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which constitute the present volume, 118 alone are devot, ed to that country which the author professes to describe. The history of the book is as follows: The author, whe will be recognized by our readers to have been in the suite of Lord Macartney's embassy to China, touched in his pas sage to that country at Turon, a sea-port town or rather village of Cochinchina, situated in a bay of the same name, in latitude 16° 7′N. Au invitation to the capital city, the residence of the sovereign, was declined by the ambassador; and a period of twenty-three days, to which their stay in the harbour was confined, could afford but few opportunities of investigating the character of a people, or of acquiring that knowledge for which the public was afterwards to pay three guineas and a half. Mr. B. himself is aware of the insufficiency of his resources,and acknowledges the strong probability that some of the prominent features, which he has assumed as characteristics of the Cochinchinese nation, may be entirely local, and applicable only to that part of the sea-coast which he visited. And truly what should we say of that foreigner, who, having landed each day for a fortnight at a village of Cornwall, should, without adyancing a single mile into the country, or visiting a single town worthy of the name, come forward to instruct the world on the character and genius of Englishmen? But Mr. Barrow obtained some celebrity from his Travels in China,' and in Southern Africa; those publications were favourably received by an indulgent public, and the author will hardly vindicate the praise of gratitude, when in return for their kindness, he visits them with the present ponderous and empty volume.

Let the last epithet, however, be understood comparatively. We would by no means insinuate that this work is destitute of valuable information; but if it was not to form a part of the narrative of the embassy to China, to which it properly belonged, it ought at least to have been compressed into a single octavo. The reader does not come in sight of Cochinchina till he has travelled through 242 pages, which are filled with accounts of Madeira, Teneriffe, Rio de Janeiro, the small islands of Jago, Tristan da Cunha, and Amsterdam, and finally the Dutch settlement of Batavia, in the island of Java. Of these, Madeira and Teneriffe have been described, with a wearisome frequency, by learned and unlearned traveliers; nor could any consideration excuse their being here introduced, except their being illustrated by observa tions interesting from their novelty, or valuable from their pro

fundity; and such are not to be found in the pages of Mr. Barrow. The islands of St. Jago, Tristan da Cunha, and Amsterdam might, without blame have been passed over un.. honoured with a single word. The former, one of the Cape de Verd islands and a Portuguese settlement, is almost a desert,and unable to sustain,in the most griping poverty, the few wretched people of colour who inhabit it; and, even during the author's stay, daily accounts were received by the halfstarved governor, of persons perishing for want of the common necessaries of life. Tristan da Cunha and Amsterdam are entirely uninhabited, and, like the last mentioned island, possess no importance of a political or any other nature, except that Mr. Barrow is of opinion that the former of them, from its possessing an excellent stream of clear water, might become a valuable possession to this country, as a half-way island to India, in case the artful politics and powerful arms of France should ever succeed in shutting us out from the Cape of Good Hope and the Brazils. To the last mentioned of these countries, a considerable number of pages are dedicated, although it is nearly as well known by frequent description as Madeira or Teneriffe, and the world would have lost no precious information if Mr. Barrow had passed it also over in silence. We here, however, find an opportunity of giving a favourable specimen of his style, in his description of the singular entrance into the magnificent and pictu resque harbour of Rio de Janeiro.

Having cleared this channel, one of the most magnificent scenes in nature bursts upon the enraptured eye. Let any one imagine to himself an immense sheet of water running back into the heart of a beautiful country, to the distance of about thirty miles, where it is bounded by a skreer of lofty mountains, always majestic, whether their rugged and shapeless summits are tinged with azure and purple, or buried in the clouds-Let him imagine this sheet of water gradually to expand, from the narrow portal through which it communicates with the sea, to the width of twelve or fourteen miles, to be every where studded with innumerable little islands, scattered over its surface in every diversity of shape, and exhibiting every variety of tint that an exuberant and incessant vegetation is capable of affording Let him conceive the shores of these islands to be so fringed with fragrant and beautiful shrubs, not planted by man but scattered by the easy and liberal hand of nature, as completely to be concealed in their verdant covering-Let him figure to himself this beautiful sheet of water, with its numerous islands, to be en-' compassed on every side by hills of a moderate height, rising in gradual succession above each other, all profusely clad in lively green, and crowned with groupes of the noblest trees, while their shor are indented with numberless inlets, shooting their arms

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across the most delightful vallies, to meet the murmuring rills, and bear their waters into the vast and common reservoir of all-In short, let him imagine to himself a succession of Mount Edgecombes to be continued along the shores of a magnificent lake, not less in circuit than a hundred miles; and having placed these in a climate where spring for ever resides, in all the glow of youthful vigour, he will still possess only a very imperfect idea of the magnificent scenery displayed within the capacious harbour of Rio de Janeiro ; which, as an harbour, whether it be considered in the light of affording security and convenience for shipping, for its locality of position, or fertility of the adjacent country, may justly be ranked amongst the first of naval stations.'

