pass.  Saying which, he relapsed into his melancholy silence, and I betook myself once more to the telescope.  With a bosom throbbing with emotion, I saw that we were descending towards the American continent.  When we were about ten or twelve miles from the earth, the Brahmin arrested the progress of the car, and we hovered over the broad Atlantic.  Looking down on the ocean, the first object which presented itself to my eye, was a small one-masted shallop, which was buffetting the waves in a south-westerly direction.  I presumed it was a New-England trader, on a voyage to some part of the Republic of Colombia:  and, by way of diverting my friend from his melancholy reverie, I told him some of the many stories which are current respecting the enterprise and ingenuity of this portion of my countrymen, and above all, their adroitness at a bargain.

“‘Methinks,’ says the Brahmin, ’you are describing a native of Canton or Pekin.  But,’ added he, after a short pause, ’though to a superficial observer man appears to put on very different characters, to a philosopher he is every where the same—­for he is every where moulded by the circumstances in which he is placed.  Thus; let him be in a situation that is propitious to commerce, and the habits of traffic produce in him shrewdness and address.  Trade is carried on chiefly in towns, because it is there carried on most advantageously.  This situation gives the trader a more intimate knowledge of his species—­a more ready insight into character, and of the modes of operating on it.  His chief purpose is to buy as cheap, and to sell as dear, as he can; and he is often able to heighten the recommendations or soften the defects of some of the articles in which he deals, without danger of immediate detection; or, in other words, big representations have some influence with his customers.  He avails himself of this circumstance, and thus acquires the habit of lying; but, as he is studious to conceal it, he becomes wary, ingenious, and cunning.  It is thus that the Phenicians, the Carthagenians, the Dutch, the Chinese, the New-Englanders, and the modern Greeks, have always been regarded as inclined to petty frauds by their less commercial neighbours.’  I mentioned the English nation.

“‘If the English,’ said he, interrupting me; ’who are the most commercial people of modern times, have not acquired the same character, it is because they are as distinguished for other things as for traffic:  they are not merely a commercial people—­they are also agricultural, warlike, and literary; and thus the natural tendencies of commerce are mutually counteracted.’

“We afterwards descended slowly; the prospect beneath us becoming more beautiful than my humble pen can hope to describe, or will even attempt to portray.  In a short time after, we were in sight of Venezuela.  We met with the trade winds and were carried by them forty or fifty miles inland, where, with some difficulty, and even