[316] “In such circumstances,” writes one who knew the desert well, “the mind is influenced through the body. Though your mouth glows and your skin is parched with heat, yet you feel no languor, the effect of humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory recovers its tone and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around you stir up all the energies of your soul—whether for exertion, danger or strife. Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded: the hypocritical politeness and the slavery of civilization are left behind you in the city.... All feel their hearts dilate and their pulses beat strong as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious desert. Where do we hear of a traveler being disappointed by it? It is another illustration of the ancient truth that Nature returns to man, however unworthily he has treated her. And believe me, when once your tastes have conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real pain in returning to the turmoil of civilization. You will anticipate the bustle and confusion of artificial life, its luxury and its false pleasures with repugnance. Depressed in spirits you will for a time after your return feel incapable of bodily or mental exertion. The air of cities will suffocate you and the care-worn and cadaverous countenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgment.” Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah, Vol. I, pp. 150, 151 (by Richard F. Burton, London, 1893).
[317] A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari. Ita appellant Medi sagittam. Pliny, Naturalis Historia, VI, XXVII.
[318] We have seen in a previous chapter how unfounded is this statement.
[319] The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Vol. I, p. 60 (trans. by H. Yule, London, 1903).
[320] Geschichte der Ilchaner, Vol. I, p. 191 (Darmstadt, 1842).
[321] Acts of the Apostles, ii: 9, 11.
[322] See map III of Heussi and Mulert’s Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte for the extensive territory occupied by the Nestorian Church during its greatest development.
[323] The dwelling of the Patriarch, as described by a noted traveler of the last century, “is solidly built of hewn-stone and stands on the very edge of a precipice overhanging a ravine through which winds a branch of the Zab. A dark vaulted passage led us into a room scarcely better lighted by a small window closed by a greased sheet of coarse paper. The tattered remains of a felt carpet, spread in a corner, was the whole of its furniture. The garments of the Patriarch were hardly less worn and ragged. Even the miserable allowance of 300 piastres, about £2 10s., which the Porte had promised to pay him monthly on his return to the mountains was long in arrears, and he was supported entirely by the contributions of his faithful but poverty-stricken flock. Kochanes was, moreover, still a heap of ruins.” Discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, with Travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the Desert, p. 363 (by A. H. Layard, New York, 1856).
[324] “La progression des Chrétians a été la suivante; en 1750, zéro; en 1856, de 30,000 a 40,000; en 1900, 66,000. Tout donne à espérer que le retour définitif des Nestoriens à la foi portera bientot et définitivement ce nombre, si ce n’est deja un fait accomplit, a 140,000.” Les Missions Catholiques Francaises au XIXe Siècle, p. 271 (Paris, 1900).
[325] For the dogmatic definitions of the Church at the General Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon against the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches see Denzinger’s Enchiridion, pp. 52, 65.