departed, stood upon the shore and cursed him aloud. He is evidently susceptible of the influences of civilisation, and quite able to profit by the expression of public opinion in this country. How sensitive he is to it was shown by his sparing the lives of the conspirators who attempted his soon after his return to Nepaul. "What will they say in England?" was his reply, when urged in the durbar to send the discomfited plotters to execution. To assail him with exaggerated or unfounded charges is not the way to confirm the civilising deference which he entertains for the verdict of the English nation. Nor is it handsome treatment of a man who has given incontestable proof of his good-will towards this country. It may be new to many of our readers, but it is not the less authentic, that during the last Sikh war Jung Bahadoor wrote to Lord Dalhousie offering to march at the head of a brigade of his gallant Ghoorkas to co-operate with our troops. To appreciate this proposal, it must be borne in mind that he was already commander-in-chief and prime-minister, and that, by absenting himself from Nepaul, he would have materially imperilled his interests and high position. Lord Dalhousie replied in one of those judicious and admirable letters for which he is noted, cordially acknowledging the noble and disinterested offer of the Nepaulese general, but assuring him that the Indian government was, and would ever be, fully able, unassisted, to crush all opposition. The brief correspondence was equally honourable to the brave volunteer and to the distinguished statesman who so appropriately combined a grateful and conciliatory refusal with a well-timed assertion of the irresistible power of our Anglo-Indian government. Having exhibited some of the faults of Mr Oliphant's volume, we willingly turn to its better qualities. We have already referred to his excellent account of an elephant hunt. Here is an equally truthful and pleasant sketch of a day's shooting : "I found my first experience in shooting from a howdah to be anything but agreeable. The deer bounds through the long grass as a rabbit would through tur nips; and at the moment one catches a glimpse of his head, the elephant is sure to be going down a steep place, or stopping, or going on suddenly, or trumpeting, or doing something which completely balks a sportsman accustomed to be on his own legs, and sends the ball flying in any direction but the right one. Our line of elephants consisted of upwards of one hundred, and they beat regularly and silently enough, except when the behaviour of one of them irritated some passionate mahout, who would vent his wrath upon the head of the animal, by a blow from a short iron rod, or would catch him sharply under the ear with a huge hook, which he dexterously applied to a sore kept open for that purpose; then a loud roar of pain would sound through the jungle, for a moment, much to our disgust, as it startled the deer we were gradually and silently approaching. "The pig, which formed part of the gamebag of the afternoon, was, in the first instance, only severely wounded, and an elephant was commanded to finish the poor brute, as he lay grimly surveying us, his glistening tusks looking rather formidable-so at least the elephant seemed to think, as for some time he strongly objected to approach him. At last he went timidly up, and gave the boar a severe kick with his fore-foot, drawing it back quickly, with a significant grunt, which plainly intimated his opinion that he had done as much as could reasonably be expected of him. His mahout, however, thought otherwise, and, by dint of severe irritation on the sore behind his ear, seemed to drive him to desperation, as the elephant suddenly backed upon the pig, and, getting him between his hind legs, ground him together, and absolutely broke him up. After this, we went crashing home, regardless of the thick jungle through which we passed, as the impending boughs were snapped, at the word of the mahouts, by the obedient and sagacious animals we bestrode." This is all very good. After relating his own hunting adventures, Mr Oliphant, when giving particulars of Jung Bahadoor's career, and finding himself, he says, in a story-telling mood, proceeds to narrate how the minister once distinguished himself by the capture of a musk elephant. Now, in turning to page 130 of Kirkpatrick, we find an engraving and an interesting account of the Kustoora, or musk deer : "A native of the Kuchar, or Lower Tibet, but met more commonly in some parts of that extensive tract than in others. They would not appear, how ever, to be very numerous anywhere; and though a considerable portion of the Kuchár is subject to the Ghoorkalis, the Nepaulians procure the Kustoora principally from the vicinity of Neyat, Dhy The boon, and one or two other places. This animal is most usually caught by means of a snare, made of a particular kind of mountain bamboo, of which it is reported that the whole