frequently witnessed on the coast of Calabria, and likewise, it is said, in some parts of Ireland.

The popular belief in the existence of Fairies still remains almost unimpaired in some of the more remote parts of the Borders; though it is generally allowed that they are now very seldom seen in the southern parts of the island. The opinion current among the peasantry is, that, after the land had been purged from popish superstitions and prelatic corruptions, the "gude neighbours," as they were usually called, found it expedient likewise to retreat to the Highlands and "other siclike" unenlightened and uncivilized regions. A similar cause is assigned for their disappearance by Cleland, the Cameronian poet, who, as might be expected, speaks of them somewhat rigidly, though, at the same time, evidently with a degree of hankering partiality, not unlike that with which the pious mountaineers of the present day still regard these old "neighbours," in spite of all the clerical fulminations which have been so frequently launched against them. Cleland, alluding to the classical attributes of certain Border streams, whose poetical " vertue 39 he with some justice ascribes chiefly to the haunting of these aerial visitants, says

"For there, and several other places About mill-dams and green brae faces, Both elrich Elfs and Brownies stayed, And green-gown'd Fairies daunc'd played:

and

When old John Knox and other some Began to plott the baggs of Rome, They suddenly took to their heels, And did no more frequent these fields: But if Rome's Pipes perhaps they hear, Sure for their interest they'll compear Again, and play their old Hell's tricks," &c. Yet, though thus proscribed, and exiled from our Scottish Arcady, the Fairy-folk are still supposed to pay, now and then, a passing visit to their old haunts, and to keep up a sort of shy correspondence with a few favoured individuals. A most worthy old woman of my acquaintance, who, for the greater part of a century, resided in a spot very well known to me, has long held much familiar and kindly intercourse with them. Indeed, their intercourse with old Nanzy could scarcely be otherwise than of a kindly description, for she possessed such an inexhaustible fund of good nature,

VOL. I.

and moreover entertained such a true respect for them, that the "Brown Man of the Moors" himself, the most malignant sprite of the elfin kind, could scarcely have had the heart to do her an injury. Nanzy has frequently met with fairy processions when she chanced to be late or early out of doors; and has more than once received presents from her aërial neighbours ;-among other things, very nice rolls of fairy butter have occasionally been laid down before her on the grass when she had occasion to go to market. But she was too good a Christian, and too well aware of the insidious nature of such gifts, to use this in "ony meltith," though she applied it without hesitation to other household purposes. The place where she resided was an old ruinous hamlet, containing only five habitable cottages, all of which were tenanted separatim et divisim by old unmarried women, except one that was occupied by an aged weaver and his wife. It stood at the bottom of a black heathy hill, was dreary and desolate in appearance, and remote from even the cross-roads of the country; and was very well known to be haunted itself, as well as several places in its immediate vicinity. At a little distance down the valley lay a marshy recess, traversed by a moorland stream called the Laike, which, from time immemorial, had been haunted by the unhappy ghost of an unchristened infant, which a cruel mother was said to have murdered there at some former period. Many persons have heard this wailing spectre-when a school-boy, I once enjoyed the horrible satisfaction of fancying I heard its unearthly cry myself-but nobody was ever known to have seen it except old Nanzy. She "gat a sight o't ae morning," she said, "just afore the skriegh o' day, as she was gaun through the Laike on her way to the market: Hearing its eirie erlish mæne, she lookit up the water, and just gat a glim o't as it was hovan away like, 'the mist, wi' its bit wee waesome hands streekit out, and its elfish body swathed like a corpse in the dead cleeding."

Still nearer the old hamlet, at about the distance of half a Scotch mile, stood an old farm-house, which, about 60 or 70 years ago, is said to have been visited by a bogle much more uncommon, as well as more familiar, than нһ

the "Greetin Bairn o' the Laike." This being was neither fairy, ghost, nor brownie, but appears to have partaken somewhat of the peculiar attributes of all the three. I have often, when a boy, listened with intense and fearful interest to the strange and mysterious tales related of this "elrich incubus," but the purport of these was altogether so undefined and shadowy, that I cannot now detail them with any degree of accuracy or distinctness. I remember, however, that this creature was said generally to take the appearance of an ancient man, wild, withered, dwarfish, and deformed; that it played a number of malicious tricks to such as gave offence to it; that it never on any occasion was known to speak; but at length one winter evening it came and took a seat among the family, who were sitting round the kitchen fire,-when a servant girl who was churning having offered it a bowl of cream, it thought fit to fly up the chimney, and was never since seen nor heard of. When I met with the account of Gilpin Horner for the first time in the notes to the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," I was very forcibly struck with the resemblance of that elfish sprite to this anomalous ghaist, and I have ever since believed, that the "Bogle of Blaiklaw-Myres could be none other than the redoubted Gilpin himself, or one of his near relatives.

