i85o 177 meal the blood leaves the brain, and is engaged on the digestive organs. Consequently we are bound to assist nature. What is right for dogs must be right for boys. There is no material difference in their natures. I am sure," he would add, " they smell alike." The siesta so common in the South of Europe is of ancient origin. Varro called it Somnus institutius, and declared that he could " not live without it." The idea prevailed that both gods and demons walked abroad at midday as well as at midnight. W^e learn from Genesis xviii. 1 that—" The Lord appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day." And David in the 91st Psalm spoke of " the demon that walketh at midday." In fact, the Hebrew word keteb, which is translated *4sickness" or " destruction" in the English version, according to S. Jerome was one of the fiercest demons that assailed human beings. The old Genevan translators, when they rendered the passage " The bug that walketh in darkness," meant bogy, not the insect, although the latter is a nocturnal promenader. The Genevan and other old English translations were from the Vulgate, and S. Jerome probably got his notion of the bogy fiom current Syrian tradition or superstition. Jerome has it: Non timebis a timore nocturna . . . ab incur su, et dcemonio meridiano. An incident occurred during the winter that greatly impressed me. My mother, always pitiful and kind, had become acquainted with a very poor family, through our washerwoman. The husband was in a decline and unable to work, and there were a swarm of little children, underfed. Their name was Lahirigoyen, but whether they were Basques or Bearnais I cannot tell. One day, during our midday meal, my mother was very silent for a while, and then started up, saying : "I wonder how the Lahirigoyens are getting on. I have not seen or heard anything of them for three weeks. I'll put the rest of this leg of mutton and the remains of the dinner in a basket, and we will take it to them." This was done. The family lived at the top of a ramshackle house, and the stairs were broken and ill to ascend. When their door was opened, the whole family was seen on its knees in prayer. For three days they had been almost wholly
