92 COLONEL T. HOLBEIN HENDLEY, C.I.E., ON RESEMBLANCES 
a sentry was posted in the midst of a lawn in front of one of 
the Czar’s palaces. At last it was ascertained that more than 
a century ago, if I remember correctly, the great Empress 
Catherine happened to notice that a snowdrop grew on that 
spot, and told some one to see that it was not trodden upon. 
A sentry was placed in order that it might be preserved, hut a 
guard was still posted in our own days to carry out a duty 
which for so many years had been impossible. Naushirvan the 
Just, King of Persia at the time of the Emperor Justinian, in 
whose days Mohamed boasted that he had been born, refused 
to permit his followers to take a handful of salt from a village 
lest it should become a custom, and so the place be ruined. His 
fame, on account of this and similar acts, is still known 
throughout the East. 
About forty years ago the wife of a sick officer who lived at 
the capital of a native chief expressed a wish to have a pet 
rabbit sent to her to the lulls from her home in the plains. 
The prince at once ordered that her wish should be complied 
with, but long after she had left the world a yearly box of 
rabbits went up to the same place by special messenger, though 
who received them I do not know. It was the interest of 
someone to keep up the custom. A tax denominated Ghora- 
berarwa was first levied by Madhoji Sindiah from the country 
of Meywar to remunerate him for the price of one of his 
favourite horses that died within the limits of that province. 
This amount was long afterwards assessed as a part of the 
revenue. (Malcolm.) 
In 1805, when Jaswant Piao Holkar was in pursuit of 
Lieut.-Colonel Monson’s Corps, the death of numbers of his 
gun bullocks led him to levy a contribution of one bullock each 
from many villages. The tax did not cease with the 
emergency, but it was commuted for money, and for many 
years was still paid by each of these villages under the head of 
Top-Jchanah-karich, or charge for the train. It may be paid to 
this day. Dastur or custom is, and always was, a ruling 
principle in the East, and applied to the Jew and to the ancient 
nations as much then as it does now to their descendants. 
The Jews were forbidden to observe times and seasons and 
•consult soothsayers. It is hard to distinguish the latter from 
astrologers. Many references to the stars in the Bible are 
undoubtedly astrological, as for example, when the Lord is 
represented as saying in Job, “Canst thou bind the sweet 
influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ” (Job 
xxxviii, 31). In Isaiah xlvii, 13, the daughter of Babylon is 
