obvious relic of this ancient ceremony. No divine honours are paid to Confucius, no effigy or statue, or palpable emblem of adoration is erected to his memory, or in his halls; his followers, the Stoics of the country, consider the universe as one animated system, composed of one material substance and one spirit, of which every living thing is an emanation, and to which, when separated by death from the material part, every living thing again returns :— “ All are but parts of one stupendous whole, The most contemptible part of the philosophy of Confucius is, that which relates to predestination, or to prophecy, or astrology, according to the means employed to attain the simulated end. The Chaldeans, Arabians, and Egyptians, as well as the Chinese, have always been addicted to the study of the stars, and the decision of numerical fates; and Confucius, yielding to this weakness, adopted the mystical lines of Foo-shee. By the help of these lines, and the prevailing element at the commencement of a reign, he pretended to foretel coming events, but so ambiguously were his oracles worded, that they might admit of many and different interpretations. The mystic lines of Foo-shee, and the binary arithmetic of Leibnitz, are the materials of imposition now worked up by the fortune-tellers, or astronomers, as they are generally called, of China, whose cheats are practised under the sanction of a government licence. The Chinese almanac, regulated by these impostors, undertakes to predict events, changes of weather, lucky and unlucky days. To some of these prognostics, however, more enlightened people have laid claim; and, in the almanacs of Moore, Vincent Wing, Partridge, and Murphy, weather-wisdom is most unblushingly professed. The Greeks used pebbles, the Romans dice, the Franks cards, the Germans and Chinese little pieces of wood, "sticks of fate," which they are permitted to throw three times if the first be not satisfactory, when seeking their destiny. The learned in many countries, even those who despised the sticks of fate, have lent themselves to the various objects of their adoption,-only employing books instead of cards, or dice, or sticks, or pebbles. Lord Napier, the inventor of logarithms, predicted the day of judgment from a passage in the Apocalypse of St. John, but had the mortification to survive the appointed day, and be compelled to blush at his own weakness and credulity. Kung-Ming, a person of distinction in the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms, was a believer in astrology, and foretold his own death. Desirous, however, of still serving his royal master, when the predicted hour drew near, he lighted a certain number of lamps within his tent, corresponding with the appearance of the stars in the sky, and, placing them in order, addressed a supplication to Heaven to arrest his approaching fate. As he was then in the last stage of a wasting malady, and as he prostrated himself upon the cold earth, resolving to await in that situation the answer from above, it is not to be wondered at that he expired about the time he had himself foretold. The expectation of Confucius to found a system of moral government, not connected immediately with any religious theory, was illusory and contrary to historic experience. The fallacy of such an attempt is proved by a reference to the history of any nation upon earth. 'Tis true, he did not command idolatry, but he did not prohibit that practice, although he did not attach any idea of a personal being to the great First Cause; and he pursued the same wary policy with respect to temples of worship and an attendant priesthood; but such views were too sublime, abstract, and metaphysical, to preserve their purity for any length of time amongst a people unprepared by education for their reception; and, scarcely had the philosopher himself paid the debt of nature, when the multitude relapsed, like the Israelites of old upon the absence of Moses, into the gross idolatry which now prevails amongst the disciples of Bhudda and Laoutsze. It has been before observed, that the doctrine of Confucius being purely a code of moral philosophy, requires neither temple, nor priest, nor altar; that the rich, and educated, and elevated alone pay ceremonial respect to his memory, either in halls erected at their private expense, or in a public literary theatre. And, that there is but one high priest, the emperor, authorised to offer sacrifices to the spirit of the sage. Yet his disciples assemble in upwards of 1600 public buildings, and in those, as well as in the halls of ancestors, where the shadows of great men are appeased, it is said, that 30,000 pigs, 30,000 rabbits, 60,000 sheep, and many bullocks, are annually slain as sacrificial offerings to the spirits of Confucius and his seventy faithful disciples. NEW ZEALAND FLAX. THE fibrous parts of this plant are used by the natives of New Zealand for cords and clothing, instead