u; here are vineyards to cultivate.
Leave the thistle-fields and marshes behind; regret nothing. Come out
of the superstitions of the sheikhs and ulema; of the barren mazes of
the sufis; of the deadly swamps of theolougues and priests: emigrate!
Every one of us should be a Niazi in this moral struggle, an Enver in
this spiritual revolution. A little will-power, a little heroism,
added to those virtues I have named, the solid virtues of our
ancestors, and the Orient will no longer be an object of scorn and
gain to commercial Europe. We shall then stand on an equal footing
with the Europeans. Ay, with the legacy of science which we shall
learn to invest, and with our spirituality divested of its cobwebs,
and purified, we shall stand even higher than the Americans and
Europeans."--

On the following day Damascus was simmering with excitement--Damascus,
the stronghold of the ulema--the learned fanatics--whom Khalid has
lightly pinched. But they scarcely felt it; they could not believe it.
Now, the gentry of Islam, the sheikhs and ulema, would hear this
lack-beard dervish, as he was called. But they disdain to stand with
the rabble in the Midan or congregate with the _Mutafarnejin_
(Europeanised) in the public Halls. Nowhere but at the Mosque,
therefore, can they hear what this Khalid has to say. This was
accordingly decided upon, and, being approved by all parties
concerned,--the Mufti, the Vali, the Deputies of the Holy Society and
the speaker,--a day was set for the great address at the great Mosque
of Omaiyah.

Meanwhile, the blatant Officer, the wheedling Politician, and the
lack-beard Dervish, are feasted by the personages and functionaries of
Damascus. The Vali, the Mufti, Abdallah Pasha,--he who owns more than
two score villages and has more than five thousand braves at his beck
and call,--these, and others of less standing, vie with each other in
honouring the distinguished visitors. And after the banqueting, while
Ahmed Bey retires to a private room with his host to discuss the
political situation, Khalid, to escape the torturing curiosity of the
bores and quidnuncs of the evening, goes out to the open court, and
under an orange tree, around the gurgling fountain, breathes again of
quietude and peace. Nay, breathes deeply of the heavy perfume of the
white jasmines of his country, while musing of the scarlet salvias of
a distant land.

And what if the salvia, as by a miracle, blossoms on the jasmine? What
if th