port that we heard on the spot confirmed what different travellers have related concerning the active industry, hospitality, general philanthropy and benevolence of the Parcés, and tended to exalt that favourable opinion which I had already formed of their religion, as one, not only recommending, but actually producing virtuous habits, rendering the men who profess it honest, and the women chaste." A long and very interesting chapter is given on the ancestors of the modern Parcés, and the religion which they professed during a long succession of ages. Those were the ancient Persians, who "erected not statues to any vain deities," nor believed, like the Greeks, that the gods were clothed in human form." They were the Medes and Elamites who, under Cyrus, broke all the "graven images of Babylon," and, under Xerxes, destroyed those Grecian temples in which mortals had imprisoned the gods. Such were the ancestors of the Parcés in India, so called from their original country Pars-Persia. We are constrained to pass over a very eru dite history of these people, and to pursue Sir William on his route. On the embassy quitting Bombay, and the vessel being driven out of the course, it was judged necessary to anchor within two miles of Keis, an island situated at the entrance of the Persian gulf. It is flat, and yields a few date trees. It has excellent water drawn from wells by means of wheels. It contains about 100 inhabitantsthey live in mud-houses-the men are shy and suspicious-the women are more frank and hospitable, in persons inclining to corpulency, and with fine eyes. Goats were found upon the island, no longer consecrated to Venus and Mercury as in the time of Alexander, when Nearchus with the Grecian fleet cast anchor here. By admitting the authority of a Persian MS. we may assign its name to the 10th century, when one Keis, the son of a poor widow in Siraf, embarked for India with his sole property, like Whittington-a cat. There he fortunately arrived at a time when the palace was so infested by rats and mice, that they even invaded the king's plate at royal banquets. Keis produced his cat, and soon scared away the noxious vermin. Laden with rewards he returned home, and afterwards, with his mother and sister, settled on the island, whence called Keis. It was formerly a place of some note, as may be gathered from Persian annals, as also from the ruins of palaces still to be seen. The next place worthy of notice is Siraf, once the great seat of Asiatic commerce, and embellished with many splendid and costly mansions. It is situated close to the sea, and near the foot of lofty mountains, with craggy sides and sun-parched summits. Six or seven boats and fishing vessels in front of Siraf now occupy that place, which, during the ninth century, was crowded with ships bringing and receiving the most precious merchandize. According to tradition, in some vallies of the mountain behind the town an extraordinary stone is found, which, when broken, yields a jewel resembling the ruby, but liable, after some time, to change of colour. On reaching Bushehr, the governor, Mohammed Jaafer Khán, with the principal merchants of the place, came to the ship in formal procession. The ambassador, Sir Gore Ouseley, received, among other things, as a present from the governor, a fine young lion. On the embassy's quitting the ship and going on shore, an irregular body of Persians, armed with match-lock muskets, crowded the beach. The governor led the way to his house by a staircase nearly perpendicular. In consideration of European customs, some chairs had been provided, with coffee, tea, and rose-water. A spacious tent was provided in the vicinity of the town. The inhabitants of Bushehr chiefly live in mud-built huts: their favourite food is the locust, clouds of which occasionally darken those shores. Certain words are supposed to be inscribed on their wings, the only part not eaten. Within half-a-mile from the camp were two or three clusters of huts, forming a kind of Arab village the poor inhabitants still retaining the manners, dress, and language of their Arabian ancestors. The huts were most simply constructed: a few branches of date trees stuck in the ground, their tops inclined so as to meet, and a covering of very coarse mats, formed the whole of the habitation. The men were chiefly clothed in the abba, a stripped mantle white and brown: they did not wear the kulah, or high cap of black lambskin, universal among the Persians, but had twisted round their heads long scarfs provinces. It is a simple reed of four feet long. "When rambling over the desert," says Sir William," I have listened with much satisfaction to their songs, in which were introduced many soft and plaintive cadences." From Bushehr the embassy proceeded to Shiráz. Of Alichanggi, in the vicinity, it has been said (however paradoxical it may appear), that the village is not always situated exactly on the same spot-the huts, which compose it, being of such slight construction that they are easily removed, when motives of profit or convenience induce the owners to shift their habitations and families a few hundred yards. The next stage was Burazjún, a large village with walls and towers. Several men, with muskets, lances, and drums, met the mission at this place. The women, chiefly of Arabian families, stood in crowds about their houses, or squatted down on their roofs, howling a loud and discordant welcome. Many of the inhabitants, male and female, solicited medical relief in