The numerous worshippers enter on their knees. They carry wax candles in their hands, and crawl up to the depression, prostrate themselves devoutly at its edge, fasten a bit of gold-leaf on the sides of the hole, sprinkle holy water on their heads, and then crawl out again on hands and knees. Offerings of bottles, looking-glasses, wax and paper flowers, and other tawdry objects are heaped in piles on the floor. The more valuable gifts are carefully preserved elsewhere. Those who cannot afford to give anything at all, satisfy their consciences by carefully fanning the footprint itself. [Illustration: PRABAT HILLS FROM NEAR AYUTHIA. _Page 375._] The Siamese are not the only people in the world who have been known to reverence a supposed footprint, nor is Prabat the only place where the impress of the feet of the holy of old is pointed out. The footprint superstition is world-wide. There is the well-known footprint on Adam's Peak in Ceylon, which is claimed by the Buddhists as marking the place where Buddha once stood. It is worshipped by the Brahmins as being that of Siva, while the Mahomedans assert that it was made by Adam, and Christians have been known who have stated that they believe it to be the footprint of St. Thomas. On the Kodam Rasul Hill near Hyderabad, the Mahomedans have found a footprint of Mahomed. At Thanet, St. Augustine left the marks of his feet upon a rock upon which he pressed heavily when he landed upon our heathen shores. In a circular chapel over a foot-like depression in the rocky sides of the Mount of Olives, the footprint of Christ is pointed out to travellers. On the other side of the world the inhabitants of the island of Samoa exhibit a similar memorial of Tiitii; while the ancient Mexicans claimed to possess an equally authentic relic of Tezcatlipoa. In a "Life of Buddha", written in Sanskrit, it is said that when Gautama was born he bore in his person a number of signs or personal peculiarities that at once foretold that his ultimate destiny was that of a powerful emperor or of a widely renowned and worshipped teacher. There are thirty-two chief and eighty minor signs given, and they mostly refer to personal characteristics considered handsome or beautiful in men or women according to the Oriental idea of beauty. Some of them do not appear to the mind of the European to be at all conducive to an impressive or handsome presence. For instance, the wonderful being who is born with the thirty-two major distinguishing marks of future greatness or holiness, has amongst other things, a skin of the colour of gold, arms so long that they reach far below the knees when he stands upright, and a thin butterfly kind of tongue long enough to reach round and enter his ears when fully produced. Upon his fingers and toes there should be a network of lines described with mathematical regularity.