consent of the wife, and even irrespective of any misconduct on her part, whilst no corresponding right is conceded to her of similarly claiming a divorce. We have also had occasion to notice the rigid exclusion of the female element from general society, as if not good enough for it, an exclusion carried to such an extent as to forbid women to appear in public, unless with their faces carefully concealed, and to shut them up so completely, even in their own houses, in secluded apartments called 'the harem,' that if a Muhammadan gentleman is visited in his house, it looks as if he and his sons were its only occupants, his wife or wives and daughters being hidden away all the while, as if he were ashamed of letting them be seen; and it would actually amount to a breach of etiquette to ask after his wife. It may further be mentioned in illustration of the inferior position the law of the Arabian prophet assigns to woman that, on the death of parents, a daughter inherits only half a son's portion [see Suratu'n-Nisa (iv) 12]; and such a difference being expressly sanctioned by their law, it cannot be surprising that, though the education of the boys is neither as general nor as thorough as would be desirable, yet that of the girls is most sadly and most generally neglected. Even with wives of Pashas, or other high dignitaries, it is by no means a matter of course that they can read or write. Most of those who can boast of some education

are limited in their literary acquirements to the mechanical reading of the Qur'an, and a very few specially favoured ones in great cities may, perhaps, add to this the ne plus ultra of some music and a little French or English. Now if mothers have no thorough education themselves, how can they be expected to lay a solid foundation for that of their children; and if women are kept back from the path of knowledge and science, how can they rise above that state of ignorance and tutelage in which they now are? Even in public attendance on religious duties and in regard to the promised enjoyments of the next world, the poor female sex must rest content with an inferior position. It is a fact known to everyone acquainted with the religious customs of the Muhammadans, that in most of their mosques the assembly of worshippers consists ordinarily of men only, the women either neglecting the prescribed forms of prayer altogether, or performing them privately in their own houses; and that even in those mosques where it is customary for women to worship, they are not allowed to do so in the large central space, but are compelled to meet by themselves in side-galleries, where they cannot be seen. This rigid seclusion of women from men, even in public places of worship, appears all the more strange, since, according to the statements of the Qur'an itself, wives will be permitted in the world to come to enter even 'Paradise with their husbands see [Suratu'r-Ra'd