receive the approbation of Christ at the last day. The Religion of the People of Mono Motapa. ing their tents again, and settling at least for a while, [ passion for the souls of their fellow creatures, will they purify themselves a second time. The flesh of the victims is made use of for an entertainment, as it is on all the other public occasions before-mentioned. The nearest relations to the deceased, as for instance, his children, are obliged to wear the cawl of the victim, especially if it be a sheep, for a collar round about their necks. That is their usual mourning for one so near a kin. We have already observed that such as are in mean circumstances, and incapable of offering up any sacrifice, by way of purification, sit down contented with shaving their heads and beards, as a public testimony of their affection and concern. Such is the account we have of these people called Hottentots who reside near the Cape of Good Hope. Some of them have been converted to the Christian faith by the Dutch ministers. Those who visit the Cape town, are very civil and obliging. Many of them are employed as labourers, and they are faithful in keeping safe whatever is committed to their care. This may serve to shew what good effects would flow from preaching the gospel in its simplicity, without an unnecessary ridiculous load of ceremonies. The Dutch clergy are, in general, a very pious laborious set of men; and it would be much to the honour of the States General to have a school for the education of youth in the Cape town. There the sons of the better sort of Hottentots might soon be educated, and sent to preach the gospel of Christ to their poor darkened countrymen. Christ came in the flesh that he might destroy satan's kingdom; and he has left it incumbent on all his followers, to propagate the knowledge of his name as far their influence will reach. The Dutch have been long blessed with the light of the gospel, and the most grateful returns they can make for such an inestimable favour is to teach it to the Heathens. Indeed, it will be an aggravation of their guilt if they do it not. Nay, we may venture to affirm, that all those who know the value of the Christian religion, will wish to make every one equally happy with themselves. And what happiness so great as that of promoting the interests of precious immortal souls. To bring them from darkness to light, and from the power of satan to God. What amazing progress has been made in the highlands and islands of Scotland within these thirty years: Nay, what vast progress has been made in converting many of the American savages; and both these good works have been conducted by societies in this kingdom. Of this the Dutch are not ignorant, and let them take an example from our benevolent countrymen, who, for their com THE inhabitants of this kingdom are all idolators for although they acknowledge God as the creator of the universe, whom they call by different names, according to the qualities they ascribe to him, yet they have several idols, and in particular, they adore a certain virgin, whom they distinguish by the title of Peru. They have some particular days in every month which they consider as more solemn and holy than others. The anniversary of their sovereign's birth day is always kept as a sort of festival, and to that we may add, the aweful homage and profound reverence which they pay him, by lighting up a great number of fires. That these people have not in every place a settled forn of worship, will appear evident to every one who considers, that some of them worship one idol and some another. That they should pay divine honours to their sovereign, will not appear very strange, when ve consider that the Romans, who boasted of their superior knowledge, actually worshipped their emperors. As for their lighting so many fires on their sovereign's birth day, it is done as a mark of their respect, homage and allegiance, which is expected from every subject. The king orders his inferior officers to deliver to the people throughout the whole of his dominions some wood for that purpose every year, so that the fewel costs them nothing. Every subject is under the indispensable necessity of extinguishing the fires in their houses, during the time that they light those in honour of the king. It is at this time that all the taxes are paid to the king, and probably were it not for that, he would not be so liberal in distributing the fewel. Thus these ignorant princes in Africa, who are little better than savages, can extort money from their subjects with the same facility as the most cunning of our accomplished European monarchs. But notwithstanding, it is certain, that like the ancient Persians, they consider fire as a sacred element. For they never would be so superstitiously attached to it in honour of their sovereign, were it not that they consider something in it as endowed with Divine power. perhaps as one of the qualities of the Supreme Being. When the king encamps at any place, a hut, or tent, is immediately erected, wherein a fire is kind led led, and kept burning with all the precaution imaginable. And here it may not be unnecessary to observe, that the sophis of Persia had always some sacrel fire carried before them; and we have taken notice in our accounts of the Guares, that all the Oriental nations testified the most profound veneration, for this their favourite and sacred element. The only reason we can, from the best informations, assign for this regard shewn to fire is, its being considered as an emanation from the sun, and the vast benefit it is of to mankind. They always bow their knees when they approach their monarch, and never speak to him in a standing posture. No person must speak in his presence; but when he puts the glass to his mouth to drink, all the spectators make loud acclamations by shouting and huzzaing. These acclamations are reechoed throughout the whole of the place where he resides, and the news is soon communicated to the neighbouring villages. This is carrying flattery and adulation to a large height indeed; put it must be observed, that all those people who live in warm climates, are, in their political notions, little better than slaves. Like the inhabitants of many other heathen nations, both the king and his subjects are slaves to superstition, and repose an