are compofed, being covered with skins, and so very low, that a man muft either ftoop very much, or crawl on his knees, to get into them. They ferve, indeed, chiefly to contain provifions, and their implements of husbandry; the owner himself never occupying them unless when it rains: At other times, he paffes his leisure hours in fleeping at the door of his hut; where he lies on his belly, and exposes his back to the fun and the weather; waking now and then to amufe himself with fmoaking a certain ftrong scented herb, which hath much the fame effect as our tobacco. The employment of the Hottentots is purely paftoral; their principal and almoft only occupation being the care of their herds of theep and kine. Of thefe each village hath one common herd, every inhabitant taking it in his turn to be herdfman. This charge requires a great many precautions, very different to those which are taken by our herdf. men with us; beafts of prey being much more numerous and fierce in the fouthern parts of Africa than in Europe. Lions, indeed, are not very common there; but there are leopards, tygers, and feveral kinds of wolves, more deftructive than ours, together with many other furious animals that abound in the forefts, and occafionally make excurfions toward the Cape, and destroy the tame cattle. To prevent thefe misfortunes, it is the bufinefs of the herdimen to go or fend every day round his diftrict, in order to discover if any beast of prey be lurking in that quarter. In which cafe, he affembles the whole vil lage together, and makes his report; when a party of the ftouteft among them, arm themselves with javelins and poifoned arrows, and follows the perfon who may have difcovered the beast, to the cave or covert where he is lodged*. Here they arrange themselves in two lines; the herdiman enters the cave, and endeavours to provoke the beat to follow him out, where he is infallibly destroyed. United among themselves by the bonds of fraternal concord, the inhabitants of the fame village live in conftant peace. But they take cruel vengeance on the neighbouring tribes, on the first infult that is offered them. The fubject of their mutual complaints is generally the stealing of a sheep or cow, and fometimes only a fufpicion of it; the confequences, however, are usually very terrible, when they determine on revenge; as they take all poffible means, after having made this determination, to make the aggreffors fuppose the injury forgotten: but no fooner do they find their diffimulation hath taken effect, in the fecurity of the enemy, than they fall fuddenly upon them, with poifoned weapons, fparing neither age nor fex, but rooting up at once the whole community. Such is the method of going to war in this country. As to the civil government of the Hottentots, the care of houshold affairs belongs to the department of the females. The men, indeed, are the butchers, and prepare the meat for dreffing; but the care of providing the vegetables concerns only the women. This the mother of a family sets about in a morning, attended by fuch of her children as are able to follow her, and carrying the reft in her arms or on her back. In this manner the fearches the woods and river fides, for roots, pulse, or fruit; of which having gotten a fufficient quantity, the returns, lights a fire on a large stone before the cabbin, and when the victuals is dressed, wakes her husband, who fits down to his meal with the rest of the family. The women are cloathed with fheepfkins, as well as the men; wearing the wool outwards in fummer, and inwards during the winter. They wear one skin over their fhoulders, the ends of it crosfing each other before, and leaving their necks bare; another skin is fastened round their middle, and reaches down to their knees. Thole of them who are ambitious to please, adorn them felves It is to be obferved, that the principal motive for the beaft's leaving the foreft being to quench his thirst, he always lurks about the fide of fome river; and instead of returning this former haunts, fecretes himfelf in fome hole or cavern in the banks of the stream. felves with necklaces of fhells: for even in this country the fex have their charms, which they endeavour to heighten by fuch arts as are peculiar to themfelves, and would meet with little fuccefs elsewhere. To this end they greafe their faces, necks, and all the naked parts of their bodies with mutton fuet, in order to make them fhine. They braid also or plait their hair, to give themselves an additional elegance. An Hottentot lady thus bedizened, hath exhaufted all the arts of her toilette; and however unfavourable nature may have been to her with regard to fhape and ftature, her pride is wonderfully flattered, while the fplendour of her appearance gives her the highest degree of fatisfaction." of the climate has over them, the habit of commanding flaves from their infancy, and of being obeyed, the fondness which their parents in general exprefs towards them, the licence which the manners of the country tolerate; all these causes, combined with a vigorous flow of spirits in the heat of youth, may account for the impatience, impetuofity and obftinacy of their difpofitions. The fuppleness of their bodies renders them fit for any kind of exercise, as the vivacity of their imagination qualifies them for the attainment of any kind of knowledge. But the fame cause, from whence they derive these advanta ges, checks them in their progress towards perfection. The imagination, that faculty of the foul which bears no reftraint, which always increases the arCC dor of the paffions, renders the Americans fickle and inconftant in their tafte. It hurries them away to the pursuit of pleasure, and that purfuit engroffes them totally. From the LONDON MAGAZINE. Characters of the American French, the "T HE failings of these people, (the American French) are counterbalanced by many excellent good qualities, and their failings very often arife from the fame principles from whence their virtues take their fource. They are brave, intrepid, generous, and firmly attached to their fovereign. The views of nature and found policy, which require that no man fhould be useless to the state, are accomplished in these islands. Every American has a profeffion. In thefe countries they ftill warmly practise that kind and generous hospitality towards all strangers in general, of which history only furnishes fome ancient traditions in the firft ages of mankind: Yet their benevolence and good nefs of heart does not, in general, extend to their negroes. They are, for the most part, too fevere and unfeeling with regard to them. The Americans are accufed of being too hafty, impatient, obftinate and wilful, But the influence which the heat Thofe who have been fent to receive their education in France, have given the most promifing hopes of their future progrefs. But they are no fooner advanced to the dawn of manhood, when the paffions begin to rage, than they give up the fciences, and renounce the belles lettres, for which nature has afforded them fuch fhining talents. The American women blend an un common degree of vivacity and impatience, with an extreme indolence. They are haughty, refolute, and, like the men, obftinately bent on their own will. They are likewife equally jealous of the point of honour, with respect to perfonal valour. A woman would think herself difgraced, if her husband's courage was called in question. It is difficult to reconcile the generofity and fenfibility of their characters, with the extraordinary severity they use towards their flaves; a feverity in which they exceed the men. Their hearts are formed for love, and readily enter into attachments; they are very tender in their affections, and never employ any of the arts of feduce "The Caribbees not being fufceptible of any pleasures beyond thofe of the brute creation, appear likewife to have no sense of any other pains than fuch as brutes experience. Living in a state of fimplicity, they have not, like us, multiplied the object of defire, and confequently encreafed the difficulty of attaining them. Their views are confined to the neceffaries of life, and they are ftrangers to its fuperfluities. Among them, one is not debased to exalt another. They are unacquainted with the diftinctions of the great and the common people. They all confider themfelves as children of the fame parent: they all elaim equal merit from their country, as they all equally concur in defence of the common cause. The ftupidity of their eye presents a mirror, which reflects the true difpofition of their fouls. Their indolence is incredible; and they never give themfelves a moment's uneafinefs about the future hour. They pals their lives, one while fit ting with fupine inertness, and, at another, ftretched out in a hammock, where they fleep and fmoke. Hunger fometimes obliges them to go in fearch of food, either by hunting or fifhing. They carry their provifion home, and their wives dress it. Among them the women bear all the drudgery: they never eat with their husbands, who would think it a difhonour to them. But the manners of the Europeans have rendered them less forupulous on this head. Love, among them, is an appetite which does not differ from hunger or thirft. They never thew the leaft attention, or exprefs the leaft marks of tendernefs or friendship for the fair fex, who are fo much courted by polished nations, and fo much flighted among thofe who live in a state of nature. Yet they have no reason to complain of the infidelity of their wives. Coquetry nor vanity do not prefent them with any flattering hopes of pleasure in inconftancy: they find that they are born to obey, and they fubmit to their lot. Wherever they might transfer their affection, they would only get a new mafter, by changing their lover. Add to this, that their inconftancy and infidelity would be punished with speedy death." "The negroes are, or appear to be, naturally timid and daftardly: but when fupported by the prefence of their mas ters, they brave every kind of danger, and will fight till they expire by their fides. All the negroes, from whatever part of Guinea they come, are extremely addicted to fuperftition, and believe in magic and forcery. They imagine that fuch fupernatural power can deprive them of their mistreffes affection. This apprehenfion is, to them, of all others moft tormenting, and alarms them as much as the confideration of their own perfonal fecurity. Love, that child of nature, whom no chains or impediments can restrain, who breaks through every obstacle, gives life to every action and fentiment of a negroe. Love alone alleviates the weight of their flavery. They are neither daunted by perils nor deterred by chaftilement. A negroe will leave his mafter in the night, traverfe an extenfive wood, exposed to the attacks of noxious animals, and, without any fear of being apprehended as a fugitive, will vifit his mistress: his abode is often fo diftant from hers, that the journey alone confumes the whole time which fhould be deftined to fleep and refreshment. The attachments. The negroe women have as ftrong paffions as the men. Nevertheless, they are in general mutually conftant in their Vauity is the rock on which the fidelity of the women generally splits: It is feldom that they are proof against the add effes of awhiteman. The afte of Europeans for women of this colour may feem aftonishing. It is nevertheless very general; and it is difficult to fay, whether they have been led to it by opportunity and eafinefs of accefs, by idleness, by the influence of the climate, by habit, by example, by indolence, by the haughtiness of the white women, and the little pains they take to make themselves agreeable; or, perhaps, in the infant ftate of our colonies, by a motive of curiofity, and a fcarcity of women. thers, with fuch a fudden and unheard of inundation, that it covered fome islands of Zealand, great part of the coaft of Holland, and almost all Friefland; was higher by a foot than that which happened in 1530, and swallowed