pp. 21-27.

No one

Pringle, however, could sound a more stirring note. who ever conversed with him but must have been struck with the sudden fire which could occasionally flash from his soft, large, benignant eye; never was a countenance more indicative of manly mettle than his, when there was anything to call forth such expression. But we really could have formed no notion, until we read these Sketches, of the gallant and heroic daring of which Pringle, in his own feeble person, was capable, when thrown among scenes of excitement and peril; or how well his verse could keep pace with such ardours. Small, weak, and distorted as he was, utterly helpless in case of the most trivial accident to the horse he mounted, Pringle could never be kept from taking his fair share in those most hazardous expeditions after elephants and lions which formed the most lively feature in the life of the Glen-Lynden settlers. We have not room for his prose sketches of such doings, though they are extremely good, but must not pass over the following lyric, in which, we think, every one will agree with us that Pringle has caught and transferred to a far different scene not a little of the old Border fire :

'MOUNT-mount for the hunting-with musket and spear!
Call our friends to the field, for the Lion is near!
Call Arend and Ekhard and Groepe to the spoor;
Call Muller and Coetzer and Lucas Van Tuur.

Ride up Eildon-Cleugh, and blow loudly the bugle :
Call Slinger and Allie and Dikkop and Dugal;
And George with the elephant-gun on his shoulder,—
In a perilous pinch none is better or bolder.

'In the gorge of the glen lie the bones of my steed,
And the hoofs of a heifer of fatherland's breed;
But mount, my brave boys! if our rifles prove true,
We'll soon make the spoiler his ravages rue.

G 2

'Ho!

Ho! the Hottentot lads have discovered the track-
To his den in the desert we'll follow him back;
But tighten your girths, and look well to your flints,
For heavy and fresh are the villain's foot-prints.
"Through the rough rocky kloof into grey Huntly-Glen,
Past the wild olive-clump where the wolf has his den,
By the black eagle's rock at the foot of the fell,

We have tracked him at length to the buffalo's well.

'Now mark yonder brake where the blood-hounds are howling;
And hark that hoarse sound-like the deep thunder growling;
"Tis his lair-'tis his voice!-from your saddles aligh;
He's at bay in the brushwood, preparing for fight.
Leave the horses behind—and be still every man :
Let the Mullers and Rennies advance in the van:
Keep fast in your ranks ;-by the yell of yon hound,
The savage, I guess, will be out with a bound.
'He comes! the tall jungle before him loud crashing,
His mane bristled fiercely, his fiery eyes flashing;
With a roar of disdain, he leaps forth in his wrath,
To challenge the foe that dare 'leaguer his path.
'He couches-ay now we'll see mischief, I dread:
Quick-level your rifles-and aim at his head:
Thrust forward the spears, and unsheath every knife-
St. George! he's upon us!-Now fire, lads, for life!
'He's wounded-but yet he'll draw blood ere he falls-
Hah! under his paw see Bezuidenhout sprawls—
Now, Diederik! Christian! right in the brain
Plant each man his bullet-Hurra! he is slain!

. Bezuidenhout-up, man!-'tis only a scratch

(You were always a scamp, and have met with your match!) What a glorious lion!-what sinews-what claws

And seven-feet-ten from the rump to the jaws!

His hide, with the paws and the bones of his skull,
With the spoils of the leopard and buffalo bull,
We'll send to Sir Walter.-Now, boys, let us dine,

And talk of our deeds o'er a flask of old wine.'-pp. 28-31. We subjoin the last paragraph of this interesting volume-it gives us the author's general view of the Glen-Lynden settlement :

:

'Under the blessing of Providence, its prosperity has been steadily progressive. The friends whom I left there, though they have not escaped some occasional trials and disappointments-such as all men are exposed to in this uncertain world-have yet enjoyed a goodly share of "health, competence, and peace." As regards the first of these blessings, one fact may suffice: Out of twenty-three souls who accompanied me to Glen-Lynden fourteen years ago, there had not, up to the 24th of January last, occurred (so far as I know) a single death

death-except one, namely, that of Mr. Peter Rennie, who was unfortunately killed by the bursting of a gun, in 1825. My father, at the patriarchal age of eighty years, enjoys the mild sunset of life in the midst of his children and grand-children: the latter, of whom there is a large and rapidly increasing number, having been, with a few exceptions, all born in South Africa. The party have more than doubled their original numbers, by births alone, during the last twelve years. Several additional families of relatives, and of old acquaintance, have also lately joined them.

'Without having any pretensions to wealth, and with very little money among them, the Glen-Lynden settlers may be said to be in a thriving, and, on the whole, in a very enviable condition. They are no longer molested by either predatory Bushmen or Caffers ;-they have abundance of all that life requires for competence and for comfort; and they have few causes of anxiety about the future. Some of them, who have now acquired considerable flocks of merino sheep, have even a fair prospect of attaining by degrees to moderate wealth. They have excellent means of education for their children; they have a well-selected subscription library of about four hundred volumes; and, what is still more important, they have the public ordinances of religion duly and purely maintained among them. They have now a parish minister (the Rev. Alexander Welsh, a clergyman of the Scottish Church) established in the valley of Glen-Lynden, with a decent stipend from the Government, augmented by their own voluntary contributions.

