When I went to the village some years afterwards, the
people in the neighbourhood all declared to me that they saw the cord
with which he was measuring fly into a thousand pieces the moment the
men attempted to straighten it over the first field.[5]
A very respectable old gentleman from the Concan, or Malabar
coast,[6] told me one day that every man there protects his field of
corn and his fruit-tree by dedicating it to one or other of the
spirits which there abound, or confiding it to his guardianship. He
sticks up something in the field, or ties on something to the tree,
in the name of the said spirit, who from that moment feels himself
responsible for its safe keeping. If any one, without permission from
the proprietor, presumes to take either an ear of corn from the
field, or fruit from the tree, he is sure to be killed outright, or
made extremely ill. 'No other protection is required', said the old
gentleman, 'for our fields and fruit-trees in that direction, though
whole armies should have to march through them.' I once saw a man
come to the proprietor of a jack-tree,[7] embrace his feet, and in
the most piteous manner implore his protection.
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