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and not immediately pressed, the
juice begins to ferment, and is fit
only to be converted by distillation
into rum.
At these seasons, there-
fore, and particularly in the latter,
every hand that can work, however
feebly, is of importance to the
planter; and the urgent demand for
labour sometimes makes him wholly
insensible to acts of inhumanity,
which, perhaps, at other times, might
appear to him in their true light, and
as odious and atrocious in the ex-
treme. This is not the case in the
Brazils. The season of planting,
on account of the longer continu-
ance of rain, is at least two months
longer here than in the West Indies;
and the gradual ripening of the
plants protracted in the same pro-
portion. It is not therefore found
to be necessary here, as is the case
in our colonies, to drive the slaves
to work with the crack or the lash
of the whip, or to regulate the
stroke of the bill or the hoe by the
measure of a forced song.

If it should unfortunately happen that our colonies in the West Indies may ultimately be involved in the fate of St. Domingo, a considerable mass of property will no doubt be lost to this country; but, at the same time, it cannot well be denied that this loss would be productive of a most important saving to the state, by the number of British subjects who, in their removal to a better climate, would escape a premature death. The most valuable productions of the West India islands were originally transplanted from the East, where the labour of slaves is not required, nor any extraordinary waste of Europeans occasioned. To this source we may again recur, and India and China may eventually prove the great

sheet anchors of our commercial prosperity.

The ruin of the West India islands, it is to be feared, would equally affect the tranquillity of those colonies on the continent of South America, in the possession of the English and the Dutch, which would tend in a very material degree to enhance the value of the posses sions of Spain and Portugal on the same continent. But the restrictions, the exactions, and the monopolies, under which the settlements of these two powers are oppressed, and the total want of energy in the inhabitants, which necessarily results from such a system, are so many invincible barriers against any improvement which favourable circumstances might otherwise suggest. Few countries afford so great a number or so great a variety of valuable productions as the Brazils. Beside the articles described in eight ancient paintings, which are noticed in a former chapter of the original work, the country produces an inexhaustible supply of the finest timber, suitable for all the purposes of civil and naval architecture; but the cutting and disposing of it is a monopoly of the crown. The first object of every man whe obtains a grant of woodland, is to destroy the best trees as fast as h can because he is not only forbid. den to send them to market, b may have the additional mortifica tion of being obliged to entertai the king's surveyor, whenever b thinks fit to pay him a visit, with a numerous rethue, for the purpose of felling the timber, which he, a owner of the estate, has not the power to prevent. Yet, notwithstanding this discouraging monopoly together with the difficulty of transport, on account of the badness e

the

the roads, and the scarcity of shipwrights, very fine vessels, equal in size to an English 74 gun-ship, have been constructed at Bahia or St. Salvador, and sent afloat, at the expence of about fifteen or sixteen pounds a ton, which in England would have cost from twenty-four to thirty-four pounds a ton.

Wheat, barley, Guinea corn, mil. let and all the European and tropical grains are produced in the greatest abundance; and all species of provisions and supplies for victualling and storing ships, and fitting them out for actual service at sea, are procurable at moderate rates in almost all the ports of the Brazils. At Rio de Janeiro alone a navy might be built, equipped, and fitted with every necessary for a sea voyage, sufficient to command the navigation of the southern Atlantic and the fisheries, by proper encouragement, would create a neverfailing supply of seamen. Both the black whale and the spermaceti are plentiful on every part of the coast.

Account of a Theatrical Entertainment at Cochinchina. From the Same.

The ambassador had not as yet landed at the town of Turon; and as the principal officers of that place were extremely desirous of testifying their respect by a public entertain. ment to be given on the occasion, his lordship fixed on the 4th of June for celebrating, with the Co. chinchinese on shore, the anniversary of his majesty's birth-day. Whether through accident, or in consequence of former suspicions, or to give eclat to the entertain ment, did not appear, but on the VOL. XLVIII.

