The man obeyed orders. It was a general who gave them. It unfortunately happened that the engineer at the opposite extremity had also obeyed orders, and put his train in motion at the usual time; so that the two opposite trains came together upon a dark night at full speed upon a single line. The shock was terrific. The carriages were thrown up into the air. It required hours to dig out the mangled corpses. It is surprising that only six lives were lost; but many persons were dreadfully lacerated, and died subsequently of their wounds.

When the English engineer found that there was no possibility of preventing the concussion, he jumped off the engine to save his own life. This was interpreted a breach of duty, and he was incarcerated for nine months.'-(Vol. iii. p. 44.)

The following is an instance of this kind of literal obedience which we do not recollect having heard before :—

These small retail shops to which I allude display a painted board immediately over the entrance door, upon which figures the bill of fare of their internal contents. Underneath is the dealer's name, and, immediately succeeding, the number. These numbers require expla nation. The Emperor Paul possessed a creative power when he said "Let a thing be done," it was done. Now, as these shops are all licensed, so, for convenience and order's sake, the Emperor said, "Let them be all numbered No. 1., &c." Thus the order stood "No. 1., &c.," no doubts, no supposition, no subterfuge, no construction of original intention allowable; the first shop in the street is 1., &c., the second 1., &c., the third, and so on, all 1., &c. It was not allowable to suppose that the "&c." should extend to 2, 3, 4, and that each should have a separate number. Such, according to the phrase ever in a Russian mouch "was not ordered." (Vol. ii. p. 166.)

This reminds us of another anecdote of the mode in which the St Petersburg police executed the sapient orders of the same Emperor. One day the mandate came forth that no man should walk the streets at night without a lantern. The first night a Doctor set out on his rounds, attended by a servant carrying one. The servant was allowed to pass; the Doctor was placed under

arrest.

Every one knows the story of the English banker who gave Catharine a dog, which the Empress christened after the name of the donor, and of the terrible quid pro quo which followed, when the Minister of Police, receiving an order to have the diseased dog empaillé,' was within an ace of carrying it into execution by impaling the living Englishman. Our author recounts a somewhat similar adventure, though not quite so alarming, as having occurred to one of our countrymen of the English factory in his time.

He was a merchant of great respectability, and was attached to a

VOL. LXXVIII. NO. CLVII.

E

Russian lady. No impediment offered itself except the one which prevents the union of people of different religions, and as a foreigner and Protestant, he met with much difficulty in obtaining permission. As he had a friend at court who could gain the imperial ear, he was commissioned to apply to the fountain-head. It was necessary to await a seasonable opportunity, a good-humoured moment, which grants every thing, and then to strike. This opportunity occurred, and it was in the afternoon. "Your Majesty," said the petitioner, "will permit me to inform you, that one of my countrymen is in great distress." "How ?" replied his Majesty, "an Englishman in distress? What is it? Let me know; if I can remedy it, depend upon it; what help does he require?" "No, your Majesty, it is not that, but he wishes to marry a Russian, and the clergy will not celebrate his marriage." "How so? let him be married immediately, (seechass.) I will give the order instantly ;" and in five minutes the imperial signature permitted the nuptials to be celebrated. Now, it must be recollected, that in Russia a permission of the sovereign is a bona fide order; and there is this advantage in despotic governments, that when a thing is to be done, it is done sometimes. The imperial signature authorizes at 5 P.M. the marriage of Mr A and Miss B--. At 6 P.M. this order gets into the hands of proper authorities. It arrives at the first office, where it is registered, at eight it gets to another, at ten it may have passed the synod, at eleven it is in the hands of the police, and at midnight the police-officers are trotting through the streets to put it in execution, and summon the parties themselves. Mr was fast asleep. He had given the case up as hopeless; he must make the best of it; he must forget it; he was hugging his pillow, 'twas all he could hug; a thundering rap is at his door; and before he recovers from his fright an armed police is at his bed-side with a roll of paper in their hands. His liver turned to water.' As he was about to force utterance he was stopped by the officers, who told him that they had a warrant which must be executed immediately, (seechass.) Mr thought of putting on his clothes, and, as he was sacrificing to the Graces, the officer commenced reading. Fancy a man roused from his slumbers in the middle of the night, trembling all over from fear more than from cold, sitting upon the edge of his bed drawing on a stocking, spinning slowly out the time, and about to hear, as he supposeth, his exile warrant. "By the grace of God, Autocrat of all the Russias, &c., be it known." What was his surprise then to find that this sentence was a permit to be married. "What, now ?" said Mr ——; “ at this time of night ?"-"Immediately, (seechass,)" said the officer; "it is ordered.”—“ Oh if it be ordered, then I know the rest,” said Mr ——, and he hurried on his clothes and accompanied the officers to the dwelling of his betrothed. What were her feelings upon the occasion, how the matter was broken to her, whether she were asleep or awake, who explained the necessity of immediate compliance-all these matters have not been revealed. Mr and Miss accompanied the police-officers to the church, and the mar riage ceremony was performed in the middle of the night. The officers had done their duty; Mr - did his, inasmuch as he had obeyed

orders; and all the parties shook hands, went home, and went to bed again.'-(Vol. iii. p. 12.)

As might be presumed, the only point on which resistance to the tremendous It is ordered,' has ever yet been carried out successfully, perhaps ever attempted, is that of religion; or what the Russian peasant chooses to consider as such. The Emperor's recognised power in this is also enormous: he can make saints, or refuse to allow any more to be made, as he is said recently to have done, in consequence of some misdemeanours on the part of the last canonized. But Peter the Grest was worsted in his war with beards; and the present Czar would probably employ all his power in vain to compel one of his orthodox subjects to eat a pigeon.

The following anecdote will afford a good idea of the persevering obstinacy of the Russians in what they consider to be a righteous cause. -The Bishop of Nicolaieff had once been a Jew: he was now a zealous Christian. It was at the epoch of performing this ceremony, (of "blessing the waters,") that the thermometer marked thirty degrees of cold, and a cutting wind swept over the plains which extend to the east of Nicolaieff. Not a soul was to be seen in the streets. The crows fell down dead with cold: it was the desolating cold blast of the desert -the bleak wind which froze the French legions; nothing animate could resist it long.

The Boog, whose waters were to be blessed, runs at a distance of a mile from the centre of the town. Now, it was probable under such circumstances, that if the ceremony were allowed to proceed as on ordinary occasions, one-half of the attendants would perish. The governor consequently prevented the procedure in the ordinary way, but ordered a bucketful of water to be brought from the river to the church, there blessed and consecrated, and then restored to the parent stream. This was good homeopathic practice, and much suffering and mischief were thus avoided. But no persuasion, no arguments, would prevail upon the converted Jew to desist from the usual performance of the rites. He would, and did sit down by the waters of Babel. He could not weep, but globules of ice represented his tears. He was brought home in a state of exhaustion, and died raving mad a few days afterwards.'(Vol. ii. p. 257.)

But

The last volume consists chiefly of the narrative of our author's retreat from the scene of his labours; and his journey via Sweden, and by various German baths, to his native country. all this we pretermit; for all of travelling interest that it contains, may be found more usefully digested in Mr Murray's Hand-Book, and we have already given enough of those anecdotical and picturesque sketches which constitute the whole merit of the work.

ART. III.—A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, performed in His Majesty's Ships Dorothea and Trent, under the command of Captain David Buchan, R.N., in 1818. To which is added, a Summary of all the Early Attempts to reach the Pacific by way of the Pole. By CAPTAIN F. W. BEECHEY, R.N. 8vo. 8vo. London: 1843.

