above, shall he turn him selfishly and scornfully away from the rights of those creatures whom God hath placed in dependance under him? We know that the cause of poor and unfriended animals has many an obstacle to contend with in the difficulties or the delicacies of legislation. But we shall ever deny that it is a theme beneath the dignity of legislation; or that the nobles and the senators of our land stoop to a cause which is degrading, when, in the imitation of heaven's high clemency, they look benignly downward on these humble and helpless sufferers. Ere we can admit this, we must forget the whole economy of our blessed Gospel. We must forget the legislations and the cares of the upper sanctuary in behalf of our fallen species. We must forget that the redemption of our world is suspended on an act of jurisprudence which angels desired to look into, and for effectuating which, the earth we tread upon was honoured by the foot

steps, not of angel or of archangel, but of God manifest in the flesh. The distance upward between us and that mysterious Being, who let himself down from heaven's high concave upon our lowly platform, sur. passes by infinity the distance downward between us and every thing that breathes. And he bowed himself thus far for the purpose of an example, as well as for the purpose of an expiation; that every Christian might extend his compassionate regards over the whole of sentient and suffering nature. The High Court of Parliament is not degraded by its attentions and its cares in behalf of inferior creatures, else the sanctuary of heaven has been degraded by its councils in behalf of the world we occupy, and in the execution of which the Lord of heaven himself relinquished the highest seat of glory in the universe, and went forth to sojourn for a time on this outcast and accursed territory.-Dr. Chal

mers.

THE following account of an almost miraculous escape from death, is given in the "Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the years 1822, 1823, and 1824, by Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and the late Dr. Oudney," just published: a work full of original and important information, and from which we intend in the successive Numbers of this Magazine to lay some valuable extracts before our readers. During his stay in the interior of Africa, Major Denham accompanied the troops of Mandara and Bornou, to witness a battle between them and the Felatahs, the object of which was, to steal from the territory of the latter, a number of wretched human beings for the purpose of subjecting them to perpetual slavery. The Major's design in accompanying the expedition was, that he might witness the mode of African warfare, and obtain a survey of a particular district, to which, under other circumstances, he despaired of gaining access. The fol

ESCAPE.

lowing is his own narration of this disastrous conflict, and of the rout by which it was followed. Barca Gana commanded the Bornou forces, and Boo-Khaloom a troop of Arabs, by whom they were accompanied. Except our intrepid countryman, the parties appear to have been all Mahometans; and Malem Chadily was distinguished by his great zeal in favour of Mahometanism as opposed to Christianity. –

At the commencement of the attack, the Felatahs were repulsed; but seeing the backwardness of their enemies, they again rallied, and put them to flight. The arrows fell so thick, that there was no standing against them, and the Arabs gave way. The Felatah horse now came on; and had not the little band round Barca Gana, and Boo-Khaloom, with a few of his mounted Arabs, given them a very spirited check, not one of us would probably have lived to see the following day. Barca Gana had three horses hit under him, two of which died almost immediately,

the arrows being poisoned, and poor Boo-Khaloom's horse and himself received their death-wounds by arrows of the same description. My horse was badly wounded in the neck, just above the shoulder, and in the near hind leg an arrow had struck me in the face as it passed, merely drawing the blood, and I had two sticking in my bornouse. The Arabs had suffered terribly; most of them had two or three wounds, and one dropped near me with five arrows, sticking in his head alone: two of Boo-Khaloom's slaves were killed also, near his person.

No sooner did the Mandara and Bornou troops see the defeat of the Arabs, than they, one and all, took to flight in the most dastardly manner, without having once been exposed to the arrows of the enemy, and in the utmost confusion. The Sultan of Mandara led the way, who was prepared to take advantage of whatever plunder the success of the Arabs might throw in his way, but no less determined to leave the field the moment the fortune of the day appeared to be against him.

