THE WHITE MAN'S DEVIL-HOUSE.
A FRAGMENT.
BY F. HARRISON RANKIN.
"There is a magic in the craft."
Exoterics surmise it to consist in "winks and nods," proverbially of equal inspiration to steeds labouring under the dispensation of gutta serena. Mesmer's Animal Magnetism was nothing to the invisible "tractors." Ticklings of the palm have been surmised; talismanic numbers have been hinted at; sounds inaudible have been suggested; together with certain "melodious twangs," awakening pineal sympathy. Mrs. Veal's ghost, from De Foe's autopsy of the apparition, evidently held no less a grade in the scale of shadowy society than that of Master Mason.
John Locke, the philosopher, subsequently one of the fraternity, opined that the art embraced sorcery, alchemy, the transmutation of essences and of metals, together with similar common-place desiderata.
Whatever the nature of the spell, its sway is wide. Affinity of feeling generated by it runs round the world. It may be found in the land of the Chinese, of the Arab, the Red Indian, and the wild Tartar; in the frozen circle, habitat of all seals excepting Solomon's, and in the burning desert,
"Terra domibus negata."
Our story relates to the last pleasant locality.
Upon the windward coast of Africa, in a situation calculated to warm the coolest temperament, stands a European settlement,—a pimple of civilization upon the fiery face of a barbarous continent.