I Believe That They Had Never Before Looked Upon A Man
In The European Dress, And When They Now Saw
In me that strange
phenomenon, and saw, too, how they could please the creature by
showing him a glimpse of
Beauty, they seemed to think it was better
fun to do this than to go on playing with swings. It was always,
however, with a sort of zoological expression of countenance that
they looked on the horrible monster from Europe, and whenever one
of them gave me to see for one sweet instant the blushing of her
unveiled face, it was with the same kind of air as that with which
a young, timid girl will edge her way up to an elephant and
tremblingly give him a nut from the tips of her rosy fingers.
CHAPTER XXV - MARIAM
There is no spirit of propagandism in the Mussulmans of the Ottoman
dominions. True it is that a prisoner of war, or a Christian
condemned to death, may on some occasions save his life by adopting
the religion of Mahomet, but instances of this kind are now
exceedingly rare, and are quite at variance with the general
system. Many Europeans, I think, would be surprised to learn that
which is nevertheless quite true, namely, that an attempt to
disturb the religious repose of the empire by the conversion of a
Christian to the Mahometan faith is positively illegal. The event
which now I am going to mention shows plainly enough that the
unlawfulness of such interference is distinctly recognised even in
the most bigoted stronghold of Islam.
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