the ice, and moving the head from side to side just as the seals are accustomed to do. By this stratagem the Greenlander moves towards the unsuspecting seal, and kills him with a spear.

The Greenlanders angle with lines made of whalebone, cut very small, by means of which they succeed wonderfully.

The Greenland canoe, like that used in Nova Zembla and Hudson's Bay, is about three fathoms in length, pointed at both ends, and three-quarters of a yard in breadth. It is composed of thin rafts fastened together with the sinews of animals. It is covered with dressed seal-skins both above and below, in such a manner that only a circular hole is left in the middle, large enough to admit the body of one man. Into this the Greenlander thrusts himself up to the waist, and fastens the skin so tight about him, that no water can enter. Thus secured, and armed with a paddle broad at both ends, be will venture out to sea in the most stormy weather, to catch seals and sea-fowl; and if he is overset, he can easily raise himself by means of his paddle. A Greenlander, in one of these canoes, which was brought with him to Copenhagen, outstripped a pinnace of sixteen oars, manned with choice mariners.

The kone-boat is made of the same materials, but more durable; and so large, that it will contain fifty persons with all their tackling, baggage, and provisions. She is fitted with a mast, with a triangular sail made of the membranes and entrails of seals, and is managed without the help of bracings and hawlings. The kones are flat-bottomed, and sometimes sixty feet in length. The men think it beneath them to take notice of them, and therefore they are left to the conduct of the women, who indeed are obliged to do all the drudgery, including even the building and repairing of their houses, while the men employ themselves wholly in preparing their hunting implements and fishing tackle.

COSSACKS.

THIS is a name given the people inhabiting the banks of the rivers Dnieper and Don, near the Black Sea, and borders of Turkey. The word implies irregular troops of horse. These people are divided into European and Asiatic Cossacks. The first consist of the Zaporogs, who dwell below the cataract of the Dnieper, some on the side next to Russia, and others on the opposite side of that river; the Upper and Lower Cossacks, the Bielgorod Cossacks, and a part of the Don Cossacks. The Asiatic Cossacks are composed of the rest of the Don Cossacks, the Grebin Cossacks, the Yaik Cossacks, and the Western Cossacks, who retiring from those that inhabited the south borders of Siberia, under Yaneki Khan, settled upon the Wolga, and are dependent upon Russia. The Cossacks have been known by that name ever since A. D. 948. They dwelt upon Mount Caucasus, in the place now called Cabardy; and were reduced to the Russian dominion by prince Mastiflau in the year 1021. Many Russians, Poles, and others, who could not live at home, have at different times been admitted among the Cossacks; but the latter, abstracted from these fugitives, must have been an ancient and well-governed nation.

The Cossacks are tall and well made, generally hawk-nosed, and of good mien. They are hardy, vigorous, brave, and extremely jealous of what is most valuable in life, their liberty; fickle and wavering, but sociable, cheerful, and sprightly. They are a very powerful people, and their forces consist wholly of cavalry. Their dialect is a compound of the Polish and Russian language, but the latter is the most predominant. They were formerly Pagans or Mahometans; but upon their entering into the Polish service, they were baptized Christians of the Romish communion; and now that they belong to Russia, they profess themselves members of the Greek church.

Each of their towns, with the district belonging to it, is governed by an officer called cettoman, attaman, or hettman. The Cossacks in general are of great service to garrison towns by way of defence, or to pursue an enemy, but are not so good at regular attacks.

Don Cossacks, (so called from their residence on the banks of the Don.)-In 1599, when the czar, John Basilowitz, was emperor of Russia, they voluntarily put themselves under his protection, and are at this time on a pretty equal footing with the other Russian subjects. They have several towns and villages on the banks of the Don; but are prevented from extending farther up the country, by the scarcity of fresh water and wood in many places. Their chief support is grazing and agriculture, and occasionally robbing and plundering, for which they want neither capacity nor inclination. Every town is governed by a magistrate called tamann; and the tamanns, with their towns, are under the jurisdiction of two attamans, who reside at Tsherkasky. The troops of these Cossacks consist entirely of cavalry; and their manners in general resemble those of the Zaporog Cossacks. In this country all the towns and villages are fortified, and encompassed with palisades, to defend them against the incursions of the Calmucs and Kuban Tartars, with whom they are continually at war. The Heidamack or Seitsh Cossacks have their particular hettman. They inhabit the Russian, Polish, and Turkish dominions on the Dnieper.

