: of magnificent ruins till a recent time, and even now is shut against almost every visitor of Palestine by ferocious hordes of Bedouins. One portion of this "desert land" is, however, an exception. Crossing the Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob, at the northern end of the Lake of Tiberias, we travelled three days through this Arab territory without molestation, and with only a single armed guard, over the identical road which St. Paul took on his eventful journey to Damascus. But this is not the region of the grand remains, to which Mr. Porter devotes less than a hundred pages, unillustrated in the American edition by any map, tantalizing one by very brief details, rounded off with a passage from Ezekiel or Isaiah. But here is the wonderful fact a country of exceeding beauty and rare fertility, a part of that Palestine now so easily and so frequently visited, exemplifying perfectly the patriarchal life among its tented tribes, containing numerous cities with perfectly habitable houses, yet less explored than the pestilential coasts of Africa, or the frozen solitudes of the North Pole. It seems stranger than fiction, that hundreds of cities in this once-crowded region contain numberless houses as habitable as when they were erected, not a roof shattered, not a wall rent, not a door removed, stone cells we might term them, yet ornamented, comfortable, adapted to the sultry climate, giving unmistakable glimpses of domestic life two thousand years ago. From the battlements of the Castle of Saleals, Mr. Porter counted thirty towns and villages, dotting the fertile plain, whose nearly perfect houses had not boasted an occupant for more than five hundred years. Suweideh, the largest of these deserted cities, being entered over a Roman bridge, through a Roman gateway, gave to view a straight, paved street, a mile long, lined with elegant remains, now the ruins of a fountain, now a church, now a theatre, now an aqueduct, now a Corinthian peristyle, now what the author strangely styles an opoea;" but ruin heaped upon ruin, of various styles and different ages, temples transformed into churches, churches into mosques, and all now abandoned to utter desolation, in this city, however, relieved by a few hundred Druses, a fanatical sect, who till the soil rudely, and maintain a life-and-death struggle with the Arabs. Bozrah, the ancient capital, contains two theatres, six temples, ten churches or mosques, besides palaces, baths, fountains, aqueducts, triumphal arches, and other structures, all in ruins, additional to a grand castle, the strongest in Syria. Just here, when we hope to pass hand in hand with the courageous missionary through these vast architectural monuments of a buried race, he mocks us with a Scripture passage, not written of Bozrah in particular: "Thus saith the Lord God of the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with astonishment, that their land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of the violence of all them that dwell therein. And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate" (Ezek. xii. 19, 20). The principal part of the book is upon Jordan and the Dead Sea, Jerusalem and its environs, the land of the Philistines, Galilee and the Northern-Border Land, accounts of repeated visits through the length and breadth of the Holy Land, with continual references to prophecy, and the occasional discovery of lost localities; but not adding materially to the admirable collection of intelligence in his invaluable "Guidebook." Rev. Mr. Porter is a person of strict veracity, marked courage, and religious enthusiasm, but not a little mistakes as to the kind of intelligence even the Christian public, and far more the world of letters, desires at his hand. F. W. H. THE English commander of "the loyal and faithful auxiliary legion" in the Chinese Revolution, having lost his wife in battle, having seen his rebel friends driven back to a small territory near where they commenced the warfare, finding little more occasion for active service while the British Government turned its irresistible artillery against the almost unarmed Ti-pings, has yielded to the desire of the insurrectionary leaders, and become their historian in the beautifully illustrated work, "Ti-ping Tien-Kwoh."* A personal interest is inwoven with the story: Lin-le marries a native lady; she is stolen; he rescues her at the peril of his life. By and by, after more than enough adventures for an ordinary novel, including one attempt at his life by the jealous lady, she falls at his side in battle. Of course, the hero of his own story is all that is heroic. But his judgment does not equal his courage. His censure of the rebels for not capturing Pekin, and for dividing their forces too much, by garrisoning various captured cities, may be just enough; but, whatever they did, while the English generals and admirals were abusing their pretended neutrality to fighting battles for the Imperialists, and winning victories where they had only known defeats, all Ti-ping Tien-Kwoh the History of the Ti-ping Revolution. By Lin-le, Special Agent of the Ti-ping General-in-chief. London: Day & Son, 1866. 2 vols. was certain to go wrong. The best opportunity Christianity ever had of working its way into the heart of these four hundred millions under the patronage of men who swept away every vestige of idolatry, circulated the Scriptures, solicited missionaries, prohibited opiumsmoking, torture in courts of law, prostitution, the slave trade, deformity of feet, and shaving of heads was wantonly thrown away. Lin-le asserts that a single missionary's refusal to establish himself at the rebel capital ruined the rebel cause, and forfeited the greatest missionary opening of our time. This seems an extravagance. But it is hardly possible to keep calm, and read the capture of town after town, effected by English artillery, completed by the indiscriminate massacre of every man, woman, and child, with tortures too horrid to be told. And, even after Major Gordon was reproved by Sir F. Bruce for violating his promised protection by permitting the murder of thirty thousand at Soochow, in the capture of Wusee, Karangfoo, Hwhasoo, and Changchowfoo, like atrocities were perpetrated under the military superintendence of this same English officer. Nor were the battles such as civilized men should have engaged in a second time. The loss of the rebel