SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Tadvsme,

Eastern Life, Present and Past. By Harriet Martineau. In three volumes. • moron. PoirrioAr. Ecomoirr, The Past, the Present, and the Future. By H. C. Carey, Author of " Principles Or Political Economy," &c. &c Longman and Co. Marrs= ADVREITOILEX,

A Campaign in New Mexico, with Colonel Doniphan. By Frank S. Edwards, a Volunteer. With a Map of the route and a Table of the Distances traversed.

Hodson. Ficnow,

Fashion and Its Votaries. By Mrs. Maberly, Author or "Leontine,"&c. he. to three volumes Saunders and Otiey•

MISS MARTINEAr'S EASTMEN LIFE.

In the autumn of 1846 Miss Martineau was invited to accompany her friends Mr. and Mrs. V. Yates on an excursion to Egypt and the Holy Land. The party ascended the Nile as far as the Seoond Cataract ; ex- amined on their return the various ruins on its banks as well as the Pyramids ; visited Mount Sinai and Petra, under the usual escort of Arabs ; and travelled to Jerusalem, Damascus, and Baalbec, seeing of course the intermediate planes.

In all this there is nothing of greater novelty than a tour to France and Italy before the first French Revolution,—indeed, not nearly so much as for as books are concerned ; for it would be a weary task to enumerate all the travellers who have visited the Eastern Mediterranean, and pub- lished accounts of their travels within the last eighteen or twenty years, more especially since steam and the liberal rule of Mehemet Ali have rendered an excursion to Nubia less riekful to life and oomfort than a journey to Ireland was thirty years ago. The only novelty to be looked for in such a tour, is in the manner of the writer, or in opportunities of see- ing things tabooed to the general class of travellers, or in some view which genius or study may strike out from observation of the past. Miss Martineau had no special opportunity; in the way of life and great peo- ple she saw less than many other travellers have done. Her writing is as able as usual, but with the usual ponderous effect which elabora- tion produces. Her views and reflections, educed from actual observa- tion of Egypt and its monuments, the desert where the Israelites wander- ed, and Palestine, especially Jerusalem: are frequently powerful; but they partake of the character of the platform speech or the review article, and are somewhat injured in their effect by being out of place. Eastern life Present and Past, is a medley of journey, dis- quisition, and discourse. There is a narrative of travels, with its inci- dents, reflections, feelings, and descriptions ; and, worn as the ground has been, this part possesses interest and freshness, from the searching and trained observation of Miss Martineau and her skill in composition. She sees much that has escaped others, and presents it with more vividness : this part, however, would have had more attraction but for the intrusion- of the writer in propria persona, and the preponderance of mere feeling excited by scenery. Another section consists of a description of the re- mains of antiquity, especially of Egypt ; in which a lively idea is con- veyed of the character and condition of that ancient people, Miss Marti- neau interpreting : but whether that interpretation be a true and general account of the ideas suggested by the remains themselves, or peculiar to her imagination may be doubted. The mere descriptions, from the want of plans and plates, are, as such attempts to supersede forms by words must be, tiresome. Historical, philosophical, and religious disquisitions, form another part of the work. Miss Martineau prefaces her visit to the ancient cities of Thebes by a resume of the history of ancient Egypt ; she prepares to tread in the footsteps of the children of Israel during their wanderings by a disquisition on the (not Divine) "Legation of Moses" : her advent to Jerusalem is accompanied by an exposition of the Hebrew faith at the birth of Christ ; and questions with an historical or religious bearing are discussed at many other places. This is often done with thought, force, and novelty of view ; and Miss Martineau's ideas are ob- viously suggested by the scene. The bulk of the historical matter, how- ever, is common enough,—belonging in its origin to Sharpe and Wilkin. son, though now almost encyclopaedic in its commonness ; but the use exhibits Miss Martineau's wonted skill in appropriating what is common to her own purposes. There is a class of topics not so full or so numerous as those we have mentioned, but sufficient to form a distinct feature. Miss Martineau has adopted the rather vulgar habit of calling up histo- rical fancies when she comes to a remarkable place • a method which has more novelty in the East than at Paris or London, but which might as well have been weeded from a work of this pretension.

In truth, however, Eastern Life, Present and Past, is to some extent a piece of book-making. It is not the spontaneous narra- tive of travel, where the writer puts forth strong impressions of which she must be delivered; nor is it a book formed upon a preconceived plan, but the result apparently of an afterthought, though founded in its de- ecriptive parts upon Miss Martineau's journals. The consequence is, that there is a good deal of contrivance and making-up about the form of the book ; and the longer disquisitions might stand alone, or perhaps more properly appear in a periodical. Though very ably written, they are de- ficient in depth and originality,—a defect which characterizes Miss Mar- tineaa's mind. She is a promulgator rather than a discoverer : from her first publication—the tales illustrative of Political Economy, to one of her last—devoted to popularizing Friend Bright's views on the working or the Game-laws her leading characteristic has been that of somebody's mouthpiece : speaking very ably, no doubt, and illustrating the borrowed views with great aptness, vigour, and felicity, but still wanting that cer- tainty, weight, and satisfying character, which belongs to original and in- dependent thought. There is nothing visibly borrowed in the sense of plagiarism in the volumes before us ; but the book is not "taking" in proportion to its bulk. As a series of sketches' it wants the richnella and animation of Eothen or the Crescent and the Cross; the contplete± ness and solidity of more scientific travels.

