we shall give the following detached particulars, premising that our limits will not allow us to enlarge on them as much as we wish, and as the work merits. A stupendous mountain of stone is described as being one entire rock of a smooth surface, rising in form of a cube, on two sides completely perpendicular. "We ascended its highest summit on the "Each palanquin is generally attended by thirteen bearers. Only four carry at a time; they are relieved every quarter of an hour, and shift the pole from the shoulder of one to that of another without stopping. The thirteenth man acts as cook to the set, and carries as his burden, all the culinary matters." At a ball at Jaffuapatam, given by an English officer to the principal European inhabitants, twenty young ladies made their appearance, who were born in Ceylon of Dutch parents. most gently rising side, by a winding flight of stairs, formed of five hundred and forty-five steps of hewn stones. These steps must have been a work of prodigious labour, and are said On many parts of the coast are quantito have been constructed fifteen hundred years ties of sand of a strong shining black, reago, long before any European conquerors ap-sembling filings of steel. It does not seem peared in the island."-For the particulars of to be applied to any other purpose than the prospect, the book is referred to. thrown on paper after writing on it with ink. Hanging birds' nests are next described; and many picturesque descriptions of the country are given. We are then presented with a very particular account of an elephant hunt (in 34 pages), which will not admit of being mutilated by extracts, and which is accompanied by a pleasant and accurate view of an elephant snare. In the third volume of the Asiatic Researches, published in 1789, is a long and very particular account of the method of catching wild elephants, by John Corse, Esq. In the first part of the Philosophical Transactions for 1799, is another paper, which contains much curious information on the manners, habits, and natural history of the elephants, by the same gentleman. Our author says: "The elephants of Ceylon are from ten to eleven fect in height, and are divided into three classes. The first of these is distinguished by long tusks standing upwards, and besides being the most elegant in appearance, is likewise remarkable for a superior degree of intelligence. The second is provided with shorter tusks, descending perpendicularly; and the third, the most numerous, is entirely destitute of those appendages. "Of the seventy elephants at first captured, only four had long tusks. "The udder of the female is placed between the fore-legs, and consists of two dugs hanging down, one on each side of the breast, like inverted cones. The milk has the flavour of a filbert. A foot of one of the elephants was roasted and appeared at the governor's table. When salted and kept in vinegar for a month it becomes tender, scarcely distinguishable from hung beef. The first volume concludes with an excellent description of the cocoa tree: the other palms, the two bread-fruit trees, the banyan, talipot, the cotton-tree, the tamarind, the cashew, and other trees and shrubs are also well described. The great bamboo reed shoots up in stools of a considerable number from the same bottom; and the canes, which are nearly as thick as a man's thigh, grow to the height of from fifty to eighty feet. The leaves are small, narrow, and pointed, and spring from the knots. The whole is tapering, and waves gracefully in the wind. The pith of the young shoots makes a good pickle. A very particular account of the cinnamon is given at large, from which it appears that the quantity of cinnamon sent yearly to England amounts to four thousand bales, each of ninety-two pounds weight, for which the East India Company pay to government the stipulated price of sixty thousand pounds sterling, and carry it home at their own expence. The second volume begins with the account of an excursion by sea and land, to the island of Ramisseram, about three and twenty miles from the north-west coast of Ceylon, and five or six miles from the opposite coast of Coromandel. "This island is entirely dedicated to the purposes of religion, and affords a genuine display of Indian hospitality; no plough is allowed to break the soil; and no animal, either wild or tame, is permitted to be killed Black cattle abound here, and appear in groups lying in the streets. They furnish on it. the inhabitants with the greatest luxury of their food, which is confined entirely to milk, and the productions of the vegetable world." A grand temple is thus described: "Two hundred Brahmins are attached to this temple, and supported in indolence and luxury by its endowments. "At every corner of the walls of the temple, and in every street in the town stand little pagodas, dedicated to particular deities. "We travelled from the great Pagoda to Pombon, on the opposite side of the island, a distance of eight miles. The road is paved all the way with smooth stones, each six feet in length, and four feet broad, and the greatest part of it is nobly shaded by the most beautiful and majestic trees which India produces. All the large trees in this superb avenue are surrounded with smooth terraces of masonry, raised several feet from the ground, on which travellers rest in comfort, completely sheltered from the rays of the sun." This volume contains the journies of three different English gentlemen about the coast of Ceylon, in the first of which is an account of the natural salt pans, and the manner of collecting the