In this state of France, with the feeling of impatient jealousy and irritation against tyranny and despotism expressed by the departments towards the capital, with the evident disunion between the provinces and Paris, what are likely to be the destinies of the Republic hereafter? Again it must be said—who can tell, who foresee, who predict? The Republic has been accepted, and is maintained, from a love of order and thestatus quo: but there is no enthusiasm, no admiration for the republican form of government throughout the country at large; there is, at most, indifference to any government, whatever it may be, provided it but insure the stability and prosperity of the country. If an opinion may be hazarded, however, it is, that the danger to the present established form of things will not arise so much from the conflict of contending parties in the capital, as from the discontent, disaffection, jealousy, and, perhaps, final outbreak and resistance of the departments. Terrorism has had its day; and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to apply the system once again to the country in its present state. What other means will the violent possess—what coercive measures, if, when parties come to an issue, the wearied and disgusted country should rise to protest against the disorders of Republican Paris? There seem at present to be none. The result of such an outbreak would be inevitable civil war. The strong instance before alluded to, of the determination of the departments to assert a will of their own, was given in a very striking manner in the affair of the 15th May. One of the conspirators got possession of the electric telegraph at the Home Office, and sent down despatches into all the provinces, to inform the country that the Assembly was dissolved, and the new government of the ultra-anarchist party had taken the reins of power. Instead of being awed into submission as heretofore, instead of calmly and resignedly accepting thefait accomplias was their wont, the departments immediately rose to protest against the new revolution of Paris. Before a counter-despatch could be sent down into the provinces, to let them know that the former order of things was restored, the national guards of all the great towns were up and out, with the cry "to arms!" and it was resolved to march upon Paris. It was not only in the towns within a day's journey of the capital that the movement was spontaneously made. In the furthest parts of the country, from the cities of Avignon, Marseilles, Nismes, and all the south of France, the national guards were already on their way towards the capital, before the information that declared the more satisfactory result of the day could be made public. It is more than probable, then, that, should a desperate faction ever seize upon the power, or even should a close conflict of parties further endanger the safety of the country and its tottering welfare, that the provinces would again take up arms against Paris, and that a civil war would be the result.
This is rather a suggestion hazarded, than a prediction made, as to the future fate of the French republic. Whatever that future may be, an uneasy submission on the part of a great anti-republican majority to the active agency of a small republican minority—but, at the same time, a desire of maintaining a government, whatever it may be, if supportable, for tranquillity's sake; a feeling of humiliation and degradation in this utter submission to the will of Paris throughout the country—but, at the same time, an apparent growing determination eventually to resist that will, should it at last prove intolerable—such is the present state of Republican France.
Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, &c. By Lieut.-Colonel SirT. Mitchell, Surveyor-General, &c. 1 vol. London: Longmans.
Australia is the greatest accession to substantial power ever made by England. It is thegiftof aContinent, unstained by war, usurpation, or the sufferings of a people. But even this is but a narrow view of its value. It is the addition of a territory, almost boundless, to the possessions of mankind; a location for a new family of man, capable of supporting a population equal to that of Europe; or probably, from its command of the ocean, and from the improved systems, not merely of commercial communication, but of agriculture itself, capable of supplying the wants of double the population of Europe. It is, in fact, the virtual future addition of three hundred millions of human beings, who otherwise would not have existed. And besides all this, and perhaps of a higher order than all, is the transfer of English civilisation, laws, habits, industrial activity, and national freedom, to the richest, but the most abject countries of the globe; an imperial England at the Antipodes, securing, invigorating, and crowning all its benefits by its religion.
Within the last fifty years, the population of the British islands has nearly tripled; it is increasing in England alone at the rate of a thousand a day. In every kingdom of the Continent it is increasing in an immense ratio. The population is becoming too great for the means of existence. Every trade is overworked, every profession is overstocked, every expedient for a livelihood threatens to be exhausted under this vast and perpetual influx of life; and the question of questions is, How is this burthen to be lightened?
There can be but one answer,—Emigration. For the last century, common sense, urged by common necessity, directed the stream of this emigration to the great outlying regions of the western world. North America was the chief recipient. Since the conquest of Canada, annual thousands had directed their emigration to the British possessions: the conquest of the Cape has drawn a large body of settlers to its fine climate; but Australia remained, and remains for the grand future field of British emigration.
The subject has again come before the British public with additional interest. The Irish famine, the British financial difficulties, and the palpable hazard of leaving a vast pauperism to grow up in ignorance, have absolutely compelled an effort to relieve the country. A motion has just been made in Parliament by Lord Ashley, giving the most startling details of the infant population; and demanding the means of sending at least its orphan portion to some of those colonial possessions, where they may be trained to habits of industry, and have at least a chance of an honest existence. We shall give a few of these details, and they are of the very first importance to humanity. On the 6th of June Lord Ashley brought in a resolution, "That it is expedient that means be annually provided for the voluntary emigration, to some one of her Majesty's colonies, of a certain number of young persons of both sexes, who have been educated in the schools, ordinarily called 'ragged schools,' in and about the metropolis."
In the speech preparatory to this resolution, a variety of statements were made, obtained from the clergy and laity of London. It was ascertained that the number of children, either deserted by their parents, or sent out by their parents to beg and steal, could not be less than 30,000 in the metropolis alone. Their habits were filthy, wretched, and depraved. Their places of living by day were the streets, and by night every conceivable haunt of misery and sin. They had no alternative but to starve, or to grow up into professional thieves, perhaps murderers. Of the general population, the police reports stated, that in 1847 there had been taken into custody 62,181 individuals ofboth sexes and all ages. Of these, 20,702 were females, and 47,479 males. Of the whole, 15,693 were under twenty years of age, 3,682 between fifteen and ten, and 362 under ten. Of the whole, 22,075 could neither read nor write, and 35,227 could read only, or read and write imperfectly.
The average attendance last year in the "ragged schools" was 4000. Of these 400 had been in prison, 600 lived by begging, 178 were the children of convicts, and 800 had lost one or both their parents, and of course were living by their own contrivances. Out of the 62,000, there were not less than 28,113 who had no trade, or occupation, or honest livelihood whatever!
The statement then proceeded to consider the expense to which the nation was put to keep down crime. It will perhaps surprise those readers who object to the expenses of emigration.
In 1847.The expense of Parkhurst Prison was£14,349"Of Pentonville Prison,18,307In 1846.Of County Gaols,147,145"Of County Houses of Correction,160,841"Of Rural Police,180,000"Of Prosecutions for Coining,9,000In 1847.Of Metropolitan Police,363,164
The whole but a few items, yet amounting to a million sterling annually. In this we observe the Millbank Penitentiary, an immense establishment, Newgate, the Compter, and the various places of detention in the city, are not included; and there is no notice of the expenses of building, which in the instance of the Penitentiary alone amounted to a million.
Yet, to dry up the source of this tremendous evil, Lord Ashley asks only an expenditure of £100,000 annually, to transform 30,000 growing thieves into honest men, idlers into cultivators of the soil, beggars into possessors of property, which the generality of settlers become, on an average of seven years.
There can be no rational denial of the benefit, and even of the necessity, of rescuing those unfortunate creatures from a career which, beginning in vice and misery, must go on in public mischief, and end in individual ruin. Lord Ashley's suggestion is that the plan shall be first tried on the moderate scale of sending 500 boys, and 500 girls, chosen from the ragged schools of London, under proper superintendents, to the most fitting of the colonies; by which we understand Australia. The plan may then be extended to the other parts of the kingdom, to Scotland and Ireland. He concluded by placing his motion in the hands of government, who, through the Home Secretary, promised to give it all consideration.