species is occasionally blasted at once, not a single tree remaining that does not rapidly decay. blight, however, never happening till the annual seed has fallen into the ground, the plant is abundantly renewed in due course of production. Very little pure musk is to be obtained at Khatmandu; and there is still less exported from Nepaul. Indeed, I have been assured that even the musk contained in the nâfeh, or bag, still attached to the body of the animal, is not always found unadulterated, and that its purity can only be relied on when the Kustoora is received directly as a present from some person on whose lands it has recently been caught." Having read this description of the small animal which supplies the precious perfume in niggard quantities, we hunted further, but in vain, for some mention of the musk-elephant, of which we had never before heard. We thought how delighted would be Mr Atkinson of Bond Street, and Mr Smyth, of the Civet Cat, and other proprietors of similar sweet-scented establishments, at this sudden and enormous augmentation of their resources, for which they were doubtless indebted to the zoological zeal of the young Cingalese jurist. Presently, however, on examination of the context, our fragrant illusions were dispelled. We had already been puzzled, whilst reading Captain Egerton, by that officer's repeated mention of rogue elephant;" and it now struck us that the naval commander's "rogue," and Mr Oliphant's "musk," were intended to designate the state of sexual madness in which an elephant is said to be must. We cannot sufficiently laud the playful and exquisite delicacy of the sea-captain, at the same time that we admonish the proctor to rub up his Oordoo, and to correct, in any future edition of his book, the not unfrequent errors he has committed when writing names of places and VOL. LXXII.-NO. CCCCXLI. 66 a employing native terms. At page 81, for instance, when describing the great square in Khatmandu, he tells us that it is well paved, and contains the Chinese pagoda, composed entirely of wood, from which it is said the town 66 derives its name." We should have expected him to know that Khatmandu, or Kathipore, means "the town of wood," (the original material of its construction,) with the name of which the temple has neither more nor less to do than any other wooden edifice in the place. We are rather curious to know where Mr Oliphant picked up the remarkable piece of information with which, a few lines further on, he presents his readers :— "In Nepaul it is a rule that the death of one great animal should be immediately followed by that of another; and when a Rajah dies, a rhinoceros is forthwith killed to keep him company." Surely some waggish Oriental has been amusing himself at the expense of the smooth-faced Feringee. Any reference to blunders naturally reminds us of Captain Smith, whom we left some pages back, clipping paragraphs from Kirkpatrick, and sticking them into his own dapper duodecimos. After a while he lays aside Kirkpatrick, turns to the Nepaul Blue Book, and from it concocts a sort of history of the Nepaulese war. This fills about two hundred pages, and gets him well on into his second volume. "Nepaul, since the war," is dismissed in sixteen scanty pages. Brief as these are, they abound in mistakes. Khatmandu is printed Estnordoo; Mr Brian Hodgson is Mr W. Hodgson; the ex-king of Nepaul is stated to be dead, which must be very recently, for only a few months ago he was all alive. perhaps the Captain has been consulting a somnambulist. With his opportunities, as political assistant in Nepaul for five years, how easy ought it to have been for Captain Smith to have produced a really good and useful book, which should have worthily succeeded Kirkpatrick and Hamilton. We hope some day to witness the appearance of such a work. Nepaul and Khatmandu are far-off places and outlandish names, known until lately but to G But few; yet they are not without interest to all who heed the prosperity and progress of our Indian empire. It is an ancient tradition-and in the minds of all Hindoos the belief still lurks that from Nepaul will proceed the liberation of India from the European yoke; that thence will be struck the first blow at English power in the East. We smile at the absurdity of the notion as we compare a map of India in Warren Hastings' time and one of Arrowsmith's of the same regions at the present day; and whilst noting the vast spread, in the interval, of the "British pink" defining our territo ries, we cannot but anticipate, that at no very distant date, when Jung Bahadoor shall perhaps have passed away from the scene-victim of fierce insurrection or bloody feud-Nepaul, the Switzerland of the East, shall acknowledge, like its neighbours, the supremacy of Britain. The prospect, even if remote, of such a contingency, gives unquestionable interest and importance to that rich and fertile region; and should stimulate to the task of its