Chapter XVIII

Arab Mesmerism. — Divination. — Sheikh Senusi. — Morocco Miracles. — A Treasure-seeker’s Tales. — Yusuf’s Ingenuity. — Further exemplified. — My Captivity ended. — The Tables turned.

One of my first visitors was the Moghrabi from Tangiers, already mentioned, called El Gibely, who has been settled here for many years. He was a perfect specimen of this class of adventurers; pretending to have a familiar spirit, a djin who waits upon him, and tells him the secrets of futurity. He wrote charms to discover treasures, and to cure all manner of diseases, and I almost think had ended by believing in them himself. The day after I was shut up in Yusuf’s house he took an opportunity of vaunting to me highly the virtues of his amulets, particularly of one which renders its possessor ball-proof. He fancied, probably, that this was the moment to effect a profitable sale, and I asked questions, and listened to him with a grave attention which must have given him great hopes. In this he overrated my credulity; but I repaid his communicativeness in kind, by describing to him the wonders of the electric telegraph, which I thought would astonish him; but in this I was in turn disappointed, as he listened to my accounts of instantaneous messages sent over land and sea, without expressing a doubt, or even asking how such wonders were performed. In fact, he already knew all about it—“It was the djin.”

I one day sent for him to perform the often-talked-of miracle, or trick of the ink-spot in a child’s hand. A young negro, about nine years old, was introduced, and the inscription on his forehead was written with all due ceremony, the seal was drawn in his hand, the coriander seed was burned under his nose, until the poor child’s eyes ran with tears, and the fear he was in covered his forehead with big drops of sweat. After some time he saw a person in the ink-spot; he was then told to order him to bring another, whom he was not long in fancying he saw; but he then became quite wild, and neither the muttered surah, nor the repeated orders of the Moghrabi had any further effect. The child could see nothing more. I regarded the experiment with the most incredulous caution; and, though it certainly failed, I was not convinced that so-called animal magnetism would not give an explanation of the phenomena, such as trustworthy Arabs have assured me they had themselves seen. Leo Africanus speaks of these conjurors with the utmost contempt; and, I believe, all later Europeans who have written on the subject regard the proceeding as a gross trick; but in these countries it is universally believed, even by men who laugh at the usual apparatus of charms and amulets. One of my friends brought me a manuscript, which he had found among the effects of a moghrabi who died here many years ago, in which the whole process is explained; it was essentially the same as that used by El Gibely, who, probably to enhance the mystery of the proceeding in my eyes, added, besides the two lines which are written on the forehead, a sort of star over the nose, and inscriptions on each eyebrow.[9]

Having spoken at such length of the art of making “the Djin descend into a child’s hand,” I may complete my confession of the black arts which I learned here, by describing the process of divination called “Derb er raml,” or “Derb el ful,” according to the medium used, whether it is sand or beans; the latter (with the beans) is the simplest, but both are in principle the same. Seven beans are held in the palm of the left hand, which is struck with a smart blow with the right half-closed fist, so that some of the beans jump into the right hand—if an odd number, one is marked; if even, two. The beans are replaced in the left hand, which is again struck with the right, and the result marked below the first. This being repeated four times gives the first figure, and the operation is performed until there are obtained four figures, which are placed side by side in a square; these are then read vertically and perpendicularly, and also from corner to corner, thus giving in all ten figures. As each may contain four odd or four even numbers, they are capable of sixteen permutations, each of which has a separate signification, and a proper _house_ or part of the square in which it should appear. The Derb er-raml is only distinguished from this by being more complicated, fresh combinations being obtained by the addition of every pair of figures. There is a large work on this subject by El-Zenāty, and another called ’Omdat-et-Taleb.

