a living tapir, a new species of tiger, splendid pheasants, &c., domesticated for the voyage; we were, in short, in this respect, a perfect Noah's ark. All, all has perished; but, thank God, our lives have been spared, and we do not repine.'

It is singular, and among those strange coincidences which in former days would have been deemed fatality, that Sir Stamford had nearly, very nearly, taken his passage in another vessel,that every other risk was covered,-the ship insured,-the captain without interest in her, the East India Company's property, nothing but a few tons of salt-petre shipped for ballast,while his loss was irreparable.

It only remains for us to say, that, in August 1824, Sir S. and Lady Raffles landed in England; that not till April 1826, did the Court of Directors deliver a final opinion on his public services; and that, even then, their constrained praise of this admirable man, was cold, formal, and qualified. In less than three months after this, he was beyond the insult of their commendation. He died July 5, 1826. We cannot more emphatically close this brief sketch, than with the concluding paragraph of the long analysis of this volume given in the lxxxivth No. of the Quarterly Review. We cite it, because we would hope that it expresses something like an official estimate of Sir Stamford's

services.

A great man said, some fifty years ago, what has been repeated by fifty other persons,-"Our empire in India hangs "by so frail a thread, that the touch of chance may break it, or the breath of opinion may dissolve it." Chance and opinion are unquestionably two powerful agents for good or for evil; * but we cannot help suspecting that, considering the placid and * pliant materials to work upon in that empire, if a Raffles were placed at the head of each of the three Presidencies, and of a fourth, or central one, which ought, as we think, to be established; "chance" would be less liable to injure, and opinion" the influence most likely to strengthen, the frail thread which binds to a foreign yoke from eighty to a hundred millions of human creatures.'

We have found it so difficult to compress our account of this interesting volume within reasonable limits, that we have passed over two interesting portions: 1st, the details connected with the interior of Java, because they have been made the subject of an extensive work, long since reviewed by us*, and recently reprinted in a much more accessible form than that of the original edition; and 2d, the brief but interesting notices relating to the Batta cannibals in Sumatra, an account of whom has also

* See Eclectic Review, 2d Ser. Vol. xiv. p. 106, et seq. (Aug. 1820.)

appeared in the pages of our Journal, taken from a report of the expedition conducted by Messrs. Barton and Ward, by desire of Sir Stamford Raffles, which appeared in the "Friend of "India."*

The Appendix to the present volume is valuable; and the plates are good; but the map is not quite what it ought to have been.

Art. II. Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, during the Years 1799-1804, by Alexander de Humboldt, and Aimé Bonpland. Written in French by Alexander de Humboldt, and translated into English by Helen Maria Williams. Vol. VII. 8vo. pp. 482. Price 14s. London. 1829. THIS seventh volume of what, by a strange misnomer, M. Humboldt calls his Personal Narrativet, is chiefly occupied with a political essay on the island of Cuba;-that refugium 'peccatorum for every ruffian', as Dr. Walsh characterises it, where the spirit and practice of the Buccaneers seem revived at the present day. Like Algiers', adds Dr. W., and the 'piratical states of Barbary, it has become the opprobrium of the commercial and civilized world, and requires the same ex'ertion of a strong hand to put it down. It seems also to be the great inlet for slaves, and this without any of those pretexts which the Brazilians can yet plead'. Notwithstanding the treaty with Spain, and the actual payment by Great Britain of 400,000l. sterling, in compensation for the alleged losses consequent upon the renunciation of the slave-trade, it is calculated, that 20,000 slaves are still annually brought to Cuba from the Gallinas and the river Bonny, by the Havannah pirates and slaves. Yet, revolting as is the picture drawn of the state of society in the capital of the island, Cuba, it seems, admits of being advantageously contrasted with our own West India Islands, and is worthy of being held up as an example, or a warning, to Jamaica. The facts collected by M. Humboldt are most important; and we shall endeavour to state them in as brief a compass as possible.

The first introduction of negroes into the eastern part of the Island of Cuba, took place in 1521, but it did not exceed 300 in number. The Spaniards were then much less eager for slaves, than the Portuguese; and for a hundred years after

* See Eclectic Review, Vol. xxvi. p. 421, et seq. (Nov. 1826.) + For a review of the preceding volumes, see Ecl. Rev. 2nd Series, Vol. xxvi. (Oct. and Dec. 1826.)

Walsh's Brazil, Vol. ii. p. 473.

wards, the inhabitants of Cuba, being entirely engaged in rearing cattle, scarcely received any accessions to the slave population. From the year 1521 to 1763, the total number of Africans imported into the Island, is supposed not to have exceeded 60,000. Their descendants exist among the free mulattoes who inhabit for the most part the eastern district. In the twenty-seven years ensuing, between 1763 and 1790, when the negro-trade, which had been a monopoly of the Crown of Spain, was thrown open, the Havannah received 24,875, and the eastern part of the Island about 6000. But, by the ever increasing activity of the slave-trade, in the fifteen years that followed 1790, more slaves were furnished than in the two centuries and a half that had preceded the establishment of the free trade in slaves; and this activity became redoubled after the treaty between Great Britain and Spain for the abolition of the trade. The total number imported into Cuba from Africa, is thus computed :

Before the year 1791

93,500

From 1791 to 1825, at least

320,000

413,500

To represent these, there were found in the Island, in 1825, of free negroes and slaves, 320,000; of mulattoes, 70,000; total men of colour, 390,000. The small number of negresses imported, is assigned as the reason of the great number of mulat

No notice is taken of slaves re-exported, although we suspect that Cuba has not retained all the slaves that have been imported into her harbours. But, putting this out of consideration, the slave population of Cuba would appear to have nearly kept up its numbers.

