then sold by the public crier; but he first sold the most beautiful one. When he had sold her at an immense price, he put up others to sale, according to their degrees of beauty. The rich Babylonians were emulous to carry off the finest women, who were sold to the highest bidders. But as the young men who were poor could not aspire to have fine women, they were content to take the less handsome with the money which was given them; for when the crier had sold the handsomest, he ordered the ugliest of all the women to be brought, and asked if any one was willing to take her with a small sum of money. Thus she became the wife of him who was most easily satisfied; and thus the finest women were sold, and from the money which they sold for, small fortunes were given to the ugliest, and to those who had any bodily infirmity. A father could not give his daughter in marriage as he pleased; nor was he who bought her allowed to take her home, without giving security that he would marry her. But, after the sale, if the parties were not agreeable to each other, the law enjoined that the money should be restored. The inhabitants of any of their towns were allowed to marry wives at those auctions. Such were the early customs of the Babylonians. But they afterwards made a law, which prohibited the inhabitants to intermarry, by which husbands were punished for treating their wives ill.

INHABITANTS OF ATOOI.

ATOOI is one of the Sandwich islands. The natives of this island are of the middle size, and in general stoutly made. They are neither remarkable for a beautiful shape nor for striking features. Their visage, particularly that of the women, is sometimes round, but others have it long; nor can it justly be said that they are distinguished as a nation by any general cast of countenance. Their complexion is nearly of a nut-brown, but some individuals are of a darker hue. They are far from being ugly, and have to all appearance few natural deformities of any kind. Their skin is not very soft nor shining; but their eyes and teeth are for the most part pretty good. Their hair in general is straight; and though its natural colour is usually black, they stain it, as at the Friendly and other islands. They are active, vigorous, and most expert swimmers, leaving their canoes upon the most frivolous occasions, diving under them, and swimming to others, though at a considerable distance. Women with infants at the breast, when the surf was so high as to prevent their landing in the canoes, frequently leapt overboard and swam to the shore, without endangering their little ones. They appear to be of a frank cheerful disposition, and are equally free from the fickle levity which characterizes the inhabitants of Otaheite, and the sedate cast which is observable among many of those of Tongataboo. They seem to cultivate a sociable intercourse with each other; and, except the propensity to thieving, which is as it were innate in most of the people in those seas, they appeared extremely friendly.

It was pleasing to observe with what affection the women managed their infants, and with what alacrity the men contributed their assistance in such a tender office; thus distinguishing themselves from

those savages who consider a wife and child as things rather necessary, than desirable or worthy of their regard and esteem.

from the numbers that were seen assembled at every village, in coasting along, it was conjectured that the inhabitants of this island are pretty numerous. Including the straggling houses, it was computed there might perhaps be, in the whole island, sixty such villages as that near which our ships anchored; and allowing five persons to each house, there would be in every village 500, or 30,000 in all upon the island. This is by no means exaggerated; for there were sometimes 3000 people at least collected upon the beach, when it could not be supposed that above a tenth part of the natives were present.

FORMOSANS.

THESE are the inhabitants of the island of Formosa. These Indians are distributed into forty-five villages, thirty-six of which lie to the north, and nine towards the south. The northern villages are very populous, and the houses almost after the Chinese manner. The habitations of the southern islanders are only heaps of huts, or cotlages of earth. In these huts they have neither chairs, benches, tables, beds, nor any piece of furniture; the middle part is occupied by a kind of hearth or chimney raised two feet high, and constructed of earth, upon which they dress their victuals. Their ordinary food is rice, other small grain, and the game which they catch by coursing or kill with their arms. These islanders run with such surprising swiftness, that they can almost outstrip the fleetest greyhound. The Chinese attribute this agility to the precaution they take of confining their knees and reins by a close bandage, till the age of fourteen or fifteen.

Their favourite arms are lances, which they dart to the distance of sixty or eighty feet with the greatest dexterity and precision. They use bows and arrows, and can kill a pheasant on the wing with as much certainty as an European sportsman could with a fusee. They are very dirty in their manner of eating. They have neither plates, dishes, nor spoons, nor even small sticks as used in China. Whatever they dress is placed on a plain board or mat, and they use their fingers to convey it to their mouths. They eat flesh half raw; if it has been only presented to the fire, it appears to them excellent. Their beds are formed of fresh-gathered leaves. They go almost naked, and wear only a piece of cloth which hangs from their girdle to their knees. Those among them who have borne away the prize for agility in running, or dexterity in the chase, obtain the honourable privilege of marking on their skin, by a very painful operation, several fantastical figures of flowers, trees, and animals. All have a right of blackening their teeth, and of wearing ornaments of bracelets and crowns made of shells and crystals.

The islanders who inhabit the northern part, where the climate is something colder, clothe themselves with the skins of the stags which they kill in hunting. They make a kind of dress of them without sleeves, that pretty much resembles a dalmatic, or vestment worn at the altar by the Roman clergy. They wear on their heads caps in

the form of a cylinder, made of palm leaves, and ornamented with several crowns placed one above another, on the top of which they fix plumes composed of the feathers of a cock or pheasant.

The marriage ceremonies of the Formosans approach near to the simple laws of nature. They neither purchase, as in China, the women whom they espouse, nor does interest preside over their unions. Fathers and mothers are scarcely ever consulted. If a young man has a mind to marry, and has fixed his affection on a young girl, he appears for several days following near the place where she lives, with a musical instrument in his hand. If the young woman is satisfied with the figure of her gallant, she comes forth and joins him; they then agree, and settle the marriage contract. After this they give notice to their parents, who prepare a wedding dinner, which is always given in the house where the young woman resides, and where the bridegroom remains, without returning again to his father. The young man afterwards considers the house of his fatherin-law as his own. He becomes the support of it, and has no farther connexion with that of his father; like married women in Europe, who generally quit their paternal home to live with their husbands. These islanders are therefore seldom anxious for male children; they prefer daughters, because they procure them sons-inlaw, who become the supports of their old age.

Each

Although the Formosans are entirely subjected to the Chinese, they still preserve some remains of their ancient government. village chooses three or four old men from among those who have the greatest reputation for probity. By this choice they become rulers and judges of the rest. They have the power of finally determining all differences; and if any should refuse to abide by their judgment, he would be immediately banished from the village, without hopes of ever being able to re-enter it, and none of the inhabitants would afterwards receive him.

The natives pay in grain the tribute imposed upon them by the Chinese. To regulate every thing that concerns the laying on and collecting of this impost, government has established a Chinese in every village, who is obliged to learn the language, and act as interpreter to the mandarins. These interpreters are most cruel extortioners to the miserable people, whom they ought rather to protect; they are such insatiable leeches, that they can scarcely ever be satisfied. This daily and domestic tyranny has caused the desertion of three villages in the southern part of the island, where formerly there were twelve. The inhabitants of these villages revolted, expelled their interpreters, refused to pay tribute any longer to the Chinese, and united themselves to the independent nations in the eastern part of the island.

It was in the island of Formosa, that John Struys affirms to have seen with his own eyes a man who had a tail more than a foot in length, covered with red hair, and greatly resembling that of an ox! This man with a tail said, that his deformity, if it was one, proceeded from the climate, and that all those of the southern part of the island were born with tails like his. But John Struys is the only author who attests the existence of this extraordinary race of men, no other