If, in bidding farewell to Nemi, we look around us for the last time, we shall find the lake and its surroundings not much changed from what they were in the days when Diana and Virbius still received the homage of their worshippers in the sacred grove. The temple of Diana, indeed, has disappeared, and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough. But Nemi’s woods are still green, and at evening you may hear the church bells of Albano, and perhaps, if the air be still, of Rome itself, ringing the Angelus. Sweet and solemn they chime out from the distant city, and die lingeringly away across the wide Campagnan marshes. _Le roi est mort, vive le roi!_ NOTE. OFFERINGS OF FIRST-FRUITS. We have seen (vol. ii. p. 68 _sqq._) that primitive peoples often partake of the new corn sacramentally, because they suppose it to be instinct with a divine spirit or life. At a later age, when the fruits of the earth are conceived as produced rather than as animated by a divinity, the new fruits are no longer partaken of sacramentally as the body and blood of a god; but a portion of them is presented as a thank-offering to the divine beings who are believed to have produced them. Sometimes the first-fruits are presented to the king, probably in his character of a god. Till the first-fruits have been offered to the deity or the king, people are not at liberty to eat of the new crops. But, as it is not always possible to draw a sharp line between the sacrament and the sacrifice of first-fruits, it may be well to round off this part of the subject by appending some miscellaneous examples of the latter. Among the Basutos, when the corn has been threshed and winnowed, it is left in a heap on the threshing-floor. Before it can be touched a religious ceremony must be performed. The persons to whom the corn belongs bring a new vessel to the spot, in which they boil some of the grain. When it is boiled they throw a few handfuls of it on the heap of corn, saying, “Thank you, gods; give us bread to-morrow also!” When this is done the rest is eaten, and the provision for the year is considered pure and fit to eat.(955) Here the sacrifice of the first-fruits to the gods is the prominent idea, which comes out again in the custom of leaving in the threshing-floor a little hollow filled with grain, as a thank-offering to the gods.(956) Still the Basutos retain a lively sense of the sanctity of the corn in itself; for, so long as it is exposed to view, all defiled persons are carefully kept from it. If it is necessary to employ a defiled person in carrying home the harvest, he remains at some distance while the sacks are being filled, and only approaches to place them upon the draught oxen. As soon as the load is deposited at the dwelling he retires, and under no pretext may he help to pour the corn into the baskets in which it is kept.(957)