I now for the first time, as I saw Barca Gana on a fresh horse, lamented my own folly in so exposing my self, badly prepared as I was for accidents. If either of my horse's wounds was from poisoned arrows, I felt that nothing could save me : however, there was not much time for reflection: we instantly became a flying mass, and plunged, in the greatest disorder, into that wood we had but a few hours before moved through with very different feelings. I had got a little to the westward of Barca Gana, in the confusion which took place on our passing the ravine which had been left just in our rear, and where upwards of one hundred of the Bornowy were speared by the Felatahs, and was following at a round gallop the steps of one of the Mandara eunuchs, who, I observed, kept a good look out, his head being constantly turned over his left shoulder, with a face expressive of the greatest dismay, when the cries behind, of the Felatah horse pursuing, made us both quicken our paces. The spur, however, had the

effect of incapacitating my beast altogether, as the arrow, I found afterwards, had reached the shoulderbone; and in passing over some rough ground, he stumbled and fell. Almost before I was on my legs, the Felatahs were upon me: I had, however, kept hold of the bridle, and seizing a pistol from the holsters, I presented it to two of these ferocious savages, who were pressing me with their spears they iirstantly went off; but another, who came on me more boldly, just as I was endeavouring to mount, received the contents somewhere in his left shoulder, and again I was enabled to place my foot in the stirrup. Remounted, I again pushed my retreat I had not, however, proceeded many hundred yards, when my horse again came down, with such violence as to throw me against a tree at a considerable distance; and, alarmed at the horses behind him, he quickly got up and escaped, leaving me on foot and unarmed.

The eunuch and his four followers were here butchered, after a very slight resistance, and stripped within a few yards of me. Their cries were dreadful; and even now the feelings of that moment are fresh in my memory: my hopes of life were too faint to deserve the name. I was almost instantly surrounded; and, incapable of making the least resistance, as I was unarmed, I was as speedily stripped, and whilst attempting first to save my shirt, and then my trowsers, I was thrown on the ground. My pursuers made several thrusts at me with their spears, that badly wounded my hands in two places, and slightly my body, just under my ribs on my right side: indeed, I saw nothing before me bat the same cruel death I had seen unmercifully inflicted on the few who had fallen into the power of those who now had possession of me; and they were alone prevented from murdering me, in the first instance, I am persuaded, by the fear of injuring the value of my clothes, which appeared to them a rich booty;-but it was otherwise ordained.

My shirt was now absolutely torn off my back, and I was left perfectly naked. When my plunderers began

to quarrel for the spoil, the idea of escape came like lightning across my mind, and without a moment's hesitation or reflection, I crept under the belly of the horse nearest me, and started as fast as my legs could carry me for the thickest part of the wood: two of the Felatahs followed, and I ran on to the eastward, knowing that our stragglers would be in that direction, but almost as much afraid of friends as foes. My pursuers gained on me; for the prickly underwood not only obstructed my passage, but tore my flesh iniserably; and the delight with which I saw a mountainstream gliding along at the bottom of a deep ravine cannot be imagined. My strength had almost left me, and I seized the young branches issuing from the stump of a large tree which overhung the ravine, for the purpose of letting myself down into the water, as the sides were precipitous; when, under my hand, as the branch yielded to the weight of my body, a large liffa, the worst kind of serpent this country produces, rose from its coil, as if in the very act of striking. I was horror-struck, and deprived for a moment of all recollection. The branch slipped from my hand, and I tumbled headlong into the water beneath. This shock, however, revived me, and with three strokes of my arms I reached the opposite bank, which, with difficulty, I crawled up; and then, for the first time, felt myself safe from my pursuers.

Scarcely had I audibly congratulated myself on my escape, when the forlorn and wretched situation in which I was, without even a rag to cover me, flashed with all its force upon my imagination. I was perfectly collected, though fully alive to all the danger to which my state exposed me, and had already begun to plan my night's rest, in the top of one of the tamarind-trees, in order to escape the panthers which, as I had seen, abounded in these woods, when the idea of the liffas, almost as numerous, and equally to be dreaded, excited a shudder of despair.

