SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

TRAY ru, A Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Souree pf the River Oxus, by the route of the ludas. Kabul. and Badaklothan ; performed under the sanction of the Supreme Uoverumeut of India. in the years 1836, 184, and 1838. by Lieutenant John Wood. of the East India Company's Navy Murray. PUBLIC EDUCATION.

Report to the Secretary of State fur the Hume Department from the Poor-law Com- missioners, on the training Lf Pauper Children ; with Appendices. Printed by Clones and Sons, fur her Majesty's Stationery Office. Auroras's.

Memoirs of the Colman Family ; including their Correspondence with the most distinguished Personages of their Time. By Richard Brtnaley Peake. lu 2 rots.

Bentley WOOD'S JOURNEY TO TILE SOURCE OF THE OXUS.

LIEUTENANT WOOD'S narrative is an important addition to our knowledge of the countries of Central Asia. It contains the first account, by a competent European observer, of the whole course of the Indus, between its delta (the survey of which by Lieutenant CARELESS was published in the Geographical Journal) and Attock ; of the Kohistan of Kabul ; and of the valley of the Upper Oxus, from the most easterly points visited by Mooncaorr and Sir ALEXANDER BURNES, to the point where its northern fork issues from the lake of Sir-i-kol. Lieutenant Woon has been the first to give coherence to the fragmentary information regarding this re- gion collected by former travellers : a model of it in high relief might almost be constructed from his book.

The Narrative carries us through two countries differing mate- rially in their physical characteristics, and in the tribes by whom they are inhabited. The first twelve chapters carry us up the Indus and the river of Kabul to the capital of Western Afghanis- tan the remaining twelve are principally occupied with the upper valley of the Oxus, a district untrodden by European travellers since the time of MARCO Pow—the graphic accuracy of whose descriptions of the characteristic features of a country are corrobo- rated by Lieutenant WooD. Of late years we have had so much information regarding the Indus and Afghanistan, that it might be thought little novelty could be given to travels through those re- gions which do not materially diverge from the customary route. Our author, however, by the perfect knowledge which his survey- ing operations gave him of the country through which he passed— by an acute and observant spirit, coupled with a happy faculty of expression—and above all, by a buoyant and elastic temper, which enables him to enter into and sympathize with the cheerfulness of the light-hearted wherever he meets them—has succeeded in ren- dering even the beaten track attractive.

Mr. WooD has indeed a peculiar talent for seizing the spirit of the ludicrous in human action, without degenerating into either the trivial or into caricature. His Fakirs of Sinde, the " jolly beggars" of India, (" beggars on horseback," they were called by one of the Amirs—and if they do go where beggars thus mounted are proverbially said by us Occidentals to go, they do it after a joyous, rollicking fashion,) are excellent counterparts to the gal- lant chief of the same country in full retreat before the enemy, too round and oily to be easily hoisted into a boat, and imploring his followers to " seize the beard." The broken-down European ad- venturers in these regions, too, are described with a characteristic though not unkindly pen. It is difficult to say whether the palm ought to be assigned to French or English ; to Monsieur ARGOO, fidgety, intemperate, a buffoon,. and most punctilious on the point of honour—or to Lieutenant-Colonel RATTRAY, of the Kabul ser- vice, a happy mixture of Gil Bias's Captain Rolando, Lazarillo de Tormes, and Ferdinand Mendez Pinto. All the book, however, is not in this light strain. There are passages which impress us with the majesty of the lower Indus : the huge masses of its banks falling from time to time with sullen plunge into the strong silent stream which saps them, amid the stillness of the night ; and the sudden glare of torches, and the shrieks from the villagers, startled from their slumbers by the ground being carried away from beneath them.

The portion of this river's course between Attock and Kalabagh was navigated by Lieutenant Woon for the first time by an Euro- pean ; and the narrative of his passage will give the reader some no- tion of the character of his powers of description. The general scenery is presented with much graphic force.

