This employment of the mysterious power of plants is a thing known to every Forian. I once asked a learned man what he thought of these matters, and he replied:—“The books sent by God to the prophets, Adam, Seth, and Abraham, &c., have been buried in the earth, and God has caused these magical plants to grow above them. The winds spread their seeds to the four corners of the earth, and experience has discovered the strange virtues which have been communicated to them by the Divine Spirit contained in these ancient writings.” For my part, I see in all these things works of enchantment and sorcery. The same effects are produced, in fact, by the magical force of certain figures traced in a certain manner, and by invocations of the superior and inferior angels. I shall relate some examples. Persons of good faith and acknowledged veracity have certified to me, that in the war which took place between the Kaliph, son of Tyrab, and the Sultan Abd-er-Rahman, some partisans of the former, who were armed with guns, were so powerfully charmed by sorcerers on the other side that their weapons produced no effect. On another occasion, the Fakih Malik bewildered the sons of the Sultan and threw them into the hands of Kourra and Fadhl, against whom they had revolted. The persons most celebrated in Darfur for their charms and magical doings are the Foulans, or Felattahs. One of them, named Tamourrou, used to perform the most miraculous acts. A person worthy of credit related to me the following instance: “I went with Tamourrou,” he said, “from Jedid-kerio to the Fasher; the sun was burning hot; the magician was mounted on a camel; he took his cloak and spread it before him, and then folded it up, and, placing it on his knee, pronounced certain words: afterwards he threw it in the air, and it unfolded and remained spread over him and me like a parasol, as if held by invisible hands. Wherever Tamourrou’s camel moved it followed. This was an extraordinary fact. Well, we were proceeding on in the shade, when suddenly the rain came on and fell in torrents. Upon this Tamourrou said to his servant, who was following him on foot: “Give me a handful of sand;” and having pronounced certain words, whirled his hand round his head in a circle, scattering the sand as he did so. The rain-cloud immediately separated, one part going to the right and the other to the left, and we continued our route without having a thread wetted.”