WA TER-SCORPIONS. 29 



it was granted that an invocation addressed to 

 Mohammed, and written on a piece of paper en- 

 closed in a reed planted in the midst of a wheat- 

 field or of an orchard, has the power to turn 

 away the destructive hordes of locusts from the 

 portion of the land so protected. 



And when I recollect that the Rabbis were 

 capable of making additions to the Scriptures so 

 startling as that in the Targums which says that 

 when the plague of locusts in the land of Egypt 

 was disappearing before the wind, those insects 

 that the Egyptians had fried or pickled and laid 

 by in store for food were blown away from the 

 land in company with the live ones, I am not 

 capable of imagining what those Rabbis might 

 not have said of Ranatra, had they known that 

 singular-looking bug. I flatter myself that they 

 did not have the pleasure of his acquaintance. 

 Surely if they had they would have mentioned it. 

 They usually mentioned everything they did know, 

 and perhaps a little more. Ranatra did not real- 

 ize how thankful he ought to have been that the 

 Rabbis never saw him. Preposterous, indeed, 

 would have been the story they would have tacked 

 to his name. Ranatra made a beautiful corpse, 

 calm and peaceful-looking. 



Let no evil be remembered against him. He 

 is dead. 



** Bid him farewell, commit him to the grave ; 

 Do him that Irimjpnnn nnrLtiln leave of him. ' ' 

 SE UBR 



OF THE 



UNIVERSITY 



