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The buildings, with the exception of the king's palace and mosque, being all of wood or bamboos standing on posts and mostly covered with thatch of palm-leaves, the appearance of the place has nothing to recommend it.
The land approach is still guarded by Moorish towers and citadel. In Zocodovar which takes its name from the word sôk, "market-place" we find a very Moorish "plaza," with its irregular windows and balconies, and in San Eugenio are some remains of an old mosque with Kufic inscriptions, as well as an arch and tomb of elaborate design.
It is vast as a tournament list; confined on one side by the mosque itself, and on the others by a high wall which effectively separates it from the outer world. The walls are of a reddish hue, burnt by centuries of sun into the colour of raw sienna or of bloodstone.
At the waterside, here and there devout Mahommedans were saying their prayers, now standing, now bowing towards the east, now kneeling and touching the ground with the forehead. Then, piercing and painfully musical, came the call of the Muezzin from the turret of the mosque a quarter of a mile away.
Be that as it may, forbidden fruit is always sweet, and the Tommies were inclined to force an entrance. During a change of guard a Tommy who had his curiosity and initiative stimulated through recourse to arrick, the fiery liquor distilled from dates, stole into the most holy mosque in Kerbela.
But Strickland was not proud, though he had helped once, at Jagadhri, at the Painting of the Death Bull, which no Englishman must even look upon; had mastered the thieves'-patter of the changars; had taken a Eusufzai horse-thief alone near Attock; and had stood under the mimbar-board of a Border mosque and conducted service in the manner of a Sunni Mollah.
Nine Medersas sprang up in Fez, six of them built by the princes who were also creating the exquisite collegiate buildings of Salé, Rabat and old Meknez, and the enchanting mosque and minaret of Chella. The power of these rulers also was in perpetual flux, they were always at war with the Sultans of Tlemcen, the Christians of Spain, the princes of northern Algeria and Tunis.
Further, that the practical reason why a Turkish child should pray in a mosque and an English child in a church is that as worship is organized in Turkey in mosques in the name of Mahomet and in England in churches in the name of Christ, a Turkish child joining the Church of England or an English child following Mahomet will find that it has no place for its worship and no organization of its religion within its reach.
We bought a two-horse wagon and put eighteen hundred pounds of bacon, flour, beans, blasting-powder, picks and shovels in it; we bought two sorry-looking Mexican "plugs," with the hair turned the wrong way and more corners on their bodies than there are on the mosque of Omar; we hitched up and started. It was a dreadful trip. But Oliver did not complain.
In the same place he makes mention of a numerous settlement of the Magians. "Here are," he says, "a goodly number of Magians in the neighbourhood of Istakhr. There is a large stone building with carvings and pillars about which the Persians relate that it is the mosque of Solomon; the son of David, and that it is the work of genii.
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