[FN#17] From this window I sketched the walls and the Egyptian gate of Al-Madinah. [FN#18] "Five mosques." [FN#19] This Mosque must not be confounded with the Harim. It is described in Chapter XV. [FN#20] Their voices are strangely soft and delicate, considering the appearance of the organs from which they proceed. Possibly this may be a characteristic of the African races; it is remarkable amongst the Somali women. [FN#21] After touching the skin of a strange woman, it is not lawful in Al-Islam to pray without ablution. For this reason, when a fair dame shakes hands with you, she wraps up her fingers in a kerchief, or in the end of her veil. [FN#22] Nafukku'r rik, literally, "Let us open the saliva," is most idiomatic Hijazi for the first morsel eaten in the morning. Hence it is called Fakkur' rik, also Gura and Tasbih: the Egyptians call it "Al-Fatur." [FN#23] Orientals invariably begin by eating an "akratisma" in the morning before they will smoke a pipe, or drink a cup of coffee; they have also an insuperable prejudice against the internal use of cold water at this hour. [FN#24] The tobacco generally smoked here is Syrian, which is brought down in large quantities by the Damascus caravan. Latakia is more expensive, and generally too dry to retain its flavour. [FN#25] The interior of the water jar is here perfumed with the smoke of mastich, exactly as described by Lane, (Mod. Egyptians, vol i. ch. 5). I found at Al-Madinah the prejudice alluded to by Sonnini, namely, that the fumes of the gum are prejudicial, and sometimes fatal to invalids. [FN#26] Kaylulah is the half hour's siesta about noon. It is a Sunnat, and the Prophet said of it, "Kilu, fa inna 'sh' Shayatina la Takil,"-"Take the mid-day siesta, for, verily, the demons sleep not at this hour." "Aylulah" is slumbering after morning prayers (our "beauty sleep"), which causes heaviness and inability to work. Ghaylulah is the sleeping about 9 A.M., the effect of which is poverty and wretchedness. Kaylulah (with the guttural kaf) is sleeping before evening prayers, a practice reprobated in every part of the East. And, finally, Faylulah is sleeping immediately after sunset,-also considered highly detrimental. [FN#27] The Arabs, who suffer greatly from melancholia, are kind to people afflicted with this complaint; it is supposed to cause a distaste for society, and a longing for solitude, an unsettled habit of mind, and a neglect of worldly affairs. Probably it is the effect of overworking the brain, in a hot dry atmosphere. I have remarked, that in Arabia students are subject to it, and that amongst their philosophers and literary men, there is scarcely an individual who was not spoken of as a "Saudawi." My friend Omar Effendi used to complain, that at times his temperament drove him out of the house,-so much did he dislike the sound of the human voice,-to pass the day seated upon some eminence in the vicinity of the city. [FN#28] This habit of going out at night in common clothes, with a