their flight; but, in fact, so sudden and so dreadful was the consternation that succeeded the defeat of the unhappy natives of Taffere, as no doubt to paralyse the minds of the wretched creatures, when prompt consideration could alone be serviceable to their deplorable condition. The conquerors appeared to anticipate with inordinate delight, the festival with which this sad event had gratified their horrible expectation. Forty-two bodies were extended on one platform in BulJandam's canoe; and one of these, a young female, appearing most to attract his attention, he desired that his second in command would have it laid by for themselves. The Tafferians being wholly defeated and dispersed, the island was taken possession of by Bullandam's forces, which were very numerous. This principal chief invited Mr. Sinith on shore, as he seemed inclined to shew him favour; and Mr. Smith declares it to be one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen: the houses, in number about a hundred, ranged on the declivity of a hill, interspersed with cocoa-nut, bread-fruit, and other trees, and each house defended with a wall of piled stone. The buildings were however ail set fire to by Bullandam's order; and Mr. Sinith becoming solicitous for his release, was informed by the chief, that as soon as all the victims were devoured, he should be set at liberty with his companions. The dead bodies were got into the canoes, and the whole fleet left Taffere on their return to the main island, where many others joined in the horrible festivity, which was conducted with rude peals of acclamation. Mr. Smith was on this occasion also taken on shore by the great chief, and here had again to experience a detestable spectacle. The bodies had been dismembered of their limbs, which were suspended on the boughs of trees in readiness for cookery; and afterwards part of a human leg was offered to Mr. Smith, who had never broke his fast for five days. The offer he rejected with abhorrence; and upon his captors appear ing astonished at the refusal, he gave them to understand, that if he ate of human flesh he would instantly die They were satisfied with this excuse, and continued their abominable festivity the whole night. On the 15th, the chief in the canoe that captured Mr. Smith's boat, applied to Bullandam for the prisoners, and the long boat, in order to return them to their ship, declaring his intention to demand three whale teeth and twelve hatchets for their ransom; but this proposal was not then attended to. Twenty or thirty men then arrived at the place of rendezvous, each bringing a basket of human flesh half roasted; which mode, Mr. Smith learnt, they took to preserve it. The day of deliverance at length approached from a captivity the most afflicting, from a diversity of causes that man could be exposed to; and after enduring it nine days, and totally fasting, he was at length turned over to the charge of the chief of Niri, with orders to demand the ransom for himself, and six of his companions. But previous to quitting the voracious party, a new incident of cruelty occurred. One of the unfortunate inhabitants of Taffere had swam from his distressed island to the main, but was perceived as soon as he gained the shore, and was in consequence pursued by a multitude, armed with bows and arrows, spears and clubs: the pursuit terminated with the life of the wretched fugitive, whose body presented a new source of exultation and cannibal festivity. On the 16th, Mr. Sinith was restored to his overjoyed shipmates, with all his companions except two, one of whom was Mr. Lockerby, who were afterwards indebted for their rescue to a determined perseverance in the captain, his officers, and people, which was highly creditable and meritorious. Mr. Smith, Mr. Lockerby, and all the others, had been repeatedly on the very point of assassination, to which these people seem to possess no kind of repugnance whatsoever, but on the contrary, it appears their chief object of delight. Their de termined obstinacy in effecting every thing they attempt, can alone be equalled by the extraordinary precision of their arrangements, which are planned methodically, and executed with an energy and calmness that surprise even an Euro.. pean; with strength of body they possess a thorough contempt of danger, and a heedlessness of pain. Their prese t conqueror, Bullandam, has already become terrible, and bids fair to possess himself of the sole sovereignty of the islands. But though implacable and sanguinary in his resentiments, yet we are assured that in his disposition, strong traces of kindness were perceivable towards all except the enemies of his arins. To To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, "THE HE age of chivalry is gone," but the age of back-sword, boxing, &c. &c. is not. Surely if we must have sports, the sports of chivalry are preferable, far preferable, to those. I did not expect to see an advocate for "back-sword or single-stick playing," in your Magazme for June last, page 416. Whatever may be I. B.'s opinion of the game in question, it is looked upon here, by the sober and rational part of the county at least, as altogether be neath the employment of rational beings, and fit only for American savages, to whose sports it may, in all probability, bear a strong resemblance. Sir, I con ceive there is, in these times, already too much disposition in the human mind to foster a martial spirit in Europe; and, whilst so able a wielder of the sceptre of blood rules the Continent, it is likely to continue; but the true interests of man lie not in the mutual