This usage of burying old people alive is also found, as I have subsequently heard, among the negro races of south Kordofan. There sick people, and particularly those with an infectious disease, are put to death in the same manner. The family complains to the invalid, that on account of him no one will come to them; that after all, he is miserable, and death only a gain for him; in the other world he would find his relations, and would be well and happy. Every one gives him greetings to the dead, and then they bury him as in Fazoql, or standing upright in a shaft. Besides merissa, bread, hoe and pipe, he there also receives a sword and a pair of sandals; for the dead lead a similar life beyond the grave, only with greater pleasures. The departed are interred amidst loud lamentations, in which their deeds and good qualities are celebrated. Nothing is known there of a river and boatman of the under world, but the old Mohammedan legend is there current, of the invisible angel Asrael, or as he is here called, Osraîn. He, it is said, is commissioned by God to receive the souls of the dead, and lead the good to the place of reward, the bad to the place of punishment. He lives in a tree, el ségerat mohàna (the tree of fulfilling), which has as many leaves as there are inhabitants in the world. On each leaf is a name, and when a child is born a new one grows. If any one become ill, his leaf fades, and should he be destined to die, Osraîn breaks it off.[82] Formerly he used to come visibly to those whom he was going to carry away, and thus put them in great terror. Since the Prophet’s time, however, he has been invisible; for when he came to fetch Mohammed’s soul, he told him that it was not good that by his visible appearance he should frighten mankind. They might then easily die of terror, before praying; for he himself, although a courageous and spirited man, was somewhat perturbed at his appearance. Therefore the Prophet begged Allah to make Osraîn invisible, which prayer was granted. Of other tribes in Fazoql, Osman Bey told me, that with them the king should hold a court of justice every day under a certain tree. If he be absent three days by illness or any other reason that makes him unfit to attend to it, he is hanged: two razors are put in the noose, which cut his throat on the rope being tightened. The meaning of another of their customs is obscure. At a certain time of the year they have a kind of carnival, at which every one does as he likes. Four ministers then carry the king from his house to an open place on an anqareb, to one leg of which a dog is tied. The whole population assemble from every quarter. Then they throw spears and stones at the dog till it dies, after which, the king is carried back to his house.