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CURIOUS ORIGIN OF NEGROES.

Brazil and everywhere else.-Caldcleugh's Travels in South America.

CURIOUS ORIGIN OF NEGROES. The lower order of Brazilians are considered a very inferior race, and their belief as to original formation is a little singular. At the time, say they, of the creation of Adam, Satan looked on and formed a man of clay, but every thing he touched becoming black, he determined to wash him white in the Jordan: on his approach the river retired, and he had only time to push the black man on the wet sand, which, touching the soles of his feet and palms of his hands, accounts for the whiteness of these parts. The Devil, in a state of irritation, struck his creation on the nose, by which the flatness of that organ was accomplished. The negro then begged for mercy, and humbly represented that no blame could be attached to him, upon which the other, something pacified, patted him on the head, and, by the heat of his hands, curled his hair in the way it is seen at the present day. Such is the fanciful idea of the Brazilians respecting the origin of the black race.

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From Rio our author went to Buenos Ayres: he notices that—

"The trade between England and Buenos Ayres has become of much importance to both countries. In the year ending the 5th of January 1817, we shipped to Buenos Ayres goods to the value of £388,487; while in the year ending 5th of January, 1823, their value was £1,164,745, shewing an unprecedented increase. During the year 1822, one hundred and sixty-seven English vessels sailed from various ports for Buenos Ayres, carrying thither every description of manufactured goods, beer, &c.*

"The chief exports are hides, tallow, horns, hair, jerked beef, wool, Vicuna wool, (used for hat making) Chinchilli and Neutre skins, brought from the upper provinces. Of horse and cow hides, the number of 957,600 arrived in England in the year 1822; and when those which have gone direct to Antwerp and other continental ports are added to the account, some idea may be formed of the immense quantity produced in this part of the world.

"In the year 1821, three hundred and twenty-two vessels were cleared outwards at Buenos Ayres, of which one hundred and fourteen were British; and in 1822, three hundred and four vessels, of which one hundred and sixty

seven where British.

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"The particular customs of the Buenos Ayrians must depend on the peculiar nature of the country, which is so favourable to the breeding of cattle. The greatest delight is taken in horses; every man possesses them in abundance, and not unfrequently spends in their trappings the wealth which might be more properly laid out on his own garments. The horse is brought to the door, and tied up, to be ready at any moment for the owner, who would no more think of crossing the street than undertaking a journey on foot. The Buenos Ayrian is continually on horseback: the nets in the river are drawn from the saddle, and the Gaucho bathes from the horse, and swims round it. The mounted beggar stands at the corner of the street, and asks charity; his horse is no more a proof of his being undeserving of alms, than the trowsers of the English mendicant. The system of begging has, however, been much repressed; it was formerly carried on to a great extent, even by the better sort of people, who had a fine example in their friends of the mendicant orders; one instance may suffice :-A friar, who wished to make a present to D. Manuel de Sarratea, the governor, observed a fine turtle in the market; inquiring the price, he said he would buy it, and soon return with the money: it was put aside for him: he was observed to go to the corner of an adjoining street, and beg for some time, for the best of purposes, until he had raised a sufficiency; when returning, he paid for the turtle, and sent it to the governor. This same turtle was doomed to take another journey; for D. Manuel, either distrusting the powers of his own artiste, or thinking it might be as well bestowed on any person who could, in case of necessity, assist him in any sudden departure, presented it to the British commodore: that same evening he was forced to em

bark."

On leaving Buenos Ayres, Mr. Caldcleugh prepared for a journey across the continent: he passed the Pampas, into the province of Santa Fé, and thence to Cordova. He had a narrow escape from a body of Indians, who pursued him into the Sierra de Cordova: at length he arrived at Mendoza. From Mendoza the journey to Santiago, the capital of Chile, does not produce any new facts of interest; and the first volume is closed with a historical view of the province, which, though clear and well digested, is equally destitute of novelty for extract.

SOUTH AMERICAN MINES.

The following observations on the South American Mines deserve attention at this period, when speculation is so wildly afloat, and British capital so largely embarked in mining projects:

"It is a well-known fact, that none of the South American mines produce, at the present day, that vast quantity of metal which they used to do in former times. When first discovered, the metal was in great abundance, and within a few feet of, and in some instances on, the surface of the earth, All this has been removed, and the great excavations subsequently made have become full of water, from which the proprietors have not a sufficiency of capital to clear them. From this cause many of the mines, which yielded a large proportion of silver, have become entirely unproductive and closed up. The chief falling off, therefore, has been owing to a deficiency of capital, which the revolution has naturally much aggravated.

