FUNERAL IN OTAHEITE.

In the Twenty-fifth Volume of the FAMILY LIBRARY, the Mutiny of the Bounty, is the following account of a native funeral, in the Island of Otaheite, which was attended by Sir Joseph Banks, then a private gentleman, accompanying the expedition fitted out for the main purpose of observing the transit of Venus over the sun's disc, which happened in the year 1769.

An old woman having died, Mr. Banks, whose pursuit was knowledge of every kind, and who to gain it, made himself one of the people, requested he might attend the ceremony, and witness all the mysteries of the solemnity of depositing the body in the Morai, or burying-place. The request was complied with, but on no other condition than his taking a part in it. This was just what was wished. In the evening, he repaired to the house of mourning, where he was received by the daughter of the deceased and several others, among whom was a boy, about fourteen years old. One of the chiefs of the district was the principal mourner, wearing a fantastical dress.

Mr. Banks was stripped entirely of his European clothes, and a small piece of cloth was tied round his middle. His face and body were then smeared with charcoal and water, as low as the shoulders, till they were as black as those of a Negro: the same operation was performed on the rest, among whom were some women, who were reduced to a state as near nakedness as himself: the boy was blacked all over: after which the procession set forward, the chief mourner having mumbled something like a prayer over the body.

It is the custom of the Indians to fly from these processions with the utmost precipitation. On the present occasion, several large parties of the natives were put to flight, all the houses were deserted, and not an Otaheitan was to be seen. The body being deposited on a stage erected for it, the mourners were dismissed to wash themselves in the river, and to resume their customary dresses, and their usual gaiety.

How striking and interesting a contrast does the account of the interment of the King and Queen of the same Islands afford of the triumphs of Christianity, as given by Captain Byron, in his Voyage to the Sandwich Islands, in 1824. He was appointed to convey their bodies from England, where they had died of the measles, whilst on a visit to his Majesty George IV.

"As soon as the coffins were deposited on the platform, the band accompanied some native singers in a funeral hymn, which the missionaries had written, and taught them to sing to the air of Pleyel's German Hymn. We could not help reflecting on the strange combination of circumstances here before us: every thing native-born and ancient in the Isles was passing away.

"The dead chiefs lay there, hidden in more splendid cerements than their ancestors had ever dreamed of; no bloody sacrifice stained their obsequies, nor was one obscene memorial made to insult the soul as it left its earthly tenement; but instead, there was hope held out of a resurrection to happiness, and the doctrines admitted that had put an end to such sacrifice for ever, and pronounced the highest blessing on the highest purity! Where the naked savage only had been seen, the decent clothing of a cultivated people had succeeded, and its adoption, though now occasional, promises permanency at no distant period. Mingled with these willing disciples, were the warlike and noble of a land the most remote on the globe, teaching, by their sympathy, the charities that soften, yet dignify human nature. The savage yells of brutal orgies were now silenced; and as the solemn sounds were heard, for the first time uniting the

instruments of Europe and the composition of a learned musician, to the simple voice of the savage, and words not indeed harsh in themselves, framed into verse by the industry and piety of the teachers from a remote nation, came upon the ear, it was impossible not to feel a sensation approaching to awe, at the marvellous and rapid change a few years have produced."

voutly, and the world busily; do thy work wisely; give HOW TO PASS THE DAY.-Arise early; serve God de thine alms secretly; go by thy way sadly [gravely]; answer the people demurely; go to thy meat appetitely; sit thereat discreetly; of thy tongue be not too liberal; arise therefrom temperately. Go to thy supper soberly, and to thy bed merrily, and sleep surely.-DAME JULIA BArnes.

HUMAN HAPPINESS.

ONE morning in the month of May
I wandered o'er the hill;
Though nature all around was gay,

My heart was heavy still.

Can God, I thought, the just, the great,
These meaner creatures bless;
And yet deny to man's estate

The boon of happiness?

