LETTEE xx RELIGIOUS IGNORANCE 103 After Mohammed and All they speak of Moses, Abra- ham, and Jesus as " Prophets," but of Moses as a law- giver, and of Jesus as aught else but a healer, they seem quite ignorant. And so they pass away, generation after generation, ignorant of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, of the love to God and man which is alone the fulfilling of the law, and of the light which He, who is the resurrection and the life, has shed upon the destiny of the human spirit. Generally I find them quite willing to talk on these subjects; but one man said contemptuously, "What has a Kafir to do with God ?" The women know nothing, and, except among the sons of the leading Khans, there is no instruction in the Koran given to the children. If I have interpreted their views correctly they must be among the most ignorant of the races bound by the faith of Islam. Khuramabad, August 6.—Leaving the camp on Parwez, and skirting the gravelly slopes on the north side of its ridge, a sudden dip over the crest took us among great cliffs of conglomerate, with steep gravelly slopes below, much covered with oaks growing out of scorched soil. Grooves, slides, broken ledges, and shelving faces of rock have to be descended. One part is awfully bad, and every available man and some passing Bakhtiaris (who wanted to be paid in advance for their services) went back to help the animals. The charvadars shouted and yelled, and the horses and some of the mules were taken by their heads and tails, but though nearly every man had a fall, horses, asses, mules, and a sheep which follows HaMm got over that part safely. It was a fine sight, thirty animals coming down, what looked from below, a precipice, led by Hadji leading Cock o' the Walk, shak- ing his tasselled head, and as full of pride and fire as