The Press.
London, England, 1855-04-28 00:00:00

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beings in human form, with red caps on their heads, which
are supposed to bring good fortune to the place where they
have taken up their abode." We never tried any more
tricks on the natives, and felt half ashamed of this one
when we saw the extremity of their fears.

The authors say no more of themselves than
is necessary to explain their cruise. The
Maria was a schooner-yacht of eighty-three
tons, with a crew of a captain, four men, two
boys, a cook, and a steward—a party of nine
with the two narrators, one or both of them
being clever draughtsmen, as the volume con-
tains many spirited illustrations. The Maria
sailed from Dublin on the 31st of May, and
after a tedious voyage reached Mull on the
4th ofJune, and the Feroo Islands on the 11th.
Their appearance at a distance was desolately
sublime :

A first approach to the Feroe Islands, even on this their
tamest side, is very striking. Their sides are almost every.
where perpendicular precipices to a considerable height
above the water's edge, though broken near the top by
grassy slopes and terraces. The few practicable landing-
places, and nearly all the villages, are concealed in the
fiords, or behind projecting rocks ; so that the shores,
when viewed from the sea, appear singularly inaccessible
and uninhabited. To us they presented their wildest and
most deserted aspect, for not a boat was to be seen in any
direction; and towards the afternoon those driving moun-
tain mists, which the old Northmen conceived to be the
shades of their forefathers flitting by, swept along the
'oasts, adding greatly to the gloom of the scene, and making
us doubly anxious to secure a safe anchorage before the
whole group relapsed into its normal obscurity.
One of the grandest features of the coast is
the Myling Head, which rises up from the sea
like a perpendicular wall :

The western face of the Myling Head overhangs the sea,
but its summit is accessible from this bay by an even
grassy ascent, so steep as to be barely practioable. We
toiled slowly up it, and when near the summit, consisting
of a sharp ridge formed between this side and the over-
hanging face of the cliffs, dropped upon our hands and
knees, and, creeping to the edge, looked down 21,400 feet
into the sea below. A stone which we dropped was more
than eight seconds in falling, when we lost sight of it in
the glare of the water.

The drawing at page 58 gives an admirable
view of this mighty precipice—one of the
finest, we imagine, from its extreme boldness,
in the world. It well deserves description
from a poet's pen. Another of Nature's
mighty marvels is the head of Kunfie, " a
" mountain of the same shape and almost as
" regular and formal as the great pyramid at
" Cairo, while a number of equal-sized steps up
" its sides greatly increases the resemblance.
Other cliffs are in the shape of forts and ruins,
presenting, though on a far grander scale, the
same appearance of regularity and workman-
ship which make portions of our own coast:, so
picturesque. One island, known as the Storr
Diamond, can only, from its rock-bound coast,
be visited at favorable times. The clergyman
who visits it has to be hoisted up its preci-
pitous sides in a basket, and may be kept
there for weeks together. The clergy have
indeed to lead a hard and perilous life, travel.
ling being of the wildest and most rugged cha-
racter.

These islands have a milder climate than
might be supposed ; yet it is probable that
they have at a comparatively recent period (in
a geological sense) undergone a great change,
as the rocky soil bears no wood now, though
remains of trees are dug out from bogs in
great quantities. The facts as to change
of climate in high northern latitudes within
the historical epoch deserve close investi-
gation. We cannot refuse credit to those
northern chronicles which represent Green-
land as a country fertile in vegetation, Iceland
as covered with forests and allowing the
culture of grain, and Vinland as a land of
grapes. Since the period of those chronicles
there can have been no sensible diminution of
the earth's heat, and the theory of Mr. Hop-
kins, in his book on " Terrestrial Magnetism,"
seems the most probable that thete is,
through the action of magnetism, a movement
of land to the North Pole, there perhaps to
be submerged, while islands and continents
rise in the southern hemisphere.
The authors had the satisfaction of wit-
nessing a fine whale-hunt. The whales, how-
ever, are not the large Greenland species, but
a smaller kind, about twenty-four feet long at
maturity, and herding in shoals of from fifty
to a thousand :

When they are seen approaching any island, messenger
are despatched. and hay tires lighted on the hills, to
summon aid ; while the boats close at hand drive them, by
shouting and splashing the water, into the nearest conve-

405

nient bay, and keep them there until men arrive in suffi-
cient numbers to begin the onslaught. We found the
whales, in this instance, were being hunted into the har-
bour of Westmanushaven, a place sixteen miles distant by
water.

