those of all conditions making it their sole business to get money by any means, and then to squander it away, when they had got it, in luxury and debauchery." to the position which Christ had held in the popular mind for three centuries. Taking Judaism for his text and the groundwork of his mythology, he borrowed largely from the New Testament, from the Zenda-a-Visla, and the practices of his own tribe, and compiled the Korana work of not much literary merit, but, as far as its consequences were concerned, one of the most wonderful ever published. But destiny favored Mohammed. Arabia, of all countries in the world, was then the most susceptible of a religious revo If we add to this moral depression the political weakness of Christendom, we shall be still less at a loss to account for the extraordinary spread of a new and, in discipline, more virile belief. By Mohammed's time, the western half of the empire was overrun by the Goths, and the eastern so reduced by the Huns on the one side and the Persians on the other, that there was no power existing capable of resist-lution. It was the asylum for the dising a powerful invasion. The very vitals of the Christian world were in a state of decay-so that the period in every aspect was favorable to an enterprise of a novel and daring character. Absolute paganism and the worship of the Virgin Mary and a host of saints were so much alike, that the popular mind was reduced to intellectual stagnation-it had not a prop on which to rest its bewildered head. At this crisis, Mohammed, at the mature age of forty, stepped into the agitated arena, with the bold project of uniting the jarring creeds of Jew, Christian, and Magian in a new religion, adapted to the clime and the people. The world was prepared for a wonder, and it greedily received the latest. We cannot follow this prophet throughout his marvelous career; but this much we can confidently say—that, having a willing soil ready prepared for the exertions of his industry, no man in a similar vocation ever went to work more cautiously or skillfully. Like Zoroaster, he first converted his own kinsfolk and neighbors, and then gradually enlarged the sphere of his missionary labors, until he was received by a multitude as one upon whose shoulders the mantle of true inspiration had fallen. Mohammed, having been bred a Pagan, was early initiated in the mysteries of the Christian faith, and had he not been ambitious—or, what is equally as likely, not had any faith in the divinity of his mission-he would probably have been the Luther of his age. Had he been so, the Christian development would undoubtedly have been accelerated a thousand years; but he was not-his temperament and spiritual idiosyncrasy rather inclined him to consult his individual gratification; and, accordingly, he framed a doctrine which, in the course of a few years, advanced him VOL. VII.-2 affected and persecuted of all the eastern nations. Romanist and Greek fled to it for shelter-all the Christians that dwelt in it were, in fact, Jacobites or Nestorians; they were the proscribed of the two great divisions of the Christian Church; and, living in harmony with the worshipers of idols and the stars, can it be wondered that their preachings had created such a ferment in the public mind, that it was ready to receive the latest and newest impression? In such a fertile soil Mohammedanism speedily took deep root, and, under the caliphs, penetrated with extraordinary celerity into Persia, India, and Tartary; and, inviting hordes of barbarous tribes-the Seljukian Turks among the number-to conquests in regions westward of their flat pasturage and huntinggrounds, led to the subjugation of the whole of the eastern Roman empire, and the annihilation of its Church as a secular establishment. The intermediate doctrine flourished amazingly, brandished the sword in one hand and salvation in the other, and would have subjugated the three continents, had it not been for the personal ambition of its princes, and the conversion to Christianity of those warlike northern barbarians who infused valor into the veins of degenerate Europe, and, with a resolution that laughed at destiny—as interpreted by fatalists-courted danger as a bride, imparted to the trembling fragments of Christendom that unity, consistency, and courage which ultimately beat back the common enemy, and gave to the new and improved condition they created that intelligence and largeness of purpose which soon elevated the cross far above the paler rays of the crescent. In fact, their natural antagonism was adjusted by the growth of new circumstances, and Mo hammedanism may now be said to be in some of its last throes. Its services are no longer required-hence the violence of the current which has set in against it. But whether the waning crescent is to be extinguished in the human sky in this generation or another, its beginning was