tion, we cannot see what great inconvenience would arise to us from the proximity of such a power.

Again, it is said, that the annexation would be only postponed, and would require to be carried into effect ere long, unless the necessity were averted by the energy of the Americans. Now to this it is a sufficient answer that we have been at peace with the Burmese for twenty-six years; although we were culpably negligent in abandoning the rights which were conferred on us by the treaty of Yandaboo. And there is no reason to believe that, with a good arrangement, and with the experience we now have in dealing with native powers, a permanent peace might not be secured.

Once more, it is said, that the transference of the Burmese under our sway would be such a blessing to them, and would produce such blessed effects, by introducing civilization and the gospel amongst them. Now this may be all true; but yet we are not to do evil that good may come; and we believe that the annexation of Burmah would be an act of injustice on our part-as well as an act of great impolicy. We yield to none in our anxiety for the extension of civilization, and the spread of the gospel; but not even for such an end, would we employ means inconsistent with that noble precept which embodies at once the concentrated essence of civilization and of the morality of the gospel, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 6 you, do ye even so unto them."

Averse as the present Governor-General was to this war, one most untimely and unpropitious, from every point of view, and which he evidently knew to be such, there can be no doubt that now there is no option left to the Indian Government, but to prosecute the war to a speedy conclusion with the utmost vigour, as soon as the season arrives. When this shall have been accomplished, and the court of Ava sufficiently humiliated, we trust that the British Government will pause, before, in obedience to the cry of the Calcutta Press, the annexation of the Burman dominions is decided upon. All our reasonable objects may be otherwise attained, and though the prospect of another series of rapid and brilliant conquests, ending in the formation of a colossal Anglo-Indo-Chinese empire, may be flattering to the pride and restless ambition of many, the true interests of European England call for caution, ere she embark upon so gigantic a career of further extension of empire and of debt. She is but too vulnerable already almost in every quarter of the globe; and her present possessions, disproportionate to her army, tax her means to an extent

beyond which her Parliaments are evidently violently averse to proceed-to an extent that disinclines her Parliaments from efficiently providing for the security of her own shores from invasion. Both with reference to the advocated annexation of Burmah and its conquest, we close in the words of one of those admirable articles for which the Times is famous, applying them, however, in a wider sense than did the writer, to the whole Indo-Chinese Peninsula." Although we do not apprehend any effectual resistance to the force of the British arms, it is only reasonable to acknowledge that more may be awaiting us than we contemplate at present.'

THE

CALCUTTA REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. Lands of the Bible. By Dr. Wilson.
2. The Holy City. By the Rev. Mr. Williams.

3. Journal of a Tour in the Holy Land. By Dr. Robinson.
4. Eothen.

5. The Crescent and the Cross. By Eliot Warburton.

COUNTLESS are the books, which the press annually sends forth, written by learned and pious men, with the not unwarrantable pride of pilgrims, who have achieved the object of their lives, and who desire to communicate to others, and to rouse up in them, the deep interest which they themselves have experienced. Each year adds new facilities to the performance of what, one short half century ago, was considered a feat to be talked about. Men, who had stood on Mount Olivet, or knelt at the tomb hard by Calvary, were proud to be pointed out during their lives, and to have this fact recorded on their tombs.

It is with no intention to add other and less perfect volumes to the excellent works placed at the head of this article, that the pen is taken up by one who has just realized his heart's desire in visiting the sacred spots of the Nativity and Pion of our Saviour; it is not to enter into the dreary field of polemics as to the correctness or incorrectness of the different localities pointed out. The object is simply to bring before the readers of this Review, the "Holy Land" as it is, to point out the facilities for visiting it, to awaken an interest in those scenes, and perhaps to tempt some few of those, who hurry through Egypt, on their homeward journey, to tarry awhile, and devote two months to a pilgrimage, the memory of which will rest with the Christian to his dying hour. Many of those who are driven to seek health in the mountains of the Himalaya range, and to throw away the precious years of their lives in the dull provinces of the Cape Colony and the Mauritius, may be induced to avail themselves of the undoubted privilege to visit Judea, and seek for health in one of the numerous sanataria of Lebanon.