The entrance to the bay was closed with a
net, and strongly guarded, yet three times the
whales charging together broke into the open
sea, and were as often driven back :
At last, much wounded and harassed, they were fumed
into a narrower part of the bay. All their enemies pressed
round them at once; and the animals, either wild with fear,
or completely bewildered as to the direction of the sea,
dashed towards the shore, carrying many of the boats with
them iu the rush. On a flatter beach they would all at
once have been stranded; but this VMS so steep and rocky,
that, after two or three minutes' melee, during which the
boats and whales were all mixed up together in one fight-
ing, struggling wave, only one third of them were killed,
aril the remainder reached deep water again. The real
sport was, however, over, and what followed was merely s
sickening, though useful, piece of butchery, in which we
took no part. Those which were nut taken, having lust
their leader, never reunited, but rolled groaning in the
bay, quite blinded by their own blood, and thus fell victims
in detail to their pursuers.

•
• • •
•
After the herd was completely broken up and separated,
we landed, and fiom a commanding cliff viewed with ad-
vantage the strange spectacle below. The bay was, without
exaggeration, red with blood : some boats were towing deal
whales ou shore ; others were spearing the few remaining
lively ones ; while all round the beach, men, up to their
necks in the water, were actively engaged in the great work
of slaughter. Occasionally thu boatmen would hook one
more lively than they supposed it to he, which would tow
their boat rapidly about, ur break away from them, or lie
lashing up clouds of water in its agony. Nut a single fish
escaped. The few that had an opportunity of doing so
returned in search of their leader, and shared the fate of
their companions ; and in two home from the commence-
ment the whole 212 were destroyed.

The authors remained at these islands only
six days, but as happily they had fine weather
they made good use of their time, and have,
by aid of pen and pencil, given us a most
pleasing account of a region little known, yet
remarkable for magnificent scenery and the
primitive character of its people, and likely
to afford, we should imagine, facts of peculiar
interest to the geologist, though on this puirit
the well-written narrative is silent.

Westward Ho ! or, the Voyages and Adventures of
Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, in the Reign of her
afoot Glorious Ikkjesty Queen Elizabeth. Ben.
dered into Modern English by Charles

Kingsley. Cambridge : Macmillan and Co.
THE design of this novel is, in the author's
own words, to set forth " that type of English
" virtue at once manful and godly, practical
" and enthusiastic, prudent and self-sacrificing,
" which was exhibited by the worthies whom
" Elizabeth without distinction of rank or age
" gathered round her in the ever glorious wars
"of her great reign." The hero's adventures
may be divided into three parts—(for of his
first voyage to the South, under Sir Francis
Drake, we aro told nothing)—viz., his service
in Ireland, under Winter ; his second voyage
to America, as captain, in pursuit of a young
Devonshire girl who had eloped with a
Spaniard ; and his share in the discomfiture
of the Spanish Armada. These various por-
tions of the work we have perused with very
unequal interest ; and up to the time of
Amyas's second expedition we must confess
that notwithstanding the ghostly exhortations
of his friend Salvation Yen, a kind of maritime
Tregarva, we found his narrative at times ex-
ceedingly dull. But once fairly beyond the
line, with the gorgeous tropic scenery spread
out before him, the cries of the enslaved
Indians ringing in his ears, and the avenging
guns of the Devonshire gentlemen booming
over the purple seas, and Mr. Kingsley be-
comes at once graphic, eloquent, and pathetic.
The most beautiful portraiture in the book,
and, indeed, one of the most interesting
characters we have met with in fiction for a
long time, is the wild girl Ayaeanora. She is
discovered by the wanderers in one of the
most lovely retreats of that lovely region, the
Queen and prophetess of a decayed Indian
tribe, and acts on this occasion as mediator
between the English and her own people.
Amyas is touched by her exquisite beauty and
lofty spirit, and doubts not that he now for the
first time gazes on a genuine daughter of the
Sun and descendant of the old Peruvian
Meas whose story had filled his imagination.
The fair savage is on her part not insensible

