tance being doubled at least by the winding course given to the conduit, which passed sometimes by tunnels through mountains, and in other places crossed valleys on arches. The object of the formation of these immense cisterns was to obviate the difficulty which might arise from an investing enemy cutting off the supply of water.

The author receives a visit from her dragoman's daughter; a Jewess, of whom she gives a very graphic account:—

"I forgot yesterday to mention the visit of our dragoman's daughter. She is a Jewess of seventeen, lately married, and she came to us dressed all in her best, that we might bestow our entire admiration upon her, for therein consists the most exquisite enjoyment known to Moorish women. The costume of this country is exceedingly tasteless. A prole stuffed as thick as one's arm, which the Jewish women wear round their waists, is the only thing in which their dress differs from that of the Musselman women. This girdle is called zonnar, a word evidently derived from the Greek zone. Our Jewish visitor wore an unusually thick gold chain wound several times round her neck, and having appended from it several pieces of ill-cut coral to serve as charms against the evil eye; her ear-rings were of remarkably fine large pearls. From the back of her head hung a whole wardrobe: first two large heavy tassels of silver, and blue silk, at the ends of long ribbands: then two gay-coloured handkerchiefs embroidered with silver, and next a black kerchief to show that she was married. Her whole person looked like a promiscuous heap of rich stuffs: to describe the forms of her various garments were impossible. Half of the most garment-like pieces she wore were of lilac-coloured silk; the other half of silver-grey silk; the sleeves were richly brocaded, and looked like tortoise shell cases for her enormously thick arms. When she took leave of us she wrapped herself up in no end of a shawl of fine white woollen stuff— it must have been at least eight ells long. It muffled her from head to foot, and it required no little dexterity to put it on in that way without covering the eyes or letting one of the ends trail on the ground. The eye-brows, eyelids, and nails of this young beauty were tinged with henna, as usual with Moorish women.

"This favourite adornment, which they deem indispensable to the completion of their charms, is obtained by drying and pulverizing the leaves of a plant called alhenna or henna, large plantations of which grow at Gab on the eastern coast of Africa. Every marketplace in the Tunisian regency affords the Moorish fair ones a supply of this admired cosmetic. The depth of colour is proportionate to the greater or less quantity of the powder employed, but the most usual shade is a fine bright orange yellow. They not only disfigure with it their feet, hands, eyes, and lips, but even disguise with it the fine natural hue of their hair. When our bedizened Jewess took leave of us, I was obliged to kiss her on both cheeks, and so overpowering was the scent of the attar of rose, musk, and countless mixed perfumes which she exhaled, that for a moment I could have fancied myself in the shop of the famous perfume dealer, Ludovico, in Constantinople."

The author gives her English countrywomen the credit of adapting themselves with singular facility to the circumstances of a new position, and illustrates her opinion by adducing the case of a Mrs. Davis, the wife of a missionary of the Scottish Church at Tunis. Married at seventeen, and literally transplanted from a quiet English school to a foreign and uncongenial country, without experience of the world or even of domestic duties, she yet contrived to overcome all the difficulties of her new position. She soon acquired the Arabic language sufficiently well to converse with the natives; and became so excellent an economist of time that she not only educates her own two children, but, with the aid of an unmarried sister, presides over a small school. Her household affairs in the meantime are kept in excellent order, and she continues to devote a few hours to music, and, adds the author, "is as cheerful and light-hearted as a girl of seventeen."

We remember once calling the attention of a Turkish Bey, on a visit in England, to a vase of very beautiful roses; but he told us with a smile of something very like contempt that they were not to be compared with the roses in Turkey. Tunis would seem also to be famous for its flowers:

"I had heard that the Flora of the Tunisian regency was indescribably beautiful, and in this excursion I had opportunities to perceive that it surpasses all that the imagination of an European could conceive of it. The present (April) is the most favourable season for the contemplation of its beauties, for now all nature wears its most blooming aspect. We rode, literally, over a carpet of flowers of the brightest hues. The manifold variety of the blue flowers and the lustre of their different shades was very striking. At some distance across the plain we saw a blue gleam, just such as would be caused by the reflection of the cloudless sky in a sheet of water left standing after heavy rain ; but as the weather was dry we thought this explanation of the phenomenon was improbable, and rode up to the blue spot to investigate its real nature. Great was our surprise to find that what we had taken for a broad watery mirror was nothing but a great bed of the most beautiful wild flowers. Never in my life did I so much regret as I did this day that I was not a botanist. I can well imagine with what intense delight any one possessing some knowledge of that interesting science might investigate the Flora of these regions."

The description of our fair traveller's excursion on a visit to a temple in the neighbourhood of Zowan is graphically given, and exhibits the lady's courage and perseverance in a very striking light:

"I will not attempt to convey the least idea of the sort of ground

we had to cross. At first we agreed our people must have made a mistake, or that they had made a wager that they would take us the frightful steeple-chase; but when we found that things did not mend, but that we had to scramble over and through every gulley, swamp, stream, hole, and thicket, and that to our repeated question, what they meant by exposing us to such dangers, our people only returned the laconic answer, Quest' è la strada'-then, indeed, we began to think the affair was no joke. We had no choice, however, but to resign ourselves to our fate, and heroically to meet, as it seemed, inevitable death à la Mazeppa. We hugged our horses' necks with the gripe of fell despair-fear and amazement paralysed every tongue, and the only sound that broke the silence was the tottering tread of the horses over the loose beds of stone, or the cursing and swearing of our men when the animals all refused to commit suicide by plunging down a precipice or climbing up a perpendicular face of rock. There occurred truly critical moments in which we quite involuntarily put ourselves into positions of increased danger, because it was impossible to pause and reflect, or to turn back. In spite, however, of our anxiety and danger, I could not help laughing when one of our men, whose horse was in so perpendicular an attitude that the rider could not keep his seat, lost his fez, and thereupon a long-tangled lock rolled snake-like down from his shaven head upon his back. I have been told that all Mahommedans keep one unshorn lock on their heads, which Mohammed, as some say, is to cut off at his second appearance; or with which, as others opine, the prophet is to pull the wearers up to heaven."

