therein, besides the whole of Tartary, where they exercised a real authority, Transoxiana, Samarkand, Bokhara, Persia, and other countries. India might likewise have been comprehended, from whence embassies had then been received, and which has since been ranked amongst the western countries, be cause persons came from thence by the north and north-west, through Cabul, Candahar, Samarkand, and Shash. India was then filled with curiosities and merchandize from great Thsin, with which the natives had much intercourse on the west.

The commerce between the two Thsin, that is, the Roman empire and China, appears to have been the real motive of the expeditions of the Chinese to the Caspian sea. "The kings of great Thsin," says a Chinese author, "were always desirous of forming relations with the Chinese; but the A-se, who bartered their goods for those of great Thsin, always took care to conceal the route and to prevent a communication between the two empires. This communication could not take place till the reign of Hwan-te, A.D. 166, when the king of Great Thsin, named An-thun, sent ambassadors, who came, not by the northern route, but by Je-nan (Tonking): they had nothing very valuable amongst the things they brought." Later, in the time of the Three Kingdoms, "the inhabitants of Great Thsin had long desired to send ambassadors to the Kingdom of the Middle; but the A-se opposed it, through fear of losing the profit they derived from the trade which passed through their hands. The people of Great Thsin manufacture stuffs, which are better dyed and of a finer colour than any made to the east of the sea; they also find much advantage in purchasing the silk of the Kingdom of the Middle, wherewith to make stuffs in their manner, which is the reason of their keeping up commerce with the A-se and other neighbouring people."

In the reign of Han-te (107 to 125), all the states of Tartary revolted, and the emperor, deeming it inexpedient to make the sacrifices which would have been necessary to reduce them, preferred abandoning the west altogether, and suppressing the government-general. The Heung-noo of the north, thereupon, regained possession of Tartary, and renewed their incursions upon the territories of the empire. Ten years after, the governor of Sha-chow requested a force to repel them, offering to restore western Tartary again to China; but the empress Tang-tae-haou would not sanction the attempt. The attacks of the Heung-noo and the "conductors of cars" becoming more serious, thoughts were entertained, with a view of securing Ho-se, of closing the two passages between China and western Tartary, named Yu-men and Yang-kwan. But a superior officer remarked upon this, that if the west was abandoned to itself, nothing hindered the Heung-noo from becoming sole masters of it, and then joining the Tibetans, against whom it would be impossible to defend the four departments of the west. The Shen-shen of Lake Lop, although still faithful to the Chinese, could not resist, whilst the people of Yarkand, Khoten and Bish-balikh, would not hesitate to join the enemy. In a grand council on this subject, the result was that the son of Phan-chaou, named Phan-yung, was appointed governor of the west. Although he had not a sufficient force, he succeeded in subjecting the "conductors of cars." This was the third time, since A.D. 25, that the communication with the west had been interrupted and renewed. Under Shun-te, Phan-yung again subdued Yarkand, which led to the subjection of Bish-balikh, Cashgar, Khoten, Soo-cho, and seventeen other small states. Four years after, a general was appointed to command in the Ooigoor country; but the troubles, which happened in the empire soon after, relaxed the bonds which retained these barbarians, so that,

towards the close of the Han dynasty, none of them acknowledged the Chinese authority.

The conclusions which I think myself in a condition to draw from the facts stated in this memoir, may be reduced to four :

1. The frontiers of the empire have not always been fixed where we are accustomed to place those of China. Under the dynasties of the Hans, the Tsins, the Weis, the Tangs, the Mongols, and the present Tartar dynasty, the Chinese have comprised in their empire vast territories in western Tartary. 2. At two principal epochs, in the second century B.C., and in the seventh and eighth centuries after that era, a Chinese officer, resident in the centre of Tartary, was intrusted with the administration, in the name of the emperor, of all the countries bounded by the mountains of Cashgar, and the superintendence of those extending as far as the Caspian sea: the princes of all these countries recognized as their sovereign, or, at least, protector, the king of Tsin, the celestial khan,-the emperor of China.

3. Even at the period when the Chinese were reduced within their natural limits, the remembrance of their power, their expeditions often renewed, the trade, and especially that in silk, which carried them beyond their empire, or attracted foreigners thither, diffused to the extremities of Asia, and kept alive, the notions formed of the wealth, the power, and the grandeur of the kingdom of Thsin.

4. By a necessary consequence, the Chinese have always been acquainted with the affairs of the countries westward of the Great Wall, and in the narratives of their writers we may look for the most correct historical and geographical details respecting western Tartary.*

✦ Abridged from Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscrip et B. L. Tom. viii.

COLONEL GARDINER.

THE following letter from Colonel Gardiner, with reference to an article extracted from the Asiatic Journal, appears in the Mofussil Ukhbar of March 14th. The incident adverted to at the beginning of the letter, as our readers are aware, has been fully explained in our Journal for April last (Vol. xvi. p. 262), by Colonel Tod himself, the dux facti.

