BOOKS.
THE CRUISE OF THE GALATEA.*
Is it too late to enter a protest against the absurd fashion, let us hope delightful only to snobs, which is making Royalty ridiculous by the publication of all sorts of worthless scraps and gleanings that have no significance whatever, except so far as they satisfy the contemptible curiosity of silly people respecting the private life of Royal persons? The Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands was eagerly read, and since that unlucky success the circulating libraries have been deluged with an infinite variety of despicable imitations. Where such imitations are unauthorized they deserve no attention, though they do, we are convinced, an amount of mischief altogether out of proportion to their literary power. But a book which is published with the sanction of a prince who has attained years of discretion and seen not a little of the world, ought surely to show on the face of it some raison d'être. We are as much entitled to ask the Duke of Edinburgh what he has to tell us worth hearing, when he asks us to read a big volume of travel over well-trodden ground, as we are to ask the same question of anybody else. There is a reasonable presumption against any one who sets about recording what has been recorded before, and certainly the royalty of the writer cannot be taken as an excuse for the publication of a dull book. Her Majesty's journal was not dull, though it might with advantage have been curtailed and compressed. It threw much light on the personal character not only of the Queen herself, but also of the late Prince Consort. The character of the latter had a distinct and remarkable influence on the social and political history of this country ; while even under the most limited and constitutional of monarchies the personal qualities of the Sovereign will always have their weight. But the Duke of Edinburgh is a young man whose personal popularity is great, but who has never taken, and under existing circumstances can never take, a promi- nent part in public affairs. He owes his importance in the public
• The Cruise of MM.& Galatea, Captain the Duke of Edinburgh. E.G., in 1867-1663. By the Bey. J. Milner, B.A., and Oswald W. Brierly. London: W. H. Allen and Co. view to the single fact that he is his mother's son, and this is a fact which it would not be quite seemly, if it were possible, to expand into an octavo volume. Why, then, should the Duke ask us to read a record of the cruise of the Galatea ? Life is hardly long enough, and our minds are hardly strong enough, to endure the accumulation of all the log-books of
all the vessels which in the course of his professional advance- ment,—and we have no doubt that will be as rapid as it deserves, —his Royal Highness may be called to command. At least if such a visitation should be in store for future generations of readers, we may hope that the Duke will Il tvour the common-places of travel with some spice of personal description such as rarely adorns the present volume. It is too bal that the patient worshipper of Royalty should fail even in this royal volume to get into direct con- tact with the object of his adoration, but should be compelled to spend his enthusiasm on the filtrated nobility of the Rev. John Milner and Mr. Brierly.
The scribes, indeed, to whom the Duke of Edinburgh has entrusted the compilation of the record of his travels have not shown much skill in the art of making dry bones live. Two-thirds of the portly and handsome volume before us is made up of minutely chronicled facts, compared with which the Court News is full of thrilling interest. Only here and there does a bit of personal gossip make its appearance to gratify the cravings of loyal readers. The letter of the Duke to the Prince of Wales is the one grain of wheat iu Messrs. Milner and Brierly's bushel of chaff. It is rather hard to put off the appetite of the curious with such poor fare as the following, which is a fair specimen of this " record of travel " :-
"18th June.—At noon wo proceeded out of Funchal Roads under steam on our way to Rio ; the Dqucl manned the rigging and cheered us as we started. Just before we weighed, a pretty schooner yacht, belonging to Mr. Leo, R.A., started for England. In the afternoon, the wind being fairourable, we made all plain sail. Before sunset the island was out of sight, and we felt that wo had parted with the last link that united us to the Old World, and that we worn really off at last on our cruise. Nothing of particular interest occurred on the passage to Rio ; but it may be mentioned that, on the 20th (in lat. 29° 55' N., long. 18° 38' W.) some swallows were seen flying about the ship, and two were caught. They were so tired and tame that they would not got out of the men's way, and were taken quite easily. On the 21st, the south- westerly breeze we had had took 113 close past Palma, one of the Canaries. In the afternoon, first toll in with flying fish. On Sunday, the 23rd, wo got the N.E. trades in the morning, in lat. 26° N., long. 20° W., but unfortunately lost them again during the night of the 27th, in lat. 11° 48' N., long. 26° 12' W., having carried thetn through only 14° of latitude. On the morning of that day the wind had fallen light, but in the afternoon we had heavy squalls. On the 26th wo first sighted the Southern Cross, in lat. 15° N., a Crucis, having an altitude of 13°. On Friday, the 28th, there being no signs of wind, down screw,' and we went ahead under the brass topsail' A shark was seen alongside about noon, and quantities of flying fish."
