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which was a possession of the prince of guages with fluency, and Spanish by Piombino. Barbarossa threatened to preference. At once courageous and ravage the island with fire and sword, if cautious, he had a penetrating eye for the Il Giudeo's son were not given up to him. choice of his subordinates, amongst whom This act appears to have been dictated were numbered at various times such orless by friendship for his comrade in naments of the piratical profession as piracy than by greed of gain. There is Cacciadiavoli, Il Giudeo, Hassan Aga (a little doubt that he expected the prince to Sardinian renegade), etc. He made a pay a heavy ransom for the youth to whom careful and fruitful study of the naval he had become attached. Only a short constructions of his time, and greatly imtime previous, the republic of Genova proved the build and armament of the had been compelled to the humiliation of corsair vessels, making them lighter and buying him off from destroying Savona. fleeter than heretofore; for, as he was However, the young man at once declared accustomed to remark to his lieutenants, himself willing to go and see his father, as a greyhound is better for the chase than a was right and dutiful, but stipulated spon- mastiff. In short, he was evidently no taneously that the dominions of his bene- vulgar desperado, intent on petty plunder, factor, the prince of Piombino, should be but a leader of men, endowed with keen respected. Accordingly the baptized son perceptions, cool daring, and Napoleonic of Il Giudeo set out for Egypt where his unscrupulousness. It does not appear, father anxiously awaited him. But when however, that he made any pretence of one day he appeared before him, a hand- carrying Mussulman "civilization into some, elegant cavalier, richly attired, and Christian countries. He simply robbed surrounded by a train of servants and at- and ravaged because he wanted booty and tendants, the old man embraced his long-slaves. But the world has progressed lost son in such a paroxysm and transport of joy, that "his heart burst and he fell dead." The circumstance is well attested by Bosio, Mambrino, Jovius, etc. And, as Padre Guglielmotti remarks, Il Giudeo was probably the only one of the dreaded company of Moorish pirates to whom it could possibly have happened.

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since A.D. 1530, or so. We have seen that the republic of Genova la Superba was induced to buy him off on one occasion. He plundered Calabria, Campania, and Nice; and in 1536 (regnante Pope Paul III. Farnese) he caused such a panic along the whole of the Italian Mediterranean coast, that the pontiff made a jourBarbarossa's adventures were perhaps ney in person to hasten the armaments more varied and startling than those of and defences of the Maremma, to visit any of his compeers, or at least more of the citadels, to comfort the people, and to them have been chronicled and particular- encourage the troops and their leaders. ized. But he was also superior to the In twenty-seven days he visited Nepi,. majority of his compeers in intelligence Viterbo, Montefiascone, Orvieto, Gradoli, as well as daring. The son of a renegade Capodimonte, Acquapendente, ToscaGreek of Mitylene, he and his brother nella, Corneto, Cività Vecchia, and Cere. Oürudje early embarked in the career of And then he turned his attention to the piracy, beginning in great poverty so walls of Rome. Guglielmotti maintains much so that their first attempts were that the modern fortifications of Rome made in a wretched little cockle-shell of a and the works of Sangallo and Castriotto, boat, armed at the expense of some spec-in the part of the city called the Borgo, ulator (perhaps we should now say "contractor") in that line of business; they speedily amassed riches, and made themselves feared and famous. Kair-ed-Din, corrupted by the Italian cinquecentisti into Ariadeno, and nicknamed from the color of his hair Barbarossa, was the leading spirit of the two. He was of middle height and herculean strength, with a red and very thick beard. His lower lip hung down and made him lisp in his speech. He was proud, vindictive, and treacherous. Nevertheless, he could on occasion assume considerable affability of manner, and his smile is said to have been peculiarly sweet. He spoke several lan

and at the Vatican, had their origin in the necessity for being prepared against the Turks, and especially against the terrible Barbarossa. One of Barbarossa's exploits was to disembark in the island of Procida, in the Gulf of Naples, and from thence to burn, harry, and ravage the mainland in all directions. He bombarded Gaëta, he destroyed Sperlonga, he seized Fondi, a town in the present province of Caserta in the kingdom of Naples. And at this latter place he nearly succeeded in a pet plan of his, which was to carry off Giulia Gonzaga, widow of Vespasian Colonna, and reputed the most beautiful woman in Italy, and make a present of

her to Sultan Soliman! The lady had the narrowest escape possible, being one of the first persons in the town to be aroused from sleep by the approach of the pirates, and hurrying away halfdressed. The town was sacked, and later the pirates burned Terracina, and finally they appeared on the Roman shores at the mouth of the Tiber. Such was the terror of the populations that contemporary writers are almost unanimously of opinion that Barbarossa might have captured Rome itself had he made the attempt. This, however, was not in his schemes. Having taken in stores of fresh water, and wood from the neighboring forests, he made off straight for Tunis. Here Muley-Hassan, the legitimate sovereign, was very far from suspecting what awaited him. But Barbarossa, with perfect frankness and absence of any diplomatic fashions whatsoever, turned the Tunisan monarch out of his dominions, and installed himself as ruler instead! After twelve years more of a brilliant and prosperous career, this remarkable personage died in his bed at Constantinople, and was buried (July, 1546) on the shores of the Bosphorus at Therapia. To this day the ruins of his tomb are to be seen there, picturesquely overgrown with moss and ivy.

