Hisce positis, as the logicians say, the magician began his process. The boy was innocent of fear; being in fact a person rather perplexed and imperfect in those parts of theology that should have caused him to feel alarm. His native nurse first taught him to kiss his hand to the moon walking in brightness; which, being especially reprobated in the book of Job, we persuaded him to renounce. We next found him making salams as he passed the fat old gentleman with an elephant's head, and other foul idolatries bedaubed with rose-pink and butter, that show themselves on various milestone-like appurtenances to an Indian road. After his visit to the Persian Gulph he leaned more towards monotheism; and I once found him seated between two guns on the quarter-deck of an Arab frigate, in the midst of a fry of devotees of little more than his own age, busily engaged in chanting canticles in praise of Mohammed the "amber-ee." His early leaning towards the ugly gods of Hindoston, had made it a delicate matter to introduce him to our Evil Principle; and the fact was, that when he afterwards saw the Freischutz in England, we had no means of making him comprehend the nature of the crimson fiend, but by telling him he was a relation of his old elephant-headed friend Gunputty. On the whole I imagine there never was a better subject to cope with a sorcerer; and when he asked the cause of the immediate preparations we told him the man was going to show some feats of legerdemain such as he used to see in India. The magician began by throwing grains of incense upon the fire, bowing with a seesaw motion and repeating "Heyya hadji Capitân, Heyya hadji Capitân;" which being interpreted, if it was intended to have any meaning, would appear to imply "Hurra, pilgrim Captain!" being, as I understood it at the time, an invocation by his style and title, of the spirit he wished to see. When nothing came, he increased his zeal after the manner of a priest of Baal, and seemed determined that if the "Captain" was sleeping or on a journey, he should not be missed for want of calling. One slight variorum reading I observed. Instead of saying to the boy "What do you see?" as had been reported—he said "Do you see a little man?" which, if he had been accessible to fear or phantasy, was manifestly telling him what he was to look for. The boy, however, resolutely declared he saw nothing; and the sorcerer continued his calls upon his spirit. When in this manner curiosity had been roused to something like expectation, the boy suddenly exclaimed, "I see something!"— Tremor occupat artis;—when he quashed it all by adding, "I see my nose." By the dim light of the fire, he had succeeded in getting a glimpse of his own countenance reflected in the ink. The magician doubled his exertions by way of carrying the thing off; but there was much less gravity in his audience afterwards; and at last he was forced to declare that the spirit would not come, and the reason he believed was because we were Christians. He said, however, if an Arab boy was substituted the spirit would come. A servant therefore was sent out to bring a boy by the offer of a piastre, and one was soon produced. Whether there was any confederacy or not, I had no precise means to ascertain; but I was inclined to think not. The Arab boy was trusted with the ink in place of the European, and on the magician's asking him the leading question "Do you see a little man?" he took but one look and answered "Yes." The orders then followed "Tell him to bring a flag." &c. to all of which, whether operated on by some dread of refusing, or by the natural inclination of one rogue to help another, he duly answered that the thing was done. I do not remember any further denoùment that there was; and so ended the magic of the magician of Grand Cairo.
Being disappointed in this experiment, we began to seek for the opportunity of making others, and offered a reward for any person who would show us a specimen of imp or spirit. One man was produced, who was stated to be of considerable fame. He said he would show me a spirit; but I must go out with him three nights running to a cross road at midnight, and perform divers ceremonies and lustrations which he proceeded to describe. I believe he he had got an inkling, that I intended to leave Cairo the next day. I told him, however, that I would cheerfully go through any ceremonies he might propose. He next said, it would be necessary that I should repeat the name of the spirit I called for, eleven thousand times; and this I assured him I would painfully perform. He then said, he was afraid at my age the operation would be dangerous. I wonder whether the rogue meant that I was too young, or too old, or too middle-aged; for I was exactly thirty-eight. Seeing that I only pressed him the more, he took his fee and walked off, intimating that there was no use in doing these things with Frangis.
