Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 2.djvu/91

 The Tale of Ghanim bin Ayyub. 69 of the day, and hunger grew hard on him and walking wearied him. So coming to a village he entered a mosque ! where he sat down upon a mat and propped his back against the wall ; but presently he sank to the ground in his extremity of, famine and fatigue. There he lay till dawn, his heart fluttering' for want of food ; and, owing to his sweating, the lice 2 coursed over his skin ; his breath waxed fetid and his whole condition was changed. When the villagers came to pray the dawn-prayer, they found him prostrate, ailing, hunger-lean, yet showing evident signs of former affluence. As soon as prayers were over, they drew near him ; and, understanding that he was starved with hunger and cold, they gave him an old robe with ragged sleeves and said to him, " O stranger, whence art thou and what sickness is upon thee ? * He opened his eyes and wept but returned no answer ; whereupon one of them, who saw that he was starving, brought him a saucer of honey and two barley scones. He ate a little and they sat with him till sun-rise, when they went to their work. He abode with them in this state for a month, whilst sickness and weak- liness grew upon him ; and they wept for him and, pitying his condition, took counsel with one another upon his case and agreed to forward him to the hospital in Baghdad. 8 Meanwhile behold, two beggar-women, who were none other than Ghanim's mother and sister, 4 came into the mosque and, when he saw them, he gave them the bread that was at his head ; and they slept by his side that night but he knew them not. Next day the villagers brought a camel and said to the cameleer, " Set this sick man on thy beast and carry him to Baghdad and put him down at the Spital-door ; so haply be may be medicined and be healed and thou shalt have thy hire." 5 "To hear is to comply," said the man. So they brought The lodging of pauper travellers, as the chapel in Iceland is of the wealthy. I have often taken benefit of the mosque, but as a role it is unpleasant, the matting being not only torn but over-populous. Juvenal seems to allude to the Jewish Synagogue similarly used : " in qua te qusero proseucha " ? (iii. 296) and in Acts iii. we find the lame, blind and impotent in the Temple-porch. This foul sort of vermin is supposed to be bred by perspiration. It is an epoch in the civilised traveller's life when he catches his first louse.  The Moslem peasant is a kind-hearted man and will make many sacrifices for a sick stranger even of another creed. It is a manner of " pundonor " with the village.  Such treatment of innocent women was only too common under the Caliphate and in contemporary Europe.  This may also mean, "And Heaven will reward thee;" but camel-men do not usually accept any drafts upon futurity.