them with cruelty and caprice; and a burft of rage againft one of them laid him in the grave in his eightieth year.

BES

Thunberg's Travels.

(Concluded from page 430.)

ESIDES the priests employed in the temples, there are alfo both monks and nuns, of which the order of blind monks difperfed over the whole empire, is the moft fingular, and probably not to be paralleled in the whole world.

With refpect to food, the principal animal diet of the Japanese is fifh and fowl, very few domeftic quadrupeds being found among ft them. Tea and facki-beer are their fole liquors. This beer is prepared from rice, is tolerably clear, and not a little refembles wine, but has a very fingular tafte. The tea which they commonly ufe is the green, fresh gathered and ground to powder, and put in its pulverized ftate into a can of boiling water; it is then stirred with a ftick, and poured into tea cups; it must be drank immediately, that the green powder may not fettle to the bot

tom.

:

The tea-fhrub,' fays Dr. T. grows wild in every part of the country; and the leaves are gathered annually at three different feafons. The first harveft commences the beginning of March, when the leaves beginning to pufh forth, poffefs a viscous quality, and are gathered folely for perfons of rank and opulence thefe take the name of imperial tea. A month after this the fecond harveft takes place, when the leaves are full grown, but are ftill thin, tender, and well-flavoured. The principal harveft is the laft, when the great eft quantity is gathered, the leaves having all pufhed forth completely, and become very thick and flout. The older the leaves are however, and the later in the year the gathering is made, the greater abundance they yield, but the tea is fo much the worse.'

Perhaps it may contribute to the entertainment of our readers, if we fubjoin as a proper appendage to this account of Dr. Thunberg's, a defeription

of the harvefts of the Bohea tea; which we received from a very ingenious and intelligent traveller, who has before amply gratified the public by his journey to and from India by land, and who is lately returned in the embaffy from China.

The Bohea tea grows on a fhrub, which is diftinct from the Green, and there are four harvefts of it. The firft is of the tender buds in the spring, which have a very high perfume, and are called Pekoe. The fecond is of the delicate and half-grown leaf, which is the Souchong. The Congo is the leaf when it is full grown; and when it is fallen into the fear, and begins to decline, it is called Bohea."

But we return to Dr. Thunberg. He tells us that the laws of the Japanese are rigid, and the police equally vigilant; fo that hardly any country exhi bits fewer inftances of vice. No respect whatever is paid to persons, and the laws preferve their original purity without any changes or explanations.

Moft crimes are punished with death, fines and pecuniary mulets being regarded as equally repugnant to juftice and reafon; as the rich are by that means freed from all punishment. Murder is punished with death, and if the crime be perpetrated in a town, not only the murderer himself, but fome times his relations and dependants, partake in his punishment. To draw a fword upon any one is likewife a capital offence. Smuggling is punifhed with death without mercy, which is extended to all concerned in the traffic. The general mode of execution is private decapitation with a fcymetar in prifon, although crucifixion and other painful modes of death are fometimes practifed in public. Those whofe crimes do not merit death are either fentenced to perpetuál imprisonment, or elfe banished to fome diftant ifland, and all their property is confifcated. The prifons, as in other countries, are gloomy and horrid, but the rooms are kept clean and wholefome, and confitt of an apartment for the trial by torture and another for private executions, a kitchen, a diningroom, and a bath.

On the topic of Agriculture, Dr. T. remarks

they reach only to their knees. The men generally have them made of a plain filk of one colour, but the filken ftuffs worn by the women are flowered, and interwoven with gold flowers. The men feldom wear many of them; but the women often from thirty to fifty or more, and all fo thin, that together they hardly weigh more than four or five pounds. Thefe night-gowns are faftened about the waift by a belt, which for the men is about the breadth of a hand, and for the women about twelve inches, and of fuch a length as to go twice round the body, with a large knot and rofe. The knot worn by the fair fex is larger than that worn by the men; the married women wear this knot before, and the fingle behind. The men faften to this belt their fabre, fan, tobacco-pipe, pouch, and medicine box. The gowns are rounded off about the neck, without a cape, open before, and fhew the bofom, which is always

bare.

Men of a higher rank have befides thefe long night gowns a fhort half gown, which is worn over the other, and made of gauze, or fome thin ftuff. It is like the former at the fleeves and neck, but reaches only to the waift, and is tied before and at the top with a ftring. This half gown is fometimes of a green, but most frequently of a black colour.

The breeches are of a peculiar kind of ftuff, thin, but very close and compact, and made of a fpecies of hemp. They have more the appearance of a petticoat, being fewed between the legs, and left open at the fides to about two thirds of their length. They reach down to the ancles, and are faftened about the waift with a band, which is earried round the body. At the back part of thefe breeches is a thin triangular piece of board, fcarcely fix inches long, covered with the fame ftuff as the breeches, and ftanding against the back juft above the band. The breeches are either ftriped with brown or green, or elfe uniformly black.

As the night-gowns reach down to the feet, and confequently keep the thighs and legs warm, tockings are neither wanted or ufed in this country.

However foldiers and travellers, who have not fuch long dreffes, wear spatterdashes made of cotton ftuff.

The fhoes, or rather flippers, of the Japanese are the moft indifferent part of their drefs. They are made of rice ftraw woven; though fometimes, for people of diftinétion, of fine flips of rattan. They confift of a fole without upper-leather or hind piece; forward they are croffed by a strap, of the thicknefs of the finger, lined with linen; from the tip of the fhoe to this ftrap a cylindrical Aring is carried, which paffes between the great and fecond toe, and keeps the fhoe faft on the foot. As thefe fhoes have no hind-piece, they make a noife when people walk in them like flippers.

For travelling the fhoes are furnished with three ftrings, made of twifted ftraw, with which they are faftened to the legs and feet. Thefe fhoes are foon wetted through when the roads are dirty; and a great number of them worn out are feen lying on the roads. The Japanese never enter their houfes with their fhoes on, but leave them in the entry, or place them on a bench near the door.

On account of the great width of their garments, they are foon dreffed and undreffed, as they have nothing more to do than to untie their girdle, and draw in their arms, when the whole of their drefs inftantly falls off of itfelf.

This people's mode of dreffing their hair is as peculiar to them and as general as the ufe of night-gowns. The men fhave the whole of their head, from the forehead down to the nape of their neck, and what is left near the temples and in the neck is well greafed, turned up, and tied at the top of the head with feveral rounds of white ftring, made of paper. The end of the hair that remains above the tie is cut off to about the length of one's finger, and after being well ftiffened with oil, bent in fuch a manner, that the tip is brought to ftand against the crown of the head, by means of the firing above mentioned. Priefts and phyficians have their heads all over.

Thefe people never cover their heads with hats, either to defend them against

the

the rain or the fun; excepting on journeys, when they wear a conical hat, made of a fpecies of grafs, and tied with a ftring. Parafols are their ufual fhelter from the heat and from the cold.

The Japanese have always their coat of arms put on their cloaks, and on their long and fhort night-gowns, either on the arms, or between the thoulders, to prevent their being ftolen or miftaken, which in a country of fuch uniformity of habit might eafily happen.

Inftead of a handkerchief, they conftantly ufe thin and foft writing paper, with which they wipe their mouths and fingers, and the fweat from their bodies.

This is the fubftance of the more important parts of our author's description of a people fo widely feparated from the reft of mankind; and of whom we have no authentic narrative fince the relation of Kæmpfer, which was written more than a century ago. Many important changes in the interval have taken place in that country; and even of the fame occurrence we are not forry to read the accounts of different authors which tend to correct or to confirm each other, accordingly as they correfpond or disagree.

The Japanese do not feem at prefent to have attained to any high degree of civilization and improvement. Agriculture, fo far as relates to tillage, they appear to practife with great fuccefs, but of commerce they have very falfe and confined ideas. Our author gives them an excellent character for their moral qualities and difpofition; and, though fome allowance muft certainly be made for the partiality of a vifitor who has been hofpitably received, the ftate of cultivation to which they appear to have arrived, accords entirely with this defcription of their manners. Hif tory attefts with too great an uniformity this melancholy truth, that in proportion as refinement and informa-, tion have advanced in any nation, integrity and fimple virtue have been obferved to decline.

Though the inhabitants of Japan differ, as we have already remarked, in fome particulars from their neighbours

the Chinese, there is a ftriking refemblance between them with respect to their extreme jealousy and fear of fo reigners.

A confcioufnefs of inferiority when compared with the inhabitants of Eu rope, occafions probably this conduct in both; nor does it appear unreafona. ble. Notwithstanding the intelligence and fortitude which the Japanese are faid by our author to poffefs, it can hardly be doubted, that were they once to permit the Europeans to form an eftablishment amongft them, they would foon fhare the fate of the reft of India, and yield to the superior skill, ftrength, and enterprise of their Weftern invaders.