It is certainly lamentable that such statements are to be made; and we have little doubt that the foreign journalist will exult in this evidence of what they call "the depravity of England." But, it is to be remembered that London has a population of nearly two millions—that all the idleness, vice, and beggary of an island of twenty millions are constantly pouring into it—thatforeignvice, idleness, and beggary contribute their share, and that what is abhorred andcorrectedin England, is overlooked, and even cherished abroad. It is also to be remembered, that there is a continual temptation to plunder in the exposed wealth of the metropolis, and a continual temptation to mendicancy in the proverbial humanity of the people.
Still, crime must be punished wherever it exists, and vice must be reformed wherever man has the means; and, therefore, we shall exult in the success of any judicious plan of emigration.
It happens, at this moment, that there is an extraordinary demand for emigration; that every letter from Australia calls for a supply of human life, and especially for an emigration of females,—the proportion of males to females in some of the settlements being 9 to 1, while the number of females predominates, by the last census in England.
There is a daily demand for additional labourers, artificers, and household servants, and with offers of wages which in England neither labourer nor artisan could hope to obtain. Thousands are now offered employment, comfort, and prospective wealth in Australia, who must burthen theworkhouse at home. The advantages are so evident, the necessity is so strong, and the opportunity is so prompt and perfect, that theymustresult in a national plan of constant emigration, until Australia can contain no more—an event which may not happen for a thousand years.
It happens, also, by a striking coincidence, that Australian discovery has just assumed new vigour; and that instead of the barrenness and deformity which were generally supposed to form the principal characteristics of this vast territory, immense tracts have been brought to European knowledge for the first time, exhibiting remarkable fertility, and even the most unexpected and singular beauty. We now give a sketch of the journey in which those discoveries were made.
To explore the interior of this great country has been the object of successive expeditions for the last five-and-twenty years. But such was the want of system or the want of means, that nothing was done, except to increase the tales of wonder regarding the middle regions of Australia. The theorists were completely divided; one party insisting on the existence of a mediterranean or mighty lake in the central region,becausethere was a tendency in some of the small rivers of the coast to flow inward. Others, with quite as much plausibility, laughed at the idea; and, from having felt a hot wind occasionally blowing from the west, had no doubt that the central region was a total waste, a desert of fiery sand, an Australian Sahara! while both parties seem to have been equally erroneous, so far as any actual discovery has been made.
But it seems equally extraordinary, that even the only two expeditions which within our time have added largely to our knowledge, alike should have neglected the most obvious and almost the only useful means of discovery. The especial object of exploration must be, to ascertain the existence of considerable rivers pouring into the sea, because it is only thus that the government can effectively form settlements. The especial difficulty of the explorers is, to find provisions, or carry the means of subsistence along with them. Both difficulties would be obviated by the steam-boat, and by nothing else. The natural process, therefore, would be, to embark the expedition in a well appointed and well provisioned steamer; to anchor it at the necessary distance from the coast, which in general has deep and sheltered water, within the great rocky ridge; and then send out the explorers for fifty or a hundred miles north and south, making the steamer the headquarters. Thus they might ascertain every feature of the coast, inch by inch, be secure of subsistence, and be free from native hostility.
Yet all the expeditions have been overland, generally with the most imminent hazard of being starved, and occasionally losing some of their number by attacks from the natives. Thus also the present expedition of the surveyor succeeded but in part, though it had the merit of discovering that the reports of Australian barrenness belonged but to narrow tracts, while the general character of the country towards the north was of striking fertility. The purpose of Sir T. Mitchell's late expedition was, to ascertain the probability of a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria. But as this route was to be made dependent on a presumed river flowing into the gulf, the actual object was to reach the head of that river—an object which could have been more effectually attained by tracing it upward from the gulf; and, in consequence of not so tracing it, the expedition ultimately failed.
To establish an easy connexion between the colony of New South Wales and the traffic of the Indian Ocean had long been a matter of great interest. Torres Strait, the only channel to the north, is a remarkably dangerous navigation; while, by forming an overland communication directly with the Gulf of Carpentaria to the west of the strait, the commerce would find an open sea. A trade in horses had also commenced with India, which was impeded by the hazards of the strait. There had also been a steam communication with England by Singapore, and there was a hope that this line might be connected with a line from the gulf.
The idea of tracing a river towardsthe north was a conjecture of several years' standing, in some degree founded on the natural probability that an immense indentation of the land could not but exhibit some outlet for the course of a considerable fall of waters, and also that there had been a report by a Bushman, of having followed its course to the sea.
After some difficulties with the governor, which were obviated by a vote of the Colonial Legislature of £2000 for the expenses of the expedition, it set out from Paramatta on the 17th of November 1845. The expedition consisted of Sir Thomas Mitchell; E. B. Kennedy, Esq., assistant-surveyor; William Stephenson, Esq., surgeon and naturalist; twenty-three convicts, who volunteered for the sake of a free pardon, which was to be their only payment; and three freemen. They had a numerous list of baggage conveyances, &c. &c.; eight drays, drawn by eighty bullocks; two boats, thirteen horses, four private horses, three light carts, and provisions for a year, including two hundred and fifty sheep, which travelled along with them, constituting a chief part of their animal food. They had also gelatine and pork. The surveyor-general preferred light carts, and horses in place of bullocks; but it was suggested that the strong drays were necessary, and that bullocks were more enduring than horses—the latter an opinion soon found to be erroneous. It is rather singular, that either opinion should not have been settled fifty years ago.
Some natural and well-expressed reflections arise, in the course of this volume, on the lonely life of the settler. Its despondency, and its inutility to advance his moral nature, are in some measure attributed to the absence of the "gentler sex."
"At this sheep station," says Sir Thomas, "I met with an individual who had seen better days, and had lost his property amid the wreck of colonial bankruptcies; a 'tee-totaller,' with Pope's 'Essay on Man' for his consolation, in abark hut. This man spoke of the depravity of shepherd life as excessive.... The pastoral life, so favourable to the enjoyment of nature, has always been a favourite with the poets. But here it appears to be the antipodes of all poetry and propriety, simply because man's better half is wanting. Under this unfavourable aspect the white man comes before the aboriginal. Were they intruders, accompanied with wives and children, they would not be half so unwelcome. In this, too, consists one of the most striking differences between settling and squatting. Indeed, if it were an object touncivilisethe human race, I know of no method more likely to effect it, than to isolate a man from the gentler sex and children. Remove afar off all courts of justice and means of redress of grievances, all churches and schools, all shops where he can make use of money, and then place him in close contact with savages. 'What better off am I than a black native!' was the exclamation of a shepherd to me."
A general description of the aspect of New South Wales would be difficult, from its extreme diversity in parts; but the general face of the country is marked by lines of granite hills; short water-courses, which in summer are dry, or retain the water only in pools; clumps of trees, generally dotted over the soil, and occasionalprairies. But the soil is generally fertile, and, in the spring, exhibits a great variety of flowers. Thus the land is every where fit for European life, though in the same latitude with the hottest portions of Africa. It has occasional gushes of intense heat, but they seem not to have affected the health of the expedition; and with that progress of comforts which follows all civilisation, the heat and cold alike may be successfully mitigated. We have not heard of any endemic in Australia; the epidemic has never visited its shores. The chief want in the pasture-grounds is water, but even that is merely the result of the rudeness of early settling; for vast quantities of water run to waste, or are lost in swamps, which future colonists will receive in tanks, and check with dams. The capricious abundance and deficiency of this prime necessary of life, for it is more essential than food, is shown in a striking, passage of this picturesque Journal. They were still within the sheep-feeding country. Water was much wanted. Mr Stephenson, the naturalist,was sent out on the inquiry. He returned soon, having met two of the mounted police, who told him that "a flood was coming down from the Turon Mountains."
