is a superabundance of working hands and a depreciation of the price which they receive, which takes from Protestant countries the advantages they enjoyed, while they alone limited the rest of the workmen to the Sunday. "Suppress," say the writers whose views we are now stating, "the rest of the Sunday, and the condition of the workmen will become intolerable, and poortaxes will shortly absorb the whole revenue of the land."

The Catholic writers, therefore, look upon the working-classes as the representatives of the slaves of former times, and consider that they cannot retain their liberty-or, at least, cannot retain it upon such terms as to make it advantageous to them-except with the help of those institutions, by means of which they first acquired it. We will not go farther in our exposition of a system which appears to us more open to objections in its practical part, than in its theory. We have wished to give to our readers a sketch of the new views which are now taken by men of indisputable merit. They acknowledge frankly that the remedies they propose can scarcely by possibility be adopted in the present state of the world; and they hardly attempt to conceal the sadness of their forebodings as to the future destiny of society.

ART. IX.-Descent of the Danube, from Ratisbon to Vienna, during the Autumn of 1827, with anecdotes and recollections, historical and legendary, of the towns, castles, monasteries, &c. upon the banks of the river, and their inhabitants and proprietors, ancient and modern. By J. R. Planché, author of Lays and Legends of the Rhine," "Oberon," an Opera, &c. 8vo. London. 1828.

2. A Steam Voyage down the Danube, with Sketches of Hungary, Wallachia, Servia, Turkey, &c. By Michael J. Quin, Author of "A Visit to Spain." Third edition, with additions. In two volumes. Post 8vo. London. 1836.

3. Austria and the Austrians. In two volumes. Post 8vo. London. 1837.

4. Three Voyages in the Black Sea to the coast of Circassia: including descriptions of the ports, and the importance of their trade, with sketches of the manners, customs, religion, &c. of the Circassians. By the Chev. Taitbout de Marigny, Consul of his Majesty the King of the Netherlands, at Odessa. 8vo. London. 1837.

5. Travels in Circassia, Krim Tartary, &c. including a Steam Voyage down the Danube, from Vienna to Constantinople, and round the Black Sea, in 1836. By Edmund Spencer, Esq. Author of "Sketches of Germany and the Germans," &c. In two volumes. 8vo. London. 1837.

6. Report on the Commerce of the Ports of New Russia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, made to the Russian Government, in 1835, in pursuance of an investigation, undertaken by order of Count Woronzow. Translated from the original, published at Odessa, by T. F. Triebner. Post 8vo. London. 1836.

7. A Geographical, Statistical, and Commercial Account of the Russian Ports of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azoph, and the Danube; also an official Report of the European Commerce of Russia, in 1835. From the German. With a map. 8vo.

London. 1837.

WE have now before us the materials, which, until the

publication of Mr. Spencer's work, our literature, or indeed that of any other nation, had not before acquired, for a complete description of the Danube and its borders, from its fountains in the Black Forest to the Black Sea. We are relieved also, chiefly by Mr. Spencer's assistance, from the labour of consulting numerous volumes, in order to obtain some idea of the principal ports of the Euxine; of the "wild and wondrous" scenery which characterizes its shores; of the various tribes of the human family by which those shores are occupied; and, above all, of the revolutions which the miraculous agency of steam is preparing throughout that world of waters-a world hitherto almost as unknown as America was before the discoveries of Columbus.

Fifty years ago, the Turkish flag alone waved in the Bosphorus, the Euxine, and the Danube. Russia, by the treaty of Kainardji, obtained the right of navigating that sea in 1774. A similar privilege was conceded to other countries about thirty years afterwards; but it was frequently interrupted by war, or by the caprice of the Turkish government, until 1829, when by the arrangements concluded at the peace between Russia and the Porte, the passage through the Hellespont and Bosphorus was opened for ever to the mercantile flags of all nations. Nevertheless, down to a very late period-we might say so late as four years ago-nothing was known of the vast resources presented to commercial enterprize by the first river in Europe. The populous cities, towns, and villages, the dense forests, the teeming fields, along its borders of full sixteen hundred miles in

length, seemed to have been wrapped in a universal lethargy, and so they would doubtless have remained hybernating for centuries yet to come, had they not been touched by the wand of that enchanter, who is now traversing all lands and waters, and summoning them to new stages of existence, that as we rise with them, still, like new Alps, rise higher above our heads, baffling all conjecture as to the destinies to which they may ultimately lead.

It was curious to hear-as it was our fortune to have heardsome of the countless objections that were at first urged against the plans of those men, who introduced the steam-boat in the eastern waters of Europe. The Austrians were too poor, the Hungarians too lazy, the Servians too ignorant, the Turks too sedentary, the Wallachians too barbarous, the Greeks too contemptible, to afford it anything like adequate support; and the Moscovite, bearing with all his weight upon the failing energies of the Sultan, ambitious to grasp the whole power and monopolize all the commerce upon which he could lay his colossal arm, from the Baltic to the Dardanelles, would never, it was said, permit that element to contend against him, which, once set in motion, he could never hope to control.

