continued in one line, they are admirable, but on one line only. These, with other suggestions, are very proper to be hinted at: but before they are enacted they ought to be thoroughly examined. If we consider what must have been the origin of most roads in our island, we shall find it in the conjunction and enlargement of ancient paths; sheep paths, perhaps, in the first instance. These would turn aside to avoid a bank that presented no obstacle which is now thought worthy of attention: perhaps it has been cut through ages ago; or they skirted some marsh, which has long been converted into solid ground: and we now seek with wonder for the cause of their deviation. In like manner, fords dictated the course of paths, and their direction to the places where such conveniences were to be found: instead of which, we now cross over the stream by a bridge. But these improvements have But, some degree of jealousy as to the beauty of our roads, and of the scenery of which they form a part, may be pardoned in those who have visited foreign countries, and have considered the system on which their roads are constructed. In many districts of our island, the public highway offers a variety of most delightful scenes. Every turn increases the enjoyment, as it shifts the prospect. Travelling in some counties is little other than a progress through a park: the eye is delighted, the heart is cheered, and the spirit is revived, too; it is even of political benefit that the " green island" (the ancient name of Britain) should be the first of islands in beauty as in importance, should expand the soul with gratulation, while a Briton glowing with affection to his native land, his own, own Albion, should be prompted to adopt with honest fervency and commendable partiality, the language of Thomson : Oh blest Britannia!-Guardian of mankind! not in all cases varied the lines of roads so effectually as to improve them to every advantage that they might possess under Her meads: her gardens smile eternal spring. ' modern improvements. "In most hilly situations, the road passes oversteepascents, when a level course could be obtained by winding round the base, without increasing the distance, an improvement which might be effected by a small increase in the toll, which would be amply compensated for, by the consequent diminution of draught, and charge of conveyance. And we have examples of its utility in several roads in Derbyshire and Gloucestershire, and particularly in the military roads in Scotland, cut through much more stubborn materials than any part of England presents. "In fact, the more hilly the face of the country, the more practicable is the the necessity of improvement; mounting high ascents is only evident in passing the central ridges, which par tition the country into districts." sur Add cities, full Of wealth, of trade, of cheerful toiling crowds; Embosom'd high, while kindred floods below In PANORAMA, Vol. III. p. 1. et seq. may be seen an outline of the attention paid by Parliament to the forming of new roads in Scotland: and in the same Vo. Such are the considerations, that demand investigation on every side, before parliament can commit itself by the establishing of permanent regulations, in-lume, p. 237.-In Vol. I. p. 365, and tended to augment the utility, of these very important means of communication; -means which, in fact, do more practi cally towards making ONE COMMUNITY of the United Kingdom, than all the political efforts of the most enlightened statesman. p. 557, we have given a view of the principles proposed for the construction of highways generally, as appears by the Report of a Committee of Hon. House of Commons; to that article we beg leave to refer, as closely connected with the pre sent. at Scanderoon, where he resided six years. He died in 1785; and the reason assigned for not publishing his narrative sooner, is the professional engagements of the editor, to whom the MS, descended as son of Rev. J. Berjew, of Bristol, brother-in-law of the author. Travels in Asia and Africa; including a THE art of observing is very distinct from the act of travelling; it requires preparations much more extensive, and, in our opinion, much more important. Travellers, indeed, are said to see much of the world; but their different manners of seeing, or of describing what they have seen, may confer on their works, when submitted to the public, very different degrees of interest and importance. The intention with which a gentleman tra vels seldom fails to give a tone to his observations; while his natural disposition, or adventitious circumstances, directs him in the choice of subjects for his peculiar attention. Station of life also has a power ful effect; the military officer analyses the courage and skill of the natives of those countries through which he passes; while the merchant examines their natural productions, and means of exporta. tion. But the merchant does not always communicate the whole of his observations to the world: his situation usually implies confidence; and his unwillingness to disclose too much, restrains him from affording all the intelligence that he safely might afford. This