of the Pacific. In Typee and Omoo there was novelty and interest of subject. Everything was fresh and vigorous in the manners of the people, the character of the country and its vegetation; there were rapidity, variety, and adventure in the story, with enough of nautical character to introduce the element of contrast. In Redburn, his First Voyage, there are none of these sources of attraction; yet, with the exception of some chapters descriptive of common-place things,

vainly tries to sell his gun, and has at last to pawn it; his wardrobe is none of the amplest, and by no means adapted to marine work; he is utterly ignorant of all that relates to the sea, the ship, or the service. The idea of throwing a simple and innocent-minded lad, just fresh from home, into the midst of the roughness, rudeness, and startling novelty of a ship, may be found in Peter Simple; but the circumstances of poor Redburn are so different from those of the well-connected midship

est.

ity, of Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, nor the comprehensiveness and truthfulness of delineation which distinguish some of Cooper's novels that only aim at a simple exhibition of a sea life without strarge adventures or exciting dangers: Redburn, though merely the narrative of a voyage from New York to Liverpool and back, with a description of the characters of officers and crew, is, however, a book both of information and interWe get a good idea of life at sea, as it appears at first to the boy novice and afterwards to the more experienced seaman. The hardships and privations of the crew, the petty tyranny, the pettier greatness, with the tricks and frauds practised in a common merchant vessel on the raw hands, are well exhibited, without exaggeration. As Redburn sails in a vessel that carries passengers as well as cargo, the evils resulting from the indifferent regulations of emigration ships, and the practical disregard at sea of such regulations as exist, are exhibited in a scarcity among the poor emigrants, the effect of a slow passage, and in a fever produced by the scantiness and quality of the diet. Mr. Melville's character as an American is also a source of variety. The scenes on shore at New York, in the pawnbroker's and other places, indicate that the Atlantic cities of the Union are

not much freer from vice and profligacy, if they are indeed from distress, than the seaports of Europe. At Liverpool many things are fresh to the American that are common to us, or which we ignore without intending it as the low haunts and lodging-houses of sailors.

The plan of the book is well designed to bring out its matter effectively; though the position and reputed character of Redburn as "the son of a gentleman," contrived apparently for the sake of contrast and the display of a quiet humor, is not always consistently maintained. At the commencement of the book, Redburn's father is dead,

the family reduced, and the hero is cast upon the

world to choose a means of living. His father's travels, some sea pieces, and a real glass ship in a glass case, (all rather tediously described,) combine with the enthusiasm and ignorance of youth to determine him to the sea; and he starts for New York, with enough money to pay his passage thither, a letter to a friend, and a gun, the gift of his elder brother, who had nothing else to bestow upon him. The friend furnishes Redburn with a day's board and lodging, and gets him a

effect of originality. The quiet humor arising from the contrast between the frame of mind of the boy and his position and circumstances, as well as the sharp reflections his freshness and home education induce him to make, bear some resemblance in point of style to Marryat; but it may arise from the nature of the subject.

There is nothing very striking in the incidents of Redburn-nothing, in fact, beyond the common probabilities of the merchant service in almost every vessel that sails between Great Britain and America; the characters, or something like them, may doubtless be met in almost every ship that leaves harbor. Nor does Mr. Melville aim at effect by melodramatic exaggeration, except once in an episodical trip to London: on the contrary, he indicates several things, leaving the filling up to the reader's imagination, instead of painting scenes in detail, that a vulgar writer would certainly have done. The interest of Redburn arises from its quiet naturalness. It reads like a "true story" - as if it had all taken place.

The best idea of the book, however, is obtained by extracts. The following are among the hero's earlier experiences.

By the time I got back to the ship, everything was in an uproar. The pea-jacket man was there, ordering about a good many men in the rigging; and people were bringing off chickens and pigs and beef and vegetables from the shore. Soon after, another man, in a striped calico shirt, a short blue jacket, and beaver hat, made his appearance, and went to ordering about the man in the big peajacket; and at last the captain came up the side,

and began to order about both of them.

