The Press.
London, England, 1854-10-28 00:00:00

THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA.

The present young Emperor showed great modesty and
anidence ; he is an excellent son, and very much attached
to his mother the Archduchess Sophia. What I collect
about his character is this: I believe he is spotless in
morals, very conscientious in the performance of duty, de-
termined to do all himself, very simple, and without any
turn for display ; this is all on the promising side—on the
other, he as yet seems almost exclusively devoted to his
army ; It is natural, indeed, for him to feel that he and the
monarchy owo. everything to them. Those who surround
him are thought to be narrow and harsh, and there have
been some symptoms of hardness in his own character.
On the whole, hitherto th. good appears to me to pre-
dominate.

A TURKISH DINNER.
Our host was the chief physician of the Sultan. We
arrived at his house in Scutari about half an hour before
sunset; and as we could not dine, during the Ramazan, till
after it, neither food nor pipes being allowed between the
rising and setting sun, we sat in the garden with our host,
who, not in good keeping with his art, plied ua with un-
ripe fruits. A young Circassian girl, of about twelve, and
so not of an age to prevent her appearing before Franks,
was sent from the Seraglio, that the state of her health
might be examined. At last the cannon fired :
Hark! peal'd the thunder of the evening gun ;
It told 'twas muse., and we blued that sun.
Corsair.
There was quite a rush to the meal. The party
amounted to nine : there was a priest or lmaun in a viole;
robe ; but the person who was the best dressed, and seemed
to be made most of, was a perfectly black gentleman from
the Seraglio. .Gur host talked some French, the rest
nothing but Tarkish, in which Dr. Sandwith is very
fluent. All sat down on low cushions upon their legs ;
this I could not quite effect, but managed to stow mine
under the small low round table. Upon this was placed a
brass or copper salver, and upon this again the dishes of
food in very quick and most copious succession : we all
helped ourselves with our right hands, except that just for
the soup we had wooden spoons : this is not quite so
offensive as it sounds, since they hardly take more than
one or two mouthfuls in each dish from the part imme-
diately opposite them, so the hands do not mingle in the
platter : it seems to me, however, that the first advance in
Turkish civilisation to which we may look forward will be
the use of spoons, and thee, through succeeding epochs, to
knives and forks
The diapason ending full in plaids.
I must say that I thought the fare itself very good, con-
sisting in large proportion of vegetables, pastry, and con-
diments, but exhibiting a degree of resource and variety
not unworthy of study by the unadventurous cookery of
Britain.
THE BOSPHORUS.
Steamed down to Constantinople; Mr. Skene was with
me, and made an incomparable cicerone for the Bosphorus,
telling me the tenants of the long line of palaces, and their
histories : this was the house of Mehemet Ali of Egypt;
this is the house of his chief rival, old Khosrew Pasha,
now living there at ninety-Rix; he has filled the office of
Grand Vizier for fifty years altogether, with various breaks,
and still retains many of the simple habits of his origin,
as a Circassian shepherd. Here Darius Hystaspes crossed
the strait on his Scythian expedition; here he sat on the
rock to witness the passage ; the inscription on the stone
to commemorate it, which was known formerly to exist,
has not been discovered; the ground on either aide is now
occupied by the tall round white towers of the forts, the
Itumili and Anatoli Hissers ; the first, built by Mahomet
the Second before the capture of the city, still goes univer-
sally by the name of the Conquerer. From that window,
or rather slit in the wall, he used to examine the means of
approaching the capital ; under that low culvert, in the
after destination of the place as a prison, the bodies were
floated into the Bosphorus. The European fort is built
on the most fantastic plan, to imitate the Arabic letters of
the word Mahomet. On one side is Balta Liman, on the
other Unkiar Skelessi, both famous in the annals of
modern treaties. This rapid bit of current is the Shed.=
Akindesi, or Devil's Current, so said to be called be.!ause a
Sultana had been angered by seeing a Christian cougregie
Lion coming out of a church on Sunday, and had imme-.
diately given orders for the destruction of the church;
whereupon on her return the boat was upset, and all saved
but herself. It was in that long.spreading house in the he
bay that the sister of the present Sultan, the wife of B
Pasha, kept long watch over her boy, to avold. the law
which doomed all the male children of the sisters of

Wm"

OCTOBER 28, 1854.

