Captain Parry remarks, that "The distance at which sounds were heard in the open air, during the continuance of intense cold, was so great as constantly to afford matter of surprise to us, notwithstanding the frequency with which we had occasion to remark it. We have, for instance, often heard people distinctly conversing, in a common tone of voice, at the distance of a mile; and to-day I heard a man singing to himself as he walked along the beach, at even a greater distance than this. Another circumstance also occurred to-day, which may perhaps be considered worthy of notice. Lieutenant Beechey, and Messrs. Beverly and Fisher, in the course of a walk which led them to a part of the harbour, about two miles directly to leeward of the ships, were surprised by suddenly perceiving a smell of smoke, so strong as even to impede their breathing, till, by walking on a little farther, they got rid of it. This circumstance shews to what a distance the smoke from the ships was carried horizontally, owing to the difficulty with which it rises at a very low temperature of the atmosphere. The appearance which had often been taken

for the loom of distant and much refracted land in the south and S.b.E. was again seen to-day, having the same abrupt termination at the latter bearing as be fore. At half-past eight P.M. the Aurora Borealis made its appearance for a short time, in an arch, very irregular, but at times very bright, from S.W. to S.S.E. at 4° or 5° above the horizon in the centre."

At page 188 Capt. P. says

"We had now also frequent occasion to experience—what had so often occurred to us during the winter,-the deception occasioned in judging of the magnitudes, and consequently the distances of objects, by seeing them over an unvaried surface of snow; this deception was now so much increased by the thickness of the fog, that it frequently happened that, just as we had congratulated ourselves on having pitched upon a mark at a sufficient distance to relieve us from the necessity of straining our eyes for a quarter of an hour, we suddenly came up to it; and were obliged to search, and often in vain, for another mark, at no great distance, and subject to the same delusion."

The following extract marks the westernmost point, yet attained to the northward of America.

"The station at which the ships were now lying, and which is the westernmost point to which the navigation of the Polar Sea to the northward of the American continent has yet been carried, is in latitude 74° 26′ 25′′, and longitude, by chronometers, 113° 46′ 43" .5. Cape Dundas is in latitude 74° 27' 50", longitude 113° 57' 35", by which the length of Melville island, in an E. N. E.

and

W.S.W. direction, appears to be about one hundred and thirty-five miles, and its breadth, about the meridian of Winter Harbour, from forty to fifty miles."

Captain Parry's concluding remarks are in substance favourable to the theory of the existence of a northwest passage into the Pacific. For various reasons, he expects to meet with the most serious impediments midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; but having once passed that barrier, he as confidently anticipates a more ready passage into the latter than from the former. He mentions the latitude of 69°, supposing that to be about the northern coast of the American Continent, as the most likely to afford the transit sought from sea to sca; and adds, our experience, I think, has clearly shewn that the navigation of the Polar Seas can never be performed with any degree of certainty, without a continuity of land. It was only by watching the occasional openings between the ice and the shore, that our late progress to the westward was affected; and had the land continued in the desired direction, there can be no question that we should have continued to advance, however slowly, towards the completion of our enterprize. In this respect, therefore, as well as in the improvement to be expected in the climate, there would be a manifest advantage in making the attempt on the coast of America, where we are sure that the land will not fail us. The probability of obtaining occasional supplies of wood, game, and anti-scorbutic plants; the chance of being enabled to send information by means

of the natives; and the comparative facility with which the lives of the people might be saved, in case of serious and irreparable accidents happening to the ships, are also important considerations, which naturally serve to recommend this route. Should the sea on the coast of America be found moderately deep, and shelving towards the shore, (which, from the geological character of the known parts of the continent to the south, and of the Georgian Islands to the north, there is reason to believe would be the case for a considerable distance to the westward,) the facility of navigation would be much increased, on account of the grounding of the heavy masses of ice in water sufficiently deep to allow the ships to take shelter behind them, at such times as the floes close in upon the land. Farther to the westward, where the primitive formation, and perhaps even a continuation of the Rocky Mountains, is to be expected, a steep and precipitous shore would probably occur, a circumstance which the foregoing narrative has shewn to be attended with much comparative uncertainty and risk.

