The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

my forearms, and assisted me to bend low over the
fingers, which, however, I did not kiss, being naturally
averse to performing that operation upon any but a
woman's hand. My two servants then took their
tarn : in this case, after the back was saluted, the palm
was presented for a repetition. These preliminaries con-
cluded, we were led to and seated upon a mat in front of
the Amir, who directed towards us a frowning brow and an
inquisitive eye.
Some inquiries were made about the chiefs health : he
shook his head captiously, and inquired our errand. I
drew from my pocket my own letter: it was carried by a
chamberlain, with hands veiled in his Tube, to the Amir,
who after a brief glance laid it upon the couch, and de-
manded further explanation. t then represented in
Arabic that we had come from Aden, bearing the compli-
ments of our l)aulah or governor, and that we had entered
Harar to see the light of H. H.'s countenance : this in•
formation concluded with a little speech, describing the
changes of political agents in Arabia, and alluding to the
friendship formerly existing between the English and the
deceased chief Abubakr.

The Amir smiled graciously.
This smile, I must own, dear L., was a relief. We had
been prepared for the worst, and the aspect of affairs in the
palace was by no means reassuring
Whispering to his treasurer, a little ugly man with a
badly shaven head, coarse features, pug nose, angry eyes,
and stubby beard, the Amir made a sign for us to retire.
The baise main was repeated, and we backed out of the
audience•shed in high favour. According to grandiloquent
Bruce, " the Court of London and that of Abyssinia are,
in their principles, one ": the loiterers in the Harar palace
yard, who bad before regarded us with cut-throat looks,
now smiled as though they loved us. Marshalled by the
guard, we issued from the precincts, and after walking a
hundred yards entered the Amir's second palace, which we
were told to consider our home. There we found the
Bedouins, who, scarcely believing that we had escaped
alive, grinned in the joy of their hearts, and we were at
once provided from the chief's kitchen with a dish of
Shabta, holcus cakes soaked in sour milk, and thickly
powdered with red pepper, the salt of this inland region.

After this the author felt at ease. He stayed
at Harar several days—laid the foundation of
political and commercial intercourse, and then
departed for Berberah, on the coast, which he
safely reached with his attendants.

On his return to Aden, he made every pre-
paration for a more extensive expedition. He
returned to Berberah on the 7th of April,
1855, accompanied by Lieutenant Stroyan,
Lieutenant Herne, and Lieutenant Speke.
His party consisted of forty-two persons, pro-
vided with every necessary for their journey.
In the completeness of their outfit consisted
their danger. The chapter describing the
assault of their camp by a body of Bedouins,
350 strong, will be read with the deepest
interest. Surprised at night, and overpowered
by numbers, the author, with Lieutenants
Herne and Speke, fought their way through
their assailants, and ultimately reached the
coast, though not without severe wounds.
Lieutenant Stroyan was unhappily killed.
With this catastrophe all thought of the expe-
dition was abandoned ; but the author gives
what appear to us excellent reasons for estab-
lishing a British station at Berberah. He
regards it as the key to the Red Sea, and the
centre of East African traffic, and as much
more advantageously situated than Aden
itself. Apart from these considerations, there
can be no doubt that a British station on some
part of this coast would be most desirable for
opening up communications with the in-
terior.
The volume is the best Lieutenant Burton
has yet produced, and its attractiveness is in-
creased by some coloured plates of scenery
and costume, and by a plan of the author's
routes.

A Handbook for Travellers in Wilts, Dorset, and
Somerset. With a Travelling Map. London:
Murray.
THE plan of this handbook is that of Murray's
famous Continental Red-books, adapted to the illus-
tration of our own land. A sufficient number of
routes are given through each of the three counties
to embrace the objects most interesting to a tourist,
either from natural beauty, historical association,
antiquarian remains, architectural examples, art-
collections, industrial celebrity, ancestral history,
local tradition, or,—for what England is perhaps
most famous,—its numerous and beautiful or splendid
family seats. The description of the latter naturally
occupies a great portion of the volume, as it is in
them that English character can be best read, and
English history best studied. By a precise and
pregnant style, there is compressed into the volume
an immense amount of matter, the whole appearing
to be the result of personal survey. We need not
point out the use of such a book. It contains the
pith of those ponderous county histories which were

811

the most marked feature of literary enterprise a cen-
tury ago, but which seem too bulky and expensive for
modern taste; the Handoook containing besides all in-
formation necessary to the traveller. We cannot ima-
gine a volume more acceptable to the country houses of
the counties to which it relates, or more likely to en-
hance the pleasures of country residence. 'The accom-
panying map is the least satisfactory part of the book.
It should be larger, more distinct., mounted, and
coloured. This hint is commended to the publisher's
attention from an old tourist. Woodcuts of particular
routes, too, would not be amiss. Precision in such
works is the great desideratum of the traveller. We
hope support will not be wanting to induce Mr.
Murray to illustrate the whole of the United King-
dom in the style of this most pleasing, instructive,
and companionable volume.

