236 CEREMONIES OF THE JEWS.

formers of these bitter lamentations appear to have all the marks of hideous grief inscribed on their faces, but most of them feel no real concern ; some of the girls, young and handsome, near akin to the deceased, are ambitious to disfigure themselves, and they lacerate their pretty faces most lamentably. The more wounds these bear on their cheeks the greater is their grief considered to be. But the corpse being removed the mourners regale themselves with Mahaya, or African brandy, and make up for their lamentations, by converting their bitter strains into conviviality.

There is a strange resemblance between this custom and that practised by the inhabitants of New Zealand ; insomuch that we might imagine the latter to be one of the lost tribes of this extraordinary people. It is true that we have no record of such a perfection of navigation as to enable us to conjecture how a tribe of Jews could reach New Zealand : but many things remain in great obscurity even in this enlightened age ; and we have had no historical record transmitted to us from the ancients ofmany extraordinary discoveries that recently have been made in Egypt.