One day the Gibely came to me in all his Friday gaiety of attire, “perfumed like a milliner,” his eyes broadly painted with kohl. We had a long discussion on the earth and its form, and the great sea which surrounds it, and jebel kaf which bounds it, and the seven climates, and the seven heavens, for whose existence he quoted the words of Him whose name be exalted! in the Koran. I demurred to some of his theories, and treated jebel kaf and the seven climates as at least old-fashioned—with the heavens, may they never be fewer! I did not interfere; but even with the aid of such maps as I had at hand, I could not, of course, hope to make my very modern notion of the world’s form perfectly intelligible. From this we passed, by an easy transition (arising, I think, from his assertion that Mecca is the centre of the world), to the subject of natural and supernatural knowledge, and thence to miracles. Reason being as much opposed to the mysteries of faith as to a belief in occurrences out of the usual course of nature, it is difficult to prescribe a term to the one without seeming to doubt the other; and I therefore, without entering into explanations, was content to say, “It seems strange, but God only knows.” He himself pretended to be able to travel from here to Benghazi and Derna, in summer, through the parched desert, alone, without water or wallet, and to want for nothing—an assertion he has often made to me, as of a thing notorious to all in Siwah, ascribing the gift at one time to his attendant djin, at another to the Sheikh Senusi. To-day, I suppose because it was Friday, the living saint had the credit of the prodigy. The Senusi, of whom I have had so often occasion to speak, is the founder of the largest religious brotherhood at present existing in Africa, its ramifications extending from Morocco to the Hedjay. He is a native of Mostaghānem, was educated in Fez, and now resides in Mecca, where he has beside his house a large zavia. He is about sixty-five years old, and from the immense influence which he has acquired it may fairly be supposed that he is a man of no ordinary talents. He is a sherif of good family, and the donations of pious pilgrims have rendered his zavias (convents) very wealthy. The members of these convents, after having completed their studies, are allowed to marry, and without practising any great austerities they are very strict Moslemin. In imitation of the Prophet they say fifty rika’ats in the twenty-four hours, five of which are said at midnight; they fast, in addition to Ramazan, on certain days in the months of Sha’aban, Hedjib, and Zil Hidjih, and abstain from smoking and drinking coffee, tea being their usual beverage. They seem less fanatical than the general mass of Arabs; although their founder is a native of Algiers, he professes, though perhaps only from policy, a particular esteem for the English, and I believe I had, very unworthily, the benefit of this partiality. From one of the disciples of the sheikh I learned a point in our national history which was new to me. When the Prophet died, the English were on the point of becoming true believers, but, learning his death, they determined to remain as they were; they made, however, a treaty with Abou Behr, by which it was agreed, that though they continued Christians, there should be perpetual amity between them and the Caliph.

The Senusi is represented to me as all that an Arab saint should be—exact in the observances of religion, gay, and a capital shot; he rides a horse of the purest breed and of great value, dresses magnificently, paints his eyes with kohl and his beard with henna. He is very hospitable, and if the Gibely may be believed, has a granary which the large daily drafts he makes on it never empty; receiving nothing from any one, he has always money; and a hundred, or even two hundred, persons eat from his dish of cuscusu, which miraculously suffices for them all. The Senusi seems a man respectable for his talents and probity, though from the above history of him it may be supposed that he takes advantage of the veneration of his disciples to impose on their credulity. In the eyes of my Moghrabi friend, however, he is not the only living thaumaturge in Islam; for there are, he asserts, many individuals in Morocco, some of whom he knows personally, who pray every day at Mecca, and he told of one who, no saint himself, owed this favour to the sheikh he served. The event happened in Tunis. The servant wished to go on the pilgrimage, but from day to day his master dissuaded him, saying, “There is time, wait yet a little.” Thus passed the months; the festival was approaching, and still the sheikh answered, “You shall make this year’s pilgrimage, but there is still time.” At length the ninth of Til Hidj came, the very day of the sermon on Mount Arafat, when, about mid-day, the sheikh called him, and said, “Shut your eyes,” and “now open them.” He obeyed, and found himself with a multitude of people at Mount Arafat. He performed with them the ceremonies of the pilgrimage, joining in the processional prayers, and after this spoke to many of his Tunisian acquaintance. He said he should return before them, and offered to carry letters, many of which, sealed with their seals, and referring to their children and family affairs, were given to him. His master, who was with him all this time, then said, “Shut your eyes,” and in an instant he found himself again in Tunis, with his letters. He delivered them the next day; but, notwithstanding the evidence of the seals and the contents, the people, seeing the date, said, “He is an impostor.” “Wait,” was the answer, “till the return of the Hadj.” Meantime, at Arafat, his countrymen looked for him, and not seeing him, said among themselves, “He is gone back before us to Mecca;” but when after months they returned home, and each recognising his own letter asserted that he had sent it from Arafat, and had seen the bearer there, the people were convinced of the miracle.