" What a contrast does the Indus in this part of its course present to the shoal and wide-spread river of the plain I Here it gushes down a valley vary- ing from one hundred to four hundred yards wide, between precipitous banks from seventy to seven hundred feet high. Its character, however, is not that of a brawling stream, or a swollen mountain-torrent, but, as if conscious of its own magnitude and strength, the noble river pursues its coarse in silence, ex- cept where chafed by obstructions which itself has caused. The country,. down the centre valley of which this ceaseless tide is rolled, may be described as a moderately elevated table-land, extending from Attock to the Great Salt range. The banks of the river throughout the whole of this distance are formed of hills that rise immediately from its waters, in bold bluffs or steep weather-worn elopes. At some places rising in mural precipices, at others rugged and broken, the blackened sides of the impending cliffs cast their dark shadows across the leaden surface of the narrow river, and tinge its waters still deeper with their gloom. Compressed by rocky banks several hundred feet high, the sullen stream, where not opposed, glides smoothly onwards, and but for the ever-changing form of the overhanging crags, and the varying outline of the banks, the boat would seem motionless, though borne on by a current of nine miles an hour, so stealthily does the river flow where its depth and velocity are the greatest. It is where the surface of the stream is ruffled and broken by opposing rocks, that the angry spirit of the river is roused; and the turmoil is dreadful. The enormous body of water is crushed against the obstruction, and becomes white with spray and foam. If it be a rocky ledge in mid-river, the water, after rising up its face, rolls off in huge waves that extend across both channels, forming dangerous eddies; and to keep clear

from their whirling and tumultuous vortex requires both nerve and skill; Whilst at the lower side of the ledge the river keeps dashing on, roaring among its jagged points and creating them with foam."

But it is the account of the actual passage through the chasm that makes us feel the might of the great waters— "For the whole of this distance, huge boulders and long ridgy ledges occur in the channel of the river ; over and among which the mighty torrent tumbles and roars : its power is immense, and one is almost led to suppose that it would be sufficient to remove from the bed of the river many of the greatest obstructions. The course of the river is very crooked, and its bed being narrow, the immense volume of water pent within rushing on with great velocity, has not space to sweep quietly round the corners, but is precipitated against the bank that faces the line of its direction, and is there heaped up several feet above the general level. At all such ilaces we find a fall in the river, and immediately below it a dangerous eddy. The fall may have a height of four feet, measured on the bank which causes it, but it speedily lessens as it runs off towards the opposite side, where it sinks into the eddy.

" The river from Nildb continues for eight miles to flow nearly due west, between blue limestone hills, that rise slantingly from its bed to a height of seven hundred feet. These hills are thickly studded with Fulah bushes, whose evergreen foliage upon the bare glassy sides of the blue rocks looked exceed. ingly beautiful as we swiftly glided in silence along their base. This scene soon changed to one more stern and more exciting. On nearing the end of the reach, a noise of angry water was heard ; when the boatmen informed me that we were approaching the whirlpool of Ghori Trup, the first danger that occurs on the river below Attock. The crew now went to prayers ; then seizing the oars, they fixed ;their eyes upon the steersman, watching for his signal when they were to exert themselves. The danger here is caused by a series of those eddies which 1 have described as formed by the sharp angular turnings of the river, when compressed and cased in by high rocky banks, that admit of no lateral expansion. The steersman passed his boat down where the fall bad a height of perhaps eighteen inches, caring little for this i

xs 1E, but fearful of the attendant eddy. Though the fall was shot with start- ling rapidity, the boat when over seemed spell-bound to the spot, and hung for some time under the watery wall in spite of the most strenuous efforts of her crew : at last she moved, the men cheered, and out she darted into the fair channel. At Ghori Trup the depth was thirty-one fathoms ; and the width of the stream, though I had not the means of measuring it, could not have ex- ceeded two hundred and fifty feet."

The pictures furnished by the Narrative of the scenery of the Upper Oxus, traversed by Mr. WOOD in the dead of winter, are equally powerful, though differing in character. Take for example this picture of WINTER-TRAVELLING IN BADAKHSUAN.

