FLETCHER'S NOTES FROM NINEVEH. * burs work is a much better

book thin its title would imply ; for who wants notes about Nineieh, when he can read La yard's. story of his discoveries day by day as they were made, and receive an ocular impression of its art from the remains at the Museum P The promment subject -of -Mr. Fktcher's book is an account of a Sojourn at Mosul and various excursions in the neighbourhood. There is also a narrative of his outward journey from Marseilles byway of Smyrna, ConstantinoPlez and Sarnsoun on the Black Sea, whence he travelled through Amasm, Tocat, the Anti-Taurus and Diarbekir, to Mosul; with a shorter account of his return way Of 'Aleppo and Antioch. to- Beyrout. The original narrative is occasionally interininglecrivith discussions on Scripture geogra-

• Noted from Nineveh, and Travels in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Syria. By the re

Revend Y: P. Fletcher. In two volumes. Published by Colburn.

phy ; and there are some separate chapters on the history of the eonntry in which he was sojourning, as well as of the Oriental Christians.

Mr. Fletcher was nominated in 1842 as lay assistant to a clergy man who was about to " proceed on a mission of inquiry into the present state of religion and literature among the ancient Christian churches of the East." To the duties imposed by this object, and to the incidental opportunities furnished by their discharge, the in- terest of the work is chiefly ovfing. Mr. Fletcher is not a bad narrator of travels ; but he has hardly literary art enough to make the "push on keep moving" part of travel very striking, even when journeying with a retired Tartar courier through regions so wild and so little frequented as those lying between Mosul and the Black Sea. The true interest of the work commences with his domicile somewhere about the site of the ancient Nineveh. He established himself at Mosul in a house apparently fit for the resi- dence of an Effendi at a rent of nine pounds a year ; he had ser- vants whose wages are not stated; an hishousekeeping expenses, in the Oriental style, rarely exceeded sixpence a day. -R. advan- ced in the study of Arabic till he could hold easy discourse ; he of necessity " entered into relations" with the Christians of the town and neighbourhood; and when the Mountain Nestorians, who sur- vived the Kurdish massacre of which all have heard something, were driven from their homes, a portion of them found refuge in Ins house. He had besides friends among the Mahometans, from an old gentleman bight Mohammed, who constantly came to smoke the pipe of contemplation on the Englishman's divan, to a more active-minded Mollah, who carefully perused the tracts in Arabic furnished him by the divine, and by omitting all allusions to Chris- tianity, produced "a good moral sermon" for his Friday's congre- gation; becoming, no doubt, a .popular preacher at Mosul, by a method which is sometimes practised nearer home. Besides the opportunities of observing character and manners which his city residence furnished, Mr. Fletcher made -various ex- cursions about the neighbourhood, sometimes on what may be fettled professional visitations; at other times for purposes of re- creation, or ecclesiastical and archxological inquiry. In all cases, his position, his pursuits, his leisure, and his knowledge of the people, placed him in much more advantageous circumstances than the commontraveller, who scampers through the country with his Tartar courier, or if he pauses a little in his galloping career is probably without means of communication with the natives, or any means of introduction to them beyond the general facility of Oriental intercourse.

These opportunities have enabled Mr. Fletcher to present a very good picture of Oriental life and opinions as they now exist, sometimes contained in the conclusions of the author, but more frequently embodied in anecdote, incident, or description. A conversation-party unfolds the Mesopotamian notions of Eu- rope and England,—ridiculous enough to us ; but, on the other hand, what notion has the uneducated and remoter population of this country of Mesopotamia? A religious meeting of Christians exhibits the feelings and practices of different sects, as visits to their churches display their modes of conducting the service. Social communications with men of all creeds bring out the moral and intellectual qualities of Assyrians, Kurds, Turks, and Ye- zidees or Devil-worshipers. Tales told by some acquaintance who excelled in story-telling give a glimpse of the popular literature of the East, besides possessing an intrinsic interest, and often a pointed moral. The indications scattered through these sketches, and the remarks of the author, often throw a strong light on the present state of government in the Turkish empire, and of the po- pular towards the Government. The empire is evidently drawing to a close, and Mr. Fletcher says, deservedly so. The re- forms, or rather changes, operate no further than within eyeshot of a few large cities, where foreign ministers or large bodies of foreign- ers reside. In the interior the power of the central government is less than ever, and the tyranny of subordinate rulers, if not greater than ever, totally unchecked. Even religious bigotry, or at least professional feeling, sometimes gives way before it. The following conversation took place on an excursion Mr. Fletcher made to the Monastery of St. George, situate not far from the Eastern bank of the Tigris.

