The position of ambassador in London, | appears to have deceived both his colbrilliant as it was, could not long satisfy league and his chief. The Holy Alliance him. He pined to be in a brighter scene, wished to put down the Spanish Revoluand more immediately in contact with the tion by force, and to use the arms of center of political action. At this period France for this purpose. M. de Villèle the uncured folly of the restored despots, was very unwilling that France should be was causing disturbance in various parts of so used, and instructed his plenipotentiEurope, and in Spain the Cortes and the aries not to lend themselves to any such M. de Montmorency, a pious sovereign were in open hostility. A con- result. gress of sovereigns and plenipotentiaries zealot and a royalist par excellence, was was to meet at Verona to discuss the pe- anxious to interfere by arms in the affairs of rils of the time, and Chateaubriand longed Spain as a matter of high principle. M. de to be among them, a conspicuous figure Chateaubriand, pretending to agree with in the brilliant assemblage. Montmorency, Villèle, was in his heart even more anxthe Minister for Foreign Affairs, was go- ious for a war in Spain than Montmorency, ing as the representative of France, and though for a different motive, as he afterneither needed nor much fancied so clever ward repeatedly avowed, and gloried in and unmanageable a colleague. But the avowing. He cared comparatively little, ambassador persisted, and put in action almost nothing, indeed, about the respectevery means of influence he possessed. ive merits of the King and the Cortes in He applied to Montmorency direct. He their civil strife; he desired only a war in pressed the same demand unremittingly which the armies of France, by an easy upon Villèle, then virtually chief of the and certain victory, should restore the Cabinet, and he urged Madame Récamier tarnished lustre of their military fame. to use all her skill in persuasion to obtain This unprincipled view of matters we for him the bauble on which he had set take from his own impudent confeshis heart. He set Madame de Duras also sion, or rather from his own immoral to work for the same end. His pertinaci- boastings. He wished to send French ty was successful, and he went to Verona troops somewhere; it mattered little where. to pavoneggiarsi, as the Italians say, Early in that year he urged Montmorency among the congregated grandeurs of the to send troops into Piedmont, reminding world. When there, as we learn from his him that when at Berlin the previous year own and Montmorency's correspondence he had endeavored to persuade his predewith Madame Récamier, as well as from cessor to march an army into Savoy, when other more formal sources, his conduct an occasion appeared to present itself for was not that either of a loyal colleague interference. Now, since the Italian opor a faithful plenipotentiary. His vanity portunity had been lost, he was determinhad been more irritated by the opposition ed that the Spanish opportunity should which his appointment had met with in be made use of, in spite of the objection the first instance than gratified by his of his chief, and without reference to the subsequent success. He was sulky with righteousness of the cause. "My Spanish Montmorency, and disobedient to Villèle. war, the great political event of my life," He had his own notions of what France (he writes twenty-three years later,)" was ought to do, and had no notion of obeying a gigantic enterprise. Legitimacy for the the instructions of his government. It first time smelt powder under the white was not for Villèle to direct him, Cha- flag, and fired its first shot after those teaubriand, nor for Montmorency to con- shots fired under the Empire which the trol him; he was abler and greater than latest posterity will hear. To march over either, and was determined to follow his Spain at a single step, to succeed on the own independent course. Few points in same soil whereon the armies of so great a conqueror had experienced such sad reverses, to do in six months what Napoleon had not been able to do in seven yearswho could have aspired to effect such a marvel? Nevertheless, this is what I did." It is pretty clear now, from authentic documents relating to the secret history of that time, as well as from Chateaubriand's own Memoirs, that the French

his career are less to his credit as a man of honor and of principle than his conduct throughout all these transactions. He

alty. In mentioning the transference to Saint-Denis, in 1815, of the mutilated remains of the royal family, he writes: " Among these bones I recognized

the head of the Queen (who had been decapitated in 1793) by the smile which she had given me at Ver

sailles!"-Vol. iii. 402.

naïve conviction to a lady whom he invited to meet him in Switzerland, "that he would give her more in one day than others in long years ;" and as, in spite of this assurance, she failed at the rendezvous, he tells her: "Vous avez perdu une partie de votre gloire; il fallait m'aimer, ne fut-ce que par amour de votre talent en l'interêt de votre renommée." What he sought and found in love was not the af fection of this or that woman in particu

