Chapter II (2)

The citadel of Cairo has a melancholy and memorable name, from the horrid massacre of the Mamelukes in 1811, when four hundred and seventy of those showy soldiers were murdered, and but one escaped by leaping his horse from the battlements. The horse was killed; the man is now a bey in the Pasha's service. The citadel stands on a hill, and contains the Pasha's palace, a harem, a council-hall, police-offices, and a large square, where the massacre was perpetrated. The view from the windows of the palace is superb. Cairo is seen immediately beneath, skirted by gardens on the right. Beyond those the mosques of the caliphs, and as far as the eye can reach, the Arabian desert. In front is the Nile, a silver stream, covered with sails of every description, till it is lost in the groves of the Delta. The ports of Boulac and old Cairo, with numerous villages, stud its banks, and from its bosom rise verdant islands. To the left, the Nile is still visible, and beyond are seen the Pyramids, which, though twelve miles off, appear quite close, from the transparency of the air. In the citadel is also a mosque, now building by the order of the Pasha. It is constructed of Oriental alabaster, is of great size, already exhibits fine taste, and promises to be one of the most beautiful structures in Egypt. But the Pasha has not yet attained the European improvement of lamps in the streets. After nightfall, the only light is from the shops, which, when they close, leave the street in utter darkness. However, most of the pedestrians carry lamps with them. How does it happen that no gas company has taken pity upon this Egyptian darkness, and saved the Cairans from the chance of having their throats cut, or at least their bones broken; for during the summer a considerable portion of the poorer population sleep in the streets? Still the Pasha is a man of taste, fond of living in gardens, and sensible enough to have the garden of his favourite palace at Shoobra laid out by a Scotch gardener. He used to reside a great deal there, but now chiefly lives, when at Cairo, in the house of his daughter, a widow, where his apartments are in the European style. Nothing surprises a European traveller more than the people themselves; and no problem can seem more mysterious than the means by which they are enabled to supply so much expensive costume. The Egyptian gentleman seems to want for nothing, wherever they find the money to pay for it. Fine houses, fine furniture, fine horses, and fine clothes, seem to be constantly at the command of a crowd who have nothing to do, who produce nothing, and yet seem to have every thing. The Egyptian or Turkish lady is an absolute bale of costly clothing--the more breadths of silk they carry about them the better. Before leaving her home, she puts over her house costume a large loose robe called a _tob_, made of silk or satin, and always of some gay colour, pink, yellow, red, or violet. She next puts on her face veil, a long strip of the finest white muslin, often exquisitely embroidered. It is fastened just between the eyes, conceals all the other features, and reaches to the feet. She next envelopes herself in large cloak of rich black silk, tied round the head by a piece of narrow riband. Her costume is completed by trousers of silk gauze, and yellow morocco boots, which reach a considerable way up the legs. How any human being can bear such a heap of clothing, especially under the fiery sun and hot winds of Egypt, is to us inconceivable. It must melt all vigour out of the body, and all life out of the soul; but it is the fashion, and fashion works its wonders in Egypt as well as elsewhere. The veil across the mouth, in a climate where every breath of fresh air is precious, must be but a slower kind of strangulation. But the preparative for a public appearance is not yet complete. Women of condition never walk. They ride upon a donkey handsomely caparisoned, sitting astride upon a high and broad saddle, covered with a rich Turkey carpet. They ride with stirrups, but they never hold the reins; their hands are busy in keeping down their cloaks. A servant leads the donkey by the bridle. Their figures, when thus in motion, are the most preposterous things imaginable. Huge as they are, the wind, which has no respect for persons, gets under their cloaks, and blows them up to three times their natural size. Those are the ladies of Egypt; the lower orders imitate this absurdity and extravagance as far as they can, and with their face veils, the most frightful things possible, shuffle through the streets like strings of spectres. Poverty and labour may by possibility keep the lower ranks in health; but how the higher among the females can retain health, between their want of exercise, their full feeding, their hot baths, and this perpetual hot bath of clothing, defies all rational conjecture. The Egyptians of all ranks are terribly afraid of what they call the evil eye, and stifle themselves and children in all kinds of rags to avoid being bewitched. The peasants are a fine-looking, strong-bodied race of men; but many of them are met blind of an eye. This is attributed to the reluctance to be soldiers for the glory of the Pasha. But Mohammed Ali was not to be thus tricked, and he raised a regiment of one-eyed men. In other instances they are said to have knocked out the fore-teeth to avoid biting a cartridge, or to have cut off a joint of the first finger to prevent their drawing a trigger. Even thus they are not able to escape the cunning Pasha. But this shows the natural horror of the conscription; and we are not surprised that men should adopt any expedient to escape so great a curse and scandal to society. It is extraordinary that in this 19th century, even of the Christian world, such an abomination should be suffered to exist in Europe. It is equally extraordinary that it exists in every country but England, and she can have no prouder distinction. The habeas-corpus and her free enlistment, are two privileges without which no real liberty can ever exist, and which, in any country, it would be well worth a revolution, or ten revolutions, to obtain. Hers is the only army into which no man can be forced, and in which every man is a volunteer. And yet she has never wanted soldiers, and her soldiers have never fought the worse. It is true, that when she has a militia they are drawn by ballot from the population; but no militiaman is ever sent out of the country; and as to those who are drawn, if they feel disinclined to serve in this force, which acts merely as a national guard, ten shillings will find a substitute at any time. It is also true that England has impressment for the navy; but the man who makes the sea his livelihood, adopts his profession voluntarily, and with the knowledge that at some time or other he may be called upon to serve in the royal navy. And even impressment is never adopted but on those extreme emergencies which can seldom happen, and which may never happen again in the life of man. But on the Continent, every man except the clergy, and those in the employment of the state, is liable to be dragged to the field, let his prospects or his propensities be what they may. In every instance of war, parents look to their children with terror as they grow up to the military age. The army is a national curse, and parental feelings are a perpetual source of affliction. If the great body of the people in Europe, instead of clamouring for imaginary rights, and talking nonsense about constitutions, which they have neither the skill to construct, nor would find worth the possession if they had them, would concentrate their claims in a demand for the habeas-corpus, and the abolition of the conscription, they would relieve themselves from the two heaviest burdens of despotism, and obtain for themselves the two highest advantages of genuine liberty.

