This has been prepared under the same auspices, and with the same ceremonies; nor can I doubt that it will possess the same virtues with its predecessor.

NEW-YORK, 1828.

FRANCIS HERBERT.

EMBELLISHMENTS.

GREEK Boy; from a painting by Weir, in the collection of Sa

muel Ward, jun. Esq.

Shedaud; from a design by Inman.

Red Jacket; from a painting by Weir, in the collection of Samuel Ward, jun. Esq.

Weehawken; from a drawing by J. Neilson, jun.

The Dismal Swamp; from a design by Inman.

Dream of Papantzin; from a drawing by H. J. Morton.

RECOLLECTIONS OF BALFROOSH.

I HAVE few more agreeable recollections of the East, than those of my short residence at Balfroosh. It is the principal town of Mazunderaun, that fertile province of Persia which borders on the Caspian. Balfroosh, it is true, has no palaces, nor ruins, nor statues, nor antiquities, nor sights of any sort but a traveller, after the first zest of curiosity is worn off, soon becomes surfeited with such matters, and thanks heaven, when on his arrival at a new place he learns that there is nothing there worth seeing, and that he may sit down undisturbed, and like Falstaff "take his ease in his own inn." Balfroosh is quite modern, for it is the growth of commerce and the useful arts. There is no court there, no nobility, no army; but every thing presents a cheerful aspect of peace, industry, and comfort. In short, making allowances for the difference of costume

B

and manners, it reminded me very much of one of our own thriving, busy northern towns in the vicinity of our inland seas-Oswego, Geneva, for instance, or Rochester.

I was detained there for about a fortnight by the illness of a fellow-traveller, and our good fortune placed us under the hospitable roof of Meerza Abd-ool Meer. His house and all about it were characteristic of the owner: plain and unostentatious, but arranged with great simplicity and good taste, and full of that kind of comfort which we and the English value so much, and so rarely find out of our own countries. All the arrangements, to be sure, were adapted to eastern habits, but they were not the less comfortable or pleasant for that. Indeed, when enjoying the conversation of my host in his neat and spacious Dewankhaneah, or state parlour, looking out on one side upon beds of flowers and rows of blossoming peach and almond and cherry trees, and on the other upon a noble prospect of distant mountains, stretching my lazy length on one of those long thick carpets which the Persians call a Numud, and use as we do sofas, or seated on a Musnud as ample and elastic as any Parisian Fauteuil, I was fifty times reminded of some most pleasant days I had passed in my youth, at the same season of the year, and