Hamar was now inclined to regard the book in a very different light.  What he had read seemed to him to be set down in too simple, straightforward, and, at the same time, detailed a manner to be other than true.  Up to the present he had not believed in ghosts and witches, for the very simple reason that—­like all sceptics—­he had never inquired into the testimony respecting them.  He had pooh-poohed the subject, because every one he knew pooh-poohed it, and also because it had never seemed worth his while to do otherwise.  But provided he thought it would pay him, he was ready to believe in anything—­in Christianity, Mahommedanism, Buddhism, Theosophy, or any other creed; and granted the book he had in his hands was really written by Maitland, and Maitland was bona fide (which Hamar saw no reason to doubt), and granted, also, that Maitland was sane and logical—­which from his writing he certainly appeared to be—­then there was a certain amount in the volume that in Hamar’s opinion was “a find.”  Needless to say, he referred to the magic of the Atlanteans—­the art through the practice of which they had got in touch with the Powers that could endow them with riches.  The actual history of Atlantis—­once he was satisfied there had been such a place—­did not interest him.  He skimmed through it quickly, and I append a brief summary, only, for the benefit of more intelligent and disinterested readers.

The Atlanteans were the oldest intelligent race in the world—­they existed contemporaneously with Paleolithic man, with whom their mariners and explorers frequently came in contact, and about whom their novelists wrote the most delightful stories, just as Fenimore Cooper and Mayne Reid, in these days, have written the most delightful stories about the Red Indians.  In religion they were polytheists; they believed that, in the work of Creation, many Powers participated; that some of these Powers were benevolent, some malevolent, whilst others—­neither benevolent nor malevolent—­were merely neutral.  To the benevolent creative Powers they attributed all that is beautiful in the world (i.e. certain of the trees, plants, flowers, animals, insects, and pleasing colours and scents); all that is fair and agreeable in the human being, such as affection, love, kindness, the arts and sciences—­in a word all that in any degree affected the welfare of mankind; and to the malevolent creative Powers they attributed all that was noxious in creation; all that was harmful to man, and detrimental to his moral and physical progress (i.e. diseases, and all savage and filthy passions); all races of low intelligence, viz.  Paleolithic and Neolithic man—­and all those born with black or red skins (those colours being particularly significant of the malignant Occult Elements); all destructive animals; (i.e. reptiles such as the teleosaurus, steneosaurus, etc.; birds, such as the ptereodactyl, vulture, eagle, etc.; mammals, such as the cave lion, cave tiger, etc.; fish, such as the shark, octopus, etc.); and all ugly and venomous insects.