The Lands of the Saracen | Page 6

with which he hastened to the
grate, to renew his vows at two yards' distance from her. In the

meantime, I went down to the Turkish houses, to cultivate the
acquaintance of a singular character I met on board the steamer. He is a
negro of six feet four, dressed in a long scarlet robe. His name is
Mahommed Senoosee, and he is a fakeer, or holy man, from Timbuctoo.
He has been two years absent from home, on a pilgrimage to Mecca
and Medina, and is now on his way to Jerusalem and Damascus. He has
travelled extensively in all parts of Central Africa, from Dar-Fur to
Ashantee, and professes to be on good terms with the Sultans of
Houssa and Bornou. He has even been in the great kingdom of Waday,
which has never been explored by Europeans, and as far south as Iola,
the capital of Adamowa. Of the correctness of his narrations I have not
the least doubt, as they correspond geographically with all that we
know of the interior of Africa. In answer to my question whether a
European might safely make the same tour, he replied that there would
be no difficulty, provided he was accompanied by a native, and he
offered to take me even to Timbuctoo, if I would return with him. He
was very curious to obtain information about America, and made notes
of all that I told him, in the quaint character used by the Mughrebbins,
or Arabs of the West, which has considerable resemblance to the
ancient Cufic. He wishes to join company with me for the journey to
Jerusalem, and perhaps I shall accept him.
_Sunday, April_ 18.
As Quarantine is a sort of limbo, without the pale of civilized society,
we have no church service to-day. We have done the best we could,
however, in sending one of the outside dragomen to purchase a Bible,
in which we succeeded. He brought us a very handsome copy, printed
by the American Bible Society in New York. I tried vainly in Cairo and
Alexandria to find a missionary who would supply my heathenish
destitution of the Sacred Writings; for I had reached the East through
Austria, where they are prohibited, and to travel through Palestine
without them, would be like sailing without pilot or compass. It gives a
most impressive reality to Solomon's "house of the forest of Lebanon,"
when you can look up from the page to those very forests and those
grand mountains, "excellent with the cedars." Seeing the holy man of
Timbuctoo praying with his face towards Mecca, I went down to him,

and we conversed for a long time on religious matters. He is tolerably
well informed, having read the Books of Moses and the Psalms of
David, but, like all Mahommedans, his ideas of religion consist mainly
of forms, and its reward is a sensual paradise. The more intelligent of
the Moslems give a spiritual interpretation to the nature of the Heaven
promised by the Prophet, and I have heard several openly confess their
disbelief in the seventy houries and the palaces of pearl and emerald.
Shekh Mahommed Senoosee scarcely ever utters a sentence in which is
not the word "Allah," and "La illah il' Allah" is repeated at least every
five minutes. Those of his class consider that there is a peculiar merit in
the repetition of the names and attributes of God. They utterly reject the
doctrine of the Trinity, which they believe implies a sort of partnership,
or God-firm (to use their own words), and declare that all who accept it
are hopelessly damned. To deny Mahomet's prophetship would excite a
violent antagonism, and I content myself with making them
acknowledge that God is greater than all Prophets or Apostles, and that
there is but one God for all the human race. I have never yet
encountered that bitter spirit of bigotry which is so frequently ascribed
to them; but on the contrary, fully as great a tolerance as they would
find exhibited towards them by most of the Christian sects.
This morning a paper was sent to us, on which we were requested to
write our names, ages, professions, and places of nativity. We
conjectured that we were subjected to the suspicion of political as well
as physical taint, but happily this was not the case. I registered myself
as a voyageur, the French as negocians and when it came to the
woman's turn, Absalom, who is a partisan of female progress, wished to
give her the same profession as her husband--a machinist. But she
declared that her only profession was that of a "married woman," and
she was so inscribed. Her peevish boy rejoiced in the title of
"pleuricheur," or "weeper," and the infant as "titeuse," or "sucker."
While this was