"It seems clear to me, that the first thing to be done, instead of making fresh excavations, is to supply proper machinery to clear the old mines of water. In many situations this would be exceedingly expensive, whether undertaken by means of an adit, or by the steam-engine: in using the latter, much difficulty would be experienced on the subject of fuel, for it is scarce in the mountainous parts where the ore exists, and the expense of bringing coal from Conception would be heavy. Could this be overcome, and there is no doubt it might, the mines worked in galleries, and the practical experience of the old workmen, as to the direction of the veins, properly attended to, the produce would become enormous. On the last point, I could not ascertain that the veins ran more in one direction than another, or that it was possible to lay down any rule on the subject. If Chile were to become so settled in its government as to afford perfect security of property, the application to mines would return a very considerable profit. The quantity of metal still remaining in the Andes must be stupendous: but this is to be considered, that, if all the mines were properly worked, it is more than probable that silver would fall in Europe to a very low price.

"The coal seams are situate near Talcahuano, the port of Conception; it is found on and near the surface; and from specimens in my possession, there is no doubt it is a regular formation. It is of very excellent quality, and will,

before many years have passed away, be looked upon as one of the chief sources of wealth in the country; for, the trade wind constantly blowing towards the equator, all the towns down the coast which have in fact been raised to note by mines of some description or other, will be readily supplied with this requisite material.”

Extracts from the Journal of Dr. Kitchener's Noted Conversations, by T. Meddling, Captain of a Light Company, and Author of " Assurance, the Wanderer;" a Romance of Real Life.

(Continued from page 391.)

THE JOURNAL.

"During one day at Mr. Orme's (who was a good sort of man, but that he made a joke of a leg of mutton) I broke a grinder, and could not avoid shewing that I was annoyed, as dinner was not half over." It will do you good,” said Lucy Aching; "I am glad of it!" I gave her a tart!"-(P. 45.)

66

-The Price Current was the only paper that ever took up my cause. And Lady Barrymore the only lady in the titled world that did not look upon me as a bore.

I once sent some Coins to her that made her my friend for ever. She had just quitted Mr. Vickery. The cause of my sending them was her being excluded from a certain cabinet of the beauties of the day. She will be soon at Marlborough Street, and I will shew her you.—(P. 48.)

There are two things that strike me at this moment, which I did at Hornsey. I fought Mr. Wordsworth for writing The Pet Lamb:-and prevented Fitzgerald from burning one of his odes, by shewing him the compliment passed upon him in the Rejected Address.(P. 62.)

I observed to the Doctor one day I had heard that he drank through his own skull. D. K. took no notice of this remark.—(P. 64.)

"I was at this time a mere lunchera great man at coffee houses and beefsteak clubs. My days were spent in visits, luncheons, and dinners, and suppers, not forgetting drinking. If I had known you early in life, you would have been cold meat by this time. I remember Henry Hunt-X Sheriff P—and myself clubbing a trifle and losing a dinner at little chicken-hazard, which may be called poultry! H. and P. quarrelled, and H. wanted me to lend him my

THE LITERARY PARLIAMENT.

pocket pistol, but I excused myself by assuring him that the cork was out. I knew my answer would have more effect than four sides of prosing.

I will give you a specimen of the epigrams I wrote to my friend Wilberforce.

Hey for the flask! 'tis surely done!

The worse for me and you ! "Tis now five years since we drank one, And four since we drank two!

And another on his sending me a goose in May by Mr. Rogers, which ended thus foolishly:

"You may send a goose in the season, Let us, prythee, have none for to-day." "I will shew you an ode;" with this ] he read the last feeling lines recited by Fitzgerald at old Anderson's Fund DinAfter he had finished, he repeat

ner.

ed the lines "God bless the Regent and the Duke of York," &c.

and said they were perfect!

I should have taken them, said Croly, for a rough sketch of Campbell's.

"No," replied the Doctor-" Campbell would have printed them in Colburn's Minor Periodical, if they had been his."

I had afterwards reason to think this ode was the Doctor's, he praised the lines so highly.

Talking after dinner of swimming, he said, "Cadell published a note I wrote him from Islington, which might have seemed an idle display of vanity; but the object of my writing was to contradict what George Dyer had asserted of the impossibility of crossing the New River from one side to the other in consequence of the tide."

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"One is as easy as the other. I and Lady Barrymore did both. Turning to his cook he said, Flitcher! how far did I and her ladyship swim?' Flitcher replied, three yards and a half, (of course he did not exaggerate,) the whole width of the river. The current is prodigiously strong, and I had a tureen under one arm. I was the Leander of the stream, and Lamb says Dyer was the Hero! I caught a cold in the head, and Lady Barrymore was taken out half-drowned by a little boy, angling

for bites."

