Chapter II: Part 2

Did you ever see a woman or a girl dressed in such a strange way as the one in the picture? Of course you know that Moslem women wear veils, but this veil is like a window-casing with the panes of glass knocked out. It is made of stiff cloth, heavily embroidered, sometimes with gilt or silver embroidery, and has a nose piece and strings to fasten around the head. In addition to this curious veil you notice that she has three bracelets on each arm, and you can get a glimpse of her nose jewel hanging underneath the veil. Of course she wears earrings and anklets. The most conspicuous part of her jewelry, however, is the amulet case which hangs by a silver chain from around her neck, and has beautiful bangles attached to it below. Nearly every one in Topsy Turvy Land wears amulets. They are worn not for ornament, but for protection, and no one would think of leaving them at home if he went on a journey.

Amulets and charms are worn not only by the Arabs themselves and to protect their children from the evil eye, but they are put over the doors of their houses, and hung on camels, donkeys, horses, fishing boats, in fact, anywhere and everywhere to ward off danger and death. Only yesterday a little boy came to our church service, whose mother is still a Moslem, and he had hanging from his neck a whole collection of curious things, beads, bones, sacred relics, etc., all to protect him from the evil eye.

All sorts of things are used as amulets in Arabia, and their use is justified by the saying of Mohammed himself: “There is no wrong in using charms and spells so long as you do not associate anything with God.” The most common things used as amulets are a small Koran suspended in a silver case; words from the Koran written on paper and carried in a leather receptacle; the names of Allah or their numerical value; the names of Mohammed and his companions; precious stones with or without inscriptions; beads; old coins; clay images; the teeth of wild animals; holy earth from Mecca or Kerbela in the shape of tiny bricks, or in small bags. When the Kaaba covering at Mecca is taken down each year and renewed, the old cloth is cut up into small pieces and sold for charms.

The women in Mecca use an amulet of special power called “Mishkash,” which is supposed to exercise its virtue for the increase of the family. The “Mishkash” is really a copy of an old Venetian coin, representing the Duke of Venice kneeling before St. Mark on the one side, and on the other side is the image of Christ surrounded by stars. Of course the women themselves are in total ignorance of the inscription on the coin and of its Christian character.

According to the principles of Islam only verses from the Koran should be used, but the door of superstition once being set ajar by Mohammed himself, as we know from the story of his life, it is now wide open. The chapters from the Koran which are most often selected for use as amulets and put in the little cases shown in the picture are Surahs I, VI, XVIII, XXXVI, XLIV, LV, LXVII, LXXVIII. There are five verses in the Koran called the verses of protection, “Ayat-el-Hifdh,” which are the most powerful to defend from evil. They read as follows: “The preservation of heaven and earth is no burden unto Him;” “God is the best protector;” “They guard him by the command of God;” “We guard him from every stoned devil;” “A protection from every rebellious devil.” These verses are written with great care and with a special kind of ink by those who deal in amulets, and are then sold for a good price to Moslem women and children. The ink used for writing amulets is saffron water, the juice of onions, water from the sacred well of Zem Zem, and sometimes even human blood. It is very important that the one who writes the amulet be a holy man in the Moslem sense of that word. We are told in Arabic books on the subject (and these books are printed by the thousands) that “The diet of the one who prepares charms depends on the kind of names of God which he intends to write or recite. If they are the terrible attributes of Allah, then he must refrain from the use of meat, fish, eggs, honey and musk. If they are His amiable attributes, he must abstain from butter, curds, vinegar, salt and ambergris.”

A favourite kind of amulet is called the magic square, and I have drawn one here for you. Most of the Arabs believe that there are only four elements, earth, air, fire and water, and under these four names they have numerical squares, as you see them, of the numbers one to sixteen, and whichever way you add the columns up and down or across the total is always thirty-four. Try it.

