Chapter IV: Part 4

On arriving at Omsk, he applied to the temporary governor of the town for permission to examine the collection of maps of Siberia, as divided into provinces and districts, which had been made by the late Governor Springer; but the new functionary, “dressed in a little brief authority,” had the ambition to play the politician and statesman, and, notwithstanding that he knew Pallas to be travelling for the government upon a public mission, refused him the favour he demanded without an express order from court. Nay, when he desired to depart, this new great man, with the prudence of an owl, denied him a proper passport, though without this it would be difficult for him to obtain horses on the way. Pallas, however, with the caution of a courtier, rather than with the honest indignation of a man of letters, instead of stigmatizing this gross misconduct as it deserved, merely observes, that he attributed it to the military spirit naturally inimical to the sciences.

Our traveller at length departed from Omsk, and commenced his examination of the productions found on the banks of the Irtish, where, on digging in the sandy downs, the bones of elephants and of many large fishes were discovered. Though it was now drawing near the end of May, he experienced continual storms, sometimes accompanied by black clouds, at others by a clear sky. From the inhabitants, however, he learned that tempests succeed each other almost unceasingly in those regions, where a week of fine weather is seldom or never known. He here learned from the fur-merchants a secret which deserves to be generally known: in order to preserve their furs from the worms, they tied up in each bale several calamus roots, which, they asserted, were an unfailing defence of their merchandise. A few shreds of Russia leather, which preserves books and papers from the moth even in Hindostan, would no doubt have answered the same purpose.

On the 11th of June, while travelling through a country thickly intersected with salt-lakes and birch forests, and peopled by myriads of wild bees, he encountered an enormous wolf, which was chasing a duck upon the heath. This animal, he says, is generally remarkable for its timidity in summer; but on the present occasion seemed disposed, like one of La Fontaine’s wolves; to enter into a debate with the strangers; for, instead of flying, he coolly stood still to look at them, without being in the least disturbed by their shouting. At length, however, despairing of entering into any thing like rational conversation with persons who seemed resolved to monopolize all the privilege of good company for themselves, he turned round upon his heel, and with a disdainful and careless bound, continued his journey.

At the foot of the small mountains which branch northward of the Altaïc chain, Pallas discovered a prodigious number of excavations and pits, made at some remote period by a people now unknown, who understood the art of smelting metals, but who have left no trace of their existence save these mines, and the ornaments of copper and gold which are found in their tombs. Here, at the small town of Shoulba, our traveller was attacked with dysentery; but it was necessary to push forward, though his weakness was such that he could scarcely step into his carriage. While in this state he passed by, but could not visit, a tomb of prodigious magnitude, situated on the summit of a lofty mountain, which, according to tradition, had formerly been opened by a band of one hundred and fifty armed peasantry, who had been rewarded for their labour by the discovery of fifty pounds weight of solid gold. A few days afterward his dysentery became so violent that he was compelled to discontinue his journey, and confine himself, during several weeks, to his bed.

As soon as his health was a little improved, he set out with M. Sokoloff, in order to visit the Altaïc mountains. The whole of the neighbouring districts are diversified with hill and dale, and watered by numerous streams, which come down from the mountains, foaming and thundering over their rocky beds. On some of these eminences were found extensive copses of raspberry-bushes, around which Pallas observed the fresh tracks of bears, which are very fond of this fruit, and not unfrequently carry off women and children who resort thither to gather it. Apparently this is done merely as a frolic, or by way of terrifying interlopers from meddling with their property; for our traveller gravely observes that they do them no manner of injury.

At length they discovered the summits of the Altaï, covered with snow, and towering far above everything around them. Pallas had no eye for the picturesque. What in the eyes of another man would have been sublime was to him merely fearful and horrible; but he was struck with these cones, and pyramids, and precipices, and prodigious pinnacles of rock, which, when he beheld them, appeared to support a black roof of clouds, which stretched over the whole hemisphere, and menaced the country with a second deluge. No marine petrifactions, or any sign of their ever having been submerged in the ocean, were here discoverable; but it is probable that more careful researches would have been productive of a different result.

From the Altaïc mountains Pallas directed his course towards the north, crossed the Obi, traversed the governments of Kolyran, visited Tomsk, and on the 10th of October arrived at Krasnoiarsk, a city situated on the Yeniseï, in the 66th degree of north latitude. Here he set up his quarters for the winter. The autumn, he observes, is generally mild in the southern parts of Siberia; but with the winter storms and hurricanes come on, and sometimes blow during a whole month without intermission. The cold is intense. Nevertheless, about the middle of February the sun begins to exert considerable power, and sensibly diminishes the snow on the mountains.

On the 7th of March, 1772, Pallas departed from Krasnoiarsk for the eastern part of Siberia, accompanied by a painter, and three naturalists. Their route, as far as the Angora, lay through a country partly covered with forests, where there falls, during winter, large quantities of snow. From time to time they observed the encampments of the idolatrous tribes who inhabit those regions, and roam about like wild animals in the woods. They reached Irkutsk on the 14th, and having remained a week in that capital, continued their journey along the shores of Lake Baikal. The weather had now grown warm, and they saw the last flocks of alpine larks and black sparrows, flying round the city, and then departing for the north; these were followed by a species of striped crow, which had passed the winter in the warm regions of Mongolia, or China, and was now pursuing the same route towards the arctic circle.

