and the prince not only feized all that could be faved from the wreck, but claimed the captain and the crew as his flaves, and treated them with ferocious infolence. Alwi affured me, that, when he heard of the accident, he haftened to the prince, fell proftrate before him, and by ears and importunity prevailed on him to give the Europeans their liberty; that he fupported them at his own expence, enabled them to build another veffel, in which they failed to Hinzuan, and departed thence for Europe or India: he fhowed me the captain's promiffory notes for fums, which to an African trader must be a confiderable object, but which were no price for liberty, fafety, and, perhaps, life, which his good, though difinterested, offices had procured. I lamented, that, in in my fituation, it was wholly out of my power to affift Alwi in obtaining juftice; but he urged me to deliver an Arabic letter from him, enclosing the notes, to the governorgeneral, who, as he said, knew him well; and I complied with his requeft. Since it is poffible, that a fubftantial defence may be made by the perfon thus accused of injuftice, I will not name either him or the veffel which he had commanded; but if he be living, and if this pa per fhould fall into his hands, he may be induced to reflect how highly it imports our national honour, that a people, whom we call savage, but who administer to our convenience, may have no just cause to reproach us with a violation of our contracts." DESCRIPTION of CARNICOBAR and its INHABITANTS. By MR. G. HAMILTON. [ From the fame Work.] HE ifland, of which I pro led cachu. The only four-footed "T pofe to give a fuccinét ac animals upon the inland are hogs, count, is the northernmost of that cluster in the Bay of Bengal, which goes by the name of the Nicobars. It is low, of a round figure, about forty miles in circumference, and appears at a distance, as if entirely covered with tre s: however, there are feveral well-cleared and delightful fpots upon it. The foil is a black kind of clay, and marthy. It produces in great abundance, and with little care. moft of the tropical fruits, fuch as pine-apples, plantains, papayas, cocoa-nuts, and areca-nuts; allo excellent yams, and a root cal dogs, large rats, and an animal of the lizard kind, but large, called by the natives tolonqui; thefe frequently carry off fowls and chickens. The only kind of poultry are hens, and thofe not in great plenty. There are abundance of fnakes of many different kinds, and the inhabitants frequently die of their bites. The timber upon the island is of many forts, in great plenty, and fome of it remarkably large, affording excellent materials for building or repairing fhips. "The natives are low in ftature but but very well made, and furprizing- upon the fame. They have like ly active and ftrong; they are cop- wife plenty of small fea fish which per-coloured, and their features have they ftrike very dextroufly with a caft of the Malay; quite the re- lances, wading into the fea about verfe of elegant. The women in knee deep. They are fure of kilparticluar are extremely ugly. The ling a very fmall fish at ten or twelve. men cut their hair fhort, and the yards diftance. They eat the pork women have their heads fhaved almost raw, giving it only a hafty quite bare, and wear no covering grill over a quick fire. They roaft but a fhort petticoat, made of a fort a fowl, by running a piece of wood of rush or dry grafs, which reaches through it, by way of fpit, and holdhalf way down the thigh. This ing it over a brifk fire, until the grafs is not interwoven, but hangs feathers are burnt off, when it is round the perfon fomething like ready for eating, in their tafte. the thatching of a houfe. Such of They never drink water; only cothem as have received prefents of coa-nut milk and a liquor called foucloth-petticoats from the fhips, com- ra, which oozes from the c coa-nut monly tie them round immediately tree aftar cutting off the young under the arms. The men wear fprouts or flowers. This they fufnothing but a narrow ftrip of cloth fer to ferment before it is ufed, and about the middle, in which they then it is intoxicating, to which wrap up their privities fo tight that quality they and much by their methere hardly is any appearance of thod of drinking it, by fucking it them. The ears of both fexes are flowly through a small straw. Afpierced when young, and by fqueez- ter eating, the young men and ing into the holes large plugs of women, who are fancifully dreft wood, or hanging heavy weights of with leaves, go to dancing, and the fhells, they contrive to render them old people furround them fmoaking wide, and disagreeable to look at. tobacco and drinking foura. The They are naturally difpofed to be dancers, while performing, fing good humoured and gay, and are fome of their tunes which are far very fond of fitting at table with from wanting harmony, and to Europeans, where they eat every which they keep exact time. Of thing that is fet before them; and mufical inftruments they have only they eat most enormously. They one kind, and that the