One of the curiosities of Cairo is the hair-oil bazar. The Egyptian women are prodigious hairdressers and the variety of perfumes which they lavish upon their hair and persons, exceed all European custom and calculation. This bazar is all scents, oil, and gold braids for the hair. It is nearly half a mile long. The odour, or the mixture of odours, may well be presumed to be overpowering, when every other shop is devoted to scented bottles--the intervening ones, containing perfumed head-dresses, formed of braids of ribands and gold lace, which descend to the ground. A warehouse of Turkish tables exhibited the luxurious ingenuity of the workers in mother-of-pearl. They were richly wrought in gold and silver ornaments. Within seven miles of Cairo, there still exists a wonder of the old time, which must have made a great figure in the Arab legends--a petrified forest lying in the desert, and which, to complete the wonder, it is evident must have been petrified while still standing. The trees are now lying on the ground, many of the trunks forty feet long, with their branches beside them, all of stone, and evidently shattered by the fall. Cairo, too, has its hospital for lunatics; but this is a terrible scene. The unfortunate inmates are chained and caged, and look like wild beasts, with just enough of the human aspect left to make the scene terrible. A reform here would be well worth the interference of European humanity. We wish that the Hanwell Asylum would send a deputation with Dr Connolly at its head to the Pasha. No man is more open to reason than Mohammed Ali, and the European treatment of lunatics, transferred to an Egyptian dungeon, would be one of the best triumphs of active humanity.

The travellers at length left Cairo, and embarked on board Mills and Company's steam-boat, named the Jack o' Lantern. It seemed to be merely one of the common boats that ply on the river, with the addition of a boiler and paddles, and is probably the smallest steamer extant. However, when they entered the cabin upon the deck, they found every thing nicely arranged and began to think better of their little vessel. They had another advantage in its smallness, as the Nile was now so low that numbers of vessels lay aground, and a large steamer would probably have been unable to make the passage. The river seemed quite alive with many-formed and many-coloured boats. Their picturesque sails, crossing each other, made them at a distance look almost like butterflies skimming over the water. The little steamer drew only two feet and a half of water. She is jestingly described as of two and a half Cairo donkey power. About six miles from Boulac, they passed under the walls of Shoobra palace and gardens. Its groves form a striking object, and its interior, cultivated by Greek gardeners, is an earthly Mahometan paradise. It has bower-covered walks, gardens carpeted with flowers, ever-flowing fountains, and a lake on which the luxurious Pasha is rowed by the ladies of his harem. The Nile winds in the most extraordinary manner across the tongues of land; boats and sails are seen close, which are in reality a mile further down the stream. The banks were high above the boat, through the present shallowness of the river. They were chiefly of brown clay, and were frequently cut into chasms for the purposes of irrigation. As they shot along, they saw large tracts covered with cotton, wheat, Indian corn, and other crops. Date-trees in abundance, the leaves large and like those of the cocoa, the fruit hanging in large clusters, when ripe of a bright red. Water-melons cultivated every where, often on the sandy banks of the river itself, three or four times the size of a man's head, and absolutely loading the beds. Numbers of the Egyptian villages were seen in the navigation of the river. The houses are huddled together, are of unbaked clay, and look like so many bee-hives. Every village has its date-trees, and every hut has pigeons. The peasants in general seem intolerably indolent, and groups of them are every where lying under the trees. Herds of fine buffaloes, twice the size of those in Ceylon, were seen along the shore, and sometimes swimming the river. Groups of magnificent cattle, larger and finer than even our best English breed, were driven occasionally to water at the river side. The Egyptian boats come to an anchor every night; but the Jack o' Lantern dashed on, and by daybreak reached the entrance of the Mahoudiah Canal, on which a track-boat carries passengers to Alexandria. A high mound of earth here separates the canal from the Nile, which flows on towards Rosetta. This embankment is about forty feet wide. Some of Mrs Griffith's observations are at least sufficiently expressive; for example:--"All the children, and some past the age of what are usually styled little children, were running about entirely devoid of clothing. We observed a great deal of this in Egypt. _Men_ are often seen in the same condition; and the women of the lower orders, having concealed their heads and faces, appear to think they have done _all that is necessary_." This is certainly telling a good deal; nothing more explicit could be required. The track-boats are odious conveyances, long and narrow, and the present one very dirty, and swarming with cockroaches. They were towed by three horses, ridden by three men. In England one would have answered the purpose. The Canal itself is an extraordinary work, worthy of the country of the Pyramids, and one of the prodigies which despotism sometimes exhibits when the iron sceptre is combined with a vigorous intellect. It is ninety feet wide and forty-eight miles long, and yet was completed in six weeks. But it took the labour of 250,000 men, who worked, if the story be true, night and day. Along the canal were seen several large encampments of troops, rather rough instruments, it is true, for polishing African savagery into usefulness, but perhaps the only means by which great things could have been done in so short a period as the reign of Mohammed Ali. An Italian fellow-passenger, who had resided in Egypt twenty-five years, gave it as the result of his experience, that without the strong hand of power, the population would do nothing. Bread and onions being their food, when those were obtained they had got all that they asked for. They would leave their fruitful land to barrenness, and would prefer sleeping under their trees, to the simplest operation of agriculture in a soil that never requires the plough. Yet they are singularly tenacious of their money, and often bury it, keeping their secret to the last. The Italian told them that he was once witness to a scene exactly in point. He accompanied the tax-gatherer to a miserable village, where they entered one of the most miserable huts. The tax-gatherer demanded his due, the Egyptian fell at his feet, protesting that his family were starving, and that he had not a single coin to buy bread. The tax-gatherer, finding him impracticable, ordered some of his followers to give him a certain number of stripes. The peasant writhed under the stripes, but continued his tale. The beating was renewed on two days more, when the Italian interfered and implored mercy. But the officer said that he must continue to flog, as he was certain that the money would come forth at last. After six days' castigation, the peasant's patience could hold out no longer. He dug a hole in the floor of his hut, and exhibited gold and silver to a large amount.

