headed and moderate by nature, knowing right from wrong, well educated, yet tempting, tempting others to the destruction which gave you food and plenishing your fine gin-palace! your comfortable rooms! your intoxicating drinks! the pleasant company! all, all! wiling the tradesman from his home, from his wife, from his children, and sending him back when the stars are fading in the daylight. Oh! to what a home! Oh! in what a state! husband, and she found no rest until she was placed beside him in the crowded church-yard. The children live on-the son, with the unreasoning craving for strong drink which is so frequently the inheritance of the drunkard's child; the daughters, poor, weakly creatures one, that little deformed girl who sits behind the tea-counter, and whose voice is so like her mother's; the other, a suffering creature, unable to leave her bed, and who occupies a little room at the top of what was "I do think, as you stand there, Mathew Hownley," the Grapes." Her window looks out upon a number well dressed, and well fed, and respectable-yes, that of flower-pots, whose green leaves and struggling blosis the word, 'respectable !' - that you are, at this mo- soms are coated with blacks, but she thinks them the ment, in the eyes of the Almighty, a greater criminal freshest and most beautiful in the world!' than my poor husband, who is lying upon straw with madness in his brain, trembling in every limb, without even a Bible to tell him of the mercy which Christ's death procured for the penitent sinner at the eleventh hour! I laid her own Bible before her. I did not ask her to spare me every word was true-I deserved it all. I went forth; I sent coal, and food, and clothing into that wretched room; I sent a physician; I prayed by the bedside of Peter Croft, as if he had been a dear brother. I found him truly penitent; and with all the resolves for amendment which so often fade in the sunshine of health and strength, he wailed over his lost time, his lost means, his lost character-all lost; all God had given-health, strength, happiness, all gone -all but the love of his ill-used and neglected wife; that had never died! "And remember," she said to me, "there are hundreds, thousands of cases as sad as his in England, in the Christian land we live in! Strong drink fills our jails and hospitals with sin, with crime, with disease, with death; its mission is sin and sorrow to man, woman, and child; under the cloak of goodfellowship it draws men together, and the "goodfellowship" poisons heart and mind! Men become mad under its influence. Would any man not mad, squander his money, his character, and bring himself and all he is bound to cherish to the verge of the pauper's grave; nay, into it? Of five families in this wretched house, the mothers of three, and the fathers of four, never go to their ragged beds sober; yet they tell me good men, wise men, great men, refuse to promote temperance. Oh, they have never seen how the halfpint grows to the pint-the pint to the quart-the quart to the gallon ! They have never watched for the drunkard's return, or experienced his neglect or ill-usage-never had the last penny for their children's bread turned into spirits-never woke to the knowledge, that though the snow of December be a foot on the ground, there is neither food nor fire to strengthen for the day's toil!" 'Poor Emma! she spoke like one inspired; and though her spirit was sustained neither by flesh nor blood, she seemed to find relief in words. "When I spoke to her of the future with hope, she would not listen. "No," she said, "my hope for him and for myself is beyond the grave. He cannot rally; those fierce drinks have branded his vitals, burnt into them. Life is not for either of us. I wish his fate, and mine, could warn those around us; but the drunkard day after day sees the drunkard laid in his grave, and before the last earth is thrown upon the coffin, the quick is following the example set by the dead-of another, and another glass !" 'She was right. Peter's days were numbered; and when she knelt beside his coffin, she thanked God for his penitence, and offered up a prayer that she might be spared a little longer for her children's sake. That prayer gave me hope: she had not spoken then of hope except of that beyond the grave. My friends jested at my attention to the young widow, and perhaps I urged her too soon to become my wife. She turned away, with a feeling which I would not, if I could, express. Her heart was still with her ANCIENT ENGLAND. WHILE dreaming over those dim and undated relics, the Welsh Triads, which allude to events that transpired in our island centuries before its silence was broken by the sound of the Roman trumpets, we have endeavoured to obtain a glimpse of England as it was in