MADAGASCAR. The natives of this Island practice circumcision.-Wives are purchased here, and their licentiousness before and after marriage is described to be very great. Adultery is commuted for a small fine. The children of a wife brought to bed after divorcement are the husband's property, if she do not return him the purchase-money advanced on the day of marriage.The barbarous practice of exposure of infants takes place here, and the more inhuman one of burying the new-born infant with its mother, when she dies in child-bed.-Mr. Milne, however, missionary to the Chinese empire, has omitted to mention these acts of barbarity, and observes that considerable happiness is enjoyed in the married state. Though plurality of wives is allowed among the chiefs, one only is legally betrothed.Aged persons, he says, are treated with respect, and not exposed, as in some pagan countries; he admits that at the birth of children soothsayers are consulted, and, if their decisions are unfavorable, the infants are exposed to the wild beasts in the woods.

A woman who is repudiated by her husband, is not at liberty to marry again till she has paid her late husband the sum he gave for her previous to their marriage.

MADEIRA.-Viscount Valencia, on landing on the beach at Madeira, was struck with the ap

pearance of the fishermen rowing their boats in a perfect state of nudity, and the women regarding them with the greatest indifference: the practice, however displeasing to an English eye, is not uncommon among the inferior classes of hot climates.

The island of LANZEROTA, one in the Canaries, bore formerly the name of Titeroigatra. On the arrival of the Spaniards, its inhabitants were distinguished from the other Canarians by marks of greater civilization. Their houses were built with free stone, while the Guanches of Teneriffe, like real troglodytes, dwelt in caverns. At Lanzerota,

a very singular custom prevailed at that time, of which we find no example except among the people of Thibet. A woman had several husbands, who alternately enjoyed the perogatives due to the head of a family. A husband was considered as such only during a lunar revolution, and, whilst his rights were exercised by others, he remained classed among the household domestics. It must be regretted that the missionaries who accompanied Jean de Béthencourt, and who sketched the history of the conquest of the Canaries, have given us no ampler details of the manners of a people who had such singular customs.

AMERICA.

BEFORE entering into the marriage customs of this vast part of the universe, it will not be improper to make some remarks upon the general condition of the native American women,-for a distinction must be drawn between them and the state of female society in the governments peopled by European descent or emigration. Though man has but one mode of coming into the world, his birth is accompanied with a number of ceremonies, connected with the influence of priestcraft and superstition. The custom of wrapping the new-born infant in swaddling clothes is not followed in the savage state, but, as in Brazil, the men who perform the office of midwives, having received the infant from the mother, fairly tear the naval-string asunder, wash the infant, paint it red and black, and then carry it to the hammock. The lying-inwoman receives no better treatment. After relieving she washes herself, sets about her work, and experiences none of those apprehensions which attend the accouchement of an English lady.— Lewis and Clarke, in their recent travels, as well as other authors, confirm this happy facility, the

the pains of which are so light that they merely retire to a private spot, or withdraw, and return in sufficient strength to renew their work. Indeed, in some parts of South America, they not only go to work immediately after delivery, but even wait upon their husbands, who keep their beds instead of the women,-a custom which was in use by the ancient Spaniards, and the Tibarenians, a people of Cappadocia, but which is not to be accounted for upon any modern mode of reasoning.

As soon as conception is known to have taken place, all intercourse with the husband ceases, and in this respect there is a conformity with the custom of many of the African tribes, which, as well as during the menstrual time, is enjoined by the Jewish religion.-Polygamy is generally practiced, and the same arguments used in support of it, which derogate from the character of the sex, and compare them to so many fields, designed only for the purpose of tillage and produce, as being possessed of souls, but of an inferior kind, and as. objects for the sensual gratification and benefit of man only.

That duty which nature requires from all mothers, the American females perform. In North America the mode of carrying their children is to fasten them to a smooth board, and wrap them up in a beaver's skin, without either band or bedding; or, if clothes be at all used, they are such as are

cut from large skins, and do not encumber the free motion of the limbs. The female savage takes care to hold the children, thus bundled up, that their heads lie much higher than their feet, and to preserve the fœces from injuring their health, or making them offensive, they adjust the rind or shell of a birch-tree, into the form of a gutter. Children are less encumbered in South America, where they use no manner of body clothes, but lay them quite naked on the ground, or in a hammock, till they are able to go alone, the result of which is that deformity is unknown, and a hardness of constitution grows with their years.-Nations differ in respect to what constitutes the beauty of infants. Negro savages bruise the noses of their children to flatten them, and widen their nostrils; others bruise the tip of the nose only, and make holes in their cheeks; the Mississippians force the child's head into the shape of a mitre, and the Chinese cripple the feet of their infants. The complexion of the Indians is generally olive or copper-colour, their hair black. As marriage among the American Indians is a more unconfined state than with us, it follows that they carry their inhumanity to such a length as to destroy the fruits produced by the commerce between men and women. Their feelings are different to those of the Europeans; they are under no concern about marrying beneath themselves, but unite when and in