Sultans to immediate death; and when at last she found
that the child had been strangled, she died herself from
the shock very soon afterwards ; this tragedy has happily
put an end to the practice. Into that dwelling the sister
of the late Sultan, Ismeh Sultana, used to entice or force
any handsome passerby, and they were never heard of
again. That very long facade is the house of Fnad
Effendi, whom Prince 'hlentichikoff found the other day
prime Minister, and refused to visit. Radiant and lovely
as is the whole scene, I fear that, through all the successive
dynasties and races, a heavy consciousness of crime ought
to brood over these sensual shores.

The Baltic, its Gates, Shores, and Cities. With
a Notice of the White Sea. By the Rev.
Thomas Milner, M.A., F.R.G.S. London
Longmans.
Tua most remarkable inland seas on the
globe are the Baltic and Mediterranean. Cu-
riously indented in their outlines, landlocked
from the great ocean, rolling in parallel direc-
tions from west to east, and approached only
by narrow straits, they present a certain re-
semblance. On examination, however, their
points of contrast are still more striking.
Thus the Mediterranean may be described as
a prodigiously-deep cleft between the conti-
nents of Europe and Africa. Outside the
strait of Gibraltar the soundings are from fifty
to sixty fathoms; but they rapidly increase
after passing the rock to 1,000 fathoms, and
with that length of line no bottom is struck
further east. Even amongst the islands of
the Greek Archipelago that depth is not at all
uncommon. On the other hand, the common
depth of the North Sea is from 120 to 150
fathoms, and in no part of the Western Baltic,
or from Copenhagen to Bornholm, is there a
depth of thirty fathoms. The maximum of
140 fathoms is to be found between the island
of Gothland and the Russian shore.
Chemically considered, the waters of these
two seas present striking differences. The
Mediterranean is more saline than the ocean,
owing to the mineral nature of its bed and to
the excessive evaporation to which it is sub-
ject. In common sea water the saline matter
is, on the average, of one-twenty-seventh of its
own weight: while Von Buch found that at
Copenhagen the proportion was considerably
less than the one-hundredth, and in more re-
mote parts of the Baltic the saline element
would scarcely affect the palate. All the coast
towns on the northern gulfs of the Baltic de-
pend on importation for their salt, being
unable to manufacture it from the adjoining
waters. Hence they have been grievously
distressed during the present blockade.
In climate the contrast between the two
seas is so obvious as not to need illustration.
But many of our readers can, from their own
experience, testify as to the existence of a
"vulgar error" in society as to the nature of
the coasts of the Baltic. In general, land-
locked seas are, to some extent, enclosed by
high mountains, as in the Mediterranean, the
Red Sea, the Persian Gulf. But (unlike what
is popularly supposed) the shores of the Bal-
tic have no where any great elevation, and bold,
beetling cliffs are the exceptions to the gene
ral character of the coast-line. Though cliffs
and walls of rock form the Russian and Swe-
dish seaboard, they have no altitude of any
importance. The coast from the Gulf of Riga
to the Little Belt is a flat, diversified only with
sandhills. What a contrast to the varied out-
lines of the Mediterranean shores!
In geological interest the variety of pheno-
mena may be admitted as belonging to the
borders of the Mediterranean. But in sterling
singularity, and in remarkable contrast to
what is seen in other places, the geology of the
Baltic shores yields to none. The changes in
the relative level of sea and land in gradual
process at the present time are very wonder-
ful. It is nearly a century and a half since
Celsius, a Swedish naturalist, affirmed that
the Baltic waters were slowly subsiding at the
rate of from three to four feet in the course of
a century. Linnaeus examined the facts, and
admitted their existence ; while Playfair, in
1802, suggested the true solution of the pheno-
mena, referring it to the upward movement of
the land, and not to the subsidence of the
water. Still there was amongst scientific men
strong doubt as to whether the facts had been
accurately observed. Subsequent observation
verified the case. Von Buch who traversed

THE PRESS.

