very cold weather, and perhaps did not make its appearance upwards of twelve times in the whole winter of 1814.

5. Gulf Stream.

THE Gulf Stream is that remarkable branch of the great equinoctial current which flows into the Gulf of Mexico by the Straits of Yucataw. The water accumulates in the great Mexican Gulf, and flows from thence outward between the island of Cuba and the main, along the coast of the United States, as far north as the Banks of Newfoundland, and from thence across the North Atlantic to the coast of Africa. During a great part of its course it is distinguished from the ocean it traverses by its deeper blue colour, rapidity of its motion, greater saltness, and particularly by its higher temperature. The following facts regarding this current, communicated to us by the surgeon of one of his Majesty's ships, are worthy of being preserved:

His Majesty's ship Maidstone sailed from Halifax for Bermuda on 13th June 1815. On the 18th, at noon, in N. lat. 39° 38', W. long. 65°, 54', (about 216 miles south, and a little west of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia,) the temperature of the surface water of the sea was 76°, whereas on the preceding evening it had been only 56°; on the 19th it was 78°; on the morning of the 20th it was 78°, at noon same day, 77°, and at 2 P. M. only 72°, the medium temperature of the ocean beyond the southern limit of the Gulf Stream at that season. The latitude this day (20th) at noon was 35°, 21′ N. long., 66° 46′ W. On the morning of the 18th, a streak of foam was observed tending eastward, which probably pointed out the northern limit of the Gulf Stream; and its southern limit seems very distinctly marked by the thermometrical observations of the 20th. It therefore appears, that its breadth in West longitude 66° (or rather 65°) is about 250 miles. As there was no chronometer on board, nor any lunar observations taken, the longitude was calculated merely by dead reckoning, and, owing to the drift of the stream_eastward, this reckoning was found, upon making Bermuda, to be 60 miles too far to the westward.

ON THE POLITICAL STATE OF AL◄

GIERS, THE EFFECTS OF THE RE-
CENT ENGLISH EXPEDITION, AND
THE BEST LINE OF POLICY IN RE-
GARD TO THE BARBARY STATES;
WITH OBSERVATIONS BY AN ITA-
LIAN GENTLEMAN, RECENTLY RE-
TURNED FROM CAPTIVITY IN THAT
COUNTRY.

(Continued from page 412 last Vo

lume, and concluded.)

IN the narrative of a traveller, the part which most strongly attaches us is always that which places himself on the stage. We then become partners in his adventures, his emotions, in all that makes us live and travel along with him. We may doubt the soundness of his judgment, the accuracy of his impressions; we may often believe him prejudiced or ill-informed; but, by writing his own story, he at least succeeds in painting himself. We thus make some progress in the knowledge of man; and, even supposing him to express his sentiments in an affected manner, this affectation is one of the modes of being which we should learn to know; and, indeed, it behoves us to observe it, in order to rectify the judgment which we are to adopt as to the narrator.

But, if ever the curiosity of the reader is excited by a traveller's personal adventures, it is when they are of a nature so extraordinary and so dismal as those to which M. Pananti was exposed ;-when a man of liberal education, who had known all the enjoyments of life and society, is suddenly plunged into the most frightful of all misfortunes; when he becomes the slave of a barbarous master, is exposed to every severity which avarice can instigate to draw profit from his strength, or fanaticism to humble him; when he sees no probable end to his misery, and, judging by his fellow-sufferers, has room to fear lest his soul itself should be degraded by sorrow, and lest, according to the beautiful expression of Homer, Jupiter should really take from man half his worth on the day that he is reduced to slavery. Then our curiosity redoubles to know the whole detail of such adventures. They form an awful spectacle, on which we cannot fix our eyes, yet from which we cannot turn them; they excite the most powerful and most painful of interests.

Be

sides, they come so close to us, that we cannot avoid making a constant reference to ourselves. In fact, Moorish slavery has this peculiarity, that, though it be a very rare misfortune, and very unlikely to happen to each of us, it is scarcely more unlikely to one man than another. A man may be involved in this horrible calamity without being engaged in extraordinary adventures, without having sought dangers; he has as many chances of encountering it in the shortest sail as in the longest voyage. In one of those parties of pleasure which are almost necessary in the education of men of the world; in the almost daily passage from Leghorn to Genoa, from Antibes to Nice, from Cette to Marseilles, there may be, and there more than once has been found a barbarous vessel contaled behind a promontory of that European coast which is still in sight; he may thus be carried off from his family for ever. More than one traveller, nay, more than one peaceful inhabitant of the country, has been surprised, amid his amusements or his labours, by a landing of Corsairs. Among the two or three thousand Christian slaves whom M. Pananti found at Algiers, there were many who, six months before their capture, believed themselves as secure from this danger as the reader now is. The adventures of M. Pananti are well calculated to excite this interest; but we cannot conceal, that it is much diminished by his mode of relating them. He seems ambitious, above all things, of the reputation of a brilliant writer. He studies to enliven each of his short chapters by a bon mot, an epigram, a little story, a happy quotation. He seeks, at the same time, to make a parade of the most varied knowledge, and, in imitation of the illustrious traveller who has made us so well acquainted with Spanish America, never speaks of a country without comparing it to every other. But much of this learning, foreign to the object of the work, which is furnished to M. Humboldt from the stores of universal erudition and an inexhaustible memory, appears in M. Pananti superficial or caught at the moment. Many of his little stories have been long familiar in conversation, or even in collections of anas; many of his quotations are incorrect, particularly

