e
same time a kind of professional chant, and slowly waving their green
boughs. The appearance of one of these men in particular was very odd.
There was evidently some superstition in the ceremony, this personage
being probably a coradje or priest. He was an old man with a large beard
and bushy hair, and the lower part of his nose was wanting, so that the
apex of that feature formed more than a rightangle, giving him an
extraordinary appearance. None except himself and other ancients wore any
kind of dress; and this consisted of a small cloak of skins fastened over
the left shoulder. While the man from the woods waved his bough aloft and
chanted that monotonous hymn, an idea of the ancient druids arose in my
mind. It was obvious the ceremony belonged to some strange superstition.
He occasionally turned his back towards each of us like the grisly priest
with murmuring prayer; he touched his eyebrows, nose, and breast as if
crossing himself, then pointed his arm to the sky; afterwards laid his
hand on his breast, chanting with an air of remarkable solemnity and
abstracted looks, while at times his branch:

he held on high,
With wasted hand and haggard eye,
And strange and mingled feelings woke,
While his anathema he spoke.* Scott.

(*Footnote. Burder in his Oriental Customs says (Number 187): "An opinion
prevailed both in those days and after ages that some men had a power, by
the help of their gods, to devote not only particular persons, but whole
armies to destruction. This they are said to have done, sometimes by
words of imprecation, of which there was a set form among some people,
which Aeschines calls diorizomenen aran, the determinate curse. Sometimes
they also offered sacrifices, and used certain rites and ceremonies with
solemn charms.")

All this contrasted strangely with the useful occupation of honest
Vulcan, whom I had positively enjoined not to laugh, or stop working.

AMUSING ATTEMPTS TO STEAL, OR DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.

At length I prevailed on an old man to sit down by me and gave him a
clasp-knife in order to check the search he was disposed to make through
my pockets. Meanwhile the others came around the forge and immediately
began to pilfer whatever they could lay either hand or foot upon. While
one was detected making off with a file another seized something else,
until the poor blacksmith could no longer proceed with his work. One set
his foot on an axe and thus, all the while staring the oversee