Miracles performed by mad saints are not less firmly believed by my friend. There is such an one at Damanhur, and I had myself the pleasure of seeing him when there, who, clothed in the costume of Sultan Adam when he left the hands of his Creator, is building a mosque at Tunis. He goes every day to the Nile, and throws stones into it, which are at the same moment conveyed to Tunis, and arrange themselves in proper architectural design. He told of another at Tripoli, whose aid the crew of a ship at sea invoked in a storm, promising him a recompense if saved. He was at that moment in the bazaar; a man riding on a donkey was passing him, when he jumped up, as if possessed, from the stall he was sitting on, knocked the man from his seat, and ———. I should have continued the story in Arabic (my oracular tongue furnishing no terms in which to relate it), but I refrain, as the learned who could decipher the Arabic are probably sufficiently good Oriental scholars to fill up the blank in my narration. At this moment, said the truthful historian, he appeared to the mariners, and when, two days afterwards, the ship entered the port, the saint presented himself to claim his recompense. But the devil was no longer sick, and the sheikh’s salvage dues were now denied him. All the people, however, testified that the scene with the donkey in the market took place at the hour when his aid was invoked, and, thus convicted, the promised reward was given.

I might fill a volume with such strange tales, as the treasure-seeker’s visits are frequent; he had a well-supplied budget, and he freely communicated its contents, in the hope of drawing me out in turn. He certainly thought I had private information about the immense treasures which he believed buried here; and whatever the subject we were discussing, he always contrived to introduce in a corner of his talk, _in angulo sui sermonis_, a question relating to them, or an inquiry as to the process of rendering quicksilver solid. This was all that he was in need of to discover the grand arcanum for turning the baser metals into gold and silver. Did he know the quicksilver secret he was master of all the rest, and of acquiring this he did not at all despair. I told him that transmutation was a dream long exploded among the learned; but I offered him the receipt how to make rubies and other precious stones, only premising that the cost was greater than the value of the newly-formed gem.

Having presented the Gibely to my readers, as a good specimen of the fortune-seeking Moghrabi who abound in the East, it would not be fair to omit some account of Sheikh Yusuf—a much rarer character, because really an honest man; though the stories I am going to tell of him, gathered from his own lips, may not seem to European readers to bear out the fair praise I give him. He is a very remarkable man, full of energy, and has made the best use of the education which an early initiation in affairs gives. He knows the letters of the alphabet, and this is probably the whole amount of his book learning; but his memory is well stored with texts of the Koran, verses of the poets, and those stories which are so pre-eminently an Oriental accomplishment, and which he related with a vivacity remarkable in this country of loutish stupidity. His father was Sheikh el Beled before him, and at thirteen he was also sheikh, giving his opinion freely, even against his father’s views. When he was less than seventeen his father was murdered in open day, by some of the discontented Siwy, one of his own servants heading the conspiracy. Yusuf, thereupon, proceeded straight to Cairo, and was by Mohammed Ali appointed Sheikh el Beled in his room. The Pacha had given Siwah and the Little Oasis, with their revenues, as a backshish to one Hassan Bey, who had reduced them to his obedience; and the Sheikh told with gusto some stories of that time, which are too characteristic to be omitted here.

