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the poppy is the well known and valua-
ble opium of the shops, the soother of
all our aches and pains. The Turks, it
is well known, are in the habit of chew-
ing opium as a luxury, and to induce a
state of indolence and apathy, which
they regard as the summit of human
happiness. It is often taken in large
and repeated doses; and in the pro-
fessed opium-eaters, it produces a sin-
gular species of intoxication. The
higher orders frequently amuse them-
selves in observing the strange effects
produced on one of those persons by
the full and intoxicating doses. The
mind is elevated to madness; the man
fancies himself a sultan, orders the ser-
vants to be whipped, dismisses one
minister, beheads another,and comports
himself with all the dignity and arro-
gance of a king: while at the highest
pitch of frenzy, a slave is ordered to
make a sudden and loud noise ; in a
moment the horror-struck opium-eater
stands abashed, prays for forgiveness,
and becomes perfectly sober. Such is
the very extraordinary effect of a sud-
den noise upon a person who has taken
sufficient opium to procure intoxication.
The rose, the type of love and beau-
ty, now holds a conspicuous place in
the flower-garden :—

Ah! see, deep-blushing in her green recess,
The bashful virgin-rose, that half-revealing,
And half, within herself, herself concealing,
Is lovelier for her hidden loveliness.
Lo! soon her glorious beauty she discovers :
Soon droops;-and sheds her leaves of faded hue :
Can this be she,-the flower,-erewhile that drew
The heart of thousand maids, of thousand longing
lovers?

So fleeteth in the fleeting of a day,

Of mortal life the green leaf and the flower,
And not, though Spring return to every bower,
Buds forth again soft leaf or blossom gay.

Travels to abound with the most beautiful rose-trees; he there saw 2 plants full fourteen feet high, laden with thousands of flowers, in every degree of expansion, and of a bloom and delicacy of scent, that imbued the whole atmosphere with the most exquisite perfume. The gardens and courts of the Persians are crowded with its plants, their rooms ornamented with vases filled with its gathered bunches, and every bath strewn with the full-blown flowers, plucked from the ever-replenished stems:

And as the parent-rose decays and dies,

The infant buds with brighter colours rise,
And with fresh sweets the mother's scent supplies.

Even the humblest individual, who pays a piece of copper money for a few whifs of a kalioun, feels a double enjoyment when he finds it stuck with a bud from his dear native tree!

But in this delicious garden of Negauristan, the eye and the smell are not the only senses regaled by the presence of the rose. The ear is enchanted by the wild and beautiful notes of multitudes of nightingales, whose warblings seem to increase in melody and softness with the unfolding of their favourite flowers; verifying the song of their poet, who says: When the roses fade, when the charms of the bower are passed away, the fond tale of the nightingale no longer animates the scene.'

The general character of this bower of faery land, this garden of beauty, is, (according to Sir R. K. Porter) laid out in parallel walks, planted with luxuriant willows, and fruit-trees of various kinds, besides rose-trees in profusion. In Negauristan, narrow, secluded walks, shaded above and enamelled with flowers below, with cuts of clear and spark

Gather the rose! beneath the beauteous morning ling water, silvering the ground, and

Of this bright day that soon will over-cast ;
O gather the sweet rose, that yet doth last!

Tasso.

In no country of the world does the rose grow in such perfection as in Persia; and in no country is it so cultivated and prized by the natives. It is often alluded to by Hafez in his odes.

The garden of Negauristan, a palace belonging to the King of Persia, is described by Sir R.K.Porter in his recent

cooling the air, are charmingly contrasted with other parts which the hand of neglect (or taste assuming graceful negligence) has left in a state of romantic wilderness. The trees are all full-grown and luxuriant in foliage; while their lofty stems, nearly covered with a rich underwood of roses, lilacs, and other fragrant and aromatic shrubs, form the finest natural tapestry of leaves and flowers.

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And broad-leaved plane-trees in long colonnades
O'erarched delightful walks,

Where round their trunks the thousand-tendrilled
vine

Wound up, and hung the boughs with greener wreaths,

And elusters not their own.

Wearied with endless beauty did his eyes
Return for rest? Beside him teems the earth
With tulips, like the ruddy evening streaked ;
And here the lily hangs her head of snow;
And here, amid her sable cup,

Shines the red eye-spot, like one brightest star,
The solitary twinkler of the night;
And here the rose expands

Her paradise of leaves.

