It is curious to contrast this recent account of the Samoides with an account, apparently well informed and discriminating, in 1762. Pinkerton, i. 522--"The religion of the Samoides is very simple.... They _admit the existence of a Supreme Being_, Creator of all things, eminently good and beneficent; a quality which, according to their mode of thinking, dispenses them from any adoration of Him, or addressing their prayers to Him, because they suppose this Being takes no interest in mundane affairs; and consequently, does not exact nor need the worship of man. They join to this idea that of a being eternal and invisible, very powerful, though subordinate to the first, and disposed to evil. It is to this being that they ascribe all the misfortunes which befall them in this life. Nevertheless, they do not worship, although much in fear of him. If they place any reliance in the counsels of Koedesnicks or Tadebes (the 'Schamans' referred to above), it is only on account of the connection which they esteem these people to have with this evil being; otherwise they submit themselves with perfect apathy to all the misfortunes which can befall them." "The sun and moon, as well, hold the place of subaltern deities. It is by their intervention, they imagine, that the Supreme Being dispenses His favours; but they worship them as little as the idols or fitches (fetishes) which they carry about them according to the recommendation of their Koedesnicks." Without pursuing the investigation further, it seems plain that the Samoides, from being (at least) Deists in the last century (Dr Hooker, "Himalayan Journal," gives a similar account of the Lepchas), have lapsed, apparently through sun-worship, to a state of Pantheism, if not Fetishism. Of the Tongusy, a people who, if not kin to the Samoides, have an analogous worship--("They are altogether unacquainted with any kind of literature, and worship the sun and moon. They have many Shamans among them, who differ little from those I formerly described."--Bell's "Travels in Asia, Siberia")--Bell, travelling in Siberia, 1720, says--"Although I have observed that the Tongusy in general worship the sun and moon, there _are many exceptions_ to this observation. I have found intelligent people among them who believed there was a Being superior to both sun and moon, and who _created them and all the world_." If, then, we may connect the Tongusy with the Samoides, it would appear that whereas Mr Baring Gould (_i.e._, Castren) finds the latter sunk in Fetishism, they were, the one in 1762, the other in 1720, the worshippers of the sun and moon, joined with the knowledge and tradition of the true God still subsisting amongst them.