they leaped on the ground, and joined in a dance by her side. On reaching the triumphal arch, the whole in groups, together with men and girls intermixed, danced around her. Here some bearded elders chanted verses in her praise, and all the spectators joined in chorus. The sight was truly interesting, and I have seldom seen one that moved my feelings more. Lady Hester herself seemed to partake of the emotions to which her presence in this remote spot had given rise. Nor was the wonder of the Palmyrenes less than our own. They beheld with amazement a woman, who had ventured thousands of miles from her own country, and had now crossed a waste where hunger and thirst were only a part of the evils to be dreaded."-Pp. 196-7-8.

The procession advanced to the gate of the Temple, and at length Lady Hester reached the cottage "which had been prepared for her," Despite of this description being conducted on what is called the spinning-out principle," it is, we think, the most interesting passage in the three volumes; and hence our reason for presenting such a long extract to our readers. In a letter to the Marquis of Sligo— who had accompanied Lady Hester during part of her European travels-the heroine writes:-"I must tell you that the difficulty of this enterprise was that the king of the Desert was at war with some very powerful Arabs, and it was from them we were in dread of being surprised, particularly as it was known that they had said that they could sell me for 25,000 piasters,* or 300 purses, and which they certainly thought they could get for my ransom at home. This was the most alarming part of the business." Lady Hester Stanhope settled in Syria in the year 1813, in an old monastic house, two miles from Sidon, situated at the foot of Mount Lebanon. Finding this habitation too small for her large establishment she afterwards repaired to the residence at Joon. The "Travels," we are informed by Dr. M., embrace a period reaching from the thirty-sixth to the forty-third year of Lady Hester's life; or, from the commencement of 1810, till January 1817. The most pleasing characteristic about Dr. M.'s books is, continual desire to uphold the character of his heroine: he brings her charity fully before the world; and makes full allowance for the eccentricities of a diseased mind. With this remark we shall bid the author, farewell!

The "Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess ?" What a highsounding title! From whence does it come? Is Babylon once more" the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency?" Has she risen from a long sleep to embrace her former glory? -do treasures of gold and silver and voices of gladness and the sweetest melody abound once more in the lady of Kingdoms?" Babylon has fallen! As Jeremiah and other prophets foretold, the once mighty capital of Chaldea has long been heaps without an inhabitant." And Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria, with its walls and towers of amazing magnitude, its palaces of pleasure and magnificence, where is her glory now? Our present business, however, is simply to glance at the contents of the book. Among the ruins of Nineveh, our Babalonian Princess" was born! Her parents be

Nearly £250:-1000 piasters being about £10 English.

+ Lady Hester Stanhope died in June, 1839. (Vide Memoirs.)

longed to Bagdad, on the Tigris, a celebrated city of Chaldea: but the plague of 1804 compelled the family to remove to the country, near Mosul, opposite to which is the supposed site of ancient Nineveh. Mosul is also situated on the Tigris; and is still an important town, in the province of Mesopotamia, or Algezira, as it is sometimes termed in maps.

When the plague ceased, the Babylonian Princess returned to Bagdad with her parents. The first volume of her work is somewhat prosy; yet there is much good writing; and many a pleasant passage may be found in the wonderfully faultless composition. Her parents persecuted by a Pasha, for a steady adherence to the Christian faith, and misfortune having surrounded her noble family, the Princess seeks consolation in travel. Leaving her adventures in the desert, we shall proceed at once to where she designs a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Her father was now dead; and she styles herself, while meditating on her loss; "a wretched outcast on the wide world." A caravan at length is about to start for Damascus, from Bagdad. The time occupied in travelling, was a little more than forty days: and, on approaching the former city, the fifth day after their depar ture from Tadmor, the writer gives the following landscape :-"The domes and minarets of Damascus were pointed out to us in the far distance, their glittering tops standing in bold relief against the huge towering masses of the Anti-Libanus range of mountains, on whose rugged sides the rising sun had just thrown a mantle of the deepest rose tint; a colour so charming that one who has not beheld it rise in a mountainous country cannot conceive half its beauty."P. 272.

With excellent descriptions of the baths at Damascus, the ladies, dinners, &c., the first volume ends.

