of the people were amusing themselves in the beautiful lawns and shady groves without the city. The men were all remotely apart from the other sex. The women in groups were diverting themselves and their children with swings. They were so handsome that they could not keep up their yashmaks; I believed that they had never before looked upon a man in the European dress, and when they now saw in me that strange phenomenon, and saw, too, how they could please the creature by showing him a glimpse of beauty, they seemed to think it more pleasant to do this than to go on playing with swings. It was always, however, with a sort of zoological expression of countenance that they looked on the horrible. monster from Europe; and whenever one of them gave me to see for one sweet instant the blushing of her unveiled face, it was with the same kind of air as that with which a young timid girl will edge her way up to an elephant, and tremblingly give him a nut from the tips of her rosy fingers.

CHAPTER XXV.

MARIAM.

THERE is no spirit of propagandism in the Mussulmans of the Ottoman dominions. True it is that a prisoner of war, or a Christian condemned to death, may on some occasions save his life by adopting the religion of Mahomet, but instances of this kind are now exceedingly rare, and are quite at variance with the general system. Many Europeans, I think, would be surprised to learn that which is nevertheless quite true, namely, that an attempt to disturb the religious repose of the empire by the conversion of a Christian to the Mahometan faith is positively illegal. The event which now I am going to mention shows plainly enough that the unlawfulness of such interference is distinctly recognised even in one of the most bigoted strongholds of Islam.

During my stay at Nablous I took up my quarters at the house of the Greek "Papa," as he is called—that is, the Greek priest. The priest

himself had gone to Jerusalem upon the business I am going to tell you of, but his wife remained at Nablous, and did the honours of her home.

Soon after my arrival, a deputation from the Greek Christians of the place came to request my interference in a matter which had occasioned vast excitement.

And now I must tell you how it came to happen, as it did continually, that people thought it worth while to claim the assistance of a mere traveller, who was totally devoid of all just pretensions to authority or influence of even the humblest description; and especially I must explain to you how it was that the power thus attributed did really in some measure belong to me, or rather to my dragoman. Successive political convulsions had at length fairly loosed the people of Syria from their former rules of conduct, and from all their old habits of reliance. Mehemet Ali's success in crushing the insurrection of the Mahometan population had utterly beaten down the head of Islam, and extinguished, for the time at least, those virtues and vices which spring from the Mahometan faith. Success so complete as Mehemet Ali's, if it had been attained by an ordinary Asiatic potentate, would have induced a notion of stability. The readily bowing mind of the oriental would have bowed low and long under the feet of a conqueror whom God had thus strengthened.

But Syria was no field for contests strictly Asiatic -Europe was involved; and though the heavy masses of Egyptian troops, clinging with strong gripe to the land, might seem to hold it fast, yet every peasant practically felt and knew that in Vienna, or Petersburg, or London, there were four or five pale-looking men who could pull down the star of the Pasha with shreds of paper and ink. The people of the country knew, too, that Mehemet Ali was strong with the strength of the Europeans, -strong by his French general, his French tactics, and his English engines. Moreover, they saw that the person, the property, and even the dignity of the humblest European was guarded with the most careful solicitude. The consequence of all this was, that the people of Syria looked vaguely but confidently to Europe for fresh changes: many would fix upon some nation, France or England, and steadfastly regard it as the arriving sovereign of Syria. Those whose minds remained in doubt equally contributed to this new state of public opinion—a state of opinion no longer depending upon religion and ancient habits, but upon bare hopes and fears. Every man wanted to know,— not who was his neighbour, but who was to be his ruler; whose feet he was to kiss, and by whom his feet were to be ultimately beaten. Treat your friend, says the proverb, as though he were one day to become your enemy, and your enemy as though

The

he were one day to become your friend. Syrians went further, and seemed inclined to treat every stranger as though he might one day become their Pasha. Such was the state of circumstances and of feeling which now for the first time had thoroughly opened the mind of Western Asia for the reception of Europeans and European ideas. The credit of the English especially was so great that a good Mussulman flying from the conscription or any other persecution, would come to seek from the formerly despised hat that protection which the turban could no longer afford; and a man high in authority (as for instance the governor in command of Gaza) would think that he had won a prize, or at all events a valuable lotteryticket, if he obtained a written approval of his conduct from a simple traveller.

Still, in order that any immediate result should follow from all this unwonted readiness in the Asiatic to succumb to the European, it was necessary that some one should be at hand who could see and would push the advantage. I myself had neither the inclination nor the power to do so; but it happened that Dthemetri, who, as my dragoman, represented me on all occasions, was the very person of all others best fitted to avail himself with success of this yielding tendency in the oriental mind. If the chance of birth and fortune had made poor Dthemetri a tailor during some