NOTES.

'Y CADER IDRIS: The Chair of Idris.

2

"Who hath not heard of the vale of Cashmere,
With its roses, the brightest that earth ever gave?
The Light of the Harem, (LALLAH ROOKH.)

3 When these two lines were written, it was with no suspicion that they were not original. It was not without a feeling of unpleasant surprise that in reading Wordsworth's "Lines on revisiting Tintern Abbey," the trick of latent memory was detected, and she was obliged (if not to part with) at least to acknowledge her borrowed plumes. The idea was clearly due to an impression left upon the mind by the following lines

"Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs
That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.”

4"A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits; camphire with spikenard, spikenard with saffron ;

calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices."-Song of Solomon, iv. 12—14.

The author has experienced a feeling of reluctance (probably not imperceptible,) to grapple with the main feature of his subject. He has been awe-smitten into silence, whenever even in imagination he drew near that scene of indescribable magnificence. When at last he did venture into its presence, he was fain to lean upon the friendly hand of that great high-priest of Nature, Wordsworth.

For the idea presented in the description of day-break on the snowy chain of the Himalaya, he is mainly indebted to a wonderful passage in the Second Book of "The Excursion," depicting some of the aëreal phenomena, whereby the mountains are sometimes transfigured into shapes of celestial grandeur and glory.

There is strong similarity between the outline of the snowy peaks, as seen from Mount Gaughur, and an enormous city.-The following extract from Bishop Heber's Journal, describes the scene referred to in the text:

66

'We arrived at the gorge of the pass in an indent between the two principal summits of Mount Gaughur, near 8,600 feet above the

sea.

"And now the snowy mountains, which had been so long eclipsed, opened on us in full magnificence. To describe a view of this kind is only lost labour, and I found it nearly impossible to take a sketch of it such as I was able to make, I however send with this packet.

"Nundidevi was immediately opposite. Kedar-Nâth was not visible from our present situation; and Meru only seen as a very distant single peak. The eastern mountains, however, for which I have obtained no name, rose into very great consequence, and were very glorious objects, as we wound down the hill on the other side. The

guides could only tell me that they were a great way off, and bordered upon the Chinese empire."-HEBER's Journal, vol. i. p. 481.

'Nundidevi," writes Bishop Heber, "the highest peak in the world, is stated to be 25,689 feet above the sea, and 4,000 higher than Chimborazo. The peak which the chuprasses call Meru is properly Sumeru, as distinguished by the modern Pundits, at least, from the celestial and fabulous one: it is really, however, pretty near the source of the Ganges, and about 23,000 feet high.

Kedar-Nâth, Gungotrî, Sumerû, and Nundidevi, are all within the British territory."-HEBER's Journal, Vol. i. p. 492.

6"The reason that I am so much more impressed with the present view is partly the mysterious idea of awful and inaccessible remoteness, attached to the Indian Caucasus, the centre of earth

'Its Altar and its Cradle and its Throne.'

And still more the knowledge, derived from books, that the objects now before me are really among the greatest earthly works of the Almighty Creator's hands-the highest spots below the moon-outtopping by many hundred feet the summits of Cotopasi and Chimborazo."-HEBER's Journal, vol. i. p. 451.

Some idea of the immense altitude and majesty of these mountains may be gathered from Bishop Heber's description of his first view of them: "We had a first view of the range of the Himalaya, indistinctly seen through the haze, but not so indistinctly as to conceal the general form of the mountains. The nearer hills are blue, and, in outline and tints, resemble pretty much those which close in the valley of Clwyd. Above these rose, what might have been taken for clouds, had not their seat been so stationary, and their outline so harsh and pyramidal -the patriarchs of the continent, perhaps the surviving ruins of a former world, white and glistening as alabaster, and, even at this dis

tance of probably 150 miles, towering over the nearer and secondary range, as much as those last (though said to be 7,600 feet high) are above the plain on which we were standing.

"At the foot of the lowest hills a long, black, level line extends-so black and level, that it might seem to be drawn with ink and a ruler. This is the forest, from which we are still removed several coss, though the country already begins to partake of its insalubrity. The natives call the malaria, with which this forest is haunted, Essence of Owl.'"

Speaking of the nearer view, in climbing over the neck of Mount Gaughur, Bishop Heber thus records his feelings: "I never saw such prospects before, and had formed no adequate idea of such. My attention was completely strained, and my eyes filled with tears: everything around was so wild and magnificent, that man appeared as nothing, and I felt myself as if climbing the steps of the Altar of God's great Temple."-HEBER'S Journal, vol. i. p. 480.

7

"Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West."

WORDSWORth.

Sonnet on the Extinction of the Venetian Republic.

There is a curious coincidence with this idea in Isaiah xviii. 2, 3, where a land is described "that sendeth ambassadors by the sea... saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto. . . . . All ye inhabitants of the world see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains, &c."-See also verse 7.

9 This river has its source in the northern flank of the Himalaya, and then takes an eastward course towards Assam. It was long supposed that the Barrampûtra was a continuation of the same, but recent discoveries have brought this conjecture into disrepute. Lieutenant

P. P. Burlton is stated to have discovered the source of the Barrampûtra in a range of snowy mountains in 28° N. lat. and 96° 10′ E. long.

10 The Ganges and Jumna.

11

Ihylum, Behut or Vidusta, the "fabulosus Hydaspes" of Horace, has its source in the S. E. corner of the valley of Cashmere.

12 The five mighty peaks of the Roodroo Himala, otherwise denominated Mahadeva Calinga, the throne of Mahadeva or Siva, the Hindu "God of Justice or Vengeance," as Vishnu was the Preserver or Saviour. In a vast semicircular hollow, hemmed in by the five giant summits of the Roodroo, the Bhagirathi (the earliest feeder of the Ganges) takes its rise. From the brow of an immense precipice of snow three hundred feet high, and immediately above the outlet of the stream, large hoary icicles descend. These are called "the hair of Mahadeva," from which, according to the Shasters, the Ganges flows. -HODGSON's Travels to the Source of the Ganges.

13 From a town called Buddruck, in the province of Orissa, Dr. Buchanan writes, "We know that we are approaching Juggernât, (and yet we are more than fifty miles from it,) by the human bones which we have seen for some days strewed by the way."

14 Juggernât.-For a description of the horrid scenes witnessed during one of the festivals of this idol, reference is made to Dr. Buchanan's letters. He remarks, "the dogs, jackals, and vultures, seem to live here upon human prey; the vultures exhibit a shocking tameness."

15 Some of the abuses here specified have, it is hoped, been mitigated, but very lately.