When his father went to the Proprietor-Governor, he used to take Yusuf with him, to make him acquainted with affairs; but only as a listener. One day in the date season, a large number of Arabs, with their camels, had come from the Okbar, or, as it is called here, the Gazelle-land, to purchase dates. Hassan Bey coveted his neighbours’ camels, but was perplexed how to become master of them without injury to his purse, or incurring Mohammed Ali’s anger. He consulted Sheikh Ali, who would give no advice, but only shook his head, and said, “Tyranny, tyranny.” “I’ll tell you what you should do,” cried Yusuf, eagerly. “What shall I do, my child?” “You shall buy them for fifteen dollars a-piece, and lose nothing by the transaction.” He then explained his plan, which delighted the Bey; but his father only shook his head the more, and oftener repeated, “Tyranny.” “You, Sheikh Ali,” said the Bey, “are a graybeard, and do not understand government. Sheikh Yusuf is young and brave, and I will follow his advice.” The next day the Arabs were told that the Bey wanted to buy some of their camels, and that they must bring them to the castle in the afternoon. Accordingly, before evening, more than three hundred of the best camels were collected in the court; and the Bey having ordered several sheep to be killed, invited the owners of the camels to sup with him. After supper, the bargain was struck for fifteen dollars a-piece, the Mufti and Cadi being called to witness the agreement, which was drawn out in writing. All parties affixed their seals, and the money was paid down at once. After this, the Mufti and Cadi rose to leave, and all were going to retire from the castle, when the Bey said to the Arabs, “You are my guests; you must stay here all night, and we will breakfast together in the morning.” The bait was tempting to men who love animal food at the cost of their friends; and the foolish Arabs remained after the others had withdrawn. The next morning some more sheep were sacrificed to the genius of hospitality; the Arabs ate with their usual appetite, and took their departure; but, as they passed out of the gates, each was forced to restore the money he had received for his camels. Thus Hassan Bey purchased camels without their costing him anything.

On another occasion, Yusuf helped him to make a not less profitable speculation in oxen and cows. There were many defaulters to the miri; and his father and the Bey were in consultation as to the way to get from them their debt, or its equivalent. There were many cattle in Siwah at that time, and Sheikh Ali proposed to take them in payment, at ten dollars a-head, which was rather less than their value; but Yusuf said, “No; take them at forty dollars a-head, and follow my plan.” “What is your plan?” “When the dates are gathered, return their oxen to the owners, making them buy them back at the original price, and take from them the amount of miri that they owe in money.” At so large a price, everybody was anxious to give his cows instead of the miri and the Governor—good-natured soul!—gave them credit for forty dollars on each one that was offered; but sent the cattle back to their owners, saying he would take them when wanted. In October, there was a plentiful date harvest, and the Bey was chuckling over his intended finesse, when it occurred to him that many of the cattle had died during the heats of summer. He sent for Yusuf, to see if he could help him out of this dilemma. “To those whose cows are alive, return them at the original price; and as for the others, it is but just they should refund you the forty dollars which their oxen cost, as they have never served you, but remained and died in their keeping.” Thus, by a truly Turkish calculation, the Bey bought cows without paying for them, and sold them for ready money to their original owners, who were then made to pay their arrears of taxes, as if there had been no question of cattle; and who do not, perhaps, at this hour understand how so fair a transaction resulted to themselves in a clear loss of forty dollars on each of their beeves.

His own father was once the object of Yusuf’s practical pleasantries. The town had rebelled, and the ringleaders of the revolt were imprisoned in the castle. Sheikh Ali received money from two of the worst, on the promise of obtaining their liberty, and in the afternoon went to the Bey to intercede for them; and being a favourite with the Governor, he easily procured an assurance that they should be liberated next morning. Yusuf learned what had passed; so, after supper, he set off alone for the castle, and asked admittance to the Bey. “What brings you at this hour, my son?” said he, after the first salutation. “My father came here to-day to ask for the liberty of such and such a one. Do you wish to know the exact truth?” “Certainly I do; speak.” “Well, then, know that, in truth, they are the worst men in Siwah; but my father has taken a bribe to procure their pardon.” At this the Bey was very angry; and, calling to the guard, he had the prisoners brought out and beheaded on the spot. Yusuf returned home; and, next morning, when he came to release them, his father found their headless bodies lying in the court. “Of course,” said I, “your father returned the money?” “To whom?” said Yusuf. “The men were dead; and there was no one could say to my father, ‘You took a bribe—return the money!’”

