EALOOLAH. * Tim little interest attached to purely inventional fictions is

an example of the power of truth, and furnishes a useful hint upon the laws of novel- writing. The satirist may travel into unknown lands, or even to the moon ; but the interest of books like "Gulliver's Travels " lies less in the ad- ventures than in the morals they point, or the happy way in which they enable us to see ourselves in caricatured reflection. A writer who travels beyond known regions, carrying his reader into the terra incognita of the globe, with the view of creating interest by imaginary manners and ad- ventures among a state of society which he fashions for himself, generally fails of success. The reader's consciousness that all must be false, makes him regardless of incidents and persons as baseless as the shadows of a phantasmagoria. It is likely that few writers have sufficient "imagi- nation all compact" to make their combination of existing manners into a new state of society sufficiently consistent. It is certain that they generally exaggerate the probable into the impossible—especially, strange to say it, in matters of natural history : their vegetation, their animals, and especially their reptiles, remind one of Sinbad the Sailor, or the tales of enchantnient of the middle ages, with a greater parade of scientific form.

Kaloolah appears to be an importation from America ; and for a large part of the story it is obnoxious to the remarks we have just made. Jona- than Romer, the autobiographical adventurer, describes himself as a youth remarkable for excellence in the manly sports and exercises of his country—an unerring shot, a wonderful swimmer, and for coolness and courage a nonsuch. In learning he is tolerable rather than proficient ; but he has a vast amount of desultory reading ; so that he appears a spurious kind of Admirable Crichton. In due course of time he takes to the study of medicine; but is fain to escape to New York, for ex- huming the child of a "highly respectable man ' with a view to scientific purposes. Mr. Smith, the father, being highly enraged, and offering a reward for master Jonathan's apprehension, his friends advise him to make a voyage to Europe. Hitherto the story, where not occupied with an account of Romer's qualities and his reflections on things, has consisted of a description of life and character in an American village on the Ca- nadian boundaries : adventures begin with the voyage. The vessel is struck by a tornado, and all the hands are swept off deck, leaving Jona- than alone to navigate as be can. From this solitary state in the wide Atlantic he is rescued by a Cuban slaver, and installed, against his will, into the office of surgeon. The vessel visiting the Congo to make up a cargo, Jonathan falls in with two slaves whose skin is no darker than our Anglo-Saxon brunettes. Inquiring into their history, he finds that they are brother and sister, the children of the monarch of a kingdom on a table-land in the central part of Africa, near the Mountains of the Moon. According to representations subsequently confirmed by Mr. Romer's visit, the nation is white, refined, and civilized, but not very mighty in war, and exposed to the incursions of slave-hunting negroes armed with muskets. On one of those incursions, Kaloolah and her brother Enpbadde had been carried off and sold from one dealer to another, till they reached the banks of the Congo. The hero of course buys them both, arranges with some difficulty for their passage on board the slaver ; quarrels with the second captain; leaps overboard with his prottis, when the slave- ship is chased by a British cruiser ; and all being picked up, they get rare to Sierra Leone. Here they part for a while ; Romer sailing for England, Kaloolah and her brother joining a caravan for the interior. Reiner is wrecked on the coast of the Sahara; Kaloolah again carried off by slave-dealers, to meet her preserver in the centre of the African desert ; Romer, after mastering the language and escaping from slavery, having done some wonderful feats and acquired some consideration among the Bedouins.

Thus far the tale is Merely a novel of adventure exaggerated and car- ried to an extreme, but belonging to the class of nautical fictions. -The

