CURIOSITIES OF SUPERSTITION. 4?1 



trie currents ; the thick wrappage of ingenious phraseology arresting 

 the destructive discharge. There was, indeed, an elaborate and pre- 

 tentious logic, supplied by Aristotle, and amended by Bacon ; what 

 was still wanted was a taste of the logic of freedom. 



-+*+- 



CURIOSITIES OF SUPERSTITION. 



Br FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D. 

 II. 



DURING the reign of Philip II of Spain, the Government spies in 

 the province of Malaga made a curious discovery. In the highest 

 valleys of the Alpujarras, and surrounded by a population of recently 

 converted Moors, they found a tribe of mountaineers whose vernacular 

 was as different from the Arabian as from the Spanish language, and 

 whose neighbors believed them to be descendants of the ancient Ibe- 

 rians. The Ghabirs, as the Moors called them, were a most primitive 

 and harmless race, their food consisted of the vegetable products of 

 their peaceful valley, their only religious function in sacrificing milk 

 and fruits to the spirit of the mountains. A few weeks after the dis- 

 coverer had made his report to the Holy Office, a detachment of troop- 

 ers and monks invaded the Alpujarras, the Ghabirs were dragged to 

 Velez Malaga, and burned by order of the Grand Inquisitor. Their 

 crime could not be condoned : they had disregarded the proclamation 

 of 1562, and evaded tithes and baptism for seven years. In vain they 

 pleaded their poverty, their ancient customs, and their ignorance of 

 the Spanish language ; " they were all invested with the sanbenito" 

 says the chronicler, " and broiled to death with the proper ceremonies." 

 The shrieks of the victims were heard at Loja, and for three days the 

 harbor of Velez was filled with the stench of burned human flesh. It 

 was a most edifying auto dafe "an act of faith." The same faith 

 had filled the Netherlands with blood and horror, had raged like the 

 Black Death among the helpless aborigines of the New World, and 

 had orthodoxed Spain by the systematic suppression of freedom, com- 

 mon sense, manhood, industry, and science. 



And yet that monstrous superstition had undoubtedly supporters 

 who honestly mistook it for the purest and most beneficent of all pos- 

 sible creeds. But we may be equally sure that mere ignorance would 

 never have produced such delusions. The worst delusions are not the 

 primitive ones, not the crude superstitions of a primitive people. The 

 dogmas of an Ashantee rain-maker are harmless compared with those 

 of a Spanish Inquisitor. "We find priests and ignorance both in Ash- 

 antee and in Spain, but with this difference, that in Ashantee igno- 



