[p.430] the overflowing waters of the torrent.  The next place we prayed at was a small square, enclosed with dwarf whitewashed walls, containing a few graves denoted by ovals of loose stones thinly spread upon the ground.  This is primitive Arab simplicity.  The Badawin still mark the places of their dead with four stones planted at the head, the feet, and the sides; in the centre the earth is either heaped up Musannam (i.e. like the hump of a camel), or more generally left Musattah (level).  I therefore suppose that the latter was the original shape of the Prophet’s tomb.  Within the enclosure certain martyrs of the holy army were buried.  After praying there, we repaired to a small building still nearer to the foot of the mountain.  It is the usual cupola springing from four square walls, not in the best preservation.  Here the Prophet prayed, and it is called the Kubbat al-Sanaya, “Dome of the Front Teeth,” from the following circumstance.  Five Infidels were bound by oath to slay Mohammed at the battle of Ohod:  one of these, Ibn Kumayyah, threw so many stones, and with such goodwill, that two rings of the Prophet’s helmet were driven into his cheek, and blood poured from his brow down his mustachios, which he wiped with a cloak to prevent the drops falling to the ground.  Then Utbah bin Abi Wakkas hurled a stone at him, which, splitting his lower lip, knocked out one of his front teeth.[FN#24] On the left of the Mihrab, inserted low down in the wall, is a square stone, upon which Shaykh Hamid showed me the impression of a tooth[FN#25]:  he kissed it with peculiar reverence, and so did I. But the boy Mohammed being by me objurgated-for I

[p.431]remarked in him a jaunty demeanour combined with neglectfulness of ceremonies-saluted it sulkily, muttering the while hints about the holiness of his birthplace exempting him from the trouble of stooping.  Already he had appeared at the Harim without his Jubbah, and with ungirt loins-in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves.  Moreover, he had conducted himself indecorously by nudging Shaykh Hamid’s sides during divine service.  Feeling that the youth’s “moral man” was, like his physical, under my charge, and determined to arrest a course of conduct which must have ended in obtaining for me, the master, the reputation of a “son of Belial,” I insisted upon his joining us in the customary two-bow prayers.  And Sa’ad the Demon, taking my side of the question with his usual alacrity when a disturbance was in prospect, the youth found it necessary to yield.  After this little scene, Shaykh Hamid pointed out a sprawling inscription blessing the Companions of the Prophet.  The unhappy Abu Bakr’s name had been half effaced by some fanatic Shi’ah, a circumstance which seemed to arouse all the evil in my companion’s nature; and, looking close at the wall I found a line of Persian verse to this effect: 

“I am weary of my life (Umr), because it bears the name of Umar."[FN#26]

We English wanderers are beginning to be shamed out of our “vulgar” habit of scribbling names and nonsense in noted spots.  Yet the practice is both classical and oriental.  The Greeks and Persians left their marks everywhere, as Egypt shows; and the paws of the Sphinx bears scratches which, being interpreted, are found to be the same manner of trash as that written upon the remains of Thebes in A.D. 1879.  And Easterns appear never to