Though such is the character of the work as a whole, there are parts of much interest for the subject-matter and the ability of the writer. Miss Martineau vigorously depicts a striking scene ; she has seen many things as a woman, an observer, and an old traveller, which have escaped less qualified lookers-on ; and she often enforces a foreign fact by pointing out the use it contains. She "improves" the occasion ; sometimes, no doubt, with the tone of a person who has a vocation to hold forth, but Still with effect. The ascent of the Cataract is one of her best descriptive passages. "It was a curious scene: the appearing of the dusky natives on all the rocks around; the eager zeal of those who made themselves our guards, holding us by the arms, as if we were going to gaol, and scarcely permitting ua to set our feet to the ground, lest we should fall; and the daring plunges and divings of man or boy, to obtain our admiration or our baksheesh. A boy would come riding down a slope of roaring water as confidently as I would ride down a isandhill on my ass. Their arms, in their fighting method of swimming, go round like the spokes of a wheel. Grinning boys poppled into the currents; and little seven-year-old sa- vages must haul at the ropes, or ply their little poles when the kandjia approached a spike of rock, or dive to thrust their shoulders between its keel and any sunken obstacle; and after every such feat they would pop up their dripping heads, and cry baksheesh.' I felt the greatpeculiarity of this day to be my seeing for the

first, and probably the only time of my life, the of of savage faculty: and truly it is an imposing sight. The quickness of movement and apprehension, the strength and suppleness of frame, and the power of experience in all concerned this day, contrasted strangely with images of the bookworm and the professional man at home, who can scarcely use their own limbs and senses or conceive of any control over external realities. I always thought in America, and I always shall think, that the finest specimens of human development! have seen are in the United States; where every man, however learned and meditative, can ride, drive, keep his own horse, and roof his own dwelling, and every woman, however intel- lectual, can do, if necessary, all the work of her own house. At home, I had seen one extreme of power, in the meagre helpless beings whose prerogatives lie wholly in the world of Ideas; here I saw the other, where the dominion was wholly. over the power of outward nature: and I must say, I as heartily wished for the intro- duction of some good bodily education at home as for intellectual enlightenment

here. • • • •

"Throughout the four hours of our ascent, I saw incessantly that though much is done by sheer force—by men enough pulling at a rope strong enough—some other requisites are quite as essential; great forecast, great sagacity, much nice management among currents and hidden and threatening rocks, and much know- ledge of the forces and subtilties of wind and water. The men were sometimes plunging to heave of the boat from a spike or ledge; sometimes swimming to a distant rock, with a rope between their teeth, which they carried round the boulders; then squatting upon it, and holding the end of the rope with their feet, to leave their hands at liberty for hauling. Sometimes a man dived to free the cable from a catch under water; then he would spring on boards to pole at any critical pass; and then ashore, to join the long file who were pulling at the cable. Then there was their patience and diligence; very remarkable when we went round and round an eddy many times, after all but succeeding, and failing again and again from the malice of the wind. Once this happened for aso long, and in such a boisterous eddy, that we began to wonder what was to be the end of it. Complicated as were the currents in this spot, we were four times saved from even grazing the rocks, when, after having nearly got through, we were borne back, and swung round to try again. The fifth time, there came a faint breath of wind, which shook our sail for a moment, and carried us Over the ridge of foam. What a shout there was when- we turned into still water! The last -ascent but one ap- peared

the most wonderful: the passage was twice over so narrow, barely admit-

ting kandjia, the promontory of rock so sharp, and the gash of water so strong; but the big rope, and the mob of haulers on the shore and the islets heaved us up steadily, and as one might say naturally, as if the boat took her course advisedly.

"Though this passage appeared to us the most dangerous, it was at the last that the &is of the Cataract interfered to request us to step ashore. We were very unwilling; but we could not undertake the responsibility of opposing the local pilot: he said it was mere force that was wanted here, the difficulty being only from the rush of the waters, and not from any complication of currents. But no man would undertake to say that the rope would bald; and if it did not, destruction was inevitable. The rope held: we saw the boat drawn up steadily and beautifully; and the work was done. Mr. E., who has great experience in nautical affairs, said that nothing could be cleverer than the management of the 'whole business. He believed that the feat could be achieved nowhere else, as there are no such swimmers elsewhere."

FITNESS OF EGYPTIAN ART TO EGYPT.