salt. purpose of covering them. In the dance they occasionally held out, in one hand, the end of the mantle, presented it to one another, threw it carelessly over the shoulder, and folded it loosely round the waist. The greater part of them had broad gold rings round their necks, their ears covered with jewels, a stud set with precious stones in the left nostril, loads of rings about the ankles and wrists, and brilliant rings on the fingers and toes. Fifteen of these girls belong to the temple, and they give what money they receive towards its support. They are prohibited from marrying, but are not bound down to a life of virginity. When they bear children, the daughters are brought up to follow the profession and employments of their mothers, and the sons are educated as musicians for the service of the pagoda, or temple. The jugglers, in slight of hand, excel those of Europe. Many of their exhibitions require such flexibility of body, and such perfect command over every joint, that they could not be imitated in a cold climate. A man sits on the ground, with no other clothing but a piece of of muslin round his waist, twirls a large iron ring on each great toe, bends backwards, keeps four hollow brass balls in a circular motion in the air, and makes them pass in their course A Narrative of the Campaign in 1803; between his legs, which are likewise constantly or, Candian Warfare. A medical report of the troops. And Knox's account of the King and government of Candy. one "In Ramisseram several Brahmins waited on us one afternoon, accompanied by five welldressed dancing-giris, who entertained us with their exhibitions for upwards of an hour. They th mmselves appeared to feel as much amusement in the performance as the assembly which crowded round them. The girls, in the course of dancing, displayed their hands and arms in singular and various positions, and their persous in every graceful attitude. Sometimes they approached and receded, saluted auother, knceled in a line, joined hands, and went round in a circle, singing and keeping every joint in motion. Two of the girls appeared to he about sixteen years of age, and|| three of them nearly thirty. They were neatly dressed after the Malabar fashion; and no part of their persous was uncovered except their arms, feet, and ankles, and a few inches in the middle of the back. Beneath the flowing garment which forms the principal piece of dress, they wore short shifts firmly girded under their breasts, and not longer than necessary for the moving one over the other; at the same time he threads a quantity of small beads in his mouth, without any assistance from his hands. The various tricks with cups and balls he exhibits with admirable dexterity, while his arms are perfectly naked. He shows a snake, a foot in length, coiled under one of the cups, and then draws the animal out of his mouth, without a possibility of the deception being detected. He puts a piece of iron twenty-one inches perpendicularly down his throat. The iron has blunt edges, and has somewhat the form of a spit, but rounded at the point. Before commencing the operation, he moistens it with his lips, and erects his mouth in a line with his throat. After the piece of iron is down, he places a horizontal brass wheel on the point of the handle; on the wheel are fixed rockets, to to which he sets fire, and it whirls round with great rapidity in the midst of the flames and noise, he all the time holding the handle of the spit steadily in his hand. Having been trained to this operation from his infancy, his throat is rendered callous. Sometimes he appears as if he felt uneasiness while the steel is in his body, but he never acknowledges it, although he is very thankful for a glass of brandy when he draws out the instrument. In this performance there is no deception: the fact is incontestibly proved, and has been seen by almost every Englishman who has visited India. The instrument has no other handle but a piece of its own solid substance, tapering to a point? Its shape is thus particularly mentioned, because, from its having been called a sword, the circumstance is not generally credited. "Among these feats, those of a female of forty years of age ought to be mentioned. The instrument on which she displayed her agility was a pole forty feet high, erected like the mast of a ship, with a crossyard uear to the top of it, from one end of which a wooden anchor was suspended. This woman, in the character of a sailor, sprang up to the yard on a single rope by means of her hands and toes. There she lay carelessly down in a sleeping posture. She then ascended to the top of the mast, laid her stomach on it, and personified a weathercock, turning round horizontally. She descended to the anchor, and suspended herself from it alternately by her chin, her toes, and her heels, keeping her hands entirely disengaged. She, lastly, hung by the feet on the yard, dropped down, and lighted in the same position on the stock of the anchor." From the very curious and authentic account of the pearl fishery on the north west coast of Ceylon, we shall take a few particulars which we invite future compilers of Dictionaries to quote, rather than former errors. copy About the end of October, in the year preceding a pearl fishery, an examination of the banks takes place. If the produce of one thousand oysters be worth three pounds sterling, a good fishery may be expected. An oyster of a year old is no longer than the nail of a man's thumb ; one of seven year's old, or at its maturity, is nearly as large as the palm of the hand. At the age of from four to five years the tool, or small seed pearls are only found in the oyster; after that period they rapidly increase in size, until the oyster arrives at maturity, in which state it remains but a short time, and then sickens and dies. The banks or beds of oysters, are scattered over a space in the bottom of the gulph of Manaar, extending about thirty miles from north to south, and twenty-four from east to west. There are fourteen beds; the largest is ten miles in length and two in Supplement.-Vol. III. breadth. The best fishing is found from six to eight fathoms. The fishery should commence about the end of February; the boats with their of Coromandel. They are open boats of crews, come from various parts of the coast one ton burden, about forty-five feet in length, eight in breadth, three deep, one mast, and one sail, and daw eight or ten inches water. The crew generally consists of twenty-three persons, ten of whom are divers, ten haul up these divers, the stones, and the baskets; one pilot, one steersman, one boy to bale out water, and a man to take care of the boat. In the first place, a small sloop is anchored in the centre of the banks, and remains there during the fishery, as a guide to the boats, and a guard to the buoys. The pearl banks are about fifteen miles from the shore. The fishery for the season of the year 1804, was let by Government to a native of Jaffnapatam. For thirty days fishing, with one hundred and fifty boats, he was to pay one hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling. He sold the right of fishing to some of the best equipped boats for twelve hundred pounds each, and that of others for a thousand pounds, but kept by for the greater part of them on his own account. If, owing to the weather only seventy-five boats went out, their fishing hundred fished, it stood for two days. was counted as half a day; and when three slumbers by the noise of horns, drums, and The boat-people are awakened from their the firing of a field-piece. The uproar and confusion of collecting and embarking up. wards of six thousand persons in the darkness of night, may be easily conceived. "The manner of diving strikes a spectator as extremely simple and perfect. There is no reason to believe that any addition has been made to the system of Europeans; nor, indeed, does there appear the smallest room for improvement. "I obscrved with attention the length of time that many of the divers remained under water, in the depth of seven fathoms. Some of them performed the dip within the space of one minute, others came up in one minute and twenty seconds. Some gentlemen who have frequently superintended the fisheries, and accompanied the divers to the banks, conC sider one minute and a half as the longest || period that any diver remains under water; other gentlemen, who are willing to allow the greatest latitude, say that they certainly never knew a diver exceed two minutes. "The period allotted to diving continues five or six hours. When three hundred boats are anchored on the banks, fifteen hundred divers may be supposed to descend every minute. The noise of their going down prevails without interruption, and resembles the dashing of a cataract. "The pearl-oysters are not esteemed good to eat, being of a much fatter and more glutinous substance than the common oyster. "At the fishery all the kinds of pearls are generally sold mixed together at £.80 sterling per pound. "A necklace of the value of £. 1200 sterling could not be procured at this fishery. A handsome necklace of pearls smaller than a large pea, costs from £. 170 to £.300 sterling; but a very pretty necklace of pearls, about the size of a pepper-corn, may be procured for £.15. The former pearls sell at one guinea each, and the latter at eighteen pence. "The tools, which are the most diminutive pearls, without any intermixture of other classes, do not sell for more than two guineas and a half, or three guineas per pound; these are bought by the Chinese, by whom they are eaten when pounded into powder, and sometimes are scattered like spangles on their clothes." We have now concluded our account of this valuable work; if it should undergo another edition, we shall hope to see some account of the instrumental music of Ceylon, with the notes of some of the songs, and dancing tunes. A TOUR THROUGH HOLLAND, ART. II-A Tour through Holland, along the Banks of the Rhine, to the South of Ger many, in 1806. By Sir John Carr. 4to. Pp. 468. With Twenty Engravings in Mezzotinto, being Views of Towns, and a Map of part of the Rhine. R. Phillips 1807., The Duke of Alva, with more whimsicality and less bitterness, observed, “That the Dutch were the nearest neighbours to hell of any people on the earth, for they Or a book like this, which professes to describe countries and manners which are well known to a great number of its readers, many of whom may probably be natives of those countries, we imagine the most satis-dwelt the lowest" We were sorry to find factory way of giving an account is by ex tracts in the author's words, and occasional obse, vations on them. Before our author sets a foot on land, he says, "A low slimy shore surmounted by green flags, and a few scanty osiers, announced our voyage to be at its close; and we entered the river of a country which our Hudibrastic Butler peevishly describes." Here follow sixteen lines in verse, of which the following half dozen may be sufficient: "A country that draws fifty feet of water, such a quotation as this last here. If the epituet applied to Butler be tolerated, we may say Paradisiacal