RELIGION. 185 niixed-up with their faith. They believe in one God, and in addition to him in an evil spirit, and a great deal of heathen superstition is, moreover, jumbled together with their Islamism. A prominent cause of this ignorance is the negligence of the government, which does not institute a sufficient number of schools, for very few of them are to be found among the majority of the tribes. Only a small portion of the natives can read and write, with the exception of the Fakeers and Tekirs. It is the office of these men to study the Koran, and to communicate what they have read to the people. The former axe the school-masters and religious instructers : they write a few sentences from the Koran on a board, and make their scholars copy them. When they have learnt thus much, they are considered sufficiently instructed, leave the school, and before a year is over have forgotten everything again. They also write amulets, with which they frequently deceive the people in the most shameful manner. They ingratiate themselves further into the favour of families, like the clergy of Italy, and when they have once gained a footing, worm out the most trivial secrets, interfere with all the domestic affairs, and have frequently more authority in the house than the master himself. Matches are concocted by them, and, in fact, nothing is undertaken without their advice. The functions of a Fake6r would apj)ear to be hereditary, for they descend generally from father to son, and are not so easily transferred