powder, which a chemist of Cape Francois examined, and declared to be a violent poison.

The cause of a very great number of sudden deaths was then suspected. The danger which threatened the whole colony excited universal consternation. The marechaussees were sent into all parts of the country to apprehend Makandal. But they began to despair of success, when Zami undertook to take him.

He armed himself with a small club, made of the Indian pear-tree and he placed himself in ambuscade in one of the defiles of the mountain, to which Makandal had retired. There he patiently waited for him five days. At last, on the sixth, before break of day, he heard him walking with two other run-away negroes. Zami instantly rushed upon them, and killed the two comrades of Makandal. The latter drew his cutlass, which Zami, with one blow of his club, beat out of his hand, knocking him. down at the same time. He then tied his arms behind him with his long girdle, and brought him safe to the Cape.

Among the accomplices of Makandal, Teyffelo and Mayombo were also taken; who, when tortured, confessed the secret of the poisons. But Makandal himself, would make no confession. He preserved, even in the flames, his audacity and fanaticism; which led the crowd of ignorant negroes to believe, that his Fetiche would save him; and for a moment indeed, a singular circumstance seemed to favor that opinion. Makandal was fastened to the stake, by an iron-collar. When the pile was kindled, his struggles were so violent, that he tore up the stake, and run ten or twelve steps in the midst of the crowd. All the negroes instantly exclaimed, A miracle! A miracle !"-But a Soldier, with a stroke of his sabre convinced them that he was more powerful than the Fetiche; and the inhuman Makandal was thrown into the flames.

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As for Zami, he had no sooner avenged his beloved Samba, than he put a period to his own existence, in the hopes of speedily rejoining her, without whom his life was become an insupportable burthen.

MAOMHANG AND COASHTI;

OR,

THE FATAL EFFECTS OF REVENGE.

A Turkish Tale.

HERE were once, in the country beyond Tunis, two petty kings of adjoining provinces, the one called Maomhang, the other Coashti. Maomhang was a prince possessed of almost every virtue, a tender husband, a most affectionate parent, and a sincere and noble friend. These were his virtues in private life, and in his public character he was a true father of his people, and of a temper so duly proportioned of justice and clemency, that nature seemed to have peculiarly formed him for the high office he was vested with. With all these virtues it is strange to relate, that he was of all men the most revengeful; and this not from principle, but merely as an act of piety and obedience to his dying father, who said

to him on his death-bed, "Son, you have seen the miseries of my reign. I have too late learnt the cause of them; but that you may be happier, remember it is my dying command to you, never forgive an injury." This command, delivered in so solemn a manner, had that weight with the then young prince, that he determined wholly to fashion his conduct by it: And custom gave him at length an unalterable.bent of mind to obey it. His natural goodness, however, long prevented his having any opportunity of putting into act his purposed resolutions; but at length it happened that he had an occasion, and indeed a most melancholy one, but such an one withal, as rendered it impossible for him of a long time to act according to his determined sentiments; the event was this.

Chimyan, his eldest and most beloved son, one day, in his usual diversion of hunting, was engaged with his attendants in the chace of a lioness, who ran before him across the mountains which divided his father's dominions from those of Coashti, and which it was, by the laws of both nations, death for the subjects of either to pass, without leave from the monarch whose territories they entered; the prince, however, young and eager of his sport, without considering the consequence, trampled at once upon the mountains and the laws, and, crossing them, killed his prey on the other side: Proud of his victory, he was now turning to his attendants to call them about him, but found himself, alas! alone, and by this time surrounded by a party sent out by the governor of the frontier town to apprehend him.

In fine, he was made prisoner, and without a trial led to execution. The punishment on this occasion was death, after a varied scene of torture. The prince in vain told them his condition; the savage governor thought him but the more guilty for that, and persisted in his order for the execution. The unfortunate prince was, in short, stretched on a scaffold, the skin of his feet stripped, and one hand, one ear, and his nose cut off, when orders came from Coashti, who had by this time heard of it, not to touch, but dismiss him, honourably with presents, and send him, with the victim of his courage carried before him in triumph, to the court of his father.

The unfortunate prince was on this immediately untied and given into the care of the ablest surgeons, a message of condolance sent to his father, and Coashti came to him in person, excused the crime with tears, and made him the next day sit up and see the governor who had been the author of it, with his whole family, (for such was the custom of this barbarous people in highly criminal cases) suffer death with the same tortures. After this, when he was recovered of his wounds, he was sent home with honours ten times greater than those before intended him, and letters from Coashti, representing his detestation of what had been done in the strongest colours, and giving circumstantial accounts of the whole proceeding against the governor who had dared to authorise it.

