was carried through the heralds of Christianity to the most distant parts of the globe. It supplanted in its victorious progress the ancient vernaculars of Gaul, Spain, and Portugal, and it struck deep roots in parts of Switzerland and Walachia. When it came in contact with the more vigorous idioms of the Teutonic tribes, though it could not supplant or annihilate them, it left on their surface a thick layer of foreign words, and it thus supplied the greater portion in the dictionary of nearly all the civilised nations of the world. Words which were first used by Italian shepherds are now used by the statesmen of England, the poets of France, the philosophers of Germany; and the faint echo of their pastoral conversation may be heard in the senate of Washington, in the cathedral of Calcutta, and in the settlements of New Zealand. your own disposal,' he said, 'and these ought to be devoted to systematic study.' Next morning Tyndall was at his books before five o'clock, and for twelve years afterwards he never swerved from the practice.' work, then studying abroad, first under Professor He was next engaged in railway Bunsen at Marburg in Hesse Cassel, and afterwards at Berlin in the laboratory of Professor Magnus. In 1852 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1853 he was unanimously appointed to the Professorship of Natural Philosophy. In 1856, in company with Professor Huxley, he visited Switzerland, and the result was a series of papers by the two friends on the structure and motion of glaciers. Other journeys and I shall trace the career of a few of those early Roman investigations were undertaken by Professor words, in order to shew how words may change, and Tyndall, and described in his work on the Glaciers how they adapt themselves to the changing wants of each generation. I begin with the royal word Palace. of the Alps, 1860. He has since published MounA palace now is the abode of a royal family. But if we taineering, 1861; A Vacation Tour, 1862; Heat look at the history of the name we are soon carried back Considered as a Mode of Motion, 1863; On Radiato the shepherds of the Seven Hills. There, on the tion, 1865; Sound, a Course of Eight Lectures, Tiber, one of the Seven Hills was called the Collis 1867; Faraday as a Discoverer, 1868; Natural Palatinus, and the hill was called Palatinus, from Pales, Philosophy in Easy Lessons, 1869; Essays on the a pastoral deity, whose festival was celebrated every year Imagination in Science, 1870; Fragments of on the 21st of April as the birthday of Rome. It was Science for Unscientific People, 1871; Hours of to commemorate the day on which Romulus, the wolf-Exercise in the Alps, 1871 ; &c. Professor Tyndall child, was supposed to have drawn the first furrow on is an enthusiastic climber and admirer of Alpine the foot of that hill, and thus to have laid the founda- scenery, 'a remarkable example,' it has been said, tion of the most ancient part of Rome, the Roma Quad-of combined cerebral and muscular activity.' rata. On this hill, the Collis Palatinus, stood in later times the houses of Cicero and of his neighbour and He has done much to popularise science as a enemy Catiline. Augustus built his mansion on the same lecturer at the Royal Institution, besides being Like Mr hill, and his example was followed by Tiberius and Nero. distinguished for original research. Under Nero all private houses had to be pulled down Huxley, he has stood forward as an advocate for on the Collis Palatinus, in order to make room for the free and unrestricted research into all the recesses emperor's residence, the Domus Aurea, as it was of mind and matter; but has indignantly repudicalled, the Golden House. This house of Nero's was ated the creed of atheism which had been lightly henceforth called the Palatium, and it became the attributed to him. type of all the palaces of the kings and emperors of Europe. ... Another modern word, the English court, the French cour, the Italian corte, carries us back to the same locality and to the same distant past. It was on the hill of Latium that cohors or cors was first used in the sense of a hurdle, an inclosure, a cattle-yard. The cohortes or divisions of the Roman army were called by the same name; so many soldiers constituted a pen or court.... a Thus cors, cortis, from meaning a pen, a cattle-yard, became in medieval Latin curtis, and was used like the German Hof of the farms and castles built by Roman settlers in the provinces of the empire. These farms became the centres of villages and towns, and in the modern names of Vraucourt, Graincourt, Leincourt, Magnicourt, Aubignicourt, the older names of Vari curtis, Grani curtis, Leonii curtis, Manii curtis, Albini curtis, have been discovered. Lastly, from meaning a fortified place, curtis rose to the dignity of a royal residence, and became synonymous with palace. The two names having started from the same place, met again at the end of their long career. PROFESSOR TYNDALL. The Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution has had a very active and checkered career. JOHN TYNDALL, a native of Ireland, was born about the year 1820, and was employed for some years on the Ordnance Survey. "While stationed at Cork, he worked at mapping in the same room with a very able man, Mr Lawrence Ivers. Noticing the work and conduct of Tyndall, Mr Ivers asked him how he employed his leisure time. You have five hours a day at Freedom of Inquiry. It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should agree with you, deeming it indeed certain that these views will undergo modification. But the point is, that, whether right or wrong, we claim