wave, sweeping its proud course from point to point, curving round its bends through the dark forests, without a feeling of sublimity. The hundred shores, laved by its waters; the long course of its tributaries, some of which are already the abodes of cultivation, and others pursuing an immense course without a solitary dwelling of civilized man on their banks; the numerous tribes of savages that now roam on its borders; the affecting and imperishable traces of generations that are gone, leaving no other memorial of their existence, or materials for their history than their tombs, that rise at frequent intervals along its banks; the dim, but glorious anticipations of the future – these are subjects of contemplation that cannot but associate themselves with a view of this river.”
Though far inferior to these streams of the western world in point of length and volume, the Nile of the ancient continent may be placed at the head of remarkable rivers. One of its chief peculiarities is the solitary grandeur of its flow; for not a single affluent enters it from the junction of the Tacazze to the sea, a distance of 1500 miles – a circumstance without a parallel in the physical condition of rivers. Another of its striking features is its long course through a desert, dry, barren, and hideous, depositing by its annual inundation the richest soil on those portions of it which lie contiguous to its banks; and hence has originated the apt comparison of its career to the path of a good man amidst an evil generation. Egypt would be completely sterile were it not for the periodical overflow of its only stream, which both covers a large part of its surface with a layer of alluvion, and imparts to it the requisite moisture.
“Rich king of floods! o’erflows the swelling Nile —
– glad to quit
The joyless desert, down the Nubian rocks
From thund’ring steep to steep he pours his urn,
And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave.”
It requires the river to attain a medium rise in order to benefit the country: too little, involving scarcity and famine; too much, compromising the safety of the people and their dwellings. Wilkinson calls a rise of 19 cubits, tolerable; 20, good; 21, sufficient; while a rise of 22 cubits is abundant enough to fill every canal, and a rise of 24 cubits would overwhelm and ruin the villages. A cubit is rather more than 21 inches; so that, in order fully to meet the wants of the country, a perpendicular rise of 38 feet is necessary. The Nile is also distinguished among rivers for the pleasant taste and salubrity of its waters when not in flood; properties highly extolled by the ancients, and acknowledged to belong to it by modern travelers. It is a common saying with the Egyptians, that if Mahomet had tasted of its stream, he would have sought a terrestrial immortality in order to enjoy it forever. The physical circumstances of the river easily account for the possession of this attribute. The air above is pure and serene. But little rain falls upon the country through which the greater part of its course is prosecuted, and no snow or hail. Hence there is little drainage into it from the surrounding land, and its waters are kept free from any noxious taint derived from earths and minerals, except from those in its immediate channel. The same property of being remarkably pure and salutary is ascribed by Herodotus to one of the Susianic rivers, of which alone, according to tradition, none but the kings of Persia drank.
“There Susa, by Choaspes’ amber stream,
The drink of none but kings.”
The Susianic streams, along with the Nile, may not improperly be styled the oldest rivers of the globe, because of their place in its most ancient traditions and histories; and however subordinate to the gigantic currents of the western hemisphere, those of the eastern, in general, present higher points of interest, in their long-known identification with the destinies of mankind. If not the actual birthplace of man, the great plains on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates were the abode of the founders of the diluvian race. There, the two greatest cities of the ancient world – Nineveh and Babylon – rose into magnificence. There, a supernatural finger traced the doom of the latter upon the palace wall of its trembling monarch, while an exiled Jew, in the majesty of inspiration, gave him the interpretation of the mystic writing. There, too, the splendid empire of the Medes and Persians fell a prey to the Macedonian on the field of Arbela, while, in later ages, the same neighborhood witnessed the catastrophe of Cunaxa, and the bold bearing of the indomitable ten thousand – the defeat and death of Crassus – the retreat of Mark Antony – the fall of the apostate Julian – and the short-lived glory of Bagdad. How different the associations connected with the Arkansas and the Osage to those of the Euphrates and Tigris!
WERE I BUT WITH THEE
Hours of lonely musing
Sometimes thou must have,
When, of toil a-weary,
Rest thy soul doth crave.
Then, if I were near thee,
Care would be forgot,
And obtrusive sorrows
Be as they were not.
Thoughts and themes of beauty,
Rising wild and free,
Would our converse gladden
Were I but with thee!
Thou wouldst bear my spirit
To thy shadow-land,
Where bright shapes of beauty
Spring, a glorious band.
Their harmonious motions,
As the wild waves free,
Would enchain our spirits
Were I but with thee!
I would bear thee onward
To my realms of life,
Where with joy transcendent
All the scenes are rife,
In that glorious dream-land,
On that magic sea,
It were nearer heaven
Were I but with thee!
SONNET. – IRON
Thy worth, O Iron! can be never told!
Thou art the richest treasure of the mine!
By thee great nations polished are and shine,
And using thee contemn, may glittering gold —
Hail! ever useful one! Art were now dead
If wanting thee. Thou in our life-blood flowest;
Where run streams, fountains, there thou likewise goest;
War claims thee, for thy presence makes him red;
The mariner his needle forms of thee,
To guide him pilot-like across the main;
From thee old oaks solidity, too, gain;
In cinders, clay thou art found continually —
Earth’s mineral strata yield to thee the palm;
Thou canst make war – and mak’st the nations calm.
NINEVEH, AND ASSYRIAN ART
Among the recent developments of the remains of ancient art, by far the most important and interesting are those of Mr. Layard at the site of Nineveh, a full account of which is given in the volumes recently published by George P. Putnam, of New York, entitled “Nineveh and its Remains; with an account of a visit to the Chaldean Christians of Kurdiston, and the Yezidis, or Devil-Worshipers; and an inquiry into the Manners and Arts of the Ancient Assyrians.”
Mr.