“After ceremonies and coffee, I took my dusky patient into the consulting-room, where, by dint of questioning and surmise, for negroes in general are much less clear and less to the point than Arabs in their statements, I obtained the requisite elucidation of his case. The malady, though painful, was fortunately one admitting of simple and efficacious treatment, so that I was able on the spot to promise him a sensible amendment of condition within a fortnight, and that in three weeks’ time he should be in plight to undertake his journey to Bahreyn. I added that with so distinguished a personage I could not think of exacting a bargain and fixing the amount of fees; the requital of my care should be left to his generosity. He then took leave, and was re-conducted to his rooms in the palace by his fellow blacks of less degree.”
The next visitor was Abd el-Kereem, of the oldest nobility of Nedjed, related to the ruling family; a bitter Wahabee, a strong, intelligent, bad, and dangerous man, who was both hated and feared by the people. His visit was a distinction for Palgrave, yet an additional danger. The latter, however, determined to draw as much information from him concerning Wahabee doctrine as he might be inclined to give; and, in reality, found him quite communicative. One day Palgrave asked him to define the difference between the great sins and the little ones—that is, those to be punished in the next world, or at least deserving of it, and those whose penalty is remissible in this life.
“Abd-el-Kereem doubted not that he had a sincere scholar before him, nor would refuse his hand to a drowning man. So, putting on a profound air, and with a voice of first-class solemnity, he uttered his oracle, that ‘the first of the great sins is the giving divine honors to a creature.’ A hit, I may observe, at ordinary Mahometans, whose whole doctrine of intercession, whether vested in Mahomet or in ’Alee, is classed by Wahabees along with direct and downright idolatry. A Damascene Shekh would have avoided the equivocation by answering, ‘infidelity.’
“‘Of course,’ I replied, ‘the enormity of such a sin is beyond all doubt. But if this be the first, there must be a second; what is it?’
“‘Drinking the shameful,’ in English, ‘smoking tobacco,’ was the unhesitating answer.
“‘And murder, and adultery, and false witness?’ I suggested.
“‘God is merciful and forgiving,’ rejoined my friend; that is, these are merely little sins.
“‘Hence two sins alone are great, polytheism and smoking,’ I continued, though hardly able to keep countenance any longer. And Abd-el-Kereem, with the most serious asseveration, replied that such was really the case. On hearing this, I proceeded humbly to entreat my friend to explain to me the especial wickedness inherent in tobacco leaves, that I might the more detest and eschew them hereafter.
“Accordingly he proceeded to instruct me, saying that, Firstly, all intoxicating substances are prohibited by the Koran; but tobacco is an intoxicating substance—ergo, tobacco is prohibited.
“I insinuated that it was not intoxicating, and appealed to experience. But, to my surprise, my friend had experience too on his side, and had ready at hand the most appalling tales of men falling down dead drunk after a single whiff of smoke, and of others in a state of bestial and habitual ebriety from its use. Nor were his stories so purely gratuitous as many might at first imagine. The only tobacco known, when known, in Southern Nedjed, is that of Oman, a very powerful species. I was myself astonished, and almost ‘taken in,’ more than once, by its extraordinary narcotic effects, when I experienced them, in the coffee-houses of Bahreyn.”