hard words, and harder thoughts, so many wounded feelings, so much love's labor lost, and by the way accomplish so much good, that I think it is worth the whole year's subscription price to the Journal-it is this:

If you want to convince anybody of anything, argue alone. Having delivered ourselves of this great and useful apothegm, we will resume the thread of the argument, taking it for granted that the reader has not forgot the subject matter of discussion, it being so imaginatively beautiful-u summer morning's walk. It sounds charmingly, it brings with its mere mention, recollections so mournfully pleasing, or associations so delightful, that we long for the realization, at least until "sun-up" to-morrow, then what a change! we would not give one half awake good stretch, one five minutes' second nap, for all the summer morning walks of a whole year. Who does not feel that the vis inertia of the first waking moments of a May morning. is worth more than a dozen rambles before breakfast. I am for the largest liberty of enjoyment; I am not among the multitude of weak-minded folk, the negative sort of minds, to discard what is good to eat or drink, or enjoy, for no other reason, that I can perceive, than that it is good, and a cross is meritorious. One man says tea is injurious; another Soloman avers that coffee makes people bilious, a third, and he a Broadway author too, has written a whole book to prove that if we eat wheat bread, it will make our bones brittle, and that if we live to get old at all, the first time we fall, w'll break all to pieces like a clay pipe-stem. Verily this is a free country, for if everybody is to be believed, we are free to eat nothing at all. So I do not advise a denial of that most deliciously enjoyable entity, a summer morning's nap, because it is for the reasons I have just named, more healthful than the so lauded "exercise before breakfast;" if you must remain in bed until breakfast, or be out in the open air an hour or two before breakfast, on an empty stomach, then I say, as far as health is concerned, the nap is better than the exercise, for the incontrovertible reasons I have already given.

It requires no argument to prove the impurity of a city atmosphere about sunrise and sunset, reeking, as it must, with the odors of thousands of kitchens and cesspools, to say nothing of the innumerable piles of garbage which the improvident poor allow to accumulate in front of their dwellings, in their back yards and their cellars; any citizen may satisfy himself as to the existence of noisome fumes by a summer evening's walk along any of our bystreets; and although the air is cooler in the mornings, yet the more hurtful of these malaria saturate it, but of such a subtile nature are they, that no microscopic observation, no chemical analysis, has as yet been able to detect, in an atmosphere thus impregnated, any substance or subsistence to which these deadly influences might be traced, so subtile is the poison, so impalpable its

nature; but invisible, untraceable as it may be, its influence is certain and immediate, its effects deadly.

Some will say, look how healthy the farmer's boy is, and the daily laborers, who go to their work from one year's end to another by "crack of dawn!" My reply is, if they are healthy, they are so in spite of these exposures; their simple fare, their regular lives, and their out-door industry, give their bodies a tone, a vigor, a capability of resisting disease, which nullifies the action of malaria to a very considerab e extent. Besides, women live as long as men, and it cannot be said that they generally exercise out of doors before breakfast.

Our Knickerbocker ancestry! the very mention of them suggests -fat! a double fatness in fact-fat as to body and fat as to purse; if you catch hold of one of them, instead of getting a little pinch of thin skin, as you would from a lean Yankee, you clutch whole rolls of fat, solid fat-what substantial people the real, identical, original old Knicks are! how long they live too! expectant sonsin-law echo, sighingly, "how long!" in fact, I do not recollect of their dying at all, at least as we do; they simply ooze out, or sleep away. May we not inquire if there is not at least some connection between their health as a class, and the very general habit of the sons here, derived from their sires in fatherland, of eating breakfast by candle-light? Another very significant fact in point is, that the French in the south are longer lived, and suffer far less from the fevers of the country than their American neighbors; in truth, their exemption is proverbial; and as a class they have their coffee and boiled milk, half and half, with sugar, brought to their bedsides every morning, or take it before they leave the house.

It is not an uncommon thing for persons to go west to select a new home for their rising families, never to return: "took sick and died;" this is the sad and comprehensive statement of the widowed and the fatherless, owing doubtless, in many instances, to their traveling on horseback early in the morning and late in the evening, in order to avoid the heat of the day.

