circumstances they have observed, "that neither the near approach, nor the immediate contact, of an infected person, is indispensable to the infection of a healthy individual susceptible of the disease at the moment; that the epidemic, at St. Petersburgh, did not possess those absolute and indiscriminate communicable qualities attached to the plague and small-pox; and that the risk and infection incurred by the healthy susceptible, who approached the sick of that disease, was in direct proportion to the want of ventilation, cleanliness, and space around the latter."

The remote or efficient cause of this disease is a subject on which still less certainty prevails: no authority, in fact, presumes to speak upon this point with any confidence. The theory,which ascribed its origin to unwholesome food, has long ago been abandoned; indisputable facts having shewn such a theory to be wholly untenable. Wherever it appeared, in the early periods of its career, unusual heat, sudden changes of temperature, or a peculiar state of the atmosphere, were appealed to as the immediate cause of the disease. Subsequent experience has shewn, that although these circumstances may facilitate the action of the cholera morbus, it is wholly independent of temperature and aerial influence. Heat, malaria, and a tainted atmosphere, all of which have had advocates, are, therefore, insufficient to account for the prevalence of a malady, which visits alike hot countries and cold, low swamps and dry mountain-tracts, the parched sands of Persia, and the jungle alluvia of the Ganges: in some instances, it seemed to affect dry and wholesome situations, rather than low and unhealthy. Some have ascribed the disease to a peculiar acid in the viscera, which it is difficult to expel; others to want of oxygen in the blood; others to neuralgia; others to a peculiar poison engendered in the atmosphere; others to galvanic causes; some suppose the seat of the disease to be the liver, others the lungs, and others the mucous membranes. The immediate cause of death is admitted to be congestion in the passages of the blood; but the remote cause of that tendency to congestion is still an enigma.

A circumstance of some importance has been stated, but hitherto upon uncertain authority, namely, that the Asiatic cholera loses a portion of its malignancy as it approaches the west; and in proof of this, a foreign paper has published an account of the numbers attacked in various cities of Europe, and the proportion of those numbers to the respective population of the places; whence it would appear that, instead of the immense proportion of victims in the Asiatic countries, only twelve in the thousand were even attacked at St. Petersburgh, and only three in the thousand at Berlin. It would be desirable to ascertain the truth upon this point: much, however, will depend still upon the comparative susceptibility of the respective places as regards cleanliness, ventilation, and general habits of the population, before any theory of this nature could be entertained.

One important fact is tolerably well ascertained, namely, that those who have been once affected with the disease, and have recovered, rarely, if ever, are attacked again. This is stated by Mr. Jamieson in the Calcutta report: the consolatory truth is enunciated more distinctly by Dr.

*

Young, who asserts, "that in no instance was it found that the same individual had the disease more than once: the observation and experience of the writer (and he believes also of all other medical officers) went to prove that, after a person had once fairly and completely recovered from the epidemic cholera, he did not appear to be subject to a future attack."

For a description of the disease and its post mortem effects on the animal frame (which have been obtruded, perhaps too frequently, upon the public), we refer to the report of the Board of Health, in p. 66, which contains likewise premonitory suggestions respecting the only remaining topic, the precautions necessary to meet and deal with the malady. A careful attention to these and similar directions, with regard to diet, regimen, clothing, cleanliness, ventilation, and a composed state of the mind, which, as we have already observed is of great importance, are, in our present imperfect knowledge of the disease, the utmost to which human efforts can go towards averting it: the rest must be left to that Providence, to whom alone it belongs to restrain "the pestilence which walketh in darkness."

TRADE OF BALILING.

"THE trade at the port of Baliling is carried on principally in foreign prows, which visit the island from various places, the Balinese themselves having few prows, and seldom venturing far from their own shores. From the great island of Ceram, at the back of Amboyna, about ten prows come every year. Their time of arrival is in October, and they return in January. They bring nutmegs, tortoise-shell, a kind of medicinal bark, called masoodji, very much prized by the natives of Java, and other articles common to the eastern islands. These prows are manned by able-bodied Caffres, brought from the coast of New Guinea, who speak the Malay language in a distinct and clear way, and in a determined kind of tone, as though they had been accustomed to command rather than to obey. Their prows are all tied and pinned together with wooden pins, without an iron nail about them; and when they arrive at Ceram, they pull the whole to pieces, and each man carrying a plank or a beam, they store the prows up in the village till it is time to go to sea again. Between Bali and Java the trade is carried on in Chinese prows, about ten of which are employed, making half-a-dozen voyages a-year. They carry coarse cloths, chintzes, and battic handkerchiefs to Bali, and receive in return dried beef, hides, and tallow, together with a portion of the masoodji bark, and nutmegs from Ceram. Their lading generally amounts to 20,000 or 30,000 rupees value; the profit on the cargo from Java yields about ten per cent.; but that on the return voyage much more. Besides the Ceram and Chinese prows, Bali is also visited by Bugguese prows, a dozen of which come from Sambawa, twenty from a part of the Celebes, and twenty more from Singapore; the latter are most richly laden, and bring annually about twenty chests of opium to Baliling alone."+

* Remarks on the Cholera Morbus. By H. Young, M.D.

