The Press.
London, England, 1855-07-14 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

strict as that of Europe—our Dervish at length
wanders forth from Alexandria to Cairo and
Suez; and from thence taking ship down the
Red Sea, he landed at Yambu, on the eastern
shore, and commenced his journey to Me-
dinah (about four days' travel inland), where
the two present volumes leave him.
The narrative of his journey is full of detail
and of personal adventure, illustrating the
habits and peculiarities of the Arab people,
who retain all their primeval simplicity of
character, while his notes are a perfect cyclo

-
ptedia of Oriental lore in themselves. - His
description of the peculiar effect of the desert,
as quiokeniug and invigorating the intellect, is
well given :

It is strange ( he remarks) how the mind can be amnsed
amid scenery that presents so few objects to occupy it. But
in such a country every slight modification of form or
colour rivets observation : the senses are sharpened, and
perceptive faculties, prone to sleep over a confused shifting
of scenery, act vigorously when excited by the capability
of embracing each detail. . _

And then the Oases, and little lines of fertility—how
soft and how beautiful !—even though the Wady El Ward
(the Vale of Flowers) be the name of some stern flat upon
which a handful of wild shrubs blossom while struggling
through a cold season's ephemeral existence. In such
circumstances the mind is influenced through the body.
Though your mouth glows, and your skin is parched, yet
you feel no languor, the effect of humid heat ; your lungs
are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory recovers
its tone, and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy
and imagination arc powerfully aroused, and the wildness
and sublimity of the scenes around you stir up all the
energies of your soul—whether for exertion, danger, or
strife. Your morale improves ; you become frank and
cordial, hospitable, and single-minded; the hypocritical
politeness and the slavery of civilisation are left behind you
in the city. Your senses are quickened : they require no
stimulants but air and exereise,—in the desert spirituous
liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in
a mere animal existence. The sharp appetite disposes of
the most indigestible food, the sand is softer than a bed of
down, and the purity of the air suddenly puts to flight a
dire cohort of diseases. Hence it is that both sexes, and
every age, the most material as well as the most imagina-
tire of minds, the tamest citizen, the most peaceful
student, the spoiled child of civilisation, all feel their hearts
dilate, and their pulses beat strong as they look down from
their dromedaries upon the " glorious desert." Where do
we hear of a " traveller" being disappointed by it? It Is
another illustration of the ancient truth that Nature re•
turns to man, however unworthily he has treated her. And
believe me, gentle reader, that when once your tastes have
conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer
real pain in returning to the turmoil of civilisation. You will
anticipate the bustle and the confusion of artificial life, its
luxury and its false pleasures, with repugnance. De
pressed in spirits, you will for a time after your return feel
incapable of mental or bodily exertion. The air of cities
will suffocate you, and the careworn and cadaverous coun-
tenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judge
went.
The common idea of the desert and its oases

does not appear to be founded upon fact. To
compare the desert, he tells us, to a " sandy
sea" is incorrect Sand heaps are found in
the desert, but sand plains are merely a local
feature, not the general face of the country,
which is usually a hard dry earth, requiring
only a " monsoon" to become highly produc-
tive, while an " oasis," instead of being a
" green isle " in the sandy sea, is, generally
speaking, a rocky valley bisected by the bed of
a mountain torrent, dry during the hot season,
but from which water may be always obtained
by digging. On his way from Yarnbu to Me-
diaah our Dervish alludes painfully to the dis-
appointment he experienced upon such an
occasion, when he had been led to expect a
pastoral scene, wild flowers, and flowing
waters, but found only a barren, desolate spot,
with a deep hole full of brackish water, a few
hardy thorns for flowers, and knobs of granite
for grass and daisies.
The characteristic sketch of his boy, the
companion of his travels, is given with clever
foree

He is a beardless youth, of about eighteen, chocolate
brown, with high features, and a bold profile ; his bony and
decided Meecan cast of face is lit up by the peculiar Egyp•
Lien eye, which seems to descend from generation to gene-
ration. His figure was short sad broad, with a tendency
to be obese, the result of a strong stomach and the power
of sleeping at discretion. He could read a little, write his
name, and was uncommonly clever at a bargain. Meccnh
had taught him to speak excellent Arabic, to understand
the literal dialect, to be eloquent in abuse, and to be pro-
found at prayer and pilgrimage. Constantinople had given
him a taste for Anacreontic singing, and female society of
the questionable kind, a love of strong waters—the hypo-
crite looked positively scandalised when I first suggested
the subject—and an of latitudinarian mode of
dealing with serious subjects in general. i found him to
be the youngest son of a widow, whose dusting fondness
had moulded his disposition ; he was selfish and affectionate,
as spoiled children usually are, volatile, easily offended,

669

sad as easily pacified (the Oriental), coveting other men's
goods, and profuse of his own (the Arab), with a match•
less intrepidity of countenance (the traveller), brazen
lunged, not more than half brave, exceedingly astute, wi:h
an acute sense of honour, especially where his relations
were concerned (the individual). I have seen him in a
fit of fury because someone cursed his father; and lie and

I nearly parted because on one occasion I applied to him
an epithet which etymologically considered might be
exceedingly insulting to a higlmitioded brother, but which

in popular parlance signifies nothing. This point d hmoit ur
was the boy Alahounuctra strong point.

