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he had never experienced before. The stately garniture of times long past had a frightful meaning, when appearing, as it now did, not upon a canvass, but upon a moving shape, at midnight. Still endeavouring to shake off those impressions which benumbed him, he raised himself upon his arm, and faintly asked "who was there?" The phantom turned round-approached the bed-and fixed her eyes upon him; so that he now beheld a countenance where some of the worst passions of the living were blended with the cadaverous appearance of the dead. In the midst of traits which indicated noble birth and station, was seen a look of cruelty and perfidy, accompanied with a certain smile which betrayed even baser feelings. The approach of such a face near his own, was more than Colonel D could support; and when he rose next morning from a feverish and troubled sleep, he could not recollect how or when the accursed spectre had departed. When summoned to breakfast, he was asked how he had spent the night, and he endeavoured to conceal his agitation by a general answer, but took the first opportunity to inform his friend Mr. N- that, having recollected a certain piece of business which waited him at London, he found it impossible to protract his visit a single night. Mr. N seemed surprised, and anxiously sought to discover whether any thing occurred to render him displeased with his recep

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tion; but finding that his guest was impenetrable, and that his remonstrances against his departure were in vain, he insisted upon shewing Colonel D the beauties of his country residence, after which he would reluctantly bid him farewell. In walking round the mansion, Colonel D--was shewn the outside of the tower where he had slept, and vowed, mentally, never to enter it again. He was next led to a gallery of pictures, where Mr. N took much delight in displaying a complete series of family portraits, reaching back to a very remote era. Among the oldest, there was one of a lady. Colonel D— had no sooner got a glimpse of it, than he cried out, " May I never leave this spot, if that is not she." Mr. Nasked whom he meant? "The detestable phantom that stared me out of my senses last night;" and he related every particular that had occurred.

Mr. N– overwhelmed with astonishment, confessed that to the room where his guest had slept, there was attached a certain tradition, pointing it out as having been, at a remote period, the scene of murder and incest. It had long obtained the repute of being haunted by the spirit of the lady, whose picture was before him; but there were some circumstances in her history so atrocious, that her name was seldom mentioned in his family, and his ancestors had always endeavoured as much as possible to draw a veil over her memory.

IN

N our last Number, and in a Review of Mr. Barrow's recent publication, we inserted a general summary of Captain Buchan's expedition into the interior of Newfoundland, about eight years ago, and signified that we should probably avail ourselves of the information furnished by his interesting Journal, to lay before our readers an account of the natives, their habitations, manners, &c. We thus early acquit ourselves of the promise.

The Journal describes minutely the daily march of the party, from the 13th of January, to the 24th, either over smooth snow, or rough and ragged ice, which destroyed their sledges. Their course lay up the River of Exploits. On the evening of the 23d, they observed two natives, from whom they concealed themselves, intending to follow their track next morning; and the narrative thus proceeds.

"With the first glimpse of morn we

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reached the wished-for track, which led us along the western shore to the north-east, up to a point, on which stood an old wigwam; from thence it struck across for the shore we had left. As the day opened it was requisite to push forward with celerity to prevent being seen, and to surprise the natives, if possible, while asleep. Canoes were soon descried, and shortly after wigwams, two close to each other, and a third about a hundred yards from the former. Having examined the arms, and charged my men to be prompt in executing such orders as might be given, at the same time I strictly ordered them to avoid every impropriety, and to be especially guarded in their behaviour towards the women. The bank was now ascended with great alacrity and silence; the party being formed in to three divisions, the three wigwams were at once secured; we called to the people within, but received no answer; the skins which covered the entrance were then removed, and we beheld groups of men, women, and children lying in the utmost consternation; they remained absolutely for some minutes without motion or utterance. My first object was now to remove their fears and inspire confidence in us, which was soon accomplished by our shaking hands and shewing every friendly dis position. The women very soon be gan to embrace me for my attention to their children; from the utmost state of alarm they soon became curious, and examined our dress with great attention and surprise. They kindled a fire and presented us with venison steaks, and fat run into a solid cake, which they used with lean meat. Every thing promised the utmost cordiality; knives, handkerchiefs, and other little articles were presented to them, and in return they offered us skins. I had to regret our utter ignorance of their language, and that the presents were at the distance of at least twelve miles. The want of these occasioned me much embarrassment; I used every endeavour to make them understand my great desire that some of them should accompany us to the place where our baggage was, and

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assist in bringing up such things as we wore; which at last they seemed perfectly to comprehend.

