oranges and citrons are gathered every year. In the time when the gardens are in flower the sweet per fume spreads for a considerable distance over the 55—5 lake. The fragrance was most gratifying to-day, though it is as late in the year as the middle of September. Fountains and statues refresh and adorn every part of the grounds. In short, these islands are the model of perfection in theh way — which way, indeed, has been out of taste for about a century, and is undoubtedly stiff and unnatural ; but still, they reward one richly for the trouble of a visit. Some of the prospects from the islands, on the lake and the bordering villages and moun tains, are exquisite. The heights of the Simplon and the peaks of Mount Rosa and Saint Gothard may be discerned from them. The Borromean Palace, in each island, is an emblem of Itahan finery and negligence. The wings of the principal one are completed : but the body is nothing but bare watts. I understand this is almost general in Italy ; the nobles build, or rather begin to build, immense houses — they half finish them— they soon allow them to decay and go to ruin ; a complete weU-appointed mansion is rare in this country. In approaching this town of Arona, where I am now writing, we ascended a hfll to examine a colossal statue of cardinal Charles Borromeo, an eminent benefactor to Milan, and founder of the Sunday schools still existing there ; he died in the year 1584. The statue itself is seventy-two feet high — twelve times the natural size, and five or six times as high, I think, as that of the duke of Bedford in London — the pedestal thirty-six feet. The arm is twenty-eight feet long, the head twenty feet round, tlie nose two feet seven inches long, the circuit of tlie cloak fifty-four feet, &c. die. — The attitude is that of one blessing the people. — The right hand is raised gently, the left clasps the Breviary ;* (which is thirteen feet high) the head is bare; the countenance most benignant; the garments those of a cardinal, in easy, flowing drapery. So admirably natural is the whole, that you have no idea of its enormous dimensions on first looking at it. It is curious that we thought we discovered a likeness between the cardinal and the present count Borromeo, whom we hap pened to meet as we landed on his island : the resemblance in the nose seemed to us to be strik ing. The head, feet, and hands of this Colossus are made of bronze ; the body of copper ; the pe destal is of stone. There are no steps within the pedestal, as you might expect ; but my sons had to ascend by a ladder from the outside to the part of the statue where the fold of the cloak falls. — Under this bronze fold they entered, and then as cended to the head of the figure, and sat with ease in the nostrils. A stone pillar with hon spikes- fixed in it, by way of stairs, runs up the interior of the statue to support it. I really quite trembled as they went up the quivering ladder of forty-eight steps; and when they entered the statue, and afterwards looked out to me from a kind of door which opened in the back of it, a hundred feet above my head, (half as high as the Monument in London) I was really alarmed. Thank God, they came down safe. The inns in Italy are contrived^ for delight. — We are now sitting with our windows open ; * So the guide-books call it — for my part, I hope it is the Bible. 76 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. flower-pots are placed in every nook ; grapes hang att around in rich clusters ; open gaUeries and platforms conduct from one part of the house to another ; the floors are aU brick or stone ; the rooms are lofty ; and if they were but clean, all would be well. We have now the finest fruit at breakfast and dinner, and good hght wines at a franc a bottle. The people are of a copper color. The women wear handkerchiefs over their heads like veils. At Domo d'Osola, the streets had two narrow shps of smooth flags in the middle, for the wheels of carriages, the rest being rough pebbles. We are under stricter pohce laws than ever ; our passports are sent for at every town, as soon as we enter ; and we have a hcense for post-horses, which we have to show at each stage. Such is the hberty of the Sardinian and Austrian domi nions in Italy. There are about three thousand people in this town of Arona, six churches and forty priests, with sixty monks ; no bookseUer — compare this with the state of Enghsh towns of the same ex tent — Banbury for instance ; where there is one church and one clergyman, but large schools, numerous benevolent institutions, and perhaps a dozen bookseUers. Italy swarms with monks and ignorance. The Borromean motto is " Humilitas ;" which is inscribed even on each flower-pot of the superb garden in the islands, and on the picture of the As cension of St. Borromeo to heaven, in the church of what is caUed the Sacred Mount, where the stupendous statue is placed; on the ascent to which Mount, by the by, there are six or more chapels dedicated to the same saint. I asked the waiter here, quite accidentatty, if they were att CathoUcs at Arona ; he looked at me with asto nishment, and said, yes :. — perceiving his surprise, I told him I was an Englishman and a Protestant, and that the English believed in Jesus Christ theh Saviour, though they did not believe in the Pope ; at which the man seemed more astonished still. — Such slight circumstances as these, serve at least to betray the habits of thought in the common people in Italy. Att is sealed up in impenetrable ignorance and superstition. I suppose, if I had attempted ever so mildly to convince him of the errors of Popery, I should soon have heard of it from the poUce. Milan, Saturday evening, half-past 8, Sept. 13, 44 miles from Arona, about 1950 miles from Lon don. — We set off this morning at half-past seven, and came to Sesto Calende, on the Tesin. It was near this town that Hannibal is thought to have conveyed his elephants across the river and defeated the Romans, three hundred years before Christ. The Lombardo- Venetian kingdom of the Em peror of Austria begins here. Happily our pass ports were signed by the Austrian ambassador before we left Bern, or we should have had. to re trace our steps ; several Engh'shmen, for want of this formality, Jiave actually been compelled to return. We dined at Cascenia at half-past eleven, and entered Milan at half-past three. The coun try through which we passed is flat, and wretch edly cultivated, but fertile. The pastures are often exceUent. The grass is regularly cut four times a year. The tenants pay ho rent in money for theh farms, but divide the returns with their landlord. Ploughing is performed by oxen. The agricultural instruments are deplorable ; and the inhabitants are generally poor. Many of the churches have smaU square towers, very lofty, with six or seven stories, and windows in each. — The towns are slovenly and dirty beyond all de scription : one would think there was scarcely a comfortable house in them. In coming down to Sesto, we had a noble view of mount Rosa, with its perpetual snows, which appeared higher than any Alp we had seen, on account of the low situation of the plain from wliich we viewed it. It is with regret we took leave, for a time, jff these magnificent scenes. I should have told you, that in Savoy, the women were the chief laborers in fhe fields. I saw, se veral times, a plough guided by a woman ; who with one hand held the plough, and with the other drove a miserable lean cow, which drew it through the dusty land. I wfll just say, about the Alps generaUy (for I expect now to have to quit the subject,) that the line where the snow rests on them perpetually is from eight thousand four hundred and fifty, to nine thousand one hundred feet above the level of the sea ; the Une where fir-trees and elow- ers flourish, six thousand : the lowest Une where corn wfll grow, three thousand seven hundred and fifty ; and where vines can be cultivated, one thousand nine hundred and fifty feet. Thus the same mountains exhibit every variety of pro duct. Theh heads are craggy, inaccessible, without the possibihty of vegetation ; theh bases are covered with rich corn-fields, or luxuriant pastures; the middle consists of pastures less productive, interspersed with a great variety of plants. The summits, in fact, are doomed to all the rigors of an Icelandic winter ; whilst at theh feet, one enjoys the warmth of an Italian sun. There is something very instructive in this scale of vegetation — for I must morattze for a moment. The degree of the sun's heat regu lates every thing m the natural world. AU is sterile as it recedes from it. May we not say, in Uke manner, as to the moral world, that fruitful ness in holy love and obedience is just in propor tion as our principles and habits place us under the vivifying influences of grace ! The nearer we approach to the centre of all warmth and life, the more fruitful : as we recede, all withers and dies. My main quarrel with Popery and with merely nominal Protestantism is, that they con ceal and exclude the genial light and heat of the " Sun of Righteousness," and substitute a cold, freezing superstition or indifference in its stead. Christ our Lord is to the moral world, what the glorious orb of day is to the natural— the source and fountain of Ufe and growth and joy. But to return to our route to Milan — We were much surprised to find more than one large church built in the midst of the fields, with not a house near ; and, therefore, apparently for the travel ling peasants in passing from town to town. This may, perhaps, be an excusable trait of supersti tion ; a trait of another kind we discovered at dinner. The waiter asked us three francs each for some cold meat, vrine, and fruits ; we hesi tated. Upon which an English gentleman told TRAVELS ON THE* CONT^lrMT'. 77 us we had only to give him two francs each, and one for himself, and he would be content; tlie rogue took the money without a word. , Milan, where we now are, is considered, next to Rome and Naples, one of the largest cities of Italy.* It was the ancient Mediolanum; and was founded as early as Tarquinius Priscus, 670 years before Christ. It was the capital of Bona parte's kingdom of Italy, and is now the joint- capita] with Venicef of the Itattan dominions of the emperor of Austria. It has nearly, one hun dred and fifty thousand inhabitants ; fhe outer waU is ten miles in circuit, and it is one of the very few great cities not built on a river. The Adda and Tesin, however, communicate with it by ca nals. We are at the Royal JRotel, and are ex tremely well accommodated. The iandlord tells us that his servants have, during the last nine years, perfectly learned the English taste. Immediately after our arrival, we hastened to see the celebrated cathedral, built of white mar ble, the grandest and most imposing specimen of Gothic architecture now remaining ; and the finest church in Europe, after St. Peter's at Rome, and St. Paul's at London. It is also the largest in Italy, next to St. Peter's. It is four hundred and forty-nine feet long, two hundred and seventy r five wide, and two hundred and thirty-eight high. It was begun in 1386, and is yet unfinished ; but, strange to say, Bonaparte did more to complete it in a few years, than had been done in three hun dred previous — or than wfll be done, perhaps, in three hundred to come. This noble edifice, as you first approach it, bursts upon the eye most majestically. The fa cade is magnificent, and the three other sides are hardly inferior. The immense mass of perfectly white marble, of which it is built, its amazing size, the labor manifest in its several parts, and the exquisite finish of the ornaments and statues which adorn it, fill the mind of a stranger with admhation. We gained the best idea of the beauties of its alabaster walls by going up on the roof, which is itself covered with slabs of marble. We then saw quite closely the fret-work, the carving, and the sculpture, and marked the grace of the figures, and the symmetry and elegance of each pinnacle. Above the dome there rises an elegant tower, like an obelisk. We walked up stairs of marble, we leaned on balustrades of marble, we passed through gaUeries of marble ; whilst the walls were literally studded with sta tues, and every niche filled with its archbishop or saint — there are in all more than four thousand figures. The fact is, as marble is obtained with ease and in great abundance in Italy, and admits of nicer workmanship than stone, the fuU benefit has been taken of these advantages. The in terior of the building, however, is obscured with dust and smoke, and incense, and burning lamps ; so that it does not look nearly so handsome as the outside. The smahhess of the windows, and the * Milan is about ten miles in circumference ; Na ples fifteen, besides seven large suburbs, and con tains 450,000 inhabitants; Rome is thirteen miles, within the circuit of its walls. t Milan and Venice are placed on a par with, each other. pamtings oh the glass, also tend to increase the general gloomy appearance. The statpe of St. Bartholomew, within the ca thedral, is considered as a chef-d'ceuvre — but the subject is frightful — the martyr is represented just in the act of being flayed dive — the skin hangs down loose like a garment behind him. Two pulpits in the choir much pleased us. They are of fine bronze, each running round an immense pillar, Uke a gaUery ; one is supported with ad mirable figures of Cyprian, Ambrose, Austin, and Jerome ; and the other, by the four mysterious animals of Ezekiel. The tomb of Carlo Borro meo is most splendid. It is a room of silver gilt, and contains a superb altar, and the history, in bas-relief, of the chief events of his life — beyond conception magnificent. The shrine is of rock crystal. The summit of the tower of the cathe dral presents a beautiful and extensive view of the city and plain of Milan ; with its rivers, gardens, groves, vineyards, and numerous towns ; bounded by the neighboring Alps, and more remote Apen nines. Stfll all is an entire flat ; the plain of fair Italy. In this respect, Switzerland, dear Switzerland, far surpasses it. As we approached Milan, a small hedge in the road was sufficient to conceal the whole of the place from us. The town has some fine streets, with handsome foot-pavements ; but as it is very ancient, most of the streets are nar row, and irregularly buflt. Its superb private edifices and palaces are but few ; in these it yields, not only to Rome and Genp^, but to Flo rence. I observe att is done to keep out the heat : the shops haye no windows ; curtains hang on the outside of the doors ; the people come out chiefly in the evening ; and on great festivals they ascend the roof of theh cathedral, and pass theh evenings in the coolness which it furnishes. The streets have two single rows of flags, in the middle, for the wheels of the parriages, and some times double sets. The windows have three shut ters : first, Venetian ; then glass ; then, on the inside, wo°d, to exclude the hot ah. Sunday morning, Sept. 14. — This is one of my melancholy Sundays. An immense Catholic town of one hundred and fifty thousand souls — the ecclesiastical apparatus enormous ; about two hundred churches, eighty convents,* and one hun dred religious houses— compare this with the Pro testant establishments of Birmingham or Man chester, which fall as far short of what such a) crowded population fairly demands, as the Milan establishment exceeds it. We might surely learn" something in England of the duty of greater zeal and attention to our pure form of Christianity, from the excessive diligence of the CathoUcs in theh corrupt superstitions. I feel a peculiar veneration for Milan on two accounts: St. Ambrose, whom Milner dwells on with such commendations, was the light of this city in the fourth century; Carlo Borromeo, whose benevolence exceeds aU description, was archbishop here in the sixteenth. This last 1 know at present Uttle of; but Ambrose was one, of the most humble and spiritual of the fathers df * One hundred and fourteen convents are said to have been suppressed by1 Napoleon. 78 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. the church, two or three centuries before Popery, properly speaking, began. In this city Ambrose preached ; it was here Austin heard him, at tracted by the fame of his eloquence. It was here also, that Angilbertus, bishop of Milan in the ninth century, refused to own the supremacy of the Pope ; indeed, the church of Milan did not submit to the Roman see tfll two hundred years afterwards. May God raise up another Ambrose to purify and recaU the city and churches, wliich he instructed thirteen or fourteen centuries ago ! Nothing is impossible with God; but Popery seems to infatuate this people. On the church of Milan notices are affixed, that whoever causes a mass to be said there, may dehver any one he chooses from purgatory. In the mean time, this debasing superstition goes hand in hand with se cret infidehty and unblushing vice. But once more adieu. May God make me prize more the essence of Christianity, and dweU' less on those adventitious circumstances which are so soon carried to excess, or converted to su perstition ! The Gospel in its simplicity, power, holiness, and love, is all in aU. Here we cannot be too earnest, too fervent, too watchful. Other things are valuable as they promote this, and only as they do so. If they obscure or supersede what they ought to aid and adorn, they become per nicious and even destructive. I am yours, D. W. NOTICE OF ST. AMBROSE. Ambrose was one of the brightest luminaries of the fourth century. He was bom in the year 338, and was educated for the law. The emperor Valentinian appointed him judge at Milan, A. D. 374, where he became renowned for prudence and justice, during five years. At the end of that time, a tumult having arisen in the cathedral at the election of a bishop, Ambrose repahed thither in order to queU it. An infant's voice was on a sudden heard in the crowd, " Ambrose is bishop." The whole assembly caught the words ; and, for getting he was a layman, vociferated with one consent, "Ambrose is bishop." The judge was confounded and alarmed, and absolutely refused to. accept of the nomination. The emperor, how ever, whose court was at Milan, at length com pelled him to assent. His first act was to make over all his property to the church. ,He then commenced a particular and most devout study of the Scriptures. His la bors afterwards, as bishop, were incessant. In the instruction of catechumens he employed so much pains, that five bishops could scarcely do what he alone performed. He preached every Lord's day, and frequently in the week. When he was fiercely persecuted by Justina the empress, a patroness of Arianism, and was required to yield up his church, he spent whole days and nights in the sacred place, employing the people in singing divine hymns and psalms ; and on this occasion he introduced, for the first time, the responsive sing ing, after the manner of the east, to preserve them from weariness. Arianism was, by his doctrine and his zeal, at length expelled from Italy. But stiU many persons of distinction in the city re mained Pagans, especially amongst the senators. The tradition, therefore, as to his cathedral, men tioned in my next letter, may be considered au thentic. His conduct towards the emperor Theodosius has deservedly raised his character in all succeed ing ages. The emperor professed Christianity, and in the main is thought to have been a deci dedly pious prince ; but he was of a passionate temper, and the inhabitants of Thessalonica hav ing, in a tumult, put to death one of his officers, he signed a warrant for mihtary execution, though he had previously promised Ambrose to forgive them. In three hours seven thousand persons, without trial and writhout distinction, were massacred. The Bishop upon this refused to admit Theodosius into the church of Milan for more than eight months, and then only after doing pubhc penance. Mr. Addison, who travelled in Italy in 1699 and 1700, says, he was shown the gate of a church that St. Ambrose shut against the emperor. No such entrance was pointed out to us, probably from the neglect of our guide ; for the tradition itself of such pieces of local history is commonly indelible. But it is as the instructor of his great convert, St. Augustine, or Austin, that I most cherish the memory of Ambrose. Austin was sunk in the depths of Manichteism, when about the year 384, and the 30th of his age, a requisition was made from Milan to the prefect of Rome, where he then resided, to send a professor of rhetoric to that city. Austin obtained this honorable appointment. He sought the acquaintance of Ambrose because he was sMlful in rhetoric. Ambrose received him like a father, and Austin conceived an affection for him, not as a teacher of truth, which he had no idea of discovering in the Christian church, but as a man kind to him ; and he studiously attended his lectures, only with a curious desire of discover ing whether fame had done justice to his eloquence or not. He stood, indifferent and fastidious with respect to this matter, and, at the same time, de lighted with the sweetness of his language. But the ideas which he neglected came into his mind, together with the words with which he was pleas ed ; and he gradually was brought to attend to the doctrines of the bishop. Thus imperceptibly did the grace of God work in the mind of this extra ordinary man ! It was long before he unbosomed himself to his instructor. He tells us it was out of his power to consult him as he could wish, sur rounded as he was with crowds of persons whose necessities he relieved. During the httle time in which he was from them, (and the time was but httle,) he either refreshed his body with food or his mind with reading. After two or three years of inward conflict, he at length gave in his name for baptism; which Ambrose administered to him, httle thinking that he was admitting into the church a convert who, in the gracious purposes of God, was designed to be the bright glory of the western church, and the main restorer of decayed Christianity in the world. There was a httle chapel lately rebuilt when Mr. Addison visited Milan, on one of the waUs of which an inscription stated, that it was in that place that Austin was baptized, and that on this occasion St. Ambrose first sung his Te Deum, his TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 79 great convert answering him verse by verse. I lost the Bight of this curiosity also ; whether from the ignorance of my guide or not, I cannot say. St. Ambrose died, in the year 397, in the 57th year of his age, and the 23d of his episcopate. He lias been charged with leaning too much towards the incipient superstitions of his day, and thus un consciously of helping forward the growth of mo nastic bondage and prelatical pride. Something of this charge may be tme ; but he Uved and died firm and unbending in aU the fundamentals of di vine truth. He loved the Saviour. He depended on his merits only for justification. He relied on the illumination and grace of the Holy Sphit. He delighted in communion with God. A rich unction of godliness rests on his writings ; and he was one of the most fervent, humble, laborious, and chari table of all Christian bishops. I know not whether I am too ardent in my feel ings ; but I must confess, that Zurich, Basle, Ge neva, Milan, and Lyon, are the spots most dear to my recoUection amongst all the places crowded with beauties of another kind, which have attract ed my notice during my tour. I need scarcely add, that in forming my judg ment of St. Ambrose, my guide has been Mflner, whose incomparable Ecclesiastical History, widely as it is circulated, is not nearly so well known as it deserves. For evangelical purity, accurate dis crimination of character, laborious research, sound judgment, decision, fidelity, I know no book Uke it in the compass of English theology. As an ec clesiastical history it stands not merely unrivalled, but ALONE. LETTER XIV. Milan, Sept. 13.— Charriberry, Sept. 19, 1823. Sunday at Milan — Sunday Schools — Punch — Vir gin Mary — Noisy Festival — Popery like Pagan ism—Church of St. Ambrose — Library — Amphi theatre of Bonaparte — Unfinished Triumphal Arch — Remains of Roman Baths — Mint— Po — Tesin — Turin — Churches — Palace — Ambioggio — Lans-le-bourg — Ancient Arch at Susa — Mount Cenis Road — Reflections— St. Michael — Aigue- belle — Chamberry — Life of Borromeo— Extracts from Writings. Milan, Sunday evening, Sept. 14, 1823. My dearest sister — I have witnessed to-day, with grief and indignation, all the superstitions of Popery in theh full triumph. In other towns, the neighborhood of Protestantism has been some check on the display of idolatry ; but here in Italy, where a Protestant is scarcely tolerated, except in the chapels of ambassadors, you see what things tend to ; Popery has its unimpeded course ; every thing foUows the guidance and authority of the prevailing taste in religion. At half-past ten tins morning we went to the cathedral, where seats were obtained for us in the gaUery near the altar. We saw the whole of the proceedings at High Mass — priests almost without end — incense — singing — music — processions — perpetual changes of dress — four persons with mi tres, whom the people called the Uttle bishops — a crowd of people coming in and going out, and staring around them ; but not one prayer, nor one verse of the Holy Scriptures intelligible to the peo ple, not even if they knew Latin ; nor one word of a sermon ; in short, it was nothing more nor less than a Pagan show. We returned to our inn, and, after our Enghsh service, we went to see the catechising. This was founded by Borromeo, in the sixteenth cen tury, and is one of the pecuttarities of the diocese of Milan. The children meet in classes of ten or twenty, drawn up between the piUars of the vast cathedral, and separated from each other by cur tains ; the boys on one side, the ghls on the other. In all the churches of the city there are classes also. Many grown people were mingled with the children. A priest, and sometimes a layman, sat in the midst of each class, and seemed to be ex plaining famfliarly the Christian reUgion. The sight was quite interesting. Tables for learning to write were placed in different recesses. The children were exceedingly attentive. At the door of each school, the words, pax vobis, peace be un to you, were inscribed on a board ; the names of the scholars were also on boards. Each school had a smaU pulpit, with a green cloth in front, bearing the Borromean motto, Humilitas. Now what can, in itself, be more exceUent than aU this ! But mark the corruption of Popery : these poor children are all made members of a fraternity, and purchase indulgences for their sins by coming to school. A brief of the Pope, dated 1609, affords a perpetual indulgence to the chil dren in a sort of running lease of six thousand years, eight thousand years, &c, and these indul gences are apphcable to the recovering of souls out of purgatory ; the prayers also before school are full of error and idolatry. AU this I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears ; for I was curious to understand the bearings of these celebrated schools. Thus is the infant mind fet tered and imprisoned. Stfll I do not doubt that much good may be done on the whole — the Cathohc catechisms con tain the foundation of the Christian rehgion, a ge neral view of Scripture history, explanations of the creation and redemption of mankind, some good instructions on the moral law, sound state ments on the divinity of Christ, and the Holy Trinity ; some acknowledgments of the faU of man, and the necessity of the grace of God's Holy Sphit ; with inculcations of repentance, contrition, humility, self-denial, watchfulness, and preparation for death and judgment. These catechisms are not brief summaries, but rather full explanations of religion ; making up small volumes of fifty or more pages. In the frontispiece of the catechism for the diocese of Geneva is the following affect ing sentence, under the figure of our Lord, " Son amour et mon crime ont mis Jesus a mort" — a sentiment which cannot but produce good. Stfll aU is wofully mixed up with superstition, and error, and human traditions ; and the consequence of this mixture is, that vital truths are so associated in the mind, from early youth, with the foUies of Popery, that even the most pious men of that com munion do not enough distinguish between them. If you deny transubstantiation, they suppose you disbelieve tlie divinity of Christ ; if you avow that 80 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. you are not a Papist, they suppose, that you are a heretic, arid have renbunced.the faith, &c. It was thus that such eminent Christians as Pascal, Ni cole, Queshel, Fenelon, and the great men ofthe Jansenist school, lived and died in the church of Rome. "A voluntary humility," as weU as the "worsffippingof angels," — Coloss. ii. 18— may weU be noted by St: Paul as an error, which ought zea lously to be excluded from the Christian church. After dinner, at half-past three, we had our se cond English service, at our hotel and then were hurried out to sfee, what you wfll think incredible in a Christian country, altars" set up in the open ah to the Vhgin Mary, with hangings; festoons of lamps,- priests offering prayers, lamps hung on cords stretched across the streets,' the houses and squares' gaily adorned with carpets and lights ; the churches open and fflurninated, and crowds passing in and out ; while! priests were giving re lics to kiss to the devotees who came kneeling at the altar in the most rapid succession ; and soldiers were parading about to keep in order the assem bled mobs. I never was sh astonished in aU my Ufe. Religion was, in fact, turned into an open noisy amusement. Before the cathedral itself, there was an amazing crowd to witness Punch and his wife — Uterally, Punch and his wife:* priests were mingled in the crowd ; and the thing is so much a matter of course, that nearly every picture of this cathedral, has, I understand, Punch and his audi tory in the fore-ground; thus the farce is kept up throughout this sacred day. And what is aU this, but the ceremonies of an cient Roman Heathenism colored over with modern Roman Christianity! The resemblance between Popery and Paganism in Italy strikes every impar tial observer. The names of things only are chang ed. There are the same prbstrations-^-the same iucense — the same holy water — the same lamps and candles — the same votive offerings and tablets — the same temples, with the names of the hea then deities slightly altered to suit the names of pretended saints — the same adoration of images — the same worship of the supposed guardians of roads and highways — the same pomps and proces sions — -the same flagellations at certain periods — the same pretended miracles. It is not a httle curious, that the very superstitions which the ear ly Christian fathers most vehemently condemned in the Pagan rites, are now celebrated at Rome, in open day, as a part of Christian worship. As to the fact of the similarity of the heathen and Popish ceremonies, it is admitted on all hands. The Ita lian antiquaries delight in tracing, in all simphcity, the resemblance ; whilst the theologians defend it on the ground of the necessity, in the conversion of the gentiles, of assembling and winking at many things, and yeflchhg to the times. And if at last they are pressed with the notorious idolatry and fotty of many of these usages, they explain them away, precisely as the heathen did theh worship of false deities ; ahd thus establish the connection * Italy is the native country of Punch. A priest at Naples once observing the crowd more attentive to Punch, then exhibiting, than to himself who was preaching, suddenly seized a crucifix, and pointing to the figure of our Lord, exclaimed, " EccO 11 vero Puncinello." He turned the admiration of the multi tude instantaneously to himself. and identity of the superstitions- Such is Dr. Mid- dleton's testimofty, in his most interesting, elegant, learned, and decisive1 " Letter from Rome," in the year 1729 * — a testimony corifhmed by aU impar tial writers sirice.f A late traveUer, for instance,^ says, there is the same strange mixture of the ceremonies of Pagan ism with the rites ofthe Roman Cathohc religion in Sicily. The feast de la Vara, at Messina, is ob viously founded on that of the Panathenseum ce lebrated at Athens, in all the abundant details of fotty and impiety. The festivals of Saturn and Rhea are also continued there, under names slight ly changed ; and more than one ancient Pagan deity, is now a Christian saint. The Sicilians show you the mountain of Saint Venus, the weU of Saint Juno, the chapel of Saint Mercury ! || The faciUty with which the Jesuit Missionaries in Japan and China allowed theh converts to retain the rites and usages of Paganism, is well known, and is entirely consistent with the above state ments. The Spanish Missionaries in America act ed the same part. Popery conceals and corrupts Christianity ; and then alloys it further with the peculiar habits and superstitions of each country.1T But to pass to another subject. What a la mentable reflection is it, that att this is in a Christian country, and under color of Christianity, and even on the Christian Sabbath. The fact is, the Sabbath is almost unknown here as the day of sanctification and holy rest! Doubtless, in so1 vast a population, there are many secret disciples ofthe Lord Christ, who "sigh and cry for aU the abominations that be done in the midst thereof;" but as to the mass of the people, the Sunday is forgotten, obliterated, lost — nay, it is turned into the very worst day of all the week — no idea enters theh minds of the divine purpose and mercy in it, of which the Lord himself speaks by bis prophet, "I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." I should conceive there are but very, very few Bibles amongst aU this population of one hun dred and fifty thousand souls. What do we owe to Luther, Calvin, Zuingle, Cranmer, Ridley, Knox, &c. who, under God, lived * There may possibly be, in Dr. Middleton's Let ter, some attacks on the Popish miracles in that ge neral spirit of incredulity and levity which seems to condemn all miracles — and against which a young reader cannot be too much on his guard. t See Rome in the Wth century, above referred to. t M. Forbin. II See " Extract from Les Souvenirs de la Sidle" ut supra. IT In a report made a year or two back on tbe state of religion in the south of India, wc are informed that the Roman Catholics at Tinhevclly, a large district under the Presidency of Madras, besides the idolatrous ceremonies which the church of Rome openly sanctions, "add such others as their hea thenish inclinations and the customs of the country suggest, At all the great festivals of the church tbey conform to the customs ofthe Heathens; except that they call their ' Swamies ' by names of Apostles and other saints^ instead of Rama, Siva, &c. They draw the Rutt and carry their idols in procession, exactly like the Heathen. The distinction of Hea1 then castes' is. observed among them?' TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 81 and died to rescue us .from , similar darkness! And what an effusion pf grace must have ac companied their labors, to gjve them the success with which they were crowned throughout the greater part of Europe. And how great must be the guilt of those Protestant countries, who are suffering the light of truth to go out in theh churches, and are substituting false schemes pf rehgion, or forms of cold orthodoxy, for the Ufe- giving principles of the Reformation ! May we " walk in the Ught" whilst it remains with ps, lest "darkness" should again, in just judgment, be al lowed to " come upon us ! " yiond,ay evening, eight, o'clock, Sept. 15, 182|3. y-r-We hired a voiture this mornhig, and drove about this great city from eight o'clock tfll six, ex cept taking an hour for refreshment. We have been richly rewarded. I shall say httle of the churches. This place is the toyshop of the Vhgin Mary: we observe every where tradesmen for setting wax candles, images, crucifixes, ornaments —this speaks for itself— " Demetrius and his crafts men." I will only mention, that I observed a direct claim of miraculous powers on the tomb of a Dominican rector (mirqcularum glcfid clarus.) Plenary indulgences also were stupk up on almost every church. Two inscriptions, howeyer, under tlie cross of our Lord, pleased me : " Having made peace by the blood of bis cross ; " and, " For the joy that was set before birn, he despised the shame." If some of these old inscriptions were put acted upon, a mighty change would soon take place. The church that delighted me most was that of St. Ambrose, anciently the cathedral, and where he ordinarily officiated, founded in the fourth cen tury, on the site of a temple of Bacchus. Some re mains of the conquered heathen temple were seen jn .different stones about the building, especially a bas-relief of Bacchanals, a pillar, with serpents, emblematic of Esculapius; and the chair of St. Ambrose, formerly used in the idol temple. The church is very old, and built of brick, and is almost buried by the elevation of the ground all around it. You descend several steps to the large court, sur rounded with gaUeries in front of it, and then se veral more steps in entering the church itself. The body of St. Ambrose is supposed to lie under the high altar. I confess I sat with reverence in the chair of this great luminary of the church, and mused on the fatal tendency to corruption in man, which in a few centuries could engraft on St. Ambrose's doctrines, idolatries and super stitions almost as gross as those which he over threw. The Ambrosian Library, caUed after the name of Ambrose, was founded by Fred. Borromeo, cousin to the famous Borromeo ; it contains thirty thousand volumes. We were shown fifty-eight leaves of a most curious MS. of the IUad of the fifth century before Christ, of which Angelo Mai published a fac simile in 1810 ; a manuscript Vir gil with marginal notes by Petrarch; a Latin translation of Josephus, written on papyrus, of the third century ; and a very valuable volume of de signs by Leonardi da Vinci. I know you will ask, what memorials of Bona parte I visited. In reply I have to say, that we went to see his amphitheatre, with which I was much delighted. It is one thousand feet long, five hundjced broad, ^rid capable of holding forty thou sand persons ; a truly Roman work. It is as spa cious, fhough less elevated than the celebrated amphitheatre of Verona. The seats are made of turf, and rise one above another on the sloping bank. There are ten rows of them. They are of pourpe all open to the heavens. The amuse ments are foot and horse races, and naval fights ; the arena being easily fiUed with water, by means of sluices. We much admired the chariots ipa.de after the ancient Roman models, and used in the games. There is a suitable gallery on one side for distinguished personages ; and the whole is surrounded with a wall. We next proceeded to Bonaparte's vflla, which is beautiful ; and his gate of Marengo also, except that by a great mistake he dedicated it to "Peace the preserver of na tions." But the most splendid and affecting monument of his fame, is the incomplete triumphal arch at the entrance of the Simplon road. The unfinish ed stones remain where they were at his death. The bas-rehefs, which were to record his triumphs, are covered with dust. The sheds for the work men are deserted. You walk amidst the half- formed designs. No one cares to finish the plan ; and a total obliteration seems to have effaced the gaudy fascination which once attended his name. In the breasts of the people, however, here as else where, he still lives, and comparisons not the most flattering are made between him and the Austrian government. After this we went to inspect some very curious Roman antiquities ; a noble range of sixteen lofty pillars, formerly belonging to the baths of Milan. They are fine Corinthian fluted pillars of white marbleof Paros, of admirable proportion, and plac ed at the most just distances from each other. They are near the church of St. Lorenzo, and are thought to haye been erected at a time when the purest architectural taste prevailed. The royal palace, and that of the archbishop, had nothing in them very remarkable. At the mint we saw ,a balance wliich turned with the eight hundredth part of a grain. The practice att over Bonaparte's kingdoms of marking the value of each coin on the face of it, seems to be very good. A franc is marked a franc, five francs, five francs, and so on. The hospitals and charitable institutions, amount ing to about thirty, we could not visit. Many of the women here wear at the back of the head a semi-circle of broad rut pieces of tin, something hke a fan, with two transverse pieces at the bottom of them- towards the neck, like two pewter spoons joined by the handles— a costume purely Roman. The general dress of the women is very becoming, with black or white veils ; if they have not veils, they d/aw the shawl over the head. One of the most peculiar customs at Mi lan is the hanging of the window-ciirtains, of aU sorts of colors, not within the house, but on the outside. It is singular also, to observe the dirty blacksmith, or awkward shoe-boy, eating immense bunches of ripe black grapes, wliich would seU in England for thr^e sffilUngs, or three shillings and six-pence a pqund, as he goes along the sweets. — But I must quit Milan, which though it has distressed, has deUghted and instructed us, and has more than amply repaid us the journey. 82 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. Turin, capital qf the principality of Piedmont, 98 miles from Milan, 2047 from London by our route, Tuesday evening. — We left Milan this morning at a quarter past five, and in fourteen hours and a, half reached this splendid and far- famed city. We left our friend and feUow-tra- vetter, who had accompanied us from England, to go on to Rome for the winter. The two dear boys and I took the carriage which met us at Martigny last Tuesday from Lausanne, and posted hither. We had three horses and no luggage (every thing is at Lausanne ;) so that we have made a most excellent day's journey. The plain of Piedmont is of course level ; it is also extremely ill cultivated, and eo marshy, from the numerous streams faffing into the Tesin or the Po, and per- petuaUy overflowing the country, that we hardly saw a vine the whole hundred mfles. The vfl lages and towns bear sad marks of that want of energy and sphit connected with the prostrate tendency of despotic governments. Switzerland far, far exceeds what we have yet seen of Pied mont, in att respects, except that indescribable soft balmy ah, wliich soothes the whole frame. The hedges are often of acacia. The grapes and peaches are spread in immense baskets for sale in every Uttle viUage. We gave three-halfpence for a pound of delicious black grapes, and half a franc, fourpence halfpenny, for a bottle of light wine — for we did not stop to eat. The people here are of a pure oUve color. The priests jos tle you almost at every comer. The chief com in this country, and in Lombardy also, is Indian wheat and some rice. Turin, Wednesday morning, half-past eight. — My boys have taken eleven hours' sleep to ba lance accounts. This city, of eighty-five thou sand souls, is beautifully situated on the northern bank of the Po, which, rising at mount Viso, crosses northern Italy, and after bathing the walls of fifty cities, and receiving thirty rivers, in a course of three hundred miles, empties itself into the Adriatic sea. It is the king of Itahan floods. Indeed the Po, and the Tesin, are the only two rivers famed in soisg, which are on our route. The Tesin or Ticino, we have crossed more than once; it springs from Mount St. Bernard, tra verses the Lago Maggiore, runs by Pavia, and then discharges itself mto the Po. Ambioggio, twenty-one miles from Turin, onthe road to Lyon, half-past eight, Wednesday evening. — We are now actuaUy on our way to England, and every step wfll advance us nearer home. Thanks be to God for preservation and every needful mercy hitherto, during a long journey. May we be brought again to my dear Ann ; and with her and our Uttle girl arrive safely in London ! I must now give you some account of our drive this morning about Turin. We set off at half- past nine in a voiture. In six hours we had vi sited many of the chief curiosities. What shaU I say to you about this famous city, formerly the gayest of Italy ! It is a royal residence of the king of Sardinia, the streets of which are built aU in straight lines, or radii, which meet in a centre. There are one hundred and forty-five. It is about lour miles in circuit. The fortifications were domolished after the battle of Marengo. The houses are uniform, and many ofthe streets have arcades on each side. A rivulet of clear water flows down the middle of each street. The street of the Po is one of the finest in Europe. There is an uniformity in aU this ; but the arcades are so noble, and the city so weU built, that the appearance is imposing. It far surpasses Bern, which, I suppose, must have been built in imita tion of it. The character of the inhabitants is like theh dialect, Itahan with a mixture of French. Theh dress is httle different from that of the French. Theh manners are polished, from the long residence of the court. The Enghsh used formerly to remain for some time here, before they prosecuted theh Itahan tour ; in order to perfect themselves in the language and habits of the country. Since the revolution they more commonly rest for this purpose at Geneva. They are thus kept from the snares and seductions of a luxurious court, and the associations, of a dissolute Italian population. As to churches, there are one hundred and ten, with about five thousand priests, monks, &c. Al most att the churches we visited were fiUed with people, and two priests officiating at separate al tars. At the Jesuits' church, I inquired if there were any of that order now at Turin ; the guide rephed, yes ; that they were beginning again, and were arranging theh affairs ! Thus the zeal and activity of the Roman Cathohc church stfll re main unabated. In some things it deserves to be imitated by Protestant countries. Its ample provision of churches and ecclesiastical ministers — its watchfulness over the people within its juris diction — its care in visiting the sick — its diligence in catechising, &c. are examples to the reformed communities. A pure and spiritual religion ought to be the motive to simflar, and even greater ex ertions ; only abating every thing approaching to intolerance and dominion over the conscience. For in the church of Rome, what is good in itself, is so corrupted, as to leave a melancholy impres sion on the mind. Still, with regard to churches, is it not painful to reflect that in Cathohc coun tries accommodation is provided for the entire po pulation ; whilst in many parts of England, one in ten — twelve— fifteen, is aU that the churches will contain. Thank God this disproportion is now by degrees lessening ! At the church of St. Mary of the Consolation, we were solemnly assured of the miracles which the Vhgin had wrought. The watts indeed were covered with the votive offerings of those who imagined they had received miraculous benefits. But this was not more extraordinary than the chapel of the Holy Napkin, in the cathedral; in which chapel is preserved the very napkin in which our Saviour was enfolded after his cruci fixion, with the marks of his sacred blood ! The servant who told me this, did it not only with gra vity, but with an awe in his voice and manner quite unique. He assured me that the Pope had seen it in passing through the city — this was an irresistible proof ! What would the noble Claudius, bishop of Tu rin in the ninth century, have said to these super stitions ! You remember, perhaps, the name. He may be called, truly, the first Reformer from Popery. From the year 817 to 839 he continued to protest against the errors of the see of Rome, TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 83 and kept them from being introduced into his dio cese, in spite of the violent opposition which was raised against him. In the remains of his wri tings which are extant, he declares Jesus Christ to be the only Head of the Church — he condemns the doctrine of human merits, and the placing traditions on the same level with the Scriptures — he maintains that we are saved by faith only — ¦ he holds the faUibflity of the churchy-exposes the futility of praying for the dead, and the sinfulness of the idolatrous practices then supported by the Roman see. The vaUeys of Piedmont, inhabited now by the Waldenses, or Vaudois, of whom I hope to teU you something more particularly, were in his diocese ; and it is probable those churc.ies were much increased and confirmed by his la bors.* But to return to Turin. At the university we saw many undoubted antiquities of Roman fame — busts of Cicero — altars — household gods — tri pods, and a head-dress Uke what I described as now worn at Milan, — aU exceedingly curious. The university contains two thousand five hun dred students. There are one hundred and twenty thousand volumes in the hbrary. I asked if they had any manuscripts of the Scriptures ; the librarian stared, and then showed me a Latin Bible of Thomas Aquinas ! But at Verceffi they profess to have the autograph of St. Mark's Gos pel — the sacred original of the evangelist — in Latin ; mistaking, I suppose, the celebrated Codex VerceUensis of Eusebius for it ; or else confound ing Verceffi with Venice.f The royal palace forms one side of an immense square, in the midst of which is a fortified tower, surrounded with a moat, erected by the duke of Savoy. I think it is the very largest square I have seen on the continent. I was pleasjd to see in the palace a portrait of our Charles I. ; and, which is singular, of Calvin. The smaU li brary of the private chapel contained a Bible, Austin's Confessions and Letters, and Nicole's Essays ; all excellent books. This leads one to hope, that the same judgment and piety which formed such a selection, might possibly govern the habits and conduct of some of the royal per sonages for whom it was made. It was the first time I had seen a Bible in a private Catholic hbrary. The arsenal had thirty thousand muskets of English manufacture. We observed in the Mu seum a stuffed wolf, taken two years ago near Turin, after having killed twelve or thirteen chil dren. From the observatory we had a command ing view of the city and neighborhood. The churches generally are magnificent structures, in marble of every vein and color, with profuse or- * See Milner, Cent. IX. t Jean Andre Irico published at Milan, in 1743, the book of the Gospels found among the MSS. of the church of Vercelli. It is supposed to be in the very hand-writing of Eusebius, of Vercelli, who lived in the fourth century, and was a friend of Athanasius. The MS. is deposited amongst the relics, which are preserved with superstitious re verence in the author's church at Vercelli. There is a pretended autograph of St. Mark's Gospel at Venice ; but it is merely a copy of the Latin ver sion. 65-6 naments ; indeed, the ornaments are too profusely scattered, and the city hardly contains one chaste model of architecture. Turin is, however, by far more elegant, finished, splendid, attractive, than the enormous mercantile city of Milan. We no ticed that the tradesmen at Turin affix their names and trades not above theh shop windows, but on pieces of embroidered cloth, extended be tween the doors of the adjoining houses. We dined at half-past three, and at five came on two stages to this smaU town, because the rain had fallen att day, and we were afraid of snow on mount Cenis ; indeed, tlie rain made it impossible to walk about Turin, and therefore we left it with less regret. We crossed, at Turin, the Po, in going to the queen's palace : perhaps no river has been more celebrated by the poets ; but where we saw it, it scarcely answered my expectations. The bridge over it is a noble structure. Thursday, Sept. 18, Lans-h-bourg, at the foot qf Mount Cenis, on ihe French side, five o'clock. — ¦ We set off this morning from Ambioggio, at a quarter before six, and came in three hours to Susa, on the, Italian side of mount Cenis. Here we beheld with admhation the triumphal arch, raised in honor of Augustus, by Cottius, king of the Cottian Alps. After eighteen centuries, it is in excellent preservation ; the elegance, simplicity, and majesty of it, surpasses much the intended arch of Bonaparte. The inscription is become faint ; but it records the names of the twelve na tions who remained faithful to Augustus, when all the rest threw off the Roman yoke. It is curious, that the designs of those who are commemorated by these arches were simflar : Augustus to sub due France, Bonaparte to subdue Italy ; only in the first instance, Italy was the aggressor, and in the second, France. Bonaparte's plan was, like that of Augustus, to keep in subjection a con quered country, by making a road for his artillery directly across its natural fortifications, the Alps. The characteristics of military ambition are the same in every age. The road which Bonaparte restored and im proved over Mount Cenis was finished in 1811, six years after he had executed the astonishing work of the Simplon : next to that road, I suppose, it is the finest in the world. The day, however, has been so exceedingly rainy, that we could be no judges ofthe scenery around us. The road is in itself admirably good, and the ascent and de scent most gradual. There are twenty-six houses of refuge, and a miUtary hospice for two thou sand men. The highest point of the Cenis is about nine thousand feet. We have been ex tremely cold, but without snow. We are now two thousand feet lower, and still need a fire. We left Italy, properly so called, about two or three to-day, and came again into Savoy. From Domo d'Osola to Mount Cenis, we have traveUed in Italy about two hundred and twenty mfles : we have had a specimen of Itahan scenery, climate, manners, religion ; 'we have visited the capitala of Lombardy and Piedmont. We have seen Pope ry in all its deepest traits of dominant supersti tion, just as we saw it at Bonn, Franckfort, and Bern, in its most restrained and modest form. The rapid visit has been new, instructive, and yet, most alarming. The general imoreesion is me- 84 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. lancholy. The lower orders are sunk into the grossest superstitions ; the higher are deeply in fected with infidelity. Both are the prey of ex treme ignorance, vice, and superstition. Public spirit, morals, industry, commerce, religion, ahke languish. The arts have declined. Even the temperature of Italy has become, in some parts, less healthy, from the vast undrained marshes and the indolent agriculture of the farmers. The French domination lessened some of these evils, whilst it healed none, and introduced other mis chiefs of its own. A spirit of turbulence and poh tical chicane has begun to agitate tlie Carbonari ; but with no beneficial influence on morals and re ligion. The Popish government is so feeble, that hordes of banditti infest the road from Rome to Naples, and venture to negotiate almost openly, for the ransom of theh captives. In the meantime the ignorance, profligacy, and secret infidelity of the ecclesiastics increase, and are undermining the few scattered fragments of the Christian temple. The Bible is almost unknown. A friend, who visited Rome a few years back, told me he met a Roman lady of distinction there who had never heard that there was a book revealed by Al mighty God which we call the Bible ; and who contended for a long time -with him that he must be mistaken in supposing that there was : " For," added she, " I must in that case have neard of it." Another friend, a clergyman, who was in Italy in 1818, was asked by a person of education and respectability, at whose house he lodged, what could be meant by the expression, " God is a Spirit," which she found in a tract which he had given her. Upon his explaining this very first element of Scriptural reUgion, she expressed the utmost surprise, and asked him whether he was really serious in saying that Almighty God did not resemble the pictures and images of him which the church bad taught her to behove att her hfe. The same friend told me, that in a large company when the subject of Christianity happened to be introduced, the most determined principles of infi- deUty were avowed by the leading persons as sembled. At present, Utile can be hoped for. — You have not only to convince the infidel of the truth of Christianity, but you have first to free his mind from the intimate association of it with the corruptions of the church of Rome. His argu ments against revelation are drawn very much from these corruptions ; and he is neither disposed to aUow your account of what Christianity is, to be the true one, nor to receive, on your authority, your arguments in its favor. He has no founda tion of general knowledge on which you can pro ceed. Surely all these things concur in exciting the persuasion, that Popery can only be over thrown by the immediate power of that God whose grace it has been so long opposing and resisting. And indeed it is remarkable, that a sudden unexpected overthrow — at a moment least looked for — is the representation given us of its approaching downfall in the Sacred Wri tings. — Rev. xviii. 8. 10. 17. All that I saw of Italy entirely confirms the ac counts given me by my friends. Even as to poh tical affairs, discontent seems lurking in the breasts ofthe people; especiaUy in Lombardy and Pied mont. They regret Bonaparte ; and they wfll scarcely speak to the Austrian soldiers, of whom there are about eight thousand at Milan alone. When I asked the waiter at Milan if there were any Protestants there, he replied, " We are att Protestants (persons who protest) now." But I indulge too much in these remarks. At Turin, we had eight hundred and sixteen miles to travel to London by the road we propose taking, and we have reduced this to-day by eighty- four miles. The viUage where we now are, Lans- le-bourg, is at the foot of the French side of Mount Cenis, a miserable village of near two thousand souls. We were induced to stop here, because an English woman keeps the inn ; she married a Savoyard nine years ago. She was a Protestant, but I observed her faith had been much shaken by the total want of a reformed worship. I said all I could to confirm her mind in the doctrine of Christ our Lord. Beggary and misery still pre vail. Crowds of wretched deformed supplicants surround us. We gave a trifle just now to an old woman, aged one hundred and "nine years. The people here speak French ; so that I hope to be able to communicate a httle more with the inhabi tants on the subject of religion and morals. The manner of posting here is, hke every thing else, on a wretched footing. AU is under the po lice ; not a postillion nor a horse stirs without the pohce's leave ; and when they do stir, such crea tures — men and horses too — fit for ploughing, rather than for running in a carriage ; and men and masters too often ready to cheat the English. Sometimes the postiffion crams his legs, shoes and all, into his boots, which are Uke chums ; sometimes he thrusts them in with neither shoes nor stockings. In Lombardy theh livery was a hgh* yeUow cloth, with tassels ! The tackling of the horses, being chiefly of cord, requires one or two regular stops, each stage, for the purpose of being adjusted. And now, as I have fallen upon the customs of the people abroad, I may as well speak to you about the washing, or rather beating, of the linen on the continent. At Geneva, the apparatus was most complete. In the river a kind of covered shed was built, with small boards on the sides going down to the water's edge ; at each board a woman was kneeling with a broad stick or platter, with which she was beating the clothes as she plunged them into the water-^soap is almost un known. The clothes are thus half-washed and half-torn, and then charged an enormous price. At Milan, and on the road to Turin, the men and women in company wash their own clothes in the smaU streams or puddles flowing through the towns. St. Michel, Friday morning, Sept. 19th, 10 o'clock. — We are stfll on the Mount Cenis road, though we crossed yesterday the mountain catted by that name. We set off this morning just after five, and have come thirty-six miles ; the day is extremely cold, but we have no rain, and not much fog ; we have been able, therefore, to enjoy the beauties of the country through which we have passed. We have seen nothing as yet which equals the Simplon scenery ; but still, many parts of the road have been majestic. The character TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 85 is wild rocky Alps, with the torrent of the Arque flowing or rather rushing down at bottom. Aigue-belle, 72 miles from Lans-le-bourg, 4 o'clock, afternoon. — The day has turned out most beautiful ; we have been passing through the val ley of Maurienne aU the morning, and have thus made our way through the Alps, the centre chain of which we crossed at Mount Cenis. This Aigue-belle (Aqua beUa) is the gate as it were of these vast natural fortresses, which have been surrounding us at the height of eight or nine thou sand feet. The villages and people seem to be still wretched, with many, many goitres. There are one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants in this vaUey, who five by the produce of cattle ; they plant no grain, but a httle oats and barley. The torrent spreads desolation, and renders many parts of the vaUey a mere marsh. The king of Sardinia has just completed a mihtary fortress, on the spot where Savoy is nearest Dauphiny. The road has been capital and on a gentle descent, and many of the points of view have been exqui sitely beautiful. Chamberry, Friday night, Sept. 19th. — We have arrived at this capital of Savoy, after a journey of ninety-nine miles in sixteen homs. The road, after Aigue-beUe, became very indifferent, and the night coming on, we were not able to enjoy much of the fine country through which we passed. The proper Mount Cenis road extends from Susa to Aigne-beUe, about one hundred and thirty-five miles, and is undoubtedly a stupendous work, though on the whole much inferior to the Sim plon. Thus have we again to bless God for att his mercies ! The two wet days have given my younger son a httle cold, which I trust will soon pass off; in other respects, they have enhanced the value and enjoyment of the fine weather we have been this day witnessing. We hope to be at Lyon to-morrow, at Geneva on Wednesday, and at Lausanne the same evening, to rejoin my dear, dear famfly, from whom I seem to have been separated for an age. I am your affectionate D. W. NOTICE OF CARDINAL BORROMEO. I was vexed on returning to England, and con sulting my books, that I had been so long ignorant of the history and character of Borromeo. He is considered by the Roman Cathohc writers as the model of att virtues, and the great restorer of ec clesiastical disciphne in the sixteenth century. I have not been able to satisfy myself in what de gree he was a true Christian, in the Scriptural sense of the word. That he was devoted to the superstitions of Popery, and was a firm upholder of the Roman see, cannot be doubted ; but I have no access to his sermons or letters, so as to judge whether any Uving embers of the faith and love of Christ were smothered at the bottom of these superstitions. His habits of devotion, his self- denial, his zeaL his fortitude, his humility, and es pecially his unbounded and almost unparalleled benevolence, which are ascribed to him by univer sal consent, would lead one to hope that, notwith standing "the wood, and hay, and stubble," ac cumulated on it, he was building on the true " foundation, Christ Jesus." — 1 Cor. iii. 11, 12. He was bom at Arona in 1538, in a small apart ment which I saw behind the church ; and was of one of the noblest and most opulent families of Italy. At the age of eleven he had several Uv- ings given him by bis uncle the Cardinal de Me dicis, who was elected Pope in 1549. In his twenty-third year he was created cardinal by the same pontiff, and managed the proceedings of the council of Trent, as weU as the chief temporal affahs of the Pope, for some years. This I con sider as by far the most unfavorable part of Bor- romeo's life, as to the cultivation of personal piety. Such employments at Rome must have initiated him into aU the system of that artful and secular court— and he who was intrusted to draw up the Trent catechism, must at that time have had httle real Christian knowledge or feeling. However, in 1565 he left Rome, and went to reside at Milan, of which he had been made archbishop. Here begins the bright part of Borromeo's his tory. He had now to preside oVer the largest diocese of Italy, consisting of not less than eight hundred and fifty parishes; many of them in the wildest regions of the Alps. He began by resign ing aU his other preferments, by giving up to his family his chief estates, and by dividing the reve nues of his archbishopric into three parts — one for the poor — another for the building and reparation of churches— the third for his domestic expendi ture as bishop ; aU the accounts of which he sub mitted aimuaUy to the examination of his clergy. He next totally renounced the splendor in which he had lived at Rome, reduced the number of his servants, forbade the use of silk garments in his palace, rendered his household a pattern of edifica tion, slept himself on boards, prolonged his watch ings and prayers to a late hour of the night, wore an under dress coarse and common, and devoted himself to perpetual fasts and abstinences. He then entered on the task of restoring de cayed discipline and order throughout his vast diocese. To this end he was indefatigable in vi siting himself every parish under his care, held frequent ecclesiastical synods, and established a permanent council, which met monthly to inspect and regulate the conduct of the priests. In this manner his contemporaries agree in asserting, that he removed various scandals which prevailed amongst aU classes of the faithful, aboUshed many superstitious usages, and checked the ignorance and abuses of the secular and regular clergy. His fortitude in carrying through his reforms, notwithstanding the violent opposition which he met with from aU quarters, deserves remark. On one occasion an assassin was hired, who shot at him, whilst kneeling in prayer, in the archieDisco- pal palace. Borromeo, unmoved, continued his devotions ; and, when he rose from his knees, the bullet, which had been aimed at his back, but had been caught in the lawn sleeves of his dress, feU at his feet. His charities were unbounded. He built ten colleges, five hospitals, and schools and public fountains without number. Besides this, he be stowed annuaUy the sum of thirty thousand crowns on the poor ; and in various cases of pubhc dis tress in the course of his hfe, as much as two hundred thousand crowns more. In the meantime, his personal virtues, his low- 86 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. hness, his self-command, his forgiveness of injuries, his temperance, his prudence, his sanctity, the consistency of his whole character, (I speak after his biographers, whose veracity, I believe, is not questioned,) gave him such weight, that he not only rendered his immense diocese a model of good order and discipline, after an anarchy of eighty years, during which its archbishops had not re sided, but extended his influence over the neigh boring dioceses, and pushed his regulations throughout a great part of France and Germany. Perhaps his conduct during a pestUence which raged for six months at Milan is amongst the ac tions of his life which may lead one the most to hope that this benevolent and tender-hearted prelate was indeed animated with the fear and love of his Saviour. Nothing could restrain him from visit ing his sick and dying flock, during the raging of this fatal malady : when his clergy entreated him to consult his own safety, he rephed, that nothing more became a bishop than to face danger at the call of his duty. He was continually found in the most infected spots, administering consolation both to the bodies and souls of his perishing people ; and he sold all the smaU remains of his ancient splendor, and even his bed, to give the produce to the distressed. The institution, or rather invention of Sunday schools, is again a further evidence of something more than a superstitious state of heart. Nothing could be so novel as such institutions in the six teenth century, and nothing so beneficial. When we recollect the pubhc admhation which has rest ed on such schools in our own Protestant and en lightened country, though planned scarcely fifty years back, we may estimate the piety of mind, the vigor and penetration of judgment, which could lead a Catholic archbishop and cardinal to insti tute them two hundred years ago, and to place them on a footing which has continued to the pre sent day. May t not add, that possibly some of the superstitious usages now attached to these schools may have grown up since the time of Borromeo. Certainly the indulgences which I saw were of the date of 1609, five-and-twenty years after his death ; for the reader must be in formed that, in the year 1584, this benevolent bishop feU a victim to fever caught in the moun tainous parishes of his diocese, which he was visit ing in his usual course. As a preacher he was mo.^t laborious. Though he had an impediment in his speech, and a diffi culty in finding words to express readUy his mean ing, he overcame these hindrances, and preached most assiduously on Sundays and festivals at Mi- Ian. His biographers say, that the higher classes in the city were offended with him, and did not frequent Ids semions ; but that the common peo ple flocked with eagerness to hear him. Perhaps something of what the Apostle calls " the offence of the cross," may be traced in this. It does not at aU lessen my hope of Borromeo's piety, that the rich and great did not foUow him. Such is a faint sketch of some of the chief events in the life of Charles Borromeo. My ma terials are scanty, especially as to the spiritual state of his heart and affections. It is for God only to judge on this subject : but ch.irity rejoices to hope ill things in such a cast. 1 acknowledge that his simple and sublime motto, humilitas, is very affecting to my mind. I trust it was the ex pression of his real character ; and that his sub mission to the usurpations of the Romish church may have arisen from that faulty prostration ofthe understanding to human authority, which is so apt to engraft itself, under circumstances Uke those of Borromeo, on scriptural lowliness of spirit. Oh, if he had more fuUy studied and obeyed his Bible, and had read with honest candor the treatises of his great contemporaries, the reformers of Ger many and Switzerland, he might, perhaps, have become the Luther or Zuingle, instead of, what he actually was, only the Fenelon of Italy. Since the pubhcation of the second edition of these letters, I have had an opportunity of con sulting, at the Bodleian hbrary, some of the smal ler works of Borromeo ; from which I proceed to make some extracts. I. The foUowing are taken from a collection of his letters, published at Antwerp, in 1623. I give only those parts which may serve to express his sentiments on the weightier matters of re ligion. Speaking ofthe death of Bemardus Vimereatus, of the College of Milan, Borromeo thus expresses himself: "We aU die, and are as water spilled on the ground. But as this does not depend oh us, but arises from the necessity of nature, wise men are distinguished from the foolish by this, that the foohsh bestow this most brief life in obtaining eter nal death ; the wise in securing everlasting hfe. We att, indeed, die without difference ; but to some death is the way to life and glory, never to end ; to others, to darkness and eternal death. I trust you wiU be strongly excited, by the death of your brother, to a contempt of this Ufe and a salutary despising of earthly things. I hope you will each of you argue thus : ' Vimereatus is dead in the flower of his age, in strong health, with the prospect of a longer hfe than others ; I also must die : and in that so unknown and so uncertain hour, what kind of hfe should I wish I had follow ed ! What should I wish I had done for the glory of God and for the safety of my soul! I am grieved and ashamed of my present sloth, in a mat ter so infinitely important. If tlie master qf Ihe house had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not suffered his house to be digged through. Death impends day and night, and lays wait for my hfe. Shall I not at length awake ! Shall I not take care of my soul, and of my salvation ! ' " Whoever of you is excited by these thoughts, (and I hope aU of you may be so,) will, I trust, in future, employ the greatest diligence in walking worthy of God, and in seeking most eagerly after the perfection necessary to an ecclesiastical per son." To archbishop Valentia, Patriarch of Antioch. he writes, " According to the zeal for the divine glory which God, the Father and Giver of all good, has imparted to me, I love with much affec tion aU his servants, but more especiaUy those who are in the dignity and watch, as it were, of bi shops, and who labor that the most precious blood TRAVELS Oft THE CONTINENT. 87 of Christ may not seem to have been shed in vain for his sheep ; and who, as heavenly orbs, both ittuminate the sheep with the light of evangehcal doctrine, and excite them to all parts of Christian exceUence by the force of good example." To the doctor Dumius he says, " By doing this, you will please the Lcrd Jesus, and this is the chief argument of aU ; to whom I earnestly pray that he wfll defend you, and fill you with ah hea venly treasures." Of Bishop Alba he expresses a hope, that in dying " he had flown away from the body of this death, to enjoy those blessings which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart qf man to conceive." He writes to Ernestus, archbishop of Cologne, on his being raised to tbat see : " And, although I dare not congratulate you on this great dignity, (for some experience hath taught me how much business and care, and how much labor and dan ger there is hi the office of a bishop,) yet I con gratulate the inhabitants of Cologne and all Ger many, which I hope will be much assisted by your administration of that church and your restoration of ancient (hViipline, in the love of the CathoUc faith, and ako in spirit and in truth. E very thing depends, believe me, on your showing yourself to be a bishop who is blameless, as the apostle Paul teaches. This you wfll easily accomphsh, the grace of God assisting you, if you regard nothing whatever but the glory of God, and make both the Catholics and heretics understand this. And what can be considered of such value, in any view, is the welfare of souls redeemed by the blood Of Jesus Christ ! We ought to contemn every thing, Mid to give up Ufe itself, for the salvation of one soul ; what then is to be done, or rather what is not to be done, where the salvation of almost un numbered souls is concerned ! " To the cardinal Valdemontanus he speaks thus : " Piety rests not on any slight foundation, which distance of place may weaken, or length of time destroy; but depends on God, whose nature is eternal and whose power is infinite, and is pre served by his favor. I hear that you not only bum with the love of this piety, but also labor to inflame with it aU around you. And nothing ought to be more interesting to any of us than this. For this is to be a sweet savor of Christ ; this is to give light to all that are in ihe evangehcal house, which aU the servants of Christ are bound to do ; but those more especiaUy who are fllustrious by their dignity, as lamps weU fitted with oil and burning in splendid candlesticks." To the bishop of Trent he speaks thus : " In your commendation of my conduct, I see that your design is to excite me to perform hereafter the duties of a pastor with more dfligence. For daily, »r rather hourly, I more clearly perceive how far [ am from that perfection of duty, which both God requires of me, and the dignity in which I am placed demands. Wherefore, I again and again teseech you not to cease supplicating the divine Majesty for me." The foUowing is his language to Ascanius Co- lumna, abbot of St. Sophia : " The more I see in you the gifts of God, the more ardently do I de- she that you would contend with all your powers of body and mind to glorify God's name, and bend all your schemes to this one point, to be a sweet savor qf Christ. Never imagine that there can be any thing more excellent and more valuable, in every respect, than to diffuse into the minds of those around you the most sweet and delightful savor of Christ, by your well-ordered life and ex emplary Christian virtues ; and to allure them by a heavenly and divine pleasure, and bring them over from the blandishments of this life, and the seductions of earthly things, to the pursuit of eter nity, and a supreme love and delight in God. — This ought to be the end proposed in aU our stu dies, and even att our thoughts. If we aim at any thing else, we are vanity itself." The last extract from these letters is to the cardinal a Joiosa : " I am not ignorant that great difficulties impede and hinder most things ; but nothing is difficult, nothing is arduous to love. Love is strong as death. And many things are more difficult in the opinion of men, than they are found to be in fact. But what is arduous or diffi cult to a good pastor, who by his example sets straight what is crooked, softens what is rough, fills up vaUeys, and levels mountains ! The force of example is great ; especially in that man who is adorned with family, age, riches, connections, dignity ; and who esteems aU these things only so far as they serve to set forth the glory of God." II. After these various citations from his let ters, I go on to the following, from the instructions which the archbishop published for the dhection of his clergy, in preaching the Gospel. " ' I charge you before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who wfll judge the quick and the dead, preach the word,' saith the most holy Saint Paul." It is in this solemn manner that Borromeo begins the book. On the subject of the dignity of the sacred mi nistry, he exhorts the preacher to consider, " lst. That it entirely regards the glory of Almighty God, and the salvation of souls. 2d. That by it. the word of God is conveyed from the very foun tain of the divine Sphit, to the souls of the faith ful ; in order to water them with heavenly bless ings. 3d. That it treats of subjects the most sa cred and awful in themselves. 4th. That it was exercised, not only by the most holy men, not only by apostles, but by the Son of God himself." He afterwards urges him to meditate on " the difficulty of speaking suitably and with judgment on such subjects, that he may fly with more ar dent desires to God, who can supply him with all needful help by the inspiration of his Holy Sphit." He then teaches him that " a preacher should especiaUy pray to God, that by his divine help he may not be lifted up with the pursuit of his own praise and glory' ; not even with the thought of it ; but may take no account of it whatever." He then says, " Let the preacher fly as a pest aU ambition and all suspicion of it. Let him not aim at, or desire, a more distinguished place for preaching in ; but remember that Jesus Christ the Lord, who was sent down from heaven to teach mankind, preached in vfllages, and houses, and fields." He next gives directions for his conduct : " The preacher should do every thing constantly and boldly for the glory of Christ and the salvation of souls. He should be inflamed with the love of TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. God ; and not only patiently bear reproaches, threats, and contumely ; but endure, if need be, death itself. He should offer and commend him self, as it were, to the divine fllumination; and, shutting up his senses, acquiesce and be content with the infinite love and immense charity of the hght of God."* As to the preparation of his sermons, "the preacher will understand that his office doth not rest on human learning or eloquence, but on a di vine power and the grace of the Holy Ghost ; and he wfll take most diligent care that he does not grieve the Holy Spirit by touching the work of apostles and of the Lord Jesus himself, when in fected with any mortal sin. But he wfll purify his conscience from all sin by the sacrament of penitence, before he begins to read the word of God. And he will consider, that he has much to fear that most solemn threat of the prophet, But unto the wicked, saith God, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruc tion and easiest my words behind thee? " Before he begins to study his discourse, he will make a solemn prayer to God. He will then first understand the subject on which he is about to preach ; and then meditate upon it, and strive so to affect himself with it, that he may excite the minds of his hearers to the same pious affec tions. " Before he ascends the pulpit, let him suppose that he has before bim a company of hungry men waiting for food from his preaching ; or a, compa ny of lame, paralytic, dropsical, dumb, and blind persons, seeking for cure from him. Considering this, let him so manage every part of his discourse as to suit theh cases, and advance theh welfare and cure, by advice, counsel, and aU sorts of re medies. " Or let him consider himself as a fisher of men, and remember that he ought to strain every nerve so to fish that he may fill the evangehcal net, as it were, with perishing souls, and gain them to Christ the Lord. " After preaching, he should spend some time in prayer, before he takes any refreshment. "As to the times and places of preaching, he should preach every where, and at all times ; but especially every Sunday and holy-day ; and daily during advent and lent." III. I might finish by giving some extracts from the " constitutions and decrees made by the pro vincial synod of Milan under the authority of Bor romeo," and published at Venice in 1566 ; but I abstain ; I will only notice that it orders every bishop to preach continuaUy, unless hindered by illness ; and to make himself acquainted with the state of each parish in his' diocese ; it directs that schools for educating the clergy should be formed, and a tenth part of all benefices be devoted for that purpose ; and that those destined for the church, should read the Bible diligently. These extracts from the various writings of Borromeo are, to my mind, I confess, charming. * The allusion perhaps is to 1 John, i. 5. " God is light, and in hiin is no darkness at all ;" or, Psalm xxxvi. 9. " With Thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light shall we see light." They place him in a new light. Instead of^ the dazzling glare of panegyric as to his outward his tory, they exhibit him in the soft lustre of the Christian; the pastor, the bishop, as to the interior of his heart, They open to us the fountain of grace and piety, from which his extraordinary be nevolence, diligence, and humility flowed. They form another proof, if any were wanting, that the peculiar motives of the Gospel of Christ are alone capable of producing uniform, active, self-denying obedience. What compassion for the souls and bodies of men, what tender affection, what love to Christ, what solemnity of mind as to death, what consci entiousness, what deep impressions of the respon sibility of the sacred ministry, what fear of pride and ambition, what fervor of prayer, what know ledge of the Scriptures, what dependance on the grace of the Holy Spirit — in a word, what attain ments in the divine Ufe do these extracts betoken ! If only a few words were altered, and the great doctrine of Protestantism, justification before God in the merits of our Lord and Saviour, were ex pUcitly stated, they would be in the most complete sense evangehcal. StiU, as they are, they clear ly prove that Borromeo was not only the most la borious and beneficent, but the most enhghtened and spiritual prelate of his age in the church of Rome. I do not apologize for the length into which I have been drawn in communicating to the Pro testant reader the pleasure which I derived my self from the discovery of such a character as Bor romeo. To trace the identity of true reUgion under the most unfavorable, and almost contradic tory appearances, is an office of charity so dehght ful, as weU as profitable, that nothing during my whole tour has disclosed to me a more fruitful source of instruction and joy. LETTER XV. Pont-beau-voisin, Sept. 20.— Lyon, Sept. 28, 1823. Chamberry — A Bookseller — Pont-beau-voisin — Roads — Bishop Berkeley — Sunday at Lyon — Ca tholic Sermon — Gibbon — Rivers Saone and Rhone — Fourviere— Hotel de Ville — Revolution ary Horrors at Lyon— Speech of Emperor Clau dius—Roman Amphitheatre — Martyrs of Lyon— Cimetiere— Arsenal— Death of Rev. S. Arnolt —Chamberry Peasant— Notice of Martyrs in Se cond Century. Lyon, capital ofthe department ofthe Rhone, Saturday night, Sept. 20th, 1823, about 789 miles out from Lausanne, and about 2302 from London, by our route. My dearest sister — Chamberry, which we left this morning, contains nearly twelve thousand souls. It is the capital of the duchy of Savoy, situated in a fruitful vaUey on the borders of Dauphiny, at the conflux of the rivers L'Aisse and D'Albans. It has a cathedral and three other churches, two convents, and about one hundred priests. I went this morning into the cathedral : it is dirty and mean, both within and without. I observed in it three boxes for charity : one of them TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 89 for souls in purgatory (I give it word for word ;) the second for repairing the church : the thhd for offerings, without specifying the object — no box for the poor. I asked a person who catted himself a bookseller (who, by the bye, was the only one in the town, and actually had only one book to sell, a Code of French laws) about the different insti tutions for reUgion. The man's wife, who was standing by, rephed, they had an archbishop, who had been simply bishop in Bonaparte's time, but who was now archbishop of Chamberry, and prince bishop of Geneva ! I stared. She said he was bishop of the Christians at Geneva. I asked her what she called the twenty-five thousand Pro testants who inhabited that town ! She answered, they were not Christians. I told her, then I was not one myself; she begged pardon, and said she meant apostolical Roman Christians. I told her I beUeved in the Holy Scriptures, and in Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the doctrine of the apostles, and therefore I was a good apostolical Christian, though not a Papist. I give this as a trait of character in a bettermost sort of person. It is the natural effect of the doc trine which excludes from everlasting salvation all who belong not to the church of Rome. Bigotry and persecution follow as matters of course. I must say, however, that I have met with many Roman CathoUcs during my tour, who expressly assured me that they disbeheved this uncharitable tenet. One lady told me she had informed her priest in confession, that she never could receive it. Let only the holy doctrines and holy fives of Protestants be more and more known by the Ca thoUcs, and charity must and wfll overthrow so fatal a dogma. Indeed, if the Holy Scriptures are once generaUy read, this and other doctrines of Popery must by degrees fall, in spite of Popes and eouncfls. We left Chamberry a quarter before eight. We have now come seventy-two miles, to this ancient and noble city of Lyon.* We entered France at twelve, at Pont-beau-voisin. We had amazing difficulty in getting through the custom house. I had left some necessary papers at Lau sanne. The officers were however civil, and after hearing my story, at length allowed us to proceed. I believe we were detained four hours. Travel lers cannot be too particular in carrying their pa pers with them wherever they go. The road was, in two parts of it, perhaps as fine as any thing we have seen. The passages of les Echelles and of la Chaflle are most terrific, from the immense rocks through which they have been made, and the fine scenery which surrounds them. These roads were begun by a former duke of Savoy in 1670, and at three different times resumedby Bonaparte without being completed. The present king of Sardinia has this last year or two just accompUshed the whole ; in fact, this Mount Cenis road, in general, seems to have been a work gradually carried on from the days of Augustus, that is, during eighteen centuries — a space of time sufficiently long. It is but a few years ago, that three or four oxen were regularly yoked to every carriage to aid the horses in the ascent of les EcheUes. * I observe it is generally spelt Lyons : but in the town itself they carefully omit the final s. I remember bishop Berkeley gives a frightful account of his passage on new-year's day, 1714. He says he was carried in an open chair by men used to scale these craggy and dangerous rocks, and that his life often depended on a single step. Bonaparte put an end to this by making a tunnel, nine hundred andfifty feet, directly through the op posing rock. At another part of the route, the tra veUers were let down in a kind of sledge, at a most fearful rate. Much even now remains to be done between Lyon and Turin ; as the road for many stages is exceedingly bad. The towns and vfl lages in Dauphiny are very miserable. The priests have mocked, as it were, this misery, by building, in one or two of the market-places, splendid gflt crucifixes, which are in deep contrast with the poverty and wretchedness of every house within view. Sunday, one o'clock at noon. — I have had to-day the singular pleasure of attending a Protestant French church. It was really quite dehghtful to hear the reader begin the worship of God by read ing distinctly two chapters of the New Testa ment in French, so as to be understood by all the people. The singing; the Ten Commandments, word for word as they are in the Bible ; the sum mary of the Law, exactly as it is in Matt. xxii. 37 — 39 ; a pubhc Baptism ; the confession of sins ; the prayer ; the sermon, att charmed me as the spi ritual, reasonable, and instructive worship of God. EspeciaUy the reading of the Scriptures was so simple, so authoritative, so majestic, so edifying ; I do not wonder the Reformers laid so much stress on it. Indeed, I cannot express the striking dif ference between this simple Protestant worship and the farce, show, and mummery of Popery at Martigny and Milan. AU minor differences be tween Protestant churches, agreeing in the faith and love our Lord Jesus Christ, sink into nothing before the frightful idolatry and superstition of Popery. Disputes about circumstantials are im pertinent — divisions odious — love should unite every heart, where main and necessary Scripture truth is feit and acknowledged. Indeed, one great reason of my hurrying on to Lyon against to-day, was to enjoy once more the unspeakable blessing of the pure public worship of Almighty God. The sermon was, so far as I could hear (for I sat at a distance, and the church was crowded,) pretty good, on an important topic, death ; with many striking parts. I regret extremely to add, that there is but one service here on the Sunday, instead of three, or at the least, two, which there surely ought to be, in an immense city hke this. In walking to church also, we were distressed to see the shops all half or a thhd part open, and customers going in and out, with crowds of per sons at the coffee-houses. At MJan, the shops were universally shut. But allow me, my dear sister, to turn to another, and, to me, more solemn topic; this day twenty- two years, I was admitted into the sacred ministry of Christ's church. What reflections crowd upon my mind ! May I have grace to remember more and more the vows I then made ; the duties to my Saviour and to his flock, which 1 then undertook; the unnumbered errors and defects of which, alas ! I am too conscious, (especially, as archbishop 90 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. Usher said on his dying bed, my sins of omission ;) the ceaseless mercies which I have received, and the short time wliich remains for me to labor for my own salvation, and the salvation of others ! Here I am, travelling for my health, in a foreign land ; thanks be to God, that health is wonderfully restored ; so wonderfully, that I am not hke the same person. But then I have been silent now fourteen Sundays, and the future is all uncertain. May God enable me, if I am permitted to return home, to feel more hvely compassion for my fel low-creatures, to be more dead to worldly tilings, and to labor more abundantly in the sacred vine yard ; and may he pour out his Holy Spirit upon my kind friends who are supplying my lack of ser vice ; yea, upon the universal church ! Time carries us away as a flood. Souls are passing in to eternity. Judgment is near. AU is mere tri fling compared with eternal salvation. Ten o'clock, Sunday night. — My younger son has been suffering aU day with cold in his teeth. There is no fever, no head-ache, nothing but a rheumatic affection of the front teeth ; stiU this is very painful to him, and very embarrassing to me, being without my dearest wife ; and thus, it comes to me as a chastisement and admonition from my Heavenly Father. How many, many mercies have we received during our long journey, and how httle grateful have we been for them ! May this indisposition work in him and in me the " peaceable fruits of righteousness." And on every occasion of suffering, slight, as well as severe, may I ever be disposed to say, " It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." At four this afternoon, I left my elder son to nurse his brother; and went to a Cathohc church to hear a celebrated preacher of this town. I placed myself close under the pulpit, so that I un derstood almost the whole of the sermon ; it was an able, energetic, striking discourse ; not one word of Popery, properly speaking, (which was the case also, as I have said, at Martigny,) but defective, general, unevangehcal, and therefore unscriptural and dangerous. His subject was the happiness of heaven ; he drew a striking picture of the glory, power, happiness, honor, &c, of the heavenly state. His immediate point wt.s to prove, from Scripture and experience, how much glory, power, happiness, &c., God bestows on his ser vants, and even enemies, here on earth ; and then to infer the infinitely superior glory of heaven. He cited admirably the cases of Moses, Abraham, Joshua, David,"Peter, &c. What then, you 6ay, were the defects 1 The heaven he described was with the Saviour, without pardon, without holiness ; his heaven was an inteUectual, poetical, sublime sort of paradise ; he took for granted, too, that aU were in the right way to it. Thus, almost aU the great ends of preaching were lost, and worse than lost. Still the sermon did me good, because much of it was true, as far as it went ; and I was glad to hear a priest stand on Protestant ground, and ap peal to the Bible, and the Bible only. Besides, my long absence from home has disposed me to receive with candor and delight any thing that approaches the truth of the Gospel in any part of a discourse. What the apostle calls "itching ears," are soon cured, when a man for three or four months has scarcely met with a single edify ing, soUd, scriptural sermon. England, alas ! too often undervalues and abuses her abundant pri vileges. - The immense church was crowded to excess, and hung on the lips of the preacher. He preached from memory. His manner was serious, vehement, impassioned. He so affected the peo ple that, at the pauses, positively nearly the whole congregation were in tears. I reaUy think we have much to learn at home as to our manner of preach ing ; the two Cathohc sermons I have heard, were incomparably superior to most of our English ones, in careful preparation, intelligible arrangement, forcible application to the conscience, fervent and earnest delivery ; in short, hi the whole manner of the address. Lyon, Tuesday, September 23. — We are stfll here ; my dear son, though much better, cannot travel I have caUed in the first physician in the town ; for there are no apothecaries here as in England. Tho ordinary fee is three francs a visit ; but five or six are expected, my banker tells me, of an Englishman. The physician writes pre scriptions, which are made up at the druggist's or pastry-cook's — for half his medicines are syrups and sweetmeats. I have sent his brother by fie Diligence to Geneva, that he may go on to Lau sanne and fetch the rest of the family to me. By returning this way home, they wfll go very Uttle out of theh route, and they will also see Lyon, the second city of France. I am obliged, however, by this plan, to break my engagements with my kind friends at Geneva, which I had fixed for Thursday, the 25th; and I much regret that I shaU not revisit Lausanne. I omitted to see several tilings there ; especially the house and hbrary of Gibbon. My friends told me that the hbrary was locked up— -no bad thing for the world ; and that the terrace and summer- house, where he completed his history si 1787, were fatting into decay.* He left, like all other * The manner in which be records the termina tion of his work would be more interesting, if the associations raised in the Christian's mind could be separated from the recollection of it. " It was on the day, or rather night, ofthe 27th of June, 17S7, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last line of the last page, in a sum mer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect ofthe country, the lake, and tbe mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame." This last point was, in his view, the great object of life. Hope, beyond death, he had none. He re luctantly confesses in another place, that " the ab breviation of time and the failure of hope, tinged with a browner shade the evening of life." " The present," he elsewhere acknowledges, " is a fleeting moment, the past is no more ; and our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful." His attempts to per suade himself that death was distant, are apparent from tbe following passage: — "This day may pos sibly be my last; but the laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular, still allow about fifteen years." He wrote this sentence some time in the year 1788 ; TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 91 daring infidels, a refutation of his principles behind him in the pride, impurity, Vanity, and extreme sel fishness of his moral character. As to fidelity and trust-worthiness in his history, it has been demon strated that his statements of facts cannot at aU be relied on, where Christianity is concerned. After these fatal deductions, to admit that he had great talents and powers, is only to augment the melan choly impreasion with which a Christian adverts to the name of a man who has contributed so largely to corrupt the first sources of historical troth. Wednesday. — My eldest son set off in the mail yesterday, at a quarter before three, for Geneva anil Lausanne. I sit with my remaining sick boy, mad to him, talk with him, aimise him, give him his medicines, and yet contrive to take one or two waUra about the town and neighborhood in the course of the day. I can, however, at present give you only a very inadequate account of Lyon. It contains one hundred and seventy-five thousand souls. This is immense for a city not the capital of the country. It was founded by the Romans about forty-two years before the Christian sera, and was called Lugdunum. It is finely situated at the confluence of the Saone and the Rhone, which flow nearly parallel for some time before theh junction, and afford room for this noble city to rise on the tongue of land enclosed between the two rivers as they approach. Theh channels are nearly equal in breadth, but the Rhone contains the greater volume of water, and roUs on to the Mediterranean. It is just as if London had two rivers like the Thames, between which its chief buildings and streets were raised. Over these rivers the Lyonese have erected nine bridges, from which there are fine views of the interior of the town. On the banks they have formed dehghtful quays and waffis. This is an advantage peculiar to Lyon. You never saw such beautiful promenades for a mile or two together, on the sides both of the Saone and the Rhone, as there are here. Some1 of them are bordered With rows of trees, and are httle inferior to those of Paris, The spot is pointed out by the guides where Han nibal is supposed to have crossed the Rhone in his celebrated invasion of Italy. The body of the old town is dirty, narrow, dark, miserable ; but the. new parts are open, spacious, elegant. We are' at fhe Hotel du Providence in the Rue de la Charite. On our right hand, we can see the Rhone ; on our left, there is the noble square, or place of Belle Cour, which is amongst the finest in Europe ; it has walks of Linden trees on one but instead of fifteen years of life, lie expired almost suddenly on the 16th of January, 1794, after scarcely a third part of the expected time had elapsed — and this of a disease which he had studiously concealed from others, and, as far as he could, from himself, for thirty-three years. So little was be aware of his danger, that he jested with Lord Sherfield on tbe subject almost to the last; and even when life was expiring, he told a friend that he considered himself to be a good life for ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years— this was said just twenty hours before his death. Such is infidelity — so cold, so dark, so hopeless, so vain, so self-deceiving — I was going to say, so childish and absurd. 55—7 side, and the range of hills called La Fourviere, rising beyond. This jiill of Fourviere was the object of my walk yesterday. Its proper name is Fort Viel, Forum Vetus, on which the ancient city of Lyon, or Lug dunum, in the time of the Romans, was founded about the time of the death of Csesar. The view which I there obtained of the whole neighborhood was superb ; absolutely it was enchanting. The vast expanse of unimpeded prospect, the noble rivers, the bridges, the buildings, the quays, the churches, the hills surrounding the town on one side, and clothed with country-houses and vine yards, were all sketched in the magnificent land scape ; whilst the distant Alps, including, when the weather is clear, the vast Alp of Mont Blanc, (which may at times be discerned from Dijon, and even Langres, above one hundred and eighty miles distant from it in a direct line,) in the farther ground, formed, as it were, the frame of the pic ture. Indeed the neighborhood of Lyon is con sidered as more beautiful, as weU as more rich and populous, than the vicinity of Paris. How painful to turn from all these beauties to the chapel of Notre Dame, on this .eminence, which was re-opened by Pope Pius VII., at his last journey 'through Lyon. The Vhgin here has wrought wonderful miracles, and people come on pilgrimage to it ! Half the chapel was covered with votive tablets. I think I speak within com pass, when 1 say there were thousands of them. Is this the way to cure the infidelity of the French! When wfll a little common sense enter the heads of the priests ! But I check myself — I must re member that Popery is " a strong delusion ; " or, as the Apostle's expression may perhaps be more literally rendered, " the energy of er^or ! " I was, much pleased with three soldiers whom I met at Fourviere, and who, seeing I was a stranger, really loaded me with civilities, with a gaiety of manner quite surprising — and then posi tively refused to take any recompense. The revolutionists in 1793 did infinite mischief at Lyon. The Jacobins hated it for its loyalty, its virtues, its commerce ; but the Royalists had the ascendancy in the town, till the convention at Paris ordered it to be besieged. The place was taken by storm, and unknown murders were com mitted. The statues of Louis the XIV"., two foun tains, and all the public buildings in Belle Cour, were levelled to the earth. The machinery of the chief manufacturers was broken to pieces, theh houses razed to the ground, and themselves led to execution. The gufllotine being too tardy an instrument of death, whole parties were crowd ed into boats and sunk. The convention even decreed the demolition of the entire city, and the extinction of its name. A monument is raised to two hundred and ten Lyonese who were coolly shot after the siege. Such is hberty pushed to licentiousness and outrage, and casting off the go vernment of law. Thursday morning, September 25 — Lyon quite charms me. It is increasing daily. Buildings are rising on every side. Commerce has been regu larly improving since the peace of 1815. During the revolution all was decaying. The looms for velvet, silk, and gauze, were diminished from 92 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 10,000 to 1,600 ; and the hands employed in the hat manufactories from 8,000 to about the same number. The silk manufacture, which came ori- ginaUy from Italy, is now transferred to England. Stfll trade here generaUy is reviving. The print ing and bookseffing of this place are next to Paris in importance. There is a large mihtary, as weU as civil power, in the town. The streets are al ways crowded with people. Friday morning, September 26 A, nine o'clock. — My dear son, thank God, is amending. Yesterday I went to see the Hotel de Vflle, and the Palais des Arts. The Hotel de Vflle is one of the finest in Europe. It is an immense pfle in the form of a quadrangle, with a noble court in the midst. The mayor resides there, and has state apart ments, as in our Mansion House. The great stair case is adorned with a painting of the burning of the city, in the first century, as described by Se neca. The large hall was occupied with a bal loon and parachute, in which MseUe. Garnerin is about te ascend next Sunday, and which is now exhibiting gratis. The Palais des Arts was, before the revolution, an abbey of Benedictine nuns, (the Garde des Corps and Gens-d'armes have here oc cupied another convent.) It contains a curious collection of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman anti quities. A model of a temple found at Pompeu pleased me extremely. But the most interesting thing is part of the speech of the emperor Claudius, when censor of Rome, on the question of first admitting into the Roman senate the great personages of the neigh borhood of Lyon. It is engraven on bronze, and is now fixed in the wall of the museum, so as to be easily legible. It was found in 1528, in dig ging a canal through a hfll near Lyon. It consists of two columns, and every word is perfectly legi ble. It is the more valuable because Tacitus, in the eleventh book of his annals, gives this self same speech, but so altered and embellished as scarcely to retain a trace of the original — the Une of argument is quite different. It thus may serve, perhaps, as some test of the fidelity of the other speeches of Tacitus and Livy. It is a triumphant reflection, that the evidences of the truth of Christianity have been uniformly, and wathout a single exception, confirmed by aU the discoveries of historical monuments during eighteen centuries. I alluded to this source of proof when I was giving you an account of Aven- ches in Switzerland. Medals, speeches, altars, piUars, chronicles, arches, found in all countries, and of all ages, have united to confirm the facts on which Christianity rests. May this Christianity be purified from superstition and idolatry, and be displayed more and more in its native efficacy on the hearts and hves of mankind ! It is not so much evidence that we want, as grace, repentance, faith, charity, holiness, the influences ofthe blessed Sphit, primitive Christianity embodied in the lives and tempers of Christians. Saturday, Sept. 27. — My dearest John is now nearly well. I expect my dear family from Lau sanne to-night, and then our domestic circle will again be complete. I had no sphits yesterday, to go and see any thing ; but this morning I have visited St. Irenee, the site of the ancient city, though now only a suburb. I here visited the Roman baths at the UrsuUne Monastery (formerly so, for aU the monasteries and convents were abolished at the Revolution.) These baths con sist of a series of numerous dark vaults, commu nicating with each other, about twenty feet under ground ; but no longer interesting, except from theh antiquity. I then went to what was the garden of the Minimes, and saw the remains of the Roman Amphitheatre, where the early Chris tians were exposed to the wild beasts. This scene affected me extremely. The form of the Amphi theatre remains, after a lapse of sixteen or seven teen centuries. Some traces may be discovered of the rising seats of turf, and several dilapidated brick vaults seem to indicate the places where the wild beasts, and perhaps the holy martyrs, were guarded. It is capable of holding an immense assemblage — perhaps 30 or 40,000 persons. A stfll more elevated range of seats, to which you ascend by decayed stone steps, seem to have been the place allotted for the magistrates and regula tors of the barbarous shows. A peaceful vineyard now flourishes where these scenes of horror once reigned. The tender garden shrub springs in the seats and vaults. The undisturbed wfld flowers perfume the ah. A stranger now and then visits the spot, and calmly inquires if that was the Am phitheatre which once filled att Christendom with lamentation. What a monster is persecution, whether Pagan, Popish, or Protestant ! And yet, tfll the beginning of the last centuiy, it was hardly banished from the general habits of Europe. — Would to God that even now it could be said to be utterly rooted out I I visited, after this, the church of St. Irenee, buflt in the time of the Romans, when the liberty of pubhc worship was refused the Christians. It is subterraneous, and contains the bones of the many thousand Christians who were martyred in the year 202, under the emperor Severus. It is of this noble army of martyrs that Milner gives such an effecting account. An inscription on the church states, that St. Pothinus was sent by Poly- carp, and founded it ; and was martyred under the emperor Antoninus ; that St. Irenseus suc ceeded him, and converted an infinite multitude of Pagans, and suffered martyrdom, together with nineteen tnousand Christians, besides women and children, in the year 202 ; and that in the year 470, the church was beautified. I have not an exact recollection of what Milner says, and there fore may be wrong in giving credit to some of these particulars ; but I have a strong impression that the main facts agree with the tradition on the spot ; and I confess, I beheld the scene with veneration. I could almost forgive the processions which are twice in the year made to this sacred place, if it were not for the excessive ignorance and superstition attending them. Near to this church are some fine remains of a Roman aqueduct, for conveying water to the city, buflt at the time of Julius Caesar. A convent of three hundred nuns has arisen since the peace, in the same place, Of the order of St. Michel, where many younger daughters are sent from the best families, to be got out of the way, just the same as under the ancient regime. In saying this, I TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 93 do not forget that the education in many of the convents is, in some respects, exceUent, and that the larger number of young persons are placed there merely for a few years for that purpose. Still the whole system is decidedly bad, and 'uifriendly to the highest purposes of a generous education. The cimetiere, or public burial ground, is a fine ipacious plot of five hundred feet by eight hun ted, planted with trees, and' guarded from aU outrage. It affords many an affecting, solemn, mstructive lesson. One walks amongst the monu ments of those who were once gay, and learned, and skilful, and eager, and successful as ourselves ; and who thought as little of death as most of those do who stop to number theh graves. A brief space of thirty years sweeps off an entire genera tion, and levels aU the momentary distinctions of hfe. Happy they who so number their days, as to apply theh hearts unto wisdom ! As I return ed to our hotel, I visited the remains of the ar senal, which was burnt down in the siege of 1793. Our physician teUs me, the scenes of that period were terrific ; he really trembled when he began to talk of it. No wonder Bonaparte was hailed as the dehverer from its horrors. I am struck in passing through the streets near the churches, to see women with stalls selling pictures as offerings to the Vhgin ; this marks the popular taste for superstition, which is reviving ; and is a most un favorable symptom. Saturday evening, 10 o'clock. — My dearest wife, with my son and daughter, arrived at eight o'clock this evening ; all in perfect health, through God's great goodness : I never saw them look so well. Daniel reached Geneva at three o'clock on Wed nesday ; went the next day to Lausanne, settled every thing there, set off hi our other voiture with post-horses on Friday (yesterday) morning, and arrived here safely this evening, after a journey of one hundred and thirty mfles. It is quite de hghtful to me to see them aU again in such health and comfort. Ann has brought me three letters from you ; one dated July 9th, from Cologne ; the second, August 21st ; and the thhd, Sept. 8th : this makes the series complete. The varied information they contain interests me beyond ex pression. The death of my dearest brother, and friend Arnott* wounds me to the heart. What a loss to his family and his parishes ! But what a happy Christian death ! I am bereaved of a friend not to be replaced ; a friend, whose advice, piety, and judgment, were only equafled by his sincerity and tenderness. His sudden departure overwhelms me. ' He was ten years younger than myself, and died, it seems, after an Alness of only a few days. He had been, from his earhest childhood, remark able for piety. His studies at the University were diligent and successful, and directed to 'the highest ends. During the time that he was curate at St. John's, his conscientious activity in every branch of his duties was most exemplary. He left me about ten years back, on obtaining a small living in Sussex. Here his wisdom, spintuahty of mind, compassion to the poor, friendliness and devoted zeal, connected with the faithful preaching of the holy truths of the Gospel, gave him such an in fluence, that he was beloved and honored by all his parishioners. It had been his practice from his youth to read the entire Bible through every year — an admhable trait, and quite characteristic of the man. The clergyman who attended his dying bed, has sent me a most interesting account of the last scenes. Undisturbed, calm, resigned, with a meek reliance on the merits of his Saviour, and anticipating with sacred pleasure the joy and holiness of heaven, he fell asleep in Christ. Sunday morning, Sept. 23th. — Thank God, we have aU had a peaceful night. This is my fif teenth Sunday of entire silence and rest from the composition and delivery of sermons. I attribute my present change of health, under God, to this cessation from labor. But it is painful to me. My Sundays are my grief and burden. _ The sud den catt of my dear Arnott fills me with solemn anticipations of my own account, so soon to be rendered at the bar of Christ my Saviour.