THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 CARROLL ALCOTT MEMORIAL 
 LIBRARY FUND COMMITTEE
 
 A Key to the Orient
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 By 
 
 Mrs. Clapham Pennington 
 
 Philadelphia : 
 JOHN J. McVEY.
 
 COPYRIGHT, MDCCCXCVII, 
 By MRS. CLAPHAM PKNNINGTON.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 THE Orient to most people of the 
 Occident is a sealed book. 
 
 Works there are indeed, and by the 
 greatest scholars, on the Oriental Relig- 
 ions ; and others, though very few, of 
 the history of oriental lands ; and books of 
 oriental travels describing the general 
 aspect of the countries, the outside of the 
 houses, the scenes in the streets, but leav- 
 ing the inside life, the real thought and 
 feeling of the people, dark. 
 
 But our people are not interested. The 
 resignation and charmed calm of the 
 Orient are too unlike the restless dis- 
 content and perpetual motion of the 
 Occident. 
 
 The West does not understand the East, 
 and does not wish or try to understand, 
 v 
 
 2226985
 
 Author's Preface 
 
 But at the same time, she criticises her, 
 and severely, judging everything by her 
 own standards, making no allowance for 
 difference of nature, custom, tradition, 
 thought, and feeling, but saying it is so 
 here, and it must be so there. 
 
 The English drink pale ale in India, say- 
 ing it suits in England, therefore it must 
 suit here. Carlsbad and Vichy tell the 
 end of the tale, and many an Indian ceme- 
 tery besides ; and as long as the West 
 judges the East by herself, she will be 
 always in the wrong. 
 
 It is my hope in this little book to try 
 and make people take interest in the East, 
 and think of it as it really is. This is an 
 humble effort, but perhaps it will lead 
 others to study for themselves. 
 
 And one thing I can claim. I know 
 the real life of the East, not as one knows 
 it who walks in the streets, but as one who 
 has been behind the lattices. 
 
 Most oriental travellers are men, and
 
 Author's Preface 
 
 therefore the inside life is absolutely closed 
 to them ; and they would do better to pass it 
 over in silence, for in relating from hear- 
 say they make many mistakes. 
 
 And of the women who at present give 
 us accounts of the East, the majority are 
 missionaries, and with all due respect, their 
 view of oriental life is not always one 
 which other people would take, and liable 
 to be, one may say, made to order. 
 
 I know the inside life of the East, first, 
 from oriental literature, and then from what 
 I have seen, for I have been most fortu- 
 nate in having had access to oriental homes 
 from the highest to the lowest. 
 
 I love to tell of what I have seen, and I 
 could tell much more ; but unless one 
 enters into the thought and feeling of the 
 East one hardly understands, and I do not 
 wish to be misunderstood. 
 
 We must learn, first, that things are not 
 the same everywhere. Musk in our own 
 country is a vulgar and objectionable per- 
 vii
 
 Author's Preface 
 
 fume. But under skies to which ours are 
 pale, and amid colors beside which ours 
 are faded, with the jewels and the tinsel of 
 the Orient, musk is sweet. 
 
 And so with all things. But I have 
 found a pleasure so intense in my oriental 
 studies and my oriental experiences that 
 I want to share it with other people. 
 There are many books far beyond mine 
 which they may read, if they can be per- 
 suaded. There is much for them to see 
 and hear, many pleasures and surprises in 
 store for them. 
 
 But I will hope that for some at least 
 my little book may be a key to the 
 Orient. 
 
 MARGARET PENNINGTON. 
 
 via
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE WOMEN OF ISLAM 3 
 
 ORIENTAL SLAVERY 75 
 THE MISSIONARIES AS THEY APPEAR TO 
 
 THE HEATHEN 89 
 A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE RELIGIONS 
 
 OF THE ORIENT 103 
 
 THE RELIGION OF ZARATHUSTRA SPITAMA 139
 
 The Women of Islam
 
 THE WOMEN OF ISLAM 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE sacred fires on the altars of Iran 
 went out on the night when Mo- 
 hammed was born ; and the painted Saints 
 of the Eastern Empire may well have 
 turned pale in their gilded shrines, for that 
 hour was the beginning of their fall and of 
 a series of events the most remarkable that 
 the world has ever seen. 
 
 How little we, so-called Christians, 
 for God alone knows how many of us 
 are unworthy of the name, know of 
 Mohammed and his wonderful life and 
 work. 
 
 Mohammed, to whom we deny inspira- 
 tion, and yet to whom amidst rank idolatry 
 3
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 the knowledge of one God and truth and 
 justice came. Mohammed, who was not 
 afraid to speak, and whose first words 
 aroused such a storm of indignation among 
 his townsmen as had nearly cost him his 
 life. 
 
 Driven from Mecca like a wild beast, 
 we find him again in the desert, outlawed 
 and abandoned by his kind, but not alone, 
 the hosts of the Jinn (spirits of the air) 
 crowding round him to listen to the word 
 of God, which man had refused to hear. 
 
 Mohammed ! who a few years later saw 
 Arabia kneel and hail him the Prophet of 
 God, and v/hose followers to-day 'number 
 two hundred millions. 
 
 And who of all these millions was the 
 first to believe ? Woman, " last at the 
 cross and first at the sepulchre," was also 
 the first in Islam. Kadijah, Mohammed's 
 faithful wife, when all men turned away 
 from him, stood by his side and accepted 
 from his lips the words of God. The first 
 4
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 in Islam ! and hers the proud title for all 
 the ages, Mother of the Believers ! 
 
 Mohammed, though often spoken of as a 
 camel-driver, belonged to the first family in 
 Mecca, that of El Hashim, and his uncle 
 Abu Talib was the hereditary Prince of 
 Mecca and guardian of the Kaba. Being, 
 however, poor in worldly goods, like many 
 another scion of a noble house, he accepted 
 as a very young man, from the wealthy 
 widow Kadijah, the position of the leader 
 of her caravan. 
 
 Just how long this lasted, we do not 
 know, but sooner or later the friends of 
 Kadijah persuaded her that she should not 
 remain a widow, and she gave her hand to 
 the young Mohammed, who at the time 
 was twenty-six, she herself being forty 
 years old. 
 
 A marriage de convenance in the begin- 
 ning, but a real union of hearts as it proved. 
 Six children were born to them, four 
 daughters and two sons, the latter of whom 
 5
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 died, to the Prophet's deep regret ; but the 
 daughters were cherished and prized, and 
 Mohammed taught his countrymen to 
 value their girls as they had never done 
 before, for, as he said, " If you have sons, 
 it is well ; but if you have daughters only, it 
 is well also." Through all the storms of 
 his eventful life, Kadijah stood firm and 
 true by the side of Mohammed ; and in turn, 
 though he might have had as many wives 
 as he pleased, his heart never swerved from 
 her, and he never in her life-time took 
 another. 
 
 In later years, indeed, he took to himself 
 seven wives; but even then the Mother 
 of Believers was not forgotten, and Ayesha, 
 his favorite of them all, averred that 
 she was never jealous of any of his liv- 
 ing wives, but only of the memory of 
 Kadijah. 
 
 Of these seven wives, though all their 
 names are known, but two have left foot- 
 prints in history, Ayesha and Mary. 
 6
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 Some of them were presents which the 
 Prophet was more or less obliged to ac- 
 cept ; and it is probable that the desire for a 
 son, more than the fancy for a large harem, 
 actuated the Prophet in taking to himself 
 so many. 
 
 His desire, however, was not destined to 
 be fulfilled. The only child ever born to 
 Mohammed, except by Kadijah, was Ibra- 
 him, the son of Mary. Great was the 
 Prophet's joy, and that of his followers, at 
 his birth, but a joy soon to be turned into 
 sorrow, for after six months little Ibrahim 
 died. 
 
 His death was accompanied by an eclipse 
 of the sun, which the Arabs pronounced 
 the result of the sad event. But Mo- 
 hammed, who had never claimed to be 
 more than a man, reproved them for their 
 superstition, and nobly said that human 
 events had no power over sun, moon, or 
 stars, the lamps of God. 
 
 When Mohammed had established his 
 7
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 religion in Arabia, he sent messengers to 
 the rulers of all the surrounding countries 
 to summon them to embrace Islam, and 
 accept him as the Prophet of God. His 
 messengers were received with laughter, 
 but laughter that was soon to be turned 
 into tears, when the summons was re- 
 peated by armies before their gates, and 
 when their painted Saints could not save 
 them from the sword of Islam. 
 
 The only one who returned a polite 
 answer was the Governor of Egypt, and 
 with it he sent, as a present to Mohammed, 
 two beautiful young girls, the most beauti- 
 ful of whom was Mary. 
 
 Mohammed took her to wife, and is said 
 to have loved her, and had Ibrahim lived 
 she might have become a power in Islam, 
 but after his death her star seems to have 
 set, and she fades out of history. 
 
 Ayesha was the daughter of Abu Bekr, a 
 prominent citizen of Mecca, and one of the 
 first and most ardent of the followers of 
 8
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 Mohammed. He it was who accompanied 
 the Prophet in his second flight from 
 Mecca, and was with him in the celebrated 
 scene in the cave, where they were hiding 
 from their persecutors who swarmed on 
 the mountains. Overcome by the danger, 
 Abu Bekr gave himself up for lost, saying, 
 " We are but two against them all." 
 
 " Nay," said Mohammed, " we are 
 three, for God is with us." 
 
 This adventure gained for Abu Bekr the 
 name of the other one of the two, and it 
 was in consequence of this, that being con- 
 sidered the nearest to the Prophet, he was 
 chosen as his successor, and became the 
 first of the Kalifs. Mohammed, after he 
 became Lord of Arabia, married Ayesha, 
 then only twelve years old, out of compli- 
 ment to her father. She was a clever as 
 well as a beautiful woman, and soon became 
 his favorite, and exercised a great influence 
 in Islam, both during his life-time and under 
 the reign of her father. 
 9
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Ali, the husband of Mohammed's favor- 
 ite daughter Fatima, and afterwards fourth 
 Kalif, was always hostile to Ayesha, and 
 constant trouble existed between them. 
 He even accused her of being unfaithful 
 to the Prophet, and appearances seemed 
 to justify the accusation, but Mohammed 
 would not doubt her; she remained with 
 him always first, and he finally expired in 
 her arms. 
 
 Of the daughters of Mohammed, Fatima 
 is by far the most prominent. The wife 
 of Ali and the mother of Hassan and 
 Hosein, it is from her that all the de- 
 scendants of the Prophet still flourishing 
 in these days, claim their descent. 
 
 Another daughter, Rikayia, was so 
 beautiful that Othman, himself the flower 
 of the Arab youth, embraced Islam for 
 her sake, and afterwards became the third 
 Kalif; but the other two daughters have 
 left no trace in history. 
 
 And now to the religious and social 
 10
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 position accorded by the Arabian Prophet 
 to women. The general impression on 
 this subject amongst us is very false, and 
 no man has ever been so maligned and 
 misrepresented as Mohammed. 
 
 The reason for this is not far to seek. 
 Until the present century our information, 
 if such it can be called, about Mohammed 
 and his teachings was derived chiefly from 
 the Greek priests, the Greek priests, 
 who were not only his enemies, but, as 
 Lady Mary Montagu very justly re- 
 marks, " Undoubtably the greatest set of 
 liars and scoundrels that the world has 
 ever seen." 
 
 Mohammed was the champion of 
 women, seeking in their case, as in all 
 others, to do justice and right wrong. 
 
 To understand this we must look at 
 the position of women in Arabia before 
 his time. To begin with, it was quite a 
 common custom among the Arabs to 
 destroy their female infants, as the Chinese
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 do to-day (they would not kill them, 
 indeed, but they buried them alive). 
 
 Mohammed abolished this custom en- 
 tirely, and taught that daughters were only 
 second in value to sons. 
 
 Women had no rights of property, any- 
 thing they had inherited became their hus- 
 band's, and remained his should he divorce 
 them, they being left penniless. The 
 number of wives one might have was 
 unlimited, and a man had the right to 
 punish an unfaithful wife with death. 
 
 Mohammed changed all this, giving 
 rights of property to women the same as 
 to men, and obliging a man who divorced 
 his wife to restore her dowry. The 
 number of wives he limited to four, and 
 took away from the husband the power of 
 life and death. 
 
 He allowed men their female slaves, as 
 had always been the custom, and as we 
 see it in the Bible itself; but he made it 
 a law that if there were children, they 
 
 12
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 should rank equally with the children of 
 the wife or wives. 
 
 One of the commonest errors in regard 
 to the teachings of Mohammed is that he 
 denied immortality to women, and declared 
 they had no souls. This is entirely false. 
 Mohammed promised paradise to women 
 on one condition, that of bearing children. 
 
 His own words in the Koran are as 
 follows, " Women not being fitted by 
 nature to direct in council nor to sup- 
 port the fatigues of war, God has not 
 ordained that they shall govern or reform 
 the world, but He has intrusted them 
 with an office which is not less honorable, 
 even that of multiplying the human race." 
 
 11 And such as out of malice or laziness 
 refuse to bear children fulfil not the duty 
 of their vocation and rebel against the 
 commands of God." 
 
 It is said that an old woman once asked 
 Mohammed if there would be any old 
 women in heaven. " No," replied the 
 13
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Prophet, " before entering heaven they 
 will all be made young." 
 
 Surely no promise can be better than 
 this, and no woman can ask more than 
 eternal youth in paradise. 
 
 The life of women in the East has 
 always been one of seclusion, and this does 
 not belong to any religion more than the 
 others, but it is for many reasons a 
 necessity. 
 
 Mohammed, indeed, ordained that the 
 women should wear veils in public, but 
 that had already been the custom in many 
 parts of the East, though not among the 
 Arabs, and is as strictly observed by the 
 Asiatic Christians as by the women of 
 Islam, to-day. 
 
 We are prone to imagine and believe 
 that we owe our liberty to the Christian 
 religion, but this is an entire mistake. 
 
 The teachings of Christ hardly touch 
 on social institutions, and where the 
 Apostles have laid down any rules, they
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 have been in accordance with the old 
 regime, such as, that women should ap- 
 pear in the assemblies with their heads 
 covered, and if they had anything to ask, 
 should not speak in public, but ask their 
 husbands at home. 
 
 The truth is that the Apostles were 
 orientals, and that it never occurred to 
 them to change any of their social regula- 
 tions, change being entirely foreign to the 
 oriental nature. 
 
 Had Christianity become the religion of 
 Asia, instead of that of Europe, our present 
 position would never have been attained, 
 and the life of Christian women would 
 have been just what the life of the 
 oriental Christian women is to-day, prac- 
 tically the same as that of their Moslem 
 neighbors. 
 
 But this was not to be : Christianity 
 
 was destined to be the religion of progress, 
 
 and, turning its back on Asia where it 
 
 was not welcome, it spread its wings for 
 
 '5
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Europe, where the old beliefs were dead 
 and dying, and the time for a new faith 
 had come. 
 
 The Roman Empire embraced Chris- 
 tianity, and Christianity adopted the social 
 customs of the Roman Empire. 
 
 It is from the Romans that we get 
 monogamy, which had always been their 
 custom. As the Roman dominion had 
 been some time established in Judea be- 
 fore the coming of Christ, it is most 
 likely that this was practised by the Chris- 
 tians from the first, but a Jewish custom 
 it certainly was not, till they too took it 
 from the Romans. 
 
 And from the Romans comes our 
 right to social intercourse with men, 
 which had even been denied to respectable 
 women by the Greeks, and all our mar- 
 riage rites, our bridal veils, our brides- 
 maids, and our wedding rings, the 
 whole foundation of the position which we 
 enjoy to-day. 
 
 16
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 Let no one suppose that I undervalue 
 what woman gained through Christianity. 
 I am speaking not of her spiritual eleva- 
 tion, but of her social position. 
 
 The worship of the Mother of Christ 
 placed woman on a pedestal, and lit a 
 halo round her head. 
 
 But among the Gothic and their kin- 
 dred nations, the seclusion of the early 
 Christian woman was that of a saint in 
 its shrine, and it was not until the end of 
 the dark ages, that with the return of 
 Roman influences she resumed the posi- 
 tion which she had held in the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 But to return to the women of the 
 Orient, their life is one of seclusion 
 and has been such throughout all Asia 
 since the dawn of time. 
 
 Centuries have passed and made no 
 difference. The pictures of oriental life 
 and social customs which we find in the 
 Arabian Nights of the time of Haroun-al- 
 
 2 17
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Raschid, the contemporary of Charle- 
 magne, are just as true to-day. And still 
 the same, are the glittering scenes of the 
 Shah Namah, the great Persian epic 
 poem, and still the history of Zal and 
 Rudabe, the most famous of its legends, 
 ranks first of oriental love-stories, though 
 three thousand years old. 
 
