"Vain And False," Said She, "Is All The Pretended
Knowledge Of The Europeans - Their Doctors Will Tell You That The
Drinking of milk gives yellowness to the complexion; milk is my
only food, and you see if my face be
Not white." Her abstinence
from food intellectual was carried as far as her physical fasting.
She never, she said, looked upon a book or a newspaper, but trusted
alone to the stars for her sublime knowledge; she usually passed
the nights in communing with these heavenly teachers, and lay at
rest during the daytime. She spoke with great contempt of the
frivolity and benighted ignorance of the modern Europeans, and
mentioned in proof of this, that they were not only untaught in
astrology, but were unacquainted with the common and every-day
phenomena produced by magic art. She spoke as if she would make me
understand that all sorcerous spells were completely at her
command, but that the exercise of such powers would be derogatory
to her high rank in the heavenly kingdom. She said that the spell
by which the face of an absent person is thrown upon a mirror was
within the reach of the humblest and most contemptible magicians,
but that the practice of such-like arts was unholy as well as
vulgar.
We spoke of the bending twig by which, it is said, precious metals
may be discovered. In relation to this, the prophetess told me a
story rather against herself, and inconsistent with the notion of
her being perfect in her science; but I think that she mentioned
the facts as having happened before the time at which she attained
to the great spiritual authority which she now arrogated.
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