THERE is a melancholy interest attached to this unpretending volume, quiet independent of its intrinsic merit, or the value of the information it conveys on more than one important topic. A few words of preface inform us that the author died at Batticaloa, in Ceylon, on the 5th of January last, before he had completed his twenty-ninth year. Cut off suddenly in the early summer of life, while actively and usefully engaged; not having had time to hear how his first effort in authorship had been received by the public, but hoping, as youth and strength are naturally sanguine, to follow it up at no distant interval.

"If," says he, in his concluding lines, "permitted to aspire to the authorship of a second volume, it will be on Ceylon, and I trust I shall have a better chance. For this I am gradually collecting materials. The stones are cutting, whether to be fitly joined together must be decided by a higher and stronger power than mine."

Before these sentences could meet the public eye, the hand that penned them was cold and nerveless. A contrary decree had gone forth, and all the ardent anticipations of stirring manhood, all the busy energies of mind and body were extinguished in the silence of an early grave. The friends of the young literary aspirant will be consoled by reflecting that the opinions he has delivered are sound and wholesome; the sketches he has drawn are truthful and agreeable; and even should his book be undervalued or neglected because the title-page is not graced by the name of a veteran in reputation, it will act as a serviceable pioneer to direct public curiosity on an unfrequented road, where there is much to learn, and where many may be induced to follow.

Mr. Taylor belonged to a family which lineally and collaterally has given nearly a score of able recruits to the

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ranks of literature. He was a younger brother of Captain Meadows Taylor, well known to fame as a distinguished soldier and diplomatist in Indian warfare, and as the author of an original and highly interesting work called the "Confessions of a Thug."

This little volume may be classed among useful rather than merely amusing works. The author did not travel for simple recreation, or to see strange lands from curiosity, as Petruchio does in The Taming of the Shrew :—

"Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home, And so am come abroad to see the world."

He

He went to foreign parts with an eye to business and profitable avocation; to exercise his faculties in active enterprise, and carve out for himself a path to independence. The book is a record of practical experiences rather than of general or desultory observations. He visited certain places for specific purposes, and chiefly confines his remarks to what he was employed about and more immediately interested in. His conclusions are not drawn from abstract theories but from actual and everyday occurrences. has a young head, but judgment matures rapidly when we are thrown on our own resources, and when to live from day to day, we must both work and think. There is no attempt at fine writing for the display of well-rounded sentences, and no unnecessary thrusting in of useless matter to swell the work beyond its natural dimensions. Here is an honest detail of facts and impressions as they occurred to the relater, and not an effort to make a book out of nothing. We have met less information in three large volumes thanin this single small

one.

The eight years of travel included in Mr. Taylor's publication commenced in 1841, when he was little more than a stripling in years. He crossed the Atlantic to push his way in life, and seek fortune and employment in the wes

tern hemisphere; conceiving with many others that the New World presented a more promising and less occupied field of action than the old one. He

is the only traveller we ever met with who regrets when his voyages are over, and feels no inclination to leave the ship in which he has been so long confined the "prison with the chance of being drowned," as it has been aptly defined. This feeling, he says, increased with repetition, although he adds he never could get any fellowpassenger to agree with him on the point. We are not surprised at this. We have ourselves often "gone down to the sea in ships," and have endured many voyages long and short; but the best of them was but inevitable sufferance, very far removed from enjoy. ment. We always considered the moment of disembarkation as among the most thoroughly delicious of earth's realities an escape from nonenity to existence. The sight of a new land, the anticipation of new events, the change from still to moving life, the delivery from "the stormy winds that (always) blow;" the positive assurance that you have reached terra firma, and are safe for this time at least from the perils of the deep: all this, added to the natural antipathy which land-loving humanity has to the sea (whatever a few enthusiastic monomaniacs may persuade themselves to the contrary), has made us lift up our hands and wonder how people ever became sailors by choice; while we felt grateful, that for the honour and glory of the nation this strange miracle did sometimes happen. We do remember, once on a time, when released from quarantine, after being incarcerated for eight weeks in a lazaretto, under suspicion of plague, almost regretting when the day of liberation was announced. We had grown reconciled to the ways of the place. But then we were on shore; we had ample space and good air to breathe and walk about in; two very agreeable and intellectual companions, with whom we played at chess from morning till night, plenty of books, and abundance of good cheer, with nothing to pay.

