e miscellaneous collection of objects crowded into these four
cases are many figures of Buddha in earthenware, wood, alabaster and
ivory; bronze divinities of the Hindoo Pantheon; Hindoo playing cards;
copper-plates containing grants of land; a Hindoo mathematical
instrument; a powder-horn from Burtpoor; Affghan cloak and pistol;
bows and arrows; baggage and accommodation boats; and early Arabian
bronze water ewers inlaid with silver. Over the Indian cases are
figures of Hindoo deities, including a bronze figure of Siva with four
arms, and Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu. The four following cases
(10-13) are chiefly filled with

AFRICAN CURIOSITIES

of a miscellaneous description, and from various parts of the
continent. These include, in cases 10, 11, Nubian and Abyssinian
baskets; Arabic quadrants; Egyptian water-bottles; sandals, and a
variety of other manufactures from Ashantee, including a shuttle, and
specimens of native cotton cloth; an iron bar used as a medium of
exchange, and worth about one shilling on the African coast; gourd
boxes and calabashes; cloths and other curiosities collected on the
Niger Expedition; specimens of native silk from Egga; a skin bottle
for holding galena to colour the eyelids; opaque glass beads from
Abyssinia; all kinds of arms from French Guiana, Fernando Po,
Abyssinia, and Nubia, including a Nubian spear, enveloped with a
snake's skin from Thebes. Over the cases an Ashantee loom for weaving
narrow cloth, and Abyssinian baskets, and at the side an Indian inlaid
cabinet. Passing from these cases, the visitor at once reaches those
devoted to

AMERICAN CURIOSITIES.

The cases numbered from 14-21 are filled with articles illustrative of
the life and climate of the Esquimaux, and the extreme northern
regions of America, including the native fishing-hooks and lines;
models of canoes; skin dresses, men's boots from Kotzebue's Sound;
Lapland trousers; utensils made of the horn of the musk ox; Esquimaux
woman's hair ornaments; over the cases hereabouts the sledge which Sir
E. Parry brought from Baffin's Bay, and a canoe from Behring's
Straits; waterproof fishing jackets, made from the intestines of the
whale; harpoons of bone tipped with meteoric iron; specimens of rude
sculpture from these northern regions; clubs; hatchets; the magic dome
of an Iceland witch; baskets and mats; calumets of peace; scalps; a
model of a cradle, showing the method adopted by the Indians of the
Columbia River t