" During the evening three other Mohammedans came in, one of whom was the mollah of the village. They began to talk very loudly against the tyranny and oppression of Mohammed Pasha, who had lately imposed some rather heavy taxes on their village. The following colloquy ensued between

▪ Mollah—‘ When are your people coming to take the country ?'

" Myself—' I can hardly tell your seeing that, to the best of my know- ledge, they have no intention of doing anything of the kind. But tell me, 0 mollah, you who are a servant of the Prophet and a priest of his reli- gion, why should you wish that the Franks and Christians might bear rule over you ? ' " Mollah—' Kowajah, [Sir,j God is great, and knows all things. If it be His will that we should become Christians, or that Islam should fall, He can bring it to pass, whether we desire the change or no. Why, then, should we be anxious for the future destiny of religion, when the Exalted One takes care of it. We are'blind, and know nothing.'

" Another—' I have heard say our mosques were once Christian churches ; and, Allah knows, they may be so again. Anythiug, however, is better than the tyranny of this dog of a Pasha. May he sleep in Gehennam ! ' " Mollah--.‘ Mohammed Pasha is in one respect a just man ; he robs Jews, Christians, and Moslem alike. A year ago he sent for a student of my acquaintance, a humble and holy man. " O man," said he, "it grieves me

to hear that ,you are behind with the salian." I am poor, 0 Pasha," was the reply ; and my patrimony is small My crop, also, has not been pros- pered by Allah ; and the Kurds have carried off several of my sheep." The Paths grew wrath like a Sheitan as be is; and interrupting the student, he roared out, " You dog, you unclean ! pay you shall, or the lestinado shall compel you." Se the poor man returned home in great fear; and he had to

sell his books to meet the demand. Shall such a Moslem as this go to Para- dise? Shall he not rather be thrust down to the lowest pit of Gehennam, even below the accursed Jews ? '

" Myself—' But the Cadi and Mufti of Mosul ; surely they are, or ought to be, good Mussulmen : can they not help you, or moderate the tyranny of the Pasha ?'

" Kowajah, the Pasha is a drunken infidel ; and as for the Cadi and Mufti, they, excellent men, are worse than he.' " I was somewhat surprised to hear sentiments like these uttered by Mo- hammedans so near the residence of the dreaded Pasha. Bad as the 'fluke are, however, they have not imitated the evil example of certain more civil- ized and Christian governments. The movements of the oppressed are at least free, nor are his words watched by some lurking spy and made a matter of accusation against him. " I remember on one occasion a butcher was condemned to have his ear nailed to his own door-post. The sentence was executed with small conair- deration for the feelings of the sufferer ; who, however, indemnified himself by heaping a torrent of abuse on the Cadi, Mufti, and the Pasha himself. No notice was taken of what he said ; but when the term of his sentence had expired he was released, and allowed to depart unmolested. Perhaps, how- ever, when the Turks become a little more civilized, they will adopt the sys- tera of espionage, with some other European improvements which they lack at present."

Bad as the tyranny of the Pasha might be, and rejoiced as the community was when he died, it was soon found out by many that he was better than anarchy. This opinion was expressed by a poor ferryman after the Pasha's death and before the arrival of his successor.