These instructive details, varied with copious dissertations on the manner in which the officers of the Galatea managed to play quoits on board, the Emperor of Brazil's criticism on the very Scotch music of the Duke's piper, and the manner in which the crew of the royal vessel escaped the customary ordeal at the hands of Neptune's barber at the crossing of the Line, make up the wondrous tale of the voyage until we get to the Cape. There the historians become more particular, and the narrative rises in iuterest. Not a detail is lost. At one place, iu a long narrative of the journey from Sinson's Bay to Cape Town, we are told, "Luncheon over, having substituted a riding dress for his frock-
coat and black hat, the Duke proceeded for the remainder of his journey on horseback." The round of festivities, formalities, and amusements at the Cape are duly set forth in order ; the Duke's prowess in the field as slayer of elephants being especially chroni- cled with care in three several versions,—the first by Messrs. Milner and Brierly, the second by the Duke himself in a letter to the Prince of Wales, and the third in a poetic burst by a Mr. Cole, who is the bard, it seems, of the Cape Colony. From the second of these, being the Duke's own account of the matter, we extract the description of the proceedings following the death of the elephant (elephans Afeicanw:, as the Duke, using the pri- vilege of Sigismund, and being super granunaticam, calls the clephas of the dictionaries) :— " Dr. O'Malley, Smith, and myself bad now our coats off and had with our knives got pretty well half through the skinning, when wo wore agree- ably ndsi s taanrcbetdh ebyG ot hv eerannonr ocicl ecdmteon tuso ft tchoemaer rai sv ahle ohf basket a da finished of cutting f o r- up the meat and loaf, and with the assistance of a borrowed corkscrew drawn the corks of the sherry and B. (N.B.—The Governor does not carry a young man's constant companion.) Our hands and arms were now all covered with blood, and our breakfast—for such it was, although the time was 3.30 p.m., and we had risen at 5 a.m.—was laid near the only small pool of water for a couple of miles ; so we had to get our friends to bale up water in the cups of our spirit flasks, and wash us down clear of the pool, it being our only water to drink. Having finished our breakfast, we ministered to the wants of the farmers who had so kindly got up and managed the hunt so well, and to those of Smith, who sat down with as radiant an, expression as I ever saw on his good-natured face. We then returned and finished the skinning of the elephant, with the exception of his decapitation, which had to he effected with the assistance of sixteen oxen, which were yoked to the head to pull it off, whilst the spine was severed with an axe. These oxen had come up to take head, skin, and feet all together down to the camp in a waggon, the sides of which had to be loft behind, and the load strapped on with hide 'rims.' We now all went to see the other elephant ; his measurements were in all directions rather loss than mine. He had fallen in exactly the same position, on his side with his legs stretched out quite straight, but his left tusk, which was much more worn from use than the other, was buried nearly up to the root in the soft ground of the forest. The place, which was not more than fifty yards inside the high trees, was cleared in a circle about thirty yards in diameter, he lying on the one edge. This space was entirely cleared by him in his death rage, he having gone round and round breaking down the trees with his weight, or actually pulling them down with his trunk, the inveterate sportsmen blazing away at him all the time ; but many bullet marks were to be seen on the trees which I should suppose had not previously passed through the elephant. The day was fine and the weather was hot, and my short clay was very enjoyable sitting on the yet warm carcase."
The voyage to Adelaide from the Cape, as chronicled by Messrs. Milner and Brierly, is about as exciting as the voyage from Eng- land, and the festivities and effervescent loyalty of Australia much of the same sort as that of any other place where the English flag waves. At Melbourne the factions that divide Ireland and Irish- men all over the world came into collision almost as scandalously as they did in Canada during the Prince of Wales's visit:—
"A serious disturbance, resulting in loss of life, took place in front of the Protestant Hall in the course of the evening. On the night of the illumination the front of the Hall had been decorated with a large transparency, representing William III. crossing the Boyne, with a figure of Britannia ou one aide, and the motto, 'This wo will maintain,' on the other. The exhibition of a design of such a decidedly party character had been generally condemned as likely to provoke the animosity of an opposite faction, and the authorities tried, but without success, to prevail upon the Orangemen not to exhibit it. On the night that it was lit up a few of the more excitable Ribbonmon loudly ex- pressed their indignation at the ' party emblem,' and threatened to destroy it, but contenting themselves with throwing a few stones and slightly damaging it. On Wednesday night, however, a large crowd collected in front of the building, abused the Orangemen and their picture, sang 'The Wearing of the Green,' and ended by throwing a shower of stones at the obnoxious device. The people within the build- ing immediately fired an indiscriminate volley in amongst the crowd. Two men and a poor boy were seriously wounded, and the boy even- tually died from the effects of his wound. Ono man was arrested as he was escaping from the building, and others were subsequently captured who were known to have been inside at the time when the shots wore fired. They were tried seine weeks afterwards, but for some reason or other not ascertained were acquitted."
The only part of this pretentious book that is worthy of serious notice is the narrative of the attempt on the Duke's life at Sydney. In that narrative there is perhaps enough of material, if skilfully worked up, to make a readable article in a magazine. The com- pilers of the Cruise of the Galatea have, however, succeeded in making this, the really important part of their story, alternately tawdry and dull. They record with evident gratification the passing of the monstrous Treason-Felony Act, discussed at the time of its enactment in this journal, and they positively justify its most out- rageous clause by an assertion that two prominent citizens of Sydney had announced that they would not drink the Queen's health at a public banquet, which announcement the Treason-Felony Act made a misdemeanour. We turn almost with relief from the dis- cussion of this topic in such a spirit as it evinces to the remainder of the book, which is inoffensively dull, though we cannot avow that we have had patience to follow the daily record of the Galatea's progress home, as Messrs. Milner and Brierly have taken pains to transcribe it.
It is a pity that the Duke of Edinburgh has given his sanction to the publication of this meaningless book. Englishmen are proud of their Sovereign and of her sons, but men may be loyal without caring to know how often our Princes change their coats and how many head of game they bring down in a day's sport. For the present, the Royal Family of England has been quite sufficiently biographized, and we sincerely trust that all the sons and daughters of Queen Victoria will not consider it a part of their constitutional duty to publish books which may possibly please the loyal, but are far more likely to please the snobs.
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