would be puzzled exactly to estimate it; but adding 20 per cent. for windings, obliquities, and digressions (a very liberal allowance), we get a total of nearly two thousand miles, accomplished in five months, including stoppages, being at the very moderate rate of about 13 miles a-day. And this we must remember, was on no rapid stream, but up a river, whose current, rarely faster than one mile in an hour, was more frequently only half a mile, and sometimes was so feeble that it could not be ascertained. The result is not surprising, bearing in mind the quality of ships, crews, and commanders: but write" British" for "Egyptians," and the tale would be rather different. during the whole of the voyage; and, even veiled, she was forbidden to go on deck. Besides these oriental relaxations, an occasional practical joke beguiled for the commodore the tedium of the voyage. Feizulla, the tailor-captain, whose strange passion for thimble and thread made him frequently neglect his nautical duties, chanced one day to bring to before his superior gave the signal. "Soliman Kaschef had no sooner observed this than he fired a couple of shots at Feizulla Capitan, so that 1 myself standing before the cabin door, heard the bullets whistle. Feizulla did not stir, although both he and the sailors in the rigging afterwards affirmed that the balls went within a hand's-breadth of his head he mere- The upshot of this ill-conducted ly said, Malesch-hue billab, (It is expedition was its arrival in the kingnothing-he jests ;) and he shot twice dom of Bari, whose capital city, Pelin return, pointing the gun in the op- enja, is situated in 4° N. L., and which posite direction, that Soliman might is inhabited by an exceedingly numeunderstand he took the friendly greet- rous nation of tall and powerful build; ing as a Turkish joke, and that he, as the men six and a-half to seven French a bad shot, dared not level at him." feet in height--equal to seven and Soliman, on the other hand, was far seven and a-half English feet-athletic, too good a shot for such a sharp jest well-proportioned, and, although black, to be pleasant. The Turks account with nothing of the usual negro charthemselves the best marksmen and acter in their features. The men go horsemen in the world, and are never naked, with the exception of sandals weary of vaunting their prowess. Mr. and ornaments; the women wear Werne says he saw an Arnaut of Soli- leathern aprons. They cultivate toman's shoot a running hare with a bacco and different kinds of grain: single ball, which entered in the ani- from the iron found in their mounmal's rear, and came out in front. And tains they manufacture weapons and it was a common practice, during the other implements, and barter them voyage, to bring down the fruit from with other tribes. They breed cattle lofty trees by cutting the twigs with and poultry, and are addicted to the bullets. All these pastimes, however, chase. About fifteen hundred of these retarded the progress of the expedi- blacks came down to the shore, armed tion. The wind was frequently light to the teeth-a sight that inspired the or unfavourable, and the lazy Africans Turks with some uneasiness, although made little way with the towing rope. they had several of their chiefs on Then a convenient place would often board the flotilla, besides which, the tempt to a premature halt; and, not- frank cordiality and good-humoured withstanding Soliman's sharp practice intelligent countenances of the men of with poor Feizulla, if a leading mem- Bari forbade the idea of hostile agber of the party felt lazily disposed, gression. "It had been a fine opinclined for a hunting-party, or for a portunity for a painter or sculptor visit to a negro village, he seldom had to delineate these colossal figures, much difficulty in bringing the flotilla admirably proportioned, no fat, all to an anchor. In a straight line from muscle, and magnificently limbed. north to south, the expedition tra- None of them have beards, and it versed between its departure from would seem they use a cosmetic to Chartum and its return thither, about extirpate them. Čaptain Selim, whose sixteen hundred miles. It is difficult chin was smooth-shaven, pleased to calculate the distance gone over; them far better than the long-bearded and probably Mr. Werne himself Soliman Kaschef; and when the latter showed them his breast, covered with a fell of hair, they exhibited a sort of disgust, as at something more appropriate to a beast than to a man." Like most of the tribes on the banks of the White Nile, they extract the four lower incisors, a custom for which Mr. Werne is greatly puzzled to account, and concerning which he hazards many ingenious conjectures. Amongst the ape-like Keks and Dinkas, he fancied it to originate in a desire to distinguish