The Cincinnati Daily Star

A PROPHET IN INDIA.—A little more than four years ago, says the London Vanity Fair, four officers in India joined together to build a small dwelling-house for their own habitation in the valley of the Jumna. They took the stones for the construction from a native burying-place close by; whereupon a Fakeer came down upon them, denounced them with terrible curses, and prophesied that within four years every one of the four officers would meet with a violent death. Within three years and a half one of them was killed while pig-sticking, a second was eaten by a tiger, and a third accidentally shot. The fourth, however, met with no harm, and within two months before the expiration of the time fixed by the Fakeer, was congratulating himself and his friends on his being certain to belie the old mendicant's prophecy, when he was upset in a boat, on the Ganges, and drowned. Moreover, about the same time, the river adjoining the house, which was the beginning of all the troubles, rose in an unparalleled flood, and swept away every vestige of the building, sacred stones and all. This story is absolutely true.