NOTES

ON THE SECOND PART.

397

We neighbour nearer to the Sun! — I.

p. 207.

Columbus inferred this from the elevation of the Pole at Paria. "How it cometh to pass," says Pietro Martire, "that at the beginning of the evening twilight it is elevate in that region only five degrees in the month of June, and in the morning twilight to be elevate fifteen degrees by the same quadrant, I do not understand, nor yet do the reasons which he bringeth in any point satisfy me. For he saith that he hereby conjectured that the Earth is not perfectly round, but that, when it was created, there was a certain heap raised thereon, much higher than the other parts of the same. So that, as he sayth, it is not round after the form of an apple or a ball, as others think, but rather like a pear as it hangeth on the tree, and that Paria is the region which possesseth the supereminent or highest part thereof, nearest unto heaven. so much, that he earnestly contendeth the earthly Paradise to be situate in the tops of those three hills which the Watchmen saw out of the top castle of the ship; and that the outrageous streams of the fresh waters which so violently issue out of the said gulfs, and strive so with the salt water, fall headlong from the tops of the said mountains."— PIETRO MARTIRE, Dec. 1. Book 6.

In

A devout worshipper of this Deity once set out to see if he could find him; he reached the sea-coast, and there the God appeared to him, and bade him call the Whale, and the Mermaid, and the Tortoise, to make a bridge for him, over which he might pass to the house of the Sun, and bring back from thence instruments of music and singers to celebrate his festivals. The Whale, the Mermaid, and the Tortoise accordingly made the bridge, and the man went over it, singing, as he went, a song which the God taught him. As soon as the Sun heard him, he cautioned all his servants and people not to answer to the song, for they who answered would be obliged to abandon his House and follow the Singer. Some there were, however, who could not resist the voice of the charmer, and these he brought back with him to earth, together with the drum called Huahuneth and the Tepunaztli. — TORQUEMADA, 1. 6. c. 43.

The particular sacrifice related in the poem is described by this author, 1. 10. c. 14. It is sufficient merely to refer to my authorities in such instances as these, where no other liberty has been taken than that of omission.

She gather'd herbs, which, like our poppy, bear

The seed of sleep. — II. p. 212.

The expression is Gower's:

Poppy, which bearetr: the sede of sleepe.

The Spanish name for the poppy is adormidera.

The field of the Spirit. III. p. 219.

Every Spring the Akanceas go in a body to some retired place, and there turn up a large space of land, which they do with the drums beating all the while. After this they take care to call it the Desert, or the Field of the Spirit. And thither they go in good earnest when they are in their enthusiastic fits, and there wait for inspiration from their pretended Deity. In

the meanwhile, as they do this every year, it proves of no small advantage to them, for by this means they turn up all their land insensibly, and it becomes abundantly more fruitful. TONTI.

Before these things I was.

- III. p. 220.

«The manner in which, he says, he obtained the spirit of divination was this: He was admitted into the presence of a Great Man, who informed him that he loved, pitied, and desired to do him good. It was not in this world that he saw the Great Man, but in a world above, at a vast distance from this. The Great Man, he says, was clothed with the Day, yea with the brightest Day, he ever saw; a Day of many years, yea of everlasting continuance! This whole world, he says, was drawn upon him, so that in him the Earth and all things in it might be seen. I asked him if rocks, mountains, and seas were drawn upon or appeared in him? he replied, that every thing that was beautiful and lovely in the earth was upon him, and might be seen by looking on him, as well as if one was on the earth to take a view of them there. By the side of the Great Man, he says, stood his Shadow or Spirit, for he used chichung, the word they commonly make use of to express that of the man which survives the body, which word properly signifies a shadow. This shadow, he says, was as lovely as the Man himself, and filled all places, and was most agreeable as well as wonderful to him. Here, he says, he tarried some time, and was unspeakably entertained and delighted with a view of the Great Man, of his Shadow, and of all things in him. And what is most of all astonishing, he imagines all this to have passed before he was born; he never had been, he says, in this world at that time, and what confirms him in the belief of this is, that the Great Man told him, that he must come down to earth, be born of such a woman, meet with such and such things, and in particular that he should once in his life be guilty of murder; at this he was displeased, and told the Great Man he would never murder. But the Great Man replied, I have said it, and it shall be so; which has accordingly happened. At this

