convinced their authors, although they have themselves rarely remembered to acknowledge their obligations, will feel grateful to us for taking the trouble to point them out.

66

Captain Cavenagh accompanied the Nepaul mission to England in the year 1850. His three months' abode in this country, in company with the Nepaulese, does not, however, necessarily imply a residence in Nepaul of sufficient length to enable him to give even the "rough" account of its state, government, army, and resources," promised on his title-page. Allured by this promise, we hoped and expected to find in his volume a brief but satisfactory sketch of the present state of Nepaul, with perhaps (what was much wanted) a concise review of its history and progress since the days of Kirkpatrick and Hamilton. But we soon found, from his own admissions, that the time he had passed in the country was totally inadequate for the necessary investigations, and for the acquisition of any thing like an accurate knowledge of its political condition or physical features. In short, however intelligent he may be, a few days could not suffice to acquire much information regarding Nepaul; and we are driven to the conclusion, fully borne out by his own preface, and by many passages of his book, that this is compounded of hasty surmises, ill-digested observations, and of such scraps of information as he collected in conversation with the Nepaulese envoy and the members of his suite. The value to be attached to this last ingredient of his pages strikes us as infinitesimally small, when we call to mind the wily character of the Ghoorkas, their skill in dissimulation, and their fondness for misleading those who plague them with questions. Such considerations were too trivial to impede Captain Cavenagh's progress. There seems to have been vividly present to his mind the necessity of giving to the world a volume which, if it did nothing else, should at least advertise all men of the important fact of his having been lately in political charge of the mission from the court of Khatmandu to that of St James's. This is the sole result likely to ensue from his publication, whose really valuable

and solid portions are due to previous writers from whom he frequently borrows - sometimes with acknowledgment, often without-at the same time that he coolly declares in his preface that Nepaul was a terra incognita until he unfolded its secrets. The fact is, that he has taken up quite the wrong line. Had he limited himself to an account of the origin, progress, reception, travels, and adventures of the Nepaul mission, he had abundant opportunities, and possibly sufficient talent, to compose a very interesting volume, such as would have conferred upon his Hibernian patronymic a twelvemonth's immortality. Instead that, he goes into various matters upon which he is imperfectly informed, pilfers Kirkpatrick, commits blunders, and exposes himself.

of

But we almost lose sight of the delinquencies of Captain Orfeur Cavenagh, when his book is placed in juxtaposition with the next in order of publication, the "Narrative" of Captain Thomas Smith. It is impossible not to be prepossessed in favour of two such tidy volumes, bound in laurel green, (allusive, doubtless, to the Captain's bays,) and bearing on the lid a stately golden elephant, upon whose back sit the Captain and two companions, on their way, we presume, to one of those tremendous hunting parties in which our author performed feats that would make Gordon Cumming or Gerard the Lion-slayer tear their hair for envy. Passing on to the dedication, we are further induced to consider the book respectfully, by finding it inscribed, "by gracious permission," to Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge. We ourselves attach little importance to dedications, which, whether to dear friends or to exalted patrons, are apt to border upon the fulsome or the fawning. But there are writers who take a different view of the subject, and who are anxious, but often unable, to obtain license to address their books specially to some person notable for virtue, genius, or elevated rank. Such license, it appears to us, should not be conceded without a certainty that the book will at least do no discredit to the patronage.

"Other works," artlessly remarks Captain Smith in the final paragraph of his preface, "have appeared with reference to Nepaul; but the author of the present one confidently believes that no complete account of the kingdom, and all that relates to it, has been published until now."

In the exercise of our critical vocation, we have occasionally met with astounding examples of impudence in print, but anything more brazen than this we do not remember to have encountered. "Other works have appeared with reference to Nepaul!" Certainly no one can know this better than Mr Smith, seeing that, out of the two hundred and ninety-four pages composing his first volume, the better part of a hundred have been taken verbatim et literatim from Kirkpatrick! This without any acknowledgment. Kirkpatrick's work being antiquated and cumbrous in form, and at present very scarce, Captain Smith apparently supposed that he might cut slices from it by wholesale, fearless of detection. He will now perhaps sue for mercy, on the ground that the only good parts of his book are those which he has stolen. But he has not even the merit of an accurate copyist. The ridiculous blunders he has committed in transcribing, stare one in the face on every page. A clumsy appropriator, he has defaced his booty. He begins his second chapter by the following lines, whose slip-slop style stamps them as his own :

"It is manifestly the duty of every writer to render his details clear to the meanest perception; and there is certainly no better way of reaching completeness than by the assumption that every reader is totally ignorant of the matter treated, yet avid for information, and entirely dependent on the author's accuracy and conscientiousness" ! !

