The men are notoriously bad, at the same time that they are among the most fanatical Moslemin in Africa. In fact, I had good reason to believe correct what was said to me of them:—“Every vice and every indulgence is lawful (Hellal) to the Siwy. Nothing is forbidden to them (Haram), but the presence of a Christian.” They are divided into two schools, the followers of the Sunūsy, of whom I shall have to speak later, and the Dirkawy, the ranters of Islam, who derive their origin from a celebrated sheikh of Masrata, who died a hundred years ago. Between the two orders the same affection seems to exist as fable attributes to the Jesuits and Dominicans in Christendom.
The Siwy are superstitious, though, perhaps, not more so than the ignorant masses in all countries; nearly all the men have amulets sewed to their caps, or hung round their necks; every house is defended from the evil eye by an earthen pot well blackened in the fire, which is built mouth downwards over the doorway, or at one corner; and in addition to this charm, it is not uncommon to see the leg bones of an ass projecting from some part of the building: this struck me particularly, as this use of it was once a superstitious practice in England. This and similar practices were forbidden by the Council of London, held about the year 1075.
After saying so much in dispraise of the Siwy, I must add that, compared with the people of Jalo and Augila, they are an industrious race, paying great attention to the cultivation of their palms and olive-trees, which they manure and tend with infinite care. A great part of the soil is capable of producing grain, and they possess extensive corn-fields; these being cultivated entirely with the spade, demand much labour; the consequence of which is, that the small population is unable to bring even the near-lying grounds completely under crop. From this cause several fertile oases dependent on Siwah are now abandoned. Interspersed among their palm-groves they have abundance of vines, apricots, and pomegranates, whose sweet though small fruit they preserve all the winter. To manure their trees they employ a thorny plant, which grows in great quantities in Maragah, called ’agul. This they collect and bind into large bundles, three of which form a donkey load; then, digging pits round the trees, they bury these bundles in them, after which they water them regularly once in six days. All caravans coming to Siwah are obliged to put up in a particular place, and the manure thus collected, along with the produce of the ’agul grounds, is sold every year by auction for the benefit of the community.
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.