Every detail of this place, with its incense, its furniture, and all its types of good things yet to come, is interesting. There in the last century the children of Israel at Kae-fung-foo worshipped the God of their fathers with the rites that pointed to the Messiah of whose advent, as far as it can be ascertained, they never heard until the arrival of the Italian missionaries. Learned men have entered into discussions as to whether these people were Jews or Israelites, whether they came to China from the Assyrian captivity or the Roman dispersion. They themselves say that their forefathers came from the West; and it is probable that the settlers arrived by way of Khorassan and Samerkand. They must have been numerous in the ninth century, for two Mohammedan travellers of that period describe a rebel, named Bae-choo, taking Canton by storm in A.D. 877 and slaughtering 120,000 Jews, Mohammedans, Christians, and Parsees. More than one Jew of Kae-fung-foo is known to have gained the right to wear the little round button on the top of his cap so dear to the ambition of a Chinaman. The Tai-ping Rebellion dispersed the settlement, and the remnant who remain faithful to the memory of old traditions are chiefly poor and distressed. The Chinamen distinguish them by the name of "T'iao chiao" (the sect which pulls out the sinew), for these "children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day." They are said to often repeat the words of the dying Jacob, "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord." This is to them like the cry of an infant in the night. They have waited so long that it is little wonder if the words have lost their triumphant ring and their ancient accompaniment of faith in future blessings. [Illustration: READING THE LAW ON THE SABBATH DAY. (_From an Original Drawing by a Persian Jew._)] The Persian Jews, from whom the colony in China sprang, are interspersed over the Shah's country. The missionaries of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews make long tours to seek them out and shepherd them. A convert from amongst them, the Rev. M. Norollah, found in 1890 that of his own people in Isfahan, numbering 5,000, not more than ten could read or write the language of the country. He started a school for the children in the very heart of this Mohammedan city. This school and others besides have flourished, and been the means of making friends with the parents. Of all the colonies in Asia, none seems to have preserved their traditions more carefully and lived up to them more worthily than the Jews in India. According to the last census, they number, 17,180.