I found, quite lately, a traditionary order in existence at Government House, Dapoorie, near Poona, which directed the native sentry on guard “to present arms if a cat or dog, jackal or goat, entered or left the house or crossed near his beat” during certain hours of the night, “because it was the ghost” of a former governor, who was still remembered as one of the best and kindest of men.
How or when the custom originated I could not learn, but the order had been verbally handed on from one native sergeant of the guard to another for many years, without any doubts as to its propriety or authority, till it was accidentally overheard by an European officer of the governor’s staff.
In the hills and deserts of Sind the belief in beings of this order, as might be expected in a wild and desolate country, is found strong and universal; there, however, the Rakshas has changed his name to that of our old friend the “Gin” of the Arabian Nights, and he has somewhat approximated in character to the Pwcca or Puck of our own country. The Gin of the Beelooch hills is wayward and often morose, but not necessarily malignant. His usual form is that of a dwarfish human being, with large eyes and covered with long hair, and apt to breathe with a heavy snoring kind of noise. From the circumstantial accounts I have heard of such “Gins” being seen seated on rocks at the side of lonely passes, I suspect that the great horned eagle-owl, which is not uncommon in the hill-country of Sind, has to answer for many well-vouched cases of Gin apparition.
The Gin does not, however, always retain his own shape; he frequently changes to the form of a camel, goat or other animal. If a Gin be accidentally met, it is recommended that the traveler should show no sign of fear, and, above all, keep a civil tongue in his head, for the demon has a special aversion to bad language. Every Beelooch has heard of instances in which such chance acquaintanceships with Gins have not only led to no mischief, but been the source of much benefit to the fortunate mortal who had the courage and prudence to turn them to account; for a Gin once attached to a man will work hard and faithfully for him, and sometimes show him the entrance to those great subterranean caverns under the hills, where there is perpetual spring, and trees laden with fruits of gold and precious stones; but the mortal once admitted to such a paradise is never allowed to leave it. There are few neighborhoods in the Beelooch hills which cannot show huge stones, apparently intended for building, which have been, “as all the country-side knows,” moved by such agency, and the entrance to the magic cavern is never very far off, though the boldest Beelooch is seldom very willing to show or to seek for the exact spot.
Superstitions nearly identical were still current within the last forty years, when I was a boy, on the borders of Wales. In Cwm Pwcca (the Fairies’ Glen), in the valley of the Clydach, between Abergavenny and Merthyr, the cave used to be shown into which a belated miner was decoyed by the Pwccas, and kept dancing for ten years; and a farm-house on the banks of the Usk, not far off, was, in the last generation, the abode of a farmer who had a friendly Pwcca in his service. The goblin was called Pwcca Trwyn, as I was assured from his occasionally being visible as a huge human nose. He would help the mortal by carrying loads and mending hedges, but usually worked only while the farmer slept at noon, and always expected as his guerdon a portion of the toast and ale which his friend had for dinner in the field. If none was left for him, he would cease to work; and he once roused the farmer from his noontide slumbers by thrashing him soundly with his own hedging-stake.
The Peris or Fairies of these stories have nothing distinctive about them. Like the fairies of other lands, they often fall in love with mortal men, and are visible to the pure eyes of childhood when hidden from the grosser vision of maturer years.
Next to the Rakshas, the Cobra, or deadly hooded snake, plays the most important part in these legends as a supernatural personage. This is one only of the many traces still extant of that serpent-worship formerly so general in Western India. I have no doubt that Mr. Ferguson, in his forthcoming work on Bhuddhist antiquities, will throw much light on this curious subject. I will, therefore, only now observe that this serpent-worship as it still exists is something more active than a mere popular superstition. The Cobra, unless disturbed, rarely goes far from home, and is supposed to watch jealously over a hidden treasure. He is always, in the estimation of the lower classes, invested with supernatural powers, and according to the treatment he receives he builds up or destroys the fortunes of the house to which he belongs. No native will willingly kill him if he can get rid of him in any other way; and the poorer classes always, after he is killed, give him all the honors of a regular cremation, assuring him, with many protestations, as the pile burns, “that they are guiltless of his blood; that they slew him by order of their master,” or “that they had no other way to prevent his biting the children or the chickens.”
A very interesting discussion on the subject of the Snake Race of Ancient India, between Mr. Bayley and Baboo Rajendralal Mitr, will be found in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, for February, 1867.