From what is known of modern customs in this line, and from occasional historical references to the matter, it would seem that where there were no gateways, or double columns to stand for door-posts, or doorway stele, it was the practice to divide or separate the animals offered in sacrifice, so as to make a passage-way between them, as through a door or gate, and to pour out the blood of the victims on the earth between the two portions, so that the offerer, or the one welcomed, might pass over, or step across, that blood, as in a threshold covenant. It has already been noted that when General Grant came to the border line of Assioot, in Upper Egypt, as he landed from his Nile boat, a bullock was sacrificed in covenant welcome, its head being put on one side of the gang-plank, and its body on the other; while its blood was between the two, so that it should be stepped over in the act of landing.[512] And every year, when the great Hajj procession returns from Meccah to Syria, it is welcomed, as it approaches Damascus, by just such sacrifices as this. Sheep and oxen are sacrificed before the caravan, their blood being poured out in the middle of the road, and their bodies being divided and placed on either side of the way. Then those who approach by this “new and living way,”[513] on the boundary line of their country, renew their covenant with those within, by passing over the blood.[514] There seems to be a reference to such a mode of boundary sacrifices, in the description of the Lord’s covenant welcome to Abraham, on the border of the land promised to him for a possession.[515] Abraham was near the southern boundary of Canaan. He had the promise of the Lord, that he and his seed should possess that land; but as yet he was childless, and he had no control over any portion of the land. He naturally desired some tangible assurance, in accordance with the customs of mankind, that the Lord’s promises to him would be made good. Therefore when the Lord said to him, “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it,” Abraham replied with the question, “O Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” Then the Lord responded with these directions, apparently in accordance with a well-known mode of covenanting among men: “Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abraham seems to have understood what was to be done with these victims for sacrifice. “And he took him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each half over against the other: but the birds divided he not.” The blood of the victims was doubtless poured out on the earth where they were sacrificed, midway between the places of the divided portions, as is the present custom.