“When a dog carries any unclean thing to the top of a house, it is supposed that the master will become rich. If a hen lay her egg upon cotton, its master will become poor. If a person, who is going to conclude a law suit, meet on the road another carrying brooms or spades, the suit will be long, and in the end he will be deceived. If the wind should carry away any of the leaves of the betel, when, according to custom, it is being carried to the house of a newly-married woman, it is a sign that the marriage will be unhappy, and that separation will ensue. “If in going to war, or to prosecute a law suit, a person meet with a fish, there will be no war, and the lawsuit will cease; if he see another catching a gnat, the mandarins will exact many presents, the client will be deceived, and the law suit a long one; if he meet any one carrying packages, then everything will succeed to his wishes; if he meet a serpent, the affair will be long; if a dog, or a female elephant, or a person playing on the instrument called zaun, a species of cymbal, all things will go well.” The good father mentions some more instances of a similar kind, and thus concludes:[145]—“But we should never finish, were we to extract all the follies of this book, for they are so numerous, and at the same time so inconsistent with common comfort, that, as one of our oldest missionaries has observed, if a man were to be entirely guided by it, he would not have a house to live in, nor a road to walk on, nor clothes to cover him, nor even rice for his food; and yet the blind and ignorant Burmese place the greatest faith in it, and endeavour to regulate their actions according to its directions.” I have not space to speak of all the various superstitious weaknesses which rule this people, or I would tell of the cheiromancy of the Burmans, their amulets and their love-philtres; for these, however, I must refer the reader to Sangermano. Burman astronomy is similar in most points to that of the Hindoos; but a short account of it, after Buchanan[146] and Sangermano,[147] will not be out of place here. They recognise eight planets, viz., the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and another named Rahu, which is invisible. Buchanan tells us that some one discovered in it the Georgium Sidus; but if its invisibility be taken into consideration, it is much more likely to be the recently discovered and lost planet Neptune. A description of it from the treatise of Buchanan, will, however, settle any doubts as to this star:[148]—