pain and danger, make strong impressions, and even after the lapse of many years spent in the busy scenes of life, we can, with great distinctness, trace the approaches of a fever, or the painful consequences of a fall. The minutest incident connected with a fire, a highway robbery, an amputation, the loss of a beloved child, or the fear of losing one, obtain a place in the mind, of such permanent and abiding character, with all the accompaniments of what "he said," and "she thought," and "I apprehended," that we ought not hastily to conclude, in the case of Ferdinand, imagination has eked out the deficiencies of memory, or invention supplied the stores of interest. Although the power of endurance sometimes appears superhuman, yet we know that man is strong to suffer, and that in the very prime of life, with a body neither debilitated by early indulgence, nor injured by mental application, it is possible to endure long and successive hardships of the most appalling kind.

With regard to several circumstances, posterity (though late) will do that justice to his reputation denied by his own times, a comfort which has frequently followed the traveller, when he could, unhappily, take no comfort in it—when the sneer of doubt, the assertion of calumny, and the cruelty of contempt, had spent their shaft, and laid that enterprising spirit low, which had withstood all other evils. Ferdinand tells us, "of beautiful gardens, in which the moon sheds such a kindly influence, that the roses bloom every month, instead of every summer." Now this was laughed at by the wits of his day; but we see these very roses adorn our northern gardens, renewed if not strictly from month to month, yet many times in the year. He describes "a wonderful beast with two legs, and in some respects resembling a bird," which we recognise as the Cassiowary. His account of the Pagoda of Trinkalamar, before whose chariot wheels so many wretches sacrifice themselves, though utterly incredible in his day, is so far from being new to us, that it is, unhappily, as well verified as a transaction in Paris or Edinburgh, and has ceased (monstrous as it appears) to excite astonishment. It is remarkable, that he never once mentions the burnings of the Malabar women with the bodies of their husbands, of which, we apprehend, he must have heard, though he might not witness, and we are thence induced to conclude, that there is some truth in an assertion he repeatedly makes, that he has kept back the relation of diverse wonderous things, which would have been to the contentment of some, by reason that others would have scoffed."

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His accounts of the conduct, violence, misfortunes, and bloodshed, attending the various eastern sovereigns, whose courts he happened to visit, and in whose battles he was from necessity engaged, appear to us faithful in their general his

tory, since they partake precisely the characteristics of all despotic governments; and in the most terrific pictures they exhibit of ferocity and endurance, do not exceed the well authenticated accounts of similar personages performing on similar theatres at the present day. Ferdinand gives us not one tyrant so dreadful as Ali Pacha, nor one overthrow more complete than his-the prodigality with which human life is sacrificed, the remorseless cruelty with which the offending victim is pursued, and the sweeping injustice with which whole families are destroyed for the crime of one delinquent, are not detailed by him in any manner different from those who have come after him, when treating on such awful, hateful, yet deeply interesting subjects. In his pages, as in those of others from that period to the present, an eastern sovereign ever appears in the light of a mighty volcano, from whose mouth destruction issues with the rapidity of lightning. Majestic and resplendent, when beheld as an object of distant admiration, but sure and remorseless in its direction, and desolating in its course; sometimes smiting the wicked in its wrath, but more frequently destroying the virtuous in its caprice, and every where shedding a baleful influence on the progress of freedom, and the rights of humanity.

Many are the awful changes and retributions, the unmerited misfortunes, and horrible revenges, related by Ferdinand, as taking place during a period of about twenty-five years in the great theatre of Asia, and which might well " furnish matter for the tragic muse" to us, especially as they are frequently given with many affecting particulars, and the speeches of the principal parties, in the grand and figurative language of the east, which being diametrically opposed to that of the narrator, and apparently far above his powers of composition, impress us with an almost irresistible reliance on their truth.

It is but justice to declare, that of all the books of travels it has been our delight first, and, subsequently, our duty to peruse, (and they have been numerous, large, and frequently heavy enough,) we never yet met with one gaping gazer at sights, who could describe a holy procession, the reception of an embassador, or any of the pageantries of an eastern court, with half the ability of Mendez Pinto. Every mottoed lantern, silken banner, and gilded device, is registered by him with the minuteness of a "keeper of the brawls," and the regular succession of aged nobles, fair damsels, armed warriors, beautiful boys, bearers of censers, and of standards; strewers of flowers, beaters of cymbals, &c., in all their varieties of crimson, scarlet, green, and yellow, with golden coronets, braided tresses, ånd flowery wreaths, are arranged in their places with the utmost precision.

We recommend him to Farley and Dibdin as an invaluable coadjutor, and consider him capable of touching a new spring of gaiety even in the miraculous Grimaldi, as he particularly admires the "pretty fantasy of a certain dance, wherein fair young maidens danced with ould men:" in fact, we have not only materials for thus newly ornamenting our dramatic exhibitions; but the dramas themselves delineated with an accuracy, which decidedly proves them worthy of adoption for those occasions which call for the splendour and novelty of eastern pomp, or magical surprise. Nor can we doubt, that several of our extracts will strike our readers, as containing not only the germ, but the incidents necessary for composing dramatic representations, which may combine powerful pathos, the most exquisite scenery, together with strict poetic justice. This is more especially found in the history of the Portuguese favourite, which occurs towards the end of the work; which we shall now proceed to examine, and from which we shall extract all that verifies our assertions, and is really worthy of perusal, leaving our readers the power of judging for themselves the probability of our traveller's honesty, and the extent of his invention; and saving them from the dryness of his details, and the recapitulation of hardships generally monotonous, and frequently as incredible as they are dull.

