Hence, Dr. Thomson proceeded by the Takhti and Singhi passes to the valley of the Indus, which he joined at Kalatze on the 7th of July. The first of these passes was 16,360 feet, the second 16,500 feet, above the level of the sea. From this latter place he ascended the valley of the Indus to Le, where he met Captain Strachey, who had wintered there, and since that had been on an exploring journey to the eastward. After a week's stay, he set out for Nubra, crossing this time the lofty chain which separates the two rivers by the pass directly north of Le, which, during the summer months, presents no difficulty. On the 26th of July he crossed the Shayuk, and remained from the 27th till the 9th of August in the valley of Nubra, making the necessary preparations for his further journey, which was to be entirely through an uninhabited country. At length he started on the 9th from the village of Taksha, his first day's journey lying up the valley of the Nubra river, by the same road that is followed by merchants in travelling from Le to Yarkand. On the 10th, he commenced the ascent of the mountains which enclosed the valley on the east, reaching the crest, 17,600 feet, on the 13th, and descending thence to the upper valley of Shayuk. The road was in places lined by numerous skeletons and scattered bones of horses that had perished on the journey. The pass was also obstructed by snow, glaciers, and moraines. Passing the Shayuk, hemmed in at this point by glaciers and enormous precipices, our traveller reached, on the 15th, the encamping-ground, called by the Turki merchants Murgai, at an elevation of 15,100 feet. On the 16th, the road lay partly along the course of a stream, sometimes in its bed, and partly over rocks and ravines with glaciers, till a place of encampment was found on a gravelly plain, nearly 16,000 feet above the sea. High, rugged, precipitous mountains, with snowy tops, rose on both sides of the road during the whole of that day's journey. On the 17th the road lay entirely along the same gravelly plain, which contracted into a ravine just as he halted for the day. The height of the encampment was 16,700 feet. On the 18th of August, after following for a few hundred yards the course of the stream through a narrow, rocky gorge, the road turned abruptly to the right, up a dry stony ravine. By degrees, as he increased his elevation, superb snowy mountains came in sight to the south-west, and on attaining the top of the ascent, an open, gravelly, somewhat undulating plain lay before him. This great table-land of the Kuenlun was, at least, 17,000 feet above the level of the sea. There was no snow on it, except one patch close to its highest part. The only living beings seen were a few ravens, a hoopoe, and a small bird somewhat like a sparrow. Tufts of moss-like plants were the only vegetation. It was a true alpine wilderness! Our traveller encamped on the plains at an elevation of 17,200 feet, with little or no fuel, and suffering from constant headache, brought on by the rarefaction of the air. On the 19th of August, leaving his tent standing, Dr. Thomson studied Tibetan at Le, in Ladak, with a view to discovering the origin of the Huns, buried himself for some years, living the life of a hermit, upon an allowance granted him by the Company. Among the curious literary discoveries made by this Tibetan linguist was an accurate translation of Virgil. It appears that he afterwards went to Padum, in the still more secluded mountain district of the Zanskaries. started to visit the Kara Kuram pass, the limit of his journey to the northward. The country round my halting-place was open, except to the north, where a stream descended through a narrow valley from a range of hills, the highest part of which was apparently about 3000 feet above me. All the rivers had formed for themselves depressions in the platform of gravel which was spread over the plain. At first I kept on the south bank of the river close to which I had halted, but about a mile from camp I crossed a large tributary which descended from the south-west, and soon after, turning round the rocky termination of a low range of hills, entered a narrow valley which came from a little west of north-west. At the foot of the rocky point of the range were three very small huts, built against the rock as a place of shelter for travellers, in case of stormy or snowy weather; and bones of horses were here scattered about the plain in greater profusion than usual. I ascended this valley for about six miles; its width varied from 200 yards to about half a mile, gradually widening as I ascended. The slope was throughout gentle. An accumulation of alluvium frequently formed broad and gently sloping banks, which were cut into cliffs by the river. Now and then large tracts covered with glacial boulders were passed over; and several small streams were crossed, descending from the northern mountains through narrow ravines. About eight miles from my starting-point the road left the bank of the stream, and began to ascend obliquely and gradually on the sides of the hills. The course of the valley beyond where I left it continued unaltered, sloping gently up to a large snow-bed, which covered the side of a long sloping ridge four or five miles off. After