"In a few days!-all!-who are all?"

"My family-father, mother, uncle, cousin, and myself. But, my dear fellow, now let us think seriously what is best to be done for you? I can present you to Trevanion." "Ha!"

"But Trevanion is a hard, though an excellent man; and, moreover, as he is always changing the subjects that engross him, in a month or so, he may have nothing to give you. You said you would work-will you consent not to complain if the work cannot be done in kid gloves? Young men who have risen high in the world have begun, it is well known, as reporters to the press. It is a situation of respectability, and in request, and not easy to obtain, I fancy; but still

Vivian interrupted me hastily

"Thank you a thousand times! but what you say confirms a resolution I had taken before you came. I shall make it up with my family, and return home."

"Oh! I am so really glad. How wise in you!"

Vivian turned away his head abruptly

"Your pictures of family life and domestic peace, you see,' he said, "seduced me more than you thought. When do you leave town?"

"Why, I believe, early next week." "So soon!" said Vivian, thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps I may ask you yet to introduce me to Mr Trevanion; for-who knows?-my family and I may fall out again. But I will consider. I think I have heard you say that this Trevanion is a very old friend of your father's, or uncle's?

66

He, or rather Lady Ellinor, is an old friend of both."

"And therefore would listen to your recommendations of me. But perhaps I may not need them. So you have left-left of your own accord -a situation that seemed more enjoyable, I should think, than rooms in a college;-left-why did you leave?" And Vivian fixed his bright eyes, full and piercingly, on mine.

"It was only for a time, for a trial, that I was there," said I, evasively : "out at nurse, as it were, till the Alma Mater opened her arms-alma

indeed she ought to be to my father's son."

Vivian looked unsatisfied with my explanation, but did not question me farther. He himself was the first to turn the conversation, and he did this with more affectionate cordiality than was common to him. He inquired into our general plans, into the probabilities of our return to town, and drew from me a description of our rural Tusculum. He was quiet and subdued; and once or twice I thought there was a moisture in those luminous eyes. We parted with more of the unreserve and fondness of youthful friendship-at least on my part, and seemingly on his-than had yet endeared our singular intimacy; for the cement of cordial attachment had been wanting to an intercourse in which one party refused all confidence, and the other mingled distrust and fear with keen interest and compassionate admiration.

That evening, before lights were brought in, my father, turning to me, abruptly asked if I had seen my friend, and what he was about to do? "He thinks of returning to his family," said I.

Roland, who had seemed dozing, winced uneasily.

"Who returns to his family?" asked the Captain.

“Why, you must know," said my father, "that Sisty has fished up a friend of whom he can give no account that would satisfy a policeman, and whose fortunes he thinks himself under the necessity of protecting. You are very lucky that he has not picked your pockets, Sisty; but I daresay he has? What's his name?” Vivian," said I-" Francis Vi

66

vian."

"A good name, and a Cornish," said my father. "Some derive it from the Romans-Vivianus; others from a Celtic word, which means"

"Vivian!" interrupted Roland"Vivian 1-I wonder if it be the son of Colonel Vivian ?"

"He is certainly a gentleman's son," said I; "but he never told me what his family and connexions were." “Vivian,” repeated my uncle"poor Colonel Vivian. So the young man is going to his father. I have no doubt it is the same. Ah!"

แ

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"What do you know of Colonel Vivian, or his son ?" said I. Pray, tell me, I am so interested in this young man."

"I know nothing of either, except by gossip," said my uncle, moodily. "I did hear that Colonel Vivian, an excellent officer, and honourable man, had been in-in-(Roland's voice faltered)-in great grief about his son, whom, a mere boy, he had prevented from some improper marriage, and who had run away and left him-it was supposed for America. The story affected me at the time," added my uncle, trying to speak calmly.

We were all silent, for we felt why

Roland was so disturbed, and why Colonel Vivian's grief should have touched him home. Similarity in affliction makes us brothers even to the unknown.

"You say he is going home to his family-I am heartily glad of it!" said the envying old soldier, gallantly.

The lights came in then, and, two minutes after, uncle Roland and I were nestled close to each other, side by side; and I was reading over his shoulder, and his finger was silently resting on that passage that had so struck him-" I have not complained -have I, sir?-and I won't complain!"

