were taught, and then mounted to an apartment on the second story, occupied by students in military drawing. The proficiency of all was most creditable, considering the brief period during which the schools have been in operationsomething less than a year. Prejudiced as the Turks are against European innovation, this advanced step toward improvement tells well. Our estimable and useful missionaries appear, from the respect everywhere shewn them, to be in high esteem, and with the sultan's energetic disposition for reform, they hope every thing in the way of an enlightened change in the moral condition of the people. Went to the chapel of the dancing dervishes. It is a beautiful marble building, with a court-yard ornamented with a small cemetery, shaded with cypresses, and a fountain enclosed in a handsome edifice, and defended by gilt gratings from the street of the suburb of Pera, in which it stands. They dance here twice a week. We arrived before the hour, and were detained at the door by a soldier on guard, who would not permit us to enter without taking off our boots-a matter, about which, between straps and their very muddy condition, we had some debate. The dervishes began to arrive before the question was settled, and one of them, a fine-looking old man, inviting us to enter, Mr. H. explained the difficulty. "Go in," said he, " go in!" and turning to the [more scrupulous mussulman with the musket, as he pushed us within the door, "stupid fellow!" said he, "if you had been less obstinate, they would have given you a bakshish (Turkish for a fee). He should have said less religious-for the poor fellow looked horror-struck as our dirty boots profaned the clean white Persian matting of the sacred floor. It was a pretty, octagonal interior, with a gallery, the mihrab or niche indicating the direction of the prophet's tomb, standing obliquely from the front of the building. Hundreds of small lamps hung in the area, just out of the reach of the dervishes' tall caps, and all around between the gallery; a part of the floor was raised, matted, and divided from the body of the church by a balustrade. It would have made an exceedingly pretty ball-room. None but the dervishes entered within the paling, and they soon began to enter, each advancing first towards the mihrab, and going through fifteen or twenty minutes' prostrations and prayers. Their dress is very humble. A high white felt cap, without a rim, like a sugar-loaf enlarged a little at the smaller end, protects the head, and a long dress of dirtcoloured cloth, reaching quite to the heels, and bound at the waist with a girdle, completes the costume. They look like men who have made up their minds to seem religious, and though said to be a set of very good fellows, they have a Maw-worm expression of face generally, which was very repulsive. I must except the chief of the sect, however, who entered when all the rest had seated themselves on the floor, and after a brief genuflection or two, took possession of a rich Angora carpet, placed for him near the mihrab. He was a small old man, distinguished in his dress only by the addition of a green band to his cap (the sign of his pilgrimage to Mecca), and the entire absence of the sanctimonious look. Still he was serious, and there was no mark in his clear, intelligent eye and amiable features, of any hesitancy or want of sincerity in his devotion. He is said to be a learned man, and he is certainly a very prepossessing one. By the way, one learns in "dangling about the world" to form opinions of men quite independently of their dress. After sitting awhile in Quaker meditation, the brotherhood rose one by one (there were ten of them I think), and marched round the room with their toes turned in, to the music of a drum and a Persian flute, played invisibly in some part of the gallery. As they passed the carpet of the cross-legged chief, they twisted dexterously and made three salaams, and then raising their arms, which they held out straight during the whole dance, they commenced twirling on one foot, using the other after the manner of a paddle to keep up the motion. I forgot to mention that they laid aside their outer dresses before commencing the dance. They remained in dirty white tunics reaching to the floor, and very full at the bottom, so that with the regular motion of their whirl, the wind blew them out into a circle, like what the girls in our country call "making cheeses." They twisted with surprising exactness and rapidity, keeping clear of each other, and maintaining their places with the regularity of machines. I have seen a great deal of waltzing, but I think the dancing dervishes, for precision and spirit, might give a lesson even to the Germans. We left them twisting. They had been going for half an hour, and it began to look very like perpetual motion. Unless their brains are addled, their devotion, during this dizzy performance at least, must be quite suspended. A man who could think of his Maker, while revolving so fast that his nose is indistinct, must have some power of abstraction. The frigate was visited to-day by the sultan's cabinet. The seraskier pacha came alongside first, in his state caique, and embraced the commodore, as he stepped upon the deck, with great cordiality. He is a short, fat old man, with a snow-white beard, and so bowlegged as to be quite deformed. He wore the red Fez cap of the army, with a long blue frock-coat, the collar so tight as nearly to choke him, and the body not shaped to the figure, but made to fall around him like a sack. The red, bloated skin of his neck fell over, so as almost to cover the gold with which the collar was embroidered. He was formerly capitan