Atlantic, or Pacific; but destitute of the sound of the winds, the music of waters, the teinture of clouds, and the motion, which gives life and circulation to the most torpid of temperatures. All is one vast scene of lifeless monotony! In the night, however, the heavens exhibit a moving picture of magnificence, not to be paralleled in any other part of the globe : the God of Nature seeming to have directed all his powers to produce a scene, at once to command the admiration, and to overwhelm the faculties of the soul. Though deserts present such terrible images to the mind, there are circumstances, connected with their history, that are not wanting in the power of presenting fascinations for high and ardently poetical imaginations. The march of Alexander furnishes a subject for a poet, or a painter; when, after sustaining incredible dangers and fatigues, he came to a spot, watered by rivulets, and luxuriating in all the beauties of a perennial spring, blooming round the temple of Jupiter Ammon. Than the expedition of Cambyses, history has not a more terrible example: if we except the destruction of Sennacherib's army before the walls of Jerusalem; and the loss of the army of Napoleon in the snows of Russia. Having Defil'd each hallow'd fane, and sacred wood, And, drunk with fury, swell'd the Nile with blood", Cambyses divided his army into two parts. One of these he headed himself against the Ethiopians; but was obliged to return to Thebes, for want of supplies, after having lost a great portion of his men, who were driven to the necessity of eating human flesh. That part of his army, which he sent against the Ammonians, was never heard of after. It is supposed, therefore, to have perished in a whirlwind, which buried it in the sands of the desert ". Horrible as this event assuredly was, the Spanish and Por a Econ. Veget., vol. ii. p. 437. b Probably in a collection of sand-pillars. tuguese writers relate an individual circumstance, which has the power of exciting still more affecting impressions. Every father, husband, wife, mother, and child, can feel the history of Don Emanuel de Souza, and his unfortunate wife! Having amassed a large fortune, at Diu, of which he was governor, Don Emanuel embarked with his wealth, his beautiful wife, and his children, for his native country. The ship, in which they sailed, was wrecked upon the coast of Africa. Escaped with his wife, his children, and a part of his crew, Emanuel pursued his way by land. The country became more rude, as they advanced; more barren, and more desolate. Some of his party searched for water; others for food; most of them died, either of hunger, of thirst, or of fatigue. Some were murdered by the natives; and not a few were devoured by lions, leopards, and panthers. Donna Leonora arrived, at last, with her husband and children, at a small Ethiopian village; Emanuel having sunk, from heat, fatigue, and distress of mind, into a state of insanity. The natives of this village obliged them to give up their arms. This was a signal for outrage. The savages stripped them naked; and, in the midst of a burning sun, left them, in a pathless desert, to the fury, or rather the mercy, of wild beasts. The unfortunate travellers continued their journey. The feet of Leonora swelled, and, at length, bled at every step. Her children, parched with heat, and covered with dust, cried in all the agony of want. Her husband was insane and she was naked, with all her modesty, in the face of many men. She knelt upon the earth; she dug herself a hole with her hands; and buried herself up to the bosom in sand, to conceal her nakedness. In that state she received the last breath of two of her children. She now gave herself to despair: her lips were burning with thirst; her eyes sunk in their sockets; she stretched out her arms to her husband, and died in his embrace! Wild, distracted with his calamities, Don Emanuel caught his only remaining child in his up arms; and rushed into a neighbouring wood; the child uttering piercing shrieks; and both were almost instantly destroyed by lions, whose savage growls were heard by the few remaining servants of his party; who, after a multitude of dangers, returned to Portugal to relate the tale. If, in travelling over Norwegian Lapland, Acerbi esteemed every fountain he discovered, and every plant of angelica he saw, a source of pleasure and luxury: here, where all of life seems proscribed, and where solitude appears to brood over the matchless sterility, in sullen silence, the traveller trembling, totters on ; Breathes many a prayer; heaves many a groan; And starts and shakes in every breeze.-Neele. Yet even here, where neither a flower blooms, nor a plant vegetates, upon a more minute inspection, Nature is still seen to breathe in animal existence for amid the parched sands are a thousand species of insects, though none are beheld or heard, buzzing in the air. In beautiful countries, while we confine our observations to the scenes or objects, presented to the eye, all is enchanting. But the moment we begin to associate them with the inhabitants, from that moment part of our pleasure fades away. Where man plants his foot, he plants his passions. And where his passions operate and preponderate, adieu to peace! In deserts, man is a mere sojourner for a day. The man of wealth is seldom seen there; and the man of poverty hurries through it, as if he feared to engage an enemy at every step. In active scenes, the pure spirit of immortality seems already to shed its influence over him, who loves the Deity "without interest and without fear:" and we feel a thousand motives for admiring the man, who "strives with fortune to be just." Job was a dweller on the borders of the deserts. The book, which commemorates his virtues and his misfor tunes, seems to have been written expressly for the purpose of proving, that misfortunes ought never to be regarded as judgments. Indeed some persons seem born to misfortune, as the ocean is made to flow in periodical times. They are unfortunate in every wish they form; in every object that they love. Oh! ever thus from childhood's hour, I never nurs'd a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well, And love me-it was sure to die!-Moore. Amid deserts we miss the most stupendous effort of the eternal power, the mind of man; and matter itself appears almost sensible of its forlorn condition. If the tongue and the heart, as the celebrated Arabian shepherd, (Lokman), was accustomed to say, are "the best and the worst parts of man," in scenes, so desolate, we seem to have no reason to inquire, if wisdom will reside With passion, envy, hate, or pride?—Edda—Cottle. Accustomed to admire the powers of Nature, in all we see, in all we hear, in all we feel, Man, among deserts, appears to have no more power to build,—in other climes so easy,—than he has to give direction to the winds; to stop the motion of the tides; or arrest the course of the planets. And yet the morning star rises here, as well as in Italy and Greece. Here, too, the moon shines as vividly, as in winter it does over the Arctic Circle. In those regions the sky is frequently green, caused by the blending of the yellow colour of the • The Arabians call the morning stars angels. Job* applies to them a similar title; and exclaims, "If thou art innocent, thou shalt shine forth as the morning star t." atmosphere, and the blue of the waters. Here the sky is either crystalline or yellow. In the higher latitudes, in consequence of the cold, the atmosphere becomes so condensed, as to refract its rays in a manner to exhibit phenomena more beautiful than the painter can depict. Sometimes are exhibited circles of various colours; at other times semicircles; now oblong rings, like that of Saturn; and occasionally it hangs over the vast abyss, as if impregnating it with forms and colours like its own. Among deserts the moon rises and sets in one unvaried scene of splendour. Less vivid than the sun, it appears more benignant: and as the Thessalian musicians are fabled to have had the power of drawing it from heaven, indicating that there are in regions within its influence far “more beautiful things than these," it awakes a rich music, as it were, of thought; and we seem ready to hail it as a paradise, floating in the blue expanse, for the reception of elegant and injured spirits. COMPENSATIONS. NATURE is always just; if not, apparently, in her gifts, at least in her compensations. With gold and gems, if Chilian mountains glow; If bleak and barren, Scotia's hills arise; There plague and poison, lust and rapine grow; In Spitzbergen there are no trees or shrubs; but there are wild lettuces, ground ivy, hellebore, saxifrage, mountain heaths, heart's-ease, strawberries, and scurvy grass: an antiscorbutic so excellent, that seamen call it "the gift of God." Here, too, are gold ore, and alabaster. The Philippine Islands are subject to earthquakes, and to a vast number, not only of poisonous plants, but poisonous animals. Yet it is blest with an almost unequalled soil; a perpetual verdure |