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clotted cream :-I think I see them now with sparkling looks; or have they vanished while I have been writing this description of them? No matter; they will return again when I least think of them." P. 223.

Mr. Hazlitt has had a taste of barberries in his mouth for forty years; and it still acts upon him like a sixth sense. The smell of a brick-kiln conveys to his nose (as it probably does to every body else's nose) "the evidence of its own identity." In a drizzling spring-shower he always thinks of a little public house near Wem in Shropshire, where he once drank a glass of ale. He finds his great intellectual superiority vastly troublesome in society. One person inquires point blank, what articles he has written in the Edinburgh Review? another, in his very hearing, asks "which is Mr. Hazlitt?" and in self defence he is often obliged to shew flattering letters from foreign correspondents, and to plead guilty to the weekly witticisms which he intersperses among the more solemn blasphemies of the Examiner. Mr. Hazlitt has made a discovery in classical antiquity which is wholly new to us. He is speaking of the difficulty of hecoming accurately acquainted with the characters of our near relations; and he supports his paradox by an illustration given with a most excathedraical pomposity. "The Penates, the household Gods are veiled.". Now the Penates were not veiled. Every schoolboy could tell him that the Lares were covered with a dog skin, and perhaps could add the reason; every school-boy also could distinguish, (which Mr. Hazlitt it seems cannot,) be tween the Lares and the Penates. Having dismissed his illustration we will give a specimen of his argument on this point.

"Not only is there a wilful and habitual blindness in near kindred to each other's defects, but an incapacity to judge from the quantity of materials, from the contradictoriness of the evidence. The chain of particulars is too long and massy for us to lift it or put it into the most approved ethical scales. The concrete result does not answer to any abstract theory, to any logical definition. There is black, and white, and grey, square and round-there are too many anomalies, too many redeeming points, in poor human nature, such as it actually is, for us to arrive at a smart, summary decision on it." · P. 359.

With this we must conclude, for we can scarcely hope to exceed it. If Mr. Hazlitt really talks at table such matters as he here writes for his Table Talk, we should very much like to dine in his company (at a third person's house) for once in our lives.

ART. VI. A Voyage of Discovery, into the South Sea and Behring's Straits, for the Purpose of exploring a NorthEast Passage, undertaken in the Years 1815-1818, at the Expence of his Highness the Chancellor of the Empire, Count Romanzoff, in the Ship Rurick, under the Command of the Lieutenant in the Russian Imperial Navy, Otto Von Kotzebue. Illustrated with numerous Plates and Maps. In three Vols. 8vo. Price 21. 5s. Longman and Co. 1821.

THE expedition of which Lieutenant Von Kotzebue was appointed commander, was indertaken at the sole expence of Count Romanzoff. The Count's first intention was to despatch two ships, one from Russia, which, after a voyage through the South Sea, should penetrate Behring's Straits; the other from America, to explore the boundaries of Baffin's Bay. The last of these attempts was not made, and it has subsequently been rendered unnecessary by Captain Parry's voyage. Lieutenant Kotzebue, the son of the celebrated writer, when very young, had sailed with Krusenstern, and, as a youth, had attracted the attention of that veteran mariner, by the accuracy of his astronomical observations, and the skill with which he constructed charts. After other services, he had the good fortune to please Count Romanzoff on his first introduction to him; and the ardour which he displayed for discovery, his coolness in danger, and his conduct during his intercourse with the savages whom he visited, all satisfy us that it would not have been easy for that enlightened nobleman to have fixed his choice on an officer better calculated for the difficult and hazardous duties on which he embarked.

The Rurick, a vessel of 180 tons burden, was built in Sweden. The astronomical and physical instruments with which she was provided, were framed in England, by Troughton, Jones, Tully, Barraud, and Hardy; and Lieutenant Kotzebue bears a most willing testimony to their excellence. Horsburgh, Arrowsmith, and Durcy supplied an extensive collection of maps. The English Admiralty presented a lifeboat gratuitously, which, however, was subsequently found too large for the Rurick to carry; and clothing, spices, medicines, surgical instruments, &c. were procured from London. Large quantities, also, of Donkin's preserved meat were purchased, and to the merits of this most invaluable discovery frequent references are made in the course of the voyage. The crew consisted of the commander, Kot

zebue, Schischmareff, a lieutenant, Dr. Eschcholz, physician, Messieurs Von Chamisso and Von Wormskiöld, naturalists; M. Choris, à painter; three second mates, two subaltern officers, and twenty sailors. The Rurick carried two masts, and mounted eight guns, and thus equipped she sailed from Cronstadt, on July 30, 1815.

Lieutenant Kotzebue appears to have been much pleased by his reception in England, on touching at Plymouth. He had bad weather in getting out of the harbour, and was not without apprehension of shipwreck, before his expedition could be fairly said to have commenced. Cape Horn was doubled without much difficulty; and a Russian ship anchored for the first time in Conception Bay. Great hospitality was shewn to the visitors by the authorities of Chili; but the Lieutenant's gallantry was not a little offended by finding the young ladies seated at his feet in a ball-room; and his politeness not a little put to the test when he was offered the fashionable beverage, a decoction from the herb Paraguay. Each guest, by turns, sucks a few drops from the spout of a silver vessel; Kotzebue suppressed his dislike to this unpleasant custom, but could not suppress his pain when he found his lips scalded. He had neglected to observe that the heated spout is grasped only by the teeth.