 Woman in the Orient has always been 
 a thing of beauty rather than of use, the 
 partner of man's pleasures, not his toils. 
 
 Never has she been considered his equal, 
 but she has been guarded as a treasure, 
 never permitted to do anything for her 
 own support, and shielded from all conflict 
 with the outside world. 
 
 Much has been said and written about 
 the degradation of this mode of life, prin- 
 cipally by people quite ignorant of what 
 they were talking about ; but there are two 
 sides to everything. 
 
 Undoubtably there have been in all 
 ages domestic tragedies and scandals 
 18
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 occurring in harems, but have there 
 been none in Christian countries, and are 
 there none in our highly civilized and 
 model homes to-day ? and as our lights 
 are greater than the Moslems, are we not 
 more to blame ? 
 
 In reality the lives of most oriental 
 women are, if monotonous and dull accor- 
 ding to our ideas, peaceful and happy 
 according to their own, and absolutely 
 devoid of most of the little worries and 
 struggles which bring us wrinkles and gray 
 hairs before our time. 
 
 To begin with, as the salvation of 
 women depends on their being mothers, 
 or at least endeavoring to fulfil their 
 destiny, all girls are given in marriage as 
 soon as they have reached the marriage- 
 able age, which varies with them accord- 
 ing to latitude, from eleven or twelve to 
 seventeen or eighteen. These marriages, 
 which we regard as deplorable because the 
 bride and bridegroom cannot know each 
 19
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 other beforehand, and meet for the first 
 time on their wedding night, are in reality 
 quite as happy and as successful as our 
 own. 
 
 In the first place, they are arranged by 
 their respective mothers, who should know 
 their children best, with regard to suita- 
 bility of age, disposition, and social rank. 
 
 The bridegroom's mother also seeks 
 beauty in her son's bride, and he, with 
 that filial piety which is one of the strong- 
 est sentiments in the East, sees through 
 her eyes and makes her taste his own. 
 
 But here the young girl has the advan- 
 tage of sight over faith, for she may see 
 the young man through her window lat- 
 tices or on the street, he being always 
 shown to her in this way, and if he does 
 not please her fancy, it is rare that her 
 inclination is forced. 
 
 They meet then on the wedding night, 
 and both being very young, and having 
 known no other youths or maidens, and 
 20
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 being therefore without rivals in each 
 other's minds, it is natural that they 
 should love each other. 
 
 Young people in the East rarely set up 
 establishments of their own, but live either 
 with the parents of the bridegroom or the 
 bride. 
 
 The young wife then has no household 
 cares, which are indeed considered unsuit- 
 able for young women. The harem is 
 governed by her mother or mother-in-law, 
 as it may be, and the whole duty of the 
 bride consists in cultivating her beauty 
 and trying to please her husband. 
 
 When she becomes a mother, she has 
 fulfilled her destiny, her life is full, and her 
 hopes of paradise secure. 
 
 Her days run calmly on, only broken by 
 the rejoicings over successive babes, and by 
 the excitement of other weddings in her 
 family, and at last she is called to take 
 the place of honor vacated by her mother 
 or mother-in-law, and to rule the harem. 
 
 21
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 The most beautiful thing in the oriental 
 life is that the oriental husband looks for 
 and finds his pleasures at home. There 
 are no clubs in the Orient, no bar-rooms 
 or saloons, and men cannot flirt with other 
 men's wives, to the neglect of their own. 
 There are not even operas or theatres. 
 The outside world is the place for busi- 
 ness, for education, diplomacy, law, and 
 war; but the pleasures of life are all at 
 home. 
 
 An oriental friend of mine once said 
 to me, " With us a man must marry ; how 
 else can he spend his evenings if he has no 
 home." 
 
 And he expressed the situation per- 
 fectly. The Oriental, be he of high or 
 low degree, returns to his house in the 
 afternoon, retires to his harem, and there 
 spends the remainder of the day with his 
 wife and the other women of his family, 
 playing with his children and enjoying his 
 home. If he be a rich man and the pos- 
 22
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 sessor of female slaves, they sing and 
 dance before him and the ladies of the 
 family, and add to the general amusement, 
 according to their accomplishments. 
 
 As to the question of polygamy, which 
 would certainly destroy domestic happiness 
 (according to our ideas), I cannot believe 
 that it has ever been a general custom. 
 
 My own experience of oriental life has 
 been entirely in Egypt and Turkey. I 
 have seen the inside of many homes in 
 these two countries, from the palaces of 
 the Pashas to the mud huts of the fella- 
 heen, but never anywhere have I found 
 more than one wife. 
 
 Lady Mary Montagu, who saw Turkey 
 in its glory, makes the same assertion that 
 "though the men are allowed four wives 
 by their religion, it is a luxury in which 
 they do not indulge themselves," and in 
 all her visits in the harems, though she 
 had found troops of female slaves, there 
 was never but one wife. 
 23
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Still there are instances of a plurality of 
 wives in both these countries, and I am 
 told that in Arabia and Persia it is still 
 the general custom. 
 
 Perhaps it is true, but I can only say 
 that being a student of oriental literature 
 myself, I have very seldom found the 
 story, of no matter what age or country, in 
 which more than one wife appears, and 
 the most casual reader must have observed 
 the same thing in the Arabian Nights. 
 
 My Turkish friends tell me that nowa- 
 days a man who likes variety in his 
 marital relations takes his wives in suc- 
 cession, instead of all at once, divorcing 
 one and marrying another, but only having 
 one at a time. 
 
 This, they say, is less expensive and 
 more agreeable ; but in the days of their 
 grandfathers, they add, the old customs 
 were still adhered to and every great 
 and rich man kept a large harem. I 
 know indeed one noble Turkish family 
 24
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 whose paternal grandfather had six wives, 
 four at a time, and whose maternal grand- 
 father had a hundred and fifty women in 
 his harem. 
 
 But the answer to the question is here : 
 both these grandfathers were governors of. 
 provinces and Pashas of the first degree, 
 and their revenues enabled them to keep 
 up establishments which the general 
 decrease in the wealth of the Turkish 
 Empire will not permit to-day. 
 
 The Padishah of course, and the lesser 
 sultans in his train, the rulers of Arabia 
 and the Barbary States, have, as they 
 always have had, large harems, and doubt- 
 less will have for all time to come. 
 
 But this proves nothing, for a large 
 harem is something which (whether 
 kept within the four walls of a Serail or 
 allowed to roam the world at will) seems 
 to belong to royalty. 
 
 The liberty and amusements of Mos- 
 lem women vary in different countries. 
 25
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 In Egypt their diversions are fewer and 
 their liberty less than in Turkey, and in 
 Persia and Arabia they are kept much 
 more strictly still. In all oriental coun- 
 tries the great excitement and dissipation 
 th>f the ladies are weddings, and these are 
 ' indeed the only entertainments which they 
 attend. Visiting and shopping in the ba- 
 zaars are also among their diversions, but 
 where the old regime prevails these are 
 pleasures which are very much restricted. 
 In Cairo one meets women of the 
 lower classes in the bazaars and walking 
 on the streets, but very rarely ladies, either 
 walking or driving, and then always ac- 
 companied by eunuchs ; and the inference 
 is, that, except for visits to their relatives, 
 weddings, or very occasional shopping 
 tours, they stay at home. 
 
 The Turkish ladies, on the contrary, 
 lead a very gay life, and seem to be 
 always on the go, walking, driving, vis- 
 iting, or boating in caiques. 
 26
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 When one goes to visit an Egyptian 
 harem, it is almost as unnecessary to ask 
 if the ladies are at home as when visiting 
 a convent, but in Constantinople it is 
 better to send word of one's coming before- 
 hand, if one does not go by special 
 invitation. 
 
 Eunuchs are rare at present in Con- 
 stantinople, or at least they are not much 
 seen on the streets ; and though no Turkish 
 lady ever goes out alone, one sees them 
 both walking and driving two or three 
 together, or attended only by their female 
 slaves. 
 
 The Egyptian and Persian veils are so 
 thick and black that it is impossible to 
 see anything but a woman's eyes, or to 
 tell whether she is old or young. But the 
 Turkish yashmak, which is made of a 
 fine white silk gauze, not only does not 
 hide, but heightens the beauty of the 
 wearer, like a bridal veil. 
 
 All things are ordered for the besti 
 27
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 though there are many handsome women 
 in Egypt among the fellaheen and Abys- 
 sinian slaves, the lack of beauty among 
 the ladies is very marked, and is all the 
 more surprising as the husbands are, as a 
 rule, very handsome men. And for this 
 reason they are more interesting with, than 
 they would be without, their thick black 
 veils. 
 
 But in Turkey all the women are beau- 
 tiful, or at least pleasing to the eye, and 
 the yashmak is just what is needed to give 
 the last touch to their charms. 
 
 Of course so much liberty and such 
 thin veils would soon pervert the posi- 
 tion of the Turkish women, but that 
 though they are seen they are never 
 known. One may feast his eyes on 
 beauty, white skins, pink cheeks, red lips, 
 and long black-velvet eyes, but one may 
 never know who these sisters of the houris 
 are. No Turk ever recognizes his wife, 
 pr any of his female relatives, in the 
 28
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 street, and for a man to ask him any 
 question concerning them, or even to 
 refer to the fact that they exist, would be 
 the height of bad breeding and discourtesy. 
 
 No man is allowed to follow or even 
 stare at a woman on the street, and yet 
 human nature is the same here as else- 
 where ; where there is a will there is a way, 
 and a friend of mine, a young Turkish 
 Bey, has explained to me how love- 
 matches are made even here. 
 
 The Turkish ladies are very fond of 
 making picnics, which they do by going in 
 their caiques in spring to " The sweet 
 waters of Europe," an ideally beautiful 
 stream at the head of the Golden Horn, 
 and in summer to a smaller but equally 
 beautiful and winding stream which flows 
 into the Bosphorus, " The sweet waters 
 of Asia." 
 
 Arrived at these places, which are as- 
 suredly two of the most beautiful spots in 
 the world, the ladies sit together on one 
 29
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 side of the stream, and the gentlemen on 
 the other. They listen to open-air con- 
 certs, and regale themselves on coffee and 
 sweets, and watch the gypsies dance. All 
 very innocent apparently, but once in 
 their caiques again on the serpentine curves 
 of the little river, the boats pass close to 
 each other, and (the words are the Bey's 
 not my own) " The youths and maidens 
 >who have taken each other's fancy across 
 the stream make signs to each other." 
 Then seemingly without intention the 
 lover follows the lady's boat, trying to learn 
 from some one to whom belong the row- 
 ers, or where she will land. Perhaps his 
 own oarsmen may recognize their fellows, 
 and know in whose service they are, or it 
 may take many afternoons of such meet- 
 ings to unravel the mystery. But once 
 known, unless indeed the lady be already 
 married, the case becomes a simple one. 
 The young man sends his mother, or some 
 other female relative, to see the young 
 3
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 lady's mother, and propose for her, and 
 then, if the affair can be arranged, which 
 generally happens, the marriage takes place, 
 and is as much of a love-match in its way 
 as any of ours. 
 
 With regard to Moslem weddings, I 
 would just say here for the benefit of ori- 
 ental travellers that there are no regular 
 invitations, but all kdies who choose are 
 expected to attend, just as the friends of 
 the family are expected at funerals with us. 
 
 On bright spring afternoons in Con- 
 stantinople and Cairo, one often sees a 
 stream of carriages full of ladies, of whose 
 jewels and bright brocades and tinsel 
 one catches glimpses, all hurrying in one 
 direction. It is a wedding, and one has 
 only to make one's dragoman find out 
 where it is, provide one's self with a bouquet 
 or other small present, and follow. Ori- 
 ental hospitality never fails, and a foreign 
 lady is always welcome. 
 
 In Arabia and Persia and further East,
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 the old customs still exist in everything ; 
 but in Turkey, and to some extent in 
 Egypt, people are divided into two parties, 
 the advanced and the conservative. 
 
 It is not my purpose to speak of the 
 men of these countries, but only of the 
 women, and I have found that for them 
 the difference in these two parties con- 
 sists chiefly in three things, the num- 
 ber of men they are allowed to see and 
 know, their education and costume. 
 
 According to the laws of the Prophet, a 
 man is only allowed to see the following 
 number of women : His grandmother, 
 mother, sister, foster-sister, wife, and 
 daughters, and, of course, female slaves. 
 This custom is still adhered to by the 
 strict conservatives, but even with them 
 I believe it is usual that a man should 
 see his sisters-in-law and daughters-in-law 
 when they live in his own house, and the 
 usage is almost universal that a man should 
 enjoy the society of his mother-in-law. 
 3*
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 The advanced school admits all his "in- 
 laws," and in Turkey the aunts, nieces, 
 and cousins. It has always been the cus- 
 tom of the great men to assemble around 
 them their poor relations, and to take them 
 to live in their palaces, which, of course, 
 means the addition of all the poor female 
 relatives to the harem. 
 
 This of course adds to the gayety of the 
 harem, by giving more companions to the 
 ladies of the family ; and it can be, and 
 often is, managed that all the different 
 men visit their own women without ever 
 seeing those who do not belong to them. 
 
 But where the new regime allows all 
 the cousins to meet and know each other, 
 we have quite a new state of things. The 
 ideal of the happy family is realized, and 
 each house is a little world in itself, quite 
 independent of the great world outside. 
 
 The education of oriental women has 
 always been very simple. They are taught 
 embroidery and music, and, if they have 
 3 33
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 any voices, to sing, and sometimes to read 
 the Koran. 
 
 Dancing is an art much cultivated, but 
 never taught to ladies, only to slaves ; and 
 the daughter of Herodias is the only ori- 
 ental lady on record who ever danced. 
 
 The advanced party, on the contrary, 
 import French bonnes and governesses for 
 their daughters, and have them taught to 
 play on the piano, instead of on the old- 
 time lute. The young ladies seem to learn 
 French easily, and do so gladly in order 
 to read French novels, having few books 
 of their own, and the days of wandering 
 story-tellers, who formerly added so much 
 to their amusement, being, in Turkey at 
 least, almost past. 
 
 The beautiful Turkish costume, so well 
 described by Lady Mary Montagu and 
 other writers, has now become a thing of 
 the past; but, though much less effective, 
 they still have in Turkey and Egypt a cos- 
 tume of their own. This consists in a 
 34
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 long robe made, as we should say, " prin- 
 cess," and either fitting tight to the figure, 
 or drawn in at the waist with a girdle of 
 silver or gold. Sometimes this gown has 
 a long train, which adds to its grace, and 
 it is always high neck and long sleeves, 
 Mohammedan women considering dtcollett 
 dresses immodest even in the seclusion of 
 their homes. 
 
 It is also considered immodest to go 
 bare-headed, and onry permitted in very 
 young girls, who generally wear their hair 
 in two long plaits. The Egyptian women 
 wear long silk veils, very graceful, and 
 much like the Spanish mantilla; and the 
 Turkish women wear little turbans of 
 white tulle or embroidered silk gauze, to 
 which are added, on festive occasions, a 
 profusion of jewels, and sometimes the 
 turban is dispensed with altogether, and 
 the head covered with jewels alone. 
 
 There is another costume which I have 
 seen in Turkey, but never in Egypt, con- 
 35
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 sisting of a skirt and square sack, such as 
 were worn at the time of the marriage of 
 the Princess of Wales. I have only seen 
 it worn by slaves, and though then made 
 of the brightest brocades, I found it de- 
 void of all grace. 
 
 The ladies of the advanced party wear 
 French costumes and corsets, retaining 
 only their turban and gold-embroidered 
 slippers. But on the street the yashmak 
 and burnous are obligatory, and the cos- 
 tume of all is the same. 
 
 I will close this article with a few of 
 my own experiences in Egypt and Turkey, 
 selecting those which will be the most 
 interesting and the best calculated to give 
 a true glimpse of harem life in the East 
 of to-day.
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 PART II 
 
 MY first experience was humble but 
 none the less interesting. Our dragoman 
 at Luxor, Mahmoud, a clever and amusing 
 Arab, encouraged by my interest in every- 
 thing Moslem, confided in me his family 
 history, and the fact that he was newly 
 married to a beautiful young girl of thir- 
 teen who belonged to the best of Luxor, 
 and was named Fatima. 
 
 When I expressed a wish to see the 
 little bride, he was much flattered, and the 
 next morning took me to his house, 
 threading our way first through the loaded 
 camels and donkeys in the square, for it 
 was market day, and then through a maze 
 of narrow crooked streets. 
 
