The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-09 00:00:00

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THE WEST H GHLANDS. ,1> -4----k--- 12-2eroe.
A correspondent, writing from Stornoway on the 23d
December, gives the following particulars relative to
the Long bland and Lewis :
" This communication would have reached you ear-
lier, but at this season of the year Stornoway has often
no communication with the mainland for ten or twelve
days at a time. Vessels deeply laden have made a pas-
sagalately from Skye with east and north east winds,
while our good packet was lying in Lochewe, and could
not come across to Stornoway, although having four
mails on board, and the fifth due. This, and other ar-
rangements connected with the post-office here, call
loudly for redress, and in any other part of the country
would not be tolerated. The proper way of sending the
mails from this quarter would be by the steamer landing
a bag for Inverness and the other northern towns at
Balmacara, and carrying letters for the south to Glas-
gow. It is expected, ere long, through the exertions of
our proprietor, that this arrangement will be carried into
effect. Having been lately on a visit to the islands of
South Uist and Barra, I had an opportunity of wit-
nessing the destitution that prevails amongst the inha-
bitants of these remote places. In former times the
principal employment of the people was the manufacture
of kelp and the prosecution of the fisheries, The price
of kelp at market has been very low for many years
past, and consequently few of the people now do any-
thing at it. There is, perhaps; no part of Scotland
where the fisheries might be carried on with more suc-
cess than around the islands above-mentioned; and at
the time when bounty was payable on fish the take yearly
was very considerable, but of late the prices of fish have
also fallen, and the people are getting so poor that they
are not able to keep their boats in proper repair, or pur-
chase fishing materials, and few of those are able to go
out to sea at all. The consequence is, the fishirga in
this quarter, for the last two years, have dwindled down
to a mere trifle; and I am sorry to say, that the men are
noways encouraged by those whose duty it might be sup-
posed to help them. The potato crop in these, as in most
of the other parts of the Highlands, has entirely failed.
Many families who were removed last spring to bring in
moss-ground have not a single grain of meal of any
kind, and are wholly depending on the bounty of others
for subsistence. Government seems to be doing every-
thing for Ireland and overlooking the Highlands.
I am confident that at this moment there .is no part of
Ireland in a worse condition than the places I have
mentioned. There is scarcely a single man employed at
work of any kind in the whole islands. The roads
which were begun two years ago, and which gave em-
ployment to many of the inhabitants, were stopped last
harvest. The men of Barra and Uist are hardy seamen;
none can manage boats better, or are more daring. I
have no hesitation in saying, that were the sum of 2,0001.
laid out in the building of boats and purchasing fishing
materials, and distributed amongst the fishermen of
these islands, that but little other help would be required,
as the men are willing and anxious to be employed.
North Uist, in general, is not in such a bad condition,
being less thickly populated.
" The island of Harris, in many parts of it, is in like
condition with South Uist an B irra. The country,
unfortunately, is at present under the management of
trustees, and there is no work of any kind carrying on.
The fisheries here, from the same cause as the other, is
merely a name. The island of Lewis, fortunately, is
in the hands of a benevolent proprietor, who has been
improving the country since it came into his possession,
and is at present employing many people at making of
roads, building piers and storehouses, bringing in waste
land, and various other things, and is keeping the island
in a supply of meal, so that there is no fear of want.
At the same time the people in some parts of the island,
especially in the parish of Uig, are badly off, their po-
tato and barley crops having failed. The fisheries in
Lewis are carried on in a different and more successfel
manner than in any part of tile Long Island. The
curers generally furnish the fishe-men with boats and
fishing materials. The boats being paid in three years,
and the fishing materials at the end of the season, the
consequence is the take is yearly improving. I hope
there facts will be the means of calling forth the sym-
pathies of the people in the low country in behalf of the
poor inhabitants of the Long Liam-3, and lam sure that
any assistance given them v‘ill• be thankfully received
and graterully remembered."—lnverness Courier.

MUSICAL IN TEE LLIGENCE.

M. Meyerbecr, it is positively announced, proceeds to
London this season to superintend the bringing out his
"Camp en Sil‘Ae."
Mlle. Jf nny Lind is at presort at Munich, where she
is engaged at the Court Theatre at 20001 r. each repre-
sentation. The fanaticism which the excites here is
folly equal to that which every where attends her. Tier
ready benevolence in lending the aid of her talents to
every dimity adds a charming feature to the character
of the gentle syren.
We are gratified to find that the reports in some of
the papers of the unsati4actory state of the health of
Mlle. llnyez rest merely upon the fact of having sus-
pend,d her representations for a week at La Scala,
owing to some merely temporary illness. She is at
pretent at Venice, where she is engaged for the carnival.
Her last appearance at Milan previous to her departure
is dt scribed as one of those brilliant ovations only known
to artistical life in Italy. The character in which the
took leave was " Lucia," one of her most favourite per-
sonations at the Scala, and in which they declare her to
be unequalled since the days of the enchanting Malibran.
At the end of each air there were recalls and bouquets
out of number, and at the close of the scene the enthu-
siasm of the audience is described as boundless. Some

of the journals lament that the unfortunate composer of
Lucia was not present at this remarkable representation,
deeming that the touching accents of the young vocalist
might have, perchance, awakened some echo in his be-
nighted heart, or that the triumph, in which his genius
had so large a share, might have been felt even through
the gloom in which his mournful spirit now seems, alas !
hopelessly shrouded.
Verdi's " Attila" was produced on the 27th ult at La
Scala, and is described in a letter in La France Musicale
to have had immense success. Moriani, Marini, De
Bassini, and La Tadolina filled the principal characters,
and the first night of the Carnival, usually so stormy,
was on this night an uninterrupted scene of triumph and
enthusiasm.

