away any article of dress, she throws it behind her back to her companions, and when the dance is finished, the owner must redeem it by a small fee paid to the girl. I once released a handkerchief by giving to the girl a string of pretty beads made of mother-of-pearl, observing that it was meant as a halter for the camel; with this she was much pleased, and hung it round her neck. After the dance has continued five or ten minutes, the girl sits down, and another takes her place, beginning like the former and accelerating her movements according as she herself feels interested in the dance. If she seems animated and advances close to the men's line, the latter evince their approbation by stretching out their arms as if to receive her; this dance, which continues frequently for five or six hours, and till long after midnight, and the pathetic songs which often accompany it, most powerfully work upon the imagination and feelings of the Arabs, and they never speak of the mesamer but with raptures. The feelings of a lover must, on this occasion, be carried to the highest pitch. The veiled form of his mistress advances in the dark, or by moonlight, like a phantom, to his embraces; her graceful, decent steps, her increasing animation, the general applause she receives, and the words of the song, or kaszyde, which are always in praise of beauty, must create the liveliest emotions in the bosom of her lover, who has, at least, the satisfaction of being able to give full scope to his feelings by voice and gestures, without exposing himself to any blame.'-pp. 143-145.

We have in this volume some scanty notices of the Camel: they are interesting however, and being authentic, are certainly valuable. In the last paragraph of the following quotation, the reader will not fail to be struck by the correction of an error which is only not a vulgar one, because it is credited by almost all our book naturalists.

The capability of bearing thirst varies considerably among the different races of camels. The Anadolian, accustomed to cold climates, and countries copiously watered on all sides, must, every second day, have its supply of water; and if this be withheld in summer-time, until the third day, on a journey, the camel often sinks under the privation. During the winter, in Syrian latitudes and in Northern Arabian Desert, camels very seldom drink unless when on a journey; the first succulent herbs sufficiently moisten their stomachs at that season of the year. In summer-time the Nedjd camel must be watered on the evening of every fourth day; a longer exposure to thirst on a journey would probably be fatal to him.

I believe that all over Arabia four whole days constitute the utmost extent to which camels can stretch their capability of enduring thirst in summer; nor is it necessary that they should be compelled to thirst longer, for there is no territory in the route of any traveller crossing Arabia where wells are farther distant than a journey of three entire days, or three and a half. In case of absolute necessity, an Arabian camel might perhaps go five days without drinking, but the traveller must never reckon upon such an extraordinary circumstance: and after the camel has gone three whole days without water, it shows manifest signs of great distress.

The indigenous Egyptian camels are less qualified to endure fatigue than any others that I know; being from their birth well watered and fed on the fertile banks of the river Nile, they are but little accustomed to

journies in the Desert of any considerable length; and during the pilgrims' march to Mekka, several of them daily perish. There are not, of any race, camels that bear thirst more patiently than those of Darfur. The caravans coming from that country to Egypt, must travel nine or ten days' journies on a route which does not furnish any water; and over this extent of ground they often pass during the heats of summer. It is true that many of the camels die on the road, and no merchant undertakes such an expedition without a couple of spare camels in reserve; but the greater number reach Egypt. There is not the slightest probability that an Arabian camel could ever perform such a journey, and still less a Syrian or Egyptian. The camels in most parts of Africa are more hardy

than the Arabian.

Although I have often heard anecdotes related of Arabs, who on their long journies were frequently reduced to the utmost distress by want of water, yet I never understood that a camel had been slaughtered for the sake of finding a supply in the stomach. Without absolutely denying the possibility of such a circumstance, I do not hesitate to affirm that it can have occurred but very seldom; indeed the last stage of thirst renders a traveller so unwilling and unable to support the exertion of walking, that he continues his journey on the back of his camel, in hopes of finding water, rather than expose himself to certain destruction by killing the serviceable creature. I have frequently seen camels slaughtered, but never discovered in the stomachs of any, except those which had been watered on the same day, a copious supply of water. The Darfur caravans are often reduced to incredible suffering by want of water; yet they never have resort to the expedient above mentioned.'-pp. 258-260.

