once got a mouthful of it by mistake, taking it for water, which it resembles in appearance, but I thought it would instantly have taken away my breath. Indeed, people are not unfrequently killed by it; and yet many of them will swallow it greedily whenever they can get it. This, too, is said to be prepared from the seeds abovementioned, which are innocent and even salutary in their natural state, though made to yield such a pernicious juice. The strangest custom that I believe prevails in any nation. I found here, which was, that some take a mighty pleasure in filling their mouths full of stinking smoke; and others, in thrusting a nasty powder up their nostrils.

I should think it would choke them, said Jack. It almost did me, answered his father, only to stand by while they did it but use, it is truly said, is second nature.

I was glad enough to leave this cold climate; and about half a year after, I fell in with a people enjoying a delicious temperature of air, and a country full of beauty and verdure. The trees and shrubs were furnished with a great variety of fruits, which, with other vegetable products, constituted a large part of the food of the inhabitants. I particularly relished certain berries growing in bunches, some white and somered, of a very pleasant sourish taste, and so transparent, that one might see the seeds at their very centre. Here were whole fields full of extremely odoriferous flowers, which they told me were succeeded by pods bearing seeds, that afforded good nourishment to man and beast. A great variety of birds enlivened the groves and woods; among which I was entertained with one, that without any teaching spoke almost as articulately as a parrot, though indeed it

was all the repetition of a single word. The people were tolerably gentle and civilized, and possessed many of the arts of life. Their dress was very various. Many were clad only in a thin cloth made of the long fibres of the stalk of a plant cultivated for the purpose, which they prepared by soaking in water, and then beating with large mallets. Others wore cloth woven from a sort of vegetable wool, growing in pods upon bushes. But the most singular material was a fine glossy stuff, used chiefly by the richer classes, which, as I was credibly informed, is manufactured out of the webs of caterpillars-a most wonderful circumstance, if we consider the immense number of caterpillars necessary to the production of so large a quantity of the stuff as I saw used. This people are very fantastic in their dress, especially the women, whose apparel consists of a great number of articles impossible to be

described, and strangely disguising the natural form of the body. In some instances they seem very cleanly; but in others, the Hottentots can scarce go beyond them; particularly in the management of their hair, which is all matted and stiffened with the fat of swine and other animals, mixed up with powders of various colours and ingredients. Like most Indian nations, they use feathers in the head-dress. One thing surprised me much, which was, that they bring up in their houses an animal of the tiger kind, with formidable teeth and claws, which, notwithstanding its natural ferocity, is played with and caressed by the most timid and delicate of their women.

I am sure I would not play with it, said Jack. Why, you might chance to get an ugly scratch if you did, said the Captain.

The language of this nation seems

very harsh and unintelligible to a foreigner, yet they converse among one another with great ease and quickness. One of the oddest customs is that which men use on saluting each other. Let the weather be what it will, they uncover their heads, and remain uncovered for some time, if they mean to be extraordinarily respectful.

Why that's like pulling off our hats, said Jack.-Ah, ah! Papa, cried Betsy, I have found you out. You have been telling us of our own country, and what is done at home, all this while. But, said Jack, we don't burn stones, or eat grease and powdered seeds, or wear skins and caterpillars' webs, or play with tigers. No? said the captain-pray what are coals but stones; and is not butter, grease; and corn, seeds; and leather, skins; and silk, the web of a kind of caterpillar; and may we not as well call a cat an animal of