Scandinavia in every direction, and was a
most competent observer in geology, placed
the matter beyond any reasonable doubt. In
1820 the Swedish Academy investigated the
facts, and authenticated the existence of the
phenomenon. But even then we had some
philosophical " sceptics " who would not
believe except on their own personal informa
tion ! Sir Charles Lyell was one of these
sceptics, but he changed his mind after per-
sonal examination in 1834. We need not here
discuss the grave lesson taught by this change
of opinion. We recollect the unsatisfactory
and unpleasant way in which Sir C. Lyell
wrote upon religion in his work on America,
but here we find hint in 1834 doubting as to
facts observed by competent naturalists and
philosophically explained by Playfair.
In moral associations the Mediterranean is
superior to the Baltic. The great empires of
antiquity have risen, prospered, and decayed
around its shores. Yet, what the Baltic loses
in such memories it gains in the freshness
and rude energy of the human life that exists
in its confines. There is a strongly-marked
originality in social inspiration of its adjacent
countries ; its languages and races have a rude
original power in striking contrast to the
' richly modulated dialects and refined natures
of the romance-lands of the south ; it must
continue to be a leading object of European
interest ; and a mighty future is perhaps re-
served for some of the nations that are advanc-
ing to civilisation along its waters.
The volume before us is compiled with
ability and diligence by its author, who is
practised in literary treatment of scientific
subjects. Within a small octavo Mr. Milner
has compressed a variety of facts on the
prominent features of the kingdoms by which
the Baltic is environed. Without making any
pretensions to philosophic depth, his volume
will be found both useful and entertaining,
and it may be fairly praised as a neatly-
executed and most seasonable publication.
The following passage reminds us that there
is an old friendship of much longer standing
than is generally supposed between the Ro-
manoffs and Gordons:—
The end of the seventeenth century witnessed Russia
preparing to become a great power on the Baltic and in
urope, under the auspices of the extraordinary semi-
barbarian, Peter the Great, an event to which his intercourse
with natives of Great Britain in no slight degree contri-
buted. A Scotchman called Menesius, probably a cor-
ruption of Menzies, was his governor in boyhood. Patrick
Gordon, who rose to the rank of general, was one of the
social companions and chief advisers of the youthful Czar,
as he had been of his father, Alexis. He was present
when Peter made his first experiment in navigation after
the European fashion, embarked with him on board the
same vessel, on the. Lake Peipus, and kept a log of the
proceedings. A namesake, Alexander Gordon, probably
a youthful relative, likewise attained the rank of general,
and obtained his commission in a very characteristic
manner.
"Alexander" and "Patrick " are both family
names in the pedigree of our present Prime
Minister. But it is probable that he is not
related to the parties mentioned here, for the
passage continues in a style that would not
please the approver of the treaty of
Adrianople :
It wan about the year 1693 that he arrived at Moscow ;
and, having been introduced to the Czar, he was invited
to a festive party at which several young Russian nobles
were present. Hearing disrespectful language applied to
foreigners, especially to his own countrymen, the blood of
the Scot warmed, and, with a blow of his fist, one of the
most impertinent was laid sprawling on the floor. Five
others were capsised in the same manner in the general
row that ensued. The affair was soon carried to the ears
of Peter, who ordered the combative Scot to appear before
him. He expected nothing short of the knout or Siberia,
but acknowledged his indiscretion, apologised for it, an&
so conciliated the Czar that he responded, " Well, sir,
your accusers have done you justice by admitting that y
beat six of them. I will also do you justice." Having
retired for a few minutes, he returned with a major's com-
mission and handed it to the astonished foreigner. Both
the Gordons were actively employed in organising a stand-
ing army for the Czar, and were present at the capture of
Azof, in his first campaign, an important fortress then
belonging to the Turks, on the Black Sea. The younger
Gordon was also in the battle of Nana, and • prisoner
for some time in the hands of the Swedes. He finally left
the Russian service, and spent his last days in his native
country, Scotland. " The History of Peter the Great,
Emperor of Russia, by Alexander Gordon, of Aehintonl,
Several Years a Major-General in the Tzar's Service," is
one of this authorities for the early part of his career.
Of the perils of the Baltic, which have up to
the present time been so skilfully surmounted