destruction of his species. How back-sword may even be made subservient to the cause of war, must be left to abler hands to determine. I have however heard it whispered, that our notorious boxers are not often courageous in the field of battle. Perhaps the difficulty of accounting for this will not be great in boxing, they fight merely for themselves; in the field of battle, for their Country: and, as they are not in the same predicament, feel not the same ardour. May we not therefore apply the same argument to the back-swordplayer. Back-sword is, I am afraid, too nearly allied to bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and 'boxing. So far from encouraging these sports, it is certainly the duty of every lover of peace and good order, to discountenance them as much as possible; not perhaps by legislative enactments, but by turning the minds of the rising generation into more useful channels; by diffusing more extensively the means of acquiring a sense of religious and moral obligation; by schools; and, last and best of all, by our own examples. Ultimately, I think there can be no doubt, but that single-stick playing, bullbaiting, cock-fighting, and the numerous et cetera of American savage sport, in cluding even hunting, will give way to a closer application to the improvement of the human mind, and to a more extended humanity, not only to our fellow men, but to every species of the brute crea 1 tion. The more clearly we see the means, the sooner we shall obtain the end, of acquiring all the happiness which is compatible with our existence here: we have natural evils sufficient to combat with, without making for ourselves artificial ones. I am happy to say for this county, (Somerset) that the sports above-mentioned are by no means so common as they used to be: the mists and fogs of ignorance must vanish before the sun of a bright and better day. Huntspill, July 10, 1810. JAMES JINNINGS. respecting the topography of distant countries, I send you some remarks on a part of our western scenery,which always excites the admiration of travellers. Little-falls is a village situated about eighty miles westward of Albany; the road by which you approach it on the eastern side, is made at a great expence, on the north part of the Mohawk. On the right of it are stupendous highlands, which seem almost wholly composed of rocky strata. In two or three places they are piled almost perpendicularly, and their summits are crowned with trees of considerable size. A traveller, who like me is given to romancing, may easily imagine them to be the massive walls of some Udolphian castle. The opposite shore is in every respect simi'ar to this, and the river is compressed between them to less than half its usual breadth. A remarkable phenomenon has given this passage some adventitious sublimity. The rocks have been observed to be worn away like those under a cataract: some of them which are excavated, evidently from aqueous attrition, may be seen from the stage on the borders of the road. From this circumstance a belief has arisen, that the waters of the Mohawk were formerly arrested by these everlasting hills, forming a lake, which extended many miles westward, and that at length they burst their barrier, and rushed rushed 'doo. The country westward of them seems to favour the supposition. For several miles in that direction, the river is bounded on each side by a broad and beautiful intervale,* which was probably the bottom of the ancient lake. Gentlemen of intelligence and veracity have assured, that the face of the surrounding country is perfectly consistent with the supposition which may be naturally deduced from the phenomena I have above described. Let those who cross the wide Atlan tic to behold and admire the sublime scenery of my native land, as they wander through the vale of Lebanon, or on the rocky shores of the Hudson, towards the awful cataract of Niagara, pausing on this romantic spot, retrospectively behold a scene which no one that witnessed could have survived. Schenectady, New York, March 29th, 1810. E. H. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. I SIR, N my last I corrected some mistakes of the Commentator of Richard, in the road from Durnovaria to Cenia; I beg now to proceed with my corrections through the remainder of this Iter; and must observe, in addition to my last, (which was at one place either very in correctly expressed, or printed, I know not which,) that the road from Durnovaria to Moridunum ran not by the way generally used from Dorchester, but by the way of the old Roman road at Eggardon-hill, through Dorset and Somerset to Hembury-fort, or Moridenum, on Black-Down, Devon. Durnovaria, or Dorchester, answers to thirty-six miles from Moridunumn; but is supposed in its site to be uncertain, from the number of other camps in its neighbourhood. The name of the chief town of the Durotriges, was by Richard named Durinum: Ptolomy calls it Dunium, and Durnium. Durn, in Durnovaria, is a contraction of Durin, or Water-land. The syllable um or am, is often rendered ham, and implies border; and as varia is head or border, and may imply camp, from camps of old being formed on such beads, Durnovaria was, doubtless, Dorchester. Dr. Stukeley supposes Bere to be the Ibernum of the Ravennas, and the next Used in America to denote the plain between the river and the adjacent high lands. MONTHLY MAG. No. 202, supposed lost stations both in Antonine and Richard; and that Woodbury Hill was the Estiva to the town: but Bere is eleven or twelve miles from Dorchester, instead of nine, as in the Itinerary. In like manner in