cloth round a rope, and adorn it with thick golden thread. [FN#21] Generally written “Thar,” the blood-revenge right, acknowledged by law and custom. (See Chapter xxiv. post.) [FN#22] Gold, however, as well as silk, I may be excused for repeating, is a forbidden article of ornament to the Moslem. [FN#23] The silver-hilted dagger is a sign of dignity:  “I would silver my dagger,” in idiomatic Hijazi, means, “I would raise myself in the world.” [FN#24] Niebuhr has accurately described this article.  It is still worn in the Madras army, though long discarded from the other presidencies; the main difference between the Indian and the Arab sandal is, that the former has a ring, into which the big toe is inserted, and the latter a thong, which is clasped between the big toe and its neighbour.  Both of them are equally uncomfortable, and equally injurious to soldiers, whose legs fight as much as do their arms.  They abrade the skin wherever the straps touch, expose the feet to the sun, wind, and rain, and admit thorns and flints to the toes and toe-nails.  In Arabia, the traveller may wear, if he pleases, slippers, but they are considered townsman-like and effeminate.  They must be of the usual colours, red or yellow.  Black shoes, though almost universally worn by the Turks at Cairo and Constantinople, would most probably excite suspicion in Al-Hijaz. [FN#25] The Mizrak, as it is called, is peculiar to certain tribes, as the Karashi and the Lahyami, and some, like the Hudayli near Meccah, make very pretty as well as very useful darts.  The head is 15 or 16 inches long, nowhere broader than an inch, and tapering gradually to a fine point; its shape is two shallow prisms joined at their bases, and its socket, round like that of all lances, measures a little less than 2 inches.  The lower third of the blade only is adorned with bars, lozenges, and cones of brass let into the iron in zig-zag and other figures.  The shaft is of hard pliant wood-I do not know of what tree-well seasoned with grease and use; it is 23 inches long, and strengthened and adorned at distances of half an inch apart by bands of fine brass wire, about one inch and a half long.  The heel of the weapon is a blunt spike 14 inches long, used to stick it in the ground, and this, as well as the lower third of the blade, is ornamented with brass work.  Being well balanced, the Mizrak is a highly efficient weapon for throwing in hunting, and by its handsome appearance adds not a little to the bearer’s dignity.  But the stranger must be careful how he so arms himself.  Unless he be undistinguishable from a Badawi, by carrying a weapon peculiar to certain clans, he will expose himself to suspicion, or to laughter.  And to offend an Arab of Al-Hijaz mortally, you have only to say bluntly, “Sell me thy spear.”  The proper style of address to the man whose necessities compel him to break through one of his “points d’honneur,” is to say, “Give me that javelin, and I will satisfy thee;” after which he will haggle for each copper piece as though you