The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-02 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

MEMOIRS OF A BABYLONIAN PRINCESS.
2 Vols. Coburn, London, 1844.

foliage of the KharrQb, or locust-tree ; and there the
watermelons and grapes—which were place d before us
—soon disappeared amongst the numerous party.
The sport of the day was discussed : and the old
hunter who had wounded the boar told us that he had
been in some danger ; for the beast rushed at him as he
fired, and it would have gone hard with the veteran, if
he had not sprung behind a tree.
" In truth," said the man, "I am an old lion-hunter ;
but I have found more danger in hunting the boar than
in pursuit of the sultan of the forest ; since with the lion
one is always more or less prepared for his attack."
He went on to tell us that in the country of Reef,
where he often hunted the lion, each man goes armed
with a gun, a dagger, and three or four iron-tipped stakes.
A hole about four feet in depth is dug, just wide enough
for each man to crouch down in. The stakes are then
driven into the ground with their iron points slightly in-
clined outwards ; each sportsman, as in boar-hunting,
takes his station in these places of safety, which are dug
in the tracks of the lion.
The beaters, making a great noise with drums, and.
shouting and firing of guns, drive the game towards the
hunters : should they wound the lion, he generally
springs at the man that fired, who immediately stoops,
and the lion, falling on one of the stakes, is dispatched
with their daggers.

FASHIONS FOR JULY.
(From the World of Fashion.)
Caps, intended for the morning costume, are mostly
composed of inlet, or embroidered muslin; the former
being generally lined with a pale coloured gauze, show-
ing the richness of the inlet, in a very becoming manner,
aid trimmed with fullings of lace instead of ribbons;
with the exception, in some instances, of a rou!eau of
gauze ribbon, detached copies, or solely cut ends, inter-
mixed with two rows of lace or net, farming the papillon.
Other caps are made perfectly plain, but this simplicity
is relieved by the beautiful lace which is used for the
decorating of it, and which is also encircled with a quil-
ling of tee; or else, instead of the lace, raised lappets
a /a petite kitiere attached on the top of the head with
loops of ribbon of a new form.
BONNETS.—Those of crepe are the reigning fashion
for the present month ; the most elegant are of white
crepe, decorated . with marabouts of the same delicate
colour.. Those hats of verdant green crepe are also much
in request ; they are trimmed all round the front with
a pretty lace, falling upon the right side of the brim,
and raised in the cen'Te, with a bouquet of daisies,
wiiich entirely covers the left side of the front.
DRESSES.—Never -was the rage for flowers greater
than at the present, both for silk, barige, or foulard
dresses ; there are generally three of them, stamped and
put on in waves, and edged with a narrow fringe or lace.
Those robes composed of heavy materials, such as dark
blue or green silks, glae63, are decorated with three
volants or flounces of black lace, a costume at once dis-
tinguished and recherche, particularly when accompanied
with a Matteis° scarf of black lace, or an immense shawl
of embroidered China crepe. •
NOVELTIES.—Amongst the variety of novelties, we
must not omit mentioning the Maude Victoria, which
means a demi-brace)... t of lace inlet, and embroidered
inlet placed alternate, and fastened to each side of the
muslin, which forms the top of the sleeve, and which is
covered with embroidery, reaching from the wrist as far
the top of the arm. The two sides of this embroidery
are trimmed with a very narrow lace, put on full.
EVENING DRESS.—We may cite as amongst the most
elegant those composed of black net, trimmed with
flounces nearly as high as the waist ; they are simply
hemmed, and above the kern three rows of narrow ribbon
velvet put on flat, and which is repeated at the head
of the flounce. The sleeves demi-longues, and trimmed
to match, forming a becoming decoration to the
arm ; berthe edged to match, and forming a point
in the front, completes this elegant toilette. White
dresses, are also muck worn, particularly those composed
of white barese, with flounces edged with a small gold
curd or lace. Flowers are also much in favour fur the
decorating of ball dresses, such as bouquets of lilies of
the valley, so delicate and light in their appearance;
and then, again, those delicate looking roses, which are
now so admirably imitated, that they are considered a
perfect triumph of art.
FASHIONABLE COLOURS.—Those which are now the
most in request are the different shades of green, violet,
lilac, blue, and French greys, besides those elegant
colours which are now so generally blended together,
such as cerise and brown, fawn and lilac, &c.

