cries; and then, trampling my foot upon his neck, made him sue for mercy, and admit that mere existence, received at my hands, was a blessing which he could only enjoy by my permission and favour." Such might be the language of any accomplished robber, who, but for the entire submission of his victim, might have been a murderer also: such is the language held by a British reviewer to plundered and prostrate India. But the mockery of leaving our forefathers, who are in their graves, to settle or atone for the original wrong, while we derive all the benefit of it, and delude the world with promises of employing it to the improvement of the impoverished millions, is the most hollow and heartless thing that we have either heard or seen, even in modern times. If such a principle as this, that plundered treasures, however wrongly obtained, may, by subsequent judicious application, become consecrated and purged of their original character, were once admissible, it would justify any man in England in robbing his neighbour or the state to any extent that might be desired, provided he built a hospital, or even a jail, with a portion of the plunder! After this specimen of the Monthly Review,' the reader will be prepared for any thing, however grossly absurd, or thoroughly unprincipled, from the same source. We shall conclude our strictures with a specimen that appears to us to partake of both, beginning too, as such "crude declamations" generally do, with a profession of extreme reverence for the very principle which the same paragraph ends in decrying. It is this: "Yielding to no men in the zealous determination to uphold the principles of rational freedom, wherever their operation is practicable, we are yet thoroughly convinced of the absurdity and madness of attempting to apply them, for ages to come, to the state of society in India. Our empire in that country is avowedly, innately a despotism-a beneficent despotism, indeed, it should be the public care to render it. Many generations must pass before, if ever, a dawn of liberty can be cautiously opened upon the benighted Asiatic mind; and whenever we hear the cant of democracy employed in asserting the rights of a free press in India, we can only attribute the attempt, either to a political fanaticism, which is incapable of sane judgment, or to more premeditated designs of mischief." This is really the most empty and dogmatical specimen of folly and arrogance combined that we ever remember to have witnessed. Nothing so easy as to put down any thing by words, if words like these could effect it. What, for instance, if we were to copy the writer's own phraseology, and say, "Whenever we hear the cant of tyranny employed in denying the rights of a free press in India, we can only attribute the attempt either to a political fanaticism, which is incapable of sane judgment, or to more premeditated designs of mischief." This sentence reads as well as that of which it is a parody. There are only two words that vary between them. They are im portant variations, it is true. But what does either prove? Absolutely nothing! They are each mere assertions, without a shadow of argument or proof; one is as worthy of credit as the other, till something shall be shown to turn the balance ;-that something, however, does not appear; and as they stand at present, they represent the sort of argument which takes place among obstinate boys disputing some usage in a game; where one says, "I say, speaking shouldn't be allowed"-" I say it should;" to which is still reiterated, on either side," I say it shouldn't"-" I say it should;" till each gets hoarse with obstinately repeated contradiction. The sort of dogmatism advanced by this reviewer is exactly of this class, and must have just as little effect in producing conviction. Instead of the unmeaning string of fallacies and predictions contained in the short paragraph quoted, it would have been well if he had first shown that it was not one of the "principles of rational freedom," to permit the injured to give utterance to their complaints; that it was not "practicable to make the principles of rational freedom, even when of his own stamp, whatever that may be, come into operation in India. He should have shown why it would be "madness" and "absurdity" even to "attempt to apply them, for ages to come, in that country." God help the poor Hindoos! One would like to know how many ages must pass away, before the generations yet unborn may be made better. For the present race there is clearly no hope for "many," says this profound oracle, "must pass, before even a dawn of freedom can be permitted to be let in, however cautiously it may be opened upon the benighted Asiatic mind!" Therefore, for ages to come, nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, according to this humane theory, ought even to be attempted! Not so much as the