I now saw horsemen through the trees still farther to the east, and determined on reaching them, if possible, whether friends or enemies;

and the feelings of gratitude and joy with which I recognised Barca Gana and Boo Khaloom, with about six Arabs, although they also were pressed closely by a party of the Felatahs, was beyond description. The guns and pistols of the Arab Sheikhs kept the Felatahs in check, and assisted in some measure the retreat of the footmen. I hailed them with all my might; but the noise and confusion which prevailed, from the cries of those who were falling under the Felatah spears, the cheers of the Arabs rallying, and their enemies pursuing, would have drowned all attempts to make myself heard, had not Maramy, the Sheikh's negro, seen and known me at a distance. To this man I am indebted for my second escape. Riding up to me, he assisted me to mount behind him, while the arrows whistled over our heads; and we then galloped off to the rear as fast as his wounded horse could carry us. After we had gone a mile or two, and the pursuit had somewhat cooled, in consequence of all the baggage having been abandoned to the enemy, Boo-Khaloom rode up to me, and desired one of the Arabs, to cover me with a bornouse. This was a most welcome relief; for the burning sun had already begun to blister my neck and back, and gave me the greatest pain. Shortly after, the effects of the poisoned wound in his foot caused our excellent friend to breathe his last. Maramy exclaimed, "Look, look! Boo-Khaloom is dead!" I turned my head, almost as great an exertion as I was capable of, and saw him drop from the horse into the arms of his favourite Arab. He never spoke after. They said he had only swooned. There was no water, however, to revive him; and about an hour after, when we came to Makkeray, he was past the reach of restoratives.

About the time Boo-Khaloom dropped, Barca Gana ordered a slave to bring me a horse, from which he had just dismounted, being the third that had been wounded under him in the course of the day: his wound was in the chest. Maramy cried, "Do not mount him, he will die!" In a moment, for only a moment was

given me, I decided on remaining with Maramy. Two Arabs, panting with fatigue, then seized the bridle, mounted, and pressed their retreat. In less than half an hour he fell to rise no more, and both the Arabs were butchered before they could recover themselves. Had we not now arrived at the water as we did, I do not think it possible that I could have supported the thirst by which I was consuming. I tried several times to speak in reply to Maramy's directions to hold tight, when we came to breaks or inequalities in the ground: but it was impossible; and a painful straining at the stomach and throat was the only effect produced by the effort.

On coming to the stream, the horses, with blood gushing from their nostrils, rushed into the shallow water, and letting myself down behind Maramy, I knelt down amongst them, and seemed to imbibe new life by the copious draughts of the muddy beverage which I swallowed. Of what followed I have no recollection. Maramy told me afterwards, that I staggered across the stream, which was not above my hips, and fell down at the foot of a tree on the other side. About a quarter of an hour's halt took place here, for the benefit of the stragglers, and to tie poor Boo-Khaloom's body on a horse's back, at the end of which Maramy awoke me from a deep sleep, and I found my strength wonderfully increased: not so, however, our horse; for he had become stiff, and could scarcely move. As I learnt afterwards, a conversation had taken place about me, while I slept, which rendered my obligations to Maramy still greater. He had reported to Barca Gana the state of his horse, and the impossibility of carrying me on, when the Chief, irritated by his losses and defeat, as well as at my having refused his horse, by which means he said, it had come by its death, replied, "Then leave him behind! By the head of the Prophet, believers enough have breathed their last today! What is there extraordinary in a Christian's death?" My old antagonist Malem Chadily replied, "No; God has preserved him; let

us not forsake him." Maramy returned to the tree, and said, "his heart told him what to do." He awoke me, assisted me to mount, and we moved on as before, but with tottering steps and less speed. The effect produced on the horses that were wounded by poisoned arrows was extraordinary. Immediately after drinking, they dropped, and instantly died; the blood gushing from their nose, mouth, and ears. More than thirty horses were lost at this spot from the effects of the poison.

