The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 398, November 14, 1829

The royal oak, the favourite tree of our fathers, requires centuries for its full developement, and so long do we also require. The oak is a fairer symbol of the German nation than the German postboy, from which original most foreigners appear to judge of us. A postilion in the north, however, is the true representative of Phlegma. Bad or good roads, bad or good weather, bad or good horses and coach, curses or flattery from the traveller—nothing moves him if his pipe-stump be but smoking, and his schnaps paid.

The hereditary enemy of our neighbours is levity, ours heaviness. In the ancient bass-fiddle, Europe, the thickest string is the German, with deep tone and heavy vibration; but once in vibration, it hums as if it would go on humming for an eternity. Our primitive ancestors deliberated on every thing twice—in drunkenness, and in sobriety; and then they acted. But we, with the most honest and slowest spirit of order—which might, without danger, be spared many reglemens—we lost all elasticity, and sank dismembered into a stupid spirit of slavery, which originated in our passion for imitation, our faintheartedness, and our uncommonly low opinion of ourselves, which often looks like true dog humility. This humility the French have in view, when if naughtily treated by their superiors, by the police, &c., they cry out "Est ce qu'on me prend pour un Allemand?" The Englishman is fond of being represented as a John Bull, but John Bull pushes about him. We, however, are personified by the German Michel, who puts up with a touch on the posterior, and still asks, "What's your pleasure?"

Voltaire sang of the Marechal de Saxe:—

"Et ce fier Saxon que lion croit nè parmè nous,"

exactly like a Maitre d'Hôtel, who, whenever he wished to flatter me, used to say, "Vous savez, Monsieur, je vous regarde presque comme Français." Voltaire was not ashamed at Berlin, when the Prussian soldiers did not enact the Roman legions to his mind, to exclaim in the midst of German princesses, "F–j'ai demandé des hommes, et on me donne des Allemands!" Marechal Schomberg, to whom the impertinent steward, on committing a fault, said, "Parbleu, on me prendra pour un Allemand!" would long ago have set them to rights with his answer, "On a tort, on devrait vous prendra pour un sot!"

To be, not to seem, is still the fairest feature in the character of my—I had almost said nation—of my quiet, thrifty, contented, diligent, honest countrymen. The German, at first glance, appears rarely what he is, and strikes the stranger as awkward and heavy. Yet, behind this plain quiet outside, there often dwells a cultivated mind, reflection, and deep feeling of duty, honour, diligence, and domestic virtue. In our father-land, honesty is universally at home; and during the night, you are safer on the highways and in the forests, than in the streets of Paris or London. "When in foreign countries," says an old author, "I fall in with a man too helpless for a Frenchman, too ceremonious for an Englishman, too pliable for a Spaniard, too lively for a Dutchman, too cordial for an Italian, too modest for a Russian—a man pressing towards me with oblique bows, and doing homage with ineffable self-denial to all that seems of rank; then my heart, and the blood in my face, says, 'that is thy countryman.'" How true! and how often have I lighted on such countrymen.

North Germany commences as soon as you leave behind you Nurenberg and Cassel. Cassel, in comparison with Hamburg resembles an Italian town. The Thuringian Forest separates north and south. The north is a coast-land, commerce its destination; the south inland: hence agriculture and industry are more suitable. The spirit of the South German is more directed to what is domestic: a fruitful soil rewards his labour, and alleviates it by the juice of the grape. The mouths of his rivers and his harbours allure the North German into foreign lands; his father-land is there, where he finds what he seeks, and what his own country has denied him. The South German must hence be more self-dependent, for he has a father-land at home full of blessing and beauty;—the North German has to seek one elsewhere; and this makes him more pliant, more polished, more active; but also more ostentatious, less to be confided in, more adventurous. This distinction is primeval. The North Germans mingled themselves with the Britons, Gauls, Italians, and Slavonians; the Alemanni and Bavarians remained in their native country.

