It is popularly supposed to have been originally a jacinth of dazzling whiteness, but to have been made black as ink by the touch of sinful man, and that it can only recover its original purity and brilliancy at the day of judgment.  The millions of kisses and touches impressed by the faithful have worn the surface considerably; but in addition to this, traces of cup-shaped hollows have been observed on it.  There can be no doubt that both these relics associated with Abraham are of high antiquity, and may have belonged to the prehistoric worship which marked Mecca as a sacred site, long before the followers of the Prophet had set up their shrine there.  In the sacred Mosque of Hebron, built over the cave of Machpelah, is pointed out a footprint of the ordinary size on a slab of stone, variously called that of Adam or of Mohammed.  It is said to have been brought from Mecca some six hundred years ago, and is enclosed in a recess at the back of the shrine of Abraham, where it is placed on a sort of shelf about three feet above the floor.  On the margin of the tank, in the court of the ruined mosque at Baalbec, there are shown four giant footmarks, which are supposed to have been impressed by some patriarch or prophet, but are more likely to have been connected with the ancient religion of Canaan, which lingered here to the latest days of Roman paganism.  In the great Druse shrine of Neby Schaib near Hattin there is a square block of limestone in the centre of which is a piece of alabaster containing the imprint of a human foot of natural size, with the toes very clearly defined.  The Druses reverently kiss this impression, asserting that the rock exudes moisture, and that it is never dry.  There is a split in the rock across the centre of the footprint, which they account for by saying that when the prophet stepped here he split the rock with his tread.  In Damascus there was at one time a sacred building called the Mosque of the Holy Foot, in which there was a stone having upon it the print of the feet of Moses.  Ibn Batuta saw this curious relic early in the fourteenth century; but both the mosque and the stone have since disappeared.  On the eastern side of the Jordan a Bedouin tribe, called the Adwan, worship the print left on a stone by the roadside by a prophetess while mounting her camel, in order to proceed on a pilgrimage to Mecca.  The Kadriyeh dervishes of Egypt adore a gigantic shoe, as an emblem of the sacred foot of the founder of their sect; and near Madura, a large leather shoe is offered in worship to a deity that, like Diana, presides over the chase.

To the student of comparative religion the Phrabat, or Sacred Foot of Buddha, opens up a most interesting field of investigation.  In the East, impressions of the feet of this wonderful person are as common as those of Christ and the Virgin Mary in the West.  Buddhists are continually increasing the number by copies of the originals; and native painters of Siam who are ambitious of distinction often present these