The Muhammadans themselves generally allow that they are no more agreeable or kind or truthful or good after their pilgrimages--at least those who do not go say so freely. They even have a proverb: “If your friend has been to Mecca, trust him not. If he has been there twice, avoid him. But if he has made the pilgrimage the third time, flee from him as you would from Satan.” Even dead people make pilgrimages, generally to Qum, or, if they are very important people, to Kerbela. I have not been to Kerbela, but I have been to Qum, and we met quite a number of corpses going to the burying-ground outside the big mosque. Sometimes the relations bring them, but often they cannot afford the journey and pay a muleteer to take them, and to pay the fees, which are very large. Sometimes the muleteers bury the bodies elsewhere and pocket the fees. Qum itself is considered such a holy city that they do not allow dogs inside it. CHAPTER IX SAVĀBS There is a little Persian book, which many of the little boys learn to read, called “Sad Hikāyat” or “A Hundred Stories.” Some of the stories are very like Æsop’s Fables, and they are all supposed to teach the children something. One story tells them that at the end of the world God will take a great pair of scales, and as each person comes up for judgment God will put his good deeds in one scale and his evil deeds in the other. If the good deeds weigh heaviest he will go to Heaven, if his evil deeds weigh the balance down he will go to Hell. These good deeds are called _savābs_, and every Persian, whether child or grown-up, hopes to get to Heaven by doing enough _savābs_ to outweigh his sins. So a little Persian boy or girl is not taught to try to always do right or to always try to please and serve God, but only to do enough right to outweigh the wrong he does, and if he feels he has done wrong instead of confessing his sin to God and asking His forgiveness he simply tries to balance it by a good deed. And what a Persian boy or girl is taught of what is right and wrong is very different from all you have learnt. First there is a definite list of sins, which they can learn by heart, and nothing outside of this list is considered a “sin,” though other things which are not right may be called “errors,” which is a much less strong word. As to good deeds there is more difference of opinion. One of the “Hundred Stories” deals with this point.