MERAWI IN 1897 the other hand, they are not satisfied with the soul's answers, they beat it with bars of iron. On this the soul utters piercing cries which can be heard from one end of heaven to the other, but none comes to its assistance. Men, however, and the beings called Ginn cannot hear these cries. When the beating is over Munkar and Nakir press down the earth on the body of ihe deceased, and they hand it over to ninety-nine monsters, each of which has seven heads, and they bite it and gnaw it until it is consumed. When the body was covered with sand the men who were present laid several flat stones on the grave, and then began to heap pebbles on them, taking care to push many into the grave itself. Every traveller in the Sudan has seen numbers of graves covered with long heaps of pebbles, which have always seemed to me to be the equivalent to the poor Sudani folk of the stone and mud buildings which stand above the graves of the rich. Of old the Nubian kings built themselves large pyramids, the less important members of their families and a few high officials lay under small pyramids, and the poorer folk under heaps of stones. The barrows which are seen in many places in the desert, some miles from the river, are formed of long low heaps of stones, and bear the same relation to the pyramids as the long low heaps of pebbles laid on modern Sudani graves bear to the barrows. The piles of stones, whether hewn and built into pyramids, or unhewn and loosely piled over the body, were no doubt at a primitive period intended to protect the dead from prowling hyenas, wolves, and jackals, but gradually they came to be regarded as honourable memorials of the dead, and, according to their size, represented the rank and dignity of those buried beneath them.

' On this point compare Burckhardt ( Tra'oels, p. 269): "After a hearty meal, we " recommenced our reading, One of the Shikhs produced a basket full of white " pebbles, over which several prayers were read. These pebbles were destined " to be strewed over the tombs of the deceased in the manner which I had often " observed upon tombs freshly made. Upon my inquiries concerning this " custom, which I confessed to have never before seen practised in any Moham. " medan country, the Fakyr answered that it was a mere meritorious action, " that there was no absolute necessity for it, but that it was thought that the " soul of the deceased, when hereafter visiting the tomb, might be glad to find " these pebbles in order to use them as beads in addressing its prayers to the ' Creator."

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