have not arrived, generally, it is hoped, to such an extent of indifference as to be unmindful of the flavours our food and our beverages possess or acquire.

We have seen the American aloe flourish to some extent in this country; but few who watch for the flower, which but once in ten years rewards the patient care of the proprietor, know with how much greater anxiety and far greater interest this approaching period of florescence is calculated by the Indian of Central America. As the flower is about to bud forth, man steps in, and converts to his own uses the products nature has supplied for the development of the bloom, and the sustenance and maturity of the seed of this plant. He scoops out the flowerstem, leaving but sufficient rind to form a basin some two feet deep and one and a half broad. The sap rapidly accumulates in this receptacle; so rapidly, that it has to be emptied twice or three times a day; and, as this drain may continue for two or three months, an ample and rich supply is secured by the natives. The sap has, at first, a very sweet taste. The natives give it the name of " agua-miel," honey-water; but fermentation soon commences, and "pulque" of the first quality and of the nastiest smell is the product of this fermentation. By Europeans this liquor is, especially at first, received with disgust; but, says our author, "it is so cool, agreeable, (?) and refreshing, that this disgust being once overcome, 'pulque' is preferred, even by Europeans, to any other liquid." It may be; but preserve us from "pulque," or a visit to the Feejees and a taste of their "ava."

We might write a sermon on the evil influences of fermented liquors; or join Father Mathew in denouncing all spirituous drinks as abominations; we might take part with another set, who, despising our milder domestic infusions of tea-leaves and coffee-berries, condemn them as flatulent fluids and useless trash; but we care not to take service under either banner. The poor, who have their daily bread limited in quantity, not by their appetites, but by the small pittance they can spare to invest in food, find not only comfort-the comfort of internal abdominal satisfaction-but they find support and sustenance by adding to their meals a mild infusion of one of these plants. For the work they have to perform, and for the money they have to spare, tea and coffee are more nourishing, more economical, far more satisfying and enlivening beverages than spirituous or malt liquors. On the other hand, malt liquor, especially "good home-brewed," is, in many respects, more than a mere drink, either on account of thirst or fancy. It is wholesome and nutritious; and we can state with authority,

that it has been found highly beneficial in cases where disease of the lungs had apparently existed, to an extent to jeopardise the lives of the patients. Common experience tells daily how beneficial is the moderate use of wine to many individuals, in whom physical exertion or mental occupation produces a ready fatigue of the body, or a capricious state of the stomach; and the experience of the physician speaks with confidence of the advantages of partaking of brandy, or other pure spirits, in moderate quantities, in certain disorders of the system.

The first volume of this work, we have already stated, is devoted chiefly to the requisites of life. The second embraces in its considerations most of the substances with which man seeks to gratify his sensual appetites, and under the influences of which he but too frequently lowers himself below the level of the brute creation.

Interesting enough are these chapters, and much information do they contain; but it is melancholy to reflect that a knowledge of the characters and properties of these various substances has, all over the world, tended towards the degeneration of the higher feelings of man, and that facilities of possessing them have increased the propensities to indulge in excitement and intoxication.

The substances alluded to contain, all of them, more or less, narcotic properties. Some of these are administered in disease, in consequence of the beneficial effects they produce in maladies. All of them are used for the gratification of an acquired and vitiated taste.

Respecting the general consumption and frequent use of narcotic preparations, our author observes:

Siberia has its fungus; Tartary, India, and China, their opium; Persia, India, and Turkey, with all Africa, from Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope, and even the Indians of Brazil, have their hemp and haschisch India, China, and the Eastern Archipelago, their betelnut and betel-pepper; the Polynesian Islands their daily ava; Peru and Bolivia their long-used cocoa; New thorn-apples; Asia, and America, and all the world, we Grenada and the Himalayas their red and common may say, their tobacco; the Florida Indians their emetic holly; Northern Europe and America their ledums and sweet gall; the Englishman and German their hop; and the Frenchman his lettuce. No nation so ancient but has had its narcotic soother from the most distant times; none so remote and isolated but has found within its own borders a pain-allayer and narcotic care-dispeller of active growth; none so savage which instinct has not led to seek for, and successfully to employ, this form of physiological indulgence. The craving for such indulgence, and the habit of gratifying it, are little less universal than the desire for, and the practice of, consuming the necessary materials of our

common food.

The history of the tobacco-plant-its cultivation and its properties, and the various forms

in which it is prepared for the market; the growth of the hop-its medicinal, as, also, its domestic uses; and a notice of some narcotic plants, with portions of which our homely beverages are adulterated;-these subjects comprise the materials considered in the first two chapters of this volume. The lover of tobacco and the drinker of malt will be repaid by a perusal of them. We are then carried on to a most in teresting subject, the preparation of opium, and the manner in which it is collected from the growing pods of the white poppy, so extensively cultivated in the East.

