692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



might somehow justify such deeds, but I learned that the sole object 

 of the invaders was the suppression of certain views or doubts about 

 the secrets of a future existence. Their adversaries, it seems, confine 

 their worship to the God of the Sun, while the priests of the Monakees 

 address their prayers to several other deities, especially to the Man in 

 the Moon, whom they call the nephew of Allah. It is true that they 

 also assert the superior sanctity of their nation, and, the Karman's faith 

 being opposed to theirs, I was unwilling to adopt his views on this 

 point ; but even before we had entered the dwellings of the Monakees 

 I could not help noticing a peculiar smell in the air, an odor resembling 

 the fumes of the East-Bombay * rum-shops. A few miles farther west 

 we met a poor boy, who took to his heels as soon as he saw us, though 

 the Karman called after him to stop and not to mistake us for Mona- 

 kees. He belonged to the race of the Musanites, a tribe of dissenters 

 who live here and there in the Monakee settlements, and seem to be 

 treated well enough as soon as they have acquired a certain amount of 

 wealth, though the poor ones are often subjected to gross indignities. 

 Their offense, too, consists only in a difference of opinion. They seem 

 to be a harmless and very industrious sort of people, but they have no 

 great faith in the Moon-man. 



We made thirty miles the next day, and toward evening crossed 

 the Monghistan frontier on the west shore of a dry river-bed. I have 

 seen Persia and India, and the palm-gardens of Yemen, but I believe 

 that this country was originally far more favored by Nature : mountains 

 constantly alternate with plains, highlands with terrace-lands, all inter- 

 sected by lakes and broad river-valleys, and considering the fertility of 

 the soil it seems that Monghistan must once have been a land of tran- 

 scendent beauty. Once, I say, for the river-beds are now dry ; the lakes 

 are bordered with naked rocks. While Shadissa Ibrahim f (may Allah 

 receive his soul kindly !) did his best to redeem our land by planting 

 millions of shade-trees, these unfortunates seem to vie in destroying 

 the last remnants of their woodlands ; on all the ridges I saw heaps of 

 felled trees, and in the plains moldering stumps are the only traces of 

 the original forests. 



Here, as in India and Darfoor, I have noticed a strange circum- 

 stance. As soon as the tall trees (Hochwald, W.) disappear, the un- 

 derbrush becomes thorny ; acacias, mimosas, prickly palms, cactus, and 

 camel-thorns are here the only wild-growing shrubs. By this armor 

 of spines Allah seems to protect these poor plants against the hand of 

 the destroyer, though the Turks of Stamboul would probably say that 

 the thorn-trees were there before the destruction began, and were able 

 to hold their ground while other trees perished. \ 



* " Bumbad el Shork," East-Bombay, a suburb of sailors and gamblers, 

 f Ibrahim Pasba. Mehemet Ali and his son Ibrahim planted 20,000,000 forest-trees 

 in the Thcbai's and along the shore of the Red Sea. (Marsh, " Man and Nature," p. 189.) 

 J Dr. Rcidor understands this pas-age as an allusion to the Darwinian survival theory, 



