A few days previously I had had an opportunity of gaining the affection and confidence of our black soldiers. One of them, a Tokruri or pilgrim from Darfùr had, in a quarrel with an Arab, drawn his knife and wounded him. He jumped overboard to drown himself, for he could not swim, and was just on the point of perishing when he drifted to our ship, where Feïzulla-Capitan no sooner perceived him than he sprang down from behind the helm and saved him, with the assistance of others. He was taken up and appeared nearly dead, and on intelligence being conveyed from the other vessels that he had murdered a Muslim, some of our people wished to throw him again immediately into the water. This, however, being prevented, they thought of making an attempt to resuscitate him, by standing him up on his head. I had him laid horizontally upon his side, and began to rub him with an old ferda belonging to one of my servants. For the moment no one would assist me, as he was an “Abit,” until I threatened the Captain that he should be made to pay the Basha for the loss of his soldiers. After repeated rubbing, the tokruri gave some signs of life, and they raised him half up, whilst his head still hung down. One of the sailors, who as a faki, pretended to be a sort of awakener of the dead, seized him from behind, under the arms, lifted him up a little, and let him, when he was brought into a sitting posture, fall thrice violently on his hinder end, whilst he repeated passages from the Koràn, and shouted in his ears, whereupon the tokruri answered with a similar prayer. Superstition goes so far here, that it is asserted such a pilgrim may be completely and thoroughly drowned, and yet retain the power of floating to any shore he pleases, and stand there alive again.