30 JULY 1864, Page 19

VACATION TOURISTS AND NOTES OF TRAVEL.* THE publication of this

third volume of Vacation Tourists has been delayed fora year, in order to obtain greater range and variety of matter, and though it contains amply sufficient mate- rials of interest for two volumes, the principle of not forcing the publication to a fixed period of issue is a good one. During the past two years the band of amateur special correspondents who contribute to the present volume have found plenty of scope for the exercise of their vocation, and in more than one case they go over the same ground as their professional brethren of the daily press. Two at least of the papers before us relate to localities which have been of late the very centres of cosmopolitan special correspondence—Federal America and Poland. Mr. W. -G. Clarke, Public Orator of Cambridge, furnishes a detailed account of all that he saw and heard during the summer and autumnof 1863 in Poland, while travelling in company with a friend whose great -experience of Polish affairs and personal knowledge of Poles of eminence afforded Mr. Clarke advantages for acquiring informa- tion scarcely possessed by the majority of professional " specials." His first stay was at Posen, a town which he certainly visited under unfavourable circumstances, as five-sixths of the peasant youth had left to join the insurgents, and out of the circle of Polish gentry in and around the town eighty were in prison at Berlin during the pleasure of M. Von Bismark, and a large pro-

* Vocation Touristsand Notes of 2'ravel, 1862.9. Edited by Franois Gaitom Author of the " Art of Travel." London : Macmillan and co., 1854. portion of the remainder had fled, leaving their property to be sequestrated by Government. Despite this wholesale depopula- tion, Mr. Clarke found what society there was very pleasant and hospitable. At Cracow, however, lie found a very different phase of Polish society. The hotels were crowded with refugees of all ranks and classes, waifs and strays of the revolution. They were naturally divided into two classes, those who had escaped out of Poland, and those who were venturing as near the frontier as possible with a view to aiding the insurgents. Amongst the latter was the unlucky individual whose ludicrous adventures in his assumed character of Times correspondent created so much amusement a few months ago. Mr. Clarke describes him as physically feeble, de- pressed in spirits, having uo particular sympathy with the Polish cause, and no literary capacity. With all these disadvantages he took upon himself to smuggle revolvers to the insurgents, and represented himself as correspondent to the Times. His end is not yet fully known, but Mr. Clarke throws some light on his position at the latest dates. After "coming down" from the tree where he was safely watching a skirmish and re- freshing himself with an apple, he was treated by his captors with great distinction on account of his alleged con- nection with the Times. His career, however, was short. Before long the great source from whence he derived his bor- rowed honours contemptuously disclaimed him, and shortly afterwards he was reported to the National Government as having drunk General Mouravieffs health, and immediately sen- tenced to death. Mr. Clarke obtained much curious information relating to the organization and machinery of the mysterious National Government, and ascribes its extraordinary power of en- forcing its decrees to three causes, the naturally superior adroit- ness and ingenuity of the Poles as compared with their oppressors, the education in conspiracy which generations of oppression have effected, and the connivance of the eighteen thousand Russian officials, almost all Poles by birth. He does not vouch for the following story, but it illustrates the popular belief in the impos- sibility of escape from the vengeance of the National Govern- ment :—The Russians received information that extensive printing works were carried on by the insurgents in certain premises, and agreed not to commence the search until time had been given to the informer to effect his escape from the consequent vengeance of' his compatriots. He received the traitor's reward and left. The same evening the officials took possession of the denounced cellars, but to their great surprise found their search fruitless, except in the discovery of abundant indications that a printing press had been at work there at no remote period. At last a large chest was found, which was thought certain to contain more material evi- dence. With great difficulty it was broken open, and found to contain the corpse of the informer. With regard to the system of assassination set on foot by the Poles, Mr. Clarke sets forth the arguments in its defence with great ability, but without fully endorsing them. The Poles say that Russian gold constantly tempts the base or cowardly amongst them to turn traitors and informers, that every Government must possess some means of securing obedience and protecting itself, that the National Government being secret must of necessity execute its decrees in secret, and that the so-called assassinations are merely sentences carried out secretly after secret trials, which are at the least as fairly con- ducted as those of the Russian Government. While Mr. Clarke was at Warsaw, a Pole whose veracity was beyond doubt gave him the official list of the batch of prisoners sent off from Warsaw alone that week. The number was 225, of whom 65 were sentenced to a life-long exile in Siberia, and the remainder to service in the Russian army in Circassia. From these and other data Mr. Clarke estimates that at least 30,000 men, almost without exception belonging to the upper and middle classes, and in the prime oflife, were sentenced in 1863 to pe =anent banishment from their native land, either to fight on behalf of their oppressors in Circassia, or to the still greater materiel horrors, though less re- volting to their patriotism, of Siberian mines. There is no doubt that Mouravieff's policy of " Thorough " is most efficiently carried out by him and his subordinates. Mouravieff himself has the character of remaining cool but relentless in the prosecution of his one grand object, but his underlings, as Mr. Clarke says, rapidly acquire a " taste for blood " which renders them even more fiendishly cruel and malignant than their chief. One of his most notorious lieutenants is a Greek, Kasangli by name, who is reported to have seized four peasants merely suspected of furnishing supplies to the insurgents, and to have bound each one to the stirrup of a Cossack, and thus dragged them about until he

