Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/212

Rh concerned. … It was sheer skill, but such as no European could pretend to equal; yet how the sleeping girl could tell our names, ages, place of birth, and fifty other true facts, she never having seen either of us before,—because the dust of Jubalpore was still upon our clothes, we having been but one day in Muttra,—was a problem not easily solved. They call it the Sleep of Sialam, and she passed into it by gazing into a dark glass.

"After reading Lane's story about the Magic Mirror in his 'Modern Egyptians; 'what De Sacy says in his famous 'Exposition de la religion des Druses;' Makrisi's account in his 'History of the Mamelukes;' J. Catafago and Defremeny in the 'Journale Asiatique;' what Potter affirms as truth in his 'Travels in Syria; Victor L'Anglois, in 'Revue d'Orient;' Carl Ritter; Dr. E. Smith; Von Hammer in his 'Hist, des Sasseins;' W. H. Taylor's 'Nights with Oriental Magicians;' the 'Gesta Magici' of Lespanola; 'Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses;' 'Youetts Researches into Magic Arts,' and innumerable other unquestionable authorities,—it was far less difficult to believe in the existence of some occult visual power possessed by these mirror-gazers, of both sexes, all ages, and diversity of culture, than to attribute it all to chicanery and lucky guesswork. … 'Sahib, it true,' said our Wallah, next morning, when speaking of the exhibition of the previous day; 'and now I s'pose you go see Sebeiyeh dance—[the Mirror Bridal-fete of a renowned Brotherhood of Mystics, Philosophers, and Magicians]—no doubtee?' Well, we all determined to go; and a three-hours' ride brought us to a plateau in a mountain-gorge of the Chocki hills. We were not too late, and were kindly offered vantage ground of view by the Sheikh,—a man of at least 125 years of age, judging from the fact that his grandchildren were white with snowy locks and beards waist long The two brides entered the circle followed by the two grooms, all four bearing large earthenpots full of a black, smeary, tar-like substance, which, on inquiry of the Sheikh, we learned was the product of the Volcanic springs of the Mahades hills, in the far-off province of Gondwana, in the Deccan; that it only flows in the month of June; is collected by girls and boys who are virginal,—that is, before puberty; and must be