the Danish language, further than the use of a few words and phrases, which occur in the course of traffick; and of the women not one is the least acquainted with it. The Laplanders hold the missionaries, sent amongst them in the greatest esteem, and show them much respect. They salute them with great reverence when they meet them, and give them precedence upon all occasions. They make them frequent presents of what are reckoned in Lapland peculiar dainties, such as frozen reindeer's milk, with the tongue and marrow of that animal. They are very attentive to keeping holy the sabbath-day; they abstain from cursing and swearing, which are common vices among the inhabitants of Norway, and they lead a religious and moral life. Whoredoin and adultery are sins rarely committed: and the crime of theft is little or not at all known amongst them; so that locks or bolts, for the security of property in Lapland, are entirely unnecessary. Norway swarms with beggars, but begging is unknown amongst the Laplanders. If any one, from age or infirmity, should chance to be in want, he finds his necessities amply and instantly supplied, and charity appears unsolicited with open hands. The missionary, however, admits, that the Laplanders are not entirely exempt from those vices which ever prevail more or less amongst mankind in a state of society. They cannot resist the temptation of ebriety, and yield to the allurements of avarice. They will get drunk, like the men of other countries, when strong liquor comes in their way; and cannot avoid cheating, like other dealers, when they can do it without danger of detection. The skins of the reindeer are more or less valuable, according to the season in which they are killed. If the animal be slain in the spring, his hide is found perforated by an insect which buries itself in it, and lays there its eggs; but it is otherwise with the reindeer killed in the winter. To defraud the purchaser by trying to obtain the same price for a defective skin as for a perfect one, the Laplander artfully closes up the holes in the skin; and, in order to impose upon the credulous trader, will not scruple to warrant it free from defect, and asserts that the beast was killed in autumn; though he well knows the case to be quite the reverse; that the skin is full of holes, and the deer was killed in spring, or in the worst season. Account of the Manner of contracting of Marriages, and Method of Bathing, used by the Fins. From Acerbie's Travels in Sweden, Finland, &c. NOTHIN OTHING could be more eurious than to describe the odd and fantastic customs of the northern nations, and the gross indelicacies practised among them on certain occasions: but I shall confine my remarks to their marriages and their baths. The peasants of the province of Savolaxa, in Finland, have a very singular mode of making love. When a young man feels an attachment for a young woman, he commissions some aged dame to acquaint the object of his love with his passion, and at the same time he sends her some presents. The old woman chooses, as the proper moment for executing her commission, that, when the girl is preparing to go to rest. While she is putting off her clothes, the woman takes an opportunity of getting into her presence, and bestowing many praises upon the lover. When the girl has heard all she has to say, the dame slips some present, perhaps a handkerchief, or ribband, or some piece of money, into her bosom. If the girl does not wish to have any correspondence with her admirer, she gives back the present to the mediatrix, who immediately conveys the unpleasing intelligence to her employer. It is to be observed, however, that this first refusal of the presents is not deemed a decisive proof of dislike. The lover does not yet despair of softening the heart of his mistress: by a repetition of his attempts he may still hope to accomplish his object. The positive mark of an invincible disapprobation and rejection, and after which there is no longer any further use in negotiation, or room for hope, is, when the young woman, instead of giving the box, containing the present, back to the ambassadress with her hands, she unlooses the cincture that keeps her dress close to her waist, and lets it fall between her breast and her shift down to the ground. But if, on the contrary, she retains the present, then the young people consider themselves as engaged to each other, and nothing but the marriage ceremony is wanting in order to constitute them husband and wife. On the wedding-day, some peasant among their neighbours, with the title of speaker, or orator, does the honours of the feast. This orator is generally a person who is not only endowed with a natural talent for speaking, but is also an improvisatore; for he is expected to make extempore verses suitable to the occasion, or any incidental circumstances: but the most curious and interesting ceremony of all, is that which takes place on the day after the marriage. All the guests being assembled, as on the day of the ceremony, the new married man is obliged to declare, whether or no he found his bride a virgin. If he answers in the affirmative, the