But what was the distraction of Maomhang on seeing his beloved son thus deformed and mangled. Paternal fondness, and his beloved Revenge, long combated within him which should be greater; he received with a sullen silence the letters of the king his neighbour, and his grief and anger being both too great for words, sent away the messengers without an

answer.

Coashti, who was a monarch of great mildness, knew how to pity the distresses of human nature on so agonizing an occasion, and looked on all as the effect of grief alone, too great for words. Maomhang, on the other hand, found his affliction doubled, in that he was too weak to attack

his neighbour openly in war, and spent his life in fruitless attempts to avenge himself privately. All intercourse was forbid between the two kingdoms, and rewards offered by Maomhang to all who should destroy, or even any way injure, the subjects of Coashti. A series of years were after this spent on Maomhang's part with fruitless attempts to annoy, and on Coashti's, in earnest wishes to make some amends to the injured Chimyan, whose generous behaviour, while under cure for his wounds, and open forgiveness and offers of friendship at his departure, had left an indelible image of virtue and true greatness in his breast. The revengeful temper of the father was, indeed, wholly unknown to Coashti, or had it not, would have been lost in the remembrance of the amiable sweetness of the prince's.

In the height of these thoughts it happened, that the only son of Coashti died after the usual time of mourning for him, the afflicted father, who had now a female offspring only left, thought he could not do a greater good to his country, or make a nobler amends to the injured Chimyan, than by giving him this daughter in marriage, and making him his heir. His dominions were of more than ten times the extent and greatness of Maomhang's, and he doubted not the good reception of his offer; so at once fixed a day, invited all principal persons of his own nation, and desired his neighbour prince to bring his son, and all his friends, to solem nize the marriage, and witness the act of settlement, by which he gave him, as his daughter's portion, the inheritance of his dominions.

The prince, who had seen, and indeed loved the lady, and had withal a most tender sense of the kindness of Coashti to him in his afflictions, received this news with the most sincere delight imaginable. And Maomhang, who, since his son's affliction, had never before been seen to smile, openly expressed his satisfaction in it. On the day appointed, the bridegroom, attended by his father, and four hundred of the principal people of his kingdom, went to Coashti, who led out the bride to meet them, and, in presence of twice that number of his own principal subjects, delivered her, and the right of inheritance of his dominions, to Chimyan, and then, turning to the father, said, "You are sensible how far I was from having any share in the guilt of my subject, whose cruelty to your son I have ever since lamnnted; and I am now most happy that I have it in my power to make some amends for it, and at the same time ally myself to so noble a prince, and to so just and good a monarch as yourself.”

Maomhang received this compliment with a sullen joy, and only answered, "We will drink together, all of us, to my son's happiness, and then my heart will be at rest :" then taking up a bowl, and delivering another to his son, said to Coashti, "We, who are kings, will drink our mutual wishes in the same cup, and let all the rest in single bowls follow our example; when we are laid in peace and ashes he will be happy." Saying this, he drank a hearty draught, and Coashti, receiving the cup from him, swallowed the remainder; the rest all followed their example, and behold in à moment after the place was strewed with so many dead carcases. In short, the bride, the prince, the nobles, all fell together, the two kings only remaining alive.

Coashti, motionless as a statue, stood fixed with sorrow too great for all expression, while, on the other hand, Maomhang, lifting up his eyes to heaven in fury and distraction, cried out for vengeance on himself, and threw himself on the dead body of his son. Coashti continued, with silent horror, looking on the dreadful prospect; when a slave of Maomhang's threw himself at his feet, and trembling, addressed him in these words:

My royal master," said he, "unknown to the prince, poisoned all that was to be drank, with a certain fatal herb, on which nature has set so strong a mark of malignity, that it even shrinks, as if alive, from the hand that goes to gather it; but into the cup out of which the prince was to drink he put a certain remedy, some of the root of the same herb, intending thus to perish himself, and involve all his friends, his only son excepted, in the same destruction, in order to make secure of his Revenge on you; but by mistake, I find, he has delivered to the prince a wrong cup, and taken for himself and you the draught of safety, intended for his son alone."

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Maomhang, at the end of this relation, leaped from the ground, declared aloud the truth of it, and desired to die: to which the afflicted Coashti answered, No: thou shalt live, and be that way a greater torment to thyself." In fine, he had him imprisoned, and kept from the means of death; he lived out twenty-six years, an everlasting torment to himself, and a dreadful warning to all others of the horrors of an unjust Revenge.

TAREMPOU AND SERINDA.

An Eastern Tale.

