Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/37

should know," wrote Ser Marco Polo six centuries ago, "that the Tartars, before they were converted to the religion of the idolaters (i.e., Buddhism), never practised almsgiving. Indeed, when any poor man begged of them, they would tell him, 'Go, with God's curse, for if he loved you as he loves me, he would have provided for you.'" Moreover, the stern law that in Mohammedan countries relegates one-half of humanity to a rigid and perpetual self-effacement behind the prison walls of the zenana, finds no counterpart in the tolerant code of Buddhism, and in town and country alike woman plays a prominent and conspicuous part in the daily life of the people. That the condition of woman has been vastly improved by the spread of Buddhist ideas is admitted even by members of the Christian missionary community, as instance the case of Father Bigaudet in Siam, who found in the Buddhist teaching a meritorious disapproval of polygamy, though he deprecated its culpable tolerance of divorce, in which respect he declared the habits of the people to be of "a damnable laxity."