evening preceding we observed an unusual bustle about the place, an increased number of troops in and about the town, besides several huge elephants of war. We therefore, on our part, took the precaution of sending the two armed brigs up the river opposite to the town, to make a retreat, if necessary, the more secure. The day, however, passed over in harmony and conviviality. We were conducted from the place of landing to a temporary building, on a larger scale than that which we had hitherto occasionally occupied. The two pitches of its roof were supported by a row of bamboo poles which, running down the middle, divided the building into two parts. The sides and the roof were covered with thick double matts, and lined within with coarse Manchester cottons, of various patterns. These prints appeared to be new, but damaged, and were probably the refuse of the China market, carried thither by the Portuguese trader. In the first compartment of the building was a long table covered with linen, and laid out with plates, knives and forks, in the manner and style of Europe. Our Portuguese friend, it seemed, by way of making some atonement for the injury he had nearly, though perhaps not maliciously, done us, had prevailed on the Cochinchinese to allow him to be master of the ceremonies for the day, concluding in his own mind that, as the eating and drinking would be considered by us as the best part of the entertainment, he would be able to suit our taste in these respects better than the Cochinchinese; and under this impression, to do him justice, he had spared neither trouble nor expence in making his dinner as complete as 3 K

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circumstances would admit: and thus, by his misplaced zeal, a good Cochinchinese entertainment was entirely marred by a bad Portuguese dinner.

A trifling circumstance occurred on our first entering the building, which was rather embarassing to the Cochinchinese officers. These people who, on most occasions, adopt the Chinese customs, had prepared a yellow skreen of silk, bearing, in large painted characters, the name of the young adventurer at Hué. Whether they took it for granted, or were so told by Manuel Duomé, that the English, as a matter of course, would make the usual prostrations to this shade of majesty, we did not inquire, but it was very evident they expected it; for when the general commanding at Turon, and who sat cross-legged on a bench as proxy for his master, observed that, having made our bow, we filed off and took our seats regardless of the yellow skreen, he appeared to be greatly disconcerted, and could hardly be said to recover himself the remainder of the day. His disappointment in missing the nine prostrations seemed to operate on his mind as if he had been sunk so many degrees in the estimation of his brother officers. He took little notice when the rank and station were explained, though at his own desire, which each of us held in the embassy, until the Chinese interpreter announced captain Parish of the artillery as the " overseer of the great guns," upon which his at. ention was suddenly roused, and Le seemed the whole day to regard this officer as a very formidable and a dangerous man.

In the farther division of the buil. ding a party of comedians was en

gaged in the midst of an historical drama when we entered; but on our being seated they broke off and coming forward, made before us that obeisance of nine genuflexions and prostrations, which we had been so very uncivil to omit to the Mandarin and his painted skreen of silk; after which they returned to their labours, keeping up an inces. sant noise and bustle during our stay. The heat of the day, the thermometer in the shade standing at 81° in the open air, and at least ten degrees higher in the building, the crowds that thronged in to see the strangers, the horrible crash of the gongs, kettle-drums, rattles, trumpets, and squalling flutes, were so stunning and oppressive, that nothing but the novelty of the scene could possibly have detained us for a moment. The most entertaining as well as the least noisy part of the theatrical exhibition was a sort of interlude, performed by three young women, for the amusement, it would seem, of the principal actress, whe sat as a spectator in the dress and character of some ancient queen; whilst an old eunuch, very whimsi cally dressed, played his antic tricks like a scaramouch or buffoon in a harlequin entertainment. The dialogue in this part differed entirely from the querulous and nearly monotonous recitative of the Chinese, being light and comic, and occasionally interrupted by cheerful airs, which generally concluded with a common chorus. These airs, rude and unpolished as they were, appeared to be regular composi tions, and were sung in exactly measured time. One in particular at tracted our attention, whose slow melancholy movement breathed that kind of plaintive softness so peculiar

to the native airs of the Scotch, to which indeed it bore a very close resemblance. The voices of the women were shrill and warbling, but some of their cadences were not without melody. The instruments at each pause gave a few short flou. rishes, till gradually overpowered by the swelling and deafening gong. Knowing nothing of the language, we were of course as ignorant of the subject as the majority of an English audience is of an Italian opera. In the shed of Turon, however, as well as in the theatre of the Haymarket, the eye was amused as well as the ear. At each repetition of the chorus the three Cochinchinese graces displayed their fine slender shapes in the mazy dance, in which, however, the feet were the least concerned. By different gestures of the head, body, and arms, they assumed a variety of figures; and all their motions were exactly adapted to the measure of the music. The burden of the chorus was not unpleasing, On the Character of the Cochinchi and was long recollected on the quarter-deck of the Lion, till the novelty which succeeded in China effaced it from the memory. In the latter country, however, we saw no dancing, neither by men nor women, which makes it probable that this part of the Cochinchinese entertainment must be an amusement of their own invention, or introduced from the western part of India.

