Page images
PDF
EPUB

ous kind; it is a robbery; it is a fraudulent felection of the loveliest and most valuable treasure that is given to man. Peace, happiness, and population, can only go hand in hand, while freedom reigns, and while there is a natural commixture of the fexes.

Polygamy, however, unfair and illiberal as it may be call ed, has yet the advantage, in every respect, of polyandry, or a plurality of hufbands; that is affuredly, not only a most unnatural, but a moft abominable cuftom. Something may be faid for a variety of wives, but that one woman fhould cohabit with a variety of men, is too grofs to be dwelt upon. Happily for the prefervation of our fpecies, this cuftom at prefent is feldom found to prevail. Thibet, and the mountains of Affghanistan, are the only places that I know of where it continues to exift; formerly, indeed, it was common. Media was fo celebrated for it, that a woman was looked upon with contempt who had fewer husbands than five. Even Britain, the honest foil of Britain, fome hundred years ago, produced females who would, without a blush, betroth their faith to a dozen boiftrous fellows at a time.'

Akbur then paffes to China, and gives a favourable account of this peculiar people; an account the more valuable, as he frequently mentions what he has himself feen. But there is alfo other evidence.

3

The miffionaries, who from their knowledge in fcience, and their holy calling, and the minifters of foreign courts with their fuites, who have been admitted freely into China, have reprefented the Chinese in exactly the fame light in which they have appeared to me; but that which moft firmly riveted me in the opinion, was the account which I received from a rative of Cafhimere, who, in the garb and style of an itinerant merchant of China, had, for ten years, uninterruptedly, been travelling from one extremity of the empire to the other. His voice was loud in their praife: he had never been defrauded, he faid, of the moft inconfiderable fum. As to oppreffion, he had been a ftranger to it; wherever his fancy led him he went; thieves and affaffins never infefted his way; his road he had always found a road of fafety; and the people, good humour-, ed and obliging on every occafion, had given him cause to be, thankful, that he had found a refidence among them. The Chinese have unquestionably been mifreprefented; at the fame time, that they have poffibly been too glaringly extolled: their true character may lie between the two extremes.'

The ftriking feature in the manners of the Chinese, not generally known, is the little reverence paid to the clergy. The Tartars, in this country, have laid afide the veneration for the Lama; and, perhaps, influenced by the customs of the aborigines, if there were ever any other inhabitants, per

haps from the example of Confucius, looking rather to morality than religious forms, as the more effential object, have taken the strongest measures to deprefs their pretenfions. From fimilar motives, whatever they may be, the Chinese tolerate every fpecies of religion.

Reason, faid Confutfee, is an emanation of the Divinity; the fupreme law is nothing but the effect of nature and of reafon; fuch religions as contradict these two guides of our exiftence, proceed not from heaven.'

This liberality of the Chinese may probably be attributed to a little fcepticifm; but we cannot mistake their tenderness, their affection, and their patient induftry. Akbur fays alfo that they are a wife people; for they have all the various arts of a polished nation from their own invention. The prefent rulers and a part of the people are Tartars; though they have been originally derived, in the opinion of many, from Egypt. This our author oppofes, and with reafon; for the wifdom of the Egyptians is at least problematical: Akbur is of this opinion. With all their virtues, he thinks them indolent and effeminate.

Our author next proceeds to Japan, where the religious character gains, in its turn, the afcendancy. It is really fingular that the fmall, the comparatively fmall diftrict of China, should deviate in this refpect from the cuftoms of the furrounding nations: it most probably must be attributed to the influence of Confucius. The Japanese are reprefented as originally tolerant, and the change in their difpofition to have arifen from the intemperate zeal of the miffionaries. They thought the honour of their religion concerned, in being, in every fenfe, fuperior to the bonzes. Religious wars were the confequence; and the rancour which they infpire is not foon

erafed.

The Tonquinefe are defcribed as an honeft candid nation, more fpirited and warlike than the Chinefe. The government is of the feudal kind, and their religion in a more refpectable form.

From Tonquin our author proceeds to the country of the Malays, another numerous race, which we have seen, in a former Review, are extended through the occasional elevations of a vaft and extenfive ocean.

With the Hindoos and the Chinese, the oldest civilized nations with which we are acquainted, they have had a trade from the earliest periods of time; and why fhould they not be allowed to have profited themfelves of thefe opportunities? To affert that they have not, is to affert arbitrarily, and without proof. But that which to my mind fets their improvement be

B 3

yond

yond the poffibility of doubt is, that in all commercial tranfactions, a fcrupulous honefty is found to be their ruling principle; and they are unfufpicious in the highest degree. From the foreign merchant, whom they never faw before, they will pur chafe fuch commodities as they want, on the bare credit of his word; and though unacquainted with the fcientific law of nations, and fo fituated as to be debarred all hope of reparation fhould fraud be practifed on them, they yet, in the excess of good faith, are never apprehenfive of any finifter defign; nor can they admit the idea that they themselves are to be fufpected.

This fair character, I know, will be denied the Malays; I am forry for it; but I am free to fay, I think they are entitled to it. Proofs, in repeated inftances, have come within my own knowledge, of the reliance they have on the honour of ftrangers; and the univerfal dependence which is placed on their honefty in the purchase of those bags of gold duft which they annually fend from their coafts, and which are never either infpected or affayed, is evidence fufficient that they are to be trufted. In fact, in this very valuable article in which the people of Hindoftan deal confiderably, I never heard of any unfair practice. The intrinfic value of the duft is always found fuch as it is declared to be.'

