274 



INDIAN AND OTHER 



whither, they say, he retired, after having terminated the 

 creation of the former. They name him our Father, our 

 Grandsire ; but neither ere6l to him an altar, nor build him a 

 temple, nor pay him the slightest homage. They simply ad- 

 dress themselves to him at the time of an earthquake. They 

 think that this phenomenon arises from his quitting the sky, 

 to pass in review living mortals, and to infer, from the noise 

 they make, the number of those who exist. Impressed with 

 this belief, and persuaded that at each of his steps the globe 

 trembles, they scarcely perceive the smallest movement, than 

 they all quit their huts simultaneously, running, leaping, and 

 stamping the ground, with the exclamation of, here we are, 

 here we are I A superstition of this nature unquestionably ori- 

 ginated from those primitive sentiments, deeply engraven in 

 the human breast, touching the adorable and beneficent pro- 

 vidence of God, which watches over mortals ; — from those 

 ineffable sentiments which can never be obliterated, either by 

 barbarism, by idolatry, or by those pernicious and perverse 

 deists who dare to lift the finger against Him to whom they 

 owe their being, and. who watches over their existence. How 

 great a benefit would it be to the human race, if these pre- 

 tended fathers of philosophy could be colle6led, and immured 

 in the forests of the country of the Amazons, to the end that, 

 in stamping the ground with the barbarians, they might at 

 least be led in this way to acknowledge the Divine Providence, 

 and cease to disturb the order which is so essentially conne6led 

 with the felicity and repose of man ! 



In developing the obscure traditions of the above-mentioned 

 Indians, a glimpse of the great events of the earliest epochs of 

 Nature, and even of those of posterior times, may be dis- 

 cerned ; 



