leum) forming the handle; and the kingdom of Cochin-China the striking part of the mallet. In the same portion of the Iliad just now noticed, the 20th book, the poet after describing Japan under the character of ОTρUTεids, (as I think he Οτρύντείδης, has done; and indeed nominatim, in the 389th line, παντων εκπαγγλοτατ' ανδρων) seems tq allude to the numerous broken islands to the southward of Japan (including the Moluccas, but exclusive of Van Diemen's Land), under the character of Δημολέων; that name implying perhaps that they were peopled by the Chinese, whose Lion (the Lion Sign of the Zodiac) it seems to refer to. And as those islands abound in spices and drugs, one of them, Machian, might possibly have given name to one of the great medical heroes of the Iliad, Maxaw. But passing on from those of a smaller kind, however important for their productions, I proceed to the vast island Van Diemen, which the poet next notices under the character of ιπποδάμας, a name intended perhaps to express the endless dangers to which navigation is exposed, π (often meaning a ship,) and δαμνω, from the vast multitudes of shoals and breakers which surround that island: 20 11. 401, Ιπποδαμαντα δ' επειτα καθ' ιππων αίσσοντα Προσθεν εθεν φευγοντα μετάφρενον στασε δόρι Αυταρ ο θυμον αισθε και ηριγεν ως οτε ταυρος Ηρνγεν ελκομενος Ελικώνιον αμφι ανακτα Κέρων ελκόντων, γανυται δε τε τοις Ενοσίχθων Ως αρα τον γ' ερυγοντα λιπ' οστεα θυμος αγήνωρ. The most remarkable thing in Van Diemen's Land is the animal called kangeroo; and in the lines just quoted, that very name may be traced four or five times over, in syllables certainly disjoined from each other, but in a manner not on that account less conformable to what the poet adopts inother instances, as in those of Τως-εκ, Ταλθύβιοσ and Moçandon, already adduced. And by the first word of this quotation, ιπποδαμαντα the accusative of ιπποδαμας, the poet seems to have insinuated a similar reference to the name of the island itsef, Diemen, But, not to rest the description of so extensive a country upon this slight evidence, it is observable that under the character of Lycaon, in the 21st Iliad, Homer gives another minute and most interesting account of Van Diemen's Land, and of the kangeroo in particular. By the first part of the name of Auxawv, there may perhaps be an allusion to the shape of the kangeroo's head, which is somewhat like that of a wolf, Aunos, but of a milder character; though the principal allusion thereby intended, may be to the black colour of the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, ironically implied by the reverse of black, Aεuxos, of which other instances have been above noticed. This is probable also from the reference which Achilles makes (in line 40 et seq.) to the real negro-race, under the same name of Lycaon, and from the surprise which he expresses at seeing a black race of men rise up in a new latitude and longitude, and come to life again, as it were, in Van Diemen's Land: 21 Il. 55, Η μαλα δη Τρωες μεγαλήτορες εσπερ επέφνον Οιον δη και οδ' ήλθε φυγών υπο νηλεες ημαρ And I take this opportunity of adding, that the two races of Ethiopians (marked as being two, in the following lines, and often elsewhere in the classics,) seem to me to refer to the Africans and the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, and not, instead of the latter, to the (really copper-coloured) aborigines of America: 1 Od. 23, Αιθίοπας τοι διχθα δεδαϊεται εσχατοι ανδρών The latter part of the name Auxaw has plainly a 1 reference to the first part of the name kangeroo; the whole of which may be seen in the concluding words of the lines last before quoted, αέκοντας ερύκει. But if the reader would run his eye over seventy or eighty lines of the 21st Iliad, beginning with the 60th, he would have his at tention drawn repeatedly to the name of a kangeroo, not only by the concluding part of the name of Auxawv, (which for that purpose is occasionally to be added to ɛguxe, &c. but even without the necessity of such an addition, in αέκοντας ερύκει, ερύξει, κακον χροος, μηδ' αγόρευε, LEGEVETE TAVROS, EÜggoös, and, above all, by the use of the word ayogɛɛv instead of the word ponuda, universally used elsewhere in like cases, επεα πτεροεντ' αγορευεν. Nor is it to the name of the animal alone that the attention is drawn; its manners also and the principal circumstances of its natural history, are there described in the clearest manner; and we have now the best means of verifying the observations of the poet, by comparing them with the very interesting collection of those animals in his Majesty's gardens at Kew, where a numerous herd of them is open to the gratification of public curiosity. Their mode of couching when they are not in motion, is expressed by the word xulas; their |