Now, my ihrám, which I had bought at Suez, consisted of two thin woollen wrappers and a pair of sandals. One wrapper was tied about the middle and allowed to fall all round to the ankles, while the other was thrown over the shoulders, leaving my head and the forearms bare. Both wrappers were spotlessly white, and had neither seam nor hem. The sandal was a kind of shoe, consisting of a sole fastened to the foot by means of a tie which passed between the large toe and the first toe of the foot; it left uncovered both the instep and the heel. This sacred habit was worn by all pilgrims during the four days preceding the Hájj Day. While they have it on they must neither hunt nor fowl, though they are allowed to fish--a doubtful privilege in a dry land. This precept, according to Ahmad Ebn Yûsuf, is so strictly observed that nothing will induce pilgrims to kill so much as a flea. We are told by Al Beidáwí, however, that there are some noxious animals that they have permission to kill during the pilgrimage, such animals, for instance, as kites, ravens, scorpions, mice, and dogs given to bite. Pilgrims must keep a constant watch over their words and their actions so long as they wear the sacred habit. Not a single abusive word must be uttered; all obscene discourse and all converse with women must be avoided; and not a single woman’s face must be seen, save that of a wife, a sister, or a cousin-german, _i.e._, a sister’s or a brother’s daughter. The men, as I have said, must now doff their sewn clothes and must keep both their faces and their heads uncovered; but the woman must be, as it were, hermetically sealed in their stitched cloaks and veils. The only part of their bodies that they have the right to expose, if they like, is the palms of their hands. For the rest, they must not travel alone, but must be accompanied by a man who may lawfully see them unveiled. Poor pilgrims! They suffered from right and left. First came the blood-suckers’ passport picnic. Here the pilgrim was plagued to death with questions that the most cursory perusal of his safe-conduct had rendered unnecessary. “Where do you come from? When did you leave? How did you get here? What are your intentions? Why this? How that? When the other?” The poorer pilgrims complained that they were positively fleeced on the most frivolous pretexts. “Your passport is not properly written; you must pay forty-eight piastres,” and so on.