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Jogular Morotario Sectory 14
Page 01
Not less excellent, in a style wholly different, was A.'s treatment (and there was this high element of promise in A. that, with a given story to work upon, he was always successful) of the AEgyptian legend of Mycerinus, a legend not known unfortunately to general English readers, who are therefore unable to appreciate the skill displayed in dealing with it. We must make room for one extract, however, in explanation of which it is only necessary to say that Mycerinus, having learnt from the oracle that being too just a king for the purposes of the gods, who desired to afflict the AEgyptians, he was to die after six more years, made the six years into twelve by lighting his gardens all night with torches, and revelled out what remained to him of life. We can give no idea of the general conception of the poem, but as a mere piece of description this is very beautiful.
Throughout the reservation those most deeply affected by the messiah belief have been appointed spies over the others. If any persist in the use of old medicine paraphernalia, they are reported at once and harassed by threats of plague, sickness, ill-luck, disaster, and even death, which Das Lan claims to be able to cause or to dispel at pleasure. Once the threat is made, nothing unwelcome can happen to one under the ban that is not immediately attributed, by all the medicine-man's disciples, to the disfavor of the gods; and nothing more potent is necessary to convert the unbeliever, for there is no Indian reared in the wilds who is not steeped in the belief that his gods are all-powerful in both causing and eradicating every ill.
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