Cairo were often kicked about, and buried without being previously washed. Some women step over the body of a decapitated man seven times, without speaking, to become pregnant; and some, with the same desire, dip in the blood a piece of cotton wool, of which they afterwards make use in a manner I must decline mentioning. A ridiculous ceremony is practised for the cure of a pimple on the edge of the eye-lid, or what we commonly call a “stye,” and which is termed in Egypt “shahháteh;” a word which literally signifies “a female beggar.” The person affected with it goes to any seven women of the name of Fát’meh, in seven different houses, and begs from each of them a morsel of bread: these seven morsels constitute the remedy.—Sometimes, in a similar case, and for the same purpose, a person goes out before sunrise, and, without speaking, walks round several tombs, from right to left, which is the reverse of the regular course made in visiting tombs.—Another supposed mode of cure in a case of the same kind is, to bind a bit of cotton on the end of a stick; then to dip it in one of the troughs out of which the dogs drink in the streets of Cairo, and to wipe the eye with it. The patient is thus careful to preserve his hand from the polluted water, when he is about to apply this to another part of his person. As an imaginary cure for ague, some of the women of Egypt (I mean those of the Muslim faith) hang to their necks the finger of a Christian or Jew, cut off a corpse, and dried. This and other practices mentioned before are striking proofs of the degrading effects of superstition, and of its powerful influence over the mind: for, in general, the Muslims are scrupulously careful to conform with that precept of their religion which requires them to abstain from everything polluting or unclean. When a child is unable to walk, after having attained the age when it is usual to begin to do so, it is a common custom for the mother to bind its feet together with a palm-leaf tied in three knots, and to place it at the door of a mosque during the period when the congregation are engaged in performing the Friday-prayers: when the prayers are ended, she asks the first, second, and third persons who come out of the mosque to untie each a knot of the palm-leaf; and then carries the child home, confident that this ceremony will soon have the effect of enabling the little one to walk.