"lii

to the attractions of the young and all-
conquering Englishman, and the patriotism
and prejudices of our hero are indeed tremb-
ling in the balance, when the question is
settled for him for ever in a manner as unex-
pected as terrible. As this is undoubtedly
one of the finest passages in the whole book,
we shall transcribe it with as little curtailment
as possible. Amyas is going in pursuit of two
of his sailors, who, tired of their labours,
have wandered away into the woods with
Indian wives, subjects of Ayacanora. This is
how ho finds them:—

On the further side of a little lawn the stream leaped
through a chasm between overarching vines sprinkling
eternal freshness upon all around, and then sank foaming
into a clear rock basin, a bath for Diana's self. On its
further side the crag rose some twenty feet in height—
bank upon bank of feathered ferns and cushioned moss,
over the rich green beds of which drooped a thousand or•
chids, scarlet, white, and orange, and made the still pool
gorgeous with the reflection of its gorgeousness. At its
more quiet outfall it was half hidden in huge fantastic
leaves and tall, flowering stems; but near the waterfall the
grassy bank sloped down toward the stream, and there, on
palm leaves strewed upon the turf beneath the shadow of
the crags, lay the two men whom Amyas sought, and whom,
now he had found them, he had hardly heart to wake from
their delicious dream. . . . Somewhat apart crouched
their two dusky brides, crowned with fragrant flowers, but
working busily, like true women, for 'he lords whom they
delighted to honour Amyas stood silent for a
while, partly from noble shame at seeing two Christian
men thus fallen of their own selfwill—partly because, and
he could not but confess that, a solemn calm brooded over
that glorious place, to break through which seemed sacri-
lege, even while be felt it duty.
At length, however, lie advances and exhorts
them, both as men and Christians, to return to
their duty; but receives an answer from one
of them, too long, we regret, to transcribe, in
the genuine lotus-eater-spirit, which for a time
staggers him :
Amyas stood spellbound : the effect of the narcotic (the
cocoa leaf) was miraculous in his eyes—the sustained elo-
quence, the novel richness of diction in one seemingly
drowned in sensual sloth, were in his eyes the possession of
some evil spirit, and yet he could not answer the evil one.
. . . His eye glanced upon Ayacanora. The two
girls were whispering to her smilingly. He saw one of
them glance a look towards him, and then say something
which raisee a beautiful blush on the maiden's face—with
a playful blow at the speaker she turned away. Amyas
knew instinctively that they were giving her the same ad-
vice that Evans had given to him. Oh, how beautiful she
was ! Might not the renegades have some reason on their
side after all? . . . Was not yon dreamer right—did
they not all need rest? What if they each sat down among
the flowers beside an Indian bride? They might live like
Christians while they lived like the birds of heaven. What
a dead silence! He looked up and around—the birds had
ceased to chirp, the parroquets were hiding among the
leaves, the monkeys were clustered motionless upon the
highest twigs—only out of the far depths of the forest the
Campanero gave its solemn toll, once, twice, thrice, like a
great death knell ringing down from far cathedral towers.
Was it an omen? He looked up hastily at Ayacanora—
she was watching him earnestly. Heavens! was she wait-
ing for his decision? Both dropped their eyes—the deci-
sion was not to come from them.
A. rustle !—a roar !—a shriek !—and Amyas lifted his
eyes in time to see a huge dark bar shoot from the crag
above the dreamer's head among the group of girls. A dull
crash as the group flew asunder; and in the midst, upon
the ground, the tawny limbs of one were writhing beneath
the fangs of a black jaguar, the rarest and most terrible of
the forest kings. Of one ! But of which? Was it Ayaca-
nora?—and, sword in hand, Amyas rushed madly forward:
before he reached the spot those tortured limbs were still.
It was not Ayacanora; for, with a shriek that rang
through the woods, the wretched dreamer, wakened thus
at last, sprang up and felt for his sword. Fool ! he had
left it in his hammock. Screaming the name of his dead
bride he rushed on the jaguar, as it crouched above its
prey, and, seizing its head with teeth and nails, worried it
in the ferocity of his madness like a mastiff dog. The brute
wrenched his head from his grasp, and raised its dreadful
paw—another moment and the husband's corpse would
have lain by the wife's—but high in air gleamed Amyas's
blade, down with all the weight of his huge body and strong
arm fell that most trusty steel, and the head of the jaguar

dropped grinning on its victim's corpse :
And all stood still who uw him fall
While men might count a score.
" Oh, Lord Jeans !" said Amyas to himself, " thou bast
answered the devil for me; and this is the selfish rest for
which i would have bartered the rest which comes by
working where Thou hast put me." They bore away the
lithe corpse into the forest, and buried it under soft moss
and virgin mould, and so the fair clay was transfigured
into fairer flowers, and the poor, gentle, untaught spirit re-
turned to God who gave it.
- -

