forgotten to rub against the magic tree, or by some peculiar wound which
the beast received and the man retained. Kindred to this superstition is
the belief that many of the Bedouins have learned the languages of birds
and beasts. Another widely diffused fancy is that of the Aksar [28], which
in this pastoral land becomes a kind of wood: wonderful tales are told of
battered milk-pails which, by means of some peg accidentally cut in the
jungle, have been found full of silver, or have acquired the qualities of
cornucopiae. It is supposed that a red heifer always breaks her fast upon
the wonderful plant, consequently much time and trouble have been expended
by the Somal in watching the morning proceedings of red heifers. At other
times we hear fearful tales of old women who, like the Jigar Khwar of
Persia, feed upon man's liver: they are fond of destroying young children;
even adults are not ashamed of defending themselves with talismans. In
this country the crone is called Bidaa or Kumayyo, words signifying a
witch: the worst is she that destroys her own progeny. No wound is visible
in this vampyre's victim: generally he names his witch, and his friends
beat her to death unless she heal him: many are thus martyred; and in
Somali land scant notice is taken of such a peccadillo as murdering an old
woman. The sex indeed has by no means a good name: here, as elsewhere,
those who degrade it are the first to abuse it for degradation. At Zayla
almost all quarrels are connected with women; the old bewitch in one way,
the young in another, and both are equally maligned. "Wit in a woman,"
exclaims one man, "is a habit of running away in a dromedary." "Allah,"
declares another, "made woman of a crooked bone; he who would straighten
her, breaketh her." Perhaps, however, by these generalisms of abuse the
sex gains: they prevent personal and individual details; and no society of
French gentlemen avoids mentioning in public the name of a woman more
scrupulously than do the misogynist Moslems.

After a conversazione of two hours my visitors depart, and we lose no