BOOKS.

BOORS OF TRAVELS.° VALUE and interest alike depend upon rarity. If diamonds were as plentiful as pebbles, their brilliancy would. not sustain their price. A subject, or a style' which so long as it is fresh excites perhaps undue admiration, when frequently repeated becomes " trite " and "commonplace." Better books on Continental countries or the East of Europe and adjacent parts, than were published a century or a half-century ago, meet far less consi- deration now-a-days, and are indeed. of less value, because sub- stantially they are merely repetitions—telling the same things over again. In countries so frequently written about, some spe- cial qualification in the traveller, or some temporary interest, like the late war, is required to excite the reader's attention. A si- milar remark may be made on more distant countries. India has been made familiar ; the outskirts at least of the Celestial Em- pire are known to us ; even the Arctic regions where frost and famine hold unchallenged dominion, have by dint of much writ- ing become common ; Australasia the Cape, North and South America, the principal islands of the Pacific, nay, that half-mys- terious attractive region which lies between New Caledonia and the Spice Islands, have been run upon and written upon by various sorts of people,—sea-captains, adventurers in the form of colo- nists, missionaries or " established " divines, tourists sportsmen littkratenrs, and men of science in whom the technical tor; often overwhelmed the natural. In some places "our own cor- respondent" brings up the rear, with a clever condensation of outward points familiar to every reader' as if what was new to him must be unknown to the world at large. In fact, except Central Asia and Central Africa, the shady nooks of the world are the freshest places; but even they require some peculiar powers of observation and description. The late season produced a variety of books of Travels, chiefly by English and American authors, which fell within the category indicated ; that is the region traversed was not sufficiently new, nor the writer sufficiently gifted" to challenge immediate at- tention over more directly interesting books. Neither in the leisurely examination of a slack autumn do they exhibit any high de ee of merit either in matter or manner. 'They have this pe- culiarity more or less—they have bits of fresh or solid informa- tion. As wholes the books were not wanted, and even any por- tion of them might have been dispensed with ; still there is a something in most of them.

Mr. HilPs Sandwich and Society Islands forms part of his tra- vels round the world; Russia and Siberia having constituted the "middle," and the Baltic (subsequently published) the "begin- ning." Much of the present work might have been done at home. The constitution of the Sandwich Islands, the treaties of that Government with England and other countries, as well as statistical matter, have about the rarity of a "blue-book." Speculations as to the peopling of the South Sea Islands, the history of the Sandwich group, accounts of its physical features and natural phenomena, have been treated with more elaboration and originality than by our author, and with greater opportunities of personal observation than he possessed. The freshest and most striking parts of the book relate to the stormy voyage from Kamschatka, when the vessel was tempest- tossed for days together; the residence of Mr. Hill at Honolulu, and his excursions through Owhyhee ; together with his final call at Ota- heite. The storm is not described "graphically," but the fury of the elements, the grandeur of the spectacle, the danger constantly im- pending over the ship, are perhaps more impressive in the plain and rather level style of Kr. Hill than they would have been in imaginative description. Except a visit to the volcano of Kilauea, whose natural subl • ly can hardly pall by repetition, independ- ently of its frequent changes of feature, there is not much of in- cident in what the traveller underwent, or anything in itself re- markable in what he saw. The interest arises from Mr. Hill having brought a different and it may be said a higher class of mind to bear upon the effects of missionary efforts on the South Sea islanders and the future prospects of the race.

Those prospects are not encouraging, nor are the results of mis- sionary labour at all proportioned to the good intentions which prompted them. The Itomish priests frankly admitted, that though their baptized might be reckoned by thousands, they knew of none that were real converts—persons who really under- stood the doctrines of Christianity, or had reformed their native morals. The external appearances are better in the case of Pro- testa.utism ; but unless with children educated and brought up at missionary expense, it may be doubted whether there is mit& substantial change ; perhaps those trained children might not be proof against temptation—such temptation, we mean, as would be powerless with a civilized man. 'The Protestant missionary in- fluence seems mostly exercised on things of mint and cummin neglecting the weightier matters of the law, while there is a per- petual not to say a tyrannical interference with the people, which approaches closer to the Jesuit rule in Paraguay than any other ccal government of modern times. The native sports, so con-

' Travels in the Sandwich and Society Islands. By a S. Hill, Bag., Author of Travel, in Siberia," 4-0. Published by Chapman and Hall.

Sketches and Adventures in Madeira, Portugal, and the Andalusias of Spain.

By the Author of " Daniel Webster and his Cotemporaries." Published by Low and Son.

