Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/23

 A MOHAMMEDAN LEGENDINTRODUCTORY AND APOLOGETIC

“Tainting the air, on a scirocco day, the carcase of a hound, all loathsome, lay in Nazareth’s narrow street. Wayfarers hurried past covering mouth and nostrils, and at last, when purer air they reached, in Eastern style they cursed the dog, and the dog’s owners’ ancestors, and theirs who, bound to care for public cleanliness yet left the nuisance there to poison all around. Then, that same way, there came ’Isa, the son of Mary, of great fame for mighty deeds performed in Allah’s Name. He said, ‘How lovely are its teeth, so sharp, and white as pearls’: then went his way.”

Be the lot, Reader, thine, ’midst many faults to note some beauty shine: some lesson new in Eastern legends old: and, ’mid much dross, to find some grains of gold. J. E. H. xxi