highly delighted himfelf to let his brother fee how well he understood it; he having the preceding day amused himself for fome hours with this novelty, and had fharpened feveral pieces of iron, which he had picked up about the tents. The circumftances which moft in this fight bewildered all their ideas, were, how the fparks of fire would come, and how a stone, so well wetted, became fo foon dry.

The king then vifited the different tents, and enquired about every thing he faw; all was novelty, and of course interested his attention. When he got to the tent where the Chinese men were, Raa, Kook, whofe retentive mind never loft a fingle trace of any thing he had been informed of during his ftay among them, acquainted the king, that thefe were a people quite different from the English, and that they were China-men, a word he had readily caught.-He begged one of them would allow the king to examine his head, noticing the long finglebraided lock of hair hanging almost down to the calves of their legs.

When the king heard his brother discoursing about a variety of nations difperfed through the world, who all fpoke differently, and had before him an example in the Chinese, who did not fpeak in the fame tongue as the English, he appeared inftantly thoughtful and ferious, as if ftruck with conceptions that had never crolled his mind before. He remained awhile penfive and bewildered; and this circumftance impressed on every one, at the time, an idea, which will poffibly now as forcibly imprefs the reader, that there was every cause to fuppose there had never been a communication between these people and any other nation; that they and their ancestry, through a line of ages, too remote for human conjecture to fix a date, might have lived as fovereigns of the world, unconfcious that it extended beyond the horizon that bounded them; unconfcious alfo that there were any more inhabitants in it than themfelves; and in this cafe what might not be the fentiments

timents that burst on a mind thus fuddenly awakened to a new and more enlarged notion of nature and mankind!

As the king was going toward our tents, of which there were three, with a fentry ftationed at each, the day being fine, and the fun in full power, he noticed the bright glitter of the bayonet; it of course astonished him, who had never feen any polifhed body, or the action of light on it. He ftepped haftily to the fentinel and wifhed to feel it, offering to take it out of the man's hand, who thereupon drew back; Captain Wilfon then explained to him, that no English fentinel would, or dared fuffer any one to touch his arms.-Upon this the king feemed fatisfied, and went on to view other things in and about the cove. Raa Kook would now fhew his brother the kitchen, which was in the hollow of a rock, a little above the cove. It was the time when the cook was preparing dinner; the implements which furnished the kitchen were fcanty indeed, and could in no other place but this have attracted any one's attention; but here an iron pot, a tea-kettle, a tin faucepan, with a poker, a pair of tongs, and frying-pan, became of fufficient confequence to excite admiration.

He was also taken to see the two dogs, which he was ftruck and delighted with in full as great a degree as his brother Arra Kooker had been before. But thefe animals, whofe novelty equally impreffed all the natives, excited them to take fo much pleasure in making them bark, that our people were after fome time compelled to confine them out of fight.

The king being now returned to his former feat, informed Captain Wilson that he intended to go and fleep at the back of the island; and prefently a loud fhriek was given by one of the king's officers. This threw our people into fome alarm, but the cause of it was immediately evident; for all the king's attendants, as if inftantaneously moved, might be faid to have rather darted than ran to their canoes, and the fignal more fuddenly obeyed than could have been conceived.

[To be continued.]

An

1

An Account of the Ancient City of HERCULANEUM, deftroyed by an Eruption of MOUNT VESUVIUS, with Deferiptions of fome of the Antiquities found there.

THIS great catastrophe was occafioned by an eruption of Mount Vefuvius, fo early as the days of the Emperor Titus; in which the city of Herculaneum perifhed, and was overwhelmed with the afhes, fulphur, and other matter, thrown out of that mountain to eighty feet deep, and in fome places to more than a hundred. It has been the general opinion, that this city funk into the earth at that time; but by what I* have seen of it, and by what I can judge, by the face of the country all round, there has been no fuch thing; for, the whole earth now thereabout has been made up plainly to a vast depth by the difgorging of the Mount; and the city, many parts of which I have within thefe few days feen, has all its buildings ftanding perfectly upright; which could not have been the cafe bad they funk; for they would then neceffarily have leaned, and many of them fell by the fault of their foundation; as we cannot fuppofe fo great an extent of earth, and that fo irregularly loaded, to have funk perfectly even.

Be this as it may, however, we are very certain that it is fo long ago that the city perished; and at different times in feveral ages fince, there have been attempts to dig and penetrate into it, and one thing or other has often been discovered. There are in many of the neighbouring places remains of Roman flatues, which have been taken out, fome a hundred, fome two, and fome, it is faid, fix hundred years ago. But about eighty years fince, a bold attempt was made for the penetrating a great way into it; a private gentleman having fecretly caufed to be taken up as much treafure of one fort or other, as he fold for eighteen thousand pounds flerling; but one of his labourers, at length betraying him, and the thing

* The writer of this Narrative.

getting

getting air, the government became apprized of it, and seized on the effects of the perfon concerned, who was forced to fly for it, and spent the remainder of his life in fome obfcure part of the German dominions. The court however made no ufe of this discovery; but the thing flept till 1738, when many hands were employed, and have been ever fince, to penetrate into it, and bring up the various treasures; the greatest of which are the paintings, which however are very difficult to preferve, not being done in the modern way of frames, but on the plaifter of the walls.

They have within these fix months funk a new paffage into the higher part of the city; which is fufficiently broad and convenient. They descended before by fome brick steps arched over the top, but having cleared away all which that part of the town afforded, till they came to a large circular wall, fo thick that they could not get through it, they have now begun in a new place. They hoped to have got through this, as the other walls; but found that the earth was fo much higher behind it than on their fide, that they laboured in vain, and therefore funk the prefent opening. The fteps they first defcended by, were at firft fuppofed by the Virtuofi and Antiquarians, to be the work of the inhabitants, to get away their treasure after the lofs of the place; but this was foon found to be a groundless notion, this work having never penetrated into the city, and the bricks being not at all like those in the buildings of it. Befides, there is no fand in the morter they are joined with, which determines its date to be of not more than three hundred years; and the cement of all the buildings of the city itfelf is harder than the bricks, and all composed of lime and yellow fand.

Having got all they could out of this paffage, they were obliged to fink the new one, juft mentioned; this is very broad, and less steep than the former, and is propped at intervals with wood work. The fubftance through which it is cut is truly wonderful. In one place are vaft beds of yellow, blue and VOL. XIV.

Kk

green

green fulphur, which take fire at carrying a candle by them. In others the fides are cramed with fuch sort of stuff as you make the rough work of grottos with in England. In others it feems all cut through a bed of afhes; and here it is forced to be propped up all the way, and faced with boards. In another place you may fee vaft lumps of glass of all colours, made by the heat of the fire. In fome there are blocks of pure metal, not a little of which when it is fresh broken, seems very full of gold and filver; so that I am apt to think this will one time or other be found to be the most valuable part of the treasure. These pieces all look very full of different colours, and ftrike fire with the tools, smelling like brimftone.

It is remarkable, that in the whole paffage, there has not been discovered fo much as a fingle lump of natural mould, nor a pebble, but all fulphur and melted matter. And as we go lower toward the bottom, we fometimes may obferve whole ftreams, that feem to have been rivers of melted iron, which have also fallen in fome places into the town and filled whole freets; and very likely this may have been the cafe, where the workmen at the other entrance could make no farther way. When we are here got to the level of the town, we are received in a broad open fquare, partly natural, partly owing to the workmen having removed and pulled down the walls; and all round this they have broke into feveral fine apartments, and in one place into a whole street. Many people have been down, and gone a great way, and talk of fine things they have met with; but an accident has happened which has intimidated them, two of the workmen being crushed to death and buried in the ruins of a wall that fell upon them, and two others narrowly escaped the fame fate.

In this fquare are depofited the treasures they have lately found; and on a view of this, and the magnificence of the rooms they have broke into, one cannot but admire the elegance of the Antients. One room I went into was lined with the most beautiful purple and white marble, in regular pannels,

each