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They are reported to bear a resemblance to the people of Makasar or Bugis, and may have been adventurers from that quarter. The influence of their raja over the Nias inhabitants, who exceed his immediate subjects in the proportion of twenty to one, is founded on the superstitious belief that the water of the island will become salt when they neglect to pay the tax.

Among the midshipmen were Joseph Nias and James Clark Ross, who became eminent arctic explorers. The Griper was commanded by Lieutenant Siddon, and his first lieutenant was Mr Hoppner. The two vessels sailed from the Nore on the 11th of May, 1819, and having rounded the Orkneys, stood across the Atlantic. Having contrary winds, they made but slow progress.

On the other hand, the Itonamas of South America seal up the eyes, nose, and mouth of a dying person, in case his ghost should get out and carry off others; and for a similar reason the people of Nias, who fear the spirits of the recently deceased and identify them with the breath, seek to confine the vagrant soul in its earthly tabernacle by bunging up the nose or tying up the jaws of the corpse.

Certainly the idea that the soul of a dying person may be transmitted to his successor is perfectly familiar to primitive peoples. In Nias the eldest son usually succeeds his father in the chieftainship. But if from any bodily or mental defect the eldest son is disqualified for ruling, the father determines in his lifetime which of his sons shall succeed him.

The people of Nias think that every man, before he is born, is asked how long or how heavy a soul he would like, and a soul of the desired weight or length is measured out to him. The heaviest soul ever given out weighs about ten grammes. The length of a man's life is proportioned to the length of his soul; children who die young had short souls.

By following this method of living and allowing myself very rarely even a glass of wine I managed to keep in excellent health in 1889 when an epidemic raged violently in the island of Nias and made sad havoc amongst the natives.

The quantity of earth brought down on this occasion was so considerable that the hill upon which the English resident's house stands appears, from indubitable marks, less elevated by fifteen feet than it was before the event. I am informed that in 1763 an entire village was swallowed up by an earthquake in Pulo Nias, one of the islands which lie off the western coast of Sumatra.

You ain't only reskin' yo' own self, but you's reskin' us same way like Anna Nias en Siffra. De lake WUZ dah I seen it jis' as plain as I sees you en Huck dis minute." I says: "Why, he seen it himself! He was the very one that seen it first. NOW, then!" "Yes, Mars Tom, hit's so you can't deny it. We all seen it, en dat PROVE it was dah." "Proves it! How does it prove it?"

Hence the custom which prohibits the commerce of the sexes while the worms are hatching may be only an extension, by analogy, of the rule which is observed by many races, that the husband may not cohabit with his wife during pregnancy and lactation. In the island of Nias the hunters sometimes dig pits, cover them lightly over with twigs, grass, and leaves, and then drive the game into them.

The probability is heightened by the direction of the islands Nias, Batu, Mantawei, Pagi, Mego, etc., the similarity of the rock, soil, and productions, and the regularity of soundings between them and the main, whilst without them the depth is unfathomable.