Tell me, ye woods, ye smiling plains,
Ye blissful birds around,

Oh where, in Nature's wide domains,
Can peace for man be found?
The birds wide carolled over head;
The breeze around me blew;
And Nature's awful chorus said,

No bliss for man she knew.

I asked of Youth, "Could Youth supply
"The joys I sought to find?"
Youth paused, and pointed with a sigh
Where age stole on behind.

I turned to Love, whose early ray
So goodly bright appears;

And heard the trembling wanton say,

His light was dimm'd with tears.

I turn'd to Friendship.-Friendship mourn'd,
And thus his answer gave;—

"The Friends whom Fortune had not turn'd,
"Were vanish'd in the grave."

I asked if Vice would Joy bestow·
Vice boasted loud and well;
But fading from her pallid brow,
The venom'd roses fell.

I questioned Feeling, if her skill
Could heal the wounded breast?
And found her sorrows streaming still,
For others' grief distrest.

I questioned Virtue:-Virtue sigh'd—
No boon could she dispense;
"Nor Virtue, was her name," she cried,
"But humble Penitence !""

I questioned Death-the grisly shade
Relaxed his brow severe,-
And "I am Happiness," he said,

"If Virtue guides thee here!"-R. H.

I ENVY no quality of the mind, or intellect, in others; not genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness-creates new decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws over the all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity: makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to Paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair!-SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.

THE BAOBAB TREE.-(Adansonia Digitata.)

Bud, Leaf, and Blossom of the Baobab.

THIS superb tree is a native of the burning climate of Africa. It is supposed, by the inhabitants of a shore which abounds with gigantic shrubs, to be the largest and most majestic production of the vegetable kingdom; and, from its enormous size and noble appearance, it well merits the title of Monarch of the Forest. Its trunk, which is scarcely ever known to exceed fifteen feet in height, often measures no less than eighty in circumference. The lower branches, which are adorned with tufts of leaves, extend from its sides horizontally, and bending by their great weight towards the earth, form a mass of verdure no less astonishing in size than beautiful in appearance. The circumference of a full-grown tree, measuring the circle which surrounds the branches, is said in some cases to be as much as four hundred and fifty feet; when of this size, its bulk is so enormous that, at a distance, it bears a greater resemblance to an overgrown forest than to a single tree. It is beneath the grateful shade of its spreading boughs that the wearied Negroes lie down, when scorched by the burning sun of their sultry climate; and it is the friendly shelter of its overhanging branches that the benighted traveller seeks, when overtaken or threatened with a storm. The countries of Africa which are particularly favourable to the production of this tree, and in which it chiefly flourishes, are those which lie along the coast and shores of the Niger, as far down as the kingdom of Benin.

The blossoms are as gigantic in proportion as the tree which bears them: they begin usually to appear about the month of July. The fruit ripens towards the latter end of the month of October, or in the early part of November. It differs greatly in its

shape; sometimes it is found of an oblong form, pointed at both ends; at other times, it is said to be perfectly globular; and it often bears a shape in medium between these two. In its size it differs as considerably as in its shape. It is covered with a green rind or shell, which, however, as it dries, becomes of a dark fawn colour, and often assumes a deep brown. It is very prettily marked and ornamented with rays, and is suspended from the tree by a pedicle or stalk, the length of which is nearly two feet. The fruit, when broken, exhibits to the eye a spongy substance of a pale chocolate colour, containing much juice. Its seeds are brown, and in shape resemble a kidney-bean. The bark of the tree is nearly an inch in thickness, of an ash-coloured grey, greasy to the touch, and very smooth; the exterior is adorned with a description of varnish; while the inside is of a brilliant green, beautifully speckled with bright red. The wood itself is white, and very soft and penetrable, and is said to possess many very peculiar virtues, which are held in much esteem by the Negroes.

The age of this tree is not the least extraordinary part of its history. From names and dates which appear to have been carved upon some of them by Europeans, we are led to conclude that they were in existence five or six centuries ago. The leaves, when the tree is in its carliest infancy, are of an oblong shape, about four or five inches in length, having several veins running from the middle rib of a beautiful and bright green; as the plant advances in growth, and increases in height and size, the shape of the leaves alters, and they become divided into three parts; afterwards, when the tree has attained its complete growth, and become a full-sized and vigorous vegetable, these three divisions increase to five, and the leaf assumes a shape not unlike that of the human hand.

The Negroes of Senegal dry the bark and the leaves in the shade, and then reduce them to a fine powder. This powder, which is of a green colour, they preserve in little linen or cotton bags, and term it lillo. They use it at their meals and in their cookery,-putting a pinch or two into their food, in the same manner as we do pepper and salt, not so much with an idea of giving a relish to the dish, as with a view to preserve their health, to keep up a perpetual and plentiful perspiration, and to temper the too great heat of their blood; purposes which, if we may credit the reports of several Europeans, it is admirably calculated for. There is an epidemic fever, which rages in parts of Africa generally during the months of September and October, when the rains having on a sudden ceased, the sun exhales the water left by them upon the ground, and fills the air with noxious vapours. During this critical season, a light decoction, prepared from the leaves of the Baobab tree, gathered the preceding year and carefully dried in the shade, is reckoned a most serviceable remedy.

Nor is the fruit less valuable than the leaves or bark. The pulp, in which the seeds are enveloped, forms a very grateful, cooling, and slightly acid food, and is often eaten as a treat by the natives: the richer sort amongst them mix sugar with it to correct its acidity. The woody bark of the fruit, and the fruit itself when spoiled, help to supply the Negroes with an excellent soap, which they procure by drawing a ley from its ashes, and by boiling it with rancid palm-oil.

In Abyssinia, the wild bees penetrate the trunks of the Baobab for the sake of lodging their honey within them. This honey is said to possess a very peculiar and delicious fragrance and a very agreeable flavour, on which account it is more esteemed and sought after than any other,

The trunks or sucn of these trees as are decayed serve, when hollowed out, as tombs and burial-places for the poets, musicians, and buffoons of the tribe. Characters of this description are in great esteem amongst the Negroes whilst living: they erroneously ascribe to them talents superior to the rest of their fellow-creatures; which peculiar gifts they are supposed to derive from a commerce with demons, sorcerers, and bad spirits. This causes them, during their life-time, to be much respected and courted by their various and respective tribes; but their bodies, after death, are far from being treated with this respect; on the contrary, they are regarded with so great a horror, that they deny them the rites of burial -neither suffering them to be put beneath the ground, nor to be thrown into the sea or rivers, from a superstitious dread that the water thus dishonoured would refuse to nourish the fish, and that the earth would fail to produce its fruits. The bodies, then, in order to get rid of them in some manner without degrading either the sea or land, they enclose in the hollow trunks of the trees, where, in the course of ages, they become quite dry and sapless, without actually rotting, and form in that manner a description of mummy without the help of embalmment.

P. H.

ON THE HEAVENLY BODIES. ONE of the greatest circumstances which fixes the attention in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies that form our system, is the surprising distances at which they are placed, and the stupendous amount of space which they occupy by their circuits. Our EARTH is above 90 millions of miles from the sun; SATURN is above 800 more millions further off; and the next and most remote that we know, which is connected with us, the URANUS, is twice that mighty distance.* The fact is sublime, and vast beyond the power of our words to express, or of our ideas to conceive. This last planet of our system rolls in an oval circuit, of which 1788 millions of miles is the diameter; and, therefore, goes round an area of 5000 millions of miles. Our system occupies this amazing portion of space; and yet is but one small compartment of the indescribable universe. Immense as is an area of 5000 millions of miles, yet it is but a very little part of the incomprehensible whole. Above 100,000 stars, apparently suns like our's, shine above us; and to each of these, that

analogy would lead us to assign a similar space: but of such marvellous extent and being, although visibly real from the existence of the shining orbs that testify its certainty to us, the mind, with all its efforts, can form no distinct idea.

