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condemning to death their female offspring, as useless for the purposes 

 of war. And here it may not be extraneous to make some mention 

 of a relioion whose dictates have caused so extraordinary a separa- 

 tion in society between the two sexes; an institution the more 

 singular, as arising from the lucubrations of a man whose devotion 

 to the sex placed the eternal happiness of the Faithful in the per- 

 petual enjoyment of bliss in the arms of celestial beauties; who, 

 like their mortal sisters, are equally condemned to retirement in the 

 next world; where Mahomed represents the charming black-eyed 

 girls of Paradise to be created of pure musk, and possessing the most 

 rigid sentiments of modesty, as secluded from the rest of the heavenly 

 host in sacred groves, or enshrined in pavilions of hollow pearl of vast 

 extent. Though this indeed particularly alludes to the Hur Al 

 Ai/iih, or Llouree, an immortal race created for the solace of true 

 believers; yet to prove, with many other passages of the Koran, 

 that women have not been banished these celestial abodes, the 

 Faithful are permitted to send for their former loves; who, clothed 

 in robes of heavenly texture, and crowned with resplendent pearls, 

 will wander in the fragrant bowers of Paradise, enjoying the un- 

 fading bloom of eternal youth. But, to descend from the extatic 

 raptures of the amorous prophet to his earthly institutions, we may, 

 in the Mahomedan mode of life, partly trace the views of its 

 ambitious founder. Designing his disciples for the founders of a 

 new and splendid empire, he wished the whole energy of the 

 human soul to be collected in that one great design; and that, 

 inspired with enthusiasm, his followers might, without interruption, 

 pursue a steady course in the arduous and dangerous paths of 

 politics and war. Yet the strong impulse of nature warned the 



