The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-15 00:00:00

DECX)6I4R 15., 1855..

Was there not more danger incurred in
crowding the crews of all five vessels into the
North Star (admitted by Captain Belcher to
be a perilous proceeding) than there would
have been in leaving a portion of the men
with one or more of the ships ? 3. When the
phoenix and Talbot arrived, might not one

vessel have been left at Beechey Island, in case
Collinson and his crew should come to that
point for succour, and for means of passage
home ? It is the second of these questions
which eeems to us the most pressing, though
we cannot agree in Captain Belcher's dis-
paragement of the good ships he abandoned,
as being merely " masses of purchased
" timber," the instant they ceased to be under
command of her Majesty's officers. To all
these questions the safe return of the Antic
crews is, perhaps, the best and certainly the
most practical answer that can be given.
The " Last of the Arctic Voyages," though
not wholly satisfactory, is yet worth its cost.
No one can look at the last chart without

a feeling of gratification at the progress made.
The chart in these volumes, however, is very
imperfect ; not even the winter stations of the
Resolute are marked ; nor are places given the
names of which frequently occur in the
narrative.
As we have intimated a suspicion of the
soundness of Sir E. Belcher's judgment, we
quote a sentence or two that our readers may
judge for themselves whether our doubt be
well-founded. He writes, in one place :

By some unaccountable peculiarity, I make up my mind
to effect an object, at a moment when no chance of its
accomplishment is apparent.—i. 360.

This is in reference to a kind of instinctive
faculty of doing, or guessing, right which he
supposes himself to possess. On one occa-
sion a dog sledge is reported, and Captain
Belcher, without any kind of certainty as to
what news it may bring, divines its mission:—
My salutation was—" Well, you bring me news of
Captain Collinsou's safety." " Yes, sir, he is safe, and I
have documents here for you."—ii. 186.
Again :
To-day I felt so perfectly satisfied that a sledge from
Kellett was due (if lie existed), that I fully intended, when
the master reported noon, to desire him to send a person
to look out on the hill. It escaped me, being then engaged
on other matters ; but my clerk coming in from taking the
temperature of the Crystal Palace La large ice-house],
reported—" A dog•sledge nearly along-side, sir." My reply,
instigated by what was then passing in my mind, was very
short, and without emotion. " I know it!" which some-
what astonished him; but fortunately I explained my
meaning, which, perhaps, led him to imagine I was
dreaming.
How could the sledge be due? The day was
the 13th of March, a date earlier than Captain
Belcher himself recommended any journey
to be begun ; and had Kellett been kept at
Melville Island, as was probable, no messenger
could have arrived from him so soon. The
conviction of Captain Belcher may be attri-
buted to second-sight, but could not have
been founded on rational calculation. He
gives us the impression of being excessively
opinionated, and unreasonably suspicious. On
his jealousy of command, the reader may con-
sult vol. ii. 213 and 228 ; and on his apparent
mistrust of M'Clure, vol. ii. 231. The para-
graph relating to this noble officer•, at vol. ii.
259, seems dictated by ungenerous feeling.
The getting-up of these volumes is highly
creditable to the publishers and to the per-
sons who have furnished the valuable matter
contained in the appendices. The careful
observations of Captain Belcher himself arc
also extremely valuable. We doubt whether
the title, " The Last of the Arctic Voyages,"
will long remain true. Further traces of
Franklin are yet to be sought in the direction
from which, by the account of Dr. Rae's
Esquimaux, his party proceeded. Besides,
the question has not yet been finally deter-
mined whether an open sea may not exist in a
higher latitude than has yet been reached,
though probabilities, we admit, are strongly
against the supposition. In any case, it does
not seem impracticable, with proper arrange-
ments, to reach the North Pole, and thus solve
some very interesting geographical problems.
The money spent, and the dangers incurred,
in the pursuit of science, yield a rich, though
not perhaps a direct or immediate, reward;
nor is there any glory more truly honourable
to, a nation than that of taking the lead in

TtIV PAV.ss.

enterprises calculated to produce results
which will last through all time, and benefit
all mankind.