† London Missionary Chronicle.

ORIENTALISMS OF THE GREEK WRITERS.

No. IV. THE DRAMATISTS.

It has been well remarked by Boulanger, in his Antiquité Devoilée, that the most effective and instructive part of history does not consist in the detail of dry and uninteresting usages and events, but in the philosophic inquiries which unveil to our understanding the spirit that gave birth to those usages, and the causes which originated those events. Every custom has its own individual history or fable. The mysterious use of the element of water by all nations may be traced back to some divine tradition of a general deluge, which is blended with the ancient annals of every people, from the Persian to the wild Indian. The history of the customs of men, under the variations of climate and government, would form, if written with precision, a complete anatomy of the human mind.

Speak, strangers, what your wants; here shall you find
All that becomes a house like this; warm baths,
Refreshment of your toils, the well-spread couch
Inviting soft repose, and over all

An eye regarding justice.

The Choephora of Eschylus.

Hospitality will always be found, as Mr. Mitford has remarked, in his History of Greece, to have flourished, in different ages and countries, very nearly in proportion to the necessity for it; and it will be needed, in a greater or less degree, as the government may happen to be powerful or weak, and the execution of the laws bold and impartial. Hospitality, therefore, is met with in its purer state more frequently among the wild and wandering families of the desert, than in the households of the wealthy and luxuriant city. The manners of the Greeks, as pourtrayed in the dramas of Eschylus, differ widely from those described in the succeeding "Representations" by Sophocles and Euripides, and the sarcastic and party-spirited Aristophanes. In the Choëphora, Clytemnestra makes no previous inquiry into the rank or calling of Pylades and Orestes, but offers them immediately all the kindness in her power. The refusal to accept of an entertainment was accounted an indignity. The aged Nestor is almost angry at the proposal of Telemachus to return to his galley:

Jove and the gods forbid, that ye should seck
Your galley now, me leaving as a wretch
Necessitous, and wanting couch-attire,
Rugs and warm mantles for the soft repose
Of me and of my guests; nor shall a chief
Hence to a galley's deck for sleep retire
While Nestor lives; and, dying, may I leave
An offspring ever prompt to entertain

The worthy guest, come hither whoso may!

Od. lib. iii, 450.

Among eastern nations, the Arabs are proverbial for their kindness to strangers. Before the time of Mahomet, they had fourteen different fires, principally relating to religious ordinances, but the one to which they attached the greatest importance was that lighted in the dark and dreary nights of winter, to guide the weary traveller to a resting-place. The person of a man who had eaten bread in an Arab's tent was held sacred; and, in the Iliad, when Asiat.Jour. N.S. VOL.6. No. 24. 2X

Lycaon falls a second time into the hands of Achilles, he hopes to soften the warrior's heart by recalling his former hospitality :

I clasp thy knees, Achilles: ah, respect

And pity me! Behold! I am as one
Who hath sought refuge even at thy hearth,
For the first Grecian bread I ever ate

I ate with thee, and on the very day

When thou didst send me in yon field surprised.

Il. 21. v. 90.

La Roque has drawn perhaps a too-highly-coloured portrait of Arab benevolence; but there is something touchingly characteristic in the following passage from the Moallakat. "To the cords of my tent approacheth every needy matron worn with fatigue, like a camel doomed to die at her master's tomb, her vesture equally scanty and ragged."

Dr. Shaw relates an interesting story of the Arabs who accompanied him. When the caravan halted for the purpose of cooking their breakfast or dinner, they collected the dung left by the camels of former travellers, which on being exposed to the sun soon ignited, and burnt like charcoal. When they had finished the preparation of their food, one of the Arabs belonging to the party ascending the most elevated spot in the neighbourhood, called out with a loud voice to all the "sons of the faithful" to come and partake of it; though not one of his tribe chanced to be within a hundred miles of him.

The Afghans yield to none in the practice of pure and disinterested hospitality. The bitterest foe may rest in safety beneath their roof, and a stranger who enters one of their tents is considered to be under the protection of its inhabitants while he stays in the village. A singular custom which prevails among the Afghans, called nanawawtee, bears a beautiful analogy to that which subsisted in Rome, of a suppliant entering a house and seating himself with a mantle upon his head in silence by the hearth. The Caufirs, a people residing in the mountains north of Bajour, and who offer a curious resemblance both in person and character to the Greeks, think liberality and hospitality the two cardinal virtues, which will procure admission with the most facility into their paradise-the "Burry le Boola."

