A like spirit animates the lines called "Thoughts on the Soul"-the text being, that it exceeds man's thoughts to think how high God hath raised man-the "practical improvement," that man should cast off his slough, and send forth his spirit to expatiate in "immortal light, and life for evermore." We are earnestly reminded that, linked with the Immortal, immortality begins e'en here-the soul once given, as a solemn trust to man, there ne'er will come a date to its tremendous energies, but ever shall it be taking fresh life, starting fresh for future toil, And on shall go, for ever, ever, on, Changing, all down its course, each thing to one With its immortal nature. More popular, and charged with more than one home-thrust at the feelings, are the lines called "The Husband's and Wife's Grave." There, folded in deep stillness, in all the nearness of the narrow tomb, lie the partners in life and death Yet feel they not each other's presence now. "The Dying Raven was Mr. Dana's earliest production in verseappearing in 1825, in the New York Review, then under Bryant's editorship-and a fine memorial it is, tender and true, of a sympathetic nature, which has a reverent faith in the truth that He who made us, made also and loveth all. We watch the poor doomed bird, gasping its life out, where the grass makes a soft couch, and blooming boughs (needlessly kind) spread a tent above; we hear its mate calling to the white, piled clouds, and asking for the missed and forlorn one. airy call Thou'lt hear no longer; 'neath sun-lighted clouds, Wilt sail no more. Around thy trembling claws Droop thy wings' parting feathers. Spasms of death Are on thee. That From Him who heareth the ravens' cry for food comes the inspiration of this elegy. A "Fragment of an Epistle," composed in octosyllabic verse, is an attempt to escape not only what Byron calls the fatal facility, but what the author calls the fatal monotony, of that metre. There is little else to characterise it. "A Clump of Daisies" shows dim and diminutive beside the same object in other poets one might name. "Chantrey's Washington" has little of the massive power of either the statesman or the sculptor involved in its memorial verse. "The Moss supplicateth for the Poet," as for one who leaves, ofttimes, the flaunting flowers and open sky, to woo the moss by shady brook, with voice low and soft and sad as the brook itself, and because the moss is of lowly frame, and more constant than the flower, and because it is -Kind to old decay, and wraps it softly round in green, On naked root, and trunk of grey, spreading a garniture and screen. "The Pleasure Boat" goes tilting pleasantly on its way, to a soft breeze and musical murmur of accompaniment. And such, with the "Spirit of the Pilgrims" and a few lyrics, comprise, so far as we are informed, the lays of the minstrel whom we have thus inadequately but impartially, "when found, made a note of." THE GREAT DESERT OF SAHARA.* THE expedition of Messrs. Richardson, Barth, and Overweg, now so sadly broken up by the deaths of its originator, and of the enterprising Dr. Overweg, but soon to be strengthened by the accession of Dr. Vogel and his English companions, was undertaken by the British Government, with a view to the promotion of commerce, by way of the Sahara, or Great Desert, with that great belt of populous country which stretches across Central Africa, and includes the kingdoms of Wadai, Burnu, Sudan, and Timbuktu. The acquisition of geographical, statistical, and scientific information was looked upon as subsidiary to these main objects -the opening of commercial relations, and the conclusion of treaties with the native powers, being justly looked upon as a first step towards ultimately superseding the inhuman traffic carried on in slaves by all the powers of Central Africa, with the exception, it is said (but we scarcely know if upon adequate authority), of Timbuktu, by legitimate com merce. The party started from Tripoli, with that Oriental irregularity which is almost unavoidable where many are concerned, somewhere about the 30th of March, 1850, but the disjointed members of the party gathered together previous to the transit of the Tripoline Atlas, where the last straggling wellwishers sped their way back, leaving the caravan to pursue its steady way onward. The heights around were crowned with ruined castles, mementoes of the past dominion of the Arabs. There were also a few villages, but still more Troglodytes, but the latter soon ceased. The country was rocky, dreary, and desolate, with here and there patches of cultivation, or a bushy Lentisk. The broken columns of Roman milestones still marked the road. "We saluted," says Mr. Richardson, with a feeling that can be best appreciated by those who have been similarly circumstanced, "the memory of the sublime road-makers." As they got on, incessant squabbles sprung up between the camel-drivers, the chaushes, or Turkish guard, the natives, the blacks, and the blacks' wives. Beyond the Atlas the aspect of the country may be compared to that of an archipelago, with seas of various breadths dividing the oases (wadis) like islands. Three days took the party to Castle Gharivan, at the foot of the Atlas; three more to Mizdah, a miserable town, with crumbling towers; and beyond this they advanced on the preliminary desert, stretching in front of the great plateau of the Hamadah, which defends, like a wall of desolation, the approaches of Fazzan from the north. Already they began to breathe the hot air with difficulty and displeasure. In the Wadi Taghijah, where they next arrived, Dr. Barth discovered a splendid mausoleum of Roman-Christian architecture. The water was bitter at their next two stations, Amjam and Tabaniyah. The flies they had brought with them from Tripoli also teazed them. "Men," says Mr. Richardson, "usually carry their black cares' along with them in this way." Ghariya Gharbiya, or the Western Ghariya, to distinguish it * Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa, performed in the years 1850-51, under the orders and at the expense of her Majesty's Government. By the late James Richardson. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall. from an Eastern Ghariya some six hours off, a heap of huts on the site of an ancient Roman city, was the last station before advancing on the dreaded desert. Drs. Barth and Overweg, no doubt not to cross the country without an insight into its structure and natural productions, travelled by day; Mr. Richardson remained behind with the blacks, to follow by night. "The name of desert-the waterless desert," he writes, hangs over the horizon and suggests the most gloomy apprehensions." "I shall ever look back," he adds, a little further on, "to that solemn night-march over the desert, which my pen fails to describe, with sentiments of pleasurable awe." Poor fellow, on leaving Tripoli, he had bid adieu to his wife. "How many things," he wrote, "that were thought were left unsaid on either side! It will be pleasant to fill up all blanks when we talk of these days after a safe return from this arduous undertaking." Alas! he was destined neither to look back, nor to talk of these things again; lucky it is that his notes have been spared, to console alike his wife, his friends, and his countrymen. An additional solemnity was imparted to the commencement of this arduous journey by the fact that they had passed the last pillar erected by the Romans. Even their mighty power seems to have recoiled, as well it might, before the horrid aspect of the Hamadah. This redoubtable desert appears to be a plateau or upland of red earth, with scattered pebbles, flints, and pieces of limestone, about fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. For three days and nights the party continued travelling over this elevated, stony desert, Mr. Richardson by night, the Germans by day. At times the cold at night was very sharp. Little mounds here and there marked the graves of children, or slaves, who had perished on their way from inner Africa. On the Sukna road, followed by Ritchie and Lyon in 1816, and by Oudney, Denham, and Clapperton, in 1822, the Hamadah breaks up into the so-called "Black Mountains," but in the route followed on this occasion, it broke up in cliffs of limestone, marles, and sandstone, and the travellers descended by a pass through these to the sandy wadi or valley of Al Hasi, with clumps of wild palm, green copses, and the majestic ethel-tree; and beyond, to the south, sandy swells, succeeded by "a desert more horrible even than the Hamadah," composed of sandstone rocks, and valleys covered with pebble and loose blocks. Mr. Richardson, who had just been congratulating himself upon the change from the "eternal limestone" to sandstone, as soon got tired of the latter, when unrelieved by vegetation, or blackened by the weather to a kind of basaltic hue. On the 26th of April the expedition reached Idri, a miserable Saharan town, with about twenty-five houses, built on a small mound of yellow clay and rock, in a narrow valley, with salt and water, date-trees, and some cultivation. This is the usual kind of oasis in the desert; poor as it was the sight cheered the travellers, and a whitewashed marabuts sanctuary appeared quite monumental. Here they were visited by the Kaid of the district, with about thirty Arab horsemen. Beyond this the country became still more sandy, but alternated with wadis with palm groves, and had here and there particles of coarse herbage, scattered like black spots on the bright white surface. Lizards and black beetles-the sacred beetle of the Egyptians-were the sole inhabitants of these desolate portions of the Sahara; the former is said to change in species with the nature of the country. Here and there, one or two palms pointed out the whereabouts of a buried well. On the 1st of May they travelled fourteen hours over this heavy sand, with the hot wind breathing fiercely upon it. In such cases the heat and swinging motion of the camel produced a slight dizziness, and the outer world assumed a hazy indistinctness of outline-something like dream landscapes. There is," says Mr. R., "a desert-intoxication, which must be felt to be appreciated." At length the white line of cliffs of Murzuk came in view, and after descending into the valley, which stretches like a green belt between the sand and the mountains beyond, they had villages, and water, and cultivation, for the remainder of the journey to the capital of Fazzan, which they reached after a journey of thirty-nine days from Tripoli, and where they were hospitably received by the Pasha and the British consul-the Ottoman flag flying on the castle in honour of their arrival. Fazzan is in reality nothing but a portion of the Sahara in which fertile valleys occur more frequently than in the other portions. The population of the province is estimated at 26,000 souls, of whom 2000 inhabit Murzuk. Among the curiosities of the province are sulphur mines and natron lakes, in which a kind of worm or mollusk appear at certain seasons of the year, and is eaten like sardines as a relish. Few inci- The party remained at Murzuk from the 6th of May till the 12th of June, 1850, detained partly by preparations for the journey, and