I saw another instance in Cairo, of the way in which a story accumulates by telling, and the degree in which even sensible Europeans by long residence are induced to give into the beliefs they find around them. The conversation turned one day on the power of charming serpents, supposed to be inherent in certain descendants of the Psylli. One of the Consular Staff immediately declared, that a most remarkable instance of the fact had happened in the Consul-General's own courtyard the day before. That one of those gifted men had come into the yard, and declared he knew by his art that there were serpents in the stable; and that he had immediately gone and summoned forth two snakes of the most poisonous kind, which he seized in his hands and brought, in the presence of the relator, to the Consular threshold. Now it happened to me to see the whole of this scene. I was wandering about the Consul's court, gazing at the curiosities scattered around, enough to have set up any European museum with an Egyptian branch, and particularly, I remember, at a lame mummy's crutch, found with him in his coffin, on which it is possible the original owner hopped away from the plague of frogs. An old rural Arab of respectable appearance was standing at the Consul's door, holding in his hand the crooked stick which an Arab keeps to recover the halter of his camel if he happens to lose it while mounted, and presenting altogether a parallel to a substantial yeoman with his riding-whip, come to town to do a little justice business with the Mayor. A stable-keeper came and said, that two snakes had made their appearance in the stable; on which the Arab, being no more in the habit of fearing such vermin than a European farmer of fearing rats, proceeded towards the stable, and I followed him. Sure enough there were two snakes in dalliance in the horse's stall; and my construction was, that it was the poor animals' St. Valentine. The Arab, however, ruthlessly smote them with his gib stick, in a way that showed an exact comprehension of what would settle a snake; and brought them hanging by the tails and still writhing with the remains of life, and laid them at the threshold of the house. I looked at the snakes, and felt a strong persuasion that they were of a harmless kind; but whether they were or not, was of small moment as the Arab treated them.
I remember in India once driving one of the snake-jugglers to discovery. He told the servants there were snakes in the stable; and offered to produce one. He accordingly went, with piping and other ceremonies, and soon demonstrated a goodly cobra de capello struggling by the tail. He secured this in his repertory of snakes, and said he thought there was another; on which he went through the same operations again. Though he had been too quick for me on both occasions, I offered him a rupee to produce a third, which he agreed to; and this time I saw the snake's head, struggling rather oddly in his nether garments. He ran into the horse's stall, rushed forward with a shriek to distract attention, and then I saw him jerk out a snake of some four feet long, and drag it backwards by the tip of the tail as if desperately afraid of it. Knowing his snakes must be an exhaustible quantity, I proffered a second rupee for another, taking care to keep between him and the snake-basket; which he declined. But on turning round and giving him a chance to communicate with his receptacle, he quickly presented himself with the assurance that now he thought he knew where a serpent might be lodged. The Indian servants all devoutly believed in his skill; but it is impossible not to be ashamed of Europeans, who adorn their books with marks of similar gullibility.—Abridged from Tait's Edinburgh Mag.
Notes of a Reader
RECREATIONS IN THE LAW.
Gentle reader, we are not about to direct your notice to the Temple Gardens, the olden feasts in our Law Halls—through which men ate their way to eminence—nor to prove that looking to a Chancellorship is woolgathering—nor to invite you to the shrubby groves of Lincoln's Inn, or to promenade with the spirit of BACON in Gray's Inn. All these may be pleasurable occupations; but there is mirth in store in the study of the Law itself, which is not "dull and crabbed as some fools (or knaves) suppose."
In a recent Mirror, (No. 540) this may have been made manifest to the reader in the Legal Rhymes, quoted by our correspondent, W.A.R.;[9] but lo! here is a volume of evidence in "The Cenveyancer's Guide;" a Poem, by John Crisp, Esq., of Furnival's Inn; in which the art of Conveyancing is sung in Hudibrastic verse, and said in notes of pleasant prose. Happy are we to see Mr. Crisp's volume in a third edition, since we opine from this success the bright moments of relief which his Muse may have shed upon the viginti annorum lucubrutiones of thousands of students. We have not space for quotations from the poem itself, in which Doe and Roe figure as heroes, with their occasional friend Thomas Stiles. We can only say their movements are sung with the terseness and point which we so much admire in the great originals, so as to make men acknowledge there is good in every thing. Our extracts are from the Introduction and Notes. First is