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[Page 359]

the first Arab singer that I ever thought was worth listening to.

I never saw the singer, but it was a priest in a nearby mosque, and he used to go up to a platform near the top of the minarette, and sing from midnight till daylight. It was bitterly cold weather but it was lovely moonlight and I used to lie awake and listen to his singing. It was all in Arabic of course, and had no rime, but tons of rythim, like their chanties, and the priest had a beautiful clear, ringing voice. I wondered if that was how David made up all his psalms in the old days. It sounded very like psalms the priest was singing, but it seemed an awful waste pity to waste such a glorious voice on a sleeping world, and such a cold night too. It would have been different if he had only been serenading his lady love.

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