large rock, fish, or peculiar fowl, is raised to this high distinction, and the honour of being the national divinity. Among trees the palm has the pre-eminence, this being always deified, and in particular that species of it called assoanam; because it is the most beautiful and numerous. They pay profound adoration to these fetiches, and have great confidence in their power. But the fetiche of one province is despised in another. culties and occurrences of life. The ideas the negroes entertain of a future state are various. Some maintain, that immediately upon the death of any person, he is removed into another world, where he assumes the very character in which he lived in this, and supports himself by the offerings and sacrifices his friends make after his departure. It is said that the great body of negroes do not entertain any ideas of future rewards and punishments annexed to the good or evil actions of this life. A few, however, have some notions of future judgments, which consist in being wafted away to a famous river, situated in a distant inland country, called Bosmanque. Here their god interrogates them concerning the life they have led; whether they have religiously kept the holy days dedicated to fetiche, abstained from all meats, and inviolably kept their oaths? If they can answer truly in the affirmative, they are conveyed over the river to a land abounding in every luxury and human delight. If, on the contrary, the departed have sinned against any of the above capital pillars of their religion, then their god plunges him into a river, where he is buried in eternal oblivion. Others believe in a kind of The fetiches of Whidah may be divided into three classes; the serpent, tall trees, and the sea. They sometimes add a fourth; viz. the chief river of the kingdom, the Euphrates. The serpent is the most celebrated, the others being subordinate to the power of this deity. This snake has a large round head, beautiful piercing eyes, a short pointed tongue, resembling a dart; its pace slow and solemn, except when it seizes on its prey, then very rapid; its tail sharp and short, its skin of an elegant smoothness, adorned with beautiful colours, upon a lightgrey ground it is amazingly familiar and tame. Rich offerings are made to this deity; priests, and priestesses appointed for its service; it is invoked in extremely wet, dry, or barren seasons; and, in a word, on all the great diffikkk metempsychosis, where they shall be transported to the land of white men, altered to that complexion, and endowed with a soul similar to theirs. But this is the doctrine only of those who think highly of the intellectual faculties of the white men.* The negroes who inhabit the kingdom of Bemim acknowledge a supreme Being, whom they call Orisa; but think it needless to worship him, because, being infinitely good, they are sure he will not hurt them. On the contrary, they are very careful in paying their devotions to the devil, who, they think, is the cause of all their calamities. They do not think of any other remedy for their most common diseases, but that of applying to a sorcerer to drive him away. Such of them as believe in the devil paint his image white.† In 1768 the Moravians sent missionaries to Guinea, and several other parts of Africa. NUBIA. ALMOST all the inhabitants but for want of good preachers of this spacious country are it at length degenerated, and pagans or mahometans, chiefly mahometanism took place in the latter. This kingdom re- its stead: the few who still received the gospel from the tain the christian faith acearliest times, and continued knowledge the patriarch of firm in it for several centuries; Alexandria.‡, ETHIOPIA-SUPERIOR, OR ABYSSINIA. THIS spacious empire contains a great mixture of people of various nations, as pagans, jews, mahometans; but the main body of the natives are christians, who bold the scriptures to be the sole rule of faith. Their emperor is supreme, as well in ecclesiastical as in civil matters.§ The patriarchate is the highest ecclesiastical dignity * Modern Universal History, vol. xvii. pp. 133-137. chanters, who assist at all public offices of the church. They boast themselves of jewish extraction, and pretend to imitate the service of the tabernacle and temple of Jerusalem, and dancing of king David before the ark. On their grand festivals they begin their music and dancing long before day. The priests are the next order to the bishops; but as they have none of those but the abuna, they have instead of them, those they style komos, who preside over them. Every parochial church has one of these, who is a kind of arch-presbyter, and has all the inferior priests and deacons, as well as the secular affairs of the parish, under his care and government. The office of the inferior priests is to supply that of the komos in their absence, and when present to assist them in divine service. All these orders are allowed to marry, even after they have been ordained priests.* Their monasteries and religious orders are numerous; but they are different from those of Rome. Some of these orders are allowed to enter into the married life, and to bring up their families in the same way, and to distribute their lands, cells, and what goods they have among them; but those who observe celibacy are commonly in greater esteem.