"It will not be expected that I can give much information respecting the Indians of Newfoundland. Of a people so little known, or rather not known at all, any account, however imperfect, must be interesting. It appears then that they are permanent inhabitants, and not occasional visitors. Their wigwams are of two kinds; one of a circular form, and the other octagonal. The first of these consists simply of a few poles supported by a fork, such as are common to various tribes in North America; but this kind is used only as a summer residence whilst employed in the lakes and rivers procuring food for the winter. Those in which I found them were of the octagonal structure, and were constructed with very considerable pains. The diameter, at the base, was nearly twenty-two feet; to the height of about four feet above the surface was a perpendicular wall or fence of wooden piles and earth; on this was affixed a wall-plate, from which were projected poles forming a conical roof, and terminating at the top in a small circle, sufficient for emitting the smoke and admitting the light, this and the entrance being the only apertures; a right line being drawn to equal distances from each of the angular points towards the centre was fitted neatly with a kind of lattice-work, forming the fronts of so many recesses which were filled with dressed deerskins. The fire was placed in the centre of the area, around which was formed their places of rest, every one lying with his feet towards the centre, and the head up to the lattice-work partition, somewhat elevated. The whole wigwam was covered in with birch bark, and banked on the outside with earth, as high as the upright wall, by which these abodes, with little fuel, were kept warm even in the inclemency of the winter. Every part was finished in a manner far superior to what might reasonably have been expected. According to the report of William Cull, (who had been before in the interior)

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the storehouses seen by him were built with a ridge pole, and had gable ends; and the frame of the store which we saw on the island, I conceive to be of that description, as it certainly had a ridge pole. Their canoes were finished with neatness, the hoops and gunnels formed of birch, and covered in with bark cut into sheets, and neatly sewed together and lackered over with gum of the spruce-tree. Their household vessels were all made of birch or spruce bark, but it did not appear that these were applied to any purpose of cookery: I apprehend they do not boil any part of their diet, but broil or roast the whole; there were two iron boilers, which must have been plundered from some of our settlers; to what purpose they may apply these is uncertain, but they appeared to set a great value on them, for on deserting the wigwam they had conveyed them out of our sight. They were well supplied with axes, on which a high value is set; these they keep bright and sharp, as also the blades of their arrows, of which we found upwards of a hundred new ones Bin a case.

"The reports of the settlers have always magnified the Newfoundland Indians into a gigantic stature; this, however, is not the case as far as regards the tribe we saw, and the idea may perhaps have originated from the bulk iness of their dress. They are well formed, and appear extremely healthy and athletic, and the average stature of the men may probably reach five feet eight inches. With one exception, their hair was black; their features are more prominent than any of the Indian tribes that I have ever seen, and from what could be discerned through a lacker of oil and red ochre (or red earth) with which they besmear themselves, I was led to conclude them to be fairer than the generality of Indian complexions. The exception with regard to the hair, was in that of a female, bearing all the marks of an European, with light sandy hair, and features strongly resembling the French, apparently about twenty-two years of age; she carried an infant in her cossack;

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her demeanour differed very materially from the others; instead of that sudden change from surprise and dismay to acts of familiarity, she never uttered a word, nor did she ever recover from the terror our sudden and unexpected visit had thrown her into. The dress of these Indians consisted of a loose cossack, without sleeves, but puckered at the collar to prevent its falling off the shoulders, and made so long, that when fastened up round the haunches it becomes triple, forming a good security against accidents happening to the abdomen; this is fringed round with a cutting of the same substance; they also wear leggins, mockisons, and cuffs, the whole made of the deer-skin, and worn with the hair side next to the body, the outside lackered with oil and earth, admirably adapted to repel the severity of the weather; the only difference in the dress of the two sexes, is the addition of a hood attached to the back of the cossack of the female for the reception of children. The males,on having occasion to use their bows, have to disengage the right shoulder and kneel down on the right knee; the bow is kept perpendicular, and the lower extremity supported against the left foot; their arrows display some ingenuity, for the blade, which is of iron, is so proportioned to the shaft, that when missing their object in the water it does not sink; the feathers which direct its course become now a buoy, and they take it up at pleasure; the blade of the arrow is shouldered, but not barbed. Their snow shoes, or racketts, as they are called by some, differed from all others that I have seen; the circular part of the bow, which was cross-barred with skin-thong, was in breadth about fifteen inches, and lengthways near three feet and a half, with a tail of a foot long; this was to counterbalance the weight of the front, before the fore-cross beam. So far their make is like ours, with the difference of length, which must be troublesome in the woods; but if my conjectures are right, they travel but littie in the woods when the snow is on the ground; now this being placed on the ground and the

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face, both ends being elevated. Their reason for this is obvious, for the twofold purpose of preventing any quantity of snow from resting before the foot, and the other to accelerate their motions, Without causing suspicion, I could not venture to ascertain their exact numbers; but I conceived there could not be less than thirty-five grown-up persons, of whom probably two-thirds were women, some of the men being probably absent; the number of children was about thirty, and most of them not exceeding six years of age, and never certainly were finer infants

seen.

