sorrow, so that even the English, who know it to be artificial, are deeply touched by it.

The superstitious practices of the Mohammedans in general, and particularly of those inhabiting Northern Africa, are strange and numerous, many of them being apparently offshoots from pagan practices, bequeathed to their ancestors by the Grecian or Roman colonists who subdued and inhabited these coasts. They suspend upon the necks of their children, as the Romans did their bulla, the figure of an open hand, generally the right, which they likewise paint upon their ships and houses, to avert the effects of the evil eye. At the same time the number five is unlucky, and "five in your eyes," meaning the five fingers, is their proverb for cursing and defiance. Adults wear small scrolls, as the Jews did their phylacteries, containing verses from the Koran, as a charm against fascination, witchcraft, sickness, and misfortune. In one particular they appear to differ from the superstitious in Europe, who generally imagine that faith in the force of the spell is necessary to its efficacy, for their horses and cattle, which can be supposed to have but little faith in such matters, have similar scrolls suspended round their necks, no doubt with equal benefit. Their belief in jenoune, or Genii, a class of beings between angels and devils, and which, like the fairies of our ancestors, are supposed to frequent shades and fountains, is deep-rooted and universal. These equivocal beings assume, they imagine, the form of toads, worms, lizards, and other small animals, which being offensive to man, and lying frequently in his way, are extremely liable to be injured or destroyed. Therefore, when any person falls sick, fancying he may have harmed one of the jenoune lurking in some obscene shape, he immediately consults with one of those cunning women, who, like

the venifice of antiquity, are versed in all expiatory ceremonies of this nature, and at the direction of the sorceress, proceed on a Wednesday, with frankincense and other perfumes, to some neighbouring spring, where a cock or a hen, a ram or an ewe, according to the sex or rank of the patient, is sacrificed to these spirits.

Dr. Shaw returned to England in the year 1733. In the course of the next year he took his degree of Doctor of Divinity, and was shortly afterwards elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Having employed five years in the composition and correction of his travels, he at length, in 1731, brought out the first edition, which was attacked by Dr. Pococke in his Description of the East. The numerous coins, busts, and other antiquities, which he had collected in his travels, he bestowed upon the university. Upon the death of Dr. Felton, in 1740, he was nominated by his college principal of St. Edmund Hall, which he raised from a ruinous state by his munificence. He was at the same time presented to the vicarage of Bramley in Hampshire; and likewise enjoyed, during the remainder of his life, the honour of being Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. He died, in 1751, in the sixtieth year of his age, and was buried at Bramley, where a monument was erected to his memory by his widow. The shawin in botany received its name in honour of Dr. Shaw.

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FREDERIC HASSELQUIST.

Born 1722.-Died 1752.

HASSELQUIST was born on the 3d of January, 1722, at Isernvall, in Eastern Gothland, in Sweden. His father, Andrew Hasselquist, who was the clergyman of the place, died in great poverty while our traveller was yet a youth; and, to add still further to his misfortune, his mother, likewise, was shortly afterwards so extremely debilitated both in mind and body, as to be compelled to take refuge in the Infirmary of Vastona. Hasselquist would, therefore, in all probability have been condemned to a life of obscurity and poverty, had not M. Pontin, his maternal uncle, undertaken the care of his education, and sent him with his own children to the College of Linköping. But all the friends of Hasselquist seemed destined to be shortlived. Not long after his entrance at college the loss of this kind benefactor reduced him to the necessity of teaching for a livelihood, until he should De of the proper age to enter into the university.

In 1741, he entered a student at the University of Upsal; but poverty, which, when not overwhelming, acts as a spur to genius, was still his faithful companion, and compelled him, for a subsistence, to exercise his talents in the way of all others best calculated to give them amplitude and vigour. He became a tutor. At the same time, however, he enjoyed the advantage of attending the lectures of the

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various professors; and the knowledge thus acquired was immediately digested, examined, and enlarged, to be transmitted in other lectures to his own humble pupils.

Physic and natural history, for which, according to Linnæus, he had an innate inclination, were his favourite studies. He had likewise, it is said, a taste and some talents for poetry. An enthusiastic devotion to the sciences, which, as the world goes, is often allowed to be, like virtue, its own reward, is sometimes advantageous, however, when it happens to be exhibited in the proper quarter. This was experienced by our traveller. His ardent passion for knowledge, which neither poverty nor a feeble constitution could subdue, at length, after a five years' struggle, attracted the attention of the university authorities, who, in 1746, obtained him a pension from the king. And in the course of next year he proved,by his "Dissertation on the Virtues of Plants," that the progress he had made in the sciences amply justified the favour which had been shown him.

It was in the same year that he first conceived the idea of travelling in the East. Linnæus, in one of his botanical lectures, having enumerated the countries, the natural history of which was known, as well as those which were placed in the contrary predicament, happened to make mention of Palestine among the latter; for, at that period, it was as much a "terra incognita" to science as the most remote districts of India. He expressed his astonishment that theologians and commentators, whose business it is to understand the Scriptures, should have so long neglected the natural history of the Holy Land, by which so much light might be thrown upon them, the more particularly as many divines had made the botany of other countries their study. These re→

marks were not lost upon Hasselquist. He immediately formed the design of repairing the neglect of former ages, and had no sooner taken this resolution than he communicated his intentions to Linnæus. The latter, who seems to have regarded him with something approaching to paternal affection, experienced considerable astonishment at his design, and made use of many arguments to turn him from the prosecution of it, dwelt upon the length of the way, the difficulties, the dangers, the expenses, and, worst of all, his delicate state of health, and consumptive habit. But who was ever deterred by arguments from the prosecution of a favourite scheme? Hasselquist's mind had already tried the strength of all these reasons, and found that, like the bands of flax round the limbs of Sampson, they had no force when opposed to the efforts of the will. His health, he maintained, could be improved only by travelling and change of climate; dangers he appears, like a true traveller, to have classed among imaginary obstacles; and as to the expense, why, rather than relinquish the idea, he would travel on foot. In short, says Linnæus, it was clear that he was absolutely determined on travelling.

Hasselquist was not ignorant, however, that whether on foot or on horseback, moving from place to place is no easy matter without money. Not being one of that erratic race "who had no stomach but to fight," he reflected that beef-steaks and plum-pudding, or some solid equivalents, would be no less necessary in Palestine than in Sweden; and therefore made an essay of his genius for overcoming difficulties by encountering those which beset his first step. It would seem that in Sweden there are many persons of distinction, in whom the indolence sometimes superinduced by the possession of wealth extinguishes a natural passion for travelling, who,