162 TRIBES BORDERING ON KORDOFAN, inhabitants will shortly die. A raven makes a still stronger impression upon these simple beings ; should it, as of course frequently occurs, happen to fly into a yillage and settle on a tree or house, the whole place is then in consternation, all cheerfulness disappears, song and music cease to be heard, and even dancing is put a stop to on this woful day, for the arrival of a raven is a sure sign to them, that the Turks are coming to plunder them, or even to carry them off as slaves. They believe firmly in ghosts. On some of the hills they celebrate the anniversary of their dead, and indeed, at a certain time, annually. A large fire is on this occasion kindled in an open space, in the evening, whence every man takes a burning branch in his hand as a torch, and thus the procession moves first to the place of burial, and then to those houses in which some person had died during the preceding year. A song is now commenced in honour of the dead, at the conclusion of which, they toss their burning branches into the air, much after the same fashion in which midsummer is celebrated in certain countries of Europe.* A festival is kept when the first rain falls, and again at the termination of the harvest. To celebrate the latter feast, everything the house affords which could enliven * A custom more especially prevalent in the Harz mountains on the evening of 1st of May, the night of Walpurgis, when fires are lighted on the hills, and torches tossed into the air, to drive avsray the vitches, vpho are supposed on this occasion to be making holiday. This custom is alluded to in Goethe's Faust. Tr.