UDGING from the unusual circumstance of twenty years having

passed away without any account of the present voyage having seen the light, we should be apt to conclude that neither of the commanders of the two ships could bring themselves to publish any narrative because the object of the expedition had not been successfully accomplished-the very worst reason, in our opinion, that should have restrained them; and we happen to know, that we now owe it from Captain Beechey to the urgent request of a friend. The relation of difficulties met with, and the 'means by which dangers were overcome, are proper subjects for the information of others, and not unsound as guides how best to avoid them. In what a state of ignorance should we have remained if such a plea had been acted upon, and all the unsuccessful attempts to discover a northern passage to the East Indies had been buried in oblivion, from the days of Queen Elizabeth to the present time; as they certainly would mostly have been, but for the praiseworthy zeal and industry of such men as Camden, Hakluyt, Holinshed, and a few others, by whose indefatigable labours posterity has been made acquainted with much curious and valuable information, gained in the attempts made by our brave and hardy seamen ; from the time that Frobisher, with his two little barks, first broke the ice, to that of Hudson, Baffin, and Bylot! In modern days each individual commanding-officer has told his own story, except in the present instance, where Captain Buchan (who is no more, having perished at sea, by fire it is supposed) could not be prevailed upon to publish; but he gave his full concurrence to Captain Beechey taking his place, and we do not hesitate to say that a more able and proper substitute could not have been found.

Captain Beechey is well known in the naval service as a scientific navigator and an able surveyor; nor does he now come forward for the first time as an author. Several valuable works in geography, antiquities, and natural history, have passed through his hands. On his return from the northern voyage, (now under review,) he was immediately employed as a lieutenant by the Admiralty, (accompanied with his brother, appointed as draughtsman by the Colonial Office,) to explore by land, in 1821-2, the northern

coast of Africa, from Tripoli eastward, comprehending the Greater Syrtis, Cyrenaica, and the Persepolis; and he published, in a large quarto volume, a descriptive account of the geography and antiquities of this interesting line of coast.

Another able and valuable work, from his pen, is the narrative of a voyage through the Pacific, along the coast of California, into Behring's Strait, there to co-operate with Franklin on the Polar land expedition-a work abounding with much curious and valuable information, with many well-executed plates. On his return he was promoted to the rank of captain. A separate volume was subsequently published, descriptive of the rare and curious specimens of natural history collected on that voyage. He was again employed on a survey of the American coast of the Pacific; but his health giving way, was relieved by Captain (now Sir Edward) Belcher. At this moment, Captain Beechey is engaged on a survey of the Irish Channel and of the western coast and islands of Scotland.

That he is in all respects well qualified for his present undertaking, the volume under our consideration will afford the best proof. The narrative is well arranged, and free from those frequent interruptions that occur in nautical works—of wind and weather, bearings and soundings, and other technical matters, which, however useful and necessary in a sea journal or logbook, are of little interest to the general reader. It professes not to show that this voyage was the means of acquiring any additional information regarding the main point for which it was undertaken; but the various subjects to which it gave the occasion of noticing are treated with clearness, and are well selected to give what has hitherto been wanting-a lucid and perspicuous description of the great island of Spitzbergen, and the sea that surrounds it, together with the habits of the various animated beings that inhabit both. The style is plain and simple, we should almost be disposed to say, simply elegant, as will be seen by the extracts which our limited space has allowed us to make. In short, we consider it, as we think most of its readers also will, a pleasing and instructive volume.

The occurrences of the voyage are soon told. In the early part of the year 1818, when the Isabella and Alexander were preparing for Captain Ross and Lieutenant Parry, for the search of a north-west passage, the Dorothea and Trent were simultaneously fitted for Captain Buchan and Lieutenant Franklin, with the view to explore a passage to the Pacific by the North Pole. The peculiarity of the proposed route,' says Captain Beechey, 'afforded opportunities of making some useful experiments on the elliptical figure of the earth; on magnetic phenomena; on 'the refraction of the atmosphere in high latitudes, under ordinary