LETTERS FROM TRH SOUTH.

IN September 1834, the Author of the Pleasures of Hope found himself in the King's Library at Paris, "exploring books of an- cient geography ;" and, happening to cast his eyes on the site of Algiers, he was led by a succession of thoughts to go there and study the living instead of the dead. Having, like a young tra- veller, committed the fault of overloading himself with luggage, he missed the opportunity of being franked thither by an official friend ; and had to start in the diligence for Marseilles; whence he embarked in a sailing-vessel, without a servant, though with much living lumber of various kinds in the shape of passengers. The weather during the voyage was hot, and Mr. CAMPBELL was sea-sick : he landed at Algiers in sorry plight ; but soon reco- vered, through the attentions shown him, partly on account of his celebrity. This introduced him into the leading society of the city ; and he heard much, saw much, and read much of e hat others bad written about Algiers, the Algerines, Christian slavery, and all that : but, as there was no safety beyond the lines of the French army, his glimpses of the country were limited, and, like those of his own angels, " few and far between." However, he made a trip in a steam-boat to Bona, the furthest military post on the East, and another to Oran, the ext ewe Western point of any consequence that the French have occupied. Besides these excursions, he encountered some adventurous in- cidents; the most striking of which were—a pleurisy caught by getting wet at a review, the roar of a lion which ho heard whilst taking an evening walk, and the dread of death that was a whole night before his eyes during a storm on board a steamer. A journey to Mascara was his last and crowning feat ; of which he writes thus—" I have been at Mascara, eighty miles in the in- terior. I have slept under an Arab tent, and have spent some days in a town where every thing is pure Africanism; where the sound of a Sabbath-bell is unknown ; and where you could not, if you had a thousand pounds in your pocket, purchase a pint of wine to drink after your dinner.'

Events like these are well enough in private correspondence, or perhaps important in the eyes of a \Vest-end coterie ; but to us, who are wont to look in travels for new information about unknown or little-known lands—or a lively account of personal endurance and adventures— or sketches of foreign scenes and characters—or at least the briskness which rapid locomotion im- parts to a narrative—the substance of Letters from the South

seems somewhat of the lightest fix two bulky octavos. At the

same time, the finished ci.mposition of the author, and a certain vein of bonhommie which runs through the Letters, render them very easy and agreeable leading: they also contain some lively

sketches of native and French persons and modes of living, as well as some speculations touching the probable b,nefits of the

French occupation of Algiers, both to the natives and to humanity itself—which the current of events, however, seems likely to nul- lify.

Among the pleasantest parts of the book, are the anecdotes, as they may be called, with which Mr. CAMPBELL liberally inter- sperses most of the Letters. Here is a specimen of a few.

GREAT MEN OF ALGIERS.

Mr. St. John told me that, before the invasion, the Turkish garrison in Algiers itself consisted of about five thousand Levantine Turks, all of them of the worst description; and who, having small pay, for the most part exer- cised different trades. Out of these it was the law that the Dey and his principal officers were to be chosen; so that an enlightened government could not reasonably be expected. The last Dey had been a waiter in a coffeehouse. It is but justice to say that, when he changed the napkin for the sceptre, he was, for a Dey of Algiers, one of the most clement princes that ever reigned. The Aga of the Janissaries, who married the Dey's daughter, had been a wrest er ; and it was thought, if the French had not come, that he might have one day tripped up the heels of his father-in-law. The 31inister of Marine, or Lord High Admiral, was, before his installation in office, a burner of char. coal ; and his Excellency's manners continued to savour so much of the coal- burner, that none of the European Consuls could speak to him without a trial of temper.

THE POET AND THE LAWYER.

Of the Turkish aristocracy there is now not a wreck left behind. 1 have seen a few Turks, to be sure, but they are of the lower order. The rich and landed proprietors have been banished to the number of hundreds. A few miles from town I have visited some of their deserted villas, and their orangeries amid gardens, that have been desolated by the soldiery of the Christian civilizers. I sat down during my visit to one of these scenes in a marble kiosk, or summer house, still shaded by fruit-trees, and looking out to a spot that is yet luxuriant in its ruins.

My companion was a man of the law, grave and dry, though a Frenchman; " IA hat a lesson," I said, " lies here to lawless pride ! The Turk in Algiers was but lately distinguished from its other population, not more by his em- broidery and the gaudy colours of his dress, than by his air cf command and Lis insolence, that obliged all who met him to step aside in the street until he passed. He entered the gardens of the natives at will, and ate their fruit with suipunity; now he is an exile, and possibly ilependeta oh dimity." "Yes," said my matter.of.fact friend, "there were may insolent fellows among the Janissaries, and many of them were even druukards, whose habits were con- nived at if not carried to scandalous excess. But they were not all of that dssciiption ; and lib i(1 tLcir banislantnt, it was entinced uu the plea of a con- spiracy against the French government, the pima of w Lich were never established ; and if there were no clear proofs, their treatment was a breach of Bourmont's convention."

A LANDSCAPE WITH EAGLE. AND TROOPS.

