It hadn't ort to make you feel so." And then we see all sorts of things to illustrate the games that these old ruined folks used to play, and their religions they believed in--idols, and clay altars, and things; and once, when I wuz a-tryin' to look calm at the very meanest-lookin' idol that I ever laid eyes on, Sez Josiah, "The folks that would try to worship such a lookin' thing as that ort to be ruined." And I whispered back, "If the secret things that folks worship to-day could be materialized, they would look enough sight worse than this." Sez I, "How would the mammon of Greed look carved in stun, or the beast of Intemperance ?" "Oh!" sez he, "bring in your dum temperance talk everywhere, will you?
I should think we wuz in a bad enough place here to let your ears rest, anyway." "Wall," sez I, "then don't run down folks that couldn't answer back for ten thousand years." But truly we wuz in a bad place, if humbliness is bad, for them idols did beat all, and then there wuz a almost endless display of amulets, charms, totems, and other things that they used to carry on their religious meetin's with, or what they called religion.
And then we see some strange clay altars containin' cremated human bein's.
Here Josiah hunched me agin-- "You feel dretful cut up if you hear any one speak aginst these old creeters, but what do you think of that ?" sez he, a-pintin' to the burnt bodies.

Sez he, "Most likely them bodies wuz victims that wuz killed on their dum altars--dum 'em!" "Yes," sez I, "but we of the nineteenth century slay two hundred thousand victims every year on the altar of Mammon, and Intemperance." "Keep it up, will you--keep a preachin'!" sez he, and his tone wuz bitter and voyalent in the extreme.
And here he turned his back on me and went to examine some of the various games of all countries, such as cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, etc., etc.
[Illustration: Josiah turned his back on me.] Which shows that in that savage age, as well as in our too civilized one, amusements wuz a part of their daily life.
Wall, it wuz all dretful interestin' to me, though Skairfulness wuz present with us, and goose pimples wuz abroad.
And out-doors the exhibit wuz jest as fascinatin'.
Along the shores of the pond are grouped tribes of Indians from North America.

They live in their primitive huts and tents, and there we see their rude boats and canoes.

New York contributes a council house and a bark lodge once used by the once powerful Iroquois confederation.
And, poor things! where be they now?
Passed away.

Their canoes have gone down the stream of Time, and gone down the Falls out of sight.
But to resoom.
Wall, seein' they wuz right there, we went to see the ruins of Yucatan--they wuz only a few steps away.
Now, I never had paid any attention to Yucatan.