THE DEVIL'S TKEE. 



353 



the head, the arm, the wrist, or the ankle. Paper is 

 still considered great medicine by the Wasukuma and 

 other tribes, who will barter valuable goods for a little 

 bit : the great desideratum of the charm, in fact, appears 

 to be its rarity, or the difficulty of obtaining it. Hence 

 also the habit of driving nails into and hanging rags 

 upon trees. The vegetable itself is not worshipped, as 

 some Europeans who call it the "Devil's tree" have 

 supposed : it is merely the place for the laying of 

 ghosts, where by appending the Keti most acceptable 

 to the spectrum, he will be bound over to keep the 

 peace with man. Several accidents in the town of 

 Zanzibar have confirmed even the higher orders in their 

 lurking superstition. Mr. Peters, an English merchant, 

 annoyed by the slaves who came in numbers to hammer 

 nails and to hang iron hoops and rags upon a " DeviPs 

 tree" in his courtyard, ordered it to be cut down, to 

 the horror of all the black beholders, of whom no one 

 would lay an axe to it. Within six months five persons 

 died in that house — Mr. Peters, his two clerks, his 

 cooper, and his ship's carpenter. This superstition 

 will remind the traveller of the Indian Pipul (Ficus 

 religiosa), in which fiends are supposed to roost, and 

 suggest to the Orientalist an explanation of the mys- 

 terious Moslem practices common from Western Africa 

 to the farthest East. The hanging of rags upon trees 

 by pilgrims and travellers is probably a relic of Arab 

 Fetissism, derived in the days of ignorance from their 

 congeners in East Africa. The custom has spread far 

 and wide : even the Irish peasantry have been in the 

 habit of suspending to the trees and bushes near their 

 " holy wells" rags, halters, and spancels, in token of 

 gratitude for their recovery, or that of their cattle. 

 There are other mystical means of restoring the sick 



VOL. II. A A 



