We Had A View Of About Five Miles In Extent
Along The Valley Of The Atbara, And It Was My Daily Amusement To Scan
With My Telescope The Uninhabited Country Upon The Opposite Side Of The
River And Watch The Wild Animals As They Grazed In Perfect Security.
We
were thoroughly happy at Sofi.
There was a delightful calm and a sense
of rest, a total estrangement from the cares of the world, and an
enchanting contrast in the soft green verdure of the landscape before
us, to the many hundred weary miles of burning desert through which we
had toiled from Lower Egypt.
Time glided away smoothly until the fever invaded our camp. Florian
became seriously ill. My wife was prostrated by a severe attack of
gastric fever, which for nine days rendered her recovery almost
hopeless. Then came the plague of boils, and soon after a species of
intolerable itch, called the coorash. I adopted for this latter a
specific I had found successful with the mange in dogs, namely,
gunpowder, with one fourth sulphur added, made into a soft paste with
water, and then formed into an ointment with fat. It worked like a charm
with the coorash.
Faith is the drug that is supposed to cure the Arab; whatever his
complaint may be, he applies to his Faky or priest. This minister is not
troubled with a confusion of book-learning, neither are the shelves of
his library bending beneath weighty treatises upon the various maladies
of human nature; but he possesses the key to all learning, the talisman
that will apply to all cases, in that one holy book, the Koran. This is
his complete pharmacopoeia: his medicine chest, combining purgatives,
blisters, sudorifies, styptics, narcotics, emetics, and all that the
most profound M.D. could prescribe. With this "multum in parvo"
stock-in-trade the Faky receives his patients. No. 1 arrives, a barren
woman who requests some medicine that will promote the blessing of
childbirth. No. 2, a man who was strong in his youth, but from excessive
dissipation has become useless. No. 3, a man deformed from his birth,
who wishes to become straight as other men. No. 4, a blind child. No. 5,
a dying old woman, carried on a litter; and sundry other impossible
cases, with others of a more simple character.
The Faky produces his book, the holy Koran, and with a pen formed of a
reed he proceeds to write a prescription - not to be made up by an
apothecary, as such dangerous people do not exist; but the prescription
itself is to be SWALLOWED! Upon a smooth board, like a slate, he rubs
sufficient lime to produce a perfectly white surface; upon this he
writes in large characters, with thick glutinous ink, a verse or verses
from the Koran that he considers applicable to the case; this completed,
he washes off the holy quotation, and converts it into a potation by the
addition of a little water; this is swallowed in perfect faith by the
patient, who in return pays a fee according to the demand of the Faky.
As few people can read or write, there is an air of mystery in the art
of writing which much enhances the value of a scrap of paper upon which
is written a verse from the Koran. A few piastres are willingly expended
in the purchase of such talismans, which are carefully and very neatly
sewn into small envelopes of leather, and are worn by all people, being
handed down from father to son.
The Arabs are especially fond of relics; thus, upon the return from a
pilgrimage to Mecca, the "hadji" or pilgrim is certain to have purchased
from some religious Faky of the sacred shrine either a few square inches
of cloth, or some such trifle, that belonged to the prophet Mahomet.
This is exhibited to his friends and strangers as a wonderful spell
against some particular malady, and it is handed about and received with
extreme reverence by the assembled crowd. I once formed one of a circle
when a pilgrim returned to his native village. We sat in a considerable
number upon the ground, while he drew from his bosom a leather envelope,
suspended from his neck, from which he produced a piece of extremely
greasy woollen cloth, about three inches square, the original color of
which it would have been impossible to guess. This was a piece of
Mahomet's garment, but what portion he could not say. The pilgrim had
paid largely for this blessed relic, and it was passed round our circle
from hand to hand, after having first been kissed by the proprietor, who
raised it to the crown of his head, which he touched with the cloth, and
then wiped both his eyes. Each person who received it went through a
similar performance, and as ophthalmia and other diseases of the eyes
were extremely prevalent, several of the party had eyes that had not the
brightness of the gazelle's; nevertheless, these were supposed to become
brighter after having been wiped by the holy cloth. How many eyes this
same piece of cloth had wiped, it would be impossible to say, but such
facts are sufficient to prove the danger of holy relics, that are
inoculators of all manner of contagious diseases.
I believe in holy shrines as the pest spots of the world. We generally
have experienced in Western Europe that all violent epidemics arrive
from the East. The great breadth of the Atlantic boundary would
naturally protect us from the West, but infectious disorders, such as
plague, cholera, small-pox, etc., may be generally tracked throughout
their gradations from their original nests. Those nests are in the East,
where the heat of the climate acting upon the filth of semi-savage
communities engenders pestilence.
The holy places of both Christians and Mahometans are the receptacles
for the masses of people of all nations and classes who have arrived
from all points of the compass.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 14 of 89
Words from 13226 to 14229
of 90207
