Their refusing them altogether, which they should have done as faithful Chinese subjects, would have been compelling me to plunder their villages, and take by force what I required; but their circumspection preserved them from such a measure. I, however, considered the excessive dearness of their consent as a refusal, and reformed the prices by my own authority, still leaving them very high. I added the formal threat of plunder, if my camp was not well provisioned on these conditions; and I was allowed to want nothing.'pp. 314, 315.

All this would be very bad-and Lord William Bentinck would have much to answer for in having enabled him to commit such aggressions-but, to say the truth, we do not believe one word of it he and his attendants might, perhaps, have pulled a solitary Chinese off his horse, but that he could have marched and countermarched, and taken the town of Behar,' &c., &c., and threatened to plunder villages and lay the country under contribution, and defy and repel its whole population-in passes and defiles where children rolling down stones would be as formidable as artillery-we do most entirely dishelieve-nay, we have our suspicions about his ever having visited Behar at all; for it was on this expedition that he asserts that he had four times traversed ridges higher by 3500 feet than the summit of Mont Blanc (p. 257), and in regions, according to his account, hitherto unexplored by any European-yet, not a syllable do we find of explanation or description of his line of march, nor of local features-no mention of time-no note of any observationsnot a word of what he did-or felt or suffered-or saw-except only the account we have just quoted of his personal scuffle with the inhabitants of Behar. Nor is this very suspicious silence to be attributed to haste or negligence. He loves to tell the tale of his invasion of China, as he complaisantly calls it he repeats it to at least five different correspondents-to his cousin Miss Zoé Noiset (p. 217)-to his brother (p. 265)— to M. Elie de Beaumont, a naturalist (p. 291)-to M. Dunoyer, a man of letters (p. 294)—to M. de Tracy, a politician (p. 307) -but in all these repetitions we cannot discover any allusion to either time or place, by which we can trace whence he departed-in what direction he marched-how far he went-or by what line he returned. Le vrai n'est pas toujours vraisemblable. His statements may be true, but they look to us very improbable; and we suspect the whole journey may be a fableor at least an exaggeration, suggested to Jacquemont's mind by seeing on the maps of India a track laid down from the Sutledge to the village of Behar for it is a very remarkable fact, that with all his lofty pretensions to activity and enterprise, we cannot find, on a careful examination of his journeys, that he

:

went

went one mile in any direction where there is not a regular line of route laid down on the ordinary maps!

After this, as we believe, imaginary capture of Behar, he made another hostile excursion into Chinese Tartary, in which he states that he proceeded to a fort called Dunker-which he took. About this capture of Dunker we have still more serious doubts than about that of Behar. In the first place, we observe, that in two letters written to M. Beaumont, in a third to M. Dunoyer, and a fourth to M. Tracy, all expatiating on his personal prowess at Behar and all subsequent to the supposed capture of Dunker, there is no allusion whatever to any such event; and, though he boasts that he extended his excursion very far to the northward, and though Dunker is the most northerly point of his track-he does not so much as mention its name, but designates his extreme position by the quotations of the latitude of 32° 10′. The whole and sole mention of the capture of the fort of Dunker is, in a subsequent letter to his father, in these loose terms :

•Assisted by three servants, I literally took the fort of Dunker, in Spiti, which you will find somewhere astride on the 32nd degree of latitude.'-p. 315,

Considering the loquacious vanity with which he repeats all his other personal exploits, it is strange that this one, performed on the extreme verge of his Himalayan excursions, should not have been more particularly explained. After all, he may have visited Behar and Dunker-other persons had previously done so, and there are routes to both laid down in the maps-but it must be regretted that he should have slurred over so loosely and obscurely these the two most interesting, because the most remote and least known, portions of his travels.

But we have still more distinct grounds for doubting his accuracy in such matters. He occasionally hazards an assertion which we can detect, amidst the studied (as it would seem) obscurity of his movements, to be unfounded, as, for instance, when he writes to M. de Tracy-

'I proceeded as far as the mountains above the source of the Jumna; I also approached those of the Ganges.'-p. 241.

