Chaloner, that he was by no means rich; and I knew nothing of the people she was travelling with; therefore I did not see the necessity of putting myself the least out of the way on her account. Still if I had had the smallest idea of her so soon becoming Mrs. Rutledge, the wife of a rich man, and a member of Congress, I should certainly have dressed myself, and received her in the front parlour, instead of the nursery, and had nice things for dinner, and invited some of my best people to meet her in the evening.' "And not sent for Miss Nancy Risings," interrupted Mary Jane. "Well, mama, I think we have made a bad business of it; and, to say the truth, I was actually ashamed more than once to see the way things were going on. As to the boys, I am glad papa is going to send them all to that Boston boarding-school; the farther from home, the better for themselves and us; it will be such a relief to get rid of them."

In the next private confabulation between the mother and daughter" Only think, Mary Jane," said Mrs. Gilmore, "your father tells me that the family Mrs. Chaloner was travelling with, is one of the very first in Boston, quite at the head of society, immensely wealthy, and living in almost a palace--such people as we never had in our house. What a pity we did not know who they were! we might have derived so much éclat from them. What an opportunity we have lost! If Mrs. Chaloner had given me any reason to suppose that her friends could be persons of that description, I would have invited them all in the evening, and strained every nerve to get some of our most fashionable people to meet them; and I would have had Carroll and Truelar both; and ice-creams, and blanc-mange, and champagre, and all such things-but how was I to suppose that little Mrs. Chaloner, with her plain gown and cap, was likely to have made such acquaintances, or to make so great a match? I wish I had not treated her quite so unceremoniously; but I am sure I thought it could never be worth while to put myself the least out of the way for her." “You see, mama,” said Mary Jane, “in this, as in many other instances, you have overreached yourself. Your plans never

seem to come out well."

"I believe," replied Mrs. Gilmore, " your father's notions of things are, after all, the best, and I shall pay more regard to them in future. Mary Jane, be sure you tell him no particulars of Mrs. Chaloner's visit."

ACCOUNT OF THE EARTHQUAKE AT NAPLES, November 25th, 1343, given by Petrarch in a letter written to a friend on the ensuing day.

A MONK, who was the bishop of a neighbouring island, and held in great esteem for his sanctity and his skill in astrology, had foretold that Naples was to be destroyed by an earthquake on the 25th of November. The prophecy spread such a terror through the city that the inhabitants abandoned their affairs to prepare themselves for death. Some hardy spirits, indeed, ridiculed those who betrayed marks of fear on the approach of a thunder storm; and as soon as the storm was over, jestingly cried out, See, the prophecy has failed.'

As to myself, I was in a state between fear and hope; but I must confess that fear sometimes got the ascendant. Accustomed to a colder climate, and in which a thunder storm in winter was a rare phenomenon, I considered what I now saw, as a threatening from Heaven.

On the eve of the night in which the prophecy was to be fulfilled, a number of females, more attentive to the impending evil than to the decorum of their sex, ran half naked through the streets, pressing their children to their bosoms. They hastened to prostrate themselves in the churches, which they deluged with their tears, crying out with all their might, "Have mercy, O Lord! Have mercy upon us!"

Moved, distressed with the general consternation, I retired early to the Convent of St. Lawrence. The monks went to rest at the usual hour. It was the seventh day of the moon, and as I was anxious to observe in what manner she would set, I stood looking at my window till she was hid from my sight by a neighbouring mountain. This was a little before midnight. The moon was gloomy and overcast; nevertheless, I felt myself tolerably composed, and went to bed. But scarce had I closed my eyes, when I was awakened by the loud rattling of my chamber windows. I felt the walls of the convent violently shaken from their foundations. The lamp, which I always kept lighted through the night, was extinguished. The fear of death laid fast hold upon me.

The whole city was in commotion, and you heard nothing but

lamentations and confused exhortations to make ready for the dreadful event. The monks, who had risen to sing their matins, terrified by the movements of the earth, ran into my chamber, armed with crosses and relics, imploring the mercy of Heaven. A prior, whose name was David, and who was considered as a saint, was at their head. The sight of these inspired us with little courage. We proceeded to the church, which was already crowded; there we remained during the rest of the night, expecting every moment the completion of the prophecy.