• The work bef ore us is a translation, and the
(original was written by the Princess Maria Theresa
Asmar, daughter of the Emir Abdallah Asmar, who
was barn in 1804 amidst the ruins of Nineveh, and
lived for several years of her life in the utmost
splendour at Bagdad. Her family, which was one of
distinction in the East, professed to derive its origin
from the Bralsmin, and her father professed_ the
Chaldaic rite in communion with the Church of
Rome. By her own account, the Princess seems to
have been of a serious and devout turn of mind, and
says of herself, " from the age of six I had been in the
habit of reading the Lives of the Fathers, and I formed
a determination to imitate their example. I betook
myself to the histories of saints, hermits, and martyrs,
and the more I read the more interne was my desire
to share in their sufferings and their glory." At an
unusually early age she was engaged in marriage to
a young Sheikh : but disliking the notion of matri-
mony—a very singular prejudice, by the bye, for an
Eastern lady to entertain—she addressed herself to
her intended husband, with a view to induce him to
cancel their engagement, stating that it was her wish
to become a nun. Upon this, with infinite com-
plaisance, he resolved to take the vows of a Trappist,
" and now lives," says the author, " in a hermitage on
Mount Lebanon, at the foot of the cedar mountain,
on a ledge so precipitous that a bird would hardly
dare to make her nest on it." Soon after this, the
Princess's father and family were cruelly persecuted
for their faith, by the newly-appointed Paella of
Bagdad; at length, when the tyrant's avarice and
bigotry ere satiated, she herself, accompanied by her
mother, during her earlier progresses, set off on a
tour to some of the more celebrated provinces in the
East, a narrrtive of which is contained in these
volumes. The authoress appears to have sten much,
and what she saw she has the happy art of describing
with such vividness, as to place the scene imme-
diately before us. There is a tinge of melancholy
pervading her work; but is informed with a truly
Christian spirit, and will be read with inte.,,rest, if only
for the eloquence and evident truthfulness of the de •
scriptions. We quote her account of a repast served
up to hrr on the occasion of a visit which she paid to,
the daughter of the Pasha of Mosul :
As many of my readers may be unacquainted with
the detail of Oriental gastrohomy, I will briefly describe
some of the haut-gouts served up on the occasion of my
visit to the palace of the Pasha of Mosul: First of all a
tray, containing twenty dishes, was brought in and
placed upon a large round salver or stand, of copper,
about six feet in diameter. Among these dishes were
soups, one made orrice and herbs, the other with green
corn and chickens, a favourite dish of the present Pasha
of Egypt. Amongst the dishes which succeeded to these
were a lamb, stuffed with all sorts of herbs, rice, and pis-
tachios, which was served up whole, saffron being added,
for the double purpose of giving it colour and flavour; a
number of roast fowls ; stuffed gourds; two or three large
dishes of a vegetable, called " hernia ;" and a dish made
of a veal hash, enveloped in vine eaves ; " coobba,"
which is a crust made of green corn and hashed meat,
filled with a hash of beef and herbs, called "shay al
ajouz," or old woman's hair, of delicious flavour, and
made up into globes, as large as a man's head ; niany
dishes of " kabap," or "kabob," as it is more usually
written, which is a kind of sausage meat, cooked on an
iron rod ; together with a host of other recondite prepa-
rations, the names of which have passed from my
memory. When the solid portion of the dinner had
been disposed of, a profusion of sweetmeats, of the most
delicious flavour, were put upon the table, and with
which tha repast concluded. Of course, no wine was
introduced ; .but we managed to console ourselves with
drinking a liquor made from the. juice of the pome-
granate, which was handed to us in goblets of massive
gold.
During the whole time of dinner, fifteen slaves were
in attendance, some of whom fanned us continually.
Having brought in the necessary vessels for the perform-
ance of our ablutions, and accommodated us with our
pipes and nerghilahs, they were permitted to withdraw,
and regale themselves on the remains of our repast. I
had almost forgotten to mention the " nuckel," or
dessert, which, in its way, was in no wise inferior to the
dinner. There was a substance having the consistency
of snow, which is found on the leaves of trees, of a green
colour, having a delicious sweet taste, called in the
Chaldean language "gaszoul," and in Arabic "man al
same." There were also the figs of Jebel Sinjar (a
mountain to the north-west of Mosul), of enormous size,
some of them being not less than six inches in length ;
the " laimoun halou," or sweet orange, from Bagdad and
Bassorah, a fruit almost as large as a shaddock, greatly
resembling the orange in size and appearance, but far
excelling that. fruit in smoothness of skin and sweetness
of flavour. So abundant is this fruit in Mesopotamia
that twelve are sold for a penny. " irammas," a sort of
kernel, resembling a dried harvest bean, which is roasted
after the manner of coffee ; to which may be added pis-
tachio nuts, promegranates and grapes.
The repast finished, we were conducted upstairs to
the " thartiaa," an apartment on the first floor, corre-
sponding, in some manner, with the Iwan below. It was
paved with marble, and looked out upon the gardens.
In the centre of the room was placed the " serrir," a
large ottoman, covered with yellow satin, on which re-
clined the chief wife of the l'asha, and around which
several cushions were ranged. On the side, towards the
garden, were hung a number of cages, filled with
beautiful singing-birth, sending forth notes of every de-
scription. In this earthly paradise we enjoyed our
" nerghilahs" and sipped our coffee. This being over,
the sultana, or favourite wife of the Pasha, composed
herself to sleep, according to the Oriental fashion ; an
amiable weakness which, I greatly fear, is not calculated
to secure for my illustrious friend the approval of her
own sex in this colder climate, where, as I have been