Mr. Burckhardt, after his long and excellent opportunities of viewing the character of the Bedouin people, seems to entertain a very great degree of admiration for their general conduct, in spite of the faults, which he very freely ascribes to them. The wandering life which it is their custom to follow, leads to notions of independence, and settles in the mind a consciousness of security and power, all which naturally create and encourage a principle of generosity. That devotion, which we call patriotism, having no locality to fix itself, becomes amongst the Bedouins a mutual affection for one another between the members of the same tribe. This attachment induces each man to take the deepest interest in the fame and prosperity of his tribe, and the sacrifices which individuals make to raise the one and promote the other, could only proceed from the noblest and most disinterested heroism. A Bedouin possesses a remarkable equanimity, which renders him in society a very pleasing companion. To this he unites the virtues of benevolence and hospitality, to an extent highly creditable to him. The vices by which he is disgraced are those of avaricethe fault which characterizes every man, almost, of the Levantine countries,--and bad faith in pecuniary transactions. He is rapacious, and in the office of a tax levier, he breaks promises, and perpetrates acts of oppression, like any enlightened Christian. When the Bedouins abuse one another, their expressions, in their

most angry moods, are comparatively moderate; and they carefully abstain from such epithets as, when applied, can scarcely be forgiven. Their modes of life are such as might be expected in a community which refrains from social intercourse with the rest of the world, and the same reason which induces them to withdraw from mankind, also makes them impenetrable to all improvement in the arts of life. Their natural sagacity is still very great, and it is shewn in various useful results. One of these we shall mention. Historians are loud in the praise of the instinct of those Indians in America who possess, in such a wonderful degree, the faculty of identifying and distinguishing the traces of footsteps. The Arabs are quite as remarkable for this power; but as it appears to us to be more difficult to mark the impression which is made on grass than that on sand, the merit of the American is infinitely greater.

• The Arab, who has applied himself diligently to the study of footsteps, can generally ascertain, from inspecting the impression, to what individual of his own, or of some neighbouring tribe, the footstep belongs; and therefore is able to judge whether it was a stranger who passed, or a friend. He likewise knows, from the slightness or depth of the impression, whether the man who made it carried a load or not. From the strength or faintness of the trace he can also tell whether the man passed on the same day, or one day or two days before. From a certain regularity of intervals between the steps, a Bedouin can judge whether the man whose feet left the impression was fatigued or not; as, after fatigue, the pace becomes more irregular, and the intervals unequal. Hence he can calculate the chance of overtaking the man.

'Besides all this, every Arab knows the printed footsteps of his own camels, and of those belonging to his immediate neighbours. He knows by the depth or slightness of the impression whether a camel was pasturing, and therefore not carrying any load, or mounted by one person only, or heavily loaded. If the marks of the two fore feet appear to be deeper in the sand than those of the hind feet, he concludes that the camel had a weak breast, and this serves him as a clue to ascertain the owner. In fact, a Bedouin, from the impressions of a camel's or of his driver's footsteps, draws so many conclusions, that he always learns something concerning the beast or its owner; and in some cases this mode of acquiring knowledge appears almost supernatural. The Bedouin sagacity in this respect is wonderful, and becomes particularly useful in the pursuit of fugitives, or in searching after cattle.

I have seen a man discover and trace the footsteps of his camel in a sandy valley, where thousands of other footsteps crossed the road in every direction; and this person could tell the name of every one who had passed there in the course of that morning. I myself found it often useful to know the impression made by the feet of my own companions and camels; as from circumstances which inevitably occur in the Desert, travellers sometimes are separated from their friends. In passing through dangerous districts, the Bedouin guides will seldom permit a townsman or stranger to walk by the side of his camel. If he wears shoes, every Bedouin who passes will know by the impression that some townsman has travelled that

way; and if he walks barefooted, the mark of his step, less full than that of a Bedouin, immediately betrays the foot of a townsman, little accustomed to walk. It is therefore to be apprehended, that the Bedouins, who regard every townsman as a rich man, might suppose him loaded with valuable property, and accordingly set out in pursuit of him. A keen Bedouin guide is constantly and exclusively occupied during his march in examining footsteps, and frequently alights from his camel to acquire certainty respecting their nature. I have known instances of camels being traced by their masters, during a distance of six days' journey, to the dwelling of the man who had stolen them.

