16 AUGUST 1851, Page 19

RODENSTEDT'S MORNING-LAND. * THE author of these volumes passed several years

in the Caucasian range and the regions adjacent, studying the " ethnographical, statistical, and historical relations, civil and military, of the countries between the Black and Caspian Seas." Upon these grave subjects Dr. Bodenstedt has published some scientific works; but he reserved WS poetical impressions and lighter topica for the ears of his friends. During the last days of October 1848, lie found him- sell' in Vienna, at the thickest of the combat, when he. who ven- tured into the streets was liable to be shot by the Imperialists or pressed by the Republicans, and a house was not much safer from the chances of the bombs. At this crisis, several friends

were assembled one evening in Bodenstedt's house ; but their minds were too distracted for conversation ; "every moment was broken in upon by the noise of the artillery or by the rolling of the drums." To divert thought from the painful present, one of the company called upon the host to tell some of his "adven- tures in the Land of the Morning." He willingly complied, and the company " sat far on into the deep night." "Alf were listening intently to my narrations. No one thought any more of the tumult without, nor of the burning suburbs, and the beat of the drums, and the firing.

"Between that day and this, as I am writing down these recollections, exactly a year has fled. My friends have, in the meanwhile, often urged me to give through the press a wider extension to the narrations which exercised so happy an influence on them."

Hence the publication of the work, and its double title of ".The Morning-Land, or a Thousand-and-one Days in the East."

We must confess we should not have attributed such a potent spell to Dr. Bodenstedt's impressions of travel, as to suppose they would charm away the anxiety of a bombardment. The book seems to us fragmentary in its scheme and often slight in its matter, with too strong an intrusion of the author's personality. Curious pictures of Georgian and Armenian life will be found, with some valuable information as to the state of the Caucasian region under the Russian rule, and the effects of Russian so-called " civilization." But these passages are balanced by scenes of a trifling kind, whose description has not the effect upon the reader which their reminiscence produces upon the author, and by a good deal of remark allied to reverie. There are also various poems or fragments of poems, translations from the Russian, Persian Georgian, or Armenian, with a few of the Doctor's own. These trans:

• The Morning-Land; or a Thousand-and-one Days in the East. By Friedrich

Bodenstedt. From the German by Richard Waddington. In two volumes. Put- listed by Bentley.

lations frequently possess feeling, contain natural imagery, and ex- hibit national manners ; but they are devoid of poetical character- istics ; a deficiency which may be owing to the double or triple transmutation to which they have, been subjected. The framework of the book is an outward journey from Moscow to Tiflis across the Steppes of Southern Russia and the Caucasian range, and a return steam-voyage along the eoast of the Black Sea, calling at various Russian settlements en route. The inter- mediate sections contain accounts of various excursions made by the author in pursuit of the main object of his studies;, but to give a continuous account of travels is not the main purpose. The narrative is continually suspended or broken off to introduce a de- scription or reflection, or to pass to some other theme. The real topics of the book are specimens of poetry, sketches of manners and persons, tales illustrative of Caucasian life, mingled with re- miniscences of parties and personal occurrences, as well as stories, slight in themselves and prolonged to weariness, of the author's Georgian master of languages, one Mina-Schally.

As might be inferred from the number of poetical specimens in the volumes, Dr. Bodenstedt has some fancy and vivacity of mind, which frequently serve him well in natural description. This is a striking picture of the Steppes in what is elsewhere mid-autumn.

"September is not yet closed, and already the landscape around us wears a wintry aspect.

" The sky is overcast with grey clouds, and the air is as dark and dusky at mid-day as at the approach of the evening twilight ; flocks of crows and ravens are swinging on the leafless boughs ; the autumnal wind dismally pipes over the snow-whitened fields, through which the road winds like a huge black stripe; for the ice lies yet too thin, and the snow too loose to resist the hoofs of the horses and the incisions of the carriage-wheels ; and every time the light winter array is broken through, a black ooze wells from the slimy soil, like jets of tar."

Part of the following picture of uncertainty in Russia is less striking to Englishmen with their extensive commerce and wide colonial empire than it is to a German. Its feature lies in the feat that every Russian, except perhaps the merchant, is liable to this whirligig life at the pleasure of somebody.

"The physician, who today has passed his examination in Moscow, will, a few weeks hence, perhaps, be curing bilious fevers on the shores of the Black Sea ; the newly-married functionary, just settled in Petersburg, is suddenly appointed to a Government office on the frontiers of China ; the officer of the i Guards, who intends in the evening to pay a visit to the lady of his love, is unexpectedly despatched in the afternoon as a courier to the Caucasus. Thus it fares with all classes of society.

"And as the Russian nowhere feels himself at home for any length of time, one nowhere feels at home for any length of time with him.

"The gentle power of habit and the charm of remembrance are no spell for him. He takes no root in the past, and thinks not of the future. This truly Oriental character of the Russian—to live only for the passing moment, and only to enjoy the present—is conspicuous even to his dwelling. "He builds for himself alone and his own individual likings, without a thought of those who may come after him. And because he has no spirit of invention, nor taste for beautiful structures, he allows his house to be built after the fashion of those around him, and usually in such haste that often in a few years the building is nothing more than a plastered ruin. "Hence the frigid uniformity of the Russian houses, and the singular cir- cumstance that there is no telling by the appearance of any house whether it was built one year, ten, or a hundred years ago—so different from the old towns of Germany, Italy, and other countries, where the buildings are, as it were, living pages of history, instructive mediators betwixt the present and the past."