- I beg the earnest prayers of att my friends, that I may be enabled to " walk humbly with my God ;" and at length " finish my course with joy, and the mi nistry which I haye received of the Lord Jesus." My gratitude in liaving aU my dear family well and comfortable around me, is great. Yours, D. W. notice of a chamberry peasant. As the impression I received of the religious state of Chamberry was unfavorable, I feel a pe culiar pleasure in relating the following anecdote. Two EngUsh ladies were passing through a val ley in the neighborhood of Chamberry a year or two back. They met a female peasant of an in teresting appearance, apparently between twenty and thirty years of age. They engaged in con versation with her, arid found she was in service, and had by her industry saved money enough to buy a cow, which she had presented to her pa rents. Upon turning the conversation towards reUgion, she took out a book in which was the fol lowing paper sealed in it, which her priest had given her. I add, though it is scarcely worth while, a translation, as the lines happen to be short. * The Rev. Samuel Arnott, perpetual curate of Eastbourne, near Midhurst. C hretien souviens tu que tu as aujourd'hui Un Dieu i glorifier, Un Christ a imiter, Tous les anges a ho- norer, Une ame a sauver, Un corps a mortifier, Des vertus a demander, Des peches a pleurer, Un paradis a. gagner, Un enfer a eviter, Une eternite a mediter, Un temps a menager, Un prochain a edifier, Christian, remember that thou hast to-day A God to glorify, A Christ to imitate, AU the angels to ho nor, A soul to save, A body to mortify, Virtues to implore, Sins to weep over, A paradise to gain, A heU to avoid, An eternity to meditate on, Time to husband, A neighbor to edify, 94 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. Un monde a. apprehender, A world to fear, Des demons a. combattre Devils to combat, Des passions a abattre, Passions to subdue, Et, peut-etre, la mort a. And, perhaps, death to souffrir, suffer, Et le judgement i su- And judgment to un- bir. dergo. Upon further taUting with her, she seemed reaUy impressed with the importance of the truths contained in the paper, and to be endeavoring to practice them daily. I cannot describe the plea sure which such individual facts afford me. The load which weighs upon my mind when I reflect on the system of Popery, is sensibly lightened when I find that by a happy inconsistency (which is not confined to the Roman Cathohc commu nion) the hearts and lives of many are so much better than theh creed would lead one to expect. May God increase tne number ! NOTICE OF MARTYRS OF LYON. Upon looking carefully into Mflner's Ecclesias tical History, since I came home, I find there were two early persecutions of the Christians at Vienne and Lyon (neighboring French towns,) one about the year of our Lord 169, under the emperor Marcus Antoninus ; the second under Septimus Severus, about the year 202. The first of these is best known, and the accounts in Mil ner refer to it. The scene of its cruel executions was the amphitheatre which I visited as I have above mentioned. The second is not so credibly attested, but at the same time may on the whole be believed to have taken place. The church of St. Irenee relates exclusively to it. Pothinus was bishop of Lyon during the first cruelties ; he had been a disciple of the blessed Polycarp, the con temporary of the apostle John. He perished about the year 169, being upwards of ninety years of age ; he had been sent, in all probabihty, by Polycarp from Smyrna to found these French churches ; for the merchants of Smyrna and Lyon were the chief navigators of the Mediterranean sea. This could not be very long before the per secution burst out. He was accompanied in his apostolical labors by Irensus, an Asiatic Greek • also, who wrote the interesting and authentic ac count of the first acts of the martyrs, preserved by Eusebius, and given so well by Milner. Ire- nasus succeeded Pothinus as bishop, and suffered martyrdom in the persecution of 202. In the first persecution of 169, the power of divine grace appeared httle less than apostoUcal in the church of Lyon. The Christians were ex posed not once only, but several times to the wild beasts in the very amphitheatre over which I walked — one day extraordinary of these brutal shows was given to the people, for the sake of exposing a great number of Christians. Some were previously led round the amphitheatre, a tablet being carried before them, simply with the words, " These are Christians ;" for the term Christian was then used instead of arguments, just as the words LoUard, Puritan, Pietist, Metho dist, Calvinist, Evangehcal, Saint, &c. have since supphed its place. The Christians, if the beasts failed to destroy them, were placed in hot hon chairs. A most eminent female martyr, Blan- dina, was four several times tormented in the most savage manner. Once she was suspended from a stake in the form of a cross, and exposed as food to the wfld beasts, none of whom however at that time touched her ; on another day she was first scourged, then torn by the beasts in the amphi theatre, then placed in the scorching iron chair, and lastly, enclosed in a net and thrown to a butt, which having tossed her for some time, she breathed her last in the firm faith of Christ. Under all these sufferings the martyrs remained unmoved, yea, rejoiced in the name of the Lord Jesus, and were filled with the comforts of the Holy Ghost, and the hopes of a blessed resurrec tion. I really cannot divest my mind of the asso ciations awakened by these affecting circum stances, connected with my visit to the very spot where they occurred. The second persecution took place when Ire- neeus was bishop, in the year 202, about thirty or forty years after the first, and under the emperor Severus, who is generally thought to have been governor of Lyon during the preceding one. Our accounts of it are slender. Gregory of Tours and the ancient martyrologists inform us, "that after several torments Irenseus was put to death, and together with him almost all the Christians of that populous city, whose numbers could not be reckoned, so that the streets of Lyon flowed with the blood of Christians." Mr. Milner thinks this statement may be somewhat exaggerated ; but he considers that there is no circumstance of improbabihty in the fact itself, and that the known cruelty of Severus, and his former connection with Lyon, gives to the persecution a strong de gree of credibiUty. It is to this second persecu tion that the subterraneous church of St. Irenee, and the inscription concerning the nineteen thou sand Christians, refers. Milner says nothing of the vestiges and records of these two fiery trials, still subsisting at Lyon. But I cannot help think ing they add some weight to facts already attested by the evidence which I have detailed. At least to my mind the connection is most instruc tive and affecting. We find that about the year 250, the Gospel which had so gloriously begun in Lyon, was flourishing and diffusing itself in France. A bi shop named Saturninus was then at Thoulbuse. Several other churches had been founded, as at Tours, Aries, Narbonne, and Paris. The bishops of Thoulouse and Paris afterwards suffered for the faith of Christ ; but they left churches, in all probability, very flourishing in piety. And France in general was blessed with the hght of salva tion. I say nothing here of Peter Waldo, the cele brated Reformer, of Lyon, because he did not flourish till the twelfth century. But I cannot altogether omit the name of Agobard, archbishop of Lyon, in the ninth century, who wrote against the abuse of pictures and images, and boldly maintained that we ought not to worship any image of God, except that which is God himself, his eternal Son ; and, that there is no other me diator between God and man, except Jesus Christ, both God and man — an early and clear testimony against Popish corruptions. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 95 LETTER XVI. Lyon, September 28. — Geneva, October 6th, 1823. Second Sunday at Lyon — Library — Hotel Dieu — Hotel de la Charile — Sick Family — Journey lo Geneva—Professor of Lausanne— Perte du Rhone L'Ecluse, — Ferney — Voltaire — Catholics at Ge neva — Fine Walks— Translation of Scott — Sa- tigny — Rejected Regent — Religious Doctrine — Plan of Central Switzerland — Cathedral — Li brary — English Clergy — Sunday at Geneva — Mi nister from Les Cevennes — Reglement — M. Si- mond's defence answered. Lyon, Sept. 28, 1823, Sunday evening. My dearest sister — Our sermon this morn ing, at the Protestant church was good ; but not so simple and awakening as the vast concerns of eternity demand at the hand of the minister of the Gospel. I spoke, after service, to a respect able gentleman near me, who turned out to be a minister, the former pastor of a French Protest ant church ; for it is a curious thing, that after a certain age the Protestant clergy, though in the possession of att theh powers, and in tolerably good health, retire, as no longer capable of ex citing that effect which depends on powerful and energetic voice and action. This is quite shock ing. It makes preaching a sort of rhetorical de clamation, instead of the simple and authoritative manifestation of the truth of the Gospel. It com mends itself to the taste, rather than the con sciences of men. It relies on " the enticing words of man's wisdom," rather than the grace and de monstration of the Holy Sphit. In short, it "makes the Cross of Christ of none effect." This minister informed me there were five or six thou sand Protestants in and about Lyon ; and yet only one church, and one service in that church. There is a Bible Society which he tells me is not very flourishing. The government now is not favorable to the Protestants. In the Catholic churches I could find out no sermon. I sent out a servant to inquire with much care ; I also searched myself; but in vain. The interesting discourse of last Sunday, made me quite eager to hear a second. Thus, one hundred and seventy-five thousand souls were, I fear, without any public instruction to-day on the doctrine of salvation, except the few hundreds at the Protestant church. In fact, the Sabbath, which should be " our delight, holy of the Lord and honorable," is lost on the continent. When it is spoken of, it is called a fete or holy-day, in discriminately with the nativity or assumption of the Vhgin Mary ; and these fetes are the regular seasons of pubhc processions, and celebrations. Nay, the newspapers, the theatres, &c, are ac tually suspended on St. Francis' day or the feast of the Vhgin ; but on the Sunday are regularly carried on, and more eagerly followed than ever. The Sunday is, in short, the day for shows, amusements, dissipation, vicious pleasures of every kind. There are, of course, thousands in the Pro testant churches who keep sacred thisl holy day, and rejoice in its blessed services as much as the most devout Enghshman can do. In the Cathohc church also 'there are doubtless many, many real servants of Christ who do the same. But speaking generally, the Sabbath is utterly lost on the continent — it is no longer the Lord's day, but the day of the god of this world. A new re formation is wanted. The sphit of the martyrs of Lyon is extinct. May the same grace wliich formed that noble army in the early ages of Chris tianity, descend again on Lyon in these latter times! And may England avoid, as the most fatal of downfalls, the desecration of the holy Sab bath ! Our Sunday travelling, Sunday visits, and above all, Sunday newspapers, terrify my. mind. I cannot conceive how it is that the mere mask of loyalty and church principles, assumed by some of these demoraUzing journals, should bhnd the judgment of any sincere Christian to theh most pernicious tendency. — We have had our two pri vate services. My heart is at St. John's. Monday, September 29lh. — I have but little to say to-day ; indeed, my letters must, of necessity, become dull and uninteresting now we are aU stationary in a town. My eldest son and I have visited this morning the pubhc Ubrary, which con tains one hundred and twenty thousand volumes, the largest provincial coUection in France. It occupies a fine building on the right bank of the Rhone. We saw a part of a bomb which, in 1793, had been thrown by the mad revolutionists into the library. It penetrated a large globe ; the part of the bomb, as weU as the hole it made, re main unaltered. We went next to L'Hotel Dieu, an immense hospital, one of the honors and ornaments of France. It was first founded in the sixth cen tury ; the chief rooms are divided into four com partments, with an altar in the middle, from which the prayers may be heard by all the patients. There are eleven hundred beds, one hundred and fifty nurses, eight physicians, and a laboratory for medicines. The nurses are caUed '• Les Soeurs de la Charite." They form a rehgious order, and entirely devote themselves to attendance on the sick in the hospital. They wear a dress of brown stuff — theh crucifix hangs low from the neck — theh whole appearance is clean and respectable. This is a religious body, hke . that at Great St. Bernard, reaUy useful to the community ; and it gives me sincere pleasure to recognize the fact. Would to God there were more such institutions as " the salt of the earth," amidst the corrupt mass of Popish errors ! The front of the hospital facing the Rhone is magnificent, and is now nearly completed. The bedsteads of the patients are of hon, and every thing had tlie appearance of clean liness and comfort. The hospice de la Charite next attracted our curiosity ; it is quite a separate thing from the former. It is a rehgious establishment, consisting of fifty sisters, and, twenty brethren, de la Cha rite ; these superintend the house, which receives three or four hundred old persons above the age of seventy, who are entirely supported, clothed, and fed in the hospice. It maintains also seven or eight thousand foundlings or orphan children, chiefly at nurseries in the country. It admits also des filles enceintes, for theh lying-in. This part of the plan fills me with great apprehension as to its moral tendency. It seems to mc to be a 96 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. premium upon vice. The fearful numbers of ex posed or foundling children is a mournful proof of degenerated morals ; one thousand three hundred and eighty have been here received this year, that is in nine months ; a large proportion, I should think, of all the births at Lyon.* I am quite sure that the licensing and raising taxes from gambling houses, and other places of a profligate character, must directly tend to counte nance and increase fatal immoralities. How infi nitely preferable is the honest integrity of our Enghsh laws, which connive at no species of vice, much less attempt to raise taxes from the com mission of gross crimes against society. The whole system must be rotten to the core to admit of this recognition and encouragement of the very worst evils. It is a stiU viler practice to suffer wretches stationed within houses ofthe most aban doned description, to be inviting passengers to enter, with a loud voice, and in the middle of the day. What a falling off, since the noble spirit of piety in this very town could induce so many thou sands to die as martyrs for the name of, the Lord Jesus ! What a difference between the second and the nineteenth century! Then men were ready to suffer death rather than sin against God : now they tolerate the most open seductions to vice and iniquity. Tuesday, one o'clock, noon. — A respectable Pro testant minister residing at Lyon, caUed on me yesterday. I had a long conversation with him, in which he endeavored to excuse, though he could not defend, the reglement at Geneva. This morning I went and breakfasted with him and his wife and famfly ; all amiable, obliging ; but I should have rejoiced to have seen something more of the spirit of real Cliristianity . He had the finest coUection of engravings of Swiss scenery that I have yet seen ; and no wonder. When a youth, he ascended Mont Blanc with his father and M. De Saussure, in 1786. In the course of conver sation he expressed great surprise at the state of Ireland — at our refusing the CathoUcs civil privi leges — at our want of church room — at our ne glect of the education of our poor — at the distur bances and riots in England. I made such an swers as I could on these points. He informed me also of his intention of visiting London at the time of our great rehgious meetings. This is not the first occasion I have had to observe the many incidental but important benefits of our public an niversaries. They attract the regard of foreign ers ; and are the means of encouraging or kin dling a spirit of piety in those who attend them at first, chiefly from curiosity ! Before I left him, he requested me to visit an English family in his neighborhood which had just lost its father. I went. I found a widow and four grown-up daughters. What was my astonish- * The moral slate of the population of Paris is not better. I observe in the statistical tables of that city, that out of 27,070 births in the year 1823, 9,806 were of natural children, being rather more than a third part of the total number. The union of mi sery with vice may be inferred from the fact, that as nearly as possible, tbe same proportion of persons died in the public, hospitals of that city ; i. e. 8,227 out of a total of 24,500. ment to discover, after a while, that it was a fa mily who had lived in the very house in which I was bom, in London ! They have been three years at Lyon. They are extremely weU spoken of. The father died yesterday afternoon. The visit, though short, seemed much to reheve them. Thus, in a foreign land, some httle duties of cha rity present themselves to those who are witting to perform them. If God had pleased; the afflic tion and death might have been in my own house ! My son Daniel is to attend the funeral for me to morrow ; for I am obliged to go off for a few days, to Geneva, about Scott's Bible. I should have gone last week, if my son's illness had not pre vented me. My friends are waiting to hold the promised meeting. I intend rejoining my family on Tuesday at Dijon, on the way to Paris. Geneva, 116 miles from Lyon, Wednesday even ing, 7 o'clock, Oct. 1, 1823. — I set off in the mail from Lyon at three yesterday afternoon, and ar rived here at half past three this afternoon. This said mail coach is a heavy, lumbering carriage, with an infinity of luggage, traveUing four mfles and three quarters in the hour. I was in the ca briolet, a sort of outside seat, in front of the car riage, with the prolonged roof of the coach to cover me, and a good leather to draw up in front ; so that I paid the same as for an inside place, (twenty-two francs, about seventeen shillings for 116 miles.) The evening and night were warm and fine, and the morning w7as charming. The country which we passed before nightfall was beautiful, on the banks of the Rhone, which you remember flows from Geneva to Lyon. We had supper at ten o'clock, at Pont d'Ain, and I ac tually dozed and slept att the night afterwards, and a good part of to-day. We breakfasted at Bellegarde at eight, and walked to see what is called La Perte du Rhone — the Loss of the Rhone ; a most curious pheno menon. The Rhone flows majestically from Ge neva, in a bed of two or three hundred feet, till it reaches a defile between the mountains Jura and Vouache, where it has only from sixty to one hun dred and twenty feet width. The rocks then be come narrower and narrower, tfll such huge and insuperable masses present themselves, that the river, unable to break through them, has made itself a passage underneath. The Rhone disap pears for sixty feet. Its breadth at this point is about fifteen feet. It then rises again, and soon resumes its noble tide. I never saw any thing at att resembhng it : you stand upon the bridge, and view on one side of it the fine river flowing along ; and on the other side, where you expect it to con tinue its course, there is nothing to be seen but a bed of rocks perfectly dry. The fact is, the river engulphs itself under the ruins of the masses fallen from the neighboring mountains ; so that you may go down by a ladder and examine the vast defile, the watts of which are 150 feet deep. At the point where the rocks first narrow themselves a strong fort is buflt, L'Ecluse, between the moun tains Jura and Vouache, which Julius Caesar de scribed one thousand eight hundred years ago.* * Iter angustum et difficile inter Montem Jura et flumen Rhodanum, vix qua singulares curri duce- rentur. De Bell. Gall. 1. i. c. 6. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 97 It is the only entrance into France from the French part of Switzerland. As we drew near Geneva we passed Ferney, and I ran up to see the chateau where Voltaire lived, and the church which, in hypocrisy the most detestable, he built near it. The church is low and mean, the shelving roof reaching almost to the ground. It is inscribed to Almighty God. The usual sort of crucifix is within. Still it was some thing for Christianity to have forced such a man to acknowledge in any way her importance and truth. One of the first effects of the revival of true re Ugion, or even of sound learning, in France, I should think, would be to lower the credit of this profligate, crafty, superficial, ignorant, incorrect writer. What plea can the poignancy of wit, or the force of satire, or the talent of ridicule, or the possession of a fascinating style, or the power of brilhant description, or an extensive superficial knowledge of sciences, or an affected humanity on a few popular occasions, form, in a Christian country, for a man who employed them att, with a bitterness and ferocity of mind amounting almost to madness, against the Christian religion and the person of the Saviour! It is an unhappy cir cumstance that the present French government has mingled party politics with his name, and thus attached a new popularity to his impious works. Twenty years ago he was comparatively forgot ten. No new edition of his writings was thought of. At the restoration, in 1814, his tomb was disturbed, and indignities offered to his remains. The consequence of this ill-judged and petty re venge has been, that ten or more large editions of his works have been sqld since ; some of them in the form of small pamphlets, by a weekly pub hcation, for the cottages of the poor.* * When I arrived at Paris, one ofthe first things I beard was, that a Bible Society had been formed at Ferney, chiefly by the aid of the baron de Stael. What a noble triumph for Christianity over the most daring infidelity ! It is delightful for me to be able to add, that a Protestant church is about to be built at Ferney ; and that so little have the principles of Voltaire succeed ed in permanently effaeing the memory of Chris tianity from the minds of men, even in his own vil lage, that a contest is likely to arise amongst the two great bodies of Christians in France, as to which shall have the honor of raising a second edifice there for the purposes of public worship in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord. I give the following extract with peculiar feelings of joy. The patronage of the French government is a most gratifying circum stance indeed. " It is intended to erect a Protestant ehurch at Ferney, which will be at the same time a monument ofthe triumph of Christian principles, and of the progress of religious liberty. The French govern ment has granted one hundred Napoleons for that purpose. The king of the Netherlands has given a donation of fifty Napoleons, to promote the object. " Since it has been announced that a Protestant church is in progress, the Roman Catholics have de termined to erect a splendid structure there ; and it is greatly to be feared that the completion of the Catholic church will reproach the tardiness and in difference of Protestants in affording the means of completing the yet unfinished erection designed for the Protestant worship." I am now at Geneva, for the purpose of inquir ing after the translation of Scott. It is quite pain ful to me to be thus separated so often from my dear famfly ; but circumstances of duty render it indispensable. Before I finish to-night, tired as I am, I must tell you what pecuharly agreeable companions I had on the road ; a professor of di vinity at Lausanne, a great friend of the Bible So ciety, and his family. We soon became acquaint ed, and had a great deal of interesting conversa tion. I tried to do some good to a pious, but ap parently timid man. It was an occasion, which I endeavored to use to the very best of my judg ment, especiaUy in the way of removing prejudice and stimulating to zeal. I could not but observe the marked respect which he paid to our English episcopal church. Indeed I have often noticed that the most enlightened and best informed ministers of the foreign reformed churches, have no dislike to the episcopal model ; but, on the contrary, pre fer it to theh own, as more scriptural in itself, and as clearly supported by antiquity from the very age of the apostles. One most pious minister told me, that he believed if Calvin and Beza had adopt ed the wise and moderate course of our Enghsh Reformers, on these points, the whole of France would have been Protestant. In fact, I think it is now admitted generally by the most competent judges, that the violent rejection of the ancient ecclesiastical government by bishops, and an eager interference in secular disputes and affahs apper taining to the state, were amongst the chief ex ternal hindrances to the progress of the Reforma tion. But I must reaUy wish you good night. Geneva, Thursday, October 2, three o'clock. — Thank God I slept twelve hours last night. — This morning I have been walking about the town, partly on the affair of the translation, and partly to obtain further information as to the moral and religious habits of the town. In passing along the streets, I observed a procession of Cathohc priests, and followed them into the Catholic church. They were celebrating mass for the re pose of the soul of the late Pope. An immense kind of tomb was erected in the middle of the church, with inscriptions on each side, and bougies lighted all around. Printed papers were given about in the church, with a copy of the inscrip tions, and an extract from an artful seductive let ter, of the late Pope, relative to the Genevese. One of the inscriptions was the famous text, " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of heU shall not prevail against it ;"— quite forgetting, or perverting, the whole scope of the passage ; — for every candid reader sees that our Lord spoke of Peter, not per sonally, but instrumentaUy, as confessing the deity and mediation of Christ, and about to preach this for the conversion of mankind ; and that those can claim the promise, and those only, in each succeeding age, who answer to the character to which it was made. But any thing serves for a pretext where the holy Scriptures are unknown. What most struck me was, to see this in the heart and centre of a Protestant city. It was, however, the French who first compelled the Ge nevese to admit the Catholics. In coming from Lyon to Geneva, I noticed that the postillions and common people rather ri- 98 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. diculed the priests than otherwise. At dinner to day, at the table-d'h&te, I met three French gen tlemen, pretty well informed ; Bonaparte was the topic of their admhation ; they also much praised England for the unity which animated it the mo ment any common danger threatened ; this formed, in their view, the greatness of our nation. — The environs of Geneva are very fine. I walked to day, on the bastion, or promenade of the Rhone, at the end of which there is a charming view of the lake and adjoining country. La Treflle is another beautiful promenade of a similar kind. But the town itself is crowded and mean, except tho upper streets and buildings on the summit of the hfll, which are noble and handsome. The weather is cold — a good deal of snow fell last night on ihe Jura, over which I passed on Tues day ; and on Mount St. Bernard, I understand, it lies four feet deep, with so strong a wind as al most to carry away the traveUer. Eight o'clock. — I have had a meeting with the translators of Scott, and have been dehghted. AU is going on well. The chief translator has a se cretary to copy the manuscript — every thing pro mises that St. Matthew will be ready for the press in a few months. . I was introduced to a French minister of Hamburgh, of rare talents, and as rare piety, who will, I trust, help me. I shall, however, have enough to do, both here and at Paris, to ar range details. As I went to the meeting, i caUed on a gentleman to whom I had an introduction. I was grieved at the spirit of prejudice and bigotry which he showed against all sorts of evangelical truth — a harsh, violent, unpracticable man — con fessedly a Socinian in principle. He really frightened me by bis fierce attack on spiritual re Ugion. What a blessing to have been educated in sounder views of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour, and to have some hope that we know and love that Saviour in sincerity of heart ! If any thing can be wrong, it must be that unrelenting proud sphit wliich aims at dishonoring the Lord Jesus — to exalt whom, in his deity and atone ment, was the great scope of the apostolic wri ters. I forgot to say, that my friend, the professor of Lausanne, told me that he had distributed near eight thousand Bibles in his canton, and finds that six thousand more wfll be wanted, in order to sup ply' the whole deficiency; he has also nearly raised a fund, the interest of which wfll supply the poor of the canton de Vaud with Bibles in perpetuity. How much solid good may one man do, and a man wbo, in some respects, may be deemed too fearful ; and what a pubhc benefit is the Bible Society, to present a suitable object to such a man ; and what a seed of future blessings docs the permanent circulation of Bibles in a whole canton, cast in the earth, as it were, and leave there to vegetate, and to produce, by the grace of God, in after years, an abundant harvest ! Friday evening, half-past nine, October 3. — This morning, at nine, I accompanied some pious friends to Satigny, about six miles from Geneva. The morning was wet ; but the ride was through a fine country. Satigny contains about one thou sand two hundred souls ; towards whom the mi nister I went to visit is a true shepherd. We had a little committee for four hours on the affair of Scott*s Bible. My friend from Hamburgh has agreed to undertake- the translation of Milner's Church History, and thus relieve my chief trans lator of a work for which he was engaged, and leave Mm at hberty to aerote himself to Scott. We returned from Satigny about four, and as soon as I had dined, I went to hear ar. excellent minister, who was some time since removed from his office in the college at Geneva on account of his evangehcal sentiments. I was pleased. His manner was so pathetic, so calm, so persuasive, and his matter, upon the whole, so edifying, that I have scarcely heard any thing like it since I left London. He is a valuable man, a deeply pious, spirituaUy-minded Christian, and a preacher of first-rate powers : there is an inexpressible unc tion in all he dettvers. StiU his doctrine is a Uttle too high, in my opinion, to be quite scriptural or safe in the long run ; he does not sufficiently unite the perceptive and cautionary parts of Holy Writ with the consolatory and elevating — a fault not important in a single discourse, but momentous as extending over the whole system of a minister's instmctions ; and more especially if he stand al most alone, or be watched and suspected by hia superiors in the church, or attract particular ob servation on account of the difficulties of his si tuation. It is one thing to preach the faU of man, his impotency and ruin, justification by faith only adoption, salvation by grace, regeneration by the Holy Sphit, the joy and comfort of communion with our heavenly Father, the merciful will of God in our election and in the power and grace which preserves to everlasting Ufe — in connection with the warnings, alarms, cautions, threatenings, pre cepts, and general commands of God, as they he in Holy Scripture : and to preach these doctrines without such authoritative and indispensable ac companiments. The two things are quite dis tinct. The one produces the real fruits of holy consistent love and obedience ; the other is most defective in this important respect, as weU as in many others. In short, the one is scriptural, un erring truth ; the other a human, faUible system. I am sure the Reformers wett understood this dis tinction. It is quite surprising to observe the wisdom and moderation of their writings. It was not theh manner to push any one particular doc trine to excess, much less to exclude the practical parts of Christianity. Let any one read the pub lications of Luther or Melancthon, Calvin, or Beza, Zuingle or Bullinger, Cranmer or Jewel — especially let him peruse the Book of Homilies of the church of England, and he will be convinced of what I Bay. In fact, one of the sorest causes of grief to these holy men was the appearance, from time to time, of indiscreet and unscriptural teachers in the Protestant bodies, who " drew away disciples after them." Stfll the sermon, which has drawn forth all these remarks, did me good. I passed over what I thought less scriptural ; and was edified, ani mated, cheered by the general tenor of the ad dress. Whilst I was with my friend and trans lator, I looked for a minute into Milner's History, and found, to my delight, that the martyrs at Lyon were amongst the most holy of the primitive Christians. I now look back on Lyon, its amphi- TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 99 theatre, its subterraneous church, &c. with double interest. I forgot to say that the king of the Netherlands has begun to appoint the ministers to the Pro testant churches, ^hen they are vacant ; because the dissensions and animosities occasioned by the elections threw the towns into confusion. This right the king has just claimed, as I am informed, without asking any one's leave. Our king's pre rogative of nominating bishops and deans was derived from a different source. The Reforma tion placed it in his hands when the supremacy of Rome was disavowed. But the chapters of ca thedrals, I suppose, originally lost the choice from simflar mischiefs. Popular elections in the church are the worst of aU evils. In England all these appointments pass through the hands of the known and responsible ministers of the crown, which se cures many of the ends of a free election without its attendant inconveniences. May the grace of God descend on our happy country, and sway public opinion more and more on matters of reh gion ; and our sees will be proportionaUy adorned with primitive and appostolical pastors. I observe everywhere a certain jealousy of England in the breasts of the people abroad, and even of some good people. This feeling probably would not exist to the degree it does, if Enghsh travellers conducted themselves with sound judg ment, discretion, and Christian affection. Even now there are many thousand continental Chris tians who feel and express the sincerest love and the strongest attachment to theh British brethren. Still I shall need much prudence in managing the translation of Scott, and obtaining an entrance for it amongst the great body of Protestants aU over the continent who speak or read French — for my object is nothing less. The Enghsh and French languages divide the civilized world. I see clearly that the project could only be safely trusted to private hands ; a pubhc society would not only spoil the work as a hterary perform ance, but excite additional distrust and suspi cion under the present circumstances of the con tinent. Saturday evening, nine o'clock, October 4. — I have had a very long, interesting, and instructive day. I have been out ten hours visiting the town. The views from Geneva — for here I must begin my story — are most beautiful. From the fortifica tions, you behold on att sides a fruitful and varie gated country; with the Alps and nearer fore ground of mountains covered with snow. I sat for a minute on a bench, about three o'clock, just out of the town, and I could not help quite break ing out into exclamations of surprise at the en chanting prospect around me. I took a boat afterwards, and rowed (for the last time) on this lovely lake. I was more delighted, if possible, than ever. But I must really cease to talk of my impressions of Swiss scenery. I am, perhaps, more enthusiastic on this subject just now, because I have seen to-day an admirable model of the greater part of my Swiss tour. It was twenty- six feet long by eighteen. The scale was sniall, Mont Blanc being only eleven inches high, in stead of fifteen thousand five hundred and thirty feet ; but it was quite sufficient to recal all my feelings of pleasure. It included Geceva en one 55—8 side, and the Grimsel, Furca, Lucem, Sic. on the others. I believe I told you that I saw a similar model of the centre of Switzerland, at Lucem, by general Pfyffer. The next object Imust mention is the Cathedral, a fine, spacious, unadorned building, with benches only (like all the Reformed churches,) and the names of each proprietor pasted on the back of his seat. It contains the tomb of Henry Due de Rohan the chief of the Protestant party in France, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the time ofthe Romans, a temple of the sun stood on the spot. The noble reformers and divines of Geneva who had preached there two or three centuries back, came forcibly to my recollection, as I walked through the solemn aisles— Farell — Viret — Calvin — Beza — Turretin, &c. For after all, it is not the buildings but the men who filled them, and preached the Gospel of Christ to a lost world, which gives the real interest, and excites the warmest and most grateful associations of thought in such visits. I visited after this the pubhc hbrary of fifty thousand volumes, which is open to all the city. It is curious to learn that haberdashers, tailors, watch makers, pastry-cooks, carpenters, porters, journey men, citizens of every class flock every Tuesday to receive or change theh books — four hundred persons of the common people on an average; and that they take out, not merely books of amuse ment, but of history, philosophy, theology. Ac cordingly most persons here are savans. Indeed, ever since the period of the Reformation, the sci ences, the arts, and industry have flourished here exceedingly. There is no city in Europe which has produced so great a number of fllustrious writers, in proportion to its population; there is none where ease and independence have so much reign ed ; and where knowledge has been so generally diffused. Even now extraodinary care is paid to education; and though its incorporation with France for sixteen years must, in various ways, have been injurious to it, yet it retains still the habits of a small and free town. The effect of all this on real rehgion and on the moral habits of the people; especially since the infection of infidel principles has tainted it; cannot be doubted — the pride of half-learning is a most dangerous thing in every view, and most of all as it respects a real submission ofthe understanding and heart to the doctrines and grace of the Gospel. — I speak of course generally. Amongst the curiosities of the hbrary, I give the first place to Calvin's sermons and letters, which I venerated, though I could not decipher his hand-writing — it is the most perplexed of any I have seen ; that of Farell and Viret, his fellow- reformers, is much more inteffigible. I forgot to say that I saw the spot where these reformers first preached at Geneva. A letter of our Sh Isaac Newton pleased me in another view. There were coUections also of the letters of Beza and Buffinger. A volume of St. Austin's homilies, on papyrus, of the sixth century, was curious. A copy of Cicero de Officus, printed at Mentz, in 1465, just after the invention of printing, had a notice at the end, boasting that the work had not been done with the pen, nor with ink, but accomplished by a certain magnificent art newly discovered. What 100 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. immense progress has> that art since made — what an engine of good and of evil is the1 press become in every free state ! A noble copy of the vulgate of the eighth century contained the disputed pas sage, 1 John v. 8, 9. A book of PhiUp le Bel, of the year 1314, was on boards of wood, covered with black wax, and written with a stylus or hon pen. Let me now mention some of the persons whom I have seen to-day. I have been introduced to several of the professors and pastors. One allow ed me to talk with him freely. He was complain ing of the new dissidents from the national Gene vese church. I told him, the only way to keep a church united was to preach plainly and simply the Gospel of Christ ; that if this was not done at Geneva, the dissensions would increase more and more. He rephed, that during the last century, Voltaire was read by every shop-boy ; and that the clergy, to keep the people Christians, confined themselves to moral topics merely ; now, ho\yever, the clergy were beginning to preach the Gospel, because the, times required it. I observed upon this, that the Gospel was the same in every age, and that truth and duty, not fashion, were the rule of a minister's conduct. I added, that though I did not myself, in every particular, agree with C alvin, yet on the points of the proper and supreme deity of Christ, the propitiation of his death, the fall of man, justification by faith, the influences ofthe Holy Spirit, and good works as the fruit of faith, I fully accorded with him ; and that the first men in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and aU the Enghsh clergy (twelve thousand or more in number,) agreed with me in the main as to these doctrines, though many would, undoubt edly, differ from me as to the particular manner of preaching and applying them. He received att I said with perfect good temper. I have not time tpTnight (for it is half-past ten) to teH you of several other interviews ; I wfll only say, I sat an hour in the evening with my friend from Hamburgh, who delighted me with an account of the revival of religion at that place— an impression made in the town — numbers coverted — several young ministers raised up. My heart was rejoiced. The GospeL wherever it is truly preached, is stfll "the power of God to salvation." Let us pray more fervently for the attendant grace of the Holy Spirit, and ministers will not be want ing to preach, nor congregations to hear and re ceive this blessed revelation of mercy. Sunday afternoon, three o'clock, Oct. 5. — I went this mornimg at ten, to hear a celebrated preacher of this town. I was grieved. Talent mis-employ ed, zeal wasted, arguments false or insufficient — all fundamentafly wrong. A sermon on affliction, leaving out almost all the main topics, and grossly mistaking others. The church was fuU — congre gation attentive; — dehvery good — matter ably ar ranged — aU right, except the entire doctrine of the discourse. This was far more deficiently and erroneously treated than in the CathoUc sermons at Martigny and Lyon. A Socinian might have preached it. After the sermon, I had a conference with a pious, amiable, aged minister, who mourns over the state of religion here, and prays and hopes for a gradual improvement in the body of pastors. He tells me, that subscription to the Helvetic con fession, which resembles our thirty-nine articles, was abolished about a hundred years since, by the council of state, in consequence of the vehement disputes of the pastors amongst themselves ; that the. catechism was set aside in 1788; and that the Reglement foUowed in 1817. At twelve o'clock I went to the hospital, and heard an exceUent sermon from an Enghsh cler gyman. It did me good. The matter of it was as much superior to that which I had heard ear lier in the morning, as tbe manner, composition, and delivery, were inferior. The contrast was striking ; the French sermon, able, weU-arranged, forcible— dehvered with the whole soul of the preacher ; the Engbsh, feeble, unimpressive— de livered with the ^difference of a school-boy. I am far from supposing my feUow-countryman was aware of this ; indeed I am persuaded he was not; but I state the impression as it was made on my mind at the time. The minister of the Gospel has not only to deliver certain truths, but to deliver them with solemnity, the earnestness, the affec tion, the force necessary to arrest the consciences and touch the hearts of men. Sermons carelessly or tamely dehvered will never arouse a sleeping world. At two o'clock, I attended another of the pas tors — a pleasing sermon, on the omniscience and omnipresence of God ; notliing contrary to sound doctrine — rather agreeable to it. Thus far, then, have I gone in my sixteenth sflent Sunday. My dear family arrived, as I hope, at Dijon from Lyon, last night ; there I shaU rejoice to meet them on Tuesday, that we may proceed on to Paris to gether, and return to dear, dear England. Sunday evening, 10 o'clock. — I have spent a most delightful evening at one of the professors' of the University. We had family devotion.-r- During the course of it arrived a French Protest ant minister, from the Cevennes Mountains, in the department of the Garde, remarkable as the retreat of the Protestants in the end of the seven teenth and the beginning of the eighteenth cen tury, during the persecution of Louis XIV. Our host, when he had ended his own prayer, asked his new guest to pray, and then me; so that a minister of the Swiss, French, and English churches, prayed in succession. I trust it was truly in the sphit of what our creed calls, " The communion of saints." We had then an hour and a half of most edifying conversation— quite delightful. The French minister complained loud ly ofthe indiscretion of friends in England, in ad dressing, a few years ago, circular letters to the Protestant ministers of La Garde, to inquire whether they were persecuted, &c. The Prefet of his department was extremely angry, and ask ed, what the English would have said if French priests had sent circular letters to the CathoUcs of Ireland, with similar inquiries ! He told me a circumstance that is very inte resting : at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, when Louis XIV persecuted the Protest ants of the Cevennes with his Dragonnades, he putted down theh churches to build forts : and now within a few years, (since Bonaparte gave hberty to the Protestants) some of these forts have been destroyed, in return, to build churches. Surely a retributive Providence rules the world TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 101 and is at times visibly apparent ; persecution, especiaUy, seems to be visited and avenged by the righteous dispensations of the Most High. This French minister from the sequestered mountains of Cevennes charmed me — such piety, talent, viva city, simplicity, joined with an original creative genius, that he quite arrested me. He has left that same sort of powerful impression on my mind, which my dear friends, the French minister at Franckfort, and M. Wyttenbach at Bem, in dif ferent ways, did. But I must absolutely close — the coach starts at half-past four in the morning. Adieu. Monday morning, half -past four. — At Geneva stfll, just going off for Dijon. Farewel] Switzer land ! Morning cold, dark, and miserable. Yours affectionately, D. W. notice on the reglement of geneva. This Reglement of the church of Geneva, which was issued in may 1817, and which prohi bits the clergy from inculcating fully and explicitly the divinity of Christ, original sin, grace, and pre destination, is one of the most afflictive circum stances which has occurred in any. Protestant church since the reformation. The open perse cution at Lausanne I have already ventured to notice with the indignation which I conceive it merits. There, however, the great articles of Christian truth are not directly attacked. The doctrine of the church remains untouched — the confession, the liturgy, the other formularies ofthe Reformation survive, The sword of intolerance is, indeed, absurdly and wickedly drawn against those who infringe on the ecclesiastical discipline of the canton. But the true faith may be preach-, ed without interruption within the pale of that establishment. No doctrines are there proscribed. But at Geneva, persecution is united with an open departure in the church itself, from the first prin ciples of the Gospel ; the very foundations of Chris tianity are dug up — the wells of salvation corrupt ed and poisoned- A labored apology for the Reglement has been attempted by M. Simond, in his late acute and able work on Switzerland. He does not, indeed, scruple to regret that it was issued ; but the main purport of bis remarks is to show, that it was ne- cessary to preserve the peace of the church, and that the ministers of Geneva have done right in not prolonging fruitless debates after fourteen cen turies of contention. This apology is exactly agreeable, to the indif ference as > to religious opinions, which is so fa shionable in the present day. But the real ques tion is, whether any body of ministers have a right to alter, conceal, or check the fuU and fair deve lopment of the great truths of revelation, on the plea of preserving peace. Are not the doctrines of the deity ami propitiation of the Son of God, of the lost and fallen condition of man, of the neces- eity of efficacious grace to the conversion of the heart from sin to holiness, and of the ascription of att we receive and hope for to the mercy of God, the very sura and substance of the Christian reli gion! And though the doctrine ofthe divine wfll in predestination be not a tenet equally funda mental, yet it is confessedly found in the Holy Scriptures, and is avowed and expounded in most of the Protestant confessions. The Seventeenth Article ofthe English church is expressly on this topic. As to the other three prohibited doctrines, I would ask, What is the great mystery of godli ness, but " God manifest in the flesh !" What the great proclamation of the Gospel itself, but that " God is in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself!" What the great charge brought against the human race, but that " all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," that " by one man sin entered into the world," that we " are all by nature children of wrath," and that it is " God that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure !" What is the main summary of the whole scheme of revelation, but that "by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast ; for ye are his work manship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath' before ordained that ye should walk in them V And what was the chief glory of the Reformation, but to have brought again these truths to hght, and made them the subjects of public instruction ! It is true, disputes and controversies have, through the infirmity of man, arisen in various ages, on questions connected With these sublime mysteries. But are there not abundant remedies for such evils provided in the precepts and narra tives of the New Testament, and especiaUy in the Epistles of St. Paul ! Was it ever imagined, that the remedy of such debates was the annihilation of the whole Gospel itself! Did St. Paul, on ac count of the dissentions at Corinth, cease to preach "Jesus Christ, and him crucified!" When the Galatians disputed so as even to "devour one an other," did he not the more solemnly inculcate the Gospel which he had first dehvered! And with regard to peace in the particular church of Geneva, did not the Reglement of June 1, 1725, as M. Simond acknowledges, require the modera tor to charge those who are admitted into theBa- cred ministry " not to treat in the pulpit of any , curious and useless topics, which might-disturb the peace of the church ;" whilst he nevertheless engaged them to "maintain the doctrine of the holy apostles and prophets, as it is contained in the books of the Old and New Testament, of which doctrine they had a summary in their Cate chism!" Why was this formula, which was stripped of its last clause in 1788, not restored, as the most natural and authoritative expedient for preserving peace ! M. Simond says, with a sort of triumph, that the ministers are only forbidden to preach on these four proscribed topicB controversially. But were the exceUent discourses of the Regent, in 1818, on the fall of the faithful, and on the faith which saves, controversial ! 'Can any discourses be more simple, more practical, more sohd, more affecting ? Why then were the pulpits of Geneva closed against him ! Or were the private instmc tions he gave the children of his claBS polemical, or contrary to the peace of the church ! Why then was he dismissed arbitrarily from his office, and cast with his wife and children upon the wide. . world ! 102 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. M. Simond draws an extravagant portrait of the sentiments which he is pleased to denominate methodistical, as maintained at Geneva. It is not my province to defend every particular senti ment or proceeding into which pious persons, un der an unjust and intolerant inquisition, may have faUen. Nothing can be more unfair than to lay hold on the mistakes or infirmities of those who are the objects of persecution, as a palhation of such persecution itself. Supposing these errors to be tenfold greater than they have been aUeged to be by theh bitterest enemies, no reasonable man can doubt that the pious Regent above re ferred to, and the other students at Geneva, were silenced and deprived of their rights, not on ac count of those indiscretions, but because they held the doctrines of Farell, and Viret, and Calvin, and Beza, and all the Reformers on the fundamental tenets of the glorious Gospel ; because they be Ueved and professed the mystery of the eternal Trinity, the divinity and atonement of the Son of God, the fall and corruption of man, and his inca pacity for any thing spiritually good without the operation of divine grace ; and the ascription of salvation from first to last to the undeserved mer cy of God in Christ Jesus — those mysteries within which all the truth, and holiness, and consolation of genuine Christianity lie, and which, when they are excluded, no single instance can be produced of any real progress made in Christian piety and virtue. But M. Simond enumerates, with much com placency, the doctrines which the ministers of Geneva are still allowed to preach — the provi dence of God, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, the necessity of a divine revelation, &c. &c. ; and concludes by assuring us, that it is the chef-d'oeuvre of theology to make revealed agree with natural religion — the very Deism this, colored over with Christianity, which marks the fatal fall which I am deploring in the church of Geneva. For what are these doctrines, if sepa rated from the great sacrifice of an Incarnate Sa viour, and the efficacious operations ofthe Eternal Spirit, but a mockery of man's misery ! Where is pardon, where adoption, where peace of con science, where regeneration and conversion, where holy love to a dying and glorified Saviour, where the influences of grace, where the springs of obedience and mortification of sin, which are all necessary in order to meet with comfort this awful resurrection and the judgment of the last day ! Better, far. better that the delusive peace of the Genevese church should be troubled, than that aU the souls committed to its care should perish in ignorance of the life-giving truths of sal vation. Indeed real peace in a church can be obtained by no such methods. The way to that great blessing is, by the humble, faithful preach ing of the Gospel in all its fulness, as it was de hvered to us by the apostles and evangelists, and re-asserted by the Reformers and Martyrs — then would a meek and docile temper be framed, and aU the holy fruits of obedience cultivated, in those who received the grace of the Saviour ; and thus peace would flourish and abound. I speak the more warmly on this subject, be cause Geneva furnishes many of the Protestant churches in every part of Europe with young pas tors. The doctrines of her once celebrated uni versity are preached at Paris and Lyon, at Brussels and Hamburgh, at London and St. Petersburgh. Let us pray, then, that divine truth may again revive amongst her ministers, pastors, and pro fessors. Voltaire and Rousseau have passed away. The mischievous and poisonous influence of theh writings is rapidly diminishing. They five no lon ger to feed a prurient curiosity with a succession of impious and licentious productions. Let us hope, then, that sound learning and sound theology may graduaUy revive. Surely the pastors of Ge neva must hear sometimes of the grief and con sternation which fill Protestant Europe at theh faU. Surely they must feel the cutting reproaches of Roman Catholics, and even of infidels, on their inconsistent and unmanly conduct as professors of the reUgion of Christ.* Surely they must observe in the incipient dissenting bodies springing up in the bosom of theh repubhc, and will probably in crease till the true doctrine is again preached in the churches, that neither peace nor unity can be attained on their present plan. Surely that part at least of the ministers and students whose pre judices are less fixed, must see, in the daily ac counts of the progress of rehgion in every part of the world by the name of the Lord Jesus, that there is a reahty in the Gospel, a power, an effica cy from on high, which attends the humble preach ing of the doctrines of grace, to which no other scheme of reUgion can pretend. May the time be hastened, when Geneva, hav ing " repented and done her first works," shall again resume her rank amongst the Reformed churches, and become once more the favorite uni versity of continental Europe ! The smaU num ber of her pastors (about thirty or forty) may make a return comparatively easy. Already some favorable appearances present themselves. 1 had the pleasure of seeing myself several pastors who were imbued with the genuine love of a crucified Saviour, and I heard of others who stfll "hold the head." In the meantime, let it be the care of those who are " suffering for righteousness' sake" to walk circumspectly, to study the meek and pas sive character of the primitive Christians when under persecution, to imbibe the eminent spirit of wisdom and humility which adorned the Reformere Of the Swiss churches, and which was more re markable than even their fortitude or zeal; and, above all, to " take heed to the doctrine" which they preach, that it be " sound speech that cannot be condemned" — that they dwell chiefly on great and necessary truths — that they avoid matters of * M. Simond quotes Rousseau as saying, with much truth, " People ask the ministers of the church of Geneva, if Jesus Christ is God. They dare not reply. A philosopher casts a rapid look on them. He penetrates them, he sees them to be Arians, So- cinians, Deists; he says this, with the idea of doing them honor. Immediately they assemble in alarm and terror, they discuss, they are agitated, they know not on what saint to call, and after a variety of con sultations, deliberations, conferences, all ends in an equivoque in which tbey neither say yes nor no. 0 Genevese, your ministers are truly singular persons; people know not what they believe, nor what they do not believe ! One knows not even what they pre tend to believe; their only manner of establishing their faith is by attacking that of others." TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 103 confessed difficulty or inferior moment, however scriptural, in their view, they may be — or that, at aU events, they treat such points with the reserve wliich the Apostles constantly exhibit — and that thus they " show themselves to be workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."* LETTER XVII. Poligny, Oct. 7, 1823.— Paris, Oct. 11, 1823. Nyon — Calvin and Fletcher — Catholic Lady — Con versation on Popery — Geneva — Prohibited Books — Auxonne— Irish Catholics — Dijon — Miraculous Image of Virgin— Palace of the Dukes of Bur gundy — Bossuet— Wagons — Auxerre — Joigny — Cardinal de Retz — Fontainebleau— Apartments of the Pope — Bonaparte's Abdication— Place of Madrid — Character of Bonaparte — Sens — St. Bernard — Manners of people — Catholics receiv ing Tracts — Arrival at Paris. D6le, Department of the Jura, 110 miles from Geneva, about 2,522 miles from London, by 'my route, Tuesday morning, October 7, 1823. My dearest sister — So far have I come in this tiresome diligence. We left Geneva at half- past four yesterday. The. day soon broke out beautifully. We drove along the lake to Nyon, which I just named to you as I was first passing to Geneva six weeks back. It is an agreeable town, of eighteen hundred souls, supposed to be the Roman Novodunum, about eleven miles from Geneva. Marble urns, inscriptions, and other antiquities are still found in its neighborhood. It is endeared to Englishmen as having given birth to Fletcher of Madeley — a name connected with all that is pure and exalted in piety, and amiable and disinterested in benevolence ; nothing, I think, in modern times has equalled the habitual spirit uality of mind, the holy and ardent love, the utter abstraction from worldly things, the unaffected humflity, the self-denying and tender compassion for souls, that distinguished this eminent minister. Had the great reformer of Geneva, two centuries previous, urhted the lovely and seraphic qualities of Fletcher, with his own prodigious grasp of in tellect, the Reformation would have gained incal culably. The sweetness and devotion of the one, joined to the penetrating judgment and vast intel lect of the other, would have formed a character of surpassing excellence.! But I have no time to enlarge. * I am happy, truly happy, to be able to say, from my last accounts from Switzerland, March, 1825, that the spirit of persecution appears to be much de clining at Geneva — that the pious regent above re ferred to is allowed to preach and exercise his mi nistry in a separate meeting-house without molesta tion ; and that some hope may be entertained of a gradual approximation once more to the truth ofthe Gospel, on the part of the ministers and inhabitants ofthe city and canton. t Mr. Fletcher's name was properly Jean Guil- laume de la Flechere. He was born at Nyon, Sep- After passing Nyon, we ascended the Dole mountain, the highest of the chain of the Jura ; five thousand eight hundred and fifty feet — insuf ferably cold. We supped at St. Laurent ; and, at half-past four this morning, we arrived at Po ligny, having performed eighty-three mfles in twenty-four hours, i. e. not quite three miles and a half in the hour. The road across the Jura was surrounded with rude, magnificent scenery, and in some places was sublime and beautiful. Snow lay scattered here and there, and on the summit pretty thickly. Posts are erected at short intervals, to mark its depth in the winter. One set of misera ble horses drew us forty-four miles, three stages. The drivers managed this, by making them rest while we supped, and whilst our luggage was searched, which was only three times in nine hours ! Dole, where we are about to breakfast, is a town of eight thousand five hundred souls, on the river Doube, the Dubis of Ctesar, and formerly the capital of Franche-compte ; in a tract which, from its fertility and beauty, has received the name of the Vol d' Amour. It contains some ruins of a Roman amphitheatre and of two aqueducts. I have two English gentlemen aB my compa nions, who are very agreeable; and one Italian lady, who speaks good French. She talks fast on aU sorts of subjects, and amongst other questions, asked me this morning, if I was a Cathohc. This led to a long conversation. The. point I insisted upon was, that the church of Rome had graduaUy lost the simple and scriptural meaning of each separate part of the Christian rehgion, and had substituted for it a gross external sense, just suit ed to the ignorance and corruption of the human heart. Thus, for the spiritual invisible church, it had substituted the outward church of Rome, and for Christ its head, the Pope ; for feeding by faith on the body and blood of Christ, transubstantia- tion ; for repentance, penance ; for contrition and lowliness of heart, lacerations and . pilgrimages ; for confession of sins before God, auricular confes sion to a priest ; for prayer to God from the heart, endless repetitions of paternosters ; for reverence and honor to the Virgin Mary and the saints, reli gious and, in fact, idolatrous worship ; for secret. holy love to the Saviour, images and crucifixes ; for reliance on the satisfaction and atonement of Christ only, the sacrifice of the mass, prostrations, scourgings, lacerations, merits of saints, indulgen ces, purgatory, &c. ; for the influence of the Holy Spirit, merit of congraity, a mere external and for mal routine of ceremonies, man's unassisted ef forts, incense, lights ever burning, &c. ; and so of aU the rest ! She confessed that in her heart she preferred the Protestant religion, as the most pure and un adorned ; but that having been brought up a Ca thohc, she did not feel at hberty to change. I could make no impression on her. She said she had been once present at the Protestant service at Paris, and was charmed with the simpUcity of tember 12th, 1729; and died August 14th, 1785.— Calvin, whose name originally was Jean Chauvin, or Cauvin, was a native of Picardy, but spent the greater part of his life at the celebrated city of Geneva. He was bom July 10. 1509, and died May 27, 1564. 104 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. the' prayers; and, above all, with the clear and rhahly exposition of the Gospel given by the mi nister in his 'sermon. I found I could not supply what was wanting in het state of mind — a deep conviction of the value of her soul— a right sense of sin as committed against God — a holy dread of fiving that honor to creatures, which the Almighty ehovah claims for himself — and, above aU, a liv ing faith in the all-sufficient atonement of that divine Saviour, whose sacrifice is in effect made void by 'the superstitions and human merits of Popery. I thbught it at last most advisable to urge her to read the New Testament, and to at tend earnestly to the 'main essentials of religion, as she found them there enforced; repentance for sin, faith in the merits of our Saviour Christ, love to God and man, and obedience to the divine law, as flowing from these principles. This advice did not irritate her. She admitted the propriety of complying with it; and we continued excellent friends during the remainder of our journey. The country, since we have descended the Jura, is tolerably pleasant, but not fine. The villages are rather miserable. The women wear wooden shoes without stockings. The lands are not well cultivated : there are vineyards occasionally. As the breakfast is not ready, I may as well in form you that the ministers of Geneva (for I tell you things as they come to my recollection) have the unfavorable habit of perpetually changing duties with each other; a printed paper being published in the town every Saturday, with a, list of the preachers for the week. Besides this, they have months of repose, alternately with months of preaching ; the consequence, I conceive, must be, that the pastoral feelings must be weakened, as well as the habits of painful diligence which become the minister of Christ. But it is all of a piece. The reUgion of too many of the Gene vese, and indeed of the Swiss generaUy, seems at present to have wofully degenerated from the dedication of the heart to God, and the pervading influence of Christian principles through the whole life, to a formal preparation for the first communion and attendance on the three or four annual festi vals. Surely this is greatly to mistake the nature of true rehgion, and must bring down on them the marked displeasure of the Divine Head of the church, who " holds the stars in his right hand, and walks in the midst ofthe golden candlesticks." — Rev. ii. 1. There is, however, much sincere and simple de votion amongst many individuals at Geneva, not withstanding the' general state of the church. One lady, the mother of a large family, charmed me with her humble and yet ardent spirit of piety. It is said that her deeds of charity may be count ed not merely by the days, but by the hours of her hfe. She maintains in the most admirable order two orphan schools almost at her own charge. Her love to her Saviour, her delight in prayer, her meekness, her humility and teachableness, her zeal in every good work, delighted me, even on the short acquaintance I had the; opportunity of forming. I trust there are many, many such. hi every class of society, and , that the number wiU increase; for I hope my remarks, though appa rently severe, are consistent with the most genu ine charity ; I wish them to be so ; sometimes I half retract what I am writing, lest I should over step the limits of that tenderness and love, which Christ our Lord enjoins, and which his Gospel breathes throughout. I can sincerely declare that the unfavorable reports I send you, are most re luctantly made. Prohibited books are introduced into the conti nental states in a curious way : the title-page and contents of Blair's Sermons, for example, are printed and inserted for those of O'Meara's Bona parte, and thus the fraud is concealed. A patri otic spirit is a good deal cherished amongst the youth", the students of aU the different colleges and academies meet once a year, at a central spot in Switzerland, to encourage a love to theh coun try ; about six hundred are meeting this week at Zofingen. Dijon, capital qf ancient Burgundy, eight o'clock, Tuesday night. — Thank God, I am safely arrived, after a journey of one hundred and eighty-two mfles from Geneva, performed in thirty-eight wea ry hours. I left Dole at twelve, in another coach which met us from Besancon, and which consist ed of three parts, a front chariot and two bodies of coaches, most awkwardly united and placed on the same wheels, (something like our double coaches in England,) and holding fifteen persons inside altogether. I was seated in the chariot, which they call Le coupe. We had five horses, and our pace improved so astonishingly, that we went five miles and a half the hour ! We passed through a fortified town, named Auxonne, where Bonaparte is said to have studied in the school of artUlery. I had a companion in the coupe, who was descended of Irish parents. He was a sen sible, weU-informed, communicative man, a Ca thohc. You may judge what was the subject of our discourse — the conduct of our government to the Irish Catholics. In fact, during the whole course of our tour, nothing has been so frequently objected to me as this topic. Whatever observa tions an Englishman makes on the laws or usages of the continental nations, the constant answer is, Look to your own treatment of the Catholics of Ireland. I rephed to my companion as mildly as I could, vindicating our government very much on the ground ofthe violent prejudices and party- spirit which have prevented any fair judgment from being formed, and any impartial pubhc mea sures being carried, on such an irritated question; at the same time observing to him that foreigners often had a very incorrect and inadequate notion of the real situation of the Irish Roman CathoUcs ; and that in a free country like England, the go vernment could adopt no general arrangements with respect to them, without the concurrence of parliament, and the support of pubhc opinion. I told him-I was myself far from joining in the in discriminate hostility against aU further change in the restrictive laws, which animated too many of my countrymen ; but was, on the contrary, ra ther inclined to the opinion that additional civil privileges might be gradually granted the Catho- hes, in proportion as theh loyalty and general food conduct should seem to entitle them to them. added, that as a zealous Protestant, I conceived the more we could mix the Irish with the rest of the subjects of the British crown, and fairly in crease theh stake in the blessings of the British TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 105 constitution, the more we shouldjaosen ihe bands, of priestcraft, and sepaxate them from .theh pre sent guides. In reply, he assured me that it was his firm opinion that a conscientious Cathohc. might be a most loyal and faithful subject of. a Protestant prince — the, power of the Pope had for, a long time been so purely spiritual, or rather ec clesiastical and formal — nothing, he thought, but a violent party-spirit could in anyway make ; it dangerous. I give you the conversation exactly as it occurred. I am far from dogmatizing* a^you know, on so comphcated and difficult a point.— Popery I hate from the bottom of my heart. But the obvious fll effects of the system now acted upon in Ireland, and the anomalous, inconsistent state of the laws affecting the CathoUcs, together with the uniform practice of the continental go vernments, seem to advise the trial of new and more lenient proceedings. ; I found my dearest Mrs, W. and my: daughter here, pretty weU. They arrived from Lyon on Saturday, at noon. The dear boys set off in one of the carriages, for Paris, on. Monday morning, because the eldest is caUed to Oxford, by the com mencement of the University term* Thus has it pleased God to preserve and bless us. We folu low my sons to-morrow to Paris, Adieui Maison Neuve, department of Cote d' Or, 43 miles from Dijon, on the Auxerre and Fontainebleau road to Paris, Wednesday evening, 7 o'clock, Oet. 8i — Such is the place from which 1 date my ietter.to- night. We att retired to rest last evening, at Di jon, between eight and nine. I slept quite well till six, and then rose to visit the .town of Dijon-^ the birth-place of, Bossuet — before we set off. I first went to the church of St. Benigne, the spire of which has an elevation i of three hundred and seventy feet. , It is one of the/most .elegant I have ever seen ; the spires of Coventry and Worcester are the only ones to which' I cau compare it. As I walked along, I happened to observe on all the churches an immense placard. < I stopped from mere curiosity to see what it was. It was an ad vertisement of a new edition of the 'history of the miraculous image of N6tre Dame at Dijon. I thought this quite, piquant; I hurried to the church, and looked all around : a gaudy, embel lished building, filled with altars, and pictures, and statues; but no image, that I could discover. I was determined not to be disappointed ; and go ing out I met an elderly lady apparently approach ing the church door, and inquired of her if that was the church of the miraculous image. She re phed with a manifest feehng of pleasure, that it was ; and immediately took me up to an altar in the church, on which was the statue of the Vhgin, resembling that of a blackamoor, and decked out with tawdry ornaments. I afterwards bought the book : positively it as serts the various miracles performed by this wretched figure. Nay, more, indulgences are granted to Jul who worship this image, and a so ciety is formed to celebrate feasts to her honor. As the image is black, the author attempts to prove, very gravely, that the Vhgin Mary was of a swarthy complexion, and appttes to her the mystical words of the Canticles, " I am black, but comely." He supposes the image to be of the eleventh century. He affirms that it is not only ",the\objeat toffhe^cmfidenee, tf„ihe inhabitants of Dijon, but.thM all theprqwtoe invokes it." This is the language he uses. Thei ; alleged miracles are, hke all the,, Popish ones, more than dubious. For instance, the Swiss besieged Dijon in 1513 — they were, about to storm the city — the whole town betook itself to pray to the image of the Vir gin — the enemies relented,, and the siege was raised. In such an event, supposing it to be true, every one sees there is not even a pretence to that broad, dhect, and palpable, suspension of the powers of nature, open to the view of mankind, which distinguishes the miracles of the Gospel. I have brought the book with me to England. — What can one hope for, when such mummeries are obtruded upon France, in the nineteenth cen tury, and after the attacks made by infidehty on our common Christianity! Two-thirds of the churches of Dijon are shut up and used as storehouses and granaries-. The place royale is in the. form of a horse-shoe and contains the provincial palace and the ancient house of assembly of the parliament of Burgundy. The palace ofthe governor general of Burgundy is now occupied by a poUce office^ museum, and hbrary. One ofthe magnificent staircases is used as a book' setter's shop; the arcades are built up, and used as shops Ukewise. Such are the transformations which a few years make in the mansions of the great. Dijon was the seat of one ofthe ancient par liaments, and contains now twenty-two thousand souls. The Protestants are considered by some of the common people to be Jews, or rather, as I hope, confounded with them, just as they were at Dunkirk ; for I cannot imagine any persons actual ly to beUeve the Protestants to be Jews. But you will be anxious for me to come to the great Bossuet/— 4 inquired of several persons where he lived ; but was surprised to find no one knew any thing about bim. At Lichfield every chfld would have pointed out to me the house where our great Enghsh moralist (Dr. Samuel Johnson) was bom. At last I discovered the street which bears bis name, Rue de Bossuet. It still took me some time to ascertain the spot of his birth. I went from house to house ; not a creature could give me any information : with great difficulty I at length found the place, a bookseUer's shbp^ The bookseUer himself was hardly aware of the distinguished person who had formerly inhabited his dwelling. Two hundred years had, in fact, effaced almost aU traces of this prodigious genius, except his smatt chapel. I entered it, and examined every part, not without veneration. The house itself has undergone so many alterations, as to contain only a few rooms of the original building. Bossuet is undoubtedly the first writer whom the French possess ; but he is not one of my greatest favorites. I cannot di vest my mind of his harsh treatment of the ami able Fenelon. His haughty domineering spirit, also, as he acquired weight in the councils of France, .and the share which I cannot but think he' took, notwithstanding the apologies of his biographer, Bausset, in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, have left an unfavorable impres sion on my mind as to his whole character. But his sermons, which were not prepared for pubhcation, and are the first effusions of his heart 106 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. in his early Ufe, when bis piety seems to have been reaUy fervent and sincere, are admirable. They wore published after his death. I prefer them to those of Massfllon and Bourdaloue. There is quite as much of religious truth in them, with more of nature, force, energy, surprising thoughts, and an overpowering eloquence, negligent of exact form, and quite bearing away the mind of the reader. The finest trait in his conduct at court was his writing to bis royal master when at the camp in Flanders, to remonstrate with him, in the most respectful but firm manner, on the scandal of his connexion with Madame de Montespan — and then his going out to meet the king when he was returning from the campaign, and alighting from his carriage, and placing himself in the midst of the road, by which his majesty was about to pass, in order to entreat and urge him to a change of conduct, and a conversion to God. This was noble, and as became a Christian bishop especiaUy towards an imperious tyrant like Louis XIV. But I must not enlarge. The city of Dijon is one of the finest in France : the streets are wide and open, and the buildings handsome. It stands on the river Ouche. I met a young Cathohc student at a bookseUer's. He seemed tolerably weU informed. The university here is amongst the most celebrated in France. We left Dijon at half-past nine, and came to this village (Maison Neuve,) where, finding no horses, we have taken up our abode for the night. We have had beauti ful weather, and good roads ; but the horses and postillions are so mdifferent, that we have been eight hours going forty-three miles. We have met a great many wagons to-day of rather a curious construction. They are small carriages, on four wheels, without bodies ; the merchandize being packed with straw, on two trunks of trees, which form the bottom of the wagon. The whole is covered with a wrapper of white clean cloth, and kept close with cords. One horse draws the carriage. A train of ten or twenty of them foUow each other, and there is one man to about five. Goods are transported in this way aU across France. The horse has an enormous cottar, and a cloth over the harness. We met numbers of these wagons in many parts of Swit zerland. Sometimes the pole of them rises many feet above the horse's head, in the most awkward way imaginable, and then it has two chains join ing it to the harness of the animal. In fact, so far as I can judge, France is, in most respects, much behind our happy country. You see scarcely any fields, barns, and farm-houses, in this part of the C6te d'Or — att is one common. The country through which we have passed to day has been far from fine — but I must prepare for retiring to rest; it is past eight o'clock. The dear boys, I hope, arrived a Paris this afternoon ; we are about one hundred and seventy-five mfles off. We hope to sleep to-morrow night at Joigny, Friday at Fon tainebleau, and Saturday at Paris. Joigny, Thursday evening, half-past six; — Through God's goodness we have arrived safely in this town, after a journey of seventy-seven English miles. The chief things wliich have pleased us to-day are Avallon and Auxerre. Aval- Ion is a romantic town on the river Cousin ; the celebrated Theodore Beza is said to have been bora in the neighborhood. We stopped to take some refreshment, and in the salle-a-manger found a priest who was eating a solitary meaL He seemed depressed and abject, his attire was mean, and his whole appearance opposite to the general ah of the priests whom we saw at Domo D'Osola and Milan. France and Italy are clearly two different places as it respects ecclesiastical domi nation. Auxerre is one of the most beautifully situated cities which I have seen since I left England. It is the chief town of the department of the Yonne, and stands on the river of that name ; it has twelve thousand souls. A gentle hill gives the place a lovely appearance from a distance. As you ap proach, the view is remarkably fine. The fore ground is covered vrith vineyards ; then the river presents itself; above is the town, on the rising ground, crowned with fertile hills and meadows. The sides are bounded by trees and pastures on the one hand, and the fine bridge leading to the town on the other. Whilst we were changing horses, I ran up with my Uttle Eliza to see the cathedral, which is a noble, lofty structure. We have been passing to-day through some ofthe finest vineyards of this part of France. The vintage is not yet begun. The vin ordinaire, included in the dinners, is now excellent. Friday evening, October 10, half-past six, Fon tainebleau, department of Seine and Marne, forty miles from Paris. — Again a day of goodness abd mercy from our Heavenly Father. My dear Ann and Eliza are now sitting by me happy and com fortable, after tiie hasty dinner of which we have just partaken. They are not over-fatigued. I seem now to be at home ; we are so near to Paris. We have come sixty-one miles to-day from Joig ny ; and our road and horses have been so good, that we were somewhat less than nine hours upon the route. This morning I rose soon after five, and was out by six visiting the town of Joigny. I was not aware of it ; but really we have advanced so far into the autumn, that I could hardly see my way about. The evenings seem yet more drawn in. At half-past six yesterday, when we arrived at Joigny; it was rather later and darker than we could have wished. Joigny is a small town, in Champagne, of five thousand 6ouls, beautifully situated on the Yonne. It has a long handsome quay along the river. The culture of the vine is the principal object of trade. The chief part of the town is, Uke Auxerre, on the ascent of a steep hfll; on the summit of which stands a ruined cha teau, buflt by Pere de Gondi, father of the too ce lebrated Cardinal de Rentz. I walked through the dilapidated rooms, half-enlightened by the ob scure dawn, with a feeling of melancholy on con sidering the vanity of human grandeur. How many instances have we seen of the monuments of proud ambition and magnificent vice att laid in ruin ! Moral triumphs and the praises of real and exalted virtue are, after all, the only ones that are enduring, even in this world. The ambitious con queror, the demagogue, the leader of factions, the heresiarch, sink into neglect with the glare of prosperity — their palaces fade with their fame. The flower of the field drops not so quickly. But TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 107 the true benefactors of mankind live in the me mories of men ; their praise takes root, and spreads around and flourishes in perpetual bloom ; and if truly Christian principles have guided their con duct, the love of their fellow-creatures is crowned by the favor and approbation of God. But the most striking lesson I have received on this subject is in the superb chateau of Fontaine bleau, where we now are. As soon as we ar rived here (at four this afternoon,) I went to visit this celebrated palace. AU Europe is familiar with it by name ; it is an immense mass of build ings, containing five squares or courts ; almost like a town. It is mentioned in history as a royal palace ever since the thirteenth century ; but it is indebted for its chief extension and improvement to Francis I. It was a favorite residence of Francis I. Henry IV. Louis XIV. and Bonaparte, just the four persons most celebrated in French history. There is a spot where Henry IV. is said to have held his secret councils. The Pope, who is just dead, was imprisoned here by Bonaparte for a year and a half. The conscientious resist ance which he made to the demands of the usur per, cast a. splendor around his character. We walked through the suite of apartments, and saw his hbrary, chapel, saloon, &c. The altar of the room which he used as bis chapel is now set aside and marked by an inscription. The count d'Arr tois (now king) makes use of the same rooms, and had left them only the day before yesterday : he comes to hunt in the forest, of thirty-four thou sand acres (twelve leagues,) surrounding the chateau. But I hasten to mention, what was the most affecting chcumstance, that I saw the very table on which Bonaparte signed his abdication, April, 1814, in the very room where he sat, and adjoin ing the very bed-room in which he slept. Fon tainebleau was his favorite palace. Now aU his pictures are removed, and every trace of him effaced — what a lesson! I was struck with a large model of the city of Madrid placed in the ball-room, which Bonaparte ordered to be begun in 1802, and which took the architect six years to finish. The very source of his overthrow seems to have been a darttng object, years before his first invasion of Spain in 1808 ! History will soon sit in judgment on this extra ordinary man. His skepticism as to all rehgious truth, his unbounded ambition, the fury of his pas sions, his waste of human hfe and happiness in the prosecution of his projects, the injustice and treachery of his invasions, the hon yoke which he imposed on the subject nations, his unmitigated hatred of England, his many individual acts of cruelty and blood, are points now generaUy ad mitted. But it is impossible to travel on the con tinent without being compeUed to witness the proofs of his admirable poUcy, and of his zeal to promote, in many respects, the welfare and intel lectual advancement of the people over whom he reigned. Not to dweU on the liberty of pubhc worship which he nobly granted, from whatever motive, to the Protestants of every confession : there is something so splendid in his national works, there are so many monuments of his legis lative wisdom, so many traits of grandeur in his projects, and such a hardihood and perseverance 56—1 manifest in aU his great enterprises, that you do not wonder that his name is still everywhere re vered. Then the diversity and extent of his knowledge, and the unbounded range of the ob jects of his attention, increase one's surprise. War, commerce, the arts, science, literature, the adorning of cities and towns, the education of youth, religion itself as an instrument of govern ment, every thing seemed to be within his grasp, or to subserve his ruling purposes. He brought, , in fact, royalty and talent into such close contact, that there was some danger of men beginning to estimate the value of a sceptre by the mere abi hty of the hand that wielded it. The unfavorable tendency of this seductive union of splendid vice and successful ambition, on the pubhc morals and the religious habits of Eu rope, is obvious — it debases the best principles of the heart. Of Bonaparte, as an unconscious in strument of Divine Providence for scourging guflty nations, for shaking the papacy to its base, and arousing those dormant energies in the mass of the population of Europe, which may probably issue in the general diffusion of a reasonable U- berty, and of aU the blessings of the glorious Gos pel of Christ, I wfll not trust myself to speak. This view, though correct perhaps, has been too exclusively taken already by rehgious persons. They have allowed their horror of individual crime, and even their sense of personal respon- sibflity to be lessened, by mingUng this question with the supposed purposes of the divine Provi dence — a mistake infinitely pernicious. A hum ble reference, indeed, of every event after it has occurred and the issue is known, to the sovereign . and mysterious government of God, is a clearly I Scriptural duty ; but to applaud or extenuate the guilt of man, and help on a course of criminal ambition, on the ground of its conceived agree ment with the order of prophecy and the secret wfll of God, is a presumptuous and fatal error. But I check myself. The country through which we have passed to-day has been tolerably fine ; but as we are now travelling north, just at the^turn of the year, we feel excessively cold. As we passed through Sens, we looked up with interest to the cathedral where the pious and devotional Bernard, the last of the fathers of the church, refuted, in 1140, the doctrines of Abelard. This celebrated heretic, you may remember, had challenged St. Bernard to the conference. The saint went to it in Chris tian meekness and fear. As soon as the extracts from Abelard's writings had been read before the audience (where the king of France, Louis VII. was present, with his nobles, and the prelates and clergy of the diocese,) Abelard was over whelmed with confusion, at being thus confronted with his own writings, and suddenly left the as sembly. His errors were then unanimously con demned. There is something gratifying in visit- ; ing the spot where seven centuries before, the name and grace of our Lord Jesus were thus tri umphant. Many similar cases are recorded of the daring leaders of heresies being confused and struck dumb, as it were, at the simple exposition of theh own tenets, in the presence of the holy and humble disciples of Christ, armed with the sacred Scriptures only. 108 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. We have now passed through about sixty miles of vineyards. The vines are short, planted in rows, and supported by sticks; not by treilUses and arbors as in Italy. As the vintage is ap proaching, persons are set to guard the grapes. They are chiefly red in this part of the country. The costume of the women is not remarkable : no bonnets are worn on any part of the continent, except by the higher classes. The female pea sants here wear a colored handkerchief wrapped round the head in the form of a turban, often of a red or scarlet color. The men affect a dirty, shabby, finery ; a beggar comes up to you with a military cocked hat ; a stable-boy has a pigtail, and perhaps powdered hair, ear-rings, and gene raUy a dirty night-cap ; the boots of the postiffions are of enormous and lumbering size ; some to day were ribbed with hon, and actuaUy made the feet of the poor rider swing about, instead of his being able to guide them; then an undressed sheep's-skin with all its wool, enveloping the knees, is a further addition to his burden. The agriculture still appears wretched. Al most aU one common land. A horse, a mule, an ass, draw the same plough, which a woman drives, whilst a man guides the ploughshare. On the roads, too, you meet a wagon heavily laden, with four large fine horses like ours in England, and then an ass in front, leader of the train ; and this ass, a mean, half-starved creature. The fact is, the proprietors bring out every animal they pos sess of every species, when they have goods to transport from place to place. The number of beggars is shocking ; theh diseased, distorted ap pearance is often such, that I am obhged to give them something before we can get out of the car riage. The dirt, untidiness, misery, in the private habits of the innkeepers and ordinary inhabitants of the continent, German, Swiss, Itahan, French, are not to be described on paper : one cannot ac count for it : if you go into theh rooms, theh kitchens, theh pantries, you are quite disgusted with the ill savor. The interior of the abodes of the nobility and gentry is often neat and elegant, and I have been in private houses quite as com fortable as any in England ; and generaUy, per haps, things are graduaUy more and more ar ranged on the plan of English cleanliness and simpUcity. But I speak of the inns and houses we meet with in travelling. To many of these inconveniences, however, one soon becomes accustomed ; others are avoided ir. the better lodgings and inns ; the rest you sub mit to from dire necessity. The freedom of the manners of the people, and theh notions of equa- Uty with you, at first seem repulsive, but after wards appear so clearly to spring from mere sim plicity, that you forgive it. I am happy to say, lhat I have found the Cathohc peasants willing enough to receive our rehgious tracts ; and that when I talk with them, they admit what I say on the foundations of Christianity.* You may judge * As we were changing horses at a village on our way to Boulogne, Oct. 29, the carriage was, in three minutes, literally surrounded with villagers, who had heard we had tracts. At least thirty or forty of the separate homilies in French, of the Prayer-Book and Homily Society, are now diligently read, as I trust, by these poor people. Some of them asked from this ^terminable letter at so late an hour, that I am not over-fatigued with my journey. Adieu. Paris, Hotel de Bristol, Place Vendome, half- past two, Saturday, Oct. 11, about 2772 miles from London by our route.* — Through God's goodness we are safe at Paris. We arrived here at half- past one o'clock. We left Fontainebleau a httle before eight, and performed the journey of forty miles in less than six hours. The day has been rather wet ; but as we approached Paris it cleared up, and we had a fine view of that noble city as we drove through it. We are at the Place Ven- d6me, a channing situation, close to the gardens of the Thuflleries. We found our dear boys, and my brother who is here, quite weU. My son will bring this letter with him, which will most pro bably close this series of journal-like epistles, which I had no idea would ever have extended to such a length. If they have gratified my dear and excellent aged mother and yourself, in any degree proportioned to the interest I have gra dually felt in writing them, I shaU most truly re joice. Whatever can lessen the pain of separa tion to a parent so dear to me, affords me a double pleasure. May it please God, to permit ce to rejoin you in England in peace, and to retain the recoUection of fhe many important lessons I have learned during my tour, together with that sense of gratitude which the uninterrupted blessings I have received during the course of it, should so deeply impress upon my heart. I am your affectionate D. W. LETTER XVIII. Brightrm, April 14, 1824. Paris Bible Society — Deaf and Dumb Institution- French Preachers — King's Almoner— Nobleman — Translation of Scott— Friends to whom Author was introduced — Baron de Sacy — Count D'Hau- terive — Marquis de Jaucourt — Reflections on the whole Tour: lst, Supreme Providence of God— 2d, Opposite Evils of Superstition and Infidelity— 3d, Scenes of Reformers' laborers— Luther — Beza — Bucer — Ecolampadins — Bullinger — Authenti city of 1 John v. 7, 8.— 4th, Duty of ad vancing the Age of Charity — 5th, Importance of every travel ler being active — Advice to Invalids — Anecdotes — 6th, Gratitude to God — Revocation ofthe Edict of Nantes — Origin of Vaudois — Expulsion from Valleys— Return — Need of Aid — 7th, Prayer for Grace of Holy Spirit. Brighton, Sussex, April 14, 1824. My dearest sister — I at length begin the letter which you were so anxious I should have Mrs. W. if the tracts were good for Catholics : she replied, they were particularly suited for them. The scene was really quite affecting. I forget the name of the village. It was not far from Paris. The swiftness -with which the news of our having tracts spread from the persons lo whom we first gave them, was surprising. * The direct route from London to Paris is about 300 miles. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 109 written to you from Paris. I was so hurried dur ing my stay in that city, that it was impossible for me to do it ; and, indeed, I may perhaps attempt it with greater advantage now, because the inter val of a few months wffi enable me to add some general reflections upon my tour on the continent, and to supply an incident or two of which I omit ted to inform you at the proper moment. Of Paris itself I need not say much ; every one knows something of the splendor of its pubUc buildings, and of its various attractions, in point of art and taste, to traveUers of every description. I was naturaUy most interested by its moral and religious state. But I have no intention of enter ing at large even on this topic. A stranger has out slight opportunities of forming a cprrect judg ment ; and Paris is too important a place, and too near England, for me to venture a hasty opinion. I know, however, that you will expect me to notice a few particulars. In the first place, then, I was gratified, and even affected, at attending the committees of the Paris Protestant Bible So ciety. I could not but reflect on the efforts made in the very same spot by the enemies, or rather conspirators against Christianity, under Voltahe and D'Alembert, during the preceding century. These, aided by the extraordinary profusion and .folly of the French court, by the derangement of ,the national finances, and the corruption of gene ral morals, paved the way for the horrors of the revolution and the mUitary sway of Bonaparte. The zeal and superstition of the degenerate ec clesiastics, so far from preventing, joined in has tening the overthrow. Surely, then, the peaceful and holy distribution of The Book, in the city where it had been so long despised, is a real tri umph of Christianity, and the best omen of future blessings. About 50,000 copies of the Scriptures have been issued by means of the Paris Bible So ciety in the last four years — about two or three hundred auxttiary institutions and associations have been estabUshed in different parts of France — and a general revival of religion seems to be begin ning. The vivacity of the French character, if once dhected and sanctified by a principle of pure rehgion, is capable of the greatest and most bene- fipial efforts. It is lamentable to think that the Catholics frown on this society, and that the go vernment is contracting its privileges, and even refusing it the liberty of holding its annual assem- bUes, wherever it dares. The present French mi nistry seem to desire nothing more than to be able to suppress this and aU simUar undertakings. Such, however, is the spirit Of Popery almost everywhere. I must next give you some account of the cele brated institution for the relief and instruction of the deaf and dumb, which is really one of the most interesting things in Paris. I took all the pains I was able, to be present at a lesson at the late Abbe Sicard's schools : but I was unsuccessful. I can, however, fully make up to you for this dis appointment, by the kind communication of an ex cellent friend who visited it only the year before, and from whose notes, taken at the time, I select the following. There are about eighty children. They are taught gradually to associate with the objects of sight, certain signs by drawing and writing. The quickness and acuteness of the chil dren are so surprising, that theh ideas on most subjects soon become accurate and clear. The following is the prayer used before lesson : " O come, most Holy Spirit, and cause a ray of thy hght to shine upon us ! Come, Father of the poor ! Come, source of grace ! Come, light of the soul ! O God, who has taught the hearts of thy faithful people by thelight of thy Holy Sphit, grant us that Holy Sphit, which may dispose us to choose and love what is right, and may shed abroad in us its consolation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." The prayer after lesson is equally beautiful. " O Lord, we entreat Thee to inspire aU our ac tions by thy Holy Sphit, and to conduct them by the continual assistance of thy grace : so that all our prayers and all our works may proceed from Thee as theh author, and refer to Thee as theh only end, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." Surely such prayers are the genuine dictates of pure Christianity, and testify the deep piety of many of our Catholic brethren. My heart rejoices to recognize such sentiments, and honors those who entertain them. The children rise slowly and gradually from the simplest to the most abstract and complex ideas, as their age and abilities permit ; and are divided into several classes accordingly. At the lesson at which my friend was present, a gentleman wished to ask one of the upper classes, What love was ! The master told him first to make the sign for in terrogation, by holding up the fore-finger, and then to press his hand strongly upon his heart. This was understood, and several boys wrote the word love. On being told to define it, one wrote, (for they neither speak nor hear, as you will take care to bear in mind,) " Love is a sentiment of the mind, by which we incline to what appears to us good, useful, beautiful; it is the approbation of some object that pleases us." Another wrote, " There. are many sorts of love ; first, the love of God, which is the highest of all ; then the love of men, the love of friends." They next were asked, What was the difference between expectation, hope, desire, and enjoyment ! A lad about fifteen wrote, " Expectation is like the branches of the apple-tree ; desire is hire the leaves ; hope is like the blossom ; and enjoyment is like the fruit." After this they were asked, What is time..! One replied, "A succession of moments, a point of eternity, a measure of eternity." What is eter nity ! "A day without morning or evening, a mysterious duration wliich finite beings can neither define nor comprehend." The foUowing question was then proposed, Is speech the gift of God or the invention of men ! " Speech that is the language of men, is the gift of God ; but that of the deaf and dumb is only a human invention." On the dhect subject of religion, they were asked, Whose existence comprehends aU time! Massieu, an elderly man, who has been twenty years in tbe institution, and is lately gone to con duct a school at Bordeaux,* wrote in answer, * This extraordinary man, when he was asked at another lesson, Whether God reasons! wrote in re ply, " Reasoning is a process in order to find out 110 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. " God ; God is the creator of the earth and of heaven, and of aU that they contain. He is the Lord of aU things, the Author of nature, the Go vernor of the universe." Who is Christ! " It is He who is the new Adam ; He was made man by a miracle, for our salvation ; He is the bruiser of the serpent's head, the repaher of the human race, and He knows even our most secret thoughts." What is faith ! " Faith is a super natural light, leading the soul to beheve what it may not FuUy comprehend." What is conscience ! " It is the voice of truth." Have att men power to do theh duty ! " Yes, with grace and good habits." Is man more inchned fo good than evfl!" " Man needs the grace of God to keep him from evil ; by evfl passions men deprive themselves of the grace of God ; passions are above human power." From whence comes grace 1 " In my opinion, it flows from the infinite and unmeasura- ble goodness of a merciful God." May aU men have grace ! " Yes, by means of frequent prayer." Was the revelation necessary to man ! " Yes, I beUeve it was, and it contains aU that is necessary to salvation." There is to me something inexpressibly dehght ful in these scriptural, enlightened, and judicious rephes, made not only by CathoUcs, but by Ca- thoUc children who are deaf and dumb. The present .master is M. Paulmier, who takes a parental interest in the children. He had been chief assistant to the Abbe Sicard for nineteen years. The boys are taught some art, trade, or learned profession, as theh genios or choice seem : to direct. There is a class who copy busts, draw heads, &c. ; and another where boxes and mea suring-rules, &c. are made. They aU appeared as happy as they were intettigent. ReaUy humanity and religion triumph at such a benevolent institu tion. One may exclaim, in a quahfied sense, con sidering God as the first author of every such bles sing, " He hath done att things well ; he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak." And this pleasure is heightened by the pure prin ciples of morals and rehgion which seem to form the basis of theh education. No Protestant could haye given much more simple elementary instruc tion in the Christian faith, than these children have received. It is most painful to add, that the bishop of Hermopolis, since he has been placed at the head of education in France, is said to discourage even this incomparable school, and that M. Paul mier is removed, or about to be removed, from his situation. Thus the best institutions connected with the Roman CathoUc church, are not fostered and encouraged by the leading authorities, as the seeds of future improvement, but opposed and re jected, as disturbing the repose, and contrary to the interests and tendencies of the dominant religion. You wfll, perhaps, next wish me to say some thing about the French preachers, I was grieved to find, that there were only three public services* truth ; but God knows all truth ; therefore, I should think, God does not reason." The same person de fined gratitude to be the memory of the heart; hope, the fire of love; and difficulty, possibility with ob stacle. * May I not add, that, considering the numerous English who are resident in Paris, it would be be- on the Sunday at Paris, for a population of nearly 30,000 Protestants of the two confessions ; and these services so arranged as not to allow the same persons to attend conveniently at more than one. But this is not all : in the sermons which I heard, I wanted more of the sound, orthodox, Scriptural divinity of the old French Protestant school, who reared its early churches, and nou rished the first Hugonots in the faith ofthe Gospel, and became an example and guide to reformed Europe. I wanted more of the close reasoning1 and manly appeals of Claude, the author, as you may know, of the Treatise on the Composition of a Sermon, and of the Defence of the Reformation, and the worthy antagonist of Bossuet at the cele brated conference in 1682. I wanted more of the force and vigorous address of Duboso, in his able and most evangelical work on the epistle to the Ephesians — of whom Louis XIV. said, that he was the first speaker in France. I wanted more of the piety and unction of Drelincotjrt, whose book against the fear of death is current in Eng land, and is indeed in almost every one's hands. I was moreover much distressed to observe, that in the use of the liturgical prayers (which are at best, as I have already told you, extremely brief) the most evangehcal parts were actuaUy left out by some of the ministers. For instance, in the confession of sin, which at Bern and Lau sanne was read entire, the deeper expressions of original corruption and guilt were several times omitted at Paris. So also in the longer prayer after sermon, the best parts were not read. — Thank God for the fixed Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies of the church of England. The Luthe ran church at Paris I was not able to attend ; my observations regard the Reformed only. I must say, however, in fairness, that the dis courses at the Protestant churches were incom parably superior to a most florid and unsatisfactory charity sermon which I heard on a week-day from the king's almoner, at the chapel of a benevolent asylum for aged and destitute persons of family. I never shaU forget the scene that day : nearly att the French court was present. The Duch esses of Angouieme and Berry, the Pope's Legate, the Archbishop of Paris, the pubhc ministers of state, among whom I noticed M. Chateaubriand ; ladies of quality without end ; two of whom, splendidly attired, received the coUection, as we went out, in velvet bags. I was most courteously received at tlie chapel by a French nobleman, who entered into a pretty long conversation with me on the state of England and France. I was of course very inadequate to give him a just ac count of many things wliich he inquired about, in a pohtical point of view. He seemed to have a high admiration of the sentiments and conduct of our beloved monarch since his accession to the throne. He classed together the French Libe- raux and the English Radicals. But to come to coming the wealth and piety of our nation to build an Englishchurch there 1 There are several French churches in London. Since the above note was wrttten, I am informed that an English service has been instituted in the Salon of S clergyman resident at Paris, the Rev. Lewis Way, with a liberality and dignity which mark all the proceedings of that excellent person. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. Ill the sermon — such a vain tirade of compUment and extravagant attempt at eloquence, I never heard — without one genuine emotion, one affecting sen timent, one address to the heart — a fine voice and pure enunciation were every thing — the only idea I wiU quote from the discourse is, " Charity makes those who exercise it as gods .'" O, where are the Bossuets, the Bourdaloues, the Massfllons, or even the De la Rues, and Terrassons of the French church! I understand that M. Frayssi- nous, the present Bishop of Hermopolis, gave, some years back, most interesting lectures to the young on the Evidences of Christianity. Now even this kind of instruction is wanting. I could hear of no one energetic and able Cathohc preach er, who took the ground of our common Chris tianity, and commended the Gospel to the con science and good sense of mankind. Infidelity or superstition reign supreme. True reUgion is met with indifference or ridicule. But I turn to another topic. I must not omit to teU you, that I spent a large part of my time at Paris in arranging the translation of Scott's Comment on the Scriptures. I found a competent and pious minister, to whom I promised aid for preparing an accurate text of the Gospel itself, verifying the references, revising the translation for the last time, correcting the proofs, and carry ing St. Matthew through the press. I formed also a committee for settling terms with the printer, drawing up a prospectus, and inspecting the due circulation of the work. I found that I should be obliged to advance all the expenses for printing St. Matthew ; and it was agreed upon, to send round this Gospel pretty freely to the chief Protestant ministers of the continent, gratis, with the terms of subscription for the continuance of the work ; and to be guided by the success of such subscriptions, as to the further translation of the Comment or not. Since my return home, the revision and preparation for the press have been unremittingly carried on, and the conditions with the printer and paper-maker nearly settled. Some months must, however, elapse before the Gospel can be pubhshed. A hterary undertaking of such importance is continually impeded by un expected difficulties. It is not like the translation of a temporary pamphlet — every thing demands the utmost care — not only is a thorough know ledge requhed of the language from which, and of that into which, the translation is to be made : but an acquaintance with theology in all its branches, an aptitude at discovering suitable idioms, a faculty of expressing new and foreign ideas, a readiness to imitate the style and manner of the original writer, and the talent of giving an interest and life to the whole style of the transla tion.* The translation of Milner's History is, I * It is now nearly three years since the above was written, and the gospel of St. Matthew is not yet published. The fact is, that after the first imperfect sketch of a translation had been revised and com pleted, M. F. Monod fils, who had undertaken to superintend the work at Paris, was seized with ill ness, and a twelvemonth elapsed before he was able to resume his exertions. In May 1826 however the first sheet was printed off, and the Gospel has been regularly proceeding ever since. The work how ever is still slow in its progress, because the correc- hope, going on at Brussels.— I forwarded a copy of the original work immediately upon my return home. I consider this undertaking only second in importance to that of Scott. I cannot quit the subject of Paris without men tioning the pleasure which I derived from becom ing acquainted, however sUghtly, with some per sons who are its distinguished ornaments. I place first amongst these the Baron de Sacy, almost the last of the distinguished Jansenist body, and per haps the most accompUshed oriental scholar in Europe ; and the Count de Hauterive of the Fo reign Department, whose knowledge of political economy is so highly, and I beUeve justly esteem ed ; he was an eleve of the Due de Choiseul, and knew, as he easily might, the history of our own country better than myself ; for the minute parti culars of history soon fade from the memory. — He, as well as M. de Sacy, are warm friends of the Bible Society. M. de Hauterive conversed with me much on subjects connected with reh gion. I was struck with the warmth with which he conndemned our conduct towards the Irish CathoUcs, and at the admiration he expressed of the religious sphit of the'English nation. He professed a high respect for our National Protest ant church, on account of our tolerant principles and our regard to ecclesiastical order. Amongst a variety of other questions, he asked me why so eager a dispute should have arisen between the CathoUcs and Protestants about the Eucharist : for, added he, do you not beUeve that our Saviour is really, though invisibly, present in it! I re phed, Yes. And do you not hold, he continued, that it is by faith this is discerned, and the benefits of it received ! Certainly, was my answer. And we believe, he rejoined quickly, nothing more than this. Upon this I told him, that if the Catholic Doctors had been half as moderate upon this sub ject, and had only abstained from the adoration of the host, and other usages which Protestants deem superstitious and idolatrous, the separation on this topic would not have been so wide between the two churches as it is.* I may mention, also, that I made the acquaint ance of the amiable Cathohc Bishop Gregoire, a truly liberal and respectable prelate, both as it regards his sentiments and conduct. He seems to spend his life in attempting to lessen the differ ences and heal the dissensions between CathoUcs and Protestants, and in promoting the interests of rehgion and humanity. He is a warm advocate tion ofthe translation is found to be extremely labo rious — each sheet costing twelve or sometimes eigh teen hours of close application. Half the Gospel, or about fifteen sheets (120 pages) are now finished. * I just insert here the article ofthe Creed of Pope Pius IV. on this point, to show the actual errors of tbe Roman Catholic church, so different from the charitable construction of individual laymen, how ever distinguished or well-informed. " I profess, that in the most holy sacrifice of the Eucharist, there is really and substantially the body and blood, to gether with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance ofthe bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood; which conversion the Catholic church calls transub- stantiation." 