the right to discuss them. For science, however, no exclusive claim is here made; you are not urged to erect it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man's understanding in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of his moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never satisfy, are here equally set forth. The world embraces not only a Newton, but a Shakspeare not only a Boyle, but a Raphael-not only a Kant, but a Beethoven-not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed, but supplementary-not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will still turn to the mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith; so long as this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs-then, casting aside all the restrictions of materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative Here, however, I touch a theme too handle, but which will assuredly be loftiest minds when you and I, like * Supplement to English Cyclopædia (Biography). streaks of morning cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of the past. This extract is from Professor Tyndall's address delivered at Belfast in 1874. From the same address we give another passage: Advance in Science since the Days of Bishop Butler. Bishop Butler accepted with unwavering trust the chronology of the Old Testament, describing it as 'confirmed by the natural and civil history of the world, collected from common historians, from the state of the earth, and from the late inventions of arts and sciences.' These words mark progress; and they must seem somewhat hoary to the bishop's successors of to-day. It is hardly necessary to inform you that since his time the domain of the naturalist has been immensely extended-the whole science of geology, with its astounding revelations regarding the life of the ancient earth, having been created. The rigidity of old conceptions has been relaxed, the public mind being rendered gradu. ally tolerant of the idea that not for six thousand, nor for sixty thousand, nor for six thousand thousand, but for æons embracing untold millions of years, this earth has been the theatre of life and death. The riddle of the rocks has been read by the geologist and palæontologist, from subcambrian depths to the deposits thickening over the sea-bottoms of to-day. And upon the leaves of that stone-book are, as you know, stamped the characters, plainer and surer than those formed by the ink of history, which carry the mind back into abysses of past time, compared with which the periods which satisfied Bishop Butler cease to have a visual angle. The lode of discovery once struck, those petrified forms in which life was at one time active increased to multitudes, and demanded classification. They were grouped in genera, species, and varieties, according to the degree of similarity subsisting between them. Thus confusion was avoided, each object being found in the pigeon-hole appropriated to it and to its fellows of similar morphological or physiological character. The general fact soon became evident that none but the simplest forms of life lie lowest down, that as we climb higher among the super-imposed strata more perfect forms appear. The change, however, from form to form was not continuous, but by steps-some small, some great. 'A section,' says Mr Huxley, a hundred feet thick will exhibit at different heights a dozen species of ammonite, none of which passes beyond its particular zone of limestone, or clay, into the zone below it, or into that above it.' In the presence of such facts, it was not possible to avoid the question: Have these forms, shewing, though in broken stages, and with many irregularities, this unmistakable general advance, been subjected to no continuous law of growth or variation? ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, born in Edinburgh in 1835, is author of several geological works, and was associated with Sir Roderick Murchison in investigating the geological structure of the Scottish Highlands, preparing a memoir of that district, and drawing up a new geological map of Scotland (1861). He was director of the Survey of Scotland, and when a chair of mineralogy and geology was founded in the university of Edinburgh in 1870, Mr Geikie was appointed professor. In 1872 the university of St Andrews conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. The works of Dr Geikie are—The Story of a Boulder, 1858; Life of Professor Edward Forbes (conjointly with the late Dr George Wilson), 1861; Phenomena of the Glacial Drift of Scotland, 1863; The Scenery of Scotland viewed in connection with its Physical Geology, 1865; and various articles in reviews and scientific journals. JAMES GEIKIE, a brother of the above, has written a large and valuable work, The Great Ice Age and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man. PROFESSOR WHITNEY. WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY, Professor of Sanscrit and Instructor in Modern Languages in Yale College, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1827. He has written various works, including Twelve Lectures on Language and the Study of Language, 1867. Of these lectures, the first seven have, with consent of the author and publisher, been reprinted by the Rev. Dr Morris, as a sound and scientific introduction to a more advanced course of comparative philology. Dr Morris adds an introduction with notes, tables of declension, and an index, rendering the volume very useful for students. Professor Whitney is a well-known Sanscrit scholar, but in these lectures he has chosen English as the language from which the most telling