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I found him an admirable buffoon, skilful in filling pipes and smoking them; au reste, an individual of "many words and little work," infinite intrigue, cowardice, cupidity, and endowed with a truly evil tongue. The morning sun rose hot upon us, showing Mayyum and Zubah, the giant staples of the "Gate under the Pleiades." Such to us, at least, appeared the land of Adel.

Mars is the Matamemea, or the star with the sear-leafed face. The Pleiades are called Lii or Mataalii, eyes of chiefs. The belt of Orion is the amonga, or burden carried on a pole across the shoulders. The milky way is ao lele, ao to'a, and the aniva. Ao lele, means flying cloud, and ao to'a, solid cloud.

And let him who denies what he cannot comprehend, be addressed in the impressive language of holy writ, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his Sons?" 14th November, 1827.

Night after night the Pleiades swung higher in the firmament; day after day the sailor perfected his defences and anxiously scanned the ocean for sign of friendly smoke or hostile sail. This respite would not have been given to him, were it not for the lucky bullet which removed two fingers and part of a third from the right hand of the Dyak chief.

It is certainly difficult to understand how such lines of nebula could become knotted with the nuclei of future stars, and then gradually be absorbed into those stars; and yet, if such a process does not occur, what is the meaning of that narrow nebulous streak in the Pleiades along which five or six stars are strung like beads on a string?

It showed a curiously intricate structure, composed of dimly luminous streams, and shreds, and patches, intermixed with dark gaps and channels. Ramifications from the main trunk ran out towards the Andromeda nebula and the "Bee-hive" cluster in Cancer, involved the Pleiades and Hyades, and, winding round the constellation of Orion, just attained the Sword-handle nebula.

He tried to recall the origin of the name he had learned it once in the old Vicar's study. The Pleiades were attendants upon Artemis, the huntress moon, he recalled vaguely, and, being pursued by Orion, were set for safety among the stars.

To the right a celestial bottle, stretching from the horizon to the zenith, appears, is uncorked, and scatters the worlds with the foam of what ambrosial liquor may have been within. Beyond, a Spanish goddess, some minor deity in the Dionysian theogony, dances continually, rapt and mysterious, to the music of the spheres, her head in Cassiopeia and her twinkling feet among the Pleiades.

They are reliable to the hundredth part of a second. The Italian physicians, in their ignorance of the origin of a disease, named it the influenza, because they imagined that it came from the influence of the stars. No! There is nothing malign in the sweet influences of the Pleiades. The stars are of special use as a mental gymnasium.

Though he found no foot-prints, it was easy to trace the couple, because avocados were springing up from seeds that the woman spat out as she journeyed on. At the edge of the earth he caught the tapir and killed him; yet the creature's shadow arose from the body and kept on its flight with the wife. Straightforth she leaped into the blue vast, and there she hangs, only we call her the Pleiades.