across the Jumna to the city, thence it took its course up one side of the road to the Circuit Bungalow, is now in cantonments, and will, I trust, pass on to Papamhow, cross the Ganges, and Allahabad will once more be a healthy place.
"Magic is truth, but the magician is an infidel[1]" My ayha said, "You have told us several times that rain will fall, and your words have been true; perhaps you can tell us when the cholera will quit the city?" I told her, "Rain will fall, in all probability, next Thursday (new moon); and if there be plenty of it, the cholera may quit the city." She is off to the bazār with the joyful tidings.
The Muhammadans believe the prayers of those who consult magicians are not accepted, and that rain is given by the favour of God, not by the influence of the moon. Muhammad forbade consulting fortune-tellers, and gave a curious reason why they sometimes hit on the truth. "Aa'yeshah said, 'People asked the Prophet about fortune-tellers, whether they spoke true or not?' He said, 'You must not believe any thing they say.' The people said, 'O messenger of God! wherefore do you say so? because they sometimes tell true.' Then his Highness said, 'Yes; it may be true sometimes, because one of the genii steals away the truth, and carries it to the magician's ear; and magicians mix a hundred lies with one truth.' 'Aa'yeshah said, 'I heard his Majesty say, 'The angels come down to the region next the world, and mention the works that have been pre-ordained in Heaven; and the devils, who descend to the lowest region, listen to what the angels say, and hear the orders pre-destined in Heaven, and carry them to fortune-tellers; therefore they tell a hundred lies with it from themselves.' 'Whoever goes to a magician, and asks him any thing about the hidden, his prayers will not be approved of for forty nights and days.' Zaid-Vin-Rhálid said, 'His Highness officiated as Imām to us in Hudaibiah, after a fall of rain in the night; and when he had finished prayers, he turned himself to the congregation, and said, 'Do ye know what your Cherisher said?' They said, 'God and his messenger
- ↑ Oriental Proverbs, No. 60.
