which, perhaps, is not the case till several victims fall before him. Nothing but a lucky shot or blow, that stuns him to the earth, will ensure the safety of his opponent, as he proceeds with such a savage fierceness and impetuosity, that it is reckoned a most arduous and dangerous service to encounter him in this state. This is what is called running a muck; on the slightest alarm of which, every one flies before him, and escapes the best way he can. Whoever kills a Malay, in the act of running a muck, is entitled to a very high reward from government, and he certainly deserves it; for the most cool and intrepid are scarcely a match for the Malay, when worked to this pitch of desperate madness.

The two following instances happened when I was at Cape town:-A Malay, for some insult, or necessary chastisement received from his master, drew a knife and stabbed him to the heart, and immediately rushed into the streets with the weapon reeking with the blood of his unfortunate victim. The first person he met was a very fine slave girl, about seventeen years old, into whose face he darted the dreadful weapon. Fortunately a country farmer was, at the moment, passing by Strand-street, where it happened; and, having a gun loaded in the waggon he was driving, fired and killed the Malay on the spot. If this shot had not succeeded in bringing him down, I and a brother officer, who came to the spot a few moments after, would, in all probability, have been his next victims. The poor slave girl died a few hours after. This was the second time that a slave of the Malay race, running a muck, was prevented from falling in with me. Once indeed, at Ponamala, in the East Indies, I very narrowly

escaped, having been slightly wounded in the arm by a Malay, who had attacked some seapoys; and if I had not been fortunate enough to give him, at the first cut, so severe a wound as to disable him, he would certainly have put me to death. The kreese he struck me with was poisoned; and my arm, in consequence, swelled to a very great degree, and, for some time, it was thought I should have lost it, if not my life. I must here remark, that I received the greatest benefit from the eau de luce, which I have reason to believe is a valuable antidote against poison; it has been found to prevent fatal effects from the most venomous bites of snakes. Dr. Anderson, of Madras, was the first who administered it in those cases, and found its beneficial effects.

Another instance of the barbarity of this race of - slaves, which happened at the Cape whilst I was there, occurred in a Malay, who, on being refused leave by his master to go out to a festival, or merry-making, with his fellows, took a knife and stabbed him to the heart; then went to his mistress in the adjoining room, and committed on her the same barbarous and inhuman act. An old Malabar slave, who was cutting wood before the door, having observed him perpetrate these horrid murders, watched the opportunity as he was rushing out of the door, and, striking him on the head with the axe, with which he was cleaving the wood, killed him on the spot. The government was generous enough to reward the Malabar with his liberty and one hundred dollars. The Malays are certainly the most active and laborious race, do a great deal of work, and of every kind; and are equally useful in tilling and

cultivating the ground, as at those works which require mechanical dexterity.

ON TEMPERANCE.

Imitated from Horace.-Book I. Ode 12.

Integer vitæ, &c*.

BY THE REV. DR. GREAVES,

(Now nearly 100 years of age.)

I.

THE man that leads a sober life,
Obsequious to his careful wife,
Abstains from all high-season'd food,
And drinks no more than does him good;

II.

He needs no case of costly drams,

Nor hamper stuff'd with tongues and hams;
Much less the pills, that Quacks may puff,
Nor pois nous+ draughts of doctors' stuff!

III.

Whether through half-starv'd France he goes,
Or traversing th' unmelting snows
That crown the Alps and Appenines,
On frogs and stinking rabbits dines,
Or tempts the Volga's barbarous flood,
Where Tartars feed on horses' blood..

Honoured with the Bath-Easton Myrtle.
Nec venenatis gravidâ, sagittis, &c,

IV.

For late, on my return to College,
The seat of temperance and Knowledge,
A spotted fiend *, with fevers arm'd,
And pois'nous breath, the town alarm'd;
No Lynx or Leopard fiercer ranges
Amongst the Hindoos, on the Ganges,
Or haunts the much-fam'd Banks of Nile,
Where lurks the treach'rous crocodile.

V.

Yet, taking Temperance to my aid,
Undaunted through close lanes I stray'd,
And brav'd the monster, void of fear-
He found no food for fevers here.

VI.

-Place me amidst th'eternal frost
That reigns on Lapland's desert coast,
Where not a flower, or cheerful green,
Or scarce a cabbage-stem is seen,
But clouds, and fogs, and darkness drear,
Obscure and sadden half the year :-
Place me beneath the Torrid Zone,

pay,

Where scarce a crazy hutf is known:-
To Temp'rance while my Vows I
And sing her praise and offspring gay;
Fair Health my cares shall still beguile‡,
And sweetly prattle, sweetly smile.

The Small-Pox.

+ In terrâ domibus negatâ,

Dulce ridentem.

PLAGUE OF LONDON IN THE YEAR 1349.

"With dead and dying men our streets lie cover'd;`
And Earth exposes bodies on the pavements
More than she hides in graves.

Between the bride and bridegroom have I seen

The nuptial torch do common offices

Of marriage and of death."

DRYDEN'S OEDIP.

THE great plague which prevailed in England from August 1348 to August 1349*, which, in its wide and destructive progress, does not fall short of any in the records of mankind; began in Tartary in the year 1345†, and continued in the whole for not less than seven years. After having spread through the several kingdoms of Asia, it passed into Europe, and visited in turn every country and district into which this part of the world is divided, with impartial ruin. In London certainly not fewer than one hundred thousand persons perished‡, which was perhaps the half, and perhaps a greater proportion, of the population which the metropolis of England had then to boast.

Various circumstances, calculated to give us a vivid conception of this calamity, are selected by the judicious pen of Boccaccio. "Of the lower people," says he, "and of a great part of the middling class in Florence, the case was still more distressful than that of the rich. Influenced by hope or by poverty, multitudes of them

* History of Edward III. book ii. chap. viii. § 6, 13. + Barnes ubi supra, § 2, 3.-Stow, A.D. 1349. The old historians assure us that scarcely the tenth person was left alive.