VOYAGERS AND TRAVELLERS. JOHN BELL. JOHN BELL was born at Antermony, in Scotland, some time in the year 1690. At an early age he developed a strong inclination for travelling; and, after having studied medicine and surgery, he, in July, 1714, left London for St. Petersburgh. On his arrival, he was kindly received by the czar's chief physician, Dr. Areskine, who procured him the appointment of surgeon to an embassy just about to set out to Persia. He left St. Petersburgh on the 15th of July, 1715, and proceeded along the western bank of the Neva, to a small village called Ishora; the inhabitants of which, he remarks, speak a language and wear a dress different from the Russian, though they profess the same Greek religion. Embarking the next day on the river Volchova, he sailed to Novogorod Velikoi and the lake Ilmen, and, on the 2nd of August, entered Moscow; whence, after a stay of three weeks, he embarked at Nishna, on the Volga, where he was driven, by the floating ice, on a sand-bank, and lay aground a day and a night. On the 3rd of November, he came to Zabackzar, "near which," says Bell, "are caught the best and largest falcons in the world;" and, a few days afterwards, landed at Cazan, where he remained till the return of spring, and employed himself in minutely investigating the character and religion of the various tribes, in that part of the country. On the 13th of July, 1716, he arrived at Astrachan; embarked on the Caspian Sea on the 7th of August; and, on the 30th of the same month, reached Niezabatt, whence he proceeded overland to Shamachy, the capital of Shirvan, which he entered in great state on the 27th of September. After quitting this city, he crossed the territory of Kurdistan, by the same track through which Xenophon had retreated from Babylonia; and in which country he was compelled to pass several nights in the open air, in consequence of the inhabitants of some small villages he approached, forcibly opposing his entry into them. "However," says Mr. Bell, "I could scarce blame these people for their behaviour; because, had we been admitted, the inhabitants must all have left their own houses." After passing over a ridge of very high mountains, from which, he was informed, on a clear day, might be seen the summit of Mount Ararat, our traveller arrived at Tauris, or Tebris, where he passed a few weeks, during which time the cold was so intense, that many of the poor people perished in the streets. Near Tauris he visited some petrifying springs of water, and left that city on the 23rd of January, 1717, and proceeded through deep snows for the next twenty days, in the course of which two of his party died of cold. After passing through Koom, one of the chief towns of Persia, he travelled only morning and evening, in consequence of the intense heat, to Kashan, a place infested by the most venomous kind of scorpions. On the 5th of March, he reached Buzzabatt, where he observed a singular custom of making a person sick, after being poisoned by the tarantula: the patient is put in a kind of tray, suspended by four ropes, which, after having been twisted hard together, are let go at once, when the rapid motion of the untwining of the cords compels him to vomit. On the 14th of March he arrived, with the embassy, at Ispahan, where he resided till the 1st of September, and was much astonished and gratified at the splendour of the shach's court, and the singularity and magnificence of the entertainments given, both by the shach and his ministers, to the Russian embassy. Instead of pursuing the same route to, as he had taken from, St. Petersburgh, he, on arriving at a village called Arrazant, turned off to Casbin, formerly the seat of the Persian government, where one of his party died of the plague, and most of them, including himself, were attacked by it before reaching Reshd, the capital of Guilan. In December, 1718, he reentered St. Petersburgh," after," according to his own account, "a long, tedious, and dangerous journey, which lasted for three years, attended with many difficulties, not easily conceived by those who have not travelled the same road." to Tara, whence he travelled, over a marshy and dangerous plain called the Baraba, to Tomsky, situated on the river Tonun. Here he passed some days; and then proceeding along the banks of a river called Tzalimm, he arrived at a Russian village named Meletsky Ostrogue, in the neighbourhood of which he observed several of the natives"with white spots on their skins from head to foot;" and on arriving at Yeniseysky, an abundance of black foxes, the skins of which are so valuable, that many of them fetch five hundred crowns each. About the beginning of March, while sailing along the river Tongusta, he perceived several hundred hares, "white," he says, 66 as the snow on which he walked," and was astonished to find some of the inhabitants, in that part of the country, tattooed like the Indians, and all worshippers of the sun and moon. "From all," he observes, "I have heard and read of the natives of Canada, there is no nation in the world which they so much resemble as the Tongusians." On the 18th of March, he arrived at On his arrival at St. Petersburgh, he Irkutsk; whence, on the melting of solicited to be allowed to join an em- the ice, he proceeded up the river bassy about to proceed to China, with Angara to the lake Baikall, which he which