forbidden to the extent that one day when Omar-ibn-el-Khatab saw certain people going to a particular tree mentioned in the Koran where the oath of allegiance to the Prophet was taken by the Companions, he greatly feared that the people would go back to idolatry and sent some one to cut down the tree and it was cut down. This clearly shows that whatever tree-worship persists in Arabia it is due to pre-Islamic practice and is admittedly contrary to their own conception of the demands of pure theism. Yet in spite of this tradition and the loud assertion in the mosque that Allah is God alone and that all polytheism is of the devil, we find tree-worship almost universal. Sacred trees are very common in Morocco. About twenty miles distant from Mogador there is a large argan tree. Large numbers of Moors visit the spot every year. They hang upon it bits of rag, broken pottery or nails, believing that any of these things have power to unloose the hidden virtue which lies concealed within and which flowing to the donor will make this way prosperous until next visit. While hanging these things upon the tree they give utterance to desires which fill the heart. Moslems in India respect a tree called Brimje which does not bear fruit and the leaves of which are like those of a poplar tree but a little darker. This tree is often planted on their tombs and in mosques; the pilgrims then tie up a strip of cloth on the branches of the tree vowing to untie it on the fulfillment of some desire when they offer a sacrifice.

In Algeria trees become holy and are worshiped because some saint has sat under them or dreamed about them, etc. They partake of the holiness of the saint and of the special virtues belonging to him, such as healing children's illnesses, child-bearing, etc. Strips of material are hung on them as offerings to the saint. These rags then become blessed and are frequently stolen and torn by other worshipers who place

the piece in their waist belts or in the folds of their head dress.

Anatolia," writes Dr. George E. White, "is emphatically full of sacred trees and groves, each of which usually owes its sanctity to a holy grave, and often is in close proximity to a sacred spring and a sacred stone. Riding through the country one often spies a clump of trees, larger or smaller, on a hill top, or in some valley nook, of which even before inquiring he may be quite sure that they are regarded as sacred. Men fear to cut the wood except for a mosque or a coffin. They believe that if one were to fell a tree or lop off a bough, he would anger the spirit of the place and some 'stroke' would overtake him in consequence. They often say that if one cut the wood it would fly back to the forest before morning. More firmly do they believe that the woodman's house would burn, or some accident befall one or more of the inmates. At Ipejik a visitor told the people that devils would not get them if they cut down the trees. Near Arabkir is a cave beside a holy tree, where cocks are shut up as votive offerings to starve and so propitiate the spirit of the place; the willows are accounted sacred and can heal on Palm Sunday. Near Van the Seer rock and tree cure fever in exchange for the tying of a rag; near Harpout is a thorn-bush nearly buried in stones which cures fever; again a forty branched tree at Goganz rests on a hill top, and is visited by Armenians who have a spring festival there. The Striker tree is feared by both Turks and Armenians, who pray as they pass it, lest some illluck overtake them in its vicinity. At St. Sapanz is a tree which no one dares climb; Kurds and Armenians worship there every Sunday. It is remarkable that Kurds should observe the Christian Sabbath in this way, and suggests that they may sometimes have changed their connection from nominal Christianity to nominal Mohammedanism, while remain

ing really Pagan for the most part all the time. At Agunjik a Kurd shot at a bird on a holy tree, and died eight days (that is a week) afterward. Rushdonienz has a famous walnut tree to which the sick resort, and where they remain in all sorts of weather to offer sacrifices, for at certain times or in certain stages of the weather a peculiar halo surrounds the tree and the sick are then miraculously healed. At Morenik a Sun Pole was burned in 1907 and thousands of nails were found in the ashes, the remains of years of worshipers. This tree was called the Censor, and cured all diseases for Turks or Armenians impartially. They would beat the roots with stones, burn candles before it, cast eggs into the pool hard by, or drive nails into the pole, crying' from me to you, from you to another' in the hope of thus expelling the disease."