 The house was two stories high, and 
 
 built of mud bricks like most of the houses 
 
 in Luxor. And a massive wooden gate 
 
 admitted us into a little courtyard, which 
 
 37
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 seemed to serve as a reception-room also. 
 A tall handsome woman, wrapped in a red- 
 and-green silk veil put on like a mantilla 
 and falling to her feet, came forward and 
 kissed my hand. 
 
 This was Mahmoud's brother's wife. 
 She conducted me to one corner of the 
 court, where two green-and-white straw 
 chairs were placed on a Turkish rug, and as 
 soon as I was seated brought me some 
 coffee in a white-and-gold cup. 
 
 A few moments later the little bride 
 appeared, and after kissing my hand seated 
 herself in the other chair. Mahmoud and 
 his sister-in-law sat down on the ground, 
 and we all began an animated conversa- 
 tion in English and Arabic, Mahmoud 
 acting as interpreter. 
 
 Fatima was as pretty a little creature as 
 I have ever seen, and did not look older 
 than a girl of thirteen looks in America. 
 
 Her skin was like the richest cream, and 
 she had the red lips, pink cheeks, and long 
 38
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 black eyes inseparable from the oriental 
 ideal of beauty. 
 
 She was very bright and gay, constantly 
 looked at Mahmoud, and laughed and 
 seemed perfectly happy. 
 
 Her costume would have been a sur- 
 prise to any one who did not know the 
 East, and who remembered that her hus- 
 band earned but six shillings a day. Her 
 dress was ruby-red silk, and her veil of red- 
 and-green silk gauze, a massive gold neck- 
 lace like a row of medallions hung round 
 her neck, and four heavy gold earrings 
 hung two in each ear. Immense silver 
 bracelets clasped her wrists, and her fingers 
 were loaded with rings. 
 
 A woman of her position in America 
 would have been dressed in cotton, and 
 immersed in household work; but work 
 was evidently unknown to Fatima. 
 
 I asked Mahmoud how she spent her 
 time. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " she sits here and talks 
 39
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 to my female relatives, and her mother 
 comes to see her every morning and every 
 evening." 
 
 I asked him if she never went out. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " sometimes at 
 night with my mother or sister, but not to 
 her father's house ; she will not go there 
 till we have been married twelve months. 
 She stays always here because she is so 
 young, and that she may get accustomed to 
 my family, but when twelve months are 
 out, she will go home and stay a few days 
 with her father and mother. And before 
 she goes, I must give her a present that 
 she go away content ; and before she re- 
 turns, they must give her one that she 
 come back happy." 
 
 We talked on with a flowing inter- 
 change of compliments, as always in an 
 oriental conversation. Fatima begged 
 me to come back and see her again if I 
 ever returned to Luxor, and I gave her a 
 pin in the shape of a lantern as a souvenir. 
 40
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 At this she was much delighted, and 
 vowed that she would never forget me, and 
 that she would send me a present in return. 
 
 Both she and her sister-in-law kissed 
 my hands many times at parting, and the 
 same afternoon I received a quantity of 
 blue beads and several small blue mummies 
 such as one finds in the tombs, from my 
 little friend Fatima. 
 
 To cross the Mediterranean at a bound, 
 and give a glimpse of modern Turkey, 
 I will tell of two visits in Constantinople, 
 one in the house of an advanced Pasha, 
 and the other in that of a very conserva- 
 tive Bey, which will show that the con- 
 flicting accounts that one hears on this 
 subject may be equally true. 
 
 Arrived in the house of the Pasha, I was 
 met in the Salamlik (the men's part of 
 the house) by the Pasha's eldest son, who 
 conducted me down a long passage into 
 the harem. 
 
 This, as in most great establishments,
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 was in a separate house with a garden of 
 its own and built on the very edge of the 
 Bosphorus, so that but for the lattices one 
 might fish directly out of the windows. 
 
 The lower floor of the house was ar- 
 ranged as most large Turkish houses are, 
 all the rooms opening from a round cen- 
 tral hall supported on pillars, with two fine 
 staircases, one at each side. 
 
 The oriental staircase is invariable, and 
 differs from ours in that it starts with two 
 flights from the ground and continues from 
 the landing in one. And I have even 
 seen some in the palaces which make a 
 double turn in the air. 
 
 We ascended to the second floor, which 
 was arranged in the same way, and there 
 we were met by two ladies, both young and 
 beautiful, to whom the Bey introduced me, 
 his wife and sister. 
 
 The ladies conducted me into a salon 
 which was a great disappointment to me, 
 being entirely European. The furniture 
 42
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 was Louis Fourteenth (of which style the 
 orientals seem particularly fond), covered 
 in green-and-gold brocade. The walls 
 were green and gold, and, alas ! an Ax- 
 minster carpet covered the floor. But for 
 the window lattices we might have been 
 in Germany or France. 
 
 The wife of the Bey was an Austrian 
 by birth whom he had met and married in 
 Vienna, and who had renounced the world 
 and adopted the Moslem mode of life for 
 his sake. 
 
 She was very pretty, and seemed per- 
 fectly satisfied. Her religion was the only 
 thing which she had retained ; but her 
 two pretty little children, a girl and a boy, 
 were being reared in the faith of Islam. 
 
 Both she and her sister-in-kw were 
 dressed in the Paris fashions, another dis- 
 appointment to me ; but the sister was an 
 ideal oriental beauty whom no chiffons 
 could change or spoil, a real princess of 
 the Arabian Nights. 
 
 43
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 She spoke French to me, and her voice 
 was like music. Never have I seen any- 
 where a more lovely or attractive young 
 girl. 
 
 The Bey had left us, and the ladies en- 
 tertained me by showing me photograph 
 albums, and asking me about my travels 
 (which seemed to interest them very 
 much), and also many questions about 
 America. 
 
 I had been invited to lunch, and thought 
 of course to remain with the ladies; but 
 no, the Bey reappeared and, saying lunch 
 was served, took me back to the Salamlik, 
 where my husband was waiting for me, 
 and we three sat down to lunch in a hand- 
 some European dining-room. The room 
 was occidental indeed, but the lunch was 
 entirely oriental, innumerable courses, 
 and everything delicious, from the soup to 
 the pilaf and sweets. 
 
 Oriental cooking is always good, but the 
 Turkish cooking surpasses all others, and 
 44
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 distances the French. After lunch I re- 
 turned to the harem and took my leave 
 of the ladies, and then our host showed us 
 his garden, and took us in his caique to 
 that most beautiful spot, " The sweet 
 waters of Asia." 
 
 Quite different was my visit to the 
 house of a Bey who is one of the most 
 conservative men in Constantinople, and 
 where I had the pleasure of finding every- 
 thing according to the old regime. 
 
 To this house I was conducted by the 
 Bey's nephew, another young Bey whom 
 I had known in Vienna. 
 
 The house was in the middle of Stam- 
 boul. Wooden and unpretentious out- 
 side, but the moment the street-door was 
 opened we found ourselves in a marble 
 hall, and a number of jet-black eunuchs 
 conducted us up a marble staircase to the 
 second floor, which in this case was the 
 harem. 
 
 Here we were ushered into a room 
 45
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 where sat the Bey, a fine-looking old man 
 with a white beard and bright black eyes, 
 wearing a fez, of course, and a long fur- 
 lined gown. 
 
 He rose at our entrance, shook hands 
 with my husband and bowed to me, bid- 
 ding us welcome in Turkish ; for he spoke 
 no other language, and I noticed with 
 interest that he held and fingered a rosary 
 of enamel and pearls. 
 
 The room was half Turkish, half 
 European, and around the walls were a 
 quantity of rare and beautiful clocks on 
 brackets, of which, and especially of 
 watches, I was told the Bey was a great 
 collector and connoisseur. 
 
 In a few moments a eunuch reap- 
 peared to say that the ladies were waiting, 
 and, accompanied by the young Bey, I 
 walked down a corridor into what was 
 evidently the reception-room of the harem. 
 
 This was a large room frescoed in 
 different colors. A row of yellow-satin 
 46
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 sofas and chairs were arranged around the 
 walls, a glass chandelier full of candles in 
 bell-glasses hung from the middle of the 
 ceiling, and under it stood a superb brass 
 brazier on a large brass tray. 
 
 The wife of the Bey advanced to meet 
 me, a handsome woman of middle age, 
 with splendid black eyes. To my delight 
 she wore a Turkish dress of yellow satin, 
 with a sweeping train, and a little turban 
 of embroidered gauze. An Indian scarf 
 hung over her shoulders, and her dia- 
 monds, of immense size and brilliancy, 
 fairly dazzled the sight. 
 
 She greeted me with great cordiality in 
 Turkish, and presented me to two ladies 
 who had been invited to meet me, one 
 a woman of thirty-five or so, in semi- 
 European dress, and the other a girl of 
 fifteen with her hair in long plaits and 
 wearing a pelisse of crimson velvet em- 
 broidered in pearls. 
 
 All the ladies shook hands with me, and, 
 47
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 according to the Turkish custom, they 
 tried to get their hands lower than mine, 
 to show in what honor they held me. 
 Politeness forced me to follow suit, and 
 the result was we shook hands on the 
 floor. 
 
 We all sat down, and immediately four 
 slaves entered the room, bearing bon-bons 
 and coffee, all but one, who wore the 
 Greek costume and seated herself on the 
 floor, while the others remained standing. 
 
 My friend, the Bey, explained to me 
 that she had been the wet nurse of the 
 eldest son, and in consequence ranked 
 second only to the ladies of the family. 
 
 The bon-bons were first handed round, 
 delicious Turkish bon-bons in dishes of 
 silver filigree, and then the coffee in 
 cups of egg-shell porcelain fitting into out- 
 side cups of gold, the whole service resting 
 on a round silver-gilt tray. And last of 
 all came pink sherbet in large glasses, the 
 usual order observed everywhere. 
 48
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 The slaves interested me extremely. 
 They were all young women, one Circas- 
 sian and two negresses, all dressed in 
 white tulle turbans and skirts, and jackets 
 of brilliant brocade, one pink, one lilac, 
 and one olive-green. 
 
 The ladies spoke nothing but Turkish, 
 but that made no difference j they talked 
 to me with the greatest volubility, and the 
 Bey acted as interpreter. 
 
 Knowing a little Turkish myself, I said 
 what I could, and the ladies were delighted 
 with my efforts, and clapped their hands 
 and laughed, and begged me to say some- 
 thing more; until my vocabulary was 
 entirely exhausted. 
 
 A great many compliments were ex- 
 changed between us, and the ladies talked 
 of their family affairs just as women do in 
 America. 
 
 The wife of the Bey related with great 
 glee that she had gone out in a white 
 veil for the first time in her life the day be- 
 4 49
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 fore. And her cousin told us in confidence 
 that her daughter, a bride of fifteen, was not 
 permitted by her husband to wear anything 
 but a dark-figured veil, and added that her 
 son-in-law was very jealous. 
 
 They were all very merry and bright, 
 and made me feel very much at home. I 
 lingered as long as I thought correct, 
 though they begged me to stay, and we 
 parted with vows of eternal friendship. 
 
 To close this article with an account of 
 what is at the present day the most ori- 
 ental of all oriental things, I will tell of 
 a wedding, and a wedding on the grandest 
 scale, which I was fortunate enough to 
 witness in Cairo. 
 
 This was the wedding of a certain 
 Mohammed Bey to the daughter of Hassan 
 Pasha, both representatives of the highest 
 Egyptian aristocracy. And while the 
 oriental ideas of friendship have forbidden 
 me to mention the names of my Turkish 
 friends, while relating what I saw in their 
 5
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 homes, I feel at liberty to give all the 
 names here, because all great weddings are 
 alike, and rank less as private than as 
 official events. 
 
 An oriental wedding always takes place 
 at the house in which the young couple 
 are to reside, but the evening before the 
 contract is signed at the home of the 
 bride. 
 
 All the male friends and relatives on both 
 sides assemble, and there is what we would 
 call a stag party. The contract is signed 
 by the bridegroom and the fathers or 
 guardians on both sides, and last of all the 
 bride is called, and comes veiled to the door 
 of the harem, where she is met by the 
 priest. He asks her if she is willing to 
 marry the young man, she says yes, and 
 the cei^hony is complete. Every one 
 then s^arates, and the real wedding takes 
 place the next day as follows. 
 
 I arrived at the palace of Achmet Pasha, 
 the brother of Mohammed Bey, at five
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 0*clock in the afternoon, as all the other 
 guests were assembling. The street for a 
 square on each side was spanned with 
 arches hung with colored lanterns, gold 
 and silver balls, and Turkish flags, and 
 the gateway was garlanded with crimson 
 flowers. 
 
 A glimpse into the courtyard showed 
 me the Pasha surrounded by his friends 
 seated on innumerable divans, drinking 
 coffee and smoking cigarettes. 
 
 But only a glimpse ; for a jet-black 
 eunuch hurried me through a side door, 
 and up a flight of stairs into the harem, 
 where I found myself at once in the 
 Arabian Nights. 
 
 The pakce was of immense size, and 
 built around a courtyard three rooms deep, 
 the inside suite having windows on the 
 courtyard, and the outside on the street, 
 the middle rooms being lit by skylights. 
 All the rooms were very much alike, 
 furnished with divans and curtains of 
 52
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 different-colored brocade. In some of 
 them were large canopied Turkish beds, 
 and in some French consoles and tables, 
 and almost every room boasted a crystal 
 chandelier. Opening as they did out of 
 each other, these brilliant and endless 
 rooms gave one the feeling of the palace 
 of a dream. 
 
 Perhaps two hundred women or more 
 were walking about or sitting on divans, 
 the ladies of Cairo and their slaves, 
 Egyptians, Circassians, and Abyssinians. 
 
 They were all in Egyptian costumes 
 of the most gorgeous materials, brilliant 
 pinks and lilacs, sky-blues and ruby-reds, 
 many of them brocaded in gold flowers, 
 and nearly all belted in at the waist with 
 girdles of flexible gold. 
 
 The slaves wore dresses as rich as the 
 ladies, but their necklaces, bracelets, and 
 earrings were in most cases only of gold, 
 while the ladies, one and all, fairly glittered 
 with diamonds. 
 
 53
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 The jewels indeed were surprising. 
 Every lady wore a diamond necklace, and 
 most of them long diamond earrings, 
 diamond bracelets, diamond chatelaines, and 
 medallions of diamonds holding their hus- 
 bands' pictures pinned over their hearts. 
 
 Some of the ladies wore Turkish turbans 
 under which jewels glittered like stars 
 through a mist. One had a number of 
 diamond humming-birds nestling in her 
 hair, but the majority wore diamond tiaras 
 as large as the usual royal coronet. 
 
 Some few of the slaves wore diamonds 
 also, and I began to realize that Egypt is 
 still the richest country in the world. 
 
 The absence of other jewels surprised 
 me, though there were some fine pearls and 
 emeralds. And I also wondered why there 
 were only the four colors I have men- 
 tioned. Green I knew was forbidden by 
 the strict letter of the Koran, being the 
 Prophet's color, but I could not understand 
 the absence of yellow. 
 54
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 After I had feasted a few moments on 
 this fairy scene, a large negress conducted 
 me into a room where the wedding pres- 
 ents were displayed in glass cabinets against 
 the walls. These consisted of articles of 
 gold and silver plate and bottles of per- 
 fume. From there I went into the salon 
 tFhonneur where the bride was to be re- 
 ceived. This was a large room somewhat 
 in European style, with furniture of heavy 
 carved rose-wood ranged around the walls, 
 a crimson carpet, and curtains and portieres 
 of crimson-and-gold brocade. 
 
 At one side was a dais raised three steps, 
 and covered with crimson satin, on which 
 stood two massive Louis the Fourteenth 
 gilt chairs covered with crimson-and-gold 
 brocade, and over them, supported on slen- 
 der gilt columns, a splendid canopy with 
 sweeping curtains of crimson satin fringed 
 with gold. 
 
 Nor was this all, but from the top of 
 each column hung a skein of gold wire as 
 55
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 thick as a man's arm, which reached the 
 floor. 
 
 A sudden cry arose that the bride was 
 coming, and all the women rushed to the 
 windows, I among the rest, and just in time 
 to see what might have been Cinderella's 
 chariot stop the way, a gilded coach of 
 nondescript design, over the roof of which, 
 as is their custom, was thrown a rich white 
 Indian shawl. 
 
 The bride had alighted, and was coming 
 up the stairs; and, running out into the 
 ante-chamber, I saw her enter her new 
 home, entirely covered with a golden 
 veil, and surrounded by twelve jet-black 
 eunuchs, all throwing silver money in the 
 air. 
 