ancient times. These mysterious fragments lie like the wrecks of an old world on the shores of the sea of Time; and all we can see through the gray twilight of traditions handed down through a long line of bards that seem as shadowy as Banquo's kings, is the form of Prydian the son of Aedd, who came ocean from the Country of Summer,' and who, according over the hazy to these ancient Triads, when he first landed on our shores, found no man alive, nor anything but bears, wolves, beavers, and the oxen (bison) with the high prominence.' Further we read, that through the number of bees he found, he first called England the Island of Honey.' From this we know that there was a pleasant murmur among the flowers which grew in those wild and untrodden forests, long before the gray pillars of Stonehenge 6 6 those bleached bones of this old world-stood in the primeval solitude where they still sleep; and Prydian, or Briton, from whom our island is supposed to have been named, may, after all, be but the dream of some forgotten British bard; or he may have been some old Cymric hunter, who, landing on a lonely part of the island, chased the maned bison and the gray wolf of the wold, and clothed himself in the skins of the beasts of the chase. Perchance he pitched his rude hut by some forest fastness that looked over the sea; and on some stormy day a rude chiule, or boat, hollowed from the trunk of a gigantic tree-many of which have been found in the deep beds of our ancient rivers-might be blown upon the beach, and with it some British mother, whose young barbarians, on a future day, would hunt the cave-bear along that windy shore, and by their shouts drive the glossy beaver—that old builder-to his burrow. The sunsets of those forgotten summers flashed not, as now, on walled cities and tall spires that point heavenward, as if to direct our thoughts to another home beyond the grave, but gilded the tops of tall trees -a land of forests-through the underwood of which the tusked boar rushed, and the shaggy bison bellowed; while high overhead the broad-winged eagle screamed. The foot of no friendly patrol passed with measured step, keeping watch around the wattled hut, or by the sandy cave in which these 'gray forefathers' of the forest slept; but the long howl of the gaunt wolf startled the silence of those forgotten midnights, as his footfall rustled among the fallen leaves, while he prowled round those primitive thresholds scenting out his prey. What are now the velvet valleys of green England, were through the wild air for evermore, for having, while living, rebelled against his cruel creed. With what awe and fear would they gaze on the fabulous egg which, cased with gold, he wore suspended from his engendered by fiery serpents while they struggled neck! That egg, as they were taught to believe, was together in the air, and was caught in its fall by a mounted horseman, who rode off with it at breathless would have devoured if they had overtaken him. The few fragments of the hymns he chanted that have been preserved, are to us a mystery. We know nothing about the cattle of the deep' to which they allude, nor the caldron that would not boil the food of a coward.' The gray oracle of Stonehenge to us is for ever dumb. Two or three centuries pass away, and a great change has come over the face of this ancient England classic look about its cities: it has improved under the hands of its conquerors; whichever way the eye is turned, there are signs of civilisation. Instead of wattled and reedy huts standing by the spongy swamp or gloomy forest, we now find walled cities, and see stretching over the landscape long lines of road straight as an arrow, while corn waves on the uplands, and flocks and herds bleat and low from pastures kneedeep in summer grass. Fruit-trees throw their rich array of blossoms over the scene; and though their corn is taxed, their fruit tithed, and heavy levies laid on their cattle by the conquerors who have wrought this wonderful change-and though they have lost somewhat of their wild martial spirit, they are no longer the savage hunters, who, clad in skins, dwelt in caves and branch-woven huts; for now Roman arches span their streets, and Roman temples tower above their tesselated pavements. The wolf was now left to then, in the lower plains, leagues of silty marsh, and sinking morass, and inland meres-bordered with tufted rushes and sword-like water-flags; while between the black bulrushes-which at every breeze bowed to one another—the wild-swan sailed, arching her silver neck, and the dark water-hen clove the sunny ripples as she headed her dusky brood, undisturbed by either the voice or the footfall of man. The old rivers were then mast-speed, followed by the hissing and fiery reptiles, who less, though