6

but Mr. Wilson states that the creation of the manufacture of British shawls is no doubt to be ascribed, in a great degree, if not solely, to Mr. Moorcroft, he having sent to England patterns of shawls, and information regarding their manufacture.' Their method of damasking sword-blades, and of twisting gun and pistol barrels, for which the Kashmirians were once celebrated, is also given in full detail by Moorcroft;—but this species of manufacture, like that of shawls, (and indeed of all other branches of industry,) is so enormously taxed, that if the system should be continued much longer Kashmir must lose both entirely.

In the mountains that enclose the valley of Kashmir are immense forests of that noble tree the deodar pine (pinus deodara). The timber of this tree is extensively used in their temples, mosques, and buildings in general. Such, says Moorcroft, is its durability, that in none of the 384 columns of the great mosque of Jama Musjid was any vestige of decay, from exposure or insects, to be discovered, although they have been erected above a century and a half, and have received, for some time past, very little care.' Most of the bridges over rivers and canals are constructed chiefly of this timber, and Moorcroft tells us that pieces taken from one of these were found little decayed, although exposed to the action of water for 400 years.' We are glad to find that this noble tree has been introduced, however tardily, into England. We understand that several hundred plants are now growing vigorously in Lord Harrington's park at Elvaston, and that specimens are to be found in several other places.

What a source of most valuable timber for ship-building in India do these deodar forests of Kashmir offer, and how easily could it be floated down into the Sutlej and the other waters of the Punjab, all communicating with the Indus, and conveyed by it to the sea-coast, provided that river and the fertile provinces crossed by its confluents were annexed, as they ought to be, to British India; for we maintain that until the Indus be made the western boundary as high up as Attock, there is no security against foreign invasion from the same quarter which admitted the victorious Alexander into the Punjab; nor indeed is India secure from invasion without the occupation of the Affghan territory as high up as Kabul. The rightful sovereigns of this territory, Kashmir, and the Punjab, are the two unfortunate brothers, the sightless Zemaun Shah and Shah Shoodjah el Molok, both living under the bountiful protection of the British government at Lodiana. Runjeet Sing is on the brink of the grave: his death. must create that disturbance which almost invariably follows the demise of an usurper; and humanity, sound policy, and justice

to

to the multitude of oppressed inhabitants, who must be the greatest sufferers at such a crisis, would authorize the interposition of the British government so far, at least, as to restore the deposed sovereigns to their rightful possessions, and to occupy and govern the country in their names. It is impossible

now to mince the matter; we have, from uncontrollable circumstances, proceeded so far, that to stand still will be as fatal as to retreat. We have long had under our protection the Great Mogul, the King of Oude, the Rajah of Mysore, and a host of other petty rajahs, to the great benefit and blessing of their subjects and the whole people of Hindustan. This is no vague assertion-it is attested by every Englishman who has been through the provinces, as well as by a witness who will not be accused of partiality towards England. One must have travelled in the Punjab,' says Jacquemont, to know what an immense benefit to humanity the English dominion in India is, and what miseries it spares eighty millions of souls!' And having stated the enormous population of the Punjab that subsists only by the slaughter of others, he adds, I cannot witness the frightful evils of such a system without ardently desiring to see the English extend their frontiers from the Sutlej to the Indus;' coupling with this, however, a further desire, in which we by no means accord, that the Russians should occupy the other bank of the river.' In our opinion, the possession of the Indus would be the surest means of preventing Russia, or any other power, from occupying the other side of the river.'

4. Mr. Moorcroft and his party quitted Kashmir on the 31st July, 1823, but returned, and did not finally leave it till the middle of October, having spent a whole year, very nearly, in that valley, for what purpose, after their return more especially, excepting that of making excursions, does not clearly appear. When fairly under way he proceeded by the route of Peshawar and Kabul, of which we have already had so much from the accounts of the embassy of Mr. Elphinstone and the journey of Lieutenant Burnes,* as to make it unnecessary for us here to dwell on that part of the journey, or even on the route from Kabul to Bokhara.

At Kunduz he was kept a prisoner, and robbed of goods to the value of some 20,000 rupees, by that most accomplished scoundrel Murad Beg, from whose fangs Burnes, with all his wit and activity, barely escaped with impunity. The delay and vexation caused by this monster, at this most pestilent spot in the whole journey, laid the foundation of that general disease which finally destroyed so many of the party. Some good and generous men

* Quarterly Review, vols. xiv. and lii.

are

are to be met with in every country; and thus at Kunduz, our traveller having thrown himself on the protection of a holy man who was supposed to have great influence on the rapacious chief, he assured him of his good offices as far as they could avail, and hoped he could secure both his person and property from any further aggression: this was a duty, he said, which he owed to a stranger who had thrown himself upon his protection; it was a duty he owed to God. It was in vain that Moorcroft urged his acceptance of a pair of handsome shawls and two dresses of broad cloth; he persisted in declining the present, not from any disrespect to the stranger who offered it, but out of regard to his own reputation. He would accept, he said, what was offered, but having done so, it became him to give it back again, that it might not be said his interposition was interested. By means of this good man he effected his escape secretly, just when further robbery was in contemplation. Moorcroft says, when the moment of departure arrived, he blessed me and I took my leave, sincerely grateful to him for an interposition which alone could have preserved us from destruction, and which had been exercised throughout the whole affair in a manner uniformly kind, benevolent, and though gentle, yet resolute.'