" We were nearly an hour crossing the Zab, and found the current very violent about mid-way. After strenuous exertions, however, we arrived in safety at Kellack ; but, with the exception of one or two old men, the village bad been entirely deserted by its inhabitants. Those who were left behind informed us that a band of predatory Kurde having paid them a visit the day before, had had the village and murdered two of the people, on account of which all the survivors abandoned their dwellings and took refuge in Arbela.

" Those Kurds are true sons of the Accursed,' said the ferryman : when Mahommed Pasha, peace be upon him! was alive, they dared not have made free with even the sole of an old slipper. He has gone now, and every thief of a Kurd that can muster a dozen idle rascals together makes up for lost time by spoiling honest people, and taking their lives if they resist.'

" But the Pasha was an oppressor, and a tyrant,' I observed. " 'It is true,' was his reply; ' yet still he kept the country quiet, and these Kurds within their mountains. We never saw their ill-favoured visages in our neighbourhood before, may confusion light upon them! As for oppression, 0 Effendi, we are used to that, and probably may suffer as much or more under the next Paella as we did under him that is gone. Still it is some. thing to wake in the morning with a whole throat, and not be roused up at midnight with your roof all on fire, your women screaming, and your children spitted like Kabob on the spears of those unclean sons of darkness, Heavy taxes are bad, but they are better than all this.' " I felt much disposed to agree with the sentiments of the worthy ferry- man ; who, however, was a native of a village on the other side : and after expressing my hope that they might remain free from .a similar visitation, I mounted my horse, and rode on to rejoin my companions, who were some distance in advance. As I proceeded, I could not help contrasting the feel- ings which an occurrence like that above mentioned would excite in Eng- land with those produced by it in this country. In our own land, a single murder would be the talk of the whole neighbourhood ; but here, the violent death of two persons, and the plunder of a village, seemed too much of an every-day event to create much notice. The people who were only a few miles distant from the scene of the atrocity professed their utter ignorance of it."

That the open bigotry of the Mahometans is less than it was formerly, is clear: dread of the Government restrains the authorities; and they, with an apprehension of the unknown power of Europe, operate upon the people. At the same time, the bigotry of Mahome- tans seems less than that of Romanists when d.ominant, and to de- pend less upon their religion than upon their ignorance, their indi- vidual disposition, and the presence of some brutal priest, who is continually inflaming their prejudices. At present there certainly seems a good deal of liberality or laxity among the Mahometans with respect to Christianity ; but this has always been the case where the people have been let alone. And some of the actual persecutions have been set afoot by Christian sects instigating the Government one against the other. All the latter troubles of the Eastern. Christians have been ascribed to Rome, which, acting in conjunction with French secular influence, (as Russia unites with the Greeks,) aims at cajoling or forcing the Oriental Christians into submission to the Pope. The massacre of the Mountain Nestorians has been ascribed, though upon no evidence, to Romanist machina- tions. Mond was disturbed by them while Mr. Fletcher resided there. The points we have touched upon are partly illustrated in thispassage.

" We found the Chaldean of Mosul, therefore, divided into two parties, one of which recognized the pretensions of Mar Nicholas, the Papal nominee, while the other, without absolutely rejecting him, retained a secret fidelity to the fallen house of Elia.

"The latter party soon added to their private animosity towards the au- thority of Rome a hearty and determined dislike of the novelties which the Papal party had introduced. They complained that new and unapproved rites, supported neither by Scripture nor tradition, had been forced upon them by the machinations of a foreign priesthood. The celebration of the mass in the chapel of the Italian missionaries was intended, they asserted, to prepare the way for its general adoption. The impediments laid in the way of the circulation of the Scriptures, they censured as policy of which even Moham- medans would be ashamed; while they pointed out in coarse and bitter irony, the lamentable results of an enforced celibacy on the morals of the clerical body.

"In countries where circumstances allow of the exercise of arbitrary power, the motto of the Church of Rome has always been argue not, but strike.' One Sunday morning, thirteen of the discontented were solemnly excommu- nicated, and a curse denounced against those who should converse or have any dealings with them.

