of invocation, and dropped it into the chafing-dish, upon the burning
coals and perfumes, which had already filled the room with their smoke;
and as he did this, he commenced an indistinct muttering of words, which
he continued during the whole process, excepting when he had to ask the
boy a question, or to tell him what he was to say. The piece of paper
containing the words from the Kur-án, he placed inside the fore part of
the boy’s tákeeyeh, or skull-cap. He then asked him if he saw any thing
in the ink; and was answered “No;” but about a minute after, the boy,
trembling, and seeming much frightened, said, “I see a man sweeping the
ground.” “When he has done sweeping,” said the magician, “tell me.”
Presently the boy said, “He has done.” The magician then again
interrupted his muttering to ask the boy if he knew what a _beyrak_ (or
flag) was; and being answered “Yes,” desired him to say, “Bring a flag.”
The boy did so; and soon said, “He has brought a flag.” “What colour is
it?” asked the magician: the boy replied “Red.” He was told to call for
another flag; which he did; and soon after he said that he saw another
brought; and that it was black. In like manner, he was told to call for
a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh; which he described as being
successively brought before him; specifying their colours, as white,
green, black, red, and blue. The magician then asked him (as he did,
also, each time that a new flag was described as being brought), “How
many flags have you now before you?” “Seven,” answered the boy. While
this was going on, the magician put the second and third of the small
strips of paper upon which the forms of invocation were written, into
the chafing-dish; and fresh frankincense and coriander-seed having been
repeatedly added, the fumes became painful to the eyes. When the boy had
described the seven flags as appearing to him, he was desired to say,
“Bring the Sultán’s tent; and pitch it.” This he did; and in about a
minute after, he said, “Some men have brought the tent; a large green
tent: they are pitching it;” and presently he added, “they have set it
up.” “Now,” said the magician, “order the soldiers to come, and to pitch
their camp around the tent of the Sultán.” The boy did as he was
desired; and immediately said, “I see a great many soldiers, with their
tents: they have pitched their tents.” He was then told to order that
the soldiers should be drawn up in ranks; and, having done so, he
presently said, that he saw them thus arranged. The magician had put the
fourth of the little strips of paper into the chafing-dish; and soon
after, he did the same with the fifth. He now said, “Tell some of the
people to bring a bull.” The boy gave the order required, and said, “I
see a bull: it is red: four men are dragging it along; and three are
beating it.” He was told to desire them to kill it, and cut it up, and
to put the meat in saucepans, and cook it. He did as he was directed;
and described these operations as apparently performed before his eyes.
“Tell the soldiers,” said the magician, “to eat it.” The boy did so; and
said, “They are eating it. They have done; and are washing their hands.”
The magician then told him to call for the Sultán; and the boy, having
done this, said, “I see the Sultán riding to his tent, on a bay horse;
and he has on his head a high red cap: he has alighted at his tent, and
sat down within it.” “Desire them to bring coffee to the Sultán,” said
the magician, “and to form the court.” These orders were given by the
boy; and he said that he saw them performed. The magician had put the
last of the six little strips of paper into the chafing-dish. In his
mutterings I distinguished nothing but the words of the written
invocation, frequently repeated, excepting on two or three occasions,
when I heard him say, “If they demand information, inform them; and be
ye veracious.” But much that he repeated was inaudible, and as I did not
ask him to teach me his art, I do not pretend to assert that I am fully
acquainted with his invocations.
He now addressed himself to me; and asked me if I wished the boy to see
any person who was absent or dead. I named Lord Nelson; of whom the boy
had evidently never heard; for it was with much difficulty that he
pronounced the name, after several trials. The magician desired the boy
to say to the Sultán—“My master salutes thee, and desires thee to bring
Lord Nelson: bring him before my eyes, that I may see him, speedily.”
The boy then said so; and almost immediately added, “A messenger is
gone, and has returned, and brought a man, dressed in a black[50] suit
of European clothes: the man has lost his left arm.” He then paused for
a moment or two; and, looking more intently, and more closely into the
ink, said, “No, he has not lost his left arm; but it is placed to his
breast.” This correction made his description more striking than it had
been without it: since Lord Nelson generally had his empty sleeve
attached to the breast of his coat: but it was the _right_ arm that he
had lost. Without saying that I suspected the boy had made a mistake, I
asked the magician whether the objects appeared in the ink as if
actually before the eyes, or as if in a glass, which makes the right
appear left. He answered, that they appeared as in a mirror. This
rendered the boy’s description faultless.[51]
Footnote 50:
Dark blue is called, by the modern Egyptians, _eswed_, which properly
signifies _black_, and is therefore so translated here.
