former is supposed to be endowed with the male or active principle, the latter with the female or passive; from the union and separation of which, continually recurring as the universe revolves, all animate and inanimate things are created, decay, and are reproduced, until the final separation of these principles shall take place, at the end of time. They are known to Chinese metaphysicians by the monosyllabic terms Yin and Yang, and, besides the generative powers resulting from their union, exert a separate and independent prerogative in the mundane phases. Yang, the male principle, has a benign influence, and presides over the growth and youth of the universe-to Yin, the female principle, is attributed gradual decay, old age, and death. In Eastern theories of the creation, a remarkable resemblance may be traced. In the Book of Genesis it is expressed in words simply sublime, that in the beginning the Spirit of God moved upon the chaotic waters, and produced the principles of light and darkness. In the second act of creation, we behold the birth of heaven and earth from the vast womb of the waters: vegetable productions, the great luminaries of the firmament, animals, and lastly man followed in regular succession. The Chaldæans, according to Berosus, imagined that, in the beginning, there existed nothing but a vast abyss and darkness, peopled by monsters, produced by a two-fold principle. Over these presided a female principle, called Thalath, a Chaldæan word, equivalent to the Greek Oaλarra the ocean, from whom, by the agency of the first cause, the heavens and earth, &c., were created. If we turn to the mythology of the Greeks, we are told that chaos was a rude and shapeless mass of matter pre-existent to the creation of the world, gods and men : from it sprang Erebus and Nox, the female personification of night and darkness-the first result of whose union was light, and subsequently the fates, sleep, discord, dreams, death, &c., also heaven and earth, typified by the god Calus, or Ouranos, and the goddess Terra, the parents of time, gods, men, and all things. The Pythagorean system recognised a monad, or active principle, and a duad, or passive principle, from whose union resulted, not only a triad but a sacred quaternary embracing the sciences, morality, &c. We may clearly trace, I think, the creative and destructive attributes of the Chinese Yang and Yin, in the Erebus and Nor of the Greeks, and in the Lingam and Yoni of the Hindus'. The followers of Zoroaster and Manes acknowledged two principles under the

The ancient Greeks sacrificed a cock to Nox-the Chinese do so at the present day to Yin, the destructive, or female principle, as a most solemn imprecation of divine vengeance, in case they violate their word, or declare what is not true.

symbols of light and darkness; one, the source of all good, the other, the fountain of all evil; to the co-agency of which, all animate and inanimate matter owes its creation, decay, and reproduction. The similitude could be pursued further even into the Northern and Western systems of mythology, but I have already digressed too far, and must now return to the Tien-ti-huih. It has been called by the Chinese, the three united, from being composed of the members of a sacred triad; viz. heaven, earth, and man, to whom equal adoration is offered, being all considered of equal dignity and rank; but to man, only after death, under the name of ancestors. Heaven and earth are worshipped as the father and mother of mankind. They are styled the three dominant powers, and supposed to exist in perfect harmony. There appears to be some mystic importance attached to the number three by the Chinese'; it is related in the Peach Garden Record, that Chang-Shan afterwards entered the society, and made the fourth brother; still his name is rarely, if ever adduced. Three is the number also of the officials, or elder brethren, of the drops of blood shed during the inaugural rites, of their days of meeting during the month, and of the prescribed prostrations before the idol, viz. pae, kwei, and kow, bowing, kneeling, and placing the forehead in the dust; the last in some ceremonies is thrice repeated. The grand day is the ninth of the moon, equal to three times three. The secret manual signs are made with three fingers. The characters on some of the secret seals are grouped in triads. One of the smaller seals a, is in the form of a triangle. The symbol in the small seal b, appears to have been selected for its triune character, resembling the trisula of the Hindus, and three is generally the number of the personages forming the group in the picture worshipped by almost every Chinese.

RESEMBLANCE TO FREEMASONRY, &c.

The resemblance between some of the rites observed by the Tien-ti-huih, their principles of mutual support in all parts of the world, their conventional signs of recognition, the mystery observed at their meetings, their styling themselves brothers, the oath of secrecy, and the mystic importance attached to the number three, remind us of the western system of Freemasonry, whose disciples, finding "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, and sermons in stones," in a spirit of speculative research, well exchanged perhaps for by-gone Rosicrucianism, trace in the mythologies of idolatrous nations, various symbols of the Trinity. Ashtaroth, Chemosh, and

