LOCAL SUPERSTITIONS. 245 



or, in English : — 



" A rainbow in the morning is the sailors' warning, 

 A rainbow at night is the sailors' delight." 



Finally, I could also say a great deal about ghosts and 

 apparitions as having been made to foretell coming events, but, 

 as I may possibly take up that subject at some future time, I 

 will refrain from referring further to it at present. 



But I can scarcely close this subject of signs and omens 

 without touching lightly upon that other popular mania, viz. : 

 pretending to discover indications of one's intended among 

 the dregs or tea-leaves in the bottom of the last cup of tea, 

 whenever that beverage is taken. After giving the cup a few 

 whirls to separate the dregs, it is set down in the saucer 

 bottom upwards for a few seconds. Then, upon turning it up 

 again, the examination takes place. Should a longish stem 

 be conspicuous among the rest, it is at once set down as the 

 tea-drinker's beau, if a young woman. If a man, of course he 

 will look for something more typical of a young lady. This 

 may be practised now as mere child's fun, but yet the fact of 

 its still continuing so general, clearly implies that there must 

 have been some faith put in it at one time. I believe it was 

 first practised by professed fortune-tellers. Be that as it may, 

 I know one elderly widow even now who seldom fails to end 

 her " tea " in this way. Nor is she at all ashamed to say that 

 she expects to see her next spouse in the bottom of her tea- 

 cup one of these days. That her faith in this prediction has 

 not been shaken appears to me strange, for, when in her teens, 

 she never failed to look for her young man's apparition in the 

 same way ; and though she often pretended to have seen him, 

 yet, when he did come, it was in the shape of a middle-aged 

 wddower. Surely the tea-leaves must have proved awfully 

 treacherous. That this pretended reading of the future in 

 tea-leaves is not limited to Guernsey I have often had occasion 

 to observe. Only the other day, while taking tea with a 

 Jersey friend — a clergyman of the Church of England, too — 

 I was surprised to see him make the same examination of his 

 tea-cup. Upon my making some remark about it, he told me 

 that it was quite a practice in the sister isle. This leads me 

 to ask myself, in conclusion, whether the Guernsey com- 

 munity, with all its ignorance, superstition and popular delu- 

 sions, is more benighted as a whole than the people of any 

 other country in these respects ? I think it is not. 



