present situation, when age shall no longer permit me to work, my master will be obliged to keep me, and, when I am sick, my children will have it in their power to take care of me.” ”

This anecdote is worth something as coming from a representative of slave-holders and slave-dealers. With regard to the comparative mildness of the treatment of slaves in the Mauritius, it may be true, that they are worse treated in Brazil; but our Author stultifies his own statement by his reference to the labourers of his own country. They may be better fed than some of the poor Bretons who live on chesnuts; for cattle must be fed, if we would get work out of them, and a rich man's horses will have corn, if the poor are starving. Is the horse, therefore, happier than the pauper? So reasons M. Arago. The slaves know nothing,' he says, of slavery but the name.' Whence, then, their anxiety to redeem themselves? Why, if so, will not some Gallic patriot propose the legalization of white slavery, that the superfluous paupers of France may be shipped off to participate in this happiness? Slavery is nothing, in this young Frenchman's estimation, provided the slave is not over-flogged. In the moral evils of slavery, in the degradation of the driving system, in the exclusion of the slave from legal protection, his personal nonentity, his liability to be seized and sold by creditors and executors as moveable capital, separately from the estate on which he is settled; in the inadmissibility of his evidence in a court of justice, his moral treatment as a being incapable of religion and of the humanizing institutions which form the cement of society; in all this, he sees- nothing,' nothing to distinguish the freeman from the slave!

Such a man can never be a competent or a credible witness on the subject of the existing treatment of slaves. But his statements come before us with the more suspicious appearance, as they are evidently the mere echo of the falsehoods by which the French traders who still infest this part of the world, endeavour to deceive their own Government. Of the pertinacity with which the Slave Trade is carried on under the French flag, and of the impunity with which it is almost uniformly prosecuted, the Reports of the African Institution furnish us with the most disgusting proofs. In April 1821, vessel with 344 slaves on board, Le Succés, was seized and condemned by our Government at the Isle of France, which had already made a successful slave-voyage from Zanzebar to the Isle of Bourbon, where she had safely landed 348 slaves. The Governor, M. Mylius, having been informed of the transaction, had instituted judicial proceedings against her; but the judges, whose office it was to try the cause, having them

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selves participated in the crime by purchasing some of her slaves, concurred in acquitting her; and, encouraged by this impunity, she was immediately despatched for another cargo of Africans, with which she was returning to the Isle of Bourbon, when she was detained by our cruiser*. Governor Mylius has since been recalled, chiefly in consequence of the complaints of the slave-traders, who accused him of anglomania and phi*lanthropy;' and under his successor, the brother of Capt. Freycinet, debarkations of slaves have taken place without difficulty. This circumstance will explain M. Arago's virulence against the philanthropists,' and his pathetic regrets that the Isle of France is lost to the French and-to the slave trade.

This subject has detained us at the Mauritius longer than we intended. Some of our readers will hardly thank us for the information, that our Author, on inquiring there for the tombs of Paul and Virginia, discovered that the romance which had charmed his boyhood, is purely a fiction. The shipwreck of the St. Geran is a fact, and there was a Madame Latour, who lost a daughter in the wreck; but, instead of dying for grief, she lived long enough to espouse three husbands in succession after the death of her first husband at Madagascar. The pastor who acts so fine a part in the novel, was a Chevalier de Bernage, son of an echevin of Paris, who belonged to the musqueteers, but, having killed his antagonist in a duel, he retired to the Isle of France, where he is said to have been highly respected. As to Paul, there are no data whatever of his existence.' Will the tale cease to interest in consequence of this disclosure? Who asks for any other truth than that of nature in such productions? Possibly, some future traveller may discover that Waverley and Quentin Durward never ex-. isted. During our Author's short stay at Port Louis, a lady died, whose veritable adventures might surpass the interest of fiction;-a Madame de Pujo, wife of a French colonel, but formerly the mistress of the celebrated Count Benyowsky, whom she accompanied on his flight from Siberia, to Kamschatka, to China, and to Madagascar, where he was killed.

• Few men,' remarks our Author, have experienced so many vicissitudes as Benyowsky; and his daring spirit alone can account for his success. He had one leg much shorter than the other, and it was upon this that he habitually rested. But, when irritated, he raised himself upon the longer, his sparkling eyes became still more ex

See "Sixteenth Report of the Directors of the African Institution." 1822. p. 18. and Appendix. K.

pressive, and his strongly-marked features assumed so fierce a character as to strike terror into all around him. His astonishing presence of mind in the greatest dangers, his invincible perseverance, his daring projects, his unparalleled success-what more did he require to reign over a people with whom fool-hardiness is the chief of virtues?'

We must not even touch at the beautiful and romantic Isle of Bourbon; nor shall we stop to detail our Author's adventures with the savages of New Holland. At Coupang in the Island of Timor, M. Arago found some novel subjects for his pencil in the yellow natives. The Chinese are the only persons here who follow any business: they are the Jews of Timor, and live on tea, rice, pulse, and knavery.'

There are no people,' adds our Author, the cast of whose countenance is more uniformly the same. Nothing is more like a Chinese of Canton, than a Chinese of Coupang; nothing is more like a Chinese of Coupang than the Chinese on an Indian screen. They have a wild look; little eyes, raised at the outer corner; a round face; a short and somewhat flattened nose; large lips; a small, well-formed mouth; and a yellow complexion. Their manners are engaging, their words persuasive, their politeness minute. They will laugh, to oblige you; caress, to seduce you; fall on their knees, to persuade you. If they offer you a trifle, they mean you to accept it, but still more to give you an example of generosity. They will present you with any thing they possess, but only when they are assured that you will be more liberal than they. No one can be more humble, more submissive, more forward to oblige, than a Chinese. After this, will you trust to appearances?'

