Page 758

Voyages in the Southern Hemisphere, Vols. II - III

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Account of the Inhabitants of Batavia (continued) How much of what these people related they believed, cannot be known; for there are no bounds to the credulity of ignorance and folly. In the girl’s relation, however, there are some things in which she could not be deceived; and therefore must have been guilty of wilful falsehood. Her father might perhaps give her a charge to feed a crocodile, in consequence of his believing that it was his Sudara; but its coming to her out of the river, when she called it by the name of White King, and taking the food she had brought it, must have been a fable of her own invention; for this being false, it was impossible that she should believe it to be true. The girl’s story, however, as well as that of the man, is a strong proof that they both firmly believed the existence of crocodiles that are Sudaras to men; and the girl’s fiction will be easily accounted for, if we recollect, that the earnest desire which every one feels to make others believe what he believes himself, is a strong temptation to support it by unjustifiable evidence. And the averring what is known to be false, in order to produce in others the belief of what is thought to be true, must, upon the most charitable principles, be imputed to many, otherwise venerable characters, through whose hands the doctrines of Christianity passed for many ages in their way to us, as the source of all the silly fables related of the Romish saints, many of them not less extravagant and absurd than this story of the White King, and all of them the invention of the first relater. Voyaging Accounts © Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 758 - 759, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/758.html