Now, how did this propitiatory practice find its way into the North and South American tribes? This is not the place to cite authorities, but all reputable historians and travellers who have studied the customs of the aboriginal nations, tell us that the practice of fasting, particularly when calamity threatened the people, was universal. I know for a fact that among the Arrawaks, the Macoushi and Carib Indians of British Guiana no youth is promoted to warrior rank, or warrior to chieftainship, till he has purified himself by a vigorous fast. Everywhere in the Old and New Testaments, among the prophets, the apostles, the Pharisees and Saducees, the thread of the fast runs as plainly as a silver warp through black velvet. Is this practice of propitiation a natural emanation of ourselves, or is it an inheritance from the dawn of our race? Now, let us come to another extraordinary fact. In the sixth chapter of the Book of Numbers, eighteenth verse, it is ordered that the Nazarites, of whom were Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist, "when they shall separate themselves unto the Lord

shall shave their heads at the door of the tabernacle." This was done by the command of God Himself. St. Paul after his conversion to Christianity, "shaved his head in Cenchrea, for he had a vow." To-day, and from the establishment of the monastic orders, even among the Cenobites and Ancorites in the second and third centuries, the renunciation of the world and incorporation into the spiritual order was and is begun by shaving

the head. The novice, when graduated into any of our religious orders for women, surrenders her hair, and the tonsure of the priests in Latin America, Quebec and Latin Europe is but a survival of this very ancient and Biblical practice. On the side of the woman, parting with her hair is indeed an act of self-sacrifice, for "if a woman has long hair, it is a glory unto her," writes St. Paul to the Corinthians.

The cutting of the hair must, therefore, have a deeper meaning than that implied in an act of selfdenial. Now, how did this practice find its way into the forests of South and Central America? All early historians, Landas, Ximenes, Las Casas, Brasseur de Bourbourg, who passed thirteen years with the people and translated their sacred book, the "Popul-Vuh," mention, without attempting to explain the custom, the cutting of the hair as an act of sacrifice and preparation for certain religious ceremonies or introduction to a particular order. In Nicaragua the Nacon, or war chief, elected every three years, shaved his head on taking office, and in Yucatan, the Tapaligui, holder of the most honourable office of the state, not only shaved his head, but was obliged to live a life of continence, and abstain from meat and wine. I reluctantly abstain from giving my views on this subject, for I am dealing with facts only, leaving reasons and motives to be explained by others. Among the unconverted tribes of this strange land there is a superstitious dread of some mysterious being which, like the

Leprehauns of Ireland, the Jinns of Asia, the goblins, gnomes and sprites of England and western Europe and the jumbies of Africa and the West Indies, takes a demoniacal delight in haunting and waylaying travellers.

Here he is called the Yama and assumes various forms, though he prefers to take the shape of a small old man whose body is covered with hair. The folklore of the Indian is saturated with his extraordinary performances. Now how did this mythically strange man originate, and by what singular law of perpetuation did he survive the migration of our race and find his way into foreign lands, even into America? I pass over other practices and ceremonies such as circumcision, perpetual fire, propitiation of demons, vestal virginity, suttee or wife sacrifice and the laceration of the flesh for penitential reasons, common to these Indians as to the ancient Jews, East Indians, Mohammedans and other Asiatics. The universality of these practices, to my mind, makes for the unity and origin of man in some cradle-land in India, Central Asia or perhaps in Lemuria or Atlantis, the lost continents.

CHAPTER XXII

NICARAGUA-A LAND ACQUAINTED WITH
AFFLICTION

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Radical faith, and the Radical faith is this. Justice is justice, because the majority so declare it. And if the majority affirm one thing to-day, that is right; and if the majority affirm the opposite to-morrow, that is right.-Froude.

THE morning I left the miserable little village at the mouth of the Realejo River for Leon, Nicaragua, it was raining fiercely. A curious crowd assembled at the mouth of the river to see us off. While I was stepping into the boat the bell in the village church began to ring. All hats were removed, all talk was stopped, and with bowed heads the sailors and those on the river shore stood still. With the last stroke of the Angelus bell our men gave the hoo-pah shout, the captain blew his conch shell, the marineros bent to the oars, we shouted adios to the shore crowd, and swept into mid-river.

For miles the banks of the Realejo were lined with gamelote grass, forming a sedge where the river broadened into shallow reaches. The silence was broken only by the whistle of the lizard or the bark of some far-off marsh frog. The river as we advanced deepened and narrowed, and the rising banks took on a covering of cabbage palms, whose broad, sweeping leaves flung a shadow on the quiet