ata
clan have no secret, and there is nothing wonderful in their performance;
but, miracle or not, I am very glad I saw it.' The handkerchief dropped
on the stone is 'alive to testify to it.' Mr. Thomson's photograph of
the scene is ill-developed, and the fumes of steam somewhat interfere
with the effect. A rough copy is published in Folk-Lore for September,
1895, but the piece could only be reproduced by a delicate drawing with
the brush.

The parallel to the rite of the Hirpi is complete, except that red-hot
stones, not the pyre of pine-embers, is used in Fiji. Mr. Thomson has
heard of a similar ceremony in the Cook group of islands. As in ancient
Italy, so in Fiji, a certain _clan_ have the privilege of fire-walking.
It is far enough from Fiji to Southern India, as it is far enough from
Mount Soracte to Fiji. But in Southern India the Klings practise the
rite of the Hirpi and the Na Ivilankata. I give my informant's letter
exactly as it reached me, though it has been published before in
Longman's Magazine:

Kling Fire-walk

'Dear Sir,--Observing from your note in Longman's Magazine that you have
mislaid my notes re fire-walking, I herewith repeat them. I have more
than once seen it done by the "Klings," as the low-caste Tamil-speaking
Hindus from Malabar are called, in the Straits Settlements. On one
occasion I was present at a "fire-walking" held in a large tapioca
plantation in Province Wellesley, before many hundreds of spectators, all
the Hindu coolies from the surrounding estates being mustered. A trench
had been dug about twenty yards long by six feet wide and two deep. This
was piled with faggots and small wood four or five feet high. This was
lighted at midday, and by four p.m. the trench was a bed of red-hot
ashes, the heat from which was so intense that the men who raked and
levelled it with long poles could not stand it for more than a minute at
a time. A few yards from the end of the trench a large hole had been dug
and filled with water. When all was ready, six men, ordinary coolies,
dressed only in their "dholis," or loin-cloths, stepped out of the crowd,
and, amidst tremendous excitement and a horrible noise of conches and
drums, passed over the burning trench from end to end, in single file, at
a quick walk, plunging one after the other into the water. Not one of
them showed the least sign of injury. They had undergone some course of
preparation by their priest, not a Brahman,