350 JOURNAL OF A TOUR BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. this company. Nor have I heard any boasting among raise them to a level with the Whites-and the diffithem of the satisfaction taken in killing or abusing In-culty of mutual understanding when the sermon and dians, as I have elsewhere heard. FORT VANCOUVER. its results have to be conveyed by interpreters-we can scarcely fall in with Mr. Parker's sanguine anticiI am very agreeably situated in this place. Half of pations. In the following interview with a party of a new house is assigned me, well furnished, and all the chiefs at Rendezvous, for instance, there appears full attendance which I could wish, with access to as many as much of diplomacy as anxiety. The "oldest chief valuable books as I have time to read, and opportunities to ride out for exercise, and to see the adjoining of the Flatheads" seems to us to have been any thing country, as I can desire; and in addition to all these, and but a flat in the art of uttering polite double meanings. still more valuable, the society of gentlemen enlightAfter spending a few days in collecting and digestened, polished, and sociable. These comforts and pri-ing information in regard to this country and the condivileges were not anticipated, and therefore the more grateful. There is a school connected with this establishment, for the benefit of the children of the traders and common labourers, some of whom are orphans whose parents were attached to the company; and also some Indian children, who are provided for by the generosity of the resident gentlemen. They are instructed in the common branches of the English language, such as reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and geography; and together with these, in religion and morality. The exercises of the school are closed with singing a hymn; after which, they are taken by their teachers to a garden assigned them, in which they labour. Finding them deficient in sacred music, I instructed them in singing; in which they made good proficiency, and developed excellent voices. Among them there was one Indian boy who had the most flexible and melodious voice I ever heard. It is worthy of notice how little of the Indian complexion is seen in the half-breed children. Generally they have fair skin, often flaxen hair and blue eyes. The children of the school were punctual in their attendance on the three services of the Sabbath, and were our choir. The extraordinary skill of the Indian horsemen, and their power over their horse, have been often noted. See how they acquire these. upon Small children, not more than three years old, are mounted alone, and generally upon colts. They are lashed upon the saddle to keep them from falling, and especially when they go asleep, which they often do when they become fatigued. Then they recline the horse's shoulders; and when they awake, they lay hold of their whip, which is fastened to the wrist of their right hand, and apply it smartly to their horses; and it is astonishing to see how these little creatures will guide and run them. Of the capability of the Indians for acquiring the arts of civilization, Mr. Parker speaks undoubtingly: and his facts in a measure support his conclusions. Still, if Christianiiy, humanity, and a just government went hand in hand, when their country became more densely peopled, they would in amalgamating become absorbed, and the race be as effectually extinguished as if destroyed. Of their disposition to embrace Christianity, Mr. Parker is as sanguine as most missionaries who make the first attempts. Allowing, however, for the politeness of the American Indian-the natural curiosity of an idle and imaginative people-a notion they seem to have taken up that Christianity would tion of the people, we had an interesting interview with the chiefs of the Nez Perces and Flatheads, and laid before them the object of our appointment, and explained to them the benevolent desires of Christians concerning them. We then inquired whether they wished to have teachers come among them and instruct them in the knowledge of God, his worship, and the way to be saved; and what they would do to aid them in their labours? The oldest chief of the Flatheads arose, and said he was old, and did not expect to know much more; he was deaf and could not hear, but his heart was made glad, very glad, to see what he had never seen before, a man near to God, (meaning a minister of the gospel.) Next arose Insala, the most influential chief among the Flathead nation, and said, he had heard a man near to God was coming to visit them; and he, with some of his people joined with some white men, went out three days' journey to meet him, but he missed us. came upon them, and took away some of their horses, A war party of Crow Indians and one from him which he greatly loved; but now he forgets all, his heart is made so glad to see a man near to God. There was a short battle, but no lives lost. The first chief of the Nez Perces, Tai-quin-watish, arose and said, he had heard from White men a little about God, which had only gone into his ears; he wished to know enough to have it go down into his heart, to