This dramatic exhibition would be imperfect without the dinner by which it was followed.

The young females assembled here, among whom the deceased bride of Langedieu soon re-appeared, fresh and lively as ever, reminded me of Kadu's assertion, that the women of Ormed, were the handsomest in Radack. Some of them were really very attractive, and their flowery adornments extremely becoming. These people have more taste than any other of the South Sea islanders; and the manner in which the women dress their hair, and decorate it with flowers, would have a beautiful effect even in the European ball-room. When the actors had recovered from the fatigue of their performance, dinner, which some of the females had been long preparing in the hut, was served to us. Only a few of the persons assembled, enjoyed the honour of partaking our meal. Some of these were females. The ground of Langedieu's hut was covered with matting, on which we sat, and the provisions were placed on clean cocoa-leaves in the middle. Every one had a cocoa-leaf for a plate. Upon the dishes were laid wooden spoons, with which the guests helped themselves, an improvement since my former visit to Radack, when their mode was to help themselves from the dish with their hands. Langedieu remarked, that the order of his table pleased me, and said, Mamnam Russia magar (the Russians eat so). I rejoiced in the increased civilisation denoted by this more becoming mode of eating; probably introduced by Kadu, who had seen it during his stay among us. I enjoyed a still greater pleasure, when, after the first course of baked and bread-fruits, came one of yams, which I had brought hither from the Sandwich Islands. At Otdia, I had been told that Lanvari had carried away to Aur, all the plants I had left behind. I was therefore much surprised at the sight of the yams. They perfectly supply the place of our potatoes, are wholesome and pleasant, and, if cultivated with moderate industry, are a certain resource against famine. Langedieu told me, that Kadu had planted the yams on Ormed, and after dinner showed me a pretty large field very well stocked with them.

The delightful feelings with which I surveyed the new plantation may be imagined, when it is recollected, that these poor islanders, from want of means of subsistence, are compelled, assuredly with heavy hearts, to murder their own offspring, and that this yam alone is sufficient to remove so horrible a necessity. I might joyfully affirm, that through my instrumentality the distressed mother need no longer look to the birth of her third or fourth child with the dreadful consciousness that she endured all her pain only to deliver a sacrifice to the hand of the murderer. When she should clasp her child to her breast, and see her husband look on it with a father's tenderness, they might both remember "Tatalin," with the beneficent plants which he had given them. beg pardon for this digression, and return to our dinner.

I

After the yams, a number of dishes were produced, prepared from the powdered cocoa-wood, which is made with water into a thick paste, and then baked in small cakes: it has no taste at all, and cannot be very nutritions. A dessert of Mogan and Pandana juice concluded the repast. The drink was cocoa-milk sucked from a small hole made in the nut. The conversation, in which the females, who are treated

extremely well, took part, was very lively, but perfectly decorous. I wished to understand more of it: from single words, I inferred that they were speaking of the ship, and of the dramatic entertainment, and should have been glad to have contributed my share to the general amusement. After I had delighted the host and the amiable company by presents of hatchets, knives, scissors, and necklaces, which latter were by no means in as great estimation here as on the Navigator's Islands, I took my leave, and returned early in the evening to the ship.'-vol. i. pp. 330-333.

We can easily conceive the regret with which Captain Kotzebue departed from the Radack islands, for the discovery of which we are indebted to his former voyage. They are situated so far out of the course usually pursued by the South Sea navigators, that it is to be hoped they may escape the corruption of civilized vices. The captain is of opinion that they have not been very long peopled. They have no tradition on the subject of their origin. Their language differs from all the Polynesian (many-island) dialects, and is considered to be of a more recent formation. Kotzebue gallantly, and we hope truly, attributes the superiority of their manners to the great influence which is exercised by the females. Experience teaches us,' adds the author, that wherever that sex is held in due estimation, morals are proportionably refined.'