EARTH WATER

+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 8 | 11 | 14 | 1 | | 14 | 4 | 1 | 15 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 13 | 2 | 7 | 12 | | 7 | 9 | 12 | 6 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 3 | 16 | 9 | 6 | | 11 | 5 | 8 | 10 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 10 | 5 | 4 | 15 | | 2 | 16 | 13 | 3 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+

AIR FIRE

+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 15 | 1 | 4 | 14 | | 1 | 14 | 15 | 4 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 10 | 8 | 5 | 11 | | 8 | 11 | 10 | 5 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 6 | 12 | 9 | 7 | | 12 | 7 | 6 | 9 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+
| 3 | 13 | 16 | 2 | | 13 | 2 | 3 | 16 |
+----+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+----+

Among the Shiah Moslems, whom we meet everywhere in East Arabia, the most common amulet is called _Nadi-Ali_. It consists generally of a lead or silver plate with little bells at the bottom, inscribed with these words:

“Cry aloud to Ali; he is the possessor of wonders,
From him you will find help from trouble.
He takes away very quickly all grief and anxiety
By the mission of Mohammed and his own sanctity.”

There are innumerable cases where such amulets are used for the cure of disease. The native doctors firmly believe that when every remedy fails, the book of Allah, if properly administered, internally or externally, will drive away pain and cure the patient.

The hospitals and book-shops and schools will doubtless in time drive out the use of amulets in Arabia, and the march of civilization, with its modern scientific miracles and spirit of investigation, is also a means to that end. Nevertheless, I have known of cases where printed Arabic gospels were bought to be used as amulets and where patients tried to rub off ink from the printed paper used to wrap powders in at the hospital, in order to drink the solution as a remedy.

There are other things in Arabia which, though not amulets, will strike you as very strange. First there is the market basket, deftly woven out of palm leaves. When this is smeared with bitumen inside, it will hold water as well as an American pail or a bucket. The Arab broom is made of palm leaf fibre, with a short handle, and the dish cover below it is also made of palm fibre and rope, and is beautifully stained with colours, and when they bring in a dish of Hassa dates to entertain guests, such a cover is always put on to protect it from the flies.

The sewing basket and the fan and the woman’s sandals are also very interesting. The men’s sandals, as well as the women’s sandals, have a peg or leather thong, which goes between the big toe and the one next to it, and by which they cling to their footgear in a way that would surprise you. Because the women’s slippers are made of wood, you can hear their footsteps when they are a great way off, and the clap-clap of the women’s sandals is a familiar sound to all of us here in Arabia.

What do you think of their beautiful furniture? There are small tables used to hold water jars or trays of food, and folding bookstands cleverly made out of one piece of hard wood that fold up for a journey. Larger bookstands are made of date sticks and are strong enough to support a big volume of the Koran. The Arabs love to sit and swing back and forth as they chant its chapters. And lastly is something that looks very much like an amulet, but which is a traveller’s bag for bread and dates, often fastened to the camel saddle by leather thongs. Bread or dates kept in such a receptacle will keep moist for many, many hours in the hot, dry climate of Arabia.

The Arabs are not skilled as the Japanese and Chinese are with tools, nor are they much given to art of any kind, but you must admit that such every-day things are many of them artistic and some of them really beautiful.

VIII

THE MOST WONDERFUL STONE IN THE WORLD

The Ten Commandments were written on two tables of stone but these original stones are lost; the High Priest Aaron had twelve most precious stones in his breast plate when he went into the holy place to minister; Jacob placed a stone for a pillow when he fled from his brother, but no one has found this old memorial. Many other wonderful stones are held almost sacred because of past history. Stone worship is one of the oldest forms of idolatry. The old Druid stone in England, where the priests offered sacrifice during their worship and where even human blood was spilt in the name of religion, are examples.

Plymouth Rock is also a famous stone from its part in history. It marks the place where the Pilgrim fathers landed in 1620. There have also been precious stones which have had a remarkable history and for which much money and often life was sacrificed, and then none of the boys can forget the pebble which David found in the brook and which was the weapon of his victory over great Goliath.

But the most wonderful stone in the world to-day is none of these that I have told you of. It is the Black Stone of the old idol temple in Arabia, now the centre of Mohammedan worship.

