- BOOKS.

LATE TRAVELS IN THE EAST.* THERE must be peculiar not to say original acquirements in a man to furnish the world with new information upon any country of the grand tour, which now extends to Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt, if not to India. For the interest of novelty, the traveller must depend upon himself or his position ; literary skill or personal idiosyncracy may enable him to see things in a different light, and describe them in different colours or with more force than the generality of travellers ; some social advantage may present things to his observation which are hidden from the common run. The Eastern books of travel which give occasion for the present notice have each more or less peculiarity

of this kind, or its reverse. The high rank and estimation of Lord Carlisle gave him facili- ties of observation throughout his tour in Turkey and Greece, by way of Vienna and the Danube, which fall to the lot of few. Ambassadors, nobles, and " dons " of all kinds, laid hands upon him with "friendly force," only too happy to entertain him, and show him all that was worthy of being seen, by the shortest if not by a royal road. Queen's ships were ready and willing to speed him ; though, the agremens of the voyage being put aside, Lord Carlisle doubts whether a traveller does not get more speedily to a particular destination by the regular packets. He was taken ill at Rhodes: the "good Admiral" sends a physician, another comes from 'Smyrna, and another from Constantinople. In smaller places, the aristocracy native and foreign are all agog and at my lord's disposal. Hence he sees everything through rose-coloured glasses, to which the amiable nature of the man may greatly contribute. The reader is not called upon to sympathize with the traveller on the discomforts and overcharges of hotels, or listen to endless de- nunciations of the thousand-and-one extortioners who victimize the common Continental tourist at every turn. It does not seem that Lord Carlisle encountered so many bad dinners in hotels or steamers as some luckless people. If he did, he paid and he holds his peaoe this gentlemanly retenue prevails throughout, and gives a character to the book. The passage of the Danube, the visits to Constantinople and Athens, the various trips in Turkish and Greek waters, were per- formed at an interesting period. The Russian army had not crossed the Pruth when Lord Carlisle descended " the dark rolling Danube," but the passage was effected soon after his arrival at Con- stantinople. During the time of his residence the public mind was agitated by fresh reports of peace and war ; he was at Athens when the Greek invasion of Turkey began, which ended in the Allied occupation of the city. Such things would naturally turn the atten- tion of an enlightened inquirer to the condition of the empire and its peoples. The -impression left on Lord Carlisle is not favourable to the Turks. He was shocked by what he heard of their morals : morality, however, is to some extent conventional ; a respectable Turk, for example, would be horrified at the doings on board the Dauntless, and many worse doings in London. The weakness of the provincial governments, except towards the peaceable in- habitants, is a fact which would admit of easy remedy if honest Pashas could be found. The diminution of the Ottoman population, while the numbers of the Greeks are rapidly increasing, is a stronger argument against the vitality of the Turkish race ; for from all we can gather, it is not European versus Asiatic Turks, so much as the Ottoman race everywhere ; the European Turks being really the more active and vigorous of the two. The general opinion of Lord Carlisle, it should be borne in mind, was formed after Omar Pasha's successful campaign on the Danube last year, and would not be much if at all modified by the defence of Silistria, though a note bears testimony to its heroic character.

"We set off at sunset; and I am now, for a time at least, leaving the Turk's' h waters. I am tempted to throw back a momentary glance on the remarkable empire which they bathe, at this portentous moment of its for- tunes. Even independently of the direct alliance which now unites it with our own country and with the civilization of Europe, and which makes their quarrel one, we must necessarily admire the high and even heroic spirit with which the Turkish rulers and people have now thrown themselves upon the issue with that enormous power, which, reckoned sufficiently colossal by the rest of Europe, must have tenfold threatening proportions for them. Moreover, in this fearful struggle which they have thus not shrunk from encountering, it is impossible not to admit that the justice of the cause is Wholly pn their side. In giving this opinion, I do not so much allude to the actual propositions of Prince Mentchikoff, for which in the outset some plausible and even some substantial grounds might be alleged ; on the con- Yary, I do not think it well for any Christian state to leave its co-religion- ists to the uncovenanted forbearance of Mussulman rulers : but the just con- demnation of Russia lies here that in the course of the long subsequent ne- gotiations and proceedings,both Turkey and Europe have given, and are still giving her, abundant opportunities for preserving, with honour and advantage to herself, the peace of the world, but which in the obstinacy of her pride she has slighted and set at nought. At the same time, while our sympathy, our admiration, and-our conscience are thus co-enlisted on the side of Turkey, I think that no calm observer should be misled either respecting her present condition or her probable prospects ; and this not with the view to what may be required of us in immediate action, but iu order to make us cautious in * Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters. By the Right Honourable the Earl of

Carlisle. Published by Longman and Co. Gleanings from Piccadilly to Pera. By John Oldmixon, Esq., Commander R.N. Published by Longman and Co. Narrative of a Journey through Syria and Palestine in 1851 and 1852. By C. W. IL Van Be Velde, late Lieutenant Dutch R.N., Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Translated under the Author's superintendence. In two volumes. Published by Blaokwoodund Sons.

