Note 379 — TALE OF KAMAR AL-ZAMAN, (continued 3)

Corresponding with wayside chapels in Catholic countries. The Moslem form would be either a wall with a prayer-niche (Mihráb) fronting Meccah-wards or a small domed room. These little oratories are often found near fountains, streams or tree-clumps where travellers would be likely to alight. I have described one in Sind ("Scinde or the Unhappy Valley" i. 79); and have noted that scrawling on the walls is even more common in the East than in the West; witness the monuments of old Egypt bescribbled by the Greeks and Romans. Even the paws of the Sphinx are covered with such graffiti; and those of Ipsambul or Abu Simbal have proved treasures to epigraphists.