The greater number of the tribes of Arabia in Mohammed’s day, if they had any religion at all, were little better than fetich worshippers, each tribe having its own idol or god, which in many cases was some peculiar tree or rock in their territory, around which they built rude shrines, and to which they made pilgrimages. From time immemorial, however, there was one fetich which the whole race seemed to regard as peculiarly sacred, and that was the Kaaba, or sacred stone of Mecca. It is probable that this stone was a shooting star, which, falling from heaven in the presence of spectators, became ever after an object of superstitious veneration, just as the stone of Diana of Ephesus became the centre of worship for the Greek world. The tribe to which Mohammed belonged had held for several generations the office of stewards to this great national shrine, to encourage the flocking of pilgrims to the Kaaba. From this source the wealthy families of Mecca got the great part of their money. They admitted impartially figures of all the idols of the tribes from one end of Arabia to the other, so that each man might feel at home when he arrived there for his devotions.

When Mohammed had fully established his new religion he turned out all the old deities except the Black Stone, which he himself worshipped, and concerning which worship he left minute directions for his followers. Such was the inconsistency of the prophet whose creed was “There is no god but Allah.” The object of the pilgrimage as instituted by Mohammed was to worship the Sacred Mosque and Kaaba. According to Moslem writers, the Kaaba was built by Adam, exactly under the spot occupied by God’s throne in heaven. It is an oblong building in the centre of the mosque, covered with a black cloth, and in it is the sacred Black Stone which came down from heaven snow-white, and was turned black by the sins of the people.

The Black Stone is located on the southeast corner of the Kaaba, about five feet from the ground. It is probably an aerolite, black and sprinkled with lighter patches and came down as a falling star. Many years after Mohammed’s death it was stolen by some of the Arabs on the Persian Gulf and carried across the desert to Katif; when it was carried back again it fell from the camel on its long journey and was broken. Now a silver band holds the pieces together and the whole stone is imbedded in the wall.

It is necessary for every Moslem to visit Mecca at least once during his lifetime. When all these pilgrims arrive within a short distance of the Holy City, they must put off their every-day clothing and put on the pilgrim garb, which consists of two pieces of white cloth,—one tied around the loins and the other drawn over the shoulders, under their arm, leaving one shoulder bare. The pilgrims are allowed to wear sandals, but not shoes. Thus clad every one goes in turn to the sacred well of Zem Zem, washes his whole body with a pailful of the water, and then drinks as much as he cares. Then he enters the “door of peace” and kisses the most wonderful stone in the world, running around the Kaaba seven times and each time when he passes the stone he strokes it with his hand or kisses it. After this all the Moslem pilgrims say the regular prayer and retire.

The next day, those who are seeking Paradise along the zigzag road of Mohammed’s religion must do other things as well. They must visit the place where Abraham is supposed to have stood, when he rebuilt the Kaaba. Then they must run between the mountains of Safa and Milra, two little hills near Mecca, and do other things every day until the sixth day, when all the pilgrims surround the Kaaba as they did on the first day. On the seventh day the sermon is preached from the great pulpit in the middle of the building. The preacher no doubt urges all those who are present to persevere in their religion and make converts among the nations. It is a large gathering indeed which comes to Mecca. Between seventy and eighty thousand people travel every year to visit the city from every part of the Moslem world,—Europe, Asia, Africa and the islands of the sea. After the sermon is over two more days are spent in various visits to sacred places around Mecca and then comes the greatest day of all, which is celebrated all over the Moslem world, namely, the day of Sacrifice.

Although Mohammedans deny the death of Christ and the need of an atonement for sin, it is strange that this great feast should still be a feast of sacrifice, like that of the Jews of old. Every earnest believer takes a goat, a sheep or a camel, places it so as to face the Kaaba and plunges a knife into its throat as he cries out—“God is great and Mohammed is His apostle.” When the sacrifice is over the pilgrim is allowed again to shave his beard and trim his nails and put on his ordinary clothing, all of which was forbidden during the ten days of pilgrimage. He is also given a certificate stating that he has finished the pilgrimage and is now ready for Paradise, or words to that effect.

