father Caung-shee, who boasts, in his last will, that he drew a bow of the weight or strength of one hundred and fifty pounds.

"Nor were the faculties of his mind less active, or less powerful, than those of his body. As prompt in conceiving as resolute in executing his plans of conquest, he seemed to command success. Kind and charitable, as on all occasions he showed himself to his subjects, by remitting the taxes, and administering relief in seasons of distress, he was no less vindictive and relentless to his enemies. Impatient of restraint or reverses, he has sometimes been led to act with injustice, and to punish with too great severity. His irascible temper was once the cause of a severe and lasting affliction to himself, and the circumstances connected with it are said to have produced a gloom and melancholy on his mind which never entirely forsook him. About the middle part of his reign, he made a circuit through the heart of his empire. At Sau-tchoo-foo, a city that is celebrated for its beautiful ladies, which being purchased when infants are educated there for sale to the opulent, he was captivated with a girl of extraordinary beauty and talents, whom he intended to carry back with him to his capi

tal.

"The empress, by means of an eunuch, was made acquainted with his new amour, and dreading his future neglect, her spirits were depressed to such a degree, that a few days after receiving the intelligence she put an end to her existence with a cord. The emperor, on hearing this melancholy news, was greatly distressed, and repaired without delay to Pekin. One of his sons, a very amiable youth, fearful of incurring his father's displeasure, had entertained some doubts whether it

would be most proper to appear before him in deep mourning for his mother, which might be construed as an insult to the father, who had been the cause of her death, or in his robes of ceremony, which would be disrespectful to the memory of his deceased mother.

"In this dilemma he consulted his schoolmaster, who, like a true Chinese, advised him to put on both. He did so; and, unfortunately for him, covered the mourning with the ceremonial habit. Tchien-Lung, whose affection had now returned for his deceased empress, and whose melancholy fate he was deeply lamenting, on perceiving his son at his feet without mourning, was so shocked and exasperated at the supposed want of filial duty, that, in the moment of rage, he gave him a violent kick in an unfortunate place, which, after his languishing a few days, proved fatal.

"None of his four surviving sons ever possessed any share of his confidence or authority, which of late years were wholly bestowed on his first minister Ho-chung-tong. He had a due sense of religious duties, which he regularly performed every morning. Having made a vow at the early part of his reign, that, should it please Heaven to grant him to govern his dominions for a complete cycle, or sixty years, he would then retire, and resign the throne to his successor, he religi ously observed it on the accomplishment of the event. The sincerity of his faith may partly be inferred from the numerous and splendid temples he built and endowed in different parts of Oriental Tartary, of which the Poo-ta-la, or convent of Budha at Gehol, is the most magnificent. It is said, indeed, from the circumstance of his

long and fortunate reign, he had, in his later years, entertained an idea, that the Lama, or Budha, or Fo, for they are all the same personage, had condescended to become incarnate in his person. However wild and extravagant,' observes lord Macartney, such a conceit may be regarded, we know from history how much even the best understandings may be per⚫verted by prosperity; and that human nature, not satisfied with the good things of this world, sometimes wishes to anticipate the condition and felicity of the next. IfAlex⚫ ander scorned to own less than Ju'piter Ammon for his father, if many Roman emperors extorted altars and sacrifices in their lifetime, if, • even in the reign of queen Elizabeth, an English nobleman* encouraged the belief of his descent from a swan, and was compli⚫mented in a dedication upon his • feathered pedigree, a similar infatuation may be the less inex⚫cusable in Kien-Long, a monarch, the length and happiness of whose reign, the unlimited obedience of whose incalculable number of sub⚫jects, and the health and vigour of whose body, have hitherto kept out of his view most of those circumstances that are apt to remind • other men of their misery and f mortality.'

"Till his last illness he continued to rise at three o'clock in the morning, both in winter and summer. He usually took some cordial to fortify his stomach, and then repaired to his private devotions at one of his temples. After this he read the dispatches of his great officers, both civil and military, who from their different stations

were ordered to write to him di rectly, and not to the tribunals as had usually been the case. About seven he took his breakfast of tea, wines, and confectionary, when he transacted business with the first minister, consulting with, or directing, him in the weighty matters of state, previous to their appearing in regular form before the respective departments to which they belonged. He had then a kind of levee, which was usually attended by the collaos, or ministers, and the presidents of the departments or public boards. At eleven refreshments were again served up, and, after business was over, he either amused himself in the women's apartments, or walked round his palace or gardens. Between three and four he usually dined, after which he retired to his private rooms and employed himself in reading or writing till bed. time, which was always regulated by, and seldom later than, the setting of the sun.

