for a few seconds behind them, till they composed themselves. Her motion resembled that of a fox slipping from cover, it was not apparently swift, yet speedily traversing much ground.

The bought (inclosure for milking the ewes) was upon the Ox-cleugh-lee, exactly opposite the congregation. The dog was seen driving the sheep across the almost dry bed of the torrent. She allowed them to join with those she had before gathered, and then went round the whole, as they went towards the place where they usually stood while waiting to be milked. She sat down at the foot of the hill, above the flock, conscious of having completed the task of the evening, so far as possibly depended upon her own exertions, and waited the further orders of her master.

John Hoy could wait no longer. He rose at the beginning of the Psalm, as he had done before, and six young women came from different parts of the crowd, where they had been sitting beside their respective relations, and followed him. In those times they were plainly dressed, though yet too well for their work, but they had left their every-day clothes and milking pails at the bought.

The sun had now nearly set, but the summits of the eastern mountains still reflected his beams, while the yellow glory of the welkin streamed down the glens that fell into the lower lake from the north-west, at a mile and a half's distance from each other, and brightened the corners of the adjacent hills, while the lakes and the sky were a lovely blue.

The assembly of mountaineers broke up, and various groups were seen ascending the foot-paths that winded over the mountains, or along the different sides of the lakes.

They retired to their homes, talking as they went of the themes which their preacher had so ably enforced, yet often diverging from the subject to moralize on the wisdom of the dumb animal, whose attention and sagacity had been a full substitute for the labours of her master, and had enabled him to give the whole of the sacred day to his religious duties. The incident is still told by the aged shepherd to his family, and seldom without the pious moral that the Supreme Being can provide, by the most unlikely means, for those who sacri. fice their temporal interests to the discharge of their religious duties.

TREATMENT OF SLAVES AT ALGIERS,

DESCRIBED BY M. PANANTI.

He, says M. Pananti, who has not been at Algiers, who has not seen the lot to which the Christians reduced to slavery are condemned, does not know what is most bitter in misery, or into what state of debasement the hearts of the miserable sons of men may fall. I, who have seen, who have experienced it, cannot, by words, paint all that man feels and suffers when he is plunged into this horrible calamity. As soon as a man is declared a slave, he is stripped of his clothes, and their place is supplied by a coarse piece of cloth; he is left commonly without stockings and shoes, and his naked head is struck by the burning rays of the sun. Many allow their beard to grow in a horrible manner, in sign of grief and desolation; they live in a state of dirtiness, which excites equal disgust and compassion. A part of these unhappy men are destined to make ropes and sail-cloth for the fleet; these remain always under the eye and rod of the Alguazils, who abuse strangely their barbarous authority, and extort from them the little money which they sometimes possess. Others remain slaves of the Dey, or are sold to rich Moors, who destine them to the vilest uses; others, in short, are condemned, like beasts of burden, to transport wood and stone, and to execute all the roughest labours, while their steps are always weighed down by a chain of iron. Of all the slaves, these are the most unhappy. They have no bed to rest on, they have no clothes to wear, no food to support them. All their nourishment consists in two loaves, black as soot, which are thrown to them, as to dogs. In the evening they are shut up in the Bani, as malefactors in the galleys.

The slaves lie heaped together in open corridors: they are exposed to wind, rain, storms, to all the injuries of the air and seasons. In the country they sleep without shelter in the open air, or else shut up in deep pits, which they descend to by a ladder, after which the mouth of the cave is shut with an iron grate. At the dawn of day they are abruptly awaked by the injurious cry, To work, cattle; then driven to the working place with whips, like beasts of burden, accompanied with blasphemies and maledictions. Many are condemned to clear out wells or dig privies they remain there for whole seasons in water up to the middle and breathe a mephitic air.

Others are obliged to descend into frightful precipices, with death over their heads, and death under their feet. Others are yoked to a waggon, along with mules or asses; but it is upon them that the greater share of the burden falls, and uppon them particularly that the strokes of the whip most copiously descend. Many in quarries are crushed by the falling in of the earth; many too, descending in their vast depths, never again see the light. Persons are counted by hundreds who die every year for want of nourishment or care, of the blows which they have received, or merely of regret, dejection, and despair. Wo to them if they dare to murmur, or to utter the slightest lamentation. For the smallest negligence they receive two hundred strokes on the sole of the foot, for the slightest resistance they are punished with death.

FOR THE COILA REPOSITORY.

THE ADVANTAGES OF ANCESTRY DEMONSTRATED.

MR. EDITOR,

As every attempt to show the value of order in society is worth the attention of mankind, and as we find from the earliest ages, mentioned in the sacred writings, that order and harmony were aspired to and generally attained by rewarding virtuous actions and raising the performers of them over others more prone to indolence or vice, so I think that the following picture of the gradations of our days, and of the advantages that one part possesses over the other fairly contrasted, will be worth a place in your well-informed Repository. 1 am, Sir, &c:

HUGH.

ANCESTRY, however now slighted by some, and industriously decried by others, has been, in all preceding times, esteemed and revered. But in this refined and innovating age, when it is the mode to profess a licentiousness of sentiment, even in the most sacred and important concerns, it is not so much to be wondered at, that there are not wanting a set of men, who, from a levelling disposition, speak evil of dignities and

distinctions, and have in particular aimed at extirpating the difference heretofore paid to birth-Genealogies, or, as they more sneeringly phrase it, pedigree, they have earnestly endeavoured to abolish by ridicule; a few leading men of this cast have not failed to make a number of proselytes, not so much from their arguments, as from the humour of the present century, in exploding every thing from which our prede cessors derived any innate satisfaction or enjoyment, as superstitious, antiquated or absurd, and from a fond, but far from generally true conceit, industriously propagated by their aforementioned preceptors, that every generation grows wiser and wiser. But the discountenancing ancestry is sure so far from a proof of our being wiser than formerly, that many must be of the opinion it is a direct proof of the contrary. For is there any one benefit it will be productive of? Will it either tend to reform the vices of the present or any future generation? Will it augment the few virtues extant among us? Will it extirpate voluptuousness or effeminacy, or restore the hospitality and martial bravery for which we were anciently so renowned? No; it is certainly highly consistent with the policy of every government and state, to inculcate and countenance family honour. It is essential to the preserving that scale of gradation requisite in every well ordered political body; for, if all distinction and degree be dissolved, government can never long exist; and it is somewhat to be doubted, when once a levelling spirit prevails, if the unequal distribution of fortune alone will be sufficient to keep the multitude in subordination. Nothing will more promote a spirit of emulation than the countenancing family repute; it was this in a considerable degree that heightened the valour of the English. -They well knew that the estimation of merit was not confined to the short period of their own lives, but that their good or evil actions would transmit some degree of honour or infamy on their descendents.-It was then family vied with family, which should produce the greatest number of heroes and other worthies.-This was their incentive to magnanimity, hospitality, and many other virtues they possessed. This thirst after family renown it was, together with the reflection on the example of their ancestors, that animated them in the bitterest conflicts, and occasioned them to meet death rather with transport than reluctance. The histories of many noble families, both extant and extinct among us, will sufficiently verify this assertion, such as Percy, Howard, Neville, Campbell, Douglas, &c.-And there is no truth more obvious, than that, if men will not act greatly for the enhancing their family ho

nour, to which they have so close an affinity, they seldom will for the good of their country; for the more diffused their connections become in general, the less interested will they think themselves, and consequently the less tenacious will they be of the public welfare. Thus, when it shall no longer be accounted of any consideration to be born of ancestors, who have eminently distinguished themselves by any worthy acts of public utility, but the man of yesterday, by the possession of opulence, however oppressively or fraudulently acquired, shall be held in equal reverence and repute; emulation will inevitably subside, and the desire of fame, which has been the source of so many meritorious atchievements, will in a manner be extinguished: for every one will then live uninfluenced by his progenitors, and equally unawed by any odium infa mous actions might deservedly leave upon record.

But if the Almighty (as we are told in the decalogue) visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation, and, on the contrary, shews mercy and favour to the issue of the virtuous; why are not the des cendents of the one, and of the other, to be duly distinguish ed among men? Birth, on the one hand, is not to be too high. ly and immoderately esteemed; we should consider, that the most illustrious families, could they be traced to their origin, were at first obscure, and not distinguished from the common race of mortals; and that, however mortifying it may be, many of the greatest families that ever existed, after gradually rising from obscurity to the greatest eminence, wealth and power, and after having been conspicuous a few centuries, have again as progressively dwindled into extinction. Many such there were, the names of which alone only now remain, which all persons conversant in the history and antiquities of Europe must allow. And how many thousand families of a second class have there been, who, after furnishing for five, six, seven, or eight hundred years, a long succession of knights and gentlemen, have, after such various periods of time (and often a much less) dropt into oblivion, either by a total cessation of descendents, by the alienation of their es. tates (through prodigality, profusion, and excess), or by some other human contingency.-Empires and kingdoms have hitherto had an origin, meridian, and period to their glory and continuance; and shall families, which are only so many limbs of states and governments, expect to have a more protracted duration. No; there seems to be nothing human designed for us to pride ourselves too highly upon; these there