and ill-treated. He finds the Hejazi, the keepers of
the holy places and privileged ciceroni of the shrines, shrewder as men
of business than devout as believers, and he returns to his home a
sadder and, the Dutch say, a wiser man. I do not affirm that the Dutch
are right; but this is the principle they act on, and they boast of its
success.

We in India, as I have said, in our grand careless way, leave all these
things to chance. India, nevertheless, still holds the first rank in the
Haj, and, all things considered, is now the most important land where
the Mohammedan faith is found. In the day of its greatness the Mogul
Empire was second to no State in Islam, and though its political power
is in abeyance, the religion itself is by no means in decay. India has
probably a closer connection at the present moment with Mecca than any
other country, and it is looked upon by many there as the Mussulman land
of the future. Indeed, it may safely be affirmed that the course of
events in India will determine more than anything else the destiny of
Mohammedanism in the immediate future of this and the next generation.

The Malays, though holding no very high position in the commonwealth of
Islam, are important from their numbers, their commercial prosperity,
and, more than all to an European observer, from the fact that so many
of them are Dutch subjects. Holland, if any lesson for the future can
be learned in history, must in a few years find her fate linked with
that of Germany, and so too her colonies. I will not now enlarge upon
the prospect thus opened, but it is a suggestive one, and worthy of all
possible attention. For the moment the Malays stand rather apart from
other pilgrims at the shrines. They boast no great school of theology or
particular religious complexion; and as pilgrims they are held in rather
low esteem from their penurious ways. But they are a dark element in the
future, which it is equally easy to under as to over rate. Originally
converted by, and to a certain degree descended from, Arabs, they are,
as far as I could learn, followers of the Shafite teaching, and inclined
to the broad rather than the narrow ways of Islam. They number,
according to the Dutch consular agent at Jeddah, thirty million souls,
and are increasing rapidly both in Java and in the other islands of the
Malay archipelago.

Another enigma are the Chinese. I saw a few of them in the streets, and
made inquiries as to them. But I could g