ARCADIA. 403 



refts. Upon this, feized with a religious horror, 

 they proftrated themfelves to the ground, and 

 adored, with trembling, thofe vain phantoms of 

 their own imagination. Our guides themfelves 

 never durft have traverfed thofe awful regions, 

 which religion had rendered formidable in their 

 eyes, had not their confidence bçen fupported 

 much more by the branch of miftletoe with which 

 J was armed, than by all our reafonings. 



We did not find, in the courfe of our progrefà 

 through the Gauls, any appearance of a rational 

 worfliip of the Deity, excepting that one even- 

 ing, on our arrival at thefpmmit of a fnow-covered 

 jnouncain, we perceived there a fire, in the midfl: 

 of a grove of beech-trees and firs. A mofs-grown 

 rock, hewn out in form of an altar, ferved as a 

 hearth to it. It was furronnded with large piles of 

 dry wood, and with a large alTprtmcnt of bear and 

 wolf-fkins, fufpended on the boughs of the neigh- 

 bouring trees. In every other refped, there was 

 not perceptible all around this folitude, through 

 the whole extent of the Horizon, any one trace of 

 human habitation. Our guides infprrued us, that 

 this fpot was coniccrated to t\\ç God who prefides 

 over travellers. The word conjecraïed made mç 

 fliudder. " Let us removed hence," faid I to 

 Cephas. *' Every altar in the Gauls excites a thou- 

 f' fand fufpicions in my bread. I will hencefor- 



p d 2 ward 