extraordinary confidence in dreams and charms. The king has a building erected, in which he hangs up all the bodies of such malefactors as have been executed. And, horrid to mention, such dead bodies are never buried while any radical moisture remains in them, which is received in a vessel appropriated for that purpose. From this distillation they compose a sovereign elixir for his majesty's use, which in their opinion is not only an infallible preservative against the power of magic, but also an invaluable medicine to prolong life. In this country, the young virgins go naked till they are married, except that they cover those parts which the women of all nations conceal. When they are married and have children, they cover their breasts, and wear such other dresses as are fashionable among them. And ignorant as these people are, yet they have convents like the nunneries in Roman Catholic countries, but these are only for the young women to reside in till they are mar ried. Polygamy, or a plurality of wives, is allowed here, but there is always one who is superior to the rest, according to the custom of many other nations. No virgin is permitted to marry till her mother, or some other woman has declared that she is capable of having children. Seduction is little known among then, for they marry extremely young. As for their old women, they pay but little regard to them; for like those of many other countries, they value women no longer than the bloom of beauty remains. When these people are engaged in war, they never wash themselves till peace is concluded, and probably this custom is the result of a solemn vow, an engagement which they voluntarily lay themselves under, out of a laudable concern for the honour and welfare of their country. There is another ceremony observed among them, some footsteps of which may be traced in ancient history, and that is, the making eunuchs of their prisoners, and making presents of the spoils taken from their enemies to their wives, who are proud of wearing such things, as glorious signatures of their husbands conquests. This practice very naturally reminds us of that remarkable circumstance in the sacred history of king David, that Saul would not acknowledge him as his son-in-law, till he had produced as a nuptual present, an hundred foreskins of the Philistines. Josephus, who has altered several parts of the sacred history, to conceal some of the practices of his countrymen, tells us, that instead one hundred foreskins, it was six hundred heads of the Philistines that David presented to Saul. As for the funeral solemnities of these people, they differ but little from the rest of the Heathen Africans. They preserve, with the utmost care, the bodies of their deceased, and for eight days successively pay them a kind of adoration. On such solemn occasions they dress themselves in white, and set before the deceased a large quantity of provisions, spread on a table in a very decent manner. After this, they implore his benediction on his sacred majesty the king and themselves; and then they sit down and regale themselves on the dainties. Afterwards the body is carried out for interment, either in the woods, or in some other obscure place. To conclude, the last custom of a religious nature that we shall take notice of, is the oath they take on the most solemn occasions. When a man is charged with being guilty of a crime, and the evidence against him is not full enough to convict him, he is obliged to take a medicine to clear his innocence. If he vomits it up, he is declared guilty, but if it digests upon his stomach he is considered as innocent, and consequently acquitted. This custom once prevailed among niany of the Heathen nations, and it does so still in some parts of the world besides Africa. The custom, however, is very barbarous; for the truth inconvicting criminal should never be sought out any other way than by voluntary evidence. THE THE RELIGION OF THE INHABITANTS OF AGAC, TOCOCKA, AND QUITEVE. ments; and yet we are told, that they have no notion of hell, but flatter themselves that after their decease they shall all enter into paradise, where they shall indulge themselves in all manner of voluptuousness with their wives and children. We have, however, some doubts of the truth of what is here advanced; for the most illiterate Heathens make a distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently they must believe there is a future state of rewards and punishments, whether for a time, or for eternity. N treating of these people, we shall not enter tremendous notions of the devil, whom they call' into the controversy, whether they are subject to the inveterate enemy of all mankind. As they be-the king of Monomotapa, or whether they have lieve the immortality of the soul, one would naturally princes of their own. Perhaps their form of govern-imagine that they give their ascent to the acknowment is often changed, as it is among all other bar-ledgment of a future state of rewards and punishbarians in the world, and it is needless to form conjectures when we have no authority to support them. They have, according to Purchas, a confused notion of one Supreme being, whom they call Motungo, but they never implore him for any favours, and consequently they never return him any praise. When they are labouring under any afflictions, whether public or private, it is to their sovereign that they make the most humble supplications for redress. To him they pray for all the blessings of Providence, which may serve to point out, that they are most gross idolators. A long and tedious drought is mostly followed by impetious showers, and so in all the other changes of the seasons; and the people, who are easy and incurious, imagine that their monarch works all these marvellous things for them, without ever enquiring any farther. They are perfect strangers to any genuine account of the creation of the world; for, according to some travellers, they believe it to be eternal, but this certainly cannot be true; for those who believe that the world had not that the world had not a beginning, will hardly be brought to believe that it will ever have an end. AL their religious ceremonies are regulated according to the will of the prince, and the first day of every month is a holiday. Most of their festivals are held in