Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

timidity or the jealousy which stopped Dr.
Biallobotsky at the threshold of an enter-
prise which had been undertaken with the
very view to solve this important geo-
graphical problem, (although probably un-
dertaken in a too southerly latitude,) is
deeply to be deplored. It has thrown back
the progress of geographical inquiry possibly
a quarter of a century, and has drawn upon
itself the animadversion of all lovers of en-
terprise.
There are few discoveries to be

made without some risk or some danger.
That risk must be very glaring that could
authorize a consular officer to deny support
to an expedition sanctioned by the Prince
Consort. As to the opposition of the mis-
sionaries, it was no more than was to be ex-
pected it is a common feature of human
nature-whether missionary or geographic-
not to like to be anticipated in a new field of
research or discovery.

But while thirty days' journey, it may be observed, might carry the traveller to the division of the White Nile, forty might not reach its sources. At the island of Tshanker, the most southerly point attained by the Turk expedition, the stream was upwards of 300 yards in width from the island to the right shore; and there were two other arms. The waters were at this period of the year falling, and the vessels could only by taking out all their freight pass the only defile that remained in the rugged gneiss rocks. Had the expedition arrived twenty days previously, M. Werne says, "neither would all these rocks have been an obstacle, nor would they have been a pretext for not proceeding further."

[ocr errors]

gifts of nature, both in the animal and vegetable worlds, and rich in objects of commerce-and that the waters of the Nile do not flow through these inland regions in the shape of a narrow continuous stream, but expand into lagoons and lakes, and are thus made to become a reservoir for inundating a lower country, and, at the same time, to fertilize an immense tract of country under an almost tropical sun.

"If," says M. Werne, "we consider this enigmatical stream territory, we ask ourselves whether the White River, of and by itself, with such a weight of water, can maintain these lagoons under an African sun? Were the Nile one stream, it must flow off faster; for the rains have already ceased here and previously-indeed, under the Equator itself. How could the Nile, which still shows its peculiar disposable mass of water, in its main-stream supply, quite alone, that enormous mass of waterand even to the present time maintain under water these immense reedy lakes—unless other tributary streams, the mouths of which stagnate, owing to the level nature of the ground and the counter-pressure of the main-stream, supplied a nourishment great beyond belief to this, with which it equally rises and falls? For the whole mass of water in complexu must suffer an incredible diminution during such a long tract, in its slow ebbing under a burning sun, or this Bahr el Abiad must have real giant springs in its source."

We do not think that it is in the least degree necessary to have recourse to those The expedition ultimately started on its vague notions of tributary streams with return, under salute of a shower of stones stagnated mouths, or giant springs, to acfrom the negroes. No wonder, when they count for the phenomena in question. In had killed eleven of their countrymen were the first place, the springs themselves are perpetually cheating or plundering them- probably more distant than is imagined; and had assumed in their intercourse with and being derived, as before reported, from them the air of masters and lords of the soil. four different quarters, they may be far more It certainly is unfortunate for future travel- productive than has hitherto been supposed. lers that they should have been preceded by But a still more important fact to be kept in a Turkish expedition. The ways of Provi- mind is, that this great hydrographical sysdence are, however, not always to be easily tem is in part produced where it is met ascertained; and the results of this imper- with. At the rainy season, according to the fect and half-civilized exploratory expedition blacks, the rain falls in these regions in indeare still of the highest interest and impor- scribable streams, and a single drop (to use tance. Although the sources of the White an Arabic comparison) is as thick as a Nile have not been discovered, it has been musket-ball. Subsequently to these violent positively determined that they are situated showers, innumerable shallow lakes may be far more to the south than was ever imag- found in many places swelling up, and at ined by the boldest theorist-that they come last pouring their water into the Nile. "The from a great mountainous land wholly un- character," says M. Werne, (vol. i. p. 249,) known and unexplored-that they water" of an emptied lake basin is expressed in the lands densely populated and abounding in the whole stream territory."

An hypothesis before set up-that of making the White Nile spring from lakeswould be thus partially confirmed, but the theory could not be extended to the united Nile, for both rivers increase and fall at the same time. The two arms of the Nile, the White and Blue Rivers, begin to ascend nearly simultaneously on the 2nd or 3rd of May; and it is scarcely possible that even one drop of these first rains in the high land, which the thirsty soil, moreover, immediately absorbs, and which are swallowed up by a course in a long valley-land, should reach Khartum in so short a time. The regions lying lower, and equally subject to the tropical rains, would appear, then, to be the first cause of the swellings of the White River. "If we should not," M. Werne justly observes, "take the nearer district of the tropical rains as an explanation of the simultaneous swelling of both arms of the Nile near Khartum, we could not explain this phenomenon, for the mountain waters of the White stream must, though with a far slower course, make three times as long a way as the Blue Nile, in just the same time." "It would almost seem," he remarks elsewhere, "that the river is accumulated in a cauldron-shaped valley, the declivities of which encroach with long arms on the African world, and from which the discharge, after the periodical rains, would be also only periodical."

