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    calculated to discharge the somewhat delicate duties of his post with advantage to his employers and honour to himself . The Rajah of Sikkun was an infirm old man , not ill-intentioned , but completely over-ruled by hisDewan or Minister , a man deeply imbued with the worst vices of the Oriental character . The latter was sufficiently ignorant to believe that , it he could eetDr Campbell into his power , the Supreme Government would ratify whatever concessions fear or suffering might have extorted from their accredited Agent . An opportunity unfortunately presented itself , and , while returning to Darjeeling from an amicable visit to the Rajah , the Superintendent was suddenly attacked , knocked down , and made prisoner . After a lengthened detention , and much ill-treatment , he was only set at liberty when an armed force proposed to invade the country . But what was the reparation for this gross violation of the law of nations , this insult to the British flag ? Troops were marched to the frontiers , and the command entrusted to an officer who had distinguished himself in the Nepal war twentyfive years previously . The lapse of a quarter of a century may have increased his prudence—it had certainly chilled his enterprise . He pronounced feikkim to be impracticable for a British army , and , after remaining encamped for some weeks within three hours * march of the Dewan ' s ill-armed rabble , our troops were timidly recalled . The country , indeed , was mountainous and difficult , but the inhabitants were generally well disposed towards us , and eager for the downfal of the oppressive Minister . As it was , they brought abundant supplies of milk , fowls , and eggs , and would have continued to do so . But the troops were withdrawn , and the Government contented itselt with the resumption of a tract of land lying at the foot of the bills , and which it had formerly bestowed upon the Rajah as a free gift . This was effected , says Dr . Hooker , by four policemen taking possession of the treasury , which contained twelve shillings , and announcing to the wellpleased villagers that they were once more British subjects . It is thus that we trifle with our prestige , and are yet astonished to hear of warlike commotions and tumult , as if Orientals were to be governed by any other than an iron hand .

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    December 22 , 1855 . ] THE LEADER . 1229

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    A ROMANCE OF UNREAL LIFE . Zaidee . A Komancp . By Margaret Olipbant . Blackwood and Sone . This novel opens well with the following description of an old Grange : — The house is such a moated Grange as Mariana herself might have inhabited ; a far-aeeing , wistful , solitary house , commanding long lines of road , along wtuou . nobody ever travels . The freest heart in the world might pine at one ot tnese deep antique windows , and grow aweary of its life , looking along the roads from the Grange : and the Grange stands straining all its dark glowing eyes into ttoe day and into the night , as if on constant watch for the expected stranger who never cornea out of the wintry , windy horizon . It is a rare chance , indeed , when there is not a reddening of etorm in the sunset which blazes upon this "py ** 8 house—a still rarer joy when the morning comes without the chill breath ot a sea gale-and the eea itself could not witness a wilder not of wind and brewing tempest than rings about the ears of the dwellers h ? re through many a winter niKht The old house never wavers of its footing for such an argument , but stands firm upon the little rocky platform over which a lawn , which haa . been ? reen for centuries , mantles warmly , and , stoiitly defiant of the winds to-which it has been used so long , aeto its back against the hill , and holds its ground . In a semicircle round the front of the Grange is the moat , which , in these peaceable days , is nothing better than a pond endowed in broken masonry , the Wil qualities of which bit of half- » tagnant water are numerous , and would Jbe « oro so in aleHH breezy locality , while its sole good one wan innumerable crop ) f water-lilies ; but no oue has tho heart to destroy this bit of antiquity , and jveryone is proud of tho « wan-liko floating flowers . Behind tho house rises she rocky dofonco of the hill , « o sheltered here that , it 18 green with the -ichest turf , and draped with wealth of hardy , ruddy , half-Alpine flo / er 3 . Fruit * ees and bloasoming shrubs do not refuse to grow under this verdant ahndow . u , d within the warm and well-defended enclosure ; and they say it , i «| » u ™ JJJ J ™ she garden of the Orange many a day after tho autumn w ^ V ' lIlivinir to Jh . ireary fields of the level country , and when the last hollyhocks * ' ° ^ « . JgJ cottage flowor-plotfl below . Modem requirement have made sad l" £ 0 o m the -egularity of the building—modem improvements , begniung in «» e W <* Elizabeth , have thrown out oriel windows , and enlarged »^! f hie ! a * dditions , till the Grange , though still not very large , « a . c \ " »* J » ^^^ lomestio chronicle of architecture in its own nornon , * nd ^ l" f ^\ & £££ nodlev of stylea and periods which , with tho ' 7 * "" i * ^ e » tho ^ non ? o 2 md tie living flowers of to-day , combine to form the ,, finest harmony oi an lereditary dwelling-place . , A This nassaae certainly containH the promise of something good . anci if it had only occupied one volume instead of three , lhc story turn . _ the extraordinary night of a child of fourteen , alone and unaided , from

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    TWO CRUISES IN THE BALTIC . Two Summer Cruises with the Baltic Fleet in 1854-5 . Being the Log of the " Pet Yacht , 8 Tons , JR . T . T . C . By the Kev . Robert Edgar Hughes , M . A-1 London : Smith and Eider , 1855 . Mb . Hughes has fallen into the error , so common among writers of travels , of confiding to the public passages intended for the domestic circle , -fclis pages contain many mild jokes , and milder adventures , which would provoke country cousins to " laughter and breathless attention ; together with some of those dialogues ( usually held in a broken language between the author , who speaks a lifetle French , " and " a Frenchman , who speaks a little English " ) which kind friends consider dramatic , and value as delineations ot character . But his book is just rescued from mediocrity by the descriptions - * 1 evolutions in the Baltic , and the bombardment of Bomarsunrt and Sweabpr * . We must own thafc ™" . "" „ -- ! Z " ~ ™ ~ " - spe aking of the | navy is rather " cocky , " considering ' howliignt his experience has been of the inner life in a man-of-war . Yet he criticises manoeuvres as fearlessly and readily as an admiral on half-pay , forgetting that the squadron of line-oibattle ships is a more difficult task than the navigation of the ret . Writers in general have been sarcastic on the inaction of our Baltic fleets during the last two years , and have quoted , with tolerable frequency , an ancient saying of a King of France , who " marched up a hill , and then marched down again . " " There is a better precedent than this haekmed rhyme to be found in Farquhar ' s "Sir Harry Wildair , " where the following bit of dialogue occurs : — " Clincher . Well , captain , so you took a fine ' , fleet to the Baltic . And what then ?" " Firehrace . Then—we came back again . " The philosophic disregard for glory / expressed by Captain Firebrace evidently did not exist anywhere in the fleets of Admirals Dundas and Napier . While we , living at home at ease , abused the navy , and drew fancy pictures of a fleet in the Baltic under the command of Nelson , the officera and seamen of the squadron growled more deeply still , as we may judge from Mr . Hughes's account of the English camp at Bomarsund : — Nothing puts sailors so much out of humour as inaction iu the presence ; of an enemy ; and the notion of landing guns to besiege tho forts sodger-fashion , , While the ships were lying just out of range with colours flying and bauds of music 1 playing , was most disgusting to Jack ' s notions of a British pluck . It was not , pleasant to hear the French growling at the inaction , which they did nob hesitate , to impute to the English authorities ; aud disparaging expressions were hoard f repeatedly , —generally , however , accompanied by the saving ° J « fl 0 ' . ™ ' ** ] v < kt bien le notre . " On all sides the greatest djsgusfc was expressed for the model n system of naval warfare ; the principle of which seemed to be , to keep out of j ^» None of that d d nonsense now we ' re ashore , " said a marine officer ; a , sentiment in which all present concurred most heartily . ,,+ iw ,,. i + ;»« ' But the stone wall and red-hot shot disease had got hold of the authontie « < and the ships were resolutely kept out of harm ' s way . Meanwhile , disappointment i and disgust " seemed to weigh heavy upon all ; curses ow and deep ™™ ""** £ !? . ' . J — " The French would get the start of ua , and gain all the credit of the enterprise . < — " Lot five hundred marines and as many blue-jackets alone , and they rt take tno , d d place before dinner time . "—" What ' s the u « e of talking , sir ; two * just i the same at that other place . How do wo know the ships can t do nothing if < w « never tries ' em' (" - " The ' Waloroua , ' along w th the ' H" > 1 * * " * . ' Odlu ' < nearly got tho place iu no timo , them three by their selves . Give Captain i the command , and he'd larn 'em Euglish . " „„„ ,. „„ wui . Among the officers tho same opinions wore expressed , though , of course , with , more reserve . - * It would be simply ridiculous to suppose that tho - navy , composed of > manly , energetic , and hearty men , was anything but strongly opposed to what Mr . Hughes calls " the modem system of naval warfare . Hut the captains of each sjiip , the officers and seamen , and the admiral in clnct cornraand , arc powerless when not backed up by the authorities at home . »<> mc people assert that the linc-of-battle ships caused our inaction in the linltic , and that a fleet of gun-boats , mortars , and floating batteries would have '