teaubriand; and, in truth, there is not much to say. He was never genial or social; he hated both the effort and the constraint of general society, and, except in a circle of a few intimate adorers, he was usually silent, gloomy, and abstracted. When he talked, however, he talked, as might be expected, with much bril liancy. Among his own sex, it is probable, no eminent or attractive man had ever so few friends. He had too cold a heart, too absorbing an egotism, too irritable alar, but the flattery of his vanity and the pride, and too biting a tongue, either to love or be loved much. In reference to his relations with the other sex-a subject which commonly fills so large a space in the biographies of remarkable Frenchmen -the Mémoirs d'outre Tombe, without being exactly honest, are, if we except one or two very unpleasant and unwarrantable hints, decorously discreet. We shall imitate that discretion; though a few words are needed to prevent misconception of Chateaubriand's character on this point. Of his long, pure, and honorable friendship with Mme. Récamier we spoke at length not long since, when reviewing the Souvenirs of that unique and admirable woman. All his intimacies, however and he had many-were neither so amiable nor so irreproachable. Those who knew him well say that he treated women, as he treated every thing else in this depreciated world, with a superb and commanding egotism. Sought and worshiped by many women of the finest qualities, and exercising over them, when he pleased, a singular and irresistible fascination, he was yet always the tyrant, never the slave. He gave little and exacted much, or rather he conceived that quality made up for quantity, and that the little he gave was in reality more than all that could be lavished on him in return. At the age of sixty-four he writes with

distraction of his ennui-the excitement, the dreams, the stir of the imagination, the momentary revival of old enchantments, without which life was to him a desert and a burden. We should have fancied that he must have been a most tormenting and disappointing lover; yet the ladies whom he distinguished never complained of him; they seem all to have taken him at his own valuation, and done homage at his feet. Even Madame Récamier, sought and worshiped as she had been all her life by the most agreeable and remarkable men of the age, gave Chateaubriand preeminence over them all; and though his turbulent, exclusive, and exacting temper caused her at first infinite vexation and distress, and once obliged her to absent herself from him and from Paris for a time, yet she could not shake off the fascination; it ended in her forgiving him and taming him, and devoting herself to him, with a rare and beautiful fidelity, through long years of decay. For nearly a quarter of century, with occasional interruptions by absence, he wrote to her every morning and visited her every evening; and she closed his eyes in death, at the age of eighty, when her own had been long sealed in blindness.

* Sainte-Beuve, Causeries, ii. 126.

From Chambers's Journal.

THE

SHIP O F THE

DESERT.

THE camel, whose area of servitude ex- | separated, prevent it sinking in the sand, tends over a wide range, embracing Arabia, India, Persia, South-Tartary, the Canary Islands, and a large portion of Africa, unlike the rest of man's four-footed friends and servants, seems to be a total stranger to the pleasures of freedom. That such was not always the case is certain enough, without the evidence of the fossil remains lying in the British Museum, which were discovered by Colonel Cautley and Dr. Falconer in the sub-Himalayan hills. The natives of Central Africa persist in asserting that wild camels still wander among the unfrequented mountain-ranges of that continent; but as no European traveler has yet set eyes upon them, their existence is too apocryphal to overthrow the prevailing opinion, that in the present day the camel exists only in a state of slavery. At what era men first enlisted the camel into their service, it is impossible to guess; but that it was at a very early period is plain, from the fact that six thousand camels formed part of the wealth with which the patient patriarch was rewarded after his terrible trial. From the East, the useful beast found its way to Europe. In the sixth century, the treasure of Mummolus was carried by its means from Bordeaux to Convennes; and when Clotair made Brunichild a pri soner, he ordered her to be carried through the army on camel-back, before she was handed over to the executioner. The Moors during their rule in Granada introduced the camel into Spain; but the East was always the real land of camels, the peculiarities of the animal being especially adapted for the vast deserts for which that quarter of the globe is famous.

To carry men and merchandise across the arid waste, an animal was needed at once speedy, untiring, sure-footed, and capable of subsisting where vegetation was scanty and water scarce: all these qualifications are combined in the camel. The pads of its spreading feet, divided into two toes without being externally

over which it moves so noiselessly, that it has been poetically and appropriately termed "the ship of the desert." The callosities on the flexures of the limbs and chest, upon which the animal rests as it kneels to receive its load, prevent the skin from cracking from contact with the hot sand. The nostrils closing at will, exclude the burning grains when the simoom sweeps across the desert; while the peculiar construction of the stomach enables the camel to go without water for seven, or even, in extreme cases, as many as fifteen days, and even to be the salvation of a thirsty caravan. In the latter case, the poor beast is sacrificed, his stomach opened, and the contents strained through a cloth. He is apt to drink greedily after a long abstinence, but in the seasons when the dew falls, hardly cares to drink at all. He is as easily satisfied in the way of eating, delighting in the tough plants he passes on his march, which his strong nipper-like teeth enable him to masticate with comfort. These good qualities are not, however, unalloyed. The camel is liable to slip in sloppy places, and disjoint his hips; bears cold and wet weather but ill; and has so little recuperative power, that when knocked up, he generally succumbs altogether, and is left to the jackal and vulture. Even if he should recover, he becomes a poor weak object, piteous to behold, a burden to himself, and of little use to his master. Although the camel is a teetotaler, he sometimes gets intoxicated by indulging in dates after drinking, when fermentation takes place in the stomach. Another peculiarity of the living ship no traveler can speak of with patience, while he emphatically indorses the advice of one who writes: "In hot weather, pitch your tent as far from your camels as you dare, and if there be a breeze, to the windward."