'On the whole, I have great cause to bless God, both as regards the prosperity of my father's house, and in many respects also as regards my own career in life, (whatever may be my future worldly fortunes,) that His good Providence directed our emigrant course fourteen years ago to the wilds of Southern Africa.—p. 498.

With these words this amiable man closes his volume. He had, before his last illness overtook him, resolved on making his way back to Glen-Lynden, never again to be tempted out of that dear retirement; and we believe his wife and children are ere now on their way to rejoin there the affectionate kindred whose remote descendants will honour the name of Thomas Pringle.

We now come to the work of Lieutenant Moodie, of the 21st Fusileers, who, like Pringle, left this country for the Cape in 1819, and, like him, abandoned the colony after a residence and struggle of ten years. This gentleman, however, had no immediate connexion with the Government scheme for which 50,000l. were granted by Parliament in the year above-mentioned. His attempt was dependent on the isolated experiment of the family to which he belongs-a family which had for ages held a high station among the gentry of the Orkney Islands. The lieutenant informs us, that, soon after the

peace of 1815, his

family found their resources so straitened by the pressure of debts, that they were obliged to make up their minds to part with the extensive property in that remote region which had descended to them from the period of Norse dominion. But how the debts and difficulties had accumulated to this grievous extent he does not explain, nor had we any particular right to expect that he should do so. We know nothing from any other source of the particular case; but we are but too well acquainted with the causes of the ruin that about that time overtook many of the most ancient and distinguished families in the Hebridean and Orkney Islands, as well as on the other Highland coasts of Scotland, and the kindred shores of Connaught and Ulster. The high price of kelp during the war swelled their rentals to an amount of which their forefathers never had had the remotest anticipation. The rise was of the same kind with that in agricultural rentals throughout the kingdom generally, but far more extravagant. Like the other landlords of the time, these gentlemen accommodated their modes of living to this extraordinary change; but the imprudence was more than usually absurd on their part, in consequence of the obviously frail tenure on which the increased annual income depended. When the peace disturbed their fragile monopoly, they did not at once comprehend that it was in reality gone for ever, at least for their lifetime; and they continued to live on as they had done during the war, in the vain hope of better days coming back to them. But, indeed, it would not have been easy, even for the most prudent persons in their situation, to change their habits suddenly. A young generation, unaccustomed to the frugal manners of the old time, had grown up-new houses had been built, on the scale of great English mansions-the whole arrangements of every domain, as well as household, had been framed according to the luxurious style of modern English life. It cost years of struggling and shifting before the stern hand of necessity was able to enforce its painful lessons; and in numerous and notorious instances the ancient property in the soil had at last to be abandoned altogether. Such, or nearly similar, was, in all likelihood, the fate of the Moodies of Mailsetter-a name familiar to every one who has visited, or read any books about, the bleak Archipelago of the Udallers—

By stack, and by skerry, by noup, and by voe,

By air, and by wick, and by helyer, and gio,

And by every wild shore which the northern winds know.'* The young laird of Mailsetter, his land having been disposed of, determined on removing to the Cape colony; and he assembled about him some two hundred Scotch families of the common sort, who were willing to place themselves under his guidance, and who

*Pirate, vol. i. p. 344.

entered

entered into regular indentures, by which, in return for the expenses of their exportation and outfit, they bound themselves to work for Mr. Moodie on a certain fixed rate of wages, during a certain number of years after their arrival in South Africa, or to buy up their indentures at a reasonable rate, also fixed and determined beforehand. The ex-laird, however, made a sad mistake in this matter, or rather a whole heap of mistakes. First of all, these people were not from his own part of Scotland, but from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh; and thus, neither had they that attachment and respect for his person which he would probably have found in a similar congregation of Orcadians, nor had he that intimate acquaintance with their manners and habits of industry which is so desirable in the leader of a colonial settlement. Moreover, while they had no habitual veneration for him, they were closely allied with each other-he was like the foreign captain of a troop raised all in the same village. Mr. Moodie relied implicitly on the solemn contracts entered into with these people he had been careful in admitting none who could not produce certificates of good character, and would not suspect that, once removed from the eyes of all neighbours and connexions, except those who were exposed to exactly the same temptation with himself, the austere and sanctimonious presbyterian could make up his mind to a deliberate fraud-indeed, a plain theft and robbery. Such, however, was, in all but a very few cases, the result. Mr. Moodie had not been long in South Africa before the great majority of his people broke all their contracts, abandoned him for ever, and scattered themselves over the vast colony-wherever they could get good wages-without the least regard to his interests, and in such a manner as to baffle him and his agents most completely. The laird, however, was not wholly out of his element as the master of a huge grazing district, in whatever part of the world it might be placed: some of his people did keep their faith, and by their assistance, and that of Hottentots hired in the room of the fraudulent fugitives, he by degrees overcame the worst difficulties of his new position. His country education and previous habits were in no small degree adapted to the colonial existence-his old experience as a justice of peace was found valuable—and he seems, ere he had been many years in South Africa, to have earned for himself great personal consideration among all classes of his neighbours. So much for the laird.

His two younger brothers-the one a naval, the other a military officer-had both been reduced to half-pay about the same time when his rental sustained its cruel reduction. These gentlemen no sooner heard of his African scheme than, from opposite points of the compass, they both hastened to join him in his new location of the penates; and the soldier it is whose narrative now lies before us.

The