The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

-•iOw

A Winter in Lipper and Lower Egypt. By G. A.
Hoskins, Esq., F.R.G.S., author of " Travels in
Ethiopia." One vol., pp. 346. Hurst and
Blackett.

Mr. Hoskins visited Egypt in 1832, and again in
1860.61, the first time to see the country and inspect
its monuments, the second time with the object of
recruiting his health. He found that thirty years
had effected great changes and improvements in the
mode of travelling, and to show us how great was
the contrast between the sufferings of his first
voyage and the comfort and even luxury of his
second, he has given an interesting comparison of
the two. To travellers who, like Mr. Hoskins, are
recommended to expiore the Nile in search of health
this volume will be invaluable. It abounds with
excellent practical advice and very useful and
minute directions with respect to the preparations
and provisions necessary for the voyage. With
regard to the time of starting the following hints
will be found worthy of attention :--
`• Few travellers visit Egypt now before November or
December, hut for invalids who desire a dry climate, and
require a continuance of fine weather to re-establish their
health, it is better to go there the beginning of October,
There is then a greater chance of a smooth passage, and
being early, they have the choice of boats •fold servants.
They have an opportunity, also, of seeing some portions of
the Delta covered with the inundation, and the villages
surrounded with water like little islands. The sunsets on
the Nile are also finer at the end of October or beginning of
November than afterwards. Travellers during these months
should carefully avoid the night damps, which, however,
diminish as you sail up the river, and at Esneh cease en-
tirely."

" The landing for the first time in Africa," says
Mr. Hoskins, "is very interesting. The picturesque-
ness of the costumes, the profusion and variety of
colours—blue and white predominating—red caps
with blue tassels, and white, yellow, green, and red.
turbans, being the usual headdress of the men—th
ez
strings of laden camels, the shouting and bawlin g
in an unknown tongue by a vivacious people, tine
beautiful minarets, and, amidst this confusion and
bustle, the quiet imperturbable demeanour of the
Turks and Arabs transacting their businel
and at the same time smoking their pipes cros s-
legged before their stalls, are very Oriental ."
On landing, however, he suggests the advisability
of several travellers keeping together, with sticks
in their hands, to ensure the respect of the Arabs .
" On nay last visit to Egypt," he says, " I was nearly
torn to pieces, so violent was their scramble for me
and my luggage." After this inhospitable beginning
his wanderings were pleasant enough. The
different features of the romantic route from the
Bazaars to the Pyramids are all detailed to us in
the most interesting manner. But the great ad-
vantage of this volume, which renders it superior
to all other Egyptian works of travel we have met
with, is the advice and instructions we have already
alluded to. Those who are doing to Egypt cannot
do better than make themselves acquainted with
this book ; and those who are not disposed to take
the excursion themselves may, by the aid of Mr.
Hoskins' pleasant description, make themselves
familiar, by proxy, with the various attractions and
peculiarities of a winter in Upper and Lower
Egypt.

