This mental travelling, this review of the minds and manners, is highly ufeful. It divefts us of that unfocial pride, which raises our own imaginary rank; for virtues and vices are nearly the fame in all countries; benevolence is always amiable, and a narrow selfishness defpicable, from the hovels of the Hottentot to the caverns of Lapland. It expands the mind, fince it fhows that happiness and mifery are more equally diffused than we should fufpect, from a first and tranfient view; and it teaches us to refpect the errors of others, when they are found not to be more grofs and numerous than our

own.

The first question, which necefTarily occurs to the mental traveller, is the origin of the different nations, and the varieties of the human race. Thefe queftions are involved with each other; for, if the whole world did not proceed from one pair, no origin is neceffary, or at leal none can be determined. This is a fubject which has not yet been decided, and the road to investigation is fhut up, till fome liberal theologian fhall clearly fhow, that the Mofaic account of the creation is not to be underflood in a literal or an univerfal fenfe. The firft men for piety and learning, whom we have converfed with, have agreed that it is not fo; and indeed, the account of the early ages feems to have been chiefly defigned to preserve the Jewish genealogies. It is difficult to find one precept, either of morality or religion, except the punishment inflicted on the murderer, neceffary to the conduct of our lives, not to add, that the whole is related in the uncertain mode of tradition. We chiefly mean to refer to the ages before the flood; and should not have hazarded this opinion, if we had not known that it was fupported by the best authorities. Our author dwells chiefly on the different races of men, and on thofe tribes, in appearance, moft remote from them, viz. the white men on the ifthmus of Darien, and the Albinoes of Africa. But, in fact, there are no two fpecies of the fame genus, in the whole range of animated nature, more diftin&t than the wooly-headed African, and the copper-coloured American. To talk of the effects of climate is abfurd: it may influence the height, the strength, and from thence the manners; but it would never enlarge the lip, flatten the nose, or bend the knees. Befides, we know of no effect of climate beyond what may be produced by the degree and duration of heat and cold, by the effects of moisture more or less combined with them. Yet in America there are parts as fwampy as the banks of the Gambia, and deferts as dry and torrid as thofe of Ethiopia. Akbur does not decide; but he acts a little unfairly;

fairly; he leads his reader to determine, without feeming to biafs him.

Those who have examined the different races of mankind, the great families which have contributed to people the earth, must have been ftruck with the extenfive fettlements of the Tartars. Perhaps they are the most numerous family that we are yet acquainted with; for it is not eafy to limit their appearance. They are faid to be the defcendents of Japhet; but that is little to the prefent purpose. Akbur, with juftice, examines them at the beginning of his travels, and fets out from the North. He is foon attracted by the Grand Lama, and the Dâla Lama, and gives an entertaining account of that religion; but this was in general well known. The vaft hordes with which Scythia has peopled Europe and Afia excites the following just and natural reflections.

From the prodigious number of people which the regions of Scythia have fent forth, one would imagine that polygamy was beneficial to a community; and that no connection of the fexes could be more favourable to population. The fact, however, has been doubted, and apparently with good reafon; for although a plurality of wives has been much more universally allowed than the fimple ftate of monogamy, as will more fully appear hereafter, there yet feem to be natural as well as politi cal confiderations which fpeak forcibly against it. An equal proportion of the fexes is generally allowed to be the confequence of a man's being confined to a fingle wife; whereas, a great majority on the female fide is obfervable in thofe countries where his appetites are unrestrained. Of this, both India and China, together with the nations of which we are now treating, afford fufficient proof. Among thefe people, the women far outnumber the men; nor is the reafon affigned, a bad one. It is obferved by naturalifts, that the offspring of every animal partakes in general of the fex of that parent which has the trongest and most vigorous conftitution; and that the women in India and China have lefs exhausted conftitutions than the men, must readily be admitted. A variety of attraction must enervate even the most robust man. The feraglio, therefore, cannot but be hurtful to the male propagation. In fupport of this opinion, we find, that in Europe, where polygamy is exploded, the proportion of males and females is nearly equal. I do not exactly recollect the calculation; but I believe it is as 1c6 to 108. Europe, then, can boaft of being in the trueft and most eligible ftate of nature; for woman being formed for man, and nature not allowing of thofe adventitious claims of riches and diftinction which first introduced a plurality of wives, the divifion, by her rules, fhould be as equal as poffible; each fhould poffefs his mate, the poor as well as the wealthy. Moreover the monopoly of beauty is a monopoly of the most injuri

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ous kind; it is a robbery; it is a fraudulent felection of the loveliest and most valuable treasure that is given to mar. Peace, happiness, and population, can only go hand in hand, while freedom reigns, and while there is a natural commixture of the fexes.

Polygamy, however, unfair and illiberal as it may be called, has yet the advantage, in every refpect, of polyandry, or a plurality of hufbands; that is affuredly, not only a most unnatural, but a most abominable cuftom. Something may be faid for a variety of wives, but that one woman fhould cohabit with a variety of men, is too grofs to be dwelt upon. Happily for the prefervation of our fpecies, this cuftom at prefent is feldom found to prevail. Thibet, and the mountains of Affghanistan, are the only places that I know of where it continues to exist; formerly, indeed, it was common. Media was fo celebrated for it, that a woman was looked upon with contempt who had fewer hufbands than five. Even Britain, the honeft foil of Britain, fome hundred years ago, produced females who would, without a blush, betroth their faith to a dozen boistrous fellows at a time.'

Akbur then paffes to China, and gives a favourable account of this peculiar people; an account the more valuable, as he frequently mentions what he has himself feen. But there is alfo other evidence.

