moon, which they look upon to be newly created, the pagan natives,
as well as Mohammedans, say a short prayer; and this seems to be the
only visible adoration which the kafirs offer up to the Supreme
Being. This prayer is pronounced in a whisper, the party holding up
his hands before his face: its purport (as I have been assured by
many different people) is to return thanks to God for His kindness
through the existence of the past moon, and to solicit a
continuation of His favour during that of the new one. At the
conclusion they spit upon their hands and rub them over their faces.
This seems to be nearly the same ceremony which prevailed among the
heathens in the days of Job. {5}

Great attention, however, is paid to the changes of this luminary in
its monthly course, and it is thought very unlucky to begin a
journey, or any other work of consequence, in the last quarter. An
eclipse, whether of the sun or moon, is supposed to be effected by
witchcraft. The stars are very little regarded; and the whole study
of astronomy appears to them as a useless pursuit, and attended to
by such persons only as deal in magic.

Their notions of geography are equally puerile. They imagine that
the world is an extended plain, the termination of which no eye has
discovered--it being, they say, overhung with clouds and darkness.
They describe the sea as a large river of salt water, on the farther
shore of which is situated a country called Tobaubo doo (the land of
the white people). At a distance from Tobaubo doo they describe
another country, which they allege as inhabited by cannibals of
gigantic size, called komi. This country they call Jong sang doo
(the land where the slaves are sold). But of all countries in the
world their own appears to them as the best, and their own people as