FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



which empowers it to change its shape and drop its venom in 

 the cup. Father Dubernard instanced several cases where 

 persons, chiefly women, had made full confession of the art 

 with the persuasion of a little burning wax dropped on their 

 shoulders. Under the circumstances one is not surprised. 



Similarly, the judgment of heaven is commonly invoked in 

 the following way : — Two pebbles, one black and the other white, 

 are dropped into a bowl of boiling oil. If the accused can pick 

 out the white one, he is innocent ; but should he either shrink 

 from the ordeal or draw the black, his guilt is established. 



In all our conversations with the Fathers, Thibet and the 

 Thibetans naturally occupied a foremost place. More than any 

 other people in the world are these latter dominated by religious 

 sentiment. From the piles of prayer-inscribed stones that meet 

 the eye at every turn of the road ; from their constant devotions 

 in halt or on march, when the very winds and waters are made 

 their intercessors, and no river can be forded without the sign 

 of the cross upon the forehead ; from their innate cult of the 

 unseen and the marvellous, every event and condition is to 

 them an occasion for superstition ; while there exists not a 

 peril which may not be averted by some practice, to their 

 apprehension infallible, which has for its origin a belief in the 

 supernatural. 



By their own popularly received legend they are the off- 

 spring of a she-devil and an ape. 



They maintain that sorcerers alight from the empyrean (as 



the Richis descend from the Himalayas at the birth of Buddha), 



and tell a tale of an individual who to prove his power of 



night threw himself from a lofty rock. That this guileless person 



was dashed to pieces is regarded as a mere mischance. Within 



2.^0 