auspicious, and a number of conflicting elements liberally contributed to its tremendous success. Not the least of these were the peculiar characteristics of Arabia. A spurious Christianity was ingrafted on the Sabian idolatry. The majority of the people, however, followed the latter belief. They adored "the host of heaven," and practiced the worship of images. Their idols, it must be said, were all representatives of men of great piety and merit. They had seven temples dedicated to the seven planets. One of these was the Temple of Mecca, which was consecrated to Zohal, or Saturn. This statue was a profane divination. Our illustration shows the Kaaba, covered with black cloth. The temple known to all true Mussulmans under the name of El Haram-the Holy Place-is situated nearly in the middle of the city, which is built in a narrow valley, having a considerable slope from north to south. In order to form a level area for the great court of the temple, the ground has evidently been hollowed out, subsequently to the erection of the Kaaba, which is the only ancient edifice in the temple: so that, on entering it in any direction, you descend several steps; and the oval surface, paved with marble, that immediately surrounds the Kaaba, upon which the pilgrims perform their rounds, is the lowest part. The great court forms a parallelogram of about five hundred and thirty-six feet by three hundred and fifty-six, surrounded with a double piazza; the fronts of the two longer sides presenting thirty-six, and the two shorter sides twenty-four arches, slightly pointed, supported by columns of grayish marble, of different proportions. Each This celebrated temple-of which, in its Mohammedan guise, we give a faithful view-is said to have contained three hundred and sixty idols, equaling in number the days of the Arabic year. Its antiquity ascends beyond the Christian era. It is mentioned as the Kaaba, or the Temple of the Black Stone, by Diodorus Siculus. The linen or silken vail, which is annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a king of the Hamy-side is composed of two naves, formed by arites seven hundred years before the time of Mohammed. Of this superstition-of which this temple was the repository the prophet largely availed himself; for the same rites which are to this day accomplished by the faithful Mussulman, were invented and practiced by the Sabian idolators. At an awful distance they cast away their garments. Seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the Kaaba, and kissed the Black Stone; seven times they visited and adored the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley of Minna; and the pilgrimage was achieved by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair and nails in the consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or introduced in the Kaaba their domestic worship. The temple was adorned with three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most conspicuous was the statue of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hands seven birds without heads or feathers—the instruments and symbols of a triple row of arches-so that there may be counted more than five hundred columns and pilasters. Instead of a column, between every fourth arch there is an octangular pilaster of hewn stone, about three feet in diameter. The capitals of the columns which front the court are very fine, although they do not belong to either of the five orders of architecture; but the capitals of the interior columns are stated to be all of either the Corinthian or the Composite: some are exquisitely carved. The pedestals are of various form and proportion: some have, by an extravagant whim of the architect, a Corinthian capital reversed. The arches that front the court are all crowned with little conical cupolas: the interior ones have low, spherical vaults. The four fronts are also surmounted with stone ornaments, very much resembling fleurs-de-lis. All the galleries, as well as the paths crossing the area to the Kaaba, are paved with hewn stones of quartz rock, of which also the walls of the temple are built. Like the Mosque of Omar, at Jerusalem, El Haram is partially surrounded with houses, which join the walls so that it presents no external front; and some of the houses have windows that overlook the interior. The eastern angle of the temple is rounded off, to conform to the line of the principal street-so that the gallery is narrowed at that angle, hardly allowing space enough to pass between the wall and the column. In the southeastern gallery there is, for a short distance, a fourth row of arches. The temple has seven minarets, nineteen gates, with thirty-eight arches. The greatest curiosity, and the only part which lays claim to high antiquity, is the Kaaba itself-otherwise called Beit Allah-the House of God. It is a quadrilateral tower, the sides and angles of which are unequal—so