of his examples and explanations of linguistic changes are drawn. Celtic Branch of the Indo-European Languages. So completely were the Gaulish dialects of Northern Italy, France, and Spain wiped out by the Latin, so few traces of them are left to us, either in the later idioms of the Latin or in fragments of writings, inscriptions, and coins, that it is still a matter of doubt and question among Celtic scholars to which of the known divisions of Celtic speech, the Gadhelic or the Cymric, they be longed, or whether they did not constitute a third division co-ordinate with them. Aside from the exceedingly scanty and obscure Gallic epigraphical monuments, and the few single words preserved in classic authors, the earliest records both of Irish and Welsh speech are glosses, or interlinear and marginal versions and comments written by Celtic scholars upon manuscripts which they were studying, in old times when Wales and Ireland, especially the latter, were centres of a lively literary and Christian activity. Of these glosses, the Irish are by far the most abundant, and afford a tolerably distinct idea of what the language was at about the end of the eight century. There is also an independent literary work, a Life of St Patrick, which is supposed to belong to the beginning of the ninth century. The other principal Gadhelic dialect, the Scotch Gaelic, presents us a few songs that claim to be of the sixteenth attention a hundred years ago, and whose genuineness century. The Ossianic poems, which excited such and value have been the subject of so lively discussion, are probably built upon only a narrow foundation of real Gaelic tradition. oldest monuments of definite date. Though hardly, if at In the Cymric division, the Welsh glosses are the all, less ancient than the Irish, coming down from somewhere between the eighth and the tenth centuries, they are very much more scanty in amount, hardly sufficient to do more than disprove the supposed antiquity of the earliest monuments of the language that possess a proper literary character. For long centuries past the Welsh bards have sung in spirit-stirring strains the glories and the woes of their race; and it is claimed that during much more than a thousand years, or ever since the sixth century, the era of Saxon invasion and conquest, some of their songs have been handed down from generation to generation, by a careful and uninterrupted tradition, and the claim is probably well founded; only, it is also pretty certain that as they have been handed down, they have been modernised in diction, so that, in their present form, they represent to us the Welsh language of a time not much preceding the date of the oldest manuscripts, or of the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. The later Welsh literature, as well as the Irish, is abundant in quantity. The Cornish, also, has a tolerably copious literature of not far from the same age; its earliest monument, a Latin-Cornish vocabulary, may be as old as the twelfth century. The language of Brittany, the Armorican-which is so closely allied with the two last mentioned, that it cannot well be guarded as a remnant and representative of the Celtic dialects of Gaul, but must rather belong to colonists or fugitives from Britain-is recorded in one or two brief works going back to the fourteenth century or even farther. DR JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, a The distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the university of New York, in 1875 published a History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, commencing with the Greek conquest of Persia, and the subsequent division of Alexander's empire, which resulted in the establishment of the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt. This was succeeded by the erection of the Museum as school of knowledge at Alexandria, then the intellectual metropolis of the world. Dr Draper traces the influence of the Museum and the development of science. The philosophy was of the stoical Pantheistic type. Though there is a Supreme Power,' said the ethical teachers, 'there is no Supreme Being; there is an invisible principle, but not a personal God, to whom it would be not so much blasphemy as absurdity to impute the form, the sentiments, the passions of man.' The soul of man was supposed to be re-absorbed into the universal soul; and as the tired labourer looks forward to the insensibility of sleep, so the philosopher, weary of the world, anticipated the tranquillity of extinction. Dr Draper next proceeds to describe the rise of Christianity, and to give a history of the conflict between religion and science from that time to the present day.' But the work should more correctly be termed a history of the conflict between science and the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek Church, he says, has met the advance of knowledge with welcome; the Protestant Churches have been mostly averse to constraint, and their opposition has seldom passed beyond the exciting of theological odium.In speaking of Christianity,' says Dr Draper, reference is generally made to the Roman Church, partly because its demands are the most pretentious, and partly because it has sought to enforce those demands by the civil power.' Now to this it may be objected that the conflict of a church with science, and that church a political or state organisation, is not a battle between science and religion. The maintenance of its own power was the object of the Papacy, 101 and with perfect impartiality it persecuted alike its religious opponents and the scientific discoverer. It would be as reasonable to charge