112 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. for the aboUtion ofthe slave-trade. I cannot omit the name also of the Marquis de Jaucourt, a Pro testant nobleman, and a direct descendant from the celebrated PhiUp de Momay, the great Pro testant friend and counseUor of Henry the Fourth, and the man who openly protested against that monarch's abjuration of the Reformed reUgion, and who during a long life invariably maintained and defended the evangehcal doctrine, in the faith of which he died with holy triumph. He ranks, perhaps, next to Cohgny and Sully. The Mar quis do Jaucourt, with a pecuttar propriety, is president of the Paris Bible Society. The Baron de Stael I was so unfortunate as not to find in Paris. I had the pleasure however of meeting him in London upon my return home. I do not enumerate other distinguished persons — my old friends Kieffer. Stapffer, Sic. Nor should I have jtnentioned so many as I have, except with the design of recording my affectionate gratitude to some ofthe many leading personages who honored me with their esteem. The names I have given you include some of the best men in France, and those on whom the hope of great future good rests. I have found far more to say concerning Paris than I expected ; but I must quit the subject, that I may proceed to supply a few incidents, and make some general reflections as it respects the whole of my long journey. 1. Perhaps the strongest impression wliich has been left upon my mind, is of the unfathomable wisdom of God in his providential government of the affairs of men. I could not but observe continually his exuberant goodness, on the one hand, in the frame and order of the creation ; and his inscrutable judgments, on the other, in the in fliction of great and overwhelming calamities. These truths strike one less forcibly at home ; but they revive in theh full energy in foreign lands, where aU is new, and curiosity never slumbers. In passing through different regions, and observing theh widely, varying habits, usages, laws, consti tutions, governments, and rehgious advantages — in retracing the chief changes and revolutions which in different ages have marked the history of each country — in contemplating the consequences of remote and, at first, trifling causes — in catting to mind the wonderful deliverances afforded in times of danger, and the present pohtical, moral, and re ligious state, in which so many events have ended — the mind is led to adore that mysterious Provi dence, which, unseen, guides and directs att the events of this lower world, and overrules even the passions of men to accomplish its own purposes. As we travel from place to place, history is localiz ed, as it were, to the mind. Our contracted views become insensibly enlarged, and we acquire a firm er faith in the unfailling goodness of God towards those who fear him. And surely, these feelings are aided by the con templation of the sublime and grand features of the Divine Majesty which we trace in His works of creation — the profuse bounty scattered at every footstep — the lovehness, the variety, the simpUcity, and the magnificence, which continu ally burst upon us. I can truly say, the chief natu ral wonders in our tour along the Rhine and through Switzerland have scarcely ever been ab sent from my fnind since I first witnessed them. Nor are the traces of God's wrath less awaken ing. I think I never was more affected than in hearing the tragic story of Goldau and the Dranse — in riding over the remains of whole villages, and reflecting that under the very feet of my mule lay the bodies of my fellow-creatures, brushed by an instantaneous ruin. And here I am reminded of a still more awful destruction which occurred near the Grisons about two centuries ago, and which I ought to have mentioned in a former letter. The town of Piuri or Pleurs, two or three mfles from Chavennes, was totaUy overwhelmed in 1618. On the 4th Sep tember of that year an inhabitant came in haste and urged the people to escape without delay, for he had seen the adjoining Alp actually cleaving asunder. His warning, for some reason which does not appear, was neglected. The same even ing, an immense fragment of the mountain feU in a moment, and buried the whole town, so that not a soul escaped except three persons who were ab sent, and the individual who had given the alarm ; even the daughter of this last person, returning for an instant to lock up the door of a cabinet, was buried with the rest. Two thousand four hundred and thirty persons perished, and the channel of the river was so filled, that the first tidings which the inhabitants of Chavennes received of the calamity, was by the fatting of their river. I mention this case the rather, because the town was given up to voluptuousness and vice — filled with mansions and palaces, — the favorite summer resort of the most wealthy persons in Italy. The Protestant minister there had often warned the people of the terrible consequences of their sins, and ofthe judg ment of God, which he beUeved would suddenly break out upon them. Similar, though less extensive, calamities are perpetually occurring in Switzerland, and add ex ceedingly to the impression which a stranger re ceives from a journey through that wonderful country. He will be cautious indeed of presum ing to interpret the Divine judgments in particular instances : but he will not fail to derive from them the solemn and general instruction inculcated by our Saviour ; " Think ye that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siioam fell and slew them, were sinners above aU men that dwelt at Jerusa lem! I tell you, Nay : but except ye repent, ye shall aU likewise perish." — Luke xiii. 4, 5. 2. I pass on to make a second reflection on the lamentable, though opposite, evils of super stition and indifference, which met us every where on our tour. It quite astonished mo, in passing through the Netherlands, to witness, for the first time, the multiplied and unscriptural pomp and idola try of the church of Rome. The surprise was lessen ed, but not the grief and shame, as I prosecuted my tour. One would think it incredible, that men pro fessing to beUeve in the New Testament should venture to impose such burdens, or that the people should submit to them. The various and open in vasions which Popery has made in all ages on the liberties and peace of mankind, are recorded in every history. One of its most fearful attempts for instance, to stop aU reformation, and bind people in the gatting chains of superstition, occurred in Switzerland at tlie time when Zuingle and the other Reformers were TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 113 awakening and persuading the minds of the free and generous inhabitants of the different cantons. Those which remained Popish, passed laws that it should be capital to any to change their rehgion ; and that, on a set day in every year, they should all go to mass, and the masters of families swear to continue true to the state, and firm in their re ligion to theh lives' end. Afterwards they punish ed those who feU into what they caUed heresy, with death and confiscation of goods, on the pre tence of- its being a violation of the faith thus so lemnly sworn to theh country. It is very observable, that where Popery is now reviving in its influence, after the French revolu- nary struggles or the iron laws of Bonaparte, it re turns with all its folly about it. It is not learning a lesson of wisdom, and silently following its Bor- romeos, and Pascals, and Fenelons, and dropping some of its grosser corruptions ; but it re-assumes all its arts, its impositions, its ceremonies, its in cense, its processions, its pilgrimages, its image worship, its exclusive claims, its domination over the conscience, its traditions, its opposition to the Bible, its hatred of scriptura] education, its resist ance to all the first principles and blessings of ge nuine hberty — in short, its united tyranny, super stition, and idolatry — and this in the full face of day and in the nineteenth century and with infi delity ¦watching- for objections to Christianity ge nerally.* And what is the general moral effect of this sys tem ! It neither sanctifies nor saves. The poison of vice, glossed over with outward forms of de cency, eats as doth a canker. The whole atten tion of man is directed to superstitious ceremonies as a substitute for sphitual obedience. MoraUty is compromised and exchanged for an adherence to ecclesiastical rites. Voluptuousness, impurity, dishonesty, cunning, hypocrisy, every vice, pre vails and is connived at, just as Popery has the more complete sway. The dreadful profanation of the Sabbath by prescription becomes fixed. AU the holy ends of it are forgotten, unknown, obli terated. It is the' habitual season of unrestrained pleasure. I speak of effects generaUy ; for there are multidudes of individual Catholics, who serve God in sincerity and truth ; and who, disregarding the accumulations heaped on the foundation of the faith, build on Jesus Christ and him crucified, There is, indeed, one class of persons in Catho lic countries, which I compassionate from my heart. * The Pope has lately issued two Bulls, one to denounce and proscribe the Bible — the other to ap point the present year to be observed as a Jubilee, and promising remission of sins to such as should, in the course of it, make a pilgrimage to Rome ! "These two documents should be circulated throughout the whole Christian world. From begin ning to end, they demonstrate that Popery is, at this moment, as utterly opposed as it ever was to all freedom of conscience and intelligent use of the Scriptures ; and that all hope of its having been, as a system, improved or meliorated, by the course of events and the advancement of knowledge, is at an end. It Is fit that scriptural Christians all over the world should settle it in their minds, that Popery, as a system, never has departed, and seems never likely to depart, from that which is itspredictedcharacteristic — blasphemous usurpation of the place op God ! " Miss. Reg. Jan. 1825. They are not sunk in superstition, and yet they have not imbibed the piety of true disciples of Christ ; but having been educated during the re volution, have acquired a general boldness and li- berahty of sentiment ; see through much of the mummery of Popery ; detect the spirit and aims of a wqrldly-minded priesthood ; are disgusted at the revival of the Jesuits, the opposition to the Bible Society, the resistance to education, the dis turbance and removal of the most pious and wor thy masters and professors, and the persecution of the Protestants. And yet they are not in earnest enough about rehgion to take a decided part; the objections of infidels dweU upon their minds — they shrink from ridicule — the fear of reproach prevents their quitting the Roman communion — there is no thing in the Protestantism they are acquainted with, to show them a "more excellent way." liie value ofthe soul and the paramount duty of seeking theh own salvation, are considerations which do not enough rouse their minds. Thus they ghde down the fatal stream with others, dissatisfied and yet unconverted. These are persons to be won by the friendly conversation of true Christians, to be invited to read suitable books on the evidences and nature of true Christianity, and to be encour aged to seek, and to foUow and obey the truth. But I turn to the Protestantism which we have met with in our tour ; and alas, I see deism, infidel ity, indifference, a secret contempt of rehgion, too widely diffused in many quarters. I observe a cold celebration of a few great festivals : but the Sabbath desecrated — holiness of life too Uttle ex- emphfied — the principles of grace, from which only it can spring, forgotten— the Reformation, with its glorious truths, corrupted and obscured. 1 see a vain human philosophy — skepticism — poli tical views — the interests of a corrupt literature — levity and inconstancy as to the faith of the Gospel, too prevalent. I see persecution itself, the most odious part of Popery, transplanted to some Pro testant bodies, and an open defection from the Gospel avowed in the city which was once the praise of the churches* Still, after all, we must thank God that things are in many places greatly improving both among Catholics and Protestants — that the opened Bible, the sphit of free inquiry after truth, the power of * The tendency of dominant churches to impose on the consciences of others has appeared even amongst the most pious and orthodox. About 150 years since, this very church of Geneva united with those of Bern and Zurich, in condemning all persons who held the universal extent of our Lord's death ; with whom they strangely joined, thoseHvho impugn ed the power and authority of the Hebrew vowel points ! I need not say, that the paramount autho rity of these vowel points has long been given up by every scholar ; and that the doctrine of Christ having given " himself a ransom for all," is now generally admitted as an undoubted verity of the New Testament. Such is the folly of excess in re ligious legislation, to say nothing ofthe danger of re vulsion— of opening the door to such reglemens as that of 1817. It was observed by a member of the House of Commons last session, from Lord Claren don, that " he had observed in his progress through life, that of al] classes' of men, the clergy took the worst measure of human affairs." An acute and poignant remark. 114 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. conscience, the intercourse of different Protestant states, the operations of various religious societies, the judgments of God which have been abroad in the earth, and, above all, the divine mercy visit ing and subduing the hearts of men, are producing a wonderful change. In some quarters the purity of the Gospel has flourished without interruption or decay. But taking a view of the present state of the continent generaUy, in its two great famiUes of Catholics and Protestants, the Christian travel ler cannot but be affected, even to depression, with the prevailing degeneracy. 3. vBut let me turn to a more pleasing topic, and one that may cheer us with the prospect of the revival of religion. For who raised up the Reformers in the sixteenth century ! Were they not men of " Uke passions with ourselves !" Cannot a similar race of men be again formed by the mercy of God now! Nay, are there not reasonable hopes that such wfll be the case ! For a visit to the continent leads the traveUer over those scenes where the Reformers began theh blessed labors. And this is the third observation which I wish to offer. Nothing afforded me, I think, such unmixed pleasure, as entering the very towns, visiting the houses, and reading the letters of those great and able men. I did not. penetrate far enough into Germany to see Eisenach, Wit temberg, or Worms, where the magnanimous Lu ther met his papal antagonists ; but I was at Ge neva, where Beza, after the death of Luther and Calvin, so admirably led the Reformation. It was Beza who conducted the discussions of Poissy in 1561, where in the presence of the king of France, (Charles IX.) the king of Navarre, (Henry IV.) the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the French court, he almost affected the reception of the reformed doctrines in that vast kingdom. — The Reformed church in France had then reach ed its widest Umits. The Protestants had two thousand one hundred and fifty churches, some of which contained ten thousand members. In fact, nearly half of France was Protestant in the 16th century ; whilst in the present, the 19th, not more than a thirtieth part follows the reformed doc trines. The valuable MS. of the Gospel which bears the name of Beza, (Codex Bezte) was his gift to the University of Cambridge. He died in 1605, aged 86. I was also at Strasburg, where Martin Bucer, for twenty-six years, was a model of evangehcal holiness. Our great Cranmer brought him over with Fagius in 1549, and fixed him in the Uni versity of Cambridge, where he read lectures with infinite applause, on St. John's Gospel. He died in 1551, and was buried with the utmost respect, in the University church, the Vice Chan cellor and the members of att the coUeges attend ing. I saw at Basle, the cathedral, and school, and library, where Ecolampadius, from 1515 to his death in 1531, labored in establishing, with equal acuteness and moderation, the reformed doctrines. He was joined with Erasmus in composing the annotations on the New Testament, which so much aided the infant cause of truth. His name was indicative of his character ; he was indeed Ecolampadius, " the lamp of the house," a burn ing and a shining light in the Temple of the Lord. I visited likewise the abode of Buttinger, who, after the death of Zuingle, was for above forty years at the head of the churches at Zurich.* I walked in the streets, I saw the churches, I en tered the coUege, I was in the very house, I saw the hand-writing of this blessed man, who, in 1538, received with affectionate hospitality some noble Englishmen, and wrote, at their request, to our Henry VIII., in support of the perfection and authority of the Scriptures ; and in 1554, in the reign of the atrocious queen Mary, welcomed Jewel, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, Sandys, afterwards archbishop of York, and others ; gave them lodgings in the Cathedral-Close ; and when Elizabeth ascended the throne, continued a con stant conespondence with them till his death, in 1575. Few measures in our English Reformation were taken without his advice. All this I should have mentioned to you before. I have, indeed, alluded frequently to the names of some of these Reformers. But I ought to have dwelt more on theh piety and talents, theh wis dom and courage, theh zeal and disinterestedness. For my mind is deeply penetrated with the con viction that the best hope of a general revival of reUgion now, is by studying and imitating such bright examples. Men like these, wise, holy, ar dent, devoted to God, raised above a spirit ot party in reUgion, purified from petty passions, se parated from the pohtics of this world, thoroughly grounded in the doctrine of holy Scripture, and working by genuine humility and lowliness, rather than by heat and obstinacy — men, animated above all with the ardent love of " Christ and him cru cified" — such persons would soon be the means of restoring decayed religion in the Popish and Pro testant churches. To produce such men, the silent circulation of the Bible seems the first step. Of all inventions the noble idea of giving through out the world the inspired volume of revelation appears to me the most happy, the most pure, and the most important. It is Uke the works of na ture, as simple as it is majestic and efficacious. It has the impress of God. I do not wonder at the open and violent opposition which the Bible Society has provoked. This might be expected, if I am right in the immense importance which I attach to it. The Pope and the church of Rome know that the Bible is against them. They act * Bishop Burnet mentions that he saw at Zurich a Latin MS. of the New Testament of the ninth century, in which a preface of St. Jerome prefixed to the Catholic epistles, stated that "he had been more exact in that translation, that he might disco ver the fraud of the Arians, who had struck out that passage (viz. 1 John v. 7, 8.) concerning the Trinity." If this be correct, it seems to confirm the arguments in favor of the authenticity of the pas sage. Surely Jerome, who was born in A. D. 331, and lived for nearly a century, must be a competent witness to such a fact. The present bishop of Sa lisbury's tracts on the authenticity of this text, are entitled on all accounts to the attention of the Bib lical student. He informs us that Walafrid Stra- bo, Erasmus, SocinusJ Le Clerc, Sir Isaac Newton, Mill, and Dorhout, consider that the prologue above referred to was Jerome's ; and that if proves the existence, in his time, of the Greek text ofthe se venth verse.— See Bishop Burgess's Vindication. 1823, p. 46, &c. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 115 in character in the Bulls issued against it. The opposition of some Protestants would be much more painful and mysterious, if we did not remem ber the effects of misrepresentation and contro versy, in perverting the judgment of men in spite of their better principles. Let only the friends of the Bible institutions persevere in that meek and peaceable temper which has hitherto so much dis tinguished them. They are invulnerable so long as the sphit of love goes on to preside over theh proceedings and conduct. There is nothing which I do not expect ultimately by their means. Wher ever the Bible meets with characters Uke Lean der Van Ess or the pastor Henhofer, it works its way with hresistible might; or wherever the grace of God makes it the means of first training such characters, it soon leads to like results. Truth, in the very words dictated by the Holy Ghost, enters the mind, and sheds its own glory there. And it is impossible to say in how many hearts that process is actually going on — how many latent Luthers, Malancthons, Calvkis, Zuin- gles, Bucers, Ecolampadiuses, and Buttingers, are now preparing, by a painful study of the Bible, for future usefulness. 4. The example of those Protestant churches which have the widest influence, may also have a great effect, under the blessing of God, to pro duce and help forward such a revival. Let us aid the inquiring. Let us embody and exhibit the Christianity of which they read in their Bibles. Let us endeavor to advance the age of true Christian charity, founded on the doc trines of the grace of Christ. This is my fourth remark. I entreat my countrymen, and especially the ministers of reUgion, to cultivate both at home and in theh visits to the continent, the sphit of forbearance, wisdom, moderation, and love, which marked the Reformers. Our books are read abroad, our sentiments have a considerable influ ence. England is the hope of the world. Let then the law of Christian kindness be apparent in aU we write and teach. We have had in the church the age of superstition — thirteen cen turies have witnessed the fatal effects of this on true religion. We have seen, since the revival of letters, our ages of daring inquiry, human rea soning, controversy ; and we have tasted the bit ter fruits which they have produced. Surely at length it is time for the age of charity, of the love of God and man, to begin — love which re ceives and uses to their proper end, aU the great mysteries of redemption ; which dwell on every doctrine and duty in a holy, practical manner; which assimilates every thing to its own pure and heavenly temper ; which conforms us to the di vine image, and unites us to God himself. The scheme of reducing aU men to one confession is vain and hopeless. On minor questions, the best course is to hold with moderation and firmness our own sentiments, whilst we respect those of others. To meet men in anger, and attempt to subdue them by controversy, is the way to aug ment, instead of lessening, existing evils. Love, then, is the truest wisdom. The few command ing doctrines and duties of Christianity may be best recommended in this spirit. Where these are received and practised, remaining disagree ments will lose half theh mischief, by being de- 56—2 prived of att their asperity. Differences of judg ment are the infirmity of the militant church. If aU men could be brought to one mind, the world would be in a state not to need the new law of charity which our Saviour left us, as the badge of his fottowers, and the healing medicine of theh feverish heats and irritations. I can truly say that if I have erred against the law of peace in any thing I have said in my series of letters I heartily retract it. My intention and my prayer is to unite truth with charity. 5. But I must not dwell on these topics. I just mention a further thought in connexion with them, which frequently occurred to me on my journey — the importance of every Christian travel ler, WHETHER MINISTER OR NOT, CORDIALLY CO OPERATING, IN SOME WAY OR OTHER, IN THIS great work. Let not the beauties of nature withdraw his mind from the duties, unostentatious but important, which he may connect so easily, so agreeably with them. Let not the hurry of his movements, the novelty of his chcumstances, the imperfection of his knowledge of the conti nental tongues, the infirmity of his health,* deter him from attempting a little. Such labor for the good of souls elevates and sanctifies a tour under taken for health or instruction. A conversation with a peasant on the road, a visit to a poor or sick famfly, the gift of a suitable tract or a New Testament, a word dropped at a table-d'hfite, the encouraging of the more candid and pious clergy, the assisting of Bible and Missionary Societies, the consecration of the Sabbath, the daily devo tions of the famfly, are duties neither difficult nor rare. Examples continuaUy occur of the good thus produced. A gentleman of Scotland, who had a good deal forgotten his French, came to Geneva, about se ven years since, and in a few months, by simply dwelling on the authority and manifest truths of the New Testament, was the means of attracting the attention and regard of a whole circle of * I would here offer a remark or two to invalids. I found in my own instance, that whilst I was mov ing gently from place to place, my health, which had been undermined by a long series of over-exertion, was sensibly improved. The fine air, the changes of scene, the freedom from ordinary cares and du ties, the conversation of my family, the curiosity awakened at every turn, my inquiries, wherever I came, into the moral and religious state of the dif ferent towns and countries, my interviews with pious ministers and professors, and especially the mountain tours, all contributed, under God's bles sing, to my recovery. When I arrived at Lyon in September, after a journey of three months and about two thousand rive hundred miles, I was not like the same person as when I quitted England. The over-huny of the few last weeks of my tour was the first thing that injured me, so far as I can judge. I travelled, in consequence of my son's ill ness, too rapidly to Geneva the last time. Again, when I arrived at Paris, I was not enough on my guard. I saw too many friends, and attended too many societies. The hours also were late, compared with what I had been accustomed to. The con sequence was, that when I arrived in England, and returned to my usual clerical duties, I soon found myself indisposed. The extremely wet weather on my first arrival added to my complaints ; and in 116 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. young students, and imbuing theh minds with its evangelical doctrine. An American merchant, settled some time since at Paris, became the centre of really most exten sive good, by kindness, piety, liberality, fearless ness, simplicity of heart ; though he knew French very imperfectly. The multitude of tracts he gave away was incredible. Again, an Enghsh lady at Lausanne was the means of inconceivable benefit, by occupying every moment of a pretty long residence, in aid ing the cause of her God and Saviour, though in no way at all inconsistent with the modesty and humflity of her sex. Another lady was at Montanvert, on the way to the Mer de Glace, a few years since. She wrote in her guide's book the usual attestation to his attention and skill ; and then added, " You nave often said to me, Lean upon me, follow my steps, and fear nothing. This is what I say to you as to our true Guide and Saviour Jesus Christ. Lean upon Him, follow his steps, and fear nothing. He wfll conduct you safely in the road, yet more difficult, of eternal life." This advice gratified the man beyond conception ; and several years after it was written, he showed it with undimi nished pleasure to a visitor, who copied it out, and furnished me with a transcript. Once more, one of my friends at Rome showed a passage in the New Testament to an Itahan gentleman — it was a consolatory chapter under afflictions — he was struck even to admhation, and entreated the loan of the sacred book ; adding, that his own Bible was in thirty or more volumes, so that he could scarcely find the text amidst the overwhelming notes. I only add, that an Englishman of high famfly opened his hotel, during a tour on the continent, for the celebration of divine service on Simdays. He engaged, from time to time, some clergyman to preach, and Bent cards of invitation to all the per sons to whom he had access at the towns where he rested. The curiosity excited was prodigious. In many of the chief places in Italy, his salon three weeks I was totally laid by, with all the indis position, in an aggravated form, from which I had suffered before fentered upon my tour. I mention my own case thus at length as a caution to others. I would especially, recommend them to avoid hurry towards the close of their journey, to return at a season when the weather is likely to be fine, to watch over the first effects of the change of climate and food, and to resume laborious and anxious duties slowly and gradually. This subject leads me to suggest to pious travellers to take with them some tracts suitable to the sick and dying. So many English become ill abroad, that many a tour begun in vanity, may end, under God's blessing, in serious ness and piety, by the aid pf a striking tract, or a copy of the New Testament. It is possible even that the last solemn scenes of life may be cheered by the doctrine of repentance and remission of sins in the name of Christ, thus conveyed. I should perhaps add, tbat we found great difficulty in having our English prescriptions made up abroad. I ex plained to a druggist at Spa a very simple one , which he assured me he understood, adding that he had continually made up similar ones. The medicine, however, was so different from what we had been used to, that I could not venture to let Mrs. W. take it. was crowded. The Catholics were astonished at an English nobleman appearing to be reaUy in earnest about religion. But in all these attempts to do good, the cha rity which I have just been recommending, must reign. Benevolence is an universal language. Those who may not at first understand your sen timents, can feel and appreciate your kindness. AU airs of superiority must be avoided, aU boast ing of England's hberty, riches, power ; all inter meddling in pohtics, all controversy about differ ent churches — I had almost said about different doctrines. Love must be the key to open the heart— Christian love, which dehghts in truths common to aU churches, and interesting to every soul of man, and which knows how to make large attowances for dulness, prejudices of education, early habits, and slow obedience to truth. If any should doubt the obligation of our thus carrying our religion wherever we travel, let him leam it from the word of God, which demands the dedication of att we have, and under aU circum stances, to his service. I need only quote one or two declarations from the New Testament to re call this point to the mind of the pious reader. " Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." " Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do aU to the glory of God." " As we have therefore oppor tunity let us do good unto ali men, and especially to them that are of the household of faith." " For ye are not your own, but ye are bought with a price ; wherefore glorify God in your bodies and in your spirits, which are God's."* These, and similar passages, are quite decisive. I know the objections which are raised by timid and worldly-minded persons against this introduc tion of rehgion into the ordinary concerns of life. I know the charges of enthusiasm which they ad vance. I know that ridicule — irresistible ridicule — is the weapon they constantly employ — and that they do all this on the plea of not degrading rehgion and exposing it to contempt — but I also know that these same kinds of objections have been made in att ages against every holy effort of truly sincere Christians in benefitting theh fettow- creatures. Such objections commonly amount to nothing. Simflar ones might be raised against any grave and zealous undertaking in the usual pursuits of mankind. Enors against taste should be avoided indeed, where they can ; but such er rors furnish no argument against the commanding duties of "loving our neighbor as ourselves," and of "going about" like our Saviour, "doing good." The immensely important concerns of eternity are not to be governed by such trifling considera tions. It only requires a ray of holy iUumination from above, to discern and feel something of the claim which our divine Lord has upon aU our love, all our efforts, att our time, att our influence. No thing is so truly rational and dignified — nothing so elevated, and in the highest degree philanthropic and philosophical, as the benevolent endeavor to raise and purify the minds and habits of our fellow- men. In doing this we claim no rniraculous pow ers, we insert no infattibflity of judgment, we pre sume on no immediate or peculiar care of the j * Col. iii. 17. lCor.x.31. 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 117 Divine Providence, we supersede no just use of prudence and foresight, we advance no pretences to an interpretation of the mysterious scheme of the government of God, we lessen no motive to activity in ordinary duties — but we plainly main tain that the Bible reveals a rehgion founded on the sacrifice of Christ and the operations of the Holy Spirit — that this reUgion is to change the whole moral bias of the affections ; and that when the heart is thus renewed, man feeis the imperious obligation of laboring to glorify God in every pro ject and every action of his hfe. The honor of God and the good of men are his object, bis pas sion, his joy. He takes a far warmer interest in this high pursuit, than the scholar, the artist, the warrior, the statesman do in theirs — is more sure of the value of the good he communicates, and more persuaded of the ultimate success which wfll crown his labors — for he reposes on the ever- present providence of that God who " clothes the grass of the field ;" without whom " not a spar row fatts to the ground ;" and who has conde scended to say, that the " very hairs of our head are all numbered." 6. But gratitude to God for the blessings which we enjoy in England, is a further general sentiment powerfully awakened by a foreign tour. Never was I so impressed with thankfulness to God for the moral, religious, free, prosperous, happy state of my own country, as when I had the opportunity of comparing it with that of the nations of the continent. At home murmers, objections, difficulties, are sometimes heard and propagated. Men are restless and dis contented. But let any one travel abroad, and he must be ungrateful indeed if his complaints are not changed into admiration. I am far from de nying the errors of our rulers, or the imperfections stfll adhering to our legislation and system of laws — this is human. I am still further from de nying, that in our public religious conduct, as a nation, there is, abstractedly speaking, very much evil to deplore. I would be the last to dissemble the many sins amongst us which provoke the anger of God, and which are the more criminal in proportion to our knowledge and ample means of instruction — the luxury, the pride, the sad mixture of infidelity and contempt of the Gospel ; the departure of too many of our clergy from the reformed doctrines ; the low standard of mo ral and religious feeling in our senate ; our divi sions and party-spirit on every question ; our ne glect of adequate means of education for our poor, and of accommodation for the public worship of God ; our encouragement of the sale of pernicious liquors; our Ucentious and blasphemous press; the scandalous disorder of our public places of amusement; our Sunday newspapers, Sunday dissipation, and Sunday traveUing ; our apathy at the oppression of the innocent African in our West India Islands ; these and other public evils no one is more sensible of than myself. No doubt we have causes to look at home. Still, thank God, England is, on the whole, as superior to other lands in the practice of morals, as in the extent and success of her commerce and her arms. Her faults are not of the peculiar malignity which mark Popish countries — we do not shut up the Bible — we do not corrapt rehgion with open idola try and superstition — we do not oppose the tradi tions of men to the inspired word of God — we do not tyrannize over the conscience — we do not crush the civil and religious hberty of mankind. There never was a time when England stood more free from these darker shades of guilt. As a country, notwithstanding all I have just been saying, every thing moral and rehgious is advanc ing. The aboUtion of the trade in Slaves — the renunciation of Sunday drilling — the mitigation of our criminal code — the relinquishment of lotteries — the improvement of prison disciphne' — the esta blishments for national education — the grants tor missions abroad and for erecting new churches at home — the parliamentary committees for investi gating various abuses — the honorable discharge of our pledges and engagements to other states, are aU so many proofs of the high rehgious feeling of England, compared with the continental nations. Especially the religious freedom of our beloved country ought to excite our warmest gratitude to the Giver of all good. We are too apt to forget our actual blessings, in this respect. But if we recal the past circumstances of Protestant Europe, or even reflect on her present situation, we shaU receive a deeper impression of our own advan tages. Consider, for example, the sufferings of the Protestants of France the century before last, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes — tens, yea hundreds of thousands of fugitives escaping, with the loss of every thing, to England, Holland, and Switzerland — so that in the small town of Lausanne only, in the year 1685, there were 2,000 of the laity and more than 200 ministers, whom some even of the Cathohc cantons joined the Pro testant in succoring. But these exfles were hap py compared with theh brethren who were de tained in their own country. The cruelties of the dragonnades of'Louis XIV. were so much beyond all the common measures of persecution, that bishop Burnet, who witnessed them in his travels, declares that there never was such a violation of all that is sacred, either with relation to God or man. But why should I speak of times that are past, in order to awaken our thankfulness to God for the actual state of things in England ! Consider the present situation of the churches in the valleys of Piedmont — 18 or 19,000 of the most humble, industrious, hospitable, kind-hearted, simple, obe dient, and pious persons of Christendom under the hon yoke of oppression. Every one knows the history of these churches of the Waldenses or Vaudois, possibly founded by the apostle Paul ; and, in all probability, the primitive Christians of the west, as the Syrian Christians are of the past. Who has not read, almost with tears, the heart rending story of the cruelties they endured from the Papal see during the dark ages ! * I just men tioned the names of these sufferers to you when writingfrom Turin. But I dwell a moment on theh history to awaken us to gratitude. The truth is, that when Christianity was almost lost *In the fourteenth century 80,000 were martyred in Bohemia only. I add here a single trait of their deep piety, as an example not unsuitable to ourselves. It is recorded by an enemy. Before they go to meat, the elder amongst the company says, " God, who' blessed the five barley loaves and two fishes before' 118 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. under the Roman Catholic corruptions, it remained in much purity amongst these beloved people, who had spread themselves before the sixteenth century, from the borders of Spain, throughout the south of France, amongst and below the Alps, along the Rhine on both sides of its course, even to Bohemia. They reached also to Bulgaria, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Hungary ; communicated theh doctrine as far as England ; and in Italy stretched down to Calabria. They numbered, about the year 1530, above 800,000 souls. It was at the accursed revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, that Louis XIV. engaged the the court of Turin to attempt theh utter extermi nation from the valleys of Piedmont. The Vau- dois fled their country in bodies of five or six hun dred, some to the Palatinate, others to Branden burg, others to different parts of Switzerland, de siring only a little bread at different towns to carry them on their way. A few years afterwards, a band of 900, under one of theh ministers, recon quered theh native vaUeys ; and from this handful of Christian heroes, the present Vaudois sprung. From the year of theh return, in 1689, till they became the subjects of France, in 1800, they en dured with att long-suffering, the cruel oppressions of the Sardinian government. Bonaparte first granted them religious liberty — this was his policy everywhere ; he placed aU his subjects on the same footing ; at Paris he granted the Protestants the use of four of the Cathohc churches ; three of which they occupy stfll — those of Sainte Marie, L'Oratoire, and Les Bfllettes — so in the other cities of France, Rouen, &c. Will it be believed, that when the late Victor Emmanuel reascended the throne of Sardinia in 1814, his first measure was to re-enact aU the persecuting edicts against this unoffending people. They are now again compeUed to desist from work on Cathohc festivals, forbidden to exercise the profession of pnysician or surgeon, prohibited from purchasing land, requhed to take off their hats when the host is carried about, denied a printing-press, and were refused for several years even the liberty of building a hospital for their sick ; whilst theh public schools, in which the Bible was taught, were put down, and their children often stolen from them in order to be educated in Popery. In the meantime, the sup port of their ministers, which was chiefly derived from England, has of late very much fafled ; and the royal bounty, begun by queen Mary, has been withheld since the year 1797. But I am drawn on too far. I dwett on the cir cumstances of these churches, not only to excite our thankfulness to God, who has made us in England so much to differ, but also to take oc casion to point out the obligation which we are under, to give a proof of that gratitude, by our aid to our suffering brethren. I found as I passed through Brussels, an exceUent Christian friend, who spent five months amongst them a year or his disciples in the wilderness, bless this table and that which is set upon it, in the name of the Father, the Son^ind the Holy Ghost." And after meat, he says, " The God which has given us bodily food, grant us bis spiritual life ; and may God be with us, and we always with him 1 " — See Milner in loc. two since, and who revisited them last summer in company with a pious and amiable clergyman, who had been there about ten years before. The inquiries of these friends wfll probably soon be laid before the British public, and their benevolent assistance solicited — an appeal, wliich, I am sure, cannot be made in vain.* It seems to me, that the returns which the con tinental sovereigns have in too many instances made to Almighty Goodness for the restoration of peace, by persecution, cruelty, injustice, tyran ny, and opposition to Scriptural light and know ledge, must assuredly incur the wrath of the Most High. May England be ever preserved from co pying the tyranny and spirit of persecution which in aU ages have marked the church of Rome ! May sbe keep as far as possible from relapsing into that bitter, merciless temper, which the glo rious Reformation tended to extinguish, but which is ever apt to revive under some disguise or an other, unless jealously watched and repressed. — The danger of att dominant churches, though ever so pure in their principles, is formality and pride — a secular spirit — false dignity — decay as to spi ritual religion — eagerness in pressing matters of external discipline — the loss of the true sphit of the Gospel, and a haughty oppressive intolerance substituted in its place.f I will only add, that I was exceedingly grieved to be unable to visit myself these devoted and persecuted Vaudois. At one point of our excur sion to Turin, we were within twenty-four mfles of theh vaUeys, and this has led me to speak of them ; but other indispensable duties made it im practicable for me to devote the time which such a visit would have demanded. 7. I mention as my seventh and last general reflection upon my journey, the duty of exciting ourselves and others, at home and abroad, to FERVENT AND PERSEVERING PRAYER FOR THE * Already has 120Z been collected for their relief amongst tbe English at Rome, after a sermon by the Rev. Lewis Way. Something has also been begun by friends in England. Since the appearance ofthe second edition of this work, the Rev. W. S. Gilly has published a most interesting narrative of his visit lo tbe Vaudois.— He has given a very lively description of the man ners and present circumstances of that extraordi nary people. Some parts of his narrative are really most affecting. I trust the benevolent designs of the able writer will be seconded by the liberality of the English government and people. A handsome pri vate subscription has been begun, at tbe head of which are the names of His Majesty the king, and of the Bishops of London and Durham. The bank ing houses of Messrs. Glyn, Messrs. Bosanquet, and Messrs. Masterman, are appointed for receiving donations. t I add a thrilling caution from the pen of our great practical commentator. " It may also be very well worth inquiring whether there be not some remains of Papal super stition and corruption even in Protestant churches: and how far they whose grand object it seems to be to contend most, and most vehemently, not to say virulently, for that which admits of the least Scriptural proof, or no Scriptural proof, keep at a distance from this tremendous wo." Scott's Com mentary.— Rev. xiv. 9 — 11. TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. iis* EFFUSION OF THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON the Universal Church. The experience of every thoughtful tourist confirms that of the ser vants of God in all ages, that man can do nothing of himself ; the torrent of human corruption rolls too wide and too strong for his puny arm to stop its course. After all the means we can use, su perstition and infidelity — or. in the words of Scrip ture, " the minding of the flesh" — wfll carry away the various petty boundaries which can be reared against them. God alone has the key of the hu man heart — Our Lord Christ was " manifested to destroy the works of the devil" — The Divine Spirit is " the Lord and Giver of Life." What we want is a larger gift of the in fluences of grace. I speak not of the miracu lous powers of the Spirit of God ; these ceased by the close of the third century. We renounce aU pretensions to them. I speak not of dreams or visions, or sensible influxes, or dhect inspirations, or new and extraordinary revelations. AU these we utterly disclaim. I speak of the ordinary, se cret, sanctifying work of God the Spirit, in illumi nating, converting, and consoling fallen man ; that work wliich unlocks the understanding, which Uberates the will, which purifies the affections, which unites the whole soul to Christ in faith, love, and obedience. The gifts of this blessed agent have been bestowed from time to time in a peculiar manner on the church. ' Such a period was that of St. Augustine in the fifth century, to whose conversion I have already referred. Again, under Claudius of Turin, in the ninth century, and Peter Waldo, of Lyon, in the twelfth, a considerable light burst forth, and the fottowers of Christ, under the name of the Wal- denses, were planted throughout Europe. The era of grace and truth returned at the glorious Reformation. Gradually weakened and obscured by human darkness since, it is again needed as much as ever in the present day. Nay, may I not say it has commenced ! Are there not blessed indications that the grace of the Spirit is revisiting the churches ! Does not the revival of the doctrines of St. Austin and of the Reformation, or rather of the Bible, mark this ! Does not the present general acknowledg ment of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and the wide circulation of that book which He inspired and never fails to bless, indicate it ! Do not the increasing number of awakened and converted clergymen in every communion, the diffusion of rehgious feeling and interest in the higher ranks of society in our own country, the rise and asto nishing progress of our religious institutions, mark this ! Especially, does not the blessed temper of love AMD charity which is so much prevailing, denote it ! Do not the favor and aid afforded to pious efforts by our own and other governments, the eagerness of mankind to welcome the benefits we offer them, the men raised up suited for va rious difficult duties, the translation of the Scrip tures into aU the languages of the earth, the dis persion of missionaries amongst the heathen and Mahommedan nations, betoken this ! Does not the surprising success of the Bible Society in the world generally, and of the various missionary bo dies in their particular labors in Western Africa, in the South Seas, in the East and West Indies, and in Caffraria, lead to the same conclusion ! Is is true, there is much remaining to be done — we overrate, perhaps, the comparative amount of what is performed. Deduct as much as you please on this account ; I take the remainder, and then ask, whether there is not stfll enough con fessedly accompUshed, to assure us that a new era of grace has begun, and to encourage us to fer vent prayer for that larger effusion of the holy spirit which can effect every thing we yet de sire ! Already has the attention of the Protestant churches been catted to this momentous subject. In many parts of England, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, America, treatises have been widely circulated, courses of sermons preached, and meet ings for prayer instituted, to excite attention to the importance of this great blessing. Were it once granted, it would include every other. And surely the position of the sphitual church, espe cially in England, in parts of Germany, and in America ; the feverish state of many of the nations of the continent : the open and surprising suc cesses in Greece and the Southern Americas ; the commotions and discontent throughout Spain and Italy ; the rapid diffusion of Uterature and of religious knowledge over the world ; the general strain of divine prophecy ; the sphit of inquiry excited among the Jews ; and the impenetrable obstinacy and corruption of the eastern and west ern apostacies, as connected with the near flow ing out of the three prophetic synchronical periods of 1260 years — surely aU this may lead us to "lift up our heads because our redemption draweth nigh." For the tliree great events of tlie fall of Papal Antichrist, the overthrow of the Mahom medan imposture, and the conversion and return ofthe houses of Israel and Judah, are considered by most Protestant expositors — Joseph Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Hurd and Hors- ley ; Mr. Scott, Mr. Faber, &c. — as approaching, yea, as at the doors. But to leave this general view of the subject, I observe that prayer for the Holy Ghost would, at aU events, tend to sanctify and bless our own hearts, our families, our houses, our children, our projects, our labors • amongst others. It would thus make us a blessing wherever we travelled. I knew not that any reflection was more frequently excited in my mind during my tour than this, of the necessity of prayer for divine grace. What I could myself actuaUy do, was httle ; but where I could not help by my efforts, I could pray. — Many painful scenes of superstition or infidelity, I could only lament over — but God I knew could bring the remedy for them. The divine doctrines which I wished to hear from Christian pulpits, I could not supply — but the Holy Sphit, I believed, could implant them in the heart, and pour them from the tongue of every individual minister. — The moral chains of thousands and tens of thou sands I could not break — but I was assured the blessed Spirit could dissolve them graduaUy, or even at once, by his secret power. The miseries, and sufferings, and persecutions, which I saw around me, I could not aUeviate — but the Holy Ghost, I doubted not, could effectually arrest and heal them. Prayer, therefore, for God's Spirit, is the duty, 120 TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. the interest, the happiness of every Christian, both at home and abroad. If Englishmen travel in this temper, the more intercourse they have with the continent the better ; they will benefit att whom they visit — a fragrance,' so to speak, yea, " the savor of the knowledge of Christ" will be diffused around them, and incalculable good be communicated and received. In any other tem per than that of prayer, let no one venture on a ground which must be to him sown with dangers and temptations. He will injure, instead of as sisting, both himself and others. The prejudices against the Protestant doctrine and evangehcal truth, which the fll conduct of Englishmen abroad has implanted or confirmed, are deplorable : whilst the mischiefs which many young Protestants have brought home with them, as to moral and religious habits, are perhaps still more to be lamented. I cannot, therefore, conclude this series of Letters more suitably, than by saying that, if the Chris tian needs the support of prayer and the grace of the Blessed Spirit at home, where he is surround ed with pious friends, aided by habit, and stimu lated to his duty by abundant means of grace ; much more will he require this assistance abroad, where, many of his usual safe-guards being re moved, and numberless distractions and snares presenting themselves, he will often find that his only effectual means of safety are the sohtude of his closet, meditation of Holy Scripture, and prayer for the sacred Sphit of God. I am, yours affectionately, D. W. POSTSCRIPT. The delay in the pubhcation of the French Translation of Mr. Scott's Comment on St. Matthew has not only arisen from the causes stated in the note, (p. Ill) : but from the neces sity of each sheet being sent to London, and the impracticabihty of finding type sufficient to aUow of this journey, without intervals in the progress of the work. Four sheets are set up together (the type required for which is immense) and the proofs are worked of on theh return to Paris as quickly as possible, and the type released for the subsequent parts of the copy. But still about six weeks elapse between the printing of a first proof and the final working of it off. A portion of the delay arises from the numerous conections in each sheet, demanding twenty or thirty hours of intense apphcation. In the meantime, what is done, is, I have every reason to beheve, well done ; and in a work of so much importance, I have preferred the inconvenience of delay to the ruin ofthe whole enterprise by an inaccurate translation. Half the Gospel, or nearly so, is now printed off, and the subscribers may rely on no exertion being spared on my part to see this first division of the work — the Gospel of St. Matthew, actually published this summer. I have thought it right, in the meantime, to place this undertaking under the care of a pubhc society with a responsible committee. The Spanish and French Translation Society, (instituted in 1825, and of which the monthly meetings are held for the present at No. 13, Gufldford street,) has the disposal of the funds in hand and conducts the design. Whether the Gospel when published wfll excito pubhc attention and be attended with any consi derable benefit, must depend on the Divine Mercy which alone can produce such an effect. But I have a confidence that great good maybe expect ed ultimately to follow from it. The inconsiderate objections raised on the ground of the levity of the French character, and the solid, ponderous quah ties of Mr. Scott's writings, have little weight. It is not for the nation of France or its general readers that any comment would be designed; but for the ministers and Pastors of churches, for the serious and inquiring scholars and students, for the sedate and pious heads of famihes. And does any one who is at all acquainted with the writings of Mestrezat, Faucheur, Dobose, Drelincourt, and others of the French Protestant school, doubt whether long and grave discourses on religion can fix the attention of French Protestants and engage theh esteem ! Or can any one, who looks into the mass of comment in De Sacy or Calmet — the one in 32 thick 8vo. volumes, of 8 or 900 pages each, the other in 9 fohos, and both of them unwieldly compilations of mystical and feeble and inapplicable religious glosses, without any ap proach to an evangelical, manly, sensible, clear exposition of the mind of the Sphit throughout the Holy Scriptures, — doubt of the success of a work not by any means so heavy in its form, and in its matter so incomparably superior ! A revival of rehgion is a revival of seriousness, of sottdity of character, of readiness to study, and solemnity of mind to examine, the Holy Word. The frivolity of Voltaire is the frivolity of irreligion. But 1 need not enlarge — the deliberate opinion of all the leading scholars and ministers whom I have met with in France and Switzerland, and the 500 sub scribers already obtained to this first publication, are at the lea6t a sufficient authority for the essay, the trial, the experiment of circulating throughout every part of the world where the French lan guage is spoken, the best practical comment which has appeared in these later ages of the Christian church. The proposed Translation of Milner's Church History into French, has, I am sorry to say, been suspended by the continued inroads of illness and pressure of engagements on the friend who had undertaken the work at Brussels. But into the Spanish language the first volume is already translated by the society which I have mentioned, for the benefit of the Spanish American ; and the French Translation will be prosecuted as the funds may allow, and suitable translators present them selves. As I am giving these explanations, I will just add that the state of the German Protestant churches to which I have alluded in my account of Franckfort (p. 20) has been fully developed, since the pub hcation of the third edition of this tour, by a masterly work from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Rose of Horsham. I had no conception, from the brief remarks which my valuable Franckfort friend made to me, of the extent and inveteracy of the evfl. What a portentous defection from the faith ! What a feeple, corrupt, wayward thing is the human TRAVELS ON THE CONTINENT. 121 mind, when it once leaves the plain rule of the divine word ! I rejoice to hear that things are on the whole again improving. In the njeaptiine, let no young Christian be moved in his faith by these pretended discoveries of a spurious philosophy in the interpretation of Scripture, any more than the reformers were three centuries back, by the pretended discoveries of a spurious religion as to the rule of faith and the authority of tradition. Skepticism and superstition are but, two diseases of the same fallen heart. To explain away by sophistry the obvious meaning of the Scriptures — and to forbid the reading of them by a claim of authority over the conscience, are evils of a kindred nature. Satan our great enemy works by the folly of human learning now, as he did by the foUy of human ignorance three or four centuries back. The Primary Teacher will guide sincere and humble souls through the mazes of each kind of error, to the truth and bles sedness of redemption in the divine person and sufferings of the Son of God, and the mighty transforming operations of his grace. I may as weU add, on the subject of the Wal- deness before mentioned, that a valuable work * just pubUshed by the Rev. T. Sims will give the reader the latest accounts of these important churches. The renewal of the royal grant, the endowment of an hospital, the establishment of schools, and the supply of books, are all benefits of the very last moment, obtained for them by the exertions of the committe to which I have refer red — the amount of subscription is between £4000 and £5000. The excellent volume of the Rev. * " An historical defence ofthe Waldeness or Vau dois, inhabitants ofthe Valley of Piedmont, by Jean Rodolphe Peyran, late pastor of Pomaret and Mo derator of Waldenesian church, with an introduction and appendixes by the Rev. Thomas Sims, M. A. Rivingtons. 1826." J. Scott in continuation of Milner's Church His tory, gives a most interesting summary of the History ofthe Vaudois at the time ofthe Reforma tion. If I were to say any thing further before I con clude this postscript, it would be to express my regret if any expressions in the course of the work have unnecessan . s wounded the feelings of indi viduals. I have endeavored to guard against any reproach on this score by omitting such circum stances as would lead to the fixing of any of my re marks on particular persons. But it is possible that some reflections when read in the circles where they are supposed to be most applicable, may stfll be regarded as personal and severe. I can only therefore thus in general testily my sor row if I have unintentionally laid myself open to such misinterpretations. My desire has been to speak, frankly indeed, and honestly, without dis guise or concealment, but stfll with the considera tion due to the just feelings of every individual with whom I had the pleasure of any intercourse when abroad. Perhaps the language which I have occasionaUy used on the subject of the Roman Cathohc superstitions may, after all, be thought the most liable to objection — as being both too general and too strong. After an interval of nearly four years, I wfll confess that I think such an objection is not without its force. At the same time, truth is truth ; and the warmth of a description flowing from the heart, at the first witnessing of the cor ruptions of the great apostate church, is perhaps excusable, so far as the motive is concerned. And possibly the very strong language used in the Di vine Revelations of St. John, as to this portentous defection from the faith, may warrant much of that language of adhorrence wliich might other wise be excessive, or harsh and unkind. But in this, as weU as in every thing else, the candid reader wiU judge. Islington March, 1837. CONTEK J S LETTER I. Calais, June 21.- -Grand, June 23, 1823. Dover. Dunkhk. Pave. Mount Cassel. General Vandamme. Litte. Duke of Marlborough. Courtray. Pulpits. Sunday at Grand. Popery. Foreign Travel. King of England ... 10 LETTER II. Brussels, June 27. — Liege, July 1, 1823. Grand. Nunnery. Chrysostom. Louis XVIII. Lord Gambier. Antwerp. Bonaparte. Scheld. Brussels. St. Gudule. Popery. The Martyr Tyndale. Namur. ViUage of Waterloo. King of England! Coster. Battle of Waterloo. Huy. Liege 12 LETTER III. Spa, July 1.— Coblentz, July 10, 1823. Road to Spa. Verviers. Aix la Chapelle. Charle magne. Rehcs. King of England. Juliers. St. Austin. Sunday at Bergheim. Cologne. St. Ursula. Tomb of Magi. Bonn. University of CathoUcs and Protestants. The Rhine. Drach- ensfels. Remagen. Andernach. Coblentz. Timber-float. Spy 15 LETTER IV. St. Goar, July 11. — Carlsruh, July 19, 1823. Scenery of Rhine. Ehrenbreitstein. French Mo nument of Campaign in Russia. Discontent. Hirtzenach. Jew. Bingen. Vineyard. Weisba den. Violation of Sabbath. Mentz. Franckfort. English Newspapers. Conversation of Priest. Gothe. Revival of Religion. Darmstadt. Le ander Van Ess. Oppenheim. Storks'-nests. Hefldenberg. Martin Luther. Professor. Cas tle. Manheim. Flying Bridge. Schwetzingen. Carlsruh. Floods 18 LETTER V. Rastadt, July 20. — Schaffhausen, July 27, 1823. Union of Lutherans and Calvinists. Pastor Hen hofer. Importance of Gospel. Rastadt. Ulm. Kehl. Strasburg. Cathedral. Letters of Re formers. Emmendingen. Manner of TraveUing. Food. Hoellenthal. Bad Inn. Black Forest. Donaueschingen. Danube. Mr. Canning. Swit zerland. Schaffhausen. Innkeeper. FaU of Rhine. Swiss Sunday 22 LETTER VI. Zurich, July 18. — Basle, August 1, 1823. Bridge. Swiss Customs. State of ReUgion. Pro fessor. FaU of Rhine. EgUsau. First View of Alps. Zurich. Reformers. Inn L'Epee. An tistes Hess. Mr. Wilberforce. Zuingle. Do cuments of Reformation. Clergy. Bible Society. Lavater's Forgiveness of his Murderer. Aarau. Good done by an English Clergyman. Balse. M. Blumhardt. Stoves. Fountains. A Divine. Tombs of Erasmus and Ecolampadius. Holy Affiance. Council of Basle. Likeness of Eras mus 27 LETTER VII. Moutiers, August 4. — Bern, August 11, 1823. Sunday at Basle. View from table-d'hfite Room. VaUey of Moutiers. Anabaptists. Soyhier. Court. Cormoret. Rock Pierre Pertuis. Ob servations on Swiss Government. Neufchatel. Reformer Farel. Bienne. Island of St. Pierre. J. J. Rousseau. Seedorf. Bern. Voiturier. M. Wyttenbach. The great HaUer. Swiss Diet. Sunday at Bern. Pastor Henhofer . . 31 LETTER VIII. Lauterbrunnen, August 12. — Grimsel, August 17, 1823. View from Inn at Lauterbmnnen. Lake of Thun. Interlacken. Unterseen. St. Beat. Staubbach. Anecdote. Wengen Alp. Chalets. Avalanches from Jungfrau. Grindelwald. Anecdotes. Gla ciers. Sheideck Alp. Miserably wet Journey. Reichen-bach. Valley of Meyringen. Lake of Brientz. Fall of Giessbach. Mud Torrents. Handeck. Grimsel. Sunday Reflections. Ita han Nobleman. Lord Byron 37 LETTER IX. Furca Alp, August 18. — Bern, August 24, 1823. Glacier of Rhone. Furca Alp. Realp. Capuchin Friar. Hospital. Cold. Valley of Reuss. De vil's Bridge. Amstag. New Road. Altorf. William TeU. FlueUen. Lake of four Cantons. Switz. Mount Righi. Storm. Mount Pilate. Ruin of Goldau. Strangers' Book. King of England. ItaUans and Russians. Kiissnacht. Lucem. WilUam Tell. Wooden Bridges. Pere Girard. Luther. Zofingen. Herzogenbuehs. Bern. Sunday. Fast. English Service. Go vernment of Bern and England .... 42 CONTENTS. 123 LETTER X. Morat, August 25. — Lausanne, August 31, 1823. Battle of Morat. Avenche. Payeme. Lausanne. Reformation. Translation of Scott. Lake of Geneva. Lodgings. Calvinism. Nyon. Cop- pet. M. Neckar. Madam de Stael. Geneva. Rhone. Steam Boat. Death of Missionaries Johnson and Palmer. The Pope. Ferney. Vol taire. Sunday at Lausanne. Preachers. Per secution. Calvin's Wfll. Arrete at Lausanne. 51 LETTER XI. Geneva, Sept. 2. — Martigny, Sep. 6, 1823. Translation of Scott. Cathedral at Lausanne. Pere Girard. Mont Blanc. Conversation with Genevese. Savoy. Bonnevflle. VaUey of Cluse. Goitres. St. Martin's. Chede. Servoz. De Saussure. Chamouny. Glacier of Bossons. Ac cident in Ascent of Mont Blanc. Italian Gen tlemen. Montanvert. Couvercle. Mer de Glace. Alps. Infamous Sentence in Strangers' Book. Tete Noire. Trient. French Emigrants. 61 LETTER XII. Great St. Bernard, Sept. 6.— Brieg, Sept. 10, 1823. Jardin of Mer de Glace. Forclaz. Bas Valais. Martigny. Deluge of the Dranse. Sunday at Martigny. Sermon. Popery. Orsieres. Lyd des. Pious Admonition on Eternity. Great St. Bernard. Dogs. Monks. Chapel for Dead. Lives saved. Provost. Sion. Valais. Prayers at Great St. Bernard. Catholic Admonition. 67 LETTER XIII. Simplon, Sept. 11. Milan, Sept. 14, 1823. Brieg. Simplon. Road. Persal. Descent into Italy. Domo d'Osola. Priests. Contrast be tween Switzerland and Italy. Lago Maggiore. Borromean Isles. Colassal Satue of Borro meo. Milan. Scale of Vegetation on Alps. Marble Cathedral. St. Ambrose. St. Austin. 73 LETTER XIV. Milan, Sept. 13.— Chamberry, Sept. 19, 1823. Sunday at Milan. Sunday Schools. Punch. Vhgin Mary. Ncisy Festival. Popery like Paganism. Church of St. Ambrose. Library. Amphitheatre of Bonaparte. Unfinished Tri umphal Arch. Remains of Roman Baths, Mint. Po. Tesin. Turin. Churches. Pa lace, Ambioggio. Lans-le-bourg. Ancient Arch at Susa. Mount Cenis Road. Reflec tions. St. Michael. Aigue-beUe. Chamberry. Life of Borromeo. Extracts from Writings. 79 56-3 LETTER XV. Pont-beau-voisin, Sept. 20. — Lyon, Sept. 28, 1823. Chamberry. A Bookseller. Pont-beau-voisin. Roads. Bishop Berkeley. Sunday at Lyon. Cathohc Sermon. Gibbon. Rivers Saone and Rhone. Fourviere. Hotel de Vflle. Revolu tionary honors at Lyon. Speech of Emperor Claudius. Roman Amphitheatre. Martyrs of Lyon. Cimetiere. Arsenal. Death of Rev. S. Arnott. Chamberry Peasant. Notice of Martyrs in Second Century 88 LETTER XVI. Lyon, September 28. — Geneva, October 6, 1823. Second Sunday at Lyon. Library. Hdtel Dieu. Hotel de la Charite. Sick Famfly. Journey to Geneva. Professor of Lausanne. Perte du Rhone. L'Ecluse. Ferney. Voltaire. Ca tholics at Geneva. Fine Walks. Translation of Scott. Satigny. Rejected Regent. Re- Ugious Doctrine. Plan of Central Switzerland. Cathedral. Library. English Clergy. Sun day at Geneva. Minister from Les Cevennes. Reglement. M. Simond's Defence answered. 95 LETTER XVII. Poligny, Oct. 7, 1823.— Paris, Oct. 11, 1823. Nyon. Calvin and Fletcher. Catholic Lady. Conversation on Popery. Geneva. Prohibited Books. Auxonne. Irish Catholics. Dijon. Miraculous Image of Virgin. Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy. Bossuet. Waggons. Auxerre. Joigny- Cardinal de Retz. Fon tainebleau. Apartments of the Pope. Bona parte's Abdication. Place of Madrid. Cha racter of Bonaparte. Sens. St. Bernard. Manners of People. CathoUcs receiving Tracts. Arrival at Paris 103 LETTER XVIII. Brighton, AprU 14, 1824. Paris Bible Society. Deaf and Dumb Institution. French Preachers. King's Almoner. Noble man. Translation of Scott. Friends to whom Author was introduced. Baron de Sacy. Count d'Hauterive. Marquis de Jaucourt. Reflections on the whole Tour : 1. Supreme Providence of God. 2. Opposite Evils of Su perstition and Infidelity. 3. Scenes of Re formers' Labors. Luther. Beza. Bucer. Ecolampadius. Bifllinger. Authenticity of 1 John v. 7, 8. 4. Duty of advancing the Age of Charity. 5. Importance of every Travel ler being active. Advice to Invahds. Anec dotes. 6. Gratitude to God. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Origin of Vaudois. Expulsion from Valleys. Return. Need of Aid. 7. Prayer for Grace of Holy Spirit. 108 NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO THE ZOOLU COUNTRY, IN SOUTH AFRICA. CAPTAIN ALLEN F. GARDINER, R.N. UNDERTAKEN IN 1835. NEW-YORK : THOMAS GEORGE, JR. SPRUCE STREET. 183G. JOURNEY TO THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. CHAPTER I. It is not with a view to recount my personal ad ventures that the following nanative is now of fered to the pubhc, nor was it for the mere novelty of traveUing that I determined on a visit to South Africa ; far otherwise was the object of my jour ney — an endeavor, under the blessing of God, to open a way whereby the ministers of the Gospel might find access to the Zoolu nation, and be the means of introducing true rehgion, civilization, and industry, into those benighted regions. \ That many who may take the trouble to pass through these pages wfll be disappointed I have no doubt ; they wfll look in vain for that descrip tion of information so interesting to the student of natural history, and so eminently adapted to raise the mind with adoring gratitude to the aU-wise and bounteous God of the universe, but for the development of which the author is aware that he is not competent. His single aim, he trusts, has been the glory of God, and if, after the indul gent perusal of the facts he shaU narrate, a more ardent zeal for the instruction of our feUow-crea- tures in the truths of Christianity, and a more sincere personal devotion of time and energy to the cause of Christian Missions, especially hi Southern Africa, shaU be induced, he shall deem that he has not written in vain, but thank God, and take courage. It was my intention to have confined myself strictly to the words of my traveUing journal, but this, in part, has now become impossible, as a con siderable portion, including the whole period from my landing at Cape Town to my return to Port Na tal, after my first visit lo the Zoolu country has been lost. Without this, there would be evidently a want of connexion, and this deficiency I sb.aU en deavor to supply to the best of my ability ; but, as much that it contained has now entirely escaped my memory, I trust, under the pecuhar disadvan tages with which I commence my task, great al lowance will be made. With this explanation, I now proceed to give a brief outline of the occur rences during the period aUuded to. On the 25th of August, 1834, 1 left Spithead, on board the Wellington, Captain Liddle, bound for the Cape and Madras, and eventuaUy sailed from Falmouth on the 6th of September. From the evening of the 20th to the afternoon of the 23d, we were at anchor in Funchal Roads, Madeira, and reached Table Bay on the 13th of November. During the passage, I made a most agreeable ac quaintance in Mr. Berken, a Polish gentleman of high famfly and character, and who, from the po litical chcumstances of his country, had been de prived of a great part of his property. On reach ing the Cape, he waived his original intention of proceeding as an emigrant to New South Wales, and agreed to accompany me to Graham's Town partly with the deshe to ascertain how far it would be. advisable to make that neighborhood the scene of the agricultural pursuits which he had ultimately in view. Determined to travel as lightly and expedi tiously as possible, we distributed our baggage upon three horses, on which we and our guide were also mounted, and in this Don Quixote man ner we left Cape Town on the evening of Thurs day the 20th, sleeping the first night at Stetten- bosch. Saturday and Sunday we remained at Genadenthal ; and I have never been more gra tified than in witnessing the industry, the order, and, above aU, the genuine piety which seems to pervade this favored institution. It was Sacrament Sunday; all, both missionaries and people, ap peared in white dresses ; and many of the latter seated in groups in front of the church, or under the shade of the luxuriant oak trees, where from considerable distances they had assembled, were observed at a very early hour, awaiting the open ing of the doors. From Mr. Halbec, the superintendent, we re ceived the greatest kindness, and early on the 24th resumed our journey. The following Sunday was passed at Uitenhage, said to be the most healthy, and, certainly, one of the prettiest towns in this country. It is supphed with abundance of water — every house stands in a garden, while a range of neighboring mountains not only interests the eye, but creates a cooling breeze, without be ing near enough to reflect theh heat. The next day, December 2d, we rode to Bethelsdorp, with which I must own I was much disappointed — per haps the recent visit to Genadenthal might have contributed to this feehng; but in so old a mis sionary estabhshment I had anticipated greater progress. On the 4th, we reached Graham's Town, and I immediately commenced making ar rangements for the journey beyond the frontier by purchasing wagons, oxen, &c., some horses having already been procured on the road. Every thing was completed by the 12th ; and on the afternoon of that day I left Graham's Town, stfll accompanied by my friend, who, anxious to see something of the interior, proposed continuing with me until we reached some of the nearest missionary stations in Kafirland. With two new wagons properly appointed, tliirty oxen, and seven horses, accompanied by a young man named George Cyrus, as an interpreter, we commenced this long journey ; and, as it soon afterwards ap peared, it was a happy chcumstance that such despatch in the equipment had been made, for, THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. had we been delayed but two days longer, the Kafir war, then on the eve of breaking out, would have enthely precluded the possibihty of crossing the frontier. While at the missionary station on the Buffalo river, (now King William's Town,) an unpleasant chcumstance took place. One of my people, a Bechuana, who was in charge of the oxen, reported that the whole of the cattle had been driven off by the natives, and that it was with the greatest difficulty he had escaped with out the loss of all his clothes, which they had en deavored to purloin. On this inteUigence, I went immediately, with my interpreter, to Tchatchou, the chief, acquainted him with what had occurred, and informed him that, as a stranger, quietly pass ing through his tenitory, I should look to him to investigate the case, and recover the cattle. The old man soon gave directions to one of his princi pal waniors to accompany me for this purpose, and furnishing him with a horse, on which he vaulted, without either saddle or bridle, guiding him only by the halter, off we both set at full speed, foUowed by my interpreter on another horse ; and, although it was raining during the whole time, we scoured the country for two hours, before my warlike companion thought it desirable to visit the spot where this untoward chcumstance had taken place. This was a secluded delL in wliich were two huts, almost concealed by rocks and bushes, and near which a small brook was flowing. The mihtary talent of our hero was here displayed. While we had been in chase of every homed ani mal that appeared on the surrounding hills, he had ordered a weU armed party to proceed directly to the spot we had now reached, and on our approach the hamlet was formaUy invested. We drew up in front, the chief holding a single assegai in his hand, while his people, who had come on foot, each with an ample bundle of these destructive missiles, stood near, in an attitude of preparation. The men were then ordered to leave the huts, on which they advanced to a small ridge of rocks facing us, the women standing in groups about the houses, while a catechetical inquiry was made respecting the loss of the oxen. Although the accuser was present for the purpose of indentifica- tion, and he actuaUy pointed out the individuals who had driven off the cattle, still so adroitly was the blame shifted from one to another, that, tired with the length of the parley, and annoyed at the utter hopelessness of eliciting truth, I resolved to refer the final decision to Tchatchou himself; and we accordingly returned to the missionary station. Although I had apparently effected nothing, the promptitude of the appeal to the chief had so alarmed the thieves, that, during my absence, the whole of the oxen had been driven back, and on my anival were found snugly deposited in the cat tle fold. Anxious to avoid unnecessary delay, I requested Tchatchou would assemble his Amapa- kati (council) betimes ; but although att were duly seated in a chcle in the open ah by eight o'clock, and the business at once commenced upon, at least two hours were consumed in putting and answering the most roundabout questions, till at last they so puzzled and frightened my unfortunate Bechuana, (Solomon,) that he was obliged to sub mit to a fine in clothes and tobacco, for having, as they termed it, "smeared them," viz: defamed their character by representing them as theives. Tchatchou is a most arrant beggar — having ex pended all his eloquence in persuading Mr. Berkin to present him with a pah of shoes, he finished by observing, that he wore two, Why then could he not spare him one 1 His idea of an umbrella was somewhat curious ; my friend having inadvertantly left his own, a messenger was despatched from the chief to inquire if he intended to leave his house behind. Not far from this station is a stream catted the Yellow-wood river, near which we had spanned out for our mid-day's halt, but it was soon appa rent from the threatening attitude of the natives, who were coUecting in great numbers, and by no means civil, that an attack was meditated. At this time I was seated under a tree on the op posite side of the river to the wagons, occupied with writing some memoranda, but my fancied re tirement was soon broken in upon by a crowd col lecting round me. Anticipating theh intention, I immediently sent off directions to coUect the oxen and span in as soon as possible, but to be careful not to show the least symptom of alarm or hurry. Something however was absolutely necessary to divert theh intention in the mean time, and hap pily my pen-knife, which for peace sake I had con signed to the hand of one of the natives, who had made frequent signs for it to disencumber his chin, had, to his great disappointment, proved in effectual. The idea immediately occurred, that, could I succeed in thoroughly shaving this man, the whole current of feeling might be changed in our favor. With this expectation T placed him on the trunk of the tree on wliich I had been sitting, and, in spite of the red ochre with which he was UberaUy smeared, appUed the soap suds and the razor to such good effect that in a very short time his barbe of many years' growth was enthely re moved. To foUow up the interest and excitement which this unusual operation had occasioned, a glass was exhibited, that the patient himself might have ocular demonstration of the effect, but to my great dismay, he pointed to his upper hp, and seemed sadly disappointed that any portion of mustachio had survived the operation. All that remained in this dilemma was to assure him that such was the usual costume of many of our English warriors : happily for me this explanation sufficed, for in the state to which my razor had now been reduced, had anything further been re quired it would have been an utter impossibility to have compUed with his wishes. In perfect good humor the whole party then accompanied me to the wagons, but here the tempest was stfll on the ascendant, and, to my no smaU disappointment, the necessary preparations for moving off were not yet completed. Many ofthe expressions wliich were uttered were sufficiently ominious, and here for the first time we were informed by them of the awkward posture of affairs on the frontier. " One of our chiefs," they exclaimed, " TchaU's brother, has been killed by the white men, and we are resolved that no more white men shall enter our country ; those who are now here shall remain, but not one more shaU come in " — intimating that they would murder aU now within theh territory. One angry word at this moment would have been fatal to us all. As a dernier resort, and to eke out THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 5 the time tfll the wagons were ready, I proposed that they should treat us with a war-song, with the promise of some tobacco at the conclusion. This happily had the desired effect, while it em bodied the current of theh feehngs, it acted at the same time hke a safety-valve ; they stormed and raved, and, to the extent of theh lungs, declared that " No white man shall drink our milk, No white man shall eat the bread of our children, Ho-how — Ho-how — Ho-how." This comphmentary couplet was so often and so vehemently repeated, that ample time was afford ed for inspanning the oxen of both wagons, and on the first glimpse of the tobacco theh he was so much subdued that they sullenly said that we might pass, but we were the last that should. — During all this time the crowd had been increas ing, and when we crossed the river there could not have been less than two or three hundred men, besides women ; it was one of those merciful es capes in which the hand of a gracious God is so eminently conspicuous, and for which we have great and lasting cause to be thankful. During our progress through the Amakosa tribes we occasionally stopped at the traders' stations, wretched mud-built hovels, and in so fil thy a state, that my surprise is that any of the inmates ever escaped the most malignant fevers. Contented wifh two rooms, they inhabited one while the other (the partition of which as though purposely constructed to admit the effluvia, did not reach within several feet of the roof,) was piled nearly to the rafters with a collection of hides and horns, the former in aU the intermediate stages from the green to the pickled. Such an odoriferous melange of garbage, fat, and filth was perhaps never before compacted into so smaU a compass, yet were these people seemingly happy, and sipped theh tea and their coffee, and offered the same to every stranger that passed, with as much frankness and disregard to theh olfactory- nerves as though the waUs were of cedar and their floors carpeted with lavender and roses. Nothing so soon dissipates a romantic dream as one of these charnel-houses, and never shaU I forget the sud den check which was given to the cunent of my thoughts induced by the beauty of the scenery, through which I was riding one lovely evening, by the shout of a wfld looking Kafir woman emerg ing from the bushes with a pah of bullock's horns extended in each hand, eagerly offering them for sale. On learning that I was not a trader, she reluctantly returned to her hut disappointed, and doubtless despising me in her heart. Both at Butterworth and Morley, two of the Wesleyan missionary stations through which we passed, we were received with great kindness by the missionaries, Messrs. Ayliffe and Palmer, and their respective families. Education, was evi dently progressing, and Scriptural knowledge gra dually but steadily imparting that light and hfe which is the attribute of Him alone who hath said, " My word which goeth forth out of my mouth shall not return unto me void ; but it shall accom- phsh that which I please, and it shaU prosper in the thing whereto 1 send it." Their buildings were rude but sufficient ; generaUy wattled and plastered with mud, and neatly white- washed, and, surrounded by a collection of bee-bive huts, hke an oasis in the desert, stood up the salutary me mentos of civilization in a barbarous land. May their hands be strengthened, and many more la borers enter the field ! Finding that we were but a day's ride from the next missionary esta bhshment "Bunting," the wagons were sent round as usual, while we crossed the Umtata by a shorter route, and, entering the Amaponda country, reached the station on that evening, and were kindly welcomed by Mr. SatcheU, Wesleyan missionary. During our progress through the Amakosa tribes the greatest vigilance was ne cessary to prevent the loose articles about the wagons from being stolen, and so quiet and un expected were their approaches on these occa sions, that on awaking at day-light I have fre quently espied a Kafir leaving his lurking place beside the wagon, and that in a spot purposely selected as the furthest from aU habitations. — Happily these precautions were now needless ; no nightly watch is required among the Amapon- das, and had att our valuables been showed on the ground, not one of them would probably have changed its owner. Although we had aheady met with what, in Europe, would not improperly be termed difficulties, stfll, until entering this mountainous district, we were comparatively un initiated into the toils and troubles of African wagon travelUng, no less than three days having been occupied in towing our heavy " omniums" to the heights of the Umzimvoobo, a distance, which, by a shorter route, I was enabled to ride in a few hours. Here another more formidable difficulty presented itself; the river, about the size of the Thames at Kew, was fuU, and for some days had been impassable, and as this was the rainy season, we were given to understand that we were Ukely to be impeded for some time on the banks of two other large rivers on the way to Port Natal. Aheady tired ofthe slow progress we were making, and anxious to obviate, if possi ble, these protracted delays, I resolved to pack a sufficient number of oxen, and proceed with them on horseback, leaving the wagons to fottow as they could. For this purpose I returned to Bunt ing, but although hide sacks were prepared, noses bored, and oxen practised, aU was unavafling, for on setting out from the bivouac stfll upon the Umzimvoobo heights, and certainly overlooking one of the most enchanting views I have ever be held, many of the burdens were ejected within a few hundred yards of the spot, and, for want of proper pack-saddles, it became evident that no thing but damage could be effected by this means. As the river was stfll high horses were substituted for oxen, and in a couple of days more every pre paration was completed. In one of these rides backwards and forwards to the Umzimvoobo I met with a curious rencontre. It had been re ported in the morning that Faku, the ruling chief of the Amapondas, was going out to war, and when on the heights about two mfles from his residence, a large body of armed people appeared to occupy the very ridge over which I had to pass. The sun had set, and it was too dark to ascertain their actual numbers or movements, but from the THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. hurried manner in which they were at this mo ment joined by another party rapidly descending a neighboring hfll, there was every reason to sup pose that they were either on the eve of a battle, or in actual conflict. Being only attended by a native servant, I thought it would be but prudent to edge off a little from the path before we came upon them, in order to avoid passing too near ; but, unable to explain my wishes in time, I rode on, well knowing the ill effects of even the appearance of hesitation in a time of danger. It was an animating sight ; we passed within a few paces of the principal war riors, who stood out before the main body, leaning upon theh shields, decorated with theh plumes and wardresses. Many were seated round fires kindled in the centre, near which a herd of cattle were coUected, evidently a recent capture. Not a word was uttered as we passed, but many wo men on the outskirts of the party were observed in groups seated among the thorn bushes, whis pering to each other, as though anxiously await ing the result. On my return, the following day, I found Faku sitting in great state under the shade of shields held up to protect his head from the sun. An im mense concourse was assembled, aU seated on the ground while an interesting trial was going on ; the accused, a tall and athletic man, with a digni fied appearance, whom I afterwards understood was a " rain maker," standing before them on his personal defence. I reined in my horse, and for a few minutes stopped to observe this truly cha racteristic scene, being much struck with the coolness and manly bearing of the defendant, who stfll proceeded in his harangue. On this Faku rose from the assembly, and coming up, I dis mounted to receive his usual congratulation, a shake of the hand, with which he now always obliges his white friends. He was attired in a handsome leopard skin mantle, in this country the insignia of rank, which so remarkably became his tall and commanding person, that when he turned from me to resume his seat among the councillors, he looked the very beau ideal of an African chief. It appeared that the " rain maker" in question had been sadly rebellious ; and in consequence of his customary presents in cattle having for some time been withheld, had plainly declared his in tention of restraining the clouds, and therely pre venting the rain from falling. For this high mis demeanor the armed party which I feU in with yesterday had been ordered to secure his person, and sieze upon his cattle ; and he was now per mitted to plead his own cause — the issue of which would be either life or death. I have since under stood that he was acquitted. It is a singular coin cidence, that this affair took place but a few days subsequent to a conversation which I had with Faku on that very subject, which was elicited by his asking me to procure rain. On that occasion he also gave me what no doubt he deemed very wholesome advice, informing me that the Zoolus were " an angry people— that they would kfll me — and that I had better not enter their country." Mr. Berken having finally determened to extend his journey to Port Natal, now kindly proposed taking charge of the wagons, and bringing them on as fast as the rivers, &c, would admit. On the 14th of January he accompanied me to the opposite bank of the Umzimvoobo, now fordable, where for the present we parted, much to my re gret ; and with five horses, three packed, the other two for myself and my interpreter, and two natives, I set forward to traverse a country uninhabited for nearly one hundred and eighty mfles. Al though our progress was more rapid than by the former mode, it soon became evident that the smaU quantity of provisions which could be car ried upon the pack-horses, one of which was laden with a bell-tent, would not suffice even for our re duced party. I therefore determined to push for ward with my interpreter to a small village, de scribed to be but a short distance on the other side ofthe Umzimcoolu, and, within a day's jour ney on horsback from the spot where we then were. The wagon track, they said, would direct; and as it generaUy foUowed the line of coast, oc casionaUy descending to the beach, there could be Uttle danger of losing the way. AU this seem ed so far feasible ; and as the account of Cali- chana, one of my servants, was corroborated by two natives, whom we met about this time on theh way from Port Natal to the Amaponda coun try, I set out as hght as possible on Monday the 20th, but a more disagreeable journey I never had. The first difficulty was to find the continuation of the road, (if such a few wagon tracks might be termed) after descending to the beach, where all traces of wheels were of course entirely oblite rated, and which was no easy matter, where hip popotami paths worn through the sand-hills, and tangled vegetation, were not only numerous, but frequently more inviting than the overgreen ave nues we should have threaded. On one of these occasions, as it might be expected, we did not discover the error until, guided by the huge te nants of these jungles, we found ourselves in the very heart of a morass, and, strange to say, at the same instant, although widely apart, both horses sunk to theh haunches. In both instances it was a work of labor to set them again upon theh feet ; but my poor mare was so completely embedded, that it was only by the process of mining, and that with our hands, and eventually applying leather thongs to each fetlock, and heaving each limb separately out by main force, that she was at length extricated from a spot where she had left a perfect cast of her own dimensions. But still we were off the road — the night was approaching, and by wandering further we might only increase the difficulty ; as soon, therefore, as we had reached a situation which might safely be called terra firma, I selected the most ehgible bush, and knee-haltering the horses, prepared for our nightly bivouac, when just at this time, to my great relief, the road was discovered at no great distance. — The night proved rainy, and I rose completely drenched. We had aheady passed several rivers, and on the following day reached the banks of one, which, from its size and rapidity, there could be no doubt was the Umzimcoolu. Finding it im passable at the mouth, I rode round, guided by a footpath, to an upper ford, about three mfles dis tant, but even then, appeared no possibihty of get ting across. Returning to the former station we both endeavored, by wading among the rocks and sand banks, to discover a passage, but without THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. success. A very reduced allowance of biscuit and cheese, with a little brandy, had been my only fine since leaving the baggage, and even this was now entirely expended ; however we slept well under the shade of some strelitza trees (very simflar to wild banana) having shared the last morsel of cheese to the very rind, which constituted our fru gal supper. Scarcely had daylight appeared the next morn ing, than every expedient was resorted to for the supply of our wants. The hook of my horse's curb chain was bent and sharpened ; strands of rope were unlaid for a fishing line, the ground was ransacked for worms and the rocks for muscles to be employed as bait — but one of the latter only was found, and either scared by or despising our novel fishing tackle, not one of the finny tribe could be induced to bite. Equally unhappy were all our endeavors to waylay the hippopotami, whose provoking traces were so fresh when we awoke, that, from the marks they had left in the sand, they could not have passed many yards from our retreat. Even the birds deserted us, and all that my interpreter could procure with his gun was three sand larks, which I did not taste. The next morning, the 22nd, it occurred to me that it would be advisable to ascertain once more the state of the river at the upper ford ; and with this intention, I mounted my horse, but, on approach ing the spot, I can hardly express my joy and sur prise at perceiving Solomon, the Bechuana lad, perched like a monkey upon the back of one of the baggage horses, and midway in the stream urging the animal to the opposite bank. On per ceiving that the river was fordable, I merely di rected them to await my return, and rode back with att speed to communicate the joyful news, and offer a prayer of thanks to the Author of all our mercies. It was long before we were all across — my poor mare sank in a quicksand when about half way, and, being too weak to extricate herself, was obliged to be shot to avoid the inevi table fate of drowning, on the rise of the tide wliich flows above this point ; and before we could proceed beyond the thick belt of high reeds which margins the stream on both sides, so heavy a shower descended; that in a few minutes we were thoroughly wet. Nothing could have been more providential than my visiting the upper ford at the time I did ; had it been but a quarter of an hour earlier they would not have arrived-r-had it been as much later, both would have passed, and they would have proceeded, as they said, straight for Port Natal, concluding that we were still in advance. That we also might have found our way to Port Natal is not improbable, had we not been famish ed by the way. My mare I had always regarded as a dernier resort, but we could have carried little of the meat, and even under the most favorable circumstances, our sufferings might have heen ex treme before we had gained an inhabited spot. It has been a lesson to me ever since never to take the advice of a native — theh descriptions of localities are always vague— they cannot calcu late distances, and they are so little acquainted with the average speed of horses, which they in variably exaggerate, that nine times out of ten they will most innocently and undesignedly mis- 56—4 lead the traveUer who reposes the least confidence in their information. So far from reaching the wished for village at the distance of an hour or two from the Umzimcoolu, as represented, it took us nearly a day and a half hard travelling, but the wind was so high, and the rain so constant, that our progress was. greatly impeded. In order to save time, both the tent and the fagged horse which carried it, were left on the road ; indeed, the rain had beat in through the canvas so un sparingly the preceding night, that we felt the less reluctant to part with so uncertain a shelter. During the whole of this night, (the 23rd,) the rain never once intermitted, and even the trees, under which we were bivouaced, only added to our discomfort. No fire could possibly be kindled — a little brown sugar, the only supply that re mained, was all that we had tasted for two days, — wet and hungry, and without a dry thread to change, I was apprehensive of the consequences of sleeping in such a condition, and although obliged often to beat my body to prevent being overcome by sleep, I succeeded in my endeavor to keep erect upon my feet until the morning, and, although stiU raining, I must own I never hailed the first streaks of early day with a greater feel ing of delight. In crossing a small rocky stream the next morning, one of the horses was swept down into a deep place, and nearly drowned be fore the pack could be removed ; we soon after reached the vfllage, and our wants were readily supplied with Indian com, and native bread made from the same grain. The next large river, the Uncamas, being reported at this time as high and rapid, I purchased two head of cattle, and, with the skins sewn together with sinew and extended over a light wooden frame composed of rough poles, constructed a very respectable looking ca noe, with which we started on the 28th, the frame borne on the heads of four men hired for the pur pose, and the covering placed upon the back of one of the horses ; two men had been previously despatched for the horse and tent, but had not returned at the time of our departure, and I was unfitting to delay another day on that account. It was about sunset when we reached the river, the canoe, however, was soon equipped and launched, the hide having been first wett soaked in order to fiU up the seams. As none of the party were in the shghtest degree acquainted with the manage ment of a boat, and the whole thing even to me was an experiment, I merely took a few necessary articles, and shoved off alone, unwilling to risk any thing until the merits of my new vessel had been properly tried. Although the paddles were of the roughest description, I gained the landing place on the opposite side without difficulty, and, depositing my cargo, started again in the hope of conveying the remainder across, but here it be came necessary to ascend the stream, which all my labor could not effect, and after toiling for a considerable time, I was at last obliged to give it up, and make again for the opening in the reeds which I had just left, and which I gained partly by the assistance of a native who accompanied us from the village, for the purpose of conveying the baggage across upon reeds, should every other method fail. The fact was, the current had swept me past the landing-place, and although [ had 8 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. gained the reeds near the bank, stiU the water was deep, and it was necessary to tow up the canoe, partly by their stems and partly by wading, before I could effect a landing. Had there been people sufficient for the operation, the communication might even now have been kept up by carrying the canoe round to a spot higher up the stream, and thence crossing diagonally to the station where the party stfll remained. But as I had the only good swimmer of the party with me, and all the rest were alarmed by the numbers of alliga tors which infest this river, nothing more could be done than to haul her up to the top of the bank. Having no provisions with me, excepting a httle damaged sugar, urged by the qualms of hunger I at length persuaded my companion to entrust him self again to the watery element in quest of a loaf of bread. It was now quite dark, and he had been so long absent, that I feared some accident had happened to him, or that, tired of these aqua tic excursions at so unseasonable an hour, he had very quietly left me to make the best of my ad vanced position. In truth it was no enviable one. I was standing in a gap among reeds considerably above my head, among which on both sides of me, and certainly from the loudness of their snort ing and hard breathing, not many yards distant, the hippopotami were so thick that I stood with my paddle uplifted, every instant expecting a rush to be made. Willing to ascertain my probable fate, I catted out to the people on the opposite bank, to inform me whether or not I was to ex pect an attack from these unwelcome visiters, but to this anxious inquiry no reply reached my ears.* At length my swimming friend appeared, but with out the expected loaf; aU had been disposed of before his arrival. My canister of sugar was again resorted to, and with the zest of a school boy ; I first rewarded the native for his trouble with a Uttle of the saccharine paste, for such was its present consistency, and then scooped out a portion for my supper. Although no longer an noyed by hippopotami, I soon felt far more sen sibly disturbed by an insignificant animal which here abounds in miUions. For some time I at tempted to sleep in the canoe, but the mogquitos were too active to render that possible ; a grove of trees higher up was then tried, but even there no respite was to be found — at last, driven from place to place, I sank down exhausted upon the wet grass at a distance from the bushes, and ther,e without a covering contrived to sleep until the morning. Our river guide was now in active operation, and with much ingenuity he soon con structed a sort of reed pontoon on which the bag gage was placed, and swimming with one hand, and urging forward his bundle of reeds with the other, he conveyed in this manner the whole of the articles across, of course the greater part of them dripping wet. The form is not unlike that of a boat, the two short sticks are for the purpose of attaching the articles to be conveyed, and to enable the person swimming at the side to pre vent it from rotting over. As soon as my horse had been conveyed across, * I have since understood that they will attack even on shore, but that very rarely, and generally in self-defence. and one of the canoe-bearers as a guide, 1 pro ceeded without delay to Port Natal, in the hope of procuring another horse, and sending back supplies for the party. On that evening, the 29th, about sunset, I reached Port Natal, and was kindly received by Mr. Cottis, the principal trader, and on the following afternoon my interpreter joined me, but with no very agreeable news. Either the men had been alarmed, or the horses became unmanageable in the water — probably from both causes, two pack horses had broken loose, and were represented as having been car ried rapidly down by the current, where, from the pecuUar nature of the banks, there can be httle hope of theh extricating themselves until swept into the sea. I felt thankful that no human life had been lost, which, from the gravity of the an nouncement, I had reason to apprehend. With out waiting for the men who were left to search for the horses, I procured a wagon, and, with a sufficient supply of provisions, continued my jour ney on the 31st. But we had not proceeded more than ten mfles, before we were again stop ped by the Umgani, a river of some size, but in ferior to the two last, which had impeded our pro gress, each of which are equal in width to the Umzimvoobo. The water was not then rising, and as the following day was Sunday, there was every expectation that it would abate sufficiently to admit of the wagon's crossing ; in this, how ever, we were mistaken. On Sunday afternoon it was again on the ascendant ; and as but a few inches more would render it impassable even for horses, I felt the necessity of either immediately effecting the passage, or waiting an indefinite time until it became practicable. Although re luctant to infringe upon the sacred hours of this day, it appeared to be one of those urgent cases in which the duty was obvious ; by the assistance, therefore, of Mr. Stubbs (a hunter,) who knew the river, and the natives of a neighboring vil lage, who conveyed the baggage across on then- heads, I quitted the wagon, and slept in one of the huts, about three quarters of a mile distant. The next morning, February 2nd, I set out, ac companied by my interpreter, and three natives carrying the baggage, to traverse an uninhabited district of about seventy miles to the Tugala, which we reached on the following evening, hav ing slept in the open ah about mid-way on the preceding night. Long before we reached the river, the hills in the Zoolu country were visible, and I never shaU forget the interest with which I perceived the first curl of smoke rising from a distant village in that dhection. Many were the reflections which at that moment passed my mind, and the nearer we approached the more anxious I became to cross the narrow boundary, and feel that I was standing upon Zoolu ground, and in the midst of a people I had been so desirous to visit. On this side of the river, now considered the southern limit of that country, there are, indeed, a few scattered vfllages of a Zoolu tribe, called, in derision by their late sovereign (Charka,) Aman- paci, (literally wolf people,) on account of theh aUeged ill conduct in one of his campaigns ; but the enthe population does not exceed three or four hundred, residing near the banks and in the neigh borhood of the ford. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 9 The chief of this small clan, Mambayendi, made his appearance the next morning, but not even his authority, nor the more direct assistance of some European hunters, who, with theh wagons, were stationed here at the time, could avail in convey ing the two horses across the swollen stream, now at its height, and which had already been unford- able for a considerable time. Happily for me,, two of the hunting party were still on the opposite side, where a rudely constructed skin canoe was haul ed up for their convenience, among the reeds. This, after a certain expenditure of breath and trial of lungs, was at last forthcoming, and sculled across ; by this means, in two trips, myself, my interpreter, and a native named Umpondombeeni ordered by Mambayendi to accompany me, one saddle and bridle, and a certain proportion of bag gage, were conveyed across. After performing thus much, the exertion was found too great to bring over a party of baggage-bearers who were to have accompanied me : and as for the horses, the very attempt would in all probability have cost the Uves of the boatmen, so that this was at once abandoned. Indeed, when I consider the rapidity of the stream — the number of aUigators — and the construction of the canoe, in shape hke a reversed tortoise-shell, and scarcely two inches from the water at the gunwale, with the extraordinary re volutions which we made during the tragel, that we ourselves were landed in safety was a provi dential chcumstance, and which at one time I scarcely thought possible. But. I forgot all, in find ing myself on Zoolu ground, and thanked my God for having thus far prospered my way. On reach ing a vfllage about one mile and a half distant, where we slept, I made every endeavor through the numzana (head man) to procure baggage-bearers for the journey ; but although I had been informed on the other side that here they could more readily be hired, there seemed little prospect of success. The views from this side are beautiful — both are hilly; but on that we had just left the mimosas and other trees are very luxuriant, while this is comparatively bare, and when seen in connexion with the river, which winds among rocky banks, the prospect is very striking. It was late the next morning (the 5th) before we could move forward, and then only with temporary bearers, to a neigh boring vfllage, and one horse, which happening to be on this side, I hired for the remainder of the journey. When we reached the next village, the same difficulty respecting the transport of the bag gage again occuned, and finding the matter hope less among these petty numzanas, I sent, as recom mended by the headman here, for the necessary permission to the Indoona of a large military town not far distant, without whose sanction, it appear ed, these inferior chiefs were reluctant to take the responsibility of assisting me with men. The sun had nearly set, when the messenger returned to inform me that a sufficient number of men would be appointed, but that the Indoona had ex- Sressed his surprise that I had not first applied to im. Circumstanced as I now was, a perfect stranger in a strange country, with only two attendants, my interpreter, and a Zoolu, of whom as yet I knew nothing, I considered it would be the height of imprudence to allow even the appearance of a misunderstanding to exist ; accordingly, much against the inclination of my party as also of the villagers, who, by exaggerating the distance and the difficulties of walking in the dark, dissuaded me from proceeding until the morning, I immediately set out, and reached the town (Clomanthleen Inth- lopi) before the Indoona (Nongalaza) had retired. He was seated on the ground, in front of his hut, and in the middle of a half circle of the principal people, all decorated with thick brass rings round theh throats, and a few also on the right arm. He received me with great civility, appeared surpris ed at my traveUing so late, and ordered a bundle or two of imphi (a spurious sugar cane, much cul tivated throughout the country,) to be placed be fore us for present consumption. My want of proper attendants seemed to excite theh curiosity, which the state of the rivers sufficiently explained, and, after a long conversation in the open air, in which it was recommended that I should remain until their sovereign Dingarn had been apprised of my arrival, we were shown to our huts, which were larger and neater that any I had yet seen. During my stay here, the whole regiment, for this is one ofthe eskands or banaek towns, were often assembled without the fence, to practise theh songs and dances preparatory to exhibiting in their turn be fore Dingarn, at his residence, Unkunginglove. As these, with the various evolutions, were exactly similar to those which I afterwards witnessed on an larger scale, although there could not have been less than eight or nine hundred men present, I shall postpone the description, as also of the in termediate country to the capital, which wfll be more circumstantially described hereafter in the journal. When about hah way, a petty chief ar- rived with orders to conduct me to the capital, and to kiU a beast for us at the first place where he should meet us. Dingarn had expressed his de sire that I should proceed, saying, that " I was his white man, and must make haste." I shall now proceed at once to my first view of Unkunginglove on the afternoon of the 10th. This was obtained from a rocky hill, covered with aloes and mimosas, intermixed with several large cauliflower-shaped euphorbia trees, growing to the height of sixty or seventy feet. Having descended to a beautiful spot, a continuation of the same ridge to which I had pushed forward, for the sake of quietly enjoy ing a scene, to me so fraught with interest, I dis mounted under a wooded knoll, whence the circular fence of the town appeared Uke a distant race course on the left, while a range of rugged moun tains, one remarkably table-topped, rising towards the north, hemmed in the prospect on the opposite side. Near this point the road branched off, one path leading to the principal gate of the town, and the other to the Issicordlo, or king's quarter, but which I had not perceived among the trees. As no voices were heard, and after waiting an ample time no traces of the party could be seen, I con cluded that they must have passed unperceived, and accordingly made the best of my way by the only wen-worn path that I could discern, and which I could distinctly trace to the very fence of the town. On reaching a shaUow stream, which I forded, I suddenly found myself surrounded by thirty or forty women, who, laughting and shout ing as they went, accompanied me as I proceeded 10 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. towards a gate in the outer fence of the town, still under the idea that the party were in advance, and fearing that I should be deprived of the ad vantages of an interpreter at the very time when his services would be the most needed. At this moment, a person suddenly came up, and seizing the bridle of my horse, without further ceremony, turned him short round. The effect was so im mediate and unexpected, that I did not at first re cognise the individual, and struck at his hand with a stick ; but in a moment I found that it was my servant, Umpondombeeni, and from the hurry of his demeanor, and the extense anxiety he por trayed by his countenance, felt at once convinced that aU was not right. Submitting therefore to his guidance, he eoon conducted me to the party, anxiously awaiting my return upon the road which I should have taken, and where I found many of the baggage-bearers actually hi tears, and all under the highest state of agitation and alarm. No causeless fears were theirs, for had I pro ceeded and entered by the gate I was approach ing, they would all, it appears, by the custom of the country have atoned for my mistake by theh lives, and, as it was, there was stiU an apprehension that some at least would be capitally punished. We soon after entered the town, and on applica tion to the principal Indoona (UmthleUa) two huts not far from his own dweUing were appointed, into one of which I was not sorry to creep after the fatigues of the journey, having walked and ridden alternately since leaving the Tugala. A bundle of imphi and a large bowl of outchualla (native beer) was sent to my hut by order of Din garn, and a messenger soon after signified his wish to see me. Crossing the area of the circular town, accompanied by the chief who had been despath- ed by Dingarn to conduct me to the capital, we were desired to sit at a short distance from the fence which surrounds the Issigordlo (or palace). After a little pause the bust only of a very stout personage appeared above the fence, which I was soon informed was the despot himself ; he eyed me for a considerable time with the utmost gra vity without uttering a word ; at last pointing to an ox that had been driven near, he said, " There is the beast I give you to slaughter," and on this important announcement he disappeared. The carcasses of several oxen, recently killed, were at this time lying in separate heaps not far from the gate of his fence, the quarters divided and piled one upon another, and in order, no doubt, to exhibit at once his wealth and his munificence ; he again appeared slowly emerging from the arch ed gateway, and advancing with a measured step to the nearest animal mound. Instantly he was surrounded by fourteen or fifteen men who ran from a distance and crouched before him ; a word and a nod were then given, and as quickly they arose and carried off the meat at fuU speed, holding it up the whole way with extended arms, and sing ing as they went. Another heap was then ap proached, and as systematically distributed, and so on until the whole had been conveyed away in a simUar pantomimic manner. Dingarn was ha bited in a blue dungaree cloak relieved by a white border and devices at the back ; the train swept the ground, and, although tarnished and worn, well became his height and portly figure. The soldiers' meat having now been duly apportioned, he slowly approached the place where we were seated, and in solemn silence stood motionless like a statue before me until a chair was brought from within, when he at last sat down and commenced a long conversation. His first inquiries were respecting the conduct of the guides, who were also present, seated in a group, but who were readily pardon ed on the assurance which I gave that if blame were attached it must entirely rest with me, as I had mistaken the road while in advance of the party. He then requested to know the object of my visit, which I found great difficulty in explain ing- . 