"Good bye, sir. Do me one kindness in return," said I very gravely, for I felt my hour was come.

"And what is that?" replied the negro.

"Tie a shot to my heels, that I may sink quickly; it won't take them long."

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You don't ask me to spare your life then?" replied the negro. "He de very first white dat not ask it," said one of the negroes. "Dat really for true," said another.

"Yes, by gum," replied a third.

Oh, how I wished to know what to say at that moment! The observations of the negroes made me imagine that I had better not ask for it; and yet how I clung to life. It was an awful moment-I felt as if I had lived a year in a few minutes. For a second or two I felt faint and giddy—I drew a long breath and revived.

"You don't answer me, boy," said the negro captain. Why should I ask when I feel certain to be refused? my life, I will thank you: I don't particularly wish to die, "I have taken an oath never to spare a white man. that I cannot break my oath.

If that is all, I am a boy, and not a man," replied I. grow bigger."

I can assure you." If you will give me For once I am sorry

By golly, captain, that very well said. Keep him, captain," said one of the negroes.

"Yes, captain," replied another; "keep him to tend your cabin. Very proper you have white slave boy."

The negro captain for some time made no reply; he appeared to be in deep thought; at last he said,

"Boy, you have saved your life: you may thank yourself, and not me. Prossa, let him be taken below; give him a frock and trousers, and throw that infernal dress overboard, or I may change my resolution."

The negro who was addressed, and who wore a sort of uniform as an officer -which he was, being second mate-led me below, nothing loth, I can assure my readers.

When I was between decks, I sat down upon a chest, my head swam, and I fainted.

*

*

*

After an hour or two, I felt quite recovered, and I thought it advisable to go on deck. I did so, and went right aft to the negro captain, and stood before him.

"Well, boy," said he, "why do you come to me?"

"You gave me my life: : you're the greatest friend I have here, so I come to you. Can I do any thing?"

"Yes; you may assist in the cabin, if your white blood does not curdle at the idea of attending on a black man."

"Not at all. I will do any thing for them who are kind to me, as you have been."

"And think it no disgrace?"

"Not the least. Is it a disgrace to be grateful ?"

The reader will observe how particularly judicious my replies were, although but fifteen years old. My dangerous position had called forth the reflection

and caution of manhood.

"Go down into the cabin; you may amuse yourself till I come."

I obeyed this order. The cabin was fitted up equal to most yachts, with Spanish mahogany and gold mouldings; a buffet full of silver (there was no glass) occupied nearly one-half of it; even the plates and dishes were of the same material. Silver candelabras hung down from the middle of the beams; a variety of swords, pistols, and other weapons, were fixed up against the bulkhead; a small bookcase, chiefly of Spanish books, occupied the after-bulkhead

and the portraits of several white females filled up the intervals; a large table in the centre, a stand full of charts, half-a-dozen boxes of cigars, and two most luxuriant sofas, completed the furniture.

A door from the starboard side led, I presumed, to the state-room, where the captain slept, but I did not venture to open it.

I surveyed all this magnificence, wondering who this personage could be ; and more still, how it was that the whole of the crew were, as well as the captain, of the negro race.

*

I had been down in the cabin about half an hour, when the negro captain made his appearance.

"Well," said he, “ I suppose you would as soon see the devil as me-eh; boy?"

"No, indeed," replied I, laughing-for I had quite recovered my confidence -"for you were about to send me to the devil, and I feel most happy that I still remain with you."

"You're exactly the cut of boy I like," replied he, smiling. "How I wish that you were black-I detest your colour."

"I've no objection to black my face, if you wish it," replied I: it's all the

same to me what colour I am."

He remains for several weeks with the negro-pirate, and then escapes under circumstances which give occasion to a scene that is described with astonishing force and spirit. Here is the conclusion of it. The pirate has been attacked by a British schooner and overpowered.

The fighting was over; there was not one man at his gun; and of those who remained still alive, one or two fell, while I was looking up, from the shot, which continued every minute to pierce the bulwarks. Where was Vincent? I dare not go aft to see. I dare not venture to meet his eye. I dived down below again, and returned aft to the cabin; there was no more demand for powder; not a soul was to be seen abaft. Suddenly the after-hatchway grating was thrown off; I heard some one descend; I knew it was the hurried tread of the negro captain. It was so dark, and the cabin so full of smoke, that coming from the light he did not perceive me, although I could distinguish him. He was evidently badly wounded, and tottered in his walk he came into the cabin, put his hand to his girdle, and felt for his pistol, and then he commenced pulling down the screen, which was between him and the magazine. His intentions were evident; which were to blow up the vessel.