themselves from the beasts of the field-to which they in so many respects assimilate; but he was shaken in this opinion, on finding the practice to prevail amongst the intelligent Bari, who need no such mark to establish their difference from the brute creation. The Dinkas on board confirmed his first hypothesis, saying that the teeth are taken out that they may not resemble the jackass-which in many other respects they certainly do. The Turks take it to be a rite equivalent to Mahomedan circumcision, or to Christian baptism. The Arabs have a much more extravagant supposition, which we refrain from stating, the more so as Mr. Werne discredits it. He suggests the possibility of its being an act of incorporation in a great Ethiopian nation, divided into many tribes. The operation is performed at the age of puberty; it is unaccompanied by any particular ceremonies, and women as well as men undergo it. Its motive still remains a matter of doubt to Mr. Werne. Before Lakono, sultan of the Bari, and his favourite sultana Ischok, an ordinary-looking lady with two leathern aprons and a shaven head, came on board Selim's vessel, the Turks made repeated attempts to obtain information from some of the Sheiks concerning the gold mines, whose discovery was the main object of the expedition. A sensible sort of negro, one Lombé, replied to their questions, and extinguished their hopes. There was not even copper, he said, in the land of the Bari, although it was brought thither from a remoter country, and Lakono had several specimens of it in his treasury. On a gold bar being shown to him, he took it for copper, whence it was inferred that the two metals were blended in the specimens possessed by the sultan, and that the mountains of the copper country also yielded the more precious ore. This country, however, lay many days' journey distant from the Nile, and, had it even bordered on the river, there would have been no possibility of reaching it. At a very short distance above Palenja, the expedition encountered a bar of rocks thrown across the stream. And although Mr Werne hints the possibility of having tried the passage, the Turks were sick of the voyage and were heartily glad to turn back. At the period of the floods the river rises eighteen feet; and there then could be no difficulty in surmounting the barrier. Now the waters were falling fast. The six weeks lost by Arnaud's fault were again bitterly deplored by the adventurous German--the only one of the party who really desired to proceed. Twenty days sooner, and the rocks could neither have hindered an advance nor afforded pretext for a retreat, To Mr. Werne's proposal, that they should wait two months where they were, when the setting in of the rains would obviate the difficulty, a deaf ear was turned-an insufficient stock of provisions was objected: and although the flotilla had been stored for a ten months' voyage, and had then been little more than two months absent from Chartum, the wastefulness that had prevailed gave some validity to the objection. One-and-twenty guns were fired, as a farewell salute to the beautiful country Mr. Werne would so gladly have explored, and which, he is fully convinced, contains so much of interest: and the sluggish Egyptian barks retraced their course down stream. It is proper here to note a shrewd conjecture of Mr Werne's, that above the point reached by himself and his companions, the difficulties of ascending the river would greatly and rapidly increase. The bed becomes rocky, and the Bach'r el Abiat, assuming in some measure the character of a mountain stream, augments the rapidity of its current; so much so, that Mr. Werne insists on the necessity of a strong north wind, believing that towing, however willingly and vigorously attempted, would be found un availing. This is another strong degree unpleasing to himself or to his argument in favour of employing steamboats. Although the narrative of the homeward voyage is by no means uninteresting, and contains details of the river's course valuable to the geographer and to the future explorer, it has not the attraction of the up-stream narrative. The freshness is worn off; the waters sink, and the writer's spirits seem disposed to follow their example; there is all the difference between attack and retreat-between a cheerful and hopeful advance, and a retrograde movement before the work is half done. But, vexed as an enthusiastic and intrepid man might naturally feel at seeing his hopes frustrated by the indolent indifference of his companions, Mr. Werne could hardly deem his five months thrown away. We are quite sure those who read his book will be of opinion that the time was most industriously and profitably employed. A sorrowful welcome awaited our traveller, after his painful and fatiguing