A MISADVENTURE. 



223 



transferable with all their beneficial powers ; they 

 therefore often stole them from each other, and, when 

 the Spaniards arrived, hid them away lest they should 

 be taken by the strangers. They believed that these 

 zemes presided over every object in nature. Some 

 had sway over the elements, causing sterile or abun- 

 dant years ; some governed the seas and forests, the 

 springs and fountains, like the nereids, the dryads, 

 and satyrs of antiquity. Once a year each cacique 

 held a feast in honor of his zemi, when his subjects 



An J 



formed a procession to the temple ; the married men 

 and women decorated with their most precious orna- 

 ments, the young females entirely naked, carrying 

 baskets of. flowers and cakes, and singing as they 

 advanced." 



In the "Smithsonian Report" for 1876 is an elabo- 

 rate article describing, with many engravings, a col- 

 lection of antiquities from Porto Rico, containing 

 several Indian "stools" of stone and wood. These 

 stools are ornamented with a head-piece resembling 

 this tortoise, and even the eye-sockets have the ap- 