placing Vindocladia at Boroston, the doctor's distance was too great from Sorbiodunun. Gale, and other writers, have fixed this station at Wimborn Minster, which is twenty-two miles from Old Sarum; Horseley, near Cranborn, which is not in the same road; and the commentator on Richard, at Gassage Cow Down, which is sixteen miles from Sorbiodunum: not in the ancient track, nor is the name a translation of Vindocladia. "For Dr. Stakeley derives Vindocladia from Vint, white, and Gladh, a river. Aberdug lediau, or [Aberdugledau] Milford laven, has been rendered the Mouth of the two Swords. Vindocladia is also thus derived by authors, from the situa tion of Winborn Minster between two rivers, the Stour and the Allen. Windugledy, they say, in British signifies two Swords; and that the Britons called their rivers peculiarly by the name of Swords, is plain, they continue, from Aberduglediau, the British name of Mil. ford Haven; that is, the Mouth of the two Swords, because two rivers called Glediau, that is Swords, ran into it.". It was a maxim of an old philosopher, that a plain agreement should be expected between the name and the thing, and where there was a disagreement, that we should not admit of a conjec ture. Now what agreement is there between two Swords, and the two largest streams which run into Milford Haven? Give me leave to ask, whether, hand to hand, you can cut or thrust with these strehis? Do you wish to compare them with great or little, broad or narrow, long or short, swords? Are they like swords of vengeance, or of justice, or of authority? I fear, Sir, that they are not to be compared with any swords, and therefore are not derived from them. The word Cluid, from whence the Cluyde in Scotland, and the Gled or Cled, in Wales, are derived, implies a nook, and Amh or Ac, varied in Au, and here to Iau, means the sea or water. Aber is mouth, and Du land; or Do, here Du, may be a sign of the dative case: hence Aberduglediau will mean, the Mouth of the Sea Nook-Land, or the mouth to the Sea Nook. Gledian will be the Nook, or Haven Water. Four things are necessary to the asD certaining certaining of stations. First: the roads on which they lie, which are sometimes mistaken. Secondly: the miles between them, which were, I suppose, formerly as now, either measured or customary; and which, for want of ascertaining old tracks, are often uncertain. To fix these miles we must first proceed with standard measure: if we fail here, we may try what we may conceive customary, or generally received distance; and for want of a certain line of road, we must have recourse to the nature of the country, and the line of probable access from place to place. If the first of these measures agree with remains, and the Itinerary name, you must look no further. If you must have recourse to the second you may err a little, from your ignorance of ancient customary measure. If to the third, your judgment must direct you; and in either of these you will find, that the Romans did not often reckon twelve where the distance was sixteen; much less must you expect them to have reckoned twelve where it was twenty-two. Thirdly: the import of names ancient and modern. Where the old name is lost in maps, you must seek its new one, for it is always a translation thereof; and here fancy must not lead you astray, as many have been led, in selecting forms not connected with the features of nature. You must always remember, that the old name peculiarly agreed with its situation; and the new one, if rightly translated, will do the same; and both together will exhibit such a proof of local situation, as even folly will not be enabled to cavil at. Fourthly: you will examine remains: but as these were in many counties scattered over their surfaces in various directions, from ac. cidental as well as from permanent causes, these only may prove nothing, except in combination with the foregoing. From Sorbiodunum to Vindocladia, the road is supposed to be well known, and the distance is easily estimated. The miles between these, in the copies of Antoninus, are variously stated at twelve, thirteen, and fifteen. Of the two first, both may agree; for as the Romans counted no odd measure, it may be reckoned as near to one as to the other; and these two numbers so nearly agreeing, shew that twelve or thirteen is to be preferred to fifteen, on the authority of Antoninus alone. But to put this point out of all doubt, Richard's distance is also twelve miles. The station of Vindocladia, or Bindo 3 cladia, cannot in our maps be found by its old name; but at the exact distance of twelve Roman miles from Sorbiodunum, we have Pentridge. V, B, and P, are in old names commonly written for each other; and Vindo, Vento, and Venta, may be contracted to Vent and Bent, from my observations on Venta, in a former letter; and this may be changed to Pent, as in Pentridge. Cladh implies a ridge, dyke, bank, burying-place, rampart, &c. and as Dh and Th were also commonly changed to D and T, Clad in Vindocladia, means the same as Ridge in Pentridge. Dr. Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curiosum, says, "When this road (the Ro man) has passed through the woods of Cranborn Chase, and approaches Woodyates, you see a great dyke and vallum on the edges of the hills (Black-Down) to the left by Pentridge, to which I suppose it gave name: this crosses the Ro man road, and then passes on the other side, upon the division between the hundred. The large vallum is here southward, and it runs upon the northern brink of the hills." Mr. Maton says, "that about a mile and a half from Woodyate's in, we observe several tumuli, or barrows;" and "on the declivity of the hill to the left, there are vestiges of extensive entrenchments, which afford reason for believing, that this spot might once have been the scene of an important battle.' Mill supposed Vindocladia to be at Winborn Minster. The great dyke near Pentridge is called Grim's Dyke, which implies the war or battle dyke, or entrenchment. The ground near this is strewed with a vast number of barrows, some very large, and four with circular trenches, of sixty feet in diameter. Barrows are usual in the neighbourhood of stations and of battles. Venta may very properly im ply a passage, or town of accommodation, as I have before stated: for near this, the Roman road crossed Grim's Dyke. But I should rather give this its original signification, by rendering it the head or hill-land: and the name Vindocladia will, in this case, imply the Head-land Dyke, Ridge, or Entrenchment. Another reading of this name seems to have reference to what hath been said of the barrows: and as Cladh means a * Penbury Hill is also said to be near this place. I should suppose this place to have remains. burying-place, burying-place, so here Gail-aid or Gelaid in Ventage!adia, seems to imply the slaughter portion, or place of battle, whereon the dead were interred: and the whole name to mean the Slaughter Portion lead, or Hill-Land Station. To sum up my observations.-The roads, the distances, and the names, perfectly agree; and these, with the vestiges of extensive entrenchments, the barrows, &c. seem all to shew that we may fix this station with more certainty here, than it can be fixed in any other sup. posed situation. The site of Vindocladia being unknown, and even Durnovaria not being a name mentioned by ancient writers as a town of the Durotriges, it might have been conceived that both these stations lay in another road from Sorbiodunum to Moridunum; I have therefore in my last, and in the above, endea voured to settle this. It is remarkable, that the omissions of this Itinerary should be the same in Antoninus and Richard. Much is therefore still left for the antiquary to explore between Dorchester and Pentridge, and between the first and Moridunum. In the remaining part of this Itinerary, the distances from Old Sarum to Brige, and from thence to Venta Belgarum, seem to be ascertained; but from the last to Vindomi, there is some uncertainty. Dr. Beeke has found that the sum of the distances between Venta and Vindomi, and Vindomi and Caleva, is right, though the particulars are not. In Richard's map, Caleva and Vindomis are rightly placed; but his commentator fixes the first among the Segontiaci. In Itinerary fifteen, if we reckon Silchester Caleva, the distance from Speene is too little; and from thence to Pontes is too much. In Itinerary eighteen, from Tamesa or Moulsford (Moulsfort* perhaps, as in old maps) to Vindomis, the Itinerary states it fifteen miles, which Dr. Beeke, in the fifteenth volume of the Archæologia, finds to be the real distance. But in the Comment on Richard it is supposed, that instead of Vindomis we should read Calera, which is contrary to the original and map, as well as to the purport of ticularised; but in Itinerary fifteen, from London to Caleva by way of Pontes, it is forty-four miles; and Cateva is placed, by the Commentator, as before-mentioned, at Silchester. Vindomis this gentleman removes to St. Mary Bourne; and Venta, he supposes tweuty-one miles from this last; which is, as might be expected, by maps, fuil six miles more from Venta than its real distance: and it is plain from inspection, and from what is above stated, that St. Mary Bourne lay not in the road from Caleba Attrebates to Venta Belgarum: Dr. Beeke seems to have very nearly settled the stations of Caleva and Vindomis. To conclude: the Atrebates took their name from lying on the Thames; and the Segontiaci, from living near the southwestern border of the Kennet. The names of their primary cities are conformable to their situations and to the map; and their distances from each other seem to be reconcilable. A. B. REPORT of the COMMITTEE of the CORPO A Ta Common Council holden in the Chamber of the Guildhall of the City of London, on Wednesday the 6 h day of June, 1810, the Committee for General Purposes delivered into Court a Report in writing under their hands, on sir Richard Phillips's late publication relative to the Prisons within this City, which was read; and it was ordered that the s Report should be printed, and a copy sent to every member. To the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Al. dermen, and Commons, of the City of London, in Common Council assembled. WE whose names are hereunto subcsribed of your Committee for General Purpos s, to whom it was referred on the 21st day of June last, to examine into the allegations contained in a publication, by sir Richard Phillips, knt. late one of the Sheriffs of this city and county of Middlesex, addressed to the livery of London, relative to the state of the different Goals of this City, and the fees taken by the respective keepers, and to report our opinion thereon; do certify. That we referred the same to a Sub onmittee, who have accordingly made a Report to us, which we have caused to be hereunto annexed; and as far as the enquiries of that Sub-committe have gone, they found the said publication Hembury Fort, Devon. is generally of sir Richard Phillips to have been correct; called Hembury Ferd. and we unanimously agreeing with the sub. committee these names. In the sixteenth Itinerary, the road from London to Winchester is not par |
