The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-06-20
THE GREAT EMIR.


Add -Kader at Damascus.
Constantinople Correspondence London News.
1t was at Damascus in 1880. Clad IN a
plain white robe, frightened round the waist
by a broad sash, and with a black cloak
thrown lightly over his shoulders, he looked
every inch the prince he was. Though then
| seventythree years old, his bearing was erect
and martial, his step elastic, and from be-
meath the thick folds of his huge turban
glittered pair of eyes clear and bright as
| young girls, the youthful effect being height
ened by a beard of jetty hue dyed so cum
ningly as to battle detection in the half light
| produced by the jealous exclusion OF a burn
| ing noontide sun. There was something very
touching in the old Emir's simple state A
single slave waited his commands, the large
room had no furniture beyond the usual
hard divans running round it and some
small wooden tables scattered about; even
the Persian rugs having mad, for the sake of
GOODNESS, to make way for mating laid in
narrow strips over the marble floor in the
center of which dubbed a tiny fountain
of purest water.
He received us with winning courtesy,
pressing rather than shaking our hands, and
persistently standing until we were seated.
My dragoman pro tenn. was Syrian, whom
the Emir had rescued twenty years before
from the knives OF the mob. He was not
the only Christian thus snatched by the
Abd-el-Kader out of the Jaws of DEATH
stood open to fugtives and, once across his
threshold the hated giaour had reached a
sanctuary which the most reckless ruffian
dared not violate. Never, indeed, did Arab
warrior more nobly vindicate the proud
desert boast Abd-el-Kader strained his in
1uence to the extent of endangering his own
person in the attempt to suppress the out
break. Had he been in Ahmet Pasha's
place the butchery would probably
have been avoided, for in the beginning
the rioters were composed of the lowest
scum of the populace, keener on plumber
than bloodshed, and it is notorious that the
worst crimes were not committed till the in
activity of the authorities apparently lent
countenance to the doings of the extreme ia
natics.
From the tragic scenes of that awful pc
riod our talk rolled away to the distant AT
rican shore, and it was easy to see that the
old mans heart still chung tightly to his
| fatherland. But he uttered no complaint
France had beaten him with sword and lance
| in the open field and when the battle was
won had behaved generously to her captive
| Kismet. He bowed i'll perfect resignation to
the will of Allah. A true Mussulman
| indeed was Abd-el-Kader No stricter OBJ
server of the precepts of the Koran
ever lived. l had been warned on pre-
| vious occasions by his son what to
expect or l should have felt surprised that
the customary coffee and sweets we're not fol-
| lowed by bubbling narghilehs. But the Emir
did not smoke; he held it forbidden; his chill.
dren were afraid to light chbouk within
the walls of his palace and even the honored
guest had to abstain. In Abd-el-Kader the
poor of Damascus have lost kind friend.
His charity reached far and wide, and he
gave in silence-in a spirit of thankfulness
that he had been chosen as the steward of
Gods bounty. Sixty thousand persons, it is
SAID, followed him to the grave, and among
that vast crowd there must have moved
many bowed down by the greatful grief at
the remembrance of how calamity the dead
Emir had stood by the flying Christians
when the cutters of Damascus ran with the
blood of til cir kiih and kin