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POEl'RY.
From the Spit it and Manners of the Age,
THEY ARE NOT i’HERE!
Tliev are not there! wheie once their
fpet
Light answer to the music beat; ■
Wiieretheir young voices sweetly breath’d,
And fragrant flowers they lightly wreath’d.
Still flows the nightingale’s sweet song;
Still trail the vine’s green shoots along;
Still a^e tlm sunny blossoms fair;
But they who lov’d them are not there!
They are not there! by the lone fount,
That once they lov’d by eve to haunt;
Where, when the dav-star brightly set,
B ■side'the silver wave they met.
StiH lightly glides the quiet stream;
Still o’er it falls the soft moon beam;
But they who used their bliss to share
Withlov’u hearts by it, are not there!
They are not there! by the dear hearth,
That once beheld their harmless mirth;
When thro’ their joy came no vain fear,
And o’er their smiles no dark’ning tear.
It burns not now a beacon star;
>Tis cold and tireless aslhey are.
Where is the glow it used to wear?
’Tis felt no more; they are not therel
Where are they then? Oh, pass’d a*
. way, _
Like blossoms wither’d in a day. '
Or, as the waves go swiftly by, j
O:, as the lightnings leave the sky.
But still there is a land of rest;
Still hath it room for many a guest;
Still is ;t free from strife and care; \
And ’tis our hope that they are there!
WsCEiXAAEOlJS7
SUPERSTITION, OF THE MOORS.
An opinion prevails, we believe, in
all the four states, that it is ordained,
that the Moors shall lose their country
on Friday, during the hour of prayer,
by the invasion of a people clothed in
red; yet, so inconsistent are they,
that at this hour all the gates of eve
ry city are carefully locked, as if
bars and bolts could oppose the de
crees of fute. They are not, how
ever, mere theorists in predestination,
but submit to every change of fortune
with humble resignation, passing from
a state of opulence to that misery,
without a murmur; and when death
approaches, the expiring man desires
nothing more, than that his face may
be carefully turned towards Mecca,
and, when assured of this position, he
hears his sufferings with patience,
and leaves the world in peace.
(“When a person is thought to be
dying, he is immediately surrounded
by his friends, who begin to scream in
the most hideous manner, to convince
him there is no more hope, and that
he is already reckoned among the
dead! The noise and horror of this
scene cannot surely but hurry the pa
tient, worn down already by sickness,
to his last state. If the person be in
tod much pain, (perhaps in a fit,)
they put a spoonful of honey in his
mouth, which in general puts him out
of his misery, (that is to say, he is
literally choked;) when, by being
treated differently, or even left to
himself, he might, perhaps, have re
covered. Then, as according to their
religion they cannot think the depart
ed happy till they are under ground,
they are washed instantly while yet
warm; and the greatest consolation
the sick man's friend can have, is to
see him smile while lliis operation is
performing, as they look on that as a
sign of approbation in the deceased of
what he is doing; not supposing such
an appearance to be a convulsion,
occasioned by washing and exposing to
the cold air the unfortunate person,
before life has taken its final depar
ture. This accounts for the frequent
instances that happen here, of people
being buried alive. Many of the
Moors say a third of the population
are lost in this manner.”
The moment a death happens in a
family, the alarm is given by the
Shrill screaming of the words uoulliah
woo, repeated incessantly, by the re
lations and every body in the house.
These cries, heard at a great dis-
tauce, bring every female acquainted
with, or dependant on, the family, to
scream over the dead, and mourn
with the nearest relations of the de
ceased. And it strikes one with the
greatest horror, to see the aiilicted
widow or mother, half dead with
grief for her loss, obliged (according
to the •custom of the country) to re
ceive the visits of not less than a
hundred different women, who come
to condole with her. They each take
her in their aims, they lay her head
on their shoulders, and scream with
out intermission for several minutes,
till the afHicted object, stunned with
the constant howling, and a repetition
of her misfortune, sinks senseless
from their arms on the floor! They
likewise hire a number of nomen,
who make this horrid noisqgpound the
bier, placed in the initldie of the
court-yard of the mansion, over which
tnese women scratch their luces to
such a' degree, that they appear to
have been bled with a lancet at the
temples. Alter the ceremony is o-
ver, they lay on a sort of white chalk,
to heal the w ounds and stop the blood.
