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cut a cabbage-leaf to make an applepie;" and at whose wedding the Jobfilies, and the Picninnies, and the Great Panjandrum, danced till the gunpowder ran out at their boot-heels. Foote wrote his absurd paragraph, we believe, to try a friend's memory; Mr. Melville has evidently written his unintelligible novel to try the public's patience. Of three things we are certain, namely, that the Panjandrum story is quite as easy to understand as Mardi; that it is much more diverting; and, the chief advantage of all, an infinite deal shorter.

Mardi, which we dismissed from our mind when we closed it with a yawn a day or two after its publication, has been recalled to our memory by another book, also proceeding from America, although published in London; and which, like Mr. Melville's romance, blends the real and the possible with the ideal and the fantastic. Kaloolah (Heaven help these Yankee nomenclators) professes to be the autobiography of Jonathan Romer, a young Nantucket sailor, to whose narrative, during his absence in the interior of Africa, one of his countrymen, Dr. W. S. Mayo, obligingly acts as editor. Most readers will probably be of opinion that the American M.D. might claim a nearer interest in the literary bantling-the first-born, we apprehend, of his own pen and imagination. But our business is with the book, and not with the author, whose name, whether Romer or Mayo, is as yet unknown to fame, but who need not despair of achieving reputation. Kaloolah combines with certain faults, which may presently be indicated, some very excellent qualities, and has several chapters, whereof any one contains more real good stuff, and ingenuity, and amusement, than the whole of the second and third volumes of Mardi, reduced to a concentrated essence. Besides, it is manifest that the two books must be viewed and judged differently-one as a first, and by no means unpromising attempt; the other, as the backsliding performance of a man who has proved himself capable of far better things.

Before commencing his own story, young Jonathan Romer introduces us to his ancestors, and asserts his right to a life of adventure. "Descended

on both sides of the house from some of the earliest settlers of Nantucket, and more or less intimately related to the Coffins, the Folgers, the Macys, and the Starbucks of that adventurous population, it would seem that I had a natural right to a roving disposition, and to a life of peril, privation and vicissitude. Nearly all the male members of my family, for several generations, have been followers of the sea: some of them in the calm and peaceful employment of the merchantservice; others, and by far the greater number, in the more dangerous pursuit of the ocean monster." After relating some of the feats of his family, and glancing at his own childhood, which gave early indications of the bold and restless spirit that animated him at a mature period, Jonathan presents himself to his readers at the age of eighteen-a stalwart stripling and idle student; the best rider, shot, swimmer, and leaper for many miles around, with little taste for books, and a very decided one for rambling in the woods with rifle and rod. At this time the academy, of which he had for four years been an inmate, is nearly broken up by what is called "a revival of religion;" in other words, a violent fit of fanatical enthusiasm, provoked and fed by Baptist and Methodist preachers. Pupils and teachers alike go mad with fervent zeal, classes are at an end, unceasing prayer is substituted for study, and Jonathan, who is one of the few unregenerated, walks into the forest and knocks the head off a partridge with a rifle-ball. The bird is picked up, and the excellence of the aim applauded by an old trapper and hunter, Joe Downs by name, well known along the shores of the Rackett and Grass Rivers, in the northern and uninhabited part of the state of New York. Joe is not the wild, semi-Indian trapper of the south and west, whom Sealsfield and Ruxton have so graphically sketched; there is as much difference between the two characters as between a sailor in the coasting trade and a Pacific Ocean beachcomber. There is nothing of the halfhorse, half-alligator style about Joe, whose manner is so mild, and his coat so decent, that he has been taken for a country parson. He despises the Redskins, sets no value on their scalps,

and would not shed their blood, except in self-defence. How he had once been thus compelled to do so, he relates to Jonathan in the course of their first conversation.

"It was the way towards Tupper's lake. There had been a light fall of snow, and I was scouting round, when I happened to make a circumbendibus, and came across my own track, and there I saw the marks of an Indian's foot right on my trail. Thinks I, that is kind of queer; the fellow must have been following me; howsomever I'll try him, and make sure; so I made another large circle, and again struck my own track, and there was the tarnal Indian's foot again. Says I, this won't do; I must find out what this customer wants, and how he'll have it. So I stopped short, and soon got sight of him; he knew that I saw him, so he came along up, in the most friendly manner you can think. But I didn't like his looks; he was altogether too darned glad to see me. He had no gun, but he had an almighty long-handled tomahawk, and a lot of skins and real traps. Thinks I, may be, old fellow, your gun has burst, or you've pawned it for rum, and you can't raise skins enough to redeem it, and you want mine, and perhaps you'll get it.

