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who go to learned professions, will not the next generation be of a superior description? True it is, he keeps them too short a time, and many are removed after three years; but the demands of his large army compel him to do this; and the army must be without medical assistance entirely, or have such as three years' education can afford, a period which was not required by countries more to the north-west of the meridian than Egypt, not many years ago. I confess I felt particularly disgusted at hearing the Europeans, and even some of the instructors themselves in other departments, who receive the pay of the Basha, and whose livelihood depends upon the existence of those institutions, sneering at his attempts to revive the literature and arts of Egypt in the persons of its present inhabitants.

*

Mindful not only of the lives of his soldiers and subjects, but even of the merest female in his dominions, he has re-introduced the famed midwives of Egypt; and I daily met a French lady,

* Those who raise this outcry against the insufficiency of education in the Egyptian doctors, would do well to inquire what description of men it was that the lives of British soldiers, and more particularly British sailors, were entrusted to during the last war, and they will find, that it was to persons much inferior in medical education to those at present in Egypt. Nay, at the present moment they will find practitioners, patronised by the public, and permitted by the government, and the colleges, in every town and village in Great Britain, who have no such claims to support.

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a pupil of the celebrated Parisian accoucheuse Mad. Boivin, driving in a gig through the streets of Cairo. "The importance of a maternity was sensibly felt in Egypt, where women in labour were entrusted to the care of the most ignorant and superstitious midwives. In 1832 Clot Bey proposed and obtained the establishment of a school for midwives; twenty Negresses and Abyssinians were collected in a place for this purpose, under the direction of a 'sage femme,' of the maternity at Paris, an Arabian physician, who had graduated in France, and a "Ulema" to instruct in religion and literature. The pupils read and write Arabic, and learn the theory and practice of midwifery. This school of obstetricy daily acquires the importance it deserves. The number of pupils now amounts to fifty, and their instruction is confided to the five most skilful among them, under the direction and surveillance of the sage femme,' physician, and Ulema."*

The civil hospital at the Esbekiah contains three hundred patients, and there is also a school of veterinary surgery with one hundred and twenty students. Thus," says Mr. Waghorn, "in the regeneration of Egypt, medicine has been, and ought to be one of the most powerful instruments. "The ascendancy which its ministers exercise

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* Mr. Waghorn's Tract, Egypt as it is in 1838," document B, furnished by Mucktar Bey, Minister of Public Instruction.

348

BENEFITS OF THE INSTITUTION.

throughout the whole of society by their mission of philanthropy, has rendered the union of two people essentially different, more intimate-exacted gratitude, encouraged devotedness, and has broken down the barrier that existed between the worshippers of Christ and those of the propheta superstitious but popular hatred.

"The devotedness of the European physicianstheir heroic struggle against the plague-their praiseworthy and entire disregard of their own lives, have produced invaluable results; but it was especially the formation of the school at Abouzabel, which gave a new era to medicine in Egypt, a glorious epoch for the enlightened sovereign.

"Initiated in the different sciences which belong to the art of medicine, and which constitute the well-informed man, the medical pupils became so many apostles, destined to spread the light of knowledge in the midst of a people still enslaved by prejudice and ignorance."

Having heard much of the extraordinary powers of the famous magician, we were anxious to see him, and to judge for ourselves how far he had acquired a right to even that celebrity with which travellers in this land of wonders have invested him. And now I must say that no one was more inclined to give a fair trial to the powers of magic-more willing to be astonished, or wished more to see what others have seen than I was, and for myself and friends

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who witnessed his attempt-and which was certainly to us an imposition-I am compelled to confess it was a miserable and complete failure. My narrative is simply this; we sent for the magician in the morning, desiring his presence that night. While we were at dinner, about three o'clock, he came, in order to obtain a dollar to make preparations; this he did as well to reconnoitre as to make sure of the money. He sat for some time and appeared particularly watchful and attentive to every thing going forward. In the evening he came again, and a great number of travellers from different countries had assembled in the room to witness his performance.

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The magician appeared to be a middle-aged man, of rather swarthy complexion; with a long and silky brown beard, and exceeding quickness and brilliancy of eye. He wore a dark-coloured gibbeh, or outer garment, and a green turban. A chafing-dish with some lighted charcoal was brought in, together with writing materials. He seated himself on the floor opposite the chafingdish, and desired that a young boy of about nine or ten years of age might be brought to him. A second person whom we had not at first observed, and who sat at the door among a crowd of servants, and the people of the hotel, instantly produced a little boy who I found was the usual attendant of the magician; however he was allowed to proceed in his own way. The boy was placed opposite

350

THE INCANTATION.

to him on the other side of the chafing-dish, and the man wrote some characters in Arabic on slips of paper; one of these he placed on the forehead of the boy, underneath his turboosh or cap; the others he burned from time to time in the fire; he then made some characters upon another piece of paper, and crumpling it up so as to form a cup, he placed it in the boy's right hand, and poured some of the ink into the hollow of the paper, desiring the boy to keep his eye steadily fixed upon the black shining mirror of the ink. He then commenced a kind of incantation, repeating the same words over and over again as fast as he possibly could, rocking his body backward and forward all the time, and occasionally throwing some incense on the fire, which rose in fumes, and almost enveloped the operators within it.

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