INTRODUCTION. 3 



the dimensions of a child's little finger, the back is green, 

 and the belly speckled with white and red. It is pro- 

 vided with two wings, and on its head with two horns. 

 To this little winged deity, whenever they set eyes on it, 

 they render the highest tokens of veneration ; and if it 

 honours a Kraal (a village) with a visit, the inhabitants 

 assemble about it in transports of devotion, as if the 

 LORD OF THE UNIVERSE was come among them. They 

 sing and dance round it while it stays, troop after troop 

 throwing to it the powder of Bachu, with which they cover 

 at the same time the whole of the kraal, the tops of their 

 cottages, and everything without doors. They likewise 

 kill two fat sheep as a thank-offering for this high honour. 

 It is impossible to drive out of a Hottentot's head that 

 the arrival of this insect to a kraal brings favour and 

 prosperity to the inhabitants."* 



That this worship should have obtained so widely, will 

 not seem wonderful, when we recal the historical 

 evidences of the power of these little creatures, and re- 

 member that under the polytheistic system of religion, 

 not only were the beneficent powers of nature adored, 

 but the agents prejudicial to man were personified, and 

 became the objects of deprecation. Hence, it could 

 hardly fail that creatures so powerful for evil as to be 

 the means of devastating and rendering uninhabitable 

 whole tracts of country, should find a place amongst the 

 fear-inspiring gods of the heathen. 



Thus, too, it may easily be conceived that while the 

 Israelites of old were rejoicing over the messengers of 

 their All-Powerful Protector, that plague, which took its 



* Kolben's " Present State of the Cape of Good Hope," vol. i. , quoted 

 in Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, under " Beelzebub." 



B2 