influence his life, and to teach his people. Others spoke to the same import; and they all made as many promises as we could desire. When practice was enjoined, it was not always smooth. During my continuance in this place, (Walla Walla,) 1 preached on the Sabbath, to the White people belonging to the fort in the morning, and in the afternoon to the Indians of the Cayuse, Walla Walla, and the Nez Percé tribes; and also improved other opportunities with the Indians besides on the Sabbath. They much interested. An instance of opposition to the always gave good attention, and some appear to be truths of the Gospel, however, occurred here, proving the truth of the Scriptures, that the Saviour is set of the Cayuses, who several times came to hear, disfor the fall and rising of those who hear. A chief liked what was said about a plurality of wives. He said he would not part with any of his; for he had always lived in sin, and was going to the place of burning, and it was too late for him, now he was getting old, to repent and be saved; and, as he must go to that place, he would go in all his sins, and would not alter his life. Those who are familiar with the various methods to which sinners resort to avoid the convictions of truth and conscience, may see in his deep-rooted hatred to holiness, that the operation of sin as intemperance, and the general spread of venerea is the same in every unsanctified heart. Turning from this subject, here is a curious fact for the geologists. I left this encampment at nine o'clock in the forenoon, in the canoe with three men furnished by Tilki; and made good progress down the river (Columbia,) which flows in a wide and gentle current. Many parts of the way the river is walled up with high and perpendicular basalt. At the La Dalles commences a wood country, which becomes more and more dense as we descend, and more broken with high hills and precipices. Noticed a remarkable phenomenon-trees standing in their natural position in the river, in many places where the water is twenty feet deep, or much more, and rising to high or freshet water-mark, which is fifteen feet above the low water. Above the freshet rise, the tops of the trees are decayed and gone. I deferred forming an opinion in regard to the cause, until I should collect more data. * * * since their intercourse with sailors. But a more direct In the burning stage of the fever they plunged themselves cause of the great mortality, was their mode of treatment. in the river, and continued in the water until the heat was allayed, and rarely survived the cold stage which followed. So many and so sudden were the deaths which occurred, that the shores were strewed with the unburied dead. Whole and large villages were depopulated; and some entire tribes have disappeared, the few remaining persons, if there were any, uniting themselves with other tribes. This great mortality extended not only from but far North and South; it is said as far South as the vicinity of the Cascades to the shores of the Pacific, California. The fever and ague were never known before the year 1829; and Dr. M.Laughlin mentioned it as a singular circumstance, that this was the year in which fields were ploughed for the first time. He thought there must have been some connexion between breaking up the soil and the fever. I informed him that the same fever prevailed in the United States about On the 15th, the wind and rain continuing through the same time, and in places which had not before been the forepart of the day, I did not leave my encampment subject to the complaint. The mortality, after one or until noon; when we set forward and arrived at the two seasons, abated, partly for the want of subjects, Cascades, at two o'clock in the afternoon. The trees and partly from medical assistance obtained at the hosto-day were still more numerous, in many places stand-pital of Fort Vancouver. The mortality of Indians and ing in deep water; and we had to pick our way with their sufferings under diseases are far greater than they our canoe in some parts as through a forest. The water would be if they were furnished with a knowledge of of this river is so clear, that I had an opportunity of ex- medicine. Indian doctors are only Indian conjurors. amining their position down to their spreading roots, and found them in the same condition as when standing The King, Queen Regent, and chiefs gave a tea-party, in their natural forest. As I approached the Cascades, instead of finding an embankment formed from volcanic to which with a few others I had the honour to be ineruptions, the shores above the falls were low, and the vited. They were dressed richly and in good taste; velocity of the water began to accelerate two-thirds of their table was splendidly arrayed with silver plate and a mile above the main rapid. On a full examination, china; the entertainment was both judiciously and tastefully arranged and prepared, and all the etiquette it is plainly evident that here has been an uncommon subsidence of a tract of land more than twenty miles in and ceremony of such occasions was observed. The length and more than a mile in width. The trees stand-conversation was cheerful and