SCENES IN THE ALPS.

Many of our readers are at this season on their travels, and have opportunities to observe a variety of scenery. As the cares of a Magazine like this allow an editor little freedom from the city, we must content ourselves with selecting such topics as may best serve as a substitute for the enjoyment of which they are partaking.

Several mountainous regions are embraced within the favorite tours of our travellers.The Catskill mountains are nearest and most accessible to our citizens; many visit the wild coal districts of Pennsylvania, others the mountains in Maine, the Iron districts near Lake Champlain, and many more retire to the lovely banks of Lake George, and the Virginia Springs. But those who have not visited the White Mountains of New Hampshire, can have but an imperfect idea of the most strongly marked of our mountain scenery. A little hardihood is necessary to encounter the roughness of the roads for a few miles: but the conveniencies are much greater, to the very centre of those mountains, than were offered to us, a few years ago, on many of our well travelled routes; and the luxurious habits into which we are falling ought to be at last occasionally broken through. To every traveller who can, we would decidedly say, go to the White Hills!

Among the most interesting observations to be made there are those on the effects of climates. From a warm and verdant little valley in the heart of the mountains, where grass shoots and ripens with wonderful rapidity, and shines with a brilliancy which still sometimes attracts the deer from their hiding places, to graze with the cattle; we

see peaks rising all around us almost to the level of perennial ice, and usually spotted with snow even in July and August. Their 'sides are clothed with forests, which consist of different species of trees at different heights, forming regular belts, at corresponding elevations. But while ascending the steep acclivities, the succession of those different species is much more conspicuous. At one step, for example, you are under hemlocks, &c. and at the next nothing is to be seen but firs.Above, all is barren: but high Alpine scenery is not to be found here.

The new theories adopted by some geologists, to account for the positions of loose rocks which are scattered over the ground in many places, and in different countries, far from any fixed masses of the same nature, have led to a close examination of the glaciers of the Alps. It has been found, by Agassiz and others, that glaciers have a constant motion downward; that the rocks, stones, gravel and sand, which often fallupon them from the mountains above, are carried along with them, and deposited at their feet, in lines at right angles to the course of the glaciers. Many other interesting discoveries have been made, especially by Mr. Forbes, who spent a long time among the lofty peaks, covered with snow. We have not the intention here of noticing the deductions to which his or other discoveries lead, but shall confine ourselves to copying a few fine descriptive passages from his book, which is entitled "Travels through the Alps of Savoy, and other parts of the Appenine Chain; with observations on the Phenomina of Glaciers. By James D. Forbes, F. R. S. &c. &c."

Description of the Chalets.

These are the simple habitations of the cattle feeders, while they tend their herds during the summer at their lofty mountain pastures.

I received, both in Switzerland and in Savoy, a gentle, and kind, and disinterestedly hospitable reception in the Chalets, on the very bounds of civilization, where a night's lodging, however rude, is an inestimable boon to a traveller. These simple people differ very much, it has struck me, from the other inhabitants of the same valleys, their own relatives, who living in villages, during the busy traficking season of summer, have more worldly ways, more excitement, wider

interests and greater selfishness. The true Patre of the Alps is one of the simplest, and perhaps one of the most honest and trustworthy of human beings. I have often met with touches of character among them which have affected me; but generally there is an indescribable unity and monotony of idea, which fills the minds of these men, who live during all the finest and stirring part of the year, in the fastness of their sublimest mountains, seeing scarcely any strange faces, and but few familiar ones, and these always the same; living on friendly terms with their dumb herds, so accustomed to privation as to dream of no luxury, and utterly careless of the fate of empires and the change of dynasties. Instead of the busy curiosity about a traveller's motives and objects in undertaking strange jonrneys, which is more expérienced in villages the more remote they be, these simple shepherds never evince surprize, and scarcely seem to have curiosity to gratify. . Yet far are they from being brutish or uncouth they show a natural shyness of intermeddling with the concerns of strangers, and a respect for their character, testified by their unofficious care in providing and arranging what conveniencies they can produce. Their hospitality is that neither of ostentation nor of necessity. They give readily what they have, and do not encumber you with apologies for what they have not."

They are highly influenced by strong religious feelings. The author states, that the practice of evening prayer was kept up among the assembled shepherds; a rare but touching solemnity among men of the common ranks, for no women commonly live in the higher chalets, separated during so large a part of the year from the means of public worship."

