being
quite harassed by the extraordinary showers of the falling stars, and
the appearances of numerous comets, had stopped their divination. This
was taken notice of in the Koran:--

"They overhear not exalted chiefs, and they are darted from every side."

"Driven off and consigned to a lasting torment; while if one steal by
stealth then a glistering flame pursueth him."--Sura XXXVII, verses
8-10.

"Save such as steal a hearing, and him do visible flames pursue."--Sura
XV, verse 18.

"The satans were not sent down with this _Koran_. It beseemed them not,
and they had not the power. For they are far removed from the
hearing."--Sura XXVI, verses 210-212.

As an instance of terror and bewilderment caused by meteors and shooting
stars among credulous people, I will quote the following anecdote:

About the middle of the tenth century an epidemic terror of the end of
the world had spread over Christendom. The scene of the last judgment
was expected to be in Jerusalem.

In the year 999 the number of pilgrims proceeding eastwards, to await
the coming of the Lord in that city, was so great that they were
compared to a desolating army. During the thousandth year the number of
pilgrims increased. Every phenomenon of nature filled them with terror.
A thunderstorm sent them all upon their knees. Every meteor in the sky
seen at Jerusalem brought the whole Christian population into the
streets to weep and pray. The pilgrims on the road were in the same
alarm. Every shooting star furnished occasion for a sermon, in which the
sublimity of the approaching judgment was the principal topic (_vide_
Extraordinary Popular Delusions by Charles Mackay, LL.D., London, pp.
222 and 223).

It was a conceit or imposture of the _Kahins_ to pretend that their
demons had access to the outskirts of the heavens, and by assiduous
eavesdropping secured some of the secrets of the upper world and
communicated the same to the soothsayers or diviners upon earth. The
Jews had a similar notion of the demons (schedim), learning the secrets
of the future by listening behind the veil (pargod). The Koran falsified
them in their assertions. It says that the heavens (or the stars) are
safe and protected against the eavesdropping (or enchantments) of the
soothsayers.

"We have set the signs of Zodiac in the heavens, and we have decked them
forth for the bewilders."

"And we guard them from every stoned satan."--Sura XV, verses 16, 17.

"Verily we have