Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/158

140 the donkey—to the bottom of it, a distance of about forty feet."

"With the view of?"

"With the view of giving colour—or perhaps I should say odour—to the story that an Afrît, who, I should tell you, always manifests his presence by an intolerable stench, was really the tenant of this underground abode."

"By Jove! it was a rather elaborate and expensive way of creating a nuisance."

"Yes, but effective. A few days after the donkey's death there was no one in the neighbourhood who was not firmly convinced that an unclean spirit lived at the bottom of the shaft. Having allowed a decent interval of mourning to elapse, Ahmed again descended into the shaft, removed the decomposing remains of the donkey, covered up the hole, and marked the spot; and then there began for him that lucrative business in valuable 'antîkas' to which his brother was afterwards admitted, and as to the details of which are they not