haps increased by the fact stated in the preface to Henry Colman's "European Life and Manners," published in 1849, that the letters of which the book is made up were not originally intended for publication. In the same preface the author exhibited a right feeling which it could be wished were more common amongst authors nowadays. "The greatest difficulty," he wrote, "in the publication of these letters has been that they might be deemed too personal; and my anxiety has been lest they should be thought to approach a violation of private confidence. I know few things that could give me more pain than to be justly obnoxious to such a charge. I hope it will not in any degree be found so." In accordance with this feeling the author at first resolved not to publish a single name, but he found this an idle attempt, as "individuals would be traced by circumstances as certainly as if distinctly announced." He goes on, however, to say: "I have reported no conversations, and passed no free opinions, upon any persons or characters except public characters, and upon these only in their public relations and acts; and though in speaking of private individuals I have spoken in the language of respect or praise, I can only say that the terms are most general; I had constantly to restrain the grateful utterance of my convictions, and it is not a tithe of the eulogy which I might have honestly pronounced." Further, Mr. Colman was careful to state that all the particulars published as to the style of living in the houses at which he was a guest had been placed in his hands "with a full and expressed liberty to use them as I pleased.

The above are only a few brief pages from the varied chronicles of Mediterranean piracy, which are curiously and intimately connected with the history of European politics throughout the sixteenth century. And in our own times the geographical position of that famous Barbary coast has again made it important in the councils of Europe. Nay, to go further back by many centuries, the.. I know my English friends will Italians of to-day discover that Cato's warning about Carthage is not yet obsolete; and that the fresh figs from Tunis are more quickly transported to their coasts by steam navies nowadays than they could be carried in the Roman galleys a hundred and fifty years before Christ.

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smile at the simplicity with which I have detailed some small matters; but they must live in a condition and organization of society totally different from their own in order to understand the interest which is taken on this side of the water in these minute details."

As to Mr. Colman's more general views, and especially as to his first impressions of London, people who are compelled or who choose to stay in town at this time of year may get some gratification from being reminded by the Ameri can traveller of the magnificent nature of their abiding-place. Having described some of the narrow city streets, he goes on to speak of London's "broad and magnificent passages, of a width a third greater than Broadway in New York in its widest parts, running for miles with

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the better class of women," most of whom wore white cotton stockings "without those dirty pantalets which you see hobbling about the ankles of our women; while they had too much good sense to let their clothes draggle in the mud under an affected modesty. "I wish our ladies at home could take some lessons from them." Another thing he admired was their wearing, when walking, pattens or thick-soled shoes as thick as cork shoes, or else goloshes. 'India-rubbers are not seen." What is the difference between goloshes and India-rubbers? He was further pleased at finding that

stores and shops of almost unimaginable | Before leaving London to pay some visits splendor, and in their richness and mag at great houses, the writer described nificence realizing the brightest fictions of how he was struck by "the neatness of poetry." As to the extent of London, the author found it impossible to communicate any idea of it to those who had not seen it for themselves. He had gone eighteen miles, from Brentford to Stratford, through an uninterrupted succession of thickly-planted houses. He had walked until he had to sit down on a doorstep out of pure weariness, and yet had not got at all out of the moving tide of population. He rode on the driver's seat on omnibuses, and was astonished at the constant succession of squares, parks, terraces, and long lines of single houses for miles, and continuous blocks and single palaces in the very heart of London, occupying acres of ground. This, he added, was the impression produced, without taking into account the large parks,

which for their trees, their verdure, their neatness, their embellishments, their lakes and cascades, their waters swarming with fish, and covered with a great variety of water-fowl which they have been able to domesticate, and their grazing flocks of sheep and cattle, and their national monuments, and the multitudes of well-dressed pedestrians, and of elegantlymounted horsemen and horsewomen, and of carriages and equipages as splendid as gold

and silver can make them, are beautiful beyond even my most romantic dreams. I do not exaggerate; I cannot go beyond the reality. The same impression is more than once repeated in different words, the inference of course being that the writer was in correspondence with several friends, and preferred to leave the letters as they were rather than go to work to make a set book of them a preference which is perhaps justified by the air of spontaneousness thus retained. One point, as in contrast to the magnificence above referred to, he touches upon in a passage which speaks of "the most melancholy sight in London and Liverpool," and it is to be feared that if Mr. Colman could return to

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London now he would find that but little had been done towards removing this disgrace to certain of our streets at night time. In a passage following not long after this, he writes:

Tell I have little chance of obtaining for her a King Charles poodle. The lady of who had a well-educated one, told me the price was thirty guineas; and it had no doubt been stolen from her, a very common trick, by the man who sold it to her, and she had to pay him eight guineas more for finding it.

