naïvely exclaimed-" I wonder if my family was of any consequence at that period!" Altogether, from these volumes, the Koords appear an interesting nation, capable of great and good things, if they would allay their internal and clanship jealousies, and if they were secure against Turkish and Persian intrigues, oppression, and animosities, to which their situation, on the confines of these frequently hostile empires, exposes them. Much might be expected of a people over whom there is such a Pasha as Mahmood, who, among the many favourable views in which he is held forth in these pages, is thus represented :

"He displays an extraordinary degree of piety and faith in his way, without any of the intolerance or arrogance which a Turk of much less devotion invariably assumes. The bravest man I ever knew,' said the Pasha, was a poor Russian soldier, whom I saw when I accompanied the Prince Mahomed Ali Mirza in his inroad into Georgia. The man was carrying dispatches, and was taken prisoner by the Persians, and brought before the Prince, who interrogated him as to the purport of his business. 'What I am going about,' said the man, is contained in my dispatches; they are in Russian; read them if you can.' The Prince finding nothing was to be got out of him, asked him to become a Mussulman. The man refused; on which the Prince threatened him with the most cruel torments, but the man's resolution was not to be shaken. The Prince therefore ordered a grave to be dug; all the while the soldier laughed and chatted with those around him with the utmost unconcern. When the grave was ready, the Prince once more asked him if he would become a Mussulman; and upon his refusal, ordered him to be buried alive, which was instantly done, though I did all I could to prevent so barbarous an act. It was a pity to see so fine and brave a fellow sacrificed for religion. What business had the Prince with his faith?' ”—vol. i, pp. 139, 140.

We shall not follow the author in his account of the various reigning families in Koordistan, farther than regards some notices of the Vali of Sinna, who governs in the Persian provinces. Mr. Rich's object in visiting that portion of Koordistan, besides the re-establishment of his precarious health, was to examine the chain of Zagros, with its hitherto unknown pass of Garran, and the fixing the position of the capital of that part of Persia. Certainly the character of the governor of Sinna could offer no inducement to the author and his party to go within this territory; for a more cruel, treacherous, and avaricious monster cannot be named. All the province trembles when his name is mentioned. He is splendid in his establishment, and so he may, for he is partner with every merchant and tradesman under him, or rather the general monopolizer. The author wanted a new box for his sextant; but all the wood, and even the carpenter himself, belonged to the Vali. Every one of his partners must take care that the profits of the joint business be regular, whatever the luck may have been. He forces people to borrow

money of him, but he himself fixes the per centage. He has more than fifty thousand sheep, which he distributes to different people to take care of; but the animals must neither grow old, nor be sick, nor die; for he has admirable skill and taste as respects the methods of enforcing obedience, as our readers will speedily perceive.

When the author was at Sinna, the tyrant was on a progress through his districts, extorting money for the celebration of his favourite son's marriage, which was shortly to take place, with a daughter of the King of Persia. But it was necessary and prudent for our travellers to repair to the spot where his highness sojourned, this being at that time at the castle of Banna.

September 9.-I was to have called on the Vali to day to take leave of him. I told him to fix any time when he had no business, as it was quite equal to me when I went; and he said he would let me know. All the morning he was busy settling accounts with Banna. He pulled out the eyes of three of the principal men of this part of the country; and sent off their wives and daughters, with those of some other considerable persons, to Sinna. We saw the long train of women mounted on horses marching across the plain, escorted by some of the Khan's people, who rode among the women. This was the occupation of his morning, which fortunately only begins at eleven o'clock. The more we hear of him, the more disgusted are we with this monster. In the afternoon he rode out to inspect a village which he had seized. Before he went out he sent me word that unavoidable business had detained him all day, but that tomorrow he hoped to take leave of me, when he would march in one direction and I in another."-vol. i, p. 248.

We may guess what sort of unavoidable business engaged the monster. The bastinado was going on every day during his residence at Banna, the scene being varied now and then by the outpulling process. But we quit Koordistan, after extracting some of the author's general conclusions regarding various eastern races, which, in his extensive travels, he has had particular opportunities of studying.