intelligent, without friing in the water are found mostly towards and near the volity; and nothing occurred embarrassing to any one. north shore; and yet, from the depth of the river and its At a suitable early hour, we were invited into a saloon sluggish movement, I should conclude the subsidence well-furnished, where, after a performance of music, affected the whole bed. That the trees are not wholly both vocal and instrumental, the Queen proposed that decayed down to low-water-mark, proves that the sub-prayer should conclude our agreeable visit; which was sidence is comparatively of recent date; and their undisturbed natural position proves that it took place in a tranquil manner, not by any tremendous convulsion of nature. The cause lies concealed, but the fact is plain. That parts of forest may in this way submerge, is evident from similar facts. The noted one on the eastern coast of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, England, is about fifteen feet below low-water-mark, extending eastward a considerable distance from the shore, of which stumps and roots are seen in their natural position. Much having been lately said, and we believe with truth, about the depopulation of Indian races, by contact with Europeans, it is but fair to show that it may occasionally arise from natural causes. I have found the Indian population in the lower country-that is, below the falls of the Columbia-far less than I had expected, or what it was when Lewis and Clarke made their tour. Since the year 1829, probably seven-eighths, if not, as Dr. M'Laughlin believes, nine-tenths, have been swept away by disease, principally by fever and ague. The malignancy of this disease may have been increased by predisposing causes, such A PARTY AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. done, and the company retired. I have seen but few parties in Christian America conducted more on the principles of rationality and religion. A RUSSELL AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. In fair and honourable negotiations, regard is had to mutual rights; but here foreigners assume the style of tions are made of things existing in the laws and pracdictation "You shall, and you shall not;" and assertices of England and America, which neither Govern ment would tolerate. Lord Russell, the commander of the Acteon, a British man-of-war, obtained the signature to a certain instrument, by assuring the Hawaiian Government, that if they refused any longer to sign it, he would order all the English vessels to leave the harbour, and request all the American shipping to withdraw; and then bring his armed ship before their fort, and batter down the walls and prostrate their village. The King signed the instrument; and then he, together with the Queen and chiefs, like some other people who feel their feebleness before a mightier nation, had only the poor resort of a public remonstrance. They accordingly sent a remonstrace to the King of Great Britain; in which they say, that "on account of their urging us so strongly, on account of said com- the Federalists; and in several of its better articles manders assuring us that their communication was from their organ exhibits a worldly acumen with a largethe King, and on account of their making preparation to fire upon us, therefore we gave our assent to the less and justness of view, spiced by a measured sevewriting, without our being willing to give our real ap-rity, which reminds us of the Quarterly. Such espeprobation, for we were not pleased with it." They feel cially is a depreciatory but searching estimate of Miss incompetent to contend with naval strength, and there- Martineau; such, with less temptation to sarcasm, an fore submit to indignities from which their feelings re-able paper on Education, the principal basis of which volt. From the Spectator. AMERICAN PERIODICALS. is the volume of Mr. Wyse; and such is a sketch of the early American and Indian border wars, in a review of Stone's Life of Brandt. Dr. Lardner's book on the Steam-engine furnishes a text for a history of Steam Navigation, including some speculations in reference to the late voyages across the Atlantic; the "Remains of Bishop Sanford" is a workmanlike re Besides Mr. PARKER'S Exploring Tour, already noticed, we have received from Messrs. Wiley and Put-view of a publication that would not pay for reprintnam a lot of their importations. 1. History of the Revolution in Texas. By the Re verend C. NEWELL. 2. Conspiracy of the Spaniards against the Republic of Venice in 1618. Translated from the French of the Abbé ST. REAL. 3. The New York Review. No. V. July 1838. 4. The Knickerbocker; or New York Monthly Magazine. August 1838. 5. The American Monthly Magazine. August 1838. 