CHAP. 10. SUPERSTITIONS. 269 



It is a curious fact mentioned by Mungo 

 Park, that the Mandingo Nations of Africa 

 have similar superstitions, and say a short prayer 

 to the New Moon. 



The ancient superstition of The Man in the 

 Moon, is supposed to have taken rise from the 

 passage in the Book of Numbers, where a man 

 is related to have been punished with death for 

 gathering sticks on the Sabbath. 



The various rustic operations to be began on 

 certain days of the Moon are well known, and 

 described by Hesiod, Virgil, and others, many 

 of them are still retained in Europe, and even 

 this very winter, in Jan. 1823, 1 have had inqui- 

 ries made of me in Sussex when the Moon was 

 at the full ? in order that persons might cut their 

 corns in the wane, that they might continue 

 further to waste with that heavenly body. 



In parts of Wiltshire, they say, it is unlucky 

 to look at the New Moon, for the first time, 

 through a glass ; showery weather about that 

 time of the Moon, which might keep the spec- 

 tator in doors, and make him see her crescent 

 first through a window, may be a bad prog- 

 nostick for the month. The ignorant run out 

 of doors and turn the money in their pockets, 

 if they hear by chance of her first appearance. 



