1897] A Place of Piety 251 



service attended by everybody. The singing is far from good, as 

 each worshipper intones in his own key, and the effect is not nnlike that 

 of the old village hymn-singing of fifty years ago in England. There 

 is even a certain non-conformist popular character about it, which is 

 different from anything I have heard elsewhere. The mosque is a 

 new one, built close to the castle, in excellent taste. It might be a 

 hundred or two hundred years old for all one can tell from its archi- 

 tecture. It has no minaret, and is a plain square buttressed building, 

 with a slight ornament on the top and lancet windows. We are 

 camped too near it for quiet, and have been exposed all day to 'the 

 curiosity of prayer-goers. Also the ground is very dirty, and life is 

 made difficult with flies. Indoors, in the castle, it is hardly better, for 

 the guest rooms are built for the summer, and are cold to sit in, being 

 away from the sun. So I am obliged to wait on in my tent till the 

 hospitable pleasure of Abdallah is exhausted, and I have his permission 

 to begin my march. These days of hospitable waiting in towns and 

 villages are a heavy price one has to pay for 'the joys of desert travel- 

 ling. But my departure is promised for to-morrow at noon. Suli- 

 man's expenditure in provisions for the journey comes to 275 piastres, 

 something under £3. 



" 11th Feb. — Away at last in the highest of spirits, with a cool west- 

 erly wind blowing in our faces. The camels arrived early, and I ob- 

 tained Abdallah's permission, dear good man, 'to mount and go. When 

 all was settled I told him I wished to have a few words with him alone ; 

 and we went into the great room of the castle, and I told him I was 

 very anxious to see, if not the Sheykh el Senussi, who has gone south 

 to Kufra, at leas't one of the principal Sheykhs of the tarik (the reli- 

 gious order) at Jerabub, and I begged him to give me a letter for one 

 of them. ' You know,' I said, ' that I have for a long time been with 

 you at heart, of the mumenin, but I have not borne witness for 

 reasons you will understand. I wish to ask certain questions of the 

 Sheykhs of the Senussia, and to understand their teaching, and it 

 seems to me that the members of the tarik are the only good Moslems 

 in the world, or at any rate are the bes't.' The good man readily as- 

 sented, and showed me much affection, and told me that he had al- 

 ready written to the head of the community at Jerabub, introducing 

 me as the son of Hajji Batran of Aleppo, for he 'thought that would 

 give me a favourable reception. But I begged him to write again and 

 tell the Sheykh the truth of the case, that I was an Englishman who 

 desired instruction, and he has accordingly done so, though he has 

 left the o'ther letters, those written to the Harabi Sheykhs of the Jebel 

 Akhdar, as they were with my name as Ibn Batran. Fortunately I 

 knew Hajji Batran when at Aleppo, or rather I knew his son, Hajji 

 Mahmud, and may, perhaps, be able to personate a grandson from 



