this period of anarchy and disorder of a savage life we should see the origin of that character of pride and boasting, perfidiousness and cruelty, dissimulation and injustice, sedition and tyranny that the Greeks display throughout the whole course of their history: we should perceive the source of those false ideas of virtue and glory sanctioned by the poets and orators of those ferocious days, who have made war and its melancholy trophies the loftiest aim of man's ambition, the most shining road to renown, and the most dazzling object of admiration to the ignorant and cheated multitude: and since, particularly of late, we have made a point of imitating these people, and

consider their politics and morals, like their poetry and arts, the types of all perfection, it follows at length, that our homage and our worship are addressed to the manners and spirit of barbarism and savage times."

With this quotation, evidently intended by the author for the admonition of his countrymen, but equally worthy of attention from the rulers of all other nations, we shall close our review of a work which has afforded us uncommon grati fication, and to which future geographers and historians will be indebted for a large supply of curious and valuable materials.

PP. 239.

THE voyage of which this publication is a narrative, was undertaken with the intention of making a settlement in the strait which separates New Holland from Van Diemen's Land; a measure adopted by government, as well from the commercial view of favouring the adventures for the capture of seals in those seas, as from the political one of securing a passage through the straits, and preventing rival establishments by other nations. A port discovered by lieute tenant John Murray, and named after governor Philip, was fixed upon for the site of the settlement, as being represented to possess all due advantages for that purpose. The equipment made to carry this design into execution, consisted of a king's ship, the Calcutta, originally built for the East India company, and the Ocean, a hired merchant ship: the former carrying all the convicts and marines, the latter, the greater part of the stores and necessaries for the settlement. -The summary of the voyage may be given in a few words. The ships cleared the channel about the end of April 1803; refreshed at Rio de Janeiro, which they left on July 19th; proceeded to their destination in Bass's Strait, where they found, upon examination, that the place was not adapted for the purpose in view. Renouncing, therefore, the idea of making a settlement there, they sailed for Port Jackson, where the Calcutta took in a cargo of ship timber for the navy. She then proceeded alone, and passing to the southward of New Zealand, dou.

8vo.

bled Cape Horn, and arrived again at Rio de Janeiro on May 22d; "thus, (says the writer) accomplishing a voyage round the world, discharging and receiv ing a cargo, in eleven months." This extraordinary celerity is, however, augmented in our computation, since, according to the preceding statement, it appears, that from the ship's departure from, and return to Rio de Janeiro, little more than ten months elapsed. It should however be observed, that as this circumnavigation was all within the southern hemisphere, the space was less than a great circle of the globe.

The narrative of this voyage might have been spared with little loss to the stock of public information, yet it affords matter to amuse a leisure hour. The writer makes a sailor's apology for inaccu racies in language, nor on this head is there much to blame. His style and strain of sentiment are those of a young man, not devoid of literary taste or the habit of reflection, but as yet immature in point of judgment. He is most copious in his description of the manners, productions, &c. of Rio de Janeiro; but his opportunities do not seem to have enabled him to add much of value to the accounts of former voyagers. We cannot but suspect his accuracy in some points; thus, after giving a table of ex ports, in which their collective amount, including the gold and silver, is stated at a little more than 1,600,000l. he in forms us, that the whole amount of the revenue raised in the district is nearly

four millions sterling. The whole revenue of the crown of Portugal is reckoned, by writers, not to exceed two millions. From the intercourse between the intended settlers and the natives at Port Philip, it would seem that they are more numerous and daring than in the vicinity of Sidney and Port Jackson, yet that they are savages of the same class: that is, of the lowest description of human beings. Perhaps the most useful part of this work consists of some annexed "Ob servations respecting the selection of convicts for transportation, and on the means of preserving health on the voyage." Introducing the subject with a sentence from lord Bacon, in which he enumerates the trades and professions most proper for settling a plantation, or colony, he goes on to say," how little such a selection is attended to in the transportation of convicts to New South Wales, was suffici. ently exemplified on board the Calcutta, where, out of three hundred and seven convicts, there were but eight carpenters and joiners, three smiths, one gardener, twenty labouring farmers, two fishermen, nine taylors, and four stone-masons. The remainder may be classed under the Reads of gentlemen's servants, hair-dres

sers, hackney-coachmen, chairmen, silkweavers, calico-printers, watch-makers, lapidaries, merchants-clerks, and gentle. men." He proceeds to make some par ticular remarks on gentlemen convicts, who are "worse than useless, for they are invariably troublesome." Unfit for manual labour, stung with the remembrance of their former rank in society, and im patient of degradation, they are turbu lent and insolent, and are rendered worse by the attentions they are apt to meet with from those who sympathize with them on the ground of a former similarity of condition. The precautions suggested for the prevention of disease in the passage, chiefly refer to cleanliness, and to the correction of moisture. They will be consulted with advantage, by those who are entrusted with the transportation of convicts. We were somewhat amused with the new sense of a word in the marine phraseology. The decks, he says, "should be scrubbed with bibles and dry sand." Lest the land-reader should suspect a profanation in this direction, he is informed in a note, that bibles are blocks of wood, a foot long, and six inches deep and wide. These tars are certainly comical fellows.

