is a gun barrel.  When produced to be sworn on it is carried to the spot in state, under an umbrella, and wrapped in silk.  This parade has an advantageous effect by influencing the mind of the party with a high idea of the importance and solemnity of the business.  In England the familiarity of the object and the summary method of administering oaths are well known to diminish their weight, and to render them too often nugatory.  They sometimes swear by the earth, laying their hands upon it and wishing that it may never produce aught for their nourishment if they speak falsely.  In all these ceremonies they burn on the spot a little gum benzoin—­Et acerra thuris plena, positusque carbo in cespite vivo.

(Footnote.  The form of taking an oath among the people of Madagascar very nearly resembles the ceremonies used by the Sumatrans.  There is a strong similarity in the articles they swear on and in the circumstance of their drinking the consecrated water.)

It is a striking circumstance that practices which boast so little of reason in their foundation, which are in fact so whimsical and childish, should yet be common to nations the most remote in situation, climate, language, complexion, character, and everything that can distinguish one race of people from another.  Formed of like materials, and furnished with like original sentiments, the uncivilized tribes of Europe and of India trembled from the same apprehensions, excited by similar ideas, at a time when they were ignorant, or even denied the possibility of each other’s existence.  Mutual wrong and animosity, attended with disputes and accusations, are not by nature confined to either description of people.  Each, in doubtful litigations, might seek to prove their innocence by braving, on the justice of their cause, those objects which inspired amongst their countrymen the greatest terror.  The Sumatran, impressed with an idea of invisible powers, but not of his own immortality, regards with awe the supposed instruments of their agency, and swears on krises, bullets, and gun barrels; weapons of personal destruction.  The German Christian of the seventh century, more indifferent to the perils of this life, but not less superstitious, swore on bits of rotten wood and rusty nails, which he was taught to revere as possessing efficacy to secure him from eternal perdition.

INHERITANCE.

When a man dies his effects, in common course, descend to his male children in equal shares; but if one among them is remarkable for his abilities above the rest, though not the eldest, he usually obtains the largest proportion, and becomes the head of the tungguan or house; the others voluntarily yielding him the superiority.  A pangeran of Manna left several children; none of them succeeded to the title, but a name of distinction was given to one of the younger, who was looked upon as chief of the family after the father’s decease.  Upon asking the eldest how it happened that the name