to do with him; and were it not for the forks of the boar-spears that make it impossible to press forward upon them, the huntsman who gives the creature his death wound, would seldom escape falling a sacrifice to his revenge for it. The modern way of boarhunting is generally to despatch the creature by all the huntsmen striking him at once: but the ancient Roman way was for a person on foot, armed with a spear to keep the creature at bay; and in this case the boar would run of himself upon the spear to come at the huntsman, and push forward till the spear pierced him through.

Hunting the wild boar, at the present time, is by no means a common amusement. The king of Naples, still encourages the breeding of those animals in his royal hunting grounds, for the purposes of the chase; in some parts of Africa also, and in the East Indies, this dangerous sport is still followed. The cut on the opposite page, is from a picture by Horace Vernet: it represents a scene which occurred near Algiers, since it has been occupied as a French colony. The principal individual is Joussouf Bey, a man whose devotion to the French, and whose influence over the Turks, are well known.

LIVING COSTUMES.

THE Bedouin Arabs in general, are small, meager, and tawny; more so, however, in the heart of the desert than on the frontiers of the cultivated country; but they are always of a darker hue than the

neighbouring peasants. They also differ themselves in the same camp; and M. Vo marked, that the shaiks, that is, the rich, a attendants, were always taller and more c than the common class. He has seen some above five feet five and six inches high; th general they do not (he says) exceed five inches. This difference can only be attril their food, with which the former are suppli abundantly than the latter and the effects are equally evident in the Arabian and T camels; for these latter, dwelling in countri in forage, are become a species more rob fleshy than the former. It may likewise be a that the lower class of Bedouins live in a habitual wretchedness and famine. It will almost incredible to us, but it is an undoubte that the quantity of food usually consumed greatest part of them does not exceed six ou day. This abstinence is most remarkable the tribes of the Najd and the Hedjaz. Six o dates soaked in melted butter, a little sweet curds, serve a man a whole day; and he e himself happy when he can add a small quar coarse flour, or a little ball of rice. Meat is ed for the greatest festivals and they never kid but for a marriage or a funeral. A few w and generous shaiks alone can kill young c and eat baked rice with their victuals. In ti dearth, the vulgar, always half famished, do n dain the most wretched kinds of food; and custs, rats, lizards, and serpents, broiled on Hence are they such plunderers of the cul

lands and robbers on the high-roads: hence also their delicate constitution and their diminutive and meager bodies, which are rather active than vigorous. It may be worth while to remark, that their evacuations of every kind, even perspiration, are extremely small; their blood is so destitute of serosity that nothing but the greatest heat can preserve its fluidity. This, however, does not prevent them from being tolerably healthy in other respects; for maladies are less frequent among them than among the inhabitants of the cultivated country.

The Bedouin Arabs, are divided into tribes, which constitute so many distinct nations. Each of these tribes appropriates to itself a tract of land forming its domain; in this they do not differ from cultivating nations, except that their territory requires a greater extent, in order to furnish subsistence for their herds throughout the year. Each tribe is collected in one or more camps, which are dispersed through the country, and which make a successive progress over the whole, in proportion as it is exhausted by the cattle; hence it is, that within a great extent a few spots only are inhabited, which vary from one day to another; but as the entire space is necessary for the annual subsistence of the tribe, whoever encroaches on it is deemed a violater of property; this is with them the law of nations. If therefore, a tribe, or any of its subjects, enter upon a foreign territory, they are treated as enemies and robbers, and a war breaks out. Now, as all the tribes have affinities with each other by alliances of blood or conventions, leagues are formed, which render these wars more or less general. The manner of proceeding on such occasions, is very simple. The offence made known, they mount their horses and seek the enemy; when they meet, they enter into a parley, and the matter is frequently made up; if not, they attack either in small bodies, or man to man. They encounter each other at full speed with fixed lances, which they sometimes dart, notwithstanding their length, at the flying enemy: the victory is rarely contested; it is decided by the first shock, and the vanquished take to flight full gallop over the naked plain of the desert. Night generally favours their escape from the conqueror. The tribe which has lost the battle, strikes its tents, removes to a distance by forced marches, and seeks an asylum among its allies. The enemy, satisfied with their success, drive their herds farther on, and the fugitives soon after return to their former situation. But the slaughter made in these engagements frequently sows the seeds of hatred which perpetuate these dissensions. The interest of the common safety has for ages established a law among them, which decrees that the blood of every man who is slain, must be avenged by that of his murderer. This vengeance is called Tar, or retaliation; and the right of exacting it devolves on the nearest of kin to the deceased. So nice are the Arabs on this point of honour, that if any one neglects to seek his retaliation he is disgraced for ever. He therefore watches every opportunity of revenge; if his enemy perishes from any other cause, still he is not satisfied, and his vengeance is directed against the nearest relation. These animosities are transmitted as an inheritance from father to children, and never cease but by the extinction of one of the families, unless they agree to sacrifice the criminal, or purchase the blood for a

