He afterwards preserved the same deportment towards the king himself; and when James expressed his amazement at such extraordinary conduct, Buchanan admonished him of his having resigned the crown. This reply did not tend to lessen the monarch's surprise, for he now began to suspect his preceptor of mental derangement. Buchanan then produced the instrument by which he was formally invested; and, with the authority of a tutor, proceeded to remind him of the absurdity of assenting to petitions in so rash a manner." When nominated the king's preceptor, Buchanan was also appointed director of the chancery; but this he does not appear to have long held. The same year he was made keeper of the privy-seal, in the room of John, afterwards Lord Maitland, who was deprived for his adherence to the queen. This office, both honourable and lucrative, and which entitled him to a seat in parliament, he held for several years. In April, 1578, he nominally resigned it in favour of his nephew, Thomas, son of Alexander Buchanan of Sleat; but this seems to have been done only to secure the reversion; for in the following June and July he continued to vote in parliament, and, so late as 1580, was addressed by his foreign correspondents as preceptor and counsellor to King James. In the management of public affairs Buchanan seems to have taken a lively interest, and to have been equally consulted as a politician and a scholar. Accordingly, in 1578, we find him forming one of a numerous commission, among whom was another poet and scholar, Archbishop Adamson, appointed to examine and digest the existing laws-a most desirable object— | but one that from its difficulty was never carried fully into effect. He was also included in two commissions for the improvement of education. The first was to rectify an inconvenience arising from the use of different grammars in the schools. Of the committee appointed for this purpose Buchanan was president, and the other members were Messrs. Peter Young, Andrew Sympson, and James Carmichael. They met in Stirling Palace, and were entertained during the continuance of their labours at the charge of the king. Having declared all the grammars in use defective, they resolved that three of their number should compile a new one. To Sympson were assigned the rudiments; to Carmichael what is improperly termed etymology; and to Buchanan the department of prosody. Their respective tracts were committed to the press, and authorized by an order of the king and council; but they continued to be standards of instruction for a very short time, and have long been utterly forgotten. The second commission to which we have referred was appointed by the parliament of 1578 to visit the colleges, to reform such things as tended to Popery, to displace unqualified persons, and to establish such persons therein as they should judge fit for the education of youth. The university of St. Andrews was the subject of the first experiment. Having found many things to alter and redress, the commissioners prepared a scheme of reformation, which was ratified by parliament. This document, written in the Scottish tongue by George Buchanan, is still preserved. The plan of improvement is skilfully delineated, and evidently presupposes that there was no want of learned men in the nation; but it was never carried into effect. With the regents Murray, Lennox, and Mar, Buchanan was cordially united; but Morton in the end forfeited his good-will by the plans of self-aggrand zement which he so sedulously pursued;1 and it was 1 Sir James Melville assigns a different, and perhaps equally powerful, reason for Buchanan's disagreement with Morton: "He became the Earl of Morton's great enemy, for that a nag principally by his advice and that of Sir Alexander Erskine that Morton was deposed, and the reins of government put into the king's hands, though he was yet only in his twelfth year. He was of course a member of the privy-council appointed for the young monarch, but seems to have been displaced on Morton's return to power; and we are uncertain if he ever again held any political office. It is probably to this short period of political influence that we are to ascribe the following anecdote of Buchanan, related by Dr. Gilbert Stuart in his Observations concerning the Public Law and the Constitutional History of Scotland: "In feudal times," that writer observes, "when the sovereign upon his advancement to the royalty was to swear fidelity to his subjects, and to pay homage to the laws, he delivered his naked sword into the hands of the high constable. Use this in my defence,' said he, 'while I support the interests of my people; use it to my destruction when I forsake them. In allusion to this form, Buchanan made a naked sword to be represented on the money coined in the minority of James VI., with these words, Pro me; si mercor, in me." A list of twenty-four Scotsmen has been preserved, whom, on the king's assuming the reins of government, Elizabeth thought it necessary to attach to her interest by pensions, and among these Buchanan stands at £100 per year—no contemptible sum in those days -and the same that was assigned to some of the first nobles of the land. There is no evidence that he ever received this gratuity, or that it was offered to him. Mackenzie, however, states