y
the natural impulse of a man sincere in his own belief; but we must not
forget that these Arabs have bodies as well as souls, and that those
bodies have been so shamefully debased and neglected as to drag the
higher energies down with them; and it is a great question whether it is
not absolutely necessary to begin on the very lowest plane first, and so
to work towards the higher. Through the body and the mind we may at last
reach the highest sphere of all.

Without for one moment wishing to write down the "religious" element, it
is, I repeat, a grave question whether the premature introduction of
that element does not sometimes act as a deterrent, and frustrate the
good that might otherwise be done. Still there is the great fact, good
_is_ being done. It would be idle to carp at any means when the end is
so thoroughly good. I could not help, as I passed from squalid kitchen
to kitchen that Sunday afternoon, feeling Lear's words ring through my
mind:--

O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

And now "Eastward ho!" for "experiences" in Bethnal Green.

CHAPTER II.

EAST LONDON ARABS.

Notwithstanding my previous experiences among the Western tribes of
Bedouins whose locale is the Desert of the Seven Dials, I must confess
to considerable strangeness when first I penetrated the wilderness of
Bethnal Green. Not only was it utterly terra incognita to me, but, with
their manifold features in common, the want and squalor of the East have
traits distinct from those of the West. I had but the name of one
Bethnal Green parish and of one lady--Miss Macpherson--and with these
slender data I proceeded to my work, the results of which I again
chronicle seriatim.

Passing from the Moorgate Street Station I made for the Eastern Counties
Terminus at Shoreditch, and soon after passing it struck off to my right
in the Bethnal Green Road. Here, amid a pervading atmosphere of
bird-fanciers and vendors of live pets in general, I found a Mission
Hall, belonging to I know not what denomination, and, aided by a
vigorous policeman, kicked--in the absence of knocker or bell--at all
the doors, without result. Nobody was there. I went on to the Bethnal
Green parish which had been named to me as the resort of nomade tribes,
and found the incumbent