Now we know this _aliquis_, whom Hermes Trismegistos could not name; it is the Turk, housing now in the regions of Osiris. At the foot of our hill towards the green plain there stands a fine clump of sont-trees, overshadowing a friendly well-built cistern; here the sheep and goats are daily watered, and every evening and morning the brown maidens and the veiled matrons, in their blue draped garments, come down from their rock-caves, and then return with a solemn step, with their water-jugs on their heads; a lovely picture from the patriarchal times. But hard by this place of the refreshing element there lies in the middle of the fruitful field a white barren spot; on it two kilns are erected, on which, whenever there is any want of material, the next blocks of the old temples and rock-caves, with their paintings and inscriptions, are crushed and burnt into lime for mortar to join other blocks drawn from these handy and inexhaustible quarries, into a stable or some other government buildings. On the same day on which I had visited the Koptic church, I desired to ride thence to the village of Kôm el Birât, on the opposite side of the great lake of Habu, now dried up. To my no small astonishment my guide, the excellent old ’Auad, whom I have taken into my service on account of his immense acquaintance with the locality, declared to me that he could not accompany me; indeed, he almost dreaded to mention the name of the village, and could not be induced to tell me anything about it, or about his strange behaviour. At home, I first learnt through others, at a later time too from himself, the reason of his refusal. Seven or eight years before, a man was killed in the house of the sheîkh of Qurna, to whose household Ἀuad then belonged, though for what cause does not appear. In consequence of this event, the whole family of the murdered man emigrated hence, and settled in Kôm el Birât. Since that time the law of blood-vengeance exists between the two houses. No member of that family has since set foot on the soil of Qurna, and if Ἀuad, or any one else from the house of the sheikh were to show himself in that village, any member of the injured family would be quite right in killing him in open day.[101] Such is the ancient Arab custom.