"But the little encampment was held in suspense. Still, the bed of the Macquarie continued so dry, that the report could scarcely be believed. Towards evening, a man was stationed with a gun, to give a signal on the appearance of the flood. The shades of evening came, but no flood; and the man returned. This was a period of considerable anxiety, for the need of water was urgent.
"Some hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound, like that of a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks, as of breaking timber, drew our attention." They then returned to the river bank. Still no flood appeared, though they continued to hear the sounds of the crashing timber. At length an increase of the sounds told them that the water was in the next bend. All this, in a serene moonlight night, was new. At length it came, and came in power and beauty.
"It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a movingcataract; tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It was preceded by apointof meandering water, picking its way, like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry, and shady bed of what thus again became a flowing river." The phenomenon might make a fine subject for the pencil, if our artists were not divided between the palace and the pigstye. The noble river rolling along under atropicalmoon; the wild country around, with its forests and hills touched by the light; the bronzed faces and bold figures of the men of the expedition, gazing with natural surprise and gladness at this relief, and at the majestic object before them; and even the cattle hurrying up from the encampment, to cool the thirst which had pressed so severely on them during the day, all were made for the finest efforts of the pencil.
"By my party," says Sir T. Mitchell, "situated as we were at the time—beating about the country, and impeded in our journey solely by the almost total absence of water—suffering excessively from thirst and extreme heat,—I am convinced the scene canneverbe forgotten!Therecame abundance at once, the product of storms in the far-off mountains, thatoverlooked our homes! My first impulse was to have welcomed this flood on our knees; for the scene was sublime in itself, while the subject, an abundance of water sent to us in a desert, greatly heightened the effect to our eyes. I had witnessed nothing of the kind in all my Australian travels."
But the writer is an accomplished man of science, and he leads the contemplation to still more glorious things, "Even the heavens presented something new, at least uncommon, and therefore in harmony with this scene. The variable Star of Argol had increased to the first magnitude, just above the beautiful constellation of the Southern Cross, which slightly inclined over the river, in the only portion of sky seen through the trees. That very red star, thus increasing in magnitude, might, as characteristic of her rivers, be recognised as the 'Star of Australia,' when Europeans cross the line. The flood gradually filled up the channel nearly bank high, while the living cataract travelled onward much slower than I had expected to see it; so slowly, indeed, that more than an hour after its first arrival, thesweet musicof the head of the flood was distinctly audible from my tent, as the murmur of waters and crash of logs travelled slowly through the tortuous windings of the river bed. I was finally lulled to sleep by that melody of waters."
It has been often remarked, that Europeans once accustomed to a life of wandering, can never return to the life of cities; and even the clever journalist before us appears to have been a little captivated with this life of the wilderness. It may be easily admitted, that vigorous health, and active exercise, variety of objects, even if those objects are no more than new ridges of mountains or new rills of water; with keen appetite and sound sleep, are all excellent things in their style. But, is life given to man only to eat, gaze, and sleep? What is the life of the wilderness above that of the brute? Thetrue improvement of man, and, therefore, the especial employment intended for man, is, that increase of knowledge, of command over the powers of nature, and of the various means of adding to the conveniences, comforts and value of human existence, which, delivered down to us by our forefathers, it is our part to deliver with increase to our posterity. But the savage improves in nothing; he is as much a brute this year as he was a thousand years ago. Savagery is, in practice, a total defeat and denial of all the original purposes for which our nature was made. And it is with some regret and more surprise, that we quote, from such a source, such language as the following:—
"We set out, guided by our native friend," (a savage whom they had hired to lead them to some water-courses.) "He was a very perfect specimen of thegenushomo, and such as isneverto be seen, except in the precincts of savage life,undegradedby any scale ofgraduated classes; and the countlessbarsthese present to the free enjoyment of existence." Whether this is actually a recommendation that we should throw off our clothes and walk in nudity, for the purpose of recovering the original elegance of our shapes, or whether it is the borrowed rapture of some savage in person which the gallant officer has transplanted into his pages, to vary his more rational conceptions, we know not; but he hasnotmade us converts to the pleasures of cold, hunger, filth, and bloodshed, which furnish the realities of savage life, even in the paradisaic solitudes of Australia.
The savage, in his original state, is simply an animal, superior to his own dog only in sharpness of intellect; but wholly inferior to his dog in fidelity and affection. All savages are tyrannical—cruel to their wives, if wives they can be called—and in general cheating and plundering wherever they can. As to their bodily organs, of course, they cannot be perverted where they cannot reach temptation; but no savage comprehends moral restraint, and he gets drunk whenever he has the opportunity, and robs wherever he finds any thing to steal. On the other hand, civilisation necessarily enfeebles no man, and what the gallant Colonel regards as its "degradation of man by classes," produces quite the contrary effect; for the humbler the class, generally the more vigorous—as the peasant is a stronger man than the artisan, and the artisan than the nobleman. Even the idea that savage limbs can do more than civilised, is equally erroneous. A well clothed and well fed Englishman, if well formed, and with some training, will outwork, outrun, and outwrestle any savage from pole to pole. A ropedancer, a tumbler, or a horserider, at any of our theatres, though bred in the very heart of civilisation, or even in the hotbed of its temptations, will perform feats of activity which would defy all the muscles of a generation of savages. The truth is, that civilisation improves the features, the form, and the powers of the human frame. Men in society may be indolent, and throw away their advantages; but society is the place for man. Rousseau, once made a noise by talking nonsense on this subject; but Rousseauknewthat he was talking nonsense. Whether his imitators are equally cognisant of their own performances, is another question; but we come to better things.
This journey settled the disputed point of "horses or bullocks, light carts, or heavy drays." The bullocks and the drays were a perpetual annoyance; to feed and water the one, and to drag the other, soon became the grand difficulty of the expedition. We find the Colonel perpetually leaving them to follow, when any peculiar object of exploration was in view. At length the whole "park" was left to take its rest, under the second in command; and the Colonel, with eight men, two native boys, fourteen horses, and two light carts, with provisions for ten weeks, moved to the northward, to trace where the division of the waters was to be found, and then follow some of them down to the Gulf.
We were not prepared for the beauty sometimes exhibited by the Australian landscape. The Journal compares it to a succession of Ruysdaels. "The masses of rock, lofty trees, shining sands, and patches of water in wild confusion; the mimosæ, the Anthistiria-grass, of a red brown, contrasting most harmoniously with the lightgreen bushes; all those again so opposed to the dark hues of the casuarinæ, mimosæ, and rifted rocks, that a Ruysdael or a Gainsborough might have found an inexhaustible stock of subjects for the pencil."
This wild travelling has its discomforts, and now and then its dangers; but it is a perpetual source of exciting sensations. Every step is new, and every day's journey may place the traveller within some region of unexpected value or beauty. One of the hopes of the Journalist, on commencing this portion of his travels, was to discover a chain of hills to the northwest, from which he might trace the course of a river to the Gulf. At last this chain rose before his eyes.
