a coat of moss and lichen, which gives them the wintry appearance they have.

The only other point of view from which the Fall is usually seen is about fifty yards farther along the bank of the same side of the oval, where there is a little gnarled tree, whose roots are warped into the fissures of the rock, and the stem leans out over the precipice. By allowing one's self to recline against this tree, the head is brought fairly over the brink, and you not only have nearly a front view of the fall, but you can see the full height of the precipice on which you stood in your first position. To those whose nerves are strong enough to look on this sight without being disagreeably affected in the head, the grandeur of their situation can scarcely be surpassed; however, the sensation many people have on looking from a great height is rather disagreeable, and most people content themselves with what they can see without the assistance of the little tree.

While we stood here we saw a pair of Macaws making their way up from their native climate (the warm lands below) by traversing the oval space from side to side, rising gradually through the clouds of spray and mist, until emerging from the heaviest part of it, the sun-beams fell upon them for an instant, exhibiting the dazzling colours of their plumage, that almost outvied the glories of the many rainbows that were painted on each burst of vapour as they were whirled up from the bottom in endless succession.

To say nothing of the novelty of the situation to an European, standing as he does surrounded by the productions of even a cold climate, looking down on those that distinguish the tropic, from the regions of the oak, he can distinguish the green patches of sugar cane, the cocoa-nut tree, and the broad leafed banana. There is one circumstance with regard to the Falis of Tequendama, which says more for their wondrous beauties than all that I could say or write of them, there has not been a solitary instance of any traveller, however fond of making little of that which others praise, and in spite of all they may have heard of them, did not acknowledge that imagination was outdone in the reality. As an instance of this feeling I may mention a circumstance which occurred with myself. I had been trying to describe the Falls to a Scotchman who was about to visit them. After doing my best to convey some idea of the impression the sight had made on me, he told me (in an excess of that love of country, or nationality, common to his countrymen) that he had seen the Trosachs in Scotland, and he had made up his mind, that there could not be anything to surpass them in beauty and grandeur. On his return I asked him how Tequendama bore the comparison with the Trosachs. "Oo man!" said he, "I'm ashamed o' myself-I'm raelly ashamed." What were your feelings," said I, "when you came in sight of the Falls?" "I felt," said he, "that I should kneel down and worship my maker in thanksgiving and praise."

Turkey and its Resources; by David Urquhart, Esq. 8vo. London, 1833.

It was formerly a complaint that the East, particularly that part of it under the dominion of the Turks, was but scantily explored and but little known. At an early period, indeed, this region was an object of intense interest, when religious enthusiasm gave a stimulus to curiosity, and the Crusaders who set out to rescue the holy sepulchre from the infidels, drew after them the eyes and feelings of the civilized western world; and subsequently, when the Turks, bursting into Europe, boasted that they would feed their horses with oats on the altar of St. Peter's at Rome, and plant the crescent over the cross on the cathedral of St. Stephen at Vienna, they naturally excited the fears and attracted the attention of all Christendom. But when these events were passed away,—when mankind were convinced of the utter folly of those "who strayed so far, to seek in Golgotha him dead who lives in Heaven;" and when the wandering Turks became a fixed people in Europe, their restless ardour subsided, and the empire settled into an immense mass of quiet ignorance and contented despotism; no one cared about them, and their name would perhaps have become extinct in England, had it not been kept alive by the commercial enterprise of that opulent and respectable class of the community, the Turkey merchants. Accordingly we find that almost the whole of the information communicated about the country to the English public, for 200 years, was collected by their chaplains and physicians resident in Smyrna, Aleppo, and Constantinople. From the year 1629 to 1824, twenty-one persons, officers on their Oriental establishments, published various accounts of the Ottoman Empire, and during that time, not more than five or six who were not connected with it. To this many causes contributed; the infrequency of intercourse between distant countries, except on mercantile speculations; the difficulty and insecurity of travelling; the indisposition of men to leave home; the want of ardour in the pursuit of information; but above all, the little interest excited by the people themselves, were so many barriers to knowledge, that except from VOL. II.

those persons of intelligence whose business or duty obliged them to become resident in the country, no account was obtained, as no one else cared about its

concerns.

