over with attention the texts I have quoted, and I feel convinced he will admit that they possess some value." Literary disputants who, in the pride or licence of contradiction, denounce a theory or conclusion, without proposing another or a better in its place, are of no more value in the community than a physician who feels your pulse, shakes his head, tells you you are very ill, but is unable to propose a cure. They would do well to remember and practise the invitation of Horace, who says,

'If a better system's thine,

Impart it freely, or make use of mine.""

From Jerusalem M. de Saulcy and his companions proceeded to Sebastieh, built on the site of the ancient Samaria, and there, on Mount Gerizim, discovered and examined most minutely the extensive remains of the temple erected by Sanballat under permission from Alexander the Great, B.C. 332, the ground plan of which faces the title page of the first volume. The enterprising traveller justly congratulates himself upon having been the first to give an accurate survey of the Samaritan temple, the acquisition of which alone he considers a sufficient reward for the laborious journey he had undertaken. From Sebastieh they proceeded on to Nazareth and Kafr-Kenna, which he identifies with the Cana of Scripture, where the first miracle of our Saviour was performed. A small church of very modern structure is still standing there, and the duty is attended by a priest of the Greek persuasion. This church contains, roughly fitted into a stone-bench, two enormous stone vases, which the priest exhibits as being two of the six water-pots used in the miracle. M. de Saulcy declares that these two vases, which Dr. Clarke saw and calls fragments of waterjugs, are perfectly entire and of very ancient workmanship. He does not pretend to assert that they are the genuine implements of the miracle, but maintains that they are as old as the period at which it took place.

Crossing the plain of Hattin, celebrated as the scene of the last disastrous battle between the Christians and Saracens, in which the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was finally overthrown, they reached Tiberias, now Tabarieh, on the lake of Genesareth, where they found comfortable quarters, but were unmercifully fleeced at the hotel of M. Weisemann, a little fat German Jew, with a placid smile and most benevolent countenance. From Tiberias they crossed the Lebanon to Damascus, and being led out of the direct route by the pertinacious obstinacy of their dragoman, became indebted to him for a discovery almost as stupendous as that of the condemned cities,-the ruins of Hazor, the early capital of Canâan, before the conquest of the Israelites, the abode of Jabin and Sisera, first burnt by Joshua, and definitively reduced to its present state by Nebuchadrezzar. The ruins are most extensive, indicating a city of enormous size, while the materials with which it was built are incredibly gigantic.

Si quid novisti rectius istis,

Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."

"I confess," says M. de Saulcy, "that when on the spot, a thought struck me, that a place constructed with materials of such enormous proportions, could only have been the abode of an extinct race, resembling that of the Anakims, the Emims, and the Rephaims, which we find expressly mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. The Abbé Michon, who was riding by my side, went even further than I did in this supposition, such was his astonishment at the size of these marvellous remains. He had also noticed a certain fact, that wherever there were hollows, ditches, or trenches of any kind along the ground, the blocks became numerous, and, as it were, thrown upon each other, as if they had been carried away by rushing waters. This sufficed to suggest to him the idea, that the ruins we had just discovered, might probably have belonged to an antediluvian city. Let me at once declare, that I by no means adopt this hypothesis; on the contrary, I firmly believe, that this is the ancient capital of the Canâanites, a metropolis built long before the days of Moses, and destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar. This pedigree, in my opinion, is sufficiently remote. Besides, if I find in the nature of these ruins a reason for assigning to them, at the least, the period of Nebuchadrezzar, as the final limit of their existence, I see no absolute cause for determining the opposite limit, I mean that of their first origin, which the reader may refer back as far as he pleases, within the historical times, without much chance of falling into an error."