THE CHOLERA IN THE EAST.

TREBISONDE, DEC. 7, 1846.—The cholera is pursuing
its march towards Europe. We have received accounts
from Tabriz to the 24th of November, by which we
learn that the scourge had ceased in that city. During
eight
days no case had been declared. The disease had
carried its ravages to Choi, Makou, and Bajasid. This
last city, of which the population had been several times
decimated by the plague, is situated on the Turkish ter-
ritory, adjoining the Persian and Russian frontiers, to
the south of Mount Ararat. Thus the Pcholera is ap-
proaching the Blgck Sea by the road taken by the
caravans, whilst it ascends, in another direction, the
banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, shaping its
course towards Syria. Europe, therefore, is menaced
on two sides. Notwithstanding the intense cold which
prevails in Aserbeidjan, and on the table lands of
Turkish Armenia, the scourge has extended thither.
Neither the elevation of a town nor the cold appears
to destroy the terrible epidemic. An English physician
who has long resided in Persia states in a letter
to me that no town in that country, with a
population exceeding ten thousand souls, has been
spared by the cholera, with the exception of those of
Salinas and Urmia, which are situated on the Turkish
frontier. When spreading from Mesched, where the
disease first broke out, towards the west and south, it
appeared to have passed over several vast districts, leav-
ing behind it several populous towns, but at a later period
the malady always returned, and desolated the localities
which it had hitherto spared. The population of Tabriz,
which counted 125,000 souls, is now reduced to 100,000.
More than 15,000 perished, and all the foreign merchants
have quitted it.
Our letters from Tabriz further state that a deputation
from the Nestorians of Djulamerk, with the Bishop
Manilla at their head, had arrived at Urmia, on their
way to Teheran to implore the protection of the Shah of
Persia. The entire population of Djulamerk, which
fled from the swords of the Kurds, Shave abandoned the
Turkish territory, and settled in the fertile plain of
Urmia, in the midst of a colony of the same religion.
More than three hundred families have already arrived .
there, and have experienced the greatest hospitality
from the American missionaries, particularly Mr. Per-
kins, who is much beloved by the Nestorians. Those
Christian mountaineers prefer the oppression, at least
systematic, of the Persian Sirdars to the anarchy and
pillage which prevails in Kurdistan. The Pacha of
Mossoul has himself declared that he found it impos-
sible to protect them agailist the sanguinary excesses of
the Kurds.

ANECDOTE OF THE LATE L. E. L. On the
other hand, in the mixed companies, witty and con-
versant as she was, you had a feeling that she was play-
ing an assumed part. Her manner and conversation
were not only the very reverse of the tune and sentiment
of her poems, but she seemed to sly' things for the sake
of astonishing you with' the.ve.ry contrast. You felt not
only no confidence in thetruti; of what she was assert-
ing, but a strong assurance 'that it was said merely for
the sake of saying what her hearers would least expect
to hear her say. I recollect once meeting her in company,
at. a time when there.' w4S' a strerg report that .be was
actually, though secretly, married. Mrs. Hofland, on
her entering the room, went up to her in her plain,
straightforward way, and said, "Ah! my dear, what
must I call you? Miss Landon, or who?" After a well-
feigned surprise at the question, Miss Landon began to
talk in a tone of merry
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ttahhneedny, ended
things
0 dgescltahraitngsh that, ante, v
ears werehave
rhuavbeeebnedenoinfuzzwiltihngyomuyrsterlfaitnhitso liansvtemntonathne?w"
sleeve;
pray, how do you like it?" showing her "Y a
never think of such a thing as 10" exclaimedsto a
young sentimental man, " you, who have written so
many
plumes of pot-try upon it?" " Oh, that's all
professional,, you knoW!" exclaimed she, With an air
of merry scorn. " Profeisional !" exclaimed a grave
Quaker, who stood near, " why dost thou make a differ-
ence between what is profesSional and what is real?
Dost thou write cne thing and think another? Does
not that look very n.uch like hypocrisy ?" To this the
astonished poetess made no reply but by a look of
genuine amazement. It a mode of putting the
I matter to which she had evidently never been accus-
tomed; and,'in fact, there can be no question that much
of her writing was professional. She had to win a
golden harvest for the comfort of others as dear to her as
herself ; and she felt, like all authors who have to cater
for the public, that she must provide, not so much what
' she would of her free-will choice, but what they expected
from her.— William Howites Homes and Haunts of
British Poet;.
' TnE CarmixAL CODE OF FRANCE.—The Minister
of Justice has just appointed a commission to examine
the modifications to be effected in the Code of Criminal
' Instruction. He himself acts as President, and M. Mes-
nard, Peer of France, as Vice• President.