These two men turned out to be the first and second mates of the ship.

Thinking to make friends with the second mate, I took out an old tortoise-shell snuff-box of my father's, in which I put a piece of Cavendish tobacco, to look sailor-like, and offered the box to him very

politely. He stared at me a moment, and then exclaimed, "Do you think we take snuff aboard here, youngster? no, no, no time for snuff-taking at sea; don't let the old man' see that snuff-box; take my advice, and pitch it overboard as quick as you can."

I told him it was not snuff but tobacco; when he said, he had plenty of tobacco of his own, and never carried such nonsense about him a tobacco

box. With that he went off about his business,

and left me feeling foolish enough. But I had reason to be glad that he had acted thus; for if he had not, I think I should have offered my box to the chief mate, who, in that case, from what I after

ing of old sailors, that the last person to fall overboard from the rigging is a landsman, because he grips the ropes so fiercely; whereas old tars are less careful, and sometimes pay the penalty.

After this feat I got down rapidly on deck, and received something like a compliment from Max the Dutchman.

Some of the occurrences give rise to reflections or suggestions on nautical matters; and there are some terrible pictures of vice and poverty in Liverpool, pointed by contrast with the American's experience at home, where absolute death by hunger and privation (the Americans say) cannot occur. We will, however, take a different sample to close with-a case of spontaneous combustion.

Of the three newly-shipped men, who in a state of intoxication had been brought on board at the dock-gates, (at Liverpool,) two were able to be engaged at their duties in four or five hours after quitting the pier; but the third man yet lay in his bunk, in the self-same posture in which his limbs had been adjusted by the crimp who had deposited him there. His name was down on the ship's papers as Miguel Saveda; and for Miguel Saveda the chief mate at last came forward, shouting down the forecastle-scuttle, and commanding his instant presence

on deck: but the sailors answered for their new

comrade, giving the mate to understand that Miguel was still fast locked in his trance, and could not obey him; when, muttering his usual imprecation, the

mate retired to the quarter-deck.

This was in the first dog-watch, from four to six

in the evening. At about three bells in the next watch, Max the Dutchman, who like most old seamen was something of a physician in cases of drunkenness, recommended that Miguel's clothing

should be removed, in order that he should lie more comfortably: but Jackson, who would seldom let anything be done in the forecastle that was not proposed by himself, capriciously forbade this proceeding.

So the sailor still lay out of sight in his bunk, which was in the extreme angle of the forecastle behind the bowsprit-bitts-two stout timbers rooted in the ship's keel. An hour or two afterwards, some of the men observed a strange odor in the forecastle, which was attributed to the presence of some dead rat among the hollow spaces in the side

planks: for, some days before, the forecastle had been smoked out, to extirpate the vermin overrunning her. At midnight, the larboard watch, to which I belonged, turned out; and instantly, as every man woke, he exclaimed at the now intolerable smell, supposed to be heightened by the shaking up of the bilge-water from the ship's rolling. "Blast that rat!" cried the Greenlander.

The lamp dropped from the hand of Max, and went out; while, covered all over with spires and sparkles of flame that faintly crackled in the silence the uncovered parts of the body burned before us, precisely like a phosphorescent shark in a midnight sea.

The eyes were open and fixed, the mouth was curled like a scroll, and every lean feature firm as in life; while the whole face, now wound in curls of soft blue flame, wore an aspect of grim defiance and eternal death-Prometheus, blasted by fire on

the rock.

One arm, its red shirt-sleeve rolled up, exposed the man's name, tattooed in vermilion, near the hollow of the middle joint; and as if there was something peculiar in the painted flesh, every vibrating letter burned so bright that you might read the flaming name in the flickering ground of blue.

"Where's that damned Miguel?" was now shouted down among us from the scuttle by the mate, who had just come on deck, and was determined to have every man up that belonged to his watch.

"He's gone to the harbor where they never weigh anchor," coughed Jackson. "Come you down, sir, and look."