fimpleft. It do not care much for wine, but will is a hollow bamboo about 24 feet long drink bumpers of arak, as long as and three inches in diameter, along they can fee. A great part of their the outfide of which there is ftretchtime is fpent in feafting and dan-ed from end to end a fingle firing cing. When a feaft is held at any village, every one, that chufes, goes uninvited, for they are utter ftrangers to ceremony. At thofe feafts they eat immenfe quantities of pork, which is their favourite food. Their hogs are remarkably fat, being fed upon the cocoa-nut kernel and fea water; indeed all their domeftick animals, fowls, dogs, &c. are fed made of the threads of a split cane, and the place under the ftring is hollowed a little to prevent it from touching. This inftrument is played upon in the fame manner as a guitar. It is capable of producing but few notes; the perform er however makes it fpeak harmoniously, and generally accompanies it with the voice. D4 "What "What they know of phyfick is fmall and fimple. I had once occafion to see an operation in furgery performed on the toe of a young girl, who had been stung by a fcorpion or centipee. The wound was attended with a confiderable fwelling, and the little patient feemed in great pin. One of the natives produced the under jaw of a fmall fifh, which was long, and planted with two rows of teeth as fharp as needles; taking this in one hand, and a small stick by way of hammer in the other, he stuck the teeth three or four times into the fwelling, and made it bleed freely: the toe was then bound up with certain leaves, and next day the child was running about perfectly well. "Their houses are generally built upon the beach in villages of fifteen or twenty houfes each; and each house contains a family of twenty perfons and upwards. These habitations are raised upon wooden pillars about ten feet from the ground; they are round, and, having no windows, look like bee-hives, covered with thatch. The entry is through a trap door below, where the family mount by a ladder, which is drawn up at night. This manner of building is intended to fecure the houses from being infefted with fnakes, and rats, and for that purpofe the pillars are bound round with a smooth kind of leaf, which prevents animals from being able to mount; befides which, each pillar has a broad flat piece of wood near the top of it, the projecting of which effectually prevents the further pro grefs f fuch vermin as may have affed the leaf. The flooring is ade with thin ftrips of bamboos d at fuch distances from one anoner, as to leave free admiffion for Light and air, and the infide is neat ly finished and decorated with fishing lances, nets, &c. The art of making cloth of any kind is quite unknown to the inha bitants of this ifland; what they have is got from the fhips that come to trade in cocoa-nuts. In exchange for their nuts (which are reckoned the fineft in this part of India) they will accept of but few articles; what they chiefly with for is cloth of different colours, hatchets, and hanger blades, which they use in cutting down the nuts. Tobac co and arak they are very fond of, but expect thefe in prefents. They have no money of their own, nor will they allow any value to the coin of other countries, further than as they happen to fancy them for ornaments; the young women fometimes hanging ftrings of dollars about their necks. However they are good judges of gold and filver, and it is no eafy matter to impofe bafer metals upon them, as fuch. "They purchase a much larger quantity of cloth, than is confused upon their own ifland. This is intended for the Choury market. Choury it a small island to the fouthward of theirs, to which a large fleet of their boats fails every year about the mon of November, to exchange clo. for canoes; for they cannot make these themselves. This voyage they perform by the help of the fun and ftars, for they know nothing of the compafs. "In their difpofition there are two remarkable qualities. One is their entire neglect of compliment and ceremony, and the other, their averfion to difionefty. A Carnicobarian travelling to a distant village upon bufinefs or amusement, paffes through many towns in his way without perhaps fpeaking to any one: if he is hungry or tired, he goes up into the the nearest house, and helps himself to what he wants, and fits till he is rested, without taking the smallest notice of any of the family, unless he has pufinefs or news to communicate. Theit or robbery is so very rate amongst them, that a man going out of his house, never takes away his ladder, or fluts bis door, but leaves it open for any body to enter that pleales, without the leaft apprehenfion of having any thing ftolen from him. "Their intercourse with strangers is fo frequent, that they have acquired in general the barbarous Portuguefe, fo common over India; their own language has a found quite different from most others, their words being pronounced with a kind of ftop. or catch in the throat, at every fyllable. 