tleman arrived at Amherstburg, from Portland, U.S., to which place the fellows had fled, who stated that they admitted to have lost 80 in killed, wounded, and missing; many of the latter were drowned in endeavour ing to make their escape across the ice.

It may here be necessary to add, that the main body of the troops, under Colonel Maitland, after having scoured the island in every direc tion without firing a shot, or even seeing an enemy, arrived at Captain Browne's position about three hours after the attack had been made, of which they knew nothing, not having heard the firing. It was ascertained from the wounded prisoners that Major Hudley had watched the light approaching upon the ice until he witnessed the separation of the troops, when he determined upon attacking Captain Browne's party with his whole force, and thus make good his retreat to the American shore, not daring to await the attack of the main body, which he saw was provided with artillery.

Colonel Maitland, and the troops under his command, returned to Amherstburg at eleven o'clock on the night of the 3rd of March.

6

A RAMBLE AMIDST THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS OF SOCOTRA. By Lieut. J. R. WELLSTED, F.R.S., F.R.A.S., &c., Author of Travels in Arabia.' [Read at a late Evening Meeting of the United Service Museum.] CIRCUMSTANCES Connected with my public duties, while engaged in a maritime survey of Southern Arabia, induced me to wander for two months over this solitary and almost unknown island. It was reported to be equally insalubrious with the eastern coast of Africa, off which it lies; but I slept in caverns, on rocks, and under trees, during the whole period, without my own health suffering to any considerable extent. It may, however, be observed of travellers in general, that, while on the move and under the excitement of a variety of successive objects passing before them, they rarely fall sick, while, should the same individual remain stationary in an insalubrious district, irritation of mind, from delay or other causes, but too frequently predisposes and effects such a result. I know not a more singular spot on the whole surface of the globe than the Island of Socotra; it stands forth a verdant isle in a sea, girt by two most inhospitable shores, yet its wooded mountains, its glens, is sparkling streams differ not more from their parched and burning deserts, their bleak and wasted hills, than do its mild and inoffensive inhabitants from the savage and ferocious hordes by which they are traversed. Strange, too, as is the anomaly of 5000 people, all split into different tribes, and existing without laws or government; yet offences against the good order of society appear less frequent than with even the more civilised nations of Europe. My pursuits and researches were certainly calculated to excite suspicion with a bigoted or ignorant people, yet I met with no interruption on my former visit, although journeying alone without any other protection than the good feeling I might excite in my

progress.

I learnt, upon a visit some months after that here alluded to, that it was anticipated a British force would soon occupy the island, and I, there. fore, became exceedingly anxious that some spot should be looked for

which would answer for the transmission of their invalids. Now Europeans attacked by tropical disorders are, if the elevation is sufficiently considerable, very generally restored to health by a residence on mountainous tracts. Such a ridge, many of its points elevated 5000 feet above the level of the sea, rises close over the town of Tamarida, the station it was proposed the force should occupy, and appeared at once to answer admirably for such a purpose. I had on my previous visit examined them but cursorily, but I now determined by a residence thereon for several days to set the matter wholly beyond doubt.

My preparations were soon made: the necessary instruments for meteorological and other observations, a small gipsy tent to protect me from the dews at night, and my cloak, were all I cared to provide myself with; for provisions I depended upon what I could obtain on the mountain. My only companion was John Sunday, a Nubian boy, who had been the sharer of my wanderings for years; his history is somewhat interesting.

I was fond of leading him to discourse on this, his country, and his friends. He preserved a distinct recollection of his father's hut, and the various articles of furniture within it, and of the kindness of an old village priest who taught them the Koran. They subsisted principally by hunting; and it was in one of these excursions, when about twelve years of age, that he was kidnapped by some of his own relatives, and sold to a slave-dealer at Berber, on the Nile; hence he was driven across the desert twenty days to Suakin, a port in the Red Sea. At this period it was considered advisable to man the East India Company's vessels of war partly with Africans, and he was accordingly manumitted and received on board: his figure was tall and thin, but well proportioned: he had the crisp and curly hair of the negro, without his flattened nose or thick lip; on the contrary, his features were regular and pleasing, partaking more of the Abyssinian than the negro cast.

