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tricated them from circumstances which were quite as embarrassing, though not perhaps so positively dangerous, as those we have just described. The missionaries have accepted an invitation to drink tea with some Mongols, whose tents are pitched about a gun-shot from their own: the occasion is a very great festival; the hosts are in easy circumstances; and the company have already partaken of tea and milk, small loaves fried in butter, cheese, raisins and jujubs; presently the patriarch of the family, an old man with a long white beard, calls to a youth seated on the threshold of the tent, and bids him clear away the things, if the mutton is boiled enough: (and perhaps it will enable us more thoroughly to appreciate the scene that follows, if we just call to mind, en passant, that the Tartars have a special weakness for mutton that is "very fat and half boiled");

"This command having been executed, the eldest son of the family entered, bearing in both hands a small oblong table, on which was a boiled sheep, cut into four quarters, heaped one on the other. The family being assembled round the table, the chief drew a knife from his girdle, severed the sheep's tail, and divided it into two equal pieces, which he placed before us. With the Tartars the tail is considered the most delicious portion of their sheep, and accordingly the most honourable. These tails of the Tartarian sheep are of immense size and weight, the fat upon them alone weighing from six to eight pounds. [In one of his private letters M. Gabet states their weight as sometimes reaching fifteen or twenty pounds.] The fat and juicy tail having thus been offered a homage to the two stranger-guests, the rest of the company, knife in hand, attacked the four quarters of the animal, and had speedily each man a huge piece before him. Plate or fork there was none; the knees supplied the absence of the one, the hands of the other-the flowing grease being wiped off from time to time upon the front of the jacket. Our own embarrassment was extreme. That great white mass of fat had been given to us with the best intentions; but, not quite clear of European prejudices, we could not make up our stomachs to venture, without bread or salt, upon the lumps of tallow that quivered in our hands. We briefly consulted in our native tongue as to what on earth was to be done under these distressing circumstances. Furtively to replace the horrible masses upon the table would be imprudent; openly to express to our Amphitryon our repugnance to this par excellence Tartarian delicacy was impossible, as wholly opposed to Tartar etiquette. We devised this plan: we cut the villanous tail into numerous pieces, and insisted, on that day of general rejoicing, upon the company's partaking with us of this favourite dish. There was infinite reluctance to deprive us of the treat; but we persisted, and by degrees got entirely clear of the abominable mess, ourselves rejoicing instead in a cut from the leg, the savour of which was more agreeable to our early training” (p. 64).

Justice to the character of these enduring missionaries re

VOL. IX.

quires that we should not conclude this article without giving our readers a specimen or two of the darker side of the picture represented to us in these entertaining volumes. One shall be their passage of the Bourhan-Bota, a mountain noted for the pestilential vapours in which it is constantly enveloped.

"At the foot of the mountain the caravan halted for a moment, as if to poise its strength; every body measured with his eyes the steep and rugged paths of the lofty ascent, gazed with anxiety at a light thin vapour, which we were told was the pestilential vapour in question, and for a while the entire party was completely depressed and discouraged. After having taken the hygeianic measures prescribed by tradition, and which consist in masticating two or three cloves of garlic, we began to clamber up the side of the mountain. Before long, the horses refused to carry their riders, and all, men as well as animals, advanced on foot and step by step; by degrees our faces grew pale, our hearts sick, and our legs incapable of supporting us; we threw ourselves on the ground, then rose again to make another effort; then once more prostrated ourselves, and again rose to stumble on some paces further: in this deplorable fashion was it that we ascended the famous Bourhan-Bota. Heavens! what wretchedness it was we went through; one's strength seemed exhausted, one's head turning round, one's limbs dislocated; it was just like a thoroughly bad sea-sickness; and yet, all the while, one has to retain enough energy, not only to drag one's self on, b but moreover to keep thrashing the animals, which lie down at every step, and can hardly be got to move. One portion of the caravau, as a measure of precaution, stopped half way up the mountain in a gully where the pestilential vapours, they said, were not so dense; the other portion of the caravan, equally as a measure of precaution, exerted their most intense efforts in order to make their way right up to the top, so as to avoid being asphyxiated by that dreadful air, so completely charged with carbonic acid. We were of the number of those who ascended the Bourhan- Bota at one stretch. On reaching its summit our lungs dilated at their ease, The descent of the mountain was mere child's play, and we were soon able to set up our tent far from the murderous air we had encountered on the ascent.

