What took place beyond the wall we could not say, but after the lapse of a few minutes we saw them all returning in quite a different order of succession. Those which had been last before were now first, and those which had been first were now last.

Peter Simple and Matchless were making strenuous efforts to regain their places, but St. Leger and Young Lottery led the way, followed closely by Discount, Gazely, and Switcher.

It was a splendid sight this pack of horses in full flight, smoking, bathed with foam, their eyes on fire, and their nostrils of a blood-red hue; and the riders, with their red, black, and blue caps, and their scarlet, cerulean, and striped jackets, their white leather breeches, and their pretty top boots, bent over the neck of their steeds, and cutting their shoulders with the whip, all urged by an impulse that had now reached the climax of intensity. It appeared as if the riders were lifting their horses to fling them to the winning-post.

Six horses came in at the same moment. To the spectators who were not at right angles, the distance between them was not appreciable. But St. Leger beat the others by a head, if not more, while Young Lottery and Discount were but a trifle in advance of Switcher and Gazely.

This first event over, a steeple-chase of gentleman-riders followed. Five horses entered: Mary Jane, Victress, Deodora, the Roarer, and Mameluke; MM. de Perregaux and de Montecot represented France in feats of horsemanship so especially Anglican, with more courage than good fortune. Their steeds fell several times without their losing their seats; M. de Montecot, thrown into the river with his horse, scarcely moved in his saddle. Victress, ridden by Mr. Ricardo, came in first, fully justifying her name; Mameluke followed her closely.

Notwithstanding the numerous falls, there were no accidents. The riders got off with a good wetting or a coating of mud. Every thing went off in the happiest manner possible, thanks to the precautions taken by the intelligent and active stewards, Messrs. D'Hedouville, Lecouteulx, Count Guy de la Tour du Pin, and Sir William Massey Stanley.

An abundant collection was also made by the priest of the village in the stands and at the carriage-doors for the poor.

The steeple-chase of the Croix de Berny has given rise to several new fashions. Among others, to a kind of cape, upon which the stormy Hyades, to speak like Boileau, may pour forth the contents of their urns for twenty-four hours without the least inconvenience to the wearer. Most of the ladies, indeed, looked after the races like solar spectres, or various coloured ices just about to melt, the rain having mingled the colours of their dresses in the most fantastical manner.

Notwithstanding the horrible weather, the receipts amounted to 28,000 francs, and every one wet through, but happy, found their way back to Paris, amidst the most triumphant noises, and the most terrific deluge of mud that ever attempted to drown a festival.

LITERATURE.

ROUGH RECOLLECTIONS.*

THE happy and hearty mess of the 2nd battalion 22nd Regiment luckily serves as an excellent introduction to stories of strange venture and hairbreadth escapes from snakes, tigers, and Thugs innumerable. Premising, however, that the tale of the Christian, the Brahmin, and the Hebrew delivered up to the tiger as a test of faith, has more the character of a rude Oriental allegory or modern apologue than of a veritable history.

One of the Thug adventures is excellent. The discovery of the human arm in the clump of the Webera shrub rivets attention. The red cornelian signet ring promises a plot. The young bridegroom Jaffer has fallen by the accursed noose of the Phansigars! Then the arrival of the brother Hassan Ali, with his ten or twelve armed followers-the search in the jungle, and the discovery of a second corpse sitting bolt upright, entangled among pond weeds, in a deep, muddy pool of stagnant water, furnishes, it would be imagined, a picturesque climax. But no, a most agreeable surprise remains for all parties. Jaffer, after the roomal or kerchief has been thrown round his neck, had been saved by a party of Kulals or spirit brewers, gathering the berry of the Bassia latifolia in the jungle, and the corpse mangled by the jackals, and that saved by the water from wild beasts, were those of the "Banchut surs," the cursed swine of Thugs, one of whom had made away with Jaffer's ring, previous to the struggle for life and death.

A visit to the great tombs of Beejapore, one of which, the Burra Gumbuz, or "the great dome," has a cupola larger than that of St. Paul's, possesses within itself a deep and solemn interest. We can readily sympathise with the wanderer taking up his silent and solitary abode for three long days amid these ruins. The dark arches, the mouldering spires and minarets glowing in the golden sunset, the shrub clad walls, are now fitting monuments for a dynasty of murdered or of murdering kings, whose shadows are still said to flit about in the vast and deserted city. In such a place the author truly remarks, "society would be a mockery."