memory of their deceased and dearest relations, and these are a sort of deities worshipped by them. They have implicit faith in some particular oracles, which, as they pretend, have the power to reveal to them the knowledge of future events. This king of theirs is for ever surrounded by a parcel of sycophants, composed of poets and musicians, who make it their whole study to persuade him that he is a god. They sing elogiums in praise of him, and in their compositions bestow on him all the pompous epithets and swelling titles their imaginations can suggest. They stile him lord of the sun and moon, and king of the earth and sea, and as in all probability they imagine that every It is proper we should here observe, that the anaction, whether good or evil, which approaches cient idolators, of whom we read so much in the nearest to a pitch of perfection, deserves the charac-histories of Greece and Rome, did not worship their ter of great and magnificent, they call their monarchs the grand magician, as we do our princes illustrious conquerors. These are very favourable appellations with them, and they likewise call their sovereigns robbers, which to them convey no bad idea, seeing plunder and robbery is the very profession, the very employment of these savages. They offer up prayers to the souls of their deceased relations, so that we may naturally conclude they believe the immortality of the soul; and thus much is certain, that they have the most awful and No. 21.. departed relations indiscriminately: No, these divine honours were paid only to the virtuous, in order that after their decease, they might become mediators between the Supreme Being and the whole race of mankind. To this may be added, that it was done to stimulate the living to the practice of virtue. In their trials of prisoners, they have several ccremonies, but their oaths in general consist in making the accused person swallow a strong dose of physic, and according to its operation they form 6 I theis their notions of his guilt or innocence. When he takes the medicine, several dreadful curses are pronounced, to induce the prisoner to tell the truth. And if these maldictions and the medicines have no extraordinary effects on the prisoner, he is declared innocent, and acquitted. On such occasions, the prosecutor's goeds are all confiscated, and he with his wives and children are all sold as slaves. They have another form of trial, not much unlike the fiery ordeal in ancient times in our country of Britain. These Africans call it Xoqua, and it is a kind of trial by a hot iron. The iron is made hot, and the person is obliged to lick it. If he burns his tongue, it is an indication of his guilt, but if otherwise, he is declared innocent. They have several other sorts of ceremonies in the administration of oaths, but they are so much similar to some of those already mentioned in our account of Congo, that it is altogether unnecessary to repeat them. All their wives are obtained by purchase, and the man who has the greatest number of handsome and accomplished daughters, is esteemed the richest. If the purchaser makes any objection to the young woman after she has been with him sometime, he returns her to her parents, and receives back some part of the purchase money; after which, they dispose of her to the next person who bids most. With respect to such women as are poor, they are a sort of slaves for life, for their husbands domineer over them in the most cruel and tyrannical manner. The mean degrading manner in which the female sex are held in this country, where they are bought and sold, points out that the passions of the men are mean, low, vulgar and sclfish. Love is of a spontaneous nature, it cannot be purchased; it flows as it were imperceptibly, and thus it is distinguished from gratitude, which is a purchased duty, because it commands a thankful return. Such as are very old and infirm, are treated in the same manner as the Cafres or Hottentots, near the Cape of Good Hope; that is, they are totally abandoned, and their death is hastened on as fast as possible. It is true, they extend their charity for some of them so far, as to convey them into desarts, but there they are left either to starve, or be de oured by wild beasts. Nay, the poor helpless wretches, conscious of their approaching misery, beg to be dispatched out of the way, without being torn in pieces by wild beasts. The burial of their dead, is left entirely to the will and discretion of those who survive, and, indeed, they are generally interred in a very decent manner. They put into the grave some different sorts of provisions, to support the deceased during his journey to the other world. Some carth is then thrown over the corpse, and the chairs and bed of the deceased are piled up over the grave. They are so superstitions as not to touch, on any account whatever, such chairs, or beds, or, indeed, any thing. that has touched the dead body. Their mourning continues eight days together, from the rising to the setting of the sun; and that time is spent in dances, songs and howlings. The mourning being over, they eat and drink in honour of their departed friends and relations, it being customary on such occasions to consecrate all whom they know. At the first appearance of the new moon, in the month of September, the king, who is the visible God of the country, sets out from Simbace, his capital city, attended by a grand retinue. He then repairs to the top of a particular hill, which is the place where their kings are buried, and there performs nine days devotion, to the memory of his illustrious ancestors. As soon as they are arrived at the place, they open the ceremony with a most elegant entertainment, and there intoxicate their brains with a liquor which they call Rombo. After their days of joy and festivity are ended, two more are spent in grief and sorrow, and on the last of these days, they imagine that the soul of the last deceased king, enters into the body of one of the courtiers. The person falls down, and rolls upon the ground, and the devil, by his mouth, delivers himself in an unknown tongue; but soon after he comes to himself, grows more gentle and tractable, and talks in the language and style of the late king. His imperial majesty, imagining that he perfectly recollects his predecessor, approaches and