We were not aware of the points of faith ascribed in the last sentence to the followers of Mahomet. We had, not long since, a conversation with a very intelligent Mahommedan, who, although he ranked his prophet far above the Messiah, did not believe in the re-appearance of the former, though he did in that of our Saviour, who, according to his account, would return to earth, when there would be forty years peace, and then Christ would judge the world. In fact, from what we could gather from our informant, the Turkish creed is a better sort of Unitarianism.

But to follow our traveller on her excursion to the temple:

"In spite of all dangers and difficulties we reached the temple in safety. It is situated two miles from the town of Zowan, at the foot of a very craggy mountain, but still at a considerable elevation above the plain. It is built over several springs, which here unite and supply water to the gigantic aqueduct which reaches to Carthage, a distance of seventy-two Italian miles. The temple is a hundred and eighteen feet long and as many wide. In the northern end there is a niche where stood a statue of Hercules, Diana, or Minerva-among divinities the usual protectors of springs and fountains. The rest of the temple

is uncovered, but was formerly surrounded by a broad gallery with twenty-six columns. Between the two flights of steps leading to the temple is a large basin shaded by tropic plants. Here we reposed for awhile after our fatiguing ride, enjoying the concert prepared for us by a choir of nightingales and a multitude of other birds. A garden abounding with all sorts of tropical and other plants, which stands on the bank of the rivulet and belongs to a Morocco man, contributed not a little to adorn this delicious spot, where I would fain have tarried longer and yielded myself up wholly to the fascinations of nature. But we were obliged to tear ourselves away, and only consecrate to the recollection of this lovely scene a place in the picture gallery of our fancy.

"Ali and our other guides seemed really to have a design upon our lives; and, though we had been preserved by a special providence from all accident on our way to the temple, yet for my part I fully expected to be left for dead on the last part or our journey. We had to ride for some space along a deep narrow gulley with the water reaching to our horses' knees, and the bushes on either side so thick and entangled as to be quite impenetrable. At last I found myself in a horrible thorn brake, from which I could not extricate myself without leaving half my clothes, and perhaps a portion of my face behind me. Fortunately my horse was barricaded like myself and could not stir. In that unpleasant position I was forced to remain until Ali and the dragoman had cut away the branches about me with their sabres; and as they could not see me, but laid about them at a venture, I did not feel at all at ease whilst the operation was going on. But we were fully compensated for all our trouble by the charming scenery through which we passed. I can only say of the country round Zowan that it is the most beautiful I have ever seen, whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa, and that it combines together the charms of all other lands."

Having somewhat exceeded the limits which we had proposed to ourselves in illustrating a subject which, in these times, when the remains of long-buried cities are daily cast up, will not be found by our readers to be void of attraction, we have only now to commend these pleasant volumes to the perusal and patronage of the public. They not only, by the charm of their style and the graphic vividness of their descriptions, chain our attention from "title-page to colophon," but they inspire us with a personal interest not merely in the adventures but in the character of the author, whom we shall rejoice to meet again as a traveller, a capacity in which she has so ably and gracefully acquitted herself,

VOL. XXVIII,-E E

398

ART. VII.-The Method of the Divine Government, Physical and Moral. By Rev. JAMES M'Cosн, A.M. Second Edition. Sutherland and Knox, Edinburgh.

WHAT can, in August, be said in praise of a work that first issued from the press in January 1850, and came forth in a second edition in the following July? Our praise, if we had any to give, would even thus quickly have become stale, or would appear to be almost imperatively commanded of us by the later edition, instead of being freely and deliberately conceded by us to the former.

It certainly, however, argues very great and unusual merit in the work, and a very healthy state of the public mind, that so large a volume on such a subject should so eagerly be purchased and so generally be read, since no common readers would peruse this work: the million would find no amusement in it, and but few among them would comprehend it. The truth is, it is a book for the age we live in-a masterly production of an eminently vigorous mind-the work of a man who writes from the fulness of his knowledge and from his clear perception of the truth-whose keen eye has discovered the errors of various philosophies, falsely so called, and whose powerful understanding has combined together facts and conclusions, and made out of multitudinous and at times seemingly discordant materials a system of philosophy that every good man will applaud and that every Christian will rejoice over and be thankful for. It is a work that, with the closest reasoning, displays great learning and extensive reading: an exuberant imagination and a command of language that suits itself with the most natural facility to the many and ever varying portions of the subject-sometimes expressing the loftiest conceptions in the most glowing and spirit-stirring phrases; at others scattering flowers on the path by which it gently leads us on to the recess of some hidden truth which it brings forward to the light.

As to the various philosophical systems which have at different times appeared as if to shew man's innate ill-will to God-his impiety and depravity-with all these the author deals as they deserve-temperately but logically: he exposes their errors, points out their fallacies, and discloses their consequences; but in all cases does full justice to the talents they display, and to the ingenuity of the writers in striving each to avoid for himself the false steps in reasoning which have made, one after another, all past philosophical systems vain and un