102$

by the unrivalled seamanship of our officers
and crews, we read the following account :
Of all seas the Baltic is one of the most dangerous to
shipping and harrassing to crews. Sudden and frequent
changes of the wind, shallow waters off shore, innumerable
shoals and insulated rocks, with currents divided by these
obstacles, branching off in different directions to be re-
divided by the same cause, till, meeting from opposite
quarters, the waters aro embroiled in the hurlyharly of a
sturdy conflict ; these are almost constant sources of
anxiety to the mariner, for the navigation is most beset with
such impediments precisely in those parts which are emi-
nently the highways of commerce. Hence the proportion
of maritime casualties is much greater in the case of
vessels sailing to the Baltic ports than in the instance of
merchantmen passing between Great Britain and
America. In the month of May, when the navigation opens
in the Gulf of Finland, flags are planted, by order of the
Russian Goverment, at the extremities of most of the shoals,
which are ted when placed on the north side of the channel,
white when they are to be left on the south, and half red
half white when they may be passed on either side. The
hydrographical officers of the Csar have not performed this
duty, for obvious lea-sons, in the present season. Nowhere
have the waves the magnitude and grandeur which belong
to those of the ocean ; but they are not less furious, and
far more difficult to manage, breaking abruptly, owing to
the inconsiderable depths, and succeeding each other with
greater rapidity. The long•rolling billows common to the
Atlantic are seldom seen, except is the more open parts of
the sea ; but sandbanks soon terminate their unbroken
sweep; when, rent into &thousand antagonist columns,
the fragments of the shattered wave are thrown together in
unimaginable confusion. A " chopping sea," or one with-
out any definite right•onward movement, but tossing up
and down, to and fro, hither and thither—a chopping per-
formed in a moat vigorous style—is emiuently character.

lade of the waters.
When Nelson arrived at the fleet off Yarmouth, about to
sail for the Baltic in the first week of March, he found his
superior in command, Sir Hyde Parker, somewhat nervous
upon the subject of long nights and fields of ice. Both
are features of the region in winter.
Our blockade of the Russian forts has been a
perfect godsend to Russian commerce. Mr.
Milner is a creditable witness on this point.
Much Russian produce reaches Memel by a
shorter and more convenient route than it
previously reached St. Petersburg, and hence
the chief sufferers from the blockade are British
merchants, who formerly carried on great part
of the direct trade, and British consumers,
who now pay an enhanced price for the com-
modities for the benefit of German traders :---
Prussia, neutral in the present war, is reaping a rich
harvest from it at her eastern ports, Davitzk, Elbing,
Konigsberg, and Memel ; especially at the latter, trivial;
to the liberal concessions of the British and French Go-
vernments to neutral powers. The effect of the blockade
of the Russian ports has not been the stoppage of the
foreign commerce of the country, but the transference of it
to the adjoining state as the medium ; except in the
instance of the export of timber and the import of coals,
which are far too heavy and cumbrous for overland trans.
port. From St. Petersburg and Riga to Memel and
Konigsburg a caravan system has been organised, and is
carried on with considerable regularity. Goods for Rnssia,
as cotton, sugar, wines, spices, and other colonial produce,
are landed at the Prussian ports,'and forwarded to their desti-
nation ; the same waggons returning with Russian produce,
as hemp, flax, tallow, bristles, linseed, and grain, for export
to Great Britain, France, Holland, or Belgium. Thus the
Prussian merchants gain by the commission on this
traffic, and the Government profits by the increase of the
customs' duties. One of the custom-houses on the
frontier has taken as much as 1,000 thalers a day for
import duties ; and as many as 500 cartloads of hemp and
flax have frequently arrived per day at Memel. Throughout
the summer the town has presented an extraordinary
spectacle. Every warehouse, coach-house, stable, and out-
house has been literally crammed with merchandise ; the
streets and open spaces have been piled with it; while
upwards of 100 ships have been kept lying in the harbour,
unable to discharge their cargoes on account of all the
landing-places being occupied. Landlords have realised
rents, tavern and shopkeepers have obtained prices, com-
parable to those which resulted from the rush of emigre.
tion to Melbourne.
- -

It is not often that we find so much instruc-
tive matter rendered so popularly readable as
is the case with this agreeable volume. We
recommend it to book clubs for perusal, but
those who desire research must, of course,
look to works of a larger form.

