crated cage.

We have already feen, and every body knows that, in general, the males of the inferior animals are more loquacious than the females. But, in the human fpecies, it is likewife an unquestionable fact, that the females are much more talkative than the males. It is even remarkable, that female children, though of the fame family, and receiving the fame in. ftructions and example, acquire the faculty of fpeaking one year, and fometimes two fooner than the males. We shall now endeavour to inveftigate the intentions of nature in creating fuch a marked diftinction.

In all ages, and in all the regions of the earth, the early education and management of children have neceffarily devolved upon the mothers. For this important task, they are much better qualified, both in the ftructure of their bodies, and in the difpofitions of their minds, than the males. The connexion between the mother and child begins long before it becomes an object of attention to the father. By a thousand circumftances, which mothers only know, and fometimes attempt, though obfcurely, to defcribe, they contract an affection for a ftill invifible being. After the child is ufhered into the world, the curiosity and the fympathetic joy of the father, are excited. He, accordingly, exerts himfelf to render the condition both of the mother and child as happy as poffible. To fupport the child with a mild but nutritive food, fecreted from the blood and other juices of the mother, Nature has provided her with a wonderfully complicated fyftem of veffels, or lacteal pipes, which all terminate in the nipples of her breast. To thefe nipples the infants inftinctively apply their mouths, and, by fuction, create a vacuum. The preffure of the external air upon the breast, or collection of tubes

charge their contents into the mouth of the child, who continues to fwallow it till its ftomach is fatished. During this tender and precarious ftate of existence, the anxious and perfevering attention of the mother, makes her cheerfully endure many toils and hardships, under which the would often fink, were fhe not, on fuch occafions, almoft preternaturally fupported by mere ftrength of affection.

After the child has arrived at the age of two or three months, and, in ftrong and healthy children, much earlier, or as foon as it is capable of giving a tranfient attention to particular objects, then the exertions of the mother are almoft perpetual. Her fole object is to please by little amufements, which the endeavours to accommodate to the weak, but gradually augmenting capacity of the infant. The chief inftruments which fhe addreffes are the eyes and ears. To the eye the prefents thining or luminous objects, with which children are very early delighted: and, at the fame time, repeatedly mentions the names of the particular objects. Thus, by habit, the natural volubility of female tongues is greatly improved. I have often been amazed at the dexterity and quickness of mothers and nurses, when endeavouring to please fretful children. They hurry the child from object to object, in order to discover if any of them arrests its eye. If this attempt does not fucceed they have recourfe to other expedients. The ears of all infants are delighted with any loud noife. The mother, who wishes to appease the fretfulness, or even to keep up the fpirit and cheerfulnefs of the child, toffes it about in her arms, fings, and talks alternately; and, on fuch occafions, it is aftonishing to obferve the quickness of her tranfitions from one fpecies of incomprehenfible jargon to another. Still, however,

the

fhe goes on, either rattling with her tongue, or making a rattling noise on tables, chairs, &c. A perfon who had never attended to thefe fcenes, which are so often exhibited by a sprightly mother and a sprightly child, would be apt to conclude, that both were proper inmates for a bedlam. Thefe are well known to be univerfal facts; and we shall now endeavour to show their utility.

It is a very ancient adage, that "Nature does nothing in vain." To women he has given the talent of talking more frequently, as well as more fluently, than men; fhe has likewife endowed them with a greater quantity of animation, or what is commonly called animal fpirits. Why, it may be afked, has Nature, in this article, fo eminently diftinguifhed women from men? For the best and wifeft of purposes. The principal destination of all women is to be mothers; hence fome qualities peculiar to fuch a destination must neceffarily have been bestowed upon them. Thefe qualities are numerous: a fuperior degree of patience, of affection, of minute, but useful attention, joined to a family of almost inceffant Speaking.

Here, however, I must confine my obfervations to the laft confpicuous and eminent accomplishment. To be occupied with laborious offices, which

demand either bodily or mental exertions, and not unfrequently both, is allotted to the men. Thefe caufes, befide their comparative natural taciturnity, totally incapacitates them for that loquacity which is requifite for amufing and teaching young children to speak. But the employments of women are of a more domeftic kind; household affairs, and particularly the nurfing and training of children, are fully fufficient to engrofs their attention, and to call forth all their ingenuity and active powers. The loquacity of woman is too often confidered, by poets, hiftorians, and by unthinking men, as a reproach upon the fex. Men of this defcription know not what they fay. When they blame women for fpeaking much, they blame Nature for one of her, wifeft inftitutions. Women Speak much. They ought to speak much. Nature compels them to speak much: and when they do fo, they are complying religiously with one of her moft facred and useful laws. It may be faid, that fome men talk as much as women:granted. But beings of this kind I deny to be men. Nature feems to have originally made them to be women; but, by fome crossaccident, as happens in the produc tion of monfiers, the external male form has been fuperinduced upon a female flock!

