“I now beg to interpret the signs of the night. If at midnight an individual hears the noises of animals in the house where he resides, I will show him whether they indicate good or evil. If any insect cry ‘click, click, click,’ he will possess real treasures while he abides there. If it cry ‘kek, kek,’ it is an evil omen both to that and the neighboring houses. If it cry ‘chit, chit,’ it denotes that he shall always feed upon the most sumptuous provisions. If it cry ‘keat, keat,’ in a loud, shrill voice, it denotes that his residence there shall be attended with evil.

“I now beg to interpret with regard to the Spider. If a Spider on the ceiling utter a low, tremulous moan, it denotes that the individual who hears the noise shall either change his residence or that his goods shall be stolen. If it utter the same voice on the outside of the house, and afterward

the Spider crawl to the head of the bed, it denotes troublesome visitors and quarrels to the residents.”[1263]

Thevenot, in his Travels into the Levant, relates the following: “But I cannot tell what to say of a Moorish Woman who lives in a corner close by the quarter of France, and pulls worms out of Children’s Ears. When a Child does nothing but cry, and that they know it is ill, they carry it to that Woman, who, laying the Child on its side upon her knee, scratches the ear of it, and then Worms, like those which breed in musty weevily Flower, seem to fall out of the Child’s Ear; then, turning it on the other side, she scratches the other Ear, out of which the like Worms drop also; and in all there may come out ten or twelve, which she raps up in a Linen-Rag, and gives them to those that brought the Child to her, who keep them in that Rag at home in their House; and when she has done so she gives them back the Child, which in reality cries no more. She once told me that she performed this by means of some words that she spake. There was a French Physician and a Naturalist there, who attentively beheld this, and told me that he could not conceive how it could be done; but that he knew very well that if a child had any of these Worms in its head it would quickly die. In so much that the Moors and other inhabitants of Caire look upon this as a great Vertue, and give her every time a great many maidins (pieces of money). They say that it is a secret which hath been long in the Family. There are children every day carried to her, roaring and crying, and as many would see the thing done, need only to follow them, provided they be not Musulman Women who carry them, for then it would cost an Avanie; but when they are Christian or Jewish Women, one may easily enter and give a few maidins to that Worm-drawer.”[1264]

This is most probably but a sleight-of-hand performance, since “worms, like those which breed in musty weevily flower,” could easily be obtained and concealed in her hand or sleeve; imagination would then effect the cure, as probably it had done the disease.

Dr. Livingstone and his party, in traveling in South Africa,

sometimes suffered considerably from scarcity of meat, though not from absolute want of food. And the natives, says this traveler, to show their sympathy, gave the children, who suffered most, a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed to relish. He concluded these insects could not be unwholesome, for the natives devoured them in large quantities themselves.[1265]

INDEX.

[A][B][C][D][E][F][G][H][I][J][K][L]
[M][N][O][P][Q][R][S][T][U][V][W][Z]