The miffionaries, who from their knowledge in fcience, and their holy calling, and the minifters of foreign courts with their fuites, who have been admitted freely into China, have reprefented the Chinese in exactly the fame light in which they have appeared to me; but that which moft firmly riveted me in the opinion, was the account which I received from a ra tive of Cafhimere, who, in the garb and style of an itinerant merchant of China, had, for ten years, uninterruptedly, been travelling from one extremity of the empire to the other. His voice was loud in their praife: he had never been defrauded, he faid, of the most inconfiderable fum. As to oppreffion, he had been a ftranger to it; wherever his fancy led him he went; thieves and affaffins never infefted his way; his road he had always found a road of fafety; and the people, good humoured and obliging on every occafion, had given him caufe to be thankful, that he had found a refidence among them. The Chinese have unquestionably been misreprefented; at the fame time, that they have potfibly been too glaringly extolled: their true character may lie between the two extremes.'

The ftriking feature in the manners of the Chinese, not, generally known, is the little reverence paid to the clergy. The Tartars, in this country, have laid afide the veneration for the Lama; and, perhaps, influenced by the customs of the aborigines, if there were ever any other inhabitants, per

haps

haps from the example of Confucius, looking rather to morality than religious forms, as the more effential object, have taken the strongest measures to deprefs their pretenfions. From fimilar motives, whatever they may be, the Chinese tolerate every fpecies of religion.

Reason, faid Confutfee, is an emanation of the Divinity; the fupreme law is nothing but the effect of nature and of reafon; fuch religions as contradi&t these two guides of our existence, proceed not from heaven.'

This liberality of the Chinese may probably be attributed to a little fcepticism; but we cannot mistake their tenderness, their affection, and their patient induftry. Akbur fays also that they are a wife people; for they have all the various arts of a polished nation from their own invention. The prefent rulers and a part of the people are Tartars; though they have been originally derived, in the opinion of many, from Egypt. This our author oppofes, and with reason; for the wifdom of the Egyptians is at least problematical: Akbur is of this opinion. With all their virtues, he thinks them indolent and effeminate.

Our author next proceeds to Japan, where the religious character gains, in its turn, the afcendancy. It is really fingular that the fmall, the comparatively fmall diftrict of China, fhould deviate in this refpect from the customs of the furrounding nations: it most probably must be attributed to the influence of Confucius. The Japanese are reprefented as originally tolerant, and the change in their difpofition to have arifen from the intemperate zeal of the miffionaries. They thought the honour of their religion concerned, in being, in every fenfe, fuperior to the bonzes. Religious wars were the confequence; and the rancour which they inspire is not foon erafed.

The Tonquinefe are defcribed as an honeft candid nation, more fpirited and warlike than the Chinese. The govern ment is of the feudal kind, and their religion in a more refpectable form.

From Tonquin our author proceeds to the country of the Malays, another numerous race, which we have feen, in a former Review, are extended through the occafional elevations of a vast and extenfive ocean.

With the Hindoos and the Chinese, the oldest civilized nations with which we are acquainted, they have had a trade from the earliest periods of time; and why fhould they not be allowed to have profited themselves of thefe opportunities? To affert that they have not, is to affert arbitrarily, and without proof, But that which to my mind fets their improvement be

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yond the poffibility of doubt is, that in all commercial tranfact tions, a fcrupulous honefty is found to be their ruling principle; and they are unfufpicious in the highest degree. From the foreign merchant, whom they never faw before, they will

chafe fuch commodities as they want, on the bare credit of his word; and though unacquainted with the fcientific law of nations, and fo fituated as to be debarred all hope of reparation fhould fraud be practifed on them, they yet, in the excess of good faith, are never apprehenfive of any finifter defign; nor can they admit the idea that they themselves are to be fufpected.

This fair character, I know, will be denied the Malays; I am forry for it; but I am free to fay, I think they are entitled to it. Proofs, in repeated inftances, have come within my own knowledge, of the reliance they have on the honour of ftrangers; and the univerfal dependence which is placed on their honefty in the purchafe of thofe bags of gold duft which they annually fend from their coafts, and which are never either infpected or affayed, is evidence fufficient that they are to be trufted. In fact, in this very valuable article in which the people of Hindoftan deal confiderably, I never heard of any unfair practice. The intrinfic value of the duft is always found fuch as it is declared to be.'

Sumatra is, in Akbur's opinion, the Ophir of Solomon; at least a mountain near Achin, on its north-west coast, is called fo; and, from the ufual state of the winds, fuch a voyage might have been easily made by Solomon's fhips, from the Arabian Gulf. The internal inhabitants, probably the aborigines, differing from thofe of the coaft, are said to devour their pri foners; and we formerly observed that there was much reason to fufpect that this practice had been fome time common among

the n.ore delicate inhabitants of the South Sea iflands.

The greater part of the fecond volume is employed in the hiftory of the laws and cuftoms of the Hindoos. Our author's reprefentations of all the eastern nations are favourable: it may be partiality; but if fo, it is an amiable error, and we fhould wish it to be true. The Hindoos are defcribed as tender and generous; they are not always fpirited and warlike, but inftances of heroifm, even among females, frequently Occur. The laws of Indoftan are fevere and brutal with refpect to their women; but the heart, in fpite of the laws, betrays its tender feelings: the men are faithful and conftant, and the women chaite. The following deferve the severeft reprehenfion; they are unworthy of a nation which boasts' the flighteft degree of refinement.

A-woman, fay they, in their code of laws, is never fatisfied with man-no more than fire is fatisfied with burning fuel, or

the