tiont. 
ATHENS. C 
bestowed: on the contrary, we find that the latest chap. 
descriptions of the manners of the inhabitants , — 
afford a much more favourable representation of 
their moral character'. That they are exceedingly 
superstitious, cannot be denied ; but even their 
superstitions are rendered \-:teresting, in supcrsti- 
having been transmitted, unaltered, from the 
earliest ages of the Grecian history. Among 
these may be noticed the wearing of rings, as 
spells'; the practice, upon any sudden appre- 
hension, of spitting into their own bosoms^; 
the alarm excited by seeing serpents in their 
houses^; the observance of lucky or unlucky 
days®; the various charms and drugs which 
are supposed to facilitate child-birth"; the 
(2) " They are assiduous housewives, and tender mothers, suckling; 
their infants themselves ; and, notwithstanding the boastings of 
travellers, I must believe them generally chaste." Hohhouse's Travels in 
Turkey, ^-c. j). 506. Lond. 1813. 
(3) AaxruA.('a«; ^ap/ia.Kirai. yiristoph. Plut. p. 88. 
(4) Tpj III ifiit irruTa Kci.'ror. Theocritus. A similar superstition h 
mentioned by \lr. Gait, in his " Letters from the Levant," p. 172. Lond- 
1813. 
(5) 'E» Tri aiKia. Theophrustus. " ^n^ii per hnpluvitim decidit de 
tegnilis." Terent. in Phorm. Ac. IV. Sc. 4. 
(6) Vid. Hesind. WEpy^i; xa)'Hfi. x.T.X. 
(7) Viil. Aristophanes, uxvt'oku utuirajjLinf. Plutarch [De Fluv. p. 60. 
Tortosa, 1615.) mentions an herb, Cyura, growing upon the banks of 
the Inachus, famous for its virtues in assisting parturition : and the 
women of Darien in America, when pregnant, eat an herb which, it 
is said, causes them to bring forth without pain. Vid. Boem. lib. iv. 
c. 11. 