All this may be true; but it would be an injustice to human nature to suppose that man, in any country, would prefer dirt, poverty, and idleness, to comfort, activity, and employment, where he could be sure of possessing the fruits of his labours. But where the unfortunate peasant is liable to see his whole crop carried off the land at the pleasure of one of the public officers, or the land itself torn from him, or himself or his son carried off by the conscription, how can we be surprised if he should think it not worth the while to trouble his head or his hands about any thing? Give him security, and he will work; give him property, and he will keep it; and give him the power of enjoying his gains in defiance of the tax-gatherer, and he will exhibit the manliness and perseverance which Providence has given to all. Whether even the famous Pasha is not still too much of a Turk to venture on an experiment which was never heard of in the land of a Mahometan before, must be a matter more for the prophet than the politician; but Egypt, so long the most abject of nations, and the perpetual slave of a stranger, seems rapidly approaching to European civilization, and by her association with Englishmen, and her English alliance, may yet be prepared to take a high place among the regenerated governments of the world.

The road from the termination of the canal to Alexandria, about two miles long, leads through a desert track. At last the Mediterranean bursts upon the eye. In front rise Pompey's stately and well-known pillar, and Cleopatra's needle. High sand-banks still intercept the view of Alexandria. At length the gates are passed, a dusty avenue is traversed, the great square is reached, and the English hotel receives the travellers. Mahometanism is now left behind, for Alexandria is comparatively an European capital. All the houses surrounding the great square, including the dwellings of the consuls, have been built within the last ten years by Ibrahim Pasha, who, prince and heir to the throne as he is, here performs the part of a speculative builder, and lets out his houses to Europeans. These houses are built as regularly as those in Park Crescent, and are two stories high above the Porte Cochère. They all have French windows with green Venetian shutters, and the whole appearance is completely European. The likeness is sustained by carriages of every description, filled with smartly dressed women, driving through all the streets--a sight never seen at Cairo, for the generality of the streets are scarcely wide enough for the passage of donkeys. But the population is still motley and Asiatic. Turbans, caps, and the scarlet fez, loose gowns, and embroidered trousers, make the streets picturesque. On the other hand, crowds of Europeans, tourists, merchants, and tailors, are to be seen mingling with the Asiatics; and the effect is singularly varied and animated.