"I observe in general the Koords are much more eager after infor. mation, much more diffident of themselves, and much easier to instruct than the Turks, and, I believe, than the Persians either; for there are certain things which a Persian will readily adopt, but others in literature and science in which he conceives himself to be highly superior to other nations. A Turk has a comfortable idea of his own superiority in everything, and has a thorough contempt for whatever he does not understand. "The printing press of Constantinople has done nothing towards enlightening the nation. But few good books have been printed, and they are not much sought after, and never used when obtained. The only works which have issued from that press which are in any estimation are the dictionaries. Abbas Mirza is establishing a press at Tabreez. We shall see if it will do more for the Persians than that of Constantinople has done for the Turks. A nation is not to be improved by force,

or by the efforts of a single person, however rational or powerful he may be. However, the Persians have a much greater natural aptitude than the Turks; and had Constantinople been their capital, they would long before this have taken their place among the European nations. The Mahometan religion is a bar to all improvement. A nation could not become civilized and remain Mahometan. Islamism is, without exception, the religion which is the most exclusive of all improvement, and the most favourable to the permanence of falsehood and error. Mahomet has meddled with everything, and poisoned everything he touched. He has made everything-science, art, history, mannersmatters of religion, and placed a bar against all improvement, or new notions in any of them. A Turk blasphemes who believes any point of ancient history concerning which Mahomet has pronounced his opinion." -vol. i, pp. 308-310.

A few notices regarding the ruins of Nineveh, and adjacent parts, must now suffice in affording our readers an idea of Mr. Rich's important services, as contained in the present work alone, to oriental literature. It must be borne in mind, that purely topographical statements, and accounts of inscriptions or reliques-such as the narrative before us chiefly contains, in as far as Nineveh and its vicinity are concerned-cannot afford the most extractable matter of the characteristic specimens of a book. We can assure the reader, however, that the author brought to the task, in regard to that ancient city and province, extraordinary qualifications, and has left for the guidance of future explorers, invaluable hints as well as information. At the same time, with his characteristic candour and modesty, he admits that "in such a country it is not easy to say precisely what are ruins and what are not; what is art converted by the lapse of ages into a semblance of nature, and what is merely nature broken by the hand of time into ruins, approaching in their appearance those of art." He elsewhere says that the walls on the east have become quite a concretion of pebbles, like the natural hills.

Ancient writers have given to Nineveh what appears to those acquainted with modern cities merely, incredible dimensions. But if we take the idea which Mr. Rich's researches seem to enforce, that this ancient metropolis was not only a city, the royal quarter of which may have been confined within the walls which he has traced, but that its exterior parts may have consisted of clusters of villages and villas, the statement by ancient historians of Nineveh having been forty-eight miles in circumference is the less improbable. However, let us see what the author's general inspection of the ruins suggested regarding the remains of this spot.

"We first went to the village, or rather little town of Nebbi Yunus, which contains about three hundred houses, and is built on an ancient artificial mount, the whole of which it does not cover. Its antiquity is well ascertained by the remains found on digging into it very deep; when

fragments of bricks, whole bricks, and pieces of gypsum, covered with inscriptions in the cuneiform character, are found. I have many of these, one in particular which measures one foot four inches in thickness, covered with writing, that was dug up in this mound; and to-day we were shown some fragments built up in the foundations of houses. One of these, a broken piece of gypsum with cuneiform characters, was in the kitchen of a wretched house, and appeared to be part of the wall of a small passage which is said to reach far into the mount. Some people dug into it last year; but as it went under the houses, and they were afraid of undermining them, they closed it up again with rubbish, and only that portion of it which had been laid open, and forms part of a kitchen, is now visible. A little farther on, in a small room occupied by the women of an inhabitant of the town, who very politely went out to allow us to inspect it at our leisure, was another inscription, in very large cuneiform letters, on a piece of gypsum. It faces south, and runs east and west. Only about three feet of it are now open, though it is said to extend several yards west; but it has since been plastered over with mud. This inscription is the more curious, as it seems to occupy its original position. It is not much above the floor of the room, is about two feet high, and below the level of the surface of the mound. The cuneiform characters are in their proper position. The inscription is said to have been discovered in building the room, and was left just where it was found, only plastered over with mud like the rest of the room. exactly parallel with, and very near the passage noticed before; which appears to have been continued into, and even beyond, this spot, from some lines or traces seen in the ground, but is now broken down and laid open here. I doubt not but many other antiquities might be found in this mound; but the greater part of it is thickly covered with a labyrinth of small houses, and it is only on the repairing or falling down of these that such things are discovered."-vol. ii, pp. 30-32.