'Constantinople of Today. By Theophile Gautier. Translated from the French, by Robert.Howe could, Esq.' M.A. Illustrated with Engravings from Photogra- PM.° rictuses. Published byBogue.

calculating upon remote results, or in entering into new and inapplicable guarantees.

4' Among the lower orders of the people there is considerable simplicity and loyalty of eharacter, and a fair disposition to be obliging and friendly. Among those who emerge from the mass, and have the opportunities of help- ing themselves to the good things of the world, the exceptions from tho- roughpaced corruption and extortion are most rare ; and in the whole con- duct of public business and routine of official life, under much apparent cour- tesy and undeviating good breeding, a spirit of servility, detraction, and vin- dictiveness, appears constantly at work. The bulk of the people is incredibly uninformed and ignorant. I am told that now they fully believe that the French and English fleets have come in the pay of the Sultan; and when the Austrian special mission of Count Leiningen arrived in the early part of this year,--and led, by the way, to much of what has since occurred,—they were persuaded that its object was to obtain the permission of the Sultan for the young Emperor to wear his crown. Upon the state of morals I debar myself from entering. Perhaps the most fatal if not the most faulty bar to national progress, is the incurable indolence whichpervades every class alike, from the pasha, puffing his perfumed narghile in his latticed kiosk on the Bosphorus, to the man in the ragged turban who site cross-legged with his unadorned tchihouque in front of a mouldy coffee-shop in the meanest village. In fact, the conversation of every man whom I meet, who is well-informed on the state of the population, with very few exceptions, might be taken down as an illustration, often very unconsciously on their part, of the sense usually assigned to the prediction in the Apocalypse of the waters of the Euphrates being dried up. On the continent, in the islands, it is the Greek peasant who works, and rises ; the Turk reclines, smokes his pipe, and de- cays. The Greek village increases its population, and teems with children ; in the Turkish village you find -roofless walls and crumbling mosques. States- men who do not see these matters with their own eyes, if told ctf the rotten state of the Ottoman empire, are apt to say, they do not at all perceive that : —this Prussian General inspected their army the other day, and was highly pleased with its efficiency ; this English Captain went on board their fleet, and saw them work their guns, and said that it could not be better done in any English ship. Their military hospitals are perfect models of arrange- ment and good order. I believe all this to be true, and I can well conceive that in one or two campaigns, on a first great outburst, the Turks might be victorious over their Russian opponents; but, when you leave the partial splendours of the capital and the great state establishments, what is it you find over the broad surface of a land which nature and climate have favoured. beyond all others, once the home of all art and all civilization P—Look your- self—ask those who live there—deserted villages, uncultivated plains, ban- ditti-haunted mountains, torpid laws, a corrupt administration, a disappear- ing people."

The author admits a leaning to the Greeks; founded, probably, on classical associations and Byron's " schoolboy feelings." Re also discovered the same sympathy in Americans he met ; at which he was not surprised ; but he was surprised to see it ex- tended to the Russians. It is possible that Lord Carlisle's social position saved him from testing the Greeks in their tricky and fraudulent character. Of their Government it is impossible to speak worse.

"I have barely adverted to the politics of modern Greece.: during One fortnight, at least, ancient Hellas repels all other intrusion, and, truth to say, there is but little attraction in the modern competitor for notice. I should also shrink from any direct references to those with whom I have conversed ; I may, however, most truthfully sum up, from all that I have seen or read or heard among pawns of different nations, stations, and prin- ciples, that the present Government of Greece seems to be about the most inefficient, corrupt, and above all contemptible, with which a nation was ever cursed. The constitution is so worked as to be constantly and flagrantly evaded or violated • the liberty of election is shamefully infringed ; and where no overt bribery or intimidation is employed,—charges from which we Englishmen can, I fear, by no means make out an exemption,—the eh- Bence of the voters, who regard the whole process as a mockery, is compen- sated by the electoral boxes being filled with voting-papers by the gene- d'armerie ; a height of impudence to which we have not yet soared. Per. sons the most discredited by their characters and antecedents are forced on the reluctant constituencies, and even occasionally advanced to places of high trust and dignity. The absence of legislative checks is not atoned for by the vigour of the executive in promoting public improvements. Agri- culture stagnates; manufactures do not exist ; the communications, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital, where they are good, are de- plorable; the provinces—and here I can hardly except the neighbourhood of the capital—teem with robbers. The navy, for which the aptitude of the people is remarkable, consists of one vessel : the public debt is not paid : an offer by a company of respectable individuals to institute a steam navi- gation, for which the seas and shores of Greece offer such innumerable facili- ties, was declined at the very period of my visit, because it was apprehended that it would be unpalatable to Austria. Bitter indeed is the disappoint- ment of those who formed bright auguries for the future career of regenerate Greece, and made generous sacrifices in her once august and honoured cause. Yet the feeling so natural to them, so difficult to avoid for us all, should still stop far short of despair."