6

Many secret transactions are brought to light by this knowledge of the Athr or "footsteps;" and a Bedouin can scarcely hope to escape detection in any clandestine proceeding, as his passage is recorded upon the road in characters that every one of his Arabian neighbours can read.'-pp. 212-214.

This work concludes with a history of those sanguinary fanatics, the Wahabys, from the time when they first drew the sword, in the name of the Lord, to the year 1816. It is an interesting memoir, and will amply repay the trouble of a perusal.

ART. VI-The First Book of the Iliad; the Parting of Hector and Andromache; and the Shield of Achilles. Specimens of a New Version of Homer. By William Sotheby. 8vo. London: Murray. 1830.

THE obvious duty of a translator seems to our plain understanding to be this:-to place his unlearned reader as nearly as possible in the same situation as if he were reading, and thoroughly understood, the original. This simple standard being acknowledged, we have at once a determinate criterion to go by, and we get rid of a cloud of perplexities and subtleties, with Madame Dacier in their train. That any version of Homer, in the English tongue, can ever attain the excellence implied by reaching this standard, we are not so absurd as to expect; for the constitution of each of the two languages is such as to put all hope of the kind out of the question. But we do say that he who makes such an object the mark of his ambition, will be most likely to steer the right course, although he should never be able exactly to touch the goal. The whole of what Pope and Cowper have written on translation, resolves itself into the simple element of comparison, which we have just mentioned.

The early versions of Homer in English, possessed a great deal of merit; but the revolution which our language has undergone, places those versions under very unfavourable circumstances for a fair judgment to be passed on them. Hall was the first translator, and he executed his copy, published in 1581, at second-hand, from the French. Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby followed. They had not the slightest notion of aiming at any other merit

than that of rendering the sense of their author-not caring, sometimes, how they accomplished their object. A most amusing characteristic of theirs, is their extreme officiousness in carrying forward into broad and downright assertions, the reserved hints and delicate implications of the immortal poet. They are never satisfied until they fairly set down in matter-of-fact terms, all that they suppose Homer would have said on any given point which he touches, if the limits of the verse had permitted him to do so. An instance of this we cannot forbear quoting from the quaint anapæsts of Chapman. Chryses, the priest, in the beginning of the first Iliad, having been repulsed so indecently by Agamemnon, is represented most naturally by the poet, as retiring in strict silence along the sea shore, until, having reached a good distance, he puts up a prayer to Apollo. Nothing can be more just, than that the timid priest should have delayed his purpose until he was out of the hearing of the insolent king. Homer is content to mark this circumstance by the simple word anavevee (far away). Not so Chapman, who not only tells us that the priest advanced a good way off, but also gives us the reason of his being in such haste. The priest trod off with haste and fear,

*

And walking silent, till he left, farre off his enemies eare.'

What an economist of words and ideas is the true poetical faculty! New translators of Homer arose in time; they concluded, from the little degree of popularity which their predecessors had shared, that a slavish adherence to the sense of the original was not likely to ensure them a better reception with the public--and they were all for retaining the fire and dignity and poetical splendour of Homer, at any hazard to his meaning. No fitter man could have been found in the realms of literature than Dryden, to exemplify the possibility of representing the grandeur of Homer in English verse; but he left the task to be accomplished by one whom he fascinated too much, not to make him an imitator of his faults as well as of his excellencies; and Homer, notwithstanding Pope's immortal Iliad and Odyssey, still wanted a translator. Tickell has left us a version of the first Iliad in so excellent a style, that we have to lament the modesty, or whatever else was the

* In Mr. Wakefield's admirable edition of Pope's Homer, this verse is quoted; and the word "left" is printed "felt." The reason we mention this is, that the verse with this obvious blunder receives the marked eulogy of Mr. Wakefield. We have consulted the original edition of Chapman, and we use the genuine word.Having alluded to Mr. Wakefield's edition of Pope's Homer, we cannot part with the first fair opportunity which presents itself, without protesting against the injustice which has been done him in a late edition of the "Ilias Homeri," by the Rev. Mr. Trollope. Mr. Trollope has given the Greek text with English notes. The most valuable of these notes are almost verbatim Mr. Wakefield's, whose name is not once mentioned by the Reverend editor.

VOL. XIV.