HOWISON'S EUROPEAN COLONIES.

MR. HOWISON is favourably known by his Sketches of Upper Canada, and by another publication on Colonial life, whose plea- sant impressions we remember, though we forget the title. After a silence of some years, he again comes before the public', with a

more extensive personal experience, greater information acquired from books, a much larger field, and a higher aim. In clearness of delineation, graphic effects, and light brilliancy of touch, he is equal to the best writers of the day. The absence of statistical facts, of exact scientific knowledge, and its practical application, would seem to stamp him as belonging to an a2ra previous to the " Revolutionary Bill." As regards the dry but important matters we have alluded to, the reader who is tempted by the equivocal title will be disap- pointed. By " physical condition," Mr. Howlsosr does not mean

a measurement of the height of mountains, a geological analysis of tie various soils, or any other of the specific details which are

classed by the geographer under the head of " physical:" but something much more agreeable to read—a portraiture of the land and sea, as they appear to the eye of a keen observer and lover of the picturesque, and who finds that thedreary expanse of the Great Sahara or the unrivalled sterility of the Karroo are nit barren at least of interest. According to our author's example, there are better, or at all events pleasanter modes of exhibiting the "social and moral condition of colonists," than by tables of imports and exports, births and deaths, souls and taxes,

got up the Lord knows how or for what purpose. He prefers giving historical sketches of the aborigines, their pure Eu- ropean masters, and the various bastard breeds which civili- zation has introduced ; with slight accounts of what they do, what sort of people they are, and how they pass their time. His authority for the past is the collections of former travellers,—some- times, like VAIL LA NT, charmingly vivacious, even though they may have improved the forms of nature or heightened her colours; sometimes, like BARROW, full of matter more grave and more trustworthy, but (let us breathe it in a whisper) not quite so de- lightful for a tae-d-ate. A long list of men who were more capable of acting and suffering than of describing their exploit, forms the remainder ; and these, though not popular reading as a series, are crowded with fragments of literal truth and indicated knowledge. The authority for the present time is chiefly Mr. IlowisoN himself—the experience of a sensible man of the world and an elegant man of letters, who has visited or resided in the places he describes. All the raw materials thus collected are ma- nufactured with ainiirable skill, although too much importance is now and then given to truisms and commonplaces.