"At last I grew kind of nervous; I knew the fellow would hatchet me if I

gave him a chance, and yet I didn't want to shoot him right down just on suspicion. But I thought, if I let him cut my throat first, it would be too late to shoot him afterwards. So I concluded that the best way would be to give him a chance to play his hand; and if so be he'd lead the wrong card, why I should have a right to take the trick. Just then, at the right time, a partridge flew into a clump that stood five or six rods off. So I kind of 'noeuvred round a little. I drew out my ramrod, as if to feel whether the ball in my rifle was well down; but instead of returning it again, I kept it in my hand, and, without letting the vagabond see me, I got out a handful of powder. I then sauntered off to the bush, shot the partridge, and in an instant passed my hand over the muzzle of my rifle, and dropped the powder in. I picked up the bird, and then just took and run my ramrod right down upon the powder. Now, he thought, was his chance before I loaded my gun again. He came towards me with his hatchet in his hand. I saw that he was deter

mined to act wicked, and began to back off; he still came on. I lowered my rifle, and told him to keep away. He raised his tomahawk, gave one yell, and

bounded right at me. When he was just about three or four feet from the muzzle, I fired. You never see a fellow jump so. He kicked his heels up in the air, and came down plump on his head, dead as Julius Cæsar He never winked; the ramrod-a good, hard, tough piece of hickory-had gone clean through him, and stuck out about two feet from his back. Sarved him right; did'nt it?"

The old trapper urges Jonathan to accompany him on an expedition into the woods, promising, as an inducement, to put him "right alongside the biggest catamount he has ever seen,” and to let him fight it out, with rifle, hatchet, and knife, without making or meddling in the contest. He also pledges himself to show him a fishpond, "where the youngest infants, of a genteel pickerelto family, weigh at least three pounds." Such inducements are irresistible. Jonathan packs up a brace of blankets and his shooting and fishing fixings, and goes off in the canoe with Joe Downs on a pleasant up-stream cruise, enlivened by a succession of beautiful scenery, and by the varied and original conversation of his companion. On their way they fell in with a party of Indians, amongst them one Blacksnake, a brother of the gentleman whom Joe had spitted on his ramrod. He suspects Joe of having shot his kinsman, and Joe strongly suspects him of having already attempted to revenge his death.

"I was leaning out of the second story doorway of Jones's shop one day,' said Joe, looking across the river, when, whizz, a rifle bullet came and buried itself in the doorpost. I hain't the least doubt that that very identical Blacksnake sent it. Thank God, his aim was not as his will! He's a bad chap. Why, I really believe it was he who murdered my old friend Dan White the trapper. If I only knew it was the fact, I wish I may be stuck, forked end uppermost, in a coon hole, if I wouldn't send a ball through his painted old braincase, this 'ere very identical minute. Darn your skin energetically growled Joe, shaking his fist at the distant canoe.'

It would have saved Mr. Downs some trouble and suffering if he had yielded to the impulse, and expended half-an-ounce of lead upon Black snake, who, about a week later, sneaks up, with two companions, to

the trapper's pine-log fire, and shoots the unfortunate Joe, but is shot down himself, the very next moment, by Jonathan Romer, whose double barrel settles two of the murderers, and then descends with crushing force upon the cranium of the third. Joe not being dead, although very badly wounded, his young companion conveys him to a cave, whose hidden entrance the trapper had revealed to him the previous day, and there tends him till he is able to bear removal. With his committal to the hands of a village surgeon, Mr. Romer's backwoods adventures terminate, a source of regret to the reader, since they are more lively and attractive than some subsequent portions of the book, evidently deemed by the author more interesting and important, and therefore dwelt upon at greater length. Indeed it is our opinion that the author of Kaloolah is mistaken, as young authors constantly are, in the real scope and nature of his own abilities, and that he would shine much more in a novel of backwoods life, or nautical adventure, than in the mixed style he has selected for his first attempt, which is a sort of mosaic, distinguished rather for variety and vividness of colour than for harmony and regularity of design.

Jonathan reaches home in time to receive the last adieu of his mother, a worthy but eccentric old lady, who had fitted out her son, on his departure for school, with a winding-sheet, amongst other necessaries, that he might be buried decently should he die far from his friends, and that he might be reminded of his mortality as often as he emptied his trunk. It was a curious conceit, but, as Jonathan observes, she was from Nantucket, and they are all queer people there, and filial affection induced him long to preserve the shroud. Mrs. Romer dead, her son applies to the study of surgery, gets himself into trouble by a body-snatching exploit, has to levant to New York, and there, finding he is still in danger from the friends of the disinterred corpse, who have set the police upon his track, ships himself on board the fine foretopsail schooner, "Lively Anne, bound for the Western Islands, and commanded by Captain Coffin, an old

