. Under the crescent, and among the kraals; a study of Methodism in Africa. th disguised admira-tion, the silent, white-draped forms of thewomen of old Algiers moving through thestreets of the native town. A fascinating mys-tery may envelop them as do their veils, theirbeauty and their graces may be sung by Mos-lem bards, but their lives are as dark andtortuous as the streets they tread, their placeupon the lowest social level is forever fixed. That woman is vastly inferior to man isthe general opinion held by the masculine por-tion of the entire non-Christian world. This isespecially emphasiz
. Under the crescent, and among the kraals; a study of Methodism in Africa. th disguised admira-tion, the silent, white-draped forms of thewomen of old Algiers moving through thestreets of the native town. A fascinating mys-tery may envelop them as do their veils, theirbeauty and their graces may be sung by Mos-lem bards, but their lives are as dark andtortuous as the streets they tread, their placeupon the lowest social level is forever fixed. That woman is vastly inferior to man isthe general opinion held by the masculine por-tion of the entire non-Christian world. This isespecially emphasized by laws and customswhich had their origin under the green turbanand in the daily life of the Prophet of wonder that in Mohammedan landsthere runs the proverb — that sure index topublic sentiment — The threshold of the houseweeps forty days when a girl is born. Itneglects to add that the girl weeps all the restof her life. This attitude of the masculine Mohammedantoward his women does not crystallize solelyin a passing word or sneer. It works itself out. AND AMONG THE KRAALS 85 into the tragedies of living death, and notinfrequently into actual death itself. A traveler stopping overnight in the Kabylemountains of North Africa was standing withhis host upon a dizzy height, when an oldwoman who was picking up bits of wood near byslipped over a precipice and went crashing toher death on the rocks below. The horror-stricken Englishman observed that his host,far from being agitated over the occurrence,was as calm as if nothing had happened, merelyremarking, It was nothing but a woman andanyway, being old, her time had come. In all our North African work among womenthe absolute despotism of the Mohammedanhead of the house must be reckoned inwrought ideas of the inferiority of thingsfeminine among Mohammedan men relegatetheir women to a condition of spineless nonentitywhich does not depreciate their value as toys,drudges, and slaves to every masculine whim,c
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmissionsafrica, booky
