This race is interesting because it shows the origin of the Darb el-mendel, the Magic Mirror of Egypt, known to the Hindus as Aujan. It was first noticed in India by the learned Dr. Herklots, who in 1832 published a most valuable volume on the manners and customs of the Hindi Muslims. Unfortunately the British public misjudged its title, and held it to be a cookery-book. The next to notice it was Mr. Lane (Modern Egyptians, Vol. II., chap, xii.) in 1835. He tells us that two Europeans, an Englishman and a Frenchman, learned to induce the phenomenon; and he concludes with the normal deprecatory formula of his age: “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.” Since that time the Zoist, the Journal de Magnétisme, and similar publications took up the subject, and traced it from Cornelius Agrippa and Dr. Dee to the most degraded of existing savages, the Australians:
The following is Dr. de Pietra Santa’s account of the two modes of fascination employed by the “magicians” of French Africa (Algiers)[203]:
“The first forms part of the baggage of all Arab Gzanes, Gypsies, sorceresses, and fortune-tellers. When one wishes to strike the imagination of the multitude, it is absolutely necessary to find phenomena which are both intelligible to all and which each one can instantly verify for himself. Amongst such there is not one more evident than sleep. It is therefore important for the Gzane, in order to prove in an undeniable manner her moral power and supernatural influence, that she should be able to send to sleep at a given moment the person who has recourse to her occult science. She employs the following means:
“Upon the palm of the hand she describes, with some blackish colouring matter, a circle, in whose centre is marked a spot equally black. After looking fixedly at the latter for a few minutes, the eyes grow heavy, they blink, and the sight is confused; the heaviness is presently succeeded by sleep, and sleep by a sort of insensibility,[204] of which the Gypsy profits to exercise her manœuvres more securely. I give you the simple fact without commentaries; and abjuring any pretensions to determine its importance.
“Let us now pass on to the second mode of fascination. Upon a table covered with a white cloth is placed a bottle, usually filled with water and backed by a small lamp lighted. The subject is comfortably seated on a chair, and told to look at the bright point placed before him at the distance of a few steps. After a few minutes the eyelids grow heavy, then they gradually smile, and sleep is induced. With nervous temperaments palpitation of the heart and headache also manifest themselves.
“In order to give an odour of the supernatural to these phenomena, the Moroccan, Gypsy or Marabout, has a certain quantity of benzoin burnt behind the table; and while the vapour spreads itself through the room, the person undergoing the process falls into a complete state of anæsthesia.”
Borrow mentions in Barbary sundry “sects of wanderers,” which he shrewdly suspects to be Gypsies, and whom he provides with the worst of characters. The first are the “Beni Aros” (?), who wander about Fez, and have their homes in the high mountains near Tetuan. A comely, well-made race, they are beggars by profession, notorious drunkards, addicted to robbery, murder, and effeminate crimes. They claim to be Moors, and their language is Arabic. The second are the “Sidi Hamed au Muza,” so called from their patron saint. In many respects they not a little resemble the Gypsies; but they speak the Shilhah, or a dialect of that tongue. They earn their livelihood by vaulting, tumbling, and tricks with sword and dagger, to the sound of wild music, which the women, seated on the ground, produce from their uncouth instruments.
§ 3. The Gypsies in Inner Africa.
It is generally believed that the Romá have extended far southwards from Morocco and Barbary. Borrow remarks of the Dar-bushi-fal (fortune-tellers), that if they are not Gypsies, the latter people cannot be found in the country. Numerous in Barbary, they wander during the greater part of the year, pilfering, fortune-telling, and dealing in mules and donkeys. Their fixed villages are known as “Char Seharra,” witch hamlets. They can change the colour of an animal, and transform a white man into a negro black as a coal, after which they sell him as a slave. They are said to possess a peculiar language, which, being neither Arabic nor Shilhah, is intelligible only to their own caste. Borrow often conversed with them; but he neglected to apply his favourite Shibboleth, Pani (water). Their faces are described as exceedingly lean, their skins swarthy, and their legs are reeds; “when they run, the devil himself cannot overtake them.” Their vehicles of divination are oil, a plate full of flour, or a shoe placed in the mouth. They are evil people, and powerful enchanters, feared by the emperor himself.