CURIOSITIES OF SUPERSTITION. 351 



"With bitter leaves lest palate should be pleased ; 

 And next, a miserable saint, self-maimed, 

 Eyeless and tongueless, sexless, crippled, deaf." 



(Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia," p. 18.) 



Or Wieland's satirical resume: 



" Der Glaube hiess es heilig, wenn 



Der Fliegen, der Heuschrecken frass, 



Und Jener gar mit seinera heil'gen Hintern 

 In einem Ameisen-haufen sass, 



Um da andachtig zu ilberwintern." 



Nor are those fancy sketches ; such things are practiced in Hin- 

 dostan to this day. Weber estimates the present number of pro- 

 fessional Sannyassis at six hundred thousand ; De Lanier at six 

 hundred and fifty thousand ; and Max Miiller even at one million 

 {vide "American Cyclopaedia," article "Fakir"). The pi-ocession 

 of the Juggernaut still frenzies the out-of-the-way villages of the 

 Punjaub ; the Brahma-whirlpool at the junction of the Jumna and 

 the Ganges still claims its yearly hecatombs of human victims. In 

 the southwestern presidencies the English Government has at last 

 succeeded in abating the suicidal epidemics ; the suttee-rite, for in- 

 stance, has been effectually suppressed by fining all accomplices and 

 abettors. But the beast-idolatry still flourishes, and bids fair to outlive 

 the British Tract Society, as it has survived the Portuguese auto-da- f'es. 

 Crocodile-hunters still take their lives in their hands ; the hanuman 

 humbug continues to paralyze horticulture, and the most popular argu- 

 ment of the Nana Sahib demagogues was, not the nepotism of the 

 foreign rulers, not the arrogance and partiality of the British bureau- 

 crats, but the " cartridge-grievance " : orthodox soldiers, in loading a 

 musket, had been obliged to open with their teeth a pasteboard car- 

 tridge that had been greased with a mixture of steatite and beef- 

 tallow ! 



The origin of zoolatry, or beast-worship, in some of its phases, is 

 not easy to explain. The supreme usefulness of black cattle made 

 them the representatives of the prithivi mdtar, the benevolent, all- 

 sustaining earth-mother. Crocodiles are invaluable scavengers, and in 

 the granaries of Egypt cats were indispensable enough to deserve an 

 apotheosis. But how did serpents and monkeys come by that honor? 

 In Africa snake-worship marks the lowest stage of "animism," but 

 nearly every nation seems to have passed through that stage. In a 

 very curious account of the customs and superstitions of the Ilaytian 

 negroes, Mr. Moreau (" History of St. Domingo," by Mr. L. E. Mo- 

 reau) describes the Voodoo idol as "a serpent supposed to be endowed 

 with the gift of prescience, which it communicates to its favorite at- 

 tendants, the high-priest, and priestess of the Voodoo temple." This 

 superstition Mr. Moreau believes to have been derived from Whydah, 



