However, the now current idea here is, that the English are very good men, but have _no_ religion--which means, as I said, no exterior; and in so far _our_ exterior inspires something of respect.... I had resolved to read the Koran through--not in the original, but in a translation--that I might get some insight into the Mussulman mind.... But I confess to you I have broken sheer down in the attempt, ... the book makes no impression on my mind. I cannot find where I left off when I recur to it. That so tedious and shallow a work can meet such praises gives me a lower and lower idea of the power of mind in these nations. I now think that the Arabs are captivated by the tinkle and epigrammatic point of an old and sacred dialect, while Turks and Persians take its literary beauty as a religious fact to be believed, not to be felt. How wonderful is the power of tradition!" In July, Newman and his party were still at Aleppo. By now they had become well accustomed to the native foods, but had at last come to the conclusion that the meat (mutton) was certainly not good; unfortunately it formed a large proportion of the stews. One dish consisted of rice, dressed with butter and salt This is called "Piláu" (pronounced "ow"), and apparently is the same as that common in Russia to-day, which is _delicious_. "This piláu is, fundamentally, rice dressed with butter and salt: the rice is thrown into boiling water, and is boiled for twenty minutes only. This is the highest luxury of the Bedouins. We saw a company of them dine on it. They scraped the hot outside of the rice with the tips of their fingers, squeezed it into a ball in their hand, and shot the ball into their mouth. The dexterity of this, so as not to burn their fingers, miss their mouths, nor drop about their garments, is astonishing.... Carrots with lemon or sour milk make delicious fritters...." It was during this month that the news came to them from Bagdad that Mr. Groves (who, it will be remembered, had been there for some time, expecting them later to join him) had just lost his wife from plague; that she had been the only one who had caught the disease. Newman himself, about this time, had a sharp attack of fever. Dr. Cronin was much alarmed about him; indeed, he believed him to be dying, and leeched his temples and bled his right arm. Then he tried calomel, and he said that he had resolved on opening his temporal artery if his pulse had kept as rapid as at first it was. [Illustration: DR. CRONIN ONE OF THOSE WHO WENT TO SYRIA WITH FRANCIS NEWMAN IN 1830 BY KIND PERMISSION OF MRS. CRONIN PHOTO BY MESSRS. WEBSTER, CLAPHAM COMMON] In Aleppo, he tells us in one of his letters home, "madmen are looked on as sacred characters... there are no madhouses in the land.... Certainly in England the results of turning all the mad loose would be awful.