be towards the centre, not to any new extremity of Islam.  Constantinople, even if all Islam were combined for its defence, is felt to be too near the infidel frontier to be safe, and cosmopolitan city as it has become, it is by many looked upon itself as infidel.  A position further removed from danger and more purely Mohammedan is the necessity of the day; and it can hardly be doubted that, when the time comes, the possession of some such vantage ground will be recognized as a first qualification with whoever shall assume the leadership of Islam.

We have seen that Abd el Hamid dreams of Damascus or Bagdad.  But others dream of Cairo as the new seat of the Caliphate; and to the majority of far-sighted Mussulmans it is rapidly becoming apparent that the retreat, once begun, must be conducted further still, and that the only true resting-place for theocracy is in Arabia, its birthplace and the fountain head of its inspiration.  There, alone in the world, all the conditions for the independent exercise of religious sovereignty are to be found.  In Arabia there are neither Christians nor Jews nor infidels of any sort for Islam to count with, nor is it so rich a possession that it should ever excite the cupidity of the Western Powers.  A Caliph there need fear no admonition from Frank ambassadors in virtue of any capitulations; he would be free to act as the Successor of the Apostle should, and would breathe the pure air of an unadulterated Islam.  A return, therefore, to Medina or Mecca is the probable future of the Caliphate.

The importance of Arabia has of late years been fully recognized both at Constantinople and elsewhere.  It has been the sustained policy of Abd el Hamid at all cost and by whatsoever means to maintain his influence there; and he knows that without it his spiritual pretensions could have no secure foundations.  Arabia, he perceives, is the main point of the Caliphal problem; and whether or not the future holder of the office reside in Hejaz, it is certain that by its tenure alone the Mohammedan world will judge of his right to be their leader.  It will, therefore, before we go further, be interesting to examine the relations existing in the past and present between Mecca and the Caliphate, and to ascertain the position now held by Abd el Hamid in Arabia.  On this point I believe that I can offer information which will be both valuable and new.

The political constitution of the Moslem Holy Land is one of the most anomalous in the world.  Like every district of Arabia proper, Hejaz has a town and a nomad population, but almost no intermediate agricultural class.  The townsmen I have already described—­a multitude of mixed origin, descended from such pilgrims as from every quarter of the globe have visited the Holy Places, and have remained to marry and die in them.  The Nomads, on the contrary, are a pure race of a peculiarly noble type, and unchanged in any essential feature of their life from what they were in the days of Mohammed.