discoveries at that period extended. He
found that the chiefs of the different nations were attended by bands
of musicians, to whom he gives the appellation of juddies or
fiddlers, and compares them to the Irish rhymsters, or, as we should
now compare them, to the Italian improvisatori. By some other authors
they are called jelle, or jillemen; the instruments on which they
perform being rudely made of wood, having a sonorous sound, on
account of its extreme hardness, and in some instances they exhibit
the knowledge of the power of an extended string, by fastening a
piece of the gut of an animal across a plane of wood, and beating on
it with a stick. Like the majority of the musicians of the ruder
tribes, the excellence of their music depends on the noise which is
made, and if it be so obstreperous, as almost to deafen the auditors,
the greater is the pleasure which is shown.

These wandering minstrels are frequently attended by the Greegree
men, or sorcerers, who, on account of the fantastic dress which they
wear, form a most motley group; the Greegree men, trying to outvie
each other in the hideous and fantastic style of their dress, and the
more frightful they make themselves appear, the greater they believe
is the effect of their sorcery. The principal festivals are those of
circumcision and of funeral. Whenever former ceremony is performed, a
vast concourse of people are attracted, from every part of the
country, the operator being generally a Greegree man, who pretends to
determine the future fate of the individual, in the manner by which
the operation is performed, but which is always declared to be highly
prosperous, if a liberal present has been made. During the
performance of the ceremony, the forests appear in a blaze, the most
discordant shouts rending the air, intermixed with the sounds of
their instruments, composing altogether a tumult, which is heard at
the distance of many leagues. The dancing is described as of the most
ludicrous kind, marked by those indecencies, which generally
distinguish the amusements of the savage tribes. In these sports, the
women are always the foremost in the violence of their gestures; the
young ones selecting the objects of their affection, to bestow upon
them some token of their attachment.

The funeral of their chiefs is a ceremony of great solemnity, and in
some of its forms has a strong resemblance to an Irish wake. Flowers
of the most odorous scent are buried with the