Note 524 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138] (continued 6)

Moslems never stand up at such times, for a spray of urine would make their clothes ceremonially impure: hence the scrupulous will break up with stick or knife the hard ground in front of them. A certain pilgrim was reported to have made this blunder which is hardly possible in Moslem dress. A high personage once asked me if it was true that he killed a man who caught him in a standing position; and I found to my surprise that the absurd scandal was already twenty years old. After urining the Moslem wipes the os penis with one to three bits of stone, clay or handfuls of earth, and he must perform Wuzu before he can pray. Tournefort (Voyage au Levant iii. 335) tells a pleasant story of certain Christians at Constantinople who powdered with "Poivre-d'Inde" the stones in a wall where the Moslems were in the habit of rubbing the os penis by way of wiping. The same author (ii. 336) strongly recommends a translation of Rabelais' Torcheculative chapter (Lib. i., chapt. 13) for the benefit of Mohammedans.