FIFTY years since, the book before us would have earned for its author the sneers of critics and the reputation of a Munchausen: at the present more tolerant and more enlightened day, it not only obtains credit, but excites well-merited admiration of the writer's enterprise, energy, and perseverance. "The rich contents and great originality of the following work," says Professor Carl Ritter, in his preface to Mr Werne's narrative, "will escape no one who bestows a glance, however hasty, upon its pages. It gives vivid and life-like pictures of tribes and territories previously unvisited, and is welcome as a most acceptable addition to our literature of travel, often so monotonous." We quite coincide with the learned professor, whose laudatory and longwinded sentences we have thus freely rendered. His friend, Mr Ferdinand Werne, has made good use of his opportunities, and has produced a very interesting and praiseworthy book.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to remind the reader, that the river Nile is formed of two confluent streams, the Blue and the White, whose junction is in South Nubia, between 15° and 16° of North Latitude. The source of the Blue Nile was ascertained by Bruce, and by subsequent

travellers, to be in the mountains of Abyssinia; but the course of the other branch, which is by far the longest, had been followed, until very lately, only as far south as 10° or 11° N. L. Even now the river has not been traced to its origin, although Mr Werne and his companions penetrated to 4° N. L. Further they could not go, owing to the rapid subsidence of the waters. expedition had been delayed six weeks by the culpable dilatoriness of one of its members; and this was fatal to the realisation of its object.

The

We can conceive few things more exciting than such a voyage as Mr Werne has accomplished and recorded. Starting from the outposts of civilisation, he sailed into the very heart of Africa, up a stream whose upper waters were then for the first time furrowed by vessels larger than a savage's canoe -a stream of such gigantic proportions, that its width, at a thousand miles from the sea, gave it the aspect of a lake rather than of a river. The brute creation were in proportion with the magnitude of the water-course. The hippopotamus reared his huge snout above the surface, and wallowed in the gullies that on either hand run down to the stream; enormous crocodiles gaped along the shore; elephants played in herds upon

the pastures; the tall giraffe stalked amongst the lofty palms; snakes thick as trees lay coiled in the slimy swamps; and ant-hills, ten feet high, towered above the rushes. Along the thicklypeopled banks hordes of savages showed themselves, gazing in wonder at the strange ships, and making ambiguous gestures, variously construed by the adventurers as signs of friendship or hostility. Alternately sailing and towing, as the wind served or not; constantly in sight of natives, but rarely communicating with them; often cut off for days from land by interminable fields of tangled weeds,-the expedition pursued its course through innumerable perils, guaranteed from most of them by the liquid rampart on which it floated. Lions looked hungry, and savages shook their spears, but neither showed a disposition to swim off and board the flotilla. The cause of science has countless obligations to the cupidity of potentates and adventurers. May it not be part of the scheme of Providence, that gold is placed in the most remote and barbarous regions, as a magnet to draw thither the children of civilisation? The expedition shared in by Mr Werne is an argument in favour of the hypothesis. It originated in appetite for lucre, not in thirst for knowledge. Mehemet Ali, viceroy of Egypt, finding the lands within his control unable to meet his lavish expenditure and constant cry for gold, projected working mines supposed to exist in the districts of Kordovan and Fazogl. At heavy cost he procured Austrian miners from Trieste, a portion of whom proceeded in 1836 to the land of promise, to open those veins of gold whence it was reported the old Venetian ducats had been extracted. Already, in imagination, the viceroy beheld an ingot-laden fleet sailing merrily down the Nile. He was disappointed in his glowing expectations. Russegger, the German chief of the expedition, pocketed the pay of a Bey, ate and drank in conformity with his rank, rambled about the country, and wrote a book for the amusement and information of his countrymen. Then he demanded thirty thousand dollars to begin the works. An Italian, who had accompanied him, offered to do it for less; mistrust and disputes arose,

and at last their employer would rely on neither of them, but resolved to go and see for himself. This was in the autumn of 1838; and it might well be that the old fox was not sorry to get out of the way of certain diplomatic personages at Alexandria, and thus to postpone for a while his reply to troublesome inquiries and demands.