The most of the pilgrims who come back from Mecca are not any better for going, because the city is the centre not only of diseases such as cholera and plague, which cause the death of many, but is also the centre of immorality and wickedness.

Although travellers have visited Mecca by pretending to be Mohammedans and at the risk of their lives, no Christian, were he known to be so, would be allowed to enter the sacred city. The first European to visit Mecca was an English sailor boy, called Joseph Pitts, who was captured as a slave in Algiers and taken to Mecca against his will. He was forced to become a Moslem, but afterwards escaped to England and wrote a book on what he had seen.

The new railroad which is now being built by the Turkish government from Damascus to Medina and on to Mecca will soon be completed, and who can say whether it will not open up the whole country to the Gospel? A big American locomotive will soon be puffing steam and sounding its whistle right near the Kaaba, over against the most wonderful stone in the world.

IX

THE CAMEL DRIVER WHO BECAME A PROPHET

If one could have all the boys of the world pass by in single file and take down their names one by one, there would be a great many who bore the same name. Johns and Henrys and Carls and Hans there would be by the thousands, but there would be no name which so many boys had in common, I am sure, as the name of Mohammed. It is a very safe estimate to say that there are living in the world to-day no less than five million boys and men who bear that name.

Yet I wonder how many of you know who Mohammed was, where he lived and died, and why he has such a world-wide reputation? He was a poor orphan; his father died before he was born and his mother only a few years after, but although he was so forlorn and lived in a very barren part of Arabia, in one of the valleys of the city of Mecca, he had powerful relatives who were kind to him and helped him. He was born in the year 570 A. D., about a thousand years before Columbus discovered America. His mother’s name was Amina, which means faithful.

There are many strange stories told about him when he was a boy. One story is that while he was away in the desert with his foster brother, living with the Arab tribes and growing strong by exercise and drinking camels’ milk, one day two men dressed in white came and threw him on the ground. They then took out his heart, by opening his breast, and squeezed out a drop of black blood, and put the heart back again, closing up the wound. The Arabs believe that in this way he got rid of his original sin and was made pure. As a boy he was pleasing and industrious, and won the name of “the faithful one.” However, at the time of Mohammed’s childhood, morals and manners in Mecca were as bad as possible, and he did not have many good influences to help him in the right way.

When he was about twelve years old, his uncle, Abu-Talib, took him along on a journey to Syria, as far as Bozra, a town that is mentioned in the Bible, and not the same as Busrah on the Persian Gulf. This journey lasted for some months, and it was at this time that Mohammed met a Christian monk, who, it is reported, told Abu-Talib to take good care of the youth, for great dignity awaited him.

On this journey Mohammed for the first time came in touch with Christianity, and was surely impressed by the national and social customs of Christians; and being a bright boy, he was easily able to see the difference between the habits and religion of his own nation and those of the Christians. It was after this journey that he was anxious to reform the dreadful idolatry and wicked ways of the Arabian people. From the age of twelve to twenty he lived in the usual manner of the boys of his day, tending sheep on the hillsides and valleys of Mecca, and he was so honest and pure and fair during these years, and such a contrast to those around him, that everybody gave him the name I told you of—Al Amin, _i. e._, “the faithful.” During this time, too, he learned something of what war was like, for he went with his uncles on two expeditions to fight against another tribe. When Mohammed was twenty-five years old, his uncle suggested that he should take charge of a caravan for a rich lady living in Mecca, and trading products of Mecca for other things from Syria and other parts of Arabia. On this journey Mohammed again came in contact with Christians and Jews, and he must have noticed, too, how, while professing to serve and love the one true God, they always seemed to be quarrelling about their religion. Perhaps he saw the truth in both systems and afterwards thought he could make out of them one simple creed and unite all mankind in the worship of the only true God.

After his return from this trip, he was married to Khadijah, by whom he had been employed as camel driver, making zigzag journeys across the country to sell and exchange his merchandise. After his marriage he lived happily, so we are told, until his fortieth year, when he began to have dreams, and became persuaded that God had called him to be a prophet. Many verses of the Koran were recited and written down. Mohammed wanted most of all at this time that his countrymen should put away their idols and worship only Allah, but some of them were very angry and would have killed him, if he had not hidden.

