Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



various expedients are resorted to with the 

 object of propitiating the powers that make 

 rain. A procession in which men bared their 

 backs and lashed themselves and each other 

 with great vigour was formerly in vogue, and 

 is recorded to have been most successful. It 

 is now, I believe, forbidden. Our housekeeper, 

 who has the faculty of throwing a refreshingly 

 new light on things we are inquiring about, 

 has had something to say on this subject. She 

 recalls a year when there was no rain, and the 

 earth was parched and the corn did not grow, 

 and the poor people were in great distress. So 

 they walked in procession, and they said many 

 prayers, and at last the good God took pity 

 on them and sent three wrecks. The insu- 

 larity here exhibited is characteristic ; there is 

 no thought of the shipwrecked, and possibly 

 drowned, mariner ; of the loss or ruin to ship- 

 master, owner and underwriter ; it is only the 

 abundance of loot that counts. So no doubt 

 we are regarded by some of those we employ 

 as specially created, like the wrecks, by a bene- 

 ficent Providence, in answer to their prayers 

 for a master and mistress fairly well off and 

 not too knowing. 



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