-- _
We are sure our readers will pardon the
length of this extract, and we can assure them
that in Mr. Kingsley's third volume they will
find many other passages of almost equal
power.
The other heroine of the story is Rose Sal-
terne, a Devonshire girl, beloved by the whole
family of the Leigh, and half a score Devon-

THE PRESS.

shire gentlemen besides. She disappoints
them all, however, and elopes with a Spanish
cavalier, Don Guzman de Soto ; and it is this
catastrophe that gives rise to Amyas's second
voyage. She is not recovered, however, but is
ultimately burnt by the Inquisition, along
with Amyas's brother, who had been taken
prisoner by the Spaniards ; and the discovery
of their fate so incenses Amyas that he so
lemnly devotes his life to the slaughter of the
Spanish race The end of the book is in this
wi se:—Amyas is struck blind while pursuing the
ship commanded byDonGuz man in the Spanish
Armada (that gentleman being drowned, with
all his crew, at the same moment), which
wisely accepting as a rebuke for his unre-
lenting vengeance, Amyas settles down quietly
in Devonshire, and espouses Ayacanora, who
had followed him to England, and been trans-
formed by Mrs. Leigh into a tractable and de-
corous English maiden. Her birth and pa-
rentage, which were not exactly what Amyas
had imagined, we shall leave the readers of
the novel to find out for themselves.
In all this, as the reader will see, there is
very little of what strictly deserves the name
of plot, nor is the absence of sustained in-
terest which thence ensues compensated by
the rapidity with which the incidents succeed
one another. We must say, on the whole, that
we think the tale might be compressed into
two volumes with very great advantage—leav-
ing us all that vigorous description which forms
its principal charm, but omitting a great bulk
of pages filled with a very peculiar phraseo-
logy, and nothing more. We could have de.
sired also to see a little more of the other Eli-
zabethan worthies, whose names occur in every
chapter, but of whom, with the exception of
Raleigh, scarcely anything is narrated till to-
wards quite the end of the book, where we
have them all " done " at once, sitting in a
tavern, and talking like any other naval officers
of the coming armada.
-

Of the moral purpose of " Westward Ho !"
it is difficult to say anything definite. It par-
takes of the vagueness which characterises the
writings of this school ; and, indeed, the
glimpses of a theory which we catch at times
through the mist of words are not such as to
make us long for its development. As Amyas
is the hero, perhaps we may take a passage in
which he is contrasted with his Jesuit cousin,
Eustace, as affording a tolerably fair specimen
of Mr. Kingsley's view of life and work :
I have tried to hint to you two opposite sorts of men—
the one trying to be good with all his might and main, ac-
cording to certain approved methods and rules which he
has got by heart; the other not even knowing whether he
is good or not, but just doing the right thing without
thinking about it, as simply as a little child, because the
Spirit of God is with him.
Now we object as much as Mr. Kingsley can
do to that needless worry of self examination
which perhaps no sensible people really ap-
prove, but then we cannot allow that the indi-
vidual consciousness of the " Spirit of God "
is to be the only rule of action. Protestants,
indeed, hold that the Spirit of God is with
every man who tries to be good " with all his
" might and main," but the deliberate substi-
tution of feeling for law which Mr. Kingsley
seems to recommend has been the radical
error of fanaticism in all ages of the Church,
and can be maintained as little by Scripture
as by reason. Throughout the book, indeed,
we detect the same vein of feeling—a foolish
sneer at rules as such—language excusable in
one ignorant alike of logic and the world, but
not excusable in a writer who has had Mr.
Kingsley's opportunities of learning the truth
of both.
The strong sympathies with animal strength
and courage which distinguish our author no
doubt contribute to his contempt for the So
cratic theory of virtue, yet surely in the pre-
sent day these qualities require no stimulant.
It is the intellectual rather than the physical
characteristics of the Elizabethan era which
we have now cause to envy ; the patient inves
tigation of principles ; the unhesitating accep-
tance of necessary deductions ; the un-
shrinking pursuit of a theory to its legitimate
results. These aro the great qualities which
the teachers of to-day should inculcate on the
rising generation; and though the personal
prowess of Englishmen be well worthy of our
warmest sympathy and pride, yet we must