those in verse. In the former extract, many of these passages which appeared out of place have been sup pressed; the same will be done in the following, where we shall endeavour to exhibit the personal adventures of M. Pananti, and to shew, after him, what is to be feared from the people of Barbary, and what, with more ener getic measures, might be hoped from Africa.

M. Pananti is a Tuscan man of letters, who, during the Revolution, had gone over to England. After having made a little fortune there, he wished to return to his own country, and he embarked at Portsmouth on board a Sicilian vessel bound for Palermo. From a singular negligence, he does not mention the year of his return, though it appears to have been in 1812; and he gives neither date nor cause of any of the events which he relates. The Sicilian captain re fused to join an English convoy, and afterwards to stop at the little isle of St Pierre, near Sardinia, where he had been warned of the appearance of an Algerine squadron. He obstinately set sail at a time when all the passengers expected to remain several days in the road.

"We spent a gloomy and agitated night. I was beginning to shut my eyes for a moment, when the Chevalier Rossi, who had risen with the sun, came and told me that the same sails which we had formerly seen were still to be discovered. I sprung from bed, got on deck, and found all the passengers in anguish and confusion. The six sails appeared then only like imperceptible points on the vast plain of the waves. These vessels made a threatening evolution, which manifested their hostile designs. A cry of terror and grief burst from our sailors. They began, in their trouble, to run, to fatigue themselves, to make a hundred useless efforts for safety. Agitation is not activity, and operations without a plan produce only delay and confusion. By a horrible fatality, the wind, which, till then, had blown with violence, suddenly fell; and we found ourselves fixed down in the middle of the vast element. The captain was mute and stupified; he did nothing, which was the very worst thing he could do. Let us try, said we, with all our sails, and, if sails are insufficient, with oars,

to gain the coast of Sardinia; if we cannot do better, let us at least take to the boat, and save our persons. But the captain pointed with his finger to a hostile vessel which was to feeward, and opposed our retreat. I know not what weight there was in his reasons; but I know that he did nothing, either to fly or to defend us. The first time that we discovered the enemy, they were eighteen miles off, and Sardinia was not three. The pirates have since told us, that we had a bad Rais; that, if they had seen the least movement made towards the shore, they would not have so much as turned towards us; but that, seeing us remain immoveable, and even approach them, they thought us enchanted, or, according to their emphatic expression, drawn by the spirit of darkness towards our inevitable ruin.

"We remained six hours in this state of horrible perplexity. When the Barbarians came near, we heard their frightful cries; we saw the immense crowd of Moors make their appearance. The most courageous then lost all hope; we all fled at this cruel spectacle, and shut ourselves up in our little cells, awaiting the grand catastrophe of this tragedy. We heard the cries of the Africans, who, with naked sabres, boarded our vessel. The loud firing of a cannon sounded in our ears; we believed that it was the commencement of the action, and that we should soon go to the bottom; but it was only the signal of a fair prize. A second discharge announced the capture and the possession of the vessel. The Algerines had darted upon our ship; they made their cangiar and attagan flash over our heads; they commanded us to make no resistance, and to submit. What could we do? We obeyed. The Algerines then, assuming a less ferocious air, began to cry out, No fear, no fear. They demended rum, and the keys of our trunks. They separated us into two divisions, one of which remained in the vessel, and the other was transported into the Algerine frigate. I was of the latter number.

"On reaching Algiers, we were landed in two boats, and found a numerous population assembled to celebrate the triumphant return of the fleet. Yet we were neither stripped nor insulted, as Christian slaves are said usually to be when they arrive

on this inhospitable shore. We had a long walk before arriving at the palace, where the council is assembled,

where the great examinations are made, and the sentences pronounced. The Rais entered the palace of the marine, and we remained at the gate. Then a large curtain was raised, and we saw the hall of the palace where the members of the Regency, the Ulemas of the law, and the first Agas of the Divan, appeared, seated in their barbarous pomp, and horrible majesty. Presently, without ceremony or preamble, our papers were demanded, and examined. The usual formalities were observed, to give an appearance of justice to acts of rapine. Our papers were presented to the English consul, who had been sent for to verify them. He saw fully their insufficiency, but, impelled by the goodness of his heart, and by pity for so many sufferers, he made the most generous efforts to extricate us from this horrible danger. His eagerness was not diminished by our belonging to a country united to France; we were unhappy, and, consequently, sacred in the eyes of an Englishman. But the Rais, Hamida, insisted upon the ferocious laws of piracy; he established the nicest distinctions between domicile and nationality ;-he shewed himself a complete master of the African code of jurisprudence.