In Kerbela there are trees supposed to belong to 'Ali and other Shiah saints. There are two palm trees near Kerbela under which Mary is believed to have sat when Jesus was born. Women visit these trees, eat the fruit and drink a mixture of the earth and water. Pilgrims carry a collection of hair and tie it on the trees in Kerbela, believing that on the day of resurrection they will have hair the length of the trees. Finger-nails are also tied in a bit of rag to the trees; teeth are washed, wrapped in white cloth and hung on the trees with a little salt, believing that this will keep them pure and whole until they come to claim them on the day of resur

rection.

"In Persia," writes Miss Holliday, "I had a cook who found near a village two fine saplings growing from the root of an old tree; as they would be fine for walking sticks he cut them, but was reproved by his host for the night. 'If the village knew they would be very angry. Don't you know these are persons?" " Another incident is given of a tree that had fallen down in a cemetery to which rags were tied, for communion with the spirit of the tree, lights were burnt

and offerings made and which had even been walled off as a protection.

The method of communion, the awe of dread consequences to those who injure the tree, and the details of worship are practically the same everywhere.

How trees are regarded and worshiped to-day in Arabia is related by Doughty (Vol. I, p. 365). "Returning one of those days I went out to cut tent-pegs at the great solitary acacia tree which stands nigh the kella; here the goats and sheep of the garrison lie down at noon after the watering. Clear gum-arabic drops are distilled upon the small boughs; that which oozes from the old stock is pitchy black, bitter to the taste, and they say medicinal: with this are caulked the Arab coasting boats which are built at Wejh. Hither I saw Doolan leading his flock, and waited to ask him for his bill, or else that he would cut down the sticks for me. He answered: Wellah, O son of mine uncle, ask me anything else, but in this were mischief for us both. No! I pray thee, break not, Khalil, nor cut so much as a twig of all these branches, thou art not of this country, thou art not aware: Look up! seest thou the cotton shreds and the horns of goats which hang in these boughs, they are of the Beduw, but many fell in the late winds. And seest thou these nails! certain of the Haj knock them into the stem whilst they pray!' As I laid hand anew on a good bough and took my knife, Doolan embraced me. 'No, Khalil, the man who cuts this tree,' he said, 'must die.' 'What is this folly! are you afraid of trees?' 'Ah me! she is possessed by a jinn; be not so foolhardy. Wellah, I tell thee truth, a Beduwy broke but a bough and he died within a while and all his cattle perished. Khalil, the last evening a little girl of the booth that is newly pitched here gathered some of these fallen sticks, for her mother's fire, and as they kindled, by-thy-life! the child's arm stiffened; they carried her immediately into the

kella, where Haj Nejm hanged some charms about her, and by the mercy of God the child recovered." "

And here is a pen-portrait equally pathetic of how a mother with her babe in Turkey seeks help at a holy-tree. The writer, Victoria de Bunsen, has gazed deeply into the soul of a Turk: "As my eyes wandered over the green branches, I saw that low down they were ragged and bare, and all stripped of their leaves. Instead the dry twigs were hung with objects which by much travel had grown familiar to me, the objects one learns to associate with all sacred mysterious places in the East. There were the dirty rags, the wisps of twisted hair, the little strings of beads or common charms all the worthless cast-off things which mean so much to those who cast them off for such a purpose, and are mere rubbish to everybody else. . . . I saw a woman stoop to pass beneath them, and she came into the shade. She did not see me, and she need not, for I was close to the tomb, and evidently that was not the object of the visit. Some tall rank weeds and grass trees hid me from her sight, though I could still watch her. The woman I watched was tall and young. She wore the blue loose dress of the Lebanon women and the long coarse white veil. In her arms she carried a baby. swiftly and with decision in her movements. trouble in her face and great perplexity, but there was no doubt of the reason she had come to the tree. Kneeling down on the ground she unwinds the baby from its long thick wrappings and lays it on the ground beside her. face but it must be very little and weak, for I can hear its wailing cry, and it is feeble and struggling. When the swaddling clothes are loosened, the wailing ceases for a minute and I see one tiny toe kick weakly in the air. . . . While the baby lies there on the ground and feebly stretches its wasted limbs I watch with anxious sympathy, this last attempt to save the life that means so much. The baby still wears a

She came There was

I cannot see its