northern Indians die, it is generally believed that they are conjured to death, either by fome of their own countrymen, by fome of the Southern Indians, or by fome of the Efquimaux: too frequently the fufpicion falls on the latter tribe, which is the grand reafon of their never being at peace with thofe poor and diftreffed people. For fome time paft, however, thofe Efquimaux who trade with our floops at Knapp's bay, Navel's bay, and Whale cove, are in perfect peace and friendship with the northern Indians; which is entirely owing to the protection they have for feveral years paft received from the chiefs at the Company's fort at Churchill river. But thofe of that tribe who live fo far to the north, as not to have any intercourfe with our veffels, very often fall a facrifice to the fury and fuperftition of the northern Indians, who are by no means a bold or warlike people; nor can I think from experience, that they are particularly guilty of committing acts of wanton cruelty on any other part of the human race befide the Efquimaux. Their hearts, however, are in general fo unfufceptible af tenderness, that they can view the deepeft diftrefs in thofe who are not immediately related to them, with out the leaft emotion; not even half fo much as the generality of mankind feel for the fufferings of the meanest of the brute creation. I have been prefent when one of them, imitating the groans, diftorted features, and contracted pofition, of a man who had died in the most excruciating pain, put the whole company, except myself, into the moft violent fit of laughter. "The northern Indians never bury their dead, but always leave the bodies where they die, fo that they are fuppofed to be devoured "The death of a near relation E 4 all all their might and main; but in common conversation they are obliged to be very moderate." "Religion has not as yet begun to dawn among the northern Indians; for though their conjurers do in deed fing fongs, and make long fpeeches, to fome beafts and birds of prey, as alfo to imaginary beings, which they fay aflift them in per-, forming cures on the fick, yet they, as well as their credulous neighbours, are utterly deftitute of every idea of practical religion. It is true, fonie of them will reprimand their youth for talking difrefpectfully of particular beafts and birds; but it is done with fo little energy, as to be often retorted back in derifion. Neither is this, nor their cuftom of not killing wolves and quiquehatches, fenfe had taught him to be an advocate for univerfal toleration; and I have feen him several times affift at fome of the moft facred rites performed by the fouthern Indians, apparently with as much zeal, as if he had given as much credit to them as they did and with the fame liberality of fentiment he would, I am perfuaded, have affifted at the altar of a Chriftian church, or in a Jewish fynagogue; not with a view to reap any advantage himfelf, but merely, as he obferved, to affift others who believed in fuch ceremonies. เ "Being thus destitute of all religious control, thefe people have, to ufe Matonabbee's own words, nothing to do but confult their own intereft, inclinations, and paffions; and to páfs through this univerfally obworld with as much eafe and con ferved, and thofe who do it can only be viewed with more pity and contempt than the others; for I always found it arofe merely from the greater degree of confidence which they had in the fupernatural power of their conjurers, which induced them to believe, that talking lightly or difrespectfully of any thing they feemed to approve, would materially affect their health and happinefs in this world: and I never found any of them that had the leaft idea of futurity. Matonabbee, without one exception, was a man of as clear ideas in other matters as any that I ever faw: he was not only a perfect mafter of the fouthern Indian language, and their belief, but could tell a better ftory of our Saviour's birth and life, than one half of thofe who call themfelves Chriftians; yet he always declared to me, that neither he, nor any of his countrymen, had an idea of a future ftate. Though he had been taught to look on things of this kind as ufelefs, his own good tentment as poffible, without any hopes of reward, or painful fear of punishment, in the next.' In this ftate of mind they are, when in profperity, the happieft of mortals; for nothing but perfonal or family calamities can difturb their tranquillity, while misfortunes of the leffer kind fit light on them. Like moft other uncivilized people, they bear bodily pain with great fortitude, though in that refpect I cannot think them equal to the fouthern Indians. "Old age is the greateft calamity that can befall a