stated price, in money or in flocks Without this satisfaction, there is neither peace nor truce, nor alliances, between them, nor sometimes even between whole tribes: "there is blood between us," say they on every occasion; and this expression is an insurmountable barrier. Such accidents being necessarily numerous in a long course of time, the greater part of the tribes have ancient quarrels, and live in an habitual state of war which, added to their way of life, renders the Bedouins a military people, though they have made no great progress in war as an art.

Their camps are formed in a kind of irregular circle, composed of a single row of tents, with greater or less intervals. These tents, made of goat or camel's hair, are black or brown, in which they differ from those the of Turkmen, which are white. They are stretched on three or four pickets, only five or six feet high, which gives them a very flat appearance; at a distance one of these camps seems only like a number of black spots; but the piercing eye of the Bedouin is not to be deceived. Each tent inhabited by a family is divided by a curtain into two apartments, one of which is appropriated to the women. The empty space within the large circle serves to fold their cattle every evening. They never have any entrenchments; their only advanced guards and patrols are dogs; their horses remain faddled and ready to mount on the first alarm; but as there is neither order nor regularity, these camps, always easy to surprise, afford no defence in case of an attack; accidents, therefore, very frequently happen, and cattle are carried off every day a species of marauding war in which the Arabs are very experienced.

The tribes which live in the vicinity of the Turks are still more accustomed to attacks and alarms; for these strangers, arrogating to themselves, in right of conquest, the property of the whole country, treat the Arabs as rebel vassals, or as turbulent and dangerous enemies. On this principle, they never cease to wage secret or open war against them. Sometimes they contest with them a territory which they had let them, and at others demand a tribute which they never agreed to pay. Should a family of shaiks be divided by interest or ambition, they alternately succour each party, and conclude by the destruction of both. Frequently, too, they poison or assassinate those chiefs whose courage or abilities they dread, though hey should even be their allies. The Arabs, on their side, regarding the Turks as usurpers and treacherous enemies, watch every opportunity to do them injury. Unfortunately, their vengeance falls oftener on the innocent than the guilty. The harsless peasant generally suffers for the offences of the soldier. On the slightest alarm, the Arabs cut their harvests, carry off their flocks, and intercept their communication and commerce. The peasants call them thieves, and with reason; but the Bedouins claim the right of war, and perhaps they also are not in the wrong. However this may be, these depredations occasion a misunderstanding between the Bedouins and the inhabitants of the cultivated country, which renders them mutual enemies.

By united effort, the theorist and the practical man may accomplish much, which neither could effect alone.

.ASTRONOMY.

THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.

IN giving to our readers the following general view of astronomy, we are aware that but little towards a perfect elucidation of that sublime science can be done in so very small a space as is allowed us; yet are we persuaded that, after an attentive perusal of our remarks, the reader will be impressed with some tolerable knowledge of the grand features of this noble study, and his mind prepared for the reception of the more profound branches.

