The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-06 00:00:00

A GUIDE to the GIANTS' CAUSEWAY;

A GUIDE to KILLARNEY and GLENGARIFF.
CURRY, Dublin; SIMPKIN and MARSHALL, London, 1834.

No tourist ought to set foot in Ireland without these
little volumes. They are worth a dozen of living guides,
such as the inns supply ; and besides a mass of statistical
information, contain, accounts of the various antiquities and
ruins to be met with on the roads, which renders them of
especial advantage to those who amuse themselves with
either the pen or pencil, in their summer excursions
among mountain scenery. Our personal knowledge of the
routes described, as well as our acquaintance with the
local and traditionary histories of several of the monastic
and baronial ruins mentioned in these volumes, enable us to
speak confidently of their correctness in these respects. Of
the engravings we cannot speak in terms of commendation.

MARTIN'S HISTORY OF THE BRITISH
COLONIES.

There is in this country a very general indifference to our
colonies, arising not so much from false principles as from a
degree of ignorance that is truly astonishing. We question
much if it might not be matter of information to some of
our legislators that Honduras was anything more than a boy;
and we know full well that many, too many of them, are as
little acquainted with colonial statistics as they are with the
mountains in the moon. The history of these possessions,
their invariable prosperity when left to themselves, and
their no less invariable decline when our legislative wisdom
has inflicted its help upon their trade, would, if more gene-
rally understood, silence the prohibitive babble for once and
for ever—and it is high time—if the system be persevered
in much longer, we shall either have no colonies, or none
that are worth retaining. In the same spirit of ignorance,
with which in the mother-country we are constantly taxing
one class of the community to benefit another, but in reality
to the utter ruin of the whole, we have not only imposed
enormous duties on the produce of our transmarine posses-
sions in general, but, with the idea of keeping up a mercan-
tile marine, we have, while almost shutting out the West
Indians from the home market, forbidden to them to
sell their surplus in those of continental Europe
or America ; nay, -we have gone beyond this ; we have
prevented them from selling, and even from buying, food
and the necessaries of life, where the colonists would readily
obtain them in exchange for their sugar, rum, &c. Why
may not the West Indian refine his own sugar ? Oh! to
take off the prohibition duty would be to injure the sugar-
refiner at home. Or why is the growth of sugar discou-
raged in the East ? Oh, because in so doing we benefit,
or, to speak more correctly, we hope to benefit the West.
Thus too, Ceylon coffee is charged with duty in the home
market to the extent of 260 per cent., while the finest
Jamaica coffee is only assessed from 70 to 80 per cent.
One pays 9d. per pound to Government after a voyage of
six months, and the other 6d. after a voyage of six weeks:
Our author asks, pithily enough, " is this justice ?" but we
would put a question of deeper interest .with Statesmen,
"is it expedient ?" No one will answer in the affirmative
but a superannuated driveller of the old school, and he will
no doubt reply that it is no more than a necessary protec-
tion to all parties. Thus we go on in one eternal circle,
for ever legislating and for ever doing mischief. Even
Canada has not escaped our assistance. Her bad firs have
been protected by a heavy duty on the excellent Norway
pine, and what is the consequence ? why, we use the worst
timber instead of the best, pay the highest price, and have the
farther satisfaction of crippling our own manufactured exports
to Norway, inasmuch as the poor people of that country
have nothing to give in exchange for them but the produce
of their forests. It is very possible that another American
war may help to enlighten us on this subject, at least as far
as regards our West India possessions.
In the meantime the present volume of Martin's admi-
rable work (Vol. II.,) will go far in opening the eyes of all
who are not positively enamoured of darkness ; it contains
a full account of our settlements in the South American
main and of our West India islands—their history, their
geography, their geology, their productions of all kinds, and
every detail that may be included in the comprehensive
phrase, statistics. So many subjects, and each of so deep
importance, would require pages to do them justice even in
the most abridged form, and we must therefore limit our
attention to a few leading features.

Under the existing necessity of relieving the country by
the emigration of its superabundant population—supera-
bundant-only from erroneous policy—Guiana offers a most
eligible plan for settlers. Millions of unoccupied acres that
wanted produce, cotton, tobacco, opium, silk, pepper, rice,
indigo, drugs, dyes, and spices, rivers abounding in delicious
fish, and forests rich with a variety of the most valuable
timber, are surely no ordinary stimulus to the appetite
for colonization. _ The climate, too, is extremely
healthful, and adapted to the English con-
stitution. In the hot season the thermometer ranges from
84 to 90 ; twenty miles inland, it seldom exceeds 80, ;lu-
ring the warmest part of the day, falling at night to. 60 or
even 50. On this subject, Mr. Martin has made some ob-
servations, which, if strictly correct, are not a little curious.
" In considering the climate of tropical countries, the influ-
ence of the moon seems to be entirely overlooked, and
surely, if the tides of the vast ocean are raised from their
fathomless bed by lunar power, it is not too much to assert
that the tides of the atmosphere are liable to a similar in-
fluence. This much is certain, that, in the low lands of
tropical countries, no
_attentive observer of nature will fail
to witness the power exercised by the moon over the sea-
sons, and also over animal and vegetable nature. As re-
gards the latter, it may be stated that there are certainly
thirteen springs and thirteen autumns in Demerara in the
year ; for so many times does the sap of trees ascend to the
branches, and descend to the itos. For-example, tito.