also contains in bold characters five of the beautiful names of God, namely, "O Healer, O Sufficient One, O Thou Who Carest, O Thou Who Givest Health, O Thou Who Judgest." Here also we have a number of mystical symbols, Arabic numbers, etc.

The smaller cup also has on the inside the first portion of the chapter already indicated and in addition the following verse from the twenty-fourth chapter of the Koran: "God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth; His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, and the lamp is in the glass, the glass is as though it were a glittering star," and a portion of the seventeenth chapter, "The Night Journey": "And we will send down of the Koran that which is a healing and a mercy to the believers." There is no inscription on the outside of the smaller cup. Each of the keys is inscribed with the words, "Bismillahi ar Rahman ar Rahim." 15

Another cup is used for evil purposes. It is manufactured at Medina and bears the inscription in Arabic, “Al Medina the Illuminated. In the year 1305 A.H." It is made of aromatic wood with a yellow tinge and a bitter taste, turned by hand and with no verses from the Koran. This cup is called Al Kubaiya al Kimiya, or "the cup of Alchemy." Its strange use is to separate husband and wife or by sorcery to injure a woman or draw her away into unlawful love. Two verses of the Koran are written backward with semen humanis on the inside of the cup and it is filled with water and the woman is made to drink it secretly. The verses are the following: "And the whoremonger shall marry none but a whore or an adultress; and the whore shall none marry but an idolater; God has prohibited this to the believers.” And also a verse from the sixty-fifth chapter: "O Thou Prophet! when ye divorce women, then divorce them at their term, and calculate the term and fear God your Lord. Do 15 In the name of God the merciful, the compassionate.

not drive them out of their houses unless they have committed manifest adultery."

That this cup also is in common use is established by the fact that the person who gave it to me said that his father in Ramleh (near Alexandria) used to let it out and receive one pound a night for its use. Apparently these cups are manufactured in large quantities at Medina by the Moslems and the virtue consists not only in the power of the Koran chapters but in the material of the cup and the place of its manufacture.

Ahmed Zaki Pasha, an Arabic scholar and secretary of the Council of Ministers in Cairo, read a paper before the Egyptian Institute recently with regard to one of the healing cups now kept at the old Coptic Church as a relic.16 From this paper we learn the following particulars:

Magic Cups fall into two categories - those which cure the sufferings caused by violent and sudden emotions which the Arabs call "Cups of Terror," and those which serve to cure maladies, physical as well as moral, and even domestic troubles. The "Cups of Terror" are jealously preserved by those who possess them, and are in general use to this day in Egypt. The owners willingly lend them to their suffering fellow mortals; one condition, however, attaches to such loans, non-compliance with which will cause the cup to lose its charm forever the borrower must make a monetary deposit. Zeki Pasha related that in the case of one of these cups, which he produced, he had had to pay the sum of £75 to the mother of the head of the family possessing it.

The following is the procedure that must be followed to work the charm of the " Cup of Terror." The cup has to be filled with water at the hour when the Faithful proceed to the mosque for the dawn prayer. A bunch of keys and other

16 A full account of another cup of this character was given by E. Rehatsek, M.C.E., in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soc., Vol. XIV, No. 37. Our illustration is taken from this article.

metal trinkets, all of them rusty, are then dipped in the water, which is left out in the open, and which the person to be cured has to drink the next morning. This ceremony, repeated three, seven, or forty consecutive nights, as the case may be, invariably cures any one suffering from the effects of strong emotions.

The other category, which is far more interesting from both the superstitious and the historic point of view, falls into two classes, those that are anonymous,- i.e. undated, and those that bear either the name of a distinguished personage or a definite date. It is to the second class of this category that the cup forming the subject of the paper belongs.

This cup Zeki Pasha calls the Saladin Cup, because of the dedication which is inscribed upon it. The inside, made of white brass, bears a circular inscription consisting of mystic and cabalistic letters, which, albeit several Arabic letters and cyphers are distinguishable, are so intermingled that it is quite impossible to make anything out of them. Above this inscription are sixteen medallions, identical in form but with alternating Koranic and mystic inscriptions, on them. The Koranic medallions contain the formula: 66 'In the name of God, the Merciful and All-Forgiving." The original bottom of the cup has disappeared, and has been replaced by a curious piece of copper, on which there are no inscriptions. On the outside of the cup, which is made of red copper, is the dedicatory formula, which is worth reproducing. It runs as follows:

"Honor to our Lord, the Sultan King, the defender of the cause of God, who is supported (by Him) the victorious, Abu-l-Mouzaffar, Yusef, the co-sharer of the Commander of the Faithful! (This cup) has been proved by experience (to be a cure for) viper and scorpion bites, fever, to bring about the return of her husband to the

divorced and abandoned woman, to cure (the bite of a) mad dog, intestinal pains, colic, headache . . . to destroy the effects of witchcraft, (to stop) bleeding, to exorcise the evil eye, to drive away sadness and heart qualms, and all ills and infirmities except death . . . to prevent the vexations caused by troublesome children. (It should be) placed at the head (of the patient) and be used as a bath by the old maid (to help her get a husband).”

Below this inscription are ten medallions, alternately round and trapezoid in form. All are covered with mystic signs entirely incomprehensible to us to-day. Underneath the medallions is a circular inscription in Arabic characters, some of which are obliterated, but from which with the help of contemporary cups in the Arab Museum, it has been possible to reconstruct the following text:

"Made after astrological observations reproduced and engraved during the apogee of the star and according to the horoscopes derived from the astral tables. This has been agreed upon and adopted by the principal religious heads of the Rashidite Caliphs in order to safeguard the Moslem community. Executed at Mecca in the year for all ills and infirmities."