There may, and must be, many, to whom distant countries represent a mere blank and void in their ideas; and the narrator

G G

is obliged to premise a description of the peculiar features of the soil, the ancient history of the inhabitants, their laws, their destiny, and their religion; but who among us has not heard of Palestine? Whose earliest ideas of mountains and trees are not connected with the hills and goodly cedars of Lebanon? Who knows not of the hill country of Judea, to which Mary went in haste to salute Elizabeth, and the plain of Esdraelon, which has been the battle-field of nations from the time of Sisera to that of Napoleon?

It will be unnecessary to say, that it is with feelings of awe, and a kind of mistrust of the natural senses, that the traveller first places his foot on the shore of the Holy Land; that he first connects places of an historical and all but fabulous interest, with the prosaic routine of his daily movements. Is it possible that I am to rest this night at Tyre? That I shall to-morrow stand with Elijah on Mount Carmel? That with my servants and mules I shall tread the sands between Cæsarea and Joppa, once trod by St. Peter, and go up with St. Paul from Lydda to Jerusalem? Such must be the feelings of the scriptural pilgrim; it is good for him to be there. Nor do the fatigues of the journey, or the discomforts necessarily attending travellers in an uncivilized country, diminish aught of his enthusiasm, while he plods his way along

-those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.

It is some advantage to have travelled in oriental countries previous to landing on the shores of Palestine, as there are many features of Asiatic life, which are common all over the Eastern world, but which astonish and perplex travellers on their first arrival from Europe; and in every work from the pen of such a traveller pages are devoted to a minute description, and to scriptural illustrations, of manners and features, which are not peculiar to Palestine, but are the characteristics of Asiatic life elsewhere. There is a tendency also on the part of devout and untravelled men to strain the prophecies of the Bible, to see the hand of God (unquestionably existing everywhere) in the minutest features in this country, and to arrive at very unwarrantable conclusions. A small volume, lately published by some ministers of the Scotch Church, particularly illustrates this. These excellent men had probably never left the jurisdiction of the General Assembly, until they started upon the mission entrusted to them. They saw every thing through a microscope of their own. The Arab woman drawing water at the well to them was Rebecca

when met by Eliezer; every white-bearded and turbaned old man reminded them of Abraham; they found a scriptural interest in every object which they saw, and every word which they heard; their pages teem with scriptural quotations; the very mountains to them spoke outwardly of the avenging hand of the God of Israel: the stern bare hills of Judah, the wildernessgirt shores of the Sea of Galilee, the harsh and stern look of the valley of Jehoshaphat:* yet these outward features of Nature were the same in ancient days as now. The River of Jordan flowed down the same dreary bed into the Dead Sea, what time the walls of Jericho crumbled at the sound of the trumpet of Joshua; Jerusalem was encircled by the same hills, stood on the edge of the same natural chasms, when David danced before the Ark, when Solomon in the height of his glory received in the Queen of Sheba, and when Titus razed the temple. The face of Nature does not change. Desolation certainly shows itself conspicuously, and we see reminiscences on all sides of a time, when the inhabitants of the country were numerous, rich and flourishing; the mountains were once in Judea, as now in Lebanon, terraced with the vines and the mulberry; gardens once bloomed, where now there is nought but the ruined well; broken columns mark the site of old cities now desolate; and the shattered arch shows where once the torrent was spanned by the royal highway; but the traveller in Greece, in Asia Minor, in Mesopotamia, and all over India, knows that such are the features of all the ancient countries of Asia-ancient, since they saw the first civilization of man, who learnt to be rich, powerful, and ambitious under. a tropical sun, while the countries of the West were occupied by savages, and overgrown by forests. Thus to the resident of India all the features of Syria are at once familiar: the hedges of prickly pear, the sandy ill-defined roads, the large groves of pine trees, the walled towns, the bazaars, the flat-roofed houses, the tapering minarets, the peculiar natural products, the people themselves, with sandalled feet, loose garments, flowing beards, and turbans, the trains of mules, and laden camels: all these things stupefy the travellers of England, but to the Indian they excite scarcely a passing remark, and he has leisure for the uninterrupted contemplation of what is remarkable and peculiar

*There is some truth in this statement; yet, notwithstanding, the book referred to, that by Mr. Bonar and the late Mr. McCheyne is, taken for all in all, one of the best descriptions of Palestine of the multitudes that we have read. And in point of fact, the authors of it say nothing more of the country than is said of it by every traveller; that it is in a very different state now from that in which it was in the days of its glory. The present state of Tyre is not the less a fulfilment of prophecy because Gour and Palibothra are now in ruins.-ED.