e.
You are aware that the custom arose from the natives attempting to
avert any present or anticipated calamity, by devoting a child to
propitiate the deity. On a certain day they all assembled in boats,
with their victims, attended by their priests and music, and decorated
with flowers. The gaiety of the procession would have induced you to
imagine that it was some joyous festival, instead of a scene of
superstition and of blood. It would almost have appeared as if the
alligators and sharks were aware of the exact time and place, from the
numbers that were collected at the spot where the immolation took place.
My blood curdles now when I think of it. The cries of the natives, the
shouting and encouraging of the priests, the deafening noise of the
tom-toms, mixed with the piercing harsh music of the country, the
hurling and tossing of the poor little infants into the water, and the
splashing and contention of the ravenous creatures as they tore them
limb from limb, within a few feet of their unnatural parents--the whole
sea tinged with blood, and strewed with flowers! The very remembrance
is sickening to me.

"One circumstance occurred, more horrid than all the rest. A woman had
devoted her child--but she had the feelings of a mother, which were not
to be controlled by the blindest superstition. From time to time she
had postponed the fulfilment of the vow, until the child had grown into
a woman--for she was thirteen years old, which in this country is the
marriageable age. Misfortune came on, and the husband was told by the
priests that the deity was offended, and that the daughter must be
sacrificed, or he would not be appeased. She was a beautiful creature
for a native, and was to have been married about the very time that she
was now to be sacrificed. I see her now--she was dark in complexion, as
they all are, but her features were beautifully small and regular, and
her form was perfect symmetry. They took off the gold ornaments with
which she was decorated, and, in their avarice, removed her garments, as
she implored and entreated on her knees in vain. The boat that she was
in was closer to the shore than the others, and in shallow water. They
forced her over the gunwale--she alighted on her feet, the water being
up to her middle, and, by a miracle, escaped, before a shark or
alligator could reach her, and gained the beach. I thought that she was
saved, and felt more happy than if I had received a lak