The molahs, or priests of the Mahometans, employ much of their time as scribes, doing business for other men, having liberty to marry as well as the laity, from whom they are no way distinguished by their dress.  Some live retiredly, spending their time in meditation, or in delivering precepts of morality to the people.  They are in roach esteem, as are another set called Seids, who derive their pedigree from Mahomet.  The priests neither read nor preach in the mosques; yet there is a set form of prayers in Arabic, not understood by most of the people, but which they repeat as fluently as the molahs.  They likewise repeat the name of God, and that of Mahomet, a certain number of times every day, telling over their beads, like the misled papists, who seem to regard the number of prayers more than their sincerity.  Before going into their mosques they wash their feet, and, in entering, put off their shoes.  On beginning their devotions, they stop their ears, and fix their eyes, that no extraneous circumstances may divert their thoughts, and then utter their prayers in a soft and still voice, using many words significantly expressive of the omnipotence, goodness, eternity, and other attributes of God.  Likewise many words full of humility, confessing their unworthiness with many submissive gestures.  While praying, they frequently prostrate themselves on their faces, acknowledging that they are burdens upon the earth, poisonous to the air, and the like, and therefore dare not look up to heaven, but comfort themselves in the mercy of God, through the intercession of their false prophet.  Many among them, to the shame of us Christians, pray five tunes a-day, whatever may happen to be their interruptions of pleasure or profit.  Their set times are at the hours of six, nine, twelve, three, and six, respectively.

The manner in which they divide the day is quite different from us; as they divide the day and the night each into four equal parts, which they denominate pores, and these again are each subdivided into eight smaller parts, called grees. [Hence each pore contains three of our hours, and each gree is equal to 22-1/2 of our minutes.] These are measured, according to an ancient custom, by means of water, dropping from one small vessel into another, beside which there always stand servants appointed for the purpose, who strike with a hammer upon a concave plate of metal, like the inner portion of a plate, hung by a wire, thus denoting the pores and grees successively as they pass.[238] Like the mother and her seven sons, mentioned in the Maccabees, such is the temperance of many, both among the Mahometans and Gentiles, that they will rather die than eat or drink of any thing forbidden by their law.  Such meats and drinks as their law allows, they use only in moderation, to satisfy nature, not to please their appetites, hating gluttony, and esteeming drunkenness a sin, as it really is, or a second madness; and indeed their language has only one word, mest, for a drunkard and a madman.