The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 575, November 10, 1832

When residing at Deptford he requested to see the celebrated Dr. Halley, to whom he communicated his plans of building a fleet, and in general of introducing the arts and sciences into his country, and asked his opinion and advice on various subjects; the doctor spoke German fluently, and the Tzar was so much pleased with the philosopher's conversation and remarks, that he had him frequently to dine with him; and in his company he visited the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park.

As in Amsterdam, so also in London, he visited the manufactories and workshops of various artificers, and purchased whatever he deemed either curious or useful; and among other things "he bought the famous geographical clock made by Mr. John Carte, watchmaker, at the sign of the Dial and Crown, near Essex-street in the Strand, which clock tells what o'clock it is in any part of the world, whether it is day or night, the sun's rising and setting throughout the year, its entrance into the signs of the zodiac; the arch which they and the sun in them makes above or below the horizon, with several other curious motions."14 He was very curious in examining the mechanism of a watch, and it is said he could take one of these ingenious machines to pieces, and put it together again, before he left London.

The king had promised Peter that there should be no impediment in his way of engaging, and taking with him to Russia, such English artificers, and scientific men, as he might desire, with such instruments as their trade or profession required.

The number of all descriptions of persons that finally left England, when the Tzar returned to Holland, is stated to have been nearly as follows:—Three captains of ships of war, twenty-five captains of merchant ships, thirty pilots, thirty surgeons, two hundred gunners, four mast-makers, four boat-builders, two master sail-makers and twenty workmen, two compass-makers, two carvers, two anchor-smiths, two lock-smiths, two copper-smiths and two tinmen; making, with some others, not much less than five hundred persons. However uncouth the manners of Peter may have been, he was a great favourite with King William, and the Tzar had also a high opinion of his Majesty, whom he visited frequently, and consulted on all important occasions. The king engaged him to sit for his portrait to Sir Godfrey Kneller, who painted a very good picture, said to be a strong likeness, which is now at Windsor, and the portrait at the head of this volume is engraved from it.

(The reader will recollect Peter at Zaandam. In after-life he visited this place,) and the little cottage in which some nineteen years before he had dwelt, when learning the art of ship-building: he found it kept up in neat order, and dignified with the name of the Prince's House. This little cottage is still carefully preserved. It is surrounded by a neat building with large arched windows, having the appearance of a conservatory or green-house, which was erected in 1823 by order of the present Princess of Orange, sister to the late Emperor Alexander, who purchased it to secure its preservation. In the first room you still see the little oak table and three chairs which constituted its furniture when Peter occupied it. Over the chimney-piece is inscribed

PETRO MAGNOALEXANDER,

and in the Russian and Dutch,

"To a Great Man nothing is little."

The ladder to the loft still remains, and in the second little room below are some models and several of his working-tools. Thousands of names are scribbled over every part of this once humble residence of Peter the Great.

On entering this cottage, Peter is said to have been evidently affected. Recovering himself, he ascended the loft, where was a small closet, in which he had been accustomed to perform his devotions and remained there alone a full half-hour; with what various emotions his mind must have been affected while in this situation, could be known only to himself, but might easily be imagined. It could hardly fail to recall to his recollection the happy period when he "communed with his own heart" in this sacred little chamber, and "remembered his Creator in the days of his youth,"—days which he might naturally enough be led to compare and contrast with those of the last nineteen years of his life, filled up as they had been with many and varied incidents, painful, hazardous, disastrous and glorious.

Every one was anxious to bring to his recollection any little circumstance in which he had been concerned,—among others, a beautiful boat was brought to him as a present, in the building of which he himself had done "yeoman service." He was delighted to see that this ancient piece of the workmanship of his own hands had been preserved with such care. He caused it to be put on board a ship bound for Petersburg, but she was unfortunately captured by the Swedes; and the boat is still kept in the arsenal of Stockholm.

With his old acquaintance, Kist, the blacksmith, he visited the smithy, which was so dirty that the gentleman of his suite who attended him was retreating, but Peter stopped him to blow the bellows and heat a piece of iron, which, when so done, he beat out with the great hammer. Kist was still but a journeyman blacksmith, and the Tzar out of compassion for his old acquaintance made him a handsome present.

[The Editor's conclusion, or brief summary, is sketched as follows.]