After telling these stories of my sheikh, it may seem incredible when I add that, though feared as a most severe man, he was acknowledged by all the Siwy never to have taken a bribe, or committed an act of oppression on his own account. “If you do not do such things for yourself,” I said, “how can you commit them for others?” He answered that the Osmanli only value a man as he serves them as an instrument of extortion.

My long detention in Siwah must, by this time, have become as wearisome to my reader as it was to myself; let me hasten, then, to open my prison-doors, and pursue my journey to its end.

On the 14th of March, exactly six weeks from my arrival, about sunset, there came running to my house some of my Siwy friends, crying “Backshish for good news!” Two Arabs were to be seen in the distance, who, soon after, arrived, and announced themselves as two sheikhs, and very important and big-mouthed personages they were. They were the avant-couriers of the detachment of irregular cavalry (Bashi-buzuks), whom the Viceroy of Egypt had sent to my assistance. One would have thought them the kings of the world, from the airs they gave themselves, and the monstrous lies they told; and had I been less accustomed to the assumption of consequence in which Arabs, and, indeed, all Easterns, indulge, until they have received a good lesson, I should have been really frightened at having to entertain such important gentlemen. They came to demand rations for the men and horses, which were to be furnished by the town; and, as a matter of course, ordered twice as much as was really required; and, equally as a matter of course, hardly got, I believe, half of what they demanded. This contribution was, at my request, levied on the hostile part of the town, and my friends escaped unmolested. It was not until the 16th, in the morning, that my deliverers arrived, having come from Hhosh ebn Issa, near Damanhur, in nineteen days. They were commanded by a Turcoman, one Hassan Aga, the wahil, or major of the regiment, an easy-natured soul, somewhat sulky withal, as assuming as all Turks are, but only requiring to be held firmly in hand, and an assiduous sayer of his prayers.

Such a commander never was sent in charge of troops; he had with him twelve or fourteen officers (Buluk-Bashi is their title), and every one of them seemed to think he had a voice in the command. All matters, of whatever nature they might be, were discussed in public, the very soldiers sometimes interfering with advice. Among banditti, such a republican constitution may sometimes exist; but that the most irregular troops in the world could be kept together with such a system seemed impossible. The first day of their arrival, after having received the Commandant’s visit, I went to the castle in which the troops were lodged, and made a formal request that he would seize the Sheikhs of the Lifayah, with the Cadi, and the Imam of one of the mosques, and carry them with him to Cairo, to answer before the Viceroy. He said he could not do so, having no orders, except to bring me away; to which I rejoined, that no doubt he was quite right; and that I had only to beg a written acknowledgment that I had required him to take them with him, but that he, having no orders, was unable to comply with my request. This he absolutely refused, even Turks being afraid of pen and ink; but, after five hours’ talk between him and his officers, who were of various minds, on the one part; and Yusuf and myself on the other, he shut them up provisionally, excepting the Mufti, who had accompanied the Sheikhs, and whom I offered to bail. After this, on my giving him a written demand for their arrest, with an order from Yusuf, as Sheikh el Belid, he the next morning determined to carry them to Cairo, and they were consigned to safe-keeping, with orders to prepare for their journey.

Another day had been lost in this way; and it was only on Friday, the 18th, that, accompanied by a soldier and three of Sheikh Yusuf’s people, I started early to see the ruins of Omm Beida, and any other antiquities which might be found in the oasis. There was, of course, no longer any opposition on the part of the Siwy, but the Commandant was very anxious to be off, and only with difficulty agreed to give me till Sunday evening—far too short a time to see the many ruins which are met with in the Hattyehs, beyond the immediate territory of Siwah.