7 That my views were not m any degree connect ed with trade he could understand, but what was God, and God's word, and the nature of the in struction I proposed, were subjects which he could not at all comprehend. In order to give him some illustration, I related a few of the leading chcum stances which in other heathen countries had led to the worship of God, and contrasted theh su perior character, and the many advantages which they possessed since their reception of Christianity, with their former condition. He asked if Iris people could learn also, and seemed to regard the whole as an impossibility. The subject of the presents was then adverted to ; but on this unfor tunately I had little to say, but that they were on their way, and I hoped would arrive safely ; still he was not satisfied until I had not only enumerat ed every article, but entered into a minute descrip tion of each. The mention of a red cloak quite filled his mind, and seemed likely to suit his fancy more than all the rest. He then asked if my king's name was George, and, on the mention of our gracious sovereign, inquired how he govern ed his people. With so many decided proofs of despotism around, I considered this as rather a dehcate question, and therefore avoided the cir cumstance of parhamentary interference altogether, by informing him that king WiUiam governed his people by means of his great men. He smiled and seemed evidently to legard even this as an inconvenient approximation to popular institutions. Finding that he had now sufficiently relaxed in state reserve, I thought it a favorable opportunity again to revert to the subject of teaching, and requested permission to build a house for that purpose ; but this was a knotty point, the objections to which I had yet to learn ; no denial however was given, and I took my leave with a fuU understanding that a person should accompany me on the foUowing day to dhect me in the selection of the spot. Dingarn had already expressed a deshe to see " the Book," of which I had spoken so much, and now reminded me to bring it with me on my next visit. For three days subsequently he was unwell, and on the second sent to apologize for not seeing me. My next interview was in the Issigordlo, where I found the king reclining on a head-stool at the door of his house before which I was desired to seat myself on a mat. His first question was whe ther I had brought " the Book," on wliich my pocket testament was produced, and at his deshe dehvered into his hand ; but after turning over the leaves with much curiosity for a few minutes, re turned to me again. On requesting that I would THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 11 then read the words of the Book, I read in order a number of passages previously selected, as ex hibiting the nature and penalty of sin, the power and omniscience of God, and the auful day of ac count when he wfll judge the world in righteous ness. At the conclusion he asked several very pertinent questions, such as, — "Where is God 1 How did he give his Word 1 Who will be judged at the last day) What nations will appear! Will mine be there ? Shall I live for ever if I learn his Word 1 " Two women only were in his house, and but one chief attended me, so that it might be considered a confidential meeting, and to me was particularly interesting. Before I left I reminded him of his promise respecting the house, on which he inquhed if the open court in which I was then standing would do, and from the friendly manner in which it was expressed, I almost thought it pos sible that he might take my hint, and roof it in for the purpose, but now for the first time he mention ed a reference to the Indoonas as requisite before this matter could be finally decided. Hitherto I had been treated with great civflty by all, but an unaccountable change was now but too apparent. Although the government is absolute, a consider able share of power is vested in the hands of the two principal Indoonas of the nation, who are al ways consulted and generaUy supposed to sanction every important measure of theh sovereign, and in this manner it becomes a convenient triumvi rate, contracting or expanding its powers within itself according to the humor of the ruling despot. These two important personages, UmthleUa and Tambooza, I must now introduce — the one a chief of hereditary rank, of a sUght person, and a mild and inteUigent countenance ; the other sufficiently indicating, without the science of Lavater, a cha racter for tyranny and insolence but too exactly cor responding with his scowling profile. From some cause or other of which I was perfectly uncon scious, unless it was my determination not to make confidants of either, but to treat only with the king on the object of my visit, they not only treated me about this time with every indignity, but by theh rude example induced the people to accost us with insolence, and often to salute us with opprobrious epithets as we passed. Even my walks were distributed, and often, while seated under my favorite tree,* about three quarters of a mile from the town, a message would be sent in the king's name to deshe that I would immediately return. On one of these occasions my interpreter happen ed to be near Umthletta's house when the order was issued, and heard Tambooza's further instmc tions that in case I should not wittingly come they were to drag me along. Doubtful how far they had the power, or to what extent they might be acting under the king's directions — as I had not been able to approach him for some days, and they assured me that without their sanction I should not have another interview — I thought it prudent to bear att without reproaching them, with a full intention of stating the whole circumstances to Dingarn on the very first opportunity that should * This extraordinary tree, of which I have only met with a few, has no leaves, but the branches pro trude numbers of green pipes containing a milky liquid. occur. Nothing seemed to gratify them more than to find that I returned to the town when thus summarily ordered, or to announce on my apphca tion to Umthletta for the cause of this intrusion that they had dhected it, pattiating the affront by merely saying that they wished me to sit down and talk with them. So systematic was this species of persecution, that on one occasion, as I was leaving the town, one ofthe inferior Indoonas, a very power ful man, more than six feet high, took me by the shoulder and attempted to obstruct my passage in the gate. I immediately walked up to UmthleUa and Tambooza, seated with a group of people roimd them, not far distant, and inquhed if it was by their sanction that strangers were thus ill treat ed. The only reply was that they had sent him to caU me, as they wished me to join them, and converse. Supposing that the non-appearance of the pre sents might have greatly contributed to place me in my present dilemma, I waived the opportunity which soon after occurred, of making a dhect complaint to Dingarn, and contented myself with hinting the advantage of sending a messenger to Port Natal, to ascertain whether the wagon had yet arrived ; adding that, should that be the case, the presents might be forwarded without delay. This arrangement was no sooner proposed, than messengers were appointed ; and by this means I also succeeded in sending a letter to England, which, under my present chcumstances, was a great rehef. Had this letter reached its destination, it would have been a singular production. It was written upon the only half sheet of paper that I possessed, by the hght of a lamp made by placing native butter in a small calabash, and inserting a rag wick. Some essidoodo (my usual meal) sup pUed the paste for a wafer. The shed hoof of a calf is not a bad substitute for a lamp when a cala bash cannot be procured. On this occasion I fully thought some treachery was meditated. UmtheUa had again taken upon himself to send for me, and on reaching his hut, I hesitated, when required to enter, begging that he would himself come out. The messenger who had caUed me, and whom I knew to be a principal person, assured me that UmtheUa was alone in the hut, but, to my surprise, on crawling in, the sides were lined with men. UmtheUa commenced a long preamble, by inform ing me, as he had often done before, that Tam booza and himself were the King's eyes and ears, and that aU matters of importance must be first notified to them before they could be expressed to him. He then pointed to the messengers about to proceed to Port Natal, and who were then present, saying, that whatever message I wished them to take must be deUvered to them now. There ap peared to be no alternative, and, surrounded as I was by so unexpected a party, I deUvered a short message, reserving the remainder for a note, which was given to them on theh departure. From this time, matters gradually assumed a more pacific character : they had m vain attempted to wear out my patience; and, probably, finding that they could not irritate me into any overt act of retalia tion, the system of annoyance was dropped, and the change in theh manner so apparent, that I cannot but think they had received some positive rebuke from the Dingarn on tiie subject. My in- 12 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. terviews with the King were now more frequent ; but although I made it a point never to leave him without giving him a hint respecting my deshe to commence teaching his people, and constructing a house for the purpose, no decisive answer could ever be extracted — that he would take an oppor tunity of consulting with the Indoonas, was the invariable reply. Since my return to Port NataL the foUowing story has been related to me, which, I doubt not, has operated much to my disadvan tage, and wfll in a great measure account for the recent strange conduct of the two Indoonas. — Jacob, the native intepreter of the late Lieutenant Farewell, who was the first settler at Port Natal, from some cause became greatly incensed against the settlers, and took every opportunity to preju dice them in the eyes of Charka, at that time the sovereign of this country. He assured him that a white man, assuming the character of a teacher or missionary, would arrive among them, and ob tain permission to build a house ; that, shortly after, he would be joined by one or two more white men ; and in the course of time, an army would enter his country, which would subvert his government, and, eventuaUy, the white people would rule in his stead. One afternoon, while occupied in what may be esteemed a very puerile amusement, planning out the rooms of a house, with stones laid together on the ground on the spot, wliich (if permission could be obtained) I had selected for the mission build ings, a messenger, running and breathless, came to inform me that Dingarn was waiting to see me. I found the King seated near the fence of some detached houses at the back of the Issigordlo, where I was joined by my interpreter, who inform ed me that several messengers had already been despatched for me in different directions. Din garn appeared in high good-humor, but with a degree of mystery which rather prepared me for some strange antic. He began some trifling con versation to eke out the time, when suddenly the head of a column of the most grotesque looking figures debouched from theh ambush on the right, and marched past four deep, raising and lowering their bent arms, as though in the act of tugging at steeple bell-ropes, and repeating two lines of a song as they passed, which may be thus transla ted:— " Arise, vulture ! Thou art the bird thateateth other birds." When they had passed and repassed in this or der, they appeared again, broken into irregular companies, according to the color of theh dresses, — and seeing that I admired the arrangement of the beads, with which they were literaUy covered, they were ordered to advance in files, and ap proach nearer, that theh dresses might be inspect ed. They proved to be no other than the King's wtomen, about ninety in number, decorated as they usually are previous to the army taking the field. Their faces were veiled with pendants of beads, with which also the petticoat was covered, forming an elegant checkered pattern, while theh throats and arms were adorned with large brass rings. Some wore short cloaks also covered with diffe rent-colored beads, and all two strange head fea thers, wliich gave them a very uncouth appear ance. For women, they seemed to be in a high state of disciphne, and rather enjoyed the display than otherwise ; and Dingarn seemed highly grati fied at the well-merited encomiums which I paid to his taste, every one of these devices having originated in his fertile imagination. It was nearly dark before this extraordinary exhibition was ended, Dingarn, during the latter part, frequently turning round, and addressing me thus : — " Are we not a merry people ? What black nations can vie with us ! Who among them can dress as we do 1 " It was some of these ladies whom I met on my first approach to the town, after missing my party — they had then been bathing ; but I have frequently met large parties of them carry ing burdens for the use of the Issigordlo, and more than once seen them march out, with Din- gam at theh head, and employ themselves in weeding his corn and imphi grounds, while he in spected the crop. CHAPTER II. Mt mind was much relieved by the return of the messengers, who not only brought the wel come intelligence of Mr. Berken's safe arrival with the wagons at Port Natal, but some substantial proofs of my integrity to Dingarn in the long- promised presents, some of which, indeed, had so deteriorated in their various submersions by the way, that they were scarcely produceable, while, to my great satisfaction, that which was most prized, the red cloak, was in the best preservation. For the selection of this article, wliich was com posed of red baize, with a long silky nap, such as is often used in lining the collars of boat cloaks, I am indebted to Mr. Fynn, who kindly recom mended it to me, in Graham's Town, as a de scription of cloth in color and texture more hkely to please his Zoolu majesty than any other that could be procured ; and, certainly, no advice could have been more correctly given. No sooner was it opened, than it was displayed in every possible manner ; first, on the king's shoulders, then on one of his servants, who was ordered to turn and twist about in all directions, that its every bearing and fold might be shown off to the best advan tage ; it was then stretched to its widest extent, and two men, holding it up at arm's length, were directed to run at full speed backwards and for wards, that he might witness its appearance while flowing in the air ; at length, for some minutes it was hung upon the fence opposite his own house, that the curiosity of the people who were viewing it from a distance might be satisfied. Strange to say, after all this display, he never even wore it, but has had it carefuUy preserved ever since for the grand national assembly at the feast of the first fruits, which takes place annuaUy about the first week in January. In the evening I received the important information, by special messenger, that it was neither too long nor too short, but ex actly suited. Dingarn, with aU his barbarity, is dearly fond of a joke, and one morning sent for me and my interpreter, for the sole purpose of affording some amusement. The open court which surrounds THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 13 his house, into which we were admitted, was lin ed with seventy or eighty women, seated on mats, while he himself was standing on an earth mound, about the size of an ant-hfll, from which he is enabled not only to overlook the fence, but to take a general view of the whole town ; and it is from this rude pedestal that his orders are fre quently given to the people without. " There has been a contest," was his first ob servation. " My women wfll not beheve that you can do the things that are written down, unless you were present when the directions were noted — but I teU them you can." In order to place this knotty question beyond all further dispute, I was requested to remain at a sufficient distance outside the fence, while my in terpreter, at their dictation, wrote in pencil the names of twelve or fourteen of the women, de scribing their relative situations, when I was again admitted. The accuracy with wliich I was ena bled at once to point to each individual named on the paper was a source of great merriment and surprise, but stfll they were not satisfied, and de vised another plan, which they thought would certainly puzzle. On my return, after a consider able interval, it appeared that several articles had been hid, and for which I was required to search, according to the direction given. My first essay was to produce a broom, which had been rotted up in the end of a mat ; then a bead, in the closed hand of one of the ladies ; afterwards, an ear ornament, concealed in the skirt of Dingarn's cloak, but here I was at default — pointing to the cloak, he shook it loose, to show that nothing was there ; still I pointed at the same spot near his feet ; at last, with a laugh of triumph, he hfted up one of his feet, which had been purposely placed upon the article in question. This, of course, all acknowledged was an unfair advan tage; and I then proceeded to pronounce the name of his favorite dog, Marqufllana, and to watch the first lizard which happened to run over the thatch of the king's house ; on noticing which, my task was ended, and I doubt not my reputa tion for literary acquirements wonderfully en hanced. Dingarn, it appears, had on some former occasion, proved the skill of a white man in deci phering his own language. But a more tragical scene was about to be ex hibited. Early one morning, my servant came to inform me that they were killing a man ; and on leaving my hut to ascertain the truth of the re port, I found that Goujaana, one of the king's brothers, had already been hurried tlirough the gate to the place of execution, and was at that time foUowed by his two servants in charge of a party of executioners, armed with knobbed sticks. Partly dragged and partly goaded on, they were distinctly traced across the stream, and ascending the opposite hfll. Here, however, they stopped, and a horrid scene took place. The two servants naturally enough had endeavored to effect theh escape ; but instead of binding them, they deter mined, as they called it, to take away theh strength by throwing them down, and striking them violently on aU parts of the body with sticks — theh blows I could distinctly hear. Again they were placed upon theh feet, and urged on less ra pidly to the fatal spot, near a large euphorbia tree on the brow of fhe hfll, where the horrid purpose was completed by additional blows on the head. Goujuana, I understand, made no resistance, and only requested, as he was led along, that in con sideration of his being a king's son, he might be strangled, in lieu of being struck with the knobbed sticks, which was granted. Much affected by what I had witnessed, I could scarcely take my eyes from the spot, and was stfll standing in the same place, when the principal executioner entered the town on his return, hold ing in his hand the brass ornaments which had been taken from the necks of the deceased. He advanced directly towards me, and for a second or two, as he was approaching, the thought cross ed my mind that I was to be the next victim ; but it appeared he was only actuated by curiosity, and after displaying the brass rings, passed on. The following afternoon I took an opportunity of visiting the spot, but so effectually had the hyenas and the vultures performed their office, that the skeletons only remained to add to the number of skuUs and bones with which the whole slope of the hfll was strewed. Goujuana was one of the most intelligent looking men I have ever seen, of an open and engaging countenance, and, al though the next in succession to Dingarn, was so unassuming in his manners, that I have often had great pleasure in his conversation, and had indeed indulged in the hope that it might please God to make him the first convert to Christianity. A mystery hangs over his death ; but whether true or false, the alleged offence is an intrigue against the king, in which two other of his brothers were also said to have been implicated, and about a year ago suffered the same fate. Dingarn, ac cording to report, had hitherto spared his life, contrary to the wishes of the two Indoonas, but so determined was UmthleUa to effect his death, that, because his recommendations in this parti cular were not attended to, he had for some time refrained from visiting the king, excepting on matters of business ; and the other day plainly told him that it was impossible that they could ever go out to war while the prisoner (as he term ed Goujuana,) Uved. But even here the matter was not allowed lo rest. When a chief faUs by the hand of the ex ecutioner, all his property is confiscated, and every individual, of whatever age, who is in the remotest degree connected with him by family or. depend ence, is summarily put to death. An Indoona, who lived in an adjoining hut to mine, was order ed upon this revolting duty, and from his lips, on his return, the following account is given. Tho principal property belonging to Goujuana was in the neighborhood of the Tugala, and thither ho was sent with a party of men, not exceeding thirty, to destroy the entire population of ten vfl lages. On reaching the first of these devoted places, he entered with one man only, to avoid suspicion ; in the course of the evening one or two more dropped in, and so on, until the whole had arrived. He then informed the principal men that he had a message to dehver from the king, and as it was addressed to all, it would be better for the men to assemble in a place together, where aU could hear. This anangement being made, he so contrived it that his men, with whom 14 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. a previous signal had been concerted, should in termingle with the party, and endeavor to divert their attention by offering them snuff. While thus apparently on the most friendly terms, the fatal blow was given, each of the Indoona's party, on noticing the signal, rising and stabbing his fel low with an assagai. The houses were instantly fired, and the women and chUdren indiscriminately butchered. The same horrors were perpetrated at each of the remaining villages, and it is said that but a very few escaped by flight out of the whole number ! It is truly lamentable to reflect on the numbers of cold-blooded murders which are thus syste- maticaUy occurring, and that under the highest sanction, in these habitations of cruelty, going far to depopulate many flourishing districts ; and surely it should be the earnest and the constant prayer of Christians, that the glorious light of the Gospel may fllumine theh dark mountains, pro ducing " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-wiU towards men." A few days after this painful occinrence, a chief named Georgo, at the head of a large detachment from his regiment, came from a distant part of the country, for the purpose of begging shields. As all the cattle folded in the mihtary towns belong to the king, and but few are killed there in propor tion to the numbers which are daily slaughtered at the capita], this is, in consequence, the great deposit of shields, the manufacture of which is con stant and almost the only occupation of the men ; two being formed from each hide. The reception of this party, which was somewhat curious, I shall now describe. Their arrival at the principal gate of the town having been notified to the king, an order was soon after sent for theh admission, when they aU rushed up with a shout, brandishing theh sticks in a most violent manner, until within a respectable distance of the Issigordlo, when they halted. Dingarn soon mounted his pedestal and showed himself over the fence, on which a simul taneous greeting of Byate ran through the line into which they were now formed. He soon dis appeared, and the whole party tiien seated them selves on the ground they occupied. Dingarn shortly after came out, the two Indoonas and a number of his great men having aheady arrived, and seated themselves in semicircular order on each side of his chair, from whom he was, how ever, removed to a dignified distance. Tambooza, who is the great speaker on all these occasions, and the professed scolder whenever necessity requires, was now on his legs ; to speak publicly in any other posture would, I am convinced, be painful to a Zoolu ; nor is he content with mere jesticula- tion — actual space is necessary — I had almost said sufficient for a cricket-ball to bound in, but this would be hyperbole ; a run however he must have, and I nave been surprised at the grace and effect which this novel accompaniment to the art of elocution has often given to the point and mat ter of the discourse. In this character Tambooza is inimitable, and shone especiaUy on the present occasion, having doubtless been instructed by the king, in whose name he addressed Georgo and his party, to interlard his oration with as many pun gent reproofs and cutting invectives as his fertile imagination could invent, or his natural disposition suggest. On a late expedition it appears, that the troops now harangued had not performed the service expected — they had entered the territory of Umselekaz, and, instead of sunounding and cap turing the herds within their reach, had attended to some pretended instmctions to halt and return ; some palliating circumstances had no doubt screen ed them from the customary rigor on such occa sions, and this untoward occurrence was now turn ed to the best advantage. After a long thade, in which Tambooza ironicatty described their feeble onset and fruitless effort, advancing like a Mercury to fix his dart, and gracefully retiring as though to point a fresh barb for the attack ; now slacking his wrath by a journey to the right, and then as abruptly recoiling to the left — by each detour increasing in vehemence — the storm was at length at its height, and in the midst of the tempest he had stined, he retired to the feet of his sovereign, who I remarked could scarcely refrain from smiling at many of the taunting expressions that were used. Georgo's countenance can better be imagined than describ ed at this moment. Impatient to reply, he now rose from the centre of the line, his person deco rated with strings of pink beads worn over his shoulders like a cross-belt, and large brass rings on his arms and throat. " Am&nka," (it is false,) was the first word he uttered. The various chi valrous deeds of himself and his men were then set forth in the most glowing colors, and a scene ensued which I scarcely know how to describe. Independent of his own energetic gesticulations, his violent leaping and sententious running, on the first announcement of any exculpatory fact in dicating their prowess in arms, one or more of the principal waniors would rush from the ranks to conoborate the statement by a display of muscular power in leaping, charging, and pantomimic con flict, which quite made the ground to resound un der his feet ; alternately leaping and galloping, (for it is not running,) until frenzied by the tortuous motion, their nerves were sufficiently strong for ; the acme posture — vaulting several feet in the ah, drawing the knees towards the chin, and at the same time passing the hands between the ankles. In this singular manner were the charges advanc ed and rebutted for a considerable time ; Dingarn acting behind the scone as a moderator, and oc casionally calUng off Tambooza as an unruly bull dog from the bait. At length, as though imper ceptibly drawn into the argument, he concluded the business in these words, " When have we ever heard anything good of Georgo? What has Georgo done ? It is a name that is unknown to us. I shall give you no shields until you have proved yourself worthy of them ; go and bring me some cattle from Umselekaz, and then shields shall be given you." A burst of applause rang from aU sides on this unexpected announcement ; under which, in good taste, the despot made his exit, retiring into the Issigordlo, while bowls of beer were served out to the soldiers, who with their Indoona were soon after observed marching over the hiUs, on their way to collect the re mainder of theh regiment, for the promised ex pedition. I am inclined to think that there was much of state policy in the whole of these pro ceedings, particularly aB the order for the attack on Zmselekaz was shortly after countermanded, THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 15 and not more than ten or twelve days elapsed before the same party returned and received their shields. At this time I was quietly writing in my hut ; one of the shield houses adjoined; and I shall never forget the unceremonious rush they made. Not contented with turning them aU out, and each selecting one, but in order to prove them, and shake off the dust, they commenced beating them on the spot with sticks, which, in connexion with this sudden incursion, occasioned such an unusual tumult, that I almost thought a civil war had com menced. The chieftain above alluded to (Umse lekaz) is of Zoolu origin, born not far from this very town ; his people are the same ; but during the reign of Charka, the. predecessor to the pre sent king, a separation was made, and, as is usual ly the case, the greatest jealousy and antipathy exist between these two independent and powerful states. The morning being generally the time for trans acting business, as weU as for slaughtering cattle, which is always an important operation, I used sometimes to join the select party assembled around the king, who, seated on a chair near his fence, was almost daily visible at that hour. The deaths and casualties which have occurred during the night among Ms cattle are now formally re ported, and with such precision that even the color and twist of the horns are described. A herd is then driven near and paraded before him for in spection ; from these he selects the number re quired for the day's consumption — six, eight, and sometimes ten or twelve, which are no sooner chosen than a person appointed thrusts a, long spear into theh sides. But one puncture is made about the region of the heart ; still it is seldom that the animal drops immediately ; many walk and stagger for a minute or two, and even, when fallen, seem to die in great agony, from the whole, of the blood escaping tlirough the mouth, and pro ducing a degree of suffocation. It was this cruel accompaniment which often deterred me from these morning visits.' The fingering my watch was always a favorite amusement with Dingarn. Irrespective of consequences, I quite inadvertently drew it out on one of these occasions ; when a narrower inspection was immediately requested, and, as there was no alternative, it was consigned to a hand which had little regardfor its delicate construction. How to recover it again I scarcely knew. Dingarn was already aware that there was still one intended for him among the presents that had not yet arrived, and pleaded hard for an exchange. " Why may not this be mine 1 Does the other make the same noise ? Is it as large i " Although satisfied on aU these points, and even assured that the other was larger, he still seemed to regard present possession as vastly superior to the most costly promises. Hints were unavailing. At lqjrt I appealed to his feelings, by informing him that it was the gift of a very dear friend, on which,, much to his credit, and greatly to my re lief, he readily restored it uninjured to my hand. A singular phrase was used by the group assembed near, at one of these morning audiences. Din garn had sneezed once or twice, when they im mediately exchaimed, " May he grow greater." A ludicrous proof was about this time given of 56—5 the promptitude with which the most unusual and despotic order is obeyed, when issued by the king. Several men from a distant part of the. country, and who had never seen a horse, were standing near, when Dingarn, in one of his frolicsome moods, suddenly turned round, and, pointing to my horse quietly grazing at a distance, cried out, " There's a lion ! — go and bring it alive." In stantly the whole party were in pursuit. I did not witness the circumstance, but my interpreter informed me, that as they approached they ex tended themselves to surround hini, one standing out in advance as though to tempt the attack, while those behind were prepaired to seize and master the animal after, he had, as they expected, sprung upon his victim. But they soon discovered the mistake, and on theh return were ironically rebuked by their sovereign for not bringing the lion. Had it been a hon, as Dingarn himself as serted, it would have been brought, and from this specimen I have little doubt of the fact, notwith standing the great loss of hfe that must have at tended so unusual an- enterprise. One of his most cruel- acts was unfortunately induced by the sight of an eye-glass which I oc casionally wore. He had requested to look through it, and was amusing the people near by describing the effect. Now, he would remark, you are aU run over the river, meaning that he could distinguish people on the opposite side ; now you are aU come back, directing the glass to nearer objects ; at length he asked whether it would burn, and on being told that it was only intended to as sist the eye, he sent to the Issigordlo for a large burning-glass which he had formerly received as a present. His first essay was to ^ignite the dry- grass on each side of his chair ; but this was too tame an occupation, and beckoning one of his ser vants near, he desired him to extend his arm, when he firmly seized his hand, and deliberately held it until a hole has actuaUy burnt in the skin a few inches above the wrist. Crouched before him in the humblest posture, the unfortunate man seemed writhing with pain, but dared not utter even a groan, and, as soon as this wanton inflic tion was over, was directed to go round to the company and display the effect. Had my glass been restored, I should long before have taken my departure, unwitting to countenance such barba rous proceedings ; but it was stfll retained, and I was necessitated to witness a repetition of the same torture on another servant, whom he held in the same manner, and who appeared to suffer more intensely, yet -without any further indica tions of his feelings than a nervous writhing of tho whole body. No sooner was he liberated, than he confessed that the pain1 extended through every part from his head to his feet, and that he was convinced he must have fallen had it been pro longed. He too was ordered to exhibit his arm to all present, and really, from the expression of many of the countenances as he went round, a stranger might have imagined that some honorary badge had been conferred. In these military towns the whole food of the soldiers, consisting of outchuatta in the morning, and beef in the evening, is provided at the King's cost, and partaken of in pubhc. It is no unfre quent thing to see a string of thhty or forty wo- »6 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. men proceeding to the Issigordlo, with bowls of outchuatta on their hfeads, singing as they .go ; these are dehvered to servants appointed, and soon after set before the assembled crowd, who, passing them from one to the other, empty them on the spot. But the evening meal is the most characteristic, and which, from the situation of my hut near one of their feeding places, I had the most frequent opportunities of witnessing. Every regiment is divided into sections, and over each of them is an officer appointed, whose particular charge are the shields and the distribution of meat, of which he is the carver. The beer is al ways drunk in the area included within the inner fence, and often in the presence of the king ; but, for the supper, every section is separately collect ed in some convenient spot in that quarter, within the fences. The meat is generaUy stewed in a large black earthern bowl, with a smaUer one in verted, and cemented round the top to prevent the steam from escaping ; but with all this, and not withstanding it may have been cooking during the greater part of the day, it is generally so tough- that my teeth could make but Uttle impression upon the pieces which I now and then attempted by way of experiment. It is usuaUy dark before their repasts are ready, when the meat is brought upon a mat about two feet square, and placed upon the ground, round which the whole party thickly crowd in a dense circle, often two or three deep. The carver then, with an assegai head upon a short stick, which constitutes his knife, ap portions rations to every second or thhd man, who, in his turn, divides it with his coUateral neighbors, by the joint effort of their teeth ; the recipient be ing always privileged to the first bite. So posi tive is the labor which is necessary before they can venture to swallow these tough morsels, that the operation is distinctly audible at a considera ble distance; and when the whole is devoured (for the word " eat" is too mild an expression for the operation, which is over in a few minutes,) the whole body becomes a convenient napkin, and is plcntifutty besmeared with the fat and grease which adhere to their hands and lips, whUe the most thrifty take this opportunity of reburnishing the brass which encircles theh throat and arms. But it is now time to speak of the graces. The new moon had aheady appeared, and preparation was made for a grand dance, a continuation of those which had commenced at the in-gathering, early in the preceeding month. For two or three days previously, a number of boys had been as sembled, to coUect very smaU pebbles, which were afterwards placed within the vacant cocoon of a winged insect of the beetle kind, striped yel low and black, frequently adhering to the mimosa trees ; several of these strung together were worn at the ankles by the dancers, and made a jingUng noise, which was not unpleasant. Some prelimi nary exercise having been gone through, by way of practice, the whole of the male population, now sweUed to about 1000, arranged themselves in a ring three deep ; the women, in ranks of about twenty, forming a close phalanx in the centre, on a spot at a Uttle distance without the town. The king, in his dancing attire, soon after made his appearance ; his women, dressed out in their best, having preceded him, and fallen into their proper places in the centre of the ring. I waited near the gate, for the purpose of accompanying him and witnessing his reception, which was enthu siastic, aU voices being raised at his approach, to utter the mystical "Byate," with other appro priate epithets. Having but once before seen Dingarn without his cloak, it was with the great est difficulty that I could refrain from laughing outright. Of aU the grotesque figures, either in print or in propria persond, his equal I never saw, though he bore the nearest resemblance to Fal- staff of any I could recollect. Tall, corpulent, and fleshy, with a short neck, and a heavy foot, he was decked out as a harlequin, and, carried away by the excitement of the moment, seemed almost prepared to become one. He has a good ear and a correct taste, at least in these matters, and had his figure but accorded with his equip. ment, he would have carried the palm in the dance, which he entered into with some zest, and certainly sustained his part with much natura] grace, and, for so heavy a man, with no ordinary ease and agflity. The songs which are sung on these occasions are chiefly of his own composition, and are varied every year ; in fact, the dancing is but the accompaniment of the song, and stands in the place of music, of which they have none that deserves the name. Each man is provided with a short stick, knobbed at the end, and it is by the dhection he gives to this, the motion of his other hand, and the turns of his body, that the ac tion and pathos of tbe song is indicated ; the cor respondence is often very beautiful, while the feet regulate the time, and impart that locomotive effect in which they so much delight ; sometimes the feet are merely lifted, to descend with a stamp ; sometimes, a leaping stride is taken on either side ; at others, a combination of both ; but they have yet a more violent gesture : forming four deep, in open order, they make short runs to and fro, leap ing, prancing, and crossing each other's paths, brandishing theh sticks, and raising such a cloud of dust by the vehemence and rapidity of the ex ercise, that to a bystander it has aU the effect of the wildest battle scene of savage Ufe, and wliich it is doubtless intended to imitate. WhUe att this is going on in the ring, the women in the centre are not idle spectators ; they do not indeed move from their position, but, bending theh bodies for wards to the clap of theh hands, stamping with both feet together, and raising theh voices to the highest pitch, they fill in their parts, and follow out the chorus with such a degree of continued exertion, as would cause an European female to go upon crutches for the remainder of her Ufe. — When the king mingles in these festivities, he takes his place in the inner circle, exactly oppo site the centre woman of the sable phalanx ; and should he set the time, which he usually does when present, a shrill whistle from a number of men, (the King's herdsmen) stationed in the oppo site part of the ring, announces the condescending act ; and. at the conclusion of every song, whether he is present'or not, two heralds swiftly cross each other, emerging at the same moment from oppo site ends of the circle, and, running furiously along the line which faces the women, shouting the whole time at the fop'tif theh lungs, O, O, O, O, O, O! to indicate its conclusion. These; THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 17 heralds are always disguised by some grotesque attire ; on this occasion, one of them was so com pletely enveloped in the enthe skin of a panther, his own eyes piercing through the very holes in the skutt, and his neck and shoulders streaming with long lappets of the same fur, that he bore no resemblance to a human being ; the other was less hideous, being covered with streamers of ox tails and hair, a large fillet of which encircled his forehead, and hung wildly over his eyes. Every song, many of which were sung on these occa sions, has a different air, and the corresponding attitudes vary also ; some are humorous and col loquial, in which a conversation is kept up with the women, who ask questions, and are in return answered by the men ; but the generahty relate either to hunting or war. On one occasion, the boys were employed to water the ground, and in an instant every calabash, large and smaU, was in requisition ; even bundles of wet grass were brought and switched about, to assist in laying the dust, but in a quarter of an hour it was again rais ed by the continued stamping of so many feet. — The black feathers of the long-tailed finch form the usual head plume of the men ; the forehead is bound round with a fillet of white beads, having a square of red in the centre ; white beads usually decorate the ankles, and a band of this, or some other color, as pink or blue, the leg below the knee ; while heavy brass rings on the throat and arms, are the established uniform during the dan cing season, and to the eye have a rich and dressy appearance. In this climate, however, they are a positive torture, and many are the complaints which I have heard among the wearers, of the blisters which they not unfrequently raise, after a long exposure to the direct rays of the sun ; the marvel is, that the whole nation are not afflicted with sore throats, as the pressure and heat are endured throughout the hottest months ofthe year, while they are suddenly left off on the approach of winter. But I must now revert to the more immediate subject of my visit. Nearly a month had elapsed since my arrival, and ( not the slightest progress appeared to have been made in what I had the most at heart — the rehgious instruction of this people — although no opportunity had been lost in urging the point with Dingarn. The horse which I had borrowed at the Tugala was still with me, retained day after day in the full expectation that a final reply to my often-repeated appUcations would be given, and that its services might be re quired either for. the purposes of the station here, or for my return to Port Natal. In order, there fore, to bring the matter at once to an issue, I re quested an audience, and informed the king that I could no longer retain the horse — that it was my intention to send him back on the following day, but that it would be very inconvenient for me to do this, without having been previously made acquaintad with his decision respecting my re maining to teach his people. His reply was, "You must go and speak to the Indoonas about it, and to-morrow mornmg bring them up with you, and I will give you an answer." Delighted with this apparent opening, and an ticipating a speedy result, I proceeded in quest of Umthella and Tambooza; but at that moment these two important personages were actively en gaged dancing in the ring, and as my intrusions at such a time would only have retarded my views, and the sun went down before they returned, I was obhged to content myself with a promise that they would attend to the business the first thing in the morning. Soon after day-light, I sent to inquire if Um theUa was disposed to receive me in his hut, or whether he and Tambooza would call on me ; but though diligent search was made, neither could be found, and at length it was ascertained that both were with the king. For a long time I waited their return, my interpreter and myself taking different stations for this purpose ; and although at last I succeeded in waylaying them, it was again but too evident that nothing could be ex pected from either. Orders, it appears, had been suddenly given, and arrangements were now mak ing, for the removal not only of the court, but of the whole male population, to ImbelU-betti, a mili tary town about ten miles distant, where a series of dances on a more extended scale was to finish the festivities of the season. The urgency of the occasion, and the press of business wliich devolved ¦ upon them, was the plea they advanced for not at once attending to my wishes ; and perceiving that all prospect of success, amidst the hurry and bustle of the moment, was utterly hopeless, I fell in with UmtheUa's suggestion to accompany them, a promise at the same time being held out of a decided answer on reaching ImbeUi-belh. My expectations of such a result, I must own, were by no means sanguine ; the dancing was expected to continue for twenty-one days, and I had little hope that, in the midst of all the excitement and bustle of such a scene, my business was likely to be better attended to than here. Still there was a glimmering of hope — both the king and the In doonas were now pledged to express theh opinion, and I thought it very probable that something might' arise during the march that might induce the Indoonas to espouse my cause.' The Unkunginglove regiment about nine hun dred strong, marched out in single file about ten o'clock ; a number of camp followers, bearing a few articles rolled up in mats upon their heads. had preceded, and several kept company at a re spectable distance, on either flank ; among whom were the king's servants, bearing his cloak in a basket, his gilt stick, a chair, and various other ar ticles. Dingarn, foUowed by the two Indoonas, passed through the gate at the head of his people, but, on reaching the heights, ordered them to pro ceed, while he rested in his chair, and reviewed them as they filed past, those nearest to his per son bending almost double as they approached, and continuing the obsequient posture until they advanced several paces forward. The line occu pied a considerable space; and, as they wound up the irregular slopes of the hflls, the effect produced by theh glistening armlets and collars and waving plumes, was certainly fine ; and Dingarn, who is a most notorious boaster, took advantage of the chcumstance to expatiate to me on the numbers and efficiency of his troops. For some time he continued in the rear, and then ordering a general halt, passed along the line, and resumed his sta tion at theh head. -*> 18 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. On approaching a mihtary town caUed Issicle bani, the whole male population turned out, formed on the hill, and soon after descended with an im petuous charge to within about two hundred yards of the advancing Une ; on which both halted, and shouts of welcome resounded from the Issiclebani people, closely compacted in meU order. Dingarn was at this time seated under the shade of a spread ing mimosa, with Marqufllana, his favorite dog, at his feet, and witnessing the stately walking and trotting of some of the principal ladies, who had come out to greet him. The troops of both towns soon after assembled on the top of the hill to await his arrival. Among these ladies of rank was his own sister, who, on approaching, kissed his hand, and then joined her companions, who were slowly moving backwards and forwards on the same line, in order to exhibit to the best ad vantage a long skin petticoat, ofthe blackest dye, studded round the waist with brass knobs, and furnished on each side with a long lappet, which trained upon the ground behind. The motion of the feet, half walk, half trot, gives the idea of wading through an opposite current of water, while the shoulders are alternately advanced and the bent elbow moved up and down in so con strained and inelegant a manner, that I never could regard these gauche manoeuvres, though evi dently intended to please, with any tolerable de gree of composure. On reaching the hfll on which the town is buflt, both parties had formed two sides of a square, and here a similar exhibi tion took place in leaping and athletic eccentrici ties to that which has already been described on the arrival of Georgo. The object, however, was different, in tlie pre sent instance, to assure theh sovereign of the ca pacity and eagerness of each old warrior to emu late his former deeds; and certainly, if actions could speak, they must have made a most indeli ble impression upon his mind. Here was no speechifying, but out came a wanior with a bounce, brandishing his weapon and beating his shield, and covering as much ground in three strides as a tiger could spring, — stabbing, and parrying, and retreating, and again vaulting into tbe ranks, with so light a foot and so rigid a muscle, that the eye had scarcely time to follow the velocity of his movements. Another and another came out, each with a pecuhar step and gesture ; and, while in the performance of these exploits, pointed at throughout his meteor couree, as wefl by tlie king as by aU his compatriots, who, by the extension of their hands and their sticks towards the individu al, accompanied by the prolonged sound of the letter Z, indicated theh recognition of a warrior of known and tried courage. This continued some time, when the Unkunginglove troops passed on, foUowed by those of Issiclebani, who escorted us about a mile from their town to the bank of a dry rivulet ; when, after a few more bounces and leaps, and simultaneous shouting, they took their leave, to slaughter and devour some beef which had been presented to them by the king, a herd having accompanied our progress at some distance from the line of march. As we novy proceeded along more quietly, Dingarn turned round to in quire of me whether King WiUiam often visited different parts of his country, and whether he was ' welcomed by his subjects in a similar manner. I immediately tossed my hat in the air, and gave three cheers, which, on being explained, greatly dehghted him. During the whole of this journey we were accompanied by the two Imbongas, or professed praisers of the king, bearing shields, and keeping always within audible distance on one side or other of the path ; these are the same men who perform the part of heralds in the dances, and who now, at every convenient opportunity, recounted the various acts and deeds of theh august monarch in a string of unbroken sentences ; the climax of this species of impromptu composi tion being the volubflity of the speaker, and his total disregard to every rule of punctuation. The entrance into Imbelh-beUi was in the same style as the approach to Issiclebani ; the people ofthe town came out to receive the king, and then all moved forward together ; the main body, as soon as they had passed the inner fence, opening to admit the king, who was in the rear, and then immediately closing and forming a chcle around him, who, after witnessing a further repetition of warlike antics, retired to the Issigordlo, at the upper part of the town. Not so fortunate was I, although nearly the whole population of the place had been forced to turn out for the accommoda tion of the people from Unkunginglove, who may be considered as the body-guard, and were seen lighting theh fires as we approached, and prepar ing to bivouac among the neighboring bushes. Not a hut could be obtained ; and had it not been for the influence of the two Indoonas, who, at the express order of the king, accompanied us in the search, we should not have succeeded. Not ex pecting to remain beyond a night, the sum-total of my baggage was a pocket-testament and a spoon, naturaUy calculating on procuring a mat; but even this luxury could not be obtained ; and I was obhged to content myself with the solid floor for my bed, and a more sohd stone by way of pfllow, and that in a hut already occupied by two natives, independent of my interpreter. Having been promised an early interview with tlie two Indoo nas in the morning (March 7th), and the actual height of the sun described at the time the intend ed conference should take place, I was at Umtbel- la's hut rather before the hour appointed ; but neither himself nor his cotteague, who, in the crowded state of the town, were housed together, could be found. His servants informed me that they had been seen passing through the gate, in tending to bathe in the river, which I believe was correct. However, in due time they were re minded of the appointment, and the long-promis ed meeting took place. Both UmtheUa and Tambooza, who were the only individuals present excepting ourselves, expressed themselves in the kindest manner, and evinced so much cordiality and wfllingness to forward my views, that the ob ject appeared almost gained before the final refer ence had been made to the king. Apparently animated with the subject, which was discussed at full length, they themselves proposed an imme diate adjournment to the presence of the king ; but this, even to them, was not so readily gained ; and to my astonishment, notwithstanding all theh previous boasting, we were aU kept a fuU half-hour waiting attendance, happily under the shade of THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 19 some old trees in the centre of the area, until his majesty, at the time occupied, not like the nursery king, in " counting out his money," but in inspect ing his herds of cattle, had finished his princely employment. His chair was then set beside the trunk of another tree, to which we soon after re pahed ; and I was called up by Dingarn to state the substance of what had just been advanced in Umthlella's hut. As these arguments wfll appear in the sequel, it will be unnecessary to say more than that I en deavored to explain to him, as I had frequently done before, that my only motive- in visiting his country was the spiritual instruction of his people ; enlarging on the blessings attendant upon Chris tianity, both individually and nationally ; and as suring him that any intention to interfere with either their laws or their Customs was the farthest removed from my thoughts, as, next to the fear of God, honor and respect to kings, and all in autho rity, was a prominent feature in the religion wliich was taught in " the book," and which I was so anxious to make known to them. To this point I met with no interruption ; but here Tambooza observed that they did not wish for teaching ; that they could never learn ; that such words as these they were sure they could not understand. If I would instruct them in the use of the issibum (musket) I could stay, but these were things they did not care about. As neither UmthleUa nor the king had as yet expressed any opinion, I strove hard to combat these objections, hoping still to neutralise this unexpected rebuff, but to no pur pose : UmthleUa, though he said little, supported his coUeague ; and both soon cut the matter short by an appeal to the king for his final decision. His reply, a masterpice of "juste milieu " policy, and I am willing to hope at varience with his bet ter judgment, was thus expressed : — " I will not over-rule the decision of my Indoonas." As though thunder-struck, and scarcely believing, my own ears, I stiU ventured to prolong the discussion, until reminded by the Indoonas, who, having now gained their point, were more authoritative in theh manner, that the business was ended. Some messengers just at this moment arrived from" the Tugala with a package from Port Natal, containing a letter from Mr. Berkin and some Graham's Town Journals. Theletter I eagerly opened ; but, notwithstanding aU my anxiety to learn the progress of the Kafir war, I was obliged to reserve the perusal of the papers for a less pub lic occasion, as it would otherwise have been dif ficult to have concealed some of the prominent facts from the cross-questioning curiosity of Din garn ; and as yet we were in total ignorance of the circumstances which had occurred since the first breaking out of hostilities. From the tenor of the letter, some parts of which it was necessary to communicate, I was enabled to assure him that wanton aggression upon British territory would never be tolerated, and that all who aided in such fruitless expeditions would be severely chastised : a result which he seemed fully prepared to regard as by no means improbable. As the object of my visit had now, at least for the present, entirely failed, I signified my intention to return forthwith to Port Natal, going back immediately for my baggage to UnkQnginglove. as the following day was Sunday, and setting out on my journey on Monday morning. Dingarn, who throughout had always treated me kindly, said, that I must not leave him yet ; that he wished me to see the danc ing which would be going on for the next twenty days, and that after that period I could return. My mind was now too much grieved to take any pleasure in these wild pastimes. I told him that it was necessary, on many accounts, that I should return, and particularly as I had the keys of the boxes which contained the remainder of the pre sents, which, unless opened, might spoil, and, at aU events, could not be forwarded across the Tugala until unpacked. The high road to his heart having been thus gained, no further objec tion was made, and having promised to postpone my walk until the evening, in order to witness a grand dance which was shortly to take place, I took my leave for the present. There were some novelties in this dance. " We must open a new path," said the inventive Din- gam, and shortly after he was escorted to the dancing-ground, without the town, by his Unkung inglove men, each bearing a large bunch of green bows* in his right hand, exalted above his head, who, in conjunction with the people of another town, formed an exterior circle, while the Issicle bani regiment occupied the ring, and danced with in. The moving grove, intermingled with the hald heads, had a cheerful effect. Dingarn, al though in. his dancing costume, did not join the lists, but contented himself with witnessing the feats performed by the three regiments assembled, the Undunginglove, Imbeffi-beUi, and the Issicle bani, who each took their turns in the ring. It was altogether a most animating sight ; crowds of spectators were collected, and' groups of wo men, with children on theh backs, were seen tak ing advantage of every rock and rising ground, to peep over the heads of the bystanders ; even the trees were garnished with boys, who were more than once disturbed on theh roost by an order from some of the Indoonas. There could not have been less than 4000 or 5000 people on the ground. A variety was also observed in the dress of the ImbeUi-beUi men ; if a coUection of skin streamers, Uke the tails of a lady's " boa " attatched to a thin waist-cord, deserves the name, but whicb,'in fact, is the nearest approach to a habiliment which a Zoolu ever deigns to wear. In this instance, and expressly for the occasion, the short cottony fibre of a root was substituted, at least behind, and twisted into thick ropy pendants, with the ends hanging loose like a tassel below, which had a good effect, eight or.nine of these tails forming a dress. But before the whole was ended, a thun der storm, attended with heavy rain, cut short the amusements, and aU were obliged to leave the ground, ahd return for shelter to the town. As soon as it cleared up a little, I took a formal leave of Dingarn, who. called his people around to show me how they could eat tough beef, asking, If that was the manner in which Enghsh soldiers received theh meat? He then said, that I must come and see him again ; that I could build at Port Natal, and teach the people there. Stfll, re luctant to leave him without some distant prospect * These bows had never been carried before. 20 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Df success, I told him that I hoped he would soon alter the word he had spoken, and that whenever he wished a teacher for his people, he must send me a message to Port Natal. It was late before we reached Unkunginglove that evening, and early on Monday, the 9th, the bearers appointed by Dingarn to convey my baggage were in ad vance, and I found myself reluctantly leaving the town, now almost deserted of its inhabitants, and where I had fondly hoped that some progress in Christian instruction would ere this have been ef fected. But well it is for us, that God's ways are not our ways ; by such disappointments he not only proves and prepares the instruments by whom he often deigns to work, but shows us that his purposes wiU ripen and unfold without their aid. I felt much comfort in repeating those beautiful lines of Cowper — ' Wait for His seasonable aid, And if it tarry — wait ; The promise may be long delayed, But cannot come too late." So satisfied did I feel of a favorable result to my request, that the horse had actuaUy been sent off; a long walk of three days was therefore before me, in which, exclusive of fording the rivers, we averag ed about thirty mfles in each. The foUowing, which is the only scrap remaining of my lost Journal, I should perhaps apologise for inserting, but, as it wfll give some idea of my spacious apartment in the Zoolu capital, may not be here altogether out of place. MY ZOOLU HUT. Dear is that spot, however mean, Which once we've called our own , And if 'twas snug, and neat, and clean, Our thoughts oft thither roam. I see them now — those four* low props, That held the hay-stack o'er my head ; The dusky frame-work from their tops, Like a large mouse-trap, round me spread. Once entered, I forgot the pain My broken back sustained ; But when obliged to crawl again, From tears I scarce refrained. To stand erect I never tried, For reasons you may guess ; Full fourteen feet my hut was wide Its height was nine feet less. My furniture, a scanty store, Some saddle-bags beside me laid ; A hurdle used to close the door, Raised upon stones, my table made. And when, my visiters arrived, To sit, and prate, and stare ; Of hght and air at once deprived, The heat I scarce could bear. * Many of the huts have but one support in the centre. The soUd ground my softest bed, A mat my mattress made ; The friendly saddle raised my head, As in my cloak I laid. The homely lizard harmless crept Unnoticed through the door ; And rats their gambols round me kepi, While sleeping on the floor. Such was my humble Zoolu home, And memory paints thee yet ; While Ufe shaU last, where'er I roam, That hut 1*11 ne'er forget. In the course of the -first day's journey we met some messengers hastening towards Unkunging love with intelligence of the sickness of an influ ential Indoona residing at some distance. They informed me that they were proceeding directly to the king, who, on being made accquainted with the nature of his disorder, would send down such medicine as he thought proper. This I am told is the usual practice. Dingarn expects to be made acquainted with the ailments of all his prin cipal people; when any danger is apprehended, the case is then refened to the doctors residing in the capital, and, according to theh advice, medi cine is forwarded to the patient, who, whether it agree or not, is obliged to take it. The state of my wardrobe at this timehut too well conesponded with my lodging, and it was only by tying the remains of my shoes to my feet that I was enabled to retain the advantage of a sole, until we reached the Tugala, when, to my no small gratifi- cation and surprise, our reiterated shouts for the boat were at length answered by my friend Mr. Berkin, whom I soon perceived anxiously waiting on the rocks for my anival on the opposite bank. Our meeting here was not, indeed, altogether un expected, as in the note received at Imbetti-betti he had signified his intention of paying me a visit at Unkunginglove, in company with Mr. Cottis, who was at that time about to take his annual journey, to purhase the ivory which had been col lected by Dingarn, who keeps this description of trade enthely in his own hands. So anxious was my friend to render his advice and assistance in my present chcumstances, that he at once gave up the prosecution of a trip which had previously ex cited much of his curiosity and interest, and insisted on accompanying me back to Port Natal, where we arrived on Saturday, the 14th, with one of the wagons he had so kindly conducted from the Umzimvoobo. " There hath not failed one word of all His good promise, which he promised." — 1 Kings viii. 56. Firm is tlie Rock in Zion laid, A refuge that has never failed ; Sure is the feeblest hope that's stayed On Him who over death prevailed. No word He 's uttered shaU be void, No promise He has spoken, fail ; Though long delayed, 'tis not destroyed, But surely shaU at last prevail. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 21 What though the raven cease to feed, Though Cherith's brook at length be dry, Sufficient for a prophet's need, The cruse and barrel shall supply. What worldlings now so fondly boast. The treasures that theh hearts divide, Whate'er we seem to need the most, In mercy — all may be denied. And yet a richer boon be oursv " As poor and yet possessing all ; " And those may be our happiest hours, When nothing we our own can call. And then how sweet to trace the Hand That gave — -and has withheld in love, To feel 'twas all in mercy planned, And know our treasure is above ! Ask now the Christian — Is it well? In Joshua's words he will reply, And praise his grateful heart will swell — No one good thing does he deny. But if so sure the promise here But foretastes of the bliss declared, How should the thought our bosoms cheer, Of those bright mansions He 's prepared. A little — and we soon shaU be Where pain and sorrow are unknown, And Jesus our Redeemer see, And all his loving kindness own. Oh ! then, my soul ! in Christ confide ; Thy every care in Him repose ; He fives who once for sinners died, And aU our griefs and trials knows; And nothing we can ever need, If Jesus we have found indeed. CHAPTER IH. Scarcely had we arrived at Port Natal, when the following letter, bearing the signatures of att the Europeans then in the settlement, was put into my hand. Port Natal, March Uih, 1835. Sik, — We, the undersigned residents of Port Natal, learn with regret your unfavorable recep tion with Dingarn ; and, to enable you to form a just estimate of our own feelings, declare that the presence of a missionary establishment at Natal, whose object would be to inculcate industry and rehgion, would and sb.aU meet with all the support in our power. {Signed) John Cane, C. Plankenberg, Richard Wood, Charles Adams, J. Francis, C. J. PlCKMAN, P. H. Agle, - James Collis. To Capt. Gardiner, R. N. Although from its position and maritime inter course with the Cape Colony, this port must ever be regarded as the key, not only to the Zoolu country, but likewise to a very considerable portion of the interior districts on this side of the conti nent ; there were rnany objections to its being se lected at this time, as the seat of a missionary estabttshment, which it will not now be necessary to state ; but at the same time I feel it not less a duty than a pleasing gratification to attribute the removal, and softening down of many of these dif ficulties, to'the kind and unsolicited interference of my valued friend Mr. Berkin, who, during the few days which he remained here, prior to his re cent journey to the Tugala, lost no opportunity of ascertaining the general feeling on this subject, in the event of my failure with Dingarn, and strongly recommended me to accede to the apparent wishes of the community. Having given the matter fuU consideration, a reply was forwarded in the foUowing terms, — Port Natal, March, Wth, 1835. Gentlemen, — The kind manner in which you have expressed your desire for a Missionary to be established at Natal, and the readiness with which you have pledged yourselves to support him in his endeavors to inculcate true rehgion, throw; open so wide a door for usefulness, that, independent of my own inclination, I feel it would not be con sistent with my duty to decline your invitation to remain among you. If you will, therefore, accept my personal ser vices, they are most cheerfully offered until the necessary buildings are completed, and anange- ments can be made for a clergyman of the church of England to occupy this important station. That these mutual endeavors for the temporal and spiritual welfare of immortal souls may be blessed with abundant success from the God of all grace is my ardent prayer ; and I trust that the character and conduct of aU those who may be engaged in this work wfll always bear the strictest scrutiny, and uphold an example which may conespond with the divine truths they pos- fessto teach. I am, gentlemen, ' Your most Obedient servant, " Allen F. Gardiner." To ihe English Residents at Port Natal. A few notices from a brief missionary journal, kept about this time, wfll be sufficient in this place to continue the thread of the narrative. Sunday, March 15th, forenoon. — English ser vice under the trees, at Mr. Berkin's. — Thirteen Europeans present. Afternoon, — Kafir service.— One hundred and fifty natives. , Thursday 19ih.— Selected a site for- the mis sionary premises, with a tract of land surrounding it on the north-east side of the bay, upon a hill commanding an extensive prospect. Friday 20lh. — Took formal possession of the land which was secured to me 'by an agreement signed by aU the white inhabitants ; decided on naming the missionary establishment "Berea,'^ 22 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. since, notwithstanding my ill success with Din garn, the word has here been gladly received. Sunday 22d. — The principal settlers had in tended to have sent aU their people to the after noon service, in order that I might form an esti mate of the black population and address them ; but they were prevented from assembling by the heavy rain. Morning. — English service in my hut. Afternoon. — Kafirs in front of the tent. — Sixty natives attended notwithstanding the rain. Tuesday 2Alh. — Gjeat meeting — the people assemble at Mr. Berkin's — stood under the shade of a high tree, and addressed them, as they sat round, on the object of forming a mission among them — the nature of true religion — what it was proposed to do for them, and what would be ex pected from them — such as attendance on pubhc worship — sending their children to the school — setting a good example in their families — not to be hasty m judging of what they do not under stand, but to hear often, and to ask for explana tions, which would at all times be readily given. Many women brought their infants — there were at at least six hundred adults, and a great many children. The attention they gave was very en couraging, and their whole conduct exceedingly orderly. They arrived in distinct companies, the people of each white chief coming up, and con tinuing together ; and in the same order they moved off with the greatest regularity, the men preceding the women, as is always customary in this country. Wednesday 25th. — Commenced the school in the tent, with two ghls and four boys. Gave each a piece of printed calico, that they might appear decently dressed. More children would have been sent, but the parents, I understand, have an idea that it is my intention to take them away with me. Such was the feeble commencement of this in fant mission^a day, indeed, of smaU things ; but, blessed be^God, we are but His instruments, and though without him we can do nothing, when He vouchsafes to bless His own work it will prosper. To delve and to plough, and to cast in the seed, is ours ; but, though Paul may preach and Apollos may water, to God alone must we look for the in crease, and in his own good time, if we faint not, it wfll doubtless appear. ' With these occupations my time was now fully employed. The prejudice respecting the schools soon passed over ; but stiU I did not more than double, the number, having at that time but little accommodation ; and considering that it would be far better to train a few in the first instance, to act as monitors in a larger school, than to com mence on a more extended plan. Although I had aheady entered into a contract for the necessary buildings at Berea, (a school- house, to be used also as a church, and two dwel ling-houses,) and some huts, on the native plan, were also constructing for my accommodation, I was (until the completion of the latter) stfll living in a hut, which Mr. Berkin had kindly offered me, at a spot nearer the bay, which he had se lected for his own residence, and where he was engaged in clearing the ground, and erecting some temporary buildings. About this time there was a prevailing rumor that the Zooms were meditating an attack upon the settlement ; and so much credit was given to the report, that we recommended a general meet ing of the white inhabitants, to consult upon some plan for mutual assistance in the event of then- approach ; but so Uttle had any to lose, and so ac customed were they to similar intelligence, that they affected to regard the matter as a casualty to which they had often been exposed, and coolly signified their intention to take the "bush," should the necessity arise. Our present necessity of tenanting bee-hive houses, of sitting upon our boxes, and enduring either the bites of musquitoes, or inhaling the smoke, which alone would exclude them, was cer tainly not from any decided predilection to such a mode of Ufe, but stfll infinitely superior to the bush system proposed — (a sudden nomadic retreat to the woods to escape the Zoolu spear !) — we therefore turned our thoughts to some other me thod of protection. But two plans remained — either to abandon, or to defend the place ; and, circumstanced as we now were, we had no hesi tation in adopting the latter. The ground was immediately marked out ; a party of natives en gaged ; and in a very short time a sufficient stockade was erected round a wattled house (which Mr. Berkin was then building,) for the protection of the whole settlement, should they prefer, this alternative to theh favorite one of " bushing it." In this position matters stood on the arrival of the Chce trading sloop from Algoa Bay, and by which Mr. Berkin decided on returning to the co lony, for the purpose of purchasing stock and sup plies for the farming establishment which he had aheady commenced, with the intention of return ing and making this his future residence. By this time the huts at Berea were completed ; and as they were more commodious than those he had hitherto inhabited, my friend spent the last day with me there previous to his embarkation, and attended the first services which were held at the mission station, on Sunday, March 19th. I took leave of him before day-light the foUowing morn ing. By eight o'clock the sloop was under weigh, and with no ordinary feelings did I watch her progress, until concealed by the intervening land ; little supposing at the time that I had taken my last fareweU of my kind and valued friend ! As a precaution h_> the event of an attack from the Zoolus, my journals had been forwarded by this opportunity to my agents in Cape Town; but as no account has been since heard, of the sloop,. there can be but one opinion respecting her fate. Description of Port Natal. — The entrance to the port is narrow, but it immediately expands into a beautiful sheet of water, of nearly an oval shape, haying a low island near the upper end, and exhibiting from the neighboring heights all the peculiar characteristics of lake scenery. Both the island and the banks of the bay are covered with mangrove-trees, the wood of which has been THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 23 found to be very durable in buildings ; and so low is the general level of the land to the foot of the sunounding hflls, that during the spring-tides a great part on the north side is overflowed. Near the sea coast, and upon the slopes of aU the hills which face the bay, the woods are comparatively thick and tangled ; but on gaining the first or se cond ridge, they only occur in ornamental clumps, large tracts of open ground intervening, and af fording every facility for immediate tillage. By a little attention to draining, the whole of the flats which margin the bay may be available for agri cultural purposes ; and so rich is the alluvium in some of these places, that a very productive gar den has lately been laid out by Mr. Cottis, in a spot still surrounded by reeds, and formerly en thely occupied by them. With the exception of Mr. Cottis's house, constructed of reeds and mud, there was not a single dweUing of the European fashion in the whole settlement on my first ar rival; and to a stranger, unacqainted with the localities, the whole had a most wild and deserted appearance. On account of the frequent threats of Dingarn to send down and reclaim his run aways, the open country was considered as un safe, and every village and hut carefully conceal ed among the woods with so much ingenuity and labor, that in threading the narrow and winding avenues leading to some of these jungle fast nesses, I have often fancied I was approaching the dismal abode of some desperate buccanier. Although widely scattered, the native population in the immediate vicinity may be estimated at 2500, among whom about thirty Europeans and a few Hottentots are residing. In this heterogeneous community, a singular transposition to the general order has taken place ; the natives, although but barely raised above the lowest scale of civilization, subsist by agriculture, while the Europeans, with but few exceptions, Uve entirely by hunting. But, in drawing this contrast, which is merely curious and incidental, I must not be understood to infer, that it is for the daily supply of food that the hun ter is thus actively employed : far otherwise is the fact ; his usual game is the elephant and the buf falo ; and, by disposing of the tooth of the one, and the hide of the other, he obtains a sufficient fund for his present exigences ; and, were but an equitable scale of prices established for the colo nial goods he may require, it would, with common prudence and industry, very soon place him in comparatively comfortable circumstances. Hip popotami are stiU numerous, and the hides, until lately, were an article of export ; but, from some cause, they have lost theh value, and the huge animal is now only shot for the sake of the meat, which is often eaten, both fresh and salted, as wett as for the fat, which makes an excellent substitute for oil, and burns weU and without smeU, in open lamps, but it is of too sohd a nature to run in the ordinary way. A good supply of fish may be obtained from the bay, but both boats and nets are wanting to ren der this more than precarious at present, although the natives, with a little encouragement, might be induced to catch them very regularly ; I have sometimes been suppUed in this way. The soil, in general, is a light sandy loam, not favorable for large timber, but yielding exceUent crops of Kafir 56-6 and Indian com,* ground beans, and sweet pota toes ; and so abundant are the corn crops, that, although it is only cultivated in patches, and that by the natives alone turning up the surface with their hoes, a great quantity has been purchased during the present year, for exportation to the Mauritius. It is now generaUy aUowed, that the herbage in the immediate vicinity of the coast is not so favorable to cattle as that wliich grows at a short distance inland ; stfll they fatten, but great ly improve by a removal to a distance of even three or four miles. A fair trial has not been given to sheep ; they have only been flocked near the coast, an experi ment which has in consequence failed. The grasses are there far too rank, and the soil too humid, for rearing them to advantage ; but there can be little doubt of a vary different result, should the dry, elevated, and sufficiently watered downs, which commence about fifteen or twenty miles from the coast, and occupy a considerable tract of the interior, be selected for the purpose. The grass in all these districts is shorter and richer than that on the lower grounds near the sea, and in every respect they appear to be well adapted for grazing purposes ; especially the rearing of sheep, a description of farming which in all pro bability wfll eventually succeed far better than in any part of the Cape Colony, where the cold win ter-rams are so often fatal, while the converse ob tains here, the rainy season commencing in Oc tober, and ending about February or March, which are the warmest months. Of the natural productions, there are doubtless many which might be turned to good account. — From tho bark of the mimosa, a good tanning Uquid may be produced ; its gum. when properly cleansed, is esteemed as an article of commerce. Some of the woods, particularly the umtabota, which has the color and fragrance of cedar, would bear a beautiful polish. The castor-oil tree, and the indigo plant, are indigenous, and, by proper cultivation and care, it is probable that the latter may be brought to the perfection which is neces sary for producing the dye. Almost all the shrubs bear a flower at some season of the year ; the creepers are particularly beautiful, and I know no part of the world where the parterre may be em- beUished with a greater profusion of beautiful in digenous, but generaUy scentless, flowers, than in this favored spot. SmaU single pinks and tulip3 are very common, as also geraniums, and many very beautiful lilies ; but the smaU white beU- shaped flowers which grow upon a shrub, from five to eight feet high, not unlike a myrtle, are by far the most fragrant, and would be an acquisition to any green-house or garden. Although so much farther north, the eUmate is not hotter than at Cape Town, which can only be accounted for by the absence of sands, and the thick mantle of grass which covers every part which is not occupied by timber. Having unfortunately lost the use of my thermometer, I am unable to speak from observa tion, but I have no hesitation in saying, both from * The ear is beat out with sticks, upon a smooth thrashing-floor of earth, smeared over with manure ; one of them is generally seen near every town or village. 24 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. personal experience and the opinion of those who have Uved long in the country, that it is equally as cool and certainly as salubrious, as the finest parts erf the Cape Colony. It is remarkable, that the same disease, called the horse sickness, so prevalent at Albany, and in other parts of the colony, is equally destructive to horses here. It is said to be an affection of the lungs, and attacks them only during the hottest season ; in March and April this year, it was un usually fatal, carrying off nearly att the horses within a few weeks. With the exception of one bit by a snake in Kafirland, two swept away in the Umcamas, and one shot in crossing another river, but one horse remains to me ; the rest hav ing died of this disorder, for which no remedies have as yet been apphed with success. That the rank pasturage in the neighborhood of the bay, and the fogs which occasionally rest upon the flats in that vicinity, may be regarded as secondary causes in producing these diseases in horses, I have little doubt ; and there is much to favor the opinion, which is now becoming more general that if these spots were avoided, and the higher table-lands selected for their grazing ground during the period of attack — which, though vary ing in degree, is said to be annual — they would not suffer to the extent they now do, and probably might escape altogether. The introduction of mules, and a good breed of Spanish asses, would be very desirable, as they would not only be bet ter adapted for carrying burdens, and the general purposes of travelling, in this country, than horses, but, in all probability, from theh hardy nature, would escape the sickness which has been alluded to. In closing these few remarks, I should not omit the opinion of a party of Dutch farmers, who were on theh return to the colony about the time I was traveUing towards this settlement. They had heard much of the "soil and capabilities of Port Natal for agricultural purposes, and, resolving to decide for themselves on the accuracy of these re ports, they formed a large party, and, with ten or twelve wagons, proceeded at once to this place. After advancing towards the Tugala, and tho roughly examining the whole district, they not only acknowledged that the accounts they had heard had not been exaggerated, but set out on theh return for theh several famiUes, with a full determination to locate them in this neighbor hood — a resolution which the sudden breaking out of the Kafir war has alone prevented them from executing. The remainder of this chapter I shaU now de vote to such memoranda relating to the history, mihtary organization, and customs, &c. of the Zoolus, as I have been enabled to collect, but on which, from the loss of my previous journal, I am prevented from enlarging ; being unwitting to write from memory more than is absolutely ne cessary. History. — The immediate ancestors of Dingarn in the supreme authority are Jama, Senzanakona, Charka. The latter was brought up with Tin- gaswao, king of the Umtetwa, who is reported to nave been a man of great sagacity, and to have originated some parts ofthe military system, which Charka subsequently brought to such perfection. The Umtetwa at that period were a people far more powerful than the Zoolus. Charka usually headed his army, but at the period of his death they were engaged on a distant expedition against a powerful chief named Sotchangan. ruling a country to the north-west of DelaGoa Bay, which proved unsuccessful. At this time, 1829, two of his own brothers, Dingarn and Umthlangan, con spired against his life, assisted by Satai, a princi pal domestic of great influence. Diverting his attention by driving from his presence some men who had been exhibiting some feathers for sale, he received an assegai wound in the back from one of this treacherous party, who were anxiously watching the favorable opportunity. He imme diately rose and attempted to throw off his ingoo- bo (skin mantle,) but fell in the act. His last words were, " What have I done to you 1 — chil dren of my father !" Although Dingarn was pre sent and consenting, it is not believed that he took an active part in the murderous deed. Charka is generally aUowed to have been fllegitimate, and prior to his death had nominated Dingarn as his successor ; but it appears that it was the object of Satai to set this aside in favor of Umthlangan, the younger brother. The plot was soon disco vered, and Umthlangan murdered, it is said, by the hand of his brother, who, notwithstanding, per mitted Satai to escape with impunity. Until very lately he was residing at his own village, on the Umthlatusi ; but has recently been killed by order of Dingarn. These two unnatural brothers are said to have drunk, on the spot, the gall of the chief they had conspired to assassinate ! The sovereignty is hereditary in the nearest male re lative : a brother of Dingarn, stfll living, is the presumptive heir. Titles ofthe King. — Byate. (No signification yet ascertained.) Baba — (Father) used in reply, as " Yearbo Ba ba," "Yes, Father." The same term is also used by inferiors of aU ranks to them above them. The noble elephant ; Thou who art for ever ; Thou who art as high as the heavens ; Thou who begettest the men ; The black one ; Thou who art the bird who eats other birds ; Thou who art as high as the mountains ; Thou who art the peace maker, &c. Military organization. — The whole kingdom may be considered as a camp, and every male be longs to one or other of the foUowing orders : — Umpagati . Veterans. Isimporthlo i Si. > . Younger soldiers. Izinseezwa J Amabootu Lads who have not served in wai. The two former are distinguished by rings on their heads, the others do not shave the hah. Throughout the country there are ekanda, or barrack towns, in which a certain number of each class are formed into a regiment, from six hundred to about one thousand strong, and where they are obliged to assemble during half the year, princi paUy for the practice of dancing, which is consi dered as a miUtary exercise. In the whole coun try there are said to be from fourteen to sixteen large ekandas, and several of a smaller size ; and it is THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 25 supposed, but I cannot speak from personal obser vation, that they can bring fifty thousand men into the field. Each regiment is commanded by from two to ten principal officers, that are catted In doonas, of which one is considered as the com mandant; and these are assisted by an inferior class who have charge of the different sections, and at tend principaUy to the distribution of provisions, and the shields, &c. During the reign of Charka, no soldier was permitted to marry until he had distinguished him self in war. At present this regulation has un dergone a considerable modification ; but stfll in all cases the king's consent must be obtained, and this is seldom given but to the Umpagate. It is no unusual thing on any great occasion for the king to issue an order for a whole regiment to marry; and, strange as such a degree would sound to European ears, it would be a happy ch cumstance if such sweeping orders were more frequent, as, unfortunately, there is no limit to those who are excluded from this indulgence in the number of the concubines they may choose to take. This is done upon principle ; and I have heard it gravely asserted as one of the wisest enactments for rendering a soldier efficient, by keeping them thus aloof from famfly attachments, and unshackled by domestic attractions ! I natu raUy refrain from entering further into detail, hav ing only glanced at the surface of this painful subject, which is so interwoven with theh habits and character, that it is likely to present a formida ble obstacle to religious improvement. The ex ample of both Charka and Dingarn has tended greatly to uphold this baneful system, neither of whom was ever legally married according to the customs of the country. Unkunginglove, which is the present seat of government, and by far the largest town in the kingdom, is strictly an ekanda, officered by about twenty Indoonas, including UmtheUa and Tam booza, who, being the two national councillors and head Indoonas, are superior to all others. By far the greater portion of the soldiers composing this regiment (about nine hundred strong) are chiefs of smaller towns, bearing the appellation of In doona or Umnumzana (head of a village) ; and it is evidently with a political view of state surveil lance, that the most influential of these are formed into this description of body-guard, and that aU in rotation are obliged to appear and reside for some time in the capital, where they become not only hostages for the good conduct of those dependent upon them, but are thereby prevented from plot ting any scheme for the subversion of the exist ing government. It may be unnecessary to add, that the king has spies in all directions — an office which is here held in no iU repute ; and, conse quently, it is difficult to obtain information on many subjects, as the most trival conversation is often reported to him. Considerable authority is dele gated to the principal Indoona of each ekanda, as well to inflict punishment as to reward ; and he is always entrusted with a supply of brass arm lets and collars for the decoration of- those whom he considers deserving of such distinctions. Laws. — During the reign of Charka every prin- 1 cipal Indoona had the power of hfe and death ; i but this has since been greatly curtailed, Dingam, ' on his accession, restricting it to three individuals only — Umthella, Tambooza, and Eoto (the Indoo na of CongeUa). In a country where there is no written language, a stranger during a short residence, can obtain but a very cursory acquaintance with laws and sanctioned only by custom and traditionary record ; I shall therefore prefer offering a blank upon this subject to advancing what may hereafter prove to be enoneous information, and content myself with merely stating what crimes are capitally punished — Adultery. Witchcraft.Speaking evil of the King. The houses of malefactors are always taking down ; and the sticks by which they are beaten to death, and the dress they wore, are thrown away, and never allowed to be used afterwards. Customs apparently qf Jewish Origin. — 1. Cir cumcision. — This rite, which is now obsolete, ob tained until Charka's reign. He aUowed it to go into desuetude in his own person, and his exam ple has been foUowed by the whole nation. 2. It is the usual custom, though not absolutely obhgatory, for the younger brother to marry the widow of his deceased brother. 3. On any apprehension of infection, one of the egeerkha (or doctors) passes through the town, bearing a bunch of smaU boughs or herbs, foUow ed by a person bearing a large bowl of water, into which the boughs are frequently dipped as he foes along, and the door and entrance of every ouse sprinkled. This took place during my first stay at Uukunginglove, in consequence of seve ral of the people who had assembled at the dances having, on theh return home, been attacked with sickness. Both the hut which I inhabited, and that of my interpreter, were included, and even the ground about the gateway of the town was subject to this mysterious cleansing. 4. The Festival of the First Fruits.— This cus tom is not peculiar to the Zoolus, but obtains among aU the neighboring nations, and appears now to be perpetuated for a double purpose — to prevent improvidence in commencing upon the first corn crops too early, and to afford an opportunity for assembling and reviewing the nation prepara tory to war. The first ripe corn is partaken of by the king, before one of his subjects dares, under heavy penalties, to taste it. Much ceremony is observed, and the annual dances are then com menced, during the continuance of which the greater part of the nation assemble at the capital. 5. A propitiatory Offering to the Sphit of the King's immediate Ancestor. — No altar, prayer, or ceremony of any kind, is observed; the bullock is kitted within the cattlefold, contrary to the ordina ry practice, and the flesh is cooked and partaken of in that very spot — an observance peculiar to such occasions. Connected with this subject, I would merely re mark, as a singular coincidence, that the proper name of Ham is not uncommon among the Zoo lus. On hearing it called once or twice, I made some inquiry, and was told that it was generally given to those who had a fierce countenance and a voracious appetite ; or in other words, who were " hyena-men," as they were not inaptly designated. 26 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Marriage. — A remarkable distinction is made by these classifying people in the designation even of theh women. An unmarried woman is caUed an IntOmebi. A married woman, but without children, Umf&z. A married woman, with children, Eneena. It is not regarded as a matter either of eti quette or of dehcacy from which side the first proposal of marriage may proceed — the overture is as often made by the women as the men. In the former case, the pseudo bride, accompanied by another unmarried woman, proceeds to the resi dence of her elect, some married women follow ing them at a distance. Should the proposal be accepted, the matrons come up and commence singing : there are no words to the song, but it is merely a melody of sounds. On the next day a beast is slaughtered, and the bride and bridegroom, with their friends, partake of the feast. It is strictly required that every part of the flesh should be eaten ; after which, the ceremony caUed In- gaaziso, or washing with beads, takes place. The newly-married couple, with theh friends, being assembled, a calabash of water and a basket of beads are brought. The beads are first put into the calabash, and it is then presented to the bride, who pours a Uttle of the water first upon the hands of her husband, and then upon those of her friends, who extend them for the purpose. She then consigns the calabash to her partner, who, in his turns, pours some of the water first upon her hands, and then upon those of his friends, until it is exhausted, when he returns it to her. The bride then throws the beads at his feet, which any of the party but himself are at liberty to pick up and possess — in fact, it becomes a sort of scram ble. This, as I am informed by a native, (for I have never witnessed it,) finishes the ceremonies on such occasions — subordinate, however, to the aU-important consideration of cattle ; for until that is duly arranged, the consent of all parties is held in abeyance. The usual sum demanded is from four to six cows, according to the circumstances of the par ties, though, in the case of chiefs' daughters, from twenty to fifty, or one hundred head, are not unfrequent ; not, indeed, by way of dower, but as a present to the father or nearest relative of the lady, and partaking too much of the character of a commercial barter. For the acquisition of this species of property Dingarn has a great propen sity, often discarding a concubine, and obliging some wealthy subject to marry her for the sake of the herd of cattle which he must receive on the occasion. Among the Kafir tribes, the marriage ceremonies are much more significant. When aU are assem bled, a broom, a bowl, and agrinding-stone are pre sented to the bride, and some assegais and an axe to the bridegroom, as indicatory of their different occupations, while both are exhorted by the elders of the place to industry and good conduct. Both Jama and Senzanakona were manied, but Charka, in order to support his military system, broke through this rule, partly, it is supposed, by way of example to bis subjects, and partly under an idea, that, as long as he continued unmarried, he would not be regarded as a veteran, and, con sequently, his life would be less liable to be cut short by the ambition of his successor, or the in trigues of his subjects. The latter object, con nected with an evident deshe to imitate his ta lented but inhuman brother, seems to be the sole inducement with Dingarn to perpetuate this de parture from the better practice of his forefathers. His frequent boast, " I am but a boy — I am too young to marry," although at this present moment about forty years of age, when taken in connexion with the example of his predecessors, can have no other rational meaning. In connexion with this subject, there is a trage dy too dark to be probed. Neither Charka nor Dingam ever aUowed that they had any children, and it would be instant death to any subject who should make such an assertion ! My inquiries on this particular were always met with evasion or constrained silence — a kind of inquisitorial blight at once palsied the tongue, which until that instant had been communicative and loquacious. What could this mean 1 Two facts, painfuUy notorious, will sufficiently explain. On one occasion, per haps from some faint expectation of its being spared, an infant was presented to Charka — the " hyena-man " instantly seized his own child by the heels, and, with one blow, deprived it of that hfe, which with such a father it could have been no privilege to enjoy. This horrid deed was only surpassed by the immediate murder of the ago nised mother, whose eyes closed with the vivid impressions of the scene she had beheld. Dress and personal Appearance. Little can be said on the first particular, with respect to the men, whose undress, with the exception of a few dang- Ung strips of fur suspended from the waist, is but too notorious. Many of the younger women wear merely a fringe belt, made ofthe fibres of a root; but a short skin petticoat, reaching nearly to the bend of the knee, is the usual costume. Both men and women shave theh heads close, the for mer leaving only sufficient to attach the issigoko, or ring, and the latter, a smaU tuft, called embeeti, on the crown, which is carefuUy colored with red ochre ; but neither are worn untfll the individual has arrived at the age of maturity, prior to wliich the head of the young men are not shaved. Strange to say, the will of the king is as necessa ry for the adoption of either of these badges as in any other of his despotic acts, a whole regiment being sometimes ordered at once to adopt the ring. That there is some tradition associated with this peculiar costume, I have httle doubt, but could never obtain a further reply to my frequent inquiries on the subject, than that it was an an cient custom, which, I beUeve, originated with. this nation, though it has been adopted by many others. The method of putting it on is thus described : — A piece of rush cut, and smoothed to the proper size and length, is closely twisted round with sinew, and formed into a circle by uniting the ends ; with sinew it is then sewn to the roots of the hah, which in every other part, even vrithin the circle, is entirely removed, and the ring thus closely fitted on the scalp, and blackened over with the black wax of a honeycomb, is completed. Being composed of several tribes and conquered nations, a great difference of complexion is per ceptible among the Zoolus ; some few are nearly THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 27 as light a copper color as the bushmen on the bor ders of the colony, but a dark chocolate is the prevahng shade, though others, especiaUy from the neighborhood of De la Goa Bay are jet black. Dingarn Ihmself is nearly so. The generaUty of the men are of the middle size, light, active, and well-proportioned, they are excellent walkers, and wfll almost compete with the Syces of India in running. Although far from cleanly, crawling into their houses upon theh bare knees, and accustom ed to tread about with unconcern in att the filth of the cattle-fold, both men and women are fond of bathing, for which purpose they generaUy repair to the nearest stream once a dav, and after first smearing themselves over with blue clay, if it can be procured, by way of soap, return greatly em bellished by the operation. The war dress consists of a thick, fuU kilt, com posed of cats' tails, descending nearly to the knee, the shoulders and upper part of the body are deco rated with tlie long hair of ox tails, and the head is protected by an otter skin cap ; the whole has a very martial appearance. The common tails worn at other times, a few in front, and some longer and more widely apart behind, are strips of wild cat and monkey skins, and wom with the fur outside. Language. — Although the Kafir and the Zoolu languages are very similar, there are not only many words in the latter which are not found in the former, but the signification of the same word frequently differs in both. In the Zoolu, the elicits are far less frequent, and from this, and other pe culiarities, it is considered by those competent to judge, as at least a purer language than the Kafir, if not that from wliich it was originatty derived. There can be no doubt that it is spoken over a considerable tract of the interior country, not only by the tribes acknowledging Umselekaz to the north-west, but by a people under a chief named Sopuza, nearly due north of Unkuginglove, inhabit ing a country about the parallel of De la Goa Bay, and also throughout the territory of another powerful chief further north, called Sotchangan, so that it may be considered as universal between the 31st and 36th degrees of south latitude, and, with the exception of a small territory bordering De la Goa Bay, from the sea coast to the 29th degree of longitude. While on this subject, it ma} be as well to re mark, that notwithstanding it has been hitherto the habit of all writers on this part of Africa to employ the following terms, caross, kraal, and assegai, as respectively indicating a skin cloak, a native village, as also a cattle fold, and a dart or spear, not one of them have any signification in any of the native languages now spoken, and are generally beUeved to have been a corruption of Dutch and Hottentot, but it wfll only be necessa ry to give the Zoolu terms which exactly corres pond with the Kafir, in order to show the absur dity of perpetuating such an innovation. Ingoobo anygarment, eithercloak orpetticoat. Umzi a village. Issibaia a cattle fold. Umkonto a dart or spear. Had not the term assegai aheady become so familiar even to an Enghsh ear, it would not have appeared in this journal ; to have substitued the native word, might have appeared like affectation ; with respect to the other two, they were easily dispensed with altogether. As there is a peculiarity in the expressions em ployed by vstay of salutation among almost every nation differing in language, it may not be out of place to give here the precise terms used by the Zoolus, with a literal translation. Salutation, Dakubona, I have seen you. Reply, Yearbo, yes. or Debona wana, I see you. sometimes Dea-fooma, I agree. Description of various implements and other articles used by the Zoolus. The shield is made of ox hide, with a stick se cured down tho middle, and ornamented at one end with leopards' fur, it reaches from the ground to about the mouth of a moderate sized person ; in windy and in wet weather they are almost use less, and, in the fatter case, are frequently roUed up when on a march. The Zoolus prefer attack ing in open ground, contrary to the practice of the Kafirs, and seldom throw, but stab with theh short spears, of which a bundle of five or six are usually taken when going to war ; but arms are seldom borne in their own country, excepting when on a hunting expedition, or making a journey, and then a single umkonto, with one or two straight sticks, is all they require. The shields of every regiment are as nearly as possible of the same color, and by this they are often distinguished : thus the white and, the black Clomantnleen ; white is the favorite color, and has a good effect, contrasted with the black skin of the bearers ; such are the shields of the Unkunginglove men. Musical , Instruments. The calabash attached to the bow, increases and softens the sound produced by striking the string with a short stick. A common reed pipe perforated by keys, and blown like a child's penny trumpet, though at a distance the sound is not unpleasant ; the same simple instrument I have also seen used for a simi lar purpose by the natives of Tahiti and other islands in the south seas. A goat or sheep's leg. bone, from which a sound is produced by blowing across the smaUer end, as children do into the pipe of a key. The shrfli notes of some Of the wind instruments employed in the band of the late Dey of Algiers, have often grated my ears, but the sudden jar produced by this far surpassed any thing of the kind I ever endured. So much has already been effected by the surprise of a galvanic shock, that it may be a question how far a beneficial result may not, in some extreme cases, be produced through a dif ferent organ, by means of this instrument of oral torture. In every great dance it was always in troduced, and as invariably sent me to the oppo site side of the ring. My memoranda of the names of these instruments have been lost, but I doubt not, from the above description, which I believe contains nearly all that can be said upon this head, the profession wfll sustain it without much regret. 28 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Method qf Smelting Brass. The beUows is worked by directing the cow's hom, which forms the nozzle of two leathern bags, into the larger end of an eland's horn, and alter nately raising and depressing them ; by which means the opening at the top is closed or shut with the hand. The crucible is sunk its whole depth into a bed of ignited charcoal to the lower part of which the extremity of the eland's horn is directed, and in this manner the metal is molten, and either run into bars for forming throat rings and armlets, or into smaller clay moulds for the knobs and studs with which the women frequently ornament theh girdles and ingoobos (petticoats.) The crucible is composed of a coarse sand stone, procured in many parts of the country, and capa ble of sustaining any degree of heat without split ting. The greater proportion of this metal is pro cured from the Portuguese settlement at De la Goa, an intermediate tribe of Zoolus near the Bay conveying it for them to Unkunginglove or Con- gella, and receiving in return ivory and cattle. — There is no doubt that the whole of this trade might be transferred to Port Natal ; indeed Din garn has expressed as much, provided he is as well supphed with brass, which is generally sent out in bars about a foot long and an inch in thick ness. Iron is abundant in many parts of the country, but it is only worked in the mountains, about the head of the Amatikoola, whence suffi cient is procured for the heading of att theh asse gais, axes, and hoes. Egoodu, or Smoking Horn. — The tobacco is placed at the end of a reed introduced into the side of an ox's horn, wliich is fitted with water, and the mouth appUed to the upper part of the horn. The quantity of smoke which is inhaled through so large an opening, unconfined by a mouth-piece, often affects the breath, and produces much coughing ; notwithstanding which, the na tives are particularly fond of it. Tobacco com posed of the dried leaf of the wild hemp, here caU ed Dacca, is in general use, and has a very stupi- fying effect, frequently intoxicating ; on which occasions they invariably commence, long and loudly, to praise the king — a soliloquy which has often disturbed me, though at some distance from the hut whence it proceeded. Dacca is indige nous throughout the country, and tobacco is fre quently seen growing wild near deserted vfllages, but it has, I understand, been imported. Though smoking is comparatively confined to few, att, without exception, are passionately fond of snuff, and no greater compUment can be offered than to share the contents of a snuff-calabash with your neighbor. For this purpose the hand is extended, and a certain quantity shovetted in my means of a small ivory spoon, the whole of wliich is then sniffed off from the palm of the hand ; and worse than a Goth would that barbarian be, in theh esti mation, who would wantonly interrupt a social party so employed. Often have I been obhged, patiently, to await the disappearance of the last grain, rather than too harshly urge them on, even when on a journey requiring speed. Etoonga, or wooden milk pail, used only by the king's herdsmen. — While collecting the cattle to gether, and during the whole operation of milking, they utter a shrill whistling noise, wliich, from habit, the cows attend to and become more quiet. Issigoongu, or bowl for containing outchuaUa (native beer.) — It is composed of black earthen ware made by hand without the aid of a wheel. Wooden spoons — The smaller one, merely the longitudinal section of a calabash, is the most frequently used, though both are often dispensed with. Snuff calabash, and spoon. — The snuff is com posed of dried dacca ground with burnt aloes ; the spoon is of ivory. Issitugo-tugo or scraping-knife. — Made of ivory, and used in hot weather to scrape the moisture from the forehead and face. Having now embodied the few memoranda to which I nave aUuded, I will pass at once to the Journal which commences about this time. JOURNAL. Saturday, April 25th. — In consequence of the number of Zoolus who at different times have taken refuge here, and the frequent threats of re prisal from Dingarn, which have recently become more alarming, a meeting of the Europeans was held this afternoon, at Mr. Cane's, to devise some plan for our mutual security. After some httle discussion, on which many plans were advanced, it was unanimously resolved, that, as this appear ed to be a favorable opportunity, a treaty, based on the following terms, should, if possible, be en tered into with Dingarn, viz. Provided he will guarantee the Uves and property of every indivi dual, white and black, now residing at Port Natal; we, on our part, engage to repel with att our power, and never more to receive any deserter from his dominions ; and immediately to acquaint him of the chcumstance, should any of his people elude our vigilance. It was at the same time agreed that no deserters should be given up until some anangement of this nature had met with his sanction. Having been requested by the meet ing to undertake the negociation, I made ar rangements for commencing the journey as early as possible. Sunday 26th. "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." (1 Corinth, vi. 19, 20.) Servants of a God of love ! What a privilege is ours ; Let our hearts be fixed above, Let us yield Him att our powers. ?. Think, oh ! think the price He paid, ¦! Free and costly — 'twas His blood ! , What a debt on us is laid, Washed and ransomed in that flood. Freed from sin's debasing chain, " Whose we are — Him let us serve ;" Love should all our thoughts constrain. For nothing we can e'er deserve. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 29 Tis for this on earth we're sent, Health and strength are not our own ; Life itself is only lent, On the altar to be thrown. Living sacrifices here, Let us consecrate each day , Let the love of Christ endear Every trial by the way^ He who bought us stiU is nigh, Though we are helpless, He has power, Grace and fulness to supply, And shield us in the trying hour. Joyful then our course we'U run, Till the promised prize we gain ; Sh re the glory Christ has won. Behold Him who for us was slain. Tuesday 28th. — Yesterday afternoon, at about four o'clock, I set out on my second visit to Din garn, accompanied by a hired wagon, my inter preter, and two native servants, Umpondombeeni and Dingezwa. We passed the night on a hfll three miles beyond the Umgani, but were unable to proceed before half-past eight this morning ; my horse, although knee-tied, having strayed back to tlie river. At half-passed twelve crossed the Umslutie, and stopped to breakfast, proceeding again at twenty minutes past three. Throughout this country there is a high grass frequently met with, which is very fragrant, at this season it was particularly grateful. The blade is broad and long, and the reedy stem, at the top of which are the seeds which emit the scent, often rising to the head of a person on horseback. The stem when dry is in general use among the natives as a fire- stick, and is the only substitute for a lamp which they possess. Advancing about half a mile, a view of the sea is obtained, but which is soon after obstructed by the hills ; on the left is a distant range of table-topped mountains, each terminating very abruptly. The chief employment of the Europeans about Port Natal is in hunting the elephant, and buffalo ; one party we had already passed, and as the evening closed in, and we were about to ascend a hfll for our night's bivouac, we fell in with a second so grotesquely habited, and in so wfld a situation, that I could not resist scrib bling in my journal the foUowing doggerel lines, in order to amuse the solitude while accompany ing on horseback my wagon at its stately pace. THE NATAL HUNTER. In olden times we oft have heard, Though many deem those tales absurd, Of half-tamed men called Buccaneers Who scoured the sea, and oft the land, On plunder bent, with sword in hand, Cutting off noses, sometimes ears. Now these men, as the story runs, Were strangely garbed, though armed with guns, And blunderbuss, and spear ; All men of wild terrific mien, The fiercest that theh foes had seen, Transfixing aU with fear. Now just such men as these I've seen, As wild to view — on slaughter keen ; But, perhaps, you'll think I'm jesting ; 'Twas but the other night I found The ruffians seated on the ground, Each from his labors resting. White, brown and black, of varied hue, Composed this strange— this motley crew, The sullen Hottentot and blithesome KaU ; So long unshaved the whites had been, Thick bristles stood on every chin ; Despised the toil of washing daily. Each proud Incosi* stood erect, Which added much to the effect, The rest Uke monkeys crouched behind ; It would not many words require, To give an inventory entire, Of att their habfliments combined. Four leathern trowsers duly worn With wooUen frocks, some badly torn, Two bonnets rouge — a hat crowned, Three shoes that ne'er had covered hose, With openings wide t'admit the toes, Were aU the four white people owned. In suits of ditto, closely fitted, The natives never can be pitied, One garment lasts them all theh days; But Hottentots on finery bent, Are not so easily content, And ape theh moody masters' ways. The lip moustached — the saUow face, Denote that haughty, thankless race, They'd sett their skin for brandy ; E'en Erin's sons they far eclipse, In placing goblets to their lips, Whene'er they find them handy. A few I marked with strange attire, While crowding round a blazing fire, Some sea-cow fat devouring. Red caps and tattered frocks they wore, With brigantines besmeared with gore, Like border bandits lowering. In strange confusion, round them strewed, Muskets and powder-horns I viewed, With skins, and fat, and dogs, and game; For neither elephant nor buffalo They ever leave in peace to go, But fell with deadly aim. I've seen the savage in his wildest mood, And marked him reeked with human blood, But never so repulsive made ; Something incongruous strikes the mind, Whene'er a barb'rous race we find, With shreds of civil hfe displayed. There's more of symmetry, however bare, In what asavage deigns to wear, In keeping with the scene ; These, each deformed by what he wears, Like apes that dance at country fairs, Seemed but a hnk between. * Native term for master or chief. 30 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 'Twould puzzle poet — painter too — In vivid colors bright and true That living chaos to portray : The twilight shed a ghastly glare On all the group assembled there, As round the flick'ring fires they lay. The Zoolus' song, the white mens' cheers With grating Dutch, assailed our ears, As we approached theh lair ; E'en faithful Echo stood amazed At the wfld Babel they had raised Upon the evening ah. E'en now the image haunts my brain ! Those hideous forms and shouts remain, Like fever'd dreams on restless nights ; And perhaps 'twere better here to end These sorry rhymes, lest I offend By painting such outlandish sights. Thursday, ZOih. — Travelled yesterday until a quarter past one, when we stopped to breakfast on the left bank of the Umshlala, and in the after noon reached the Mavototie, the largest stream between the Umgani and Tugala. At daylight this morning, observed the buffalo bhds very bu sily employed, perched upon the backs of the oxen : they are generally found where cattle or buffaloes are numerous, Uving upon the insects which they find in theh coats ; they are rather larger than a swallow, with a thick red bill, and make a chirping noise during the whole time they are thus occupied. Soon after sunrise, descended the hill, and crossed the Mavootie : from the ford the embouchure of the river can be seen, the coast being not more than three-quarters of a mile distant. The country, for a few mfles on each side of the river, is bare of trees. Passing this district, a wild cat was started, which, pursued by the people, took refuge in a tree, from which it was soon pelted down with sticks, making a sur prising bound to reach the ground. Its next re treat was a clump of bushes, out of which, with the aid of a dog, it was at length beaten and kitt ed. In colour it very much resembled some of our tabbies, but was considerably larger. It be came so desperate at last, that the dog would have been unable to secure it, but for the assistance of the people. After crossing the Norte, the coun try, as we approached the Tugala, became more clothed with trees, chiefly mimosa. Crossed the Singuassie at a quarter-past twelve, to breakfast, and proceeding again at three, reached the Tugala, through a beautiful and undulating country, at half-past four. The river being pronounced fordable, though over the floor of the wagon, the necessary prepa rations were made, but cutting stout poles, and laying them across the sides, and on these the contents of the wagon were placed, leaving a clear passage for the water below. Having pro cured assistance from Mambayendi, we proceeded to the ford, but so steep was the descent to the water, that it was only by the weight of several natives holding on the ropes attached to the right side of the wagon, that its equilibrium was pre served. Once in the stream, att went on weU, though it was necessary to make a considerable circuit, in order to prevent the oxen from actually getting out of their depth. The whole scene was highly amusing — the floundering of the oxen, the energy of the drivers, the loose cattle urged on by a number of natives, wading with the Ughter baggage — the river itself (a fine feature) wending through precipitous banks, altogether left an im pression I will not easily forget. The day closed upon us as we ascended the opposite bank ; and being too dark to proceed, I rode on to a vfllage, two miles distant, in order to obtain a guide, which was affected not without difficulty, the man himself losing his way while attempting to direct me back to the wagon ; however, we all soon after reached Mangnenas village, and I again oc cupied the same hut in which I had slept on my former journey. Friday, May 1st. — The darkness of the pre ceding night having obliged me to leave several things to be carried across the river this morning, we were unable to proceed until half-past ten. Umpondombeeni preceded to show the way, being the only person in the party acquainted with it ; but as native footpaths are the only tracks, and he was but httle experienced in the description of road necessary for a wagon, we were in con sequence obhged to make frequent detours. Pas sing through a hilly country, with scarcely any trees, we stopped at twenty minutes to two, at a town called Neki. Sequabana, the Indoona, and his people, were very civil ; and having procured some sour milk, soon after tliree we continued our route. Crossing the Amatekoola, the bank by which we emerged was so steep, that the oxen knelt on many parts of the ascent in order to raise their bodies by theh hind feet. The country is here prettily broken, and more clothed with trees. While riding at a httle distance in front of the wagon, a hyena sprang" up from the long grass, just before my horse. Soon after five, stopped for the night at a viUage situated on a hfll, called Muckachani. This is one of the king's places, contains twenty-nine huts, and is under the con trol of Marwa (Dingarn's great aunt, who resides at IntouteUa,) she being a daughter of Jama, his grandfather. Much art had been employed in clipping the ears and bending the homs of the cattle at this place — the horns of many were made to turn inwards, and the ears to flap down some what simflar to the elephant, Intermingled with the huts, at this season of the year, a number of temporary granaries are seen stuck about in att directions ; they are gene rally either bell-shaped or cylindrical, hghtly formed of grass or reeds, and daubed on the out side with a composition, which will not bear ana lyzing, in order to exclude the rats as well as the rain. Saturday, 2nd. — Set out at half-past nine — crossed an extensive plain, in the centre of which is a large mihtary town, called Itontella. Man- kana, the Indoona, was absent with the king. Proceeding from thence, the country is open, with high grass, but scarcely a bush to be seen. After passing the Neazani, a small stream, the country is more elevated and broken, but equaUy bare of trees. At one, stopped to breakfast at a small village, Empendiswani, and proceeded again at half-past four. Soon after crossing the Kuknsi, a THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 81 small stream, the banks of which are very steep, we entered a mountainous district, but scarcely a tree is to be seen on the whole range. Having accomplished the ascent, which is very preci pitous, we obtained a distant view of the sea on the right, and overlooked an extensive range of mountains in the opposite direction. A few vil lages are widely scattered among these moun tains, and several natives, induced by curiosity, ran across the ridges, and met us on the path. Ensuzana, the viUage where I proposed remain ing until Monday, was long seen at the foot of a mountain, but so completely was it beset on all sides by precipitous slopes, that we were obliged to make a very considerable chcuit before we dis covered a practicable one by which to descend with the wagon. This place belongs to Nouga- laza (Indoona of Clomanthleen Inthlopi:) his mother, who resides here, did the honors, and after some Uttle trouble provided me with a very inferior hut, though I beUeve the best that could be spared. Before I had entered, it was nearly filled, and for some time I was obliged to endure the inquisitiveness of a large party of natives, who amused themselves by turning over the leaves of my memorandum-book, examining my writing materials, and even my dress. Although eager to see every thing new, they were far from being rude, and perfectly good-humoured. Sunday, 3rd. " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."— (Exodus xx. 8.) Awake, my soul, to grateful praise ! This hallowed morn, with blessings fraught, Beams on the world with milder rays, Proclaims what dying love has wrought. WeU may we cease from wordly cares, Awhile to trace the glorious plan ; The heritage of which we're heirs, With awe and gratitude to scan. How few the hours sincerely given To him whose blood our ransom paid ! Our hearts how cold ! what earthly leaven Our hottest services pervade ! Oh for that faith enduring — bright, Which made the wrestling Patriarch bold For grace to Uve no more by sight, But waffi with Thee, hke saints of old ! On this bless'd day thy love reveal; Impress thine image on my heart ; Kindle within, a brighter zeal ; Some foretaste of thyself impart. Breathe life in every offered prayer ; Each idle, wandering thought restrain : My wfll subdue, my heart prepare, Fervent in sphit to remain. An unction on thy Word bestow, A willing, child-like spirit give ; That I may practise what I know, And on that hidden manna live. 56—7 So, when these earthly Sabbaths fail Which oft have cheered me by the way, Like pools along the thirsty vale, My soul shall hail a brighter day. Glorious hope ! — a rest from sin ! — No temper there, to mar thy peace ; With saints and angels to begin A Sabbath that shall never cease. Tfll then, vouchsafe thy presence nigh, Accept the ransom Jesus bare ; So shaU my soul with transport fly Thy face to see, thy bliss to share ! Kafir service in the tent. Monday, Oh. — Set out at half-past eight ; had great difficulty in crossing some of the mountain gutties ; the grass in the ravines often over my head on horseback. While searching for a pas sage for the w agon, my horse feU, throwing me over his head ; his feet had sunk into an ant-eater's hole, which are very numerous throughout the country, and whieh, on account of the high grass, it is often impossible to avoid. This is about the tenth fall I have had from the same cause. At half-past ten crossed a mountain-stream cal led the Mayaazi, and immediately after commenc ed a' very steep ascent ; a few stunted mimosa only to be seen on the whole range. This toilsome ride was occasionally enlivened by numbers of men, whom we met accoutred with head-plumes and shields, on their return from Congella, where the king was now residing, and before whom they had been engaged in driving cattle furiously, for his amusement. During the whole of this journey the weather had been beautiful, and the sky ge nerally without a cloud. At a little before one we obtained the first view of Congella, the tops of the huts just appearing above the circular fence which covered the slope of an opposite hill. As we weund up the ascent towards the gate, Mambay endi, who had preceded me, made his appearance, and soon after went to inform the king of my arrival. He soon returned with a message from Dingarn, to inquire whether I should wish to have a house, thinking, probably, that I should prefer the wagon. On being answered in the affirmative, the chief Indoona was desired to furnish a large one, and, in little more than a quarter of an hour, I was snugly seated in my new abode, though, as usual, sadly crowded with curious visiters. The king having previously inquhed what provisions I wish ed, sent a good supply of outchualla (beer,) some milk and Kafir corn-meal ; and while we were re galing ourselves on the two former (being the first food we had tasted this day,) Mambayendi again appeared, to inform me that the king had present ed an ox, but that, as it was his wish that the hide should be returned to him for shields, he requested it might be kitted in the usual manner. The unfor tunate animal was soon afterwards speared, but walked some distance before it fell, and even then lingered some minutes before it expired. At a httle before six Dingarn sent to signify his desire to see me. He was seated on the outside of the high fence which incloses his Issigordlo, or palace, habited in the same blue dungaree cloak which 32 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. he had so often wom .at Unkunginglove, made somewhat more gaudy by a strip or two of some red baize I had given him, sewn on the skirts. Scarcely had I seated myself, when his inquiries were directed to a leathern sack borne by Um- pondombeeni, and placed on the ground beside me. On being told that it contained some few presents intended for him, he was all curiosity until the whole had been displayed before him, consisting of a long deck glass, a pair of naval epaulettes, three pahs of lady's gflt bracelets, a silk sword-belt and tassel, some smaU looking-glasses, rolls of colored riband, red baize, printed cahco, and several colored engravings of English costume and field sports, which a view of the Pavilion at Brighton, and a full-length portrait of George the Fourth, and also of our present gracious sovereign. He was delighted with the epaulettes, but much puzzled how to display them to the best advantage, until informed that the shoulder was the proper place, and that they would greatly become his red cloak, when he took the hint and dhected them to be sewn on it. His endeavor to squeeze his wrists into the compass of the bracelets was quite amus ing ; fearing that he would break them, I assured him that in my country they were only worn by ladies. " Ah ! " he replied, " they shaU not wear them here." With the prints he was greatly amused, and what surprised me not a little was, that he was enabled to appreciate the beauty of the female faces, which he pronounced very hand some. He greatly admired the futt-length por traits of the king, one in his robes, the other in a naval ur.iform ; but was evidently more gratified with the hunting scenes than with any that had been shown him. While looking over the view of the Pavilion, he caUed me near, to point out the entrance, which happened to be hid by a coach and four, represented as standing before the door. Observing also, among the groups in the same place, a gentleman and lady arm-in-arm, he ex claimed with some surprise, "Is that your mode of walking with women 1" The sword-knot was no sooner exhibited, than it was placed round his peck, the tassel hanging in front. With the glass, which I had purpostly reserved for the last, he was highly gratified ; and on once seeing it ad justed to the proper focus, he managed it toler ably weU himself, even declining my offer to assist him in directing it to the moon, which was shining brightly at the time. Having recommended the support of a man's shoulder, he persevered until he suceeded in catching a glimpse of the moon, when he exclaimed in triumph, " De&ibona cona- lappa" (I see it here.) As no aUusion was made to the object of my visit (some idea of wliich had already been conveyed to him by Mambayendi) I concluded he was awaiting the return of the two Indoonas, UmthleUa and Tambooza, who were at Unkunginglove, and had, I understood, been sent for immediately on the arrival of Mambayendi. This interview lasted three-quarters of an hour. Tuesday, 5th. — Both yesterday and this morn ing I have been visited by Eeto, the Indooana of this place, and of the whole Clomanthleen district ; he is an elderly person of mild appearance. While seated under a tree, to which I afterwards walked, enjoying the view of a richly wooded valley sur rounded by mountains, about two miles from the town, some men came up bearing a dead leopard bound to a pole upon their shoulders ; it had been caught, a few miles distant, by the dogs, and after wards speared ; and they were now canying it to king, from whom they expected the usual reward of a head or two of cattle. There are three kinds of this species in the country, all included by the Dutch and the colonists under the general name of the tiger, although that animal is here unknown, the panther and the leopard alone being met with on this part of the continent. While engaged at the wagon, which had been drawn up near the gate, I received a visit from Ulangazana, one of Senzanakona's wives, who resides here ; although only an inferior wife of his father, she bears, with many others, the .appellation of " the King's Mother." She is of middle age ; possesses a mild and inteffigent countenance ; and, like her august relative, is of a very dignified size. So rigidly are infants proscribed from these miUtary towns, that I was last night much surprised at hearing the cry of one in an adjoining hut, and observing se veral young children in the course ot tho day. I found on inquiring, that in consequence of the king having been brought up when a child among the people of this place, an exception has been made in its favor. There is something so repul sive in this unnatural exclusion, that this circum stance alone has prepossessed me in favor of Con gella, more especially as it is thus calculated to afford a wider field for missionary labor than Un kunginglove. It is between these two places that Dingarn generaUy divides the year ; the lat ter however, being the capital, is his principal re sidence. The setting sun gives a remarkable effect to the bold mountain ridges which surround this town ; and I was returning to my hut after witnessing this splendid scene, when my attention was at tracted by a number of female voices ascending from the valley. A string of women, forty-one in number, bearing large bowls of beer upon theh heads, soon made theh appearance, winding up the hill, singing as they went, until they reached the Issigordlo. They had come from one of Eoto's places, where, during the king's residence here, the beer for himself and his umpagai is pre pared. Wednesday, 6th. — My enemies the rats, are here in greater force than ever ; and, although I purposely brought a stretcher with me, in the hope of raising my bed beyond their reach, one of them actuaUy contrived to pearch upon my head in the course of the night. This morning UmthleUa and Tambooza arrived. It is singular to trace the ra pidity with which even the most trivial conversa tion I hold with the people is conveyed to the king. Having yesterday inquhed respecting the appropriation of the leopard-skin, and understood that it would be given to one of the Zebongas, or praisers, to make a new dress' for the dance, one of them by order of Dingam was sent down early this morning, habited in the same skin cloak in which he had appeared at Unkunginglove, which he ex hibited for some time, praising the king, leaping and floundering about in imitation of the wild ani mal which he was supposed to personate, but of the two appeared the more ferocious. As I was now enabled to inspect his dress more narrowly, I THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 33 took the opportunity to sketch his appearance as he stood before the hut. At four o'clock a message came from the king, desiring to see me ; and knowing his passion for dress, and concluding that he would now enter upon the business of my visit, I went up in full uniform. He was seated as before, just without his fence, accompanied, at a respectable distance, by UmthleUa and Tambooza. Having seated my self, I waited, as usual, for the king to commence the conversation, until I feared my silence might appear rude, when I inquired of Mambayendi, who accompanied me, whether he was waiting for me to speak. Dingarn, who overheared my question, and was eyeing my dress with great earnestness, replied that he must have time to look at me be fore he could say any thing. I told him that this was my war-dress, and that I always wore it when I approached my own sovereign. He said it was very handsome, and commenced a close examination of every part, particularly the sword, which I handed to him. Seeing that he was greatly pleased with the workmanship of the hilt, tassel, &c., I said that if he would hke to have it I would present it to him. He readily accepted it, saying, that he " liked every thing," and amus ed himself for some time with drawing and sheath ing it again. The ridiculous part of the ceremony being over, Dingarn commenced the business by observing that he had not before asked me respect ing the news I had brought, as the Indoonas were absent, but that now they were come he wished to hear it. A meeting of the white people at Port Natal, I informed him, had lately taken place, to consider what was the best method to prevent his people from deserting and coming down to us in future. The advice I had given, and which was unanimously adopted, was then stated, as also the request that I should communicate it to him, which I was glad to undertake, being de sirous at all times to be the king's friend. In re ference to the proposition to send deserters back, provided he agreed to the arrangement, he asked, " Would you send them bound ¦? " " We could do nothing," I replied, " unless he agreed to guaran tee the Uves and property of every individual now residing at Port Natal. The white people were but few, while the natives were comparatively numerous ; and as the greater part were deserters from him, they would never (being themselves in similar circumstances) be induced to lend their aid to secure a single individual who sought refuge among them; and, however desirous the white people might be to second the views of the king, it would be quite beyond their power, as the na tives would contrive to harbor and secret them in defiance of aU theh vigilance. On the other hand, once assured of theh pardon and security, the black people would, I had no doubt, assist us ; and it would then be difficult for any deserter to make his escape." Dingam at once entered into the plan, which he considered equitable ; and after picking a little of the fence, and considering a minute or two, he turned round and with some energy said, " he granted all ; that he never would molest any of his subjects now at Natal for past offences ; that he should keep fast his word ; but that he knew the white people would be the first to break the treaty." I observed here, that " tme Englishmen never broke a treaty ; that it had always been our boast to adhere to them ; and that, if he had met with white people who had deceived him,, he had been unfortunate—they were not the right sort of Englishmen." Dingarn replied, " I beUeve you. I am glad, very glad, and thank you much for the word you have brought. I have seen many white people, but now a great chief is come among us, to whom I can speak my heart." I told him that " I needed no thanks ; that it was only my duty ; that I feared God, and therefore he might rely upon all I told him, for I dared not speak what was not true. In God's word we were told to do to others as we would be done by ; and, therefore, while in his countr/, I should study his interest as much as I should that of my own sovereign." Here he pointed his fin ger at me in theh usual style of recognition and satisfaction when animated, and again thanked me for the good word I had brought. The par ticular object of the conference being now con cluded, the sword again became his plaything, and he asked several questions respecting the devices on the hilt and blade, particularly how the lion's head was formed. Dingarn then inquired the ob ject of Mr. Fynn's mission to Faku ; which I told him was to encourage Faku, who had resolved to stand fast by the English, who were driving the Amakasa before them, and were shortly expected to enter Hinza's tenitory. Being desirous, while on this subject, to impress him with some idea of the power of the field-pieces which accompanied the British force in Kafirland, I could scarcely keep my countenance on hearing them designated by the ridiculous term "by and bye," an adopted expression now universally applied to cannon or great guns. The origin of this term is somewhat curious. Lieutenant Farewell, R. N., who was the first settler at Port Natal, had constructed a fort round his house, on which some carriage-guns were mounted.* These guns excited much curi osity among the natives, and he was frequently questioned by them as to their use. His usual reply was, " You sh.aU see by and bye ; " until hearing the last words so frequently repeated in reference to the guns, they naturally concluded that it was the proper name. A messenger was now sent for the colored prints, in order that they might be exhibited before the Indoonas. Cer tainly nothing could have been more happy than the selection. Dingarn was dehghted with every one, and told me that during the whole of yester day, until the sun went down, he had amused him self with looking them over. Observing a car riage drawn by horses, in one of the prints, he expressed his surprise that they should be em ployed for such a purpose, having always imagin ed, as he said, that wagons were only drawn by oxen. Having never seen any other description of wheeled carriage, it was difficult to convey an idea of the distinction, and he seemed astonished at the rapidity with which I told him carriages in England were whirled along. It was amusing to observe that the Indoonas were as much struck with the beauty of the female portraits as Dingam, which, considering the antipathy generaUy evinc ed by blacks to a white skin, could hardly have ? No vestage remains of these buildings. 34 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. been anticipated. Dingarn was quite animated while talking over the sporting pieces, and, in imi tation of one of these scenes, (partridge shooting,) placed the hilt of the sword to his shoulder, and pointed it upwards, in the attitude of taking aim. Contrary to my expectation, he had contrived to squeeze his wrists into a pair of bracelets I had given him yesterday, and which I had thought scarcely possible. At half-past five, I took my leave, thankful at the good success of this my first attempt at negotiation. Tlmrsday, 7th. — This morning had a long con versation with UmtheUa and Tambooza, in my hut ; making them at the same time a present, consisting of cloth, printed cahco, and a few naval buttons. I told them that my heart was still as anxious as before to speak to them the words of God, and that I should be much obliged if they would take my words to the king. They both re phed in the most friendly manner, saying that they had held fast the word which I had spoken yester day, namely, that I desired to be the king's friend ; that those were good words, and had made their hearts glad. They said, that the king's heart was now towards me, and inquhed if there was any thing else which I wished them to mention to him. I told them that the king had well provided for att my wants ; that I had nothing further to ask, and no other wish, but his permission to tell them what God had said. It was, I informed them, by keeping His word that we had risen to be a great peopel, and as it was my deshe to do them good, I wished them also to become acquainted with it. They left me, much pleased with the presents, and promised to acquaint the king with what I had said. Though not relevant to this subject, I cannot omit the curious reply of Um theUa to my question — " How do you manage to sleep with so many rats continuaUy running over you 1 " " We don't mind them," he said ; " it's only play ; they are poor httle wfld animals, look ing out for food ; the only harm they do us, is eat ing our corn." I felt almost inclined to envy the perfect indifference with which he treated these unwelcome visiters. The evening set in with hea vy rain, which, much to my inconvenience, pene trated my hut in several places. Dingarn kindly sent to inquire if I was cold, and whether I should not like a fire. I desired the messenger to assure him that I was very comfortable, but I had not at that time discovered the leaks in my roof. Friday, 8th. — Dingam sent to say, that some of the people had observed me wanting about alone among the bushes, a long way from the town, and that he recommended me not to go there again, as there were many wfld beast in that part, and several of the people had been taken off by them, and never heard of since. The fact is, there is so little water about this place, and that so poUuted by the washing of hides for shields. &c., that I had crossed the mountain in quest of a place to bathe, and, finding the walk and scene ry so pleasant, had been induced to extend it. Having desired them to thank the king for his con sideration, he soon after sent his servant Barka, who, accompanied by Mambayendi, had directions to shew me a place where the water was good, and much nearer. Saturday, 9ih. — Had a long interview this af ternoon with Dingarn, in the Issigordlo, the con versation was nearly in the following words :— " To-morrow is our holy-day, on which we do no work." Dingarn. — "Are not my people to do any work?" A. "They have not yet heard God's words : those who have understood them, will not work on that day, but employ it in wor shipping God ; it is, therefore, my wish to say aU that is in my mind, to the king, on this day. It is necessary that the agreement between us and the king should be taken to Port Natal as soon as possible, as I wish the king's words to be known there, and, therefore, it is my intention, that the wagon should return the day after to-morrow, but I do not wish to take leave of the king, without letting him know all that is in my heart." Din garn. — " Say on." A. " I feel just as anxious to do your people good as ever, and I know that the best way is to teach them the word of God. This was what I came up for before, and now it is my only deshe." Dingam. — " It was in my heart to let you stay and teach when you came before, but the Indoonas were against it." A. " I thought so at the time. If the king pleases, I wfll now stay for this purpose, but if not, I wfll return with the wagon." Dingarn. — "How will you teach the people at Port Natal V A. "I have aheady sent to Granam's Town for another person to come out and teach them, so that I can now remain with the king if he pleases." Dingarn. — "I wish you to go to Port Natal, and see that they keep the agreement, for I have often spoken to them, and know that they wfll not adhere to it unless you are there." A. "It wfll not be necessary that I should go, a letter wfll do as weU ; they wiU then hear your words, and keep them." Dingarn. — " How do you mean to teach ; shaU you want the children 1 " A. " I shall not trouble the chil dren at first* ; aU I wish to do, is to speak openly the words of God." Dingarn. — " Do you mean the ' Book ' " (aUuding to the Testament I usuaUy carried with me). A. " Yes, that book contains God's words. I should speak them to aU the peo ple, before the king, who could then judge for himself, whether they were not good words." Dingarn. — " How many could you teach ; would these be enough 7 " (pointing to about fifty of his women, who were standing near). A- "Yes, and many more ; if they were att seated round, I could speak to aU the people of this town at the same time." Mambayendi, who was present, asked how long he should be learning the words ? I rephed, if he paid attention, three moons would be sufficient ; but we never ceased to read them, for they taught us how to be happy ; how we were to behave to each other ; and how we were to serve God. Dingarn. — " Can we learn them V A. "Certainly; there was a time when we our selves did not know them ; before that time we were a poor people, but, by keeping those words, we had become a great people. They were now a great people, but I wished them to know these words that they might become greater." Din garn. — "I must speak with the Indoonas about it." (They had never delivered my message to him.) I then told him, that I was desirous to take * I thought it prudent to waive this point, as it had been a stumbling block on a former occasion. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 35 or send the treaty to Port Natal soon, and that perhaps it would be better to send it immediately by a messenger, who could travel much faster than a wagon. Dingarn. — " I wish you to take it, but do not wish you to leave me yet ; you must take the treaty with you, and afterwards you can re turn and teach ' The Book.'" A. "lam ready to do whatever the king pleases, but should return with much greater satisfaction, if he would first give me his 'fast word' about coming back to teach." I then informed him that my friend Mr. Berkin had left me for the Colony, and, on his re turn, would bring some handsome presents, which I had ordered for him, but that they would not be forwarded until the "fast word" had been receiv ed, respecting my remaining to teach. He seemed much pleased with the prospect of more presents, and said that he would speak with his Indoonas. On taking my leave, I said, that to him I should now look to fix the time of my return, and that as to-morrow was our holy-day, I hoped he would permit me to teU them God's words. His only reply was, "Deava" (I hear.) During the whole of this conversation, my interpreter, and George King the wagon driver, were occupied, at Din- gam's desire, in making him a cloak out of some handkerchief-stuff, which I had given him. After once seeing the' method of using the scissors, Dingarn took them up, and finished the cutting part himself in a very notable manner. It was the first time he had ever used them, still he per severed, although complaining much of their pinching his fingers. Both in coming and return ing, I was greeted by those of the king's women, who had seen me at Unkunginglove, waving theh hands, and calling out " Cappan Gama," at the same time asking for snuff. The sumptuary laws in this country, though somewhat more relaxed than formerly, are stiU very rigid. Neither Um theUa nor Tambooza, to whom I had this evening sent a present of some printed cahco, would allow theh wives to wear it, without first asking per mission of the king ; which I afterwards under stood had been granted. The common blue cheek ed patterns they are allowed to wear ; but as this was a fancy thing on a hght ground, it was consi dered by them as too gay for a subject. Soon after returning to my hut, the king sent me a cow to slaughter, and Eoto a bowl of outchuatta. The king's women, I observed still retained their brass collars ; but, as the dancing season was now over, the men had relinquished all theh brass orna ments, no doubt to their great relief, but theh ap pearance was by no means improved. Sunday, 10th. — This has been a day of distin guished mercy. The Lord has answered my prayers, and given me good success — blessed be his holy name. May I ever regard myself as only an humble instrument in His hands, unworthy to be employed in His service, and ascribe to Him aU the wisdom, aU the power, and aU the glory. He works not as man works — His ways and His times are the fittest. Oh that he may prepare me by His grace for the work which is before me, and grant that the door which he has so graciously opened may be effectual in giving light to those who now sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and incline the hearts of many to go forth as la borers into this harvest! Held the English ser vice in the tent, but greatly disturbed by the in cessant noise ofthe people, who were occupied in rebuilding and removing their houses. "Set your affections on things above."— (Coloss. iii. 2.) I ask not wealth, but heavenly love, — That holy fire that angels know, — To raise my early thoughts above, And bid my soul with rapture glow. All is dark and dreary here, Nature's noon a cheerless night, Till the Lord of life appear, Shedding beams of joy and hght. Oh for a living coal to touch My lips, that I might speak his praise, Whose aU constraining love was such, He sought me when in sin's dark ways ! What boundless love ! to pity one So wretched — so depraved ; Renew the grace I dared to shun, Unwilling to be saved. ' While we sojourn here below, More than hah is yet untold ; 'Tis but little now we know, TiU death this veil of sense unfold. But oh ! enough remains to swell This thankless heart with greatful praise ; How should these Ups his goodness tett, Who kept and fed me aU my days ! But there's a sweeter strain than this, That Units our souls with saints above ; And almost makes us taste their bliss — The freeness of redeeming love. Shall our cold hearts not burn to prove, What highest seraphs long to know The riches of that dying love Which brought the Lord of Ufe below 1 When once these Uving streams we taste, Like Sinai's fount, they never cease ; But foUow us through att the waste — In Ufe our joy — in death our peace ! And then the song on earth begun, Eternity itself shaU fill ; And all that conquering love has done Be ever new and endless still. Monday, 11th. — Yesterday, at about eleven, a messenger arrived from the king, who desired to see me. On my arrival I found him seated, as J usual, near the fence of the Issigordlo, accompa- '• nied only by the two Indoonas. As soon as I was seated, he desired me to repeat in their presence all that I had stated to him on Saturday in refer ence to the teaching ; which I did nearly in the same words, adding a brief sketch of the object and character of true religion. I assured him that it was not my intention to interfere with theh 36 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. laws or theh customs — that I had, from experi ence, leamt that the way to true happiness was only to be found in God's Book. It was by those words that kings were taught how to rule aright — that subjects learnt obedience to theh chiefs and Indoonas — that we were told how to behave towards each other ; to do to others as we would they should do to us; but especially we were taught by them the way to heaven — how to escape that place of torment, where sinners would go after death, and to reach that place of happiness which was promised to all those who loved God here. (The name of Christ was not mentioned, as I thought it might perplex, not having then time to enter into the necessary explanation.) I then observed, that many other nations had long had these words, and had been made great and happy by them, and that it grieved me much to think that they had not yet been made known to them. During the latter part of this conversation, Dingarn appeared deep in thought, looking ear nestly at me, and occasionally, as though abstract ed, picking blades of grass from under his chair ; and at the conclusion, he turned to the Indoonas, and said, " Now, you must decide." Tambooza immediately rephed, " Yes ! now we know that God's news is good news. The reason we did not let you remain before was, because we did not know you — we wished you to go back and bring such a word as you have now done — that news has made our hearts glad (alluding to the terms of the treaty ; but this was a mere subterfuge) — now we wish you to stay ; and where you are to teach is in the Clomanthleen — that is the place — you may teach in att the towns there." Dingarn having confirmed what had been said, Umthella also assenting, I thanked hira and the Indoonas for the " fast word" which had now been given, saying, that this day they had made my heart glad. Tam booza, who appeared to be the spokesman, inquir ed if I had any other request to make. I told him that the king had prevented me from asking any thing further ; that he had aheady Uberaliy provided for att my wants ; and that now he had granted the only request it was in my heart to make, and left me nothing more to deshe. Dingarn then said, that he wished Mankanjana (Gomani's son) sent up to him*, and that he promised no pun ishment should be inflicted upon him. Fearing that he was beginning to vacillate in the terms of the treaty, I reminded him that his name had not been mentioned on the day when that agreement was made : but as I was aware that he had pre viously demanded him, on his promise not to punish him, he should be sent, at the same time he must not blame me should he not make his appearance, as it was possible, though I did not think it proba ble, that he had already left Port Natal. He expressed himself as perfectly satisfied, ob serving, that when he found he had been sent back, he should then know that the white people at Port Natal intended to observe the treaty. He then requested me to write the substance of the present arrangement for the information of a trader, now in his country, and to whom he sent the letter by a messenger. The following message to the Great Chief, at Graham's Town (meaning his Ex- * He had recently deserted to Port Natal cettency Sir Benjamin D'Urban,) was then given me by Dingarn: "Mr. Fynn sent me the news about the Amakosa, I am grieved to think they should act so against the white people — those people whom I love. I have long let the Amakosa alone. It is a pity the white people trouble them selves with them — they should leave them to me. I hope they wilU not destroy them all : if they do, there wfll be only a desert left. Let these words be told to all the white people. Let the Great Chief at Graham's Town know them, and let them be sent to King WiUiam.* " I told him that the English were a merciful people — that it was this which had been the chief cause of the war. The Amakosa had mistaken kindness for weakness, but that now they would feel our power. He again said he was very sorry, and hoped we should not drive them aU away. On promising that his message should be faithfully deUvered, I took my leave. For the purpose of enlarging the town, and giv ing a greater space for cattle in the centre, the huts are all about to be removed from the neigh borhood of the inner to that of the outer fence. This operation is now going on with great vigor : and, in order to save time and trouble, many huts are carried on men's shoulders entire, and set up again in the situation required. The hyenas, attracted by the meat which gar nished the sides of the wagon, were howling all night, which kept the dogs in such a constant cry, that I could obtaintbut Uttle sleep. Yesterday Nongalaza, chief Indoona of the prin cipal military town in the Clomanthleen district, was formally introduced to me by order of the king ; and as I had then promised him, as wett as the other two Clomanthleen chiefs, a present, he this morn ing made his appearance, accompanied by Zulu and CokeUa. My supply, however, would only admit of my giving a piece of handkerchief stuff to Nongalaza, with which he was much pleased, pro mising each a cloth ingoobo when I came to take up my residence among them. Being delayed by a thunder storm, it was not until noon that I went up to take my leave of Dingarn ; he was standing on the inside of his fence, upon a mound of earth, several of which are placed like horse-blocks within, for the purpose of raising him sufficiently above the fence, when ever he wishes to be seen or observe what is do ing without. He immediately commenced a con versation respecting the deserters from the In- jandilna, a military town in the Clomanthleen, many of whom were at present at Port Natal, say ing with great emphasis " they must be sent back." The working of his mind was evident — he had on reflection regretted that these people had not been excepted from the benefit of the treaty and pro bably imagined that, as I had conceded the point with respect to Mankanjana, this might be as easily gained. At once I resolved to make a firm stand for these people, weU knowing that otherwise there would be no limit to his demands, and in fact the treaty itself would become nugatory. He complained that, in consequence of their leaving him, that part of the country had become a desert ; * His principal alarm was lest the English forces should approach too near to his own territory. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 37 that he had often requested the white people to send them back, but they never had attended to his words. I told him that, had he mentioned the circumstance at the time when the treaty was talked over, they should have been sent ; but that, as his word had now been given, and I had already sent it in a letter, my respect for the lung made me wish that the word might not be altered ; that should the Injandunas be sent for, the other people would be alarmed with an apprehension of being themselves recalled, and would never be induced to assist us in securing deserters from him : and without their aid, it was quite impossible that we could execute the king's wishes. He replied, that since I had asked for them they might remain, and should never be sent for on account of desertion. I then stated that he must not imagine that I had any wish to keep them ; my reason for pleading for them was, that the lung's word might not be altered : he had said nothing respecting them on the day when the treaty was concluded, and I hoped he would not now alter that. It was true, he replied, he had said nothing about them then, and therefore he would not ask for them now. Tlie subject, much to my relief, was then dropped, and he inquired respecting the probable time of my return — what size the moon would then be, whether it would be fuU or on the wane — "just about to break" as he described it. Orders, he said, had been given for slaughtering cattle, to be provided at two places on the road, which he named. I told him that I accepted them as a mark of his bounty : but that I did not deserve such large pre sents, and again thanking him for the good words he had spoken, took my leave. His last words were "Amba couthley" (I wish you a pleasant journey).1 Just as we were setting out, Dingarn sent a messenger to say that when the next presents came he should like to have a pah of boots like mine. Notwithstanding we started so late, we were enabled to reach Ensuzana this evening. Tuesday, 12th. — Set out at half-past eight — very extensive views of the sea and surrounding mountains from the heights above the village. Soon after twelve reached Intontella, Indoona's name, Mangani. We had scarcely reached this place, when a messenger overtook us from the king, with a basket upon his head, containing the printed-callico cloakwhich had just been made for him, and a piece of blue dungaree, which had ac tually been procured from the Tugala while I was at CongeUa in order to Une it. The servant said that he had received orders to fottow us with att speed, as he wished my people to Une the cloak before we proceeded further ; he was also directed to order a beast to be slaughtered for us at this place. Notwithstanding the detention, I was not a Uttle pleased to find that my present had been eo acceptable, and resolved, when I had an oppor tunity, to procure a further supply of these fashion able prints. The regiment stationed here is said to be one thousand strong, and, from the size of the town, I should not think the amount has been overstated. The people here, as at CongeUa, were occupied in building new houses further out, in order to enlarge the circumference of their town, for the admission of more cattle, which are said to have greatly increased in all parts ofthe country. At this season, the harvest being all gathered in, attention is generally paid to the repairing of huts, and the improvement of their towns. This, I was glad to find, is another exception to the odious system of proscribing infants, which, much to the credit of Dingarn, appears to have been greatly relaxed since the commencement of his reign. During the rule of his predecessor Charka, No- bamba alone was excepted ; at present four or five other places have obtained this privilege, viz. CongeUa, ImbeUi-beUi, Issiclebani, and IntouteUa, with probably some others, which Issitontana, my informant, could not recollect. Received a visit, from Marwa, Dingarn's aunt, who resides here and who afterwards sent to thank me for having declined the offered beast. As other cattle had been ordered for slaughtering in the Clomanthleen district, which we expected to reach in the course of to-morrow, and it would appear too much Uke payment for stitching together her cloak, I content ed myself with a message of thanks, saying that we had enough. Among the herds of this place were several cattle which had been taken in war both from Faku and Umzelekar. The latter were captured by an expedition sent out about this period last year ; the enemy were, as usual, taken by surprise, and in consequence feU back, leaving their cattle, in order to concentrate themselves for theh recovery. The Zoolus did not await their advance, but retreated with their booty. From the occasional notices of these border conflicts, which I have been enabled to collect, it would ap pear that, notwithstanding the boasting of the Zoolus, they are not likely to make much impres sion when fairly opposed lo the troops of Umzele- kaz. There is a natural politeness among the higher orders of these people, surpassing even the ceremonial compliments of a Spaniard ; for in stance, on making Marwa a present of some beads, I gave her to understand that they were not given in return for the provisions with which she had supplied me, but, being the king's aunt, I was de sirous to make her a present. She immediately rephed, " Yes, I know that the cattle, and all the food that is here, is yours." It is true, Dingarn had given orders I should have supphes by the way ; but this by no means detracts from her po- Uteness. This was a most splendid moonlight evening. The young men who had not been out to war, as sembled near the gate, and' sang and danced tiU it was late — they are all passionately fond of these exercises. The lips of many of the bystanders, among whom were several old warriors, were ob served to move as they instinctively foUowed the words of the song, and occasionaUy forgetting their dignity — for they never mingle with the lads — they would go through the accompaniments with their arms and feet. Wednesday, 13th. — The cloak having been finished, and a messenger despatched to Port Natal with the treaty, we set out at two o'clock. Observed another military town, caUed Toutana, situated on a hill on the right. This also is one of Marwa's places, but smaller than IntouteUa. Passed Muckachani at three, and at a quarter to four crossed the Amatakoola, and entered the dis trict of Clomanthleen. At Neki, where we ar rived at five, we remained for the night. Here 38 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. also we were shown several head of cattle which had been captured from the Amapondas. The town is built on the slope of a hill, with a large euphorbia tree near the entrance, and contains thirty-four houses. Thursday, lAth. — Set out at twenty minutes past seven, and reached the' Black Shields (Clo manthleen Neama) at nine. Information was here received ofthe elopement ofthe Incosa-case of the Injandona. Wishing to obtain the exact particulars, as it was generaUy believed that she had taken the road to Port Natal, I walked over with my interpreter and Mambayendi (who had been directed by the king to accompany me to the Tugala) during the time the oxen were rest ing. At this period the greater part of the men belonging to this regiment were at their ama- panthleen, or out-places (villages belonging to the principal inhabitants of large towns.) Having assembled the remainder, I explained to them the purport of the treaty which had just been con cluded, and informed them of the pardon wliich had in consequence been granted to aU previous deserters from their regiment now at Port Natal as well as our determination to send all back, bound, to Dingarn, who should desert to us in fu ture ; adding, that should it be ascertained that the Incosa-case had reached the settlement, she would be treated in the same manner. The appeUation Incosa-case (literally female chief) is applied to all women of high rank, many of whom, from the practice of polygamy, are to be met with in every part of the country. These, as well as the immediate relations of the king, are generally placed as pensioners, one or two to gether, in the different military towns where they preside, and are particularly charged with the distribution of provisions. It was one of these ladies who, in the present instance, had disgraced herself, and had in consequence fled from the pe nalty of the law, which pronounces death. The names of the party, including herself, were given at my request, and are as follows : — Nonha, second Incosa-case : Umboobo, man-servant : Nongoobo, female servant, and her three children, (girls) viz. Mamisani, Nombabi, and Umpatagazi. As, from the relations of these people, there was little doubt but they had proceeded to Port Natal, and I felt assured that if not' instantly delivered up an infraction of the treaty would ensue, I con sidered it my duty to hasten my return with as little delay as possible. Accordingly, with a few necessary articles placed upon a pack-ox which accompanied the wagon, I pushed on with Um- pondombeeni, and reached the Tugala at three. Fearing detention in passing the rivers during the night, I gave up this method, and having reduced my baggage to a portable size, placed it on the head of my servant, and at half-past seven con tinued my journey on horseback. At half-past ten we overtook the messengers charged with the treaty, sleeping in a ruined hut, and dividing the contents of my bundle between them, I took them on with me. Friday, 15th. — Soon after day-light, stopped an ihour and three-quarters to breakfast and rest the people ; but finding they began to flag on reach ing the Umtongata, at ten o'clock I left them, and proceeded alone. Three-quarters of an hour in the middle of the day was a sufficient rest for my horse on occasions of this kind, and at seven I reached my humble dwelling at Berea. My only difficulty was to find the way when within about a quarter of a mile of my hut. The lane in this part was so narrow and the trees so thick, that, in consequence of the darkness of the night, I wandered about for a considerable time, unable to distinguish the path, until dismounting and going back some distance, I at length succeeded in trac ing it with my feet among the high grass. From Port Natal to the Tugala is seventy-five miles ; and although in many parts the scenery is very fine, stfll from the chcumstance of its being unin habited by man, it is always a very dreary journey. The brightness of the moon on the preceding night had enabled me to discover many of the wild animals which roam about this extensive dis trict. Several herds of buffaloes were seen grazing on each side of the path : at one time a panther sprung from his lair in the high grass close to us, and proceeding a little further, we observed a whole troop of elephants quietly feeding at no great distance. Sunday, 17th. " Occupy till I come."— (Luke, xix. 30.) What an honor to be made Stewards till our Lord shaU come ! How this thought should all pervade ! Cause us oft to count the sum ! Soon to reckon He wfll call For every talent He has lent ; We must give account of all — How the day of grace was spent. Let us, then, by love compelled, Every tale of duty yield ; Though the straw be oft withheld, Diminish nought to glean the field. 'Twas not he who most possessed, Be the talents ten or one ; He alone at last was blessed, Who his Lord's commands had done. Let our love Uke Mary's glow, Who weeping near the Saviour stood, TiU those gracious accents flow — " You have done whate'er you could." Life is but a living death, TiU our hearts to God are given ; Then with every fleeting breath, We climb the bhssful path to heaven. Faithful to the trust we hold, Let us occupy with joy ; No talent in a napkin fold — AU for our Master's use employ. And humbly own when all is done, Unworthy servants we have proved : 'Twas grace alone the work begun, And grace the stubborn will removed. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 39 What sovereign goodness to reward The very gifts Himself bestowed ! To us the sweet " Well done" accord, Though aU from out His fulness flowed ! Oh ! let us then with ardor press To meet our Saviour in the skies ; And work as though we did possess The power which grace alone supplies. English service twice in the hut, my interpreter not having yet arrived. Monday, 18th. — This morning information was brought that the party I was in quest of had reached a village in this neighborhood late last night. Nonha and Umboobo were soon after brought to Berea, and placed in custody in one ofthe huts. Hearing that Mamkanjana (who had been de manded by Dingam) had effected his escape from Mr. Collis, I rode down with a party in the hope of discovering his retreat, and securing him. The opinion that he would endeavor to make liis way to the Amaponda country was so strong, that I thought it advisable to proceed in that di rection, and apprize the natives of the several vfl lages through which he must pass, in order that they might be prepared to seize him on his arrival. It was quite dark when we reached Mr. Collis's, and while conversing on the subject, a panther seized a dog close to the spot where we were standing, and carried him off. Rode on about ten miles with Mr. Cane, but, finding it impracti cable, on account of the intricacy of the path, to proceed further until daylight, slept in a hut at Mr. Fynn's village. Tuesday, 19ih. — Soon after daylight we were again mounted, and went on to a vfllage belong ing to Mr. Cane, not far from the Umcamas, and about t\v enty-five miles from Berea ; but no tidings ofthe fugitive could be obtained. Soon after noon a messenger arrived with information that Man kanjana had been found and secured in the very but where he had previously been concealed. It was late in the evening before I again reached home. Wednesday, 20th. — About two o'clock this morning I was called up — Mr. Collis and a party having anived with Mankanjana, who had ac tually escaped a second time, and had only just been taken with great difficulty by a party of English and Hottentots, who had been in search of him. This evening performed the funeral service at the grave of Thomas Innis, who expired this morn ing, in consequence of a severe burn, his clothes having caught fire a few days ago while sleeping in a hut. He had but recently anived from the colony, and, as I understood, had served in one of the northern expeditions ander Sir Edward Parry. Thursday, 21st. — As in all probability the pri soners about to be dehvered to Dingarn would be put to death, I determined to accompany them, in the hope, through the blessing of God upon my endeavors, to instruct them by the way in the I method of salvation through Jesus Christ, as also to endeavor to obtain their pardon on reaching 56 — 8 Congella. Last night the driver of the wagon wliich was to accompany us as far as the Tugala, shot a panther close to my hut. They had spanned out in the road for the night, taking the precaution to secure the dog underneath the wa gon ; notwithstanding which the ferocious ani mal sprung upon him, and killed him. Aroused by the cry of the dog, the Hottentot levelled his piece, and, being an excellent shot, brought him . down almost instantly ; he staggered for a few yards, and then feU lifeless. Although rarely seen by day, these animals are very numerous in this neighborhood. It was not many days since, when two of them were observed seated on the roof of the church now building, making a hearty meal on a large piece of beef, which, by way of secu rity, had been suspended from one of the beams. Unfortunately no person had a gun ready at the time. At half-past eleven set out for Congella, the prisoners* following the wagon on foot, secur ed in pahs, and attended by two of my servants and the two messengers, whom I had detained for this purpose. Halted at sunset, when I had a long conversation with them in the tent. Poor creatures ! on the verge of eternity, and yet igno rant of the immortality of the soul, and uncon scious of a future state of existence. Their ap prehensions of sin were nearly as dark, imagining that there were but three kinds — adultery, witch craft, and speaking evfl of the king. Friday, 22nd. — Set out at a quarter-past nine ; rested two hours and a half in the heat of the day ; and outspanned again at sunset. From the conversations which I have had with the prisoners during the periods of halting, it appears that they have always had some indistinct idea of a Supreme Being. Nonha's words, in reply to some inqui ries on this point, were these — " We always be lieved that there was an Incosi-pezQla" (a great chief above,) "who, before there was a world, came down and made it ; he made men ; and we knew also that there were white men." To this they all assented, acknowledging that it was aU they knew about God. They knew of no tradi tion respecting a deluge, or of the world having ever been destroyed. The transmigration of souls, they said, was universally beUeved among them. The body they supposed was annihilated by death ; but the breath or spirit then passed into the body of some animal, generally a snake, called issitata, which is harmless, though sometimes into other animals, such as the buffalo or the hippopotamus. They mentioned an instance when a buffalo thus possessed had been driven by the influence of the spirit to a place of slaughter, and an hippopotamus had been impelled to enter a village. The true Scriptural account of these important subjects had perplexed them much yesterday, but this evening they said, for the first time, that they comprehended what had been told them, which was chiefly relating to the nature of sin, and the way of pardon and acceptance through the suffer ings and death of Christ. May it please the Lord to open their hearts, and to lead them into att truth. * Viz: Mankanjana, Nonha, Umboobo, and Non- goobo; the children were not sent. 40 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Saturday, 23rd. — Set out a Uttle before seven ; stopped to breakfast at eleven ; and proceeded again at twenty minutes past twelve. In endea voring to cross a gully, where the ground was swampy, the wagon stuck fast, one of the hind wheels sinking in the mud. Two ineffectual at tempts having been made to drag it out, I dis mounted ; and, throwing my bags across my horse's back, proceeded on foot with the prisoners, &c. It was at a quarter to five that we left the wagon, and, after walking about fifteen miles, we reached Mr. Plankenberg's hut (a trading station recently estabUshed on the Tugala) at nine. This morning it was my intention to have started much earher, in order to have reached the White Shields (Clomanthleen) by sunset ; but unfortunately the people belonging to the wagon overslept them selves. Sunday, 2Aih. — Being desirous to commence the Zoolu mission by public worship on this day, I crossed the river soon after eight, and reached the Clomanthleen Inthlopi (White Clomanthleen) at eleven. We travelled slowly on account of the prisoners, the distance being not more than nine mfles. The principal part of the regiment were absent, notwithstanding which the Incosa- case (Momahau,) and about thirty-five people, including the prisoners, assembled in front of Nongalaza's hut, when I addressed them for about an hour on the leading truths of the Gospel, con cluding with prayer. AU were very attentive, and said at the conclusion, that they understood the words that had been spoken. That it was Uterally the words which they meant may be weU imagined, and certainly inferred, from the inquiry which was immediately afterwards made by the principal man present, whether God's house, (al luding to his habitation in heaven) was as hand some as theh Issigordlo. May it please the God of att grace, who has so mercifully opened a way for the good news of salvation by Jesus Christ to be proclaimed in this land, to give abundant in crease to his own word, that it may accomplish that which he pleaseth, and prosper in the thing whereunto he has sent it; and may I, and aU who may hereafter labor in this vineyard, regard ourselves but as worthless instruments in his hands, and look ever and solely to Him for that heavenly strength and grace which he has pro mised, and without which afl our labor will be in vain ! " Not unto us, O Lord ! not unto us, but unto thy name be the glory for ever and ever. Amen." Let the voice of joy arise, Grateful praise our bosoms swell ; Hark ! they echo from the skies The triumphs of Emmanuel ! " Every knee to him shall bow, Every crown before him faU; The nations that forget him now, E're long upon his name shall call." Not one tittle e'er shall fail Of every promise He has made ; The prayer of faith shall stfll prevail, Though sense may deem it long delayed. M: y the rays of Gospel light, Redd'ning now the eastern sky, Chaste away the. mists of night — Reveal a day of glory nigh. May the word in weakness spoken Bring conviction to each breast ; May the hearts that grace has broken, In Jesus find relief and rest ! To us this grace was freely given — Swift the tidings let us bear, Emulate the saints in heaven, Who ceaseless hymn His goodness there. What are att our earthly schemes, If they only centre here ? Nothing but delusive dreams — Phantoms that a while appear. If our hearts indeed have tasted, God is gracious — we shaU feel ; Life itself were worse than wasted, Could we dare His truth conceal. Heralds of redeeming grace, To every clime His love we'U bear ; His standard raise in every place — To tribes unknown His name declare ! TiU earth shall echo back the sound In one united song of praise ; And love, and joy, and peace abound An earnest of mfllennial days. Hark, again ! — celestial strains ! — " HaUelujah ! it is done ! Jesus our Redeemer reigns ? His travail o'er — His victory won '." Monday, 25th. — On reaching the Tugala, tbe prisoners, according to agreement, were consign ed to the charge of Mambayendi ; but so appre hensive were they of the severity of theh own countrymen, that yesterday morning they actu ally refused to proceed until I assured them that it was my intention to accompany them, and that I should not lose sight of them until they reached CongeUa, and were dehvered over to the Indoonas. Last night a messenger arrived from Umgunana- ni, where Dingarn was then staying. He had been ordered to proceed to Port Natal to inquire respecting the deserter, but on hearing at the Black Clomanthleen, that I was here, he had come on. The Incosa-case (Nomahau) is very friendly, doing all she can to make me comfort able ; but I nave been much disappointed at the present deserted state of the town — many of the people are with the king, but the greater part at theh out-places. The wagon with my baggage arrived this afternoon ; they had extricated them selves from the dilemma in which we had left them soon after our departure. Tuesday, 26th. — Left some of my baggage in charge of Nomahau, and soon after nine set out, accompanied by Mambayendi and three additional baggage-bearers. The footpath from this place to Congella passes through a more populous district than the wagon route, and the country is more level, and clothed with trees. This part of the THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 41 country abounds with wfld guinea-fowl, several coveys of which were seen ; as also bucks, and a few Kafir crane, a beautiful bird, with a grey plumage and a handsome top-knot ; the black feathers which cover the head and throat are of a glossy jet black, and to the touch as soft as the richest velvet. The wings are in general use among the Amakosa to decorate theh heads when going to war. On our way we met the messen gers returning, who had been sent forward by Nomahau to announce my approach to the king. They said that he had expressed himself as much pleased, when informed that the deserters had been secured, but could not yet beUeve that it was true, nor should he, until he had seen them. He had yesterday left Ungunanani on his return to CongeUa. We reached tbe Injandona at noon, and re mained to rest and breakfast two hours and a half. Had not this place lain directly in the route, I would gladly have avoided it, in order to spare the feelings of Nonha. This morning she had been the gazing-stock of all the vfllagers by the way, who had run out to see the prisoners as they pass ed — but here a more formal ordeal awaited her. Before any provisions could be procured for them, UgOcha (the Incosa-case) came down to the gate near which she was sitting with the other prison ers, and, surrounded by all the people of the place, scolded them both roundly. This, under other circumstances, would have been aU highly proper ; but as it was agreed by aU that they would be put to death on their reaching Congella, I could not but feel great pity for her situation. So much agitated was her mind with the apprehension of the cruel death which awaited her, (they are al ways impaled, after being struck on the head with knobbed sticks,) that she told me on Sunday even ing, while instructing the prisoners, that before she crossed the Tugala she could attend, but that now her mind was in too disturbed a state. Proceeding from this place, the country is stfll fertile. and populous, wett watered by the Umson- dusi and E voota, both of which streams we crossed, and soon after the Amatakoola, beyond which are some fine trees. Among these were several known by the colonists as the Kafir Boom, but called by the natives Umseensi ; they were the first I had seen in blossom, and certainly made a most splendid appearance. It somewhat resem bles the English elder, but throws out short bossy thorns on every part of the trunk and branches ; it grows to the height of twenty or thhty feet, and sheds its leaves in winter ; but the blossom gene rally remains in great beauty for a considerable time afterwards, appearing at the ends ofthe twigs hke a shuttle-cock with crimson feathers. At a Uttle before sunset ascended a hill, and stopped at Hengi, a village belonging to Mangani, the Indoona of IntouteUa. The sun declined in great beauty behind a bold range of mountains, over which the summit of that near to Congella was just visible. So little attention was paid to the wants of the prisoners, that it became neces sary to insist on their being regularly supplied with provisions ; and here the unfeeling wretches, when urged on their arrival to give them some Indian corn, rephed, in their presence, " What is the use of giving them food, they are dead already." Wednesday, 27th. — Set out at eight — soon after began to ascend. Stopped to breakfast at Indu- mani, one of the king's vfllages. At the Injan dona none ofthe prisoners, excepting Mankanjana, would taste the amass (curdled milk) that was of fered them, alleging that as they were in disgrace, it was not proper for them to partake of it among their friends : the two women here again declined it, but Umboobo was less scrupulous, and drank free from the calabash that was set before them. Rested here two hours, and proceeded again at a quarter to twelve. Passed Inglalani, and rested three-quarters of an hour at Sablongazi, another smaU viUage, situated on the crest of a steep moun tain. Some of the ascents and descents were so steep, that I frequently found it necessary to dis mount. There are few trees in these mountains, but they are aU well clothed with grass, and the parts that are cultivated near the villages produce excellent Indian corn and Kafir corn. We now struck into the path we had formerly traveUed, our present route having been more in land, and at half-past four we reached Congella, where crowds of people were peeping over the fence and fitting the gateway, in order to catch a glimpse of the prisoners as they passed. Scarcely had we entered the town, when I received a mes sage from the king, desiring to see me ; and the prisoners now consigned to the charge of the In doonas, were taken into his presence at the same time ; being directed to place themselves at a re spectable distance, while he appeared from with in his fence overlooking the whole party. He ap peared in high glee. His women were aU singing around him ; and on my seating myself, he point ed to me and said, that it was on my account this rejoicing was made. I could have burst into tears — it was a most trying situation. Dingarn himself was leading the tune ; crouched beneath him, in front of the fence, was one of his servants, performing all the usual gesticulations of frantic joy ; while the unfortunate prisoners, but a Uttle distance on my right, were destined to witness these unfeeling ebullitions of delight, occasioned, as it was evident, by their appearance, bound, and within the reach of punishment. Not satisfied with one song, several were added, which, with the clapping of hands in chorus, must have been audible at a considerable distance. I scarcely dared turn to the right ; the countenances of Nonha and her companions were truly distressing ! Dur ing the whole journey of one hundred and twentj mfles they had anticipated a cruel death ; and now every instant they expected to be hurried away to execution. The songs at length being ended, and a large bowl of beer being presented to me, Din garn came out with some dignity, habited in a new cloak of many colors, and wearing across his forehead a band of the pink ribbon I had formerly given him By this time the whole male popula tion had assembled, and, seating themselves around us in a half chcle, when a formal treat commenced, the king in person demanding of each of the prisoners why they had left his country. The offences were stated, and evidence given by many who were present. Mankanjana was the first who was questioned, and his replies were given in a sitting posture, Dingarn standing the whole time ; hut when it came to Nanha's turn, 42 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. both the women were desired to stand up, on which Nongalaza, with great emphasis, exclaim ed, "There is the woman we used to call our mother : she was placed by the king to provide food for the warriors on theh return from battle !" Her case was then entered into minutely. As the sun had set during this long conversation, Dingarn said that, if I chose, I could retire, and that he would see me again in the morning. Having ascertained that there was no intention to execute them this evening, I took my leave : the people, however, remained a considerable time longer to regale themselves on tough beef, which, in anticipation of my arrival with the prisoners, had been cooked for distribution. As I rose to leave the assembly, Dingarn observed : " Now we see that you belong to the Zoolus." I replied, " It will always be my desire to prove myself a friend to the Zoolus." A good supply of meat and fire-wood was soon after sent to my hut, which, although removed from its original position, was the same which I had formerly occupied. — The transit I had hoped would have dislodged the colony of rats, but I was soon convinced of their predilection to their former haunts. Thursday, 28th. — Went up, by desire of the king, at ten — found him seated on the outside of the Issigordlo, habited in a cloak which was com pleted at IntouteUa, and accompanied by five of his principal Indoonas, seated near him on the ground. As it was my wish to make an impres sion, in the hope of obtaining the release of the prisoners, I appeared in full uniform. AU were loud in their congratulations, and thanked me much for having brought back the deserters. I told them that I required no thanks ; that I had only done what it was my duty to do. Dingarn said, that now his people would love him ; whereas before they had hated him, because he refused to permit an army to go down to Port Natal : that for two years the chiefs had been urging him to destroy all the black people there, but that he had withheld his consent. Nongalaza and the other chiefs assented, saying, that for the last two years this had been theh desire ; that they should not have molested the white people, but that they had requested the king to allow them to kill aU the blacks. I told Dingarn that we thanked him for his forbearance, as those who had fled from his country richly deserved punishment ; and, turn ing to the Indoonas, added, " Now you see how good the counsel was that the king gave you." — Dingarn observed, that now he was convinced that the white people at Port Natal wished to do him good. I told him that peaceable words were better than armies ; by sending out warriors he could only obtain the bodies of men, but by peace able words he gained theh hearts : that now we were aU united to observe the treaty, and that, as long as he adhered to this part of the agreement, he might rely upon it we should to ours. As he appeared in high good humor, I thought it a good opportunity to introduce my suit in favor of the prisoners, and strove hard to obtain an uncondi tional pardon. This, however, I soon found was far too large a request, and indeed his arguments to the contrary, founded on the usages of the country, were too powerful to combat. I there fore contented myself with obtaining his assurance that theh fives should be spared, which, indeed, was aU that I had expected to obtain. To this conclusion, as Dingam informed me, they had come last night ; and he also stated that Man kanjana, had he not sent an insolent message to him, and made so many efforts to escape, would have been pardoned. They are all sentenced to be kept in confinement, and I fear this wfll be for life. The business being now over, the men were catted together, and soon surrounded us in a dense semicircle, sitting three-deep on the ground. — Among these were six men from a distant tribe, who, until my first arrival here, had never before seen a white person. Dingarn himself pointed them out to me ; and observing that I took some interest in them, ordered them to sit in a group before me. In order to try theh nerves, Dingarn, by way of sport, requested my interpreter to bring his gun, which to theh great surprise was twica fired, the men instinctively placed their hands to their ears on hearing the report. Some inquiries were then made by Dingarn, who had approached me to examine my dress, as to the method of making cloth ; and, on his again seating himself, the European mode of constructing houses was discussed. He was greatly interested in the de scriptions of each, and expressed much astonish ment at the facts which I related of rooms being buflt in our houses one over the other, thinking it impossible that the floors should not break through with the weight. The important topic of beads was then intro duced ; and on this subject he was particularly desirous of information. " Where do they come from?" "What are they made of?" "How are they made V " Cannot we learn to make them V — were a few of the questions which, to the best of my ability, I endeavored to answer satisfacto rily ; but he was not satisfied until I promised, should I live to see England again, and return, that I would bring him some of the material of which they are made. The people were then desired to sing, which they continued to do for some time ; and, although seated, performed the manual part in excellent time and much grace, Dingarn and the Indoonas often accompanying them in the evolutions of theh hands. In order that the compliment might not be mistaken, the king informed me that he had purposely caUed tlie people together in order that I might hear how they sang at CongeUa. Had it not been for a powerful sun, and tlie incumbrance of a cloth uni form, I could have enjoyed both the scene and the many animating songs which continued until noon ; but as, in addition to these inconveniences, I had not yet breakfasted, I felt somewhat relieved when this long conference was at length broken up. — During the intervals of the songs, six head of cat tle were speared for distribution among the people ; some within a few yards of the spot where we were seated. They aU ran some little distance after receiving the spear, which is not thrown, but thrust into the side near the heart ; and, on theh fatting, parties were despatched to make the necessary preparations for disposing of the meat. On returning to my hut I wrote to Port Natal, at. the request of Dingam, to inform the settlers that he had demanded, under the stipulations of the treaty, the children belonging to Nonha's party. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 43 As they had been allowed by the Numzana, or head of the viUage, where they had taken refuge, to make theh escape, it had been arranged, on my setting out for this place, that, in the event of their being demanded, either themselves or Umfazaguatu (the Numzana) should be given up. Friday, 29th. — Last night I had a long conver sation with three of the Unguani people, respect ing their country and knowledge of a Supreme Being, &c. These were the persons pointed out by Dingarn, as having never before seen a white man. On being told yesterday that God had spoken words to men for the regulation of their conduct here, they had very anxiously inquhed. " What has he said V They, as well as the pri soners, were accordingly sent for this morning to attend the prayers in my hut, when an exposition of the Ten Commandments was given. On leav ing I was surprised to hear from the prisoners, that they had tasted nothing since the last food we had given them on the road, which was about three o'clock on Wednesday. I immediately de sired Umpondombeeni to boil some lupoko meal which I had by me ; but he was unable to borrow a vessel for the purpose, my own saucepan being too small. It now struck me that there must be some design in such unfeeling conduct ; and, send ing for Mambayendi, I informed him of what they had just said, desiring him to acquaint the king, and to say, that I felt convinced it could not be his intention to starve them. He was also desired to inform him, that I had continued to instruct them, but should not do so in future without his permission, as it was only in the Clomanthleen that he had aUowed me to teach. This I deemed necessary, as he would not fail to hear every par ticular. Mambayendi soon returned with an an swer, which quite weighed down my spirits. — Dingam's reply was, " You have done your ut most in bringing them bound to me, and then speaking for them ; but as they have committed great offences you must not ask for them any more. Their bonds must kill them!" I was not again to teach them ; and he had given orders that they should not be supphed with food. In human wretch ! The death they had so much dreaded would have been mercy compared with the torture of lingering out a few more days of painful existence, and at last fatting the famished victims of hunger and want. Too true, indeed, were the last words that feU from them on leav ing my hut. As it appeared by theh statement that Mankanjana alone had been informed that he was not to be killed, I endeavored to quell theh fears, by saying that the king had himself assured me that all their lives should be spared ; on which Nonha, in a mournful voice, rephed, " They are killing us now." Had another long conversation with Umkol- wani, who is an inferior chief among the Unguani, the substance of which I shall now relate : — They belong to a tribe called Unguani, situated as far as I could collect, to the N. N. E . of Unkung inglove, at a distance of nine days' journey. On the fifth day from Unkflnginglove, they reached the river Impongolo, and four days more bring them to Elangani, where their king, SobOza, resides. Nearer to the Umpongola is another town, called Nobamba both are smaU compared to the Zoolu towns ; are built in the same form, but without fences ; and contain the whole population of the tribe, which is now greatly diminished. The male population does not exceed a hundred ; but as each man has from five to ten wives, the whole, inclu ding children, may be estimated at about twelve hundred. They were formerly independent, but subjugated by Charka, who deprived them of all their cattle : they have neither sheep nor goats, and, as grain is but scantily cultivated, they are often necessitated to subsist enthely on roots. The flats are covered with very high grass, and these, as well as the mountains, produce large timber. Wild animals abound, and, besides those common in this part of the country, they have the rhinoceros and tiger: they appeared to know nothing either of the ostrich or cameleopard. The eyland is the only large animal they hunt, being fearful to ap proach the elephant, although aware of the value of its tusks. Alligators abound in the rivers, some of which they describe as large, but att fordable at certain times. The LesOta is the largest next to the Umpongola, which divides them from the Zoolu country, and after that the Motani : these are aU much wider than the Tugala. They have no canoes, and only first saw the sea when they came into this neighborhood. They seemed to be an insulated tribe, having no relation with any other people than theh conquerors. AU speak the Zoolu language ; and, until they perceived us con versing in English, said that it was the first time they had heard a tongue differing from theh own. Indeed Umkolwani was highly amused at my communicating with him through an interpreter, and shrewdly observed, " You speak to him, and then he speak to me ; " and, on the reason being explained, snapped his fingers* in evident surprise. In appearance and dress, or rather undress, they are simflar to the Zoolus, and as they now gene raUy wear the ring on the head, which has been adopted since they became tributary to Charka, they are scarcely to be distinguished from them. Theh women also shave theh heads, but wear the small tuft on the crown somewhat higher. The whole country to the north and west they describe as an arid desert, extending, especially to the northward, beyond their knowledge, and much broken with abrupt precipices. In the northern desert, which is entirely sand, there is a large river, to the banks of which they have been, but none have ever crossed it, nor have they ever heard of any people living beyond them either north or west. On the east there is a tribe of Zoolus called No- bambas, from whom they obtain iron for heading theh spears and assegais : they heard of Sofala, but have never been there, or seen any of the people. Their houses are of a similar construction with these, but formed chiefly of mats and reeds. Their king, SobOza, the same who Charky subdued, has still the power of Ufe and death. Malefactors, when capitatty punished, are struck on the head with knobbed sticks, as is the practice here, but they are never impaled ; with the exception of these, their dead are always interred, being first * A Zoolu can scarcely speak without snapping his fingers at every sentence ; and when energetic, a double snap is often made, and that between every four or five words. 44 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. bound up in their clothes and mats. They de scribe the hot winds as sometimes so oppressive as to oblige them to leave their houses, and as cend the very tops of the mountains in Order to obtain a gasp of ah. The climate is so exceedingly unhealty, and that at all times of the year, that Umkolwani said he expected to find many ill on his return, although it was winter ; that season, if any, being the most sickly. Rain is unknown, but the nightly dews are heavy. The prevafling sickness is of two kinds — one, an affection of the throat and lungs, from which they often recover ; but the other is a seizure so sudden and fatal, that frequently in a few minutes, and generally in a quarter of an hour, from the first attack, life is ex tinct. On these occasions they complain of pains in the loins, back, and front of the head ; and, after death, vomit a black hquid from the mouth. They have no knowledge of medicine, and inva riably leave the sick to languish without attempt ing any remedy. A removal from this insalubri ous chmate frequently restores them when suffer ing from the first named disorder ; and Umkolwani himself declared, that on quitting his country the complaint in his chest had immediately left him. In common with the Amakosa, Zoolus, &c. they observe the festival of the First Fruits. Circum- sion is still practised among them, notwithstanding the desuetude into whieh it has here gone since the reign of Charka. Although they had heard of white people, we are the first whom they had ever seen. They all acknowledged that when they first saw us they mistook us for wild beasts ; and one of them actuaUy ran from my horse, who was quietly feeding near the town, taking him also for some ferocious animal. On hearing the issi- bum (gun) go off yesterday, they said that they thought the heavens were opening, and began to be alarmed. The effect of some lucifer matches now exhibited, surprised them greatly. And they informed me, that when they returned to theh own people, they should teU them that " they had seen white men, and that they had the fire." On the subject of rehgion they were in total darkness ; every tradition had worn out ; and they presented the awful spectacle of immortal beings without the knowledge or acknowledgment of a Creator. Umkolwani confessed that, while on his long jour neys, he had often wondered how things came, but could never find out ; and had always suppos ed they came by chance. When the body died, they conceived that it perished ; but the soul, after it was in the ground entered the body of a snake. Of a day of future retribution they had not the slight est idea, nor did they know any thing of an evil spirit. What a blank is the Ufe of man, without a knowledge of God ! and how pitiable and cheer less his condition, until the Sun of Righteousness arises within to raise his affections to things above, and shed the love of God abroad in his heart ! I was in great hopes that one of these interesting people would have remained with me, with the in tention of instructing him ; and, by the blessing of God, preparing him to bear the glad tidings of sal vation to his benighted countrymen ; but, notwith standing the sickness which they had aU felt, and again apprehended, the charms of home and a land of nativity were too powerful allurements : should missionaries ever be sent to that country, this method, on account of its baneful chmate, will perhaps be the most judicious. The foUow'-ig are the names of the three men whom I endeavored to instruct, — Umkolwani (Chief,) Makatakata,Unganassi. The two lads named Umthlathla and Cussesendnna were absent cutting wood. This evening the principal Indoonas assembled in my hut to inform me that the king had made me a present of twelve head of oxen ; and that he wished them to be considered as a token of his gratitude, for having concluded the treaty with him : that as such a " fast word " had passed be tween him and me, it was right that there should be something to show, as a proof that it had been accepted on both sides. I told them that, as a pledge of the king's favor, I would certainly ac cept them ; but that I required no presents ; all I wished for was friendship. They rephed, that if I did not accept them there would be nothing to show : that the king had desired them to say, that that on this day he received me into his country, and that these oxen would be a token to aU of what he had done ; that he was not yet thed, but should do more hereafter. I assured them that my deshe to befriend the king would not be increased by any presents he could make ; that now he knew me, and would always find me the same — ever desi rous to do him and his people service. They said it was not the king only who thanked me this day ; it was the whole Zoolu nation. Having inspect ed the herd which were driven to a spot near my hut, the Indoonas returned according to custom to thank the king in my name. This present was in addition to a cow sent for slaughtering this after noon ; but I could enjoy nothing ; the very sight of plenty fitted my mind with the horrid spectacle of suffering, which was about to be exhibited in a hut not far removed from my own. Saturday, 30ih. — Understood that a bowl of beer had been given to the prisoners yesterday hy order of the king ; my servants Ukewise contrived to give them the hver of the cow. This appar ent consideration on the part of Dingarn I consi der only as an aggravation to theh sufferings, Uke the brief respite which the tiger gives to his prey, and was probably intended as a blind, mere ly to sustain theh hves untU our departure. Early this morning Mambayendi brought a message from the king, expressing his wish, if it were not inconvenient, that I would return to Port Natal, as he was anxious to hear tidings of some recent deserters. On this, I sent to inform him that it had been my intention to have ap prised him this day of my proposed return on Monday ; but as he was anxious for me to pro ceed, should the weather clear up (there had been much rain during the night,) I would set out this forenoon, although we should not travel to-mor row, as it was our holy-day. On taking leave of Dingarn, I took an opportunity to thank him per sonally for the oxen, saying, that when I looked upon them I should think of the agreement exist ing between him and the white people at Port Natal. He said, that on my next visit he should THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 45 select some mflch cattle for me. I told him that I did not desire presents. He replied, that he gave them to me in order to show that his heart was towards me ; on which I assured him that my heart was also towards him, and that he would always find me deshous to do him service. I then took his measure with a piece of tape for a pair of boots, which on my last visit he had re quested me to procure for him. In order that I might obtain an interview with the prisoners be fore leaving, I had purposely kept the key of the hand-cuffs, and now informed Dingarn that I must take them back, as they might be required for other deserters, and, moreover, were preferable to their method of securing with ropes, which often caused great pain in the arms. He laughed at this refinement of humanity, and said that I might take them off. The unfortunate prisoners were brought out ir. front of their hut for the purpose, and numbers of people soon collected from curi osity to see them. They were evidently in a state of alarm, supposing that they could only be loosed for the purpose of immediate execution, but the object being explained, they became calm, and soon after returned to theh place of confine ment. Catting Mambayendi into my hut, I de sired him to tell me candidly what were the king's intentions respecting them, saying, that as I had brought them here, it was but just that I should be informed of theh probable fate. He said that I already knew the king's intentions — that he had given orders that no person was to supply them with food, which when he thought proper he should send. It appears to me that the beer sent yesterday was merely on account of my remon strance, and that on our departure they will be left to starve. On leaving the town I saw them again the last time, recommending them to think much of what had been said to them, and to pray to God through Jesus Christ, as He was able to save theh souls, and do them good in another world : they all looked most piteously, thanked me, and wished me a pleasant journey. So pain ful a duty I hope never again to be called to per form ; and sincerely do I pray that their hearts may be opened by Divine grace, to seek the things that belong to their peace before they are catted into eternity. Set out on our return, accompanied by Mam bayendi and two herdsmen, driving the oxen be fore us, at half-past eleven. Our appearance in any other country would have been somewhat lu dicrous. But two legs were now remaining of the cow which had been killed yesterday after noon, and these precious relics were willingly car ried by some of the baggage-bearers — not a scrap would they leave behmd ; rather than relinquish a particle, one of them actually strung a large piece of raw meat round the back of his neck, leaving it to hang down between his shoulders. So many beasts have been slaughtered for me during these journeys, that my servants have been enabled to obtain their favorite ornament, a part of the gall-bladder, stuffed with fat, and formed into a large ring, with which they encircle the arm. Sometimes a ring of fat is worn round the head like a bandage, just above the eyebrows ; in fact, fat of att kinds is theh delight — they wfll eat it au naturel, and consider that individual as wealthy who can afford to appropriate a sufficient quantity to decorate his person besides. One of the men went off with the tail of the cow dang ling from his arm — whether by the way of orna ment or not I did not inquire. Observing how soon the meat had been demolished, I inquired of the people how many of them an ox would suffice. They said that five men would finish the whole beast in the course of a day and a half; and this I fuUy believe, from the specimen they have al ready given of their carnivorous powers. On crossing a mountain, after passing Ebonquani (the first village on leaving Congella,) we pissed through an immense flight of locusts, more nu merous than any I have yet seen either in this country or in Kafir-land ; they were feeding upon the grass until we disturbed them, and then rose in miUions ; many flew into my face, and I caught several in my hand as I rode along. At a quar ter to six we reached Hengi, and remained for the night. My former hut was again prepared for me. Sunday, 31st. " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee."— (Isaiah xxvi. 3.) How pure the peace that grace bestows ( The stfll smatt voice of love how sweet ! How calm the soul that can repose Its deepest care at Jesus' feet ! Though like the Prophet 'leaguered round, Though earth and hell their power should boast, Faith looks beyond this nanow bound, And sees afar a mightier host ! There's not a-pang that flesh can feel, Nor deeper grief our bssoms know, But sovereign grace ahke can heal, And pour the balm to sooth our wo ! It cheers the pining captive's ceU — He marks his chain — and looks above ! His soul unfettered loves to dweU On those bright realms of joy and love ! It lights the languid eye in death, Bids Jordan's bfllows stand on high ; It sanctifies our latest breath, And makes it rapture e'en to die ! How rich the promise — " Come and buy," With nought that ye can e'er possess ; The riches that are stored on high Are free to all theh want confess ! Dear Lord ! thy purchased blessings shower My helpless soul stfll hangs on Thee ; In weakness now make known thy power, Atoning blood alone my plea. May heavenly love my bosom swell, May every selfish feehng die ; So shatt my soul be meet to dwell With Thee in realms of bUss on hig''. 46 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Monday, June 1st. — We were so near to tho Clomanthleen district, that 1 pushed on this morn ing, and in an hour and a half reached NodQnga, the first viUage after crossing the Amatakoola, where we anived at nine o'clock. My object in making this journey was in order to have an op portunity of speaking to the people. Having sent round to some other smaUer places in the neighborhood, about one hundred people assem bled before my hut, when I addressed them about an hour. There is much encouragement in teaching these people : they have no caste to break through — no idols to throw down — they readily acknow ledge their ignorance, and seem desirous for in struction. I commenced by inquiring who among them could teU me by whom the sun, the moon, the mountains, and the rivers were made ? Ali agreed that they were created by some power above. I asked what they called that power'; Pointing upwards, one of them said it was the " Incosi PezOlu" (Great Chief above.) Did they know any thing of this Great Chief? "No," they rephed ; " now we are come to hear about Him — it is you who must tell us." On hear ing these simple expressions of deshe to be instructed, the reply of Cornelius to Peter (Acts x. 33,) came forcibly to my mind — " Now there fore we are aU here present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God." May a like blessing attend the ministry which I trust they will soon have among them. We seem to have arrived here at a period when the traditionary knowledge of a Supreme Being is rapidly passing into obhvion. The foUowing brief account is all that I have ever been able to collect on this subject : — It is agreed among the Zoolus, that their forefathers believed in the ex istence of an overniling spirit, whom they catted ViUenangi (litterally the First Appearer,) and who soon after created another heavenly being of great power, caUed Koolukoolwani, who once vi sited this earth, in order to pubttsh the news (as they express it,) as also to separate the sexes and colours among mankind. During the period he was below, two messages were sent to him from ViUenangi, the first conveyed by a camehon, an nouncing that men were not to die ; the second, by a lizard, with a contrary decision. The lizard, having outrun the slow-paced camehon, arrived first, and dehvered his message before the latter made his appearance. To this want of promptness they attribute our present condition as mortal beings, heaping aU the odium of death upon the sluggish camehon. There are stfll many legends respecting ViUen angi, but none of which my informant could re member, excepting that he enjoined that lamenta tions should be made over the dead. It is said, that many years ago, though not within the me mory of the oldest person now living, sacrifices of cattle were offered to ViUenangi. The gene raUty of the people are ignorant even of this scanty tradition ; but since theh recent inter course with Europeans, the vague idea of a Supreme Being has again become general. At present, the reigning king absorbs all their praises, and he is, in fact, theh only idol. — In the fore going account there is evidently an indistinct and confused idea of the incarnation of our blessed Lord, and of the entrance of sin into the world, Satan employing the body of a reptile to practise his first deceit upon mankind. What an awful condition for an immortal being! Man, when once doparted from his God, goes out, like Nebu chadnezzar in his banishment, debased in his rea soning powers, and scarcely elevated above the beasts which perish. O that this benighted peo ple may, like the stump which he saw m his night dream, put forth branches, and bud, and bear fruit, and flourish ; and thus matured and nourished by the dews of heavenly grace, become a blessing in the earth, a shelter and a protection to all the sunounding nations ! Breathe, Lord upon these dry bones, and they shall hve ! Rode out before breakfast to select a spot for the missionary establishment, having on my way to Congella considered this neighborhood as by far the most eligible of any part of Clomanthleen dis trict, being in the immediate vicinity of two large mihtary towns, and sunounded by several villages ; fixed upon a hfll of moderate height, skirted by the Umsondosi, a clear mountain stream, which almost encircles it. On my return to Nodunga, I agreed with Timoula, the Numzana, who had been par ticularly attentive, to build three huts on the spot selected, during my absence, with the intention ol shortly returning to occupy them. As it was not much out of the route to the Injandona, he accom panied me back to the spot, in order to receive the necessary directions ; after which, we pro ceeded to Mungena's village, near the Tugala, where we arrived at four, and remained for the night. The new missionary station I have named Culoola : wliich, in the Zoolu language, signifies, to loose or set free ; trusting that, by the blessing of God, it may eventually be the means of loos ing many souls from the captivity of Satan, and bnnging them o-it of darkness into marvellous light. Tuesday, 2d. — Proceded at a quarter-past eight ; crossed the Tugala to breakfast at Mr. Planken- berg's ; and at half-past ten resumed my journey. Reached a ruined hut on the right bank of the Mavootie at four, where I rested until sunset, and then went on until the moon went down. Again in the wilderness, I endeavored to occupy the time by writing the following hnes on horseback: — THE WILDERNESS. What though I wend my lonely way Far from the social haunts of men ; And every object I survey In solemn stillness seems to say, " Approach not our domain ; " E'en in the wilderness I love to trace The footsteps of a God of grace. There's not a plant that decks the ground But speaks its great Creator's praise ; The smallest insect fluttering round, The savage beasts that here abound, Unite to witness Wisdom's ways : In Nature's book 'tis sweet to trace The tokens of a God of grace. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 47 The wildest desert owns His hand, The rudest mountain marks His power ; Each smiles or frowns at His command, And all in wisdom He has planned. He paints the cup of every flower — In every object we may trace The workings of a God of gracs. There are no deserts here below — AU nature teems with life and love ; The loneliest spot that e'er we know Enough of Mercy's way can show, To raise our grovetting thoughts above If stfll our hearts dehght to trace The goodness of a God of grace. 'Tis here — within our bosom lies The arid soil that yields no fruit; That howling desert oft defies The softening dews that heaven supphes ; Fertile in every baneful root, Receives — but, thankless, scorns to trace — The bounties of a God of grace. But ah ! when once those rocks are rent, Those bitter, poisonous waters healed, Each native flower then yields its scent, And Eden blooms where dragons went, And golden harvest crowns the field. 'Tis in the heart renewed we trace The trophies of a God of grace. And art Thou, then, my God, so near? i Does every creature point to Thee ? Then let me oft thy footsteps hear This toilsome pilgrimage to cheer, In every object that I see, Make it my chiefest joy to trace The riches of Thy boundless grace ! Wednesday, 3d. — About three mfles from the UmtOngata, having no tent, we made our bivouac at half-past eleven near some bushes, but with no other shelter than the starry heavens. I found it necessary frequently to arouse the people, in order to prevent the fire from going out. Quitted the walking party at eight this morning, and rode on alone to Berea, where I arrived at six o'clock. It appears that the apprehension of the remain der of Nonha's party had occasioned much trouble, the whole of the whites and about sixty of the natives having been obliged to proceed in a body to enforce the requisition. The people of the vil lage where they had been staying rescued them from two Englishmen and a Hottentot, who had taken them in their absence : they way-laid them, and issuing from the woods as they passed, con trived while in conversation, but without using force, to effect their purpose. On this the larger party before mentioned proceeded to the spot, but the natives alarmed at their numbers, fled to a neighboring hill. Thus posted, Mr. Cane, with two natives, volunteered to communicate with them. He went up in a firm manner and remonstrated with them, at the same time assuring them that unless the persons in question were delivered up by sunset he would instantly shoot the Numzana t o whom he addressed himself. Happily no further effort was made, and the three girls were secured. But here another heart-rending scene took place. Umfazaguatu, the Numzana, was related to the children, and evinced feehngs of which humanity might boast. Suddenly casting away his assegais, he threw himself upon the ground in a supplicat ing posture, and only implored that he might be bound and sent to Dingarn in lieu of the prisoners. This of course could not be permitted, though all must doubtless have felt the painful necessity of acting with so much apparent rigor. On my ar rival,! found them in one of my huts, in charge of two men who had been sent for the purpose from Congella. On their leaving this morning I sent, on my own responsibility, the following message to Dingarn, wett knowing that it would express the sentiments of every European at Port Natal: — " If deserters must be lulled, let them be killed at once ; but if they are to be starved to death, we are resolved that not another individual shall be sent back." The men promised to be kind to the prisoners by the way, and on no account to men tion the fate which would probably await them on their anival. My heart sickens at the thought of such barbarities — still it is a duty we owe to the two thousand natives nowresiding here, and who, together with ourselves, would att some night have probably been immolated but for the security ofthe present treaty. SUNSET AT BEREA. How glorious is that golden hue, What gorgeous streams of light ! What varied tints from azure blue To deepest crimson met my sight: At evening's close I love to gaze, And mark the sun's dechning rays. It is a sight more felt that seen — Our mortal part in mute amaze Stands rapt in wonder — 'tis within We feel the power of that full blaze ; Th' untrammeUed spirit spreads her wings, And from that sight fresh rapture brings. She marks the last pale flickering ray, That faintly gilds the mountain's crest, And as it gently fades away, And darkness veils the glowing west, A cheering emblem she descries, It tells her how the Christian dies. What though our eyes no more behold The light and joy his presence gave, The meed of bliss is yet untold — Awaits the saints beyond the grave, Where in those realms of pure delight, One blissful day excludes the night. Calm and serene his soul departs, And leaves a hallowed glow behind, That whispers to our aching hearts, Weep not as those who yet are blind To that sure hope which faith descries, Their heritage beyond the skies. If heaven resounds with songs of praise, When first the sinner, touched by grace, Abandons all his former ways, And humbly seeks his Saviour's face, What shouts of triumph must begin When ransomed souls are gathered in ! 