As our traveller was desirous of crossing Lake Baikal on sledges, he hurried his departure from Irkutsk, lest the warm weather should melt the ice, and obstruct his passage. The scenery on the shores of this immense lake is exceedingly rugged and sublime. Rocks of vast elevation form the shores of the Angara, by which you descend from Irkutsk to the sea; and on arriving at the mouth of the river you discover, as through an arcade, the vast basin of the Baikal, and the lofty mountains which confine its waters on the east. They directed their course in a straight line from a small post on the bank of the frozen stream, towards the borders of the lake, pursuing their way in sledges on the ice. When they had proceeded about half-way, they were overtaken by a tremendous storm from the north-west, which entirely cooled the atmosphere. The wind swept along the ice with such prodigious violence, that the sledge-drivers, who ran along by the side of the vehicles, were sometimes blown away to the distance of many fathoms from the road, and were compelled to stick their knives in the ice, to prevent their being carried away, and hurled into some chasm. To avoid the risk of such accidents, the party halted until the tempest was over.

At Zimovia on the Baikal, they found several persons setting out to hunt the sea-dog on the lake. This kind of chase takes place principally in April. The sea-dogs, assembling on those parts of the shore where rapid streams or warm springs keep up an opening in the ice, then ascend from the water, in order to lie down upon the ice, and sleep in the sun. The hunters fix up in their little sledges a small white flag, which the dogs take for ice, and accordingly are not frightened until they draw near and fire upon them.

Pallas now descended in his sledge upon the Baikal, and commenced this singular portion of his journey. The ice had this winter been as smooth as a mirror, on the whole surface of the lake; but when they had advanced to a certain distance from the shore, they found a fissure of several feet in breadth, which intercepted their passage, and forced them to make a circuit of considerable length. However, this obstacle having been surmounted, they encountered no other, and quickly found themselves on the opposite shore. The road now assumed a different character, running over rugged mountains, or sandy flats, where the snow was entirely melted, until, cutting the Selinga, as it were, into two parts, it led them into a milder climate, where the spring, with all its gay accompaniments, was already far advanced. They arrived, much fatigued, at Selinginsk, on the 25th of March.

From Selinginsk he proceeded through Mongolia towards the borders of China, moving among an idolatrous people, the partisans of the Lamaic hierarchy, until, arriving at Kiakter, he touched the extreme limits of the empire, where his journey in that direction was to terminate. Here Pallas made many inquiries respecting the commerce, opinions, and manners of the Chinese; and having satisfied his curiosity, returned to Selinginsk. From this point he now directed his course northward, towards the great tributary streams which fall into the Selinga. His excursions in this direction, which were carried into execution without enthusiasm or curiosity, merely as a task imposed on him by authority, are still more destitute of incidents, if possible, than the former portion of his travels. He examined the iron-mines, the grain and fur trade, and the objects of natural history furnished by the district.

Pallas now turned his face towards the east, traversed the desert regions which lie between the Selinga and the Onon, the principal branch of the Amoor, and having pushed his researches to within a very short distance of the Chinese frontier, returned by a different route to Selinginsk, leaving to M. Sokolof and others the honour of exploring the frontiers of Mongolia, along the banks of the Argoon and Amoor. His health, indeed, now began to suffer from constant fatigue, and he was therefore fully justified in relinquishing this portion of his task; but I cannot easily pardon him for pretending to have been actuated by the desire of botanizing on the banks of the Selinga, since, if botanizing was his object, it was to be presumed that the wild shores of the Amoor would have afforded a still more ample and extraordinary field for his researches. During his stay at Selinginsk, he observed, among other curious animals and birds, the blue crow, which was easily taken, as its young were hitherto unfledged; and a species of small white hare, which was found in great numbers in the little islands in the Selinga. Besides these there was the leaping hare, which, mingling at night among the sheep, frightened them by its bounding motions. The Mongols, who are fond of its flesh when roasted, imagine that it sucks the ewes; as the vulgar in England report of the hedgehog and the cow.

Previous to his finally quitting the country, he made another excursion to the frontiers of China, principally, it would seem, for the purpose of studying the botany of those districts, when the flowers were clothed in all the beauty of summer. The road to Kiakta traverses a large sandy plain, and afterward a succession of rocky mountains, entirely destitute of wood. In this latter district our traveller observed a species of locust, by whose flight the natives could foretel with certainty whether the weather would be fair or otherwise. They mounted aloft on the wing previous to rainy weather, and the noise of their motions resembled that of castanets. After remaining some short time in the vicinity of Kiakta, he once more returned to Selinginsk, and began to make the necessary preparations for retracing their footsteps to Krasnoiarsk, where they again intended to pass the winter. Accordingly, on the 3d of July, Pallas and a part of his companions departed from Selinginsk, and proceeded towards the Baikal.

