LITERATURE.

UNDER EGYPTIAN PALMS; OR THREE BATCHELORS' JOURNEYINGS ON THE NILE. BY HOWARD HOPLEY. London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. 1869.

The writer of this little volume, who had been to Egypt before, arranged on the present occasion to meet a couple of old friends at Cairo, the intention of the trio being to hire a boat and leisurely proceed about eight hundred miles up the river to the Cataracts of the Nile. On a dreary December morning, with a blinding sleet dashing into his face, he sped along the sloppy quays of Liverpool, the world drenched and dripping, seeming to be utterly given over to mist. However, "fifteen days after, he sailed into the blue crystal soundings of the Alexandrian sea, on as bright and genial a summer day as ever strayed northward to gladden the summers of dear old Englandbrighter, in point of fact; for the sun never pours down such a volume of light on our northern shores." He revelled in it, he says, as a bather in the sea, the first thing striking a traveller in Egypt being the splendour from above, which steeps every scene in a flood of light and colour. Between Alexandria and Cairo a hundred-and-twenty miles of railway affords a welcome and comparatively quick transit of ten miles an hour through the Delta, and a graphically-sketched account of the departure-platform, with its confusion, and varieties of people and costume, conveys an admirable idea of a busy gathering and turmoil, which no European would easily forget.

Birds swarm in Egypt, and it has been termed the Paradise of Sportsmen, but the author inveighs against those who wantonly take advantage of such profusion to kill for killing sake, and he tells us that their party more than once encountered an English nobleman who trespassed grossly in this way. It appears that he had brought from England a little mahogany boat, fitted with a swivel gun, "wherewith he waged flagitious warfare with whole communities of unsuspecting geese and spoonbills-birds whose peaceful manner is to assemble by myriads on the shoals and sand-banks left high and dry in mid-stream. He went about it in this wise: hidden in the hollow of his boat, which looked like a waif on the waters, he would quietly float down until the current had borne him within murderous range, and then let fly a pound or two of duck-shot slap into the midst of the astonished assembly. The effect was prodigious; not so much in the matter of killed and wounded-though he is said to have bagged a hundred at one blowas in the noise and whirr of the discomfited legions taking flight in a general sauve qui peut to some happier island far from intrusive noblemen and swivel guns."

In a couple of months the slaughter of 5,576 head was thus achieved that total being made up by 9 pelicans, 1,514 geese, 328 wild ducks, 47 widgeon, 5 teal, 66 pintails, 47 flamingoes, 38 curlews, 112 herons, 2 quails, 9 partridges, 3,283 pigeons, and 117 miscellaneous, comprising storks and other birds of beauty. Regret was expressed that his lordship did not stop at the geese, upon which some one facetiously observed, that a "fellow-feeling" might have prompted him to spare them,

Mr. Hopley remarks upon the tender-heartedness of the natives to brutes. Our cook in killing meat," he says, "went through certain ceremonies. I am not sure he did not beg the pardon of each sheep, or turkey, or fowl before cutting its throat. I know that he turned its head toward Mecca, and I think he prayed the prophet to be merciful to it, ere the fatal knife went in."

Strolling through a doura field the author came upon a young Copt, "a lithe well shapen lad with a lustrous eye and clean skin, and clad in a scant petticoat girt round his loins," the youth's whole appearance reminding him of the pictures of David. The sling was of woven palm fibre, the ammunition a bag of smooth stones of the stream, suspended to his girdle, and one of these being put into the loop he whirled it round his head, and let fly at a bird, the distance being some forty yards off, ten slingings killing two sparrows, these being in thousands, and so destructive to the grain that boys and girls are stationed with slings on elevated sort of platforms to slay the depredators or frighten them away.

The natives of the Island of Biggeh are an amphibious race, being as much accustomed to the water as dry ground; we hear the very babies swim, it being the first lesson they are taught, and a father, in conversation with the author upon the subject, caught up two or three little creatures in his arms and flung them one after the other into the stream, in explanation of the method of tuition, and the urchins "wriggled themselves home quite naturally, like little tadpoles."

The women cross from island to island, disrobing themselves of their one light-blue garment, which wrapped in a bundle is balanced on their head, and then, riding on a log of wood, they take their way into the stream, this, or perhaps a faggot of doura-straw generally being used. out of mere laziness.

