The Sun.
London, England, 1842-08-02 00:00:00

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

Mrs. Butler, like Mrs. Trollope, is by no means ena-
moured of the manners and customs of Yankee-land,
as her present narrative of " A Winter's Journey to
Georgia" shows in every page. And, indeed, we do not
wonder at her disrelish, for, according to her account,
nothing could supass the dirt, discomfort, and rudeness
she encountered in the course of her journey. The rail-
roads were rough, tumble-down affairs—the steam-
boats leaky and ill-ventilated—the inns the very perfec-
tion of uncomfortableness. A clean towel was a God-
send—a clean bed a phenomenon—and when our tra-
vellers, hungry and way-worn, asked for breakfast, they
were told they must wait till " the public hour !"
Truly, it seems scarcely worth while to take the wings
of the Great Western, and steam across the Atlantic, in
order to encounter so much personal inconvenience. A
traveller may be annoyed to his heart's content much
nearer home. Let him take a trip to Connemara in the
rainy season, or to Marseilles and Avignon, when the
fleas and musquitos are in full vigour, and he may de-
pend on it he will be quite as much inconvenienced as
if he had voyaged three thousand miles to Georgia. Of
Charleston, the capital of North Carolina, Mrs. Butler
says :—" This city is the oldest I have yet seen in
America ; I should think it must be the oldest
in it. It abounds in rickety, dark, dirty,
tumble-down streets and warehouses, with every
now and then a mansion of loftier pretensions, but
equally neglected and ruinous in its appearance." We
congratulate Jonathan on his possessing a city which
bears such undeniable tokens of a venerable antiquity.
Washington Irving, in his " Sketch Book," hinted that
he envied us our majestic and picturesque ruins ; but he
need do so no longer, since in Charleston his coun-
try may boast that she possesses, not a baronial edifice
or abbey merely, but a whole capital, in ruins ! " Don't
be too Sure" recounts the disasters experienced by an
elderly Bonedick on his wedding-day. At ten o'clock,
A.M., he was married—at noon he lost his wife—in the
evening. he was thrashed by a tremendous Irishman,
whose sister he had mistaken for his own spouse—and
at night he was taken up on suspicion of forgery !
These incidents—we say nothing of their probability—
are dexterously put together, arid told with much drol-
lery of manner. In the " Visit to Malta" occurs a
graphic sketch of the chief town of Valetta, and its
cathedral church of St. John. " Pope Joan" is a tale by
Peake, founded on the old apochtyphal legend, that a
clever, aspiring female once disguised herself as a monk,
gained high reputation for learning and sanctity in that
character, and ultimately obtained the Papal chair. We
see no great reason to doubt this" legend, fon
Hinn yr maostan "of the
Popes have been old women. Hours id
are an entertaining series of anecdotal reminiscences.
We subjoin a description of a fight between a mungooze
and that dreadful serpent the cobra capello, which the
writer himself witnessed, in the presence of a snake-
charmer :
Being desirous of seeing a combat between a snake and its
eoir4-1,!
compound
—,l
inveterate enemy, the mungooze (an animal similar to the ich-
neumon of Egypt), I requested the charmer to exhibit a fight
omufse tnohuceta
carry •
attached
not
t.°htivt every
yot hoe:
me )o°,
almost
ft
andtli
everyeles led
house in cantonments. Having expressed our fears lest any of
the party illight be injured by the reptile, lie proposed that
the exhibition should take place under an enormous pheasant-
coop of worked wire, which was lying unused in the court-
yard. This arrangement was acceded to, and, at our suggestion, I
the snake first taken in the morning was selected fn- the en-
counter. The mouth of the vessel in which he was enclosed
was placed under the edge of the coop, and the coveri •ng sud-
denly withdrawn. In a moment after the cobra capella darted
out. The kedgeree-pot was then taken away, and the edges of
the pheasantry let down. During two or three minutes the
monster Coked his nose all round the enclosure, evidently
I wishing to escape ; hut, finding this impossible, he quietly
coiled himself up, freeing, however, his magnificent head from
the folds, and remained in a sort of listening attitude.
Presently the man produced the mungooze, and let him in to
his adversary. Never was I more surprised. This was the
first time I had seen one. I had expected to behold a some-
what powerful opponent. Never could I shave fancied that so
small an animal would have dared to cope with serpents of
the largest and deadliest kind; such, however, was the case.
'ihe little creature which now sniffed round the edge of the