Page images
PDF
EPUB

tin, Philosophy, Chemistry, Mechanics, &c. But we could not help thinking at the time, and have thought it much more since, that to attain such excellence in acquirements of (to them) ques tionable utility, much valuable time must have been sacrificed. Precious moments must have been fritter'd away with Greek, Mechanics, and Chemistry, that should rather bave been employed in diffusing amongst their ignorant bretheren the elements of mental regeneration, sound, practical, and where it may be done without alarming prejudice, Christian knowledge. We believe that the wholę of the Cotta Youths are intended to be sent abroad, in time, either as Missionaries or Teachers. If as Missionaries of the Gos pel should not their education be purely Theological? If as Teachers it ought to be as simple as possible, and in reference to the capacities of those to be taught, not of those who are to teach. Is it intended that the Dobey's child should be initiated into the mysteries of centrifugal and other forces, that our Appos should grow up learned in the wisdom of the Atomic Theory, or that the Cinnamon Peelers' children should be taught the nature of the essential oil which flavors that spicy bark, and how much of its quality depends upon the action of the solar rays! We make these few remarks without reference to the gentlemen at the head of the Institution, who we believe act upon a system lają down for their guidance by the home committçe, and doubtless cannot depart therefrom. It is possible too, that we may be wrong in these ideas, but until we hear some stronger arguments than have reached us as yet, we cannot concede the utility of an University Education for the enlightenment and conversion of the inhabitants of the Jungle Villages of Ceylon.

66

Mrs. Trollope, the vulgar though clever satirist of the follies of the human character, has commenced in the " Metropolitan," a new work entitled The Blue Belles of England" from what we hear of the opening chapters, it promises to be a performance of considerable merit and free from much of the objectionable in her former productions.

Sir David Brewster's work, "The Martyrs of Science" is well spoken of: it comprises the lives of Gallileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler. Ainsworth, we perceive, is determined to make the most

of his present popularity, and promises to rival "Bez" in the un weariedness of his pen: another "Historical Romance" with the promising title of "Windsor Castle” is announced from this prolific writet. Mr. Boutley promises us the following interesting povelties: Belgium." By J. E. Tennant Esq. M. P., in 2 vols. Memoirs of the Colman Family. By R. B. Peake Esq., 2 vols. Portraits of Children of the Nobility.

[ocr errors]

Mr. Colburn announces "The Book without a name." By Sir Charles and Lady Morgan. The Life and Letters of Beethoven. Edited by J. Moscheles Esq. Society in India. By an Indian Officer, and The Hon: Mrs. Dawson Damer's Diary of her Tour in Greece, Turkey, Egypt and the Holy Land.

Besides the above there are the following povelties;-Manners and Customs of the Japanese in the Nineteenth Century. A personal narrative of a Journey to the source of the River Oxus. By Lieut. John Wood. Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History. By Thomas Carlyle. The Last Days of Mary Stuart By Miss Emily Finch. Six Months with the Chinese Expedition. By Lord Jocyln. The Origin, Progress aud Present Condition of the Fine Arts in Great Britain. By W. B. S. Taylor. My Lite. By An Ex Dissenter. What to Observe, or the Traveller's Remembrancer. By Col. J. R. Jackson. Radical Cure of Stuttering by Surgical operation. From the German, by Joseph Trocars. Russia under Nicholas the First. From the German, by Capt. A. C. Sterling. The Life of Petrarch. By Thomas Campbell Esq., Author of the Pleasures of Hope. The Love Match. By Mrs. Maberly. Joan of Are. An historical Romance. By T. J. Serie Esq. The French Stage and the French people. Edited by Theodore Hook. A detence of Joint Stock Banks and Country Issues. Currency and Banking. The Currency Question.

DREAMS.

There's a golden vision that fits around,
In a babe's blue eye 'lis ever found;

There's a charm that we feel but may not tell,
And we would not break, if we could, that spell.

"Tis Childhood's Dream,

There's a fairy vision that breaks upon
And dazzles the sight, as it dances on,
A far off scene in some land of bliss,
Aud it leaves behind a sigh and a kiss,

"Tis the Dream of Youth,

There's a changing vision of dark and fair,
The sunshine of joy and the clouds of care.
And dearly the fancy loves to trace,

The future's path through that chequer'd space.

"Tis Manhood's Dream,

There's a holy vision that floạts above
The time-touched brow in a halo of love,
It breathes repose with its evening breath,
And it slumbers on 'till it sleeps in death.

"Tis the Dream of Age,

Ep. C. M.

LIFE IN THE JUNGLE,

OR LETTERS FROM A PLANTER TO HIS COUSIN IN LONDON.

LETTER II.

TO JOHN SMITH, CRUTCHED FRIARS, LONDON,

Epping Bungalow, May 10th, 1841, MY DEAR COUSIN,-As I promised in my last, before starting for this, I take up my pen to tell you our uprisings and downfalls, and I assure you we've seen a few since then. No doubt you'll want to know something, about "Epping Bungalow," so here you have it. Ou first coming in sight of my land covered with large aud gigantic, lofty trees, and thick with brushwood, I exclaimed, "How very like Epping Forest!" Mrs. B. agreed with me, so we determined to christian our clearing "Epping."-Bungalow is the asiatic, and I believe also the oriental name, for a small house or cottage, aud although we have not even the walls of a house up yet, but merely a

sort of a tent, still I call it our Bungalow. I am rather at a loss for the derivation of the word, but I am in lined to believe it arose from the bungling, hurried manner in which they are built, and from their being very low, for they've never more than a ground floor.

