He was a little man, with Arab features, and a complexion of mahogany. His bushy beard was of a great amplitude. Time had long since dyed that appendage white, but the proprietor had turned it to a rich brown. He wore a green turban, a long, flowing coat, fashioned like a dressing-gown, of bright blue cloth, elaborately braided on the breast and seams with scarlet cord; his vest and trousers were of white linen, girt by a sash of green silk. Round his neck hung a comboloio, or Mahommedan rosary, of ninety-nine sandalwood beads. Save that his intensely black eyes had under their impending brows a keen and hawk-like expression, his appearance was neither unpleasing nor undignified. His cheekbones were somewhat prominent; he had the organs of locality largely defined, and his forehead was high, but receding. A Turkish soldier, an onbashi, or corporal of the Hadjee Mehmet’s corps, had just preferred some request as we entered; and on learning that we had come to see a trial of his power at the séance, or whatever else he was pleased to call it, he invited us all into an inner apartment which opened off the _divan hanée_. It was lighted by four lamps, suspended from the ceiling, each with a large tassel below it. From these lamps flickered four flames, which emitted a strange mephitic odour. The chamber had been recently whitewashed; the doors and windows were all bordered by arabesques in black and red, and with elaborate sentences from the Koran, which I afterwards learned to be the following:— "If they accuse thee of imposture, the apostles before thee have also been accounted impostors, who brought evident demonstrations, and the book which enlighteneth the understanding." "They will ask thee concerning the spirit; answer, the spirit was created at the command of my Lord; but ye have no knowledge given unto you, except a little." "This is light added unto light. God will direct His light unto whom He pleaseth."[*] [*] Al Koran, chapters iii., xvii., and xxiv. In the centre was a table covered by a crimson cloth, on which stood a species of altar, formed of brass, about two feet high, supported by four monstrous figures, the description of which is beyond the power of language, and before it lay the Koran, open, and from its leaves depended fifty-four flesh-coloured ribbons, with leaden seals attached to them, being one for every two of the chapters of that remarkable book. Near this lay a rod of strangely-sculptured bronze, which was known to have been found in one of the six great cavern tombs that stand in the pass of Bibou-el-Melek at Thebes, by the side of a mummy, which was alleged to be that of a royal magician, for in those tombs lie the Egyptian kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.