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The river was at its lowest, and the sheet of water, therefore, was not unbroken; but Mr. Baines thinks it never can present the smooth, unvaried regularity which the only representation we hitherto possessedthat which constitutes the frontispiece to Livingstone's Travels in South Africa-would indicate.

"Now stand and look," says our enthusiastic artist, "through the dim and misty perspective, till it loses itself in the cloud of spray to the east. How shall words convey ideas, which even the pencil of Turner must fail to represent? Stiff and formal columns of smoke there are none-t e-the eastern breeze has blended all in one. Think nothing of the drizzling mist, but tell me if heart of man ever conceived anything more gorgeous than those two lovely rainbows, so brilliant that the eye shrinks from looking on them, segments of which rising from the abyss, deep as the solar rays can penetrate it, overarch spray, rock, and forest, till rising to the highest point they fail to find refractory moisture to complete the arch." This must, indeed, be a Peri's glimpse of Paradise-rainbows so brilliant that the eye shrinks from looking on them!

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"Eastward, ho! Still eastward! through mud, wild date-palm brakes, grassy swamps, and vine thickets tangled with ever-dripping leaves, scene after scene of surpassing grandeur presenting itself, till the imagination is bewildered and embarrassed by so much magnificence. Now we pass the central, or, as we suppose it, Garden Island, dividing the Fall into two great masses, and interposing its breadth of bare projecting precipice. Its extent as yet we cannot tell, for its farther end is lost in spray. some places the grass reaches up to the verge, the trees appearing as if the keen wind, blowing upward from the gulf, had shorn off their overhanging branches level with the cliff. Here and there are broad intervals of dark purple rock, wet and slippery with tangled weeds. I approach the edge, and look with awe into the troubled narrow stream beneath. The influence of the water downward, eternally downward, seems to meet a response within me, and kneeling down I rest on one hand to look farther; but down comes my little bush boy to rescue me from the supposed danger, nor will he be satisfied till we have removed farther from the verge.

"Still farther to the eastward, we will visit the remotest angle, and then what need of crossing the river for a view, when every feature we can wish for fronts us on this side? Why, rather, did not Livingstone cross and see the southern front, instead of contenting himself with a peep at the hazard of his life from the precipitous island ?"

The advent of a large herd of buffaloes, some hundred in number, called away attention for a time from this most sublime scenery, and a very exciting hunt and combat followed, ending in the defeat of the herd and the slaying of several of their number. The noise of the engagement, for it was nothing less, as the buffaloes charged over and over again, brought up armed messengers from Moshotlani, a petty chief of the Makalali, who has charge of the ferry, to inquire who they were.

Wakened the next day by the never-ceasing, never-varying roar of the cataract, a further exploration of the chasms into which the water falls was effected. Nothing can be more curious than this portion of the natural wonder as represented in the bird's-eye view given by Mr. Baines. The only outlet from the first great chasm which fronts the

river and receives the whole body of the waters, and which is not more than a hundred yards in width, is a narrow passage nearer to the eastern than the western side. The waters flowing through this return westward by another chasm parallel to the first, and then turn into another chasm running eastward, still more or less parallel to the two former, returning westward by a third chasm, and then again curving to the south-east by a fourth! We feel that we should like to explore, hammer in hand, those minute peculiarities of mineralogical structure of the rock which determine all these phenomena. Contrary to what we should have expected, the strata appear from the drawing to lie horizontally, the beds being distinctly marked, but still there must be some very salient differences in the compactness and resistance of some of the beds to the friability and easy disintegration of others, or in portions of the same beds closely adjacent, to allow of such very remarkable results being brought about by the action of the waters.

Baboons shouted among the cliffs, buffaloes herded in the forest, antelopes frisked through the long grass, hippopotami swarmed on the islands, and alligators lounged in the mud-banks, while birds of rare and gorgeous plumage flitted amidst rocks and forest and waters, dark-blue toucans, or hornbills enlivening the trees, while little honey-birds hovered like brilliant gems over the flowers. There was animal as well as physical life in this wondrous scene. The only drawback was the tsetse, which persecuted most when Mr. Baines was making his sketches, selecting the places in the hand where the lines of fortune radiate or cross, with a skill in palmistry, or chiromancy, as the French call it, that would do honour to M. Desbarolles or to an experienced gipsy. Luckily their bite is not fatal to man, or one of the greatest wonders in the world would remain for ever in terra incognita.

