In the East blinding was a common practice, especially in the case of junior princes not required as heirs. A deep perpendicular incision was made down each corner of the eyes; the lids were lifted and the balls removed by cutting the optic nerve and the muscles. The later Caliphs blinded their victims by passing a red-hot sword blade close to the orbit or a needle over the eyeball. About the same time in Europe the operation was performed with a heated metal basin—the well-known _bacinare_ (used by Ariosto), as happened to Pier delle Vigne (Petrus de Vineâ), the "godfather of modern Italian." Footnote 196: Arab. "Khinzír" (by Europeans pronounced "Hanzír"), prop. a wild-boar; but popularly used like our "you pig!" Footnote 197: Striking with the shoe, the pipe-stick and similar articles is highly insulting, because they are not made, like whips and scourges, for such purpose. Here the East and the West differ diametrically. "Wounds which are given by instruments which are in one's hands by chance do not disgrace a man," says Cervantes (D. Q. i., chapt. 15), and goes on to prove that if a Zapatero (cobbler) cudgel another with his form or last, the latter must not consider himself cudgelled. The reverse in the East where a blow of a pipe-stick cost Mahommed Ali Pasna's son his life: Ishmail Pasha was burned to death by Malik Nimr, chief of Shendy (Pilgrimage, i., 203). Moreover, the actual wound is less considered in Moslem law than the instrument which caused it: so sticks and stones are venial weapons, whilst sword and dagger, gun and pistol are felonious. See _ibid._ (i., 336) for a note upon the weapons with which nations are policed. Footnote 198: Incest is now abominable everywhere except amongst the overcrowded poor of great and civilised cities. Yet such unions were common and lawful amongst ancient and highly cultivated peoples, as the Egyptians (Isis and Osiris), Assyrians and ancient Persians. Physiologically they are injurious only when the parents have constitutional defects: if both are sound, the issue, as amongst the so-called "lower animals," is viable and healthy. Footnote 199: Dwellers in the Northern Temperates can hardly imagine what a dust-storm is in sun-parched tropical lands. In Sind we were often obliged to use candles at midday, while above the dust was a sun that would roast an egg. Footnote 200: