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"We travelled slowly, stopping from time to time at various towns on our way, in some of which I got work at my craft, and thus earned money to help us to continue our journey. "All this time I told Soobulda and Esuree much concerning the Moslem faith, and they assumed the garb and practised the ablutions, and recited the prayers of true believers."
It is in Egypt that we first find Moslem and missionary at close grips arrayed against each other. Cairo is a perfect cockpit of creeds. Christianity is represented by Catholics, Copts, Orthodox Greeks and Protestants, these last being subdivided into Anglicans, Presbyterians, Wesleyans and American Presbyterians and Congregationalists.
It aspired to repay the Romaic race in adversity by championing it against its Moslem oppressors, and sought its own reward in a maritime outlet on the Black Sea. From the beginning of the eighteenth century Russia repeatedly made war on Turkey, either with or without the co-operation of Austria; but the decisive bout in the struggle was the war of 1769-74.
A cold shudder came over the knight as he reflected what could be the foulness of the sin, what the depth of the remorse, which, apparently, such severe penance could neither cleanse nor assuage. He told his beads devoutly, and flung himself on his rude couch, after a glance at the still sleeping Moslem, and, wearied by the various scenes of the day and the night, soon slept as sound as infancy.
The Moslem system is evidently borrowed from the Roman "as" and "uncia." "my liver ;" which viscus, and not the heart, is held the seat of passion, a fancy dating from the oldest days. The idea was long prevalent and we find in Shakespeare: Alas, then Love may be called appetite, No motion of the liver but the palate.
In all the mosques, Friday prayers were ended with an invocation for the welfare of the Sultan and "Hadji Wilhelm." The significance of this lies in the fact that the title "Hadji" can be properly applied only to a Moslem who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca and kissed the sacred stone of the Kaaba.
Kingsley ably summarizes the effects of the crusades as follow: "Egypt was still the center of communication between the two great stations of the Moslem power; and, indeed, as Mr. Lane has shown us in his most valuable translation of the 'Arabian Nights, possessed a peculiar life and character of its own. "It was the rash object of the crusaders to extinguish that life.
All the fires have gone out now. The yellow whin blazes upon the hillsides. The wild fig-tree splits the masonry. The scorpion lodges in the deserted chambers. On the fallen stone of the Crusaders' gate, where the Moslem victor has carved his Arabic inscription, a green-gray lizard poises motionless, like a bronze figure on a paper-weight.
When I speak of equality between Moslem and Christian, I speak as one who believes that where the Christian is more powerful he should be scrupulous in doing justice to the Moslem, exactly as under reverse conditions justice should be done by the Moslem to the Christian. In my own country we have in the Philippines Moslems as well as Christians.
Then he rose and walked about the city, seeking news of his brother, till he saw a Moslem tailor sitting in his shop so he sat down by him and told him his story; whereupon quoth the tailor, "If he have fallen into the hands of the Magians, thou shalt hardly see him again: yet it may be Allah will reunite you twain. But thou, O my brother," he continued wilt thou lodge with me?"
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