The shoe is regarded as constituting possession, nor is this idea unknown to ourselves, in being conveyed in the homely proverbial expression by which one man is said to “stand in the shoes of another,” and the vulgar idea of “throwing an old shoe after you for luck,” is typical of a wish, that temporal gifts or good fortune may follow you. The author last quoted says, that even at the present time, the use of the shoe as a token of right or occupancy, may be traced very extensively in the East; and however various and dissimilar the instances may seem at first view, the leading idea may be still detected in all. Thus among the Bedouins, when a man permits his cousin to marry another, or when a husband divorces his runaway wife, he usually says, “She was my slipper, I have cast her off.” (Burckhardt’s “Bedouins,” p. 65.) Sir F. Henniker, in speaking of the difficulty he had in persuading the natives to descend into the crocodile mummy pits, in consequence of some men having lost their lives there, says: “Our guides, as if preparing for certain death, took leave of their children; the father took the turban from his own head, and put it upon that of his son; or _put him in his place_, by giving him _his shoes_, ‘a dead man’s shoes.’” In western Asia, slippers left at the door of an apartment, denote that the master or mistress is engaged, and no one ventures on intrusion, not even a husband, though the apartment be his wife’s. Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet, speaking of the termagants of Benares, say, “If domestic or other business calls off one of the combatants before the affair is duly settled, she coolly thrusts _her shoe_ beneath her basket, and leaves both upon the spot, to signify that she is not satisfied;” meaning to denote by leaving her shoe, that she kept possession of the ground and the argument during her unavoidable absence. From all these instances, it would appear that this employment of the shoe, may, in some respects, be considered analogous to that which prevailed in the middle ages, of giving a glove as a token of investiture, when bestowing lands and dignities. It should be observed that the same Hebrew word (_naal_), signifies both a sandal and a shoe, although always rendered shoe in our translation of the Old Testament. Although the shoe is mentioned in Genesis and other books of the Bible, little concerning its form or manufacture can be gleaned--that it was an article of common use among the ancient Israelites, we may infer from the passage in Genesis, chap. xiv., verse 23, the first mention we have of this article, where Abraham makes oath to the king of Sodom “that he will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet,” thus assuming its common character. The Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 5-13) “came with old shoes and clouted [mended] upon their feet”--the better to practise their deceit; and therefore they said, “Our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.”