And oh! what odours the voluptuous vale
Scatters from jasmine bowers

From yon rose wilderness,

From clustered Henna, and from orange groves,
That with such perfumes filled the breeze,

As Peris to their sister bear,

When from the summit of some lofty tree
She hangs, encaged, the captive of the Dives.
They from their pinions shake
The sweetness of celestial flowers,
And, as her enemies impure,

From that impervious poison far away
Fly groaning with the torment, she the while
Inhales her fragrant food.

Such odours flowed upon the world,
When at Mohammed's nuptials, ord
* Went forth in heaven, to roll
The everlasting gate of Paradise
Back on its living hinges, that its gales
Might visit all below: the general bliss
Thrilled every bosom; and the family
Of man, for once, partook one general joy.

Mackerel (scomber, scomber) are taken in abundance in this month. The success of the fishery in 1821 was beyond all precedent. The amount of the catch of 16 boats, from Lowestoft, on the 30th (June) amounted to £5,252. 15s. 14d., being an average of £328, 5s. 114d. for each boat. The boats not in the above calculation, and those which went out to the westward, were also successful; and it is supposed that there was no less a sum than £14,000 altogether realized by the owners and men concerned in the fishery on the Suffolk coast.

MIDSUMMER DAY, the nativity of St. John the Baptist, is celebrated on the 24th of June.

The following singular custom was a few years ago observed in Yorkshire. On Midsummer eve, every housekeeper who, during the preceding 12 months, had changed his residence into a new neighbourhood (there being certain limited districts called neighbourhoods) spreads a table before his door in the street with bread, cheese, and ale, as refreshments for all who chose to accept it. If the master of the house be in tolerable circumstances, the party, after regaling themselves for a short time, are invited to supper, and the evening is concluded in mirth and good humour. The origin of this custom is not known, but it is said to have been instituted for the purpose of introducing strangers to an early and friendly acquaintance with their neighbours; others think that it was established for the laudable purpose of settling differences by the meeting and mediation of friends.

In Cornwall, Midsummer-day is considered as a high holiday, on which either a pole is erected, decorated with garlands, or some flag is displayed to denote the sanctity of the time. The fires kindled in different parts of the country on the eve of Midsummer-day, and other festivals, may probably be reckoned among the relics of Druidical superstition. We are informed by Tolland, in his History of the Druids, that two fires were kindled by them near one another, on May-eve, in every village through the nation, and that it extended to Gaul, to Ireland, and the Isles. One fire was on the karne, (that is, a stone barrow) the other on the ground adjoining; the men and beasts to be sacrificed, were to pass between the two fires. The Druids were accustomed to carry lighted torches in their hands on certain occasions in a away evil spirits. In the Island of peculiar manner, in order to drive Lewis, one of the Scottish Isles, it was an antient custom to make a fiery circle, round the houses, corn, and cattle, belonging to each particular family; this was done by a man who carried a brand or torch in his hand, and travelled round the things which were to be inclosed. The same ceremony by the carrying of fire was performed about

women after childbearing, and round children before they were initiated, as an effectual means of preserving the mother and her offspring from the power of evil spirits.

In Cornwall, at present, although the bonfires remain, the marching from village to village with lighted torches, exists only in the fading recollection of the aged, and in those pages which marked the prevailing customs of departed days.

About the time of the summer solstice, the Druids lighted up a fire in honour of Bel or Belus; and, at this season of the year, it is still a custom in some parts of Ireland for the people to light up fires in some elevated places, and to bring their families together, to dance round, to pass through, and to jump over them, in order that success may attend them in all their future enterprises. In some places, even their cattle are compelled to submit to this ordeal, of passing through the fire, that good luck may attend their dairies and that neither blight nor mildew may destroy their ensuing crops. The bonfires in Cornwall are evidently of the same original, although they are unattended with these ordeals, and are destitute at present of all ominous power. We can only view them as the continued emblems of those flames in which the Druid sacrifices were once consumed. The victims have disappeared, but the fire still continues occasionally to glow; though the reason for which it was originally lighted is nearly lost. Yet even at the present day, when the bonfires are lighted up in Cornwall, and the spectators have for some time been assembled round them, it is customary for the youths of both sexes to display their agility, either in running through the fire, or in jumping over the glowing brands, as the flames decline. In these practices they awaken a spirit of emulation in each other; and that person is thought to be the most fortunate or lucky, who can brave the fiercest fire, and pass through it with the least inconvenience.

