FABULOUS ASTRONOMY. 197 



rang bells during storms * and eclipses to counteract the action of 

 bad spirits, to repel, -with, the priest's blessing, the darkness caused 

 by phantoms — a survival, according to P. Lafitan, of the dark 

 genii that devoured the moon. 



The earliest observers of the stars had no suspicion of their 

 true nature, or of the considerable distances that separate them 

 from us. If they did not think them within reach of their hands, 

 they supposed that they were, at least, almost in a literal sense, 

 accessible to the voice. Homer says that the highest pines of 

 Mount Ida passed beyond the limits of the atmosphere and pene- 

 trated into the ethereal region through which the clangor of the 

 arms of his heroes reached to the sky. This sky was a solid hemi- 

 sphere, a bell resting upon the earth, or, according to Euripides, 

 a cover set over the work of the sublime artisan. The Hebrew 

 psalmist, of the eleventh century before our era, said to the Lord, 

 "Thou stretchest out the heavens as a pavilion." The stars of 

 Anaximenes were fixed in this vault like nails. The celestial bell 

 covered a flat earth which was surrounded by water on every side. 

 Every people imagined itself in the center of it, and China is still 

 " The Middle Empire." The Incas exhibited this center in their 

 sanctuary of Cuzco, the name of which signified navel, as the 

 Greeks also saw it in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, which was 

 also called the navel (6//,</>aAos) of the world, and was celebrated by 

 Pindar under that name. The Chinese located the navel of the 

 earth in the city of Khotan. The conception of the earth as flat 

 and like a cake prevailed in European civilization till the Cru- 

 sades, and the lazzaroni of Naples have it still. 



The Hawaiians, Maoris, and Eskimos supposed that the whole 

 sky was supported by a pillar, as the ancients fancied it upheld by 

 Atlas. The Iroquois thought it was fluid. 



The Polynesians explained the revolutions of the sun by sup- 

 posing that the great god Meni held it by a cord. 



The shepherd of Sapta Sindhon regarded the stars as fires kin- 

 dled by Agni (the elementary fire), or by Varuna (the celestial 

 vault). A hymn which he addressed to the gods mentions the 

 moon with icy rays to signalize its powerlessness against the di- 

 vine fires of heaven. (It is to be remarked that the moon is often 

 spoken of as a frozen place — probably in reference to the differ- 

 ence in temperature between day and night.) 



The milky way, which was Winter's path to the Scandinavians, 

 was the road of souls for some of the American nations ; the souls 

 entered the world by the door situated where it intersects the 

 zodiac in Gemini, and quit it to return to the gods by the door of 

 Sagittarius. French peasants still call it St. James's road ; my- 

 thology attributed it to the milk that dropped from Juno's breast 



* This practice was kept up till the last century. 