The very first steamer that went down the Danube, set the question at rest as to the profits of the speculation. The eyes of the apathetic Austrian were opened, when he found it returning with a cargo that ensured him, upon a moderate calculation, seven per cent. upon his shares. Before the end of the first season, that seven was raised to ten. The Hungarian, who, when he first saw the tall sooty cylinder shooting its column of smoke into the air, and leaving a long track of mysterious cloud behind it, ran away into his hut or his forest as if he had beheld a demon, anticipated even the Austrian in leaping on the deck, and revelling in the luxurious rapidity with which he was conveyed, even against the current, from Moldava to Presburg. The Servian and the Wallachian, with a shrewdness for which they had before obtained no credit, saw at once that the new political existence which they had acquired, would soon be converted into real independence by the aid of that friendly visitor. The Russians speedily found out, that the game was of that sort at which two could play, and built a fleet of steam-boats of their own. Without the Birmingham engine, that despiser of protocols, Greece, though elevated diplomatically to the rank of a kingdom, would have already fallen back into anarchy. And as to the "sedentary" Turks, let Mr. Spencer be heard, immediately after he enters the "Crescent," an English steamer, on its way, not along the Turkish coast of the Danube, where the auto

maton had already ceased to be a novelty, but from Varna to Trebizond :

"The Crescent' was literally filled with passengers: the greater number Turks. The passion of these people for travelling in a steamboat, who at first would not enter one, is now so great, that it may almost be termed a mania; but this is in consonance with the general tenor of their character; when once excited by any new change, or popular reform, their enthusiasm knows no bounds. I have seen the steam-packet bureaus in Constantinople besieged by multitudes in search of tickets, having no more important business than the enjoyment of an agreeable trip; and never was a Margate steamer, in the height of the season, more densely crowded than those which leave Constantinople. You may, therefore, easily imagine what a lucrative speculation the navigation of these seas by steam has been for the proprietors. To a European it was not a little amusing to observe their movements on deck: each Turk, armed with his little carpet, provender-bag, and tchibouque, appeared the very picture of contentment."-vol. ii. p. 187-8.

So much for the Turk, whose modern antipathy to locomotion was represented to be as invincible as his propensity to emigration was at the Hegira! In the same "Crescent," moreover, were assembled Armenians, Greeks, and Jews, in their varied costumes, turbans, and caps, of both sexes, and of every age and tongue.

"Surely," adds Mr. Spencer, "the world has never witnessed an invention better adapted than steam to connect the inhabitants of the earth by the same ties of religion, habits, customs, and manners; in one word, to effect a complete moral revolution. Its influence has been already felt by the benighted inhabitants of those beautiful countries on the banks of the Danube; and, if to this we add rail-roads, with their steam-carriages, which, from their convenience and celerity, must, in process of time, become universal, what may we not expect in a few years?

"Do we not already see the whole of the nations of the East, wherever the arms of Europe or her commerce have penetrated, beginning to evince a taste for European habits? They are partial to our clothes, furniture, and even fashions. In the Ottoman empire we find not only the Sultan, but his grandees, who only a few months since ate with their fingers, and sat upon the ground, now making use of tables, chairs, knives, forks, and spoons, and furnishing their apartments with costly looking-glasses, chiffoniers, secretaires, chests of drawers, &c. and I assure you, in a few years, we shall find that they will entirely conform to the customs and manners of Europe. At present I do not know a speculation more likely to prove profitable, than to send cargoes of furniture to Constantinople, and other large towns in Turkey and the East; and any of my mercantile readers who may act upon this hint, will remember with gratitude the writer of these letters.

"In short, a volume would scarcely suffice to tell the advantages of steam, and the consequences it is likely to produce. Even now, a man leaving London is carried into the heart of Germany by steam; he has then only to take post and traverse Bavaria and part of Austria to Vienna, where steam-boats are waiting to carry him to Constantinople. This immense distance, the most agreeable tour that can be performed, may be completed at a trifling expense, and in the short space of, at most, twenty days, without the slightest fatigue, not even the loss of a single night's rest.

"What other mode of travelling than steam could unite the various nations by which I am now surrounded-circumcised and uncircumcised mingling together in the happy bonds of fellowship? Before the appearance of steam-boats in these seas, Franks were regarded by the blinded fanatic followers of Mahomet as barbarians; now they are lauded to the skies: here, I have been travelling for days in the company of a Turk; we ate out of the same provender-bag, drank out of the same cup, and felt for each other the same kindly feelings of the sincerest friendship."-vol. ii. p. 189-190.

Five years ago, there was not a single steam-boat to be seen in the Euxine. There are now eight or ten established at Odessa and Sebastopol, which ply between those ports and Galatz, Varna, Trebizond, Constantinople, and Smyrna. Three years ago, the communications between Constantinople and Smyrna were kept up by means of a solitary packet, which sometimes, with favourable winds, completed its voyage in seventy hours, but frequently, in consequence of the very changeable breezes in the Archipelago, was a week or a fortnight, or even longer, upon its way. The fares were so high that few persons availed themselves of this conveyance; and it was at length given up. Lately two steamers have been put upon that station. They accomplish the voyage in thirty hours with certainty, and the greatest facility. While we are writing, the Turkish watermen of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, a numerous race, comprising from fifteen to twenty thousand men, and reputed to have inherited all the fanaticism of the extinct Janissaries, are in mutiny against the power of steam, which threatens, they say, to consign them and their families to ruin. In consequence of their hostility, the steamers between Constantinople and Smyrna have been compelled to suspend their operations. This is one of the checks which the progress of civilization is destined uniformly to encounter; but no arm-not all the population of Stamboul combined-can now repel for any considerable time this vital power from those seas.

There is no nation to which the steam-boat is more essential, or upon which it has already, considering the brief period of its existence there, conferred more signal advantages, than upon