axe, still dyed with the robbers' blood. The pinioned robber-monk went surlily on; the others, more silent and humble, looked not up, but kissed from time to time the little crucifix which hung on the cord at their waists. The prisoners were delivered up at the Tribune; but Giuseppe was conducted by Michele to his dwelling in the Via dell' Infrascata, where he was received with amazement and joy by the good Marianna, and where his child hung the whole day at his knee, to hear with open mouth and deep devotion the whole wonderful story related, and burning with desire to see Ubaldo's girdle and the bright gold pieces.

Giuseppe had in the meantime released himself, | girdle in his hand. Giuseppe carried his victorious from his foe, obstinate even in death. The wound which he had received in the leg was not of serious consequence. Fabio's prisoner was pinioned, and the Brigadier commanded the robbers whom Renzo had disarmed, to deliver up every thing which they carried under their cloaks. This being laid with the money which was found on the dead robbers, the whole sum did not amount to much more than twenty piastres, exclusive of the handsome treasury of gold which was discovered in the leader's girdle. The slain were left for the present on the road; the horses were brought forward, and the gens-d'armes mounted. Giuseppe mounted behind Michele, whose steed carried the two with ease; and thus, with the Brigadier at the head, Fabio leading his prisoner by the Capuchinrope, and the two others marching well bound and watched between Renzo and Michele, thus marched forward the troop in solemn silence, broken only at times by the sighs and murmurs of the prisoners. The youngest of these confessed freely that he was a runaway convent tailor, who never plundered nor murdered, but had been compelled by Ubaldo, whom he one day encountered in the mountains, for the use of the bandit troop, partly to steal out of the convent, and partly to prepare the serviceable Capuchin costume. The tailor seemed much cast down and repentant.

It was about sunrise as the picturesque procession entered the Capuan gate, and followed by some curious and hurraing spectators, marched safely into Naples. The Brigadier at the head bore Ubaldo's mantle on his carbine, and the important

The legal inquiry was terminated by the worst of the robbers being doomed to the galleys for life: the second to the same punishment for a year; but the convent tailor, as having been inveigled, was dealt more gently with, and after some time set at liberty. The gens-d'armes received each a proper reward; and to Giuseppe was adjudged the two hundred Napoleons, together with the girdle inte which they had been stitched, after repeated proclamation had been made for any one to come forward who could substantiate his claim to them. In Naples there was a general rejoicing over the death of the dreaded Ubaldo. The Carpenter stil! lives, respected and beloved amid his family and connexions, in flourishing circumstances; and in the Molo, in the Chiaja, and other squares and streets, is yet related and sung the exploit of the brave and fortunate Miester GIUSEPPE CONNETTA.

QUAKER MISSION TO THE MAURITIUS AND SOUTH AFRICA.*

THOSE who, like us, found instruction and refreshment in following Mr. Backhouse and his fellow labourer on their Missionary Rambles through the Australian Colonies,† will, we are persuaded, be as much gratified in accompanying them in their farther pilgrimage. Before returning to Europe, after their visit to Australia, Mr. Backhouse and his friend, Mr. George Washington Walker, went to the Mauritius, whence, after a brief stay, they embarked for the Cape of Good Hope, and made a rather extensive tour among the missionary stations and Christianized spots of South Africa. Mr. Backhouse is rather to be regarded as one who surveys and reports upon the labours of others, than as himself a regular labourer in the missionary field, though he never loses an opportunity of throwing out a word in season wherever his lot may be cast. Whatever Friends may be at home, abroad they are of a truly catholic spirit. Moravians, Methodists, Scots, Germans, Caffres, Hottentots, wherever the Quaker apostles met with a sincere Christian, he was hailed as a brother in the bonds of the Gospel.

A Narrative of a Visit to the Mauritius and South

Africa. By James Backhouse. Illustrated by Maps, Etchings, and Wood-cuts. 8vo, pp. 720. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co.

