THE AMOR PATRIÆ OF THE GREENLANDERS.

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exemplifications of this, it is not easy to help being ashamed of a nature that can exhibit so much imbecility. The Greenlander dotes to distraction upon his matchless country, for it affords him a filthy hut, and the flesh, grease, and skins, of seals, with the luxury of whale oil on fortunate occasions, with plenty indeed of snow, ice, and tempest, into the bargain. It would be impertinent to allege that this is leaving social relations out of the account, for if whole families could be transferred to a better territory and economy of life, thus carrying the most interesting of the social relationships with them, they would doubtless all pine and perish together.

GREENLAND SUPERSTITIONS.

We are furnished with an ample selection of the feeble lunacies of Greenland fantasy and superstition. Their natural history has its krakens, mermaids, and other monsters. Their civil history has its race of dog-men, the form in which barbarian malice has preserved the tradition of the Norwegian colonists once settled on the west-coast, and extirpated many ages since by the Skraellings, the savage race of which the present inhabitants are considered as the descendants. Their science, if such a term may be so applied, may be exemplified in their manner of explaining lightning and the aurora-borealis, which phenomena are caused, they say, by the souls of the departed playing at foot-ball in heaven, with the head of a morse. Their science of practical application consists in spells and petty jugglery. In their religion, their ideas of their supreme being, denominated Torngarsuk, might be expected to be the types of whatever their sages, angekkoks, can conceive of sublimity. Their notions of the subject differ, but see how they vie with one another in elevation,-with one exception :

"Some of the angekkoks say he is without any form or shape; others give him that of a bear; others, again, pretend he has a large body and but one arm; and some make him as little as a finger. There are those who hold he is immortal, and others, that a puff of wind can kill him. They assign him his abode in the lower regions of the earth, where they tell you there is constantly fine sun-shiny weather, good water, deer, and fowls, in abundance.

They also say he lives in the water; wherefore, when they come to any water, of which they have not drunk before, and there be any old man in the company, they make him drink first, in order to take away its Torngarsuk, or the malignant quality of the water, which might make them sick, and kill them."

THE TORNGARSUK, OR DEVIL'S GRANDAM.

There is another personage of great consequemce in this mythology, the "grandame of the said Torngarsuk, or (as others will have it) his lady-daughter, a true termagant and ghastly woman, who is said to have a hand as big as the tail of a whale, with which, if she hits anybody, he is at one stroke mouse-dead."

"She is said to dwell in the lower parts of the earth under the seas, and has the empire over all fishes and sea-animals. The basin placed under her lamp, into which the train oil of the lamp drips down, swarms with all kinds of sea-fowls, swimming in and hovering about it. At the entry of her abode is a corps de garde of sea-dogs, who mount the guard and stand sentinels at her gates to keep out the crowd of petitioners."

None but the angekkoks, or priests, or enchanters, as they may be denominated, can make any attempt to get into her presence, and they must be accompanied and aided by a sort of guardian spirits, named Torngak. There is & curious description of the journey to the "residence of this devil's grandame," and the mode of obtaining the object of the enterprise, which commonly is to break up a kind of enchantment, by which she malignantly attracts into her vicinity all the fishes and other marine animals which are of the most importance to the Greenlanders, so that the good people would be in danger of perishing, unless something were done. Through many dreary scenes, and frightful scrapes, the wizard and his guide at length reached

"the apartment of the infernal goddess, who, offended at this unexpected visit, shows a most ghastly and wrathful countenance, pulling the hair off her head. She thereupon seizes a wet wing of a fowl, which she lights in the fire, and claps to their noses, which makes them very faint and sick, and they become her prisoners. But the enchanter or angekkok, (being beforehand, instructed by his Torngak, how to act his part in this dismal expedition,) takes hold of her by her hair, and drubs and bangs her so long till she loses her strength and yields; and in this combat his familiar spirit does not stand idle, but lays about her with might and main.'

THE TORNGARSUK, OR DEVIL'S GRANDAM.

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It is more to the purpose, however, than even all this “drubbing and banging," to catch and pull away some kind of charm which hangs about her face. It is this charm which draws and keeps all the fishes, and as soon as she is deprived of it, they instantly and eagerly make off to where they can meet with the nets, hooks, and harpoons of the Greenlanders.

