I shall give an instance of this.—If the husband has been a year absent on a visit to another nation, and should by chance overtake his wife near home, with one of his children skipping along side of her; instead of those sudden and strong emotions of joy that naturally arise in two generous breasts at such an unexpected meeting, the self-interested pair go along as utter strangers, without seeming to take the least notice of one another, till a considerable time after they get home. The Indians formerly observed the grand festival[39] of the annual expiation of sin, at the beginning of the first new moon, in which their corn became full-eared; but for many years past they are regulated by the season of their harvest. And on that head, they shew more religious patience than the Hebrews formerly did; who, instead of waiting till their grain was ripe, forced their barley, which ripened before any other sort they planted. And they are perhaps as skilful in observing the revolutions of the moon, as ever the Israelites were, at least till the end of the first temple; for during that period, instead of measuring time by astronomical calculations, they {99} knew it only by the phases of the moon. In like manner, the supposed red Hebrews of the American desarts, annually observed their festivals, and _Neetak Yáh-àh_, “days of afflicting themselves before the Deity,” at a prefixed time of a certain moon. To this day, a war-leader, who, by the number of his martial exploits is entitled to a drum, always sanctifies himself, and his out-standing company, at the end of the old moon, so as to go off at the appearance of the new one by day-light; whereas, he who has not sufficiently distinguished himself, must set out in the night.