volume is a proof of the justice of our remark. Unquestionably, Mr. P. must have had opportunities of intimate acquaintance with the commerce of the East, and, after a lapse of thirty years, we should suppose, that the general course of it might, without hazard, have been explained to the reader. An article of this description, marked by such authority, would have been read with interest, But, we are not to condemn a work because it does not contain all we desire: and we are rather in justice to consider Mr. P. as furnishing memojanda of his journey from Aleppo eastward, that as occupying a station of trust VOL. V. [Lit. Pan. Oct, 1808.] The course of the last thirty years has produced a variety of information on the state of the Oriental countries, partly collect by foreign writers, principally French, Had the work before us appeared at the and partly by those of our own island. time when it was fresh from the hands of the author, it would have had greater pretensions to novelty, than it now has; nor could that comparison, which now is not to its advantage, have been made. The present state of these countries, as of all others, is at this moment the main object of inquiry; and the desire of forming some rational judgment as to their awaited destiny, is the strongest that rises in our minds with respect to them. This cannot anticipate much gratification from travels dated in the year 1774. course of nature, to be sure, is the same; the rivers, the mountains, and the deserts, are permanent: but the disposition of the inhabitants, their sentiments, their con dition, and the state of knowledge among them, may be so changed as to justify conclusions altogether opposite to those which must be deduced from the descriptions of Mr. P. The "Under these considerations, we shall do little more than transcribe a few passages, by which the reader may form his own opinion on the work. The track pursued by our author has strong claims to consideration. The course of his first excursion lay through the celebrated Passes from Ásia Minor into Syria. His more extensive journey was from Aleppo over the great Desert to Bagdad, from Bagdad across Mesopotamia to Helah on the Euphrates, thence a voyage down the river conveyed him to Bussora: At the time of his visit, this city was besieged by the Persians, and his editor ought to have gratified the curiosity excited by his author, by stating the result of the enterprize, which was its capture in 1775. Mr. P. follows the regular course by sea to India, along the coast of Malabar to Bombay from whence he proceeds down the Red Sea to Suez;-he arrives at Cairo, in time to witress an insurrection among the Beys, and, while in Egypt, he visits the Pyramids, &c. as in duty bound. Every traveller, in so extensive a route, must furnish something not so well described by others: yet we must own that with the greater part of the contents of this volume we have been already familiar in earlier works. Mr. P. relates an incident that happened at Aleppo, at which the reader will smile: it sets the shrewdness of the Turks in no unfavourable point of view. He The French consul on public audiences always outshines those of the other nations, not only as there are more French merchants than of any other nation, but, as the missionaries are under his protection (although Italians), they add greatly to the number of his attendants. On this occasion there were upwards of thirty of these ecclesiastics who were known to the pasha; although, pretending ignorance, he demanded of the consul who those reverend looking men were. was told that they were Religious, sent by his holiness the Pope to instruct them in the deties of their religion, and to serve as chaplains in their church: "What!" exclaimed the pasha, “ so many? Why they double the number of the merchants," and seemed amazed. The next day the English consul had his audience, and the pasha spying the chaplain with his gown and band, inquired who he was; the consul told him that he was a minister of their church, and chaplain to And have you but the English factory. one chaplain," replied he; he was answered in the negative. Some time after the French consul demanded an audience on some national business, and went attended in the usual manner, and was thus addressed by the pasha: "The next day after you were here, the English consul and the merchants visited me, and I could not help noticing that they had only one chaplain, although, besides the consul, there were twelve merchants; now here I see with you above thirty chaplains, and only eighteen merchants; I am told that among Christians there are many different sects, and that each has a different way of worshipping God, and that the French and English differ much: I do not pretend to know who is most in the right; but must observe, that if eighteen Frenchmen must have upwards of thirty religious men of your church to superintend their conduct, and that twelve English men can be kept in order by one reli gious man of theirs, I must certainly give the preference to the English church; and if I turn Christian" (added he smiling) "I will be of their church." Although it