The record-union., 1893-02-04
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright. 1881

i've, mosque OF Slu1 ADu-el-f fSndIildu
which stands above the Garden of Ma
rengo and overlooks the sea. Its sur
roundings are charming, and within its
little cemetery are eucalyptus, mulberry
and fig trees shading the quaint old
tombs. The inner chapel is a sort of
shrine from being the burial place of
numbers of Moslem saints, Pashas and
Deys, and a wondrous number Of sacred
relics, emblems and carvings, with lamps,
ostrich eggs, embroideries, grotesquely
decorate the columns, walls and hang
from the ceilings. More than million
francs have been expended on such gifts
and tokens.
1t is IN this little mosque that one will
see so many Arab women. The glitter
ing silk haiks hide their faces, but there
Is a constant atmosphere of perfume, an
endless tinkle of concealed and half-con-
cealed Jewelry, continuous murmur of
musical voices in prayer, and a ceaseless
rustic OF women's attire as they come, go
or PROSTATE themselves in their devo-
tIOns. The latter are certainly solemn
and impressive, whether down among the
old Usher folk, at the Grand Mosque with
the Malekl rite, or here where the wealth.
Ter Arab men and women come clad in
the richest textures OF the Orient and
laden often with jewels which would pur-
chase Kings ransom.
Ihe Moslem must pray five times each
uay. Every act OF prayer begins with
these words from the Koran: Praise
be TO God, the Lord OF all creatures, the
most merciful, the Lord of the day of
Judgment. Thee do we worship. We
lmplore Thy aid. Direct us in the right
way This, and other passages are re-
peated, led by the thalib sacred scholar
and an old man, in the nature of responses.
he faces of all are toward the east, their
Mecca. At each mention of the name of
God every worshiper prostrates himself
so that seven parts of the body-the head
hands, knees and feet-touch the sacred
carpet together.
The booksellers of Scotland, and par
tlcularly the secondhand bookseller deaf
ing IN curious and valuable works. OF
Wnom there are very many in Edinburgh
and Glasgow, do not entertain a very
kindly feeling for the memory of the late
Lord Iennyson. They cite many little
unpleasant characteristics of the laureate
as man, but their particular reason for
unIrlendIlneSS lies in the fact that, as
they insist, he was even more of shy
lock than Ruskin in all his relations with
booksellers, and that not many years
since he nearly caused the ruin Of one of
their number, Robert Forester, book
seller of the Royal Exchange, st. Georges
Square, Glasgow.
y stranger one day sduntered into Mr..
torreSter's shop meanly clad grizZled
and unkempt and betraying all the or
dlnary marks of a seedy customer be-
meath frousled slouch hat He was very
anxious, he said, to get cheap copy of
two of Tennyson's poems as gifts to poor
folk who were not able TO purchase them.
lie was shown several copies of The cheap
est copyright English editions, but these
we're lar too dear. Hadn't Mir. Forester
something within his means, perhaps one
OF those cheap American reprints? Oh,
yes, he had two copies, left by some fam
lily returning from America, but it was
illegal to sell them. That would not mat
ter IN so good a cause. The grizZled
stranger pressed the purchase and finally
secured the two copies tor four shillings.
lie was none other than Lord Tennyson
himself, and, through the unmanly ar
tiiice, he succeeded in mulcting Mr.. For
rester to the extent of $3.50!
Everybody in the United States knows,
or knows about, brave and good old Rob
ert Colyer, who, though for a quarter
century one OF our greatest of preachers
works in his study beside the very anvil
on which his prentice days were passed
before he became a full-dedged York
shire blacksmith. His master was "Owd
Jackie Birch, the village smith of quaint
OLD Likely IN W marketable.
When you stand by it's ancient church
of Ali Saints, and looks in upon its messy
graves and the Runic crosses, your hands
will grasp the bars of its huge iron gates.
They were forged on "Owd Jackie's'' an
vii by this same stout-hearted York
shire Blacksmith And somehow as one
turns away from 1lkley, the feeling comes
strongly that there was wrought into
these rods and bars a hero-grit more i'm
pressive and imperishable than is re-
Vealed in all other monuments or tokens
left in Wharfedale, since the days when
the Romans trod these pleasant ways.
There is an old Guatrain among the
Irish peasantry, the origin of which. for
the spirit of insistive prophecy it contains.
might fairly be attributed to the provi-
dent genius of one of the characters to
which il refers:
While Ireland is ould Ireland
You'll have foreVermore
The bocough and the corrag
Beside the cabin door.
The bocough was the wandering min
strel and story-teller of Ireland, He had
keen scent for every spot where genialitv
and generosity fourished, but poverty.
oppression and sorrow have long ago
Withdrawn the scant cheer that once gave
him phce.
The bocough is gone. But the other
one, the corrag, who requires no raiment.
food or housing, remains within the shad-
ow of the Irish cabin door. Throughout
Connamara, and particularly in a former
tramp down from the Ballindoon district
to Cloghmore and the sea, saw one of
these silent, dried up old fellows trem-
bling in the wind by the door of every
hut or cabin passed.
To my fancy each one took on 4 sens-
rate individuality and seeming. This one
stood there defiant as if repellant of your
Tnot haH q
10 intimate that a fine, ''right,' black
thorn was concealed about his person.
Another seemed decrepit and weary from
silent vigil out there in the bitter mount
ain wind Another was bent and leaning
as though it could stand there no longer
Another seemed to beckon the passer to
enter, or to hint with weary gesture that
you keep upon your way. And many,
very many, stood bowed and sadly atten-
tive as if listening in reverent solemnity
to endless tales of want and woe that come
in hopeless tones from the half-starved
souls within.
The corrag is but a tall bundle of limbs
or oisers, set before the door to break the
hurt of the savage mountain blasts, ''the
ould man of the branches" the peasants
call it, but one sometimes feels that this
lnsensate typified protector of the Irish
cabin was the only object in guise of hu
man that ever got thus near the man-neg-
lected, God-forsaken peasantry of this
pltifuIly conditioned land.
To my mind a scene in early morning
on Grand Canal in Venice, is far more in
teresting than one in the early evening
when the faded arTStocracy of the city are
moving about with apparent listlessness
in their private black gondolas, decorated
with their owners coats -of-arns, pro-
pelled by private gondoliers in ridiculous
llEPrlQS. at MONT Whom hn in