over her husband’s shoulder, “and tell him to use it unsparingly lest the beauty of his face should be ruined.” Meccan gentlewomen allow themselves a certain freedom of speech and action, otherwise a less presentable man than this woman’s husband might have been jealous enough to resent the frank admiration in her voice. Seyyid ’Alí, having laid on the oil by means of a wooden bodkin used for the purpose, handed the bottle back to the husband, who pressed him to accept the rest of its contents, which would be useful, he said, in case of further accident. My guide, however, refused with many thanks, saying that he could not find it in his heart to deprive the giver of the possibility of exercising her compassion on the next unfortunate she might chance to meet. And with this our respective caravans moved on. Before reaching the Valley of Mina a serious accident happened, this time to a Malay pilgrim--an accident that proved fatal to him, for he was crushed to death in a stampede of mules. I am happy to say that our own caravan was not concerned in the disaster. Two women swooned at the sight, and all the other women round about raised their voices in bitterest lamentation, as though they had lost a near relative. A quarter of an hour after, when the unfortunate man had been laid to rest in his shallow grave, the two women who had fainted fell to prattling merrily as if nothing untoward had occurred. In fact, the chief characteristics of the Oriental woman are her absolute helplessness outside the restricted limits of her special sphere of influence, and the swiftness with which she passes from one emotion to another. There is no transition in her moods. She passes from the tearful or the terrible to the mirthful or the ridiculous at a single bound of her mercurial temperament. She is at once more womanish and more womanly than her European sisters. Not less marked, on this journey of ours to the holiest mountain of Islám, were the vanity of the wealthier classes as it preened itself among the men, and the unfailing good humour of the mob. A Persian nobleman, to whom my host had attached himself, had a special chamberlain whose sole duty it was to hand his lord and master a cigarette whenever he felt disposed to smoke. Another grandee of the same nationality, if he had occasion to drop his reins in order to adjust his beard, would cry out at the top of his voice to his _moghavem_, saying: “Boy, come here! Hand me the reins!” preserving the while an expression of sphinx-like aloofness from all human kind.