pacha, or admiral in chief of the fleet, and though a good humoured, merry looking old man, has shewn himself, both in his former and present capacity, to be wily, cold, and a butcher in cruelty. He possesses unlimited influence over the sultan, and though nominally subordinate to the grand vizier, is really the second if not the first person in the empire. He was originally a Georgian slave. The seraskier was still talking with the commodore in the gang-way, when the present capitan pacha mounted the ladder, and the old man, who is understood to be at feud with his successor, turned abruptly away and walked aft. The capitan pacha is a tall, slender man, of precisely that look and manner which we call gentlemanly. His beard grows untrimmed in the Turkish fashion, and is slightly touched with grey. His eye is anxious, but resolute, and he looks like a man of resource and ability. His history is as singular as that of most other great men in Turkey. He was a slave of Mohammed Ali, the rebellious pacha of Egypt. Being entrusted by his master with a brig and cargo for Leghorn, he sold vessel and lading, lived like a gentleman in Italy for some years with the proceeds, and as the best security against the retribution of his old master, offered his services to the sultan, with whom Ali was just commencing hostilities. Naval talent was in request, and he soon arrived at his present dignity. He is said to be the only officer in the fleet who knows any thing of his profession. Haleil Pacha arrived last. The sultan's future son-in-law is a man of perhaps thirty-five. He is light-complexioned, stout, round-faced, and looks like a respectable grocer, "well to do in the world." He has commanded the artillery long enough to have acquired a certain air of ease and command, and carries the promise of good fortune in his confident features. He is to be married almost immediately. He, too, was a Georgian, sent as a present to the sultan. The three dignitaries made the rounds of the ship, and then entered the cabin, where the pianoforte (a novelty to the seraskier and Haleil Pacha, and to most of the attendant officers), and the commodore's agreeable society and champaigne, promised to detain them the remainder of the day. They were like children with a holiday. I was engaged to dine on shore, and left them on board. In a country where there is no education and no rank, except in the possession of present power, it is not surprising that men should rise from the lowest class to the highest offices, or that they should fill those offices to the satisfaction of the sultan. Yet it is curious to hear their histories. An English physician, who is frequently called in to the seraglio, and whose practice among all the families in power gives him the best means of information, has entertained me not a little with these secrets. I shall make use of them when I have more leisure, merely mentioning here, in connexion with the above accounts, that the present grand vizier was a boatman on the Bosphorus, and the commander of the sultan's body guard, a shoemaker! The latter still employs all his leisure in making slippers, which he presents to the sultan and his friends, not at all ashamed of his former vocation. So far, indeed, are any of these mushroom officers from blushing at their origin, that it is common to prefix the name of their profession to the title of pacha, and they are addressed by it as a proper name. This is one respect in which their European education will refine them to their disadvantage. IMITATION. MRS. Opie says, that all who wear "imitation" ornaments are virtually telling untruths, by imposing on the spectators mock jewels for real ones. ST. VITUS DANCE. Ar the close of the sixteenth century, says Dr. Hecker, St. Vitus' Dance was spoken of as a disease that had been. Some further facts respecting it may be interesting. We are told that it "attacked people of all stations, especially those who led a sedentary life, such as shoemakers and tailors; but even the most robust peasants adandoned their labours in the fields, as if they were possessed by evil spirits; and thus those affected were seen assembling indiscriminately, from time to time, at certain appointed places, and unless prevented by the lookers on, continuing to dance without intermission, until their very last breath was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour so completely deprived them of their senses, that many of them dashed their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings, or rushed headlong into rapid rivers, where they found a watery grave. Roaring and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so that their strength might be exhausted by the high leaps they were thus tempted to take. As soon as this was the case, they fell as it were lifeless to the ground, and, by very slow degrees, again recovered their strength. *** power, "The cure effected by these stormy attacks was in many cases so perfect, that some patients returned to the factory or the plough as if nothing had happened. Others, on the contrary, paid the penalty of their folly by so total a loss of that they could not regain their former health, even by the employment of the most strengthening remedies. *** That patients should be violently affected by music, and their paroxysms brought on and increased by it, is natural with such nervous disorders; where deeper impressions are made through the ear, which is the most intellectual of all the organs, than through any of the other On this account the magistrates hired musicians for the purpose of carrying the St. Vitus's dancers so much the quicker through the attacks, and directed that athletic men should be sent among them in order to complete the exhaustion which had been often observed to produce a good effect*. *This extraor senses. * * "It is related by Felix Plater (born 1536, 1614) that he remembered in his youth the authorities of Basle having commissioned seve ral powerful men to dance with a girl, who had the dancing mania, till she recovered from her disorder. They successively relieved each other, dinary disease was, however, so greatly mitigated in Scheneck's time, that the St. Vitus's dancers had long since ceased to stroll from town to town.