Though the inhabitants of the old hamlet never made any objection to these and other bogles who frequented their neighbourhood, nor even seemed to be any way averse to a peaceable intercourse with them, they by no means exhibited the same degree of forbearance in regard to witches. They were once put to a sore trial on this point. One of the ancient female inhabitants having died, the landlord let the cottage she had occupied to two old single women who lived together. These poor crea tures had the misfortune to be strongly suspected in the neighbourhood of using the black art; which probably arose from the circumstance of one of them being very crabbed in her temper, and the other rather crazed in the head. They ruled their new neighbours for a season most despotically; for none dared to quarrel with them; till at length the old weaver plucked up courage, held a council of the other crones,

and forthwith went to the landlord, and declared in their name and his own, that, unless the witches were put away next term, or else "scored aboon the breath," all the other cotters would leave the place. It was in vain to reason on the subject,-and the unhappy beldames were obliged to flit. This occurred only about a dozen years ago. I was myself acquainted with the supposed witches, one of whom (the crazy one) rather encouraged the belief of her magical endowments. She was generally known by the name of Whistling Ann.

While on this subject, I may notice that, between Traquair and Selkirk, I passed Plora Wood, distinguished for à remarkable feat of the Fairies, who are said to have carried off from this place a little girl, and after keeping her a considerable time, and shewing her all the wonders of Fairyland, left her asleep, as the story goes, upon the same spot from whence they had stolen her away. Upon this legend, Mr Hogg is understood to have founded his very beautiful and enchanting tale of Kilmeny.

The pastoral braes of Plora seem to have been peculiarly favoured by these and other beneficent genii. The following story was related to me by a lady of very superior intelligence, who was long resident in that neighbourhood, and remembers hearing the matter talked of as a very recent and well authenticated occurrence. A family, who resided on the banks of the Plora, were assembled one evening at family worship, and the old goodman had just concluded his customary pious duty, when the youngest girl, a child who had been absent unnoticed, rushed breathless into the room, and, in a perfect rapture of delight, called upon them to come a' and look!-for the maist beautifu' Leddy o' a' the world was comin sailin doun the glen !”— Such was the eagerness and even ecstasy of the child, that the call was instantly obeyed, and old and young followed her straight out of doors to see this delightful vision. They looked up the glen as she pointed-but in vain nothing unusual could be seen or heard,-till a sudden and dreadful crash behind them made every one look instantly round, and explained at once the benevolent mission of this lovely Lady of the Wood-the house, which had just been emptied

of all its inmates, had fallen flat to the ground!

This last story of the Plora has been given to the public in a poetical form, in some stanzas inserted in a late number of the Edinburgh Annual Register. The verses were written, I believe, by a youthful bard, now abroad, who has already given excellent pledge of no ordinary degree of poetical genius, and who, as I am happy to perceive, is also one of your

contributors.

These gleanings, though of no great value in themselves, may perhaps prove interesting to such persons as are curious to trace the history of national manners and popular superstitions, even down to our own times. Such readers as desire a more intimate acquaintance with the Fairies and the other genii of our glens and mountains, I would beg leave to refer to the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," as containing every thing that is most curious and interesting on the subject,-if it were not indeed almost absurd to suppose, that any person who may take the trouble to read these notices, can be still unacquainted with that most entertaining and deservedly popular work. Sept. 30, 1817.

E.

SOME ACCOUNT OF A SINGULAR RACE OF NEGROES LATELY DISCOVERED IN THE REMOTE MOUNTAINS OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.

Communicated by John Crowfurd, Esq.

