he would rather lose his life than be beholden to the devil for it.  The manner of these offerings is thus; When any person is very ill, especially in the condition Mr B. was, imagining him to be possessed, they buy the aforesaid provisions; and having dressed them with as much care as if they were to make a splendid entertainment, they carry this banquet into the woods to a certain house or shed, built always under the largest trees near the water side, where they leave it.  As to what ceremonies of prayer, &c., they use on this occasion, I know not particularly, only that they invite the devil very kindly to it, assuring him that it is very good, and well dressed, and begging him to accept it.  Now these woods are so full of monkeys, that if never so much was left at night, they would devour it before morning, which these ignorant creatures believe to be eaten by the devil; and if the person recovers, they think themselves very much obliged to him for his civility and good nature, and, by way of thanks, they send him more; but if the person dies, then they revile against him, calling him a cross ill-natured devil, that he is often a deceiver, and that he has been very ungrateful in accepting the present, and then killing their friend:  In fine, they are very angry with him.”  He mentions some other ways of enchanting away distempers, where such offerings to the devil are no inconsiderable part of the prescription.—­E.]

But they have another superstitious opinion that is still more unaccountable.  They believe that women, when they are delivered of children, are frequently at the same time delivered of a young crocodile, as a twin to the infant:  They believe that these creatures are received most carefully by the midwife, and immediately carried down to the river, and put into the water.  The family in which such a birth is supposed to have happened constantly put victuals into the river for their amphibious relation, and especially the twin, who, as long as he lives, gets down to the river at stated seasons, to fulfil this fraternal duly, for the neglect of which it is the universal opinion that he will be visited with sickness or death.  What could at first produce a notion so extravagant and absurd, it is not easy to guess, especially as it seems to be totally unconnected with any religious mystery, and how a fact which never happened, should be pretended to happen every day, by those who cannot be deceived into a belief of it by appearances, nor have any apparent interest in the fraud, is a problem still more difficult to solve.  Nothing however can be more certain than the firm belief of this strange absurdity among them, for we had the concurrent testimony of every Indian who was questioned about it, in its favour.  It seems to have taken its rise in the islands of Celebes and Boutou, where many of the inhabitants keep crocodiles in their families; but however that be, the opinion has spread over all the eastern islands, even to Timor and Ceram, and westward as far as Java and Sumatra, where, however, young crocodiles are, I believe, never kept.[153]