Upon reaching the eastern shore of the lake, they saw a thick cold mist, which appeared to fill the whole extent of its vast basin, and hung close upon the surface of the water. This fog exactly resembled those fogs which are sometimes collected in the hollows of the mountains, or on the shores of the sea. It was kept in continual motion, and tossed hither and thither, like the waves of the ocean, by the wind. This mist was accompanied by strong westerly winds, which prevented our traveller from proceeding on his way; and he amused himself during his detention in studying the fishes of the lake, together with the birds and animals which frequent its shores.

On the 10th of July, he embarked, and set sail with boisterous and contrary winds. The passage of the lake was long, but, arriving at length at Zimovia, Pallas proceeded with all possible expedition to Krasnoiarsk, by way of Irkutsk. He arrived on the 1st of August at the point of destination, where, to his great satisfaction, he found that a magnificent collection of the flowers which adorn the banks of the Yeniseï had been made during the spring and summer, by one of his pupils, whom he had left behind for that purpose. From Krasnoiarsk, our traveller made another long excursion, visited several Tartar hordes, various mines, mountains, and tombs, and returned about the middle of September, the approach of winter being already visible in those high latitudes. By December, the cold had reached an intensity which had never been felt even in Siberia. The air was still, and at the same time condensed, as it were; so that, although the sky was exceedingly clear, the sun appeared as if beheld through a cloud. In the morning of the 6th of December, Pallas found the mercury of his thermometer frozen, “a thing,” says he, “which had never before happened during the whole eight years in which I had made use of this instrument. I then conveyed it from the gallery where it was kept into an apartment moderately warmed with a stove. Here the column of mercury, which had been condensed in the tube, immediately sunk into the bulb, while that in the bulb resumed its activity in the course of half a minute. I repeated this experiment several times with the same result, so that sometimes there remained but a very few particles in the tube, sometimes not above one. In order to follow the progress of the experiment, I gently warmed the bulb with my fingers, after it had been exposed to the air, and watching the mounting of the mercury, distinctly observed that the condensed and frozen columns offered considerable resistance before they gave way. At the same time I exposed about a quarter of a pound of mercury to the air, in a saucer. This mercury had been previously well washed in vinegar, and cleansed from impurities. The saucer was placed in a gallery on the north side of my house. In an hour the edges of the surface were frozen, and a few minutes afterward, the whole superficies was condensed into a soft mass, exactly resembling pewter. As the interior, however, still continued fluid, a small portion of the surface presented numerous wrinkles branching out from each other, but the greater part was sufficiently smooth. The same thing took place with a still larger quantity which I placed in the open air. This mass of frozen mercury was as pliable as lead but if bent suddenly, would break more easily than pewter; and when flattened into sheets, appeared somewhat knotty. I tried to beat it out with the hammer, but being quite cold, the mercury fell from it in drops. The same thing took place when you touched this mass with the finger, the top of which was instantly benumbed with cold by the simple contact. I then placed it in a moderately warm room, and it melted like wax placed over the fire. The drops separated from the surface, which melted gradually. The intensity of the cold diminished towards the evening.”

In the month of January, 1773, Pallas began to make preparations for returning to Petersburg, and departing on the 22d, pushed on with the utmost rapidity to Tomsk. During this journey, he discovered the execrable principles upon which it was attempted to people Siberia. The refuse of the people, the lame, the sick, the infirm, and the old, had been collected together, and sent thither to die. Men had been torn, for this purpose, from their wives and families. Women, for some reason or another, had not been allowed to emigrate from the west in sufficient numbers, and vice and misery flourished in their absence. Man, deprived of the society of women, necessarily degenerates into a ferocious beast, contemning all laws, and every regulation of morality. “It is not good that man should be alone.” Whenever new colonies are established, women should be numerous. It is they who are the grand instruments of civilization.--The cavern, the desert hut, when inhabited by a woman, already contains the germs of humanity, of hospitality, of improvement; but without her is a den, a haunt of ungovernable passions,--a refuge from the storm, but not a home.

In crossing a bridge over the Dooroosh, in the country of the Votiaks, our traveller was placed in a more perilous condition than he had experienced during any former period of his travels. His horses had already reached the shore, when the bridge, which must have been a very frail structure, gave way under his carriage, and he must infallibly have been precipitated into the stream, had not the spirited horses dashed on at the moment, and dragged up the carriage from amid the falling ruins.

The country between the Jaik and the Volga was at that period a vast desert, which abounded with wild horses. Pallas, however, was of opinion that these animals had once been tame, but, during the emigrations and nomadic movements of the Kalmucs and Kirghees, had escaped into the wilderness, where they had multiplied exceedingly. To fly from the heat and the hornets, these horses wandered far into the north during the summer months, and there, besides a refuge from their persecutors, found better pasturage, and an abundance of water. The surface of this great Mesopotamia was sprinkled at intervals with ruins of Tartar edifices, which swarmed in an extraordinary manner with serpents.

On the 25th of June our traveller arrived at the Moravian colony of Sarepta, which in eight years had increased, by immigration, from five persons to two thousand five hundred; and was at this period in a highly flourishing state. He here entered into some curious researches respecting the ancient shores of the Caspian, whose waters, in his opinion, once covered the greater portion of the Kalmuc country, just as those of the Black Sea did all the low lands upon its banks, before the deluge of Deucalion, when they first burst the huge natural mound which separated them from the Mediterranean.

Pallas passed the autumn at Zarizyn, where he observed the Kalmucs moving westward in hordes towards the country lying between the Volga and the Don. From this place he made an excursion through the stepps which lie up the stream of the Volga; on his return from which he chiefly employed himself in botanical researches, until the spring of 1774. He then undertook another journey along the banks of the Aktooba, through a country infested with bands of vagabond Kirghees, and other wandering nations, and returned to his head-quarters on the 25th of May.

It was now six years since the expedition had set out from Petersburg, and all its members began to desire repose. Each person, therefore, hastened to return by the shortest road to the capital. Pallas was directed to repair to Moscow, and punctually obeyed his orders, without making the slightest deviation to the right-hand or to the left. He arrived at this ancient city on the 3d of July, 1774. “Here,” says he, “I found the orders of the court, by which I was commanded to hasten without the least delay to Petersburg; and, notwithstanding that I felt exceedingly desirous of making a short stay at Moscow, for the purpose of improving my knowledge, by conversing with the learned M. Müller, one of the most excellent men in Russia, as well as one of the most celebrated of its historians, _it was necessary to yield and obey_.” Such is the condition of those who travel by command. He arrived at Petersburg on the 30th of July, exhausted by fatigue, and with a head sprinkled with premature gray hairs; for he was then no more than thirty-three years old.

The companions of Pallas had suffered still more severely; scarcely one of them lived long enough to draw up an account of his travels; and it was therefore left to him to render this piece of justice to their memory. For himself, the splendid objects which he had beheld had made too profound an impression on his mind to allow of his being satisfied with the accounts of them which he had hastily traced in his journal. He therefore determined upon the publication of several separate works, which should contain the natural history of the most celebrated quadrupeds of Siberia; and these he actually laid before the public, together with descriptions of a great number of birds, reptiles, and fishes. In addition to all these, he even projected a natural history of all the animals and plants in the Russian empire; in which design, though it was never completed, he made a very considerable progress. The empress herself, worthless and profligate as she was, was possessed by the ambition of being regarded as the patron of the sciences, and in order to facilitate the execution of our traveller’s project, communicated to him the herbariums of several other botanists, who had studied the flora of the empire. To secure the completion of the undertaking, Catherine moreover engaged to furnish the expense of the engraving and printing of the work; but the end was not answerable to this magnificent beginning; projects of more vulgar ambition, or vile and despicable amours, too fully occupied the imperial mind to allow so unimportant a thing as the science of botany to command a thought, and Pallas was constrained to rely upon his own resources for making known his botanical discoveries to the world. The same fate attended his works on the natural history of the animals and insects of the empire.

M. Cuvier, whose capacity to appreciate the labours of a scientific man can scarcely be called in question, observes, that it is seldom that very laborious men possess sufficient tranquillity of mind to conceive those root-ideas which produce a revolution in the sciences; but Pallas formed an exception to this rule. He nearly succeeded in changing the whole aspect of the science of zoology; and most certainly did operate a complete change in that of the theory of the earth. An attentive consideration of the two great chains of mountains of Siberia enabled him to discover this general rule, which has been everywhere found to hold good, that there exist three primitive orders of mountains, the granitic in the centre, the schistous next in succession, and the calcareous on the outside. It may be said that this great discovery, distinctly announced in a memoir read before the academy in 1777, gave birth to the modern science of geology: from this point the Saussures, the Delues, and the Werners proceeded to the discovery of the real structure of the earth, which is so exceedingly at variance with the fantastic ideas of preceding writers.

In addition to his scientific labours, Pallas was engaged by Catherine in drawing up comparative vocabularies of the languages spoken by all the various nations in the Russian empire; but was restrained, in the execution of this plan, to follow exactly in the track pointed out by his mistress. He was likewise chosen member of the committee employed, in 1777, in compiling a new topography of the empire; and had the honour of instructing Alexander, the late despot of Russia, and his brother Constantine, in natural history. But, notwithstanding all these marks of distinction, and many others of equal importance, our traveller experienced the truth, that happiness is incompatible with dependence of every kind. His travelling habits, too, rendered a sedentary life irksome to him; but what still further disgusted him with Petersburg, was the crowd of fashionable but absurd people who thronged his house, imagining, perhaps, they were doing him an honour by consuming his time. To escape from this species of persecution, he took advantage of the invasion of the Crimea, to visit new countries; and during the years 1793 and 1794, traversed the southern provinces of the empire at his own expense. He even skirted the frontiers of Circassia, but, with his usual prudence, avoided the dangers which would have attended a journey into that country. He then proceeded into the Crimea, through which Potemkin was leading the empress as a spectacle of contempt and scorn to all mankind; and was so captivated by a passing glance at its splendid scenery, that, on his return to Petersburg, he solicited and obtained permission to retire thither.

