262 
RESIDENCE AT LATTAKOO. [1813. 
hands at this part of the entertainment. Then entered 
the girls, who danced for a niinute, when all of them 
suddenly dispersed, and our quiet was restored. 
Munaneets came to us in the evening, bringing our 
interpreter with him, when we had much interesting 
conversation. We enquired of him their reason for 
practising circumcision. He said it came to them 
from father to son. We then asked, Do you not 
know why your fathers did it? They shook their 
heads, saying, No. We told them that our book 
informed us how it began in the world, and gave them 
the names of Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, as the 
first persons who were circumcised. This appeared to 
them very interesting information, and they all tried 
to repeat the names we had mentioned, over and over 
again, looking to us for correction, if they pronounced 
any of them wrong. Munaneets, and the others who 
joined the company, appeared anxious to have them 
fixed on their memories. 
We asked them if they knew any thing of the origin 
of mankind, or whence they came. They said they 
came from some country beyond them, pointing to the 
N. which is the direction in which Judea lies. That 
two men came out of the water ; the one rich, having 
plenty of cattle, the other poor, having only dogs. 
One rived by oxen, the other by hunting. One of them 
fell, and the mark of his foot is on a rock to this day. 
We endeavoured to explain to them how knowledge, 
conveyed by means of books, was more certain than 