was easy to see the raillery of the pasha, the French seemed greatly chagrined. The present state of the Greek church Close to the entrance of the east gate of The following is one of the best des- We passed close to the banks of the great Between Sferris and Hagley begins the salt in my hand, which I found to be excellent fresh water. About the latter end of January the rainy season begins in this neighbourhood, and continues until the middle of April. About the latter end of May the lake is quite dry, and in June the whole surface is covered with a cake of salt, about one-third of an inch thick, which appears like ice, when hundreds of people are employed to collect it, and send it to Aleppo and other cities and towns in Syria, as far as Damascus. It is the property of the pasha of Aleppo, who has officers on the spot, who see it collected, and sell it by weight. We are accustomed to the ceremonies used by our sailors on passing the Line, when they summon the Deity of the ocean, himself, to their levée: we cannot expect that a river should give occasion to equal sumptuosity: but that the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris should be announced by a ceremony of some kind, and perhaps derived from antiquity, too, is by no means unreasonable. It is thus described by Mr. P. At five in the afternoon, we arrived at Korna, a large town situated on the extreme point of Mesopotamia, so as to be on the banks of both Euphrates and Tigris; the point facing the great Arabian river (so called from the union of both at this place). On this point the custom-house is built, where we were ordered to make fast our ress. It is a most delightful situation, and the Turks verily believe that this is the spot where the paradise of our first parents was situated. The head of onr vessel was in the Tigris, the stern in the Euphrates, and the middle in the great river where the two former United, as the point of land where we had fastened our vessel was only forty-five feet long, and our vessel was full eighty feet The land hitherto called Chaldea, opposite to this point, is called Arabia, so that the head of our vessel looks towards Persia, the stern to Arabia, and one side of it touches the hanks of the extremity of Mesopotamia, from and to which we passed, by a plank from the gunwale of our vessel. This point is reckoned to be from Helah about one hundred and eighty English leagues, and from Bussora, to which we were sailing, about thirty leagues. From Bussora creek, to the place where this great river falls into the Persian gulph, is said to be nearly forty leagues. It is worthy of remark, that all the way from Helah no Arabs dwell on the Mesopotamiau shore, nor are there any Turkish dwellings on the Chaldean shore. The great fiver at this point of Korua, seems to be about one mile broad. At this place a ceremony is usually performed first a sailor, at the head of the vessel, draws up water from the Tigris, which is presented to the captain and the passengers in cups; then another from the stern draws up water, which is presented as the former, this being the water of the Euphrates. Then a third draws up water from the side in the middle of the vessel, which is that of the two rivers united; of all these three every one drinks, as a novelty. Two plates are then handed round, and every one gives a present, by which method the poor fellows (who had worked so hard in tracking and rowing hitherto), collected eighty-five Turkish piastres. about ten pounds twelve shillings and sixpence, for which they they well deserved it, as they toiled as hard as were very thankful, and highly satisfied: ever I saw men do, and that very cheerfully. The inhabitants of Bussora in April 1773, were computed at upwards of 300,000 in September following they amounted to about 50,000. The number that had escaped by flight was about 20,000; the rest had fallen victims to pestilence! A remarkable phenomenon, which furnished abundance of sand, is describcould only have appeared where a desert ed by our author, as happening at Bus sora. Such a visitation might easily overwhelm an army, if passing in the proper direction for meeting it: and it contributes to justify the account given by Mr. Bruce of the pillars of sand that he saw in the desert of Libya; which some have suspected of exaggeration, and for which see Panorama, Vol. I. p. 1202. March the 15th. At four this afternoon, the sun then shining bright, a total darkness commenced in an instant, when a dreadful consternation seized every person in the city, the people running backward and forward in the streets, tumbling over one another, quite distracted, while those in the houses ran out. in amazement, doubting whether it were an eclipse, or the end of the world. Soon after the black cloud which had caused this total darkness approached near the city, preceded by as hond a noise as I ever heard in the greatest storm, this was succeeded by such a violent whirlwind, mixed with dust, that no man in the streets could stand upon his legs; happy were those who could find, or had already obtained, shelter, whilst those who were not so fortunate were obliged to throw