burton--1001-nights--sample

The Nights he will become master of much more Arabic than the
ordinary Arab owns. This book is indeed a legacy which I bequeath to
my fellow-countrymen in their hour of need. Over devotion to Hindu,
and especially to Sanskrit literature, has led them astray from those
(so-called) “Semitic” studies, which are the more requisite for us as
they teach us to deal successfully with a race more powerful than any
pagans — the Moslem. Apparently England is ever forgetting that she
is at present the greatest Mohammedan empire in the world. Of late
years she has systematically neglected Arabism and, indeed, actively
discouraged it in examinations for the Indian Civil Service, where it is
incomparably more valuable than Greek and Latin. Hence, when
suddenly compelled to assume the reins of government in Moslem
lands, as Afghanistan in times past and Egypt at present, she fails after
a fashion which scandalises her few (very few) friends; and her crass
ignorance concerning the Oriental peoples which should most interest
her, exposes her to the contempt of Europe as well as of the Eastern
world. When the regrettable raids of 1883-84, culminating in the miserable
affairs of Tokar, Teb and Tamasi, were made upon the gallant
Sudani negroids, the Bisharin outlying Sawakin, who were battling for
the holy cause of liberty and religion and for escape from Turkish taskmasters
and Egyptian tax-gatherers, not an English official in camp,
after the death of the gallant and lamented Major Morice, was capable
of speaking Arabic. Now Moslems are not to be ruled by raw youths
who should be at school and college instead of holding positions of
trust and emolument. He who would deal with them successfully must
be, firstly, honest and truthful and, secondly, familiar with and favourably
inclined to their manners and customs if not to their law and
religion. We may, perhaps, find it hard to restore to England those
pristine virtues, that tone and temper, which made her what she is; but
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