    demolished Cronstadt , Sweaborg , and Helsingfors before a week had expired . But mortars and gun-boats , without stores or ammunition , sent to the Baltic for the purpose of making a demonstration , would be quite as helpless , as line-of-battle ships in the same condition . Mr . Hughes considers that the attack on Sweaborg was merely intended as a demonstration ; to show , in fact , what the navy could do if properly supplied with guns and instruments of warfare : — The fleet , not being reinforced , was not , in strength , sufficient for any decisive measures ; the ships were robbed of their best guns and their ammunition to supply the gun-boats , and , above all , there was no reserve of mortars . Mr . Hughes tells us that many of the pictures of Siveaborg published in Engl and , are merely fancy sketches , and , that its defences do not consist of huge forts , stone walls , and granite towers : — No lofty cliffs , no perpendicular granite forts were here to offer a fair mark and crumble down under the crushing concentrated fire of heavy ships ; no tier upon tier of guns in casemates , but a string of low rocky islands , separated by narrow channels which the eye could scarcely distinguish , but presenting , at some distance , the appearance of oue low shore of broken and shelving ground rising gradually , but irregularly , to the height of some thirty or forty feet . Along this coast we saw continuous lines of sloping earth batteries , showing nothing for a mark but the very muzzles of the guns : further back , where the ground rose , little stone forts of seven or eight guns nestled iu every nook , and here and there naked guns , mounted en barbette upon every suitable slope of rock . Then among the buildings every now and then a window could be seen bearing a most suspicious likeness to an embrasure ; and , on a closer examination , guns were seen projecting where , at first sight , nothing but a garret window showed . The works which constitute the defences of Sweaborg and Helsingfors extend over a convex line of some five miles facing the sea . The islands on which these are placed are Storholm ( Large Island ) to the eastward , having appai-entlya small earth battery ; next to this , to the westward , the much larger island of Saudhamn ( Sand Haven ) , the whole south face of which is lined with , earth batteries , very strong , and , up to the day of bombardment , rapidly increasing in size and number . Having quoted Mr . Hughes ' s description of this fortress , we must remark on the petulance he has shown in criticising the correspondence from the Baltic that appeared in some of the London papers . We , of course , do not mean to assert the infallibility of newspaper correspondents ; but a gentleman , whose duty it is to send home , with all possible haste , a report of each important transaction , can hardly be expected to have gained a correct knowledge of all that passed in every part of the fleet , and in every Russian fort , five minutes after each bombardment . It is plain that often he has to accept rumours for facts , having no power of determining their truth . Mr . Hughes , writing some time after the events he narrates took p lace , considers that doubtless-he may have been guilty of many inaccuracies . Since he admits that even he can err , he might have seen the necessity of leaving out his constant sneers against " our facetious friend of the Daily News , " " young gentlemen who write to newspapers , " " the ingenious little gentleman who has already sffcr&d SOT" ? diversion , " &c . &c , He need not fear that any One will mistake him for a newspaper correspondent . So much for Mr . Hughes , the critic and tactician . Of Mr . Hughes , the traveller , we need say little , save that he seems a pleasant and hearty fellow , more adapted , perhaps , for the deck of a yacht than for the pulpit , and for the ocean gales than for the storms of controversy . "Whatever be his faults , he is not guilty of the prevailing vice of the day , comic writing ; and can speak soberly anil seriously of topics at which a funny man would have levelled his shafts of ridicule .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 22, 1855, page 1229, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2120/page/17/