Page:The Anatomy of Tobacco.pdf/33

 on inquiring whence arose this fearful tumult he was answered in Columbarian Greek (the dialect used to communicate with foreigners) that it came from an instrument named the, which Bossius conjectures may be probably identified with that which we now call the "tom-tom."

But a still greater discomfiture awaited our philosopher, and one which threatened to shatter and destroy the very citadel of his system—namely, the divine order and sequence of numbers both in matters terrestrial and celestial. For it happed that playing at astragaloi or dibs with one whom he describes as —"of all men most bland and childlike," the cast of sea-