A History of India Under the Two First Sove-
reigns of the House of Taimour. By William
Erskine, Esq. London : Longmans.
Tats is a posthumous work of the late William
Erskine, a name not perhaps very extensively
known in general circles, but than which none
is more familiar to and more respected by the
cultivators of Oriental literature. Endowed
with a warm love of study, considerable in-
dustry, and a very et:titivated taste, he was at
an early period led to tuni his special atten-
tion to the works of the authors of that coun-
try in which it was for many years his lot to

1026

dwell. And if the fruits of his labours have
not been so extensive as might have been
wished, it must be remembered that in India
he had only the leisure snatched from the
performance of a very responsible and labo-
rious office to devote to them ; while in Eng
land the difficulties that lie in the path of the
Oriental scholar are so vast as to render it a
wonder that they ever should be surmounted.
These difficulties, however, were, after the
labour of many years, overcome in the compi-
lation of the present volumes, in which we
think that every one acquainted with the sub-
ject must admit our author to have achieved a
great success. The most indifferent reader
will find his curiosity awakened by the details
of a narrative so new and strange to him,
while the student of Eastern history will be
gratified with so valuable an addition to his stock
of knowledge. He will find given, in clear and
continuous detail, a mass of information
which he could have only attained by the
careful study of a large number of volumes
and manuscripts, many of them in the Persian
tongue. To be sure we had some account
before in English of the reigns of Baber and
Hoomayoon, to which these volumes of Ers-
kine are devoted, in the pages of Ferishta,
translated by Briggs, in the valuable work of
Elphinstone, in the memoirs of Baber, written
by himself, and translated by Leyden and
Erskine, and in the memoirs of Hoomayoon,
written by his confidential servant Jouher, and
translated by Stewart ; but all of these ac-
counts, save the memoirs of Baber, are
comparatively meagre, and even the memoirs
give a much less complete account of the
reign of that monarch than that which Mr.
Erskine's present volumes supply.
Baber—descended, on the mother's side, from
the great Tartar conqueror, Chengiz Khan,
and, on the father's side, from the still more
celebrated Timour, or Tamerlane, who himself
was a collateral descendant of the great
Chengiz—inherited only one of the numerous
provinces, and that almost the smallest, into
which, after the death of Timour, that con-
queror's vast empire had been divided. The
province of Ferghana, now Kokan, which gave
birth to Baber, is a lovely valley, sur-
rounded by mountains, lying about two de-
grees north of Bokhara and Samarcand. The
men, the animals, and the products are those
of the temperate zone. The people, possessing
the colour and physical properties of the
Englishman, have all the courage and energy
which mark the mountaineer in every land ;
while literature was cultivated with more than
ordinary assiduity in a province bordering on
the cities which were then and long afterwards
the chief seats of Mahomedan learning, whi-
ther students flocked from all parts of the
Mahomedan world. Brought up as the future
chieftain of such a race, his time being di
vided from his early boyhood between litera-
ture, athletic exercises, and the sports of the
field, with the history of the conquests of his
ancestors to stimulate him, and a Court filled
with needy clansmen and adventurers whose
only means of acquiring fortune was the sword,
it is hardly to be supposed that, under any
circumstances, Baber would be long inclined
to rest content within the limits of the inheri-
tance to which he was born, and accordingly,
from the age of twelve till a very short period
preceding his death, we find him constantly
involved in war.
In the outset his assumption of arms was
of a defensive rather than of an aggressive
character. But the appetite for conquest is
one which, once gratified, is never satiated;
and when Baber had successfully repelled the
attacks upon himself he turned his arms to
the conquest of Samarcand. It speedily fell
before him. But meantime revolt shook the
foundations of his paternal throne. Marching
to recover that, ho lost Samarcand, but again
conquered it. After enduring a siege of five
months he again lost it, and, wearied out with
these alternations of ill fortune with successes,
he quitted both it and his paternal domain,
again, however, to reconquer both after the
lapse of many years.
By any other man or in any other country than
that to which Baber belonged such a termination
of his ambitious hopes would have closed his
career for ever; but Baber, though a fugitive,
was not without a following. lie had youth

