If you can't come, I'll try to see you next spring or summer; but I would rather be whipped with scorpions than visit a Northern city in the winter months. In fact few residents here would dare to do it,--unless well used to travelling. Some day I must write something about the physiological changes produced here by climate. In an article I wrote for _Harper's_ six months ago, and which ought to appear soon (as I was paid for it), you will observe some brief observations on the subject; but the said subject is curious enough to write a book about. By the way, I have become scientific--I write nearly all the scientific editorials for our paper, which you sometimes see, no doubt. Farney ought to spend a few months here: it would make him crazy with joy to perceive those picturesquenesses which most visitors never see.
I thought I would go to Cincinnati next week or so; but I'm afraid it's too cold now. If I do go, I'll write you.
As to your protest about correspondence, I think you're downright wrong; but I won't renew the controversy. Anyhow I suppose we keep track of each other, with affectionate curiosity. I am quite sorry you missed my friend Page Baker: he is a splendid type,--you would have become fast friends at once. Never mind, though! if you ever come down here, we'll make you enjoy yourself in earnest. Please excuse this rambling letter.
P. S. By the bye, have you the original music of the Muezzin's call,--as called by the first of all Muezzins, Bìlâl the Abyssinian, to whom it was taught by Our Lord Mohammed? Bìlâl the black Abyssinian, whose voice was the mightiest and sweetest in Islam. In those first days, Bìlâl was persecuted as the slave of the persecuted Prophet of God. And in the "Gulistan," it is told how he suffered. But after Our Lord had departed into the chamber of Allah,--and the tawny horsemen of the desert had ridden from Medina even to the gates of India, conquering and to conquer,--and the young crescent of Islam, slender as a sword, had waxed into a vast moon of glory that filled the world,--Bìlâl still lived with that wonderful health of years given unto the people of his race. But he only sang for the Kalif. And the Kalif was Omar. So, one day, it came to pass, that the people of Damascus, whither Omar had travelled upon a visit, begged the Caliph, saying: "O Commander of the Faithful, we pray thee that thou ask Bìlâl to sing the call to prayer for us, even as it was taught him by Our Lord Mohammed." And Omar requested Bìlâl. Now Bìlâl was nearly a century old; but his voice was deep and sweet as ever. And they aided him to ascend the minaret. Then, into the midst of the great silence burst once more the mighty African voice of Bìlâl,--singing the _Adzan_, even as it has still been sung for more than twelve hundred years from all the minarets of Islam: