As well-water is used for religious ceremonies, wells and their surroundings are generally kept clean by the Parsis and Hindus alike, but there is a further incentive to cleanliness in the case of wells which are regarded as dwelling-places of spirits. It is a common conviction that any act of defilement, whether conscious or unconscious, offends the spirits and all sorts of calamities are attributed to such acts. At the junction of Ghoga Street and Cowasjee Patel Street stands the once famous house of Nowroji Wadia. Some years ago the property changed hands. Certain alterations were made in the building and in consequence a place was set apart close to the well for keeping dead bodies before disposal. This brought disasters after disasters. Deaths after deaths took place in the house and bereavements after bereavements ruined the owner’s family. Too late in the day was it realized that the nymphs living in the well should not have been thus insulted. Once a well in Barber Lane overflowed for days together, emitting foul water. It did not occur to anyone to ascribe this to the sewer-sprite who had just commenced his pranks in Bombay. Instead, the mischief was unanimously fathered on a Parsi cook and his wife who used to sleep near the parapet of the well. From ancient times contiguity of a corpse to water has been regarded as a source of defilement. In “Primitive Semitic Religion To-day” (1902), Professor Samuel Curtiss says that he was told by Abdul Khalil, Syrian Protestant teacher at Damascus, that “if a corpse passes by a house, the common people pour the water out from the jars.” With this idea of pollution of water was blended the conviction that the defilement of the water of a well or spring was tantamount to the defilement of the spirits or saints residing near them. Once two sects of Mahomedans in Damascus fell out. One section held the other responsible for the displeasure of a saint on the ground that it had performed certain ablutions in the courtyard of his shrine and that “the dirt had come on the saint to his disgust.” In Brittany it is still a popular belief that those who pollute wells by throwing into them rubbish or stones will perish by lightning.[5] In the prologue to _Chrétiens Conte du Graal_ there is an account, seemingly very ancient, of how dishonour to the divinities of wells and springs brought destruction on the rich land of Logres. The damsels who resided in these watery places fed travellers with nourishing food until King Amangons wronged one of them by carrying off her golden cup. His men followed his evil example, so that the springs dried up, the grass withered, and the land became waste.[6]