"Whatever their numbers may be in the interior of Newfoundland, there did not appear to be any want of provision; the quantity of venison we saw packed up was very considerable; there were, besides, on the margin of the pond whole carcases, which must have been killed ere the frost set in, seren of them being frozen within the iee; the packs were nearly three feet in length, and in breadth and depth fifteen inches, packed up with fat venison cleared of the bone, and in weight from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds, each pack being neatly cased round with bark. The lakes and ponds abound with trout, and flocks of wild geese annually visit them in the months of May and October; and their vigorous appearance points out, that the exercise to procure food is only conducive to health.

"The opinion, therefore, of their numbers being few, because of their not being seen so much as formerly, is, I think, an erroneous one. That they should not appear near the coasts of the island is easily explained. The settlers thought they could not do a more meritorious act than to shoot an Indian whenever they could fall in with him. They were thus banished from their original haunts into the interior, of which they had probably but little knowledge, their chief dependance for food being fish and sea-fowl. They probably were not then, as now, provided with the proper implements for

"There are various opinions as to the origin of the Newfoundland Indians; some conceiving them to have come from the continent of America, others that they are the descendants of the old Norwegian navigators, who are supposed to have discovered this island near a thousand years ago. I had persons with me that could speak the Norwegian and most of the dialects known in the north of Europe, but they could in no wise understand them; to me their speech appeared as a complete jargon, uttered with great rapidity and ve hemence, and differed from all the other Indian tribes that I had heard, whose language generally flows in soft melodious sounds.

"The general face of the country in the interior exhibits a mountainous appearance, with rivers, ponds, and marshes in the intermediate levels or valleys; the timber, which is mostly white and red spruce, fine birch and ash, is much stinted in its growth, and those trees which have arrived at any considerable dimensions are generally decayed at the heart. In advancing into the interior, the birch diminishes both in size and quantity till it almost wholly disappears. In many places the woods are burnt down for a considerable extent, and in others young woods have sprung up, and their several growths evidently shew the fires to have been made at different periods, but none had been burnt for thirty miles below the lake; this general remark is made from observation on the banks of the river. The pond on which the natives were found does not appear to have been discovered from

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any

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* Of this catastrophe we gave an account in our

last.-Ed.

GOSSCHEN'S DIARY.....NO. I. The following striking narrative is translated from

the MS. Memoirs of the late Rev. Dr. Gottlieb Michael Gosschen, a Catholic clergyman of great eminence in the city of Ratisbon. It was the custom of this divine to preserve, in the shape of a diary, a regular account of all the interesting

particulars which fell in his way, during the exercise of his sacred profession. Two thick small quartos, filled with these strange materials, have been put into our hands by the kindness of Count Frederick von Lindenbaumenberg, to whom the

worthy father bequeathed them Many a dark story, well fitted to be the groundwork of a romance, many a tale of guilty love and repen tance,-many a fearful monument of remorse and horror, might we extract from this record of dungeons and confessionals. We shall from time to time do so, but sparingly, and what is still more necessary, with selection.]

NE

TEVER had a murder so agitated the inhabitants of this city as that of Maria von Richterstein. No heart could be pacified till the murderer was condemned. But no sooner was his doom sealed, and the day fixed for his execution, than a great change took place in the public feeling. The evidence, though conclusive, had been wholly circumstantial. And people who, before his condemnation, were as assured of the murderer's guilt as if they had seen him with red hands, began now to conjure up the most contradictory and absurd reasons for believing in the possibility of his innocence. His own dark and sullen silence seemed to some, an indignant expression of that innocence which he was too proud to avow, some thought they saw in his imperturbable demeanor, a resolution to court death, because his life was miserable, and his reputation blasted, and others, the most numerous, without reason or reflection, felt such sympathy with the criminal, as 3L ATHENEUM VOL. 4.

almost amounted to a negation of his crime. The man under sentence of death was, in all the beauty of youth, distinguished above his fellows for graceful accomplishments, and the last of a noble family. He had lain a month in his dungeon, heavily laden with irons. Only the first week he had been visited by several religionists, but he then fiercely ordered the jailor to admit no more men of God,"-and till the eve of his execution, he had lain in dark solitude, abandoned to his own soul. It was near midnight when a sage was sent to me by a magistrate, that the murderer was desirous of seeing me. I had been with many men in his unhappy situation, and in no case had I failed to calm the agonies of grief, and the fears of the world to come. But I had known this youthhad sat with him at his father's table

mes

I knew also that there was in him a strange and fearful mixture of good and evil-I was aware that there were circumstances in the history of his progenitors not generally known-nay, in his own life-that made him an object of awful commiseration-and I went to his cell with an agitating sense of the enormity of his guilt, but a still more agitating one of the depth of his misery, and the wildness of his misfortunes.

I entered his cell, and the phantom struck me with terror. He stood erect in his irons, like a corpse that had risen from the grave. His face, once so beautiful, was pale as a shroud, and drawn into ghastly wrinkles. His black-matted hair hung over it with a terrible expression of wrathful and savage misery. And his large eyes,