THE PRESS.

and a stout heart to support him. Kingdoms
were not so difficult to gain in Asia in those
days for those who had the courage to seize
them ; and before ho had attained the age of
two and twenty he had recompensed himself
and his soldiery for their losses by the conquest
and seizure of the city and kingdom of Cabool.
In the following year, A.D. 1505, ho descended
by Jellalabad, through the Khyber Pass, to
Peshawar and the Indus, and then, turning
southward, conquered the whole of the terri-
tory on the right bank of that river down to
the very borders of Scinde. He then returned
by Gnuznee to Cabool, after a four months'
most active and successful campaign. He
shortly afterwards stormed and took Kelat,
but decided on abandoning it for the reasons
which similarly induced the British to resign
it. more than three centuries afterwards. The
cause in each case was its isolated position
and its trifling value compared with the cost
which its retention must, under such circum-
stances, necessarily involve. In the following
year Baber made an extraordinary march of
eight hundred miles to Khorassan to aid the
chiefs of Herat in the reduction of Balkh, and,
after reducing that city, returned by Herat to
Cabool by a route through the mountains in-
volving extraordinary difficulties, it being the
season when the snow was falling. The
dangers of the passage were such as could
have been overcome by none but a man of Baber's
extraordinary energy, patience, and sagacity.
They were, however, at last surmounted ; but
he only arrived to find that a revolt had oc-
curred during his absence, and that Cabool
was besieged. His attack of the rebels was
rapid: they were soon vanquished, and order
was once more restored.
In 1507 Baber conquered Candahar, which,
however, was soon retaken from him. In 1511
he reconquered his patrimonial estate of Ferg-
hana, and shortly afterwards Bokhara and
Samarcand ; but, after a defeat, he abandoned
the latter provinces and returned to Cabool.
A short period was spent by him in putting
down internal rebellions and repressing the
lawlessness of the neighbouring hill tribes ;
and then, in 1519, he turned his arms against
the Punjaub. He had advanced as far as
Sealkote, on the Chenab, when he was recalled
by an invasion of his territories from Canda-
har. He, however, speedily ejected the inva-
ders, invaded their country in return, and,
establishing a blockade on their capital, starved
Candahar into a capitulation in the year 1522.
The dynasty expelled from Caudahar turned
its arms upon Scinde ; and thus the Arghun
race was first established in that province. In
1527 Baber entered into possession of Moot-
tan, which had been ceded to him by Shah
Hassan, the successor of the first Arghun
conqueror of Scinde, and thus it became an
appanage of the Crown of Delhi, which by
this time Baber, now styled the Emperor, had
conquered.
To enter into the details of this magnificent
military operation, the crowning labour of
Baber's life, would occupy far more space than
we can accord to it. Suffice it to say that,
after four successive invasions of India, in
which, taking advantage of the dissensions
then prevailing, he had gradually extended
his territories so as to include Lahore and the
whole of the Punjaub, he finally met the
Sultan of Delhi at Panniput, near the banks
of the Jumna, at the head of twelve thousand
men ; and, though the Sultan's army numbered
a hundred thousand, and a.thousand elephants,
the discipline and courage of Baber's veteran
Tartars was so superior that they entirely
routed the enormous masses opposed to them.
He thus added one more instance to the nu-
merous others of the superiority of northern
warriors to the effeminate soldiery of Hindoos-
tan ; for of these Ibrahim's army was chiefly
composed, though the officers were mostly
Affghans. The Sultan, with sixteen thousand
of his men, fell on the battle-field, the rest
fled in terror, and Delhi and Agra fell into
the hands of the conqueror, with all the trea-
sures of the Crown. Baber thus became pos-
sessed of money and jewels to the amount of
more millions than he had perhaps ever before
possessed thousands; in fact, the quantity of
treasure captured reached a figure almost
fabulous. But Baber was as generous as he
was brave, and knew well every avenue to the

SATURDAY,

soldier's heart. Out of all these magnificent
spoils he reserved nothing for himself. To
his sou Hoomayoon, to his chiefs, to his allies,
and to his soldiery, by far the larger portion
was at once given. His friends in Samarcand,
Khorassan, Khasghar, and Persia received a
considerable share, while the remainder was
divided among men of letters and holy men in
various parts of Asia, a large portion being
sent to Mecca and Medina as a token of his