it as a certainty, and adds that the composition of his De Jure Regni apud Scotos was the grateful service he performed in return an assertion not likely, considering that the doctrines of this book were not very consonant to the views of that high-minded princess. The De Jure was composed principally with a view to instruct his royal pupil in what belonged to his office. In 1576 he prepared his Baptistes, and dedicated it to the young king, with a freedom of sentiment bordering upon disrespect, which is to be regretted, because, if his lessons had been conveyed in a less dictatorial manner, there would have been more likelihood of their being attended with advantage. "This trifle may seem," he says, "to have a more important reference to you, because it clearly discloses the punishment of tyrants, and the misery which awaits them even when their prosperity is at the highest. Such knowledge I consider it not only expedient but necessary that you should acquire, in order that you may early begin to hate what you ought always to shun: and I wish this work to remain as a witness to posterity that, if impelled by evil counsellors, or suffering the licentiousness of royalty to prevail over a virtuous education, you should hereafter be guilty of any improper conduct, the fault may be imputed not to your preceptors, but to you who have not obeyed their salutary admonitions." Three years after, in 1579, he published the abovementioned compendium of political philosophy, the professed object of which is to delineate the rights of the Scottish crown. The origin of the work, which is sufficiently remote from that assigned by Mackenzie, is fully detailed in the dedication to the king, which is of so peculiar a character, that it would be unpardonable to pass it over. "Several years ago," he begins, "when our affairs were in a most turbulent of his chanced to be taken from his servant during the civil part with the said horse, because he was sure-footed and easy; but because he would not part with him, from being the regent's great friend, he became his mortal enemy, and from that time forth spoke evil of him at all times and upon all occasions." troubles, and was bought by the regent, who had no will to condition, I composed a dialogue on the prerogatives | he compiled when he had reached his seventy-fourth of the Scottish crown, in which I endeavoured to year, and his epistolary correspondence, which was at explain, from their very cradle, if I may adopt that one time very extensive, was still continued with some expression, the reciprocal rights and privileges of of the friends of his earlier days. He had been kings and their subjects. Although the work seemed long in the habit of writing annually, by some of the to be of some immediate utility by silencing certain Bordeaux merchants, to his old friend and colleague individuals, who, with importunate clamours, rather Vinetus, and one of these letters, written in March, inveighed against the existing state of things than 1581, the year before his death, gives a not unpleasexamined what was conformable to the standard of ing picture of his state of feeling. "Upon receiving reason, yet in consequence of returning tranquillity, accounts of you," he says, "by the merchants who I willingly consecrated my arms to public concord. return from your courts, I am filled with delight, But having lately met with this disputation among and seem to enjoy a kind of second youth, for I am my papers, and supposed it to contain many precepts there apprised that some remnants of the Portunecessary for your tender age (especially as it is so guese peregrinations still exist. As I have now conspicuously elevated in the scale of human affairs), attained to the seventy-fifth year of my age, I someI have deemed its publication expedient, that it may times call to remembrance through what toils and inat once testify my zeal for your service, and admonish quietudes I have sailed past all those objects which you of your duty to the community. Many circum- men commonly regard as pleasing, and have at stances tend to convince me that my present exer- length struck upon that rock beyond which, as the tions will not prove fruitless, especially your age yet ninetieth psalm very truly avers, nothing remains uncorrupted by perverse opinions, a disposition above but labour and sorrow. The only consolation that your years spontaneously urging you to every noble now awaits me, is to pause with delight on the pursuit; a facility in obeying not only your preceprecollection of my coeval friends, of whom you are tors, but all prudent monitors-a judgment and dex- almost the only one who still survives. Although terity in disquisition which prevents you from paying you are not, as I presume, inferior to me in years, much regard to authority, unless it be confirmed by you are yet capable of benefiting your country by solid argument. I likewise perceive that by a kind your exertion and counsel, and even of prolonging, of natural instinct you so abhor flattery--the nurse of by your learned compositions, your life to a future tyranny, and the most grievous pest of a legitimate age. But I have long bade adieu to letters. It is monarchy-that you as heartily hate the courtly sole- now the only object of my solicitude, that I may cisms