Now, within the same period of three hundred years, Jamaica has received from Africa, 850,000 negroes, (between 1700 and 1808, nearly 677,000,) and yet, that island does not now possess 380,000 blacks,-considerably less than half the number imported. In the one hundred and six years from 1680 to 1786, there were imported into the British West India Islands, according to the custom-house registers, 2,130,000 from the coast of Africa; and yet, in the year 1788, the total slave po pulation of those colonies was estimated at only 454,161 souls, being little more than a fifth part of the number imported. Such has been the fearful waste of life under the British West India system of cultivation.

But when we compare Jamaica, and even Cuba, with the United States of America, the result is still less to the honour

of the West India colonists. The slave population of those States amounted, in 1770, to 480,000 souls *; in 1820, to 1,541,568; the increase being almost entirely independent of importation. Between 1810 and 1820, the increase upon the slave population was 28 per cent.; and notwithstanding the numerous manumissions, the slave population of the southern states has, since 1820, increased faster than the freet. Now, says M. Humboldt,

I assert with Mr. Cropper, that, if the slaves in Jamaica and Cuba had multiplied in the same proportion, those two islands (the former since 1795, and the latter since 1800) would possess almost their actual population, without 400,000 blacks having been loaded with irons on the coast of Africa, and dragged to Port-Royal and the Havannah.'

To bring the state of the case more distinctly before our readers, we shall place the results in parallel columns, thus:

It is indeed, as this enlightened Writer remarks, a melancholy spectacle, to find Christian nations discussing, which of them has caused the fewest Africans to perish in three centuries, by reducing them to slavery.' The treatment of the negroes in the southern parts of the United States, affords no matter for boasting. Yet, there are degrees of suffering under the abominable system; and the slave who has a hut and a family, is less miserable than he who is purchased as if he 'formed part of a herd.'

The mortality of the negroes in Cuba, as in all the West Indies, is very different, according to the kind of culture in which

*It is believed, however, that of these, not more than 300,000 were actually imported from Africa.

+ Before the abolition of the trade, Jamaica lost annually 7000 individuals, or 2 per cent. on the slave population. Since that period, the decrease has been nearly at a stand. In the Isle of Bourbon, while the whites are annually gaining nearly two per cent., the black population is retrograding at the rate of three per cent. annually, in spite of the advantages of a climate so much more congenial to the African than to the European temperament.

they are employed, the humanity of the masters and overseers, and the number of negresses who can take care of the sick.

There are plantations in which from fifteen to eighteen per cent. perish annually. I have heard it coolly discussed, whether it were better for the proprietor not to fatigue the slaves to excess by labour, and consequently to replace them less frequently, or to draw all the advantage possible from them in a few years, and replace them oftener. Such are the reasonings of cupidity, when man employs man as a beast of burden! . . . . The mean mortality of the negroes recently imported, is still from ten to twelve per cent.' p. 152.

Were the fraudulent importation of slaves wholly stopped, it is believed, that, in the actual state of things, the annual diminution of slaves in Cuba would be one-twentieth. But what is the state of the case as regards the free blacks and people of colour? In 1810, the free men of colour in the province of Cuba were 32,884: in 1817, they were 50,230. This increase was partly produced by manumissions; but still, it is most remarkable.

In no part of the world where slavery prevails, is emancipation so frequent as in the Island of Cuba. The Spanish legislature, far from preventing this, or rendering it difficult, like the English and French legislatures, favours liberty. The right of every slave to buscar amo, (change his master,) or to set himself free, if he can repay the price of the purchase, the religious feeling which inspires many masters in easy circumstances with the idea of giving liberty, by their will, to a certain number of slaves,-the habit of keeping a multitude of blacks for domestic purposes,-the attachments which arise from this intercourse with the whites,-the facility with which slaves make money, who are mechanics, and who pay their masters a certain sum daily, in order to work on their own account ;-such are the principal causes from which so many slaves in the towns pass from the captive state to that of free men of colour. . . . . The condition of free men of colour is happier at the Havannah, than among nations which boast, during ages, of the most advanced civilization. Here, those barbarous laws are unknown, which have been appealed to in our days, and according to which free men, incapable of receiving the donations of the whites, may be deprived of their liberty, and sold for the profit of the fiscal, if they are convicted of having afforded an asylum to Maroon negroes.' pp. 127, 8.

Up to the eighteenth century, the Havannah exported only skins and leather. The rearing of cattle then gave way to the cultivation of tobacco and the tending of bees, of which the first hives were brought from Florida. Wax and tobacco became for some time more important objects of commerce, than hides and leather, but were, in their turn, replaced by the sugar-cane and coffee. The Island of Cuba now exports, besides a considerable quantity of tobacco, coffee, and wax, oneeighth of all the sugar furnished by the West Indies, and only