, on certain days, went
and sat on a three-legged stool over a hole in the ground in Apollo's
temple. This hole sent out gas; which, instead of being used like that
afforded by holes in the ground at Fredonia, N. Y., to illuminate the
village, was much more shrewdly employed by the clerical gentlemen to
shine up the knowledge-boxes of their customers, and introduce the
glitter of gold into their own pockets. I merely throw out the hint to
any speculating Fredonian who owns a hole in the ground. Well, the
Pythia, as this female was termed, warmed up her understanding over this
hole, as you have seen ladies do over the register of a hot-air furnace,
and becoming excited, she presently began to be drunk or crazy, and in
her fit she gabbled forth some words or noises. These the priests took
down, and then told the customer that the noises meant so-and-so! When
business was brisk they worked two Pythias, turn and turn about (or, as
they say at sea, watch and watch), and kept a third all cocked and
primed in case of accident, besides; for this gas sometimes gave the
priestess (literally) fits, which killed her in a few days.

Other oracles gave answers in many various ways. The priest quietly
wrote down whatever answer he chose; or inspected the insides of a
slaughtered beast, and said that the bowels meant this and that. At
Telmessus the inquirer peeped into a well, where he must see a picture
in the water which was his answer; at any rate, if this wouldn't do he
got none. This plan was evidently based on the idea that "truth is at
the bottom of a well." At Dodona, they hung brass pots on the trees and
translated the banging these made when the wind blew them together. At
Pherae, you whispered your question in the ear of the image of Mercury,
and then shutting your ears until you got out of the market-place, the
first remark you heard from anybody was the answer, and you might make
the best of it. At Pluto's oracle at Charae, the priest took a dream,
and in the morning told you what he chose. In the cave of Trophonius,
after various terrifying performances, they pulled you through a hole
the wrong way of the feathers, and then back again, and then stuck you
upon a seat, and made you write down your own oracle, being what you had
seen, which would, I imagine, usually be "the elephant."

And so-forth, and so on. Humbug _ad libitum!_

Like some of the more celebrated modern fortune-tellers, the managers of
the oracles were fr