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winding up to the summit, with a resting-place half way up, where persons usually sat a while on their way upwards. The shrine which surmounted the edifice was large and rich. Before it was despoiled by the Persians, it is said to have contained three colossal statues of gold-one of Bel, one of Beltis, and one of Rhea or Ishtar. In front of these statues was a golden table forty feet long and fifteen broad, upon which stood two huge drinking-cups, each thirty talents in weight. Before the image of Beltis two golden lions, and near them two large serpents of silver. The shrine also contained three golden bowls, one for each of the deities, and two enormous censers. In the time of Herodotus, however, the shrine contained no image,-only a golden table, and a large couch covered with a handsome drapery.

In Assyria the Temple was a mere adjunct of the palace; but in Babylonia the temple outstrips in grandeur all other buildings. If not absolutely larger than the palaces, the Babylonian temple was much loftier and more conspicuous, and rivalled if it did not surpass them in richness of ornamentation. The Babylonian palaces appear to have resembled the Assyrian: the only differences being that the Babylonian palace was constructed wholly of burnt brick, while in the Assyrian mere sundried bricks were employed to a large extent; and further that in Babylonia the decoration of the walls consisted of brightly coloured representations upon the enamelled brickwork, whereas in Assyria the walls were cased with slabs of sculptured and sometimes coloured alabaster. In Assyria the palatial decorations consisted of bas-reliefs, whereas fresco-painting (if we may so call it) predominated in Babylonia.

We cannot conclude this necessarily incomplete review of Professor Rawlinson's great work without paying a well-deserved tribute of praise to the author. He has produced a model work upon a difficult and most extensive subject. He has with great care and labour collected a vast amount of information,he has elaborately sifted his materials,-and he has excellently arranged them. He writes with great clearness, and he gives his authority for almost every statement in the work. His judgment also is always sober and solid; and if he errs at all, it is on the safe side. He is careful never to exaggerate, and is almost too prone to minimize the statements of the ancient writers. It were more than human if in so extensive a work he could have satisfied and convinced all his readers; but we cermight well have risen to a height of 600 feet on a base of 200 yards. In fact, in the case of a pyramidal building, the height is usually equal to the base. Moreover, Herodotus tells us that the base was a stade in length (606 feet), which is the exact height which Strabo gives for the height.

VOL. XLIV.-NO. LXXXVIII.

2 A

tainly know of no work of a sim.lar kind which to so great a degree commands the assent of the reader to the statements and opinions of the author.

There is one point in the third volume to which we would invite his consideration or reconsideration. It seems to us a mistake, and, if not a mistake, it at least requires more investigation than Professor Rawlinson seems yet to have bestowed upon it. We refer to the racial character of the Cossæans, who in the time of Cyaxares occupied the Persian desert to the east of the settlements of the Medes. Professor Rawlinson regards them as an Arian people, and hesitatingly follows the opinion of some writers who say that their name is Koh-sians, dwellers in Mount Koh, a spur of the Elburz chain which runs down a short way into the Persian desert. We incline to the opinion that they were a Cushite people,-the most northern remnant of the Cushite or Cossæan population, which in early times occupied Babylonia, and to a later date preserved a distinct or at least recognised nationality in Elam and the southern parts of Persia. The great Nimrod himself was one of this stock—a Cossæan, a son of Cush. One of the eastern gates of Babylon was called to latest times the Kissean gate,-the gate from which issued the road which led to the country of the Cossæans. Now, we believe that the nomad Cossæans, who occupied the Persian desert so late as the time of the Median monarchy, were a branch of this ancient Cushite population, which, favoured by the inhospitable and comparatively inaccessible character of the region which they inhabited, had maintained a separate existence for a longer time than the other and more civilized branches of the same stock, whose territories were at an early period invaded, and their distinctive nationality effaced by the Arians and Samites. These Cossæans of the Persian desert appear to us to have held the same relation to the general Cushite population that the nomads in Arabia bear to the settled and more civilized branches of the same people. Whether this opinion can be substantiated is a point upon which Professor Rawlinson is eminently fitted to decide; and we invite his attention to it in his fourth volume, which is to be devoted to the history and character of the Persian monarchy.

ART. V. The Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Explorations of the Nile Sources. By SAMUEL WHITE

BAKER. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1866.

WE had the pleasure, some little time ago, of calling attention to the brilliant and successful expedition across the continent of Africa. We have now the agreeable task of taking a cursory glance at another magnificent effort of discovery in the same quarter, conducted with similar heroism, and promising great results, not merely geographical, but even commercial, at one more great adventure, enlivened as few others are by incidents, which, however painful, seem to us to be singularly beautiful and interesting.

In mentioning Captain Speke's arrival at Gondokoro, we said, it will be remembered, that to their inexpressible delight, the first Englishman they met with was their friend Mr. S. W. Baker. Since we wrote as above, the gallant Speke, while still at the zenith of his well-earned fame and popularity, has fallen a victim to an unhappy accident in one of his native fields; Mr. Baker has accomplished his object, and the results of his expedition are before us.

Mr. Baker, like his old friend Captain Speke, was a great sportsman; like Speke again he was something more, a man of an ambition, and a very nobleo ne. Accustomed to that delight in danger, which seems to become almost a passion with those who have once tasted it; accustomed to wait the charge of the infuriated elephant, trusting only to his steady eye and the goodness of his percussion-caps for his salvation from certain death; accustomed to face, without blenching, the spring of the inaddened tiger; accustomed to travel far beyond the haunts of man in pursuit of sport, to endure solitude, fever, fatigue, hunger, and thirst, he was the very man to undertake a wild and dangerous adventure.