The character of Peter the Great, as has been shown in the course of this memoir, was a strange compound of contradictions. Owing to the circumstances in which he was placed, and the determination to execute the plan he had conceived of remodelling the customs and institutions of his country, he had to maintain a constant struggle between his good and evil genius. Nothing was too great, nothing too little for his comprehensive mind. The noblest undertakings were mixed with the most farcical amusements; the most laudable institutions, for the benefit and improvement of his subjects, were followed by shaving their beards and docking their skirts;—kind-hearted, benevolent, and humane, he set no value on human life. Owing to these, and many other incongruities, his character has necessarily been represented in various points of view and in various colours by his biographers. Of him, however, it can scarcely be said, that

The evil which men do lives after them,The good is oft interred with their bones.

With the exception of a few foreign writers, who have generally compiled their memoirs from polluted sources, the reverse of the aphorism may be applied to Peter. His memory, among his countrymen, who ought to be the best judges, and of whom he was at once the scourge and the benefactor, is held in the highest veneration, and is consecrated in their history and their public monuments to everlasting fame. The magnificent equestrian statue, erected by Catharine II.; the waxen figure of Peter in the museum of the Academy founded by himself; the dress, the sword, and the hat, which he wore at the battle of Pultowa, the last pierced through with a ball: the horse that he rode in that battle; the trousers, worsted stockings, shoes, and cap, which he wore at Zaandam, all in the same apartment; his two favourite dogs, his turning-lathe and tools, with specimens of his workmanship; the iron bar which he forged with his own hand at Olonitz; the Little Grandsire, so carefully preserved, as the first germ of the Russian navy; and the wooden hut in which he lived while superintending the first foundation of Petersburg;—these, and a thousand other tangible memorials, all preserved with the utmost care, speak in most intelligible language the opinion which the Russians hold of the Father of his Country.

THE NATURALIST

THE DODO

Every reader of popular natural history must recollect the figure of this extraordinary bird; although he may not be aware that it is considered to have become extinct towards the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century. The conditions of this disappearance are self-evident.15 Imagine a bird of the gallinaceous (gallus, cock, or pheasant) tribe, considerably larger than a turkey, and consequently adapted for food, totally incapable of flying, and so unwieldy as to be easily run down, and it must be quite obvious that such a bird could not long continue to exist in any country to which mankind extended their dominion. This will account for its being found only in those islands of the Indian Ocean which, on their being first discovered by Europeans, were uninhabited, or difficult of access to the nearest people. The group which is situated to the eastward of Madagascar, consisting of Bourbon, Mauritius, and Roderigue, were almost the only islands of this description met with by the early circumnavigators of the Cape; and it is there that we find the last traces of this very remarkable bird, which disappeared, of course, from Bourbon and the Mauritius first, on account of their being more visited and finally colonized by the French; and lastly from Roderigue, an island extremely difficult of access, and without any safe bay or anchorage for shipping.

We obtain these particulars from a paper in the Magazine of Natural History,16 by John V. Thompson, Esq. F.L.S. This gentleman, during a residence of some years in the above islands, in vain sought for some traces of the existence of the Dodo there; he discovered, however, a copy of the scarce and curious voyage of Leguat, who, and his companions, appear to have been the first inhabitants of Roderigue: and from their journal he has translated the following account of the Dodo.

The Dodo.

"Of all the birds which inhabit this island, the most remarkable is that which has been called Solitaire (the solitary), because they are rarely seen in flocks, although there is abundance of them.

"The males have generally a greyish or brown plumage, the feet of the turkey-cock, as also the beak, but a little more hooked. They have hardly any tail, and their posterior, covered with feathers, is rounded like the croup of a horse. They stand higher than the turkey-cock, and have a straight neck, a little longer in proportion than it is in that bird when it raises its head. The eye is black and lively, and the head without any crest or tuft. They do not fly, their wings being too short to support the weight of their bodies; they only use them in beating their sides, and in whirling round; when they wish to call one another, they make, with rapidity, twenty or thirty rounds in the same direction, during the space of four or five minutes; the movement of their wings then makes a noise which approaches exceedingly that of a kestrel (Crécerelle), and which is heard at more than 200 paces distant. The bone of the false pinion is enlarged at its extremity, and forms, under the feathers, a little round mass like a musket-bullet; this and their beak form the principal defence of this bird. It is extremely difficult to catch them in the woods; but as a man runs swifter than they, in the more open spots it is not very difficult to take them; sometimes they may even be approached very easily. From the month of March until September, they are extremely fat, and of most excellent flavour, especially when young. The males may be found up to the weight of 45 lb.; Herbert even says 50 lb.

