282 KORAN LAW. 



La ilah ilia Allah : Muhammed Rasul Allah. 

 Allahn Akbaru. Allahu Akbar. 



Such towns as these may be less interesting to the 

 traveller than the pagan villages; he finds them merely 

 a secondhand copy of Eastern life. But though they are 

 not so picturesque, their inhabitants are happier and 

 better men. Violent and dishonest deeds are no longer 

 arranged by pecuniary compensation. Husbands can 

 no longer set wife-traps for their friends ; adultery is 

 treated as a criminal offence, Men can no longer 

 squander away their relations at the gaming table, and 

 stake their owmbodies on a throw. Men can no longer 

 be tempted to vice and crime under the influence of 

 palm wine. Women can no longer be married by a 

 great chief in herds, and treated like beasts of burden 

 and like slaves. Each wife has an equal part of her 

 husband's love by law ; it is not permitted to forsake 

 and degrade the old wife for the sake of the young. 

 Each wife has her own house, and the husband may 

 not enter until he has knocked at the door and re- 

 ceived the answer, Bismillah, in the name of God. 

 Every boy is taught to read and write in Arabic, which 

 is the religious and official language in Soudan, as 

 Latin was in Europe, in the middle ages ; they also write 

 their own language with the Arabic character, as we 

 write ours with the Roman letters. In such countries, 

 the policy of isolation is at an end; they are open to 

 all the Moslems in the world, and are thus connected 

 with the lands of the East. Here there is a remark- 

 able change, and one that deserves a place in history. 

 It is a movement the more interesting, since it is still 

 actively going on. The Mahometan religion has al- 

 ready overspread a region of Negroland as large as 

 Europe. It is firmly established not only in the 