The

It is impossible to describe the horrors of that night. elements were let loose. The noise of the thunder, the winds, and the rain, the roarings of the enraged sea, the convulsions of the heaving earth, and the distracted cries of those who felt them. selves staggering on the brink of death, were dreadful beyond imagination. Never was there such a night! As soon as we ap. prehended that the day was at hand, the altars were prepared, and the priests dressed themselves for mass. Trembling, we lifted up our eyes to heaven, and then fell prostrate upon the earth. The day at length appeared. But what a day! Its horrors were more terrible than those of the night. No sooner were the higher parts of the city a little more calm, than we were struck by the outcries which we heard towards the sea. Anxious to discover what passed there, and still expecting nothing but death, we became desperate, and instantly mounting our horses, rode down to the shore.

Heavens! what a sight! Vessels wrecked in the harbour, the strand covered with bodies, which had been dashed against the rocks by the fury of the waves. Here you saw the brains of some, and the entrails of others; there the palpitating struggles of yet remaining life. You might distinguish the groans of the men, and the shrieks of the women, even through the noise of the thunder, the roaring of the billows, and the crash of falling houses. The sea regarded not either the restraints of men, or the barriers of nature. She no longer knew the bounds which had been set by the Almighty.

That immense mole which, stretching itself out on each hand, forms the port, was buried under the tumult of the waves; and the lower parts of the city were so much deluged, that you could not pass along the streets without danger of being drowned.

We found near the shore above a thousand Neapolitan cavaliers, who had assembled, as it were to witness the funeral obsequies of their country. This splendid troop gave me a little courage. If I die, said I to myself, it will be at least in good company. Scarce had I made this reflection, when I heard a dreadful clamour everywhere around me. The sea had sapped the foundations of the place where we stood, and it was at this instant giving way. We fled, therefore, immediately to a more elevated ground. Hence we beheld a most tremendous sight. The sea between Naples and Capræa was covered with moving mountains; they were neither green as in the ordinary state of the ocean, nor black as in common storms, but white.

The young queen rushed out of the palace, bare-footed, her hair dishevelled, and her dress in the greatest disorder. She was followed by a train of females, whose dress was as loose and disorderly as her own. They went to throw themselves at the feet of the blessed Virgin Mary, crying aloud, Mercy! mercy!

Towards the close of the day the storm abated, the sea was calm, and the heavens serene. Those who were upon the land suffered only the pains of fear; but it was otherwise with those who were upon the water. Some Marseilles galleys, last from Cyprus, and now ready to weigh anchor, were sunk before our eyes, nor could we give them the least assistance. Larger vessels from other nations met with the same fate in the midst of the harbour. Not a soul was saved!

There was a very large vessel, which had on board four hundred criminals under sentence of death. The mode of their punishment had been changed, and they were reserved as a forlorn hope to be exposed in the first expedition against Sicily. This ship, which was stout and well built, sustained the shocks of the waves till sunset; but now she began to loosen and to fill with water. The criminals, who were a hardy set of men, and less dismayed by death as they had lately seen him so near at hand, struggled with the storm, and by a bold and vigorous defence kept death at bay till the approach of night. But their efforts were in vain. The ship began to sink. Determined, however, to put off as far as possible the moment of dissolution, they ran aloft, and hung upon the masts and rigging. At this moment the tempest was appeased, and these poor convicts were the only persons whose lives were saved in the port of Naples.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN EUROPE AND ASIA.

MR. GEORGE STEPHENS, a lively and active-minded native of the United States, has, within the last eighteen months, published two sets of travels, giving an account of his rambles in Egypt, Idumea, the Holy Land, Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland. The first work, published in 1837, is called "Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land;" the second, a more recent production, bears a similar title, and is concerned with the other countries named. The travels in Greece, Turkey, and Russia, precede, in point of time, the travels in Egypt and the Holy Land, though the latter were the first published. Mr. Stephens is an exceedingly agreeable writer, mixing common sense, information, and gossip, in a way calculated to carry the reader along with him; and he is so good-humoured and hearty, that one absolutely enjoys the " Incidents."

In February, 1835, "by a bright starlight, after a short ramble among the Ionian islands," Mr. Stephens sailed from Zante, "in a beautiful cutter, of about forty tons, for Padrass," at the mouth of the gulf of Corinth. A storm compelled the navigators to run into the harbour of Missolonghi, and here Mr. Stephens first touched "the soil of fallen, but immortal Greece." Though Byron died at Missolonghi, it appeared to our traveller "a cheerless place," and reminded him" of Communipaw in bad weather." It had, he says, "no connexion with the ancient glory of Greece, no name or place on her historic page;" and, far worse still, no hotel where he could get a breakfast." But the brother of Marco Bozzaris lived here; and with him lived the widow and children of that daring guerilla chief, who fell in the Greek revolutionary war. So, with that free and easy manner which seems to come so natural from American travellers, the traveller and his companions introduced themselves to the brother, widow, and daughters of Bozzaris, and Mr. Stephens gratified them by promising to send them a copy of the American poet, Mr. Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris," a promise which he fulfilled. From Missolonghi, the travellers took horse to Lepanto, attempting, by the way, to ascend Parnassus, but were deterred by the fear of banditti. "Every schoolboy," says Mr. Stephens, "knows how hard it is to write poetry, but few know the physical difficulties of climbing the mountain itself." From the harbour of Lepanto they sailed across the gulf of Corinth to Padrass, which stands at its mouth; and from thence on horseback they went to Corinth, so famous in classical and New Testament history, but now in decay and ruins. Onwards they went to Athens, and drawing near it, "they passed the ruined monastery of Daphne, in a beautifully picturesque situation, and in a few minutes saw the rich plain of Attica; our muleteers and Demetrius, with a burst of enthusiasm, perhaps because the journey was ended, clapped their hands, and cried out, Atina! Atinæ !'"'

Of Athens, so absolutely crammed with matter for consideration and reflection, Mr. Stephens speaks at some length, but we can only give his summary view :

"The sentimental traveller must already mourn that Athens has been selected as the capital of Greece. Already have speculators, and the whole tribe of 'improvers' invaded the glorious city; and while I was lingering on the steps of the Parthenon, a German, who was quietly smoking among the ruins, a sort of superintendant, whom I had met before, came up, and offering me a segar, and leaning against one of the lofty columns of the temple, opened upon me with his plans of city improvements,' with new streets, and projected railroads, and the rise of lots. At first I almost thought it personal, and that he was making a fling at me in allusion to one of the greatest hobbies of my native city: but I soon found that he was as deeply bitten as if he had been in Chicago or Dunkirk; and the way in which he talked of moneyed facilities, the wants of the community, and a great French bank then contemplated at the Piræus, would have been no discredit to one of my friends at home. The removal of the court has created a new era in Athens: but in my mind it is deeply to be regretted that it has been snatched from the ruin to which it was tending. Even I, deeply imbued with the utilitarian spirit of my country, and myself a quondam speculator in 'up-torn lots,' would fain save Athens from the

ruthless hand of renovation-from the building mania of modern speculators. I would have her to go on till there was not a habitation among her ruins; till she stood, like Pompeii, alone in the wilderness, a sacred desert, where the traveller might sit down and meditate alone and undisturbed among the relics of the past. But already Athens has become a heterogeneous anomaly; the Grecks in their wild costume are jostled in the streets by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, Dutchmen, Spaniards, and Bavarians, Russians, Danes, and sometimes Americans. European shops invite purchasers by the side of Eastern bazaars, coffee-houses, and billiard-rooms, and French and German restaurants are opened all over the city. Sir Pulteney Malcolm has erected a house to hire near the site of Plato's Academy. Lady Franklin has bought land near the foot of Mount Hymettus for a country-seat. Several English gentlemen have done the same. Mr. Richmond, an American clergyman, has purchased a farm in the neighbourhood; and, in a few years, if the march of improvement' continues, the Temple of Theseus will be enclosed in the garden of the palace of king Otho; the Temple of the Winds will be concealed by a German opera-house, and the Lantern of Demosthenes by a row of three story houses.'" "The first thing we did in Athens was to visit the American Missionary School. Among the extraordinary changes of an ever-changing world, it is not the debt which the world owes to the mother of science, and the least that the young America is at this moment paying back the citizen of a country which the wisest of the Greeks never dreamed of, is teaching the descendants of Plato and Aristotle the elements of their own tongue."

After rambling over the Grecian peninsula, visiting Argos, Marathon, and the marble quarries of Pentelicus, the storehouse of the immortal sculptors of Athens, he touched, on his way to Smyrna, at "Scio's rocky isle," once the most beautiful island in the Archipelago, now a mass of ruins, and the scene of one of the most fearful and bloodiest of the scenes of the Greek revolution, the massacre of the inhabitants by the Turks. Indeed, Mr. Stephens' rambles in Greece are painful to read, because one is perpetually reminded of that horrible struggle, the Greek revolution, and has convincing proofs of how long it takes to erase the traces of civil war. In the very outset of his journey he gives us an example of the evil which travelling may leave on the mind, for it requires a somewhat disciplined intellect to travel, in order to extract the good of it. He saw a pyramid of skulls at Missolonghi; and he adds-" In my after wanderings, I learned to look more carelessly upon these things; and, perhaps, noticing everywhere the light estimation put upon human life in the East, learned to think more lightly of it myself."