The pageant of the French consul-general going to pay his respects to the Viceroy, exhibited one of the shows of the place. First came a number of officers of state, in embroidered jackets of black cachmere, ornamented gaiters, and red morocco shoes. Each wore a cimeter, an essential part of official costume. Next followed a fine brass band; after them came a large body of infantry in three divisions, the whole in heavy marching order. Their discipline and general appearance were striking; they wore the summer dress, consisting of a white cotton jacket and trousers, with red cloth skull-caps, and carried their cartouche-boxes, cross-belts, and fire-locks in the European manner. The next feature, and the prettiest, consisted of the Pasha's led horses, in number about eighteen, all beautiful little Arabs, caparisoned with crimson and black velvet, and cloth of gold. We repeat the description of one, for the sake of tantalizing our European readers with the Egyptian taste in housings. "The animal was a chestnut horse, of perfect form and action. His saddle was of crimson velvet, thickly ribbed by gold embroidery. His saddle-cloth was entirely of cloth of gold, embossed with bullion, and studded with large gems; jewelled pistols were seen in the holsters; the head-piece was variegated red, green, and blue; embroidered and golden tassels hung from every part." But the European portion of the scene by no means corresponded to the Oriental display. The French consul followed in a barouche and pair, with his _attachés_ and attendants in carriages; but the whole were mean-looking. The French court-dress, or any court-dress, must appear contemptible in its contrast with the stateliness of this people of silks and shawls, jewelled weapons, and cloth of gold.

Mohammed Ali is, after all, the true wonder of Egypt. A Turk without a single prejudice of the Turk--an Oriental eager for the adoption of all the knowledge, the arts, and the comforts of Europe--a Mahometan allowing perfect religious toleration, and a despot moderating his despotism by the manliest zeal for the prosperity of his country; he has already raised himself to a reputation far beyond the rank of his sovereignty, and will live in the memories of men, whenever they quote the names of those who, rising above all the difficulties of their original position, have proved their title to the mastery of nations.

The Pasha affected nothing of the usual privacy, or even of the usual pomp, of rajahs and sultans. He was constantly seen driving through Alexandria, in a low berlin with four horses. The berlin was lined with crimson silk, and there, squatting on one of the low broad seats, sat the Viceroy. Two of his officers generally sat opposite to him, and by his side his grandson--a handsome child between eight and nine years old, of whom he seems remarkably fond. Like so many other eminent men, his stature is below the middle size. His countenance is singularly intelligent, his nose aquiline, and his eye quick and penetrating. He does not take the trouble to dye his beard, as is the custom among Orientalists. He wears it long and thick, and in all its snows. Years have so little affected him, that he is regarded as a better life than his son Ibrahim--his general, and confessedly a man of ability. But his second son, Said Pasha, the half brother of Ibrahim, is regarded as especially inheriting the talents of his father. He is an accomplished man, speaks English and French fluently, seems to enter into his father's views with great intelligence, and exhibits a manliness and ardour of character which augur well for his country. But the appearance of the Pasha is not without its attendant state. In front of his berlin ride a number of attendants, caracoling in all directions. Behind the carriage rides his express, mounted on a dromedary, in readiness to start with despatches. The express is followed by his pipe-bearer; the pipe-bearer followed by a servant mounted on a mule, and carrying the light for the Pasha's pipe. The cavalcade is closed by a troop of the officers in waiting, mounted on showy horses.

At length the day of parting arrived, and the travellers embarked on board the Tagus steamer. The view of Alexandria from the sea is stately. A forest of masts, a quay of handsome houses, and the viceroyal palace forming one side of the harbour, tell the stranger that he is approaching the seat of sovereignty. The sea was rough, but of the bright blue of the Mediterranean, and the steamer cut swiftly through the waves. The vessel was clean and well arranged, the weather was fine, and the travellers began to feel the freshness and elasticity of European air. At length they arrived at Malta, and heard for the first time for years, the striking of clocks and the ringing of church-bells. They were at length in Europe. But there is one penalty on the return from the East, which always puts the stranger in ill-humour. They were compelled to perform quarantine. This was intolerably tedious, expensive, and wearisome; yet all things come to an end at last, and, after about a fortnight, they were set at liberty.

Malta, in its soil and climate, belongs to Africa--in its population, perhaps to Italy--in its garrison and commerce, to Europe--and in its manners and habits, to the East. It is a medley of the three quarters of the Old World; and, for the time, a medley of the most curious description. The native carriages, peasant dresses, shops, furniture of the houses, and even the houses themselves, are wholly unlike any thing that has before met the English eye. Malta, in point of religious observances, is like what St Paul said of Athens--it is overwhelmingly pious. The church-bells are tolling all day long. Wherever it is possible, the cultivation of the ground exhibits the industry of the people. Every spot where earth can be found, is covered with some species of produce. Large tracts are employed in the cultivation of the cotton plant--fruit-trees fill the soil--the fig-tree is luxuriant--pomegranate, peach, apple, and plum, are singularly productive. Vines cover the walls, and the Maltese oranges have a European reputation. The British possession of Malta originated in one of those singular events by which short-sightedness and rapine are often made their own punishers. The importance of Malta, as a naval station, had long been obvious to England; and when, in the revolutionary war, the chief hostilities of the war were transferred to the Mediterranean, its value as a harbour for the English fleets became incalculable. Yet it was still in possession of the knights; and, so far as England was concerned, it might have remained in their hands for ever. A national sense of justice would have prevented the seizure of the island, however inadequate to defend itself against the navy of England. But Napoleon had no such scruples. In his expedition to Egypt, he threw a body of troops on shore at Malta; and, having either frightened or bribed its masters, or perhaps both, plundered the churches of their plate, turned out the knights, and left the island in possession of a French garrison. Nothing could be less sagacious and less statesmanlike than this act; for, by extinguishing the neutrality of the island, he exposed it to an immediate blockade by the English. The result was exactly what he ought to have foreseen. An English squadron was immediately dispatched to summon the island; it eventually fell into the hands of the English, and now seems destined to remain in English hands so long as we have a ship in the Mediterranean. Malta is a prodigiously pious place, according to the Maltese conception of piety. Masses are going on without intermission--they fast twice a-week--religious processions are constantly passing--priests are continually seen in the streets, carrying the Host to the sick or dying. When the ceremonial is performed within the house, some of the choristers generally remain kneeling outside, and are joined by the passers-by. Thus crowds of people are often to be seen kneeling in the streets. The Virgin, of course, is the chief object of worship; for, nothing can be more true than the expression, that for one prayer to the Deity there are ten to the Virgin; and confession, at once the most childish and the most perilous of all practices, is regarded as so essential, that those who cannot produce a certificate from the priest of their having confessed, at least once in the year, are excluded from the sacrament by an act of the severest spiritual tyranny; and, if they should die thus excluded, their funeral service will not be performed by the priest--an act which implies a punishment beyond the grave. And yet the morals of the Maltese certainly derive no superiority from either the priestly influence or the personal mortification.

