All

attendants are generally negroes or mulattoes; the white servants generally Irish, for the Americans have a great disinclination to service. classes complain of the insolence of their servants, who think as much of themselves as their masters; of this I saw daily examples. There are a great number of negroes and mulattoes, but they belong to the very lowest class. The people of this country have a great dislike to this race of men, who are compelled to live almost like the Indian Parias. In the army, at the very highest, they can only be received as drummers or musicians, but never as soldiers. Yes, soldiers ought certainly never to be of mixed blood.'-vol. i. p. 200.

Our traveller appears to have a tacit belief in omens. We have already given an instance, in his description of the storm, after meeting the steam-boat with the corpse on board, One or two of similar import appear in different parts of the volumes before us, some of which we shall extract. Thus, after the first week's residence at New York, the Duke changed his lodgings, and immediately upon entering his new apartments received the joyful intelligence of the birth of his son, Hermann Bernhard Georg, on the 4th of August. I thanked Providence for this new gift, and for the preservation of the loved mother of my children, with fervent piety. On the next day I continued my pur suit of amusement and instruction, (vol. i. p. 201). And on a subsequent occasion, on his visit to the grave of Washington, he tells us,

that

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When General Lafayette visited Washington's monument, an eagle was seen in the air, and hovered near the grave until the General left. We remarked likewise a very large eagle, that appeared to watch us from its height; we saw him above us when we re-embarked, and he appeared to hover over the same spot for a long time; and it was not until the last boat approached the steam-vessel, that he suddenly left his position, flew to the wood, and we lost sight of him.'-vol. i.

Sagacious creature! Washington's guardian angel, no doubt. It would make a capital episode in an American epic. We should like very much to know whether the royal bird acts as a guard of honour, or watch, only upon French generals and German dukes; or would condescend to accompany an untitled John Bull, or Yankee, to the grave of the hero. At any rate Washington is worthy of the honour, and so we will let the matter rest.

On paying a visit to Mr. Crawford, who had been ambassador to Paris from the United States, the Duke found to his astonishment that, although he had resided some years in France, he could not speak French, and addressed himself mostly to his daughter. His Highness is a man of too much politeness to be personal; yet if Miss Crawford should ever peruse his travels, we are afraid that she will not consider the next sentence, in which her visitor incidentally expresses his conviction that the inhabitants of the South are far behind those of the North in culture' (vol. ii. p. 17), as a proof of his gallantry.

On arriving at Macon, several of the houses were grog-shops, in which the neighbours celebrated Christmas. Tout comme chez nous, thought I, and fancied myself in Europe. We noticed a lady and gentleman on horseback; the horses were not loaded, yet a negress was obliged to run barefoot by the side, and carry a heavy sack of corn for the horses. Then I saw that I was not in Europe, and I was glad of it.' -vol. ii. p. 24.

In New Orleans, we regret to say our traveller found places established for the sale of negroes. The poor creatures stood or sat the whole day to be exhibited to purchasers. He expresses himself in the terms which such conduct cannot fail to excite, and says that the indifference which custom produces in the whites is incredible. Among the slave dealers, a Dutchman, named Jacobs, in a particular manner excited his indignation. He had the vilest countenance that could be imagined, and treated the unfortunate negroes in the most brutal manner, although he was not unfrequently chastised by the unhappy beings in the extremity of their despair. vol. ii. p. 74.