In the neighbourhood of Banias, which occupies the site of the ancient Paneas, afterwards Cæsarea-Philippi, and Neronias, M. de Sauley, investigated ruins which he identifies as the biblical city of Dan, and the site of the temple where Jeroboam had placed one of his golden calves, and also of the temple of the Golden Calf mentioned by Josephus. Crossing the Anti-Libanus he reached Damascus, which has been so often described, that it affords little novelty. The "Pearl of the East" is beautifully situated, and exhibits a striking contrast in the outward meanness and interior splendour of the principal habitations. This city, one of the most ancient in the world, contains at present but few monuments of the earlier periods, but M. de Sauley is of opinion that if diggings on an extensive scale could be undertaken, many would be unearthed. The plain to the east, looking towards Tadmor in the Desert, has seldom been visited, and promises to the adventurous explorer, a mine of treasures in archæological discovery. Our traveller bestowed a most careful survey on the celebrated temples of Baâlbec, respecting which he furnishes many new particulars, and clears away the errors of former writers. Some of the huge masses of stone employed in these stupendous edifices, present dimensions which are almost incredible, and reduce the single blocks of Stonehenge and Carnac to mere pebbles in comparison. Let us fancy a course of sixty yards in length, formed by three stones alone, along the principal face of the great temple of the Sun. Several of these are still lying in the adjacent quarry, finished, and their edges as sharp and square as if the stone-cutters had just left them. One was measured, and found to be twenty yards in length, and four in height and breadth. On this specimen of Cyclopean architecture the author remarks,

"It becomes curious to calculate the power that would be required to set this mass in motion. It contains five hundred cubic yards, and as the stone is a calcareous compound, exceedingly hard and compact, each cubic yard must

weigh at least six thousand pounds, which causes the entire weight of the block to be three million pounds. It would consequently require an engine of twenty thousand horse-power to set it in motion; or the constant and simultaneous effort of nearly forty thousand men to carry it a single yard in each second of time."

And yet these enormous masses were transported to a distance of a thousand yards and placed on the top of other masses nearly as prodigious, at a height exceeding thirty feet from the ground, and joined together with the most minute and delicate precision. It is useless to attempt an estimate of the mechanical powers employed, which are utterly beyond comprehension.

Having returned to Beyrout, and in a last excursion to the Nahr-el-Kelb detected the fallacy of the reputed Assyrian bas reliefs, M. de Saulcy and his companions embarked on board the "Caire" steamer on the 5th of April, and anchored at Marseilles on the 16th of the same month. Their adventurous journey had occupied nearly seven months, and all predicted dangers and difficulties had been prosperously surmounted. The extent of ground over which they had travelled was small when compared with the discoveries they had accomplished and the numerous points of historical inquiry, previously wrapt in obscurity, but now definitively elucidated. Every page of these volumes abounds in interest, incident, and most valuable information, and will amply repay the reader for the time occupied in perusing them. In many respects this work may be considered a truthful commentary on the sacred authorities, and it will be difficult to dispute with sound reason, that the author has either exaggerated his facts or mistaken his inferences.

292

CHAKA-KING OF THE ZULUS.

BY ANGUS B. REACH.

Most people have a notion that the time of the utter and absolute -the ferocious, and the blood-ravenous tyrannies, has been long over. They flatter themselves that even amid uncivilized people the monstrosities of Nero or Tiberius would be at a discount, and that neither an Attila nor an Alaric could now-a-days appear upon the earth more than a mastodon or a megatherion. Those who hold any such opinion, however, are very much mistaken. From no hitherto unheard-of and isolated region of the earth does a MarcoPolo-like traveller arrive with an unbelievable story of a numerous, and powerful, and, in their way, intelligent nation, submitting to be slaughtered by hundreds and thousands at the simple caprice of one blood-mad individual amongst them-but from a province of Africa, easily accessible, the shores and some portion of the interior of which have been surveyed-from a district, in fact, bordering upon our own colony of Natal, in south-eastern Africa, there arrived, some years ago-although it fell unheeded— the story of a monarch and a reign, of the character slightly indicated in the above sentences. And this is no old chronicle. The kingdom of the Zulus, and the Zulucratic system, as it has been aptly called, are both things of the present century. Two books, at least, have been written-one by a missionary officer, Captain Gardiner, the other by a trading adventurer, Nathaniel Isaacs, in which the story of Chaka, and of Chaka's successor, Dungaan, has been told; and various colonial documents of official authority substantiate the account from point to point. The power and the cruelty of Chaka reached their climax about 1827, when a catastrophe took place which, had it been generally known, would have shocked the civilized world. But only a few, perhaps half a dozen, white men were scattered through the country, at the time, without the means of any communication with their coun. trymen for lengthened periods, and the funeral rites of Umnante passed unheeded by the world.