Life in Brazil; or the Land of the Cocoa and the Palm. By Thomas Ewbank. 'With one hundred Illustrations. Published by Low and Son.

tributive to health and activity, are forbidden, as savouring of heathenism ; the native costume is forbidden in church at all events, with an effect inconceivably ridicillous to strangers. Bon- nets are on the women's heads and below their native dress ; the men are in worse than masquerade, some being without coats, some without trousers and so forth. While changes of this mis- chievous or useless kind have been enforced, no change has-been made in the important matter of their habitations ; and Mr. Hill attributes the rapidity with which the natives sink under disease to their grass houses. Though perhaps not unwholesome to people living in the open air and engaged. in the sports and employments that occupied the natives formerly, these fragile houses, Mr. Hui thinks, now tend to reduce the stamina, and in the rainy season to bring on disease or to incapacitate from resisting it.

The question of " mixed marriages" is one in which the Ro- mish Church has been charged with intolerance and spiritual ty- ranny. An intolerance quite as great, if not greater, prevails among the missionaries. For reasons chiefly social, Mr. Hill con- siders that marriages with native women and Europeans cannot take place to any extent. With the Chinese, of whom a good many were in the islands in 1849-1850, the difficulties connected with Europeans do not exist, and he thinks such marriages would have been beneficial.

"Unfortunately, however' for the present, there have been great difficul- ties about alliances between these parties, owing to the rigour with which the missionaries insist, not merely upon the Chinese receiving baptism be- fore contracting the marriage—which the looseness of their religious princi- ples renders them at all times ready to accept, but also, that they should afford sufficient proofs of the reality of their conversion to satisfy the mis- sionary called upon to officiate—which is a very different and a very difficult thing.' "The marriage of one of the Chinese of this place with a native woman had lately taken place under the following circumstances,. which were re- lated to us by the Reverend Mr. Coen himself. Application was made to him by the parties to celebrate the marriage: to which he replied, that he would be very willing to do so, upon the conversion and baptism of the Chinese. The Chinese, believing that all that was necessary was included in the ceremony of baptism concerning the proper signification of which he seemed to have no desire to 'be instructed, agreed very willingly to the terms prescribed ; and brought his betrothed the very next day, to have the bap- tismal and marriage ceremonies performed at the same time. The mission- ary was surprised at his appearance with these expectations, and the Chinese was as much disappointed to find that neither the one rite nor the other would be .performed until he had given proofs of his understanding and firmly believing all the essential points of the Christian revelation. He now willingly, however, accepted Mr. Coan's offer to give him all necessary in- struction, and for the present retired.

"The day after his disappointment, the man came to commence his course of study of the religion of which up to this time he had hardly heard a word beyond its name ; but it was soon apparent to the missionary that there was a wide difference between the task of converting a Chinese and that of instructing a Sandwich Islander. Our great opponent to the doctrine of innate ideas might scarcely have found a better example of the originally unimpressed character of the mind than one of these islanders, not so old as to have been under the spell of their ancient religion, nor sufficiently in- structed at an early age concerning the new, to have received the impres- sions that can only be indelibly stamped upon unoccupied understandings. It is very easy to write legibly upon a sheet of white paper, if one will take '

the smallest pains but it is difficult to do the same upon a sheet of parch- ment covered with characters long since too firmly impressed to admit of their being effaced. Moreover, there existed no means of communication between the missionary and his pupil save through the native tongue, which, besides being insufficient for such a purpose, was very imperfectly understood by the Chinese. With all these disadvantages, however, their studies were continued for several days, when the Chinese declared that he now quite understood, as well as believed, all that was taught him. But notwithstanding this, the missionary, after putting some appropriate ques- tions, was convinced that he neither lmlieved nor understood anything what- ever of all that had been communicated to him ; and declined to celebrate the marriage until truly assured of the conversion. It happened, however, 'whether by law or By custom alone that the Government native agents had been at one time, allowed to celebrate marriages between Christian parties; and, upon the downright refusal of the missionary to perform the ceremony while he believed the Chinese to be still in his original condition of heathen darkness, the parties applied to the agent of the district, who, after some hesitation, finally united them ; and the affair was ended by a reprimand from the authorities at the seat of the government to all the parties con- cerned, and, I believe, due notice to future lovers, that any other marriage of the kind would not be recognized."

Another error, as it turns out, but one very natural to fall into, was the adaptation of the native tongue to writing, and its use in the schools instead of English.* This point, and some other topics in connexion with native degradation and extinction, are touched upon in a discourse which our author had with Governor Young—one of the sons of the sailor Young whom Vancouver mentions, and who, partly through that navigator's patronage and advice, became eminent in position and in the history of the islands.

