[p.57]root so celebrated as a purifier, tonic, and aphrodisiac) they choose the spring season; they remove to a garden, where flowers and trees and bubbling streams soothe their senses; they carefully avoid fatigue and trouble of all kinds, and will not even hear a letter read, lest it should contain bad news.

When the prescription is written out, you affix an impression of your ring seal to the beginning and to the end of it, that no one may be able to add to or take from its contents.  And when you send medicine to a patient of rank, who is sure to have enemies, you adopt some similar precaution against the box or the bottle being opened.  One of the Pashas whom I attended,-a brave soldier who had been a favourite with Mohammed Ali, and therefore was degraded by his successor,-kept an impression of my ring in wax, to compare with that upon the phials.  Men have not forgotten how frequently, in former times, those who became obnoxious to the State were seized with sudden and fatal cramps in the stomach.  In the case of the doctor it is common prudence to adopt these precautions, as all evil consequences would be charged upon him, and he would be exposed to the family’s revenge.

Cairo, though abounding in medical practitioners, can still support more; but to thrive they must be Indians, Chinese, or Maghrabis.  The Egyptians are thoroughly disgusted with European treatment, which is here about as efficacious as in India-that is to say, not at all.  But they are ignorant of the medicine of Hind, and therefore great is its name; deservedly perhaps, for skill in simples and dietetics.  Besides which the Indian

[p.58]may deal in charms and spells,-things to which the latitude gives such force that even Europeans learn to put faith in them.  The traveller who, on the banks of the Seine, scoffs at Sights and Sounds, Table-turning and Spirit-rapping, sees in the wilds of Tartary and Thibet a something supernatural and diabolical in the bungling Sie-fa of the Bokte.[FN#16] Some sensible men, who pass for philosophers among their friends, have been caught by the incantations of the turbanded and bearded Cairo magician.  In our West African colonies the phrase “growing black” was applied to colonists, who, after a term of residence, became thoroughly imbued with the superstitions of the land.  And there are not wanting old Anglo-Indians, intelligent men, that place firm trust in tales and tenets too puerile even for the Hindus to believe.  As a “Hindi” I could use animal magnetism, taking care, however, to give the science a specious supernatural appearance.  Haji Wali, who, professing positive scepticism, showed the greatest interest in the subject as a curiosity, advised me not to practise pure mesmerism; otherwise, that I should infallibly become a “Companion of Devils.”  “You must call this an Indian secret,” said my friend, “for it is clear that you are no Mashaikh,[FN#17] and people will ask, where are your drugs, and what business have you with charms?” It is useless to say that I followed his counsel; yet patients would consider themselves my