The interior of this island is almost unknown, but is stated to be very mountainous, and is in possession of the native. rajahs--the tyrants over a set of ferocious savages, who, as well as the natives of the island of Ombay, have the reputation of being cannibals. Some of the latter were, however, complaisant enough to suffer their portraits to be taken, which accord well enough with their reputed character. They are described as having a skin the colour of terra di Sienna, eyes generally sunk in the head, and bright; low forehead, large mouth, and thick lips; the nose sometimes aquiline; broad chest and sinewy limbs; a warlike, savage air, and great quickness in all their movements. Another engaging variety of the human species in its unsophisticated state, presented itself in the natives of Rawack, Waigooe, and New Guinea, who are described as

little, squat, large-headed, woolly-haired, nearly black, bigbodied, spindle-shanked, with long and broad feet. Their countenance is unexpressive, their manners unengaging, their air stupid.

Some of them have so much hair on their head, that you would take it for a pile of wigs. Almost all are covered with leprosy, or have been affected by it. Their gait is awkward, though they are tolerably active. Their language is noisy and inharmonious; their smile, almost laughable. They climb trees with surprising facility, and are very skilful fishers: standing on the bow of a canoe, rudely enough fashioned, and sometimes furnished with a sail of cocoa leaves, a man sees a fish at a distance, directs his proa towards it, and, though more than twenty paces distant, almost always strikes it with a long headed with a double-pointed iron.'

Fish is their chief food, but they have likewise a bread made of sago, and baked in moulds of clay, divided into two or three departments, resembling the chafing-dishes used by the peasants of France. Their only beverage is water, or the milk of the cocoa-nut. When offered wine or spirituous liquors, they would take only a few drops, which they seemed to drink with a degree of repugnance. In their houses, and near their tombs, our Author found some coarsely carved and hideous idols; but he did not observe that the savages had the least veneration for these household gods.

Captain Freycinet remained for some time among the Marianne islands, and M. Arago does not fail with his sociable disposition to turn it to advantage. On landing at Guam, he was struck at the appearance of abject wretchedness displayed by the natives, who were for the most part covered with the black and livid marks of a virulent leprosy, living in the midst of a fertile soil from which nothing is obtained. Weeds were growing by thousands in smiling vales, among a few blades of rice and Indian corn, attesting equally the goodness of the soil, the idleness of the inhabitants, and the inattention of the governor!' I should have guessed,' says our Frenchman, ⚫ that the country belonged to the Spaniards, from the sacrilegious state of neglect in which it is left.' The inhabitants sleep two thirds of the day, and spend the remaining third in smoking and chewing tobacco: they seem, indeed, to live only on tobacco and areca nut mixed with lime, to which they sometimes add a few leaves of betel. Their conquerors have introduced what they are pleased to call Christianity, -a religion of processions and ceremonies, which has neither informed their understandings, nor imparted to them even a sense of shame. In the churches the sexes are separate, and there, says our Author, the people behave like Christians; in the city and in the country, like savages.' There appears to be a regular compromise of all morality on the condition of innumerable genuflexions and processions.

'I have seen,' says M. Arago, the ceremonies of the Passion

week, and have now an idea of the splendour with which our religious mysteries are celebrated here. With superior pomp and greater impositions on the people, they are celebrated here as they are at Manilla, and at Manilla as they are in Spain. It was to our captain that the priest of Agagna delivered the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. He kept them two days hung round his neck, and returned them on Easter eve with exemplary devotion. It is truly painful to see a people who might so easily be guided aright, given up to the darkness in which they are enveloped, and adopting with blind confidence the absurd narratives of pretended daily miracles...... The priest of Agagna can scarcely instruct his flock in the simplest lessons of the Catechism, as he is himself ignorant of the fundamental principles of our religion.'

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The natives are described as well-shaped, of a dark yellow complexion: though debased by massacres and persecutions, they retain marks of a higher civilization anterior to the Spanish conquest, which was a tissue of cruelties and horrors. They are stated to be remarkably fond of music, and to be continually singing. The primitive language is monotonous and extremely difficult of pronunciation. The Spanish language and costume have now been generally adopted by the inhabitants, together with the vices of their masters. The island of Rota is still more fertile and more neglected than Guam.

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The trees are magnificent, the fruit and vegetables delicious. The country rich in varied vegetation, is over-run by thousands of rats, which are yet unable to destroy its roots; you cannot proceed ten steps without meeting hundreds and it is really distressing that the inhabitants do not endeavour to destroy this devouring animal...... The hills and valleys are decked with cotton-trees, the bright tufts of which form a pleasing sight amid the verdure that surrounds them. The bread-fruit, the tacca, the water-melons, every thing is of a better quality here than at Guam; and I am surprised that greater attention is not paid to a country which might become the granary and general store-house of the Marianne islands. They reckon nearly 80 houses in the town, and 400 persons in the whole island. There are five or six crucifixes in every street; and it is necessary that some outward sign should put them in mind of their religion, since there is no public worship. There has been no priest here for more than twenty years. The houses are built on piles, as at Guam; but they are in a state infinitely more ruinous. The men may be said to go naked, for they wear no trowsers except on Sundays. The women wear a handkerchief fastened by a string round the waist, Their shape is completely beautiful, their feet small, their hair of a fine black, flowing down their shoulders.'

There is a church in this island, where five tapers are kept constantly burning before an image of the Virgin. There is