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Sir,

ORIGINAL LETTER FROM THE HAVANNA.

YOUR

From the Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1820.

OUR commands require of me more than, I fear, I am able to perform. You are not aware that the slightest exertion, even that of writing a note, is a fatigue in this climate; yet you expect that I am to report a special detail of every striking object in this part of the West Indies. I shall, nevertheless, make some attempts to gratify your curiosity.

The poco à poco is the motto of all who draw their first breath in these scorching climates, or who come to reside in them. But, to begin, it is unpleasant to announce that, since my arrival, for about year, in this island, I have witnessed the successive extinction of about four-fifths of those who have arrived from Europe. A terrible disorder, the vomito negro, better known by the name of the yellow-fever, almost invariably attacks the newly-landed. In vain do I enquire what is the cause of this disease, and what are the remedies provided against it. The physicians of the country are as uninformed on this subject as I am; as evidently appears from the very different prescriptions which they distribute, and which all tend to one common result,-that of conducting their unhappy patients to the grave. At the same time, the negro women are much more successful in their treatment of the fatal fever than the regular faculty: they inspire confi dence which calms the patient, and, then probably, Nature does the rest. The very captains who have brought away the negresses from the coast of Africa, are obliged to implore their benevolent assistance, and are frequently indebted for the preservation of their lives to those whom they have, by an abuse of civilization, deprived of their country and their liberty.

It is terrible to reflect on the rapidity with which this disorder marks its progress. Woe to the wretched victims whose consciences are not at ease! I have never been absent three or four

days without having to witness, on my return, the death and interment of some individual of my acquaintance; or, at least, this has occurred to me twice. The first instance was in that of a young Frenchman named St.André,who was about to institute a course of chemical lectures; and, as he had been three years inured to the climate, he was considered as wellseasoned: the second was that of a youth scarcely 19,son of Darte; a young man of excellent education, the amenity of whose manners and native modesty, had gained him many friends.

The Havannah is not the only seat of this terrible scourge: there is not a port in the whole island that can be deemed an exemption. Out of a hundred Europeans who disembarked two months ago at Nuevitas, one-half have fallen victims. The rural districts are more salubrious; yet, even there, the vomito negro makes occasional ravages, tho' it appear with less violence and frequency.

The natives are not so exempt from the fever as is commonly imagined. If born in the Havannah, or the other ports, they are subject to a hard condition, that of never quitting them. Such as embark for America and Europe, and even such as go and reside in the country for a year or two, cannot return without danger. I very lately was an eye-witness of the death of a girl not more than ten years of age, who was born in the Havannah, and brought up at a few miles distance from it, and who had inadvertently repaired thither, to be present at a family-feast.

You may fancy, perhaps, that the disease lies dormant for six months of the year, when the sun is more distant from this part of the torrid zone; but this is a mistaken notion, though pretty generally entertained.

There is not a

day in the year that does not extinguish its victims, though the number is less considerable in our winter and autumn, than in the spring and summer. It is now raging in all its force: the last fifteen days of April proved fatal to sev

enty six French; and the English, and all other Europeans, in the proportion of the numbers, sink under its influence. I am even now environed with the dying and the dead. If I stir out, I meet with hundreds of priests running and crossing themselves in all directions; some carrying the viaticum, others chanting psalms or funeral dirges in the different paths leading to the cemeteries. If I remain within doors, twenty bells are constantly tolling, and strike my interior sense still more forcibly than the gloomy scene of which I am the spectator. It is an additional fact, though hardly credible, that even cupidity has its martyrs. A profitable speculation must not be abandoned, and each nation retains its characteristic traits: the Frenchman goes down to his grave with a merry song, and the Englishman dies sulky, though with bottle in hand.

For my part, I can neither sing nor drink, but fly for refuge to the country, where I mean to proceed with my epistle, unless visited by that obnoxious guest, the vomito negro.

Here I am, then, reposing in the midst of a meagre scene, the soil covered with volcanic reliques, and no sort of perspective but a few trees thinly scattered, with no umbrage, and but a pale verdure, which it would baffle the imagination of a Briton to conceive.

