into “bull or cow.” [FN#72] Belal, the loud-lunged crier, stood, we are informed, by Moslem historians, upon a part of the roof on one of the walls of the Mosque.  The minaret, as the next chapter will show, was the invention of a more tasteful age. [FN#73] This abomination may be seen in Egypt on many of the tombs,-those outside the Bal al-Nasr at Cairo, for instance. [FN#74] The tale of this Weeping Pillar is well known.  Some suppose it to have been buried beneath the pulpit:  others-they are few in number-declare that it was inserted in the body of the pulpit. [FN#75] The little domed building which figures in the native sketches, and in all our prints of the Al-Madinah Mosque, was taken down three or four years ago.  It occupied part of the centre of the square, and was called Kubbat al-Zayt-Dome of Oil; or Kubbat al-Shama-Dome of Candles,-from its use as a store-room for lamps and wax candles. [FN#76] This is its name among the illiterate, who firmly believe the palms to be descendants of trees planted there by the hands of the Prophet’s daughter.  As far as I could discover, the tradition has no foundation, and in old times there was no garden in the hypaethral court.  The vulgar are in the habit of eating a certain kind of date, “Al-Sayhani,” in the Mosque, and of throwing the stones about; this practice is violently denounced by the Olema. [FN#77] Rhamnus Nabeca, Forsk.  The fruit, called Nabak, is eaten, and the leaves are used for the purpose of washing dead bodies.  The visitor is not forbidden to take fruit or water as presents from Al-Madinah, but it is unlawful for him to carry away earth, or stones, or cakes of dust, made for sale to the ignorant. [FN#78] The Arabs, who, like all Orientals, are exceedingly curious about water, take the trouble to weigh the produce of their wells; the lighter the water, the more digestible and wholesome it is considered. [FN#79] The common phenomenon of rivers flowing underground in Arabia has, doubtless, suggested to the people these subterraneous passages, with which they connect the most distant places.  At Al-Madinah, amongst other tales of short cuts known only to certain Badawi families, a man told me of a shaft leading from his native city to Hazramaut:  according to him, it existed in the times of the Prophet, and was a journey of only three days! [FN#80] The Mosque Library is kept in large chests near the Bab al-Salam; the only Ms. of any value here is a Koran written in the Sulsi hand.  It is nearly four feet long, bound in a wooden cover, and padlocked, so as to require from the curious a “silver key.” [FN#81] So the peasants in Brittany believe that Napoleon the First is not yet dead; the Prussians expect Frederick the Second; the Swiss, William Tell; the older English, King Arthur; and certain modern fanatics look forward to the re-appearance of Joanna Southcote.  Why multiply instances in so well known a branch of the history of popular superstitions? [FN#82] The Sunnat is the custom or practice of the Apostle, rigidly