- -
gratitude to God.
The wisdom and method shown by I3aber in
bringing into order the vast empire which he
had thus become master of was as conspicuous
as the valour and sagacity by which he had
gained it. Nor was his humanity and kindness
towards the conquered a less marked feature
in his character. Indeed, he seemed, like most

of those great conquerors who have proved
themselves the most terrible in war, to be a
man who, when the sword was sheathed, was
in all respects the most deserving of a people's
reverence and love. He was not, however,
destined long to rule over the land which he
had won. In 1526 he had conquered at Panni-
put, and in 1530, at the early age of forty-
eight, he died. His death was accelerated by
his anxiety for his favourite son, whom illness
had brought to the very verge of the grave.
And it is a mark of the affectionate nature of
his disposition that, becoming possessed with
a superstitious notion that the life of one of
them was required by Providence, he prayed
that his own might be taken and his son's be
spared. Seeing his son recover, he died happy
at the thought that his prayer had been heard.
His last advice was worthy of so great and
just a man. After formally declaring his
eldest son Hoomayoon to be his lieutenant
and successor, he recommended to his sons
and officers " a conscientious discharge of
" their duties to God and to man; above all
honestly and assiduously to administer jus-
" tice to those over whom they were placed;
" but, while they punished the guilty, to extend
" their tenderness and mercy to the ignorant
" and penitent, and their protection to the
" poor and defenceless." In these words the
Emperor summed up the principles by which
he had himself been guided, and shortly after
the utterance of them his soul departed. His
body wits carried to his beloved Cabool, and
there buried in the loveliest spot in all that
lovely land, a spot beautifully described by the
lamented Alexander Burnes.
The following summing up by Erskine of
Haber's character is so forcible and so just
that we must extract it. It is one of the
happiest specimens of Mr. Erskine's style :
Bober was certainly one of the most illustrious sove-
reigns that ever filled an Eastern throne. His character
was happily compounded of most of the qualities that go to
form a great prince and a good man. He was bold, enter-
prising, full of ardour, and possessed of the commanding
talents that sway and lead the minds of men. His temper
was frank, confiding, and gay, and he maintained through
life the freshness of youth. He had strong affections, the
warmest domestic feelings, was devotedly attached to his
relations and friends, and ready to sympathise with the
pleasures and the sufferings of human beings of every
class. Eeenly alive to whatever was grand or beautiful, he
cultivated knowledge of every kind with unwearied assi•
duity and with proportionate success. Glory in every shape
inflamed his imagination, and he attained to a rare emi-
nence of power and renown. Yet no man's success could
be more entirely his own. When, as a boy, he mounted the
throne of Ferghana the neighbouring kingdoms were all
held by sultans and sovereigns of his own race. While he
was still only a youth not one of them was left : they had
all either fallen by domestic treason, or been swept away
by foreign inva.siou, the torrent of which overwhelmed bun
also, and bore him into distant lands. But, by his native
energy, he emerged from the sweeping inundation, and
raised himself above it, the only remnant of the house of
Taimonr. Before the age of twenty he had experienced
every variety of fortune, having been by turns a petty
prince, the conqueror of a renowned kingdom, and a house-
less and hunted fugitive ; but under no circumstances did
his sanguine temper and his determined resolution forsake
him ; and Iwhen in the lowest pitch of misery, expelled
from his hereditary dominions, and wandering with a few
ragged followers, the fame of his valour brought to his
standard many thousand bold adventurers, aided by whom
he conquered new and extensive kingdoms. In that age
sob of
confusion to he able to reign it was necessary to be a
dier, and he became the first of his time.
His fondness for war did not lead him to neglect the
arts of peace. The few intervals of repose from military
operations which he enjoyed in his troubled life he devoted
with his habitual ardour to examining into and improving
the state of his kingdom, and to bettering the condition of
his subjects. His natural genius made him fond of all the
fine arts, and, among others, of architecture and gardening._
He built palaces and laid out gardens in several partB.o!
ul
his dominions ; he delighted in lowers and in beautif