Sumatra is, in Akbur's opinion, the Ophir of Solomon; at leaft a mountain near Achin, on its north-west coast, is called fo; and, from the ufual state of the winds, fuch a voyage might have been easily made by Solomon's fhips, from the Arabian Gulf. The internal inhabitants, probably the aborigines, differing from thofe of the coaft, are faid to devour their prifoners; and we formerly observed that there was much reason to fufpect that this practice had been some time common among the more delicate inhabitants of the South Sea islands.

The greater part of the fecond volume is employed in the hiftory of the laws and cuftoms of the Hindoos. Our author's reprefentations of all the eaftern nations are favourable: it may be partiality; but if fo, it is an amiable error, and we fhould wish it to be true. The Hindoos are defcribed as tender and generous; they are not always fpirited and warlike, but inftances of heroifm, even among females, frequently occur. The laws of Indoftan are fevere and brutal with refpect to their women; but the heart, in spite of the laws, betrays its tender feelings: the men are faithful and conftant, and the women chafte. The following deserve the severest reprehenfion; they are unworthy of a nation which boasts the flightest degree of refinement.

A woman, fay they, in their code of laws, is never fatisfied with man-no more than fire is satisfied with burning fuel, or

the

the main ocean with receiving the rivers, or the empire of death
with the dying of men and animals. She has fix qualities:-
the first, an inordinate defire of jewels and fine furniture, hand-
fome cloaths, and nice victuals; the fecond, immoderate luft;
-the third, violent anger; the fourth, deep refentment;
;-
the fifth, the good of others appears evil in her eyes; the fixth,
fhe is invariably addicted to bad actions. For these reasons, it
is evident, the Creator formed her for no other purpose than
children might be born from her.-A wife fhall not, continue
they, growing with the fubject, a wife fhall not difcourfe with
a franger; but she may converse with a Sinaffee, (a wandering
priest) a hermit, or an old man. She fhall not laugh without
drawing the veil before her face. She fhall not eat (unless it be
phyfic) until he has ferved her husband and her guests with vic-
tuals. She fhall not, while her husband is on a journey, divert
herself by play, nor fhall fee any public fhow, nor fhall laugh,
nor fhall drefs herself in jewels and fine cloaths, nor fhall fee
dancing, nor hear mufic, nor fhall fit in the window, nor shall
ride out, nor fhall behold any thing rare; but the thall fasten
well the door of the house, and remain private; and shall not
eat any dainty victuals, and fhall not blacken her eyes with eye
powder, and fhall not view her face in a mirror: she shall never
exercife herfelf in any fuch agreeable employment during the
abfence of her husband.'

Yet the laws of the Bramins fometimes breathe a spirit of humanity, though they are fevere against the fairest part of created beings.

The fame laws provide, that the magiftrate fhall not make war with any deceitful machine, or with poifoned weapons, or with cannon and guns, or any other kind of fire arms; nor fhall he flay in war a perfon born an eunuch, nor any person who, putting his hands together, fupplicates for quarter, nor any perfon who has no means to escape, nor any man who is fitting down, nor any man who says, I am become of your party; nor any man who is afleep, nor any man who is naked, nor any perfon who is not employed in war, nor any perfon who is come to fee the battle, nor any person who is fighting with another, nor any perfon whofe weapons are broken, nor any person who is wounded, nor any perfon who is fearful of the fight, nor any perfon who runs away from the battle.'

The Hindoos are certainly an ancient nation; but, that they have a complete hiftory compofed upwards of two thoufand years 'before the coming of the Meffiah, and which treats of the foreign and domestic regulations of the government of Hindoftan, feveral millions of years preceding,' is, we own, beyond our belief. These annals are preserved in facred mystery by the Bramins; even the language is now

B 4

little

1

little understood by themfelves. Is any thing more required to excite fufpicion ?

The account of

Though Indoftan prefents many curious and interefting particulars, yet we muft proceed in our travels. Mahomet is not very new; but that of his religion is favourable and pleafing,

The next step of Akbur is to the little island of Joanna, Zooawnee of the inhabitants, and their innocent fimplicity is highly entertaining. Like the Chinese, they are careful of, and fcrupulously exact refpecting the effects of the shipwrecked mariner. They learned pity from their misfortunes; for their rulers were once fhipwrecked, and hofpitably received by the natives; and we do not find that the fubfequent conduct of the ftrangers ever induced the inhabitants to repent of their mercy. Very different was the event of the humanity of the first inhabitants of Hifpaniola, who received Columbus in his diftrefs.

The next country is Egypt, and our author's accounts are not very favourable to it. The extent is fmall, and was never probably even fo great as at this moment: we must look, therefore, on their formidable armies as exaggerated relations, and their victories as fo many fables. The Grecian philofophy, derived from it, owed probably more to the genius of those who received it than to the penetration or knowlege of the teachers, The conclufion of Akbur is juft and proper; that the detection of errors in any accounts which are given as authentic, unavoidably throws a gleam of fufpicion,' on their other records. That confiderable fallacies have been detected, in fome of these, is evident; and it is equally fo, that we know of their Having furnished more trifling fable than real science to Greece. In fact, their grandeur was only a difplay of vast maffes, without defign or proportion; and their tafte was an aukward attempt to produce a diftant refemblance of a human figure, or to combine in one heterogeneous body what nature had never yet formed. It is time to discard the childish prepoffeffions in favour of this peculiar nation, whofe pretenfions are not fupported by the flightest evidence.

In the third volume our inquifitive author fteps from Egypt to Greece, and begins with obferving, that the Greeks had little invention, and no philofophy of their own. Their philofophers travelled indeed into Egypt; but they travelled alfo into the Eaft, and the genius of their original philofophy betrays its native foil. Yet the Greeks were not without.riches peculiarly their own: the more fublime geometry, many branches of natural philofophy, were raised by them to perfection, in comparison to the ftate in which they probably receiv

cd

« PreviousContinue »