'A kind of halo begins to gather round it: my eyes dazzle'——
'Then raise them to the heavens; fix them on yonder blue sky. What do you see?'
'I see it still! But it is as white as mist, and of a gigantic size.'
'Has it a head?' asked the moonshee in an anxious whisper.
'Yes; it is complete in all its parts: but now it melts—floats—disappears.'
'Thank God!' said the old man: 'your journey shall be prosperous—such is the will of Heaven!' The experiment was tried on many other occasions by the young lady, and always with similar success, although never without a certain degree of trepidation, even after she had learned that the spectral appearance in the heavens was nothing more than the picture retained on the retina of the eye. She never saw the phantom without a head, which accounts for her being alive to this day; or even wanting a limb, although she has not been without her share of the trials of the world. It can easily be conceived, however, that certain conditions of the atmosphere may produce these phenomena, which are regarded by the Hindoo seer as sure tokens of death or disaster.
This superstition is not more unreasonable than the mistakes of our early travellers, who were accustomed to attribute a meaning to the phenomena of nature, of which more accurate knowledge has entirely stripped them. But the notions of the Hindoo are always peculiar—his fancy, even in its wildest excursions, is bounded by the circle of his mythology. When our Old Indian's wanderings led her to Pinang, in the Straits of Malacca, she found a Hindoo convict there, trembling even in his chains as his fancy connected the wonders of the place with the dogmas in which he had been reared. This most beautiful island, as our readers may remember, came into the possession of an Englishman in the latter part of last century in rather a romantic way—forming the dowry of a native princess, the daughter of the king of Quedah, whom he married. Captain Light transferred it to the East India Company, who were not slow in discovering the advantages of its fine harbour, rich soil, and salubrious climate. Its inhabitants at that time were a few fishermen on the coast; and the interior was covered with an almost impervious forest; but now there is a population of Europeans and Americans, and Asiatics of almost all countries; and plantations of sugar, coffee, pepper, and other intertropical produce. Among the inhabitants are invalids, who proceed thither from continental India for the restoration of their health; and convicts, who are compelled to compensate by their labour the injuries they have inflicted on society.
The man alluded to belonged to the latter class, having probably travelled for his country's good from the tamer lowlands of Bengal; and when the traveller asked him how he liked the region, he expressed the utmost awe, united with the bitterest condemnation of the Europeans, for desecrating by their roads and other works a place so obviously the abode of deutas and spirits. He said, that when they had begun to carry the up-hill road through these primeval forests, they were warned of their impiety by the voices of the gods themselves, in bursts of unearthly music, blasts of the trumpet, and the clash of cymbals and gongs.
'The first tree we struck with the axe,' added he with a shudder, 'ran milk; and the second, blood!' Of these two substances, the former is still more ominous in the Brahminical faith than the latter, for everything connected with the cow is sacred and mysterious.
'Well,' said the inquirer, 'what happened—since in spite of these omens you persisted in your task? Did the gods take vengeance?'