Shooting in the Himalayas. By Colonel Fred.
Markham, C.B. London : Bentley.
Lis death of General Markham took the
public by surprise. Younger than most of
our Crimean leaders, hardy in constitution,
and inured to warfare, he might have been
supposed to be one of the least likely to suc-
cumb to the hardships of the war. But his
extreme zeal and disregard of fatigue, acting
perhaps upon a frame overtasked in former
exploits, and aided by an injury received in
crossing the Desert to join Lord Raglan's
forces, has closed his career at the moment
when it seemed destined r the greatest
glory On his merits as a soldier we need not
dilate—they foim the subject of every tribute
that is paid to his memory. But be was more
than a soldier. His adventurous disposition
made him impatient of the barrack and parade,
and led him, both in America and India, to
fill up the intervals of actual service with the
pursuit of the most perilous sports ; while his
literary accomplishments enabled him to de-
scribe graphically the adventures he met with.
Hence the volumes which stand at the head of
this notice.
In the summer of 1846 the 32nd Regiment,
of which he was then lieutenant-colonel, em-
barked for India, and, atter a long march into
the interior, was quartered at Meerut. The
spring found them settling down into the rou-
tine of an Indian corps, acclimatised in mind
as well as body. The hot season was com-
mencing, during which drill was impossible.
Six months' leave of absence was obtained,
and, in company with one of his sporting
ensigns, Colonel Markham started for the
Himalayas. At that time, he tells us, he was
rather poor in worldly goods, and possessed
but one gun, a double•barrelled one, which he
had purchased new out of an ironmonger's
shop in London for 21. 5s , and which was far
from a first-rate article. His first adventure
was a tiger-hunt:—
A jolly breakfast party of nine hungry sportsmen, and
then—hurrah for the jungle. I know not a finer or mere
exciting spectacle than a line of elephants beating for
tigers. The larger anti most courageous elephants carry-
ing the howdahs, placed at equal distances, with the infe-
rior animals between as beaters, sometimes almost hidden
from each other, as the line advances through the tall
grass, the roads thickly matted together by the luxuriant
growth of innumerable shrubs and creepers ; the Mahouts
alternately coaxing and belaying the huge animals as they
go crushing deliberately through the jungle, with an occa-
sional shrill cry of pain and disgust from an elephant more
delicate and thin skinned than the others, it being forced
through the thorny mass of tangled roses and bushes—a
favorite lay of tigers; the startled deer, feathered game
rising every few paces; the well-appointed sportsmen ; the
white garments of the Mahouts ; the wild-looking, half-
naked villager, taken up from his field to show the ground ;
altogether form a scene not easily forgotten by those who
witness it for the first time. Carefully we beat the most
likely jungle, full of deer, pea fowl, partridges, Sex. Not a
shot was fired, lest the noble game should be disturbed.
At last, despairing of a tiger, we blazed at everything, and
had capital shooting, until tiffin reassembled the party,
one of whom, to our great distress, was brought in with
his hand dreadfully shattered by the bursting of his gun.
Having sent him home under charge of Doctor Bruce, and
being well satisfied he would be well taken care of, we
beat steadily on, when three shots in quick succession
were fired on the right of the line. " Dekho, sahib ; dekho,
bagh ! "—Look, sir! look, a tiger!—screeched out by a
dozen voices, sent the whole line in pursuit The
elephants, urged to their utmost speed, crushed through
the jungle, screaming and trumpeting as they smelt the
tiger. A waving line is seen on the surface of the long
grass as of some large animal moving swiftly and stealthily
along, and then, charging at full speed, the tiger, with a
final spring, fixed himself upon Mayne's elephant, who,
after a violent struggle, succeeded in shaking him off.
Severely wounded, he retired into some long grass, and in
making a second charge was shot dead. He was a fine
animal, well grown, and full of pluck; and, with our
spirits TR i sed at the success of our maiden essay in tiger
shooting (for,as a matter of course, everybody killed him),
we returned to camp.
But this was only the prologue to the play.
Tahir and gooral shooting was the next scene.
The tahir is one of the species of the wild
goat of the Himalayas, and at a distance has
something of the appearance of a great wild
hog. The gooral is the chamois of the Hima-
layas The method adopted for its discovery
is singular—to give a few loud hisses. Should
one be near, it will answer, and generally move
and expose itself for a fair shot. The work
was very hard, and at first not very successful.
We find him saying:—

az

We found many tahir, and bed some good chan•es; but,
swing to a chapter of those trifling accidents which will
occasionally occur, we returned at night emptyhanded to
the camp, and passed the evening as usual, eating a good
deal, drinaing a little, smoking considerably, and talking
incessantly: We were all to start in the murnuig over the

hill to Jsfah ; so up tally and called on my sleeping com-
panions to arise. lint I called in vain; tired of the hill,
they changed their minds, and Wilson and I had to
start re • e,.
BM *port was not the only object of interest
for ow autbor—witness the following descrip-
tion et the glacier of the Gauges :

A floe cold morning, and we started early to accomplish
the live miles to the source of the mighty river. The
walking was bad, for in all the small tributary streams
were stones and rocks incrusted with ice, which made
them very difficult to cross. On the opposite side we saw
immense flocks of burrell (the wild sheep), but there was
no getting at them. At last the great glacier of the Gauges
was reached, and never can I forget my first impressions
when 1 beheld it before me in all its savage grandeur. The
glacier, thickly studded with enormous loose rocks and
earth, is about a mile in width, and extends upwards of
many miles towards an immense mountain, covered with
perpetual snow down to its base, and its glittering summit
piercing the very skies, rising 21,000 feet above the level
of the sea. The chasm uf the glacier, through which the
sacred stream rushes forth into the light of day, is nailed
the Cow's Mouth, and is held in the deepest reverence by
all Hindoos, and the regions of eternal frost in its vicinity
are the scenes of many of their most sacred matters. The
Ganges enters the world no puny stream, but bursts forth
from its icy womb a river thirty or forty yards In
breadth, of great depth, and very rapid. A Durrell was
killed by a lucky shot across the river, just at the
mouth, and fell backwards into the torrent, and was no
more seen.

Fatigue is very little thought of in this
volume, and we are constantly finding remarki

of this kind :

The journey down is awful work, slipping and falling
every few yards, being unable to see the bail places; how-
ever, the men were down as often as we were, and that was
some consolation. The walking at this time is very
dangerous, as a false step or slip would in all probability
send you, unable to check yourself, over some ledge of
rocks, and it is absolutely necessary to be careful.

One more extract is all we can find room
for :

The mighty hunters and sportsmen of the plains may
talk of the charge of a tiger or of a wild boar ; and, I dare
say, laugh at me for placing such a clumsy brute as a bear
in comparison with them, and yet he beats them hoUow in
the quickness of his charge, and many people who have
stood it will doubtless agree with me in thinking so. It
must, however, be borne in mind that a man may shoot
bears for years and never see a real downright charge.
They will often make a rush at their pursuer, rising, as
they close, upon their hind legs, and stretching out their
fore paws to seize hold, but at times they will come as if
shot out of a cannon ; you see a mass of black fur, and
before you can even turn it is upon you.
••

I recollect on one occasion taking a shot at a bear as it
was peering down at me over a bush ; I could only see its
head. and it might have been eighty yards er so distant,
and considerably higher up the hill than I was myself.
The ball from the first barrel now possessed an exeel-
lent double ride) went through one of its ears, and just
grazed the skin all down the back. Without an instant's
hesitation it rushed down, and 4 really never saw anything
come at such a pace It scarcely could have been quicker
if it had been pitched at me. I had just time to cock the
other barrel, pull the trigger, and not a second to spare.
The bear must have been within a yard when I did so, and
it was, I think, one of the luckiest shots I ever fired, for
taking aim was quite out of the question. The ball hit
the animal right in the mouth, smashing a good many
teeth, and entering the brain, which laid it dead at my
feet.

The book abounds with incidents like these.
Sometimes we have the nigh; surprise of a
tiger or leopard, while carrying off the carcase
of a bullock ; sometimes a shot at a flock of
burrell, racing at Derby pace across a glacier ;
and sometimes a hand-to-hand encounter with
a bear, or a chase from cave to cave, with dan-
gerous charges and hairbreadth escapes. Every-
thing is well told ; no exaggerated description,
and yet no lack of descriptive power. The last
page reads the saddest, where, in concluding
the narrative of five shooting seasons in the
hills, he expresses his hope that his sporting
excursions were not ended for ever; that he
might again wander over valley and mountain ;
might, once more, face bruin in his haunts,
and bring down many an ibex, amidst t 4
rocks and the snows of the Himi4ayas.

A Lady's Second Journey Round the World. By 146
Pfeiffer. Two Vols. London Longmans.
THIS lady, so favorably known by the publication
of her previous travels, has given us in two compact
volumes the narrative of her latest wanderings, ex-
tending over a period of four years, and embracing a
voyage round the world. She left England fa. the
Cape of Good Hope, in April,lBsl; thence proceeded
to Singapore' visited Sarawak, where she satisfied