Nor is this all that will impress the candid observer. Leaving out of consideration the lives of the more unworthy followers of Mohammed, he will find much in Islam that he is forced to respect and admire. Whatever he may think of Moslem teaching, he cannot help admire the devotion, the zeal, the earnestness, the spirit of sacrifice which characterize so large a number of Mussulmans. There are, for instance, no poorhouses among them, for the indigent are abundantly provided for otherwise.[278] But more remarkable still is the importance which they attach to prayer and the fidelity with which they, five times a day, recite the orisons prescribed by their religion. Mohammed is said to have called prayer the key to Paradise and to have declared it to be of more value in the eyes of Allah than fasting, almsgiving, or a pilgrimage to Mecca. When we see his followers regularly saying their daily prayers wherever they may be, even before satisfying their cravings for much needed food and drink, we must conclude that they take the reputed saying of their Prophet very much to heart and have no doubt of its supreme moment and efficacy.[279] It is because of their profound religious earnestness, their abiding charity towards the poor and suffering and their many natural virtues that those who know them best have such good reports to give of the Mohammedans,[280] and would fain see them better known among our western people, and will welcome the day when the prejudices and animosities of ages shall disappear and when every soul-loving Christian shall constitute himself a missionary to assist the followers of Islam towards becoming members of the One Fold and finding peace and happiness under the One Shepherd. Outside of her people, I can truthfully say with Della Valle that I found very little in Aleppo that was specially _riguardevole_--noteworthy. But the people, especially those I was able to visit in their homes, were most charming. And of never-failing interest were the representatives of many lands whom I met in the streets and mosques and bazaars. In the last named places were Asiatics and Africans of every race and sect and costume, “with their expressive hands, with henna-tinted nails, with narrow cunning wrists”--wild Bedouins, lordly Turks, grim-visaged Kurds and Turkomans, handsome and athletic Persians and Circassians, artful Greeks, astute Armenians,[281] crafty Jews--“all with eyes glittering with the yellow fires of greed” and all, as in the days of the city’s former commercial prosperity, bent on trade but in transactions far more limited.