The Duke's observations on the state of society in New Orleans, are worthy of quotation. After slightly noticing a masked white ball, he continues

'There was likewise a quarteron ball the same evening. A quarteron is the child of a mestize and a white father, as a mestize is the child of a mulatto and a white father. The quarterons are almost white; at least their descent could not be traced in their complexions. Many a Quarteronne has a whiter skin than many of the proud Creoles. Their black hair and eyes betray them, although there are blonde Quarteronnes. Those who attend this ball are free; but the white ladies entertain the most violent dislike to them on account of their black descent. Marriages between the white and coloured are forbidden by the laws; and as the Quarteronnes look down with similar contempt on the negroes and mulattoes, nothing remains for them but to become the friends of the whites. They consider an engagement of this nature as a marriage, and it is always entered into by a formal contract, according to which the friend gives a certain sum to the Quarteronnes, who take the name of their friends, and are much more faithful than many ladies married at church. Several of them possess considerable property, and yet their situation is very subordinate. They must not drive in a carriage through the streets, and it is only in the dusk of the evening that their friends can drive them to the ball in their own carriage; they must not sit in the presence of a white lady, nor even enter a room without her express permission. Many of them have received a better education than the whites, and generally conduct themselves with more decency and propriety. Yet the white ladies speak of these unhappy and oppressed creatures with the greatest contempt and bitterness. The strongest expressions of the high nobility in the monarchical states of the old world to their fellow-creatures, cannot be more haughty, arrogant, and contemptuous than that of the Creoles in one of the highly-praised free states of the liberal Union. In fact, these comparisons afford abundant source of contemplation to a thinking mind. Many rich parents, on this account, send their daughters to France, where,

from their education and property, they find no difficulty in forming matches. Only coloured ladies are admitted to these Quarteron balls, and to ensure the respectability of the gentleman, the price of admission is two dollars.

As a foreigner like myself should see every thing, that he may become acquainted with the manners, customs, opinions, and prejudices of the persons with whom he happens to be, I accepted the invitation of some gentlemen, who offered to drive me to the Quarteron ball, and I must confess it was much better conducted than the masked ball. The coloured ladies were under the eyes of their mothers; they were well and elegantly dressed, and behaved with great decorum and modesty. Country dances and waltzes were performed, and several of the ladies danced excellently! I did not stop long, for fear of forfeiting all claims to existence in New Orleans, but soon returned to my former party, and took care not to tell the ladies where I had been. But I could not refrain from drawing com+ parisons, and these were by no means in favour of the white ball.'-vol. ii. pp. 78-80.

The manner in which M. Dubourg, the Catholic Bishop of Louisiana, procured a copy of the Encyclopædia, is sufficiently amusing. In his travels through Flanders, with the Prince de Broglio, he became acquainted with a gentleman and his daughter who were very bigotted. The latter, in a confidential conversation with the Bishop, communicated to him her scruples at having in her possession a work in which the church was so shamefully treated, and asked him if she should not throw the obnoxious work into the flames? The Bishop replied, that if she would entrust it to him, he would take care that it should do no harm to any one. He thus saved from destruction a copy of this splendid work, and enriched his own library with it.

It

On returning to Philadelphia, the Duke visited the episcopal churchyard, to behold the grave of Dr. Franklin. He was buried in the same grave with his wife, who died in the same year. is near the wall of the churchyard, covered with a white marble, containing only the simple inscription:

We must now take our leave of these volumes, although we would willingly have quoted, if our limits had allowed us, his concluding observations upon London, and the contrast which a traveller experiences on returning from America, the land of youth and promise, to the countries which bear marks of "the long perspective of distant years." We were much struck by the manifest. and gradual improvement exhibited in this work. At first the author limits himself to the mere description of what he sees, undiversified by any views of men and manners, and we began to fear that we had taken up a Guide to Travellers, stripped of its superlatives. Much of this apparent reserve is doubtless to be