Probably about the beginning of the present century, a Kaffir tribe made its way from the sea-coast inwardly, to a range of country lying to the north-east of Natal, where it settled, exterminating the races whom it found in possession, and spreading terror at the name of Zulu-the denomination both of the chief and the tribe. The wars of these people were, from their earliest days, wars of extermination-their domestic system one of relentless despotism. As the king possessed unbridled powers of life and death over his subjects, so did each head of a family over his wives and concubines, of which he kept as many as he could, or as he chose. It was reserved, however, for Chaka to carry these laws out in their utmost severity, and to enact others which

doubled the horrors of the system of his ancestors-actually im posing the punishment of death upon such violators of his courtly etiquette as happened accidentally to cough, sneeze, spit, or make any unseemly noise before his delicately-nerved majesty. Chaka was descended from the founder of the tribe Zulu, and the members of the family were equally renowned for cruelty and desperate courage-but to both these qualities, in their greatest extreme, Chaka united boundless ambition, and, for his position, a remarkable degree of military genius. It may, therefore, be imagined, that Essenzingercona, the father of Chaka, looked with great alarm upon the progress of his hopeful son. of his hopeful son. And as it was the old law of the Zulus, as soon as the reigning monarch gave symptoms of age-as soon, indeed, as the first grey heirs, or the first wrinkles began to appear-that the heir-apparent should murder his nearest relative with all his friends of the same standing, and, after more or less fighting, seize upon the throne-it may be imagined that Essenzingercona looked with more than usual terror on the energetic Chaka, and proceeded to take measures for reversing the usual constitutional arrangement. Chaka, having good spies abroad, fled with a younger brother to a neighbouring tribe, by whom they were hospitably received, and with whom they remained until the death of the old king, and the accession of another of Chaka's brothers. The new monarch, Chaka determined to defeat, and assert his own claim to the throne. His friends and patrons, the Umtatwas tribe, equipped an army to help him, and the forces in their war-dresses-of tigers' tails round their necks, otter-skin caps, and bullocks' tails round their limbs-each with a shield of bullock's hide stiffened, and calculated for carrying, suspended on inside brackets, half a dozen or more assegais-moved against each other. Chaka and his Umtatwas were signally beaten by the Zulus, who had been well disciplined by his father, and the whole party retired in disgrace. The ambitious temper of Chaka, however, soon set him on other schemes. Pretending to be sick, and then having it reported that he was dead, his brother proceeded penitently to the capital city, or kraal of Zulu, and made a humble apology for his rebellion, which was accepted, and he was once more taken into favour, and admitted into the close intimacy of the king. The hypocrite soon found means to communicate with Chaka, and Chaka was soon hovering about the court in disguise. The conspirators watched their time. The forgiven brother struck the king when he was in the bath, and gave the signal. Instantly Chaka rushed to his aid, and the business was speedily accomplished the principal murderer immediately proclaiming his right to the throne. For this purpose, Chaka had certain advantages of birth. The event happened during a storm, and the people believed that all sorts of signs, symbols, and portents had accompanied it. Besides, there were some untoward, or anomalous circumstances-or such in Zulu eyes-all of which combined, induced the people to believe that a child had been born of supernatural qualities, and to pay it particular honours. As Chaka

VOL. XXXIV.

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