The author then proceeds to show the absurdity of breeches and
petticoats, with many other curious observations, which I shall
reserve for another occasion: I cannot, however, conclude this
paper without taking notice that amidst these wild remarks there now
and then appears something very reasonable. I cannot likewise
forbear observing, that we are all guilty in some measure of the
same narrow way of thinking which we meet with in this abstract of
the Indian journal, when we fancy the customs, dresses, and manners
of other countries are ridiculous and extravagant if they do not
resemble those of our own.



THE VISION OF MARRATON.



Felices errore suo. -
LUCAN i. 454.

Happy in their mistake.

The Americans believe that all creatures have souls, not only men
and women, but brutes, vegetables, nay, even the most inanimate
things, as stocks and stones. They believe the same of all works of
art, as of knives, boats, looking-glasses; and that, as any of these
things perish, their souls go into another world, which is inhabited
by the ghosts of men and women. For this reason they always place
by the corpse of their dead friend a bow and arrows, that he may
make use of the souls of them in the other world, as he did of their