IN THE SAHARA

Evening Post, Issue 149, 20 December 1935, Page 17

IN THE SAHARA

T SHALL not easily forget last Christmas Day—for I spent it in that desolate waste called the Sahara Desert, and it was on Christmas Day that I witnessed my first "first-hand" exhibition of "black magic." Some people might call it hypnotism and some might call it adept conjuring. I call it "magic," and let it go at that. I was camping at a water hole— Hassi Ouskir—when an old Arab arrived from the direction of Igli: After making his camp he came over to me to find out whether I could "lend" him some sugar. . : ■■•'.- • We fell in to conversation in a mixture of French and Arabic. He explained to me that the well was named after Sidi Abdul-Ouskir, who had found water there by "magic." I suppose that I looked rather sceptical, so he remarked that as a European I was not likely to believe in magic. He drew his knife and drove it-right through the palm of his left hand. . Naturally,. he bled profusely. He held out his hand, transfixed by the knife, and told me to pull it out. I did so, my mind fully occupied with thoughts of first aid and surgery. .' The old man simply spat on his palm and then on the back of his hand. The wound closed over instantly. There was no trace of injury. "What do you think of that, inglesi?" he asked. I was not hypnotised, and there were bloodstains on my shirt-sleeves until they were converted into boot rags. I have since heard of the "bloodhealers" in West and South Ireland. That same power of: healing wounds exists much nearer home than Algeria. Some weeks later I was in Timimoun, where I became extremely friendly with a wealthy young Arab, Ahmed Beghdad. One night he came to see me and began to amuse me with some magnificent conjuring. Finally he said he would draw a portrait of my mother. He asked me to let him hold something which I associated with her. I.gave him-my watch. He-held the j

watch in front'of his face and rocked himself to and fro until he fell into a kind of trance. While in this state he drew in the sand a portrait 6f~my mother which was astonishingly lifelike and extremely accurate. He had never even seen her photograph, nor had he ever been within fifteen hundred miles of her. Later on my travels took me to Adrav, and I went down with an awful dose of sandfly fever. Just by luck, there was no doctor nearer than Timimoun or Beni Abbes." . : On the second day 1 was very seriously ill indeed, and the local District Commissioner had made o v ut,*my death certificate in advance! v . Towards evening I came out of a semi-coma, into that, state of lucidity which often precedes death. I knew that I was dying. Now, I had a young girl named HaDesha who did my cooking and attended to my general comfort That night she brought a very old Arab woman to see me. The old hag came into my room and began to walk in a circle round my bed, crooning to herself. She did this for about five minutes. Then in diagonal corners of the room she lit two fires, one large, one small. In a metal soup ladle the old woman melted some lead over the small fire. When the lead was quite liquid she poured it drop by drop into a small earthenware pan of water. Then she began tp croon again. She came over to me with the pan of water, and snicked a small vein in my-^left wrist, and mixed the blood with the lead and water. (I have a scar on my wrist as a souvenir of the event.) Then she burnt some stuff that gave off a smell not unlike burning rubber. She mixed the ashes of whatever it was with the water, bloody and lead. Then she extinguished the big fire by pouring the whole lot over it. She told Ha-Desha to make me some chicken broth, as I would be perfectly well in an hour. And so I was. I know of several other cases of Algerian "magic," although I was not I actually present at the time. The most