THE MOUNTAINS OF ABOO, IN GUZERAT.

*

MAJOR TODD, in his comments on a Sanscript inscription, says, that "the Olympus of India, the celebrated Aboo, is the source of the tribe of Chaham Rajpoots. There are no temples in India which can, for a moment, compete with these, whether in costliness of materials, or in beauty of design.

"The height of Aboo may be judged by the variation of temperature. In thirty-six hours I passed from that of 108° in the plains of Marwar, to 60° on the summit of Aboo, under a vertical sun. The barometer indicated a height of near five thousand feet above the sea."

Describing the same scene, Captain Grindlay adds, "Secured from intrusion by the difficulty of the mountain passes, and the untamed ferocity of their inhabitants, the region became a safe and almost inaccessible retreat to the votaries of the Hindoo religion, during the earlier ages of their persecution under their Mahometan conquerors. While the richly sculptured temples on the plains were destroyed, and used as materials for the foundations of Mahometan mosques and cities, most of these mountain shrines have escaped the desolating hand of bigotry, and display only the slow influence of time and a benign climate, which has rather increased than impaired their beauty."

ABOO.

AN Indian paradise! a gorgeous land!

Where giant mountains as thy guardians stand,
Lifting their sunlit heads to yonder sky,

Where fairy clouds in softest beauty lie.
Land of delight! than which the rolling sun

A fairer, lovelier scene ne'er shines upon;
Ne'er flings his beams to welcome brighter flowers,
Than scent with fragrance all thy summer bowers.

* Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 1. part i. p. 138.

Bright skies above with richer colours glow,
And hang in splendour o'er thy vales below;
Bright scenes below in richest prospects rise,
Lit up with radiance from those smiling skies.
The clouds are circling round the mountain's breast,
In every rainbow-hue of beauty drest;

Wafted by winds that love thy sweets to share,

And richest perfumes from thy flowers to bear.
The mountain torrent, from its prisoned source,
Pursues with eager haste its eddying course;
Leaps from the rock mid showers of glittering spray.
Then bounds exulting on its winding way.
In sacred calm the lake's blue waters sleep,
While o'er its breast the softest murmurs creep;
And tropic birds at noon-tide love to lave
Their glittering plumage in the shining wave:
But where the rifted rocks its course oppose,
With sullen sound the broken water flows;
Rolls to the vales, a deep, impetuous tide,
Where flowers, that welcome, sooth its angry pride;
Then softly glides with mild and mellow song,
The mossy banks and cane-crown'd plains along.
The bending trees, in richest foliage drest,
Beneath whose boughs the weary hunters rest,
Fling their lone shadows o'er the lucid stream,
Whose depths are lighted with the mid-day beam.
And where the forests rise to meet the sky,

There Bramah's temples lift their heads on high;
Whose sculptured walls, and high o'er-arching domes,
Glitter with gems amid surrounding glooms;
Before whose shrines, where lamps soft radiance shed,
The trembling Indian bows with solemn dread.

But Time his hoary mantle o'er them flings,
And shakes across those fanes his deadly wings;
Yet beauteous in their waning pride they stand,
The boast and glory of that lovely land.

When Mecca's prophet, in his iron car,
Thro' Asia's plains rode forth with pomp of war;
Thou, smiling land, the tyrant's force didst ward,
The hills thy bulwark, and the rocks thy guard.
But One shall come thy homage to demand,
And claim a grateful offering at thy hand;
He who thy rampart-hills upraised on high,
And flung his starry mantle o'er the sky;
Caused thy rich gushing streams to murmur near,
And bade thy vales in beauteous bloom appear.
He yet shall come to call thy sons his own,
And fix in every heart his sacred throne.
Not wasting war, nor weapons man hath wrought,
Shall force the hallowed fane of holy thought;
But words that charm the deep, imprisoned soul,
Wake the rapt mind, and new-create the whole.
Not Bramah then their grateful gifts shall claim,
The willing servants of a holier name;

That holier name thy echoing vales shall hear,
That holier name thy fragrant winds shall bear;
And heard, the moss-grown shrines and woods among,
Shall rise the melody of sacred song.

A brighter paradise then thou shalt bloom,

A land of glory! girt no more with gloom.

THOMAS AVELING.

MRS. HEMANS.

THIS amiable and highly gifted woman, whose name will be held in grateful admiration so long as refined and elevated genius retains its just place in our estimation, was born in Liverpool, on the 25th of Sept. 1793. Her father, we are informed, was a merchant of some eminence, who, having become involved, retired, with his family, into Wales. Her mother, stated to have been of Italian descent, is described as an accomplished and excellent woman, whose judicious and affectionate endeavours were assiduously employed for the moral and intellectual benefit of her children. To the example and early instruction of such a mother, it is but just to suppose, that Mrs. Hemans owed much of that devotional tendency of mind, which gave to her poetical effusions their highest charm; and, throughout her after life, diffused a holy calm over feelings otherwise too easily excited.

How beautiful and touching is the testimony of the poetess herself, not only to the character of her mother, but to her own early impressions,-derived from the book of life.

"TO A FAMILY BIBLE."

"What household thoughts around thee, as their shrine,
Cling reverently! Of anxious looks beguiled,

My mother's eye upon thy page divine

Each day were bent; her accents, gravely mild,
Breathed out thy love; whilst I, a dreaming child,
Wandered on breeze-like fancies oft away

Some secret nest.

To some lone tuft of breathing spring-flowers wild,
Some fresh-discovered nook for woodland play,-
Yet would the solemn word,
At times with kindlings of young wonder heard,
Fall on my wakened spirit, there to be
A seed not lost; for which, in darker years,
O Book of Heaven! I pour, with grateful tears,
Heart's blessings on the holy dead, and thee."