are a

E of feudal cavalry, possessing hereditary lands, on the tenure of appearing

320

when callen on.

Some of their troops are called, for their headlong and wreckless impetuosity, Delhis, or madmen; and the desperate enterprizes they undertake, justifies the name. Such cavalry, in the passes of the Balkan, must oppose a formidable resistance to the most effective and best disciplined troops; and no doubt the Russians, if they ever attempt this barrier, will find it so.

"

Another obstacle will be afforded by the season of the year. The only time for operation is the spring: the country is then exceedingly beautiful and healthful, the rivers are are full of sweet water, the grass and fodder abundant, and the air elastic and healthful; but as the summer advances, the rivers dry up, vegetables disappear, and nothing is presented but an arid, burning soil, intolerable from the glare of the sun by day, and dangerous from the cold and the damp of the heavy dews by night; and the morbid effects of these every ariny has experienced, campaigning in those countries at that season, both in ancient and modern times. To pass this chain in winter, with an army, seems a still more hopeless attempt: the morasses saturated with rain, incapable of supporting the heavy burthen of waggons or artillery; the ravines filled with snow or mountain torrents, and passed over by tottering bridges of wood, so rotten as to break with the smallest pressure; the numerous defiles, which a few can defend against a multitude, affording so many natural fortresses, behind which the Turks fight with such energy and effect; the scattered villages, which can afford neither shelter nor supplies,—all these present obstacles, of which the Russians themselves seem very conscious. In their last campaign they were in possession of the whole of the country, from the Balkan to the Danube, with the exce Shumla, in which the Turks were shut up, and they had nearly 100,000 men in the KAWIN KO CHOBILIO KIDxception of Varna, Nyssa, and plain below, completely equipped, and were at the very base of the mountain, and the entrance to the passes; yet they never attempted to ascend, with the exception of a few straggling Cossacs, who made a dash across the ridge, and returned as speedily back again.

10 09826

The Turks seem to have no apprehension of an approach to the capital on this side: relying on the natural strength of this chain of mountains, they have not fortified any of the passes, nor do I recollect a single fortress from Shumla to Constantinople. Their great apprehension is, that the invasion will be made by sea; and in this per suasion, not only the Dardanelles, but the Bosphorus, resembles one continued for. tress, from the Sea of Marmora to the E Black Sea. In the year 1821, when a rupture was apprehended with Russia, all the castles were completely repaired, and additional batteries were erected on every point of land which bore advantageously on the channel, so as to present a most formidable obstruction to any approach by water. These batteries, however, were altogether untenable, if attacked on the land side; the high ground, above the shores of the Bosphorus, everywhere commanding them: and if a landing were effected anywhere in the rear, which it was at that time said was the plan of the Russians, they must be immediately abandoned. But it seems as if the Turkish power in Europe was fast hastening to ruin, which the few convulsive efforts they occasionally make cannot avert or long delay.

N

The most striking circumstance to a traveller in the Turkish provinces is their depopulation. This is not so observable in large towns (though Constantinople has lost more than half its inhabitants within the last twenty years) as in the country; where villages existed, there are uninhabited wastes. From the co-operation of various causes, there is more of human life wasted, and less supplied, in Turkey, than in any other country. "We see, every day, life going out in the fairest portion of Europe; and the human race threatened with extinction, in a soil and climate capable of supporting the most abundant population."

The people of Moldavia and Wallachia, the countries between the Pruth and the Danube, and now occupied by the Russian armies, are unwarlike and physically weak; their disposition indolent. Their moral qualities are modi

fied by their physical temperament; great crimes are unknown amongst a people who have not sufficient hardihood to attempt them. From this cause, and the rapacity of the Turks, the effects of human labour are not visible in this fertile country. The population of the two provinces is estimated at a million and a half. The peasants are not, as formerly, bound to the soil, but are at liberty to move where they please; they are only subject to a capitation tax. The great mass of the people are very illiterate.