By the wish of the sailors, like Robinson Crusoe's man Friday, he received his sobriquet, John Sunday, from the day he came on board: and, in their opinion, furnished an additional reason why he should be speedily made a Christian; but this was not so easily done: he was as wild and active as a goat: for some days it was impossible to convince him but that he was destined to be eaten, and he had an especial horror of the boatswain, who to a most capacious mouth added a truly formidable range of teeth; he had but to expand the one and display the other in a grin, and off the poor little fellow would scamper, and take shelter in some obscure nook in the hold, from whence it was impossible for some time to dislodge him. As he had accompanied the caravan the whole time on foot, his condition at first was very miserable, but for some time he refused food under an impression that we were merely desirous of rendering him better fitted for our epicurean palates. When he got rid of this by perceiving that we persisted in eating as other people did, he gradually acquired our habits, was taught to eat with a knife and fork "like a Christian," as his now particular friend the boatswain said, and at length to the sailors' great delight was taught to take the half allowance of grog, which boys in a vessel of war are always permitted to draw: for some time, however, I am afraid that this gradual violation of the Temperance Society rules of his countrymen was a source of more gratification to the boatswain's friends than himself; for, when he first took charge of Sunday, it was observed by those malig

nant persons, who are over-desirous of peering into the actions and affairs of others, that the notes of his pipe after meals, before he called all hands, were richer, more mellifluous, more lengthened, terminating with a smart flourish, than before; all of which, however, in proportion to Sunday's increased capacity for relieving his friend from the painful duty of swallowing the pernicious poison, gradually declined to their former simple severity. Pork he manfully resisted for some months, nor did he ever take kindly to it; the noise it made in frying used to surprise and disgust him; he never would remain near it if he could escape. I am not surprised at this aversion, arising as much from religion as from the deep-rooted aversion to the swine all must imbibe who have only seen it in the East; there it is a tall, gaunt, half-famished, and half-ferocious-looking brute, which performs the office of sca

venger.

After he had in some measure mastered the colloquial of our language, myself and brother-officers amused ourselves with teaching him reading and writing on most points his progress and comprehension were on a par with the mere European, excepting in the power of figures, which he could never be made to understand on paper; but set him to make a bargain, however complicated the details, and it very soon became apparent his talents were not to be despised.

He attached himself at an early period to me, and has accompanied me on journeys for many hundred miles. In sickness, in health, in danger, or in privation, I ever found him the same brave and faithful creature. I had but one fault to find with him; his desire to save me from being fleeced got him frequently into scrapes with the natives; no reasoning with him could prevent this. One of the grand secrets in successful travelling in the East is to permit yourself to be cheated with your eyes open. Sunday often spoke with much feeling of his mother, his sisters, and other relations he had left behind him; and I have then inquired of him, if he was desirous of returning to them? He always replied, despondingly, that if they had escaped the same fate as himself, which he feared they had not, the difference in their religion would prevent them from ever receiving him. He once met a fellow-villager in Egypt, but was so ashamed at having fallen from the faith of his fathers, that he could not muster courage to speak to him, and inquire into the fate of all those he still held dearest. Those who have sought to degrade the African below the ordinary level of the human race, describe them as possessing the social relations in but a weak degree. My own experience enables me to give a decided negative to such a position, for in this respect I should place them far above the Asiatics.

To return from this digression. On the morning of the 10th January, 1835, we quitted the vessel, and two hours' brisk walking along a shepherd's track brought us to the base of the mountains. The atmosphere was so close and sultry, that I was bathed in prespiration, and received with much thankfulness a bowl of milk which some Bedouins tendered to me. Imagining I should suffer from the cold as much as themselves, they laughed at the idea of my passing several days there, and predicted that the morrow would again find me on the plains. I gladly, however, accepted the offer of two of their number, who tendered their services to act as guides and carry the tent, which had been brought thus far on the back of a camel.

We ascended by Wadí Aïuf, a precipitous and rugged glen, very narrow, and thickly wooded. The soil was a rich, dark loam, nourishing a great variety of beautiful flowers. After two hours' hard fagging, climbing in many places, and holding on by the roots and branches of trees, we halted about 3 P.M. under an impending rock. A few minutes before we did so, I was very nearly bitten by a snake which the natives call Java, and the bite of which, they say, proves mortal in the course of a few hours. It had, apparently, just gorged a bird or some reptile, for it was lying in a half-torpid state, partially coiled round the branch of a tree, which in colour it so nearly resembled, that, though my hand was nearly touching the head, I did not distinguish it. Sunday, more

quick-sighted, did; and I drew my hand hastily away as it was rearing its head. We killed him. It is singular, much as my wanderings put me in the way of meeting with snakes, and numerous as they are described to be on this island, yet this is the only occasion in which I have been put so nearly in contact with them.