* * Through. out the whole of June, prior to the festival of St. John, patients felt a disquietude and restlessness which they were unable to overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious; wandered about in an unsettled state, being tormented with twitching pains, which seized them suddenly in different parts, and eagerly expected the eve of St. John's day, in the confident hope, that by dancing at the altars of this saint, or of St. Vitus (for in the Breisgau, aid was equally sought from both) they would be freed from all their sufferings. This hope was not disappointed; and they remained, for the rest of the year, exempt from any further attack, after having thus, by dancing and raving for three hours, satisfied an irresistible demand of nature." INDIAN WAR. At THE following anecdote is given in an American work, entitled "a Winter in the far West." Two men, the survivors of the fray, were left disabled on the field. "One," says the writer, "had been shot through the hips, so as temporarily to paralyse both his legs; the other had both arms broken; yet each, after being struck down in the heat of the fight, had managed to crawl into an adjacent thicket, and so effectually to conceal himself, that the savages who had assailed their party, after scalping the fallen, departed and left their retreat uninvaded. Many hours intervened, and apprehension kept each of the wounded men so silent that he was wholly unaware of the vicinity or even the existence of the other. length, he who had the use of his arms, being pinched with hunger, ventured to shoot a rackoon which wandered near him. His former comrade called out at the report of the gun; but the other, fearing some Indian wile, refused to answer until the man presented himself before him. Mutual gratulation of course ensued; and then he that had the use of his legs kicked the rackoon towards the other, who, having flayed and cooked it, fed his companion. Their situation for and this singular mode of cure lasted above four weeks, when the patient fell down exhausted, and being quite unable to stand, was carried to a hospital, where she recovered. She had remained in her clothes all the time, and entirely regardless of the pain of her lacerated feet, she had merely sat down occasionally to take some nourishment, or to slumber, during which the hopping movement of her body continued. pioneers after a battle, seemed tolerably comfortable! but, unable to move from his sitting posture, he that was wounded in the hips must have perished from thirst, if the other, who was deprived of the use of his hands, had not taken his hat in his mouth, and, wading to his chin in the river, dipped up a cooling draught for his feverish friend. In this condition they are said to have remained for more than ten days; the walking gentleman driving turkeys and other game near enough for the sitter to shoot, and the sitting gentleman cooking the meals which the walker thus provided, the latter in the meantime carrying the hat to the river as regularly as a bucket to a well. Ultimately a boat descending the Ohio relieved them from their mutual offices, and both are said to have afterwards recovered." had already discovered the aërial troopers. The whole members of the family were then informed, and the strange spectacle was seen by all. These visionary horsemen seemed to come from the lowest part of Souter Fell, and they became visible at a place called Knott. They moved in regular troops along the side of the Fell, till opposite to Blakehills, when they went over the mountain, in this way describing a curvilinear path; and both their first and last appearance was bounded by the top of the mountain. They went at a regular, swift walk, and they continued to appear and disappear for more than two hours, till night put a stop to any farther exhibition of them. Many troops were seen in succession; and frequently the last, or last but one, in a troop, would quit his position, and gallop to the front, where he marched on at the same rate as the others. These wonderful appearances were seen by every human individual within the distance of a mile, and they were the same to all. The spectators were about ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA. twenty-six in number. Mathews might make a capital story out of this anecdote; it is so characteristic!! the THE mysterious appearances on Souter Fell, in Cumberland, are more attributable to reflection than refraction. The first of these was observed in 1743, by Daniel Stricket, then servant to John Wren, of Wilton-hall, who, together with his master, saw the figure of a man, with a dog, pursuing some horses along Souter Fell side,-a place so steep, that a horse can scarcely travel on it at all; yet they appeared to run at an amazing pace, till they got out of sight at the lower end of the Fell. Stricket and his master ascended the Fell next morning, in full expectation of finding the man and animals all lying dead, but no vestige of either was to be discovered. The following year, 1744, on the 23d of June, as the same Daniel Stricket was walking, about half-past seven o'clock in the