with some of the disgusting customs of the Hottentots, and after these ceremonies the bridegroom promises to give the bride meat and drink while she lives, and bury her when dead. Polygamy is not only allowed among them, but the women even solicit their husbands to take others to their embraces, that they may have numerous families of children, who may be capable of defending them against their enemies, as the Galla, according to Mr. Bruce, always fight in families, whether against foreign enemies or with one another.

KABOBIQUAS.

THIS is the name of a nation of South Africa, who had never seen a white man till 1785, when M. Vaillant visited them. Having received previous intimation of his approach from the adjacent tribes, their curiosity was wound up to the highest pitch, and, upon the first appearance of his company, the whole horde quitted their kraal, and ran out to meet him. Hardly able to believe their eyes, they felt his hair, his hands, his feet, and almost every part of his body. His beard astonished them, and, believing him to be all over hairy, they half unbuttoned his clothes, before they could be satisfied to the contrary. The children were dreadfully frightened, but were soon reconciled to him by presents of sugarcandy. Their chief shewed him every mark of respect. He was a majestic figure, advanced in life, and wore a long mantle made of four jackals' skins.

The Kabobiquas have neither the flat nose nor the plump cheeks of the Hottentots. They are as tall and as black as the Caffres. Their hair is very short, much curled, and ornamented with small copper buttons. They go almost entirely naked during the hot weather, wearing only a small round piece of leather over the pudenda ; yet their manners are uncommonly chaste, and no females can be more reserved than their women, whose aprons only reach half way down the thigh. They wear a long mantle, made of skins with the hair on. Their only ornaments are glass beads, which they wear as bracelets. M. Vaillant gave them a number of glass bottles, which they greatly admired, and called solid water-having seen ice, and having no idea that any other solid substance could be formed transparent. They supposed that M. Vaillant prevented them from melting before their fires by magic. He says he "never saw a nation so disinterested. They vied with each other in generosity. Every night they brought to his camp a considerable quantity of milk; and they never came to spend the evening with his people without bringing some sheep to regale them. Many of them gave away gratuitously, and without receiving any thing in return, part of their herds and flocks." With all this benevolence, they have also a courageous and martial character. Their weapons are poisoned arrows, and iances with long points. Their defensive arms are bucklers of two different sizes, made of skins, very thick, and impenetrable by arrows. Their courage is equally displayed against their enemies and against wild beasts. Yet with all their boldness, they are extremely obedient to their chief, whose will is a law. They believe in a supreme Being, who exists far beyond the stars, and who made and governs all things.

Yet, if we may believe M. Vaillant, they have no conception of future existence, or rewards and punishments; and they have neither worship, sacrifices, ceremonies, nor priests."

INHABITANTS, CUSTOMS, &C., OF NEW CALEDONIA, AN ISLAND IN THE SOUTH SEA.

THE inhabitants are in general very tall, stout, and well proportioned; their features mild; their beards and hair black, and strongly frizzled, so as to be somewhat woolly; in some individuals their colour is a dark chestnut brown. A few measured six feet four inches. They are remarkably courteous, not at all addicted to pilfering; in which feature of character they are singular, all the other nations in the South Sea being remarkably thievish. Some wear their hair long, and tie it up to the crown of their heads; others suffer only a large lock to grow on each side, which they tie up in clubs; many others, as well as the women, wear it cropt short. They all use a kind of comb made of sticks of hard wood, from seven to ten inches long, and about the thickness of knitting-needles. These combs they also wear in their hair on one side of the head. Some have a kind of concave cylindrical stiff black cap, which appears to be a great ornament among them, and was supposed to be worn only by the chiefs and warriors. The men go naked; only tying a string round their middle, and another round their neck. A little piece of brown cloth, made of the bark of a fig-tree, sometimes tucked up to the belt, and sometimes pendulous, scarcely deserves the name of a covering, nor indeed does it seem intended for it. This piece of cloth is sometimes of such a length, that the extremity is fastened to the string round the neck; to this string they sometimes hang small round beads, of a pale nephritic stone. They had also coarse garments made of a sort of matting; but they seemed never to wear them, except in their canoes, and unemployed.