 They passed into the salon d'konneur, 
 and the moment afterwards the slaves 
 went down on their hands and knees, 
 tumbling over each other to get the money. 
 The ladies had to jump up on the divans 
 to save themselves from being thrown 
 56
 
 down, and the floor was a scrambling 
 mass of satin and brocade. 
 
 When I could make my way back to 
 the salon cThonneur, I found the bride 
 already unveiled and seated in one of the 
 chairs on the dais. An Abyssinian slave 
 sat at her feet and fanned her, and the 
 admiring throng of women crowded on 
 every side. 
 
 The bride was, as I was informed, 
 seventeen, rather old for an Egyptian 
 bride. I wish I could relate that she was 
 beautiful ; but though she had the splendid 
 black eyes of her race, and luxuriant black 
 hair, I can describe her best by saying that 
 she was twice too stout. 
 
 Her dress was of the richest material of 
 the East, a pigeon's-blood Mecca silk 
 brocaded with gold flowers. A gold belt 
 encircled her waist, and on her head she 
 wore a white tulle turban from which two 
 skeins of gold wire, like the skeins on the 
 canopy, hung over her shoulders and down 
 57
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 to the ground. Her turban was fairly 
 ablaze with diamonds, and her bosom was 
 covered with a mass of diamond flowers. 
 
 Her slave was dressed in brocade of 
 brilliant lilac ; and the color and glitter of 
 the whole picture may be better imagined 
 than described. 
 
 The bride remained perfectly silent, and 
 no one spoke to her. Her position, every- 
 thing depending on her as it did, seemed 
 to me like that of the man at the wheel. 
 
 After a few moments more, she arose 
 and descended from the dais. Her 
 female relatives surrounded her, and led 
 her out of the salon and into a private 
 room. The ladies dispersed themselves 
 again through the apartments, and I fol- 
 lowed, with another American lady who was 
 present, to see all that could be seen. 
 
 The ladies seated themselves on the 
 
 divans, and little negresses carried round 
 
 cigarettes in little baskets of gold and 
 
 silver tinsel, and coffee in egg-shell cups. 
 
 58
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 Every lady sat with her own slave 
 beside her, and I could not but remark that 
 all the beauty was among the slaves. 
 
 The Egyptian ladies are, as I have said 
 before, not beautiful. But the Abyssinians, 
 although as dark as our mulattoes, are a 
 very handsome race. 
 
 In Africa one entirely loses the idea that 
 brown or even black skins mean negro 
 blood. The Abyssinians have very noble 
 features, and hair like waved black silk ; 
 and the Soudanese, though almost black, 
 are the most beautiful and graceful crea- 
 tures I have ever seen. 
 
 There were also a number of Circassian 
 women present, easily told by their pink- 
 and-white complexions, and their golden or 
 auburn hair. These might have been beau- 
 tiful, but that they were all blacked so 
 heavily around their eyes that they seemed 
 to be wearing spectacles, and that their 
 natural eyebrows were shaved and replaced 
 by streaks of black paint half an inch broad. 
 59
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 This is an ancient Persian custom, and 
 I cannot tell why it is practised in Egypt ; 
 nor have I seen it elsewhere. 
 
 The palm of beauty rested with the 
 Abyssinians, and they seemed to be the 
 brightest as well ; for they talked incessantly, 
 and kept the other women laughing. 
 
 In one of the central rooms a band of 
 female musicians sat on the floor pkying 
 on inlaid tambourines and lutes, and one 
 on a bottle drum. And musicians, instru- 
 ments, and the wild melody they were 
 pkying, all carried one back to the days of 
 Haroun-al-Raschid. 
 
 The eunuchs walked about joking with 
 the women, with that familiarity which 
 they are always allowed. The air was 
 sweet with ottar of roses and musk, and 
 I felt myself indeed in the heart of the 
 East. 
 
 Half the women spent their time in the 
 inner rooms sitting on the window-sills, 
 and looking down into the court. I 
 60
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 looked also, at the instigation of an Egyp- 
 tian friend, and found it a brilliant scene, 
 though not so interesting as the one in the 
 harem. 
 
 The whole courtyard was roofed in 
 with bunting of the brightest colors, and a 
 forest of glass chandeliers hung (from 
 nothing, apparently.) The pillars were 
 twined with bunting, and the innumerable 
 divans spread with rugs ; and in the midst 
 of all the glitter and color the Pasha and 
 the bridegroom, his brother, were making 
 merry with their friends. 
 
 The window lattice of course protected 
 the women from sight ; but their enjoy- 
 ment of the view seemed endless, for, 
 from afternoon until midnight, the window- 
 seats were always full. 
 
 The lady of the house, Madame 
 Achmet Pasha, now approached me most 
 graciously, not having had time before ; 
 and though she only spoke Arabic, there 
 was no misunderstanding of her welcome. 
 61
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 She was a handsome woman, a Circas- 
 sian. I was surprised to find her alone of 
 the women in a somewhat European dress 
 of black satin with yellow stripes. But I 
 was informed that on these occasions it 
 is not etiquette for the hostess to appear 
 en grande toilette, it being supposed that she 
 is too busy attending to the comfort of her 
 guests to have had time to dress herself. 
 
 The banquet now came next in order. 
 But being told that it would be served in 
 the old style, all the women eating out of 
 the dishes with their fingers, and etiquette 
 obliging one to partake of every course, I 
 excused myself and left, promising to 
 return in the evening. 
 
 I returned at nine o'clock, and was 
 received by the mother of the bride (a 
 most amiable woman dressed in rose- 
 colored brocade), who took me into the 
 bridal chamber and explained everything 
 to me in Arabic. 
 
 This room adjourned the salon d'bonneur 
 62
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 from which it was separated by portieres. 
 It was all yellow, curtains, portieres, 
 and divans of yellow brocade ; and at one 
 side stood the most beautiful bed I have 
 ever seen. 
 
 A Turkish bed, four slender gilded 
 columns supporting a canopy from which 
 hung white-satin curtains fringed with 
 gold ; three long flat white-satin pillows, 
 edged with gold embroidery, were piled at 
 one end, and the rest of the bed was 
 covered by a magnificent white-satin spread 
 embroidered all over in gold. 
 
 Two steps, covered with white satin and 
 fringed with gold, led up to this regal 
 couch, and even the top sheet was 
 embroidered in gold. And over all was 
 thrown a white-silk gauze as fine as a 
 spider's web, and embroidered all in white, 
 with a wonderful fairy embroidery. 
 
 The days of Haroun-al-Raschid are 
 over ; but, thank Heaven, the East still 
 keeps its splendors ! 
 
 63
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 On a table beside the bed were two 
 large cases of crimson velvet embroidered 
 in gold, some silver-backed brushes, a 
 cigarette case, and match-box of gold, 
 and a set of diamond studs and sleeve 
 buttons. 
 
 I now returned to the other ladies, and 
 found that many of them had changed 
 their dresses ; but there were no new 
 colors, only paler and less effective shades. 
 
 They were all very cordial and friendly, 
 and very anxious to talk to me. Two or 
 three of them spoke French, and the 
 bride's sister, an attractive young girl of 
 fifteen, among the rest. And I found one 
 who even spoke English, the only English- 
 speaking oriental woman I have ever 
 known. 
 
 She and I immediately became friends, 
 and she presented to me her mother, a 
 handsome old lady glittering with jewels, 
 and her two daughters, girls of ten and 
 twelve, with luxuriant curling ringlets of 
 64
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 light brown hair, most unusual in the East, 
 as pretty as wax dolls, and whose bright 
 pink dresses made them look like roses. 
 
 The women who could speak no for- 
 eign tongue talked to me in Arabic, and 
 their tones and gestures were so expressive 
 that I managed to catch a good deal of 
 their meaning. I answered them in French, 
 and we got along very happily. Women 
 must talk, and I do not believe there is 
 any difference of language so great as to 
 render conversation between them abso- 
 lutely impossible. 
 
 A very pretty Abyssinian woman, dressed 
 in sky-blue brocade and sparkling with 
 diamonds, came to me and said that she 
 would go with me to America. 
 
 I told her I would take her with pleas- 
 ure, and she turned to a number of other 
 women and told them what she was going 
 to do in America. The bride's sister, 
 who sat beside me, translated what she 
 said, and 1 must own that her ideas of our 
 5 65
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 manners and morals were anything but 
 flattering, so much so that my. little 
 friend at last apologized for her, and 
 stopped translating. 
 
 But all other diversion was now put to 
 an end by the announcement that the 
 bride would now make her second entree. 
 
 I went into the salon cThonneur and 
 saw her enter, led by her sister and an- 
 other young girl, walking with feigned 
 reluctance, and apparently dragged along 
 by her bridesmaids. 
 
 The sister was dressed in light blue, 
 and the other young girl in white brocade, 
 and loaded with emeralds and diamonds. 
 She, the other, was the daughter of a great 
 Pasha, and was soon to be married to the 
 brother of my English-speaking friend. 
 
 The bride now wore a dress of white 
 satin, brocaded with silver flowers ; but her 
 turban, her skeins of gold wire, and her 
 diamonds remained unchanged. 
 
 Again she was lead to the seat on the 
 66
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 dais, and again the women gathered round 
 her, and admired her to their hearts' 
 content. 
 
 She remained as silent as before, and at 
 the end of ten minutes or more she de- 
 scended from her throne and sought refuge 
 again in her private room. 
 
 We returned to the central apartments, 
 and sat around on the divans. The female 
 musicians whom I had seen in the after- 
 noon reappeared and seated themselves 
 on the floor, and with them came the 
 nautch dancers. 
 
 Since the Chicago Fair so much has 
 been written and said against the nautch 
 dance that I will express no opinion on 
 the subject, though being familiar with it 
 in the East I might perhaps do so more 
 intelligently than some of those who have 
 condemned it so clamorously here. 
 
 I will make one remark and one only. 
 The object of the nautch dance is to ex- 
 cite the senses. In Europe and America 
 67
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 people at festive gatherings make them- 
 selves merry with a glass or two of cham- 
 pagne. Mohammed has forbidden wine, 
 but he has not forbidden his followers to 
 be merry. The nautch dance is the 
 champagne of the Orient ! 
 
 The costumes of the dancers on this 
 occasion would have satisfied the severest 
 critic, being just like those of the ladies, 
 except without trains. Their hair, unlike 
 the ladies', hung down in long plaits, and 
 they wore round velvet caps embroidered 
 in gold and pearls. 
 
 Coffee was brought to us again as we 
 looked on, and the manner of serving it is 
 worthy of note. 
 
 A negress carried a silver brazier, hang- 
 ing like a censer by three chains, in which 
 a superb coffee-pot rested on the coals. A 
 second negress bore a round waiter with 
 the cups, and a third served the coffee and 
 handed it around. 
 
 The cups were like egg-shells, and at 
 68
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 the bottom of each under the coffee was a 
 drop of ottar of rose. 
 
 The evening wore on, and at length we 
 were informed by the watchers at the 
 inside windows that the bridegroom had 
 left the house with his especial friends to 
 make his visit to the Mosque. 
 
 Perhaps half an hour more, and then a 
 shouting and commotion in the streets, as 
 in the Bible, " A cry arose at midnight, the 
 bridegroom cometh !" 
 
 We all rushed to the windows, and look- 
 ing down saw the procession coming along 
 under the arches of colored lanterns and 
 gold and silver balls, twelve servants, 
 all in white, each carrying a candle in a 
 bell-glass, and walking in their midst a 
 handsome young man of twenty one or 
 two, Mohammed Bey. 
 
 A long string of young men, his friends, 
 followed two and two, and slowly they all 
 filed under the flower-hung gateway, and 
 were lost to our view. 
 69
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 The Egyptian ladies now began to wrap 
 themselves in their burnouses and veils, and 
 depart. The bridegroom was coming and 
 they must not be seen, but my American 
 friend and myself were invited to stay and 
 witness the closing scene. 
 
 In company with the bride's mother 
 and some of the house slaves, we stood in 
 the doorway between the salon cFhonneur 
 and the bridal chamber, the heavy curtains 
 half-hiding us from view. 
 
 The wife of Achmet Pasha entered the 
 room, and stood before one of the windows, 
 with three of her slaves behind her, and 
 then came the bride, still in her white dress 
 and covered from head to foot with her 
 golden veil. 
 
 A prayer-rug of crimson velvet em- 
 broidered in gold was spread beside her, 
 and behind her stood three of her slaves, 
 all veiled in white. I confess that it was 
 one of the most exciting moments of my 
 life. 
 
 70
 
 The Women of Islam 
 
 Footsteps were heard outside, and sur- 
 rounded by twelve eunuchs, each with a 
 candle in a bell-glass, Mohammed Bey 
 entered the room. 
 
 He seemed embarrassed, and glancing at 
 us behind the curtains stood still, but one 
 of the eunuchs took him by the arm and 
 led him to the praying-rug. 
 
 There he turned towards Mecca, 
 dropped on his knees, and uttering a prayer 
 touched the ground with his forehead 
 three times. 
 
 Then rising, he took the bride's veil by 
 the hem and lifted it slowly, slowly, and 
 when the diamonds on her breast were in 
 full sight her slaves seized it from behind 
 and pulled it off, and she stood revealed in 
 all her splendor. 
 
 Mohammed Bey clasped his hands in 
 delight, and then turning to his sister-in- 
 law uttered some words in Arabic, evi- 
 dently expressive of joy. Then turning 
 back again he gave his bride a medallion
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 of diamonds, for which she made a place 
 above her heart. 
 
 (It is an unwritten law in Islam that 
 when a man sees his bride, his first act 
 must be to give her a present.) 
 
 And then Mohammed Bey hesitated, 
 but his sister encouraged him with a few 
 words, and taking his bride by the hand he 
 led her up on the dais, and they seated 
 themselves on the two gilt chairs under 
 the canopy. 
 
 The moment had come when these two 
 thus mated for life were to make each 
 other's acquaintance, but for us the spec- 
 tacle was over. Madame Achmet Pasha 
 rushed suddenly down upon us like a hawk 
 on a brood of chickens, and pushed us all 
 out of the room. 
 
 The crimson and gold portieres were 
 drawn behind us, and the Arabian Nights 
 entertainment was at an end. 
 
 72
 
 Oriental Slavery 
 
 73
 
 ORIENTAL SLAVERY 
 
 WRITTEN IN 189* 
 
 READING the other day an account 
 of the horrors of skvery in Morocco, 
 I laughed at this new " bogie," as every 
 one who knows the Orient and the 
 oriental policy of England must. 
 
 The British lion loves to masquerade in 
 the Crusader's mantle, and never sets out 
 to seek his prey unarmed with a pious 
 excuse. 
 
 The old Romans went out to conquer ; 
 but the English have no such intent, they 
 go out only to spread freedom and Chris- 
 tianity with the sword. 
 
 England wants Morocco, therefore this 
 
 sudden outcry about Moorish slavery. 
 
 When England has taken Morocco, 
 
 Moorish slavery will be heard of no more. 
 
 75
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 India, Burmah, Ceylon, and Egypt are 
 full of slaves. And let it not be forgotten 
 that General Gordon's first official act on 
 his arrival in Khartoum was to re-estab- 
 lish, by edict of the Queen, the slave 
 trade which had been abolished by the 
 Khedive Ishmail. Nor can we blame 
 him. Gordon knew the East and acted 
 from necessity. I only blame that policy 
 which talks one way and acts another. 
 Let England conquer all she pleases, but 
 let her have the courage of her actions, 
 and not seek to humbug her own sub- 
 jects and the rest of the world. 
 
 Many people speak of oriental slavery 
 as of other things which they know 
 nothing about. I know the East. Its 
 religions, its history, and its literature have 
 been with me almost a passion, and what 
 its life is I have seen for myself. Its 
 laws, customs, and social institutions are 
 not and cannot be like ours. Who speaks 
 of abolishing slavery in Mohammedan 
 76
 
 Oriental Slavery 
 
 countries talks of something that he does 
 not understand. Slavery, with them of 
 the mildest and most patriarchal type, is 
 almost a necessity of life, and more, it is a 
 religious institution for which all the rules 
 are laid down in the Koran. 
 
 To begin with men slaves. They are 
 generally bought as boys from dealers or 
 their own parents, and are carefully 
 trained and taught whatever work, mental 
 or manual, they are intended to perform. 
 
 Slavery in a Mohammedan country is 
 no disgrace, nor does it debar a man from 
 any career. Young white slaves are 
 sometimes brought up as husbands for 
 their master's daughters, and inherit their 
 share of his wealth. Slaves who show 
 intelligence a. ' *alent are often freed by 
 their masters, arter being carefully edu- 
 cated, and obtain through their influence 
 official and sometimes very important 
 positions. Talent has always found its 
 recognition in the East, and, from the 
 77
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 earliest times of Moslem history, slaves 
 have risen to be generals, Pashas, govern- 
 ors of provinces, and even grand Viziers. 
 