orator, either in prose or verse, celebrates the happiness of the young couple on the preceding night, and drinks to their health out of a clean, well scoured, and bright cup. If in the negative, there is on the table a dirty and mean vessel, out of which he is obliged to drink. In the bottom of this utensil is a hole, out of which the liquor runs, and is spilt on the ground at one end, whilst it is emptied by the orator at the other. He after this makes some remarks, and gives some counsel of no very pleasing nature, to the bride. When the orator has finished his harangue, in either of these cases, he takes up a pair of the bridegroom's breeches, which are at hand for the purpose, and thumps the bride with them lustily (but not on her head or the upper part of her body), saying, at the same time, "Be fruitful, woman, and don't fail of producing heirs to your husband!” It is a general observation, and which admits of no exception, that in proportion as tribes or societies of men are rude and simple in their manners, they are indelicate on the subject of that passion which unites the sexes. That pu 3B 2 dor ches. It will, no doubt, be imme diately recollected by my readers, that this is an exact counterpart to the bundling of the Anglo-Americans. If, in consequence of the familiarities that pass during the dor circa res venereas, which Gro tius held to be a universal sentiment, and characteristic of the human species, in Otaheite has no exist ence. There was a custom which prevailed not a century ago in some parts of Scotland, and which, ac-." week of the breeches," their love cording to tradition, was once ge- be strengthened, they marry; but if, neral, almost as gross as that of on the other hand, their mutual the Finlanders. On the day after affections be lessened, the marriage the wedding, when the marriage does not take place. feast was continued, as in Finland, it was customary for the bridegroom, creeping on all fours, to receive on his back a large pannier full of stones, which he was obliged to carry until the bride, in token that she was no longer a maiden, came and relieved him of the heavy load, by throwing the pannier on the ground. In one parish in Finland (one of these parishes, it is to be observed, is equal in extent to a whole province of most other countries), it is the custom for young women to wear, suspended at their girdles, the case or sheath of a knife, as a sign that they are unmarried, and would have no objection to a husband. When a young man becomes enamoured with any of those damsels, his manner of courting her is, to purchase, or cause to be made, a knife in the exact form of the sheath, and to take an opportunity of slipping it into the sheath slily, without the girl's perceiving it. If the girl, on finding the knife in the sheath, keep it, it is a favourable symptom; if not, it is a refusal. In the parish of Kenir, before the day appointed or proposed for the marriage ceremony, the young people sleep together for a whole week, but without quite undressing; and this is called, the week of the bree Another particular that appeared very singular among the customs of the Fins, was their baths, and manner of bathing. Almost all the Finnish peasants have a small house built on purpose for a bath: it consists of only one small chamber, in the innermost part of which are placed a number of stones, which are heated by fire till they become red. On these stones, thus heated," water is thrown, until the company within be involved in a thick cloud of vapour. In this innermost part, the chamber is formed into two stories for the accommodation of a greater number of persons within that small compass; and it being the nature of heat and vapour to ascend, the second story is, of course, the hottest. Men and women use the bath promiscuously, without any concealment of dress, or being in the least influenced by any emotions of attachment. If. however, a stranger open the door, and come on the bathers by surprise, the women are not a little startled at his appearance; for, besides his person, he introduces along with him, by opening the door, a great quantity of light, which discovers at once to the view their situation, as well as forms. Without such an accident they remain, if not in total darkness, yet in great obscurity, as there is no window besides a small hole, not any light but what enters in from some chink in the roof of the house, or the crevices between the pieces of wood of which it is constructed. I often amused myself with surprising the bathers in this manner, and I once or twice tried to go in and join the assembly; but the heat was so excessive that I could not breathe, and in the space of a minute at most, I verily believe, must have been suffocated. I sometimes stepped in for a moment, just to leave my thermometer in some proper place, and immediately went out again, where I would remain for ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, and then enter again, and fetch the instrument to ascertain the degree of heat. My astonishment was so great that I could scarcely believe my senses, when I found that those people remain