1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



593 



ladies out of countenance. " In climb- 

 ing the Pyramids," she says, " I was 

 fairly pulled up most of the rugged 

 stones by which we clambered being two 

 or three feet high. My heavy cloth 

 habit was but ill suited for the attempt, 

 and I soon found neither my courage 

 nor my strength were adequate to the 

 undertaking. I however did not relin- 

 quish it till I had been repeatedly en- 

 treated to desist; and I was at length 

 glad to veil my cowardice under the 

 pretence of conjugal obedience, as C. 

 was really seriously alarmed for my 

 safety." 



From Kenne Mrs. Colonel was car- 

 ried in a kind of sedan swung between 

 two camels, en file, and met with a few 

 frights, but no perils. At Cosseir the 

 party embarked for Djidda, where they 

 had the good fortune to get a passage to 

 Bombay in a country vessel just en- 

 gaged to carry Sir Hudson Lowe and 

 his suite. At Hodeida she visited an 

 Arab harem, and found the ladies more 

 at their own command than she ex- 

 pected. From Bombay she accompa- 

 nied the Colonel to Cutch, where he had 

 been appointed to the command of some 

 regiment that had somehow or other 

 got very much out of order. He had, 

 it seems, served some dozen years on the 

 Poorbundar coast, in the Guzerat coun- 

 try, arid as they sailed along in sight of 

 it, in their way to Cutch, he beguiled 

 the tedium of the voyage by fighting 

 all his battles over again, and the reader 

 has the full benefit of all his reminis- 

 cences. Of Cutch and the neighbouring 

 region numerous details are given, and 

 this, referring as it does to countries 

 but little known, is by far the best part 

 of the volumes. The destruction of fe- 

 male children she describes as general. 

 "'As late," she says, " as 1818, it was 

 calculated that there were not less than 

 1000 infants destroyed; and in a popula- 

 tion of 12,000 males, there were not more 

 than thirty females alive." The reign- 

 ing family in Poorbunder are suspected 

 of adopting the practice of female in- 

 fanticide, for evidence could be produced 

 that there has been no grown-up daugh- 

 ter in the family for more than a hun- 

 dred years. To some expostulations 

 with the llajpoot chiefs, the answer was 

 pay our daughters' portions and they 

 shall live. After a residence of about a 

 twelvemonth, the Colonel's regiment 

 being come into a presentable state he 

 had apparently no other business in In- 

 diahe and his lady returned to Bom- 

 bay, and quietly took shipping for Eng- 

 land reaching thus Windmill-hill, the 

 seat of the author's father, Mr. Curteis, 

 member for Sussex, in something less 

 than three years from the day of setting 

 out at the same point. 

 "M.M. New Series. VOL. X. No. 52. 



The Bride of Sicily, a Dramatic Poem, 

 ly Harriet Downing. All are at cross 



Eurposeshere ; and the writer, of course, 

 as enough to do to effect an intelligible 

 denouement. That, however, is accom- 

 plished with something like dramatic 

 tact ; and the lady's piece, by a little 

 cutting and carving, might make no con- 

 temptible melo-drame it has all the 

 requisites, except a ghost and more 

 mystery. As a poem, or a subject for 

 critical estimate, the staring fault the 

 common one of the day in similar com- 

 positionsis the want of simplicity. In 

 the sentiment, violence goes for energy ; 

 and in the language, extravagance for 

 force. A Christian lady who, in spite of 

 herself, loves a generous Moor, says,. 



Sooner than I'd plight my holy troth 



To one who scorns my faith, who hates my 



creed, 



And makes a jest of my soul's treasured hopes, 

 I'd rather join my bosom to the toad's, 

 Inhale its foul and pestilential breath, 

 And wreathing under strong antipathy, 

 Kiss on its bloated lip the rankling poison. 



Hassan, the governor of .Sicily, and 

 the lady's admirer, expostulates thus 

 gravely : 



Say, have I used the crescent and its horns 

 To goad and vex the children of the cross ? 



The same Hassan, explaining to the 

 lady's brother : 



False love, Lord Barto, like the torrent-stream, 

 Swelled by long rains, may overflow its banks, 

 And pour destruction but such love as Has- 

 san's, 



Vast as the ocean round thy native shores, 

 Tho' it may swell and rage, by tempest stirred, 

 Yet it respects the gentle isle it laves, 

 And makes its proud waves know their proper 

 bounds. 



This young gentleman, the lady's 



brother, has also misplaced his affections, 



and thus proposes to lash them in his 



anger : 



Oh ! I could scourge with cords my erring 



fancy, 



For having fixed its young hopes so intensely 

 On one who could not breathe responsive pas- 

 sion ! 



Sicily is in the hands of the Moslems. 

 A stranger, escaping from slavery, and 

 wrecked upon the island, is entertained 

 by a noble lord, whose only daughter, 

 Astarte, falls in love with him, and 

 must marry him. He is in a sad moody 

 state for, in truth he had married this 

 very lady's sister, Cleone, to whose 

 memory he is still devoutly attached ; 

 she was supposed to have perished in the 

 wreck. Lord Barto, who has long loved 

 Astarte, now picks a quarrel with the 

 successful bridegroom, and is only deter- 

 red from violence by the stranger's dis- 

 closing his incognito he is Rogero, the 



4 F 



