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Miss Aldersey had been previously engaged in like labors in Java. It is singular that the Chinese, amongst whom, notwithstanding what Mr. Fortune says to the contrary, infanticide prevails to an extent not known in any part of India, or anywhere else that we have heard of, will only entrust their little girls to unmarried female missionaries, and not even to them, as Dr. Smith assures us, without some hesitation. Miss Aldersey has thus made out a missionary path which is exclusively her own.

Ancillary to the promulgation of religion, and directly connected with our other topics of health and civilization, is the subject of medical missionaries. One of the most striking circumstances in a country which seems to us to be full of anomalies is, the fact that the Chinese, although they have long attained to a certain high degree of civilization, and are, generally speaking, a sickly people, and, consequently, great dabblers in drugs, and takers of physic, are in cimmerian darkness in regard to medicine, knowing nothing of it as a science, and very little empirically. Surgery can hardly be said to exist amongst them. They never practice dissection, not even on the lower animals. "When a limb is irrecoverably injured, it is left," says Dr. Wilson, "barring poultices and plasters, to kill the patient, or to drop off by mortification." Their implements, he adds, are rough tools, rather resembling the collection of a cobbler than the instruments of a surgeon. Du Halde affirms, that the theory of the circulation of the blood was known amongst them about four centuries after the Deluge. This must be one of his mistakes, as Mr. Sirr states that they have no knowledge of it at the present day. They conceive-like Pythagoras-that the human body is composed of and influenced by the elements. "" Thus," says Mr. Sirr, fire reigns in the heart, and the principal viscera which lie near it, air has peculiar influence on the liver, whilst water reigns lord paramount over some adjacent parts. Metals preside over the lungs and larger intestines, and earth influences the stomach and spleen." The Greek philosophers, it may be remembered, counted four elements, while the Chinese have five. They hold that the body is a kind of musical instrument-nerves, muscles,

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arteries, and veins, being as strings, and each with its peculiar pulse. Many are their works on " The Secret of the Pulse," and

they maintain that the same pulse which marks disease in a male, would indicate quite a different complaint in a female. With such fanciful theories, it may be easily conceived, that while the books on medicine are endless, disease is almost unchecked. Their least irrational modes of treatment are by acupuncture, the moxas, and in the use of styptics. They have been long acquainted with inoculation, but practice it in a circuitous way, introducing the virus, not directly by incision, but by pledgets in the nostril. They have a decided repugnance to vaccination, and the consequence is, that small-pox continues to be a great scourge. Where puerile practices prevail, and complaints known to be within the control of science are unchecked, there is, perhaps, no way in which the Chinese could be so rapidly served, or their good-will so easily gained, as through the means of medical missions. These have been already commenced at Canton, Hong-Kong, and Shang-hai, where their success has proved so immediate and so clear, that we should rejoice to hear of their being extended to the other consular cities, as well as of their number being increased. The Bishop of HongKong mentions that at Shang-hai, "14,500 cases of medical relief have tended to mitigate the sufferings of our fellow-heirs of sin, and helped to diffuse amongst the native community a respect for the religion of the benevolent foreigner." Dr. Wilson, speaking of the medical mission at HongKong, which is under the direction of Dr. Hobson, states

"Into it Chinese subjects, with every form of disease and injury, are admitted on the sole plea of bodily affliction; but as affections of the eye are very prevalent, and so ineffectually or injuriously treated by the native practitioners, as to occasion much more than the usual proportion of helplessness and distress, a large amount of ophthalmic cases is received and successfully managed. Such persons as can afford it subsist themselves; those who cannot, are provided for from the Hospital funds.

"Then, everything which benevolence can devise, and which care and skill can accomplish, is effected for the patients; and thence, a large proportion of those admitted return to their native towns and hamlets, to tell their neighbors what the natives have done for them. They have to speak only of benefits received. Their cherished stitious follies and pagan perversions, were not habits were not violently attacked; their supermade the subject of ridicule or contemptuous pity; but they were led to their abandonment, by

showing them a better system of things, and proving its vast superiority, through its practical results. Persons who went in, wasted, maimed, or blind, came out with renovated vigor and restored sight. Can the Chinese continue long to resist such teaching? Blind, and in love with darkness,' as they are, is it conceivable that they can go on hardening their hearts, and shutting the eyes of their understanding against such emphatic pleading in behalf of their own best interests? Will not the reiteration of such good acts, especially restoration of sight by operation, of which, till lately, they could no more form an idea than of a miracle, lead them to inquire whether the system which produces these effects is not better than their own?"

The medical missionaries are further desirous of imparting their knowledge to native pupils; and Dr. Wilson speaks of a young Chinese, named Apoon, instructed by Dr. Hobson, who was skillful in performing various operations on the eye, including that for cataract, and was well acquainted with the structure of the eye, its diseases, and their treatment. He was about to return to

his native city of Canton, and we hope that many such others will be soon dispersed throughout this dark but mighty empire.

We have now discussed, at such length as we could venture on, the three topics we had selected, and might, with the assistance of Mr. Sirr, find matter and novelty enough to make a larger paper, but our limits are alreaders to the many new, untouched, and ready passed, and we can only refer our well-filled chapters of his "China and the Chinese;" and, especially, to one on the cultivation and preparation of teas, to those on the arts and manufactures of China, and to that on the revenue. Mr. Sirr may not possess the charm of manner, his style being careless at times, and, at times, ambitious: but these failings are compensated by his industry in collecting materials, by the exceeding interest of his topics, and the clearness with which they are arranged. He is, also, somewhat given to fault-finding; but this, too, is more than atoned for by the honesty with which he speaks his mind.

LAST OF THE INCAS.

SEE PLATE.

THE striking plate accompanying this number reproduces one of the saddest and most memorable incidents in the history of the conquest of Peruthe parting of Atabalipa, or, as he is more commonly called, Atahualpa, with his family, prior to his cruel execution by the Spaniards. Atahualpa succeeded his father, on the throne of Quito, in 1529, while his brother Huascar obtained the kingdom of Peru. They soon made war upon each other, when the latter was defeated, and his kingdom fell into the hands of Atahualpa. The Spaniards taking advantage of these internal disturbances, with Pizarro at their head, invaded Peru, where they were entertained with great hospitality by the king and people. The reward of this generosity was the foul and treacherous arrest of Atahualpa, with the demand of allegiance to the king of Spain as his

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master, to embrace the Christian religion. Upon his asking their authority for this request, the friar Valverde, who accompanied the Spanish expedition, gave the king a breviary as authority. Atahualpa put it to his ear, and said, "It tells me nothing" then threw it away. This was pretext enough for Spanish cupidity. A terrible massacre of the unsuspecting and unprepared multitude was undertaken, and the king thrown into prison. He offered an immense sum of gold as a ransom. The gold was accepted, but the prisoner was not released. After enduring every indignity, he was torn from his family, and burnt alive in 1533, by the orders of Pizarro. With him the line of Incas came to an end, and the Spanish usurpation was complete.

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