numbers to the West Indies and Jamaica, but the unconquerable love of their native land is never dormant, nor is there one solitary instance of any of the nation enlisting in our West India regiments, or the African colonial corps; no promises can lead them to forego the opportunity of returning home, no bounty induce them to bind themselves to an indefinite period of time, or persuade men to submit to be sent to a distant land, at the beck and call of any master. The Krooman will labour occasionally exceedingly hard, without a murmur or discontent; but he must be free to come and free to go, with no engagement except what his interest forms, save when on board our men-of-war, and then as sailors, they at once yield to naval laws, punishments, and discipline. The creed of the Kroomen is based upon a singular foundation. God they say had two sons, the eldest a black man, the youngest a white man; so God took two calabashes, one full of fofoo, yams, kola nuts, palm oil, and rum, everything the Kroomen love to eat; and the other calabash had only a book in it, and God told his eldest son to take his choice; so after a long palaver with God, he at last took the calabash full of food, and the book remained for the white man; hence it is the white men have their heads stored with knowledge, and know everything better than the black men. The eastern part of Freetown is inhabited principally by Foulahs, natives of a powerful nation on the borders of Sierra Leone, and to the north-east of the colony. The capital, Teembo, lies only 164 miles from Freetown, but so miserable are the roads and difficult of access, that even in the dry season it will take a native eight or ten days to reach it. The Foulahs are a tall, majestic, and graceful race of men, of crafty disposition, and courteous demeanour; they have high Arab features, sparkling, restless eyes, thin lofty foreheads, long black silky hair, in which they take great pride, plaiting it in curls and flowing ringlets, until it hangs in masses on their shoulders. Their dress is peculiarly elegant: a white or blue toga, embroidered on the chest, shoulders, and back, in various gaudy colours and singular devices, and full and loose breeches like those used by the Albanians, reaching to the knee, from which the leg is bare; the foot is protected by a worked leather sandal, such as was worn by the Romans, and by the Jews in the days of our Saviour; the cap of blue or crimson cloth of a conical shape, beautifully worked with coloured silks, a sword with brass handle and red or black leather scabbard, a large double gold purse suspended round the left shoulder, a silver-mounted dagger with an ivory handle, a broad leather-case suspended round the neck, hanging in front of the chest, called the Talkoul or good book, and the person adorned with triangular, circular, or square bags filled with sentences of the Koran, charms, or gregrees, to protect from evil the portion he b are attached to. The Foulahs are the chief merchants, trad which connect us with the interior of Centro bring down native cloth, rings, gold-dust, or manufactures, and sell or barter them with Keen, mercenary, and cunning, they assu simplicity, and wait patiently the opportu and when seemingly most ignorant, deeply plotting in what they can ov rings are generally conveyed to Sierra Leone by a party of Foulahs, under the guidance of a chief; dressed in the most miserable and filthy way, to escape the suspicion of having valuables on their persons, they travel the wild forest paths unmolested. On arriving at Sierra Leone, a palaver is held between the chief and the merchant in treaty for the gold-dust; the latter is obliged to lodge the party and allow a certain sum for daily maintenance; day after day the bargain is broken off, renewed, and like lovers' quarrels, rendered more certain from the frequent difference of opinion, the crafty Foulahs eating, drinking, and passing their time in idle lounging, and although they have received and are to receive a certain sum for their goods, postpone by the meanest devices to come to a final settlement, until the merchant threatens to terminate the palaver; the usual sum given for pure gold is about four pounds an ounce, the exchange being five shillings for the Spanish dollar. The Foulahs are all Mahometans, and generally read and write Arabic with facility and accuracy. Two chiefs of this nation, grandsons of the former Imaun of Teembo, paid me several visits, always on Sundays; they were anxious to acquire some information about Europe, and I to learn particulars of their habits, customs, and manners. Having been engaged for a considerable time as translators of Arabic and native documents, they spoke English with purity, tinged with a little idom, and our intercourse was mutually instructive and entertaining. Men of rank and education, having travelled much, and mingled with Europeans for years, they were free in a great measure from national prejudice and bigotry, nor did they deem it necessary to hold secret the history of their country like a sealed book, and from them I heard many interesting sketches of the Foulahs, of their policy, government, and manners. Slavery prevails to a great extent, and agriculture is conducted principally by the