"He had been in England in company, with King Liholiho ;. and one of the first conversations which I held with him was concerning this memorable incident. It will suffice to mention only such portions of the discourse we held as have not been anticipated in a previous chapter. The Governor attributed the death of the King and Queen to their excitement, caused by the excessive attention shown them by the Londoners ; but he dwelt upon two circumstances in the history of their adventure above the rest--the in- terview which George IV. granted the survivors of the party after the death of their King, and an incident that occurred on board the ship that conveyed them back to their islands. George IV., he said, received them at Windsor, sitting upon a bench in the Park ; and after asking them many questions relating to the general affairs of these islands, promised them his protection in ease of the interference of any foreign power with their independence. Moreover, upon their asking the King his opinion concerning the respect due to the missionaries who were already in the islands, his Majesty, he said, very strongly advised them to embrace the religion brought among them, and to imitate the lives of those by whom they were taught. "he Governor next, in the melancholy strain which seemed habitual to him even while expressing the enjoyment which he had had during his sojourn in England, said--' What chiefly occupied our thoughts while in EnOand, was the incomprehensible causes of the vast difference between men in the state of civilization attained by Europeans, and men inthe simple condition of the pure natives of these islands ; and what has chiefly since occupied my own thoughts have been reflections concerning the Hale hope to be entertained of preservingthe existence of the race to a third generation. NIT the highest among you,' he continued, 'who will never visit the pacific, would be in a position exalted enough to hold the balance of justice, and bring about the sole means of saving the natives from utter extermina- tion, even perhaps before the maturity of the next generation—the mingling of the races, if not by means hitherto tried with very little effect, by some other that might prove more effectual. By George IV we were treated with a respect very different from that which we now receive from Euro- nesns mean rank, even to his Majesty's appointing a frigate to carry us tack to our islands. Moreover, we found matter for reflection en board the frigate as well as on share. As there was not sufficient accommodation in the cabin for so large a party, we were put among the officers in the gun-room ; which shocked these gentlemen so much that they refused to sit at table with us, declaring that they would not eat and drink with savages. Their murmur, however, soon reached the ear of Captain Byron; who sent them word that they might have their choke, either to eat with tlie guests of their sovereign, which he said was the light in which he must look upon his passengers while on board his ship, or to mess with the seamen in the forecastle.' "After this, the Governor, in a more general manner, spoke in the same despairing strain concerning the prospects of the native race. Everything,' lie said, 'that concerned them he believed, in spite of the benign endeavours of the missionaries, both physically as regarded health and capacity, and also morally, to be retrograde.' He thought a capital error committed by the mission had been a chief cause of the unsatisfactory result. This was teaching the natives so long, almostexclusively, through their own language. It might have been better, he said, that their tongue had never been reduced to rules and writing, for a very few books could ever be published in it. But, he added, that he did not see this error until it was too late for himself to learn the English language properly, and that he would now willingly give half the time he had to live to be able to read English, if it were only to afford him a source of amusement, of which he felt greatly the want.

The proverb of "the more haste the worse speed" seems to have been illustrated in the Society and Sandwich Islands. The superiority of the missionaries in the useful arts, their regularity of life, their religious claims, and perhaps as much as anything else the attention paid to them by the commanders of the higher class of vessels and the apparent force at their back, gave them a prestige which can only be compared to that of the first Spanish

uerors. This influence they used, as any one might have

it, to effect reforms per saltum and perforce. Instead of engrafting improvements on the native character and institutions, they aimed at a radical change of both. The result is failure, and a very probable extinction of the race ; in both which cases, however, errors of plan have been greatly aided by the vices and diseases of low Whites and of the crews of vessels.

The author of Sketches and Adventures in Madeira, Portugal, and Spain, is an American, with some of the national good quali- ties, some of the national bad qualities, and a few of the latter class that seem peculiar to himself. He is goodnatured, free and easy, fluent in images and diction, smart and flashy in manner ; but his faculties seem to originate in animal spirits as much as in mental vigour. Travel or reading has opened his eyes to Ameri- can weakneises, and rendered him tolerant of foreign habits or ideas ; but with the philosophy he has picked up something of the looseness of the cosmopolitan, while he attempts to cover his moral laxities with a varnish of sentimentality and grave reflec- tion. In his literary notions of pleura and tuum, the author, we fear, is like many of his countrymen, not over-scrupulous. We do not mean that he merely imitates style, matter, or subject— that is only plagiarism ; or -that he literally quotes large masses without mark or acknowledgment—which is publishers' piracy; the thing we mean lies between the two, and consists in taking images, ideas, facts, and their colouring, and reproducing them as if they were the result of original observation and thought. The parts relating to the gipsies of Spain seem to us borrowed in this way from Borrow. The bull-fights and the majos have been descrthed often enough, and both doubtless were seen by our au- thor; but there appears reproduction, if not in the facts, in the tone and manner. We believe his representations cannot always be depended upon. The love-affair of Dolores in which, after long flirtation, the author exhibits "the continence of Scipio," flying from Seville and temptation,—though the temptation partly appears in the figure of a friar,—is, to say the least, in very bad taste, and if founded in fact is no doubt dressed up for effect. The party given to the beggars in Granada after the Tom and Jerry fashion, and the gipsy-dance at Seville, look rather like fiction than reality. The descriptions of some of the dances, and the critical commentary thereupon, are too voluptuous, we should have thought, for the moral atmosphere of the United States, had not M. Golovm pictured their morality as really of the laxest.

