to intimate that he would make anyone repent the attempt who should venture to meddle with him. The fierceness of his desperation, for a time, kept our people at bay; but as his fury gradually subsided they gathered more closely around him, and at length seized him. As the crime was so atrocious, and if allowed to pass with impunity might entail even more serious consequences, it was determined to burn the man. He was tied up to a stake, where he was kept for some hours before the time of execution arrived. It was then that I beheld what I had never thought to see. He had a tail more than a foot long, covered with red hair, and very much like that of a cow. When he saw the surprise that this discovery created amongst the European spectators, he informed us that his tail was the effect of climate, for that all the inhabitants of the southern side of the island, where they then were, were provided with like appendages.” The measure of burning the man to avoid any future unpleasantness, seems a somewhat strong one, and attended with a very considerable element of risk to themselves, besides the grave personal inconvenience to the victim. The account is a very circumstantial one; how is it to be explained? One cannot accept the tail—or the tale; and yet it is painful to feel that the alternative is to brand John Struys as deliberately errant from the truth; and brave men who take their lives in their hands are above the meanness of vapouring or lying. In such a case one agrees entirely with Dr. Johnson: “Of a standing fact, sir, there ought to be no controversy. If there are men with tails, catch a homo caudatus.”