Solitude, however, which appeared so desirable at a distance, Pallas soon found to be an intolerable curse; the climate, also, fell infinitely short of his expectations, was inconstant and humid, and liable to be altered by every passing wind. It united, in fact, the inconveniences of the north and of the south; yet our traveller endured these evils for fifteen years; but at length, feeling the approaches of old age, he determined at once to escape from the climate of the Crimea and from Russian despotism, and selling his estates at an exceedingly low rate, returned to his native city, after an absence of forty-two years. His health, however, had been so completely undermined by the diseases he had contracted during his travels, and, more than all, by his long residence in the Crimea, that he might be said merely to have looked upon his native place, and on the face of those friends or admirers which his knowledge and fame had gathered around him, before death removed him from the enjoyment of all these things. This event took place on the 8th of September, 1811. Pallas appears to have been an able, learned, and upright man, deeply intent on promoting the interests of science, but indifferent about those great political rights without the enjoyment of which even the sciences themselves are of no more dignity or value than the tricks of a juggler.

CARSTEN NIEBUHR.

Born 1733.--Died 1815.

This traveller was born on the 17th of March, 1733, in the province of Friesland, in the kingdom of Hanover. It would be to mislead the reader to represent him, as some of his biographers have done, as the son of a peasant, in the sense in which that term is applied in England. His father and his ancestors, for several generations, had been small landed proprietors; he himself received an education, and inherited a property, which, however small, served as an incentive to ambition; and though, like many others, he found the entrance of the road to fame rugged and hard to tread, it must not be dissembled that his prudence and perseverance were singularly aided by good fortune.

Having lost his mother before he was six weeks old, the care of his infancy was intrusted to a step-mother; and he was still a lad when his father likewise died. The guardians upon whom the superintendence of his youth at first devolved, entertaining, apparently, but little respect for intellectual pursuits, interrupted his studies; and his maternal uncle, who succeeded them in this important trust, would seem to have wanted the means, if he possessed the will, to direct the course of a young man. Niebuhr was therefore left very much to his own guidance, which, to a man of vigorous intellect, I am far from regarding as a misfortune. The beginnings of life, however, like the beginnings of day, are generally accompanied by mists which obscure the view, and render it absolutely impossible to determine with precision the character of the various paths which present themselves before us; and thus it was that our traveller, who, knowing not that Providence was about to conduct him to a brilliant destiny in the East, at one time studied music, with the intention of becoming an organist, and was afterward led, through accidental circumstances, to apply himself to geometry, for the purpose of practising as a land-surveyor.

With this design he repaired, in his twenty-third year, to Bremen, where he discovered a person from whom he might have derived the necessary instruction; but finding that this individual’s domestic economy was under the superintendence of two youthful sisters, whose behaviour towards himself Niebuhr seems to have regarded as forward and indecorous, he immediately quitted this city and proceeded to Hamburgh. It will easily be conceived that the studies of a young man who voluntarily cultivated his intellect as the only means by which he could arrive at distinction, were pursued with ardent enthusiasm. Niebuhr, in fact, considered labour and toil as the only guides to genuine glory, and was content to tolerate on the way the rude fierceness of their manners.

When he had studied the mathematics, during two years, under Büsch, he removed to Göttingen, where he continued another year. At this period the Danish ministry, at the suggestion of Michaelis, had projected a scientific expedition into Arabia, which was at first designed, at least by its originator, merely to throw some light upon certain passages of the Old Testament, but which afterward embraced a much wider field. Michaelis, to whom the choice of the individuals who were to form this mission had been intrusted, betrayed the narrowness or malignity of his mind, by neglecting the celebrated Reiske, who was then well known to be struggling with starvation, in order to thrust forward Von Haven, a pupil of his own, who, but for this partial choice, would probably have lived and died in obscurity. Niebuhr himself was recommended to Michaelis by Kästner, whose pupil he had for some time been. The proposal was abruptly made, and as suddenly accepted. “Have you a mind,” said Kästner, “to go into Arabia?”--“Why not?” replied Niebuhr, “if anybody will pay my expenses.”--“The King of Denmark,” said Kästner, “will pay your expenses.” He then entered into the history of the Danish ministry’s project, and Niebuhr, whose genuine ambition was most ardent, and who, though in manners modest and unassuming, could not but entertain a favourable opinion of his own capacity, at once engaged to form a member of the mission. It was agreed, on the part of his Danish majesty, that he should be allowed a year and a half for preparation, with a salary sufficient for his maintenance.

Niebuhr had now a definite object. The East, with all its barbaric pomp and historical glory, which in preceding and succeeding days have kindled enthusiasm in so many bosoms, appeared to court his examination; and, like a lover who appreciates at their highest value the accomplishments of his mistress, and is bent on rendering himself worthy of her, he thenceforward studied, with vehement earnestness, all those branches of knowledge which he regarded as necessary to a traveller in the East; and Latin, Arabic, the mathematics, drawing, practical mechanics, together with the history of the countries he was about to visit, amply occupied his hours. An additional half-year being granted him, it was not until the Michaelmas of 1760 that he quitted Göttingen for Copenhagen.

Here he was received in the most flattering manner by Count Bernstorf, the Danish minister, by whom he was appointed lieutenant of engineers. The rank of captain he modestly refused. Niebuhr was never possessed by an immoderate desire for wealth, and a trait of unpresuming disinterestedness which escaped him during his preparatory studies is at once illustrative of this fact, and of another equally important,--that wealth no less than fame is frequently best won by carefully abstaining from grasping at it too eagerly. The salary granted him by the King of Denmark was probably small, but our traveller, with that repugnance to solicit which is characteristic of superior minds, not only contrived to reduce his wants within the limits of his means, but by rigid economy enabled himself, moreover, to purchase at his own expense whatever instruments he needed. The knowledge of this fact coming to the ears of the minister, he not only reimbursed the young traveller the sum he had expended, but, as a mark of the high satisfaction he derived from so striking an evidence of honest independence, committed to his charge the travelling-chest of the mission.

