It chanced, by great good luck, that even as we spoke of these affairs, I found myself threatened with a cold.  I do not suppose I was ever glad of a cold before, or shall ever be again; but the opportunity to see the sorcerers at work was priceless, and I called in the faculty of Apemama.  They came in a body, all in their Sunday’s best and hung with wreaths and shells, the insignia of the devil-worker.  Tamaiti I knew already:  Terutak’ I saw for the first time—­a tall, lank, raw-boned, serious North-Sea fisherman turned brown; and there was a third in their company whose name I never heard, and who played to Tamaiti the part of famulus.  Tamaiti took me in hand first, and led me, conversing agreeably, to the shores of Fu Bay.  The famulus climbed a tree for some green cocoa-nuts.  Tamaiti himself disappeared a while in the bush and returned with coco tinder, dry leaves, and a spray of waxberry.  I was placed on the stone, with my back to the tree and my face to windward; between me and the gravel-heap one of the green nuts was set; and then Tamaiti (having previously bared his feet, for he had come in canvas shoes, which tortured him) joined me within the magic circle, hollowed out the top of the gravel-heap, built his fire in the bottom, and applied a match:  it was one of Bryant and May’s.  The flame was slow to catch, and the irreverent sorcerer filled in the time with talk of foreign places--of London, and ‘companies,’ and how much money they had; of San Francisco, and the nefarious fogs, ‘all the same smoke,’ which had been so nearly the occasion of his death.  I tried vainly to lead him to the matter in hand.  ‘Everybody make medicine,’ he said lightly.  And when I asked him if he were himself a good practitioner—­’No savvy,’ he replied, more lightly still.  At length the leaves burst in a flame, which he continued to feed; a thick, light smoke blew in my face, and the flames streamed against and scorched my clothes.  He in the meanwhile addressed, or affected to address, the evil spirit, his lips moving fast, but without sound; at the same time he waved in the air and twice struck me on the breast with his green spray.  So soon as the leaves were consumed the ashes were buried, the green spray was imbedded in the gravel, and the ceremony was at an end.

A reader of the Arabian Nights felt quite at home.  Here was the suffumigation; here was the muttering wizard; here was the desert place to which Aladdin was decoyed by the false uncle.  But they manage these things better in fiction.  The effect was marred by the levity of the magician, entertaining his patient with small talk like an affable dentist, and by the incongruous presence of Mr. Osbourne with a camera.  As for my cold, it was neither better nor worse.