northern Indian; for when he is paft labour, he is neglected, and treated with great difrefpect, even by his own children. They not only ferve him laft at meals, but generally give him the coarseft and worst of the victuals: and fuch of the fkins as they do not chufe to wear, are made up in the clumfiest manner into clothing for their aged parents; who, as they had, in all probability, treated their fathers and mothers with the fame neglect, neglect, in their turns, fubmitted patiently to their lot, even without a murmur, knowing it to be the common misfortune attendant on old age; fo that they may be faid to wait patiently for the melancholy hour when, being no longer capable of walking, they are to be left alone to ftarve, and perish for want. This, however thocking and unnatural it may appear, is nevertheless fo common, that, among thofe people, one half at least of the aged perfons of both fexes abfolutely die in this miferable condition. "The northern Indians call the Aurora Borealis Ed-thin; that is, Deer: and when that meteor is very bright, they say that deer is plentiful in that part of the atmoTphere; but they have never yet extended their ideas fo far, as to entertain hopes of tafting thofe ceTeftial animals. "Befide this filly notion, they are very fuperftitious with refpect to the existence of feveral kinds of fairies, called by them Nant-e-na, whom they frequently fay they fee, and who are fu pofed by them to inhabit the different elements of earth, fea, and air, according to their feveral qualities. To ce or other of thofe fairies they ufually attribute any change in their circumftances, either for the better or worfe; and as they are led into this way of thinking entirely by the art of the conjurers, there is no fuch thing as any general mode of belief; for thofe jugglers differ fo much from each other in their açcounts of these beings, that thofe who believe any thing they fay, have little to do but change their opinions according to the will and caprice of the conjurer, who is almoft daily relating fome new whim, or extraordinary event, which, he fays, has been revealed to him in a dream, or by fome of his favourite fairies, when in a hunting excurfion." GENUINE ACCOUNT of the NIMIQUAS, a Nation of SOUTHERN AFRICA, intended to correct the fabulous Relations of KOLBEN. [From the Second Volume of LE VAILLANT'S NEW TRAVELS into the interior Parts of AFRICA, by Way of the CAPE of GOOD HOPE.] W HEN I entered the Nimiqua country, my defign was to investigate every thing that had been faid of it at the Cape. How many tales had I not heard of this nation! what wonderful things concerning its manners, its arts, its treafures, &c.! The reader knows already what to think of its pretended mines of gold and filver : and the tales of its arts and its laws are on a par with thofe of its mines. "Kolben is the man who has ftamped authority on all thefe fables. he legitimates by fprinkling the newly united couple with his urine. I wifhed to visit the public prifons of thefe people, and be prefent at the fittings of their tribunals, and the decrees of their fovereign council. Perhaps I had deftroyed monfters enough in Africa to afpire to the honour of being admitted into that order of knighthood; the progrefs and ceremonials of which the hiftorian has defcribed with no lefs pomp than minutenefs. "Alas! all thefe fplendid chimeras vanished before me. Religion, police, laws, military taftics, orders of battle, treaties of peace, experienced generals, prifoners of war, vanquishers and vanquished, were all romances exifting only in the brain of the author, and in the taverns where they had been toldhim by those who made him their sport. "Thirty or forty years after the publication of his voyage, abbé de la Caille made fome ftay at the Cape, and thus was enabled, on fome points at leaft, to pass judgment on the work. He spoke of it as he ought, and as it deferves. Since la Caille, other travellers have given their opinions of Kolben; and the learned now know how far they may rely on the accounts of that traveller. "To liften to him, in all the Hottentot tribes without exception, mothers have the inhuman prejudice of refolving not to have twins, and the abominable cuftom of deftroying one of the two. If the twins confift of two boys, or two girls, they kill the weaker of the two; if a boy and girl, the girl, he fays, is the victim: and he blushes not to avow, that he has witnessed these crimes. "Now I aver, that this charge is the blackeft calumny againft na ture that ever defiled the pen of a writer deftitute of modefty. The fight of the two twins of one of the wives of the chief was fufficient to convince me of this. However, as these children might have