various diseases, chiefly ocular affections. As they considered delicacy or reserve incompatible with a just statement of their ailment, their confessions were most disgusting. The woman especially seemed to expect miracles from European skill. A system of profligacy, the most destructible, seemed to pervade all classes. The inhabitants of every lawn and village are obliged to furnish every ilchi (ambassador, consider of chequered stuff, the ends falling on their shoulders. The women were sometimes wrapped, even to the eyes, in great cloaks or sheets, with dark blue trowsers reaching to the ankles. Some of the women possessed fine eyes, yet all the old women were ugly. The peasants, when digging, frequently discover remains of canals, aqueducts, engraved stones, beads, coins, and bricks like those found among the ruins of Babylon. Out of the plain near the town many vases have been taken, formed of ill-baked clay, and filled with seeds of the plant mallows. Tradition says, that the Gabrs, or Parcés, or fire-worshippers, kept those seeds under their houses, supposing the plant to turn, like themselves, in adoration of the sun. Sir William had an opportunity of inspecting several ancient urns, dug up from the ground by some Arabs in his presence. In one of these urns were deposited the bones of a full-grown person, with a quantity of sand. The skull was placed about the middle or widest part of the urn-not in the basin, which contained only sand. When we consider the historical obscurity of Bushehr, and the number of urns found there, their rude form and cheap materials, we cannot suppose that they enclose the bones of great or wealthy persons. Be their origin what it may, no such urns appear to have been discovered in any other part of Persia. It is natural that the inhabitants of a coast, yielding little besides dates, should regarded as a guest of the king) with all arfish not as a luxury, but as the main support of life. Sharks and whales have both been lately seen in these seas; and ancient testimony is very fully employed by Sir William, to prove that they were formerly known there. The most common instrument of Persian music is a kind of violin, of which a description and plate are given. The performer sings to this instrument, and their national ditties abound with pathetic passages. Another instrument resembled the bag pipe, so much so, that a Scotch gentleman has been able to play several tunes of his own country without any previous practice. An instrument of this kind has been long known to various nations of Europe. It is said that the camel-drivers solace themselves in their journies by the notes of a flute or pipe, not often used in other ticles of food, fuel, and provender. In the future payment of rent and taxes to government, an equivalent sum is allowed. The repayment is, however, remote, and often fallacious. The peasants are so poor, that the necessary supply can often only be extorted by blows. Houses have been abandoned, and flocks driven away, to avoid these oppressive demands. The peasants are interested in concealing the knowledge of any monuments near their villages; for they suspect that Europeans in general possess the art of discovering, from inscriptions, &c. the spot where gold and jewels have been secreted; and there are many reasons to conclude, that most, perhaps all, of ancient ruins contain treasures. After a fatiguing journey, the embassy reached Čazereen. The claim of this place to remote antiquity is supported by the testimony of many writers. Tabri and Amin Rázi ascribe the foundation of it to King Cohád in the 6th century; yet some distinguished geographers inform us, that it was built by Tahmuras, a prince of the first dynasty, who reigned above 800 years before Christ. It appears astonishing, that the considerable towns in Persia are built so remote from rivers. On Sir William's expressing his surprise that Cazereen, so deplorably deficient in water, should attract the population from spots more favoured, no satisfactory reason was assigned. Sir Gore Ouseley discovered and frustrated, at this place, a plot devised for the assassination of Abul Hassan Khan, the Persian ambassador to England. Jealousy of his supposed wealth and influence was the cause-having returned in Sir Gore's suite from this country. The fragments of the public buildings, pillars, and capitals of Shapur, bespeak a Grecian or Roman hand; and the numerous figures cut in tablets on the rock, whether executed by European or Persian artists, are evidently monuments of the Sassanian king, whose name has been conferred on the place. "The study," says Sir William, "during many years, of gems and medals, had rendered so familiar the countenances of several (of the tablets), that even, without any expectation of seeing him represented here, I should easily have recognised, in the principal figure of each perfect apartment, the mighty Shapur, who styled himself "King of Kings,' and whom we might pronounce the vainest of monarchs, if all the similar monuments, visible in Persia, were executed by his own desire." All the sculptures are apparently designed to exhibit either the greatness or triumphs of this celebrated Persian monarch. None of the monuments seem to claim an earlier date than the age of that sovereign, though many authors speak of a city founded above ten centuries before his reign. The delights of Shapur have been celebrated by a variety of Persian writers in the highest metaphors of praise. The city, however, became