upon science all the absurdities of alchemy and astrology as to discredit religion with all the follies of its professed followers. In his History, Dr Draper gives an account of the rise of Mohammedanism and the conquests of the Arabs, who carried with them into Europe a taste for philosophy and science. In the tenth century, the Caliph Hakem II. had made Andalusia a sort of terrestrial paradise, where Christians, Mussulmans, and Jews mixed together without restraint. Luxuries of the Spanish Caliphs. all the luxuries of oriental life. They had magnificent The Spanish caliphs had surrounded themselves with palaces, enchanting gardens, seraglios filled with beautiful women. Europe at the present day does not offer more taste, more refinement, more elegance, than might have been seen at the epoch of which we are speaking, in the capitals of the Spanish Arabs. Their streets were lighted and solidly paved. Their houses were frescoed and carpeted; they were warmed in winter by furnaces, and cooled in summer with perfumed air brought by underground pipes from flower-beds. They had baths and libraries and dining-halls, fountains of quicksilver and water. City and country were full of conviviality, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin. Instead of the drunken and gluttonous wassail orgies of their Northern neighbours, the feasts of the Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited. The enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia were spent by the Moors in sequestered fairy-like gardens, or in orange groves, listening to the romances of the storyteller, or engaged in philosophical discourse; consoling themselves for the disappointments of this life by such reflections as that, if virtue were rewarded in this world, we should be without expectations in the life to come; and reconciling themselves to their daily toil by the expectation that rest will be found after death—a rest never to be succeeded by labour. Dr Draper is stated to have been born near Liverpool in 1811. He graduated at the university of Pennsylvania in 1836, and in 1839 was appointed Professor of Chemistry in the university of New York. His Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical, is considered one of the best of our physiological treatises. He has also written on the Organisation of Plants, 1844; a History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, 1864; text-books on chemistry and natural history. GEORGE SMITH. and MR GEORGE SMITH (1840-1876), a gentleman honourably associated with the progress of Assyrian discovery, was of humble origin. In his fifteenth year he was apprenticed to a bank-note engraver, but his leisure hours were devoted to the study of oriental antiquities; and on the recommendation of Sir Henry Rawlinson, he was engaged in the British Museum (1857). A contemporary account says: "Several years of arduous and successful study were fruitful of important results; but it was in 1872 that Mr Smith had the good fortune to make what in this connection may be reckoned as his culminating discovery-that, namely, of the tablets containing the Chaldean account of the deluge, the first fragment discovered containing about half the 769 account which was afterwards supplemented as the result of arduous and ingenious research, in the course of which Mr Smith ascertained that the deluge tablet was, in fact, the eleventh of a series of twelve giving the history of an unknown hero named Izdubar.' Mr Smith left London on his last mission of discovery at the beginning of the present year (1876), but died at Aleppo on the 19th August. His career has been short, but no one can doubt its brilliancy; and he was endeared to the large number of friends whom his geniality attracted and attached for the singular modesty and equilibrium which characterised him even in the most trying moments of homage and ovation.' Mr Smith's chief publication is his Chaldean Account of Genesis, containing the description of the creation, the fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel, the times of the patriarchs and Nimrod; Babylonian fables and legends of the gods, from the cuneiform inscriptions. TRAVELLERS. is not that they are regarded, like pagan females, as unsusceptible of religious sentiments, but because the meeting of the two sexes in a sacred place is supposed to be unfavourable to devotion. This, however, is an oriental, not a Mohammedan prejudice. The custom is nearly the same among the Christians as among the Mussulmans. In the Greek churches the females are separated from the males, and concealed behind a lattice; and something of the same kind I have observed among the Christians of Mesopotamia. Six Years Residence in Algiers, by MRS BROUGHTON, published in 1839, is an interesting domestic chronicle. The authoress was daughter to Mr Blanckley, the British consul-general at Algiers; and the work is composed of a journal kept by Mrs Blanckley, with reminiscences by her daughter, Mrs Broughton. The vivacity, minute description, and kindly feeling everywhere apparent in this book render it highly attractive. Discoveries in the Interior of Africa, by SIR JAMES ALEXANDER, two volumes, 1838, describe a journey from Cape Town, of about four thousand miles, and occupying above a year, towards the tracts of country inhabited by the Damaras, a nation of which very little was known, and River, on the west coast. The author's personal generally the country to the north of the Orange adventures are interesting, and it appears that the aborigines are a kind and friendly tribe of people, with whom Sir James Alexander thinks that an extended intercourse