 Before speaking of the slavery of 
 women, we must consider the position 
 of woman in the East, a most important 
 point and one which the old maids of 
 Exeter Hall, and many other good people, 
 entirely forget. 
 
 Mohammed was the champion of 
 women. He restricted the number of 
 wives to four, gave women rights of prop- 
 erty, obliged a man who divorced his wife 
 to restore her dowry, and taught parents 
 to be glad and proud of daughters as well 
 as of sons. 
 
 No woman works for her living in the 
 East. The poorest Mohammedan who 
 would allow his wife, mother, daughter, or 
 sister to go and work in another man's 
 house would be disgraced. With them 
 men only are the bread-winners, and with- 
 out women slaves there would be no 
 78
 
 Oriental Slavery 
 
 women servants of any kind, and this for 
 another reason also, all oriental girls are 
 married as soon as they reach the mar- 
 riageable age, a custom which insures 
 peace and quiet, as much of the trouble 
 in this world is made by single women 
 (for the sole reason that they have 
 nothing else to do). 
 
 The only exceptions to this rule are 
 those unfortunates who are brought up as 
 dancing and singing girls. They, however, 
 are very few in number as compared with 
 the immoral class in Christian countries. 
 All other women marry, and old maids are 
 unknown. 
 
 And now let us look at the real condi- 
 tion of the female slaves. In former 
 times, there was a commerce de luxe in 
 baby girls, who were prized for their 
 beauty, and brought up in the harems with 
 as much care as their master's daughters. 
 Now they are generally bought as they 
 are budding into womanhood, not in the 
 79
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 slave-market as in olden times, but pri- 
 vately, from dealers to whom they have 
 been sold by their parents, Circassia and 
 Abyssinia being the great sources of sup- 
 ply. A female slave is more for ornament 
 than use j her work consists in waiting on 
 the ladies of the master's family, and keep- 
 ing in order the apartments of the harem, 
 all real work, such as cooking and wash- 
 ing, being done by the men. 
 
 When one pays a visit in a harem, all 
 the slaves are brought in to serve the 
 coffee and bon-bons, and remain standing 
 about the room, silent and graceful, dressed 
 in satin and brocade, bright with gold and 
 silver ornaments, and sometimes glittering 
 with jewels. They go out walking and 
 driving with their mistresses, and are taken 
 to weddings, which are almost the only 
 entertainments in the East. An easy life 
 compared with that of an English or 
 American shop or factory girl, teacher, or 
 sewing woman. 
 
 80
 
 Oriental Slavery 
 
 And yet it is from this life that so 
 many good people (ignorant and intoler- 
 ant of all customs but their own) are so 
 eager to rescue them and for what ? 
 For what ? for since there is no work 
 which women can do in the East, free- 
 dom to the slave means the choice be- 
 tween a life of shame and starvation on 
 the streets. 
 
 As one of the many examples that may 
 be given of the harm which is done by 
 good people meddling in things they know 
 nothing about, I will relate the following, 
 which occurred in Egypt in the beginning 
 of the English occupation, and which I 
 have from an English officer who took 
 part in the affair. 
 
 Information was received that five 
 Abyssinian girls who had been ordered for 
 the harem of a Pasha in Cairo were com- 
 ing down the Nile in a dakabiyeb, and, in 
 the language of Exeter Hall, a gun-boat 
 was sent out to " rescue the unhappy girls 
 6 81
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 from slavery," which in their case was to 
 mean a transition from the mud huts of 
 Abyssinia and an almost savage existence, 
 to the luxury and splendor of a Cairene 
 Palace, and a life of silks and jewels, 
 bon-bons and perfumes. 
 
 The suspected boat soon appeared on 
 the river, and, when summoned, refused to 
 halt, whereupon the gun-boat fired a shot 
 through her bows. 
 
 Brought to in this manner, she was 
 boarded by the English, who found the 
 girls below ; but there were only four to 
 rescue, for one had been killed by the 
 English cannon-ball, her gift from the 
 good anti-slavists. The other four girls 
 were taken down to Cairo, and there set 
 at liberty, turned loose in the streets, 
 speaking nothing but their own language, 
 knowing nothing but the life of their dis- 
 tant home, young, children in years, and 
 beautiful, and free ! free to choose 
 between starvation and a life of shame. 
 82
 
 Oriental Slavery 
 
 Oh, precious boon of liberty ! Oh, 
 excellent Exeter Hall ! 
 
 The officer who told me this concluded 
 by saying that it was the dirtiest piece of 
 business in which he had ever been forced 
 to take part, and that rather than engage 
 in such another he would leave the 
 service. 
 
 In former times, and still to some ex- 
 tent, the great men of the empire used to 
 give slaves out of their own harems to 
 their followers as presents and rewards. 
 This was a high honor for the recipient. 
 The slave became his wife, and, if he had 
 other wives, took the first place. At 
 present the usual custom is as follows : 
 a Pasha or Bey or rich Effendi gives a 
 slave her liberty after she has belonged 
 to him three or four years. The woman 
 then remains in his harem two or three 
 years more, free, but leading the same 
 life, clothed and fed and taken care of 
 as before. At the end of that time the 
 83
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 master finds her a suitable husband and 
 gives her her dowry, the amount of 
 which is regulated by custom. Afterwards, 
 should her husband divorce her, she re- 
 turns to her master's house, and in any 
 case remains more or less a pensioner and 
 dependent of his family, and his house 
 remains to her a home. Some women 
 remain always, from choice, in their 
 master's harems. Those who have been 
 wet nurses to their master's children are 
 never given away ; they are held in high 
 honor and affection, waited upon by the 
 other slaves, and ranked next to the ladies 
 of the family. 
 
 One reads romantic tales of faithless 
 odalisques sewn up in sacks and thrown 
 into the sea ; and in other times such 
 things no doubt occurred, but these days 
 are as much past as the days of witch 
 burning in New England ; and at least 
 we must admit that the Mohammedans 
 always take the most painless way of 
 84
 
 Oriental Slavery 
 
 putting people to death, which is more 
 than can be said of the Yankees. 
 
 And now let us look at female slavery 
 from the point of morality. 
 
 Mohammed founded his religion on 
 the Old Testament, which undeniably 
 gives a slave to her master, as Abraham 
 and Hagar, Jacob, Zilpah and Bilhah. 
 To touch or even look at another man's 
 wife is a sin for a Moslem, but a slave 
 belongs to her master. 
 
 In the words of the Koran, " Take of 
 what your right hands possess." 
 
 A Mohammedan is responsible for every 
 child that is born in his house. If, there- 
 fore, a slave has a child by her master, the 
 child ranks equal with the children of the 
 wife or wives. 
 
 The Sultan never marries. All the 
 women in the royal harem are slaves, 
 Circassians, Persians, Greeks, and ne- 
 gresses. Every woman who becomes a 
 mother is called a Sultana, and her chil- 
 85
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 dren are the Imperial Princes and Prin- 
 cesses. The real Queen is the Sultan's 
 mother, who takes precedence of every 
 one else, and bears the title of Sultana 
 Valid. This lady is as much a necessity 
 in her way as the Sultan in his. There- 
 fore, if the Commander of the Faithful 
 have no mother of his own, he must adopt 
 one, to give a head to his harem. 
 
 When the present Sultan, Abdul Hamid, 
 came to the throne, his own mother being 
 dead, he adopted the mother of his pre- 
 decessor, Abdul Aziz. A strange freak of 
 fortune this ! Through all the storms 
 that shook the empire to its base, through 
 the disasters of the war, the murder of 
 her son, the death or exile of his ministers, 
 this woman alone has remained, is Sultana 
 Validg still. Like all her predecessors, 
 once a slave, now first lady of the Ottoman 
 Empire ! 
 
 86
 
 The Missionaries
 
 THE MISSIONARIES 
 
 AS THEY APPEAR TO THE HEATHEN 
 
 NOW that the question has been raised 
 in England, that the foreign mission- 
 aries are not fulfilling their mission, and 
 in some cases they are doing more harm than 
 good, a few words may be said on the 
 subject here, also in the belief that it is 
 always best that the truth should be told. 
 
 In the first place, I have no intent to 
 attack the missionaries, but merely to 
 show that they should be judged by their 
 life and work abroad, rather than by our 
 own imagination. 
 
 One hears of drunken and profligate 
 
 missionaries, teaching the heathen the 
 
 vices of our world, rather than the virtues 
 
 of Christianity. Some such there are no 
 
 89
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 doubt, and more who are ignorant or 
 unfitted for their work ; but most of them 
 are good people, and doing good. But 
 they are not doing what they have been 
 sent to do, and what the good people at 
 home are paying for. 
 
 They are teaching the natives English 
 and something of the laws of sanitation 
 and hygiene. The female missionaries are 
 going into the harems and teaching some 
 of the young girls to read and write, to 
 sew and amuse themselves with fancy 
 work. And where they are possessed of 
 medical knowledge, they are curing little 
 ailments, and sometimes even serious 
 ones. And in Egypt and Syria especially 
 they do an immense amount of good 
 in saving eyes from the scourge of 
 ophthalmia. 
 
 But they are not making converts to 
 Christianity. 
 
 We are apt to speak of the heathen 
 with utter indiscrimination. 
 90
 
 The Missionaries 
 
 The learned Brahman, the Moslem, the 
 Parsi, the Malay, and the African can- 
 nibal are all one to us. And we sing of 
 them in our happy self-confidence and 
 superiority as calling us from lands 
 " Where every prospect pleases and only 
 man is vile," " From Greenland's icy 
 mountains to India's coral strand," to come 
 and " Deliver their souls from error's 
 chain." 
 
 In reality, however, there is all the differ- 
 ence in the world between the savage, 
 bowing in simple ignorance before his 
 " fetish " of wood or stone, and the devotee 
 of a religion as firmly established and 
 older than our own. And in point of fact, 
 neither class of heathen is calling us, and 
 when we go to convert them they decline 
 our services with or without thanks, being 
 as firmly convinced as ourselves that their 
 religion is the best. 
 
 My own experience of missionaries has 
 been entirely in Mohammedan countries, 
 9 1
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 and any one who knows anything of Islam 
 knows (perhaps from the very fact that 
 their religion is founded upon ours) that it 
 is impossible to convert a Moslem to 
 Christianity. 
 
 The missionaries, being generally men 
 and women of intelligence, soon realize this 
 for themselves, and devote themselves to 
 other good works, such as have been already 
 mentioned. In Egypt, much of their time 
 is given to reconverting the Copts, and 
 though these are nominal Christians, and 
 indeed represent the oldest branch of the 
 Christian Church, no one who knows 
 them will deny that this is a good work, 
 or that they do not stand in need of 
 reconversion. 
 
 The Bibles and the liturgies used in 
 these old world churches are all written 
 in Coptic, the great-grandchild of the 
 ancient Egyptian language. This has be- 
 come almost an unknown tongue among 
 the people, who all speak Arabic ; and it is 
 92
 
 The Missionaries 
 
 not even understood by many of their 
 priests. 
 
 Their religion, in consequence, has be- 
 come a mere form. But even yet its 
 spirit is not entirely dead, since many of 
 them are willing to be reconverted, and the 
 missionaries who work among them are 
 meeting already with quite an encouraging 
 success. 
 
 The Brahman and the Parsi are as hard 
 to convert as the Moslem. And their 
 religions furnish them with arguments as 
 strong and more subtle than ours. 
 
 I do not deny that there are nominal 
 conversions from all these religions, and it 
 is the names of these converts which are 
 sent home in triumph by the less con- 
 scientious of the missionaries, to prove that 
 they are earning their salaries. But these 
 conversions are entirely due to interested 
 motives on the part of the converts, and 
 are no subject of congratulation to the 
 missionaries, but rather one of shame, as 
 93
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 being too often open to the imputation of 
 bribery and corruption. This is principally 
 the case in the British oriental possessions, 
 where the subjects soon learn the lesson of 
 hypocrisy from their masters. 
 
 The missionary recommends the con- 
 vert for some small official position, or it 
 may be merely for some labor on govern- 
 ment works, and the petition, which would 
 be refused to the u heathen," is always 
 granted to the convert ; and this is a noto- 
 rious fact. Any one who knows the ori- 
 ental character, knows that the religion of 
 an oriental is so much part of himself that 
 if he gives it up it is not to take another 
 in its place, but to give up all religion. 
 
 Such conversions are very dangerous, 
 and very much to be deplored, and we 
 should stop and think whether we are 
 doing good or harm in our missionary en- 
 deavor, and remember that Hell is paved 
 with good intentions. 
 
 I think the missionaries should and 
 94
 
 The Missionaries 
 
 would meet with more success among the 
 savages, were it not for two points, which 
 they always make at the beginning of 
 their ministry, and which generally prove 
 a hopeless stumbling block. 
 
 The first is that the savages must be 
 clothed, and the second is that they must 
 give up polygamy. In my humble opinion, 
 the first point is a great and unnecessary 
 mistake. The early Christians indeed 
 insisted on every one's being clothed, 
 because the human form had almost become 
 an object of worship with the Greeks and 
 Romans, and nudity belonged inseparably 
 to their heathen rites. 
 
 But the savages are different. Their 
 climate makes clothing superfluous ; they 
 and their ancestors have arrayed themselves 
 in a few shells and beads and feathers from 
 time immemorial, and to suggest to them 
 that their costume is immodest and wrong, 
 seems to me to instil evil into their minds, 
 rather than good. 
 
 95
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 The question of polygamy is more 
 serious, and one which I must leave to be 
 decided by some one else. But in the 
 mean time the Mohammedans, who also 
 send missionaries to Africa, and who only 
 restrict the number of wives to four, are 
 quietly but surely gaining all these souls to 
 Islam. 
 
 It seems to me that the brightest pros- 
 pects for the missionaries are in Japan. 
 
 The Japanese are a progressive, a 
 friendly, and a most intelligent people, 
 and more than all this they are ready for 
 a new religion. 
 
 Buddhism is dead in the hearts of the 
 people, if indeed it ever was alive. Many 
 people may criticise me for saying this, 
 for Buddha has many admirers. Perhaps 
 I am wrong, but Buddhism to me has 
 never seemed a religion at all, but merely 
 a philosophy. One may find in it the 
 resignation to die, but there is nothing in 
 its teachings which can help one to live. 
 96
 
 The Missionaries 
 
 If we must give it the name of a 
 religion at all, it is only the religion of 
 despair. 
 
 Christ has commanded us to go and 
 preach the Gospel to all men. The divine 
 command must be obeyed, but let us stop 
 for a moment and think what mistakes 
 are being made and how they may be 
 rectified. 
 
 Max Miiller says that the failure of the 
 missionaries is owing to the fact that they 
 are not satisfied to make Christians, they 
 want to make English Christians. 
 
 Mrs. Sheldon considers that the great 
 stumbling block in the path is the fact 
 that the missionaries, and Christians in 
 general, do not practise what they preach. 
 This is undoubtedly true to a great extent, 
 and what is more, such a creed of " not 
 deeds but words " means more to people 
 of other faiths than it does to us. 
 
 Our religion is the highest and the 
 most difficult to follow j more has been 
 7 97
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 given to us and more will be asked in 
 return. But we must admit that the 
 believers in general in other religions live 
 up to them better than we live up to ours. 
 
 We have one commandment, " Thou 
 shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
 God in vain." What is it that they whom 
 we call heathen hear oftenest in a Chris- 
 tian colony (so-called), that even the par- 
 rots learn from us first, an oath ! 
 
 A great Christian nation goes to war 
 with China to force upon her the opium 
 trade, the opium trade, which means 
 ruin and death to millions ! 
 
 Afterwards they send missionaries to 
 convert them. Is it any wonder that they 
 find it difficult to convince the Chinese 
 that our religion is better than theirs ? 
 
 But more than all these things, the 
 great cause of the missionaries' failure is 
 their want of unity. 
 
 Sent by all denominations as they are, 
 and at war with each other, they come 
 98
 
 The Missionaries 
 
 before the heathen as Catholics, Episco- 
 palians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and 
 Baptists, not as Christians. 
 
 One teaches " free will," another " pre- 
 destination ; " one " infant baptism," an- 
 other " immersion ; " one " damnation of 
 the unbaptized," another " eternal hope ; " 
 one " transubstantiation," a second " real 
 presence," and a third that the sacrament 
 means nothing at all. 
 