"The female is of admirable beauty. Some are of a blond, others of a brown, colour; I mean by blond the colour of flaxen hair. They have a kind of band, like the bandeau of widows, above the beak, which is of a tan colour. One feather does not pass another over all their body, because they take great care to adjust and polish them with their beak. The feathers which accompany the thighs are rounded into a shell-like form, and, as they are very dense at this place, produce a very agreeable effect. They have two elevations over the crop, of a somewhat whiter plumage than the rest, and which resemble wonderfully the fine breast of a woman. They walk with so much stateliness and grace combined, that it is impossible not to admire and love them; so much so, that their appearance has often saved their life.

"Although these birds approach, at times, very familiarly when they are not chased, they are incapable of being tamed; as soon as caught, they drop tears, without crying, and refuse obstinately all kind of nourishment, until at last they die. There is always found in their gizzard (as well as in that of the males) a brown stone, the size of a hen's egg; it is slightly tuberculated (raboteuse), flat on one side, and rounded on the other, very heavy and very hard. We imagined that this stone was born with them, because, however young they might be, they always had it, and never more than one; and besides this circumstance, the canal which passes from the crop to the gizzard, is by one-half too small to give passage to such a mass. We used them, in preference to any other stone, to sharpen our knives.

"When these birds set about building their nests, they choose a clear spot, and raise it a foot and a half off the ground, upon a heap of leaves of the palm tree, which they collect together for the purpose. They only lay one egg, which is very much larger than that of a goose. The male and female sit by turns, and it does not hatch until after a period of seven weeks. During the whole period of incubation, or that they are rearing their young one, which is not capable of providing for itself until after several months, they will not suffer any bird of their own kind to approach within 200 paces of their nest; and what is very singular is, that the male never chases away the females; only, when he perceives one, he makes, in whirling, his ordinary noise, to call his companion, which immediately comes and gives chase to the stranger, and which she does not quit until driven without their limits. The female does the same and allows the males to be driven off by her mate. This is a circumstance that we so often witnessed, that I speak of it with certainty. These combats last sometimes for a long time, because the stranger only turns off, without going in a straight line from the nest; nevertheless, the others never quit until they have chased them away."17

Mr. Thompson finds this evidence strengthened by the facts and statements of a paper by Mr. Duncan, in the Zoological Journal for January, 1828; and infers that a bird of corresponding size and character did actually exist, of which the only remains are a bill and foot in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and a foot in the British Museum, all of which Mr. Thompson examined on his return from the Mauritius in 1816. The specimen, which in part remains at Oxford, was originally in the museum of Tradescant, at Lambeth, which was purchased and removed to Oxford by Dr. Ashmole; the entire bird is proved to have been in the Museum in 1700; and in a catalogue of the collection drawn up since 1755, the disappearance of all but the bill and foot of the Dodo is explained by an order of a meeting of the visitors in the last-named year. Tradescant, it will be recollected, was gardener to Charles the Second; and in the portrait of him still preserved is introduced a Dodo, which belonged to him when alive. Another painting of the bird, to be seen in the British Museum, is stated by Mr. Duncan, to have been executed from a living bird, sent from the Mauritius to Holland, the Dutch being the first colonists of that island; but, Mr. Thompson thinks, "to dissipate all doubts as to its accuracy, it should be collated with a description taken from the Ashmolean specimen, should such be found to exist."

Mr. Thompson is inclined to consider Leguat's natural history of the Dodo as "the only one that was ever penned under such favourable circumstances. No doubt this first colony, in so small an island, considerably reduced the number of the Dodo; but when they finally disappeared, does not seem to be anywhere recorded." The most interesting consideration connected with their disappearance is their being "the only vertebrated animals which we can make certain of having lost since the creation. If we seek to find out what link in the chain of Nature has been broken by the loss of this species, what others have lost their check, and what others necessarily followed the loss of those animals which alone contributed to their support," Mr. Thompson thinks "we may conclude that, the first being seen by the Omniscient Creator, at least no injury will be sustained by the rest of the creation; that man, its destroyer, was probably intended to supplant it, as a check; and that the only other animals which its destruction drew with it, were the intestinal worms and pediculi peculiar to the species."

