respecting future things, thus enabling themselves to assist diviners and magicians. They are also believed to inhabit rivers, ruined houses, wells, baths, ovens, and even the _latrina_: hence, persons, when they enter the latter place, and when they let down a bucket into a well, or light a fire, and on other occasions, say, “Permission!” or “Permission, ye blessed!”—which words, in the case of entering the latrina, they sometimes preface with a prayer for God’s protection against all evil spirits; but in doing this, some persons are careful not to mention the name of God after they have entered (deeming it improper in such a place), and only say, “I seek refuge with _Thee_ from the male and female devils.” These customs present a commentary on the story in the “Thousand and One Nights,” in which a merchant is described as having killed a ginnee by throwing aside the stone of a date which he had just eaten. In the same story, and in others of the same collection, a ginnee is represented as approaching in a whirlwind of sand or dust; and it is the general belief of the Arabs of Egypt, that the “zóba’ah,” or whirlwind which raises the sand or dust in the form of a pillar of prodigious height, and which is so often seen sweeping across the fields and deserts of this country, is caused by the flight of one of these beings; or, in other words, that the ginnee “rides in the whirlwind.”[346] A charm is usually uttered by the Egyptians to avert the zóba’ah, when it seems to be approaching them: some of them exclaim, “Iron, thou unlucky!”—as genii are supposed to have a great dread of that metal: others endeavour to drive away the monster by exclaiming, “God is most great!” What we call a “falling star” (and which the Arabs term “shilháb”) is commonly believed to be a dart thrown by God at an evil ginnee; and the Egyptians, when they see it, exclaim, “May God transfix the enemy of the faith!” The evil ginnees are commonly termed “’Efreets;” and one of this class is mentioned in the Kur-án in these words, “An ’efreet of the ginn answered” (chap. xxvii. ver. 39): which words Sale translates, “A terrible genius answered.” They are generally believed to differ from the other ginn in being very powerful, and always malicious; but to be, in other respects, of a similar nature. An evil ginnee of the most powerful class is called a “Márid.”