Such weather conjurings as we have spoken of are ascribed by Ovid to
Circe:
"Concipit illa preces, et verba venefica dicit;
Ignotosque Deos ignoto carmine adorat,
* * * *
Tunc quoque cantato densetur carmine caelum,
Et nebulas exhalat humus." - Metam. XIV. 365.
And to Medea: -
- "Quum volui, ripis mirantibus, amnes
In fontes rediere suos ... (another feat of the Lamas)
... Nubila pello,
Nubilaque induco; ventos abigoque, vocoque." - Ibid. VII. 199.
And by Tibullus to the Saga (Eleg. I. 2, 45); whilst Empedocles, in
verses ascribed to him by Diogenes Laertius, claims power to communicate
like secrets of potency: -
"By my spells thou may'st
To timely sunshine turn the purple rains,
And parching droughts to fertilising floods."
(See Cathay, p. clxxxvii.; Erdm. 282; Oppert, 182 seqq.; Erman,
I. 153; Pallas, Samml. II. 348 seqq.; Timk. I. 402; J. R. A. S.
VII. 305-306; D'Ohsson, II. 614; and for many interesting particulars,
Q. R. p. 428 seqq., and Hammers Golden Horde, 207 and 435 seqq.)
NOTE 9. - It is not clear whether Marco attributes this cannibalism to the
Tibetans and Kashmirians, or brings it in as a particular of Tartar custom
which he had forgotten to mention before.
The accusations of cannibalism indeed against the Tibetans in old accounts
are frequent, and I have elsewhere (see Cathay, p. 151) remarked on some
singular Tibetan practices which go far to account for such charges.