"A steam-boat," M. Werne remarks elsewhere, (vol. i. p. 187,) "here might surmount many difficulties, and give us the necessary corrections for a map, which cannot be effected by sailing with a constant wind, owing to the often diametrically opposite windings, and the endless difficult calculations.

"The greatest difficulty," he proceeds to remark, "would be the establishment and protection of coal-magazines; and with regard to applying charcoal to this purpose, although the White Nile in its lower course has forests enough, yet not so on its middle and upper part; and even if the requisite wood should be found, much time must be lost in felling and preparing it for charcoal." This last objection is founded on mistake the steam-boats which first navigated the Euphrates were for a considerable time worked by green wood, cut on the banks of the river. In a pamphlet on river navigation in India, by Mr. John Bourne, noticed lately in the City Article of the

Times, a plan is developed for adapting a new kind of vessel to shallow and shifting waters. Upon this plan, which is of a composite boat-consisting, in fact, of several vessels connected by one deck, and which admit of a wide distribution of tonnage-it appears that 250 tons of cargo or fuel might be carried upon twelve inches' draught of water, with a speed of fifteen miles an hour; a peculiar construction of wheels being also resorted to, with the view of assisting the vessel in running over shoals. For the building and fitting of a boat of this kind, with engines of 350 horse-power, an estimate, it is said, has been sent in at £35,000, by Messrs. James Watt and Co., who feel no difficulty in undertaking it, and who believe that, in anticipating a speed of fifteen miles an hour, they have left an ample margin for all contingencies.

It is obvious that, with such boats, all the great rivers of the world might be opened to scientific exploration, and to commercial and friendly intercourse. Mr. Bourne anticipates that not only might the distance between Calcutta and Allahabad, which now takes on the average twenty-two days, be reduced to three-and-a-half days, but that the entire distance to Delhi might be accomplished in from six to seven days. The navigation of the Indus might, by the same means, be extended to the five rivers of the Punjaub; and, with the newly-opened navigation of the Euphrates and Tigris, would once more restore to Great Britain the commerce in the East which has lately been absorbed by Russia. The interior of China would be laid open by its main arteries. The mail could be taken up the Euphrates in about five days, travelling only by daylight. The unhealthy portion of the Niger could be passed over in the briefest possible space of time, and its more healthy interior opened to commerce and civilization. The Nile also, it now appears, opens to the missionary, to the merchant, and to the man of science, the central regions of Africa— regions hitherto marked in the map as mountainous or desert, but in reality well peopled and fertile. For such great objects, M. Werne justly remarks, "Europeans alone are fitted, for," he adds, in true Teutonic simplicity, they have ideas of humanity, and subjection to the will of One."

[ocr errors]

From the British Quarterly Review.

LETTERS.-CHESTERFIELD, JUNIUS, COWPER.

1. The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; including numerous letters now first published from the original manuscripts. Edited, with Notes, by LORD MAHON. Bentley.

2. Junius; including Letters by the same writer under other signatures. With a preliminary Essay, Notes, &c. Printed by G. Woodfall.

3. Cowper's Letters. Edited by SOUTHEY. Baldwin and Craddock.

world altogether; we must therefore mention it in quite another place.

THE majority of men say, with Horace, | that Fame consists in being pointed at with the finger. Some, however, who have fail- These are the chief sorts of fame; and each ed to get this mark, maintain that it consists exhibits it as very scarce and very fickle. in the praise of the wise "standards of opi- The be-sung, be-flattered, and be-sought (but nion;"-while others, who have not been never be-guiled) goddess, even when won, either pointed at by the many or applauded seems to watch to slip away. Like the by the few, insist that it can only be award-heart of Miss Pardoe's slave, she is a fettered by posterity. A very small minority, with a courage that does them honor, declare that there is no such thing as true fame in this world at all.

The finger-pointing fame is mostly conferred without much reflection, and withdrawn without any scruple. The object of it is seldom worthy, and cannot keep it. The public pump is got to work, and the water comes, but the vessel receiving it being a sieve, the liquid slips away. That fame which is conferred by the wise, or "standards of opinion," can of course only fall permanently to the greatest minds. No others can stand test, or bear the winnowing; and even if they could, the "standards" of to-morrow always have it in their power to reverse the verdict of the standards of today. The people who appeal to posterity do so only as a refuge. They would otherwise be open to the ridicule of having labored in vain of having run, and lost. But their satisfaction is false. They care no more for posterity than you do. They have not lived and acted only to obtain praise which they can never hear; they rather solace their pride by imputing to blindness what they are ashamed to allow they should impute to merited contempt. For the courageous minority-we cannot deal with it at present. It denies the existence of real fame in this

less thing. Like the trained negro who was sold, under disguises in all the States, (having a happy knack of slipping the collar, and rejoining his seller before his buyer could turn him to account,) she appears ever to be on the outlook to take flight. She should not be represented with a trumpet, therefore, but with a staff. She should be painted with the loins girt, and the wings spread, to show constant readiness to fly to intimate, moreover, that her hunters need not only swiftness to obtain her, but their utmost vigilance to hold her when she has been caught.

