Page:Beckford - Vathek (1816).djvu/264

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this last operation, it is held sufficient to wet the sandal only. At each ceremonial a suitable petition is offered, and the whole concludes with this: "Hold me up firmly, O Lord! and suffer not my foot to slip, that I may not fall from the bridge into hell." Nothing can be more exemplary than the attention with which these rites are performed. If an involuntary cough or sneeze interrupt them, the whole service is begun anew, and that as often as it happens. Habesci, p. 91, &c.


Page 97.the bells of a cafila.

A cafila, or caravan, according to Pitts, is divided into distinct companies, at the head of which an officer, or person of distinction, is carried in a kind of horse litter, and followed by a sumpter camel, loaded with his treasure. This camel hath a bell fastened to either side, the sound of which may be heard at a considerable distance. Others have bells on their necks and their legs, to solace them when drooping with heat and fatigue.—Inatulla also, in his tales, hath a similar reference:—"the bells of the cafila may be rung in the thirsty desart." vol. II. p. 15. These small bells were known at Rome from the earliest times, and called from