 All these points of doctrine are insisted 
 upon as necessary to salvation, and the 
 bewildered heathen are offered the uned- 
 ifying spectacle of a church divided 
 against itself, a spectacle which hope- 
 lessly confuses the savage mind and 
 inspires the learned and cultivated heathen 
 with contempt for both us and our faith. 
 
 Here again the Moslem missionaries 
 have the advantage of us. Come they 
 from Morocco, Arabia, Persia, Turki- 
 stan, from no matter where, they come 
 hand in hand. Each plants the crescent, 
 99
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 and each teaches the same simple creed, 
 "There is no God but Allah, and Mo- 
 hammed is his Prophet." 
 
 More blood has been shed by Chris- 
 tians against each other, and in the name 
 of Christ, than in all other religions that 
 the world has ever seen. 
 
 And even now, in this enlightened age, 
 were not peace kept between them by 
 the Moslem, the different sects would tear 
 each other limb from limb around the 
 Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 Saladin advised Richard Coeur de Lion 
 to " Conquer the other half of his poor 
 Island before he came to fight in Pales- 
 tine." 
 
 And we would do better, before we 
 set out to teach the heathen, to decide on 
 our belief among ourselves. 
 
 Christ has said, " On this rock I will 
 build my Church," not " my Churches." 
 
 100
 
 A Bird's-Eye View of the Re- 
 ligions of the Orient 
 
 IOX
 
 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF 
 
 THE RELIGIONS OF 
 
 THE ORIENT 
 
 "TF the Indians had formed their notions 
 -^- of Christianity from the soldiers of 
 Cortez and Pizarro, or if the Hindus had 
 studied the principles of Christian morality 
 in the lives of Clive and Warren Has- 
 tings ; or, to take a less extreme case, if a 
 Mohammedan, settled in England, were to 
 test the practical working of Christian 
 charity by the spirit displayed in the jour- 
 nals of our religious parties, their notions 
 of Christianity would be about as correct 
 as the ideas which thousands of educated 
 Christians entertain of the diabolical char- 
 acter of heathen religion. Even Chris- 
 tianity has been depraved into certain 
 sacrilegious and revolting sects, and if we 
 103
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 claim the right to appeal to the Gospel as 
 the only test by which our faith is to be 
 judged, we must grant a similar privilege 
 to all who possess a written, and as they 
 believe, revealed authority for the articles 
 of their faith." 
 
 It is strange but true that many people, 
 no matter how well educated and culti- 
 vated they may be in other respects, are, 
 as concerns the religions, the history, and 
 the whole life of the Orient, ignorant and 
 grossly ignorant. 
 
 And they are content to remain so, 
 which, in people who take pleasure in being 
 well informed on other subjects, is the 
 most surprising part. They will study 
 theosophy, altruism, or the latest religion 
 invented by Mrs. Humphrey Ward, but 
 they have no time for Zarathustra, Sid- 
 dartha, Kong Fu Tse, or Mohammed, 
 who have been the lights of the world. 
 
 They do not think the Orient interesting, 
 and yet its history is more dramatic, more 
 104
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 thrilling, more intense than anything of 
 ours. Its life is tinged throughout with a 
 subtle enchantment. Its literature is a 
 mine of precious stones, and its religions 
 when really studied give us the key to the 
 whole history of man. It is Max Miiller 
 who says : 
 
 " In the history of the world our religion 
 is but one of many ; and in order to under- 
 stand fully the position of Christianity in 
 the history of the world, and its true place 
 among the religions of mankind, we must 
 compare it not with Judaism only, but with 
 the religious aspirations of the whole world, 
 with all in fact that Christianity came 
 either to destroy or to fulfil." 
 
 Brahmanism is the oldest of all religions, 
 so old that it has no beginning, and we may 
 trace it back through history and legend 
 to the dawn of time. 
 
 Like all other primeval religions, it is a 
 pantheism, and in it the forces of nature 
 the earth, the sea, the dawn, the day, the 
 105
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 night, the fire, the lightning all are 
 deified. Its myths are similar to those of 
 Greece and Rome, less beautiful, less grace- 
 ful, it is true, but higher, purer, nearer the 
 divine. And under this mythology, which 
 has arisen from the poetic nature of the 
 early Aryan race, and is greatly the result 
 of the early Aryan language with its rich 
 flowers of speech, behind this painted 
 screen, stand the real gods of the prim- 
 eval world, Brahma the creator, Vishnu 
 the preserver, Siva the destroyer. 
 
 The transmigration of souls is an idea 
 which seems inherent in the Aryan mind. 
 Finding its fullest expression in Brah- 
 manism, it appears under various forms in 
 Buddhism and the religions of the Greeks 
 and Romans, Pythagoras having perfected 
 but by no means originated the doctrine 
 of Metempsychosis. 
 
 Centuries of Christian teaching have 
 been necessary to eradicate this idea from 
 our minds, and even now we are some- 
 106
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 times startled by finding that it is the belief 
 of children to whom it had certainly never 
 been taught, but in whose little brains it is 
 innate. 
 
 And what idea can be more beautiful 
 than that we and all that lives in nature 
 are animated by the divine spark of the 
 eternal essence ? Sent out and recalled 
 again, passing through different forms of 
 life, changing but dying not, immortal, 
 
 " Dust into dust, but the pure spirit shall flow 
 Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
 A portion of the eternal which shall glow 
 Through time and change unquenchably the 
 
 Brahmanism as we see it now wears 
 the mask of idolatry. With the lapse of 
 centuries, errors and abuses have crept in ; 
 Juggernaut, widow-burning, serpent wor- 
 ship, and the Thugs have been the innova- 
 tions of the last two thousand years. For 
 a thousand years also this oldest of all 
 107
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 religions lay prostrate in the dust; and 
 Buddhism reigned in its stead. A thousand 
 years it lay not dead but sleeping, and then 
 rising again, like the Phoenix, from its own 
 ashes it drove Buddhism, the democratic 
 intruder, out of India, and resumed its place 
 in the temple and on the throne. 
 
 And what wonder if in these thousand 
 years of slavery it lost something of its 
 purity and beauty ? Still it is changed, but 
 it is not dead. The mass of its votaries 
 may perhaps be called idolaters ; but the 
 Brahmans themselves have lost nothing of 
 its early truth, and their sacred books, the 
 Vedas, whose spirit is not merely noble 
 but high and holy, are still unchanged. 
 
 Looking forward it may vanish and be 
 lost ; what has had no beginning may have 
 an end, but Brahmanism was a pure and 
 beautiful religion in the morning of the 
 world. 
 
 And now to the first of the prophets, 
 Zarathustra Spitama, more commonly 
 1 08
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 known by his Latin name of Zoroaster, or 
 his Persian one of Zerdusht, from the 
 twilight of Indian pantheism, from the 
 sound of falling water and the glimmering 
 green of the jungle, to the snow clad 
 mountains of Iran and the sunrise of 
 monotheism ! 
 
 Zarathustra Spitama, the first of the 
 Prophets, was born in Bactria, the most 
 eastern province of Iran, in the reign of 
 Kava Vistaspa (Kai Gushtasp), the fif- 
 teenth in the line of the Pischdanian 
 Kings. 
 
 There is much disagreement about his 
 date, Max Miiller making him the contem- 
 porary of Abraham, and some writers plac- 
 ing the Pischdanian dynasty immediately 
 before Cyaxares and Cyrus. But on the 
 evidence of language, and the testimony of 
 the best authorities, we may hold that he 
 lived in the middle of the fifteenth century 
 B. c. 
 
 Brahmanism, of which Zarathustra was 
 109
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 a priest, was at that time the religion of 
 Iran ; but though the world had accepted it 
 without question, and knew nothing better, 
 no pantheism could satisfy the soul of 
 Zarathustra. Determined to meditate and 
 evolve the eternal truth, he retired to a 
 cave in the mountains, lived there as a 
 hermit for eight years, and then reappeared 
 among men, boldly decrying the Deva 
 worship, and proclaiming Ahura Mazda 
 the one god through the cities of Iran. 
 
 The world was startled, hearing for the 
 first time from the lips of Zarathustra the 
 name of its God. Men turned to him as 
 flowers toward the sun; the Devas fled 
 before him, with their priests, like shadows. 
 Innumerable converts crowded around him, 
 and among them Isfendiar, the son of 
 Gushtasp and heir to the throne, espoused 
 his cause. 
 
 First the son and then the father. 
 Gushtasp embraced the Mazda Yacna 
 religion. Brahmanism was banished be- 
 110
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 yond the mountains to India, and the new 
 faith was established with all its hierarchy 
 of priests, Dastuers, Mobeds, and Hybrids, 
 a thing which, like Minerva, had sprung to 
 life full grown and in armor. And in 
 Rhaga, created the religious Capital, Zara- 
 thustra Spitama held sway, Primate of 
 Iran. 
 
 The progress of religion is usually slow. 
 Christianity took three hundred years to 
 become the state religion of the Roman 
 Empire. A religion triumphant in the life 
 time of the founder has been the achieve- 
 ment of Zarathustra and Mohammed alone 
 in the history of the world. The Mazda 
 Yacna religion is the purest monotheism. 
 Ahuromazda (living wise spirit) is the one 
 God, embodying in one the principles of 
 good and evil, as whose symbol Zara- 
 thustra, abhorring images and idols, has 
 chosen fire. 
 
 u The bright spirit appearing in the 
 blazing flame and the presence of the dark 
 in
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 one marked by the wood converted into 
 ashes." 
 
 This, of course, is what has caused the 
 Parsis to be branded among their enemies 
 by the name of fire-worshippers. But all 
 who know anything of the real religion 
 know that the sacred fire always burning 
 on their altars is only the Symbol of God. 
 
 Then came the Amesha Spenti, called 
 the six councillors of God, in reality the 
 six attributes of the Most High, and not to 
 be considered as anything more than ab- 
 stract ideas. These are the Vohu Mano 
 (Divine Wisdom); Ardibehest (light), 
 which signifies the omnipresence of God ; 
 Sharaver (Divine Mercy in bestowing good 
 gifts) ; Issandarmat (Devotion) is the sym- 
 bol of the pure heart ; and Khorda and 
 Ameredat preside over vegetation and the 
 fruits of the earth, agriculture being con- 
 sidered by Zarathustra not only as a reli- 
 gious duty but as the first principle of 
 civilization. 
 
 112
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 And last comes the Archangel Shraosha, 
 who is considered to be the Zarathustrian 
 liturgy standing between God and men. 
 
 Zarathustra believed in the old theory of 
 the eternal essence animating all nature, 
 and surely nothing can be more beautiful, 
 but discards the doctrine of the transmi- 
 gration of souls teaching instead our own 
 of heaven and hell. 
 
 Hell, the dark abyss into which the lost 
 soul trying to cross the bridge Kin vat 
 which spans the chasm between this world 
 and the next slips and falls, and heaven, 
 "The Paradise of the stars without 
 beginning." 
 
 Zarathustra has laid down for his fol- 
 lowers six great precepts : truth, and the 
 abhorrence of the lie ; prayer, and its 
 universal efficacy ; religious toleration ; 
 regard for human life; marriage, and 
 the absolute prohibition of celibacy ; and 
 the command to enjoy and make the most 
 of the good gifts which God has given us, 
 8 113
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 and the world which He has made so fair 
 and beautiful. 
 
 Zarathustra's moral philosophy forms a 
 triad of thought, word, and deed ; and he 
 believes that no man is truly virtuous un- 
 less in all these he is good and pure. And 
 forgiveness of sins he teaches is to be 
 obtained by repentance alone. 
 
 His speculative philosophy teaches that 
 everywhere in the world a duality exists 
 between good and evil. I will quote from 
 his own words as follows : 
 
 " In the universe there are, from the 
 beginning, two spirits at work, the one 
 making life, the other destroying it. Only 
 this life becomes a prey to death, but not 
 that hereafter over which the destructive 
 spirit has no power." And he teaches 
 always the ultimate triumph of good. 
 
 Zarathustra has also taught the exist- 
 ence of angels and devils like our own. 
 In Brahmanism the gods are called Devas, 
 and the evil spirits, Asuras. Zarathustra 
 114
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 calls his devils Devas (from which comes 
 our word), and his angels, Ahuras (" s " in 
 Sanskrit changing into " h " in Zend). 
 
 One thing only he has really retained, 
 the sacred plant, the yellow Soma (Sans- 
 krit), Homa (Zend), and more he tells us 
 of the white or heavenly Homa which 
 blooms in Paradise. 
 
 The doctrine of the one God, combin- 
 ing the principles of good and evil, was 
 too difficult, too high and pure to last long 
 untarnished in the human mind. In the 
 reign of Darius Hystaspes, removed from 
 Zarathustra by one thousand years, we find 
 Ahuromazda resolved into a shadowy All 
 Father, and known as Mithra ; while the 
 principles of good and evil, now separated 
 and carrying on the war of the Universe, 
 are Ormuzd and Ahiriman. 
 
 From a monotheism it has become a 
 dualism ; but in none other of its high and 
 holy principles, in nothing else of its purity 
 and beauty, is it changed. 
 "5
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Zarathustra Spitama has but three mil- 
 lion followers to-day, and they are nearly 
 all in India, his religion having been driven 
 out of Persia by the victorious sword of 
 Islam. Three millions, but they hold 
 fast their faith as do the Hebrews theirs ; 
 and noted everywhere, where they are 
 known, for their probity, and the purity 
 and beauty of their lives,, they have 
 lived up to and justified their religion to 
 the rest of the world for three and thirty 
 centuries. 
 
 Siddartha, known as Buddha (the sage), 
 who comes next on our list, I will dismiss 
 in as few words as possible, for of all the 
 founders of the oriental religions he is 
 the only one with whom, or with whose 
 teachings, I have no sympathy. 
 
 Every one knows the history of Prince 
 Gautama. Born in the sixth century be- 
 fore Christ, the son of an Indian king, he 
 renounced the world and its splendors and 
 pleasures, and abandoned his palace, to lead, 
 116
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 first, the life of a hermit, and then that of 
 a wandering preacher of a new religion. 
 
 The theme is a dramatic one, and has 
 been idealized by Sir Edwin Arnold, Wal- 
 lace, and others. The veil of distance lends 
 Siddartha enchantment, but the real reason 
 why Buddhism has become lately so popu- 
 lar is, that this is not a religious age, and 
 Buddhism is not a religion. 
 
 Siddartha was an atheist and a socialist, a 
 nihilist twenty-four centuries before his time. 
 
 He teaches that there is no God, no 
 soul, no future life, no heaven, no hell ; 
 that nothing really is, as all things are 
 forever undergoing change ; that all ex- 
 istence is evil, and that the only thing to be 
 desired is annihilation. 
 
 It seems incredible that in a land of 
 light and beauty like India, any converts 
 to such a creed could have been found, 
 especially as it was as forbidding and disa- 
 greeable in practice as in theory, being the 
 most absolute asceticism. The Buddhist 
 117
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 must renounce all the pleasures and com- 
 forts, the beauties and joys, the passions 
 and desires of life, and devote himself to 
 meditation and the contemplation of the 
 unexplained, which is the only term I can 
 use, as nothing really existed, and there 
 was nothing, 
 
 Were this absorption complete, the dis- 
 ciple had attained Nirvana. For the first 
 time the world heard the doctrine of celi- 
 bacy from the lips of Siddartha ; and, 
 against nature as this was, it took root, 
 and, for the first time in history, there 
 sprang up monasteries of monks, and the 
 caves of the mountains were peopled by 
 hermits. 
 
 For two hundred and fifty years after 
 its birth, Buddhism was accepted only 
 among the lower classes; but about 300 
 B. c. it was embraced by the Emperor 
 Asoka, and became the state religion of 
 India for a thousand years. At the end 
 of that time it was driven out root and 
 118
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 branch, and sought refuge in Ceylon, Far- 
 ther India, China, and Japan. 
 
 The real reason of the success of Bud- 
 dhism was a sordid one. The Hindus 
 are not fond of work, and all those who 
 embraced the religious life became ambu- 
 lant beggars, and were supported by the 
 alms of the believers. Asoka was the 
 grandson of the upstart Shandragupta, and 
 realizing that his low origin deprived him 
 of the sympathy and support of the Brah- 
 mans, he overturned their religion and re- 
 placed it by the plebeian Buddhism, in 
 which he recognized his natural ally. 
 
 As for Buddha himself. It is true that 
 he taught principles of good morality, 
 such as not to lie, steal, etc.; but all this 
 had been taught by Brahmanism from the 
 beginning, and what he originated was 
 nothing but the blackest pessimism. 
 
 As a king, he might have made hundreds 
 of people happy ; but he preferred to make 
 millions miserable by depriving them of 
 119
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 all happiness in this world, and all hope in 
 the next. . 
 
