458 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d s. NO 101., Deo, 5. '57. 



French well, pronounced the French translation 

 nothing in comparison with the original. But 

 those who remember the faithful version printed 

 twenty or more years ago will be glad that M. 

 Galland knew how to translate Asiatic into Euro- 

 pean. 



« We talked of the eastern tale of the Glass Man, who, 

 in a reverie, increases his slock till he gets so rich as, in 

 imagination, to marrj' the Cadi's daughter, &c. &c., and 

 in kicking his wife, kicks all his glasses about, and de- 

 stroys the whole of his visionary fortune. I praised the 

 humour of it much. ' Sir,' said he, ' there is nothing in 

 it that may not be experienced frequently in actual life : 

 these waking dreams are the usual concomitants of 

 opium : a man who has accustomed himself to the per- 

 nicious practice of eating opium is constantly subject to 

 them. I have, in the course of my time, found a thousand 

 of those dreamers holding forth in the plenitude of im- 

 aginary power. I have seen a common porter become 

 Cadi, and order the bastinado. I have seen a wretched 

 tailor raised by the effects of opium to the office of Aga 

 of the Janissaries, deposing the Sultan, and ordering the 

 bowstring to all around him. I have seen some indulging 

 in the blandishments of love with princesses, and others 

 wallowing in the wealth of Golconda. But the most ex- 

 traordinary visionary of this kind I have ever met witli, 

 was one who imagined himself translated to Paradise, 

 coequal with Mahomet, and sitting by the side of the 

 Prophet, arguing with him in defence of the use of wine 

 and opium : he argued most ingeninuslj', listened in silence 

 to the supposed arguments of his adversarj% answered 

 them, replied, rejoined, and still argued on : till, growing 

 at last angry, he swore that he was as good a prophet as 

 him, did not care a fig for him, and called him fool 

 and false prophet. A Turk who was present, in the ful- 

 ness of his zeal, laid a stick very heavily across his shoul- 

 ders, and put an end to the vision ; and never did I see 

 a wretch so abject, so forlorn, or so miserably desponding ; 

 he put his forehead to the ground, which he wet with his 

 tears, crj'ing, ' mere}', Mahomet ! mercy, holy Prophet ! 

 mercy. Alia ! ' nor could he find relief (such is the ruin of 

 opium) till he got a fresh supply of it in his mouth, 

 which soon gave him a temporary respite from the horrors 

 of his situation." 



So much — too much perhaps — for the Travels, 

 which, with certain omissions, would be worth 

 reprinting. The son, in his account of his family 

 already mentioned, never alludes to the Travels 

 as a published book ; and when he quotes, speaks 

 of the passage as in one of his father's letters. 

 Nevertheless, it is stated that, immediately on 

 their appearance, a duodecimo abridgment was 

 published, apparently without the consent of the 

 author. Capt. Campbell died in 1804, aged 53. 



M. 



[By mistake this article was, in our last Notice to Cor- 

 respondents, attributed to Professor De Morgan, — 

 Ei).] 



LEVEL or THE ATLANTIC A»D PACIFIC. 



(2"" S. iv. 387.) 



The following I copy from a paper in Osborne's 

 Guide to the West Indies (1844), entitled "Pro- 

 jects for a Capal Communication between the At- 



lantic and Pacific Oceans." There is a map of 

 the district and routes referred to appended to 

 the paper : — 



" The first survey of the Isthmus of Panama that we 

 have was made by Mr. J. A. Lloyd, an Englishman, in 

 company with Colonel Falmark, a Swedish officer, both 

 appointed by General Bolivar. An account of this sur- 

 vey, with a chart, from which the accompanying map is 

 reduced, appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of 

 1830 : the original object of the commission was, as Mr. 

 Lloyd states, ' to ascertain in the most convenient man- 

 ner the difference of level between the two seas.' " 



" The direct distance across the Isthmus from sea to 

 sea is 29 geographical, or 34 statute miles." 



" The rise and fall of tides on the coast of Panama are 

 nearly 20 feet at full and change, and the greatest varia- 

 tion 27 feet." 



" Mr. Lloyd explains" that • to obtain the difference of 

 level between the two seas, we took, as far as we could 

 render it available, a beaten track.' " 



Mr. William Wheelwright, founder, and for 

 some time manager of the Pacific Steam Company, 

 met Mr. Lloyd on the Isthmus, and states, in his 

 observations communicated to the Royal Geogra- 

 phical Society in February last [1843 or 1844], 

 that — 



" The level [of the Isthmus] is so complete that it 

 would only be necessary to have locks at either end of 

 the canal, while its total length would not exceed thirty 

 miles. The Chagres could be made its feeder, but the 

 elevation of the Pacific (IS-^'jj feet*) above the Atlantic 

 would I think render the canal entirely independent of 

 any tributary stream." 



Relative to a proposed communication by way 

 of the river San Juan and Lake of Nicaragua, it 

 is stated that — 



" The greatest actual height of any part of the route 

 above the level of the lake is only 19 feet, as was proved 

 by a series of 347 levels, about 100 yards apart, taken in 

 1781. The difference of the level of the two oceans was 

 ascertained by Humboldt not to exceed 20, or at most 22 

 feet." 



A paper on the subject, by Jeremy Bentham, 

 entitled "Junctiana Proposal," dated June, 1822, 

 is referred to : it appears first in his collected 

 Works, edited by Dr. J. Bowring ; in it he refers 

 to a treatise on the subject by Mr. William Davis 

 Robinson, an American writer. 



There is notice of another route by way of the 

 Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in which the writer says 

 he " has been favoured with a pamphlet (not pub- 

 lished), entitled A Survey of the Isthmus of Te- 

 huantepec by Don Jose de Garay. This survey 

 was executed in the years 1842, 1843, and enters 

 into the geological formation of the Isthmus, and 

 gives also the astronomical observations, trigono- 

 metrical measurements, barometrical altitudes, 

 and other data. 



There are reports too by Senores Orbigozo and 

 Ortiz, who were appointed to survey this latter 

 route by the state of Vera Cruz and the federal 

 governments in 1824. 



* Tliis is elsewhere given as IS/jg feet. 



