and rolling it on the thigh in a curious manner with the palm of the hand. With this they make nets, larger than a cabbage net, of curious workmanship, the meshes being almost as small as those of a purse, and not a knot being any where to be found in them, except at the finishing. These nets are suspended to a string tied round their foreheads, and hanging down their backs, serve as work-bags, or reticules. These contain all the little articles they carry with them, such as fishing-hooks, made from oyster-shells; prepared bark for string, and gum for gluing their war and fishing spears; and sometimes oysters and fish, when they move from the shore to the interior. With this net, and frequently a child astride on their shoulders, they move off with the men, generally in parties. They are remarkably fond of their children, and if their parents die, the children are adopted by the unmarried men and women, and are taken the greatest care of. They are exceedingly kind and generous to each other, although their women work like slaves when it is necessary. If I give tobacco, or anything else to one of these men, he shares it unasked with the first person he meets. When in company with others around a fire, a man never eats anything given to him, till he has first given a part of it to his wife, or the other women near him.

The following is deeply interesting :

On reaching a place where I had established some sawyers, about four miles from the harbour, I found that two of the wives of our imported servants had eloped with two emancipated convicts; that their husbands, accompanied by a constable, had been in search of them, but in vain; that in returning home with some natives, who also assisted in the search, the constable had either accidentally, or by design, killed the principal black of all the tribes in the vicinity. The sawyers appeared dreadfully alarmed, saying that vengeance would certainly be taken; that as they were at the outposts, they would be the first to be speared; and that they must immediately be furnished with fire-arms to protect themselves. To this, however, I did not agree, as I believed my influence over the natives, and the power I possessed to send off the offender, would satisfy them, and preserve the peace.

'The two natives who accompanied me stood mute on hearing the news. Their features betrayed no unusual concern, and they said not a word till we took our departure for a station where I had established a farm. After leaving the sawyers I began by saying I was sorry that poor Tong had been killed; that I had liked him and all black fellows much ; that I had sent two white fellows off to be hanged, for killing little Tommy of the Myall; and that I would have the constable hanged too. This seemed to satisfy them in some measure, and we at length arrived at the farm. Their cheerfulness, however, had fled, and they sat down by the fire in the hut, sad and pensive, expressing no anxiety to eat, although before they had heard the news they had been longing for their dinner. They spoke not a word except when spoken to. I anxiously watched their motions and appearance, although I had no apprehension of danger from them. In a short

time two others, whom I had made constables, came in with sorrowful countenances; and I began to converse with them about what had happened. When I had done speaking they shook their heads in a sorrowful way, and then went up to the other two natives, and began to converse with them.

'On my arrival at the spot where the accident or crime had taken place, I found that as soon as the death of Tong had been made known to his countrymen, they all crowded to the place. They tied a handkerchief over the wounds in his head, which had been shattered to pieces, and then two natives carried him off upon their shoulders, the whole multitude following, and crying and howling most piteously. They were moving on in this way, in the most regular and decent order possible, when the surgeon and my nephew arrived to examine the body. This would not have been permitted to any other white people, as they never allow the bodies of the dead to be seen if they can avoid it. Respect for us, however, induced them to put down the body after a little explanation, but the examination appeared to excite a good deal of uneasiness, and called forth a few wild and plaintive expressions from one of the natives before mentioned, "Bail (not) dat, massa, bail dat, black fellow no like it." The surgeon left them as quickly as possible, not wishing to hurt their prejudices.

