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the ring opened, the belts began to advance towards the fouth; and to shew an incurvature answering to the projection of an equatorial line, or to a parallel of the fame. When the ring closed up, they returned towards the north; and are now, while the ring paffes over the center, exactly ranging with the shadow of it on the body; generally one on each fide, with a white belt close to it.

Saturn is confiderably flattened at the poles; the axis of the planet is perpendicular to the plane of the ring; and the equatorial diameter is to the polar one nearly as eleven

to ten.

We may also infer the real diameter of Saturn from these meafures, which are perhaps more to be depended upon than any that have hitherto been given. But as in my journal I have measures that were repeatedly taken thefe ten years past, not only of the diameter of Saturn, but of the ring, and its opening, whereby its inclination may be known; as well as of the distance of the fourth, and fifth, and other fatellites, which will be of great use in ascertaining the quantity of matter contained in the planet, I reserve a full inveftigation of these things for another opportunity.

SELECT BIOGRAPHY.

MEMOIRS

His first plan for the purpose, was

OF THE LATE MR. LEDYARD, A that of embarking in a veffel which

CELEBRATED TRAVELLER.

[From the Proceedings of the Affociation for promoting the Discovery of the interior Parts of Africa.]

M

R. Ledyard was an American by birth, and feemed from his youth to have felt an invincible defire to make himself acquainted with unknown or imperfectly difcovered regions of the globe. For feveral years he had lived with the Indians of America, had studied their manners, and had practifed in their school the means of obtaining their protection, and of recommend ing himself to the favour of favages. In the humble fituation of a corporal of marines, to which he submitted rather than relinquish his purfuit, he had made, with captain Cook, the voyage of the world; and feeling, on his return, an anxious defire of penetrating from the north western coaft, which Cook had partly explored, to the eastern coast, with which he himself was perfectly familiar, he determined to traverse the vaft continent, from 'the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. VOL. II.

was preparing to fail, on a voyage of commercial adventure, to Nootka Sound, on the western coast of Ame rica; and with this view, he expended in fea ftores the greatest part of the money which his chief benefactor, fir Jofeph Banks, had liberally fupplied. But the scheme being fruftrated by the rapacity of a cuf tom-house officer, who had feized and detained the veffel for reasons which, on legal inquiry, proved to be frivolous, he determined to travel over land to Kamtfchatka, from whence to the western coaft of America the paffage is extremely short, With no more than ten guineas in his purfe, which was all that he had left, he croffed the British Channel to Oftend, and, by the way of Denmark and the Sound, proceeded to the capital of Sweden; from whence, as it was winter, he attempted to traverfe to the gulph of Bothnia on the ice, in order to reach Kamtfchatka by the shortest way; but finding, when he came to the middle of the fea, that the water was not frozen, he returned to Stockholm,

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and, taking his courfe northward, walked into the arctic circle, and, paffing round the head of the gulph, defcended, on its eastern fide, to Petersburgh.

There he was foon noticed as an extraordinary man.-Without ftockings or fhoes, and in too much poverty to provide himself with either, he received and accepted an invitation to dine with the Portuguefe ambaffador. To this invitation it was probably owing that he was able to obtain the fum of twenty guineas for a bill on fir Jofeph Banks, which he confeffed he had no authority to draw, but which, in confideration of the business that he had undertaken, and of the progrefs that he had made, fir Jofeph, he believed, would not be unwilling to pay. To the ambaffador's intereft it might alfo be owing that he obtained permiffion to accompany a detachment of ftores which the emprefs had ordered to be fent to Yakutz, for the ufe of Mr. Billings, an Englishman, at that time in her fervice.

Thus accommodated, he travelled eastward through Siberia, fix thoufand miles to Yakutz, where he was kindly received by Mr. Billings, whom he remembered on board captain Cook's fhip in the fituation of the aftronomer's fervant, but to whom the emprefs had now entrufted the schemes of northern difcovery.

