the victories with which they terminated. In 1809, he proceeded with the ras to Adowa, and subsequently to Chelicut, and remained, in perfect friendship with him, till 1814, when the ras, on the arrival of a patriarchal Copt, or abuna, whom he had sent for from Egypt, ordered Pearce to give up his house and garden to him, and threatened violence if he refused. "On seeing my house surrounded," says Pearce, "I immediately ordered my servants to dig my grave on the floor, close to the couch I then lay on, and place a piece of new white cloth for my mugganaz, the only coffin of an Abyssinian. While this was doing, I well loaded every gun and pistol I had in the house, and laid them on each side of me." He, however, at the request of his wife, ultimately consented to give up his house, and made his peace with the abuna; who, notwithstanding, did all in his power to prevent the distribution of some bibles in the Coptic language, which Pearce had recently received from the Bible Society in London. About this time, he sent to the Literary Society, at Bombay, his First Remarks on Abyssinia, which were printed in the twelfth volume of its memoirs, and appeared, subsequently, in the New Monthly Magazine. In 1816, the ras dying at Chelicut, and that place being sacked and plundered, Pearce, after narrowly escaping assassination, resolved to leave Abyssinia for ever, and join Mr. Salt, then consul, at Cairo, where, after many frightful and almost fatal adventures, he arrived in February, 1819. Here he materially assisted Mr. Salt in the duties of the consulship, and also prepared his journal for publication; besides which, he was, at the same time, engaged in translating for the Reverend Mr. Jowett, the principal part of the New Testament into the Tigré language. In 1820, he embarked for England; on his way whither he died, at Alexandria, in the beginning of the following June. Pearce appears to have been a brave and generous man; and notwithstanding the frequency of his desertions at sea, often hazarded his life by his fidelity to the friends he met with in the wild and barbarous countries where he had so long resided. He possessed, in an extraordinary degree, the spirit of enterprise; and the observations contained in his journal, which he left to Mr. Salt, have thrown considerable light upon the modern history of Abyssinia, and the moral and civil state of its inhabitants. In a letter to Mr. Salt, he wrote an account of his life, and, from the following sentence, seems to admit the criminality of some portion of it :-"Scandalous as it is," he observes, "the truth of it will shame the devil." 1 MATTHEW FLINDERS. MATTHEW FLINDERS was born some time about the year 1780, at Donnington, in Lincolnshire. At an early age he developed capacities and inclination for a marine life, and, in 1795, went as a volunteer to Port Jackson with Captain Hunter, who was sent out to take possession of, and to establish a colopy in, Botany Bay. Immediately on his arrival, he meditated an expedition of discovery down the river George, and having constructed a small boat, he set out, accompanied only by Bass, the surgeon of Captain Hunter's vessel, and a cabin boy, against the remon strances of his friends, who vainly endeavoured to dissuade him from what they termed, "so romantic a project." It was, however, successful; he ascertained many points of the coast not before known, particularly the situation of Western Port, after having made a map of which, he was furnished with a sloop, by the governor of the colony, to enable him still further to pursue his discoveries. In the course of this voyage he landed at many places unvisited before, giving to three the names of Cape Barren, Hudson's Isles, and Herdsman's Cove; but the most VOYAGERS AND TRAVELLERS. important discovery was that of a strait, which proved "the existence of a wide opening between Van Dieman's Land and New South Wales," and to which he gave the name of his friend Bass, who had first entered it in a whale boat. In a subsequent expedition of six weeks' duration, he made further discoveries, to which he gave appropriate names, and on his return to England in 1800, the charts he had made were published, and government, shortly after, gave him the command of a ship, to complete the investigation of the coasts of Terra Australis. In 1801, and two following years, he explored the southern and eastern coasts of New Holland, and towards the north, Torres' Strait, and the gulf of Carpentaria. The first part of his voyage, between Spithead and Port Jackson, occupied seventeen months, in which time he had completed great part of the investigation of the Australian coast. The principal points he discovered and named were, Mount Many peak, Lucky Bay, Thistle's Cove, Goose Island, Fowler's Bay, Cape Radstock, Waldegrave Isles, Investigator's Group, Avoid Bay, Cape Catastrophe, so called from the loss, by a sudden rush of the tide, of eight of his crew; Memory Cove, where he caused a sheet of copper to be fixed on a post, with an inscription containing an account of this event; Gambier's Isles, and many others, since well known to, and further explored by, subsequent navigators. In July, 1802, he left Port Jackson, and proceeded on a voyage of examination along the east coast to Sandy Cape, after leaving which he discovered Port Curtis, whence he proceeded to Harvey's Isles, and found a new passage, unseen by Captain Cook, into shoal water way, to which he gave the name of Port Bowen. In November he entered the gulf of Carpentaria, and, in the following month, sailed to Cape Vanderlin, which he found to be one of a group of islands, instead of a great projection from the main land, as represented in the old Dutch chart." In June, he re-entered Port Jackson, having lost many of his crew by diseases and accidents; and his ship being pronounced not fit for further service, he was obliged to remain inactive till August, when he sailed out from SidBeing, however, wrecked upon a reef ney Cove in a vessel called the Porpoise. bank, on the spot where it is supposed De la Perouse was lost, he was compelled to put back to Port Jackson in a boat, whence he returned in a schooner to examine the reef, respectful observations. ing