Mirror-gazing was formerly, and is to-day, most extensively practised in the Orient. We possess an account written by Lane in 1834 of an adventure he had in Egypt in company with the English Consul Salt. The magician in charge of the ceremonies first wrote upon a slip of paper invocations summoning his two Genii; and then a few verses from the Koran, "to open the boy's eyes in a supernatural manner, ... to make his sight pierce into what is to us the invisible world." The slip of paper was thrown into a chafing-dish containing live charcoal, frankincense, coriander seed, and benzoin. A boy eight or nine years of age had been chosen at random from a number who happened to be passing in the street, and the magician, taking hold of his right hand, drew in the palm of it a magic square, that is to say, one square inscribed within another, and in the space between certain Arabic numerals; then, pouring ink in the centre, bade the boy look into it attentively. At first the boy could only see the face of the magician, but proceeding with his inspection, while the other continued to drop written invocations into the chafing-dish, he at length described a man sweeping with a broom, then a scene in which flags and soldiers appeared, and finally when Lane asked that Lord Nelson should be called for, the boy described a man in European clothes of dark blue, who had lost his _left_ arm, but added, on looking more intently, "No, it is placed to his breast." Lord Nelson generally had an empty sleeve attached to the breast of his coat, but as it was the _right_ arm he had lost, Lane, without saying that he suspected the boy had made a mistake, asked the magician whether the object appeared in the ink as if actually before the eyes, or as if in a glass, which makes the right appear left. He answered they appeared as in a mirror; and this rendered the divination faultless. A counterpart to this in more recent times may be cited. When Seringapatam was stormed by General Harris and Sir David Baird, the unfortunate Tippoo Saib retired to discover by means of divination by a cup what the future prospects were for the continuance of his rule. After he had remained seated for a long time deeply absorbed in meditation, he suddenly sprang up and in despair rushed into the foremost ranks of the combatants and fell covered with wounds; so deeply had the fatal aspect of the image in the cup moved him.