THE KAIN-MAKEK. 



351 



addressed by a kingly title, and is permitted to wear 

 the chieftain's badge, made of the base of a conical 

 shell. He is also known by a number of small greasy 

 and blackened gourds, filled with physic and magic, 

 hanging round his waist, and by a little more of the 

 usual grime — sanctity and dirt being connected in 

 Africa as elsewhere. These men are sent for from 

 village to village, and receive as obventions and spi- 

 ritual fees sheep and goats, cattle and provisions. Their 

 persons, however, are not sacred, and for criminal acts 

 they are punished like other malefactors. The greatest 

 danger to them is an excess of fame.. A celebrated 

 magician rarely, if ever, dies a natural death : too much 

 is expected from him, and a severer disappointment leads 

 to consequences more violent than usual. The Arabs 

 deride their pretensions, comparing them depreciatingly 

 to the workers of Simiya, or conjuration, in their own 

 country. They remark that the wizard can never pro- 

 duce rain in the dry, or avert it in the wet season. 

 The many, however, who, to use a West African phrase, 

 have "become black" from a long residence in the coun- 

 try, acquire a sneaking belief in the Waganga, and fear 

 of their powers. The well- educated classes in Zanzibar 

 consult these heathen, as the credulous of other Eastern 

 countries go to the astrologer and geomantist, and in 

 Europe to the clairvoyant and the tireuse cle cartes. 

 In one point this proceeding is wise : the wizard rarely 

 wants wits ; and whatever he has heard secretly or 

 openly will inevitably appear in the course of his divi- 

 nation. 



It must not be supposed, however, that the Mganga 

 is purely an impostor. To deceive others thoroughly 

 a man must first deceive himself, otherwise he will 

 be detected by the least discerning. This is the 