sometimes the reeds by the margin were rocked as the ancient Cymry paddled by in his wickercoracle, or left the print of his footsteps on the muddy shore as he carried his basket-boat on his back to some more distant river. Had Time hardened that footmark into a slab, such as bears the impress of the steps of extinct animals, it would have borne the mark of the thongs of raw hide which bound the soles-formed of the untanned skin of some beast of the chase-to his feet. We still find under the gray cairn, or green-there is a Roman stamp upon its features, and a barrow that marks his grave, the hatchet of stone and arrow-head of flint which he used in war or the chase, long before his descendants drove those terrible chariots, with scythes projecting from the wheels, through Cæsar's cohorts, and scattered his Roman eagles. In subterraneous chambers-under the floors of which even then, though unknown to him, reposed the remains of mammoth and hippopotami, the saw-toothed tiger, and many another extinct animal that, ages before he was born, roamed over this ancient island-he stored his corn, and kept in his wicker-basket the salt which he exchange his tin for with the adventurous Phoenicians - those old voyagers, whose ships visited our shores centuries before the keel of a Roman galley had ever grated over the shingles that strew our wind-beaten beaches. When wearied with war or the chase, he threw himself down at night to rest on his couch of grass, dried leaves, or rushes, and covered his body-which was punctured with the forms of monsters and Druidi-howl in the forest depths, where the old Druidical altar cal emblems-with the blue cloak or sagum, which lay overthrown, and half buried in the underwood; for he dyed with the same plant that he used for staining saving where the lonely homestead arose amid some himself; or in winter weather with the skins of his own far-off pasturage, he no longer prowled around the cattle, or those he had slain in the wild forests. His habitation of man. Instead of bewing out rude wooden seat was a portion of the round stem of a tree; and bowls with his stone-headed hatchet, or burning out of the same material he formed rude trenchers and hollow the trunk of some gigantic tree to form his boat, rugged bowls, and in the course of time made vessels of the Briton, under his Roman master, had learned to use clay, which he baked in the sun. When he pastured the potter's wheel, and build his ship with ribs and his flocks and herds, or sowed his rude harvest in the planks, and had thrown aside his wicker-coracle covered open plains, near to another man's land, his boundary- with the black bull's hide. Here and there, he had line was marked by stones, such as were used by the also heard tidings of the Gospel from the Roman soldiers, Eastern patriarchs, and are mentioned in Scripture, and faint rumours of the Great Redeemer who, over where it is written: 'Cursed is he that removeth his the far-off seas, had been crucified on that cross, which neighbour's landmark.' But he knew nothing of the was so soon to supplant the image of Mars, and rise Bible nor of God; no gospel-trumpet had as yet shaken high above the Roman temples erected to the goddess the old oaks, under which he worshipped his idols, with of Victory. A new and holier Spirit sat brooding over its sound; nor had the name of the Most High startled the waters that washed our island-shores, since Mona's the bearded Druid from the heathen altar, where he Druid oaks were uprooted and her wretched priests offered up human sacrifices, in the gloomy groves of dispersed. Still, there were barbaric hordes, who, like those wildering forests. Though long since gone, we the sea, were ever pouring in, and washing away the can still picture him, through the eye of the imagi- traces of civilisation; and against these the mighty connation, wearing his flowing garments, which look whiter querors could erect no better barriers than leagues of beside the dark foliage under which he stands, with the heavy walls, and broad ramparts flanked with towers golden pruning-hook in his hand, ready to cut the and battlements, on which their lonely sentinels kept pearly-berried mistletoe, which was held sacred in his weary watch over wild wolds and savage moorlands: pagan rites. Perchance that arch-Druid in his soul sometimes marching from fort to fort when summoned spurned the blinded believers who gathered around him, by the red glare of the beacon-fire to attack the unand bowed their slavish backs, making themselves step-daunted assailants-the only change in their monotoping-stones, on which he planted his feet as he ascended the aged oak; and gathered closer the folds of his garments, as if he feared that they would become contaminated through touching