no friend of idolators-gives them credit for humanity, charity, religious feeling, and respect and reverence for the old. The per contra may be predicated from their position as political slaves. In ordinary life they are servile and timid, and therefore in the same degree proud and overbearing; they are abject in adversity, and presumptuous in prosperity; habitually false, and incorrigibly indolent.

Such is the general character we have received of the Burmese; but it will not escape the intelligent reader that Europeans are especially apt to make mistakes in judging both of the institutions of the oriental nations, and of the effect of these upon the people. As yet we are but very little acquainted with any part of the country under discussion excepting the high road from the coast to the capital. The Burmese and Peguans are two distinct nations, with different manners, customs, and languages; and besides them there are various other races inhabiting in smaller numbers the less known regions of the country. Among these, on the mountains that separate Arracan from the Burmese dominions, are the Chien, whose women have their faces tattooed like savages; to the east of these a tribe called Jo, who have the character of necromancers, and are dreaded accordingly by their Burmese neighbours; and scattered throughout the forests of Pegu the Carian devil-worshippers, who, upon the death of any inhabitant, destroy the entire hamlet as a place appropriated by the evil genius; and the Red Carian, who maintain a wild independence of all government by making their lair on mountain steeps, and in the untrodden depths of primeval woods.

The Burmese generally are of good stature, with wellformed limbs, and open physiognomies. Their complexion is an olive brown, more lightly shaded in the

women, who when young are sufficiently agreeable in their persons, and of gay and winning manners. The first child-bearing, however, is fatal to Burmese beauty; and this is supposed to be occasioned by the extraordinary treatment the patient receives: for no sooner is the infant born than an immense fire is lighted in the apartment, and the unfortunate mother stretched naked before itthere to be scorched, blackened, and tortured for ten or fifteen days.

The dress of the men consists of a piece of striped cloth, usually cotton but sometimes silk, and from eighteen to twenty cubits in length, tied round the middle and hanging to the feet; and in addition to this, on occasions of ceremony they wear an open shirt or tunic reaching to the knee. The women have a broader cloth round the waist but open in front, so that in walking the leg and part of the thigh is exposed; and when visiting or attending the pagoda, in addition to the tunic they throw a mantle of silk over their shoulders. Both sexes take great care of their hair, anointing it constantly with the oil of sesame; the men fastening it on the crown of the head with a handkerchief, and the women simply tying it with a red ribbon, and letting it roll down behind in dark and glossy folds. The teeth are dyed black from their earliest infancy. All have such a passion for ornaments that it is restrained by sumptuary laws; only the royal family, or the wives of high officers, being permitted to wear stuffs brocaded with gold or silver flowers, or anklets of gold: necklaces, bracelets, and ear and finger rings, however, are universal in both sexes, and are generally composed of gold and gems. The men are addicted to a more extraordinary and less obvious ornament-tattooing the thighs, and sometimes likewise the legs.

Their houses are in general merely bamboo baskets covered with straw and supported by poles; but the grandees have mansions of teak wood supported by pillars of the same material, and of a shape determined by the rank of the owner. Earthquakes could do no harm to such habitations, and at any rate are far from being common; but on the occasion of a shock the whole population make a most terrific din by shouting and screaming, and hammering on their houses with sticks, for the purpose of scaring away the evil genius who is busying himself in the bowels of the earth. Externally both huts and houses, which are alike of one story, are pretty and pleasing; but within all is dirt and confusion. The bed is in general nothing more than a mat spread on the ground, with one or two cotton coverlets. A Burmese is ostentatious, but cannot understand personal comfort. His food is chiefly boiled rice and a stew of the leaves of any and every kind of bush or tree but the poisonous, flavoured with the universal napé. They have one stew which is sweet and another acid; besides a hot sauce made of the napé and red pepper.

The laws of Gaudama forbid polygamy and divorce; but all who can afford it, notwithstanding, have several wives, and almost all find an excuse for a change. The wife may be said to be bought, for a sum of money is presented to the parents; but if the latter refuse their consent the young couple proceed without it. This is what we do in Europe sometimes; but the difference is, that in Burmah perfect freedom of choice is guaranteed by the laws. In their general treatment of women, however, the Burmese are far lower in the scale of civilization than the Tartars, from whom they are supposed by some writers to be derived. The lower classes readily sell their wives or daughters to foreigners during their stay in the country,

and the connection reflects no more disgrace upon the women than if they made the money, with which they return to their homes, by legitimate trade. The inferiority of women is recognised by the laws; and when a debtor becomes the slave of his creditor till he works out his liability, it is not uncommon for his whole family to fall into the same hands. In this case, when the females are pretty, the master sometimes sells them to a licensed pander, who makes his profit in the transaction by the wages of their prostitution. The funeral ceremonies are very expensive; but they are lightened to the family by a hundred or more acquaintances joining in what in England is called a burial society, the members of which, on hearing of the death of a brother, hasten to his house with money, rice, and other necessary articles. The procession is headed by persons carrying the white clothes (for mourning) and other gifts intended for the priests and the poor. The coffin is followed by the male and female mourners-hired when there are no relativesweeping and exclaiming violently. A sermon is preached at the funeral pile, or at the grave where the corpse is to be buried. For eight or nine nights the family and friends sit up, keeping off sleep by drinking strong tea, and passing the time in conversation or in listening to the reading of poetry or history; and a feast given to the priests and all others who have assisted at the funeral terminates the solemnities.

The Burmese are Buddhists in religion, but they deny that the doctrine or worship is to be found in its purity out of their own country, or Ceylon. Buddha, whom they call Gaudama, is not present in any incarnation as in Thibet; he has attained the state of Nirwana, and has left only his laws to be observed and his statues to be worshipped by his people. His laws are against slaying

any living thing, against theft, against lust, against falsehood, and against intoxication; and they impose stringent prohibitions against all the lesser gradations of these sins, such as angry words, useless and idle talk, covetousness, envy, and ill-will. Charity is expressly inculcated, more especially giving alms to priests; and likewise the necessity of meditation upon three sacred words, implying that a man is subject to the misfortunes of life and their consequent miseries, and that it is not in his own power to deliver himself from them.

The sermon of Gaudama which is the most frequently used by the Burmese priests may be reduced to these precepts :-Avoid the company of the ignorant; give respect and honour to whom they are due; live conformably to your station; be prudent in your carriage, pious and modest in your words, and strive to obtain a just knowledge of good and evil; support your father and mother; provide adequately for the wants of your wife and children; be pure and honest in your actions; be charitable and humane; observe the divine precepts; succour your kindred in their necessities; abstain from intoxicating drinks; be humble before all; be grateful to your benefactors; listen regularly to the word of God; be patient and docile; seek frequently the society and conversation of priests; be frugal and modest in your exterior; have constantly in view the penal life beyond the grave; and meditate on the bliss of heaven. That intrepidity and serenity of mind, it adds, which good men preserve in abundance and want, in censure and praise, in joy and distress, in popularity and desertion; the absence of all fear or inquietude of heart; the freedom from the dark mists of concupiscence; and finally, insensibility to suffering; these are the rare gifts that remove man far beyond the reach of temptation.