REMINISCENCES OF THE ORIENT 



"Many a traveller will remember, no doubt, a sudden 

 thrill on awakening suddenly in the midst of his first night 

 on Eastern soil — waking as it were from dream into dream. 

 For there came a voice, solitary, sweet, sonorous, floating 

 from on high through the moonlight stillness, the voice of 

 the blind Muezzeen, singing the Ulah or first call to prayer. 

 And at the sound, many a white figure would move silently 

 on the low roofs, and not merely, like the palms and cy- 

 presses around, bow his head, but prostrate, and bend his 

 knees. And the sounds went and came: 'God is good! 

 God is great! Prayer is better than sleep! There is no 

 God, but God, and Mahomet is his prophet! La elah il 

 Allah! Mahomet racoul Allah! He giveth life and he 

 dieth not! O thou bountiful! Thy mercy ceaseth not! 

 My sins are great! Greater is thy mercy! I extol thy 

 perfections!' And then the cry would be taken up and 

 prolonged by other Muezzeens, and from the north and 

 the south, the east and the west, came floating on the 

 morning stillness this pious invitation to prayer, — this 

 proclamation to all the world of the embodiment of the 

 Moslem creed: 'There is no God, but God, and Mahomet 

 is his prophet.'" 



Who that has ever been in the East can for an instant 

 lose the impression of that first moment, so vividly por- 

 trayed in the above sketch? It is perhaps the most charac- 

 teristic feature of Eastern life, and one that is repeated daily, 