"It was on the 15th October 1838," Mr Werne says, "that I-for some time past an anchorite in the wilderness by Tura, and just returned from a hunt in the ruins of Memphis-saw, from the left shore of the Nile, the Abu Dagn, (Father of the Beard,) as Mohammed Ali was designated to me by a Fellah standing by, steam past in his yacht, in the direction of those regions to which I would then so gladly have proceeded. Already in Alexandria I had gathered, over a glass of wine, from frigate-captain Achmet, (a Swiss, named Baumgärtner,) the secret plan of the expedition to the White Stream, (Bach'r el Abiat,) and I had made every effort to obtain leave to join it, but in vain, because, as a Christian, my discretion was not to be depended upon."

The Swiss, whom some odd caprice of fate, here unexplained, had converted into an Egyptian naval captain, and to whom the scientific duties of the expedition were confided, died in the following spring, and his place was taken by Captain Selim. Mr Werne and his brother, who had long ardently desired to accompany one of these expeditions up the Nile, were greatly discouraged at this change, which they looked upon as destructive to their hopes. At the town of Chartum, at the confluence of the White and Blue streams, they witnessed, in the month of November 1839, the departure of the first flotilla; and, although sick and weak, from the effects of the climate, their hearts were wrung with regret at being left behind. This expedition got no further than 6° 35′ N. L.; although, either from mistakes in their astronomical reckoning or wishing to give themselves more importance, and not anticipating that others would soon follow to check their statements, they pretended to have gone three degrees further south. But Mehemet Ali, not satisfied with the result of

their voyage, immediately ordered a second expedition to be fitted out. Mr Werne, who is a most adventurous person, had been for several months in the Taka country, in a district previously untrodden by Europeans, with an army commanded by Achmet Bascha, governor-general of Sudan, who was operating against some rebellious tribes. Here news reached him of the projected expedition; and, to his great joy, he obtained from Achmet permission to accompany it in the quality of passenger. His brother, then bodyphysician to the Bascha, could not be spared, by reason of the great mortality in the camp.

At Chartum the waters were high, the wind was favourable, and all was ready for a start early in October, but for the non-appearance of two French engineers, who lingered six weeks in Korusko, under one pretext or other, but in reality, Mr Werne affirms, because one of them, Arnaud by name, who has since written an account of the expedition, was desirous to prolong the receipt of his pay as bimbaschi, or major, which rank he temporarily held in the Egyptian service. At last he and his companion, Sabatier, arrived: on the 23d November 1840 a start was made; and, on that day Mr Werne began a journal, regularly kept, and most minute in its details, which he continued till the 22d April 1841, the date of his return to Chartum. He commences by stating the composition of the expedition. "It consists of four dahabies from Kahira, (vessels with two masts and with cabins, about a hundred feet long, and twelve to fifteen broad,) each with two cannon; three dahabies from Chartum, one of which has also two guns; then two kaias, one-masted vessels, to carry goods, and a sàndal, or skiff, for intercommunication; the crews are composed of two hundred and fifty soldiers, (Negroes, Egyptians, and Surians,) and a hundred and twenty sailors and boatmen from Alexandria, Nubia, and the land of Sudan." Soliman Kaschef (a Circassian of considerable energy and courage, who, like Mr Werne himself, was protected by Achmet Bascha) commanded the troops. Captain Selim had charge of the ships, and a

VOL. LXV.-NO. CCCXCIX.

sort of general direction of the expedition, of which, however, Soliman was the virtual chief; the second captain was Feizulla Effendi of Constantinople; the other officers were two Kurds, a Russian, an Albanian, and a Persian. Of Europeans, there were the two Frenchmen, already mentioned, as engineers; a third, named Thibaut, as collector; and Mr Werne, as an independent passenger at his own charges. The ships were to follow each other in two lines, one led by Soliman, the other by Selim; but this order of sailing was abandoned the very first day; and so, indeed, was nearly all order of every kind. Each man sailed his bark as he pleased, without nautical skill or unity of movement; and, as to one general and energetic supervision of the whole flotilla and its progress, no one dreamed of such a thing. Mr Werne indulged in gloomy reflections as to the probable results of an enterprise, at whose very outset such want of zeal and discipline was displayed. It does not appear to