But it remained to Major Campbell to give reality to such a scene by tracking out a "mother of the Ghowls" who dwelt in the dry bottom of an exhausted bowry or well, in which, seated on her haunches, she cooked her rice, fattened as she fancied with the flesh of a much-beloved child. There had been many years before a fearful dookal or famine.

Hoormut was the young handsome wife of Ali Khan, the favourite hujambarber of Beejapore; they were a youthful and a happy pair, locked up in their love for each other, and in their affection for their only offspring, a beauteous boy of tender age. For a time they struggled, as did others, with the prevailing calamity but an epidemic, arising from palpable causes, broke out among the people, and poor Hoormut became a widow. Whether from the hour of Ali's death insanity took possession of her mind or not, is not known; but she was seen soon afterwards with her wasted boy- her dying Sulimansitting beside an old tomb, devouring some wretched offal, with which, in vain,

Rough Recollections of Rambles abroad and at home. By Calder Campbell, author of "The Palmer's Last Lesson," &c. 3 vols. T. C. Newby, London.

she tried to feed her child. Two days afterwards rain fell heavily! grain, too, came in from Poona, and my father (for the story is related by a certain Ibrahim Fakir) went in search of Hoormut. He found her-but how found he her? Alas! in her little cabin he found her, seated beside the hacked and hewn corpse of her boy! One limb suspended by a string, was roasting before a huge firethe others lay scattered before her, and she herself-sole queen of this sad kingdom of despair-was singing aloud, in the deplorable exhilaration of incurable madness! No portion of her poor child's body was missing, so that the dreadful food had not entered her lips, and it was concluded that he had died a natural death; but in the wild fits of her frenzy, she is accustomed to accuse herself of having slain and eaten him, calling herself by the strange and appalling title of the Madur-i-ghowl.

THE CONNAUGHT RANGERS.*

THE 88th regiment, commonly called the Connaught Rangers, was not in the highest repute at the time that it first formed part of the third division in the Peninsula under General Picton. The story of the Connaught Ranger, stumbled upon by that brave officer and strict disciplinarian with a huge goat on his back, and as usual, forgiven for his national quickness in repartee, speaks volumes as to the little frailties in the men's characters. True, they may have only been " as great marauders as their neighbours," but perchance they were "more successful,” and this drew attention to their feats in that line.

Be this, however, as it may, the steady loyalty, and brilliant achievements in the field of these gallant fellows from the far west, effaced all stains of petty marauding. The 88th, although at that period one of the strongest and most effective regiments in the army, did not count more than five hundred bayonets ! but the 88th did not lose a man by desertion, while many regiments lost their scores. The 88th also belonged to what was denominated, parenthetically, the "fighting division," and a more determined and more dashing set of fellows was not to be met in that division.

At Busaco, the repulse of the main column of the enemy, which had gained the heights, was, according to Mr. Grattan, solely effected by the Connaught Rangers, assisted by four companies of the 45th. This action was indeed a most brilliant one, and was witnessed by Lord Wellington and Colonel Napier. The affair at Fuentes d'Onore was also, according our partial historian, settled by the Connaught Rangers. So also the favoured 88th stand prominent at the storming of Cuidad Rodrigo and Badajoz, and at the decisive engagement at Salamanca. We have no objections to this esprit de corps, which battles with the pen for the distinction due, either to individual or regimental exertions. It is evident, however, that there is a just medium in such claims, to overstep which is as rash as it is fatal. The very fact, however, of the peculiarities belonging to the Connaught Rangers, the combination of dashing bravery, with a spice of roguery, and love of fun, impart to their adventures in the Peninsula and in Canada, an interest which could belong to almost no other regiment, and this brave, if eccentric battalion, has found an excellent historian in its worthy lieutenant.

* Adventures of the Connaught Rangers from 1808 to 1814. By William Grattan, Esq., late Lieut., Connaught Rangers, in 2 vols. Henry Colburn.

THE ANCIENT WORLD.*

PROFESSOR ANSTED's sketches of the ancient world fill up a great desideratum in modern literature. Modesty and diffidence, it has been justly remarked, should be the guides of those who seek to penetrate into the ages antecedent to man and his works. But they have not hitherto been made so. Scientific geologists have been too much occupied with details, to have had either the leisure or will to popularise the result of their labours, or to indulge in any generalities, that did not come within the province of their immediate researches. The facts contained in the natural history of creation were thus left to be developed by more showy, but utterly hypothetical writers of a pseudo-scientific school. Professor Ansted has done great service to the cause by taking the subject out of such dangerous hands, and while he has treated it in a sufficiently popular style to render the facts comprehensible to all; he has, at the same time, adhered to that severity of detail and deduction, which the true philosopher ought never to lose sight of, however inviting, however wondrous may be the field of his investigation; and none can be more so than the varying phases of the ancient world, and its surprising and almost fantastic creations!

