188 RELIGION.

The Mahommedan negroes are altogether fond of clothing their religion in a traditionary garb, and of adulterating it with absurdities, which remain then so strongly impressed upon their minds, that it is almost impossible to eradicate the false notions and instruct them differently. They believe firmly in metempsychosis, and accord to apes the honour of being animated by those human souls which, for the commission of some crime during life, must suffer punishment after death in the shape of monkeys. They never in any way injure these animals, and take care that they do not suffer from want of food.

If they see any jerson ill-treating one of them, they become very wrath, and an old negro once reproached me severely for punishing my monkey for some offence of which it had been guilty, for, added he : " Why dost thou beat thy monkey ? May it not be thy grandfather, whose soul is incorporated in V this animal after death?" Elephants and parrots share the same honour with apes; and they contend that the former more especially could not act so sensibly as they do, unless a human soul dwelt within their body.

Those sheikhs or saints, so common in Egypt, where they are regarded as holy, and, as it were, adored, but who are virtually idiots or cunning impostors, are not tolerated in Kordofan. On the contrary, unfortunate beings really neglected by nature are not indeed ill-treated, but kept as secluded as they possibly can be in their own fami-