The earlier part of this volume, which treats of Philadelphia, some tolerably well known districts in Pennsylvania, and other portions of the United States, we pass over the more rapidly, that we are anxious to travel

with the author to Cuba; a ground almost entirely unexplored, and which has lately been invested with extraneous interest from the ridiculous and unprincipled attempt of a few philanthropic buccaneers (modern representatives of Blackbeard and Kidd), to deliver a suffering community from tyrannic masters. This means, in plain English, to take possession on their own account, in the face of all treaties and in defiance of all law, except only Lynch law, of one among the largest and most valuable islands in the world. Pizarro, passing across the strand of Panama, with thirteen followers, to attempt the conquest of Peru, was a well-digested and hopeful enterprise in comparison.

That Cuba will ultimately, and before many years have elapsed, escape from the retrograding and worn out dominion of Spain, to some

more

vigorous and advancing state of government, is not only quite certain, but is also "a consummation devoutly to be wished;" but we hope to see this occur in the course of regular practice, secundum artem; by conquest in open war between lawful belligerents; by mutual treaty, commercial bargain, or fair struggle for independence; not by the interference of unlicensed banditti, who care for nobody but themselves, fight for their own hand," as Harry the Smith did, and having nothing to lose, but all to win, are ever ready to encounter bullet, gibbet, or halter, when booty and dollars are looming in

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the distance.

But even on the comparatively threadbare subject of America, Mr. Taylor has some remarks which are worth remembering. Firstly, as to the great mistake English writers and travellers so constantly fall into, in classing all the inhabitants of the States generally as "Americans ;" as if they differ no more from each other than do the Yorkshiremen from the Lancastrians, or the Hampshire peasants from their neighbours of Wilts and Sussex. The fact is, they are as distinct from each other in national characteristics, in manners, habits, ideas, pursuits, social, political, and commercial interests, as France, Italy, or Germany, in the European world. When speaking of the United States, we forget that we are not dealing with a single kingdom or nation, but with a vast continent and numerous races. The Anglo

Saxon predominates, but he is mixed up with many others.

Secondly, it is gratifying to be assured that the Pennsylvanian repudiators, who eschewed payment of interest on their bonds, were the German rather than the English contingent, comprised in which are more than half the inha bitants of that thriving State. This would have gladdened the heart of Sydney Smith, had he lived to hear it. If you are doomed to be swindled, it is more endurable to be pillaged by outand-out foreigners, than by your own flesh and blood, which the drab-coated descendants of William Penn undoubtedly are.

Lastly, the following extract contains a good moral, with may be studied with advantage by all whom it con

cerns:

"There is a large class in America, of whom I would that I could write more favourably. Though they are my own countrymen, yet as an impartial judge I must condemn them, and that out of their own mouths. Them I consider the cause of that infusion of recklessness, and those intemperate deeds and words of which we read. These are they, who, whether in the Conciliation Hall of Dublin, the English House of Commons, or the House of Representatives of Americawhether they speak of wars and disturbances in the latter place, or thunder and bellow them in the former, or put them forth through the Nation newspaper in its time-alike are troublesome, violent, and discontented. These form the bulk of what is called the "Democratic," or "Locofoco" party, with which, although I admit they may have the right in some abstract questions (as every party must have, or it would never gain a supporter, but which are kept as baits to trap the unwary), yet I would rather such questions remained for ever in abeyance, than that they should be advanced a step. These are they for whom I can answer that they have occasioned serious trouble in many cities, and while I was in Philadelphia, actually put forth a placard, which had this modest inscription: We will NOT be governed by AMERICANS! After that, need more be said?"

The author, while in Philadelphia, witnessed a storm of thunder and light ning, which seems to have astonished him not a little, and occasioned him to observe, that nothing like it could be seen in the tropics. At home, in our tamer climate, most certainly we have

a very faint imitation of these tremendous natural phenomena; but had he encountered a regular tropical hurricane, as we once did, in going through the Gulf of Florida, with full accompaniments of thunder, lightning, and rain, the remark would have been qualified or expunged altogether. In fine weather nothing can be more delightful than a sail down this dreaded Gulf, if there is time to cruise among the Bahama Islands, but when a storm does come, it comes in earnest, and so suddenly, that there is scarcely time to "take in all," and lay to while the concentrated fury of the elements expends itself.

