nes, et Nuithones, fluminibus aut silvis muniuntur: nec quidquam
notabile in singulis, nisi quod in commune Herthum, id est, Terram
matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis,
arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani Castum nemus, dicatumque in eo
vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse
penetrali deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis multa cum veneratione
prosequitur. Laeti tunc dies, festa loca, quaecumque adventu hospitioque
dignatur. Non bella ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum; pax et
quies tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam
conversatione mortalium deam templo reddat; mox vehiculum et vestes, et,
si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant,
quos statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque
ignorantia, quid sit id, quod tantum perituri vident."--"De Moribus
Germanorum," 40.

What connects the passage with the ethnology of Heligoland? Heligoland
is, probably, the _island of the Holy Grove_. Its present name indicates
this--_the holy land_. Its position in the main sea, or _Ocean_, does
the same. So does its vicinity to the country of Germans.

At the same time it must not be concealed from the reader that the Isle
of Rugen, off the coast of Pomerania, has its claims. It is an
island--but not an island of the _Ocean_. It is full of religious
remains--but those remains are _Slavonic_ rather than _German_.

I believe, for my own part, that the seat of the worship of _Earth the
Mother_, was the island which we are now considering.

In respect to its inhabitants, it must serve as a slight text for a long
commentary. A population of about two thousand fishers; characterized,
like the ancient Venetians, by an utter absence of horses, mules,
ponies, asses, carts, wagons, or any of the ordinary applications of
animal power to the purposes of locomotion, confined to a small rock,
and but little interrupted with foreign elements, is, if considered in
respect to itself alone, no great subject for either the ethnologist or
the geographer. But what if its relations to the population of the
continent be remarkable? What if the source of its population be other
than that which, from the occupants of the nearest portion of the
continent, we are prepared to expect? In this case, the narrow area of
an isolated rock assumes an importance which its magnitude would never
have created.

The nearest part of th