Accordingly, In A.D. 1844, Mr. Lane, Aided By Lord Nugent And
Others, Discovered That A "Coarse And Stupid Fraud" Had Been
Perpetrated Upon Him By Osman Effendi, The Scotchman.
In 1845, Sir G.
Wilkinson remarked of this rationalism, "The explanation lately
offered, that Osman Effendi was in collusion
With the magician, is
neither fair on him nor satisfactory, as he was not present when those
cases occurred which were made so much of in Europe," and he proposed
"leading questions and accidents" as the word of the riddle. Eothen
attributed the whole affair to "shots," as schoolboys call them, and
ranked success under the head of Paley's "tentative miracles." A writer
in the Quarterly explained them by suggesting the probability of divers
(impossible) optical combinations, and, lest the part of belief should
have been left unrepresented, Miss Martineau was enabled to see clear
signs of mesmeric action, and by the decisive experiment of self,
discovered the magic to be an "affair of mesmerism." Melancholy to
relate, after all this philosophy, the herd of travellers at Cairo is
still divided in opinion about the magician, some holding his
performance to be "all humbug," others darkly hinting that "there may
be something in it."
[FN#19] They distinguish, however, between the Hijaz "Nasur" and the
"Jurh al-Yamani," or the "Yaman Ulcer."
[FN#20] I afterwards received the following information from Mr.
Charles Cole, H.B.M. Vice-Consul at Jeddah, a gentleman well acquainted
with Western Arabia, and having access to official information:
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