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326 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
terrestriall policie, I have divers times wondered at
my selfe, to see in so great a distance of times and
places, the simpathy or jumping of so great a number
of popular and wilde opinions, and of extravagant
customes and beliefes, and which by no meanes seeme
to hold with our naturall discourse. Man's spirit is a
wonderfull worker of miracles. But this relation hath
yet a kind of I wot not what more Heteroclite: which
is found both in names and a thousand other things.
For there were found Nations which (as far as we
know) had never heard of us, where circumcision was
held in request; where great states and commonwealths
were maintained onely by women, and no
men: where our fasts and Lent was represented,
adding thereunto the abstinence from women; where
our crosses were severall waies in great esteeme. In
some places they adorned and honored their sepulchres
with them, and elsewher, especially that of Saint
Andrew, they employed to shield themselves from
nightly visions, and to lay them upon childrens
couches, as good against enchantments and witchcrafts.
In another place they found one made of
wood, of an exceeding height, worshipped for the God
of raine; which was thrust very deepe into the ground.
There was found a very expresse and lively image of
our Penitentiaries: the use of Miters, the Priestes
single life; the Art of Divination by the entrailes of
sacrificed beasts ; the abstinence from all sorts of flesh
and fish for their food ; the order amongst Priests, in
saying of their divine service, to use a not vulgar but
a particular tongue; and this erronious and fond conceipt,
that the first God was expelled his throne by a
younger brother of his : that they were at first created
with all commodities, which afterward, by reason of
their sinnes, were abridged them: that their territory
hath beene changed; that their naturall condition hath
beene much impaired : that they have heretofore beene
drowned by the inundation of Waters come from
heaven; that none were saved but a few families,
which cast themselves into the cracks or hollows of