But I must now try to entertain you with matters less sombrous than the vomito negro. My crossing the seas took up 60 days; and, on arriving, my usual good-humour soured into phlegm,on beholding a country naked and parched, with not a flower or rivulet to be seen.

Before we entered the Havannah, we perceived on our left a fort named the Moro, under the cannon of which every vessel must pass. The eminence on which it stands, its actual display, and, more than all perhaps, the menacing aspect of the mouths of its cannon, impress a majestic and imposing character on its exterior. On approaching nearer to the entrance, I beheld on my right a few scattered country-houses, and in the back-ground a village called La Salud, This prospect was rather agreeable and pleasing.

C

ATHENEUM VOL. 7.

In a few minutes we passed through the narrow channel which conducts into the harbour, and then we discovered on a sudden an immense basin of an oval form, regaling the eye with the spectacle of a thousand or twelve hundred flags of all nations. I think the superb Tyre could not have shewn a richer or more magnificent sea-piece. On the right, a thick wall conceals the city, and we could scarcely obtain a glimpse of a few steeples, whose clumsy construction would lead one to conceive that labourers, not architects, had been employed in the embellishments of the Havannah.

In

On the left of the basin appear a number of houses, that make part of a village called La Regla, and behind them is a little grove of trees, the only decoration of that immense basin. vain we looked about for a rock with a frowning aspect, for a verdant hill or dale, or rows of houses rising in an amphitheatre over the shore.

This haven, which is the most capacious and secure in this part of the world, will in time become useless, unless attention is paid to it. The canal that leads to it is gradually getting narrower; it has only seventeen feet of water, though in 1743 it was four-and-twenty feet deep.

The entrance too in 1743 was sixty feet deep, but now only eighteen. The evil is well known, and it would be easy to find a remedy for it; but that species of persevering firmness is the very thing wherein both the public functionaries and individuals bere are deficient.

Before I quit the haven, I must not forget to mention the machine that bas been constructed for providing vessels with masts; it is considered as very ingenious, and excites the admiration of foreign sailors. It was completed more than twenty years ago, after the designs of a Catalonian named Pedro Gatel; but both the honour and profit of the invention were engrossed by the governor and the commandant of the marine of that time. Both of them obtained promotion for it, while the inventor was not allowed even to raise his own machine. He died some time after in indigent circumstances and broken-hearted, and his widow and children are lan

guishing in poverty at this day, at the Havannah.

On landing, we saw before us a narrow archway, that leads to the Havan nah. The intermediate space is not above ten steps. At every second step I felt myself sinking in mire; but I expected to find a good pavement on passing the gateway. No such thing. On the right, on the left, before you, it is all mudhole; and through the whole range of streets there was no prospect of getting free from it, till we arrived at the house we were in search of.

The streets are not paved, and the waters have no descent; hence the surface remains in a state of nature. This constant stagnation of the water necessarily gives rise to pestilential miasmata, and renders the Havannab a sink of foul exhalations. As soon as we advanced a little into the city, we were assailed with an intolerable stench, which I could not get rid of, and my olfactory nerves seemed to be bewildered as much as they would have been among the drugs of twenty apothecaries' shops.

In going through the streets, I found them narrow, dirty, not laid out in straight lines, and inclosed with low houses, which have windows indeed, but without glass panes, and which are closed with wooden bars. The appearance of the people who perambulate the streets helped to aggravate the painful impressions which I felt; thousands of whites and negroes, most of them covered with rags and plasters, strike a stranger, on bis first landing, with a kind of horror: he soon gets rid of all his previous illusions, and disappointment intercepts the gay hopes which he had anticipated.

In advancing thus far, I had to shield my face from swarms of musquetoes, that were annoying me with their stings; and to protect my ears against the rumbling of a score of bells, in eight or ten steeples. Sometimes it is for a dying person, sometimes for an interment; and further off, it is a call to an office or ecclesiastical service.