Ir is a singular fact, with which we have but very recently become acquainted, that many of the countries of the Indian Archipelago are inhabited, in their remote mountains, by a race of Negroes wholly distinct from the copper-complexioned race with lank hair, which alone are seen by voyagers. The Negroes are in the lowest stage of savage life, whilst the greater number of the Malayan race have made considerable advances in social improvement. Major John Macinnes, an officer of the Indian army, had the curiosity, while residing at Prince of Wales Island, to examine one of those savages, sent over to him for the purpose, from the opposite coast of the Malayan Peninsula, by

the Raja of Queda, the sovereign of that country. The following short extracts from the minutes of examina◄ tion may amuse our readers, and we can vouch in all respects for their authenticity, as they were handed to us by an intimate friend of Major Macinnes, who is himself known to be, after Mr Marsden, the best European Malay scholar in existence, of which he is at present affording a substantial proof, in a classical Malayan translation of the Bible, which is in great forwardness.

"Kumbar, a Semang, (the Malayan name of the tribe,) sent to me for examination by the Bandahara of Queda, arrived here on the 18th of October 1815. He has the usual appearance of an African Negro, but his stature does not exceed four feet nine inches, and he is not less than the rest of his countrymen. Being almost perfectly naked, I ordered him some clothes. The first article that presented itself was an uniform jacket, and he proceeded to put his feet into the sleeves, until better instructed. He says he is an inhabitant of the mountain Jerrai, where he has a wife and two children. Of his particular tribe, the whole number amounts to no more than 25 individuals; and the whole of the Semang race, in that quarter, do not exceed the number of 400. They have no fixed residence, but wander up and down the mountain, sheltering themselves by a temporary covering of leaves or grass. From their most ordinary residence on the mountain, Kumbar observes, that they see Penang, Queda, Perak, and Siam. They subsist on roots, deer, wild hogs, monkeys, tygers, rhinoceros, and, indeed, all the beasts and birds of the forest, except the elephant, which they have not strength or skill enough to destroy. The Semang of Perak, more numerous and powerful, destroy the elephant, and eat the flesh. The countrymen of Kumbar use arrows poisoned with the ipoh. Half their number always watch whilst the others sleep, a precaution chiefly intended against the numerous tygers which, in their turn, prey upon them. The Semang carry on a traffic with the Malays, receiving from them a little salt, and rice for Dammar bees-wax, and rattans, elephants' and rhinoceros' teeth. This in

tercourse is carried on with caution and suspicion, as the Malays, with the constant injustice of the strong to the weak, omit no opportunity of reducing the miserable Semang to slavery, a condition from which the whole race is only secured by their retreat among the recesses of the forests and mountains. No form of government can be traced among the countryinen of Kumbar, but the more improved tribes of Perak, who can kill the elephant, have a king. Each Semang imparts a share of his store of provisions to the rest. They have hardly any religious notions. Kumbar says, that spirits are sometimes heard in the night, and that on their warning they remove from one part of the mountain to another. They make children, he added, cry, and they bring on diseases. They offer no religious service to those spirits, but they fear them. Kumbar had a bowel complaint when he was examined by me, but he would not admit that it was brought on by a Kamoj, or spirit, fearing, I think, that I should ascribe his doing so to a conviction of some crime or fault. For some time he could not comprehend the questions that were designed to draw from him his ideas respecting a future state. He first asserted roundly that death was the end alike of the good and the bad; they decayed in the earth when they were buried, and there was no more of them. He added, however, that sometimes the good became spirits which protected their living friends, and persecuted their enemies. Kumbar seemed hardly to have any means of reckoning time. He could not tell when he left his native mountain, but by saying it was when the durians were ripe, (an indigenous fruit.) Every little tribe of the Semang has its own language, and they are mutually unintelligible to each other. The Semang of Queda and Perak carry on the little intercourse there is between them in the Malay language. The Semang dialects are all distinct from those of the yellow-complexioned race, which bear to each other so singular a resemblance. The poor Semang of Jerrai count as far as two in their own tongue, and when their transactions become more complex, they have recourse to the Malayan numerals as far as ten."

REMARKS ON GREEK TRAGEDY.

