Description of the Landes of Acquitania. 113 
this kind may rank high in importance, from their harbours, or 
from the shelter they may afford to warring tribes ; but, as in the 
present case, less influential in a political point of view than when 
ruled by English monarchs, the Landes, from increase of inhabi- 
tants and cultivation, are now of a really greater statistical impor- 
tance ; and the efforts of man will ever be found more fruitful 
when directed in seconding the indices of physical changes, in 
draining marshes, in staying the sands, or in cultivating the land, 
than when rearing artificial monuments, so frail against the powers 
of nature. 

SCIENTIFIC REVIEWS. 
Narrative of a Journey from Calcutta to Europe, by way of Egypt, 
in the years 1827 and 1828. By Mrs. Cuarues LusHineron. 
Londen. Murray, 1829. 
WHEN our eye first glanced upon the title of this work, it struck 
us that its perusal would afford some insight into the possibility 
and comparative advantages of another route to the East Indies ; 
and indeed we find, by the introduction, that its amiable author, 
being bound to transmit to her friends notes of so enterprising a 
journey, was induced, by the additional stimulus of appearing in 
print, to give the public the results of her experience of a return 
from Caleutta by way of Egypt. We have often thought that any 
route would be preferable to passing that fearful number of weeks 
at sea, to which Europeans have been hitherto accustomed, not to 
mention those fierce encounters with Cape storms, in comparison 
with which the dangers of an overland journey would be mere claims 
to additional energies ; and, passing whichever way, through coun- 
tries abounding in natural phenomena, and pregnant with the finest 
historical associations, the traveller would arrive at his destiny, not 
spent by fatigue, but powerful with knowledge, and like a giant that 
had braced his limbs in the mountain air. Mr. Buckingham had 
pointed out several roads as feasible ; and now that a lady’ has 
smoothed the paths of one of these, we think the practicability will 
undergo a more patient hearing, though we have long been of opi- 
nion, that the only opposition would lie in the difficulties of procur- 
ing conveyances in countries where there is so little communication 
between the inhabitants ; and not in any overt acts of violence from 
the natives, or opposition on the part of the authorities. 
Mrs. Lushington left Calcutta on board the Ganges, an experimen- 
tal steam-vessel, intended for either a vessel of war or dispatch, on 
the 26th of September 1827 ; but for want of coal, they were obliged 
to beat under sail to Trincomalé, whose capacious harbour, strew- 
VOL. I. 13 

a 