salutes him; and immediately the whole assembly retreat, and testify their respect at an awful distance. His majesty being thus alone with the demoniac, consults him as an infallible oracle, on all his affairs of any importance, both public and private. As soon as this oracle has delivered such answers as he thinks convenient, the devil withdraws, and the poor harrassed demoniac, as we are informed, for the generality sits down contented all his life after, and thinks himself sufficiently recompensed for all his fatigue by having had the honour of such a miraculous conference with his royal master. This intrigue, in all probability, is owing to the delusion and imposture of some person who professes himself an able magician and that is all we can say of it with any certainty. It is well known, by the way, that a thousand instances may be produced from the ancients of pretended spirits that have been raised by their necromancers on the like occasions. When When the king dies, his wives poison themselves the moment he expires, in order to die with, and wait on him in his progress to the other world. As soon as his soul is departed, he is instantly conveyed to the sepulchre of his ancestors, and his successor the next morning takes possession of the royal dignity, and all the concubines of the deceased. He then exposes himself to public view, but in such a manner, that a curtain conceals both him and his wives from being discerned by the populace. He is immediately proclaimed throughout the kingdom, in order that the nobility and gentry may recognize his authority, and pay him homage. This ceremony is performed with all that passive obedience and abject deportment which is so conspicuous all over the cast, and so agreeable to their imperious monarchs, who look upon themselves as deities or at least as something more than human, when they see their subjects creeping and cringing with such awful fear at the footstool of their thrones, and addressing themselves with all humility to their persons without presuming to lift up their heads, and look them in the face. Thus the subjects of Africa pay their submission and allegiance to their monarch, who graciously condescends to answer them, but still behind the curtain, which, however, is soon after drawn. and then his majesty obliges them with a full view of his sacred person. Every one immediately claps his hands, and reads the air with loud acclainations: in a few minutes the curtain conceals him again, and the nobility and gentry withdraw, cringing and crouching in the same abject and submissive manner as when they came. The whole city celebrate the festival of his happy accession to the throne, and testify their joy with loud huzzas, and a vast variety of their country music. The next day his imperial majesty causes a proclamation to be made of his accession to the throne by proper officers, who at the same time give a general invitation to all persons whomsoever, without distinction to see their new sovereign break the bow. This ceremony is sometimes observed when there are several competitors or candidates for the royal dignity; and there are divers instances of the like royal contentions to be met with amongst the ancient inhabitants of Europe and Asia. The new monarch, in all probability, complies with this ceremonious act, in order to give the peo ple a specimen of strength and uncommon abilities. There are so many instances that may be produced from the ancients, to demonstrate that such as were appointed to be svereigns and rulers over the people, were by them required to have a larger share of strength of body, as well as sagacity and penetration, than the generality of mankind, that it would be needless, if not impertinent, to quote them. We shal content ourselves therefore with extracting one shining example from the annals of France, to prove that the French gave into the same notion, and expected to find in their princes the very same accomplishments. Pepin the Short, perceiving himself the object of contempt amongst a particular set of his courtiers, who on account of his figure, which was both thick and low, entertained but a mean idea of his personal abilities, invited them, by way of amusement, to see a fair battle between a bull and a lion. As soon as he observed that the latter had got the mastery of the former, and was ready to devour him, "Now, gentlemen, says he, who amongst you all has courage enough to interpose between these bloody combatants? Who of you all dare rescue the bull, and kill the lion;" Not one of the numerous spectators would venture to undertake so dangerous an enterprise; whereupon the king instantly leaped into the area, drew his sabre, and at one blow severed the lion's head from his shoulder. Returning without the least emotion or concern to his seat, he gave those who had entertained but a mean opinion of him to understand in a jocu'ar way, that though David was low of stature, yet he demolished the great Goliah; and that though Alexander was but a little man, he performed me heroic actions than all his tallest officers and commanders put together. David, though he met with the like contemptible treatment from Saul on the very same occasion, was notwithstanding remarkable for his strength, and was numbered amongst the valiant men of Israel. He says himself in one of his psalms, that by the strength of his arm he broke a steel bow asunder. Mr. Le Clerc, indeed, in his annotations, seems to intimate that this expression is only a poetical hyperbole; yet there are other commentators, in all probability, to be met with, who give this passage quite another gloss, who look upon it as real fact, and a public testimony, which David was willing to give the people of his extraordinary abilities. When the Quiteve understands there are several rivals, and that his title is precarious, he must make all the interest he is capable with the wives of the late monarch: for he alone, whom they admit into the royal palace, is his true and lawful successor, To get possession by force, would be of no manner of service; for all acts of violence, in that case, ale repugnant to the laws of the land. The competitor, whoever he be, forfeits all his right and title to the crown, that is guilty of such rash proceedings. The best method therefore that he can take to maintain his |