Mr. Moorcroft, after all the dangers, delays, and vexations occasioned by the monster of Kunduz, confesses that he had lost count of the course of time;' but it was on the 1st February, 1824, that he came to the district of Mazar. He halted at the city, and thence proceeded to Balkh, which he describes pretty much as Burnes did ten years afterwards. From Balkh he advanced towards Bokhara, crossing the Oxus at the ferry of Khwaja Salah, the river being here about as wide as the Thames opposite the Temple Gardens. The boats were tracked across by horses swimming, the river in places being five fathoms deep. He then halted at Karsh, a town inferior only to Bokhara. Proceeding thence over a cultivated strip of ground on which the city stands, he says, 6 we again came to a sandy and sterile tract, less undulating than that nearer the river, but equally unproductive. It was with no slender satisfaction that on the morning of the 25th February, 1825, we found ourselves at the end of our protracted pilgrimage, at the gates of that city (Bokhara) which had for five years been the object of our wanderings, privations, and perils.'And here also ends the present work.

The reason assigned by Professor Wilson for breaking off the narrative thus abruptly, is as follows:

'Mr. Moorcroft remained at Bokhara nearly five months, but the notes which he has left of his residence are so very desultory and imperfect, and so much superseded by subsequent publications, that I have

thought

thought it advisable to close the account of the journey with his arrival at that city. He was received by the King with as much kindness as could be expected from Mir Hyder, a selfish, sensual, and narrow-minded bigot, and, after various difficulties, arising from the meanness and cupidity, chiefly, of the monarch himself, disposed of part of his goods, and effected the purchase of a number of valuable horses, with which he purposed to return to Hindustan. After crossing the Oxus on his way back, about the 4th or 5th August, 1825, Mr. Moorcroft determined to deviate from the road, in order to go to Maimana, where he understood it was likely that he should be able to make important additions to his stock of horses. "Before I quit Turkistan," he writes from Bokhara, "I mean to penetrate into that tract which contains, probably, the best horses in Asia, but with which all intercourse has been suspended during the last five years. The experiment is full of hazard, but le jeu vaut bien la chandelle." His life fell a sacrifice to his zeal. At Andhko, where he spent some days in effecting purchases, he was taken ill with fever, and died.'-Preface, pp. xlvi., xlvii.

Burnes and Meyendorff have satisfied our curiosity with regard to Bokhara; what we still want, and which no one has afforded us since the days of Timur Khan, is an account of Samarcand, to the eastward of Balkh-that city of 150,000 inhabitants, and that extensive plain on which it stands, studded with dwellings in the midst of gardens and groves, where Clavijo, the envoy of Henry III. of Castille to Tamerlane in 1403, two years before the death of the Tartar Khan, was present at a splendid fête, on which occasion, says the ambassador, his nine queens caroused wine out of golden goblets till they all got royally drunk. Of the present state of that once-embellished plain, and of what still may remain of that once-renowned city, we should like very much to see a true and lively description.

6

The death of Moorcroft was correctly ascertained by Burnes: he observes, however, if he died a natural death, I do not think he sunk without exciting suspicion ;'-but Mr. Wilson says, 'there is no reason to believe that this was the case, although he had fallen among robbers, who seized upon his property, and put his followers into confinement. Such was the luckless fate of an individual who, whatever may be thought of his prudence or judgment, must ever stand high among travellers for his irrepressible ardour, his cheerful endurance, inflexible perseverance in the prosecution of his objects, and his disinterested zeal for the credit and prosperity of his country.' His followers, as soon as liberated by the intercession of a holy man, conveyed their master's body to Balkh, where it was buried. And here another loss was sustained by the death of Mr. Guthrie, the medical assistant. Mr. Trebeck, now left alone, moved on to Mazar, was there seized with fever, and, after a short illness, followed his companions to

the

the grave. After burying his two European fellow-travellers,' says Mr. Burnes, 'he sunk at an early age, after four months' suffering, in a far distant country, without a friend, without assistance, and without consolation.' The fatality did not stop here. Mir Izzet Ullah, who had quitted the party at Kunduz, died in the course of the following year at Kabul; the germ of death, Mr. Wilson thinks, having been imbibed at this notoriously unhealthy place; and then ultimately the whole party fell victims to the rapacity of that barbarian robber Murad Beg.

We think, on the whole, that this narrative might have been advantageously condensed into one volume. We have no doubt, however, that the editor has only done what he thought due to Moorcroft; and all must at any rate be thankful that the labours of so enterprising and indefatigable a traveller have by the care and industry of Professor Wilson been rescued from oblivion.

ART. V.-1. Report from the Select Committee on Publication of Printed Papers; with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix. Ördered by the House of Commons to be printed, 8th May,

1837.

2 The Speech of Sir Robert Peel in Vindication of the Privilege of the House of Commons to publish its Proceedings. London.

1837.

3. A Letter to Lord Langdale on the Recent Proceedings in the House of Commons on the Subject of Privilege. By Thomas Pemberton, M.P. Second Edition. London. 1837.

4. Remarks on a Report of a Select Committee of the late House of Commons on the Publication of Printed Papers. By P. A. Pickering, Esq., A.M. Second Edition. London. London. 1837. IT is the remark of Hume, that the complicated machinery of our government, the King, the Lords, the Commons, the Army and Navy, the public institutions, the great officers of state, are all established for the purpose of bringing twelve men into a jury-box. This remark places in the most striking point of view the paramount importance of the administration of justice, the consideration due to the courts of law in comparison with all the other institutions of society, and the imperative necessity of preserving the judicial authority unimpaired. Whatever our re

forming ministry may think, (or rather say, for we believe many of them are conservative in their hearts), it would be just possible for this great country to exist for the next ten or twenty years, and, what is more, enjoy a reasonable proportion of prosperity,

without