Should they happen to have any illness which prevents their observing the fast, they may disregard it, on condition, however, of making up, when they get well, the number of fasting days which their health has compelled them to miss. Likewise, when they are in an enemy’s country and an engagement is apprehended, they are ordered to postpone their fast to some other time, lest they should be hungry and faint on the day of battle. If they hesitate to do so, the Sultan himself takes food publicly at midday before the eyes of the army, that all may be encouraged by his example to do the same. But as at other times of the year they are forbidden, by their religion, to drink wine, and cannot taste it without committing a sin, so they are most scrupulous in observing this rule all the days of the fast, and even the most careless and profligate people not only abstain from wine, but shun the very smell of it. I remember that, after I had made many enquiries as to the reason why Mahomet had so strictly forbidden his followers to drink wine, I was one day told this story. Mahomet happened to be travelling to a friend, and halted on his way at midday at a man’s house, where a wedding feast was being celebrated. At his host’s invitation he sat down with them, and greatly admired the exceeding gaiety of the banqueters and their earnest demonstrations of affection—such as shaking of hands, embraces, and kisses. He asked his host the reason, and was informed that such feelings were the consequence of wine. Accordingly on his departure he blessed that beverage as being the cause of such affection among mankind. But on his return the day after, when he entered the same house, a far different sight was presented to his eyes; on all sides were the traces of a cruel fight, the ground was stained with gore and strewn with human limbs; here lay an arm and there a foot; and other fragments were scattered all about. On his asking what had been the cause of so much mischief, he heard that the banqueters he had seen the day before had got maddened with wine and quarrelled, and that a fearful butchery had been the consequence. On this account, Mahomet changed his opinion and cursed the use of wine, making a decree for all time that his followers should not touch it.