the neck; these are usually heir loons in a family, and in turn grace all the young olive branches as they shoot forth.

Infants are slightly, if at all clad, and there is no custom among these people tending to produce any deformity of limbs, which from the birth are allowed free developement, nor is any care taken to prevent exposure to either sun or rain. Infants are seen in the houses of all the villages crawling about alone, and as soon as old enough to get down the, so called, stairs of the raised floors, they are to be found in groups amusing themselves without any control, and naked as when born. The girls clothe when five or six, the boys seldom submit to the restraint till eight or nine years old. This freedom enables them to exhibit in youth well made persons, tends to much personal activity, and inures them to subsequent exposure, without any fear of ill consequences. The government of their children is mild and affectionate, and is repaid by duty and attention in after life, and there is little evidence to be derived from their noise of crying, of the number of children who flourish in a Chedooba village.

Though well proportioned, and exhibiting a good share of muscle, especially on the lower limbs, they are a small people, and of moderate stature, the tallest among them not attaining a height of five feet ten inches; five feet four or five inches may be the average; the females less.

Though with decided Tartar features, all search for any thing approaching to what constitutes in our ideas, beauty, must be in vain, yet there is an open expression of frankness and good humor, in the countenances of many of both sexes, and very commonly so in age, which with us must be allowed to pass in its stead, and among themselves constitutes that envied distinction. But truth compels to the avowal that this is found oftener with the males than females. The color of the skin is not a black, but that of a mulattoe.

Of ornament, when grown up, neither sex have any; but a practice designed for such purpose in all other countries, is here transferred into one of every day usefulness; with both, the lobe of the ear is perforated, and the large hole fully occupied with the ever accompanying cigar. A roll of paper fills its place, when not present, in order that the capacity of this natural cigar case may not be diminished by contraction; where it can be afforded, silver is used instead of paper, and sometimes the white pith of a particular wood is used. When about to make a journey, the dimensions of the cigar are greatly increased, and it is

foot to fifteen inches in length; a party on the road with both ears thus mounted, looks not a little singular. Neither the practice of smoking, nor the method of carrying the cigar is confined to the men, and from infancy both sexes are accustomed to the indulgence; but as before noted it is of a most mild quality, and made principally from a leaf found in a jungle, with but little tobacco. It is the only one of an excitable nature in use, if indeed the mild mixture they smoke, is so at all. The only beverage is water, and though the licensing of shops for liquor and opium, is, in the more populous towns of Ramree, and the mainland, gradually tending to deprive their neighbors and countrymen of those parts, of the invaluable inheritance of national sobriety, Chedooba is as yet clear of the infection.

The acquirements of education are the result of the labors of the priesthood, who thus repay the maintenance allotted them by the public. All classes receive a like attention, the extent of which goes to the learning to read and write; of this benefit however, the children alone of the more populous villages of Chedooba principally partake, they alone being large enough to maintain continually an establishment of the sort, though every village has attached to it, a riong or church, and a school-room, to which occasional visits are paid by itinerant priests. Spinning cotton, and the use of the loom are branches of domestic education, learnt by the females at home; while as soon as he is old enough to bear its weight, the boy sallies forth with his parent, and his dih, to assist in clearing the jungle for cultivation, or in felling it for fuel.

The skill in the use of this weapon, thus learnt, is very great; in shape it resembles our bill-hook, with the sharp edge along the outer or convex side, but it is without the crook, longer and heavier, the largest in this latter particular fully equalling that of one of our own axes, with a blade nearly two feet long, and about four inches in width. With this weapon, the ease and rapidity with which the largest trees are felled is very great, and the Mug is perhaps as dexterous a woodsman as the Kentucky man himself.

The tree is not felled so low down as with the axe, but breast high, which raises an objection to felling with it for timber, though not in mere clearing for cultivation. Every man in the island has his dah, which is his constant companion, and is in constant use, to fell his timber, to make his cart, his house, his canoe, his baskets for fishing or other purposes, and last not least,

to chop up his curry. A Mug without a dah might as well be without a right hand. In felling trees of very large diameter, an axe is made use of; it is a sort of thick chisel, with about a two inch blade, inserted into a handle knobbed at the end for its reception, where it is further secured by a seizing of rattan. This is a formidable weapon in a Mug's hand, and he fells his tree with it quickly and clean.

With a disposition greatly averse to any continued or fixed labor, the Mug yet is always on the move, either at work, or half amusement with his dah in the jungles, or wandering through them from village to village; this constant out door exercise and use of limb, gives a suppleness, and developement of muscle to their legs and thighs particularly, which constitute him an untiring walker, and is very perceptible even in very old age, rendering him to the last independent of all other means of progression, and able still to indulge his love of rambling with those he was born with.

I found to my astonishment that the oldest man on the Island, numbering 106 years, had walked from his own village, a distance of thirteen or fourteen miles, in order to meet me at another, and walked back again on being disappointed. He subsequently came two miles from his own village to where we did meet, and during our interview, I could not but be much struck with the exhibition he made in illustration of the above remarks. While on his body the skin lay quite loose, and was perfectly festooned with wrinkles, his legs and thighs exhibited as much plumpness, and fulness of flesh and muscle, as they could have done, when they had performed but half their over century of work, and though in other cases I found old men, whose faculties had broken down under years, I never heard of one whose limbs had given way, or who was bedridden; a staff was all the assistance the above old gentleman required.

