Now, the traces of all these religious beliefs are found in modern Yezidism. In connection with the temple of Šeiḫ ‘Adi, there is a sacred spring, and there are similar ones in different parts of the Yezidi districts. The water of these springs is held to have healing power, and is carried by pilgrims to their homes. In these pools, especially in that of ‘Adi’s, the Yezidis cast coins, jewelry, and other presents, which, they think, the chief saint takes from time to time; and to this day no one may enter the holy valley with its sacred fountain, unless he first purify his body and clothes.[126] The devil-worshippers adore, likewise, sacred trees. They make pilgrimages to them, hang things on them, and entertain the belief that whoever unties or shakes off a shred of cloth will be afflicted with disease. Again, the Yezidis kiss the stones that satisfy their imagination, and make vows to them (see pp. 41, 50). Nor is this all. The shouting of the Yezidi pilgrims, as they reach the sacred territory, and the noisy ceremony of their ḥajj, with its dancing[127] and its excitement—a rite which has brought against them all sorts of accusations[128]—are nothing but the remnants of Pre-Islamic paganism.[129] Such, then, are the steps which the religion of Yezid took before it came to shape itself into its present form. It is made up of five different elements, pagan, that contributed by the founder, Persian, Mohammedan, and Christian. Does not such a state of affairs find a historical parallel in some other religions? Take, for example, Christianity. In it we find that the distinctive characteristics of the founder have been wrapped up in many foreign elements brought in by those who came from other religions. NOTES ON CHAPTER I [71] This may be traced to the Mohammedan myth that when the primal pair fell from their estate of bliss in the heavenly Paradise, Adam landed on a mountain in Ceylon and Eve fell at Jiddah, on the western coast of Arabia. After a hundred years of wandering, they met near Meccah, and here Allah constructed for them a tabernacle, on the site of the present Kaaba. S. M. Zwemer, _Arabia_, p. 17; Aš-Šahrastani, II, 430. [72] Anistase: _Al-Mašrik_, vol. 2, p. 33. [73] Cf. p. 35. [74] Cf. p. 34. [75] Cf. p. 37. [76] _Al-Mašrik_, vol. 2, p. 33. [77] Scottish Geog. Mag., vol. 14, p. 295. [78] Layard: _Nineveh and Its Remains_, vol. 11, p. 254. [79] Layard: _Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 94. [80] S. G. M., vol. 14, p. 300. [81] Fraser: _Mesopotamia and Persia_, p. 287. [82] Fraser: Ibid., p. 147. [83] Rich: _Residence in Kurdistan_, vol. II, p. 69. [84] _Al-Mašrik_, vol. II, p. 396. [85] Ibid, vol. III, p. 493. [86] Fraser: Ibid; Rich, ibid. [87] Badger: _Nestorians and Their Rituals_, vol. I, p. 111; Fraser, ibid., p. 285. [88] _Al-Mašrik_, ibid, p. 36. ‘Abdišŭ was at one time bishop of Sinjar; cf. Fardaisa de ‘Eden, ed. by B. Cardaḥi, Beirut, 1889, p. 5. [89] Ibid, pp. 56, 110, 832.