Another consideration is astounding :-when we Mr. Hornsby has made the following calculations of the absolute distances of the planets from the sun in Eng

lish miles:Mercury Venus

67,795,500 Jupiter

93,726,900 Saturn

The Uranus is twice that of Saturn,

us.

gaze, in a clear evening, on the bright Jupiter, we are seeing an object that is 487 millions of miles from But when we look at the bright Orion, or the Great Bear, we are beholding substances which are ten thousand times that remoteness from us. The idea frequently overwhelms me, as I stand and view them, and think that I, a petty human being, have the faculty, and can exercise the power, of looking through millions of millions of miles of extended space, and that I am at that moment actually doing so, and that such an amazing expanse is visible to my eye, and perceptible by my conscious, though, in comparison, insignificant soul.-The Sacred History of the World.

ADULTERATION OF BREAD.

ALTHOUGH pure and nutritious bread is so necessary to health and life, there is no article in which fraud and deception are more frequent. The practice of mixing potatoes with the dough has been frequently noticed. Potato-starch is used for adulterating flour. Of this I have a positive proof, even in the present day. A few months since, an eminent flour-factor showed me a powder which, he said, had been sent him as a substance which might be mixed with flour without discovery, and requested me to examine it, declaring his intention, at the same time, of publishing the transaction. Inspection alone was sufficient to convince me that the powder was potato-starch, and a few experiments soon decided the point. This fraud has no other bad effect than in lessening the quantity of nutritious matter which a given quantity of the bread should contain; beside the extortion of charging full price for an article of less value.

Inspection by a high magnifier will detect potatostarch in flour, by its glistening appearance. We have heard of bones burned to whiteness, and ground to a powder, being used to adulterate thirds flour, which, being of a somewhat gritty nature, will disguise the grittiness which it is almost impossible to This fraud is easily detected; for if much dilute deprive bones of, be they ever so laboriously ground. muriatic acid-that is, spirit of salt mixed with water-be poured on such flour, there will be an effervescence, or boiling up; and if the liquid be thrown on a filter of paper, the portion which runs through the paper ash be added. will let fall a heavy white deposit if pearlChalk and whiting are also adulterations which, in small quantity, are often mixed with flour; and, although such admixtures are not noxious to health directly, they are injurious in many ways. They may be readily detected by pouring on a large quantity of oil of vitriol mixed with six or seven times its weight of water; if an effervescence ensue, it is proof that there is adulteration; and if, after filtration, as before directed, the addition of pearl-ash to the clear liquid produce no muddiness, or a very slight degree of it, the presumption is, that the adulteration was chalk or whiting.

Alum is a well-known adulteration of bread, not

used on account of its quantity, but to disguise a bad quality of flour; it is said to whiten ill-coloured flour, and to harden and whiten bread made from flour which has been malted. By some respectable bakers it has formerly been used, and might still be used, if there were not a law against it, with perfect safety in so small a quantity as half a pound of alum to one hundred weight of flour, it could not be in the least degree injurious; for this would be but nine thirty-fifths of an ounce to the quartern loaf, When used in double this quantity, as it often is, it becomes discoverable to the taste when the bread grows stale, Be this as it may, we can easily detect alum

:

test.

LAVENHAM CHURCH BELLS. OBSERVING an excellent article, in one of the numbers of this Magazine, on the History of Bells, I beg to send you the following account of one of the finest-toned bells in England, if not in Europe. At Lavenham, an obscure little town in Suffolk, (once celebrated for the manufacture of blue cloth, and hand-spun yarn,) stands a noble monument of ancient munificence, ranked among the most beautiful gothic fabrics in the kingdom, both for durability and grandeur. In the steeple of this church is a bell, weighing only 2576 lbs., with such a melodious note, as to be universally styled "The

Matchless Tenor," and Magna Britannia, treating of Lavenham Bells, says: "The tenor hath such an admirable note,

as England has none to compare to it."