"He was fully persuaded that his uninterrupted health was chiefly owing to his early retiring to rest, and early rising; an observation, indeed, that in our country has grown into a maxim; and maxims are generally grounded on truth. The late lord Mansfield made a point for many years of enquiring from all the aged persons, that at any time appeared before him to give evidence, into their particular mode of living, in order that he might be able to form some general conclusion with regard to the causes of their longevity. The result of his observations was, that he could draw no inference from their intemperance or abstemiousness with

regard

regard to diet or drinking, but that they all agreed in one point, that of being early risers.

"Tchien-Lung resigned the throne of China to his fifteenth son, the

present Kia-king, in February 1796, having completed a reign of sixty years; and he died in the month of February 1799, at the advanced age of eighty-nine years."

"MY

Y chief intention in this journey was to see a morai in the district of Opare, where the inhabitants of the land shed the blood of captives taken in war, both men and women, and offer it up in sacrifice to their gods. For my guide I was accompanied by an Otaheitean priest. Morai, in the language of the country, signifies a place appropriated to the wor ship of Eatooa, or deity. As the Otaheiteans have a plurality of deities, so they have many morais. They are temporary or permanent. Temporary morais are erected before the corpse of the dead agree able to the fancy of the erector, and (from what I have hitherto seen) are commonly small altars, variously decorated, with leaves and the fruit of palm tree, that grows in abundance, and upon which are placed divers offerings of food. Permanent morais are numerous and diverse: they are usually enclosed spots of ground surrounded with trees of different kinds, and having in them sundry small pavements of stone: at the head of each stands a stone of larger size, and at the back of the stone is generally fixed a board five or six feet long, with a little rude carving on it; the top divided into five parts, or slits, to represent the fingers of a hand: sometimes the board has the figure of a man or

bird carved on its top. At the foot of this pavement the priest worships, with his face towards the head stone and plank, and throws his offering, consisting of a young plantain-tree root, green leaves, or the leaf of a cocoa-nut twisted in a peculiar form, upon the pavement. Besides these kinds of oratories with. in the enclosure, there are altars, on which meat offerings are placed, and before which prayers are made. Altars for the like purpose are scattered up and down the country where there is no morai. At one permanent place of worship, there are frequently a plurality of morais, dedicated to different deities: thus the one I now visited, had in it two others dedicated to as many false gods. This morai stands on a sandy point of land, that shoots a little out towards the sea, forming a small bay on each side: the easternmost exposed to the sea breeze, and indifferent landing for the canoes: the westernmost sheltered from the east wind, and pretty good landing. The whole point is covered with fragments of sharp coral rock. Distant from point Venus by land between three and four miles, and by sea about three miles. Close to the morai grow bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, purrow, and its trees: the fruit of the two former are sacred, being only used by particular persons: the two latter bear no

fruit for food. The name of the morai is tabboo-tabboo-waataa, and which is the general name of all the morais where human sacrifices are offered, and of which there is one in the district of Attahooroo, and another in Papara, besides what are in Tiaraboo. We arrived at the morai between eleven and twelve o'clock: before we entered it, my guide gathered a bunch of green leaves that grew upon the beach; and as soon as we came to the accustomed place for making offerings, he threw the leaves upon the pavement, and repeated, in a seemingly indifferent manner, a few words as a prayer to the supposed deity for his good-will to wards us. The place where the priest performed this ceremony, is dedicated to their principal Eatooa, called Goro. It is a rough stone pavement, about eighteen feet square: at the north end, which faced the sea, is a large hedge of stones five feet or more high, three or four feet wide, and eighteen feet long. Upon the top of this pile are several pieces of board, some of them six feet long, and a foot broad, the tops slit into five parts, to represent a hand with the fingers a little open. At the south end are set up five stones, three of them larger in size than the other two. These stones are for those who offie ciate as priests: the three largest for superior, and the two smallest for inferior ones. They sit cross legged upon the pavement, and support their backs against the stones; and in this mode of adoration, with their faces towards the pile of stones and boards, they make their prayers. The middle space is where the human victims are slaughtered by being knocked on the head with a club and stones: after which a principal priest takes

out the eyes of the murdered person, and holding them in his hands, he presents them to the mouth of the king, who opens his mouth as if to receive and eat them: when this ceremony is performed, the carcase is thrown into a pit, and covered with stones. By the num ber of pits surrounding the place, and by the expressions of my conductor, I apprehend there have been many hundreds of men and women thus sacrificed by the abo minable superstition of these idolaters. Besides the captives taken in war, the bodies of those slain in war, or cut off by the commandment of the great chief, or that are purposely killed for human sacrifices in any other part, under the jurisdiction of the great chief or king, are brought to the tabbootabboo-waataa, and there prayers are made over them, and then they are buried as before observed. A little to the right of this pavement of blood, and nearer towards the point, is an altar to Ooro, raised upon three rows of wooden pillars thirteen in a row, nearly seven fect high, and four or five feet broad: the top covered with cocoa-nut leaves, and the front and ends decorated with the leaf of the sugar-cane, so fixed as that they may hang down like long fringes. Upon this altar offerings of fish, hogs, bread-fruit, and mountain-plantains, are laid. A urge hog was upon the altar, which seemed to have been placed there no long time. Fish and mountain-plantains are offered raw; hogs and bread-fruit are baked: frequently the hog is smeared with its blood before offered up. A little more to the right was the frame of an altar going to decay, dedicated to a supposed deity named Ora-madooa: upon this lay some pieces of wood that had once formed something

belonging

belonging to their idolatrous rites, but I could not plainly comprehend what. Proceeding towards the point a few yards, at the extremity of the land, a large pile of stones appeared in view: from our house on point Venus, where it may be seen, it appears like a rock: it may be ten or twelve feet high, and twice as much in length: it consists of a number of stones piled one upon another without much art, and sacred to an imagined sea god whose name is Teepah. The priest informed me, that before this pile of stones are also offered human sacrifices. Tired and disgusted with this awful proof of man's apostacy, and the devil's power over him, I desired my guide to withdraw. Considerations of the importance, arduousness, and danger of the work in which myself and brethren are engaged, gradually arrose in my mind: the flesh quaked for fear, and the god of this world was not wanting with his suggestions; but I committed our cause to Christ. Having quitted this scene of human infamy, I proceeded with my conductor to the westward, purposing to see the chief of Hapyano, who was but a few miles distant. We passed the residences of Pomere, Owo, Otco, and the late Orepiah, which all stand within the compass of a mile: at present destitute of their owners. Otoo's house is situated upon the bank of a tolerable good river, about a hundred yards from the sea; no otherwise to be known as the habitation of the great chief of Otaheite, than by two posts, with the head of a man carved on them, placed in the main road opposite his house, at between seventy and eighty yards distant on each side. Every islander, whether chief or common person, when they come

to either of these posts in passing the king's dwelling, make bare their shoulders; nor must they cover them again till they have passed the opposite post. In what ever part of the island the king has an habitation, it is dignified with such pillars, and the like ceremony of baring the shoulders observed, though the chief is elsewhere. These pillais are called Tee, which is the name of a sort of household gods, worshipped under the form of a man carved in wood. I do not understand that this action of theirs is any religious ceremony paid to the image, or supposed deity, but a mark of respect to their king: which is shown him wherever he goes, and by all who appear in his presence, his father and mother not excepted; the queen being the only person exempt. And so strictly is this custom adhered to, that a wil ful breach of it would certainly be attended with death; and if it should so happen that the king passed a person unobserved, who had his shoulders covered, his cloth would be deemed sacred, and must no more be worn by that person, but given to the king, or torn. I saw Edea the king's mo ther (who is exceedingly rigid for the honours and prerogatives of majesty) so caught once. She was in her dwelling, and hap pened not to notice the approach of the chief, who went by her house on his man-horse. He was no sooner gone by, than Edea's attend ants (who were present, and saw not the king) perceived their error, and gave her notice of it: she im mediately took off her teeapoota, and rent it to pieces. To prevent such mistakes, it is usual for the first discoverer of the king's ap pearance, to give the alarm by calling out aloud: by which means peo

ple