it is, that we must not seek in physical causes the great effects of
sound upon the human heart."

This disease (says Dr. Winterbottom) affects the natives of Africa as
strongly as it does those of Switzerland; it is even more violent in its
effects on the Africans, and often impels them to dreadful acts of
suicide. Sometimes it plunges them into a deep melancholy, which induces
the unhappy sufferers to end a miserable existence by a more tedious,
though equally certain method, that of dirt eating.

Such is the powerful influence of the lore of one's native country.

P.T.W.


* * * * *

SINGULAR CUSTOM OF THE SULTAN OF TURKEY.

_(For the Mirror.)_


After the opening of the Bairam,[2] a ceremony among the Turks, attended
with more than ordinary magnificence; the Sultan, accompanied by the
Grand Signior and all the principal officers of state, goes to exhibit
himself to the people in a kiosk, or tent near the seraglio point,
seated on a sofa of silver, brought out for the occasion. It is a very
large, wooden couch covered with thick plates of massive silver, highly
burnished, and there is little doubt from the form of it, and the style
in which it is ornamented that it constituted part of the treasury of