The spirits that haunt sepulchres are either ghosts of the dead or ghouls that prey upon their flesh. It is this class of apparition which appears to have the strongest fascination for the Syrian mind; and its graveyard lore is the natural sequel to the morbid interest in death which formed the subject of our preceding chapter. Conder, whose book gives much interesting information on this whole subject, found it difficult to keep any Arabs about him at Fusâil, a few miles north of Jericho, because of their fear of a ghoul in the ruins, who might chance to desire a change of food were he to see them there. The dead appear to have undergone a change for the worse in dying. The utmost caution and politeness are required to prevent their ghosts from doing harm to the visitors at their tombs, even in the case of men who, while in the body, were hospitable and friendly persons. Some localities are regarded as peculiarly dangerous, among which is the reputed site of the stoning of Stephen and (according to Gordon) of Calvary, near Jerusalem. An Arab writer of the Middle Ages advises the traveller not to pass that haunted spot at night.[57] If, under ordinary conditions, life in Syria is overshadowed and haunted, the dread becomes far greater when disease has come. The explanation of disease is the same easy one as that which has deadened science and distorted religion--magic again. Even when the true cause of illness has been guessed, it has to be explained in ghostly language. When plague has broken out in a locality the Jewish Rabbis make the neighbours of the stricken house empty all jars and vessels, saying that “the angel of death wipes his sword in liquids.” The malaria of swamps is set down to the same cause, and it is probable that many of that mixed multitude who are to be seen sitting chin deep in the hot sulphur-springs of Gadara or Tiberias regard their cure as due to some local spirit who happens to be benevolently inclined. In the neighbourhood of the tomb of a Mohammedan saint, every accident or ailment is regarded as the work of the dead man. Indeed the main idea of Syrian medical science is that all or most sickness is possession by demons, and a common cure is to bore or burn holes in the patient’s flesh, by which the evil spirit may escape. The treatment of lunacy is perhaps the saddest case in point. Until Mr. Waldmeyer built his asylum at Beyrout, there was but one mode of treatment. At certain monasteries there are caves in which the insane are chained below huge stones, with hardly space for movement, and are kept there for days in hunger and filth, in order to drive out the devil. The test for devil-possession is somewhat crude. The patient is shewn a cross. If he turns from it and refuses to look he is possessed; if he shews no aversion to it he is only unwell and is allowed to go. In the Beyrout asylum we were told that no case of lunacy had been discovered which in any way differed