been an exception to the general law for fome particular reafon, I refolved to interrogate their father refpecting this pretended maffacre. "Every morning before I went a-hunting, he came to fee me with his two wives, and regale himself with a pipe of tobacco and a fopje, or small glafs, of brandy. Though his language was different from that of the Hottentots on the western, coaft, yet, in the two months I had fpent in the country. I had learned to understand it a little, and make myself understood. One day as I was fitting on the grafs, near my tent, with him and his two wives, I turned the converfation to the fubject of the twins, and afked his wife whether, if the fhould have twins again, the would not deftroy one of them? This question appeared to offend her: he kept filence, and fell into a deep mufing. But her husband, turning towards me, and reminding me that I had feveral times asked him fimilar queftions, declared with warmth, that fuch a facrifice was impoffible. Thus we fee how juft are the whites, who, believing Kolben, accufe the Nimiquas of a crime fo abominable as to be an outrage a gainft the common mother of all beings. "I will here add, that the Nimiquas not only do not make away with one of their twins when they have them, but preferve and bring up all their children. This duty is fo natural, that I could not have made them comprehend an idea repugnant to it. "Befde "Befide the grand and revolting charge of which I have juft fpoken, I had heard, refpecting the Greater Nimiquas, another abfurd fable, the falfehood of which I equally verified. This was not told me at the Cape, like the preceding one; I had it from Klaas Bafter, who, being born near Orange River, might have known fome things refpecting these people with certainty. "According to him, the fathers, to fhew what affection they bear their children, feed their eldeft in a particular manner, as being of right the first object of paternal care. For this purpose, they put him in a coop, as it were; that is, they fhut him up in a trench made under their hut, where, being deprived of motion, he lofes little by perfpiration, while they feed and cram him in a manner with milk and grease. By degrees the child fattens, and gets as round as a barrel; and when he is come to fuch a ftate as not to be able to walk, but to bend under his own weight, the parents exhibit him to the admiration of the horde; who, from that period, conceive more or lefs eftéem and confideration for the family, accordingly as the monster has acquired more or lefs rotundity. "Such was the account given me by Klaas Bafter; and though it appeared to me altogether impro bable, yet the narrator related fo many particulars, of which he pretended to have been an eye-witnefs; he had fo little intereft in impofing upon me; and the human mind, in uncultivated and ignorant nations, appears fometimes capable of fuch fenfelefs cuftoms and prejudices, that, notwithstanding my reluctance, I could not avoid believing it. Soon, however, I was unde ceived. Wherever I asked any queftions on the fubject, I saw that the people to whom I addrelled myself were ready to laugh in my face. Still, as it appeared strange to me, that a man fhould talk of what he had feen, when he had in reality feen nothing; as it was poffible, that the fable might have fome foundation, without being true in all its particulars, I was willing to convince myself what could have given rife to it; and, every time I visited a horde, I took care, under different pretences, to examine, one after another, all the huts of the kraal, and to ask which was the eldest child of the family: but I no where faw any thing that indicated either this pretended coop, or this pretended cramming. "It is probable that fuch a tale may have originated among the planters refiding on the Namero, and in the neighbourhood of the country of the Nimiquas; that it was a pleafantry of fome wit of the place on the leanness of these people, which indeed is extreme; and that Klaas Bafter, the son of a Hottentot and a planter, having had it inftilled into him in his infancy, had finished, like other romancers, by afferting that he had feen what he had only been told. And thus it is, that, throughout the whole of the colony of the Cape, the planters and even the Hottentots will affure you, that fprinkling with urine is practifed in the marriage ceremonies of the favage hordes." "In fize, the Greater Nimiquas are taller than the other Hottentot tribes. They appear even to exceed in height the Gonaquas, though perhaps they do not in reality. Their flender bones, delicate air, thin fhape, and fmall legs, every thing, in short, even to their cloaks, which reach from their shoulders to the |