N Upper Egypt every house and hut | In certain districts, no man is allowed to is provided with small houses or cones, painted white, for the brooding of pigeons. The number of these birds, in some parts, is quite surprising. I Pictures of Various Nations. CHAPTER II. The people of Greenland-Labrador. N order to observe some method, in our account of the people of America, we shall introduce our readers in the first place to the Greenlanders, for I shall here consider Greenland as belonging to the American continent. For a long time Greenland was supposed to be united to this American continent; but it is now ascertained to be a large island. It lies so near to America, however, on the north-east, that it is proper to speak of it in this connection. Greenland is a cold country, and very mountainous. It is quite barren, except in spots; but the sea is well stored with fish. The country also abounds with marry or keep house, unless he is in possession of a dove house. The reason assigned for this is, that the pigeons furnish the only manure for the grounds. reindeer, foxes, white bears, sea-wolves, sea-dogs and sea-cows. The Greenlanders are short in stature, seldom exceeding five feet in height; but well formed, and rather stout. Their faces are broad and flat; their eyes, nose, and mouth commonly small; their under lip sometimes thicker than the upper; they have high breasts and broad shoulders; their complexion is brown or olive, and their hair coal-black and long. When they rise in the morning, they appear thoughtful and dejected, but in the evening, when their toil is over, they are cheerful and happy. In general, however, they are not very lively in their temper, yet good-humored and friendly. When a person dies, they think he goes to the land of spirits where he spends his time in hunting They are very fond of hunting and fishing; and in both they are very expert. They kill many seals; these use as sauce, and of the blood they make soup. They use the oil also for lamp light and kitchen fire. clime, he longs for his native snows; and, if he cannot hope to return, he sometimes pines away and dies. furnish them with food.. The oil they Crossing Davis' Strait, which is not very wide, we reach that part of the American continent which is called Labrador. This is the country of the Esquimaux. The clothing of the Greenlanders is composed of the skin of the reindeer, seals, and some kinds of birds, which they sew together with the sinews of the reindeer, seal, or whale. Their best garments they keep quite neat; but their ordinary dress abounds in filth and vermin. Their clothes smell so strong, that an inhabitant of the United States would be glad to get to the windward of a Greenlander. The dwellings of the Greenlanders are of two sorts; one for summer, the other for winter. Their summer habitations are light tents, constructed with a few poles, covered with seal skins. Their winter habitations are built of stones, filled in with moss and covered with turf. The principal apartment is chiefly under ground, and the passage to it is so low, that it is necessary to creep rather than walk to it. The Greenland women are very much degraded, and their lives are toilsome. They act as butchers and cooks; they dress all the skins, and then make them into garments, boots, shoes, &c. They are even obliged to build and repair the winter habitations, excepting that the men assist about the carpenter's work. We are sure that our readers would not wish to live in Greenland; yet the inhabitants of that island think their country the best in the world. If at any time a Greenlander is carried to a warmer These people resemble the Greenlanders in several important respects. Like them, they are low in stature, and in complexion are very sallow. Their beards are thick and bushy; but, unlike the Greenlanders, their constitutions are feeble. They are a timorous people, and stroke their breasts in token of peace, when they approach a stranger. The word Esquimaux, signifies "eaters of raw flesh." They are very properly named. They are a rude and miserable race of beings, but some of them, it is said, have been taught to read the Scriptures. Their food consists chiefly of fish, with the flesh of the seal and the reindeer. Their greatest luxury is seal blubber, or oil, which they devour with as great relish as boys and girls of this country do sweetmeats. The dress of these people is made of skins. alike. The women use no trinkets except beads; but they ornament themselves by drawing a needle and thread, blackened with soot, under the skin. This leaves a light blue mark. It is a painful operation; but they delight so much in this kind of marks, that they sometimes cover almost their whole body with them. The Esquimaux have a singular kind of dog, of which they keep large numbers. In this country, we should think it strange if a dog could not bark; yet theirs never bark. They make use of them to draw their sledges and guard their habitations. Sometimes they eat them, and use their skins for clothing. Their dwellings in winter resemble caves or holes dug in the earth. They are rendered very filthy by the large quantities of fat or oil which are burnt in them, and which are used in cooking. In summer, they live in tents, much like the Greenlanders. When Captain Parry made his voyage towards the north pole, a few years since, he found some Esquimaux people living north of Hudson's Bay. These lived in huts, built of frozen snow. They were very talkative, good-humored and friendly. When they saw anything that pleased them, some fell to singing and dancing, while others screamed as loud as they could. Captain Parry's men gave them some food; but they made up hideous mouths at it, till, at length, a sailor wet up some dried bread pounded fine, with train-oil, which they licked up with great delight. This would be a loathsome dish to some of our readers in the United States. These people seem to have no idea of formal religious worship, yet they believe they shall live after death; and if they are good, according to their ideas, that they shall go to heaven and be perfectly happy. Perfect happiness, in their view, no doubt, consists in having plenty of blubber to eat. Without the light of the Bible, how degraded mankind are! "JOHN, your coat is too short." "Yes, sir; but it will be long enough before I get another." Bonaparte and the Leg of Mutton. OME forty years ago, we are told that in England, such was the horror generally entertained of Bonaparte, that he was not only the fear of statesmen, but the bug-bear of the nursery and the schoolroom. "If you do this," said the schoolma'm, birch in hand, "I'll send Bony after you ;" and, "if you don't do that, I'll do the same thing." Bony was, in fact, the great scare-crow,—and many a child grew up under the impression that he was, a sort of secondary evil spirit. We are told by an English writer, that, at a certain boarding school, upon one occasion, a leg of mutton was stolen, and, as almost every evil thing was laid to Bonaparte, the children immediately supposed that he must be the thief! The writer himself, then a child, fancied the emperor, with the mutton in his fist, running off with it, and taking enormous strides in his eagerness to escape. How many lasting prejudices, how many abiding errors are fixed in the NAMES OF COUNTRIES AND PLACES-SNUFF-TAKING 59 for, beyond this, westward, the Phœnicians never extended their voyages. mind by the inconsiderate threats of | region. Hibernia means last habitation; those who have the charge of youth! It is probable that many of the various defects, weaknesses and eccentricities of character,—those is some cases which are fatal to success in life,—are caused by the foolish and false modes of government to which we allude. We hardly know of a more unpardonable offence than for a person to endeavor to govern a child through fear of some fictitious evil, Names of Countries and Places. T HE following countries were named by the Phoenicians, the greatest commercial people of the ancient world. These names, in the Phonician language, signify something characteristic of the place which they desig: nated. Europe signifies a country of white complexions, so named, because the inhabitants there were of a fairer complexion than those of Asia and Africa. Asia signifies between, or in the middle, from the fact that the geògraphers placed it between Europe and Africa. Africa, signifies the land of corn ears; it was celebrated for its abundance of corn and all sorts of grain. Britain signifies the country of tin, as there were great quantities of tin and lead found here and in the adjacent islands. The Greeks called it Albion, which signifies, in the Phoenician tongue, either white or high mountain, from the whiteness of its shores, or the high rocks on the western coast. Corsica signifies a woody place, and Sardinia, the footstep of a man, which it resembles. means serpents or dragons, which it produced in abundance. Sicily means the country of grapes; Scylla, the whirlpool, is destruction. Syracuse signifies bad savor, so called from the unwholesome marsh upon which it stood. Ætna signifies furnace, or smoke. Snuff Taking. Rhodes, NUFF-taking is an old custom; yet, if 'we came suddenly upon it in a foreign country, it would make us split our sides with laughter. A grave gentleman takes a little casket out of his pocket, puts a finger and thumb in, brings away a pinch of a sort of powder, and then, with the most serious air pos Lydia signifies thirsty or dry, very characteristic of the country. Spain sig-sible, as if he were doing one of the most nifies a country of rabbits or conies; this country was once so infested with these animals, that Augustus was besought to destroy them. Italy means a country of pitch; and Calabria has the same signification, for a similar reason. Gaul, modern France, signifies yellow-haired, as yellow hair characterized its first inhabitants. Caledonia means a woody important acts of his life-for, even with the most indifferent snuff-taker, there is a certain look of importance-proceeds to thrust it into his nose; after which he shakes his head, or his waiscoat, or his nose itself, or all three, in the style of a man who has done his duty and satisfied the most serious claims of his well being. It is curious to see the various ways in which people take snuff. Some do it by little fits and starts, and get over the thing quickly. There are epigrammatic snuff-takers, who come to the point as fast as possible, and to whom the pungency is everything. They generally use a sharp and severe snuff, a sort of essence of pins' points. Others are all urbanity and polished demeanor; they value the style, as well as the sensation, and offer the box around them as much out of dignity as benevolence. Some people take snuff irritably, others bashfully, others in a manner as dry as the snuff itself, generally with an economy of the vegetable; others with a luxuriance of gesture, and a lavishness of supply that announces a more moist article, and sheds its superfluous honors upon neckcloth and coat. Dr. Johnson was probably a snuff-taker of this kind. He used to take it out of his waistcoat pocket, instead of a box. There is a species of long-armed snuff-takers who perform the operation in a style of potent and elaborate preparation, ending with a sudden activity. He puts his head on one side, then stretches forth his arm with pinch in hand, then brings round his arm as a snuff-taking elephant might his trunk, and finally shakes snuff, head and nose together, in a sudden vehemence of convulsion. His eyebrows are all the time lifted up, as if to make more room for the onset, and when he has ended, he draws himself up to the perpendicular, and generally proclaims the victory he has won over the insipidity of the previous moment, by a snuff and a great "Flah!" Squirrels. N the second volume of the Museum, we told some things about squirrels in general, but did not say anything about the different kinds particularly, which we will now proceed to do. They are so interesting a class (or, as the naturalists would say, genus) of animals, and especially so to children and young persons, that we think the readers of Merry's Museum will like to hear more about them. They have often, I have no doubt, been delighted at seeing their gambols, and their activity in leaping from tree to tree, and especially in seeing them. eat nuts, sitting on their hinder legs, or haunches, with their bushy tails turned up over their bodies, and holding the nuts in their fore-paws, and making a hole through the shell with their sharp teeth to extract the kernel. It is very amusing to observe them thus engaged, and very surprising to see how rapidly they will make a hole through the hardést shelled nut. For this purpose, without doubt, it is, that He who made the squirrels, and who is the same glorious Being that created us, has formed their teeth very strong and very sharp. There is quite a variety of squirrels that inhabit this country, but the most common in New England are the Gray Squirrel, the Red Squirrel, the Ground or Chip Squirrel, and the Flying Squirrel. All these kinds are frequently to be seen in almost every district, though the flying squirrel, on account of his habit of stirring about in the night, and lying still in the day-time, is not so |