propelled at sea and the carriages on land, I must still unroll a
blank mind until I can secretly, and without undue hazard, examine
them more closely. If, as you maintain, it is the work of captive
demons hidden away among their most inside parts, it must be admitted
that these usually intractable beings are admirably trained and
controlled, and I am wide-headed enough to think that in this respect
we might--not-withstanding our nine thousand years of civilised
refinement--learn something of the methods of these barbarians. The
secret, however, is jealously guarded, and they deny the existence of
any supernatural forces; but their protests may be ignored, for there
is undoubtedly a powerful demon used in a similar way by some of the
boldest of them, although its employment is unlawful. A certain kind
of chariot is used for the occupation of this demon, and those who
wish to invoke it conceal their faces within masks of terrifying
design, and cover their hands and bodies with specially prepared
garments, without which it would be fatal to encounter these very
powerful spirits. While yet among the habitations of men, and in
crowded places, they are constrained to use less powerful demons,
which are lawful, but when they reach the unfrequented paths they
throw aside all restraint, and, calling to their aid the forbidden
spirit (which they do by secret movements of the hands), they are
carried forward by its agency at a speed unattainable by merely human
means. By day the demon looks forth from three white eyes, which at
night have a penetrating brilliance equal to the fiercest glances of
the Sacred Dragon in anger. If any person incautiously stands in its
way it utters a warning cry of intolerable rage, and should the
presumptuous one neglect to escape to the roadside and there prostrate
himself reverentially before it, it seizes him by the body part and
contemptuously hurls him bruised and unrecognisable into the boundless
space of the around. Frequently the demon causes the chariot to rise