Unable to get up the gulf of Smyrna, from contrary winas, he landed, and engaged a Tartar, who promised to "take me through in fourteen hours; and at seven o'clock he was in his saddle, charged with a dozen letters from captains, supercargoes, and passengers, whom he left behind waiting for a change of wind. He had some adventures on his way; but having arrived at "the queen of the cities of Anatolia, extolled by the ancients as Smyrna the lovely, the crown of Ionia, the pride of Asia," he was soon "in the full enjoyment of a Turkish bath ;" and bursts out with, "Oh, these Turks are luxurious dogs. Chibouks, coffee, hot-baths, and as many wives as they please! What a catalogue of human enjoyments!"

We shall flit over Smyrna, and over his excursion to Ephesus; merely remarking, that in the former city he saw one of the amiable customs of our own city in full force here, namely, that of the young gentlemen, with light sticks in their hands, gathering around the door of the fashionable church, to stare at the ladies as

they came out." He was "pleased to find such a mark of civilisa

tion in a land of barbarians."

All unsentimental as Mr. Stephens professes himself to be, his sense of the classical was dreadfully outraged by the mode of his conveyance from Smyrna to Constantinople: he actually "sneaked" on board-the steam-boat! Nay, more, he tells us that the destruction of the janissaries was owing, not to the Sultan, but to Steam Navigation. "Do not laugh," says he, "but listen." And so he tells us all about the prodigious changes which steam and European fashions are effecting on the character of the Turks.

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people. When it fell into the hands of the Saracens, according to the report of the Saracen general to the Calif Omar, it was impossible to enumerate the variety of its riches and beauties;' and it is said to have contained four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres or public edifices, twelve thousand shops, and forty thousand tributary Jews.' From that time, like everything else which falls in the hands of the Mussulman, it has been going to ruin, and the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope gave the death-blow to its commercial greatness. At present it stands a phenomenon in the history of a Turkish dominion. It appears once more to be raising its head from the dust. It remains to be seen whether this rise is the legitimate and permanent effect of a wise and politic government, combined with natural advantages, or whether the Pacha is not forcing it to an unnatural elevation, at the expense, if not upon the ruins, of the rest of Egypt. It is almost presumptuous, on the threshold of my entrance into Egypt, to speculate upon the future condition of this interesting country; but it is clear that the Pacha is determined to build up the city of Alexandria if he can : his fleet is here, his army, his arsenal, and his forts are here; and he has forced and centred here a commerce that was before divided between several places. Rosetta has lost more than two-thirds of its population. Damietta has become a mere nothing, and even Cairo the Grand has become tributary to what is called the regenerated city."

From Alexandria he went to Cairo, where he had the usual traveller's interview with Mohammed Ali, the Pacha of Egypt. He then sailed up the Nile, as far as the Lower Cataracts. This has become so common a route, that Mr. Stephens considers the excursion to be a ridiculously cheap one, an amusement attended with no degree of danger. A boat manned with ten men may be procured for thirty or forty dollars a-month, provisions are cheap, and, says our traveller, addressing his countrymen, "You sail under your own country's banner; and when you walk along the river, if the Arabs look particularly black and scowling, you proudly feel that there is safety in its folds." On his return to Cairo, he planned a more daring "excursion." He wished to visit Mount Sinai, and then to proceed to Palestine, but, by taking the usual route, he would have been subjected to a quarantine of fourteen days on account of the plague in Egypt. He therefore resolved to strike through the heart of the Desert, lying between Mount Sinai and the frontier of Palestine; in fact, to attempt a feat which had not been accomplished by any European traveller, to cross or pass through the land of Idumea, the Edom of the Scriptures, and the subject of remarkable prophecies. He was strongly advised not to attempt it, on account of the danger; the only person who encouraged him was the American consul, and but for

him the idea would have been abandoned.

It happened that the Sheik of Akaba, the chief of a bold and powerful tribe of Bedouins, was then at Cairo, for the purpose of escorting and protecting the annual caravan of pilgrims from that city to Mecca. An arrangement was made with the Sheik, by which he promised to conduct Mr. Stephens from Akaba to Hebron, through the land of Edom, diverging to visit the celebrated city of Petra. It was settled, that after Mr. Stephens had visited Mount Sinai he should go to Akaba, where the escort of the Arab chief would meet and conduct him; and the latter gave the traveller his signet, which he told him would be respected by all Arabs

on the route from Cairo to Mount Sinai.

