Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/508

 474 Souic iVoh's on East African folklore.

by saying- that he was cast into " the place of fire," while the Jew entered into Paradise.

Ahmadi, to whom, with his wife, Mwana Somoye, and her mother, Mwana Mbeu, I owe a great deal of mis- cellaneous information, one day related an incident which had taken place in his own family, and which — though perhaps it does not strictly belong to our subject — I cannot resist giving, as nearly as possible in his own words. It was apropos of his reading to me a devotional poem by a Sherif of Siyu named Omar bin Amiu, who- — so Ahmad informed me — was blind, but recovered his sight on complet- ing the poem — a most ingenious alphabetical acrostic. This Omar seems to have died fifty or sixty years ago. Ahmad is himself a native of Siyu, where he heard the story in his youth ; and it naturally suggested the experience of his grandfather, Yusufu bin AH.

" He had been blind for five years, and one day as he lay asleep, he saw (in a dream) one of the Companions (of the Prophet), whose name is Seyyidina (Our Lord) Hamza, and he said, 'Yusufu, do you wish to get back your sight.''' He said, ' I wish it' And he said, ' Do you know my name .-* ' He answered, ' I do not.' He said, ' I am Seyyidina Hamza. "^ And he rose up and held out his hand, and Yusufu kissed it, and Hamza said to him, ' In the morning go and ask for such and such medicine, and fumigate your eyes three days running.' In the morning he came to our house and told my father what had happened in the night, and he (my father) went to get the medicine and brought it to him. And he fumigated himself three days. On the third day his eyes were restored, quite whole, as in the beginning. — In the morning (of the third day) my father said to me, 'Go and fetch your grandfather to breakfast.' I went to fetch him and said to him, ' Grandfather, let us go home, father has sent for you.' He said to me, 'Just wait till I put on my clothes.' Then he came out with his stick in his hand, and when I wanted to take hold of the stick (the