prisoners made in war. As it is the established opinion throughout all Africa, that all captives are the lawful property, unless redeemed, of their conquerors, and that all slaves are subject in life and limb to their masters, Babukal Mahomad, the eldest of my Foulah friends, defined slavery to extend to Pagans, Kafirs, Jews, dogs who do not know God, Mahomet, or Jesus Christ, who believe not in the Koran. The Foulahs are generally kind masters; but there are occasions, when slaves commit repeated acts of theft, of their masters' depriving them of their hands; the slaves are located in villages through Foulah land, working five days in the week for their masters, and two for themselves; they are liable to be called upon when a war party is required, but this is only resorted to in case of necessity, as on the death of the late Imaun of Teembo, when two parties claimed the succession, as must be always the case among the African Princes who have such numerous offspring. Babukal's account was very graphic: each claimant set himself forth and placing his followers at his back, fought for the crown, and the conqueror took the kingdom; this mode of proceeding leaves many openings for civil wars, and the African nations are in constant turmoil and dissension; the numerous petty chiefs of small tribes, islands, settlements, and patches of territory running into each other, and mingling in frightful confusion, afford ample apologies for foray, nominally to defend or recover rights, but virtually to make slaves; the total disregard of even a shadow of truth, of treaties or engagements, an openness to bribery and corruption, the sordid avariciousness and grasping selfishness of the Africans, generally render them to each other faithless allies. Nothing can be done, from deposing a king to slaughtering a hen, without a palaver, and its accompaniment, a present; no plan can be formed, no injury redressed, no visit made, no journey performed, without a palaver and a present; and when dealing with Europeans, the Africans possess a singular facility of making a considerable profit upon the presents they generously bestow upon their white friends; they will give a fowl, or a small bag of rice, or some trifling article of dress, a sprat to catch a salmon, a white bait for a John Dory, but expect in return, a premium of one hundred per cent., in the shape of baft cloth, gunpowder, tobacco, pistols, beads, in fact any European commodity ten times the value of their paltry gift. On expressing to my Foulah visitors a surprise at their writing and reading Arabic so fluently, they told me that in Foulah, children were sent to a priest or Mollah, who received a slave and two bullocks for their instruction, and "when their heads were filled with knowledge," and they could read the Koran and write, four slaves and eight bullocks were sometimes given to their tutor, for a reward, so that the office of the schoolmaster abroad becomes a flourishing trade; the value of a slave, being equal to two bullocks, may be put down at about 11. 13s. 4d., considerably more than a human being costs in the Bight of Benin or at the Calabars. (To be continued.) PRAYER DURING BATTLE*. (FROM THE GERMAN BY HEINRICH FICK.) Father, I call on Thee! Shrouded by clouds from the cannons' fell roaring, Father, oh, lead Thou me! Lead me to victory, lead me to death; God, I acknowledge Thee! As in autumn's blasts o'er life-sear'd shore, Source of mercy, acknowledge I Thee! Father, oh, bless Thou me! Into Thy hand now my life I commend; Father, I praise now Thee! Goods of this earth are not prize of this strife; To Thee, God, submit I me! When by the Thunders of death I'm laid low, Father, I call on Thee! The original German poem is by Theodor Körner. THE RUSSIAN TROOPS AT WOSNESENSK. It has of late amounted almost to a mania with travellers and others, (excepting Decker and Kohl) professing to give an accurate insight into the organization of the Russian empire, to exert their utmost ability in the exaggeration of the defects of its administration and social condition; but in the "disclosures" which have been indited, with no little assumption of the most intimate knowledge of the matters detailed, from the "Russia" of the Marquis de Custine down to other Revelations, the discerning and unbiassed reader cannot fail to detect the narrow spirit of national enmity and jealousy which colours almost every picture, and which, despite the assumption of liberality of sentiment universally professed, are perhaps more than ever the dominant feelings of civilized nations. Since 1812, these sentiments towards Russia have progressively increased with the increase of the political influence of that Power in the several cabinets of Europe, and with the growing importance of that empire. In many instances, particularly in the periodical effusions of German, French, and English journals, this tone is remarkable, but, like all emanations from the same source of feeling, they betray an evident desire to disparage at the expense of truth, without reflecting that the real probability of the thing related becomes dubious from the mode of relation, and the evident malignity of wish, which betrays itself as father to the expression. Where defects exist in the political and social