1. As far as composition is concerned, the History of the Revolution in Texas may be pronounced a clear and rapid narrative of the different events which have attended that piratical outbreak; but the partialities of the author are so evident, that his conclusions cannot be relied on, and it may be questioned whether his facts are not coloured or distorted. Taking the story, however, as he tells it, it is quite clear that the revolution was a naked victory of might over right. Outcasts of all kinds obtruded themselves into the province in opposition to the fundamental colonization regulations of the Mexican Government; when they increased and waxed strong, they took up arms without even colourable pretexts, and at last proceeded to open war. Besides an account of the incidents and actors in these scenes, the Texan divine draws a flaming picture of the beauties and advantages of the new state; but the whole is so characterized by the spirit of a projector beating up for colonists, that we feel disposed to place little confidence in the statements. 2. The translation of St. Real's history is a puerile affair; literal but cramped, and chiefly remarkable as indicative of the state of the American demand for books. In England, those who would read the Conspiration contre Venise could read it in the original. 3. The New York Review is a quarterly publication; and, though occasionally dashed with the narrowness of provincialism and the rawness of youth, is a highly creditable specimen of American periodical literature. Its principles would seem to be those of ing in America; and "Gardiner's Music of Nature," though crude, has some incidental and gossipy matter of a pleasant kind. There are other papers of inferior merit, and (a good feature) a batch of short notices, distinguished by a higher tone of criticism than any thing of the kind done in England. 4. 5. There is nothing very particular in either of these publications, except as they furnish a specimen of American monthly periodical literature; and this appears to be somewhat after the fashion of our old magazines, being equally verbose and equally unreal. It may be noted as a sign of the times, that a strong though concealed feeling against the abuses of Ultra Democracy appears to be spreading amongst the intellectual. It may also be remarked, that there are no traces of nationality in any of these periodicals: not only is their form English, but the topics, the materials, and the very cast of thought, are European; and most of the books reviewed are importations. ADVERSITY. The chief misery of a sudden misfortune, is not the first blow, but the subsequent discoveries of the different ways in which it affects us, of the various prospects which are blasted, and of the multifarious points where we are crushed. An unexpected piece of good fortune brings, also, after it a train of delightful surprises. Prosperity has been called the "touchstone of greatness." Adversity, from our childhood, we are taught to expect; and lessons of endurance, fortitude, and consolation are poured upon us in a thousand forms, and at every stage of our existence. It bears, too, with itself, deep admonition, from which we cannot avert our ear-which we cannot disregard which we cannot forget. The wretched will always becomes a pupil in the school of philosophy and wisreflect; and the peasant, in a dungeon, unconsciously dom. Against prosperity we are rarely taught any precautions. We are accustomed to hope for it with an unmingled hope as a blessing which brings with it repose and sunshine, opportunities of enjoyment and of material of the soul; and, from the same alembic previrtue. Yet it is prosperity which shows the natural duces Caligula, Augustus, Nero, and Trajan. From the Spectator. STEPHENS' INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petræa, and the Holy Land. By GEORGE STEPHENS. New Edition, with Additions. In 2 vols. Bently. Familiar as we have become, through the medium of books and prints, with the colossal monuments of Egyptian grandeur and the interesting features of the Holy Land, countries that only twenty years ago would have made a traveller's reputation who visited them, but now overrun by holyday tourists,-these volumes will be read with pleasure, though they add but little to our stock of information. Mr. Stephens is a young American, one of the most agreeable we have met with in print; and his narrative owes its attraction to his personal character. With no more learning than falls to the lot of every well-educated man, and with no other clue than that afforded by the Scriptures to the track of the Israelites and the footsteps of the Messiah-aspiring not to the character of a scientific, a sentimental, or a book-making traveller (for the publication of his notes was unpremeditated) -he carries us along with him by the amusing character of the "incidents" of his journey, and the lively reality of his unassuming narrative; which has the freshness and autobiographical character of a journal, without its tediousness and fragmentary shape. Mr. Stephens's route from Alexandria to Cairo, and thence up the Nile to the Cataracts, is so far the beaten track of travellers; but in crossing the Desert, he struck out a new and almost untrodden path, that, since the departure of the children of Israel from "the house of bondage," had only been crossed by the wandering Arab. Under the protection and guidance of the Sheik of Akaba, who had come to Cairo to escort the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca across the Desert, our traveller went through the heart of the Desert to the