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shipmate of his father's. In this smart little craft, he sees some country and more water, until, upon the voyage from the Azores to Malaga, a white squall or a waterspout-which of the two he could never ascertaincapsizes the schooner and dashes him senseless down the hatchway, whence he was just emerging, in alarm at the sudden uproar on deck. On recovering himself, he finds the vessel dismasted, the deck swept of all its fixtures, and the captain and crew missing. Doubtless they had been hurled into the waves by the same terrible force that had shattered the bulwarks and carried away boats, casks, and galley. The horizon was now clear, not a sail was in sight, and Jonathan Romer was alone on a helpless wreck in the middle of the wide ocean. But he was a man of resource and mettle, whom it was hard to discourage or intimidate; and finding the schooner made no water, he righted her as well as he could, and resigned himself to float at the will of the wind until he should meet a rescuing sail. This did not occur for some weeks, during which he floated past Teneriffe in the night, within hail of fishermen, who would not approach him for fear of the quarantine laws. At last, sitting over his solitary dinner, he perceived a ship heading up for the schooner.

"As she came on, I had full time to note all her beautiful proportions. She was small, apparently not above 300 tons, and had a peculiarly trim and clipper-like look. Her bright copper, flashing occasionally in the sunlight, showed that she was in light sailing trim; whilst from the cut of her sails, the symmetrical arrangement of her spars and rigging, and her quarterboats, I concluded she must be a manof-war. Passing me about half a mile astern, she stood on for a little distance, then, hoisting the bilious-looking flag of Spain, she tacked and ran for me, backing her main-topsail within twenty yards of my larboard beam. Her quarter-boat was immediately lowered, and half-a-dozen fellows in red caps and flannel shirts, jumped into it, followed by an officer in a blue velvet jacket, with a strip of gold lace upon his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed straw hat upon his head. I ran below, stuffed all the money that I had in gold-about a thousand dollars-into my pockets, and got

upon deck again just as the boat touched the side."

crew and

The precaution was a good one: the saucy Bonito, Pedro Garbez master, was bound from Cuba to the coast of Africa, with a cut-throat an empty slave-deck. Owing to an accident, she had sailed without a surgeon, and Romer was well received and treated, so soon as his profession was known. When he discovered the ship's character, he would gladly have left her, but means were wanting, for the Bonito loved not intercourse with passing craft, and touched nowhere until she reach ed her destination-Cabenda Bay, on the western coast of Africa. There being no slaves at Cabenda, it was resolved to run a few miles up the Congo river.

"We at length reached Loonbee, and anchored off the town, which is the chief market or slave-depot for Embomma. It consists of about a hundred huts of palm-leaves, with two or three blockhouses, where the slaves are confined.

About two hundred slaves were already collected, and more were on their way down the river, and from different towns in the interior. After presents for the King of Embomma, and for the Mafooka (a sort of chief of the board of slave-trade,) and other officials, had been made, and a deal of brandy drunk, we landed, and in company with several Fukas, or native merchants, and two or three Portuguese, went to take a look at the slaves. Each dealer paraded his gang for inspection, and loudly dilated upon their respective qualities. They were all entirely naked, and of all ages, sexes, and conditions, and all had an air of stolid indifference, varied only in some of them by an expression of surprise and fear at sight of the white men."

In one of these unfortunate groups of dingy humanity, Romer was struck by the appearance of a young girl, whose features widely differed from the usual African stamp, and whose complexion amongst a white population, would not have been deemed too dark for a brunette. Her gracefully curling hair contrasted with the woolly polls of her companions; her eyes were large and expressive, and her form elegant, but then emaciated by fatigue and ill-treatment. This is Kaloolah. On inquiry of the slavedealer, a great burly negro, wielding

a long thong of plaited buffalo hide, Romer learned that she is of a far distant nation called the Gerboo Blanda, who dwell in stone houses on an extensive plain. The slave-dealer knows them only by report, and Kaloolah and her brother, who is near at hand, are the first specimens he has seen of this remote tribe. He had bought her two months' journey off, and then she had already come a long distance. And now that he had got them to the coast, he esteems them of small value compared to the fullblooded blacks; for Kaloolah has pined herself away to a shadow, and her brother, Enphadde, is bent upon suicide, and cannot be trusted with unfettered Romer buys them both. The Bonito hands; so that for thirty dollars having been driven out to sea by the approach of a British cruiser, he passes some days on shore with his new purchases; during which time, with a rapidity bordering on the miraculous, he acquires sufficient of their language, and they of his, to tion, to learn the history of these pale carry on a sort of piebald conversaAfricans, and some particulars of their mysterious country.