of hemp and flax, to which they are much superior. They are, in fact, stronger than any other known vegetable fibres, hardly yielding in this respect to silk. The plant is indigenous, found in all parts of these islands, and is inexhaustible, as the leaves may be cut twice a year, leaving the parent root for reproduction. If the plant be cultivated by offsets-for it is a bulbous root-at proper distances, and the intermediate spaces kept free from weeds, the quality of the fibre will be improved, and the productiveness of the plant increased: this operation should be performed in the spring. The stem attains to the height of six feet and upwards, is straight, very firm, branched or paniculated above, and sheathed at the base with leaves. The leaves are five or six feet long, ensiform, like the iris, but much broader, very much compressed at the base, where they are disposed on two opposite sides of the stem, somewhat resembling those of the common cat's-tail. The flowers have six petals, six stamens, and one style. Every year, as the inner leaves shoot upward, it loses the outer: consequently. the latter should be pulled off when they have acquired their full growth, while the stock may remain in the ground for years. The fibrous substance is obtained from the leaves of the plant, not from the stem, as is the case in Russia, Germany, Italy, and England, in the preparation of hemp and flax. The fibres are long, of a snowy whiteness, and possess the lustre of silk. The process by which the natives procure and prepare the fibres is very tedious, and the manipulation confined exclusively to the women, being looked on as wholly below the dignity of the other sex. The external epidermis of the leaf is separated from the fibre in a green state, by the aid of muscle-shells, after which, exposure to the air for several days bleaches the flax, and dries the inner epidermis. Negligence on the part of the natives in not removing more perfectly this dried inner coat, tends materially to injure the character of the flax prepared in that way; and, now that the circumstance is known, has reduced its consumption in the colonial and even home markets. In addition to this tedious process, so unequally matched against the miraculous performances of machinery, the loss in quantity sustained by it amounts, at least, to 25 per cent. The Before our settlement in New Zealand the natives prepared and exported considerable quantities of this valuable material to Sydney, to be made into cordage; but now they derive such ample remuneration for their agricultural labour, and can procure good blankets for so small a return on their part, that they can no longer be induced to pursue the occupation of growing and dressing flax in their primitive manner. Navy board, in 1831, contracted for 800 tons of New Zealand flax, which was manufactured into cordage for the navy. But it is probable that it had not originally been prepared with care; that the ropemakers at Portsmouth, prejudiced in favour of the old material, did not take every possible mode of freeing the fibre from the inner epidermis, which the means possessed by the natives cannot effect; so that the cordage was reported by the master rope-maker at the dock-yard (to whom the decision should never have been submitted), to have failed from the nature of the material, not from any defect in his manufacture. So convinced, however, are the British settlers in New Zealand, at Port Nicholson especially, of the intrinsic value of this plant, that a little company is formed there for the manufacture of ropes from flax prepared by the natives, or by machinery of a simple construction which they have erected. Whenever perfect machinery, such as we employ at home, for heckling, for forming the flax into bands of parallel rectilinear filaments, -for forming a sliver-for coarse spinning and fine spinning, or even for the two first of these objects, shall be established in New Zealand, then the produce of the Formium tenax will become the staple of that colony, as wool is now of Australasia. In the United States of America this plant is now found in the greenhouses of many wealthy merchants, from whence no doubt it will, in time, be transplanted to those parts of the Union, where soil and climate suitable to its wants, exist. In its native country it grows in both wet and dry places, and is apparently adapted to every kind of soil, but seems to prefer marshy lands. French enterprise has been awakened to the importance of introducing the culture of this plant. It bears the climate of the South of France, and has remained in the open air throughout the year. It has succeeded perfectly in Normandy also, yielding seeds which have been sown and proved fertile. WALKS IN SWITZERLAND. 66 BY THE AUTHOR OF THE TOMB OF BONAPARTE. THE CHAPTER I.