SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

TRAVELS,

Letters of a German Countess; written during her Travels in Turkey. Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria, Nubia, &c. In 1843-4. By Ida Countess Hahn-1141m. III three volumes Content . Flamm, Zoe; the History of Two Lives. By Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury. In three volumes.

Chapman and Rail.

PERIODICAL LITERATITRE,

The British Quarterly Review. No. I. February 1845 Jackson and Wolff& d.

Foamy, Lays and Ballads from English History, &c. By S. M. Burns.

COUNTESS HAHN-HAHN'S LETTERS FROM THE EAST.

Ina, Countess Hahn-Hahn, is a German lady, who seems to have the organ of locomotion strongly developed. Besides Spain and the old grand tour of former generations, she has made the new Oriental grand tour, descending the Danube to Constantinople, steaming thence to Smyrna, visiting the show-places of Syria—as Damascus, Jerusalem, and the Dead Sea; whence she crossed the Desert to Cairo of course ascended

the Nile, and finally returned to Trieste and civilization rid Athens. During this Eastern trip she seems to have been only accompanied by a "companion" called Bystram, of whom we hear little and learn nothing, excepting that he smoked. Of her thoughts, feelings, impressions, and observations, the lady traveller wrote an account in letters to her family and friends. These were published on the Continent; and the three volumes before us are a translation.

The most novel features about these Letters are their feminine cha- racter and their general judgment of Oriental life. As a woman, the Countess Hahn-Hahn observed many minute details which are over- looked by men, and she occasionally obtained a free and fiuniliar access to the harems of the "higher classes"; so that she had better and more immediate means of judging of Oriental home life than travellers of the other sex. From national phlegm, constitutional temperament, the experience of travelling, or a more rational mind, she exhibits less ro- mantic enthusiasm about the East than many other travellers; brings down its daily life to a very matter-of-fact standard ; and passes a more unfavourable judgment on its manners, morals, character, and happiness. As regards the beauty, cleanliness, and domestic habits of the women, something of harshness may be mingled in her decision, though there is a specific character about her criticisms which induces belief. With respect to the out-of-door life and character of the men' she had no better means of judging than other travellers, and not so good as many, since she knew little or nothing of "the tongues," and could not, from her rapid movements and her sex, have such opportunities of knowing and studying the people. Her judgments must therefore be taken cum grano, though it is as well to have them. This is her view of one moral feature of the East.

COMPULSORY DOMESTICITY.

The domestic mode of life gives the partisan of the Oriental an ample field for admiration. It has certainly one good side, if we abide strictly by the idea "life at home." There are no ale-houses for the common man, and no company, in the European sense of the word, for the higher classes; consequently, a num- ber of occasions for luxury, prodigality, and corruption of morals, the decline and ruin of families, fall away. As soon as it is evening, the streets become silent as the grave. We are struck with this, because this is the very time when our great cities become animated. Immediately after sunset, the Oriental is safely ensconced under his roof, and goes to roost at the same time as the cocks and hens. What has he to do out of doors ? There are no gin-shops, no ale-houses, no taverns, no clubs, no theatres, no soirees; in short, nothing of all that which among us offers amusement or attraction to every one, on whatever steps of the social ladder he may happen to stand. From the highest to the lowest, from the richest to the poorest, the European has the opportunity of spending his time, when be has any to spare, out of his house in congenial company; he has ample opportunity of forgetting that he has a family, or of feeling it the less when he has none. Here the case is quite otherwise: a man marries from pare ennui; and, from necessity, he repairs every evening, with the most faithful punctuality, to his harem, because he cannot pass his time anywhere else. He is compelled to live at home, and the woman is confined to her Of the women, Countess Hahn-Hahn gives a deplorable character. Plain with rare exceptions, and that only at Smyrna ; aging rapidly, and then looking haggard ; without manners, or those engaging affections which are not only better than manners but even produce their effect; devoured by ennui, or stagnant with stupidity, except when roused by jealousy, engaged in intrigue, or occupied by some other equally untuni- able feeling; and to crown all, very dirty. Here are some illustrations of the text.

BEAUTIES AT THE BATH: CONSTANTINOPLE.

I had gone to the bath chiefly with a view to see if ..sible, handsome wo- men. But they were tout comae chez noes, neither ium, me nor plain, some- thing between both—the young ones' that is to say; the older, hideous. Age comes on here early. They marry at thirteen, fourteen, even at twelve years old: at twenty they are thought too old for matrimony. The face exhibits the signs of age later than the ngure; at some thirty years, that is frightfully flabby, spongy, and bloated. The everlasting sedentary way of life, the everlasting hot baths, the everlasting indulgence in sweetmeats and confectionary, deprive the form of all nerve. They look like masses of flesh, not solid enough to keep up- right, but sinking down with- their own weight. But you cannot form a oan- ception how ardently one wishes to meet women in the streets, instead of those clumsy brown bears with white heads. The women with us are, God knows, not particularly beautiful; but,. such as they are, they look infinitely better than these muffled-up figures, and give a more cheerful aspect to the streets: this you find out before you have walked about here many days.