And to M. de Beaumont

'I went to the sources of the Jumna, and near those of the Ganges.' -p. 291.

And to M. de Tracy

On the 12th April I visited the sources of the Jumna-I also approached those of the Ganges, and ascended considerably above them on the eternal snows of the colossal chain that separates India from Tibet.'-p. 247.

Now, it is certain, that this story thus solemnly repeated three times over-of his approach to the sources of the Ganges-is, in

the

the meaning he wishes to convey, utterly false. He never was higher up the Ganges than Hurdwar, a town as easy of access as Delhi-if, indeed, he was ever so far-for, though the map prefixed to his book traces his route to Hurdwar, his verbal narrative does not mention and seems to negative his having visited it. But be that as it may, it is certain that he never ascended the Bhagarutee, the sacred branch of the Ganges, which, as our readers know,* descends from the mysterious Gangotree, which the Hindoos revere as the sources of the holy river. On the contrary, he took a different, much easier, and more frequented route, by Dehra, towards the sources of the Jumna; and although one of his letters is dated but one day's journey from Jumnotree, we cannot help doubting whether he had the courage and perseverance to accomplish the last stage of this perilous pilgrimage, which, however, many English gentlemen, and at least one English lady, have performed. We observe that in his letter to the most respected of his correspondents, M. de Tracy, he does not say that he visited the sources of the Jumna,' but only that he proceeded as far as the mountains above the source of the Jumna.' If he did reach scenes, which we are told by other travellers far exceed the most stupendous magnificence of the European Alps, is it not strange that he should give no account whatsoever of those very remarkable scenes? nor, indeed, does he so much as mention the fact itself, till more than a month after, when he says, in the cursory manner we have quoted, I have visited the sources of the Jumna.' The reader who will refer to Mr. Frazer's travels, or to our article referred to in the foot-note, will think that such a scene would deserve some more distinct notice. But whether Jacquemont actually went up to the sources of the Jumna or not, it was his approach to them which gave him the only pretence he had for saying that he approached the sources of the Ganges-which, taking their rise on opposite sides of mountains covered with eternal snow, are at a comparatively short but utterly impassable distance from those of the Jumna. Jacquemont's assertion is exactly as if a traveller who had visited the source of the Aveiron in the valley of Chamouni, should boast

* See Quarterly Review, vol. xxiv. p. 127, for Mr. Frazer's interesting account of the sources of both the Ganges and the Jumna. We should also beg leave to refer our readers to Captain Skinner's Excursions in India.' He visited both Jumnotree and Gangotree, and his work is a most interesting delineation both of manners and scenery. We can give the same praise to Captain Archer's 'Tours in Upper India;'. but both these officers impair the ease of their narratives and the pleasure of their readers by the occasional affectation of a kind of literary merit which is-like many of M. Jacquemont's pleasantries-quite out of place. Captain Skinner's quotations from Shakspeare, and Captain Archer's efforts to be facetious, have, we beg leave, with great respect for their talents, to say, the very contrary effect of what they intend. Their books are very clever, and with these slight blemishes very amusing-without them they would be delightful!

that

that he had also approached the sources of the Po-some of which rise on the opposite side of Mont Blanc-distant only a few leagues in a direct line, but a journey of ten days or a fortnight by any practicable road.* When we find M. Jacquemont thus equivocating to some and lying to others of his most respected correspondents, we conclude that he is not more trustworthy when he is palavering to his cousin Zoé and his brother Porphyre. We ought, however, in fairness to add, that there is one circumstance which might account for his omission of all local description, and which renders it possible that he may have visited the sources of the Jumna and the interior of the Himalaya, though he says nothing of the natural features of either; namely that Jacquemont, selected by the Parisian savans for this remarkable mission, had the strange qualification of being so shortsighted as not to be able to distinguish an object at more than a few yards distance :

My sight has certainly grown shorter within the last year: I only take off my spectacles to read and write, and even with them I do not see far enough to make use of my carbine. The range of my fowlingpiece [from thirty to fifty yards] is just the same as that of my eyes; so I have left my carbine at Sharunpore.'-p. 207.

