were too strong, we sat without covering on our mules to be rained on. At Lerino, where we stopped till the rain abated, we passed the first large and regular valley between Nice and Genoa. The scenery was uncommonly beautiful. A rich plain, four miles in diameter wound back into the country, bounded on each side by mountains, some thousand feet in height. It is impossible to describe how finely their outline was varied, sometimes rising into bold peaks covered with snow; sometimes presenting a succession of rounded summits, with a graceful sweep between them; sometimes sending long ridges down their slanting sides to the valley below. A few miles in the back ground, a very lofty mountain stood forth in the middle of the plain, dividing it into smaller valleys, which were lost among the mountains. Leaving Lerino when the rain abated, we found between Finale and Noli that the mountains close in over the sea, in hanging masses of rock, a thousand or twelve hundred feet high. The road is carried along their face on broken ledges, which barely efford a support for the wall on which the path rests. Above our heads the rocks sprung up perpendicularly, three, four or six hundred feet high, as the road which is cut in their face, rises or sinks. From the edge of the path, we looked down on the sea over prepcices of on equal depth. In most places, the road is twelve feet wide, but is sometimes narrowed to a bridle path. A part of the way there are parapets to guard the traveler from falling; the rest is left without protection. In one instance while passing around a projecting cliff, the wind and rain which had again commenced, struck my mule with such violence, that he reeled towards the brink of the precipice. I threw myself instantly to the ground on the opposite side, and happily escaped the danger; but for the remainder of the way I preferred to trust myself to my own feet. At four o'clock we reached Noli, completely drenched with rain, and took a coach for Savona, six miles distant, in order to secure a place in the diligence, the next morning, for Genoa. Leaving Savona the next morning at 7 o'clock, we passed over a road similar to the one which I have already described, except that the mountains are not equally high. Wherever the soil permits, the olive groves run up the sides of the mountain to the very summit, and with some exceptions, indeed, the last sixty miles of our road was highly cultivated. Villages occur every two or three miles on the coast, with no harbor but a sandy beach; on which the large boats of the Mediterranean are drawn up at the present moment, in exactly the manner described by the ancient poets. Back on the summit of the mountains, or clinging to their sides, appear a multitude of small villages. Numerous castles crown the higher peaks, and single villas and cottages are scattered in little white dots among the olive groves. On the shore, the passes of the mountains are defended by a great number of ancient citadels, which must have been nearly impregnable, before the use of cannon. In some instances, we passed high and rocky islands, about a mile in circumference; which were once held as fortresses by pirates. At twelve we arrived at Genoa. I am &c. ART. IV.-REVIEW OF THE ESSAYS OF PHILANTHROPOS ON PEACE AND WAR. Essays of Philanthropos on Peace and War. Second Edition, pp. 173. 12mo. Exeter, New-Hamshire. 1827. AFTER all that has been written on the subject of war, the christian community have very inadequate ideas of its horrors, or of their own pressing duty to resist this practice. "War is a great evil" says the frigid philanthropist. "It is indeed so," replies the political economist, "it interrupts commerce and wastes the productive industry of a people." Heathen antiquity had the same opinion of war, and scarcely fell short of modern christianity in efforts to arrest it. The public apathy on a subject involving such wide-spread and overwhelming evils, is most deeply to be deplored. From a vague impression, that these evils cannot be averted, our sympathies have become withered, selfish, and confined. We are more distressed by the loss of a single limb, than by the distant destruction of a nation! Rolling in wealth and the luxuries of a quiet home, we scarcely reflect on the frightful desolations to which other countries are subjected. The thousands who perish in the field of battle, are summed up, published, and spoken of in the intercourse of life, with supreme and guilty apathy. But oh! if a husband, a brother, or a son were among their number, how different would be our sensations! How keen would be our sense of the apathy, which prevails on this subject! Now, we think it is the sacred duty of every man, to free his mind from the delusive influence of mere distance, on a subject of this nature. We ought always to think of war as it really is, as a scene of murder, rapine, and revenge, in the midst of their direful vocation. For this purpose we must descend to particulars; and take the testimony of eyewitnesses as to the details and consequences of a field of battle. Over the field of Waterloo, for example, orators, statesmen, and poets have hung the most gorgeous drapery of military glory. But let us look at the results of this battle as described by the celebrated Dr. Charles Bell, of London, who followed the English army to that scene of carnage, with a view to professional observation and experience. It was now the thirteenth day after the battle. It is impossible for the imagination to conceive the sufferings of men, rudely carried at such a period of their wounds. When I first entered this hospital, these Frenchinen had been roused and excited in an extraordinary degree; and in the glance of their eyes, there was a character of fierceness, which I never thought to have witnessed in the human countenance. They were past the utterance of what, if I might read the countenance, was unsubdued hatred and desire of revenge. On the second day the temporary excitement had subsided. Turn which way I might, I encountered every form of entreaty from those whose condition left no need of words to stir compassion. "Surgeon Major, Oh, how I suffer! Dress my wounds, dress my wounds! Doctor, I commend myself to you: cut off my leg. Oh! I suffer too much, too much!" And when these entreaties were unavailing, you might hear, in a weak, inward voice of despair, "I shall die; I am a dead man." The tones were too true to nature soon to lose their influence. At four in the morning I offered my services; and at six, I entered on the most painful duty of my life, in inspecting and operating upon these unfortunate men. I was thus engaged uninterruptedly, from six in the morning, until seven at night, for three successive days. I know not what notions my feeling countrymen have of thirty thousand wounded men thrown into a town and its environs. They still their compassionate emotions by subscriptions; but what avails this to the wounded, who would gladly exchange gold for a bit of rag.