Christianity is really the right angle of that triangle,
and the other two are very acute angles.
But in the meetings that led up to the riots it is the more Moslem
part of the mixed crowds that I chiefly remember; which touches
the same truth that the Christians are the more potentially tolerant.
But many of the Moslem leaders are as dignified and human as many
of the Zionist leaders; the Grand Mufti is a man I cannot imagine
as either insulting anybody, or being conceivably the object of insult.
The Moslem Mayor of Jerusalem was another such figure, belonging also I
believe to one of the Arab aristocratic houses (the Grand Mufti is
a descendant of Mahomet) and I shall not forget his first appearance
at the first of the riotous meetings in which I found myself.
I will give it as the first of two final impressions with which I
will end this chapter, I fear on a note of almost anarchic noise,
the unearthly beating and braying of the Eastern gongs and horns
of two fierce desert faiths against each other.
I first saw from the balcony of the hotel the crowd of riotors come
rolling up the street. In front of them went two fantastic figures
turning like teetotums in an endless dance and twirling two crooked
and naked scimitars, as the Irish were supposed to twirl shillelaghs.
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