Creon advances, and hearing a voice of despair, recognizes that of his son. He therefore commands his attendants to remove the rocky mass from the door : Obeying these commands Uttered in deep despair, we went, we look'd, And in the cave's extreme recess beheld The virgin strangled!-Round her neck the zone, And the sad loss of all his nuptial joys. Seeing his father, the youth draws his sword; Creon flies from the vengeance of his son; who, turning his anger upon himself, dies by his own hand. VI. In Sophocles' tragedy of Electra, too, there is an affecting description, which proves how generally the custom, to which we have alluded, obtained in every part of Greece. Then I will tell thee, all, that I beheld. Glowing in all their various dyes, hung round. I saw, and wonder'd; and on each side turn'd Mine eyes, if any mortal might be nigh. But all was still. Then nearer I approach'd Electra-Sophocles ;-Potter. The Persians believe, that those, who are buried near holy persons, will be assisted by them at the day of judgment. Their ancestors imagined, that Zoroaster was suspended on a tree, at the period of his birth, and therefore they, for many ages, buried their infants in groves. The Colchians entombed their dead in skins; and hung them on the arms of trees'. The same custom prevails in Ceylon and Siberia3. Vancouver relates*, that the New Albionese suspend baskets and canoes', which they use as coffins, in the same manner; and Wild informs us, that, in some parts of America, the Indians swathe their children in skins, and hang them on the arms of trees; where they move to and fro, as if they were rocking in a cradle. VII. The natives of Port Mulgrave, on the north-west coast of America, have a curious mode of disposing of their dead. They separate the head from the body; wrap them in furs; put the former into a square box, and the latter into an oblong chest. These they suspend between two trees, or poles, which form an arch at the top. In Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. c. 2. Also Stobœus. 2 Knox. • Langsdorff's Travels, v. iii. 362. This custom seems to be derived from high antiquity. It is thus alluded to in the Address of Odin: "I know a song of such virtue, that, were I caught in a storm, I can hush the winds, and render the air perfectly calm. And if I see a man dead, and hanging on a tree, I engrave Runic characters so wonderful, that the man immediately descends and converses with me." 'Vancouver, Voy. ii. 113. 5 By ancient usage the Javans were accustomed to place their dead relations upright against some tree in a forest. Vid. Raffle's Hist. Java, i. p. 327. 4to, • Wild's Trav. ii. 346-Recherches Philosop. Americ. 140. 7 Portlock and Dixon's Voyage round the World:-Abridg. p. 190. this manner they hang for many years. In some coun tries of the East the dead were eaten by dogs1; and the custom of exposing them to vultures is frequently alluded to by Homer. Indeed the Parsees of India regard being exposed to birds of the air the best and noblest of privileges. The place of sepulture presents a horrible prospect: a great number of carcasses are seen of different aspects and colours; some bleeding; some half consumed; some having their eyes and cheeks picked; some entire skeletons; and others hardened by the sun and air. The Congoese bury their friends in graves of great depth, to preserve them from wild animals; plant trees and shrubs; and hang fetiches, or charms, over them. On the Ivory and Grain coast of Africa, the natives put their dead into an empty canoe; which they fill with all sorts of green plants. On the Gold coast they cover their friends with little gardens of rice. In Siam they burn the dead on a funeral pile of odoriferous woods: the Javans plant samboja" trees by the side of graves, and strew sulasi flowers over them several times every year. These flowers have a sweet scent, and are reared exclusively for that purpose. They also form an image of leaves, ornamented with variegated flowers, in the human form, supported by the clothes of the deceased. Before Sextus Empiricus, lib. iii. c. 24. 'Ovington's Voyage to Surat, p. 379, &c. 3 › Tuckey, p. 382, 4to. * Bosman's Guinea Coast, p. 446. Ed. 1721. Bosman, p. 223. 5 Raffles' Hist. Japan, i. p. 322. 4to. Crawford calls it the kamboja. (Plumeria obtusa) Hist. Ind. Archipelago, vol. i. p. 438. 7 Discourse to the Batavian Literary and Philosophical Society. Sept. 10, 1815. 320 Flowers on Graves;-Discovery of Madeira. this figure they place a pot of incense: then they burn garlands, and the friends sit down to a feast, invoking a blessing on themselves, houses, and lands. In the great Loochoo island Captain Hall' observed vases, containing remains of the dead; and bundles of flowers, hung round them as funeral offerings. Some of these were fresh; others decayed: the vases were of elegant shapes; and the whole gave an air of great cheerfulness to the cemetery. Repose ye here! Secure from worldly crimes and mishaps! Here lurks no treason; here no envy swells; grow no damned grudges; here no storm, VIII. The celebrated Robert-a-Machin and his bride were buried under the shade of a tree, in Madeira, an island first discovered by themselves. As the history of this unfortunate pair combines all the value of truth with the imaginary value of romance, I shall pause from my general subject to relate it from accounts, attested by De Barros, Galvano, Alcaforado, Ovington, and other writers on the subject of maritime discovery. Robert-a-Machin and Anna Dorset (D'Arfet), having become enamoured of each other, had resolved to unite their destinies for life. The young lady's father, however, married her against her consent to a nobleman; who, upon his marriage, carried his bride to a castle, he possessed near the city of Bristol. Her father, in the mean time, had procured an order from the king (Edward III.) for committing the unfortunate Machin to prison. The lover contrived, however, to escape; and, learning the lady's place of residence, he induced one of his friends to enter the family of his rival, as a groom. By means of this friend, he laid a plan of escaping with his mistress to France. A ship was procured, and the lovers embarked. They had not been long on their voyage, however, before a strong gale drove them out to sea. The pilot, in that day of nautical ignorance, soon lost his reckoning; the vessel became unmanageable; and for twelve days and nights they were at the mercy of the waves, never expecting to recover land. On the thirteenth morning, however, the clouds cleared, and the sound of land was echoed, with rapture, from one end of the vessel to the other. As they approached, the country assumed a beautiful appearance; birds of a white and yellow plumage, till then unknown, flocked round the ship; the waves were tranquil; and every thing seemed to assume an air of enchantment. This unknown land was the island, to which subsequent voyagers have given the name of Madeira; and it seems to have sate for a picture in Spenser's Fairy Queen: It was a chosen spot of fertile land, Emongst wide waves, sett like a little nest; As if it had, by Nature's cunning hand, And laid forth for ensample of the best. No daintie floure, or herbe, that grows on ground, No arboreth with painted blossoms drest, And smelling sweete, but there it might be found, To bud out faire, and her sweete smels throwe all round. VOL. I. Book ii. c. vi. st. 12. Y |