[401]. 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 to 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.
[402]. 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.
[403]. I have been gratified by finding that this hope has been realized. I wish I could add that the phenomena were now explained. In No. 117 of the “Quarterly Review,” pp. 202 and 203, it has been suggested 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 grand difficulty of the case is the exhibition of “the correct appearance of private individuals unknown to fame,” as remarked in the “Quarterly Review,” in which a curious note, presenting “some new features of difficulty,” is appended. With the most remarkable of the facts there related I was acquainted; but I was not bold enough to insert them. I may now, however, here mention them. Two travellers (one of them, M. Léon Delaborde; the other, an Englishman), both instructed by the magician ’Abd-el-Kádir, are stated to have succeeded in performing similar feats. Who this Englishman was, I have not been able to learn: he positively denied all collusion, and asserted that he did nothing but repeat the forms taught him by the magician.
[404]. I am credibly informed that children in Egypt are often taught, at school, a regular set of curses to denounce upon the persons and property of Christians, Jews, and all other unbelievers in the religion of Mohammad. See Appendix D.
[405]. Chap. v., ver. 56. Verses 62 and 63 of the same chapter explain the reason of this precept:—“O ye who have believed, take not those who have made your religion a laughing-stock and a jest, of those who have received the Scripture before you, and the unbelievers [or polytheists], as friends; (but fear God, if ye be believers;) and [those who], when ye call to prayer, make it [namely, the prayer] a laughing-stock and a jest. This [they do] because they are a people who do not understand.” (The words enclosed in brackets are from the Commentary of the Geláleyn.)
[406]. The Prophet.
[407]. Kur-án, chap. xxxix. ver. 54.
[408]. Chap. xxix., ver. 45.
[409]. In the first edition of the present work, copying Sale, who gives no authority for the remark, I here added, “This precept is, however, generally considered as abrogated by that of the sword.” These words might lead the reader into error, as is shown by what I have said on the subject of war in page 81.
[410]. Kur-án, chap. lvi. ver. 78.