Note 244 — Chapter IX

By sending with a letter the silk strings of her hair, a lady testifies the most abject submission. The same meaning is conveyed in a more forcible manner by sending the hair itself. Thus when Cairo was besieged by the Franks in the year of the Flight 564 (A.D. 1168), El-´Áḍid, the last Fáṭimee Khaleefeh, sent letters to Noor-ed-Deen Maḥmood, Sulṭán of Syria, imploring succour, and with them sent his women's hair to show their subjection and his own. (Ibn Esh-Shihneh). [So too El-Maḳreezee, with a slight variation. It was in this siege that the old town now called erroneously Miṣr el-´aṭeeḳah was burnt by order of the Wezeer Sháwir, the conflagration lasting fifty-four days. (Khiṭaṭ, account of the ruin of El-Fusṭáṭ and reign of El-´Áḍid.) E. S. P.]