Many a traveller will save his life by taking a warm and hearty breakfast before starting in the morning, and by putting up for the night not later than sundown.

It is of considerable practical importance to answer the question, why more persons have died in "the States" from Isthmus fever than in California? Simply, because on their way out, their bodies are comparatively vigorous, and there is in addition a degree of mental and moral excitement, which repels disease; but on the return, it is strikingly different; the body is wasted by hardship and privation, while the spirit is broken by disappointment, or the mind falls into a species of exhaustion, when successful, from the long and anxious strife for gold: both causes operating, one to weaken the body, the other to take away all mental elasticity, it is no wonder that the whole man becomes an easy prey to disease.

In subsequent numbers I may discuss other "POPULAR FALLACIES" in reference to the all important subject of health. A whole number could be easily filled with them; but it was not my intention to tell too much at once, it would not be remembered; and then again, Wifey has several times given a gentle but a very decided admonition, "Thy Journal reads very well, William, but I am afraid thee will give out." I have, however, a ready quietus to these groundless apprehensions, in a basket under my table, well filled with scraps. each of which affords matter for a leading editorial. The truth is, when I think it all over, the world has so many things to learn and unlearn, I am afraid I will get gray-what a delightful Tense that is-before I can set it right at all points, my ideas of right, and propriety, and truth, being considered the standard! What a vain creature is poor know nothing man! how little indeed does the wisest of us rightly and truly know!

ARTICLE IV.

The Commerce of the Black Sea:*

CONSIDERED WITH REGARD TO ITS BEARING ON THE EASTERN QUESTION.

Russia proposes to restore to the Black Sea the high commercial importance which it enjoyed in antiquity, causing the reflux of the precious merchandise, both of Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. In order to realize this grand project, she has for one hundred and fifty years sought occasions to make war upon the Ottoman Empire. She now undertakes to drive the Turks out of Europe, to seize Constantinople, to subject Persia, and to extend her dominions to the frontiers of India and China.

To have a clear idea of the Eastern question, it is necessary to take a view of past ages, and study the history of the commerce of the Black Sea from remote times to the present day; retrace its vicissitudes the influence it has exerted on the destiny of nations; the course it has taken, and the relations it has created between the nations of the extreme Eastern and Western world.

At an early period the commerce of the Black Sea attracted navigators, who visited it to explore its resources. The initiative is attributed to the Phoenicians, who, two thousand years previous to the Christian Era, possessed a flourisoing marine. Homer describes them to us as visiting all the coast of Greece and Asia Minor in the twelfth century. Antique legends attribute to them the establishment of numerous colonies in the Islands at the enterance of the Dardanelles. It is also well known that the Phoenicians were a commercial people.

Translated from the French for the Merchants' Magazine, by an American Lady, of Paris.

Historians attribute to them the foundation of several cities on the southern side of the Black sea. Indeed, Ezekield speaks of them as bringing their slaves from Georgia, their horses, mules, and mercenary soldiers from Armenia, at an epoch six centuries anterior to Christ. In the anti-historical times, the Cretans, who had a powerful marine, extended their Commerce to the Black Sea; also the Pelasgians, who founded the opulent city of Troy, almost at the entrance of the Dardanelles. There was another people in those remote times who were also worthy of notice. They were the Colchians. The establishment at the foot of the Caucasus, the cradle of the white race, of a black or rather mulatto color, who were able to perpetuate and maintain themselves in the conquered country as late as the third or fourth century of the Christian Era, is an eminently curious fact. What revolution, what necessity, or what interest could have transported the Colchians to the boarders of the Phasis? All the writers of antiquity believed them to be a detachment of the army with which Sesostris invaded Upper Asia. The Colchians declared themselves to be of Egyptian origin, to Herodotus.

This fact admitted, it would seem that Sesostris left his body of troops in the Caucassus for a military object. It is, however, probable that he was influenced by commercial considerations, for he had sent previously a fleet of three hundred vessels into the Red Sea, and had conquered all the coasts of Asia and India. Such an expedition could have no other than a commercial object. It is therefore probable that he left this detachment of troops with a view to intercept the commerce of Upper Asia by the Black Sea, and force it to pass by caravans through Egypt, where he sought at the same time to attract that of Southern Asia. This supposition becomes probable when we reflect upon the deadly struggles which took place afterwards between the Pharahos and the kings of Babylon and Nineveh, who endeavored to prevent the commerce of India from reaching Egypt through the Red Sea.

