go to kiss it and obtain a blessing by rubbing their foreheads
        upon it.  No copy of the Koran, nor any thing but the book of
        prayers, is placed in the Cairo Mahmal.  I believe the custom to
        have arisen in the battle-banner of the Bedouins, called Merkeb
        and Otfe, which I have mentioned in my remarks on the Bedouins,
        and which resemble the Mahmal, inasmuch as they are high wooden
        frames placed upon camels.

* * * * *

SOUTH AMERICAN MANNERS

From the Memoirs of General Miller, Second Edition.

In the Pampas, where a scarcity of food is unknown to the poorest, that calculating avarice which, in its fears for to-morrow, would look with apathy on the wants of the stranger, can have but a limited sway.  Kind offices are, therefore more freely and disinterestedly conferred than in less abundant regions.  In addition to this, the dearth of society in a thinly-sprinkled population renders the presence of a traveller on their isolated haciendas a source of gratification.  If his appearance afford no ground for mistrust, and if his manners are not disagreeable, his being a stranger is a sufficient passport to a kind and hearty welcome.  Whether he be rich or poor is not a subject of inquiry, and makes no difference in the reception.

The South Americans are gay, and fond of dancing, music, and singing.  There are few, whether wealthy or otherwise, who are not proficients in one or other of these accomplishments.  In the warmer latitudes, people carry on not only their usual occupations, but their amusements, chiefly in the open air; and as singing constitutes one of the principal sources of the latter, the continued exercise of the voice harmonizes and strengthens it.  Perhaps no opera, in Europe, could afford, to a natural and unsophisticated ear, so rich a treat as that which may be enjoyed in Cuzco, Arequipa, and other cities, where the ancient Peruvian airs are sung in the rich and melodious tones of the natives.

The South Americans possess great intellectual quickness, and a retentive memory.  The following may be cited as an extraordinary instance of the latter faculty.  An old man, a native of La Pax, in Upper Peru, and of unmixed Indian blood, who kept an inn at Curicavi, between Valparaiso and Santiago, could repeat nearly the whole of Robertson’s “History of Charles the Fifth,” and was better acquainted with the History of England than most Englishmen.  He spoke of Queen Boadicea, and was as familiar with the history of the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster as if they had occurred in his country, and in his own times.  He had been brought up by the Jesuits.  He had made two voyages to Canton, and was known by the name of “the emperor of China,” in consequence frequently of amusing his guests with long stories about the celestial empire.