And but that mortal men must sleep,
Pleased I my station here could keep
The live-long night, a listening to thy tale.
But, ever-wakeful nightingale,

When dost thou suspend thy numbers,
And yield to quiet slumbers?
The lark, beyond his usual hours,
Contending with thee from the sky,
Seems exerting all his powers,
Singing of corn, and thou of flowers-
Thou beneath, and he on high,
A fugue of wondrous melody.
Thou'lt sing him down, and he so quiet
Under the wheat, in lowly nest,
Will marvel at thy tuneful riot,
Breaking his gentle partner's rest.
But when his matin-bell he springs
At earliest dawn, untired thy skill,
While his loud orisons he sings,

He'll hear thee at thy vespers still.'

The volume is excellently printed.

pp.

162-165.

Art. XI. Some Account of the present State of the English Settlers in Albany, South Africa. By Thomas Pringle. f.cap 8vo. pp. 126. London. 1814.

WE have heard much of the disappointment and misery of

British emigrants to the United States; and some of our Journalists are never tired of abusing Brother Jonathan and laughing at Birkbeck. It would have been a happy circum stance, if the Illinois paradise had proved the only mirage of the fancy, that had seduced many a poor wanderer into desert and inhospitable regions. Mr. Pringle is secretary to the Society for the Relief of distressed Settlers, established in Cape Town; and he has sent forth this plain and affecting detail of facts, in the hope of its awakening the active sympathy of their country men in more fortunate regions. The truth is,' he says,

the emigration to Algoa Bay was altogether too rashly and hur riedly concerted. A sort of Utopian delirium was somehow excited at that time in the public mind about South Africa, and the flowery descriptions of superficial observers seem to have intoxicated with their Circean blandishments, not merely the gullible herd of unin

formeil emigrants, but many sober men both in and out of Parliament. The parliamentary grant of 50,0001. was voted. Five thousand emigrants were selected from the incredible multitudes* of all ranks, characters, and professions, who besieged Earl Bathurst's office with their eager applications. The motley and ill-assorted bands were collected and crowded on board a fleet of transports provided (and certainly well fitted out) by government; and after a favourable voyage, and a fortunate đebarkation at Algoa Bay, they proceeded, in long trains or caravans of bullock-waggons, towards their land of promiset. At length they found themselves in Albany, with a serene sky above, and verdant plains and bowery groves around them. They pitched their tents under the shade of fragrant acacias, and groves of the gorgeous-blossoned caffer-boom, and believed. for a brief space,

that all those Arcadian dreams and romantic anticipations were about to be actually realized. Alas! une might smile at the absurd delusion, were not the result too calamitous for mirth or levity.'

Mr. Pringle seems disposed to attribute the delusion respecting this African fairy-land, in some measure at least, to the poetical description of the Zuureveld, given by the sober missionaries, Latrobe and Campbell;' and he is very anxious to have it understood, that he does not mean to inculpate Mr. Barrow, notwithstanding that his 'able work' contains opinions that the Author finds reason widely to differ from, and remarks that are not just! The fact is, we believe, that the poetical representations of the Quarterly Reviewer had far more influence, than all the accounts of the Missionaries. That writer affirmed, among other things, that there were not in the whole range of the colony, fifty elephants remaining, and that the tallest is not nine feet high. He has been misinformed,' says Mr. Pringle.

• From my own observations in travelling through the forests of the Reitberg and Sunday River, as well as from direct information, obtained from the Moravian, missionaries at Witte River, and other authentic sources, I am well assured that many hundred elephants

* Upwards of 90,000 souls, as I was informed on good authority in London, before I embarked.

t. While encamped at Algoa Bay, waiting for waggons to convey us into the interior, I met one day with a party of ladies and gentlemen searching for apricots and oranges in the thorny jungles near the Zwartkop's river, where they rather simply expected to find them growing, “ wild in the woods," like hips and haws in England ! About five hundred emigrants, of various parties, were then lodged in tents along the beach where Port Elizabeth has been since built, and many of them appeared to have been 'allured from home by hopes not less extravagant than those of the orange gatherers.'

still exist in the numerous extensive jungles on this side the Fish River, and, moreover, that some of them occasionally do attain the prodigious height of sixteen and even eighteen feet. I have never had an opportunity of personally ascertaining the dimensions of a full grown elephant by actual measurement; but I once rode through a numerous herd of these animals on the Kounap River, in company with some engineer officers, and passed within about fifty paces of one large male, whose height we estimated at fourteen feet at least.'