The travellers now embarked on board the Neapolitan steamer, Ercolano--bade adieu to Malta, and swept along the shore of Sicily. Syracuse still exhibits, in the beauty of its landscape, and the commanding nature of its situation, the taste of the Greeks in selecting the sites of their cities. The land is still covered with noble ruins, and the antiquarian might find a boundless field of interest and knowledge. Catania, which was destroyed about two centuries ago, at once by an earthquake and an eruption, is seated in a country of still more striking beauty. The appearance of the city from the sea is of the most picturesque order. It looks almost encircled by the lava which once wrought such formidable devastation. But the plain is bounded by verdant mountains, looking down on a lovely extent of orange and olive groves, vineyards, and cornfields. But the grand feature of the landscape, and the world has nothing nobler, is the colossal Etna; its lower circle covered with vegetation--its centre belted with forests--its summit covered with snow--and, above all, a crown of cloud, which so often turns into a cloud of flame. The travellers were fortunate in seeing this showy city under its most showy aspect. It was a gala-day in Catania; flags were flying on all sides--fireworks and illuminations were preparing--an altar was erected on the Cave, and all the world were in their holiday costume. As the evening approached the scene became still more brilliant, for the fireworks and illuminations then began to have their effect. The evening was soft and Italian, the air pure, and the sky without a cloud. From the water, the scene was fantastically beautiful; the huge altar erected on the shore, was now a blaze of light; the range of buildings, as they ascended from the shore, glittered like diamonds in the distance. Fireworks, in great abundance and variety, flashed about; and instrumental bands filled the night air with harmony. The equipages which filled the streets were in general elegant, and lined with silk; the dresses of the principal inhabitants were in the highest fashion, and all looked perfectly at their ease, and some looked even splendid. A remark is made, that this display of wealth is surprising in what must be regarded as a provincial town. But this remark may be extended to the whole south of Italy. It is a matter of real difficulty to conceive how the Italians contrive to keep up any thing approaching to the appearance which they make, in their Corsos, and on their feast-days. Without mines to support them, as the Spaniards were once supported; without colonies to bring them wealth; without manufactures, and without commerce, how they contrive to sustain a life of utter indolence, yet, at the same time, of considerable display, is a curious problem. It is true, that many of them have places at court, and flourish on sinecures; it is equally true, that their manner of living at home is generally penurious in the extreme; it is also true that gaming, and other arts not an atom more respectable, are customary to supply this yawning life. Yet still, how the majority can exist at all, is a natural question which it must require a deep insight into the mysteries of Italian existence to solve. Whatever may be the secret, the less Englishmen know on these subjects the better; communion with foreign habits only deteriorates the integrity and purity of our own. On the Continent, vice is systematized--virtue is scarcely more than a name; and no worse intelligence has long reached us than the calculation just published in the foreign newspapers, that there were 40,000 English now residing in France, and 4000 English families in that especial sink of superstition and profligacy, Italy.

The sail from the Sicilian straits to Naples is picturesque. The Liparis, with their volcanic summits, on one side--the Calabrian highlands, on the other--a succession of rich mountains, clothed with all kinds of verdure, and of the finest forms; and around, the perpetual beauty of the Mediterranean. The travellers hove to at Pizza, in the gulf of Euphania, the shore memorable for the gallant engagement in which the English troops under Stuart, utterly routed the French under Regnier--a battle which made the name of Maida immortal. Pizza has obtained a melancholy notoriety by the death of Murat, who was shot by order of a court-martial, as an invader and rebel, in October 1815. Murat's personal intrepidity, and even his _fanfaronade_, excited an interest for him in Europe. But he was a wild, rash, and reckless instrument of Napoleon's furious and remorseless policy; the commandant of the French army in Spain in 1808 could not complain of military vengeance; and his death by the hands of the royal troops only relieved Europe of the boldest disturber among the fallen followers of the great usurper.