The uses and abuses to which this drug has been converted form a most interesting chapter of facts for the due consideration of all classes. The extent to which the white poppy is grown, and the quantity of the juice, i.e., opium, which is annually collected therefrom, may be slightly estimated by the circumstance, that the East India Company derives, from the sale of this article, a revenue amounting to something like three and a half millions sterling!! To those who are strangers to the baneful influences of this drug, and ignorant of the extent to which it is used, we would particularly point out the dreadful effects of this poison on the mind of man, and the misery that attends upon its indulgence in many parts of the world. A total attenuation of body," says Oppenheim, "a withered, yellow countenance, a lame gait, a bending of the spine, frequently to such a degree as to assume a circular form, and glassy, deep-sunken eyes, betray the opium eater at the first glance."

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This condition is but rarely seen here it is common to the natives of certain localities in the East, and especially in those countries where education may be said to have made no commencement, or in which education is limited to instructing the children to imitate their fathers in the gratification of every sensual appetite, and in which the temperament of the individual, and the characteristics of the climate, assist in completing all that education may have omitted to inculcate.

This drug has, however, been known to produce the most deplorable condition, by its influence under far different circumstances, and upon very superior and powerful minds, reducing them to the most abject slavery by a continued indulgence in its use.

"There is no hope," wrote one whose strong mind had succumbed to the continued use of it. "O God! how willingly would I place myself under in

his establishment; for my case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse myself. Go bid a man, paralytic in both arms, to rub them briskly together, and that will cure him. Alas,' he would reply, 'that I cannot move my arms is my complaint and my misery!'"

We turn, however, from this painful picture, with pleasure and satisfaction, to view the useful purposes to which opium may be applied; and perhaps we may say, without contradiction, that few remedies in medicine act more cer tainly, or are appreciated more fully, than opium and its different preparations.

The amount to which opium may be taken with impunity depends upon habit and a continued use of the drug. But there is a curious fact stated in this chapter, of which we were not previously aware, that monkeys have been given very considerable doses of morphia without any effect being produced upon them. But monkeys are very funny creatures!

The use of arsenic as an habitual article of indulgence, the result of a vitiated taste, is one of the most singular propensities to which man has submitted or accustomed himself. As a medicine, arsenic has long been used with considerable advantage in many diseases to which "flesh is heir." It has also, we fear, been largely used, of late years, in effecting the objects of envy or malice, by secretly terminating the lives of many inoffensive victims; but that a custom of eating it regularly should prevail in some countries; that it should be "swallowed daily throughout a long life;" and that the custom should descend from father to son, is one of those enigmas that no intoxicating grati fication can account for, and only proves to what an extent an acquired taste and habit may be

carried.

Arsenic is a tonic, and is said "to improve the breathing, and give longness of wind, so that steep and continuous heights may be climbed without difficulty and exhaustion of breath." In Styria, however, arsenic is used, perhaps, more decidedly for another reason. There is no doubt that this mineral has some powerful influence besides that of a tonic on the system of the individual who partakes of it for a time: it improves the complexion. It clears the skin. It adds to the condition of the person, and establishes a healthy appearance. But let us see how these known effects are turned to advantage by the natives of the country alluded to.

The Styrian peasant girl, stirred by an unconsciously growing attachment, confiding scarcely to herself her secret feelings, and taking counsel of her inherited wisdom only, really adds, by the use of hidri (arsenic), to the natural graces of her filling and rounding form; paints with brighter hues her blushing cheeks, and imparts a new and winning lustre to her sparkling eye. Every one sees and admires the reality of her growing beauty. The young men sound praises, and become suppliants for her favour. She triumphs over the affections of all, and compels the chosen one to her feet.

This may sound very delightful to the ears of some lady lovers, who may not feel satisfied that

their feelings are reciprocated by the loved one; but should they feel inclined to test him by the use of arsenic, as thus described, we presume to advise them, in the words of "Punch" (to people about to marry), and say, "Don't." "It is poison you deal with, and very little will prove fatal to you, not to the object of your love, if you take it."