 The most simple conclusion that we 
 can reach, after considering all the circum- 
 stances, is, that Prince Gautama was a 
 nervous dyspeptic, and his whole system 
 of philosophy may be summed up in the 
 one cry of hopeless despair, 
 
 We cannot all be happy, therefore let 
 us all be miserable. 
 
 Our geographies inform us that one 
 third of the human race are Buddhists, but 
 no more erroneous statement has ever 
 been allowed to stand in print. In China, 
 the religion of Kong Fu Tse is the state 
 religion, and counts among its followers 
 the aristocracy and fully one third of the 
 people, while another third follows Laotse. 
 In Japan, a large proportion of the people 
 are Shintos ; and even where Buddhism 
 still exists, it is so changed that Siddartha 
 would hardly recognize its teachings as 
 his own. 
 
 120
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 Nirvana has been turned into Heaven, 
 and the Burmese and Siamese have re- 
 turned to the belief in the transmigration 
 of souls, and have .invented themselves, 
 besides, a series of hells. No one has 
 yet presumed to invent a God, but the 
 Chinese worship the spirits of their ances- 
 tors, and Buddha himself has become 
 almost a Deity. 
 
 The truth is, that Buddhism was a 
 belief which no one, outside a hermitage 
 or perhaps a monastery, could follow ; and, 
 like all things false, it held in itself from 
 the first the seeds of its own destruction. 
 
 The sun of Buddhism is setting ; it is 
 changing, fading, dying, and now of all its 
 empire there is left but one last real strong- 
 hold of this faith, or far more unfaith, 
 Ceylon. 
 
 This, too, must yield to time and the 
 inevitable, and soon or late Prince Gautama, 
 and his phantom religion, will be consigned 
 forever to Nirvana. 
 
 121
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 And now let us turn from the nihil- 
 ist to the great conservative, Kong Fu 
 Tse (Latin Confucius), who was born in 
 China, 551 B.C., of the noble family of 
 Khung. 
 
 Asia has been the mother of all reli- 
 gions, and it is a fact worthy of note that 
 the founders of all faiths have been men 
 of noble blood. 
 
 At the age of twenty-two, Kong Fu Tse 
 appeared as a teacher, and soon gathered 
 around him a throng of disciples. Pos- 
 sessed of many virtues and noble qualities, 
 in conjunction with his gigantic intellect, 
 his great passion was the love of mankind ; 
 and the whole effort of his life and teach- 
 ings was to preserve and increase their 
 happiness. 
 
 Though the founder of a religion and a 
 reformer of all evil, he was an ardent con- 
 servative and lover of the past. 
 
 " 1 am not one," he says, " who was 
 born in the possession of knowledge. I 
 122
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 am one who is fond of antiquity and earn- 
 est in seeking it there." 
 
 Of the writings of Kong Fu Tse, 
 though the five Kings are ascribed to him, 
 only the fifth, the Chun Tsew (Spring 
 and Autumn), is really his. The Yih, 
 the Shoo, and the She have been compiled 
 by him from ancient writings; and the 
 Le Ke is considered to be the work of 
 his disciples. 
 
 The wisdom of Kong Fu Tse has the 
 irresistible charm of simple truth, and his 
 maxims are as pure and sweet as old-time 
 garden-flowers. 
 
 " The superior man is catholic and no 
 partisan ; the mean man is partisan and no 
 catholic." 
 
 " To see what is right and not do it is 
 want of courage." 
 
 "Do ye unto others as ye would that 
 others should do unto you." 
 
 Confucius taught four things : Letters, 
 Ethics, Devotion of the Soul, and Truth- 
 123
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 fulness. He believed in the immortality 
 of the soul, but was loath to speak of the 
 life hereafter. 
 
 When urged to tell of death he replied, 
 " Let us know what life is first." 
 
 Kong Fu Tse died in 478 B. c. com- 
 plaining, though he had many followers, 
 that not one of the princes of the empire 
 would adopt his faith. 
 
 Two generations later his name had 
 become a power, a power ever increasing. 
 To-day he counts his followers by millions, 
 and his impress is marked indelibly in the 
 whole national character of China, the 
 largest empire of the world. 
 
 And now to the last of the Prophets 
 and the latest of all the great religions of 
 the world. 
 
 All hail, Mohammed ! Prophet of God 
 or not, still greatest and most wonderful of 
 men. 
 
 Christianity had been the state religion 
 of the Roman Empire for three hundred 
 124
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 years; but the Church was already dis- 
 tracted by contending sects, and the world 
 was at its darkest when the moon of Islam 
 rose. 
 
 No man who has ever lived has been 
 so slandered and misrepresented as Mo- 
 hammed. Until the last century he was 
 known to Europe only through the reports 
 of his enemies, and no lie that could be 
 invented about him and his teachings has 
 been left untold. 
 
 And even now many otherwise enlight- 
 ened people entertain a mediaeval prejudice 
 against him and his religion, which is 
 unworthy of themselves and the age. 
 
 The usual reproach which is made 
 against Mohammed is that he permitted 
 polygamy. Let us dismiss this at once 
 before we speak of his religious teachings, 
 with which it has nothing whatever to do. 
 Polygamy has been the custom of all 
 oriental nations from time immemorial, 
 and the only action of Mohammed in the 
 "5
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 matter was to limit the number of wives 
 to four. He also strove to render divorce 
 more difficult, and gave women rights of 
 property and dower; and he improved their 
 condition in every way in his power. 
 
 It is true that he gave female slaves to 
 their masters. But we must remember 
 that his religion was founded on the Old 
 Testament, which for this gave him full 
 authority; and he decreed, furthermore, that 
 all children, whether born of wife or slave, 
 should be legitimate and equal in their 
 rights. 
 
 It is always easy to find motes in our 
 neighbor's eyes ; but those who are horror- 
 stricken at the social system of Mohammed, 
 should not forget that there are weak 
 points in ours. The immoral class, which 
 in spite of all the teachings of Christianity, 
 plays so large a part in all Christian 
 lands, is almost unknown in Islam, and 
 there are, beyond a doubt, more women 
 who live by immorality in London or 
 126
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 Paris than in the whole Ottoman Empire, 
 from Morocco to Turkistan. 
 
 As to the absurd idea that Mohammed 
 denied women souls, it is like the rest, a 
 pure invention. Mohammed promised 
 paradise and eternal youth and happiness 
 to women, on the one condition of their 
 being mothers and fulfilling their destiny 
 in this world. 
 
 Mohammed, born in 571 A. D., be- 
 longed to the most noble family of Arabia, 
 that of El Hashim, and his grandfather, 
 Abd el Multalib, was the hereditary 
 Prince of Mecca and guardian of the 
 Kaba. 
 
 His father, Abdallah, who was a younger 
 son, was the handsomest and most at- 
 tractive young man in Mecca, and tradi- 
 tion relates that two hundred virgins died 
 of jealousy and despair on the night in 
 which he married the beautiful Amina, 
 Mohammed's mother. The beauty and 
 magnetic charm of his parents descended 
 127
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 to Mohammed, and no doubt bore their 
 part in his wonderful power of winning 
 hearts. 
 
 Losing his father before his birth, and 
 his mother in infancy, the first years of 
 Mohammed were spent with his wet 
 nurse, Halima, in the desert; and indeed, 
 as he later became the leader of a caravan, 
 we may say, that throughout life the desert, 
 with its mirage, its silence, and its mystery, 
 was his home. 
 
 Married at the age of twenty-six to the 
 widow Kadijah, who proved herself a true 
 wife and noble woman, Mohammed lived 
 till in his fortieth year the life of other 
 men. 
 
 Then suddenly he began to speak, and, 
 with more than mortal courage as it 
 seemed, to denounce the idols of his people, 
 and to proclaim Allah the only God. 
 
 But at first he spoke in vain. Arabia 
 was steeped in a mixture of Sabeanism, 
 which had been its ancient religion, and a 
 128
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 later and more degraded idolatry. The 
 Arabs were wed to their idols ; and, in their 
 indignation at his teachings, only the in- 
 fluence of his uncle, Abu Talib, saved 
 Mohammed from death. 
 
 Forced to fly to the desert, we see him 
 persecuted, hunted, and in danger of 
 death. Then a sudden change of fortune, 
 and he enters Medina in triumph, like a 
 king. 
 
 Then strife and the clouds of civil war, 
 and then victory, the victory of truth 
 over error, of morning over night. And 
 we see the men of Mecca bearing palm 
 branches to Medina, kneeling at the feet 
 of Mohammed and hailing him Lord of 
 Arabia and Prophet of God. 
 
 Not only did Mohammed annihilate 
 idolatry in Arabia, but with it the two 
 great vices of his people, drunkenness and 
 gambling. No other man has done as 
 much in the history of the world. And 
 that he has kept not only his own, but all 
 9 129
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 succeeding generations of his followers 
 from their favorite sins, for the Mussul- 
 mans who drink and gamble are only the 
 exceptions that prove the rule, shows 
 how unparalleled his influence on the 
 human race has been and is. 
 
 No other man has understood human 
 nature as Mohammed has done; and this 
 knowledge, combined with his genius, has 
 given him his more than mortal power. 
 
 The first principle and meaning of 
 Islam is resignation to the will of God ; 
 and all those who are thus resigned, no 
 matter what their religion, are Moslems 
 at heart. Founding his teachings on the 
 Bible, Mohammed reiterated the Ten Com- 
 mandments, and taught that there had been 
 four great prophets, of whom he was the 
 last and greatest. The other three are 
 Moses, David, and Jesus, who is called 
 Issa ben Marian the prophet, but not the 
 Son of God. 
 
 Five great precepts are laid down, some- 
 130
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 times symbolized by the five fingers of 
 the hand : prayer, almsgiving, fasting, 
 cleanliness, and war against the infidels, 
 for the purpose of spreading through all 
 the world the faith of Islam. 
 
 Then comes the equality of all men in 
 the sight of God. But let no one sup- 
 pose that Mohammed believed in the 
 chimera of social equality. God has made 
 social distinctions, and one man is born a 
 prince and another a peasant. Different 
 duties have been assigned them in life, 
 but their positions are equally honorable. 
 The inferior must treat his superior with 
 deference and respect, and the superior 
 his inferior with kindness and considera- 
 tion. Every one must do his best in his 
 own sphere ; and if he rises from a lowly 
 to a high position, there must be no pre- 
 judice against him on account of his 
 former state, for no man may choose the 
 position in which he shall be born, but is 
 assigned thereto by the will of God. 
 Ml
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 This is undoubtedly what gives the 
 Moslem of the most humble as well as of 
 the highest rank that innate dignity and 
 self-respect which distinguish him from 
 the rest of the world. And this it is which 
 has made and will always make the hydra 
 of socialism unknown in Islam. 
 
 It has been the fate of most religions to 
 change and degenerate with the lapse of 
 time. Christianity itself, the broad straight 
 river of truth, has split into a thousand 
 channels, and the Church which Christ 
 founded on the rock is named no longer, 
 alas, one, but legion. 
 
 More than twelve centuries have passed 
 since the death of Mohammed, but it is 
 the proud boast of Islam, that she alone of 
 all religions has undergone no change. 1 
 
 1 There is one great schism in Islam, that of the 
 Shias ; but it is a political, and not a religious 
 difference, founded on the succession of the 
 Kalifs. 
 
 The Shias contend that Ali alone was the legiti- 
 152
 
 Religions of the Orient 
 
 Dynasties have risen and fallen, earth- 
 quakes and plagues and famines have 
 passed by, and the old world has given 
 pkce to the new. But still, as the first 
 Muezzin called to prayer from the first 
 Minaret, his successors call to prayer to- 
 day ; from Morocco to Turkistan 
 "There is no God but Allah, and Mo- 
 hammed is his Prophet." 
 
 mate successor of Mohammed, while the Sonnites 
 (the Orthodox) maintain that the succession as it 
 occurred, of Abu Bekr, Omar Othman, and Ali, 
 was just and ordained of God. This schism reigns 
 in Persia, whence the hatred between the Persians 
 and the Arabs and Turks. Its followers may be 
 known by the black fez which they wear to dis- 
 tinguish them from the Sonnites, who wear the red, 
 thereby proclaiming themselves orthodox, and 
 acknowledging the Sultan of Turkey as the suc- 
 cessor of the Prophet and ruler of Islam. 
 
 '33
 
 The Religion of Zarathustra 
 
 Spitama 
 
 '35
 
 This essay was my first oriental effort. 
 This study of the Zoroastrian religion has 
 made some progress since it was written, 
 and I, too, have learned more. But I let 
 it stand as it is, out of a little feeling for 
 myself, and beg a gentle criticism for the 
 work of a girl of eighteen. 
 
 137
 
 THE RELIGION OF ZARA- 
 THUSTRA SPITAMA 
 
 THE STAR OF THE MAGI 
 
 " Not vainly did the ancient Persian make 
 
 His altar the high places and the peak 
 Of earth o'er gazing mountains, and thus take 
 
 A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek 
 The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak, 
 
 Upreared of human hands. Come and compare 
 Columns and idol dwellings, Goth or Greek, 
 
 With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air." 
 
 "O ELIGION is a study not only very 
 Av beautiful and interesting, but also of 
 the greatest importance, being so inti- 
 mately blended with history and philology 
 that the three are almost inseparable. 
 And if we seek to know the people of 
 antiquity, and to understand how they 
 looked at life, and what they felt, the best
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 answer to our question lies in what they 
 believed. 
 
 Much interest is felt at present in Bud- 
 dhism, and everything written on the sub- 
 ject is received with favor. 
 
 It is this that emboldens me to offer 
 this slight sketch of the religion of Zoro- 
 aster, far older and more beautiful, though 
 not now so widely spread as that of the 
 royal Gautama. And I make the effort, 
 unworthy as it is, in the hope that others 
 may be led to study the subject for 
 themselves. 
 
 The flash and roar of the cannon are 
 like lightning and thunder, but it is the 
 spark that lights the train. 
 
 The Zoroastrian Mazda Yacna religion 
 was unknown in Europe a hundred and 
 fifty years ago. 
 
 Some Parsi manuscripts had indeed been 
 
 brought to England from India in the 
 
 seventeenth century, but for want of a key 
 
 to the languages in which they were 
 
 140
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 written, Pahlavi and Zend, they remained 
 for a long time a sealed book. 
 
 In the year 1700, the great Oxford 
 scholar, Hyde, attempted a treatise on the 
 subject, but knowing really nothing of 
 what he was writing about, this is not 
 deserving of notice. 
 
 The glorious discovery of the real teach- 
 ings of Zarathustra Spitama was destined 
 to be made in France. 
 
 In the middle of the century, Anquetil 
 du Perron, a young Frenchman, happened 
 to see in the Bodleian library a facsimile 
 of a few pages of the Zend-avesta. 
 Being of an inquiring turn of mind, he 
 determined to know what they meant or 
 perish in the attempt. 
 
 With this end in view he resolved to go 
 to India ; and, no other opportunity offer- 
 ing, he shipped as a sailor on board a vessel 
 belonging to the East India company. 
 
 His perseverance was however rewarded ; 
 for the government, hearing of the affair, 
 141
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 released him from this engagement, paid his 
 passage to India, and furnished him with a 
 pension by means of which to prosecute 
 his studies while there. 
 
 Du Perron sailed in 1754, and on 
 arriving spent some time travelling about 
 in search of the information he desired. 
 
 The undertaking was much more diffi- 
 cult than he had imagined. The Mobeds 
 and Dastuers (Parsi priests), not under- 
 standing his motive in prying into their 
 religion, treated him with the greatest 
 distrust. 
 
 At last the Dastuer Darab at Curat 
 agreed for a certain sum of money to 
 instruct him in the Zend and Pahlavi 
 languages, and to furnish him with the 
 necessary manuscripts. 
 
 Du Perron commenced to study with 
 the greatest enthusiasm and (overlooking 
 the fact that the Dastuer's knowledge 
 of the sacred languages was very imper- 
 fect, and that he himself was not too well 
 142
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 versed in the modern Sanskrit, which was 
 their medium of communication) con- 
 vinced himself in a couple of years that 
 he had mastered Pahlavi and Zend. 
 
 In 1759 he returned to Europe, bring- 
 ing with him a hundred and eight Parsi 
 manuscripts, and two years later published 
 his translation of the Zend-avesta, which, 
 though full of faults and inaccuracies, 
 was received with the greatest enthu- 
 siasm throughout France. 
 
 The English, naturally adverse to every- 
 thing French, treated Du Perron's trans- 
 lation very coldly ; and Sir William Jones 
 published an essay in which he stigma- 
 tized the whole thing as nonsense, and 
 boldly denied the existence of any such 
 languages as Pahlavi and Zend. 
 