We have only room for the following:-"The inhabitants of Da mascus are celebrated for their love of luxurious ease, as well as for their good countenances and graceful costume. Some of them, too, it would seem, are as much distinguished for their cunning as for their probity, if we may give credit to the proverb Shami shumi," The Damascenes are cunning.'"—P. 307.

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The second volume commences with the departure of the Princess from Damascus, with a travelling companion-a Christian bishop, from the regions of Tartary, who had accompanied the caravan from Bagdad, and who was also bent on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and at length they reach Baalbec, after a pleasant journey through a romantic country, flanked on the east by the Anti-Libanus, and on the west, towards the sea, by the lofty Lebanon." Baalbec, famous for its beautiful ruins, unnoticed by the Princess, possesses the remains of the 66 Temple of the Sun," built hy Antoninus Pius. The ruins of Baalbec are preferred by Irby and Mangles to those of Palmyra. These travellers state, that they suspect it is the difficulty of getting to Tadmor, and the fact that few travellers have been there, that has given rise to the great renown of the Palmyra ruins. The

Kasmia has its source to the north of Baalbec, and running through the plain, discharges itself into the sea a little to the north of Tyre. How deplorable that so luxuriant a spot, with so fine a soil, should lay waste and desolate! and what ideas of former wealth and magnificence do the splendid ruins of Baalbec call to the mind." (Irby and Mangles.) After visiting Beyrout, Jaffa, and Ramlah, the party arrive at Jerusalem. The Princess gives a passage concerning a festival which took place there and which, if we could forget the blind superstition that must have mingled in the scene, could not fail to interest us

"The festival which took place on Easter Sunday, I shall never forget as long as I live. What more noble sight to a sincere Christian, than to see the pious multitude filling every corner of the vast building which contains the tomb of our Blessed Lord! pilgrims from the east, from the west, from the north, and from the south, from Egypt, Chaldea, Greece, Armenia, Persia; India, and even China; whose pious fervour and Christian zeal had brought them hundreds and thousands of leagues; through the lonely wilderness and the parching desert, &c."-Vol. 2, p. 67.

After a pilgrimage to the Jordan-attended by ten thousand souls, and headed by the governor of Jerusalem-and a visit to JerichoRihhah, a village said to be erected on its ruins-the Princess returns to Jerusalem, and receives a very pleasant letter from the Emir Beschor, the Prince of Lebanon.

She admires him for being "one of the strongholds of Christianity in the East;" and so we shall pass on to the Emir's palace at Beteddin, to which the Princess resorts to pay a long visit. This brings her into the region of Lady Hester Stanhope.

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Years of residence at Mount Lebanon had made Lady Hester a "Drûse lady." The daughter of Babylon pays her a visit. The niece of William Pitt is found smoking a pipe; and commences at once to address the Princess in Arabic: You," said she, are from the land of the wise. It was in Chaldea that science first dawned; it was there that astronomy, astrology, and magic attained their highest perfection."

Lady Hester instructs the Princess in Astrology; and informs her that her star is Nejmal el Atared. Mercury. The Princess announces her intention of visiting Europe. This gives rise to a violent declamation from Lady Hester against such a theatre of low cunning and intrigue, self-seeking and hypocrisy, degeneracy and corruption. We are afraid the author of "Tancred" must have been influenced by the Stanhopian mania when he so lately caused his hero to call us-“ Flat-nosed Franks," who had mistaken progress for civilization."

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But the Princess is resolved to visit Europe. The glory of the East has departed, and "grandeur must be found in the regions of the west. The regeneration of Syria has yet to come. Everything is in readiness for the journey. The Princess takes leave of her generous friend, the Emir; and, in September, 1832, bids adieu to the east. She arrives at Leghorn, where sickness and misfortunes alike surround her. In 1837, she quitted Rome; and arrived in

Paris in the same year. During her stay in the French capitalfrom 1837 till 1841-she hears of the downfall of the Prince of the Lebanon. At length she takes it into her head to visit the modern Babylon, where the Princess had remained three years, at the conclusion of her" sad, eventful, history." "Alas! for the artificial accomplishments which adorn the society of the west."-P. 306.

