ing work, which are made from drawings by Derwint, after the original sketches taken by Mr. Allason. Eighteen unpublished silver coins, of Elis are given in one plate; and they are illustrated by a map of that antient territory, by Colonel Leake. The "View embracing the supposed position of the Hippodrome," and a "View shewing the Course of the Alpheus," are truly beautiful. The "Two Views on the Plains of Olympia" furnish a banquet to the admirer of rich and picturesque scenery, as well as to the associations of classical and antiquarian erudition.

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.

Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. By W. J, Burchell, Esq. -2 vol. 47. 14s. 6d.

MR. BURCHELL penetrated for nearly eleven hundred miles into the interior of Africa. His travels occupied the space of four years, and they have enabled him to furnish an immense number of interesting facts respecting the character and customs of the inhabitants, and the natural productions of the regions he visited. He brought with him to England above 63,000 zoological and botanical productions. But we are sorry to say, that the result of their arrival in this country was more unfortunate than his efforts to collect them. From a long note of Mr. Burchell, they appear to have been treated at the British Museum with the most shameful negligence. They were flung aside and left to rot and maggot; and thus the results of a voyage of four years, in regions hitherto unexplored, and singularly rich in natural productions, have been so far lost to the world. We cannot accompany Mr. Burchell through all the details of his journey from Klaarwater to the colony. Indeed, to say the truth, they are somewhat occasionally ennuyant, through sameness and repetition. In travelling across the deserts, the traveller had to struggle with many difficulties, and to endure great privations of thirst and hunger; but these were not unfrequently varied by interesting occurrences, or by unlooked-for relief, either through the discovery of an ostrich nest, or a spring of water. In the vicinity of Graaffreynet, Mr. B. met with an extraordinary plant called Hottentot's Brood, (Hottentot's bread.)

"Its bulb stands entirely above ground and grows to an enormous size, frequently three feet in height and diameter. It is closely studded with angular ligneous protuberances, which give it some resemblance to the shell of a tortoise. The outside is a fleshy substance, which may be compared to a turnip, both in consistence and colour. From the top of the bulb arise several annual stems, the branches of which have a disposition to twine round any shrub within reach. The Hottentots informed me, that in former times, they ate this inner substance, which is not unwholesome when cut in pieces and baked on the embers."

From Graaffreynet, after staying to collect a sufficient number of Hottentots to accompany his expedition, Mr. B. proceeded to Klaarwater, and from thence commenced his journey into the country of the Korahs. Sinsavan is the name of a hill or mass of rock, celebrated as being the only spot where the sibilo is found; an

article employed by the Hottentot dandies in powdering their hair, and considered by them as an indispensable ornament.

"The sibilo is a shining powdery iron ore of a steel-grey or blueish lustre, and soft and greasy to the touch; its particles adhering to the hands or clothes, and staining them of a dark red or ferruginous colour. The skin is not easily freed from these glossy particles, even by repeated washing; wherever this substance is used, every thing becomes contaminated, and its glittering nature betrays it on every thing which the wearer handles."

After many delays, obstacles, and dangers, Mr. Burchell arrived at Litakun, the chief city of the Bachapins, of whose customs, laws, manners, and religion, he furnishes an extended and able description. Of the Bushmen he gives a more favourable character than we have received from other travellers. They are fond of dancing and music; the vices they display are such as appertain to all uncivilized tribes; and they appear to be, when well treated, good-natured, friendly, and frank. We recommend Mr. Burchell's work as that of an enterprising, well-informed, and high-spirited traveller; and as a not less valuable accession to the literature of our own country, than to the stock of information already collected on the subject of the interior of Africa.

