DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0044
Arabic character, with a great many painted drawings of mon-
sters, or monstrous combinations of birds, plants, and human
figures ; unintelligible characters, to which were attributed occult
powers, and every thing which could give it an air of mystery
and importance. The Bey read the book with ease, and pro-
fessed to understand the whole, but would give us no explanation
of what it contained. He studied it, applied to it in all trying
cases, and regulated the days of his march by it. lie delayed his
departure from Debode in compliance with it, that is till the new
moon: though, indeed, the Orientals in general consider it as in-
auspicious to begin a journey towards the end of a moon. At
night he pointed out the North Star, and the Aldcbaran in Tau-
rus : as to the other stars whose names he pretended to know, he
was generally mistaken*; but to make amends, he described to us
the mystical meaning of each. On our expressing our doubts of
his infallibility, and as we suggested that Europeans with all their
knowledge did not pretend to look into futurity, he replied " "I'is
true, indeed, you Franks know a great deal, but you know not
how to turn what you know to any use." He added a great deal of
nonsense and absurdity, which he had drawn from obsolete Arabic
authors, on the theory of the Universe, on Topography, the man-
ners of Inhabitants, particularly of the Bramins, who, he be-
lieved, could by fasting so reduce themselves to air, that they
ascended involuntarily to Heaven; the phenomenon of cer-
tain fruits in India which grow in the human shape; the building
of the great pyramid of Gizeh by Hermuss, a king of Egypt,
who had predicted the deluge)-, and was at once a King, a Phy-
* lie was highly delighted one morning with a present which Mr. Hayes made him
of a terrestrial globe he had painted for him on a circular coloquintida.
f In speaking of the deluge he used the word Typhan, probably the old Egyptian word
Typhon, who was regarded as an evil deity, with the attributes of the sea.
sician,
sters, or monstrous combinations of birds, plants, and human
figures ; unintelligible characters, to which were attributed occult
powers, and every thing which could give it an air of mystery
and importance. The Bey read the book with ease, and pro-
fessed to understand the whole, but would give us no explanation
of what it contained. He studied it, applied to it in all trying
cases, and regulated the days of his march by it. lie delayed his
departure from Debode in compliance with it, that is till the new
moon: though, indeed, the Orientals in general consider it as in-
auspicious to begin a journey towards the end of a moon. At
night he pointed out the North Star, and the Aldcbaran in Tau-
rus : as to the other stars whose names he pretended to know, he
was generally mistaken*; but to make amends, he described to us
the mystical meaning of each. On our expressing our doubts of
his infallibility, and as we suggested that Europeans with all their
knowledge did not pretend to look into futurity, he replied " "I'is
true, indeed, you Franks know a great deal, but you know not
how to turn what you know to any use." He added a great deal of
nonsense and absurdity, which he had drawn from obsolete Arabic
authors, on the theory of the Universe, on Topography, the man-
ners of Inhabitants, particularly of the Bramins, who, he be-
lieved, could by fasting so reduce themselves to air, that they
ascended involuntarily to Heaven; the phenomenon of cer-
tain fruits in India which grow in the human shape; the building
of the great pyramid of Gizeh by Hermuss, a king of Egypt,
who had predicted the deluge)-, and was at once a King, a Phy-
* lie was highly delighted one morning with a present which Mr. Hayes made him
of a terrestrial globe he had painted for him on a circular coloquintida.
f In speaking of the deluge he used the word Typhan, probably the old Egyptian word
Typhon, who was regarded as an evil deity, with the attributes of the sea.
sician,