They women seemed to be in a servile state; they were the only persons who had any employment, and several of them brought bundles of sticks and fuel on their backs; those who had children carried them on their backs in a kind of satchel. The women also dig up the earth, to plant it. They are in general of a dark chestnut, but sometimes of a mahogany brown; their stature middle-sized, though some are tall, and their whole form stout, and somewhat clumsy. Their dress is a short petticoat or fringe, consisting of filaments or little cords, about eight inches long, fastened to a very long string, which they tie several times round their waist. These filaments lie above each other in several layers all round the body, but do not near cover the thigh; they were sometimes dyed black, but frequently of a dirty gray. There was not a single instance, during the ship's stay at this island, of the women permitting any indecent familiarities with an European. The general ornaments of both sexes are ear-rings, necklaces, amulets, and bracelets made of shells, stones, &c. Notwithstanding the inoffensive disposition of the inhabitants of New Caledonia, they were all provided with offensive weapons, as clubs, spears, darts, and s slings. Their clubs are about two and a half

feet long, and variously formed,-some like a scythe, others like a pickaxe; some with a head like a hawk, others with round heads; but all are neatly made, and ornamented with carvings. The slings are simple, but they form the stones into a shape somewhat like an egg. They drive the dart by the assistance of short cords knotted at one end and looped at the other, called by the seamen, beckets. These contain a quantity of red wool, taken from the great Indian bat. Bows and arrows are wholly unknown among them. Their language bears no affinity to that spoken in the other South Sea islands, the word arrekee, and one or two more, excepted. This is the more extraordinary, as different dialects of one language were spoken not only in the easterly islands, but at New Zealand. Their only musical instrument is a kind of whistle--a little polished piece of brown wood about two inches long, shaped like a bell, though apparently solid, with a rope fixed at the small end; two holes are made in it near the base, and another near the insertion of the rope, all which communicate with each other, and by blowing in the uppermost a shrill sound like whistling is produced. Many of these people were observed to have prodigiously thick arms and legs, which seem to be affected with a kind of leprosy; the swelling was extremely hard, but the skin was not alike harsh and scaly in all those that were afflicted with the disorder. The preternatural expansion of the arm or leg did not appear to be a great inconvenience to them, and they very rarely felt any pain in it; but after some time the disorder began to form blotches, which are marks of a great degree of virulence. They bury their dead in the ground. The grave of a chief who had been slain in battle resembled a large mole-hill, and was decorated with spears, darts, paddles, &c., all stuck upright in the ground about it. Lieutenant Pickersgill was shewn a chief whom they called Teabeoma, and styled their arrekee, or king; but nothing farther is known of their government, and nothing at all of their religion. They have no idea of goats, hogs, dogs, or cats.

DAHOMANS.

THESE are the inhabitants of Dahomy, a kingdom of Africa. The religion of the Dahomans is vague and uncertain in its principles, and rather consists in its performance of some traditionary ceremonies, than in any fixed system of belief, or of moral conduct. They believe more firmly in their amulets and fetiches, than in the Deity; their national fetiche is the tiger, and their houses or huts are decorated with ugly images, tinged with blood, stuck with feathers, besmeared with palm oil, and bedaubed with eggs. The government is perhaps the most perfect despotism upon earth. The policy of the country admits of no intermediate degree of subordination between the king and slave, at least in the royal presence, where the prime minister is obliged to prostrate himself with as much abject submission as the meanest subject, all acknowledging the unlimited power of the sovereign. A minister of state crawls towards the apartment of audience on his hands and knees, till he arrives in the royal presence, where he lays himself flat on his belly, rubbing his head in the dust, and