Besides the faults already intimated, there is a want of new matter in the book. Either the author is ignorant of what is known about Madeira, Lisbon, Gibraltar, Cadiz, Seville, Granada, and a few other cities in the South of Spain, as well as of Spanish travelling, or he thinks his countrymen very ig- norant and in want of enlightening with the commonest know- ledge. A worse fault is the length at which he describes his own feelings, opinions and the external forms of things. An -entire chapter is devoted to the discomforts of a rough passage from Southampton to Madeira, in which the smallest details relating to a sea-sick voyager are dwelt upon : a large portion of Madeira consists of descriptions of landscape : something similar may be said of Lisbon and the excursions to be made thence. These are smartly enough done, but are better adapted for piece-

than continuous reading—for publication in a second-rate Periodical than in a book.

41 1 1

The "free and easy" manner of the author extends to his judgments; and sometimes -these have independence—he speaks of things as he finds them without much regard to common opin- ion. Of the information which we look for in a book of travels, relating to the people, their institutions, their arts, manufactures, or social economy, there is not much. The best of what there is relates to wines ; a subject which the author discusses with gusto and judgment. "Fine old Madeira" has gone out of fashion, but it would seem there are many wines of good quality in the island: the "Madeira" itself, like port and sherry, was a compound after all.

"All the wines of the island pass, -with the stranger, wider the general designation of Madeira wines. In the mean time, there is as great a differ- ence between the different wines of the island as between madeira and sherry, or sherry and port. Some are dry, some full-bodied, some of a fruity taste; some are light, and others heavy; some that would have de- lighted our grandfathers, men of strong heads, and others better suited to modern capacities. They are various in colour too. There are those of deeper red than port, while others again are paler than sherries. Indeed, there is hardly a taste which could not be gratified with some of the wines of the island.

"The wines of the South side of the island are the best; and indeed in aroma, delicacy of flavour, and cheerful prope.rties, are unsurpassed any- where. The finest are the sercial, the hne y, the biAal, the tints or burgundy madeira, and the tinto.

" The sercial is called a dry wine. Of a verity, if taken in full glasses, the victim would be very dry the morning after. It is potent, and to be treated accordingly. But its bouquet might 'create a soul under the ribs of death,' if anything could. It sends an odour through a room sweeter than pastils.

"The malmsey is too luscious a wine for ordinarrnie ; it should be taken as a liqueur, and as such only by women and children. It is one of the rarest and most costly wines of the island, and is produced nowhere else. Little of it is grown, and that little only with the greatest care. The slightest fog* or moisture blights it, and years often pass without a vintage.

" The bOal is a delicate and a mellow wine ; its grape, like an Anda- lusian maiden, should be gathered at the very moment of maturity : either wither rapidly after. Unlike sercial, which should be kept at least one-half the time Horace demands for poetry, the baal is pleasant in its infancy; yet time, that softens everything, adds additional mellowness to this. The grape grows scarcer each succeeding year, and the wine of course dearer. The best on the island is produced from the vineyards of Padre Joao, in the district of San Martinho—a priest of the Holy Catholic Church, a worthy man well skilled in the vine.

"The tints, also called the Madeira burgundy' because it has all that sunset glow of the latter wine, boasts a flavour of peculiar excellence. It gains its rich warm colour frem the husks of the grape, which are allowed to remain in the cask during fermentation, and which give to the wine some of the astringent properties of port. Its peculiar excellence is ephemeral. Unlike the other island wines, it gains no value from age. Two or three years are its grand climacteric. Thence it gradually loses its tender flavour and delicarP aroma, becomes morose, insipid, soured, like ladies of a cer- tain age,' and, like them, should be sedulously avoided. "But hi its prime Claude's colouring is not warmer, nor Moore's verse

more exciting. * * *

"Such are the best of the normal wines of the island : others arc made of their eommixture ; among which that exported as 'Madeira wine,' the component parts of which are principally the verileilho, the tinto, and haat, and wines of various kinds, differing in eolour, taste, and quality, are

i mgled together from the mother butts' and exported."

