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the Koran was revealed from Heaven. As the Mahomedan months are lunar the fast is movable, and when it occurs in the summer, its hardships are considerably increased. It is kept very strictly. From daybreak to sunset nothing must pass the lips of a Mussulman, not even a drop of water, some, it is said, being so cautious, that they will not open their mouths to speak, lest they should breathe the air too freely.

The Ramadan is announced by the firing of a cannon in Algiers as in other Mahomedan countries, and at sunset each day, when the fast is broken, the same sound heralds relief to the fainting population.

"After so many hours of total abstinence, it may be imagined how welcome to the ears of the hungry people is the report of this gun. The town seems to awake, the scene changes at once from a state of sulky obedience to animation and joy. The minarets are lighted up, while from the highest gallery the Muezzin, in a loud and solemn voice, calls the faithful to evening prayers. After hastily reciting a verse from the Koran, every one begins to eat. Many of the lower classes carry bread, or a few dates, or the like, about with them. At such a moment they become demonstrative and are too excited to stand on ceremony." -Algeria as It Is.

None are exempted from the fast except children, the sick, or the very aged, and the time of fasting is defined in the Koran as "so long as it is possible to distinguish a white thread from a black one." The strain of this long abstinence upon the physique is naturally a very severe one, and it is said that during Ramadân more quarrels and fights take place among the Arabs, than during any other month in the year. A pilgrimage to Mecca, the birth-place of Mahomet, is also enjoined on his followers at least once in a life-time, and many Arabs make numerous pilgrimages to the holy spot.

The moral teaching of the Koran inculcates the practice of just dealing, of patience under trial, humility, truthfulness, and forgiveness of injuries. It appoints Friday as a day to be set apart for special prayer, since on that day God completed his work of creation, but a cessation of labour is not commanded.

It concerns itself very minutely in the domestic affairs of the faithful, encouraging both polygamy and slavery, but otherwise providing for a tolerably fair administration of justice, borrowed in a great measure from the Jewish model, as are also many rules of personal conduct, which Mahomet impressed upon his followers. The use of intoxicating liquors and games of chance are forbidden. Altogether, there can be no doubt that the religion which Mahomet taught, was an infinitely purer and better one than that which prevailed among the Arabs before his time, while at the same time we cannot forget that under his laws, murder is accounted no great crime, that hatred against all unbelievers is expressly commanded, and that purity of life, and charity, such as the Gospel preaches, are unknown.

In conclusion, we quote a summary of the effects of Islamism, from Sir W. Muir's "Life of Mahomet :

"What have been the effects of the system which Mahomet left behind him? We may freely concede that it banished for ever many of the darker elements of superstition. Idolatry vanished before the battle-cry of Islam; the doctrine of the unity and infinite perfections of God, and of a special all-pervading Providence, became a living principle in the hearts and lives of the followers of Mahomet, even as in his An absolute surrender and submission to the Divine will (the idea conveyed by the very name of Islam) was demanded as the first requirement of the religion.

own.

'Nor are the social virtues wanting. Brotherly love is inculcated towards all within the circle of the faith; infanticide is proscribed;

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orphans are to be protected, and slaves treated with consideration; intoxicating drinks are forbidden, and Mahometanism may boast of a degree of temperance unknown to any other creed.

"Yet these benefits have been purchased at a costly price. Setting aside considerations of minor import, three radical evils flow from the faith in all ages and in every country, and must continue to flow so long as the Corân is the standard of belief. (1st) Polygamy, divorce, and slavery are maintained and perpetuated, striking at the root of public morals, poisoning domestic life and disorganizing society. (2nd) Freedom of thought, and private judgment in religion, are crushed and annihilated. The sword still is and must remain the inevitable penalty for the renunciation of Islam; toleration is unknown. (3rd) A barrier has been interposed against the reception of Christianity. They labour under a miserable delusion, who suppose that Mahometanism paves the way for a purer faith. No system could have been devised with more consummate skill, for shutting out the nations over which it has swayed, from the light of truth. Idolatrous Arabia (judging from the analogy of other nations) might have been aroused to spiritual life and to the adoption of the faith of Jesus; Mahometan Arabia is to the human eye sealed against the benign influences of the gospel. Many a flourishing land in Africa and in Asia, which once rejoiced in the light and liberty of Christianity, is now overspread by gross darkness and barbarism. It is as if their day of grace had come and gone, and there remained to them no more sacrifice for sins. That a brighter day will yet dawn on these countries we may not doubt, but the history of the past, and the condition of the present, are not the less sad and true. The sword of Mahomet and the Corân are the most stubborn enemies of civilization, liberty, and truth which the world has yet known."

Attached to the Grand Mosque is the superior court of the Muphti, where appeals are made from the lower courtthat of the Cadi. In the Rue de la Marine is one of the great casernes, or barracks, formerly occupied by the janissaries, and now devoted to the use of their modern representatives, the Turcos. With regard to these barracks we read in Pierre Dan's history

“There are in the city nine large houses called casernes, serving for the dwellings of the janissaries, and though they have such numerous inhabitants, the houses are so clean that no manner of dirt is to be

found in them, several slaves being continually occupied in cleansing them, as the Turks are very particular on this point."

Each janissary, we are told by another writer, had a Christian boy as slave, to wait on him and keep his arms and dwelling in order. At the end of the Rue de la Marine, where it joins the Boulevard, is what French guide-books designate as a pâté, of beautiful old Arab houses, the last remains of the lower Moorish town. Some of them are used as government offices, while others are wrecked and hanging in mid-air almost by a threadsoon to make way for modern French buildings.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ARAB TOWN.

"Lasciate ogni speranza voi che 'ntrate."

Dante.

T is scarcely possible to imagine a greater contrast than

IT

exists between the new and the old town of Algiers -the French and the Arab; the difference in truth, being only a type of the vast gulf that lies between the life and thought and manners of the two races-the one all excitement, bustle, and show, the other as opposedly solemn, silent, and self-contained.

A turn of a street turns the page of history back a thousand years; and but a dozen paces separate the life of the pushing, driving, money-making nineteenth century, from the romantic, half-savage, wholly mysterious world of Haroun-Al-Raschid.

In the French town the Arab certainly is. He forms the picturesque item in the commonplace picture. He walks the broad pavement before the long rows of manywindowed houses; he jostles the Parisienne in her jauntiest bonnet, and elbows the trim French soldier; he patronizes the modern invention of the omnibus, and possesses himself of the sunny corners of the street as lounging-places; but