Mohammed and Khadijah had six children, but most of them died when they were young. His daughter Fatimah, when she was old enough, was married to her adopted brother, Ali; her name is very much honoured and used by Moslems everywhere.

Sometimes Mohammed would have his dreams very often, and then again he would go a long time without a revelation. But he began to believe in himself and told his visions to others, and they too began to believe in him as a prophet of God. His relatives were the first ones to come out and follow the new religion. He wanted to take the idols out of the Kaaba at Mecca, and preached against idolatry, and for this reason the keepers of the Kaaba were very angry and persecuted him for his preaching. When the persecution became too bad, he then recanted or withdrew some of his statements in regard to the idols and the true worship, and he told them he had had a vision or revelation that they might retain their most important gods, or rather, the favourite ones. But after a few days he repented of this leniency, and told the Meccans he had made a mistake and all the idols must be destroyed, and they must worship Allah only. The people began to treat him badly and they would have killed him if he had not fled to Medina. The persecutors followed him and nearly overtook him, when he came to a cave and slipped inside, and one tradition says that after the prophet (on him be prayers and peace) had gone inside, some pigeons came and sat on the edge of the cave; also a spider quickly wove a web across the mouth of the cave and when his pursuers came and looked they said: “He is not in there, for see the pigeons and the spider’s web; he cannot be inside,” and thus God preserved the life of Mohammed. Afterwards those men turned back, and he came out of the cave and went on to Medina. And there his religion prospered, and Mohammed saw a vision of the power he might hold, so little by little the stern purpose of his life—to cleanse his people from idol worship—became weaker. He gave in, here a little and there a little, and gave to his followers many harmful privileges, which he said were revelations from the Angel Gabriel to him. These same privileges have degraded the nations they have governed, and the religion of the sword and of plunder appealed to the human heart more than spiritual things possibly could. He soon gained many thousands of followers, and grew strong and bold, and began to organize bands to go out and kill and destroy all who would not follow the new religion.

And thus the camel driver became a great prophet. His name to-day is called out five times a day from the minarets (_i. e._, mosque steeples) in Central Asia, along the shores of the Mediterranean, in the heart of Africa, in India and the islands of the sea, as well as all over Arabia and Persia and the Turkish Empire. And if you wish to help bring back these nations to Jesus Christ and away from Mohammed, you must be up with the muezzin before the dawn, and pray and call others to prayer and work in earnest, so that the children of this generation may have a chance to learn about our Saviour and theirs, and of all the helpful things He has taught us.

“Hark! ’Tis the muezzin’s cry;
Pray, children, pray;
Moslems in darkness lie,
Pray, children, pray.
Thousands in bondage die;
O hear, while moments fly,
Yours is a calling high:
Pray, children, pray.”

X

THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANGELS

The Arabs are a proud and noble race. They are proud of their liberty and of their free open-air desert customs. They are proud of their religion and of their prophet. They are proud of their history and of their patriarchal descent. But most of all, they are proud of their language, one of the oldest and most wonderful forms of human speech. Mohammed himself in his Koran, which you know is the Moslem Bible, speaks of the Arab tongue as “the language of the angels.” He and the Arabs believed that Adam and Eve spake Arabic in Paradise, and that the language of revelation in which God spoke to His prophets, Abraham, Moses and Solomon, was none other than the language of the desert, the speech of the Arabs.

One of the most learned Arabs who lived about three hundred years after Mohammed said: “The wisdom of God hath come down upon three things:—the brain of the Franks, the hand of the Chinese and the tongue of the Arabs.” What this Arab philosopher meant was that while the people of Europe are distinguished for their power of invention and discovery, the Chinese are distinguished as artists and artisans, but the Arabs are all of them born orators and poets. The people of Europe, he meant to say, have brain power, the people of the Orient skill in handicraft, but the Arabs, eloquence. If you will read the Book of Job, which was doubtless written in Arabia and describes early Arabian life, or read the latter chapters of Mohammed’s Koran, or better still some of the Arabian poetry, you will appreciate the truth of this wonderful statement.

