Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/219

CHAP. XVI.]

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 ; an incident which occurred at Nablous, and which I am going to mention, showed plainly enough that the unlawfulness of such interference is recognized even in the most bigoted strong-hold of Islam.

During my stay at this place I took up my quarters at the house of thd Greek Papa, as he is called, that is, the Greek Priest; the priest himself had gone to Jerusalem upon the busi- ness I am going to tell you of, but his wife remained at Nablous, and did the honors of her home.

Soon after my arrival, a deputation from the Greek Christians of the place came to request my interference in a matter which had occasioned vast excitement.

And now I must tell you how it came to happen, as it did continually, that people thought it worth while to claim the assistance of a mere traveller, who was totally devoid of all just pretensions to authority, or influence of even the humblest de- scription, and especially I must explain to you how it was that the power thus attributed, did really belong to me, or rather to my Dragoman. Successive political convulsions hac at length fairly loosed the people of Syria from their former rules of con-