among them pieces of copper money for this purpose, the Mandarins brought us some hundred pieces strung on cords, of the same kind as those which are current in China. By the Cochinchinese the regular drama is called Troien, or a relation of histories. To the ope ratic interlade of recitative, air, and dancing they give the name of Songsang; and a grand chorus accompanied with the gong, the kettle-drum, castanets, trumpets and other noisy instruments, is called the Ring-rang. The ambassador had ordered his band to attend on shore, where they played a few light airs; but the Cochinchinese had no ear for the soft and harmonious chords of European music. Their Ring-rang and their Song-sang were infinitely supe-rior in their estimation, and were the more applauded in proportion as they were the more noisy.

No entrance money is ever expected in the theatres of China or Cochinchina. The actors are either hired to play at private entertainments, at a fixed sum for the day; or they exhibit before the public in a temporary shed, entirely exposed in front. On such occasions, instead of cheering the performers with empty plaudits, the audience throw

nese. From the same.

Cochinchina, until a few centuries after the Christian æra, formed a part of the Chinese empire; and the general features of the natives, many of the customs, the written language, the religious opinions and ceremonies still retained by them, indicate distinctly their Chinese origin. In the northern provinces, however, they are more strongly marked than in those to the southward. The same characteristics are likewise discernible, but in a fainter degree, in Siam which is properly Se-yang, or the western country; in Pegu, probably Poquo, or the northern province; and in Ava and the rest of the petty states now comprehended under the Birman empire, where, 3 K 2

however,

however, from an intermixture with the Malays of Malacca and the Hindoos of the upper and eastern regions of Hindostan, the traces of the Chinese character are in many respects nearly obliterated. The Cochinchinese of Turon, notwithstanding the loose manners of the women which I shall presently have occasion to notice, and the tendency which all revolutions in governments have to change, in a greater or less degree, the character of the people, have preserved in most respects a close resemblance to their original, though in some points they differ from it very widely. They perfectly agree, for instance, in the etiquette observed in marriage and funeral processions and ceremonies, in the greater part of religious superstitions, in the offerings usually presented to idols, in the consultation of oracles, and in the universal propensity of inquiring into futurity by the casting of lots; in charming away diseases; in the articles of diet and the mode of preparing them; in the nature of most of their public entertainments and amusements; in the construction and devices of fire-works; in instruments of music, games of chance, cock-fighting and quail-fighting. The spoken language of Cochin. china, though on the same principle, is so much changed from the original as to be nearly, if not wholly, unintelligible to a Chinese; but the written character is precisely the same. All the temples which fell under our observation were very humble buildings; and we saw no specimens either of the heavy curved roofs, or of the towering pagodas, so frequently met with in China; but it seems there are, in many parts of the country, monasteries

that are amply endowed, whose buildings are extensive and enclosed with walls for their better security. The houses in general near Turonbay consisted only of four mud walls, covered with thatch; and such as are situated on low grounds, in the neighbourhood of rivers, are usually raised upon four posts of wood, or pillars of stone, to keep out vermin as well as inundatious.

The dress of the Cochinchinese has undergone not only an altera. tion, but a very considerable abridgment. They wear neither thick shoes, nor quilted stockings, nor clumsy sattin boots, nor petti. coats stuffed with wadding; bat always go barelegged and generally barefooted. Their long black hair, like that of the Malays, is usually twisted into a knot, and fixed on the crown of the head. This, indeed, is the ancient mode in which the Chinese wore their hair, until the Tartars, on the conquest of the country, compelled them to submit to the ignominy of shaving the whole head except a little lock of hair behind.

On the precepts of Confucius is grounded the moral system for the regulation of the conduct in this country as well as in China. Here, however, to the exterior forms of morality very little regard seems to be paid. In China these precepts are gaudily displayed in golden characters in every house, in the streets and public places; but here they are seldom seen and never heard. Were they, indeed, repeated in their original language, (and they will scarcely bear a translation,) they would not be understood. Their conduct, in general, seems to be as little influenced by the solemn precepts of religion as by those of

morality.

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