together, and amuse themselves, for the space of half an hour, and sometimes a whole hour, in the same chamber, heated to the 70th or 75th degree of Celsius. The thermometer, in contact with those vapours, became sometimes so hot, that I could scarcely hold it in my hands. The Finlanders, all the while they are in this hot bath, continue to rub themselves, and lash every part of their bodies with switches formed of twigs of the birch-tree. In ten minutes they become as red as raw flesh, and have altogether a very frightful appearance. In the winter season they frequently go out of the bath, naked as they are, to roll themselves in the snow, when the cold is at twenty and even thirty degrees below zero*. They will sometimes come out, still naked, and converse together, or with any one near them, in the open air. If travellers happen to pass by while the peasants of any hamlet, or little village, are in the bath, and their assistance is needed, they will leave the bath, and assist in yokingor unyoking, and fetching provender for the horses, or in any thingelse, without any sort of covering whatever, while the passengers sit, shivering with cold, though wrapped up in a good sound wolf's skin. There is nothing more wonderful than the extremities which man is capable of enduring through the power of habit. The Finnish peasants pass thus instantaneously from an atmosphere of seventy degrees of heat, to one of thirty degrees of cold, a transition of one hundred degrees, which is the same thing as going out of boiling into freezing water! and what is more astonishing, without the least inconvenience; while other people are very sensibly affected by a variation of but five degrees, and in danger of being afflicted with rheumatism by the most trifling wind that blows. Those peasants assure you, that without the hot vapour baths they could not sustain as they do, during the whole day, their various labours. By the bath, they tell you, their strength is reunited as much as by rest and sleep. The heat of the vapour mollifies to such a degree their skin, that the men easily shave themselves with wretched razors, and without soap. Had Shakespeare known of a people who could thus have pleasure in such quick transition from excessive heat to the severest cold, his knowledge * I speak always of the thermometer of a hundred degrees, by Celsius. EGY GYPT is inhabited by several races of people, all differing greatly in their manners, customs, and religion. Of these the first are the Mamalukes, who, though they constitute but a very inconsiderable part of the population, are the rulers and proprietors of the country, and on them all the rest are more or less dependent. Next are the Bedoween Arabs, constant wanderers in the desert, never inhabiting the same place for any length of time, and living by continual pillage and warfare. They form no general community among themselves, each tribe having its own cheik or chief, to whom the greatest deference and the strictest obedience are paid. From these numerous petty societies, and their divided inferests, arise never-ending quarrels and dissensions. Hospitality is among them a duty, of which they are most sacred observers; and an Arab in danger from any other persons, will not hesitate to throw himself into the power of his.. professed enemy, secure of meeting with safety and protection. They are however false, dissembling, revengeful, and cunning; and, though actually brave, will not scruple, in a dastardly manner, to assassinate their enemy. The Bedoweens are all furnished with horses, capable of undergoing the greatest fatigue in their excursions over the deserts, during which their food is very scanty, and water, always scarce, is sometimes not to be found. Their dress is very light, consisting of nothing more than a loose frock and a turban; their weapons are a long gun and a dagger. The third class are the Fellahs, who are the farmers and husbandmen of the country. They inhabit the villages, and cultivate the lands, all of which are the property of the Mamalukes, by whom these people are kept in the most abject slavery. When a Fellah has succeeded in amassing a small sum, by dint of economy and hard labour, he dares not make use of it, and is afraid to let it appear by any improvement in his lands or way of living, as it would most undoubtedly expose him to the extortions and pillage of his proprietor, or endanger his life by the rapacity of his neighbours, Hence it follows, that, when this * is buried is the case, the money under ground, and the wretched Fellah, like the miser of more civilized countries, has no other satisFaction but that of knowing where his riches are concealed. At his decease, the secret com The current coins in Egypt are those of Turkey, and Spanish dollars, at the rate of one hundred and fifty parats to the dollar. The ignorance of the people in the Turkish dominions in general is so great, that it is with the utmost difficulty they can be prevailed on to receive in payment any European coin, either of gold or silver, except the Spanish dollar, and its subdivisions; and these only when stamped with the two pillars. monly |