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This was bad enough; but worse was yet to come. Their most continual and dangerous enemy was the cold. Even in Tartary the winter is most severe, lasting for nine months; the earth freezing to the depth of seven or eight feet, and the thermometer constantly descending to thirty degrees below zero. But this was nothing to the cold which they encountered when crossing the mountains which separate Tartary from Thibet. deid bas

"It was on Mount Chuga that the long train of our miseries really began. The snow, the wind, and the cold there set to work

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upon us with a fury which daily increased. The deserts of Thibet are certainly the most frightful country that it is possible to conceive. The ground continuing to rise, vegetation diminished as we advanced, and the cold grew more and more intense. Death now hovered over the unfortunate caravan. The want of water and of pasturage soon destroyed the strength of our animals. Each day we had to abandon beasts of burden that could drag themselves on no farther. The turn of the men came somewhat later. The aspect

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of the road was of dismal auspice. For several days we travelled through what seemed the excavations of a great cemetery. Human bones, and the carcasses of animals, presenting themselves at every step, seemed to warn us that, in this fatal region, amidst this savage nature, re, the caravans which had preceded us had preceded us in death. To give something like an idea of this cold-the reality of which, however, can never be appreciated except by those who have felt it it may suffice to mention a circumstance which seemed to us rather str striking. Every morning, before proceeding on our journey, eate a meal; and then we did not eat again until the evening, after we had encamped. As tsamba (barley-meal mixed with tepid water) is not a very toothsome affair, we could not get down, at a time, as much as was required for our nourishment during the day; so we used to make three or four balls of it with our tea, and keep these in reserve, to be eaten from time to time on our road. The hot paste was wrapped in a piece of hot linen, and then deposited in our breast. Over it were all our clothes; to wit, a thick robe of sheep-skin, then a lamb-skin jacket, then a short fox-skin cloak, and then a great wool overall. Now, upon every one of the fifteen days in question our tsamba cakes were always frozen. When we took them out, they were merely so many balls of ice; which notwithstanding we were fain to devour, at the risk of breaking our teeth, in order to avoid the greater risk of starvation,

The animals, overcome with fatigue and privation, had infinite difficulty in at all resisting the intensity of the cold. The mules and horses, being less vigorous than the camels and long-haired oxen, required especial attention. We were obliged to pack them in great pieces of carpet, carefully fastened round the body, the head being enveloped in rolls of camel's hair. Under any other circumstances, this singular costume would have excited our hilarity; but just then we were in no laughing mood. Despite all these precautions, the animals of the caravans were decimated by death. "To the mortality of the animals was now added that of the men; who, hopelessly seized upon by the cold, were abandoned yet living, on the road. One day, when the exhaustion of our animals had compelled us to relax our march, so that we were somewhat behind the main body, we perceived a traveller sitting on a great stone, his head bent forward on his chest, his arms pressed against his sides, and his whole frame motionless as a statue. We called to him several times; but he made no reply, and did not even indicate, by the slightest movement, that he heard us. 'How absurd,' said we tu

