Spasm and convulsion seized her at the thought
That the dear idol, whom but yesterday

She cradled from the zephyr's roughened breath,

Alone must to the unfathomed depths go down,' &c.

This hardly seems to justify the editor's encomium, though it is not given as an average specimen-far from it-of this class of Mrs. Sigourney's compositions.

The opening poem in this volume is the tale of Oriska. Oriska is the daughter of an Indian chief. A young Frenchman, coming into her neighbourhood to traffic, engages her affections, and induces her to become his wife; and the old chieftain her father, at first strongly opposed to the match, is gradually won over. For a time everything goes well with the wedded pair :—

"Their sweet bower

Rose like a gem amid the rural scene,

O'ercanopied with trees, where countless birds
Caroll'd unwearied; the gay squirrel leaped,
And the wild bee went singing to his work,
Satiate with luxury.

Nor lacked their lowly dwelling such device
Of comfort, or adornment, as the hand
Of gentle woman, sedulous to please,

Creates for him she loves. For she had hung
Attentive on his lips while he described
The household policy of prouder climes;
And with such varied and inventive skill
Caught the suggestions of his taste refined,
That the red people, wondering as they gazed
On curtained window, and on flower-crowned vase,
Carpet and cushioned chair, and board arranged
With care unwonted, called her home the court
Of their French princess.'

But this life in the wilderness soon palls upon the Frenchman's taste; and after giving various evidences of decreasing affection for his wife and home, he gives her the slip, and retires into Canada. There he comforts himself with another spouse; but ere the honeymoon is well over, the midnight slumbers of the bridegroom are broken by a wild strain of music at his door; and he conjectures but too truly, that for this unexpected serenading he is indebted to the forsaken Oriska. After a very hasty toilet he appears at the door and warns her off, indignantly rebuking her for disturbing his rest with what he calls her 'wild, savage music.' She retires, after a promise that he will call at her lodgings and explain matters. On the second even

ing he makes his appearance; and before him are Oriská, her child, and the old chieftain, his father-in-law, who has just been overtaken by sickness, and is getting near his end. Oriska's proposals are very moderate for so injured a woman. She will neither upbraid him for his desertion, nor enforce her conjugal claims; it shall be enough for her if he will take her into his establishment as a servant of all work,-enough for her if she can only be within the sound of his voice and the echo of his footsteps. The objections to such an arrangement are obvious; but the simple-hearted Oriska only sees in her husband's unqualified refusal, that he will have nothing more to do with her. The old man, not disposed to mince matters, gathers up his remaining energies, and, after venting a terrible execration on the faithless Frenchman, makes his exit. He is taken back to his tribe to be buried; and Oriska, after fulfilling her last duties to the departed, steps with her child into a canoe, and hastens to that sure refuge from matrimonial miseries,—the Falls of Niagara.

+

The story is unequally told, and it is in all respects far inferior to the tale of Pocahontas. Powhaton, the king of the country where the founders of Virginia first chose their residence, had a daughter, at that time ten or twelve years old, who not only exceeded the rest of her people in countenance and expression, but for wit and spirit was the only nonpareil of the country.' This girl, Pocahontas by name, procured by her intercession with her father the release of a white captive, who was just about to undergo the war-club. When the infant colony was in danger of utter extinction from the want of food, she managed to convey to the fort every few days baskets of corn for the starving garrison. At another time, by a seasonable warning, she saved them all from being massacred by the Indians. She was eventually captured by the colonists, and held as a hostage,—not a very grateful return for her services, but apparently with no worse object than that of bringing her father to terms, or to get from him a large ransom. Here, however, a new era dawned upon the child of the forest. She was instructed in the Christian faith, she learned the English language, and finally her marriage with Mr. Rolfe took place in the church of Jamestown, Powhaton and his chieftains being present at the ceremony. Under her new name of Lady Rebecca, she sailed with Mr. Rolfe, and arrived in England. Attentions and hospitality were shown her by persons of rank and influence; even the king and queen had her in honourable estimation.

'Yet, mid the magic of these regal walls,

The glittering train, the courtier's flattering tone,
Or by her lord, through fair ancestral halls,
Led on, to claim the treasures as her own,
Stole back the scenery of her solitude:
An aged father, in his cabin rude,
Mixed with her dreams a melancholy moan,
Notching his simple calendar with pain,

And straining his red eye to watch the misty main.
Sweet sounds of falling waters, cool and clean,
The crystal streams, her playmates, far away
Oft did their dulcet music mock her ear,
As restless on her fevered couch she lay;
Strange visions hovered round, and harpings high,
From spirit-bands, and then her lustrous eye
Welcomed the call; but earth resumed its sway,

And all its sacred ties convulsive twined.

How hard to spread the wing and leave the loved behind!'

When preparing to return to her native land, she was taken sick, died, and was buried at Gravesend. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, says that she was saved, as if by the hand of mercy, from beholding the extermination of the tribes from which she sprang, leaving a spotless name, and dwelling in memory under the form of perpetual youth.'

