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a certain great traveller and shake hands and hail and bless each other in the name of the Prophet. and when the time of their meals and prayers arrive one should be observed to wash from his elbow and the other from his finger ends. They are mortal enemies and are a ready to cut each others throats as they were before to defend each other. There are some learned men amongst the Arabs that is they can read and write and understand the Motions of the planets. They also have schools the teachers generally get about 10 cts per month from each child. I saw one who was teaching two youngsters the Koran. he appeared to know it by heart and read it off in a sort of song as fast as he could talk there is but few or in fact I believe none who can read the bible off the same way (from Memory) for page after page. When I first saw the Koran I took it for a badly constructed music book. the reason was the size and musick note like shape of the letters, and the tone and manner of sort o' half singing or chanting it out, the Banyans or Hindoos are the next most numberous class they are the go ahead sort of people of asia and are great business men of the place. being the Yankees of Asia. they Worship a cow and have many strange and superstitious customs. they believe in a great and universal being who is eternal. that he made the World has three distinct shapes the above being has various passions and that he delights in assuming the shape of a Cow. so they purify themselves with cow dung and urine and make gods of wood & copper which they offer sugar honey &c. they think the the Brahems came from the head and that other mortals came from the more inferior parts of his body. The Parsees are another sect. They are also industrious people and are the Jews of Asia. They have the same religion as the Christians and Jews. in Their books with this difference. that they have a Zooroaster as a prophet. And they think that God is the sun and that his spirit is the flame of fire. They have their feast of unleaven bread their confessions of sin &c. but the common people worship fire and the sun without knowing their reference. and this religion once pretty and good is now a blind Idolatry or what is called. A Parsee will not blow out a light with his breath on any account. if his house catches on fire he lets it burn down. Their books tell the same tale about the Creation of the World the fall of Man &c. besides these there are many who worship snakes, lizards, bits of wood, stone, smoke, bones &c. there are no white men on the island except foreigners. The Arabs are dark skinned fine featured but as dark as our indians. The Banyans and Parsees are the same the Negroes are as black as the devils boots. There was a story related to me here which if true is not more than might be expected. An Arab man and woman had a child. he was born and was as black as any Negro on the isle. I saw the man myself he had been sent to England and was well educated and a smart intelligent fellow with a good deal of humor. Now if the Arab woman who was a respectable one and of high birth was true to her lord does this not prove that the people of Africa have one day turned black. Back of the town is the burying ground in fact part of the town is built over the burying ground, it is very irregular and is full of bushes briars and young bamboo canes. Wild dogs are as thick as hops in it and live and stay there to feed on the dead bodies of the slaves which are brought out but never buried. I saw several dead Negroes during my stay one of them was on the sea beach. They allways make it a custom never to bury slave but let dogs eat them or fish devour them. There are no large wild animals on the isle except a few wild cats. the woods are full of Gazelles which are beautiful animals and easily [?taken?}