Notwithstanding our author must have carried on his inquiries by permission of the Russian Government, and he received conp tinual civilities from the officers in the Caucasus, truth compels him to give a very indifferent account of the Russian capabilities for ruling, or for teaching civilization. Even in the matter of pass- able ways they are behindhand. This is his picture of Tiflis, the capital of Greorgia. " Thus far I have shown you Tiflis and its inhabitants only on the fins days of spring, and from the distance that glorifies.- j let us now change the scene for once to a different time of the year, and ointemplate a little more closely. " It is winter. At night we have had a degree or two of eoldt ; on the snow, already risen to a thick layer, another threatens to- fall; the sky is overcast with grey clouds, and all sight of the mountains is lost. With dif- ficulty one still discerns in the distance the lofty mountain fortress of Tiflis; who herself looks so uncomfortable that it seems as if she were going to cover over with her mantle of snows all the bloody remembrances which pant cen- turies have left behind in her. The winter adornment suits her badly, -an it does her whole environs.

" To an inhabitant of Northern climates the told is here doubly sensible and unpleasant, since he finds scarcely any protecting provision against ih Nevertheless, as the warmth of the advancing day increased, I always wished the cold of the morning to return ; for whilst the sun rends for an hour or two the veil of clouds, the whole city is converted into a sea of slush. " The snow, shovelled down from the roofs of houses in the morning, piles itself up in the narrow crooked streets into regular bills, and when kneaded through by the sunbeams and camels' feet, forms so bottomless a mass that a foot-passenger sinks in deep at every step, and even the best- teamed vehicle has difficulty in getting through.

" But this is yet the fairer side of the winter, and lasts at the most but a few weeks, during which one can still at least go out in the mornings and evenings, when the filth has acquired a certain consistency by the cold._ " The proper mud season commences when the night-frosts and snow- storms have quite ceased. " The air is warm where the city is defended by the surrounding moun-

tains ; but where these divide, a cold cutting wind blows down from eanea% sus in seldom interrupted fierceness, howling through the principal streets of Tiflis, and frequently on the Tauric and Erivan Squares, rendering walking impossible. " What with the slush of the melted snow and the frequent torrents of rain, the unpaved streets are often wallowing in filth to the depth of two at three feet, and in lower parts are quite under water. During this time— and one may always depend on the year for a month or two of Arc—every egress into the town becomes it -hazardous adventure; whoever avails himself- of horse, ass, or droeky as a means of tramprt., runs the risk of taking a nand-bath against his will.

t Below freezing-point, which in Reaum. is 0'.. " That, under such circumstances, cleanliness in dress and dwelling among the poorer classes—of whom, however, the great majority of the inhabitants consists—is not to be thought of, scarcely needs be mentioned." There is a sombre description of the garrisons of the Black Sea, where so many are annually sacrificed to the Imperial lust of terri- torial aggrandizement.

" When in a beautiful morning of spring, one wanders through the bloom- ing environs of Pitzunda, (or Bitshvinda, as the natives call it,) and the eye feeds on the manifold beauties of nature that laugh around us here in most luxurious abundance, itis hard to believe that this seemingly so blessed shore should be a dwelling-place of misery and lamentation. But, unfortunately, such is the case.; the unhealthy hue of the soldiers' faces, their faded, sunken cheeks, bear frightful witness of it. The balls of the enemy are less to be dreaded here than the intermitting and yellow fevers, the liver and other com- plaints, which in Pitzunda, as almost on the whole East coast of Pontus, have fixed their habitation, and commit ravages from which few people living here escape. The fate of those is indeed to be pitied whom an adverse destiny has cast in this wilderness for any length of time. "In general, it may be assumed that not one of the soldiers sent hither be- holds again the soil of his native home. If I compare all the accounts which have come to me from different sources in connexion with this subject, the result of them appears to be that the garrisons of the forts of this coast have to be renewed on an average every three years. The subordinate officers sta- tioned here are generally such as have been guilty or suspected of some crime : restless heads, that carry their hearts on their tongues—liberal- minded people, who cannot think softly, and are not contented with the ex- isting order or rather disorder of things in Russia—young and old Poles, of the most different ranks and views—find here a second fatherland. It is easy to conceive that among these banished men are often found the most inter- esting personages ; whose hearts one never thinks of judging in accordance with their unhappy fate. "Here already many a hopeful youth, brought up in the palaces of the capital, has found in solitude his far-lamented death; full many a cry of anguish from hearts dead to hope has mingled in the dusk of night with the howl of the winds that incessantly lash the shores ; and already many a banished man, wearied of life, has sought and found his death in the white waves of the Black Sea. With respect to the higher and empowered officers, on whom so much depends, the Government has to exercise the extremest caution in going to work ; and among these I have found many very hu- mane and able men."