The Colchians became independent, and so rich by their commerce, that their kings, according to Pliny, had their apartments lined with gold, and their ceilings supported by pillars of silver. It is certain that an active commerce existed between India and the Black Sea from the most remote antiquity.

An emigrant people always love to surround themselves with the souvenirs of their fatherland. We always see them giving to the rivers and mountains of the country in which they establish themselves, the names of those in the country where they have left the tombs of their fathers. Geographical names are an indestructible indication by which, when historical facts are wanting, we can trace the origin of a people and their relations. Thus, we find in the ancient geography of Colchidia and the neighboring country, names which take us immediately to India, and especially to Penjab. That is a proof that commercial relations existed between India and the Black Sea. In the thirteenth century before Jesus Christ, the Greeks began to navigate the seas bordering upon their country. Piracy is one of the characteristios of the heroic ages. Ulysses, in the Odyssey, boasts of skimming the Egean Sea.

Colchidia, so flourishing at a time when Greece was still barba

rous, naturally excited the cupidity of those petty chiefs who called themselves the descendants of the gods. Not daring to trust themselves in their fragile vessels, to make a long voyage, they were content to pillage small Phoenician and Cretan vessels, which came from the mouth of the Phasis. But in time they gained courage; and passing the Hellespont, penetrated the Dardanelles and the Black Sea, casting an enger glance over the space which still separated them from Colchidia, which they desired not to conquer, but to pillage. The history of the Argonauts, and of their numerous descents upon the Astic shores, presents us with a series of coups de main, and of expeditions which finally resulted in the accomplishment of what they had so long desired—a landing upon the shores of the Phasis, followed by the pillage of isolated establishments.

The episode of Meda shows the high state of civilization which Colchidia enjoyed at that time. The enthusiasm with which the Argonauts was received in Greece, proves that it responded to a national want of expansion, the necessity of a new horizon. The Black Sea was open to them, but the navigation was not entirely free so long as the power of Troy was not humbled. The Greeks formed a coalition against Priam, and Illium fell after a siege of ten years, or rather a long series of unsuccessful attempts constantly renewed.

From this date the Greeks carried on the commerce of the Black

Sea, which daily grew in consequence. About the year 1040, Ionian and Pelasgian emigrants established themselves on the Mediterranean shores of Asia Minor, and took possession of Miletus. In imitation of the example of the Carians, their descendants followed commerce so successfully that, between the years 700 and 500, they became,' after Tyre and Carthage, the most commercial people in the world. The Phocians and Migarians also took an active part in the great commercial movement, and founded colonies in the Black Sea.

The Milesians always preserved an immense superiority over the others, and acted the part of protectors to the Greeks of the Euxine, who were often exposed to the attacks of the barbarians. The Black Sea had already changed its name, and was called by the Hellenites the "Hospitable Sea." The Greeks built fortified commercial establishments at the mouths of all the rivers. The Milesians penetrated as far as the Sea of Azoff, where they built Tanais-the celebrated Tanais of the Egyptians-a situation of great commercial importance, now occupied by the city of Azoff. By the Danube, the Pruth, the Dneister, the Bog, and the Dneiper, the Greeks received wool, the skins of annimals, and furs. The Crimea and Kouban furnished them with abundance of wheat. They took large quantities of fish from the Sea of Azoff. The country situated between the Crimmerian Bosphorus and the Caucasus, furnished them with salt. The Paphlagonians organized the hunting of men, and furnished them with thousands of slaves. We must add the Oriental productions, which were of great importance to the branches of commerce already mentioned. The Greeks made great efforts to facilitate and increase Oriental commerce. It was evidently for this object that they founded in the mountainous countries, which separated Colchis from the Caspian Sea, and even on the borders of that sea, the numerous cities of Greek origin, whose existence is testified by ancient geogaphers,