FROM CAIRO TO THE ATBARA 17

on, while I personally wanted to see some-

thing of the magical practices which still prevail to a considerable extent in Cairo.

Egyptian magic was, of course, famous in

antiquity. The author of Exodus speaks of

it, and, at a later date, Celsus, the able opponent of Christianity, declared, strangely enough, that Christ worked all His miracles by means of magic which He had learnt in

Egypt! I have heard on excellent authority

that necromancy is still practised in Cairo, and if our departure could have been delayed

I should have done my best, with the aid of some Egyptian friends, to be present at one

of these séamces for the evocation of the dead. Another species of magic consists of gazing into ink in order to see pictures prophetic of the future. This practice is,

after all, simply a form of the katoptromancy

or crystal-gazing which was used for divin-

ation in the remotest antiquity, and_ still

yields results full of psychological, if no longer of supernatural, interest. Scripture appears to contain several references to the curious phenomena which frequently exist in connection with crystal-gazing. The Hebrew

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