may be maintained for the mutual benefit of the colonists and the natives. Every season adds to our library of foreign travels and adventures. Dr Edward Clarke saw and described more of the East, as Byron said, than any of his predecessors, but a numerous tribe of followers has succeeded. Travels in the East, by the REV. HORATIO SOUTHGATE, 1840, describe the traveller's route through Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia, and give a good account of the Mohammedan religion and its rites and ceremonies. The follow-phylia. Mr Fellows has also written a second ing is a correction of a vulgar error: Religious Status of Women in the Mohammedan System. The place which the Mohammedan system assigns to woman in the other world has often been wrongfully represented. It is not true, as has sometimes been reported, that Mohammedan teachers deny her admission to the felicities of Paradise. The doctrine of the Koran is, most plainly, that her destiny is to be determined in like manner with that of every accountable being; and according to the judgment passed upon her is her reward, although nothing definite is said of the place which she is to occupy in Paradise. Mohammed speaks repeatedly of believing women,' commends them, and promises them the recompense which their good deeds deserve. The regulations of the Sunneh are in accordance with the precepts of the Koran. So far is woman from being regarded in these institutions as a creature without a soul, that special allusion is frequently made to her, and particular directions given for her religious conduct. Respecting her observance of Ramazan, her ablutions, and many other matters, her duty is taught with a minuteness that borders on indecorous precision. She repeats the creed in dying, and, like other Mussulmans, says: In this faith I have lived, in this faith I die, and in this faith I hope to rise again.' She is required to do everything of religious obligation equally The command to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca extends to her. In my journeys, I often met with women on their way to the Holy City. They may even undertake this journey without the consent of their husbands, whose authority in religious matters extends only to those acts of devotion which are not obligatory. with men. Women are not, indeed, allowed to be present in the mosques at the time of public prayers: but the reason Asia Minor in 1838, by CHARLES FELLOWS, is A Journal written during an Excursion in valuable from the author's discoveries in Pam work, Ancient Lycia, an Account of Discoveries made during a Second Excursion to Asia Minor in 1840. LIEUT. J. R. WELLSTED, author of Travels in Arabia, the Peninsula of Sinai, and along the Shores of the Red Sea, 1838; and LORD LINDSAY, in his Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land, 1838, supply some additional details. The scene of the encampment of the Israelites, after crossing the Red Sea, is thus described by Lord Lindsay: The Red Sea. The bright sea suddenly burst on us, a sail in the distance, and the blue mountains of Africa beyond ita lovely vista. But when we had fairly issued into the plain on the sea-shore, beautiful indeed, most beautiful was the view-the whole African coast, from Gebel Ataka to Gebel Krarreb, lay before us, washed by the Red Sea-a vast amphitheatre of mountains, except the space where the waters were lost in distance between the Asiatic and Libyan promontories. It was the stillest hour of day; the sun shone brightly, descending to his palace in the occident;' the tide was coming in with its peaceful pensive murmurs, wave after wave. It was in this plain, broad, and perfectly smooth from the mountains to the sea, that the children of Israel encamped after leaving Elim. What a glorious scene it must then have presented! and how nobly those rocks, now so silent, must have re-echoed the Song of Moses and its ever-returning chorus- Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea!' The EARL OF CARLISLE, in 1854, published an interesting, unpretending volume, entitled A Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters. His lordship is also author of a lecture on Pope, and of a paraphrase in verse, The Second Vision of Daniel, 1858. As a guide and pleasant companion over another Eastern route, we may note the Overland Journey to the North of India from England, by LIEUTENANT ARTHUR CONOLLY, two volumes, 1834. Lieutenant Conolly's journey was through Russia, Persia, and Afghanistan. MISS EMMA ROBERTS, in the following year, gave a lively and entertaining series of Scenes and Characteristics of Hindustan, with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society. | This lady went out again to India in 1839, and was engaged to conduct a Bombay newspaper; but she died in 1840. Her Notes of an Overland Journey through France and Egypt to Bombay were published after her death. Another lady, MRS POSTANS, published (1839) Cutch, or Random Sketches taken during a Residence in one of the Northern Provinces of Western India. The authoress resided some years in the province of Cutch, and gives a minute account of the feudal government and customs, the religious sects and superstitions of the people. The aristocratic distinctions of caste are rigidly preserved, and the chiefs are haughty, debauched, and cruel. Sacrifice of a Hindu Widow. From Mrs Postans's Cutch, or Random Sketches, &c. News of the widow's intentions having spread, a great concourse of people of both sexes, the women clad in their gala costumes, assembled round the pyre. In a short time after their arrival the fated victim appeared, accompanied by the Brahmins, her