I remember being at Brighton some years ago, and having great difficulty in seeing a tree, wanted to cross for the wooded shores of Calais, and luckily the tide was just setting out. Mr. (I think he said Parkins) was

with me-(P. 116.)

413

"Parkins urged me not to publish my work on Spectacles; he said it would damn my eyes, and demoralize me for ever. Croly, who is no bad judge of others, however he may fail in writing himself, says my "Spectacles" are the finest things in the world, and worthy of Dollond, and backs them against any other optical illusions."(P. 126.)

I cannot resist presenting the public with the following song written by the Doctor, after one of our suppers. "I'm a Yorkshireman just come to town, My coming to town was a gay day; For fortune has just set me down Waiting gentleman to a fine lady!” &c. &c. &c.

I fear giving more, on second consideration, as these lines have never been in print; and the Doctor is particular about original poetry.

Discussing the different actors of the day, he said: "Macready, who hated Miss Boyce, used to say her acting Lady Ann in Richard reminded him of an undertaker's wife. But, whatever her Lady Anne might be, Miss Tidswell in Jane Shore never surpassed Miss Boyce in the waiting woman in Macbeth."

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Macready is a great man. The actresses are afraid of him. He exhausted the audience so in Richard the Third, that it went into fits. He and Howard Payne have done much towards reforming the stage. He can do for a play if he likes!”—(P. 136.)

"Mr. Cadell, of Edinburgh, pretends he has lost money, I hear, by my Oracle. My joints have been his sheet anchor. He is a cautious man, and likes a book to sell before he praises it. Without Constable I know not what would become of me; Cadell is not an easy man to deal with."

Spirit of the Magazines.

THE LITERARY PARLIAMENT. THERE needs no excuse for the me

lange of a study table. We were reading, the other night, the Confessions of an Opium-Eater, a work, by the bye, which we often re-read-and the Morning Chronicle; and certainly the sleeping writer kept us far more wakeful than the waking speakers. On which ever study the blame lies, or whether it was simply owing to fatigue, the fact is, I fell asleep, and that too in defiance of a very vivid consciousness of the necessity of writing, that very night, a

column of the "News of Literature." There are few things more unpleasant than thus sinking to slumber with the daring consciousness that you ought to be awake. Duty and business have a strong hold upon me: so it seemed; for when I awoke, I perceived, by the faint light of the exhausted lamp that burned dimly in the socket, that my task had been done--the following sketch legibly scribbled, in fact, upon the long fair side of a quire that lay before me. The very pen had been replaced nattily on the ink-stand. Behold then this psychological curiosity, as Coleridge would have called it.

SCENE-The Alfred.

The Speaker in the chair, Mr. Croley -his os rotundum equal, if not superior to that of Manners Sutton. Heavens! with what a commanding and almost sceptral tone he called out Order, Aurder. His wig became him. A clever friend and neighbour of his, in spectacles, sate clerk; that was his

admittance to the house. Scott was in his place, on the ministerial bench: we were sorry to observe the bad state of his looks. The benign smile he gave the speaker was quite paternal, which he in the chair returned with a supercilian nod of equality. Scott, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Croker next him, Home Secretary. Moore not in his place, on the opposition benches ! what can have become of him? Jeffrey, however, and his friend Brougham, were there; Macintosh and Bentham, Hazzlitt and Hunt. The speaker then proceeded to count the House.

Hobhouse rose to move for a new writ for, in the room of an honourable member, lately deceased. The House listened to the funeral oration in solemn and respectful silence, till the orator digressed to the topic of literary reform, when the opposite members took the liberty of interwhispering and coughing. The honourable member, having established his opinions with all the force of common sense, thought proper to wind up the climax by a quotation from Cicero, which Mr. Bankes took down, and answered subsequently with three quotations from the same author, each three times as long, and as little to the purpose.

The House was this day occupied with mere notices of motions. Mr. Coleridge, the member for Albemarle, in the room of Mr. Gifford, who, we learn, has accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, begged to propose a bill for the alteration and deterioration of the Quarterly Review. The House heard his maiden

speech on the occasion with the most benignant attention. The honourable gentleman, from the place he assumed and the tone that he took, seemed not deficient in confidence. But his voice was so exceedingly feeble, that he was quite inaudible in the gallery.

