398 THE MAGIC OP JEWELS AND CHARMS
for
he says that a Mauritanien merchant owned a basin of rock-crystal
within which four men could seat themselves at the same time. It is
true that this basin was composed of two pieces of the material.30
The Chinese word for crystal, ching, was
originally represented by the symbol <&; that is, three suns,
an attempt to figure the refraction and dispersion of light by the
crystal.36 The soui che stone of the Chinese which is
said to quench thirst if it be placed in the mouth, is almost certainly
rock-crystal, for the Chinese, in common with the ancient Greeks and
Romans, believed this substance to be a transformation of water, a kind
of fossil ice. A similar power was attributed by Pliny to one of the
varieties of agate.37
Labrets
of quartz are used in Central Africa and we have a very interesting
description by M. A. Lacroix regarding these ornaments as worn by the
natives of a part of the French possessions. In the land of the Bandas
the natives highly prize a piece of rock-crystal so shaped that it can
be introduced into the lower lip. This usage is confined to the basins
of the Ombella, the Kemo and the Tomi, affluents of the Oubanghi.
The following description of the labrets was communi-oated to M. Lacroix by M. Lucien Fourneau, Administrator of the Colonies :
These objects, called baguette, consist
of hyaline quartz, perfectly transparent; they are very regularly cut,
and measure from four to seven cm. (two to three inches) in length.
Some have the form of a very elongated and pointed cone, without any
protuberances, the greatest diameter being about one cm. (about half an
inch) ; the others, thinner and sharper, have at the base a rim
destined to hold them in place; in all cases a pad of thread
constituting a kind of permanent plug, assures and completes their
stability. Some women wear as many as three of these singular
ornaments, thrust, point downwards, into the same lip.
"A. R. Tutton, in Society of Arte, London.
" Chalfant, " Early Chinese Writing," Mem. of Carnegie Museum, vol. ir, No. 1, Pittsburgh, 1906, PI. VI, No. 75.
"De Mëly, "Les lapidaires chinois," Paris, 1896, p. lxiv.