OCTOBER 28, 1854.

prospects ; he was a horticulturist, and succeeded in
naturalising some valuable fruits and plants in provinces
to which they had formerly been strangers, and in which
they still flourish, and was as proud of his success as of a
victory in the field of battle. All this he did in the midst
of turmoil and war. In the course of his most important
expeditions we find him inquiring after the progress of
his improvements and expressing an earnest longing to be
restored to the scenes and friends that he loved. It is not
surprising that, with so inherent a love of knowledge, he
should have been a patron of learning and of learned men,
or that, by his liberality, he should have drawn many of
them around him ; but the fact that, in a life so full of agi•
tation and bustle as his, having from boyhood to age
been in constant motion, he should himself have found
time to cultivate the learning and knowledge of the age,
is a proof how strong was the natural bias of his mind to
useful and liberal studies. "He was," says Hyder Meerza,
who knew him well, " a prince adorned with various excel-
lencies and distinguished fur his admirable qualities. Of
all these qualities, his generosity and humanity took the
lead. In Turki poetry, after Meer Ali Shir, none equalled
him. He has composed a Turki Deivan (or collection of
odes), of extreme elegance and vigour. He wrote a useful
treatise on law and religion, which has met with general
approbation. He also composed a tract on Turki prosody,
superior in merit to any before written on the subject. The
cßesaleh e Walidieh "of Hazret Ishan he versified. His
ommentaries, which he composed in Turki, are remark-
able for their easy and unaffected manner and great purity
of style. He was also skilled in music and other arts.
Such is the character given of the first
prince of the house of Taimour who ruled
over Hindoostan, and with this extract wewill
close our notice of Mr Erskine's work. We
could have wished to have been able to go
through the eventful life and fluctuating
fortunes of his son and successor Hoomayoon,
and still more could we have desired that Mr.
Erskine had been spared to complete his work
on the original plan, so as to embrace the
reigns of Akber, Jehangeer, Shah Jehan, and
Aurungzebe. The life of Akber, the son of
Hoomayoon, would have been peculiarly in-
teresting, because it was in his reign that the
great revenue reforms were introduced which
are detailed in the " Ayeen Akbery," or
" Regulations of Akber," regulations which
were productive of so large an amount of
agricultural prosperity in India, and which
will ever remain a monument of the wisdom,
enlightenment, and liberality of that monarch
and his minister, Todar Mull, by whom more
immediately they were compiled. Though
precluded, however, from entering into the
history of these reigns, we trust we shall have
said enough to awaken the attention of the
reader, and to satisfy him of the value of Mr.
Erskine's historical work. Indeed, it is only
by a careful perusal of such works, which in
England are too much neglected, that the
public can arrive at any correct conclusion re-
. garding the races subject to our sway in India.
It is the practice, because it is the interest, of
Leadenhall-street to represent these as barba-
rians of the most rude and uncivilised type,
men to whom the establishment of the very
lowest class of governmental schools is likely
to be a new and unheard-of boon. But he
who reads the history of the several sovereigns
of the house of Taimour will find that in the
literature, the arts, and the sciences of the
period—the science of government included—
these sovereigns and their ministers were
infinitely superior to the Hoggs et id genus
ovine who now rule in their places. To talk
of the ignorance of the natives, their unfitness
for any but the lowest grades in the army, and
their incapacity for all but the humblest and
most subordinate offices in the Government,
must surely be held a proof of the ignorance
or the malignity of those who give utterance
to the slander, when we see among the ances-
tors of these natives ministers like Todar
Mull, sovereigns like Akber, and founders of
dynasties like the illustrious conqueror, the
brilliant scholar, and the sagacious and
equitable ruler, Baber, the first sovereign in
India of the house of Taimour.

The Book of the War. Containing Full Details of
the Battle of Alma. By Percy B. St. John.
London : Ward and Lock.

A liAsTux-comPILED sketch of the events of the war
both in the Baltic and Black Seas, so arranged as to
make a consecutive narrative for rapid reading. Mr.
St. John has largely availed himself of the newspaper
letters and correspondence, as well as of the private
notes of a naval friend. The details are continued
down to the arrival at Balaklam