of musical instruments,, they could dance. Beyond all these accomplishments they were skilled particularly in the arts of " dalliance and amorous allurement." Attractively costumed, they spent their days amusing themselves in their garden, while their female guardians and attendants remained out of sight. The purpose of this elaborate enterprise was to provide the equivalent of the Paradise peopled with fascinating nymphs promised by Mahomet to the faithful, and to this Paradise were brought selected ones of the young men of the vicinity, chosen after their demonstration of unusual physical fitness and courage. Daily these listened to eloquent discourses upon the marvelous powers of their Sheik, in which the latter was represented as another reincarnation of the Deity and consequently entitled to implicit obedience. However, it was not by words alone that the terrible discipline of these young votaries had been achieved. When sufficiently impressed with the teaching they would receive a dose of the hemp juice, after which they were conveyed to the palaces. Awakening from their stupor to find themselves surrounded by beauty, both animate and inanimate, served with the most delicious viands and the richest wines, charmed by sweet music and scaling the heights of ecstasy in the arms of the enchantresses, small wonder that these innocent rustics of the mountains believed they had actually been permitted to enter the Paradise described by the Prophet. When, after some days of this sensual rapture, they awakened from another drug