Medinah, the resting-place of the Prophet's
mortal remains, is very nifty and aceurately
described. In his disguise—never detected,
and but seldom suspected—Lieut. Burton pe-
netrates into the mysterious precincts of the

Prophet's mosque and tombs, carefully going
through every ceremony and visiting the most

sacred spots but that one where no mortal foot Is
ever allowed to enter,—the chamber which ig
supposed to contain the remains of Mohammed

and of Omar and Abubekr. This " liujrah,"
or chamber, ie an irregular square of some
fifty or fifty-five feet in the south-cast corner

of the mausoleum :
Inside there are, or are supposed to be, three tombs
facing the south, surrounded by stone walls without any
aperture, or, as others say, by strong planking. Whatever
this material may be, it is hung outside with a curtain, some-
whirtlike a large four-post bed. The outer railing isseparsted
by a dark narrow passage from the inner one, which it
surrounds, and is of iron filagree painted of a vivid grass
green—with a view to the garden—whilst careflolly inserted
in the verdure, and doubly bright by contrast, is the gilt or
burnished brass work forming the long anal graceful letters
of the Sula character, and disposed into the Moslem creed,
the profession of unity, and similar religious sentences.
On the south side, for greater honour, the railing is plated
over with silver, and silver letters are interlaced with it.
This fence, which connects the columns and forbids passage
to all men, may be compared to the baltlecellino of Roman
churches. It has four gates : that to the south is the limb
el Muwajihah; eastward is the gate of our Lady Fatimah ;
westward the Bab el Taubah (of repentance), opening into
the Hannah or garden, and to the north the Bab el Shunt
or Syrian gate. They are constantly kept closed, except
the fourth, which admits into the dark narrow passage
above alluded to the officers who have charge of the trea-
sures there deposited, and the eunuchs who sweep the
floor, light the lamps, and carry away the presents some-
times thrown in here by devotees. In the southern side
of the fence are three windows, holes about half a foot
square, and placed from tour to five feet above the ground ;
they are said to he between three and four cubits distant
from the Prophet's head. The most westerly of these is
supposed to front Mohammed's tomb, wherefore it is called
the Shnbak el Nabl, or the Prophet's window. The next
on the right as you front it is Abubekr's, end the most
easterly of the three is Omar's. Above the Hujrsh is the
Green Dome, surmounted outside by a large gilt crescent
springing from a series of globes. The glowing imagina-
tions of the Moslems crown this gem of the building with
a pillar of heavenly light, which directs from three days'
distance the pilgrims' steps towards Medinah. Bat
alas! none save holy men (and perhaps odylic sensitives),
whose material organs are piercing as their vision spiritual,
are allowed the privilege of beholding this poetic splendour.
Looking in at the little window called the
Prophet's, after straining his eyes, he saw—

A curtain, or rather hangings, with three inscriptions in
large gold letters, informing readers that behind them lie
Allah's Prophet and the two first caliphs. The exec: place
of Mohammed's tomb is moreover distinguished by a large
pearl rosary, and a peculiar ornament, the celebrated Kan.
kab el Durrt. or constellation of pearls, suspended. to the
curtain breast high. This is described to be a " Ltilliant
star set in diamonds and pearls," and placed in the dark
in order that man's eye may be able to bear its splendours :
the vulgar believe it to be a " jewel of the jewels of Para-
dise." To me it greatly resembled the round stoppers et
glass used for the humbler sorts of decanters, but I never
saw it quite near enough to judge fairly of it, and did not
think fit to pay an exorbitant sum for the privilege of en-
tering the inner passage of the beldiprin. Altogether, the
coup Boil had nothing to recommend it by day. At night,
when the lamps hung in this passage shed a dim light
upon the mosaic work of the marble floors, upon the glit-
tering inscriptions and the massive hangings, the scene is
more likely to become " ken-speckle."
Mr. Burton adduces some good reasons fo
doubting the existence of any tomb at all
grounded mainly upon the many points in dia•
pute between the Moslems themselves. As
one who has mixed so much among the people
his opinion of the instability of the Turkish
power in Arabia is worth hearing. Speaking
of the insecurity of travelling in Arabia, he
tells us that if the Government catch a robber
they dare not hang him
They must pay black mail, and yet be shot at in every
pass. They affect superiority over the Arabs, hate them,
and are despised by them. Such in El Hejaz are the
effects of the charter of Gutbaneb, a panaco a like Holloway's
pills for all the evils to which Turkish, Arab, Syrian,
Greek, Egyptian, Persian, Armesian, Karl, and Albanian
flesh is heir to. Such the results of the Tanzinisit, the
silliest copy of Europe's folly—burenucracy and centrali-
sation—that the pen of empirical statecraft ever traced.
Ender a strong-handed and strong•hearted despotism like
Mohammed Ali's, El Hejaz, in one generation, might be