dawn of liberty must be permitted till then, if ever! for, if this be an innate despotism, it must always remain so!! " And is it in the metropolis of England, the island boasting to be the favoured haunt of Liberty-the sanctuary for the persecutedthe shield of the oppressed :-is it in the very capital of the British dominions, to which the world are taught to look as the most free and enlightened nation upon the face of the earth, and its Free Press the greatest blessing of the age :-is it here that we see these sentiments put forth, in a Work, the conductors of which profess that they yield to no men in their determination to uphold the principles of rational freedom? Alas! for India, if this were the index of the public mind. But it is not so. There is a growing interest in her fate, which will soon increase with accelerated speed; and to the light which, before the great struggle for her rescue from that prostrate state to which the poisonous and withering influence of fraud and avarice has reduced her, will be thrown upon her real interests and condition, do we trust for her speedy and effectual emancipation from the deadly incubus that now weighs her down in almost hopeless misery and dejection. ORFAH IN MESOPOTAMIA-THE EDESSA OF THE GREEKS, AND [The Editor of this work having now in the press a new Volume of Travels through Mesopotamia, has obtained permission of the Publisher to give the following chapter of the forthcoming volume a place in the pages of the • Oriental Herald,' a privilege of which he readily avails himself, in the hope of its being more acceptable to his readers than any analysis or review of the whole work, which will be left to other pens.] ORFAH is conceived by all the learned Jews and Mohammedans, as well as by the most eminent scholars among the Christians, to have been the Ur of the Chaldees, from whence Abraham went forth to dwell in Haran, previous to his being called from thence, by God, to go into Canaan, the land promised to himself, and to his seed for ever.* The Jews say, that this place is called in Scripture Ourcasdin, that is, the Fire of Chaldea, out of which say they, God brought Abraham; and, on this account, the Talmudists affirm that Abraham was here cast into the fire and was miraculously delivered. + This capital of the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris, the Padan Aram and Aram Nahraim of the Hebrews, the Mesopotamia of the Greeks,§ and the Paradise of the Poets, || received, from its Macedonian conquerers, the name of Edessa; and an abundant fountain which the city enclosed, and called, in Greek, Callirrhoe, communicated this name to the city itself. In later times, it was called Roha, or with the article of the Arabs, Or-rhoa, and by abbreviation, Orha. I D'Anville thinks that this last name may be derived from the Greek term signifying a fountain; or, according to another opinion, it may refer to the founder of this city, whose name is said to have been Orrhoi, now retained, with some little corruption, in Orfah,** or Urfah. Pococke says, "This place seems to have retained its ancient name, as many others have done,-Edessa being the name given to it by the Greeks. However, the name of this city seems to have been changed in honour of the Kings of Syria, of the name of Antiochus, and to have been called Antiochia." ++ The famous fountain of Callirrhoe being here, distinguished this city from others * Gen. c. xi. v. 3. and Joseph. Ant. Jud. 1. 1, c. 6, s. 5. + Pococke, vol. i. 159. Genesis, c. 28, and Josephus. § From μeros, medius; and Toтaμos, fluvius. Milton's Paradise Lost.' Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq.,' lib. 3, c. 16. **6 Compendium of Ancient Geography,' v. i. p. 426. by the name of " Antiochia ad Callirrhoen;" and there are medals which were struck with this name, though, if it had not been explained by Pliny, it would have been difficult to know what place was meant. * Niebuhr, however, observes, that the Turks still call the district here, El-Rohha; because a city of the same name, which had been for the most part ruined, was anciently the residence of the Pasha.+ For myself, I can confidently affirm that it is called Orfah by all the Turks, and by the greater part of the Koords and Arabs of the surrounding country; but Rohha by a few of the latter only, and these chiefly Christians. I could meet with none, however, among either, who were able to give a satisfactory reason for the retention of this last name,-all of them believing that Orfah was its original appellation in the time of Abraham's dwelling here. Edessa was thought, even by the early geographers, to be so ancient, that in the time of Isidore of Charax, Nimrod was named as its founder; and the traditions current among the people here, at the present day, ascribe the building of their castle to that 66 mighty hunter before the Lord." Before