Of the sacrificing of beasts, some solitary memorials still remain; and in

An

the following barbarous instance (narrated by Mr. Hitchins, to whom we are indebted for much curious information) the perpetrator of the deed could assign no other reason, than that it was necessary to procure good luck. ignorant old farmer in Cornwall having met with some severe losses in his cattle about the year 1800, was much afflicted with his misfortunes. To stop the growing evil he applied to the farriers in his neighbourhood, but unfortunately he applied in vain. The malady still continuing, and all remedies failing, he thought it necessary to have recourse to some extraordinary measure. Accordingly, on consulting with some of his neighbours, equally ignorant with himself, and evidently not less barbarous, they recalled to their recollections a tale which tradition had handed down from remote antiquity, that the calamity would not cease until he had actually burned alive the finest calf which he had upon his farm; but that, when this sacrifice was made, the murrain would afflict his cattle no more. The old farmer, influenced by this counsel, resolved immediately on reducing it to practice; that, by making the detestable experiment, he might secure an advantage, which the whispers of tradition, and the advice of his neighbours, had conspired to assure him would follow. He accordingly called several of his friends together, on an appointed day, and having lighted a large fire, brought forth his best calf; and, without ceremony or remorse, pushed it into the flames. The innocent victim, on feeling the intolerable heat, endeavoured to escape; but this was in vain. The barbarians that surrounded the fire were armed with pitchforks, or pikes, as in Cornwall they are generally called: and, as the burning victim endeavoured to escape from death, with these instruments of cruelty the wretches pushed back the tortured animal into the flames. In this state, amidst the wounds of the pitchforks, the shouts of unfeeling ignorance and cruelty, and the corrision of flames, the dying victim poured out its expiring groan, and

⚫ Chiefly on the mountains which lie to the south of Dublin. A line of country-cars is drawn across the roads, and something towards the bonfire' is exacted from the traveller.

was consumed to ashes. It is scarcely possible to reflect on this instance of superstitious barbarity, without tracing a kind of resemblance between it and the ancient sacrifices of the Druids. This calf was sacrificed to fortune, or good luck, to avert impending calamity, and to ensure future prosperity, and was selected by the farmer as the finest among his herd.'-(History of Cornwall.)

But besides the sacrifice of beasts, which was common to the Druids, they also offered human victims at the polluted shrines of their imaginary gods. At these shrines their enemies were sacrificed, and their friends were offered. Sometimes the vigorous youth and graceful virgin were immolated on these sanguinary altars; and sometimes the smiling infant was carried from the bosom of its mother, to the flames

which terminated its life :

Like Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears,
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,

present year (1821). A farmer finding himself and his family infested with vermin, and his cows giving no milk, attributed these misfortunes to the influence of sorcery, and was advised to throw salt in the fire, and bran in the stable where the cows were kept. But this plan failing, he consulted one of the wise men' of the village, who, after looking in a book threatened the farmer with new calamities, and told him that his wife and children would die in a few days; that the only remedy was to force the sorcerer to undo the work of fate; and, in order to effect this, that he must be put in the fire, and held there, till it was accomplished. The man pointed at, an honest mechanic of the village, was accordingly seized, and held in the fire for a considerable time, and would have been burnt alive, had not his piercing cries alarmed some neighbouring rustics, who arrived just in time to save him from the diabolical ferocity of the farmer and his companion. Another similar instance lately occurred in the

Their children's cries unheard, that passed thro' fire department of the Sarthe, where a

To his grim idol.

Some remains of this dreadful superstition have appeared in one of the western departments of France in the

man who was accused of having given the small-pox to the infant of another, and caused the death of his sheep,was murdered as a sorcerer.

FALLS OF NIAGARA.

(From Howison's recent Travels in Canada.)

[Howison (like Humboldt) seems to write of the forests, the rivers, the cataracts, the boundless and majestic wildernesses of the New World, as if his spirit were quite penetrated with the mighty and mysterious influences of elemental nature; nor have we met, for a long while, with any thing more charming in our literature, than the unstudied contrast continually presented by his quiet and temperate views of men and manners on the one hand, and his most rich and imaginative descriptions of external nature on the other. Neither Chateaubriand nor Humboldt has written any thing more truly beautiful and impressive, than his sketch of the voyage up the St. Lawrence in batteaux-Some of his descriptions of walks and rides through the primeval forests, which still skirt the shares of Ontario and Erie-His rich panorama of the thousand islands—or, above all, his visit to the cataracts of Niagara. We venture to quote a considerable part of the last description, and challenge any one to point out any thing more powerful, or more chastely and tastefully powerful, in all the prose that has been written in our time.]