relatives, and the body of the deceased. The spectators showered chaplets of mogree on her head, and greeted her appearance with laudatory exclamations at her constancy and virtue. The women especially pressed forward to touch her garments-an act which is considered meritorious, and highly desirable for absolution and protection from the ' evil eye.' The widow was a remarkably handsome woman, apparently about thirty, and most superbly attired. Her manner was marked by great apathy to all around her, and by a complete indifference to the preparations which for the first time met her eye. From this circumstance an impression was given that she might be under the influence of opium; and in conformity with the declared intention of the European officers present to interfere should any coercive measures be adopted by the Brahmins or relatives, two medical officers were requested to give their opinion on the subject. They both agreed that she was quite free from any influence calculated to induce torpor or intoxication. Captain Burnes then addressed the woman, desiring to know whether the act she was about to perform were voluntary or enforced, and assuring her that, should she entertain the slightest reluctance to the fulfilment of her vow, he, on the part of the British government, would guarantee the protection of her life and property. Her answer was calm, heroic, and constant to her purpose: I die of my own free-will; give me back my husband, and I will consent to live; if I die not with him, the souls of seven husbands will condemn me!'. Ere the renewal of the horrid ceremonies of death were permitted, again the voice of mercy, of expostulation, and even of entreaty was heard; but the trial was vain, and the cool and collected manner with which the woman still declared her determination unalterable, chilled and startled the most courageous. Physical pangs evidently excited no fears in her; her singular creed, the customs of her country, and her sense of con jugal duty, excluded from her mind the natural emotions of personal dread; and never did martyr to a true cause go to the stake with more constancy and firmness, than did this delicate and gentle woman prepare to become the victim of a deliberate sacrifice to the demoniacal tenets of her heathen creed. Accompanied by the officiating Brahmin, the widow walked seven times round the pyre, repeating the usual mantras or prayers, strewing rice and coories on the ground, and sprinkling water from her hand over the by-standers, who believe this to be efficacious in preventing disease and in expiating committed sins. She then removed her jewels, and presented them to her relations, saying a few words to each with a calm soft smile of encouragement and hope. The Brahmins then presented her with a lighted torch, bearing which— Fresh as a flower just blown, And warm with life, her youthful pulses playing, she stepped through the fatal door, and sat within the pile. The body of her husband, wrapped in rich kinkaub, was then carried seven times round the pile, and finally laid across her knees. Thorns and grass were piled over the door; and again it was insisted that free space should be left, as it was hoped the poor victim might yet relent, and rush from her fiery prison to the protection so freely offered. The command was readily obeyed; the strength of a child would have sufficed to burst the frail barrier which confined her, and a breathless pause succeeded; but the woman's constancy was faithful to the last. Not a sigh broke the deathlike silence of the crowd, until a slight smoke, curling from the summit of the pyre, and then a tongue of flame darting with bright and lightning-like rapidity into the clear blue sky, told us that the sacrifice was completed. Fearlessly had this courageous woman fired the pile, and not a groan had betrayed to us the moment when her spirit fled. At sight of the flame a fiendish shout of exultation rent the air; the tom-toms sounded, the people clapped their hands with delight as the evidence of their murderous work burst on their view, whilst the English spectators of this sad scene withdrew, bearing deep compassion in their hearts, to philosophise as best they might on a custom so fraught with horror, so incompatible with reason, and so revolting to human sympathy. The pile continued to burn for three hours; but, from its form, it is supposed that almost immediate suffocation must have terminated the sufferings of the unhappy victim. First Impressions and Studies from Nature in Hindustan, by LIEUTENANT THOMAS BACON, two volumes, 1837, is a more lively but carelessly written work, with good sketches of scenery, buildings, pageants, &c. The HON. MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE (1778-1859), in 1842, gave an account of the kingdom of Cabul, and its dependencies in Persia, Tatary, and India; and A Narrative of Various Journeys in Beloochistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjaub, by CHARLES MASSON, describes with considerable animation the author's residence in those countries, the native chiefs, and personal adventures with the various tribes from 1826 to 1838. MR C. R. BAYNES, a gentleman in the Madras civil service, published in 1843 Notes and Reflections during a Ramble in the East, an Overland Journey to India, &c. His remarks are just and spirited, and his anecdotes and descriptions lively and entertaining. Remark by an Arab Chief. An Arab chieftain, one of the most powerful of the princes of the desert, had come to behold for the first time a steam-ship. Much attention was paid to him, and every facility afforded for his inspection of every |