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because of the miracles, say the Madagasses, that it performs. 
This divinity consists in a little bag that contains some roots, 
wrapped up in bits of red cloth, and a chain of silver and 
shells huddled together and fastened to the end of a black 
stick. The wearer is often subject to run and to fall, owing, 
as they suppose, to the influence of this charm. Frequently 
he runs in all directions, not knowing where he shall stop; 
and, at such periods, the inhabitants aver that something has 
offended the divinity, or that a sorcerer has crossed his path. 
In short, they have such implicit credence in this kind of 
magic, that when its influence is evident in a public assembly, 
all the Huwa tremble, particularly those who are on ill terms 
with their consciences, and who believe themselves already 
detected. They always carry this charm with them to war, and 
elsewhere, and have so great a reverence for it that they 
even present it in offerings to their king. "They believe that 
the fulfilment of a bad dream may be prevented by throwing . 
a little ashes behind the house, and they never sleep with their 
heads towards the south, which they think would occasion 
the king to have uneasy dreams, . When they sneeze, they 
have the same custom of saluting one another as all the an- 
cient nations, Romans and Jews, as well as many modern 
people. A prayer is then said, of which the following is 
a nearly literal translation:—* Now is evil gone and good 
come; it cannot stop my way before me, nor overtake me 
behind nor approach me between two lands: on the earth it 
cannot crush me, nor descend upon me from on high; it 
shall glide away like mud, and be rejected like dirt, because 
it has done evil: a great rock, from which it cannot rise 
shall fall upon it, for evil is departed, and good is come. It 
shall war with me no longer, and I shall overcome; I shall | 
be like a dziriri (a symbol of the swan) on the water; the fire 
shall not burn me, and I shall come unhurt from the furnace. 
Fifty plants of Banana, and a hundred spikes of sugar-cane; 
though dead when I transplant theth, shall bud anew, and 
though dried up, shall bloom again." 
Meo tho-sild. sind benefiganh doctrines of Holy Writ 
shall have been disseminated among this people; we have 
