k, when it is cold, negligently but gracefully
thrown across the shoulders, or a blue-green prayer-carpet folded
beneath the arm, helps to set off the whole.

_Chez lui_ our friend of the flowing garments is a king, with slaves
to wait upon him, wives to obey him, and servants to fear his wrath.
But his everyday reception-room is the lobby of his stables, where he
sits behind the door in rather shabby garments attending to business
matters, unless he is a merchant or shopkeeper, when his store serves
as office instead.

If all that the Teuton considers essential to home-life is really a
_sine qua non_, then Orientals have no home-life. That is our way
of looking upon it, judging in the most natural way, by our own
standards. The Eastern, from his point of view, forms an equally poor
idea of the customs which familiarity has rendered most dear to us.
It is as difficult for us to set aside prejudice and to consider his
systems impartially, as for him to do so with regard to our peculiar
style. There are but two criteria by which the various forms of
civilization so far developed by man may be fairly judged. The first
is the suitability of any given form to the surroundings and exterior
conditions of life of the nation adopting it, and the second is the
moral or social effect on the community at large.

Under the first head the unbiassed student of mankind will approve in
the main of most systems adopted by peoples who have attained that
artificiality which we call civilization. An exchange among Westerners
of their time-honoured habits for those of the East would not be less
beneficial or more incongruous than a corresponding exchange on the
part of orientals. Those who are ignorant of life towards the sunrise
commonly suppose that they can confer no greater benefit upon the
natives of these climes than chairs, top-hats, and so on. Hardly could
they be more mistaken. The Easterner despises the man who cannot eat
his dinner without a fork or other implement, and who cannot tuck his
legs beneath him, infinitely more than ill-informed Westerners despise
petticoated men and shrouded women. Under the second head, however,
a very different issue is reached, and one which involves not only
social, but religious life, and consequently the creed on which this
last is based. It is in this that Moorish civilization fails.

* * * * *

But list! what is that weird, low sound which strikes upon our e