evening, a little above the house of Mr. Lancaster, of Blake hills, with whom he then lived, he saw a troop of horsemen riding on Souter Fell side, in pretty close ranks, and at a brisk pace. Remembering that he had been laughed at for mentioning what he had seen the previous year, he continued to observe them in silence for some time; but, being at last convinced that the appearance was real, he went into the house, and begged Mr. Lancaster to come out, as he had something very curious to shew him. They went out together; but, before he spoke, his master's son The natural explanation of this phenomenon is, that a troop of those who were preparing to rise in the subsequent rebellion, were exercising in some hollow and concealed part of the mountain, and that their figures being received upon a dense cloud floating in the air, were reflected downwards on the mountain's side. It was a similar optical accident that rendered a whole army most distinctly visible to a farmer and his son near Inverary-a circumstance which, though extremely interesting and well vouched for in all its particulars, is too long to be given within our present limits. We shall therefore conclude this subject with saying, that we have no doubt that many of those strange mysterious visions, such as those of processions and of funerals, so often seen in the highlands of Scotland, are quite explicable on the same principles. EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. MR. Wilkinson, in his extraordinary work on the Antiquities of Thebes, gives the following description of some Egyptian pictures, which throw much light on the military operations of that wonderful people. "On the north face of the eastern pyramidal tower, or propylon, (of the temple-palace of Remeses II.) is represented the capture of several towns from an Asiatic enemy, whose chiefs are led in bonds by the victorious Egyptians towards the camp of their army. Several of these towns are introduced into the picture, each bearing its name in hieroglyphic characters, which state them to have been taken in the fourth year of King Remeses II. * In the scene before us, an insolent soldier pulls the beard of his helpless captive, while others wantonly beat the suppliant, or satiate their fury with the sword. Beyond these is a corps of infantry in close array, flanked by a strong body of chariots; and a camp, indicated by a rampart of Egyptian shields, with a wicker gateway, guarded by four companies of sentries, who are on duty on the inner side, forms. the most interesting object in this picture. Here the booty taken from the enemy is collected; oxen, chariots, plaustra, horses, asses, sacks of gold, represent the confusion incident after a battle; and the richness of the spoil is expressed by the weight of a bag of money, under which an ass is about to fall. One chief is receiving the salutation of a foot-soldier; another, seated amidst the spoil, strings his bow; and a sutler. suspends a water-skin on a pole he has fixed in the ground. Below this a body of infantry marches homewards; and beyond them the king, attended by his fan-bearers, holds forth his hand to receive the homage of the priests and principal persons, who approach his throne to congratulate his return. His charioteer is also in attendance, and the high-spirited horses of his car are with difficulty restrained by three grooms who hold them. Two captives below this are doomed to be beaten, probably to death, by four Egyptian soldiers; while they in vain, with outstretched hands, implore the clemency of their heedless conqueror." THE SNUFF BOX.-PART I. We take shame to ourselves for neglecting to notice this little piece of drollery sooner. It is about the size of the diminutive song-books so much in vogue a few years ago, and contains some really clever and piquant articles in prose and verse. It is also illustrated by woodcuts, which, however, are any thing but clever and characteristic. They are not worthy to appear with the letterpress. From among the pieces in verse we select the following, which cannot fail to raise a laugh: "INSCRIPTION FOR AN ARBOUR. While timid beetles from a chink behind, We have been so tickled with these lines, that we have ordered them to be engraved on a tablet for our summerhouse, surrounded by a border of spiders, beetles, earwigs, and centipedes, and the other genii loci of these "cool-grots." CURIOUS GEOLOGICAL HYPOTHESIS. It has been very generally supposed, says Mr. Philips in his interesting "Guide to Geology," that the internal parts of the earth were once in a state of fluidity. That such fluidity was occasioned by heat, is a plausible, or rather a necessary hypothesis, for no other known agent is adequate to the effect. But our confidence in this hypothesis becomes strengthened, when we find that the results of careful experiments, repeated in various parts of the world, agree in demonstrating that the interior parts of the earth, at small depths, are sensibly hotter than the surface, and that this augmentation of heat follows some regular ratio to the depth. If then it be probable that in former periods the whole interior was fluid by heat; if there be at present an interior heat; and if, without introducing the consideration of new substances, the expansive force of heat may counterbalance the effect of condensation, it seems by no means a chimerical theory, that the nucleus of the globe may even now be partially fluid with heat. AVARICE. A neighbour once refused another the use of his well. He was thus compelled to sink one himself; and in so doing, accidentally filled up the vein of his neighbour's spring. Thus avarice ofttimes defeats itself, and benefits its enemy. |