ticed a native driver, armed with the usual iron spike, seated upon the animal's neck. At my request Mr. Herron called out to him in Hindostanee to please wait a little and give us a ride. The man complied at once by pressing his iron into the elephant's neck, which caused him to kneel by the roadside. But how to get on his back was now the question, for we had no ladder or any other means of mounting. My friend was equal to the emergency, though. Bracing his feet upon the hindfeet of the kneeling elephant, he grasped the animal's tail, and bid me climb this "natural bridge" as best I could! When fairly astride the Darwinian appendage, the driver reached over his hand, took me by the collar, and pulled me up the steep incline. On gaining the elephant's back I reached over and assisted Mr. Herron up the same way. Then the huge beast rose to his feet with a swaying motion like that of a heavy ground-swell, nearly upsetting us from our lofty perch. All that we had to cling to, as the elephant strode off with us, was a long rope fastened about the animal's body, for there was no soft-seated howdah, with elegant trappings, such as are usually placed on the elephant's back. However, this made the experience all the more "lively," especially when the

beast began to run, which he did at a very rapid rate as the driver sent his horrid iron spike into the flap of his ear. It required some skill and strength to keep our seats, and before long we concluded that we had obtained enough glory for one day; so thanking the driver and dropping a rupee into his hand, we descended from the forward end of the elephant, the latter assisting us gracefully with his trunk and tusks.

Before leaving Dehra I visited an old mosque with Mr. Herron, where we had a conversation with a venerable-looking Mohammedan, who had but recently returned from a long pilgrimage to Mecca. This man was very polite, and took special pride in explaining various devices and inscriptions to us; nor was he at all backward in arguing respecting the claims and teachings of Mohammedanism.

He listened respectfully to what we said about our own religion, and acknowledged that Christianity is undoubtedly the best system for us, and undoubtedly adapted to the genius and wants of the European and Occidental mind. When reminded that Christianity was essentially Oriental in its origin, he acknowledged that of course all great religions were originally Asiatic; but that, just as Christianity claims to be in advance of Judaism, so

Mohammedanism, which came later than either, is superior to both. As Christ is a great prophet, far in advance of the prophets of the Old Testament dispensation, so is the prophet Mohammed (who arose six centuries after the Christian era) in advance of all other prophets, and his revelation in the Koran is final and complete. As the Mohammedan system is the latest, so is it the best, and numerically the most successful. If it conquers by the sword, it at least brings counterbalancing blessings, both moral and material. It destroys heathen temples when it has the opportunity, but it builds splendid mosques, and makes the people acknowledge one God and Mohammed his prophet. When true to its spirit and the teachings of its great prophet, it proceeds against idolatry with a high hand, even as the children of Israel proceeded against the idolatrous inhabitants of the land of Canaan.

Our venerable friend pointed with much pride to the former achievements of Mohammedanism in India, to its wonderful spread and influence throughout Asia, even to the confines of China, and to the multitudes of pilgrims who yearly cross the sandy wastes of Arabia to offer their prayers at Mohammed's shrine at Mecca. He said that personally he

counted it the great privilege of his life to have made the pilgrimage to Mecca; and though it had involved great hardship, privations, and even danger, especially as he had walked most of the way, and had traversed hundreds of miles of desert, still he felt repaid in the satisfaction it gave him to have visited the sepulchre of the great prophet.

He appeared most sincere and earnest in his belief, and as we turned away, thanking him for his courtesy to us, we wondered at the strange infatuation of a system which, though it proselytes by the sword and through fanatical zeal, yet still, after the lapse of centuries, exerts its sway over nearly two hundred millions of the human race.

CHAPTER XI.

THREE WEEKS AMONG THE HIMALAYAS.

MUSSOORIE is literally "a city set upon a hill," situated on a spur of the lower Himalaya range, directly north of the valley of Dehra-Doon.

It is the sanitarium and mountain-resort of the foreign residents of India, who wish to escape the excessive heat of the plains during the hot season. It occupies the sides and crest of a ridge two or three miles in extent, and is composed of chateaus, villas, bungalows, and European residences.

Many of these houses are so elegant and comfortable, that the traveller would scarcely suppose the materials of which they are built, and all the articles with which they are furnished, to have been carried up the hills to the height of seven or eight thousand feet, on the shoulders of native coolies. Yet such is the fact; and all the provisions and supplies of this lofty sanitarium have to be carried up in like manner from the valley below. The residents are usually borne to and fro, also on on the shoulders of men, in peculiar contrivances called jan-pan, palky, and dandy.