The southern sky draws forth a vegetable world more luxuriant, fierier, spicier; the northern, a much duller, waterier, colder, and the men are so too, except where government and education have powerfully encroached. In the north the people have evidently less fancy and feeling, less genialness and versatility, even flatter, duller physiognomies, but also evidently greater intelligence, more consideration, seriousness, and constancy. The wastes, storms, and floods, the unthankful, sandy, moory country, must of themselves make the people more serious, more enterprising, more capable of contentment than in the south, where Nature is not so like a step-mother, nay, has flattered her favourites, thereby rendering them light-minded, indolent, and desirous of enjoying. Here the flesh triumphs over the spirit; there the spirit over the flesh, "nos besoins sont nos forces!"

The North German is hence more solid, gloomier, more retired, less kindly. Here you may still find the athletic forms of Tacitus, with blue eyes and yellow, or, more properly, red hair, which are rarer in the south. In the north the men seem to me more handsome, in the south the women. The South German is softer, and on the other hand his speech harder. The North German, though without wine, writes many a noble catch, which we in the south troll over our wine. The inhabitants of the wine countries have fewer singers of wine than those of the beer countries; the latter sing of it, the former are fonder of drinking it. It is as with songs of love; one sings of his mistress, seldom of his wife.

The North and South German bear the same relation to each other as beer and schnaps to wine, as bilberries to grapes, as butter and cheese to roast and dessert, as mountains and levels, as leagues and miles. In the south or wine land prevails a lighter, sprightlier, tone of intercourse; in the land of beer and schnaps with its moist air, all seems more dubious and measured; and thus the moment of enjoyment passes over. The sex is livelier in the south and more complaisant, without on that account being more wanton. In the south there is everywhere more nature, in nature herself as in man, and most of all with the sex. In the north more culture and art, in the south more natural capability, as well as more nature and life.

The southern climate is softer, hence the wine; and the loose, light, fruitful soil compensates for the high, bare mountains. In the south we are more advanced in gardening, agriculture, tillage, and cattle-breeding. The south is not only richer in towns, palaces, and gardens, but also in excellently built villages of stone, and not of wood and earth. In the north many such villages would be called towns. What a difference between our cleanly cottages, and the filthy huts and half-stalls of the north. The very waters in the south are clear, flowing, rustling; in the north muddy, sneaking, stagnant. There the fountains gush spontaneously from the rocks; here they must first be dug out of the earth. The south extracts its treasures from the soil; the north more from commerce and manufactures. There the national capital is more in the hands of the nobility (the church) and the peasantry; here more in those of the merchant and manufacturer. Prussia, Saxony, Hanover, &c. are more free from debt than Austria, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, &c., because in the former there is less feasting and revelry; but the latter countries in themselves are richer, fuller of enjoyment. North Germany, in regard to road police, post regulations, inns, meat, drink, and lodging—large towns excepted—is in a state of semi-barbarism compared with the south.

Among all the North Germans the Saxon is the friendliest, distinguished by culture, diligence, and high spirit of contentment. But it is strange what a difference the Elbe makes between him and his neighbour. The Brandenburger or Prussian is vivacious, talkative, ceremonious, often dogmatical; the Saxon considerate, reserved, poorer in words; the former, prepossessed with what is new, feels delight in public places, loves to shine, and is the man of the world; the Saxon rather hates what is new, wishes to enjoy in silence in the circle of his own, and loves rural nature. Frugality is common to both; but it will go hard before other things become common between Prussians and Saxons. The Hessians have long distinguished themselves by bravery and military spirit, which leads to hardiness, patience, and contentment with little. Among the North Germans, those who live on the sea-coasts seem to me the rudest and most different from the South Germans; but the Prussians least of all.

The Swabian and Franconian is lively, loquacious, genial; and the Rheinlander is so in a still higher degree; but among the former I think there will be found more true-heartedness, inoffensiveness, and simplicity of manners, especially with the female sex, where it borders on naïveté. This good-nature which, as it were, surrenders itself, while others are lying in wait, and is hence easily over-reached, or leaves others the advantage, very naturally gave rise to the false proverb:—"The Swabian does not come to the years of discretion till forty." Swabians, Franconians, and Rheinlanders are our true sanguineans; and the last altogether our German-French, who dance through life like their Rhine-gnats.