those benighted worshippers he held in thrall. His power seemed to stretch beyond the grave; for he taught them to believe, that in the howling winds which went moaning and groaning through the dark midnights that settled down upon those dim and shadowy forests, they heard the voices of those departed spirits he had doomed to wander nous duties. The old Cymry seemed more secure in their forest-fastnesses, to which no broad level road led, than in the walled cities and pillared streets which he now paraded, wearing his golden torques and displaying his Roman finery; and thereby tempting those rough warriors from the stormy north to struggle for the spoil, while his own grim old scythe-wheeled chariots lay rusting, rotting, and forgotten. He was so altered, that he seemed never to have belonged to the hardy race who, foot to foot, and shoulder to shoulder, disputed the possession of this ancient island with the legions led on by Julius Cæsar, and left them at last but little more ground than what they were encamped upon. Strange mystery! as his mind expanded, and he became more refined, he was less able to combat with the barbaric hordes that overran his native land: as he laid aside his brutal power, and became more a man, he almost ceased to be a hero; and when his Roman conquerors left him, he sat wringing his hands and weeping like a child. The spirit of Cassibellanus and Caractacus had fled. Their Roman masters had now work enough on their own hands, in their own country: they left the poor Britons hard bestead, telling them, as if in mockery, that they were then free; but, as the author of Waverley says, their parting exhortation to them to stand in their own defence, and their affectation of having, by abandoning the island, restored them to freedom, were as cruel as it would be to restore a domesticated bird or animal to shift for itself, after having been from its birth fed and supplied by the hand of man.' But they did not give themselves up to despair all at once, nor sit with folded arms calmly resigned to whatever might befall; they made some little struggle to prop up the old roof-tree and defend the ancient hearth. Alas! all was useless; and they were at last compelled to beckon to the stormy warriors who hung about their coast; and then the Saxons landed on their island-shore, fought and defended them for a short time, and finally settled down and took possession, driving the old Cymry to rocky Cornwall and mountainous Wales. A new race now stood upon the shores of this ancient England-a grim Gothic tribe, who worshipped Odin, and aspired to the brutal heaven of Valhalla, there to eat of that fabulous boar whose flesh never diminished, and drink mead out of the skulls of their enemies. Those who fell not in the red ranks of battle, dwelt for ever, after death, with Hela the terrible, in the Hall of Cowards; and the only prayers they offered up were, that they might die in the combat, and so pass at once, while their wounds were still fresh, to the halls of their heathen heaven. The howling of the storm and the roaring of the waves were to their ears pleasant music -for they sprang from the same race as those brave old Sea-kings who followed in their wake, and for many a long and after-year contended for the possession of the island-home which Hengist and Horsa had won. After this period, we have the light of history to guide us, and no longer grope blindly through the old twilight of time along this shore strewn with the wrecks of an ancient world, and of which almost every trace of its early inhabitants is swept away. The few fragments that are left of their language, like the waves of the ancient ocean, have a mysterious murmur of their own, which we can never clearly understand; for the thoughts of these people were not our thoughts; nor beyond the few rude hints which we have thrown together, can their manners or customs ever be known. Under the cromlech or the cairn, or in the hollow cist hewn from some mighty tree, they lay down and took their long sleep, without a thought of posterity, or a care as to the conclusions after-ages might arrive at regarding the few rude monuments they left behind. We might as well ask the old sea that is working away fathoms below at new caves on the level beach, when it formed those so high over our heads, and hope to receive an answer, as ever expect to know who first owned the hatchet of stone and spear-head of flint which we find in those ancient graves, the old British barrows. Who first called England the Island of Honey-or named it the Country of Sea-cliffs-or sailed from that mysterious Land of Summer-or heard the first murmur of the bees in our savage and untrodden forests-we can never know. We look back through the ancient gates of Stonehenge, and