_Hisce positis_, as the logicians say, the magician began his process. The boy was innocent of fear; being in fact a person rather perplexed and imperfect in those parts of theology that should have caused him to feel alarm. His native nurse first taught him to kiss his hand to the moon walking in brightness; which, being especially reprobated in the book of Job, we persuaded him to renounce. We next found him making salams as he passed the fat old gentleman with an elephant's head, and other foul idolatries bedaubed with rose-pink and butter, that show themselves on various milestone-like appurtenances to an Indian road. After his visit to the Persian Gulph he leaned more towards monotheism; and I once found him seated between two guns on the quarter-deck of an Arab frigate, in the midst of a fry of devotees of little more than his own age, busily engaged in chanting canticles in praise of Mohammed the "amber-_ee_." His early leaning towards the ugly gods of Hindoston, had made it a delicate matter to introduce him to our Evil Principle; and the fact was, that when he afterwards saw the Freischutz in England, we had no means of making him comprehend the nature of the crimson fiend, but by telling him he was a relation of his old elephant-headed friend Gunputty. On the whole I imagine there never was a better subject to cope with a sorcerer; and when he asked the cause of the immediate preparations we told him the man was going to show some feats of legerdemain such as he used to see in India. The magician began by throwing grains of incense upon the fire, bowing with a seesaw motion and repeating "_Heyya hadji Capitân, Heyya hadji Capitân;_" which being interpreted, if it was intended to have any meaning, would appear to imply "_Hurra, pilgrim Captain!_" being, as I understood it at the time, an invocation by his style and title, of the spirit he wished to see. When nothing came, he increased his zeal after the manner of a priest of Baal, and seemed determined that if the "Captain" was sleeping or on a journey, he should not be missed for want of calling. One slight _variorum_ reading I observed. Instead of saying to the boy "What do you see?" as had been reported--he said "_Do you see a little man?_" which, if he had been accessible to fear or phantasy, was manifestly telling him what he was to look for. The boy, however, resolutely declared he saw nothing; and the sorcerer continued his calls upon his spirit. When in this manner curiosity had been roused to something like expectation, the boy suddenly exclaimed, "I see something!"--_Tremor occupat artis;_--when he quashed it all by adding, "I see my nose." By the dim light of the fire, he had succeeded in getting a glimpse of his own countenance reflected in the ink. The magician doubled his exertions by way of carrying the thing off; but there was much less gravity in his audience afterwards; and at last he was forced to declare that the