The Press. — London, England, 1853-12-17 00:00:00

height, rising over olio another, all exposed to the bright light and the fr sh air; and putting With, within reach, their Dowers and fruit, which, in the forest, only grow far up on the topmost branches. Bright flowers and green foliage cond./v.O their charms, and climbers with their flowery festoon. cover over the hare and decaying stems. Yet, p.eit out the loveliest spots where the must gorgeons flowers of the tropics expand their glowing petals, awl fur every ~cone of this kind we may flint another at horns of equal beauty, and with a►► equal amount of brilliant colour. Look at a Geld of bottercups and duisies,—a hilhide covered with gorse and hroom,—a mountain rich with purple heather,rur a furost•glade, &Aunt with a carpet of will hyacinths. and they will bear• a comparison any some the tropics call produce. 1 have nevor sc-en any. thing Inure glorious thou au old crah•trae in full b!ossoni ; and the horse•uhesnut, Blue, and laburnum will vin with the shoiee4t trupit•sl titre and slu•ubs. 111 the tropical waters aro no wort, beautiful plants titan our white and yellow water•lilies, our irises, and flowering rush; for I c annot consider die flower of the regiu more bountiful tiiftn that of the Nymplifra rella, though it may be Pirger ; nor is it so abundant all or►►anient of the tropical Yelktani as the latter is of ours. Wo should he heartily glad to acquiesce in a conclusion tints favourable to England ; but, writing by the dim light of a December after noon. we cannot in conscience sacrifice our testhetic perception's to our patriotism. It is true that there are days on which the varieties of English landscape, fully illuminated, equal in pictorial effect those which any climate can show ; but these days are rare; even during sumtner months they form the exception, not the rule ; while nothing except the brief in terval of t h e rainy season intervenes to disturb the unclouded horizon of Brazil. It is a more just complaint that superfluity of sun and rain deprives fruits of their savour and tloWerB of scent. The basin of the Amazon is not only the most extensive f,,rest but one of the largest plains iu the world. Unbroken by mountains, it stretches over three-fourths of South America in its broadest parts. For one thousand miles westward front the Atlantic its average lvidth front north to south may be reckoned at four hundred miles. Towards the Cordillera its boundaries enlarge, and, from a point near Tabatinga, on the Solinmes or Upper Amazon, a circle may be drawn of eleven hundred miles diameter, which shall pass through no thing except uncultivated and, for the most part, untratversed wo o dland. No other quarter of the globe resembles it in this respect India and China are densely peopled, and bare of trees for the most part ; the prairies of the Mississippi and the Tortarian steppes can scareely supply a passing traveller with fuel ; the interior of Afriea, so far as we know it, is rugged, and interspersed rather than covered with forest. A century more, and these un trodden solitudes may have become what Now York and Pennsylvania ore now. Yet one physical problem must first be solved—that of ieuonciling the Anglo-Saxon eonstitution to residence and labour under the line. Of the dominant race of Brazil, the Portu guese, Arr. Wallace speaks favourably in many respect's. Slavery among them, so fir as he saw it, was result due in part to the temperament of the nai ters. in part also to their dispersion over the country, separated from one another by wilb• intervals. which ' , lasses them physically in the power of their dependent's. Violent crime is rare. ;as witness the following description of Para:— Nothing impressed me more than the (inlet and orderly state of the city nud neighbourhood. No class of people earry knives or other weapons, and there is less noise, fighting, or drunkenness W the streets. hoth flay and night, than in nn • v town in England of equal population. When it is retnembert d that the population is mostly uneduoated, that it consists of slaves, Indians. Portuguese, and fltreigners, and that rum is hold At every corner at about twopence p e r pint, It sa ys touch for the good nature and pacific disposition of the t,onple. . _ But in►lolence prevails a►nong all classes : much time is wasted in feast when a cessation nt all work takes place, and ►lrunkenness and Profligacy abound. Of the habitual supersti tion, credulity, and ignorance of the people, 3ir. Wallace gives numerous details. Truth, likewise, is a virtue not much in request On November 13th 1 reached the sitio of Senhor Chips, where I stopped for the night : hr gave me tome lethrs to take up to Sao Gabriel, and just at I was going requested nie, as a &your, to tell evertbotly that 1 '•'.l not found him at his aitin, but that lie was g.m " mato "to pot salsa. As I was on familiar terms Ii him, 1 told him that really I was very sorry 1 emil.l not oblige him. hut that, is 