What a delightful and grateful change, from the over-heated and sultry atmosphere below, to the coolness and invigorating freshness of these regions! Seating myself on the verge of a precipice overhanging the valley, I gazed on the scene around. Every object, after being so long accustomed to the naked, arid scenery of Arabia, was novel and interesting. I have travelled much amidst the mountain scenery of that country, of Persia, and of India, but that of Socotra, in wildness and romantic grandeur, surpasses all. The sun at this early period of the day was sinking beneath the Western Mountains, and their shadows already obscured the lower portions of the glen; the clustering foliage, clothing portions more elevated, was yet warmed by its golden beams, which, partially obscured by the trees under which I was seated, then agitated by the wind, fell in checkered and variegated light around us, while many and beautiful tints illumined the rugged and pinnacled summits of the naked granite spires which tower above all. On the opposite side of the glen a clear and sparkling stream holds its wild and sportive course, here peeping forth from beneath the foliage, glowing and quivering in the sunbeams, or there hurrying forward to lose itself for a brief space in the clear blue pool beneath. On that craggy pinnacle above, where, at this distance, it appeared difficult to conceive that the foot of man could have found a resting-place, is perched a shepherd, his figure standing out in bold relief against the blue vault of heaven. His voice alone breaks the stillness of the scene, the peculiar shrillness rendering it distinguishable from afar, while his flocks, in obedience to his call, are perceived wending their serpentine course down the almost perpendicular face of the mountains.

When daylight had ceased to soften the picture, I rejoined Sunday, who was busily employed cooking, after the Socotrean manner, a kid, which had a few minutes before been brought by a Bedouin: the bones were first removed, and the whole mass was then thrown into an earthen pot. Some rice, in addition to this, formed an excellent meal, to which the whole party sat down. Sunday and myself, at first, with the advantage of our knives, held the lead, but were soon compelled to relinquish it; our best were but puny efforts, compared to those of our rivals, who did not desist until they had cleared the board. The capacity of these islanders in such matters is indeed prodigious, and they

often expressed surprise at the far smaller quantity of food which sufficed us. In the evening I accompanied the new comers to their cave, which was situated a short distance further up the mountain. Abundance of fuel was at hand, and a blazing fire soon reared its cheerful flames before us. As these rose red and flickering and in fantastic wreaths to the roof, it lighted up a wild and romantic scene. The irregular surface of the projecting masses in the interior of the cave stood forth in bold relief, while the lofty arched roof, and numerous caverns more retiring and remote, were lost in the deepest gloom. Nor was the interest of the scene lessened by the appearance of my companions, whose half-naked figures, plaited hair, and peculiar marked and expressive countenances were also in savage keeping with the rest of the picture. Some of the party spoke Arabic, and I was in consequence able to converse with them. I was most anxious, since they had been in pretty constant communication with the English for some time, to know what they thought of us, as contrasted with other visiters. Their reply was a very simple one: "You always pay for what you receive, and never maltreat us or our females, as the pilgrims and others who have touched here did before you; so that we, who at first always fled at your approach, no longer do so, but bring our sheep, as have witnessed this evening, and eat them with you.' you "" I observe that more than one foreign traveller in the East has brought a charge against the English, that they are repulsive and imperious in their demeanour towards the Asiatics, and are, consequently, hated by them. This is just one of those sweeping clauses which sounds high, and has just enough of truth in it to allow of its occupying the attention until we reason or examine the grounds for such a position. No European can be liked in the East; both the Hindoo and Mahomedan religions forbid it; but, let it be asked, what other European nation has been more successful than ourselves in obtaining their good wishes? The Dutch, the Portuguese, the French-they were severally in power in India. Were they then loved more than ourselves, or than they are now at Java, Manilla, and Algiers? Had the English been in possession of the latter city as long as the French, I think our relations with the Bedouins which surround it would have been different, and that we should have been able to have shown ourselves without the walls without the certainty of being shot at from every bush. Admit that the manners of my countrymen are not the most bland and conciliatory in the world, to what high moral attributes and principle are we to ascribe the superior regard and consideration an Englishman enjoys in those countries over most other foreigners? "I observe this difference between an Englishman and any other Frank," said a merchant once to me in Cairo; I believe the word of the former, I do not that of the latter. When another Frank owes me money I am anxious to get it paid, for I am convinced he will not do so until he is absolutely obliged. With an Englishman, on the contrary, I feel no anxiety, for he seeks me out and seems uncomfortable until my debt is discharged." We may laugh at an Englishman squandering his money in other parts of the world, but it is not inconsistent (considering their relative positions there) with oriental notions in these countries.

After remaining talking with these simple people until a very late hour, I returned to the rock under which we had first encamped. Sunday