These womeu>are lured indifierenily
at burials, weddings, and leasts; at
the two latter, they sing the song,
loo, loo, loo, and extempore verses.
Their voices are heard at the distance
of half a mile.
“It is the custom of those who can
afford it, to give, on the evening of the
day the corpse in buried, a quantity
of hot dressed victuals to the poor,
who come to fetch each their portion,
and form sometimes immense crowds,
and confusion at the doors. This
they call the “supper of the grave.”
The dead are c! frays dressed for
the grave; the ears, nostrils and eye
lids, are stuffed with a preparation of
camphor and Tich spieeS. An un
married w'ornan is ornamented as a
bride, and bracelets are put on her
arms and ankles. The bod) is wrap
ped in tine white linen, sanctified at
Mecca, which is generally procured
in their life-time, and carefully pre
served for their last dress. At the
head of the coffin is placed a turban,
if file deceased be a male, correspon
ding with his rank; if a female, a large
bouquet of flowers; if a virgin, the
loo, loo, loo, is sung by the hired wo
men, that she may not be laid in the
ground without having had the bene
fits of a wedding song. On Fridays,
the ev« of the Mahomedan Sabbath,
the women visit tile tombs of their
deceased relations, under the idea,
that on that day, the dead hover
round to meet their friends, and to
hold converse with those that are de
posited near them; and on this ac
count, they conceive it to be more
necessary to dress the dead, that they
may not in such an assembly of ghosts,
complain of the neglect of their rela
tions. The tombs are neatly white
washed, and kept in constant repair;
flowers are planted around them, and
no weeds suffered to grow’. Small
chapels are generally built over the
tombs of persons of rank, and decora
ted with flowers, placed in large Chi
na vases.
From Scorseby’s account of the Arctic re-
regions.
The Whale.—By means of the tail,
principally, the whale advances
through the water. The greatest ve
locity is produced by pow erful strokes
against the water, impressed alter
nately upwards and downwards; but a
slower motion, it is believed, is ele
gantly produced by cutting the wa
ter laterally and obliquely dow r n-
wards, in a similar manner as a boat
is forced along with a single oar, by
the operation of sculling. The fins
are generally stretched out in a hori
zontal position; their chief application
seems to be ihe balancing of the anim
al, as the moment life is extinct, it al
ways falls over on its side, or turns
upon his back. They appear also to
be used in bearing on* their young, in
turning and giving direction to the ve
locity produced by the tail.
Bulky as the wdiale is, and inactive
or indeed clumsy as it appears to be,
one might imagine that all its motions
would be sluggish, and its exei lions
productive of no great celerity. The
fact, however, is the reverse. A
whale extended motionless on ihe sur-
taec of the sea, can sink in the space
of 5 or G seconds or less, beyond the
reach of its human enemies. Its ve
locity along the surl’aw, or perpend
icularly or obliquely downwards, the
same. I have observed a whale de
scending alter I harpooned it, to the
depth of four hundred fathoms, with
the average velocity of seven or eight
miles per houf. The usual rate at
which whales 6wim however, even
when they are on their passage from
one situation to another, seldom ex
ceeds lour miles an hour; and though
when urged by the sight of an enemy,
or alarmed by the stroke of a har
poon, their extreme velocity may be
at the rate of eight or nine miles an
hour; Jet ve find this speed never
continues longer than for a few min
utes, before it relaxes to almost to
one half. Hence for the space of a
few- minutes, they are capable of
darting through the w ater with the ve
locity almost of the fastest ship under
sail, and of* ascending with such rap
idity as to leap entirely out of w'ater.
This feat they sometimes perform as
an amusement apparently of the high
admiration of ilie distant spectator;
but to the unexperienced fishers, who,
even under sued circumstances, are
oi' Leu ordered by the fool-hardy har-
pooner, to ‘pull away, to the attack.
Sometimes me whales throw them
selves into perpendicular posture
with their heads downwards, and
rearing their taiis high in the air,
beat tae water with awful violence.
In both these cases, the sea is
thrown into loam, and the air tilled
with vapors; the noise in calm weath
er, is heard to a great distance; and
the excentric w'uves produced by the
concussion on the water, are commu
nicated abroad to a considerable ex
tent. Sometimes the whale shakes
its tremendous tail in the air, which
cracking like a whip, resounds to the
distance of two or three miles.—
When it retires from the surface, it
first lifts its head, then plunging it un
der water, elevates its back like the
segment ol a sphere, deliberately
rounds its way towards The extremi
ty, throws its tail out of the water,
and then disappears. In their usual
conduct, whales remain at the sur
face to breathe about two minutes,
seldom longer; during which time
they blow eight or nine times, and
then descend for an interval usually
of live or ten minutes; but sometimes
when feeding fifteen or twenty.—
The depth which they commonly de
scend, is not know'll, though from the
‘eddy’ occasionally observed on the
water, it is evidently at times only tri
lling. But when struck, the quantity
of line they sometimes take out of the
boats in a perpendicular descent, af
fords a good measure of the depth-—
By this rule they have been known to
descend to the depth of an English
mile; and with such velocity that in
stances have occurred, in which
whales have been drawn by the line
attached from a depth of 6even or
eight hundred fathoms, and have been
found to have broken their jawbones,
and sometimes crown bones, by the
blow struck against the bottom.
Some persons are of opinion that
whales can remain under a field of
ice, or at the bottom of the sea in
shallow water, when undisturbed, for
many hours at a time. Whales are
seldom found sleeping; yet in cairn
weather, among the ice, instances oc
casionally occur. The food of the
whale conists of actiniae, cliones, se-
pi’a, medusa, cancri, and helices; or
at least some of these genera are al
ways seen to be where,any tribe of
whales is found stationary and feed
ing. In the dead animals however, in
the very few instnnees in which I
have been enabled to open their stom
achs, squill® or shrimps were the on
ly substances discovered. In the
muutli of a whale just killed I once
found a quantity ol the same kind of
insects. When the wdiale feeds, it
swims with considerable velo
city below the surface of the sea,
with ils jaws widely extended. A
stream of water consequently enters
it a capacious inouth, and along with
its large quantity of water insects.—
the water escapes again at the sides;
but the food is entangled and sifted
as it w’ere, by the whale bone, which
from its compact arrangement, and
the thick interval covering of hair,
does not allow' a particle, the size of
of the smallest grain to escape.
EICHHORN,
Professor in Ihe University of Gottingen.
Among the professors in the institu
tion, there is none whose name is so
well known in the United States, as
Eichhorn, the father. My imaging*
lion had drawn a splended picture of
his physical as well as mental being;
what then w as iny surprise, on being
ushered into his presence, to see a
small man, of only five feet six inches
in height, rather corpulent, and not
having any resemblance to the pic
ture fancy had drawn. His face is
line, and in his youth he must have
been a very handsome man, and as
such he \vas doubtless regarded by
the German mademoiselles, some
fifty or sixty years since. Ilis liair,
which is very long, is as white as snow,
and is thrown back, falling over his
shoulders. His eye, notwithstanding
his close application, is very promi
nent, not having sunk in its orbit, as
is almost always the case with such
intense students as he has been.
Though now seventy-tln%e years old,
he has much of the freshness, of mid
dle age in his face, but in his walk
you discover the influence of time.
He received me with great politeness,
and in that open manner, which in a
few' minutes made me leel quite at
my ease. We talked about 'Charles
X. Mr. Villele, i’rench politics, the
progress ol liberty iu Euiope, and the
Tope, on whicn topics lie entered
with a great deal ol animation.
He has now almost finished the fif
ty-first year of las prolessoislup,
hating been chosen when he was
ttHuty-tw© years of age. It is gen
erally admitted by all wfio know lam,
that he has been one of tbe most il
lustrious examples ol mental applica
tion ever Known in Germany. One
who has long known lam, aud whose
knowledge ol his habits is such as to
leave no doubt of the truth of the
statement, has informed me, that du
ring the last lilty-hve years, he has
been in the habit of studying sixteen
hours a day. What an exhibition ol
the improvement of time! 1 could
not look at him without feeling that
he was almost without a parallel, as
an example ol assiduity. He seemed
to me like a noble doric column, up
on w hich time had beaten almost in
vain.
It is now forty-six years since he
published his Introduction to the Old
Testament, a w ork of immense re-
search, unequalled by any within my
knowledge in the English language.
Mo one can read it without being as
tonished at the extent of his attain
ments at the early age of twenty-
seven. Before him many of the ex-
egels of Germany had published his
torical views ol the individual books
of the Old Testament; but he w r as
the first writer who presented a com
plete and connected history of the
canonical books, in relation to their
collection, original form, history of
the texts, critical aids, with an analy
sis of each book. The historical part
of his work is without a competitor,
and will probably remain so for a
long lime to come. He feels as if
very many of those writers who have
followed him, had stolen from him!
and judging from those works which 1
have read, his opinion is not without
foundation.—Dwight’s Travels.
JEWISH SANHEDRIN.
The unanimous tradition of the
Jews is, that every great council con
sisted of seventy men, over whom
was placed a President, as the rep
resentative of Moses, thus making the
whole number seventy one. There
was no preference given to any tribe,
yet the members of the Sanhedrin
were generally priests. The tribe of
Levi was less occupied with agricul
ture,—more at leisure to become fa
miliar with the law, and from the an
nual tithes, more able to labor with
out emolument in this court, than o-
ther tribes; while they were also fre
quently called to Jerusalem, where
this assembly met. Yet the Levites
and Priests, as such, had no prece
dence of their brethren, and even the
High Priest was not a member of this
Council, by virtue of his ponfitieate,
but only when qualified, and duly call
ed. So that if the Priests and Le
vites were not found with the neces
sary attaininehts, “it was good and
lawful, even for the whole Senate to
consist of Israelites of three tribes.”
“The King of Israel was not a
member of the Sanhedrin, because it
is lawful to dissent from him, or to
contradict his word. The Hi"!',
Priest, however, may be a member,
if his wisdom correspond with his dig
nity. The kings oi* the house of Da
vid, though riot admitted to the Coun
cils, sat and judged the people by
themselves. From the Talmud it ap
pears that Proselytes might attain to
this honor. The qualifications re
quisite in Judges are laid down both
negatively and positively, by the Rab
bins. 1. A man decrepit from age
was excluded. 2. An unfortunate
order of men whom the ancients sup
posed to be peculiarly cruel. 3. A
childless man. 4.'A mere youth.—
5. A man without useful employment.
6. A man remarkably deformed. The
following were the positive qualifica
tions. 1. Height of stature. 2.
Eminent wisdom. 3. A pleasing
form. 4. Maturity of years, verging
towards old age. 5. Skill in magic.
6. Acquaintance with the 70 lan
guages, so that he should not need an
interpreter. This skill in magic is
well satirized by Cunaeus, aud the
knowtedge of the 70 languages is not
only incredible, but, silly, absurd, and
altogether laughable. It is known,
however, that the Jews supposed this
to be the exact number of human lan
guages.—Bible Jlepositonj.
It has been calculated that the skin
is perforated by a thousand holes
the length ofan inch; and if ive esti
mate the w hole surface of the body of
a ihiddle sized man to be sixteen square
feet, it must contain not less than two
millions three hundred and four thou
sand pores. Theje pores are the
mouths of so many excretory vessels,
which perform the important function
ol perspiration. The lungs discharge,
every minute, six grains, and the sur
face of the skin from three to twenty
grains, the average over the whole
body being about fifteen grains of
lymph*, which consists of water with a
very minute admixture of salt, acetic
acid, and a trace of iron.—Lr. Gra-
ham’s Chemical Catechism.
Mere bashfulness without merit is
awkward; and merit without modesty
insolent. But modest merit has a
double claim to acceptance, arid gen
erally meets with as many patrons ad
beholders.—Hpglies.
He whose first emotion, on the view
of an excellent production, is to under
value it, will never have one of his
own to show.—Aiken.
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