22 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



The nuns were not so badly off who were permitted 

 to keep a cat. 



No one knows the date, and no one knows the 

 route of Pussy's westward voyage, a voyage fraught 

 with peril and disaster. From Cyprus she came, — 

 so say most authorities, — and there is an ancient 

 tradition of a Christian monastery near Paphos, 

 where the Greek monks kept a little colony of 

 highly trained and valorous cats, whose duty it was 

 to destroy the serpents that infested the island. 

 These cats hunted their prey daily " with admirable 

 zeal and address," — I quote from Moncrif, — and to 

 the great benefit of the neighbourhood. But when 

 the Turks snatched Cyprus, they burned the mon- 

 astery, and turned the homeless pussies, not to speak 

 of the homeless monks, adrift upon the world ; — a 

 strange piece of ill-doing for Moslems, who, how- 

 ever contemptuous of cloisters, have always cher- 

 ished cats with exceeding tenderness. The love 

 which Mohammed bore for his fair white cat, Mu- 

 ezza, has thrown a veil of sanctity over the whole 

 feline race ; and no good Ottoman ever forgets that 

 when Muezza slept one day upon her master's flow- 

 ing sleeve, the Prophet — being summoned to the 

 Council — cut off his sleeve, rather than disturb 

 her slumber. 



Proud then, and justly proud, was that true be- 

 liever upon whom was conferred the title — at once 

 magnificent and tender — of "Father of Cats." 