On an island towards the eastern shore of Behring's Straits Lieutenant Kotzebue was greeted in a very friendly manner by the natives. After some previous salutations and presents, the commander of the horde invited his visitor to his tent. There a greasy piece of leather was spread as a seat for the guest, and each person present, approaching in turn, embraced him, rubbed his nose hardly against the stranger's nose, then spit upon his own hands and wiped them several times over the face of his newly acquired friend. A wooden trough, of whale blubber, of which Lieutenant Kotzebue wheedled his stomach to partake, confirmed the favourable impressions which the savages had conceived, and they parted from the navigator with great apparent regret.

On approaching St. Lawrence's island three boats came out to meet the Rurick. As they neared the vessel the crews commenced a mournful song, and a chief rising up from the middle boat, held out a small black dog. Then, speaking a few expressive words, he drew a knife, plunged it into the victim, and threw its body into the sea. Amity being thus formally established, a few of them ventured on board the ship.

In longitude 166°. 24'. latitude 66°. 14'. the coast took a direction very much to the east; a broad inlet shewed itself;

the land on the east soon vanished, and high mountains appeared on the north. Expectation was at its height. It was possible that this might be the long sought for north-east passage. A current entered the strait, running a mile and a half an hour to the north-east. The open sea lay before them, but the depth, as they advanced, decreased till it was no where more than five or six fathoms. This circumstance diminished, if not extinguished their hopes, and Kotzebue resolved to explore the remainder of the bay, if such it was, in his boat. Having landed, they encountered some Americans, who treated them civilly, and invited them to a hut. The wife and two children of one of them were found in it. The lady took a fancy to Kotzebue's bright buttons, and secretly endeavoured to twist them off. Failing in this, she sent the two children, who, being wholly wrapped in fur, crawled about him like young bears, and playfully tried to bite them off. Kotzebue had observed a second opening in his circuit of the bay, and took much trouble to make his host comprehend that he wanted to know how far this branch extended. The American seated himself on the ground, and rowed eagerly with his arms, interrupting this business nine times, by closing his eyes, and resting his head on his hand. The case could not be clearer; it was nine days' voyage.

The mode of barter among these Americans is precisely the same as that which Herodotus describes of an older people. The stranger who wants to sell first comes and places his goods upon the shore, and then retires. The American next comes, examines the goods, places by them as many skins as he thinks they are worth, and then retires in his turn also. If the stranger is satisfied he takes the skins and leaves his goods if he is not, he lets all the things lie, and retires a second time, in the hope that the buyer will make an additional offer. Their method of feeding is distinguished for its simplicity. A seal, just killed, is placed in the midst of the party, its belly is cut open, and each, after the other, puts his head in, and sucks out the blood. When their thirst is satisfied, every man cuts for himself a gobbet of the flesh, which he devours without much attention to mastication.

J

To this sound Kotzebue gave his own name. He found in it an admirable anchorage, and to use his own words, "I certainly hope that this sound may lead to important discoveries next year, and though a north-east passage may not, with certainty, be depended upon, yet, I believe, I shall be able to penetrate much farther to the east." The few days more in which these seas would be navigable (it was already the 18th of August) forbade him to delay longer, and he crossed

over to East Cape, on the Asiatic coast. In his intercourse with the natives here he was forcibly struck by a distinctive peculiarity which he had before remarked between the northern and southern savages. In the south, one of the most acceptable presents is a looking glass. In the north, on the contrary, directly a native sees the reflection of his own image, he shudders and runs away.

The dresses among the Asiatic inhabitants of Behring's Straits are the same as those of the Americans, but the latter are more cleanly. The former, the Tschukutskoi, were invariably cheerful and friendly; they brought numerous presents; and though they stole somewhat in return it was not with the sanction of the chiefs. A criminal who was detected in the act of secreting a pair of scissars, was punished in a manner which Kotzebue describes to be as painful as it is singular. A circle is drawn on the ground, about six feet in diameter, and upon this the culprit is condemned to run for a given time, in a short trot, always in the same direction. The difficulty of keeping from falling is stated to be very great. The hostility of the Tschukutskoi to their opposite neighbours is exceedingly rancorous. They recognised by the bones worn in the under lip the portraits of some Americans, which Mr. Choris had taken; and one of them drawing his knife exclaimed, "If I meet such a fellow with two bones I will run him through.'

On his arrival at Oonalashka, Kotzebue learnt a zoological fact which probably has not been so gravely stated since the days of the veracious Sinbad, namely, that whales were sometimes found one hundred and eighty feet in length, and that the people engaged at the opposite ends of the fish must halloo very loud to be able to understand one another.

This story, however, was equalled by one which was told our voyager, in a land of comparative civilization. The governor of Manilla, "A well-informed, intelligent man, assured him that horses often ran away into the interior of the country. There a bird makes its nest in the upper part of the animal's tail: the horse grows lean, and does not recover even after the bird has flown away with its young."

In California, the governor of St. Francisco entertained his visitors with a fight between a bull and a bear. The latter are so numerous, that dragoons are as commonly sent on horseback into the forests to catch a bear, 66 as we would order a cook to bring a goose from the pen." Both bull and bear are wild, and each is caught by a noose. Their combat was remarkable, and, though the bull frequently tossed his antagonist, the bear, strange to say, was victor in the end.

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