+ See Tail's Magazine for April 1843.

As a work of travel, this volume is less interesting than the account of Mr. Backhouse's visits to the new settlements and emigrant groups of Australia. Of the circumstances of the few English and Scottish settlers whom he saw at Glen Lynder, Glen Avon, and other places in South Africa, he has told less than we would like to hear regarding this interesting class of our countrymen. But perhaps there might not be much to tell respecting their social condition; and Mr. Backhouse's inquiries were confined to subjects of graver import. The same quiet enthusiasm for Nature, and particularly for botany and ornitho logy, which we noted in his former volume, is strikingly apparent in the new one; and Africs affords a much richer field to the naturalist than Australia. Mr. Backhouse excels as a landscape painter. In the Mauritius, as in Australia, be generally adopted the primitive mode of using his own legs in his excursions about the island. The landscape sketched below is, we think, very pretty and engaging. The season is the middle of April

1838.

13th. Yesterday, we again came to Roc en Roe, Mapou, where, to-day, a considerable congregation assem bled, to whom the objects of the coming and death of Christ were largely set forth, in connexion with the dif ference between the superstitious appropriation of them,

ג

noon,

3d. We dined with William Henry Harvey, the colonial treasurer, and walked with him through the Kloof, between Table Mountain and the Lion Hill. The scenery is very grand. The tops of the rugged mountains to the north and east were covered with snow; but notwithstanding that it was the depth of winter, many beautiful plants and shrubs were in flower. Not finding a public lodging-house convenient, we concluded to remove to a more private situation, and engaged a good sitting-room and two bed-rooms in a large house, built in the Dutch style: we dined with the family, and took our other meals in our own apartment. For this we paid four and sixpence a-day each.

according to the traditions of men, and the spiritual | He also expressed a conviction that as more correct inapplication of them to the soul, by the power of God. formation was now diffused, a better spirit would be The people were very attentive, and a precious sense of stirred up toward these oppressed people; and that ere the divine presence prevailed at seasons. In the after- long they would become the subjects of more extended I walked to Grande Baie, with G. Clark and a Christian labours, so that in them also the power of young coloured Creole, who was learning the British divine grace would be shown. and Foreign School system of instruction, with a view to become a teacher. We went along the coast, which made the distance about nine miles, though perhaps not more than six by the nearest way. The land of the coast is either covered with grassy turf, or with copses of various shrubs. Here and there, cocoa-nut and datepalms are scattered, chiefly near little groups of the dwellings of fishermen. Little tranquil inlets, covered by the sea at high water, are numerous in this direction; they are margined with mangroves of about ten feet high, having handsome, elliptical, laurel-like foliage. Large bushes of syzygium jambolana grow a little further from the beach; they produce the fruit called jamlongue, which is the size of a small plum, but more cylindrical, and is sweet, but astringent. Some of the poorer people on the coast collect the prostrate stems of batatas maritima, a plant of the convolvulus tribe, which extend many yards along the sandy ground, and bind them in long, loose, thick bundles. These they cast into the sea, and drag to the shore, bringing with them small fishes. We passed some blacks making large torches of numerous splinters of a kind of wood that is inflammable when green, which they use to attract the fish at night. These torches are about three feet long, and a foot in diameter at the wider end; they are bound together by means of withes of the jasmin-dupays, jasminum mauritianum, the shoots of which are so long that one is sometimes sufficient to make a little basket, as we were assured by a man of colour, who was making a basket from them.

The state of society in the Mauritius previous to the abolition of slavery, is represented as exceedingly depraved and licentious. By the time of Mr. Backhouse's visit, symptoms of improvement were apparent. The whites were showing a better example, and marriage ties had begun to be known and respected among the black population.