that its plan forms a true trapezium. The size of the edifice, and the black cloth which covers it, make this irregularity disappear, and give it the figure of a perfect square. It is built of square-hewn but unpolished stones of quartz, schorl, and mica, brought from the neighboring mountains. Its height is thirty-four feet four inches, and the sides vary from twenty-nine to thirty-eight feet in length. The black stone is built or "incrusted" in the angle formed by the north-east and south-east sides, and is believed to face exactly the east. It is raised forty-two inches above 'the pavement, and is bordered all round with a large plate of silver, about a foot broad. This miraculous block, which they call Hhajera el Assouad-the heavenly stone is believed by all true Moslems to have been originally a transparent jacinth presented to Abraham by the angel Gabriel, who brought it from heaven; but, being touched by an impure woman, it became black and opaque. It is, in fact, a fragment of volcanic basalt, sprinkled throughout its circumference with small, pointed, colored crystals, and varied with red feldspath upon a dark-black ground like coal, except one of its protuberances, which is a little reddish. The continual kisses of the faithful have worn the surface uneven-so that it has now a muscular appearance, with one deep hollow. We need scarcely allude to the Arabic tradition that this stone fell from heaven. That it is of volcanic origin is undoubted, but whether shot or transported by human agency from the neighborhood of Vesu vius or Etna, we leave it to all unbelievers in the supernatural to determine. Mohammed, having founded a religion, and provided it with temples taken from the Pagans and the Christians, refrained with scrupulous exactness from interfering with the domestic habits of the people whom he had converted to his doctrines. In early life he had been a strict monogamist; for, while his first wife-the kind widow who had befriended him in his poverty-lived, all accounts concur in stating that his marital fidelity to her was unimpeachable; but no sooner had she cast off this mortal coil, than he conformed to ancient usages as regards marriage, which had prevailed all over the East. He became a polygamist, and by giving his sanction to polygamy, riveted still further the bonds which held woman in subjection to man. The jealousy of the Persians that their females be not seen by any but their legitimate lords, is remarkably strong. The observance of this custom among the ancients of the East is first instanced in Rebecca covering herself with a vail at the approach of her affianced lord. The females themselves are equally jealous of being seen-as in the times of "Vashti, the queen, who refused to come at the king's commandment to show the people and the princes her beauty." The observance of this custom is thus enforced in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Koran : "And speak unto the believing women, that they restrain their eyes, and preserve their modesty, and discover not their ornaments, except what necesarily appeareth thereof; and let them throw their vails over their bosoms, and not show their ornaments, unless to their husbands," &c. They imagine it perfect pollution to the female for any strange man's eyes to light | upon her. In Turkey this oriental jealousy blazes with quite as much fury. The women have a little more liberty than in Persia: they are allowed to visit the bazaars and make purchases-but they must be closely vailed. When they walk, they patter about in yellow Morocco boots and slippers. Many of the Constantinople ladies wear Wellington boots! and about the head and faces the never-failing white yastmuth. In this horrible disguise they look like ghosts flitting about in bandages. But the Koran enjoins it. IN THE DEAD SEA. N our last we passed in our route around the Dead Sea to the Mount of Usdum, or Sodom. The position of the Mountain of Sodom will be seen indicated on the map. The shore, here composed of loose sand and dangerous pits, is about one thousand feet in breadth. Here also are small pools of water, constituting real salt wells, and producing a perfectly crystallized salt of the most dazzling whiteness. Bedouins are employed disposing of this salt in heaps, preparatory to conveying it away for sale. On the northern declivities of the Salt Mountain, and on the plain contiguous to it, we meet with huge masses of ruins. among which can be distinguished the foundations of very ancient structures. They cover a space of twelve hundred feet in extent. On the northern face of the mountain especially there are vast excrescences, or projecting hillocks. Many of these present an extensive surface, on which disjointed accumulations appear, "exhibiting infallible evidence of the existence, on this point, of a very considerable town." Other huge fragments of primeval habitations are