The first thing that is remarkable about the language of the Arabs is its wide-spread use. Like English it has spilled itself all over the map of the world, far beyond its original limits, and like English it was carried by commerce and by conquest, by merchants and by missionaries.

Some time ago an American typewriter firm in advertising a machine with Arabic characters made the statement that the Arabic alphabet is used by more people than any other alphabet in the world. Some one thought that this was an exaggeration, and asked a professor of languages, “How big a lie is that?” He answered: “It is true.” The total population of all the countries whose inhabitants use the Arabic “A B C”—if they use any at all—is larger than the number of those who use the Latin alphabet or the Chinese character. The Arabic Koran is read by the Moslem boys in the day-schools not only of Arabia, but of Turkey, of Afghanistan, Persia, Java, Sumatra, the whole of North Africa and throughout Central Asia. In the Philippine Islands there are three hundred thousand Mohammedans whose only alphabet came from Arabia, and as far west as the mosques of Morocco the Arabic tongue has travelled and become the language of law and commerce and religion.

When the early Arabs in their conquests crossed the strait between Africa and Spain and conquered that country they left many words behind. And therefore many of the place names in Spain to-day are Arabic. Gibraltar, for example, is the corrupted form of Jebel Tarik, which means the mountain of Tarik, the Arab general who first crossed the straits with his soldiers. And Quadiliquiver, one of the rivers of Spain, should be spelled Wady El Kebir, or the Big River.

Even the English language has a number of words that came as Arab guests to the feast of reason and have been adopted into our family and put into our dictionary. When you speak of _algebra_, _ciphers_, _zero_, _alchemy_, _alcove_, _minaret_, _alcohol_, _coffee_, _sofa_, _amber_, _artichokes_, _gazelles_ or _magazine_ you are using good Arabic words which nearly every Arab would understand. To use these words, however, is quite a different thing from speaking “the language of the angels” correctly. It is easier to borrow a carpenter’s jack-knife than to acquire his skill in building a house. Many languages have borrowed from the Arabs and the Arabs have borrowed from them in return, but no language is richer than the Arabic in its number of words.

Would you like to know how the boys and girls talk in Arabia? If you have read “Topsy Turvy Land” you will remember how they write their words backward and begin to read at what we call the end of the book. Their talk as well as their writing seems to us at first very topsy turvy. Of course, I need not tell you how much they talk, for in that respect they are just like the boys and girls in America. As they speak a language, however, very different from English, I am sure you would like to hear a little about it. Arabic is one of the oldest and most beautiful languages, and also one of the hardest to learn. It has so many words that their name for a dictionary is “Kamoos,” which means “an ocean.” They have five hundred different names for a lion and two hundred words for serpent. It is said that there are one thousand different terms in Arabic for _sword_, and eighty different words for _honey_.

Like English the Arabic language has grammar with many rules (and more exceptions) and the boys dislike it just as much as some of you do. They have a severe struggle with the alphabet because each letter has three different forms, as it is used in the beginning, the middle or the end of a word; and then there are but fifteen conjugations and twenty different ways of forming the plural, not to speak of all the moods and tenses and the irregular verbs.

Some people think that Arabic is the most difficult language in the world. Keith Falconer, the first missionary to Arabia, said, “Arabic grammars should be strongly bound because learners are so often found to dash them frantically on the ground.” Another missionary said that he would rather cross Africa from Alexandria to the Cape of Good Hope than undertake a second time to master the Arabic speech.

I shall never forget my early struggles with the language, nor the place where I sat down to learn my lesson with Dr. Cornelius Van Dyke. He was a master of Arabic and with Dr. Eli Smith translated the whole Bible into the Arabic speech. Here it was in the shade of his beautiful veranda at Beirut, Syria, that I began to learn the irregular verb. It takes a long time for grown-up people to learn a new language, but it does not seem hard for the Arab boys and girls.

Beside the proper talk of grown-up people there is baby talk in Arabia which mothers teach the little brown toddlers before they walk out of the mat-huts and the black, camel-hair tents into the wide world. Yes, and there are also slang words which the camel drivers and the donkey boys use with and on each other.