The Bavarian is straight-forward, frank but dry, blunt, and he has hitherto been ruder, more ignorant, more fond of quarrel and drinking, more given up to superstition and old things than others; for his land was the home of priestcraft and monkery. You may ever distinguish the national Bavarian by his nervous squat body, small round head, and beer-belly, immediately beneath which the trousers begin; hence the braces or belt is indispensible. The showy belt, is, as in the Tyrol, matter of national pomp, so with the girls the boddice; and both are as little known in the north as the platted hair of the maidens—perhaps relics of the knight's girdle, bandalier, and breastplate; for noble knighthood flourished chiefly in the south.

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

GEOGRAPHICAL

The Niger

Sir Rufane Donkin's new hypothesis respecting the Nile, briefly stands thus: The Niger (Ni-Geir) passes through Wangara, and emptying itself into the Wad-El Ghazeh, or Nile of Bornou, which is formed by the continuation of the Misselad (Geir) through Lake Fittre, flows under the sands of Bilmah into the Mediterranean Sea. Sir Rufane is likewise of opinion—that "reasoning from analogy, and still more from what we know of the nature of the country, I have no doubt but that in very remote ages, the united Niger and Geir did roll into the sea in all the magnificence of a mighty stream, forming a grand estuary or harbour where now the quicksand is."—"The question to be solved under such a supposition is, what revolution in nature can have produced so great a change in the face of the country, as to cause a great river which once flowed into the sea, to stop short in a desart of sand." "We know from all recent, as well as from some of the older modern travellers, that the sands of the desarts west of Egypt, are encroaching on, and narrowing the valley of the Nile of Egypt. We see the pyramids gradually diminishing in height, particularly on their western sides, and we read of towns and villages which have been buried in the desart, but which once stood in fertile soils, some of whose minarets were still visible a few years ago, attesting the powers of the invading sand. The sphynx, buried almost up to the head, till the French cleared her down to the back, attested equally the desolating progress of this mighty sand-flood."—"And if we turn to the valley of the Nile of Egypt, we shall see at this moment the very process going on by which the lower part of the Niger, or Nile of Bornou has been choked up and obliterated by the invasion of the Great Sahara, under the names of the desarts of Bilmah and Lybia. Thus has been rubbed out from the face of the earth a river which had once its cities, its sages, its warriors, its works of art, and its inundations like the classic Nile; but which so existed in days of which we have scarcely a record."

La Perouse

Before quitting Vanikoro, off which island La Perouse was wrecked, M. de Urville, captain of the Astrolabe, constructed a monument there, bearing the inscription, "To the memory of La Perouse and his companions. The Astrolabe, 14 March, 1828." Among the relics which have been withdrawn with great difficulty from beneath the waves, are a very strong anchor, and two stout troughs.

Siberia

Professor Hansteen and his companions were at Tobolsk, on the 12th of September, whence they travelled on sledges, the cold being at 40 degrees Reamur, so that frozen quicksilver could be cut with a knife.

The Desart

The opinion generally formed of Desarts is completely erroneous, according to Mrs. Charles Lushington, who, in her recent Travels, says, "Though much variety of country or occurrence cannot be expected in the Desart, I may with truth assert, that the passage through it was, to me, very interesting and agreeable. For the three first stages, the road was diversified by some irregularities of ground, and remarkable passes through the rocky mountains; but the course of our journey in general, lay through an arid plain of sand and stones, about two miles in breadth, bounded by rocks of sandstone of an almost uniform appearance. On the second day's march, I saw one or two trees, and the road was so varied, that I could then scarcely believe myself in a desart, which I had always pictured to my imagination as a dreary and interminable plain, with heavy loose sand, curled into clouds by every breath of wind."

Stilts

In south-western France, the shepherds make stilts of long poles with the thigh-bone of an ox fastened at a moderate height from the ground, as a support for the foot, and to enable them to distinguish the approach of wolves at a greater distance.

