On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (5)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
'" 3P-fffiVt« : rtfttt*1> jLlitllUUlv*
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
ease , to wend his way in pursuit ; of science to tropical lands hitherto untrodden by traveller or naturalist . Little ornothing was then known of the physical geography of the Sikkim Himalayas , though immediately adjacent to Bengal , and for many years under British protection . This circumstance alone would have sufficed to prompt such a zealous student of nature to undertake the task of adding a new chapter to our knowledge of the external world ; but he was confirmed in his purpose by the representations of Lord Auckland and Dr . Falconer , the Superintendent of the H . E . I . C . Botanic Garden , at Calcutta . The result fully answered his most sanguine expectations , for nowhere could the many interesting phenomena of mountain scenery be studied on a more complete or stupendous scale . A bounteous Flora clothed the valleys and hill-sides with a rich and varied vegetation . At certain elevations forest trees of primeval stateliness displayed a lightness and elegance of foliage , of which the inhabitants of a northern climate can form but a faint conception . The strange and beautiful family | of Orchids here flourish in such variety and perfection that , in comparison , they can nowhere else be said to grow . Immediately below the line of eternal snow alpine flowers of every hue nestle amid the crumbling rocks , themselves covered by an endless profusion of ferns , mosses , and lichens . The geologist , again , may gaze with admiration on the vestiges of unceasing mutation . He beholds immense boulders of gneiss or granite rounded by the action of restless waters , and extensive moraines deposited by melting icebergs drifting southwards from a glacial sea . Of metals and minerals useful in human economy he will find , indeed , but few traces ; but where else can he hope to obtain an equal initiation into the mysteries of nature , and the manner of her workmanship ? To him who worships the sublime and the beautiful in their noblest inanimate forms , the Himalayas afford amplest subject for grateful homage . And even he whose ambitious study is man , may not unprofitably observe the various shades of character delineated in the simple , loving , and patient Lepchas , the rude , turbulent Bhotenese , or the pastoral and hospitable tribes of Sikkim Thibetans . All this does Dr . Hooker describe with an unaffected earnestness which commands attention and respect , and which renders his scientific observations as interesting and intelligible to the common reader as they are valuable to men of science and letters . Of the various tribes of natives he encountered in his wanderings , the Lepchas are evidently the Doctor ' s favourites . In one place he says : — In their relations with us they are conspicuous for their honesty , their power aa carriers and mountaineers , and especially for their skill as woodsmen ; for they will build a waterproof house with a thatch of banana leaves in the lower , or of bambo in the elevated regions , and equip it with a table and be'dstead for three persons , in an hour , using no implement but their Heavy knife . Kindness and good humour soon attach them to your person and service . A gloomy tempered or morose master they avoid , an unkind one they flee . If they serve a good hill's-man , like themselves , they will follow him with alacrity—sleep on the cold , . black mountain , exposed to the pitiless rain , -without a murmur—lay down the heavy burden to carry their master over a stream , or give him a helping hand up a rock or precipice—do anything , in short , but encounter a f oe ; for I believe the Lepeha to be a veritable coward . The priests are at least as ingenious as the people . So far have they carried their talent for mechanical contrivances as to have invented a machine for the purposes of devotion , which enables them to manufacture any number of prayers without interfering with their ordinary avocations . It consists " of a leathern cylinder placed upright in a frame ; a projecting piece of iron strikes a bell at each revolution , the movement being caused by an elbowed axle and string . "Within such cylinders are deposited writte prayers , and whoever pulls the string properly is considered to have repeated his prayers as often as the bell rings . The simplicity of games and pastimes in Europe and in the East appears to have led our author to a scarcely logical conclusion . Though he does not express the thought in so many words , it is clear that he thence infers the common origin of mankind , perhaps from a single couple . It would be more reasonable to conclude that , human nature being essentially the same in all parts of the world , the unstamped mind of the child is everywhere open to the same impressions , and his wants , real or imaginary , everywhere alike . His body craves for meat and drink , his mind for knowledge and recreation . Similar means of gratification present themselves in every quarter of the globe , and thus the Thibetan employs the bamboo for the same purpose that the European uses the elder-branch . And as men in repose are only children of a larger growth , they too seek to refresh their mental faculties , when wearied by toil , with similar amusements , whether on the Himalayan mountains , or the Highland moors , or on the banks of the Thames or the Seine . We subjoin the passage that has called forth these remarks : — I was amused here by watching a child playing with a popgun , made of bamboo , similar to that of quill , with which most English children are familiar , which propels pellets by means of a spring-trigger made of the upper part of the quill . It is easy to conclude such resemblances between the familiar toys of different countries to be accidental , but I question their being really so . On the plains of India men may often bo seen for hours together , flying what with us are children ' s kites ; and I procured a Jew ' s harp from Tibet . These are not the toys of savages , but the amusements of people more than half-civilised , and with whom we have had indirect communication from the earliest ages . The Lepchas play at quoits , using slate for the purpose , and at the Highland games of " piitting the stone" and " drawing the stone . Chess , dice , draughts , Punch , hockey , and , battledore and , shuttlecock , are all Indo-Chinese or Tartarian ; and no one familiar with the wonderful instances of similarity between the monasteries , ritual ceremonies , attributes , vestments , and other paraphernalia of the Eastern and Western cb . urob . es , can fail to acknowledge the importance of recording oven the most trifling analogies or similarities between the manners and customs ol tho young as well as of the old . The Sikkim territory , as we have already incidentally remarked , is under British protection . To this it is indebted for its independent existence . The Nepalese and the Thibetans have equally coveted its possession , and are only deterred from seizing upon the easy prize by the fear of coming m collision with the Company . Tho political surveillance of tho district is entrusted to the Superintendent or Darjeeling , who , at the time oi Pr . Hooker ' s visit , was a medical gentleman of the name of Campbell , eminently
HIMALAYAN JOURNALS . Himalayan Journal : Note * of a Naturalist in Bengal , the SUthim and Nepal Himalaya * $ >< By Joeeph DiUton Hooker , M , D ., R . N ., £ lt . S . A ^ ow EdMon In tSo Volumes . John Murray . Stimulated , rather than dismayed , by tho perilous adventures he had encountered , as the companion of Sir James Ross , in the frozen seas of the Antarctic regions , Dr . Hooker resolved , in preference to a life of ignoble
Untitled Article
1228 „______ THE LEADER . [ No 300 , Saturday
'" 3p-Fffivt« : Rtfttt*1≫ Jllitlluulv*
% \ lixdnn .
Untitled Article
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not xnake laws-they inteipret and try to enforce them . —Mdmburgh Mevtew .
Untitled Article
The two events of the week are the publication of Macatjlay ' s longtalked-of volumes , and the death of Samuel Ro g ers ; both of them , in a certain sense , historical events ; for Rogers , the contemporary of Johnson , Alfieri , and Goethe , carries our thoughts back into the eighteenth century . He was twenty years old when the great Samuel died ; he came into the world when Goethe was setting out for the university of Leipsic , and Schiller was making mud-pies at school . Does it not seem strange ta think we have sat at table with a man who was the contemporary of Johnson ? And yet , apart from his verses , Rogers belonged to this age . He will form a figure in its literary history . His friendships alone will immortalise him . His breakfasts are historical ; and the cunning hand of the admirable James Doyle has fixed those breakfasts on canvas , in a companion picture to his well-known " Literary Club , " where Johnson , Goldsmith , Reynolds , Beauclerc , Bosweu ,, and the rest , look at us "in their habits as they moved . " - Asa poet , Rogers can hardly be expected to gain much attention ; but , as a man , he was a distinguished figure in our nineteenth century . He was charitable , fond of society , fond of telling stories—sometimes startling the severe proprieties of les collets months by the grave deliberate narration of events which a younger man dared not have touched—famous for blunt repartees which had the force of wit , a judge of pictures , and a lover of lions . If he has written memoirs , what a fund of anecdote may be found in them ! Macaulay's volumes are already in the hands of thousands . Monday , the 17 th of December , must have been a harassing day to librarians . How did Napoleon-Mudie contrive to despatch his two thousand seven hundred and fifty copies to eager subscribers ? The Times has already been columnar in analysis . Our contemporaries will , doubtless , ' to-day sit in judgment on the work . We cannot achieve such feats of rapid reading . If next week we are in a condition to report on two such volumes , the reader will , is hoped , applaud our diligence , and console himself for the tardiness of our article by the reflection that greater haste would have been worse speed : ' * slowly and sure ; they boggle who read fast . " "We say that for ourselves , not for more rapid contemporaries . Young ladies gallop through a couple of novels in the time we should take to read one volume ; and they know as much probably at the end of their steeple-chase as we ? do at the end of our more leisurely ride : we envy their faculty , though we cannot imitate it . _ But if we can say nothing yet of Macaulay , let us not forget , to record our ] delight in Dickens ' s last story . The Christmas number of the Household Words is surely the most incomparable threepenny-worth of literature ever presented to b . reading public . Besides a strange retrospee of inns , and a stage-coach ride in the snow , done in Dickens ' s peculiar manner , there is a little story told k by the Boots of the Inn about a love affair and elopement ( the lovers being eight and seven years old respectively ) in which the very flower of Dickbns's genius displays itself . It has mar _ vellous truth , humour , fancy , and freedom from all touch of exaggeration Although a subject which almost . irresistibly lends itself to exaggeration , there is no trace of the fault in this story . It reads like a fairy tale , and this because its congruity is so perfect , and its substance so remotejfrom ordinary life . No one could have written such a story but Dickens ; and he has never written anything so faultless . If such a gem had come down to us from the wrecks of ancient literature , it ' would have immortalised its author . This praise may sound excessive to those who have not read the story . Let them read it , and if they know children , and love the subtleties of art , they will not think our praise too . high . In the same number there is one other story , which , on internal evidence we pronounce to be by the handj ; which chronicled the "Monktons of Wincot Abbey , " but it is even finer than that flesh-creeping story . It is the " Ostler ' s Story , " and its treatment of the . supernatural is something unique tooth an to invention and conduct . It produced such an effect on us , that two or three nights after reading it we dreamt of it , and dreamt that Wilkie Collins was explaining to us how he came to invent the main incident : — ' ? It was , " he Baid , «« a conviction of his that every idea which takes strong possession of the mind has a tendency to realise itself in fact . " In our dream we thought this creative force of mind—this power of impressing circumstance with mental forms- —a novel and profound truth . In our waking moments we may suggest to the writer that some such theory would give completeness to his story , nnd take away something of the unsatiafoctoriness which must belong to an unexplained mystery .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 22, 1855, page 1228, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2120/page/16/
-