Our author is very solicitous to vindicate the Brazilian ladies from the imputation of licentiousness, under which they, in his opinion, unjustly labour. Captain Cooke attaches a great degree of criminality to a custom universally prevalent among them, of tossing flowers to strangers as they pass along the streets; which he construes not only into an unpardonable levity,but into the preliminary of an assignation, This suspicion on the part of that illustrious navigator, Mr. Barrow takes pains to refute; he conceives it to be a mere local custom, without any particular meaning, which he and his party daily experienced at the grates of the convents, and from the balconies in the street, in the presence of the lady abbess in the former, and of fathers and husbands in the latter instances; but he declares that it was not only unattended with any interesting consequences as far as himself was concerned, but that he could discover nothing in the conduct of the females of Brazil to warrant the suspicion of their being more immoral than our own fair countrywomen. The above custom he defends in the following manner :

The manners are so different in different countries, and local customs sometimes so extraordinary, that ocular observation alone may easily be deceived. In France it was the common custom for the gentlemen to kiss every lady they might meet in the streets on new year's day; and he who should omit this ceremony would have been considered as a rude and ill-bred man. I remember once, in passing the streets of Liverpool, in the middle of the day, to have met half a dozen very smart young girls, who stopped me, and from their manner seemed to be inclined to handle me rather rough1y. I soon discovered that an ancient custom was still observed in this town, which granted a privilege to the ladies of seizing any gentleman they might chuse to encounter in the streets on Eas ter Tuesday, to lift him into the air, and, if he should refuse to make such concessions as were demanded, to drop him into the kennel; and this day is significantly called the lifting day. Now

if the commander of a Portuguese ship should happen to be walking the streets of Liverpool, for the first time, on Easter Tuesday, and be treated in the manner here described, and be sent on board his ship immediately after, as the Portuguese of Rio send all strangers on board their respective ships at sunset, it may readily be conceived what kind of character he would be apt to give of the women of Liverpool, which nevertheless might, and certainly would, be no less erroneous than unjust.'

We are much obliged to Mr. Barrow for making us acquainted with this custom, of which we have never before heard; for as we mean to spend the next Easter holidays at Liverpool, we confess, had we found ourselves thus unexpectedly embraced by some fair unknown, we should, in spite of the gravity peculiar to us, have thought ourselves called upon by common gallantry, to take the earliest oppor tunity of returning the compliment with interest.

The 5th chapter, entitled General Observations on the Brazils,' contains nothing worthy of notice. The ignorance and dirtiness of the inhabitants combine with swarms of musquitoes to lessen the attractions of a country, which is otherwise highly favoured by nature. It was the advice of the patriotic Pombal, the wisest minister that ever governed Portugal, that the court of Lisbon should retire to its South American possessions, and make the Brazils the seat of government. Could the royal family of Portugal have foreseen the revolution which has convulsed Europe for the last fifteen years, and whose effects have by no means come to an end, they would perhaps have adopted the counsels of that able statesman, before the caution of their friends or the rapacity of their enemies shall have torn from them their colonial possessions, and not even left them the precarious refuge of a Sicily to retire to, when, like their brethren of Naples, they shall be driven from the seat of their

ancestors.

The succeeding chapter, on the island of Java, is more worthy of perusal, as our acquaintance with the declining but still wealthy and splendid settlement of Batavia, is more imperfect.

In no port nor harbour, since our departure from Portsmouth, had we met with so great a number of shipping as were collected in the bay of Batavia. Large Dutch Indianen, mostly dismantled for want of men; English trading vessels from Bengal, Madras, and Bombay; immense Chinese junks, whose singular forms seem to bespeak an antiquity as remote as that of Noah's ark; Malay proas, and Javanese canoes; with three or four French ships carrying into the Eastern world, in addition to the natural products of their country,

the monstrous doctrines of the Rights of Man, were promiscuously riding at anchor in the road of Batavia. The practical part of these novel doctrines was grievously complained of by the officers of one of the French ships. The crew, it seems, had one day taken it into their heads that, by virtue of the sacred and inalienable principle of all men being equal, they had a right to enjoy as good a dinner as their officers, no matter who should pay for it; and accordingly, having followed the dishes into the cabin, they seated themselves at table, inviting, in the most obliging manner, the captain and other officers to partake of their own dinner with them. These gentlemen, however, finding their authority and their property at stake, thought it prudent to make application to the government of Batavia for a few German troops to instruct their crew in the rights of discipline, and in the duties of obedience and subordination.'

The city of Batavia, which contains, according to the registers, 115,960 inhabitants, Dutch, Chinese, natives, and slaves, Mr. Barrow is disposed to rank among the handsomest cities of the universe, although it is not of an extraordinary size, nor ornamented with edifices worthy of remark, either for the grandeur of their dimensions or the elegance of their design,

"The ground plan is in the shape of a parallelogram, whose length from north to south is 4200 feet, and breadth 3000 feet. The streets are laid out in straight lines, and cross each other at right angles. Each street has its canal in the middle, cased with stone walls, which rise into a low parapet on the two margins. At the distance of six feet from this parapet wall is a row of evergreen trees, under the shade of which, on this intermediate space, are erected little open pavilions of wood, surrounded with seats, where the Dutch part of the inhabitants smoke their pipes and drink their beer in the cool of the evening. Beyond the trees is a gravelled road, from thirty to sixty feet in width, terminated also on the opposite side by a second row of ever, greens. The road is appropriated for the use of carriages, horses, cattle, and, as particularly pointed out by proclamation, for all slaves, who are strictly prohibited from walking on the flagged causeway in front of the houses, as they are also from wearing stockings and shoes, in order that their naked feet may be the means of making their condition notorious. This trottoir or footway is at least six feet wide; and as the breadth of the canals is generally the same as that of the carriage road, the whole width of the Batavian streets may be considered to run from 114 to 204 feet; and the city is said to contain twenty of such streets, with canals in the middle, over which they reckon about thirty stone bridges. The trees that embellish the streets are of different kinds, but the most common are two species of Callophyllum, called by botanists the Inophyllum, and the Calaba, the Canarium Commune, or canary-nut tree, the Guettarda Speciosa, with its odoriferous flowers, and the free, elegant, and spreading tamarind tree,'

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