304 



SATYID SAID. 



Sayyid Said was probably as shrewd, liberal, 

 and enlightened a prince as Arabia ever pro- 

 duced, yet Europe overrated his powers. Like 

 Orientals generally, he was ever surrounded by 

 an odious entourage, whom he consulted, trusted, 

 and apparently preferred to his friends and well- 

 wishers. He firmly believed in the African 

 Fetish and in the Arab Sahir's power of me- 

 tamorphosis ; 1 he would never flog a Mganga 



1 I have alluded to this subject in my exploration of Harar 

 (chap, ii.), aud a few more details may not be uninteresting. 

 Strong-headed Pliny (viii. 32) believes metamorphosis to be a 

 ' fabulous opinion,' and remarks, ' there is no falsehood, how- 

 ever impudent, that wants its testimony among them' (the 

 Greeks), yet at Tusdrita he saw L. Coisilius, who had been 

 changed from a woman into a man. Curious to say, the learned 

 Anatomist of Melancholy (Part I. sect. 1) charges him w r ith 

 believing in the versijiellis, and explains the belief by lycan- 

 thropy, cucubuth or Lupina Insania. Petronius gives an 

 account of the ' fact.' Pomponius Mela accuses the Druidesses 

 of assuming bestial shapes. Suidas mentions a city where 

 men changed their forms. Simon Magus could produce a 

 double of himself. Saxo Grammaticus declared that the priests 

 of Odin took various appearances. John of Salisbury asserts 

 that Mercury taught mankind the damnable art of fascinating 

 the eyes. Joseph Acosta instances fellow-countrymen in the 

 West Indies who were shot during transformation. Our 

 ancestry had their were- wolf (homo-lupus), and the Britons 

 their Bisclavaret. Coffin, the Abyssinian traveller, all but saw 

 his Buda change himself into a hyena. Mr Mansfield Parkyns 

 heard of a human horse. In Shoa and Bornou men become 

 leopards ; in Persia, bears ; in Somali-land Cyn-hyenas ; in 

 West African Kru-land elephants and sharks ; in Namaqua- 

 land, according to the late Mr Andersson, lions. At Maskat 



