The Lewchews are a small race of people, the average height of the men not exceeding five feet two inches; but though small, they are sturdy, well-built, and athletic. They are as fair as the southern Europeans, and have no trace either of Indian or Chinese features. All the animal race is diminutive, but all excellent in their kind; the bullocks were plump and well conditioned, but they seldom exceeded in weight 850 pounds: goats and hogs were in the same proportion; the poultry forming the only exception.

The visit of our ships it is to be hoped may not prove wholly useless to these worthy people. Captain Hall had fortunately some English potatoes, which they were instructed how to plant; and Captain Maxwell left them a young bull and a cow of English breed; to these was added some wheat, which they promised to cultivate. Their fields were ploughed with much neatness and regularity; and their rice grounds irrigated with great ingenuity. The climate is so delightful, that productions of the vegetable kingdom, distinct in their nature and generally found in regions far distant from each other, grow here side by side. It is not merely,' says M'Leod, the country of the orange and the lime; but the banyan of India and the Norwegian fir, the tea-plant and the sugar-cane, all flourish together.'

The ships standing across to the south westward, soon reached Canton, and the Alceste having received on board the ambassador and suite, proceeded to Manilla; and thence homewards: but, in passing through the straits of Gaspar, she struck on a sunken rock, and was totally wrecked; fortunately however all on board escaped to an uninhabited island in the middle of the strait. Tery little provisions and scarcely any part of the baggage were saved. The good humour, the calm and manly fortitude, which marked the conduct of Lord Amherst on this trying occasion, afforded an example which never fails, in such cases, to have a powerful and beneficial effect. When Captain Maxwell, who was the last person that left the ship, got on shore, it was settled that Lord Amherst, with about forty of his suite, should go, in the barge and cutter, to Batavia, as the most probable way of ensuring their own safety, and that of their companions on the desolate island, by sending shipping from thence to take them off.

Mr. McLeod gives a circumstantial and interesting narrative of the dangers, the anxieties, and privations of the party left behind. The blockade of the island, by the Malay pirates, whose proas ultimately accumulated to the number of sixty, added not a little to their distressed situation. These ferocious beings, Mr. M'Leod describes as a people of a most unprepossessing aspect: their bodies of a deep bronze colour, their black teeth and reddened lips, their gaping nostrils, and lank clotted hair hanging about their

shoulders, and over their scowling countenances, gave them altogether a most fiend-like and murderous look. They are (he adds) an unjoyous race, and seldom smile.'

Sixteen days having elapsed and no relief from Batavia, absolute want staring them in the face on one hand, and destruction from the savages (who, to the number of six hundred were closely pressing them) on the other, some desperate effort was to be made. The example of their leader kept up their spirits: no symptoms of depression had for a moment intruded themselves, and all was vigour and preparation either for attack or defence; the pirates but once gave an opportunity for the former, when Lieutenant Hay, a straight-forward sort of fellow,' overtook with his barge two proas, one of which was grappled by his crew, who killed three of the, savages, while five more, evidently disdaining quarter, jumped overboard and drowned themselves: two were taken prisoners; but, such was the desperate ferocity of these people, that one of them, who had been shot through the body, on being removed into the barge with the view of saving him, furiously grasped a cutlass, which was with difficulty wrenched from his hand while in the very act of dying.

On the last evening of their abode on the island, they had every reason to suppose the savages meditated a combined attack. On this occasion, when the officers and men were assembled under arms to settle the watches, Captain Maxwell, with great animation, thus addressed them.