View from the Chalets of Abricolla.—“It was a charming evening, almost too mild to give a favorable prognostic of the weather. After sunset the moon, which was almost full, rose, and threw her light over a scene not to be surpassed. The chalets, placed on a broad, grassy shelf of rich verdure, overhanging, at a height of several hundred feet, one of the noblest glaciers in the Alps, are not much less elevated than the Convent of St. Bernard, a position sufficient, in most cases, to diminish the effect of the higher summits, but which here only increases it, so stupendous is the scale of nature at this spot. Rising abruptly

from the glacier, at no great distance on the left, is the grand summit of the Dent Blanche, (white tooth,) 13000 feet high. At the south the view was bounded by the ridge to be traversed the next day, from which the glacier descends, which presented a view of the same description, but more extensive and wild than that of the Mer de Glace from the Montanvert. As now seen by moonlight, its appearance was indescribably grand and fearful, and 1 stood long in fixed admiration of the scene.

Electrical Phenomenon.-Among the wonderful appearances which the traveller witness in those sublime and desolate regions, was a most remarkable effect produced by the neighbourhood of a thunder cloud. It lay so closely upon the peak they were passing over, that the fluid was received by induction, without a sudden discharge. The stones around them, at the same time, showed that it was passing into them, and pouring into the mountain,-every angular projection hissing like the points of an electrical machine.

Description of the Chalets.-These summer abodes of the shepherds and cowherds are usually in two parts, the day and the night apartment. The former is devoted to milk and cheese, the storage and manufacture of them; and the latter to the lodging, cooking and eating.

"There is no such thing as a table, unless the top of a chance barrel be admitted as the representative of one; nor are there any chairs, though the one-legged milking stool, which affords an inconvenient repose to the weary traveller, is an indulgence which he owes solely to its indispensibility in the great and weening over object in which all the uses and habits of a chalet center, the keeping and feeding of cows, and the procuring and manufacture of milk. Morning, noon and night, the inhabitants think but of milk; it is their first, last and only care; they eat exclusively preparations of it; their only companions are the cattle which yield it; money can produce for them here no luxuries; they count their wealth by cheeses."

[For the Am. Penny Magazine.] THE HISTORY OF NINEVEH.

Some of our readers have probably turned, ere this, to books of ancient history, in search of what is on record of this long lost and recently found city. We would at least indulge the hope, that we have many readers possessing a more sound and rational taste than that which leads off millions at the present day to the miserable, useless, injurious fictions which inundate the land. We have not as yet seen even a single allusion to the latest accounts from Nineveh, an abstract of which we made and published in No. 21, in any of our American news. papers but still we do not believe that the taste of the entire public is always like that of the editors.

All who have recurred to books on this subject have probably been surprised to find how little that may be relied on is on record. What is said of Nineveh in the Bible we have summed up in a few words: indeed all the passages in the Scriptures relating to it amount only to a few chapters. As for profane writings, they offer us but a small. number of particulars; and most of what they contain relating to early times are regarded with extreme doubtfulness. Ctesias, Diodorus Siculus and Justin speak of Ninus, the reputed founder of Nineveh; but all these authorities are reduced to one, by the evidence adduced to prove that the two last nearly copied from the first. He is represented as having conquered Babylon, Armenia, Media, Bactria, India and Egypt, to have married Semiramis in Bactria, who survived him. Some of his victories, however, are supposed to have been gained by other kings.

The Greeks called Nineveh Ninos, the Romans, Ninus; the Bible has furnished the name by which we know it. Ctesias speaks of it as situated on the Euphrates, and so does Diodorus: but Strabo and Herodotus place it in the plain of Aturia, on the Tigris. Strabo says it was a larger city than Babylon. Ctesias gives the circuit of it as 480 stadia, which is about the same as Babylon. The walls, according to Diodorus, were 100 feet high, and wide enough for three chariots to drive abreast on the top, with 1500 towers 100 feet higher, rendering the place impregnable. The Assyrian kings had their residence in it, according to Strabo, 2 Kings, 19, 36, and Isaiah, 37, 37.

God threatened that vast and luxurious city with punishment by the Prophets.

But the first conquest did not greatly im

pair the prosperity of Nineveh. Esarhaddon soon after took Babylon, and Nineveh again became the capital of both kingdoms, and remained so 54 years. Nabopolassar then took Babylon, and made it the seat of his government, from which time Nineveh lost her pre-eminence. This was the father of the celebrated Nebuchadnezzar.

In 633 before Christ, Cyaxares, king of the Medes, defeated the Assyrians and besieged Nineveh, but was obliged to return in consequence of an invasion of Media by the Scythians. In the year 612 he came again, with Nabopolassar, king of Babylon; and the event corresponded with the prophesy of Zephaniah, chap. 2nd, verses 13th, 14th and 15th.

