Further inquiry and the collection of additional material will no doubt help to elucidate the general principles on which such selections are made. Short rhyming charms are very often used as accompaniments of the rite of rice-water, but appear to be seldom if ever repeated aloud. The following is a specimen, and others will be found in the Appendix: [147]-- "Neutralising Rice-paste, true Rice-paste, And, thirdly, Rice-paste of Kadangsa! Keep me from sickness, keep me from death, Keep me from injury and ruin." Other not less important developments of the idea of lustration by water are to be found in such ceremonies as the bathing of mother and child after a birth and the washing of the floor (basoh lantei) upon similar occasions, the bathing of the sick, of bride and bridegroom at weddings, of corpses (meruang), [148] and the annual bathing expeditions (mandi Safar), which are supposed to purify the persons of the bathers and to protect them from evil (tolak bala). Fasting, or the performance of religious penance, which is now but seldom practised, would appear to have been only undertaken in former days with a definite object in view, such as the production of the state of mental exaltation which induces ecstatic visions, the acquisition of supernatural powers (sakti), and so forth. The fast always took place, of course, in a solitary spot, and not unfrequently upon the top of some high and solitary hill such as Mount Ophir (Gunong Ledang), on the borders of Malacca territory. Frequently, however, much lower hills, or even plains which possessed some remarkable rock or tree, would be selected for the purpose. Such fasting, however, did not, as sometimes with us, convey to the Malays the idea of complete abstinence, as the magicians informed me that a small modicum of rice contained in a ketupat (which is a small diamond-shaped rice-receptacle made of plaited cocoa-nut leaf) was the daily "allowance" of any one who was fasting. The result was that fasts might be almost indefinitely prolonged, and the thrice-seven-days' fast of 'Che Utus upon Jugra Hill, on the Selangor coast, [149] is still one of the traditions of that neighbourhood, whilst in Malay romances and in Malay tradition this form of religious penance is frequently represented as continuing for years. Finally, I would draw attention to the strong vein of Sympathetic Magic or "make believe" which runs through and leavens the whole system of Malay superstition. The root-idea of this form of magic has been said to be the principle that "cause follows from effect."