The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-23 00:00:00

906 of newness presented to his eye in every direc • tion. New streets, new churches, new quays, new fortifications meet his gaze. They may be hurriedly erected, and may not correspond in substance and solidity with their splendid appearance, yet the fact of their rapid progress is surely an evidence of surprising energy on the part of Government and people. It may be argued that the haste displayed to carry out a design once forrued is rather indicative of the despotic genius of a barbarous State, which is restless till its will be accomplished, than the sure and healthy influence of a rising civilisation ; but we must nevertheless admire the activity with which, in one kind of way or other, vast designs are hurried on to completion. So much could not be accomplished without great capacity and aptitude for enduring labour on the part of the people. Mr. Scott's book is strongly tinctured with the war feeling of the time, and hence he does not give us the impression of a candid and dispassionate observer. Some of his tirades, as, for example, his denunciation of the Rus sian Government for excavating the ground about Kertch in search of antiquities, are purely ridiculous ; but the public will readily pardon faults like this, in consideration of the information he supplies, and the general good sense of his remarks. Ida May. By Mary Langdon. London : Sampson Low and Co. Mae. STOWE has been goodnatured enough to stamp this volume with the seal of her appro bation. It bears some family likeness to " Uncle Tom," but is pretty plainly manu factured to meet the marketable demand for such productions. A young girl, intended as the model of a wonderful child, is kidnapped to be sold as a slave, but ultimately is restored to her friends, and distinguishes herself by manumitting the slaves on her property. Her guardian, Mr. Wynn, is drawn as a respectable specimen of the slave-holding class, with his mind totally warped by the malign influence of the " domestic institution" he upholds. One of his slaves, a superior " boy," Alfred, has had the audacity to marry without his permission : he sends for him, and this colloquy ensues:— " Give an account of yourself. Where were you last night." Alfred started visibly at this question, and, through his dark skin, it was easy to see that every particle of blood receded from his face. Twice he essayed to speak, and his lips seemed too rigid to form the words he would have said. He knew, from his master's whole manner. that disguise was useless,—that, through some unknown channel, his secret plans had been conveyed to the ear that should never have heard them, to the heart that would know no pity. Nerving himself at length to meet his fate, he looked up, and, with an effort at calmness, he replied, firmly, but still respectfully, " I went to see my wife, sir," " Who is your wife?" said Mr. Wynn, with a sneering emphasis on the last word. Elsie Nellore," replied Alfred. " Did I not command you, three years ago, to have nothing more to do with her, or any of her family?" said Mr. Wynn. And then, as his companion did not reply, he went on, with increasing excitement, " And now is not this just what I told you would be the consequence of as sociating with them ? You have grown sulky and discon tented, and full of notions that ought to have been whipped out of you long ago ; but I have been foolishly indulgent, — and to-night you were going to steal my best horse, and run away, were you? You ungrateful dog ! is this the way you pay me for all I have done for you?" Alfred was proud and highspirited, and, in the despera tion of his circumstances, he could no longer restrain the burning words that were struggling for utterance, like the lava in a pent volcano. " What have you done for me?" he exclaimed, lifting himself proudly. " A mighty debt I owe you, sir, but not of gratitude! What have you done for me? You made me a plaything in childhood! You fed and dressed me well, because you like to see fat and neat-looking servants about you! You educated nie just enough to suit you own pur poses, and then rudely checked my craving for further knowledge ! What more did you do? You persecuted the girl I loved, and insulted me by offering rue another woman in her place—" " Silence !" thundered Mr. Wynn, stamping his foot on the floor. " I will not be silent !—I will speak now, if I die for it!" cried Alfred. " Twenty-five years I have served you faith fully ; and because your oppressions at last made me sad and gloomy, you have scolded and threatened me. You did not like A because the man you had wronged would not sing and smile, as well as work for you,—because I had a human heart in my bosom; because God made me with the same wishes and powers that he gives the white man—" " You insolent puppy!" exclaimed Mi. Wynn : dare you talk that way to me !