some bread, and they began breaking it and dipping it in the gravy of the meat, the invariable custom here. Spoons they abominate, it is either their fingers, or sopping. The Biblical reader will easily recognize the custom. I took the Testament and read to the taleb this passage:—"And," said Jesus, "He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it; and he took a sop and gave it to Judas Simon Iscariot."—(John xiii. 26.)
The taleb was greatly delighted, and said, "Yes, so it was in all times before the infidels introduced knives and forks and spoons to eat with." I observed it was much more cleanly to eat with knives and forks than with one's fingers, but it was useless. He only replied, "There's water always to wash your hands." The sop mentioned in the passage cited might consist of a piece of bread dipped into a dish of fat or broth. So all Ghadames people eat, dipping pieces of bread, as they break them from a loaf, into fat or broth, or other dishes of this sort. We shall find, for what cause I cannot tell, the Touaricks using spoons, and spoons which are made in Central Africa, and distributed throughout The Sahara amongst the Touarghee tribes. This little circumstance would seem to be an argument against the Oriental origin of the Touaricks, for, eternally dipping and sopping, and sopping and dipping with the fingers, is coextensive with the migrations of the Arabs and other tribes from the East. Jews were the first to introduce knives and forks into Mogador, because they have not the same religious scruples on this head as Mohammedans. Barbary Jews do it in imitation of their European brethren. I shall trouble the reader with another display of the sectarian zeal of my taleb.
To make a proposition, or a double proposition, of a form of the orthodox Christian faith, I had constructed the following, in imitation of the double proposition of the Mahometans, (that is—
لا لله الّا الله ومحمّد رسول الله
"There is one God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God,")
لا لله الّا الله ويسوع ابن الله
"There is one God, and Jesus is the son of God."
The first proposition is seen to be the same; whilst the divine nature of the Saviour, which is the distinguishing feature of the Christian religion as looked upon by Mussulmans, is added in the words ابن الله. The number of syllables is precisely the same, the و being merely considered as the connecting link of the two propositions. But the term عيسي would be much preferable to يسوع, being the classic Arabic term. In teaching Christian doctrine to Mussulmans, and, indeed, to all people, it is necessary to adapt our style and language to their style and language and mode of conception. The Catholics, however, carried the adaptation too far when they turned the statues of Jupiter and the Emperors into those of the Apostles and Saints. For the Jews, the proposition could be made thus:—
لا لله الّا الله ويسوع هو المسيح