They are subject to blows from any one and every one, and the occasion is afforded by every holy place, where the shoes have to be taken off. Still, I have not remarked that they suffer much. Up to the present time, I have not seen a Jew beaten or insulted, and I have witnessed on several occasions their reception by Moors of the first rank, in which it would have been impossible, but for the dress, to have known the difference. Besides, the Moors are not proficients in the art of “self-defence,” and could not plant a blow if they set about it. At a Jewish marriage I was standing beside the bridegroom when the bride entered: as she crossed the threshold, he stooped down and slipped off his shoe, and struck her with the heel on the nape of the neck. I at once saw the interpretation of the passage in Scripture, respecting the transfer of the shoe to another, in case the brother-in-law did not exercise his privilege. The slipper in the East being taken off in-doors, or if not, left outside the apartment, is placed at the edge of the small carpets upon which you sit, and is at hand to administer correction, and is here used in sign of the obedience of the wife, and of the supremacy of the husband. The Highland custom is to strike, for “good luck,” as they say, the bride with an old slipper. Little do they suspect the meaning implied. The regalia of Morocco is enriched with a pair of embroidered slippers, which are, or used to be, carried before the Sultan, as amongst us the sceptre or sword of state. This superstition of the old slipper reminds me of another. In the Highlands the great festivity is the ushering in of the new year. The moment is watched for with the utmost anxiety; every one then rushes into the streets, with posset in hand, embracing whoever he meets, and shouting “Huy meneh!” This word has puzzled the traveller and antiquary; it was the very word which the Greeks repeated, no more knowing its meaning than the Highlander: Hymenea or Hymeneu! and out of which come, _Hymen_, Hymn, &c. _Meneh_ was Jesboal among the Sabeans, from minah or minik, fortifications, the procession going round the walls. _Men_ is habitation in Egyptian and Coptic--_minith_ contracted to _met_, is the name for a village in Egypt; it is preserved in the Highlands in _midden_. From this word come many names of places in Spain, Italy, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor. It gives the names to founders, as Menes, Minos, Maon, &c.; thence are derived a multiplicity of the terms in common use,--manes, ammunition, mansion; manitoni, month, maniac, &c., and of course the words in Greek and Latin, through which they have reached us. Minoïa Gaza meant the Walled Gaza.