Here I cannot do better than set the reader right as to the rendering of a subsequent text, which says that “God set a mark upon Cain lest any one meeting him should kill him”; nor can I recollect another instance wherein human ingenuity, while struggling after truth, has been more directly instrumental in the dissemination of error. One would suppose that the setting “a mark upon” a person, instead of allaying his fears of being molested by those meeting him, should, on the contrary, aggravate them, from its extraordinary aspect. Besides, in the innumerable fantasies which commentators have conjured up as specifications of this “mark,” no vestige whatsoever has been yet traced on the human form to justify the inference. We are obliged, therefore, at last, to recur to the _truth_, and it fortunately happens that this is accessible by only translating the original as it should properly be, thus, viz. “And God _gave_ Cain a _sign_ lest any meeting him, should kill him.” The only question now is what that _sign_ was, which God _gave_ to Cain? And to resolve this, we have but to bethink ourselves of his dereliction,--namely, the offering worship to Budh, _i.e._ _nature_, or the _sun_: and his refusing to sacrifice, in consequence of such devotion, anything endowed with _life_, of which Budh, _i.e._ Lingam,--according to the double acceptation of the word,--was the type, as it is also the _sign_ of Budh, the sun,--and we have infallibly developed the answer and the secret. Stamping the nature of his crime, and at the same time indicating that, in the now fallen condition of man, this badge of his revolt would be rather a security against trespass, and a passport to acceptance than an inducement to annoyance, God shows to Cain, as much in derision as in anger, the _substantial_ image of that deity to which he had but just before done homage, viz. Budh; and thereupon, Cain goes, and, on “the land a wanderer,” he erects this _sign_ into a deified _Round Tower_. Perhaps the reader would like to have some _collateral_ proofs for these startling interpretations. I shall give them, as convincing as the solution itself is irrefutable and true. The Maypole festival, which the Rev. Mr. Maurice has so satisfactorily shown to be but the remains of an ancient institution of India and Egypt (he should have added Persia, and, indeed, placed it first), was, in fact, but part and parcel of this Round Tower worship. May the 1st is the day on which its orgies were celebrated; nor is the custom, even now, confined to the British Isles alone, but as naturally prevails universally throughout the East, whence it emanated _of old_ to us. Lest, too, there should be any mistake as to the object of adoration, we are told in the second volume of the _Asiatic Researches_, in a letter from Colonel Pearce, that Bhadani, _i.e._ Astarte, _i.e._ Luna, _i.e._ Venus, _i.e._ “Mollium mater cupidinum,” was the goddess in whose honour those festivities were raised.