the large crooked ones, which they put to all forts of ufes during the time of war. The women have fall clafped knives, such as the worft of the kind made at Birmingham, fold for a penny each.

The company are fo ranged that one man fits between two women; the man with his long knife cuts a thin piece, which would be thought a good beef ftake in England, while you fee the motion of the fibres yet perfectly diftinct, and alive in the flesh. No man in Abyffinia, of any fashion whatever, feeds himself, or touches his own meat. The women take the fteak and cut it length-ways like ftrings, about the thickness of your little finger, then crofsways into fquare pieces, fomething fmaller than dice. This they lay upon a piece of the teff bread, ftrongly powdered with black pepper, or Cayenne pepper, and foililefalt, they then wrap it up in the teff bread like a cartridge.

In the mean time, the man having put up his knife, with each hand refting upon his neighbour's knee, his body ftooping, his head low and forward, and mouth open very like an idiot, turns to the one whofe cartridge is first ready, who ftuffs the whole of it into his mouth, which is fo full that he is in conftant danger of being choked. This is a mark of grandeur. The greater the man would seem to be, the larger piece he takes in his mouth; and the more noife he makes in chewing it, the more polite he is thought to be. They have, indeed, a proverb that fays, "Beggars and thieves only eat fmall pieces, or without making a noife." Having dispatched this morfel, which he does very expeditioufly, his next female neighbour holds forth another cartridge, which goes the fame way, and fo on till he is fatisfied. He never drinks till he has finished eating; and before he begins, in gratitude to the fair ones that fed him, he makes up two fmall rolls of the fame kind and form; each of his neighbours open their mouths at the fame time, while with each hand he puts their portion into their mouths. He then falls to drinking out of a large handfome horn; the ladies eat till they are fatisfied, and then all drink together, " Vive la Joye et la Jeuneffe!" A great deal of mirth and joke goes round, very feldom with any mixture of acrimony or ill-humour.

All this time, the unfortunate victim at the door is bleeding indeed, but bleeding little. As long as they can cut off the flesh from his bones, they do not meddle with the thighs, or the parts where the great arteries are. At laft they fall upon the thighs likewife; and foon after the animal bleeding to death, becomes fo tough that the canibals, who have the reft of it to eat, find very hard work to feparate the flesh from the bones with their teeth like dogs.

In the mean time, thofe within are very much elevated; love lights all its fires, and every thing is permitted with abfolute freedom. There is no coynefs, no delays, no need of appointments or retirement to gratify their wishes; there are no rooms but one, in which they facrifice both to Bacchus and to Venus. The two men nearest the vacuum a pair have made on the bench by leaving their feats, hold their upper garment like a fkreen before the two that have left the bench; and if we may judge by found, they seem to think it as great a fhame to make love in filence as to eat.-Replaced in their feats again, the company drink the happy couple's health; and their example is followed at different ends of the table, as each couple is difpofed. All this paffes without remark or scandal, not a licentious word is uttered, nor the most diftant joke upon the transaction.

• Thefe

Thefe ladies are, for the most part, women of family and character, and they and their gallants are reciprocally diftinguifhed by the name Woodage, which anfwers to what in Italy they call Cicifbey; and, indeed, I believe that the name itself, as well as the practice, is Hebrew; fchus chis beüm, fignifies attendants or companions of the bride, or bride's man, as we call it in England. The only difference is, that in Europe the intimacy and attendance continues during the marriage, while, among the Jews, it was permitted only the few days of the marriage ceremony. The averfion to Judaifm, in the ladies of Europe, has probably led them to the prolongation of the term.'

The reft of the chapter is taken up with remarks on the military power, and arrangement of the empire.

Chap. XII. contains obfervations on the ftate of religion, circumcifion, excifion, incifion: with an extract of what the author fays on the two laft, we fhall conclude the present article:

P. 347. Although it then appears that the nations which had Egypt between Abraham and them, that is, were to the fouthward, did not follow the Egyptians in the rite of circumcifion, yet in another, of excifion, they all concurred. Strabo fays, the Egyptians circumcifed both men and women, like the Jews. I will not pretend to fay that any fuch operation ever did obtain among the Jewish women, as fcripture is filent upon it; and indeed it is nowhere ever pretended to have been a religious rite, but to be introduced from neceffity, to avoid a deformity which nature has fubjected particular people to, in particular climates and countries.