Thinking that Jackson intended to beard him, the mate sprang down in a rage; but recoiled at the burning body, as if he had been shot by a bullet. "My God!" he cried, and stood holding fast to the ladder.

"Take hold of it," said Jackson at last to the

Greenlander; "it must go overboard. Don't stand shaking there like a dog; take hold of it, I say; But stop;" and smothering it all in the blankets, ho pulled it partly out of the bunk.

A few minutes more, and it fell with a bubble among the phosphorescent sparkles of the damp night sea, leaving a corruscating wake as it sank.

This event thrilled me through and through with unspeakable horror; nor did the conversation of the

watch during the next four hours on deck at all

serve to soothe me.

But what most astonished me, and seemed most

incredible, was the infernal opinion of Jackson, that the man had been actually dead when brought on board the ship; and that knowingly, and merely for the sake of the month's advance, paid into his hand upon the strength of the bill he presented, the body-snatching erimp had knowingly shipped a corpse on board of the Highlander under the pretence of its being a live body in a drunken trance. And I heard Jackson say, that he had known of such things having been done before: but that a really dead body ever burned in that manner, I cannot even yet believe. But the sailors seemed familiar with such things; or at least with the stories of such things having happened to others.

From the Spectator.

Upon this the men rushed toward the bunk, Max with the light, which he held to the man's face.

"No, he's not dead," he cried, as the yellow flame wavered for a moment at the seaman's motionless mouth: but hardly had the words escaped, when, to the silent horror of all, two threads of greenish fire, like a forked tongue, darted out between the lips; and in a moment the cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm of wormlike

SON'S BAY TERRITORY.*

MR. M'LEAN entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1820-21, when it had just been strengthened by a coalition with its rival, the North-western Company. With the exception of a five or six months' trip to England in 1842-143, he continued actively engaged in the service for a

* Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory. By John M'Lean. In two volumes. Published by Bentley.

Labrador and the shores of Hudson's Bay to New Caledonia on the further side of the Rocky Mountains, amid the head waters of Fraser's river, and from the boundaries of the United States to beyond the 60th degree of latitude, on the banks of the Mackenzie river. After some twenty years' service, and, as he alleges, unfair treatment in delaying his promotion, Mr. M'Lean was appointed a chief trader; the income from which post in 1841, was 1201. per annum. Even this fortune was not enjoyed in comfort. He was hardly treated by Governor Simpson, and in fact degraded, being superseded in a district to which he was appointed; he therefore resigned, in 1844.

Not much of new geographical information is furnished by Mr. M'Lean's volumes, except as regards the interior of Labrador; in that country he was stationed for several years, and he explored it from Esquimaux Bay in the Straits of Belleisle to the Bay of Ungava. The chief value of the book consists in its picture of life in the Hudson's Bay service-the hardships to be undergone, the privations to be endured, the dangers to be encountered in the conduct of the everyday business of the company, in a region where a journey involves an irksome and riskful navigation, a laborious portage, in winter excessive cold, and in summer great heats with frequent attacks of mosquitoes and other insects. In the remoter districts, bodily hardships are not alone to be encountered. The passions of the intoxicated or superstitious and sometimes the justly-provoked Indian, are to be met by a ready resolution and a high hand; which, however, are sometimes possessed in vain, and the Company's servants fall victims to violence or treachery. Yet such is the ennui in the dreary solitude or monotonous routine of

،،

the forts" or stations in the higher latitudes of the interior, that hardship and danger are welcomed as reliefs from the blank tædium vitæ in the Hudson's Bay territory.