The baby talk is much like English. Father is _baba_; dog is _wowwow_; pretty is _noonoo_; stop is _tootoo_; chicken is _kookoo_, and when baby falls they say _baff_!

The language of these little angels and the grown-up ones in Arabia is very poetical. The Arabs, because they live in the desert and look up into the big, blue sky and far out to the horizon where the mirage paints desert pictures every day, are full of imagination and live in an atmosphere of poetry. They love jingling words and proverbs and pretty sayings and figures of speech.

A mosquito has only a sting in New Jersey. In Arabia they call him _aboo fas_, which means “father-of-an-ax”! In America a tramp is a tramp, but the Arabs call him a _son-of-the-road_. And what could be prettier than their name for echo, _bint-el-jebel_, “daughter of the mountain”? Why, there is a whole fairy story in that one word! And if you go down the columns of the Arabic dictionary you can find many a story locked up in some word and only waiting to be opened.

In North Arabia when they say, “How-do-you-do,” the proper expression is, “What is the colour of your condition?” This may be philosophical, but it does not make good sense in English. Strawberries are called _French mulberries_, and the name given to potatoes when first brought to Bahrein was _aliyeywellam_; why this name was given, I cannot tell. Where could you find a better name for wine than the Arab _um-el-khabaith_, “mother of vices”? No wonder all the Arab children are staunch prohibitionists. And you will know more about the nights in Arabia when I tell you that the common name for jackal is “_son-of-howling_”!

“The language of the angels” is not altogether lovely and beautiful; alas, it bears the marks of a false religion all over it like scratches on marble or ink-stains on a beautiful piece of handwriting. Mohammed’s life and Mohammed’s teaching were not like the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, and so the Arabic language abounds in words that are not pure and not lovely. The missionaries in Egypt and in Syria have done much to purify and elevate the language of the Arabs by giving them Christian books and papers and above all the Holy Bible in their own tongue. The Arab children in the mission schools now sing Christian hymns and many of the stories that you love to read, such as “Ben Hur” and “Black Beauty” and “Robinson Crusoe,” have been translated into Arabic. At the Beirut press alone about twenty-five million pages of Christian books are printed every year.

When the Bible takes the place of the Koran, the Arab speech with all its beauty and strength will become more than ever “the language of the angels.”

XI

PEARLS AND PEARL DIVERS

Nearly all the British India steamers in their zigzag journeys up the Persian Gulf, calling first at the Arabian coast and then at the Persian coast, stop at the pearl islands of Bahrein. Half-way up the Gulf and thirty miles from the mainland of Arabia, this group of islands has been famous for centuries as the most valuable pearl fishery in the world. For at least two thousand years the Arabs have been diving in these waters and bringing up the costly shells. Before the days of Christ, and even before the time of Solomon, pearls from Bahrein were shipped to the Western world, and it is probable that the dress and the conversation of the men and the boys of to-day is about the same as it was a thousand years ago. The boats are probably of the same pattern, with very little improvement.

Bahrein is an Arabic word which means the _two seas_, and this name was given to the islands because the Arabs fancied that here two seas met, the fresh water and the salt water mingling together. The islands have very little rainfall—during the summer none at all—and yet they are famous for their fresh-water springs, which find their source on the mainland of Arabia or Persia, and the water not only bubbles out in pools and wells on shore, but below the tide level there are fresh-water springs several miles out at sea. You would be interested to see the Arabs go out in their boats, place a bamboo over the opening in the rock and then collect fresh water above sea level in their great leather skins.

Bahrein is historically most interesting, because here the old Chaldeans and Phœnicians made their home. Some of the mounds on the island are older than the ruins of Babylon, and it is said that the Phœnicians worshipped the fish-god who, it is supposed, carried Noah’s ark over the flood.

