THE

GENTLEMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

VIEWS OF EUROPEAN COLONIES IN VARIOUS PARTS
OF THE WORLD, &c.

BY JOHN HOWISON. 2 vols.

WE have been much interested with these volumes of Mr. Howison's, which display both practical knowledge and scientific research, and which are, moreover, written in a very animated and eloquent style. The subject is one of the greatest interest, most particularly to this country, whose colonies are to be found in every quarter of the globe, and with which her commercial prosperity, her civil well-being, and her political ascendancy are so intimately connected. In many opinions of our author relating to the most important interests of mankind, it is impossible for the Religionist to join; nor are we inclined to agree with him in his censorious and severe view, of the motives of those who take the lead in devising plans and forming associations for the amelioration and instruction of society; we are willing to believe that he is wrong in the estimate he forms of the habits and feelings of the higher classes; and we think he too often loses the philosopher in the censor and satirist : but notwithstanding these defects, for its sound practical knowledge, its faithful representation, its extensive and curious observation, its interesting description, its sagacious views, and just inferences, we think this book of Mr. Howison's will approve itself to all enlightened and unprejudiced readers. We will give the purport of it in his own words.

"His object (he says) is to communicate a vivid and accurate idea of those general impressions which our respective colonies, comprehended in it, is calculated to produce in the mind of a disinterested observer. All political, commercial, and statistical details, have been avoided, and nature and human life, conjoined with a few historical notices, are the subjects to which the author has exclusively devoted his pages. His idea has been to introduce the reader to a knowledge of each colony, by presenting to his view its features and character in that succession which would meet his eye and observation were he to visit it personally. Each division of the work comprises four similar and consistent parts. The first of these describes the ocean which must be

traversed, in proceeding to the country whose designation it bears; the second gives a picture of the scenery and physical objects which are calculated first to strike the attention of a stranger arriving there; the third delineates the general character of the aboriginal inhabitants; and the fourth embraces the progress of European settlements in the colony, and the existing manners, condition, and habits of thought of its foreign residents. The author having travelled and resided in nearly all the colonies and settlements which he professes to describe, and also sailed upon their respective oceans, the facts and opinions contained in this work are derived as much from personal observation, as from the authority of others."

As it is obvious that we could not possibly find room, even in the most abridged compass, to follow Mr. Howison through his varied and extensive fields of observation, it remained for us, either to confine ourselves to one particular branch of his inquiry, or to extract miscellaneously from the work those facts and reasonings on various subjects which afford the most novelty of remark, and which command the most general interest; we

have adopted the latter plan, and follow our author as he sets out across the western ocean in his way to the southern world.*

"One of the most remarkable features of the western ocean, is that portion of it which is named Mar do Sargossa by the Portuguese, and Grassy Sea by the English. It extends between 18 and 30° north latitude, and 20° and 35° west longitude, and is often so completely overspread with a species of floating sea-weed, that it resembles a field covered with brown vegetation; and the marine plants are in some places so strongly and closely intertwined, that they slightly impede a ship's progress. This fucus natans consists of a series of nodules growing in bunches, and a good deal resembling cauliflower stript of its leaves. They are

of an olive and tawny colour, and float upon the surface of the sea in parallel lines, except during the prevalence of strong winds, when their arrangement is disturbed, and their general distribution becomes irregular. Floating sea-weed is found in nearly all parts of the ocean, in greater or less quantities, but no where does it cover so vast an expanse of water as in the Grassy Sea. It is a common belief that the fucus in question is produced in the Gulf of Mexico, and carried from thence by the Florida stream, between

the Bermuda and Western Islands, and afterwards in a southerly direction, as far as the tropic of Cancer, or a few degrees within it. The objection to this is, that sea-weed produced in the gulf of Mexico, and conveyed so great a distance, would arrive in a withered and decayed state; but this is so far from being the case, in the present instance, that the fucus of the Mar do Sargossa, is generally found to be fresh and flourishing, and it has even been remarked, that it is the more so, the further it extends to the southward. The simplest mode of accounting for this accumulation of seaweed would be,t to suppose that it grew at the bottom of the ocean, in the latitudes in which it is always observed floating; but the vast depth of the sea there seems effectually to overturn this theory; for it is reasonable to believe that vegetation cannot take place many hundred feet below the surface, because of the overwhelming pressure of the superincumbent water and it has been urged that the marine plant in question being of a green or brown hue, it must grow in places accessible to light, otherwise it would be entirely colourless: however, the last ar