Niebuhr’s companions were four in number: Von Haven, the linguist, a person of mean capacity; Forskaal, the naturalist, distinguished for his numerous and profound acquirements; Cramer, a physician, devoid even of professional knowledge; and Baurenfeind, an artist, not destitute of talent, but ignorant, full of prejudices, and addicted to the vulgar habit of drinking. Von Haven, to whom a long sea-voyage was disagreeable, obtained permission to proceed to Marseilles by land; and the ship in which the other members of the expedition embarked was directed to take him on board at that port. They left the Sound on the 7th of January, 1761, but were three times driven back by contrary winds; so that it was not until the 10th of March that they were enabled fairly to put to sea, and continue their voyage.

Niebuhr describes, among the singular things observed during this voyage, a white rainbow, which only differed from the common rainbow in being destitute of colours. This, I believe, is a phenomenon not often witnessed; but on the 21st of May, 1830, which succeeded a day and night of tremendous thunder, lightning, and rain, I remember to have myself seen a similar rainbow in Normandy. It was much thicker, but greatly inferior in span, and less sharply defined at the edges than the ordinary bow; and, as the morning mist upon which it was painted grew thinner, the arch decreased in span, until it at length vanished entirely.

Our traveller amused himself while on board in observing the manners of the crew, which he considered manly though unpolished. He likewise exercised himself daily in nautical and astronomical observations; and by his affability and the extent of his knowledge, acquired and preserved the respect of both officers and men. They discovered Cape St. Vincent on the 21st of April, and a few days afterward entered the Mediterranean, where their course was considerably retarded by calms and contrary winds. Meanwhile the weather was beautiful, and their eyes were refreshed with the most lovely prospects, now on the African shores, and now on those of Europe. On the 14th of May they cast anchor in the port of Marseilles, which was at that time crowded by Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, and French ships, the greater number of which were prevented from putting to sea by fear of the English fleets, which scoured the Mediterranean, diffusing consternation and terror on all sides.

From the agreeable society of Marseilles, rendered doubly charming in their estimation by their previous privation, they were soon compelled to snatch themselves away. On the 6th of June Niebuhr observed at sea the transit of Venus, and on the 14th reached Malta. This little island enjoys, like Ireland, the privilege of being free from serpents, which it is supposed to owe to the interference of St. Paul; though Niebuhr imagines that the dry and rocky nature of the soil is sufficient, without a miracle, to account for the circumstance. The knights observing, perhaps, a peculiar absence of bigotry in our traveller, imagined that this indicated a leaning towards Catholicism, and appear to have been desirous of tempting him by magnificent promises to desert the creed of his forefathers. Though his stay in Malta was very short, Niebuhr was careful to observe whatever curiosities the island afforded: the great church of St. John, enriched, it is said, by sharing the plunder of the knights, with innumerable ornaments, and a prodigious candelabrum of gold; the hospital, where the sick, whatever might be their medical treatment, were served with vessels of silver; the immense corn-magazines, hewn out in the rock; the salt-mines; and the catacombs. For some reason, however, which is not stated, he did not see the Phenician inscription, which was still preserved in the island.

In sailing from Malta to Smyrna he was attacked with dysentery, and began to fear that his travels were to terminate there; but the disorder was less serious than he imagined, and having reached Tenedos, he embarked in a Turkish boat, and proceeded up the Dardanelles to Constantinople. Here, though slowly, he recovered his health, and having remained quiet two months, and provided oriental dresses, not choosing to expose himself in the paltry costume of Europe to the laughter of the populace, he set sail with his companions for Egypt.

On the way they landed at Rhodes, where, for the first time they visited a Turkish eating-house. The dinner, though dear, was good, but was served up in common earthen platters, in the open street. They next visited a Jew, who kept wine for the accommodation of Europeans; and had in his house two young women, whom he called his daughters, who were probably designed for the same purpose. Their reception here cost them still dearer than their Turkish dinner; and as Jews, wine, and the drinkers of wine are held in contempt by all sincere and respectable Mohammedans, this must be considered a highly injudicious step in Niebuhr. The ship in which they sailed had on board a number of female slaves, the principal of whom were lodged in a large chamber directly over their cabin, from which we may infer that the Turks do not, like the Burmese, consider it a disgrace to have women walking over their heads. As there were tolerably wide cracks in the ceiling, our travellers frequently enjoyed the pleasure of viewing these ladies, who, though a little terrified at first, soon became accustomed to their faces, and notwithstanding that neither party at all understood the language of the other, many little presents of fruit and other trifles were given and returned. The mode in which this affair was conducted was ingenious. As soon as the Mohammedans collected together for prayer, the girls gently tapped at their windows, and Niebuhr and Forskaal, looking out of the cabin, beheld the handkerchiefs of the fair held out for fruit. When filled, they were drawn up, and the presents they chose to make in return were then lowered down in the same way. During the voyage, six or eight persons having died suddenly, it was suspected that they had the plague on board; but Niebuhr imagined that other causes might have hastened the end of those who died; at all events, none of the members of the expedition were infected, though their physician had often visited the sick.

