characteristic traits of the noted personages with whom he is surrounded. The Chevalier C. L. Cadet de Gaussicourt, who accompanied Bonaparte in that capacity during his memorable campaign in 1809, has lately published at Paris a volume under the title of a Journey in Austria, Moravia, and Bavaria. As the book is not likely to be in the hands of many of your readers, I have translated a few passages, which, perhaps, you may think sufficiently interesting to merit a place in your Miscellany.

The following passages exhibit a striking picture of the horrors attending an invading French army.

"6th May. We are now in Austria; terror precedes, and devastation follows us. Being now in an enemy's country, there is no longer any thing distributed to the troops. Every thing belongs to the soldier; provisions, forage, linen, clothes, gold, silver, every thing, in short, he can lay his hands on. Pillage is not formally ordered, but it is tolerated. The advance guard secures the best of every thing, the centre have to glean, and the rear-guard, frequently finding nothing, vent their in setting fire to the empty houses.".

rage

"Last night our carriage stuck fast in the mud, at the foot of a hill in a little village which had been pillaged in the morning, and in which not a single inhabitant remained, having all fled into the neighbouring woods. Twelve horses were unable to drag out our carriage; it was eleven o'clock, the night dark and rainy. I consulted with my two colleagues, and we agreed to pass the night where we were. We accordingly made a great tire, and laid ourselves down, with our pistols in our hands, to be ready in case of an attack from any partisans who might have been tempt ed to take advantage of our awkward situa

tion.

At four in the morning we got assistance, and were enabled to proceed. We entered Lambach at the moment the Imperial Guard were setting it on fire. The blazing houses were tumbling down all around us; and in a narrow street the flames from the windows made an arch over the top of our carriage as we passed, and it was with the greatest difficulty the postillion could force the horses to go on. We learned, on leaving the city, that the Emperor had intended to have passed the night there; but the fire advanced more rapidly than he expected, and he had hardly time to get into his carriage before it had reached the house he had occupied. We saw it in flames as we passed."

"We entered Wels along with the army. The Austrians, on leaving this pretty town, burnt the bridge, which detains

While we

us. The castle, which the Emperor inhabits, commands a beautiful view. Some of the Austrian troops have halted on the banks of the stream which flows at the foot of the castle; Napoleon, seated at a window, is observing their retreat. ing, a cannon-ball struck the centinel who were dining gaily, the military band playmounted guard on the terrace near our dining-room, and at the same moment notice was brought that our soldiers were pillaging the keeper of the castle. Some officers were sent to stop them; but they could not preserve the town from pillage. They were so eagerly engaged in it, that it was hardly possible to find a place fit to lodge in. We at last took possession of a low hall belonging to a batter; the furniture was entirely destroyed, and we were obliged to get some straw to lie on. We had lain in our clothes for about twenty minutes, when we were suddenly awoke by the most piercing cries. They came from the floor above. One of my colleagues and I took our swords and went up, and we found the family of the hatter attacked by five grenaOne of them was using diers half drunk. the most brutal violence to a young woman big with child, while another was treating in the same manner her mother, an old woman above sixty. The other three were beating and robbing the two husbands. The miserable wretches implored our assistance; but neither our remonstrances nor menaces had the smallest effect on the

grenadiers, who, with their sabres in their hands, told us, if we meddled with their affair, they would cut us in pieces. We were not the strongest, and had no military authority. We retired, lamenting to think what seeds of eternal hatred such atrocities must leave, wherever we carried our arms." pp. 63-67.

But it was not the enemy alone that suffered from their cruelty. The following passage will shew that their generals did not hesitate at times to treat their own troops with equal bar- · barity.

