differences more striking than those which he observes in the physical man in the latter, the difference the most characterised is that of the white from the block, of the inhabitant of Scandinavia from the negro of Senegal, but this transition in the species is not sudden, and if we travel over the known countries of the globe, we shall pass from one country to another by imperceptible shades; it is otherwise with the moral man; can there, for instance, be found in termediate shades between the conjugal fidelity imposed by our manners, and the prostitution honoured among the tribes disseminated over the great ocean? There are then virtues and vices, as there is a beauty and a deformity, of locality and opiI do not say it is right that this is so; but I say that facts seem to prove that this is." p. 151, 152.

nion.

Captain M. imposed on this bay, the name of Baie du Bon Accuiel (Welcome Bay.)

Our navigators visited a bay on the north-west coast of the island, where they landed, and "the natives crowded round them, but without confusion, without being importunate, without making themselves troublesome; they seemed to have no other object than to obtain a nearer view of them. Captain Marchand, and his party, distributed to them various trifles, such as nails, looking glasses, knives, fish-hooks, and coloured glass beads; and it is needless to mention that, in the distribution of the presents, the modest virgins were not forgotten. They received in exchange from these inoffensive islanders, and from their chief in particular, a lance, a dart, or javelin, two fans made of feathers, and two large pearl oystershells."

"Since navigation has made known to Europeans, parts of the terrestrial globe, of which the antients did not suspect the existence, they have persuaded themselves that the whole world belongs to them; and that the lands which they happen to discover, are portions of their universal domain, which nature was to blame to alienate, and which ought to return under their domination: too happy still are the primitive possessors of the discovered countries, if the usurper, in order to establish the rights of sovereignty, has not recourse to that thun

dering weapon invented in our Europe, with which the antients were so fortunate as not to be acquainted, and which, in the space of a century, so short when it is compared to the duration of the world, has destroyed, or submitted to a few men, half of the human species. Captain Marchand, following the example of his numerous predecessors, thought it incumbent on him to take possession, in the name of the French nation, of the island of which he had recently made the discovery, a possession which involved as a right, according to the received opinion, that of the other islands which he might discover in the same quarter. This ceremony, which would only be ridiculous fron its inutility, if it were not contrary to the law of nature and of nations, was performed by fastening with four nails against the trunk of a large tree, an inscription, containing the name of the ship, and of the captain, and the act of taking possession of the island by the French. The natives, who observed with the attention of curiosity all that was doing by the strangers, the object of their admiration, certainly did not suspect that the latter were solemnly taking possession of the land where the bones of their forefathers reposed, and were giving them a master in a hemisphere which neither they nor their ancestors ever heard of. But though the peaceable disposition of these islanders might afford the hope that they would respect this monument, which, however, was to last no longer than till the rust should consume the nails, or time or men throw down the obelisk, it was thought that prudence commanded far greater safety, and ad perpetuam rei memoriam, the inscription to be written on three sheets of paper, which were rolled up separately, and put into three glass bottles, corked and sealed; one was deposited in the hands of the venerable chief of the district; the second was delivered to a man of a certain age; and the third was intrusted to the custody of a young girl: three generations scarcely seemed sufficient to answer for so valuable a deposit. Of all the presents that were made to the inhabitants of the country which had just been united to France, the bottles were those they received with most pleasure, and to which, without suspecting that they contained the

act of their union to an empire of Europe, they appeared to attach the greatest value. From this disposition on their side, no doubt was entertained of their preserving them carefully, and their visitors were convinced that a conquest in bottles is secure against every event. Would it not be supposed that the French wished to have it understood by all the navigators who thus conquered the world post haste, that an act of taking possession, if performed in the style of theirs, has all the fragility of the glass which is to protect its title from the injury of ages?

As soon as this awful ceremony was concluded, the north-west bay of Marchand's Island was proclaimed La Baie de Possession (PossessionBay) without any opposition or remonstrance on the part of the ancient proprietors; and their silence must, forsooth, be interpreted as a tacit assent.

"The astonishment of the natives of this island at the sight of Europeans and European commodities, their ignorance of traffic, their simplicity, their confidence-every thing seems to indicate that the French are the first navigators who have set their foot on this island. The mild, peaceable, and friendly disposition which these kind islanders manifested, they Owe wholly to nature; for they were not aware with what strength those men, whose species and power were till then unknown to them, came armed; and the marks of good-will and friendship, of which they were to lavish towards a handful of strangers, who could not have appeared to them formidable, cannot be attributed to a sentiment of fear, with which no act on the part of the French either could or ought to have inspired them; for our voyagers did not even indulge themselves, either in Welcome Bay or Possession Bay, in firing a single shot at any sea-bird; they were apprehensive that the report of a fire-arm would spread terror among simple and inoffensive men, to whom they owed gratitude. These worthy people are yet ignorant of the effect of European arms; and may they never know it! Marchand's Island will then be reckoned in the too small number of the islands of the great ocean, the discovery of which has not been polluted by the effusion of human blood." p. 158.

