52 REVIKWS — THE GREAT DESERTS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



the pale of such well accredited veracity as is certified here. We seem 

 to look in fancy on the good young Abbe, who, enchanted doubtless 

 with the reception his first volumes met with, has been induced, as he 

 tells us in his preface, "to continue the publication of his ethno- 

 graphical studies, and the precious notes gleaned during his sojourn 

 in the New World, on the nature, the aspect, and the singularity of 

 the American Deserts, as likewise with regard to those savage tribes 

 who are as varied in their physical appearance as they are similar in 

 their civil and religious organization." Were not the many-titled 

 Bishop of Montpellier's authentication of his titular canon's 

 identity abundantly sufiicient for the purpose, the Messrs, Longman 

 would no doubt be prepared with thpir testimonials. So far, however, 

 as the materials wrought up into two portly volumes, out of the 

 Abbe's "precious notes," are concerned, we must confess we should i 

 not find it very difficult to believe that their author never travelled 

 beyond the purlieus of Grub Street. The preface led us to expect a 

 tale fit to captivate another Desdemona. "America," says the Abbe,, 

 "is comparatively speaking, a new country, a virgin land, which con- 

 tains numerous secrets." Again he exclaims : " In those wildernesses 

 there are actually to be found hieroglyphical monuments, immense 

 ruins ; white, red, and brown Indians ; albinos, bearded men, and 

 men without beards ;" and then he adds : " This work is but a 

 detailed programme of what I hope to publish gradually on this sub- 

 ject. I have spared neither fatigue nor labour to give my readers an 

 exact idea of the great wildernesses of America, and of the Indian. 

 tribes they contain. If I have not been able to derive much help from 

 the boolis published by some writers who have treated on this subject^ 

 it is because their accounts are, generally speaking, exclusively con-- 

 fined to the Indians of the United States." Nevertheless, he confesses- 

 to having read Schoolcraft and Catlin's works, the publications of the- 

 Smithsonian and Ethnographical Societies, and the reports of the 

 United States Scientific Expeditions, "either," as he says, "to general- 

 ise my opinions or to complete my narrative." 



After such a flourish of trumpets, from an author so rich in the 

 abundance and novelty of his materials, that these two portly volume* 

 constitute the mere programme of what he hopes to publish on the 

 subject : we were surely justified in anticipating the opening up 

 of virgin soil. Instead of this, however, the perusal of these " pro- 

 gramme " volumes rewards us only with a stale rifacimento of crude. 