Dr. T. returned to Batavia in 1777, after a year's refidence at Japan, and went to the houfe of his friend Dr. Hoffman, with whom he had lived during his firft vifit thither. It is an ex traordinary proof he mentions of the unhealthinefs of this baleful climate, that of thirteen perfons with whom he had dined before his departure, eleven had been carried off by fevers in the fpace of three weeks, one of whom was Dr. H.'s lady.

Dr. T. foon after obtained an oppor tunity of making a voyage to Ceylon, concerning the natural hiftory of which he mentions many curious and interefting particulars. He fays, there is at Colombo a fpecies of palm, called the Palm Licuala, which produces very large leaves, and rivals in this respect the cocoa-tree itfelf. One fingle leaf is large enough to fhelter fix perfons from the rain. It may be claffed among the loftieft trees, and becomes ftill higher, when burfting forth into bloffom from its leafy fummit. The heath which then envelopes the flower is very large, and when it burfts, makes an explosion like the report of a cannon; after which it fhoots forth branches on every fide, to the furprising height of 36 or 40 feet.

This is certainly very extraordinary; but we do not therefore refuse our af fent to it; any more than to the account of the extreme tenuity of the female dreffes at Japan, of which the dancing girls are faid to have a dozen hanging

at their girdles, without any impediment to their motions; or to the defcription of the delicacy of the cotton ftuffs in another place, which is fuch, that fix fhirts made of it may be grafped in the palm of the hand.

We beg leave only to fufpend our judgment till farther evidence on the fubject be received; remembering the qbfervation of the great father of the peripatetics, that many things that are incredible may notwithstanding be

true.

The natural hiftory delivered in this work, and particularly the botanical part of it, feems to have been collected with diligence and accuracy; though we were furprized at finding an animal at mature mentioned as an ape, which is afterwards defcribed as having a very Long tail; which determines it, according to the fettled diftinction among naturalifts to appertain to the tribe of monkeys.

Our author returned to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope; and in his paffage from thence was accompanied by a perfon whofe cafe was equally fingular and calamitous. It deferves more over to be made as public as poffible, to check in fome degree that oppreffive and tyrannical difpofition which confounds power with right; and, when offended, judges and punishes at its own difcretion.

This unfortunate man, whofe name was Bergakker, had been engaged as chief furgeon on board a fhip from Enchuyfen, called de Jonge Hugo, commanded by a captain Klein, who, for fome caufe not mentioned, became his inveterate enemy. He loaded his helpless victim in confequence with every fpecies of infult, and expofed him to the derifion of the very boys in the hip. At last he wrote to the fuperintendant that this man was infane, and requested that another furgeon might be appointed in his place; and one ac cordingly was fent on board.

The captain immediately fet fail, without putting the accufed on fhare; whom he kept under arreft during the whole voyage to the Cape; and would not permit him once to come upon deck, and breathe the fresh air. During the voyage he Hib. Mag. June, 1796.

procured a writing to be figned by fome of the officers, who were his dependants, certifying that this miferable being was out of his fenfes. He was therefore brought on fhore immediately on the ship's arrival at the Cape, and conveyed to prifon; fo that no opportunity was afforded him of preferring a complaint, or of being examined by the Governor, the Fifcal, or any of the Senators.

When Dr. T.'s fhip was muftered, Bergakker was fent thither like a prifoner, and conveyed to Europe, without falary or any kind of emolument. Our author adds, that during a voyage of feveral months, he was not able to perceive any fymptoms of derangement in this man, or to difcover the leaft probability of his ever having been afflicted in this way; on the contrary, he was very fteady, fober, and serious. That neither the Governor nor any member of Administration at the Cape inveftigated this bufinefs, fo that the wretched fufferer might have been freed from oppreffion, and his malicious tyrant punithed as he deferved, excited very jufly our author's furprize. All thofe who spoke of Capt. Klein spoke of him as of a fierce and brutal character, and difqualified, even by ignorance and incapacity, for the poft which he poffelfed.

Account of a new work entitled "The Life of Lorenzo De' Medici, called the Magnificent." by William Rofcoe.

THE clofe of the fifteenth,' fays

Mr. R. and the beginning of the fixteenth century, comprehend one of thofe periods of hiftory which are entitled to our minuteft Audy and inquiry. Almost all the great events from which Europe derives its prefent advantages, are to be traced up to thofe times. The invention of the art of prinuing, the difcovery of the great wedern continent, the fchifm from the church of Rome, which ended in the reformation of many of its abufes, and established the precedent of reform, the degree of perfection attained in the fine arts, and the final introduction of true principles of critiTit

cif