he set out on the 14th of July, describes as "bursting out between two 1719; and, on the 20th of October, high rocks," and having a most subreached Cazan, where he remained lime and magnificent appearance. about five weeks, waiting for the falling "The waters," he continues, "dashing of the snow to smooth the roads for upon the stones, make a noise like the the reception of the sledges, in which roaring of the sea, so that people near the embassy was to travel to Siberia. them can scarcely hear one another Leaving Cazan on the 28th of Novem- speak. I cannot express the awfulness ber, he passed through a country with which one is struck, at the sight abounding with bees, from which, with- of such astonishing scenes of nature out destroying them, the inhabitants as appear round this place; and which, have a mode of extracting the honey; I believe, are not to be equalled in the and, on the 9th of December, arrived known world." After a tedious and at Solekamsky, a place containing pits dangerous passage through the ice, to sufficient to serve all Russia with salt, the mouth of the Selingo, he ascended and near which he found the fossil that river, and arrived at Selinguisky asbestos, "of which," he says, "is on the 29th of May, where he emmade a cloth like linen, that may be ployed himself in taking an account of put into the fire, and taken out again the manners and amusements of the unconsumed." On the 16th of Decem- various people he met with. Among ber, he entered Tobolski; remained other anecdotes, he relates one of an there a month, during which time he Indian brachman, whom he observed purchased some scrolls of glazed paper, buying up a quantity of fish just as said to have been written on by Timour, they were caught, for the purpose and then proceeded through several of setting them free again; and on Tartar villages, the inhabitants of which being asked the reason, replied, that used ice, instead of glass, for windows," perhaps the souls of some of his deceased friends or relations had taken possession of these fishes; and, upon that supposition, (not as Mr. St. John says, in his life of Mr. Bell, for the pleasure of setting them swimming again,') it was his duty to relieve them." In the middle of September, Mr. Bell crossed at Saratzyn, the rivulet which divides the Russian and Chinese territories, the women who attended the embassy not being permitted to enter the latter; the Chinese conductor observing that "they had women enough in Pekin already; and, as there never had been a European woman in China, he could not be answerable for introducing the first, without the special consent of the emperor." On the 2nd of November, our traveller beheld, at the distance of forty miles, the great wall of China; entered it on the 5th, through a gate guarded by a thousand soldiers; and, on the 18th, arrived at the city of Pekin, having experienced in his way thither the shock of an earthquake. At Pekin he remained till the beginning of the following March, when he set out with the Russian embassy on its return home; and arrived, on the 5th of January, 1722, at Moscow. On the 5th of May, he was engaged, by the czar's chief physician, to join an expedition headed by the emperor, to assist the Sophy of Persia in dispersing the Afghans, who had rebelled against him; after his return from which, no account is recorded of him for the next fifteen years, excepting that he passed his time in Russia. In 1737, the war, which had broken out in 1734, between that country and the Turks, being still raging, he went, "at the earnest desires of Count Osterman, the Russian chancellor, and of Mr. Rondeau, the British ambassador," on a mission to Constantinople, with proposals of accommodation for peace. He arrived at the Turkish capital on the 28th of January, 1738, where he remained about three months, and returned to St. Petersburgh on the 17th of May. A few years afterwards, he revisited Scotland, and fixed his residence at his native place of Antermony, where he wrote an account of his travels, published in 1762, and remained till the period of his death, which took place some time in the year 1780, when he was nearly ninety years of age. The account of his travels reached two editions, and was translated, though with great inaccuracy, by Eidous, into French. It is written with great ease and spirit, and with a candour and simplicity that inspire confidence in its truth. Mr. Bell was as religious and amiable as he was learned and enterprising; and Gibbon, in speaking of him, calls him "our honest and intelligent traveller." MARY PIERREPONT, LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU. MARY PIERREPONT, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Kingston, was born at Thoresby, in Nottinghamshire, in 1690. At the age of four years she lost her mother, and was left to pursue her education under the same masters as those who attended her brother. At a very early period, she became acquainted with the Latin, Greek, and French languages, and her classical acquirements, which were latterly superintended by Bishop Burnet, soon gave to her mind a bold but coarse and unfeminine turn. At twelve years of age, she wrote an indelicate poem, in imitation of Ovid; and, at nineteen, made the following avowal, in a letter to Mrs. Wortley :-" I have never had any great esteem for the generality of the fair sex; and my