CONDAMINE published, in 1745, his relation of a journey through the interior of South America, to determine, by measurement, the figure of the earth. To that celebrated narrative this journal bears considerable resemblance. Both travellers have pathless wildernesses to pervade, and ferocious savages to fear; rivers unmapped to navigate, and mathematical instruments to unpack at every station. But Condamine is always mindag his reader's business, and Mr. Ellicott his own; the one is on the watch for all those features of the surrounding scenery and incident, which the Europeans would catch at as remarkable; the other is weighing every thing in his statistical scales, and endeavouring to assign a place to every notice, in proportion to its connexion with the interests of the republic. Condamine is the more cosmopolitical, Ellicott the more patriotic ob

server.

The route of this respectable commisfioner extends from Philadelphia to Pitts

burg, on the Ohio: down that river to its junction with the Mississippi, thence to Natchez, where the author had to await the reluctant co-operation of the Spanish commissioners, in tracing the boundary line along the skirts of the Floridas. Apprehensions were entertained by the American government, that the baron Corondelet, who was intrusted with the chief command at New Orleans, and who was supposed to have the French interests full as much at heart as those of his nominal sovereign, the king of Spain, would indirectly obstruct the delivering up of the military posts. There were strong symptoms of insidious delay, and or hostile intentions. The American commissioner therefore encouraged a sort of conquest by fraternization. The people of Natchez were stimulated to arm, to rise against the Spanish governor Gay. oso, to elect a representative committee, and thus to transfer their own allegiance. A very entertaining part of the narrative is this revolution Natchez.

From Natchez the author proceeds down the Mississippi to New Orleans, thence to the guide-line on the Mobile, then to Pensacola, which serves as a starting place for many strips of survey, and finally to the end of the guide-line on the Chattahocha. The author finally descends the river Saint Mary, and returns home through the Carolinas.

An observation still very important to the ministers of Great Britain, occurs in the preface. The island and city of New Orleans form no part of the territory ceded by France and Spain to North America. As a portion of West Florida, it is yet the property of his catholic majesty, and is necessarily the eventual emporium of a commerce, co-extensive with the navigableness of the Mississippi: the right of transfer, by sale, to a neutral power, is of course suspended during war, else a belligerent power could make over all its vulnerable possessions to a neutral, and resume them at a peace. The purchase of the Floridas, therefore, by the North American government, if not completed before the commencement of a war between Britain and Spain, cannot, conformably with the law of nations, be effected during such war. The Americans are said to be engaged in a conquest, by fraternization, of these lands; but it is doubtful whether such transfers merit respect. If the pope could have re-seized his Avignon, or the king of Sardinia his Savoy, after their fraternization with France, no admitted principles of right would have opposed the resumption, yet the choice of the people, fairly ascertained, deserves to become a legitimate, as it is an honourable title. New Orleans, and its island is to the Mississippi, what Trinidad may become to the Oronoko.

From an anecdote recorded in the second chapter, it appears that the Indians have invented, what a recent French writer calls a pasilaly, a method of talking to people of all languages, without understanding theirs, a dialect of signs and gestures, an idiom in pantomime.

"A few days after we had encamped at the confluence of the rivers, Mr. Philip Nolan, so well known for his athletic exertions, and dexterity in taking wild horses, stopped at our camp, on his way from New Madrid to fort Massae, having two boats at the latter phce shut up by the ice. From him I obtained much useful information relative to the situations, and characters, of the princi pal inhabitants of Natchez, which, at that

time, was a matter of mere curiosity, but which eventually I found extremely useful. Being pleased with his conversation, and finding that he had a very extensive knowledge quested the pleasure of his company down of that country, particularly Louisiana, I rethe river, as we were unacquainted with the navigation of it, to which he agreed. After staying with us one night, he proceeded up to Massac, and remained there till our storeboat reached that place, and accompanied her, with his two boats, down to us. While in our camp, he observed a number of Indians, who were from the west side of the Mississippi, and spoke to them in the several languages with which he was acquainted, but they could not understand him; he then addressed them by signs, to which they immediately replied, and conversed some time with apparent case and satisfaction. This was the first time I had either seen or heard of this curious language; and being led by curiosity to speak to Mr. Nolan upon the subject, he informed me that it was used by many nations on the west side of the Mississippi, who could only be understood by each other in that way, and that it was commonly made use of in transacting their national concerns. A vocabulary of part of this curious language, has been sent on to the American Philoso phical Society, by William Dunbar, esq. of the Mississippi territory, and contains a much more particular account of it than I could give."