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they seldom wear false curls; but women whose
hair is grey wear it grey, and seem to take as
much pains with, and as much pride in their
Isilver locks as the younger ones do in their
auburn tresses.
much more a study than with us; and upon the
Manners are certainly
whole make society much more agreeable; for
they are not put on for the occasion, but grow
up with them as matter of course. Everything
in society proceeds much more quietly than

with us.

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Of the country houses to which he was invited Mr. Colman had, as he warned readers in his preface, a good deal to say as to matters of detail, but in one letter he gives a kind of general summary of his experiences, and some of the impressions given in this may be referred to:

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hands on retiring with all the party, and on
In a Scotch family you are expected to shake
meeting in the morning. The English are a
little more reserved, though, in general, the
master of the house shakes hands with you.
In the morning you come down in un-
dress, with boots, trowsers of any color, frock-
coat, etc. At dinner you are always expected
to be in full dress; straight coat, black satin
or white waistcoat, silk stockings and pumps,
The gentleman is ex-
but not gloves.
pected to sit near the lady whom he hands in.
After dessert there

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is put upon the table a small bottle of Constantia wine, which is deemed very precious, and handed round in small wine-glasses, or Noyeau, or some other cordial. No cigars or pipes are ever offered, and soon after the removal of the cloth the ladies retire to the drawing-room, the gentlemen close up at the table, and, after sitting as long as you please, you go into the drawing-room to have coffee and then tea. The wines at table are generally of the most expensive quality; port, sherry, claret, seldom madeira; but I have never heard any discussion about the character of the wines,

excepting that I have been repeatedly asked | the New York Canal than he heard altowhat wine we usually drank in America.

In a foot-note the writer states that during his long residence in England, even in the freest conversation in parties of gentlemen, he never heard an obscene story or indecent allusion, “nor even,” he adds, using a vile mongrel phrase which custom has made current 66 - a double entendre." Shortly after the date of this letter Mr. Colman was fortunate enough to be present at the queen's visit to Cambridge on the occasion of the degree of LL.D. being conferred on the prince consort; and in reference to this, after dwelling on the blessing to her subjects of the queen's "exemplary and beautiful character," he makes the quaint statement that "this is remarkable, for some of their monarchs have been a disgrace to human nature, and their celebrated Queen Elizabeth was an odious character.' On a second visit to Cambridge, the writer attended the University Sermon, and found the preaching "almost the best that I have heard in England. It was a highly devout, practical, and useful sermon, and written with great elegance, delivered in a simple, earnest, and unaffected manner." In the afternoon he went to chapel, first at King's, and afterwards to the organ-loft at Trinity, where there was a very grand display. The room is not elegant; it is a good deal larger than King's Chapel in Boston, with seats running lengthwise, and rising from the centre aisle. The room was lighted by about two hundred wax candles, and the whole assembly below were dressed in white surplices with their black square caps in their hands. . . . I have never witnessed a sight so splendid and august." Further on he states that "no student is allowed to go without his university dress, at any time, out of his own room a vexation which Cambridge men may be heartily glad to have got rid of.

66

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On his return to London towards the end of 1843 Mr. Colman found himself for a time comparatively solitary, and took occasion to walk about and investigate the condition of the streets of all kinds, in which, much to his surprise, he seldom saw a quarrel. He saw carriages, again and again, by hundreds, passing each other in the narrowest passages, often hindered when they were most anxious to get on, and yet (this is surprising enough) he saw no passion displayed and heard no harsh language uttered. He had, he wrote, heard more profane swearing in one hour among the boatmen on

gether during his seven months' residence in England. At the beginning of 1844 the traveller took to going out to evening parties, when he observed that elderly ladies wore their gowns very low in front, while young ladies wore them rather high in front but very low behind. Short kid mittens or gloves were worn up to the wrist; then the arm was bare to the elbow, with short sleeves, and a good deal of lace round the elbows and bosom. The gowns were worn very long, with white kid shoes. Society, in its political aspects, was in a peculiar condition, calculated to cause anxiety :

is at present maintained mainly by military It is quite plain to me that the Government force. The disturbances in Ireland, the divisions in the Church in Scotland, the condition of the poor throughout the country, the agitation on the subject of the Corn-laws, the movements of the High Church party, the Pusey controversy, the hatred of the Established Church not uncommon amongst Dissentersall these things seemed to make a jumble of

noxious elements.

