But within the last eight months, events have marched rapidly. Abd el Hamid has played his cards successfully in Greece, in Albania, and with the Kurds. He has not been afraid of England and has shown a bold front against infidel reforms. He has had the courage under the eyes of Europe to arrest their _protege_, Midhat, and to try him for murder. Lastly, the French have played into his hands in Tunis, and he has thus gained a footing of sympathy with the Mussulmans of North Africa, a population which has for centuries opposed his claims. Twenty years ago it would have been absolutely impossible for an Ottoman Sultan to awaken any loyal feeling in any Arab breast. Tunis then specially boasted her independence of the Porte, and all but the Hanefite rulers of the sea-coast towns of Africa would have scouted the idea of fighting for the Turk. Now the Malekites themselves, the puritans of Kerwan, are moving at Abd el Hamid's nod. He would seem, too, to be stirring with some success in Egypt, and Indian Mussulmans are praying for him publicly in their mosques. Everywhere the reactionary party is standing to its arms, and is beginning to recognize a leader in this supple Armenian Khalifeh, who is defying Europe, and seems willing, if necessary, to lead them one day on a Jehad. With all this, however, it must not be supposed that Orthodox Islam is by any means yet won back to Constantinople. Turkey, I have shown, and the Hanefite school, are far from being the whole of the Mohammedan world; and side by side with the fanatical obduracy of the Ottoman State party and the still fiercer puritanism of the Melkites there exists an intelligent and hopeful party favourable to religious reform. Shafite Egypt is its stronghold, but it is powerful too in Arabia and further East. With it a first article of faith is that the House of Othman has been and is the curse of Islam, and that its end is at hand.