* Take another scene of more recent date, enacted on the blood stained fields of Greece. We transcribe the words of an eyewitness. In a few moments, from the balcony where I sat, my attention was attracted by the unusual commotion of the crowd below, which now consisted of four or five thousand; they kept rushing backward and forward, but always tending towards the door of a monastery close by me; one apartment of which served for the office of the marine, and another for the prison, in which were confined a large number of Turkish captives. I asked a Hydriot who sat near me, what was the meaning of the commotion in the crowd; he replied with little emotion, " perhaps going to kill a Turk.” His words were scarcely uttered, when the door of the monastery not twenty paces from me, was burst open, and a crowd rushed out, forcing before them a young Turk, of extremely fine appearance, tall, athletic, and well formed. I shall never forget the expression of his countenance at this awful moment. He was driven out almost naked, with the exception of a pair of trowsers, his hands held behind his back, his head thrust forward, and a hell of horror seemed depicted in his face. He made but one step over the threshold when a hundred ataghans were planted in his body; he staggered forward and fell, a shapeless mass of blood and bowels, surrounded by a crowd of his enraged executioners, each eager to smear his knife in the blood of his victim. By this time another wretch was dragged forward and shared the same fate; another and another followed, while I was obliged to remain a horrified spectator of the massacre, as the defenceless wretches were butchered almost at the foot of the stairs by which I must have descended in order to make my escape. Each was in turn driven beyond the door, and got a short run through the crowd, and fell piece-meal, till at length the carcase lost all form of humanity, beneath the knives of his enemies. Some few died bravely, never attempting to escape, but falling on the spot where they received the first thrust of ataghans; other weaker wretches made an effort to reach the sea through the crowd, but sunk down beneath a thousand stabs, screaming for mercy, and covering their faces with their gory hands.* It is thus that we ought ever to look on the destruction of human life. Never should we lessen our impressions of the horror of such scenes, by viewing them in the aggregate; as if to die in the midst of thousands could disarm death of a single pang or shed one ray of consolation on the dark and final scene! "The first wounded man I ever beheld in the field," says one who was present at the battle of Busaco,-" was carried past me at this moment; he was a fine young Englishman in the Portuguese service, and lay helplessly in a blanket, with both his legs shattered by a cannon shot. He looked pale, and big drops of perspiration stood on his manly forehead; but he spoke not-his agony appeared unutterable, I secretly wished him death; a mercy, I believe that was not very long withheld." + We will add but one more picture; it is from the "Recollections of a Valetudinarian." "One single shot did horrid execution among the marines by striking a stand of arms, and killing or wounding several men with the splinters. I shall not easily forget a poor corporal of marines who had both his arms and both his legs shot off, as he was elevating a carronade on the poop. It is now twenty years ago, yet the poor man's countenance is as plainly before me at this moment, as if it were only yesterday, as he was carried past me to be lowered down the hatchway to the surgeons below. He bore the amputation of three of his limbs, and died under the operation on the fourth!" Such, for nearly six thousand years, have been the sufferings inflicted by man upon his fellow man. On a moderate estimate fourteen thousand millions of human beings, have already perished in war. Within the present generation five millions six hundred thousand are known to have been swept off by its rage. In the wars of Napoleon alone, it is estimated that at least three millions of the French people were destroyed!‡ But there are other evils consequent on war, equivalent in horror and extent to the loss of human life. The honest arts of peace are abandoned. The husbandman, the mechanic, and the * See Howe's Greek Revolution, p. 258. + Recollections of the Peninsula. See the elements of these estimates, and other striking facts, in Dick's Philosophy of Religion, p. 307, et seq. merchant are drawn from the field, the work-shop, and the countinghouse. Poverty, famine, and distress ensue. A mental and moral desoiation, disheartening to the philanthropist, and fatal to religion, civilization and virtue, follows upon the loss of paternal guidance and instruction, and the interruption of the well regulated institutions of society. Taxes multiply, national and individual debts accumulate, commerce is annihilated, and the very sinews of the community-the heads of families-the sturdy yeomanry of middle life are thinned out, and either perish in the carnage of battle, or sink sorrowing into the grave, the unmourned and unremembered victims of heavy marches, overpowering labors, dangerous exposure, and unspeakable distress! How dreadfully do we find these evils increased, when we turn to the country which is the theatre of war. Age, sex, beauty, innocence, and virtue, are no protection there. The loss of life and the tortures of bodily pain, become secondary evils. The hellish passions which possess the human heart at such times, are beyond the power of language to describe. Desolated Greece presents us with a picture. We need not ask what are the causes of this awful devastation and distress. The Creator of the universe has not made war a necessary condition of our existence, an unavoidable element in our wretched pilgrimage on earth. War, we all know, flows from the dreadful passions of man, ambition, avarice, revenge,and lust of power. Look at two hundred and eighty-six wars of magnitude, in which christian nations have been engaged. We find in the enumeration given by the Massachusetts Peace Society, 44 Wars of ambition to obtain extent of country. 22 Wars for plunder, tribute, etc. 24 Wars of retaliation and revenge. 8 Wars to settle some question of honor or prerogative. 6 Wars arising from disputed claims to some territory. 41 Wars arising from disputed titles to crowns. 30 Wars commenced under pretense of assisting an ally. 23 Wars originating in jealousy of rival greatness. 5 Wars which have grown out of commerce. 55 Civil wars. 28 Wars on account of religion, including the Crusades against the Turks and heretics. 286 To which the intelligent author of "Essays on Peace and War,” subjoins, The war of Spain against the liberty of her colonies. The war of Austria to extinguish the liberty of Naples. |