Professor Ansted remarks, very truly, that if it is thought discreditable to an educated person to be unacquainted with the history of the people of his own country, it ought surely to be considered of importance that he should possess some degree of knowledge also concerning this much wider range of history. We quite agree with this view of the subject. The history of man, although distinct, is still inseparable, from that of the earth, his abode. The mightiest revolutions of the latter have taken place, for the most part, in a time anterior to the first appearance of man on its surface; and laws and principles of nature were at that period in operation which have since either totally ceased, or have changed their character; yet, in a history of the origin and progress of the human race, that of the earth cannot be passed over in perfect silence. Its changes and periods form a necessary part of the great chain of causes and effects, established and conducted by the mighty Being, whose power gave existence to all; and we feel assured that the time is not far distant when the History of Creation will constitute an essential elementary and introductory chapter to history in general.

ZAMBA, THE AFRICAN KING AND SLAVE.†

THE Life and Adventures of the African prince and slave are replete with deep and sad interest. It is a genuine and interesting sketch of African domestic manners.

When Sheikh Zamba-for it is absurd to dignify those little patriarchal independencies of a dozen villages or less, by the title of kingdoms

The Ancient World; or, Picturesque Sketches of Creation. By D. T. Ansted, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., Professor of Geology in King's College, London. John van Voorst.

†The Life and Adventures of Zamba, an African Negro-King; and his Experience of Slavery in South Carolina, written by himself. Corrected and Arranged by Peter Neilson. Smith, Elder, and Co.

-after being taught by a scheming American slaver to read his Bible, and rendered discontented with wife and home, was induced to visit, with gold and followers, the more civilised America; we do not know which feeling pains us most, pity for the decoyed, or indignation at the decoyer.

The sequel of his history is soon told. Captain Winton seizes upon the travelling prince, his gold and his followers, converts the gold to his own uses, and consigns the human beings to slavery, converting living flesh also into the same ambitioned dross. This may be imagined to be a thing impossible in the times we live in. Not at all. Zamba could speak English, could explain his case on his arrival at Charleston, the city of an imaginary civilised people; but no one would believe him, and the "law" of the country does not receive the oath or the asseveration of a race to whom the rights of man are denied. The prince became a slave, and lived a life of painful toil and unmerited persecution. But the illgained gold did not prosper with the inhuman captain, he became a pauper, and was ultimately killed in a duel. Zamba recovered, more than he deserved, his wife, whom he had so shamefully abandoned—and he so prospered in his education, as to be able to communicate to the public these particulars of an eventful life, which is truly adapted to shame (if any thing could produce so desirable an effect) the Americans of the southern states, out of their atrocious trade in human beings.

HOME INFLUENCE.*

ONE of a class of works which recommend themselves rather for the lessons which they convey than for the dramatic interest of the narrative. Mrs. Hamilton has a seraphic gentleness of admonition, a sweet serenity of disposition, and an unapproachable wisdom in all that refers to domestic conduct and happiness. There are, at the same time, other charming people in the story, who illustrate, as it is intended they should, the virtues which flow from true Christian piety. The authoress is well known for her perception of character, her graceful diction, and earnest feeling; and these attributes shine more prominently than ever in these beautifully conceived volumes, which cannot fail to be as acceptable, as it is certain they will prove advantageous, to many a domestic circle.

MANTELL'S GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT.+ WITH Mr. Mantell's little book in his pocket, the pedestrian tourist may, in an excursion of less than a week, explore the curiosities and enjoy the scenery of our English Crimea; and, what is of far more importance, at the same time receive a great practical lesson in geological science, returning home with an instructive series of the organic remains of the island. The geological phenomena presented by the Isle of Wight * Home Influence: a Tale for Mothers and Daughters. 2 vols. Groombridge

and Sons.

† Geological Excursions round the Isle of Wight, and along the adjacent Coast of Dorsetshire; illustrative of the most interesting Geological Phenomena and Organic Remains. By Gideon A. Mantell, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. Henry G. Bohn.