"Dear Sir:-In your paper of the 28th ult., just received, I find I have been unwillingly dragged from my obscurity by the author of 'Sketches of Remarkable Living Characters in India.' This I should not have noticed, but for a mistake or two, that it is my duty to correct. In the first place, it was Colonel Casement who ordered, and instructed me, in his name, to attempt the negociation for the surrender of the garrison of Komalmair. I obeyed his order successfully, only demurring at the sum demanded, Rs. 30,000, which for so weak a garrison I considered extravagant; but the resident, Colonel Tod, arrived at this stage of the business, with superior diplomatic powerColonel Casement was no longer consulted, and my poor rush-light was under a bushel. But who can feel anything against the author of such a splendid and correct work as 'Rajasthan ?' The writer of the extract has probably mistaken Komalmair for the fort of Rampoora, where, under the instructions of Colonel Vanrenen, the negociation for the evacuation was entirely intrusted to me, and, for the sum of Rs. 7,000, a siege was prevented at a very advanced season of the year, when, as General Ochterlony wrote to me, he would otherwise have been obliged to order the battering-train from Agra.

"When I made my escape, as detailed, by swimming the Taptee, it was

from the tender mercies of the gentle Brahmin, our late pensioner, Emurt Row's force, by whom I was then in close confinement, and not from Holkar. "I fear I must divest my marriage with her highness the begum, of great part of its romantic attraction, by confessing that the young begum was only thirteen years of age, when I first applied for and received her mother's consent, and which marriage probably saved both their lives. Allow me to assure you, on the very best authority, that a Moslem lady's marriage with a Christian, by a Cazee, is as legal in this country, as if the ceremony had been performed by the bishop of Calcutta-a point lately settled by my son's marriage with the niece of the emperor, the Nuwab Mulka Humanee Begum-and that the respectability of the females of my family amongst the natives of Hindoostan has been settled by the emperor many years ago, he having adopted my wife as his daughter; a ceremony satisfactorily repeated by the queen on a visit to my own house in Delhi. I can assure my partial sketcher, that my only daughter died in 1804, and that my granddaughters, by the particular desire of their grandmother, are Christians. It was an act of her own, as, by the marriageagreement, the daughters were to be brought up in the religion of the mother, the sons in that of your

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Very obedient, humble servant, "Khas-Gunge, 5th March 1835."

Miscellanies, Original and Select.

PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

"W. L. G."

Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta.-At the meeting of this society, February 7th, a paper was read detailing a case of congenital cataract, successfully operated on by D. S. Young, Esq., senior staff-surgeon, Nizam's service. Mr. Young's patient was a boy about twelve years of age; he knew the difference between day and night, but had no conception whatever of colours. Surgically, the case offered nothing very new or striking. The first cataract operated on was milky, when the fluid contents of the capsule, by freely mixing with the aqueous humour, became sufficiently diluted to admit the rays of light to the retina; the boy saw the objects around him, and his language and gestures were highly expressive of the delight he experienced from enjoying the first manifestations of a new sense. In seventy-two hours, the whole of the milky fluid had been absorbed; the pupil was clear and black, and contracted powerfully; but the light was so painful and embarrassing to the poor boy, that he would not allow the bandage to be taken off for several days. On the tenth day, Dr. Young operated on the other eye; the cataract, which was soft and cheesy, he cut up and left to the absorbing powers of the aqueous humour. In six days, the pupil was black and clear. Dr. Young's experience in this case induces him to concur with Berkeley, that the senses of sight and touch constitute two worlds, which, though intimately connected, bear no sort of resemblance to one another, "the tangible world having three dimensions, viz. length, breadth, and thickness, and the visible only two, viz. length and breadth. The objects of sight constitute a sort of language, which nature addresses to the eyes, and by which she communicates information most important to our welfare. As, in any language, the words or sounds bear no resemblance to the things they denote; só, in this particular language, the visible objects bear no sort of resemblance to the tangible objects they represent." A month after the operation, the boy could tell any colour, but, if he

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wished to be very exact, when asked the name of any object presented to him, he first looked at it, and if he had seen it before, and it had been explained to him, he at once said a book," a stick," or whatever the object might be; but, if it were new to him, he would tell the colour, and then feel it with his fingers, when, should it prove to be anything he had been accustomed to handle, before he got his sight, he would at once name it. At the date of the despatch of Dr. Young's letter, the boy's vision was continuing to improve.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

A Brief Account of an Ophthalmic Institution, during the years 1827--1832, at Macao. By a Philanthropist. Canton, 1834.

THIS little brochure contains abundant evidence of the good which may be effected by an individual. Mr. T. R. Colledge, soon after his appointment as surgeon to the British Factory in China, in 1826, commenced administering medical aid to indigent natives. He soon discovered that no native practitioner could treat diseases of the eye, which prevail to a great extent amongst the labouring Chinese. He determined to devote his attention to this branch of the profession; and, in 1828, he rented apartments at Macao for the reception of patients requiring operations. The institution became popular, was supported by subscriptions, and by offerings at the communiontable of the chaplainry, and has been the means of rendering extensive benefit, and thus rewarding, in the most grateful manner, its philanthropic founder. Mr. Colledge, in a simple account of the origin of the institution, states that, during the year 1827, his own funds supplied the necessary outlay; that friends, who had witnessed the success of his exertions, came forward in support of a more regular infirmary; that two houses are now rented at Macao, capable of receiving about forty in-patients; that the East-India Company liberally supplied medicines, and the hospital which thus grew under his hands conciliated the confidence of a people who had been accustomed to consider foreigners as barbarians. Since the commencement of the undertaking, 4,000 indigent Chinese have been relieved; many restored to sight and more saved from impending blindness. "Independently," he observes, "of the practical benefits conferred on suffering humanity, it is most desirable that the enlightened nation, to which I belong, should be known in this country as possessing other characteristics than those attaching to us solely as merchants and adventurers: as charitably anxious to relieve the distresses of our fellow creatures, we may be remembered when the record of our other connexions with China has passed away."

