in their best, formally but merrily going through their Wendish dances in the market-place. In matters of faith the Wends are all great believers in little superstitious formulas and observances, such as not turning a knife or a harrow edge or tine upward, lest the devil should sit down upon it. Their favourite devices for attracting a man's or a maiden's love are a little too artlessly natural to be fit for recital here. One great prevailing superstition is the belief in lucky stones--_kamushkis_. Stones, in truth, play a leading part in their traditions. They have a belief that stones went on growing, like plants, till the time of our Saviour's temptation, in the course of which, by an improvement upon the authorised text, they assert that he hurt his foot against one by accident. In punishment for having caused that pain, their growth is understood to have been stopped. They have other stones as well--"fright-stones" and "devil-stones" for instance. But the _kamushkis_ are by far the most important and the most valuable. They are handed on as precious heirlooms from parent to child, and often put down at a high value in the inventory of an estate. The supernatural world of the Wends is as densely peopled as any mythology ever yet heard of. There is the _psches-poniza_--the noon woman, to avoid whom women in pregnancy and after their confinement dare not go out of doors in the midday hours; there is the _smerkava_, or "dusk-woman," who is fatal to children, the _wichor_, or whirlwind; the _plon_, or dragon, who terrifies, but also brings treasure; the _bud_, or Will-o'-the-Wisp; the _bubak_, or bogey; the nocturnal huntsman, _nocny hanik_; and the nocturnal carman, _nocny forman_; the _murava_, or nightmare; the _kobod_ or _koblik_; the _chódota_ (witch); the _buzawosj_, who frightens children; the _djas_, the _graby_, the _schyry zed_, the _kunkaz_, there are spirits "black" and "white." Every mill has its peculiar _nykus_ or _nyx_, who must be fed and propitiated. And then there are roguish sprites, such as _Pumpot_, who is a sort of Wendish "barguest," doing kind turns as often as he plays mischievous pranks. All this curious Slav mythology alone is worth studying. If in a family children keep dying young, the remedy certain to be applied is, to christen the next born "Adam" or "Eve," according to its sex, which is thought absolutely to ensure its life. Like most much-believing races, the Wends are remarkably simple-minded, trustful, leadable, and docile, free from that peculiar cunning and malice which is often charged, rightly or wrongly, to Slav races--not without fault, but in the main a race of whom one grows fond.