know that in old-forgotten mornings busy builders were employed there; but who they were, or from whence they came, they have left no record to tell; and while pausing for a reply, we seem to hear a solemn voice exclaim: Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further!' THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON. THE vast tract of country through which the great river Amazon flows, has recently attracted considerable attention both in Europe and America. Lieutenant Herndon's valuable book on this subject, just published, deserves the twofold praise of being opportune and really instructive. The mere fact of its being the account of an official mission to explore and report on the Valley of the Amazon, undertaken at the command of the United States' government, is a guarantee that the author has not written heedlessly, or set down crude first impressions, or mere conjecture as facts. As he speaks with the straightforwardness of authority and personal knowledge, we shall make his work the text-book of some of our observations on this magnificent region. The origin of the name Amazon carries us back to Francisco Orellana, the first European navigator of the river. In his account of his perilous voyage, he does not omit a fine stock of marvels. Among them, he speaks of seeing bands of armed women along the banks of the river throughout a great tract of country; and concluding that they used as well as bore arms, he named the river, the River of the Amazons, and the country through which it flowed, Amazonia, which it long retained. His own name is also frequently applied to the river by old geographers; and the poets, who love justice of this kind, do not forget to call the river the Orellana. For instance, Thomson Swelled by a thousand streams impetuous hurled The Amazons seen by Orellana and his companions were, in reality, women with arms in their hands; but they carried these arms in their capacity of attendants upon their husbands, who were then, as their descendants still are, to all intents and purposes, the lords and masters of their wives. In no part of the world is the subjection of the woman to the man more complete than in the Valley of the Amazon; nor can any name be less appropriate than the common one given to the Orellana. Lieutenant Herndon, without moralising on the fact, bears sufficient witness to the contempt and indifference of the various tribes of Indians in this region towards their wives. He was surprised to see strong young men among them, whom he had engaged as boatmen, allow pretty, slender girls to carry all their necessary accoutrements, and even their oars or paddles for them, while they walked first in unencumbered dignity-nor returned so much as a word or look of gracious acknowledgment when the deferential slaves followed them on board and deposited their burdens. Idleness is the summum bonum with nearly all these tribes; hunting, fishing, and rowing are all their employments. The women are made to do all the other work, and a sorry life they must have of it. On the Ucayale, however-one of the Peruvian tributaries of the Amazon-he speaks of the Indian savages as more active and warlike than the other dwellers on its shores; and one tribe among them he speaks of from the report of the Spanish missionaries, and also from that of Mr Smyth, a well-known preceding traveller, which is somewhat astonishing in that world of lazy enjoyment. These people are called Sencis; they cultivate the land in common, and are such appreciaters of industry, Lewis Herndon, U.S. Navy. With Map and Plates. Taylor and * Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. By Lieut. Wm. Maury, Washington; Trübner & Co., London. that they kill all those who are idle or do not perform their fair share of work. They have attained to the social elevation so much admired, in theory, by one of our great living philosophers; and their Captains of Industry are not obliged to 'cut prejudice against the grain.' In obedience to his orders, Lieutenant Herndon determined to explore as much as possible of the entire basin or water-shed drained by the Amazon and its tributaries. He therefore divided his party, taking the upper part and main stream himself, and sending his second in command, passed midshipman Lardner Gibbon, to explore the great southern tributary, the Madeira, and its chief branches. Enough is made known by the present work, to establish the fact that a commercial navigation of the Amazon from Pará to Nanta, and even higher, would be easy, and of the greatest advantage to Europe and North America, for a richer or more productive soil does not exist. Let Mr Herndon speak on this subject: This land is of unrivalled fertility: on account of its geographical situation, and