THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN and have the power of taking the form of the birds, animals, reptiles, &c., that live in them. Then there are numbers of spirits which live among the trees and in thickets, and enter into men, women, and children by force, and make them to become workers of their will, which is generally evil. Lonely deserts and mountains, to say nothing of tracts of land where there are large collections of trees, are fearsome places on moonless nights to the natives, and in some cases men from the West have been affected by the weird silence and awesomeness of such. Even experienced travellers like Stanley have felt the terrifying effects of the darkness and silence of the night among trees and in deserts, and have to some degree understood the feeling of the native who declares that the very air is filled with spirits. And it must not be forgotten that some of the admiration and respect which the natives felt for British officers in the Sudan was, and still is, due to the fearlessness with which they move and go about on the darkest night.

The villagers of Barkal were very fond of medicines, and the more unpleasant they were to the taste, and the swifter and more drastic they were in operation, the more they respected them.

Native medicines were compounded of nasty ingredients, e.g., portions of the bodies of snakes, lizards, and scorpions, excrementa of men and animals, &c. ; salt and oil were also often given by native medicine-men. These they swallowed without a murmur, and, strange to say, seemed to be better for them ; but whether it was faith in the medicine or belief in the man which effected the cure I could never decide. Theoretically Muhammadans believe that whatever happens to them, for good or ill, is the result of the decrees which are inscribed by God each year on the 15th day of the month vSha'ban, on the " Preserved Tablet," which is kept in heaven. Speaking generally, it is held to be a wicked act to dispute such decrees, which concern the destinies of men in the most minute particulars, and more than twelve and a half centuries of Muhammadan history testify to the implicit obedience which the Arabs have rendered to the Divine will. But in practice many believe that God can be induced by earnest prayer to erase from this Tablet an unfavourable decree, and to insert a more favour-' The eiglith month of the Muljammadan year.

220 i