ave OR FE 
[APRIL 22, 1897 
of the deified Muhammadan saint, whom their ancestors 
had slain. All through the year pilgrims frequent this 
shrine, but the special anniversary of his worship occurs 
in the month of May, one of the hottest months of the 
year, when the crush of pilgrims struggling to leave 
some offering at the tomb is so great that the con- 
sequences are sometimes fatal. A thermantidote was 
fixed a few years ago at the back of the tomb, to supply 
a current of cool fresh air to persons entering in at the 
front. This the pilgrims declare is the holy breath of the 
saint breathing on them ; and they go round to the back 
of the tomb and pay worship to this thermantidote. 
The godlings of disease are described in full detail in 
Chapter 11. Most of these are goddesses, various forms 
of Kali, the goddess of death. The most conspicuous 
are Sitala, the goddess of small-pox; and Mari 
Bhavani, the goddess of cholera. The latter shares her 
honours with another form of the cholera godling, who 
is a male, and is called Hardaul Lala. He is chiefly 
worshipped north of the Jumna. It is noticeable that 
there is no godling to represent the plague that is now 
raging in the Bombay Presidency, implying, what is the 
fact, that this fell disease has never before been known 
in India. If it should become an endemic it will no 
doubt be personified, and another godling will then be 
added to the already overcrowded pantheon. 
The reader will find much to interest him in the second 
volume, but we have no space to go into details. In pp. 
13-14, he will find some curious facts about the use of 
a horse-shoe for securing good luck, and warding off the 
‘evil eye. The custom of nailing against a door horse- 
shoes that have been accidentally picked up is as common 
in Indiaas in England: “the great gate of the mosque 
at Fatehpur Sikri is covered with them, and the practice 
is generalat many shrines.” It is interesting also to find 
that customs similar to that of throwing rice at a bride 
as she leaves the church are widely prevalent in India. 
Mr. Crooke devotes several pages to the subject of 
human sacrifice (vol. ii. pp. 167-176). There is no reason 
to doubt that this custom prevailed among the early 
Aryans of India. The Tantras enjoin human sacrifices 
to Chandika. The folk-tales of India abound in stories 
of human sacrifice ; and in the time of Sir John Malcolm 
there was a tribe of Brahmans called Karhada, which 
had a custom of annually sacrificing a young Brahman 
to their deities. All over India there is a very strong 
tradition that new buildings, bridges, tanks, and wells 
should be secured against evil by the blood of some 
human victim. 
The reader of these fascinating volumes cannot fail 
to be deeply interested in their perusal ; he will also 
realise what a wide field of research is open to the 
methodical and careful observer of Indian modes of life, 
of their religious beliefs and superstitions. It is extremely 
creditable to Mr. Crooke that such a valuable work 
should have been compiled in the intervals of the scanty 
leisure of a District Officer’s life in India. It is to be 
hoped that officials in other provinces of that vast 
empire, with its countless tongues, races and tribes, may 
be induced to follow in Mr. Crooke’s worthy footsteps. 
It is a matter of considerable surprise that the 
Government of India, instead of establishing an ethno- 
logical bureau whose entire work shall consist in collect- 
NO. 1434. VOL. 55] 
ing the traditions and customs of the people in each of 
the various provinces, should have allowed private 
individuals, already overburdened with work, to carry on 
such important researches at their own cost, and in the 
short intervals of hard-earned leisure. In this connection 
we would allude to the labours of Mr. Denzil Ibbetson, 
the author of “Panjab Ethnography”; to Colonel 
Dalton’s “Ethnology of India”; to the important sum- 
mary on the caste-system of the North-west Provinces 
and Oudh, monographs on the Kanjar, Mushera, Tharu, 
and other tribes, with sundry ethnographical treatises 
written by Mr. J. C. Nesfield; to Mr. Risley’s “ Tribes 
and Castes of Bengal”; to Mr. Eustace Kitt’s “ Com- 
pendium of Castes”; and to other similar works by 
eminent Indian officials, who have so largely contributed 
to the literature relating to the folk-lore, traditions, and 
religious beliefs of the people of India. 
PRIMITIVE MAN IN EGYPT. 
Recherches sur les Origines ae 1 E LV ple. DA ge dela pierre 
et les Metaux. Par J. de Morgan. Pp. xiv + 270, large 
8vo. (Paris: Leroux, 1896.) 
HE excavations which have been carried on in 
Egypt during the last twenty years have had as 
their object the acquisition of antiquities rather than the 
scientific investigation of the numerous problems anent 
the early Egyptians and their predecessors, which still, 
unfortunately, remain unsolved. It cannot be denied 
that public interest in the work depended largely upon 
the value of the facts which could be deduced from the 
study of Egyptian antiquities in their relation to the 
history of the sojourning of the children of Israel in 
Egypt, and it is only quite lately that attempts have been 
rade to treat the various branches of Egyptology from 
a comparative point of view. Moreover, a mistaken idea 
had gone abroad about the ability of the Egyptologist to 
settle the difficulties which constantly cropped up, and 
the philologist was thought to be able to give a final 
answer to every question which was propounded to him, 
It is now quite clear that the knowledge of the Egyptians 
is a subject sufficiently large to admit of the useful 
occupation of purely scientific men in addition to the 
philologist ; and the sooner this fact is generally recog- 
nised the sooner we may hope that fresh light will be 
thrown upon the dark and somewhat mysterious past of 
the early Egyptians. A limit must be reached some day 
in philological knowledge of Egyptian archeology, and 
our hope for further facts must rest upon those who are 
able to put before us the interpretation of the story 
of Egypt’s past, which is written in her mountains 
and mud. 
It will be remembered that the labours of Mariette 
and Maspero were devoted entirely to the collecting of 
antiquities, and to the publication of texts and papyri, 
and to the general administration of the Egyptian Museum 
of Balak and Ghizeh. Their successor, however, M. J, 
de Morgan, has approached the duties of his post with a 
larger view of their possibilities, and he has devoted him- 
self to the consideration of the ancient country of Egypt 
rather than to its language. The results of his excavations 
have, notwithstanding, been important, and the jewellery 
of Dahshir will for long claim the attention of all lovers 
