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 overseer (who eyed him) in the face he quickly receded several yards, jumping backwards to another, who stood ready behind him to take the tool.  Some jogged their neighbours at the moments most opportune for plundering; and an old man made amusing attempts to fish up a horse-shoe into the hollow of a tree.  The best of this part of the scene was that they did not mind being observed by anyone except the blacksmith, supposing that they were robbing him only.  Vulcan was at last tempted to give one of them a push, when a scene of chanting, spitting,* and throwing dust commenced on the part of the thief, who was a stout fellow and carried a spear which he seemed inclined to use.  Notwithstanding all the vigilance of several men appointed to watch the articles about the forge, an excellent rasp or file was carried off.  The natives left our party however in a perfectly civil way, and we were right glad to feel at peace with them on any terms.