Not far from Ze-bak we encountered a wayworn traveller, with the skin of a horse wrapped round his body, forcing his way through the willow bushes. He was one of a party of Badakhshis, servants of Mirza Suliman, who had taken advantage of the Oxus being frozen to visit Darwaz, whither they had been directed to carry presents from their master. On their return, the river Lad burst its icy fetters, and could no longer be trusted. The steep mountain- banks offered no safer road ; and the party went back to Darwaz, where they would be obliged to remain till the summer sun opens the passes into Bialakh- than. The individual whom we met, was, however, determined to persevere; and he succeeded, though at the expense of his horse, which he had been obliged to sacrifice to save himself.

Hardly had this singularly-clad traveller passed us, when we fell in with a number of Ish-kashm horsemen ; the chief of whom, when informed of our destination, reined in his horse, and told us that he and his companions were just returned from the ruby mines. lie had been sent by Murad Beg to collect the annual tribute at Gharan, a place consisting of a fort and a few hamlets in the vicinity. of the mines. On coming upon the Oxus at Ish-kashm, they found the over no longer frozen ; and the road down its banks being impracticable to horsemen, they dismounted at that village, and performed the remainder of the journey on foot. The tribute was re- ceived in kind, as usual; and they set out on their return. More snow had, however, fallen in the interim ; the road was obliterated ; and what was still worse, avalanches repeatedly rushed down from the mountains into the river below. The party was separated into three divisions : one went forward to track out the road, a second carried the tribute and took care of the live- stock, while he himself with the third brought up the rear. Four days before we met him, and whilst at the distance of six miles from Ish-kashm, as they were proceeding in this order, he saw, on casually looking upwards, what ap- peared to him a sheet of mist rolling down the mountain-side. He was not long left in uncertainty as to its real nature : down came the avalanche, with the roar of thunder, carrying with it into the Oxus the whole of the centre division. Nothing more was seen of them or their charge ; every man, every animal, was in an instant overwhelmed and destroyed. The other land-parties reached Ish.kashm in safety, but several of the men bad been severely frost- bitten. One poor fellow who rode beside the chief had lost an arm.

The following little adventure conveys a lively picture of some of the inhabitants of this wild region.

A KIRGHIZ MATRON.

We reached the village in the middle of a heavy snow-fall ; and its houses, built amongst fractured pieces of the neighbouring mountains, must have been passed unnoticed, but for a Yak or Kash-gow, as the animal is here called, standing Wore a door, with its bridle in the band of a Kirghiz boy. There was something so novel in its appearance, that I could not resist the impulse of mounting so strange a steed ; but in doing so, I met with stout resistance from the little fellow who had it in charge. In the midst of our dispute, the boy's mother made her appearance, and very kindly permitted me to try the animal's paces. It stood about three feet and a half high ; was very hairy and powerful. Its belly reached within six inches of the ground, which was swept by its bushy tail. The long hair streamed down from its dewlap and fore-legs, giving it, but for the horns, the appearance of a huge Newfoundland dog. It bore a light saddle with horn stirrups ; and a cord, let through the cartilage of the nose, served for a bridle. The good Kirghiz matron was not a leas inte- resting object than her steed. She was diminutive in stature, but active and strong; and wore some half-dozen petticoats under a showy blue-striped gown, the whole sitting close to her person, and held there, not by ribbons, but by a stout leather belt about the waist. Her rosy cheeks and Chinese countenance were seen from under a high, white-starched tiara, while broad bands of the .same colour protected the ears, mouth, and chin. Worsted gloves covered the hands, and the feet were equally well taken care of. She chid her son for not ,permitting me to mount the Kash-gow; and I quite won the good woman's

by praising the lad's spirit and hanging a string of beads about his neck.

Strutting up to her steed with the air of an Amazon, she emptied the flour she _bad obtained at the village into her koorgeens, took the bridle out of her eon's hand, and vaulted astride into the saddle. The sight appeared to be new, not only to us, but to the inhabitants of Wakhan ; for the villagers had thronged round to see her depart. They inquired if she would not take the boy up behind her ? " 0, no ! was her answer, " he can walk." As the mother and lam left us, a droll-looking calf leisurely trode after its dam ; and when the party disappeared amid the falling snow-flakes, the rugged half-clad Wakhanis exclaimed, as if taken by surprise, " None but a Kirghiz boy could thrive under such rough treatment."

As a counterpart to this " wife of Bath ur the Upper Oxus, we beg to introduce to the reader's notice A MEG MERRILIES OF THE HOHISTAN OF KABUL.

