A Letter on Otaheite. 287 



ting the wonders that surround him ; that discerns in every thing 

 about him, the hand of a divine being ; this language contains the 

 thoughts of one who has an enhghtened understanding, has been 

 taught the subliraest of all rehgions, and has been instructed in the 

 duties of gratitude and adoration to one omnipotent being." 



But besides those extracts from their traditions, which together 

 with the elevated idea of a single first divinity, do not recognize ei- 

 ther in their cosmogony, or in their description of their angels or 

 messengers, the doctrine of sabeism, or the worship of the stars, a 

 doctrine spreading almost every where, and found among the reli- 

 gious principles of almost every heathen people on earth ; their 

 names of " Angels of day ;" " Angels of night," the former, the 

 guardians of the earth, the latter, the guardians of the sea; the un- 

 ion of their divinitities with the different elements ; their just no- 

 tions respecting the effects produced by the elements ; their opin- 

 ions of the moon and of the earth, lead to the same reflection. 



In addition to these considerations, a singular fragment of their an- 

 cient astronomy, which I have in my possession, and in which like 

 the Egyptians, they make the stars travel in vessels ; in which they 

 call the starsj Castor and Pollux, " the twins ;" in which Sagitta- 

 rius has two faces, as in the monument of Dendera, and in their 

 language, is spoken of as " the red double faced star, Vhat 

 SHINES IN THE EVENING ;" fumishes a strong confirmation ; since a 

 coincrdefice so remarkable, seems to indicate some common source 

 or origin. 



There are also other passages, which plainly indicate that the an- 

 cestors of this people had made advances in knowledge, of which 

 the present inhabitants have preserved traces in their striking^ al- 

 though imperfect traditions, without knowing what they mean. 



These inhabitants, however, like many other races of men, have 

 corrupted their first and more just religious opinions, by the super- 

 stitions of Sabeism, and the personification of the operations and 

 forces of nature ; and it is probable, that, at a period of time ante- 

 rior to their dispersion among these Islands, they adopted, embodied 

 and converted into idols, those symbolical and allegorical beings, and 

 as a natural consequence, soon came to consider their natural opera- 

 tions and motions, as the effects of vohtion and power. 



On the supposition, however, that these traditions were wholly 

 uncertain in their meaning and tendency, yet we could not fail to 

 discover in them, thoughts and reflections, which, far from being the 



