SURVIVALS OF SUN-WORSHIP. 253 



ried on ; and in parts of the South you will he told that if the soap 

 be stirred backward it will turn to lye. I have been told that 

 wheelwrights, in greasing the wheels of a wagon or carriage, are 

 in the habit of beginning with a certain wheel and going round 

 the whole vehicle in a set way. 



In New Harbor, Newfoundland, it is customary, in getting off 

 small boats, especially when gunning or sealing, to take pains to 

 start from east to west, and, when the wind will permit, the same 

 custom is observed in getting large schooners under way. So, too, 

 in the "Western Isles, off the coast of Scotland, boats at starting 

 are, or at any rate used to be, rowed in a sunwise course to insure 

 a lucky voyage. 



Many persons in our own country are yet careful to have a 

 new house placed exactly with the points of the compass, no mat- 

 ter whether or not by so doing the building is made parallel with 

 the street which it faces. Occasionally one sees a front yard of 

 an awkward three-cornered shape for this reason, though with 

 practical Americans the idea of the necessity of having the house 

 placed with the meridian is now losing ground. However, in 

 older countries the subject of orientation has been much heeded 

 in planning buildings, especially temples and churches. The east 

 has been the auspicious direction, or that to which worshipers 

 faced in many Asiatic countries, in pagan Rome, and in the early 

 though not the earliest centuries of the Christian Church. In the 

 old imperial palace in Kyoto the eastern gate is used for ceremo- 

 nial purposes ; the southern one is a general entrance ; on the 

 western sides there are several miscellaneous gates ; but the north- 

 ern gate is never opened save when a funeral passes forth, and 

 under the old regime the same custom prevailed to a certain ex- 

 tent among the nobility. In general, the north is considered by 

 the Japanese an unlucky direction, probably because it is thus 

 that the dead are carried out for interment. In a Masonic lodge 

 the master is stationed at the east end of the room, and if his place 

 be not the geographical east it is so called. 



It is a very common saying among card-players that if one's 

 luck is poor he may change it by rising, walking around his chair 

 three times, lifting the chair, and then resuming 'his game. An 

 old love divination that comes from southeastern Ohio was as fol- 

 lows : Go after dark to an unoccupied house and throw a ball of 

 yarn into it through a window ; hold the loose end of the yarn in 

 the hand, then pass three times around the empty house, winding 

 the yarn, meantime repeating : " I wind and who holds ? I wind 

 and who holds ? " Upon coming to the window the third time the 

 questioner of fate will see the apparition of his or her future 

 spouse. Another love divination from Alabama, or " project," as 

 such charms are called in various parts of New England, is on 