From a collection of interesting letters of thanks from some of the poor patients, given in the appendix, we select one from Tsang A-le, who "knocks head and twice hows before the presence of the great physician !" &c.

"I, in youth, had an affliction of my eyes, and both were short of light: fortunately, it occurred that you, Sir, reached this land, where you have disclosed the able devices of your mind, and used your skilful hand. You cut off a bit of filmy skin, removed the blood-shot root, pierced the reflecting pupil, and extracted the green fluid; you swept aside the clouds, and the moon was seen as a gem without flaw. You spared no labour nor trouble; made no account of the expense of the medicines; both kept me in your lodging-house, and gave me rice and tea; truly, it is what neither in ancient nor modern times has ever been."

The History of England, continued from the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh. Vol. V. Being Vol. LXIX. of Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia. London, 1835. Longman and Co. Taylor.

THIS volume is occupied exclusively with the reign of Charles I. The writer, in our opinion, evinces too strong a leaning to the Parliamentary party, and too much hostility to the king and his partizans; his readiness to find excuses and apologies for the unwarrantable acts of the popular leaders, and his alacrity to condemn all the measures

of Charles and his ministers, are too prominent. It is, we admit, difficult for an hisə torian of that extraordinary period to keep his mind entirely free from the heat and intemperance of party, and even for a critic to decide whether the historian be partial or not. There is no writer on this part of our history who is perfectly clear of a suspicion of a predilection to one side or the other. The predilection is, in some writers, excessive; we think it so in the otherwise able continuation of Sir James Mackintosh's history.

The Life and Works of Cowper. Edited by the Rev. T. S. GRIMSHAWE, A. M. London, 1835. Vols. VI. and VII. Saunders and Otley.

In our journal for July we gave a short account of the history and character of this work. The sixth volume, which commences the poetry of Cowper, has an introductory essay on his Genius and Poetry, by the Rev. J. W. Cunningham. We are not admirers of such essays in general, but Mr. Cunningham's is characterized by taste and judgment, and the temperament of Cowper, which has imparted a peculiar tone to his poetry, perhaps rendered such a preface necessary. Its fault is a generous one, that of being too encomiastic.

Little Arthur's History of England. Two Vols. London, 1895. Murray. A TALE of English history, extremely well adapted to young students.

The Prime Minister; a Poem, Political and Historical. By a Peer. London, 1835. Churton.

If this work be a covert attempt to gratify popular prejudice against the aristocracy, by exhibiting a peer as the writer of bad poetry, we can understand why it is published, -not otherwise.

The French Language its own Teacher; or the Study of French divested of all its difficulties, upon a plan entirely original, and directly opposed to the prevailing mode of teaching Languages. By RENE ALIVA. Part II. London, 1835. Churton.

SINCE the publication of Mr. Aliva's First Part, we have had occasion to consider his plan more attentively, as well as the opinions of competent judges upon its merits, and we are disposed to think very well of it, as one which will, in time, work a great improvement in teaching languages.

Paracelsus. By ROBERT BROWNING. London, 1835. E. Wilson.

A DRAMATIC poem, which gives some hope of better things.

The Roman Catholic Outh Considered. By ENEAS MACDONNELL, Esq.

The Roman Catholic Oath Illustrated by Roman Catholic Authorities; and Lord John Russell's Resolution illustrated by extracts from speeches of its Proposer and Supporters. By ENEAS MACDONNELL, Esq. London, 1835. Churton.

We recommend these pamphlets to the serious consideration of all classes, in and out of the Senate, as an able and convincing exposition of the Roman Catholic Oath, by a barrister, of the Roman Catholic religion, and formerly agent to the Catholics of Ireland. Mr. Mac Donnell comes to this solemn conclusion, that, "if I were a member of either house of Parliament, I should not feel myself at liberty to vote or speak in support of any measure, having for its object the severance of any portion of the Church property from the establishment, for any purposes whatever; and I should, of course, feel equally bound to decline being, directly or indirectly, connected with any resolution or other proposition involving, expressly or by implication, a recognition of the principle of such severance."

Picturesque Views in the Island of Ascension. By LIEUT, Wm. Allen, R.N., F.R.G.S., &c. London, 1835. Smith, Elder and Co.

THIS island, described as a waste of ashes, basaltic rock, scoriæ, and, with the exception of the summit of the “green mountain,” the very beau idéal of sterility, exhi