Speke started from Zanzibar in September 1860; in April 1861, six months afterwards, Mr. Baker organized a large and exceedingly costly expedition, and departed from Cairo to meet him, or to act as circumstances might warrant ;-if Speke was successful, to return; if he was dead, to ascertain his fate; if he was partially successful, to complete his discoveries. He had seen a great deal of the evils of divided counsels, and so he determined that there should be no one to consult. He furnished the expedition entirely at his own cost, and was amenable to no one for blame should it fail, any more than he would consent to share his credit with another should it succeed. This is the 1 North British Review, November 1863.

place to say that his arrangements seem to have been made in the most admirable manner; he provided everything except honest men, that, alas! was beyond him; the article is not to be obtained at Khartoum.

We have also to mention another circumstance here, which we beg to do with the most profound respect. Mr. Baker was accompanied by his wife, who nobly and willingly went with him on his weary expedition far beyond the bounds of human knowledge. This lady, we may be allowed to add, although of extreme youth, was possessed of a physical courage greater than that of most men, a clear head, and a quick decided will, which on emergencies crystallized itself rapidly into action. The part which this lady took in the expedition will speak more eloquently in her praise than any poor language of ours.

Perceiving clearly that he should be always at the mercy of his interpreter, he determined to make himself master of the Arabic language. For this purpose he turned aside toward Abyssinia, and spent a whole year in examining the Atbara and the Blue Nile, the two great affluents of the White Nile: which tributaries, though the former is perfectly dry for months, and the latter for part of the year perfectly insignificant, pour such vast volumes into the main stream in June, when it is at a considerable level, that they cause the annual inundation in Lower Egypt. Into this part of his subject we do not intend to follow him; he himself touches but slightly on it. He was exactly a year at this work, and returning to Khartoum in June 1862, he began to prosecute his White Nile scheme.

His difficulties here were very numerous. The Egyptian governor coolly refused him all assistance because the firman he had obtained referred to the White Nile, and not to the White River, their name for that stream. All parties were bitterly hostile to him, as a spy who would pry into the iniquitous dealings of the White Nile slave-hunters. In spite of incredible difficulties, however, he collected ninety-six followers, of at least dubious character, at Khartoum; making preparations on the largest scale, not only for his own party, but for the relief of the party of Speke, and, putting them into three Nile boats, sailed from Khartoum to Gondokoro, up the White Nile. To the very last he was opposed in every way, and his last act at Khartoum was to have what he calls a physical explanation' with the Reis of the Government boat which ran into him at starting. He must have beaten him soundly, for he made him replace the broken oars.

He had taken with him twenty-one donkeys, four camels, and four horses, to obviate the necessity of native porters, so hard to obtain without the assistance of the ivory slave-dealers. He had

made every sort of preparation, almost with his own hands, with regard to pack-saddles and general equipage, so that when he arrived at Gondokoro, after a voyage up the flat reedy part of the White Nile, of about six weeks, he really seemed to be master of the situation, for his animals were all in good order. Here he amused himself a little time waiting for the confirmation of reports, and for the return of ivory parties. He stayed here from February 3d to March 20th; distrusted as a spy, only hearing, whenever they approached the depôt of a trader, the clank of the irons as the slaves were driven out of sight. One of the slave-traders here was a Copt, father of the American Consul at Khartoum, and these brigands arrived at Gondokoro with the stars and stripes flying at the mast-head. It is noticeable that there are Consuls at Khartoum for France, Austria, and America; we have also our Petherick in and about these parts. But we were a little puzzled to know what interests Austria has in these regions sufficiently great to make her keep a mission going? The answer is, that they are simply religious, and very greatly to her credit. Her efforts, however, have been without the slightest results,-if we except the martyrdom, by disease, of fifteen or sixteen noble priests.

We have before alluded to Mr. Baker's meeting with Speke and Grant here at Gondokoro. At the first sight of them he had concluded that his expedition was concluded, but after the enthusiastic greetings were over, he found that it was not so. Speke told him all he had done, and also all that he had been forced to leave undone. He had found a noble river, which he thought must undoubtedly be the Great White Nile itself, issuing from the north end of the Victoria N'yanza, pouring over the Ripon falls, which he had explored for fifty miles to the north-west; that he knew this river again after an hiatus of some sixty or sixty-five miles, lower down; that he had traced it past Kamrasi's capital at M'rooli, for fifty miles, as far as the Karuma Falls, but had there been obliged to leave it, in consequence of the tribes being at war with Kamrasi,-this refers to Rionga, the truculent brother of Kamrasi, whom Kamrasi was always begging Speke to exterminate for him; that he knew that after this the Nile went into the Luta N'zigé (Dead Locust lake) and immediately emerged. The verification of the river from the Karuma Falls to the Little Lake,' and the examination of that lake, was what remained of the laurels for Baker to gather. Mr. Baker has gathered them, and the Little Luta N'zigé' is the 'Little' no more. It is undoubtedly one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, and there is every probability that it is the very largest.

Inadequacy of space, combined with a sheer disgust, pre

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