The finest view of Naples is the one which the mob of tourists see the last. Its approaches by land are all imperfect--the city is to be seen only from the bay. Floating on the waters which form the most lovely of all foregrounds, a vast sheet of crystal, a boundless mirror, a tissue of purple, or any other of the fanciful names which the various hues and aspects of the hour give to this renowned bay, the view comprehends the city, the surrounding country, Posilipo on the left, Vesuvius on the right, and between them a region of vineyards and vegetation, as poetic and luxuriant as poet or painter could desire.

The wonders of Pompeii are no longer wonders, and people go to see them with something of the same spirit in which the citizens of London saunter to Primrose hill. It was a beggarly little place from the beginning; and the true wonder is, how it could ever have found inhabitants, or how the inhabitants could ever have found room to eat, drink, and sleep in. But Herculaneum is of a higher rank. If the Neapolitan Government had any spirit, it would demolish the miserable villages above it, and lay open this fine old monument of the cleverest, though the most corrupt people of the earth, to the light of day. In all probability we should learn from it more of the real state of the arts, the manners, and the feelings of the Greek, partially modified by his Italian colonization, than by any other record or memorial in existence. In those vaults which still remain closed, owing to the indolence or stupidity of the existing generation, eaten up as it is by monkery, and spending more upon a _fête_ to the Madonna, or the liquifying of St Januarius's blood, than would lay open half the city, there is every probability that some of the most important literature of antiquity still lies buried. Why will not some English company, tired of railroad speculations and American stock, turn its discharge on Herculaneum, pour its gold over the ground, exfoliate the city of the dead, recover its statues, bronzes, frescoes, and mosaics, transplant them to Tower Stairs, and sell them by the hands of George Robins, for the benefit of the rising generation? This seems their only chance of revisiting the light of day; for the money of all foreign sovereigns goes in fêtes and fireworks, new patterns of soldiers' caps, and new costumes for the maids of honour.

We have now glanced over the general features of these volumes. They are light and lively, and do credit to the writer's powers of observation. The result of his details, however, is to impress on our minds, that the "overland passage" is not yet fit for any female who is not inclined to "rough it" in an extraordinary degree. To any woman it offers great hardships; but to a woman of delicacy, the whole must be singularly repulsive. Something is said of the decorations of the work proceeding from the pencil of the lady's husband. Whether the lithographer has done injustice to them, we know not; but they seem to us the very reverse of decoration. The adoption, too, of new modes of spelling the Oriental names, is wholly unnecessary. Harem, turned into Hharéem--Dervish into Derwéesh--Mameluke into Memlook, give no new ideas, and only add perplexity to our knowledge of the name. These words, with a crowd of others, have already been fixed in English orthography by their natural pronunciation; and the attempt to change them always renders their pronunciation--which is, after all, the only important point--less true to the original. On the whole, the "overland passage" seems to require immense improvements. But we live in hope; English sagacity and English perseverance will do much any where; and in Egypt they have for their field one of the most important regions of the world.

MESMERISM.

"They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons
to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and
causeless."--_All's Well that Ends Well, Act II., Scene 3._

From the many crude, illiterate, and unphilosophical speculations on the subject of mesmerism which the present unwholesome activity of the printing-press has ushered into the world, there is one book which stands out in prominent and ornamental relief--a book written by a member of the Church of England, a scholar and a gentleman; and the influence of which, either for good or for harm, is not likely to be ephemeral. Few, even of the most incredulous, can read with attention the first half of "Facts in Mesmerism, by the Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend," of which a second edition has recently appeared, without being staggered. The author leads the reader up a gentle slope, from facts abnormal, it is true, but not contradictory to received notions, to others deviating a little more from ordinary experience; and thence, by a course of calm narrative, to still more anomalous incidents; until at length, almost unconsciously, the incredible seems credible, impossibilities and possibilities are confounded, and miracles are no longer miraculous.

There is much difficulty in dealing with such a book; gentlemanly courtesy, which should grant what it would demand, and an unavoidable faith in the purity of the author's intentions, entirely prevent our treating it as the work of an empiric. It is evident that the author believes what he writes, that the facts in mesmerism are facts to him; to those unprepared by previous experience for the fallacies which the enthusiastic temperament is led into, the book would be irresistible; to those, however, accustomed to physical or phsycological investigation, the last half of the work does much to unravel the web which the first half has been engaged in weaving. When the author departs from the narrative of facts, and endeavours to render those facts consistent with reason and experience, we see the one-sided bias of his mind--we see that he is not a judge but an advocate; and the faith which we should repose on the circumstantial narrative of a gentleman, becomes changed into the courtesy with which we listen to an honourable but deceived enthusiast.