topographical and geological formation, it produces nearly everything essential to the comfort and wellbeing of man. On the top and eastern slope of the Andes lie hid unimaginable quantities of silver, iron, coal, copper, and quicksilver, waiting but the application of science and the hand of industry for their development. The successful working of the quicksilver mines of Huancavelica, would add several millions of silver to the annual product of Cerro de Pasco alone. Many of the streams that dash from the summit of the Cordilleras, wash gold from the mountain-side, and deposit it in the hollows and gulches as they pass. Barley, quinna, and potatoes, best grown in a cold, with wheat, rye, maize, clover, and tobacco, products of a temperate region, deck the mountain-side and beautify the valley; while immense herds of sheep, llamas, alpacas, and vicugnas, feed upon those elevated plains, and yield wool of the finest and longest staple. 'Descending towards the plain, and only for a few miles, the eye of the traveller from the temperate zone is held with wonder and delight by the beautiful and strange productions of the torrid. He sees, for the first time, the symmetrical coffee-bush, rich with its darkgreen leaves, its pure white blossoms, and its gay red fruit. The prolific plantain, with its great waving fan-like leaf, and immense pendent branches of goldenlooking fruit, enchains his attention. The sugar-cane waves in rank luxuriance before him; and if he be familiar with southern plantations, his heart swells with emotion as the gay, yellow blossom and white boll of the cotton sets before his mind's-eye the familiar scenes of home. Fruits, too, of the finest quality and most luscious flavour grow here-oranges, lemons, bananas, pine-apples, melons, chirimoyas, &c. 'It is sad to recollect, that in this beautiful country -I have before me the valley of the Chanchamayomen should have offered me title-deeds in gratuity to as much of this rich land as I wanted. Many of the inhabitants of Tarma hold grants of land in the Chanchamayo country from the government, but are so distrustful of its ability to protect them in their labours from the encroachments of the savages, that they do not cultivate them. "The country everywhere in Peru, at the eastern foot of the Andes, is such as I have described above. Further down, we find the productions of a country which is occasionally overflowed, and then subjected, with still occasional showers, to the influence of a tropical sun. From these causes, we see a fecundity of soil and a rapidity of vegetation that are marvellous, and to which even Egypt, the ancient granary of Europe, affords no parallel, because, though similar in some other respects, this country has the advantage of Egypt in that there is no drought. Here, trees evidently young, shoot up to such a height, that no fowling-piece will reach the game seated on their topmost branches; and with such rapidity, that the roots have not strength or sufficient hold upon the soil to support their weight; and they are continually falling, borne down by the slightest breeze, or by the mass of parasites and creepers that envelop them from root to top. 'This is the country of rice, of sarsaparilla, of Indiarubber, balsam copaiba, gum-copal, animal and vegetable wax, cocoa, Brazilian nutmeg, Tonka-beans, ginger, black-pepper, arrow-root, tapioca annatto, indigo, sapacaia, and Brazil-nuts; dyes of the gayest colours, drugs of rare virtue, variegated cabinet-woods of the finest grain, and susceptible of the highest polish. The forests are filled with game, and the rivers stocked with turtle and fish. Here dwell the anta or wild-cow, the Peisci boi or fish-ox, the sloth, the ant-eater, the beautiful black tiger, the mysterious electric eel, the boa constrictor, the anaconda, the deadly coral snake, the voracious alligator, monkeys in endless variety, birds of the most brilliant plumage, and insects of the strangest forms and gayest colours. "The climate of this country is salubrious, and the temperature agreeable. The direct rays of the sun are tempered by an almost constant east wind, laden with moisture from the ocean, so that one never suffers either from heat or cold.' Of the great centre and source of this fertility, the river Amazon itself, Mr Herndon speaks with admiration:-The march of the great river in its silent grandeur was sublime; but in the untamed might of its turbid waters, as they cut away its banks, tore down the gigantic denizens of the forest, and built up islands, it was awful. It rolled through the wilderness with a stately and solemn air. Its waters looked angry, sullen, and relentless; and the whole scene awoke emotions of awe and dread, such as are caused by the funeral solemnities, the minute-gun, the