We have now examined briefly almost all the principal sacred objects of the world, according to classes--the corpse, the mummy, the idol, the sacred stone, the sacred stake, the sacred tree or grove; there remains but one other group of holy things, very generally recognised, which I do not propose to examine separately, but to which {151}a few words may yet be devoted at the end of a chapter. I mean, the sacred wells. It might seem at first sight as if these could have no possible connection with death or burial; but that expectation is, strange to say, delusive. There appears to be some reason for bringing wells, too, into the widening category of funereal objects. The oxen’s well at Acre, for example, was visited by Christian, Jewish, and Moslem pilgrims; it was therefore an object of great ancient sanctity; but observe this point: there is a _mashhed_ or sacred tomb beside it, “perhaps the modern representative of the ancient Memnonium.” Every Egyptian temple had in like manner its sacred lake. In modern Syria, “cisterns are always found beside the grave of saints, and are believed to be inhabited by a sort of fairy. A pining child is thought to be a fairy changeling, and must be lowered into the cistern.” The similarity of the belief about holy wells in England and Ireland, and their frequent association with the name of a saint, would seem to suggest for them a like origin. Sacred rivers usually rise from sacred springs, near which stands a temple. The river Adonis took its origin at the shrine of Aphaca: and the grave of Adonis, about whom much more must be said hereafter, stood near the mouth of the holy stream that was reddened by his blood. The sacred river Belus had also its peculiar Memnonium or Adonis tomb. But I must add that sacred rivers had likewise their annual god-victims, about whom we shall have a great deal to say at a later stage of our enquiry, and from whom in part they probably derived their sanctity. Still, that their holiness was also due in part, and originally, to tombs at their sources, I think admits of no reasonable doubt. The equivalence of the holy well and the holy stone is shown by the fact that while a woman whose chastity was suspected had to drink water of a sacred spring to prove her innocence, at Mecca she had to swear seventy oaths by the Kaaba.