•

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670

purged of its pests. By a proper use of the blood feud, by
vigorously supporting the weaker against the stronger
classes, by regularly defeating every Bedouin who earned
a name for himself, and, above all, by the exercise of un•
sparing, unflinching justice, the few thousands of half-
naked bandits, who now make the land a fighting-field,
would soon sink into utter insignificance. But to effect
such end, the Turks require the old stratocracy, which,
bloody as it was, worked with far less misery than the
charter and the new code. What Milton calls
" The solid rule of civil government"
has done wonders for the race that nurtured and brought
to perfection an idea spontaneous to their organisation.
But the world has yet to learn that the admirable exotic
will thrive amongst the country gentlemen of Monamotapa
or the ragged nobility of El Hejaz. And it requires no
prophetic eye to foresee the day when the Wahhabis or the
Bedouins, rising en masse, will rid the land of its feeble
conquerors.

The two volumes now issued are beautifully
illustrated with coloured and plain engravings,
and an excellent map clearly defines the route
of the able adventurer, who, in the requisite
qualifications for his bold enterprise, appears
to have surpassed all previous travellers. We
hope soon to receive a continuation of the nar-
rative, as it will form, when complete, a
standard authority on all points relative to the
holy cities of the Prophet.

Display. A Novel. By Mra. Maherly. Three

Vols. London : Hurst and Blackett.
Ws are glad to receive a novel which may not
only be read with pleasure, but which invites
and will bear criticism. We do not mean to
assure the authoress that her work is " the best
of the season," or to apply to it any of those
nonsensical stereotyped phrases which seem
penned only that publishers may select them
for their advertisements ; but we shall pay
her the much higher compliment of treating
her book as worthy of more than mere passing
notice.

It is proper to say, in the first place, that
" Display " contains nothing very striking
either in plan or development. On the con-
trary, it is much like the multitude of fashion-
able novels which we have been accustomed to
receive from the press whence it issues. The
difference between them and " Display " is ra-
ther in degree than in type. We have much the
same sort of characters, much the same sort
of scenes, much the same sort of incidents ;
but, whereas in those works there was often a
want of that delicate finish which complete
knowledge of society and artistic skill alone
can impart, we have here one of the most ex-
quisite specimens of its class we have ever
met with, not free from tbe faults of its class,
but with all its merits in absolute perfection;
in short, an admirable example of that hot-
house style of fiction which the artificial
habits of high life and the desire of the public
to know something concerning them have
generated. Mrs. Maberly would probably
never have written had not this style of novel
been in vogue, for we cannot say that she
gives much evidence of original talent; but
what she does is so well done that she throws
her less accomplished competitors into the
shade. If the tint of her composition is faint,
it is very pure, and charms us with that loc k
of freshness and bloom which is often more
attractive than striking colour.
We can imagine a novel of society which
should contain not one improbable incident or
unlikely character, which should avoid sudden
turns of fortune, and confine itself to the or
dinary beaten path of common experience, but
which should yet be positively fascinating
from its truthfulness of portraiture. This,
however, is not the style of our fashionable
novelists in general, nor is it the style of Mrs.
Maberly. She seems to think it necessary
that conventional romance should enter into
the composition of her story. and so in the
opening chapters we catch glimpses of some
mystery in connection with the marriage
settlements of the beautiful Laura Malcolm.
Her father, a West India proprietor, has the
reputation of great wealth, though in reality
deeply encumbered, and he gives his daugh-
ter's suitor, and afterwards her husband, Sir
Aubrey Mannering, to understand that his
child will receive 40,0001., while he gets the
settlement secretly drawn up and the sum set
down as 4,0001. only. He seems, however, to
have been as capable of paying one amount as
the other ; and the whole of the part relating
to this fraud is improbable to the last degree,

. .16 - .4•ll4"epa
4500.1k.e.