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 some red, 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 wove

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 tyger 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 un

covered for some time, if they mean to be extraordinarily respectful.

Why that's like pulling off our hats, said Jack. Ah, ha! papa, cried Betsey, 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, nor eat grease and powdered seeds, nor wear skins and caterpillars' webs, nor play with tygers. 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 the tyger kind, as a tyger an animal of the cat kind? So, if you recollect what I have been describing, you will find, with Betsey's help, that all the other wonderful things I have told you of are matters familiar among ourselves. But I meant to show you, that a foreigner might easily represent every thing as equally strange and wonderful among us, as we could do with respect to his country; and also to make you sensible that we daily call a great many things by their names, without ever inquiring into their nature and properties; so that, in reality, it is only the names, and not the things themselves, with which we are acquainted.

Scene-The Isle of Athelney.

Alfred. How retired and quiet is every thing in this little spot! The river winds its silent waters round this retreat; and the tangled bushes of the thicket fence it in from the attack of an enemy. The bloody Danes have not yet pierced into this wild solitude. I believe I am safe from their pursuit. But I hope I shall find some inhabitants here, otherwise I shall die of hunger.-Ha! here is a narrow path through the wood; and I think

I see the smoke of a cottage rising between the I will bend my steps thither.

trees.

Scene-Before the cottage.

GUBBA coming forward. GANDELIN within. Alfred. Good even to you, good man. Are you disposed to show hospitality to a poor traveller?

Gubba. Why truly there are so many poor travellers now-a-days, that if we entertain them all, we shall have nothing left for ourselves.. However, come along to my wife, and we will see what can be done for you.

Wife, I am very weary; I have been chopping wood all day.

Gandelin. You are always ready for your supper, but it is not ready for you, I assure you: the cakes will take an hour to bake, and the sun is yet high; it has not yet dipped behind the old barn. But who have you with you, I trow?

Alfred. Good mother, I am a stranger, and entreat you to afford me food and shelter.

Gandelin. Good mother, quotha! Good wife, if you please, and welcome. But I do not love strangers; and the land has no reason to love them. It has never been a merry day for Old England since strangers came into it.

Alfred. I am not a stranger in England, though I am a stranger here. I am a true born English

man.

Gubba. And do you hate those wicked Danes, that eat us up, and burn our houses, and drive away our cattle?

Alfred. I do hate them.

Gandelin. Heartily! He does not speak hear tily, husband.