Imagine the Eastern starlight relieving the soft purple darkness, a gentle moving air, cool after the heated storm winds of the day. The only light visible in the whole village is that placed before the reader, a brilliant little circle shewing up the principal guests in their white robes and turbans, the holy book and the smoking censer. One by one the guests appear out of the darkness, the droning chant of the reader taking no heed of their comings. Some, in new white robes and turbaned heads, or those to whom age gives dignity independently of wealth, seat themselves in the light near the reader; others, shaggy haired and wild faced herdsmen from the hills, in dust coloured calico, remain half seen on the farther side of the circle. No woman or girl is visible, but they may gather at a little distance and raise their curious whistling trill, their joy cry, at intervals. The little boys of the village, of the age at which church going and sitting still generally were especially abhorrent to ourselves, are much in evidence, and certainly do not come for the tea, of which they may not be invited to partake. The service contains real religious feeling, and besides the birth and life of Mohammed there is recited a long prayer, the droning of which is broken by the mournful chanting of responses, of which of course “La Allah ill’ Allah” is one. Nothing could be more expressive of submission to the hardness of desert life, or so impress upon the listener remembrance of his exile from his fellows in the cheerful striving with life of the younger nations, than these people’s singing, whether it be done for pleasure or as a religious service. The whole thing is full of Eastern poetic licence, e.g. blessings are called down upon each detail of the Prophet’s body separately. At the point where his actual birth is announced all stand awhile. Only one sentence is really objectionable to a Christian, where all the older prophets extol Mohammed, Jesus is made to repeat the words of John, “I am not worthy to unloose his shoe latchet.”