From Yakutz, he proceeded to Oczakow, on the coaft of the Kamtfchatka fea; from whence he meant to have paffed over to that peninfula, and to have embarked on the eastern fide in one of the Ruffian veffels that trade to the western fhores of America; but, finding that the navigation was completely obftructed by the ice, he returned again to Yakutz in order to wait for the conclufion of the winter.

Such was his fituation when, in confequence of fufpicions not hitherto explained, or refentments for which no reafon is affigned, he was feized, in the emprefs's name, by two Ruffian foldiers, who placed him in a fledge, and conveying him, in the depth of winter, through the deferts of the northern Tartary, left him at laft on the frontiers of the Polish dominions. As they parted they told him, that if he returned to Ruffia he would certainly be hanged; but that if he chofe to go back to England, they wifhed him a pleasant journey.

In the midft of poverty, covered with rags, infefted with the ufual accompaniment of fuch clothing, worn with continued hardship, exhaufted by disease, without friends, without credit, unknown, and full of mifery, he found his way to Koningberg. There, in the hour of his utmoft diftrefs, he refolves once more to have recourfe to his old benefactor; and he luckily found a perfon who was willing to take his draft for five guineas on the prefident of the Royal Society.

With this affiftance, he arrived in England, and immediately waited on fir Jofeph Banks, who told him, knowing his temper, that he be lieved he could recommend him to an adventure almost as perilous as the one from which he had returned; and then communicated to him the wishes of the Affociation for difcovering the inland countries of Africa.

Mr. Ledyard replied, that he had always determined to traverfe the continent of Africa as foon as he had explored the interior of North Ame rica; and, as fir Jofeph had offered him a letter of introduction, he came directly to the writer of thefe me moirs. Before I had learnt from the note the name and bufinefs of my vifitor, I was struck with 'the manlinefs of his perfon, the breadth

of

of his cheft, the opennefs of his countenance, and the inquietude of his eye. I opened the map of Africa before him, and tracing a line from Cairo to Sennar, and from thence weftward in the latitude and fuppofed direction of the Niger, I told him, that was his route, by which I was anxious that Africa might, if poffible, be explored. He faid, he hould think himself fingularly for tunate to be entrusted with the adventure. I asked him, when he would fet out?"To-morrow morn ing!" was his answer.

On this grand adventure, Mr. Ledyard left London on the 30th of June 1788, and reached Cairo on the 19th of Auguft; whence he tranfmitted fuch accounts to his employers, as plainly fhewed he was a traveller of obfervation and reflection, endowed with a foul for difcovery, and formed for atchievements of hardihood, and peril. He had promifed his next communica tion from Senhar, about fix hundred miles fouth of Cairo; but death difappointed the hopes which were entertained of his projected journey.

REVIEW OF HISTORICAL BOOKS.

BRUCE'S TRAVELS.

T

CONTINUED

FROM P. 309.

HE importance of this work, will, we hope, fufficiently apologize for the great attention we have bestowed on it, and for the many and long extracts we have made. Though our author is certainly guilty of amplification-and though inconfiftencies, and contradictions, fometimes appear-we have no doubt but the outlines are formed on the bafis of truth; and that Mr. Bruce really vifited those diftant regions which he has defcribed.

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"Although the Shangalla live in feparate tribes, cr nations, yet thefe nations are again fubdivided into famiFies, who are governed by their own head, or chief, and of a number of thefe the nation is compofed, who concur all that regards the measures of defence and offence against their common enemy the Abyffinian and Arab. Whenever an expedition is undertaken by a nation of Shangalla, either against their enemies, the Arabs on the north, or thofe who are equally their enemies, the Abyffinians on the fouth, fuppofe the nation or tribe to be the Baafa, each family attacks and defends by itself, and theirs is the fpoil or plunder who take it.

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The mothers, fenfible of the difadvantage of a small family, therefore feek to multiply and increase it by the only means in their power; and it is

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by their importunity that the husband fuffers himself to be overcome. fecond wife is courted for him by the firft, in nearly the fame manner as among the Galla.