I felt that I had not a moment to lose. I dashed passed him, ran up the ladder, sprung aft to the taffrail, and dashed over the stern into the sea. I was still beneath the surface, having not yet risen from my plunge, when I heard and felt the explosion-felt it, indeed, so powerfully, that it almost took away my senses; so great was the shock, even when I was under the water, that I was almost insensible. I have a faint recollection of being drawn down by the vortex of the sinking vessel, and scrambling my way to the surface of the water, amidst fragments of timbers and whirling bodies. When I recovered myself, I found that I was clinging to a portion of the wreck, in a sort of patch, as it were, upon the deep blue water, dark as ink, and strewed with splintered fragments.

In a few minutes, during which I had quite recovered myself, the boat pulled into the mass of floating fragments, and then the sailors ceased rowing, to look about them. They perceived and pulled towards me-hoisted me in over the gunwale, and laid me at the bottom of the boat. I scrambled on my feet, and would have gone aft, when the midshipman of the boat said to the

men,

"Pass that cursed young pirate forward--don't let him come aft here."

Oh, ho, Mr. Lascelles, thinks I-so you don't know me; you shall know me by and by. I quite forgot that I was stained black, till one of the men, who seized me by the collar to pass me forward, said,

"Hand along the nigger. He's a young one for the gallows, any how."

They handed me forward, and I did not choose to say who I was. My love of fun returned the moment that I was again with my shipmates. After looking well round, and ascertaining that I was the only one left alive, they pulled back to the frigate; and the midshipman went up to report. I was handed up the side, and remained at the break of the gangway, while the captain and first lieutenant were talking with Mr. Lascelles; during which Mr. Tommy Dott came up to me, and, putting his finger to his left ear, gave a cluck with his tongue, as much as to say, "You'll be hanged, my good fellow."

I could not help giving the first masons' sign which I taught to Mr. Green, in return for Tommy's communication; to wit, putting my thumb to my nose, and extending my finger out towards him; at which Tommy Dott expressed much indignation, and called me a precious impudent varmin. The men who

were near us laughed, and said that I was game at all events. No one knew me; for not only was my face well stained, but I was covered from head to foot with a solution of salt-water and gunpowder, which made me still more indistinguishable.

I had remained at the gangway about two minutes, when the first lieutenant said,

"Bring the prisoner here."

I immediately went aft; and as soon as I was standing before Captain Delmar and the first lieutenant-(and behind were all the officers, anxious to hear what I had to disclose)-I put my hand to my head, having no hat, as may be supposed, and said, " Come on board, sir," reporting myself, as is usually the custom of officers when they return from leave or duty.

NEWFOUNDLAND IN 1842.*

NOTWITHSTANDING the somewhat rose-coloured pictures and anticipations which mark the general tone of this work, it would be difficult to over-rate its value and importance, both at the present moment, when the spirit of inquiry is so widely spread abroad as to the interesting colony to which it relates, and in that improved "hereafter" which it will greatly assist in bringing about.

At no period since its discovery in 1497, by that most illustrious of early navigators, Sebastian Cabot, has Newfoundland been free from the cabals and calumnies of those, both at home and on the island itself, whose narrow and sordid interests impelled them to belie this interesting and important scene of British enterprise, precisely in proportion to their own belief in the value and virtue of the thing maligned. The inexhaustible riches of the fisheries of Newfoundland, and the enormous profits arising from the working of them under the old system, induced those who were fortunate enough to gain possession of this mine of commercial wealth to unite with one accord in spreading stories of its unknown recesses being haunted with all sorts of evil things, hoping thereby to deter other adventurers from interfering with their gains. It was admitted on all hands that the island and its fisheries formed a capital nursery and school for our sea

* Newfoundland in 1842: a Sequel to Canada in 1841. By Sir Richard Bonnycastle, Bart., Lieutenant-colonel of the Royal Engineers. 2 vols.

men, and that the place was worth preserving on this account;-but that, as a place of permanent settlement, even for the labourers themselves who worked the mine, much less for the general purposes of colonization, it was a toss up between Newfoundland and the North Pole. It is the object and effect of this work to dispel this injurious. prejudice, and to prove beyond question, that all things considered, both for and against the various scenes to which the spirit of British enterprise has extended, there is no one more fitted for the purposes of those who seek to transfer their labour to a distant soil, than that of the healthy, prosperous, and rapidly-improving island which is at the same time the key to our Canadian possessions. And if this inference is perhaps rather too strongly and perseveringly enforced in the mere opinions and conclusions of the writer, these are so amply borne out by the array of facts and statistical data which he brings to bear upon them-or rather, from which he deduces them-that the error we have referred to (if error it be) is one of taste and tact rather than of principle.