+ This church uses different forms of baptism, and keeps both Saturday and Sunday as a sabbath. They are circumcised, and abstain from swine's flesh; not out of any regard to the Mosaic law, but purely as an ancient custom of their country. Their divine service consists wholly in reading the scriptures, administering the eucharist, and hearing some homilies of the fathers. They read the whole four evangelists every year in their churches. They begin with Matthew, then proceed to Mark, Luke, and John, in order; and when they speak of an event, they write and say, "It happened in the days of Matthew," i. e. while Matthew was reading in their churches.§ There are three sects prevailing in Abyssinia. The Galla, Shangalla, and Mahometans; to which must be added the Agows of Damut, who live near the fountains forming the stream, which has been called the source of the Nile. They are pagans, and pay divine worship to these waters which run into the great lake of Izana, or Dembea.|| * Modern Universal History, vol. xv. pp. 145-149. Ibid, p. 157, + Broughton's Historical Library, vol. ii. p. 322. Bruce's Travels, p. 145. || Payne's Epitome, vol. ii. p. 377. ETHIOPIA-INFERIOR. THE numerous inhabitants In Ajan, and Abex, mahomeof these countries are pagans. tanism is professed.* In Zanguebar some of the people are mahometans, but the principal part are idolaters. The Portuguese have made but few proselytes in this kingdom, the people being obstinate in preserving their own religious principles. The former have used many efforts to - bring them to a sense of christianity; but as these have proved ineffectual, they have long since desisted from any farther attempts, and now satisfy themselves with the enjoyment of exercising their own religion without control. In the kingdom of Melinda the negroes are for the most part mahometans, who follow the doctrines of Zeyd, the son of Hosten, a sect not unlike that of the sadducees among the jews. The Roman Catholics have been settled here almost ever since the Portuguese came hither, but do not make proselytes of the natives. They are so numerous in the city of Melinda, that they have built no less than seventeen churches and chapels in it, and have erected a stately cross of gilt marble before one of them. LOWER GUINEA Containing Loango, Congo, Angolo, Bengula, and Mantaman. THE inhabitants of these countries are generally pagans. In Congo those who have not embraced the gospel, which was introduced by the Portuguese in the year 1482, acknowledge a supreme Being, whom they believe to be allpowerful, and ascribe to him the creation of their country; but suppose that he has committed all sublunary things to the care and government of a variety of subordinate, or in ferior deities; some to preside over the air, others over the fire, sea, earth, &c. : in a word, over all the blessings and curses to which the world and its inhabitants are subjected, according to their votaries' care or neglect of rendering those deities more or less propitious to them. Hence proceeds that immense multitude of idols and altars, and that prodigious variety of gangas, or priests, and superstitious *Middleton's Geography, vol. i. p. 395. Modern Universal History, vol. xv. p. 398. rites, which are still in vogue in those parts of the kingdom which have not received the gospel, * The inhabitants of Angola worship the sun and moon. Although they have no knowledge of the true God, yet circumcision, with its attendant religious rites, is practised among them. Divine worship is also performed in huts appropriated for that purpose, and one day set apart by the priests.+--The Portuguese have converted a large number in this kingdom to the profession of christianity. The negroes in Loango are said to acknowledge a supreme Creator and Deity, called Zambi, who is considered as the great cause of whatever is good and beautiful in the world. By his name they swear their most sacred oaths, the violation of which they think would be immediately followed with sickness. This Zambi they love, but without worshipping him; and reserve their worship for a malignant deity, called zambi-an-hi, whom they fear as the author of all evils. In order to appease him they abstain from some dish or other, and in order to please him they spoil their fruit-trees. -These Africans think the soul survives the body, but have no distinct notions of its future residence and fate. The mission to Loango began in 1766, but ceased in 1768, when the missionaries were by diseases driven from Africa. In the same year two other French missionaries settled at Cakongo, where they still subsist. In Sogno, a kingdom formerly dependent on Loango, they met with many thousands of christians, by whom they were received as messengers of heaven.‡ CAFFRARIA. THE Hottentots believe in one supreme Being, the creator of heaven and earth, whom they style God of gods. They suppose him a humane and benevolent being, and place his residence beyond the moon. They have no mode of worshipping him, for which they give this reason: Our first parents so grievously offended God, that he cursed them and their posterity with hardness of heart; so that they know but little of him, and have still less inclination to serve him. The Hottentots adore the moon as an inferior and visi *Modern Universal History, vol. xvi. p. 69. Damberger's Travels, published 1801. Critical Review, vol, xliii. p. 70, |