and barbarisms as they are relished and affected remove with as little noise as possible from the by those who consider themselves as the arbiters of society of my ill-assorted companions—that I who every elegance, and who, by way of seasoning their am already dead, may relinquish the fellowship of conversation, are perpetually sprinkling it with the living. In the meantime I transmit to you the majesties, lordships, excellencies, and, if possible, youngest of my literary offspring, in order that with expressions still more putid. Although the when you discover it to be the drivelling child bounty of nature and the instruction of your governors of age, you may be less anxious about its brothers. may at present secure you against this error, yet am I understand that Henry Wardlaw, a young man I compelled to entertain some slight degree of suspi- of our nation, and the descendant of a good family, cion, lest evil communication—the alluring nurse of is prosecuting his studies in your seminary with no the vices-should lend an unhappy impulse to your inconsiderable application. Although I am aware still tender mind, especially as I am not ignorant of your habitual politeness, and you are not ignorant with what facility the external senses yield to seduc- that foreigners are peculiarly entitled to your attention. I have therefore sent you this treatise, not tion, yet I am desirous he should find that our only as a monitor, but even as an importunate and ancient familiarity recommends him to your favour." sometimes impudent dun, who in this turn of life Thuanus, who had seen this epistle in the possession may convey you beyond the rocks of adulation, and of the venerable old man to whom it was addressed, may not merely offer you advice, but confine you to says it was written with a tremulous hand, but in a the path which you have entered; and if you should generous style. chance to deviate, may reprehend you, and recall your steps. If you obey this monitor, you will insure tranquillity to yourself and to your subjects, and will transmit a brilliant reputation to the most remote posterity." The eagerness with which this work was sought after by those of Buchanan's own principles on the Continent is manifested by a letter from one of his correspondents. "Your dialogue De Jure Regni," says this epistle, "which you transmitted to me by Zolcher, the letter-carrier of our friend Sturmius, I have received a present which would be extremely agreeable to me if the importunate entreaties of some persons did not prevent me from enjoying it; for the moment it was delivered into my hand Dr. Wilson requested the loan of it; he yielded it to the importunity of the chancellor, from whom the treasurer procured a perusal of it, and has not yet returned it; so that, to this day, it has never been in my custody." Amidst multiplied labours Buchanan was now borne down with the load of years, aggravated by the encroachments of disease. His poetical studies seem now to have been entirely suspended, but his history of Scotland was unfinished, and was probably still receiving short additions or finishing touches. His life, too, at the request of his friends, The last of Buchanan's productions was his history of Scotland, which it is doubtful whether he lived to see ushered fairly into the world or not. By the following letter to Mr. Randolph, dated at Stirling in the month of August, 1577, it would appear that this work was then in a state of great forwardness: "Maister, I haif resavit diverse letters from you, and yit I haif ansourit to naine of thayme, of the quhylke albiet I haif mony excusis, as age, forgetfulness, besines, and desease, yit I wyl use nane as now except my sweirness and your gentilness, and geif ye thynk nane of theise sufficient, content you with ane confession of the falt wtout fear of punnition to follow on my onkindness. As for the present, I am occupiit in wryting of our historie, being assurit to content few and to displease mony tharthrow. As to the end of it, yf ye gett it not or thys winter be passit, lippen not for it, nor nane other writyngs from me. The rest of my occupation is wyth the gout, quhylk haldis me busy bath day and nyt. And quhair ye say ye haif not lang to lyif, I truist to God to go before you, albeit I be on fut and ye ryd the post [Randolph was post-master to the queen's grace of England] prayin you als not to dispost my host at Newerk, Jone of Kilsterne. Thys I pray you, partly for his awyne sake, quhame | possessed other considerable sources of emolument, I thot ane gude fellow, and partly at request of syk | he acquired no great estates, and his whole property as I dare not refuse, and thus I take my leif shortly at his death consisted of £100, arrears due upon his at you now, and my lang leif quhen God pleasis, pension of Crossraguell. committing you to the protection of the Almyty.' By this letter it is evident that he expected to publish his history immediately. A long delay, however, took place; for when, in September, 1581, he was visited by Andrew Melville, James Melville, and his cousin Thomas Buchanan, the work was only then printing. Of this visit, James Melville has left a most interesting account. "That September in tyme of vacans, my uncle Mr. Andro, Mr. Thomas Buchanan, and I, heiring yt Mr. George Buchanan was weak, and his historie under ye press, past ower to Edinbro annes earand to visit him and sie ye wark. When we cam to his chalmer we fand him sitting in his charre teatching his young man that servit him in his chalmer to spel a, b, ab; e, b, eb, &c. After salutation, Mr. Andro says, 'I sie, sir, ye are not ydle.' 