One is sorrow, Two is mirth,

Three is a wedding, and four is death. But if you spit toward these birds while uttering these notes of destiny, the spell is broken and the charm is dissolved. If you shew money to the new moon, you are certain of having some gift before that moon disappears, in proportion to the value of that coin which you present to the Lunar sphere. If the palm of your hand itches you will have something given you very soon, but of uncertain value. The white specks which occasionally appear under your thumb nails are of the same indication; but similar specks under the nails of the fingers are portentous of disasters and both gifts and disasters are sure to take place when these ominous specks are grown out sufficiently to be cut off.

> Anxious to know their future destinies and willing to develope what cannot be explored, the legendary tales of conjurers, jugglers and fortune-tellers here find easy access, and nothing but the extreme poverty of this people preserves them from the fangs of these harpies of delusion. Eager to know, but unwilling toavert the events which these votaries of imposition predict, they submit to their fate with the confidence of hope or a kind of murmuring resignation which nothing but delusion can inspire.

Their language and habitations are in unison with their occupations.

Leert, feert, reert, and seert are the uniform expressions for Light, fight, right, and sight; every expression partakes of vulgarity, and grammer and grandmother are terms of synonimous import. Laborious rather than industrious, and temperate through necessity, they seem to possess the virtues abstracted from their excellencies, and the common vices here lose half their grossness. Their actions arise from no regular motive, and they seem to be less the effort of choice than mechanical impulse. A few straggling goats, a half. starved cow, or a miserable horse, comprises most of their properties; and should an aceident befal either, nothing but charitable contributions can replace the loss. Their hovels are erected amidst the solitary heaths or barren rocks among which they labour, and like that which Mr. Pope describes as the sad mansion of Sir G. Villiers, you may here

ed by their situations, and they affect to despise all who are placed in "happier climes." They bear their condition with a degree of stoicism which Athens never knew, and they brave the horrors of their station with a magnanimity which fortitude is unable to supply. They repine at the little deviations which the different shades of wretchedness make from one another, and estimate their present sufferings by a comparative estimate of their former exemptions from present calamities. Like men drowning in the ocean, who, forgetful of their situation, should complain at a falling shower; these Streamers can bear up under adversity in the gross, and repine at the modification only which calamity assumes. Disease, the natural companion of poverty, frequently visits these wretched habitations. In these moments of calamity their situation is awful indeed. Unable in time of health to provide for the hours of sickness, disease is sure to attack them when they are unprepared; and having but few friends, and these incapable of administering relief, the only resource which they have is the scanty allowance of a parish overseer. A helpless family languishing under the fierceness of disease and in want of almost every necessary of life, is a spectacle which is truly awful, but it is a spectacle which this people frequently exhibit. The father of a large family labouring under the pressure of disease and 6 or 8 helpless infants crying in vain for a morsel of barley bread, of human misery; and these picures the must form to a feeling mind a finished picture Streamers of Cornwall frequently present.

Ah! little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom fortune, ease and affluence surround,
How many feel this very moment death
And all the sad variety of pain.

The Miners will form the subject of my next letter. They will present you with a very different scene.

immense eyes. His forerunner, the little god Suram, was always carried before the deity by a man. It was highly ornamented, in the same taste of disgusting features, and without the smallest pretensions to symmetry or proportion. A multitude of natives formed an extensive circle to the trench, round which the god having been hastily carried, proceeded towards the Malabar temple, to meet the devotees, who had vowed to run | over the sacred fire in his honour, and to prove his power to shield thear against its usual eficcts. They make. that vow when dangerously ill, or on any serious emergency, and to qualify themselves for performing it, must abstain from eating fish, or animal food, and from the conjugal rites, during the continuance of the festival. They are allowed but two meals a day, at morning and noon. they must sleep on the bare ground without covering; and on the 7th and 8th day of the feast, must wash themselves sixteen times at sixteen different places.

"On the last day, when they are to pass through the fire to Durmahrahzooloo, (as the children of Israel did to Moloch) they must wash themselves above a hundred times at different places. The failure of rain this season, no doubt has interfered with this part of the ceremony; but, last year they washed a hundred and thirty times. This regimen is to render their bodies as pure and temperate as possible, that they may be worthy of the deity's favour. In a short time, the god returned, accompanied by his votaries, and in-. struments of noise; excepting a middle cloth, they were entirely naked. Each was decorated with a long sash of white flowers, (inogree), the smell of which resembled that of the Eu ropean jasmine. On their heads they wore a covering of the same flowers, in shape exactly like Welch wigs!