The following passage, which occurs in the Journal shortly after Mr. Backhouse had reached Cape Town, will be perused with deep interest from the affecting reminiscences it awakens, and the weight which belongs to the author's opinions on the question of war, or the right of the strongest :

In the evening, we attended a monthly missionary meeting, in the Union Chapel, at which John Williams, of the South Sea Mission, was present, the Camden missionary ship having put into Simon's Bay yesterday. John Williams gave some interesting information respecting the mission, and his visit to England: he spoke very modestly of the labours of the missionaries in the South Seas; and, in alluding to the good that had been effected among the islanders by the introduction of the gospel among them, dwelt chiefly upon the destruction of idolatry and infanticide, and the general improvement of the people; he also brought forward some cases, showing that a spiritual change had been wrought; and noticed the important fact, that multitudes, who a few years ago were in utter ignorance, could now read the Holy Scriptures with facility, and could write intelligent letters. After John Williams had concluded, I gave the company some information respecting the forlorn state of the aborigines of Australia, and the injury done them under the influence of misapprehension and prejudice. Dr. Philip made a few pertinent comments on what had been expressed, showing that the erroneous ideas of defective capacity in the Australians and Tasmanians, and the alleged difficulties in regard to their instruction and civilisation, were only such as long existed in respect to the Hottentots; that these had been demonstrated to be utterly fallacious, and the result of ignorance of the constitution of the human mind.

66

4th. We breakfasted with several of the missionaries from on board the Camden, among whom a conversation arose on the subject of war. One young man pleaded in its defence, and stated that he thought the civil magistrate was bound to extend protection to those who looked to him for it, against the aggression of hostile tribes. This specious kind of reasoning is very common, but those who adopt it appear to forget that peace on earth" is one of the characteristics of the gospel; and that those who now look to the civil magistrates for military protection are persons who make themselves" partakers in other men's sins," many of them occupying the territory of hostile tribes, without their proper consent. The aborigines of these lands would generally, if not universally, have received peaceably small parties of Christians whose object in going amongst them was to impart to them the knowledge of the gospel. But when persons professing to be Christians mix themselves with parties who locate themselves the aborigines of any country, they forfeit their Chrislike swarms of locusts on property taken forcibly from tian character; and, in seeking protection from those who hold the possession of such territory, not by peace, but by force of arms, they lean upon a defence which is after this world, and not after Christ.

We regret that we cannot give Mr. Backhouse's opinion of the quality of the famous Constantia wine, for reasons which the reader will perceive.

We visited the vineyards of Constantia, at one of which we were politely invited to taste of the wine; but having believed it our duty before landing from the Mauritius, to adopt the practice of total abstinence from informed by a son of the proprietor, that we were not intoxicating drinks, we declined, and were pleasantly the first of their visiters who had refused to taste. The dwelling-house at Old Constantia is a large mansion in the Dutch style, well furnished. The skin of a large Leopard, Felis Leopardus, shot in the neighbourhood, being well stuffed, is placed in one of the rooms. mals are far from common, but occasionally they are where they prey upon baboons and smaller animals, met with about the foot of the contiguous mountains, seldom disturbing the neighbouring flocks.

These ani

THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOPHANES.

(Continued from page 515 of our August Number.)

CHAPTER III.

We left the ancient Acharnian Charcoal Burners in possession of the stage, running wrathfully up and down, breathing forth threats of vengeance, and loudly denouncing the unknown truce maker, picking up loose stones and popping them into the folds of their cloaks, wherewith, in season due, they might pound the culprit if they were lucky enough to catch him.

Meanwhile the unsuspecting Justown is trudging on his way to his own home at Acharne; and his opponents having come across from Phyle, where, pursuing their avocation on the hills, they had fallen in with Amphigod on his way from Lacedæmon, arrive at the farm of Justown just as he is commencing the initiatory rites of the festival called the rural Dionysia, and which the course of the Peloponnesian war had for six years interrupted; his wife and daughter are also personages

in this scene of the drama.

The rural or lesser Dionysia was the Saturnalia of the Greeks, celebrated about the same season, in the month Poseideon, between the new year and the old-it was a jovial feast, where master and man, and maid and mistress, sat at the same board, and freely bandied jokes with each other-mirth and jollity, approaching to riot and intemperance, reigned through all the demes of Attica.

The mother and daughter are rather taciturn in disposition; the care of the former is most naturally all directed to the latter, that she perform her part of the sacrificial ceremony with due grace and becomingly, bidding her conduct herself in a ladylike manner, as befits one of her age and beauty, and purse up her mouth, and look as prim as if she were chewing bitter herbs; next bursting out into an exclamation on the happiness of that youth who, some day soon, should have the honour of becoming her son-in-law, she closes her part with an advice that the young lady look to it, that no one nibble away her jewels, these jewels being observed by the spectators to be figs strung like beads round her neck; but the old lady thus also insinuates that she must beware of gay Lotharios. As she shows so little regard for the religious rite, and is so wholly taken up with the outward appearance of her daughter, Mr. Justown despatches his loving wife to the roof of the house, thence to view the spectacle, without interrupting or hindering the ceremonies.

No trait in character, however minute, escapes the observation of Aristophanes, and while the sentiments expressed convey the internal mind of his speakers, the very language in which these sentiments are clothed places bodily before us their external appearance. We could paint Mrs. Justown, a tall thin woman, nearly forty, dressed very primly and prudishly, long straight sharp nose, complexion very bilious, hair just on the turn, and not abundant, lips thin and colourless, corners of

mouth drawn downwards, seldom smiles, a cold, severe, selfish, discontented looking dame. The daughter, a young girl, sweet seventeen, not quite so tall as the mother, a little gawkyish, perhaps, and a greater disposition to levity sparkles in her very dark eyes, which, by-the-by, are rather small for a Greek girl; but this again she takes from her father, who is a small twinkling-eyed, rather fattish, comic-looking man, with a good deal of humour in his composition; in these eyes, we repeat, we would conclude, from her mother's small advice, lurks a greater disposition to levity than in her notions is quite consistent with a menseful maiden's carriage. Such is the group, attended by Xanthias, their black slave, who wears the generic type of Greek slavery in general. The spot of sacrifice is marked out, and Justown, the domestic high priest of the festival, has uttered the auspicious word, the usual preliminary to such ceremonies, upnute, (euphemeite,) Keep reverential silence, disturb not a religious rite by frivolous words or improper noise;-and the stout, honest Acharnians, undemoralized by residence in the capital, restrain their fury, in reverence of the occupation of their adversary. The Phallus, or symbol of fertility, equivalent to the Priapus of the Romans, formed of red leather, and stuck on the end of a long pole, is then brought forward and fixed in the ground-Justown follows it and sings the Phallic hymn, an address to Phales or Priapus. This deity is invoked as the friend of Bacchus, the active principle of wine, that rouses the passions,

when

"Skulking night hath set Luxury upon his feet,

In their revels and their joys, Thou art with the drinking boys." His sway has been unfelt by Justown for the last six years; but now he is welcomed once more, when done with

"Fight and skirmish, battle cry, Toil and tug, and Lamachi." Aristophanes has here, as in many other parts of the play before us, a slap at Lamachus, one of the most valiant and reasonable generals of the Athe nian army; a man of action, determination, and honesty, though his valour carried him to rashness, and his enterprize led him, at all hazards, to sup port the war party, and so became an object of enmity to our author, who allowed his dislike and ridicule to carry him, in this case, far beyond the bounds of truth and justice. Lamachus fell a victim to his impetuous bravery in a sortie before Syracuse about twelve years after this period; comrade of Alcibiades and Nicias, his manœuvres were often sadly deranged by the vanity of the former, and the timidity, superstition, and bigotry of the latter commander.

During his festal hymn, Justown takes especial care to stimulate the Acharnians' reminiscences of war by words recalling to mind the annoyances