When all this is considered, it may fairly be a matter of wonder that persons with great energy, a capital constitution, since no others could stand the service, and some education, without which they could not discharge its duties, are readily found to embark in such an employ. The first reason probably is, that they are "caught young." The second, that delusive notions are entertained of the service. The "liberality" of the Company has been a standing theme with British and American travellers, who have only seen the principal forts, or whose reception has been prepared for in consequence of official orders and when the travellers have been known to contemplate print. Hence, the Company have had a higher reputation for the good living to be found in their service, the comparative easiness of the life, and the general liberality of their treatment, than late inquiries would seem to show that they deserve. The brother of the Arctic discoverer Simpson left the service in disgust; and infused many complaints of his own

that induced mistrust. Mr. Fitzgerald lately examined the history and general character of the Company; testing their professions and conduct by scattered rays of evidence; and left an ill impression as the result of his inquiry. Mr. M Lean comes with a particular narrative of his own hard treatment, various statements of partiality and injustice as regards other officers, and an account of the Company's neglect of the moral and physical wellbeing of the Indians, and their opposition to Protestant missionaries, all which contrasts remarkably with the panegyrics we have so frequently heard. These, indeed, are only explainable on the consideration we just threw out that the favorable reports originated with writers who visited only the principal or show places, and got about as true an idea of the state of affairs at the lesser interior stations as a traveller in Russia, escorted by the imperial authorities, would have of the true state of things there. Some allowance is to be made for the fact that Mr. M Lean is smarting under the sense of long neglect-of. as he alleges, an unfair preference to favored rivals, and a long course of ill-treatment; but many of the facts hardly admit of color, and do not refer to himself.

Any judgment on these controversial matters, however, is best formed by a perusal of the volumes. Our extracts will chiefly relate to the adventurous part of the narrative. The following is an example of the unpleasantnesses to which the Hudson's Bay "travellers" are exposed.

I had a still more narrow escape in the month of March ensuing. I had been on a visit to the post under my own immediate charge, termed head-quarters par excellence; returning to the post alone, I came to a place where our men, in order to avoid a long detour occasioned by a high and steep hill con coming close to the river, were accustomed to draw their sledges upon the ice along the edge of a rapid. About the middle of the rapid, where the torrent is fiercest, the banks of the river are formed of rocks rising almost perpendicularly from the water's edge; and here they had to pass on a narrow ledge of ice, between the rock on the one side and the foaming and boiling surge on the other. The ledge, at no time very broad, was now reduced, by the falling in of the water, to a strip of ice of about eighteen inches or little more, adhering to the rock. The ice, however, seemed perfectly solid, and I made no doubt that with caution I should succeed in passing safely this formidable strait.

The weather having been very mild in the fore part of the day, my shoes and socks had been saturated with wet, but were now frozen hard by the cold of the approaching night. Overlooking this circumstance, I attempted the dangerous passage; and had proceeded about half-way, when my foot slipped, and I suddenly found myself resting with one hip on the border of ice, while the rest of my body overhung the rapid rushing fearfully underneath. I was now literally in a state of agonizing suspense: to regain my footing was impossible; even the attempt to move might precipitate me into the rapid.

My first thought indeed was to throw myself in, and endeavor by swimming to reach the solid ice that bridged the river a short distance below; a glance at the torrent convinced me that this was a measure too desperate to be attempted; I should have been dashed against the ice, or hurried beneath it by the current. But my time was not yet come. Within a few feet of the spot where I was thus suspended in sublimis, the rock projected a little outward, so as to break the force of the current. It struck me that a new border of ice might be formed at this place, under and parallel to that on which I was perched: exploring cautiously, therefore, with a stick which I fortunately had in my

and, as the voyageurs say, "He that passes it with his share of a canoe's cargo may call himself a man."

After passing the portage, the Rocky Mountains reared their snow-clad summits all around us, presenting a scene of gloomy grandeur that had nothing cheering in it. One scene, however, struck me as truly sublime. As we proceeded onward, the mountains pressed closer on the river, and at one place approached so near that the gap seemed to have been made by the river forcing a passage through them. We passed in our canoes at the base of precipices that rose almost perpendicularly above

ture well founded; but whether the ice were strong enough to bear me, I could not ascertain. But it was my only hope of deliverance: letting myself down therefore, gently, I planted my feet on the lower ledge, and, clinging with the tenacity of a shell-fish to the upper, I crept slowly along till I

reached land.