Buffon, Latham, and Gmelin have three species of Dodo, while we find it difficult to establish the existence of one. Indeed, it is improbable that the three islands of the Mauritius group possessed each a distinct type of so singular and unique a bird.

MOUNT ARARAT

Ararat is celebrated as the resting-place of Noah's ark after the Deluge, and as the spot whence the descendants of Noah peopled the earth. It rises on the Persian frontier, on a large plain, detached, as it were, from the other mountains of Armenia, which make a long chain. It consists, properly speaking, of two hills—the highest of which, where the ark is said to have rested,18 is, according to Parrot, 2,700 toises, or 17,718 feet above the level of the ocean.19 The summit is covered with perpetual snow; the lower parts are composed of a deep, moving sand; and one side presents a vast chasm tinged with smoke, from which flames have been known to issue.

Mount Ararat, from a drawing, by Sir Robert Ker Porter.

Perhaps the most recent visit to this wonder of the East will be found described in Mr. J.H. Stocqueler's Journal of Fifteen Months' Pilgrimage through untrodden Tracts of Khuzistan and Persia, in 1831 and 1832:—

"We mounted our horses," says the enthusiastic traveller, "soon after sunrise, and had proceeded for about four hours over numerous acclivities, and through a territory of undulations resembling the waves of the sea deprived of motion, when the southern peak of Ararat (for there are two), snow-clad and 'cloud-clapt' suddenly burst upon my view! At first I scarcely dared venture to believe we were so near this celebrated mount, though its situation and the distance we had journeyed from Tabreez left no doubt of the fact. I even questioned the guide, and on his answering that it was the summit of Agri-Dagh (the name by which Ararat is called by the Turks), I involuntarily clasped my hands in ecstacy! Who can contemplate this superb elevation without a mixture of awe and admiration, or fail to recur to the page of sacred writ illustrative of Almighty wrath and the just man's recompense? Who can gaze upon the majesty of this mount, towering above the 'high places' and the hills, and turn without repining to the plains beneath, where puny man has pitched his tent and wars upon his fellow, mocking the sublimity of Nature with his paltry tyranny? I felt as if I lived in other times, and my eye eagerly but vainly sought for some traces of that 'ark' which furnished a refuge and a shelter to the creatures of God's mercy when the 'waters prevailed, and were increased greatly on the earth,' till 'all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, and all that was in the dry land, died!'

"Though distant forty miles at least from the base of Ararat, the magnitude of the mountain, of about the centre of which our elevated position now placed us abreast, caused it to appear contiguous to our route, and produced that indefinable thrill and sense of humility which the immediate presence of any vast and overpowering object is so eminently calculated to generate. I continued to gaze until the decline of day warned us to seek a shelter, and Phoebus, casting a parting glance at the crystal summit of the noble glacier, for a moment diffused over all a soft rosy tint,20 then sunk into the west and left the world in darkness."

NUTRIA FUR

(To the Editor.)

I read with much pleasure the article in your Number, 574, on Nutria Fur: it was, to me, particularly acceptable, as I have been connected for the last ten years with an establishment where, on an average, 150,000 Nutria Skins are annually manufactured, and the wool cut for the use of hatters. I have searched every book of travels in Brazil, &c., that I could procure, and the chief English works on zoology, without being able to gather any description of the scientific name or habits of the animal. All the information I could collect was from the captains of various vessels that had visited Buenos Ayres, and brought cargoes of skins; but their accounts were extremely vague and unsatisfactory.

I perceive, however, that you have overlooked a peculiarity generally attributed to the animal, which, if true, is, in my opinion, deserving notice: viz.—the position of the female's teats, which are not placed on the belly, as with most animals, but on the side, approaching to the back, by which means it is enabled to suckle its young on both sides at once, whilst swimming on the surface of the water; and it presents, I have understood, a singular group to the observant traveller.

I have sent the skin of a female Nutria herewith, for your inspection, as regards the teats, &c. (from which the fur has been cut by machinery,) with a small sample of the belly fur, prepared for the covering of a hat; the wholesale price of the latter is now three guineas per lb.: it is used as a substitute for beaver-wool on second-rate hats. Our French correspondents term the skins "Ratgondin."

BENJAMIN NORRIS, JUN.

Windsor Place, Southwark Bridge Road.