48 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Then while our burden stfll we bear, Forward let us press to gain The crown which those in glory wear, Purchased by Him who once was slain, The Lord our righteousness and peace, Whose dying love wfll never cease. Saturday, 13th. — Six men of the Inthlangwain tribe arrived, from whom I obtained a confirma tion of a very distressing fact — viz., a whole nation, from the pressure of extreme want, being first re duced to the dreadful necessity of subsisting upon their own children, and afterwards evincing 60 decided a predilection for human flesh as still to perpetuate the honid practice of cannibalism ; not, however to the extermination of their own tribe, but feasting upon the bodies of captives taken in war. These people, according to theh report, inhabit a country four days north of the Tugala, and two north-west of Unkunginglove. The name of the tribe is Immithlanga, and that of their chief, Upal- loti. They are independent of the Zoolus, speak a dialect of the Abasootu, and are said to be gene rally at war with the Amathlflbi, a people border ing them on the north, under a chief named Ama- huangwa. Two ofthe men with whom I conversed, Sinoieza and Pakankoothla, had been eye-witnes ses to the barbarities above stated, having seen them cooking and feasting on the flesh of several human bodies. Sinoieza himself appears to have had a very nanow escape. His own father was speared and eaten by them, and it was only by run ning away and concealing himself that he avoid ed a similar fate ! It was in consequence of an attack from the Amatembu, some years ago, that the Immithlanga were first reduced to the horrid alternative of murdering their own children for support. Tuesday, 23rd. — Last night, by an arrival from the Tugala, I learned the fate of the unfortunate prisoners whom we left at CongeUa. They were not starved, but aU put to death on the king's leaving for UnkOnginglpve shortly after my de parture. It is said that UmthleUa took this sangui nary measure upon himself, contrary to the wish of both Dingarn and Tambooza ; but the fact is, these three great personages have a most conve nient method of placing upon each other the re sponsibility they would evade, and the very next moment indemnifying the perpetrator of the act they denounced. This afternoon a very characteristic meeting was held in one of Mr. Berkin's huts, for the pur pose of selecting the site for a town. On my ar rival I found the hut fitted with the individuals ex pressly convened for this purpose. Almost total silence was observed — the subject was not even hinted at, nor had any chairman or leading person been appointed to introduce the business. At length a voice cried out," Now let's go and settle the bounds," on which I risked a question, hoping it might elicit a programme oi the contemplated proceedings. " Are all present agreed as to the expediency of building a town ?" To which it was rephed, that theh presence on this occasion was a proof that they were unanimous on this point. Thus began and ended this important conference, and off they att scampered in a posse to inspect the ground, some walking, others seated on the floor of a wagon without either tilt or sides, which was drawn at a stately pace by ten oxen. Short pipes, an indispensable accompaniment, were in full action on aU sides. Being the winter season, it was a sort of reunion of hunters, who, tired of chasing sea-cow * and buffalo, were now sighing for town-houses and domestic cheer. The ap pearance of any one of these forest-rangers would have gained the medal for any artist who could have transfixed his tout ensemble upon canvas. At length a pause was made, — This 'U do," cried one ; — " That 's the spot," exclaimed another. After some minutes of such-like random conversa tion, the whole party were compactly collected and the business at length entered upon, and conduct ed in a rational manner, every proposition being subjected to the votes of those who were present, and carried or negatived accordingly. It was in this impromptu manner that the town of D'Urban was named — its situation fixed — the township and church lands appropriated — and, in short, as much real business gone though as would have required at least a fortnight's hard writing and debating in any other quarter of the globe, f Friday, 26th — Hearing of the death of a young woman in a neighbouring village, I went to the spot with the hope of persuading them to discon tinue the revolting custom of casting the bodies of deceased persons into the woods, to be devoured by wfld animals. They listened very attentively to att my arguments ; and, at the conclusion, thank ed me for the words I had spoken, and agreed in future to inter their dead. In the present instance, they said, they were afraid of infection, as the woman had died after a lingering disease. It appeared that, as her end approached, she had been carried out into the woods ; but they assur ed me that she was not left until life was extinct. Tuesday, 30th. — Early this morning I was awoke by cries of lamentation from the people of a viUage, at the foot of the hill, nearly two miles distant ; and about ten o'clock two messengers ar rived to inform me of the sudden death of a child, desiring also to know whether I wished it to be buried. On Sunday last I had taken occasion to in troduce the subject at the conclusion of my address to the natives ; and it was doubtless in consequence that the present message had been sent. Accom panied by my interpreter I soon followed them to the vfllage, when I found tbat early this morning Kolelwa, the Numzana, had lost his only child. He was seated in a solitary place by himself, at the back of his own hut, while the rest of the people, apparently in much distress, were sitting in silence in the cattle-fold. On my request to know whether they were willing to inter the body, a man came forward and communicated with the afflicted father in a low voice, who also in an under tone signified his assent. In the same manner his wishes were ascertained respecting the spot, as I thought it advisable, considering theh prejudices, to refer it to his option, whether it should be in the immediate neighborhood of the viUage, or on an aUotment of ground which should be generally appropriated for the purpose. Having decided on the former, I recommended that the necessary * Hippopotami, (Dutch and Colonial term.) t See documents at the end of the journal. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 49 preparations should be made ; but here there was considerable difficulty. On these occasions it is customary to administer medicine to all excepting the family ofthe deceased, in order, as they imagine, to preserve themselves from contagion ; consequent ly, all the men of the place had gone in quest of their doctor, with the exception of two ; but as each of their wives had infants, they excused themselves by saying they were apprehensive of communicating the disorder to theh own children. My object was, if possible, to spare the father from so painful a duty ; but seeing the necessity, unsohcited he took up his hoe, and accompanied hy two of his wives and these two men, who seemd witting to render aU the assistance theh scruples would allow, pro ceeded before us to the wood. After threading an intricate part, and winding about for some httle distance, they stopped. Inquiring if that was the spot they had chosen, Kolslwa rephed, "You must show us." On being again told that it was left entirely for his decision, they proceeded a few paces further, and then commenced one of the most dis tressing scenes I ever witnessed. A father with his own hand opening the ground with his hoe, and scooping out a grave for his own child, assist ed only by one of his wives — while the bereaved mother, in the bitterness of her grief, seated under some bushes, like another Hagar, watched every movement, but dared not trust herself nearer to the mournful spot. When aU was prepared, Kolelwa returned,, with the wife who had assisted him, for the body — NombOna, the mother, still re maining half concealed among the trees. Every thing was conducted so silently that I did not per ceive their return, until suddenly turning to the spot I observed the woman supporting the body so naturally upon her lap, as she sat on the ground, that at first I really supposed it had been a living chfld. Dipping a bundle of leafy boughs into a calabash of water, the body was first washed by the father, and then laid by him in the grave ; on which I read a selection fi-om the burial service (such portions only as were strictly applicable ;) concluding with a short exhortation to those who were present. The entire opening was then filled in with large faggots, over which earth was thrown, and above all a considerable pile of thorny boughs and branches heaped, in order to render it secure from the approach of wild animals. I have been thus minute in describing every circumstance, as the whole was arranged by the natives themselves, considering it not only as due to their feelings to interfere as httle as possible, but likewise as the surest way to accustom them gradually to adopt a more decent method of sepulture. Before they re turned home they all went, as is customary, to wash themselves. As it rarely occurs that any except ing kings and some of their principal men, s>re in terred, I conclude that the above is the usual me thod on such ocasions. In the Zoolu country it is not, however, unfrequent to inter soldiers of note, as weU as those who have attained to a great age, such being held in great esteem. When a death occurs in a town or village, no milk is drunk, nor are the cattle aUowed to be milked on that day. The body is interred after sunset; but although it is customary for the immediate relatives to re linquish their usual food, and subsist upon wfld roots until the next new moon, they do not desert their houses, as is generaUy the case among the Amakosa. Thomas Halstead, who has just returned from a trading excursion in the Zoolu country, arrived here this morning with a full confirmation of the unpleasant reports which, through the medium of natives, had reached us some days previously. A peremptory order had been given by Dingarn for his leaving the country, coupled with directions that he was not on any account to be suppUed with milk or provisions. by the way. All trade was prohibited with Port Natal ; and, with the exception of myself and my' interpreter, no white person was in future to cross the Tugala. Under these circumstances, without any clue to the cause of such a sudden rupture, I have no reason to re gard the strange exception made in my favor as a very enviable distinction ; indeed, from the con struction put upon it by the natives, who do not hesitate to say that it is merely a blind to luU me into security, the mildest treatment I can expect will be to be retained as a hostage for the good conduct of my countrymen, on my very next ar rival within the dominions of the despot. Wednesday, July lst. — Resolved to set out with out delay, and ascertain from Dingarn himself on what account the late harsh orders have been given. I have just been informed by Mr. Cane, that the people of the vfllage, where the child died so sud denly yesterday morning, have apprehended and killed a man, whom they charge with having poi soned him. From the account given by the natives, he had been obhged to leave the Inthlang- wani ' country on a similar charge ; and in the present instance there was too much presumptive evidence of his guilt to clear him from the horrid imputation. They acknowledged to Mr Cane, whom they regard as theh chief, that they had done wrong in taking the law into their own hands ; but pleaded the impossibihty of living in security with such a person among them, and the humanity of the white people, who they knew, had they expressed their suspicions, would not have suffered him to have been put to death. The wonder is, that in a community such as this, where there is not a vestige of law, simUar occurrences do not more frequently take place ; happily, the natives are very abstemious, and by no means quarrelsome, and are accustomed to pay great de ference to those Europeans whom they regard as their chiefs. Thursday, 2nd. — Having borrowed a horse for my interpreter, I set out on horseback for the Zoolu country soon after noon, accompanied by some natives carrying my baggage. On the other side of the Umgani we found the grass burning to a considerable extent; this being the season when, on account of its extreme dryness, the old grass is usually set on fire. In one part the line of flame united across the road, obliging me to make attttle detour, and, indeed, to push my horse over some of the burning grass, in order to regain it without making a considerable circuit. The wind was driving the flame up the sides of the hills in long lines, which, added to the loud cracking noise, had a very singular effect. The appearance in a dark night of these extensive burnings is often very beautiful, but by no means equal to the flaming forests which I have witnessed in North America. 50 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Left the walking party and slept under a high tree a few miles beyond the Umtongata. Saturday, lih. — Having started yesterday at day-light, we reached Mr. Plankenberg's at five. While waiting for the baggage, I measured the girt of a large Kafir fig-tree (species of banian,) growing near the ford of the Tugala, which was found to be sixty feet. One of the limbs has grown through the heart of a neighboring tree, and receives support from another, in a very extra ordinary manner. Crossed the river at four in the afternoon ; and, on hearing that Zoolu was at the Black Clomanthleen, I rode in on reaching the town to pay him a visit, thinking, as he was an in fluential person, it would be a good opportunity to ascertain at once what was the actual feeling re specting the king's order. He received me in a very friendly manner, and promised to attend with some of his people at the service I proposed to hold at the Injandona on the following day. Reaching that place at six, I received an equally friendly reception from Cokella. In the evening himself and a large party of the soldiers assem bled in my hut. They sang and chattered alter nately, and seemed quite to enjoy themselves. Without directly alluding to the subject, enough was dropped, in the course of the conversation, to convince me, not only that there had been great exaggeration respecting Dingarn's order on the part of the traders, but also that he had been greatly provoked by their conduct. Sunday, 5th. " Tbe fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe." — (Pro verbs xxix. 25.) Firm is the Christian's trust, and sure The anchor that sustains his soul ; 'Mid toils and dangers still secure, He stands above the thunder's roll. ' Who shaU harm you 1" he has said, Strong to save — the mighty Lord ! " My shield around you shall be spread — All needed strength I wfll accord." In duty's path no danger Ues — A Father's hand the way directs ; His presence every want supplies, And from the fiercest foe protects. What though the lion's den we share, Or flaming furnace round us rage, Our heavenly Guide witt meet us there, And all our anxious fears assuage. In this blessed cause, who'er has lost, A brighter treasure shall obtain, While those who pause to count the cost, Must soon resign theh fancied gain. Dear Lord ! wert thou to take my all, I but Thine own restore ! Cheerful I yield to Thy just call — Would I could give Thee more ! Zoolu sent to inform me, that, in consequenc of the death of one of his children, he should be unable to attend the service. About one hundred people assembled. At the conclusion, Cokella re marked, " These are good words," and thanked me for them, particularly for those which enjoined obedience to the king, and all other superiors; adding, that these words would make all people to be at peace, and set every thing right. He then inquired whether I thoughti/Vey should be able to know them ? I told them that I hoped soon to come and hve among them, and then they could hear them often, and what they did not understand could be explained to them whenever they pleas ed. Some of the NodOnga people were present. Monday, 6ih. — Mambayendi having struck his foot against a stump, was too lame to prpceed ; a substitute was therefore appointed by CokeUa, and having despatched the baggage-bearers by the direct road, I took a little circuit, in order again to visit Culoola and Nodunga. As we ascended the hill towards the spot where the huts were building at Culoola, a number of women were ob served bearing bundles of thatching grass upon their heads, and as we approached they att salut ed me with a song. Two of the huts only were in progress — one nearly completed, the other they promised to finish by the time required. About noon we left Nodunga, and soon after ascended a very rocky mountain. After passing Embonis- wani, the next viUage on this road, Cokochi, the head servant of the Injanduna regiment, and who was appointed to escort me in the place of Mam bayendi, met his aunt. The greeting was sin gular — he gave her his hand, which she kissed with much apparent affection ; but even this dig nified salute was not returned on the part of Cokochi. On one or two occasions I have ob served Dingarn receive a simflar salutation from a near relative, and naturaUy concluded that this was merely court etiquette ; but on questioning Cokochi on the subject, he assured me that it was invariably the custom in theh country for the women to salute their male relations, sometimes on the hand, at others on the cheek, but the com pUment was never returned by them. From Em- bombusi, the path, which is carried about midway along the side of the mountain, follows the course of the Amatakoola, which winds in a valley on the right. Crossing this rocky stream, and again as cending, we reached Amahushani at half-past five, having previously overtaken the baggage-bearers at Gobeena. Huts were here provided at my re quest, although strangers at this time were pro hibited ; one of the king's women having been sent here in an ill state of health, and stfll resi ding among them. Since leaving Nodunga, the whole of tins day's journey has been mountainous, detached and round-topped, and generaUy compos ed of a dark-colored sandstone and felspar. In the lower grounds, the aloes, now in fuU blossom, have a very gay appearance, while even on the tops of the hflls, wherever the old grass has been burnt, a beautiful yellow crocus, peculiar, I be Ueve, to this country is met with in great abun dance. Tuesday, 7th. — Set out at a httle before eight. Observed many sweet-scented white crocuses. The path more distinct, and the travelling less te dious over the burnt districts. About noon, commenced the descent into the valley of the THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 51 Umthlatoosi, the views in every part of which are quite beautiful. The path is steep and rocky, overlooking the windings of the river, which has a beautiful effect as seen tlirough vistas skirted with trees and several species of aloes, the former often in blossom, and the latter bearing an elegant candelabria flower of every shade from deep red to the palest orange. At a quarter-past eleven, passed a village called Unthlacho, the first habita tions to be met with after leaving Amahushani.* This place belongs to a chief named Sittai, whose son was kitted some time ago by order of Dingarn, in consequence, it is said, of some intrigue against the government; as an additional chastisement, the people both of this and the neighboring vfllage of Uiengo were at the same time deprived of theh cattle. Unable to procure ariy thing at either, we continued our route through the vattey, crossing the river four times, to Engukani, one of the king's villages, where we arrived at half-past twelve, and procured some sour milk for breakfast. Proceed ing again at three, we once more crossed the Umthlatoosi, and leaving this romantic vattey by a steep ascent, continued our mountain route till near six, when we reached Amachingani, a vfllage situated on a height, sunounded by groves of very high trees, called by the natives Umzani, and which may be seen in aU dhections at a considera ble distance. Wednesday, 8th. — Set out at a quarter-past eight, the path conducting generally over an elevated open country, more level than any other part of the road. On approaching Unkunginglove it be comes more broken, and, on gaining the heights which overlook the town, the hflls are covered with dwarf mimosa and other shrubs, intermixed occasionally with euphorbi, which are generally the largest trees in this part of the country. The town, which had been rebuilt, appeared in the distance like an immense assemblage of hay-stacks, the rays of the mid-day sun shining brightly upon the newly- arranged thatch. The whole was not yet completed — numbers of women, bearing bun dles of grass upon their heads, were approaching from all sides, while, as we advanced towards the gate, we observed several hundreds of the ama- booto (young soldiers) hastening forward in com pact lines, bearing mimosa boughs for the fences. Having sent forward messengers to announce my anival, we entered the town at one o'clock. The two Indoonas, apparently occupied about some business, were seated in the midst of a large assembly as I rode up, but they immediately came forward, saying that the king was engaged in in specting his cattle, but that he would see me be fore I went into a house. Passing through a large herd, I observed him seated upon his straight- backed chair (a native one made out of a single block) clothed in his old blue cloak, now threadbare and greatly in need of a httle soap and water. On my approach, a bullock was pointed out as a pre sent from the king to be slaughtered for my party. The interview lasted but a few minutes. Dingarn expressed himself pleased at my return, recom mending that I should now rest myself, and that he would see me again. The houses selected * This district is uninhabited on account of the number of lions which infest the neighborhood. were as usual to the right of the principal entrance, which has invariably been the case in all the large towns I have visited. When last at the Injando na, I inquired of Cokella the reason. " It is in that quarter," he replied, " that the principal In doonas always reside ; only those of inferior rank live on the left." This evening, while musing alone in my hut, I was accosted in tolerable Eng hsh, by a native crouched near the door, with " How do, captain?" Curious to ascertain where he had acquhed this smattering of English, the first I had heard uttered by a native, I called him in, and found on inquiry that he had lately arrived from De la Goa Bay, with copper-wire from the Portuguese factory, where he had contrived to pick up a few words of English and Portuguese ; his stock of the former, however, was almost ex hausted in the first salutation. It is in this man ner, by an intermediate tribe of natives bordering the settlement, that the Portuguese carry on their trade with the Zoolus. The native language differs considerably from that spoken here ; but not so much as to render them altogether unintel ligible. Thursday, 9th. — This afternoon Dingarn sig nified his wish to see me, and for the first time received me into his house : where I found him reclining near the door upon a mat, supported by a head-stool and surrounded by about fifty of his women, ananged in order around the sides of the hut. This house, as may be supposed by the number of its inmates, who only occupied the cir cumference, is of considerable size, and was of sufficient height to stand erect even with a hat on in almost every part ; but being only lighted from the low door, and the whole interior blackened by smoke, it had a most dismal and dungeor.-like ap pearance on first entering. The eye at length be came accommodated to the hght, or rather obscu rity, and soon discovered the features of many a black beauty, who at first was invisible ; the re flection from the brass ornaments worn round their throats and right arms alone indicating their pre sence. The frame-work was supported by three parallel rows of posts, four in the middle and three on each side. The fire-place, as is usual in all their houses, is situated about one-third of the whole diameter from the door, to which it is exactly opposite, and exhibits, for a Zoolu device, a considerable degree of taste, the raised sides being waved at the end, instead of the general pattern — an exact circle. The floor is remarkably even, and from being con stantly rubbed and greased has quite a polished appearance. Scarcely any thing that would come under the denomination of furniture was to be seen. On one side of the fire-place stood a large bowl of beer for present use, covered with an in verted basket, and beside this, on a thick square mat, sometimes dignified by the name of a table, were arranged eight or ten ladles, merely the longitudinal section of a small calabash formed from the gourd. These, with a few bead-dresses of various colors suspended from the sides, were the only relief afforded to this dusky abode. The bag containing the presents was then opened by Dingarn's desire, and its contents displayed, con sisting of beads, some broadcloth, and a pair of boots, which I had brought merely on speculation, 52 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. being the largest that could be procured at Port Natal. On opening the parcels and observing that the beads were spotted, he named them the ingua (panther) beads, and, apparently much pleased, amused himself for some time by anang- ing them in various ways. The operation of try ing, on the boots now commenced, which he en deavored to do in a recumbent posture, my inter preter and his servant tugging at the loops with aU theh might. At length, finding this a hopeless endeavor, he took my advice and stood up, but would not divest his ankle of its bandage of white beads, and once more thmst his foot into the un yielding boot. His women were in a titter the whole time, and he himself could not refrain from laughing at the extraordinary predicament in wliich he was placed. Although there was ample room, had he but applied his own strength, this second attempt was equally unsuccessful ; and at length disengaging his foot, he seemed giad to find him self again at liberty, requesting that my next pre sent might be shoes and not boots, as less trou blesome to " put in," as he expressed it. Desiring his women to amuse me by singing during his ab sence, he then suddenly made his exit. Although they sang in parts and in good time, the high pitch of so many female voices, unaccompanied by a bass, was not altogether pleasing, especially as it was continued for some time. About an hour had passed in this manner, when a cessation took place, and some of them came near and begged of me beads. During the whole time that Dingarn had been present, they slid about on theh knees whenever they wished to move from one part of the house to another, but now observing them to walk as usual, I inquhed the cause. — They said that they were not now afraid of the king ; but that while he was present in the house they were never permitted to stand up, but always moved about in the manner I have seen. A ser vant was now sent to conduct me without the Issigordlo, to a group of chiefs seated before a large concourse of men standing around them in a semi-chcle. Tambooza, who was among them, desired me to seat myself near him, and I felt con vinced that a conference was about to be held be fore Dingarn on some business of importance. — Nothing, however, was more distant from his thoughts ; but, actuated merely by a sudden freak, he issued from his gateway the most extraordinary figure that can well be imagined. During the interval that his women were singing, he had caused his whole body, not excepting his face, to be thickly daubed over with red and white clay in spots, and had but his figure conesponded with the character, he might have passed at Astley's for the genuine harlequin of the night. Thus adorned, a dance and a' song were the least I ex pected, but he contented himself with receiving the acclamations of "Byate," "Thou who art for ever," " The great black one," &c. &c. ; and again retired as unaccountably from the sight of his wondering subjects, who none of them could devise the import of this singular exhibition. All I could collect from them was, that it was a new thing, that he had done it because he was the king and could do what he pleased. It is not, however, improbable that the sight of the spotted be?.ds had put this strange crotchet into his head. Friday, 10(ft. — The scene here is a busy one — houses in all stages of progress — some in frame — men perched upon the tops of others thatching — lines of women bearing bundles of grass upon theh heads — the young men carrying boughs and fag gots, and all moving in order to the tune of a song. A stranger would at once pronounce them a happy people, but theh natural vivacity is too often quenched by the rule of despotism and the dread of a violent death, to permit them long to enjoy such intervals of repose. The huts are more nu merous and better built than in the former town, and to my great relief are as yet untenanted by rats. The sunounding country is npw a perfect blanket, every thing at this season of the year being parched and dry. MOON RISING AT UNKUNGINGLOVE. While yet I marked the glowing West, StiU reddened with the blush of day, The beauteous moon, with silver vest. Arose to shed her milder ray. It was not night — the shadows fled Beneath her fuU effulgent beam, That on each mountain crest was spread, Like the smooth face of some fair stream. Long on that glorious light I gazed, To brighter scenes in spirit borne, Till every thought to Him was raised Who of his brightness once was shorn. Sweet emblem of a Saviour's grace ! In milder rays of Gospel hght The image of our God we trace, Though once we trembled at the sight. The stfll smaU voice of love proclaims The fiery law's demands obeyed ; Where Justice frowned now mercy reigns, Each are in sweet accord displayed. Where grace has dawned 'twfll ne'er decay; Though faint the Ught, and darkly seen, 'Twill kindle to that perfect day, Where not a cloud shall intervene. Whate'er to faith is yet concealed, That glorious day wfll then declare ; And God himself will be revealed, — The only brightness needed there. Saturday, 11th. — This mornmg, long before dayhght, I was awoke by the vociferations of a man running through the town, and shouting as he went in the most peremptory tone. Not long after this hoarse salute, hundreds of female voices, in pleasing concert, again broke the stillness ofthe night, by a song wliich became still louder and louder, until at length it as gradually passed away, and all was again stfll. On inquiry, as soon as the people were about, I found that an order had suddenly been issued by Dingarn, that every female should instantly leave the town for tbe pur pose of procuring fencing bushes at Imbelli-belli. These unfortunate drudges were accordingly obliged to rise at his bidding, and commence a THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 53 walk of ten miles at that unseasonable hour, not withstanding which they sang, as they went, one of the most melodious songs I have ever heard. About ten o'clock, a large party of young sol diers (560) anived with bundles of bushes from the same place ; they also entered the town with a song, and, as they passed along in a continued line, seemed like a moving forest. It is perhaps as weU that the building mania is now so domi nant, as this is the season when they usuaUy go out to war. An entirely new ekanda, or military town, has recently sprung up, not more than three miles to the northward of this — the regiment call ed Inzimmunzana having been removed from a spot equaUy distant in an opposite direction. By pacing half the circumference of the exte rior fence and the diameter of the interior, I have calculated the number of houses in the town to be about 1100, and the population about 5500. — In any other than a miUtary place, the average of five mdividuals to each house, which I have aUowed, would be too many, as in those there are frequently three or four houses belonging to one family ; but in the ekandas no person, with the exception of the Indoonas of the regiment, are permitted to have more than one, which he occu pies generally with two wives and as many ser vants. UmthleUa and Tambooza, who have the privilege of being married, have three houses, one for themselves, and the other two for the accom modation of their wives ; but, in the generaUty of the out-places, at least two thirds of the houses may always be considered as occupied by the women. This afternoon, a quarrel having arisen respecting the thatching of a house, one of the disputants bit the finger of the other severely : the case was immediately referred to UmthleUa, who sentenced the assailant to the fine of a cow and a calf. In the afternoon, the women returned from Imbelli-beUi, bearing large bundles of bushes upon their heads, and singing as they passed along the foUowing words, the same which they also sang in the night — Akoosiniki ingonyama izeeswi Chorus Haw — haw— haw — haw. LiteraUy, " Why don't you give — lion — the na tions." The king was so much occupied about the build ings, that he excused himself from attending to the business which I was deshous to bring before him to-day, but desired me, in the mean time, to com municate the particulars to the two Indoonas, who visited me in my hut for that purpose. They both disowned any knowledge of the king's order re specting the traders, first saying that it was on ac count of their not having previously obtained leave from him ; but in this I was enabled to confute them, having been at CongeUa at the very time when Thomas Halstead (one of them) came up and obtained Dingarn's sanction. John Snelder, the other trader in question, had evidently incens ed them by bringing back two Zoolu lads as ser vants to the very town from whence he had taken them just before the treaty was arranged. Both were taken from him and killed, by an order from Dingarn. They then acknowledged, what I now beUeve to be the true reason, that, notwithstand ing the mutual agreement which had been enter ed into, some of the traders had not kept theh faith, but stfll continued to induce the natives to desert, secreting them, particularly young women, in their wagons, and conveying them by stealth to Port Natal. They said that they were perfectly con vinced that I was not aware of this, but, neverthe less, they knew that it was still practised. Another circumstance of some importance was alluded to ; the men in charge of the last two prisoners, had been unable to convey them beyond the Tugala. The information I had received at Port Natal re garding them was, that the men, after placing them in a hut, went in quest of tobacco ; and, as might be expected, on theh return no prisoners were found to guard. The version current here is widely different. The men, they say, did not leave their charge, but several white men coming to the spot, engaged them in conversation, and, while their attention was drawn off, rescued the ghls, who have never been heard of since. Unfor tunately they look to me alone for the due perform ance of the treaty, and shrewdly remark that, not withstanding letters were sent off at the time, some to traders then in the country, others to Port Natal, stfll "the words" have not been obeyed. Most gladly would I divest myself of aU responsi bility in these matters, which are quite foreign to the objects I have in view — but Dingarn has more than once declared that he looks only to me, and will treat with no other ; and — as the treaty is popular with them, and the king has evinced a de cided intention to abide by his word — for the credit of my countrymen, and the permanency of the mission aheady established in their country, I feel myself bound by a double duty, as far as in me hes, to see it punctually fulfilled. They urged me much to enter upon this subject with them before the king to-morrow ; but I told them that it was not right to engage in such matters on God's day, which should be employed in worshipping him. It was therefore agreed that the conference should be held on Monday. Sunday, 12th. "Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in hea ven and earth is named."— (Ephesians iii. 15.) Blessed Union ! Christ the head! One family in heaven and earth ; All for whom his blood was shed,- United by that mystic birth. Let us then as brethren dwell, In sweet communion here below ; Of aU our Father's goodness tell, Till joy within each bosom glow. How sweet to feel we're not our own, But purchased by his dying love ! Who deigns one famfly to own Of saints below and saints above. Nothing can our union sever — Bound with links can ne'er decay ; Let us then with joy endeavor To help each other by the way. 54 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. One faith, one hope, one glorious Head, One common war to wage ; Be love the banner o'er us spread, While on this toilsome pilgrimage. See that bright angelic band — Sisters, brothers, gone before ; Soon beside them we shall stand, Redeeming mercy to adore. The victor's palm through grace they bear, — Of witnesses a glorious cloud ; In att our triumphs still they share, And strike their golden harps aloud. Though trials we may yet endure, Like faith and patience let us prove ; The promises are still as sure, And grace is free — and God is love ! Monday, 13lh. — Last night, about seven o'clock, the people were suddenly called, and my interpreter came to inform me that the town was on fire. As large bundles of thatching-grass were collected in different parts, adding considerably to the inflam mable materials of the whole place, serious conse quences were at first apprehended. ProvidentiaUy, the fire broke out on the lee-side, and the wind drove it across the outer fence. The blaze at first was tenific; but by the immediate removal of houses for some distance round the ignited quarter, the communication was soon cut off. The rapi dity with which this was effected was extraordi nary — as many men as could stand round a house, by main strength putted it up, as it were, by the roots, and in a few minutes the materials were con veyed to a distance. There was no confusion, the Indoonas presiding during the whole time, and is suing the necessary orders. As soon as a sufficient space was cleared round the flaming houses, a close cordon of men was fornled, who kept theh station, with stakes in theh hands, until aU apprehension of danger was over. Dingarn did not make his appearance, although the fire took place not far from the Issigordlo, but messengers were frequently passing to acquaint him how matters were going on. I endeavored to persuade them to bring water, but they said it was too far. The only means employed to ex tinguish the fire was by occasionally throwing dust upon the flaming thatch, wliich not being heaped in sufficient quantities, had but little effect. The remarkable glare which was cast upon the wild features and gestures ofthe natives compos ing this immense concurse, all actively employed in the midst of flaming houses and smoking rub bish, would have been a fine scene for a painter. As usual, it is not exactly known how it com menced, though a tolerably shrewd guess may be made, since it is stated that a fire was left unat tended in the very house first ignited, during the time the people of that section were called to eat meat, which they always partake of in a group in the open ah. Although thhty-two houses were consumed, providentiaUy not a single person was hurt on the occasion. By noon this day the burnt fence had been replaced, and new houses were erecting on the site of those which had been so recently reduced to ashes — before the sun sets, scarcely a vestige will remain of the burning. No message having been sent from the king, I sent my interpreter to remind him of my wish to leave on this day, and to request an audience pre viously. He soon sent to signify his readiness to receive me ; and, accompanied by the two Indoonas, we proceeded to the Issigordlo, where he appeared, reclining on a head-stool in the door of his house. On being requested to commence the conversa tion, I said that I was desirous to know on what account two of the traders (mentioning theh names) had been sent out of the country ; that I had aheady heard their own statement, but, as there were always two sides to every case, it was necessary to know what charges he brought against them before we could decide what ought to be done in the matter. " Now," he said, " it is my turn to speak" — and related the whole circumstance; from which it would appear that they had given him just cause for offence. The allegations were, that John Snelder, as before stated, had returned with some young men, whom he had induced to accompany him to Port Natal, about the time that the treaty was ananged; and that Thomas Hal- sted had falsely used his name, by informing the Indoona of the town where he was trading, that it was the king's order that he should dispose of his cattle to him. He likewise complained of the ge neral conduct of the traders in inducing his people to desert, and conveying them out of his country in theh wagons. On this latter point I question ed him closely, in order to ascertain whether, since the negotiation of tbe treaty, so serious a charge could be substantiated. No positive proof was adduced — but so Uttle reliance were they disposed to place upon the pro fessions of any ofthe traders, that Dingam plainly avowed he could not depend upon them, since they had so often deceived him before. On this, I as sured him that the white people at Port Natal were agreed to observe the terms of the treaty ; and that he might rely upon it no deserters had been received there since that period. That I did not know they were there, he said, he was quite certain, or they would have been sent back ; but he had often spoken on the subject to them, with out effect. The word, I rephed, which had pass ed between us should not fatt to the ground ; if deserters were found at Port Natal, he might rely upon their being sent back. Dingarn then said, that he considered me as the chief of the white people there, and that he should look to me to keep things right. I told him that as far as I was able this should be done, but that beyond persua sion I had no power. His reply was, " You must have power. I give you all the country called Issibubolongu* — you must be the chief over att tlie people there." I said, that I did not wish for power ; that my object in coming into his country was only to be a teacher ; but, since he had said that he should look to me alone to regulate all mat ters relating to tlie white people, I would accept it, in order that I might take these words to the great chief, at Graham's Town (he considers that as the seat of government ;) and if I obtain his sanction also, I should then be enabled to pre- Literally, the white people's ford. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 55 serve the treaty from being broken — which other wise I had no power to enforce. The tenitory in question was described by UmthleUa and Tam booza, to whom I afterwards referred for an ex planation, as extending between the Tugala and Umzimcoolu rivers, north and south, and from the sea coast to the Q,uathlamba or Snowy Mountains, which form nearly a square, each side of which is about one hundred" and twenty geographical miles in a direct line. Included withiH these limits, they also informed me that the king had granted to me personaUy the district about Port Natal from the Umgani to the Umzimcoolu. Thinking it would be more satisfactory to both parties, I offer ed some advice respecting a guarantee ; which, if required of aU traders entering the country, would tend to estabUsh mutual confidence. To this, however, Dingarn would not listen — saying, that aU such matters must be regulated by me at Port Natal ; and that from this time he should npt receive any trader who had not previously obtain ed my consent ; thus throwing the whole respon sibility upon me. I inquired if he would not make some exceptions, particularizing one who was well known to him. " No," he replied, " there must be no difference ; those who wish to trade must first obtain leave from you ; a message must then be sent, signifying the same to me, and I will send an answer to Port Natal. This is the place to which they must come ; and when they anive I wfll send round to all who wish to sell to them, and the things shaU be brought here." After a few more observations, the subject, which had oc cupied nearly an hour, was ended ; and, at his re quest, I entered his house in order to take his measure for a pah of slippers. It was as I had imagined — empty ; women being always excluded while business is transacting. I soon after took my leave, on which he evinced much sincerity in his good wishes for a prosperous journey. At three o'clock this afternoon I set out on my return, reaching Amachingani at half-past six ; where, with my interpreter, I remained for the night. The baggage-bearers did not get beyond Ukittaketani, one ofthe king's villages, where we had proposed sleeping, but had missed the path in tlie dark. Procured a mat, and with my saddle as a pillow, and the horse-rug as a covering, soon forgot the loss of my baggage. Tuesday, 14$. — Early this morning the people anived, accompanied also by a messenger from Dingarn, who had despatched him soon after we left yesterday. The purport of his message was to say that the king did not think he had sufficiently thanked me for some fresh presents I had pro mised him, — that if I brought him any thing cu rious he should be obhged; this, however, he would leave to me, as I now knew what he liked : but that which he desired the most was more of the red-cloth stuff. This I promised I would en deavor to procure ; and soon after seven proceeded on my journey. The grass, on the parts where it had not been burnt, was so completely dried up that we might Uteratt be said to ride through stand ing hay. Reached Engukani, the first village in the vaUey of Thlatoosi, at a quarter to eleven ; a halting-place which I always dettght in, though the scenery between the two next winds of the river is the finest. The following lines may per- 57—2 haps convey some idea of the features of this secluded valley : — Sweet vale ! — Thlatoosi lingers here, Lost in the mazes of yon rocky steep ; His murmuring waters deep and clear, In many a graceful winding sweep , Reluctant hence to force his way Through channels where he loves to stray. And here I fain would linger too, Soothed by a scene so bright — so fair ; Trace all your deep recesses through, And gaze upon the beauties there ; Till every thought is raised from earth, To Him who gave the mountains birth. Methinks these beauteous spots remain, Like virtues in the savage breast, Mementos that we still retain Of purity at first impressed ; Brief notices of Eden's joy, That sin itself could not destroy. They speak in heavenly accents stfll, And tell of days when all was good, And seem to ask — " What caused this ill : Who has creative power withstood — Why mute the lips that grateful bore Thanksgivings to our God before ?" Lord ! when shall man unite his praise ? Let not thy creature stand alone ; Cause him again to know thy ways, Att else thy power and goodness own. On these dry bones thy spirit breathe, And all thy wonted love bequeath. So shaU each rugged glen and bower Throughout this vale a witness bear Of Jesus' all constraining power, And echo back the Zoolu's prayer ; TiU grace thine image shaU restore, And melt the hearts were steeled before. Between this spot and Amahushani I observed on many of the ridges a stratum of rock, similar to that used as crucibles for melting brass at UnkOnginglove. It is a very coarse, soft sand stone ; and has the remarkable property of stand ing any degree of heat. Wednesday, 15th. — An ox, wliich had been driven before us from Ukittaketani, was killed last night ; and by the time we were ready to start this morning the only vestige was a leg, — the re mainder having been quietly disposed of by my twelve baggage-bearers, who, as usual, were de corated with fat and fillets of hide bound round their foreheads, the hair hanging over their eyes, which gave them an unusually wild appearance. There had been rain during the night, and the day was one of the coldest I have felt in this country ; as a proof, ice was seen in the hoHows of some of the ravines which we passed in the early part of the morning, and the grass in those situations was covered with a hoar frost. After traversing the Amaguya mountain — which rises very abruptly, and is seen to a great distance — we reached soon after eleven a smaU viUage at its foot, called 56 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Amatchubani ; and thence, proceeding by Etand- wani, reached the Injandona at two. CokeUa as we rode up, was seated near the gate with a partv ofmen, warming themselves round a fire. Although they replied to two or three questions which I asked, they appeared for a few minutes to take little notice of us, when suddenly CokeUa rose, and saluting me with a loud DakubOna (I have seen you,) seized me by the hand ; the rest all followed his example — some holding me by the arm, others by the wrist, but each, with the most friendly in tention, saluting me as they supposed after the English fashion, which, out of compliment to me, they had endeavored to imitate. Besides a list of four men, sixteen women, and five children — all deserters which had been given to me on the day I left Unkunginglove, and which must, no doubt, have greatly annoyed Dingam, to whom they had just been reported — I was here informed that Bengapi, the principal wife of Zoolu (Indoona of the Black Clomantheleen) had absconded eight days ago, and had taken the road to Port Natal. Having presented Cokella with the cloth 1 had promised him for an ingoobo (cloak,) I went on immediately to the Black Shields — Cokella, and the whole of the people assembling at the gate as we rode off, wishing me a good journey ; and hoping that I should "go well on the path." On my arrival, Zoolu, who is a fine-looking chief, with a Roman nose and commanding appearance, came out of his hut with several attendants. He seem ed as little concerned about the fate of his wife as any ofthe bystanders ; saying, that he hoped she would be taken, though he must have been well aware of the cruel death which would assuredly await her on reaching UnkOnginglove. Neither himself nor Cokella could charge her with any fault ; and it appeared to them both (as it certainly did tome) a mystery why she should risk her hfe by going to a place where, if discovered, she would most assuredly be sent back in confinement. It is possi ble that she may have buoyed herself up with the hope of security, on hearing of a chcumstance which took place just before I last crossed the Tugala. Two natives from Port Natal had, with the sanction of their white chief, been actually at tempting, with the offer of beads, to induce their relatives in the Zoolu country to desert and join them there. These men we met on their return as we were approaching the river, little suspecting their design : but the very attempt, so immediately after, and directly opposed to the terms of the treaty then in force, might have led Bengapi to suppose that she would be weU received. Both a wife and a chfld in this country are designated by the term Umtuana, which is puzzling to a stran ger ; and without further inquiry Uable to lead into mistake. For instance, when last in this neigh borhood, Zoolu had excused himself from atten ding tho service on Sunday, on the plea that his child was past recovery — or dead ; as the messen ger expressed it. This chfld, however, now turns out to have been one of his wives, now convales cent ; but who it seems had been in a dangerous state. Reached Mangnenas soon after four ; but the baggage did not arrive until some time sifter. Thursday, 16th. — Crossed the Tugala, and breakfasted at Mr. Plankenberg's. Not being able to procure a sufficient number of fresh bearers for the baggage, I sent a message to the White Shields, requesting Nongalaza to procure the men requhed. Without waiting for them I proceeded again at three, attended by my interpreter and two servants. Soon after sunset we crept into some dilapidated hunters' huts by the road-side ; which, though parly unthatched, afforded a tolera ble shelter until the moon arose at two, when I pushed on with my interpreter, paving the men to follow at day-light. Friday, 17th. — Reached Berea this afternoon, at a quarter-past three ; and soon after rode to Mr. Collis's, six miles distant, in order to acquaint him with the very awkward situation in which Dingam had placed me, and to inform him of the measures I had in consequence taken with respect to the trade ; in all which he expressed his entire concunence. Returned home at eight; having been fifteen hours on horseback, since two o'clock this morning, and that without a relay. No tid ings had been heard respecting the recent deser ters. Saturday, 18th. — As Dingarn has resolved that I shall be responsible for the good conduct of every individual who crosses his frontier from the vicinity of Port Natal, my obvious duty appears to be, without delay, to communicate with his Excel lency Sir Benjamin D'Urban, the governor of the Cape Colony, on the subject, with the hope of ob taining his sanction for the appointment of some officer, with sufficient powers to enforce the treaty, and regulate the affairs of the settlement. In the mean time the trade, with one admitted exception in favor of Mr. Coins, has been virtuaUy stopped, having no legal authority to demand a recogni zance from each individual trader, without which guarantee I cannot conscientiously take upon my self the responsibility of their future conduct. The inconvenience which may be felt cannot but be temporary ; and it appeared to me of far more im portance to preclude the possibility of any infrac tion of the treaty, than that the trade should be allowed to proceed in its present unorganized state. The subject, unfortunately, does not rest here, but involves what is of much greater con sequence than mere trade — the character of our own countrymen, and the interests of religion and civilization at large. To attempt any ameliora tion in the condition and habits of the natives — to endeavor to instruct them in the doctrines and practice of vital rehgion, would, humanly speaking, be futile, while subject to an influence too baneful to be particularized, and daily familiarized to such glaring derelictions from Christian duty, as must tend greatly to compromise any counter effort that might be made by the most devoted and indefati gable missionary exertions. On the other hand, if we consider the mere thread by which personal security is held from day to day — the integrity ot a treaty already tacitly infringed — the very exist ence of a missionary estabhshment becomes in volved in the measures that may be adopted for its punctual fulfilment. Full weU do I know and feel, that whenever a minister of the Gospel turns aside to mingle in politics, insomuch has he departed from his evident path of duty. His single, undivided aim should be the glory of Iris Lord and Master, to whom he must shortly give an account of his stewardship : THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 57 and through good report, and evfl report, regard less alike of opposition or danger, he will neither lean to his own understanding, nor depend for suc cess upon his own unworthy endeavors ; thankful to feel, and to acknowledge, that neither his abihty nor his success depends upon himself, but alone proceeds from above. There are, however, situa tions and circumstances, and this appears to be one, in which it is his duty to use his influence in procuring, and in all cases in supporting, such civil authorities as may be requisite for the suppres sion of. vice, and the well-being of the community in which he resides. Under this view of the whole subject, and although acting at present in the ca pacity of a missionary, until ordained ministers of the church of England Can be induced to occupy these stations, I have resolved to proceed imme diately to the colony, for the purpose of obtaining the advice of his excellency the governor, without awaiting the arrival of the trading sloop, now more than three months absent, and whose return may be yet unavoidably protracted. During my absence, a report has obtained cir culation among the natives here (whether true or false I have now no means of ascertaining,) that several of the Zoolu chiefs, with UmthleUa at their head, during my last visit, resolved to take my life, alleging that they were suspicious of the influence I had obtained with Dingarn ; but that the design was over-ruled by himself and one of his father's widows, named Umkabai. Should there be any real foundation for such a report, I have indeed great cause for gratitude to a merci ful God, in having been preserved from the pend ing danger ; but 1 cannot for a moment entertain the supposition, theh conduct having been latterly so friendly, and theh deshe to place this part of the country under my control having been so openly and so cordially avowed. Sunday, 19th. " Be ye reconciled to God." — 2 Corinth, v. 20. Oh ! the depth of sovereign grace, While in sin's dark ways we trod ; Jesus seeks our rebel race, "Be ye reconciled to God !" And can it be — the Lord from heaven A suppliant at the sinner's feet ? He, whose blood for us was given, Thus humbly deigning to entreat ! Well may angels long to know The mystery of such boundless love ; And wonder as they gaze below, And mark how cold our bosoms profj. That God had e'er a way devised To reconcile himself to those Who long his proffered grace despised, A depth of love unmeasured shows. But language fails — no words can tell, Nor human powers the riches trace, Which in those wondrous accents dwell, — The fulness of redeeming grace. With shame our faces let us veil, Whene'er those gracious words we read, Our deep ingratitude bewail, — For pardon, and for mercy plead. Then, in a world of hght above, Our grateful song wiU ceaseless be Worthy the Lamb, whose conquering love Has reconciled my God to me. Not more than thirty natives present at the Kafir service, the people not being aware of my return. Monday, 20th. — Commenced my journey this day, but not so early as I had hoped, having waited some time for the people with my baggage from the Tugala, and eventually started without it ; so that we had no tent by the way. For the sake of speed the section of a wagon, viz. the hind wheels with a platform secured upon the bed, had been prepared ; and with this nondescript vehicle and two spans of eight oxen, accompa nied by my interpreter and Umpondombeeni, I set out from Berea at one o'clock, and bivouack ed for the night on the right bank of the Pongata. Tuesday, 21st. — Crossed the Mansbitote and Eloffe ; and at half-past four descended a steep hill to the Umcamas, whence we continued our route to a rocky stream beyond, stopping, on a hfll on the other side, for the night, at a quartern past six. A piece of loose canvas thrown over the cart formed my tent ; my bed, being spread between the wheels on the ground, which, from having so often fared worse, I considered in some respects luxurious. Wednesday, 22nd. — Although knee-haltered, my horse contrived to stray away during the night ; and after sending back to the Umcamas, and vainly searching in all directions, 1 was ob liged to proceed without him, taking my uneasy station at half-past ten upon one of the boxes on the cart, which had no sides. I had not been very long in my new position, when, in passing a wooded defile, the wheel came in contact with a stump, oversetting the vehicle, and tossing my in terpreter and myself into the bushes : providen tiaUy neither of us was hurt. The difficulty now was to raise the vehicle ; two of the oxen were chained for this purpose to the upper wheel, but aU our attempts fafled to induce them to putt in the right dhection ; so that it became necessary to take every thing off, and even then it was not without some difficulty that, with our united strength, we were enabled to raise it to its former position. We now found that one of the stan dards had been broken by the fall ; but this, after a little contrivance, we were enabled to remedy. By this accident we were delayed more than an hour. The road soon after descends to the beach, when we crossed the Umpombinyom. The mat- tingoolos were stfll ripe, and many of the trees retained theh blossom. The pulp of this fruit is very hke raspbeny and cream, and partakes in some slight degree of the flavor also. The troe is bushy, with a glossy deep green leaf; and is co vered with sharp thorns. The star-shaped blos som is of a dehcate white, with a jessamine sent. It is never observed to grow beyond a mile fronr the coast. There is also another wild fruit 58 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. abundant in this part ; it is about the size of a coffee-berry, with a rough flavor ; contains a stone, and grows near the sea upon a low shrub, with thickset rounded leaves. Reached Mr. Cane's village at a quarter-past four, when we commenced repairing damages. This is not the spot where the canoe was built ; the village which then existed, about half a mile distant, having since been removed to this place. A buUock was here procured and slaughtered, as provisions for the remainder of the journey across the uninha bited district. Thursday, 23rd. — Having deposited our supply of meat in the skin of the animal suspended underneath the cart, we proceeded soon after nine. Observed frequent traces of wfld boar. The generality of the rivers being pent up at their mouths by sandy bars, the waters from the interior frequently expand over a wide surface within the bank, having all the appearance of smaU lakes. In these situations hippopotami were occasionally seen ; theh noses only emerging from the water. They are likewise resorted to by flocks of wild ducks, which sometimes rose on our approach ; while on the higher grounds the pow (a large species of bustard) was frequently seen. Friday, 2Ath. — The tracks of hippopotami, pan ther, hyena, with many animals of the deer kind, have been numerous, and were readily distin guished while occasionally passing along the beach ; but, in addition to these, both yesterday and to-day, we have traced for some distance the foot-prints of a lion. On descending to the upper ford of the Umzimcoolu, we observed several hip popotami sunning themselves upon a sand-bank, in the middle of the stream. The scenery in this neighborhood is very beautiful ; the banks are prettily wooded and margined by high broken hiUs, commanding fine views of the river, for some distance winding below. We were nearly an hour in effecting the passage across ; the water being in one part so high that the oxen were obhged to swim, and consequently every article in the boxes was wet. Had we been but half an hour later, the tide, which was stiU rising, would have prevented us from crossing ; indeed, before we left the river was full, the tide flowing considerably above the ford. Thought much of the gracious providence by which I was saved, when last here, from a situation of great anxiety and distress. With the Psalmist I have indeed cause to say, " Bless the Lord, O my soul ! and forget not aU His benefits." The contents of the boxes having been spread out and tolerably dried by the sun, we again pro ceeded, when I soon after had another most pro vidential escape : a large bough, concealed by the high grass, had been borne down by the wheel, and suddenly swung back with great force, knock ing off my hat, and just grazing my head. Had it struck my forehead, from its size, it would pro bably have been fatal. At six we halted under some bushes for the night. Saturday, 25th. — Unable to proceed before ten, the oxen having strayed to a considerable distance in quest of grass, that immediately around us hav ing been recently burnt. Throughout this wil derness many of the wild plants are exceedingly gay and beautiful to the eye, but few of them have any scent ; still, notwithstanding my frequent dis appointments, I have found myself almost me chanically plucking them as they occuned in the path. It was in consequence of one of these disappointments that the following lines were written : — THE DESERT FLOWER. Why is that beauteous flower neglected, So gaudily arrayed ? Why is it cast aside, rejected, To wither, and to fade ? Delighted, when I took it up, Its fragrance to enjoy ; I found no sweetness in its cup— 'Twas but a gay decoy. Why then so richly clad methought— So gorgeously attired ? It did not spread its flower for nought, Alone to be admired. l Ah ! no — an emblem here I trace Of what the world so prize ; A heart subdued — but not by grace — Conuption in disguise. Our boasted virtues oft expand Like this fah desert flower ; While we deny the bounteous hand That keeps us every hour. With Judas we may wett inquire, " What need for all this waste ?" The graces we so much admire, In selfishness are based. Such is morahty alone, A painted scentless thing ; Attractive — tfll by grace we're shown Whence real virtues spring. The whole of this district bordering tlie coast must formerly have abounded with palmyra trees, as the stumps, from five to twelve feet in height, are numerous ; but scarcely a single tree is now remaining, the natives having destroyed them either for fuel or for the pith of the branches ; which, together with that of tlie strelitza, still abundant, are said to have been frequently resort ed to by way of subsistence, when traversing these desolate regions. The palmetta, or low shrubby palniyra, grows every where in thick clumps ; usually about the stems of the decayed palmyra. Although the strelitza is commonly designated as the wild banana, it differs considerably from it in two remarkable particulars. The flags ofthe ba nana-leaf are pendulous, whereas these open up wards : the branches of the former spring from all sides of the trunk ; these only from opposite sides, forming a sort of fan as they spread upwards. At noon we crossed the Umthlanga, the fourth river from the Umzimcoolu, from whence the country became open, with fewer trees. Some granite rocks, of a reddish color, occuned on one point as we descended to the beach. The several THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 59 rivers which we are now passing are completely impeded in their course by a sandy bar, extending across their mouths ; which, durmg the summer months, when they are fuU, is frequently burst by the volume of water, and a smaU passage opened to the sea. At half-past five we crossed the bar of the Umbezan. It was on the left bank of this river that the settlers took up their first station when they abandoned Port Natal, in 1833 ; they remained here for about two months, and then returned to the right bank of the Umzimcoolu ; where the greater part continued for eight or nine months longer. This river winds prettily among wooded hills, and is a fine feature from the road. Soon after six we halted. In these tedious journeys, which can only be undertaken at 'a foot-pace, no time can be spared for much preparation in cooking ; the meat, to be eatable, requires hours. I therefore contented myself with ezinqua, (native bread) composed of Indian corn, baked in the wood-ashes, or gruel either of the same meal, or of lupoko. — There is, however, a very ready and ingenious way of cooking a chop, wett known among the natives, and often practised in these parts. Two or three sticks being pealed and pointed at both ends, the meat, cut into small pieces, is strung upon them as upon a skewer, they are then fixed in the ground, when a few dead boughs and branches kindled below soon do the needful. I have often envied my party this hearty meal, but have never yet succeeded in my endeavor to re duce the leathery substance to any digestible di mensions. Sunday, 26th. " Lord, is it I?"— (Matthew xxvi. 22.) While still in this cold world we dwell, By sin beset, by self aUured ; While oft our stubborn hearts rebel, 'Tis wett to have our faith assured ; And oft repeat that earnest cry, Lord, tell me — tell me, is it I ? How oft our actions seem to say, We're stiU our own — no price was paid : Who is the Lord we should obey ? And he who bought us is betrayed ! Not Judas only — all may cry, Lord, tell me — tell me, is it II The more a Saviour's love we feel, The deeper anguish we shall share ; And pray that grace may yet reveal, The hidden sin that's lurking there : E'en he on Jesus' breast could cry, Lord, tell me — tell me, is it I ? The careless walk, the heartless prayer, The cherished wish for earthly gain, As much the traitor's heart declare, And prove that we the cross disdain : As though we could our Lord deny, And ask, in mahee — is it I ? Lord ! keep this treacherous heart of mine — Alas ! too prone from Thee to stray ; No strength have I — but grant me thine, Direct and lead me in the way : And should I e'er thy name deny, Conviction strike with — "It is I." And while a Peter's grief I feel, Thy pardon and thy love reveal. Rain nearly all the morning ; when it cleared up, held the Enghsh and Kafir services. Monday, 27th. — Set out at eight. On reaching the beach, observed several rocks containing great quantities of marine shells — chiefly of the muscle kind. On Saturday morning we met a party of natives from the Umzimvoobo — theh idea of Eng hsh warfare was curious; being questioned re specting the news from Kafir-land, they informed us that the Enghsh army had driven the Amakosa from the open country ; but that they had taken refuge in the woods, and the troops were only waiting until the weather was warmer to beat them out. To-day, we met another party from the same neighborhood ; who, in Teply to my ques tion, where the Amakosa were, said " they were stopping where they had always been :" so little reliance can be placed upon the reports of these people. After crossing the bars of three rivers, the tide just washing over the crest of the last as we passed, we proceeded along the beach, under a wall of singularly caverned rocks on the right. We were but just in time ; the spring-tides had raised the water in many parts to the very foot of the rocks, rendering the passage somewhat diffi cult. It is generally supposed that the survivors from the wreck of the Grosvenor East Indiaman, which was lost near this spot, found a temporary shelter in these comfortless caverns ; — a supposi tion which is not improbable, fi-om the chcum stance of their being still designated by the natives as the " White men's houses." Notwithstanding the wind and rain, which had continued for some time, we were unable to find any place of shelter until after six — when we turned into a small open ing from the beach, formed by a stream ; and after much trouble succeeded in kindling a fire in front of a clump of low bushes, into which, with the aid of an axe, we had hewn out a sort of den for our reception. The shelter, however, was merely imaginary ; for, notwithstanding the canvas which was duly spread over the boughs, the dripping from above was almost worse than the actual rain, and contributed its quota to moisten our clothes and bedding — already sufficiently wet. WhUe the fire, which in other circumstances would have proved an essential comfort, became my greatest annoyance ; the violence of the wind driving the smoke fuU into my face, filling every crevice of our arbor, and almost depriving me of sight. All this was happily disregarded by the natives — who, al most grilling themselves by the embers, slept soundly through the night. In these respects they are perfect salamanders — not unfrequently arranging the burning faggots with their feet. — With the same unconcern they will dip their hands into the cooking-vessels, and deliberately feed themselves with the Indian corn while it is still boiling in the water; occasionaUy shifting the grain from one hand to the other for a few se conds, and then tossing it into their mouths. — With this simple fare they are quite satisfied, and wfll undertake the longest journeys : indeed our own condition was but little better, the meat, 60 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. which I had only tasted once, being now consum ed. But this evening we were most unexpectedly provided with an excellent supper. My servant, Umpondombeeni, who was in advance on the beach, had observed a large bird (I conclude an albatros) rising from the surf with a fish in his bill, which he soon dropped on the sand, and com menced eating ; on his approach, it made an effort to convey it away ; rose with it, but soon dropped it again, and flew off. I need not say that it was soon conveyed to our bush ; and, being about the size of a salmon, and of good flavor, furnished us with a sumptuous meal. Cleared up about mid night. Tuesday, 28ih. — Started soon after seven, and crossed the Am&ne-neama (black-water,) which was still running out, and in one part nearly out of the oxen's depth. The descent to the Umten- do, which we reached at a quarter-past eleven, is considered as the most difficult part of the road from the colony to Port Natal ; not from the ac tual declivity, but from the number of large frre- gular rocks, which literally strew the bank. The whole scenery in this neighborhood has a rugged appearance, and abounds with picturesque fea tures, to which the winding of the river greatly contributes. Some of the cliffs are luxuriantly clothed — while others, rising abruptly in banen piles and exhibiting a reddish tint, form a striking contrast. My contemplations of this scene were soon disturbed by a dilemma, which might have occasioned considerable difficulty. The unfortu nate cart which had been graduaUy jolting its way down from rock to rock, was suddenly caught by a projecting angle, and twice completely reversed as it rotted down the bank. The boxes were dis engaged by the violence of the fall ; wliich hap pily was checked by the stem of a tree, or the whole would probably have been broken to pieces and precipitated into the river. Happily, nothing of any material consequence was injured ; and in the course of an hour every thing was again in its place, and we were outspanned near a stream of good water on the opposite side. Although the advantage over a wagon is greatly in our favor as regards speed, the weights were necessarily placed too high in our present vehicle for stability ; so that the probabilities of an overturn, especially when dragging one of the wheels, as in the pre sent instance, is considerably increased. . The oxen having strayed, we were unable to proceed before half-past three ; when, coming soon after to a rocky stream, I resumed my seat, hoping to have passed dryshod — in this, however, I was disappointed. The ledge in one part is very nanow — the water middle-deep on both sides ; just as we came to the most critical spot the oxen bore too much to the left, and again overset the cart into the water, giving me a cold bath — for which I was by no means prepared, the day being far from warm. I was alone on the cart, and most providentially escaped without even a bruise ; although it was completely reversed, and feU close to me. Not only was I thoroughly soaked, but every article in my box was dripping wet, — not a dry thread had any of us to put on. It was now the employment of att hands to right the vehicle ; which was at length effected, and drawn out bv the oxen, without a fracture. No thing remained but to make the best of our mis fortune ; a most inviting glen was near — and thi ther in less than half an hour fires were blazing, and many of the wet things spread around them to dry. The situation of our rock-habitation was one of no common character — a secluded glen, tufted with trees and overhung by a rocky preci pice, with a pretty cascade fatting from an oppo site cliff. The stream which occupies this ravine faUs again in its passage to the sea over a ledge of rocks, just below the spot where the accident oc cuned. Wet as I was, I could not resist drying some paper, and making a hasty sketch of our bivouac* before the sun became too low. Wednesday, 29ih. — As the wagon-road from the Umsicaba strikes more inland, leading to no inha bitants until within a few mfles of the Umzim voobo, I took my leave of it this morning ; and, with my interpreter and two of the people, re solved to foUow the footpath nearer the sea, wliich passes through a vfllage, at about a day's jour ney from hence. At a quarter-past eight we commenced our walk, and soon after ten crossed the bar of the Umsicaba, which was running out by a very nanow channel. Although navigation is impeded by the banks which form across the mouths of by far the greater number of rivers which discharge themselves upon this coast, it ap pears to be wisely ordained for the purpose of irrigating the interior ; or, otherwise, during the winter or dry season, many of them would become mere brooks, while others would entirely cease to flow. Occasions have occuned when they have been let out by cutting a channel through the bar — somtimes to obtain a wagon passage higher up ; and in one or two instances in order to snoot the hippopotami in the bed : on these occasions the stream has been rapidly drained, and in a few hours become very shallow. The country through which we were now passing is very open and rocky. Rested for half an hour on the bank of a rocky stream, and shared with the people half a loaf of eziuqua — the only remaining provisions we had with us. As we approached the village the appearance of the country was greatly improved — abrupt hills appeared before us, clothed to theh summit with large trees, while many beautiful ravines opened to our right. Skhting one of these roads we reached Umnooka's, a village al most sunounded with trees, at twenty minutes past five — having walked about twenty-six miles. The people are poor, aud the huts miserable (only six in number ;) still it was the abode of man — and chcumstanced as we were a cheering sight. On entering my hut, I was rather discomposed at discovering in one comer a flourishing colony of young puppies ; but not thinking it quite civil un ceremoniously to eject them, I inquired of Um- nooka whether they were to remain there al! night; his reply, "they were bom there," was stiU more unsatisfactory, and pleaded so strongly in their behalf, that I thought I could not do less than tolerate my troublesome companions. Some boiled sweet potatoes was all I could procure that was eatable — every other attempt to satisfy my hunger only increased my discomfort. A bowl, black with the embers, was indeed placed in my * This spot has been named Rock-refuge. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 6i hands in the dark, containing Kafir-corn gruel ; but the grain having been taken from the usual deposit under the cattle-fold, was too acid to be palatable j and on putting it down to rekindle the fire, for tlje benefit of the light it might emit, the whole contents fi-om the unevenness of the floor were instantly transfened to my mat and bedding. I should not have been so minute, but to show how often in this country anticipations of comfort are purely imaginative. Thursday, 30th. — Set out at seven — fine forest 6cenery — Crossed the Umzimclambu at half-past ten — having approached it through a wood of very handsome trees, chiefly umzani, and what are known in the colony by the name of sneeze and iron-wood ; many of these have grown to a great height, and are very straight. Stopped at a vil lage for a quarter of an hour, and procured some very indifferent amas, for which however a bazeUa (present.) was asked. Having been so long ac customed to the close-shorn heads of the Zoolus, the ochred mobs of these women, and the nest like perruques of the men, formed a striking con trast, and at first quite attracted my notice. At half-past seven stopped for an hour at another small village, called Amaboya, inhabited chiefly by Kali, from Port Natal ; the difference was striking — here no bazeUa was asked, although we were supplied both with amas and outchualla, as also a few sweet potatoes; and the Numzana walked with us some distance to point out the road. Traversing another road, we crossed the Urn- tafoofe, and soon after reached one of Mr. Fynn's viUages, where I accepted a horse, kindly offered me by his brother, and, procuring two additional baggage-bearers, again set forward. Being too late to reach the ford on the Umzimboovo, we stopped at a quarter to six at a village on the road, where huts were provided and the people very civil. The Amaponda houses, though by no means so neat, are generaUy larger than those of the Zoolus, and being daubed in the inside are much warmer ; but their chief advantage is in the height of the doorway, through which it is only necessary to stoop low, but never actually to crawl. Our route this day was through a very broken country, affording some fine views ofthe sea com bined with forest scenery. The foliage of many of the largest trees is of a deep glossy green, which is beautifully relieved by the light color of the stems and branches. On approaching the Umzimboovo, the country becomes more popu lous ; and the path, which is carried over the hflls which margin its course, affords at every turn some splendid views of its frequent windings among steep and rugged mountains. Friday, 31st. — Commenced our journey at seven. Soon after crossed the river, and at a quarter-past ten reached a hut, at present occu pied by Mr. Fynn, about a mile from Faku's Great Place ; where we remained a short time to breakfast. On reaching the Gomkolu (Great Place,) Faku was observed sitting in the open air, surrounded by thirteen or fourteen cf his people. At first he did not recognise me, but soon inquired if I were not Uufundees (teacher,) who had passed through some time before. On hearing that I was now On my way to the colony, and in tended remaining a few days at the missionary- station, he said 'that he should come over and pay me a visit. He had been in ill health for some time, and was stfll suffering from inflammation in the eyes, which had altered his appearance so much, that I should scarcely have known him again. Taking my leave, I left my interpreter to follow, and pushed on to Bunting, nine mfles be yond, where I anived at one, much to the sur prise of Mr. and Mrs. Tainton, who received me with great hospitality, Mr. Satchell, it appeared, had left the station, and proceeded to the colony, in company with the missionary families, from Morley and Clarkebery, some months previously — a recommendation for their return having been received from the governor, and an escort des patched to Clarkebery, where they had assembled for the purpose. Mr. Tainton, the assistant, was likewise preparing to accompauy them with his family ; but on the day following the notification of the despatch, Fako, with a large assembly of people, visited the station, for the express purpose, as it appeared, of inducing Mr. Tainton to remain. His usual salutation of offering the hand was now refused ; and observing the wagons packed for the journey, he significantly asked, " What are those things I see in the wagons ? Why are you going to leave me ? Am I an enemy ?" On being sa tisfied on these points, he cordially gave him his hand, saying, " You must not leave me — I must have some person to speak for me." Faku then appealed to the people, many of whom came for ward and implored them to stay, saying, that ever since they had been among them they had lived in friendship — they had never injured them, nor taken theh cattle — why then should they now leave them at the very time when they might be brought into difficulties by an army of their own countrymen 1 A proposal was then made, that their cattle should remain in the country as a pledge for theh return. This, however, was not satisfactory ; and, finding that it was the unani mous wish of both chiefs and people that they should not proceed, Mr. and Mrs. Tainton at length resolved to remain : and I cannot but re gard it as a very providential circumstance that they were endued with strength of mind and Christian courage to maintain their post, as no thing has contributed more to the restoration of confidence among the natives, and the continuance of the high estimation in which the members of this missionary institution have generally been re garded. Saturday, August 1st. — From information which has recently transpired, it appears that for some time previous to the breaking out of the Kafir war, overtures had been made to Fako, by Hinza, for assistance, accompanied by a present, which was not accepted ; and in return a bull was sent to Hinza, in the usual syinboUcal style, well under stood in those countries, implying a consciousness of power and an independence of action. The following less enigmatical message is also said to have accompanied the animal : — " When attacked by Charka, you refused to assist me — how then can you now expect that I should assist you ?" Faku has evinced throughout the most friendly disposition ; and when Mr. Satchell quited the 62 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. station he sent by him an elephant's tooth, to be presented to his exceUency, in order to assure him that he only detained Mr. Tainton from a friendly motive. There is every reason to believe that the continuance of the missionary, both at Morley and Clarkebury, would have been very beneficial ; not merely in preventing depredations, but in aUaying the wounded feehngs of many of the chiefs who have been falsely accused of dupU- city, and a secret intention to assist the Amakosa. For some time, even Fako himself was represent ed as unfriendly to the Enghsh ; and there is every reason to beheve, that had not Mr. Tainton re mained, and Mr. Fynn* anived, he would have removed to the opposite of the Umzimvoobo under the apprehension that he was considered as an accomphce, and should share the fate of the hostile Amakosa. It had indeed been his intention, prior to these troubles, to have spread his people more in that direction ; but this plan has for the present been suspended, lest it should be supposed that he was thereby making room for the fugitive Amakosa, and at the same time preparing an asylum for himself, in the event of any open rupture with the colony. In the month of May last, an instance occuned which at once shows the readiness of Fako to ob lige the English. A party of Chungi's people, belonging to Hinza's tribe, had crossed the Um- tata, and were advancing on the immediate line of his frontier. On the first rumor of theh pro ceedings, he assembled his army ; and, on the 16th, placing himself at their head, advanced as far as Bunting, on his way to the frontier. Scarcely had he appeared, when despatches from his exceUency, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, arrived, informing him of the submission of Hanza's tribe ; and requesting him to lay down his shield tiU further orders. Faku immediately signified his intention, in these words : — " We came out according to the Great Man's word, and by bis word we will return." And in the course of a very few hours the whole body, amounting to about eight thousand men, dispersed, and quietly returned to theh homes. About three weeks ago, a party of Amaponda moved in the same dhection — but chiefly, as I un derstand, to chastise an old enemy, Umyaki. No tice had previously been sent to apprise Verdana, chief of the Amatembu, of their design, and to point out the route they should take; notwith standing which, a party of the Amaponda force missed their way, and traversed a portion of the Amatembu country, where no intimation had been received of their approach, and some skirmishing in consequence took place. Faku's people show ed great forbearance, warning them not to ap proach ; and telling theh opponents, who even tually ran away, that they had received strict orders not to make any holes in theh shields. This circumstance, added to a clandestine attack by some of Mr. Fynn's people, unknown to him, greatly irritated the Amatembu, insomuch that aU intercourse was for some time suspended. In * He was sent by his excellency Sir Benjamin D'Urban to assure the Amaponda chief of his friend ship, and to request he would prevent the Amakosa from entering his territory. my situation this state of things is particularly un fortunate ; as it is bypassing through the coimtry of the Amatembu, who are stfll said to be friendly to the English, that I hope to make my way to the camp near the Kei river. 1 am not, however, with out the hope of procuring guides to conduct me by that route. Sunday, 2nd. "Follow thou me."— (John xxi. 22.) Hear, my soul ! thy Saviour say, " Follow me " — my footsteps trace ; Iwitt guide thee in the way, Support thee by my power and grace There 's not a vale with tears bedewed, Nor rugged path but I have trod ; Thy fiercest foes I have subdued, And will support thee with my rod. Lean on my strength, and be secure, Nor trust thy erring sight ; Though other paths may sense allure, This one alone is right. My ways are ways of pleasantness, And all my paths are peace ; They lead to realms of light and bliss, Where joys shall never cease. Regard not then thy wordly stuff, — Be witting att to leave ; In me the poorest have enough, Who on my name beheve. Lord ! help me to obey thy call, The cloud and pfllar show ; Incline my heart to yield Thee all — No other will to know. So shall my path from snares be free , And when on Jordan's bank I stand, My soul shall stfll hold fast on Thee, And thou wilt bear me safe to land. Conducted the Kafir services, morning and even ing, at Mr. Tainton's request ; the congregation was considerably reduced, as many of the natives had accompanied Mr. SatcheU. Monday, 3rd. — Mr. Tainton related a pleasing anecdote of Fako, which indicates at once the kindness of his disposition. A man having been sentenced to forfeit a cow for having stolen an as segai, Fako immediately inquhed whether the cow gave milk, and if he had other cattle ; being in formed that he had only this one cow which sup plied his famfly, he gave orders that it should be returned for the support of his children until the milk failed, when the fine was to be exacted. Having succeeded in procuring guides through the Amatembu country, I purpose setting out to morrow ; and this morning rode to the Gumkolu (Great Place) in order to take my leave of Faku. As usual, he was stretched at full length on the ground, surrounded by several of his great men, sitting or lying near him. Being informed of my intentions, and asked if he had any message to the Great Chief of the Abalflngu (white neoole — liter- THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 63 ally people who do right ;) he dictated the foUowing, which I wrote from his mouth : — " When the army advances, I wish that a messenger may be sent on to Ferdana's to inform rae of their approach, in order that I may go out and meet them with my people. We are of one house with the AbalQngus. Your children are dying with the sun — we have no milk ; and wish to have cattle, as we have not had any since Charka took them from us." After finishing this important epistle, Faku went to his hut and brought a basket of beer ; of which accord ing to the custom of the country, he first partook, and then handed to me. By several of the party some ludicrous remarks were made upon my horse, which was standing near ; and one man observed — " How much better it would look if it had horns like an eland!" They have no horses among them ; nor do they evince any desire to obtain them. The whole disposable force which Fako could bring into the field is, I understand, from twelve to fifteen thousand; though, on ordinary occasions, he seldom orders out more than seven or eight thousand. Fako is at all times a man of few words ; but when speaking to-day on the subject of income (cattle,) at all times the most interesting to a na tive, he became quite animated. On my return to Bunting, I found that the cart had arrived, having had another upset on the day we left it. My ser vant, Umpondombeeni, was all admiration at the novelties of this station. He was greatly amused at the pigs, having only once seen one before ; but the glass in the window-sashes excited his great est surprise, and it was some time before he could convince himself that there was any thing to pre vent his hand from passing through. Tuesday, ith. — Took leave of Mr. and Mrs. Tainton, who kindly supplied me with provisions for the way. Started at about ten, writh three men from the station canying my baggage — my interpreter and myself being mounted upon two miserable, sore-backed horses, which had been purchased by Mr. Fynn for government use. We were soon out of the inhabited part of Fakfl's territory; but it is still as mountainous, and at this season was completely dried up, with scarcely a tree to be seen for mfles. In the neighborhood of Umtagaichi and Umdoombi rivers, which crossed our route, we passed the sites of several vfllages formerly belonging to Umyaki — he was driven hence by Faku about eighteen months ago, since which period he has been living with his whole tribe much nearer to the coast. The cause of his expulsion was in revenge for an attempt to bewitch, as it is termed, the cattle of Fako. Umyaki had despatched two men to Fako, for the alleged purpose of procuring beads, but they were at the same time accompanied by an Egeerha, or bewitcher, who brought away some of the manure from the cattle-fold at the Great Place, with an intention on his reaching home to procure by this means the infliction of some fatal disease upon the cattle of Faku. From the chief downward, it is quite distressing to observe how all succumb to this subtle artifice of the powers of darkness, which has not only reduced the whole nation to a species of mental bondage, but has probably occa sioned more blood to flow than any of the nu merous feuds that have been known to exist. 57—3 My watch having within these few days be come unserviceable, I am now obliged to calcu late in the native manner, by observing the posi tion of the sun, and by this reckoning I consider that we reached' the Umtata about a quarter-past six. The bed of this river is strewed with de tached slabs of rock ; and as it was nearly dusk when we crossed, my horse, losing his footing, fell, and ejected me up to my knees m the stream. We had now entered the Amatembu country, and were not long in discovering, at a distance, some straggling houses ; but it was almost too dark to distinguish them among the bushes. At this time we were threading a low jungle by a winding path, dhected only by one lad, who had out-walk ed the other guides, when suddenly we were sur rounded by several men, approaching from differ ent directions, and att well armed with assegais. The guide, alarmed at their appearance, ran off and concealed himself behind one of the bushes ; while, conscious of the danger, I immediately reined up, in order to answer their inquiries as to who we were — where we came from — where we were going — where Tpai was — what Faku was about — and many other similar questions. Being somewhat satisfied with my replies, they acknow ledged that they had taken us for spies. On be ing told that I was a teacher, one of them ob served that I should tell the people to be stfll, and not to be always making war. We were then allowed to proceed without further detention ; but there is not the slightest doubt that they would have commenced throwing their assegais had not I pulled up at the moment they accosted us. We soon reached the spot where a chief named Cosi- ana formerly lived ; but being too dark to search for Iris new abode on the other side of the moun tain, and, moreover, hearing that he was absent, we returned to a Fingo hut, which we had passed near the road — a wretched, dirty hovel, but where we were hospitably received. It was here we first heard the fate of the two men who had been sent from Bunting with letters for the camp, about a month ago. By an account brought through a Fingo, they are said to have been murdered by a party of Chungi's people on theh way, and not far from the ford on the Kei river. Wednesday, 5th. — Wishing to travel light, in order to reach Ferdana's Great Place in good time this evening, I left the greater part of the' baggage in charge of the guides, directing them to proceed with it to a chief named Kabi, about half the distance, and remain there until they heard from me. We proceeded about half-past seven, the road passing over elevated downs ; the country less broken ; in many parts rocky, and generally des titute of trees. Stopped about eleven, and pro cured a httle amas, but not until all theh ques tions had been satisfied. So suspicious are these people, probably from habit, being continually em broiled with their neighbors, that in no instance could we obtain the commonest information re specting the road, until the usual string of ques tions had been duly put and replied to. The wo men evinced so much alarm at our appearance, that, on perceiving us at a distance, they would hasten along in another direction ; and if, as it sometimes happened, we surprised them, while 64 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. procuring water from the streams, they would in stantly leave theh calabashes and bowls, and make hastily off.' Passed through several very large flights of locusts, which appeared to be commit ting great ravages among the little grass that re mained. Crossed the Bashee, another very rocky river, at about four ; and in half an hour more reached Ferdana's village — a collection of miser able looking huts (twelve in number,) dotted about without any appearance of regularity. Neither these, nor the Amaponda towns, have any exterior fences ; the cattle-folds are smaU, and not always in the centre ; and the houses, both within and without, are sadly defective in point of cleanliness. They have, however, the advantage of an interior skreen about the door-way ; which prevents the wind from driving the smoke about, and contri butes to make them warm, though at the expense of light. Here, again, we were suspected. Fer- dana, I was told, was on a hunting expedition, in which he had taken all his horses for the pursuit of elands. The sun had long set behind the hills before the usual catechising had ended; and, seated upon my saddle in front of Ferdana's hut, I patiently awaited its termination. Not a house was offered, nor food of any kind given. At first they proposed that I should go on to the mission ary station, not far distant; and afterwards to another vfllage. Suspecting that they were (as is not unfrequently the case with the people) de ceiving me as to the movements of their chief, I told them that I had come to see Ferdana ; and that as this was his place, it was not my intention to go further ; adding, that hitherto I had always understood they were hospitable to strangers. After waiting some httle time longer, a woman of the party observed, that the Incosi-case ought to be spoken to about furnishing a hut. In our situ ation a hint of this kind was not to be lost : my interpreter accordingly went on this errand ; and we were shortly after received into a hut belong ing to the widow of the late chief Gubinu, or Vosani, as he is frequently catted. Baadi (the Incosi-case) was his mother ; and it is her grand son, still a minor under the guardianship of Fer dana, who wfll eventually succeed to the govern ment. The hut in which we were now lodged was sufficiently capacious, but filthy in the ex treme ; and by the occasional flickering of the fire, when the smoke had sufficiently dispersed, I perceived the good woman who had long been preparing a mess of tripe, first stining it about with her hand, and then portioning it out in the same unceremonious manner to the company, in cluding a tribe of hungry children, with two or three men who dropped in at this critical time, and employed their assegais to divide the toughest parts. Notwithstanding my various companions, I was sufficiently thed to sleep comfortably upon a floor, which, for the pecuttar unevenness of its surface, might have served for a model of the ma ritime Alps. Thursday, 6th.— So dim was the fire, and so dense the smoke, that it was not until day-light had thoroughly penetrated the crevices of our abode, that I was fuUy aware of the different or ders of mammalia that it contained. Besides our selves, the two women and five chUdren, there were no less than nine calves, and one or two dogs ! Although messengers have been sent to apprise Ferdana of my arrival, it is quite uncer tain where he may be found ; and as I have no great inclination to renew my acquaintance with the calves, I considered it desirable, if possible, to find an asylum in some of the missionary build ings at Clarkebury, about two mfles and a half distant. The horses were accordingly saddled, and we soon reached the mission-house, which had been abandoned about three months. It had, indeed, a most desolate appearance : with the ex ception of one girl, who had formerly attended on Mrs. Davis, all the natives belonging to the sta tion had left with the missionary family. A few of the neighboring huts, however, were occupied by some people sent by Ferdana to take charge of the property. This trust they had faithfully performed: thom-bushes were placed under all the windows to prevent theh being opened, and we found every thing perfectly secure. Circum stanced as I was, there was no alternative but to draw the nail which secured a window from with out, and enter by that means ; no person having been entrusted with any of the keys, which I conclude were taken away. Here, to my great rehef, two sacks of Kafir corn were found ; several utensils for cooking ; and a few chickens. Had it been otherwise we should have fared but poorly , milk was not to be procured among the natives ; and their corn, from having been kept under ground, had now acquired so unpleasant a flavor, that the cravings of hunger alone would have in duced me to eat it : no other could be procured from them at this season of the year, even had I the means of purchasing, which was not the case. It was exceedingly painful to me to be thus under the necessity of breaking open the mission- house ; but I felt convinced that, had its inmates been here, they would gladly have afforded me every comfort in theh power. My principal re gret is to find it untenanted ; and the work of Christian instruction suspended. Our neighbors are by no means ceremonious : while quietly writing this morning, a man introduced himself at the window, — which, by the by, was the only en trance at that time, — with an assegai in his hand. UntU the return of my interpreter, I thought it better to take no notice of him ; when he intro duced himself as chief of the party placed in charge of the mission premises. He had come, he said, to hear the news, having been absent when I ar rived ; and was only just returned from a nightly excursion, in order if possible to trace the foot prints of enemies up the river. Tpai's people on one side, and the Amamas (a revolted tribe of Amatembu) on the other, who are perpetuatty stealing theh cattle, keep them in a constant state of alarm ; insomuch that all the herds are with drawn to a considerable distance from the fron tier ; and the miserable inhabitants of those dis tricts are never secure for a day. On the dechne of the moon (now full,) it is said that Tpai medi tates another attack, which keeps them on the alert. That Ferdana should absent himself, under such circumstances, appears to me incomprehen sible, unless his hunting excursion should prove but another name for a marauding expedition, which is far more probable, particularly as he was THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 65 not long since attacked by a mounted party of Abasootu, in the direction he is now said to have taken. In this affair he had decidedly the advan tage, kitting several of the assailants, and captur ing ten of their horses. I am, notwithstanding, inchned to suspect that he is still here concealed among his people. SOLITUDE SWEETENED. And is this solitude — to be alone ? No heart to soothe — no face to cheer ! Is there not One to whom we're known, Though yet unseen, stiU always near? Ah, yes — a Friend the Christian knows, Who foUows him where'er he goes ! Dear Lord ! thy people can attest Thou art a precious Friend indeed ! Possessing Thee, they must be blessed ; For thou canst give them all they need ! Sweet solace of my loneliest hour, Quicken my heart to feel thy power. With such a Friend for ever nigh, Bereft we cannot — dare not feel ! Jesus wfll eveiy loss supply, And all His wonted love reveal. Let me but feel that Thou art near, And sohtude wfll then be dear ! Saturday, 8th. — Having understood from Gogu, the petty chief in charge of the station, that in the absence of Ferdana, the Incosi-case frequently is sued orders under the direction of the Amapakati (counciUors,) I walked over to the vfllage this morn ing in the hope at least of forwarding a letter to the English camp. She informed me that the messen gers despatched for Ferdana had returned last night, without having discovered any trace of his route ; and, as the councillors were all with him, nothing could in consequence be done ; that the people were unwilling to venture theh lives among the Amakosa, who were lurking about in smaU parties to cut off all intercourse from this quarter. On inquiring whether she would give her sanction, should I find a person witting to go, she assented, saying, that probably I might procure one, but she was quite certain no one would go for her. As Gugu had previously assured me, that a native acquainted with the country might proceed with out much difficulty, I now thought there was some prospect of succeeding, and immediately re turned to consult with him. Not one of them, however, could be induced to move in the matter, notwithstanding a tempting offer of cattle was made. They had no idea of volunteering in this service — if ordered by their chief, they said, they must go, but without such a command they would not undertake it. Had not Gogu represented the undertaking as one of no great hazard in the way that they would manage it, I should not have urged the point, making it a rule never to require of others what I would not, if necessary, undertake myself. To attempt without guides my original plan, of riding through during the night, would have been madness, especially as it required ex cellent horses, and ours were none of the fleetest. Could fresh horses have been procured here, with a mounted guide, it was my intention to have made the attempt ; but the reported absence of Ferdana, and the decided disinclination to forward my wishes on the part of all here, obliged me to give up the plan. My next and only resort was to procure guides to escort me through the mountain passes to the westward, in which direction it would be only needful to traverse a very small tract of coun try, recently occupied by a part of Hinza's tribe, and by which route I should probably reach the colonial frontier in the course of a very few days. This, however, was also dechned ; and thus foiled in all my plans for pushing forward, but two courses seemed to offer— either to wait here an indefinite time for Ferdana, or to return to Bunting, with the hope of inducing Fako to furnish me with a sufficient force to make my way through the hostile tribes. On many accounts the latter appeared to be the most judicious ; and I accordingly resolved to commence my return early on Monday morning. The wind from south-west to east has been very high for these three days past, and the weather quite cold, with a sharp frost whitening the ground every morning. The soil, which is clay, and ge neraUy bare of trees, may contribute to lower the temperature ; at present every thing is so dried up, that scarcely any grass is remaining. This part of the Gountry, notwithstanding its present arid appearance, is very populous, several vfllages being visible from the windows of the mission- house. In no other respect does it appear an eligible spot for such an establishment, particularly as the water is not convenient ; that procured from the neighboring wett being frequently much discolor ed after rain. Sunday, 9th. " Be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord." — (Psalm xxxi. 24.) Hence ye faithless fears away — Is not Jesus strong to aid ? He wiU be thy shield and stay, All thy cares on Him be laid. Has He not in love declared, "As thy day thy strength shaU be ?" Grace sufficient is prepared For all who to His succour flee. Ah, yes, dear Lord ! though aU should fail, To Thee my helpless soul would cleave ; Thy promises shall still prevail — Thy people Thou wilt never leave ! Held in the hollow of Thine hand, How oft the shafts of death have sped; Thou canst my fiercest foe withstand, And shelter my defenceless head ! Thou art my hope — whate'er betide My breath, my substance — att is Thine • Let but Thy name be glorified, And Ufe itself I could resign. Oh ! if Thy presence go before, Then every path is smooth and plain ; And though it lead to Jordan's shore, 'Twill end in everlasting gain ! 66 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. What rapture then to join that band, Through fires of tribulation brought ! For ever round the throne to stand, Adoring Him our ransom bought.' No natives could be collected in the morning, but in the afternoon a few attended the_K afir ser vice in the mission-house. Monday, \0ik. — In this weak and suspicious country, I thought it prudent to advise the good people at the Gomkola of my intended return, and accordingly rode round by their huts, but either by design or otherwise the IncOsi-case was not forthcoming. After a little demur, Cheecha, an old man (reported to be a councillor) came up, and to him I dehvered a message to Ferdana, with a request that on his return he would either furnish me with a mounted guide to the Kei, or forward a letter to the English camp on the other side. The message he said should be delivered ; but he was quite sure that Ferdana would do neither the one nor the other, as he was daily expecting an attack from the people of Chungi ; the Amamaias, who are in league with them, captured two herds of cattle but the day before. They appear never to have forgiven the loss of some cattle taken from them by the Machattas (the Amatembu tribe among whom we now are,) as the escort were conveying the missionaries from Clarkebury across their ter ritory, about three months since ; and it is no doubt in order to avenge this loss that they are now combining against them. As an evidence of the insincerity of these people, no less than seventeen or eighteen horses were observed near Ferdana's cattle-place, on the banks of the Bashee, as we passed ; which at once con firmed my opinion that the whole of his absence was a deceit. On reaching Kabi's to my great disappointment, I found that the guides had return ed home the day before. It had been my endeavor while at Clarkebury, to communicate with them, being desirous that tbey should join me there ; but notwithstanding all my efforts, with the promise of beads, no person could be induced to undertake this errand. To procure a guide on the route was out of the question ; for so uncivil were they at every village we passed, that nothing, not even a drop of milk could be procured. On leaving the inhabited district, I had no other resource than to direct my Course by the sun. After a tedious ride, partly in the dark, we reached the Umtata, and rested on the bank for the night ; but, al though the cold was severe, I was unwilling to in dulge in a fire, lest it might attract notice and bring down an armed party to disturb our repose. For some time I endeavored to sleep ; but at length, almost benumbed, determined at att risks to kindle a blaze. Observing a deep fissure where the flame might be sufficiently concealed, we repahed thither ; but, although a tolerable fire was kept up throughout the remainder of the night, it was but httle sleep that I could obtain, the air being keen and the ground covered with frost. Tuesday, IM.