Lettres from the Aegean Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829 edition. Excerpt: ...building contained portions of wrought marble and mutilated inscriptions, evidently brought from some neighbouring ruin. Every incident seemed to speak the former extensive population of the district, and to contrast it with its present scattered habitations and impoverished. of our route) we passed the ruins of a Khan, or Karavan Serai. The erection of such edifices of gratuitous accommodation are strictly enjoined by the edicts of Mahomet, and encouraged by the belief that alms-giving is the only means of deprecating the vengeance of the Mussulman purgatory, that is, the torments inflicted by the angels Monkir and Nakir, who take penal possession of the body as soon as it is committed to the earth. It is in such items as this that the advantages of the religion of the Prophet are contained; and, though its practice has been corrupted by a long series of ages, its theory abounding with such traits as these, renders it second to Christianity alone in the inculcation of precepts for the advantage and happiness of society; and Mahomet, however after-acts may have debased his progress, has certainly the merit of restoring the true worship of one undivided Godhead, and purifying the Kaaba from the defilements of idolatry. His two grand institutes, polygamy and temperance, were admirably calculated, according to the information of the day, to advance the interests of Turkey: the first, by accomplishing the now exploded theory of political econo my, that the wealth of a nation consisted in a numerous population; and the second, by. preserving vigorous and uncontaminated that national opulence, when once produced. It is vain, however, to deny that Mahometanism contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction; and, amidst a...