He describes children sighting them from the opposite side and plunging into the narrow straight: "The first was a boy, who, reaching the bank, cried out for Backsheesh,' a group of girls following in his wake cleaving the tide dexterously, and flashing through the ripples with a graceful rivalry of who should be first on shore. They crept up, all modesty, through the blossoming lupin and yellow corn, disentangling their way through trailing brambles that festooned a trellis of greenery from tree to tree to where we sat under the palms' quivering shade, and who," he continues, "could refuse them backsheesh?'these little swarthy mermaids, that stood dripping and panting, eyes and teeth all aglow with hopes of gain." And then there was a scrambling in the dust for the coin cast towards them, each who got one stowing it away in her mouth and calling for more, a certain amount of timidity nevertheless keeping them at a respectful distance from the donors.

Some of these children were of great beauty, and girls approaching maturity were seen, "perfect in form and feature, and no Greek faces could have been more refined or more delicately chiselled," while "nothing" we are assured "could be more modest than the bearing of these maidens of Biggeh. They seemed as unconscious of their beauty as of their scantiness of dress."

Upon another occasion, having dismounted at a little Nubian village, "as hot as a furnace, and swarming with children," they were rowed

across the river to Phile, the boat, of very primitive and ancient build evidently being seldom used, for those who did not swim wherever they wished to go, "paddled about on a whisk of doura-straw, the boys and girls cleverly riding these hobby-horses from island to island."

Walking instead of riding in the East is an eccentricity that the humblest people avoid. The donkey in Cairo is the reverse of the unfortunate ill-looking animal we see in this Christian country so unkempt and uncared for, whose stubborn ways are a bye word, but whose laborious, over-taxed endurance, and ill requited efforts are daily to be witnessed.

Some of the donkeys there fetch prices that may well astound purchasers here, a Pasha recently informing us that he possessed one for which when only nine months old, and out of condition, he had given thirty-five pounds for (British sterling), and that at two years he had been offered a couple of hundred if he would part with it, as large a sum as four hundred being known, a fancy price probably the favoured white her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales has been riding would realise.

Donkeys accomplished in their paces have a kind of shuffling step, which gives a seat as easy as an arm-chair, the mode of training them being gone through when they are young, by linking their feet together and putting them into a quick trot.

A boy always runs behind, a chirrup from him having more effect than any other persuasion, a pleasant contrast to the rule of blows and curses the miserable beast gets in for here, and yet donkeys are not perfect in the East either, and there manifest some of the peculiarities and failings of donkeydom.

The book affords an agreeable hour of light reading, and the woodcuts of the Palace of Monfalout and Watching Fields in Egypt, are clever in treatment and design. A map, however slight, just tracing the route, would have enhanced the value of the volume.

THE POLAR WORLD: A POPULAR DESCRIPTION OF MAN AND NATURE IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS OF THE GLOBE. By Dr. G. Hartwig (Author of "The Sea and its Living Wonders"), &c. Longmans, Green, & Co. 1869.

The object of this valuable work is "to convey solid instruction under an entertaining form," and how admirably it has been achieved the 500 pages with maps, tinted plates, and numerous woodcuts testify. It is not in our power to do more than advise the perusal of the volume, and advert to some isolated portions here and there.

Of all animals in these widely-spread regions the reindeer possesses the greatest utility for man, and of all the deer family the reindeer is the only member which has been domesticated. By kindness it is easily tamed and trained to draw a sledge, but care must be taken never to beat or ill-treat it, as it then becomes obstinate, refractory, and indeed utterly unmanageable; and when thus angered, or when unduly laden and taxed beyond its strength, it will frequently revenge itself upon its selfish master, attacking him with its horns and feet, the owner being compelled for safety to overturn his sledge and seek refuge underneath the conveyance until the rage of the animal has subsided. Would that the dread of some retaliation could keep in check the cowardly ruffians who daily in this

Christian country exercise their brutalities upon our foot-footed friends, who are almost wholly unprotected from the savage brutalities they have to enduro! The reindeer is little fitted for riding, and must be mounted with caution, for the back-bone is weak and the vertebral-column easily dislocated on receiving a violent shock. It attains an age of from twenty to twenty-five years, but in its domesticated state is generally killed when six to ten years old, every part of its body being serviceable. In its roaming freedom the wolf and the glutton are its chief enemies, the customary mode of the latter for securing its vistims being to ascend a tree or precipitous rock, and when the herd in their browsing gradually come beneath the lurker, he springs down. Occasionally it will rush upon a herd, and in a single night kill six or eight, devouring no more of the flesh than any other carniverous animal of its size, but sucking their blood. The glutton, or wolverine, is of the weasel and polecat tribe, but as big as a large badger, and so fierce and sanguinary that it fears neither wolf nor dog. The Icelanders set much store and value on their cattle, and bestow every care upon them; but their horses are left in winter to shift for themselves, and consequently are mere skeletons on the arrival of spring; nor have the sheep an easy life of it, exposed as they are to a bad climate, scantiness of food when summer has passed, and the attacks of eagles and foxes, vast numbers of lambs being carried off by them. Their shearing, too, is most barbarous: three or four powerful young women seize, and then throw them on their backs, and, tying the legs, tear away the wool by main force from the skin.

