bability for the conviction already cited that after Abd el Hamid a new order of Caliphal succession will be seen.

It seems to be an universal opinion at the present day among those who think at all upon the matter, that whatever change may be impending for Islam, it will be in the direction of concentration rather than of extension. All parties see that the day of outside conquest is at an end, and that the utmost that Islam can look forward to politically is the maintenance of its present positions, and as an extreme possibility the emancipation of its lost provinces in India and North Africa from Christian rule. There is, therefore, a conviction that the removal of the seat of supreme authority, when made, will 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 quali

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fication 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. They are warlike, unquiet, Bedouins, camel-riders (for they have no horses), and armed with matchlocks; and they are proud of their independence, and tenacious of their rights. No serious attempt has ever been made, except by Mehemet Ali, to subdue them, and none at all has succeeded. Unlike the generality of Peninsular Bedouins, however, they are professed Sunite Mohammedans, if not of a very pious type; and they acknowledge as their chief the head of their most noble tribe, the Grand Sherif of the Koreysh, who is also Prince of Mecca.

The Koreysh is still a distinct nomadic tribe, inhabiting the immediate neighbourhood of Mecca; not numerous, but not in decay. They are divided into several sections, each governed by its Sheykh, the chief of which, the Abadleh, has for several centuries supplied the reigning family of Hejaz. This last traces its descent from Ali ibn Abutaleb, the fourth Caliph, through his son Hassan, and through Ali's wife, Fatmeh, from Mohammed himself. It is probably the oldest authentic male descent in the world, and certainly the most sacred. All the members of this Abadleh family enjoy the title of Sherif, the head of it only being

distinguished as the Sherif el Kebir, the Great or Grand Sherif. The rest of the Koreysh, not being descended from Fatmeh, do not receive the title. All alike wear the Bedouin dress of abba and kefiyeh, even the Prince himself, standing in this strikingly in contrast with the Hejazi citizens, who affect the turban and gombaz.

The district of Medina is occupied by the Harb Bedouins, a larger and more powerful tribe than the Koreysh, who also recognize the Sherif, but their allegiance is precarious; while to the east and south of Mecca the Ateybeh and Assir, more powerful still, are wholly independent. It has always been a difficult matter to keep these unruly elements at peace with each other and with the citizens, nor could the Sherif hope to effect it were he not himself of Bedouin and noble blood.

The early history of the Sherifate is exceedingly obscure. When the Caliphs definitely abandoned Medina as their capital in the fortieth year of Islam (A.D. 662), they for a time left deputies of the Sherifal family behind them to govern in their name, and, as long as the Ommiad and Abbaside dynasties continued at Damascus and Bagdad, their sovereignty was acknowledged in Hejaz. But on the destruction of the Arabian Caliphate