a mile, I turned suddenly to the right, and, ascending very steeply over fragments of rock for four or five hundred yards, I found myself on the top of the Karakoram pass-a rounded ridge connecting two hills which rose somewhat abruptly to the height of perhaps 1000 feet above me. The height of the pass was 18,200 feet, the boiling-point of water being 180·8 deg., and the temperature of the air about 50 deg. Towards the north, much to my disappointment, there was no distant view. On that side the descent was steep for about 500 yards, beyond which distance a small streamlet occupied the middle of a very gently sloping valley, which curved gradually to the left, and disappeared behind a stony ridge at the distance of half a mile. The hills opposite to me were very abrupt, and rose a little higher than the pass; they were quite without snow, nor was there any on the pass itself, though large patches lay on the shoulder of the hill to the right. To the south, on the opposite side of the valley which I had ascended, the mountains, which were sufficiently high to exclude entirely all view of the lofty snowy mountain seen the day before, were round-topped and covered with snow. Vegetation was entirely wanting on the top of the pass, but the loose shingle with which it was covered was unfavourable to the growth of plants, otherwise, no doubt, lichens at least would have been seen. Large ravens were circling about overhead, apparently quite unaffected by the rarity of the atmosphere, as they seemed to fly with just as much ease as at the level of the sea. The great extent of the modern alluvial deposit concealed in a great measure the ancient rocks. At my encampment a ridge of very hard limestone, dipping at a high angle, skirted the stream. Further up the valley a hard slate occurred, and in another place a dark blue slate, containing much iron pyrites, and crumbling rapidly when exposed to the atmosphere. Fragments of this rock were scattered over the plain in all states of decay. On the crest of the pass the rock in situ was limestone, showing obscure traces of fossils, but too indistinct to be determined; the shingle, which was scattered over the ridge, was chiefly a brittle black clay-slate. While travelling at these great elevations the weather was uniformly serene and beautiful. There was but little wind, and the sky was bright and cloudless. At night the cold was severe, and the edges of the streams were in the morning always frozen. On his return, Dr. Thomson visited the magnificent glaciers of Sassar, beyond which he was reluctantly compelled to return by the same route to Le, which he reached just in time to escape some very unsettled weather. On the 15th of September he left Le for Kashmir, taking the road to Kalatze first, and then across the Phatu and Namika passes to Kardas, where he joined the Dras road. From Kashmir he proceeded towards the plains of the Punjab by the same route which he had travelled in May. Unfortunately for him, the second Sikh war had broken out during his absence, and, as it was then at its height, it was not easy to reach the British territories. He was, therefore, detained a good while, first in Kashmir, and afterwards at Jamu, and ultimately brought his truly remarkable and adventurous journey to a close at Lahore, on the 16th of December. I CANNOT LEAVE OLD ENGLAND. BY J. E. CARPENTER. I CANNOT leave old England, My lot will still be clouded It is not wealth I covet, The blessings, few or many, That Heaven may deign to spare. I never more may see; I cannot leave the green fields While some are left to love me, I cannot leave old England, Oh! may their lot be brighter Life's sun will soon be setting; FEMALE NOVELISTS. No. VI. THE AUTHOR OF "MARGARET MAITLAND." AFTER a protracted reign of dulness, the fiction of Scottish life has lately given promise of renewing its youth. People had become weary of the insipidities perpetrated by countless imitators of Scott, Wilson, and Galt. It was enough for a time, to have on one's shelves an Antiquary with his home circle, a Rob Roy with his cateran kith and kin, a Waverley with his lowland and highland connexions, ranging with such worthies as Lockhart's Adam Blair and Matthew Wald, and Miss Ferrier's iron-nerved spinsters, and Mrs. Johnstone's west-country vulgarians, and Wilson's Lyndsays and Foresters, and Galt's parish annalists, and Moir's sartorial heroes. So that when Lilliputian Scotts, and fractions of Galt, reduced to their lowest terms, grew and multiplied, and covered the Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, laying to its charge things that it knew not, and imputing to its zoology things that it grew not-a reaction set in, the "land of cakes and brither Scots" was voted a bore, and the world of circulating libraries indignantly repudiated the position that Caledonia was a theme of infinite variety, which no custom could stale, no age wither. But satiety is curable with time. And when, after a due lapse of days and years, there appeared a new pattern of the tartan, a new bloom and fragrance in the heather, a new glory in the thistle, "symbol dear" to not a few of the long-headed as well as to the long-eared-when the voice of Auld Reekie's arch-critic was heard to steal from the solitudes