which he has made some very use In December, 1803, he entered Port Louis in the Mauritius, in a ship called of the war between France and Engthe Cumberland, when, in consequence land, and his having no passport for the vessel he then commanded, his papers were seized, and he was put in prison. In the Mauritius he remained six years; and during the time he was allowed to remain on parole, he made several extry. At length, in June, 1810, his papers cursions into the interior of the counwere restored, and, after having sufpermitted to depart for England, where fered much rigorous treatment, he was Though his health had been greatly he arrived in the latter part of October. injured by his confinement, he immehimself to writing an account of his diately, on his arrival at home, devoted discoveries, and to the completion of They were published in 1814, in two the maps which accompany them. year his death took place, a few days volumes quarto, in the August of which after he had corrected the last page of his work. He The publication, and the atlas acamong the number of the first seamen companying it, have ranked Flinders and hydrographers of his age. also published a Memoir on the Use proximity of the shore; an Essay, inof the Barometer in ascertaining the serted in the Philosophical Transactions, and a Letter to the Members of France, on the wreef wreck bank, and the Society of Emulation of the Isle of in the "Annales des Voyages." on the fate of De la Perouse, inserted HENRY SALT. HENRY SALT was born some time about the year 1780, at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, at the grammar school of which city he received his education. His talent for drawing recommended him to the notice of Lord Valentia, whom he accompanied, in 1802, to the East Indies, and subsequently to Greece, Egypt, and Abyssinia, to the emperor of which country he was employed to carry presents from the British sovereign, which mission he executed in 1809-10. In the course of his travels, of which he published an account, with plates of his own drawings, he visited the Mozambique settlements, Mocha, Massowa, Jidda, Ambakanko, where one of his attendants was murdered, Logo Seremai, Mugga, Chelicut, and Gondar, where he presented the king's gifts to the Emperor of Abyssinia, who was almost frantic with joy at receiving them, and, in return, ordered prayers to be offered up weekly for the health of the sovereign of Great Britain. The presents consisted of satins, jewellery, British muslins, a painted glass window, a picture of the Virgin Mary, and a marble table, on beholding which the natives broke out into exclamations of "Wonderful! wonderful!" Mr. Salt relates that, though he found Mr. Bruce's statements generally correct, he proved many to be palpably false, particularly the latter's assertion of the continuance of the wind in the Red Sea for six months in the same direction, either one way or the other; Mr. Salt declaring that, "in the northern part it blows nine months down, and in the southern nine months up, while in the centre of the sea the winds are extremely variable." He also mentions a conversation he had with Dofter Esther, who denied that Bruce spoke either the Tigré or Amharic language; that he was compelled to make use of an interpreter; that he was never actually engaged in war, though he was present at one battle; and that Ras Michael, from whom he is said to have received a gold chain of one hundred and eighty links, never made him any present whatever. Mr. Salt also mentions the fact of Bruce having been attended by one Bolugani, on his journey to the Nile, of whom Bruce never once spoke in the account of his travels, though the former materially assisted him in his researches. Near Fullah, our traveller discovered the Optian stone, described by Pliny as " an opaque sort of glass, and reflecting images like mirrors, when placed against a wall." After Mr. Salt's return to England, when he was made F. R.S., he obtained, through the patronage of Lord Valentia, the situation of consul-general in Egypt, where he died, after ten years' service, much lamented and respected. The circumstances which preceded his death are melancholy and interesting. Previously to setting out for the Nile, as a last hope of restoring his health, he occupied himself in sealing up and destroying several of his manuscripts and papers, making such observations, during his operations, as shewed him to be fully sensible of his approaching death. During the burning of his manuscripts, the preservation of which no remonstrances could prevail on him to allow, he observed, "If I were a young man, they might procure me notoriety, but that sort of notoriety can do the dying no good; and, were I desirous of being better talked of after death than I have been living, there are other papers I might be more desirous of giving to the public. These letters," he added, taking up a packet, "are part of my correspondence with Belzoni; and they would exhibit the secret of that jealousy which induced him, while carrying on his researches at my expense, to load me with imputations which, in health, I had neither the inclination nor leisure to refute; and now, in sickness, have still less. Burn them with the rest; my remembrance of the quarrel shall be buried with their ashes." Seeing the physician display some reluctance in committing them to the flames, he snatched them from him, and threw them into the VOYAGERS AND TRAVELLERS. grate, exclaiming, "Doctor, you would On reaching the Nile, to the asto- this is no time for sleeping!" and, on he replied, "To show you the power the latter inquiring why he had risen, that is left-the superhuman power that has enabled me to conquer death-I am lected from his expressions, that he had now saved-I am well." It was colfancied himself to be pursuing his own funeral, till he had at last overtaken his apartment he had just left, and the key corpse, which he imagined to be in the of which, on being brought to him, he kissed repeatedly. The next night, the same horrible scene occurred; he was found struggling with one of his athim fall, and, conceiving him to be tendants on the floor, who had heard dead, was pressing his thumbs upon his eyelids. On being