From these charming islands, the captain proceeded to Kamtschatka, and to New Archangel, the principal settlement of the Russian-American company, on the island of Sitka. The natives of Sitka are called Kalushes, by the Russians, and are described as the most worthless and disgusting people on the face of the earth. Their black straight hair hangs dishevelled over their broad faces, which are daily smeared over with a composition of ochre and earth, in broad black, white, and red stripes, crossed in all directions. Their cheek-bones stand out, their noses are wide and flat, their mouths large, their lips thick, their eyes small, black, and fiery, and their teeth strikingly white. The moment the beard appears, it is torn out by the roots. In the severest cold of winter, they walk about naked, and plunge into the water as the best method of warming themselves. The women mix their long tangled hair with the feathers of the white eagle. When nearly marriageable they add to their native ugliness by an incision in the under lip, which is rendered continually larger until it assumes the most hideous aspect. The customs of such a race as this we willingly pass over.

The winter of 1824 was spent in the Californias and the Sandwich Islands. Upon the former rich and beautiful country, Russia, it is well known, has long had her eye. It is not yet, we believe, brought under any settled system of government. Kotzebue confesses that he could not help speculating upon the benefit this country would derive from becoming a province of his powerful empire, and how useful it would prove to Russia,-an inexhausti

ble granary for Kamtschatka, Ochotsk, and all the settlements of the American Company. These regions, so often afflicted with a scarcity of corn, would derive new life from a close connection with California. A thousand ships might lie at anchor in the bay of St. Francisco, and about the north-western coast are numerous creeks particularly advantageous for repairs. A few of the author's observations upon this unfrequented country are worth attention.

The whole of the northern part of the bay, which does not properly belong to California, but is assigned by geographers to New Albion, has hitherto remained unvisited by voyagers, and little known even to the Spaniards residing in the country. Two large navigable rivers, which I afterwards surveyed, empty themselves into it; one from the east. The land is extremely fruitful, and the climate is perhaps the finest and most healthy in the world. It has hitherto been the fate of these regions, like that of modest merit or humble virtue, to remain unnoticed; but posterity will do them justice; towns and cities will hereafter flourish, where all is now a desert; the waters, over which scarcely a solitary boat is yet seen to glide, will reflect the flags of all nations; and a happy, prosperous people, receiving with thankfulness what prodigal nature bestows for their use, will disperse her treasures over every part of the world.'-vol. i. pp. 112, 113.

The reader may possibly remember the formidable inundation which occurred at Petersburgh in the winter of 1824. Captain Kotzebue mentions a very extraordinary fact, that a similar phenomenon occurred in California on the very same day, and at the very same hour.

The Californian winter being now fairly set in, we had much rain and frequent storms. On the 9th of October the south-west wind blew with the violence of the West-Indian tornado, rooted up the strongest trees, tore off the roofs of the houses, and occasioned great devastation in the cultivated lands. One of our thickest cables broke, and if the second had given way, we should have been driven on the rocky shore of the channel which unites the bay with the sea, where a powerful current, struggling with the tempest, produced a frightful surf. Fortunately the extreme violence of the storm lasted only a few hours, but in that short time it caused a destructive inundation; the water spread so rapidly over the low lands that our people had scarcely time to secure the tent, with the astronomical apparatus. On comparing the time of day at St. Petersburgh and St. Francisco, by means of the difference of longitude, it appears that the tremendous inundation at the former city took place at the same hour as that in California. Several hundred miles westward, on the Sandwich Islands, the wind raged with similar fury at the same time, as it did also still farther off, upon the Phillipine Islands, where it was accompanied by an earthquake. So violent was the storm in the bay of Manilla (usually so safe a harbour) that a French corvette at anchor there, under the command of Captain Bouganville, a son of the celebrated navigator, was entirely dismasted, as we afterwards heard, on the Sandwich Islands, and at Manilla itself. This hurricane, therefore, raged at the same time over the greatest part of the northern hemisphere; the

cause which produced it may possibly have originated beyond our atmosphere.'-vol. i. pp. 134-136.

After visiting the Sandwich Islands, Captain Kotzebue steered southward, touched at the Pescadores, the Ladrones, the Phillipines, and several small islands, and returning by the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena, once more dropped his anchor, on the 10th of July, 1827, in the Roads of Cronstadt.

ART. VII.-1. Memoirs of the Affairs of Greece: containing an Account of the Military and Political Events which occurred in 1823 and following Years, with various Anecdotes relating to Lord Byron, and an Account of his last Illness and Death. By Julius Millingen, Surgeon to the Byron Brigade, at Missolonghi, &c. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 338. London Rodwell, 1831.

