1 1 8 Voyage of the Novara. 



tion, was the son of an aged doctor of the island of Kondul, 

 and owed his reputation solely to the circumstance of his 

 kindi-ed. Besides cases of sickness, the advice, the adroitness, 

 and the zeal of the Manluena are held in special repute for 

 the driving out of the evil spirit or Ecwees, by which, as al- 

 ready mentioned, the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands be- 

 lieve themselves to be incessantly surrounded. 



Of idols proper, such as barbarous tribes construct and 

 honour, and to whom they dedicate temples, they have none ; 

 nor have they any object in nature, as, for instance, a lofty tree, 

 a huge rock or a hill, to which they attach a certain charm, 

 like some of the Central American tribes. They have not even 

 a word for the Divine idea in their language, nor for Godhead, 

 nor for any Beneficent Principle or Being, and the rudely 

 carved figures, which are found set up in all sorts of comical 

 postures within their huts, are intended to serve no higher 

 purpose, than to frighten away those evil spirits which even 

 the Manluena has been unable to see, though he sets himself 

 forward as able to hold converse with them. 



The notion of a Being, whose wisdom and whose love 

 rule the world, is quite as foreign to their minds as the con- 

 ception of a spiritual life in the future after death. We^ 

 repeatedly asked one of their most intelligent leaders, wKo' 

 also S2ooke a little English, whether he believed he should 

 ever again recognize his dead friends and relatives ? But he 

 replied invariably with a cold, indifferent, ''Never, never!" 

 All that we told them of the privileges of a believing Christian, 



ll ' I • JLoJl ^i^i 