subject to the Musselmáns so early as 643, A. D. The Iliats, according to the change of season, remove their tents and huts in search of pasture for their herds. They are probably descended from those Tems, which in the 10th cen VOL. V. tury are said to have comprised 100,000 families within the province of Pars alone. They constitute a principal source of population, and the best nursery of soldiers. Some of their chiefs are so powerful, that the king attaches them to his court by honourable and lucrative employments, or detains them about his person as hostages for the loyalty and good conduct of their respective clans. As they were 800 years ago, they still keep themselves distinct from the Persians, who inhabit cities. They are hardy, independent, and inclined to hospitality. Their mode of life resembles that of our gypsies-between whom, and the wandering families of Asia, Mr Franklin and others have noticed a striking conformity. The accounts of every country of the old, and probably of the new world, prove the veneration in which certain trees have been held. The sacred Hebrew Scriptures allude to this reverence, and we also find it mentioned in Greek and Roman writers. A Persian king appears, on very credible authority, as propitiating some deity, supposed to reside in a certain tree, by votive offerings suspended from its branches. The same practice, however inconsistent with their boasted religion, yet continues among the Musselmáns of Persia. On the approach of the embassy to Shiraz, the most respectable inhabitants came to congratulate the ambassador's arrival. As it advanced the crowd increased, and near the city many thousand people had assembled to gaze on the cavalcade of Europeans. "We found our tents," says Sir William, "close to Jehán nemá, one of the prince's finest gardens." The camp was about a mile from the walls of Shiraz. Every lover of Persian poetry must envy such a situation; for the tomb of Saadi was not farther than quarter of an hour's walk; the stream of Rúknabád murmured near; and within three or four hundred yards were the Mosellá and the tomb of Háfiz. Such is the conclusion of the Travels. In the appendix are contained copious and elaborate notes upon all the subjects that appear to the author most worthy of illustration. We cannot close the volume without cordially thanking Sir William for the gratification he has afforded us. 3Y At the same time we are compelled to add, that though we have been amused and enlightened by his endless display of Asiatic lore, a smile has often been provoked by his trite remarks and unmanly vanity. Such is, indeed, the laughable egotism of the erudite knight, that we have more than once been tempted to close his book, maugre all his learning. Stories and incidents are detailed not even worthy of oral communication, much less the pages of a volume of such lofty pretensions; and a whole hamper of quotations is often emptied on immaterial points and very ordinary gossip. Aware, as we fully are, of Sir William's solid and extensive antiquarian attainments, we are the more grieved at their association with such defects. We have endeavoured to abridge such parts of his work as appeared most likely to interest the general reader. Those who are anxious and qualified to read and relish his Persian notes and comments, we must refer to the book itself. The plates are, for the most part, indifferently drawn and engraved; but the typography, and general splendour of the volume, does infinite credit to the provincial press from which it issued-Brecknock in South Wales. We are quite at a loss to determine Sir William's reason for the delay of publishing, in 1819, Travels undertaken in 1810, 1811, and 1812. We trust he will meet with sufficient encouragement to hasten and complete his undertaking. We shall anxiously await the appearance of the second volume, where, however, we hope to find more facts and fewer quotations. In conclusion, we have earnestly to beseech Sir William once more to remember, that no part of a book of travels is read with more determined apathy by the public, than that which relates the trivial adventures and personal vanities of the author; but more especially, when these everyday details are communicated in formal and ostentatious language, and upon sumptuous and expensive pages. DR CROSS ON THE FOOT AND LEG. THE strong natural tendency of mankind to the practice of imitation, has seldom been more strikingly exemplified than in the universal spirit of Chalmerianism which at the present moment pervades the west of Scotland. In the course of a little excursion, which we lately made into that interesting region, for the purpose of examining into the condition of our sale there, (which, by the way, our friends will be delighted to hear, we found to be continually and progressively prosperous,) we had abundant opportunities of witnessing the amazing extent to which this mania has of late become diffused. In Glasgow, of course, the epidemic has its chief centre of operation. In every bookseller's shop we entered, we heard conversations carried on among the loungers of the place, whereof both the matter, the style, and the enunciation, testified the prevalence of this alarming disease. Whether we drew in our chair to the snug desk of Mr Turnbull-or chatted with Mr Ogilvie (our friend next door to the Black Bull)—or with our excel lent old acquaintance, Mr Brash-or breathed the cool and refreshing atmosphere of the spacious premises of Messrs