The amble of the camel a curious amalgamation of rolling and pitching si

in shape two old-fashioned high-backed chairs minus the seats-hung across the pack-saddle. Inside these frames the fair travelers seat themselves, and are screened from sun and wind by an awning supported by poles and the backs of the frames. The mahassa is an improvement on the moosultah. It consists of a pair of frames, or rather boxes, four or five feet long,

multaneously executed-would scarcely | posed of a couple of frames-resembling be extolled by any one accustomed to the pleasant canter of a good horse; but it has its advantages. The rider may sit sideways, backwards, or in the orthodox fashion, with his feet in or out of the stirrups; he may let his legs dangle carelessly, or sit cross-legged after the manner of Turks and tailors, without any fear of his seat or equanimity being disturbed by the sure-footed beast stumbling, kicking, shy-two feet wide, and one foot and a half ing, or bolting. He is, however, guilty of something like the last-mentioned fault upon nearing water after long abstinence; and when a caravan makes a rush for the wells, it behoves the human portion of it to look to their legs. Another habit rather perplexing to the inexperienced camelrider, is the animal's propensity for snatching at dwarf acacias and other vegetable delicacies as he marches along. But these slight drawbacks are fully compensated by the measured regularity with which he moves; while the elevation enables the traveler to see all that is to be seen, and gives him the benefit of every welcome breeze that blows.

The riding gear of the dromedary consists of a large double pad of goat'shair cloth, stuffed with grass or straw. This is thrown over the back of the animal. A wooden frame of flat sticks, united into a pair of conical pommels six or eight feet high, is placed on the pad, into which it settles itself comfortably, the hump of the camel forming the center of the apparatus, and keeping every thing in its proper place. Across this gigantic saddle the saddle-bags are thrown, and the whole covered with carpets and cushions, until a sort of pyramid is formed, upon the apex of which the traveler is perched; his water-bottles, carpet-bag, and other paraphernalia swinging below. The harness is completed by a halter of goat and camel hair twisted together passing round the beast's nose like our common stable-halter.

deep, with posts fixed at the outer corners; these boxes are hung across the packsaddle, and the whole covered with a showy awning, supported by the posts at the corners, and another in the center. If there is only one passenger, of course it is necessary that something of equal weight should be placed in the unoccupied compartment, to preserve the balance. The most luxurious of all the accommodations for the tender portion of creation is the camel-litter or takht'-rawan, which bears some resemblance to the body of a coach. This description of conveyance requires two camels, one before, and one behind, sedan fashion, the hinder camel having a by no means enviable berth, as his head is bent down under the vehicle during the whole of the journey. The use of the camellitter is limited, its great length confining it to those routes which are of convenient width, and free from steep ascents and sharp corners.

The average speed of the ordinary caravan camels, which are seldom less than ten hours, and sometimes twenty-four hours continuously on the march, is about two miles per hour; but the maherrie or dromedary can accomplish a much swifter rate of progression, being able to travel seventy miles a day for two and three days successively. Colonel Chesney, by employing four dromedaries, journeyed between Baarah and Damascus, a distance of four hundred and fifty-eight miles, in a little more than nineteen days; Laborde went from Alexandria to Cairo (one hunWhen the sex dare the dangers of a dred and fifty miles) in thirty-four hours; desert-ride, they generally mount as Eng- and the mails have been carried between lish ladies used to do before the advent Bagdad and Damascus in seven days, at of Anne of Bohemia and the side-saddles; the rate of sixty-nine miles per diem. should they scruple at acting in so gentle- Still greater celerity was attained by Memanly a manner, they can choose between hemet Ali, when he wished to communithe shibreeyeh, moosultah, mahassa, and cate from Cairo with Ibraham Pasha at takht'-rawan. The first named is a species Antioch. By adopting the system of reof platform, built up with mattresses, car-lays, the distance of five hundred and pets, and cushions, on a foundation of sixty miles was traversed in the short luggage-chests. The moosultah is com- space of five days and a half.