We perceive among the brutes, that nature, creating the animal with the fame limbs or members all the world over, does yet indulge itself in a variety, in the proportion of fuch limbs or members. Some are remarkable for the fize of their heads, fome for the breadth and bignefs of the tail, fome for the length of their legs, and fome for the size of their horns. There is a district in Abyffinia, within the perpetual rains, where cows, of no greater fize than ours, have horns, each of which would contain as much water as the ordinary water-pail used in England does; and I remember on the frontiers of Sennaar, near the river Dender, to have feen a herd of many hundred cows, every one of which had the apparent construction of their parts almost fimilar with that of the bull; fo that for a confiderable time, I was perfuaded that these were oxen, their udders being very fmall, until I had feen them milked.

This particular appearance, or unneceffary appendage, at first made me believe that I had found the real caufe of circumcifion from analogy, but, upon information, this did not hold. It is, however, otherwise in the excifion of women. From climate, or fome other caufe, a certain difproportion is found generally to prevail among them. And, as the population of a country has in every age been confidered as an object worthy of attention, men have endeavoured to remedy this deformity by the amputation of that redundancy. All the Egyptians, therefore, the Arabians, and nations to the fouth of Africa, the Abyffinians, Gallas, Agows, Gafats, and Gongas, make their children undergo this operation, at no fixed time indeed, but always before they are marriageable.

When,

When the Roman Catholic priefts firft fettled in Egypt, they did not neglect fupporting their million by temporal advantages, and fmall prefents given to needy people their profelytes; but mittaking this excifion of the Coptifh women for a ceremony performed upon Judaical principles, they forbade, upon pain of excommunication, that excifion fhould be performed upon the children of parents who had become Catholics. The converts obeyed, the children grew up, and arrived at puberty; but the confequences of having obeyed the interdict were, that the man found, by chufing a wife among Catholic Cophts, he fubjected himself to a very difagreeable inconveniency, to which he had conceived an unconquerable averfion, and therefore he married a heretical wife, free from this objection, and with her he relapfed into herefy.

The miffionaries, therefore, finding it impoffible that ever their congregation could increafe, and that this accident did fruftrate all their labours, laid their cafe before the college of Cardinals de propaganda fide, at Rome. Thefe took it up as a matter of moment, which it really was, and fent over vifitors fkilled in furgery, fairly to report upon the cafe as it stood; and they, on their return, declared that the heat of the climate, or fome other natural cause, did, in that particular nation, invariably alter the formation fo as to make a difference from what was ordinary in the fex in other countries, and that this difference did occasion a disgust, which must impede the confequences for which matrimony was inftituted. The college, upon this report, ordered that a declaration, being firft made by the patient and her parents that it was not done from Judaical intention, but because it disappointed the ends of marriage, "Si modo matrimonii fructus impediret id omnino tollendum effet:" that the imperfection was, by all manner of means, to be removed; fo that the Catholics, as well as the Cophts, in Egypt, undergo excifion ever fince; this is done with a knife, or razor, by women generally when the child is about eight years old.

• There is another ceremony with which I fhall close, and this regards the women alfo, and I fhall call it incifion. This is an ufage frequent, and ftill retained among the Jews, though pofitively prohibited by the law: "Thou shalt not cut thy face for the fake of, or on account of the dead." As foon as a near relation dies in Abyffinia, a brother or parent, coufin-german or lover, every woman in that relation, with the nail of her little finger, which the leaves long on purpose, cuts the fkin of both her temples, about the fize of a fixpence; and therefore you fee either a wound or a scar in every fair face in Abyffinia; and in the dry feason, when the camp is out, from the lofs of friends they feldom have liberty to heal till peace and the army return with

the rains.'

(To be continued.)

ART. XII. Travels in various Parts of Europe, Afia, and Africa, during a Series of thirty Years and upwards. By John Macdonald, a Cadet of the Family of Keppoch in Invernessshire; who, after the ruin of his family in 1745, was thrown when a child on the wide world; the ways of which, with many curious, ufeful, and interefting particulars he had occafion to obferve, and has taken care, by means of a regular journal, to record, while he ferved, in various de

partments,

partments, a great number of noblemen and gentlemen, English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, &c. 8vo. 404 P. pr. 6s. in boards. Forbes, Covent-Garden. 1790.