"You have," said I, " many lions in the regions of
Akkalaya. I suppose it is dangerous to be out after
dark ?"

" They rarely attack a man, if unprovoked," replied
the old Reefian " I have met them when alone ; they
have stood and looked at me. But in such cases a man
must go on his way without appearing to notice the
blast, and then he will almost always quietly walk away
also."

" The best caution I can give," continued our grey-
bearded guest, "in case you ever meet a lion, is, that
you should keep on your own path with all the coolness
you can command, until you observe that the yellow-
haired has passed out of view, or has ceased watching
you ; then turn sharp to another direction, and pursue
it rapidly, lest the lion, having noticed the line of your
march, should proceed to meet you at a distance on the
track, as they often do with all the cunning of a cat; and
you may then have some difficulty in evading his wan-
tonness or anger."
This advice somewhat reminded me of the story of the
old peer, who, being asked what he had done on meet-
ing a lion in the Strand, which had broken loose from
Exeter Change, replied, with great composure—" Do ?
I called a coach." Nevertheless I treasured up the ad-
vice against a future emergency. ,
To my question, whether it wa3 not vory dangerous to
hunt lions without the precaution of the pit and stakes,
our guest replied, " Yes, Christian, it is : you carry your
life in your open hand."
" I remember," continued he, " a son of the sheikh of
our village returned home one evening trailing along the
skin of a huge lion, which he laid at the feet of his
father, and showing the hole where the ball had pene-
trated the skull, he told the sheikh that he had, alone,
met the animal face to face in the wood, and killed him.
My son,' said the sheikh, with which finger did you
pull the trigger ?'
" The young man held his fore finger up.
" Seize and bind him,' said the sheikh, and drawing
his knife said, ' I cut off that finger, my beloved, that you
may remember for the future, never to attack a lion
when you are &one ; for I would not lose you, my son,
for a thousand, no, nor for ten thousand lion-skins.'

"In rain we all cried out to the sheikh to spare the
youth, who stood calmly obedient ; but though the big
tears rolled down the lather's rugged cheeks, the finger
was cut off."

given to understand, the practice of taking a nap after
dinner is confined almost entirely to elderly agar, who
have laughed at the beard of the prophet, by partaking
of the condemned juice of the grape.

FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS
TIMES. 2 Vols. Colburn,London,lB44.
We noticed this work some months since, at con-
siderable length, in The Sun, when it first made its
appearance, in two large octavo volumes, and spoke of
the skill with which it was executed, of the great
variety of its details, the affluence of its anecdotical
matter, and the clear, and, in some instances, entirely
new view which it gave of the public and private cha-
racter of its hero, Frederick the Great of Prussia. We
mentioned also the frequent diffuseness and slovenli-
ness of the writer's style, as defects that should be
remedied in a second edition ; and we are pleased to find
that our hint has been taken in good part, and that in
the duodecimo edition before us, the author has re-
trenched much of the luxuriance of his manner, and
moderated a few opinions which, as originally put
forth, were somewhat too strong and decided in their
tone. Thus diligently revised, and republished at a
price within the reach of the generality of readers,
we have little doubt that the work will become a
lasting favourite with the public, for the period of
which it treats, and the events which it records, are
of the most eventful and stirring nature, and the
hero, the Great Frederick, whom Voltaire has so
grossly calumniated, was, beyond all question, the
most consummate soldier and statesman that the
eighteenth century produced.

TILE MY ST.ERIOUS MAN. 3 Vols.
Newby, London, 1844.
_

The " Mysterious -Man," who gives the title to
this novel, is a good-natured, thoughtless, young
Irish adventurer, by name Sullivan, who, like many
of his enterprising and not eminently diffident coun-
trymen, comes to London for the purpose of getting
a wife, and so securing a fortune on easy and pleasant
terms. Aware, however, that there is a strong pre-
judice among the cockneys against Irish adventurers
of all sorts, Sullivan, notwithstanding his desperate
Tipperary brogue, passes himself off for a German
nobleman, Count Bundledoff, and under this assumed
alias, meets with a variety of adventures, some of a
humorous, others of a more serious character, which
are duly set forth in the volumes before us. Ulti-
mately he is successful in his matrimonial specula-
tion, and marries Lucy Atherley, the daughter
of a country farmer of the blunt, honest, old
school, to whom the reader is introduced in
the first chapter, as also to the good-natured, light-
hearted Count, who is her travelling companion on
her journey from Oxfordshire to the metropolis.
There is some quiet fun in the story, and it is penned
currcnte calamo ; but, as a whole, it seldom rises above
mediocrity, and is uniformly deficient in strong,
earnest, graphic portraiture of character. The most
finished and natural sketch is that of Josiah Jeakin-
son, of Euston-square —" one of those unfortunate
individuals," says the author, " who are the most
miserable f mortals, because they have nothing on
earth to make them unhappy. He had an easy tem-
per, an easy fortune, an easy wife ; he had no mise-
ries, and therefore he had the trouble of making
them ; and this is one of the greatest troubles on
earth. Such was Josiah Jenkinson, a stout, comely
person, but a settled and established misery-maker."

WESTERN BARBARY. Murray, London, 1844.
The very amusing little volume before us forms the
ninth number of Murray's " Colonial and Home
Library." It is an account of Western Barbary, its
wild tribes and savage animals, and was undertaken,
as we learn from the introduction, !),), Mr. Drummond
Hay, for the purpose of procuring for her Majesty
Queen Victoria a barb of the purest blood from some
of the breeders of horses in the region round La-
raiche. In this undertaking the author, it seems, was
not so successful as he could have wished, but during
the course of his expedition, "he saw," as he tells us,
" such striking pictures of Arab life, and heard so
many anecdotes illustrative of the peculiarities of cha-
racter, customs, and manners in the various tribes,
that he was tempted to commit them to writing." His
volume is certainly prolific of incident in an unusual
degree, and much of this incident is of the most
stirring and romantic character; especially the stories
which are introduced in the course of the narrative,
and which in wildness are nearly equal to some of
those marvellous ones which are of such constant oc-
currence in the Arabian Nights. The following
curious particulars connected with the subject of lions
may perhaps amuse our readers :
Mallem Named had spread our carpets under the thick

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY MORNIN(I, JULY 2, i 644.