of Sind, alluded to this system as prevalent throughout Al-Islam, and professed, like Mr. Lane, ignorance of its origin and object.  In Huc’s travels, we are told that the Tartars worship mountain spirits by raising an “Obo,"-dry branches hung with bones and strips of cloth, and planted in enormous heaps of stones.  Park, also, in Western Africa, conformed to the example of his companions, in adding a charm or shred of cloth on a tree (at the entrance of the Wilderness), which was completely covered with these guardian symbols.  And, finally, the Tarikh Tabari mentions it as a practice of the Pagan Arabs, and talks of evil spirits residing in the date-tree.  May not, then, the practice in Al-Islam be one of the many debris of fetish-worship which entered into the heterogeneous formation of the Saving Faith?  Some believe that the Prophet permitted the practice, and explain the peculiar name of the expedition called Zat al-Rika’a (place of shreds of cloth), by supposing it to be a term for a tree to which the Moslems hung their ex-voto rags. [FN#26] The saint lies under a little white-washed dome, springing from a square of low walls-a form of sepulchre now common to Al-Hijaz, Egypt, and the shores and islands of the Red Sea.  As regards his name my informants told me it was that of a Hijazi Shaykh.  The subject is by no means interesting; but the exact traveller will find the word written Takroore, and otherwise explained by Sir Gardner Wilkinson. [FN#27] Called by the Arabs Shih [Arabic text], which the dictionaries translate “wormwood of Pontus.”  We find Wallin in his works speaking of Ferashat al-shih, or wormwood carpets. [FN#28] We are told in verse of “a cocoa’s feathery shade,” and sous l’ombre d’un cocotier.  But to realise the prose picture, let the home reader, choosing some sultry August day, fasten a large fan to a long pole, and enjoy himself under it. [FN#29] On a subsequent occasion, I met a party of Panjabis, who had walked from Meccah to Cairo in search of “Abu Tabilah,” (General Avitabile), whom report had led to the banks of the Nile.  Some were young, others had white beards-all were weary and wayworn; but the saddest sight was an old woman, so decrepit that she could scarcely walk.  The poor fellows were travelling on foot, carrying their wallets, with a few pence in their pockets, utterly ignorant of route and road, and actually determined in this plight to make Lahore by Baghdad, Bushir, and Karachi.  Such-so incredible-is Indian improvidence! [FN#30] Upon this word Cacography has done her worst-"Haji Rood” may serve for a specimen.  My informants told me that Al-’Ajrudi is the name of a Hijazi Shaykh whose mortal remains repose under a little dome near the fort.  This, if it be true, completely nullifies the efforts of Etymology to discern in it a distinct allusion to “the overthrow of Pharaoh’s chariots, whose Hebrew appellation, ‘Ageloot,’ bears some resemblance to this modern name.” [FN#31] The only sweet water in Suez is brought on camel back from the Nile,