Geology for the Million. By Margaret Plates.
Edited by Edward Wood. One vol., pp. 156.
Routledge, 'Warne, and Routledge.
A popular guide to the marvels of Geology is the
latest edition to the Messrs. Routledge's compre-
hensive series of railway books—the series familiar
to the public as one littering the book-stall of every
railway station in the United Kingdom with certain
brightly coloured volumes, well known as Routledge'
Cheap Literature. Whether Margaret hues has
ever herself handled the hammer of the geologist,
we know not; but, one way or another, either
Through books or through personal investigation,
she has made herself sufficiently well acquainted
with the wonders stored up i❑ this world under
our feet, to be enabled very agreeably and very
lucidly to impart much of her own scienti-
fic knowledge to the nn-scientific reader. As
the first step (across the threshold, as it were),
into this Grand Temple of a Science built up out
of the giant crags of a world before the Flood ! Of
a world:further back even than that—a pre-Adateite
world, the ages of the extinct monsters—of those
stupendous nightmares in flesh and blood, sur-
passing in mere horror of aspect the gry-
phons of heraldry an the dragons of
the Fairy tales ! THE PTERODACTYLE— a
flying reptile of most repulsive appearance—a
reptile that could swim and walk as readily as it
could fly—loathsome as a bat, larger than a cormo-
rant--with sixty teeth, huge saucer eyes, enor-
mously elongated snout, and wings ribbed like vast
expanded umbrellas ! THE IGUANODON, a gigantio
reptile like a crocodile, from thirty to forty feet in
length and twenty feet in thickness—a formidable
head a yard in length from snout to neck—a tail
five yards in length—legs of appalling circum-
ference—enormous feet, each armed with a claw
five inches long ! THE PLESIOSAURUS, with a huge
birdlike head, having a spoonshaped beak armed
with about a hundred thin pointed teeth—an asto-
nishingly long flexible neck, a neck longer in pro-
portion to its body than that of a swan—a reptile
carcase like that of a lizard or crocodile—and, instead
of legs, four wide flapping paddles like fins ! THE
ICHTHYOSAURUS, vaster, more terrible, more hide-
ous—with a short neck, almost, it might be said,
no neck at all, but a snout of fearfal size, bristling
along the inner edge of eachenormous jaw with tusks
of terrible length and strength—its four paddle-
like fins, proportionately gigantic, capable not only
of flapping the waters of the deep with wonderful
rapidity, for its swift propulsion, but capable also
of carrying the creature with astonishing rapidity,
on dry land. The APTERYX, the enormous wing-
less bird of New Zealand—The MEGATHERIUM—
The MASTODON-- the TELEOSAURUS— fhe MEGA..
LOSAURUS— rhe HYLEOSAURUS Here they all
stalk, in succession, before the youthful student in
the science of Geology—here they appear visibly in
the effigies of them given in the illustrations of this
little handbook—tete they are described with
admirable succinctness and accuracy in the letter-
press penned by Margaret hues, and edited by Ed-
ward Wood. As a volume excellently well calcu-
lated to popularise a very noble and enthralling
study, Routledge's Geology for the Million deserves
the welcome it is secure of winning.

The Harp of the Welsh Mountaineer, By Fawcett
Ihwbou. Bvo. pp. 43. Surnpkiu, Marshall and
Cu.

The enthusiastic Cambrian who has written this
amazing lay, entitled " A Fairy Legend of Early
British Fairies," needs from the London critic not
one syllable of encouragement. Unknown his name
msy be, undoubtedly is, in the literary circles of
the metropolis. No matter—he announces, with
manifest exultation, the fact of his identity. The
domino and mask he has worn hitherto, while
writing anonymously, we know no more about than
we do about himself, the wearer of it. Yet mask
and domino he now strips off with a flourish, for
the his own actual indivi-
dhis title page that he is—
ualiptuyr.pos He
e of
tells revealinguson
is—
we hold our breath in suspense, awaiting the reve-
lation—" The son of Ebor," of the York Courant.
Even then, however, we are by no means startled,
for of the " Son of Ebor we never heard mention
previously to this very announcement of Mr.
Dawson 8. As to the amour propre of the author
being in any Way offended by any such acknow-
ledgment,ot ignorance on our part as this, we doubt
it. And for the simple reason, that so intense is our
author's self-confidence in his own poWers, so in-
tense is his belief in his own importance, that in the
shape of an introduction or address to his "Gentle
Reader" he can speak thus frankly Per-
haps, reader, when you take up this Book,
you will exclaim, ' Oh, poetry !' and cast it
aside. Be not so rash ; poetry is the language of the
Deity. Ile speaks it in every leaf and flo wer,in every
sunbeam, and in every cloud. All poets ere prophets,
true or false, according to the bias of their genius.
When a nation ceases to produce poets, or becomes
so lost in frivolity as to disregard their aspiratioes,
that nation has no longer healthful vitality. All
the representative empires have produced great
poets in their primary and culminating periods."
This,wo suppose,is the culminating period, and hence