descriptions, and more particularly in his enchanting account of the ascent to the summit of Mount Etna, shaded his picture in a pleasing manner, at the expense of its accuracy, is equally certain.

The probability is that Mr. B. never did ascend Etna, but stopped short at a respectful distance; from those persons who made this attempt, he may have collected a number of facts. and observations particularly respecting the heighth of the barometer and thermometer, &c. at the different regions of the mountain; from these materials, assisted with a vivid imagination, he has furnished the glowing description which has occasioned so much doubt and controversy. In support of the assertions which E. C. heard at Catania, Watkins, who was there in the year 1786, in his travels vol. 2, relates an anecdote which I think (although no name is mentioned) very evidently alludes to Brydone, after mentioning that at Catania a good inn is kept by a person named Caca Sangue, an extremely pleas ant and communicative fellow. Among other things he told us that "Mr. who has published such a minute description of his journey to the crater of Etna, was never there, but sick in Catania when his party ascended, he having been their guide." In a review which I have seen of Watkins' travels the critics observe "this anecdote we formerly heard, not without some surprise, by a different channel."

The Abbe Saint Non after describing the very different appearance this gigantic mountain presented to his view says: "Ainsi l'on peut dire que toutes ces peintures, ces tableaux enchanteurs qui fait M. Brydone dans ses descriptions de l'Et-na, ces trois zones qui entourent la montagne et en désignent de loin les différentes élévations n'ont pu être apperçues que dans son imagination. Ce n'est pas qu'elles n'existent réelment sur les lieux, mais il est impossible même avec les meilleures lunettes de les suivre et de les distinguer dans aucune distance qui ce puisse être, parceque si l'on est assez voisin de la montagne pour appercevoir quelque détail, l'œil non peut plus alors saisir ni réunir l'ensemble." In a note on the above passage the Abbe gives a translation in French

VOL. III.

of "ces tableaux enchanteurs" and observes "Tout cela existe mais ne peut s'appercevoir ni se distinguer clairement à cause de l'éloignment immense, et des vapeurs dont la montagne est entourée," and again, page 99," M. Brydone dans sa description vraiement poetique de l'Etna rend compte" &c.-Voyage Pittoresque de Naples et de Sicile, vol. 4.

I shall refer to one more traveller and will occupy a few more lines with an extract as much to the point as the preceding. The Abbe Spallanzani in his travels in the two Sicilies, vol. 1, in note, after showing that Brydone had perverted several observations from Borelli for the purpose of rendering them more marvellous, says, "Mr. Brydone through his whole journey to Etna has sufficiently shown his attachment to the marvellous and where that has failed him has had recourse to the aid of his playful fancy to furnish him with extravagant though ingenious inventions of the ridiculous kind." The whole note is extremely interesting, but is too long to transcribe.

Brydone has also attempted to show that the present chronology of the world is extremely inaccurate, and by comparing the vegetation on the different layers of lava to prove that our globe has existed many centuries longer than our present computation; in this he finds a very able opponent in Spallanzani, as well as in the Rev. Brian Hill in his Tour to Sicily and Calabria. Yours, &c.

INDAGATOR.

CORRESPONDENCE-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

1

THAT slaves formed an article of internal and external commerce in Britain, as well during the Roman government, as during the domination of the Saxons, is a fact of historical notoriety. The means, by which these slaves were acquired was various; a great part of the Anglo-Saxon population, as well as the other nations of Britain, were in a state of the most abject slavery, with all the horrors of that servile condition descending on the posterity of the subject individuals. This unfortunate class of beings were without any political existence, or social consideration, they were bought and sold with the land and conveyed in the grants of it promiscuously with the cattle and other property upon it, they were bequeathed by will as we now dispose of plate, furniture, &c. and indeed by the Welsh laws it was expressly enacted that "a man had as much right to his slaves as to his cattle." Besides those who were thus slaves by birth many became so by gaming, as a punishment for their crimes, and even by contracting debts they were unable to pay. The prisoners taken in the long wars between the Saxons and the British, between the several kingdoms of the heptarchy, and between the English and Danes, no doubt furnished a constant and plentiful supply to those merchants who engaged in this disgraceful traffic. When any person had more domestic slaves (and even children) than he chose to keep, he sold them without the least compunction to a merchant, who disposed of them either at home or abroad as he found would be most profitable.

It is not a little remarkable that this humane branch of commerce should have continued, to so late a period after the introduction of Christianity, into Britain. It was however probably on the decline from the time of the Norman conquest; the Normans, says Blackstone (b. 2, c. 6,) admitted those wretched persons who fell to their share to the

L

oath of fealty, which raised them in some degree from the abject condition in which they were previously; the later laws also expressly enjoined that "no Christian or innocent man should be sold from the land." The custom of emancipation also began and the bishops and clergy by recommending it as a charitable and meritorious act and as a religious duty, encreased the prevalence of this practice, and there were not unfrequent instances of a slave purchasing his own freedom and that of his whole family. As therefore this degraded state of slavery was by these various means mitigated and finally abolished, this ignominious traffic necessarily fell with it; it continued however until the fourteenth century. Dr. Henry in his history of Great Britain vol. 4th, p. 544, observes" I have not met with any evidence that slaves formed an article of ex, port from England in this period" (1216 to 1399) though he gives an extract from the records of the Priory of Dunstable dated 1283, in which it is stated that they had then sold their slave William Pike for one mark (13s. 4d.) In the subsequent volume, page 507, he states " slaves were no longer exported from England;" real bondmen however continued in England as late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth.-Millar on Ranks, p. 278.

I will conclude this tedious article, by referring those who wish fuller information on this subject to the valuable history abovementioned, vol. 1, p. 341, vol. 2, p. 479, 480, vol. 3, p. 5, 20. Blackstone's Commentaries book 2, ch. 6. Turner's history of the Anglo-Saxons vol. 2, p. 96. Russel's Mod. Europe vol. 1. p. 60 and 198, and Millar on Ranks ch. 6, sec. 3, where the gradual decline of domestic servitude in Europe is traced by the hand of that liberal and enlightened scholar.

CORRESPONDENCE-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

THE CASSADA TREE.

THAT the Cassada or Cassava tree (jatropha manihot ) possesses the contradictory qualities ascribed to it by the Inquirer, is a fact which is most satisfactorily established by the concurrent testimony of a number of respectable authors and travellers. It is a native of the West Indies and also of Guiana, and is also called the Manioc.

Sir Hans Sloan in his voyage to Jamaica, &c. says it is a general substitute for bread, and that in the process for rendering it eatable, a whitish juice is expressed which is a deadly poison, "but that if left to settle a very wholesome farina will be deposited;" he also expresses his surprise that so many people should venture to eat bread made by only baking the Cassada root "which is one of the rankest poisons in the world when raw;" he also gives an engraving of it, (Int. vol. 1. p. 18 and 25.)

The above statement is also confirmed by Bancroft in his natural history of Guiana p. 39, 40. Edward's Hist. of the W. I. vol. 1, p. 104. Bolingbroke's voyage to Demarara p. 268. Thompson's Chemistry vol. 4th, 264. Nicholson's Encyclopedia article Sago. Pinckard's notes on the W. I. vol. 2, 427, 8, where it is called the staff of life to the Indians of Guiana. Yours, &c.

INDAGATOR.