"One of these men was the leader of the rest, and was noted in the city for being among the most determined opponents of Rome. He was a short, square-built personage, with a burly face, more English than Chaldean. Though a little extreme in his views, like all reformers, his motives were single and pure. He desired to see his church freed from the hateful yoke of the stranger, and was ready to sacrifice anything to obtain so valuable an end. The rude eloquence of his tones, and the overwhelming ridicule which he poured unsparingly upon his shrinking and cowardly adversaries, might have been considered worthy of a more enlarged sphere of action. The Pa- piat party dreaded his approach, and fled from the sound of his voice as the MIns retreated at the shout of Achilles. They endeavoured to incense the against him - but his bold daring had won the esteem of one who was in some respects a kindred spirit ; and the Governor bade the accusers begone, adding that Georgios was quite right in exposing the folly of a set of insane worshipers of images.

"Setae Mullahs made our friend tempting offers if he would embrace the religion of the Prophet ; but Georgios, while he disliked its corruptions, -was ahmerely attached to the Christian faith. Ile generally attended the daily service in our little chapel, and expressed himself much gratified with the furiq and simplicity of the English ritual.

▪ One day while on a visit to Kas Botree, an old Mohammedan came in, and taking up a book of the Gospels, which lay on the diwan, expressed him- self much pleased with its contents. A conversation ensued, during which he informed us that he himself had been baptized in his infamy, by a Chris- tian priest. " ' That is curious,' remarked %as Botroe; I certainly never heard of that practice before.' " It is often performed in Mosul,' replied the old Moslem; for moat of us who live here are descended from Christian parents, who have become at various times professors cf Islam. Not many years ago, I have heard old men say, that a Christian Pasha bare rule here, and Christians were above the Moslem in those days. On my head, they were powerful then, and even a Mohammedan Governor did not care to interfere with them. But since they quarrelled among themselves, they have become weak as water.'

• Is it eommon then in this city,' I inquired, for Mohammedan children to be baptized ? '

" 'On my head, it is,' he answered : will tell you how it happened with me. I had not long left my mother's arms when I was taken very sick. My mother was distracted, for the physician gave me up, and said that Azrael was even then flapping his wings over my head. Then my mother slapp _ea, her face and tore her hair, and called to my sister to run for the Mollah. He came and gave her a verse of the Koran, to hang about my neck in a little bag ; for which he demanded five piastres; which my mother willingly paid, for she would gladly even have sold all her jewels to save my life. Still I grew worse and worse, and every one thought I was going to die ; when an Christian woman came in to visit my mother.

" 'Ayesha,' said the new comer, 'Djanum my soul, do not lament and grieve, but listen to what I am about to tell you. Your child's life may de- pend on it. Let me call our priest to baptize your son, and by the mercy of the Holy Virgin he shall recover.' "'But what will the Mollah say ? ' argued my mother.

" The Mollah is an ass, Djannm,' said the old woman ; he told me once our sex should never see Paradise. Ali ! Christianity is the religion for wo- men. They say the Franks in the West even worship their females.' " 'Bun then Rachael and fetch the priest,' said my mother ; 'I am wilding to try every means to save my child's life.' 4" So old Ku Zechariah came and baptized me ; and soon after, praise be to God, I remained.'

" Then, do you attribute your recovery to your baptism ? ' asked I. " the exalted knows,' said the old Mohammedan, thoughtffilly, as he arose to take his leave."

The various stories are good illustrations of Oriental life; and are probably genuine, for we question whether Mr. Fletcher could have written them. Some are too long for quotation : the following, whether fact or fiction, is a good example of the spirit of Mahome- tan law.

"A certain merchant left in his last testament seventeen horses to be di- vided among his three sons, according to the following proportion—The first was to receive half; the second one third, and the youngest a ninth part of the whole But, when they came to arrange about the division, it was found that, to comply with the terms of the will, without sacrificing one or more of the animals, was impossible. Puzzled in the extreme, they repaired to the Cadi; who, having read the will, observed that such a difficult question required time for deliberation, and commanded them to return after two days. "When they again made their apps the Judge said, have con- sidered carefully your case, and I End that I can make such a division of the seventeen horses among you, as will give each more than his strict share, and yet not one of the animals shall be injured. Are you content ? '

" We are, 0 judge,' was the reply. "'Bring forth the seventeen horses and let them be placed in the court,' said the Cadi. - "The animals were brought, and the judge ordered his groom to place his own horse with them. He bade the eldest brother count the horses.

" They are eighteen in number', 0 judge,' he said. " I will now make the division, observed the Cadi. You, the eldest, are entitled to half; take then nine of the horses. You, the second son, are to receive one third; take; therefore six ; while to you, the youngest, belongs the ninth part, namely, two. Thus, the seventeen horses are divided among you;; you have each more than your share, and I may now take my own

steed kek again.'

" !' exclaimed the brothers, with delight, 0 Cadi, your wis- dom equals that of our Lord, Suleiman Ibn Daood.'

Perhaps the true subject of the book is the Oriental Christians, past and present. The history is not encumbering ; for it is rapid and connected with the present, if not essential to its comprehen- sion. The sketches of the various Churches and their followers is by far the best and fullest that has appeared ; lifelike too, and liberal in feeling, except where Rome comes in and then probably Mr. Fletcher is right. Much space is not left, but we will take one extract.

"The monks are supported as in Europe, by the revenues attached to each monaatmy, which afford an ample supply for their slender wants. By the rules of the Eastern churches most of the laity would be restricted from the use of animal food during nearly a third portion of the year; but the absti- nence of the monks is of course more rigorous and severe. Their garb is Hot so varied or distinctive as that of monastic habits of Europe. A long dark vest, resembling the common zeboon of the country, with, perhaps, a jacket of black cloth, is the usual attire of an Eastern monk. They are a pale, mid, and gentle nice, often ignorant, and not very liberal in their views ; but during the frequent intercourse I have held with them, I never knew one who was a hypocrite, or a secret debauchee,—two characters which have been supposed by some inseparable from the system of moneehiren I have seen these men eat thankfully food which the lowest of English la- bourers would not touch. I have heard them engaged in praising God at an hour when English rectors and curates have been quietly sleeping, or re- turning from some pleasant social party ,• and I have watched them delving and digging in their little plantations till the perspiration poured from them in streams. Such is the idle, lazy, and luxurious life of the monks of the East. "The poverty of the clergy may, at first sight, seem to infer their abate- ment anti degradation ; but the respeet in which their persons are held fully compensates for any inconvenience which they might suffer were they the inhabitants of more civilized countries. The stout and prosperous merchant, the rich shoPkeeper, or the stalwart squire, who condescend to pity and to patronize the threadbare curate or the aall and ill-paid vicar, will be as- tonished to hear that at the approach of some ragged priest or bishop, a wealthy and well-dressed assembly will rise with respect and reverence to press his hand to their lips, and to seat him in the most comfortable corner of the diwan. Money and a home are little wanted where hospitality is a national virtue, and it is a priest that seeks for it, in the name of the God whom he serves.

"Nor are the clergy lees beloved on account of their general familiarity and condescension to even the meanest members of their flock. I have fre- quently witnessed the small room of a bishop crowded from morning till night with the poor, the distressed, and the unfortunate, each seeking from his spiritual pastor advice, assistance, and consolation. The slender purse of a self-denying prelate often furnishes many with the means of life, and those who lack the direction of a man elevated above the passions and pre- judices of the world, may find it freely bestowed by one who is in every re- spect the father of hispeople. "The Christians of the East are in some measure subject to their clergy in civil as well as in spiritual matters. The Patriarch of each community is responsible for the Kharadj or poll-tax, paid by each individual Christian. He even possessess the power of inflicting imprisonment or stripes in certain eases, and it is frequently extremely difficult for an Oriental Christian to quit his own community and transfer his obedience to another church."