526 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lead him into the swamps. Many persons, mistaking their light for 

 that of a house, have thus followed them and been lost. 



The approach of spirits menacing a household is announced by 

 the hooting of the owl, " that hungry wild bird of the night with a 

 cat's head and eyes," that scents death from afar. Then mothers 

 tremble for their children. I have seen, in remote farmhouses, fra- 

 grant torches placed around the cradle, while the frightened mother 

 stood with folded hands watching. Her fear ceased as soon as I came 

 in, because she had a parang with her and was safe — for the Cam- 

 bodians believe that these evil spirits keep well away from all places 

 where Europeans dwell. 



A more terrible and powerful class of spirits are the arac, or 

 demons, who take possession of a body and bring death and madness 

 to a whole family. Sometimes, to get more complete possession, the 

 demon takes away the proper soul of the possessed, and hangs it on 

 a tree, where it has miserably to wait for its reincarnation. The 

 possessed ones behave very much like the hysterics of the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries, suffering violent convulsions, and accus- 

 ing this one or that one of having bewitched them. 



The genii are as much feared as the demons, although they are 

 regarded as being good; but as they have also the reputation of 

 being just, they inspire dread, because one can never know when he 

 may have given offense. They take possession of particular places — 

 of mountains, forks of roads, roads, and rice fields — as their protect- 

 ing and avenging spirits; and numerous spots are regarded with 

 peculiar awe on account of their abiding there. The distinguishing 

 trait between the demons and the genii is that the demons are 

 always bad because they are never good, while the genii are friendly 

 or hostile according to the character of the persons they are dealing 

 with. The former are of infernal, the latter of human, origin. The 

 genii are ancestors passed into oblivion, who, having no longer to 

 watch over their direct descendants, watch over the whole country, 

 over the Cambodian people, and are guardian angels of the nation, as 

 the ancestors are the guardian angels of the family. The Cam- 

 bodians see in them justice and often counselors to the people. 



It was believed, according to an old tradition, that Buddha was 

 to reappear before the year 1888 passed away, and the prediction 

 threatened woe to those who did not prepare the ways. Taking this 

 to refer to the roads, and to mean they should be j^repared for the 

 holy saint as they were for the king when he traveled, the people set 

 themselves at work upon the required improvements. Stakes would 

 be found in the morning, driven by no one knew whom, in places 

 where they had not been, when men, women, and children would 

 come out with shovels and hoes to remove the earth, and baskets to 