The custom of giving presents, universal in the east, is too well known to need illustration; but it is interesting to see, in Grecian history, Alcibiades going out to meet Tissaphernes, on his arrival at the Hellespont, and taking with him the presents enjoined by Grecian hospitality and the gifts usually offered by way of propitiation to the Great. Thus it is that Mr. Mitford interprets the via Te xai dwga of Xenophon.

Ηφαιστος, Ιδης λαμπρον εκπέμπον σέλας.
Φρυκ τος δε φρυκτον δευρ' απ Ερμαιον λεπας
Επεμπεν.

Eschylus, Agamem. v. 272.

Few descriptions have ever equalled this of Eschylus, in the vigour and graphic truth of its execution; the reader sees the signal flame throughout all its journey, and almost fancies that he hears the rushing sound of that “ beard of flame," which rushes up from the dried heather, “aplovo perver, with a terrible fury!" The Tidov Arw8, as understood by Eschylus, included all the level country between the Mons Mesapius, or Mesapion, and Citharon. Firesignals are of immense antiquity; we read of them in many parts of the Sacred Writings. The word in the 10th verse of the 62d chap. of Isaiah, which is

1

rendered banner in our version, is supposed to have a more general signification, and to mean any sign which is lifted up. The Hebrew poets are continually alluding to the watchmen upon the walls of the city. It is customary to kindle fires along the mountains in view of Cosseir on the Red Sea, to notify the approach of the caravans which travel from the Nile to Cosseir. The prophet Jeremiah, while warning the children of Benjamin to fly out of Jerusalem, commands them to "blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Bethhaccerem." It has been supposed, by the commentators upon this passage, that there was a tower in the place alluded to, for the word signifies a lofty tower to keep watch in. Both the Greeks and Romans were accustomed to telegraph any extraordinary accident in the darkness of the night by burning torches. The Greeks are said to have invented a method of expressing by flambeaux every letter of the alphabet. The Agamemnon of Eschylus opens with the soliloquy of the watchman who had been looking out during nine long years, "fixed as a dog on Agamemnon's roof," for the beacon-fire by which the king, at his departure from Argos, had promised to communicate to Clytemnestra the earliest intelligence of the fate of Troy. The signal-fires are lighted at the present day in Greece. Chateaubriand alludes to them in his own picturesque manner. He alighted one day at the house of an Albanian, an acquaintance of Mr. Fauvet, and immediately hastened to an eminence east of the village to try if he could discover the Austrian ship. Nothing, however, was to be seen but the sea and the island of Zea. In the evening a fire was kindled with myrtle and heather (the Egeixens of Eschylus) on the top of a mountain, and a goatherd stationed on the road to inform him without delay of the arrival of the boats from Zea. Traces of the beacon-fires are discernible along the hills of Spain, and Beattie speaks of those from his own knowledge in the neighbourhood of Inverness.

The Mexicans forwarded any official intelligence by messengers who went from tower to tower with great rapidity, and as the towers were not more than six miles from each other the despatches were conveyed without any delay.

Ημεν δ' ετοιμοι και μυδρές αίρειν χερσιν,
Και πυρ διερτειν, και θεους ορκωμοτειν,
Το μητε δρασαι, μητε τω ξυνείδεναι

Το πραγμα βουλευσαντι, μητ' ειργασμένα.

Sophoc. Antig. v. 264.

The person who had been appointed to watch over the body of Polynices, in order to convince Creon that the surreptitious removal and interment of the corpse were altogether unknown to him, offers to undergo the ordeal of fire, either by taking the red-hot bar of iron in his hand, or by passing through the fire. Grotius mentions the existence of the ordeal in Bithynia and Sardina.* By the laws of Ina it appears that among the Anglo-Saxons the accused might choose between the water and fire ordeals. In the first volume of the Asiatic Researches, there is a very interesting account of the Hindoo trials by ordeal. The divya, usually rendered "ordeal," may be performed in nine different ways. The fire-ordeal, to which it will be sufficient to refer in this place, was an excavation made in the ground, two spans broad and one span deep, filled with ignited pippal wood. In the midst of this the accused is obliged to walk barefoot, and if his feet be uninjured by the fire

This species of ordeal is almost universal: in pp. 144 and 259, the reader will find forms of it, nearly identical, existing in ancient Georgia and ancient Ceylon.

+ Communicated by Warren Hastings.