This Old Creature Had Brought Fire And Dried Olive-Leaves In A Broken Pot, With Which She Immediately Fumigated Us By Marching Round Several Times, And So Manipulating Her Pot As To Produce The Largest Volume Of Smoke.

This custom, which is so general throughout Cyprus, is supposed to avert the evil-eye; but I imagine that it originated during a period when the plague or some other fatal epidemic was prevalent in the island, and fumigation was supposed to act as a preventative.

There is no medicinal property in the olive-leaf, but as the tree is practically undying, I attribute the use of the leaves as incense to be symbolically connected with the blessing of a long life expressed to a welcomed guest. It is one of those vestiges of tree-worship which may be traced in almost every country, both savage and civilised, and may be seen exhibited in Egypt, where the almost everlasting species of aloe is suspended above the doorway of a house as a talisman or safeguard to the family within: the idea thus expressed, "As the plant never dies, may your family last for ever." We got rid of the old hag and her smoky offering, and she became lost in the crowd which thronged around us; this was composed of the ugliest, dirtiest, shortest, and most repulsive lot of females that I ever saw: it was painful to look at them.

There was a general complaint that the silkworms had deteriorated, and that the mulberry-trees had suffered from a disease which had killed great numbers.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 159 of 524
Words from 43191 to 43454 of 143016