NOTES FROM THE CRADLE OF OUR CIVILIZATION. 663 
a very holy man. There may be no truth in this story, but it is a matter of 
extreme pleasure to know that all round the world great spiritual blessings are 
believed to be the outcome of an indefatigable spirit. 
The folk-lore and questions of the Panjab cast much light on our own man- 
ners. When a Hindu Panjabi brings home his bride, his sister must stand in the 
doorway and endeavor to prevent the entrance of the couple, until they pay her 
something. The sister does not own the house, has no claim to it, indeed. Ac- 
cording to Hindu custom she has probably been for years betrothed to some one 
else. It is doubtless a survival of those good old days when a man could not 
carry off a wife without paying a good round sum. 
In the Delhi district they have a punishment for a man who is lewd, that 
consists in putting him on a donkey and riding him round the village. Now the 
ancient punishment for the same offence was to blacken the culprit's face, put a 
string of old shoes around his neck, set him on the donkey with his face toward 
the tail, and thus to ride him round the village. 
In the Munee hills there is a larva of a beetle which comes out after a rain 
and emits light, in fact, is a glow-worm. The natives say that, in a former life, 
a fakir refused to give fire to Behmata, the goddess who is present at the birth 
of children, when she demanded it of him. For this act of disobedience he is 
condemned to carry a light about with him forever. 
Some of the lucky and unlucky signs are very interesting : Friday is an un- 
lucky day in the Panjab. If a hunter kills the first game he sees on Friday, he 
will have good sport. If you are unlucky at any time change your shoes on your 
feet right and left. A house with the front narrower than the back is lucky, one 
with the front wider is unlucky. While a house is building, a lamp should be kept 
alight at night to drive away evil spirits, and an iron-vessel (nazarwaiu) hung up to 
avert evil eye. The number of steps in a staircase should be uneven, and you 
should always begin to go upstairs with the left foot on the bottom step. 
As a protection against evil eye it is necessary to use something of iron, or, 
at least, something black. This may account for the following conversation re- 
ported by Ibbetson : 
Sahib. — "Why don't you keep that pretty child's face clean?" 
Father. — Oh, Sahib ! a little black keeps off the evil eye." 
The unusual derivation of the word Ogre from Orcus or Horkos, or Hades, 
is not quite satisfactory to some lexicographers, so Mr. Ibbetson offers another. 
In Rohtak a fakir was seen to eat of the body of a recently buried child which 
he had dug up. He said he learned to do this in the Jind State, where it is a 
custom. Now these cannibal fakirs are called by the people Oghars, from Ag- 
hon, which means without fear, and is a title of Siva. These Oghars are the 
most depraved of mortals, for, instead of washing their bodies, they smear them 
with the worst of filth. They also drink out of human skulls, and outrage all 
laws of good behavior. The question arises whether this sect are at all chargea- 
ble with our word ogre. 
On the northern border of the Panjab is Thibet, and the people of this vast 
