Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/263

Rh shift swelled up and split. When this rent takes place, the evil spirit is supposed to escape through the opening. In Mytilene, the bones of those who will not lie quiet in their graves are transported to a small adjacent island, where they are reinterred. This is an effectual bar to all future vagaries, for the vampire cannot cross salt water.

When, in digging a grave, bones from a previous interment are discovered, they are washed in wine and then placed in a common receptacle for such remains.

At Easter, and their most important festivals, a lighted lamp is placed in the tomb by the pious care of relations. At stated intervals after a death, small comfits called kollyba are offered to every one at the church door. These comfits are made of wheat boiled in water and mixed with the seed of pomegranates, sesame, nuts, almonds, and wild peas. These offerino's are made at the successive intervals of one, three, sis, and nine months from the date of the death, and on the last day of the year.$96$

This takes place during the first year after the death; during each subsequent year the distribution only takes place on the anniversary of the death. The three last-mentioned customs are, I believe, very general among the Greeks.

On the eve of St. John the Baptist's feast, a bonfire is made before the door of each house, over which all the people who pass by have to jump; they have also water thrown over them. This custom is an evident symbol of the rite of Baptism; and the use of fire seems to be an allusion to the words,—