Further explorations were made in the same long narrow skiff that took down Livingstone and Sekeletu in 1855, and the only one that goes quite to the Falls, and a magnificent view was obtained from Garden Ísland. A descent was also effected into the chasm, and Mr. Baines speaks of narrow walls of "black rock" and rough blocks; as also of "red sand, brown rocks, heaps of black scoriæ, quartz, green, red, and white,"-vague statements, but indicating possibly dykes of igneous rocks crossing sandstones of undetermined age.

The expedition proceeded hence to Boana, a place between the Daka, or Luisi River, and the Matietsie, about twenty miles' distance, and finally established itself on a small hill, which they christened Logier Hill, a mile or two above Molemo-e-a-tolos Island, at the mouth of the Luisi.

But all efforts to complete the boats, the segments of which they had brought so great a distance, and at so much expense and labour, were dashed almost in the very moment of success by a sudden and deadly attack of fever, which obliged them, for the sake of their people, to retreat to the highlands of the desert; and the continuation of sickness, superadded to famine, and the murder of some of their attendants, ultimately obliged them to retrace their steps instead of following down the Zambesi to the coast. The details of this last portion of their adventure are given in a very brief and unsatisfactory manner-in fact, merely alluded to.

THE BERAH.

A STORY OF THE MUSSULMANS OF INDIA.

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Or the descendants which trace their lineage from the conquerors India, who at different periods have laid waste its plains and its cities, and have carried the unrelenting scourge of oppression and the weapons of wanton destruction amongst communities composed of the timid votaries of perverted priestcraft, or the peaceful occupants of a soil abundant in agricultural produce the primitive artisans, who pursue undeviatingly the lessons of workmanship bequeathed to them by their forefathers-the men bred to carry arms who were soldiers only by right of bearing such, and boasting that they had Rajpoots for their ancestors—and the servile and ill-regulated crowd which swell the number of Asiatic hosts, and are mostly composed of the slavish crew which administer to the wants of the richer orders-although with regard to these Mussulmans the rule and government of the country, from the time of Mahmood the Ghuznevide up to the period of its subjugation by the British, has been invariably vested in their hands, yet the characteristic traits of cruelty, ignorance, intolerance, and oppression are so distinctly marked in their acts and in their history, that no historian of India can have failed to notice them, and no traveller in the country acquainted with its language can have failed to observe them. I have heard from many the assertion that the Mussulmans in Turkey were distinguished by their honesty; I have seen the book which has been written in praise of them; I have known that their eulogy has been "hymned" by several who have been led into the belief of their disinterested character; but I still can never divest myself of the knowledge which a long acquaintance with those of their creed has given me, and I have always said to myself, if this be true of the Turks, how very unlike are they to their brethren in India! The same blind, remorseless fanaticism which marked the followers of Mahomet, whether in the East or in the Westthe same reckless disregard of aught that improves or enlightens mankind which characterised the soldiers of Omar in consigning the library of Alexandria to the flames-the same pitiless and heartless cruelty which animated the craven miscreants who flooded the cities with gore under the orders of Timour and Nadir Shah, have become of late conspicuous to mankind in the details of the Indian mutiny or the history of the massacres in Arabia. There is a saying, that the devil is not so black as he is painted; but, certainly, setting aside the exaggeration of the travellers who speak, or the embellishment of the story-teller who narrates, we have so many instances which bring home to our minds the dreadful extent of horror and of crime which marks the career of the tribes who fought under the different leaders of the Moslem faith, that I think we are quite justified in the conclusion that they are all actuated by the same fierce and inhuman spirit, and that there is something in the creed and precepts of the false prophet which debases and demoralises them. The cruel and reckless licentiousness of the Mussulman invaders of Hindostan, and the stolid apathy and craven endurance of their victims, have been so remarkable in every different phase of conquest under which

the unhappy country has suffered, that its history offers nothing to interest but a piteous detail of wanton aggression and succumbing misery; and I know not if we can recal the name of a single individual, a native of the Hindoo population in that "land of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves," who could be singled out from the sufferers as one entitled to bear the name of a champion or a leader, or one whose voice or whose action could arouse his fellow-countrymen to a sense of their rights or a feeling of fealty to their country. Patriotism has been for so many ages thoroughly unknown there, that such a word finds no response in their minds and no place in their language. The chiefs who have led on their armies either by promise of plunder, by the incitement of a dire and revolting enthusiasm, by the prestige of their fame, by the distribution of their present rewards, or by hopes of future glory, have met with unvaried success in the plains of Upper India, and by turns have founded dynasties and empires, while the trembling and awe-struck aborigines of the soil have looked on in stupid amazement, and seen themselves stricken to the earth, their property spoliated, and their hearths violated. It is a significant fact, that in the language which is universally spoken throughout India from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin-the broken dialect which the conquerors have engrafted upon the original language of the Hindoo population-there is not a word which answers to the meaning of our verb of possession, to have, and that when a native of India has to express his being in possession of any article, he has to use a roundabout idiom to convey the idea. Thus, when a Hindoo or Mussulman informs you that he possesses a jewel, he tells you "it is applied to his hand," or that it is near him. I cannot but think that this speaks feelingly as expressive of the abject helplessness and pitiable subjection which the inhabitants using such a dialect are plunged in. Even the very circumstance of their language being nearly superseded by that of their conquerors, witnesses also the fact of their subjugation. But leaving the consideration of the subject which leads us to look on conquerors and their deeds in the gross, and the somewhat vague surmises of the origin of language in the abstract, I would venture to enter into a short detail of a narrative which came under my own personal observation.