On proceeding to my hotel, I could hardly believe it one. An immense hall, as large as a barn, and almost as unfurnished, is the common rendezvous;

the sleeping-rooms are not much better than small closets, as naked as the hall. They enclose you within four walls, and the only furniture is a bedstead; in which you may stow yourself, rather to escape from seeing and hearing, than to enjoy sleep or comfortable repose. In vain did I, on the first night, implore the aid of Morpheus. A bard thin mattress, which I got only by entreating for it, communicates an uneasy burning heat. Nor indeed could I doze; for the plaintive cries of a sick person from an adjacent closet cast a gloom over me, which I could not overcome.

It was my lot to experience all this the first night of my arrival. No sooner had I risen, than I made enquiries about the sick person whose groans I had heard in the cell next to mine. They told me he was gone out, and I drew a good omen from this; but learned in the course of the day, that he was truly gone out, but it was to his last home; for, very early in the morning, he had been removed for interment.

Thus, dear sir, I present you with a faithful recital of my first day's incidents. Three parts out of four of those who come here are speedily surfeited, and reimbark immediately; and I have ob. served, that the military gentlemen are the first to make their escape.

In a

Here are no external objects to amuse, no buildings to invite, a spectator; the public places narrow and inelegant, the houses low, as if erected in the infancy of the art. But what astonishes me is, that in so hot a climate there is no public garden,-not a tree to be seen, to afford a little refreshing shade. word, the Havannah, in its totality and in its details, seems to have been built for such a population as it contains. Extreme misery in Europe exhibits nothing half so hideous as the black tawny figures which here encumber the public ways; that part of the body which is not covered by filthy rags, lets appear plasters, cataplasms, and vesicatories; we are walking not in a city, but in a vast infirmary.

Persons in easy circumstances seldom stir out, or if they do, you scarcely ever meet them on foot. As to the women, whether rich or not, provided

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skullhites, custom, that inflexible turn ant, forbids them the use of their use and they can only appear abroad an idea gs or chariots, so concealed with to a ci curtains, that even the professed and want can scarcely steal a glimpse of

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build Things look some little better in the Exterior of the houses. The principal ite place, which is on a level with the street, is in a manner all light, as the door and the windows are almost always open. Nor can you well designate a proper appellation for this principal place; for here, jumbled together, we find the voiture, the toilette, and the bed, so that it is a coach-house, a saloon, and a bedchamber, all in one. Though it stands open to the street, all the household work is going on, and the women will dress and undress there as quietly as if no profane eye could overlook them. In London or Paris, such a procedure would soon collect a mob, but here it is scarcely even noticed. Are morals purer in Europe? This I will not determine; but, assuredly, they are more decent.

As the day begins to decline, you sally out, to console yourself, in some

circles, for the languor of the forenoon; you introduce yourself to such as you have commenced acquaintance with, or to whom you are recommended. There you survey the master and family sunk in a dismal solitude. You think, per

haps, you are come too soon; an hour or too passes without a single strange face to greet, or any to break in upon the tedious dryness of the conversation. To hold a discoure requires an effort in this country; it throws you into a perspiration.

All the saloons here are uncommonly large. In some of these you will find elegant furniture of European manufacture, but their rooms look naked enough, as it would require an upholsterer's shop to supply the requisite decorations. Furniture here is attacked by three destructive foes,-the insects, heat, and moisture. A new provision must be made every two or three years; but rather than incur an expense so enormous, the inhabitants prefer stowing their piastres and ounces of gold in their coffers, where the sight of them, to minds uncultivated, yields more pleasure than the noble productions of taste and the arts.

WE

From the Literary Gazette, Jan. 1820.

ANASTASIUS: OR, MEMOIRS OF A GREEK.

E have been so much delighted with this publication, that we sit down to the task of making it known to our readers with a decided conviction that we can only very imperfectly execute our purpose. Not even one of the giant reviews, which three or four times a year illuminate the literary hemisphere, will be able to find room for a tythe of the extracts which crowd upon the critic, and demand his special notice; what then can be done with our weekly sheet? Let us face the difficulty and see.

