inan or funeral cry of the Irish as practised for
similar purposes, in Dr A. Clarke's edition of Mr Harmer's Observations,
before alluded to. A quotation from that work can scarcely fail to
interest the reader, who will be afterwards favoured with a very curious
description of what is said by Lawson to have been practised in North
Carolina, in which the general point of resemblance is most strikingly
displayed.--"Not only do the relations and female friends, in Egypt,
surround the corpse, while it remains unburied, with the most bitter
cries, scratching and beating their faces so violently as to make them
bloody, and black, and blue; but, to render the hubbub more complete,
and do the more honour to the dead person, whom they seem to imagine to
be very fond of noise, those of the lower class of people are wont to
call in, on these occasions, certain _women_, who play on tabors, and
whose business it is to sing mournful airs to the sound of this
instrument, which they accompany with a thousand distortions of their
limbs, as frightful as those of people possessed by the devil. These
women attend the corpse to the grave intermixed with the relations and
friends of the deceased, who commonly have their hair in the utmost
disorder, like the frantic Bacchanalian women of the ancient heathens,
their heads covered with dust, their faces daubed with indigo, or at
least rubbed with mud, and howling like mad people." Now let us hear
Lawson.--"These savages all agree in their mourning, which is to appear,
every night, at the sepulchre, and howl and weep in a very dismal
manner, having their faces daubed over with light-wood soot, (which is
the same as lamp-black) and bears-oil. This renders them as black as it
is possible to make themselves, so that their's very much resemble the
faces of executed men boiled in tar. If the dead person was a grandee,
to carry on the funeral ceremonies, they hire people to cry and lament
over the dead man. Of this sort there are several, that practise it for
a livelihood, and are very expert at shedding abundance of tears, and
howling like wolves, and so discharging their office with abundance of
hypocrisy and art." The reader will meet with a pretty full account of
the funeral ceremonies among some of the eastern nations, in Dr Scott's
introduction to his recent edition of the Arabian Nights
Entertainments.--E.]

Of the religion of these people, we were not able to acquire any clear
and consistent k