During the ride they entered into conversation with me, and in answer to their questions, I was relating to them the solitary manner in which I had passed my time, how I found out the library, and what I had read in that fatal book which had so heated my imagination,—when we arrived at the fair; and Ishmael, Mahomet, and the narrow bridge vanished out of my head in an instant.
Before I went home the good lady explained to me very seriously the error into which I had fallen. I found that, so far from "Mahometanism Explained" being a book concealed only in this library, it was well known to every person of the least information.
The Turks, she told me, were Mahometans. And she said that, if the leaves of my favorite book had not been torn out, I should have read that the author of it did not mean to give the fabulous stories here related as true, but only wrote it as giving a history of what the Turks, who are a very ignorant people, believe concerning Mahomet.
By the good offices of the physician and his lady, I was carried home, at the end of a month, perfectly cured of the error into which I had fallen, and very much ashamed of having believed so many absurdities.
Mary Lamb.
THE LITTLE PERSIAN.
Among the Persians there is a sect called the Sooffees, and one of the most distinguished saints of this sect was Abdool Kauder.