'Better,' quoth he, than stelling sheep or sitting ydle, whilk is als ill.' Yrefter he shew ws the epistle dedicatorie to the king, the quhylk when Mr. Andro had read, he told him that it was obscure in some places, and wanted certain wordis to perfyt the sentence. Sayes he, 'I may do na mair for thinking on another matter.' 'What is that,' says Mr. Andro. To die,' quoth he; 'but I leave that an mony ma things to you to help.' We went from him to the printer's wark hous, whom we fand at the end of the 17 buik of his chronicle, at a place qhuilk we thought verie hard for the tyme, qhuilk might be an occasion of steying the hail wark, anent the burial of Davie [David Rizzio]. Therefore steying the printer from proceeding, we cam to Mr. George again, and fand him bedfast by [contrary to] his custome, and asking him whow he did, 'Even going the way of weilfare,' sayes he. Mr. Thomas, his cousin, shaws him of the hardness of that part of his story, yt the king wald be offendit wt it, and it might stey all the wark. Tell me, man,' sayes he, if I have told the truth.' 'Yes,' says Mr. Thomas, 'I think sa.' 'I will byd his feide and all his kin's, then,' quoth he. 'Pray, pray to God for me, and let him direct all.' Sa be the printing of his chronicle was endit, that maist learned, wyse, and godlie man endit this mortal lyff." The printing of the history must have gone on very slowly, for though it was printed as above, up to the seventeenth book, it was not finished till nearly a year after, the dedication to the king being dated August 29, 1582, only thirty days before the death of the author, which happened on Friday the 28th of September following, when he had reached the age of seventy-six years and eight months. He died in much peace, expressing his full reliance on the blood of Christ. He was buried in the Greyfriars churchyard, a great multitude attending his funeral. A throughstone, with an inscription, is said to have marked his grave; but the inscription has long been invisible, and the existence of the stone itself appears to be more than doubtful. An obelisk has, by the gratitude of posterity, been reared to his memory in his native village, Killearn. His death, like that of all men who live out the full term of human life, excited less emotion than might have been expected. Andrew Melville, who had often celebrated him while alive, discharged the last debt of lettered friendship in an elegant Latin poem; Joseph Scaliger also wrote an epitaph for him in terms of liberal and appropriate praise. Buchanan was never married, and left, of course, no children to perpetuate his memory; and though he held latterly one of the great offices of state, and A story is told, upon the authority of the Earl of Cromarty, who had it from his grandfather Lord Invertyle, that Buchanan, on his death-bed, finding the money he had about him insufficient to defray the expenses of his funeral, sent his servant to divide it among the poor; adding, that if the city, meaning its authorities, did not choose to bury him, they might let him lie where he was, or throw his corpse where they pleased. This anecdote has been by some rejected as apocryphal; but there is no proof of its untruth, and it certainly does not startle us on account of any incongruity with Buchanan's character, which was severe, even to moroseness. He had passed through almost every vicissitude of human life, and, stern and inflexible, perhaps he had less sympathy with human frailty than the weaknesses of most men require. He was subject to that irritability of feeling which frequently attends exalted genius, but manifested at all times a noble generosity of spirit, which made him be regarded by his friends with a warmth of affection which mere intellectual eminence, though it were that of an archangel, could never inspire. By the general voice of the civilized world he held a pre-eminence in literature that seemed to render competition hopeless; but his estimate of his own attainments was consistent with the most perfect modesty, and no man was more ready to discover and acknowledge genuine merit in others. His brilliant wit and unaffected humour rendered his society highly acceptable to persons of the most opposite tastes and dispositions. In 1584, only two years after the publication of the history, it was condemned along with De Jure Regni by the parliament of Scotland, and every person possessed of copies commanded to surrender them within forty days, in order that they might be purged of the offensive and extraordinary matters which they contained. We shall close this sketch of Buchanan's life with the concluding reflections of his learned biographer Dr. Irving. "In his numerous writings," says the doctor, "he discovers a vigorous and mature combination of talents which have seldom been found united in equal perfection. According to the common opinion, intellectual superiority is almost invariably circumscribed by one of the two grand partitions which