In this way we continued our retreat, and it was after midnight when we halted in the Sultan of Mandara's territory. Riding more than forty miles in such an unprovided state, on the bare back of a lean horse, the powerful consequences may be inagined. I was in a deplorable state the whole night; and notwithstanding the irritation of the flesh-wounds was augmented by the woollen covering the Arab had thrown over me, teeming as it was with vermin, it was evening the next day before I could get a shirt, when one man who had two, both of which he had worn eight or ten days at least, gave me one, on a promise of getting a new one at Kouka. Barca Gana, who had no tent but the one he had left behind, could offer me no shelter; and he was besides so ill, or chagrined, as to remain invisible the whole day. I could scarcely turn from one side to the other, but still,-except at intervals, when my friend Marainy supplied me with a drink made from parched corn, bruised and steeped in water, a grateful beverage,-I slept under a tree nearly the whole night and day. Towards the evening I was exceedingly ill, and had a pleasing proof of the kind-heartedness of a Bornouese..

Mai Meegamy, the dethroned Sultan of the country to the south-west of Angernou, and now subject to the Sheikh, took me by the hand as I had crawled out of my nest, for a few minutes, and with many exclamations of sorrow, and a countenance full of commiseration, led me to his leather tent, and sitting down quickly, disrobed himself of his trowsers, in

sisting I should put them on. Really, no act of charity could exceed this! I was exceedingly affected at so unexpected a friend; for I had scarcely seen, or spoken three words to him; but not so much so as himself, when I refused to accept of them. He shed tears in abundance; and thinking, which was the fact, that I conceived he had offered the only ones he had, immediately called a slave, whom he stripped of those necessary appendages to a man's dress, according to our ideas, and putting them on himself, insisted on my taking those he had first offered me. I accepted his offer, and thanked him with a full heart; and Megamy was my great friend from that moment until I quitted the Sheikh's dominions.

We found that forty-five of the Arabs were killed, and nearly all wounded; their camels, and every thing they possessed, lost. Some of them had been unable to keep up on the retreat, but had huddled together in threes and fours during the night, and by showing resistance, and pointing their guns, had driven the Felatahs off. Their wounds were some of them exceedingly severe, and se veral died during the day and night; their bodies, as well as poor Boo Khaloom's, becoming instantly swollen and black; and sometimes, immediately after death, blood issuing from the nose and mouth, which the Bornou people declared to be in

consequence of the arrows being poisoned.

Thus ended our most unsuccessful expedition. It had, however, injustice and oppression for its basis, and who can regret its failure?

My bruises and wounds got well so surprisingly quick, from the extreme low diet I had from necessity been kept to, that I was not in so bad a condition as might have been expected. My losses, however, were severe. My trunk with nearly all my linen, my canteens, a mule, my azimuth compass, my drawing-case, with a sketch of the hills, were all lost. Such events, however, must sometimes be the consequence of exploring countries like these. The places I had visited were full of interest, and could never have been seen, except by means of a military expedition, without still greater risk. The dominions of the Sheikh of Bornou, in consequence of his being so extraordinarily enlightened for an inhabitant of central Africa, appear to be open to us; but on looking around, when one sees dethroned Sultans nearly as common as bankrupts in England; where the strong arm for the time being has hitherto changed the destiny of Kings and kingdoms; no discoveries can be accomplished beyond this, without the greatest hazard both of life and property.

HOUSE OF

WHILE walking out, one evening, a few fields' distance from Deir el Kamr, at Mount Lebanon, with Hanna Doomani, the son of my host, to see a detached garden belonging to his father, he pointed out to me, near it, a small, solid stone building, apparently a house; very solemnly adding, Kabbar beity,"-" the sepulchre of our family." It had neither door nor window. He then directed my attention to a considerable number of similar buildings, at a distance which, to the eye, are exactly like houses; but which are, in fact, family mansions for the dead.

THE DEAD.

They have a most melancholy appearance, which made him shudder while he explained their use. They seem, by their dead walls, which must be opened at each several interment of the members of a family, to say, "This is an unkindly house, to which visitors do not willingly throng: but, one by one, they will be forced to enter; and none who enter, ever come out again."

Perhaps this custom, which prevails particularly at Deir el Kamr, and in the lonely neighbouring parts of the Mountain, may have been of great antiquity; and may serve to