ignorant and degraded; for perhaps they are ignorant and degraded only because they have already been so much despised. There is no school now at Gay Head."North American Review, vol. 5, p. 319.

[House and Church of the Franciscans at Nanking.]

"As far as their religious poverty will allow, the house and church of the Franciscans at Nanking are decently adorned. They pass to their apartments through five little galleries or courts adorned in the middle with pleasant rows of flowers, for the ingenious Chinese plant several flowers along the crannies between the bricks that make the flooring, which grow up as high as a man, making fine flowery hedges on both sides. They grow up in forty days, and last four months. The flowers are peculiar to that country, and found no where else. One sort of them is called Kiquon, which has several shapes, colours, and strange forms, but very beautiful; some being of a cane colour, some like a dry rose, others yellow, but soft as any sleft silk. Among those crannies there grows an herb which, though it produce no flower, is very pleasant to behold, the leaves of it being in streaks, and painted by nature with a lively yellow, red, and green. The tulips growing about those courts are bigger than ours in Europe. Tube-roses are plentiful enough and very sweet, being mixed with the other flowers in all the alleys; so that the eyes and smell are sufficiently entertained all the way to the apartment of the bishop and religious men."-GEMELLI CARERI.

[The Island of Saint Borondon.] "SOME affirm that above one hundred leagues west of the Canaries, there is some. times seen an island called St. Borondon, which, they say, is very delightful and fertile, and inhabited by Christians; yet can

it not be said what language they speak, nor how the island came to be peopled. The Spaniards of the Canaries have often endeavoured to find out the said island; | but whether it be that it is always covered with a thick mist, which hinders it from being discovered, or that the current of the water thereabouts was so strong that it is a hard matter to land thereat, certain it is, that as yet, it subsists only in the opinion wherewith most seamen are prepossessed, that certainly there is an island in those parts."MANDELSLO.

[Zante-its Value.]

ZANTE the ancient Zacynthos,— called by Botero the Golden Island-it truly merits that name, says WHELER, from the Venetians, who draw so much gold by the Currant trade from hence and Cephalonia, as beareth the ordinary charge of their armada at sea.

Very populous; fifty towns or villages, in an island not above thirty miles about.

[The Causey leading from Chippenham

Clift to Wick Hill.]

"THERE is a Causey extending from a place called Chippenham Clift to Wick Hill, a distance of about four miles. At the first mentioned place is the following couplet, inscribed on a large upright stone.

'Hither extendeth Maud Heath's gift, For where I stand is Chippenham Clift. Erected in 1698, and given in 1474.' "At Wick Hill is a stone with another couplet :

"From this Wick Hill begins the praise Of Maud Heath's gift to these highways.'

"Some account of the charity and the time when it was given are recorded on another stone pillar at Calloways, near the further end of the Causey from Chippenham :

"Soon after eight, suddenly cold and a thick fog, which circumstances confirmed to Captain Smith that ice was near, and we soon perceived a large piece a head, of a scraggy form, the colour white, tinged with azure, the azure the more prevalent. The ice became more frequent, the small pieces mostly white, but the large azure, with an upper coat or rind of white. The sea calm and perfectly smooth, though the wind was freshened, the water making a roaring through cavities wrought by it in the large pieces; and a rushing noise as it passes over or aside of the small and low pieces, dipping as they swim, from their being impelled by the wind, or from their motion not being proportionably fast with that of the current. Soon after falling in with what is termed heavy ice-passing in narrow straits between these hills of white and azure-the roar and rush of the sea heard on all parts, the fog confining our view to a very narrow distance.

"The morning clear, with an extraordinary bright whiteness in some parts of the sky; the like we also saw on the evening before, between nine and ten, an indication of ice beneath. Heard frequently a great rush and roar in the water from the pieces of ice which broke off. The ice islands are easily avoided, as they move but slowly; their height and colour make them very

distinguishable even in the dark nights."Voyage for the Discovery of a N. West Passage by Hudson's Straits, 1746, 1747, by CAPTAIN FRANCIS SMITH, in the Ship California.

m

[French Fashions.]

"OUR fashions," says RIESBECK (writing in the assumed character of a Frenchman), "reach to the borders of Moldavia and Wallachia, and from Presburg to Cronstadt, all that is called the fine world speaks our Patois. Formerly they used their own language, at least to express common things, but every body now gives dinés, soupés, and déjeunés. There are balls paré and balls masqué; every town with four or five houses in it has its assemblées, and redoutes. The men play whist, and the women wear poudre The à la Maréchale, and have vapours. booksellers sell Voltaire in secret, and the apothecaries sell mercury openly. The men have an ami de la maison for their wives, and the wives a fille de chambre for their husbands. They have men cooks and maître d'hotels; they have ballets, comedies, and operas, and they have debts upon debts."

[The Typhoon.]

"APRIL 12. We set sail, going along the shore; the wind came fresher and larger, that is at E. S. E. About noon it blew very hard, and it came with so great gales that it raised the sands of the coast very high, raising them toward the heavens, in so great whirlwinds that they seemed like great smokes. About even-song time the armie (fleet) coming together, the wind calmed altogether to some ships; and some other that came hard by, or a little behind, or more to the sea, or to the land, had the wind so strong that they could bear no sail. The distance from those that were in calm and those that were in the storm being no more than a stone's cast, and presently within a

little space, it took the ships that were in calm with their sails up to the top, so that they had the wind very fresh, and the other that went very swift remained in calm, and so in short time the one was revenged of the other. This chanced going close all together, in such sort, that it seemed a thing done for the nonce and in mockage. In this chance there came some gales of E. and E. N. E. wind very great, and so hot that in their scorching they made no difference from flames of fire. The dusts that were raised on the shore went sometimes to one place and sometimes to another, as they were driven and cast with the winds: many times we saw them make three or four ways before they were alayed, or did fall into the sea, with the counter winds that took them from divers parts. This mystery and chance among hills and high grounds had not been much, nor any new thing to have happened, but so far from the coast with the sea winds, certainly it ought to be much regarded. When these counter-winds began to take us, we were at a port that is called Xaona; and going on in this sort, now striking sail, now hoysing, sometimes taking pastime at that which we saw, and other whiles dread and fear, we went almost till sunset, when we entered into a port called Gualibo, which is to say in Arabic the port of trouble.”— D. JOAM DE CASTRO. Purchas. 1138.