It is

There is a mosque which covers the pretended tomb of Jonah, where a Christian monastery once stood. After giving some other particulars of a general survey, the author says

"The area of Nineveh, on a rough guess, is about one and a half to two miles broad, and four miles long, extending a little way south of Nebbi Yunus. On the river, or west side, there are only remains of one wall, and I observed the same at the north and south extremities; but on the east side there are the remains of three walls. The west wall appears to have run a little in front of Nebbi Yunus. Between it and the river. the ground is subject to frequent inundations and changes; but it has not interfered with the area.

"In this place I cannot help remarking a passage in Jonah; that Prophet suffered grievously from the easterly wind. This is the sherki so much dreaded in all these countries, which is hot, stormy, and singularly relaxing and dispiriting."-vol. ii, pp. 34, 35.

The country around Nineveh supplies inexhaustible materials for building. Not to speak of the sun-burnt bricks and the bitumen for cement that might be obtained to any extent, stones of various

kinds were discovered by Mr. Rich, such as a coarse kind of marble of a grey colour, and sandstones which were sometimes cut into blocks. "Most of the stones dug up were of enormous dimensions." In one place he says, "My curiosity-hunter brought me some fragments of cuneiform inscriptions on stone, and a seal of agate with the priest worshipping the sun, and other symbols, similar in every respect to some I got at Babylon." These were found in a mound which the natives call the castle of Ninewe, and serve to unite the history of the Babylonian with the Assyrian monarchy. It is of importance to consider the following information.

"I have learnt from Hajee Jirgees Aga a mode of building which is still practised, and which throws great light on some of the ruins seen at Nineveh. Pebbles, lime, and red earth or clay, are mixed together. This in a very short time, especially after exposure to water, becomes, as Hajee Jirgees Aga said, like a solid rock. The lime for this purpose must be slaked with water, and not merely burnt. It was in this manner that he himself, by command of the Pasha, lately caused the passage at the bridge gate, and a part of the bank which had been carried away by the river to be repaired. It is to be remarked that I learnt this, not by any inquiry about Nineveh, but by accident, in the course of a conversation on other topics."-vol. ii, pp. 64, 65.

The same authority informed Mr. Rich that the walls of Nineveh are an inexhaustible source of stones. There is a bridge over the Tigris which consists entirely of such materials. We might extend to a great length notices of discoveries and facts equally striking and valuable for throwing light on ancient times, regarding the previously obscure countries and nations visited by the author. The geographical points which his scientific survey has ascertained, his magnificent collection of oriental manuscripts, coins, and antiquities, now in the British Museum, and the inducements which his example, and exertions afford for future travellers and inquirers to perfect what he has so well began, entitle Mr. Rich's name, and the present work, as one of the grounds of his celebrity, to a high place in the estimation of the learned and the good.

ART. IX. A History of the Highlands and of the Highland Clans. By JAMES BROWNE, ESQ., LL.D., Advocate. Parts II. III. IV. Glasgow: Fullarton & Co. 1836.

We have now before us several parts of this able history of a most interesting section of the United Kingdom. Some months ago, in reviewing the first half volume of the work, we gave an account of the plan which the author had adopted and promised to follow out in its execution, and of the sources whence he was to derive materials for completing it in a style worthy of the subject; a thing