economy of Russia (and where do they not?) they have been greedily snatched at to extenuate to a degree that defeats the intention, while a merit has been either advertently overlooked, or intentionally garbled or detracted from, in utter forgetfulness of the faults and anomalies existing in the political and social condition of the countries of the writers themselves. All sensible men, however, who consider that Power, under every point of view, cannot but doubt the fast-decaying and debilitated condition which is already assigned to its institutions, on account of the mere difference of their spirit from those of Western Europe, and must allow that no nation in modern times has actually exhibited an equal rapidity of development, arguing rather strength than weakness; and such, indeed, considered historically and geographically, is the increased magnitude of its importance, that since the progression of human society, no nation has furnished so vast an example of power in the aggregation of countries beneath its sway, separated no less by difference of climate than extent of distance. The monarchy of the Macedonian conqueror embraced not half the like continuous superficies of territory, nor did the proud Senate of Rome ever speak from such a distance to its conquered nations as the Emperor Nicholas, whose voice is obeyed from the banks of the Niemen to the eastern shores of America, from the palace of St. Petersburg to the foot of Mount Ararat, and to the Frozen Ocean. Indeed, whatever may be the negations of those who would deny the power of Russia, and insist upon its weakness, they are answered by the prodigious influence which its cabinet exercises, since the last days of Alexander, upon the most potent courts of Europe; and there must be some strength, and some merit, in the system of government which can preserve its authority, and a reverence, nay, even an attachment to its institutions, over the ninth part of the Continent, and the fifteenth part of the human race. No better proof of this can be adduced, than that the Government of Great Britain itself seeks more than ever, in the alliance of Russia, the most powerful auxiliary in support of the principles which it considers as the basis of its own existence, and against the future influence of the phrenetic republican spirit of France, should it eventually, under favour of the change in the maritime means of aggression, assume the shape of an armed invader upon our hitherto unassailable shores; and this, too, in the teeth even of our jealousy of the long-cherished and known desire of the Russian Government to extend its influence into Central Asia, and participate in the commercial benefits accruing to us from those countries which obey unwillingly our sceptre, and amid a continuous diplomatic struggle to oppose her sure and stealthy inroads upon the integrity of the expiring Ottoman empire. Russia has, nevertheless, exemplified in modern times the justness of the maxim, upon the steady pursuit of which Polybius indicates the reason of the success of the Romans in the subjection of the nations around them, and of the progressive extension of their power. This, also, has been effected on the part of Russia by the same uniform direction of the talents and energy of its Government to the attainment of one allengrossing object, in the pursuit of which system of vigorous policy, nations, like individuals, must eventually succeed. With respect, however, to the erroneous impressions sought to be effected by the writers alluded to, upon no one subject are the details, and the information attempted to be communicated, so incorrect, from evident want of intimate knowledge upon the subject, or professional incapacity to judge of it, than upon that of the technical organization of the military service, and of its constituent elements in that empire; and whatever may be the inductions of those who argue from the disasters which have of late years overtaken the Russian arms, in the expedition to Khiva, and in the gorges of the Caucasus, or who recur to the temporary check sustained during the Polish efforts in 1831, they will surely prove as false and vain as those which were built upon the insurmountable character of the Balkan, in 1828 and 1829, and as have proved the efforts of the once mighty Turkish power to resist the slow but continuous aggrandizement of the Slavonic race under the sceptre of the Czars. The following details from the notes of an Austrian officer, an individual, therefore, less likely to be suspected of partiality, when the relative interests of the two Powers are duly considered, may be deemed a more accurate index to the real status of the military organization of that empire, and of the quality of its elements, than has hitherto been furnished, and cannot fail in interesting the military reader desirous of accurate and unbiassed information. It is well known that the concentration of large bodies of troops for autumnal camps of exercise has been some time the commendable practice with all the Continental states, great and small, and that even with the latter it has not been a mere playing at soldiers with a single regiment for two or four hours, but a protracted reunion of all the disposable forces of the three arms, |