took advantage, for the carrying out of this superstition, of
the presence in the village of an ass which drew the cart of a
travelling rag-gatherer. They stood one on each side of the animal.
One woman then took one of the children and passed it face downward
through below the ass's belly to the other woman, who in turn handed
it back with its face this time turned towards the sky. The process
having been repeated three times, the child was taken away to the
house, and then the second child was similarly treated. The mothers
were thoroughly satisfied that their children were the better of the
magic process.

A mysterious virtue was supposed to be connected with passing under
the ancient gate of Mycenae by the primitive race who constructed it.
Jacob's words at Bethel, "This is the gate of heaven," may have an
allusion to the prehistoric custom of the place; for we have reason
to believe that a dolmen existed there, consecrated to solar worship,
the original name of Bethel being Beth-on, the house of the sun. The
hollow space beneath the dolmen was considered the altar-gate leading
to paradise, so that whosoever passed through it was certain to obtain
new life or immortality. It was an old superstition that the dead
required to be brought out of the house not by the ordinary door of
the living, but by a breach made specially in the wall, in order that
they might thus pass through a species of purgatory. We find an
exceedingly interesting example of this primitive superstition in the
punishment that was imposed upon the survivor in the famous combat
between the Horatii and Curiatii, when he murdered his sister, on
account of her unpatriotic devotion to her slain lover. The father of
Horatius, after making a piacular sacrifice, erected a beam across the
street leading from the Vicus Cyprius to the Carinae, with an altar on
each side--the one dedicated to Juno Sororia and the other to Janus
Curiatius--and under this yoke he made his son pass with his head
veiled. This beam long survived under the name of Tigillum Sororium or
Sister's Beam, and was constantly repaired at the public expense.

In modern times there are two most remarkable survivals of the same
kind. One of them is in the corridor of the mosque of Aksa at
Jerusalem. In this place are two pillars, standing close together, and
like those in the mosque of Omar at Cairo, they are used as a test of
character. It is said that whosoever can squeeze himself between