He was given a hut apart from the rest, where he set to at once with his incantations and incense burning. Idris and a number of the prisoners were invited to go and see the coins buried in the ground—the jinns having been propitiated. A quarter of an hour’s incantation was given, Shwybo speaking a language which must have been as unintelligible to himself and his jinns as it was to us. A similar incantation had to be given each day until noon on the following Friday, as it was at this hour each week that the jinns finished off any work they had in hand. On the Friday, at noon, we were asked to go to Shwybo’s hut, and on the earth being removed, sure enough the copper coins had disappeared, and silver dollars had replaced them! The next Friday only part of the coins had been converted, when Shwybo remembered that the jinns had not been fed, and must be hungry. They had delicate tastes; asseeda they would not eat, so they were liberally supplied with roast chickens, pigeons, white bread, milk, eggs, etc. We were not permitted to see them eat, but we were allowed to see the clean-picked bones and empty egg-shells! Something went wrong again, for on the following Friday it was discovered that none of the coins had been converted; evidently Shwybo had run through his stock of dollars. Idris, at the request of the Kadi, asked me my opinion of the whole thing, as Shwybo wished to have another try. I replied that little children in my country would not be deceived by such trickery, and that if the Kadi wanted to spend his money on food, he had better buy food for the starving women and children, and not |173| waste it on supposed jinns. Whether my reply, or the conviction that he had been duped angered him, I cannot say, but Shwybo received a severe flogging. Not a cry escaped his lips; he laughed at the Saier, telling him to strike harder. The flogging over, he told Idris that although his silver-working jinns had flown off, and through no fault of his, his gold-working jinns had come to his succour, and had interposed their bodies between his and the lash. Idris, as I have already pointed out, was the incarnation of superstition and credulity, and it was only necessary for Shwybo to tell him that his faithful gold jinns could convert lead into gold, to set Idris collecting dollars from the prisoners on the Nebbi Khiddr account. With these he set up a special laboratory for Shwybo in the house of Wad Farag, one of the gaolers—and a reputed son of Idris. Shwybo was provided with a number of small crucibles, two sets of Soudanese bellows, with a couple of slave boys to work them, a quantity of lead and a number of packets of drugs and powders from the Beit-el-Mal pharmacy. Farag was told to keep an eye on him, and see that he did not purloin any of the gold when it appeared.