scattered about in the neighborhood, bearing every stamp of high antiquity upon them. In the eastern face of the Salt Mountain is the entrance to a cavern, which is said by our guides to penetrate to the opposite side, and to be a refuge for robbers, who here waylay and plunder solitary travelers. Owing to the late rains, we find the entrance nearly blocked up by huge masses of salt, which have been thus detached from above. Some of the more enterprising of our party resolving to explore the interior, we light our torches, and enter the crystalline grotto-not, however, without some dread, inspired by the apprehension that we may encounter a band of freebooters in their own rocky fastness. We timidly advance until the cavern resolves itself into a small irregular gallery or fissure, with a murmuring water-course at the bottom, which at some seasons probably resounds with the hoarse roar of a torrent. Having penetrated to the very heart of the mountain without making any particular discovery, we are glad to return to daylight and the company of our anxious friends. our visit, the waters of the lake did not indeed wash the base of the mountain, though they appear to do so on some occasions; but the rains of winter, and the streamlets which we still found running to the sea, would naturally carry into it, in the course of ages, a sufficiency of salt to produce most of the phenomena. The position of this mountain enables us to ascertain the place of the Valley of Salt, mentioned in Scripture, where the Hebrews, under David, and again under Amaziah, gained decisive victories over Edom. This valley could well have been no other than the Ghor, south of the Dead Sea, adjacent to the Mountain of Salt; it separates indeed the ancient territories of Judah and Edom. Somewhere in the neighborhood lay probably, also, the city of Salt, enumerated along with Engedi, as in the desert of Judah." Having thus identified this strange lo The general aspect of this mountain is very singular. It consists of a solid mass.cality with interesting Biblical events, we of rock-salt, and towers to an average height of about two hundred feet. It is in most parts coated with a stratum of clay, of a dingy white hue, though some of the upper layers are tinged with green and red. Through this covering, however, the pure rock crystal often breaks in precipitous columns, giving a fantastic appearance to the mountain. The whole hill-side abounds with fissures and furrows, produced by the action of the rains, and is continually undergoing a change of aspect. Through the six miles of coast at its foot, the ground is strewn with masses and lumps of all sizes and shapes, that have, at different times, been detached by climatic influences. The existence of so remarkable a mountain in this region, and conterminous with the chief city of the Pentapolis, sends some of our explorers--in the absence of any Murray's hand-book-to the works of earlier travelers, which they have wisely brought with them, for information on this curious phenomenon. One of them, accordingly, seated on a block of prostrate rock-salt, having found some appropriate remarks in Dr. Robinson's work, reads to the group that gathers around him the following passage:-"The existence here of this immense mass of fossil salt, which, according to the latest geological views, is a frequent accompaniment of volcanic action, accounts sufficiently for the excessive saltness of the Dead Sea. At the time of are again on our way, eagerly searching for the remarkable pillar seen by Lieut. Lynch, and which some recent writers have understood him to represent as being the monumental effigy of Lot's wife. An ancient tradition of the kind prevailed in the time of Josephus, who declares that he had seen the pillar into which the disobedient woman had been changed. Other early writers also mention the same circumstance, and Reyland even goes so far as to assert, that as fast as any part of this pillar was washed away, it was supernaturally renewed. Among the superstitious Bedouins, the pillar seen by the American expeditionists is regarded as the “ monument of an unbelieving soul." But the position and dimensions of this cylindrical rock are fatal to the hypothesis of its being the pillar into which the mistrustful woman was transformed. It is perched upon the top of an oval hill, about fifty feet above the level of the sea, and is itself at least forty feet in height. Its physical formation is ascribed by travelers to the action of the wintry rains. Indeed, De Sauley speaks of the existence of vast numbers of needles of salt, and expresses his regret that the American officer did not happen to examine the Salt Mountain on two different occasions, and in the rainy season, when "he would have found a hundred Lot's wives instead of one." Besides these objections to the supposition in question, the death-stricken woman was overtaken |