0; itoiLi; The first volume, which is the only one before us in a complete state at the moment of writing, contains India and the Colonies in Southern and Western Africa. Of these, the last is the most complete and the most elaborate; the part devoted to the Cape the most useful. In India the author may be more at home; but it is scarcely treated at the length and with the fulness which so important a branch of the subject demanded. In general, Mr. Howisosis opinions are practical, or rather empirical—his own theorizing upon his own partial facts, instead of testing his obser- vations by the rules which have been drawn from an extensive collection of data. In all cases, his leaning is to the aborigines of a country: but the conclusion to which becomes is not to establish a better system of colonization, by which the reciprocal depreda- tions and reprisals of the savages and the out-settlers (not much less savage) shall be checked; but to avoid forming settlements at all, and leave the natives to their own simple enjoyments. Even if the people are too powerful or the climate too unhealthy to form a colony, he would not attempt to establish a trade; for he holtd that the "demand for European manufactures" adds nothing so their comforts, hut very much to their vices. The freedom with which he has spoken upon the general uselessness of missions to the heathen, will perhaps provoke more censure than these unbu- sinesslike doctrines, notwithstanding the moderation of his tone and the reasonableness of his facts and arguments. In Mr. Howisosis previous publications, the word "Sketches" has been prominent on the titlepage. The phrase was indicative of the author's talent. He should be entitled The Sketcher, par ex- cellence. He has not an historical mind—neither the patient re- search, the practical sagacity, the keen discrimination, nor the philosophical views which belong to the historian. But his his- torical sketches are animated and rapid. He does not analyze a society lik41 a lover of wisdom, or consider it in all its various re- lations; but how pleasantly be paints its manners and modes! His forte, however, is landscape, or rather the external forms of nature, whether animate or inanimate, at sea or on shore. In the following description, see with what skill the barrenness of the desert is contrasted with the richness of the adjoining tropic, and what interest is imparted to a catalogue of plants and birds. Pity that the climate of the Senegal is so death-dealing, or relays of steamers might easily convey thither the invalid or the palled pleasure. se, ker. It v. ould be better tliaa a winter in Bath or even in Italy. and is little calculated to give the spectator a favourable idea of the neighbour-. ing country ; for its surface consists of loose sand, of a dazzlog whitens-a, drifted into irregular ridges by the wind, and sprinkled here an I there with a few stunted bushes of a brownish hue. No houses, human Wogs, or marks of cultivation diminish the dreary uniformity of the prospect ; and the brilliant sunshine of a tropical climate seems only to give a painful distinctness to its horrid features, and to make its solitude and unfruitfulness more apparent. The adjoining coast presents a shelving beach, along which a heavy surf constaraly breaks. Here birds of the egret kind resort in considerable numbers, and dia. posing themselves in files, stand motionless, basking in the sun with their ids under their wings. During the day, the reflection from the shore is nearly in. tolerable to the eye ; and the heated sand rarefying to an extraordinary degree the stratum of air in contact with it, produces a kind of mirage, which ot only distorts and disguises all objects within its influence, but communicates tO them an appearance of tremulous motion. which makes the observer feel giddy should he continue to look abroad for any length of time. But after crossing the bar of the Senegal and rounding the Point of Barbary, the Libyan desert is no longer seen ; and the eye, wherever it turns, rests upon a mass of luxuriant vegetation, consisting chiefly of trees that are unknown in European climates. Amongst them are found palms of various kinds, such us the date, the cocoa-nut, and the areca; and also the cotton-tree, the wild. fig, the tamarind, and the banana. But the one that chiefly attracts the attention is the hahobab or calabash tree, which is the largest vegetable production in the world ; its trunk, according to Adanson, sometimes measuring sixty or seventy feet in circumference, and throwing out no branches for nearly an equal height from the ground. Those stately trees love the banks of the river, where they form places of general resort for nearly all the animal inhabitants of the forest. Their larger branches are peopled with monkies of different kinds, which, after uniting with small detachments, run to their furthest extremities, and having there for a few moments surveyed the persons passing by in limits, and saluted them with discordant cries, hurry back into the shade, and are soon succeeded by new reconnoitering parties of the same species. On the twigs projecting over the river, birds of the kingfisher tribe suspend their nests, woven in a pear- like shape where they swing to and fro with every breath of wind. safe from the deprealations of either apes or serpents; while many' reptiles of the latter kind, varying in size and colour, twine themselves round the tower boughs, in ordir tsi watch conveniently for prey, and dart down upon it when it does appear. The roots of the babobah afford shelter to multitudes of squirrels which sport amongst their interstices, and its trunk is studded with lizards of the most re- splendent hues, lying in wait for the insects which fly around in myriads, and keep up an incessant and sonorous humming. Alligators lie basking in the dun upon the shallows in the middle of the river, and their musky scent is ofteu per. ceptible when, frightened by the approach of a boat, they plunge under water and swim lazily away. The crashing of boughs, heard occasionally in the depth of the forest, announces that troops of elephents are passing along there; and in the various little bays and inlets that indent the banks of the stream, flamin- goes may be seen standing together in pairs, and laving with water their scarlet wings ; while other birds, equal in beauty, but still more shy and solitary, flutter amongst the bushes, or make their presence known only by the melody or strangeness of their notes.

Here is a pleasant specimen of Portuguese colonization, though somewhat thetorical at its close. Prime PucKLER-Musitstr might buy Kacheo for Prussia. It would afford a drain for surplus population at all events.