By the study of astronomy, we learn to believe that the earth on which we live is one of a countless host of similar worlds, with which the Almighty hand has bespotted the heavens of infinity that are vaulted over us. The perception of man is indeed limited, but in proportion as the power of opticks is developed, so is the greatness of the Creator, and the number of worlds he has made, nobly brought to view. With the naked eye we can see only about a thousand stars, nor in both hemispheres are there to be seen more than three thousand one hundred and twenty-eight. Of these, there are about twenty of the first magnitude, seventy-six of the second, two hundred and twenty-three of the third, five hundred and ten of the fourth, six hundred and ninetyfive of the fifth, and sixteen hundred and four of the sixth. Hence it will be observed that, in point of number, they increase in proportion to their magnitude or distance, since the number of stars of the tenth magnitude seen in Sir John Herschel's telescope may be said, comparatively speaking, to be infinite. Of the milky-way, there passes over the field of his forty-feet reflector the immense number of 116,000 stars in a quarter of an hour. That we may give some idea of space, it may be well to observe, that in the "Philosophical Transactions," it is said that Dr. Bradley found the distance of the nearest of the fixed stars, (Sirius,) to be 7,600,000,000,000 miles. Now it is taken as data among high astronomical authorities, that a star of the second magnitude is twice as distant as one of the first, that one of a third magnitude is three times as far, and so on to the tenth magnitude, of which Sir John Herschel states, "the light, though travelling at the rate of twelve millions of miles in a minute, has been nearly two millions of years arriving to the earth." Hence then we are led to suppose that the world we inhabit can be but a mere atom in this grand scale of creation; and as it must appear to all that the first and most consistent study in astronomy must be the earth-our resting-place, we shall at once proceed to describe its properties, beginning with its shape or figure.

THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH IS GLOBULAR.

b

The above sketch represents a steam-vessel, going from the shore out to sea, with a figure standing on the beach watching it as it recedes. As the straight

line a, b, c, indicates the direction in which the person looks, it will be seen therefore that as she proceeds, her hull will appear to sink gradually into the water, and as the distance increases he will as gradually lose more and more of her, till her chimney will have entirely disappeared, as we have shown at c. This will occur were the funnel sixtysix feet four inches high, and the ship ten miles from the observer. It will be observed again that if, on losing sight of the steamer at c, the spectator imme-" diately ascend the tower in the rear, he will be enabled to look over the rounded protuberance of the water, which before impeded his sight, and see the same vessel for ten miles farther.

From accurate data on this apparent depression of a steamer at sea, and a little knowledge of trigonometry, it would appear that the ship was moving upon the arc of a circle, whose diameter was nearly eight thousand miles; a fact which has been abun dantly proved by many of the bold navigators who have sailed from England in a westerly direction, and after navigating three hundred and sixty degrees of longitude, have returned in an easterly one. Thus much to prove the sphericity of the globe: we shall now refer to the attraction of gravitation.

All substances are made up of minute parts, which philosophers call atoms, and each possesses an attractive power in proportion to the quantity of matter, or number of atoms of which it is composed. Hence any large substance suspended in the air will attract or draw towards it all small substances or particles that may be floating near it, and this it will do equally on all its sides; and by the same rule, a large body floating on the water will also sensibly attract small ones to it. So the earth, having the greatest degree of ponderosity or weight, attracts, or powerfully draws to its surface and towards its centre all bodies upon it, and at a certain distance from its surface. This property is called the attraction of gravitation.

The degree of weight of a substance of any kind arises entirely from the earth's attractive property.

The accompanying diagram represents the earth with a hole or kind of well cut to a sufficient depth as to be below the centre. This will explain the laws of the attraction of gravitation. Thus, if an iron ball were dropped from a balloon a mile above the surface of the earth, immediately over this well, the motion of the ball downward would be expedited in proportion as it arrived near the earth's surface. Directly after passing the orifice of the well at a, beforementioned, on its way to the centre, the power of attraction would begin to slacken; and when the ball arrived at b, its descent would be but slow, arising from the counter-attraction of the matter above it, so as very much to decrease its sensible weight. At length when the ball, after being deprived of all sensible weight by the strong attractive power of the matter above it, has laboured to the centre of the earth, it cannot possibly fall further or pass from its having

[Gravitation]