Lord Carlisle's book is what the title professes it to be—a "Diary "; evidently written off at the time as opportunity af- forded, and varying from the simplest jottings to extended discus- sions, such as have just been quoted, or a disquisition on ancient Troy. This mode of composition gives variety to the work; the recurrence of names distinguished in fashion, diplomacy, or war, creates a personal attraction, as rumours and events connected with the negotiations or hostilities impart a public interest ; while the diction, though without force has a well-bred, quiet clearness, which agreeably carries the reader along. Curtness may pre- dominate too much in the notices of scenery or society, and of incident there is very little.

Commander Oldmixon's Gleanings from Piccadilly to Pero is just the reverse of Lord Carlisle's Diary. The Captain went the opposite way to the East, to begin with ; travelling to Constanti- nople through Paris, Marseilles, Naples, -and Sicily. The great contrast, however, is in character. The "Commander" is a Smell- fungus kind of man, though with shrewd good sense, and glimpses of deeper feeling. As he speaks of what Naples was forty years ago, we may conclude that life has not the promising prospect it had formerly ; while he indulges now and then in meiiections verging upon the Childe Harold style, which, as affeetation is by no means one of the writer's sins, doubtless originate in some actual affliction. Then lie has the kiln. Bull habit of grumbling abont almost everything and everybody ; . when the grievance is not bad enough for the positive, he brings the comparative to aid, heightening foreign shortcomings by comparisons with matters better managed at home. -'Be has also the faculty of killing two, birds with one stone thus, when he complains of the annoyances and expense a the Continental passport system, he attacks the British Government for not sweep- ing it away. The Commander, to, lias deeper -reasons for his gloom : unlike the Earl, he had no admirals or ambassadors press- ing hospitalities upon him—no "troops of friends," Male or female, to welcome and squire him. He left a card at the Ambassador's at Constantinople, but it elicited no reciprocity. A locum tenens at Naplesin the absence of his principal declined to present him ; nor could he get familiar access to any of the diplomatists. Some of the consuls were more approachable Mid cenversible, but the pleasantry Wound up with a demand for passport-fees. The Com- mander was well fleeced at -hotels, :and -in, steamers, especially in foreign steamers, as well as at the Neapolitan Museum, and amid a crowd was reduced to solitude, or " Speaking acquaintance." This is-froin Constantinople. "Let no man come abroad Without. letters—to his Ambassador, by all means,, but to somebody is really imperative„ if one makes the least stay. _."1 Sm.naturally epcial., if there is the least opening; but all the people I meet are in faniis or hunt in para. :You may exchange commonplace civilities at the hotel-table, but you remain strangers; as they are entirely taken-up with themselves—for even here .there is some excuse for being shy of strange faces. There are so raspy queer British subjecti Just now here as adventurers: the steamers, the hotels, the cafils, are full of them. In this way there was no want of sociable companions. I tried it in one or two instmices,,. but not only the talk and intelligence of these wandering ineclividuala did not repay" me, but their 'otin. itories -of themselves and of each Other Were rsileiceisively :orieer, so very suspicious, that I found it ne- cessary -to -keep them as distance. One of these young men, with a re-. volier which threatened 0 shoot baelswarda itsewner, wason his way 0, join the French -General, Pasha commanding at Kars-,--tis a volunteerl not knowing whether the Pasha would have him or not I "Another of these, loose fish meant, when on his last legs, to join some Ttirkith'iorps as officer, without one word of Turkish, or any one requisite. for fedminaiad.- -He was quite surprised' to find us English in no paiticulli demand-14pr -the army, /slaw et Silistda or Varna; .and that even if recorar, mended for employ, a,:figid examination had to be gone thtough. io.our own. officers with the army, at the hotels, and at the pastry.- cots in the High Street, Pera, opposite the Hotel d'Angleterre, over from &etari for the day, they Were so occupiedwith theinselves—had o much to think of;"frorit the novelty of their situatiOn,—so taken up in the crowd, with. whine itea-,-that though I exchanged aolvil word with two- or three,-,it led to nothing. One mast poseess. youth—aib,ove all, youth, and buoyancy, and light-heartednese—to make advances, Or sustain the cool indifference of the world, with reciprocal sang froid and composure."

Probably, had our. anther been travelling at home, England would have fared no better than foreign parts. As it is, we clime. of with flying colours. The mischiefs of which he com- plains are chieflyin.bonnexion with the higher orders—the ruling classes, who do not rule foreigners as the Commander 'would like. Foreign landscapes are " litigh-*=mothing. The "Sweet Waters" at Constantinople ao-often'talked Of, are pretty, but he would match them anywhere in England ; .and, by the by, Lord Carlisle, says, nearly' the same thing in substance. Nice and the. south of France—the Captain made many excursienefrom Marseilles—are' humbug: cold 'winds, hotAtm, dust, and discomfort.' -On the much-. boasted-cif Continental hotels heis equally severe;, and with reason. There is a huinliug fashion to praise thorn: strip the majority of the novelty, the fine weather, .the 'traveller's baste, excitement,: and wishto please and be pleased—allow for the prestigein their favonic and the greater cheapness of mest things—and the English" hotels will be found quite as reasonable and more comfortable inlaid weather ; that is for substance-; if you ;elect to.pay forexclasiveness, that is another matter. The traveller characterizes nearly all the publics lie touches at betweenTiocadilly and' Pere, and pretty nu-- xnerous they are. We will give two well-known houses, nearly uptin' a parity-in their respective ways. - • - "I go; to the Pavilion—Volkstonel—the-well-known hotel. The Times has perhape done some little good by its attack on hotel charges; but, after. all, nothing is .changed materially ; the charges are Much as in all first-rate hate's. There is a table-d'hote at half-past two we hadan excel- lent dinner—Soups,-fish, flesh, and (Owl, in variety, and dessert-4ertainly-a much better dinner, better cooked, and better served; "than at any hotel in. Boulogne, petimps in France—at 2s. 64 All the, arrangements and the wbole !Muse are admirable: great order, regularity, and civility; a noble eoffeerobm,.. reading, and billiard-room ; bedrooms and sitting-rooms, along the great corridors of the wings, excellent In every way ; with twenty essentials, and even luxuries, not known on the Continent. So, let us not grumble' at 'paying 'some Ws. or 128. a day ; the servants; apart, Li. &day, except the first day, is. families i much less ; and people may live at the hotel at. greatly. reduced ,rate if fir any time. Some families.are , staying bore on this economical scale, having the run of all the luxuries and comforts ,

of this vast establishment. * * * C' -

-"All our papers haverung- the Changes on hotel charges -ollate, ending with Punch's smartness • with comparisons between ours and those of the Continent: -but if one takes into account the miserable discomfort of French or Italian hotels, and the greater cheapness of their countries in every pessi- ble item,I really think our own the most moderate„theleast upeonsmonable. Rein is hieurice s: one gets a dark, tile-floored, small-bedroom, half lit and, aired, (with abominable smells) on the small dark court ; and as uricorn-. fortable, uncarpeted a coffee-room, and no sitting-room whatever, unless you take a very' expensive one. In fifty years' intimacy with our wants and ways, the. French still neither Care- for, nor indeed understand, that one cannot read or write in, a paid salle-a-manger with the tables always laid, no' carpet, no privacy, no anything we think essential. We pay- a little less, indeed, for some things ; 'but if you dine here' it costs at haat 8 or 10 francs, 5 frames for dinner alone, and any tolerable wine as much more : the 'ordinaire' is sad ttiff, and you cannot have half a bOttle : thus your dinner, is 8 or 10 francs, some wines ridiculously expensive, Laffitte or champagne and not the best after all, often excessively bad."

Tan De Velde's Journey through Syria and Palestine is cleficien' in all the qualities essential to Eastern travels; for the author does not possess any of the requisite desiderata. He dues not f.ur- . nish new information ;, his position gives him ;no special advantages. and he is very devoid of -literary art. .A strong, religieue _feeling

produces a purpose; hat the traveller displays something of the "zeal:without knowledge," which is not good. gi8_wiigic, shows itself mestly in rather anrestrained reveries, the quotation of in- numerable Scripture texts, and an undue introdm:tion of serious topics. The "late Lieutenant Dutch It.N.7 appears to be an amiable. and a worthy man, but not particularly well qualified to travel in Palestine, and 'still less qualified to narrate his . irk vels. lie has a touch a maudlin sentiment ; and his iftyle aims at vivacity, but, only reaches the semblance, leaving upon the reader the iipression.: of an unsatisfactory; emptiness. Whether . such ,a book was adapted to Dutchmen, we „do not know ; its translation into English was clearly a miatilce., .There are occasional passages indeed of relief, perhaps .of ,merit; but " what arethey in a thousand, pageaP ; The disappointing character

of Jerusalem is a specimen. ; .; - •

"You would fain,Team what were my first impressions in the holy city-. I will now comply with rour request; I will try to do, so in all the.simph- ' city of truth. Youfind yourself disappointed, and-thin, tliApponittment will be a-proof that I have given you a. faithful ; reprtsentatiorilof the base; for disappointment is: precisely -what I myself experienced. Yes,-..yan say, perhaps, I am well Aware of that.; people are disappOinted when instead of the mourning Jerusalem, bending and bowed down under her curse, they see a city More cheerful in appearance, more pleasant to the eye, than any other in Palestine; people are disappointed when, instead of an old Jerusa- half converted into heaps of rubbish, they see a new city 'surrounded with walls and bastion-towers, and adorned with white plastered cupola roofs and lofty minarets; they are disappointed when they see rising aloft the blasphemous crescent of Orear's mosque, 'and that of el-Alma, not to speak of other's ; they are disappointed at niantether peculiarities "of'the • Jerusalem 'cif the present day, newcItohanitaeclair, and foreign to the Jerusa- lem with which we have been familiar as it appears in IIOlv Writ. But it is not so much this disappointment that I refer to. The "'descriptions of travellers have prepared one to expect all this. No 1.-whgn; for the first time, I entered the Jaffa gate, I experienced a distipPelntinent 'that -struck deeper, 'disappointnept at the state oef, rowennt meriiii.a"1Weble"npnity and sacredness of feeling vaniShed I All sltft il"ntiltionffiths re

flection, Was dissipated at once a- fivein the afternoon. The btfsy Petit the blity'iirte ititpetat to a close ; the handicraftsmen were gradually shutting up theleforkSheps, and the shopketiperatheir shops. reoplewerrebentridtrateoreation ; the time

for a WaiklISSi OXSiVedr!' • • r Constantinople of Today, b.3..;'Theephile tfa-ru,9tierP', re '.-r) Ot exactly

a boek of travels -after-the ; usual fashion, in wh, Ate traveller,, confines himself to What he sees or may be supppse4,twhaye Neither is it. altogether limited to Constantieopleih„tliflirjter carrying his -reader with him from Paris to the Dardanelles. -,The book is one of that class which depends as much upon its'dress as ,

its substance. • It presents a series of " sketches" of the Turkish capital and the, journey thither, in which M. Gautier is as promi- nent • as the topics themselves. He begins, far .exaniple, with a homily on.travelling•at once deterrent and recommendatory: lie then declares- hewill- not paint French manners, yet he gives a; sample both of French. and Chinese ; and so he 'goeson, One word for his theme and two' .(or More) for himself This= isricineavill, with much of French pleasantry and animation. Thereader may - not be informed, - but he is ' titillated.' :Ablint Goriatantinopter, he learns little that he 'did not know before; but if things' areuot:set.- in a -new light, the neoessiona Which M. ...Gentler - brings1;rolandY them are spark1ing:mm*1i: If TolmsotesAlefinition of -philetophi-: cal wit was .correet--,that it consists it britigiligvernoteideaS pily together—then is our Author aphilosopher. Take as a little' sample hfs`refiections on pastingTiba. "This would' be the place in Icihielt-ito introduce a brilliant episode about Napoleon; hut I prefer to avoid thief titateii tratk,,and -.simply allow Myself to remark, in passing, the singular influence which islands seem to hay!. exercised 077Qr, the career, and destmy of this hero, already almost fabuloos , and the legends and traditione respecting whom, we see formed under our, own eyes instead Of deriving them from our ancestors, as in the case Of heroes,p/whom they in turn were contemporaries. An island gave birth to Napoleon ; arrested in his career, he seeks shelter in an island; and

i

from that land returns again to -shake the world with the thunder of his tread ;. fallen, he is sent from an island, to die on an island, killed by an island power. lie issues from the Sea, to 'begin his course; and that course fulfilled, sinks again in the ocean. What myth may not the future found upon these Curious coincidences, when ephemeral history shall have disappeared and given place to ImMortal poetry !" "One pennyworth: of bread to all this sack ! " There are who yet carry •out: the principle,, though they never heard, of sack; and if the taste be transferred to literature, 'Constantinople of To day may be' teeornmendeil to its votaries. , • - .