howl of the wind, and the angry tossing of the waves, when all hands are called to bury the dead in a troubled sea. I was reminded of our Mississippi at its topmost flood; the waters are quite as muddy and quite as turbid; but this stream lacked the charm and the fascination which the plantation upon the bank, the city upon the bluff, and the steam-boat upon its waters, lend to its fellow of the north; nevertheless, I felt pleased at its sight. I had already travelled 700 miles by its water, and fancied that this powerful stream would soon carry me to the ocean; but the water-travel was comparatively just begun: many a weary month was to elapse before I should again look on the face of the sea; and many a time, when worn and wearied with the canoe-life, did I exclaim: "This river seems interminable!" Its capacities for trade and commerce are inconceivably great; its industrial future is the most dazzling; and to the touch of steam, settlement, and cultivation, this rolling stream and magnificent water-shed would start up into a display of industrial results, that would indicate the Valley of the Amazon as one of the most enchanting regions on the face of the earth.' Among the fruits which grow well without cultivation in some parts of this enormous valley, are pine-apples and grapes; the latter are so good, that a very moderate amount of skill and labour would make this an important wine-growing country. Mr Herndon speaks with approval of a substitute for bread, made by the women of all the Indian tribes along the Amazon, in Brazil, and an important article of consumption among them. It is called farinha, and is made from the root of the mandioc (Jatropha manihot), from which the tapioca of our nursery puddings is also prepared. Salt fish and farinha are all the food the Brazilian boatmen on the Amazon care to have in a general way, although young monkeys roasted are easily obtainable, and are pronounced by our author to be very good eating. An important article of commerce, even in the present uncultivated state of the Amazon Valley, is Indiarubber, called there seringa. The district where this trade is carried on is, of course, where the India-rubber trees are most abundant-namely, at the estuary of the river, on the main banks, and on the great island Marajo, and its numerous smaller isles. The season for gathering the seringa is from July to January. Incisions are made in the bark of the tree, whence a milk-white sap or gum flows freely, and is caught in vessels placed below. The people employed to gather and dry the seringa are called seringeros. An industrious man is able to make sixteen pounds of rubber in a day, but the lazy Indians seldom average more than three or four pounds. Sarsaparilla and tobacco are also among the more noted products of the country. of this vast water-shed. We will conclude our remarks with a quotation on this subject from the book before us: 'I can imagine the waking up of the people on the event of the establishment of steam-boat navigation on the Amazon. I fancy I can hear the crash of the forest falling to make room for the cultivation of cotton, cocoa, rice, and sugar; and the sharp shriek of the saw cutting into boards the beautiful and valuable woods of the country; that I can see the gatherers of India-rubber and copaiba redoubling their efforts, to be enabled to purchase the new and convenient things that shall be presented at the doors of their huts in the wilderness; and even the wild Indian finding his way from his pathless forests to the steam-boat depôt, to exchange his collections of vanilla, spices, dyes, drugs, and gums, for the things that would take his fancy-ribbons, beads, bells, mirrors, and gay trinkets. 'Brazil and Peru have entered into arrangements, and bound themselves by treaty, to appropriate money towards the establishment of steam-boat navigation on the Amazon. This is well. It is doing something towards progress; but it is the progress of a denizen of their own forests-the sloth. Were they to follow the example lately set by the republics of the La Plata, and throw open their rivers to the commerce of the world, then the march of improvement would be commensurate with the importance of the act; and these countries would grow in riches and power with the rapidity of the vegetation of their own most fertile lands. The estuary of the Amazon is remarkable. Mr Herndon thus describes it:-'About thirty-five miles below Gurupá commences the great estuary of the Amazon. The river suddenly flows out into an immense bay, which is probably 150 miles across in its widest part. This might appropriately be called the Bay of the Thousand Islands, for it is cut up into innumerable channels. The great island of Marajo, which contains about 10,000 square miles, occupies