Embalming

There are three modes of embalming among the Egyptians: one of these consists in the injection of some antiseptic drugs previous to drying the body; but the most perfect and sumptuous is thus effected: The viscera are removed, and the body sprinkled with aromatics and natron. After drying, it is enveloped in folds of gummed linen, and placed in coffins. The great principle of embalming is the exclusion of the external air, but much is attributable to antiseptics. One of the principal ingredients in the mummy balsam is colocynth, or bitter apple, powdered. The same drug is employed in Upper Egypt for destroying vermin in clothes' presses, and store-rooms; and ostrich feathers sent to Lower Egypt are sprinkled with it. A recent traveller found in the head of a mummy, of a superior kind, a balsam, in colour and transparency like a pink topaz. It burned with a beautiful clear flame, and emitted a very fragrant odour, in which cinnamon predominated. In the heart of one of the mummies he found about three drams of pure nitre; the heart being entire, this must have been injected through the blood-vessels. Mummy powder was formerly in use all over Europe as a medicine, and is still employed as such among the Arabs, who mix it with butter, and esteem it a sovereign remedy for internal and external ulcers.

Sulphur

It is well known that sulphur which has been recently fused, does not immediately recover its former properties; but no one suspected that it required whole months, and even a longer period, fully to restore them.—From the French.

Sympathetic Ink

Write on paper with a weak solution of nitrate of mercury, and the characters will become black, when held to the fire.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

A SINGULAR LETTER FROM SOUTHERN AFRICA

Communicated by Mr. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd

MY DEAR FRIEND,

In my last I related to you all the circumstances of our settlement here, and the prospect that we had of a peaceful and pleasant habitation. In truth, it is a fine country, and inhabited by a fine race of people, for the Kousies, as far as I have seen of them, are a simple and ingenuous race.

You knew my Agnes from her childhood—you were at our wedding at Beattock, and cannot but remember what an amiable and lovely girl she then was; and when she was going about our new settlement with our little boy in her arms, I have often fancied that I never saw so lovely a human being.

The chief Karoo came to me one day with his interpreter, whom he caused to make a long palaver about his power, and dominion, and virtues, and his great desire to do much good. The language of this fellow being a mixture of Kaffre, High Dutch, and English, was peculiarly ludicrous, and most of all so when he concluded with expressing his lord's desire to have my wife to be his own, and to give me in exchange for her four oxen, the best that I could choose from his herd!

As he made the proposal in presence of my wife, she was so much tickled with the absurdity of the proposed barter, and the manner in which it was expressed, that she laughed immoderately. Karoo, thinking she was delighted with it, eyed her with a look that surpasses all description, and then caused his interpreter to make another palaver to her concerning all the good things she was to enjoy; one of which was, that she was to ride upon an ox whose horns were tipped with gold. I thanked the great Karoo for his kind intentions, but declared my incapability to part with my wife, for that we were one flesh and blood, and that nothing could separate us but death. He could comprehend no such tie as this. All men sold their wives and daughters as they listed, I was told, for that the women were the sole property of the men. When I told him finally that nothing on earth could induce me to part with her, he seemed offended, bit his thumb, knitted his brows, and studied long in silence, always casting glances at Agnes of great pathos and languishment, which were perfectly irresistible, and ultimately he struck his spear's head in the ground, and offered me ten cows and a bull for my wife, and a choice virgin to boot. When this proffer was likewise declined, he smiled in derision, telling me I was the son of foolishness, and that he foretold I should repent it.

My William was at this time about eleven months old, but was still at the breast, as I could never prevail on his lovely mother to wean him, and at the very time of which I am speaking, our little settlement was invaded one night by a tribe of those large baboons called ourang-outangs, pongos, or wild men of the woods, who did great mischief to our fruits, yams, and carrots. From that time we kept a great number of guns loaded, and set a watch; and at length the depredators were again discovered. We pursued them as far as the Keys river, which they swam, and we lost them.

Among all the depredators, there was none fell but one youngling, which I lifted in my arms, when it looked so pitifully, and cried so like a child, that my heart bled for it. A large monster, more than six feet high, perceiving that he had lost his cub, returned brandishing a huge club, and grinning at me. I wanted to restore the abominable brat, for I could not bear the thought of killing it, it was so like a human creature; but before I could do this, several shots had been fired by my companions at the hideous monster, which caused him once more to take to his heels, but turning oft as he fled, he made threatening gestures at me. A Kousi servant that we had, finished the cub, and I caused it to be buried.

