The wizard chose his abode with skilful and romantic taste. Quitting the town by a path which ascended abruptly from the river, the traveller was forced to climb the steep by a series of dangerous zig-zags among rocks and bushes, until he reached a deep cave in an elevated cliff that bent over the stream. As we approached, my conductor warned the inmate of our coming by several whoops. When we reached the entrance I was directed to halt until the demon announced his willingness to receive us. At length, after as much delay as is required in the antechamber of a secretary of state, a growl, like the cry of a hungry crocodile, gave token of the wizard’s coming.
As he emerged from the deep interior, I descried an uncommonly tall figure, bearing in his arms a young and living leopard. I could not detect a single lineament of his face or figure, for he was covered from head to foot in a complete dress of monkey skins, while his face was hidden by a grotesque white mask. Behind him groped a delicate blind boy.
We seated ourselves on hides along the floor, when, at my bidding, the interpreter, unrolling my gifts, announced that I came with full hands to his wizardship, for the purpose of learning my fortune.
The impostor had trained his tame leopard to fetch and carry like a dog, so that, without a word, the docile beast bore the various presents to his master. Every thing was duly measured, examined, or balanced in his hands to ascertain its quality and weight. Then, placing a bamboo between his lips and the blind boy’s ear, he whispered the words which the child repeated aloud. First of all, he inquired what I wished to know? As one of his follower’s boasts was the extraordinary power he possessed of speaking various languages, I addressed him in Spanish, but as his reply displayed an evident ignorance of what I said, I took the liberty to reprimand him sharply in his native tongue. He waved me off with an imperious flourish of his hand, and ordered me to wait, as he perfectly comprehended my Spanish, but the magic power would not suffer him to answer save in regular rotation, word by word.
I saw his trick at once, which was only one of prompt and adroit repetition. Accordingly, I addressed him in his native dialect, and requested a translation of my sentence into Spanish. But this was a puzzler; though it required but a moment for him to assure me that a foreign language could only be spoken by wizards of his degree at the full of the moon!
I thought it time to shift the scene to fortune-telling, and begged my demon to begin the task by relating the past, in order to confirm my belief in his mastery over the future. But the nonsense he uttered was so insufferable, that I dropped the curtain with a run, and commanded “the hereafter” to appear. This, at least, was more romantic. As usual, I was to be immensely rich. I was to become a great prince. I was to have a hundred wives; but alas! before six months elapsed, my factory would be burnt and I should lose a vessel!
Presently, the interpreter proposed an exhibition of legerdemain, and in this I found considerable amusement to make up for the preceding buffoonery. He knotted a rope, and untied it with a jerk. He sank a knife deep in his throat, and poured in a vessel of water. Other deceptions followed this skilful trick, but the cleverest of all was the handling of red hot iron, which, after covering his hands with a glutinous paste, was touched in the most fearless manner. I have seen this trick performed by other natives, and whenever ignited coals or ardent metal was used, the hands of the operator were copiously anointed with the pasty unguent.
A valedictory growl, and a resumption of the leopard, gave token of the wizard’s departure, and closed the evening’s entertainments.
If the ease with which a man is amused, surprised, or deluded, is a fair measure of intellectual grade, I fear that African minds will take a very moderate rank in the scale of humanity. The task of self-civilization, which resembles the self-filtering of water, has done but little for Ethiopia in the ages that have passed simultaneously over her people and the progressive races of other lands. It remains to be seen what the infused civilization of Christianity and Islamism will effect among these benighted nations. Jesus, Mahomet, and the Fetiche, will, perhaps, long continue to be their types of distinctive separation.