It

"The question which naturally arises, in the next place, relates to the most likely means of getting to the coast of America, so as to sail along its shores. would, in this respect, be desira ble to find an outlet from the Atlantic into the Polar Sea, as nearly as possible in the parallel of latitude in which the northern coast of America may be supposed to lie; as, however, we do not know of any such outlet from Baffin's Bay, about the parallels of 69 degrees to about 70 degrees,

the

the attempt is, perhaps, to be made with better chance of success in a still lower latitude, especially as there is a considerable portion of coast that may reasonably be supposed to offer the desired communication, which yet remains unexplored. Cumber land Strait, the passage called Sir Thomas Row's Welcome, lying between Southampton Island and the coast of America, and Repulse Bay, appear to be the points most worthy of attention; and, considering the state of uncertainty in which the attempts of former navigators have left us, with regard to the extent and communication of these openings, one cannot but entertain a reasonable hope, that one, or perhaps each of them, may afford a practicable passage into the Polar Sea.

geo

"So little indeed is known of the whole of the northern shore of Hudson's Strait, which appears, from the best information, to consist chiefly of islands, that the graphy of that part of the world may be considered altogether undetermined; so that an expedition which should be sent to examine those parts, would soon arrive upon ground never before visited, and in which, from an inspection of the map in its present state, there certainly does seem more than an equal chance of finding the desired passage. It must be admitted, however, that any notions we may form upon this question, amount after all to no more than conjecture. As far As far as regards the discovery of another outlet into the Polar Sea, to the southward of Sir James Lancaster's Sound, it is evident that

the enterprise is to be begun again; and we should be cautious therefore, in entertaining too sanguine a hope of finding such a passage, the existence of which is still nearly as uncertain as it was two hundred years ago, and which possibly may not exist at all."

3.-Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, during the years 1799-1804. By Alexander de Humboldt, and Aimé Bonpland, &c. &c.

These volumes, translated by H. Maria Williams, terminate the second volume (in quarto) of M. Humboldt's personal narrative; and belong to a work so universally celebrated, that we have no need to characterize it. We propose only to record its publication, and to entertain our readers with one or two extracts. The natives near the cataracts or rau

dales of the Oroonoko, up which river M. de Humboldt made his way to a height little known to Europeans, are distinguished by several remarkable prejudices, among which, none are more fatal than those narrated in the following extract:

661

Among the causes of the depopulation of the raudales, I have not reckoned the small-pox, that malady which, in other parts of America, makes such cruel rava. ges, that the natives, seized with dismay, burn their huts, kill their children, and renounce every kind of society. This scourge is almost unknown on the banks of the Oroonoko. What depopulates

the

the christian settlements is, the repugnance of the Indians for the regulations of the missions, the insalubrity of a climate at once hot and damp, bad nourishment, want of care in the diseases of children, and the guilty practice of mothers of preventing pregnancy by the use of deleterious herbs. Among the barbarous people of Guyana; as well as those of the half-civilized islands of the South Sea, young wives will not become mothers. If they have children, their offspring are exposed, not only to the dangers of savage life, but also to the dangers arising from the strangest popular prejudices. When twins are born, false notions of propriety and family honour require, that one of them should be destroyed. To bring twins into the world, is to be exposed to public scorn; it is to resemble rats, opossums, and the vilest animals, which bring forth a great number of young at a time. Nay more, two children born at the same time cannot belong to the same father.' This is an axiom of physiology of the Salivas; and in every zone, and in different states of society, when the vulgar seize upon an axiom, they adhere to it with more stedfastness than the better informed men, by whom it was first hazarded. To avoid a disturbance of conjugal tranquillity, the old female relations of the mother, or the mure japoic-nei (midwives,) take care, that one of the twins shall disappear. If the new born infant, though not a twin, have any physical deformity, the father instantly puts it to death. They will have only robust and well-made children, for deformities indicate some influence

