ritual

The longest of the streets of Reykjavik runs parallel to the shore. In this street the merchants and traders live in wooden huts made with beams of wood, painted red--mere log huts, such as you find in the wilds of America. The other street, situated more to t...

A messenger was despatched half a day’s journey before us, to give the king notice of my approach, and to desire, “that his majesty would please to appoint a day and hour, when it would by his gracious pleasure that I might have the honour to lick the dust bef...

Nothing intelligible came out, except that the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth made <i>ice</i> in English; the eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth, and eighty-sixth, the word <i>sir</i>; then at last I seemed to find the Latin words <i>rota, mutabile, ira, nec, a...

They then discussed the means of getting at the victim. The guide was familiar with the pagoda of Pillaji, in which, as he declared, the young woman was imprisoned. Could they enter any of its doors while the whole party of Indians was plunged in a drunken sle...

Conseil and I remained to survey the shore, observing and studying until five o’clock. Then I went to bed, not, however, without invoking, like the Indian, the favour of the radiant orb. The next day, the 21st of March, at five in the morning, I mounted the pl...

All day my thoughts were bent upon these speculations, and my imagination scarcely regained a degree of calmness and power of reflection until after a sleep of many hours. This day, as on other Sundays, we observed as a day of rest and pious meditation. I have...

Batulcar, was to commence at three o’clock, and soon the deafening instruments of a Japanese orchestra resounded at the door. Passepartout, though he had not been able to study or rehearse a part, was designated to lend the aid of his sturdy shoulders in the g...

The head of the procession soon appeared beneath the trees, a hundred paces away; and the strange figures who performed the religious ceremony were easily distinguished through the branches. First came the priests, with mitres on their heads, and clothed in lo...