*** We thank our intelligent correspondent for this communication, as well as for the skin and fur. The skin is rather above the usual size: its length is 26 inches, the tail being cut off; as is always done before the skins are exported: the width of the skin is 15 inches; the teats, nine in number, are in two rows, each row being about 2-1/2 inches from the centre of the back, and about 5 inches from the centre of the belly; so that they are, as our correspondent observes, on the side, approaching to the back nearer by half than to the belly. This position of the teats appears to correspond with the animal's habit of suckling its young whilst swimming.

THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE CHOLERA MOUNT

Lines on the Burying-Place for Patients who have Died of Cholera; a pleasant eminence in Sheffield Park.

By James Montgomery, EsqIn death divided from their dearest kin,This is "a field to bury strangers in:"Fragments lie here of families bereft,Like limbs in battle-grounds by warriors left;A sad community!—whose very bonesMight feel, methinks, a pang to quicken stones,And make them from the depths of darkness cry,"Oh! is it naught to you, ye passers by!When from its earthly house the spirit fled,Our dust might not be 'free among the dead?'Ah! why were we to this Siberia sent,Doom'd in the grave itself to banishment?"Shuddering humanity asks—"Who are these?And what their sin?"—They fell by one disease!(Not by the Proteus maladies, that strikeMan into nothingness—not twice alike;)By the blue pest, whose gripe no art can shun,No force unwrench—out-singled one by one;When like a timeless birth, the womb of FateBore a new death, of unrecorded date,And doubtful name. Far east its race begun,Thence round the world pursued the westering sun;The ghosts of millions following at its back,Whose desecrated graves betray'd their track;On Albion's shore, unseen, the invader stept;Secret, and swift, and terrible it crept;At noon, at midnight, seized the weak, the strong,Asleep, awake, alone, amidst the throng,Kill'd like a murder; fix'd its icy hold,And wrung out life with agony of cold;Nor stay'd its vengeance where it crush'd the prey,But set a mark, like Cain's, upon their clay,And this tremendous seal impress'd on all,"Bury me out of sight, and out of call."Wherefore no filial foot this turf may tread,No kneeling mother clasp her baby's bed;No maiden unespoused, with widow'd sighs,Seek her soul's treasure where her true-love lies;—All stand aloof, and gazing from afar,Look on this mount as on some baleful star,Strange to the heavens, that with bewildering light,Like a lost spirit, wanders through the night.Yet many a mourner weeps her fall'n estate,In many a home by them left desolate;Once warm with love, and radiant with the smilesOf woman, watching infants at their wiles,Whose eye of thought, while now they throng her knees,Pictures far other scene than that she sees,For one is wanting—one, for whose dear sake,Her heart with very tenderness would ache,As now with anguish—doubled when she spiesIn this his lineaments, in that his eyes,In each his image with her own commix'd,And there at least, for life, their union fix'd!Humanity again asks, "Who are these?And what their sin?"—They fell by one disease!But when they knock'd for entrance at the tomb,Their fathers' bones refused to make them room;Recoiling Nature from their presence fled,As though a thunder-bolt had struck them dead;Their cries pursued her with the thrilling plea,"Give us a little earth for charity!"She linger'd, listen'd; all her bosom yearn'd;The mother's pulse through every vein return'd;Then, as she halted on this hill, she threwHer mantle wide, and loose her tresses flew."Live!" to the slain she cried: "My children live!This for an heritage to you I give;Had Death consumed you by the common lotYe, with the multitude, had been forgot;Now through an age of ages ye shall not."Thus Nature spake;—and as her echo, ITake up her parable, and prophesy:Here, as from spring to spring the swallows pass,Perennial daisies shall adorn the grass;Here the shrill skylark build her annual nest,And sing in heaven, while you serenely rest;On trembling dewdrops morn's first glance shall shine,Eve's latest beams on this fair bank decline,And oft the rainbow steal through light and gloom,To throw its sudden arch across your tomb;On you the moon her sweetest influence shower,And every planet bless you in its hour.With statelier honours still, in Time's slow round,Shall this sepulchral eminence be crown'd;Where generations long to come shall hailThe growth of centuries waving in the gale,A forest landmark, on the mountain's head,Standing betwixt the living and the dead;Nor, while your language lasts, shall travellers ceaseTo say, at sight of your memorial, "Peace!"Your voice of silence answering from the sod,"Whoe'er thou art, prepare to meet thy God!"Blackwood's Magazine.