year or

Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand. By Captain Richard Cruise, of the 84th Foot.-8vo. pp. 321. 10s. 6d. We are always pleased to welcome the literary observations of naval and military travellers. In a physiological point of view, Captain Cruise's work is curious and interesting; and to such readers as delight in our ordinary newspaper reports, of ferocious murders, and cruel exploits, it must convey a similar gratification of wandering excitement: they may here "sup full of horrors." Employed as commanding officer of a detachment of soldiers on-board the Dromedary store ship, during her voyage for the purpose of procuring spars at New Zealand, Captain Cruise's situation gave him every facility for acquiring information respecting the habits, customs, and characters of the race of savages with whom he communicated. It is true, that all that we can know of a savage people is soon learned; nature and habit speak out at once: it is only in civilized life that a two teaches us-not a man." A voyage every year, therefore, to a savage race, like the New Zealanders, might bring us instances of their cold-blooded cruelty; but would add little information to their real character, which is already sufficiently known. Captain Cruise, indeed, does little more than confirm the previous accounts of their atrocious barbarity. All our attempts to civilize the New Zealanders have hitherto been abortive; and the labour of our missionaries has been entirely thrown away. But while unsuccessful in improving them, it is to be regretted that we should have given them the means of indulging their murderous propensities with greater facility. Our whalers, it seems, from Captain Cruise's statement, had exchanged 100 stand of arms with the natives, and the first use made of them was to march against another tribe, unprovided with similar weapons, and kill two hundred of them. Doubts have been started as to the truth of the assertion, that the New Zealanders are Anthropophagists;

but the fact of it being a prevailing vice among them is now notorious; and Captain Cruise says, that they prefer the flesh of their own countrymen to that of a European. We give the following extract at random as a proof of the New Zealander's ferocious atrocity :

She

"As we were preparing to return to the ship, we were drawn to that part of the beech where the prisoners were, by the most doleful cries and lamentations. Here was an interesting young slave in a situation that ought to have softened the heart of the most unfeeling. The man who had slain her father, having cut off his head, and preserved it by a process peculiar to these islanders, took it out of a basket, where it had hitherto been concealed, and threw it into the lap of the unhappy daughter. At once, she seized it with a degree of frenzy not to be described, pressed its inanimate nose to her own, and held it in this position till her tears ran over every part of it. then laid it down, and with a bit of sharp shell disfigured her person in so shocking a manner, that in a few minutes not a vestige of her former beauty remained. She first began by cutting her arms, then her breast, and latterly her face. Every incision was so deep as to cause a gush of blood. But she seemed quite insensible to pain, and performed the operation with heroic resolution. He whose cruelty had caused this frightful exhibition, was evidently amused at the horror with which we viewed it; and laying hold of the head by the hair, which was long and black, offered to sell it to us for an axe, turned it various ways to show it off to the best advantage, and when no purchaser was to be found, replaced it in the basket from whence he had taken it. The features were as perfect as when in life; and though the daughter was quite grown up, the head of her father appeared a youthful and handsome man."

The process by which the New Zealanders preserve the heads of their friends and enemies, is curious, and worth extracting:

When the head has been separated from the body, and the whole of the interior of it extracted, it is rolled up in leaves, and put into a kind of oven made of heated stones laid in a hole in the ground, and covered over with earth. The temperature is very moderate, and the head is baked or steamed till all the moisture, which is frequently wiped away, has exuded; after which it is left in a current of air until perfectly dry. Some of these preserved heads were brought to England: the features, hair, and teeth, were as perfect as in life; nor have they since shown symptoms of decay."

The New Zealanders, however, notwithstanding their savage customs and brutal appetites, are not without ingenuity. They contrived, by the aid of rude instruments, to repair their muskets, and even to restock them with considerable skill. They showed remarkable quickness in learning every thing of a mechanical nature, and were particularly attentive to the carpenters' and smiths' work. It is to be hoped that, in time, civilization may be brought to operate more effectually than hitherto on these natural endowments, to the eradication of their defects. We recommend Captain Cruise's Journal to the public as an unpretending detail of facts relating to these South Sea Islanders, observed with intelligence, and told with modesty and precision.

The Emigrant's Note-Book and Guide. By Lieut. Morgan.12mo. 7s. 6d.

THIS is one of the most amusing little volumes that has recently fallen into our hands. Its rambling and discursive details, its interspersed notices of whatever may arrest the eye of the stranger, its instructive hints and prudent precautions to the emigrant, its recollections of a war which will long be memorable in the annals of Great Britain and North America, are exccuted in a taste, and with a feeling,

