prescribe. Several cases have come before me as a magistrate in which
the father has stood over the doctor with a drawn sword by the side
of the bed of his child, and cut him down and killed him the moment
the child died, as he had sworn to do when he found the patient
sinking under his prescriptions.[5]

The town of Jubbulpore contains a population of twenty thousand
souls,[6] and they all believed in this story of the cock. I one day
asked a most respectable merchant in the town, Nâdû Chaudhrî, how the
people could believe in such things, when he replied that he had no
doubt witches were to be found in every part of India, though they
abounded most, no doubt, in the central parts of it, and that we
ought to consider ourselves very fortunate in having no such things
in England. 'But', added he, 'of all countries that between Mandlâ
and Katâk (Cuttack)[7] is the worst for witches. I had once occasion
to go to the city of Ratanpur[8] on business, and was one day, about
noon, walking in the market-place and eating a very fine piece of
sugar-cane. In the crowd I happened, by accident, to jostle an old
woman as she passed me. I looked back, intending to apologize for the
accident, and heard her muttering indistinctly as she passed on.
Knowing the propensities of these old ladies, I became somewhat
uneasy, and on turning round to my cane I found, to my great terror,
that the juice had been all _turned to blood_. Not a minute had
elapsed, such were the fearful powers of this old woman. I collected
my followers, and, leaving my agents there to settle my accounts, was
beyond the boundaries of the old wretch's influence before dark; had
I remained, nothing could have saved me. I should certainly have been
a dead man before morning. It is well known', said the old gentleman,
'that their spells and curses can only reach a certain distance, ten
or twelve miles; and, if you offend one of them, the sooner you place