An Armenian Princess - A Tale Of Anatolian Peasant Life (1914) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE PARTING IT is only in the larger of the Turkish cities, where you hardly know your next-door neighbor, and where people of the same religious faith collect in quarters, that the Moslem and the Christian cannot live in peace together. In the country village, where everybody knows the secret thoughts of his neighbor, the feeling is no less kindly than between the members of the different churches of a Christian country town. The Moslem peasant counts his beads; the Christian, like the Moslem, prostrates himself in prayer. Allah and Elohim were originally the same name of the same God, revealed to the one through the prophet Mohammed, to the other through Christ. The Christian children play with the little Moslems in the courtyard of the mosque, and the little Moslems join their Christian comrades in their games aboutthe holy well, and drink the holy water. The Moslem buys his goods of the Christian merchant, and the merchant trusts him when he cannot pay. Moslem and Christian work together in the field, and when their labor is over, sit side by side in the inn to listen to the storyteller. The one never asks the other whether he be Moslem or Christian; and the friendship existing between them is often quite as enduring as if they worshiped together. All this was true of the people of Ak Hissar, and their unity of purpose and unity of labor brought flourishing days to the little village. Herant had his full share in the general prosperity; for his mulberry trees throve, his business increased, and he became known throughout the country, even as far as Constantinople, as a successful raiser and buyer of cocoons. It was he who produced the silk for the beautiful rugs and hangings for the Sultan's palace at Yildiz, and for the presents which His Majesty was plea...