T was on the banks of the sonorous river Tsampu, whose thundering cataracts refresh the burning soil, and sometimes shake the mighty mountains which divide Thibet from the empire of Mogul, there lived a wealthy and revered Lama, whose lands were tributary to the Supreme Lama, or Sacerdotal Emperor, who governs all the land from China to the pathless desert of Cobi: but although his flocks and herds were scattered over an hundred hills, and the number of his slaves exceeded the breathings of man's life, yet was he chiefly known throughout all the East, as the father of Serinda. It was the beauty, the virtue, the accomplishments of Serinda, which gave him all his fame, and all his happiness; for Lama Zarin considered the advantages which birth, wealth and power conferred, as trifling when compared to that of being father to Serinda. All the anxiety he ever felt, proceeded from the thoughts relating to her welfare, when he could no longer guard the innocence of her whom he expected soon to quit for ever." A dreadful malady, which had long seized him at a stated hour each day, he found was gaining on him, and threatened, in spite of all the arts of medicine, to put a speedy period to his existence.

One day, after a fit which attacked him with more violence than usual, he sent for the fair Serinda, and gently beckoning her to approach his couch, he addressed her in these words: " Daughter of my hopes and fears! Heaven grant that thou mayst smile for ever! Yet while my soul confesses its delight in gazing on thee, attend to the foreboding melancholy dictates of a dying father's spirit: my Serinda, whose breath refreshes like the rose, and whose purity should, like the jessamine, diffuse volup tuous satisfaction on all around her, disturbs the peace of her dejected father, embittering all the comforts of his life, and making his approach to death more terrible." At these words, Scrinda, unconscious of offence,

and doubting what she heard, fell on her knees, and urged her father, to explain his meaning; while he, gently raising her, proceeded thus: "The Angel of Death, who admonishes and warns the faithful in the hour of sickness, ere he strikes the fatal blow, has summoned me to join thy holy mother, who died when she gave birth to my Serinda; yet let me not depart to the unknown and fearful Land of Death, and leave my daughter unprotected! Oh! my Serinda, speak! Hast thou ever seriously reflected on the danger to which thy orphan state must soon be subject; surrounded as thou then wilt be with suitor Lamas, of various dispositions and pretensions; some with mercenary cunning, wooing thy possessions through thy person; others haughtily demanding both, and threatening a helpless heiress with their powerful love?" He then reminded her that he had lately presented her with portraits of the several Princes or Lamas who had solicited an union with his house, and which they had sent according to the custom of Thibet, where the sexes can never see each other till they are married; he also repeated what he had already himself given her in writing, an epitome of their characters, their good and evil qualities, their ages, their possessions, and their rank in the priesthood of the Lama, and concluded by saying, "Tell me then, my Serinda, which of all these mighty princes can claim a preference in the soul of my beloved daughter?" Serinda blushed and sighed, but answered not---Lama Zarin desired that she would withdraw, to consult the paper he had given her, to compare it with the several portraits, and determine before his next day's fit returned, which might be most deserving of her love. At the word love, Serinda blushed again, but knew not why---her father saw the crimson on her cheek, but said it was the timid flushing of a virgin's modesty, and urged her to withdraw, and to be quick in her decision. Serinda with innocence replied, "My father knows that he is himself the only man I ever saw, and I think the only being I can ever love; at least my love will ever be confined to those objects which delight or benefit my father, whether they be men or beasts: I love this favourite dog, which father so frequently caresses; I loved the favourite horse on which my father rode, till by a fall he put his master's life in danger, then I hated him; but when the tyger had seized my father on the ground, and he was delivered by his trusty slave, I loved Tarempou; and since my father daily acknowledges that he saved his life, I love Tarempou still." The father heard her artless confession, and told her that Tarempou was no Lama. "But," said she," which of all those Lamas who now demand my love, has made an interest in my heart by services to my father, like the slave Tarempou? And yet I have not seen his person or his picture, nor know I whether he be old or young; but he has saved my father's life, and is a favourite of my father; therefore it is my duty sure to love, and I will love Tarempou." The old Lama smiling, gently rebuked his daughter for the freedom of her expression, and desired her to withdraw, after he had explained to her that love was impious, according to the laws of Thibet, betwixt any of the race of Lamas and their slaves. Serinda left her father; and as she stroked his favourite dog which lay at the door of his apartment, a tear trembled in her eye, lest she might be guilty of impiety.

my

And now the slave Tarempou, who for his services had been advanced from chief of the shepherds, to be chief of the houshold, had an audience of his master; and observing him unusually dejected, declared that he had himself acquired some knowledge in medicine, and humbly