philosophers have delineated; it is either founded on the predominancy of those capabilities which constitute what is termed the imagination, or of those which, in contradistinction, are denominated the understanding. These different powers of exertion, though certainly not incompatible with each other, are but rarely found to coalesce in equal maturity. Buchanan has, however, displayed them in the same high degree of perfection. To an imagination excursive and bril liant he unites an undeviating rectitude of judgment. His learning was at once elegant, various, and profound. Turnebus, who was associated with him in the same college, and whose decisions will not be rashly controverted, has characterized him as a man of consummate erudition. Most of the ancient writers had limited their aspiring hopes to one department of literature; and even to excel in one demands the happy perseverance of a cultivated genius. Plato despaired of securing a reputation by his poetry. The poetical attempts of Cicero, though less contemptible perhaps than they are commonly represented, would not have been sufficient to transmit an illustrious name to future ages. GEORGE BUCHANAN Buchanan has not only attained to excellence in each species of composition, but in each species has displayed a variety of excellence. In philosophical dialogue and historical narrative, in lyric and didactic poetry, in elegy, epigram, and satire, he has never been equalled in modern, and hardly surpassed in ancient times. A few Roman poets of the purest age have excelled him in their several provinces, but none of them has evinced the same capability of universal attainment. Horace and Livy wrote in the language they had learned from their mothers, but its very acquisition was to Buchanan the result of much youthful labour. Yet he writes with the purity and elegance of an ancient Roman. Unfettered by the classical restraints which shrivel the powers of an ordinary mind, he expatiates with all the characteristic energy of strong and original sentiment; he produces new combinations of fancy, and invests them with language equally polished and appropriate. His diction uniformly displays a happy vein of elegant and masculine simplicity, and is distinguished by that propriety and perspicuity which can only be attained by a man perfectly master of his ideas and of the language in which he writes. The variety of his poetical measures is immense, and to each species he imparts its peculiar grace and harmony. The style of his prose exhibits correspondent beauties: nor is it chequered by phraseologies unsuitable in that mode of composition. His diction, whether in prose or verse, is not a tissue of centos; he imitates the ancients as the ancients imitated each other. No Latin poet of modern times has united the same originality and elegance; no historian has so completely imbibed the genius of antiquity, without being betrayed into servile and pedantic imitation. But his works may legitimately claim a higher order of merit-they have added no inconsiderable influx to the general stream of human knowledge. The wit, the pungency, the vehemence of his ecclesiastical satires, must have tended to foment the general flame of reformation; and his political speculations are evidently those of a man who had soared beyond the narrow limits of his age." All these remarks the reader will observe refer to the original Latin in which all the works of Buchanan, with the exception of the two which we have particularized, are written. The Dialogue has been frequently reprinted, and several times translated. Of the History, which was printed by Alexander Arbuthnot at Edinburgh, 1582, there have been published seventeen editions. It was translated into the Scottish language by John Reid, who, according to Calderwood's MS., was servitor to Mr. George Buchanan. A MS. of this unpub. lished version is in the library of the university of Glasgow. Another unpublished version is in the British Museum. In 1690, an English translation, with a portrait of the author, was printed in folio. This version has gone through five or six editions, and is to be frequently met with. It is a clumsy performance, and gives some such idea of Buchanan as a block from the quarry gives of the highly finished statue. A much better translation has recently appeared, from the pen of James Aikman, Esq., forming the first part of Aikman's History of Scotland. It is an honour yet awaiting some future scholar, to give to his unlettered countrymen to feel somewhat of the grace and strength that characterize the performances of George Buchanan. BURNES, SIR ALEXANDER. This distinguished officer, whose varied talents were so available in the administration of the British government in India, and whose premature and violent death VOL. I. was so deeply deplored, was born in the town of Montrose, on the 16th of May, 1805. His father, a magistrate of Forfarshire, had held the chief official situations of the burgh of Montrose, while his grandfather was brother to William Burnes, the parent of our illustrious national poet. It is well known to the readers of the life of Robert Burns, that the family name had always been spelled Burnes, and that his father was the first who dropped the letter e in its signature. Alexander was educated at Montrose