He

"We heard the council repeat, A good prize, prisoners, slaves! These words were echoed by the crowd assembled in the great square; who, by their cries, seemed to call for this decision. The consul then demanded the English lady and her two daughters; granted. The Chevalier Rossi, husband of the lady, advanced with courage and dignity; he urged his claims as husband of an English lady, and father to English children. was declared free also; he went to join his wife and children. The consul made yet one attempt for the safety of all; it was useless. The horrible cry, Slaves, slaves! resounded tumultuously through the hall, and was echoed by the multitude. The members of the Regency rose, the council was dissolved, the English consul and vice-consul retired with the family of Rossi, and we remained immoveable, stupified, as if thunder had fallen on our heads.

"We arrived at the Pachalick, or

eyes swelled with tears, sadly begin their march; they turned once again, squeezed my hand, bade me adieu, and disappeared.

"I was recalled to the marine, and the great magazine of prizes, to recover my effects, which were to be restored by order of government; but money, goods, baggage, all had been seized, plundered, carried off by the Turks and Moors, and I could recover nothing. I suffered this day an immense loss; the fruit of so many years of labour, of industry, of privation, was gone. I had suffered a still more grievous loss, that of all my books and manuscripts."

"He," says M. Pananti, "who has not been at Algiers, who has not seen the lot to which the Christians re duced to slavery are condemned, does not know what is most bitter in inisery, or into what state of debasement the hearts of the miserable sons of men may fall. I, who have seen, who have experienced it, cannot, by words, paint all that man feels and suffers when he is plunged into this horrible calamity. As soon as a man is declared a slave, he is stripped of his clothes, and their place is supplied by a coarse piece of cloth; he is left commonly without stockings and shoes, and his naked head is struck by the burning rays of the sun. Many allow their beard to grow in a horrible manner, in sign of grief and desolation; they live in a state of dirtiness, which excites equal disgust and compassion. A part of these unhappy men are destined to make ropes and sail-cloth for the fleet; these remain always under the eye and rod of the Alguazils, who abuse strangely their barbarous authority, and extort from them the little money which they sometimes possess. Others remain slaves of the Dey, or are sold to rich Moors, who destine them to the vilest uses; others, in short, are condemned, like beasts of burden, to transport wood and stone, and to execute all the roughest labours, while their steps are always weighed down by a chain of iron. Of all the slaves, these are the most unhappy. They have no bed to rest on, no clothes to wear, no food to support them. All their nourishment consists in two loaves, black as soot, which are thrown to them, as to dogs. In the evening

they are shut up in the Bani, as malefactors in the galleys."

The galleys in fact were invented by Christians for captive Africans. The shameful commencement of this cruel and humiliating treatment is due to us; our fathers were animated by that reli gious hatred, of which our contemporaries are the victims; and it is because the punishment of Musulman captives appeared of all others the most cruel, that the idea was afterwards formed, of associating with them the vilest criminals in the Banis of Rome, of Genoa, of Leghorn, and of Malta. Let us not hesitate to own, that we have been unjust, cruel, and persecuting: much more, it is we who have begun; but after having repaired our own offences against humanity, after having abolished the trade of the Negroes, and the Bani of the Knights of Malta, we have a right to demand for ourselves the same justice which we render to men of a different faith. Europe condemns not, or will no longer condemn a freeman to slavery, for the single crime of being born a Musulman; no more ought she to suffer the African to condemn the European for the single crime of being born a Christian.

"The slaves lie heaped together in open corridors; they are exposed to wind, rain, storms, to all the injuries of the air and seasons. In the country, they sleep without shelter in the open air, or else shut up in deep pits, which they descend to by a ladder, after which the mouth of the cave is shut with an iron grate. At the dawn of day they are abruptly awaked by the injurious cry, To work, cattle then driven to the working place with whips, like beasts of burden, accompanied with blasphemies and maledictions. Many are condemned to clear out wells or dig privies; they remain there for whole seasons in wa ter up to the middle, and breathe a mephitic air. Others are obliged to descend into frightful precipices, with death over their heads, and death under their feet. Others are yoked to a waggon, along with mules or asses; but it is upon them that the greater share of the burden falls, and upon them particularly that the strokes of the whip most copiously descend. Many in quarries are crushed by the falling in of the earth; many too, descending into their vast depths, never