and Goat Islands. Next day Captain Robson went on shore to a town which we saw from the ship apparently deserted. In the evening he returned with the boat nearly full of ducks and geese. It appeared the town had been deserted by the Spaniards in 1811: they call the island Soledada; we found it well stocked with cattle, horses, ducks, geese, &c. We cleared away the gardens, planted various seeds, and on the 27th, having completed the rigging, and taken in our stores, stood out of the sound, with a S. W. wind.While we lay at these islands the people had fresh beef and vegetables daily. Cape St. Vincent and Cape Pembroke form the entrance of this sound; the former in lat. 51 d. 26 m. S. and lon. 57 d. 54 m. W.; the latter, in lat. 51, 56, S. and same longitude.The sound is about three leagues deep and about three miles wide in the middle. Ships bound into this sound must give Cape Vincent a wide birth, on account of a reef that runs about a mile off the Point: and it is particularly advisable for such as are going round Cape Horn to touch here in preference to calling at Rio de Janeiro.

We encountered very severe weather going round the Cape; our surgeon, John Jameson departed this life 26th May, and was committed to the deep with the usual ceremonies. Nothing of moment occurred until the 22d June, when a young man of the name of Thomas Smoke came aft and divulged a most villainous design, planned by four of the men. Their horrid purpose was to rise in the middle watch, which it happened I was to keep, and throw me overboard; one of the party was then to go to the cabin, and dispatch the captain, and the others were to murder the officers in the half deck. They had asked Smoke if he could navigate the ship to the Spanish Main for them: he answered that he could, and thus frustrated their treachery. Having put us on our guard, we went forward, but not below, and made preparations for the villains in as private a way as possible. I wished to secure them immediately,

but captain Robson declined doing so till the morning, it being then dark.We armed all the officers in the half deck, and opened a door which led from the cabin to that birth; we then unhinged the doors and put them below. Midnight came, and I succeed

ed to the watch. I went on deck armed with three pair of pistols. My first care was to look round and see that every thing was right; I then called down the forecastle, to know if the watch were coming on deck: the answer was 'Ay, ay, sir.' Shortly after, one of them came on deck, and relieved the helm, but none of the others made their appearance. At day-light, we called them one at a time, and secured them in irons. Towards noon one of them requested to be taken out of irons, and to make confession. His deposition was accordingly taken by Capt. Robson.

On the 29th June we made Cape Orford, on the coast of New Albion, and on the 6th July saw Cape Disappointment, the north point of Columbia river. Lat. 46, 19, N. lon. 123, W. We stood close in with the bar, fired a gun, tacked ship in 6 1-2 fathoms dark sand, about half a mile from the breakers. Next day we stood in, and perceived an Indian canoe paddling towards us. She soon came

alongside, and we lowered the boat down, and I took one of the Indians. with me to sound before the ship. The least water we had was 3 1-2 fathoms on the bar. On sounding Cape Disappointment, an Indian village opened to our view, consisting of about 50 miserable huts. The Indians were all busily employed, launching their canoes, and pushing off towards the ship. At three o'clock, we anchored under Cape Disappointment in Baker's Bay, about a mile from the village, and were visited by about 30 canoes, with men, women, and children, most of whom had flat heads. We put sentries on immediately, and ran our boarding defence out, to the great astonishment of the natives.

IN

N former notices of this interesting volume, we had accompanied the author from Moscow to Tabreez, and stated that he was about to leave the latter city in the suite of the prince, Abbas Mirza, who was going to Teheran to celebrate the feast of Nowroose, commencing 21st of March. They set out on the 3d in grand cavalcade. As the route is well known, we shall only select such particulars occurring upon it, as seem worthy of observation. On the fourth day of their journey, they arrived at Mianna, which Mandeville describes as "lyinge in the way from Thauriso (Tabreez) towards the East, where no Cristene man may long dwelle, no enduren with life in that cytee, but dyen within short tyme, and no man knowethe the cause.' This was written nearly five hundred years ago; but what was mistery then, has been explained in after-ages."***"It is at the hazard of a stranger's life, if the lodgings he is made to occupy be not perfectly fresh and clean; for the town, and its immediately adjacent villages, are infested with a plague, they have found it impossible to eradicate, in the form of a small but poisonous bug. It breeds in myriads in all the old houses, and may be seen creeping over every part of their walls, of the size and shape of the bugs in Europe, only a little flatter, and in colour of a bright red. Its bite is mortal, producing death at the expiration of eight or nine months. Strangers of every sort, not merely foreigners, but persons not usually in habiting the town and its vicinity, are liable to be thus poisoned; while the people themselves, or the adjacent peasantry, are either never bitten, or, if so, the consequences are not more baneful to them than the sting of the least noxious insect. The fatal effect of this bug, however, upon payneme,' as well 'as Cristene men,' if they are strangers, being known as an absolute fact, every precaution is taken accordingly by native and foreign travellers."

