ropean women, either residents or travellers, pass through the
Moslem quarter of these cities of Syria and Palestine, with faces
unveiled, they are made the theme of the most outrageous and insulting
comments by the Moslem populace. Well is it for the feelings of the most
of these worthy Christian women, that they do not understand the Arabic
language. The Turkish governor of Tripoli was obliged to suppress the
insulting epithets of the Moslems towards European ladies when they
first began to reside there, by the infliction of the bastinado.

In 1857, the Rev. Mr. Lyons in Tripoli, hired Sheikh Owad, a Moslem
bigot, to teach him the Arabic grammar. He was a conceited boor; well
versed in Arabic grammar, but more ignorant of geography, arithmetic and
good breeding than a child. One day Mrs. Lyons passed through the room
where he was teaching Mr. L. and he turned his head away from her and
spat towards her with a look of unutterable contempt. It was the last
time he did it, and he has now become so civilized that he can say good
morning to the wife of a missionary, and even consent to teach the
sacred, pure and undefiled Arabic to a woman! I believe that he has not
yet given his assent to the fact that the earth revolves on its axis,
but he has learned that there are women in the world who know more than
Sheikh Owad.

In ancient times Moslem women were occasionally taught to read the
Koran, and among the wealthier and more aristocratic classes, married
women are now sometimes taught to read, but the mass of the Moslem men
are bitterly opposed to the instruction of women. When a man decides to
have his wife taught to read, the usual plan is to hire a blind
Mohammedan Sheikh, who knows the Koran by heart. He sits at one side of
the room, and she at the other, some elderly woman, either her mother or
her mother-in-law, being present. The blind Sheikhs have remarkable
memories and sharp ears, and can detect the slightest error in
pronunciation or rendering, so they are employed in the most of the
Moslem-schools. The mass of the Mohammedans are nervously afraid of
entrusting the knowledge of reading and writing to their wives and
daughters, lest they abuse it by writing clandestine letters to improper
persons. "Teach a _girl_ to read and write!" said a Mohammedan Mufti in
Tripoli to me, "Why, she will _write letters_, sir,--yes, _actually
write letters_! the thing is not to be thought of for a moment." I
replied, "Effendum, y