Kacheo censists of a small town and a mean fort, much out of repair, and scantily provided ia every respect. Nevertheless, the place generally has a governor appointed in Europe, who is, in most iwaances, souse military man whom age or itifirmitis..s has rendered unfit for active service, or some trouble. some claimant upon the crown whom it is found desirable to get rid of; for few persons of any class that go to Kacheo ever return from it. Twenty or thirty invalided Porma th.se soldieis fie in the gai riefu ; but their pay is so small, that they can scarcely subsist upon it ; and most of them, when off duty, are in the habit of prowling about the streets at night, and robbing any one that they may happen to meet. Criminals are often banished from Portugal to Kacheo, and these, with the mulattoes produced by their intercourse with the Negro women, compose the chiefest part of its population.

The indolence of all classes is so great, that the land in even the immediate neighbourhood of the town remains uncultivated, with the exception of a few

fields of maize and plantains; and the unhealthiness of the climate, doubtless is- creased by this cause, conjoined with the poverty of the inhabitants, gives them a distressed and emaciated appearance which makes a stranger shudder. Most of the houses are built of upright wooden posts interwoven with twigs and plas- tered with clay, and whitewashed ; the roofs are thatched with palm leaves. The rain sometimes pours down in torrents for weeks together, accompanied with such frightful storms of thunder and lightning, that -the inhabitants are

forced to shut themselves up in their dwellings, and sit in darkness till the re- turn of tranquil weather. Nor dare they at any time venture far beyond the precincts of the town, lest the Papal Negroes (the aborigines of the country) should rush from the neighbouring woods and destroy or take them prisoners; and assassinations often occur amongst the mulattoes in Kacheo itself, insigni- ficant as it is in population and extent ; and when an alarm of the kind is given, the inhabitants, instead of running to assist the person assaulted, close their shutters and bar their doors, lest they should become witnesses of the crime, and afterwards fall victims to the fears and jealousy of its perpetrator. Refugees

and desperate characters of every kind resort to the place, and live without de- cency or restraint, and are kept in check by nothing but the dread of suffering retaliation from the hands of each other. Filth, famine, and misery, lurk in

every house ; crime stalks abroad with brazen forehead; the dmmon of pestilence patroles the streets; and human life and human character assume, in every par- ticular, their basest forms and their most revolting aspects.

We will close, at least as regards the present volume, with the

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF SIERRA LEONE.

With respect to the colony at Sierra Leoue, which has cost Britain so much money and so many lives, every one knows that it is a complete failure. The emancipated and delivered Negroes, for whom it was intended as an asylum, soon grew disgusted with the spot, and retired into the interior of the countly. The native merchants, who were expected to have come from Central Africa to trade at the settlement, have never yet made their appearance there. Twenty• two thousand individuals of different de.seliptions joined the establishment at Sierra Leone between 1787 and 1826, and of these only thirteen thousand re- mained, or were in existence, at the end of the latter year. The European emigrants consisted almost exclusively of disbanded and pensioned soldiers, who, it must be supposed, were sent to the coast of Africa; not that they might give the Negroes a taste for civilized life, or improve their morals, but that they might cease to be a burden to Government, and a pest to their native country. Of these men fewer have perished than emild have been exp..cted, considering their dissipated habits; for out of one thousand two hundred aml twenty- two that jnined the colony between 1817 and 1S1P. it appears that nine bunfireil and fn ty• Mee were islive laati. But the number of civil and military. office! 8 it ha have Idle. s;c;ims to the climate is immense; awl Sierra Leone tuay nosy

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Coe co,:st, luag, t'til:,ze of la;:e. alreznIr glts,eri. :CI it first sem, tn, !lawn front iL —w 'Lieu it.- .:1,•1: AO: r.u;speans, or at least tots worth ret ming. IL Slt.Lll no longer enjoy a local government—and when its laws shall cease to be adminis- tered or observed—it, motley and partly -instructed population, unable to relish the simplicity of Negro life, will in all likelihood become pirates and ban- ditti ; and the British nation may hereafter find it necessary, for the security of her African trade, to exterminate a colony which she has long protected, and has hitherto fostered with useless and unproductive care.