farre and neare, above one hundred miles. Some were of opinion that within it was molten gold ministring continuall matter and nourishment for the fire. Hereupon a certain Dominican Frier, determining to make trial of the matter, caused a brasse kettle, and an iron chaine to be made: afterward ascending to the top of the hill with four other Spaniards, he letteth downe the chaine and the kettle one hundred and forty elnes into the fornace: there, by extreme heate of the fire, the kettle and part of the chaine melted. The monke in a rage ran back to Leon, and chid the smith, because he had made the chaine far more slender than himself had commanded. The smith hammers out another of more substance and strength than the former. The monke returnes to the mountaines, and lets downe the chaine and the cauldron but with the like success that he had before. Neither did the caldron only vanish and melt away, but also, upon the sudden there came out of the depth a flame of fire, which had almost consumed the frier and his companions. Then they all returned so astonished that they had small list afterward to prosecute that attempt.”—ARNGRANIUS JoNAS, in Hakluyt.

[A certaine Fierie Mountain of Weast
India.]

"A CERTAINE fierie mountaine of Weast India hath farre more friendly censurers, and historiographers than our Hecla, who make not an infernall gulfe therof. The history of which mountain (because it is short and sweete) I will set downe, being written by Hieronimus Benzo, an Italian, in his History of the New World, lib. 2. These be the words. About thirty-five miles distant from Leon there is a mountaine which at a great hole belcheth out such mightie balles of flames, that in the night they shine

[Hecla the Prison of unclean Souls.]

"I THINKE it not amisse to tell a merie tale, which was the originall and ground of this hellish opinion, that Hecla is the prison of uncleane soules: namely that a ship of certaine strangers departing from Island, under full saile, a most swift pace, going directly on her course, met with another ship sailing against winde and weather and the force of the tempest as swiftly as themselves; who, hailing them of whence they were, answere was given by their governoure, De Bischop van Bremen; being the second time asked whether they were bound, he answered, Thom Heckelfeld tho, Thom Heckelfeld tho. I am affeard lest the reader at the sight of these things should call for

a bason, for it is such an abominable lie, that it would make a man cast his gorge to heare it."-Ibid.

[The Death of Pietro Della Valle's Wife.]

I THINK of this last siege of Ormuz with the more regret as it proved fatal to the happiness of PIETRO DELLA VALLE, the

excellent traveller so often here referred

to. After a long residence in Persia he arrived with his family on the coast, thinking to return by way of Ormuz to Europe, -he was near enough to hear the guns of the fortress, and the coast was so well guarded that it was impossible to effect a passage. While waiting with the English at Mina for passage in one of their ships, the pestilential fever of the country attacked all his party, and killed his wife. His account is very affecting. With great difficulty he succeeded in bringing her body to Rome.-Quare? ROBERT SOUTHEY.

[In Touraine.]

"THE hills near the river Loire are excavated into cellars, wine vaults, cottages, and even gentlemen's houses, with the different offices hewn in the rock, and presenting a very singular spectacle. "I took a few sketches," says MR. FORBES, "in this picturesque district, and particularly of a villa, consisting of three stories, each containing a suite of four or five large rooms, with recesses, chimney-pieces and other ornaments cut in the rock; the front being neatly fitted with doors and glass windows; the ascent to each floor is by a flight of rocky steps without, leading to a terrace in front of the apartment: the stairs and general face of this singular habitation were softened by vines, trained over the windows, in flaunty festoons of purple grapes, enriched by the autumnal leaves of crimson, green and gold in endless variety. The wine vaults and caverns beneath the house are of great extent; and its rocky surface is covered with

631

vineyards and orchards of apples, pears, peaches, almonds, walnuts, and mulberries, which actually form the roof of this romantic villa and the surrounding cottages."

[Niwegal Sands.]

that King Henry the Second spent in Ire"AT Niwegal Sands (during the winter land) as well as in almost all the other western ports, a very remarkable circumstance occurred. The sandy shores of South Wales being laid bare by the extraordinary violence of a storm, the surface of the earth, which had been covered for many ages, reappeared, and discovered the trunks of trees strokes of the hatchet appearing as if made cut off, standing in the very sea itself, the only yesterday: the soil was very black, and the wood like ebony; by a wonderful revolution, the road for ships became impassable, and looked not like a shore, but like a grove cut down perhaps at the time of the deluge, or not long after, but certainly in very remote times being by degrees consumed and swallowed up by the violence and encroachments of the sea. During the same tempest many sea-fish were driven, by the violence of the wind and waves, upon dry land."-HOARE'S Giraldus, vol. 1, p. 217.

[Dreadful Storm of 1196.]

"In the year 1196 there was a dreadful storm of mortality over the whole Isle of Britain and the borders of France, so that infinite number of the common people died, as well as of the nobility and princes. And in that tempestuous year Atropos distinguished herself from among her sisters, who heretofore were called the Goddesses of Destiny, by employing her malignant and baneful powers against a most illustrious prince, so that neither the relation of Tacitus the historian, nor the strains of Virgil

the poet, could express what lamentation,