But I must tell you our adventures on the road. I said in my las: we were to come up by mail, and so we did. Our traps took thirteen carts, and a nice little job I had packing up! There was a box of straw to be got for the monkey, anotker for the tortoises, and innumerable slips of cloth to wrap the work-boxes in. The jewels we took with us, as also the walking sticks, and the children had the peacock's feathers to play with. After a dozen mishaps with the furniture, and the natives, and the bullocks, and having huge trunks placed upon Mrs. B's bonnet boxes, all was fairly started, and away we were off to bed, but not to quiet sleep. I passed the night in a feverish half dože. Our morrow's jour ney and all the hidden horrors of jungle-life fitted before my fretful imagination. I saw a splended Coffee garden rise up in full blossom, from the ground. Hoes, rakes and pickaxes were working away in it by invisible hands. I tried to reach it, but I found deep ravines and mountain torrents, in my way, and little fiends spreading fevers and maladies around. Then I was in the mail coach and the horses were galloping us down a precipice, rocks were tumbling about our ears, and my wife and children were clinging around me. "Brown, Brown!" shouted some voice, and "Brown, Brown" echoed from rock to rock. I started forward to seize the trunk of a tree, and lo! I found I had hold of the bed post with my wife by my side telling me in was four o'clock, and time to be dressing.

manner.

Well it was hurry, skurry and scramble for one entire hour, at the end of which we found ourselves groping about the steps of a carriage with wheels like a co waggon, It was as dark as a coal-mine, and every thing had to be done by feel. The children and Mrs. B. were lugged in, and I scrambled over the wheels as fast as I could, for the horses were being put in. I left my luggage to the mercy of the coach niggers, for seeing that all was right appeared to be out of the question, and the hors s were rearing and kicking in a dreadful Just as all was ready, a gun was fired from the batteries as a signal for us to start, and away we went at a furious rate, the carriege rolling from side to side like a drunken sailor. My wife grasped my arm till it was black and blue, and the children screamed most un ercifully. After the first start all went well enough and we had leisure to lock around us: however I saw little that was interesting for the first half of our journey, it reminded me again of the "biled piece of pork and the roast piece of pork," for it was a paddy field and cocoanut trees, and a hut, and ano. ther paddy field and more cocoanut trees and then another hut. Pat on our leaving the half-way house after breakfast, the scene on all sides was truly grand and picturesque: it beat Burford's Fennyram all to nothing at all. I guess he could'nt do better than take a trip out to Ceylon and paint a few

of the fine Pennyrams to be met with up here. I used to think Richmond Hill and Winsor Forest first chop things of the kind, and that there wasn't their equals any where, but bless you, they was nothing to the hills and woods here! It made Mrs. B. and the young ones scream to look down into some of the valleys, and we all the time rattling along a road close to the edge of about two thousand feet of perpendicular rock and bushes. I told my wife there. was no fear at all, but to speak the truth I laid a light hold of the carriage rails, and tried to whistle some popular airs, occasionally asking the driver how far we should fall if we made a slip, and how much more of that sort of road we had to go. But that was not the only annoyance: we had some of the most scampish cattle I ever remember to have met with. The horses were mostly strong and went on well when they did move, but the thing was to get them to start. They were full of all sorts of ridiculous tricks, quite disgusting! One horse had his legs tied while being put in; another would'ng · wait til the traces were fastened. A third comical little chap had a knack of laying down occasionally in the road, plump in the mud; he was the most tiresome of the lot. I said to the driver when he did this, " why coachman, whatever in the world is that ridiculous horse a thinking of, to be a laying down here instead of waiting till he gets to his stall?" “Why, Sir," says he 66 when this 'ere horse was แ poney he used to act Astley's and he had to sham Abraham and pertend to be shot at a stroke from his master, and so you see if I happen to touch him in the old place he thinks he's on the stage again, and must fall down and die He's a clever hanimal that there, sir!" I however differed from him, andthought it was a very silly horse not to know where he was after going up and down the road so often. I also thought that if the proprietors would have play-acting horses they ought at least to engage a clown or a pantaloon to drive 'em. We had no more had horses after this, with the exception of one who had a knack of climbing his companions neck, as though ascending an imaginary flight of stairs. I suppose he had been educated at Astley's too, and had been in the habit of getting up the ladder.

Well, cousin, we got at last to Kandy, the ancient capital of the Emperors of Ceylon-about 5, p. m. hot, hungry and tired. With some difficulty wo groped our way to the house, or rather hut, prepared for us, and began an attack on rice and curry, without paying much attention to the how or the where, and indeed it's co use being over nice here. I've often heard that travellers see strange things, but I never thought of seeing what I have in ons of the kitchens here. They remind me of the dog's meat shops in Cow Cross, where they bile the poor old dead horses, only the Singalee kitchen is dirtier by a good deal. If old mother Squeers had lived in eylon she'd have saved the expense of the brimstone and treacle, and have made the school boys walk through her kitchen before breakfast, if that did not take away the poor things' appetites they must have been cannibals.

« PreviousContinue »