voyage. There dwelt at Chartum a renegade physician, a Palermitan named Pasquali, whose Turkish name was Soliman Effendi, and who was notorious as a poisoner, and for the unscrupulous promptness with which he removed persons in the slightest patron Achmet Bascha. In Arabia, it was currently believed, he had once poisoned thirty-three soldiers, with the sole view of bringing odium upon the physician and apothecary, two Frenchmen, who attended them. In Chartum he was well known to have committed various murders. Although this man," says Mr. Werne, was most friendly and sociable with me, I had everything to fear from him on account of my brother, by whom the Bascha had declared his intention of replacing him in the post of medical inspector of Bellet-Sudan. It was therefore in the most solemn earnest that I threatened him with death, if upon my return I found my brother dead, and learned that they had come at all in contact. Dio guarde, che affronto was his reply; and he quietly drank off his glass of rum, the same affront having already been offered him in the Bascha's divan; the reference being naturally to the poisonings laid to his charge in Arabia and here." At Chartum Mr. Werne found his brother alive, but on the eleventh day after his return he died in his arms. The renegade had had no occasion to employ his venomous drugs; the work had been done as surely by the fatal influence of the noxious climate. ART AND ARTISTS IN SPAIN. THE accomplishments brought back exceptions, the peasant land of Spain by our grandfathers from the Con- was a sealed book to Englishmen, untinent to grace the drawing-rooms til the Great Captain rivalled and of May Fare, or enliven the solitudes eclipsed the feats and triumphs of the of Yorkshire, were a favourite sub- Black Prince in every province of the ject for satirists, some "sixty years Peninsula, and enabled guardsmen since." Admitting the descriptions and hussars to admire the treasures of to be correct, it must be remem- Spanish art in many a church and bered that the grand tour had become convent unspoiled by French rapaat once monotonous and deleterious, city. Nor may we deny our obliga-from Calais to Paris, from Paris tions to Ga lic plunderers. Many a to Geneva, from Geneva to Milan, noble picture that now delights the from Milan to Florence, thence to eyes of thousands, exalts and purifies Rome, and thence to Naples, the Eng- the taste of youthful painters, and lish 66 my lord," with his bear- sends, on the purple wings of European leader, was conducted with regu- fame, the name of its Castilian, or larity, if not with speed; and the Valencian, or Andalusian creator same course of sights and society was down the stream of time, but for prescribed for, and taken by, genera- Soult or Sebastiani, might still have tion after generation of Oxonians and continued to waste its sweetness on Cantabs. Then, again, the Middle desert air. Thenceforward, in spite Ages, with their countless graceful of brigands and captain-generals, vestiges. their magnificent architec- rival constitutions and contending ture, which even archaic Evelyn princes, have adventurous Englishthought and called "barbarous," their men been found to delight in rambling, chivalrous customs, religious observ- like Inglis, in the footsteps of Don ances, rude yet picturesque arts, and Quixote, emulating the deeds of fanciful literature, were literally Peterborough, like Ranelagh and blotted out from the note-book of Henningsen, or throwing themselves the English tourist. Whatever was into the actual life, and studying the classical or modern, that was worthy historic manners of Spain, like Carof regard; but whatever belonged to narvon and Ford. Still, though sol"Europe's middle night," that the dier and statesman, philosopher and descendants of Saxon thanes or Nor- littérateur, had put forth their best man knights disdained even to look powers in writing of the country that at. Even had there been no Pyrenees so worthily interested them, a void to cross, or no Bay of Biscay to en- was ever left for some new comer to counter, so Gothic a country as Spain fill; and right well, in his three handwas not likely to attract to its dusky some, elaborate, and most agreeable sierras, frequent monasteries, and volumes, has Mr. Stirling filled that medieval towns, the fine gentlemen void. Not one of the goodly band of and Mohawks of those enlightened Spanish painters now lacks a "sacred days; nor need we be surprised that poet" to inscribe his name in the the natural beauties of that romantic temple of fame. With indefatigable land-its weird mountains, primæval research, most discriminating taste, forests, and fertile plains, fragrant and happiest success, has Mr. Stirling with orange groves, and bright with pursued and completed his pleasant flowers