time, he says, the Great Man asked him what he would chuse
in life; he replied, first to be a Hunter, and afterwards to be a
Powwow, or Divine; whereupon the Great Man told him, he
should have what he desired, and that his Shadow should go
along with him down to earth, and be with him for ever. There
was, he says, all this time no words spoken between them; the
conference was not carried on by any human language, but
they had a kind of mental intelligence of each other's thoughts,
dispositions, and proposals. After this, he says, he saw the
Great Man no more, but supposes he now came down to earth
to be born; but the Shadow of the Great Man still attended
him, and ever after continued to appear to him in dreams and
other ways.
This Shadow used sometimes to direct him in
dreams to go to such a place and hunt, assuring him he should
there meet with success, which accordingly proved so; and
when he had been there some time the Spirit would order him
to another place, so that he had success in hunting, according
to the Great Man's promise, made to him at the time of his
chusing this employment.

"There were some times when this Spirit came upon him in a special manner, and he was full of what he saw in the Great Man, and then, he says, he was all light, and not only light himself, but it was light all around him, so that he could see through men, and knew the thoughts of their hearts. These depths of Satan I leave to others to fathom or to dive into as they please, and do not pretend, for my own part, to know what ideas to affix to such terms, and cannot well guess what conceptions of things these creatures have at these times when they call themselves all light." · DAVID BRAINERD's Journal. Had Brainerd been a Jesuit, his superiors would certainly have thought him a fit candidate for the crown of martyrdom, and worthy to be made a Saint.

He found one of the Indian conjurers who seemed to have something like grace in him, only he would not believe in the Devil. "Of all the sights," says he, "I ever saw among them, or indeed any where else, none appeared so frightful, or so near akin to what is usually imagined of infernal powers! none ever

excited such images of terror in my mind as the appearance of one, who was a devout and zealous reformer, or rather restorer, of what he supposed was the ancient religion of the Indians. He made his appearance in his pontifical garb, which was a coat of bears' skins, dressed with the hair on, and hanging dowr to his toes, a pair of bear-skin stockings, and a great wooden face, painted the one half black, and the other tawny, about the colour of an Indian's skin, with an extravagant mouth, cut very much awry; the face fastened to a bear-skin cap, which was drawn over his head. He advanced towards me with the instrument in his hand that he used for music in his idolatrous worship, which was a dry Tortoise-shell, with some corn in it, and the neck of it drawn on to a piece of wood, which made a very convenient handle. As he came forward, he beat his tune with the rattle, and danced with all his might, but did not suffer any part of his body, not so much as his fingers, to be seen; and no man would have guessed by his appearance and actions that he could have been a human creature, if they had not had some intimation of it otherwise. When he came near me, I could not but shrink away from him, although it was then noon day, and I knew who it was, his appearance and gestures were so prodigiously frightful. He had a house consecrated to religious uses, with divers images cut out upon the several parts of it; I went in, and found the ground beat almost as hard as a rock, with their frequent dancing on it. I discoursed with him about Christianity, and some of my discourse he seemed to like, but some of it he disliked entirely. He told me, that God had taught him his religion, and that he never would turn from it, but wanted to find some that would join heartily with him in it; for the Indians, he said, were grown very degenerate and corrupt. He had thought, he said, of leaving all his friends, and travelling abroad, in order to find some that would join with him; for he believed God had some good people somewhere that felt as he did. He had not always, he said, felt as he now did, but had formerly been like the rest of the Indians, until about four or five years before that time; then, he said, his heart was very much distressed, so that