"The little town of Ebersberg is built in the form of an amphitheatre, on the side of a very rugged hill, and protected by a strong castle. The Traun, a broad but shallow river, flows at the foot of the hill. A wooden bridge, more than a quarter of a league in length, crosses it, and makes the entrance into the town, which consists only of from fifty to sixty houses. Defended by nature, Ebersberg is not fortified; but it is a most advantageous military position, as on the one side it can only be entered by the bridge, and on the other by a steep road extremely difficult to pass. The Austrians, in their flight before the Emperor, had retired into this town, to the number of thirty

five thousand, and on seeing the French approach, prepared to burn the bridge. The fascines were already fastened, when the advanced guard of General Claparide, composed of several battalions of Corsican and Piedmontese sharpshooters, attacked the enemy while passing the bridge, and drove into the river waggons, cannon, and be tween 800 and 900 men. The Austrians, however, succeeded in establishing two batteries, which kept up such a dreadful fire of grape-shot, that two companies of Bavarians, and one of French, who were attempting the passage, are swept off in an instant. Some cavalry follow, who meet the same fate. The dead and wounded, who lay in heaps on the bridge, retarded the march so much, that the whole army would have perished in succession, if Marshal Massena had not given a terrible but necessary order. He commands all the wounded, who are able to stir, to crawl forwards as they best can to the city, and those who are not able to move and obstruct the bridge, he orders to be thrown into the river, while two pieces of cannon, placed on the bank, return the Austrian fire.

It was a frightful spectacle to see the wounded soldiers struggling in the arms of their comrades who flung them into the seater, while many of those so employed were wounded in their turn, and met the same fate from the soldiers who followed. At last they reached the Austrian pieces, and entered the city. Here a fresh carnage commenced. The enemy fought in every street and in every house. One party, which had retired into the castle, maintained a vigorous defence, but nothing could resist the impetuosity of the French. The

Austrians fled in all directions; but with a barbarity without example, and previously agreed on, they at the same moment set fire to each house as they quitted it, and the whole town was at once in flames. The inhabitants, who had taken refuge in their cellars, together with all the wounded who had sought an asylum among the buildings, perished miserably in the flames ;while several pieces of cannon which covered the retreat of the Austrians, choaked up the hollow way, and inclosing the French in a narrow defile, checked the eagerness of the pursuit.

The picture which this unfortunate town exhibited some hours after the battle, combined all sorts of horrors; the bridges heaped with the dead and the wounded; the river filled with carcases and broken carriages, all the houses lying in smoking heaps, the streets strewed with dead bodies, mutilated and scorched, retaining, even after death, the attitude and expression of the most horrible suffering; wretched women and children lying half consumed in each other's arms; and in the midst of this general desolation, an army marching stea

dily over this theatre of destruction to the sound of martial music; their carriages rolling over fifteen hundred carcases, crushing their skulls, and dragging after them the bleeding members." pp. 69–72.

After all these horrors, I should in fairness give some anecdotes of a different description.

"A young female emigrant with her in. fant child had taken up her abode at Augs burg, having no idea that the French would ever reach her there. On their unexpected approach she took her child in her arms to fly from the city, but unfortunately mistaking the gate, she fell in with the advanced posts of the French; on discover ing her error she fainted away: General Lecourbe, moved with her distress, ordered her to be conducted to the town to which she last intended to go, and sent a guard to protect her. Unluckily the child was forgotten, and the unhappy mother in her alarm and confusion did not perceive it was left behind. A grenadier took charge of it; he discovered where the mother had been carried, but his duties prevented him for a long time from restoring to her this precious deposit; and in the mean time he made a leather bag in which he always carried the child wherever he went. Whenever there was any engagement with the enemy, he dug a hole in the ground in which he deposited his little charge, and returned after the battle and resumed his burden. At length an armistice was concluded, and the grenadier made a collection among his comrades, which amounted to twenty-five Louis; this he put into the pocket of the child, and went and restored it to its mother. Though all the army knew of this good action, I was never able to learn the name of this virtuous grena. dier." pp. 47, 48.

The following picture is evidently drawn from the life.