The finger-pointing fame has as many shapes as Proteus. Like the ancient kings in battle, she has many doubles; but, like the Banquo of the feast, most of these are false. They wear the seeming of reality, but are as insubstantial as the wind. A man believes that they are as solid as they seem to be, and rushes in pursuit-he grapples with them, he looks into them, and finds that, like the crater of Vesuvius, there is little besides vacuity. Chief in this ghostly army is political fame. It is a swift game, and for a long time baffles the keenest hunter, but as last he seizes it and makes it his. It voices out his name until he thinks the farthest age must hear; it echoes and re-echoes his praises; it trumpets him along the way: and

then, when his soul is swelling in him, and he hugs himself with the assurance that he will be 66 forever known," it suddenly dissolves under his touch, and leaves him-all the voices cease, the trumpets die away, and he falls headlong, never to be pointed at again. Political fame is like a brilliant firework, that blazes wildly for a little, and then suddenly expires, leaving but a dim smoulder, which ere long fades out into the darkness.

In 1714 the celebrated, or notorious, Lord Bolingbroke was ousted from the Secretaryship of State, and Addison the Spectator stepped into his shoes. Queen Anne died. The hasty regency party proclaimed George I., and Addison stepped out of the shoes, which were given to General Stanhope, whose kinsman, Philip Dormer Stanhope, afterwards Earl of Chesterfield, was at Cambridge. George, on ascending the throne, declared for the Whigs, and the Tories, who had been in power since Sacheverel's time, kicked the beam. In 1715 Walpole impeached Lord Bolingbroke, who fled the country. The late leader was outlawed, lived some years in France, and acquired French notions of belief. When the storm passed, he returned to England, had his outlawry reversed, made much noise, and won much applause and censure; on the whole deserving Dr. Croly's summary for his fame now: that "He gave from youth to age the unhappy example of genius rendered useless, rank degraded, and opportunities thrown away. Gifted with powers which might have raised or sustained the fortunes of empire, his youth was distinguished only by systematic vice, his manhood by unprincipled ambition, and his age by callous infidelity."

In the same 1715 young Mr. Stanhope made his first speech in the House against Ormond, who was likewise impeached of high treason. This done, he immediately took a pleasure trip to Paris by advice-for he was under age, and the opposition threatened to expose him if he voted. During his stay here he is thought to have been of much service to Lord Stair, in discovering the Jacobins' plot-but be that as it may, the Chevalier de St. George's friends were induced to make the first attempt-we know with what disastrous results to every one but the dastard for whom they made it. Stanhope returned to England, and though his rising was for some time delayed, in consequence of a dispute between his Majesty and the Prince of Wales, whose side he took, his kinsman had his eye on him, and showed desire to push him on.

With the South-Sea swindle we have now no more to do than to note, that in consequence of the excitement caused in England by its failure, the Stuart made another throw for the sceptre, but was himself thrown. The king was just at that time very popular, and Stanhope spoke in favor of augmenting the army; a declaration of attachment for which he was made a captain in the Guards. In 1725, however, he refused the order of the Bath, then revived, and ere long was dismissed from his post. This might have been serious for him, had not both his king and his father died in the year following. He became Earl of Chesterfield. He left the Lower House with the Walpoles and Pulteneys, and other stars, shining there, and joined company with Wharton, Argyle, Carteret, Queensbury, and the other great men of the Upper one-whose names are the stumbling-blocks in Pope's verses, and whom we anathematize when asterisks and patent pot-hooks call us down from the poetry, to prosy memoranda of their lives.

