Hume or Smith; and believe we might retort the charge of longueurs, in the name of the whole English nation, upon one half of the French classic authors-upon their Rollin and their Massillon-their D'Alembert-their Buffon-their Helvetiusand the whole tribe of their dramatic writers:—while as to repetitions, we are quite certain that there is no one English author who has repeated the same ideas half so often as Voltaire himself-certainly not the most tedious of the fraternity. She complains also of a want of warmth and animation in our prose writers. And it is true that Addison and Shaftesbury are cold; but the imputation only convinces us the more, that she is unacquainted with the writings of Jeremy Taylor, and that illustrious train of successors which has terminated, we fear, in the person of Burke. Our debates in parliament, she says, are more remarkable for their logic than their rhetoric; and have more in them of sarcasm, than of poetical figure and ornament. And no doubt it is so-and must be so-in all the discussions of permanent assemblies, occupied from day to day, and from month to month, with great questions of internal legislation or foreign policy. If she had heard Fox or Pitt, however, or Burke or Windham, or Grattan, we cannot conceive that she should complain of our want of animation; and, warm as she is in her encomiums on the eloquence of Mirabeau, and some of the orators of the first revolution, she is forced to confess, that our system of eloquence is better calculated for the detection of sophistry, and the effectual enforcement of all salutary truth. We really are not aware of any other purposes which eloquence can serve in a great national assembly.

Here end her remarks on our English literature-and here we must contrive also to close this desultory account of her lucubrations-though we have accompanied her through little more than one half of the work before us. It is impossible, however, that we can now find room to say any thing of her exposition of German or of French literature-and still less of her anticipations of the change which the establishment of a Republican government in the last of those countries is likely to produce,

or of the hints and cautions with which, in contemplation of that event, she thinks it necessary to provide her countrymen. These are perhaps the most curious parts of the work:-But we cannot enter upon them at present;-and indeed, in what we have already said, we have so far exceeded the limits to which we always wish to confine ourselves, that we do not very well know what apology to make to our readers-except merely, that we are not without hope, that the miscellaneous nature of the VOL. XXI, NO. 41.

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subject, by which we have been insensibly drawn into this great prolixity, may have carried them also along, with as moderate a share of fatigue as we have ourselves experienced. If it be otherwise—we must have the candour and the gallantry to say, that we are persuaded the fault is to be imputed to us, and not to the ingenious author upon whose work we have been employed; and that, if we had confined ourselves to a mere abstract of her lucubrations, or interspersed fewer of our own remarks with the account we have attempted to give of their substance, we might have extended this article to a still greater length, without provoking the impatience even of the more fastidious of our readers. As it is, we feel that we have done but scanty justice, either to our author or her subject-though we can now make no other amends, than by earnestly entreating our readers to study both of them for themselves.

ART. II. Travels into Southern Africa in the Years 1803, 1804', 1805 and 1806. By HENRY LICHTENSTEIN, Doctor in Medicine, and Professor of Natural History in the University of Berlin, &c. &c. Translated from the German by ANNE PLUMPTRE. London, 1812.

T THE southern part of Africa is a country so singular, both in what relates to its natural and moral history, and is still so imperfectly known, that almost any account of it must prove interesting. The work before us adds to these general sources of interest, that of being the production of a man particularly conversant with natural history, who travelled at considerable leisure, and in circumstances favourable to the study both of the country and its inhabitants. After the restoration of the Cape to the Dutch at the peace of Amiens, it was thought proper that the Commissary-General DE MIST should make a tour through the colony, which he accordingly set out on in 1803. The expedition consisted of about eighteen or nineteen people, among whom were the daughter of the Commissary, AUGUSTA DE MIST, with a female friend from the Cape-Town; also our author, with his pupil the eldest son of General JANSENS, &c. A number of servants, and a party of dragoons, made up a suitable retinue for a magistrate of the first rank. No better opportunity, and certainly no more agreeable onc, could easily offer itself to a young naturalist, of exploring a new and unknown

country.

The volume now given to the public is but the first part of the work; and, owing to some notions of method and order

of which we cannot entirely approve, it is deprived of much interesting information, reserved, it would seem, for the subsequent volumes. Though the author carried with him a compass and a thermometer, he rarely informs us of the direction of the road, or the temperature of the air; and of two barometers, we find, as is so often the fate of that unfortunate instrument, that one was broken, and the other left behind. There is a defect of information concerning the face of the country. Of the nature of the rocks very little is said: And we regret that Mineralogy and Geology are not the parts of natural history to which Dr Lichtenstein has turned much of his attention. The English bookseller has done wrong in sending out the translation without the map which accompanies the original, on which the author seems to have bestowed a great deal of attention. It is but justice, however, to remark, that the translation itself appears to be well executed ; that the translator is a mistress both of the German and of her own language; and seems to be well acquainted with the subject of the book. On the whole, we think the volume before us is valuable and interesting, though inferior, in some respects, to what might have been expected from the character and situation of the author. The narrative wears greatly the appearance of truth: In treating of controverted points, it is full of moderation and candour; so that we have derived great satisfaction from the perusal of what is now before us, and have been led to form considerable expectations of what is to follow. It would however be in vain to think of attending our author regularly through a quarto volume of more than 380 pages: We shall confine ourselves to the particulars that seem most remarkable in the natural history of the country and the manners of the inhabitants, particularly of the Caffres, about whom more information is given here than in any other work we are acquainted with.

