May your fortunes permit you to dwell in the Squares,
And enjoy life’s delights without tasting its cares;
May you each find a Mate, life’s journey to sweeten,
And if mated oft,—may you never be beaten!
COMIC FORTUNE TELLING.
Zadkiel: I foresee that you have had a misfortune with one of your legs. It will never happen again.
THE ALPHABETICAL FORTUNE TELLER.
The Moslems have recourse, to determine them when they are in doubt as to any action, to a table called Zairgeh, divided into a hundred squares, in each of which is written some Arabic letter. The person who consults it, repeats three times the opening chapter of the Koran, and 58th verse of the sixth chapter. “With Him are the keys of the secret things: none knoweth them but him. He knoweth whatever is on the dry ground or in the sea; there falleth no leaf but He knoweth it; neither is there a single grain in the dark parts of the earth, nor a green thing, nor a dry thing, but it is written in a perspicuous book.” He places his finger at random upon the table; he then looks to see upon what letter his finger is placed, writes that letter, the fifth following it, and the fifth following this, until he comes to the first which he wrote, and these letters together compose the answer. The construction of the table is thus:—