George II., on acceding to power, retained his father's favorites, much to the chagrin of those who championed him when Prince of Wales. But Chesterfield was not quite forgotten. He was sent ambassador to Holland in 1728, and in consequence of his tact in that position, won the king's praise when he was, a little after, travelling on the Continent. This induced Townshend to attempt to turn out Newcastle, then Secretary, and put in the Earl, which, however, he was not able to do, and Chesterfield, who had accompanied George to London, returned to Holland, after having been gartered at the king's charges. It was about this time that the Commons objected to public reports of hon. members' speeches. We hope to be pardoned for sometimes almost wishing that it objected now.

were

We need say little of the next years. The tragic seaman who kept his ear in his pocket, for exhibition when the time came to rouse up the Lion to revenge it, has told his story about Spanish wrongs, and got satisfied-at least we hope so. The French intrigues, too, and the Danish and Dutch, are over, now. The things intrigued about rarely worth half the noise they made; and the landmarks so curiously set in those days, by battles and treaties, have been mostly washed away by the tides of later wars. Suffice it for us that Chesterfield, in 1731, gained much honor in getting the Vienna treaty signed. In 1732 he returned to England, and distinguished himself by op

position to Sir Robert Walpole. In 1734 | ball-room, all hilarity; and now, like Mullihe found time to marry. In 1737 he made gan on the door-step, after supper, in tears. his once celebrated speech against dramatic His cry was liberty, and his aim was power. censorship, proposed by Walpole. Fielding Such an one, invaluable for opposition, could had produced a satire on the ministers, not govern. Such talents are as opposed to (Pasquin, for which Hogarth drew an illus- those needed by a statesman as abilities for trated bill,) which the town, as the public criticism are from those for authorship. He was then called, flocked to hear. The ex- failed, of course, in time of need. He was ample was much followed, till the premier made Earl of Bath, and so sailed comfortaresolved to stop it, which he did in spite of bly away-to oblivion. opposition. After this, a quarrel between Walpole and the Prince of Wales, whose side Chesterfield took, brought about an open breach between the factions, and the so called country party was obliged to gointo the country. Bath was chosen as the place of refuge, and Beau Nash (Douglas Jerrold's hero,) becomes visible in the solemnity of history, anticking and fooling for a moment, on the scene.

In 1739, however, the tide showed signs of turning. War was commenced against Spain, and Vernon was sent to Darien. The trans-Pyrenean nation had done our shipping so much damage, and robbed us so infamously in Honduras, that the country would no longer suffer Walpole's patience of insult and shyness of fight. His popularity was sinking-the shadow was melting from his grasp. In 1740, Sandys, the motion-maker, attacked him Anstey-wise. He failed; but in 1742, when a new parliament was convened, and the nation was sick of the war, which had been prosecuted till the Panama business brought it to an anti-climax, the opposition to his longer, holding office was so great and general, that he thought it well to retire. Poor Walpole! The once famous statesman found himself, now his career was well-nigh closed, the object of resentment, if not of finger-pointing. He had done his best-and now his life was scarcely safe. Fond of the shows of greatness, he had but little greatness to deserve the shows. But Time has hung the curtains around him, do not let us too roughly rend them back. His premiership is over now-and its cares and its toils, and his life, are over. He is away-his fame, too, is away-one day the morning will break, and we shall be away.

The kaleidoscope once moved, many things shifted together. Pulteney, the "people's friend" of those days, was naturally looked to as Walpole's successor. He was a living dissolving view. His face was said to wear a new expression every day. He was by turns a saint, a savage, and a sage. He was now, like Mulligan in the

He

Of the ensuing parliamentary history and war-work we are too sick to make notes here. Ministers came short, as usual, and speeches were made, and applauded, and forgotten, as usual. There was another Stuart landing, and droves of victims were led to and offered at Saint George's altar, not in Hanover-square. We can, however, recollect or imagine these, and pass to 1745, when Chesterfield, after another successful embassage to Holland, was made LordLieutenant of Ireland. This was the best part of his life. He gave himself to the melioration of that blessed island, which was then, as now, boisterous as the surrounding element. He was liberal, but firm. would not, like others, hunt the Catholics to please the Protestants. He saw the crow's feet round the Scarlet Lady's eyes; he saw that decay was at work, and he would not help her to fictitious life by the tonic of persecution. Indeed, he early showed his spirit in that matter when an eager Protestant told him that his coachman was a Roman and often went to mass. "Does he?" said the Earl, "then he shall never-drive me there." Yet he did not trust or favor them. Once, when he heard of a projected rising, he took one of their chief men aside, and said, "If your persuasion behave like faithful subjects, I will treat them as such; but if not, I shall be worse to them than Cromwell." This was quite sufficient to prevent any insurrection while he was king's vicar; might we not suppose that if such a course were pursued in our times, such a result would follow? The Irish might have believed in Mumbo-Jumbo, like the Cingalese, or in the Moon, like Chinamen, but Chesterfield would not have stretched out a state arm to molest them, if they kept the peace.

Unfortunately, in 1746, he left this post, and took the seals with Newcastle. His good sense was swamped in other people's nonsense. They made a bad business of it on the whole, and in 1748 he retired. His only other appearance in history as a notable man was in 1751, when he proposed in the Lords, the change of style, as it was

« AnteriorContinuar »