If the utilitarian school has done harm by its hasty attempts to reduce every thing to rule and to the dominion of human reason, no stronger proof than this book need be given of the evils to which the opposite extreme of transcendental philosophy has given rise. As an instance of the fallacies to which one-sided philosophic views may lead, Mr Townshend says, that if asked of what use is the eye if we can see without it, he might answer, "To show us how to make a camera obscura." The case is put illustratively, and we are far from wishing to take it literally to the author's disadvantage; but, in setting at nought the ordinary and sufficient reasoning on this subject, the author himself is obliged to adopt a similar but weaker line of argument. Unfortunate it is, that even in philosophy the judicial character is so rare; it is vainly imagined that error may be counteracted by antagonist error; and because neutrality is too often the companion of impotence, impartiality is supposed to be synonymous with neutrality.

It will be seen from the above, that Mr Townshend has failed to convince us that all the "facts in mesmerism" are facts; and certainly if he has failed, the herd of peripatetic lecturers[3] on the so-called science are not likely to have succeeded; but, although unconvinced of the marvellous, we are by no means indisposed to believe some of the abnormal phenomena of mesmerism. We have witnessed several mesmeric exhibitions--we have never seen any effect produced which was contradictory to the possible of human experience, in which collusion or delusion was fairly negatived. We insist on our right to doubt, to disbelieve. The more startling the proposition, the more rigorous should be the proof; we have never seen the tests which are applied to the most trifling novelty in physical science applied to mesmeric _clairvoyance_, and withstood. The advocates of it challenge enquiry in print, but they shrink from, or sink under, experiment.

In endeavouring to analyse the work before us, and to examine generally the phenomena of mesmerism, we shall do our utmost to avoid the vices of partial advocacy which we censure; we moreover agree with Mr Townshend, that ridicule is not the weapon to be used. Satire, when on the side of the majority, is persecution; it is striking from a vantage ground--fair, perhaps, when the individual contends with the mass, as when an author writes to expose the fallacies of social fashion; but unfair, and very frequently unsuccessful, when directed against partially developed truths, or even against such phenomena as we believe mesmerism presents, viz. novel and curious psychical truths, o'erclouded with the dense errors of sometimes enthusiasm, sometimes knavery. We shall soberly examine the subject, because we think that much good may be done by its investigation. The really skilful and judicious steer clear of it from a fear of compromising their credit for commonsense; and while the caution necessarily attendant upon habitual scientific studies, dissuades the best men from meddling with that which may blight their hardly-earned laurels, the public is left to be swayed to and fro by an under-current of fallacious half-truths, far more seductive and dangerous than absolute falsehoods. We cannot undertake to say, thus far is true, and thus far false;--to mark out the actual limits of true mesmeric phenomena, demands the very difficult and detailed enquiries which, for the reasons just mentioned, have been hitherto withheld;--but we think we shall be able to succeed in showing, that, though there be much error, there is some truth, and truth of sufficient importance to merit a calm and careful investigation.

We may class the phenomena of mesmerism, as asserted by its professors, as follows:--

1st. Sleep, or coma, induced by external agency, (partly mental,
partly physical.)

2d. Somnambulism, or, as called by Mr Townshend, sleep-waking;
_i.e._ certain faculties rendered torpid while others are
sensitive.

3d. Insensibility to pain and other external _stimuli_.

4th. Physical attraction to the mesmeriser, and repulsion from
others; community of sensation with the mesmeriser.

5th. Clairvoyance, or the power of perception without the use of
the usual organs; and second-sight, or the power of prediction
respecting the mesmeric state and remedial agencies.

6th. Phreno-mesmerism, or the connexion between phrenology and
mesmerism.

7th. Curative effects.

We believe these categories will include all the leading phenomena of mesmerism. We purpose to give instances of these, partly derived from our own experience, and partly from the book of Mr Townshend, or other the best sources to which we can have recourse; to state fearlessly what we believe may be true, and what we entirely disbelieve; and then to examine the arguments by which the reason of the public has been assailed, and in many cases rendered captive.

