308 R. H. MATHEWS, ESQ., L.S., ON 
he answered, giving the native name, “the one who does all the 
mischief in the world, and causes all the wars.” He took him 
round to his hut and showed him a huge sea-snake which he had 
slain. ‘That is not the devil,” said Paton; but the man 
maintained that it was the creature which had brought all evil 
into the world.* 
I do not agree with the speaker (if indeed it is his opinion) 
who said that these men had risen from a much ruder state. 
A very remarkable fact was brought to lhght at the British 
Association meeting at Oxford in 1894. Mr. Basil H. Thomson, 
who, while surveying the Fijian island Levuka, had studied its 
traditions, told the natives’ story that their ancestors had come 
from the west in eight canoes, and that seven out of the eight 
were lost. The chief of the whole party was however saved; but 
seeing what had happened in the terrible storm, he exclaimed, 
“Oh, my writings, my writings! I have lost my writings through 
that storm; and I am not able to transmit to my children the 
history of our people.” So that nation had once possessed a 
means of exactly recording events which they had utterly lost 
when the missionaries reached the island. 
In 1893 or ’94 Mr. George O’Brien wrote a pamphlet for the 
Civil Engineers Institution, on the conditions of climate in the 
desert of Atacama, in the course of which he stated that at a 
point on the Inca road near to the desert there is a large inscrip- 
tion in Quichra, the language of the ancient people of Peru; 
whereas the Spanish historians tell us that at the conquest they 
had no writing; but there stands that great slab with writing 
upon it. 
But just as nations and tribes through degrading superstitions 
Jost the intelligent knowledge of their Creator, so through 
constant wars did they lose many industrial and refining arts; 
and the more they moved away from one another into remote 
islands and peninsulas, while continuing their idolatries and giving 
free rein to jealousy and revenge, the more completely did they 
forget true religion and noble handicraft. It used to be said that 
the Australians had no religion, I daresay that is within the 
memory of everyone here. That false accusation was utterly 
dispelled by John Paton of the New Hebrides. When crossing 
* John J. Paton, ii, 156. 