ultimately put them to death in a wood. As for the Russian army, the majority of officers admire General Mouravieff to enthu- siasm, and always speak of him as it Notre bon visllard " or " Le grand homme."

The paper next in point of immediate interest in the present volume of Vacati"n Tourists is one on the " Medical Service of the Federal Army," by Mr. Mayo, M.A., of Oxford, who went out to America in 1862 and offered his services, which were accepted as Inspector of Hospitals in the Federal service. After passing the requisite examination, which he describes as about on a par with that of the Royal College of Surgeons, Mr. Mayo found himself at Washington, just then recovering from the " big scare " caused by Stonewall Jackson's operations almost in sight of the White House, and anxiously waiting for news from Burnside at Fredericksburg. Presently the news came, and with it hosts of wounded. Of all the blots on the Federal medical services that came within Mr. Mayo's notice, the way in which the operations had been performed in the field hospitals after the battle vas the most disgraceful, and many an officer died in Washington hotels whose life might have been spared by the com- monest medical skill and appliances. The sick from the army at this time were not remarkably numerous. The victims of the Chicknhominy swamps had nearly all died, and the usual amount of dysentery, typhoid fever, ague, and their complications ac- counted for the great bulk, while the only exceptional feature seems to have been the prevalence of affections of the heart, arising from protracted exertion and exposure amongst young soldiers. Drink, be it remembered, is strictly prohibited to the men, though not to the officers, so that all the bad effects of whisky, common enough amongst the latter, were entirely absent in the rank and file. In fact, the health of the army on active service seems to have been far superior to that of the city of Washington, which Mr. Mayo reports as possessing about the worst sanitary arrangements it is possible to conceive. During Mr. Mayo's half-year in Washington, upwards of 2,000 sick and wounded officers came under his hands, and he consequently had opportunities of studying the character and morale of the Federal army such as have scarcely ever been afforded to an Englishman. We have not space to follow him through all the very interesting details of his hospital experience at Washing. ton or on the Mississippi, but can only say they are most valuable to all who wish to understand the real position and prospects of the Federal arms. With respect to the negro question, Mr. Mayo's report on the Federal treatment of the emancipated slaves is extremely unfavourable to their philanthro- pic pretensions ; witness his account of the "contraband camps" around Washington.

The remainder of the dozen or so papers which form the present volume call for no particular remark, though all of interest to the general reader. Especially so is Mr. Powell's narrative of a journey in Paraguay, that " Japan of South America," and Lady Duff Gordon's lively gossip from the Cape of Good Hope. There is also the inevitable amount of Eastern travel, with, however, considerably more than the usual quantum of originality, and a useful paper on fish-culture in France by Mr. Bertram.