The basis of the language of these and the adjoining provinces is the Latin, which is spoken generally, and with something of a Roman purity in Transyl vania. Upon Dr.Walsh's arrival at Hermanstadt, the first principal town in Transylvania, he was surprised to find Latin the common language of the people; not a jargon like the Wallachian tongue, but "such as is taught and spoken in our classical schools and colleges, and pronounced exactly as in Ireland," of which country we suspect our author is a native:

I was awoke in the morning by a man, who came with a lantern into my room before it was day. He held in his hand a glass, and said distinctly," Visne schnaps, Domine." Well pleased to hear a language I could understand in the inn, I said, "Quid est schnaps ?" He held up his finger in the manner of demonstrating a proposition, and said, “Schnaps, Domine, est res maximè necessaria omnibus hominibus omni mane." Satisfied with his definition, I declined any further proof; but was greatly amused at the boots of an obscure inn talking distinct Latin, which he told me was the common language of the house.

Another curious fact related by Dr. Walsh is the popularity of Sir Walter Scott's novels in these remote parts. At the quarantine in the Carpathian mountains our author solaced himself with some of these works, which, he says, are the delight of the Boyars of Wallachia; and in Transylvania, happening to enter a bookseller's shop, the owner pointed to a portrait, observing, in French, that it was "Le Sieur Valtere Skote, l'homme le plus célèbre en toute l'Europe."

In Transylvania, our traveller was much struck with the Saxon colonies, which have taken ground here, forming an heptarchy. They are the descendants of those families who were driven from Saxony in an early period of the reformation, and were suffered to plant themselves here as a barrier against the encroachment of the Turks, whom they valiantly withstood. They retain all their ancient traits of character, differing little in air, manner, and dress from the primitive reformers. They are of a very grave demeanour, with serious thinking faces; they have, in general, aquiline noses, dark and somewhat stern countenances, to which black mustachios give a sombre caste; their persons are large and robust, and their very gait has a certain air of sturdy independence; they wear large round felt hats, from under which their long strait hair hangs down loose about their face and shoulders; short coats and large breeches, like the doublet and hose of their forefathers: in fact, they nearly resemble the figures represented in the wood-cuts to be seen in the "black letter" histories of the early reformers. A graphic representation of these Transylvanian Saxons fully supports the description.

We conclude our notice of the interesting work of Dr. Walsh with the following reflections upon the present crisis, and upon the character of the Greeks:

Whatever be the future fate of this extraordinary nation; whether, having thus advanced into the heart of Christendom, and vainly attempted to establish the religion of the Koran on the ruins of that of the Gospel in the west, as they had done in the east, it is the design of Providence that they should now return to the place from whence they

came,

came, after having used them as instruments for its own purpose, to prove the final permanency of the religion of Christ; or, whether they will be permitted to remain in Europe, and at length adopt, not only its arts and sciences, but its religious belief also; and so be no longer a peculiar people, but amalgamated with the rest, and received as members of the great European family. Whatever may be reserved for them, there is one subject of pure congratulation, which no change of events can now alter; and that is, the safety and independence of the Greeks.

You have been in the habit of despising this people, and believe them so sunk and degraded from their former name as hardly to be recognized as the same nation; but certainly my experience of them for several years would induce me to adopt a different opinion; their strong moral features, like those of their language, though debased by some recent barbarisms, remain essentially the same, the character of both being but little altered. As far as they have had opportunities, they have evinced the same industry, activity, genius, love of literature, enterprize, talent, and intrepidity; shaded, at the same time, with the levity, fickleness, personal jealousies, cruelty, and want of faith, which occasionally distinguished their ancestors; and assuredly they are not inferior to them in an ardent and unextinguishable love of liberty, and their country, for which they have perilled as much, and fought as bravely, in the days of the Turks, as their ancestors in the days of the Persians. To their domestic virtues I should be very unjust if I did not pay them the tribute they deserve. I have nowhere met more kind and cordial people to strangers; or, who perform the relative duties in their own families with stronger affections, in which I tam disposed to think they exceed their progenitors. If, in addition to this, we consider the obligations we owe their nation our sympathy will not be confined to mere respect for their unchanged character. We acknowledge them, as our masters in literature and the arts and sciences, and the source from whence we derive whatever is estimable in those attainments; and so they are endeared to us by all the recollections connected with such interesting subjects; but we do not seem to remember that they are our instructors in religion also, that their jan. guage was the medium through which the Gospel was first conveyed, and their cities were among the first where it was preached and adopted. And when Providence, for its own wise purposes, permitted to Mahomedanism a temporary triumph in Europe, no inducement or intimidation could prevail on the modern Greeks to abandon the cause of Christianity; but, for four centuries, they cherished and kept alive the sacred flame, in the centre of the Turkish empire. To hold forth the hand of help to such a people; to put an end to the carnage that was consuming them, and rescue the unsubdued and unyielding remnant from utter extermination; and, finally, to place them in such a state of security as no future domination established in those countries can have any pretext to interfere with, was surely an effort most worthy of England, and one of those bright events which will dignify the page of her future history.