THE HE Table Rock, from which the Falls of Niagara may be contemplated in grandeur, lies on an exact level with the edge of the cataract, on the Canada side, and, indeed, forms a part of the precipice over which the water gushes. It derives its name from the circumstance of its projecting beyond

the cliffs that support it, like the leaf of a table. To gain this position, it is necessary to descend a steep bank, and to follow a path that winds among shrubbery and trees, which entirely conceal from the eye the scene that awaits him who traverses it. When near the termination of this road, a few steps

carried me beyond all these obstructions, and a magnificent amphitheatre of cataracts burst upon my view with appalling suddenness and majesty. However, in a moment the scene was concealed from my eyes by a dense cloud of spray, which involved me so completely, that I did not dare to extricate myself. A mingled rushing and thundering filled my ears. I could see nothing except when the wind made a chasm in the spray, and then tremendous cataracts seemed to encompass me on every side, while below, a raging and foamy gulf of undiscoverable extent lashed the rocks with its hissing waves, and swallowed, under a horrible obscurity, the smoking floods that were precipitated into its bosom.

At first, the sky was obscured by clouds, but after a few minutes the sun burst forth, and the breeze subsiding at the same time, permitted the spray to ascend perpendicularly. A host of pyramidal clouds rose majestically, one after another, from the abyss at the bottom of the Fall; and each, when it had ascended a little above the edge of the cataract, displayed a beautiful rainbow, which in a few moments was gradually transferred into the bosom of the cloud that immediately succeeded. The spray of the Great Fall had extended itself through a wide space directly over me, and, receiving the full influence of the sun, exhibited a luminous and magnificent rainbow, which continued to over-arch and irradiate the spot on which I stood, while I enthusiastically contemplated the indescribable

scene.

Any person, who has nerve enough, (as I had,) may plunge his hand into the water of the Great Fall, after it is projected over the precipice, merely by lying down flat, with his face beyond the edge of the Table Rock, and stretching out his arm to its utmost extent. The experiment is truly a horrible one, and such as I would not wish to repeat; for, even to this day, I feel a shuddering and recoiling sensation when I recollect being in the posture above described.

The body of water which composes the middle part of the Great Fall is so immense, that it descends nearly two

thirds of the space without being ruffled or broken, and the solemn calmness with which it rolls over the edge of the precipice, is finely contrasted with the perturbed appearance it assumes after having reached the gulf below. But the water towards each side of the Fall is shattered the moment it drops over the rocks, and loses as it descends, in a great measure, the character of a fluid, being divided into pyramidalshaped fragments, the bases of which are turned upwards. The surface of the gulf below the cataract presents a very singular aspect; seeming, as it were, filled with an immense quantity of hoar frost, which is agitated by small and rapid undulations. The particles of water are dazzlingly white, and do not apparently unite together, as might be supposed, but seem to continue for a time in a state of distinct comminu

tion, and to repel each other with a thrilling and shivering motion which cannot easily be described.

The noise made by the Horse-shoe Fall, though very great, is infinitely less than might be expected, and varies in loudness according to the state of the atmosphere. When the weather is clear and frosty, it may be distinctly heard at the distance of ten or twelve miles; nay much further when there is a steady breeze; but I have frequently stood upon the declivity of the high bank that overlooks the Table Rock, and distinguished a low thundering only, which at times was altogether drowned amidst the roaring of the rapids above the cataract. In my opinion, the concave shape of the Great Fall explains the circumstance. The noise vibrates from one side of the rocky recess to the other, and a little only escapes from its confinement, and this is less distinctly heard than it would otherwise be, as the profusion of spray renders the air near the cataract a very indifferent conductor of sound.

The road to the bottom of the Fall presents many more difficulties than that which leads to the Table Rock. After leaving the Table Rock, the traveller must proceed down the river nearly half a mile, where he will come to a small chasm in the bank, in which there is a spiral staircase enclosed in a wood

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