Milcom, the triad, worshipped by King Solomon on Olivet's triple peak-the Indian, Orphic, Eleusinian, Egyptian, Platonic, Persian, Celtic, and Mexican triads of deities-the trilithic piles of the Druids -the three mysterious words of the Brahmans to express earth, sky, and heaven-the triliteral monosyllable, the sacred Aum, did not escape their masonic eye. The trowel which is identified with the trigon hieroglyphic for darkness, or secresy, of the Egyptian priests the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, expressed by an equilateral triangle, having the mystic Jod in its centre-the Trigonon mysticum of the Pythagoreans-the square-the point within the circle the royal arch, the ne plus ultra of masonic perfection -the three governors of the lodge-the principle of light, &c., might be compared to the triangular square and circular sealsthe arch of swords, or that in the middle of seal a-the three governors of the principal lodges, and the ever-burning lamp of the Tien-ti-huih. But setting aside these similarities, when we consider that the Chinese fraternity originally was formed for political purposes, that its objects in the mother country, as stated by a talented writer of undoubted authority, Mr. Davies, are still to upset the present Tartar dynasty, and that even in the colonies, as I have shown, its combinations are not unfrequently exerted to defraud justice of its victim, to defeat the laws, to commit with impunity robberies, murders, and massacres by wholesale, and rebellion against the government, under whose fostering protection it has been permitted to branch forth; we shall, perhaps, be inclined to classify the Tien-ti-huih with the secret tribunals of Germany, between which a few resemblances in minor points have already been traced. Accusations of secret crimes, of as deep a dye as those preferred by Philip the Fair, of France, against the Templars, have been uttered against the Tien-ti-huih, but with what justice I know not. Suffice it to observe, that the eyes of our Colonial police should be set carefully upon them. In their weakness lies their harmlessness; and the little good they can effect by mutual assistance to each other, is more than counterbalanced by the injustice and injury caused to those around. As a means of mutual defence, adopted by emigrants among savage and hostile tribes, such associations are undoubtedly useful; but among civilized states, governed by just and equitable laws, applicable to all alike residing under its protection, the necessity no longer exists: the increase of power, that is the natural result of all similar confederations, here becomes highly deleterious to the community at large, which possesses not similar advantages, and should be got rid of as a monstrous anomaly in our social and

political system, in the certain eventual evils of which both theory and experience concur.

Secret associations prevail among the negroes of Western Africa, termed Parrahs, of whose proceedings the French traveller, Goberry, gives us frightful accounts. It is not generally known in Europe that a secret fraternity obtains among the Brahmans of India. The late C. M. Whish, Esq., of the Madras Civil Service, whose profound knowledge of Sanskrit, general acquirements, and spirit of research, rendered his premature death an incalculable loss to Indian literature and science, was, I am assured on the best authority, deeply versed in the arcana of this society, and even possessed a copy of their most secret signs. This he once showed to a Syrian Jew who was travelling over India with antiques: the Jew at the first glance of the mystic characters started back with amazement, as though he had beheld a sudden apparition. It is highly probable that the talisman, which called up these strong emotions in the wandering Israelite, was no other than some symbol, which, by its resemblance, brought vividly to his mind the great Tetragrammaton of his nation. This, as already observed, bears a close affinity to the triangular seal of the Tien-ti-huih, having the symbol of light, equivalent to the mysterious and radiant god of the Tetragrammaton in its centre. A paper was prepared, I believe, by Mr. Whish, on the subject of the Brahmanical brotherhood, but has never been published.

ART. VII.-On the White-haired Angora Goat, and on another species of Goat found in the same province, resembling the Thibet Shawl Goat; by LIEUT. ARTHUR CONOLLY, of the Bengal Cavalry, Cor. M.R.A.S.

(Read January 18, 1840.)

On a recent excursion through part of Asia Minor, being accom. panied by a friend who spoke Turkish and Armenian perfectly, I noted some information that he collected, first regarding the long famed silvery white-hair goat of Angora, and next about a goat resembling the shawl goat of Thibet, that exists throughout the country to which the first beautiful animal is peculiar. I was about to forward the said notes from Constantinople, with a box of specimens for the Society, when learning that the second species of goat alluded to abounded in other parts of Turkey, through or near which I should shortly travel, I put my memorandums aside in the hope of being able to extend them. I now beg to offer the result of the whole inquiry thus far, having for the convenience of illustration separated the details concerning each race of the animal under remark.

The goat of the first race, peculiar to the province of Angora and certain adjoining districts, is invariably white, and its coat is of one sort, viz. a silky hair, which hangs in long curly locks'. The general appearance of this animal is too well known to need mention here, The country within which it is found, was thus described to us : "Take Angora as a centre: then the Kizzil Ermak (or Halys). Changeré, and from eight to ten hours' march (say thirty miles) beyond; Beybazar and the same distance beyond, to near Nalahan ; Sevree Hissar; Yoorrook, Tosiah, Costambool; Geredeh, and Cherkesh," from the whole of which tract the common bristly goat is excluded. Kinnier did not see a long-haired goat east of the Halys: we marked the disappearance of this animal on the westward, a little before Nalahan". Our Angora informants

See Spec. A., Nos. 1 and 2.

A village named from Nomade families so called, who inhabit the mountains above it.

3 This probably is the point noted by Kinnier, as "Wullee Khan," for we met no person who knew a place of the latter name.