Late in the evening we arrived, very weary and somewhat disheartened, at the bottom of a deep dell, along which was scattered a village named Sambala. Its male inhabitants, armed to the teeth, as is customary with these mountain- eers, kept hovering about the encampment, wistfully eyeing the baggage, but restrained from any act of violence by the knowledge that we were guests of both Kabul and Kunduz. Nothing but this kept the savage crew from con- sidering our property a lawful prize—a waif brought by dame Fortune to their very doors. We were early astir next morning, and anxious to quit what was rightly considered a dangerous neighbourhood. My companion would not leave the camp till he had seen every thing off the ground, while I rode ahead to reconnoitre. None of the villagers were stirring ; and our long kafila moved slowly forward, winding along the sides of the mountain till we reached a shallow ravine, on the opposite bank of which stood a tower commanding the ascent on that side. On approaching the foot of the tower, we saw that it was full of armed men ; and others quickly made their appearance from all quarters. We were soon surrounded. By this time many of the baggage-ponies had descended into the ravine ; and those which bad not were in equal peril from robbers in the rear. Three men came out of the tower, with whom a parley was held; and we were given to understand that we must pay certain taxes before the kafila would be permitted to pass. On our arrival at their village the preceding evening, the Kafila Bashi had given their chief what was cus- tomary ; but he, seeing so much baggage so ill protected, deemed it expedient to revise his scale of charges, and now asked for more. Matters were on the point of being amicably adjusted, when fear seized upon the kira-kush, or mule- drivers ; and in the tumult that ensued, a hairbrained Persian levelled his musket at a mountaineer. The party with whom we were conferring imme- diately fled into the tower ; and in an instant matchlocks were seen in every di- rection pointing into the ravine. We were completely in their power. It was a trying moment ; for had the Persian drawn his trigger, we should have been massacred. Be had, however, but time to point his musket, when it was wrenched from his hand by one of his companions, who was fortunately cooler- headed than himself; on perceiving which, an old woman stepped forward to the edge of the ravine and stayed the hand of her highly-offended countrymen. A. war of words now ensued among the incensed and disappointed band, in which the shrill piercing voice of the woman rose high above the rest. Her garments hung in tatters, and her manner and gesticulations were fierce and wild. One moment pointing with her half-bared arm towards our party in the ravine, the next fiercely turning upon the men, she appeared to be loading them with reproaches. One of the party, and one only, she deigned to entreat and to caress, and we discovered that this favoured individual was her son. At length her eloquence was successful; and we were permitted to move on.

Even into this rude region the comedy of human life has pene- trated, and the gay spirit of the traveller detects it.

AN ALCHEMIST.

On the road to Badaklishan, sickness overtook the party ; and on reaching Khyrabad, a village not far from Jerm, they were hospitably entertained by the Pir of the place. Unfortunately, the poor Milk was of a temperament more ardent than scrupulous; and in his anxiety to get well, told his credulous host that he possessed the secret of making gold, and that if the Ply would cure him, he, in return, would impart to him the invaluable process. The host did his best appointed a female slave to watch over the invalid; and in fine, by his skilful treatment, succeeded in closing seven of the eight ulcers that had broken out on the Hadji's legs. When the cure was thus all but completed, the Pir pressed the patient to fulfil his contract. The Hadji's falsehood was now ap- parent; and at the recommendation of their pious and considerate fellow travellers, the Peshawar pirzada, both the Hadji and our visitant were im- prisoned by the disappointed saint. Daily was the unfortunate man branded with a red-hot iron ; for the Pir still believed that the philosopher's stone was in his possession, and that a proper degree of heat would bring it out. At length the Hadji's health gave way under this rough treatment, and death seemed about to relieve him from further suffering. His host, fearing that his own character might suffer under such a contingency, released the prisoner from irons, and discontinued his system of torture. But both the Hadji and his companion were still under surveillance. Without loss of time we extricated the poor men, and sent the Hadji down to Hondas ; where, by the skill and kind attention of Dr. Lord, he speedily recovered the use of his limbs, and was at length restored safe and sound to his employer.

