drinking Europeans are generally apt to be; for, though Apollo may be the God of physicians, it is Bacchus perhaps who mainly provides them with customers. Nevertheless the natives have several disorders to which they are peculiarly subject, and which no temperance can avoid, or indeed which abstemiousness itself tends to aggravate. Thus, in the fevers arising from marshy miasmata, wine has been often found an efficacious medicine. I ought further to remark that almost all the Kabyles and Arabs who have come in contact with the French at Algiers have shown no reluctance to being relieved in a French hospital. They overcome their scruples of fatalism by arguing thus: "It was fated that I should be sick;-it was fated that I should be carried to the French hospital;-it was fated that the French doctor should feel my pulse, and make me show my tongue;-it was fated that his apprentice should bring me drugs that were to pass through my body, and restore me;-all this was the will of God, or else it could not have happened."

In speaking of disorders at Algiers, I ought rather to call them disorders incidental to the country, than peculiar to it, or inseparably connected with the climate. The climate of the Regency is noxious only in particular parts. I believe Algiers itself to be as healthful as the most of the towns in Europe. The sultriness of summer throughout the whole Regency is mitigated by north winds that come across the Mediterranean, as well as by the south-westers which, traversing the tablelands on the double chain of mount Atlas, refresh the atmosphere with the breath of the Atlantic Ocean.

It is true that in this country, as every where else where there are marshes, there are fevers. The Pontine marshes as well as those around Mantua, and on the plains of Sardinia,-nay, the coasts of Holland and Essex-have but too much febrile celebrity; and in like manner the evaporation from numerous swampy tracts on the Metidja plain along the river Arratch, in face of the southern and eastern line of the French cantonments, have been exceedingly fatal to their soldiery. The natives themselves who are enlisted as Zouaves in the French service suffer also from this marsh fever; but it is remarkable in how small a degree comparatively with the French. Nine out of ten Frenchmen are seized with it, but only one out of four of the natives: the African Zouaves are also more speedily cured of it than Europeans and are less subject to renewed attacks.

But there is nothing incurable in the swampiness of the Metidja. That plain, by a little industry, might be brought once more to deserve the name which it once derived from a young and beautiful princess. By digging channels for its moisture, and by embanking its principal river, it would soon be converted from the head of Medusa to the breath and bloom of Hebe. The same may be said as to the perfect practicability of making Bona itself more healthful. Human industry is God's vicegerent, in sanitizing, if I may dare to coin a word, the earth we tread, and the air we breathe. The French intend to drain all the accessible marshes of the Regency-I hope they will neither trifle with this design, nor abandon it; for humanity at large is interested in their civilizing this part of Africa. Let them remember that there is no glory in merely intending well, for hell itself they say is paved with good intentions.

The Arabs themselves, as I have said, are beginning to open their eyes to the blessings of the healing art. I have before me a list-name and surname, of all the males and females who have received medical treatment from the surgeon-major of the Zouaves in the months of March, April, and May of 1834. The number of patients was 274, of whom 233 were cured, 32 continued in the hospital till a later part of the year, and only 9 were found incurable. This gives one heart and hope as to future civilization. I subjoin a list of the relative number of the diseases, as it forms an interesting document in the natural history of the native population. Of Abscess by Congestion, there were 2 cases; of Mental Alienation, 1; Amaurosis, 1; Aphthæ, 2; Ascitis Abdominalis, 3; Bronchitis, 4; Cancerous affection, 3; Carious Bones, 5; Pulmonary Catarrhs, 2; Cataract, 1; Cephalitis, 2; Impeded Circulation in the Limbs, 1; Enteritis, 6; Epilepsy, I; Cutaneous Eruption, 1; Exostosis, 2; Fevers, 46; Intermittent ones, 42; Quotidian ditto, 2; Putrid ditto, 1; Destructive ditto, 1; Submaxillary Fistula, 1; Boils, 1; Fluxion, 1; the Itch, 2; Gastritis, 6; Gastro-Cephalitis, 1; Gastro-Enteritis, 4; Gastro-Pneumonitis, 4; Inflammation of the Liver, 1; Neurosis, 1; Inflammation of the Matrix, 6; Ophthalmia, 40; Inflammation of the Ear, 4; Pneumonia, 3; Obstruction of the Spleen, 1; Rheumatic Affections, 15; Sciatica, 1; Scorbutic Affections, 3; Schirrus, 1; Syphilitic Affections, 7; ScaldHead, 24; Tumours, 2; Ulcers, 11; Uteritis, 1. The surplus of cases consisted of Wounds, Contusions, Fractures and Sores, the result of accidents.

During the months of April and May, 1834, thirty-one Arabs of both sexes, of ages varying from eighteen months to twenty years, have been vaccinated.