natives in a single contest would amount to thousands, when not more than a single Englishman would be slain, because wooden stockades were assailed by sixty-two pounders, and defended by bamboo spears, gingalls, and brickbats. To rain destruction for twenty hours upon utterly helpless natives, who could not make any effectual reply, - in support of an effete tyranny which insulted its very defenders, paid no debts save upon compulsion, and arrayed itself against every step of civilization, is not the warfare of which an Englishman should be proud. And all this defeat of new-born hopes, this conflagration of hundreds of towns, this starving of hundreds of thousands by the destruction of public granaries everywhere, to be wrought under the mask of civilized neutrality! F. W. H. TRANSYLVANIA is shown by Mr. Boner* to be one of the most backward countries in Europe, rich in mines, of an exceedingly fertile soil, with baths of wonderful efficacy, and yet quite undeveloped. Partly because of its utter destitution of railroads, partly because of the superstitious attachment of its natives to the old ways, partly because of excessive taxation and governmental oppression, the people are * Transylvania: its Products and its People. By CHARLES BONER. London: Longmans, 1865. not happy, or progressive, or worthy of their position. Many of the Transylvanian customs have been kept hundreds of years unchanged: the same antiquated looms are employed as men admire to-day upon the monuments of Egypt; the same custom of storing the grain in the church-vaults as was caused by the invasions from Turkey; the ornaments of the women even are hundreds of years old; the very sayings of grandparents are repeated as unquestionable oracles; — every thing new is wrong, every thing antiquated is still the mode. To the best measures of the Austrian Government the Transylvanian answer is, "It is an innovation;" so that the wisdom of statesmen and the policy of cabinets seem to be kept at bay by this ignorant conservatism. Meanwhile, superb ruins all over the country are being destroyed for peasants' huts, public roads are left to perish for want of repairs, and only the Wallach and the Gypsy are increasing in numbers, wealth, and influence. Disappointed of any information as to the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, we have to be satisfied with an anecdote or two about the Greek, agreeing as they do with what we have seen of that effete institution in adjoining lands. A friend of the author's, finding a party of natives dragging their priest along as prisoner on a Saturday, was informed that they were about to lock him up, so that he might not be too tipsy the next morning to read service. Another Greek priest begged of the Protestant minister some paper that was written upon, and was furnished with his daughter's old copy-books. Afterwards, strips of these books were given out by this illiterate priest as marriage certificates. Still another threatened his people, that, if they did not fast and pray more, God would send grasshoppers to desolate the land; and the same threat was found to have been circulated through the district. Kossuth is spoken of very plainly as a consummate orator and an admirable writer, but neither a statesman nor a soldier; sincere and well-intentioned, but lax in discipline, irresolute, and insatiable. Boner's view, the view of the Hungarian nobility, is that Kossuth gathered around him a body of enthusiastic followers by the power of his eloquence, precipitated measures for which the better classes were not prepared, and hurried on reform faster than it was possible for the people to go. The failure of his measures injured the country exceedingly, though many of the enmities excited by the war are already forgotten, and no idea of another struggle seems to be entertained. F. W. H. PROFESSOR SMYTH has made a very beautiful and curious book in defence of a very fantastic and untenable theory. He solves the meaning of the Great Pyramid in a strange way, which is more creditable to his ingenuity and piety than to his good sense. He separates the Great Pyramid by a broad line from all the other Egyptian pyramids. These may have been the tombs of kings; but the Great Pyramid is the divinely ordered and the divinely fixed standard of time, weight, and measure. It was set in its place by the special appointment of Jehovah, that all the world, henceforth and for ever, might know how to reckon days and weeks, feet and inches, pints and quarts, pecks and bushels. Such a standard was needed for the world, in the chaos of clashing opinions and customs; and, at last, after four thousand years, it has been revealed by Mr. Johu Taylor, whose interpreter and defender the Edinburgh astronomer is content to be. This monument was intended to outlast the ages; and, if the nations are wise, they will consult its symmetrical sides, its angles, its passages, its chinks in the wall, and especially the mysterious coffer in its central chamber, and adjust by this all their methods of time, space, and quantity. The riddle of the ages has at last been read, and England is summoned to pause from the sacrilege that would forsake the inspired pyramid-system for the profane decimals of unbelieving France. Professor Smyth comes forth as a social and moral reformer in this key to the scientific marvel. It is to be feared, however, that he has damaged his scientific argument by his questionable exegesis of Scripture. His views of the Pentateuch are by no means in harmony with the views of Colenso; and he gives an earlier date and a more historic accuracy to the statements of the Book of Job than any careful critic will sustain. The scientific argument, too, has to be strained, in order to bring the tables of weight and measure which England uses into harmony with those lines of Egyptian stone. There are uncomfortable fractions which vex his calculations. All his enthusiasm for the new theory cannot blind his readers to the fact, that he leaves discrepancies unexplained, and that he twists resemblances into identities. We do not think that his fine drawings and photographs and diagrams dispel that mystery of the colossal monu * An Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. By PROFESSOR C. PIAZZI SMYTH, F.R.SS., L. & E., Astronomer Royal for Scotland. With Photograph, Map, and Plates. London: Alexander Strahan & Co., 1864. 12mo. pp. xvi. 400. |