It is rather disconcerting, when we are dwelling so complacently upon the love of the Moslem for his cat, to remember that the only bit of verse upon the subject which has floated down to us from the dim East is not more flattering or more kindly than the epigrams of Agathias, Ibn Alalaf Alnaharwany, a poet of Bagdad who died about 930, celebrated the misdeeds and the punishment of his cat in a strain of such uncompromising morality that we are still uncertain as to whether he meant what he said, or was referring in veiled language to some tragedy of the harem. Alalaf's pussy steals forth to rob a dove-cote, "fearing nothing save the loss of his prey," and is pierced by an avenging arrow ere he can escape with the bird. "Alas!" muses the virtuous chronicler, "had he but contented himself with the lawful pursuit of mice, no such evil fate had befallen him. Cursed be the refined taste which led him to seek a daintier quarry, and cursed be the forbidden joy which brings destruction in its wake."
To be slain in the moment of victory—even though death turns triumph to defeat—is not, in Moslem eyes, the worst of woes. The robber cat of Bagdad—if he were a cat, indeed, and not an adventurous lover—had doubtless enjoyed many a moonlight raid before retribution overtook him; and this reflection should have soothed Alalaf's soul.
The Turk, although he enjoys scant reputation for humanity, has never been, and is not now, cruel
