iah, "The folks that would try to worship such a lookin' thing as
that ort to be ruined."

And I whispered back, "If the secret things that folks worship to-day
could be materialized, they would look enough sight worse than this."
Sez I, "How would the mammon of Greed look carved in stun, or the beast
of Intemperance?"

"Oh!" sez he, "bring in your dum temperance talk everywhere, will you? I
should think we wuz in a bad enough place here to let your ears rest,
anyway."

"Wall," sez I, "then don't run down folks that couldn't answer back for
ten thousand years."

But truly we wuz in a bad place, if humbliness is bad, for them idols
did beat all, and then there wuz a almost endless display of amulets,
charms, totems, and other things that they used to carry on their
religious meetin's with, or what they called religion.

And then we see some strange clay altars containin' cremated human
bein's.

Here Josiah hunched me agin--

"You feel dretful cut up if you hear any one speak aginst these old
creeters, but what do you think of that?" sez he, a-pintin' to the burnt
bodies. Sez he, "Most likely them bodies wuz victims that wuz killed on
their dum altars--dum 'em!"

"Yes," sez I, "but we of the nineteenth century slay two hundred
thousand victims every year on the altar of Mammon, and Intemperance."

"Keep it up, will you--keep a preachin'!" sez he, and his tone wuz
bitter and voyalent in the extreme.

And here he turned his back on me and went to examine some of the
various games of all countries, such as cards, dice, dominoes, checkers,
etc., etc.

[Illustration: Josiah turned his back on me.]

Which shows that in that savage age, as well as in our too civilized
one, amusements wuz a part of their daily life.

Wall, it wuz all dretful interestin' to me, though Skairfulness wuz
present with us, and goose pimples wuz abroad.

And out-doors the exhibit wuz jest as fascinatin'.

Along the shores of the pond are grouped tribes of Indians from North
America. They live in their primitive huts and tents, and there we see
their rude boats and canoes. New York contributes a council house and a
bark lodge once used by the once powerful Iroquois confederation.

And, poor things! where be they now? Passed away. Their canoes have gone
down the stream of Time, and gone down the Falls out of sight.

But to resoom.

Wall, seein' they wuz right there, we went to see the ruins of
Yucatan--they wuz only a few steps awa