'My lads, you must all have observed this day, as well as myself, the great increase of the enemy's force, for enemies we must now consider them, and the threatening posture they have assumed. I have, on various grounds, strong reason to believe that they will attack us this night. I do not wish to conceal our real state, because I think there is not a man here who is afraid to face any sort of danger. We are now strongly fenced in, and our position in all respects so good, that, armed as we are, we ought to make a formidable defence against even regular troops: what then would be thought of us, if we allowed ourselves to be surprised by a set of naked savages, with their spears and creeses? It is true they have swivels in their boats, but they cannot act here. I have not observed that they have any matchlocks or muskets; but, if they have, so have we. I do not wish to deceive you as to the means of resistance in our power. When we were first thrown together on shore, we were almost defenceless; seventy-five ball-cartridges only could be mustered: we have now sixteen hundred! They cannot, I believe, send up more than five hundred men but with two hundred such as now stand around me, I do not fear a thousand, nay, fifteen hundred of them! I have the fullest confidence that we shall beat them: the pikemen standing firm, we can give them such a volley of musketry as they will be little prepared for; and, when we find they are thrown into confusion, we'll sally out among them, chase them into the water, and ten to one but we secure their vessels. Let every man

therefore be on the alert with his arms in his hands; and, should these barbarians this night attempt our hill, I trust we shall convince them that they are dealing with Britons.'-p. 214.

This animated and truly characteristic speech was received, as might be expected, from a body of British seamen,—“ perhaps,' says Mr. McLeod, three jollier burras were never given than at the conclusion of this short, but well-timed address.' The attack, however, did not take place; and the next day the long-expected relief from Batavia made its appearance, in the East India Company's cruiser, the Ternate, despatched by Lord Amherst, who, after passing three days and four nights in an open boat, had reached that city.

The conduct of Captain Maxwell, on this trying occasion, justly endeared him to all on board the Alceste, from the ambassador to the lowest seaman. By his judicious arrangements, says Mr. McLeod, we were preserved from all the horrors of anarchy and confusion. His measures inspired confidence and hope; whilst his personal example, in the hour of danger, gave courage and animation to all around him.'

The Cæsar, a private ship, was hired at Batavia to bring home the embassy, and the officers and crew of the Alceste: besides them, it seems, she had two passengers of no ordinary descriptionthe one an Ourang-Outang; the other a Boa snake, of the species known by the name of Constrictor. The former arrived safely in England, and sees company at home' every day at his mansion in the Strand; the other died of a diseased stomach, between the Cape and St. Helena, having taken but two meals from the time of his embarkation. The first of these meals was witnessed by more than two hundred people; but there was something so horrid in the exhibition that very few felt any inclination to attend the second. The snake was about sixteen feet long and eighteen inches in circumference; he was confined in a large crib, or cage,-but we must give the dreadful relation in Mr. M'Leod's own words.

The sliding door being opened, one of the goats were thrust in, and the door of the cage shut. The poor goat, as if instantly aware of all the horrors of its perilous situation, immediately began to utter the most piercing and distressing cries, butting instinctively, at the same time, with its head towards the serpent, in self-defence.

The snake, which at first appeared scarcely to notice the poor animal, soon began to stir a little, and, turning his head in the direction of the goat, it at length fixed a deadly and malignant eye on the trembling victim, whose agony and terror seemed to increase; for, previous to the Snake seizing its prey, it shook in every limb, but still continuing its unavailing show of attack, by butting at the serpent, who now became sufficiently auimated to prepare for the banquet. The first operation was that of darting out his forked tongue, and at the same time rearing a little his head; then suddenly seizing the goat by the fore leg with his