THE following pages, the production of an uncultivated mind, fhew how much it is in the power of natural fimplicity and common fenfe to make their way to the heart without any fkill in compofition. But to borrow the words of the preface:

The author relates the catastrophe of his family, the various accidents that befel himself, and the observations which he had occafion to make on a great variety of places, objects, and characters, with an air of truth and fincerity; which gains a more ready and firmer belief, and takes fafter hold of the mind and heart, than narratives feafoned with profound reflections, and compofed with the greatest care and artifice. He never, as he honeftly declares, takes his own part.' He feems always to fpeak from the bottom of his foul; he confeffes, on every occa fion, his own weakness or folly. The fimple ftrokes of truth and nature with which he paints the caprices, the vanities, and vices of others, poffefs all the force of fatire; and the attentive and enlightened reader finds a gratification in obferving how objects ftrike a found and fenfible mind, free from all fyftem and prejudice of education; for our untutored traveller, caft on the wide world, an orphan of only five years of age, learned to read and write, and caft up accounts, merely by his own application and industry.'

Thefe remarks of the editor are tolerably juft, though this literary friend feems to have placed John's merits in the fairest point of view. Of the fimple ftyle and manner of this artless, but we believe faithful narrative, as it wears the very livery of truth and nature, if we may fay fo, the reader will judge from the outfet of our infant traveller; and this is a very favourable fpecimen of the work. P. 1.

It was formerly cuftomary for the younger fons of gentlemen's families, in Scotland, that did not go into the navy or army, to become graziers. My father, who had no eftate of his own, rented near a thoufand acres of the Laird of Grant. He reared cattle, and drove them to the South of Scotland, and into England, where he fold them. He married at the age of twenty, a daughter of fome family of the name of Mackay: but I never knew any thing of her family. My mother bore a daughter to him, and four fons but he, being a rover in difpofition, and always hankering after the army, addicted himself to the use of the broad-fword, in which he excelled; and being very hot and quarrelfome, challenged and fought many gentlemen with the fword and target, which affronted many families in the neighbourhood, and broke my mother's heart.

:

I was born in the beginning of the year 1741; and, about two years after, my mother had another fon, of whom he died in child-bed. On this my father was almost distracted, swore he

would

would never marry another woman, and faid often to the children, Thy mother I fhall never forget. Then he turned extravagant, did not stay at home fo much as he fhould have done, but neglected his bufinefs; and when the rebellion began, in 1745, he raised a number of men of his own name, whom he employed as his drovers, and marched them up to Prince Charles, whofe first camp was about twenty miles off my father's houfe. The Prince received him very kindly, and made him a captain of the Macdonald's clan. He then left his bufinefs to the grieve, or foreman, and very feldom came home. He was in all the battles that enfued in Scotland, till he fell at Culloden. Having thus given an account of my parentage, I fhall go on with perfect impartiality; and, without taking my own part, to relate every thing that I did, or fuffered, whether good or bad.

The Laird of Grant, thinking things would go wrong with Prince Charles, took poffeffion of what cattle was left, and put a perfon in the houfe in his name, which indeed faved it afterwards from the flames, when the rebels horfes were burnt in their itables. The man that had the charge of my father's affairs, went with the cattle, and had a place at the Laird of Grant's. His name was Boyd. He took my eldest brother, as he had a great regard for the boy, and the boy for him, and then we four were left with the maid, who took no care of the houfe, or any little things that were left, as the never expected any wages, but foon went off with a lover. We were now left alone: but my fifter being, by the providence of God, bold, of an heroic difpofition, and strong withal, was prepared to go through the following hardships.-Boyd, having read a letter dated from my father, Captain Macdonald, at Goolen's Inn and Livery Stables, Head of the Canongate, Edinburgh, an answer was returned; but I believe all the letters to Prince Charles's camp were intercepted, for we never faw or heard from our father more.

After the letter came from our father, my fitter was never eafy; but going from one town to another, on foot, fometimes to Inverness, then to fee my brother, out and in, to and fro. This made the people take notice, and fay, he had fomething extraordinary to go through. Now we had no perfon with us in the houfe; but the neighbours came to fee us now and then. My fifter had it in her head to go to Edinburgh, to fee my father. She got all the money fhe could get together, which was fourteen pounds Scots, or twenty-three fhillings and four-pence English. With this, the letter from my father in her bofom, and her three brothers in her hand, out the fets for Edinburgh, from the parish of Urquhart, about the middle of September, 1745Now our ages were as follows: Kitty, fourteen; Duncan, that was left with Boyd, between ten and eleven; Daniel, feven; 1, four and a half; and my brother, Alexander, two years and a half. She chofe for her departure a moon-light night, that the people fhould not ftop her; and fo the got into Inverness about breakfaft, having travelled nine miles. My tifler carried the child on her back, Daniel carried the bundle, and I ran along fide of both. In this manner we travelled from Inverness

to