up 72 villages; and in Friesland alone deftroyed above 20,000 people, whose bodies, with those of their cattle, their household-ftuf, and broken vessels, floating upon the drowned country, gave thofe that escaped a lively reprefentation of Noah's deluge. Many people getting up to the tops of trees and rifing grounds, were in danger of being familhed, till they were brought off in boats by the care of the magistrates. They fuffered likewife much by an inundation in 1655, but more by one in November 1665, which drove in the fea with fuch incredible violences between the Texel and the Helder, that it carried part of the village of Huyfduynen quite away, and laid all the country between Wiring and Zip under water; the dyke near Horn was broke in two places; the water came to the gates of Medenblick, overflowed many villages, and of a fudden turned a large tract of the country into a continued fea, which deftroyed much people and cattle. The dyke of Muydenberg was alfo broke down; fo that all the country round Naerden, Muyden, and Weysop, as far as Loren in Goyland, and Balecorm in NickIcici () I the province of Utrecht, was under wa Nevertheless, depraved as this inclination may appear, it is certain that our colonies derive fome advantages from this corruption of manners. The negroe women who cohabit with the white men, are generally more than ordinary attentive to their duty; and they contract a peculiarity of fentiment which diftinguishes them from the reit. They preferve their masters and their lovers from the confpiracies of the flaves: and the government owes to them the detection of a general confpiracy formed by the negroes of Martinico." ter. The gates and ramparts of Naerden were ruined; -and that strong rampart of tone, called the Affe's Back, built to repel the waves, was hurried away, leaving a hole where it stood of 36 feet deep. In Amfterdam, the Newen dyke, with the street upon it, and the neighbouring market place, was quite overflowed. The dyke betwixt Amfterdam and Haerlem was broke in the middle for thirty or forty rods, fo that there was about thirty-three feet water in thofe parts. There were many other dykes had the fame fate; the country in many places, and particularly a great part of Waterland, was entirely fwallowed up. The The fituation of England being higher, this country of courfe is not fo fubject to inundations. Yet in the lower parts great very often have been the calamities occafioned by continued rains. Thefe fwelling the rivers to a high degree, have frequently overflowed vast tracts of land, fweeping away the corn, cattle, &c. especially when the violence of the torrents thus fwelled, has been increased by a strong north-east or a foutherly wind: of this the counties of Lincoln, Effex, Monmouth, Glamorgan, and other watery diftricts, have more than once bore fad teftimony. Nor have the ill effects of a long fucceffion of rain been confined to inundations only. In 1149 fo great a rain fell in the fummer feafon, that it did prodigious hurt to the growing corn, infomuch that a fevere dearth followed. In 1152 it was the fame, only attended with this further evil, that it was fucceeded by a very great mortality. In the fifth year of Henry VI. it rained almost continually from Eafter to Michaelmas. I fhall close this melancholy account with a droll circumstance mentioned by one of our old English hiftorians. "In the year 1524 (fays he) through bookes of ephimerides, and prognoftications, foreshewing much hurt to come by waters and floudes, many persons vittayled themselves, and went to highe groundes for feare of drowning, efpeciallye one Bolton, Prior of St. Bartholomew's in Smithfielde, builded him an house upon Harrow on the hill, only for feare of this floude, and thither he went, and made provision of all things neceflarie for the space of two monthes. Thys great rayne and waters should have failen in Februarie, but no fuch thing hap pened, whereby the folly of men was fhewed. The aftronomers for their excufe fayed, that in their computation they had miscounted in their number an hundred years." From the UNIVERSAL MUSEUM. Lives of remarkable Painters and Statuaries. Extracted from Mr. Horace Walpole's third Vol. of Anecdotes of Painting in England, juft published. R Ichard Gibson, the dwarf, being page to a lady at Mortlack, was placed by her with Francisco Cleyne, to learn to draw, in which he fucceeded, perfecting himself by copying the works of Sir Peter Lely, who drew Gibson's picture leaning on a bust, 1658, another evidence of Sir Peter being here before the restoration. It was in the poffession of Mr. Rofe the jeweller, who had another head of the dwarf by Dobson, and his little wife in black, by Lely. This diminutive couple were married in the prefence of Charles I. and his queen, who befpoke a diamond ring for the bride, but the troubles coming on the never received it. Her † name was Anne Shepherd. The little pair were each three feet ten inches high. Waller has celebrated their nuptials in one of his prettiest poems. The husband was page to the king, and had already attained fuch excellence, that a picture of the man and loft sheep painted by him, and much admired by the king, was the cause of Vanderdort's death, Tho. earl of Pembroke had the portraits of the dwarfs hand in hand by Sir Peter Lely, and exchanging it for another picture, it fell into the poffeffion of Cock the auctioneer, who sold it to Mr. Gibfon the painter 1712. It was painted in the ftyle of Vandyck. Mr. Rofe had another small piece of the dwarf and his mafter Francesco Cleyne, in green habits as archers, with bows and arrows, and he had preserved Gibson's bow, who was fond of archery. Gibson taught Queen Anne to draw, and went to Holland to inftruct her fifter, the Princefs He married Gibson's daughter, a paintress. of Gibfon had been patronized by Philip earl of Pembroke, and painted Cromwell's picture feveral times. Mrs. Gibson is reprefented by Vandyck in the picture with the duchefs of Richmond at Wilton. |