close to his mouth and the lower (spreading) end over the brazier, and finally
repeated the charm for a third time, suspending, as he did so, the lemon over the
brazier by means of the thread held in his left hand and holding the birch in the
right.
Everything being ready, he now began to put questions to the lemon into which
the spirit was supposed to have entered, rebuking it and threatening it with the
birch whenever it failed to answer distinctly and to the point. The conversational
powers of this spirit were extremely limited, being confined to two signs
signifying “Yes” and “No.” The affirmative was indicated by a pendulum-like
swaying of the lemon, which rocked to and fro with more or less vehemence
according to the emphasis (as my friend informed me) with which the reply was
to be delivered. Negation, on the other hand, was indicated by a complete
cessation of motion on the part of the lemon.
When it is required to discover, for instance, the name of a thief, the names of all
those who are at all likely to have committed the theft are written on scraps of
paper and arranged in a circle round the brazier, when the lemon will at once
swing in the direction of the name of the guilty party. The best night for the
performance of this ceremony is a Tuesday.
Sir Frank Swettenham’s account of a similar ceremony of which he was an eye-
witness will serve as a good illustration of the methods in use for this purpose:—
“It was my misfortune some years ago to be robbed of some valuable property,
and several Malay friends strongly advised me to take the advice of an
astrologer, or other learned person who (so they said) would be able to give the
name of the thief, and probably recover most of the stolen things. I fear that I
had no great faith in this method of detection, but I was anxious to see what
could be done, for the East is a curious place, and no one with an inquiring mind
can have lived in it long without seeing phenomena that are not always
explained by modern text-books on Natural Philosophy.
“I was first introduced to an Arab of very remarkable appearance. He was about
fifty years old, tall, with pleasant features and extraordinary gray-blue eyes, clear
and far-seeing, a man of striking and impressive personality. I was travelling
when I met him, and tried to persuade him to return with me, but that he said he
could not do, though he promised to follow me by an early steamer. He said he