There is much more in Mr. Johnston's work with which we could, by referring to, employ the time of our readers with advantage; but a review is one thing, and a published work is another. The object of the one is to say whether a work is worth reading or not; the object of the work is reputation or pay, often both. If we say too little, we condemn the work without abusing it; if we say too much, we save the purses of our readers without adding aught to that of our authors. We trust we have not said too much, but enough

to make the reader feel with us, that Mr. Johnston's volumes should find a place on their book-shelves. We cannot conclude without one word of commendation respecting the numerous useful and well-executed woodcuts which illustrate most chapters. The characters of different plants are prettily given, and form agreeable explanations of varieties. There are some few engravings towards the end of the last volume more anatomical in their detail than is, perhaps, necessary to the general reader, and not quite accurate enough for the more experienced and professional eye. However, in taking leave of Mr. Johnston and his pleasant volumes, we thank him much for such an agreeable introduction to his acquaintance; and we trust we shall soon be permitted to renew that acquaintance by a perusal of his promised work, "The Geology of Common Life."

THIS is as pleasant a book of adventurous travel as we have read for many years. Without any very great elaboration of style, with no attempt at fine writing, and with a singular absence of the poetical or imaginative element, Mr. Ross has given us a most interesting and exciting account of his perilous journeyings in the Oregon and White Mountains. If not imaginative himself, he will fire the imaginations of his younger readers with a love for dangerous and daring researches. There is a Defoe-like charm in the unadorned eloquence with which he recounts his troubles and hardships; his struggles and conflicts with his Indian enemies; his watchfulness against the treachery of his followers; and his combats with savage wolves and buffaloes. Of the writer's courage and determination we have a good specimen in the following account of his capture of Jacob, a Russian blacksmith, who had been concerned in plots and conspiracies against his leader, and who had taken refuge with the Indians. There is a sort of dash and "pluck" about this Russian desperado which makes us take a greater interest in him than such a treacherous mutineer deserves. There is a vivacity, too, about his villany which, we fancy, is not at all characteristic of his countrymen :

The night being dark, we should have waited the return of daylight; but the Indians were too numerous; our only chance of success was to take them by sur. prise. I therefore divided the men into two companies, one to surround the tent, the other to act as a guard in case the Indians interfered. All being ready, I took Wilson, the gunner, and St. Martin, the guide, two

1855.

powerful men, with me. Arming ourselves, we made a simultaneous rush on the tent; but at the moment instantly followed, yet we fortunately escaped. we reached it, a shot was fired from within, another On forcing our way into the tent, the villain was in the act of seizing another gun, for he had three by him; but it was wrested out of his hands, and we laid hold knife, and making a dash at St. Martin, cut his arm of him. Being a powerful man, he managed to draw a severely; but he had not time to repeat the blow; we had him down, and, tying his hands and feet, dragged him out. By this time all our people had mustered together, and in the darkness and bustle we appeared much more formidable than we really were.

In this confusion I perceived the chief of the rebellious tribe. Turning round to the fellow as he was sitting with his head on his knees, I said to him, “You are a pretty chief, harbouring an enemy to the whites -a dog like yourself." Dog or woman are the most insulting epithets you can apply to an Indian. “You dog," said I again to him, "who fired the shots? You have forfeited your life; but the whites, who are generous, forgive you. Look, therefore, well to your ways in future." A good impression might have been made, had we been more formidable and able to prolong our stay among them; but as the Indians might have recovered from their surprise, and seeing our weak from the camp, carrying our prize along with us. side, been tempted to take advantage of it, we hastened

After getting clear of the camp, we made a halt, hand-cuffed our prisoner, and then made the best of our way home. On arriving at the fort, Jacob was locked up, ironed, and kept so until the autumn, when he was shipped on board of a vessel sailing for the Sandwich Islands. As in irons he arrived, so in irons he left us. From that day, I never heard any more

about Jacob.

It was a fortunate circumstance for us that the Indians did not interfere with our attempt to take him. The fact is, they had no time to reflect, but were taken by surprise, which added to our success as well as safety.

On Jacob's embarking in the boat to be conveyed to the ship, he took off his old Russian cap, and waving it in the air round his head, gave three loud cheers, uttering, in a bold voice, "Huzza, huzza! for my

friends; confusion to my enemies!"

The descriptions of bear and wolf-hunting, eagle-shooting, beaver-trapping, and all kinds of sport with which this book abounds, make it a capital north-western companion to Gordon Cumming's southern adventures.

This is a good story of a bear-hunt :—

The only danger to be apprehended in these savage excursions is by following the wounded animal into a thicket, or hiding-place; but with the Indians the more danger the more honour, and some of them are foolhardy enough to run every hazard in order to strike the last fatal blow (in which the honour lies), sometimes with a lance, tomahawk, or knife, at the risk of their lives. No sooner is a bear wounded than it immediately flies for refuge to some hiding-place, unless too closely pursued; in which case, it turns round in savage fury on its pursuers, and woe awaits whoever is in the

way.

