"Beyond the door which, when opened, gave this sight, was a dark, ancient archway, twenty yards long, which opened on the glaring, dusty street, where camels with their drivers, and screaming saïs or carriage-runners and donkey-boys and crying venders kept up the wonted Oriental din. But in the archway, in its duskiest corner, there sat in silence and immovable, a living picture--a dark, handsome woman, of thirty years, who was unveiled. She had before her on the gateway floor, a square of cloth and a few shells. Sometimes an Egyptian of the lower class stopped, and there would be a grave consultation. She was a fortune-teller, and from the positions which the shells assumed when thrown she predicted what would come to pass. And then there would be a solemn conference and a thoughtful stroking of the beard, if the applicant was a man, and then the usual payment to the oracle, and a departure. And it was all world-old primæval Egyptian, as it was Chaldæan, for the woman was a Rhagarin, or gypsy, and as she sat so sat the diviners of ancient days by the wayside, casting shells for auspices, even as arrows were cast of old, to be cursed by Israel. "It is not remarkable that among the myriad manteias of olden days there should have been one by shells. The sound of the sea when heard in a nautilus or conch is marvellously "like that of ocean surges murmuring far." "Shake me and it awakens--then apply Its polished lips to your attentive ear, And it remembers its august abodes And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there." All of this is very strange to children and not less so to all unsophisticated folk, and I can remember how in boyhood I was told and listened with perfect faith to the distant roaring, and marvelled at the mystery of the ocean song being thus for ever kept alive inland. The next step to this is to hear in the sea-murmuring something like voices, and this is as curious as it is true--that if the mind be earnestly given to it, and the process be continued for a long time during several days, many persons, and probably all in time, will come to distinguish or hear human utterances and eventually words. There is no special faith required here; the mind even of the most sceptical or unimaginative will often turn back on itself, and by dint of mere perseverance produce such effects. An old pitcher or jug of a peculiar shape is also declared to be admirably adapted for this purpose, and I have one of Elizabeth's time which was trawled up from the sea near Lowestoft which would fulfil every requisition.