— Finding that I had made the river at a point considerably higher than the usual ford, I this morning shaped a most easterly course ; the whole country to the Umgazi being a com plete wilderness without an inhabitant. A small bundle of Kafir-corn brought fromClafkebury, with the expectation of having it ground and boiled on the road, was now, for want of this necessary pre paration, given to the jaded horses ; one of whom was so thoroughly knocked up, that in order to urge him on at all it became necessary to secure the bridle to my saddle and HteraUy take it in tow, my interpreter occasionaUy dismounting and Hog ging it on. The locusts were so numerous in some parts of our journey this day, that the ground could scarcely be seen, and numbers were crush ed under the horses' feet. They are smaUer than those generally seen in the Zoolu country, and have not the pink color on the wing. Delayed by our sorry beasts, we did not reach Bunting till after sunset ; and although much disappointed at the necessity of retracing my steps, I felt thankful at having again reached such comfortable quarters, especiaUy as we had tasted nothing since eight o'clock on the previous morning, when we had breakfasted on Kafir-corn gruel. It was a provi dential circumstance that I did not partake of the Kafir-corn in its raw state, as I had more than once intended in the course of this day's ride ; having since learned tbat in att probability it would have been fatal, as it has the property of sweUing, and even when not sufficiently boiled, is very pre judicial : many instances, I am told, have occurred when natives, exhausted by hunger on their war like expeditions, have died in a few hours after eat ing a quantity of it improperly cooked. Found the station in much concern respecting the melancholy tidings brought by tbe guides who arrived last night. Both of the messengers who had been killed on theh way to the camp were much re spected ; and one of them, David, is said to have been under deep religious impressions. Their wives and families were in great grief. Previous to starting, David had imprudently bonowed the panther-skin ingoobo (cloak) which had been given to the last messenger on his reaching the British head-quarters : and it is said that this was recog nised by a party of Amakosa as having formerly belonged to one of their chiefs, killed by the Eng lish, and led to theh discovery and consequent murder. My own guides, it appeared, had not been very handsomely treated ; their lives had been more than once threatened while remaining at Kabi's viUage ; and as they bad heard nothing from me for three days, they said they concluded I had proceeded to the Kei, and were glad to leave a country where they had all along been taken for spies. Saturday, 15th. — With the hope of obtaining some information respecting a route which I might be necessitated to take across the Qnathlamba mountains, towards the north-eastern frontier of the colony, I crossed the Umzimvoobo on Thursday, to Mr. Fynn's viUage, about twenty-six miles dis tant from hence, and returned last night. . The remains of that immense and extirpating horde, led on by the celebrated Matuana ; — and who, from theh unsparing ferocity, have obtained the name of Fitcani (destroyers) — are still to be found in almost every district of this part of the continent — their battle-ground having extended quite across to the very embouchure of the Orange river. It was from some of these people that I was anxious to obtain an account ofthe country to the westward, and a promise of assistance, should I atter»pt the THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 67 mountains in that dhection. All agreed in the opinion that it would be impracticable, as the ridges were so unbroken and perpendicular, that even a footpath could not be effected without making many tedious circuits ; during the course of which their companions had been frequently lost, and many perished from extreme cold on gaining the summit. Sunday, 16th. " Do this in remembrance of me." — (Luke xxii. 19.) What a hateful thing is sin ! How it steals the heart away ; Though subdued — it leaves within A poison, death alone can stay ; It dims the eye of faith, and chills The love that oft our bosom fills. Could we otherwise refrain From weeping when he heard Him say; — " Remember me who once was slain To wash your guflty stains away." Should we so oft mementos need To think of such a Friend indeed. What is all our love compared To that which Jesus has bestowed ? In aU our sorrows he has shared, For us his precious blood has flowed ! Can we behold that wond'rous sight And not our thankless bosoms smite ? Kindle, O Lord ! a heavenly flame, Within my heart thy grace impart ; I would confess with deepest shame The coldness of my lukewarm heart. Oh ! let me ever mindful be Of Him whose blood was shed for me. Be this my boast while life shall last, Redeeming grace and dying love ; Then when this pilgrimage is past, In realms of endless joy, above, My rapturous song wih ceaseless be, My Saviour has remembered me ! Conducted the Kafir services morning and afternoon. Tuesday, 18th. — The affection from which Fako has lately be6n suffering in his eyes has, as usual, been attributed to witchcraft. Since I last saw him, he has allowed himself to be punctured above the eye-brow by a witch doctor, who pre tended to extract from the opening a small quan tity of snuff, which he declared had been placed there by an enemy, and had occasioned the dis ease. The inflammation, relieved by the opera tion, has since graduaUy subsided ; and the alleged Umtakati (bewitcher) is aheady in confinement. In order to extort confession, it is not an unusual method to pinion the accused individual to the ground with forked stakes, with the head resting in an ant-hill ; the body is then strewed over with the debris of ants'-nests taken from the trees, while water is dashed upon them in order to ex cite the insects to bite more sharply. The tor ture must be extreme, as the whole body is said to be often so swollen after this dreadful infliction as to appear scarcely human. If found guflty, they are only released to be beaten to death with knobbed sticks and stones. Accounts have just been received of some spies from KheeU (son of the late Hinza) having traversed the country, from which I have just returned, in theh way to one ofthe upper branches ofthe Umzimvoobo; where, it is said, a part of his tribe have an inten tion of removing on the advance of the Enghsh troops. It is a providential circumstance that we did not fall in with them, as they are reported to have been well armed and mounted, and are not likely to have spared two Englishmen who were defenceless. Although the Amapondas are a mild and hos pitable people, some of their customs would indi cate the utmost degree of barbarity. It is usual for the ruling chief, on his accession to the govern ment, to be washed in the blood of a near relative, generally a brother, who is put to death on the occasion, and his skull used as a receptacle for his blood. Fako would have undergone this horrid libation, had not his brother Gwingi, whose turn it was, according to the rules prescribed, made his escape to a neighboring tribe. For some time after a diligent search was made for his person, and he has never since thoroughly recovered from the exposure and hardships which he endured while lying so long concealed from his merciless pursuers. In consequence of the Christian re monstrances of Mr. Tainton, he was at length suffered to return; and Fako has allowed the horrid practice, as regards himself, to go into de suetude, which, for the sake of humanity; it is to be hoped will never again be revived. The pal liative sanction of custom cannot, however, be admitted in the case of Umyaki, now an indepen dent Amaponda chief, residing near the coast in the direction of Morley. Having defeated a party of Amatembu, who had attacked him in his own country, Gallaka, the son of an inferior chief, feU into his hands a prisoner. On his being brought to Umyaki, he immediately despatched him with his own hand, and then ordered his heart and liver to be boiled, with the broth of which, poured into his skuU, he caused himself to be washed. This, however, is regarded, even by the natives them selves, as an unusual act of barbarity, and has given great offence to aU the neighboring chiefs ; still, in both instances, as wett as in the more ge neral custom of drinking the gall of their enemies, (practised, I believe, exclusively among the chiefs,) the object mainly in view is the acquisition, as they imagine, of additional bodily strength. But even these are nothing when compared with the various and wanton inflictions of their witch doc tors, many of which are revolting in the extreme. About three years ago one of these diabohcal agents (not, as it is said, without some color of ancient sanction,) perpetrated the foUowing act in order to propitiate success for Faku's army, then on the eve of taking the field. He directed that the fore-leg of a living butt should be cut off at the shoulder, and then ordered the men with theh teeth to tear the flesh from the reeking limb and devour it on the spot, while the tortured animal was left to a cruel and lingering death. The ac quisition of cattle is the grand incitive to war THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. A ZOOLU CHIEF IN HIS WAR-DBESS among all the tribes in this part of Africa ; and peace of any long duration is only to be expected by those who, like the Bush men, are unencumbered with this descrip tion of property. The elysium of a native is to be enabled to drink abundance of sour milk without fear or molestation ; and, al though his country may abound with corn, he keenly feels the want of this favorite beverage. The Amapondas having suffer ed so severely in theh wars with Charka, have, in consequence, become great beer- drinkers ; and even now that they are gradually recovering theh losses by the increase of their cattle, still I fear this baneful habit, induced by the scarcity of milk, is likely to be of long continuance. When reproached for theh frequent ine briety, (for they often meet in large par ties, and drink until they are stupified,) they archly reply, " What can we do ? — we have no cattle — this is our milk." Even Faku himself is not free from tins reproach ; and is said to have been fre quently found sealed in a torpor induced by outchuatta. This morning I received a note from Mr. Fynn, informing me of his iU success in endeavoring to procure guides for the inland route from among Tpai's people, or a messenger who would venture across with a letter to the camp. As a dernier resort I rode over to the Great Place with the hope of inducing Faku to assist me with his army; but, unfortunately, he was in one of his stupors, and laid on the ground at full length, sur rounded by many of his people, during the greater part of the time I was there, scarcely conscious of any tiling that was passing. On my return, I stopped a short time at a neighboring viUage belonging to Damas, Fako's eldest son, in order to wit ness a dance which was taking place in honor of one of his sisters about to be manied to Tpai, several of whose people were present on the occasion. This kind of performance is very inferior to that of the Zoolus ; the men, holding short knob bed sticks in their hands, were ananged three deep in a semicircle ; the women, as usual, occupying a compact group before them. The song was not m parts, as among the Zoolus, but often strangely broken by the whole of the men suddenly seating themselves on the ground, and then as abruptly rising and going on with the tune; while the women during the whole time were straining theh voices, jumping and clapping their hands by way of accompaniment. As they had aheady been some time engaged in this violent exercise, much of the ochres — red, white, and yeUow — with which their faces were besmeared, had disappeared ; enough was, however, remaining to render them suffi ciently hideous. The men were generally decorated with the tail-hair of theh cattle, tied round the calf of the leg and on theh arms, which gave them a very wfld and THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. ferocious appearance. Many, both men and wo men, wore large ivory rings, (always a very be coming ornament,) on the upper part of the arm ; shell bracelets, (white, with black streaks,) with one or more panther's teeth suspended round the neck, were also worn by some of the men ; whfle many of the ladies, in addition to theh other em bellishments, had their hah twisted into lank and mop-like ringlets, and the whole thickly plastered with red ochre. Fako himself is utterly regardless of every des cription of personal ornament; with his ivory snuff-spoon stuck in his hair, and his reed snuff box in his ear,* he is dressed, with the exception of a leopard-skin mantle occasionally thrown over his shoulders or gathered round his waist. It this respect he is a perfect contrast to Dingam, and only deigns to wear beads when he joins in the dance. Friday, 21sl. — Fakfl having signified his wish to see me on the subject of my late proposal, I went this morning by appointment to the Great Place, accompanied by Mr. Tainton and my in terpreter, and was soon after joined by Mr. Fynn. On our approach, Faku was observed to come from his hut and stretch himself at full length un der the shade of a low thorn bush, near the cat tle-fold, a short distance from a group of his prin cipal people seated on the ground. He gave his hand to each as we took our stations near, but not a syllable was uttered relating to the business on which we were expressly met to consult. At length I inquhed whether he had been informed of what I had said when I saw him last, on which he requested me to repeat what had then been Btated, as he had only heard it through his people. The proposed plan I told him was this, to collect his army, and, in combination with that of Tpai, to make a sudden and rapid march to the Kei, without turning to the right hand or to the left, and only opposing those who actually obstructed his progress. That by doing this they would take the country by surprise, none of the tribes through which they would pass would have an idea of theh destination, much less would they have time to combine in order to oppose their advance. On reaching the English troops they would meet with the most friendly reception, and they would doubtless escort them on their way back as far as they pleased. Fako then stated his own plan, which was first to make an attack upon Umyaki, and the other petty chiefs with whom he was at war in the neighborhood of the Umtata, and clear his way as far as the Bashee, after which his army could again go out and open a road to the Kei. This I told him would be the very way to increase the difficulty ; that he would not only weaken his own forces, but cause his enemies to combine in greater numbers ; that there was but one plan which of fered any probability of ultimate success, and that was to make a rapid movement through the coun try directly along the wagon road to the Kei ; and that he would be sure to fail if he attempted it in any other way. Fako then pleaded his want of strength ; that his army was unequal to cope with » A large perforation is made in the ear for this purpose, and is characteristic of the nation. the various tribes that would oppose him at every step of the road ; that he was fearful that some harm might happen to me ; and, in fact, acknow ledged that he was himself opposed to the measure. On hearing this, it was in vain to say more than to assure him that, if he would sanction the attempt, I was quite witting to accompany them. The chiefs by this time had crowded round, each evi dently prepared to give his opinion, which, from att I have since heard, would have been quite at variance with that of their ruler ; but, as his word is law, not a dissentient voice was heard; and after a few observations in which Fako begged it might be understood that the decision he had made was not with any unfriendly feeling towards the English, as he belonged to the same Great House, we took our leave. The real fact I beUeve to be, that Tpai could not be induced to unite his forces with those of the Amapondas : for, notwith standing the pending family affiance between Faku and him, these people are naturaUy so jea lous of each other, that any long continuance of cordiattty, is not to be relied upon ; and even had they taken the field together, some dispute might probably have arisen whereby the two parties might have been anayed against each other. Were Fakfl in person to head his army, they would be sufficient for any practicable enterprise, but this he has not done for years ; they are generaUy led on by one of his sons, but neither they nor any of the inferior chiefs have sufficient influence to control the whole, so that his army is composed of a number of almost independent chiefs with their different clans acting generaUy in concert, but without any acknowledged head. This circum stance at once accounts for the ill-success which has almost invariably attended every expedition which has carried them to any distance beyond the limits of their own country. It may here perhaps be as well to explain, that, in consequence of the total absence of all correct intelligence from the scene of action, as also from any part of the colony in which for months we had been kept, it was fully believed that the war had not terminat ed with the Kafirs. Had I at this time been aware of the actual state of affairs on the colonial fron tier, a proposition of the nature just alluded to would never have been made to Faku ; but consi dering the importance of speedily communicating with the government on the affairs of Port Natal, I felt myself justified in the adoption of these means, though feeling deeply the necessity of cast ing to such a quarter for assistance. My progress to the colony in this dhection seems now completely obstructed; especially as a party of Amapondas, in revenge for some real or pretended wrong, have lately captured cattle, and fired some houses belonging to Cosiana. Little did I imagine on leaving Port Natal that I should so soon be ob hged to retrace my steps ; this, however, appears to be the only probable means of eventually prose cuting my journey, especially as accounts have just been received of a vessel having lately appear ed off the Umcamas apparently standing towards the port. On my return to Bunting I obtained a distant view of a remarkable rock which rises Uke a fortress among a very broken range of mountains on the right ; so scarped and precipi tous are the approaches to this insulated crag, 70 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. that, some time ago, while five or six native lads were amusing themselves on the top, the grass below had been unexpectedly fired, and, fanned by the wind, the flames ascended eo rapidly up the sides, that before they could descend by the only practicable path, the summit was encircled by the burning grass, and they aU perished in the flames. The person charged with having bewitched Fako has lately been putto death ; and as we approach ed the Gomkolu this morning, the blackened sites of his two villages, which were in consequence burnt down, were pointed out. After aU that we have heard, a mystery stiU rests upon the fate of the messengers last sent to the Kei ; that they have been murdered there is not the smallest doubt ; but, from rumors among the natives, it is now strongly suspected that they never proceeded beyond the Amatembu country, but were put to death by order of Ferdana ; should this prove to have been the real fact, it sufficiently accounts for his conduct to me. Sunday, 23rd. " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tempta tion."— (Matthew xxvi. 41.) If the name of Christ we bear — If we love the Lord indeed ; In toil and conflicts we must share, And daily hourly grace shall need ! Not flesh and blood alone withstand, But principalities and powers ; Beleaguered round on every hand, Defeat and ruin would be ours — But He, the Shepherd of his fold, has said, Fear not — though helpless, I am nigh To cast my shield around your head, And every needed grace supply. To all that ask I freely give — The prayer of faith shall never fail ; Seek, and your fainting soul shall hve, And o'er your fiercest foes prevail. But we must watch as well as pray — The wily tempter knows our frame ; And lurks to seize upon his prey, When thoughtless of a Saviour's name. V nwatchful prayer, like faith alone, The promised blessing ne'er attends 'Tis only when its power is shown By vigilance, that grace descends. Lord, teach me now to pray aright, And unto prayer my soul sustain ! Make me to watte as in Thy sight, Lest Satan some advantage gain. So shaU I not Thy name disgrace, Sheltered beneath thy powerful arm ! And I shaU soon behold Thy face, Where Satan has no power to harm. What are all our conflicts here, To the glories of that day ! Let this hope our spirits cheer — Let us ever watch and pray ! Conducted the services ; about thirty natives attended. Tuesday, 25ih. — Having decided on returning to Port Natal, I this morning took leave of Mr. and Mrs. Tainton, for whose truly Christian hospitality I feel much indebted. The cart having been sent on the day before, I rode alone to Mr Fynn's hut, a little beyond the Great Place. Faku, as I ap proached his house, came out to meet me, and, with a marked expression of cordiality, gave me his hand, with the salutation, " Dakubona UmfOn- dees" (I have seen your teacher.) Mr. Fynn ac companied me to Mr. Ogle's place on the Ums- nodoosi, about seven mfles beyond the Umzim voobo, where the cart had aheady anived. Wednesday, 26th. — Proceeded on my journey at seven. Passing one of Tpai's villages, I found on inquiry that they possessed some information re specting the inland route, which was likely to be useful ; and thinking it possible that guides might be procured among these people, could the consent of their chief be obtained, as we had not travelled more than nine mfles, I thought it would be desir able even to retrace our steps, and, before proceed ing further, ascertain what prospect there was of getting through in that dhection. One of my wa gons, which for some months had been left at Bunt ing, unable to proceed to the colony, was therefore sent for in preparation for such an expedition, and in the mean time I proposed a visit to Tpai, in the skirts of whose territory we now were. During our short journey this morning, we passed the spot where lieutenant Farewell left his wagons, and within twenty miles ofthe residence of Nato, chief cf the Qnawbi, by whom he and several of his party were shortly after murdered (1829.) The Quawbi were a revolted tribe of Zoolus, who had deserted from Charka, and taken with them many of his cattle. In theh progress southward they commit ted dreadful devastations, penetrating the Ama ponda country, and stretching even to the neigh borhood of the Umtata, where they destroyed the first missionry station that had been estabUshed in that district.* They were eventuaUy repulsed by Fakfl, who, after considerable loss, concentrated his force on the right bank of the Umzimvoobo, at a point where that river makes an abrupt angle, pent in by opposing mountains, and attacked them with such vigor, that the greater part either feU under the assegai, or perished in the stream. This memorable spot, about two miles below the usual ford, has received from Europeans the name of Quawbi's Corner, whfle the appropriate title of Jazeeh (conqueror) has been given by his subjects to Fako, who himself headed the attack. Lieuten ant Farewell was on his way to Port Natal, and induced by the friendly representations of some of the Quawbi, whom he met with on the road, to visit Nato for the purpose of purchasing cattle. On that very night, while in apparent security, this cold-blooded murder was perpetrated ; instigated, * The Wesleyan Society, to which this mission belonged afterwards removed it to Morley. THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 71 as is generally supposed, by a jealous y of his in fluence with Charka, and a determination to ob struct the advantages which might accrue to his enemy from a commercial intercourse with Euro peans. On my return I was much pleased with the attachment evinced by my servant Umpondom- beeni, who, on being informed of the place I had in view, and asked if he were witting to accompany me, rephed, " Yes — where you die I must die too." Thursday, 27th. — Set out for Tpai's principal place, accompanied by Mr. Ogle, riding and walk ing alternately, as one of the horses had strayed, and could not be found in time. The distance is about twenty mfles, in which we passed several viUages scattered over a very uneven country. The approach to these villages was somewhat curious. It is a common practice throughout these tribes at this period of the year to suspend, for present use, large bunches of Indian corn from the branches of high trees in the immediate neigh borhood of the huts, in order to secure them from the depredation of rats ; but here, in addition to these indications of plenty, the symbols of war were associated ; the fur kilt, which is the principal part of the war-dress, being frequently exhibited from the trees — a practical evidence of the warjike propensities of the owners. These people are called Amahoash, and originally inhabited a coun try on the right bank of the Umgani, about eighty miles from the coast, whence they were driven about thirteen years since by Charka, who, in his thirst for conquest, either drove or destroyed all the intermediate tribes as far as the Umzimcoolu. Among these were two powerful chiefs, Noombao and Umdingi, who in theh turn fell upon the tribes residing between that river and the Umsecaba. Maddegan, the brother of Tpai, and father of the present minor, in his guardianship, wished to have united himself with them in these wars for exist ence and tenitory, but they would not consent ; he therefore made war upon them, and, conquer ing them both, eventuaUy took possession of the districts bordering the left bank of the Umzinvoo- bo, where he and his tribes have now resided above tliree years and a half. During these wars, which were of long continuance, their numbers were greatly reduced ; but on the final defeat of the Qnawbi by the Amapondas, they fell upon their rear, and contrived to possess themselves of their cattle ; and from that period have been gra dually recruiting their losses. At present their whole force is computed at about three thousand fighting-men — a small army indeed when com pared with that of some of the neighboring states : but from the peculiar wariness of their attacks — generally in the night — their acknowledged cour age and indiscriminate carnage, never sparing either women or children, they have long been the terror of this part of the country ; and under their present enterprising chief, were their population more numerous, would rival Charka himself in ra pine and war. They are frequently receiving accessions from other tribes — already they are spreading themselves more to the north ; and it is not improbable that they may eventually rise to be a powerful nation. A little before sunset we reached the ImpOza, the "Great Place" of Maddegan, theh late chief. 57-4 Although Tpai has lately commenced another place, about a day's journey to the northward, this is stfll regarded as the Gumkolu, and it is here that he transacts business of importance. The chief was unfortunately absent on his way to his new place, having left early this morning, and was not again expected for four days ; when, it was said he would return to meet his Amaponda bride, the betrothed daughter of Faku. The In cosi-case (widow of Maddegan) was unwell, but immediately despatched messengers to acquaint Tpai of our arrival ; and it was supposed that he would return as soon as the messengers reached him ; but from the distance, he cannot be expect ed before Saturday afternoon. This place is built upon the slope of a steep hill, which forms one side of a wooded ravine, tlirough which a small stream forces its way. The huts are dirty and wretched ; and the whole village, both in situation and appearance, seems only fitted for the abode of a party of freebooters. Friday, 28th. — As we had brought no provisions, and scarcely any thing could be procured here, we should have been badly off had not Manadaza (the Incosi-case) considerately ordered a heifer to be lulled for our use, which indeed was eagerly con sumed by our two men and the people of the place ; but, as usual, was far too tough to benefit me much. Before it was slaughtered I went to the cattle-fold, where the people were assembled for the purpose, in order to prevent the poor animal from being unnecessarily tortured. Although theh method of killing cattle is in general use among the Amakosa and neighboring tribes, I had never before witnessed it ; and on being assured that it was as expeditious as any other mode of taking hfe, I allowed them to proceed. The un fortunate animal, seized by its homs and legs, was then thrown on its back, and held down by several men until an opening was made by an as segai a little below the chest. Into this opening the man thrust his arm above the elbow, feehng his way until he grasped the heart-string, which by main force he broke, and then left the poor beast, writhing with pain, to linger several min utes before it expired, breathing partly through the gaping wound. The horror of that sight, and the feelings I endured during the barbarous act, wfll long be remembered ; and most strenuously would I recommend all missionaries and well-wish ers to humanity to exert theh influence, if possible, to abolish a practice at once so cruel and revolting. The scene which foUowed was quite in keeping with the commencement. The paunch was im mediately cut into strips, and, without washing, eagerly devouered on the spot. Within the cir cumference of the cattle-fold a fire was kindled, on which several steaks were thrown, and these in about ten minutes were considered sufficiently done, and by the united aid of teeth and assegai were hacked and torn into smaller pieces for im mediate use. One man I observed, perhaps sharper set than the rest, dividing with his dog tbe raw flesh which he held between his teeth ; having cut off sufficient for himself, he ate it with considera ble satisfaction, although but the instant before it had been severed from the carcase. Determined that the want of a marrow-spoon should not de prive them of any part of their accustomed meal 72 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. a heavy thump upon a flat stone speedily dislodged the contents of every bone which came within their reach, unscathed by the neighboring fire, and the envied morsel was conveyed to the mouth by the elegant process of suction applied to the stone in question, which might probably have been lying embedded in the dust and dht of the cattle- fold for months before ; even the blood was not rejected, but carefully collected in earthen vessels and carried away to be cooked ; a circumstance which I consider remarkable, having among all these nations traced so many vestiges of Jewish rites. The disgusting practice of rubbing meat in the contents of the paunch of the beast from which it has been cut, is said to have the effect of preserving it, as it thereby acquires sufficient salt- ness to be kept for a considerable time, and in taste and appearance in some degree resembles that which has been steeped in saltpetre. The choice pieces reserved for the chiefs, are always submitted to this operation, which obtains as weU among the Zoolus as the different Kafir tribes. Notwithstanding this appearance of plenty, boiled Indian corn, and oOtchualla (here, as weU as among the Amapondas, called ejeeki) were all that I could obtain ; and having provided myself with a spoon, the section of a calabash, by way of basin, completed my dinner-service. This evening the chief anived, having been overtaken on the road by the messengers, and we soon after paid him a visit. He received us in a large hut, the residence of his late brother Mad degan, but now occupied by his widow Mananda- za. He was seated before the fire, without a par ticle of clothing, attended by eight or nine men, huddled together in an opposite side of the hut, whfle the Incosi-case, being an invalid, was stretch ed on a mat upon the floor in another corner. He seemed amused by my asking, as I entered, which was Tpai ; but although the light was not favora ble to a nanow inspection, it was soon evident that I was in the presence of one of the shrewdest and most desperate characters in this part of Africa. His figure is shght and active, of middle statue ; but the searching quickness of his eye, the point of his questions, and the extreme caution of his replies, stamped him at once as a man ca pable of ruling the wfld and sanguinary spirits by which he is surrounded. His inquiries were prin cipally respecting Dingarn and the Kafir war. He wished to know when the Enghsh would with draw their army from Kafir-land ; and what I thought of Dingarn ; whether the Zoolus were likely to go out to war this year, &c. ; remarking that, whenever they did go out, they would be al most sure fo make an attack upon him. Saturday, 29lh. — It was late last night before any decided answer could be extracted from Tpai respecting tbe guides I am so anxious to obtain ; and at last he ended by declining them altogether. Unwilling, however, to return without some fur ther attempt, we paid him another visit this morn ing. On telling him that I was about to proceed to the colony, and inquiring if he had any message to the "Great Chief," he said he wished me to inform him that he was friendly to all the white people ; that he had always protected those who had passed through his country ; and that he was sony that a white man (alluding to Mr. Rol lins, the late assistant at Butterworth,) had been killed by his people, when he made an attack some months since upon the Amatembu ; but as he had joined with them, and fired his gun upon his people, it could not be helped. I told him that we did not excuse the white man for uniting with his enemies, nor did we blame them for what had happened to him so employed. He signified his intention to forward through Mr. Fynn two elephant's teeth, as a present to the " Great Chief," in assurance of his friendly disposition ; but, at the same time, should the white people ever come against him in a hostile manner, he was resolved to fight with them. On being again applied to respecting guides, he said that fie could not order any to go, as should any thing happen to us the blame would probably be attributed to bim.. I then asked whether, provided any could be found willing to accompany me, he would withhold his consent. " No," he replied, "they have full hberty to go if they please ; but I wiU not order them." As the party had gradually increased to nineteen or twenty, I thought it a good opportunity to obtain some information as to theh ideas respecting a Supreme Being, &c. ; commencing the subject by inquiring of Tpai, whether he was willing to receive a missionary, should any be inclined to re side near him. To this proposal he readily as sented ; saying, that he should be glad. It may be as wett to mention here, that the generality of these chiefs are actuated by political motives in the favor and protection which they extend to missionaries residing among them ; and that, al though the result under the blessing of God may be such as would cause the heart of every sincere Christian to exult with joy and thanksgiving, the native ruler would merely anticipate a higher de gree of respect from his neighbours, by being thus in some degree affied to the white people, with probably a remote prospect of protection from them, and a certain present advantage in the nu merous presents which, according to custom, would faU to his share. This is but fair to men tion — not with a view to scrutinize motives, but to obviate mistakes, and to show forth the mani fold mercy and wisdom of God in over-ruling even the unsanctified wiUs of men to the extension of his own work of grace, and the promotion of his own glory. What a practical commentary to our Lord's words, " Let both grow together until the harvest." The conversation which took place I will now relate, as nearly as I can, in the precise words : — " Have you any knowledge of the power by whom the world was made ? When you see the sun rising and setting, and tlie trees growing, do you know who made them and who governs them ?" Tpai (after a httle pause, apparently deep in thought)—" No ; we see them, but cannot tell how they come : we suppose that they come of themselves." " To whom then do you attribut. your success or failure in war ?" Tpai— "When we are unsuccessful, and do not take cattle, we think that our father has not looked upon us." "Do you think your father's spirits made the world?" Tpai— "No." " Where do you sup pose the spirit of a man goes after it leaves the body?" Tpai— "We cannot teU." "Do you THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 73 think it Uves forever ?" Tpai — " That we cannot teU; we believe that the spirit of our forefathers looks upon us when we go out to war ; but we do not think about it any other time." "You admit that you cannot control the sun or the moon, or even make a hair of your head to grow. Have you no idea of any power capable of doing this?" Tpai — "No; we know of none: we know that we cannot do these things, and we suppose that they come ,of themselves." Having extracted this painful and truly humbling confes sion, I concluded the subject by giving him a brief outhne of what we were taught in the Scripture respecting God — death — heaven — hell ! and the immortality of the soul ! During the greater part of this conversation the Incosi-case was quietly reclining on her mat : she afterwards sat up a httle, and I fully anticipated a long dis cussion would ensue ; but she did not make the sb'ghtest remark. This woman* may be styled a queen of witches, and her appearance bespeaks her craft. Large coils of entrails stuffed with fat were suspended round her neck, while her thick and tangled hair, stuck over in all directions with the gall-bladders of animals, gave to her tall figure a very singularly wfld and grotesque ap pearance. One of her devices, which occurred about six months ago, is too characteristic to be omitted. Tpai had assembled his army, and was on the eve of going out to war, a project wliich for some , reason she thought it necessary to op pose. Finding that att her dissuasives were inef fectual, she suddenly quitted the place ; and, ac companied only by a little girl, entirely concealed herself from observation. At the expiration of three or four days she, as mysteriously, returned ; and holding her side, apparently bleeding from an assegai wound, pretended to have been received in her absence from the spirit of her late husband Maddegan, she presented herself before Tpai. " Your brother's sphit,". she exclaimed, "has met me, and here is the wound he has made in my side with an assegai : he reproached me for re maining with people who had treated me so ill." Tpai, either wittingly or actually imposed upon by this strange occurrence, countermanded the army ; and, if we are to credit the good people in these parts, the wound immediately healed ! For several months subsequent to this period, she took it into her head to crawl about" upon her 'nands and knees ; and it is only lately, I under stand, that she has resumed her station in society as a biped. The animal necklace, before alluded to, is by no means an uncommon ornament among this tnbe. Yesterday I observed a woman carry ing an infant similarly anayed : a lesser coil in due proportion being also twined about the little creatures neck. Being desirous to see the heh apparent before leaving, Tpai sent for him at my request, when Umtuchani, the hopeful chief, accompanied by his brother, soon appeared. Both are nice lads ; the former about eleven or twelve years of age ; but I could not regard them without some feeling of pity, as, with Tpai's sanguinary turn and love of power, it is doubtful whether he wfll permit the reins of government to pass into other hands dur- ?Manandaza died shortly after. ing his Ufetime ; in which case a very few years must decide their fate. As soon as we had taken our leave, Tpai set out again for his other place ; and shortly after we also retraced our steps. AU these tribes have a peculiar method of dress ing the hair : that in fashion here is very singular, Tpai, and many of the elder men, wore only the Zoolu ring on the crown, while the generality of the younger men had so pushed and trimmed theh hah, as, in many instances, to give it the perfect resemblance of a bishop's wig, with the exception of several detached ringlets hanging dqwn behind : the long fibres of a root thrust through the lobe of each ear completed this strange costume. The woolly hah of the women was a compound of mat, curl, and crumple, in every part excepting the forehead and back of the neck where, with great pains, it was reduced to a col lection of long flaky ringlets ; those in front almost concealing the eyes, and thickly besmeared with red ochre. Some few of the elder women wore a skin wrapper, approaching to a turban, after the manner of the Amatembu belles ; but for a more minute description of their toilet, I must re fer to the accompanying sketches taken on the spot. A severe retribution is often inflicted upon this cruel tribe ; but, unfortunately, it has generally faUen upon those who are the least responsible. In their wars with the Amatembu, who, having killed theh chief, Maddegan, in battle, have be come their perpetual enemies, it has not been un frequent to cut off the hands of the women who fall into their possession, in order the more readily to procure the brass rings and armlets that many of them wear. Two of these unfortunate crea tures were observed at Impoza — one deprived of both, the other of one hand. How humbling is this view of humanity — desperately wicked indeed is the human heart when left to itself ; and, until the light of the Gospel illumine these dark places of the earth, they will ever remain as designated by the unerring Word of God, eminently " the habitations of cruelty." May it please the God of att grace to cut short his work in righteous ness, and deliver these poor captives from the bondage of Satan, and the shadow of death in which they are now sitting. Disappointed in the object of my visit (not a single individual volunteering to accompany me inland), we returned to the village we had left on Thursday before sunset. Sunday, 30th. " Who maketh thee to differ from another : and what hast.tbou that thou didst not receive '"—(1 Corinth, iv. 7.) Oh ! what a thankless heart I bear, Though fraught with love my days have been; Yet how reluctant to declare The goodness and the truth I've seen. Why am I now exempt from pain, From pining want, and sickness spared ? How many seek relief in vain, In every mortal grief have shared ! 74 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. But deeper, higher blessings stfll Should fill my heart with grateful praise, That God has e'er revealed his wfll, Vouchsafed that I should learn his ways. Oh ! what distinguished love is this, That I should e'er have known the sound Of gospel grace and heavenly bliss — That Jesus has a ransom found. Why am I thus to differ made, While miUions still in darkness lie, Whose hearts would gladly have obeyed, Who would not have rebelled as I ! 'Tis only grace — and grace alone, Forever be its power proclaimed, That sought and touched this heart of stone, From paths of death my steps restrained. A brand from out the burning caught — Of goodness daily should 1 speak, Recount what sovereign grace has wrought, That others may Uke mercy seek. Kindle, O Lord ! my thankless heart, May every breath with praise ascend ; The love that seraphs feel impart, Some foretaste of theh rapture lend. So when th' appointed days shaU cease, And this cold heart no more shaU beat ; In brighter realms of joy and peace, Grace — conquering grace wfll stfll be sweet. Long as eternity shaU run A deeper gratitude wfll glow ; The grace that was on earth begun In streams of endless bliss shall flow. English service in the hut in the forenoon. Kafir in the open air in the afternoon ; about sixty- five natives attended. Tuesday, Sept. 1st. — In reference to these lo cations which have been severaUy distinguished as places belonging to Mr. Fynn, Mr. Ogle, or Mr Cane, some explanation is necessary. In the month of June, 1833, Dingam's army, on theh return from Tpai's country, attacked a wagon be longing to some Hottentots on the right bank of the Umzimcoolu, and murdered all the people ex cepting three. The account soon reached Port Natal, and it was rumored that this was but the commencement of a general attack in contempla tion upon the settlement. On theh way home, a large detachment of the Zoolu army passed the neighborhood of Port Natal, which at once induced the natives to give full credenoe to the reports of their hostile designs ; and, without waiting the developement of their plan, they mustered in large parties, in some instances assisted by the white people, and commenced firing upon them fiom the bushes as they pursued their route. The Zoolus, unaccustomed to the use of the muskets, and sur prised at this unexpected attack, gave way, and unresistingly fled in all directions until they re gained the main body, when the whole made the best of theh way home. No sooner was the af fair related to Dingarn, than he ordered all his people then inhabiting the district between the Port and the Tugala to withdraw ; and, notwith standing two entire regiments were stationed there, the whole moved off, and have never since occu pied any portion of the country to the southward of that river, which is now considered as their boundary in that dhection. A simultaneous move ment was at the same time made by the inhabi tants of Port Natal, both white and black, who, naturally apprehensive of retaliation on the part of Dingarn, left the country, and fled beyond the Umzimcoolu. The greater part of the latter soon returned, but many belonging to Mr. Fynn, Mr. Ogle, annd Mr. Cane still remained, and have es tabUshed themselves in the places refened to, forming permanent villages, and cultivating the ground. Theh people stfll acknowledge them as their chiefs, and are prepared to remove again to Port Natal whenever it may be required, regard ing themselves as totally distinct from the neigh boring states, among whom they have never been incorporated, although surrounded by them and Uving with them on the most friendly terms. The united population of these vfllages, which are prettily scattered over the neighboring hills, is es timated at fifteen hundred, every individual of whom would repair to Port Natal on the first an nouncement of its being placed under the protec tion of the British government As a proof that no hostile intentions were then in contemplation, Dingarn, soon after the anival of the fugitives on the Umzimcoolu, despatched ten messengers, in eluding my present servant Umpondombeeni, to apologize for the attack upon the Hottentot wagon, and to request the white men would return. Shortly after a few did return, but the settlement was not generaUy re-occupied until about nine months subsequently. In the afternoon of this day my wagon anived from Bunting, and as I was still buoying myself up with the hope of procuring a sufficient number of volunteers from among the neighboring villages to prosecute the inland jour ney, aU hands were soon occupied in constructing a new tilt, and getting provisions and every thing ready for the journey. Thursday, 3rd. — Nothwithstanding every effort, with the powerful inducement of cattle as a rt- ward, not an individual would come forward, and the very name of the expedition had caused such a panic among the natives, that, although Mr. Ogle had engaged to accompany me, it was found necessary to abandon the attempt in this direction ; and, every thing being ready, I set out this morn ing on my return to Port Natal, taking the wagon with me. Saturday, 5th. — Although the European seasons are here reversed we were not altogether without our September sport. Soon afterwe had left the habitable district, two natives brought intelligence that they had fallen in with two elephants at a little distance in advance of the road we were taking. As soon as we came to the spot they had pointed out, we left the wagons in charge of a few people, and went in quest of them. After walk ing about two miles, a party of natives stfll on the look out, assured us that they had entered a wooded ravine, for which we immediately made. Groups of natives (Amapondas) occupied the heights in all directions to prevent theh escape, but would not venture themselves nearer. We THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 75 went down to the skirts of the wood, and occasion ally caught a glimpse of theh huge bodies through the openings, and a few shot were fired chiefly to dislodge them from their retreat, as it was quite impossible, from the intricacy and tangled nature of the underwood, to obtain a proper aim. Tired at length by such fruitless attempts, we entered the wood by paths worn by the elephants them selves, and penetrated very near to the spot where they were standing, but still there was no possi bility of obtaining a full view of them without being too much exposed, as it would have been quite impossible to have escaped through such a laby rinth had either of them been inclined to pursue. As it was, we had more than once to make off with aU speed, whenever they thought proper to make a rush. The natives were so sanguine as to our success, that they had actuaUy lighted fires, and were assembled around them in anticipation of the expected feast. Although they kept at a respectable distance from aU danger, they contri buted much to the interest of the scene, by fre quently advancing to the skirt of the wood, shouting with their united voices, and striking their shields with theh assegais, in order to in duce our noble game to betake themselves to the open ground. Thus engaged, the night closed in upon us ; and, becoming too dark to discern even an elephant among the thick boughs, the wood was no longer tenable, and we were reluctantly obliged to abandon the pursuit. This resolution was no sooner formed, and we had commenced the ascent, than crash went the bushes, and out they both sallied, the cow halting from the qffect of a wound ; but, notwithstanding we all gave in stant chase, they were soon out of sight, beyond the reach of our guns. Or. this the hungry Ama pondas quitted their fires supperless, and we pro ceeded by moonlight to our wagons without a single tooth as a trophy. As we walked along, Daniel (a Hottentot,) the driver of Mr. Ogle's wagon which accompanied me, related a very re markable incident which happened to him some time ago while in the pursuit of an elephant near the Umzimcoolu. So suddenly had he come upon the animal, while watching his movements in a thick wood, that, before he had time to retreat, he felt the pressure of his trunk actually wound round his head. Had the grasp been lower it would have been fatal but most providentially it merely lifted the cap from his head ; and instantly, on finding himself liberated, with that presence of mind which danger often induces, he dived be tween the animal's fore-legs, and, passing quickly in his rear, eventually effected his escape. In order to make up for this detention, we proceeded for about three hours by moonttght, and the next day, about eleven, reached " ihe waterfall." To the Umsicaba, a few mfles beyond which I am now writing, the road to me is new, being the wagon track which I have not before traveUed, and which has given me an opportunity, with which I have been much gratified, of a scramble among the rocks and precipices of this singular glen, which breaks so abruptly from the level of the country over which we had been travelling, that you sud denly approach a perpendicular cliff overlooking an extensive view, and from which the cataract descends to a great depth below. At this season of the year it is comparatively empty, and can scarcely be said to faU, a few trickling rills only find ing their way to the base of the acclivity. In order to distinguish this from many other equally nameless waterfalls on this route, I have ventured to call it the Waning FaU, in indication of its rapid increase and decrease according to the season of the year. Soon after leaving the neighborhood of this ro mantic glen, several elands were seen on the open ground ; one actuaUy approached so near as to pass between the people and the loose cattle which they were driving. This is the largest species of the African deer, the males standing as high as a horse, and frequently running as fleet, though it is by no means so easy to overtake a doe oven when well mounted. Sunday 6lh. " And the soul of tbe people was much discou raged because of the way."— (Numbers xxi. 4.) How oft our treacherous hearts conspire To meet the wily tempter's art ! The very blessings we deshe If but delayed, in whole or part, Or wrought in some mysterious way, Oft fiU our bosoms with dismay ! Too apt to judge, by sense we deem Our ways and wisdom oft the best ; Some shorter path would easier seem, To lead us to our heavenly rest ; The language of our hearts would say, " We're much discouraged by the way." But could we see the germs of pride, The spirit that too oft compels, How much the world our hearts divide, What poison in its flattery dwells ; Our choice the desert path would be, If, Lord ! it does but lead to Thee. Though oft we seem again to trace The very paths we trod before, 'Tis but to show our need of grace — From some besetting sm restore ; 'Tis trial proves us cold or hot, Whether we love the Lord or not. Lord ! never leave me to my will, In aU the way my steps direct ; Thy gracious purposes fulfil, From faithless fears^ny soul protect ; With Thee in Christ my Ufe be hid, One backward — sinful glance forbid, So shall enduring peace be mine, Thy rod and staff shall be my stay ; And when my sphit I resign, 'Twill rise to realms of endless day : For ever to admire the grace, That led me first to seek thy face. Forenoon, English service in the open air — Afternoon, Kafir, ditto. Mo'nday, 7th. — Unable on accountof the tide, ro ford the Umtendo, which we reached on Satur- THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. day afternoon, we were obliged to wait until eight o'clock : a detention which I did not regret, as the scramble up the opposite accUvities, which was effected without accident, was performed under the softened light of a full moon, giving- to one of the most difficult wagon passes that can be imagined, and which to a novice in South African traveUing would be regarded as an utter impracti cability, a peculiar interest, which it would be diffi cult to describe. Part of my retirement yesterday was spent in view ofthe romantic cliffs and woods which margin this beautiful river, about a mile from its entrance into the sea. It was one of those beauteous spots which, while they gladden the eye, should lead us. as Cowper beautifully ob serves, " From nature up to nature's God ;" and cause us to break forth in the words of another poet : — These are Thy works, Parent of good ! Almighty ! thine this universal frame. Yesterday afternoon some natives arrived with an answer to a letter I had sent to Port Natal, requesting, if the sloop had arrived, that she might be detained until my return, as I wished to take a passage by her to Algoa Bay ; but it contained no such cheering news — nothing had entered the Port since my departure. I was glad, however, to find that my truant horse, " Pilgrim," who so unhandsomely deserted me near the Umcamas, had been found not far from that river, and taken back to Berea, and that I might expect him shortly to be forwarded onto meet me on the road. Should it be necessary after att to attempt the inland route, which is said to be more accessible from Port Natal, his services will be valuable, and I shall not regret the long hohday he has taken. Saturday, 12th. — On Wednesday morning a herd of wild pigs, about forty, were seen, and eager ly chased by the people. My driver shot one, which was a very seasonable supply. On the same evening we reached the Umzimcoolu, but, as it was just high-water, were obliged to wait until midnight, when we crossed at the mouth. As Mr. Ogle, with a wagon laden with elephants' teeth* was in company, the party was somewhat numerous, and the oxen had strayed so far, that it was long after the river was reported to be ford able that they could be coUected. The descent to the beach is steep, and the night was so dark, that in order to save the wheels of the wagons, which more than once sunk into the burrows of the ant-eater, they were obliged to be supported occasionaUy by ropes and reims,* to prevent them from going over. In the mean time, the tide had rapidly increased ; the oxen soon lost theh foot ing, and, before the hind wheels had entered the stream, the front pair were swimming. It was indeed a gracious providence that brought us safely through the wagon itself being more than once lifted bythe heave of the waves. On the following evening I was surprised at the audacity of a hyena. It was dark when we approached the bank of a small brook, covered with brush wood, and in this vantage-ground a large fellow, who had just quitted his lurking-place, was ad- *¦ A Dutch word signifying leather thongs. vancing to attack my wagon driver, who had fol- ¦ lowed him without a -guri : happily I -came up at the time, and, although equally unarmed, he made slowly off, stopping occasionally and looking over his shoulder, as he deliberately ascended the bank. It is most probable he had been attracted by the pork which was stiU hanging about the wagons. Notwithstanding their usual timidity, frequent in stances have been known in which natives have been attacked by them. Mr. Ogle related one wliich occuned in the Zoolu country, when he was passing through the district of Clomanthleen, in lieutenant FareweU's employment. While sleeping in a hut, with several natives belonging to the party, a hyena entered, and, seizing one of them , by the forehead, dragged him towards the door-way, but was unable to proceed with his prey, as the wicker-door, which slides within two short posts, had swung back and partly closed the opening by which he had forced his way. In this predicament, the screams of the man, and the efforts of both, soon awoke the rest of the party, who, to theh great surprise, found this unwelcome companion a prisoner among them. Shouting to the people in a neighboring hut, some burning faggots were introduced, which had the instanta neous effect of liberating the sufferer, and ejecting the disappointed intruder. Yesterday a buffalo was shot, which has put all the natives in good spirits ; the strong and stringy flesh of these animals being as delicious, in their estimation, as the tenderest beef to an European palate. The poor beast, which was an aged one, and of immense size and power, stood four shots before it ceased to plunge and tear the ground, and even after he fell, rolled over and over down the slope of the hiU in his efforts to raise himself again upon his feet. Twice aheady have we been stopped by the rain, this being the month when it usuaUy commences in tliis latitude. Some of our halting places, and particularly our nightly bivouacs, are truly picturesque ; — often among romantic scenery, sheltered, when practicable, by rocks, or branches of trees cut for the purpose ; whfle the blazing fires shed a pecuttar Ught over the motley features of the sunounding group. — Not even the designs of Salvator Rosa, Bassano, or any of the other great masters of claro obscuro wliich I have seen, have ever conveyed to my mind the real peculiarities of these wfld situations : the fact is, they are inimitable — much must al ways be left for the imagination, and it is on this very account that in all descriptive scenes poetry so far surpasses canvas representations. One may indeed illustrate the other, but to my mind the former has always the superiority. Of all the party, my servant, Umpondombeeni, was not the least grotesque ; having picked up on the beach' a large sponge, which exactly fitted his head, and which ho decorated at the crown, which was peaked with the tail-feathers of a fowl that had been kitted. As this was the first time that 1 had seen his head covered in any way, I was highly amused at the extraordinary change it had made in his appearance, whfle the cap itself, which he persisted in wearing during the remainder of the journey, reminded me of the antique drawings of Dacian helmets, and was by no means unbecoming. On reaching Mr. Cane's village, where we THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 77 stopped some little time this morning, I found my horse. Two men, we understood, had recently been drowned in an attempt to cross the Umzim coolu at the upper ford. Had they waited until the ebb tide, there would have been no danger, but this is a pomt of experience to which few of them have yet arrived ; too frequently acting upon an absurd notion that when the moon has set the water has likewise reached its minimum. Includ ing tbe above, three persons have been drowned at the same river within the short space of two months. Unfortunately, the natives of this part of Africa have not the slightest idea of a canoe, and but very few of them can swim. When the trading sloop, about fifteen tons, anchors in Port Natal, "The Ship" is announced, and numbers flock to the beach to behold the wonder. The prolific mattingoolo, so generaUy abundant near the sea, was now entirely out of season — not one was gathered during the whoje journey, to our no 6mall regret, as we were ttving chiefly on meal, without even sugar to make it more palatable. Sunday, 13th. " It is well."— (2 Kings iv. 26.) When wave on wave our souls oppress, And troubles like a flood o'erwhelm ; When tempest tost in deep distress, No pilot seems to guide the helm — 'Tis grace alone that storm can queU, And cause us to pronounce — " 'Tis well." Grace, Uke the tree EUsha found, Can make the bitterest waters sweet ; Though all seems dark and dreary round, It sooths the deepest grief we meet ; And though our hearts too oft rebel, Inclines them to confess — " 'Tis well." Hushed in the storm — its fury laid, When once that still small voice we hear, " It is I — be not afraid !" Thy Saviour and thy God is near ! No more the billows rage and sweU, Cheered by His presence — aU is well. Like suffering Job, the soul can cleave, Bereft of aU, on Him alone ; The firmer grasp, the more we leave, And 'mid the fiercest trial own, He who our inmost thoughts can tell Has justly stricken — " It is well '." Submission is thy work indeed — But Thou has promised more than this ; Lord, let my soul from sin be freed, Make me thy chastening rod to kiss ; Make faith and love within to dweU, And then, indeed, it wiU be weU. What though rebuked and chastened here, It is a Father's hand we feel! Soon we shall count those sufferings dear, Which broke our stubborn hearts of steel ; And own the griefs our bosom swell, Were needful each — and aU was wett. In that bright world of light and joy, Where tears and sorrow cannot come, 'Twill be our grateful, sweet employ, The mercies of our days to sum. And, oh, what mortal now can teU How much of earthly grief was well ! Performed Enghsh service in the morning — Kafir in the afternoon. Tuesday, 15th. — Yesterday morning I left the wagons about five miles on this side of the Um camas, and rode to Berea. No vessel had arrived, and it was the general opinion, to which I could not but acknowledge the painful probability, that she was lost. Since my absence, a native in the service of Mr. Plankenberg has been killed by an elephant, near the Mavooti. The hunting party to which he belonged had bivouacked for the night, when suddenly they were surprised by a troop of elephants, approaching close to theh sleeping place. They had scarcely awoke when they were obliged to fly for their lives — all, excepting the deceased, crept under the neighboring bushes, and remained, perfectly still, were unmolested, whfle he, endeavoring to effect his escape by running, attracted their notice, and was immediately seized and trodden to death. On the arrival of my wagon this afternoon, pre- parations were commenced for a journey across1 the Qnathlamba mountains, it being now my in tention to endeavor to reach the colony by that route, every other being completely closed ; and, after communicating with his ExceUency, to pro ceed directly to England, in the hope of procuring missionaries to occupy the stations now formed — having as yet been unable to forward one single letter to the Church Missionary Society on this important subject, although many have been writ ten. Monday, 21st. — The hyena which had uncere moniously .broken into the hut where the meat was kept, and devoured part of it on Saturday, returned last night, and finished the remainder, carrying even the door of the hut, which was found almost broken to pieces, to a considerable distance. This is the hut which was originaUy used as the school, and on Sunday for the English service. Thursday, 2Ath. — On Tuesday afternoon the equipment was so far advanced, that we left Berea, and spanned out on the flat opposite to Mr. Col- lis's, in order to take in the remainder of the pro visions. Solitary as was my abode at this place — a hum- ble. grass-hut, affording nothing, either within or without, which in common parlance might 'be in cluded within that most comprehensive of all Enghsh words, " comfort" — stfll it had been my "home," and was not divested of many pleasing associations ; but it was not until I had actually turned my back upon it, and was descending the hill, that I became sensible of the place it already occupied in my affections. I had just taken leave of my faithful servant Umpondombeeni, to whose attachment I could not be insensible. Though reluctant to leave his wives, he merely asked my leave to visit them at the Tugala, and return in time for the present journey ; but this I thought unreasonable, and sent him home, with directions 78 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. to inspect the huts of Culula occasionally, and see that the oxen presented to me by Dingam were properly attended to in my absence. Nombamba, another of my servants, a fine ac tive young man, volunteered to accompany me, which I accepted ; while poor Seenda, Mankanja- na's brother, whom I was educating, expressed by his looks an equal desire, though he was far too young for such a jaunt. Yesterday morning, about nine o'clock, the wagons being properly packed, and the people arranged in theh places, we com menced the journey, stopping about an hour for some of the oxen at Mr. Pickman's, (the last village in that dhection, in the neighborhood of Port Natal.) Mr. Collis accompanied me on horseback to tho mid-day halting-place, and soon after took his leave. It may here be as well to give a list of the equipment : — Two wagons. Fifty-one draught-oxen, (two of wliich were pack-oxen.) Twelve calves, for slaughtering. One cow and calf, eight days old, (canied in the wagon while traveUing.) N. B. — As one ox and the cow and calf were left on the road, the total number of cattle was sixty-two. Including Mr. Ogle, who took this opportunity of going to the colony with a native servant and myself, the party consisted of twelve, viz: five Europeans, one Hottentot, and six natives. To European traveUers the number of draught- oxen may appear disproportionate, but it would not have been prudent to have set out on such a journey with less than two span of twelve for each wagon, and a few spare ones in case of need; in deed, I should not have hesitated to have added even a few more, could they have been procured. After crossing tbe Umlass and Umpogoti rivers, the road takes a great circuit to the south-west. This morning, at our first halt, about eleven o'clock, Port Natal was distinctly visible — the nearest part of the bay could not be more than nine or ten miles distant in a dhect line, although we had traveUed about thirty. The country through which we passed yesterday is broken into mode rate hiUs, covered in patches with trees and un derwood, producing abundance of grass, and only requiring the hand of man to develop the natural richness of the soil. During the greater part of the night there has been rain. Passed to-day a very broken country — the mountains generally table-topped, and the trees gradually disappearing as we recede from the coast. At a httle before sunset stopped for the night. Whfle toiling up a very steep ascent this afternoon, I observed a re markable tree, about the size of a large apple- tree, growing near the bank. From the circum stance of its bearing a reddish blossom, and being totally divested of leaves, I at first mistook it for the umseensi, but on a nearer inspection I found that the blossom was of a deep cherry or blood-" red color, and am inchned to believe that it is a species little known. Friday, 25th. — This morning we were delayed on account of the oxen, several having sepa rated from the main herd: they were tracked to a considerable distance ; and from the speed with which they appeared to have gone off, it was supposed that they had been chased by a lion. Spanned out early, and despatched three men after them, with dhections to cut across the coun try, and meet us again on our anival at the In- thlangwain vfllages. They did not, however, pro ceed far when they feU in with the missing cattle, and returned. Just as we were again setting out a Hottentot anived on horseback. As he ap proached, I felt assured that he had been sent to announce the arrival of some vessel in the bay ; but far different were the tidings he brought, and most heart-rending the accounts contained in the letters he dehvered. Mr. Collis's magazine, con taining fifteen hundred pounds of powder, had yes terday exploded ; and himself, his infant child, the native nurse, and a Hottentot named Class, had been killed, while several natives had been se verely burnt. The chcumstance which led to this awful scene was related by a native who was present, and so severely burnt, that it is scarcely thought he can recover. Mr. CoUis had gone into the store for the purpose of taking out a gun for Class, then in his service, but who had accom panied me from the colony as Mr.Berkin's servant. In order to try the flint, he had imprudently snap ped the lock, with the muzzle pointed towards a powder banel, when the gun which had been carelessly put by loaded, but without priming, went off; and the explosion, which was heard at the Umgani, took place. The mangled bodies of Mr. CoUis and the Hottentot were blown to a con siderable distance ; the skutt of the infant, which was in the arms of the servant girl seated on the outside of an adjoining building, was fractured ; and she shortly after died of the injury she had sustained. So sudden and so awful a summons from time into eternity speaks, in solemn accents, to every heart, — "Prepare to meet thy God." Oh! that tins afflictive dispensation may not be without a beneficial influence upon the lives of all in this neighborhood ! that this second breach in our smaU community may teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom ! that those who had never yet sought the Lord may seek Him in earnest, whfle their day of grace remains ! and that those who have found Him, and felt that He is indeed precious to theh souls — aU their hope, and all their deshe — may be stimu lated to great watchfulness, working whfle it is day, that when their Lord shall come, they may be found with theh lamps trimmed ready for his appearing ! Having despatched the messenger with a short reply, we proceeded on our journey over an undu lating country destitute of trees. Soon after sun set stopped at a spot formerly the site of a native vfllage, but where only sufficient brushwood for kindling the fires could be procured. Saturday, 26th. — A continuation of the same open country, uninteresting to a traveller, but likely one day to be held by the grazier in great estimation ; the downs being extensive and eleva ted, the soil dry, and the grass shorter and better than that produced on the lower grounds nearer to the sea. This whole district, now a wilderness THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 79 was, as I am informed, well inhabited, until the devastating army of Charka swept over these hflls. The mere circular site of their perishable dwellings is all that is now apparent, but many of the cattle enclosures, which, from the scarcity of timber, were buflt of rough stones, are stiU re maining. Some which we passed are buflt en tirely of mud, piled in blocks, like unburnt brick ; others with stone and mud intermixed, in layers, and arranged in the circular form, simflar to those which are enclosed with a bush fence. Mr. Cane, who accompanied me as far as the Inthlangwain villages, related a singular method of setting a broken limb, having himself experi enced the operation at a spot not far from the track we are now pursuing ; his arm having been broken and put out of joint by the overturning of his cart. Several men having assembled at the place, with a native Esculapius at theh head, a deep hole was scooped out, and then partly fitted with phant clay ; the whole arm, with the hand open, and the fingers curved inwards, was then inserted, when the remainder of the clay that had been prepared was fiUed in, and beaten closely down. Several men then steadily raised his body perpendicularly to the incased arm, and drew it out by main force. By this simple but somewhat painful method his arm was perfectly reset ; and, had he retained the native bandage, would doubt less have grown perfectly straight, but by substi tuting a sling it has grown out. This, I under stand, is the usual practice among all these tribes ; and is said to be effectual. Our forenoon's jour ney was about four hours. In the afternoon seve ral bucks were seen, and a herd of buffalo passed very near to the wagons ; one was wounded by Jacob, the Hotentot, but we had not time to pur sue them. By foUowing the track of some Dutch wagons on theh return to the colony, and which we after wards understood had separated at this point, we were thrown considerably out of the road, and obhged to bivouac near the UmagSrda, a branch of the Umcamas, which here occupies a nanow ravine at the foot of the mountains. Had it not been for this circumstance, we should probably have reached Foortu's village this evening, which I was anxious to effect on account of the service to-morrow. Near the stream are a few patches of trees : the rocks are compact sandstone and coarse slate. Sunday, 27th. " I have" sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return ; that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear."— (Isaiah xiv. 23.) Lord of the harvest, now descend, Break up this dry, this fellow ground ; May light and life thy word attend ; Release the souls in darkness bound. Ride on victorious to reclaim The holds which Satan still defends ; Proclaim thy great, thy glorious name To aU the earth's remotest ends. 57-5 Immutable thy promise stands ; Thy purposes of love are sure ; The time is set to loose the bands Which Afric's fettered sons endure. Pity, O Lord ! their lost estate ; Attend thy people's earnest cry, Who plead for them, and supplicate, Oh ! leave them not in chains to die. Shall he, the strong man armed, defy The armies of the living God ! What ! though with walls they're fenced on high, Prevafling prayer shall stay the rod. Is there no son of Jesse here — No champion for the Lord of Hosts ? Shall Israel now turn back with fear, In sight of promised Canaan's coasts ? Kindle afresh that holy zeal, Which fired apostles' hearts of old : Arise, O Lord ! thine arm reveal ; Enlarge the borders of thy fold. May many hearts, inclined by grace, Themselves a free- wfll offering give — To publish peace in every place, Where sinners now in darkness Uve. Till every border is possessed, And Christ proclaimed in every land ; Till then we would not — dare not rest — But forward press at thy command. And every city compass round, TiU grace shall bid the bulwarks fall, And joy and peace on earth abound, And Jesus shall be all in all. Enghsh service in the forenoon. — Kafir service in the afternoon. Monday, 28th. — Tedious travelling — one wagon obliged to be dug out of a swamp, and both to be towed separately up a steep hill by both spans united. On the descent from these acclivities, the rocks exhibit many appearances of combination with hon. Crossed another smaU stream, also a branch of the Umcamas, and soon after the river itself, the bed of which was strewed with rocks, and the water, in some places, scarcely knee-deep. The villages of the Inthlangwain, which had been for some time visible, could only be approached by a wagon, on account of the ruggedness of the ground, by a very circuitous route ; that belonging to Foortu, the ruhng chief, and at which we ar rived soon after noon, is situated on the skirt of the narrow valley at the foot of the mountain ; the remainder are generally on higher grounds, and have a pretty effect backed by the dark pre cipices beyond. In this favored spot vegetation is prolific ; some large trees occupy the ravines, both wood and water are convenient, and corn is produced in abundance. There is on the oppo site side of the river a salt pan, but it is of smaU extent ; stfll, as it is the only one known to exist throughout the country on this side of the moun tains, it might probably be turned to some account. 80 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. In the river are some good fish, one of which was caught. As it is rather an extraordinary event to see wagons in this part, we were soon sunounded by the whole male population ; whfle the women, patient creatures ! set heartily to work to grind corn and bake loaves for the journey, the prospect of a few yards of dungaree and some bunches of beads catting forth aU theh energies. Having already made acquaintance with Foortu at Berea, I spent some little time in his hut, in order to obtain what information he possessed re specting the country we were about to traverse. Unfortunately, their hunting expeditions had been chiefly confined to the intermediate country be tween this and the sea, ranging from the Umgani to the Umzimvoobo ; they said they had in some instances been nearly to the Quathlamba, but know of no passes through those mountains, nor had they even heard of inhabitants in any of the intervening districts. These people originally lived high up on the right bank of the Tugala, whence they were driven, about fifteen years since, by the devastating wars of Charka. The name of this viUage is Doomazoolu, or Thunder ing Heavens, and, with the other nine, contains from 300 to 400 men ; and as each on an average has three wives, the whole population may be es timated at about 3000. The name of Charka, ac cording to Foortu's account, was not even known to them until the approach of his army was an nounced, and they were eventuatty obliged to abandon their country, when, after wandering for some time, they settled on the Umzimvoobo ; but even there they found no respite, the Amakoash under Maddegan fatting upon them and killing their cheif NombeO (father to Foortu,) who fell by the hand of Tpai. This occuned about five years ago, and obhged them to seek their present asylum, which, after enduring many hardships, several of their people dying from actual starvation, they ef fected. They describe themselves as having been formerly a powerful nation, the only remains of which at present consist of twenty-five vfllages, — ten here, ten more on this side of the Umgani, and five on the other, att under the control of Foortu, and may probably amount to between 7,000 and 8000 souls. The refugees so frequently to be met with scattered among all the tribes from the colonial frontier to the Umzimvoobo, and especially at the missionary stations in those districts, and who are known under the general name of " Fingu" (literally wanderer,) are the remnants of the various nations formerly inhabiting this extensive tract of country, the greater part of whom have been destroyed either by famine or the assegai. On the bank of the Umcamas, not quite a day's journey from hence, towards the mouth is a re markable rocky defile, which has long been cele brated as the Thermopylae of this part of Africa, having been as courageously defended by a chief called Namabunga, and who, with a handful of men, successfully opposed the whole force that Charka could bring against them. The gaUant Namabonga has since fallen in an affray with the Inthlangwain, and only nine of the original party now remain, who, with their wives and children, stiU retain their rocky fastness, the proud and melancholy wreck of a brave and unconquered race. Were it not for the important objects of my present journey, which does not admit of any unnecessary delay, I should not certainly have passed so near without paying these extraordinary people a visit. The erroneous appettation of " Bushmen," by which the Inthlangwain are commonly known at Port Natal, has obtained, from the chcumstance of their having acquired the method of poisoning the assegais which they use in killing the elephant and other wfld animals, from a party of wandering Bushmen with whom they were occasionally asso ciated during their residence on the Umzimvoobo. On asking Foortu, in presence of several of his people, whether he should Uke to have a " Teacher" residing with him, he said, " I should rejoice;" and, after explaining the object of my present journey, and the expectation I had of a missionary being eventually sent to his people, he rephed, "I can not beheve that it will be so ; it is what I deshe to see, and that which would make me glad." — On the subject of rehgion they are equally as dark as their neighbors the Zoolus. They acknow ledged, indeed, a traditionary account of a Supreme Being, whom they called Ookoolukoolu, (UteraUy the Great-Great) but knew nothing further re specting him, than that he originaUy issued from the reeds, created men and cattle, and taught them the use of the assegai. They knew not how long the issitoota, or spirit of a deceased per son, existed after its departure from the body, but attributed every untoward occurrence to its in fluence, slaughtering a beast to propitiate its favor on every occasion of severe sickness, &c. As is customary among att these nations, a simflar offer ing is made by the ruling chief to the spirit of his immediate ancestor preparatory to any-warlike or hunting expedition, and it is to the humor of this capricious spirit that every degree of failure or success is ascribed. They listened with much attention whfle I informed them what the Scrip ture said respecting the power, the wisdom, and the love of God, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection ofthe body, and the day of final judg ment ; but an audible laugh instantly proceeded from ail who were present, on my telling them that God had declared in his Word that man's heart was futt of sin. This I have always found the most difficult subject to explain, even to those who have had frequent opportunities of instruction ; I was not, therefore, greatly surprised at this slight interruption, which was merely an expression of astonishment. Having presented Foortu with a piece of broad cloth for an ingoobo, he paid me what doubtless he considered as a high compliment, by styling me, in his return of thanks, the "Black Chief." These people are not only industrious, but par ticularly friendly to Europeans, and in every re spect offer a most encouraging field for missionary labor ; may it please the Lord of the harvest to incline the hearts of some among his devoted ser vants to visit this secluded vaUey, and willingly submit to spend and be spent in directing these wild mountaineers to the Lamb of God, the Sa viour of sinners. Tuesday, 29th.— This morning, I sat till I was thed in front of e the Umzimvoo bo ; its source cannot be far from the position we occupied yesterday morning. Continued our pro gress over open downs without trees ; herds of gneu in aU directions, in one of them I counted thirty-seven ; two shots were fired, but without effect. When seen at fuU gallop, with their heads down, their long white tails floating in the wind, and the necks and foreheads thickly covered with long shaggy hah, they have a most ferocious ap pearance. On gaining the heights we had a fine view of the Quathlamba range, which, as far as they were visible, appeared to run in one con tinuous Une due east and west by compass. The highest points (Saddle-back and the Giant's Cup) I should not suppose were more than 4000 feet from the level of the vattey, probably not so much. A remarkable detached peak has been in view, bearing by compass E. by S. On our right is an extensive undulating plain bounded by mountains, through which the river I take to be the Umzim voobo is observed to make many windings. One of my people (Georgo,) who had accompanied the last expedition of the Zoolus against Tpai, recognised it as the spot where the guides lost their way, and in consequence the army was ob hged to return. Afternoon. — Several gneu in sight. On riding towards them they often stand and snort for some time, and then suddenly plunge, kick up, and lash theh tails, and in an instant are off at full gallop, making the dust fly as they sweep over the hills. Compared to our late difficulties all seemed now smooth and plain, indeed, in the direction we are now travelling, open undulating downs generally lay in our way ; the slopes, however, are often very steep and rocky. Soon after sunset reached a vattey, where we stopped for the night ; we had taken the precaution of canying wood in the wa gon, or we should have been unable to have pro cured any this evening. Travelled twenty-one mfles — general course, S. E. half S. ON LEAVING THE QUATHLAMBA MOUNTAINS. Although we toiled in vain to clamber Across the steeps of proud Quathlamba, Still that rugged vale we trod, Where treacherous Amakosa sought A refuge from the sword they brought Just recompense for deeds of blood. Deep in the mazes of that dark defile, Hid by a huge gigantic pfle Of rocky fragments strewed around, A yawning cavern stood revealed, Where long the foe had been concealed, And yet a trophy there we found. The cave was black with smoke and flame, Each grassy couch remained the same As though they 'd just been sleeping there And bowls, and plumes, and corn we found, As they had left them strewed around, Beside theh rocky lair. Oh ! could these crags the tale unfold, Of all that passed within that hold ; How oft on Abaloongu's* race Were threats and bitter curses heaped, As frantic round their fires they leaped, Burning t' avenge theh foul disgrace. But all is still — and now again The beasts of prey resume theh den, By fiercer men thus dispossessed ; Where once was heard the Kafir's shout A dreadful silence reigns throughout — A solitude that quite oppressed ! Adieu, ye rocky heights — adieu ! Your cloud-capped tops I love to view, For there my Maker's power I trace ; Firm as your base His word remains, And as your streams refresh the plains, Unbounded flows His sovereign grace. What though no human voice is there, Of all your wonders to declare, And waft the breath of praise ; As long as earth's foundations stand, You 'U witness bear of Him who planned, And who alone your peaks could raise. Saturday, 24th. — This morning before we start ed a gneu was killed, the flesh of which was soon after suspended at the back of the wagon. Con- tinned over open downs, skirted by mountains ; troops of gneu prancing about in all directions ; spanned out at nine. Afternoon. — Appearance of the country the same ; counted seventy-six gneu from the spot where I stood ; there must have been many more in the neighborhood. About midway took a last look at the Quathlamba ; they were soon after wards hid by the mountains we were approach ing ; at this time the peak over Cavemglen bore N. W. by N. by compass. Having collected suf ficient fire-wood by the way, we spanned out about sunset on the bank of a rocky river. Tra velled twenty-one miles— general course, S. E. Sunday, 25th. " I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." — (He brews xiii. 5.) Oh ! for faith to walk aright, Seeing Him who 's always near ; Guided— not by erring sight — Till the promised day appear. How 't would sweeten every care, How 't would every joy enhance, Did we know the Lord was near, — Like Peter feel His loving glance ! * The general term for white men among all these tribes. 90 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Could such languid prayers ascend ? Could our hearts remain so cold ? Could we thus requite our Friend ? Did we but His face behold ! Hear thy gracious Saviour say, " My people I wfll never leave," I will keep them night and day, And every want and doubt reheve." Sweet bequest ! — though pilgrims here In a dreary desert land, There is One who loves us near To uphold us with His haiid ! May these words our spirits cheer ; In every cloud a bow reveal : With Christ so nigh, we need not fear, — His balm can au our sorrows heal ! Lord, I believe! yet faith bestow, Pardon my unbelief and sin ; More of Thy love and truth I'd know — Dispel the pride that lurks within ! Throughout the way, be Thou my guide, My earhest and my latest thought: With Thee for ever I'd abide, And tett of all thy love has wrought ! And when I see thee as thou art, And nought but charity abides ; — What rapture will that sight impart ! — I'U seek no other bUss besides ! Morning. — English service in the tent ; — Af ternoon — Kafir service in the open air. Monday, 26th. — Crossed the river, and soon after another rocky stream running into it. A herd of gneu made off on our approach to the plain where we spanned out. Afternoon. — Soon after crossing the stream near which we had stopped, ant-hflls were again observed ; none had been seen in the neighbor hood of the Quathlamba ; — one solitary gneu ; — we are now leaving the open downs, which they seem to prefer, and are traversing a more broken country. Crossed another stream, and soon after sunset made our bivouac ; no wood but what had been collected by the way. Travelled twenty-two miles — general course, south. Tuesday, 27ft. — Crossed two steep mountains, but without difficulty, as they were round topped and covered with grass. Spanned out on a vattey about noon. Afternoon. — A continuation of hills, some very steep; the appearance of the country evident ly changed ; — large timbers in the ravines, and many plants and flowers which grow only in the vicinity of the coast. This morning we were reduced to the necessity of cutting up a broken yoke in order to cook the breakfast, but such ex pedients are not now likely to be repeated. Water we have always found abundant. The gneu have now entirely deserted us, this country being ill adapted for theh wild racing. Excepting that they greatly enUvened the solitude, we have no reason to regret theh absence, as nearly att were yesterday made ill by partaking of the flesh. The flavor is so simflar to that of beef, that I should scarcely have known the difference ; but as aU suffered in the same manner, and it was not con sidered by the rest of the party as tougher than the meat they had been accustomed to, Ihave no hesitation in ascribing the cause to this new diet. A thick mist coming on, we spanned out rather earher than usual. About an hour and a half before we bivouaced for the night we crossed a wagon track. Wednesday, 28ft. — Thunder and hght rain dur ing part of the night ; in the morning it cleared up sufficiently to proceed. Having been so long unaccustomed to a wooded country, the note of birds, though often not very melodious, was cheer ing, and met the ear Uke the voice of an old ac quaintance. Hitty country. Spanned out about one. Close to this spot was one of the treeferns so common in 'the neighborhood of Agate Vale. It was growing in a pit, and is the only one I have since seen. Afternoon. — Travelled until a thunder-storm, which had been long gathering among the moun tains to the northward, overtook us, but were un able to find any place of shelter until after sunset, when we gained a valley by a very deep descent. Travelled twenty mfles — general course, S. by E. halfE. Thursday, 29th. — Prevented by the rain from leaving our last night's bivouac untfl the after noon ; but we had not proceeded many hundred yards when the baggage-wagon was thrown over by a rock on ascending the hill, wliich was very slippery and uneven. As every thing was obliged to be taken out before it could be again placed on its wheels, a considerable delay was occasioned, when again en route, we passed several old foot paths, in which the foot-prints of a native were ob served. On an opposite ridge, the site of a former village was distinctly traced with the different foot paths diverging from it ; — country waved; — bro ken open into round-topped hills, which obliged us to make many circuits to avoid the hollows be tween. At sunset spanned out, and sent ten span of oxen to drag in an eland that had been shot at some distance from our track. Travelled ten miles — general course, S. by E. halfE. Friday, 30ft. — Unable to set out early on ac count of the rain. Passed the site of several villages, supposed to have been those whence Charka drove the Amapondas. Descended a very steep hill, when my wagon was all but over turned, and halted on the opposite bank of a stream running through the narrow valley. The thorny mimosa is now again common ; it has not been observed further inland during this journey. Afternoon. — Made but little progress ; toiled up steep hills but to descend by as difficult slopes ; and again crossed the same stream, which we take to be the Umsecaba. Slate rocks are now observed in the beds of aU the streams. Georgo (the leader of my wagon) has fallen in with a prize, having discovered the bones of an elephant lying among some trees near the route. The two teeth, which are perfect, I have allowed him THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 91 to take for his benefit in the wagon, and feel glad at his good fortune, as he has proved himself very active and attentive. Went on till sunset. Tra velled twelve mfles — general course, S. halfE. Saturday, 31st. — Passed a difficult but roman tic defile, in the course of which we were obhged three times to cross the same river which we forded yesterday. I should greatly have enjoyed the scenery, but for the trouble and anxiety of .finding a road for the wagons that foUowed. On leaving the river both spans were required to tow each of them up the opposite hill ; notwithstand ing which labor, we were unable, from the broken nature of the country, to pursue our proper course, but obhged to wind considerably to the north ward, and when we spanned out had not made a better course than N. E. Travelled about twelve mfles. We are now again in a situation of some diffi culty, — by the best calculation that I can make, not more than about thirty miles from the coast; but unable to reach it with wagons, without malting a circuitous route. Having been disappointed in obtaining the latitude, notwithstanding I have two sextants with me ; one being only cut for 131° 30' ; the other, a pocket one, for 125° 0', whfle (with an artificial horizon) an angle of at least 136° is now necessary. Having no watch to re gulate distance, and having for the past month been merely guided by a small pocket compass, my computed reckoning, under such chcumstan ces, is not likely to be very correct. By proceed ing with the wagons we might be thrown farther from the coast, and the unfortunate reckoning be come still more puzzled. I therefore decided on leaving them both at this place, and with the tent and a few days provisions upon pack-oxen pushing on with a small party directly for the coast, in order to ascertain our actual position. Should this prove, as I hope, to be in the neighborhood of the Umse- caba, I propose sending back two of the people with the necessary instmctions to the party re maining with the wagons, directing them to fol low, and making the best of my way to Bunting. Sunday, Nov. lst. "Faint, yet pursuing." — (Judges viii. 4.) How aptly does this word describe The wrestling soul by conflict tried, Yet stayed upon his God ! 'Tis thus with e'en the boldest saint, Left to himself he can but faint, And sinks beneath the rod ! But He who wept at Lazarus' grave Vouchsafes his ready arm to save, And mitigate the cup ; Touched with our weakness and our woe, A balm for aU He can bestow, And hold our footsteps up ! Though oft rebuked and chasten'd here, We kiss the rod with filial fear, And own it was in mercy sent ! And though cast down and oft perplexed, We'reap the blessing that 's annexed, And deeper of our sins repent ! Thus sifted, purified, and tried, From all his selfishness and pride, The Christian's weaned from all below ; And walks more closely with his God, Avoids the snares on which he trod, — More of his heart is brought to know ! The fainting soul fresh courage takes, His most besetting sin forsakes, And grasps a firmer hold On that sure Rock in Zion laid, Where aU our hopes for heaven are stayed, By past experience made more bold ! Though oft nor sun nor stars appear And all around seems dark and drear, And no small tempest on us lay, 'Tis thine, O Lord ! the storm to calm, And keep our trembUng souls from harm, And safely to the shore convey. 'Twas in the cloud they so much feared, Thy brightest beams on earth appeared And gladdened every eye ; And soon with Peter we shall say, 'Tis good that here awhile we stay, Since Thou thyself art nigh ! Lord ! sanctify my every grief, In Thee alone I 'd seek relief, Upon thy promise stayed ! And when this term of trial's o'er, And sin and sonow reach no more, In all Thy love will be displayed ! Morning — English service in the tent ; — After noon — Kafir service in the open air. Monday, 2nd. — This morning left the wagons at about ten o'clock for the coast, with three pack- oxen and a party of eight, including myself. De scended into the valley, which, from its intricacy, obliged us twice to cross the river which wound through it. The oxen behaved better than I had expected, and, after gaining the opposite heights, we passed the sites of several deserted villages and garden grounds. Both yesterday and to-day we have seen several ofthe Kafir finch, a singular bhd, about the size of a sparrow, having two long tail feathers, which it sheds during the winter ; the plumage is a glossy black. Although they appear to fly with an effort, theh progress through the air is pecuharly graceful, the long tail regu lating theh speed and imparting a kind of measur ed dignity to aU their movements. In passing through Kafir-land I saw several of these birds. Continued our route in nearly a S. E. direction, notwithstanding the thick mist and rain which had prevaUed throughout the day, and having tra versed a more open country, chiefly foUowing the ridges, we descended for shelter about sunset into a deep ravine. Here the labyrinth of long grass and bushes through which it was necessary to urge our way, added to the steepness and slipperi- ness of the ground, occasioned a frequent packing and repacking of the oxen, so that the night came upon us before we had erected the tent or kindled a fire, although thoroughly drenched with the rain which now happily ceased. TraveUed twenty- two miles — general course, S. E. 92 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Tuesday, 3rd. — The scramble to extricate our selves from this ravine was a trial of strength to both men and oxen. In the hope of preserving one dry garment I had attempted to ride, but my only saddle girth giving way nothing was left but to wade middle-deep in wet grass, the saddle be ing only prevented from slipping off by buckling the girth under his neck. This day also proved rainy, so that a dry thread was not to be found among us, and, fearing to remount in this state, I walked during the greater part of the day. In the afternoon it cleared up, and, being on an emi nence at the time, a momentary glimpse of the sea was discerned. The joy which this afforded to us all can scarcely be described, and I deshe to thank my God for this earnest of success, and for having thus far prospered our way. Conduct ed by an elephant path we soon after descended through a wood into another valley ; and having, not without some difficulty, forded the stream which flowed through it, halted for our mid-day's bivouac on the opposite bank. The underwood is here abundant, and the na ture ofthe country favorable for game ; pheasants and partridges have been seen in great numbers both yesterday and to-day. The romantic dells and ravines, which at short intervals intersect this beautiful district, would under other chcumstances have afforded me much gratification, but unfortu nately my attention was too often drawn away by the floundering of the oxen and the necessary ad justment of theh burdens. While partaking of our hasty meal on the banks of this stream, a whole community of baboons (dog-faced) made their appearance on the opposite hill ; some slowly moving with an inquisitive look towards us ; others dehberately seating themselves upon the rocks, as though debating on the propriety of our uncere monious tresspass upon theh domain. I counted eight, some of which from their size must at least have been grandshes. On quitting this vattey by another rocky clamber, open downs were again before us indented by rugged ravines. Stopped for the night near a smaU stream which we reach ed soon after sunset. TraveUed twenty miles — general course, S. E. Wednesday, 4lh. — Fair weather. Soon after quitting our bivouac the sea was again distinctly seen at a distance, in a direct line of not more than seven miles ; but, although we were appa rently so near, the greater part of the day was consumed in finding a road to the beach. No sooner had we made a considerable circuit to avoid an impassable chasm, than our progress was again stopped by a stfll more precipitous ravine. Some of these were strikingly grand ; and so sud denly approached that we were frequently stand ing on the brink of a precipice seven or eight hundred feet in depth, of the existence of which we had, at a few hundred yards distance, been wholly unconscious. Into one of the most striking of these a thread-like cataract, unbroken in its descent, was precipitated over the rocky rampart ; the splash of its clear waters, as they mingled with the stream below, being only recognised by the reverberating echo, a thick screen of luxuriant wood concealing its base. During many of our wanderings this day we were indebted to our for mer pioneers the elephants, their paths invariably conducting us by the shortest route to the first practicable ford across the numerous rivulets which lay in our way. About this time our position with regard to the coast was recognised ; it appeared evident that we were on the left bank of the Um- secaba, and at about four o'clock we succeeded in gaining the wagon track near the beach. — We had scarcely time to pitch the tent when a thunder storm came on, and, as the tide was too high for crossing, we took up our quarters here for the night. Great cause have I, indeed, for thankfulness at this merciful termination of so long and so anxious a journey. The hand of my God has indeed been upon us for good. The re lief to my mind I can scarcely express — not that I ever for a moment doubted His watchful care and guidance, but I felt the responsibility of at tempting to conduct so many persons with means apparently so inadequate. The tribes of baboons which issued from their haunts to salute us during this day's journey were quite extraordinary. At one time I counted twenty old and young collect ed together, probably, like ourselves, enjoying the sunshine after the late rains. Some of the elders were of large size, and one, who was strutting about erect, was full five feet in height. On one of these occasions an interesting domestic scene took place. On reaching the brow of a hfll, some of the party had suddenly disturbed a large group of these creatures. Their impulse and actions were quite human ; on the first alarm the mothers hastily ran back, snatched up theh young, and, bearing them in their paws, scampered off with all their speed. Although the generaUty of the flowers in this country are scentless, there is no district which I have passed throughout this jour ney which has not produced many of great beauty. In the early part several varieties of Haemanthus were very common, richly carpeting the ground with theh bright pink and crimson colors ; the Gladiolus, with its white, blue, or amber bells, is also very general ; and even among the most rocky parts the elegant Ixia pendula, bearing a profusion of lilac blossom, makes a splendid ap pearance. The Leontice is quite a weed in many parts, but contrasts wel] with the foliage of the underwood, among which it grows to a great height. Plants of Lachenaha, bearing a cluster of red pendent bells, are also very common ; but there is one of great beauty, which, until I can learn the botanical name, I must call the Feather plant. The stamens are each distinctly feathered with a glossy violet down, and beautifully reUeved by the bright yettow of the anthers. Its general height is about twelve or fourteen inches. During the last two days the Heemanthus have quite ena melled the ground, and many of the plants above mentioned have also been seen. Surely Solomon in all his glory was not anayed like one of these ! Wett indeed may we exclaim with the pious Psalmist — " O Lord ! how manifold arethy works, in wisdom hast thou made them aU." Travelled twenty miles — general course, S. S. E. Thursday 5th. — Sent two men back with direc tions for the wagons, and, crossing the river at the mouth, continued our route towards the Ama ponda country. Near this spot the Grosvenor East Indiaman was lost in 1782. Two of the THE" ZOOLU COUNTRY. 93 guns, and several pigs of baUast, are visible at (ow water. Proceeding a little further, we passed a stranded whale, lying high up among the rocks, part of the blubber only (about the head and shoulders) having been taken off— their whitened bones are frequently seen strewed along the beach. The late heavy rains had so fiUed the rivers, that, although it was about the spring tides, we found the Umsecaba but barely fordable at low water, and were obhged to go considerably round in order to cross the next, though a much smaller stream. Both this and the second river to the southward of the Umsecaba are free from rocks at theh en trance, and appear to be accessible for boats : in one of them, I am informed, a boat has landed for the purpose of procuring wood and water. In the evening we reached Umnooka's, and truly rejoiced was I again to behold the habita tions ofmen, and the human face divine, although disfigured by red clay and ornaments of fat. My former hut was now again prepared, and I crept into it with as much satisfaction as though it had been a well-furnished lodging, more especially as I was again thoroughly wet through, and the rain was still descending. After the lapse of ten weeks since I was in this neighborhood, I had fain expected to have heard that the Kafir war was at an end ; but by the representations here given, it appears to be still undecided, so that my san guine expectations of speedily reaching the colony are again dissipated. Umnooka on this occasion retrieved his character, and treated us very hand somely. Travelled twenty-four miles. Friday, 6th. — On the cessation of the rain, about ten, we set forward. Judging, from the slipperiness of the ground, the steep lulls, and in tricate woods through which it would be necessary to pass, that but Uttle progress would now be made by the pack-oxen, I procured two guides from the first Amaponda village we came to, and leaving the party to foUow as they could, pushed on with them to Mr. Fynn's place, which I reached soon after sunset. Unfortunately, these guides, as like wise the other brought from Umnooka's to con duct the party behind, knew only the lower road, which is more thickly wooded and hilly than that which I had formerly traveUed ; and even this it became necessary to leave for some distance, in order to avoid a river which at this time was un- fordable. The great part was a perfect scramble — so close and tangled were the trees that, in forcing a passage, both my saddle pockets were scraped off, and my poor horse, led by one of the guides, was so frequently on his haunches in a sttding attitude, that I thought it almost impossible that he could escape without a broken limb. On passing some ground sown with sweet potatoes, my two companions eagerly raked them up with sticks, rubbed offthe mould, and then commenced eating them raw — theh obttging offer to join them in this impromptu meal was, however, declined, in anticipation of something more digestable at the end of my journey. Saturday, 7th. — Set out early with two fresh juides. Found the Umzimvoobo considerably higher than when I last crossed — it has, I under stand, already been impassable for eight or nine days. ON VIEWING THE UMZIMVOOBO FROM THE HEIGHTS. What radiant band of peaceful hght Is that which beams so bright beneath? 'Tis Umzimvoobo in his might, Spreading around his silver wreath. In mountains cradled — placid stfll His faithful breast theh image holds; He seems to stray against his will, Entangled in theh rocky folds ! 'Tis thus the Uving streams of grace, Though straitened in their passage, glide ; Opposed — obstructed — still they trace Their heavenward course, whate'er betide. But soon will dawn a brighter day— And faith discerns the promise nigh— When every mountain shall decay, And valleys shaU be raised on high ! And peace shaU flow a mighty stream, Tfll all the earth with joy resound ; And rays of righteousnessshaU beam, Where darkness to be felt was found . Soon may that glorious day appear ! Hasten thy chariot wheels, O Lord ! Thy people's prayer in mercy hear — Send forth thy hght and truth abroad. As waters fill the ocean now, ; Then peaceful floods of joy shaU flow ; And every knee to Thee shall bow, And every heart with rapture glow ! On reaching the GumkOlo, found Faku in grand consultation in the midst of a large assembly, seated on the ground. He met me on my ap proach, and taking my hand as I alighted, again seated himself, and motioned me to do the same, apparently highly amused at my unexpected re turn. After a few minutes of signs and broken Kafir, intermixed, our conference ended, and I made the best of my way to Bunting, where I ar rived at about three o'clock, to my great satisfac tion and the no small surprise of Mr. and Mrs. Tainton. Thus has mercifully ended this most anxious journey. All our grain was expended, and no other supply remained, excepting a few of the calves, which were kept in reserve for a time of need. Sunday, 15ft. " Hope that maketh not ashamed." — Rom. v. 5. There is a hope that never fails — A sure and certain stay ; Not all the grief that life assails Can dim that heavenly ray. E'en in the the darkest night 'tis seen, And brightest then appears ; The very clouds that intervene Reflect the hght that cheers. 94 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. | of the station ; and that if anything should happen either to Mr. Tainton or his family, they should answer with theh Uves. Since the marciage of his daughter to Tpai, a more friendly feehng seems to exist between the Amapondas and Amahoash, who are now said to have ananged a simultaneous attack upon aU the tribes on the sea coast, be tween the Umtagychi and the Bashee rivers, pro fessedly to chastise this daring insult upon his "children." This morning I had ridden to the Gomkolfl ; and on my return was most agreeably surprised at the arrival, a few minutes previously, of Mr. Palmer's servant, announcing the near ap proach of himself and Mr. Davis (Wesleyan mis sionaries) direct from the colony. Attended by five other mounted natives, they soon after made theh appearance ; and their cordial welcome, circumstanced as we were, may weU be imagined. AU assembled to congratulate them, not only on theh safe arrival, but on being the voluntary bearers ofthe first intelligence of our release from a state Uttle differing from captivity. Notwith standing all the reports of the natives to the con trary, it appears that a treaty has been entered into with Kheeli ; and since the 10th of May last all actual hostilities have ceased. The country, however, was in too unsettled a state, and the feehngs of the intermediate tribes too much excit ed to have rendered it prudent for any, excepting an armed force, to have traversed the country pre viously. They had been sixteen days on the road — purposed a speedy return ; and I felt happy in the opportunity thus offered me of accompanying them back to Graham's Towm. In the midst of this pleasing intettigence heavy tidings have reached me, for which, however, I was not alto gether unprepared. My valued friend, Mr. Ber kin, is no more ! — the vessel which conveyed him from Port Natal, in March last, having never been heard of since. I have thus lost a most esteemed friend and companion ; but I doubt not he has gained an immortal inheritance undeflled, and that fadeth not away. So unexpected a termination of his mortal career calls loudly upon me also to "prepare to meet my God !" What, though no earthly memorial shaU record the day or the place in which he exchanged his tabernacle of clay for a house not made with hands, eternal in the hea vens — his mental acquirements, his amiable char acter, and, above all, his genuine piety, will em balm his memory, and render it dear to all who were privileged with bis acquaintance; and his name is already enrolled among those of whom, in the language of insphation, it has been said, " These all died in faith." " The righteous man perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart ; and mer ciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taking away from the evfl to <»>me. He shall enter into rest.." — Isaiah, lvii. 1, 2. Thursday, 17th. — The locusts have been and stfll are very numerous in this part of the country : they had not advanced beyond the Umtata when I was last here, but have now extended theh ra vages to the Umzimvoobo. The Amapondas make no scruple in eating them, although they will refuse fish, deeming it unclean : the usual method is to grill a number of them together on the fire. The black-beetle of this country has It is that hope which faith imparts, By Jesus' blood made sure ; That glows within our aching hearts, And makes us feel secure — A hope, through Christ, of pardon sealed, Of strength sufficient for our day, That grace shall make each trial yield Experience in the heavenly way. This is the hope the Christian knows, Whfle journeying through this vale of tears ; His solace 'mid the deepest woes, — The antidote for att lis fears. How sweet the inward calm that reigns, When we can cast on God each care ! No trial harms — for faith explains, And marks the hand of mercy there ! FuU weU he knows not aught shaU fail , Of ev'ry promise thathe pleads ; The tempest may awhile prevail, But rest and peace the storm succeeds. Thanksgiving* then, his sweet employ — With grateful praise his heart o'erflows ; The hope that grief could not destroy, With purer, brighter ardor glows. What then that meed of heavenly love, Which through eternity shaU swett ; The joy of ransomed souls above, Who in their Father's presence dweU ! Oh think, my souL on that bright day, And, though oft fainting, follow stfll, The promise will not long delay — Jesus wfll every word fulfil. So shaU each Bochim by the way, To grace an Ebenezer raise, And God alone wfll be thy stay— His truth and faithfulness thy praise ; And when from earthly trials freed, Thou wilt be blessed with Christ indeed ! Conducted the native service morning and afternoon, Monday, 16th. — The large assembly in which I found Fako and his principal chiefs on the 7th, had, I understand, been convened in order that they might undergo the ceremonies previous to going out to war ; and on this occasion, among other equally absurd rites, each individual received several gashes across the leg. It appears that Tangwani (Fako's brother,) in conjunction with some minor chiefs, have, contrary toFaku's wish, been making clandestine attacks upon the Ama tembu ; in the last, wliich has recently occuned, tbey were not only unsuccessful, but lost several men ; and their opponents are now following up theh success by sending out smaU nightly parties to steal cattle in this neighborhood. Not many nights ago the drag chain was stolen from a wagon standing close to the Mission Buildings, and the horses taken from the cattle-fold, close to the native huts, by a party of these freebooters. So much enraged was Fako on hearing the ac count, that he declared that the natives residing on the place should be responsible for the safety | a particular instinct, well known I conclude to THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 95 naturahsts, by which it wfll roU a ball ten or twelve times its own size, conveying it to a considerable distance, and that on the mast scientific principles ; one of them bearing with its head and fore-legs upon the ground, pushes it forward by its hind-legs, while the other crawls upon the bafl in an opposite dhection ; thereby imparting by the weight of its body an additional impetus to the advancing hemisphere, beyond which it never ascends. These balls are generally composed of manure ; and it is supposed that in them theh eggs are enveloped ; but this fact I have not ascertained. A Newton himself could not have displayed a more practical acquaintance with the power of gravity ; but surely He, from whom Newton and att the wise-hearted of the earth have obtained their knowledge, has implanted this remarkable instinct. This afternoon the wagons arrived ; they had had been obhged to make a considerable circuit to the eastward, reaching the coast at the mouth of the Umtavoomi. The oxen have frequently been obhged to swim in fording the rivers, and my baggage of course has been as often submerg ed. As the missionaries now here are the only individuals who have as yet attempted to pass through KheeU's country since the cessation of hostflities, and there is little doubt that had they not been recognised as such they would have been stopped, I give up all idea of forwarding the wa gons, at least for the present, and make prepara tions /for starting with them on horseback to-mor row morning. Thursday, 19ft. — This morning Fako, with a few attendants only, visited the station. His first request was, that I would give him some cattle, having doubtless heard ofthe arrival of my wagons with four spans, an unusual number. An ox, as is customary, was presented to him by Mr. Tain ton, and killed on the spot for himself and party ; but stfll urging his request, notwithstanding I had given him a string of uniform buttons, I desired an ox to be brought, which was presented under a condition of its being immediately killed. This unfortunate beast, while drinking in the Tugala, before it came into my possession, had been so beset by alligators, that it was a wonder to aU, who had observed its perilous situation, that it had ever escaped theh fangs. When nearly over powered, and about to be drawn into the stream, as a last resort, a musket was discharged, when they aU instantly quitted theh prey, the last afli- gator biting his tail short off as he foUowed his companions into the water. The torture which this privation must occasion at this season, when the flies are so numerous and troublesome, had long decided me on having him kitted as soon as his services were not absolutely requisite. As soon as Mr. Palmer had finished his conference with Faku, I took my leave also. He gave me his hand Vith great cordiattty, requesting me to inform the Great Chief that he should certainly make an attack on all the tribes between him and the coast, as far as the Bashee ; but that he should not molest Ferdana, as he had originally intended. We were thus detained untfl half-past twelve, when I once more took my leave of Mr. and Mrs. Tainton, to whose hospitality I have been so often indebted and for whose continued kindness, though 57-7 themselves suffering many privations consequent upon the exhaustion of their accustomed supplies, I shall ever feel grateful. On turning to take a last view of the missionary station from the neigh boring heights, I could not but feel that I was leaving a spot which had often proved a welcome asylum, and on which I can never reflect but with a sense of gratitude and pleasure. Although fine when we started, the rain soon recommenced ; and from the quantity which had already fallen, the path in many places were complete water courses, and so slippery that it was with difficulty we could prevent our horses from falling. The night had closed upon us before we reached the Umtata ; and so dark was it on descending the wooded slope to the river, that I more than once, whfle leading my horse, struck against the haunch of that which was preceding, unconscious that it was immediately before me. The river was said to be impassable ; at aU events, under present chcumstances, it would have been madness to have made the attempt. There are no inhabitants in this part, and as the rain, which had never in termitted, was stfll fatting, we were obhged to content ourselves with the questionable protection of a clump of mimosa bushes, where without a fire (there being no posssibility of kindling one,) we made our bivouac for the night, Friday, 20ft.