388 Caircne Folklore.
bathe there or even come near the water's edge. Last year (1897) I received a note one day from Bewley Bey, asking me to send a sailor to fetch the body of a man who had just been drowned out of the water, as none of his servants or policemen could swim. I thought this strange, but my sailors absolutely refused to go, and told me that a spirit frequented the spot, which had caused the death of the drowned man, and would drown anyone else who ventured into the water. The previous winter, a policeman who was on duty at the place saw a woman hanging about the bridge in the dusk of the evening and ordered her off. Thereupon she took hold of him and began dragging him towards the water. " So he knew what it was," and with some difficulty succeeded in shaking himself free, and rushed into the neighbouring police-station more dead than alive. None of the policemen ventured out of the station the rest of the night.
Another supernatural being is the ginna. My servant, Mustafa All, once saw a ginna when he was a boy and served as a waiter at the Helwan Hotel. As he had never visited the cliffs on the east side of the desert, he persuaded the other servants to go with him to them one night. On the way, they suddenly saw a bright light in the distant cliffs, which flashed in different directions, and rose to a great height, after a while vanishing into the ground. It was evidently a ginna, so they all fled back to Helwan, and Mustafa's desire to explore the desert was completely satisfied.
About fifteen years ago there was a man in Cairo who was unmarried, but had an invisible ginna as wife. One day, however, he saw a woman and loved her, and two days later he died. It should be added that in Egypt, where early marriages are the rule, bachelors who have reached the prime of life are believed to be married to
- afar it or ginn.
The 'afdrit, or "afrits," include all sorts and conditions