The arrangements for the journey as far as Mount Sinai had been made for Mr. Stephens by the American consul. A Bedouin was procured as guide who had been with M. Laborde to Petra, and whose faith, as well as capacity, could be depended upon. The caravan consisted of eight camels and dromedaries, with three young Arabs as drivers. The tent was the common tent of the Egyptian soldiers, bought at the government factory, being very light, easily carried and pitched. The bedding was a mattress and coverlet provision, bread, biscuit, rice, macaroni, tea, coffee, dried apricots, oranges, a roasted leg of mutton, and two large skins containing the filtered water of the Nile. Thus equipped, the party struck immediately into the desert lying between Cairo and Suez, reaching the latter place, with but little incident, after a journey of four days. At Suez our traveller, wearied with his

experiment of the dromedary, made an attempt to hire a boat, with a view of proceeding down the Red Sea to Tor, supposed to be the Elino, or place of palm-trees, mentioned in the Exodus of the Israelites, and only two days' journey from Mount Sinai. The boats, however, were all taken by pilgrims, and none could be pro. cured, at least for so long a voyage. He accordingly sent off his camels round the head of the gulf, and crossing himself by water, met them on the Petrean side of the sea. Resuming his journey to the southward, he passed safely through a barren and mountainous region, bare of verdure, and destitute of water, in about seven days, to Mount Sinai. From thence he went to Akaba, where he met the Sheik, as by agreement. A horse of the best breed of Arabia was provided, and, although suffering from ill health, he proceeded manfully through the desert to Petra and Mount Hor. The difficulties of the route proved to be chiefly those arising from the rapacity of his friend, the Sheik of Akaba, who threw a thousand impediments in his way with the purpose of magnifying the importance of the service rendered, and obtaining, in consequence, the larger allowance of bucksheesh.

"One," says Mr. Stephens, "might expect to find these children of nature, the Arabs, free from the reproach of civilised life-the love of gold. But, fellow-citizens and fellow-worshippers of Mammon! hold up your heads, the reproach must not be confined to you. I never saw anything like the expression of face with which a Bedouin looks upon silver and gold. When he asks for bucksheesh, and receives the glittering metal, his eyes sparkle with wild delight, his fingers clutch it with eager rapacity, and he skulks away like the miser to count it over alone, and hide it from all other eyes." Speaking of the Arabs generally, he says, " One by one I had seen the many illusions of my waking dreams fade away, the gorgeous pictures of oriental scenes melt into nothing: but I had still clung to the primitive simplicity and purity of the children of the desert, their temperance and abstinence, their contented poverty and contempt for luxuries, as approaching the true nobility of man's nature, and sustaining the poetry of the 'land of the East.' But my last dream was broken; and I never saw among the wanderers of the desert any traits of character, or any habits of life, which did not make me prize and value more the privileges of civilisation. I had been more than a month alone with the Bedouins, and to say nothing of their manners-excluding women from all companionship, dipping their fingers up to the knuckles in the same dish, eating sheep's insides, and sleeping under tents crawling with vermin engendered by their filthy habits-their temperance and frugality are from necessity not from choice; for in their nature they are gluttonous, and will eat at any time till they are gorged of whatever they can get, and then lie down and sleep like brutes."

The account given by Mr. Stephens of the excavated city of Petra is similar to the descriptions given by Laborde, and the few other travellers who have visited it. The reader is, doubtless, familiar with the general appearance and character of this far-famed city. Leaving Petra he started for Hebron, from whence he took the ordinary route of travellers in the Holy Land; went to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, visiting the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and proceeding by Capernaum and Nazareth to Mount Carmel, from thence to Tyre and Sidon, from whence he sailed for Alexandria.

CHANGE SHOULD BREED CHANGE.
NEW doth the sun appear,
The mountain snows decay;

Crown'd with frail flowers forth comes the infant year:
My soul, time posts away,
And thou yet in that frost,
Which flower and fruit hath lost,
As if all here immortal were, dost stay;
For shame! thy powers awake,

Look to that heaven which never night makes black,
And there, at that immortal sun's bright rays,
Deck thee with flowers, which fear not rage of days.
Drummond of Hawthornden.