GOING OUT FOR WOOL AND COMING HOME SHORN.

One of Ismael's trading speculations was remarkable, inasmuch as it showed the natives of this region to be possessed of considerable energy and perse- verance. With forty iron pots he loaded five yabus, and made his way into Chitral. Here he readily disposed of them; and after investing part of the proceeds in honey, started for the Chinese frontier. In crossing the Kuner river, a mule was carried down by the stream ; and to add to Ismael's ill-luck, it was the one which carried his surplus cash. The animal was recovered, but its load had disappeared. On reaching Pamir, he lost a mule by the cold of that elevated region. Still, nothing daunted, he pressed on for Yarkand ; where he safely arrived, and sold his Chitral investment to such advantage that he cleared fourteen times the value of his original venture—the forty cast-iron pots. Fascinated by the pleasures of the place, he stayed there three years, and finally left Yarkand a poorer man than he entered it.

In these pages, too, we meet again with the amiable MORA)) BEG, to whom the narratives of MooacaorT and BURNES first in- troduced us. From the terms in which this worthy is spoken of, we half expected to find him a reformed character. Mr. WOOD dwells upon his "splendid talents," "strong common sense," and the (alleged) fact that although "his government is rigidly despotic, seldom is absolute power less misused." It oozes out, however, even amid this panegyric, that "if the chief himself be nut wan- tonly cruel, his conduct is often needlessly severe " ; and that, " with all his high qualifications, Murad Beg is but at the head of an organized banditti." Facts are in this case better than opinions ; so let us take a look at

THE PEOPLE UNDER MURAD BEG.

Since the year 1830, Badakhsban and the countries subject to or rather " chuppooed " by Murad Beg, on the Northern bank of the Oxus, have been depopulated to stock the plains of Kunduz and Hazrat Imam. The ag- gregate of foreigners thus forcibly planted in these unhealthy marshes, from that year to the present time, is estimated by the Uzbeks at 25,000 families, or in round numbers 100,000 souls ; and I question whether of these 6,000 were alive in 1838 ; so great had been the mortality in the short space of eight years. Truly may the proverb say, Agur moorda mekkie—Soondoor burrow; ' If you wish to die, go to Kandla." Twelve months' antecedent to our visit, a great portion of the inhabitants of Kulab were brought from their own hilly country down to Hazrat Imam. Dr. Lord and myself walked over the ground which their straw kirgahs had covered, and where some still stood; but silence and the numerous graves around told us the fate of their former inmates.

THE CHIEFS UNDER MURAD BEG.

The Wakban chief, on his first arrival at Kunduz, was well received ; but when, instead of the arrears of tribute, a meagre present was offered, Murad Beg was so enraged, that he instantly placed him in confinement, and he was arraigned in the Mfr's durbar on the very day that Abdal Ghani arrived. Murad Beg, who had predetermined the chief's death, inquired of the Yesawal, as if casually, whether his party had been well treated in Wakhan ? " No," was the lying reply. "Keifer! " exclaimed the enraged Usbek, turning to his victim, "and is it thus you set me at defiance ? kutta chob bizun—strike him with a club." A courtier present, whose father bad been killed in Wakhan, required no second bidding : he darted out of the presence-chamber, and re- turning with a large wooden billet, felled the unhappy man at a single stroke, begattering with his brains the dresses of those near him. " Kook kurde, kook kurck!—well done, well done !" shouted the savage ruler from his musnud.

Even these few extracts may suffice to show the fund of various and amusing anecdote in this volume. But it will be found to contain more valuable matter than mere amusement. Lieutenant WOOD, like almost all English travellers, seems to have been but indifferently prepared for his task by a study of the lite- rature of geography and ethnography. He is quite to seek in the classification of races and languages ; and wants the knowledge re- quisite to enable him to check and correct the accounts picked up from natives of the countries adjoining those through which he tra- velled. But to compensate for this, he has the true enterprising and observant spirit of a traveller, and sufficient acquaintance with natural history and applied mathematics to direct his powers of observation the right way. We incline to place great confidence in his account of every thing he saw himself; and feel that he planned his excursions judiciously with a view to obtaining an ac- curate and comprehensive notion of the districts through which his course lay.