Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/405

 Caireyie Folklore, 385

man will be played off from the fifth and third point if they are covered. If they are not covered by a man, and there are men on points in advance of them (six in case of five ; six, five, and four in case of three) a man must be played toward the right five or three points. In playing off, the points in the table count i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and not o, i, 2, 3, 4, 5, as at the commencement. Whoever plays off his men first wins the game. Doublets are played as in the earlier part of the game.

The sailors on a Nile-boat, when they haul up the anchor, sing: " Ya Abbasi, hokmak qasi " (O Abbasi, your rule is cruel).

When they haul the ropes they invoke " saint " Isa, because they once asked her to give them some rice ; she w^ent to fetch it but has never returned, and so they have to live on lentils.

A good deal of the ground in Egypt is enchanted {ard marsiid), and when this is the case it is useless to dig in it for ancient treasures, as they will be concealed from the digger. As fast as the treasure-seeker excavates, the treasure sinks into the ground away from him. Much of the land at Karnak and on the west bank of the river at Thebes is thus enchanted.

On the ground now occupied by the palace between Old Helwan and Ma'sara near Cairo, some forty years ago the owner was ploughing, when the plough struck against something, and a voice was heard coming out of the ground and saying : " Take away the plough, or I will take away thy head ! " The ploughman was naturally seized with terror and ran away with his plough.

About the same time, some of the people in Old Helwan began to dig at night for treasure in a certain place near the village. All night long they worked, and ceased only just before daybreak. But when the sun rose, they found that the earth was again filled in, and that the ground was exactly as it had been before. This happened night after

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