At Irak the memory of the unfortunate Mr. Browne was still fresh, and the circumstances which attended this catastrophe, five or six years ago, are detailed with greater precision, than we have before met with; and therefore, though the public is acquainted with the general fact, we shall make no excuse for extracting this painfully interesting story.

"This gentleman was a man of indefatigable research, with a persevering industry, in acquiring the means of pursuing his object, equal to the enterprising spirit with which be breasted every difficulty in his way. Previous to his going to Persia, be had stopped some time at Constantinople, to perfect himself in the Turkish language; and before he left that city, he spoke it like a native. From a mistaken idea of facilitating his progress amongst the dif ferent Asiatic nations through which he might have occasion to pass, in the route he had laid down for himself, he assumed the Turkish dress. Being thus equipped, he set forward, with an intent to penetrate through Khorasan, and thence visit the unexplored and dangerous regions south of the Caspian, closing his researches in that direction at Astrakhan. During the early part of his Persian journey, he had a conference with his Britannic Majesty's ambassador, Sir George Ouseley; and at Oujon, was admited to an audience of the Persian king. So little was danger from attacks of any kind apprehended by the persons best acquainted with the state of the country,, that no difficulties whatever were suggested as likely to meet him; and, accordingly, he proceeded in full confidence. Having reached this pass of Irak, he stopped at the caravansary I have just described, to take a little refreshment. That over, he remounted his horse; and leaving his servant to pack up the articles he had been using, and then follow him, he rode gently forward along the mountains. Mr. Browne

had scarcely proceeded half a mile, when suddenly two men on foot came up behind him; one of whom, with a blow from a club, before he was aware, struck him senseless from his horse. Several other villains, at the same instant, sprung from hollows in the hills, and bound him hand and foot. At this moment they offered him no further personal violence; but as soon as he had recovered from the stupor occasioned by the first mode of attack, he looked round, and saw the robbers plundering both his baggage and his servant; the man having come forward on the road, in obedience to the commands of his master. When the depredators found their victim restored to observation, they told him it was their intention to put an end to his life, but that was not the place where the final stroke should be made. Mr. Browne, incapable of resistance, calmly listened to his own sentence, but entreated them to spare his poor servant, and allow him to depart with his papers, which could be of no use to them. All this they granted; and, what may appear still more extraordinary, these ferocious brigands, to whom the acquisition of arms must be as the staff of life, made the man a present of his master's pistols, and doublebarrelled-gun; but they were English, and the marks might have betrayed the new possessors. These singular robbers then permitted Mr. Browne to see his servant safe out of sight before they laid further hands on himself; af ter which they carried him, and the property they had reserved for themselves, into a valley on the opposite side of the Kizzilonzan, and without further parley terminated his existence, it is supposed, by strangulation. They stripped his corpse of every part of its raiment, a prey to wolves and other wild animals. The servant, meanwhile, made the best of his way towards Tabreez, where he related the tale I have just told.

"Abbas Mirza immediately despatched several parties of horsemen; some into the pass of the caravansary, to search its neighborhood, and others towards the spot where the circumstantial details of the man, repeating what he had heard pass between the mur

derers, made it likely that Mr. Browne was to receive the fatal blow. After diligent search, the body was found in the latter place, in the condition I have described, and by the prince's orders brought carefully to Akhand, and buried with decency. His royal highness made every exertion to discover the perpetrators of this nefarious deed; but to this moment the individuals remain unknown; though hardly doubt exists, that the people who committed it, were part of some roving and desparate band of Kurds, who could not resist the temptation of an almost solitary traveller."

We believe that suspicions of another kind have been entertained, but as Sir R. Porter does not seem to countenance them, we shall hope they were unfounded.

The south of Persia (which is most picturesquely painted) and other countries to which he turned his steps from Teheran on the 13th of May, furnish matter of still greater novelty. In the beginning, Sir Robert pursued the old track of Chardin in 1686, and found wondrous changes in the habitations of men; cities having become deserts, though none have sprung up to replace those which have vanished. Ispahan is fortunately reviving under the protecting hand of the king's second minister, who is its governor. Among its other marvels, the following is deserving of notice, as an illustration of oriental taste and splendor:

"The Chehel Seloon, or Palace of Forty Pillars, was the favourite residence of the latter Sefi kings; and certainly, when we turned into the grand avenue, and the palace broke upon us, I thought description was put to silence. Indeed, words can seldom give any thing like a just idea of very intricate objects of sight; but, for the satisfaction of my readers, curious in comparing the taste of times and countries, I shall attempt some detail of this Persian Versailles. The exhaustless profusion of its splendid materials, reflected, not merely their own golden or crystal lights on each other, but all the variegated colours of the garden; so that the whole surface seemed formed of polished silver and mother-of-pearl,