JOURNAL RELATING TO NUBIA. 421 



and the natives flocked around with tiieir usual questions, whether I 

 came to look for money, whether Christians or Moslems, English 

 or French built the temples. They could not comprehend the use of 

 the pencil ; nor did they understand for what purpose a pocket-fork 

 which I showed them was made ; nor had they any name for it. 



The Aga having prepared a dinner for me, invited several of the 

 inhabitants to sit down. Water was brought in a skin by an attendant 

 to wash our hands. Two fowls roasted were served up on wheaten 

 cakes in a wooden bowl, covered with a small mat, and a number of 

 the same cakes in another ; in the centre of these were liquid butter 

 and preserved dates. These were divided, broken up, and mixed 

 together by some of the party, while others pulled the fowls to pieces; 

 when this was done, the party began to eat with great eagerness ; 

 rising up one after the other as soon as they had satisfied their 

 appetites. 



During my visit, I observed an old Imam attempt to perform a cure 

 on one of the natives, who came to him on account of a head-ache 

 from which he suffered much pain. This was done in the following 

 manner : — The patient seated himself near the Imam, who, putting 

 his finger and thumb to the patient's forehead, closed them gradually 

 together, pinching the skin into wrinkles as he advanced, uttering a 

 prayer, spitting on the ground, and lastly on the part affected. 

 This continued for about a quarter of an hour, and the patient rose 

 up, thoroughly convinced that he should soon be well. 



A superstitious kind of regard seems to be paid by the Egyptians 

 to this mode of cure ; for at Erment, the ancient Hermonthis, an 

 aged woman applied to me for a medicine for a disease in her eyes, 

 and on my giving her some directions of which she did not seem to 

 approve, she requested me to spit on them ; I did so, and she went 

 away, blessing me, and perfectly satisfied of the certainty of a cure. 



The Aga told me that his town extended for three miles ; that the 

 government was divided between himself and another (independent 

 of the Cashief of Deir), by a firman from the Pasha of Egypt ; that 

 it had suffered from the flight of the Mamalukes and pursuit of the 



