It is difficult for any one living in a community surrounded with all the products of the inventive genius of man, and in the enjoyment of the varied results of intellectual development, to form any adequate conception of the benighted condition of the Laos mind as is indicated by a statement of some of the miserable absurdities entertained by them as sober and fundamental truths. Among them we can see examples in daily life of those hideous spectres of superstition such as served to guide the pitiful gropings of the intellectual and moral life of Europe three centuries ago. The man who should speak lightly of necromancy or deny the existence of spirits of every shade of malignity presiding over the affairs of society, or question the propriety of cutting off the heads of sorcerers, would be, in the ordinary affairs of life, untrustworthy, in religion a heretic, and in legislation a candidate for the honor of decapitation. Average Laos credulity――and the Laos are all average――will accept any absurdity, however monstrous, provided only it be supernatural. Consequently, any operation of nature outside of the most ordinary is satisfactorily accounted for by reference to some demon or spirit, or some other equally plausible account is given in explanation of the phenomenon. So the uprooting of a tree by a hurricane is the work of an enraged spirit; an earthquake is produced by an immense fish moving its fins; while a horde of demons preside over the mountains, the forests, the fields and streams. A special divinity is supposed to preside over each forest, and the hunter who collects the honey of the wild bee must make an offering to this divinity to ensure a good yield of honey. Indeed, almost every transaction of social or domestic life must be effected with direct reference to one or another of a multitude of spirits. A Laos going on a journey must hunt him out a wise man, one who can read, and ascertain a lucky day for starting; this is done by consulting a kind of astrological table. A day of the week being found to coincide properly with a day of the moon and with the nativity of the pilgrim, offerings are duly made to the spirits, to ensure, if not their good-will, at least their neutrality; then with a feeling of security the journey is undertaken. No imaginable exigency of business could induce a Laos to depart from this method; and the occasional impetuosity of a foreigner arouses in a Laotian a sleepy kind of compassionate wonder. The commander entering upon a campaign can move only upon a lucky day and after making the necessary offerings, which is a ceremony involving delay and careful attention just in proportion to the importance of the expedition. Traders traveling by boats cannot enter or leave the mountains through which the river winds without a prayer and an offering of wax tapers, flowers and incense to the mountain-spirits; a neglect of this ceremony may entail the loss of a boat in the rapids, or indeed any calamity.