nearly the centre of it, and divides the river into two great channels: one, the main channel of the Amazon, which runs out by Cayenne; and the other and smaller one, the river of Pará. I imagine that no chart we have gives anything like a correct idea of this bay. The French brig-of-war Boulonnaise, some years ago, 'We, more than any other people, are interested in passed up the main channel from Cayenne to Obidos, the opening of this navigation. As has been before and down the Pará channel, making a survey. But stated, the trade of this region must pass by our doors, she had only time to make a survey of the channels and mingle and exchange with the products of our through which she passed, leaving innumerable others Mississippi Valley. unexplored. This she was permitted to do through the liberality of Senhor Coelbo, the patriotic president of the province; but when she applied for permission to make further surveys, she was sternly refused by the government of Rio Janeiro. I think it would cost a steamer a year of uninterrupted labour to make a tolerably correct chart of this estuary.' If our space permitted, we could quote many curious and amusing passages from Mr Herndon's account of the various native tribes of wild Indians, called by the Peruvian and Brazilian settlers Infidels-their superstition, their weapons, and their laziness, their enjoyment of life, and their dislike to innovation. Much also that is to be seen, in the way of mountain, forest, and river on this long journey, is either strange or beautiful, or both. The zoology of the region is rich and varied, and Mr Herndon paid especial attention to that department of his mission, as well as to vegetable physiology, which seems to be full of interest in the Valley of the Amazon. The Peruvian and Brazilian governments, since Mr Herndon's journey, have entered into some small negotiations for establishing steam-boat communication between the Lower and Upper Amazon; but they are too exclusive and monopolising and on too poor a scale to be productive of any real benefit. According to Mr Herndon, it is the Brazilian, and not the Peruvian government that is to blame for this narrow and shortsighted policy. The two largest tributaries of the Amazon-namely, the Rio Negro on the north, by which it is connected with a branch of the Oronoco; and the Madeira on the south, by which it is believed to be connected with the Rio de la Plata-both join the main stream in the Brazilian territory, and their wealth would create great commercial cities at their confluence, and render the Brazilian portion of the Amazon one of the most flourishing countries in the world. But as yet Brazil is blind to its own interest; and it is left to enterprising neighbours, anxious for new markets for buying and selling, to explore and appreciate the commercial and agricultural advantages 'The greatest boon in the wide world of commerce is in the free navigation of the Amazon, its confluents and neighbouring streams. The backbone of South America is in sight of the Pacific. The slopes of the continent look east, they are drained into the Atlantic; and their rich productions, in vast variety and profusion, may be emptied into the lap of that ocean by the most majestic of water-courses. The time will come when the free navigation of the Amazon, and other South American rivers, will be regarded by the people of this country as second only in importance to the acquisition of Louisiana. Having traversed that watershed from its highest ridges to its very caves and gutters, I find my thoughts and reflections overwhelmed with the immensity of this field for enterprise, commercial prosperity, and human happiness. Had I the honour to be mustered among the statesmen of my country, I would risk political fame and life in the attempt to have the commerce of this noble river thrown open to the world.' HOUSE-HUNTING IN PARIS. HOUSE-HUNTING is a disagreeable thing all the world over. In England, you are sometimes pestered with requests to purchase fixtures; in the East, you are asked to advance a year's rent, to enable the landlord to finish the roof, or put on doors and shutters; in France, you are required only to make a good show of furniture as security for exact payment, and to administer a fee to the concierge. So far, the advantage is on the side of our neighbours. Yet we could not wish our worst enemy a greater punishment-if he has any preconceived ideas at all as to how he should like to be lodged-than to send him on a pilgrimage of this kind through any quarter of Paris. We suppose, of course, that he is of moderate means; for a Milor or a Monte Christo can always find a palace willing to shelter him. Our houseless friend-whose peregrinations we are about to describe-wanted to |