First, then, as to the power of induced coma, we will relate an instance which came under our own observation, and which serves to demonstrate that a power may be exercised by one human being over another which will produce a comatose or cataleptic state. In the Christmas week of the year 1842, we dined at a friend's house with a party of eight, (numeric perfection for a dinner-party, according to the ingenious author of the _Original_.) In the evening, Mackay's book on popular delusions being on the drawing-room table, some one asked if the author had treated of mesmerism. Upon this, one of the party who had recently returned from London--a man who had led a studious life, and of a highly nervous temperament--said he had recently witnessed a mesmeric exhibition, and would undertake to mesmerise any one present. Upon this, two or three ladies volunteered as patients; and he commenced experimenting upon a lady of some twenty-five years old, whom he had known intimately from childhood, clever, and well read, but rather imaginative. To make the thing more ridiculous, he knelt on both knees, and commenced making passes with both hands slowly before her eyes, telling her, whenever she took her eyes off, to look fixedly at him, and keeping a perfectly grave face when every body around was laughing unreservedly. After this had endured for some three minutes, the lady's eyes gradually closed, she fell forwards, and was only prevented from farther falling by being caught by the mesmeriser. He shook her, and, in rather a rough manner, brought her to her senses; then, suspicious lest she had been purposely deceiving him, questioned her seriously as to whether her sleep were feigned or real. She assured him that it was not simulated, that the sensation was irresistible, different from that of ordinary sleep, and by no means unpleasant; but that the only disagreeable part was the being roused. Upon this, the gentleman declared that he knew nothing of mesmerism, and that, had he believed there was any thing in it, he would not have attempted the joke. Another lady present, married, and having a family, was now most anxious to have the experiment repeated upon her. She said she had before sat to an experienced mesmeriser, who had failed, and she was still incredulous, and believed that M---- had merely given way to an imaginative temperament. It required considerable persuasion to induce the gentleman who had before operated to try any more experiments. He protested that he knew nothing about it, that he had once seen a person said to be in the mesmeric state; but that, if he succeeded again in inducing coma, he knew not at all how to awake the patient. Curiously enough, he was instructed in the manipulation by the sceptical patient, who had previously seen public mesmeric exhibitions. After some further persuasion, and with the permission of the lady's husband, who was present, he commenced again the same passes as with the former patient, the only difference being, that he was in this case sitting instead of kneeling. The patient kept constantly bursting into fits of laughter, and as constantly apologising, telling him that his gravity of face was irresistible. Of the other persons present, some laughed, others were too much terrified to laugh, but they kept up a constant running fire of comment, satirical and serious, upon the mesmeriser and mesmerisee. In four or five minutes, the fits of laughter of the latter assumed a rather unnatural character. It was evident she forced herself to laugh in spite of the strongest disinclination, and in a minute or two more she fixed into a state of ghastly catalepsy, the eyes wide open, but the lids fixed, the features all rigid, (except the lower lip, which was convulsed,) and pale as a corpse. The bystanders, now much frightened, interfered, and laid hold of the mesmeriser. After some time, water being given her to drink, she came to herself, and appeared not to have suffered from the experiment.

Notwithstanding the external difference of the case from the first, she described her sensations as the same; viz. a sleep differing from ordinary sleep, pleasing and irresistible, but the rousing very disagreeable. The lady's husband now insisted on being operated on himself. This was done, and entirely without success. Another lady was also experimented on with no success; at least she said she felt sleepy, but nothing more, which was not extraordinary, as it was now getting late. When questioned as to what means he had used, the mesmeriser said he had done nothing but stare steadily at the patients, making them also look fixedly at him, and move his hands slowly and in uniform directions, his instructor in these manoeuvres having been Tyrone Power in the farce of _His Last Legs_. He stated that soon after the commencement of the experiment, he felt an almost irresistible tendency to go on with it; but whether this resulted from a conviction that he was exercising some unknown influence, or from mere experimental curiosity, he would not undertake to say--"this only was the witchcraft he had used."

The result was to all present conclusive as to the production of some effect inexplicable upon received theories. The second case defied simulation, and we believe it was equally removed from hysteria. The patient was a strong-minded person, of a temperament neither nervous nor hysterical, to all appearance perfectly calm, except when overcome by a sense of the ridiculous, and before the experiment obstinately incredulous. It was certainly a strong case. Any hypothesis to account for it would be hasty; but one point suggests itself to us as arising from the remark made by the mesmeriser, viz. that the only influence he was conscious of using was that of a fixed determined stare. This may possibly afford some key to a more philosophical examination of these curious phenomena.

The fabled effects of the basilisk, the serpent, and the evil eye, have probably all some facts for their foundation. The effect of the human eye in arresting the attacks of savage animals is better authenticated, and its influence upon domestic animals may be more easily made the subject of experimental proof. Let any one gaze steadily at a dog half dozing at the fireside--the animal will, after a short time, become restless, and if the stare be continued, will quit his resting-place, and either shrink into a corner, or come forward and caress the person staring. How much of this may be due to the habitual fixed look of stern command with which censure or punishment is accompanied, it may be difficult to say; but the fact undoubtedly is, that some influence, either innate or induced, is exercised. Again, those who, in society, habitually converse with an averted glance, we generally consider wanting in moral force. We doubt the man who doubts himself. On the other hand, if, in conversation, the ordinary look of awakened interest be prolonged, and the eyes are kept fixed for a longer period than usual, an embarrassed and somewhat painful feeling is the result; an indistinct impulse makes it difficult to avert the eye, and at the same time a consciousness of that impulse is an inducement to avert it. We lay no undue stress upon these phenomena; but they are phenomena, and fair subjects for scientific investigation. An explanation of mesmerism has been sought in the physical effect of the stare alone; thus it is said that, if a party look intently at a prominent object fixed to his forehead, he will in time be thrown into mesmeric coma. There is more in it, we think, than this; there is an influence exerted by that nearest approach to the intercourse of soul--"the gaze into each other's eyes"--the extent and _normæ_ of which are unknown. The schoolboy's experiment of staring out of countenance, is not so bad a test of moral power as it would at first sight be deemed to be.

The second case we shall relate is also one at which we were personally present, but one in which both mesmeriser and mesmerisee were, if we may use the term, adepts--the former a gentleman of fortune and education; the latter a half-educated young man, who had been in service as a footman. We shall designate them as Mr M---- and G----.