the meeting of a widowed father and his daughter, which would move the heart of a warrior, an African merchant, or a minifter of state, though profeffionally obliged, by public spirit, to steel their nature against the emotions of humanity.

Unfpeakable were the hardships to which good M. PAGES was reduced, and indeed willing to fuffer, in his paffage.through the vast and uncultivated country of these fons of nature; a bearfkin was his bed, a bear-fkin his roof, and a bear-fkin his wardrobe and kitchen. Hunger, thirst, fever, and fatigue, were his conftant companions, from Nachitoches to San Antonio, to which he travelled through Adaiffes and Naquadoch, where he found a great number of Spaniards, half favage, hunting on horseback for their fubfiftence, but (as they had either fallen back from civilization, or had not arrived at it) brave, humane, compaffionate, and hofpitable. In his paffage from San Antonio to New Mexico, he found great errors in the accounts that have been given of the Spanish posts in that vast region; and he has compofed a map of New Mexico, which (according to the report of the Commiffaries of the Academy) contains feveral things entirely new with respect to the geography of that country. In this voyage our Author obferved, that malignity and perfidy were in a vifible progreffive proportion to rank and birth, and that morals diminished in the fame proportion; fo that of the favage, the Indian, the Creole, and the Spaniard, the latter was always the leaft fociable and virtuous. His defcription of the opulence, luxury, and magnificence, that reign in the city of Mexico, coincides with the reports of other travellers, which are generally known.

From Mexico M. PAGES proceeded to the port of Acapulco, where he fet fail for Manilla, and made, during his pallage, several obfervations on the winds and feafons. He vifited the Phillippine and Marianne Islands, the latter of which, though highly worthy of the curiosity of travellers, are too much neglected. He refided fome time among the iflanders of Guam and Samar, whom the Spanish miffionaries have converted, and govern by the whip, and fuch like whole fome feverities, and hold in the moft fervile and fawning fubmiffion. He found the inhabitants of Manilla chearful, lively, witty, and dextrous, charitable alfo, and remarkable for their hofpitality. The members of the fame family, and even the strangers who lodge with them, fleep in the fame apartment, on matis fpread on the ground, men, women, and children promifcuously, without the leaft inftance of indecency. They are alfo remarkable for conjugal fidelity and domeftic union. Their children, until the age of ten or twelve, have no other clothing than a fhirt, that defcends no lower than the waift, and think, that when their thoulders are covered, all the demands of modefty are answered. It is only

Sf4

when

when certain tender emotions determine the heart in favour of a particular object, that fimplicity yields to a Tenfe of fhame:" with refpect to all indifferent perfons, naked nefs feeks no covering but confcious innocence.

From Manilla our Traveller paffed to Batavia, one of the fineft cities in the Eaft Indies, often defcribed, and well known. He obferves, that the Dutch fettlements in that region are lefs folid than thofe of the Spaniards in the Philippines, becaufe the Dutch leave the Indian chiefs in the poffeffion of their fovereignty, and are almost always at war with one or other of them, whereas the Spaniards are incorporated with the people of the Islands they poflefs, and thus keep them effectually in tranquillity and fubordination. We fhall not examine the folidity of this obfervation, but we are furprifed that 'à man' of our Author's humanity, fhould propofe the conduct of the Spaniards in the Philippines as a model to any civilized nation, after the accounts he gives us, in this very work, of their defpotifar, cruelty, and injuftice. Take the following ftory for a fample:

"An Indian Prince, named Ifrael, fovereign of Holo, and other adjacent Iflands, having been unfuccefsful in a war with 66 one of his relations, came to feek an afylum and affiftance "from the Spaniards at Manilla. He brought with him a con"fiderable treafure, fent two large and precious pearls in a pre

fent to the king of Spain, received baptifm, with his whole "family, and put away his wives (for he was a Mahometan.")" All this did not move the Spanish Colonifts, however adapted it was to flatter their fuperftition, and excite compaffion. "They "employed every artifice fuccefsfully to rob the Prince of his "treafures, reduced his relations and retinue, in a great mea-' "fure, to the condition of flaves, and after having ftripped

him of every thing, concluded by putting him in prifon: "where he remained until the arrival of the English at Manilla, "who took him under their protection, and restored him to his liberty and his dominions."

From Batavia our Traveller went to Bombay and Surat. His defcription of the Guebres and the Yoguis is curious. The penitential abfurdities of the latter are ftill beyond thofe of Simeon the Stylite, but fome of them precifely of the fame kind. Whether are we to laugh or weep, when we fee a poor wretch, who is claffed in the rank of reasonable beings, creeping rounda whole kingdom like a fnail, on his belly, or remaining on one fpot during the whole courfe of his life, with one arm in the air? M. Pages fpeaks amply of the Mahrattas; he lived among them, adopted their drefs, their cuftoms, and manners, and thus ftudied their characters and their policy at his leifure. He praifes them much;-but, in reality, no creature that bears the human form feems barbarous or favage in his eye, except

the

the civilized and polished part of the human fpecies. A long navigation from Surat to Baffora in the Perfian Gulph, and a voyage of 600 leagues by land, through the defarts of Arabia, in company with tribes of wandering Arabs, with whom he lived in the ftricteft amity, gave him full opportunity of obferving the characters, policy, and territories of that nation. But is it not furprizing to hear him fay, that these tribes never plunder but in war, and always treat, both with humanity and generofity, fuch as have recourfe to their protection for a fafe paffage through thefe howling defarts? On his arrival at Damas, he was well received by the Jefuits, paffed through the country of Quefrouan, which is full of Roman Catholics, and led for fome time the life of a fhepherd, tending his flocks on the mountains of Libanus. He then embarked at Baruth, and arrived at Marfeilles in December 1771-Here ends the firft voyage of M. PAGES. A

The fecond voyage, towards the South Pole, was undertaken. in 1773 and 1774, by order of Government. An armed hip ar. a frigate were granted to our Traveller for that expedi tion. He was to take the Cape of Good Hope in his way, and to put in at the Mle of France, where he was to chufe as affociates of his labours, fuch of the officers of that garrison as were fit for his purpofe. On his arrival at the Cape, he fought for every kind of information that might direct his courfe into the interior parts of the African Continent, and facilitate his acquaintance with the Hottentots, of the wilder and freer kind, that have little or no communication with the Europeans. He even entertained the thoughts of travelling as far as Tunis. But this defign was not executed. M. Pages, however, is firmly perfuaded of one thing, which we do not remember to have feen advanced by any writer, viz. that there is a communication of commerce and intercourfe between the inhabitants of Africa, from the Cape to the Mediterranean, and from the oriental to the occidental coaffs of that great Continent. The immense and arid defarts that lie under the equator, the mountains of fand, which often roll, like the waves of the ocean, under the fury of tempefts, and threaten the traveller with unavoidable deftruction, the lions, tigers, and other wild beasts that abound in the fé deferts, have always been confidered as unfurmountable obftacles to the communication and intercourfe, of which our Author fpeaks with fuch confidence. His informations, however, from the Negroes, and a variety of other arguments, which really feem decifive, render him tenacious of this opinion.

His account of the Cape, though entertaining and accurate, exhibits nothing hitherto unknown. But the time may not be far off, when important difcoveries, relative both to the natural and moral hiftory of that country, and of the interior of Africa,

will be communicated by a moft ingenious and inquifitive obfer ver, who has spent a great number of years in investigations of this kind, and is ftill upon the spot.

In our Author's account of the manners and characters of the inhabitants of the Cape, we find the relation of a bold and magnanimous act of humanity, which we were acquainted with before, but which deferves to be mentioned here, were there but one of our Readers to whom it is yet unknown. The hero that performed it was a native of Holland, who had lived, from his early youth, a rural life in the Colony. He happened to be on horseback on the coaft, at the very point of time that a vessel was shipwrecked by a dreadful tempeft: the greatest part of the crew perished in the waves: the remainder were struggling with death on the fhattered planks, that ftill floated on the furface of the water: no boat could be fent out in such a dreadful ftorm, for the deliverance of these poor people :the humane and intrepid Hollander undertakes to fave them; he blows brandy into the noftrils of his horfe, and fixing himself firmly in his ftirrups, he plunges into the fea, and gaining the wreck, brings back to the thore two men of the crew, each of whom held by one of his boots. In this manner he went and returned feven times, and thus faved fourteen of the paffengers. But the eighth time (and here the generous heart will almost fail) on his return, a rapid and immenfe furge overfet his horse, the heroic rider loft his feat, and was swallowed up with the two unfortunate victims he was endeavouring to fnatch from death. What exit could be more glorious than that of this generous man We celebrate the chiefs who expire in the field of battle, among the victims they had been facrificing; and if their motives were just and public spirited, let them have their glory! but we cannot help contemplating with a more pleafing kind of admiration this intrepid man, dying in an attempt to fave his fel-* low-creatures from deftruction. The ftory is true: the man's name, which our Author does not mention, was Altemade; and, if we are not mistaken, the Dutch Eaft-India Company paid a juft tribute of veneration to his memory.

We pass over in filence our Author's account of the Hottentots, with respect to whom he obtained much information, though he had not the pleasure of contracting with them that intimate and perfonal acquaintance he fo ardently defired, nor of adopting their manners and way of life. During his ftay at the Cape he made feveral obfervations on birds, fishes, and other objects of Natural Hiftory, which the Reader will with pleasure find in his work. He proceeded from the Cape to the Ides of France and Bourbon: the latter of thefe fettlements is in a much more flourishing ftate than the former, and the reafons be afligns for it may thus be fhortly expreffed, that the inhabitants

of

of the one ifland are intriguing coxcombs, while thofe of the other (the Bourbons) are induftrious hufbandmen.

And now he fets out for the grand object, the difcovery of unknown lands in the fouthern regions: but to very little, indeed, do these discoveries amount. He faw at a certain diftance fome ifles in the 49th and 50th degree of fouth latitude, to which he gave names; he landed on a coaft, which he called Cape-François, where he faw fome Penguins and fea-lions, but neither trees, nor any thing that announced inhabitants; he dif covered a point of land that feparated two bays; he made experiments on the fea-water, its weight, and the quantity of falt which it contains in different latitudes, and then he returned to Madagascar.

This great ifland, though often mentioned by travellers, is yet but imperfectly known, and every new comer may find something to relate that has not fallen under the obfervation of his predeceffors. Our Traveller reprefents the inhabitants as goodnatured and fprightly, but deftitute of genius, vain, selfish, fantastical, and inconfiftent in their actions. They have no religious worship, but believe, nevertheless, the existence of a a fupreme Being, who is just and good, and who will judge, after death, all men. It is odd enough that this belief thould not have produced fome external act of religion. But things fill more odd are recorded of these Iflanders by our Traveller; for they circumcise their male children in their seventh or eighth year, nay fometimes wait longer, that they may have a greater number for the operation, and thus render the festival more brilliant." Nor is this all: for they charge their guns with the Aefhy fuperfluities that have been lopped off in this ceremony, and fire them with the greatest demonftrations of joy.-We with our Author had enquired into the meaning and origin of this feftivity: we can well conceive that circumcifion may be practifed for phyfical reafons, but it is probable that these exceffive demonftrations of joy, with which it is attended, originate from fome fuperftitious principles.

M. PAGES thinks that very useful fettlements might be formed at Madagascar; and he points out the methods of forming them with fuccefs. Thefe are followed by judicious obfervations on the regimen that is neceffary to preferve the health of feamen in unhealthy climates, and many other interefting remarks and relations, which give this work a very diftinguifhed rank among modern voyages.

From Madagascar our Traveller returned to the Cape, where he continued his obfervations on that colony and the adjacent countries. From thence he fet fail for Europe the 26th of Juns 1774, and arrived at Breft on the 8th of September following.