— Every article of my clothing, with the exception of a camblet cloak, being per fectly saturated with rain, I thought it prudent, instead of lying down in this humid state, to divest myself of all, and rolling my selfcup in the said cloak, with the saddle for a piUow, I slept soundly until day-light, when, from the continuation of the rain and the profuse dripping from the trees, I found the saddle completely wet, and the water trickling under my head. Having so many inducements to quit our comfortless quarters, which we agreed to name the "Bathing-house," we soon descended to the river, which we found but barely practicable, and, wading across breast high, succeeded in drag ging the horses through the rocky channel, in which operation our entire paraphernalia was for some time under water. Had the missionary buildings at Morley been stfll in existence, we should soon have restored the contents of our saddle-bags — -but aU, excepting the chapel, had been burnt during the late disturb ances ; and we had to content ourselyes with the shelter of a native hut at a short distance from the station. The ascent fom the river to Morley (about four mfles distant) is steep, and commands ome of the finest scenery in this country. Per pendicular cliffs of a red color, rising among trees and underwood, among which are many of the euphorbia class, margin the stream. Several ca taracts, now filled by the rain, were gushing from the highest points ; these, with the graceful wind ings of the impetuous river, traced for some dis tance from the heights, combined to form a most enchanting and romantic prospect, which a short interval form rain at this time enabled me in some degree to enjoy. This is the first Amatembu vfl lage in this direction, and to the narrow hmits of a native hut we were confined as close prisoners, on account of the rain, for the greater part of the day, enduring a temperature approaching to that of an oven, which for the sole benefit of our clothes, 96 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. both on and off, we were necessitated to bear. Had we not crossed the Umtata at the moment we did, it is probable that we might have been detained some days, as it is reported to be stiU rising. Our present distance from Bunting is estimated at forty-two miles. Saturday, 21st. — The weather being fine, we set out at nine, but were considerably delayed in the route, several petty chiefs, who were detained by the rain from visiting Mr. Palmer (their late missionary) at the vfllage, as previously ananged, now way-laying us on the path. Each came ac companied by several attendants — the chiefs, as we approached, placing their shields and assegais before them on the ground, and then seating themselves untfl we came up, the attendants of each standing the whole time close in the rear, firmly grasping the bundle of assegais on which they were leaning. I was particularly struck with the commanding and intettigent appearance of an individual in one of these groupes, whom I afterwards understood from Mr. Palmer was nam ed Darka (brother of the head of the village where we had slept,) and whose character exactly cor responded with his expression of countenanee. He had, it appears, been a frequent visitant at the mission-house, where, it was evident, from his re marks and inquiries, that in point of intellect he was far in advance of the generaUty of his coun trymen. So great was his thirst for knowledge, that he had requested Mr. Palmer to take him with him on his next visit to the colony, and had actually accompanied his wagon part of the way, when, on account of the breaking out ofthe Kafir war, it was thought imprudent for him to advance beyond Clarkebury. The natives of the different villages near which we passed were civil, occasionally bringing amas at our request, which, though of a very inferior quality, we were glad to obtain. Although most of the baggage was distributed upon led horses, several of them knocked up, so that, unable to reach Clarkebury, as had been intended this evening, we turned aside to a wooded hfll, under which were a few huts, at a quarter-past seven, where we proposed remaining until Monday, the missionary station being about ten miles distant. Sunday, 22nd. "When thou art converted strengthen thy bre thren."— (Luke xxii. 32.) What a sweet constraining power Binds the hearts of Christians here ! How it soothes each trying hour To feel that we have friends so dear ! Bound by one law — the law of love, They help each other by the way ; The strength that they obtain above Gladly to others they convey. All members of one glorious Head, Each shares the pang his brother feels ; Rejoices when the trial's sped, And owns the hand afflicts and heals. What sweet communion we might share, How many hours of comfort know, Did each another's burden bear — Did love through all our actions flow. How often to Emmaus led Our ardent steps would willing speed, To speak of One who once has bled, That rebels might from sin be freed. And who can tell tfll that great day, When every thought shall be confessed, How many would have turned away, But for a word in season blessed ? • If, then, our hearts to God are turned — If Jesus we have precious found, And much of grace and goodness learned, Let Christian charity abound. Like Samson's wishes — though weak alone, United, we shaU strength impart. The grace and truth which each have known, WiU cheer and comfort every heart. Thus oft refreshed from Baca's fount, While journeying through this vale of tears, To Pisgah's top we oft shaU mount, And gaze away our doubts and fears. And when our souls shall one by one Before our Father's throne appear, The song that was on earth begun, Shall only be completed there. And oh, what rapture there to meet The partners of our grief and care ; To cast our crowns at Jesus' feet, And own 'twas grace that brought us there ! Mr. Davis, unassisted by an interpreter, per formed the Kafir service in front of our hut. Monday, 23rd. — Fearing detention from the height of the Bashee, we started early. The river was, indeed, full — my interpreter and myself were the first across. He was soon swept off bis legs, and only gained the opposite bank by swim ming; at the same moment I was struggling agamst the current, scarcely able to retain my footing, when two stout feUows of the Amatembu tribe kindly came up, and placing theh backs agamst mine, supported me through the deepest part, and I soon after gained a rocky ledge, by which the channel is here divided — the other branch I was obhged to swim. My object in preceding the party was to en courage the people who accompanied Messrs. Palmer and Davis, not one of them would attempt the passage, although two of the Amatembu had just crossed from the opposite side before theh eyes. After a considerable detention, I was join ed by my companions, who, at both rivers, had each been assisted by two men, and every thing being safely conveyed across, we again mounted, and soon reached the mission-house at Clarke bury. The distance from Morley is about forty- six miles. J A message, announcing our arrival, having been previously sent to Ferdana, in about a couple of THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 97 hours he made his appearance, accompanied by a respectable train, aU well provided with assegais. His figure is taU and well proportioned — his coun tenance puerile and vacant ; he approached in somewhat a formal manner, preceding his two brothers, who were closely foUowed by the rest of his party. The three chiefs appeared in panther- skin mantles (the fur inside,) and each carried a single assegai in his hand. How strangely do chcumstances vary our relative position. I was now in amicable converse with the very people who, during my last visit to this place, are said to have been meditating my death. This account, which I have every reason to beUeve is correct, was brought, to Bunting after I had left for Port Natal, by a native named Sotchangan, and who declared that he was himself present during the deliberation which took place on the subject be fore Ferdana. How gracious is that Providence, which pro tects us not only from the anow which flieth by day, but from the unknown and not less fatal ma chinations of our fellow-men ! To this unpleasant subject no allusion of course was made ; a fitter opportunity will doubtless oc cur for investigating this matter, as also the sus picion under which he rests of having murdered the two messengers from Bunting. To obtain from Ferdana, either by loan or by purchase, a supply of fresh horses was our aim, and the con versation on this knotty subject was long and tedious ; at last he agreed to lend four as far as Kheeh's great place. In the present state of the country, in daily expectation of attacks either from the Amapondas or the Amahoash, it is pro bably as much as we could expect ; and for which assistance I have agreed to give him a cow, which I shall endeavor to send by the first opportunity. The parley at length being ended, he retired with aU his people ; but although a messenger was im mediately despatched for the horses, there is little hope, from the distance at which they are kept, of theh aniving before to-morrow evening. A surprising change has taken place in the face of the country ; — aU is now green, which when last here was parched and desolate. StiU, however, there is little to recommend the spot on which the missionary buildings are erected. This, I now understand from Mr. Davis, was not from choice, — another site having been selected for the pur pose, but given up on Vosani's expressing a pre ference for the present situation. Having been so long accustomed to the scrupulous honesty of the Zoolus and Amapondas, I was not prepared for the loss of my bridle, which had suddenly dis appeared from the fence of the garden, where it had been imprudently hung. I beheve that the Amatembu are far less addicted to theft than theh adroit neighbors, the Amakosa ; in aU other re spects, at least to a casual observer, they are ex actly simflar. It should not, however, be omitted that Ferdana has adjudged a fine of two cows to the person whom Gogu (charged with the care of the station in Mr. Davis's absence) had detected in the act of purloining a tin mug from the mission-house. Since we have been here a heavy thunder storm has set in every afternoon ; they are said to be very' frequent in this neighborhood. Wednesday, 25ft. — Left Clarkebury at half-past twelve, having been unable to procure the horses sooner. We had not proceeded far, when we observed a number of people collected about the huts of a viUage we were approaching. On in quiry, we found that one of the houses had been struck by lightning two days previously, and that the witch doctor had just arrived to purify the place, which was to be effected by killing a beast, feasting, and dancing. Thom bushes had been placed round the hut m question, which was aban doned and not again aUowed to be entered. Pro videntially no fives had been lost. Other in stances of this kind were noticed in my journey up, whfle passing through the Amakosa, in aU of which the houses had invariably been abandoned. It is probable that the greater part of this coun try will shortly be overrun with locusts ; the young insects are innumerable, and in some places en thely covered the ground ; insomuch, that many ofthe natives assured us that they should not plant corn this year, as they were not likely to benefit by the crop. Among the cattle great losses have been sus tained ; occasioned, as it is said, by the unusual cold and heavy rains : probably, the circumstance of a state of warfare may have contributed to the amount ; — the fact, however, was obvious, — at every village, and frequently by the way, heads and skeletons were strewing the ground ; but chiefly in the cattle-folds, where many whole car cases were stfll remaining. There has been an equal mortahty I am told among the colonial cat tle, while the districts to the northward of the Bashee have been exempt. In the afternoon we had a drizzling rain, and being now on the skirts of the Amamaia tribe, w'e found the frontier vfl lages mutuaUy abandoned. These people, of Amatembu stock, though now independent, are a nest of freebooters in friendly affiance with theh southern neighbors, the Amakosa, and possessed of att theh treacherous and pilfering propensities. So bitter are theh feuds to this day with theh ci- devant brethren the Amatembu, that the guides sent by Ferdana to escort us to Kheeh's territory, were so apprehensive of ill treatment that they left us at this point to proceed alone. After cross ing the Colosa, having traveUed during the day about twenty-five miles, we took up our night's quarters in a dilapidated hut, the best that we could select, in one of these deserted vfllages. Thursday, 26ft. — Continued our route at sun rise, over_open downs, the country both yesterday and to-day being generaUy bare of trees. We soon, however, reached an inhabited district, which was first indicated by a bush- buck, almost exhausted, crossing our path ; some dogs soon after ascended the ridge in pursuit, foUowed at a short distance by several natives, well provided with assegais, evidently on a hunting expedition. Having satisfied theh questions respecting indaba (news,) &c, we rode on. Several other parties came up as we proceeded, aU very civil ; and some even approached us unarmed, although each of our native attendants carried a gun. After resting the horses for about hah an hour, we again continued our route, and soon obtained a distant view of the waUs of Butterworth, this missionary station having shared the fate of Mor ley during the recent war. As we approached 98 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. the ruins, a native upon a pack-ox, who had not before perceived us, was so suddenly surprised at our appearance, that, regardless of his beast, he instantly spmng from his back, and in a few se conds was out of sight ; naturally concluding that our intentions were not the most pacific. Both here and at Morley, I had met with great kind ness from the missionary famiUes; and while riding over the bricks and rubbish of the demo lished buildings, bearing evident marks of the con flagration, I felt much for them and for the cause in which they have suffered : it was indeed a me lancholy satisfaction we were indulging, and we soon instinctively turned aside from the blackened walls to visit the garden, where an abundance of figs, almonds, and peaches were rapidly advancing to a state of maturity. But what delighted me the most was a luxuriant hedge of roses covered with flowers and in great beauty, the first I had seen since leaving the colony ; and the very sight of which almost transported me again to my native country, — though not indeed the land of the olive and the vine, — stfll pre-eminently of the jessamine and rose. Leaving this interesting spot, about tliree mfles to the right we reached the present residence of Kheeh — a village containing only nine huts, att in a most wretched and dilapidated condition, and still likely to be occupied for some time without repair, as a part of the customary respect paid to the memory of a deceased chief. Shortly after our anival, Kheeli made his appearance ; it was about the time of drinking milk; his councillors and principal men soon assembled near his mother's hut, and, seating themselves on the ground, form ed a semichcle round him, whfle he sent portions of milk to each, the baskets being first placed be fore him by two servants, who, strange to say, wore each a printed cloth round his waist, the first attempt at civilized atthe which has yet been made by these inveterate sons of nature, and I trust wfll not long remain a solitary example. Kheeli is a young man of about twenty, taU and apparently of a mild disposition ; somewhat grace ful in his actions and of rather a Jewish expression of countenance. As soon as the important business of drinking curdled milk was ended, in wliich, though served late, we had not been neglected, Kheeh, with a few of his chief counciUors, removed to the spot where we had been sitting at a few paces from the assembly, which gradually dispers ed, and commenced a long parley. News was eagerly inquired, as weU from the Enghsh camp as from theh northern neighbors. Having endea vored to satisfy (for that is scarcely possible) aU these various inquiries, a request on our part was made for two horses, and a mounted guide to conduct us across the Kei ; but att our endeavors, urged with the promise of a present on reaching our destination, were ineffectual. " Where are horses to come from? We have none " — was the reply. " The Amatembu have stolen them — the Enghsh have taken them." In short, it had evi dently been determined that, at least, we should have none. It was now proposed to leave one here which had knocked up on the journey, but in the course of this anangement, which was agreed to, a singular coincidence occuned — this very horse being recognised by Kheeli as one of his own. It had been stolen from him by a party of Abasootu, in one of theh predatory expeditions across the mountains, and had subsequently been employed by the same people in a late attack upon the Amatembu, in which they were defeated; and this, with several other of their horses, was captured by Ferdana. Had that suspicious chieftain been aware of his real pedigree, he would never have allowed him to have accompanied us on our present journey. Not only is it pro hibited during the period of state mourning to renew the thatch of the most dilapidated hut, but even the wholesome influence of the besom is also forbidden ; and as this village had been abandoned during the war, the condition of our floor may be better imagined than described. As soon as it was dark I made some attempt at repairing the roof, as it was threatening rain, but the thatch was too scanty and far between to do any thing effectually. In the evening an ox was sent to us to be slaugh tered, which proved a very acceptable supply, as our people had been nearly a day without tasting food, and our own stock was almost exhausted. Friday, 26ft. — Having last night been promised guides to the Kei, we were anxious to proceed ; but as none had yet been sent, we repahed to Nomesa's hut, where it was understood that se veral of the councillors, although at an unusually early hour, were assembled. Nomesa was Hinza's principal wife, and is the mother of Kheeh ; and even during the Ufe-time of her husband is said to have had great influence in the tribe. The hut was crowded ; and although anxious to see this pohtical lady, the smoke was so dense that her person was enthely concealed ; this, however, was no impediment to a long conversation which soon commenced. Kheeli, who in her presence seems to have Uttle importance, coming in at this time, and loffing carelessly in one corner of the hut, she thus addressed me, pointing to her son : — " We have no rest. You see that child — he has no place — he is a baby. I am obliged to cany him about in my teeth — his house is dead, and we are aU eaten up ! We wish to have a word to be at rest, that we may cultivate the ground." I re phed, by remmding her " that they had aheady received a word to be at rest ; that the English had rested ; and they wished to see peace esta blished." The councillors then spoke in confirma tion of their great woman's words, and att in the same strain. They declared that they knew not why these troubles had come upon them ; that they had taken nothing ; and were quiet untfl they were " eaten up " (a common expression for being im poverished.) To a stranger to theh character, and to the real facts of the case, such a pathetic and plausible appeal would doubtless have excited commiseration, and kindled a generous indignation at cruelties apparently so wantonly inflicted by a Christian and civilised nation, on one so unoffend ing and helpless. But as I had been aheady suf ficiently initiated into theh modes of address and arch duplicity, and was tolerably wett acquainted with the causes and leading circumstances of the late war, my high sense of amor patriae was by no means diminished ; and had my cheek reddened at the time, it would have been occasioned by the palpable falsehoods they were striving so systema tically to uphold. The horses being packed, and THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 99 very thing ready, Keeeli, with several of his people, assembled before our hut to see us go off. The favorable moment was not lost : and I was particularly delighted with the simplicity with which Mr. Davis first gave out a hymn in the native lan guage, and then led aU who were witting to join in singing the praises of Jehovah. It was a happy conclusion to our visit ; surrounded, as we were, by some of the most determined and ferocious characters in att Kafir-land, it has left an impres sion on my mind which I shaU never forget. As we proceeded the country graduaUy improv ed, being more broken and clothed with trees in the ravines. Stopped to rest our horses at a spot caUed Shaw's Fountain, and within a few paces of the remains of the house in which WiUiam Pur- cell, a trader, was wantonly murdered by a native in July of the past year. As we approached the Kei, the lads watching the cattle took' the alarm ; and it was amusing to see the rapidity with which several herds on each side of the road were driven off into the wooded ravines. They soon, however, gained confidence ; and in spite of the guns came near, and loudly called for a bazella (present.) Mounted and bearing guns across their shoulders, our native escort, for this country, had rather a respectable appearance ; but what benefit we were to derive from theh weapons, in the event of an attack, I have yet to learn. In defensive warfare theh prowess was certainly uncaUed for ; but on two occasions they all dismounted, drew up in a Une, and made a vigorous attack upon a flock of wild geese, which, strange to say, aU flew off without leaving them even a feather for a trophy ! From the quantity of rain which has recently fallen, and the state of the other rivers, we had little expectation of finding the Kei in a fordable state, and were rejoiced to perceive that it was only moderately high, enabhng us to cross without dificulty. The guides could not be induced to accompany us across, but left us on the bank to return home. We were now in the new province of Adelaide (the colonial boundary, since the late war, having been extended to this river ;) and as soon as att our party had gained the British side, we knelt down and offered up a prayer of thanks giving to the God of all our mercies, by whose good providence we have been so mercifully pros pered and protected in our journey. We had started this morning at twenty minutes to seven, and reached Fort Warden (the first military post,) about five miles from the river, at a quarter to four where we were kinkly received by Captain De Lancey, the officer in command. My business with his excellency the governor being urgent, Captain De Lancey kindly furnished me with an escort to the next post, and an order to be supph ed there with fresh horses to King William's Town, the head quarters. My own horse, notwithstand ing all his toils (having ridden him almost every day for these two months past,) came in quite fresh, and with the additional weight of saddle- ' i bags galloped in front ofthe whole party. Here, however, I left him to be brought on with the other led horses, my companions intending to sleep here, and proceed by more moderate stages. Being anxious, if possible, to reach Graham's Town some time to-morrow night, I set out again with my interpreter, escorted by two of the Cape corps (Hottentos) at sunset, and reached King William's Town at tliree in the morning, where, notwithstanding the unseasonable hour, I was kindly welcomed by Mr. T . Shepstone, the govern ment interpreter. Saturday, 28ft. — Colonel Smith, who since the termination of the war has commanded the new province, received me with great kindness, and took much interest in the situation of affahs at Port Natal, affording me, in the most handsome manner, a mihtary escort for the remainder of my journey to Graham's Town. Here the changes effected by the late " row with Kafirs," as it was elegantly expressed to me by a colonial farmer, were stiU more apparent than in the line of posts I had passed on the road. The whole appeared Uke a dream — the very name of King WiUiam's Town was to me a novelty ; and what I only re membered as the quiet abode of a missionary of the London Society (Mr. BrownUe) is now meta morphosed into a military cantonment, half urban, half nomadic ; here a line of mud huts ; there an enclosure of tents ; all however wett ananged, and apparently in high effective order. That part of the mission-house which has escaped the flames is repaired, and roofing ; and one room is aheady appropriated as an office for the transaction of business : whfle in the outskirts of the settlement several acres of land have been brought into cul tivation, and are yielding, good crops of oats, an exceUent precaution where forage of this descrip tion is so difficult to be procured. After break fasting in the colonel's markee, I resumed my journey at half-past ten. As the chain of posts, and consequently the relays of horses, were nearer together on the Fort Wfltshire road than on that which I had formerly travelled, by Trompeter's and Committee's Drift, I had an opportunity of crossing the Fish and Keiskamma rivers conside rably higher up, and traversing in a fresh dhec tion that extensive Une of jungle and forest, which occupies a considerable part of the country which is intersected by the Fish river, and known throughout its whole extent (about seventy miles) by the general appellation of the " Fish River Bush." To the skirts of this forest the country is comparatively open, covered chiefly by patches of the thorny mimosa, and affording in every part most desirable sites for agricultural locations : all beyond is wild and rugged, and, I may add, sombre in the extreme. There are no relieving cliffs and plashing cataracts to cheer the monotony — no curling smoke marks the approach to a single habitation ; all wears a savage mournful aspect ; and although the traveUer is often reminded by the steepness of the route, and the sudden abrupt ness of the neighboring ravines, that he is travers ing hills of no ordinary character : so unbroken and impervious is the green mantle which is cast over all, that he searches in vain for an object to guide his bewildered judgmennt, and at last reverts to himself and his horse as the only approximate means of fathoming the heights and chasms by which he is surrounded. To say that this was once the frontier of the colony would scarcely be credited by any miUtary man ; and the very know ledge of such a fact would at once prepare, him for much of the consequent disasters which have occuned. 100 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Had the " ceded territory" comprised between the Fish and the Keiskamma rivers been thickly lined with military posts, it might at a considerable expense have been tenable, though always liable to surprise ; but as this was not the case, nothing could have been more encouraging to the pilfering propensities of the Kafir, or more advantageous to his nightly attacks. By the late most just and unavoidable war two essential benefits appear likely to accrue : the permanent security of the colony from future aggression, and the eventual amehoration of the condition of the bordering tribes. Both the labor of the missionary and the industry of the trader wfll meet with that degree of protection from the local government which wfll render them less liable to interruption, and thereby an intercourse will be established with the natives, both within and without our boundary, upon a far more permanent footing, tending, under the blessing of God, to conciliate theh friendship — to elevate their character, and to win them from habits of barbarism and cruelty — to embrace not merely the outward customs of a civihsed com munity, but the far higher blessings of Christianity and true religion. From the Kei river to Graham's Town, about one hundred and sixteen mfles, there are now seven mihtary posts — four of these have been lately constructed in the new district ; they are all trenched, weU protected by high mud watts, and capable of repetting any Kafir force that could be opposed. It was two o'clock on Sunday morn ing before I reached Ayton's Hotel at Graham's Town, having ridden eighty-four mfles since leav ing King WflUam's Town. Sunday, 29ft. "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."~(l Sam. vii. 12.) How our lives with mercies teem, Every moment's fraught with love ; Let our lips recount the theme, Tfll our hearts are drawn above — Tfll we in spirit can unite With ransomed souls in realms of hght ! Had we but faith that could descry A Father's hand in all we view, How oft our grateful souls would cry, The Lord has helped me hitherto ; And Ebenezers we should raise To Him whose mercies crown our days ! Why have I so long been spared, A worthless cumberer of the ground ! Why have I so seldom shared The gifts which others feel around ? 'Tis grace — and sovereign grace alone, Such base ingratitude could own ! Not unto us, may sinners say, To us no power belongs ; We ne'er had trod the heavenly way, Or uttered one of Zion's songs, Had not redeeming love applied The fount that flowed from Jesus' side ? Beneath the cross we '11 constant cUng — No other name than Jesus know : Thence all our choicest pleasures spring, And streams of living waters flow ! If but the promise we beheve, AU from His fulness we receive. Nothing can our union sever — StiU the same unchanging Friend ; Yesterday — to-day — for ever, Jesus loves us to the end ! Supported by His mighty power, He keeps and guards us every hour ! Oh ! for grace by faith to live To Him whose blood my ransom bought, Freely of his own to give, Consecrate each word and thought. By grace I hitherto have come, And grace, I trust, wfll lead me home ! Having transacted my business at Graham's Town, and ascertained that his exceUency, Sh Benjamin D'Urban, was still at Port EUzabeth, I set out on Wednesday, December 2nd, for that place, at three in the afternoon, and, riding through part of the night, reached Algoa Bay soon after five o'clock on the following day — the distance is one hundred and one mfles. For the personal kindness which I received from his exceUency, but especially for the minute consideration which he paid to the subject of my communication, and the anxiety he evinced to promote, with all his influence, the observance of the treaty entered into with Dingam, and the general welfare, reh gious as well as commercial, of the Zoolu nation and the British settlement of Port Natal I feel deeply indebted ; and trust that it may please God to make him an instrument of conferring the last ing benefits of civilization, and the unspeakable Biessings of Christianity to the remotest parts of this vast and benighted continent. A vessel (the Dove) being then in the bay, and bound for Port Natal bis exceUency sent by her, to be forwarded immediately to Dingarn, the fol lowing document, which is the first official com munication which has ever been transmitted to any of the native powers beyond the immediate frontier of the colony : — "COPY. " His Britannic Majesty's Governor of the Colony ofthe Cape of Good Hope to the Chief of the Zoolus, Dingarn. " I rejoice to hear of the good word which has passed between the Chief and Captain Gar diner, and of the treaty concluded between them for the town and people of Port Natal. " An officer on the part of the King of England, my master, shaU speedily be sent to Port Natal, to be in authority there in the place of Captain Gardiner, untfl his return, and to communicate with the Chief, Dingarn, upon all matters con cerning the people of Natal. By him I wfll send to the Chief presents, in token of friendship and THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 101 good understanding, of which I hereby assure the Chief, in the name of the King my master. (Signed) "Benj. D'Urban, " Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. " Given at the Cape of Good Hope, the 5th day of December, 1835." Whfle at Port Elizabeth I had the pleasure of meetmg Dr. Adams, and Messrs. Grout and Champion, American Missionaries, about to pro ceed also in the Dove to Port Natal. His Excel lency proceeded to Uitenhage on the 5th, and on Monday the 7th I set out for Cape Town, stop ping three hours at Mr. Vandereit's, the civil com missioner at Uitenhage, where I received the governor's despatches for England. During the remainder of the journey to Cape Town, I aver aged eighty mfles each day, taking my chance of the farmers' horses upon the road. They are un shod, generaUy sure-footed, and weU adapted for such journeys. Three horses I found requisite — the guide leading one carrying the saddle-bags ; but the contents of these were so frequently sub merged, every stream and rivulet being unusuaUy swollen, that, although I commenced by occasion ally spreading them out to dry while the horses were changing, I soon grew tired of the operation, and the greater part were mildewed on my anival on Saturday night at Genadenthal. Before day light, on Monday 14th, I was again on route. In point of scenery this was by far the most interest ing day during the whole journey from Graham's Town. The approach to the town of George over the mountain, which divides that district from the Lange Kloof, is fine ; but I think the Fransche Hoek Pass is superior; and from this point to Stettenbosch, a distance of not more than thirty miles, the ride is quite beautiful, — exhibiting throughout some of the wildest and grandest characteristics of African scenery, in striking re lief, with cultivated farms and vineyards, embo somed in oak plantations, and enUvened with hedges of geranium and rose, luxuriant to the very base of those natural buttresses which, on either side, occasionaUy protrude their rugged out line far into the bosom of this beautiful vaUey. Among the Dutch farmers, throughout the country, I have invariably met with the greatest civility : they will not be driven, but address them civilly, and you are quite sure of a cordial welcome. A hearty shake ofthe hand, by the good man and his sturdy vrow at once makes you at home. The tea-water is always ready ; and scarcely have the encouraging words " sit mynheer" been uttered, than it is duly administered ; and I pity the fasti diousness of that traveUer who rises from a clean rubbed table, spread out with coffee, exceUent bread, butter, and eggs, and (if he chooses to ask for it) most delicious butter-milk, and not feel he has not only been refreshed, but abundantly satis fied. For a cup of tea or coffee they will receive nothing ; but for a repast, such as I have describ ed, and even where a tough chop are added, al though no charge is formally made, a rix dollar (Is. 6d.) is considered as a Uberal equivalent. As a further proof of their willingness to oblige, al though on leaving Graham's Town, I was kindly furnished by Captain CampbeU (the civil com missioner of the district) with an order on the different field comets for relays of horses to Cape Town, an occasion never once occurred in which I found it necessary to produce it. Having rid den eighty-four miles, the latter part of which, over the Cape Flats, being loose sand, is the most tedious, I reached Cape Town at five o'clock, and took up my former quarters at Miss Rabe's board ing house in the Heeregracht. On Saturday, the 19th, in the afternoon, I em barked on board the Liverpool, a teak-built 74, sent from the Imaum of Muscat, in charge of Captain Cogan of the Indian Navy, as a present to his Britanic Msrjesty, At nine o'clock the next morning we were underweigh ; anchored at St. Helena on the 2d of January ; sailed early the fol lowing morning ; and made the English coast off Falmouth on the 20th of February, where I land ed in the pilot boat in the course of the evening. , DOCUMENTS CONNECTED WITH PORT NATAL. Extracted from the Graham's Town Journal cf ' December 3rd, 1835. A treaty; concluded between dingarn, king OF THE ZOOLUS, AND THE BRITISH RESIDENTS AT PORT NATAL. Dingam from this period consents to waive aU claim to the persons and property of every indivi dual now residing at Port Natal, in consequence of their having deserted from him, and accords them his full pardon. He stfll, however, regards them as his subjects, liable to be sent for when ever he may think proper. The British residents at Port Natal, on theh part, engage for the future never to receive or harbor any deserter from the Zoolu country, or any of its dependencies ; and to use every endea vor to secure and return to the king every such individual endeavoring to find an asylum among them. Should a case arise in which this is found to be impracticable, immediate intettigence, stating the particulars of the chcumstance, is to be forwarded to Dingarn. Any infringment of this treaty on either part invahdates the whole. Done at CongeUa this 6th day of May, 1835, in presence of * Umthlella, } Chief Indoonas and head coun- Tambooza, i cfllors of the Zolu nation. Mr. G. Cyrus, interpreter. Signed on behalf of the British residents at Port Natal. Allen F. Gardiner. REGULATIONS OF THE TOWN OF "D'URBAN," PORT NATAL. Port Natal, June 23rd, 1835. A meeting ofthe residents of Port Natal, espe ciaUy convened for the purpose, was this day held at the residence of F. Berkin, Esq.; 102 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. present : Capt. Gardiner, R. N. Mr. H. Hogle, Mr. C. Pickman, Mr. P. Kew, Mr. J. Francis, Mr. J. Mouncy, Mr. G. Cyrus, Mr. C. Adams, J. Collis, Esq. Mr. J. Cane, Mr. R. Wood, Mr. T. Carden, Mr. R. King, Mr. J. Pierce, Mr. D. C. Tookey, When the following resolutions were unanimously agreed to : — lst. That an eUgible and commodious site be immediately selected for the purpose of erecting a town, and.alotting a sufficient township for its in habitants' use. 2nd. That after a minute survey, we do una nimously agree, that the said town be situate be tween the river Avon and the Buffalo Spring ; that it be bounded on the west by the river Avon, on the east by by a hne drawn from the bay in a right angle, and touching the Buffalo Spring, near the residence of F. Berkin, Esq., and that the town lands extend four miles inland, and include Salisbury island in the bay. 3rd. That the town now about to be erected be caUed D'Urban, in honor of his ExceUency the Governor of the Cape Colony. 4th. That each of the present inhabitants of Natal be entitled to a building plot of ground in the said town, and Messrs. Berkin, Hogle, and Collis be entitled to an extra allotment each, in consideration of lands conceded by them to the town and township. 5th. That every person taking an allotment do engage to erect a house, conformable to the plan now adopted, within eighteen months from this date ; the street-front of which is not to be less than twenty-four feet within its walls ; the breadth not less than ten feet ; and the walls not less than eight feet high. Such building not be ing completed within the said term of eighteen months, to be declared forfeited, and to be sold to the highest bidder by the town committee, and the proceeds added to the town fund. 6th. That no Kafir hut, or any straw hut or building be erected in the township ; but a tem porary residence, not less than one hundred feet from the street, may be erected for the accom modation of laborers on the aUotments in which they are employed whfle erecting the residence of their employer. 7th. That every individual now at Natal, on taking possession of his allotment, do pay into the hands of the treasurer the sum of seven shillings and sixpence, and that those who may arrive after this date do apply to the Town Committee, who will dispose of by public auction the number of allotments requhed, at a sum not less than three pounds fifteen shillings sterling each, and that the proceeds of such sales and other moneys collected, be paid into the hands of the treasurer, who shall be elected by a majority of household ers, and applied only to public purposes under the regulation of a committee appointed -annually. 8th. Tbat the Bluff point, extending between the sea and the bay, with the wood growing thereon two Enghsh miles westward from its point, be considered as town land, and reserved for the use of the town for building purposes, and that every individual cutting timber on the town lands do pay into the treasurer's hands the sum of one shitting and sixpence per wagon load. 9th That a body of householders, not exceed ing thhteen nor less than five, be elected annually, on the first day of July (except such day fall on a Sunday,) by a vote from the whole body of house holders, to form a committee, to be catted the Town Committee; proxies to he admitted for such householders as may be absent at the time of election. 10th That the town committee meet for bu siness as often as may be necessary, but always on the first Wednesday in every month ; they are chargeable with the enforcement of the town re gulations, which are hereafter to remain unalter able. Five members duly elected, to constitute a board ; but they are invested with no power to enact new regulations without the consent of the whole body of householders duly convened by public notice. 11th That the president, members, treasurer, and secretary be renumerated in the sum of one shitting and sixpence per diem, when transacting pubhc business, out of the town fund. 12th. That the foUowing gentlemen do com pose the town committee for the ensuing year, viz. Captain Gardiner, R. N., J. Collis; Esq., F. Berkin, Esq., Mr. J. Cane, Mr. H. Hogle. 13th. That for the endowment of a clergyman ofthe church of England for the parish of D'Urban, three thousand acres of land, situate on the river Avon, and bounded by the lands of James Collis, Esq., be reserved as church lands, to be held in trust by the proper authorities, and never to be alienated from that purpose ; and that the clergy man be also entitled to a building allotment for a town residence. 14. That the appointment of a clergyman for the parish of D'Urban is to rest with the Church Missionary Society, but subject to the approval of a majority of not less than two-thhds ofthe whole body of householders, six months after his arrival. 15th. That a convenient site be selected in the township for the erection of a free-school, and that two thousand acres of land be reserved for its support ; and that the said land be reserved on the right bank of the Umlass river, at the foot of the Munyabio. 16th. That a reserve of three thousand acres of land be appropriated as a fund for the endow ment of a pubhc hospital; and such reserved lands be on the right bank of the river Incomaas, below the drift, and under the control of the town committee. 17th. That a plot of ground within the town ship be set apart as a burial ground for the na tives. 18th. That in the event of the town being re moved beyond the limits of the present township, the whole of the land forming the township be equally shared among those at present residing at Natal and become the property of theh heirs or successors. 19th. That every person be at liberty to dispose THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 103 of his aUotment and buildings thereon as soon as the above regulations are conformed "to. 20th. That aU who may feel inchned to take farms in the vicinity of Port Natal, as well as those aheady in possession of lands, report the same in writing to the town committee, described their situation, extent, boundaries, &c ; aU lands not so reported to be considered as void. 21st. That any infringement of the above ar ticles subjects the individual to the forfeiture of his allotment, provided he does not conform within three months after due notice shaU have been given him by the town committee. 22nd. That a voluntary subscription be enter ed into this day, for the purpose of establishing a town fund ; and tenders be received by commit tee for performing by contract the cleaning ofthe streets and squares of the town ; that the lowest tender be accepted, and that F. Berkin, Esq., be solicited to fill the office of treasurer. 23rd. That two auditors be elected every six months to examine and report the treasurer's ac counts, and that they be authorised to call a meet ing to receive theh report and approve of the same. 24th. That a petition be forthwith prepared, and transmitted to his Excellency the governor ofthe Cape, praying him to transmit it to his ma jesty's government, soliciting the protection of the British flag in favor of the infant colony of Vic toria. 25th. That the thanks of the inhabitants of Port Natal are justly due to Messrs. Berkin, Collis, and Hogle, for the readiness evinced by them in conceding their respective claims to lands consi dered essential for the comfort of theh fellow-citi zens. Resolved, — That a copy of the above resolu tions and petition be forwarded to the editor of the " Graham's Town Journal," who is requested to strike off one hundred copies of the regulations for the use of the inhabitants of D'Urban, and to insert a copy of the same in the " Graham's Town Journal," with the Ust of subscriptions. C. J. Pickman, Sec. and Act. Treasurer. List of Subscriptions for the purpose of clearing the Bush, and other necessary Improvements in the Town and Township of D'Urban. Capt. Gardiner £30 0 J. Collis, Esq 10 0 H. Hogle 5 0 C. Pickman 1 10 P. Kew 1 10 J. Cane 1 10 T. Carden 10 G. Cyrus - 10 J. Pierce ---.... 10 C. Adams ---.... 05 H. F. Fynn - 2 10 R. King, one week's work J. Mouncy, do. do. J. Francis, do. do. R. Wood, do. do. D. Snelder 20 B. Biggar 1 10 John Jones 10 57— S The following is the petition refened to in the foregoing: — Petition qf ihe Householders of ihe Town of D'Urban, Port Natal. Mat it please tour excellency, We, the undersigned British subjects, inhabi tants of Port Natal and its vicinity, have com menced building a town called D'Urban, in honour of your Excellency. We hold in our possession extensive tracts of excellent land, a considerable portion of which has long been under cultivation : many of us are occupied in conducting a valuable trade in hides and ivory, the former of which is almost exclu sively obtained within the limits, which by mutual consent of sunounding chieftains have been con ceded to us. In consequence of the exterminating wars of Charka, late king of the Zoolus, and other causes, the whole country included between the Umzim coolu and Tugala rivers is now unoccupied by its original possessors ; and, with a very few except tions, is totally uninhabited. Numbers of natives from time to time have en tered this settlement for protection ; the amount of whom at this present moment cannot be less than three thousand. These all acknowledge us as their chiefs, and look to us for protection, notwithstanding which we are living in the neighborhood of powerful native states, without the shadow of a law, or a recognised authority among us. We, therefore, humbly pray your Excellency, for the sake of humanity — for the upholding of the British character in the eyes of the natives — for the well-being of this increasing community — for the cause of morality and religion, to transmit this our petition to his majesty's government, praying that it may please his majesty to recognise the country intervening between the Umzimcoolu and Tugala rivers, which we have named " Victoria," in honour of our august princess, as a colony of the British empire, and to appoint a governor and council, with power to enact such laws and regu lations as may be deemed expedient by them, in concert with a body of representatives chosen by ourselves, to constitute a house of assembly. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, wfll ever pray. CHURCH AT "D'URBAN." A meeting of the Inhabitants of Port Natal was held this day, 23rd June, 1835, when it was unani mously resolved, — That a subscription, for the erection of a church, be commenced, and that the buUding shall, on the amount of subscription reaching 5001. sterling, be immediately commenced. That the aid of the rehgious pubhc be request ed, and that subscription fists for that purpose be opened at the stores of Messrs. B. Norden and Matnard, Graham's Town. 104 THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. Messrs. Dixon and Burnies, Cape Town ; and Messrs. Drummond's, Charing Cross, London. The following sums were immediately subscrib ed: — Capt. Gardiner, R. N j£50 0 J. Collis, Esq 20 0 Mr. John Cane 50 Mr. J. Francis 3 15 Mr. P. Kew 2 10 Mr. H. Hogle 2 10 Mr. Wood, 2 0 Mr. Pickman 20 Mr. J. Pierce 2 0 Mr. G. Cyrus 2 0 Mr. T. Carden 10 Mr. H. F. Fynn 5 0 Mr.D.Snelder 2 0 Mr. R. Biggar 3 10 Mr. John Jones 10 His ExceUency Sh Benjamin D'Urban has fince subscribed the sum of 501. CONCLUSION. As in probability there wiU be many grave ob jections on the part of his majesty's government to extend the British protection to the new territory of Victoria, I should not feel myself justified in dismissing this part of the subject, even at the risk of being mistaken for a land speculator, without offering some further remarks, the substance of which has aheady been submitted to his Excel lency Sh Benjamin D'Urban, and received his entire approval. In addition to the primary and important object qf imparting Christian knowledge, and raising the natives from their present degraded condition, both as respects theh temporal and spiritual interests, the advantages to the mother country, which would accrue from colonization, would be great and immediate. The trade in ivory is yearly in creasing ; and there is no doubt that the greater part, if not the whole, which now passes through the pestilential climate of De la Goa Bay, would find its way to the healthy shores of Port Natal ; a presumption founded on no less an authority than Dingarn himself, who has intimated his intention of an almost extrusive barter with the English, should the settlement at Port Natal become suffi ciently organised by a local government. But by far the most cogent argument, if indeed an additional one were wanting, is the beneficial bearing which such an acknowledged settlement would have upon the the native states throughout the whole intermediate territory from Victoria to the Cape colony. With Port Natal, as a'point d'appui, to be strengthened at any time of emer- fehcy, any future hostile combination of the Ama- osa would not only be utterly hopeless, but im mediately suppressed ; and that without incurring the disasters of a tumultuous invasion or the one rous expenses of a lengthened campaign. A de tachment of marines acting in concert with the Amapondas, and fatting upon theh rear, would ef fect more than'ten times the samenumber of regu lar forces from the opposite dhection, as, by de stroying tbeir communications with the interior, the difficulty of conveying away and secreting stolen cattle would be so great, that, iridepehdent of the check they would doubtless meet with in front, their whole system of warfare would at once be frustrated ; and it is evident, under such chcumstances, they must from necessity abandon the attempt. It surely will be unnecessary to advert to the policy of occupying, even at a Uttle expense, a position which an unfriendly power might at any time possess, ahd so materially turn to our disad vantage. This wfll doubtless occur to att who have paid the sttghtest attention to our relations in South Africa ; but it may not be out of place to go a step farther, and to assert the utter impracti cability of defending the province of Albany, the fahest of our colonial possessions in that quarter of the globe, unless at a most ruinous expense, in the event of any rival power estabhshing itself at Port NataJ, — with all the facflities afforded by such a position to abet and tamper with the vindictive character of the Amakosa tribes. By instituting a local authority — by restoring the British character to its proper standard — and by encouraging a friendly and commercial inter course with the Zoolu nation, a powerful diversion would at once be effected ih favor of colonial in terests, and the probabflity of a coUision between this warlike people and theh southern neighbors, or what would be far more destructive to the tranquillity of our colonial frontier, an offensive and defensive affiance between them and the Amakosa be enthely precluded. With regard to expense, not the least important consideration in all matters connected with colo nization, although it might be fairly advanced that ample amends would be made for a reasonable ex penditure in the security of our existing frontier from aggression on predatory attack, still there are some peculiarities in the state of society in the country in question, which will go far to lighten the burden, should it ever be imposed. The natives at Port Natal are, almost to a man, refugees from the Zoolu nation, goaded by a ri gorous government to desert for protection to our settlement: theh very existence, therefore, de pends upon their combining to defend the asylum they have chosen. For some years many of them have been entrusted with fire-arms for the pur pose of hunting the elephant and buffalo ; and in consequence, out of the whole body, some very tolerable marksmen can be selected. An Euro pean military force is not therefore absolutely ne cessary either for the support of the government or the defence of the settlement — a few veteran soldiers, for the purpose of instituting drills, and introducing an uniformity of system, would be quite sufficient, under the inspection of one or two non-commissioned officers, to organize a native force adequate for every necessity that might arise. A kilt, of the commonest material, by way of clothing, and the loan of a cow (price about forty shillings) to each man, to be forfeited for miscon duct, but to become his actual property after three years' faithful service, would be regarded as a sufficient remuneration, and comprises the whole expense of a force, with which, after three months* THE ZOOLU COUNTRY. 105 training, I should have no hesitation in combating, if necessary, the whole Zoolu army. To these brief remarks, far too cursory for the importance of the subject, which, I trust, will find an abler advocate, I wfll only add my sincere hope that, for the security and permanency (under the Divine blessing) of the missionaries about to be sent to that country, the appeal to his majesty's government, contained in the petition inserted above, may not have been urged in vain ; but con tribute to such a result as may conduce, not only to the weU-being of that infant settlement, but to the manifestation of the Gospel of grace, and the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom from the shores of Victoria to the very confines of Abyssi nia. One word to British Christians, and the patient reader who has followed me thus far is released. The Committee of the Church Missionary So ciety, to whom application for succor was imme diately made on my arrival in England, have, I am thankful to say, accepted the two stations of Berea and Culoola as they now stand, as well as the entire management and control of the Zoolu mission in future ; but from their absolute inability to supply the laborers for the work, it is very doubtful whether they will be enabled to carry theh purpose into execution. To appeal to you, under such chcumstances, is a duty which you wfll readily admit ; and, although it should touch a string which has often been strained before, and is still vibrating to the latest call of Christian philanthropy, I feel assured that it is only to make known the chcumstances and urgency of the case to meet with your cheerful and warmest support. Let it not be said that teachers are reluctant to go when nations are willing to be taught — that injured, benighted Africa, groping through the thick darkness, calls unheeded for your aid, and stretches out her hands to you in vain. Much as there is undoubtedly to be done at home, are there none witting to spend and be spent in the cause of their ever-blessed Redeemer abroad ? Is the path, once so humbly and so holily pursued by a Schwartz, a Brainard, and a Martyn, become too hard and too self-denying for the modem disciples of Him, who, though he was rich, yet for our sake became poor — who bore our griefs and carried our sonows — who not only loved us, but gave him self for us ? Melancholy, indeed, would be the condition of that people, who (caffing themselves Christians) could calmly sit down to count the cost, while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge ; but far less enviable is the state of that heart, which cares not to respond when the ministers of the most high God point themselves to the path of missionary labor. It is to you, then, my fellow-Christians, that (under the guidance and blessing of God) we look for support ; and could I but hear- you reply, "Al though we cannot of ourselves go forth, we will plead the poor African's cause at the throne of grace, and make special suppUcation unto Him, with whom is the residue of the spirit, that He will incline the hearts of many of his faithful ser vants wittingly to offer themselves as laborers in the vineyard he has so graciously opened," I should then feel assured, not only that the blessing im plored would descend in abundance upon that parched and thirsty soil, " making the wilderness to blossom as the rose," but also that you your selves would experience the refreshing dews in your own souls. Let us never forget the wild shouts of our fore fathers who immolated theh offspring at the foot of theh idols ; and, as we have so freely received, let us also freely give, not our money only, but es pecially our prayers, and (when the path of duty seems clearly evident) our very selves, a Uving, holy, acceptable sacrifice — always bearing in mind the injunction of an inspired apostle — " Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price ; therefore glorify God in your own body and your spirit, which are God's." — (1 Cor. vi. 19.) THE ZOOLU'S PRAYER. Hark ! — a voice on Albion's shore, Mingling with the ocean's roar, A wild, but mournful plaint ; 'Twas raised on Afric's sunny strand, And echoes now throughout our land, In accents low and faint. It is the blood-stained Zoolu's prayer, The first that e'er was offered there For oiercy and for peace ; It claims the Christian's fostering hand To cheer a dark and mined land, And bid her thraldom cease. Haste ! haste ! — to us dhect your way, We perish if you now delay — God's word we long to hear ! Gladden our hearts with that good news, Nor fear that we will e'er refuse What now we hold so dear ! We love to hear the white man teU How Jesus ransomed souls from heU, And suffered in their stead ! And when our surf-girt shores you reach, We '11 pray to Him of whom you preach For blessings on your head. As you were once bereft of h'ght, Oh, think upon our cheerless night, Without one star to guide ! Heed not the land you leave behind— Another home with us you '11 find, Your God will all provide ! And when your day of trial 's o'er, And you shaU join those gone before In realms of hght above ; You wfll not deem your labor lost, Nor wish that you had weighed the cost Of this your work of love. THE END CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES SYRIA AND PALESTINE, 1823 & 1824. IN FURTHERANCE OF THE OBJECTS OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. REV. WILLIAM JOWETTr M. A. ONE OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SOCIETY. NEW-YORK : THOMAS GEORGE, JR. SPRUCE STREET. 1836. PREFACE. In the following pages, many of the author's observations are given in the form of a Journal. It would not, indeed, have been difficult to sub divide the volume into parts, each furnishing a separate account of the different classes of society to be found in Syria and Palestine. Since, however, that small country does, in fact, present an epitome of nearly all the bodies of men existing around the Mediterranean, it is evident, that, in such a parti tion of subjects, some would have been found too inconsiderable to form by. themselves a detached chapter. The want of lucid order, incidental to this mode of pubhcation, wfll appear, however, to be, in a considerable measure, remedied by the introduc tory section of the work ; in which, by means of an extensive compilation from a variety of authors there is presented to the reader a classified view of the different bodies of men existing in Syria and Palestine. In the sections which foUow the journal, the author has aimed at developing more fuUy than his journal had done, the condition of the" people ; not without an ardent hope, that the picture exhi bited may be the means of rousing the public to a deeper sense of theh obligations to prosecute Chris tian missions in this part of the world. Various suggestions, the result of frequent communication with the men of inteffigence and piety, are like wise offered, in reference to character of missio naries and the measures of missionary and Bible societies. The Church Missionary Society has felt the ad vantage ofthe system of research thus far conduct ed, with sufficient force to deshe that it should be, in its proportion, steadily pursued. It would be desir able for the pubhc to be furnished with an exact view of the chcumstances and opinions of the fol lowing principal countries — the papal states, to gether with the nations more immediately in rela tion with them — modern geeece — tt/kkey in Eu rope and asia — Armenia, and the neighboring re gions — persia, stria, and Palestine (thereview of which is, in the present volume, in a consider able measure, executed) — Arabia — egypt and NTTBIA — ABY8SYNIA — and the BARBARY STATES. An intelligent investigation of the condition of these various regions, prosecuted by the different missionaries in a truly Christian sphit, with accu racy of observation,, sound judgment, meekness of temper, and a practical determination of mind, would furnish to the conductors of missionary and Bible societies, and to missionaries actually on service, an invaluable depository of information, on which to form theh opinions and dhect theh measures. It is however fully to be bome in mind, that such a system of research forms only a part — a small, and continuaUy decreasing part, of the work of a missionary. Enough has, indeed, been aheady effected, to open an introduction to immediate and important labors. The various Christian societies of our own country, of the continent, and of America, would probably aU of them concur in this judgment, and many of them are acting upon it. But the spirit and the measures of att need a vast enlargement. It is high time for the faithful mem bers of Christ to be instant in theh supplications to Him, who is the great Head over all things to the church — that He would vouchsafe to pour out the gift of His Holy Spirit more abundantly than ever, preparing aU the nations by a feeling of anx ious expectation of some great event, and at the same time sending forth a numerous company of Evangelists to visit aU the dark places of tho earth m the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. JEWS. RABBINISTS — ARAITES — SAMARITANS. In describing the different classes of people who *t present dwell in Syria and the Holy Land, it Is natural to give the first place to that nation, which, in the most ancient periods of history, pos sessed so considerable a portion of this territory, by the title of a special gift from heaven. What we might almost term, the Divine Nobility of this race, is briefly and energetically sketched in those words of Scripture : — " Who are Israelites ; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises ; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over aU, God blessed for ever. Amen." (Rom. ix. 4, 5.) No Master of Heraldry ever pronounced such a majestic train of titles : no country, not the proudest, can present, in a condensed form, such a splendid record of its pri vileges and distinctions. There does not, nor ever did there exist, such a remarkable nation as that of the Jews — a people terrible from their be ginning hitherto ! This family ofthe children of Abraham — attaint ed and despoiled of its heritage, but not extinct — still lingers, a small part of it at least, upon the paternal estate ; anxious to be found on the spot, it the moment of the appearance, daily and hourly expected, of their DeUverer and Restorer ; or, in the event of their death, fondly deeming it meri- toriousto be gathered to the grave of their fathers. From Aleppo to Jerusalem, Jews are to be found in aU the principal cities : in Mount Lebanon there are but few. The author, in a future part of this volume, gives an account of them, principally in those places which he visited. The distinction between the two leading divi sions of the Jews is extremely simple — the Rab binical, who are attached to a multitude of human traditions and commentaries ; and the Karaites, who adhere to the simple text of the Scriptures of the Old Testament Besides this ' leading distinction, there is an other, which is of a national kind ; that between Jews and Samaritans. It may, indeed, very rea sonably be doubted how far the Samaritans have a claim to be 'classed with the descendants of Abraham. A fuller discussion of this point than could be aUowed in this preliminary chapter, wfll be found in a subsequent part of this volume. It seemed, however,' not improper to class under this head, a body which professes fo ground its religion entirely upon the five books of Moses. There are, further, distinctions among the Jews, arising from differences in theh modes of worship, or from refinements of speculative opinion. Such are the sects of the Spanish and PoUsh Jews, the Hassidim, &c. of which some notice will appear in that part of the foUowing Journal which de scribes Tiberias. CHRISTIANS. If pure Christianity consists in the enjoyment of the hght of Revelation ; in the exercise of faith, hope, and charity ; and in the maintenance of the unity ofthe Spirit in the bond of peace — then must it be mournfully admitted, that the professors of our most holy faith have, in Syria and Palestine, wandered very far indeed from the truth and sim plicity of the Gospel. Darkness and discord share the dominion here. It is tme that there is no part of the Christian world into which these foul spirits have not, in various degrees, found entrance : but, in our present survey, the sight of them is doubly painful ; while we contemplate the inten sity of theh influence, and the melancholy fact, that they should be here ruhng in that very sphere, where the religion of light and love was first pro mulgated. We must not shrink, however, from faithfuUy delineating the picture. If the scornful feelings of the infidel should begin to kindle at the descrip tion, let him reflect that here is no triumph over Christianity, but a developement of ening human nature. That professing Christians have departed from the purity of the faith, no more tends toward a refutation of Christianity, than the errors of idolatry and polytheism to deprave the doctrine of the eternal Godhead. Does a reflecting man doubt the truth, that there is One God, because the myriads ofthe heathen have worshipped stocks, and stones, and beasts, and reptiles? Neither ought the faith of any Christian man to be shaken, by seeing that the professors of Christianity have multiplied schisms and heresies. AU these facts serve but to prove the infirmity and sinfulness of human nature : they cannot shake the truth of Revelation. Although the evidence of the doc trine be not apparent in Palestine, yet there is, in the Christian church, " one body, and one Spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling : One Lord, one faith, one baptism ; One God and Father of aU, who is above att, and through all and in us all." (Eph. iv. 4—5.) He who prays for a spiritual participation of the blessings ex pressed in that passage, and he alone, may, with safety arid with painful profit, contemplate the fol lowing details. The professing Christians of Syria and Pales tine may be thus classed : — Greeks, of the proper Oriental Church- Armenians, proper — CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. Syrians, proper — Copts and Abyssinians — Roman CathoUcs ; namely, Maronites—Greek Roman CathoUcs — Armenian Roman Catholics — Syrian Roman CathoUcs — Latins, or Frank Roman CathoUcs — Protestants. GREEKS. The Greeks, of the proper Oriental Church, are numerous in some parts of Syria. The Greek Patriarch of Antioch resides generally at Damas cus : the Greek Patriarchs of Jerusalem have, for more than a century, taken up their residence at Constantinople ; where they have been accustom ed to assist the Patriarch and the Synod of that see. In Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem, these Oriental Greeks are in considerable numbers : from the maritime towns they have found it expe dient to withdraw during the present revolution, although some remain. In Mount Lebanon they are not tolerated, the Romish influence being there predominant and exclusive : but, to the south, towards Jerusalem, the Greeks probably far outnumber the Roman Catholics. Theh standard of faith, it is almost superfluous to repeat, is that which the author has mentioned in his former vo lume of Christian Researches'; being formed ac cording to the First Seven General Councils, to gether with the Holy Scriptures. They have been found, as in Asia Minor and Greece, so also in Syria and Palestine, favorably disposed to the labors of the Bible Society. ARMENIANS. Between Syria and the British possessions in the East Indies, there is a vast tract of country, of the actual religious condition of which comparatively very little is known. If we except a small portion of Roman Cathohc Greek influence in the more western parts of this immense region, it will be found to be occupied, so far as Christianity is con cerned, by Armenians, Jacobite Syrians, and Nes- torians, more or less scantily distributed among the native Mahommedan population. The Armenian church holds the opmion of the Monoph ysites, concerning the incarnation of Jesus Christ ; in such a manner, however, as to differ from the Jacobites, with whom they do not hold communion. "They are governed," observes Mosheim, " by three Patnarchs. The chief, whosr diocese comprehends the Greater Armenia, resides at Echmiazin. The second resides at Cis, a city of Cilicia. There is a thhd, residing at Aghtamar, but who is looked upon by the other Armenians as the enemy of theh church." Be sides these, there are other prelates dignified with tlie title of Patriarch, although not fully of the same rank ; those, namely, of Constantinople, Je rusalem, and Caminiec in Poland.* * Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. Century xvi. Sec. 3. Part 1. chao. 2, SYRIANS. The Nestorians do not so properly come under the denomination of bodies existing in Syria, be longing rather to Mesopotamia.* The Jacobite Syrians have also their residence chiefly on the banks of the Tigris ; but their Patriarch, who Uves near Mardin, not unfrequently visits Aleppo, where many rich Jacobite Syrians reside. He claims also to be styled Patriarch of Antioch : although, at Mosul, resides another Jacobite Pre late, who is styled, sometimes, the Maphrian, sometimes the Primate, of the East ; in dignity inferior to a Patriarch, but superior to a Metro- poUtan. The Jacobite Syrians have also a chapel at the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem.! They hold the Monophysite heresy in common with the Copts in Egypt. It was about the commencement of the sixth century that this heresy was promulgated by Se verus, a Patriarch of Antioch. A very short time afterwards, he was expetted from Syria ; and the orthodox faith was re-established in that country. Ere long, however, a follower of his, James Ba- radaeus, successfully reared again the Monophysite standard ; and, in Egypt and Mesopotamia, they have ever since maintained theh opinions, receiv ing, from this second advocate of Monophysitism, the title of Jacobites. The following remarks ofthe Jesuit missionaries in Syria relative to this body will describe their sentiments, and the tenacity with wliich they ad here to them : — " We could greatly wish that the fruits of our mission were more abundant among the heretics ; but it is extremely difficult to recover them from the error into which they are gone. The Syrians, otherwise caUed the Jacobites, are most deeply attached to theh peculiar enor. They are very numerous. They are named Jacobites from one of the disciples of Euryches and Dioscorus, catted Jacob. This disciple revived the enor of his mas ters in the beginning of the sixth century ; and taught publicly, that there was only one nature in Jesus Christ, composed of two natures, the ono divine the other human. " It is true that the chief part of these Jacobites do not undertand what is the point in question ; but theh schismatic bishops and priests boast to them so often the pretended sanctity and the pro found doctrine of Dioscorus and Barsamas, that the common people of this sect, prejudiced as they are in favor of these two heresiarchs, cannot ima gine that these two men, so celebrated among them, should have been capable of falling into error. Thus theh priests sounded continually in their ears that these two apostles of theh sect namely, Dioscoms the successor of the great St. Cyril in the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and Bar samas that famous Monk his Arohimandrite, have taught them that the divine and human nature make but one sole nature in Jesus Christ, they * It is, however, said that there arc Nestorians in Syria. Some account of this body, will be given in a note to this section. t The author is, however, uncertain whether this chapel belongs to the Jacobites or Nestorians: It is called, generally, the chapel ofthe Syrians. CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. 5 obstinately hold to that sentiment ; and, if you combat Jhem, they only answer by invectives, making the sign of the cross with only the middle finger of their hand, holding at the same time the other fingers closed, in order to make you under stand that they acknowledge only one nature in Jesus Christ, and that you shall never make them beheve the contrary. " Their obstinacy, great as it is, does not, how ever, shut our mouth. As theh conversion de pends particularly upon that of their bishops, we wait upon them as often as possible, in order that they may be induced to come near us ; and that we may have the opportunity of explaining to them what the Cathohc faith teaches us, and what we are obliged to believe in order to be saved. " Happily for us, in the visits which we pay them they are the first to put us upon those ar ticles of their belief which are contrary to ours ; as, for1 example, the procession of the Holy Sphit, and the union of the two natures in Christ. " Our custom is, to answer them simply with the Holy Gospel, which we have in our hand. We op pose to them those texts of Scripture, which clearly decide the question ; and the decrees of the council of Calcedon, which formally condemns their enors." Lettres Edif. et Curieuses, Vol. I. pp. 145 — 148. If the foUowing statement be in aU circumstances correct, it apparently argues an extreme laxity ori the part ofthe Jacobites, in attaching to themselves half-made proselytes. Under the head of " Obser vations made at Mardin," Niebuhrthus remarks^ " To the communion of the Jacobites belong also the Shf.msy. These seem stfll to have pre served a religion which has been patronised, not only by the Mohammedans, but also by the Chris tians. An old man assured me, that, in his youth, he knew many vfllages. in the mountainous parts of the country hereabouts, which professed this religion. At present, it is beUeved, there are none of the Shemsy in the country ; but, at Mardin, there stfll exist about a hundred families, in two different quarters. Formerly but a few years ago, these existed as a separate communion : but when the idea came into the mind of the sultan Mus tafa, to compel all the Christians and Jews in the empire either to become Mohammedans or to quit the country ; and aU the grandees of the kingdom, not even excepting the Mufti, refused their assent to this order, since Mahomet himself had, on.con- ditioh. of an annual capitation-tax, granted protec tion to the Christians and Jews ; the edict was re- modelled : and, with, £ view of giving some satis faction to the sovereign, it was ordered that thence forth no persons should be suffered in the country, except those who had sacred books; that is to say, Mohammedans, Christians, or Jews. This order gave very little concern to the Druses, Yasides, and Ansari, and those of other religions, who had theh residence in mountainous countries, and were governed by their own Sheiks and Emirs. But the Shemsy were far too weak : besides which, they dwelt in cities, where the Mohammedan magistrate could easily have ah eye upon them. They therefore submitted themselves to the Jaco bite Patriarch of Diarbekir,* and, ever since that * It is also mentioned by Assemann, (vol. II. p. 291) that the Jacobites freely communicate with heretics. 58—1 time, they call themselves Christians, and dress as such. Att their Christianity, however, consists in their dress ; and in the chcumstance that they have their children baptized. There is seldom seen at church any of theh sect, excepting a couple, whom they send regularly, in order to avoid the accusation of never appearing at the church. They also have a Jacobite ecclesiastic, to assist at the interment of their dead ; but they do not aUow him to enter the house, till the coffin is closed, when he follows the corpse to the bury ing-ground of the Shemsy. I heard nothing posi tive concerning their religious tenets : the Chris tians at Mardin told me that they always build the principal door of theh houses toward the East, and that they always turn their faces toward the sun when they pray." Niebuhr, Voyage en Arable, 4-c. Vol. II. pp. 321, 322. NOTE ON THE NESTORIANS. Having had occasion incidentally to mention tho Nestorians, I cannot pass on without observing, that, of the different bodies existing in the East, this is one pecuharly interesting as an object for religious research and exertion. They are de nominated, variously, Nestorian, Chaldean, or As syrian Christians ; and they are very numerous. The fullest account of them is to be found in the fourth volume of Assemann's Bibliotheca Orien- talis, which he has entitled, Dissertatio de Syris Nes'tprians. Their Patriarchs are three ; those, namely, of Mosul, Ormia, and Amida. Of these, the. last-mentioned Patriarch has connected himself with Rome : the others have, at different times, treated with Rome ; but still remain un connected with her communion. In the above- mentioned work of Assemann, who devotes 962 foUo pages to this subject, various reconcfliations of this extensive branch of Christians with the Romish See are dihgently recorded. One chapter is devoted to the recapitulation of these events. It is entitled, Conversio Neslorianorum ad fidem orlhodoxam. (Chap, viii.) . It might, however, more properly have been denominated, " Occasion al conversions . of a pari of the Nestorians, to the church of Rome :" for the learned author enume rates not fewer than five such events, which took place in the following periods, viz. A. D. 1247, 1288, 1552, 1616, and 1681. These intermittent attachments to the Romish See might, alone suf fice to argue a very feeble degree of Papal influ ence in those quarters. But this is yet more fully developed by Assemann himself, at the close of that chapter ; where, in a tone of complaint, he notices that one of three Nestorian Patriarchs alone continues in his adherence to Rome, whfle the other two have fallen off. He institutes an in quiry into the causes of this ; and himself furnishes a complete answer, full of practical instruction. " Why," he asks, " do not the successors of Ehas and Simeon observe in their jurisdictions this con cord with Rome, in the same manner as it has been religiously observed by the successors of Joseph?" To this question he replied in the following man ner: — " For four causes, as it , seems to me. First, because, when they entered into communion with the Catholic church, theh ecclesiastical books were not purged of the errors with which they 6 CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. abound ; namely, theh euchologium and horologi- um, or ritual, the Pontifical, and the daily and nightly offices, and those of the saints : for, in these, the Nestorian heresy is everywhere contained, and the memory of heretics cherished. Secondly, all their books, as weU Syriac as Arabic, on theology and the Canons, which are continually in the hands of their Patriarchs, Bishops, Presbyters, and others, were composed by Nestorian authors, and consequently infected with the poison of heresy : these are the only books which they read : they have no other book composed in theh language by the orthodox, by which they might be taught the Cathohc verities. Thirdly, the intercourse of letters and embassies between them and the Catho lic church is intenupted : had it been Continued, and had the Nestorians on the one hand had their orators at the Apostolic See, and were Rome on the other hand continuaUy to visit them by letter or by legates, they would probably never have broken off the union once formed. Lastly, the apostolic missionaries destined for them by the Roman Pontiff are, for the most part, ignorant of their languages and of their rites, and scarcely penetrate those regions in which their patriarchs reside: hence they transact their mission with plebians, not with patriarchs and bishops ; and not satisfied with instructing them in the faith, they very often move useless questions about rites, cal culated to disturb, rather than concfliate, men, who are remarkable for a most tenacious attach ment to their customs." — Assemanni Bibliotheca Orientalis, Vol. IV. pp. 412, 413. In these remarks there is much good sense : there is, however, one chcumstance, naturally enough not alluded to by this learned papal envoy • — THE SCRIPTURES WERE NOT ABUNDANTLY CIR CULATED AMONG ALL CLASSES OF CHRISTIANS IN the east. But this could forth no part of the policy of the court of Rome. It may be% hoped that the recent publication of the entire "syriac bible, by the British and Foreign Bible Society, will, under the divine blessing, be one ofthe means instrumental in giving Protestant missionaries a favorable acceptance from an immense body of Christians, as yet. almost unknown, because almost unexplored by us, peopling the vast region between Aleppo and Travancore. COPTS AND ABYSSINIANS. The Copts and Abyssinians in Palestine are to be found principally in the Holy City ; devotion being the motive which has drawn them to this land. The Copts, from the nearness of Egypt, more easily return to theh native country ; but the Abyssinians, through extreme want, are obliged to remain. They are very few in number, and of no influence; living in great poverty, and many of them being dependent upon the richer Armenians, to whom they are in some degree attached by the similarity of theh rehgious faith. ROMAN CATHOLICS. Having enumerated the different Christian bodies, which seem to have upheld, in the respec tive countries ofthe east, a more proper claim to the title of oriential Christians ; we come to notice those Christians, who, either being natives, have adopted, or being foreigners, have introduced, the dominion of the Papacy. The first four sub-divi sions of this number consist of persons by birth oriental: the fifth is whotty a foreign interest, being by birth, as weU as in faith, occidental. Maronites — > Greek. Roman Catholics — Armenian Roman Catholics — i Syrian Roman Cathohcs — Latins, or Frank Roman Catholics. MARONITES. The Maronites are to be found principaUy in Mount Lebanon, and the adjacent cities. The re sidence of theh Patriarch is at Kanobin, not far from Tripoli ; and this may be considered as nearly the northern boundary of their residence. The titular jurisdiction of this Patriarch, in com mon with that of some other Patriarchs in the east equally recognised by the See of Rome, is antioch; from which city, as having been visited by Saint Peter, a kind of papal rank and virtue, (secondary, however, to that of Rome,) is by them supposed to emanate to att his successors in that See. South of Nazareth, the author heard of no resident Maronites. This church is in strict communion with the Romish hierarchy ; a connection which was care fuUy cherished by the Jesuits, as they found, in the ease and security of the mountains, and in the docflity of the natives, the most advantageous means of forming theh oriental seminaries and si mflar establishments.* In the province, catted Kastravan, situate between Beirout and Tripoli, one of theh missions was estabUshed in the coUege at Antura, or Antoura. Several monasteries have also been estabUshed in this neighborhood by the Franciscans from Europe. Pope Urban VIII. manifested his sense of the value of this station, by forming here, in connection with the propagan da, an institution for oriental learning and Romish missions: from the rules of this establishment some extracts will be given in a future page, un der the topics of " The Work of an Evangelist" and "Education." In this place the reader wfll be sufficiently informed of the origin of the Ma ronites, according to the tradition most approved by themselves, from the following passage: — "The Maronite nation derives its origin and its name from the celebrated Abbe Maron ; who must not be confounded with another of the same name more ancient, a Monothelite Heresiarch. The holy Abb6 Maron was bom in Syria, in the fourth century. He there spent the life of a hermit. He had under his conduct several disciples, who em braced his manner of living. The reputation of his hohness was so great, that St. John Chrysos- tom wrote to him from the place of his exile, to entreat him to obtain from God, by his prayers, * The Maronites had, previously to A. D. 1182, been Monothelites. At that period, they abjured these opinions; and were re-admitted to the com munion of the Roman church. (See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, century VII.) CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. grace to endure his excessive pains with patience and courage. Cardinal Baronius eulogises some letters which the holy Abbe wrote to the Pope Hormisdas, and the book which he presented to the council, an authentic proof of the CathoUcity of the holy Abbe. "After he had piously finished his days, his dis ciples built a second monastery near the river Oron tes. The better to recommend it, they gave it the name of their father ; and, after that time, it was caUed the monastery of St. Maron. The em peror Justinian rebuilt their church, and gave it a handsomer appearance than the former one. "In the number of hermits of this monastery, there was one named John : who, having distin guished himself among his brethren by his virtues, was elected Abbe ; and in honor of theh first fa ther, he was surnamed the Abbe Maron. This second Abbe Maron powerfully combatted the heretics and schismatics. He converted many of them ; and so successfutty defended Jus nation against schism and heresy which surrounded it on aU sides, that it alone in the Levant has remained constantly and universally devoted to the chair of St. Peter. " The Abbe John Maron, of whom we speak, was the first of his nation who was honored with the title of Patriarch of the Maronites. He re ceived the Patriarchate from the Holy See. His successors, after their election, never omit, up to the present day, to depute a person to the Pope, in order to receive his confirmation and the Pal- hum." — Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Vol. I. pp. 109—111. GREEK ROMAN CATHOLICS. The Patriarch of the Greek Roman CathoUcs resides at the Monastery of Mar Michasl, near Antoura.*. They have several monasteries in Mount Lebanon and the adjacent cities ; among which a principal one is that of the Deir Mhalles, or San Salvador, near Saide. From this place, many are sent forth to occupy the office of paroch ial priests, in various towns of Mount Lebanon. They take to themselves the name of Melchites, in the same manner as do the orthodox Greeks of Egypt ; but this title at first originated in a poli tical, rather than in a religious, distinction. It may be difficult to trace at what exact period members of the Greek church in Syria first be came Roman C atholics. The activity of the Rom ish missionaries in the promotion of such conver sions must have been successful, probably, long befpre the period alluded to in a letter from which we are about to give an extract. It is a letter without date, of considerable length, occupying 159 pages ofthe "Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses," in the Paris edition of 1780 ; and is addressed, by the superior of the Jesuit missions in Syria and Egypt, to the superior-general ofthe order, giving a very full and minute account of the Syrian mis sions. The letter being without date, and enter ing into a Very great variety of matter, has rather the appearance of being a compilation from the archives of the Jesuit missionaries during a long * See the foUowing Journal, under date Of Octo ber 81, 1823. period of time. The foUowing extract records the reception of the Romish creed, by some dig nitaries of the Greek church in Syria, about the year 1717 ; an event which could not fail, for the time, to throw a great weight of influence into the papal scale ; and it is accordingly announced in terms of high gratulation. It may very properly be introduced, as illustrating this section, concern ing the Greek Roman CathoUcs. " The moment is at length come, in which the bandage wliich hid theh eyes from the Cathohc truth, has fallen. The Patriarch of Alexandria and the Patriarch of Aleppo have been the first to send to our holy father, pope Clement XL, their profession of faith; by which they protest, that they recognise and revere him, as the vicar of Jesus Christ, the head of the church, and the centre of unity to the Citholic faith. "The Patriarch of Damascus, named Cyril, the most powerful, and consequently the most in cre dit of all the Patriarchs in the Levant, was the last to give himself up. He had long lived in schism ; but as he is1 a man of spirit and capacity, he could not refrain from praising and defending the Cathohc rehgion. He frequented the com pany of the missionaries, and was weU pleased that they should have the honor of often visiting him. Far from opposing the conversion of his flock, the schismatic Greeks, he favored, as much as possible, theh return to the Romish church. He confessed, even, that he was ill pleased with the Greeks of Constantinople, for having formerly separated themselves. These good discourses, expressive of his sentiments, excited in the Catho lics a feeling of affection toward him. They de sired and asked of God, on his behalf, strength that he might follow the example, which the two Patriarchs of Alexandria and Aleppo had just given him. God has been pleased to hear theh prayers; but mark the final method, by which the Saviour of men has been pleased to recover this prelate to the bosom of the Romish church, which had been so often the subject of his eulo gium. Schism had held him in slavery — to com pel him to quit it, it was necessary for Providence to permit his faffing into captivity in the manner which I am about to relate. " The Patriarch, of whom we speak, confided the missal of his church to one of his disciples, to take it to a binder. Some Turks, having by chance entered the shop, found this missal. One of them seized it ; and carried it immediately to the Bashaw designing to make his court to him. The Bashaw charmed with the opportunity of making an exaction from the Patriarch and ex torting money from him, did not fail, the next morn ing, to send and summon him before him. The Bashaw then said to him, in a furious tone, that he had been informed of what he had done to se duce the Turks and make Franks of them — that he had given to one of them a book of his false reUgion, to pervert him — and that, for his crime, he deserved to be burn', to death : then without waiting for his justification, he committed him to the prison of blood, so catted, because it is appro priated to criminals destined to be condemned to death. The Bashaw's -order of commitment was executed: but the Patriarch, after some day's, confinement, having learnt that for three 8 CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. thousand crowns his liberty would be restored to him, caused this sum to be paid to the Bashaw ; and the door of the prison was opened to him, on Whit- Monday, 1717. Scarcely was he out of pri son and returned to his house, when he received the brief from Pope Clement XL, in which his ho liness expressed to him that he had learnt, with a sensible joy, the protection which he granted to the Catholics, and the proofs which he gaVe of his esteem for the Romish church ; that these dispo sitions led him to believe that he was not far from the kingdom of God ; that he conjured him, as his brother in Jesus Christ, to hear the voice of God that called him, and would use the voice of the common pastor to recover his flock to the fold. ' Meditate,' said he to him, ' on those words of Jesus Christ — What shall it profit a man, if he shmdd gain the whole world, and loose his own soul? Beware lest the fear of loosing some tran sient and temporal advantages occasion you the loss of an eternal blessing. Follow, rather, the example of the Patriarch of Alexandria and of the Patriarch of Aleppo, who have sent us their pro fession of faith conformable to the holy councils. We expect,' said the pope to him in conclusion. ' we expect from you such a reply as we desire ; and we will then explain to you what you will have to do, and the conduct which you should maintain.' " In terms nearly such as -these, the brief was conceived. The Patriarch received and read it with profound respect. The Lord, at the same time, spoke to the heart of the Patriarch ; who, touch ed by this invitation of the father and chief of pas tors, assembled the missionaries, to declare to them, that he had taken the resolution of sending his profession of faith to the holy father in the terms which he deshed. The prelate has kept his word. He, last year, deputed three persons, who carried to Rome his profession, together with presents and his pastoral staff, in order to submit it to the vicar of Jesus Christ. " We doubt not but his holiness would feel a sensible joy at receiving- into his communion, and nearly at the same time, the three Patriarchs of the Greek church. God grant that those who succeed them may be the inheritors of their or thodox faith, as well as of their dignity !" — Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Vol. I. pp. 140 — 144. ARMENIAN ROMAN CATHOLICS. The residence ofthe Armenian Roman Catho lic Patriarch is at Ybzumar, situate to the north of Beirout : some account of this convent will ap pear in the following pages, the author having visited it during his stay in Mount Lebanon. But although the Romanists have used very active exertions to bring over the Armenians to theh profession, and have long maintained a consider able influence with that people, both in Constan tinople and in other parts of the Turkish emphe ; yet it is not to be supposed, that the proportion of these converts is, in any degree, comparable to those who have adhered to the ancient national church of the Armenians. The foUowing remarks of Niebuhr wfll convey a very just idea of this fact, in reference both to those Greeks and to those Armenians, who have accepted the dignity of the patriarchal title from Rome. " There are, also, on the large and fertile moun tains of Lebanon, many Christians, (that is, Ro mish Christians,) who are denominated Greeks, because formerly they held to the Greek church ; but their ecclesiastics are often less acquainted with the Greek, than the Maronites are with the Syiiac language, which occasions them to perform theh worship principaUy in the Arabic language. They have also their own patriarchs ; but to all appearance, this has only been the case since the time of their union with the Romish church ; and I imagine that the other united Greeks, who do not Uve in the territory of the Dmses, pay no res pect to this patriarch ; but that the Pope simply gives this title to some ecclesiastic of the country here, in order that he may say he has a Greek patriarch in the Levant. In the same manner, there is, on Mount Lebanon, an Armenian patri arch, who is nominated by the Pope, and who, probably, has not much to say for himself. In ge neral all these self-called European patriarchs Uve very tranquilly under the protection of the Druses : while the Chaldean patriarch ofthe pope at Diarbekir, and other apostate ecclesiastics of the east, often suffer great mortifications from the members of theh ancient religion, and from the bashaws : for there are still to be found, in all the Syrian villages, many Greeks, Armenians, and Jacobites ; who adhere to the patriarchs of Con stantinople, Echmiazin, and Diarbekir, as heads of theh churches respectively ; and who do not regard it with an eye of indifference, that the Pope should give the title of patriarch to apostates, or that the European monks and theh disciples should seduce members from the ancient com munions, and thereby foment discords, and utterly ruin many good families. The dissensions of the Christians are always a clear profit to the Turkish government."— -Niebuhr, Vol. II. pp. 346, 347., SYRIAN ROMAN CATHOLICS. Of this body, which is not numerous in Syria, the Patriarch is generally understood to be Mar Gre- gorius ; the ecclesiastic who visited England in the year 1819, as Archbishop of Jerusalem. Some further account of this body wfll appear in the fol lowing Journal, under the date of October 20, 1823. LATINS, OR FRANK ROMAN CATHOLICS. To this number must be refened the consular representatives, French, Spanish, Austrian, Sic. of the respective Roman Catholic countries of Europe. These are, generaUy, either natives of their respective countnes ; or else, if bom in the Levant, they are of immediate European extrac tion. They are usually — perhaps it might be said, invariably — professors ofthe Roman Cathohc faith. In this respect the church of Rome has never lost sight of its exclusive policy. In contrast to this it may be observed, that Protestant England is often represented in the Levant, in subordinate consular situations, by Roman Cathohc or Greek agents. This is, however, less the case at pre- CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. 9 sent, than it has been at other times. There are also many merchants in Syria from Roman Catho hc countries. The various Roman Catholic families in Syria, as weU as in other parts of the Levant, have maintained their influence by intermarriages, in consequence of the contiguity of Roman Cathohc countries to the Mediterranean, much more easily than could possibly be the case with the remoter Protestants of England, HoUand, and Germany. The number of Latin or Frank Roman Catho lic missionaries, whom devotion and the papal sys tem induce to visit Syria and the Holy Land, and who take up theh residence either in monaste ries or in the principal cities, is never inconsider able. It is indeed, at present, far inferior to what it was formerly : but, for the whole of this tract, their number, even at this day, cannot be com puted to be less than seventy. The influence of the European friars constantly serves to maintain in the Levant, in which they lead a migratory life, a kind of European or Frank attachment among many Levantine families of western origin or connections. PROTESTANTS. The Protestants in Syria are but few in number ; consisting, principally, either of consular represen tatives of Protestant nations, or of merchants from those countries. In former times, there was an Enghsh Protestant chaplain fixed at Aleppo : the office has been adorned by the names of bishop Frampton, of MaundreU, and of Pococke. Re cently, Protestants missionaries have visited the Levant, and some of them have begun to take up their residence in this interesting region. Before we quit this brief topic, it may be useful to observe the footing on which Protestants are represented to havfe-^tood about a hundred years ago, in their relation to the native Christians. For this purpose, we shaU select from the work aheady. so often quoted, tbe following passages, written in a hvely style ; and tending, pointedly, to illustrate the extremely disadvantageous ground which a Protestant must occupy in the view of oriental Christians, whenever he allows, or is re presented by others as allowing, questions of Christian doctrine or worship to be brought before the tribunal of mere antiquity, usage, or tradition. One of the Jesuit missionaries, writing from Aleppo, says — " You will ask me, how the English and the Dutch conduct themselves. Here, as in Holland and England, they observe neither fast nor absti nence : but it occasions scandal. The people of the country say that they are not Christians ; and the Turks themselves regard them as people with out reUgion. They are sometimes affected with these reproaches; and, not being able to bear them, many of them during Lent eat meat only in secret. Those, who act like men of good faith, confess that they are extremely surprised to see, that the rehgion of att the Christians of the east resembles that which they profess in scarcely any thing. " This marked difference gives us a great ad vantage over them. ' It is,' we say to them, ' it is to the happy times of Christianity when nascent, that you would have us ascend in order to justify the traditions. It is to the first four centuries, that you appeal on the subject. Ask, then, all these people who surround you : they will answer, that, in all their practices, (which are the same with ours,) they only follow the apostolical tradi tions — traditions which they received from the fa mous Antioch, which they regard as their mother.' This objection embanasses our Protestants. They dare not advance that confession, fasting, lent, ab stinence, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Purgatory, the adoration of the cross the invocation of the saints, &c. are papistical in ventions, manufactured by Satan : their eyes, theh very* eyes make them see the contrary. It is not here a question of Papists, or of Babylon, or of the Antichrist — great words these, which, pro nounced with the hardy tone inspired by heresy, may have an imposing effect in Europe, but which signify nothing here : they must attack a thousand Christian nations : they must renounce antiquity : they must condemn Antioch, and aban don the apostles. This step it is difficult to take : and, therefore, these gentlemen avoid, as much as possible, entering with us upon a dispute where they would have the worst ; and, more wise than in France, they observe, on all contested points and on all the rites of religion, a profound and re spectful silence, weU persuaded that they would not have on their side the suffrage of the Greek church. " This conformity of sentiments between the Greek and Latin churches sometimes makes upon right hearts a salutary impression. I was particu larly acquainted, some years since, with a minister ofthe Dutch nation: he was a man of much talent : I often conversed with him, as he spoke Latin easily : he was about to set sail ; but, before his departure, said to me in confidence, that he was going to Italy, there to weigh weU an impor tant affair, concerning which, what he had seen with his eyes had led him to make serious reflec tions which had changed him. " Persons of the pretended reformed religion would not dare here to dogmatize : at least they would not d^it with impunity. Some time since, an English minister, zealous for his sect, went to great expenses in printing a catechism according to his fashion. He aimed at, infusing into the spirit and heart of att the Christians the poison with which he was filled. But they trampled it under foot : they tore it, and burnt it, without the missionaries being obliged to interfere in the least degree.* * The learned Orientalist Pococke, who, from the year 1630 to 1636, was chaplain to the English at Aleppo, subsequently publ ished in England, (besides many other valuable pieces,) the work "de Veritate Fidei Christians " of Grotius, with whom he was personally acquainted ; and, likewise, a Selection from the Liturgy ofthe church of England— both in Arabic. The treatise of Grotius has been reprinted by the Church Missionary Society, and copies have been circulated in (he Levant. Of the Liturgy there is a copy in the library of the society: it was printed A. D. 1674. Il contains the forms of con fession and absolution, with several other prayers, and the Litany, The author is ignorant what steps 10 CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. " The Christians of att the nations of the east do not know what it is to doubt of the reality of the body of JeBus Christ in the Eucharist ; and they have so great an attachment to theh fasts and theh lents, that they would die, rather than fail in them. They have also received from An tioch, their neighbor and their mistress in the faith, the custom of praying for the dead. The invoca tion of the saints, and in particular of St. George, is, to them, so dear and so precious, that they would rather suffer themselves to be hacked to pieces, than renounce it. " It is impossible to add any thing to the pro found veneration, which even the Turks have for Mary. They call her the mother of the great prophet Jesus ; * and, in this quality, they rever ence her to such a degree, as to impale those Jews who dare blaspheme against her. What a strange contrast! Men born in the bosom of Christendom, refuse to Mary honors, which are rendered to her by the most implacable enemies of the Christian name ! "Further the respect of Mohammedans is not limited to the mother of our God : the sepulchre of the Messiah is one of the objects of their pil grimages of devotion. They regard those who have visited the sepulchres of the two prophets as men of extraordinary piety : and to this double pilgrimage, are attached certain marks of distinc tion. ' Such an one is a saint,' they would say : ' he has been at Jerusalem and Mecca.' " One of our merchants, who has resided a long time at the Holy City, and has seen, various times, these Turkish pilgrims, related to me that they go upon their knees, that they crawl upon the ground from the gate to the holy sepulchre ; but, before entering there, they take off the bandage of their turban : this is with them a mark of ignominy, when done upon compulsion ; and a mark of respect, when done voluntarily — that then they prostrate themselves ; that they make profound obeisance, and strike their head upon the pavement. ' This spectacle,' he added, ' has always edified me,.and has sometimes touched me even to tears.' The Grand Signior himself, among aU the pompous and magnificent titles which he assumes in the orders which emanate from the ^hrohe, prides himself in adopting that df protector and preserver of the Holy City of Jerusalem. It is a consola tion, not a little moving, for poor enslaved Chris tians to see theh proud masters do so much honor to the God whom they adore." — Letters Edifiantes et Curieuses. Vol. II. pp. 167 — 172. It would be an easy task, were it requisite, to refute the various misrepresentations contained in the preceding extract. The supposed merit of the rigid abstinences, so much extolled, might well be contrasted with the moderate views of the were taken for the circulation of this book, or what accounts may exist of its reception in the countries where Arabic is spoken. It seems, however, by no means improbable that the above-cited passage has reference to this pious and laudable effort of Pococke, to make the Christians of the east ac quainted with the church of England. * But they would not call her " Gwtokos, Deipara, Mother-of-God :" here, therefore, this impassioned encomiast of the Turks has stretched the bow too far. apostle — "One believeth that he may eat all things ; another, who is weak, eateth herbs. He, that eateth, eateth to the Lord ; for he giveth God thanks : he, that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." — (Rom. xiv. 2, 6.) The preference which this Jesuit gives to the Turk above the Protestant, might find its parallel, though in a higher degree, in those words, Not this man, but Barabbas : for he has more than half offered the right-hand of fellowship to the Mo hammedans, who would rob Jesus Christ of his divinity ; while he, at the same time, calumniates those in England and in HoUand, who honor, not less than the Romanist, Christ as the Son of God, and reject only their excessive worship, practically amounting to adoration, of the blessed Vhgin. Scarcely, even, will a conect disciple of Rome be brought to admire the juxtaposition, which he has so smartly effected, of Jerusalem and Mecca ! But it may suffice briefly to remark, on one main point, that, at the bottom of all these delusive represen tations, there is a mystery qf iniquity, which stfll works in the Levant. The enemies to the en trance of the pure light of the gospel will adopt the same tactics as formerly : any friend, rather than the friend of the Bible, will be the object of their choice ; the Turkish civil power is even now courted, with a view to obstructing the labors of that glorious society, which has embodied in its fundamental law the best part of the spirit of Protestantism. Upon this topic, however, as be longing to the affahs of the present day, it will be proper to treat more largely in another part of this volume. MOHAMMEDANS. SONNITES. The Sonnites are that division of the Moham medan world, which asserts the legitimacy of the first three cahphs — Abu-Beker, Omar, and Oth- man. It is not designed to enter here into the various opinions of this body. In addition to the Koran, they admit a multitude of traditions and interpretations ; whfle the rival sect, the Shiites, though they admit some traditions, yet hold them more loosely, and are almost considered by the Sonnites as unbelievers. The Sonnites regard the Grand Signior of Constantinople as their civil head and protector ; and the Turks and Arabs of Syria are, generally, of this sect. Persia is the patron of the opposite party : yet these, also, as will appear under the next head, are found in Syria. METAWALIES. This is the title by which many Mohammedans in Syria are distinguished, as being the followers of Ah, the fourth Caliph, the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed ; maintaining his right to be the immediate successor of his father-inJaw. In this they resemble ihe Persians, and are in opposition to the Turks. The following extract will give the reader a general view of the extent to which their influence reaches in these parts. CHRISTIAN RESEARCHES. 11 " The Metawali make, either enthely or in parti profession of that Mohammedan sect which is dominant in Persia ; and, consequently, they are Shiites. Like the Persians, therefore, they neither eat nor drink with people of another rehgion ; nor would they even use a plate from which a stranger has eaten, till they have well cleansed it. They even hold themselves to be defiled, when a stranger simply touches their clothes. As they are under the domination of the Turks, they dare not treat the Sonnites with contempt. They are sometimes under the necessity of passing them selves off as Sonnites. " In general, neither the Sonnites nor the Chris tians like to dwell among them ; and the Maro nites, who serve as secretaries to the Sheiks of the Metawali, seldom remain with them for many years. They have, nevertheless, for some centu ries been in possession of several districts. A family named Harfoosh, the head of whom takes the title of Emir, lives at Balbec, and pays the rent of this district direct to Constantinople. At Sour (i. e. Tyre,) and in the adjacent country called Belad B'sherri, there are seven or eight Sheiks of the famfly Nasif, which govern there, and pay theh rent to the Pacha of Saide.* There is also Sheiks of the Metawali of the family El Kuanza, which govern at Kirrinie and,Hurmel, a town on the river Orontes. They pay their tribute to the Bey of Homs."— Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 347. DRUSES. This people appears to be one of the most consi derable in Syria, on account both of theh num bers, and theh pohtical situation in Mount Leba non. Although less numerous than the Chris tians, yet, together with them, they constitute nearly the whole of the population of the moun tain. Neither the Christians nor the Druses, however, have the government in theh hands, The Emir Bechir, who governs Mount Lebanon. is not a Druse. The government was formerly held by Mohammedans, whose policy it was to ba lance the Christian and Dmse interests. The present Emir is said to be a Christian ; but, in conformity with this Une of policy, and to keep up appearances with his superior, the Pacha of Acre, he complies with many Mohammedan usages. The extent of territory in which the Druses are to be found is thus described by one ofthe Jesuit missionaries : — "We have also in our mountains another nation, of which it is not easy to discover either the ori gin or the religion. They are called Druses. This nation inhabits a part of Mount Lebanon, the mountains above Saide and Balbec, and the country of Jabaile and Tripoli. " These Druses extend even into Egypt. — Let tres Ed. et Curieuses, Vol. I. p. 366. The division of this body into reUgious and secular orders is described in the following terms by Niebuhr ; a traveller of the greatest merit, and who has coUected upon the state of various * So styled in the Firmans ofthe Grand Signior ; but more commonly called, from his modern place of residence, Pacha of Acre. bodies in the east more copious and minute infor mation than is to be found perhaps in any other single author. Subsequent travellers appear to have bonowed largely from him. It is not with any design to detract from his merit, (which would be impossible,) that the extracts made from his work are less copious than those made from sub sequent travellers : but the inquisitive reader may better be recommended to consult the original materials. Niebuhr observes — , " The Druses are divided into Akals, that is to say ecclesiastics ; and djahels, or seculars. The ecclesiastics are dependant upon three Akals, who are Sheiks among them; of whom one dwells in the district Arkub, the second in the district Tschuf el Heite, and the third in the district Has- beia. The Akals are distinguished from the se culars by their white dress. They have generaUy good houses on the hflls ; and, judging by those few which I saw on the road from Saide to Da mascus, it seems to me thatthey have not chosen the worst situations. On Thursday evening, which among the Orientals is called the night of Friday, they assemble in the house of one or other of theh fraternity, to perform their worship and pray for the whole nation : the wives of ecclesi. astics may be present ; but they do not admit seculars, not even a Sheik or an Emir. They despise att employments of honor in the world : but perhaps, in this they make a virtue of neces sity ; for, on the return of Hakem, they hope to be kings, viziers, and pachas. They do not many the daughters of seculars ; and they even carry their aversion to the property of the great so far, as not to eat with the Sheiks and Emirs of their own nation. Akals eat only with Akals ; and with the peasants and other poor people, who, they are certain, earn theh bread by labor." — ¦ . Voyages en Arable,