ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 257 pled to make liberal use of it. There is no hazard in surrounding your hero with all sorts of real and imaginary dangers, or in heaping up obstacles in the path of his designs, when you know that his destiny obliges him to overcome them.

He becomes, for the time, the impersonation of Fate, and circumstances yield before him. You see, plainly, that he was chosen, in the beginning, to do the very thing which he accomplishes, in the end. If a miracle is needed for his success, it is not withheld. Difficulties crowd upon him to the last, only that the final triumph may be more complete and striking.

Yet with all these violations of probability, the Oriental tales exhibit a great fertility of invention and sparkle with touches of genuine human nature. The deep and absorbing interest with which the unlettered Arabs listen to their recital — the hold which they have upon the popular heart of the East — attests their value, as illustrations of Eastern life.

From Poetry we frequently passed to Keligion, and Achmet was astonished to find me familiar not only with Mohammed, but with Ali and Abdullah and Abu-talib, and with many incidents of the Prophet's life, which were new to him. The Persian chronicles were fresh in my memory, and all the wonders related of Mohammed by that solemn old biographer, Mohammed Bekr, . came up again as vividly as when I first read them. We compared notes, he repeated passages of the Koran, and so the Giaour and the True Believer discussed the nature of their faith, but always ended by passing beyond Prophet and Apostle, to the one great and good God, who is equally merciful to all men. I could sincerely adopt the first article of his faith: "La illah iV Allah!" " There is no God but God," while he was equally ready to accept the first commandment of mine.