each other, 'for a man to loiter in this way in such dreadful weather! The wretched fellow will assuredly die of cold.' We called to him once more, but he remained silent and motionless as before. We dismounted, went up to him, and recognised in him a young Mongol Lama, who had often paid us a visit in our tent. His face was exactly like wax; and his eyes, half-opened, had a glassy appearance; icicles hung from his nostrils and from the corners of his mouth. We spoke to him, but obtained no answer; and for a moment we thought him dead. Presently, however, he opened his eyes, and fixed them upon us with a horrible expression of stupefaction: the poor creature was frozen; and we comprehended at once that he had been abandoned by his companions. It seemed to us so frightful to leave a man to die, without making an effort to save him, that we did not hesitate to take him with us. We took him from the stone on which he had been placed, enveloped him in a wrapper, seated him upon Samdadchiemba's little mule, and thus brought him to the encampment. When we had set up our tent, we went to visit the companions of this poor young man. Upon our informing them what we had done, they prostrated themselves in token of thanks, and said that we were people of excellent hearts, but that we had given ourselves much labour in vain, for that the case was beyond cure. 'He is frozen,' said they,' and nothing can prevent the cold from getting to his heart.' We ourselves did not participate in this despairing view of the case; and we returned to the tent, accompanied by one of the patient's companions, to see what further could be done. When we reached our temporary home the young Lama was dead.

"More than forty men of the caravan were abandoned still living in the desert, without the slightest possibility of our aiding them. They were carried on horseback and on camelback so long as any hope remained; but when they could no longer eat, or speak, or hold themselves up, they were left on the wayside. The general body of the caravan could not stay to nurse them in a barren desert, where there was hourly danger of wild beasts, of robbers, and, worse than all, of a deficiency of food. Yet it was a fearful spectacle to see these dying men abandoned on the road! As a last token of sympathy, we placed beside each a wooden cup and a small bag of barley meal, and then the caravan proceeded mournfully on its way. As soon as the last straggler had passed on, the crows and vultures that incessantly hovered over the caravan would pounce down upon the unhappy creatures, who retained just enough of life to feel themselves torn and mangled by these birds of prey."

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SHORT NOTICES.

THE immensely learned" Mr. Greswell (as Mr. Morris has very justly called him) has published the first four volumes (together with a quarto volume of tables) of a work intended, we believe, to reach to more than double this size; Fasti Temporis Catholici et Origines Kalendaria (University Press, Oxford). It is, in fact, a History of Time, beginning from we know not when, and coming down to the creation and subsequent events. Our readers will be somewhat startled at hearing that he has ascertained the date of the fall of the angels by geological phenomena; that he fixes the Paradisaic period at three years, during which time Cain was born, and Abel conceived, &c. &c.

The first of a series of essays under the somewhat obscure title of The Restoration of Belief (Macmillan, Cambridge,) has just appeared. It seems to be the work of a young but thoughtful writer, with wit enough to see that, "during the last few years, a progress towards disbelief has become a marked feature in English literature and society," but scarcely with wit enough, we fear, to provide a remedy for the evil. It would be premature to enter into any detailed criticism of his essay until we shall have seen some of the successive parts; but one thing is clear, that the author's notions of Christianity are somewhat extraordinary. We have often heard foreigners commenting on the intolerable arrogance exhibited by English Protestants on all questions that concern religion; but this writer out-herods Herod. We could not have believed it possible that an educated man in the latter half of the nineteenth century could have penned the following sentences: "It is the English people alone, alone in the old world, that is now Christian. One might almost say that, just now, the British people stands among the nations as the surviving trustee of Christianity, or as the residuary legatee of its benefits. . . . Christianity, in its migrations through eighteen centuries, has betaken itself to the BRITISH PEOPLE, as if these were its own [the capitals and italics are the author's own], and that these, under its influence and at its inspiration, have become such as they are, if not the most highly educated among the nations, yet the most effective, the most beneficent, the most humane, and the people to whose purposes and labours the world looks for whatever is good and hopeful. . . . As to the old world, and forgetting the new, the question of Christianity is almost an insular question-it is a British interest!!!"

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The March of Intellect, or the alleged Hostility of the Catholic Church to the Diffusion of Knowledge examined; a Lecture delivered to the Members of the Catholic Literary and Scientific Institute in Birmingham, by the Rev. H. Formby (London: Dolman; Burns and Lambert), opens, rather than exhausts, a very wide subject. It is one which is becoming more and more important; and we propose therefore to take an early opportunity of examining it somewhat

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