CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS 317 



might even have been sold into slavery if the case 

 was a particularly bad one." 



Herr Ewald Falls, in the record of his travels in 

 the Libyan Desert, 1 gives a good deal of information 

 about Arab customs and superstitions. He says : "In 

 the desert, at least, faith in God is strong' and living, 

 although the boundary line between faith and super- 

 stition is not always clear. There are many relations 

 with the spirit world, and especially the evil spirits 

 and the devil, the Afrite. Those evil spirits form the 

 chief source of income of the Fiki, the man who can 

 read the Koran and exorcise spirits and heal the sick 

 with verses from it. The wise Fiki is summoned ; he 

 is told everything, entertained according to the means 

 of his host, writes a verse of the Koran on a scrap 

 of paper, which is sewed up in a little linen or leather 

 bag and worn as an amulet. The price of this assist- 

 ance is according to the possessions of the seeker of 

 it, a small sum of money or natural produce. 



The Fiki, a name by which the teacher of the Koran 

 is usually designated, is generally a. wanderer, a 

 Maghrabi, an Arab from Tunis, Algiers, or elsewhere 

 in the west. His passage from the Koran, which is 

 sometimes written on a stone or a fragment of pottery, 

 is called Heschab. When he treats the sick or plays 

 the hakim (doctor), his first question is usually, ' Who 

 has bewitched him? ' or ' Who has written anything 

 for him? ' For the power of the Heschab influences 

 even the absent. 



Spirits and devils dwell in forsaken spots in the 

 desert and wherever ancient ruins of any extent are 

 found. The magic lakes of the fata Morgana are 

 1 See Bibliography, 37. 