A DAMASCUS HAREM.

When we were on the point of leaving it, [a new mansion,] a message was sent requesting the gentlemen to retire, as the ladies wished to see me. They had scarcely withdrawn into the area, when I was surrounded by a crowd of females, so excessively ugly they really made me start. Truly, the owner of this harem is not to be envied. The ladies and their female slaves were in the highest degree uncleanly and slovenly, nay quite disgusting) and looked as if, according to the prevailing custom here, they had slept in their clothes, and that not for one night only. were quite boisterous, haighed, and screamed aloud, stared at me :and seized my hands: the savages in the South Sea Islands could not be more rude or turbulent in the expressions of their curiosity. And this was the harem of a rich and distinguished man. Truly, the effects of living in a harem are un- feminizing and debasing in the extreme.

ORIENTAL CLEANLINESS: A SUmmArrY.

The religious cleanliness of the Maliometans is frequently spoken of: this must be merely understood to mean, that before they engage in prayer they perfbrm their prescribed ablutions; which consist in dipping their hands into water and then passing them over their face, and sometimes over their feet; and after every meal to wash their mouth and hands, which they punctually perform in the same su- perficial manner. But as they nerer change their clothes, and always roll them- selves about on the ground in the dust of Egypt, which swarms with vermin of every kind, under this burning sun, which is favourable to their increase; as they admit their animals, their camels, asses, goats, and sheep, into the circle of their families, and if possible between their four walls; as they execute every office with their hands, digging the ground in the fields, mixing the camels' dung with straw, -&e.; they are, notwithstanding all. their superficial ablutions, in a state of filth which can neither be described nor conceived: and this extends to all the Orien- tal countries, and through all classes, although the towns and the rich have their baths.

In the chief harems at Constantinople, at the marriage-feast in the house of an Arabic Catholic merchant at Beyrout, in the elegant residences of the wealthy and beautiful Jewesses of Damascus, I never saw one woman who looked clean ! They wore silks, embroidery, shawls, and diamonds; but these are all unwashable articles: at night they retire to rest in the greater part of their clothes, and loll about all day long on carpets and cushions. . Wherever the women are untidy, the men will be more so; and if the rich are so, what can we expect from the poor?

On the more miscellaneous matter we shall trench but little. The fol- lowing is the most convincing reason we have met with for the confu- sion in the orthography of Oriental names. With a language of conso- nants, where the vowels are to be filled up by guess and many of the consonants, as the labials, are liable to change in unskilful mouths or by negligent ears, who can wonder at the puzzling variations of pedantic travellers, who aim at deserving well of their country by a new variation in spelling?

ARAB PRONUNCIATION.

They mounted our side from the abyss, singing and shouting in the same manner as when they descended, and saluted me with ".Mir baba," as soon as they _perceived me. I spell this salutation, which means "Welcome," as it sounds to my ear. The letters, dear Louisa, may not be correct; for the Arabs scarcely articulate the vowels, except the a: the other four are enveloped in mystic obscurity, so that I am constantly in doubt whether I hear an i or a a; a clear e is never heard.

UNSOPHISTICATED BREAD.

The Arabs set about making bread in the following manner. Some of them wore goat-skins, which they fastened, with the hairy side turned inwards, either over the breast or shoulders, according to the direction of the wind or ram; and these dolman, which protected them by day, were converted into kneading-troughs at night. The Arabs scooped out a hole with their hands in the staid, placed their goat-skin in it, filled it with flour and water, and commenced kneading the dough as in a bowl. By the time they had worked it to a due consistence, their crackling brash-wood fire was reduced to ashes; the dough was now divided into loaves and laid on the glowing embers; and in ten minutes, half-burnt and half- baked, they were eagerly torn to shreds, and eaten with citrons.

Beyond the two features we have mentioned, there is no novelty in the Countess Hahn-Hahn's Letters from the East ; at least to English readers. The descent of the Danube, the externals of Constantinople, Smyrna, Cairo, and the Nile, have passed from travels and magazines to guide-books. The miscellaneous company of a Turkish steamer, Damas- cus, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and all the other Scriptural places in its vicinity, are as common, if not quite as hacknied ; nor have we found any substantial novelty in Countess Hahn-llahn's descriptions, beyond what arises from a difference of opinion, or a judgment from another point of view. This common character is not set off by any power of composition. The style is lively and buoyant enough, but has too much of a personal character—too much of what the author thinks, feels, and suffers in a small way. Some of her matter, too, is very flimsy ; a page or two of reverie on a sentence of fact., besides the usual trick of tourists, drawing upon reminiscences of history. This, however, is a foreign judg- ment. It is possible that what is stale to us, inundated as we are with books upon the East, may have more freshness for the German public.