It.alocaah, or .Tcurneyings to the Dlebel Komi: an Autobiography of Jonathan ]tester. Edited by W. S. /Kayo, M.D. Published by Bogue. perils of the sea and its pluenomena are easily acquired by experience ; the particulars of the slave-trade are easily learned from books, though it is possible that the writer has had some mean$ bf personal observation ; the character, domestic and social economy of the Bedouins of the Sahara, and the bigoted brutality of the Moors, may be known through the works of Park, Denham, and others. And though in ,Kaloolait the extravagant supersedes the imaginative, these topics have a substratum of truth. In the journeying% of Romer and Kaloolah to the kingdom of Framazugda, and the hero's adventures there, fiction ceases and falsehood begins ; the novel becoming on a par with Psalmanazar's history and translations. Of- course the hero marries the princess; of course he instructs the Frame. zugs in the art of war, and defeats their enemies ; and of course there is an account of the country, its productions, people, and their customs. Here and there a touch of satire enlivens the narrative ; but this part is on the whole stale, flat, and unprofitable, from the obvious untruth and inconsistency of the story. It is not long since we quoted a description of the attack of a boa upon a deer, remarkable for its quiet and natural strength and truthfulness : Mr. Romer and his mistress are rescued from a lion by a boa of an immense size, and very theatrical in its evolutions. Not satisfied with one boa, the author introduces two ; and though the monster vanquishes the lion, Jonathan vanquishes the monster,—in this wise. The commander-in-chief has gone out to reconnoitre the enemy before daybreak. "I had advanced perhaps a dozen steps, when I encountered what seemed to be a large log lying across my path. Withotit pawing to think of the improba- bility of the object being a log, when there was not a tree larger than a man's arm within ten miles, I jumped upon it, and stretched myself up for a good look. It gave a little to m weight, like many an old half-rotten trunk that my feet have pressed in the foy rests of the St. Lawrence. It seemed so much decayed as hardly to be able to bear me, as if it were about to break asunder, and let mei down into its spongy interior. My foot slipped upon the yielding surface. I re- covered my balance, and on the instant telt myself elevated two or three feet. The whole log was alive beneath me, and—good heavens! I knew the boa.

"My feet went out from under me, and I fell with my back across the writhing monster. For the fraction of a second there might have been some question as to which way my body was going; but a twist of the animal soon settled the point by letting me down upon my head and shoulders, and leaving my feet ele- vated on his back in the air.

"I fell partly on my right aide: my sword flew from my hand, but I still kept hold of the pistol. I glanced upwards: a huge black object was hovering over and rapidly descending upon me. It was the monster's enormous head with jaws outstretched wide enough to engulph an elephant. Instinctively I stretched out my left hand: the pistol-barrels rattled against some hard bony substance, and at the instant my fingers contracting upon the triggers, both charges ex. ploded simultaneously with a loud report, and with a recoil that wrenched the weapon from my grasp.

"There was a snort of agony, and instantly a flouncing, as if,-to use a common Yankeeism, heaven and earth had come together'; amid which my feet were thrown into the air, and sent flying over my head, my neck twisted almost to dia. location, and my body projected through an indeterminate series of ground tomb- tinge to the foot of the knoll. "Jumping to my feet and recalling my scattered senses, the first inquiry was whether the creature was pursuing me, and the second as to the state of my bones. A tremendous floundering about a hundred yards off, on my right, that made the ground tremble like the shocks of an earthquake, relieved me of all fear of the first; and a slight examination showed that no material damage had been

done to the second. • • • "My pistol had been fired into his open mouth ; and the balls penetrating die gonally upwards and backwards, had passed through the palital bones, and lodged in the brain. He was truly a monster, measuring full one hundred feet in length, five feet in circumference, and with a head as large as a wine-cask."

To spin adventures such as this is "as easy as lying " ; and is gene- rally the mark of an imitative mind : there is more interest in the other part of the book; for the author has fluency and invention. The in- terest increases as the subjects approach general life the American sketches ashore have more vraisemblance than those in the desert, the scenes aboard the slave-ship a greater interest than Romer's adventure& when left alone in the vessel. The following description of the economy and practices of a slaver may be taken as a fair example of the writer's powers in the common walks of novelists. " The slaves, as I have said, were arranged in four ranks. When lying down, the heads of the two outer ranks touched the sides of the ship; their feet pointing inboard or athwart the vessel. They of course occupied a space fore and aft the ship of about six feet on either side, or twelve feet of the whole breadth. At the feet of the outside rank came the heads of the inner row. They took up a space of six feet more on either side, or together twelve feet. There was still left a space running up and down the centre of the deck, two or three feet in breadth ; along this were stretched single slaves, between the feet of the two inner rows, so that when all were lying down almost every square foot of the deck was covered with a mass of human flesh. Not the slightest space was allowed between the individuals of the ranks, bat the whole were packed as closely as they could be, each slave having jest room enough to stretch himself out flat upon his back and no more. In this way about two hundred and fifty were crowded upon the sieve- deck, and as many more upon the berth-deck. " Horrible as this may seem, it was nothing compared to the packing' gene. rally practised by slavers. Captain Garbez boasted that he had tried both sys- tems, tight packing and loose packing, thoroughly, and that he had found the latter the best.