of Craigcrook, bearing witness to a new aspirant in fiction, as one whose delineation of Scottish character was as true and touching as the "Annals of the Parish," purer and deeper than Galt, and even more absolutely and simply true-when Jeffrey did homage to the heroine as a conception so original, and yet so true to nature, and to Scottish nature, that it was far beyond anything that Galt could reach-when he profusely eulogised her sweet thoughtfulness, and pure, gracious, idiomatic Scotch-and when Mr. Colburn had promptly advertised this dictum of approval, what marvel if the tide of popular interest set in with a spring freshness and force to the bleak shores of the north, and a general hush of expectation honoured the ladywizard (witch is an ugly appellation) whose wand was to rule the waves. A Scottish school of fiction revived in full vigour-of purpose, if not of effect; an anonymous galaxy of female talent was to be seen in the novelreader's heaven of mild ethereal "blue." The author of " Mrs. Margaret Maitland" is not to be dismissed with disrespect as a mere tenth-rate planet, even by those who hesitate to worship her as a fixed star. are others of the same group to be lightly esteemed the author of "Olive," for instance, and Miss Douglas-but none is at once so characteristically Scottish and so generally mark-worthy as Mrs. Margaret's biographer. She has probably less of the poetry of pathos and passion than her fair countrywoman who has given us the fortunes of the "Ogilvies," and the heart-struggles of the "Head of the Family." But there is more of subdued wisdom, of mellowed art, of equable manner, of Nor quiet reflectiveness, and of unobtrusive sagacity in the subject of our present sketch. And but that she has evinced something of a disposition to over-write herself or at least to be content with repeating herself "with a difference"-we might augur very promising things in her behalf, and a reputation which shall survive a reaction. We are disappointed if she has yet done her best. Truth to nature-the harvest of a quiet eye, which sees somewhat deeply, if not very widely-an unexaggerated manner, together with a well-defined national individuality (os éros étel)—in these lies the charm of the now celebrated "Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, of Sunnyside." They open admirably; nothing of the kind can be better than the good spinster's reminiscences of early years, when she lay on the grass in the garden of her father's manse, looking at the white clouds sailing upon the sky, and thinking no mortal could be happier if she could but have abode there; or drawn thence into more stirring idleness by her brother Claud, "it being little in the nature of a blythe boy to bide quiet and look at the sky-that I should speak of him so that is a man with grey hairs upon his head, and a father in the kirk; but the years steal by us fast, and folk forget.' If our interest in these life-passages flags by the way, it is because they, with all their linked sweetness, are too long drawn out. Not indeed that they are passages which lead to nothing; but they are a roundabout way of reaching the proposed something. So that the zest with which we launch out from the terminus à quo, abates by a "considerable" heap of jots and tittles ere we arrive at the terminus ad quem. Mistress Maitland confesses her apprehensions that the world may think her bold, being but a quiet woman of discreet years and small riches, in having such an imagination as that it could be the better of hearing the like of her homely story. Her modesty has been greeted with the welcome protestant "No, no!" of her large auditory, who-with Lord Jeffrey as fugleman-have assured her that they are the better for her pleasant apocalypse. But pleasanter it undoubtedly might have been had it been penned in the fear of the somewhat musty but ever wholesome adage, "Enough is as good as a feast," an adage worthy of all acceptation, and enjoying it-witness the undev ayav of the Greeks, and the ne quid nimis of the Latins. The Ladye of Sunnyside is rich in proverbs of this one she is practically ignorant; 'tis true 'tis pity, pity 'tis 'tis true. When matter which should find ample room and verge enough in one volume is ambitious of the Rule of Three, we are apt to "weary" before the quotient is worked out, and (a thing unknown elsewhere) to murmur at the largeness of the dividend. Thus it is possible to be delighted with a first volume, to yawn over a second, and to "play a loud solo on a wind instrument" (a periphrasis of the verb "to snore") over the third. We do not say that we committed either of these two enormities in the perusal of the Sunnyside chronicles; nevertheless, we had, at intervals, a depressing suspicion that the excellent annalist was trenching on the border-land of twaddle. Perhaps, however, this very circumstance aids rather than injures the effect of the book as a whole; just as Richardson's illimitable details are thought to be the secret of his success. Mrs. Maitland would not, perhaps, be herself in one volume; she might cease to handle the pen ready writer, if she tried to be a terse and restrained one. And, therefore, we gladly and gratefully take her as we find her—and that is, as a : of a |