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"The Shangalla of both fexes, while fingle, go entirely naked: the married men, indeed, have a very flender covering about their waift, and married women the fame. Young men and young women, till long paft the age of puberty, are totally uncovered, and in conftant converfation and habits with each other, in woods and folitudes, free from conftraint, and without any pu nifhment annexed to the tranfgreffion. Yet criminal commerce is much less frequent among them than in the fame number chofen among Christian nations, where the powerful prejudices of education give great advantage to one fex in fubduing their paffions, and, where the confequences of gratification, which always involve fome kind of punishment, keep within bounds the defires of the other.

"No one can doubt, but that the conftant habit of feeing people of all, ages naked at all times, in the ordinary tran factions and neceffities of life, muft greatly check unchafte propenfities.

"A woman, upon bearing a child or two, at ten or eleven years old, fees her breast fall immediately down to near her knees. Her common manner of fuckling her children is by carrying

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them upon her back, as our beggars do, and giving the infant the breaft over her fhoulders. They rarely are mothers after twenty-two, or begin childbearing before they are ten; fo that the time of child-bearing is but twelve years. In Europe, very many examples there are of women bearing children at fourteen, the civil law fixes puberty at twelve, but by an inuendo feems to allow it may be fomething earlier. Women fometimes in Europe bear children at fifty. The fcale of years of child-bearing between the favage, and the European is, therefore, as twelve is to thirty-eight. There can be little doubt but their defires are equal to their ftrength and conftitution; but a Shangalla at twenty-two is more wrinkled and deformed, apparently by old age, than is a European woman of fixty.

"To come ftill nearer, it is a fact known to naturalists, and which the application of the thermometer fufficiently indicates, that there is a great and fenfible difference in the degree of animal heat in both fexes of different hations at the fame ages or time of life. The voluptuous Turk eftranges himfelf from the fairest and fineft of his Circaffian and Georgian women in his feraglio, and, during the warm months in fummer, addicts himself only to negro flaves brought from the very latitudes we are now fpeaking of; the fenfible difference of the coolness of their fkins leading him to give them the preference at that feafon. On the other hand, one brown Abyffinian girl, a companion for the winter months, is fold at ten times the price of the fairest Georgian or Circaffian beauty, for oppofite reafons.

"The Shangalla have no bread: no grain or pulfe will grow in the country. Some of the Arabs, fettled at Ras el Feel, have attempted to make bread of the feed of the Guinea grafs; but it is very taftelefs and bad, of the colour of cow-dung, and quickly producing

worms..

"They are all archers from their infancy. Their bows are all made of wild fennel, thicker than the common proportion, and about feven feet long, and very elastic. The children ufe the fame bow in their infancy that they do

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when grown up; and are, by reafon of its length, for the first years, obliged to hold it parallel, instead of perpendicular to the horizon. Their arrows are full a yard and a half long, with large heads of very bad iron rudely shaped. They are, indeed, the only favages I ever knew that take no pains in the make or ornament of this weapon. A branch of a palm, ftript from the tree and made ftraight, becomes an arrow ; and none of them have wings to them. They have this remarkable cuftom, which is a religious one, that they fix upon their bows a ring, or thong, of the skin of every beast slain by it, while it is yet raw, from the lizard and ferpent up to the elephant. This gradually ftiffens the bow, till, being all covered over, it can be no longer bent even by its mafter. That bow is then hung upon a tree, and a new one is made in its place, till the fame circumftance again happens; and one of thefe bows, that which its mafter liked beft, is buried with him in the hopes of its rifing again materially with his body, when he shall be endowed with a greater degree of ftrength, without fear of death, or being fubjected to pain, with a capacity to enjoy in excefs every human pleasure. There is nothing, however, fpiritual in this refurrection, nor what concerns the foul, but it is wholly corporeal and material; although fome writers have plumed themselves upon their fancied difcovery of what they call the favages belief of the immortality of the foul."

Some of the Shangalla kill their fick, weak, and aged people; and there are others who honour old age and protect it.