"The most interesting sight to me was that of blue pics at a great distance to the northwest, the object of all my dreams of discovery for years.No white man had before seen them.There we might hope to find the division of the waters still undiscovered—the pass to Carpentaria still unexplored. I called this hill Mount First-View, and descended, delighted with what I had seen from its rocky crest." The latitude was 27°, yet the thermometer at sunrise was but at 45°, at noon 68°, and at 9P.M.45°.
The captivations of the scenery were equal to the delights of the temperature, though so near the tropics.—"An Australian morning is always charming. Amid those scenes of primæval nature it seemed exquisitely so. The barita or gymnoskina, the organ-magpie, was here represented by a much smaller bird, whose notes, resembling the softest breathings of a flute, were the only sounds that met the ear. What the stillness of evening adds to such sounds in other climes, is felt more intensely in the stillness of morn in this."
The forms of the vegetation, both tree and shrub, are picturesque, and the colours are finer still:—"Instead of autumnal tints, there is a perpetual blending of the richest hues of autumn with the most brilliant verdure of spring; while the sun's welcome rays in a winter's morning, and the cool breath of the woods in a summer morning, are equally grateful. This was in the depth of the Australian winter, and, which sounds oddly to the European ear, in the 'merry month of June.'"
Advancing still to the north, a country of an extraordinary kind was reached in July; and they had now found, that most important of all objects in a wilderness, a fine "flowing stream, full of sparkling water to the margin." The Journalist seems quite enamoured with the surrounding scene, a miniature Australian Switzerland:—"The hills overhanging it surpassed any I had ever seen, in picturesque outline. Some resembled Gothic cathedrals in ruins; some forts; other masses were perforated; and being mixed and contrasted with the flowing outlines of evergreen woods, and having a fine stream in the foreground, gave a charming appearance to the whole country. It was a vision worthy of the toils of a pilgrimage. Those beautiful recesses of unpeopled earth could no longer remain unknown. The better to mark them out on any map, I gave to the valley the name of Salvator Rosa. The rocks stood out sharply and sublimely from the thick woods, just as John Martin's fertile imagination would dash them out in his beautiful landscapes. I never saw any thing in nature come so near those creations of genius and imagination." But this river, which they followed for some time, ran so far to the east, that they justly began to doubt its being the one of which they were in search and they turned again to the north. They now passed into a fine level country, incomparably formed for settlement. "An almost boundless extent of the richest surface in a solitude corresponding to that of (southern) China, yet still unoccupied by man. A great reserve provided by Nature for the extension of his race."
They left the Salvator between the 21st and 22d degrees of latitude, and moved to the north-west. There at length their aspirations, though only partially, were probably realised. In the middle of September they reached some heights, from which lay before them a vast extent of open downs traversed by a river, traceable to the utmost verge of the horizon, and falling to thenorth-west! "Ulloa's delight at the first view of the Pacific could not have surpassed mine," is the natural exclamation of the Journalist."Nor could the fervour with which he was impressed have exceeded my sense of gratitude for being allowed to make such a discovery. From that rock the scene was so extensive as to leaveno room for doubtas to the course of the river, which, then and there revealed to me alone, seemed like a reward direct from Heaven for perseverance, and as a compensation for the many sacrifices which I had made, in order to solve the question as to the interior rivers of tropical Australia."
From the 16th to the 24th of September the course of the river was followed, which still was north-west, but at this period the party returned. The reason stated is the failure of provisions. This must have been a most vexatious disappointment—so vexatious, that we cannot comprehend how it could have been submitted to without some more remarkable effort than any thing that we find recorded in these pages. That an expedition equipped for a four months' journey should have turned back at the very moment when a few days', perhaps a few hours', march, might have completed its object, is altogether incomprehensible, while it had any conceivable means of subsistence. In such a condition of things, the traveller ought to have eaten his horse, if he could get nothing else. But there was actually, at no great distance behind, a depôt of their own bullocks and sheep, all feeding comfortably, and, as the party found on marching back to them, "Sheep and cattle fat, the whole a sort of farm." A good stackyard had been set up, a storehouse had been built, a garden had been fenced in, and contained lettuce, radishes, melons, and cucumbers. Indeed, the whole establishment exhibited the effects of good order and discipline.
Why, then, did not the Journalist return on his track, and establish the discovery which was the express object of his mission? This exceeds our knowledge. The only direct intimation of his necessities in these pages is, "our provisions were nearly out, the sun having reduced themess sugar and melted the bacon, which had been boiled before we set out." Whether theleanof Australian bacon may liquefy in the sun is more than our European experience can tell, but we presume it must be ranked among the wonders of a new country; at all events, the Journalist returned without having done the very thing for which his expedition had been fitted out, and left the object to be completed by his subordinate, who was subsequently despatched in the direction of the north-west. Thus, though probabilities are in favour of the river, which the Colonel named the Victoria, the point is by no means settled, and Australian curiosity may be disappointed after all.
As the party approached the river, they saw considerable numbers of the natives. On reaching one of the lagoons, the shrieks of many women and children, and the angry voices of men, apprised them that they had at length overtaken the tribe, and unfortunately had come on them by surprise. "Aya, minya!" was vociferated repeatedly, and was understood to mean, "What do you want?" I steadily adhered to my own tactics towards the aborigines, and took not the slightest notice of them, but rode on according to my compass-bearing. On looking back for my men, I saw one beckoning me to return. He had observed two natives with spears and clubs hide themselves behind a bush in the direction in which I was advancing. On my halting, they stole away. The whole seemed to have been amusing themselves in the water during the noonday heat, which was excessive, and the cool shades round the lagoon looked most luxuriant. Our position, on the contrary, was any thing but enviable. Even there, in the heart of the interior, on a river utterly unheard of by white men, an iron tomahawk glittered in the hand of a chief. The anxious care of the females to carry off their children seemed the most agreeable feature of the scene. Some had been digging in the mud for worms, others searching for fresh-water mussels, and if the whole could have been witnessed unperceived, such a scene of domestic life among the aborigines had been worth a little more risk. The strong men assumed a strange attitude, which seemed very expressive of surprise, having the right knee bent, the left leg forward—the right arm dropping, but grasping clubs—the left arm raised,and the fingers spread out. "Aya, aya, minya," they continually shouted. However, the party rode on, and the shouts died away.
