198 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



towards him, for all the teeth are set in; ours does the re- 

 verse, for the teeth are set out. The mason sits while he lays 

 and trims his stone, ours stands. The scribe writes from 

 right to left, usually upon his hand or knee; ours from left to 

 right, upon the table or desk. Even in the matter of build- 

 ing a house, the same law prevails. We begin at the bottom 

 and finish at the top; the Turks begin at the top, and fre- 

 quently the upper rooms are entirely finished and habit- 

 able, while all below is a mere framework like a lantern. 



The Oriental uses a pipe so long that he cannot hold a 

 coal to the bowl and at the same time draw a whiff of to- 

 bacco smoke from the other end. We use one so short that 

 the scent of burned hair too often mingles with that of the 

 fragrant weed. We polish our boots with elaborate care; 

 but these people, whose religion, perhaps, will not allow 

 them to use brushes made from the bristles of the unclean 

 beast, wipe up their shoes with their hands, and then put 

 on the last finishing touches with their handkerchiefs, or 

 the slack of those wonderful things denominated Turkish 

 trousers. Burnaby, in his "On Horseback through Asia 

 Minor," quotes a missionary as saying: "The Turks about 

 here are just the bottom-side-upwardest, and the top-side- 

 downwardest, the back-side-forwardest, and the forward- 

 side-backwardest people I have ever seen. Why, they call 

 a compass which points to the north, 'queblen,' or south, 

 just for the sake of contradiction; and they have to change 

 their watches every twenty-four hours, because they count 

 their time from after sunset, instead of reckoning up the day 

 like a Christian." One more striking point of difference, and 

 we have done. The Turks through long ages led a roving, 

 wandering life in the immense plains of northern and cen- 