which cannot fail to attract and to interest the attention of every reader. While paying a due acknowledgment to the talents and the liberal sentiments of those distinguished writers of this country who have exhausted all the powers of their genius in investing the United States with the lofty attributes of equal law and universal plenty and prosperity, Lieut. Morgan has thrown a little of his own observation into this spicy picture, has laid bare some of the ulcers which rankle beneath this fair surface, and demonstrated that; to the subjects of the British Empire, the Canadas possess intrinsic advantages, which strongly recommend them as the future settlement of the emigrant. We ourselves happen to know, from personal experience, that the clash of opinions which will ever subsist between the English emigrant (however radical he may have been at home,) and the republican citizen of the United States, will be an incessant source of quarrel and erbitterment in all their intercourse. In the Canadas, no such source of disagreement exists; there an Englishman may still talk with pride of the greatness and prosperity of his country, her free institutions, and her naval victories, without being forced into sullen silence by the unbridled ferocity of a Kentuckian, or the immeasurable conceit and self-complacency of a New Englander or Virginian. But let us not be misunderstood: we would not speak but in language of respect and admiration of that great and flourishing country-that New Albionthe country which will preserve the language, the institutions, and the greatness of the British Isles, when the period of their grandeur shall have passed away-whose stellated flag shall, at some future time, wave in proud sovereignty, when the red cross of England shall have passed into that obscurity which awaits all earthly greatness, whose commerce shall hereafter cover the seas, whose ports shall be the great commercial depôt of the world, and whose commercial navy shall one day ride proudly pre-eminent in every harbour.

But to return to the Note-Book: nothing pleases us more than that spirit of loyalty and love of country which breathe through every page. Lieut. Morgan descants with proud satisfaction on the gallant exploits which were displayed during the late war on the frontiers of Canada and the Lakes, and records many anecdotes which no Englishman can read and not feel within his bosom the fire of national enthusiasm.

As a guide to the emigrant, it contains much information, not less recommended by its intrinsic value, than by the pleasing form in which it is delivered. Yet are we persuaded, that many an Englishman who might look here for those instructions and precautions so often neglected, (and the neglect of which proves so often fatal to the future happiness of the emigrant,) will close the volume, satisfied that he has learnt enough to guide his steps, by having learnt the better lesson, that his native land is still the happiest on the face of the globe; and with being inspired with the proud determination to mingle his ashes with those of his forefathers.

POLITICS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Instructions by Major-general Sir John Malcolm, G.C.B. K.L.S. to Officers acting under his Orders in Central India, A.D. 1821.-8vo. pp. 69. 2s.

THESE instructions were written for those acting under the authority of the author, when he was charged with the administration of central India. They were first printed by order of the Supreme Government, and have been subsequently published as part of the Appendix to his "Memoir of Central India ;" an opinion, in which we concur (that the more general dissemination of the sentiments contained in them would be useful), has led to their present separate publication.

Central India, alluded to in the title, is so denominated from its comprising those provinces which lie in the centre of India, and extend from seventy-one to seventy-five degrees north latitude, and seventythree to eighty east longitude. It comprehends all that extent of country which was known in the time of the Emperors of Delhi under the denomination of the Subah, or Government of Malwa.

It is the opinion of the author, that our power in India rests on the general conviction of the natives in regard to our comparative superiority in good faith, wisdom, and strength, to their own rulers; an impression which will be improved by the consideration we show to their habits, institutions, and religion, and by the moderation, temper, and kindness with which we conduct ourselves. Our power, therefore, owes much to its contrast with misrule and oppression; but this strength we are daily losing; and, according to Sir J. Malcolm, it has received the rudest shocks from an impression that our system of rule is at variance with the permanent continuance of rank, authority, and distinction, in any native of India.

The opinion of such a writer on the Hindoo character is worthy of being studied :

"Many of the moral defects of the natives of India are to be referred to that misrule and oppression from which they are now in a great degree emancipated. I do not know the example of any great population, in similar circumstances, preserving, through such a period of change and tyrannical rule, so much of virtue, and so many good qualities, as are to be found in a great proportion of the inhabitants of this country. This is to be accounted for, in some degree, by the Hindu institutions, particularly that of Caste, which appear to have raised them to their present rank in human society, at a very remote period; but these have certainly tended to keep them stationary at that point of civil order to which they were thus early advanced. With a just admiration of the effects of many of their institutions, particularly those parts of them which cause in vast classes, not merely an absence of the common vices of theft, drunkenness, and violence, but preserve the virtuous ties of family and kindred relations, we must all deplore some of their usages and weak superstitions; but what individuals, or what races of men, are without great and manifold errors and imperfections? and what mind, that is not fortified with ignorance or pride, can, on such grounds, come to a severe judgment against a people like that of India ?"

The instructions themselves are founded on sound poliey, and cannot be too much commended::

"The intercourse to be maintained with the natives within your circle is (says Sir John) of two kinds,--private and official. The first should extend as much as possible