academy, and having obtained a cadetship when he left school at the age of sixteen, he set sail for India, and arrived at Bombay on October 31, 1821. So successful had been his studies for his new sphere of active duty, that at the close of the year after that of his arrival in India, he was appointed interpreter in Hindostanee to the first extra battalion at Surat. His proficiency in the Persian tongue had also been so rapid as to secure the confidence of the judges of the Sudder Adawlut, so that he was appointed translator of the Persian documents of that court, without any solicitation of his own. His talents for civil occupation were soon so conspicuous as to secure him rapid promotion in that Indo-British government, whose very existence depends upon the superiority of intellect alone, and after having filled the offices of ensign and quartermaster of brigade, he was confirmed in the office of deputy-assistant quartermastergeneral at the age of twenty-one, at which period, also, he drew up an elaborate report on the statistics of Wagur, a paper for which he received the thanks of the governor and members of the council of Bombay. In 1828 he was honoured by a similar testimony for a memoir on the eastern mouth of the Indus; and in September, 1829, he was appointed assistant to the political agent in Cutch, for the purpose of effecting a survey of the north-west border of that province. Burnes, who had been there four years previous, as ensign of the 21st Bombay Native Infantry during the disturbances of that quarter, returned in his new capacity, and discharged his task with his wonted ability and success. count of this survey is contained in the Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society for 1834. His ac The talents of Burnes as an oriental linguist and statist, having thus been tested, were summoned to higher exertion. In the growth of our Indo-British empire, it was necessary that the Indus should be thrown open to our ships, but, at the same time, without exciting the jealousy of those wild tribes who regarded the river as the pledge of their national freedom. It was accordingly resolved that this object should be covertly accomplished, by means of a political mission ostensibly directed to a different purpose. A present of five splendid horses, accompanied by a letter from the sovereign of Great Britain, were to be consigned to Runjeet Singh, the celebrated Maharajah of the Punjaub; and on the way to Lahore for that purpose, Lieutenant Burnes, by whom the mission was to be conducted, was to travel by the circuitous route of Scinde. He was provided with letters to the chieftains of the province, and to conceal the real purpose of his journey, he was accompanied by a guard of wild Beeloochees, instead of a troop of British soldiers, whose appearance would have raised suspicion. Thus provided, Burnes reached the mouth of the Indus on the 28th of January, 1831. He had now a difficult diplomatic task to perform, for the Ameers of Scinde had taken the alarm, and every impediment was thrown in the way of his further progress. This, however, was nothing more than what he wished; for, during the delay of their feigned negotiations, he had made 16 a complete survey of the mouths of the river, and constructed a map of the lower part of its course; he also obtained their full permission to continue his journey on the Indus, instead of travelling by land, and their assent that thenceforth it should be left open to the transit of British merchandise. Proceeding along the river by water, and visiting every place of interest upon his way, he at length reached Lahore on the 18th of July. As the real part of his journey was already accomplished, all that remained was little more than a mere political visit of ceremony, graced with all the showy forms of an oriental embassy, and an amusing account of which he has given us in the third volume of his Travels in Bokhara. Splendid retinues, with abundance of trumpeting and cannon-firing, welcomed him into the capital of the modern Timour; and on entering the palace, he suddenly found himself locked in the embrace of a diminutive old man, who was no other than Runjeet | Singh himself, eager to do him honour, and who had advanced thus far to welcome him. After sojourning till the middle of August at the court of Runjeet Singh, Burnes left Lahore, crossed the Sutledge, and proceeded to Loodiana, where he became acquainted with Shah Zeman and Shah Soojah, who had formerly been kings of Cabool, but were now discrowned, and living under British protection. At Simla, he met Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general, who forthwith proceeded to avail himself of Burnes' mission, by negotiations for opening the navigation of the Indus. After this successful expedition, Burnes proposed to undertake an exploratory journey into Central Asia, and the Indian government having sanctioned the proposal, he commenced this new and adventurous journey in January, 1832. As yet, much of the interior of our vast Indian empire was but little known, and even the charts of many districts that had been penetrated by British travellers were still incorrect or defective. One important advantage of this journey of Burnes was an addition to the map of Arrowsmith, the most valuable of our Indian