Mr. Howison speculates much on the causes of the small progress made by the ancients in the art of navigation; surely their ignorance of the power of the magnet is amply sufficient to account for the Pillars of Hercules forming those dark and frowning gates, which no mortal hand could unbar with safety: the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the isle-studded Egean, even the Black Sea, were but bounded friths, through which, by the light of the stars, and a knowledge of capes and headlands, a tolerably safe navigation might be secured; but it was otherwise when the boundless expanse of the North Atlantic rolled its stormy billows against their unwieldy barks; and even Hanno felt, when he had reached Cape Non, that it was as well to return to Carthage, while he could secure his passage home: but Mr. Howison shows that in spite of all disadvantages, they reached Britain in one direction, and Ceylon in another. To star-led navigators, when they had approached the Equator, when they had lost their polar guide, and a new host of heavenly luminaries burst on their sight; when the huge constellation of the Ship, and the brilliant and beautiful Cross, and the "phosphorescent clouds of Magellan " appeared; when Jupiter and Venus shone with such refulgence as to cast well-defined shadows; surely it would appear, as if the link was broken that connected them with the world which they had left; and they would hasten to return under the shelter of more friendly and familiar constellations, qui non mergitur undis

Axis inocciduus gemina clarissimus arcto.

See on the subject of this bed of Sargassum vulgare, or sea-weed, Griffith's Animal Kingdom of Cuvier (On Fish-Part XLI.), where it is said to be conveyed by currents as far as the gulf of Florida; and thence, by the north winds and western currents, brought back south of the Azores again to recommence the same migration. Thus it may scatter thousands and tens of thousands of medusæ, acalaphæ, and other marine animals over distant regions. It is supposed by some that it was an immense field of this weed which impeded the progress of the Carthaginians on their expedition of discovery along the west coast of Africa. Similar floats of marine weed seem to exist in all the great oceans, perhaps performing the same purpose of dissemination. Sargazo is the Spanish for a mass of sea-weed. See Greville's Algæ Britannicæ, p. xii.

A circumstance of even more interest than this, is related in another part of Mr. Howison's volumes, when speaking of the Polar Seas.

Scoresby mentions an instance of a boat having been dragged to the depth of 800 or 900 feet in the Greenland Sea by a whale, and detained under water several hours. On its being at length brought to the surface, it had so completely lost its former

Mr. Howison at length accedes to the common opinion, which assigns the origin of nearly all the Arctic driftwood to the rivers of Siberia, whose banks are covered with trees, which, conveyed eastward by the current prevailing between the coast of Siberia and Nova Zembla, will uecessarily accumulate upon the eastern shores of Iceland, Greenland, and Jan Magir's Land, the place where drift-wood is found in most abundance. To this we shall only add, that presuming this wood to have been recently detached from its native bed, and that Malte Brun's theory is wrong; and further, supposing that it is possible to distinguish with accuracy the species of trees of which it is composed-the discovery of a single one, among the millions collected, might at once solve the difficulty, and lead to the original site from whence it came. What, for instance, was the cedar mentioned by Mr. Howison among the pines and firs? Was it the red cedar (juniperus Virginiana)?-then it assuredly floated from the American shores. Was it the Pinus Cembro?-then we may justly infer that it came from Siberia, where that species of Pine, called the Siberian Cedar, is found: we do not feel, however, quite satisfied that the cedar tree was ascertained to exist among this huge mass, which probably has never been accurately examined by the eye of a naturalist.

Mr. Howison has pleasingly and picturesquely described the extraordinary contrast between the coasts of Barbary to the south of the Senegal river, and the rich and fertile country which spreads its luxuriant vegetation below.

"After crossing the bar of the Senegal, and rounding the point of Barbary, the Libyan desert is no longer seen, and the eye, wherever it turns, rests upon a mass of luxuriant vegetation, consisting of trees which are unknown in European climates. Among them are found palms of various kinds, such as the date, the cocoa-nut, and the areca, and also the cotton-tree, the wild fig, the tamarind, and the banana. But the one that chiefly attracts the attention, is the Baobab or calabash tree, which is the largest vegetable production of the world*, its trunk some

times measuring between 60 and 70 feet in circumference, and throwing out extremities for nearly an equal height from the ground. These stately trees line the bank of the river, where they form places of general resort for nearly all the animal inhabitants of the forest. Their larger branches are peopled with monkeys of different kinds, which, after uniting into small detachments, run to their furthest extremities, and having for a few moments surveyed the persons passing by in boats, and saluted them with discordant cries, hurry back into the shade. On the

buoyancy, that the seamen were obliged to place a boat at each end of it, to prevent its sinking from its own weight: and its timbers, when afterwards broken up for fuel, proved quite incombustible. Scoresby gives the result of some experiments he made on the submersion of timber; and the result was, that all kinds of wood acquire such an increase of specific gravity, by immersion to the depth of 200 or 300 feet, that they entirely lose the property of floating.