 The Germans, slower in their judgment, 
 now took up the subject ; and the great 
 Danish scholar Rasksoon proved the 
 sacred languages to be pure Aryan dia- 
 lects, tracing them back from the Persian 
 M3
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 to the Median, and thence to .the Bactrian, 
 which leads directly to the classical Zend. 
 
 This course was however a very diffi- 
 cult one to follow, and it was not until 
 Eugene Bournouf, Professor of the Col- 
 lege of France at Paris, thought of reach- 
 ing the Zend through her sister, the 
 Sanskrit of the Vedas, instead of by the 
 successive steps of her Iranian daughters, 
 that anything further was achieved. 
 
 This attempt proved very successful, 
 more especially as a Sanskrit translation 
 of the Parsi prayer-book, the Yasna 
 (which contains the writings of Zara- 
 thustra Spitama himself), was found. 
 
 Bournouf 's labors were cut short by 
 death; but his excellent commentary on 
 the Yasna still ranks with anything that 
 has been produced, and contributes even 
 more than the work of Du Perron to give 
 the glory of this great discovery to France. 
 
 For the last forty or fifty years the 
 work has been carried on slowly but 
 144
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 steadily in Germany, and we have now 
 two translations of the Zend-avesta and 
 one of the Gathas. 
 
 The first of these, by Friedrich Spiegel, 
 Professor of Oriental Languages at the 
 Bavarian University of Erlangen, is almost 
 as incorrect as that of Du Perron, being 
 written carelessly and hurriedly, and with- 
 out any real appreciation of the subject. 
 
 The only true and correct version of 
 the Zend-avesta is that of Westergaard, 
 Professor at Copenhagen, who visited 
 Persia and India in pursuit of information, 
 and who is far too conscientious to set 
 before the public anything which he is 
 unable to prove. 
 
 Last came the Gathas, translated by 
 Haug, the oldest and most beautiful por- 
 tion of all the sacred writings of the 
 Parsis, a translation which may be taken 
 without reservation, because the author is 
 animated not only by a great appreciation 
 of his subject, but also by an infinite love 
 10 145
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 for the venerable religion which was once 
 the light of the world. 
 
 Zoroastrianism was known to the early 
 Greeks as the doctrine of the Magi, and 
 greatly respected by them. 
 
 The earliest writers on the subject 
 were Ktesias, 400 B.C., Deinon, 350 B.C., 
 Theopompos of Chios, 300 B.C., and 
 Herrnippos of Smyrna, 250 B.C. 
 
 These writings are nearly all lost, but 
 the opinions of Hermippos, who appears to 
 have been the only one possessed of any 
 real knowledge, have been preserved by 
 Plutarch in his " Isis and Osiris." 
 
 Our earliest account of the Zoroastrian 
 Mazda Yacna religion is to be found in the 
 works of Herodotus, written 450 B.C. 
 
 In his own words, " I know that the 
 Persians observe these customs. It is not 
 customary among them to have idols made, 
 temples built, or altars erected ; they even 
 upbraid with folly those who do so. I 
 can account for that only from their not 
 146
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 believing that the gods are men as the 
 Hellenes do. They are accustomed to 
 bring sacrifices to Zeus on the summits 
 of mountains ; they call the whole celestial 
 circle Zeus." 
 
 " The sacrificer ought not to pray only 
 for his own prosperity ; he must also pray 
 for the welfare of all Persians, and for the 
 king, because he is included among them." 
 
 " Lying is regarded as the most dis- 
 creditable thing by them ; next to it, 
 incurring debt, chiefly because the debtor 
 is often compelled to tell lies." 
 
 The Mohammedan writers have also 
 interested themselves in this religion, the 
 believers in which fell under their yoke at 
 the conquest of Persia ; and it has been 
 treated by them with great liberality. 
 
 Sharastani, a celebrated sage who lived 
 about the year noo, classifies the Parsis 
 with the Mussulmans and Christians; and 
 many of their writers identify Zoroaster 
 with Abraham. 
 
 147
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 To the Jews, this religion was probably 
 well known through their frequent inter- 
 course with the Persians. 
 
 It is hinted at in Ezekiel viii. 16, 17, 
 and, from the way in which Cyrus the 
 Great is spoken of by the Prophet Isaiah, 
 we are led to infer that the doctrines of 
 Zoroaster were not so diametrically op- 
 posed to the Mosaic creed. 
 
 Indeed there are a great many points of 
 similarity, and the two beliefs in the devil 
 and the resurrection of the dead are 
 so exactly alike that it is impossible not to 
 consider their source the same. 
 
 The word paradise has no existence in 
 Hebrew, and was unmistakably borrowed 
 from the Zend ; and the way in which the 
 one God names Himself is the same in 
 both cases (to Moses in the one, in the 
 other to Zoroaster), " Ayeh asher ayeh " in 
 Hebrew, " Amhi yat Amhi " in Zend, " I 
 am who I am." 
 
 The date of the founder of this religion, 
 148
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 Zarathustra Spitama, better known by his 
 Latin name of Zoroaster, is in dispute. 
 It has been a common error to place him 
 five hundred years B. c., in the time 
 of Hystaspes, the father of the winged 
 Darius ; but this is utterly incorrect, 
 and rests on nothing but the fact that 
 he lived in the reign of a king named 
 Vistaspa. 
 
 The Greek writers are disposed to place 
 him four thousand years before the Chris- 
 tian Era. This is evidently going too far ; 
 but when we consider that the stupendous 
 Parsi literature, of which Zarathustra 
 Spitama laid the corner-stone, was com- 
 plete four hundred years B. c., and com- 
 pare it with the Hebrew literature, whose 
 growth occupied two thousand five hun- 
 dred years, we cannot allow a less time for 
 its compilation than a thousand years. 
 
 It is therefore impossible to assign 
 Zarathustra Spitama a later date than four- 
 teen hundred years B. c., thereby proving 
 149
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 him to have been at least contemporary 
 with Moses. 
 
 At all events, it was not only long anterior 
 to the rise of Buddhism, but' even to the im- 
 migration of the Brahmans to India, for 
 we find that the Deva religion, not differing 
 essentially from modern Brahmanism, was 
 then the established faith of Bactria, and 
 Zarathustra Spitama himself one of the 
 Deva priests. 
 
 After serving in this capacity for some 
 time, Zarathustra, a man of wonderful 
 mental powers and intellect far beyond his 
 time, became convinced of the falsity of 
 the polytheistic religion of the Devas, and, 
 inspired by a longing for the truth, resigned 
 his office and retired from the world. 
 
 During the eight years that followed, 
 Zarathustra lived like a hermit in a cave, 
 spending his time in meditation, and, as 
 his disciples believe, visited by angels, and 
 receiving revelations from the one only 
 God whose being he was destined to reveal.
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 At the end of that time he re-appeared 
 among his countrymen, and announced to 
 them the Mazda Yacna religion. 
 
 His teachings, which were at once em- 
 braced by Vistaspa, the king, spread like 
 wildfire through all Bactria ; and the few 
 remaining adherents of the Deva religion 
 were forced to the south and east, and 
 finally across the mountains into India. 
 
 Zarathustra then established himself at 
 Ragha, a city which thenceforward was 
 exempted from the rule of the king, and 
 governed by his successors, the high priests, 
 taking the name of Zarathustrian Ragha. 
 
 The wonderful success of the Mazda 
 Yacna religion, which is unparalleled in 
 history, was due not only to its sublime 
 character, but to its purity and truth. 
 
 The doctrine of Zarathustra Spitama, 
 though since corrupted by innovations from 
 the old Deva and Sabean faiths, was the 
 purest possible monotheism. 
 
 He believed in one eternal God,
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Ahuromazda (living wise spirit), embodying 
 in one the principles of good and evil, 
 Cpenta Mainyus and Angro Mainyus, as 
 the symbol of whom he takes fire. 
 
 " The bright spirit appearing in the 
 blazing flame, and the presence of the dark 
 one marked by the wood converted into 
 charcoal." 
 
 The only other personation in this the- 
 ology is the Archangel Shraosha, who is 
 supposed to stand between God and 
 man. 
 
 Then there are six attributes of the 
 Most High, which are dignified by the 
 name of Heavenly Councillors, but are not 
 to be regarded as anything more than 
 abstract ideas. 
 
 These are : first, the Vohu Mano (good 
 mind), a portion of the divine wisdom given 
 to all men to instruct them, if they will 
 listen to its promptings, in the right. 
 
 The second is Ardibehest (light), which 
 signifies the omnipresence of God, and 
 152
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 also that the sun and moon and stars, fire, 
 and whatever else is radiant, shine only 
 through his light. 
 
 Sharaver, the third, which signifies 
 wealth and the mercy of Ahuromazda in 
 bestowing on his followers all good gifts. 
 
 The fourth, Issandarmat (devotion), is a 
 symbol of the pure heart of the true 
 Ahuromazda worshipper. 
 
 Khorda and Ameredat, the fifth and 
 sixth, preside over vegetation and the 
 fruits of the earth, agriculture being con- 
 sidered by Zarathustra not only as a reli- 
 gious duty, but as the first principle of 
 civilization. 
 
 Zarathustra's speculative philosophy, 
 which must not be confounded with his 
 theology, constitutes a dualism as set forth 
 in his own words. 
 
 " i. Everywhere in the world a duality 
 
 is to be perceived, such as the good and 
 
 the evil, light and darkness, this life and 
 
 that life, human wisdom and divine wisdom. 
 
 153
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 11 2. In the universe there are from 
 the beginning two spirits at work, the one 
 making life, the other destroying it. 
 
 " 3. Only this life becomes a prey to 
 death, but not that hereafter, over which 
 the destructive spirit has no power. 
 
 "4. The principal duty of man is to 
 obey the word and commandments of God. 
 
 " 5. The divine Spirit cannot be re- 
 sisted. 
 
 " 6. God exercises his rule in the world 
 through the works prompted by the divine 
 Spirit, who is working in man and nature. 
 
 " 7. Men should pray to God and 
 worship him, he hears the prayers of the 
 good. 
 
 " 8. The Soul of the pure will here- 
 after enjoy everlasting life, that of the 
 wicked will have to undergo everlasting 
 punishment. 
 
 " 9. All good creatures are Ahuromaz- 
 das. He is the reality of the good mind, 
 word, and deed." 
 
 154
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 Zarathustra's moral philosophy forms a 
 trilogy of thought, word, and deed, and 
 he believes that unless in all of these three 
 he is not good and pure, no man can be 
 truly virtuous ; and that forgiveness for 
 sins committed is to be obtained by re- 
 pentance alone. 
 
 The Parsi Scriptures, consisting of the 
 writings of Zarathustra Spitama and his 
 disciples and successors, were at one time 
 of such immense extent that at the date 
 of the Macedonian conquest, 353 B. c., 
 they were said to contain 2,000,000 
 verses. 
 
 But, chiefly owing to the five centuries 
 between this event and the succession of 
 the Sassanids, during which period the 
 Mazda Yacna religion was unsupported 
 by any king, and the still more rigorous 
 rule of the Mohammedans, which came 
 later, and partly due no doubt to the care- 
 lessness and ignorance of the priests, a 
 great part of it was lost. 
 
 155
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 We know that the Zenda-vesta proper 
 consisted of twenty-one parts, called nasks, 
 of which only the twentieth, the Ven- 
 didad, remains. 
 
 A list of the contents of these other 
 nasks has been preserved, from which we 
 learn that they treated not so much of 
 religious subjects, as of medicine, agricul- 
 ture, astronomy, philosophy, botany, and 
 indeed every branch of literature, and were 
 probably the work of the successive Zara- 
 thustras, or high priests. 
 
 The Vendidad is a code of rules for 
 purging uncleanness of all sorts, with the 
 exception of the three first fargards. 
 
 These, which are evidently of much 
 earlier date, contain a poetical account of 
 the creation, which by some has been 
 attributed to Zarathustra Spitama him- 
 self. 
 
 The Visparad, which comes next is the 
 liturgy of the Parsis ; it contains the invoca- 
 tions to be used at sacrifices, and the ser- 
 156
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 vices for the festivals at the beginning of 
 the six seasons of the year. 
 
 The Yasna is the prayer-book, contain- 
 ing all the Parsi prayers, which indeed are 
 more properly hymns, as they are not to 
 be spoken but chanted. 
 
 This, the holiest of all books, consists 
 of three parts, the younger Yasna of un- 
 known date, written in the ordinary lan- 
 guage of the Avesta, and the older Yasna, 
 which is written in a more ancient dialect, 
 known as the Gatha. 
 
 The younger Yasna consists of frag- 
 ments of other books and short writings 
 on various subjects. The most important 
 of these are the Homa Yasht, which de- 
 scribes the preparation and drinking of the 
 Homa, and chants the power and praises 
 of the Heavenly Plant, and the Shrosh 
 Yasht, which is dedicated to the Archangel 
 Shraosha, who personifies the whole divine 
 worship of the Mazda Yacna religion. 
 The older Yasna contains the Yasna
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 Haptanhaiti (the Yasna of the seven chap- 
 ters) and the most sacred of all Zoroastrian 
 writings, the five " Gathas," which alone 
 of all are beyond doubt the work of 
 Zarathustra. 
 
 These Gathas are believed to contain 
 all that was revealed to Zarathustra. The 
 words which head them are of the highest 
 interest. " The revealed thought, the re- 
 vealed word, the revealed deed of the 
 righteous Zarathustra. The archangels first 
 sang the Gathas ! " 
 
 I will give a few verses of these won- 
 derful hymns. 
 
 " I know thee to be the primeval spirit, 
 thou wise, so high in mind as to create the 
 world, and the father of the Vohu Mano." 
 
 " Blessed is he, blessed are all men to 
 whom the living wise God of his own 
 command should grant those two ever- 
 lasting powers wholesomeness and immor- 
 tality. For this very good, I beseech thee, 
 Ahuromazda, mayest thou through thy 
 '58
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama 
 
 angel of piety give me happiness, the good 
 true things, and the possession of the Vohu 
 Mano." 
 
 " We praise all good thoughts, all good 
 words, all good deeds which are and will 
 be, and we likewise keep clean and pure 
 all that is good." 
 
 " We worship Ahuromazda the pure, the 
 master of purity. We worship the Amesha 
 Spentas (angels), the possessors of good. 
 We worship the whole creation of the 
 true Spirit, both the spiritual and the 
 terrestrial, all that supports the welfare 
 of the good creation and the spread of 
 the good Mazda Yacna religion." 
 
 The third book, the Khorda Avesta, 
 consists of contributions from the Persian 
 poets in commemoration of the feats of 
 the angels, which were chanted at their 
 festivals corresponding to the Christian 
 Saints days. But these belong to a very 
 much later date, and are only valuable as 
 mythological poems. 
 
 '59
 
 A Key to the Orient 
 
 One may believe in the inspiration of 
 Zarathustra or not, but without this belief 
 his work and its wonderful success are 
 easily explained and understood. 
 
 Zarathustra, with his wonderful intellect 
 and keen insight into things, saw clearly 
 that the religion around him was false. 
 
 He engaged in a search after truth, and 
 to those who seek her Truth reveals her- 
 self. 
 
 Zarathustra felt the light within his soul, 
 and, knowing that there must be a source 
 beyond himself, he turned his face toward 
 the east and waited for the dawn. The 
 dawn broke, the light for which he longed 
 was given ; and, pointing to the star which 
 by faith had risen out of darkness, he 
 cried to the world, " Learn the differ- 
 ence between good and evil ; these are 
 devils whom ye serve, behold I have 
 found the Truth." 
 
 160
 
 Religion of Zarathustra Spitama. 
 
 Tradition, in the Orient often more 
 trustworthy than documentary evidence, 
 related that Zarathustra inspired his fol- 
 lowers with the belief that some time the 
 Son of God, a divinity not elsewhere 
 spoken of in his teachings, would come 
 under the form of man and redeem the 
 world. 
 
 This idea was not new to the Aryan 
 mind, having been taught by the Brahmans 
 in the doctrine of the Avatars of Vishnu. 
 
 But where it was imperfect, for Vishnu 
 only came to help mankind, Zarathustra 
 made it perfect, his God coming to redeem ! 
 
 For centuries this idea lingered in the 
 Persian mind like a seed in the earth, and 
 at last put forth a single flower. 
 
 The first to adore our Lord Jesus Christ 
 as he lay in the manger was neither Jew 
 nor Roman, but the three Magi, Zara- 
 thustrian priests, who came from a far 
 country, Persia, to worship him whose star 
 they had seen in the east ! 
 161
 
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