"During the passage of the bridge, an operation which lasted at least four hours, I amused myself in chatting with a female suttler who was washing some linen on the banks of the river; she had an infant at her breast, and two others, both very young, were playing in her cart, which stood near. Her cargo consisted of a cask of white wine, two little barrels, together with a few bags and boxes. She seemed about thirty years of age, her dress clean but somewhat fantastic, and without being either ugly or pretty, her countenance was full of expression. How you must suffer,' said I to her, with such a charge to drag along with you, and what alarmı they must constantly give you! Oh,' replied she gaily, I have been long accustomed to it, and I could not now live any where but with the army. This

is the eighth campaign which I have made, and it is the finest of them all; love for a sergeant induced me first to follow his regiment; he was wounded and I nursed him. I had a child by him, which was born in the baggage waggon. I have remained with this corps ever since, and these little fellows, baptized under our eagle, will one day, I hope, prove good grenadiers. The trade which I began for whim, and continued through habit, I now carry on for profit. My whole baggage and provisions has not cost me a single sous. The regiment gave me the whole. It is my share of the last pillage which the grognards collected for me, and it is to these same grognards that I shall sell my provisions, which they think it quite just to pay for, as they have had no trouble in keeping or transporting it. The good-natured dogs, there is not one in the regiment who does not behave like a father to my children, they are so used to see them and caress them! At all the halts they are their play-fellows. When they are going to fight, I remain with the rear guard, and put my little family in a place of safety when the affair is over, I return and comfort the brave fellows. I am their banker, and often their heir. With the money I have gained, I might set myself up in town, but I will never leave the regiment till it is discharged; I dread that event, for I am sure I should be miserable if we were separated. Let me tell you, Sir, I have seen them fight at Marengo, Friedland, and at Austerlitz, and they always behaved nobly. I must be as inconstant as your fine ladies at Paris, if I should ever prove unfaithful to such a fine corps. If I die, the rcgiment will take care of my children, and never lose sight of them, and I am sure they will never hear any thing but good of their mother." As she spoke these last words, she kissed her baby, and wiped away the tears which filled her eyes." PP

75-77.

:

tion were out of the question,) than to follow modern voyagers and travellers into countries scarcely more removed from each other in situation, than they are distinguished in customs and manners. We had occasion, in our last Number, to introduce our readers to two separate sets of savages,-the one, in the remotest regions of the South, of whom Captain Berry has obligingly communicated to us so many curious particulars,-the other, lately discovered by Captain Ross in his nearest approach towards the North Pole. The bloody feasts of the former bring us back again to the cave of Polyphemus, or the island of our old friend Ro

binson Crusoe,-the singular igno

rance and whimsical manners of the latter give us the picture of a people who seem to have been frozen in by their own icebergs, and hermetically scaled, as it were, from all the rest of the world, and whose sudden appearance at last is almost as strange and ludicrous as that of the Diable Boiteux, when the bottle of the magician was broken in which he ha been confined for ages. We are now going to transport our readers into a country directly interposed between those far extremities ;-we are about to place them under the burning line, and here, too, they will find themselves in a region of mingled wonders and horrors, and almost among the dazzling and bewildering machinery of an oriental tale. Yet the book from which our account is taken, is one of great gravity and authority,able to all those, in particular, who one which must be highly accepttake an interest in the interior of Africa; and, indeed, we know few recontain so great a mass of original cent narratives of the kind, which and important information.

Asiente, or Ashantee, had for some time been obscurely heard of as pre eminent among the States situated behind the Gold Coast. It never came in contact, however, with England or when the King of Ashantee, engaging with any European power till 1808, in a war with the Fantees, who immediately border on our settlements,

Kingdom, and Geographical Notices of other parts of the Interior of Africa. By J. Edward Bowdich, Esq. Conductor London, 1819. 4to. pp. 512.

fought his way to the sea shore, where he destroyed the town of Anamaboe, and was with difficulty repulsed from the English fort there. The invasion was repeated in 1811 and 1816; but, though dreadful ravages were committed on the natives, there appeared always a disposition to maintain friendly terms, and even to open a trade with the English. To cultivate these dispositions, as well with a view to trade, as to obtaining a knowledge of the interior, a mission, at the head of which were Mr James, Mr Bowdich, Mr Hutchison, and Mr Tedlie, was, early in 1817, dispatched to Coomassie, the court and capital of

Ashantee.

The mission left Cape Coast Castle on the 224 April 1817, and journeyed through a country partly cultivated, partly covered with extensive woods. On entering Ashantee, they found cultivation greatly improved, the paths better kept, and villages and towns following in close succession. On the 19th May, they arrived at Coomassie. The following passage exhibits the impression made upon them by the first view of this splendid and barbarous capital.

"We entered Coomassie at two o'clock, passing under a fetish, or sacrifice of a dead sheep, wrapped up in red silk, and suspended between two lofty poles. Upwards of 5000 people, the greater part warriors, met us with awful bursts of martial music, discordant only in its mixture; for horns, drums, rattles, and gong-gongs, were all exerted with a zeal bordering on frenzy, to subdue us by the first impression. The smoke which encircled us from the inces sant discharges of musquetry, confined our glimpses to the fore-ground; and we were halted whilst the captains performed their Pyrrhic dance, in the centre of a circle formed by their warriors; where a confusion of flags, English, Dutch, and Danish, were waved and flourished in all directions, the bearers plunging and springing from side to side with a passion of enthusiasm only equalled by the captains who followed them, discharging their shining blunderbusses so close, that the flags now and then were in a blaze, and emerging from the smoke with all the gesture and distortion of maniacs. Their followers kept up the firing around us in the rear. The dress of the captains was a war-cap, with gilded rams' horns projecting in front, the sides extended beyond all proportion by immense plumes of eagles' feathers, and fastened under the chin with bands of cowries.

beir vest was ef red cloth, covered with

fetishes and saphies* in gold and silver; and embroidered cases of almost every colour, which flapped against their bodies as they moved, intermixed with small brass bells, the horns and tails of animals, shells, and knives; long leopards' tails hung down fetishes. They wore loose cotton trowsers, their backs, over a small bow covered with with immense boots of a dull red leather, coming half way up the thigh, and fastened by small chains to their cartouch or waistbelt; these were also ornamented with bells, horses' tails, strings of amulets, and innumerable shreds of leather; a small quiver of poisoned arrows hung from their right wrist, and they held a long iron chain between their teeth, with a scrap of Moor

ish writing affixed to the end of it. A small spear was in their left hands, covered with red cloth and silk tassels; their black countenances heightened the effect of this

attire, and completed a figure scarcely human.

"This exhibition continued about half an hour, when we were allowed to proceed,' encircled by the warriors, whose numbers, with the crowds of people, made our movement as gradual as if it had taken place in Cheapside the several streets branching off to the right, presented long vistas crammed with people, and those on the left hand being on an acclivity, innumerable

rows of heads rose one above another: the large open porches of the houses, like the fronts of stages in small theatres, were filled with the better sort of females and children, all impatient to behold white men for the first time; their exclamations were drowned in the firing and music, but their gestures were in character with the scene." pp. 31-33.

Proceeding through this crowded scene, of the appearance and objects of which some farther details are given, they arrived in presence of the monarch and his splendid cortege.

"Our observations en passant had taught us to conceive a spectacle far exceeding our original expectations; but they had not prepared us for the extent and display of the scene which here burst upon us: an area of nearly a mile in circumference was crowded with magnificence and novelty. The king, his tributaries, and captains, were resplendent in the distance, surrounded by attendants of every description, fronted by a mass of warriors, which seemed to make our approach impervious. The sun was reflected, with a glare scarcely more supportable than the heat, from the massy gold ornaments, which glistened in every direction. More than a hundred bands

Scraps of Moorish writing, as charm against evil.