charts, to which he supplied some of its best improvements. As it was necessary to pass through Scinde in his route, he had previously obtained permission to that effect from his powerful friend the maharajah. He therefore once more entered Lahore, at which he arrived on the 17th of January, and was cordially welcomed by Runjeet Singh; and after a stay there till the 11th of February, he crossed the Ravee, and having halted one night in a house beside the monument of Jehangur, he prepared for the dangerous part of his journey. It was necessary for this purpose that he should be completely disguised, and therefore he assumed the dress and habits, and as much as possible the appearance, of an Afghan. He had for the companion of his journey, Mr. James Gerard, surgeon of the Bengal army, who clothed himself with a similar costume; and, after leaving behind them every article of their luggage that might indicate their country or purpose, the travellers commenced their pilgrimage of peril, escorted by a body of troops provided by the maharajah. They were thus accompanied to the frontier of Runjeet's dominions, a short distance on the further side of the Attock, where they met the Afghans, by whom they were escorted to Acora. They afterwards successively reached Peshawur, Jellalabad, and Cabool; scaled the lofty passes of Oonna and Hageegak, on the latter of which, 12,400 feet in height at its highest point, the frost was so intense that the snow bore the weight of their horses, and the thermometer fell to 4 of Fahrenheit. On attempting subsequently to surmount the pass of Kalao, which is a thousand feet | higher, they found it so blocked up with snow as to be impassable, and were compelled to choose another route, by which they reached Ghoolgoola, that city, or rather valley of ruins, famed for its two colossal statues, the largest of which is 120 feet in height, and for the hills that inclose the valley, which are absolutely honey-combed with excavations. They then crossed the pass of Acrobat; and descending from the mountains of the Indian Caucasus, they entered the vast plains of Tartary. At Khooloom, the frontier town of Morad Beg, chief of Khoondooz, the bold travellers were met by a startling message from that potentate, requiring Burnes to wait upon him at Kaumabad, a village about fifty miles off. Obedience was unavoidable; and therefore, leaving Mr. Gerard at Khooloom, Burnes repaired to Kaumabad, and presented himself before the chief in tattered and threadbare garments, under the character of a poor Armenian watchmaker travelling from Lucknow to Bokhara. A moment's timidity on his part, or suspicion on that of the Asiatic lord, might have cost the traveller his life; but, fortunately, his statement was believed, so that he received a safe-conduct to continue his journey, and he left Kaumabad in the company of a small caravan of nine or ten tea-merchants. This danger being thus happily got over, Burnes rejoined Mr. Gerard at Khooloom. Their route was continued, and they arrived at Balkh, that wondrous city of history and romance, with which our childhood and youth were made so familiar. Now a heap of ruins in the midst of a glory that has passed away, but still covering an extent of twenty miles with its fragments; it is a fitting monument of the many empires to which it has belonged; for here the Greek, Persian, Arabian, Tartar, and Afghan have successively ruled. Strange, therefore, have been the changes has witnessed since the time that it was the Bactra of Alexander the Great! After halting for three days in this interesting compend of ancient and modern history, Burnes and Gerard entered the desert on the 14th of June, and, two days after, they reached the banks of the Oxus, that most important of Asiatic rivers, which bounded the conquests of Cyrus, and all but terminated those of Alexander. At that part which our travellers crossed, the river was about 800 yards wide, and twenty feet deep, where the transit was made in boats neither impelled by sail nor oar, but drawn by a couple of stout horses that swam across. Continuing their course, they reached on the 27th of June the city of Bokhara, the capital of the country of that name; a city whose remaining colleges still justify its ancient renown for learning and civilization, and the high encomiums which eastern poets heaped upon it. After waiting in the neighbourhood of the city of Kara-kool till the 16th of August, Burnes and Gerard resumed their journey in the company of a caravan consisting of 150 persons and eighty camels, the former travelling in very simple fashion, some on horses, some on asses, and several in panniers slung across the backs of camels. With this escort our travellers passed the great desert by Merve, and on the 17th of September reached the strong fortress of Koochan, where they parted, Gerard intending to proceed to Herat and Candahar, and afterwards return to Cabool. Burnes continued his journey in the company of 300 persons, chiefly Khoords, Persians, and Turcomans-three of the eleven races with which the province of Bokhara is peopled-until he had passed Boojnoord, when he continued his journey alone to the town of Astrabad. He then crossed an arm of the Caspian, and proceeded to Teheran, the modern capital of Persia, where he had the honour |