Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/39

 adorned with some five-and-twenty ornaments or more strung together, each made like the one appended to the chain in the sketch; it must have been valuable, being formed of pure gold.

The charm, No. 1 in the sketch, I had made by my own work-*man in the bazār, in solid silver, a copy from a necklace worn by the wife of one of my servants Dilmīr Khān. "Not one, but seventy misfortunes it keeps off ." The tiger's claws are tipped and set in silver; the back opens with a hinge, and the Jadu-ke-Bāt, a written charm, is therein concealed, the efficacy of which, added to the claws, ensures certain prosperity to the possessor, and averts the evil eye. No lady in India can wear any thing so valueless as silver, of which the ornaments made for her servants are composed. Whether Musalmānī or Hindoo, the women are delighted with the claws of the tiger. When an amulet, in form like No. 2 in the sketch, is made for a child, two of the teeth of the crocodile are put into it in lieu of tigers' claws. To-day a child in the Fort met its death by accident. The natives say, "How could it be lucky when it wore no charm to protect it?" Baghnā is the name for the amulet consisting of the teeth and claws of a tiger, which are hung round the neck of a grown-up person or of a child.

The Prophet forbids the use of certain amulets, saying, "Verily, spells, and tying to the necks of children the nails of tearing animals, and the thread which is tied round a wife's neck, to make her husband love her, are all of the way of the polytheists."

"It is the custom in Hindoostan to keep a monkey in or near a stable, to guard the horses from the influence of evil eyes. In Persia, the animal so retained is a hog; and in some parts of England, a goat is considered a necessary appendage to a stable, though, possibly, from some other equally fanciful motive."

The owl is considered an unlucky bird. "One-eyed men have a vein extra ;" and are supposed to be more knowing than others. And I have before mentioned that an opinion prevails in wild and mountainous parts of India, that the spirit of a man