A few days ago, by General Treaters invitation, I accompanied him and hie staff at the head of his brigade, in an excursion into the interior. We met with no adventures worth relating, and, except at one spot, we saw none of the natives. For miles after you leave Oran, the chain of hills that run from the South to the sea, are bare and stony, and the plain itself is totally uncultivated, but it abounds in asphodel, so tall that I could pluck its tops as I rode; and there were here and there most beautiful patches of the tulip and haunting& We caught a glimpse of a white gazelle, that speedily hid itself among the as- phodels ; happily it was against military etiquette to pursue it. At times the trumpets of the cavalry played martial airs, that were delight. fully unmixed with that din of drums which generally overpowers French mit;„ tary music. The echoes of the wild landscape gave a strange effect to the note of the war-horn. Not a tent nor an Arab nor a camel was to be seen ; every living thing seemed to have fled before the French, except a majestic eagle that hovered over the troops, and you would have thought exulted in hearing the military band. What a glorious fellow he was! I see him yet in my mind's eye, towering up to the topmost heaven, then dropping'plump down till his shit. dow was pictured on the sunny ground ; at times he would shoot before es, turning his crested head and splendid eyes completely back over his shoulders; anon he would wheel in elliptic circles, or turn vertically, as if in sport, on his yard-wide wings. Now, 1 said to myself, can Frenchmen under arms see an eagle hovering over their trumpets without certain reminiscences? And I was not mistaken : looking round, I saw more than ordinary expression in all their Gallic faces: it was grave, and not gay expression ; but it was, to my imagina- tion at least, strongly intelligible. I said to an officer at whose side I was riding, "Is it merely my fancy, or do the soldiers look at that bird with peel,. liar admiration ?" " Pauca verbs," he replied, " this is no place for making remarks, but you are i;erfeetly right that the eagle is producing a sensation!" In spite of this caution, I kept behind, and observed to an elderly sergeant d cavalry, "That is a noble bird up there." " Oui," he answered emphatically, "l'aigle vaut mieux que le coq."

SUFFERINGS FROM THIRST.

Some twelve miles from Oran, we passed the spot where, a year and a half ago, there bad been hard fighting between the French and the natives. The French soldiers, though an over match fur the Arabs, suffered dreadfully from heat and thirst. Their store of water was exhausted ; the breath of the simoora set in ; the cavalry stood its shock, and by their elevation from the pound were able to respire, but the font-soldiers fell by companies, gasping for breath. A captain of dragoons who was in the scene, told me that there was more than one instance of the infantry soldier, driven to madness by thirst and agony, putting his head to the mouth of his musket and his foot to the trigger, and committing suicide. One infantry officer alone gave way to despair ; and though it is probable that he was, iu these circumstances, no more a responsible agent than a man in the delirium of fever, yet it was better, perhaps, that he

did not survive the occurrence. He pulled his purse from his pocket : he said to his men, " I have led vou into battle with courage, and 1 have always been a kind officer to you ; the horror of my suflerings is now insupportable ; let the man among you who is my best friend shoot me dead, and here are thirty lode d'ors for his legacy." No man would comply with his request ; but he had hardly uttered it when be fell down and expired.

USE OF ANTS.

A sample of ingenious barbaric simplicity met us on the same journey. We passed some Arabs who were sitting naked on the ground, with their bah& 'petits spread out beside them. " What dues this mean?" I inquired. I was told that their garments were purposely spread upon ants' hillocks; and that the ants, after devouring all the vermin which they find on the clothes, retire flow them welksatisfied into their nests. How instructive it is to see the world!

There are several anecdotes of the inebriety of the French sot, diers ; from which it would appear that drunkenness is as prevalent

in the French as in the British army, though the officers say that

the men would restrain themselves if necessary. From a painful scene of a military execution which he describes, Mr. CAMPBELL

seems to infer that flogging would often be a good alternative in the punishment of such offences as desertion. And we glean from his pages, that the failure of the French in Algiers has arisen from the two sources which are the cause of most fidlures in human affairs—want of consideration, and want of meant Looking at the classical renown of Northern Africa as one of the

granaries of the Roman Empire, the French probably expected to find or make it a Mediterranean Hindustan, and to rival, after a fashion, the career of the English in the East. But the barbarism of fifieen hundred years has depreciated the natural powers of the soil, and destroyed all artificial improvements. It has also created a population too scattered and warlike to be subdued, awl too poor to be under the necessity of yielding a voluntary submission. Suc- cessful against the towns, the invaders can only, in the open country, command, obedience on the ground which their troops occupy. Their poverty, and perhaps a laxity of public morale, has also driven them to break faith with the natives, to oppress them, and to vio- late their religious prejudices. Saying nothing of military ra- vages, and executions in a small way,—both which things, how- ever, should be carefully avoided by a commander aiming at per- manent conquest,—they have banished the persons and confiS• eated the property of whole classes, on charges nut sustained by sufficient evidence; they have not rigidly adhered to stipulated conditions ; and they have shown a perfect disregard to the super- stitions of the people whenever they interfered with French inte- rests or French convenience. Before the French nation consent to another scheme of African conquest, they should carefully study the history of British India; noting, above all, the exces sive scrupulosity with which lila most bigoted Establishment-men (at home) postponed their saving faith to the worldly purpose of conciliating the natives.