SATURDAY,

warn our readers against that unnatural admi-
ration of coarse and cruel vigour which could
excuse the massacre of prisoners of war, and
applaud that wicked and dastardly murder for
which the cheek of every gentleman in Eliza.
beth's dominions must have burned hot with
shame.

-441 M

Autobiography of James Silk 1314011*km".
London : Longmans.
Ma. BUCKINGHAM has a fair claim to the atten-
tion of the reading world. He began life
early, he has seen much of men and cities,
he has been adventurous, never settling long
to one pursuit, and he has met with various
fortune. If his autobiography does not be-
come popular, it will certainly not be for want
of what is termed objective interest. He has
plenty to write about, and in his copious
diaries he has an inexhaustible store of
materials to draw from. But a man may be
as busy as a steam-engine, and have no more
power of engaging our sympathy. He may be
always babbling or bustling, may possess great
cleverness, and make a figure in the world,
yet have very little to relate concerning him-
self worth the telling. Those autobiographies
are the most valuable which show us the inner
man ; but there are some men very useful and
estimable in their way, and, perhaps, among
the beat of life's workers, who are all outside.
One man may issue an immortal work from a
dungeon, and another be exceedingly dull
who has visited every noted spot on the earth.
The public were tolerably well acquainted
with the name of B. R. Haydon—his labours
and distresses—long before his death, yet who
suspected the real character of the drama
played in his heart and home till the curtain
a as raised by the publication of his memoirs ?
It is only fair to state at once that Mr.
Buckingham has no curtain to draw up. He
is the same man in his autobiography as in
his lectures and speeches. He discourses on
the same themes, puts together much the
same kind of " useful knowledge," and pours
forth the like commonplace sentiment. In
one respect, he appears here at a disadvantage.
As a lecturer he was pleasing and graceful.
We remember hearing him some thirty years
ago, and being charmed with his manner and
delivery, though it was evident enough that
he only scratched the surface of his subject.
The matter, however, which, assisted by
fluency and aptness of illustration, will pass
current from a platform, may make but a poor
figure in a book; and hence it is that Mr.
Buckingham's publications have fallen far
behind his lectures in popularity. Many
readers, he says, will regret the rapidity with
which, in this autobiography, he passes over
his travels in Egypt and Palestine. He
assumes too much. Kinglake, Warburton
Layard, and others have gone over the same
ground since, and those who remember then
narratives would not prize highly the re•
miniscences of Mr. Buckingham.
We have alluded to his commonplace senti-
ment; let us say a few words in justification
of the phrase. His is one of those minds
which can retain whatever ideas are hammered
into them, but which are almost or altogether
incapable of original reflection. Thus, he took
up with those unreflecting peace doctrines
which are natural to the mind of a generation
which had suffered severely from long and
destructive warfare, and which for a time
were paraded in the van of liberalism. He
quotes (i. 368 61.) from Lady Mary Wortley
Montague and Franklin, to show the senseless-
ness and inhumanity of war, and reflects on
the madness of the present time, when—
Millions demand more reinforcements to continue
work till Russia shall be humbled to the dust, and
ambition of conquest destroyed—this being the demand
of France who robbed Turkey of her African dominions
by force of arms, and of England who overthrew the
Mohammedan empire of India.
Yet in other parts we find Mr. Buckingham
active in defending his ship from the attack of
Greek pirates, mowing them down by the fire
of his guns, while he clamours against our
Government for not earlier resisting the buca-
neering pretensions of the Dey of Algiers :
That such a state of things should be tamely submitted
to by the weaker Governments of Spain, Sardinia, Italy, and
Sicily, might not excite much surprise; but that so powerful
a maritime nation as Great Britain should allow such a

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