CHAP, it.] WEST INDIES. 55 



heathen world; of which, not one, perhaps, had so 

 strong an apology to plead as the Charaibes. 



These observations, however, extend only to the 

 fair side of their religion, the worship of benevolent 

 deities. A darker superstition likewise prevailed 

 among all the unenlightened inhabitants of these cli- 

 mates; for they not only believed in the existence of 

 demons and evil spirits, but offered to them also by 

 the hands of their Boyez, or pretended magicians, sa- 

 crifices and worship; wounding themselves, on such 

 solemnities, with an instrument made of the teeth of 

 the agouti;* which inflicted horrible gashes; con- 

 ceiving, perhaps, that the malignant powers delighted 

 in groans and misery, and were to be appeased only 

 by human blood, j- I am of opinion, nevertheless, that 

 even this latter species of idolatry originated in reve- 

 rential piety, and an awful sense of almighty power 

 and infinite perfection. That we receive both good and 

 evil at the hands of God, and that the Supreme Being 

 is equally wise and benevolent in the dispensation of 

 both, are truths which we are taught, as well by cul- 

 tivated reason, as by holy writ; but they are truths, 

 to the right apprehension of which uncivilized man 

 was, perhaps, at all times incompetent. The savage, 

 indeed, amidst the destructive terrors of the hurricane 

 and the earthquake, might easily conclude, that no- 

 thing less than Omnipotence itself, " visiting the na- 

 tions in his wrath," could thus harrow up the world; 



* See Chap. 4. 



f Du Tertre, tom.ii. p. 365. 