How strange, that the European nations should yet want a convenient medium of intercourse, which is established throughout the thinly peopled territories of the illiterate savages of North America! Unless the signs of the free-masons can be embellished by a theoretical philosophy, into the last lingering remnants of a decayed art of talking with the fingers, there is no parallel contriv ance in the civilized world.

The following particulars of the navigation of the Mississippi have here some novelty:

"In descending the river, you meet with islands will give you a sample of the whole. but little variety; a few of the sand bars and When the water is low, you have high muddy banks, quick-sands, and sand-bars; and when full, you might almost as well be at sea. For days together, you will float without meeting any thing like soil in the river, and at the same time be environed by an uninhabitable, and almost impenetrable wilder

trre of the scil, the concave banks of the river are falling in, more or less, during every general fall or rise of the water; and I believe but few people have ever descended it, in either of those states, who have not heard or seen large portions of the banks give way, which are instantly carried off by the current, and the earth, sand, and som of the rubbish, again deposited in the eddies formed by the Convex points below.

"From what has been said, one general caution must necessarily present itself to those concerned in navigating the Mississippi, which is to avoid the concave banks or shores.Many fatal accidents have happened on this rer, either through ignorance of the danger, or inattention in coming to at improper places on the shore, to cook, procure fuel, or for other purposes. We have a late instance of a Mr. McFarling, and part of his crew, being lost by the falling of a bank. When the banks are inundated, they are less dangeTous, being in some measure supported by the water, and not so liable to give way; but the concave shores are still to be avoided, because the water near the bank, and elevated above it, not being confined to the course of the fiver by the lower current, rushes straight for ward among the cane and timber, and if Kentocky boats, as they are called, fall within the draught of this upper current, it will be extremely difficult to relieve them, or prevent their being lost in the woods. Many losses have been sustained from this cause.

tion, rises above the bank, it runs from the river into the swamps with great rapidity, till they are filled to a level with the main current. Those swamps, which communicate immediately with the gulf of Mexico, or the salt water lakes, never fill during the inund tion; consequently the current continues over the banks into them, till the waters full. Advantage hath been taken of this circumstance, in a number of places about New Orleans, for the erection of saw mills, which are found to answer a valuable purpose, and are kept constantly going the whole term of the inundation.

"The first large body of water which leaves the Mississippi, and falls by a regular, and separate channel, into the gulf of Mexico, is the Chafalia. It leaves the Mississippi in the westernmost part of that remarkable bend just below the boundary, and has every appearance of having been formerly a continuation of the Red river, when the Mississippi washed the high land from Clarksville, to the Bayou Tunica, or Willing's creek, the traces of which are yet visible by the lakes, through which a large current yet passes, when the river is high. The distance on a straight line from Clarksville to the Bayou Tunica, is not more than eight miles, but by the present course of the river, it is supposed not to be less than fifty miles. Should the Mississippi break its way through by a shorter course, which is more than a mere probability, the Chafalia will again become a part of the Red river.

hence some

"When the Mississippi is high, the draught into the Chafalia is very strong, and has frequently carried rafts, and likewise some few flats, or Kentucky boats, down it, which are generally lost. This branch, notwithstanding its magnitude, is not navigable to the gulf of Mexico, owing to an immense floating bridge, or raft. across it, of many leagues in length, and so firm and compact in some places, that cattle and horses are driven over on it. This surprizing floating bridge, or raft, is constantly augmented by the trees and rubbish, which the Chafulia draws out of the Mississippi."

As Natchez seems likely to become a metropolis of the back settlements, a center of administration, of literature, and of traffic, it may be useful to notice the quality of its productions.

"The staple commodity of the settlement of Natchez is cotton, which the country produces in great abundance, and of a good qua lity. The making of indigo, and raising tobacco, were carried on with spirit some years ago, but they have both given way to the cultivation of cotton. The country produces maize, or Indian corn, equal, if not superior to any part of the United States. The time of planting it is from the beginning of March, until the beginning of July. The cotton is