6 INTRODUCTORY the demand for a cotton free from dust and extraneous particles ? The Arab character cannot be compared with that of the indigenous races. Tenacious, intelligent, commercial, and experienced, as are the more developed classes and the Arabs of purer blood, none are more eminently capable of appreciating immediate advantage, notwithstanding the custom and prejudice which are so antagonistic to progress.

Whatever may be the Arab's vices and shortcomings, however hardened and callous where the sufferings of others are concerned, he has a power of initiative, an impelling and organizing force which takes him much farther than the mere production of hardly sufficient to live on, as is the case with so many of the negroids.

History has given examples of great powers of organization, and of an influence in which, whether exercised for good or for evil, intellect has taken chief place. The subconscious momentum of a ruling and dominant race, inherited from Asiatic forefathers, has carried them onward, and from the east to the west and far to the south they have conquered and spread. They have the imaginative power which permits of a highly developed religious system, a docility to its teaching and an extravagance in its translation born partly of elementary fanaticism, and partly of an unshakable belief in the safety of their own eternal future, involving a general reliance on unadulterated selfishness.