At the Consul General's table, in Egypt, in August, 1822, the
conversation turned on the belief in magic; and the Consul's Italian
Staff propounded the following story, which seemed to have perfect
possession of their best belief. They said that a magician of great name
was then in Cairo--I think a Mogrebine; and that he had been sent for to
the Consul's house, and put to the following proof:--A silver spoon had
been lost, and he was invited to point out the thief. On arriving, he
sent for an Arab boy at hazard out of the street, and after various
ceremonies, poured ink into the boy's hand, into which the boy was to
look. It was stated, that he asked the boy what he saw, and the boy
answered, "_I see a little man_,"--Tell him to bring a flag,--"_Now he
has brought a flag_."--Tell him to bring another.--"_Now he has brought
another_."--Tell him to bring a third,--"_Now he has brought it_."--Tell
him to bring a fourth.--"_He has brought it_."--Tell him to bring the
captain of them all.--"_I see a great Sheik on horseback_."--Tell him to
bring the man that stole the spoon.--"_Now he has brought him_."--What
is he like?--"_He is a Frangi, poor-looking and mesquin_." After which
followed other points of personal description not remembered; but which
drew from the Staff the observation, that a European of exactly those
qualities had been about the house. We expressed our desire to be
introduced to the magician, and the Consul gravely intimated it might
hurt the prejudices of his wife, as being a Catholic; to the great mirth
of the beautiful Consuless when she was told of it, who, though a
Catholic and an Italian, declared she was the only person in the family
that set all the magicians in Egypt at defiance.
Having some time afterwards established ourselves in a house of our own,
on the edge of the garden of the Austrian Consulate (as I remember by
the token that a Turkish officer who had been taking his evening walk of
meditation, very gravely opened the window from the garden, put in first
one leg of his huge trousers and then the other, and strode into the
room followed by his pipe-bearer, as being the shortest cut into the
street; though I must do him the justice to say he laughed and was very
conversable, when I brought him up with a salam and a cup of coffee, by
way of demonstrating there was somebody in the house besides the Arab
owner), we sent for the magician. I remember a well-dressed personable
man, of what, after the fashion of the nomenclature in the Chamber of
Deputies, might be called the young middle-age. He agreed to show us a
specimen of his art, though I do not recollect that the nature of it was
defined. He fixed upon our little boy of seven years old to be his
instrument; and I remember he talked some nonsense about requiring an
innocent agent, and how a woman might do as well, if she could plead the
innocent presence of the unborn. He dispatched a servant into the bazar,
to procure frankincense and other things which he directed; and on their
being produced we all retired into a room, and closed the doors and
windows. An earthen pot was placed in the middle of the floor,
containing fire, and the magician sat down by it. He placed the little
boy before him, and poured ink into the hollow of the boy's hand, and
bid him look into it steadily. I think the mother rather quailed, at
seeing her child in such propinquity with "the Enemy;" but recovered
herself on being exhorted to defy the devil and all his works. And the
thing was not entirely without danger from another quarter; for it was
understood the Pasha had directed a special edict against all dealing
with familiar spirits; and the Pasha's edicts were not altogether to be
trifled with, as we knew from the mishap of a poor Indian servant, who
was caught in the bazar in the fact of taking thirteen of the Pasha's
tin piasters in change for a dollar, when the political economy of Cairo
had decreed that twelve were to be equal in public estimation, and was
immediately incarcerated in the place of skulls, or at least of heads,
from which it is supposed he would have come out shorn of his beard and
the chin it grew from, if the Consular cocked hat and Abyssinian charger
had not proceeded at a gallop to the Court at Shubra, to claim him as a
subject of the British crown; and much did poor Baloo vow, that no
earthly temptation should take him again to quit the gentle rule of the
old Lady in Leadenhall-street, who, though she pinches a Peishwa and
mercilessly screws a renter when it suits her, it must be allowed has a
reverent care for the heads of all her lieges, and gives them a fair
chance of going to their graves with the members nature had bestowed on
them.
_Hisce positis_, as the logicians say, the magician began his process.
The boy was innocent of fear; being in fact a person rather perplexed
and imperfect in those parts of theology that should have caused him to
feel alarm. His native nurse first taught him to kiss his hand to the
moon walking in brightness; which, being especially reprobated in the
book of Job, we persuaded him to renounce. We next found him making
salams as he passed the fat old gentleman with an elephant's head, and
other foul idolatries bedaubed with rose-pink and butter, that show
themselves on various milestone-like appurtenances to an Indian road.
After his visit to the Persian Gulph he leaned more towards monotheism;
and I once found him seated between two guns on the quarter-deck of an
Arab frigate, in the midst of a fry of devotees of little more than his
own age, busily engaged in chanting canticles in praise of Mohammed the
"amber-_ee_." His early leaning towards the ugly gods of Hindoston, had
made it a delicate matter to introduce him to our Evil Principle; and
the fact was, that when he afterwards saw the Freischutz in England, we
had no means of making him comprehend the nature of the crimson fiend,
but by telling him he was a relation of his old elephant-headed friend
Gunputty. On the whole I imagine there never was a better subject to
cope with a sorcerer; and when he asked the cause of the immediate
preparations we told him the man was going to show some feats of
legerdemain such as he used to see in India. The magician began by
throwing grains of incense upon the fire, bowing with a seesaw motion
and repeating "_Heyya hadji Capitân, Heyya hadji Capitân;_" which being
interpreted, if it was intended to have any meaning, would appear to
imply "_Hurra, pilgrim Captain!_" being, as I understood it at the time,
an invocation by his style and title, of the spirit he wished to see.
When nothing came, he increased his zeal after the manner of a priest of
Baal, and seemed determined that if the "Captain" was sleeping or on a
journey, he should not be missed for want of calling. One slight
_variorum_ reading I observed. Instead of saying to the boy "What do you
see?" as had been reported--he said "_Do you see a little man?_" which,
if he had been accessible to fear or phantasy, was manifestly telling
him what he was to look for. The boy, however, resolutely declared he
saw nothing; and the sorcerer continued his calls upon his spirit. When
in this manner curiosity had been roused to something like expectation,
the boy suddenly exclaimed, "I see something!"--_Tremor occupat
artis;_--when he quashed it all by adding, "I see my nose." By the dim
light of the fire, he had succeeded in getting a glimpse of his own
countenance reflected in the ink. The magician doubled his exertions by
way of carrying the thing off; but there was much less gravity in his
audience afterwards; and at last he was forced to declare that the
spirit would not come, and the reason he believed was because we were
Christians. He said, however, if an Arab boy was substituted the spirit
would come. A servant therefore was sent out to bring a boy by the offer
of a piastre, and one was soon produced. Whether there was any
confederacy or not, I had no precise means to ascertain; but I was
inclined to think not. The Arab boy was trusted with the ink in place of
the European, and on the magician's asking him the leading question "Do
you see a little man?" he took but one look and answered "Yes." The
orders then followed "Tell him to bring a flag." &c. to all of which,
whether operated on by some dread of refusing, or by the natural
inclination of one rogue to help another, he duly answered that the
thing was done. I do not remember any further _denoùment_ that there
was; and so ended the magic of the magician of Grand Cairo.
Being disappointed in this experiment, we began to seek for the
opportunity of making others, and offered a reward for any person who
would show us a specimen of imp or spirit. One man was produced, who was
stated to be of considerable fame. He said he would show me a spirit;
but I must go out with him three nights running to a cross road at
midnight, and perform divers ceremonies and lustrations which he
proceeded to describe. I believe he he had got an inkling, that I
intended to leave Cairo the next day. I told him, however, that I would
cheerfully go through any ceremonies he might propose. He next said, it
would be necessary that I should repeat the name of the spirit I called
for, eleven thousand times; and this I assured him I would painfully
perform. He then said, he was afraid at my age the operation would be
dangerous. I wonder whether the rogue meant that I was too young, or too
old, or too middle-aged; for I was exactly thirty-eight. Seeing that I
only pressed him the more, he took his fee and walked off, intimating
that there was no use in doing these things with Frangis.
I saw another instance in Cairo, of the way in which a story accumulates
by telling, and the degree in which even sensible Europeans by long
residence are induced to give into the beliefs they find around them.
The conversation turned one day on the power of charming serpents,
supposed to be inherent in certain descendants of the _Psylli_. One of
the Consular Staff immediately declared, that a most remarkable instance
of the fact had happened in the Consul-General's own courtyard the day
before. That one of those gifted men had come into the yard, and
declared he knew by his art that there were serpents in the stable; and
that he had immediately gone and summoned forth two snakes of the most
poisonous kind, which he seized in his hands and brought, in the
presence of the relator, to the Consular threshold. Now it happened to
me to see the whole of this scene. I was wandering about the Consul's
court, gazing at the curiosities scattered around, enough to have set up
any European museum with an Egyptian branch, and particularly, I
remember, at a lame mummy's crutch, found with him in his coffin, on
which it is possible the original owner hopped away from the plague of
frogs. An old rural Arab of respectable appearance was standing at the
Consul's door, holding in his hand the crooked stick which an Arab keeps
to recover the halter of his camel if he happens to lose it while
mounted, and presenting altogether a parallel to a substantial yeoman
with his riding-whip, come to town to do a little justice business with
the Mayor. A stable-keeper came and said, that two snakes had made their
appearance in the stable; on which the Arab, being no more in the habit
of fearing such vermin than a European farmer of fearing rats, proceeded
towards the stable, and I followed him. Sure enough there were two
snakes in dalliance in the horse's stall; and my construction was, that
it was the poor animals' St. Valentine. The Arab, however, ruthlessly
smote them with his gib stick, in a way that showed an exact
comprehension of what would settle a snake; and brought them hanging by
the tails and still writhing with the remains of life, and laid them at
the threshold of the house. I looked at the snakes, and felt a strong
persuasion that they were of a harmless kind; but whether they were or
not, was of small moment as the Arab treated them.
I remember in India once driving one of the snake-jugglers to discovery.
He told the servants there were snakes in the stable; and offered to
produce one. He accordingly went, with piping and other ceremonies, and
soon demonstrated a goodly _cobra de capello_ struggling by the tail. He
secured this in his repertory of snakes, and said he thought there was
another; on which he went through the same operations again. Though he
had been too quick for me on both occasions, I offered him a rupee to
produce a third, which he agreed to; and this time I saw the snake's
head, struggling rather oddly in his nether garments. He ran into the
horse's stall, rushed forward with a shriek to distract attention, and
then I saw him jerk out a snake of some four feet long, and drag it
backwards by the tip of the tail as if desperately afraid of it. Knowing
his snakes must be an exhaustible quantity, I proffered a second rupee
for another, taking care to keep between him and the snake-basket; which
he declined. But on turning round and giving him a chance to communicate
with his receptacle, he quickly presented himself with the assurance
that now he thought he knew where a serpent might be lodged. The Indian
servants all devoutly believed in his skill; but it is impossible not to
be ashamed of Europeans, who adorn their books with marks of similar
gullibility.--_Abridged from Tait's Edinburgh Mag._
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