" 'If you call this loose packing,' I replied, 'have the goodness to explain what you mean by tight packing.'

" Why, tight packing consists in Making a row sit with their legs stretohed apart, and then another row is placed between their legs, and so on, until the whole deck is filled. In the one case each slave has as much room as he can cover lying; in the other, only as much room as he can occupy sitting. With tight peeking this craft ought to stow fifteen-hundred.' About fifty of the whale number were females; who were left unshackled, but were closely confined in a small space at the stern, which was cut off from the apartment of the males by

a stoat bulkhead. • • • •

" As night set in the wind freshened with a short quick head-sea, Oren& which the ship, under full sail, plouded her uneasy way. As the motion in- creased, the most heartrending sounds began to issue from between her decks. It grew stronger and stronger, blending with and ahaost overpowering the creaking of spars and bulkheads, and the melancholy wail of the breeze among the taught- ened cords of the weather-rigging. A deep dull chorus of moans, and sobs, and sighs, arose from the grated hatchways, spread around upon the air, and enwrap- ped the cursed craft in all the harmonies of hell It was the shrill cry of youth, and the sobbing voices of woman in the hour of fright and distress; it was the deep groans of manhood, wrung by pain from the panting breast; it was the

choking nos of oppressed respiration, the retellings of nausea, the clanking of fet- ters, and the stertorous gaspings of wretches in the last agonies of death. " The next morning five corpses were picked oat from among the men, and two from among the women, and thrown overboard. "'Only seven!' exclaimed the captain; well, that's devilish good lack so far. I always calculate, with a fall cargo, to lose from fifteen to twenty by the first touch of sea-sickness. Come, bear a hand there, and give them an airing.' * * " I attempted to visit the slave-decks. The sights, sounds, and smells, were intolerable; and, with a deathlike sickness at the heart, I was compelled to retire. ' Good heavens!' I exclaimed, I had no idea of this.

" Why, it is n't very pleasant,' said the captain; but what can you expect when they are all sea-sick? Wait till they get over that and we shall be able to keep them in better order; and besides, they'll naturally thin out a little, and that will make them more comfortable.'

"'But if such is the state of things in fair weather,' I demanded, how will it be if it should come on to blow ? '

" 'If it is a downright regular gale, we shall have the Devil's own time, of course,' replied the captain. ' When it comes to closing the hatches, it is all up with the voyage. You can hardly save enough to pay expenses. They die like leeches in a thunder-storm. I was once in a little schooner with three hundred on board, and we were compelled to lie-to for three days. It was the worst sea I ever saw, and came near swamping us several times. We lost two hundred and fifty slaves in that gale. We couldn't get at the dead ones to throw them over- board very handily, and so those that didn't die from want of air were killed by the rolling and tumbling about of the corpses. Of the living ones, some had their limbs broken, and every one had the flesh of his leg worn to the bone by the shackle-irons.'

" Good God! and you still pursue the horrible trade!'

" Certainly: why not? Despite of accidents, the trade is profitable-' and for the cruelty of it no one is to blame except the English. Were it not for them, large and roomy vessels would be employed, and it would be an object to bring the slaves over with every comfort, and in as good condition as possible. Now every consideration must be sacrificed to the one great object—escape from capture by the British cruisers.'

"I had no wish to reply to the captain's argument. One might as well reply to a defence of blasphemy or murder. Giddy, faint, and sick, I turned with loathing from the Sends in human guise, and sought the more genial companion- ship of the inmates of my state-room."