Statement relative to Serampore, Supplementary to a Brief Memoir." By J. MARSHMAN, D.D. With Introductory Observations, by JOHN FOSTER. London, 1828. 8vo. pp. 244.

IT is greatly to be lamented that the dispute between the Baptist Missionaries of Serampore and the parent Society in England cannot be adjusted without these reiterated appeals to the public, which do much harm to both parties, as well l as to the missionary cause, and even to religion itself. When the missionaries were calumniated by the press, they were justified in employing the same medium to set themselves right in the estimation of the world; but the public press was not a fit vehicle for the statements subsequently made. Is it impracticable for the parties to agree in the choice of a discreet, impartial, and judicious person, to whose arbitration they might submit the matters in dispute? Surely they must both be sensible that the publication of pamphlets Asialic Journ.VOL. 26. No.151.

I

and

and letters and paragraphs upon this subject tends to excite acrimonious feelings which must widen the breach betwixt them, and to provoke a spirit foreign to the very nature of Christianity. Let both parties be prepared to make concessions; let each forego, for peace-sake, a certain portion of what may in strictness be their right to insist upon; and a few simple issues will remain to be tried, which any honest man of ordinary capacity may decide in a few hours.

With a full knowledge of the mischief which this dispute is working in India and England, we urgently recommend a reconciliation between the disputants; and for this reason we refrain from inflaming the quarrel by a re-examination of the subject. We shall, therefore, say no more of the work before us, than that we regret that a writer like Mr. Foster should show such a want of discretion as to express himself upon this delicate and unfortunate subject with so little moderation as is exhibited in his tedious "introduction"? of seventy pages. It is true, indeed, that Dr. Marshman is not responsible for these intemperate strictures, beyond the permission he gave to suffer them to accompany his "statement," they are, therefore, merely the officious opinions of an individual inspired with all the zeal of a partizan, who has no better means of determining the merits of the question than any other person acquainted with the facts.

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS.

A Treatise on Gout, Apoplexy, Paralysis, and Disorders of the Nervous System. By A. RENNIE, Surgeon, &c. London, 1828.

The object of this treatise is to ascertain, on physiological principles, aided by practical observation, what are the remote and insidious causes which dispose the constitution to gout, apoplexy, and other diseases termed nervous, the increased prevalence of which, especially apoplexy, has of late years been a subject of universal remark. The present portion of the treatise, a second part of which is promised towards the close of the current year, is devoted to an investigation into a history of the origin and progress of the gouty habit or diathesis, a description of its symptoms, an inquiry into its true causes, and an enumeration of the diseases which dispose to gout.

De Prisca Egyptiorum Litteraturâ; Commentatio prima quam scripsit J. G. L. KoseGARTEN. Weimar, 1828. 4to. pp. 71. Plates.

Professor Kosegarten has, in this treatise, illustrated the newly discovered science of hieroglyphics by various papyri in the Museum of Berlin. The learned professor is no favourer of the system of Spohn and Seyffarth; he upholds that of Young and Champollion. This treatise affords an evidence of his learning and industry.

VARIETIES.