His friend Mitchell rose to give notice of a motion for annihilating Greece, and especially for burning all historic memorials of that pestilent sample of human society. The honourable member seemed bilious and short-sighted, and the House took his philippic for a jeu d'esprit. Not so Mr. Campbell, who rose evidently in a passion, to make some comments; but the Speaker called Mr. Campbell stammered too much to him to order, which was needless, since pronounce a sentence.

both right and left. One, to take into A great variety of notices came from consideration the low state of Irish literature, is to be very soon brought forward, and we shall certainly communicate to our readers an early report of the debate. Cobbett warned the House that he should move, that au

thors be paid for their literary labours in specie; and divers petitions were read, praying to be relieved from the House of Correction and Tread-Mill, entitled Blackwood's Magazine. The House adjourned.-News of Literature.

TO-MORROW.

ORIGINAL.

This life is no more than a dream,
A period from nature we borrow;
To-day with full lustre we beam,

To be blighted, alas! by to-morrow.
Let's banish each care far away,

And chase from our hearts ev'ry

sorrow;

Drink deep of life's pleasures to-day, Lest the cup be dried up by to-morrow.

Though time with rapidity flies,

Joy alone shall illumine our eyes,
We'll think of eternity never;

Tho' darkened to-morrow for ever.
Away then thou baneful controul,

All alloy from our transport we'll

sever;

While the dictates which pour thro' the
soul

On our hearts shall be printed for
J. C.

ever.

MECHANICS' ORACLE AND DOMESTIC GUIDE.

Mechanics' Oracle and Domestic

Guide.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

To the Editor of the Portfolio and
Hive.

SIR, I beg leave to send you for in=sertion the following highly interesting experiments in Chemistry,-which any of your readers may perform-even if they are totally unacquainted with the ■science, and destitute of a large assortment of apparatus.

Your's, &c. T. P.

= Brilliant Precipitation of Lead in an arborescent and metallic form, commonly called the

LEAD TREE.

Into a quart decanter, nearly filled with soft or rain water, put of an ounce of super-acetate of lead (sugar of lead of commerce) reduced to powder; shake the mixture and suffer it to stand undisturbed two or three days; then decant the clear fluid from the insoluble residue (if any;) reject the latter, and after having rinced the decanter with water, return into it the clear solution. If now a small piece of zinc be suspended in it by means of a piece of brass wire affixed to the cork, and the vesse be set in a place where it cannot be disturbed, the zinc soon becomes covered with a moss-like substance of metallic lead, which increases gradually and shoots out brilliant chrystalline plates of metallic lead, which place themselves in a kind of symmetrical arrangement, somewhat resembling a tree or shrub.

Test to detect Copper.

The best test of the presence of copper in solution is liquid ammonia or hartshorn, to prove which, take a wine glass containing a few drops of a solution of sulphate of copper, and fill it up with water-no change will take place; but if a little liquid ammonia be added, the mixture immediately assumes a fine sulphuric blue colour, which is owing to the presence of copper.

Test to detect Iron.

Take a wine glass of water, and add a little of a solution of sulphate of iron; to this add a little tincture of galls, and a violet or black will be the production. This forms the basis of writing ink, but gum and other substances must be added to prepare it for use.

415

To produce a Carmine Red Flame.

The flame of spirit of wine may be coloured by the addition of various substances, which the spirit holds in solution, or which are mixed with it. And although the real causes which modify the colours of burning bodies are not sufficiently known, the phenomena are in themselves sufficiently striking to deserve attention. The flame of alcohol (or spirit of wine) is tinged red in the following manner: Put into a small iron ladle one part of muriate of strontia, and pour over it three or four of alcohol,then set the spirit on fire, and it will continue to burn with a beautiful carmine flame especially if the ladle be held over a candle or lamp so as to cause the spirit to boil rapidly.

To produce an Orange coloured Flame.

Proceed as before, only using mu riate of lime, deprived of its water of chrystalization.

To produce an Emerald Green Flame.

Cause alcohol to burn in a ladle on nitrate of copper, or boraccic acid.

Two highly Odorous and Volatile
bodies become destitute of Smell
by Mixture.

Pour into a wine glass about a teaspoonful of liquid ammouia, and a like quantity of muriatic acid, which are both very pungent scents, and they form a compound totally void of smell, viz. muriate of ammonia.

Two Cold Liquids become Boiling Hot by Mixture.

Put into a thin phial two parts (by measure) of sulphuric acid, 'and one part of cold water.-On stirring or mixing them together, the mixture acquires a heat greater than boiling water.

A Powder which takes Fire when rubbed in a Mortar.

To six grains of chlorate of potass, reduced to a fine powder, add three of finely pulverized charcoal; mingle them together by the gentlest possible friction on a piece of paper. If to this mixture two grains of sulphurbe added, the whole when forcibly rubbed in a mortar of any description takes fire with a very vivid flash like gunpowder.-The hand should be covered with a glove during this experiment.

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