have struck him that not the least of his dangers upon the strange voy age he had so eagerly undertaken, was from his shipmates, many of them bigoted Mahometans and reckless, ferocious fellows, ready with the knife, and who would have thought little of burthening their conscience with so small a matter as a Christian's blood. He is evidently a cool, courageous man, prompt in action; and his knowledge of the slavish, treacherous character of the people he had to deal with, doubtless taught him the best line of conduct to pursue with them. This, as appears from various passages of his journal, was the rough and ready style-a blow for the slightest impertinence, and his arms, which he well knew how to use, always at hand. He did not scruple to interfere when he saw cruelty or oppression practised, and soon he made himself respected, if not feared, by all on board; so much so, that Feizulla, the captain of the vessel in which he sailed, a drunken old Turk, who passed his time in drinking spirits and mending his own clothes, appointed him his locum tenens during his occasional absences on shore. During his five months' voyage, Mr

D

Werne had a fine opportunity of studying the peculiarities of the different nations with individuals of which he sailed; and, although his long residence in Africa and the East had made him regard such matters with comparative indifference, the occasional glimpses he gives of Turkish and Egyptian habits are amongst the most interesting passages in his book. Already, on the third day of the voyage, the expiration of the Rhamadan, or fasting month, and the setting in of the little feast of Bairam, gave rise to a singular scene. The flotilla was passing through the country governed by Achmet Bascha, in which Soliman was a man of great importance. By his desire, a herd of oxen and a large flock of sheep were driven down to the shore, for the use of the expedition. The preference was for the mutton, the beef in those regions being usually tough and coarse, and consequently despised by the Turks. "This quality of the meat is owing to the nature of the fodder, the tender grass and herbs of our marshlands and pastures being here unknown-and to the climate, which hardens the animal texture, a fact perceived by the surgeon when operating upon the human body. Our Arabs, who, like the Greeks and Jews, born butchers and flayers, know no mercy with beasts or men, fell upon the unfortunate animals, hamstrung them in all haste, to obviate any chance of resumption of the gift, and the hecatomb sank upon the ground, pitiful to behold. During the flaying and quartering, every man tried to secrete a sippet of meat, cutting it off by stealth, or stealing it from the back of the bearers. These coveted morsels were stuck upon skewers, broiled at the nearest watchfire, and ravenously devoured, to prepare the stomach for the approaching banquet. Although they know how to cook the liver excellently well, upon this occasion they preferred eating it raw, cut up in a wooden dish, and with the gall of the slaughtered beast poured over it. Thus prepared, and eaten with salt and pepper, it has much the flavour of a good raw beefsteak." The celebration of the Bairam was a scene of gluttony and gross revelry. Arrack was served out in

stead of the customary ration of coffee; and many a Mussulman drank more than did him good, or than the Prophet's law allows. In the night, Captain Feizulla tumbled out of bed; and, having spoiled his subordinates by over-indulgence, not one of them stirred to his assistance. Mr Werne picked him up, found him in an epileptic fit, and learned, with no great pleasure, Feizulla being his cabinmate, that the thirsty skipper was subject to such attacks. He foresaw a comfortless voyage on board the narrow bark, and with such queer companions; but the daily increasing interest of the scenery and surrounding objects again distracted his thoughts from considerations of personal ease. He had greater difficulty in reconciling himself to the negligence and indolence of his associates. So long as food was abundant and work scanty, all went well enough; but when liquor ran low, and the flesh-pots of Egypt were empty, grumbling began, and the thoughts of the majority were fixed upon a speedy return. Their chiefs set them a poor example. Soliman Kaschef lay in bed till an hour after sunrise, and the signal to sail could not be given till he awoke; and Feizulla, when his and Mr Werne's stock of brandy was out, passed one half his time in distilling spirits from stale dates, and the other moiety in getting intoxicated on the turbid extract thus obtained. Then the officers had female slaves on board; and there was a licensed jester, Abu Haschis, who supplied the expedition with buffoonery and ribaldry; and the most odious practices prevailed amongst the crews; for further details concerning all which matters we refer the curious to Mr Werne himself. A more singularly composed expedition was perhaps never fitted out, nor one less adapted effectually to perform the services required of it. Cleanliness and sobriety, so incumbent upon men cooped up in small craft, in a climate teeming with pestilence and vermin, were little regarded; and subordination and vigilance, essential to safety amidst the perils of an unknown navigation, and in the close vicinity of hostile savages, were utterly neglected,—at first to the great uneasiness of Mr Werne. But