60 SUPERSTITIONS. 



him to be, insane. If not the memory of his crime, 

 and the consequent remorse which it entailed upon 

 him, perhaps the fugitive life he was compelled to 

 lead in order to avoid the wrath of human retribu- 

 tion, had been used to make manifest the anger of 

 Heaven for this breach of one of those first great 

 laws of human society, which are almost as much 

 instincts of our nature as revelations fi'om the 

 Creator to the creatures of his will ! 



The natives have a superstitious horror of ap- 

 proaching the graves of the dead, of whom they 

 never like to speak, and when induced to do so, 

 always whisper. A settler, residing in a danger- 

 ous part of the colony, had two soldiers stationed 

 with him as a guard : upon one occasion five natives 

 rushed in at a moment when the soldiers were un- 

 prepared for their reception, and a terrible struggle 

 ensued : the soldiers, however, managed, while 

 on the ground, to shoot two of them, and bayonetted 

 the remaining three. The five were afterwards 

 buried before the door, nor could a more perfect 

 safeguard have been devised ; no thought even of 

 revenge for their comrades would afterwards induce 

 any of the tribe to pass that fearful boundary. 



Their most curious superstition, however, re- 

 mains to be recorded ; it is the opinion they con- 

 fidently entertain, and which seems universally 

 diffused among them, that the white people are their 

 former fellow countrymen, who in such altered guise 

 revisit the world after death. Miago assured me that 



