fhelter themselves as well as they could to the leeward of it.. Knowing the difficulties they had to encounter here, they had provided themselves with fome feal; but we had not a morfel to eat, after the heavy fatigues of the day, excepting a fort of root we saw the Indians make use of, which was very difagreeable to the taste. We laboured all next day against the stream, and fared as we had done the day before. The next day brought us to the carrying place. Here was plenty of wood, but nothing to be got for fuftenance. We paffed this night as we had frequently done, under a tree; but what we fuffered at this time is not easy to be expreffed. I had been three days at the oar, without kind of nourishment except

any

the wretched root above mentioned. I had no fhirt, for it had rotted off by bits. All my clothes confifted of a

fhort gricko (fomething like a bear-fkin), a piece of red

cloth which had once been a waistcoat, and a ragged

pair of trowfers, without shoes or stockings."

Note 2. A Briton and a friend.] Don Patricio Gedd, a Scotch physician in one of the Spanish fettlements, hofpitably relieved Byron and his wretched afsociates, of which the Commodore speaks in the warmest terms of gratitude.

Note 3. Or yield the lyre of Heav'n another ftring.

The feven ftrings of Apollo's harp were the fymbolical reprefentation of the feven planets. Herfchel, by difcovering an eighth, might be faid to add another ftring to the inftrument.

Note 4. The Swedish fage.] Linnæus.

Note 5. Deep from his vaults the Loxian murmurs

flow.

Loxias is a name frequently given to Apollo by Greck writers: it is met with more than once in the Chophora of Æfchylus.

Note 6. Unlocks a generous store at thy command, Like Horeb's rocks beneath the prophet's

hand.

See Exodus, chap. xvii. 3, 5, 6.

Note 7. Wild Obi flies.] Among the negroes of the Weft Indies, Obi, or Obiah, is the name of a magical power, which is believed by them to affect the object of its malignity with dismal calamities. Such a belief must undoubtedly have been deduced from the fuperftitious my

thology of their kinsmen on the coaft of Africa. I have therefore perfonified Obi as the evil fpirit of the African, although the history of the African tribes mentions the evil spirits of their religious creed by a different appellation.

Note 8. Sibir's dreary mines.] Mr. Bell of Antermony, in his Travels through Siberia, informs us that the name of the country is univerfally pronounced Sibir by the Ruffians.

Note 9. Prefaging wrath to Poland-and to man! The history of the partition of Poland, of the maffacre in the fuburbs of Warfaw, and on the bridge of Prague, the triumphant entry of Suwarrow into the Polish capital, and the infult offered to human nature, by the blaf

phemous thanks offered up to Heaven, for victories ob

tained over men fighting in the facred cause of liberty, by murderers and oppreffors, are events generally known.

Note 10. The fhrill horn blew.] The negroes in the Weft Indies are fummoned to their morning work by a fhell or a horn.

Note 11. How long was Timur's iron fceptre fway'd? To elucidate this paffage, I fhall fubjoin a quotation from the Preface to Letters from a Hindoo Rajah, a work of elegance and celebrity.

"The impoftor of Mecca had established, as one of the principles of his doctrine, the merit of extending it, either by perfuafion, or the fword, to all parts of the earth. How fteadily this injunction was adhered to by