them was induced to sit quietly till the author hastily sketched his portrait; at the risk, however, had any untoward accident befallen the man, of being devoted, as a conjuror, to the revenge of his kindred. The description of a young Hippopotamus, which was shot and dragged on shore, is one of the most interesting passages in the work, but too long for our insertion. Two or three full-grown specimens of this enormous quadruped were killed, a few days afterward; and in the stomach of one of them were found upwards of six bushels of chewed grass: its largest intestine, when inflated, measured eight inches in diameter. - As the Acacia Capensis yields Gum-Arabic not inferior to that of the Vera, it is hinted that, under proper management, a sufficient quantity of that substance might be procured in the extra-tropical regions of Southern Africa to supply the consumption of Great Britain.

- The surprize and astonishment expressed by some Koras, on seeing the drawing of a fish which they had recently caught, are well related, and strongly exemplify the workings of simple and untutored minds.

From the Ky-Gariep, the traveller and a few of his attendants returned to Klaarwater, proceeding by a new route, for the sake of exploring more of the country. On the night of the 14th November, during a violent storm of thunder and rain, which seems not to deter the king of beasts from the pursuit of his prey,

The dogs commenced a barking and howling; the whole of the oxen suddenly made efforts to get loose, and began to express that peculiar kind of uneasiness which, in a very intelligible manner, told us that a lion was not far off. There is probably something in the smell of this beast quite different from that of others, by which, at a great distance, especially if to windward, his prey perceive his approach, and are warned to escape their danger, by instant flight. It was this natural or instinctive propensity to fly, which occasioned our oxen to struggle and endeavour to get loose; but fortunately for them, the strength of the reims prevented their doing this. Yet their efforts to disengage themselves were so violent, that my waggon was in great risk of being overturned; and for some time it was unsafe to remain in it. A fire is generally sufficient to hold the lion at a distance; but ours was at this time extinguished by the rain; on which account he pressed closer upon us. Fortunately, some muskets fired at random, or aimed only by guess, had the effect not only of keeping him off, but of quieting, in a great degree, the restlessness of the cattle. The Hottentots say that the oxen have sagacity enough to know that the discharge of muskets, under such circumstances, is for the purpose of driving away their dreaded enemy; and, whatever may be the notions of these poor animals on the subject, such is certainly the effect commonly produced on them,

them, as I often myself witnessed on subsequent occasions. Perhaps it is, that a certain instinct they may possess, enables them to discover that the beast does actually retreat when muskets are fired off. We could discover, from an unusual and peculiar barking of the dogs, that he continued prowling round us till midnight; but his fears to encounter man were the only obstacle to prevent his carrying off his prey; and finding it thus too strongly protected, he at last withdrew.'

On passing up the Kloof, the men toiled under a burning sun to render the road more passable for waggons, contrary to the indolent disposition of native travellers, who seldom labor for a common advantage, even though they themselves should reap the first benefit from it. In this neighbourhood, a kraal of Bushmen exhibited individuals of our species in the lowest degree of the scale of humanity.

Their numbers did not exceed twenty, and their abode was merely a cavern in the side of the mountain, sheltered by huge impending crags. They had no earthly possessions whatever, excepting the miserable bit of dirty skin which hung round them; their bows and arrows, a few hassagays, a knife, and two or three ostrich egg-shells. They had not even a hut, or a few mats, like most of their countrymen. Neither beads, nor any thing intended as ornament, were to be seen upon them; their persons, meagre and filthy, too plainly bespoke that hunger had often been their lot. Except when any game was caught in their pitfalls, which, they complained, seldom happened, the only procurable support of life was the wild roots which they daily dug up in the plains; and these not found but by long and wearisome search: the eggs of ants, the bodies of snakes or lizards, a tortoise, or an ostrich egg, met with accidentally, formed the only variety in their wretched food. Their life, and that of the wild beasts, their fellow-inhabitants of the land, were the same. Of both, the only care seemed to be that of feeding themselves, and of bringing up their young. The four men who visited us to-day exhibited their lank, shrivelled bodies, and dry parched arms and legs, to convince us how much they needed provisions, and how long they had been without grease or animal food. They looked first wishfully at our pots which stood on the fire, and then submissively at us. Truly, these were the most destitute of beings, and the lowest in the scale of man. Their miserable poverty-stricken appearance excited the greatest compassion; and as they stood before me, this wretched picture of human nature created a train of reflections perfectly new to my mind. What I had as yet seen of man in a wild state had amused while it interested and instructed me; but this sad resemblance, in outward shape, to those great, intellectual, and elevated characters, whose genius and talents have made their names immortal among us, distressed me to melancholy; and while my eyes were fixed in painful observation on their vacant countenances, I asked myself, What is man? and had

almost

almost said, Surely all the inhabitants of the globe never sprang from the same origin! These men seemed, indeed, the outcast of the Bushman race. Yet, not to be unjust to them, I must own that I have seen many like them; but not, however, till a later period of my travels. I have now, I think, beheld and known the lowest of the human species; and it has taught me a lesson of humility and gratitude; it has rendered still greater my admiration and respect for men of intellect and cultivated minds; it has also taught me to be thankful to the industrious workman; to feel kind compassion for the uneducated and the uncivilized; and to despise the idle, the arrogant, and vain.'

The portrait of the females is perfectly disgusting; and the intellect of the groupe, as far as it could be ascertained through the medium of an interpreter, was extremely obtuse and limited. In the short space of four days, however, their emaciated aspect had disappeared, in consequence of the good fare of which they had so liberally partaken.

The party having gained the summit of a mountain-range, a most extensive view lay open to the south; while the surrounding soil presented in profusion Tulbaghia alliacea, which smells strongly of garlic during the day, though the flowers give out a sweet and pleasant odor towards the evening.

The principal transactions at Klaarwater, from the 21st of November to the end of the year, consisted in arranging the specimens and observations, in dressing the wounds of one of the attendants whose hand was shattered by the bursting of a gun, and in attempts to procure a sufficient number of Hottentots for the remainder of the expedition; — which were invariably thwarted by the fears or prejudices of the natives, or the machinations of the missionaries.

[To be continued.]

ART. II. Three Enigmas attempted to be explained. By John Frank Newton, Esq. 8vo. pp. 144. 6s. Boards. Hookham.

1821.

TH

HESE Enigmas, the author tells us, are, 1st, the Import of the Twelve Signs; 2dly, the Cause of Ovid's Banishment; and, 3dly, the Eleusinian Secret.

Having long ceased to entertain any hopes of fresh information on the subject of the Eleusinian Secret, which (like that of Free-masonry) probably lies hidden in the multiplicity of its contents, we did not feel our curiosity so strongly excited by an attempt to explain this enigma, as it would have been in the sanguine hours of youth. In our examination of Mr. Christie's most curious and original work on Etruscan Vases,

and

and in a subsequent article on the labours of the Russian mystagogue, M. Ouvaroff, we have recorded our sentiments on this interesting but faded matter of antiquity. The Import of the Twelve Signs' we confess to be still less exciting; and with a very languid attention should we peruse any records of that wondrous science which occupied the thoughts, and perhaps occasionally exalted the genius, of "glorious John Dryden," or employed the leisure hours of that last of British astrologers, "Guy Mannering." Not so with regard to the Cause of Ovid's Banishment." All that relates to the fame and fortunes of this most fascinating poet (worth all the antient and modern romancers put together!) must be interesting to the scholar and the man of literary acquirements, be they of whatever description.

With these impressions we opened the work before us, and were soon gratified to find that all the enigmas were, in fact, connected; that the Import of the Twelve Signs' was supposed to involve the Eleusinian Secret,' and that the unconscious betrayal of the Eleusinian Secret' was the imputed Cause of Ovid's Banishment.' We must confess, however, that it is wholly impossible for us, within the limits which we must assign to this publication, (under the extraordinary press of matter which makes every month a moon in labour,) to discuss adequately all the points on which Mr. Newton has touched, without any full or sufficient explanation. He has given a succession of loose and (as it appears to us) detached sentences, on the allusions to the Twelve Signs in the Heathen Mythology; and, although every stick of what should be a faggot is so far on fire as to emit a fitful light, still, as there is no band of asbestos to tie them together, they burn out rapidly in little streaks of flame, and produce neither brilliancy nor warmth enough to guide and animate us through so dark and cold an inquiry. Yet, notwithstanding the disparagement conveyed in this ungenial metaphor, we are ready to allow that very considerable reading, and much ingenuity, are displayed in this little volume; though it is wanting in a powerful and closely connected chain of argument, depending on a luminous order of facts; and, in so hypothetical a matter, it really is scarcely fair to require our assent without some approach at least to these qualities in disputation.

We shall therefore hold ourselves excused from any abstract, properly so called, of the author's reasonings on the zodiac, or elucidation of the mysteries of Eleusis. If such

* That this, however, is a most curious and even important subject, weneed no farther evidence than Sir W. Drummond's " Edipus Judaicus" to convince us.

an abstract were properly executed, indeed, it would wholly supersede the original work. We meddle not, consequently, with the Zodiac and Eleusis; any farther than as they are connected with Ovid and the Euxine sea !!!

What, then, was the cause of Ovid's banishment? Was it the sight of unutterable things, as so many critics have contended; or was it the ignorant revelation of matters still more unutterable, (if there be degrees in speechlessness!) as the present author argues? The older hypothesis we shall not here formally discuss, but to Mr. Newton's solution we are bound to pay some attention: for which purpose we shall state the matter as he has stated it, and then offer some cursory remarks on the proofs which he has adduced, from the Tristia and the epistles De Ponto, of the correctness of his own interpretation.

In the poet's first elegy from the shores of the Euxine, he divides all his works into two classes: the guiltless, and the guilty. The mischievous portion he makes to consist of the Art of Love and the Metamorphoses; but in the epistle to Cotys, King of Thessaly, (lib. ii. epist. 9.) he states that the Art of Love was the pretext only of his exile. Consequently, the Metamorphoses were the sole cause of his ruin.

The verses which occasioned Augustus's displeasure appear to be in the concluding book of that pre-eminent composition. • Pressus humo bellator equus crabronis origo est.

Concava litoreo si demas brachia cancro,
Cætera supponas terræ, de parte sepulta

Scorpius exibit, caudâque minabitur unca. Lib. xv. v. 368.
The warlike steed is multiplied, we find,

To wasps and hornets of the warrior kind.
Cut from a Crab his crooked claws, and hide
The rest in earth, a Scorpion thence will glide
And shoot his sting; his tail in circles toss'd,
Refers the limbs his backward father lost.

DRYDEN.'

It is contended by Mr. Newton, through many desultory but ingenious pages, that these lines unconsciously revealed the Eleusinian secret; and we offer the following specimen of his explanation of Pressus humo bellator equus, &c. &c.

The chaotic Crabfish, destined in this portentous march of the fates to preside in her turn, is converted, by terrestrial contamination, into the Scorpion; as we have seen stated by Ovid. The Scorpion, or Evil Principle, urges man to borrow the assistance of the horse, that he may attain the wild animals in the chase, and commix his diet, which before was simply vegetable; as is signified by the ears of corn in the hand of Virgo, and by the heavyladen fruit-tree contiguous to that celestial sign in the Egyptian planisphere, according to Kircher. The Archer, and the Goat,