Since the arrival of the settlers, the elephant has retreated to the more impenetrable and solitary forests that adjoin the Fish and Bosjeman's rivers; but the forest, or jungle, which clothes the steep ravines that border the rivers of Albany, is still inhabited by herds of buffaloes, and some species of the antelope and hyena. The lion also has almost entirely disappeared, though he is far from being such a poltroon as Mr. Barrow supposes."

But these are trivial matters. Far, more to be dreaded than lions and elephants, is the minute enemy by which the colony was infested the very first year of the new settlement. The vegetable distemper called rust, first began to prevail extensively and virulently throughout the colony in 1820. It is the same as the mildew known in this country by the name of red robin, which is supposed to be produced by a minute insect.

Whatever be its nature, it has appeared in South Africa, as a scourge much more formidable and relentless than any of the other natural plagues of drought, locusts, or hurricanes, to which we are occasionally exposed.'

Many settlers had their first crops totally destroyed by it. But there was for some time no appearance of great or general distress, though even the most sanguine were now fully ' awakened from the delusive dreams of wealth and ease with 'which many had emigrated,' and though many were destitute of money, and of all their accustomed comforts.'

Two years and a half,' adds Mr. Pringle, of continued disappointment and disaster to the settlers have passed since I visited Albany, and they have seen two more successive crops perish from their eager grasp, as they ripened. A third has likewise partially failed, and what of it has escaped the rust and the hurricane, is scarcely yet secure from the vicissitudes of the climate.'

The Government having at length seen the necessity of allowing all who chose, to leave their locations, a very large proportion have dispersed themselves throughout the Colony. But a helpless residue' remain behind, chained to their location

by their interest in the soil, and by inability to better themselves.' On their behalf this Appeal is made. They consist chiefly of the heads of parties and of independent families who expected to establish themselves on their several allotments, by the aid of their own funds, or the exertion of their own industry. These two classes are stated to have been by far the most unfortunate, if not the exclusive sufferers, by the result of the emigration; as the mechanics and labourers found sufficient and profitable employment on the locations, so long as the funds of the superior settlers lasted, and then gradually abandoned the settlement. These remaining settlers

were men of some property and of adventurous spirit, who came out under an agreement with their mother country to colonize an important position in the Cape settlement. They have made zealous and persevering exertions to effect that object, but have been depressed by unforeseen obstacles, and overwhelmed by a continued series of unsurmountable disasters. They were mistaken, many of them, doubtless, in giving credit to too flattering accounts of the character and capabilities of the country; but not more culpably mistaken than the Government, that partly countenanced these accounts, and sent them to colonize it upon an injudicious and ill-concerted plan. They have exhausted their strength and resources in prosecuting the impracticable task assigned them, of rendering the Zuureveld exclusively an agricultural settlement with a dense English population. And though the meagre soil and precarious climate of Albany were amply sufficient to baffle that attempt, yet they might possibly, with the support of a liberal government, have retrieved, in some measure, their prosperity, by turning their attention more to pasturage, upon some system of extended allotments, had not Providence seen it meet to afflict them with four successive seasons of unprecedented failure in the crops, and crowned their calamities by the late destructive storm or hurricane. Their means are now utterly wasted, and their spirits quite depressed and broken. Their lands, hitherto almost unproductive and altogether unsufficient in extent, are moreover mortgaged to the colonial government for the stores and rations formerly supplied, and more recently, in some cases, as I understand, for money advanced to relieve their extreme necessities."

Mr. Pringle represents, that if the Government and the public would combine to lend them a helping hand in this emergency, their re-establishment and eventual prosperity are by, no means hopeless. For further information on this point, we must refer our readers to the volume itself.