Familiarity, if it does not always breed contempt, at least diminishes surprise. When some

of the geological conclusions respecting the vegetable and animal remains were promulgated, they seemed so strange as to induce the idea of a totally different state of things an unnatural nature, as it were. More extensive observation of causes in actual operation with reference to geological phenomena, have lessened the feeling, by showing that

After passing through these magnificent portals, the mountains recede to a considerable distance; the space intervening between them and the river being a flat, yielding timber of a larger growth than I expected to find in such a situation.

Mr. M'Lean's station in Labrador was an experiment made with the view of discovering whether the country had sufficient fur-bearing animals to justify the establishment of a series of posts. Independently of his own adventures, Mr. M'Lean gives some account of Governor Simpson's obstinacy and mismanagement, and the beneficial effects to the Company from his own advice; but we will pass these for a hairbreadth escape by sea.

After seeing my couriers off, I left Mr. Erlandson with two men to share his solitude, and reached

ously, if upon a less scale. This land-slip is an example.

As we ascended the river, the scenery became beautifully diversified with hill and dale and wooded valleys, through which there generally flowed streams of limpid water.

I observed at one place

a tremendous land-slip, caused by the water undermining the soil. Trees were seen in an inverted position, the branches sunk in the ground and the roots uppermost; others with only the branches appearing above ground; the earth rent and intersected by chasms extending in every direction: while piles of earth and stones, intermixed with shattered limbs and trunks of trees, contributed to increase the dreadful confusion of the scene. The half of a huge hill had tumbled into the river and dammed it across, so that no water escaped for some time. The people of Dunvegan, seeing the river suddenly dry up, were terrified by the phenomenon; but they had not much time to investigate the cause: the river as suddenly reäppeared, presenting a front of nearly twenty feet in height, and foaming and rushing down with a noise of thunder.

The following passage of the Peace River through the Rocky Mountains is curious from the circumstance of the stream being navigable; in such situations it is generally too precipitous for use.

The Rocky Mountains came in view on the 8th October, and we reached the portage bearing their name on the 10th; the crossing of which took us eight days, being fully thirteen miles in length, and excessively bad road, leading sometimes through swamps and morasses, then ascending and descending steep hills, and for at least one third of the distance so obstructed by fallen trees as to render it all but impassable. I consider the passage of this portage the most laborious duty the Company's servants have to perform in any part of the territory;

notice. Proceeding along the coast, I was induced one evening by the flattering appearance of the weather to attempt the passage of a deep bay; which being accomplished, there was little danger of being delayed afterwards by stress of weather. This step I soon had cause to repent. The sea

hitherto presented a smooth surface; not a breath

of wind was felt, and the stars shone out brightly. A few clouds began to appear on the horizon; and the boat began to rise and fall with the heaving of the sea. Understanding what these signs portended, we immediately pulled for the shore; but had scarcely altered our course when the stars disappeared, a tremendous noise struck upon our ears from seaward, and the storm was upon us. In the impenetrable obscurity of the night not a trace of land could be discovered; but we continued to ply our oars, while each succeeding billow threatened

immediate destruction.

The horrors of our situation increased; the man on the look-out called out that he saw breakers ahead in every direction: and escape appeared to be next to impossible. My crew of Scottish Islanders, however, continued their painful exertions without evincing by a murmur the apprehensions they must have felt. The crisis was now at hand. We approached so near to the breakers that it was impossible to avoid them; and the men lay on their oars, expecting the next moment would be their last.

In such a situation the thoughts of even the most depraved naturally carry them beyond the limits of time; and by these thoughts, I believe, the soul of every one was absorbed; yet the men lost not their presence of mind. Suddenly, the voice of the lookout was heard amid the roar of the breakers, calling our attention to a dark breach in the line of foam that stretched out before us, which he fancied to be a channel between the rocks. A few despe rate strokes brought us to the spot; when, to our