The most prominent feature in Mr. Ewbank's Life in Brazil is Popery, in its superstitions, in the character of its priesthood, and still more fully in its processions, festas, and spectacles. Ave large portion of his bulky volume is devoted to these external things, which become very tedious from their sameness and the turgid literalness of the author's mind.

Another feature of Brazilian life is slavery, which eleven years ago (1845-1846) was, according to the writer, a very cruel in- stitution." Chains attached to implements to prevent the Negroes from selling their masters' property for drink, or iron masks to prevent their swallowing at all, were common in the streets of Rio. Mr. Ewbank also describes (from report) the cruelties exercised in secret and on many plantations as very great, and leading ton good deal of suicide. On the similar state of things in the Southern parts of his own country he is silent. As he started from New York and returned to the Empire city, he may be an Abolitionist. At all events, he notes one peculiarity, which from the nature of the ease is everywhere characteristic of Western slavery.

"The unavoidable tendency of slavery everywhere is to render labour dis- reputable—a result superlatively wicked, since it inverts the natural order and destroys the harmony of society. Black slavery is rife in Brasil, and Brazilians shrink with something allied to horror from manual employ- ments. In the spirit of privileged classes of other lands, they say they ale not born to labour, but to command. Ask a respectable native youth of a family in low circumstances why he does not learn a trade and earn an in- dependent living; ten to one but he will tremble with indignation, and in- quire if you mean to insult him ! AVork ! work ! ' screamed one ; have Blacks to do that.' Yes, hundreds and hundreds of fern-lies have one or two slaves, on whose earnings alone they live. "Dr. C—, an old resident, says the young men will starve rather than become mechanics. He, some years ago, advised a poor widow, who had two boys, (one fourteen, the other =teem) to put them to trades. She rose, left the room, and never after spoke to him, although he had attended her family professionally for eight years without charge. He was recently accosted by a clerk in the Police Department, who made himself known as the widow's oldest son, and happy in a situation which brings him 300 milreis a year- 150 dollars ! To be employed under Government in the police is honourable, but to descend from an Emperor's service even to a merchant's is degrading. As an example of the general feeling, take the following : the parties are known to me. A gentleman of eighteen was induced to honour an import- ing house with his services at the desk. A parcel not larger than a double letter was handed him by one of the firm, with a request to take it to another house in the neighbourhood. He looked at it ; at the merchant ; took it be- tween a finger and thumb ; gazed again at both ; meditated a moment; stepped out, and, a few yards from the door, called a Black, who carried it behind him to its destination!"

The other topics of the traveller relate to the mode of ltving in Rio, or toi4scriptions of scenery, varied by an occasional excur- sion in the vicinity of the city.. In the more remarkable features of the county or its society /dr. Ewbank has been forestalled by observers of larger minds and better training. The minute de- tails and personal obtrusiveness with which the author encumbers his book, render it a at and lifeless affair, notwithstanding his " stump " rhetoric and his extreme opinions ; some of which go beyond the conclusions or at least the practice of his country- men. Here are two or three of his "notions."

"I left New York on the 2d of December 1845, by rail for Richmond, Va., to join the bark Mazeppa, in which I had engaged a passage to Rio. In passing through Jersey, crowds were assembled in every village in expecta- tion of the President's Message. It met us at Bristol, when every one re- sponded to the sentiments concerning Oregon. The feeling was universal, that not another foot of North America should be polluted with monarchy; and here, come what may, people should be free from the evils of hereditary

rulers, primogeniture, tithes, and a state priesthood. *

"went with T— to the British Chapel. * * * * The prayer-book handed me was one of those issued by authority,' polluted with royal mandates, enjoining upon its owner what he is to believe and whom he is to pray for. Besides thirty-nine items of faith prepared for him, remind- ing him of forty stripes lacking one administered to old unbelievers, it con- tains a creed, accompanied with a profusion of damnatory clauses, enough to make a savage shudder. It tells every one who doubts its dicta without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.' I would not stay a week in heaven with the red bigots that conceived it or the intriguing ones that perpetuate it."

"July 41h.—The American men-of-war, in gala dress, made the waters of the Bay flash and the air reverberate among the mountains in honour of the day when Use world's exodus from thraldom began."

This last is pretty well from a man whose country submits to be ruled by a class of oligarchs whose object is slavery, and whose means are organized corruption and lawless violence.