Mr. Taylor paid two visits to Cuba at different intervals, and altogether resided on the Island above four years, engaged in commercial or mining speculations, which seem to have been attended with vast labour and exertion, occasionally with many privations, and no compensating success. He suffered much from the local fevers, and other incidental mortifications, but youth and a sanguine temperament carried him through many difficulties. At the commencement of 1842, business of every kind was unusually depressed throughout the American continent. He began to despair of making head in the line in which he was endeavouring to work his way, when a vessel arrived from Cuba, bearing a sample of gold-dust from a mine or vein lately discovered, and said to have been taken from it without selection. Humboldt and others had before stated the fact, that gold was to be found in some streams in the island. The specimen was examined, and the result proved encouraging. It appeared upon analysis, that in a ton of such mineral would exist not less than fifty ounces of pure gold. This was a tempting inducement to one who had made mineralogy his study, and was well qualified to attempt a mining enterprise. But when he reached the district of Holguin, the mine, like many others, was found unprofitable, the produce far inferior to the labour and outlay required, and the exact locality whence the deluding sample had been extracted, never could be discovered. Cuba, although abundantly productive of mineral wealth, in copper, iron, and chrome, was not destined to anticipate or rival California in exhaustless supplies of gold.

Mr. Taylor having coasted along the island, enjoying the magnificent scenery, and ever-varying richness of a land which "God hath made so glorious," landed at St. Jago, the ancient capital and emporium, before Havana, from its more commanding position, and matchless harbour, rose into paramount importance. St. Jago

was

founded by Columbus, and is the oldest of all the cities in the New World except only Baracoa, at the east end of the island, which was built about two years earlier. In this part of the

volume there are some useful hints on the subject of letters of introduction.

St. Jago has long enjoyed the unenviable pre-eminence of being considered one of the most unhealthy places in the West Indies. Here the yellow fever, that scourge of the tropics, appears to have established one of its favourite head quarters; Vera Cruz and New Orleans alone taking precedence. The popular remedy at present in use among the physicians is ice, in large quantities, which has been found so efficacious that the deadly enemy is receding before it. When perspiration is produced by this treatment, recovery is almost certain, but a relapse is fatal. Our author remarks on the prevalence of fever:

"One of the great causes, I am sure, was the condition of the wharves. They were planks laid on piles, driven for some distance, like piers, out into the harbour. The idea, I dare say, was, that the water would carry away the impurities, or render them innocuous; but it had an effect the very reverse of that. After heavy rains all the filth of the city was washed down, of course, into the bay, and, as there is little or no tide, the piles of the wharves caught and kept all the filth, which, as nobody thought of looking under the planks, escaped notice, until after my first visit, when I heard they were taking steps to fill up the interstices with solid earth."

From this city Mr. Taylor proceeded through the interior, on his journey to Holguin, his point of destination, a distance of about forty five leagues. He travelled in company with a Spanish officer, by an unfrequented track, over mountain and plain, through forest and river; a road which, probably, no European had traversed before, and seldom crossed even by the old residents. But this afforded him an

opportunity of seeing the country at full leisure, and in all its rich variety. In the interior of Cuba are beautiful and extensive savannas, teeming with the most fertile soil in the world, and giving sustenance to innumerable droves of cattle and horses. Vast plantations of sugar, coffee, and tobacco; forests of magnificent timber, including fir, fustic (morus tinctoria), lignum vitæ, mulberry, and lancewood, with mahogany in undisturbed magnificence, too far from water communication to pay expenses of transport. Mr. Taylor thinks some of these trees are so large that, by sawing them down the middle a drawing room table might have been cut out, at all events, if four feet wide would not have been too little. There are also six species of palm, the cocoa-nut tree proper, the orange in most luxurious abundance, and all the usual fruits of the other West India Islands. He adds:

"A bare enumeration of the useful and valuable trees of Cuba would fill a volume. Some are remarkable for containing most subtle poisons."

We wonder Mr. Taylor does not mention the cedar-trees, which the books of geography inform us are so large, that canoes made of them will hold fifty men. Probably they are

not to be found in the districts he visited. It is also remarkable that in Cuba there are neither wild savage animals, nor venomous reptiles of any description. The plumage of the birds is less bright than might be expected; and as for game, our author assures us, it is probably the worst country for the sportsman in the whole world. There are no partridges and but few snipes. Flamingoes and pigeons are abundant, the latter being good contributors to the "pot." There appear to be no singing birds; the reported ruïsenor, or nightingale of Baracoa, he never saw, and doubts its existence. The tenure of land, and title by which it is held in Cuba, appear almost as unsettled and unsatisfactory as, in many instances, in our own country. The average state of morals is rather better than might be expected, considering that religion is almost extinct, if it ever existed beyond the name. On this subject Mr. Taylor says: