URQUHART'S PILLARS OF HERCULES. * A BIG boy with a turn

for paradox, who had managed to take a leaf out of Mr. Disraeli's last book, might have written one part of The Pillars of Hercules at school. The phtenomena of the Mediterranean and its currents (what becomes of the water ? what becomes of the salt ?)—some salient points in the history of the peoples who formerly visited the aforesaid sea or inhabited its shores—bits of Spanish and of Moorish story, with a tediously long commentary—a comparison between the in- habitants of Barbary and of Europe, greatly to the advantage of the Africans (Mr. Urquhart claiming for the Moors the preeminence which Mr. Disraeli assigns to the Jews)—the tale of the capture of Gibraltar by the British and Dutch, with sundry assertions (in matters of diplo- macy the Urquhart decrees, not argues) as to the mischief of the fortress to Great Britain, &c.—might all have been written for a theme, with the subject " given out," and the full flowing style once acquired. Other topics of the volume might possibly require the suggestion of the reality to set the writer's pen going. Mr. Urquhart takes an Oriental bath ; and thereupon writes a disquisition on bathing among the Romans, the Moors, and the Orientals, and non-bathing among some other peoples, ourselves included, with a passing touch on cheap bath-houses, and the Mosaic and Moslem notions of uncleanliness. The traveller went on a sporting excursion, though he seems to have killed nothing; but Ile ate of the national dish called kuscoussoo, and anon he favours the reader with the whole story of it : how it is made, which is practical information— how to eat it—what authors have said of it—bread compared with kus- coussoo ; including a digression upon wheat and its original country, which is not known to Urquhart, but he makes up for it by describing the origin of the " damper " of New South Wales, says a word on In- dian corn, pronounces " England in the art of cookery behind every other people," informs the world that pilaf is never eatable " when made by a Christian," and closes the topic with some remarks on teeth. In the course of his excursions Mr. Urquhart set eyes on the Moorish balk ; • The Pillars of Hercules; or a Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco, In 1848. By David Urquhart, Esq., M.P., Author of "Turkey and its Resources," " The Spirit of the East," Ea. In two volumes. Published by Bentley. which he traces to the garden of Eden, to father Abraham, to the Jews in the Wilderness, to the Greeks, to the Romans.

" If Prometheus had set himself down to consider, not how many things he could invent for man, but what single invention would serve him most, he might have fixed on the haik. It is not known in Arabia, Judaea, or any part of the East; it is mentioned by no ancient writer ; yet on its intrinsic characters I claim for it the rank of first parent of costume. It is found in Barbary. Who, then, shall assign to it a date? The region is a nook in the ocean of time, where the wrecks of all ages are cast up; and here, like the moon, these things are found which are lost elsewhere.

"A shuttle and loom to weave, pins to knit, scissors to cut, or needles and thread to sew, are requisite for every other dress; the balk dispenses with them all: it is a web, but not wove (in the modern sense of the word); it is a covering, but neither cut nor stitched. When Eve had to bethink herself of a durable sub- stitute for innocence, this is what she must have hit upon. The name it bears is such as Adam might have given had he required it in Paradise,—' that which is wove,' i.e. web.

" It is only a web, yet is it coat, greatcoat, trousers, petticoat, under and over garment, enough for all and everything in one. Being but the simplest of primi- tive inventions, it outvies in beauty, and overmatches in convenience the succeed- ing centuries of contrivance and art: it completes the circle; the last step being not to return to but merely to perceive the beauty of the first conception, and yield a barren and aesthetic applause to the perfection of the primitive design. "

" The haik and the kuscoussoo are here united. If you heard of any other people having the one, you would inquire whether they had not also the other. Here in one sentence is it shown that the Jews when they entered the Wilderness had both.

" If they wore the haik in the Wilderness, they had it when they entered the Holy Land; for as they did not want new clothes, so would they not change old habits. The people they drove forth were the Brebers, who wear it today. The Jews went to Egypt from the Holy Land; Abraham, therefore, wore the balk; and having seen him in that dress, I can imagine him in no other. " It belongs but to a small portion of the human family to have a change of raiment for the night: a striking peculiarity of this dress is its adaptation to both • • purpo.

" Tsehes Greek robe was white: it was put on as a clothing, and was at the same time a covering such as might be used to sleep in at night: it was not put on to fit as a dress; it was ample in its folds, and fell to the feet; it covered them all over. But citation of authorities is superfluous: look at the statue of Demos- thenes.

" But the Greeks may have invented it. The Greeks were copiers or copies; they improved what they received, but in the beginning they were wild and rude. This dress belongs to early simplicity, and to the people who from the first were preeminent in poetry. • •

" The resemblance is so evident between the toga and balk that the only ques- tion is, Was it original or borrowed?' and if borrowed, whence did it come?' As the Greeks stood to the Pheenicians' so did the Romans to the Etruscans. Critical inquiries had already traced that people to Canaan; recent discoveries have made us familiar with them. Their tombs, into which alady has conducted us, transport us to the life and manners of the Old Testament. A traveller in Barbary might take them for the ancient sepulchres of this country. In the tombs you have over and over again the haik."

Enough of this. There are in the volumes not perhaps better things, but things more appropriate to travel—accounts of interviews with various adventurers whom crime or misfortune has carried to Africa, or with persons in some official capacity. There are also descriptions of nature and of art ; though the kind of digression and disquisition we have indicated predominates. The greatest drawback to the professed descriptions of the book is its unreal character. We cannot separate what may be natural and true from what is Urquhart.

What took Mr. Urquhart to Morocco, is a sort of mystery. " I was on my way," he writes in his preface, "to Italy by sea ; and, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, was so fascinated by the beauty and mysteries of the adjoining lands, that I relinquished my proposed excur- sion for the explorations which are here recorded." At page 260 of the first volume, he appears in the character of a diplomatist in the interest of the Emperor of Morocco, opposed to the French ; and something striking would doubtless have been done, had not France been rescued by a " machinery " in the appropriate form of a steam-engine. Urquhart was detained in the Gut " by adverse winds, whilst steam carried the French—that is the Algerine—emissary to his destination." Unless the allusions to under-current influence are mere romaucings, our politician seems to have succeeded in imposing himself upon the Moors as a some- body; but as a traveller he turned his opportunities to slender account. His travels either in Spain or Morocco were of limited extent—only to a few places in the vicinity of the " Pillars of Hercules."

The substitution of a writer's reading for original observation or a des- cription of existing things, is not very rare in books of travel ; but we never saw it pushed to so great an extent as by Mr. Urquhart, or a man carried so completely away from the subject before him. National bath- ing, national cookery, national clothing, are important subjects; ancient glass and Phoenicia, the Spanish mantilla, the Roman and French systems of conquest or colonization, are very well for an essay or a paper. Pre- sented in such a mode, they would have been judged according to their own character. Standing in places where they have no business or ne- cessary connexion, they are looked upon as intruders; and an intruder's merit, if he happens to have any, is always overlooked. We do not sup- pose that one-third of the book, if so much, is really travels; and of the travels the stories or anecdotes are the most interesting portion. They may not always be accurate as facts, but they have an Oriental truth of colouring about them, mach more attractive than Mr. Urquhart's florid descriptions or his interviews with persons to whom he discourses politics. There is something patriarchal in this story of a Sultan's dis-

tribution of poetical justice.

"The grandfather of Ben Abon, the present Governor of Riff, when Cold of Tangier, made a great feast at the marriage of his daughter. One of lea friends, Caid Mohammed Widden, observed a poor man in mean attire in the court, and ordered him out; and he not obeying, pushed him so that he fell. That same night the keeper of an oven (there are no sellers of bread, every one makes his own bread at home and sends it to the oven) had barred his door and retired to rest, when some one knocked at the door. He asked, 'Who is there?' and was answered, The guest of God,' which means a beggar. Yon are welcome,' he said, and got up and unfastened the door; and, having nothing but some remnants of the koscoussoo from his supper, and the piece of mat upon which he lay, he warmed the koscoussoo in the oven, and, after bringing water to wash his guest's

hands, he set it before him: he then conducted him to the mat, and himself lay down on the bare ground.

" In the morning when he awoke, be found the door unbarred, and the poor man gone: so he said to himself, ' He had business, and did not wish to dis- turb me; or he went away modestly, being ashamed of his poverty.' On taking up the mat he found under it two doubloons: so he was afraid, and put the money by, and determined not to touch it, lest it had been forgotten, or lest the poor man had stolen it, and pat it there to ruin him. " Some time afterwards an order came from Fez for Mohammed Widden and the baker to repair thither. They were both conducted to the place before the palace to await the Sultan's coming forth. When he appeared they were called before him; and, addressing the first, he asked him if he recollected the feast at the marriage of the daughter of the Caid of Tangier, and a poor man whom he had pushed with his left hand, and kicked with his right foot. Then Caid Mohammed knew whom he had thus treated, and trembled. The Sultan said, The arm that struck me, and the leg that kicked me, are mine: cut them off.' The baker now said to himself, 'If he has taken the leg and the arm off the caul, he will surely take my head': so he fell down upon the earth, and implored the Sultan to have mercy upon him. The Sultan said to him—' My son, fear not; you were poor, and took in the beg- gar when he was thrust forth from the feast of the rich. He has eaten your bread and slept on your mat. Now ask whatever you please; it shall be yours.' The Caid returned to Tangier maimed and a beggar, and his grandson was lately a soldier at the gate of the Sicilian Consul. The baker returned riding on a fine mule, richly clothed, and possessed of the wealth of the other; and the people used to say as he passed by, here goes the oven keeper, the Sultan's host-.'"

These stories of contemporary date throw a light upon manners in Barbary, where Mahometanism is best studied now ; and upon the place- bility of a Mabometan sovereign when not out of temper.

" During my absence two daring crimes have been committed: a Shereff stole one of the Sultan's horses from the midst of the camp. The Sultan sentenced

him to lose his head. He then put in the plea of his birth. Then,' said the Sultan, 'cut off his right hand, that he may be disabled from disgracing his blood in this way in future.' There is no executioner; the butchers are bound to perform this duty. The chief Jewish and chief Massulnian butcher being called, they offered for a substitute by a sort of public auction ; the crier commencing in this way—' Who will cut off a head' (or a hand) for a dollar ?—one dollar of fered'; and thus they ran up and down the street. No one offering, they increased the bid to two, three dollars, &c. When they bad arrived at two doubloons 10s.) a tall Black stepped forward and said, That is my price.' A tub of tar was brought: the Black hacked off the hand in a hurry, and on dipping the stump into the tar it proved to be cold. He had, however, bound the arm before the am- putation; and they ran to the neighbouring blacksmith's shop for embers, which they threw into the tar, and, setting it on fire, the stump was then plunged in, and so scorched and burnt. The Shereff was then let go. "In the other case, the culprit, a man from the interior, had killed a lad who was ploughing, and carried off his cattle. The Sultan said to the mother of the lad, ' Excuse his life, and take one hundred dollars: she said, ' I want the life of him who took the life of my son.' The Sultan three times repeated his question, doubling his offer: she said, 'I ask what the law gives me, and that law you are Sultan to execute.' The culprit was led out to execution: the head as we returned was on the market-gate, and the dogs swarmed round the carcass."