The Journalist occasionally recovers from his enthusiasm for savagery. We have no more bursts in his earlier style, "Such truth and exemption from disease, suchintensityof existence, in short, must be far beyond theenjoyments of civilised men, with all that art can do for them. And the proof of this is to be found, in the failure of all attempts to persuade these free denizens of uncultivated earth to forsake it for the tilled ground. They prefer the land, unbroken and free from the earliest curse pronounced against the first banished and first created man." All this unfortunately shows nothing, but that the gallant Colonel would be the wiser for going back to his Bible, where he would find the words, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake." But at last (page 328) we have a sketch of the reality. "It would appear that, the finer the climate and the fewer man's wants, the more he sinks towards the condition of the lower animals. Where the natives had passed the night, no huts, even of bushes, had been set up. A few tufts of dry grass only marked the spot, where, beside a small fire, each person had sat, folded up like the capital letter N. Their occupation during the day was only wallowing in a muddy hole, in no respect cleaner than swine. They have no idea of any necessity for washing themselves between their birth and the grave, while groping in mud for worms." After admitting the filth, the indolence, and the uselessness of the savage; contrasting, however, his teeth and tongue favourably with those of the civilised man or child, of which he pronounces it to be "ten to one but he should findonly impurity and decay," (a point in which we are wholly at issue with him,) he asks, "what then is civilisation in the economy of the human animal?" He answers, "Cultivated man despises the perishable substance, and pursues the immortal shadow." We are but little satisfied with the language of this solution, nor is its meaning much more intelligible. In the first place, man, in a civilised state, does not necessarily injure his bodily organs. The fool who cannot stir, or even sit, without a cigar in his mouth, or the drunkard who continually sacrifices health and understanding to intoxication, has only to condemn himself. But, give the savage tobacco and rum, and he will as speedily destroy his organs, and bring himself to the grave, as the most civilised profligate in existence. And as to the grand supposed use of civilisation—the fixing our minds on "immortal shadows"—if by this he meant giving us ideas of religion, there are many highly civilised nations which think but very little of religion, and many highly civilised persons who think of it nothing at all. Yet, it is only justice to the gallant Colonel to quote this sentence. "Animal gratification is transient and dull compared to the acquisition of knowledge, the gratification of mind,—the raptures of the poet, or the delight of the enthusiast, however imaginary. Such were my reflections on this day of rest, in the heart of a desert, while protected from the sun's rays by a blanket."
But even his metaphysics are entirely a misconception. The original purpose of civilisation is, to enable man to live in society; that is, in peace, with the advantages of mutual assistance. That those objects are powerfully aided by religion is true, and that science may be best cultivated in settled life, is equally true; but those are merely collateral. Civilisation means the work of law, of safe intercourse, of secure property, and of all the safeguards of society which ultimately enable man to polish the general manners, and to improve the general mind. Religion is not the consequence, but the origin of Civilisation.
We now take leave of the journey, with the sketch of the rivers. After moving for some distance between two streams, they approached the junction, which formed—"the broad, deep, and placid waters of a river as deep as the Murray. Pelicans and ducks floated upon it, and mussel shells of extraordinary size lay in such quantities, where the natives had been in the habit of eating them, as to resemble snow covering the ground. But even that reach seemed diminutive,when compared with the vast body of water of which traces had been left there; affording evidence, that though wide, they must have been impetuous in their course. Verdure alone shone now, over the wide extent to which the waters sometimes rose. Beyond that channel lay the almost boundless plains; the whole together forming the finest region I had ever seen in Australia."
Still the luckless character of the Australian rivers appears; and after expecting that this fine channel, which there seemed navigable for steamers, would continue, in a few miles more it exhibited only ponds. Whether the great central stream may not exhibit the same caprice, is still the question.
The party returned to Sydney in January 1847; and in March, Mr Kennedy, the second in command, was sent, as has been already stated, to explore the course of the Victoria.
There are some valuable observations on the aborigines. It is said that they have good natural faculties, all one of them named Uranigh, an attendant on the expedition, obtains especial praise for sagacity, fidelity, and courage. But, from inevitable circumstances, it appears to be the fate of the natives to waste away before the European blood, and, even without any violence or oppression, gradually to vanish. To teach them to earn their bread, to adopt European habits of any kind, or even to live with any sense of comfort in the vicinity of European settlers, seems impossible, and thus they gradually retire into the interior. This process has so uniformly occurred in all colonised countries, where a new civilisation has been introduced, that it may be regarded as almost a law of nature. "Fire, grass, and kangaroos," are essential to native life; and when the pastures are no longer suffered to be burned, and when the kangaroos disappear, the savagemustretire. Sir T. Mitchell's favourite project would be, to send away a young married pair to the south of Europe, where they might learn the cultivation of the grape and olive, fig, &c.; then to bring them back with their children. But we are afraid they would make but few converts; that the benevolent experiment would be totally thrown away; and that the poor, idle, and useless being, whom Sir Thomas will persist in calling the noble savage, must be left to eat rats and mice, to live in misery and wretchedness, and to be inevitably pushed into the wilderness, to make way for a superior class of human capability.
But, regarding the condition of the natives as utterly beyond European influence, except so far as it may and ought to be exerted to protect them from all injury,—there are other questions of high importance, relative to the condition of the convicts. The preamble of the Transport Act made the reformation of the culprit a primary object. There never was any use of forced labour so effective. The galley-slaves of France and Italy were in general made more wicked, if possible, by their imprisonment and work. We think it also next to an impossibility that any culprit, punished by temporary imprisonment, and then thrown out again among his associates,canchange his habits. Who will employ a known felon? A single act of robbery may give him more means of gross gratification, than he could obtain by the severest toil in a twelvemonth. The temptation is too strong. The only hope of his recovery, is in his being sent where his bad character will not utterly prevent his getting a good one; where he will have profitable work, (let the profit be more or less;) where he will have few temptations, and none of his old ones; and where he may have a prospect of bettering his condition among his fellows. All these he had, and has, in New South Wales.
But it is remarkable and unfortunate, that we seldom have a new head of the colonial department who does not bring with him some new theory; and the fashionable theory now is, to try the effect of prison discipline. We have no hesitation in denouncing this theory, as ineffectual, intolerably costly, highly dangerous, and even actually cruel. We take the points in succession: we doubt whether it has really reformed one prisoner out of a thousand. Its expense is enormous: the single prison at Millbank cost a million sterling, and probably £100,000 a-year for its support. The model prison at Pentonville is an architecturalbijou,but terribly expensive. Men cannot be reformed by turnkeys in the most moral costume, or by locks of the most exquisite invention.—It is dangerous: because those felons, once let loose, almost invariably become felons again; and a general jail-delivery once a year, from handcuffs and shackles, may people the streets with ruffianism.—It is even cruel. The prisoners are not merely deprived, for a long succession of years, of all healthful exercise—for who ever could take healthful exercise within prison walls?—but shut out from all the view and enjoyment of nature, and especially from matrimony; they cannot be husbands or fathers. It is true, that the felon forfeits all rights, if they are found incompatible with the public safety; but we have norightto inflict on him any suffering beyond that which is absolutely necessary. If by sending him to Australia we can accomplish, without cruelty, those objects which wecannotaccomplish without cruelty at home, it is our duty to send him to Australia.
We know that a middle system of imprisonment, to be followed by transportation, has been attempted, but we have no faith in its operations. The true place is Australia.
Sir Thomas Mitchell, the very best authority on such subjects, tells us, "There is no country in which labour appears to be more required to render it available to, and habitable by civilised man, than New South Wales.Withoutlabour, the inhabitants must be savages, or such helpless people as we find the Aborigines. With equal truth, it may be asserted that there isno regionof earth susceptible of so much improvement solely by the labour and ingenuity of man." There are no unwholesome savannahs; the rocky ranges afford the means of forming reservoirs, &c., of water, which, under the tropics, is life, abundance, and health; there is an immensity if it be properly used, and Australia might be made the finest scene of vegetation and luxuriance in the world.
We take our leave of this volume with regret. It is strikingly written; it excites and rewards curiosity, and (a few rambling ideas excepted) it powerfully increases our interest in Australian discovery, and in that whole mighty region of the Pacific, which God's providence has given into the hands of England, for the happiness of mankind.
Travels in Siberia: including Excursions Northwards, down the Obi to the Polar Circle, and Southwards to the Chinese Frontier.ByAdolph Erman. Translated from the German byW. R. Cooley. Two vols. London, 1848.
