the sun and moon, as the governors of the visible world, and emblems of the male and female nature of the godhead; and to the cat, on account of her nocturnal prowlings, is ascribed a mysterious relationship to the moon. The dog and the wolf, doubtless for the same reason, are similarly circumstanced. [138] The superstition of Obi was never generally remarked upon in the British West Indies till the year 1760, when, after an insurrection in Jamaica, of the Coromantyn or Gold Coast negroes, it was found that it had been made an instrument for promoting that disturbance. An old Coromantyn negro, the chief instigator and oracle of the insurgents of the parish of St. Mary, in which the insurrection broke out, who had administered the _Fetiche_ or solemn oath to the conspirators, and furnished them with a magical preparation, which was to make them invulnerable, was at that time apprehended and punished, and a law was enacted for the suppression of the practice, under which several examples were made, but without effecting for many years, any diminution of the evil sought to be remedied. [139] In Kosters's travels in Brazil, we read of a negro who was reported by one of his fellows to become occasionally _lobas homen_ or wolf-man. "I asked him," said the author, "to explain; when he said, that the man was at times transformed into an animal, of the size of a calf with the figure of a dog;" and in the African memoranda is an account of a negro who professed and even believed to have the power of transforming himself into an alligator, in which state he devoured men. Upon being questioned by Captain Beaver, he answered, "I can change myself into an alligator, and have often done it." But though these may be genuine African superstitions, and not such as have been introduced by the Portuguese, yet it is certain there is no part of Europe to which they do not equally belong. [140] Beckman, vol 1, p. 74 to 103. [141] See Major Long's expedition, vol. 1. p. 226. CHAPTER XIX. ON THE ORIGIN AND SUPERSTITIOUS INFLUENCE OP RINGS. The ancient magicians, among other pretended extraordinary powers of accomplishing wonderful things by their superior knowledge of the secret powers of nature, of the virtues of plants and minerals, and of the motions and influence of the stars, attached no small degree of mystic importance to rings, the origin of which, their matter and uses, together with the supposed virtues of the stones set in them, afford a subject squaring so much with our design, and so deserving of notice from the curious, that no apology need be made for discoursing on them.