Its weight, its shape, its size, alike admir'd, And tone wherewith each ringer is inspir'd; The merry eight with music fill the ear. Euterpe, too, invites from far and near; And though in floating all sounds slowly die, They're quick revived by Echo's sweet reply; Heard through the woods, their soft melodious ring Inspires the warbling feathered tribe to sing; Nestling 'mid leaves, or skimming o'er the plain, Distinct to hail each harmonizing strain. These charming bells are not heard at a very great distance, on account of the elevated situation of the steeple. Sound is heard farther on plains than on hills; and still farther in valleys than on plains: the reason of which will not be difficult to assign, if it be considered that the higher the sonorous body is, the rarer is its medium; consequently, the less impulse it receives, the less proper vehicle it is to convey it to a distance. Tradition says, that at the time of casting this tenor bell at Lavenham, (1625,) some rich wool-staplers there, and other gentlemen in the neighbourhood, contributed great quantities of silver, and even gold, to the usual metal, which may, perhaps, account for the vast superiority of its

tone.

COMMERCE.

THERE is much useful exchange between different nations, which we call Commerce. All countries will not produce the same things; but, by means or Exchanges, each country may enjoy all the produce of the others. Cotton would not grow here, except in a hot-house. It grows in the fields in America; but the Americans cannot spin and weave it so cheaply as we can; because we have more skill and better machines. It answers best, therefore, for them to send us the cotton-wool, and they take in exchange part of the cotton made into cloth; and thus both we and they are best supplied.

Tea, again, comes from China, and sugar from the West Indies; neither of them could be raised here without a hot-house. No more can oranges, which come from Portugal, and other southern countries. But we get all these things in exchange for knives, and scissors, and cloth, which we can make much better and cheaper than the Chinese, and West Indians, and Portuguese: and so both parties are better off than if they made every thing at home.

How useful water is for commerce! The sea the purpose of commerce, it rather brings them toseems to keep different countries separate; but, for gether. If there were only land between this and America, we should have no cotton; the carriage of it would cost more than it is worth, Think how many horses would be wanted to draw such a load as comes in one ship; and they must eat, and rest, horses which carry the ship along; and they cost us while they were travelling. But the winds are the nothing but to spread a sail.

Then, too, the ship moves easily, because it floats on the water, instead of dragging on the ground like a waggon. For this reason, we have made canals in many places, for the sake of bringing goods by water. One or two horses can easily draw a barge along a canal, with a load which twice as many could not move if it were on the ground.

What a folly it is, as well as a sin, for different nations to be jealous of each other, and to go to war, instead of trading together peaceably; by which both would be the richer and the better off. But the best gifts of God are given in vain to those who are

perverse.

COIN.

WHY should people part with their goods in exchange for little bits of silver, or gold, or copper? If you ask a man why he does so, he will tell you, it is because he finds that when he has these little bits of stamped metal, which are called coins, every one is willing to will let him have bread for them, or the tailor a coat, sell him what he wants, for these coins. The baker and so of the rest. Then, if you ask him why the baker and the tailor, and the rest, are willing to do this, he will tell you, it is for the same reason. The baker and the tailor can buy for money what they want from the shoemaker and the butcher; and so of the others.

But how could this use of coin first begin? How could men first agree, all of them, to be ready to part with food, and cloth, and working tools, and every silver, which no one makes any use of, except to thing else, in exchange for little bits of gold and part with them again for something else? And why should not pebbles, or bits of wood, or any thing else, serve us as well as coins?

Some people fancy that coins pass as money, and are valued, because they are stamped according to law with the king's head. But this is not so. For if a piece of money were made of copper, and stamped,