Of no important portion of the dominions of the five great European powers are such vague and imperfect notions entertained, as of the vast tract comprised between Russia in Europe and the Kamschatkan sea, between the Chinese empire and the Arctic Ocean. Courageous explorers have not been wanting, of the inclement steppes and rugged mountains forming Europe's bulwark against the Mongul and the Tartar. Men of enterprise and distinction have undertaken the task, and executed it well. But their journeys, usually performed with special objects and scientific views, have been recorded for the most part in a similar spirit. Either an ardent love of science and zeal for its advancement, or the strong encouragement and liberal subsidies of an enlightened government, are requisite inducements to brave the perils and hardships of Siberian travel. The mere inquisitive and speculative traveller has difficulty in persuading himself, that the country can reward him for the discomfort and inconvenience he must endure in traversing it. Not that Siberia is entirely devoid of wild attractions and romantic associations. To the adventurous hunter, itsvast forests and thinly-peopled plains give assurance of sport. The motley character of its native and immigrant population affords to the philosopher curious matter of consideration. A place of deportation for traitors and criminals—and not unfrequently for the innocent—its name is inseparably connected with the memory of innumerable unfortunates who have there pined out their existence in expiation of crime, or in obedience to mandates often as unjust as arbitrary. Fallen favourites of the Czars, rebels against their tyranny, traitors to their person, murderers, and other malefactors, and even prisoners of war, have here found a living grave till released by death, clemency, or flight. Did the tears of exiles fertilise, Siberia should be a teeming land. Since its first subjugation by Ivan the Terrible, how many a Russian magnate, lord of thousands of serfs, owner of millions of rubles, proud of his position, and confident of imperial favour, has suddenly found himself travelling eastward under escort, banished and a beggar. How many mournful trains of minor offenders have plodded their weary way across the Uralian chain, guarded by barbarian Bashkirs, to labour in the mines of Nerchinsk, or to lead a peasant's toilsome life on the margin of the Frozen Sea. From those vast and ice-bound regions, escape can rarely be accomplished. But at intervals, during the last five-and-thirty years, bearded and toil-worn men of martial aspect have crossed the German frontier, and astonished those they accosted by wild tales of suffering, and ignorance of the most notorious events. Some have inquired for Napoleon, and wept when they learned he was a captive, or dead. Circumstances of current history, known to each child and peasant, were to them a mystery and a marvel. These strange wanderers, escaped from long bondage in Siberia, were amongst the last survivors of that countless host led northwards by a Corsican's ambition, and whose funeral pile was lighted in Moscow's city.
Amongst the delineators of Siberia and its inhabitants, of the produce, customs, and peculiarities of the country and its people, one of the most successful is the German gentleman and scholar whose admirable work has just now appeared in a clever English dress. The son of a man of great learning and high attainments, Mr Adolph Erman treads nobly in his father's footsteps. Still young, he has done much to increase the lustre of the honourable name transmitted to him. Born in the year 1806, he was but two-and-twenty years of age when he undertook, at his own cost, a journey round the world, having for its chief object a series of magnetical observations. The expedition was completely successful. Starting from Berlin to St Petersburg, he crossed northern Asia, with occasional digressions of a few hundred leagues, took ship at Okhotsk for Kamschatka, thence proceeded to California, visited Otaheite, and came round by Cape Horn and Rio Janeiro to Europe and Berlin. Then he sat down to write of what he had seen, entitling his work—"Journey round the Earth, across North Asia and both Oceans." But the tale of travel so extensive takes time to tell; and, up to the present date, he has not protracted his narrative beyond Okhotsk. What he has done, however, is complete in itself, very interesting, and withal somewhat voluminous, since its abridged translation forms two heavy octavos, heavy in amount of paper and print, but not, we must in justice admit, in the nature of their contents. Whilst recording scientific investigations, the author does not neglect subjects more generally interesting. Upon all he brings to bear an extraordinary amount of reading and research. The result is a book of travels of no ephemeral nature, but that will long be esteemed as a standard work, and respected as a valuable authority.
Mr Erman commences his narrative of travel on the day of his departure from Berlin; but its earlier portion has been compressed by the translator, in order to escape as soon as possible from Europe, and get upon the less trodden ground east of Tobolsk. Much has been written of late years concerning European Russia and its inhabitants, and it was hardly to be expected that even so acute an observer as Mr Erman should find any thing particularly novel to say about them. He takesa sensible and practical view of the condition, character, and disposition of the population; and is happy in his detection and indication of national peculiarities. He does not, like the majority of travellers in Russia, enter the country with a settled determination to behold nothing, from the White Sea to the Black, but oppression and cruelty on the one hand, slavery and suffering upon the other. He does not come to a premature decision, that because Russia is ruled by an absolute monarch, all happiness, prosperity, and justice are essentially banished from the land. It is really pleasant to find a deviation from the established routine of books about Russia. These are now nearly all concocted upon one and the same plan. The recipe is as exact as any in Mrs Rundell: and is as conscientiously adhered to by literary cooks, as that great artist's invaluable precepts are by knights and ladies of the ladle. Tyranny, misery, and the knout are the chief ingredients of the savoury dish. We are shown a nation of cretins, crushed under the boot-heel of an imperial ogre; whilst a selfish, servile aristocracy salaam their admiration, and catch greedily at the titles and gewgaws thrown to them as a sop by their terrible master. This is the substance of the mess, which, being handsomely garnished with lying anecdotes of horrible cruelties practised upon the unfortunate population, is deemed sufficiently dainty to set before the public, and is forthwith devoured as genuine and nutritive food by the large body of simpletons who take type for a guarantee of veracity. Mr Erman despises the common trick and claptrap resorted to by vulgar writers. Avoiding anecdotage, and abuse of the powers that be, he gives, in brief shrewd paragraphs, glimpses of Muscovite character and feelings, which clearly prove the people of that vast empire to be far happier, more prosperous, and more practically free, than the inhabitants of many countries who boast of liberty because anarchy has replaced good government. Judging less from any distinct assertions or arguments advanced in these volumes, than from their general tenor, and by the inferences to be gleaned from them, we must consider the Russians a contented and flourishing nation, likely to make the larger strides in civilisation that they are unimpeded by revolutionary agitation. Propagandists meet little encouragement amongst the loyal and light-hearted subjects of the autocrat. "We have often observed at Moscow," says Mr Erman, "birch-trees hewn for fencing, yet still alive in the horizontal position, and throwing out shoots. The great distinction of the vegetable nature in this region is its tenacity of life; and, singularly enough, the same capability of existing under oppression, and of withstanding stubbornly every revolutionising influence, is here the characteristic of man also. The ear of the stranger is sure, at every turn of conversation, to catch the sounds—'Kak ni bud,' (no matter how,) with which the Russians are used to give expression to their habitual indifference, and renunciation of all care.... Notwithstanding the great variety of condition which the population exhibit, every thing has the stamp of nationality, and an obstinate adherence to established usage may be plainly recognised as a fundamental principle. Some foreign customs, indeed, are adopted from strangers residing in Moscow; but they are, at the same time, so changed as to be assimilated to the national manners. Russian nationality may be compared to a river, which receives other streams without changing its name; or, still better, to a living organism, which, while devouring every variety of food, continues still the same."
It was on the 29th of July that Mr Erman, who travelled in company with the Norwegian professor Hansteen, left Moscow, and moved eastwards, passing through a productive country, strewn with populous and comfortable villages. At Pokròf, his first halting-place, his chamber walls were adorned with rude carvings and paintings, whose subjects were taken from the events of 1812, and represented the valiant deeds of the peasantry. Buikova, a village forty miles east of Moscow, was the farthest point to which the French penetrated.Their invasion has left but a faint impression upon the popular mind in Russia—even in Moscow, which suffered so much at their hands. Conflagrations have been common occurrences in that city, and the inhabitants are accustomed to be burned out. We read of seven such events, from the thirteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, in all of which the destruction was complete, or very nearly so. The fire of 1812 spared many of the stone churches, on whose towers "the Mahomedan crescent rises above the cross, a monument of earlier revolutions. The yoke of the Tatars was so lasting and oppressive, that later events of a similar kind seem comparatively unimportant; and even the French invasion is here thought little of, being usually compared with the irruptions of the Pechenegues and that of the Poles in later times, but never set on a level with the Tatar domination." The French have little prestige in Russia. Whatever respect they previously enjoyed there, was completely annihilated by the pitiful figure they cut in the Moscow campaign; retreating, as they did, a ragged, disorderly, frost-bitten remnant, before a swarm of armed peasants and irregular horse. And Muscovite sign-painters and saint-carvers decorate village walls with episodes of the disastrous overthrow of an army, probably the most powerful and really efficient ever got together. Any notion entertained by the Russians of French invincibility was as completely dissipated in that country by the events of 1812, as it was in Germany by the ensuing, and scarcely less important, campaign of 1813.
Passing Murom, where a sort of Yankee tradition exists of a "robber-nightingale," which entices travellers into the woods by its song, and then kills them by the power of its notes, Mr Erman reached Nijni Novgorod at the moment of the great annual fair. The mixture of European and Asiatic produce and manufactures gives the Russian fairs an appearance singularly striking to the foreigner's eye. Things the most opposite are there brought together.Obrasá, or Greek holy images, amulets, and other objects used in the solemnities of the Græco-Russian church, are seen in juxtaposition with the elegant luxuries and superfluities of extreme European civilisation. The clumsy carvings of Uralian peasants are found in the next warerooms to the fragile and fashionable masterpieces of a Parisian milliner. The chief part of the goods come from great distances. Amongst the important articles of traffic are tea from China, horse-hides from Tatary, iron bars from Siberia, shawls of camel's-down from Bokhara. The Bokharians also import large quantities of cotton, partly raw and partly spun. This is one of the principal objects of trade at Nijni. Concerning the origin of this useful substance, curious fables were current in Russia not quite a century ago. "It appears to me certain," says Mr Erman, "that the story of the zoophytic plant called Baránez, or lamb-plant (formed as a diminutive from Barán, a sheep,) originated in some embellished account of the cotton plant. Herberstein relates it at full length and unchanged, just as he had heard it. 'There has been seen, near to the Caspian Sea, a seed, rather larger and rounder than that of a melon, from which, when set in the ground, is produced something similar to a lamb, of the altitude of five palms, having a very fine fleece, &c., &c. The German edition of Herberstein (Basel, 1563) adds that the Baránez has a head, eyes, ears, and all the limbs, like a sheep. But it mentions correctly 'the very fine fleece which the people of that country commonly made use of to pad their caps withal.' This is the ordinary use which the Tatar tribes in general make of cotton at the present day." The fair at Nijni lasts two months, and brings together six hundred thousand persons of different nations and tribes, or about thirty-three times the number of the stationary population. It produces a large revenue to the imperial treasury,—the letting of the wooden booths, and of two thousand five hundred and twenty-two stone storerooms, (to each of which latter is attached a chamber for the owner of the goods to live in) alone yielding, so far back as 1825, nearly four hundred thousand rubles; whilst the population of the government, or district, amounting to nearly a million of souls, paid taxesto the amount of fourteen millions of rubles.
Nijni Novgorod is the point of rendezvous for criminals from the western provinces of the empire, condemned to Siberian exile. They arrive there in small detachments, to pursue their journey in large bodies. In the vicinity of every post-house along the road is another building known as the Ostrog or fort, which is merely a large barrack divided into numerous small chambers, and surrounded by a fence of palisades, where the convicts are lodged upon the journey. From various passages scattered through Mr Erman's book, it appears that these Siberian exiles are by no means so badly treated as has frequently been stated and believed. In most instances the punishment derives its severity less from any painful toil or cruel discipline imposed upon them, than from the rigidity of the climate, the separation from friends, and the mortal ennui those accustomed to civilisation and society cannot but experience, whilst leading the monotonous life of a peasant or Cossack in regions as dreary as any the globe's surface affords. The first caravan of prisoners encountered by Mr Erman, at about a hundred versts beyond Nijni, were well clothed and cared for, and seemed neither dissatisfied with their past journey, nor overwhelmed with care about the future. "With every train of them are several waggons, drawn by post-horses, to carry the women and the old and infirm men; the rest follow in pairs, in a long train, after the waggons, escorted by a militia established in the villages. It is but rarely that one sees special offenders with fetters upon their legs during the march." The majority of tales circulated by romancing travellers, with reference to Siberian exile, have little foundation save in the imagination of the narrators. Amongst these fictions is to be reckoned the statement that certain classes of the banished are compelled to pass their lives in hunting the sable, and other animals. The great majority of the delinquents are condemned only to settle in Siberia; and when hard labour in the Uralian mines, and in certain manufactories, is superadded, it is generally for a year or other limited period. Those of the peasant class have to support themselves, whilst offenders of a higher rank, and unused to manual labour, have an allowance made them by the government. In various places Mr Erman met with exiles, from some of whom he obtained curious information. They are usually known by the mild name of "the unfortunates," and are held in no particular disfavour by the natives, with whose families they intermarry. By a remarkable enactment of the Russian law, serfs, when transported to Siberia, become in all respects as free as the peasants in western Europe. Mr Erman refers to this with strong approval, and attributes to it the happiest results. "I have often," he says, "heard intelligent and reflecting Russians mention, as an almost inexplicable paradox, that the peasants condemned to become settlers, all, without exception, and in a very short time, change their habits and lead an exemplary life; yet it is certain that the sense of the benefit conferred on them by the gift of personal freedom is the sole cause of this conversion. Banishment subservient to colonisation, instead of close imprisonment, is, indeed, an excellent feature in the Russian code; and though the substitution of forced labour in mines for the punishment of death may be traced back to Grecian example, yet the improving of the offender's condition by bestowing on him personal freedom, is an original as well as an admirable addition of a Russian legislator." It is of course by the higher class of exiles that the banishment is most severely felt; but these live in the towns, that the succour received from government may reach them the more easily, and submit, for the most part, with great equanimity to the startling change from the luxury of Moscow or St Petersburg, to the dulness and simplicity of Tobolsk, and even of worse places. Some of them have to do penance in church for a certain time after their arrival, and a portion of these continue the practice when it is no longer compulsory. At Beresov, a town in western Siberia, which Mr Erman passed through on an excursion northwards from Tobolsk, the oral chronicles of the inhabitantsfurnish curious details of the numerous illustrious exiles who have there ended their days. Menchikoff, the well-known favourite of Peter I., was one of these. "After his political extinction, he prepared himself, by devout penitence, for his natural decease. He worked with his own hands in erecting the little wooden church, now fallen to decay, which stands thirty or forty feet above the bank of the Sosva, at the southern extremity of the town: he then served in it as bell-ringer, and was finally buried by the grateful inhabitants of Beresov, immediately before the door of the building." It was here, at Beresov, that Mr Erman fell in with a number of unlucky conspirators, who had lost fortune, rank, and home, by their association in a recent abortive revolutionary attempt. Amongst them were a M. Gorski, at one time a count and general of cavalry, and the ex-chieftains Focht and Chernilov. They usually wore the costume of the country, but upon holidays they donned European coats,in order to display the vestiges of the orders which had once been sewed upon them. A curious instance of vanity, traceable, perhaps, to a desire to distinguish themselves from persons condemned to the same punishment for crimes of a more disgraceful nature.
