To be quite exact, on that morning when Ralston was taking his long walk towards Jamrud with the zemindar Futteh Ali Shah, Linforth was watching impatiently from his deck-chair the high mosque towers, the white domes and great houses of Mocha, as they shimmered in the heat at the water's edge against a wide background of yellow sand.

Then about 8 p.m., as the hour of the special Ramazan or "Tarawih" prayer draws nigh, the mosque beadle, followed by a body of shrill-voiced boys, makes his round of the streets, crying "Namaz tayar hai, cha-lo-o," and all the dwellers in the Musalman quarter hie them to the house of prayer.

The black depths of the well in the center of the mosque courtyard provided doubtful water for washing, bathing, and drinking; then came breakfast,our first government meal,consisting, simply enough, of boiled rice, which was ladled out into tin wash-basins holding rations for ten men.

Remembering what Grim had said about the danger I was running, and looking at the deep black shadows of the streets, it occurred to me that that spy, who slept so soundly by the mosque door, might wake up and be annoyed with himself.

There is a mosque entire, with its pulpit and galleries, and the gilded crescent still glittering over its dome.

To supply German ammunition needs, lead and zinc have been taken from the roofs of mosques and door-handles from mosque-gates, and the iron railings along the Champs de Mars at Pera have been carted away for the manufacture of bombs.

As the sun sinks low in the west, a stream of worshippers flows through the mosque-gatesrich black-coated Persian merchants, picturesque full-bearded Moulvis, smart sepoys from Hindustan, gold-turbaned shrewd-eyed Memon traders, ruddy Jats from Multan, high-cheeked Sidis, heavily dressed Bukharans, Arabs, Afghans and pallid embroiderers from Surat, who grudge the half-hour stolen from the daylight.

This was a pattern furnished by the grand vizier of the sultan for a mosque lamp of a peculiar shape, wrought over with verses from the Koran, in various colored enamels.

Then, if his hours are wisely chosen, the traveler drives back to the town at sunset when palace towers and cupolas, mosque minarets and domes are silhouetted against the blazing west in an unrivalled skyline.

[Illustration: DELHI, FROM THE MOSQUE PICKET.]

The amusement here consisted in seeing boys from the mosque stick into their cheeks, &c., daggers and pointed weapons, which the priest blessed, and which were therefore innocuous; a milder specimen of the supernatural I certainly never witnessed.

From the windows and doorways of every house, from the bazaars and cafés, from the side streets and mosque-approaches, the gaze of the sullen populace fastened itself upon the little procession.

Looking back, so bright was the moon that you could even see the blue of the tiles that cover the mosque wall, and the interwoven scroll of writing from the Koran that runs around like a frieze below the dome.