neither birds nor beasts showed themselves; roots there were none to be found, and again despair overshadowed my soul, when I observed a large water snake issue from the stream, and leisurely trail its dark body along towards the crevices of some rocks near at hand. It was the work of a moment to hurl a large stone at it, which broke its spine, and a stroke of a knife finished the matter. I then deprived the animal of its head, in which I was aware any poison it possessed was contained, and collecting a few pieces of dry cow-dung, of which plenty was scattered along the creek, a fire was soon kindled, and the body of the Pampa snake being broiled, afforded refreshment to the exhausted traveller, such as he never had obtained from the primest eels of fatherland: intense hunger made the food, disgusting at other times, more than palatable on that occasion.

Invigorated by this food, after a short rest I pushed forward, taking with me the remains of the snake, all of which I had cooked in order to prevent the necessity of kindling a fire, the smoke of which might attract the attention of the Indians, if in my vicinity. My caution still continued, and in most convenient spots where the ascent was easy, I still continued to seek the edge of the prairie, and carefully scan its surface. It was during one of these reconnoissances that I first caught sight of a scattered party of Indians, advancing at full speed along the plains, on the other side of the gully, close by its edge. Fortunately I was near to a buffalo track that had been formed by these animals to the water, and along this I crept on all fours, till I had gained some high thick grass, where I stretched myself in complete concealment.

Whether the Indians were a portion of the party who had attacked us I was not aware, but they seemed to take but a cursory view of the creek as they passed rapidly along; they did not at all descend to its bed; so I was in no danger of having my trail discovered. I could hear the tramp of the horses as they swept along over the blackened, parched ground; but I did not dare attempt to get a near view of them, lest their keen vision should detect my lurking-place. When they had some time passed, cautiously I arose, and scanned the horizon, to discover if any straggling child of the wilderness was yet in view; but it appeared the wearied traveller was alone in the scene.

My journey was renewed, but this time along the edge of the plain, as I feared lest the Indians might suddenly come up when I should not perceive their approach from the bed of the creek.

Another night, another day was passed, during which my only food was the remains of the snake I had grilled. The gully gradually increased in width, and a diverging branch of it, on the northern side, had intercepted the progress of the fire in that direction; so again, on both sides of the gully, nothing was to be discerned but the long waving grass of the plains, with, as I left the scene of the conflagration behind, occasional herds of wild cattle and horses, which frequently allowed a near approach before they fled.

On the fourth day I succeeded in surprising and shooting a young buffalo, which, with many others, was standing in the water of the stream, to endeavour to preserve themselves from the myriads of flies and musquitoes that filled the air, and inflicted their stings without cessation. Although brought down by the first shot, yet I saw considerable danger from the remainder of the herd, who charged me, and I only saved myself by taking refuge on the summit of some steep rocks, in the side of the

cliffs, which the enraged animals could not reach. A second shot dispersed the herd, and they fled up the side of the gully and across the plains till out of sight; whilst some thin steaks cut from the flank of the prize I had obtained, fully rewarded success. When broiled and washed down with pure clear water, they satisfied appetite, and strengthened my frame for further exertion.

Taking some beef with me, wrapped in a sleeve of my coat, which I here left behind, as the smell it exuded, in consequence of the near connection it had been in with the carcass of the dead horse, and the consequent extensive creation of maggots and insects in its crevices, from which it could not be freed by washing, rendered it a most disagreeable companion. My shirt and trousers, which, with a cap and boots, formed all the attire I had, were also infested with these vermin, so that I had absolutely a couple of times a day to strip myself, and wash them in the stream. But no sooner had they begun to dry, than vast numbers of flies again alighted on those parts that had been saturated with the blood, from which, with water alone, I had been unable to cleanse them. These creatures actually discharged live animalcule and fetid creeping things, that would have almost induced me to denude myself of all apparel, if the heat of the sun had not rendered that impossible.

Yet my spirits did not fail; although at times my weary limbs flagged, hope was mine, and that buoyancy of feeling, and presence of mind, which had conducted me through so many trying scenes, never forsook me on this occasion for a moment.

On the morning of the eighth day, I had reached a position close under one of the spurs of the Andes, and was following up a track that I had fallen across, and which I imagined might lead to some village, when my ears were saluted with the pleasing sound of mule bells.

Joyous, indeed, were then my thoughts, and when in a few minutes I joined a party of muleteers, conveying hides and tallow to the small town of San Julianna, my thanks were many and fervent to that Supreme Being who had preserved me through many dangers.