1 was not accustomed to lying, THE PRESS. I should he round out immediately if I attempted it : he, however, insisted that 1 might surely try, and I should soon learn to lie as well as the best of them. do I told him at once that in my country a liar was considered as bad as a thief; at which he seemed rather astonished. gave him a short account of the pillory AS a proof of how much our ancestors &nested king and perjury, which much edified him, and he called his sun (a nice boy of twelve or fourteen, just retunied from school), to hear and profit by the example ; showing, I think, that the people here are perfectly aware of the moral enormity of the practice, but that constant habit and universal custom, and, above all, that false politeness which readers them unable verbally to deny anything, has ren dered it almost a necelsary evil. Any native of the country would have instantly agreed to tlenhur Chigaa's request, and would then have told every one of it up the river, always begging them not to say he told them, thus telling a lie for themael•es instead of for Seuhor Chagas. Our author stmngly disputes the accuracy of prevailing theories respecting the difficulty of cultivating tropical soil. Land once tho roughly cleared, and the weeds upon it de stroyed, may be kept in order with little trou ble. Cattle alone will suffice to prevent the growth of bush. The grasses, he says, grow well (this we incline to doubt). Fruit abounds, coffee and cacao may both be raised with little labour, Indian corn and rice require no care beyond that of planting. Manure is unneces sary : oxen, sheep, and pigs are turned loose into the woods, and get their living without trouble. What more can a farmer desire? Nevertheless, Brazilian apathy abuses, or rather does not use at all, these gifts of nature. So in the world's history it has ever been— barren lands and vigorous climates have pro duced the fighting and working races ; for thus the spirit of nations is renovated, and (hod's gifts fall to those who can employ them best. The Turk and the Hebrew ; or, the Rule of the Crescent. London: Hope and Co. Tills is a cleverly-mittan tale, designed for the purpose of exhibiting the fanaticism of the Turks. The author has considerable command of language, and excels in description of scenery ; and he is not without talent in the delineation of character. The plot of the story turns upon the destruction of a wealthy Jew and his family. Personages are from time to time introduced into the fiction that make us believe the statement on the title page, that the sty ry (lt least partly) is "one of real events and living persons." But in the views of the writer we by no means concur. What those sentiments are may be inferred from the eonvlnding passage of the volume:— Of Rome, t•igisir, I will say nothing ; but I confess I have so much of the spirit of the old Crusader, that would not unwillingly see the now waning Crescent set fin• ever, though not as it rose—in blood. lint I speak not Po lunch of the faith as of the race. The Turk. the Mnhometlan Tartar, is the true descendant of the Turco man horde that swept away the splendid civilisation of the Arabian Empire of the Caliphs like a gorgeous dream. Ilk hideous rivilisatlon eat► never be reconcilable with the Eumpean mind ; and never, I ant convinced, with the religion of the Cross. It seems to be God's will that these ferocious races Rhottl4l waste and disappear from the fact of the earth like the ferocious animals. nut I forget that I speak even at this moment under the rule of the Moslem. As a specimen of the descriptive powers of the author we may ticket the opening pas sage : it was a lonely road. winding among the environs of Damascus. In all the East, perhaps not in all the world, is there a country more rich, and beautiful, mid flowery, than suirounds this city. It is au earthly Paradise, so far as outward loveliness can make earth Paradise. The road lm• between boundless orchards of fruit-trees; pomegranates, dates. figs. mingled pith rose-trees in their Most humriant bloom of Leann•. These wehards were Nis° corn fields and vines arils ; the frniutrees were 'planted in mays among the standing clam luxuriant vines crept over the date-trees and ripple-trees, and hung from Ilium. mingling festoons and bunches of purple grapes with their fruits and blossoms. Boughs laden with ripe tipples and pomegranates. and rich purple plums. weighed down with their own weight, lay tiailiug among golden masses of eons ; tall. splendid lilies. Arrayed in more gorgeous colouring than ever Solomon wore, towered up among them, reflecting rest ruby lights on theirtranspnrent leases from the sinking eastern sun. Here and there. glimpses of sunny. flowery pathways• overhung by matted orchard houghs and gourds and sines, and walled up on either side by tall ripe corn and embankments of rses, leading far away into the loan of that rich labytinth of °what*. Sweet. unutterably sweet and fragrant, the first