Holy Land. From Suez he proceeded to Mount Sinai; and thence traversed the "great and terrible wilderness" to Petra, the Edom of the Scriptures, by Akaba, or Gaza; ascending to the tomb of Aaron on Mount Hor by the way, and passing through the whole length of the land of Idumea to Hebron. Neither Burckhardt, who first discovered Petra, nor either of the three different parties who have since at various intervals entered this city of the Desert, passed through Idumea: Burckhardt, who was the nearest to passing through the land, only glanced its borders; and the other travellers probably followed the track of the caravan, which skirts its edge. To Mr. Stephens belongs the privilege of boasting that he was the first modern to disturb the literal fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, who, in predicting the doom of Idumea, said, "None shall pass through it for ever and ever." This, conVOL. XXXIV.-NOVEMBER, 1838. 45 sidering the dangers and difficulties of the way, was no small feat to accomplish. All travellers give the Arabs of this region the worst of characters: Burckhardt himself acknowledges that here he first felt fear during his journey in the Desert. Mr. Stephens, however, escaped without being attacked or plundered by the Arabs, who seem, indeed, to be more formidable in appearance than reality: he came to regard their physical strength and warlike attributes with as much contempt as their moral qualities; and, being well armed and escorted, after a little acquaintance with their dark, scowling looks and predatory propensities, his chief apprehension was the annoyance of their clamorous demand for bucksheesh, a term answering to our word "largess." From Hebron, he again fell into the beaten way of travellers in the Holy Land; visiting Bethlehem and Jerusalem, seeing Jordan and the Dead Sea, and proceeding by Capernaum and Nazareth to Mount Carmel, and thence to Tyre and Sidon, where he sailed for Alexandria. One rare and excellent quality in Mr. Stephens is, that he never affects rapture he does not feel, nor works himself up into factitious enthusiasm at the sight of objects and places which might be expected to excite them. He is evidently sensible to impressions that the strangeness and grandeur of the monuments of man's greatness and littleness cannot fail to produce in every cultivated mind; and no pilgrim to the Holy Land ever felt a more sincere reverence for the associations which it awakens: but he has none of the cant of sentiment; when a thing disappoints him he says so; and he is "free to confess" when the romance of travel fades before its uncomfortable realities. In fact, a man who could not resist picking off a pigeon from a column of the Temple of Denderah, though his shot knocked out an eye of Isis whose head formed the capital-who unconsciously shot a partridge from the top of Sinai-and who woke the echoes of Mount Hor by firing a pistol into the tomb of Aaron to get a light-is not likely to sustain the reputation of a Eustace or a Delamartine. The imagination is not so easily evoked by the sight of a locality-a particular spot of ground, or a whole region, does not naturally awaken poetic or historical associations as by the inevitable process of cause and effect. Much depends on the frame of mind at the time, and that again on the bodily condition. Thebes, the city of temples, with its most vast and stupendous one of Carnac to which that of Luxor forms the portal, impresses by its overpowering magnificence, as the Pyramids do by their immensity, or the Acropolis of Athens by the symmetry and beauty of its architecture: the Desert, like the sea, is sublime; and Sinai is an imposing object in itself, stripped of all associations. The various places in the Holy Land, however, marked out by credulity and the rapacity of priestcraft as the identical spots where particular events occurred that are recorded in the Bible, seem more calculated to shock the devout and rational Christian, by the profanation of sacred associations to fanatical purposes, than to enkindle holy emotions within him. In contemplating a plot of earth, or a bit of stone, whether a relic of an individual or an event, the mind is pinned down to a material point; whereas, in ranging freely over the scene of past glories and greatness, the imagination has room to expand the very air seems redolent of them. It is, however, a useful, if a disappointing lesson, to learn from a survey of places famed in story, how much of their beauty and majesty is owing to our imagination: and this lesson Mr. Stephens, with his practical views of things, teaches very forcibly, though without doing violence to rational feelings of veneration for antiquity and sacredness. For instance, in thus bringing the Patriarchs bodily before us, by likening them to the present race of Arabs, while he strips the latter of the romance of a savage state, he does not abate one jot of our reverence for father Abraham. THE ARAB OF THE DESERT. "The Bedouins are essentially a pastoral people; their only riches are their flocks and herds, their home is in the wide desert, and they have no local attachments: to-day they pitch their tent among the