I have known many very scrupulous about eating suppers, but, I am persuaded, without reason. The great perspiration which relaxes the stomach so much through the day has now ceased, and the breathing of cooler air has given to its operations a much stronger tone. I always made it my most liberal meal, if I ate meat at all. While at Jidda, my supper was a piece of cold, roasted mutton, and a large glass of water, with my good friend Captain Thornhill, during the dog-days. After this, the excessive heat of the day being past, covering our heads from the night-air, always blowing at that time from the east and charged with watery particles from the Indian Ocean, we had a luxurious walk of two or three hours, as free from the heat as from the noise and impertinence of the day, upon a terrassed roof, under a cloudless sky, where the smallest star is visible. These evening walks have been looked upon as one of the principal pleasures of the east, even though not accompanied with the luxuries of astronomy and meditation. They have been adhered to from early times to the present, and we may therefore be allured they were always wholesome; they have often been misapplied and mispent in love. It is a custom that, from the first ages, has prevailed in the east, to shriek and lament upon the death of a friend or relation, and cut their faces upon the temple with their nails, about the breadth of a sixpence, one of which is left long for that purpose. It was always practised by the Jews, and thence adopted by the Abyssinians, though expressly forbidden both by the law and by the prophets[2]. At Masuah, it seems to be particular to dance upon that occasion. The women, friends, and visitors place themselves in a ring; then dance slowly, figuring in and out as in a country-dance. This dance is all to the voice, no instrument being used upon the occasion; only the drum (the butter-jar before mentioned) is beat adroitly enough, and seems at once necessary to keep the dance and song in order. In Abyssinia, too, this is pursued in a manner more ridiculous. Upon the death of an ozoro, or any nobleman, the twelve judges, (who are generally between 60 and 70 years of age) sing the song, and dance the figure-dance, in a manner so truly ridiculous, that grief must have taken fast hold of every spectator who does not laugh upon the occasion. There needs no other proof the deceased was a friend.