Tests of Bhûts.
There are at least three infallible tests by which you may recognize a Bhût. In the first place he casts no shadow. In the third Canto of the Purgatorio, Dante is much distressed because Virgil, being a disembodied spirit, casts no shadow. In the second place a Bhût can stand almost anything in his neighbourhood but the scent of burning turmeric, which, as we shall see, is a well-known demon-scarer. Thirdly, a genuine Bhût always speaks with a nasal twang, and it is possibly for this last reason that the term for the gibberish in the mediæval plays and for modern English is Pisâcha Bhâsha, or the language of goblins.14 Some of them have throats as narrow as a needle, but they can drink gallons of water at a time. Some, like the Churel, whom we shall meet later on, have their feet turned backwards. Some, like Brâhman ghosts, are wheat-coloured or white; others, like the Kâfari, the ghost of a murdered negro, are black, and particularly dreaded. A famous ghost of this class haunts a lane in Calcutta, which takes its name from him.