The idlest, most impudent, and vilest individuals of Mekka adopt the profession of guides (metowaf or delyl); and as there is no want of those qualities, and a sufficient demand for guides during the Hadj, they are very numerous. Besides the places which I have described in the town, the metowafs accompany the hadjys to all the other places of resort in the sacred district, and are ready to perform every kind of service in the city. But their utility is more than counterbalanced by their importunity and knavery. They besiege the room of the hadjy from sun-rise to sun-set; and will not allow him to do any thing without obtruding their advice: they sit down with him to breakfast, dinner, and supper; lead him into all possible expenses, that they may pocket a share of them; suffer no opportunity to pass of asking him for money; and woe to the poor ignorant Turk who employs them as his interpreter in any mercantile concern. My first delyl was the man of Medina at whose house I lodged during the last days of Ramadhan. On returning to Mekka a second time, I unfortunately met him in the street; and though I was far from giving him a hearty welcome, having sufficient reason to suspect his honesty, he eagerly embraced me, and forthwith made my new lodgings his home. At first he accompanied me every day in my walks round the Kaaba, to recite the prayers used on that occasion: these, however, I soon learned [p.194] by heart, and therefore dispensed with his services on the occasion. He sat down regularly at dinner with me, and often brought a small basket, which he ordered my slave to fill with biscuits, meat vegetables or fruit, and carried away with him. Every third or fourth day he asked for money: “It is not you who give it,” he said; “it is God who sends it to me.” Finding there was no polite mode of getting rid of him, I told him plainly, that I no longer wanted his services; language to which a Mekka delyl is not accustomed. After three days, however, he returned, as if nothing had happened, and asked me for a dollar. “God does not move me to give you any thing,” I replied; “if he judged it right, he would soften my heart, and cause me to give you my whole purse.” “Pull my beard,” he exclaimed, “if God does not send you ten times more hereafter than what I beg at present.” “Pull out every hair of mine,” I replied, “if I give you one para, until I am convinced that God will consider it a meritorious act.” On hearing this he jumped up, and walked away, saying, “We fly for refuge to God, from the hearts of the proud and the hands of the avaricious.” These people never speak ten words without pronouncing the name of God or Mohammed; they are constantly seen with the rosary in their hands, and mumble prayers even during conversation. This character of the metowafs is so applicable to the people of Mekka in general, that at Cairo they use the following proverb, to repress the importunity of an insolent beggar: “Thou art