2. Narrative of a Journey through Greece in 1830, with Remarks upon the actual State of the Naval and Military Power of the Ottoman Empire. By Captain T. Abercromby Trant, Author of Two Years in Ava. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 435. London: Colburn and Bentley, 1830. THERE is a remarkable agreement in the impressions respecting the Greek character, which are entertained by the two gentlemen whose works we have now before us, although they visited the Morea at different times, and under still more dissimilar circumstances; and, although they possessed very unequal opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of the habits and dispositions of the inhabitants. These productions may be said, indeed, to illustrate one another, and carrying, as they do, the history of Greek affairs, from one of the most striking stages of the insurrection, to a very recent period, we hope to be able, with this aid, to give the reader some authentic, if not interesting materials, to enable him to form a proper judgment on the condition, and the prospects of Greece.

We should premise, however, that Mr. Millingen appears in the character of an undeceived philhellenist, whose devotion to the cause of freedom in general, and to that of Greece in particular, he himself appears to be persuaded, were but indifferently requited by those to whom he devoted his best services. Although it is possible that a very natural degree of disappointment may have given an unfavourable hue, not their own, to the objects which Mr. Millingen had contemplated in the Morea, yet, truth to say, he uniformly writes like a man who would scorn to sacrifice the truth to any purpose of resentment or ill-will. His situation in Greece was a very peculiar one-affording uncommon facilities for viewing the character and manners of the Greeks. He has employed his advantages very ably and skilfully, and considering the limited period of his sojourn amongst them, and the narrow extent of territory to which his personal observations were confined, we must award to Mr. Millingen the praise of having produced by far the

most graphic and instructive account of the modern Greeks, of which our literature can boast.

It appears that Mr. Millingen having just received his diploma as a surgeon, and filled with a laudable enthusiasm in favour of the Greeks, tendered himself as a medical officer to the London Committee. Having been accepted by this body, he was sent under their protection, to Cephalonia, where he arrived in November, 1823, and where he had the satisfaction of being introduced to his commanding officer, Lord Byron. Of his Lordship, Mr. Millingen, who seems to have been admitted to a great degree of familiarity with him, tells some very curious anecdotes, which, though some portion of them may not be altogether new, deserve to be remembered for their undoubted authenticity alone. Being invited by Lord Byron to Metaxata, his Lordship's residence in Cephalonia, the surgeon had various opportunities of hearing his opinions upon sundry important matters. Among other interesting revelations, his Lordship mentioned the secret motives which impelled him to espouse the cause of the Greeks, of whom he seems to have entertained the most unfavourable opinion. Indeed, so desperate were his Lordship's notions of the degraded and incorrigible character of that people, that Mr. Millingen was prompted to ask how he reconciled the hearty interest he took in their behalf with the utter contempt for them which he now appeared to entertain. Lord Byron replied,

Heartily weary of the monotonous life I had led in Italy for several years; sickened with pleasure; more tired of scribbling than the public, perhaps, is of reading my lucubrations; I felt the urgent necessity of giving a completely new direction to the course of my ideas; and the active, dangerous, yet glorious scenes of the military career struck my fancy, and became congenial to my taste. I came to Genoa: but far from meditating to join the Greeks, I was on the eve of sailing for Spain, when, informed of the overthrow of the Liberals, and the desperate state of things in that country, I perceived it was too late to join Sir R. Wilson;-and then it was, in the unmanageable delirium of my military fever, that I altered my intention, and resolved on steering for Greece. After all, should this new mode of existence fail to afford me the satisfaction I anticipate, it will at least present me with the means of making a dashing exit from the scene of this world, where the part I was acting had grown excessively dull.'-pp. 6, 7.

Nothing is more likely than this to be true. With how few words the unpretending recorder of facts overturns the pompous speculations of biographers! Of Lord Byron's domestic conduct, Mr. Millingen gives us the following particulars :—

• On dinner being served up, although several dishes of meat were upon the table, Lord Byron did not partake of any, his custom being to eat meat only once a month. Soup, a few vegetables, a considerable portion of English cheese, with some fried crusts of bread, and fruit, constituted his daily fare. He eat with great rapidity, and drank freely. There hap