The land of Egypt at length appeared on the 26th of September, and on the same day, late in the evening, they cast anchor in the port of Alexandria. Norden, a scientific, but an uninteresting traveller, having recently constructed a plan of the city, Niebuhr judged that he might spare himself the pains of repeating the process, more especially as the Arabs, hovering in troops in the vicinity, rendered him apprehensive that he might be robbed. However, as the eminence on which Pompey’s pillar stands overlooks a large portion of the city, he amused himself with taking several angles from thence, intending to follow this up by taking others from some other positions. While he was thus engaged, one of the Turkish merchants, who happened to be present, observing his telescope pointed towards the city, had the curiosity to look through it, and was not a little alarmed at perceiving a tower upside down. “This,” says he, “gave occasion to a rumour, that I was come to Alexandria to turn the whole city topsyturvy. The report reached the governor’s house. My janizary refused to accompany me when I took out my instrument; and as I then supposed that a European could not venture to appear in an eastern city without a janizary, I relinquished the idea of making any further geometrical measurements there.”--“On another occasion,” he continues, “when I was making an astronomical observation on the southern point of the Delta, a very civil and sensible peasant, from the village of Daraúe, happened to be present. As I wished to show him something he had never seen before, I pointed the telescope of the quadrant towards his village, on which he was extremely terrified at seeing all the houses upside down. He asked my servant what could be the cause of this. The man replied, that the government, being extremely dissatisfied with the inhabitants of that village, had sent me to overthrow it entirely. The poor peasant was greatly afflicted, and entreated me to wait long enough for him to take his wife, his children, and his cow to some place of safety. My servant assured him he had two hours good. He immediately ran home, and as soon as the sun had passed the meridian, I took my quadrant on board again.”

Niebuhr found a number of Mohammedans at Alexandria who understood French, Swedish, and Danish as completely as if they had been born in the countries where those languages are spoken. As most European travellers proceed up the Nile from this city to Cairo, the members of the expedition were desirous of performing the journey by land, but were restrained by fear of the Arabs; and M. Forskaal, who afterward ventured upon this hardy enterprise, was actually stripped to the skin, and with great difficulty obtained back his breeches. Niebuhr now hired a small ship, and embarked on the 31st of October, but was detained in the Gulf of Aboukir by contrary winds. Impatient of delay, his companions proceeded thence to Rosetta by land, with a company of Turks; but our traveller continued his voyage, and reached the city very shortly after them. Though the inhabitants of Rosetta enjoyed the reputation of being peculiarly polite towards strangers, Niebuhr was too impatient to behold the capital of modern Egypt to linger long in any provincial city; he therefore hastened to ascend the Nile, and enjoyed the romantic prospect of fertility, villages peeping through groves of date-trees, and here and there vast wrecks of ancient cities, which all travellers in that extraordinary country have admired. They arrived at Cairo on the 10th of November.

The Nile, like the Ganges, has long been renowned for the daring race of pirates who infest it. Bruce, and many other travellers, have celebrated their ingenuity; but the following anecdote, related by Niebuhr, exhibits their exquisite skill in a still more favourable point of view: A pasha, recently arrived in Egypt, happening to be encamped on the banks of the river, his servants, aware of the dexterity of their countrymen, kept so strict a watch during the night, that they detected one of the pirates, and brought him before the pasha, who threatened to put him to death on the spot. The prisoner, however, entreated permission to show the pasha one of the extraordinary tricks of his art, in the hope of thereby inducing him to spare his life. The permission was granted. The man then took up the pasha’s garments, and whatever else he found in the tent, and having tied them up into a packet, as the Egyptians do when they are about to swim across a river, made several turns before the company to amuse them. He then insensibly approached the Nile, and darting into the water like lightning, had already reached the opposite shore, with the pasha’s garments upon his head, before the Turks could get ready their muskets to fire at him.

Niebuhr was exceedingly desirous, soon after his arrival at Cairo, of descending the eastern branch of the Nile to Damietta; but the sky during the whole winter and spring was so overcast with clouds, and the rain fell so frequently, that it was impossible to take astronomical observations. On the 1st of May, however, the weather having cleared up, he left Cairo. The wind blowing from the north, their progress was slow, and he had therefore considerable leisure for observation. The Coptic churches amused him much. In one of these he saw pictures representing Christ, the Virgin, and several saints, on horseback; intended, perhaps, to insinuate to their Mohammedan masters, that the founder of their religion and his followers had not been compelled, as Christians then were in Egypt, to ride upon asses. These churches, moreover, were strewed with so many crutches, that a stranger might conclude, upon observing them, that the whole Coptic community had lost the use of their limbs; however, upon inquiry, our traveller discovered that it was the custom among them to stand in church, which many persons found so wearisome that they resolved to aid their piety with crutches. The floors were covered with mats, which, not being changed very frequently, swarmed with fleas, numbers of which did our traveller the honour to prefer him before any of their ancient patrons. In approaching Damietta he saw about twenty large boats loaded with bees: each of these boats carried two hundred hives; the number, therefore, of the hives here assembled in one spot, was four thousand; and when the inhabitants of this floating city issued forth to visit the flowers of the neighbourhood, they must have appeared like a locust cloud.

His stay at Damietta, which is about four miles above the mouth of the Nile, was short. Europeans are nowhere in the East so much detested, on account, chiefly, of the profligate character of the French formerly settled there, who, having debauched several Mohammedan women, were nearly all massacred by the infuriated populace. Niebuhr’s fancy that they still remember the crusades, and hate the Franks for the evils those insane expeditions inflicted on their ancestors, is just as rational as if the English people were to be supposed to nourish resentment against all the northern nations, because their barbarous ancestors made piratical descents upon our coasts.

While at Cairo he could not, of course, resist the desire of visiting the Pyramids. He therefore hired two Bedouin guides, and proceeded with his friend Forskaal towards the desert, where they were encountered by a young sheïkh, who, by dint of bravado and insolence, succeeded in extorting from them a small sum of money; but had they, when he first offered his services, bestowed upon him half a crown, he would not only have given them no further molestation, but would have constituted himself their protector against all other importunates. Niebuhr afterward returned under more favourable auspices, and completed the measurement of the two great pyramids, the loftier of which he found to be 443 feet, and the second to be 403 feet high. I shall hereafter, perhaps, have occasion to remark upon the strange discrepancies which are found between the measurements of various travellers, which are, in fact, so great, that we must suspect some of them, at least, of having wanted the knowledge required by such an undertaking. From considering the petrifactions and the nature of the rocks in this neighbourhood, Niebuhr was led to infer the prodigious antiquity of Egypt: “Supposing the whole of the rocks in the northern portions of the country to be composed of petrifactions of a certain kind of shell, how many years,” says he, “must have elapsed before a sufficient number of little snails to raise mountains to their present height could have been born and died! How many other years before Egypt could have been drained and become solid, supposing that, in those remote ages, the waters retired from the shore as slowly as they have during the last ten centuries! How many years still, before the country was sufficiently peopled to think of erecting the first pyramid! How many more years, before that vast multitude of pyramids which are still found in the country could have been constructed! Considering that at the present day we are ignorant of when, and by whom, even the most modern of them was built.”

On the 26th of August, 1762, Niebuhr and his companions set out with the caravan going from Cairo to Suez: the rest of the party, in spite of the Mohammedans, mounted on horseback, and Niebuhr himself on a dromedary. By this means he avoided several evils to which the others were liable. Seated on his mattress he could turn his face now on one side, now on another, to avoid the heat of the sun; and, after having travelled all day, was no more fatigued in the evening than if he had been all the while reposing in a chair; while the horsemen, compelled to remain perpetually in the same posture, were well-nigh exhausted. On the 30th they encamped near a well of good water, mentioned by Belin, Pietro Della Valle, and Pococke, close to which the Turks formerly erected a castle, which was now in ruins, and in three hours more arrived at the wells of Suez, which were surrounded by a strong wall, to keep out the Arabs, and entered by a door fastened with enormous clumps of iron. The water here was drawn up with buckets or sacks of leather.

Suez, from its fortunate position on the Red Sea, carried on a considerable trade. Numbers of ships were built there annually, the materials of which were transported thither on the backs of camels from Cairo. The environs consist of naked rocks, or beds of loose sand, in which nothing but brambles and a few dry stunted plants, among others the rose of Jericho, are found to grow. This rose is employed by the women of the East in various superstitious practices, and is therefore to be found for sale in all cities. When pregnant, they gather one of the buds, and putting its stem in water, foretel whether their pains will be severe or slight from the greater or smaller development of the flower.

Niebuhr’s first inquiry on arriving at Suez was concerning the “Mountain of Inscriptions,” about which so much had been said in Europe. The individuals to whom his first questions were put had never even heard of it; others, who were exactly in the same predicament, but desired to possess themselves of a little of their European gold, professed a most accurate knowledge of the spot, but upon inquiry were detected. At length, however, an Arab was discovered, from whose replies it was clear, that whether he had seen the real _Gebel el Mokatteb_ or not, some mountain or another he had beheld, upon which inscriptions in an unknown language were to be found. Under this man’s guidance, therefore, they placed themselves,--that is, Niebuhr and Von Haven, for the rest were, from various causes, detained at Suez; and leaving the Red Sea on their right-hand, they struck off into the desert.

As I have given a description of this part of Arabia in the life of Dr. Shaw, it will not be necessary here to repeat what I then said. Niebuhr found that the Arabs, whose profession it is to serve as guides, were distinguished, like all other persons of that class, for their extravagant cupidity. So long as they could live at the expense of strangers their own provisions and means were assiduously spared; but on other occasions they exhibited various symptoms that the old national virtue of hospitality was not wholly banished from their minds. The women in this part of Arabia are not in the habit of concealing their faces from strangers, as is the fashion in Egypt. Niebuhr, in his solitary rambles through the country, discovered the wife and sister of a sheïkh grinding corn beside their tent; who, instead of flying and concealing themselves at his approach, as he seems to have expected, came forward, according to the good old custom of the East, with a present in their hands.