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POETRY.
From the Sprrit and Manhgrs of the Age
THEY ARE NOT THERE!
They are not there! where once their
W deet ] b : g
Light answer to the music beat; . .
Where their young v oices sweetly breath’d,
Andfragrant flowers they lightly wreath’d.
Still flows the nightingal;’s sweet song;
Still trail the vine’s green shoots along;
Still are the 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 day-star brightly set,
Beside the silver wave they met.
Still lightly glides the quiet stream;
Still o’er it falls the soft moon beam;
But they who usad their bliss to share
‘With lov’d hearts by it, are not there!
"They are not there! by the dear hearth,
"I'hat once beheld their harmless mirth;
When thro’ their joy came no vain fear,
And o’er their smiles no darl’ning tear.
It burns not now a beacon star;
'l'is cold and fireless asthey are.
Where is the glow it used to wear?
>Tis_felt no more; they are not there!
Where are they then? Oh, pass’d a
i way, ¢ &
Like blossoms wither’d in a day.
Or; as the waves go swiltly by,
Or, as the lightnings leave the sky.
But still there isa land of rest;
Still hath it room for many a guest;
Still is it free from strife and cares
And ’tis our hope that they are there!
MISCELILANEOUS.
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, asif
bars and - bolts could oppose the de
crees of fate. 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 foce may
be carefully turned towards Mecca,
and, when assured of this position, he
bears his sufferings with patience,
and leaves the world in peace.
“When a person is thought tobe
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 alrcady reckoned gmong the
dead! The noise and horror of this
scene canuot surely but hurry the pa
tient, worn down already by sickness,
to his last state. - 1f the person be in
too 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 this operation is
_performing, as they look on that asa
sign of approbation in the deceased of
what he lis doing; not supposing such
an appearance to be a convulsion,
“occasioned by washing and exposing to
the cold air the unfortumate 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 woulliah
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 oflg,with the
greatest horror, to see the afflicted
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 arms, they lay her head
on their shoulders, and scream with
~out intermission for several minutes,
till the afflicied 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 “’o&*‘,l
who make this horrid noise round the
bier, piaced in the middle of the
court-yard of the mansion, over which
these wgmen scratch ;tlieir faces to
such a degree, that they appear to
have been bled with a lancet at the
temples. Alter the ceremony 1s 0-
ver, they lay on a sort of white chalk,
to heal the wounds and stop the bloed.
These women are hired mditierently
at burials, weddings, and feasts; at
the two latter, they sing the song,
100, 100, 100, and extempore verses.
‘I heir 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 arc always dressed for
the grave; the ears, nostrils and eye
lids, are stuffed with a preparation of
camphor and rich spices. An un
married woman is ornamented as a
bride, and bracelets are put on her
arms and ankles. The body ils wrap
ped in fine 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 the deceased be a male, correspon
ding with bis rank; if a female, a large
bouquet of flowers; if a virgin, the
100, 100, 100, is sung by the hired wo
men, that she may ot be laid in the
ground without having had the bene
fits of awedding song. On Fridays,
the eve of the Mahomedan Sabbath,
the women visit the 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 1t to be more
necessary to dress the dead, that they
may not n 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
pa 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 1s produced by powerful strokes
against the water, impressed alter
nately upwards and downwards; but a
slower motibn, it is believed, is ele
gantly produced by cutting the wa
ter laterally and obliquely down
wards, in a similar manner as a boat
is forced along with a single oar, by
the operation of sculling. The fius
are generally stretched out in a hori
zontal position; their chief application
seems to be the bhalancing of the anim
al, as the moment life is extinct, it al
ways falls over on its side, or turns
upen his back. They appear also to
be used in bearing off their young, in
turning and giving direction to the ve
locity prodnced by the tail. |
Bulky as the whale is, and inactive
‘or indeed clumsy as 1t appears to be,
“one might imagne that ali its motions
would be sluggish, and its exertions
productive of no greatcelerity. The
fact, however, is the reverse: A
whale extended motionless on the sur
face of the sea, cansink in the space
of 5 or 6 seconds or less, beyond the
reach of ils human enemies. Its ve
locity along the surface, or perpend
icularly or obliquely downwards, the
same. I 'have observed a whale de
scending after I harpooned it, to the
depth of four hundred fathoms, with
the average velocity of seven or eight
miles per hour. The usual rate at
which whales swim however, even
when they are on their passage from
one situation to another, seldom ex
ceeds four 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; yet we 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 water with the ve
| locity almost of the fastest ship under
sail, and of ascending with such rap
idity as ‘o.leap entirely out of water.
This feat they sometumes perform as |
an amusement appaienddy of the high |
admiration of the distant quctalo‘r;"_
but to the unexperienced fishers, who, -
even under suth circumstances, are
often ordered by the fool-hardy har
pooner, to ‘puil away, to the attack.
Sometimes the whalés throw them
selves to perpendicular posture
with their beads downwards, and
rearing their tails high in the air,
beat the water with awful violence.
In both these cases, the sea is
thrown wmto foam, and the air filled
with vapors; the noise in calm weath
er, is heard to a great distance; and
the excentric waves 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 of a sphere, deliberately
rounds its way towards the extremi
ty, throws its tailout 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 five or ten minutes; but sometimes
when feeding fifteen or twenty.—
The depth which they commonly de
scend, is not known, though from the
teddy’ occasionally observed on the
“water, it is evidently at times only tri
fling. 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 seven 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 calm
weather, among the ice, instances oc
casionally occur. The food of the
whale conists of actima, cliones, se
pia, 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 instances in which 1
have been enabled to open their stom
achs, squille or shrimps were the on
ly substances discovered. In the
mouth of a whale just killed 1 once
found a quantity of the same kind of
insects. When the whale feeds, it
swims with considerable velo
city below the surface of the sea,
with its jaws widely extended. A
stream of water consequently enters
it a capacious mouth, 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 were, 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 the 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 imagina
tion had drawn a splended picture of
his physical as well as mental being;
what' then was my 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
fine, and in his youth he must have
been a very handsome man, and as
such he was doubtless regarded by
the German mademoiselles, some
fifty or sixty yearssince. His hair,
which is very long, is as white as snow,
and is thrown back, falling ever 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-three years old,
he has much of the freshness of mid
dle age in his face, but inhis walk
you discover the influence of time.
He received me with great politeness,
and in that open manter, which in a
few mioutes wade we feel quite at
my ease. We talked about Charles
X. Mr. Villele, krench pohiics, the
progress ol liberty m kuiope, and the
Pope, on which topics he emewdl
with a great deal of animation. |
He has now almost finished the fif
ty-first year ol lis proiessorship,
Liaving leen chosen when he was
twenty-two years of age. luis gen
erally admitied by all who know hiw,
that he has been one of the most ii
lustrious examples of mental apphca
tion ever known in Gerwany. WUne
who has long known him, and whose
knowledge of his habiis is such as to
leave no doubt of the truth of the
statement, has informed me, that du
ring the last fitty-five years, he has
been in the habit of studying sixteen
heurs a day. What an exhibition of
the improvement of time! /I could
not look at him without feeling that
he was almost without a parallel, as
an example of assidmity. He seemed
to me like a uoble doric column, up
on which time had beaten almost in
vain. .
It is now forty-six years since he
published his lutroauction to the Old
Testament, a work of immense re
search, unequalled by any within my
knowledge in the Knglish language:
No 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
egets of Germany had published his
torical views of the individual books
of 'the Old Testament; but he was
the first writcr 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 competitior,
and will probably remain so for a
long time to come. He feels asif
very many of those writers who have
followed him, had stolen from him!
and judging from those works which I
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 ahy tribe,
yet the members of the Sanhedrin
were generdlly 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 mamber of this
Council, by virtue of his ponfiticate,
but only when qualified, and duly call
ed. So that if the Priests and Le
vites were not found with the neces
sary attainments, ‘‘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 High
Priest, however, may be a member,
if his wisdom correspond with his dig
nity. The kings of the house of Da
vid, though not 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* 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 Cunzus, and the
knowledge 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 Repository. :
It has been calculated that the skit’
is perforated by a thousand holes in
the tength of an inch; and if we “esti
mate the whole surface of the body of
a middle sized man to be sixteen square
feet, it must contain not less than two
millions three hundred and four thou
sand pores. These pores are the
mouths of so many excretory vessels,
which perform the important function
of 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.—L7r. Gro~
ham’s Chemical Catechism.
Were bashfulness without merit is’
awkward; and merit without modesty
insolent. But modest merit has a
double claim to acceptance, and gen
erally meets with as many patrons as
beholders.— Hughes. - :
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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