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The Arabs keep such pledges more religiously than almost any other
people. They plight faith with the forms following. When two men
would swear a friendship, they stand on each side of a third: he with
a sharp stone makes a cut on the inside of the hand of each near the
middle finger, and, taking a piece from their dress, dips it in the
blood of each, and moistens therewith seven stones lying in the midst,
calling the while on Bacchus and Urania. After this, the man who
makes the pledge commends the stranger (or the citizen, if citizen he
be) to all his friends, and they deem themselves bound to stand to the
engagement. They have but these two gods, to wit, Bacchus and
Urania; and they say that in their mode of cutting the hair, they
follow Bacchus. Now their practice is to cut it in a ring, away from
the temples. Bacchus they call in their language Orotal, and
Urania, Alilat.
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