622 THE UNIVERSE. 



compared to the gulfs of Tartarus. The crater of the moun- 

 tain we have just spoken of was called by the ancient 

 American caciques the Hell of Masaya. 



" The island of Java," says Elisee Reel us, " owed to the 

 beauty and the violence of its volcanoes the honor of being 

 entirely consecrated to Siva, the god of destruction ; and it 

 was in the very craters of the mountains that the worship- 

 pers of terror and death constructed their temples." At 

 the present day some pious worshippers of the terrible 

 divinity take up their abode in the neighborhood of these 

 craters, and at certain times make them offerings of seeds, 

 such as are used for food, which they cast into their fiery 

 and bellowing mouths. But these dreadful volcanic gods 

 are not always appeased by such offerings, and with the 

 voice of thunder call for human sacrifices. " Innumerable 

 sacrifices have been offered to the volcanoes, in order to 

 appease their wrath," continues the author of the " Earth." 

 " By a mixture of fear and ferocity the priests of many re- 

 ligions have with great pomp thrown victims into the yawn- 

 ing gulfs of these enormous furnaces. Scarcely three cen- 

 turies ago, when the Christians were exterminated through- 

 out the whole extent of Japan, converts to the new faith 

 were precipitated by hundreds into the crater of Unsen, one 

 of the most beautiful volcanoes of the archipelago ; but this 

 offering to the offended gods did not calm their wrath, for 

 about the end of the eighteenth century this same moun- 

 tain of Unsen and the neighboring summits caused by their 

 eruption one of the most terrible disasters of which the his- 

 tory of volcanoes makes mention. Through a sentiment of 

 fear analogous to that of the Japanese priests, the Christian 