'Before my return all the natives, except about eight, who had always been employed about my tent, had left the settlement. On expressing to them my surprise that their friends had left us, they replied "Bail dat, massa, they come back again by and by. They go udder side harbour to get pipe-clay. They cry murry long time— put on pipe-clay-then come back;" and so they did. What became of the body of the deceased no white person knew, for they carefully concealed the place of interment. The oldest man of the tribe made his appearance one day, after a week's absence; and having welcomed him, I inquired why he had staid so long away. He made no answer; but one of my native domestics whispered, "Dat make it house for black fellow dat die :" meaning that he had been preparing and earthing up the grave of the deceased, whose name has never been mentioned since his death. They make their graves where they can, soft, sandy, soil, where they dig with their hands to a considerable depth, and as near to the birth-place of the deceased as possible.

in a

After a week's absence they returned in their canoes from the opposite side of the harbour, a few at a time. The women were plastered over the head, face, and breast, with pipe-clay, and those who were nearly related to the deceased were covered over with it as far as the hip bones. Their appearance was frightful, and represented the extreme of wretchedness and despair. When any of the women met me, particularly the old ones, they held up their hands, shook their heads in token of grief, and appeared to express an affection for me. I condoled with them and I always thought that we parted mutually satisfied with each other. When I inquired after the deceased's wife and son, a boy about eighteen months old, the answer was, that she was gone to the Bungwall Ground, to patter (eat) Bungwall, and to mourn; that she would return one day, but not yet. It is not usual

for them soon to return to the place where any near and dear relation has died. Bungwall is fern root, which they roast in the ashes, pound to a paste between two stones, and are very fond of. It appears to be nutritious. On inquiring for the deceased's mother, and younger son; about six years old, I was told she would soon be here, when she would come and see me. A few days ago (this account was written on the spot) I saw a miserable object coming up the hill towards my tent, pipe-clayed all over, resting at intervals, and leaning against the trees, as if too weak to come on. While I was surveying this object at a distance, the little boy came running towards me, exclaiming with all the eagerness and vivacity of a boy-" Mamma come, massa! dere mamma! look massa! you see?"—"Yes, George," said I, "I do see," and I immediately went to her. As soon as she saw me, she held up her hands, with her body bent half forward, and wept till the tears overflowed her white-washed cheeks, in streams of unaffected grief, I did every thing in my power to assuage her sorrow, and gave her a home at the farm.'

When the work from which the above extracts have been made, shall appear, the public will possess the materials for forming a just opinion on the natives of Australia. There is enough already to demonstrate the fallacy of the accounts of those whom caprice or interest has led to traduce their fellow The time has been, when some liberal Roman wrote thus of the inhabitants of Britain.

man.

ART. IX. De Keapman fen Venetien in Julius Cesar, twa Toneelstikken fen Willem Shakspeare vut it Ingels foarfrieske trog R. Posthumus. Drukt to Grinz, bij J. Oomkens. 1829.

The Merchant of Venice and Julius Cæsar, two plays of William Shakspeare, out of English Frisianized by R. Posthumus. Groningen. 1829.

2. De Lapekoer fen Gabe Skroor. Demter foar ien fen Gabes folk by J. Delange (no date, but the last edition is of 1829.)

The Remnant Basket of Gabe Skroor. Deventer for one of Gabes folks. J. Delange.

IN the Anglo-Saxon period of our history, so close was the resemblance between the English and the Frisian languages, that the first teachers of Christianity among the Frieslanders were priests who visited them from our island, and who found no difficulty in making themselves intelligible. The ancient Frisian tongue though modified and changed by time, has been preserved to a great extent even to the present day, in the open country of Friesland. It has been now and then the subject of inquiry among philologists. More than a century and a half ago, it excited especially the attention of Franciscus Junius, who spent some years in the country for the purpose of studying it more attentively, and who left the result of his investigations

with the rest of his valuable MSS. to the Bodleian library; it has occupied the researches of Professor Rask of Copenhagen who has published a Frisian Grammar, and has been collecting materials for a Frisian Dictionary; and of late a great accession of patriotic zeal has led to the creation of a society in Friesland, one of whose prominent objects is the cultivation of the national or rather provincial idiom, which has within a short time received the interesting contributions whose titles are the head of this article, and which may be considered excellent representatives of the present situation of a language, whose affinities with our own are still very remarkable; though ten centuries have been necessarily producing a greater and a greater aliena

tion.

The old Frisian language is only to be discovered at different, distinct, and distant epochs, between which there is hardly any thing like a link of union. Probably the most ancient document left, was the Frisian hymns, of which Junius appears by his MSS. to have made so much use in the composition of his unpublished dictionary. They formed a part of the Junian collection in the Bodleian, but, according to a memorandum in the Catalogue, they were stolen from the library more than a century ago, and so little attention has been given to the subject, that the theft never, perhaps, excited an inquiry till very lately, when the works of the renowned linguist have become an object of some curiosity. The dictionary has preserved a considerable number of extracts, though perhaps scarcely enough to enable the most diligent inquirer to form a very accurate notion of the then state of the language of Friesland; nor is it quite certain there is evidence enough to decide that the Carmina Frisica were really written in the spoken tongue of that country. Those who have studied the Gothic dialects whether in their Teutonic or their Scandinavian form, know how difficult it is to affix to many of them their precise locality. An undetermined orthography adds not a little to the perplexity of the examination, and the narrow extent over which a language is spoken instead of diminishing, only increases the difficulty, as fewer authorities combine to mark the common standard. Even in the time of Fr. Junius, the orthography was so little fixed, that the writings of their living authors are found with very different modes of spelling; and in our days the two books which are taken as the immediate subject of this article, and which emanate from the two individuals who must undoubtedly be considered as the greatest living authorities, represent an orthography so unlike, as frequently to cause considerable embarrassment to the reader who is unac quainted with the systems of both.

In a large part of ancient Friesland the language has left no traces behind it in the present day. In East Friesland it has been superseded by the Low German, or Platt-teutsch, and in Groningen by the common Dutch, modified by a few provincial idioms of Frisian character, however, such as the common form of address Yow for the Frisian Jo, the Dutch Gij or the English You. Of the language of East Friesland many records remain, and the writings and reprints of Wiarda, a very indefatigable philologist, who died a few years ago, have given considerable extension to the knowledge of the East Frisian tongue. His Asega book, especially, was a valuable contribution to our acquaintance with the language and the laws of Friesland; and from the whole of his publications, taken together, a pretty correct estimate may be formed of the language used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Its close resemblance to English may be judged of from any sentence taken at random, as for example :

Thit rjucht

berge ther is beheten Synay.

wild Tha

skref God selva use Hera; tha' thet was thet This law (right) wrote God himself our Lord; then that was that Moyses latte thet israhelitske folk thruch thene rada se and of there wilda Moses led the Israelitish folk through the red sea and on the wostene and se komon to tha' wastes and they came to the mountain that is called Sinai. Then festade Moyses twia fiuvertich dega and nachta; therefter jef God him fasted Moses two and forty days and nights; thereafter gave God him twa' stenena tefla ther hi on eskrivin hede tha' tian bodo, tha skolde two stone tables there he on written had the ten laws that should hi' lera tha israheliska folke.'

he teach the Israelitish folk.

In the Junian collection of the Bodleian is a volume printed about 1460 at the convent of Anjum, containing the Laws of Friesland, by Hidde fen Cammingha.* The Cammingha family is one of such antiquity, that an old proverb says of them, "The Cams were with Noah in the ark.' This volume, which contains a great many annotations and collections, in the handwriting of Junius, is probably the oldest undoubted specimen of the language of Friesland Proper, and certainly shows the closest resemblance to that of Eastern Friesland.

Between the middle of the fifteenth and the middle of the seventeenth century scarcely any thing is found to show the march of the language towards the situation in which it was left by Gysbert Japicx, who died in 1666; the greatest of Frisian

*It Rjuecht-boeck fen alre fryja Freezena freeska Landrjuecht droekt in 't kleaster by Jr. Hidde fen Cammingha Parochyaan om it jier 1460.