Footnote 51:
Whenever I desired the boy to call for any person, to appear, I paid
particular attention both to the magician and to ’Osmán. The latter
gave no direction either by word or sign; and indeed he was generally
unacquainted with the personal appearance of the individual called
for. I took care that he had no previous communication with the boys;
and have seen the experiment fail when he _could_ have given
directions to them, or to the magician. In short, it would be
difficult to conceive any precaution which I did not take. It is
important to add, that the dialect of the magician was more
intelligible to me than the boy. When _I_ understood him perfectly at
once, he was sometimes obliged to vary his words to make the _boy_
comprehend what he said.
The next person I called for was a native of Egypt, who has been for
many years resident in England, where he has adopted our dress; and who
had been long confined to his bed by illness before I embarked for this
country: I thought that his name, one not very uncommon in Egypt, might
make the boy describe him incorrectly; though another boy, on the former
visit of the magician, had described this same person as wearing a
European dress, like that in which I last saw him. In the present case
the boy said, “Here is a man brought on a kind of bier, wrapped up in a
sheet.” This description would suit, supposing the person in question to
be still confined to his bed, or if he be dead.[52] The boy described
his face as covered; and was told to order that it should be uncovered.
This he did; and then said, “His face is pale; and he has mustaches, but
no beard:” which is correct.
Footnote 52:
A few months after this was written, I had the pleasure of hearing
that the person here alluded to was in better health. Whether he was
confined to his bed at the time when this experiment was performed, I
have not been able to ascertain.
Several other persons were successively called for; but the boy’s
descriptions of them were imperfect; though not altogether incorrect. He
represented each object as appearing less distinct than the preceding
one; as if his sight were gradually becoming dim: he was a minute, or
more, before he could give any account of the persons he professed to
see towards the close of the performance; and the magician said it was
useless to proceed with him. Another boy was then brought in; and the
magic square, &c. made in his hand; but he could see nothing. The
magician said he was too old.
Though completely puzzled, I was somewhat disappointed with his
performances, for they fell short of what he had accomplished, in many
instances, in presence of certain of my friends and countrymen. On one
of these occasions, an Englishman present ridiculed the performance, and
said that nothing would satisfy him but a correct description of the
appearance of his own father, of whom, he was sure, no one of the
company had any knowledge. The boy, accordingly, having called by name
for the person alluded to, described a man in a Frank dress, with his
hand placed to his head, wearing spectacles, and with one foot on the
ground, and the other raised behind him, as if he were stepping down
from a seat. The description was exactly true in every respect: the
peculiar position of the hand was occasioned by an almost constant
headache: and that of the foot or leg, by a stiff knee, caused by a fall
from a horse, in hunting. I am assured that, on this occasion, the boy
accurately described each person and thing that was called for. On
another occasion, Shakspeare was described with the most minute
correctness, both as to person and dress; and I might add several other
cases in which the same magician has excited astonishment in the sober
minds of Englishmen of my acquaintance. A short time since, after
performing in the usual manner, by means of a boy, he prepared the magic
mirror in the hand of a young English lady, who, on looking into it for
a little while, said that she saw a broom sweeping the ground without
any body holding it, and was so much frightened that she would look no
longer.
I have stated these facts partly from my own experience, and partly as
they came to my knowledge on the authority of respectable persons. The
reader may be tempted to think that, in each instance, the boy saw
images produced by some reflection in the ink; but this was evidently
not the case; or that he was a confederate, or guided by leading
questions. That there was no collusion, I satisfactorily ascertained, by
selecting the boy who performed the part above described in my presence
from a number of others passing by in the street, and by his rejecting a
present which I afterwards offered him with the view of inducing him to
confess that he did not really see what he had professed to have seen. I
tried the veracity of another boy on a subsequent occasion in the same
manner; and the result was the same. The experiment often entirely
fails; but when the boy employed is right in one case, he generally is
so in all: when he gives, at first, an account altogether wrong, the
magician usually dismisses him at once, saying that he is too old.[53]
The perfumes, or excited imagination, or fear, may be supposed to affect
the vision of the boy who describes objects as appearing to him in the
ink; but, if so, why does he see exactly what is required, and objects
of which he can have had no previous particular notion? Neither I nor
others have been able to discover any clue by which to penetrate the
mystery; and if the reader be alike unable to give the solution, I hope
that he will not allow the above account to induce in his mind any
degree of scepticism with respect to other portions of this work.”
Footnote 53:
It has been suggested (in the “Quarterly Review,” No. 117) that the
performances were effected by means of pictures and a concave mirror;
and that the images of the former were reflected from the surface of
the mirror, and received on a cloud of smoke under the eyes of the
boy. This, however, I cannot admit; because such means could not have
been employed without my perceiving them; nor would the images be
_reversed_ (unless the pictures were so) by being reflected from the
surface of a mirror, and received upon a _second surface_; for the boy
was looking _down_ upon the palm of his hand, so that an image could
not be formed upon the smoke (which was copious, but not dense)
between his eye and the supposed mirror.
THE END.
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).