nd planets." And the Hebrew is not wrong. The forms gathering by
the riverside in the twilight are those of "Star-worshippers," the last
remnants of the famous magi of ancient Chaldea, and their followers, the
Babylonian adorers of the host of heaven. To the number of about four
thousand in all, they still survive in their Mesopotamian native land,
principally along the banks of the Euphrates river, where they form small
village communities. They invariably keep their settlements somewhere near
a stream, for their religious rites and ceremonies are preceded by
frequent bathings and ablutions, and a rill of flowing water passing near
or through their tabernacle or meeting-place is indispensable. Hence this
edifice is always raised quite close to the river. They call themselves
_Mandaya_, Mandaites, possessors of the "word," the "living word," keep
strictly to their own customs and observances and language, and never
intermarry with Moslems, who call them _Sabba_, Sabeans. Their dialect is
a remnant of the later Babylonian, and resembles closely the idiom of the
Palestinian Talmud, and their liturgy is a compound of fragments of the
ancient Chaldean cosmogony with gnostic mysticism influenced by later
superstitions. They are a quiet and inoffensive people noted, oddly
enough, for the quality of their dairy produce in the villages, and for
their skill as metal workers and goldsmiths in the towns where they
reside. Their principal settlement is, or was, at Mardin, in the Bagdad
district; but there has always been a small community of them at
Sook-es-Shookh, on the banks of their favorite stream, the Euphrates.

It happens to be the festival of the Star-worshippers celebrated on the
last day of the year and known as the _Kanshio Zahlo_, or day of
renunciation. This is the eve of the new year, the great watch-night of
the sect, when the annual prayer-meeting is held and a solemn sacrifice
made to Avather Ramo, the Judge of the under world, and Ptahiel, his
colleague; and the white-robed figures we observe down by the riverside
are those of members of the sect making the needful preparations for the
prayer-meeting and its attendant ceremonies. First, they have to erect
their _Mishkna_, their tabernacle or outdoor temple; for the sect has,
strange to say, no permanent house of worship or meeting-place, but raise
one previous to their festival and only just in time for the celebration.
And this is now what they are busy doing with