They began their journey about the 9th of October, answering, in point of season, to the same day of April in our hemisphere; and directed their course northward along the western coast. From thence their route was to take a direction inland toward the south-east, and to proceed as far as the eastern boundary of the colony, a distance of more than five hundred miles. This line of march is almost the longest, and, we doubt not, nearly the most interesting that the colony affords.

Travelling in waggons drawn by oxen is peculiar to this country; and the dexterity acquired by the drivers is a strong proof of what practice and necessity can accomplish, in the most unfavourable circumstances. All the address of our European

waggon-drivers, (the author might say, of our European coachmen), vanishes entirely before the very superior dexterity of the African colonists. In a very brisk trot, or even a gallop, they are perfect masters of eight oxen; and avoid, with the ut most skill, every hole and every stone in the road.

The route of our travellers led them by the shores of Saldanha Bay, on the west side of the promontory, the finest and largest harbour in Southern Africa. The predominance of accident over the general considerations of fitness and utility, have given to Table Bay the importance that ought certainly to have belonged to that of Saldanha. The project of making this bay the principal harbour of the colony, is discussed at some length; and the chief reason which our author alleges against it, is that Saldanha Bay being more exposed to an attack from the sea than Table Bay, the first breaking out of a war would put the English in possession of it, and consequently of the settlement. This, of course, will not deter the English from adopting the measure, if it is found in other respects desireable. Whether a sufficient supply of fresh water can be obtained, appears somewhat problematical. It has been proposed to conduct the Bergriver, which at present runs into St Helena Bay a little farther to the north, into Saldanha Bay. As the Berg-river is one of the few in this part of Africa which is never dry, if the proposed cut can be made, there is no doubt that the supply would be sufficient. Lichtenstein says this bay is ill laid down in all the maps. He places its mouth in lat. 32° 52' south; Barrow, in 33° 10′; but this last being conformable to La Caille's, is probably the most accurate determination. *

* Our author does not take notice, as a man of science might have been expected to do, that he was now passing over the ground where LA CAILLE had measured a degree of the meridian, and had exhibited to southern Africa at least one example, in which the exertions of European energy were neither prompted by the love of riches nor the love of power. The base he measured had its western extremity a few miles distant from the south end of Saldanha Bay, and running eastward across the sandy plain of Swartzland to the distance of 6467 toises. From this he determined, by means of no more than four triangles, the length of a line extending 69668 toises north from the Cape town; and thence he inferred the length of the degree of the meridian, bisected by the parallel of 33° 18′ S. to be 57037 toises. This was the first degree measured in the southern hemisphere, at a distance from the equator; and as it is as great as a degree in the northern hemisphere much farther from that circle, it gives reason to conclude, that the earth is more compressed at the south pole than at the north.

The state of the colonists throughout the great tract of country that composes the settlement of the Cape, is in many respects quite singular. An idea may be formed of the scale on which their solitary and extensive farms are laid out, from what is here stated of one on the side of the Berg-river, where the party of the Commissary-General halted, in its way from the coast inland. We found the house of Mr Laubscher very indifferent looking as to the exterior, but comfortable within; while the number and size of the outbuildings sufficiently showed our host to be a inan of no inconsiderable wealth. He maintained a sort of patriarchal household, of which some idea may be formed from this, that the stock of the farm consisted of 80 horses, 690 head of horned cattle, 2470 sheep, with an immense quantity of poultry of all kinds. The family itself, including masters, servants, Hottentots, and slaves, consisted of 105 persons, whose subsistence was derived from the farm. The quantity of corn sown on it this year was 61 bushels.' It requires us to consider both the fertility of the soil, which returns from 40 to 100 fold, and the great use made of animal food, before we can see, in this moderate quantity of grain sown, any thing like an adequate provision for the food of 105 people during a whole year.

When the number of people to be maintained is so great, the. surplus produce is little more than sufficient to procure the articles of inanufacture, a few foreign luxuries, and some raw materials, such as iron, pitch, &c, which are necessary for the farm. It is by these only that the African colonist is connected with the rest of the world. All the different handicraft works necessary for the farm are performed by the slaves; and the principal dwelling is surrounded by work-shops of every kind. It may be easily seen that the master himself, who has such an extensive household to look after, cannot lead a life of the supine indolence described by some authors. Here Lichtenstein blames BARROW for his accusations against the African colonists, and particularly his charge of extreme sloth and inactivity. could not,' says he, but daily ask myself, whether these men were the same African colonists which the celebrated Mr BARRow represented as such barbarians, and such more than half savages so much did I find reality in contradiction to his descriptions.' We are here much inclined to be on our author's side. Barrow's book, though the work of a sensible and active-minded man, carries along with it many marks of those prejudices which so often prevent the people of this country from seeing any thing estimable in customs that dif fer from their own. It is hasty and superficial; and being