Sir Richard Bonnycastle brings to the task of delineating the various features of this our oldest yet least known colony, the same advantages and facilities which attended him in his work of last year on Canada : he holds a military appointment in the island of precisely that nature which at once calls upon and qualifies him to obtain the species of knowledge which he now takes upon himself to disseminate. There is no class of men who make better travellers, and writers of their travels, than the engineer officers of the British army,-chiefly in virtue of that scientific knowledge which to a certain extent they are bound to possess. added to that energy and spirit of enterprise which so favourably distinguish them. But in addition to these, the present writer possesses a shrewdness of observation, a strong and plain good sense, and a practical knowledge of other countries, in the absence of any one of which little faith can be placed in the accounts of any one writing of a land regarding which the large majority of his readers are ignorant, except through books.

The result in the present instance, is a work from the perusal of which the intended emigrant may gain, we are satisfied, a much more clear and specific notion of the country to which it relates, and of the degree in which that country is adapted or not adapted, to his plans and purposes, than he could possibly do even by a limited and superficial examination of that country for himself. And in this light it is that the work before us will be found chiefly valuable-as a complete picture of "Newfoundland in 1842"-its physical, social, and political position, its productions in every department of Natural History, its capabilities, its prospects, and its various relations with distant and with neighbouring countries. To this end no pains have been spared, and no facilities have been wanting; and there can be little doubt that the result, though taking the unassuming form of two small volumes that the reader may use as guides and pocket companions, will at once take their place, both at home and in the colony itself, as presenting at one view all that is or need be known about a country of which hitherto its own inhabitants have been for the most part both ignorant and indifferent.

RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS IN 1842.

But

THIS book is quite a curiosity in its way,—at least so far as it proceeds for it is the first volume alone that is before us, comprising "St. Petersburg"-the remainder of "Russia" being to come. in the mean time, St. Petersburg is Russia, much more truly and emphatically than Paris is France, as it is said to be: and of all the "pictures" extant of any great modern capital (and there are as many score as there are great capitals), there is none that can for a moment compare with this one of M. Kohl, either for the comprehensiveness of its outline, or the minute precision of its details-either for the spirit and vivacity of its various groupings, or the accuracy and truth of its individual figures-either for the amount of actual knowledge and information conveyed, or the effective and artist-like manner of conveying it. And we verily believe that the reason why this "picture in little" of the great northern capital is superior to any one that has ever before been drawn of a similar kind is, that the task of drawing such pictures is usually assigned to native artists, on the principle that they must necessarily know more of their own habits and customs, their own ways and means," and their own "whereabout," than a foreigner can possibly do whereas the direct reverse is the case. The lookeron sees more of the game than its players do; and M. Kohl, who is an industrious and clear-headed German looker-on upon Russia, has contrived to see and say more of the country and the people, during the period he has resided among them, than any one of themselves, or all of them together, have hitherto said at least, whatever they may have seen. Indeed we know of no other work of its kind that is at once so complete and satisfactory, both as regards design and execution: about London or Paris we have certainly nothing to compare with it. And by the vivid and picturesque method of putting every thing before us, the writer avoids that dryness which is the ordinary result of mere descriptive detail.

66

As nothing but examples can convey a fair impression of the quality of this extremely useful and entertaining work, we shall give a few brief ones, though their necessary brevity must impair the completeness of their effect as parts merely of a complete whole respectively.

The Lower Classes of St. Petersburg.-In London and Paris, and likewise in some of the German cities, there are quarters which seem to be the real residence of hunger and misery, the haunts of a filthy, ragged, immoral race, where the houses present the same squalid and wretched appearance as their inmates, and poverty, want, and wickedness steal along the dirty streets in a thousand hideous shapes. This is not the case in Petersburg. Rag-collectors, daring pickpockets, half-naked cripples, importunate beggars, are unknown in this stately capital. Nay, there is not a town in Russia where the streets are infested by such persons. For this advantage Russia is indebted to the villanage of the lower classes of the people. As all the little support themselves upon the great, none of them can sink so low as among us, where every one wants to stand upon his own legs. The notions current among us, that in Russian cities magnificent palaces and wretched huts are huddled together, are founded on falsehood or misconception. In no Russian towns