"The god was placed at a short distance from the fire; when the devotees, about 30 in number, commenced their career through it; and did so repeatedly barefooted, for about a quarter of an hour. I did not perceive the smallest symptom, or expression, of pain, in their countenances; and they walked about for hours after the conclusion of the ceremo ny, apparently unhurt by the fire. One of them in the fury of his zeal put a piece of burning eharcoal in his mouth, and kept it there for some minutes; the pain he could not but shew, was attributed to a failure in some of his ceremonials. Others poured oil, which they said was boiling, over their shoulders, and I am sorry I could not ascertain whether it was really so; for though I have heard there is a composition which will guard the skin for a short time against the effects of fre, I am inclined to believe there is none for neutralizing boiling oil. When the ceremony of the running over the fire was concluded,

those who had not been so fortunate as to partake of it, rushed eagerly forward, to procure some of the now sacred ashes, with which they devoutly rubbed their fore-heads; those who could not get any, begged some of the flowers worn by the devotees, and made a similar use of thein.

The pit was hastily closed; the remaining ashes being the property of the officiating priests, who, no doubt, turned them to good account. The deity (after being drawn through every street inhabited by the natives about Vepery, that they also might make their salaams) with great noise and pomp was replaced under the pandal erected for him; and then conveyed to the place from whence he came. The power of this god seems very limited; for he made no exertions to free his palace from the obstruction occasioned by several cocoa-nut trees and pandels in his pas sage through the village; but was obliged to owe his liberation to the efforts of his worshippers.

"I forgot to mention that the bearers of the palace were obliged to use all their force to preserve that honour--one of them remarked to those who were struggling for it, what! can't you help quarrelling before the god!

"Thus ended the ceremony in honour of Durmahrahzooloo, whose power to protect his votaries against the effects of fire, was never known (they say) to fail."

RUSSIAN NAMES.

The Russians still retain the barbarous custom of earrying off children from the coun tries, in which they wage war. These chil dren afterwards become their slaves, servants, or freemeu.. If they fall into the hands of a powerful master, or if, by more extraordinary good fortune, the sovereign adopts and takes care of them, they become noble, and the, founders of respectable families. When Peter the First took Baku on the Caspian, he found there a young Persian whose physiog nomy interested him. He took him to Rus sia, had him educated, and gave him the name of Bakunin. Rising from a similar origin are the families of Bender-sky, Vinger-sky, Belgrad-sky, &c.

Many persons are not aware, perhaps, that most of the Russian names are significant. The major part are composed of a genitive plural, the termination of which in ow or off ew or eff, and ior y, answer to the French. article de and the German von; for. we have no corresponding distinction in English. Thus Orlow is the genitive plural of orel,. eagle; Zoubow, the genitive plural of zoub, teeth. Tell her majesty that I never shall be well, till the teeth which torment me are

extracted;" such is the answer that Potemkin made one day to an officer, who was sent by the empress to inquire after his health. This was meant as a sarcastic pun on Count Zoubow, who had been raised to the station of favourite.

Dolgo-ruki means long-hand; this surname of a grand prince of the house of Ruric, who founded Moscow about the twelfth century, has thus descended to his posterity. And Bez-borodko means beardless.

We wish for further insight into the cause of family names having a genitive plural.— The most remarkable name we remember to have met with, is that of a celebrated Venetian secretary-Milledonne, a thousand women!

TRADE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND INDIA.

(To the Editor of the Literary Panorama.) Sir,-As the bonds of amity, which had so long connected England and Russia, have lately been dissolved by French intrigue, and the charms of expected aggrandisement; it may be interesting to enquire whether Russia will now turn her thoughts towards the revival of the commerce of India by the Persian gulph, to the Euxine, or to the Caspian seas. It has been a favorite scheme with some of her rulers. Peter I. sacrificed 50,000 men in the cause, and failed. The empress Anne abandoned it, and contented herself with the commerce of the northern provinces of Persia. Elizabeth never gave the subject a thought; but the Semiramis of the north made it a darling object of her wishes, and the enterprise is not one of the least gigantic which distinguished her reign.

On the feasibility of a question of such importance, I have taken the liberty of throw ing together some observations made by a French officer, lately in the Russian service, which may claim your attention.

effect a revolution in the trade in that quarter. Many physical and moral obstacles may be adduced in support of this opinion.

In preceding centuries, the route by Alexandria, Aleppo, and Caffa, might supply the demands of the European market; and, moreover, no other way was then known. But, because the commerce of India was formerly carried on by Bassora, Armenia, the Euxine, and the sea of Asow,-does it follow, as is so hastily concluded in Russia, that it ought to reassume, or that it can reassume the same route now-a-days? Behold Egypt, so favourably situated, has she ever been able to regain those advantages, after having once lost them? Circumstances are too much altered; the wants of Europe are become too mul tiplied; the arts of navigation and trade are now too much extended, and brought to perfection, to allow caravans, which are al and Turcomans, to supply those articles that ways exposed to the depredations of the Arabs Europe draws from India. If, notwithstanding the direct intercourse between Russia and China, we scarcely see any article at Petersburgh but tea, which comes from Holland, how can we expect the productions of Malabar and Coromandel ?