themselves down on the spot, were they ran great risk of being suffocated, as the wind sted full twenty minutes, and the total larkness half an hour. The dust was 50 subtile, and the hurricane so furious, that every room in the British factory was covered with it, notwithstanding we had the precaution to shut the doors and windows on the first appearance of the darkness, and to light candles. At half-past-five the cloud had passed the city, the sun instantly shone out, no wind was to be heard, nor dust felt, but all was quite serene and calm again, when all of us in the factory went on the terrace, and observed the cloud had entirely passed overthe river, and was then in Persia, where it seemed to cover full thirty miles in breadth on the land, but how far in length could not be even guessed at; it flew along at an amazing rate, yet was half an hour in passing over the city. It came from the north-west, and went strait forward to the south-east. The officers of the Company's cruizers came on shore as soon as the cloud had passed their ships, and declared that the wind was so violent, and the dust so penetrating, that no man could stand upon the decks; and that after it was over, every place below, on board the ships, was covered with dust. Such a phenomenon never was known before, in the memory of the oldest man now living at Bussora. Mr. P.'s descriptions of the towns on the coast of Malabar as they were in his time is faithful. The late acquisitions of the English East India Company have varied the relative importance of most of them, no less than their general appearance. Egypt has been the theme of many writers in consequence of the popularity it acquired under the events it witnessed after the invasion of Buonaparte, and his profession of Islamism, made there: what Mr. P. relates concerning that country may pass equally free from censure and panegyric. His account of the construction of the mound at the entrance of the kalish of the Nile, with the breaking of it down, is recommended by more than usual particularity. The following account of Mr. Parsons and his work is prefixed to the volume. Mr. Abraham Parsons was originally bred to the navy, in which his father was a captain. In the earlier part of his life he commanded different vessels in the merchant service, during which period he visited several parts of the globe; a pursuit particularly adapted to the turn of a mind naturally fond of novelty, and remarkably inquisitive. When he quitted the sea he carried on considerable commerce as a merchant in Bristol, which, not being attended with the desired success, after some years, he was obliged to relinquish. After this he was, in the year 1767, appointed by the Turkey company, consul and factor-marine at Scanderoon, in Asiatic Turkey; a situation which, after a residence of six years, he was obliged, from the unhealthiness of the country, to resign, when he commenced a voyage of comtnercial speculation; the narrative of which is contained in these pages. Soon after the conclusion of this tour he retired to Leghorn, where he died in the year 1785. The only liberty which the editor has taken with the narrative has been confined to the correction of verbal or grammatical inaccuracies, and in some very few instances to the altering of the arrangement of sentences, which in the original appeared rather obscure. Though much has been done, the editor is aware, that, if further opportunity had been afforded him, much more might have been effected. He has been severely scrupulous not to alter the simplicity of the original composition, and, aware that the first duty imposed on him was fidelity, he has been peculiarly solicitous neither to add to nor dimmish from any circumstance or description in the narrative: he has preserved it in its native form, as far as was possible, conscious that rhetorical ornaments were not to be expected in a writer, who, from the nature of his education, must necessarily be unac quainted with the clegancies of composi tron. with all its imperfections, not without some To a candid public he trusts the narrative, hope, that though the region has been often before explored, it may furnish some original and instructive information, in points but lightly touched on by former travellers; and that though some of the details may appear tedious, they may afford a more clear and natural view of the state of society and manand florid publications. ners in the East, than many more elaborate The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the British Parliament. By Thomas Clarkson, M. A.2 Vols. 8vo. pp. 1164. Price £1. 18. Lon-don, Longman and Co. 1808. CERTAINLY, the Slave Trade, as conducted by the merchants, and in the ships of this island, was a disgrace to human nature, a reproach to the name of Briton, and to the profession of Christianity. But this censure does not attach to those masters who conscientiously endeavoured to discharge their duty towards their slaves, as they expected their slaves should discharge their duty towards them. The state of ! 1 |
Get this book in print
0 Reviews Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified Write review |