only consolation for being of that gender, has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them." A short while after this, she completed a translation of the Enchiridion of Epictetus, which Bishop Burnet revised, and greatly commended. In August, 1712, after some quarrels and much negotiation, she privately became the wife of Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu; and on his being appointed, in 1714, one of the lords of the treasury, she was presented at court, whence, after passing Sicily and Malta, Before proceeding to Constantinople, she made an experiment on her own children of inoculation for the smallpox, a practice which she was the first who introduced into London, and with such success, that it was adopted by government in 1721, and was the means of that inquiry and consideration which ultimately led to the discovery of vaccination. On the 6th of June, 1718, she left Constantinople; and, sailing down the Dardanelles, visited the tomb of Achilles, and the plains of Troy; "The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth, And the whole princess in my work should shine." The celebrity acquired during her life, by Lady Montagu, resulted more from the singularity of her character, the boldness of her sentiments, and the peculiar naiveté of her writings, than from the interest they excited, or the effect they produced. The eulogy, too, of such men as Pope and Addison, and the satirical verses she wrote, in attacking and defending herself against the former, contributed to give her an éclat, which the names of such men, whether her admirers or opponents, will long continue to preserve. It cannot be denied, however, that her memory merits perpetuation, if only for the introduction of inoculation into this country. As an authoress, she is chiefly distinguished by her Letters, written at various times, but principally when she was in Constantinople and on the continent; which, after showing, in manuscript, to some of her private friends, she presented to a Mr. Snowden, of Amsterdam, from whom they were purchased by the Earl of Bute, and published, in six volumes, in 1803. A surreptitious copy of them, however, having been obtained, they had previously appeared about two years after her death; at which time, Dr. Smollett said of them that they were "an immortal monument to the memory of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and would shew, as long as the English language endured, the sprightliness of her wit, the solidity of her judgment, the elegance of her taste, and the excellence of her real character." They are certainly spirited and entertaining, though treating of the most trifling matters, and accompanied, sometimes, with a levity of sentiment, such as the following, ill befitting a character put forth as one of excellence. "Considering," she says, in one of her letters from Constantinople, "what shortlived, weak animals, men are, is there any study so beneficial as the study of present pleasure?" and she afterwards adds, "I allow you to laugh at me for my sensual declaration in saying, that I had rather be a rich effendi, with all his ignorance, than Sir Isaac Newton, with all his knowledge." Various causes have been assigned for her quarrel with Pope; who, out of pique or envy, lampooned her and Lord Hervey with a bitterness and personality, which, in a letter to the latter, he afterwards affected to disclaim. In this, he adds, alluding to Lady Montagu, "I was the author of my own misfortune in discontinuing her acquaintance. I may venture to own a truth, which cannot be unpleasing to either of you; I assure you, my reason for so doing was merely that you had both too much wit for me, and that I could not do with mine, many things which you could with yours." She was the author of several ballads, satirical odes, and Ovidian epistles; and besides her knowledge of the principal modern and ancient languages, had made great proficiency in the Turkish, specimens of her translations from which are to be found in many of her letters. Towards the close of her life, she lost much of that buoyancy and animation which distinguished her in her youth, and her letters began to assume a tone of misanthropy. Mrs. Montagu, her mother-in-law, used to describe her as one who "neither thought, spoke, nor acted like any one else." THOMAS SHAW. THOMAS SHAW was born at Kendal, in Westmorland, in the year 1692; and completed his education at Queen's College, Oxford, where, in 1716, he proceeded to the degree of B. A.; and, in 1719, to that of M. A. In the latter year, he took orders, and was almost immediately afterwards appointed chaplain to the English factory at Algiers, which city he reached about the beginning of 1720. In the following year, he set out on a voyage to Egypt, and stopping at Cairo, employed himself for about three months in collecting information respecting the early condition of the country; inspected the pyramids, and discovered, according to his own idea, the site of ancient Memphis. Leaving Cairo, where he informs us that about forty thousand of the inhabitants live entirely on lizards and serpents, he proceeded to Suez; and continuing his course along the desert, towards the gulf of Akaba, he lost sight of the caravan, and was immediately attacked by three robbers, who stripped him naked, and began to fight for the possession of his clothes. |