i66 
A VOYAGE TO 
1 777 . the fea, remain there; where they think that there is a fine 
Decemb^ country, houfes, and every thing that can make them hap¬ 
py. But what is more fingular, they maintain, that not 
only all other animals, but trees, fruit, and even hones, 
have fouls, which at death, or upon being confumed or 
broken, afcend to the divinity, with whom they firft mix, 
and afterwards pafs into the manfion allotted to each. 
i 
They imagine, that their punctual performance of reli¬ 
gious offices procures for them every temporal bleffing. 
And as they believe, that the animating and powerful influ¬ 
ence of the divine fpirit is every where diffiifed, it is no 
wonder that they join to this many fuperftitious opinions 
about its operations. Accordingly, they believe that fudden 
deaths, and all other accidents, are effected by the im¬ 
mediate adtion of fome divinity. If a man only Humble 
again!! a ftone, and hurt his toe, they impute it to an Ea - 
tooa ; fo that they may be literally faid, agreeably to their 
fyflem, to tread enchanted ground. They are flartled, in 
the night, on approaching a toopapaoo , where the dead are 
expofed, in the fame manner that many of our ignorant 
and fuperftitious people are with the apprehenfions of 
ghofts, and at the fight of a church-yard; and they have 
an equal confidence in dreams, which they fuppofe to be 
communications either from their God, or from the fpirits 
of their departed friends, enabling thofe favoured with 
/ them to foretell future events; but this kind of knowledge 
is confined to particular people. Omai pretended to have 
this gift. He told us, that the foul of his father had inti¬ 
mated to him in a dream, on the 26th of July 1776, that he 
fhould go on fhore, at fome place, within three days; but 
he was unfortunate in this firft attempt to perfuade us, that 
he was a prophet; for it was the ill of Auguft before we 
3 got 
