244                            DESCRIPTION OF

piece of carpet, handling some old mathematical instru¬
ments, and having open before them a large book which
represents the signs of the zodiac. In this way they attract
the attention of the passengers, and impose upon the
people, by whom they are considered as so many infallible
oracles. They tell a poor person his fortune for a payssa
(which is worth about one sol); and after examining the
hand and face of the applicant, turning over the leaves of
the large book, and pretending to make certain calcula¬
tions, these impostors decide upon the Sahet ^ or propitious
moment of commencing the business he mav have in hand.
Silly women, wrapping themselves in a white cloth from
head to foot, flock to the astrologers, whisper to them all
the transactions of their lives, and disclose every secret
with no more reserve than is practised by a scrupulous
penitent in the presence of her confessor. The ignorant
and infatuated people really believe that the stars have
an influence which the astrologers can control.

The most ridiculous of these pretenders to divination
was a half-caste Portuguese, a fugitive from Goa. This
fellow sat on his carpet as gravely as the rest, and had
many customers notwithstanding he could neither read
nor write. His only instrument was an old mariner's com-
pass,2 and his books of astrology a couple of old Romish
prayer-books in the Portuguese language, the pictures of
which he pointed out as the signs of the European zodiac.
A tal Bestias, tal Astrologuo,^ he unblushingly observed to
the Jesuit, the Reverend Father Buze, who saw him at his
work.

^ Read Saiet, see p. i6i.

^ The Chinese used a modified form of the mariner's compass for
purposes of divination from an early period. See p. 169 et seq. of a
Letter to Baron Humboldt, on the Invention of the Mariner's Co7?ipass,
by M. J. Klaproth. Paris, Dondey-Dupre, 1834. Other Oriental
nations appear to have done the same.

^ ' For such brutes, such an astrologer,' equivalent to Like master,
like man, or the Hindostanee proverb, Such a cotmtry, such a dress
{Jaisa dhes waisae bhes).