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The most striking feature among books of the above description is, the good English in which they are written. Education, through the exertions of the Syrian Missionaries, and those who take an interest in a once highly favoured land, must, if anything will, produce the That its inhabitants are moral regeneration of Syria. apt," we have a remarkable example in a work entitled "a voice from Lebanon," published in London about March last; which contains the "Life and Travels of Assaud Y. Rayat"-a Syrian boy, who throve in trade, rose to opulence, and eventually visited London. We are sorry that this work is not before us; or we should have laid a specimen of its contents before the reader. The mind of the Oriental, whether Syrian or Indian, must possess a healthy and cheerful tone before it can see the advantages of English civilization and to this effect we cannot be too strenuous in the diffusion of knowledge and the propagation of Christianity.

Tripoli is generally considered the neatest town in Syria. Aleppo, as the reader knows, is the metropolis; one of the largest cities in the Turkish empire. There are several European factories here: and we believe Aleppo boasts a fair trade.—Lat. 33° 5' N. Long. 36° 36' E. A notice of the latitude of a few prominent places, may not be uninter esting to the scientific reader, should he be bent on a new trigonometrical survey of the Dead Sea, or some other interesting portion of Syria! The following results have been published by the "Royal Geographical Society of London:”—

From the success of the "Expedition to the Euphrates," under Colonel Chesney, some years ago, materials for a correct map of Northern Syria were said to be collected. But even now it would appear much remains to be done. Portions of Syria still exist comparatively unknown: and this must, in a great measure, hinder the commercial and intellectual progress of the country. In the number of the Athenæum, at the head of this article, an interesting and valuable paper, by Capt. Newbold, was read, we are informed, before the Asiatic Society of London. The subject of the paper is, "the mountainous country between the coasts of Tyre and Sidon and the river

* In addition to these we have Akaba Fort, 29° 32'; Hebron, 31° 31'; Jeraish, 32° 16 "From some rough observations, Jeraish was found to be 2,000 feet and Jerusalem 2,600 feet above the level of the Mediterranean."―Journal of the R. G. S. L. 1837.

Jordon"-a part of Palestine hitherto but little known:-" Capt. Newbold proceeded, in 1845, from Tyre to Banias; and returned from Hasbeia and the castle of Shukif to Sidon. He thus traversed the country in two directions." The country is divided into the districts of Esh Shukif and Beshareh. It comprehends an area of 468 square miles, being about 26 miles from N. to S.: and 18 E. to W. The shore district is the celebrated Phenician plain." The crater of an extinct volcano, was likewise observed; and the nature of the soil of the country may be imagined from the following:..." Wheat fields are numerous; and the vine flourishes in the volcanic soil. Cotton also grows; but the staple productions are wheat, millet, beans, tobacco, and lentils." The population of this new territory is said to amount to 15,000......" about 30 to the square mile; and is composed of Greeks, Drûses, and Arabs." During his excursion, Capt. Newbold saw a beautiful marble Torso of Minerva, recently found among the ruins of Tyre. But we must now conclude. And we shall do this with the hope that the admirable scientific Societies of London and elsewhere will continue their praiseworthy exertions in behalf of Syria and Palestine: that the dawn of literature and science will ere long extend to a land which was once the glory of the world: that war has forever fled from Syria, and St. Jean d'Acre be content with the renown it has gained in the wars of Palestine, from Saint Louis, the Crusader, to the days of the defeat of Napoleon, and the successes of Sydney Smith, Stopford, and Napier: that peace may ever reign in Syria--and Lebanon, with its head of eternal snow,* soon smile again over a land, consecrated by so many memorials of events of imperishable renown.

The Natural History, the Diseases, the Medical Practice, and the Materia Medica of the Aborigines of Brazil, translated by John Macpherson, Esq., M. D., Assistant Surgeon. Calcutta, Bishop's College Press, 1845.

THIS work, the production of the eminent Botanist and Naturalist of the University of Munich, but of a wider than European reputation, is opportunely introduced to us in India through the medium of a translation from the German by Dr. John MacPherson, one of the medical officers of the presidency. Here in the far East we know but little generally speaking of the far West, and we cannot but be grateful for every attempt to induce us to trace the various points of analogy, and contrast between the old and the young worlds. Europe enjoys pre-eminence for present mental supremacy; Asia for past most venerable fame; Africa for perplexing mixed associations;-The gold and the clay which have

* Lebanon, in the Syriac language, signifies white-which the mountain is, in summer and winter; in the former by the colour of the rock-in the latter by reason of the snow.-Irby and Mangles.