This really may be the cause not only of the extraordinary absence which we have noted of all local description, but of the very egotistical complexion of his letters. When a man cannot see what other people are about, he must naturally be a good deal occupied with himself. But, after making all allowances of this kind, we must repeat that M. Jacquemont was evidently by no means an adventurous traveller. He indeed promises-agreeably to his national proverb- Monts et merveilles ;' but the monts he never very willingly climbs, and the only merveille he thinks it worth while to produce is himself. He writes from the other side of the Himalaya:

'I shall return to India by the Burunda Pass, through what the Indian and European public improperly term the great chain of the Himalaya. The Burunda Pass scarcely exceeds fifteen thousand feet in elevation. This will be mere child's play to me, who have reached, four times, an elevation of eighteen thousand three hundred, and eighteen thousand six hundred feet.'-p. 286.

Child's play!' very well! but what was the result? He did not attempt the Burunda or any other of the difficult passes of the chain. This adventurous and curious explorer of the Himalaya

Captain Skinner, who seems to have possessed extraordinary courage, activity, and strength, was fourteen days in traversing the shortest practicable line between Jumnotree and the sources of the Ganges. The toil of the journey was immense, but was amply repaid by the magnificence of scenery to which M. Jacquemont does not even allude.

returned,

returned, as he had gone, by the valley of the Sutledge, along a road over a considerable portion of which he confesses he was luxuriously carried in a kind of arm-chair.'-p. 239.

He has, as we have seen, and in many more places than we have quoted, indulged himself in reflections on the over-attention of the English officers to their comforts, and extols his own superior hardihood. The following refutation of both these assertions is amusing. At Dehra, where he sojourned a short time, he complains grievously of the excessive severity of the climate and the desolation of the scene, but he nevertheless endures all these hardships with unabated strength and courage.

'At Dehra the lightning struck a tree under which my little tent had been pitched. Two of my people were in it with me, and both were for some instants paralysed in the left side. On the heights of Missouri, which overhang the valley of Dehra, the space around me was strewed with the splinters of a blasted rock; whilst, chilled with cold and wet, I made my anxious and slender repast. It seems in truth that they are aiming at me from on high. The two first shots have not touched me; but I must beware of the third.'-pp. 206-208.

How grand! On the receipt of this letter Zoé no doubt assembled all the young ladies of Arras, and Porphyre all the students of the Pays Latin, to admire and sympathize with the magnanimous sufferer. Now hear how one of these effeminate English deals with exactly the same place in the same season of the year, Captain Mundy's visit to the heights of Missouri being in April, 1828, and M. Jacquemont's in April, 1830.

April 15th.-Therm. in our tents at Deyra 82-At 4 a.m. this morning, my friend and myself started on an expedition to the two mountain-stations, Llandowr and Missouree. Mr. Shore was kind enough to send two capital ghoonts (mountain ponies) for us to Rajpore, a village at the foot of the mountains, seven miles from Deyra. We galloped on our own horses to this place, where we found the rough little brutes, with two guides, awaiting us. We immediately mounted upon the well-padded saddles and commenced the ascent, being duly cautioned by the men to lay the bridle on the necks of our ponies, and allow them to rest when they pleased. The journey is certainly a nervous one for beginners, for though we have both rambled through the Alps, we have been rather accustomed to trust to our own feet than to ride in mountainous expeditions. We reached the little half-built colony without accident, and breakfasted with Major Brutton of the Eleventh Dragoons, who commands the depôt of European invalids. . . After inspecting the several buildings, and enjoying the most splendid view of the snowy range, the beautiful Doon, (Valley of Dehra,) the mountains beyond it, and in the dim distance beyond them the wide-spreading plains of Hindostan, we remounted our ghoonts, and set off for Missouree, which is somewhat lower than, and three miles distant from, Llandowr. Among the

various