partly waiting for certain camel loads which had still to come up. dents worth recording marked this long period of detention. Richardson, on his part, seems to have been mainly occupied in correspondence and preparations, relieved by walks in the country and interchange of dinner-parties with the Pasha, the military commandant, the consul, and the Greek doctor Paniotti. The Germans, wearied with the delay, started on the 12th of June with a caravan of Tanalkum Tawariks, evidently somewhat to Mr. Richardson's annoyance. Mr. Richardson himself did not start till the 25th, and then evidently harassed and discomfited by the expenses and peculations attendant upon laying in stores and presents for his distant journey. The weather was found to be much more temperate in the open country than in the city. The Tawariks, however, to our author's dismay, would only travel by day and encamp by night. Their camels, also, went straight on their way, and were not allowed to browse, as was the case with the Arab camels. Mr. Richardson came up with the rest of the party on the 2nd of July; all were the better for the bracing air of the desert. On the 8th, they found some basreliefs, supposed to be Egyptian, cut in the naked sandstone rocks in a wadi called that of Talazaghi,* and on the 7th, they came to a pass in the sandstone rock, so narrow and deep as to appear to have been purposely cut out. Beyond this their way lay over the stony plain of Tahiti, or Taeeta, with the Ghat mountains in view. Before entering fairly into the "Land of Demons," as the country of the Ghat Tawariks is called by themselves, they had to get through another pass, called Abu Laghlagh, * The Germans call this Wadi, Felisjareh." Journ. Roy. Geo. Soc.,” vol. xxi., p. 133. in which were several sandstone rocks swinging or resting on a small base like a pivot; regular rocking or ordeal stones of archaeologists! Beyond this the country changed to slate marl, as Dr. Overweg at once determined, and not, as Oudney and Mr. Richardson had previously described, sandstone, and the hills and mountains assumed a peculiar castle-like and battlemented appearance. High over all rose the Kasr Janun, or Castle of the Ginn : a huge square mass of rock, said to be a day in circuit, and bristling with turret-pinnacles, some of which must be 700 feet in height. Nothing (says Mr. Richardson) but its magnitude can convince the eye at a distance that it is not a work raised by human hands, and shattered by time or warfare. Its vast disrupted walls tower gigantically over the plain. Here, as in another Pandemonium, the spirits of the desert collect from places distant thousands of miles, for the purpose of debate or prayer. It is a mosque as well as a hall of council, and a thesaurus to boot, for unimaginable treasures are buried in its caverns. Poor people love to forge wealthy neighbours for themselves. No Tuarick will venture to explore these Titanic dwellings, for, according to old compact, the tribes of all these parts have agreed to abstain from impertinent curiosity, on condition of receiving advice and assistance from the spirit-inhabitants of their country. In my former visit I nearly lost my life in an attempt to explore it, and was supposed to have been misled by mocking-spirits: little did I think that this superstition was about to receive another confirmation. The Germans were tempted to run all chances to examine this great natural curiosity, and the life of one of them-Dr. Barth-was all but sacrificed to his zeal. The adventure is thus related, as having occurred on the 15th of July : The Germans had determined to go and examine the Kasar, and were about to start just as I came out of my tent. They had had some altercation with Hateetah, because, partly for superstitious reasons, he would not give them a guide, and they had made up their minds to undertake the exploration alone. I saw Dr. Barth going off somewhat stiffly by himself; Dr. Overweg came to where I was standing, and asked Amankee, my Soudan servant, about the well near the Kasar, and then also went off. He said to me, “I shall boil the water on the highest point, and then go along the top to the other end." He was taking some points of the Kasar with the compass, and I observed to him, "Take the eastern point." Then he started. Yusuf called out after him, "Take a camel with you, it is very distant." Distressed at seeing them go alone, I told Amankee that if he would follow I would give him a present. He agreed, upon the condition that he should not be expected to ascend the Kasar; for he feared the Janoon. We then gave him dates, biscuits, and a skin of water, and he started after Dr. Overweg. I confess I had my fears about them. On arriving near the well, we pitched our tent near an immense spreading old ethel, which afforded us some shade. I watched the changing aspect of the Kasar nearly all the time of our three hours' ride; and could not help thinking that the more it was examined the more marvellous did it appear. I then looked out to recognise the place where I was lost four years ago, and at last I thought I could distinguish the locality. The day wore on. It blew gales of hot wind. No Germans appeared, although it had been told them that we should only stop during the hot hours of the day. However, I anticipated that they would not arrive before sunset. Hateetah sent word, that as there was little water he should not move on till to-morrow. This was good news for the Germans. At last, about five o'clock, P.M., Dr. Overweg appeared. He had experienced great thirst and fatigue; but, having the assistance of Amankee, he got |