Beside the above out door duties and amusements, all the heavier labors of agriculture fall to the share of the man; but the cleaning of the rice for ordinary consumption after it is brought in, is done by the women, with the instrument in common use for this purpose in other parts of India. This falls to her lot as one of the household duties which are assigned to her; but in none any more than in her general treatment and place in society, has she ought to complain of. Besides her household affairs, she goes to market, and prepares the family meal, at which she invariable eats out of the same dish with her husband. No restraint is imposed on her liberty, and she may attend all places of

amusement and religion, unaccompanied by her husband. In the performance of religious duties, the women are more punctual and attentive than the men.

In erecting his hut, the Mug has only to purchase materials, the neighbors assemble

as

soon as these are prepared, and his house is established in a very short space of time. They are all constructed on the same plan, raised on poles from the ground several feet; the flooring and walls are of bamboo matting, wove in a neat pattern; the roof of the Ahtup leaf neatly covered with a frame work of bamboo, to prevent its being injured by the monsoon winds.

All apartments, whether sleeping, sitting, cooking, bathing, or private, are on this raised floor, through which all refuse finds its way underneath, where what is left by dogs and vermin, serves as manure for the garden attached to each house. Shelter is also afforded underneath to the poultry, of which they have much, and sometimes to the smaller kine. The kitchen range is formed by a round tray of moist clay, about three feet in diameter, and five or six inches thick, leaving three small projections or columns on its centre, whereon to rest the cooking pot; when dried in the sun, it is fit for employment, and effectually protects the combustible floor; the furniture consists of a few reed mats, and each member possesses a wooden pillow; these are the whole amount. The rice for the family meal is served up in a wooden bowl, around which the whole party squat; the fish, flesh, fowl or vegetables are served in small coarse China tea cups, the right hand, and the mouth are always washed before, and after the meal; water is the only beverage at the meal, and when it is over, pawn is in use, and the cigar lit. Two meals suffice during the day, the one at seven in the morning, the other at sundown, and both are very soon despatched. On taking a journey the meal is carried in a few leaves bound up with a rattan; on such occasions they have also a practice of cooking rice, which I believe to be peculiar; it is partly boiled, and then pressed with force into a bamboo, with a further portion of water, and when full, the bamboo is put into the fire, and roasted. The rice within, when dressed, thus keeps for many days, and a bundle of these bamboos is the simplest manner of carrying more than a day's provisions through the jungle. When to be eaten, it is split with the dâh; the rice is formed into a kind of semi-transparent jelly of strong consistency, with the soft inner lining ef the bamboo firmly attached to it, which is eaten with it. When baked with milk instead of water, and with the addition of a little flour, rice cooked in

precepts or practice, and when discussing, and ridiculing its absurdities, as brought forward by our friend its advocate, the laugh and joke was fully participated in by all the hearers, who appeared much to enjoy and even promote such a scene.

All the pagodas are in a state of ruin or decay, or rapidly approaching to it, and broken fragments of the image of Gaudma lie strewn about, without any one attempting the restoration of him or his temple. The old Christian before mentioned, had taken forth his god years ago, and both broken, and deserted him on the high road side, where his remains were pointed out to us without either mark or expression as to any impropriety in such conduct, but contrariwise, the forlorn state of the poor idol excited laughter instead of commisseration. On a remarkable hill in the centre of the Island stands the principal pagoda in the common ruinous state; no pious hand, had for many a year attempted to annihilate himself by its restoration; but whether in waggery or not, its chief ornament consisted of a cut glass decanter, turned bottom up, on a bamboo stuck into its pinnacle, and excited the langhter of our native party, as much as our own.

The Mugs are superstitious, and though by no means more deficient in personal courage than their Burmah neighbors, yet exhibit in some points a weakness, which might cause a doubt on this point. No Mug will travel alone in the dark, nor even on moonlight nights, for fear of evil spirits or Naths; but when together "three Mugs will face the devil." Nothing but positive order and accompaniment by us would induce them to trespass on many of the hill tops, which were inhabited, they said, by these demons, but with us not only would they advance fearlessly, but did not hesitate to fell the trees, though the blame of such sacrilege was always laid on us, in direct apostrophe to the supposed injured inhabitants. On felling any very large tree one of the party at work on it, was always ready prepared with a green sprig, which he ran and placed in the centre of the stump, the instant the tree fell, as a propitiation to its spirit which had been dislodged so roughly, pleading at the same time the orders of the strangers for the work.

the only one on the Island, and is a sincere, and pious old man, deeply interested in the improvement, social and religious, of his Island countrymen. He is intelligent and well informed for his means, of the mildest manners, and benevolent appearance; though between 75 and 76. His pittance is small, five rupees a month from the American Baptist Mission, of which he is an assistant; he is listened to with great attention and curiosity, but, unsupported as he is, and with but little encouragement, his success is small,

Ramree, the chief town of the province, enjoys the privilege of a school, where English is taught, and Chedooba, as a part of the province, is entitled to send its quota of pupils. But the habits of the people, and even the regulations of the school, deprive its inhabitants of making almost any use of it. Payment is required; there may be no friends at Ramree to take charge of the children, and the Chedoobans are attached to their Island too much to allow willingly even their children to leave it for any length of time; very few parents, therefore, and those chiefly the Island authorities, give their children the benefit of the advantage offered by the provincial school. But the payment which is begrudged to the Ramree establishment, would be willingly made even in higher amount to one at home; both children and parents in Chedooba are all common friends, and mutually known; and such an establishment, which the deficiency of priests, for educational purposes, point out as wanted, would soon meet with that most grateful appreciation of the boon, a large attendance.

THE SACRIFICE.

A correspondent of the Calcutta Christian Observer, under the signature of J. M. D., in a series of letters to a friend, under date of July 1, 1841, has the following upon the Lord Jesus Christ as a sacrifice, and for which we bespeak an attentive perusal.

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