The Yaik Cossacks, dwell on the south side of the river Yaik, and, upon the success of the Russian arms in the kingdom of Astracan, voluntarily submitted to them. In stature they greatly resemble the other Cossacks; though by their boorish manner of living, and intermarriages with the Tartars, they have not the shape and air peculiar to the rest of their countrymen. Their natural dispositions, and customs are, however, nearly the same. Husbandry, fishing, and feeding of cattle are their principal employments; and, like the other tribes they slip no opportunity of making depredations on their neighbours. Their continual war with the Kara Kalpacs, and the Kasal-Shaia-Horda, oblige them to keep their towns and villages in a state of defence. They are indeed subject to Russian waywodes, to whom they pay an annual tribute in corn, wax, honey, and cattle; but they have also their particular chiefs, who govern them according to their ancient customs. Though the generality of the Yaik Cossacks profess the Greek religion, yet a great many relics of Mahometanism and Paganism are still found among them.

Being naturally bold and hardy, they make excellent soldiers; and they are not so turbulent as the other Cossacks. They live entirely

at peace with the Calmucs and their other neighbours, and even maintain a commercial intercourse with them. Zaporog Cossacks fixed their babitations on the spacious plains along the banks of the Dnieper, about the beginning of the sixteenth century. They had undergone Considerable hardships from the incursions of the Tartars, for which they afterwards found means to revenge themselves in an ample manBer. The Poles being sensible how serviceable the Cossacks might be in defending them from the ravages of the Tartars, and even of the Russians, proposed to them terms of alliance. In 1562 they solemnly took them under their protection, and engaged to pay them an annual subsidy; in return for which, the Cossacks were to keep on foot a suthicient body of troops for the defence of the Polish dominions. With a view to bind them still more strongly by the ties of interest, the Poles gave them the whole country between the rivers Dneiper and Niester, and the borders of Tartary. The Cossacks applied themselves with great industry to the cultivation of this fertile spot; so that in a short time it was interspersed with large towns and handsome villages. Besides, they continually harassed the Turks, and did them great damage by their incursions; and in order to prevent the latter from porsuing them, or making reprisals, they possessed themselves of seve ral small islands in the Dnieper, where theykept their magazines, &c. The hettman or general of the Cossacks was not in the least subordinate to the field-marshal of Poland, but acted in concert with him as an ally, and not as a subject of that republic. But this alliance, though of such manifest advantage to both parties, was not of long duration. The Poles, seeing the vast improvements made by the Cossacks in the country they had given up to them, became envious of them, and actually made an attempt to bring them into subjection. In 1648, the Cossacks gained great advantages over them, and the next year came to an accommodation, in which they not only preserved their old communities, but obtained additional privileges. The result. of all was, that these Cossacks remained under the protection of Russia; and as their former territory was entirely laid waste in the late wars, they settled in the Russian Ukraine, upon receiving formal assurances from the court of Russia, that no alteration should be made in their political constitution, and that no taxes whatever should be laid upon them. The Cossacks, on the other hand, were always to keep in readiness a good body of troops for the service of Russia; but in 1708, Mazetta, their hettman or chief, went over from the Russians to the Swedes, upon which Peter II. resolved to prevent such revolts for the future. For this end, after the battle of Pultowa, he sent a strong detachment into the abovementioned little islands in the Dnieper, whither the Cossacks had fled with their wives and children and all their effects, and ordered them all to be put to the sword without distinction, and the plunder to be divided among his soldiers. He likewise sent a great number of men into their country, and caused several thousands of the Cossacks to be carried to the coasts of the Baltic, where they were put to all sorts of hard labour, by which means he in a manner extirpated the whole nation.

What distinguishes the Zaporog Cossacks from all other people is, that they never suffer any women in their settlements, as the Ama

zons are said not to have suffered any men among them. The women of these Cossacks live in the other islands of the Dnieper. They never marry, nor have any family; all their male children are enrolled as soldiers, and the females are left with their mothers.

The brother often has children by his sister, and the father by his daughter. They know no laws but those which custom has introduced, founded on their natural wants, though they have among them some priests of the Greek persuasion. They serve in the army as irregulars; and wo to those who fall into their hands.