faint breathings of the pertlimed breeze, that now began to rise as the sllll got loner; the breeze that had passed for miles and miles over those solitudes of Eden. The sun was going down : a vast. burning, transparent, rubreoloured `lobe--,just balanced, as it were. on the extreme verge of that measureless extent of ripe and glowing gardens. SATURDAY, Lights—such lights as are seen in splendid dreams-- thrown upon masses of dowers, roses, ripe transparent fruits, me i grapes, and gulden towering corn, and (Austria of gleaming lilies. We surmise that the writer wields a prac tised pen ; and it is not impossible that he belonged to the stall' of " foreign correspon dents of one of our journals. It was first announced as "a tale for the Aberdeen Cabi net ," and it may be commended as a cleve► pamphlet on the Oriental question, taking the form of a novel. Records of a Run through Continental Countri eN . By James Grant. London : Ruutledge and Co. IT would be too late for us to inquire into the literary rank of Mr. Grant, and it is not needed by this performance before us, which retains all the characteristics of his well-known man lier. Whether he " runs " through Europe or round the " House of Commons," his " Random Recollections" alike partake of the qualities which his " thirty volumes " teach us to ex pect from all that issues from his only too facile pen. Far more readable than authors of much more pretensions, he often succeeds in amusing where others have made us yawn. We do not open his volumes expecting brilliant rhetoric or profound research. We only ex pect to meet our well-known " Mr. James Grant," and we are never disappointed in finding him consistently pursuing his own method of " how to observe." Whether it be great men or mighty mountains—lovely women or delicious landscapes—art or nature—poetry or pancakes—German sausages or French ge nius—he is always himself. Unlike some legal celebrities, he never flinches from pronouncing his "opinion "—he never falters out a poor timid sentbk ; unlike famous practitioners of the healing art, he never shakes his head ; and, unlike certain doctors of divinity, he has only one object, to make himself intelligible. His self-reliance is never to be daunted. Other " artists in words " feel nervous qualms and wretched doubts about their not being "equal to such great subjects," but Mr. Grant smiles at difficulties, and never stops his pen. He would "cut up " Mont Blanc as coolly as ho would walk it up, and take down the preten lions of the Jura, even if its nodding summits threatened to burr him under the pile of his thirty volumes. but these and other pecu liarities of the author need not be recorded by us in detail. Amongst the light books of " travels " on the Continent, the present work is particularly distinguished by one excellence. It is entirely free from mangled French and tortured Italian phrases. We might suppose that Mr. Grant, skilled in the tongues, had as much horror as ourselves at seeing words turned every way but the right one, and that his profundity as a linguist shrank from the indelicate liberties taken by printers in introducing irregular foreign words to the notice of a generous pub lic. Mr. Grant, however, tells us in one of his " revelation " pages that he knows nothing of French, and records at the same time that a distinguished French journalist is in the same predicament with respect to English : When formerly at Frankfort I met with several persons of eminence. But the most distinguished man to whom I was introduced was the celebrated Emile Oinirdin, editor of the Press(' 4 Fans, and. without doubt, the most biih Haut journalist in the civilised world. Ile woe me a kind invitation to cull upon hini on my way through Paris, and promised that, if time permitted. I should ; but unfortu• timely he knows less of English than 1 do of French. so that conversation between us could not he carried on pith much gratification to either party. It is true that I could have taken with me some literary Parisian friend who is master of both languages ; but my experience in this way hi Paris. some curs ago. has sails-MAI me how inisatisfae• .ry set kin isonider sinch circninatances, to both M lle/4. Emile de tiirardin has much more of the appearance of an Englishman than of a Frenchman. His beard is as closely shaved as that of any er my readers. I was exceed ingly struck with the resemblance which he bears to the piirtraits of Napoleon Bonaparte. Instead of his appearing the bold, lively, vivo-ions person which from his writtuga we would suppose hint to be. he looks pensive, grave, and staid ; and though his whole life has proved him to be a man of unbounded courage, moral and physical, his bear ing is quiet and unassuming in the extreme. Gm' readers would like to hear how Mr. James Grout encountered a live princess, and how he moralised thereon : During the day and night I spent in Heidelberg I put ep at the Hotel de Baden, decidedly the best and molt