Basile Valentin,
the twig was regarded with awe by ignorant laboring men, which is still
true."

[3] "And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and
chestnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white
appear which was in the rods.

"And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the
gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that
they should conceive when they came to drink." (Genesis xxx, 37-38.)

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with
thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the
river, take in thy hand, and go.

"Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and
thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that
the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of
Israel." (Exodus xvii, 5-6.)

[4] Goclenius was a diviner who also professed to make "magnetic cures."

[5] See chapter 9, p. 218.

[6] Quoted from the volume, _Water Divining_ (London, 1902).

[7] The Gentleman's Magazine (London, 1752).

[8] By Young and Robertson (London, 1894).

[9] For centuries the home of the Benedictine Order.

[10] In plain English, flowers of the buttercup family.

CHAPTER XV

SUNDRY PIRATES AND THEIR BOOTY

"Seven years were gone and over, Wild Roger came again,
He spoke of forays and of frays upon the Spanish Main,
And he had stores of gold galore, and silks and satins fine,
And flasks and casks of Malvoisie, and precious Gascon wine;
Rich booties had he brought, he said, across the Western wave.
But Roger was the same man still,--he scorned his brother's prayers--
He called his crew, away he flew, and on those foreign shores,
Got killed in some outlandish place,--they called it the Eyesores."
(_Ingoldsby Legends._)

The popular delusion that pirates found nothing better to do with their
plunder than to bury it, like so many thrifty depositors in savings
banks, clashes with what is known of the habits and temperaments of
many of the most industrious rovers under the black flag. By way of a
concluding survey of the matter, let us briefly examine the careers of
divers pirates of sorts and try to ascertain what they did with their
gold and whether it be plausible to assume that they had any of it left
to bury. Of course, romance and legend are up in arms at the
presumption that any well-regulated and ort