The walrus, the tusks of which create a great traffic in different parts of the world, like the seal, is easily tamed, and most affectionate both in its maternal love for its progeny and gratitude towards human beings. An anecdote is told of one brought alive from Archangel to St. Petersburg evincing this last; and another story is related by an English gentleman of the former when he was at Spitzbergen on a sporting expedition. A walrus was wounded, and having a young calf with her, whenever the harpoon was raised the mother carefully shielded it with her body. "The countenance of this poor animal was never to be forgotten," he says, "that of the calf being expressive of abject terror, and yet of such boundless confidence in its mother's power of protecting it, as it swam along under her wing, the old cow's face showing reckless defiance for all that could be done to herself, and yet terrible anxiety as to the safety of her calf. This devotion, we learn, is employed as a common artifice by the walrus hunters to attract a herd; for, capturing a young one, they make it grunt, and when its cries bring intended aid, their slaughter proceeds wholesale.

In Greenland the shark-fishing is of considerable importance. The entrails of seals and other offal are placed in the openings of the ice (torch-light being sure to bring them to the surface from beneath), the fishermen then striking them with a sharp hook the moment they appear, and dragging them upon the ice. They are also captured by strong iron angles attached to chains. The livers yield a large quantity of oil, and recently a substance resembling spermaceti, which was formerly cast aside as of no value, has been expressed by a powerful screw process from their bodies. About 30,000 are taken every year, without the trouble and danger attending their capture in Iceland

where they are pursued in boats, and in an uncertain and tempestuous sea. Other fisheries are also described.

The sagacity of the Polar-bear is remarkable, and an instance is related of one three times successively pushing off or aside a rope differently contrived and adjusted, and on each occasion carrying away the bait, a piece of kreug or whale's carcase. The claws and teeth are formidable weapons, the former a couple of inches in length, the latter about an inch and a-half, and the hoards of provisions deposited by Arctic voyagers have no greater enemy than the Polar-bear. Kane says: "The final cache which I relied so much upon was entirely destroyed. It had been built with extreme care, of rocks which had been assembled by very heavy labour, and adjusted with much aid, often from capstan bars as levers. The entire construction was, so far as our means permitted, most effective and resisting. Yet these tigers of the ice seemed hardly to have encountered an obstacle. Not a morsel of pemmican remained, except in the iron cases, which being round, with conical ends, defied both claws and teeth. They had rolled and pawed them in every direction, tossing them about like footballs, although over eighty pounds in weight. An alcohol can, strongly iron-bound, was dashed into small fragments, and a tin can of liquor smashed and twisted almost into a ball. The claws of the beasts had perforated the metal, and torn it up as with a chisel. They were too dainty for salt meats; ground coffee they had an evident relish for; old canvas was a favourite for some reason or other; even our flag, which had been reared to take possession' of the waste, was gnawed down to the very staff. They had made a regular frolic of it, rolling our bread-barrels over the ice, and, unable to masticate our heavy india-rubber cloth, they had tied it up in unimaginable hard knots." The wonderful instinct through which the she-bear is taught to shelter her young under the snow is too well explained to be abbreviated, and too long to be quoted.

The contrast, between our own horses and the care absolutely requisite for their preservation with the steeds of Jakut in the Russian dominions, is startling. There they remain night and day without shelter at a temperature when mercury freezes, and are obliged to feed on the autumnal grasses they find under the snow. Their powers of endurance are marvellous; though travelling for months through the wilderness, without any other food than the parched half-rotten grass met with on the way, they yet keep up their strength. Von Middendorff says that "he who thinks of improving the Jakut horse aims at something like perfection. Fancy the worst conceivable roads, and for nourishment the bark of the larch and willow, with hard grassstalks instead of oats; or merely travel on the post-road to Jakutsk, and see horses that have just run 40 versts without stopping, and are covered with perspiration and foam, eating hay in the open air without the slightest covering, at a temperature of 40°!"

Although dangerous neighbours, icebergs prove occasionally from their proximity useful to the mariner, and in strong adverse winds their broad masses, fronting the storm, act like bulwarks by protecting ships moored under their lee; but ice becoming exceedingly fragile when acted upon by the sun or a temperate atmosphere there is sometimes great risk run, for then the blow of an axe merely may rend an