Volume 1

An account of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians, written in Egypt during the years 1833, -34, and -35, partly from notes made during a former visit to that country in the years 1825, -26, -27, and -28 / By Edward William Lane.

  • Edward William Lane
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians, written in Egypt during the years 1833, -34, and -35, partly from notes made during a former visit to that country in the years 1825, -26, -27, and -28 / By Edward William Lane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    made of the horn of the rhinoceros* is used : a piece of the same material (the horn) is rubbed in it—Asa cure for the jaundice, many persons in Cairo drink the water of a well in this city, called beer el-yaracka’n, or “the well of the jaundice.” It is the property of an old woman, who reaps considerable advantage from it: for it has two mouths, under one of which is a dry receptacle for anything that may be thrown down; and the old woman desires the persons who come to use the medicinal water to drop through this mouth whatever she happens to be in need of; as sugar, coffee, &c. The Moos'lims have recourse to many superstitious practices to determine them when they are in doubt as to any action which they contemplate, whether they shall do it or not. Some apply, for an answer, to a table called a za’ir’gch. There is a table of this kind ascribed to Idree’s, or Enoch. It is divided into a hundred little squares ; in each of which is written some Arabic letter. The person who consults it repeats, three times, the opening chapter of the Ckoor-a’n, and the 58th verse of the Soo’rat el-An’a’m (or 6th chapter) —‘“ With Him are the keys of the secret things: none knoweth them but Him: He knoweth whatever is on the dry ground or in the sea: there falleth no leaf but He knoweth it; neither is there a single grain in the dark parts of the earth, nor a green thing nor a dry thing, but it is [written] in a perspicuous book.”—Hav- ing done this, without looking directly at the table, he places his finger upon it: he then looks to see upon what letter his finger is placed; writes that letter; the fifth following it; the fifth following this; and so on, until he comes again to the first which he wrote; and * Chur!n khurtee't,