The italics are ours. Totally ignorant, Mr Smith evidently trusted his readers would be, of Kirkpatrick's account of Nepaul, which he proceeds systematically to plunder. Haunted, we suppose, by a lurking apprehension, scarce acknowledged to himself, he has conducted his purloinings upon a sort of petty larceny plan, taking a paragraph here and there, dodging

to and fro, wielding his scissors with a tailorly dexterity, well calculated to elude detection. To justify the unfavourable opinion we have expressed of his work, we must here refer a little from it to Kirkpatrick. Smith, p. 56, will be found to be identical with passages from Kirkpatrick, p. 40 to 45. But at Smith, p. 58, a leap is taken to p. 159 of Kirkpatrick, who, for once, and for a wonder, is referred to as an authority. Here we have inaccuracies by the bushel. Mr Smith writes thus:

"The name, says Colonel Kirkpatrick, by which the town (Khatmandu) is distinguished in ancient books, is Gorgoolputten: the Newars call it Yindaisé; whilst, amongst the Parbuttias, or mountaineers, it is styled Kultipoor--an appellation which seems to proceed from the same source with Khatmandoo, and derived, it is believed, from its numerous wooden temples, which are amongst the most striking objects in the city. The houses are of brick and tile, with pitched or painted roofs."

แ

Many of the names of places in this paragraph are mis-spelt. Kultipoor, for instance, is a blunder. It should be Kathipore, signifying "town of wood." Captain Smith's painted roofs " are pent-roofs in Kirkpatrick, and so forth. Kirkpatrick is copied pretty steadily up to p. 164, and then his plagiarist reverts to pages 91-4, and makes more mistakes, writing "habitable' for "hereditary," and "unsupported " for "unsupplied. It would be both wearisome and unprofitable to trace all Mr Smith's thefts and inaccuracies. Many of these latter unluckily alter the meaning, or destroy the sense of the passages containing them. For instance, at page 67, borrows where he largely from Kirkpatrick, p. 17, we were utterly puzzled by the following line:"In a previous page mention has been made of the enormous fruit-trees which are to be found in the Terai." There being about as many fruit-trees in the forests of the Terai as there are strawberry plants on the glaciers of Mont Blanc, we stood aghast at the ridiculous assertion, until we discovered that fruit should have been forest. Here is another specimen of correct transcription:

Here we find Smith coming out victoriously with an original idea. Having, we may suppose, during his five years' residence in Nepaul, had frequent opportunities of contemplating the canine species in all the various phases of their interesting existence, he ventures authoritatively to correct the portrait sketched by Kirkpatrick, and copied by Cavenagh. The Nepaul dog does bear greater resemblance to a badly-bred Newfoundland, both in appearance and size, than to a bull dog. So, for once, Smith is not only original, but accurate. It is, doubtless, under the influence of the exhilaration occasioned by this proud consciousness of independence and veracity, that he shelves Kirkpatrick for a while, after taking only two chapters from him, and goes out a-hunting. We must beg those persons who may hereafter read the Smithian Memorials of Nepaul, not to burthen the memory of Colonel Kirkpatrick with the venatorial extravaganzas they will find inincluded between pages 80 and 120 of volume one. Aided, apparently, by a jumbled reminiscence of Cornwallis, Harris, Gordon Cumming, and Baron Munchausen, Captain Smith improves upon his models,

and outdoes all his predecessors in the jungle and the hunting field. The first achievement he records is his "terrific combat" with a monstrous elephant, a perfect devil, according to the Nepaulese Rajah's account, against which he (the Rajah) had sent, two years previously, a couple of sixpounders. But the elephant had scattered the artillerymen, and upset the guns. How the latter were moved through the forest-and such forests as those of the Terai-we are not informed. Nothing daunted, Smith set out with his battery, consisting of "two double-barrelled rifles, one single rifle, carrying a three ounce ball, and three first-rate double guns." In a very short time, "many deer, eleven tigers, and seven rhinoceroses," (!) bit the dust before the unerring muzzles of this modern Nimrod. This, however, was the mere prelude to the play. The real tragedy was to come. But we must extract a small specimen of Captain Smith's own.

