more believes in the possible, the less he is acquainted with the real. Hence his joys and his terrors. He constructs for himself a fantastic world, which enchants and appals him by turns. He realizes his dreams; he has not yet that roughness of analysis which at an age of reflection places us as cold observers, face to face with reality. Such was the primitive man. Scarce separated from Nature, he conversed with her, addressed her, and listened to her voice. This great mother with whom he was still connected by his arteries, appeared to him alive and animated. At the sight of the phenomena of the physical world he experienced divers impressions, which, receiving form and substance from his imagination, became gods; he adored his sensations, or rather the vague and unknown object of his sensations, for not being able yet to separate the object from the subject, the world was himself and he himself the world.”*

Whoever has lived among savages, that is to say, with primitive men, with those who are still children-men, and especially with those races of Oceania, so simple, so natural, so credulous, so infantine, is compelled to acknowledge that this exquisite sketch is an exact expression of the truth. To those beings who are still "sucklings at the breast of Nature," and in perpetual communion with her, there is life everywhere, a life analogous to human life on every side. All is personified and living; physical forces are moral and divine powers. Does the volcano vomit forth

* Études d'Histoire religieuse, par E. Renan; 3rd edit., pp. 15, 16.

ifs torrents of fire? It is the goddess Pele who is giving vent to her wrath, or chastising impiety. Does the thunder roar and the lightning flash? It is the god Kahekili who grows wrathful in the sky. Is the sea tossed by the tempest? It is the monster Uhumakaikai who lashes the waves. It must be remarked also, that this primitive religion is so natural, and in such perfect keeping with the childhood of humanity, for which it has so much which is charming and seductive, that the difficulty of completely superseding it is extreme. Hence the well-established fact, that the savages of the Pacific, even when they fancy they are converts, whether to Catholicism or Protestantism, continue, at the bottom of their hearts, idolaters. They are unable entirely to break the charm, and dissipate the fumes of their intoxication. The worship of Nature maintains itself, whatever the outward appearances may be, and continues persistently to exist beneath the forms of a superior religion, which has done nothing more than skim over the surface. Nothing would be easier than to prove the want of steadfastness in the new man, and to lay bare the old man. I could cite numberless facts which would place this assertion beyond all doubt. I will confine myself to mentioning one or two, but which, unless I much mistake, are decidedly characteristic.

One occurred in the Great Hawaii. I had taken up my quarters on the edge of the crater of Kilauea, whence it was easy for me to diverge in all directions for the pur

pose of exploring the volcanoes of this region, which are the largest in the world. One day, on my descending from the crater of Mokuaweoweo, situated about ten thousand feet above that of Kilauea, some native travellers, converts to Catholicism, came towards nightfall, and took up their quarters in my hut. The difficult feat I had just accomplished was the subject of our conversation throughout the evening. I related to the islanders the different incidents of my ascent, explained to them the phenomena I had observed, and while trying to make them comprehend the theory of volcanoes, I told them that I foresaw an impending eruption. Judging by their expression, it seemed to me that they took little interest in what I had been saying, of which, indeed, I soon ascertained that they had comprehended absolutely nothing. On my ceasing to speak, they inquired if I had never met the spirit of the volcanoes, the goddess Pele, under the form of an old woman. The unexpected question suggested to me the idea of amusing them by telling them a story in accordance with their taste. I pretended I had seen the goddess Pele, in the midst of the sulphurous vapours, and I painted her in the most fantastic colours which my imagination could supply. It so happened that my description was accurate enough, save in one point: I had represented Pele as an old woman excessively emaciated and sickly, whereas, according to their traditions, she was a strapping virago. This, however, did not prevent my auditors from receiving my fable

to the very letter, and they took upon themselves to put me in harmony with the Hawaiian mythology, by explaining that the emaciation I had ascribed to the goddess, was the result of the long fast she had undergone since Christianity had overthrown her altars. "It is clear," they said, "that Pele is dying of hunger; so long is it since we carried her any food!" Then, recollecting that I had spoken to them of an eruption about to take place, they exclaimed, "Alas! where are you, people of Hawaii? The goddess has wasted away, in consequence of the distress in which we have suffered her to fall; and behold! in revenge for our ingratitude, she is preparing to overwhelm us with her wrath. Without loss of time we must atone our fault, and carry her offerings of food." The next morning, the islanders, after taking leave of me, went forth on their way. I thought no more of them; but towards evening, I saw a priest of the goddess Pele ascending to the crater, escorted by natives, both Catholic and Protestant, bearing all sorts of eatables. Though they had taken the most minute precautions to conceal the object of their pilgrimage from me, and had, in order the more completely to cover their purpose, offered me a part of the presents which they brought, I succeeded in eluding their vigilance, and assisting, without being seen, at the expiatory ceremony. I saw the faithful cast down their offerings into the glowing lava of Kilauea, while the priest, accompanying his words with a thousand incomprehensible gestures, supplicated the god

dess to forgive the Hawaiians the impiety they had committed in deserting her worship for that of the strange God. I had afterwards the opportunity of relating, amid the different tribes of the Archipelago, my adventures on Mokuaweoweo, and the meeting I had had with Pele; and never did I find any of them indisposed to believe, but always met with the same state of feeling, and a similar contrition. It even happened, on one of these occasions, that some Christians, without in the least heeding the missionary who overheard them, began at the end of my recital to cry out that Pele was about to avenge the native divinities by vomiting her fire upon the Hawaiians, who under the influence of an impious pride had turned aside to the God of the stranger. Alarmed at the consequences of my fiction, the poor missionary, whose naïve simplicity I honestly admired, besought me to regard this apparition, which he himself accepted as a fact, as a contrivance of hell, an artifice of Satan, who, by appearing to me under the form of a pagan divinity, was endeavouring to rob him of his flock, and to lure me into idolatry. But neither his reiterated injunctions, nor my retractations of my own. story, could succeed in obliterating the remembrance of their ancient gods; for more than once, while the minister of the Gospel was administering the last rites to a dying Christian, it has happened to me to surprise some of them in the act of sacrificing white hens to the god Milu, at the dying man's own request.