It may be mentioned here, as a general rule, that a man is allowed to see unveiled only his own wives and female slaves, and those females whom he is prohibited by law from marrying, on account of their being within certain degrees of consanguinity or family connexion, or having given him suck, or being nearly related to his foster-mother.[302] The high antiquity of the veil has been alluded to in the first chapter of this work. It has also been mentioned that it is considered more necessary, in Egypt, for a woman to cover the upper and back part of her head than her face; and more requisite for her to conceal her face than most other parts of her person. For instance, a female who cannot be persuaded to unveil her face in the presence of men, will think it but little shame to display the whole of her bosom, or the greater part of her leg. There are, it is true, many women among the lower classes in this country who constantly appear in public with unveiled face; but they are almost constrained to do so by the want of a burko’ (or face-veil), and the difficulty of adjusting the tarhah (or head-veil), of which scarcely any woman is destitute, so as to supply the place of the former; particularly when both their hands are occupied in holding some burden which they are carrying upon the head. When a respectable woman is, by any chance, seen with her head or face uncovered by a man who is not entitled to enjoy that privilege, she quickly assumes or adjusts her tarhah, and often exclaims, “O my misfortune!” or “O my sorrow!” Motives of coquetry, however, frequently induce an Egyptian woman to expose her face before a man when she thinks that she may appear to do so unintentionally, or that she may be supposed not to see him. A man may also occasionally enjoy opportunities of seeing the face of an Egyptian lady when she really thinks herself unobserved; sometimes at an open lattice, and sometimes on a house-top. Many small houses in Cairo have no apartment on the ground-floor for the reception of male visitors, who therefore ascend to an upper room; but as they go upstairs they exclaim several times, “Destoor!” (“Permission!”), or “Yá Sátir!” (“O Protector!” that is, “O protecting God!”), or use some similar ejaculation, in order to warn any woman who may happen to be in the way, to retire, or to veil herself; which she does by drawing a part of her tarhah before her face, so as to leave, at most, only one eye visible. To such an absurd pitch do the Muslims carry their feeling of the sacredness of women, that entrance into the _tombs_ of some females is denied to men; as, for instance, the tombs of the Prophet’s wives and other females of his family, in the burial-ground of El-Medeeneh; into which women are freely admitted; and a man and woman they never bury in the same vault, unless a wall separate the bodies. Yet there are among the Egyptians a few persons who are much less particular in this