description writers more competent, careful, and conscientious, than the majority of those with whose works we to-day have had to deal. THE CELESTIALS AT HOME AND ABROAD. THE greatest social phenomenon of the present day is Emigration; and the myriads of the human race who are now precipitating themselves from one region of the world to another, rival in number and outvie in power even the countless hordes who from age to age, in early times, submerged the mighty empires of the South. "Time was, time is, and time shall be again," was the oracular response of the Brazen Head of Friar Bacon; and now the cycle of ages has brought round again the Emigrating Era of mankind. But how different is the modern phenomenon from that which marked its track of yore in characters of blood and fire! In ancient times the flood of emigration rolled from the Desert, but now from the heart of Civilisation;-then it dashed its barbaric waves against all that man, by long centuries of toil, had achieved in power and knowledge; but now it diffuses itself peaceably, everywhere spreading abroad the crowning knowledge to which our race has hitherto attained; then its object was to plunder the wealth of man, now it is to develop the riches of nature. at this critical period of its starving and discontented masses, society itself would perish in the convulsion? And does not the attractive glitter of Gold direct this Exodus, as the pillar of cloud and fire guided the Israelites of yore, away from the old seats of civilisation into the desert-places of the world, there to accomplish the Divinely ordained mission of our race, to "replenish the earth and subdue it?" The age of Gold, like the age of Emigration, has again dawned upon the world; an age how different from that dreamed of by the poets! but an agency more grand and world-widemore fraught with present changes and future blessings-than any which the poetic imagination has ever conceived. The golden legend first whispered to wondering ears on the banks of the Sacramento, has now filled the wide world with its fame. The golden Apparition that first was seen standing, beckoning from afar, by the lone shores of the Pacific, has now drawn all men after it, and established an empire where four years ago there was a solitude. And what was the great design of this Californian discovery, but to empty the labour-markets of the Eastern States of the Union in order to make room for the starving myriads of Ireland, who, in their turn, left an opening in the Emerald Isle for the energy and Protestantism of the Anglo-Saxons. It opened a ready asylum in the New World for the proscribed, ruined, or frightened refugees from the Revolu 1852.] The Celestials at Home and Abroad. tions of Europe; and, as if in anticipation of some still greater crisis yet to come, Australia, groaning under a plethora of new-found wealth, starving Croesus-like in the midst of her gold, cries aloud to Europe for men to till her fields, to tend her flocks, or to satiate their restless energies by the exploration of her fifteen hundred miles of auriferous mountains. That her call is already being answered, any one may see at a glance. What city of our own country but is now sending forth her hundreds, what town her tens, what village or hamlet of the land but has some family or individual bound for the land of promise? And, what is worthy of notice, the emigration-fever-like all fevers when they become epidemic-has now mounted from the lower classes to the higher; and the same relief seems about to be afforded to our world of clerks, and milliners, and better artisans, as has already relieved the pressure, and kept up the wages, of our suffering peasantry. There is one remarkable and significant fact connected with the recent gold-discoveries. They have all been made" in the uttermost parts of the earth," and within the bosom or on the shores of an ocean of all others the least whitened by the sails or cheered by the presence of civilised man. Although abounding with islands and archipelagos transcendent alike for beauty and productiveness-where Nature has been enriching the soil by the fall of the leaf throughout fiveand-forty centuries,-where sun and breeze, wood and water, shore and sea, present endless prizes to the enterprise of civilisation,-no maritime power, no sea-loving people, has ever arisen upon the shores of the Pacific Ocean. From the dawn of history, that longest of the earth's sea-boards has sent forth no navy to explore, and occupy, and reclaim the fertile isles and semi-continents which compose that sixth division of the globe which we now entitle Oceanica. Does it not seem as if those vast ocean-realms have been reserved by Providence until now, in order that they might become the empire of that free Anglo-Saxon race, which, cradled * 99 in a little island of the West, has But Providence ever attains the "Quite a large number of the Celestials," said a Californian journal a year ago, “have arrived among us of late, enticed hither by the golden romance which has filled the world. Scarcely a ship arrives here that does not bring an increase to this worthy integer of our population; and we hear, by China papers, and private advices from that empire, that the feeling is spreading all through the a consequence, sea-board, and, as nearly all the vessels that are up for this country are so for the prospect A few Chinamen of passengers. have returned, taking home with them some thousands of dollars in Californian gold, and have thus given an impetus to the spirit of emigration from their fatherland which is not likely to abate for some years to come." Daily Alta California, May 12, 1851. Hitherto, the Chinese who left their own country generally found their way in native vessels to Borneo, Siam, and the Straits, where their situation has not always been safe or satisfactory, and their junk voyages almost invariably attended with great risk, as well from pirates of divers nations as from the common perils of of the sea. Despite these difficulties, however, for several years past a large and rapidly increasing emigration of Chinese labourers has taken place to different parts of the adjoining islands and countries, amongst others to Singapore, the emigration to which dependency of the British Crown was chiefly conducted in the following singular manner:-The owner of a native junk engages with a number of free but penniless Chinese to convey them to Singapore, upon the understanding that, on their arrival at that port, they will each engage with such residents as are in want of servants or labourers, to work for them for a certain period without other remuneration than board and lodging, the parties so engaging them paying as an equivalent the amount of their passage-money from China; the length of servitude thus freely, and on both sides cheerfully, bargained for, being dependent on the relative state of supply and demand. This mode of obtaining labour by private enterprise has proved quite successful, and has been carried on, to some extent, for many years, with the sanction of the British authorities, and to the satisfaction and profit of shipowner, employer, and employed. The reports of those Chinamen who first returned from California to their -own country, of the good reception they had met with there, and of the perfect security of the voyage when made in the ships of the Foreigners, gave an incalculable impulse to the emigration-fever of the Celestials; and they are now finding their way, in great and increasing numbers, not only to California, but to Australia, Cuba, and our West Indian colonies. To these latter, a supply of labour suited to a tropical climate is a desideratum of primary importance, if we would not see those magnificent islands irremediably relapse, as they are fast doing, into a state of wilderness, and of such labour China is both willing and anxious to yield an unlimited supply. An experiment to test the practicability of importing Chinese labourers into Cuba was made about four years ago, when there were introduced into Havanna 581 Coolies from Amoy-638 having embarked there, and 57 having died on the passage and in quarantine. These labourers were distributed among various planters as apprentices, receiving four dollars each amonth. At the commencement, several of the masters were dissatisfied with them, but experience soon proved their value; and recently, a number of the most intelligent proprietors in Cuba, consulted by the local authorities, declared that they had found the Chinese in their service "laborious, robust-almost as much so as the best Africans,-more intelligent, and sufficiently docile, under good management." They moreover expressed themselves desirous that immigration should be encouraged, and ready to take a certain number into their employment; and some of them deem it quite possible to cultivate their properties with Chinese exclusively. In consequence, a contract has been made a few months ago by an English house (Syme, Muir, & Co. of Amoy) to introduce eight thousand Coolies into the island, and the entire number is by this time subscribed for the planters engaging to pay the importers at the rate of 125 dollars a-head-the Coolies to be apprenticed for eight years, and to receive four dollars a-month each during the time of their service. We understand that there is every prospect of such emigration assuming a permanent and increasing character, and one of the best-informed of our English firms (W. P. Hammond & Co. of London) entertain "great hopes that the docility and usefulness of the free agricultural labourers of the province of Fokhien, in China, will be the means at no distant time of entirely superseding slavery in the great island of Cuba." A desire to avail themselves of a similar arrangement has already been evinced by the planters in British Guiana, and in other of the West India colonies; and the avidity with which |