V. 13. "And he shall stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.

14. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations; both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the threshholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work.

15. "This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart I am, and there is none besides me; how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! Every one that passeth by her shall hiss and wag his hand."

Strabo informs us that Nineveh decayed immediately after its destruction by Nabopolassar, which is corroborated by the fact, that although Alexander must have passed very near its site, on his way to his battlefield at Arbela, no mention is made of it.

In the time of the Roman empire, however, there was a city there called Ninus, by Tacitus, and Nineveh by another author: but after this another dark blank occurs in the history of the once mighty capital. In the 13th century the castle of Ninevi is mentioned by Abulpharagi.

The latest compilations of historical outlines which have been published, shew the utter uncertainty which still hung over even the site of Nineveh, up to the recent happy discovery of it two years ago. Anthon's Classical Dictionary, printed in 1641, says: "Little doubt can arise that Nineveh was situated near the Tigris, and yet the site of that once mighty city has never been clearly ascertained." There are considerable ruins near Mosul, that work mentions, which Benjamin of Tudela, Thévenot, Tavernier

and other travellers have described as those of Nineveh. They lie partly in a village on the east side of the river Tigris, called Nunia or Nebbi Yunus, (which latter means in Arabic, Prophet Jonas.) But it has been concluded that these must be the remains of a smaler and more modern city, particularly by Kinneir, who visited the place in 1810. He mentions "the tomb of the prophet Jonas," which Botta has recently found to be merely a rough stone, preserved in a mosque. Kinneir the outlines which he trasays, ced were square, not above four miles in circuit, and only a rampart and a ditch, without stones or rubbish, about 20 feet high, much resembling old Roman entrenchments still seen in England. Mr. Rich thinks he found the remains of the palace, and of the monument of Ninus, on the western side, the latter being a truncated cone, of stone and earth, whose steep sides are cultivated by the inhabitants of Koyunjuk, a village north of it. It is 1850 feet long from east to west, 1147 broad, and 174 feet high. The following interesting fact, however, is added by Mr. Rich: out of one of the mounds on the line of the walls, was recently dug an immense stone, with sculptured men and animals upon it. Cylinders, like those found at Babylon, and other antiques, have also been discovered.

The conclusion, however, by the author of the Dictionary is, that these are the remains of a more modern city, and "the true site may forever be sought in vain."

The first chapter of the prophet Nahum opens with:

"The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite," and it is a truly wonderful book, which our readers will be the better prepared to peruse, after the preceding sketch of the barren records of profane history. We select a few detached passages:

"God is jealous, and the Lord avengeth." "The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet."

"Out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image. I will make thy grave, for thou art vile."

"The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved."

"But Nineveh is, of old like a pool of water, yet they shall flee away."

"Take ye the spoil of silver, take the

spoil of gold: for there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture."

"And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say Nineveh is laid waste."

"Draw thee waters for the siege, fortifying thy strong holds; go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick kiln."

"There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the canker worm.'

How numerous the allusions here to the materials and means of defence and destruction !

Without giving further extracts, we might refer our readers to their bible. The passages in Zephoniah and Nahum, and no less the whole book of Jonah, will be read with new interest, while the exhumation of the mighty city is going on, which was the object of their denunciations. The remains already revealed bear decisive evidence of antiquity too high for any period subsequent to the Christian era; and it would not be strange if some interesting remnants of the heaps of sand which have so long enclosed the half ruined walls and palaces of the second, which must naturally have been constructed of its fragments.

Vidocq and his Exhibition.-The London Morning Chronicle says, "The great attraction is the extraordinary Museum of crime-if we may call it so-the collection of weapons which had been used by the celebrated criminals-daggers, pistols, knives, life-preservers of every description, and adapted to inflict every species of injury.Then we have fetters and handcuffs, chains and rings, every one of them with their legend of crime and suffering. Some of the latter were worn by Vidocq himself, when under the ban of the law, and in a prison at Brest. But fetters were as terrorless to him as bracelets. He shows the saw, made out of a watch-spring, with which he sawed inch after inch of solid iron, and explains the processes of his escape. The table upon which all these mementoes of misery in its varied forms are displayed is well worth an hour's inspection. Not the least curious part of the exhibition is the collection of disguises worn by Vinocq, when engaged in arresting criminals. These are ranged round the walls. The priest's soustane hangs by the peasant's blouse, encompassed with every variety of dress worn by the lower orders of Paris. All this derives an additional interest from being exhibited by Vidocq himself. He is now a man upwards of seventy, but he hardly appears fifty years of age, and his motions appear lithe and active as those of a