The different divisions of the Mussulman tribes in India are known by the several names-Syuds, Sheiks, Moguls, and Putthans. The first boast of direct descent from some of the prophet's family, and are, whatever be their fortune, their occupation, or their position, universally held most in esteem by their Mussulman brethren. The next are descendants of proselytes to the creed, and are also held in much esteem. The third are sprung from the race of Moguls, who invaded India under Timour and other conquerors, and the fourth claim their descent from the Affghans or Putthans, who first came to India under Mohammed Ghoree. All these, whatever their rank or their circumstances may be, are sure to keep an exact account of their genealogy, and in no country is the claim of birth more recognised. Their superstitions have become greatly infected by their long residence in India, and their partial intercourse there with the Hindoos, and they consequently observe many ceremonies which the Mussulmans of other countries are unacquainted with but notwithstanding this they are sure to avoid mixing in any way with their fellow-countrymen the Hindoos; to eat with them, or to intermarry

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with them, would be looked upon with the greatest horror, and these two classes of the community certainly "hate one another with a perfect hatred." Generally speaking, in Upper India and in the Doab, they inhabit separate villages, and as the natives of the country distribute themselves as inhabiting their several villages, it is easy to know when one arrives at the neighbourhood of one or at that of the other. In the towns, of course, the classes are intermingled. It is calculated that in Upper India the proportion of Mussulmans to the Hindoo population is about one-fifth of the mass. The native army, which was lately under the rule of the India Company, and which received its pay, enrolled in its numbers a great proportion of Mussulmans-indeed, in the cavalry regiments the great majority were of that religion, and throughout the infantry battalions there were also very many. These were really the grand culprits in the late fearful transactions, the grand exciters, the "teterrimæ causæ belli;" the agitators who worked on the masses to their deeds of bloodshed and horror were these. The minds of the superstitious Hindoos were acted upon to believe that the Feringhees had formed a design of exterminating their religion by causing them involuntarily to make use of the ingredients whose touch involved a breach of their caste; and on the only point wherein it is possible to excite a Hindoo, or especially a Rajpoot, to frenzy, a fear became apparent, and their feelings, once roused, the belief became general, the agitation spread like wildfire, and throughout the vast provinces of Upper India the soldiers of the Hindoo persuasion breathed hatred and revenge to every individual who professed the faith of Christendom, whether male or female. But the Mussulman, the soldier of fortune, the man whose hand was open to receive the pay or the plunder which his leader or his general had in store for him, was the arch instigator of this fiendish movement, and his hopes and prospects were concentrated in the prizes which would fall to his share subsequent to the anarchy which was about to befal the country and the ruin of rich Feringhees.

I cannot believe in the theory which many hold, that the Russians were at work in this business. I fancy it must be evident to the minds of any one that had they intended to work mischief in India, they had agents enow to forward their cause there during the time of the Crimean war, when indeed if this mutiny had broken out we should have been sorely put to to find means to quell it. As some one quaintly remarked, on hearing the assertion made that the Russians were at the bottom of the mischief, "they were very good natured not to attempt the proceeding before this time, when we should have been ill prepared for our defence." But it is quite consonant with the reckless licentiousness and unprincipled habits of the Mussulmans to experience such an act from them; and the more one is acquainted with the country the less is one prepared to look for any good from one of that creed, and the less is one surprised at their goading on the Hindoos to the fearful extremities which were pursued, and at hearing of their lighting the torch which spread the flames of conflagration, and their agitating the passions of the misguided fanatics till they were wrought up to a pitch which led to the perpetration of the horror and bloodshed which spread far and wide through the breadth and depth of the land.

The customs of the Mussulmans in the country, the Mohurrum, the

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