* It is not, perhaps, quite correct to say that the Adanfonias or Baobabs are the largest trees in the world. Some of the ancient Mexican cypresses exceed them in bulk while the firs of California, and the Norfolk Island pine, tower far above them. The latter tree, Dombeya excelsa,' reaching 300 feet, or nearly the height of St. Paul's; and the former perhaps as much, with a base of 50 feet: so in the quantity of timber they are probably superior. Cuvier says, it must have taken thousands of years (hear this, Messrs. Croly, and Cole, and Bugg, and Penn, et hoc genus omne !) to have brought the Baobabs to their present gigantic size. The extensive forests of the "mimosa Nilotica, which afford the gum-arabic, lie about 200 miles east of the Senegal; a French vessel annually despatched from Fort Louis trades with the Moors for this important article, used in arts and medicine. See a Plate of a Baobab of 40 feet girth, with its fruit pendant from stalks of two feet long, in Bennett's Wanderings, 1. 22. The fruit is acid and pleasant, and the powdered leaves constitute Lalo, a favourite article with the Africans.

lie basking in the sun upon the shallows in the middle of the river, and their musky scent is often perceptible; when frighted by the approach of a boat, they plunge under the water, and swim lazily away. The crashing of boughs, heard occasionally in the depth of the forest, announces that troops of elephants are passing along them and in the various little bays and inlets that indent the banks of the stream, flamingoes may be seen standing together in pairs, and laving with water their scarlet wings; while other birds, equal in beauty, but still more shy and solitary, flutter amongst the bushes, or make their presence known only by the melody or strangeness of their notes."*

trees projecting over the river, birds of the Kingfisher tribe suspend their nests, woven in a penlike shape, where they swing to and fro with every breath of wind, safe from the depredatious of either apes or serpents; while many reptiles of the latter kind, varying in size and colour, twine themselves round the lower boughs, in order to watch conveniently for prey, and dart down upon it, when it appears. The roots of the Baobabs afford shelter to multitudes of squirrels, which sport among their interstices; and its trunk is studded with lizards of the most resplendent hues, lying in wait for the insects which fly around in myriads, and keep up an incessant and sonorous humming. Alligators The kola nut' is highly esteemed by the natives of this country; they pass in use as money,† as the cocoa-bean did among the Mexicans, and eggs among the people of the Caraccas and in Venezuela; and so valuable and scarce in some districts are they, that with five of them a man may purchase a wife. While both the northern and southern extremities of Africa, though under happier latitudes, consist but of arid plains and deserts, without water or any thing but a stunted and acrid vegetation, this central part, between the north latitude 16o and Cape Negro in south latitude 16o, is blessed with the richest profusion and plenty that nature can pour into its bosom. A very interesting dissertation on the character of the Negroes, and on the degraded and deplorable European society in West Africa, closes this department of the subject; but it would not admit of abridgment without considerably detracting from its value. The general aspect of the South American Ocean, Mr. Howison says, is monotonous and unpleasing. It is generally agitated by a heavy and irregular swell, which suffers little sensible diminution even after the longest calms that ever occur near the Cape of Good Hope, where the weather is almost always in extremes, being either very boisterous or very serene.‡ Thus the

• Mr. Howison expresses his surprise that the Romans never exhibited in their Circusses the Simia Satyrus' of Senegal, or Ourang Outang: but surely at the time when the wild animals were more plentiful than now (for Pompey exhibited 400 lions at once), they were never sought for at such a distance as the forests of Senegal ?— besides, the mature or full-grown ourang outang would be most difficult to take alive; and the young seem incapable of living long in climates so uncongenial to them as those of Europe. Mr. Bennet, the naturalist, says of a variety of this animal, "That it must be almost an impossibility to capture an adult of the species alive."

+ Mr. Howison says that the African mines of gold doubtless exceed in richness any known in the world. For 400 years they have yielded immense quantities of gold dust, besides what they retained for their own use: while the mines and large masses of the native metal are still unexplored and untouched: the deadliness of the climate has so long preserved West Africa from European cupidity.

Speaking on the subject of the tremendous waves for which the Cape Sea is so celebrated, Mr. Howison enters into a dissertation on the subject of the real height of its waves; and, after some ingenious reasoning, and the production of some facts relative to it, he comes to the conclusion, that the actual height of the loftiest natural wave (i. e. a wave not increased mechanically in height by dashing against a rock) amounts to 30 feet, which approaches very nearly to what personal observation had led him to consider the truth in this matter. In speaking of the probability of an Antarctic Continent, which we conceive to be fairly inferred, Mr. H. does not mention the possibility of an extent of land covered but by a very shallow sea, and hence not seen.