Woolen cloth which people used for clothes was made from the hair of sheep or goats. As it took the hair of a great many such animals to make a very little cloth, woolen cloth was expensive. The Arabs found out a way of making cloth from a plant, the cotton plant, which of course was much cheaper. Then in order to decorate the cloth and make it pretty and attractive, they stamped the plain cloth with wooden blocks shaped in different forms and dipped in color. This printed cloth that the Arabs had invented was called calico. Still another thing: The Arabs made swords and knives of such wonderful steel that the blades could be bent double without breaking. The blades were said to be so keen they could cut through the finest hair if floated on water, a thing that only the sharpest razor will do, and yet at the same time so strong that they could cut through a bar of steel. Such swords were made in the East at a place called Damascus, which is in Arabia, and in the West at a place called Toledo, which is in Spain; and these swords and knives were known as Damascus or Toledo blades. Unfortunately, no one now knows the Arab’s secret for making such marvelous blades. It is what is called a lost art. Near where Babylon once was the Arabs built a city named Bagdad. You have heard of it if you have ever read any of the “Arabian Nights,” for most of these stories were told about Bagdad. It was the eastern capital of the Moslems. There at Bagdad the Arabs built a great school that was famous for many, many years. At Cordova in Spain was the western capital of the Moslems, and there they built another great school. [Illustration: Mohammedan veiled woman standing by Saracenic ornamented arch.] I might tell you many other things these people did--how they invented the game of chess, of all games the one that needs the most thought; how they made clocks with pendulums to keep time--people had no real clocks before; how they started wonderful libraries of books; and so on--but this is enough for the present to show you what intelligent people they were. The Arabs were not Aryans. They belonged to the Semite family, the same family to which the Phenicians and Jews belong. The Arabs were as clever as their cousins the Phenicians, who, you remember, were very clever, but they were also as religious as their other cousins the Jews, who, you remember, were very religious. But the Moslems had peculiar ideas about women. They thought it was immodest for a woman to show her face to men, and so every woman had to wear a thick veil which hid her face all except her eyes whenever she went out where there were men. With such a veil she could see but not be seen. But here are their two most peculiar ideas: they believed women were only fit to be slaves to the men, and they thought that a man might have as many wives as he wished all at one time!