In the streets of Yekaterinburg, the first town of importance after crossing the Asian boundary, parties of exiles are a frequent spectacle; the number passing through in a year being estimated at five thousand, or about two-fifths of the annual export of convicts to Siberia, as stated by Mr Stepanov, whose statement, however, Mr Erman seems disposed to consider exaggerated. The detachments are usually guarded by Kosaks of the Ural, and by a company of Bashkir militia. These Uralian Kosaks are well uniformed, armed, and mounted, and enjoy the same privileges as the Kosaks of the Don. They are allowed an immunity from every impost, but are bound to devote themselves to the public service. Touching the Bashkirs, another irregular and half-savage militia, serving to swell the ranks of Russia's enormous army, Mr Erman, who made some stay at Yekaterinburg, the northern limit of their residence, gives curious particulars. They are the only aboriginal Siberian tribe whose mode of life regularly alternates from the nomadic to the fixed. Their winters are passed in permanent villages of wooden huts, erected usually upon the skirt of a forest. But when spring approaches, they collect their flocks and herds, strap hair tent-cloths upon their saddles, and are off to the plains. They appear to live upon horseback, and are indolent, indocile, and useless out of the saddle. The only thing the men do, is to drive home the mares at milking-time; all other domestic toil is left to the women. And although grass abounds in the summer pastures, hay is unknown amongst them. The cattle sustain life in winter as best they may, on stunted or decayed herbage, sought under the snow and gathered on the dunghills. Fermented mare's milk is the favorite drink of the Bashkirs, who live chiefly upon mutton and fish, and upon the fruit of the bird-cherry (Prunus padus) kneaded into a sort of cake. In the chase they make use of hawks, which they are particularly skilful in training. The smaller species of these birds are used to take hares, whilst the greater will strike foxes, and even wolves. The roving careless life of the Bashkirs possesses a peculiar charm, admitted even by the civilised Russians; and it is with no good will that, on the return of winter, the tribes re-enter their settled habitations. "They approach them with reluctance, and believe that Shaitan, or the evil spirit, has taken up his abode in the huts that oppress them with such a sense of restraint. The men accordingly remain at some distance from the settlement, and send the women forward, armed with staves, with which they strike the door of every hut, uttering loud imprecations; and it is not till they have made the rounds with their noisy exorcisms, that the men ride forward at full speed and with terrific shouts, to banish the dreaded demon from his lurking-place." The chief weapon of these Bedouins of the north is the same which so forcibly excited Captain Dalgetty's risibility upon his visit to the Children of the Mist. But althoughin these days of Paixhans and percussion, bows and arrows certainly appear rather anomalous, they are by no means contemptible weapons in the hands of some of the Siberian tribes. Of this Mr Erman had abundant opportunity to convince himself, especially when his ramble northwards from Tobolsk brought him amongst the Ostyaks of the river Obi. The ordinary hunting weapons of these people are bows six feet long, of very slight curve, and from which four-feet arrows are discharged with murderous effect. Much practice and strength are required to draw these bows; and our scientific traveller, who, not having taken the necessary precaution of shielding the left arm with a piece of horn, from the recoil of the string, had been unable to draw his bow to more than one third of the arrow's length, was not a little astounded to see an Ostyak pigmy, with sore eyes and a sickly aspect, send a blunt arrow one hundred and sixty feet, and strike the object aimed at, the stem of a larch, near its summit, fully sixty feet from the ground. Blunt arrows, headed with flattened iron balls, are used to kill sables and squirrels, that the skin may not be injured; the sharp ones are a settler for any quadruped the country produces.
After many days' journey through Tatar villages of wooden huts, and towns that are little better, the first view of Tobolsk, obtained some miles before reaching the place, is quite imposing; and the traveller, who might think he had got a few stages beyond civilisation, is cheered and encouraged by the sight of church-towers, lofty monasteries, and well-built houses. In vain does he seek an inn. Such things are unknown in Siberia; and, if he has no acquaintance in the town, he must apply to the police-master, who recommends him to the hospitality of an inhabitant, by whom he is made welcome during his stay, without demand for remuneration, although, if proffered, it will sometimes be accepted. In this manner Mr Erman and his companions were accommodated in the upper storey of a well-built wooden house; and here their progress eastward was arrested by the character of the weather. It was the commencement of October, the period of transition from summer to winter, and the traveller's entrance into the town was rendered memorable by a heavy fall of snow—"white flies," as the postilions called the flakes, which they beheld with much pleasure. Their satisfaction was probably owing to the fact that in Siberia the coldest part of the year is the most favourable for travelling, a matter of interest to people of their profession. But the moment of transition, whilst the struggle lasts between summer and winter, when snow encumbers the ground, and frost has not yet hardened it, is known, as well as the similar period at the close of winter, as "the time of the unroading," (spoiling of the roads;) and the Russians have even manufactured a verb "to be unroaded." The snow obstructs wheeled carriages, and forbids the use of the sledge; and, unless peremptorily compelled to move forward, the Russian merchants—the most experienced of Siberian travellers—await, in some convenient resting-place, the hardening of the winter road. From Mr Erman's account, a better place than Tobolsk could scarcely be found, in those wild regions, wherein to pass a few weeks of compulsory inaction. Nevertheless, and although cordially received by the governor-general, Velyaminov, from whom, and from other Russian officers, he got much useful information, our traveller was impatient to be off. He had a pet scheme in view. From the very commencement of the journey he had planned an excursion to the mouth of the Obi, within the Arctic circle. To this he was partly induced by the desire of tracing certain magnetic lines, and partly by "the alluring prospect of enjoying, on the northern part of the Obi, the first undisturbed intercourse with the aboriginal possessors of the land, where they are little changed by foreign influence." Accordingly, towards the middle of November, the drifting ice upon the Irtuish having united into a solid sheet, Mr Erman joyfully made final preparations for his journey to Obdorsk. They were few, and soon completed. A Kosak guide and interpreter, a fur dress, a copper kettle, bread and ham, salted salmon and caviar, were stowed in acouple of sledges, one of which was light enough to be drawn by dogs or reindeer. It was held advisable also to take out a fresh passport, signed by the governor of Tobolsk, in lieu of the one delivered at St Petersburg, for, in places far removed from the great road across Siberia, people have confused and indistinct notions of the power which issues from the capital of the empire. The larger sledge was provided with otvódi or guides—two strong bars placed lengthways on either side the carriage to prevent an upset. "Towards the end of winter, the snow-ways, which are constantly travelled upon, have an undulating surface, like that of a stormy sea, and give the sledge a motion so like that of a ship tossed on the waves, that travellers unused to it often grow sea-sick on the road, and the use of otvódi is a very necessary precaution." Russian travelling, delightfully rapid, has many drawbacks. Upon the log-roads, (formed of tree-trunks,) the violent and incessant jolting is said to have even worse effects than the excessive undulations of the sledge. After a few years, it not only brings on a complete paralysis of the mental faculties of the Russian postilions, but also occasions spinal disease, to such an extent as to have obtained for those roads the significant name of spine-crushers.