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a brief period during which inconsequent skirmishes marked the days as they passed, but neither side gained any positive advantage. The Meccans were encamped on the heights to the east of the town. and in the lower part of the valley; and as the Koran expresses it,

The enemy came down upon you from above and from below; and the sight of the eyes was obscured; and your hearts came up into your throats; and ye imagined concerning Allah strange imaginations; there were the believers tried, and made to quake with a severe quaking. . . Remember the favors of Allah towards you, when hosts came to you, and we sent against them a wind and angels. Sura xxxiii.

Strategy was worth more than force at this time, and Mohammed endeavored with success to create a sense of mutual distrust among his enemies. The forage of the Koreishites and their provisions were falling short, and they became tired of the ineffectual siege. At this juncture, there arose one night a very penetrating and chilly wind, which upturned the tents, extinguished the fires, and made the besiegers only too happy to hasten away. The prophet was quick to teach his followers that Allah had interfered, and the streets of Medina were the next day filled with rejoicing throngs, uttering the pæans of victory.

Among those who had taken the part of the Koreishites, was a tribe of Jews, the Koreitza, and Mohammed now hastened to take vengeance upon them. The People of the Book, were difficult to suppress, and after every punishment that they received, seemed to start up in a new quarter to harass the Moslems. Siege was laid to the town of these latest disturbers, and the privations of the inhabitants

soon made them sue for peace and, finally, surrender themselves. After the travesty of a trial, the men were executed by the hundred with the most heartless deliberation, and the women and children sold into slavery in exchange for horses and harness. Mohammed seems to have imitated at this time the directions laid down in the Old Testament, as at Deuteronomy xx., 18, where the Children of Israel were instructed not to leave one of their heathen enemies alive, but to utterly destroy them. In the thirty-third sura the circumstances of this butchery are made the subjects of thankfulness, and it is vaunted as done by the direct decree of Allah.

The Arab at this time was a devoted believer in spells, enchantments, and the evil eye, and still is, and Mohammed was as superstitious in this respect as any of his countrymen. In the chapter entitled "Of the Daybreak," he exclaims:

I seek refuge in the Lord of the Daybreak from the evil of what he hath created; from the evil of darkness when it covereth the earth; from the evil of women blowing upon knots; and from the harm of the envious when he envieth.-Sura cxiii.

The customs of the people in this respect are illustrated by the case of a necromancer, who, just before the land was cleared of the Jews, injured the prophet as was believed, by mystic enchantments. He took a small waxen image, wound it about with hairs procured from the prophet's head, pierced it with eleven needles, tied eleven knots in a bowstring, blew upon each knot the breath of the mouth, wound the cord. around the effigy, and finally sunk it in the bottom of a well and placed a stone over the mouth. Mo

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hammed began immediately to suffer from a languishing illness, against which no remedies were efficacious until the incantation was discovered. Day by day he wasted away, but the ever-ready angel Gabriel came to his rescue, and revealed the mystery. Ali discovered the image in the well; Mohammed repeated over it the eleven verses that form the last two suras of the Koran, which were at the moment "revealed "as a charm against similar influences. It is soberly recorded that as each verse fell from the prophet's lips, a knot loosened itself from the bowstring, a needle was consequently released, and strength returned to the victim. As the last needle fell away, Mohammed rose in health. and vigor, as though he had himself been bound by the cords and pierced by the needles. These two chapters have been since that time often used in the same way; they are written out and worn as amulets, or committed to memory and repeated as charms. It is said that Mohammed visited the well in which the effigy had been hidden, and found in the date-trees about it resemblances to devils' heads! He caused the well to be destroyed. Whether having any foundation in fact or not, this tale well illustrates the superstition prevalent. in Arabia at the time, a superstition that it does not become us to be surprised at when we reflect upon the persecutions of so-called "witches" in England and America that history records with horror, persecutions that took place centuries after the days of the unlettered prophet of the desert.

XIX.

EXILES IN AN EMPTY CITY.

MOHAMMED'S position was now strong; the

Koreishites of Mecca had been baffled in their attempts to overthrow his power at Medina under circumstances which added to the acuteness of their disappointment; the Jews had been terribly harried and finally cast out, and there scemed to be no great impediment to the extension of Moslem power to regions beyond. These facts made it all the more irritating to Mohammed that he should be shut out of his native city and not permitted even to see the sacred Kaaba nor to perform there the devotions which had for so long been the right and the privilege of his clan. The six years that had elapsed since last he had been inside of Mecca had been a period of mental anxiety and of strife, and now he longed to show anew his devotion to the ancient faith, or to punish those against whom he had launched his unfruitful denunciations in the name of Allah, for obstructing the approach of the pious worshippers.* In his visions, which came with some of the ancient fervor in view of these thoughts, he actually entered the sacred city, and performed the * See the second Sura, quoted in part on page 147.

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ceremonies of the pilgrim; when he awoke, he determined with the strong will of the first years of his mission, that he would make the dream a reality.

The sacred month of the year 628 (assigned for the Lesser Pilgrimage) was approaching; in it war was prohibited, and Mohammed determined to make his attempt then, because he thought there would be less opposition to his enterprise than at the time of the Greater Pilgrimage. Every precaution was taken to ensure the expedition against the opposition of the Koreishites: the number of pilgrims was made as large as possible by inviting the people around who had not taken the prophet's part to join in the ceremonies, in which, though idolators, they had the same national interest as the Moslems. Every effort was made to give a peaceful appearance to the caravan; while the numbers were sufficient to enable it to protect itself, if necessary, against any military demonstration whatever. Seventy camels. were prepared to be taken for sacrifices; the appropriate mark was set upon their right sides, their necks were hung with ornaments, and their heads were turned toward the holy city. Mohammed prepared himself for the occasion by permitting his hair and nails to grow; he refrained from all ordinary luxuries, renounced the perfumes which he so much. enjoyed; dressed himself in the ihram, and appeared before his people, when ready for the journey, armed only with the sheathed sword of the pilgrim.

The Koreishites naturally doubted the peaceful nature of this unusual demonstration; but they feared to oppose it with force, though absolutely