Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/545

Rh carry it away. In some places the bonzes, who were certainly not ignorant concerning the stakes, directed the workmen, and had the roads made straight to their pagodas. The Chinese and Malays do not escape the road-making fever, and while I was French resident at Kampot I heard some very curious stories of men who were mysteriously struck down for ridiculing or opposing it. At one place a Malay questioned the utility of the work. "What do we want of roads?" he said. "We have always got along without them; this is a French idea." His fellows warned him to look out, or harm might come to him. He went home, and in a little while cries were heard coming from his house. His neighbors went in and found him lying on his side, with his arms stretched out, crying: "Untie me; take a knife and cut the ropes from my arms; cut them and let me work on the road! I have been bound because I spoke ill of the genius." Without a smile, one of the neighbors took a knife and made a gesture of cutting the invisible cords that bound the arms of the unhappy man. He rose, shook his arms to get the stiffness out of them, and went to work on the road. Nobody doubted that he had been bound by a road genius. When I ordered a road built between Kompong Bay and Mac Prang, the Malay under-governor, who was hostile to the project, did nothing toward carrying my orders into effect, till one night a genius appeared to him and ordered him to proceed with the work, because Cambodia must have as broad and fine roads as Paris. He set his gangs to work the next morning.

The witches are not willing to confess to the possession of mysterious powers, because they are afraid of the courts and of popular prejudice; but they may be known by their strange appearance, their bright, lively, black eyes, and restless demeanor. "A witch," I was told, "is always looking anxiously around, because she always has her devil with her." Some witches acquire their standing by imitation, but more by inheritance. The daughter of a sorceress, even if she does not practice her craft, and is not acquainted with its secrets and magical formulas, is supposed to be possessed of a fatal power of which she can not be deprived. She casts the evil eye and terror about her, and her neighbors fear and despise her.

A woman sixty-two years old, who had worn irons on her feet by order of her governor for more than a year, was sent to me, charged with sorcery and the evil eye, although no mischief could be laid up against her. To justify his course the governor said he apprehended that the people would treat her cruelly; but he was really as superstitious as they, and was afraid of her power. The governor of another province refused to take her as a servant when she asked him to, because he was afraid for his family. The interpreter of the residence, a Roman Catholic of Khmero-Portuguese origin,