attributed to the circumstance of his having previously visited those parts of England, the description of which occupies a considerable portion of his first volume. But he becomes more communicative as he proceeds, and therefore appears in a more favorable light to his readers. We become convinced that we have before us not a stiff piece of elevated humanity that disdains to enter into the social feelings of his fellow creatures, but one who unites the qualities of the Gentleman with those of the Nobleman. We should, indeed, have been grievously disappointed if a branch of the illustrious house of Weimar, whose name will descend to the latest posterity, inwreathed with the brightest names of modern times, had appeared before the public in any but a favorable point of view. If there is cause for regret in the work before us, it is that the author has generally confined himself to a bare narration of facts, without favoring his readers with his own observations upon them. Whenever he has adopted the latter mode, we have always found his observations amusing or instructive; and a work of this nature throughout, from the hands of a Prince who has shown himself so diligent an observer of nature and society, in the different countries he has visited, would have been, indeed, a treasure. But it is scarcely to be expected that one in onr author's rank of life, should devote himself to the toil and labour necessary for literary distinction. We feel grateful to him for what he has done; he has not, it is true, presented us with piquant anecdotes of society, or general characteristics of a nation, which are frequently so liberally and gratuitously conferred by authors, but we have an interesting personal narrative, in which due attention is paid to the great interests of mankind, and a desire evinced of transferring the Good in All countries to his own. The military habits and strict education of the writer are occasionally manifest, and vary the picture by directing attention from the described to the describer, but he always displays a thorough impartiality.

The work is neatly and tolerably correctly printed, and among the typographical errors which we noticed, the German words appeared the most numerous, the English, except in a few instances, being properly given. There are many valuable maps annexed, with plans, vignettes, and two landscapes of American scenery. We trust that the very favourable reception which the present volumes have found, will induce the Duke to publish his travels in this country.

ART. X.-Journal of a Voyage to Peru; a Passage across the Cordillera of the Andes, in the Winter of 1827, performed on Foot in the Snow; and a Journey across the Pampas. By Lieutenant Charles Brand, R. N. 8vo. pp. 346. London: Colburn. 1828.

BEYOND the novelty of a passage effected across the Cordillera of the Andes, in the depth of winter, when those giant-mountains,

always difficult to a traveller, were rendered more than usually perilous from being covered with snow, we have found little in Lieutenant Brand's Journal deserving attention. The whole line of his route is already familiar to most of our readers. Captain Head's picturesque and animated account of the Andes, has made them perfectly acquainted with those magnificent wastes. They may be said to have frequently climbed the Andes with one adventurer or another during the last five or six years; and as to Valparaiso or Lima, there is scarcely a street, or a public building in either, that can be said to be new to them. In a literary point of view, our author himself acknowledges that his volume has no prétensions whatever. It is certainly written with as little ele gance, or even accuracy of composition, as can well be imagined. We are told it was drawn up, according to a very laudable custom which prevails amongst naval officers, solely for the information and entertainment of the author's friends; but that he was 'persuaded to present it to the notice of the public,' doubtless by that partiality of private admiration which in all such cases is irresistible. As to the rest, the production contains nothing positively offensive, except the usual proportion of bigotry, which is found in almost every book of travels that emanates from our countrymen. They have so very generally acquired the notion that no religion can be proper but their own, and that they have a right to ridicule or censure every mode of worship save that which they have been taught, that a chapter on superstition and idolatry seems to be as indispensible, as a chapter on costume.

Our author does not inform us whether he wandered forth as a man of business or pleasure, as a diplomatist or an engineer. We suspect that he was employed as a special agent, by one of the British Mining Companies, on some urgent occasion which he did not find himself at liberty to explain. This matter, however, is of very little consequence, as he does not enter into any questions at all connected with speculations of a commercial nature. He left Falmouth on the 23d of April, 1827, and made the passage to Rio Janeiro in forty-five days. From thence he sailed to Monte Video, but having been refused permission by the Brazilian Admiral to proceed by the packet to Buenos Ayres, then in a state of blockade on account of the war between the two countries, he was obliged to make an over-land journey thither, through the Banda Oriental. It seems extremely absurd that the Admiral should have prevented passengers from going to Buenos Ayres by the packet, when they had no difficulty in procuring passports for the frontiers, if they were inclined to expose themselves to the fatigue and danger of travelling through a tract of country affording none of the conveniences of civilized life, and moreover infested with robbers. But this is one of those anomalies known to the governments of South America, for which we who live in the old world are at a loss to account.