Milton. In the same page we read: "The signification of the word Briel in Dutch, is Spectacle, which is supposed to have given its name to this place, on account of the extensive view which its buildings command of the surrounding country." In the first place, Briel does not mean spectacle, nor any thing else, being the mere name of the town, properly the Briel. With regard to the extensive views, as the country is flat, just as extensive views may be seen from every steeple. After describing the bronze statue of Erasmus at Rotterdam, we are told that, "Various attempts have at different times been made to convert the sage into a turn-coat: before the revolution which expelled the Stadholder, Prince of Orange, and his family, every concavity in his dress was crammed on certain holidays with oranges; during the hey-day of the republican form of government, amidst the celebration of its festivities he was covered with ribbons, when the juice of the orange was never suffered to pass the lips of a true patriot. Even the marigold was expelled from the gardens of the new republicans. " And so were carrots too, merely on account of their colour. An occurrence at Dort, relative to a widow and her family, is related as follows: "This woman, who was very industrious, was left by her husband, an eminent carpenter, a comfortable house with some land, and two boats for carrying merchandise and passengers on the canals. She was also supposed to be worth about ten thousand guilders (£.900) in ready money, which she employed in the hempen and sail-cloth manufacture, for the purpose of increasing her fortune, and instructing her children, (a son and two daughters) in useful branches of business. "One night about nine o'clock, when the workmen were gone home, a person dressed in uniform, with a musket and broad-sword, came to her house, and requested a lodging: I let no lodgings, friend,' said the widow, and besides, I have no spare bed, unless you sleep with my son, which I think very improper, on account of your being a perfect stranger to us all.' The soldier then showed a discharge from Diesbach's regiment (signed by the Major, who gave him an excellent character) and a passport from Count Maillebors, governor of Breda. The widow, believing the stranger to be an honest man, called her son, and asked him if he would accommodate a veteran, who had served the republic thirty years with reputation, with part of his bed. The young man consented; the soldier was accordingly hospitably entertained; and at a seasonable hour withdrew to rest, "Some hours afterwards, a loud knocking was heard at the street-door, which roused the soldier, who moved softly down stairs, and listened at the hall door, when the blows were repeated, and the door almost broken through by a sledge, or some heavy instrument. By this time the widow and her daughters were much alarmed by this violent attack, and ran alnost frantic through different parts of the house, exclaiming, murder! murder! The son having joined the soldier with a case of loaded pistols, and the latter screwing on his bayonet and fresh priming his piece, requested the women to keep themselves in a back room out of the way of danger Soon after, the door was burst in, two ruthians entered, and were instantly shot by the son, who discharged both his pistols at once. Two other associates of the dead men, immediately returned the fire, but without effect, when the intrepid and veteran stranger, taking immediate advantage of the discharge of their arms, rushed on them like a lion, ran one through the body with his bayonet, and whilst the other was running away, lodged the contents of the piece between his shoulders, and he dropped dead on the spot. The son and the stranger then closed the door as well as they could, reloaded their arins, made a good fire, and watched till daylight, when the weavers and spinners of the manufacture came to resume their employment, who were struck with horror and surprise at seeing four dead men on the dunghill adjoining the house, where the soldier had dragged them before he closed the door. "The burgermaster and his syndic attended, and took the depositions of the family relative to this affair. The bodies were buried in a cross-road, and a stone erected over the grave with an inscription recounting the story, with the soldier's name, saying he was a native of Middelburg, and upwards of seventy years old. And the date 20th November, 1785. "The widow presented the soldier with a hundred guineas, and the city settled a handsome pension on him for the rest of his life. "Even an English merchant would be astonished to see the wonderful arithmetical attainment of stripling clerks in any of the Dutch counting-houses, and the quantity of complicated business which they discharge in the course of the day; the order of their books, the rapidity and certainty of their calculation, according to the commercial habits and exchange of different countries, and the variety of languages which they speak; to which may be added the great regularity and length of their attendance, and the decency and propriety of their deportment." The account of the Speel houses, is corbut the lamentations and moral reflections rect with regard to the descriptive part, are not more applicable to these places than to those of a similar sort in London, Paris, and every other capital. We shall give in a note some extracts on the subject written by Mandeville (who was himself a Dutchman) which will place the matter in a different light. So true it is that without a knowledge of the language of the country |