Independently of those patients who have been attended to by the surgeon-major of the Zouaves, and independently also of their military hospital, the French have established in Algiers a civil hospital as well as a dispensary. To the civil hospital are admitted French colonists, Jews, and Moslems, without distinction. The number of patients, since the opening of the institution, in August, 1832, down to the first of January, 1834, is stated by Mons. Genty de Bussy at 849. The number of deaths, I am sorry to find, has been very considerable; but the care that is taken of the patients,-who cost the Government on an average little less than two shillings a head per day,-and the good report which the Kabyles and Arabs who have been healed in this asylum will necessarily spread throughout the Regency, must be deservedly beneficial to the French.

Whilst the French were in possession of Coleah, they humanely projected an hospital for the Arabs; and what is equally agreeable to relate, the Maraboots, or saints of the country, showed a strong interest in the project. This is the true way to conquer Africa. Of all apologues, that of the sun and the wind contending which should first make the traveller open his cloak, best illustrates the means of civilization; and how beautiful is the spectacle of charity uniting those whom religion. separates!

At Oran and at Bona civil hospitals are already in a state of formation.

It is allowable also to hope that France will diffuse moral as well as

medical knowledge over Algiers. I told you, what I still believe, that the Algerine Moors are a better-educated people than we generally suppose them to be in Europe; that is, that all their children learn to read and write, and many of them to cast up accounts; nay, I have met with Arabs and Kabyles who could write and calculate by figures. But it is not contradicting this fact to add to it that a European child acquires infinitely more by learning to read than a little Mussulman can do under the present native mode of education. The European is taught language by grammar and principles; the African here is taught only the words of the Koran-his master being too ignorant himself to explain even the difference between a noun and a verb. The Algerine pedagogues are not cruel, and they abstain from one odious mode of flagellation which still disgraces some of our schools: but still the rod is the schoolmaster's sceptre in Algiers, though he flourishes it over the shoulders of his pupils, instead of more exceptionable parts. I have been witness to an hour's tuition in an Algerine school. On my entrance I found the schoolmaster and his scholars all prostrated in prayer upon the ground. I retired for some minutes until they had finished their devotions: on re-entering, I found the boys all squatted, and bowing see-saw over their slates, some of them writing Arabic characters, and all of them mumbling words which of course were those of verses of the Koran. For a long time all went on smoothly; but at length I recognized the truth of Juvenal's remark, that the teacher has an arduous task in watching tot manus puerorum. The oriental gravity of the pupils began to relax, even to visible cachinnation and audible tittering. It was then that the schoolmaster went abroad, and by some well-timed hits he restored them to a state of serious and see-saw mumbling over the Koran.

I repeat to you my belief, that there was no such thing as the Lancasterian system of tuition discovered in Algiers by the French, but schools of mutual instruction have been established, early after the conquest, at Algiers, Oran and Bona. Those schools are open to the native children, both Jewish and Mussulman.

The following is no unpleasant statistic table of public tuition in the Regency, dated the first of July, 1834 :

At Algiers, taking in the village of Delhy-Ibrahim, and at Oran and Bona, there are educated in gratuitous schools, on the mutual-instruction system, 317 pupils, of whom a third are natives; 48 of these are students of the Arabic language. Of private institutions of education (of course not gratuitous), there are two for boys, who fill them to the amount of 72; and four for girls, three at Algiers and one at Oran, the pupils of which amount to 169.

It is worth remarking that the Moors show themselves much more backward than the Jews in availing themselves of the means of European instruction that have been thus opened up. This is a pity, no doubt, for the Moors; but it bespeaks also our praise for the Jews, and they will reap the advantage.

SWEET-BRIAR.

Wild-rose, Sweet-briar, Eglantine,
All these pretty names are mine,
And scent in every leaf is mine,
And a leaf for all is mine;
And the scent-Oh, that's divine!
Happy-sweet, and pungent-fine,
Pure as dew, and pick'd as wine.
As the rose in gardens dress'd
Is the lady self-possess'd,

I'm the lass in simple vest,

The country lass whose blood's the best.

Were the beams that thread the briar
In the morn with golden fire
Scented too, they'd smell like me,
All Elysian pungency.

POPPIES.

We are slumberous poppies,
Lords of Lethe downs,
Some awake, and some asleep,

Sleeping in our crowns.

What perchance our dreams may know,
Let our serious beauty show.

Central depth of purple,

Leaves more bright than rose,

Who shall tell what brightest thought

Out of darkest grows?

Who, through what funereal pain,

Souls to love and peace attain ?

Visions aye are on us,

Unto eyes of power,

Pluto's alway-setting sun,

And Proserpine's bower:

There, like bees, the pale souls come

For our drink, with drowsy hum.

Taste, ye mortals, also;

Milky-hearted, we;

Taste, but with a reverent care;

Active-patient be.

Too much gladness brings to gloom

Those who on the gods presume.

CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS.

WE are the sweet flowers,
Born of sunny showers,

(Think, whene'er you see us, what our beauty saith); Utterance, mute and bright,

Of some unknown delight,

We fill the air with pleasure, by our simple breath: All who see us, love us;

We befit all places;

Unto sorrow we give smiles, and unto graces, graces.