IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



astute guessing or to mere coincidence. 



A feat more difficult to explain is the 

 recovery of a lost article for the owner. 

 Elsewhere I have related how the sceptical 

 Bastien's knife was restored to him from an 

 impossible distance in an impossible space 

 of time. This intelligent and very- 

 observing man had no guess to ofifer as to 

 how the thing was done. 



In every case, whether aid is sought or 

 advice, the want must be a real one. Idle 

 or curious appeals to the oracle are not 

 sanctioned. The need of counsel must be 

 urgent, the property to be recovered in- 

 dispensable. The replacing, for example, 

 of a broken ax-head may be considered as 

 worthy the efforts of the spirits and their 

 minister; at the end of the usual ceremon- 

 ies, T has seen a new ax-head disclosed 



upon the raising of a vessel from the sand 

 w^hich before lay bare. There was no pre- 

 tence to create this out of the void; the 

 assertion was that the actual blade had been 

 fetched by the spirits from the trader's 

 store — perhaps a couple of hundred miles 

 away. Words comfort even where they do 

 not enlighten, and we should describe these 

 processes as dematerialization, conveyance 

 from place to place in unsubstantial form 

 and subsequent rematerialization. 

 196 



I 