"The morning dawned splendidly; we were all in excellent spirits, and the two chiefs, in appearance at least, were as

brave as lions. While we were examin

ing our guns, and carefully arranging our ammunition, the savage Shikar Bassa elephant was marked down, having been

rightly remember, somewhere about Sampson's height at the shoulder, and they will be able to decide for themselves how far they may believe Captain Smith's wonderful tales, which we confess that we receive with extreme mistrust. Having told us how he knocked over one of these gigantic bulls, and after a flourish about his "keepers," (good, this, in Indian jungles,) he lays down his pen, resumes paste and scissors, and recommences despoiling and mutilating the unfortunate Kirkpatrick.

Far superior indeed to Captain Smith's elephantine romance is the account of an elephant hunt, to be found at p. 53 to 59 of the "Journey to Katmandu." Those six pages are the best and most truthful bit of Mr Oliphant's little book, which it is now time to examine. Mr Oliphant has adopted a great deal of his matter from Captain Cavenagh. In other places he has drawn upon Kirkpatrick, either at the fountainhead, or filtered through Cavenagh's pages. In justice, however, we must mention that Mr Oliphant hints, in his preface, that only a portion of his book has the merit of novelty; and really, when we get a volume of two hundred pages, well printed on good paper, and bound in brick-dust, for half-a-crown, it is cruel to be captious on the score of originality. Mr Oliphant, we have no doubt, has taken a great deal of pains with his book. From Captain Egerton's work, and from other sources, we find that he travelled in company with Captain Cavenagh, of whose Rough Notes " he has only too freely availed himself, since he has thereby been led to father statements whose accuracy, to say the least, is very doubtful. When writing of things he himself did and saw, there is freshness and merit in his descriptions, but these are apt to disappear when he gets to second-hand work, and he falls alternately into flippancy and inflation of style. When helping himself from Cavenagh's pages, he enriches his extracts with epithets and magniloquent adjectives; thus seasoning his plagiarisms, and giving a dramatic colouring to his friend's more homely narrative. We shall presently come to examples of

66

this. Meanwhile, we gladly observe that, in one instance at least, he has shown discretion in his borrowings, and has abstained from endorsing a very rash, and, as we cannot doubt, a totally unfounded charge brought by Captain Cavenagh against an official of high character and distinguished accomplishments. This occurs when he relates the death of Bhem Sen Thappa, Mahtabur Singh's uncle, and predecessor in the office of prime-minister of Nepaul. We must make a brief extract from Mr Oliphant.

"For an unusual number of years did this able minister (Bhem Sen) retain the management of affairs. He was ultimately placed in confinement, on the charge of being accessory to the murder of the Rajah's children by poison. His enemies resorted to an ingenious, though cruel device, to rid themselves altogether of so dreaded a rival. Knowing his high spirit and keen sense of honour, they spread the report that the sanctity of his zenana (harem) had been violated by the soldiery, which so exasperated him that he committed suicide, and was found in

his cell with his throat cut from ear to ear. This occurred in the year 1839." (P. 97.)

This passage is taken, almost word for word, from Cavenagh, who adds the following, which Mr Oliphant has wisely omitted :

"I have often heard it asserted, that one word from the British representative would have averted this catastrophe ; but, unfortunately, when an attempt was made by some members of the court to ascertain his sentiments, he declined ex

pressing any opinion, and from that moment the degraded minister was doomed."

The British resident here referred to is Mr Brian H. Hodgson, well known as an able official, a distinguished scholar, a first-rate naturalist, and member of most of the learned societies of Europe. We feel ourselves called upon to enter an indignant protest against the unjustifiable manner in which, upon no better authority than mere hearsay, and apparently without an effort to investigate the facts of the case, Captain Cavenagh brings this serious charge. He has "heard it asserted," indeed! Now we happen to be aware that, at