A Turk travelling in Asia Minor once came to a Christian village. He journeyed on horseback, accompanied by a black slave; and, as he seemed to be a man of consequence, the priest of the village offered him hospitality for the night.

The first thing to be done was to conduct the traveller to the stable, that he might see his horse attended to and comfortably stalled for the night. In the stable was a magnificent Arab horse, belonging to the priest, and the Turk, a good judge of horse-flesh, could not help gazing at it for some moments with covetous eyes. But, nevertheless, in order that no ill should befall the beautiful creature, and to counteract the influence of the evil eye, he spat at the animal.

After they had dined, the priest took his guest out for a walk in the garden, and in the course of a very pleasant conversation he informed the Turk that on the morrow there would be snow on the ground.

"Never! Impossible!" said the Turk.

"Well, to-morrow you will see that I am right," said the priest.

"I am willing to stake my horse against yours that you are wrong," answered the Turk, who was delighted at this opportunity of securing the horse, without committing a breach of Oriental etiquette by asking his host if he would sell it.

After some persuasion the priest accepted this wager, and they separated for the night.

Later on that night, the Turk said to his slave: "Go, Sali, go and see what the weather says, for truly my life is in want of our good host's horse."

Sali went out to make an observation, and, on returning, said to his master: "Master, the heavens are like unto your face – without a frown and with kindly sparkling eyes – while the earth is like unto the face of your black slave."

" 'Tis well, Sali, 'tis well! What a beautiful animal that is!"

Later on, before retiring to rest, he sent his slave on another inspection, and was gratified to receive the same answer.

Early in the morning he awoke, and calling his slave, who had slept on the mat at his door, he sent him forth again to see if any change had taken place.

"Oh, master!" reported Sali, in trembling tones, "Nature has reversed herself, for the heavens are now like the dark face of your slave, and the earth is like your face, white, entirely white."

"Chok shai! This is wonderful!" exclaimed the Turk, "Then I have lost not only that beautiful animal but my own horse as well. Oh pity! Oh pity!"

He gave up his horse, but, before parting, he begged the priest to tell him how he knew it would snow.

"My pig told me as we were walking in the garden yesterday. I saw it put its nose in the heap of manure you see in that corner, and I knew that to be a sure sign that it would snow on the morrow," replied the priest.

Deeply mystified, the Turk and his slave proceeded on foot. Reaching a Turkish village before nightfall, he sought and obtained shelter for the night from the imam, the Mohammedan priest of the village. While partaking of the evening meal he asked the imam when the feast of the Bairam would be.

"Truly, I do not know! When the cannon is fired, I will know it is Bairam," said his host.

"What!" said the traveller, becoming angry, "you an imam – a learned hodja – and don't know when it will be Bairam, and that pig of the Greek priest knew when it would snow? Shame! Shame!"

And, becoming very angry, he declined the hospitality of the imam and went elsewhere.

Reference is made in this tale to the Oriental custom of spitting at an object which excites our intense admiration in order to avert the evil eye.

It is the custom of the Turks, men and women, if passing a beautiful child, to make a motion with the lips, as if spitting at it. This is supposed to counteract the "evil eye" or the evil effects which their glance of admiration might bring on the child, even if bestowed unconsciously.

The "evil eye" or the baneful spell of the evil eye is caused by looks of admiration, envy, jealousy, hatred, or contempt. Hence even a father's or mother's loving gaze might put the "evil eye" on the child. There are numerous amulets to counteract this, and these amulets the child wears on its head.

The amulet may be a blue bead, a coin, the antlers of a stag beetle, or a whole sentence of the Koran sewn up in a tiny leather bag, or encased in a silver box.

Whatever form it may take, the amulet is worn in a most conspicuous position on the child's little fez so that the human eye may be attracted by it and thus diverted from the wearer.

The pious Moslem is amazed to find foreigners objecting to these charms, considering that they themselves set up lightning rods on the summits of their houses and churches in order to divert from those buildings and their inhabitants the angry, red eye of the thunderstorm.

Any animal, or any article even, which is prized by a Mohammedan is adorned with a protective amulet or charm.

Garlic is used in the same way by the Greeks and is placed in company with an old shoe, on a roughly made cross above a building that is being put up. This will protect the masons from accident during the construction of the building, and also against the effect of the "evil eye."

This superstition of the "evil eye" is extraordinarily strong and widespread in the East, and I have known well-educated English residents to be as subject to it as any illiterate Turk or Greek.

I have never, indeed, met anybody born in the East who was free from it; and some of them, persons worthy of all credit, have given me instances of the effect of the "evil eye" which can only be explained away on the theory of some obscure psychic influence of which science is still ignorant.

A book could be written on this very ancient superstition, but I shall only cite here a rather funny story told in a work that is not generally funny – Slatin Pasha's "Fire and Sword in the Soudan."

It seems that the khalifa was so afraid of somebody putting the evil eye on him that he insisted on people brought before him fixing their eyes on the ground and not on him.

"Some years ago," says Slatin Pasha, "a Syrian named Mohammed Said, who had the misfortune to have only one eye, happened to be near him when he was delivering a religious lecture, and unintentionally cast his blind eye in the direction of the khalifa. The latter at once called me up, and told me to tell the Syrian never to come near him again, and if he did, never to dare to look at him. At the same time he told me that every one should be most careful to guard themselves against the evil eye, 'For,' said he, 'nothing can resist the human eye. Illness and misfortunes are generally caused by the evil eye'."