upon both language and gesture--no singing, no loud laughter, no vulgar scuffling, no importunate rabble blocking up the way; clean faces, hands, and feet; rarely is any one to be seen ragged, still more rarely dirty; there is no brawling, and a universal and reciprocal respect exists between all classes of society. But all this is merely what appears upon the surface; the dry rot is covered up; the separation of the sexes prevents the corruption from being apparent. Sloth wears the mask of leisure, dignity is a cloak for pride. That well-bred composure which seems to indicate a thoughtful nature hides in reality a mortal intellectual inertia; what appears to be sombre moderation in their manner of life is nothing in the world but an utter absence of any life at all. The character and philosophy, the entire life, of this people may be understood by a particular condition of the body and spirit called _kief_, which represents their ideal of supreme happiness. This is it, after partaking sparingly of food, drinking a glass of water from the fountain, and saying some prayers, to establish yourself, with the body thus satisfied and the conscience at ease, in some spot from whence a wide stretch of the horizon may be seen, and there, beneath the shade of a tree, to remain, following the movements of the pigeons in the opposite cemetery, the distant ships, the insects close at hand, the clouds in the sky, and the smoke from your narghileh, reflecting the while vaguely on God and death, on the vanity of earthly things, and the sweetness of the eternal repose and the other life. That is _kief_; in other words, to be an idle spectator in the world’s great theatre is the Turk’s most lofty aspiration toward which he is impelled by the originally pastoral temperament of his race, at once slow and contemplative, his religion, which ties men’s hands in committing all to God, and his traditions as a soldier of Islamism for whom there exists no other really great or necessary sphere of action but that of the battlefield, upon which he must gain the mastery for his own faith; that done, every duty has been performed. His point of view is that of the fatalist: man is merely an instrument in the hands of Providence, and it is quite useless for him to attempt to alter the course of events as it has been prescribed in heaven; this world is but a caravansary, through which man has been created by God to pass, praying and admiring His works: leave all to God; let what is dying, die, what is passing away, pass; why should we trouble ourselves to restore or preserve? The supreme desire of the Turk is for peace, and he protects himself with the utmost care from all that threatens the calm monotony of his existence; consequently, no thirst for knowledge disturbs him, no passion for gain, no vague, unsatisfied longings either of love or ambition. The utter absence of those innumerable intellectual and physical tastes, in order to