a name given to their country by the "The Gerboo Blanda, I found, was Jagas, that its true name was Framazugda, and that the people were called Framazugs. That it was situated at a rection west by north, and that it was great distance in the interior, in a disurrounded by negro and savage nations, through whom a trade was carried east, none of whom, however, were ever on with people at the north-west and seen at Framazugda, as the trade had to phadde represented the country to be of pass through a number of hands. Enconsiderable extent, consisting mostly exceedingly populous, containing nuof a lofty plateau or elevated plain, and merous large cities, surrounded by high walls, and filled with houses of stone. Several large streams and lakes watered the soil, which, according to his account, was closely cultivated, and produced in abundance the greatest variety of trees, fruits, flowers, and grain. Over this country ruled Selha Shounsé, the father of Enphadde and Kaloolah, as king. It was in going from the catheir escort was attacked by a party of pital to one of the royal gardens that blacks from the lowlands, the attendants killed or dispersed, and the young prince and princess carried off ”

Thirty dollars could hardly be deemed a heavy price for the son and daughter of the great Shounsé, and Jonathan was well pleased with his bargain, although it was not yet clear how he should realise a profit; but meanwhile it was something to be the proprietor of their royal highnesses of Framazugda; something too to gaze into Kaloolah's bright black eyes, and listen to her dulcet tones, as she warbled one of her country's ditties about the Fultul, a sweet-scented lily flourishing beside the rivulets of her native mountains. The verses, by the bye, are not to be commended in Mr. Romer's version; they perhaps sounded better in the original Framazug, and when issuing from the sweet lips of Kaloolah.

Instead of a week, the Bonito was a month absent, having been caught in a calm. Captain Pedro Garbez promised the Virgin Mary the value of a young negro in wax-lights for a capful of wind, but in vain; and he was fain to tear the hair from his head with impatience. Meanwhile Jonathan had caught a fever in the swamps of Congo, and Kaloolah had made his chicken-broth, and tended him tenderly, and restored him to health, although he was still so altered in appearance that Garbez knew him not when he mounted the side of the slaver. All speed was now made to buy and ship a cargo. The account of the latter process is interesting, and, we have no doubt, perfectly authentic; for although the author of Kaloolah has chosen to interlard, and perhaps deteriorate his book by strange stories of imaginary countries, animals, flowers, &c., it is not difficult to distinguish between his fact and his fiction, and to recognise the internal evidence of veracity and personal observation. A short extract may here with propriety be made, for the benefit of anti-slavery philanthropists.

"The first slaves that came on board were taken below the berth-deck, and arranged upon a temporary slave-deck placed over the water-casks, and at a distance of not more than three feet and a half from the deck overhead.

The slaves were arranged in four ranks. When lying down, the heads of the two outer ranks touched the sides of the ship,

their feet pointing inboard or athwart the vessel. They, of course, occupied a space fore and aft the ship, of about six feet on either side, or twelve feet of the whole breadth. At the feet of the outside rank came the heads of the inner more on either side, or together twelve row. They took up a space of six feet feet. There was still left a space running up and down the centre of the deck, two or three feet in breadth; along this were stretched single slaves, between the feet of the two inner rows, so that, when all were lying down, almost every square foot of the deck was covered with a mass of human flesh. Not the slightest space the ranks, but the whole were packed as was allowed between the individuals of closely as they could be, each slave having just room enough to stretch himself out flat upon his back and no more. this way about two hundred and fifty were crowded upon the slave-deck, and as many more upon the berth-deck. Horrible as this may seem, it was nothing compared to the packing' generally boasted that he had tried both systems, practised by slavers. Captain Garbez tight packing and loose packing, thoroughly, and found the latter the best.

In

"If you call this loose packing,' I replied, have the goodness to explain what you mean by tight packing?"

"Why,tight packing consists in making a row sit with their legs stretched apart, and then another row is placed between their legs, and so on, until the each slave has as much room as he can whole deck is filled. In the one case cover lying; in the other only as much room as he can occupy sitting. With tight packing this craft ought to stow fifteen hundred.'

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The Bonito was not above three hundred tons. Such are the blessings for which the negroes are indebted to the tender-mercied emancipators who have ruined our West Indian colonies.

"When it comes to closing the hatches,' (in the event of a gale) said Captain You can hardly save enough to pay exPedro, it is all up with the voyage. penses. They die like leeches in a thun

derstorm. I was once in a little schooner with three hundred on board, and we were obliged to lie-to for three days. It was the worst sea I ever saw, and came near swamping us several times. We lost two hundred and fifty slaves in that gale. We couldn't get at the dead ones to throw them overboard very handily, and so those that didn't die from want of air were killed by the rolling and tumbling about of the corpses. Of

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