Zuriel's Grandchild. A Novel. By R. V. Sparling.
Three Vols. London : Newby.
THERE are decidedly two classes of novels. The
first and best have an intellectual character. They
are written for the world. They have claims to notice
of some kind apart from their story ; they are the
talk of society, and they obtain almost universal cir-
culation. The second class are issued to meet the
demands of the comparatively small num bet of per-
sons who find a continual supply of fiction necessary
to their existence, and who are not very particular as
to the quality of their mental aliment. "Zuriel's
Grandchild," as may be supposed, belongs to the
latter class. Uncritical readers will find it amusing.
It has plenty of incident, and many passages are
marked by genuine pathos. The readers to whom
it appeals will not perceive, or will readily overlook,
its crudity, in consideration of its social adventure
and continued movement.

Remarks on the Practicability of Opening up a Com
munication between the East Coast of India and the
Cotton Districts of Nag pore. By Lieut.-Colonel

Grimes. London : Allen.
THE main object of Colonel Grimes's pamphlet is to
insist on the importance and practicability of river
navigation (of all specks of communication the
cheapest and most commodious) in India, and espe-
cially of opening a communication between the fertile
cotton districts of Nagpore and the coast of Bengal,
by means of the connecting rivers, the Kanhan, the
Wyne Gunga, and the Godavery. From his prac-
tical experience as a resident for twenty-five years
in the Presidency of Madras, half of which time was
spent in the vicinity of Nagpore, Colonel Grimes is
an excellent authority on the subject. One part of
his pamphlet demands special notice. Were his
proposed communication opened, it would be neces-
sary, he says, to establish merchants in the cotton
districts to purchase that and other agricultural pro-
duce. Here, then, is a hitch. You cannot establish
merchants by order. How comes it that they are
needed ? Colonel Grimes tells us :

The grower of produce—cotton, or whatever it may be—
is never the exporter ; he is generally excessively poor,
frequently dependent upon advances for the means of
cultivating a crop.

This is the real reason why the communication pro-
posed by Colonel Grimes has not yet, been opened,
and it is the real obstacle to the plan he proposes.
While the cultivator continues thus " excessively
poor," the resources of India never can be developed,
and industry and commerce must languish. Why
the cultivators should be so excessively poor is the
question. The natives of India have a passion for
accumulation, and when fair play is allowed them
they evince extraordinary aptitude for industrial
enterprise. The fault is in the system which refuses
to them property in the soil, which deprives them of
opportunities of accumulation, and which keeps
them in an abject state. Talk as we may of the
productive resources of India, they never will be,
and never can be, developed until fair inducements
are held out to the natives to improve and extend
their cultivation, to accumulate property, and to in-
vest capital in the soil. Do this, and India will
soon become, under the fair and equal laws of
Britain, one of the most productive and flourishing
countries in the world. Refrain from doing this,
keep the cultivators by excessive rents and arbitrary
exactions " excessively poor," grind them down to
the dead l.vel of the pauper tenantry of Ireland before
the famine, and no public works or schemes of this
kind will ever raise the country to prosperity. What
India wants is not so much great public works as
an independent landed proprietary, instead of the
single and monstrous ownership of the Indian Go.
vernment; and to establish such proprietary must
be the first object of those Who have the welfare of
India really at heart.

The Climate of Pau. By Alexander Taylor, 111. D

London: J. W. Parker and Son.
Tins is a new elition of a very useful and well con-
ceived volume, partly medical and partly descriptive.
It is a complete guide-book to invalids, and contains

812

at the same time details interesting to the general
tourist and the sportsman. Dr. Taylor's observations
on climate in general appear to be sensible. He
divides its influence into exciting, sedative, and re•
laxing—giving as instances of the first, Nice, Naples,
Montpelier, and Florence; of the second, Rome, and
par excellence Pau ; of the third, Pisa and Madeira.
The town of Pau itself seems to be a very desirable
residence; the inhabitants are courteous, lnzurits
are not dear, and lodgings are comfortable. In the
more strictly professional part of the work we find
some meteorological tables of the climate of Pan,
extending over some five years, from which we ob-
serve one fact eminently favorable to invalids, which
is that by far the greater part of the rain falls in the
evening and night, so that exercise may generally be
obtained in the daytime; and Dr. Taylor points out
also that, from the remarkable absence of wind,
which was only noticed thirteen times in six months,
the rain usually falls perpendicularly, so that persons
walking with an utnbrella may feel sure of keeping
themselves dry. The volume contains also an inte-
re4ting essay on the utility of mineral waters, and
seal on the whole, Me should say, be much talked of
in medical circles, though not of sufficient general
interest to warrant a longer notice in our columns.