Anastasius is the Anacharsis of our times. What the latter is to ancient, the former is to modern Greece. But his travels and adventures are widely extended; and not only Greece, but Turkey and Egypt, are delineated with a living pencil. Lady Mary

more

Wortley Montague herself, does not present us with more genuine or more characteristic pictures; and though the frame-work of the publication is a fiction of the novel genus, it is immediately seen that the descriptions are real, the facts authentic, and the whole the result of actual and highly intelligent observation. Indeed if report is to be credited, which in this case we have reason to believe it may, these volumes are the fruits of the travels of Mr. THOMAS HOPE,Connected together in the enlivened shape of a fabulous narrative, but in every respect the authentic produce of personal remark.

Such being the character of Anastasius, it would be absurd to treat it as a romance: it is in fact, travels in Greece, Turkey, and Egypt, knit together by a

highly interesting story, and distinguished for accurate and felicitous sketches of the society and manners of these countries. With regard to the execution, we can truly say that it is admirable. Where pathos is aimed at, we often meet with a simplicity and strength which go home to the heart; and in the lighter parts there is a caustic and humorous vein which, except in Pigault Lebrun, (whose style it frequently resembles,) we have not seen equalled since the day of Voltaire, of whom it also very forcibly reminds us.

With this general impression of the work, we beg to take leave of our preface. No doubt, the praise we offer is of the most flattering kind; but we will venture to anticipate that even our extracts will justify it, and the book itself raise the eulogy still more.

The Editor, in his preface says, that his aim is not wholly frivolous.

"In an age in which whatever relates to the regions, once adorned by the Greeks, and now defaced by the Turks, excites peculiar attention, he thought that this narrative might add to our information on so interesting a subject, not only by presenting a picture of national customs and manners, but by offering many historical and biographical notices, not to be met with elsewhere, and yet, as far as their accuracy has been investigated, narrated with a scrupulous regard to truth :-for tho' the author has probably brought forward under the mask of fictitious names, the persons and adventures of some private individuals, whom he might not have deemed himself warranted to drag before the public undisguised, he seems to have described public events and personages with all the fidelity of an historian." This, making allowance for what our French neighbours call the mystification, perfectly explains the nature of the work. Anastasius, the son of Greek parents from Epirus, but settled at Chio, where his father was drogueman to the French consul, is completely a spoilt child, and in consequence so refractory and vicious, that it was deemed expedient to educate him for the church. At an early age, however, he has an amour with Helena, the consul's daughter;

er to

and to avoid its natural termination ter from Chio in a Venetian vessel, II. which he is appointed,ad interim, calls, boy. The captain of the ship dog; in avoid the pirates with all the ar that might have been expected: in to therefore met with, boarded while In crew are all drunk, and captured. 1 re pirates and their prize are however take in turn by a Turkish frigate, and our hero and his companions carried before Hassan Pasha. The rest are dismissed to punishment; but the young Greek is released, and gradually gets into favour with the Albanese drogueman of the Pasha, a very great personage in his way. After various exploits in the war against the Arnaoots, he accompanies his patron to Constantinople; where his adventures, intrigues, change of faith, and other incidents are detailed, and carry us nearly to the end of the first volume. His return to Greece, and obtaining, in quality of Moslemin, possession of his mother's estate at Naxos; his rejection by his family; his visit to Rhodes, and subsequent voyage to Egypt, where he becomes Mamluke, and takes part in the struggles of the Beys, afford other and excellent opportunities for those traits of character, descriptions of scenery, pictures of domestic life, and accounts of public transactións, all of which the author paints with so much fidelity,naiveté,and vigor.

This is a very rough outline of the story, but our extracts will unfold it more amply.

Under Hassan, Anastasius fights most heroically, and slays an Arnaoot leader in battle. The following is a neat satire upon the customs of civilized war.

"The head which, in imitation of my companions, I laid before the Pasha, he only treated as a football ;-an usage which made me feel vexed for its dignity and my own; but when the whole harvest was got in, he ordered the produce to be built into the base of a handsome pyramid. The remaining Arnaoots, cut off at the Dervens, afterwards supplied its top, and thus afforded the inhabitants of Tripolizza a most agreeable vista, which they enjoy to this day.. One of our men, indeed, attempted to keep back from the common store

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