mule was first foaled, I had given orders to sell the foal and its mother; but, happening to see it, I countermanded the order immediately. It received a hurt in its eye, and when, with my hand, I applied some eye-water with camphor in it, which, of course, made the eye smart, it never once turned its head away, or showed the least impatience of what I was doing. When this mule was dying some years afterwards, she lay twenty-four hours, every minute seeming to be going to breathe her last; but still life would not depart. They told me of this, and I went to the stable. The moment she saw me, she turned her eyes on me, gave an expressive look, and expired. All the servants said she would not die until my star, which was hers, had come to take her breath: isn't it very extraordinary? Serpents never die, whatever you can do to them, until their star rises above the horizon.[1]
"Some can do well only when under the guidance of another person's star. What was Lord Grenville
- ↑ There is a passage in an interesting domestic tale recently published (The History of Margaret Catchpole, by the Rev. Mr. Cobhold), which has a strange coincidence with the superstitious belief of the Syrians, considering how widey the English are separated from them. It is as follows: "He told me he was the most venemous snake in the country. His bite is attended with swelling and blackness of the body, and, when the sun goes down, death ensues."—Vol. ii., p. 188.
