Blind Fatimah and greeted her with Salaam aleikum and she answered aleikum es salaam! "Peace be to you and on you be peace." I asked if she could read. She said she could "read by heart," but could not see anything. She at that time could repeat twenty-six chapters of the Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedans. Now I think she can repeat it nearly all; it contains one hundred and fourteen chapters. Some are very short and others are very long; some parts of the book are very good, but most of it is a jumble of events and of things that never happened—all mixed up topsy-turvy.

A slave woman was Fatimah's teacher and now she is helper in the school of this teacher. She is the prompter, and always begins each sentence of the recitation, and the other children follow on. If any mistakes are made, she will instantly correct them.

She is a peculiar looking girl and she is not pretty. Her clothes consist of cast off garments given her by others. Her head is generally covered and wrapped up in a black muslin veil; then she has an abba or Arabian cloak of very green-black cashmere; then under that a many coloured garment called a thobe; it is square in pattern with armholes and sleeves nearly a yard wide. The ends of these wide sleeves are deftly taken and thrown over the head to form a sort of tight-fitting cap. Underneath this garment is a kind of dressing gown with tight-fitting sleeves. Such is Fatimah's wardrobe. She wears no shoes, not even sandals. Would you like to walk in the hot sand with no covering for your feet?

Sometimes I visit the school where Fatimah teaches the smaller girls A, B, C. It is a topsy-turvy school indeed. The object seems to be to make as much noise as possible; the pupils sit on the floor with a small stand or trestle (like a saw-buck!) in front of each one to hold their Korans out of which they read. The first pupil begins a sentence at the top of his, or her, voice and then in a sort of refrain it is taken up by all the others. The teacher sits outside the school very often sewing or preparing a meal or entertaining visitors; for the schoolhouse is an ordinary mat hut dwelling. If however a pupil makes a mistake in reading she hears instantly and corrects it.

When the hours of prayer come around (the Moslems you know pray five times a day) lessons are dropped. One day I called at the school at the time of afternoon prayer. All the children had run down to the sea, to wash their faces and hands and feet, so as to be quite pure outwardly, when repeating Mohammed's prayers.

In the accompanying picture of a Moslem boy praying you will see what those forms are and how much form there is to go through. Blind Fatimah stood with her hands clasped, looking upward with those sightless eyes, her lips moving. Then she fell on her knees, with the little, thin hands spread out; then she bowed down until her forehead touched the earth, continuing in that position for a little time; then she got up, and with another upward look and motion of the lips, the devotions were ended.

HOW A MOSLEM BOY PRAYS.

I prayed there, too, that her eyes might be opened to see Jesus as her own Saviour, and that she might know Him as the Son of God, and not merely as one of the many prophets mentioned in the Koran. It seemed such a sad sight to see this blind child, doubly blind because her religion is false, and she is resting on a false hope.

She always listens when I tell her, or read to her about God, and Jesus Christ the Saviour. And if you would help together by your daily prayers, perhaps soon God will give the answer. Would it not be blessed for you and me if some day blind Fatimah should have opened eyes; not to see the date groves, and the sea, and the beautiful sunsets of Bahrein, but far more—to see Jesus' face and to follow Him by leading others to Him?