-PRELIMINARY. DEPARTURE-SUNDAY MORNING-THE WRITER'S FEELINGS-PLANS AND ON a fine Sunday morning in the June of 1837, the day on which a sorrowing public assumed the garments of mourning for a kind-hearted and beloved monarch, newly gone to the tomb of his fathers-I, for the first time in my life, bade adieu to the shores which gave me birth, bound on a summer's expedition of pleasure upon the Continent. The sun, who had not yet put on his full solstitial strength, seemed to look smilingly from the unclouded sky; while a gentle westerly gale, fraught with the incense that breathes throughout the land during this fairest, and (with me) favourite month of summer, tempered his warm ray, and imparted cheerful influences to a numerous and motley group of faces, collected on the quarter-deck of the Antwerp steam-boat, and now looking their last—at least for a season-on the banks, and fleets, and muddy waves of Father Thames. It was just that brightness which gladdens: the sort of breeze precisely which is wont to tranquillize and to soothe. The morning was one of sweet serenity-in unison with a sabbath doubly hallowed; for this day of God might be considered as additionally and especially consecrated to the memory of the departed sovereign of Britain. How many were enjoying its sunbeam, forgetful of Him whose holy day" it was! Yet, from highest to lowest, scarce a subject of the realm but on this morn of sables and muffled bells remembered, and remembered kindly, the good King William the Fourth. My own feelings were of a mingled kind: not that the crape around my hat was the symptom of anything like depression; although I had just bid adieu to an affectionate family, and parted from every acquaintance I had in the world. I was rejoicing in the consciousness of a liberty hitherto unknown-master of my own movements, in the widest sensecalled upon to recognize no voice, no counsel, but unbiassed, unfettered inclination. True, a scheme of travel, furnished by a friend, was in my hand ; true, I had spelt it again and again, till its directions were to me as a lesson got by heart; and true, I proposed (at present) to embody its every recommendation, with the implicit adherence that pilgrims accord to a guide in traversing some unknown wilderness. But what then? This detracted nothing from my free agency. My paper carried no more authority than the companion who supplied it. A mere minister of convenience and subject for amendment, 'twas no farther binding than while the whim of the moment, or the wish of awakened curiosity did not suggest other arrangements, or carry me out of its orderly specified details. Next came a long array of bright castles built in air, and heights and depths, and the many elements of excitement connected with a wide world as yet unknown; forming abundant material for a fancy even less active than mine to employ, and amuse, and exhaust itself upon. But, pleasing as were undoubtedly these features of my meditation-anticipations of novelty, of adventure, and of pleasure—there was a little alloy in the reflection that I had no comrade of the road with whom to share them. My scheme promised variety no less than enjoyment: Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, were to be seen; but there was not a face among the steam-boat crew with which I was surrounded that I might meet again after our debarkation; and though I was reminded that a traveller is the world's citizen, and numbers brothers in every land and clime he visits; still there lingered in my breast something like scepticism, whether in my particular case this universal fraternity might not know a limitation. In short, a suspicion shot now and then across me, that I had managed ill in leaving the best delight of the journey--since "Who can enjoy alone, Or, all enjoying, what contentment find?" to depend for existence upon chance, and, as these my first hours of solitary company suggested, that chance a desperate one. It was, however, my deliberate choice to start alone. The two or three dear and tried friends that would have made any passages welcome, and any locality or adventure delightful by simply sharing it, had declined to become partners with me on this occasion; and knowing well the numberless sources of discomfort and disagreement that ensue from an ill-assorted companionship and, to be frank, I have idiosyncrasies (odd ways, as some folks say) in which the chances were against any given individual coinciding a little apprehensive, moreover, of all such volunteer friends as had not by actual trial been proved congenial; the natural, the almost necessary consequence was, my being sent forth, as before hinted, with no other companion than my own resources should procure, and my proper thoughts for my only permanent society. What took off much from the indisposition I might otherwise have felt in coming to this determination was the uniform representation of all my acquaintances who had made the voyage before me, with how little difficulty a solitary, as I was, might attach himself to some fellow-travel |