Having a few specie dollars about me, I procured every assistance from the party I had so providentially fallen in with, and afterwards journeyed on to the town whither they were bound. Here, having obtained what ready money I required on one of my St. Jago letters of credit, I procured. assistance, and set forward to the hacienda, where all my troubles commenced.

On the way, at another hacienda, I fell in with two of the rancheros, both suffering from severe wounds received in our action with the Indians, but who nevertheless had escaped by the speed of their horses, and the neglect of all pursuit beyond a short distance, by the Indians, who seemed to have turned all their exertions towards securing the Europeans of the party. The other two rancheros, the guides, and my two companions, had not been heard of, and were supposed, as I myself had been, to have been killed in the attack, or to have perished in the flames.

A subsequent visit to the spot, and the calcined remains of seven bodies, satisfied me that my friends were no more; the Indians who had fallen seemed to have been removed, and all that now points out the scene of that bloody deed, is the raised mound that covers those of our party who there fell.

ITALY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

FOR a long series of years, the well or ill-doing of the various Italian States, has but little interested the generality of Englishmen; very few amongst us having any object or any motive for inquiring into their various forms of government, or to acquaint ourselves in any but a very general way of their past or present proceedings. Vague ideas we had that their petty governments were stern despotisms, and from the little we heard of them we concluded that they were a divided people, and had strong mutual jealousies and antipathies; but, until "Lorenzo the Magnificent," and a few such works, appeared, our knowledge was about as accurate of the man in the moon, as of the reigning houses in Italy, and of their peculiar claims to reign over its mountains and its plains.

We heard and read of the States of the Church, and it was very generally known that territories, and to some extent, were attached to the bishopric of Rome; but there are very few who even now know how those territories were acquired-whether by gift, or by purchase, or whether they were wrung from those who held them, by fraud or violence and bloodshed. The policy which made them the so-called property of the Church was little known, little cared for, and very little, therefore, inquired into.

Much valuable information upon this subject has been lately presented to us by Mr. Dennistoun, in his "Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino ; a work so ably written, and embracing within it so many topics, that it will interest alike the statesman and the soldier, the artist and the scholar, the most rigid Romanist, and the no-church Dissenter; all will find abundant matter in its pages for contemplation, for edification and amusement. Necessarily, however, as it would seem, "bella, horrida bella," must form the main subject, and the larger portion of the history of Urbino as of the history of every other of the Italian States in mediæval times; and wars with all the worst accompaniments of wars, with horrors and atrocities, treacheries, and assassinations of a kind and in a number that could not probably be paralleled in the history of any other people on the earth. And softened down, as all the details are in these volumes, and abridged to the utmost that is possible, yet in the narrative of the Urbino contests with the two popes, Alexander VI. and Leo X., we have a history that is one of the most painful to read, from the baseness and the cruelty, the ingratitude, the bloodthirstiness, and the almost superhuman wickedness that it displays in the chief actors in those turbulent times. From the manner in which Mr. Dennistoun treats these matters, it is very evident he delights not in war, and sees no especial glory in the slaughter and oppression of the defenceless by the strong arm of military power; and as all the wars with which he had to do in connection with his main subject, had their origin in the very worst passions of the most sinful among men, and were begun and carried on and ended by means the most dishonourable, revolting, or contemptible, we have, in consequence, no glowing descriptions from his pen of the tented or the battle-field-of the shock of armies of the

Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, illustrating the Arms and Arts and Literature of Italy, from 1440 to 1630. By James Dennistoun, of Dennistoun. 3 vols. Longman and Co. London,

strategies and tactics of the commanders-of the valour of the combatants. These combatants were in general actuated by motives too vile to allow of glory being attached to the victories they might win, and the cities they might storm; and the writer is not a man to give a false ⚫ colouring to deeds which his pen at times refuses altogether to describe, and in many cases to do more than very generally allude to.

His delight is to detail the triumph of art and the progress of literature in Italy generally, and in Urbino especially, during the fifteenth and two following centuries; and much valuable information is, in consequence, afforded us upon these matters in these pages, and it is given to us in a manner that enhances its value from the clearness and elegance of the descriptions. There is one thing, however, we are almost inclined to regret in connection with these volumes, that their author should have erased so many of his own observations, and suppressed so many of his thoughts upon art and religious painting, in consequence of the unlookedfor appearance, in print, of Lord Lindsay's "History of Christian Art." As a keen and clever observer, and a close and clear reasoner upon the progress of art generally-upon its dawn, its midday glory and declinewe could not but have been gratified and taught something by the many notes he had made upon these subjects; especially as they formed originally the main subjects of his work, and were the first occasion of it.

That the dukes of Urbino were worthy of an able and impartial historian is very evident; and that they would have advanced the arts, and encouraged learning to the utmost, had they been unmolested, is unquestionable; but the envy of neighbours the machinations of enemies, the ingratitude of friends, and, far above all, the nepotism, and all-grasping covetousness of some of the popes, left them but little leisure for peaceful occupations, or, indeed, at times, for aught else, than to consider by what means they could preserve themselves from the oft-threatened destruction. Among their enemies might be classed in the front rank, from their formidable power, from the virulence of their persecution, and from their murderous intentions, the Pope, Alexander VI., and his too celebrated son, Cæsar Borgia, who would undoubtedly have annihilated the whole family, root and branch, could they, by any artifice or force, have obtained possession of their persons. Nor, in subsequent years, did they find a less merciful, or a less persecuting adversary in Leo X., who, forgetful of all the kindness, and hospitality, and assistance, that the Medici family, in their long season of adversity, had received from the Urbina dukes, sent, without the least provocation or excuse, a hostile force into their territories, which drove them suddenly from their homes, and from all their possessions, and sent them wandererers into the world, houseless, penniless, and excommunicated.

This was all done in furtherance of the policy of the popes in those days, to provide large territorial possessions for their nephews and their sons; to make their houses ducal or princely; to raise them, in fact, to independent sovereignties, and to apportion the whole of Italy, from the Alps to Calabria, to their several dynasties. But to do this, it was necessary, in the first place, to dispossess, by the strong hand, the families who already had possession of the coveted possessions; and it was in the attempt to do this that the dogs of war, fierce and remorseless as wolves, the condottieri and their ruthless mercenaries, were let loose at various times upon the state of Urbino, to subjugate or devastate it.

VOL. XXXI.

G

SIR CHARLES NAPIER AND THE UNHAPPY VALLEY.

THE Ameers of Scinde were the first and the last victims of that unhappy policy which buried thousands of men, and millions of money, in the deep defiles of Afghanistan. On the injustice which Lord Auckland initiated, Lord Ellenborough set the seal of consummation. The one established the principle that the luckless Talpoor rulers were thenceforth to reign only by the sufferance of the British; the other decreed that sufferance to be at an end, and converted Lower Scinde into a British province. The Whig Governor-General required the use of the Ameers' country, and set aside existing treaties, that the Army of the Indus might parade through it on its way to Candahar. The Ameers' money was wanted too; and it was mercilessly extorted from them. He used the country as though it were his own for some years; and then his successor took it away from them. The Tory Governor-General occupied Scinde because it was convenient to withdraw from Afghanistan. There is an old story of a nobleman who had caned a dependent, and who next day saw the very man he had beaten chastising a poorer creature than himself. "Your Lordship and I know whom to beat," was the answer he received when he congratulated the fellow on his access of courage. "Your Lordship and I know whom to beat," might have been said to Lord Ellenborough by the conqueror of Scinde. The offence of the Ameers was their weakness. They were weak, and therefore they were chastised. Lord Ellenborough ordered a medal to be struck bearing the words "Pax Asiæ restituta;" and forthwith he began to make war upon the Ameers of Scinde.

Sir Charles Napier fought the battles of Meeanee and Dubba, Very well he fought them too. His troops nobly responded to the dashing gallantry of the "devil's brother," as the general was emphatically called by the natives of those parts; and the Ameers were beaten in the field. If the generosity of the victor had been equal to his gallantry, this would have been a pleasanter page of history. Sir Charles Napier insulted his fallen enemies; he struck them when they were down.

The Ameers of Scinde were sent prisoners to Calcutta. A stroke of Lord Ellenborough's pen converted their country into a British province; and the conqueror became the administrator. Sir Charles Napier, as the first governor of Scinde, entered upon his new duties with characteristic energy; he was not a man to go to sleep in the guard-room after the arms had been piled. He had a rough method of treatment for the conquered Scindians; but though they feared, they did not seem to hate him. They respected him because he was a soldier and a conqueror, and they understood his rugged ways. A more civilized ruler would, perhaps, have been less appreciated. Sir Charles Napier did not roar like a sucking dove, but spoke out in the true lion's voice; and we are far from saying that he did not speak wisely and well.

But the old proverb about making a silk purse out of a sow's ear seems, in this place, to have unusual force of application. It was not in the power of all the Napiers-and there is not, in spite of their eccentricities, a finer family in the world-to make anything out of Scinde but a most Unhappy Valley. Even the graphic pen of the author of the