We in India, as I have said, in our grand careless way, leave all these things to chance.  India, nevertheless, still holds the first rank in the Haj, and, all things considered, is now the most important land where the Mohammedan faith is found.  In the day of its greatness the Mogul Empire was second to no State in Islam, and though its political power is in abeyance, the religion itself is by no means in decay.  India has probably a closer connection at the present moment with Mecca than any other country, and it is looked upon by many there as the Mussulman land of the future.  Indeed, it may safely be affirmed that the course of events in India will determine more than anything else the destiny of Mohammedanism in the immediate future of this and the next generation.

The Malays, though holding no very high position in the commonwealth of Islam, are important from their numbers, their commercial prosperity, and, more than all to an European observer, from the fact that so many of them are Dutch subjects.  Holland, if any lesson for the future can be learned in history, must in a few years find her fate linked with that of Germany, and so too her colonies.  I will not now enlarge upon the prospect thus opened, but it is a suggestive one, and worthy of all possible attention.  For the moment the Malays stand rather apart from other pilgrims at the shrines.  They boast no great school of theology or particular religious complexion; and as pilgrims they are held in rather low esteem from their penurious ways.  But they are a dark element in the future, which it is equally easy to under as to over rate.  Originally converted by, and to a certain degree descended from, Arabs, they are, as far as I could learn, followers of the Shafite teaching, and inclined to the broad rather than the narrow ways of Islam.  They number, according to the Dutch consular agent at Jeddah, thirty million souls, and are increasing rapidly both in Java and in the other islands of the Malay archipelago.

Another enigma are the Chinese.  I saw a few of them in the streets, and made inquiries as to them.  But I could gain no certain information.  I have heard them estimated as high as twenty millions and as low as five, but it is certain that they are very numerous.[6] They established themselves in China, it is said, about the second century of Islam, and their missionaries were men of Arab race.  They are found scattered in groups all over China, but principally inland, and have full enjoyment of their religion, being a united body which is respectable and makes itself respected—­so much so that the “Houi-tse,” or people of the resurrection, as they are called, are employed in the highest offices of the Chinese State.[7] It is plain, however, that they are hardly at all connected with the modern life of Islam, for it is only within the last few years that any of them have performed the pilgrimage; and if I include them in my lists as Sunites and Shafites it is in default of other classification.  They probably hold to the Mussulman world a position analogous in its isolation to that of the Abyssinian Church in Christendom.  They too, however, may one day make their existence felt; for China is no dead nation, only asleep.  And with them our survey of orthodox Islam ends.