"In the afternoon of the 29th of July, 1791, in latitude 42° 40′ and longitude 150° 40', the sea being perfectly smooth, the yawl was detached to pick up on the water a plant, which appeared to belong to the family of the faci, better known to seamen by the name of sea-weed, and which, at a distance, the motion that was given to it by some fishes which were round about, had occasioned to be taken for a turtle. I shall bring into one, the separate descriptions given of it by Captain Chanal and Surgeon Roblet.

"The length of this plant was thirteen feet and a half, according to the one, and fourteen feet according to the other; and its circumference, at the thickest extremity, was fifteen inches, according to the former, and eighteen, according to the latter; it gradually diminished throughout its whole length, was reduced to about one inch at the other extremity and terminated in a point: the thick end, according to Captain Chanal, was swelled in the shape of a bottle or bladder. Its flexible stem had the form of a hollow bamboo, but without knots, which occasioned it to be called sea bamboo. Its exterior surface, which was smooth and even, was, from one end to the other, covered with small shells of the species of muscles, according to the former, of that of barnacles, according to the latter, which were attached to it by pedicles of four, five, and even six inches long; these diaphanous pedicles, says Surgeon Roblet, of a fleshy and elastic consistence, resembled glass tubes filled with water, and had their transparency; the summit of each pedicle was terminated by a hinged shell of the form of a fish's head, composed of four moveable pieces, united by a membrane, which pieces contained a little animal with eight feet. Surgeon Roblet, to whom this last part of the description belongs, says that he is ignorant of the name of this animal, but he believes that it is called a barnacle. p. 180,

181.

After some curious observations on the barnacle and the hermit crab, the Author proceeds, "I am of opinion, that it is to the plant of which our voyagers have given a description, that the editor of the account of Anson's voyage has given the name of seaieck, of which it has nearly the form

and figure amplified; and this is the name too which has been given to it by Captain Cook, who saw similar plants nearly in the same latitude where Captain Marchand met with it; but neither of the English navigators have given of it a detailed description." p. 183.

features. Surgeon Roblet attributes their air of ferocity to their frequent expression of the passions by which they are agitated. Tattooing is little in use among the Tchinkitanayans ; a few men only are tattooed on the hands, and on the legs below the knee; almost all the women are tattooed on the same parts of the body." p. 218.

(To be continued.)

but sharp nose, little watery eyes sunk in the head, and prominent cheek bones. It is no easy matter to determine the colour of their complexion; it might be imagined to be red or light brown, but a coat of natural dirt, thickened by a foreign mixture of red and black substances, with which they smear their visage, suffers no remnant of their primitive skin to be discovered. The coloured strokes which they trace on their face, present not all the same design; but all equally add to their natural ugliness. Their coarse, thick hair, covered with ochre, down of birds, and all the filth which neglect and time have accumulated in it, contributes to render their aspect still more hideous. They wear their beard only at a certain age; the youths carefully eradicate it; adults suffer it to grow; and it is at this day well proved, by the unanimous account of the different voyagers who have visited the north-west coast of America, that all the Americans have a beard, in contradiction to the opinion of some of the learned, who refused it to the men of the new world, and wished to make this want of hair a variety in the human species. It is probable that the face of those at Tchinkitânay Bay would be less disgusting, if they preserved that which nature has given them; for the young boys have an agreeable, and even an interesting countenance, but age, and still more the trouble which they take to make themselves ugly by wishing to embellish-themselves, and in giving them hardy coarse, and even ferocious

XXXV. THE INCOME TAX scruti nized, and some Amendments proposed to render it more agreeable to the British Constitution. By JOHN GRAY, LL.D. 8vo. 84 pp. Pr. 25. H. D. Symonds.

ceives it should be levied on national income only. We cannot better express his idea than by copying the concluding paragraph of the pamphlet.

"To conclude, the sum of the whole is, that whatever affords an income to one person, without detracting from the income of another person, is both a private income and a national income; that what affords an income to one person by detracting from the income of another person, is a private income, without being a national income; and of this kind are the incomes of every person in society, excepting those of the farmer, the fishermen, and the merchant, in so far as his profits are not made upon his fellow-subjects; that it ought to be one of the first cares of government, that the national income should superabound, and consequently that storing and exportation of corn are both good things; that production, and not consumption, is the natural source of public supply; that the income tax is a tax that ought never to be departed from; but that it ought to be drawn from the real national income, and not from ima ginary national incomes; that a possessor of real income, who should withhold his just proportion of supply for the defence of the state would act as dishonourably as a military man, who in a day of battle should contend for the privilege of standing in the hindmost rank."