s of European
merchants, we were swiftly impressed with the fact that civilization, in
following the sun westward, loses its grace in proportion as it
advances. The gentle dignity, the serene patience, the soft, fraternal,
affectionate demeanor of our Asiatic brethren vanished utterly when we
encountered French and German salesmen; and yet these latter would have
seemed gracious and courteous, had there been a few Yankee dealers
beyond them. The fourth or fifth century, which still exists in Central
Asia, was undoubtedly, in this particular, superior to the nineteenth.
No gentleman, since his time, I suspect, has equalled Adam.

Among these Asiatics Mr. Buckle would have some difficulty in
maintaining his favorite postulate, that tolerance is the result of
progressive intelligence. It is also the result of courtesy, as we may
occasionally see in well-bred persons of limited intellect. Such,
undoubtedly, is the basis of that tolerance which no one who has had
much personal intercourse with the Semitic races can have failed to
experience. The days of the sword and fagot are past; but it was
reserved for Christians to employ them in the name of religion _alone_.
Local or political jealousies are at the bottom of those troubles which
still occur from time to time in Turkey: the traveller hears no
insulting epithet, and the green-turbaned Imam will receive him as
kindly and courteously as the sceptical Bey educated in Paris. I have
never been so aggressively assailed, on religious grounds, as at
home,--never so coarsely and insultingly treated, on account of a
_presumed_ difference of opinion, as by those who claim descent from the
Cavaliers. The bitter fierceness of some of our leading reformers is
overlooked by their followers, because it springs from "earnest
conviction"; but in the Orient intensest faith coexists with the most
gracious and gentle manners.

Be not impatient, beloved reader; for this digression brings me
naturally to the next thing we saw at Novgorod. As we issued from the
bazaar, the sunlit minaret greeted us through whirling dust and rising
vapor, and I fancied I could hear the muezzin's musical cry. It was
about time for the _asser_ prayer. Droshkies were found, and we rode
slowly through the long, low warehouses of "caravan tea" and Mongolian
wool to the mound near the Tartar encampment. The mosque was a plain,
white, octagonal building, conspicuous only through its position. The
turbaned faithful we