This beldame's share of the space in the interior of the earth, seems, by the description, undesirable enough; but somewhere in that interior, is the region which is accounted the very best receptacle of departed spirits. And the rule of assignment of this happiest locality, is extremely remarkable, a striking singularity among the notions of barbarous tribes, and expressive of a feeling for which we might forgive them some of their silly dreams, and some of their disgusting habits. The preference given, in the allotment of abode, as mentioned in the following extract, is the more remarkable as contrasted with the parallel part of the Scandinavian mythology, which confers the most delightful region of the other world on the souls of the most dreadful slaughterers, who, in evidence of their faithfully retaining their character and taste, will have the skulls of their enemies for drinking cups.

THE GREENLANDERS' NOTION OF A FUTURE STATE.

"They have got no notion of any different state of souls after death; but they fancy that all the deceased go into the land of the souls, as they term it. Nevertheless they assign two retreats for departed souls, viz.: some go to Heaven, and some to the centre of the Earth; but this lower retirement is in their opinion the pleasantest, inasinuch as they enjoy themselves in a delicious country, where the sun shines continually, with an inexhaustible stock of all sorts of choice provision. But this is only the receptacle of such women as die in labour, and of those that, going a-whale-fishing, perish at sea; this being their reward to compensate the hardships they have undergone in this life; all the rest flock to heaven."

That the supposed difference of future destiny should not be great enough to threaten to any state of misery, will appear the less strange if we admit our author's estimate of the general character of the Greenlanders, whom he describes as nearly all very harmless beings.

CHARACTER OF THE GREENLANDERS.

One

Though they are yet subject to no government, nor know of any magistrates, or laws, or any sort of discipline, yet they are so far from being lawless or disorderly that they are a law to themselves; their even temper and good nature making them observe a regular and orderly behaviour towards one another. cannot enough admire how peaceably, lovingly, and united they live together; hatred and envy, strifes and jars, are never heard of among them. And although it may happen that one bears a grudge to another, yet it never breaks out into any scolding or fighting; neither have they any words to express such passions, or any injurious and provoking terms of quarrelling."

It is admitted, however, that such a thing as a murder has been known to happen, in which case the retribution would be a retaliation executed by the relatives of the murdered person. It is accounted just, and even benevolent, to destroy such persons as are believed to exercise a malignant power of witchcraft.

It is true, that with the praise of their harmlessness, the honest missionary mingles the most downright imputations of stupidity. And the accounts given by the missionaries of the United Brethren, confirm this estimate of their mental faculties, even to the length, we almost fear, of invalidating Egede's judgment that education might raise them generally to a respectable degree of the intellectual standard.

At the same time, they furnish one of the many exemplifications of the wonderful perfection to which the faculties may be disciplined under the influence of an immediate constant interest and imperious necessity. In the exquisite perceptions and adroitness displayed in catching seals, and fish, and fowl, we see what might be attained by them in other departments of exercise and improvement, were it possible to make the interest as pressing and compulsory as that of obtaining food. The descriptions of the manner of their prosecuting this grand business of their life, are among the most curious things in the book.

THE KRAKEN.

We will terminate this notice with that account of a seamonster which has been so often adverted to, the veracity of which, in the strict sense of that word, is beyond all doubt,

while, nevertheless, it is likely enough that surprise and fear might unconsciously exaggerate the portentous phenomenon. It is observable that our author does not precisely say that he himself saw it, though it seems reasonable to infer this from the positive terms he employs in the description. Referring to the legendary accounts of a variety of enormous marine animals, he says:—

"But none of them have been seen by us, or any of our time, that ever I could hear, save that most dreadful sea-monster, that showed itself upon the surface of the water in the year 1734, off our new colony in 64°. This monster was of so huge a size, that coming out of the water, its head reached as high as the masthead; its body was as bulky as the ship, and three or four times as long. It had a long pointed snout, and spouted like a whale; great broad paws, and the body seemed covered with shell-work, its skin very rugged and uneven. The under part of its body was shaped like an enormous huge serpent, and when it dived again under water, it plunged backwards into the sea, and so raised its tail aloft, which seemed a whole ship's length distant from the bulkiest part of the body."

It may be remarked how vague the account is rendered by the adoption of so perfectly indefinite a standard of dimension as the size of "a ship." The bulk, nevertheless, must have been somewhat prodigious to have struck the witnesses as being so, familiarized as they were to the sight of the largest known inhabitants of the ocean.

NEPAUL.

THIS work appears to be the result of a very extensive inquiry, prosecuted with a highly meritorious perseverance and minuteness. Whoever has disposition or occasion to apply himself, quite as a study, to the examination of the state, relations, and history of the country in question, will find it of excellent service; and we can well conceive that the collection of information from which it is shaped, may

An Account of the Kingdom of Nepaul, and of the Territories annexed to this Dominion by the House of Goorkha. By Francis Hamilton (formerly Buchanan), M.D. 4to. 1819.