At present, the Indians, Turks and Arabs, have almost abandoned the Indian seas; the Portuguese, the French, the Spaniards, and the Dutch have alternately appropriated that trade, and the English now carry it on exclusively they have even conquered the major part of the country that supports it. Will these different European powers relinquish the advantages which they have enjoyed for centuries Will their fleets, instead of mak ing directly for Europe, hazard the danger of navigating the Persian gulph, to deposit their cargoes there? Will they abandon them to the precariousness of caravans, to go and buy thein again at Astrachan or at Cafla? Yel the cabinet of Petersburgh thought this would be the case.

Before Russia can claim a share in the commerce with India, she must be absolutemistress of the southern coasts of the Black Sea, or of the Caspian for there the entre pôts must necessarily be established. And what would these insulated possessions avail, with out a direct communication with Bassora or Bender? Would not the caravans be al ways at the mercy of the Arabs, Turks and Persians?

The public prints, Mr. Editor, mention an alliance between Russia and Persia, but can we imagine that the latter will readily concur with the views of Russia, to facilitate the transport of India goods through her country?

Will the Persians lend their ports to

*For an account of the trade of the Black Sea, see Eton's and Wilkinson's paniphlets.

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the Russians without sharing the profits A treaty of this nature must be founded on reciprocal advantages; and this condition alone renders the thing uncertain. Besides, who can insure the duration of any treaty with Persia, which is continually a prey to internal faction? and the distant provinces of the Porte are always in a state of insurrection, and cannot protect their own caravans.

Let us suppose for a moment, that Bender and Ormus are ceded to Russia is the trade with India, by that means, fallen into her hands? There must be ships to carry it on, and fleets to protect it. Where will she find timber to build them, and sailors to man them? Should, however, a navy be formed, would there be no European squadrons in those seas to intercept them? Would a new flag be permitted with impunity?

Such are the reasonings alledged by the French colonel. A thousand other reflections which the reader may make, will lead to the conclusion that a commerce with India, of which Russia is to be the channel, may very well have emanated from the brain of the great Catherine, but the realisation of it demands a revolution in Asia which it is impossible to foresee.

Should the above statement, Mr. Editor, merit your consideration, I may perhaps, at a future period, transmit to you an account of the trade between Russia and Persia.

Yours, &c.

RUSTICUS.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A TRAVELLER ON SOME SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS IN THE CATHEDRAL OF UPSAL IN SWEDEN.

as intended to perpetuate the memory of men, who by their virtues or their talents, have reflected honour on their country, and who want no other eulogium but that which naturally springs from a plain recital of their deeds.

The three monuments I am about to mention, are interesting from both these causes combined.

First, That, of Charles de Goer, GrandMarshal of the court, known by several works in entomology. This monument is composed only of two large marble coffins, in the middle of which is the bust of the Marshal, also in marble. The whole is executed in a masterly style, by the celebrated Sergel.

The next monument which attracted my attention, was that erected by M. Fredenheim, to the memory of the archbishop Menander, his father. Part of the wall is covered with red marble streaked with white,' in the form of an obelisk. A figure of Religion, of the natural size, of carara marble, is placed on a kind of altar, of black marble with golden streaks. The lower part of the altar is of a dark greyish marble, with red streaks. The attitude of Religion is that of mourning; her left hand rests on an urn, on which is the following inscription.

CAROLO FRID. MENANDER
ECCL. SVET, GOTH. ARCHIEPISCOPO
PIETAS FILII

On the foot of the urn,

P.

Nat. 1712, ob. 1786.

At the base of the monument, a basso relievo in alabaster, represents the archbishop sitting, with his right hand on a Finnic Bible, as having executed the first transla tion of the holy writings into that language.

The bones of king Erik, the saint, are there kept in a small casket; many other kings also are buried in this cathedral. The most remarkable are Gustavus Vasa, and John III. Here too the remains of the Stures have been deposited the clothes which they wore when they were murdered, are still religiously preserved; sad memorials of revoJutionary fur

noble families have also their bury. buryAng places in this magnificent cathedral; but monuments can claim attention only from two considerations, either by the perfection of the art, manifested in their execution, or,

At the sight of a monument erected to the memory of a man of uncommon merit, all his great qualities burst at once on my mind. My attention is not engaged by the perfection of the art, nor by the richness of the materials. I think only of a well-deserved fame, more lasting than these; ære perennius. Such is the effect produced by the monument of Linnæus it is a noble and correct composition in porphyry, from the designs of the Court intendant Sundral: on the top is a bronze crown, and in the middle the bust of the naturalist philosopher, in the same metal, by Sergel; beneath is this short and appropriate inscription: