If the Chinese meet, after a long separation, they fall on their knees, bend their face to the earth two or three times, and use many other affected modes. They have also a kind of ritual, or “academy of compliments,” by which they regulate the number of bows, genuflections, and words to be spoken upon any occasion. Ambassadors practise these ceremonies forty days before they appear at court. In Otaheite, they rub their noses together. The Dutch, who are considered as great eaters, have a morning salutation, common amongst all ranks, “Smaakelyk eeten?”--“May you eat a hearty dinner.” Another is, “Hoe vaart awe.”--“How do you sail?” adopted, no doubt, in the early periods of the republic, when they were all navigators and fishermen. The usual salutation at Cairo is, “How do you sweat?” a dry hot skin being a sure indication of a destructive ephemeral fever. Some author has observed, in contrasting the haughty Spaniard with the frivolous Frenchman, that the proud, steady gait and inflexible solemnity of the former, were expressed in his mode of salutation, “Come esta?”--“How do you stand?” whilst the “Comment vous portez-vous?” “How do you carry yourself?” was equally expressive of the gay motion and incessant action of the latter. The common salutation in the southern provinces of China, amongst the lower orders, is, “Ya fan?”--“Have you eaten your rice?” In Africa, a young woman, an intended bride, brought a little water in a calabash, and kneeling down before her lover, desired him to wash his hands; when he had done this, the girl, with a tear of joy sparkling in her eyes, drank the water; this was considered as the greatest proof she could give of her fidelity and attachment. * * * * * ~Omniana.~ POETRY. _For the Table Book._ The poesy of the earth, sea, air, and sky, Though death is powerful in course of time With wars and battlements, will never die. But triumph in the silence of sublime Survival. Frost, like tyranny, might climb The nurseling germs of favourite haunts; the roots Will grow hereafter. Terror on the deep Is by the calm subdu’d, that Beauty e’en might creep On moonlight waves to coral rest. The fruits Blush in the winds, and from the branches leap To mossy beds existing in the ground. Stars swim unseen, through solar hemispheres, Yet in the floods of night, how brightly round The zone of poesy, they reflect the rolling years. P. * * * * * A BAD SIGN.