66 They have no notion of a God, but they believe firmly in the devil, and worship him from fear. In every village there is a high pole erected with long ftrings of ground-rattans hanging from it, which, it is faid. has the virtue to keep him at a distance. When they fee any figns of an approaching ftorm, they imagine that the devil intends them a visit, upon which many fuperftitious ceremonies are performed. The people of every village march round their own boundaries, and fix up at different distances small sticks fplit at the top, into which split they put a piece of cocoa-nut, a wifp of tobacco, and the leaf of a certain plant: whether this is meant as a peace off ring to the devil, or a scarecrow to frighten him away, does not appear. "When a man dies, all his live ftock, cloth, hatchets, fishing lances, and in fhort every moveable thing he poffeffed is buried with him, and his death is mourned by the whole village. In one view this is an ex 5 cellent cuftom, seeing it prevents all difputes about the property of the deceased among his relations. His wife muft conform to cuftom by by having a joint cut off from one of her fingers; and, if the refufes this, the muft fubmit to have a deep notch cut in one of the pillars of her house. "I was once prefent at the funeral of an old woman. When we went into the houfe, which had belonged to the deceased, we found it full of her female relations; fome of them were employed in wrapping up the corpfe in leaves and cloth, and others tearing to pieces all the cloth which had belonged to her. In another house hard by, the men of the village, with a great many others from the neighbouring towns, were fitting drinking foura and fmoaking tobacco. In the mean time two ftout young fellows were bufy digging a grave in the fand near the house. When the women had done with the corpfe, they fet up a moft hideous howl, upon which the people began to affemble round the grave, and four men went up into the houfe to bring down the body; in doing this they were much interrupted by a young man, fon to the deceafed, who endeavoured with all his might to prevent them, but finding it in vain, he clung round the body, and was carried to the grave along with it: there, after a violent ftruggle, he was turned away and conducted back to the houfe. The corpfe being now put into the grave, and the lafhings, which bound the legs and arms cut, all the live ftock, which had been the property of the deceafed, confifting of about half a dozen hogs, and as many fowls, was killed, and flung in above it; a man then approached with a bunch of leaves leaves ftuck upon the end of a pole, which he fwept two or three times gently long the corpfe, and then the grave was filled up. During the ceremony, the women continued to make the most horrible vocal concert imaginable: the men faid nothing. A few days afterwards, a kind of monument was erected over the grave, with a pole upon it, to which long ftrips of cloth of different colours were hung. "Polygamy is not known among them; and their punishment of adultery is not lefs fevere than effectual. They cut, from the man's offending member, a piece of the foreskin proportioned to the frequent commiffion or enormity of the crime. "There seems to fubfift among them a perfect equality. A few perfons, from their age, have a little more refpect paid to them; but there is no appearance of authority one over another. Their fociety feems bound rather by mutual ob. ligations continually conferred and received; the fimpleft and beft of all ties. "The inhabitants of the Andamans are faid to be cannibals. The people of Carnicobar have a tradi tion among them, that feveral canoes came from Andaman many years ago, and that the crews were all armed, and committed great depredations, and killed several of the Nicobarians. It appears at first remarkable, that there should be fuch a wide difference between the manners of the inhabitants of islands fo near one another; the Andamans being favage canibals, and the others, the most harmless inoffenfive people poffible. But it is accounted for by the following historical anecdote, which, I have been affured, is matter of fact. Shortly after the Portuguese had discovered the pasfage to India round the Cape of Good Hope, one of their fhips, on board of which were a number of Mozambique negroes, was loft on the Andaman iflands, which were till then uninhabited. The blacks remained in the island and settled it; the Europeans made a small fhallop in which they failed to Pegu. On the other hand, the Nicobar iflands were peopled from the oppofite main, and the coaft of Pegu; in proof of which, the Nicobar and Pegu languages are faid, by those acquainted with the latter, to have much refemblance." ACCOUNT of the EMPIRE of BORNOU, and of the CUSTOMS, MANNERS, and GOVERNMENT of the INHABITANTS. [From the Proceedings of the Affociation for promoting the Discoveryaf the interior Parts of Africa.] "BORNO ORNOU, the name which the natives give to the country, is diftinguished in Arabic by the ap. pellation of Bernou or Bernoa, a word that fignifies the land of Noah, for the Arabs conceive that, on the first |