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A QUARREL WITH IGHSAN 307
a curious foreigner, by tradition a scoffer at such
things, and you get a glimpse of Moslem sincerity.
It was ever a difficulty with me to know just what
to do at these times. I felt ever so extraneous, and
yet withal so compelled to reverence in the close
company of these praying Moslems. But I did what
I could. I laid my pipe aside, my book too, and if
one may claim that he lay reverently
upon his bed,
I so lay on mine, and hoped the worshippers would
recognise and appreciate my attitude. And yet in
spite of my sympathetic behaviour I fell into offence.
There was that about Ighsan's ablutions which
made them irritating, some quality at which my
instincts rebelled. Unlike the Man-keeper, who was
ever a careful and cleanly man with water, my companion
used large quantities, and, as I thought, threw
it about needlessly, even with a good deal of ostentation.
He would wash his face, his ears, his nose, his
eyes, and perhaps as showing that he followed a
stricter ritual, draw and expel water from his nostrils,
and squirt it erratically from his mouth. By the time
he had attained the proper degree of cleanliness the
strip of earthen floor before the fire was always a
muddy puddle. He made discomfort, but the chief
objection was the manner.
So, on the second morning, when in the midst of
his performance and we happened to be alone, I told
him not to make so much mud, and suggested that he
should go outside.
" Here is fire," he answered hotly. " How can
there be mud ? " I showed him the mud of his
making, and with that he left the room in evident
dudgeon. I forgot the incident almost at once, but
during the afternoon, again when we were alone, he
spoke in a way he had never spoken to me before.
He was on a high horse of dignity, riding it like a
chieftain, and seemed anxious to begin a quarrel
indeed his manner was so bristling that my strongest
inclination was to pay him off on the spot. He
presently adopted another line, however,—that he