One other obligation which the Egyptians owe to the Desert struck me freshly and forcibly from the beginning of our voyage to the end. It plainly originated -their ideas of art. Not those of the present inhabitants, which are wholly Baracenic still; but those of the primitive race, who appear to have originated art all over the world. The first thing that impressed me in the Nile scenery, above Cairo, was the angularity of almost all forms. The trees appeared almost the only exception. The line of the Arabian hills soon became so even as to give thorn the appearance of being supports of a vast table-land, while the sand heaped up their bases was like a row of pyramids. Elsewhere, one's idea of sand-hills is that of all round eminences, they are the roundest; but here their form is generally that of truncated pyramids. The entrances of the caverns are square. The masses of sand left by the Nile are square. The river-banks are graduated by the action of the water, so that one may see a hundred natural ilometers in as many miles. Then, again, the forms of the rocks, especially the limestone ranges, are remarkably grotesque. In a few days, I saw, without looking for them, so many colossal figures of men and animals springing from the natural rock, so many sphinxes and strange birds, that I was quite prepared for anything I afterwards met with in the temples. The higher we went up the country, the more pyramidal became the forms of even the mud houses of the modern people; and in Nubia, they were worthy, from their angularity, of old Egypt. It is possible that the people of Abyssinia might, in some obscure age, have derived their ideas of art from Hindostan, and propagated them down the Nile. No one can now positively contradict it. But I did not feel on the spot that any derived art was likely to be in such perfect harmony with its surround- ings as that of Egypt certainly is; a harmony so wonderful as to be perhaps the most striking circumstance of all to an European, coming from a country where all art is derived, and its main beauty therefore lost. It is useless to speak of the beauty of Egyptian architecture and sculpture to those who, not going to Egypt, can form no conception of its main condition—its appropriateness. I need Dot add, that I think it worse than useless to adopt Egyptian forms and decora- tion in countries where there is no Nile and no Desert, and where decorations are not, as in Egypt, fraught with meaning—pictured language—messages to the gazer.

FERST VIEW OF THE PYRAMIDS.

When we had passed Werdan, about 4p. in., Mr. E. came tome with &mysteri- ous countenance, and asked me if I should like to be the first to see the Pyramids. We stole past the groups of careless talkers, and went to the bows of the boat, where I was mounted on boxes and coops, and shown where to look. In a minute

I saw them, emerging from behind a sand-hill. They were very small, for we

were still twenty-five miles from Cairo; but there could be no doubt about theta for a moment, so sharp and clear were the light and shadow on the two sides we saw. I had been assured that I should be disappointed in the first sight of the Pyramids; and I had maintained that I could not be disappointed, as of all the wonders of the world, this is the most literal, and, to a dweller among mountains, like myself, the least imposing. I now found both my informant and rayed" mistaken. So far from being disappointed, I was filled with surprise and awe. and so far was I from having anticipated what I saw, that I felt as if I had never before looked upon anything so new as those clear and vivid masses, with their sharp blue shadows standing firm and alone on their expanse of sand. in a few minutes, they appeared to grow wonderfully larger; and they looked lustrous and most imposing in the evening light. This impression of the Pyra. mids was never fully renewed. I admired them every evening from my window at Cairo, and I look the surest means of convincing myself of their vastness by going to the top of the !argent; but this first view of them was the most moving, and I cannot think of it now without emotion.

POLYGAMY AMONG THE poop.

One of our quiet Nubians, twenty-five years of age, had already two wives; and by what we heard of his life at home, he might well be content on beard the boat. As Aloe observed, a rich man may put his wives into different apart_ metes, but the poor man cannot; and the women panel fiercely and incessantly, This Nubian had to carry presents for his two wives after every voyage; and if they were not precisely alike, there was no end to the wrangling. Aloe called this permission to have more than one wife a very bad part of his religion. He was not yet married at all; and he did not intend to marry till he should have obtained money enough by his present employment to enable him to settle down in a home of his own. One of my friends one day expressed a hope that he would be careful in the choice of a wife- so careful in assuring himself of her tern. per and goodness, as not to be tempted to put her away, as husbands in Egypt do so lightly and cruelly. Alec did not quite promise this; but gave an account of what plan he should pursue, which shows how these matters are regarded by sensible young men in Egypt. Ile said he should buys White wife, when lie wanted to settle. He should tell her what he expected of her—viz., to be good. tempered- to make him comfortable; and to take care of his "boys." If she failed, he should, the first time, tell her his mind "very strongly." And then, if she got out of temper, or was negligent a second time, he should "just put her away," This was said with the gesture of Othello at the words "whistle her down the wind."

Among the rich, however, polygamy is described as far worse than among the poor, notwithstanding their number of rooms. Miss Martineau visited two harems' and de.scribes part of what she saw, besides indica. ting a variety of horrors which she either saw or heard but which she will not tell because it would be useless. Even murder is men- tioned, and the murder of children from jealousy; while those who are allowed to live are corrupted by what they see and hear. To what ex- tent Miss Martinean's preaching upon this subject is well founded, or how far the evil may be modified geographically, we cannot tell. Persons who know much more about the East 'than Miss Martineau do not speak of its domestic life in the strain that she dogs; and it is possible that she has been crammed with exceptional storiea as examples of the rule. On the other hand, the better authority of "Mi. Titmarsh," in his Tourney from Cornhill to Cairo, supports Miss Martineau, as regards Egypt.