'Like the fallen leaves those forest tribes have fled;
Deep 'neath the turf their rusted weapon lies;
No more their harvest lifts its golden head,
Nor from their shaft the stricken red-deer flies ;
But from the far far-west, where holds so hoarse
The lonely Oregon its rock-strewn course,
While old Pacific's sullen dirge replies,
Are heard their exiled murmurings, deep and low,
Like one whose smitten soul departeth full of woe.
Forgotten race, farewell! Your haunts we tread,
Our mighty rivers speak your words of yore,
Our mountains wear them on their misty head,
Our sounding cataracts hurl them to the shore;
But on the lake your flashing oar is still,
Hushed is your hunter's cry on dale and hill,
Your arrow stays the eagle's flight no more;
And ye, like troubled shadows, sink to rest,

In unremembered tombs, unpitied and unblessed.'

We had marked for quotation several of Mrs. Sigourney's minor poems, but have already exceeded our limits. Longfellow excepted, no American poet is better known on this side of the Atlantic; and we are therefore content that our

Du Chaillu's Explorations.

73

extracts should be less copious than in the case of those with whom the reader may not be quite so familiar. Of all her pieces we should ourselves prefer the Farewell of the Soul to the Body, one of her earliest productions; one, however, which, had she written nothing else, would have secured her a far greater fame than has fallen to the lot of many a more voluminous author.

ART. III.-Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa; with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase of the Gorilla, Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus, and other Animals. By PAUL B. Du CHAILLU. With Map and Illustrations. London: Murray.

1861.

THIS is one of those remarkable books which are certain to excite general and, for a period, intense interest, and which will not for a long time be allowed to pass away amidst the crowd of almost unremembered volumes of travels. Heralded by no loud flourish of trumpets, and no wide distribution of advertisements, it has come before the public upon its own merits, and bespeaks attention simply by its own attractions. In its pages we have the notes and descriptions of a man of uncommon nerve and daring. They trace the course of a traveller who, forsaking all beaten tracks, plunged into the wilds of a country where no white man appears to have preceded him; and who brings before us tribes marked by hideous moral degradation, and yet of not unhopeful prospects; while, as a hunter, sportsman, and naturalist, he has tales to tell which make the ears of all who hear to tingle. The recent publishing season has yielded some books of high interest; but for novelty, strangeness, and information about remarkable animals, unquestionably the Explorations and Adventures of M. Du Chaillu stands foremost. For ourselves we read no small portion of it a second time before it passed from our hands upon its first publication; and we have now perused its principal pages for the third time.

Many of our readers may be aware that almost immediately after the publication of this volume, questions affecting the veracity and integrity of the author began to be raised. Dr. Gray, an experienced naturalist, who holds an appointment in the British Museum, wrote a letter of inquiry and comment, which appeared in the Athenæum. This letter has been followed by others from the same pen, and from that

of another critic; all having for their direct object the suggestion of caution and doubts about the so-called New Traveller's Tales,' Dr. Gray, as a naturalist, comments chiefly on topics relating to his own branches of science, and particularly upon the representations and stories of the gorilla, as well as upon our author's claims to be regarded as a discoverer in African Natural History. These are points which we may briefly notice towards the conclusion of this article. At once, however, we shall advert to difficulties of chronology, having ourselves been much perplexed, during our first examination of this volume, in endeavouring to comprehend the author's times and seasons for his several journeys. We soon came to the same conviction as his subsequent critic upon this point, viz., that the author had paid too little attention to dates, and, in fact, had been culpably careless in this matter. As far as we can conjecture his chronology, although the author left New York in October, 1855, he appears to have commenced his travels in Africa in 1856, and to have concluded them on February 10th, 1859. Within these limits of time, we have three years and one month; but the intervening confusion of dates is vexatious; and, however friendly the reader may be, leads to a suspicion of inaccuracy and carelessness.

M. Du Chaillu has endeavoured to defend himself against these charges in the Preface to a new edition of his volume; declaring that he kept careful and minute journals and itineraries, day by day, of his travels; but did not think it necessary to trouble the public with such details, but selected for publication only such parts as seemed to him to contain new and interesting information.' He goes on to state, in substance, that he alluded but slightly to excursions preceding the travels narrated in his book; and that during one of these excursions he laid the foundation of the valuable collections of natural history which have been dispersed through various museums in America and Europe. He confesses that he completed his description of the northern region, including his expedition to the Fans, before beginning his southern journey to Cape Lopez, which was really the first exploration he made, in 1856; and that he did this to avoid taking the reader backwards and forwards. He then gives a chronological account of his journeys, commencing with October, 1855, at which period he left New York; and he reached Africa in December. It may be possible to synchronize these afternotices of dates with those confusedly given in the volume as first published; but certainly the reader should not have been left to execute this tedious and unwelcome task, seeing that the author might have explained his chronology and