is effected by certain hocus-pocus with a scrap of wool from the forehead of a first-born lamb, if only the lamb, instead of being allowed to fall to the ground, has been caught by hand as it dropped from its dam.[46] In Andjra, a district of Morocco, the people attribute many magical virtues to rain-water which has fallen on the twenty-seventh day of April, Old Style; accordingly they collect it and use it for a variety of purposes.  Mixed with tar and sprinkled on the door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house:  sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye:  mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable medicine for sick cows:  poured over a plate, on which a passage of the Koran has been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who drink it; and if you mix it with cowdung and red earth and paint rings with the mixture round the trunks of your fig-trees at sunset on Midsummer Day, you may depend on it that the trees will bear an excellent crop and will not shed their fruit untimely on the ground.  But in order to preserve these remarkable properties it is absolutely essential that the water should on no account be allowed to touch the ground; some say too that it should not be exposed to the sun nor breathed upon by anybody.[47] Again, the Moors ascribe great magical efficacy to what they call “the sultan of the oleander,” which is a stalk of oleander with a cluster of four pairs of leaves springing from it.  They think that the magical virtue is greatest if the stalk has been cut immediately before midsummer.  But when the plant is brought into the house, the branches may not touch the ground, lest they should lose their marvellous qualities.[48] In the olden days, before a Lithuanian or Prussian farmer went forth to plough for the first time in spring, he called in a wizard to perform a certain ceremony for the good of the crops.  The sage seized a mug of beer with his teeth, quaffed the liquor, and then tossed the mug over his head.  This signified that the corn in that year should grow taller than a man.  But the mug might not fall to the ground; it had to be caught by somebody stationed at the wizard’s back, for if it fell to the ground the consequence naturally would be that the corn also would be laid low on the earth.[49]

Sec. 2. Not to see the Sun

[Sacred persons not allowed to see the sun.]

The second rule to be here noted is that the sun may not shine upon the divine person.  This rule was observed both by the Mikado and by the pontiff of the Zapotecs.  The latter “was looked upon as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon."[50] The Japanese would not allow that the Mikado should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the sun was not thought worthy to shine on his head.[51] The Indians of Granada, in South America, “kept those who were to be rulers or commanders, whether men or women, locked