The country of these Cossacks, who are an assemblage of ancient Roxalans, Sarmatians, and Tartars, is called the Ocraine or Ukraine. It lies upon the borders of Russia and Poland, Little Tartary, and Turkey, and was anciently a part of Scythia. By the treaty between Russia and Poland, in 1693, the latter remained in possession of all that part of the Ukraine which is situated on the west side of the Dnieper, and is now but poorly cultivated. That on the east side, inhabited by the Cossacks, is in much better condition, and extends about two hundred and sixty miles in length, and as many in breadth. It is one continued fertile plain, watered by a great number of fine rivers, diversified with pleasant woods, and yields such plenty of all sorts of grain, pulse, tobacco, honey, and wax, as to supply a great part of the Russian empire with these commodities. Its pastures are exceedingly rich, and its cattle very large, but the inhabitants are generally plagued with locusts, which infest this fine country. The houses in the Ukraine are, like those of the Russians, built mostly of timber.

CUSTOMS, RELIGION, &C. IN AMBOYNA.

THE men of Amboyna, one of the Malacca islands, wear large whiskers, but have little hair upon their chins, and have only a slight piece of stuff lapped round their middle. The women tie their hair in knots; the maids are bought of their fathers before they are married; and if the wife proves barren, the marriage is dissolved. Some of the natives are Mahometans, and some Christians; but they are all said to be lazy, deceitful, and treacherous. They make war with small swift vessels, in shape like dragons with regard to the head and tail. Their houses are built of bamboo canes and sago-trees. Their weapons are bows and arrows, javelins, cimeters, and targets. Amboyna was first discovered by the Portuguese, who built a fort upon it, which was taken from them by the Dutch in 1605.

They did not, however, become masters of the whole island at once. The English had here five factories, the people of which lived under the protection of the Dutch castle, holding themselves safe, in respect to the friendship between the two nations. Great differences had arisen between the Dutch and English colonists in these parts of the world; till at last the East India company applying to king James, a treaty was concluded in 1619, by which the concerus both of the English and Dutch were regulated, and certain measures agreed upon for preventing future disputes. This was an additional security to the English; and by virtue of the treaty, they continued

two years in Amboyna, trading with the Dutch. During this time, however, several disputes happened, which occasioning much discontent, the complaints were sent to Jacatra, in the island of Java Major, to the council of deference of both nations then residing: but they not agreeing, a state of the matter was sent over to Europe, to be decided by the East India companies of both nations; or, in case they should not agree, by the king of England and the States of of Holland, according to an article in the the treaty of 1619.-But before these disputes could be decided in a legal way, the Dutch, in order to give the more specious colouring to the violent seizure which they meditated of the island of Amboyna, made use of the pretext of a conspiracy being formed by the English and Japanese, to dispossess them of one of their forts in this place. The plot, it was alleged, had been confessed by a Japanese and Portuguese in the English service, who were most inhumanly tortured till they should answer in the affirmative such interrogatories as might favour the secret designs of these cruel inquisitors. Upon the injurious evidence of this constrained declaration, they immediately accused the English factors of the pretended conspiracy. Some of them they imprisoned, and others they loaded with irons, and sent on board their ships; seizing at the same time all the English merchandise, with their writings.

These acts of violence were followed by a scene of horror unexampled in the punishment of the most atrocious offenders. Some of the factors they tortured by compelling them to swallow water till their bodies were distended to the utmost pitch; then taking the miserable victims down from the boards to which they had been fastened, and causing them to disgorge the water: if they did not acknowledge the imputed guilt, the process of torture was repeated. Others of the English they tormented by burning them gradually from the feet upwards, in order to extort the confession of a conspiracy, which was only pretended by the infernal policy of those savage tormentors. Some had the nails of the fingers and toes torn off; and in some they made holes in their breasts, filling the cavities with inflammable materials, to which they afterwards set fire. Those who did not expire under the agonies of torture were consigned to the hands of the executioner.

The allegation of this pretended conspiracy was equally void of probability and truth. The Dutch had a garrison of three hundred men in the fort, besides the burghers in the town, and several other forts and garrisons in the island, while the English did not amount to twenty men; nor were even those provided with arms or ammunition, to effect such a design as that with which they were charged. There likewise was not one English vessel in the harbour, whereas the Dutch had eight ships riding near the town; neither, when the Dutch broke open the desks or trunks of the factors, was there found a single paper or letter which could be construed into a conspiracy. Add to all this, that such of the unhappy sufferers as could speak or be heard, declared, in the most solemn manner, their innocence of the plot with which they were charged. The whole of the transaction affords the most irrefragable testimony that it was

H