—to me ! your master ? Foe THE PRESS. talk of being wronged! You'll find I have a way to take these notions out of your head, you impudent nig ger ! You shall be tied up and flogged before all the people in the place. I'll take the conceit out of you, if I take all the skin off your back first." Alfred shivered from head to foot as if with deadly cold. He knew this was no unmeaning threat. But his eye quailed not as he answered: " For your own sake, sir, be careful what you do to me. I cannot bear what some can. I have not been degraded quite to the condition of a beast, and I have the feelings of a man. I tell you I could not bear it, though I know some can. It would ruin me. I should be either an idiot or crazy." " You had better be crazy or an idiot than such a rebel lious, impudent scoundrel as you are now !" said Mr. Wynn. His voice was terribly calm and cold. His anger had reached the point where all outward demonstration ceases. Alfred made a step forward, and raised his hand a little. " Twenty-five years have 1 served you," he said, " and never a lash has fallen on my back ; and, mark me sir, never a lash shall fall there ! I have escaped that disgrace and torture, and I never will endure it,—never!" As he spoke these last words, Mr. Wynn also stepped forward, and, seizing a small riding-whip that lay on the table, struck a sudden, stinging blow directly across Alfred's face, cutting the skin slightly from his eye to his chin. Alfred caught it in his hands, as it was descending a second time, and twisting it from his master's grasp, broke it in three pieces, threw it over Mr. Wynn's shoulder into the fire, and sprang to the window. There was a momentary delay in undoing the lock, which was fastened; and, seizing an oaken chair, Mr. Wynn made one bound across the floor, a heavy blow descended, and Alfred was stretched senseless on the carpet. At the same instant a wild shriek rang through the house,—s prolonged cry of anguish and despair, which curdled the blood of every listener,—and Maum Abby rushed through the half-opened window into the room. Stooping down she raised the lifeless form, and laid the head tenderly on her bosom. " My boy ! my boy !" she said in a low tone ; "it is ended, then, at last—it is all over—and it has come to this!" and, after those words. she spoke not again during all the scene which followed." Alfred is stunned, not killed. He is con fined in a strong room, that lie may be severely whipped on the morrow. A party is sent to bring him from his prison : Some moments elapsed, and then there was a little con fusion heard above stairs, a quick step descended, and Dick again threw open the door, exclaiming, " 0 massa! come dis minute up star. I►at ar' Alfred done kill lieself!" " What do you say ?" said Mr. Wynn, sternly, his face growing a little more rigid and white as he fixed his eyes on the child. " Fact, masse," repeated he ; " dat ar' Alfred done kill heself,—cut hole in he troat and let out all de blood. Done shirked he wkiippin' dis time, massa, anyway." Mr. Wynn rose quickly and left the room. Walter lifted his head, and his chest heaved with a deep inspira tion, as if a load had been lifted from it, while he ex claimed fervently, " Thank God for that!—he is dead!" " Why, Walter! are you not ashamed to say so ?" said Mabel. " For my part, I am really sorry, for now who will build our summer-house? My heart was set upon having that before another year, and there is not a work man anywhere around who was equal to Alfred. I'd rather have nothing at all than one of those common things. 1 say it is a downright shame for him to kill himself, when it is so inconvenient to lose him." Mabel, it is to be observed, is the daughter of Mr. Wynn, and, from early association, can see no other cause for regret in the death of a slave than the loss of his value, or the dis appointment of pleasure his services were ex pected to procure. The book, like " Uncle Tom," though in an inferior degree, is calcu lated to excite sympathy for the sufferings and wrongs of the slave population, and has suffi cient literary merit to form a good addition to the library of abolitionist fiction. Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile. By Bayard Taylor. London : Sampson Low and Co. WE have had so much of very good travel writing on the East that we are beginning to be dainty in our appetite when Oriental lite rary fare is placed before us. " The Crescent and the Cross" and " Eiithen" so vividly re alised their subjects that readers become im patient when asked to peruse merely sensible writing by a tourist who goes over beaten ground. Egypt is a less hacknied subject, however, than Palestine, but, after the works of Belzoni, Burckhard, Lane, Wilkinson (and must we add Titmarsh?;, there is really very little to be told. To be much interested in such a theme we require that a writer should exhibit either the liveliness and grace of Mr. Shirley Brooks, in his " Russians of the South," or the photographic felicity of style that distinguishes a certain " special cor respondent" of the Times. Mr. Bayard Taylor is an American author and traveller, and is apt to be prolix ; and we may remark that we have never heard it ex- SATURDAY, plained why a people so rapid in action as the Americans are, should be so apt to be tedious with the tongue and pen. What is there now to be told or said about the Pyramids or the voyage up the Nile ? The first are as familiar to all of us in description as the Crystal Palace, and many of us would not want the aid of an Arab coxswain for the navigation of the second. Even the crocodiles are become so tame