The reputation of America was at a very low ebb, and Mr. Colman could scarcely go into any company without being obliged to do battle for his country. "The mere suggestion of repudiation, which, I believe, has never been contemplated by any but the State of Mississippi, has done us an immense injury." The tone of the American papers the writer found to be in many respects inexcusable, and especially in their efforts to kindle a war spirit: —

America seems really to be cursed with some

selfish, mean politicians, who, to gross ignociple, add only views of the most narrow and rance and entire recklessness of moral prinsordid character, and are incapable of acting upon any large and comprehensive principles of right and justice, and of regarding with a single eye the great interests of humanity. As to the Irish agitation it seemed portentous of destruction and outrage, but government had no serious appre

the

hensions:

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according to the report of the surgeon. There were one or two cases of illness, but no trace of scurvy, though 70° of frost were at times experienced. In June the ice was cleared away, and on the 21st four boats were started from Cape Flora, with twenty-five men and provisions for six months. The "Eira " men were more fortunate than the discoverers of Franz Josef Land in their escape; for although they had sometimes to drag their boats over the ice, they reached Novaya Zemlya, at Matotschkin Schar, on August 2. Next day they were sighted by the "William Barents," and as Sir Allen Young, in the "Hope," was only a mile away, Mr. Leigh Smith and his men were soon welcomed on board the steamer sent to rescue them.

of names much of this would not seem | drop of rum, they maintained their health, out of date nowadays. Of the theatres Mr. Colman had little to say except as to the ballets at the Opera House, which he found got up in a style of surpassing magnificence and splendor. "The music is of the most recherché description, and the dancing as elastic and sylph-like as can be imagined. I cannot speak of it with unqualified approval. Within certain limits it presents all the charms of the most wonderful cultivation and grace; but beyond certain limits, the passing of which every modest mind at once recognizes, it becomes offensive and immoral." He went on, however, to admit with his usual fairness that every allowance must be made for the effect of habit and established customs, and with this admission we may for the present take leave of our ingenuous and ingenious writer.

From Nature.

THE "EIRA" EXPEDITION.

When Mr. Smith publishes his detailed narrative, we may find that he has been able to make some addition to a knowl edge of the geography and natural history of the region where he has wintered, though we fear it cannot be much. All his collections went down with the "Eira," so that science cannot be a great ON June 14, 1881, the "Eira " left Pe- gainer by his expedition. Until details terhead. The ice reached very far south, are to hand, it is impossible to say whether and no opening could be found to enable the catastrophe to the vessel could have her to get north until the middle of July. been avoided, or whether it was one of Franz Josef's Land was reached on July those accidents for which all Arctic ex23, and the "Eira" steamed along the plorers must be prepared. The ice seems coast to within fifteen miles of Cape Lud- to have been in motion very early this low. The ice was closely packed to the year for that region, and we know that it north, so it was decided to return to Gray has come down unusually far south; any Bay and wait till a more favorable oppor-information concerning the movements of tunity should present itself to proceed. the ice in high latitudes during the past On August 7 the "Eira" was made fast spring and summer would be welcome. to the land-floe near Bell Island, and a storehouse was erected of materials taken out in the ship. On August 15 she left Bell Island, and, being unable to pass to the eastward of Barents Hook, she was made fast to the land-floe off Cape Flora. The next few days were spent in collecting plants and fossils, which unfortunately were lost with the vessel. On August 21 the "Eira was heavily nipped by the ice, and about 10 A.M. a leak was discovered, and barely two hours elapsed till the vessel had to be abandoned. All the boats were saved, and most of the men saved some clothes and bedding.

The tent was ultimately erected on Cape Flora, and here the expedition spent the winter, making the best of their circumstances. But little food had been saved, and the party had therefore to keep a sharp look-out for walruses, bears, and other native game, on which they lived, and on which, along with a daily

The following is an interesting extract from the journal report upon Cape Flora (obtained by the Times Aberdeen correspondent), giving an account of the birds, bears, and walrus seen during the winter spent there:

"On July 25, 1881, we reached Gray Bay, at Cape Grant and Cape Crowther. There are large loomeries a short distance up the bay on the water side. Many rotgees had their young among the ba saltic columns of the lofty cliffs. Other birds were also seen, including the snowbird, the molly, the boatswain, the Arctic lern, dovekies, the eider duck, the burgomaster and the kittiwake. At the east side, near the head of Gray Bay, there were a good number of snow-birds and dovekies building, but too high up for one to obtain the eggs. At Cape Stephen there was a large loomery, and at Cape Forbes there were a few looms, a good number of rotgees and dovekies, and

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