burst at once on our arrival, with the peculiar airs of their several chiefs; the horns flourished their defiances, with the beating of innumerable drums and metal instru

ments, and then yielded for a while to the soft breathings of their long flutes, which were truly harmonious; and a pleasing instrument, like a bagpipe without the drone, was happily blended. At least a hundred large umbrellas, or canopies, which could shelter thirty persons, were sprung up and down by the bearers with brilliant effect, being made of scarlet, yellow, and the most showy cloths and silks, and crowned on the top with crescents, pelicans, elephants, barrels, and arms and swords of gold; they were of various shapes, but mostly dome; and the valances (in some of which small looking-glasses were inserted) fantastically scalloped and fringed; from the fronts of some, the proboscis and small teeth of elephants projected, and a few were roofed with leopard skins, and crowned with various animals naturally stuffed. The state hammocks, like long cradles, were raised in the rear, the poles on the heads of the bearers; the cushions and pillows were covered with crimson taffeta, and the richest cloths hung over the sides. Innumerable small unbrellas, of various coloured stripes, were crowded in the intervals, whilst several large trees heightened the glare, by contrasting the sober colouring of

nature.

"The king's messengers, with gold breastplates, made way for us, and we commenced our round, preceded by the canes and the English flag. We stopped to take the hand of every caboceer, which, as their household suites occupied several spaces in advance, delayed us long enough to distinguish some of the ornaments in the general blaze of splendour and ostentation.

"The caboccers, as did their superior captains and attendants, wore Ashantec cloths, of extravagant price from the costly foreign silks which had been unravelled to weave them in all the varieties of colour, as well as pattern; they were of an incredible size and weight, and thrown over the shoulder exactly like a Roman toga; a small silk fillet generally encircled their temples, and massy gold necklaces, intricately wrought, suspended Moorish charms, dearly pur chased, and enclosed in small square cases of gold, silver, and curious embroidery. Some wore necklaces reaching to the navel, entirely of aggry beads; a band of gold and beads encircled the knee, from which several strings of the same depended; small circles of gold like guineas, rings, and casts of animals, were strung round their ancles; their sandals were of green, red, and delicate white leather; manillas, and rude lumps of rock gold, hung from their left wrists, which were so heavily laden as to be supported on the head of one of their

handsomest boys. Gold and silver pipes, and canes, dazzled the eye in every direc tion." pp. 34, 35.

And so the description goes on sparkling with gold, silver, leopard skins, ivory, eagles' feathers, ostrich ditto, cockleshells, bells, drums, wolves' and rams' heads, and jawbones of human victims, till we come to the king.

"The prolonged flourishes of the horns, a deafening tumult of drums, and the fuller concert of the intervals, announced that we were approaching the king: we were already passing the principal officers of his household; the chamberlain, the gold hom blower, the captain of the messengers, the captain for royal executions, the captain of the market, the keeper of the royal burial ground, and the master of the bands, sat surrounded by a retinue and splendour which bespoke the diguity and importance of their offices. The cook had a number of small services covered with leopards' skin held behind him, and a large quantity of massy silver plate was displayed before him, punch-bowls, waiters, coffee-pots, tankards, and a very large vessel with heavy handles and clawed feet, which seemed to have been made to hold incense. I observed a Portuguese inscription on one piece, and they seemed generally of that manufacture. The executioner, a man of an immense size, wore a massy gold hatchet on his breast; and the execution stool was held before him, clotted in blood, and partly covered with a cawl of fat. The king's four linguists were encircled by a splendour infe rior to none, and their peculiar insignia, gold canes, were elevated in all directions, tied in bundles like fasces. The keeper of the treasury added to his own magnificence by the ostentatious display of his service;" the blow pan, boxes, scales and weights, were of solid gold.

"A delay of some minutes whilst we severally approached to receive the king's hand, afforded us a thorough view of him; his deportment first excited my attention; native dignity in princes we are pleased to call bar. barous, was a curious spectacle; his manners were majestic, yet courteous; and he did not allow his surprise to beguile him for a moment of the composure of the monarch. He appeared to be about thirty-eight years of age, inclined to corpulence, and of a benevolent countenance; he wore a fillet of aggry beads round his temples, a necklace of gold cockspur shells, strung by their largest ends, and over his right shoulder a red silk cord, suspending three saphies. cased in gold; his bracelets were the richest mixtures of beads and gold, and his fingers covered with rings; his cloth was of a dark green silk; a pointed diadem, was clegantly painted in white on his forchead ;