call their priest, now lifted his eyes to heaven with an air of devotion,
and remained for some moments like one absorbed in prayer or meditation.
He then rapidly uttered some words, which, of course, I could not
understand, whereon his attendants approached me gently, with signs of
respect and friendship. Not to appear lacking in courtesy, or inferior
in politeness to savages, I turned and raised my hat, which seemed still
more to alarm the old priest. He spoke to one of his attendants, who
instantly ran across the square, and entered the courtyard of a large
house, surrounded by a garden, of which the tall trees looked over the
wall, and wooden palisade. The old man then withdrew into the temple,
and I distinctly saw him scatter, with the leafy bough of a tree, some
water round him as he entered, from a vessel beside the door. This
convinced me that some of the emissaries of the Scarlet Woman had already
been busy among the benighted people, a conjecture, however, which proved
to be erroneous.

I was now left standing by the altar, the attendants observing me with
respect which I feared might at any moment take the blasphemous form of
worship. Nor could I see how I was to check their adoration, and turn it
into the proper channel, if, as happened to Captain Cook, and has
frequently occurred since, these darkened idolaters mistook me for one of
their own deities. I might spurn them, indeed; but when Nicholson
adopted that course, and beat the Fakirs who worshipped him during the
Indian Mutiny, his conduct, as I have read, only redoubled their
enthusiasm. However, as events proved, they never at any time were
inclined to substitute me for their heathen divinities; very far from it
indeed, though their peculiar conduct was calculated to foster in my
breast this melancholy delusion.

I had not been left long to my own thoughts when I marked lights