256 SUMATRA, 
power or virtue. It is reported to have been once thrown down into 
tht water, and to have raifed itfcif again, to its original pofition ; agi- 
tating the elements at the fame time with a prodigious ftorm. To ap- 
proach it without refpe^t^ they believe to be the fource of misfortune 
to the offender 
The inland people of that country, are fald to pay a kind of adoration 
to the fea, and to make to it an offering of cakes and fweetmeats (jmda)^ 
on their beholding it for the firfl time, deprecating its power of doing 
them mifchicf. This is by no means furprizing, when we confider 
the natural pronenefs of unenlightened mankind, to regard with 
fuperftitlous awe, whatever has the power of injuring them without 
controiil, and particularly when it is attended with any circuraftances, 
myftcrious and inexplicable to their underft an dings* The fea polTefles 
all thefe qualities. Its dcftrudive and irrefiflible power is often felt, 
■and efpccially on the coafts of India, where tremendous furfs are conflantly 
breaking on the Jhore, rifing often to their greateft degree of violence, 
without any apparent pjft^xnaJ cawiV. A Ad to tiiJa, chc Rue. and reflux, 
and perpetual ordinary motion of that element ; wonderful even to phi- 
iofophers who are acquainted with the caufe ; unaccountable to igno- 
rant men, though long accuflomed to the eflfedts ; but to thofe who 
only once or t^vice in their lives, have been eye witneffes to the phe- 
nomena, fupernatural and divine. It muft not however be underftood, 
that any thing like a regular worfhip is paid to the fea, by thefe people, 
any more than we Ihould conclude, that people in England worfliip 
witches, when they nail a horfe-fhoe on the threfhold, to prevent their 
approach, or break the bottoms of egg^hells, to hinder them from failing 
in them- It is with the inhabitants of Lampoon, no more than a tem- 
porary fentiment of fear and refped, which a little familiarity foon ef- 
faces. Many of them, indeed, imagine it endowed with a principle of 
voluntary motion. They tell a ftory of an ignorant fellow, who ob- 
■ferving with aftonifhment its continual agitation, carried a velTel of fea 
water with him, on his return to the country^ and poured it into a lake, 
in 