THE

Nations. HERE are no countries on the habitable globe, where the arts of civilized life are understood, of which we have fo limited a knowledge, as of thofe that lie between the British poffeffions in India, and the empire of China; concerning India beyond the Ganges, fcarcely more was known to the ancients,

Undeferved importance is oftentimes attributed to that which is imperfectly known: thus, we find, in the map of Ptolemy, the terms Aurea Regio, Argentea Regio, and Aurea Cherfenefus, bestowed on countries eastward of the Ganges, and on the peninfula that divides the Bay of Bengal from the Magnus Sinus, or Gutt of Siam. But although no fatisfactory

tisfactory information is to be obtained from writers of antiquity, refpecting the population, produce, extent, or geographical pofition of thofe regions; yet it may be concluded, that even at the remote era when Prole my compiled his chart, the ports of the Eastern Peninsula were the feats of commerce, and reforted to by foreign merchants; as the author diftinguishes places of note, on the feacoast, by the title's Emporio: but with what people trade was carried on, or in what commodities they trafficked, is not any where afcer tained.

dle of the 16th century, four powerful states divided among them the regions that lie between the fouthealt province of British India, Yunan in China, and the Eastern Sea; their territories extended from Caffay and Affam, on the N.W. as far fouth-eastward as the island of Junkfeylon. Thefe nations were known to Europeans by the names of Arracen, Ava, Pegue, and Siam. Arracan, properly Yee-Kein, borders on the S. E. province of British India, and includes the fea-coalt, with what is called the Broken Islands, as far fouth as Cape Negaris. Ava, the name of the ancient capital of the Birmans, has been ufually accepted, as the name of the country at large, which is Miama. This empire is fituate eastward of Arracan, from which it is divided by a ridge of lofty mountains, called by the natives Anou-pec-tou-miou, or the great western hilly country. On the N.W. it is feparated from the kingdom of Caffay by the river Keen-duem; on the north, it is bounded by mountains and petty independent principalities, that lie contiguous to Affam; on the north-eaft, and eaft, it touches on China, and North Siam; on the fouth, its limits have so often varied, that it is difficult to afcertain them with any precifion. The city of Prome, or Pee, feems to be the original and natural boundary of the Birman empire, although conquest has fince ftretched their dominions feveral degrees farther fouth. Pegue, called by the natives Bagoo, is the country fouthward of Ava, which occupies the fea coaft as far as Martaban, properly Mondimaa, Prome was its northern frontier, and Siam adjoined on the east.

From this period almost total darkness feems to have obfcured India extra Gangem, from the eyes of Europeans, until the enterprising genius of Emanuel, at the clofe of the 15th century, opened at new world, and laid the foundation of general wealth to Europe, on the ruin of the Egyptian trade, and of the state of Venice. Early in the 16th century, the Portuguese made themfelves mafters of Malacca, and foon acquired influence among the neighbouring maritime ftates. To the writers of this nation, hiftory is principally indebted for whatever information has been obtained of the eaftern countries of India; but their narratives fo abound in hyperbole, and they recount fuch extravagant ftories, that credit must be denied to many of their affertions; while at the fame time, their writings furnifh fome accurate traits of the genius and difpofition of the people whom they defcribe. Even the accounts of Mendex de Pinto, the prince of fiction, although an intelligent traveller, will enable his readers to form an estimate of the importance and civilization of nations, which, at a latter period, have, by many, been erroneoufly confidered in a condition bordering on wild barbarity.

From the teftimony of Portuguefe historians it appears, that in the mid

Pinto, and Faria de Souza, agree that the Birmans, though formerly fubject to the king of Pegue, became afterward mafters of Ava, and caufed a revolution in Pegue, about the middle of the 16th century.

Hamilton,

Hamilton, a much more recent author, fays, that the kingdom of Birmans extended from "Maravi," probably Mergui, near Tenafferem, to the province of Yunan in China, about 800 miles from north to fouth, and 250 from east to west. The Portuguese affifted the Birmans in their wars against the Peguers, and according to Pinto, performed prodigies of valour. The account of the capture of Martaban*, and the treafures found therein, far exceed the limits of belief.

The Portuguese continued to exercife an influence in the Birman and Pegue countries, and a ftill greater in Arracan, fo long as they maintained an afcendancy over other European nations in the East; but on the feizure of their fettlements, and abridgment of their dominions by the Dutch, the confequence that had been defervedly annexed to the Portuguese name, funk into infignificance; and the Chriftian fettlers degenerated into a contemptible race, diftinguished only by their feebleness and vice. During the reign of Louis the xivth, feveral fplendid attempts were made to propagate the doctrines of the church of Rome, and advance the interefts of the French nation in the kingdom of Siam. Concerning thefe expeditions, accounts of unquestionable fidelity have been published; little, however, is related of Ava and Pegue, with whom, the Abbé Choify fays, the king of Siam was conftantly at war.'

،

In the beginning of the 17th century, both the English and Dutch had obtained fettlements in various quarters of the Birman dominions, which were afterward forfeited by the misconduct of the latter; and

Europeans of all nations were banished from Ava. The English, many years fubfequent to this expulfion, were reinftated in their factories at Syriam and Ava, where they appear to have traded, rather in the capacity of private merchants, than on the part of the India company, in whose fervice they were not regularly en rolled. The island of Negrais was likewife taken poffeffion of by the English, and a furvey made of it by one Weldon, in the year 1687. On this island the government of Fort St. George established a fettlement. Little benefit, however, seems to have been derived from the acquifition: the affairs of the India company, and indeed of the nation, were in too precarious a ftate in another quarter of Afia, to admit of fparing the fupplies of men and money requifite for its effectual fupport.

Arrival at Pegue-celebration of a feftival.

In the afternoon an officer, called Che Key, fecond in rank to the Mayworn, and the Sere-dogee, or fecretary of the provincial government, accompanied by Baba-Sheen, paid us a vifit to tea. They informed me, that the maywoon, or viceroy, who had been much engaged in directing the preparations for the enfuing feltival, hoped that we would wave ceremony, and give him our com. pany on the following morning at the great temple of Shoemadoo, to view the amufements of the first day; an invitation that I gladly accepted from motives of curiofity as well as of refpect.

At eight o'clock in the morning Baba-Sheen arrived, in order to conduct us to the temple; he brought with