notwithstanding the impure state in which the Christian church exists in that country, still such are the beneficent effects of the Christian religion, that these, its adopted children, are improved by it to an infinite degree; and the slave who attends to the strict observance of religious ceremonies invariably proves to be a good servant. The Africans who are imported from Angola are baptized in lots before they leave their own shores, and on their arrival in Brazil they are to learn the doctrines of the church, and the duties of the religion into which they have entered. These bear the mark of the royal crown upon their breasts, which denotes that they have undergone the ceremony of baptism, and likewise that the king's duty has been paid upon them. The slaves which are imported from other parts of the coast of Africa, arrive in Brazil unbaptized, and before the ceremony of making them Christians can be performed upon them, they must be taught certain prayers, for the acquirement of which one year is allowed to the master, before he is obliged to present the slave at the parishchurch. This law is not always strictly adhered to as to time, but it is never evaded altogether. The religion of the master teaches him that it would be extremely sinful to allow his slave to remain a heathen; and indeed the Portuguese and Brazilians have too much religious feeling to let them neglect any of the ordinances of their church. The slave himself likewise wishes to be made a Christian, for his fellow-bondmen will in every squabble or trifling disagreement with him, close their VOL. LIX.

string of opprobrious epithets with the name of pagam (pagan). The unbaptised negro feels that he is considered as an inferior being, and although he may not be aware of the value which the whites place upon baptism, still he knows that the stigma for which he is upbraided will be removed by it; and therefore he is desirous of being made equal to his companions. The Africans who have been long imported, imbibe a Catholic feeling, and appear to forget that they were once in the same situation themselves. The slaves are not asked whether they will be baptized or not; their entrance into the Catholic church is treated as a thing of course; and indeed they are not considered as members of society, but rather as brute animals, until they can lawfully go to mass, confess their sins, and receive the sacrament.

The slaves have their religious brotherhoods as well as the free persons; and the ambition of a slave very generally aims at being admitted into one of these, and at being made one of the officers and directors of the concerns of the brotherhood; even some of the money which the industrious slave is collecting for the purpose of purchasing his freedom will oftentimes be brought out of its concealment for the decoration of a saint, that the donor may become of importance in the society to which he belongs. The negroes have one invocation of the Virgin (or I might almost say one virgin) which is peculiarly their own. Our Lady of the Rosary is even sometimes painted with a black face and hands. It is in this manner that the slaves are led to place 2 E

their

their attention upon an object in which they soon take an interest, but from which no injury can proceed towards themselves, nor can any through its means be by them inflicted upon their masters. Their ideas are removed from any thought of the customs of their own country, and are guided into a channel of a totally different nature, and completely unconnected with what is practised there. The election of a king of Congo (which I have mentioned in chapter xiii.) by the individuals who come from that part of Africa, seems indeed as if it would give them a bias towards the customs of their native soil; but the Brazilian Kings of Congo worship Our Lady of the Rosary, and are dressed in the dress of white men; they and their subjects dance, it is true, after the manner of their country; but to these festivals are admitted African negroes of other nations, creole blacks, and mulattos, all of whom dance after the same manner; and these dances are now as much the national dances of Brazil as they are of Africa. The Portuguese language is spoken by all the slaves, and their own dialects are allowed to lie dormant until they are by many of them quite forgotten. No compulsion is resorted to to make them embrace the habits of their masters, but their ideas are insensibly led to imitate and adopt them. The masters at the same time imbibe some of the customs of their slaves, and thus the superior and his dependant are brought nearer to each other. I doubt not that the system of baptising the newly-imported negroes proceeded rather from the bigotry of the Portuguese in former times

than from any political plan; but it has had the most beneficial effects. The slaves are rendered more tractable; besides being better men and women, they become more obedient servants; they are brought under the control of the priesthood; and even if this was the only additional hold which was gained by their entrance into the church, it is a great engine of power which is thus brought into action.

But in no circumstance has the introduction of the Christian religion among the slaves been of more service than in the change which it has wrought in the men regarding the treatment of their women, and in the conduct of the females themselves. A writer of great reputation on West Indian affairs, states that the introduction of the marriage ceremony among the slaves of the colonies of which he treats "would be utterly impracticable to any good purpose;" and again, that he who conceives that a remedy may be found for polygamy "by introducing among them the laws of marriage, as established in Europe, is utterly ignorant of their manners, propensities, and superstitions." Is it not that by the masters these things are considered to be of little importance, and therefore unworthy of much trouble? As long as the work is done, little else is thought of.

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Where the interest of the master is concerned, the "manners, propensities, and superstitions," will soon be overcome. hope that at the present day such opinions do not generally exist. All men in the same state of barbarism treat their women in the same manner; the evil lies not

with the race of beings, but in the dreadful situation to which this one is reduced. Why, therefore, not attempt to improve and to benefit the individuals of which it is composed?

The slaves of Brazil are regularly married according to the forms of the Catholic church; the bans are published in the same manner as those of free persons; and I have seen many happy couples (as happy at least as slaves can be) with large families of children rising around them. The masters encourage marriages among their slaves, for it is from these lawful connections that they can expect to increase the number of their creoles. A slave cannot marry without the consent of his master, for the vicar will not publish the banns of marriage without this sanction. It is likewise permitted that slaves should marry free persons; if the woman is in bondage, the children remain in the same state; but if the man is a slave, and she is free, their offspring is also free. A slave cannot be married until the requisite prayers have been learnt, the nature of confession be understood, and the sacrament can be received. Upon the estates the master or manager is soon made acquainted with the predilections of the slaves for each other, and these being discovered, marriage is forthwith determined upon, and the irregular proceedings are made lawful. In towns there is more licentiousness among the negroes, as there is among all other classes of men. The passion of love is supposed only to exist in a certain state of civilization, and this may be granted without at the same time declaring that negroes

are incapable of lasting attachment, without supposing that the regard of each sex is mere animal desire, unconnected with predilection. That species of affection which is heightened until personal possession is almost forgotten; doubtless is not felt by human beings who are in a state of barbarism; but still a negro may be attached; he may fix upon one object in preference to all others. That this is the case, I can vouch; I have known and have heard of many instances in which punishments and other dangers have been braved to visit a chosen one; in which journies by night have been made after a day of fatigue; in which great constancy has been shown, and a determination that the feelings of the heart shall not be controlled.

NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE

Of his Majesty's late Ship Alceste, to the Yellow Sea, &c. &c. to the Island of Lewchew: By John McLeod, Surgeon of the Alceste.

The island of Lewchew is about fifty miles long and from twelve to fifteen broad; Napa-kiang, our position, (and within five miles of Kint-ching, the capital,) lying in lat. 26° 14′ N., long. 127° 52′ 1′′ E. This is its south-west point, the main body of the island extending from hence north a little eastwardly. It is washed on the one side by the Northern Pacific Ocean, and on the other by the Tung Hai, or Eastern Sea.

The rocks about it are all of the coral kind, and immense masses, some assuming very odd shapes, 2 E 2

were

were seen every where along the sea-shore; and many of the same formation were found on the higher land, at some distance from the beach, whose situation is not easily to be accounted for, unless we suppose them to have been elevated by the force of volcanic fire.

It is the principal island of a group of thirty-six, subject to the same monarch, and the seat of the government. The natives trace their history back to a period long anterior to the Christian era; but their first communication with the rest of the world, when their accounts became fully corroborated and undisputed, was about the year 605, when they were invaded by China, who found them at that time-a time when England and the greater part of Europe were immersed in barbarism-the same kind of people they are at the present day, with the exception of a few Chinese innovations; or, at least, they appear to have altered but in a very slight degree. Indeed, it is very obvious that a revolution in manners, and alteration of habits, are by no means so likely to occur with a people thus living in an obscure and secluded state, as among those who have a wider intercourse with other nations. The only connexion which the Lewchewans have had with their neighbours, and that but very limited, has been with Japan and China, from neither of whom they were likely to receive any example of change.

The clearest, and, perhaps, the only account given of their history is by Su-poa-Koang, a Chinese doctor or philosopher, who was, in 1719, sent as embassador to

them. The following is the substance of his report as to their origin :-"The Lewchewan tradition states, that, in the beginning, one man and one woman were produced in the great void or chaos. They had the joint name of Omo-mey-kieou. From their union sprung three sons and two daughters; the eldest of the sons had the title of Tien-sun, or Grandson of Heaven, and was the first king of Lewchew; the second was the father of the tributary princes; the rest of the prople acknowledge the third as their progenitor. The eldest daughter had the title of Celestial Spirit; the second the Spirit of the Sea. After the death of Tien-sun, twenty-five dynasties reigned successively in this country, occupying (according to their story) a period of 17,802 years previous to the time of Chuntein, who commenced his reign in 1187. This is their fabulous history, of which they are very jealous; but nothing certain was known until 605, before which the inhabitants of Formosa and the adjacent islands were denominated by the Chinese the Oriental Barbarians. In this year the emperor sent to examine them; but, from want of interpreters, no clear account was obtained. They brought back, however, some of the islanders to Sin-gan-foo, the capital of the province of Chen-si, and the seat of the court under the Souy dynasty. Some Japanese, who happened to be there, knew the people, and described them as a race of barbarians. The Emperor Yang-ti sent forthwitha some who understood their language to Lewchew, to command their homage, and acknowledg

ment of him as their sovereign. The prince of Lewchew haughtily red, that he would own none ash:s superior. A fleet with ten sand men was now fitted out ʼn Amoi and the ports of Fosen, which force, overcoming the ** ets of the islanders, landed at Lewchew; and the king, who had put himself at the head of his pie to repel the enemy, being , the Chinese burned the rastal, and, carrying off five thousanal of the natives, as slaves, remed to China. From this, until 21, the Lewchewans were left unmolested, when Chit-soo, an peror of the Yuen family, rewing his pretensions, fitted out fort against them from the ports of Fo-kien; but, from various rauses, it never proceeded farther than the western coast of Formos, and from thence returned unsarvessful to China. In the year 1.72 Hoɔng-ou, emperor of China, ary: founder of the Ming dynasty, sent a great mandarin to Tay

the king and queen; among which was a gold seal.

"The two kings of the other districts, Chan-pe and Chan-nan, followed the example of Tchonchan, and their submission was most graciously received. Thirtysix Chinese families were sent to live in Cheouli, where grants of land were conceded to them; here they taught the Chinese written characters, introduced Chinese books, and the ceremonies in honour of Confucius. The sons of the Lewchewan grandees were also sent to Nankin to study Chinese, and were educated with distinction, at the expense of the em peror.

"The reigns of Ou-ning and Tse-chao, the son and grandson of Tsay-tou, presented nothing extraordinary; but that of Changpa-chi was marked by the reunion of Chan-pe and Chan-nan with Tehon-chan into one kingdom, and the government has since continued in the hands of a single chief. Lewchew is said henceforth to have had considerable intercourse with China and Japan in the way of commerce, much to her advantage, and to have even mediated between those two powers when misunderstandings had occurred.

"The famous Tay-cosama, however, emperor of Japan, whom the Chinese call ambitious, piratical, irreligious, cruel, and debauched, because he had pillaged their coasts, sent a haughty letter to Chang-ning, commanding him to transfer his homage from China to Japan, which Chang-ning, as firmly refused. Notwithstanding the death of Tay-cosama, the Ja

panese