(Iphigenia in Aulide EURIPIDIS.) WHATEVER Station we may be disposed to allow to the tragic writers of Greece, when we compare them with those of modern Europe, it is certain, that they abound in situations well suited to the purposes of tragedy. The object of this noble species of composition is to soften and amend the heart by the exercise of the sympathies; and we must conclude, that those subjects are best adapted to it which we see most productive of this effect in real life. No man ever entered the house of mourning without the excitement of his most amiable feelings, or left it without moral improvement. Pity, more than any other passion, purifies and refines the nature of man; and when we are happily able to relieve the sufferer, we experience the most delightful sensations of which we are susceptible. He is himself an object of compassion, who would not prefer the blessings of the widow and the fatherless to all the selfish gratifications that wealth can purchase. There is a music even in the voice of the aged beggar, by the way side, returning thanks for an alms, that vibrates along the most delicate chord of the heart. No man ever heard a widowed mother lamenting the death of an only son, or a father that of a daughter, in the bloom of her existence, the last of a numerous offspring, without the consciousness of being more disposed to acts of self-denial, and kindness, and generosity, than at other times. On such occasions, selfishness and all the unamiable passions are extinguished, and benevolence is the ruling principle of the mind, in which self-approbation balances the pain that arises from sights of distress. These are the operations of nature in real life, and, in witnessing scenes of fictitious sorrow, the mind is regulated by the very same laws. This is a truth, of which the epic and dramatic poet ought never to lose sight, and the Greek tragedians display great judgment in their faithful adherence to it. The subjects in which they delight have their foundation in the relations of kindred or of country, where they have an opportunity of introducing sentiments of the kindly affections that find a response in every

heart. Even when they conceived characters of a sterner cast,-beings hurried on to the perpetration of crimes by guilty love or profligate ambition, or fiendish revenge, they softened the harshness of the features by a colouring of the gentler and more amiable passions. In this they followed nature, in whose range we seldom or never find human beings of unredeemed wickedness, or with hearts closed against all the avenues of friendship or attachment to some individual of their species. The man, who, under the dominion of a bad passion, is guilty of an atrocity, may be a good father, or son, or brother, or friend, and may be, on other occasions, capable of efforts of a lofty virtue, or an endearing benevolence. Electra, who, like the demon of revenge, instigates her brother to the murder of her mother, and in the moment of frenzy, can listen with delight to her dying groans, is a kind and tender sister; and the most beau tiful passage of the play is that in which she laments the supposed death of Orestes. It was chiefly, indeed, by the exhibitions of the domestic charities in domestic affliction that they drew the tears and extorted the applause of an assembled people; but among the many legendary tales and historical facts which they chose as the ground-work of their fables, full as they are of incidents that beget pity or admiration, no one, perhaps, is more suited to excite both, than the story of Iphigenia. It is purely domestic, and its chief characters are a father, a mother, and a daughter. The reverses are sudden and terrible, and the affliction the most severe that can be imagined.

The fleet of the Greeks, on their voyage to the siege of Troy, had been long detained at Aulis by contrary winds. The troops at last began to murmur, and the prophet Calchas, who had been consulted, gives it as his response, that, unless Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, were offered as a victim on the altar of Diana, they must for ever remain in inactivity at Aulis. Among the Greeks it was considered shameful not to sacrifice every thing dearest in life to the claims of country, and the father, after a severe conflict with himself, yields to the importunities of the assembled kings and armies. It was necessary to use a stratagem to bring Clytemnestra and Iphigenia to Aulis,

and he sends a messenger to Argos to inform his queen that he had betrothed her daughter to Achilles. She was delighted by the intelligence, and lost no time in repairing to the camp, accompanied by her daughter, for the purpose of solemnizing the nuptial ceremony; and they soon discover that Iphigenia, instead of obtaining a royal husband, was doomed to a cruel death. It will appear, at first sight, that a story like this must be fruitful in incidents of great interest, or deep pa thos; and we shall soon see how the poet has availed himself of the facilities it affords.

The first scene is a night-piece.

Agamemnon repents of the message he had sent to his queen and daughter requesting their attendance in the camp, quits his couch at midnight, and writes another letter forbidding them to leave Argos. He calls an aged attendant, to whom he complains of the cares of royalty:

Ag. Come forth, old man.

At. I come in haste, my Lord, The orders of my sovereign to obey; For age is ever wakeful, and sharp cares Sit on my lids.

Ag. What star is that which blazes In the mid-sky, beside the Pleiades ?

At. "Tis Sivius.