Ferdinand Mendez Pinto begins his history by lamenting the malice of fortune, and declaring, that the history of his travels, and his sorrows, are all he has to leave his children ;he says, that in the space of twenty-one years, "he was thirteen times a captive, and seventeen times sold as a slave;" he speaks of his parents as poor people, and that he was too much "cockered up by his mother," whom he left at eleven or twelve years, to enter the service of a lady. Under the advice of his uncle he left his native land in 1537, in a ship commanded by Don Pedro de Silva, son of Admiral Don Vasco de Gama, for the Indies. They touch at various parts, and encounter some disagreeable circumstances, and at length arrive at Mecqua, where they meet with some trifling bad offices from a renegado Christian, who, "by reason of his marriage with a Mahometan woman, had abjured his religion:" and we have here, a most notable example of the spirit of the times and the church to which our traveller belongs, and which may serve as a proof, that although evidently a man of mild temper and conciliating manners, he yet was a good catholic, and a firm believer in the infallibility of all the inquisitorial edicts of his mother church.

"Our captains much amazed hereat, gently persuaded him to acquit this abominable belief, and become a Christian again; whereunto

the wicked caitiff made answer with a brutish obstinacy, that at no hand he would yield to forsake his law, shewing himself so hardened in the resolution to continue therein, as if he had been born in it, and never had profest any other. By these speeches of his, the captains, perceiving there was no hope of recalling him from his damnable error, caused him to be bound hand and foot, and so, with a great stone tied about his neck, to be cast alive into the sea, sending him to participate with the torments of this Mahomet, and to be his companion in the other world, as he had been his confident in this. This infidel being executed in this sort, we put the other prisoners into one of our foists, and then sunk their vessel, with all the goods that were in her, which consisted most in packs of stained cloths, whereof we had no use, and a few pieces of chamlet that the soldiers got to make them apparel."

So much for summary injustice and murder. They then continue their journey by land, to the "mother of Prester John," re-embarking at the port of Arquice, and traverse a considerable portion of Ethiopia, where they see the son of the governor of that kingdom, of whose good actions a very pleasant account is given. Soon after their embarkation they encounter three Turkish vessels, by whom they are taken prisoners, made slaves, hurried back to the coast, and treated with outrageous cruelty, and at length thrust into a dungeon, where all their food was a few peas soaked in water. In this dreadful state some of his companions died, but himself and nine others were drawn out for sale; but during the time of their exposure a quarrel arose respecting the disposal of their property, in which many excellent things were said on both sides, but not tending to the relief of the prisoners. Ferdinand was purchased by a Greek renegado, who, for the space of three whole months, tortured him incessantly, and then sold him again (lest he should die upon his hands) to a Jew. In the mean time money had been gathered in the town, from pity, for his ransom, which, though trifling, the new master accepted, and forwarded him to Goa, where he was received into the service of the King of Portugal. He was soon sent out with the fleet assigned by the governor to succour one of the native princes, at war with another, or rather so to act, (agreeably to the policy of Europe in the east,) as that some portion of the power and riches of the belligerent powers might fall to the lot of the insidious mediator.

Ferdinand now begins to see the interior of a court, and to relate those particulars of state ceremony, of which he afterwards saw so much on a larger scale; for the present King of Batas, and the Queen of Oner, do not appear from the nature of their equipments to be of greater power and importance, than the petty sovereigns of Germany.

The

queen shews much good sense in her management of the affair, but the king and his queen, and court, are the more interesting, especially, when after many misfortunes we find, that from the irruption of another and unexpected enemy, the tyrant of Achem, his happiness and his kingdom are alike endangered.

Ferdinand was sent from his general, Gonsalez, as a plenipotentiary to this sovereign, from whence we may infer, that he was a young fellow of quick parts, and had already made some progress in the language of the country, especially as he gives us various speeches of the King of Batas, whose critical situation renders him an earnest and humble suppliant to the Portugal (Portugueze) governor. The aid slowly granted to this injured prince proves insufficient; the kingdom is entered, various battles are fought bravely by the king and his people, (but in no one instance are the deeds of any person extolled as extraordinary), but, after various changes, the tyrant succeeds in gaining the capital, where a dreadful butchery ensues. The king dies in battle, and nearly all the Portugals engaged in his cause share his fate, Ferdinand himself being severely wounded. The queen, who was the innocent cause of the war (for the tyrant had commanded his brother king to divorce her, after a marriage of twenty-six years, and to marry his sister, in order that their empires might be consolidated), flies from one king to another, beseeching the compassion of each, in order to the revenging the death of her husband, but it was long before she found any inclined to pity her sorrows, or perceive the political necessity of reducing the ambition of the tyrant. At length, the King of Aaru pities her, and marries her; and, on the day of her nuptials, declares war against the tyrant of Achem, now termed the sultan; but this unfortunate prince is, after one successful encounter, slain in the second by a shot from the harquebuss of a Turk, and his body, after many ceremonies, was " publicly sawed into sundry_pieces, was boiled in a cauldron full of oil and pitch," &c. The distract queen, with more cause, still seeks for vengeance, which the King of Aaru so far obtains, as through the means of his general to regain the kingdom of Aaru, and establish there the heir of the deceased monarch. But this king is murdered soon after his conquest, violence being ever in these eastern dominions the order of the day. During the period of these transactions, our traveller is engaged in many battles and some long journeys, in the course of his communications between the contending parties, and is frequently in great danger of his life, both from parties of the natives and the circumstances of the country. On coasting the Isle of Sumatra, says he, we entered a little river, and saw athwart a wood

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