248 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



rearing cattle, fishing, several mechanic trades, and commerce in home 

 produce and slaves. Their w^ork evinces judgment. Iron and other 

 metals are smelted by them, and manufactured into utensils ; they make 

 mats, baskets, pots, mortars, spears, arrows, knives, &c. ; and these articles 

 are mostly neat, durable, and perfectly adequate to their purposes. They 

 have also boats, in which, however, they only venture on the rivers and 

 along the coasts. The language of the country is akin to the Malay ; the 

 priests, however, understand and write Arabic also, using the peel of ^ 

 species of bulrush, called sanga-sanga, instead of paper. A decoction of 

 the bark of the arandraco tree supplies them with ink, and their pens are 

 made of thin bamboo canes. All Madagassees were idolaters until their 

 extraordinarily energetic and active prince Radama introduced among 

 them European life (Christianity, schools, and mode of building). Unfor- 

 tunately, this prince was poisoned in his twenty-seventh year, by his 

 intriguing wife Ranavala-Manjoka. It must be mentioned, in conclusion, 

 that the Madagassees have particular castes or families, from which the 

 sovereigns, the overseers of districts, judges, freemen, &c., are chosen. 

 Slavery is permitted, but in a mitigated form. The government diflTers 

 according to the various sections of the country ; in some provinces it is 

 despotic, in others more liberal ; the laws are not written, but established 

 by custom ; and appeals to the judgment of God, by means of the ordeal 

 of poison, are not unusual. 



The Inhabitants of America. 



Extending from the north nearly to the south pole, the continent of Ame- 

 rica comprehends almost every variety of climate. In consequence, how- 

 ever, of the height of the mountains and table lands, the latter of which are 

 sometimes elevated 9000 feet above the level of the sea, and owing to the 

 vicinity of the ocean, the number and magnitude of the rivers, and the 

 direction of the prevailing w^inds, the warm regions are more exempt from 

 excessive heat than other parts of the world under like degrees of latitude. 

 On the other hand, the temperate countries are colder than those of Europe 

 situated at the same distance towards the north. In North America, as in 

 the old world, the heat decreases from the west to the east, on account 

 of the prevailing atmospheric currents ; the temperature, however, is lower 

 upon the western coast of South America than upon the east coast, a 

 difference caused bv the violence of the winds on the plateaus of the 

 Cordilleras, and the south polar current. America exhibits in its produc- 

 tions the greatest variety and peculiarity of forms, and a wealth and luxu- 

 riance, especially as far as the vegetable kingdom is concerned, observed 

 in but few districts of the old world., Forms of plants, which in Europe 

 are often small and unimportant, frequently occur here of colossal pro- 

 portions. Boundless primeval forests, having truly gigantic trees, and 

 interwoven with huge creepers, are spread over the great plains of Ame- 

 rica ; and a luxuriant growth of grass decks large tracts of the level coun- 

 420 