The bear in question had been wounded, and took shelter in a small coppice. The bush was instantly surrounded by the horsemen, when the more bold and daring entered it on foot, armed with gun, knife, and tomahawk. Among the bush-rangers on the present occasion was the chief, Short Legs, who, while scrambling over some fallen timber, happened to stumble near to where the wounded and enraged bear was concealed, but too close to be able to defend himself before the vicious animal got hold of him. At that moment I was not more than five or six paces from the chief, but could not get a chance of shooting, so I immediately called out for help, when several mustered round the spot. Availing ourselves of the doubtful alternative of killing her-even at the risk of killing the chief-we fired, and, as good luck would have it, shot the animal and saved the man; then carrying the bear and wounded chief out of the bush, we laid both on the open ground. The sight of the chief was appalling: the scalp was torn from the crown of his head, down over the eyebrows. He was insensible, and for some time we all thought him dead; but after a short interval his pulse began to beat, and he gradually showed signs of returning animation.

It was a curious and somewhat interesting scene to see the party approach the spot where the accident happened. Not being able to get a chance of shooting, they threw their guns from them, and could scarcely be restrained from rushing on the fierce animal with their knives only. The bear all the time kept looking first at one, then at another, and casting her fierce and flaming eyes around the whole of us, as if ready to make a spring at each; yet she never let go her hold of the chief, but stood over him. Seeing herself surrounded by so many enemies, she moved her head from one position to another, and these movements gave us, ultimately, an opportunity of killing her.

Our readers will be glad to hear that the intrepid chief recovered, though his skull was fractured in two places.

Mr. Ross gives us some very life-like pictures of wolf-hunting in the course of these volumes. He describes this animal as the fiercest and most courageous of all the wild animals in those regions. Unlike the wolves of Europe, they will never flee from man, but will always fiercely confront him, The bear, and even the

furious buffalo, will fly from man, and are only bold when actually attacked, wounded, or defending their young; but the wolf is always dauntless, cruel, and determined. Horses become wofully helpless when attacked by these savage beasts, and, as in cases of fire, lose all their courage and sagacity, become bewildered and terrified, and turn stupidly round and round, or stand trembling with fear and agony till they are devoured or burnt to death.

There is something appalling in this account of the terrible revenge taken by the expedition, of which our author was the chief, on a treacherous tribe of Indians who had waylaid and mur dered some of the whites :

M'Donald and his men being fatigued with firing, thought of another and a more effectual plan of destroying the Piegans. It blew a strong gale of wind at the time, so they set fire to the bush of dry and decayed wood. It burnt with the rapidity of straw, and the devouring element laid the whole bush in ashes in a very short time. When it was first proposed, the question arose who should go and fire the bush at the muzzle of the Piegans' guns. "The oldest man in the camp," said M'Donald; "and I'll guard him." The lot fell upon Bastony, a superannuated hunter, on the wrong side of seventy. The poor and wrinkled old man took the torch in his hand and advanced, trembling every step with the fear of instant death before him; while M'Donald and some others walked at his heels with their guns cocked. The bush was fired, the party returned, and volleys of buck-shot were again poured into the bush to aid the fire in the work of destruction.

About one hundred yards from the burning bush was another much larger bush; and while the fire was consuming the one, our people advanced and stationed themselves at the end of the other, to intercept any of the Piegans who might attempt the doubtful alternative of saving themselves by taking refuge in it. To ensure success, our people left open the passage from the one bush to the other, while they themselves stood in two rows, one upon each side, with their guns cocked. Suddenly the half-roasted Piegans, after uttering a scream of despair, burst through the flames, and made a last and expiring effort to gain the other bush; then our people poured in upon each side of them a fatal volley of ball and buck-shot, which almost finished what the flames had spared. Yet, notwithstanding all these sanguinary precautions, a remnant escaped by getting into the bush. The wounded victims who fell under the last volley, the Iroquois dealt with in their own way-with the knife.

It is but just to add, that our author records his strong disapprobation of his followers' cruelty on this occasion.

As many of our readers may be as ignorant of the process of beaver-catching as we our selves were till Mr. Ross enlightened us, we will quote his account of the cruel manner in which those industrious animals are trapped and mutilated:

From this place we advanced by slow marches, for five or six days, further down, till we reached a branch of the river coming in from the west, which we of beaver were favourable, yet our successes came far named West Fork; and, although the appearances short of our expectation, owing chiefly to the unsettled state of the water. One morning, we found in our traps