Smith and Son-or ascended into the mysterious upper regions of Sinclair-or dived into the intima penetralia of the shrine of Bilslandevery where our ears were saluted with sonorous testimonials of the deep-rooted and far-spied veneration with which the inhabitants of that beautiful city regard the great orator of the Laigh Kirk. At Wylie's (the David Laing of Glasgow)-at Mr Ogle's-at the Doctor's at Duncan's, we heard the same thing; but we must stop, for without giving a complete catalogue of the western bibliopoles, our enumeration would be incomplete. - If this imitation be remarkable among the members of the mercantile population, there is no question (as indeed there can be no wonder) that it is still more so among those of the same sacred profession which Dr Chalmers himself adorns. Among other little excursions, we went out one Sunday morning to Campsie, with a view *On the Mechanism and Motions of the Human Foot and Leg; by John Cross, M.D. Glasgow, A. & J. M, Duncan, &c. 1819. to hear Dr Lapslie deliver one of those eloquent and pathetic sermons, (a very inadequate idea of which would be gathered from Dr Morris's description of the same gentleman's mode of speaking in the General Assembly.) In this, however, we were disappointed; for the distinguished clergyman of the place did not himself officiate, having delegated his functions for the day into the hands of two recently licensed probationers, or preachers of the gospel. He called them by the expressive name of Stibblers-a word of which our readers may easily peruse a picturesque and humorous, no less than accurate and philosophical account, in the Dictionary of our good friend, Dr Jamieson. Both of these stibblers were evidently tinged with the incipient influence of this ambitious malady. They were both apparently good-natured young lads in their way, and we dare to say they had both profited, in a suitable manner, by the theological disquisitions of Dr Macgill -but it was clear that neither of them had ever created a single original idea -or fully comprehended any one idea of great depth or great power-or knew any thing whatever of the true mechanism of the English language-or were, in one word, entitled, in any respect whatever, to seek to clothe their sentiments in any thing at all resembling that majestic garment of profound and pathetic energy, which sits with so much propriety upon the conceptions of Dr Chalmers. On subsequent occasions, we heard various sermons from the young clergymen of the neighbourhood, and found them almost all, with greater or less degrees of impropriety and false judgment, adopting something of the same fashion. The truth is, that as in every villagebarn one hears from every tenpenny stroller some awkward imitation of Kean, or Kemble, or O'Neill-so in half the country kirks or tents in this quarter, we detected some would-be Chalmers. As the imitators of Kean commonly catch little but the croak of his voice, or the shuffle of his starting step-as the imitators of Kemble generally rival the stiffness only of their majestic model-and as an hysterical passion of tears or screams is all of O'Neill that one gets from any but the most graceful original-so it is not to be wondered at, that the western imitators of Chalmers should be success ful only in copying those things about that great man which ought not to be copied. If these good people could only for a few moments see themselves as others see them," they would perceive that their tame, weak, pointless language, in spite of its occasional bombast-and what is still worse, their feeble, crude, inconclusive views and arguments-derive any thing rather than advantage from being delivered in tones, and accompanied with gestures, which are not in themselves very beautiful, and which in fact serve no purpose whatever, but that of recalling more forcibly to the recollection of their audience, the idea of a powerful Genius in thoughts and words, to whom they themselves furnish, in any thing that is essential, a very lamentable contrast. The truth is, however, that all this imitation of the MIGHTY PREACHER is by no means confined to oral discoursers, haranguers, and orators; it pervades not only the conversation of citizens, and the disquisitions of the pulpit, but the press also of the west of Scotland-and that in a most surprising degree. Almost every newspaper-editor in that quarter is something of a Chalmers in his way-every pamphleteer exhibits symptoms of the same ambition, on whatever subject it happens that he expends the power of his genius. Nay, the mania has climbed higher than this, and assailed even the purest fountains of instruction, in the regular and systematic effusions of professional and scientific men. On applying to some of our legal friends, we are assured that the memorials of western writers are all Chalmerian. The essays of not a few of the western followers of Esculapius are, as we ourselves can witness, infected with the same virus. Even Mr Odoherty begins, we think, to be somewhat Chalmerian since he went to Glasgow ;-and, to crown the whole of our strain with one convincing and incontrovertible fact-these reflections have been more immediately suggested to us by the perusal of a very Chalmerian anatomical work on the human foot and leg, which has lately been published by Dr John Cross of Glasgow-or, to adopt the more elegant style of the dedication; "AN ATTEMPT to give a Physico-THEOLOGICAL View of the BEAUTEOUS and INCOMPARABLE MECHANISM OF THE HUMAN FOOT |