The very morning after that but one, Agnes and her black maid were milking our few cows upon the green: I was in the garden, and William was toddling about pulling flowers, when, all at once, the women were alarmed by the sight of a tremendous ourang-outang issuing from our house, which they had just left. They seemed to have been struck dumb and senseless with amazement, for not one of them uttered a sound, until the monster, springing forward, in one moment, snatched up the child and made off with him. Before I reached the green where the cows stood, the ourang-outang was fully half a mile gone, and only the poor, feeble exhausted women running screaming after him. Before I overtook the women, I heard the agonized cries of my dear boy, my darling William, in the paws of that horrible monster. I pursued, breathless and altogether unnerved with agony; but, alas! I rather lost than gained ground.

These animals have this peculiarity, that when they are walking leisurely or running down-hill, they walk upright like a human being; but when hard pressed on level ground, or up hill, they use their long arms as fore-legs, and then run with inconceivable swiftness. When flying with their own young, the greater part of them will run nearly twice as fast as an ordinary man, for the cubs cling to them with both feet and hands, but as my poor William shrunk from the monster's touch, he was obliged to embrace him closely with one paw, and run on three, and still in that manner he outran me. Keeping still his distance before me, he reached the Keys river, and there the last gleam of hope closed on me, for I could not swim while the ourang-outang, with much acuteness, threw the child across his shoulders, held him by the feet with one paw, and with the other three stemmed the river, though then in flood, with amazing rapidity. It was at this dreadful moment that my beloved babe got his eyes on me as I ran across the plain towards him, and I saw him holding up his little hands in the midst of the foaming flood, and crying out, "Pa! pa! pa!" which he seemed to utter with a sort of desperate joy at seeing me approach.

Alas, that sight was the last, for in two minutes thereafter the monster vanished, with my dear child, in the jungles and woods beyond the river, and then my course was stayed, for to have thrown myself in, would only have been committing suicide, and leaving a destitute widow in a foreign land. I was quickly aroused by the sight of twelve of my countrymen coming full speed across the plain on my track. They were all armed and stripped for the pursuit, and four of them, some of whom you know, Adam Johnstone, Adam Haliday, Peter Carruthers, and Joseph Nicholson, being excellent swimmers, plunged at once into the river and swam across, though not without both difficulty and danger, and without loss of time continued the pursuit.

The remainder of us, nine in number, were obliged to go half a day's journey up the river, to a place called Shekah, where the Tambookies dragged us over on a hurdle; and we there procured a Kousi, who had a hound, which he pretended could follow the track of an ourang-outang over the whole world. We kept at a running pace the whole afternoon; and at the fall of night, came up with Peter Carruthers, who had lost the other three. A singular adventure had befallen to himself. He and his companions had agreed to keep within call of each other; but as he advanced, he conceived he heard the voice of a child crying behind him to the right, on which he turned off in that direction, but heard no more of the wail. As he was searching, however, he perceived an ourang-outang steal from a thicket, which, nevertheless, it seemed loath to leave. When he pursued it, it fled slowly, as if with intent to entice him in pursuit from the spot; but when he turned towards the thicket, it immediately followed. Peter was armed with a pistol and rapier; but his pistol and powder had been rendered useless by swimming the river, and he had nothing to depend on but his rapier. The creature at first was afraid of the pistol, and kept aloof; but seeing no fire issue from it, it came nigher and nigher, and seemed determined to have a scuffle with Carruthers for the possession of the thicket. At length it shook its head, grinning with disdain, and motioned him to fling the pistol away as of no use; it then went and brought two great clubs, of which it gave him the choice, to fight with it. There was something so bold, and at the same time so generous in this, that Peter took one as if apparently accepting the challenge; but that moment he pulled out his gleaming rapier, and ran at the hideous brute, which frightened it so much, that it uttered two or three loud grunts like a hog, and scampered off; but soon turning, it threw the club at Peter with such a certain aim, that it had very nigh killed him.