of the evil spirit Ioloquiamo, or the bird Tikitiki, the enemy of the human race. Sometimes children of a feeble constitution undergo the same fate. When the father is asked, what is become of one of his sons, he will pretend, that he has lost him by a natural death. He will disavow an action, that appears to him blameable, but not criminal. The poor mure,' he will till you, 'could not follow us; we must have waited for him every moment; he has not been seen again, he did not come to sleep where we passed the night.' Such is the candour and simplicity of manners, such the boasted happiness of man in the state of nature! kills his son, to escape the ridicule of having twins, or to avoid journeying more slowly; in fact, to avoid a little inconvenience."

He

Above Maypure this is indeed a "new world:" Mr. Humboldt says:

When the traveller has passed the great cataracts, he feels as if he were in a new world; and had overstepped the barriers which nature seems to have raised between the civilized countries of the coast and the savage and unknown interior. Toward the east, in the bluish distance, appeared for the last time, the high chain of the Cunavami mountains. Its long horizontal ridge reminded us of the Mesa of Bergantin, near Cumana; but it terminates by a truncated summit. The peak of Calitamini (the name given to this summit) glows at sun-set as with a reddish fire. This appearance is every day the same. No one ever approached the summit of this mountain, the height of which does not exceed six hundred

toises.

toises. I believe this splendor, commonly reddish, and sometimes silvery, to be a reflexion produced by large plates of tale, or by gneiss passing into mica-slate, The whole of this country contains granitic rocks, on which here and there, in little plains, an argillaceous grit-stone immediately reposes, containing fragments of quartz, and of brown iron ore. "In going to the embarcadere," he continues, 66 we caught on the trunk of a hevea, a new species of tree frog, remarkable for its beautiful colours; it had a yellow belly, the back and head of a fine velvetty purple, and a very narrow stripe of white from the point of the nose to the hinder extremities. This frog was two inches long, and allied to the rana tinctoria, the blood of which, it is asserted, introduced into the skin of a parrot, in places where the feathers have been plucked out, occasions the growth of frizzled feathers of a yellow or red colour."

But this is not only the region of real wonders; it has its fictions also.

"The forests of Sipapo are altogether unknown, and there the missionaries place the nation of Rayas, who have their mouth in the navel. An old Indian, whom we met at Carichano, and who boasted of having often eaten human flesh, had seen these acephali with his own eyes.' These absurd fables are spread as far as the Llanos, where you are not always permitted to doubt the existence of the Raya Indians. In every zone intolerance accompanies credulity; and it might be said, that the fictions of ancient geographers had passed from one hemisphere to the other, did we

not know, that the most fantastic productions of the imagination, like the works of nature, furnish every where a certain analogy of aspect and form."

Where the Atabapo enters the Rio Temi, the narrative says:

"Before we reached its confluence, a granitic hummock, that rises on the western bank, near the mouth of the Guasacavi, fixed our attention; it is called the Rock of the Guahiba woman, or the Rock of the Mother, Piedra de la Madre. We inquired the cause of so singular a denomination. Father Zea could not satisfy our curiosity; but some weeks after, another missionary, one of the predecessors of this ecclesiastic, whom we found settled at San Fernando as president of the missions, related to us an event, which I recorded in my journal, and which excited in our minds the most painful feelings. If, in these solitary scenes, man scarcely leaves behind him any trace of his existence, it is doubly humiliating for a European to see perpetuated by the name of a rock, by one of those imperishable monuments of nature, the remembrance of the moral degradation of our species, and the contrast between the virtue of a savage, and the barbarism of civilized man!

"In 1797, the missionary of San Fernando had led his Indians to the banks of the Rio Guaviare, on one of those hostile incursions, which are prohibited alike by religion and the Spanish laws. They found in an Italian hut, a Guahiba mother with three children, two of whom were still infants. They were occupied in preparing the flour of Cassava. Resistance was impossible;