attempted it, they all fell a sacrifice to Indian barbarity. The shrieks and groans of the poor expiring wretches were truly dreadful: and my horror was much increased at seeing a young girl, seemingly about eighteen years of age, killed so near me, that when the first spear was stuck into her side she fell down at my feet and twisted round my legs, so that it was with difficulty I could disengage myself from her dying grasps. As two Indian men pursued this unfortunate victim, I solicited very hard for her life; but the murderers made no reply till they had stuck both their spears through her body and transfixed her to the ground. They then looked me sternly in the face, and began to ridicule me by asking if I wanted an Eskimaux wife, and paid not the smallest regard to the shrieks and agony of the poor wretch who was twining round their spears like an eel! Indeed after receiving much abusive language from them on the occasion, I desired they would dispatch their victim out of her misery. On this request being made, one of the Indians hastily drew his spear from the place where it was first lodged, and pierced it through her breast near the heart. The love of life, however, even in this miserable state was so predominant, that, though this might most justly be called a merciful act to the poor creature, it seemed unwelcome; for though much exhausted by pain and loss of blood, she made several efforts to ward off the friendly blow. My situation, and the terror of my mind at beholding this butchery, cannot easily be conceived, much less described: even at this hour I cannot reflect on the transactions of that horrid day without shedding tears. The brutish manner in which these savages used the bodies they had thus bereaved of

life, was so shocking that it would be indecent to describe it: " &c. (P. 152, &c.)

"Among the various superstitious customs of these people it is worth remarking, that after my companions had killed the Eskimaux at the Copper-mine River, they considered themselves in a state of uncleanness, which induced them to practise some very curious and unusual ceremonies. In the first place, all who were absolutely concerned in the murder were prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals, either for themselves or others. Two in the company who had not shed blood were employed as cooks till we joined the women. When the victuals were cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red earth or ochre, and painted all the space between the nose and the chin, and the greater part of the cheeks almost to the ears, before they would taste a bit; and would not drink out of any other dish, or smoke out of any other pipe but their own, and none of the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs." (P. 205.)

After this full survey of the savage state of society, I shall be satisfied with respect to the pastoral tribes with quoting a very few passages from Mr. Malthus's chapter "Of the Checks to Population among the modern Pastoral Nations."

"The Mahometan Tartars are said to live almost entirely by robbing and preying upon their neighbours as well in peace as in war." "The Usbecks, who possess as masters the kingdom of Chowarasm, leave to their tributary subjects, the Sarts and Turkmans, the finest pastures of their country, because their neighbours on that side are too poor or too vigilant to give them hopes of successful plunder. Ra-.

pine is their principal resource."

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The Turkmans are always at war with the Curds and Arabs, who often come and break the horns of their herds, and carry away their wives and daughters." "Neither the aptitude of the soil, nor the example which they (the Usbecks) have before them, can induce them to change their habits, and they would rather pillage, rob, and kill their neighbours, than apply themselves to improve the benefits which nature so liberally offers them." "And though they are often very illtreated in these incursions, and the whole of their plunder is not equivalent to what they might obtain with very little labour from their lands; yet they choose rather to expose themselves to the thousand fatigues and dangers necessarily attendant on such a life, than apply themselves seriously to agriculture." The Mahometan Tartars in general hate trade, and make it their business to spoil all the merchants who fall into their hands. The only commerce that is countenanced is the commerce in slaves. These form a principal part of the booty which they carry off in their predatory incursions, and are considered as a chief source of their riches. Those which they have occasion for themselves, either for the attendance on their herds, or as wives and concubines, they keep, and the rest they sell." They justify it as lawful to have many wives, because they say they bring us many children, which we can sell for ready money, or exchange for necessary conveniences. Yet when they have not wherewithal to maintain them, they hold it a piece of charity to murder infants new-born, as also they do such as are sick and past recovery, because they say they free them from a great deal of misery." (Sir J. Chardin's Travels). "Under the

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feeble yet oppressive government of the Turks it is not uncommon for peasants to desert their villages and betake themselves to a pastoral state, in which they expect to be better able to escape from the plunder of their Turkish masters and Arab neighbours."

Thus then we perceive that in the rich islands of the Pacific, in the fertile plains of America, and the productive valleys of Asia, a population probably rather diminishing than increasing in numbers presses against a scanty supply of food derived from a soil whose productive powers are capable, with a very slight exertion of industry, to maintain a rapidly increasing population in comfort and plenty. It is plain too that in many instances the population de-. clines, not from any general deficiency in the actual supply of food, but from the vicious, the cruel, the degraded habits of the people, derived from other causes. And in every instance the absence of cultivation, and of its necessary consequence the increase of subsistence, is to be ascribed altogether to moral causes. The land waits to be solicited, and is prepared to yield abundant returns. Providence is con

tinually accumulating the intimations of its will, by adding misery to misery as the condition of a perseverance in idleness and vice, and as a stimulus to the efforts requisite to escape from them. But man, the creature of habit, prone to evil, and to an increasing deterioration of mind the longer he continues plunged in vicious practices, pertinaciously resists the suggestions of Providence, and frequently perseveres in his resistance till he has almost incapacitated himself as a subject for future amelioration.

In the foregoing picture then of the several gradations of savage and pastoral life, vice and misery are indeed frightfully prominent; but it would be too preposterous an abuse of terms to say that their office is to repress a mischievous tendency to exuberance in the population, when they are in fact the positive means not only of preventing even a salutary increase, but actually of inducing in many cases a rapid diminution in the existing numbers. As well might the destruction of a city be called a salutary precaution against its too great extension. Neither would it be more reasonable to argue that moral restraint from sexual intercouse would remedy the evils; for in the first place such a virtue cannot be singly implanted so as to flourish in a hotbed of other vices; nor if it were implanted under such conditions would the evils be remedied. For regular habits in this respect would soon rather increase than diminish the number of the people, without having any tendency to increase the quantity of food. Industry therefore, and industry alone, with the moral consequences thence arising, would be sufficient to attain the object, by removing the impediments to the farther production of food. of food. And I must again be permitted to ask in what manner men drowned in apathy and vice can be roused to industrious exertion, unless by the pressure of some misery which may evidently be referred to the want of that exertion.

But the most unreasonable of all arguments upon this state of society would be to maintain that the pressure of population against subsistence (where it is found to exist) is a necessary consequence of the increase of the former, because it is perfectly obvious that it is wholly to be ascribed to want of exertion