But in these latter days times and things are changed, and we are changed with them. The spirit of enterprise that led travellers to Timbuctoo would not be likely to make them overlook Constantinople; and even if things had remained as heretofore, and no alteration had taken place in the Turkish empire, modern research would have explored it. But when in addition to this, a vast revolution has been effected, and the torpid ignorance even of the Turk, has been roused into intellectual exertion, when the maxim of dans l'orient on ne change jamais has been reversed, and alterations and improvements have taken place in a few years that had not happened, and could not be expected formerly in as many centuries, it is no wonder that travellers flock to this now interesting country, and that every year should present us with new works on the subject. In one of our late numbers we reviewed two, and we are this moment presented with another.

Mr. Urquhart is an author of a different stamp from Mr. Slade. He looks at things with a steady eye of mercantile intelligence, and takes a view of them which the volatile sailor was incapable of. He visited Turkey more than once, and was astonished at the rapidity of improvement which he every where observed, after a short absence. He left the country with little hope of seeing it tranquillized, or even the Turkish rule prolonged; but on his return he reviewed almost every portion of it, he says, and "was perfectly amazed at the incredible change that had taken place." It was then he set himself down to consider how the improvement had been effected, and how the Sultan could attach to himself the Greek and Raja population, the proofs of which attachment met him at every turn; it was then he saw "the value of the elementary municipal institutions which had been introduced, and the facilities for political organization which they afforded."

Among these he mentions the substitu tion of a property tax for exactions, legal or

2z

illegal, by which the people were relieved from the robbery of all classes of government officers, from the grievous oppression of forced labour, and from the conack, a thing like our barbarous coigne and livery, furnishing officers and soldiers with lodging and board under the pretext for which every oppression has practised on the property and family of the unresisting peasant. All the servants of the government were now paid by the treasury, and provided for themselves. The capitani, pashas, beys, ayans, muzzelims, with their rapacious train of chouashes, cavaches, gramatiki, &c. &c. who were little better to the poor inhabitants of towns than banditti, were swept away, and replaced by a police composed of regular officers; and instead of those swarms of useless and oppressive functionaries, the principal villages were occupied by small de tachments of regular troops, having a fixed pay, and being restrained from demanding a single para from the inhabitants, who were themselves to collect the taxes, and pay them over to the chief collector of the province. Those who had travelled through Turkey a few years ago, and had witnessed the intolerable grievances here corrected, will be at no loss to account for the attachment of the poor people to the humane and enlightened government that effected the change, and rescued them from the hands of those griping publicans.

Among the minor points of improvement were several, which, trifling as they may appear, were formerly matters of most serious importance to the Turks, who thought that to change any usage, however absurd, would be sacrilege, and deserved to be punished with as much severity. An anecdote of this kind is recorded by a French writer. The houses of the Jews are all painted lead colour, and they were prohibited under the severest penalties from using any other without express permission. A Jew had rendered some service to Sultan Selim, and obtained from the good natured monarch, by way of recompense, permission to paint his house what colour he pleased. His successor and assassin, Mustapha, a true disciple of the janissaries, who would admit of no innovation, was sailing down the Bosphorus, and was attracted by a fresh painted house among its dingy neighbours. On enquiring whose it was, he was filled with rage when he learned

it belonged to a Jew, who was immediately called before him. The trembling culprit, when charged with the crime, declared in his vindication that he had obtained permission from Sultan Selim. "But you have not from me," said Mustapha; and he ordered the Jew to be hung out of the window of his painted house, and all his property to be confiscated. This distinction had extended to every thing. Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Turks were separated by an impassable barrier of particular marks, the colour of their slippers, the shape of their turbans, and other trifles, which it was a high crime to neglect. On his return to Constantinople in 1832, our author was agreeably surprised to find these silly and injurious marks of discrimination removed, and the wall of separation which kept the several classes of subjects apart from each other completely pulled down. The Greeks wore yellow slippers and turbans like the Turks, and generally adopted what colours they pleased; and the approximation of all classes into which the nation had been divided was so near, that he heard a Christian Raja say, "We shall soon sup with the Turks in Lent, and they will dine with us in Ramazan."

But a much more important concession had been made in favour of the Christians. Formerly the greatest difficulty had been thrown in the way of building or repairing their churches, and even a stone could not be added or removed without permission and the severest exactions. Instances of this are noticed by many persons. Dr. Walsh, the Chaplain at Constantinople mentions one. It was the wish of Lord Strangford to re-erect the tomb of our first Ambassador, Sir E. Bartón, which had fallen into a dilapidated state, and in searching for the stone with the inscription, Dr. Walsh found, in an inverted position filling up a space in the wall over the door of a monastery in the island of Chalké. He was about to remove it, but was stopped by the alarmed Caloyers, who told him it could not be stirred without a firman from the Sultan and at a heavy expense. Lord Strangford left Constantinople before the permission was obtained, and the tomb-stone of the Ambassador, we believe, still remains turned upside down in the wall of a Greek monastery. Another instance still more absurd is mentioned by the Rev. Mr.

barous as to despise and reject everything, however useful, if it be not recommended by show and glitter.

It would not come within our limits to detail the present plans and resources of the Turkish empire as given by our author, who thinks with us that a regeneration of the country has been effected which will develope those resources greatly to the benefit of English commerce, if we avail ourselves properly of them. With respect to the facilities of communication on which the success of commerce so much depends, we shall mention one speculation as interesting as it will be extraordinary. The present mouth of the Danube is now in possession of the Russians, who may exclude, by a Ukase, any vessels but their own from its navigation; but the Hungarian merchants talk of opening the ancient mouth into the Euxine from Rassovata to Kustendge, which is now choked up. This would at once leave a free passage to all nations through Bulgaria, a Turkish territory, and abridge the distance by cutting off a circuitous rout of 250 miles by the present channel. Veins of coal have been found on its banks, and a steam-boat already established. It is said to be also intended to open a communication between the Rhine and the Danube from their nearest navigable points. If this be effected a steam boat may leave England, proceed up one river and down the other, and arrive at Trebisond, the eastern extremity of the Black Sea, by penetrating and sailing through the heart of Europe; and as the distance would be about 40 degrees or 2000 miles, a steam boat proceeding at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, might perform this most interesting journey in a fortnight. This may be added to the projects of cutting through the Isthmuses of Darien and Suez; and however chimerical they might have appeared some time ago, they are not at all improbable in an enterprising age, which has already effected things almost incredible, and still adopts for its motto

"Nil actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum."

The Young Man's Own Book. A Manual of Politeness, Intellectual Improvement, and Moral Deportment. T. T. and J. Tegg, London; R. Griffin and Co. Glasgow; Stillies Brothers, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin, 1833.

We seldom see such a mass of useful instructions as are contained in the small volume before us. Nor are these instructions merely speculative, or the result of individual experience, (which must

always be insufficient to establish general rules of conduct;) they are the effect of repeated observations on the scenes of human life, confirmed by writers of such undoubted authority as must necessarily remove all hesitation in adopting them as sound practical principles. Error on any point is confessedly dangerous; but to those who are aware of the difficulties of overcoming habits once formed, it will appear to be so to a very considerable degree, should any thing of an erroneous tendency be suffered to creep in among maxims intended to form the manners of youth. There are some writers on the subject of the present work, who admit hypocrisy as a handmaid of politeness. Such a system is justly exploded from the Manual; it directs us to the manner in which we may become whatever it is fit that we should appear to be. There is scarcely a situation in which a young man can be placed, that does not come under some of these admirable observations, and there are many little points throughout, with the knowledge of which no one can dispense-almost impossible to be discerned in the busy scenes of life. Upon the whole, we do not know a more suitable work to put into the hands of a young man at that hazardous crisis—his entering into society, or upon the world in general.

We acknowledge, that we are prejudiced in favour of any work concerning the antiquities of Ireland, and concerning the antiquities of her church, before she was debased by the thraldrom and superstitions of Popery. But however on other occasions such a feeling may be censured, it will undoubtedly be merged by the learned reader in his approbation of the design and contents of the present work. A knowledge of the important matter which it embraces, farther than what could be gleaned from occasional extracts, few could be at the trouble or expense of acquiring. While it lay scattered in ponderous tomes, and these not few in number; it would remain as secure from perusal as the Papal authorized translation of the Bible, with notes, in the twenty-three volumes, folio! The work commences with a concise account of the origin of Christianity in Britian, and fully supplies a refutation to the common assertion, that it was introduced by Augustine, the Legate of Pope Gregory,