The fecond volume is clofed with a continuation of the hiftory of Abysfinia, to the reign of Tecla Haimanout II. in 1769. I fhall now begin an account of what paffed at Mafuah, and thence continue my journey to Gondar till my meeting with the king there."

The third volume commences with our author's progrefs towards Gondar; having, at Mafuah, efcaped many dangers and difficulties, thrown in his way by the naybe. He had to pass through the defert of Samkar, which was a hazardous route, on account of the wandering

wandering and lawless tribes of the Shiho and Hazorta. At length, however, he reached the lofty and tremendous mountain of Taranta. "At half paft two o'clock in the afternoon we began to afcend the mountain, through a inoft rocky, uneven road, if it can deferve the name, not only from its incredible fteepness, but from the large holes and gullies made by the torrents, and the huge monftrous fragments of rocks which, loofened by the water, had been tumbled down into our way. It was with great difficulty we could creep up, each man carrying his knapfack and arms; but it feemed beyond the poffibility of human ftrength to carry our baggage and inftruments. Our tent, indeed, fuffered nothing by its falls; but our telescopes, timekeeper, and quadrant, were to be treated in a more deliberate and tender man

ner.

"Our quadrant had hitherto been carried by eight men, four to relieve each other; but these were ready to give up the undertaking upon trial of the first few hundred yards. A number of expedients, fuch as trailing it on the ground, (all equally fatal to the inftrument) were propofed. At last, as I was incomparably the ftrongest of the company, as well as the most interested, I, and a stranger Moor who had fol lowed us, carried the head of it for about four hundred yards over the moft difficult and steepest part of the mountain, which before had been confidered as impracticable by all.

"We carried it fteadily up the fteep, eafed the cafe gently over the big ftones on which, from time to time, we rested it; and, to the wonder of them all, placed the head of the three-foot quadrant, with its double cafe, in fafety far above the ftony parts of the mountain. At Yafine's request we again undertook the next most difficult task, which was to carry the iron foot of the quadrant in a fingle deal cafe, not fo heavy, indeed, nor fo liable to injury, but ftill what had been pronounced impoffible to carry up fo fteep and rugged a mountain; and refufing then the faint offers of thofe that food gazing below, excufing themselves by foretelling an immediate and certain mifcarriage, we placed the fecond cafe about ten yards

above the first in perfect good condition.

"Declaring ourselves now without fear of contradiction, and, by the acknowledgment of all, upon fair proof, the two beft men in the company, we returned, bearing very vifibly the characters of fuch an exertion; our hands and knees were all cut, mangled, and bleeding, with fliding down and clambering over the fharp points of the rocks; our clothes torn to pieces; yet we profeffed our ability, without any reproaches on our comrades, to carry the two telescopes and time-keeper also. Shame, and the proof of fuperior conftancy, fo much humbled the rest of our companions, that one and all put their hands fo briskly to work, that, with infinite toil, and as much pleasure, we advanced fo far as to place all our infruments and baggage, about two o'clock in the afternoon, near half way up this terrible mountain of Taranta.

"The middle of the mountain was thinner of trees than the two extremes they were chiefly wild olives which bear no fruit. The upper part was clofe covered with groves of the oxy cedrus, the Virginia, or berry-bearing cedar, in the language of the country called Arze. At laft we gained the top of the mountain, upon which is fituated a fmall village called Halai, the first we had feen fince our leaving Mafuah. It is chiefly inhabited by poor fervants and fhepherds keeping the flocks of men of fubftance living in the town of Dixan.

"The plain on the top of the moun→ tain Taranta was, in many places, fown with wheat, which was then ready to be cut down, though the harvest was not yet begun. The grain was clean, and of a good colour, but inferior in fize to that of Egypt. It did not, however, grow thick, nor was the stalk above fourteen inches high. The water is very bad on the top of Taranta, being only what remains of the rain in the hollows of the rocks, and in pits prepared for it."

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Tigré is the firft Abyffinian province which Mr. Bruce traverfes; it is one folid rock, having but a few spots about Adowa where wheat will grow; and here, fays our author, they have annually three harvests. The next resting-place of confequence is Axum,

where

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