mouth, and throwing him down, he was encircled in an instant in his horrid folds. So quick, indeed, and so instantaneous was the act, that it was impossible for the eye to follow the rapid convolution of his elongated body. It was not a regular screw-like turn that was formed, but resembling rather a knot, one part of the body overlaying the other, as if to add weight to the muscular pressure, the more effectually to crush his object. During this time he continued to grasp with his mouth, though it appeared an unnecessary precaution, that part of the animal which he had first seized. The poor goat, in the mean time, continued its feeble and half-stifled cries for some minutes, but they soon became more and more faint, and at last it expired. The snake, however, retained it for a considerable time in its grasp, after it was apparently motionless. He then began slowly and cautiously to unfold himself, till the goat fell dead from his monstrous embrace, when he began to prepare himself for the feast. Placing his mouth in the front of the head of the dead animal, he commenced by lubricating with his saliva that part of the goat; and then taking its muzzle into its mouth, which had, and indeed always has, the appearance of a raw lacerated wound, he sucked it in, as far as the horns would allow. These protuberances opposed some little difficulty, not so much from their extent as rom their points; however, they also, in a very short time, disappeared; that is to say, externally; but their progress was still to be traced very distinctly on the outside, threatening every moment to protrude through I the skin. The victim had now descended as far as the shoulders; and it was an astonishing sight to observe the extraordinary action of the snake's muscles when stretched to such an unnatural extent-an extent which must have utterly destroyed all muscular power in any animal that was not, like itself, endowed with very peculiar faculties of expansion and action at the same time. When his head and neck had no other appearance than that of a serpent's skin, stuffed almost to bursting, still the workings of the muscles were evident; and his power of suction, as it is erroneously called, unabated; it was, in fact, the effect of a contractile muscular power, assisted by two rows of strong hooked teeth. With all this he must be so formed as to be able to suspend, for a time, his respiration, for it is impossible to conceive that the process of breathing could be carried on while the mouth and throat were so completely stuffed and expanded by the body of the goat, and the lungs themselves (admitting the trachea to be ever so hard) compressed, as they must have been, by its passage downwards.

The whole operation of completely gorging the goat occupied about two hours and twenty minutes: at the end of which time, the tumefaction was confined to the middle part of the body, or stomach, the superior parts, which had been so much distended, having resumed their natural dimensions. He now coiled himself up again, and lay quietly in his usual torpid state for about three weeks or a month, when, his last meal appearing to be completely digested and dissolved, he was presented with another goat,' (not alive, we hope,) which he devoured with equal facility.'-pp. 257-261.

The Cæsar took fire, and had nearly been burnt on her passage, a fate which she escaped only by the exertions of Captain Maxwell

and his officers. She touched at the Cape of Good Hope, for refreshments and water ;-and at St. Helena; where the ambassador and his suite, impelled by that laudable curiosity natural to inquisitive travellers, witnessed the exhibition of another Constrictor of a different species, of larger dimensions, and with a stomach far more capacious and destructive than that of the Boa which had just died on board the Cæsar;-for the particulars of the exhibition, however, which are by no means devoid of interest, we must refer our readers to Mr. Ellis and Mr. M'Leod, who were both present. Finally, the Cæsar reached England, and landed all her passengers in safety; after escaping the dangers of fire and water, of savage warfare, and imperial indignation.

Mr. McLeod's little volume has a few plates as unpretending as the book which they are meant to illustrate ;-Mr. Ellis's more ela borate work is also furnished-we cannot say embellished-with map, and a few plates. The former is a copy, and on too small scale; and the latter are a sad falling off, both in accuracy and spirit, from these beautiful delineations of similar objects by the late Mr. Alexander. The mention of this most ingenious and ami. able man tempts us to ask what is become of those characteristic drawings of Chinese costume which he is known to have prepared, previously to his last illness, for publication? They would have admirably served to illustrate the volume of Mr. Ellis, which is very deficient in this respect, and have consoled us in some measure for the reserve of Mr. Havell, who, it appears, was sent out in the character of Artist,' and who, with a degree of modesty for which we find it difficult to account, has withheld every specimen of his taste and skill from what may be termed the 'official account of the embassy."

ART. IX. Letters from the Cape of Good Hope, in Reply to Mr. Warden; with Extracts from the Great Work now compiling for publication under the inspection of Napoleon. 8vo. pp. 206. London. 1817.

IT

T is just as we expected-and our readers will have been prepared by the Ninth Article of our Thirty-second Number for this publication. We have here another of the series of tricks with which Buonaparte endeavours to keep himself alive in the recollection of Europe. It is, like all the rest, fraudulent in its title, shape and pretensions; false in its facts; and jacobinical in its object. But it has this claim to consideration beyond its predecessors, that it comes from a source so nearly connected with Buonaparte, as to give it in some degree the authority of being his own apology made by himself. It tells us, indeed, little or no thing in the way of fact that is not familiar to our readers, but it