/ 



THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



FEBRUARY, 1890. 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



VII. COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 



By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L.H.D., 



EX-PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



PART I. 



A FEW years since, Maxime Du Camp, an eminent member of 

 the French Academy, traveling from the Red Sea to the 

 Nile through the Desert of Kosseir, came to a barren slope covered 

 with bowlders, rounded and glossy. 



His Mohammedan camel-drivers accounted for them on this 

 wise : 



" Many years ago Hadji Abdul- Aziz, a sheik of the dervishes, 

 was traveling on foot through this desert ; it was summer ; the 

 sun was hot and the dust stilling ; thirst parched his lips, fatigue 

 weighed down his back, sweat dropped from his forehead, when 

 looking up he saw on this very spot a garden beautifully green, 

 full of fruit, and, in the midst of it, the gardener. 



" ' O fellow-man/ cried Hadji Abdul- Aziz, s in the name of 

 Allah, clement and merciful, give me a melon and I will give you 

 my prayers.' 



" The gardener answered, ' I care not for your prayers ; give me 

 money, and I will give you fruit.' 



" ' But/ said the dervish, * I am a beggar ; I have never had 

 money ; I am thirsty and weary, and one of your melons is all that 

 I need.' 



"'No,' said the gardener, 'go to the Nile and quench your 

 thirst.' 



" Thereupon the dervish, lifting his eyes toward heaven, made 

 this prayer : ' O Allah, thou who in the midst of the desert didst 

 make the fountain of Zem-Zem spring forth to satisfy the thirst 



vol. xxxvi. 28 