mountains, to-morrow in the plain; and wherever they plant themselves for the time, all that they have on earth, wife, children, and friends, are immediately around them. In fact, the life of the Bedouin, his appearance and habits, are precisely the same as those of the patriarchs of old. Abraham himself, the first of the patriarchs, was a Bedouin; and four thousand years have not made the slightest alteration in the character and habits of this extraordinary people. Read of the patriarchs in the Bible, and it is the best description you can have of pastoral life in the East at the present day. the details were such as to destroy for ever all its poetry, and take away all relish for patriarchal feasts. While we were taking coffee, the lamb lay bleating in our ears, as if conscious of its coming fate. The coffee drunk and the pipe smoked, our host arose, and laid his hand upon the victim: the long sword which he wore over his shoulder was quickly drawn; one man held the head, and another the hind legs; and, with a rapidity almost inconceivable, it was killed and dressed, and its smoking entrails, yet curling with life, were broiling on the fire. * * * "One by one I had seen the many illusions of my waking dreams fade away, the gorgeous pictures of Oriental scenes melt into nothing, but I had still clung of the desert, their temperance and abstinence, their to the primitive simplicity and purity of the children contented poverty and contempt for luxuries, as approaching the true nobility of man's nature, and sustaining the poetry of the land of the East.' But my wanderers of the desert any traits of character or any last dream was broken; and I never saw among the habits of life which did not make me prize and value more the privileges of civilization. I had been more than a month alone with the Bedouins; and, to say nothing of their manners,-excluding women from all companionship, dipping their fingers up to their knuckles in the same dish, eating sheep's insides, and sleeptheir filthy habits, their temperance and frugality are ing under tents crawling with vermin engendered by from necessity, not from choice; for in their nature they are gluttonous, and will eat at any time till they are gorged of whatever they can get, and then lie down and sleep like brutes. * * free from the reproach of civilized life-the love of "One might expect to find these children of Nature gold. But, fellow-citizens and fellow-worshipers of mammon, hold up your heads, this reproach must not be confined to you! with which a Bedouin looks upon silver or gold. When "I never saw any thing like the expression of face he asks for bucksheesh, and receives the glittering metal, his eyes sparkle with wild delight, his fingers clutch it with eager rapacity, and he skulks away like the miser to count it over alone and hide it from all other eyes." The following correction of an erroneous notion about the difference between the camel and dromedary is curious: but the explanation looks very like what the author suspects it to be-an Arab hoax. THE HUMP OF THE CAMEL AND DROMEDARY. The woman whom we had pursued belonged to the tent of a Bedouin not far from our road, but completely hidden from our view; and when overtaken by Toualeb, she recognised in him a friend of her tribe, and in the same spirit, and almost in the same words which would have been used by her ancestors four thousand years ago, she asked us to her tent, and promised us a lamb or a kid for supper. Her husband was stretched on the ground in front of his tent, and welcomed us with an air and manner that belonged to the Desert, but which "I had a long discourse about the difference between a king on his throne could not have excelled. He was the camel and the dromedary. Buffon gives the camel the embodied personification of all my conceptions of a two humps, and the dromedary one; and this, I believe, patriarch. A large loose frock, a striped handkerchief is the received opinion, as it had always been mine; on his head, bare legs, sandals on his feet, and a long but, since I had been in the East, I had remarked that white beard, formed the outward man. Almost imme- it was exceedingly rare to meet a camel with two diately after we were seated, he took his shepherd's humps. I had seen together at one time, on the startcrook, and, assisted by his son, selected a lamb from ing of the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, perhaps twenthe flock for the evening meal: and now I would fain ty thousand camels and dromedaries, and had not seen prolong the illusion of this pastoral scene. To stop at among them more than half-a-dozen with two humps. the door of an Arab's tent, and partake with him of a Not satisfied with any explanation from European resilamb or a kid prepared by his hospitable hands, all sit-dents or travellers, I had inquired among the Bedouins; ting together on the ground, and provided with no other implements than those which Nature gave us, is a picture of primitive and captivating simplicity; but and Toualeb, my old guide, brought up among camels, had given such a strange account that I never paid any regard to it. Now, however, the sheik told me the |