the conquest of this city by the Romans, it was the capital of Osrhoene, an independent kingdom, which occupied the northern and most fertile part of Mesopotamia, and whose inhabitants, since the time of Alexander, were a mixed race of Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, and Armenians. This capital, which had taken its name of Edessa under the empire of the Seleucides, from that of a considerable town in Macedonia, still retained it under its change of fortune, as a Roman colony, when it became, from its position, one of the barriers opposed to the Parthians, and to the Persians of the Sassanian dynasty. * "Arabia supradicta habet oppida Eddessam, quæ quondam Antiochia dicebatur, Callirhoen a fonte nominatam. '-Plin. Nat. lib. 5, 21. Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 332. 4to. Mr. Gibbon erred in supposing Edessa to have been only twenty miles beyond the Euphrates, it being considerably more than that distance from the nearest part of the river in a straight line.-Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, vol. i. c. 8, p. 335. D'Anville says, that Edessa was placed in the lat. of 36°, and stood at the head of the river Scirtas; the latest authorities make its latitude about 37° 10' N. This author adds, regarding its name :-"On lit dans Pline, (ed. in folio, tome i. p. 268, note 8,) parlant d'Edesse en Osroène, nunc vulgo creditur esse Orpha, et alio rursum nomine Rhoa: sed verius citra Chaborem amnem, cui Orpha imposita est, fuisse veteram Edessam putamus.' Quoiqu'il soit comman dans l'usage vulgaire d'appeller cette ville Orfa, cela n'empêche pas que son nom pur et sans alteration ne soit Roha, que la denomination Grecque, Callir-rhoe, lui a donnée."-D'Anville l'Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 12. "The polished citizens of Antioch called those of Edessa mixed barbarians. It was, however, some praise, that of the three dialects of the Syriac, the purest and most elegant (the Aramæan) was spoken at Edessa.”—Gibbon, vol. i. c. 8, p. 335. It was about the time of Christ that it ceased to be subject to its own princes, as Abgarus is said to have written a letter to Jesus, declaring faith in him, and desiring his presence to cure him of a disease. This same Abgarus was the last King of Edessa, who was sent in chains to Rome, about ten years before the fall of the Parthian monarchy, when the Roman power was firmly established beyond the Euphrates.* Orfah is seated on the eastern side of a hill, at the commencement of a plain; so that while its western extremity stands on elevated ground, its eastern is on a lower level; and, with very trifling variations, the whole of the town may be said to be nearly flat. The wall by which it is surrounded encloses a circuit of from three to four miles, and appears to trace out, in its course, an irregular triangle; the west side of which runs nearly north and south; the southern side, east-south-east and west-north-west; and the third, or longest side, on the north-east, connecting the two others by a line of north-west and south-east. The length of the shortest of these sides is a mile, and the space within is well filled; there being few open places in the town, and where trees are seen, they are generally in streets or courts, or before coffee-houses or places of public resort. The town is bounded on the west, by modern burying-grounds, gardens, hills, and vales; on the north, by rising land; on the east, by a fertile plain, terminating at the foot of a bare ridge of hills; on the north-east, by this same plain, extending to an horizon like the sea, where it runs into the sandy desert; and on the south-west, by a high hill, nearly overlooking the town, and crowned with the walls of a ruined castle. The houses are all built of stone, and are of as good masonry, and as highly ornamented, as those of Aleppo. They have mostly a small door of entrance from the street, with an open court, and divans, in recesses below; while the upper story is laid out in rooms of reception, more expensively furnished. Above this is the terrace, on which, in many instances, are raised central benches, railed around, so as to form sofas, or beds, as occasion may require; aud it is here that the morning pipe is enjoyed, the evening meal taken, and the whole of the night passed, in summer, by the inhabitants. The Harem, or the wives and children of the family -which that word strictly means, without reference to any number of either, live here, as much apart from the males as throughout the rest of Turkey, generally occupying a small suite of rooms by themselves, at the other end of the court, into which there is no communication but by passing across that court, aud thus being publicly seen by all the inmates of the dwelling. The streets are narrow, but having a paved causeway on each *Gibbon, vol. i. c. 8, p. 335. |