to us on paper that we skip away from them almost as fast as if they were alive. Dis cussions on Egyptian antiquities, also, are ra ther overdone, and we do not care for them at second-hand, where has in the instance before us) the author is manifestly indebted for his speculations to the works of Champollion, Wilkinson, and Lepsius. With these drawbacks, the volume of Mr. Taylor is another of the vigorous, straightfor ward narratives of travel that many will find interesting and some will even think novel. The last half of the book is its best, portion, and in the voyage up the White Nile the au thor has the advantage of a comparatively fresh subject. His account of Khartoum, also, has much new matter ; and his pictures of natural objects and descriptions of Nubian scenery, along with some other portions of his subject, have much pleased us. He thus des cribes the central plateau of the desert, and the effects of the mirage as witnessed there : Beyond the Bahr bele Ma extends the broad central plateau of the desert, fifteen hundred feet above the sea. It is a vast reach of yellow sand, dotted with low, isolated hills, which in some places are based on large beds of light gray sandstone of an unusually fine and even grain. Smell towers of stone have been erected on the hills nearest the road, iu order to guide the couriers who travel by night. Near one of them the guide pointed out the grave of a mer chant who had been murdered there two years previous by his three slaves. The latter escaped into the desert, but probably perished, as they were never heard of afterwards. In the smooth, loose sand I had an opportunity of reviving my forgotten knowledge of trackography, and soon learned to distinguish the feet of hyenas. foxes, ostriches, lame camels, and other animals. The guide assured me that there were devils in the desert, but one only sees them when he travels alone. On this plain the mirage, which first appeared in the Biban, presented itself under a variety of wonderful as pects. Thenceforth I saw it every day, for hours together, and tried to deduce some rules from the character of its phenomena. It appears on all sides, except that directly opposite to the sun, but rarely before nine a.m. or after three p.m. The colour of the apparent water is always precisely that of the sky, and this is a good test to distinguish it from real water, which is invariably of a deeper hue. It is seen on a gravelly as well as a sandy surface, and often fills with shining pools the slight depressions in the soil at the bases of the hills. Where it extends to the hori zon there is no apparent line, and it then becomes an inlet of the sky, as if the walls of heaven were melting down and flowing in upon the earth. Sometimes a whole mountain chain is lifted from the horizon and hung in the air, with its reflected image joined to it, base to base. I frequently saw during the forenoon lakes of sparkling blue water, apparently not a quarter of a mile distant. The waves ripple in the wind; tall reeds and water-plants grow on the margin ; and the desert rocks behind cast their shadows on the surface. It is impossible to believe it a delusion. You advance nearer, and suddenly, you know not how, the lake vanishes. There is a grayish film over the spot, but, before you have decided whether the film is in the air or in your eyes, that too disappears, and you see only the naked sand. What you took to be reeds and water-plants probably shows itself as a streak of dark gravel. What the author calls his " mid-African landscapes" are the best points in the volume, and have a certain panoramic effect upon the mind of the reader. After leaving Khartoum he voyaged to the country of the Shillook negroes, and paints for us the following pleeasingly-vivid landscape : After passing the island of Tahebeshi, the river, which still retains its great breadth, is bordered by a swampy growth of reeds. It is filled with numerous low islands, c overed with trees, mostly dead, and wit h waste, white branches which have drifted down during the inundation. In the forests along the shore many trees had also been killed by the high water of the previous summer. There are no habitations on this part of the river, but all is wild, and lonely, and magnificent. 1 had seen no sail since leaving Khartoum, and as the sun that evening threw his last red rays on the mighty flood, I felt for the first time that I was alone, far in the savage heart of Africa. We dashed along at a most exciting rate of speed, brushing the reeds of the low islands , or dipp in g into the gloom of the shadows thrown by the unprittied forests. The innu merable swarms of wild birds filled the air with their noise, as they flew to their coverts, or ranged themselves in com pact tiles on the sand. Above all their din I heard a d t intervals, from the unseen thickets inland, the prolonge snarling roar of some wild beast It was too deep-toned and powerful for a leopard, and we all decided that it was a lion. As I was watching the snowy cranes and silvery herons that alighted on the boughs within pistol-shot, me men pointed out a huge hippop otamus, standing in e reeds but a short distance from the vessel. He was be tween five and six fest high, but h is head, body and legs