raised by his physician, he exclaimed, in a sepulchral voice, "Oh! Doctor, this is Frankenexpired without further utterance. His stein!" and a few hours afterwards he death took place on the 30th of October, splendid that had been witnessed for 1828, and his funeral was the most many years in Alexandria. In addition to the work already menEssay on Dr. Young's Phoretic System tioned, he published one entitled, An of Hieroglyphics; with additional discoveries, by which it may be applied to decipher the names of the ancient kings of Egypt and Ethiopia. JOHN BAPTIST BELZONI. JOHN BAPTIST BELZONI was born, about 1780, at Padua, in Italy, and passed the greater part of his youth at Rome, where he was preparing himself to become a monk, when, he observes, "the sudden entry of the French into that city, altered the course of my education, and being destined to travel, I have been a wanderer ever since." In 1803, he visited England, and married; when, having but scanty means of subsistence, he went to Scotland and Ireland, and exhibited, at various theatres, a series of experiments in hydraulics, a science to which he had devoted much of his time in Italy. Finding, however, that he received but little profit from these exhibitions, he determined on a public display of his strength, which he put forth in feats that astonished and attracted crowded audiences wherever he appeared. Though, at that time, very young, he was six feet seven inches in height; and such was his elephantine power, that he could walk across the stage with no less than two-and-twenty parts of his body, In 1812, he exhipersons attached by straps to different sailed afterwards to Malta, whence, he bited at Lisbon and at Madrid; and set out for Cairo, for the purpose of making a machine for raising water out of the Nile to water the bashaw's gardens. Whilst on his way to the palace, he received so severe a blow on the leg, that he was confined to his bed thirty days before he could be introduced to the bashaw; who merely observed, on being told of Belzoni's wound, that such accidents could not be avoided where there were troops." Having concluded an agreement to make a machine which should enable one ox to raise as much water as was drawn previously by four, he, after much difficulty and obstruction on the part of those whose cattle were employed in the gardens, completed his work, and demonstrated with great success, a practical experiment of its power. The opposition, however, of the Arabs to the use of his machine, which they had materially damaged, induced Belzoni to relinquish his projects concerning it, and to undertake, at the suggestion of Mr. Salt and Mr. Burckhardt, an expedition to Thebes, for the purpose of removing an enormous bust, to which they had given the name of "the younger Memnon." "It has been erroneously stated," says Belzoni," that I was regularly employed by Mr. Salt for the purpose of bringing the colossal bust from Thebes to Alexandria. I positively deny that I was ever engaged by him in any shape whatever, either by words or writing, as I have proofs of the case being on the contrary. When I ascended the Nile, the first and second time, I had no other idea in my mind, but that I was making researches for antiquities which were to be placed in the British Museum; and it is naturally to be supposed, that I would not have made these excursions, had I been aware that all I found was for the benefit of a gentleman whom I never had the pleasure to see before in my life." Our traveller, accompanied by his wife, left Boolak on the 30th of June, 1815, examined the ruins of ancient Antinoe, and arrived at Ashoumain, where he met with the first remains of Egyptian architecture, which he supposes to have been of a date anterior to those of Thebes. Having arrived at Siout, he requested of the bashaw's physician, permission to employ the workmen necessary to remove the head of Memnon; but not receiving a favourable reply, he, by means of his interpreter, procured the requisite assistance, and after viewing the tombs of Issus, proceeded to Thebes. On his way thither, he visited, near Dendera, the Temple of Tentyra, before which he remained seated some time, lost in admiration, at "the singularity of its preservation," and the extent and magnificence of its structure. On his return to Dendera, the inhabitants insisted on detaining his interpreter, imagining him to be the same who had joined the French army, some years ago, and declaring "that he had been long enough among Christian dogs." With much difficulty he procured the man's release, and in a few days, came in sight of the ruins of Thebes, of which he thus writes:"The most sublime ideas that can be formed from the most magnificent specimens of our present architecture, would give a very incorrect picture of these ruins for such is the difference, not only in magnitude, but in form, proportion, and construction, that even the pencil can convey but a faint idea of the whole. It appeared to me like entering a city of giants, who, after a long conflict, were all destroyed, leaving the ruins of their various temples as the only proofs of their former existence." After pausing with wonder before the two colossal figures in the plain, he proceeded to examine the bust, which it was the object of his expedition to remove. "I found it," he observes, 'near the remains of its body and chair, with its face upwards, and apparently smiling on me, at the thought of being taken to England." Finding the distance to his boat on the Nile too far to go every night, he built a small hut with the stones of the Memnonium, in which, with Mrs. Belzoni, he determined to remain till he had accomplished the removal of the bust. This, after much difficulty and persuasion, he procured sufficient men to raise from the ground; "which," says Belzoni, "so astonished the Arabs, that, though it was the effect of their own efforts, they said it was the devil that did it." On the 5th of August, he reached, with the head, that part of the land which he was afraid of being prevented from crossing by the rising of the water; and on the 12th, he observes, "Thank God, the young Memnon arrived on the bank of the Nile." Next day he entered a cave in 66 |