of every hue, unknown to Eng- labour of love, and presented to the lish gardens-remained unexplored world "Annals of the Artists of by the countrymen of Gray and Gold- Spain" worthy-can we say more? smith, who have put on record their of recording the triumphs of El marked disapprobation of Nature in Mudo and El Greco, Murillo and her wildest and most sublime mood. Velasquez. Thus, then, it was that, with rare At least a century and a half Annals of the Artists of Spain. By WILLIAM STERLING, M.A. 3 vols. London: Ollivier. a before Holbein was limning the burly frame and gorgeous dress of bluff King Hal, and creating at once a school and an appreciation of art in England, were the early painters of Spain enriching their magnificent cathedrals, and religious houses, with pictures displaying as correct knowledge of art, and as rich a tone of colour, as the works of that great master. There is something singular and mysterious in the contrast afforded by the early history of painting in the two countries. While in poetry, in painting on glass, in science, in manufactures, in architecture, England appears to have kept pace with other countries, in painting and in sculpture she appears always to have lagged far behind. Gower, Chaucer, Friar Bacon, William of Wyckham, Waynfleete, the unknown builders of ten thousand churches and convents, the manufacturers of the glass that still charms our eyes, and baffles the rivalry of our Willements and Wailes, at York and elsewhere-the illuminators of the missals and religious books, whose delicate fancy and lustrous tints are even now teaching our high-born ladies that long-forgotten art-yielded the palm to none of their brethren in Europe; but where and who were our contemporaneous painters and sculptors? In the luxurious and graceful court of Edward IV., who represented that art which Dello and Juan de Castro, under royal and ecclesiastical patronage, had carried to such perfection in Spain? That no English painters of any note flourished at that time, is evident from the silence of all historical documents; nor does it appear that foreign artists were induced, by the hope of gain or fame, to instruct our countrymen in the art to which the discoveries of the Van Eycks had imparted such a lustre. It is true that the desolating Wars of the Roses left scant time and means to the sovereigns and nobility of England for fostering the arts of peace; but still great progress was being made in nearly all those arts, save those of which we speak; and, if we remember rightly, Mr. Pugin assigns the triumph of English architecture to this troublous epoch. Nor, although Juan I., Pedro the Cruel, and Juan II., were admirers and patrons of painting, was it to royal or noble favour that Spanish art owed its chiefest obligations. The church-which, after the great iconoclastic struggle oi the eighth century, had steadily acted on the Horatian maxim, "Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus "_ in Spain embraced the young and diffident art with an ardour and a munificence which, in its palmiest and most prosperous days, that art never forgot, and was never wearied of requiting. Was it so in England? and do we owe our lack of ancient English pictures to the reforming zeal of our iconoclastic reformers? Did the religious pictures of our Rincons, our Nuñez, and our Borgoñas, share the fate of the libraries that were ruthlessly destroyed by the ignorant myrmidons of royal rapacity! If so, it is almost certain that the records which bewail and denounce the fate of books and manuscripts, would not pass over the destruction of pictures; while it is still more certain that the monarch and his courtiers would have appropriated to themselves the pictured saints no less than the holy vessels, of monastery and convent. It cannot, therefore, be said that the English Reformation deprived our national school of painting of its most munificent patrons, and most ennobling and purest subjects, in the destruction of the monasteries, and the spoliation of churches. That the Church of England, had she remained unreformed, might, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have emulated her Spanish or Italian sister in her patronage of, and beneficial influence upon, the arts of painting and sculpture, it is needless either to deny or assert; we fear there is no room for contending that, since the Reformation, she has in any way fostered, guided, or exalted either of those religious arts. In Spain, on the contrary, as Mr. Stirling well points out, it was under the august shadow of the church that painting first raised her head, gained her first triumphs, executed her most glorious works, and is even now prolonging her miserable existence. The venerable cathedral of Toledo was, in effect, the cradle of Spanish |