* A Tartar horseman has always two horses, of which he leads one in hand.  The Kalpeck is a bonnet made of the skin of a sheep or other animal.  The part of the head covered by this bonnet is shaved, with the exception of a tuft, about the size of a crown piece, and which is suffered to grow to the length of seven or eight inches, precisely where our priests place their tonsure.  It is by this tuft of hair, worn by the majority of Mussulmen, that the angel of the tomb is to take the elect and carry them into paradise.

Not yet, replied the Genius; this is only a preliminary.  These Tartars have been, and might still he troublesome neighbors.  The Muscovites are driving them off, finding their country would be a convenient extension of their own limits; and as a prelude to another revolution, the throne of the Guerais is destroyed.

And in fact, I saw the Russian standards floating over the Crimea:  and soon after their flag waving on the Euxine.

Meanwhile, at the cry of the flying Tartars, the Mussulman empire was in commotion.  They are driving off our brethren, cried the children of Mahomet:  the people of the prophet are outraged! infidels occupy a consecrated land and profane the temples of Islamism.* Let us arm; let us rush to combat, to avenge the glory of God and our own cause.

* It is not in the power of the Sultan to cede to a foreign power a province inhabited by true believers.  The people, instigated by the lawyers, would not fail to revolt.  This is one reason which has led those who know the Turks, to regard as chimerical the ceding of Candia, Cyprus, and Egypt, projected by certain European potentates.

And a general movement of war took place in both empires.  In every part armed men assembled.  Provisions, stores, and all the murderous apparatus of battle were displayed.  The temples of both nations, besieged by an immense multitude, presented a spectacle which fixed all my attention.

On one side, the Mussulmen gathered before their mosques, washed their hands and feet, pared their nails, and combed their beards; then spreading carpets upon the ground, and turning towards the south, with their arms sometimes crossed and sometimes extended, they made genuflexions and prostrations, and recollecting the disasters of the late war, they exclaimed: 

God of mercy and clemency! hast thou then abandoned thy faithful people?  Thou who hast promised to thy Prophet dominion over nations, and stamped his religion by so many triumphs, dost thou deliver thy true believers to the swords of infidels?

And the Imans and the Santons said to the people: 

It is in chastisement of your sins.  You eat pork; you drink wine; you touch unclean things.  God hath punished you.  Do penance therefore; purify; repeat the profession of faith;* fast from the rising to the setting sun; give the tenth of your goods to the mosques; go to Mecca; and God will render you victorious.