great care, for with its teeth it is faid to bite off a leg with great eafe, at least it would not be fafe to try the experiment. When the feamen want to get into a boat where these fifh frequent, they must take care not to put their feet into the water; for I once faw a dog-fifh attempting to fwallow a large wooden quadrant, but it was not able to do it, as it was too broad, and therefore only left the marks of its teeth on it. It is owing to its great greedinefs that the feamen are able to catch it they cut off its fins, and then throw it again into the fea; befides many other cruel tricks, which I fhall pafs over.

If a failor dies in a place where dog-fifhes haunt, he is fure to be buried in the bellies of fome of them. Large dog-fishes are never eaten, and fmall ones but feldom, and in cafes of neceffity only. They are cut into flices, which are squeezed in water, till no trafn-oil remains in them; after being thus washed, it is boiled or roafted, and eaten with butter: the part towards the tail is the beft: the forepart is feldom eaten. The fkin and fins are made ufe of in polishing, and are called Shagreen; they are found in plenty in the Chinese apothecaries fhops, and in other places. In the head, above the eyes, in two cavities, is a thick white matter, which, the fkin being taken off, is taken out, dried, reduced, to powder, and used as an emmenagogue. This dog-fith had two compa

nions.'.

June 7th, 37° 30'. S. L.-About eight o' clock at night, we heard, at several times, a deep and harsh noife. We fuppofed this was the voice of fome large fish. Some faid that they faw its way, and that it fhone a little in the dark. This light might probably arife from the violent motion which its fwift paffage gives to the water; for in the night fomething fhone about our fhip; yet this might also be occafioned by many forts of little worms, dead fishes, and other putrified bodies.'

This latter conjecture is confirmed by the conclufive experiments of Mr. Canton, defigned to prove, that the luminous appearance of the fea arifes from the putrefaction of its animal fubftances. See Review for laft month, p. 329.

The Author landed at Java, and gathered feveral plants, which he has minutely defcribed. We fhall felect his defcription of the coccus nucifera as a fpecimen. Coccus nucifera

(Palma Indica major, Rumphius, tom. I. p. 1.) called Calapa in the Javan language, is a very high, but not very thick palmtree, with a rough bark, and a ftem, which is undivided up to the crown. On the bark grows a white flower-like mofs. The

* True fhagreen is part of the skin of a wild afs, and is brought from Turkey.

Dd 4

cocoa

cocoa-nuts, which hung at the top, looked like cabbages, and were fomewhat triangular: the exterior fhell of the nut is yellow, when it begins to ripen, and grows brown it confifts of an outer-cafe, like hemp, and is ufed as fuch, and therefore is commoly pulled off before the nut is fold; excepting a narrow ftripe, which is left to fhew how ripe the nut is; and accordingly is either green, or yellow, or brown. Yet thefe nuts may be had quite perfect if they are ordered, and in that ftate they contain the greatest plenty of fresh water. The fibrous fhell is used for matches and ropes, but the latter foon rot in fresh water. The next fhell below this is white before it is ripe, but it afterwards becomes brown and very hard: near the ftalk it is fomewhat angulated. The Java people make use of it to put their brown fugar and other things in. People going to the East Indies make drinking veffels and punchladles of it: and befides this, fome very pretty little baskets. Oppofite to the bafe, or to the part where the ftalk is faftened, are three little holes, but only one of them is eafily opened. The innermoft fhell, which fits clofe to the hard fhell, is white, and not much harder than a turnip before it is boiled: it may be eaten raw, and has a tafte of fweet almonds; and for that reafon feamen mix it with cinnamon, and make a fort of almond milk with it. It may be alfo ufed as a fallad, when prepared with vinegar, falt, and oil. The nut is filled with a pale fweet water, which turns four if it is not drunk foon after the nut is opened. Every nut contains about a pint, or fomewhat more, of this water. We used it for fome weeks, whilft it was fresh, inftead of tea. It is faid, that this juice, if it is ufed as water to wafh one's felf, gives a fine complexion. When the nut grows old, the water congeals into a fpungy white kernel, from which, after the fhell is opened, fome leaves fpring up, which keep very long, without putting the nut into the ground, or watering it. A hundred nuts coft a pefo duro, or Spanish dollar. The trees flood along the shore in low places, and were very plentiful. Authors fay very circum-, tantially, that this tree affords clothes, meat and drink, houfes or huts, utenfils or houfehold implements, and other inftruments to the natives. To the laft mentioned purpose the ftem is of ufe; out of the branches they make the arched entrances into their huts, to which they faften flowers on their weeding-days: the leaves are made ufe of for thatching, fails, bafkets, brooms, and may be wrote upon with bamboo nails the kernel and water of the nut afford them their meat and beverage the outward fhell affords clothing, paintingbrushes, &c. If an incifion is made into any bough, a clear juice runs from the wound in the night-time, which makes yrup and vinegar, if properly prepared. Without this juice

of

of cocoa no arrack can be made: and the Chinese, for this reafon, are obliged to buy this liquor here. The Indians breakfast on the kernel of the cocoa-nut, fagoe-bread, and dried fish but thofe of higher rank add fome boiled rice. The fhell is ufed, like areca, for chewing; but firft they mix it. with betel and chalk: it is likewife put into water, and afterwards they make a milk of it, which they call Santar, in which they boil herbs, cabbage, rice, and fishes: this milk turns four, in one night. If it is mixed with a certain quantity of water, and boiled in a pot, it lofes its white colour; and when all the water is gone off, a pure oil remains, which, it is faid, is as clear and fweet as oil of olives; it is ufed as butter, and is a very nutritive food, Both men and women anoint themselves with cocoa oil, both against certain diseases, and because it is fashionable to have black hair. The ladies of Java and Balaya mix part of the root of turmerick (Cucunna, Linn.) with it, which gives a luftre to their complexions. The Portuguese doctors prefcribe cocoa oil with fyrup of violets against coughs. and asthmas, and order gouty people to rub the parts affected with it, &c. The roots are ufed against dyfenteries and fevers. The ftrangury and the gonorrhea virulenta are healed by means of the flowers taken out of the spatha and eaten with lontaris or a reddish sugar. If fresh cocoa nuts are roasted, and grow cold again, or when they are expofed to dew, they are said to put a ftop to agues and the like difeafes: it might be of ufe to try this receipt in the Eaft India voyages. In Malabar the kernels of the ripe nuts are dried by the fun, and exported into other countries by the name of Copra; and oil is preffed out of it, with which all forts of weapons are rubbed to prevent their rufting.'

The Author at length arrives at Canton, the celebrated mart of China. He particularly defcribes its fituation, buildings, and inhabitants.

Both the old and the new city, he fays, have the name of Canton; the latter is not fortified: the old town, which has been built many centuries, has high walls and feveral gates: each gate has a centinel, in order that no European may get in, except under particular circumftances, with the leave of people of note; in this cafe you are carried into the city in a covered chair, and thus you do not get a fight of any thing worth notice in the place. Three fourths of this fortified town (which, as we are told, is inhabited on one fide by the Tartars, on the other by Chinese) is furrounded by the fuburbs. On the outfide of that part of the city which is open to the country, is a fine walk between the wall and the ditch. The plantations begin clofe to the ditches; they are moftly on low grounds, contain all forts of greens, roots and rice, and reach as far as you can fee. The dry hills ferve for burying-places, and pas

tures

tures for cattle. The city wall confifts of hewn fand-ftones, is covered with all forts of little trees and plants, viz. fius Indica, urtica nivea, &c. and on the top of them are centryboxes; however, the watch is fo ill obferved, that strangers paffing by are often welcomed with such a volley of stones that their lives are endangered; as happened to an Englishman, during my stay. It is faid, that on the walls are fome eight or nine pounders; at leaft it is certain, that at eight o'clock at night their report is heard. I had no opportunity of measuring the circuit of the city, but it seemed to me to be above a Swedish mile (about fix miles three quarters English).

The fuburbs of Canton (in which the Europeans live during the time they trade there) are much greater than the fortified city. The streets are long, feldom ftrait, about a fathom wide, paved with oblong fand-ftones without any gutters. The tones are full of holes, that the water may run off; for at least part of the town is built on piles.-No carriage is to be met with in the city; and whatever is brought from one place to another, fuch as hogs, ducks, frogs, fnails, roots, greens, &c. is all carried on men's fhoulders in two baskets, hanging on the extremities of a pole. Living fifh were carried about in buckets: the Chinese keep them in the following manner :-The fish are put into large water veffels in the streets, but each veffel ftands under a fpout which comes out of the wall, out of which the water runs continually, but flowly, upon the fish: and for this reason they were always to be got quite as fresh as if they had been juft caught.-The ladies are continually confined.-People of the fame trade commonly live in the fameftreet together. The factory-ftreet has merchant-fhops, joiners, japanners, and workers in mother of pearl.

In the markets, where the people every day run about like ants, they fell fruit, garden herbs, fifh, bacon, &c.

A pagoda, or idol-temple, is near one of thefe markets. In this they offer incenfe to their idols, which the Europeans call Fos, from the Portuguefe dios, and which are represented by one or more gilt pictures of feveral fizes, according as their faint looked when he was alive. The honours they bestow on him are in confequence of his writings, or of any other fervices he has done to the public. Thefe pictures, together with fome foliage on the fides, are in the place of an altar table. Both upon the altar, and upon particular tables, are flower-pots, incenfe, and all forts of meat and drink. They offer the fame facrifices in private houses; for every body has his own idol. The priests are called Vau-fiong by the Chinese, and Bonzes by the Europeans. They go with their heads bare and fhaved, drefs in fteelcoloured filk coats with wide fleeves, which look like furplices, and wear rofaries about their necks. When they officiated on the

the feftival of the lanthorns, they had red coats and high caps. Perhaps this was an order different from the former. Hundreds of bonzes fometimes perform their functions in one temple.'

-The eye is every where ftruck with the populousness of this healthy country, in which the people chufe rather to want, than to feek a plentiful fubfiftence elsewhere. They are allowed but little more navigation than what they can carry on by their inland canals. Their foreign trade is chiefly to Batavia, and fome places adjacent.-The streets are as full of people here, as if there was a fair every day, at least during the ftay of the Europeans in this country, which is from July to February.

It

In China are faid to be 58 millions of inhabitants, all between 20 and 60 years of age, who pay an annual tax. is reported that many were ftarved to death this year (1751) on account of the bad crop, and that great numbers were come from different provinces to get their livelihood here. Notwithstanding the induftry of the people, their amazing populoufnefs frequently occafions a dearth. Parents, who cannot fupport their female children, are allowed to caft them into the river; however, they faften a gourd to the child, that it may float on the water; and there are often compaffionate people of fortune who are moved by the cries of the children to fave them from death.'

The language of the country has nothing in common with any other; it has no alphabet, but as many characters and different figures as they have words; which have different fignifications as they are differently pronounced, and have different accents. Le Comte fhews that by the pronounciation only they make 1665 words quite different from each other out of 333. He is reckoned very learned among the Chinese, who knows half their words; for they have 80,000 characters.'

Their obfervations on the heavens and earth, and their history, are remarkable, on account of their antiquity. (According to their accounts, they go as high as the times of Noah.) Their morals are looked upon as a mafter-piece; their laws are confidered as excellent maxims of life; their medicine and natural history are both of them founded on long experience; and their husbandry is admired for the perfection it has risen to. But the want of the true knowledge of the fupreme Being is an imperfection which outweighs all their other knowledge.

The religion in China is pagan; but by their own accounts, there are almost as many fects as perfons among them; for as foon as a Chinese expects the leaft advantage from it, he is without any confideration to day of one religion, and to-morrow of another, or of all together; Du Halde, however, has

given an account of three principal fects in his defcription of

this