The pearl fisheries at Bahrein employ about 3,500 boats, large and small. The boats measure from one to fifty tons. The smaller boats carry from three to fifteen men and work near the shore; the large boats, employing from fifteen to thirty men, fish all over the Gulf. It is a pretty sight to see the fleet sailing out of the harbour, the large sails, set to the wind, gleaming white in the sun, the blue waters underneath and the bluer sky overhead. Have you ever seen a diving outfit? It looks rather ungainly to me. The Arab divers do not use anything so elaborate as do the divers in America. White overalls to cover their dark skin (because they say sharks do not care for white people), a _fatam_, or clothes-pin on the nose, and leather thimbles for scratching up the shells, and a basket to hold the catch, with a rope attached to a girdle to draw them up with—this is the complete outfit. When prayers have been said and a _Bismillah_, down he goes, quickly fills the basket, and with a tug on the rope, he is hauled up, his basket is emptied while he takes a short breathing spell, then down again; and so on from sunrise to sunset.

The divers pass through many dangers in bringing the pearls from the bottom of the ocean to the surface. Sharks are the most terrifying, and during the pearl season a number of divers lose their lives, or are maimed; a leg or an arm has to be amputated because the cruel, sharp, powerful mouth of the shark caught the fisherman while he was seeking goodly pearls for us. A large number of them are afflicted with rheumatism as a consequence of their calling. In the boat, besides the men who are doing the work, is a man who is a substitute for them in prayer. The divers are too busy to observe the stated hours of prayer, so this man will repeat the prayers in place of each man. He is the Levite, and performs the religious ceremonies for every other man and boy. He must be occupied all the time on the boats where there is a crew of thirty men, and he must say the prayers five times a day for each man.

The Arabs say that pearls come from a raindrop which fell while the oyster had its mouth open; each drop of rain thus caught is a prize for the diver. “Heaven born and cradled in the deep blue sea,” it is the purest of gems and, in their eyes, the most precious. When the pearl oysters are brought up, they are left on deck over night, and next morning are opened by means of a curved knife six inches long. Until a few years ago, all the shells were thrown back into the sea as useless, but now they are brought to shore by the ton and deposited in some merchant’s yard. He employs natives to scrape off the outside roughness, and then they are packed in wooden crates and exported in large quantities.

On shore the pearls are classified according to weight, size, shape, colour and brilliancy. You would think the pearl merchants a strange kind of people. They carry the most valuable pearls around with them everywhere, tied up in turkey-red twill. They have no safes nor banks, so the only safe way they can think of is to carry them around and run the risk of being knocked down and robbed; but since the Indian government has made Bahrein a protectorate, such robberies are rare.

The pearl merchants are called _tawawis_, which means those who handle the brass sieve, or _tas_. When the pearls are brought on shore, they are classified according to size first of all, and to do this, each merchant has a nest of beautiful sieves fitting one into the other. The smallest has holes as big as the end of a pencil, and they go down gradually in size until the largest sieve, which is about six inches across, has holes as fine as mustard seeds. Any day during the pearl season you may see the Arab merchants sitting cross-legged in their houses, sifting pearls, and when they are classified and piled up in little heaps, white and shining in the bright sunlight on the red cloth that covers the floor, it is a sight worth seeing.

The total value of the pearl harvest each year is at least a million dollars, but most of the profit goes into the hands of the dealers. The divers work for wages, and many of them are heavily in debt. In spite of the dangers they incur, the divers love their work, because pearl diving always has in it the element of gambling. One may work a whole day and find only pearls of small value, and then perhaps bring up a fortune in an hour. The most beautiful pearl I ever saw was found in the waters at Bahrein some ten years ago, and was sold for ten thousand dollars. It must have been to such a fortunate pearl diver that Browning referred in his verses:

“There are two moments in a diver’s life:
One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,
Then when, a prince, he rises with his prize.”

The time for pearl diving is from May until the end of September. During the winter months the cold weather interferes with the work, and the men live inshore. Then it is that they come in crowds to our hospital, and we have the joy of preaching to them from the parable of the Pearl of great price, and no audience appreciates a sermon on that text as much as the men who know what it costs to bring up the pearls. You remember the parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls, and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” When we tell the Arabs that the Pearl of great price was the kingdom of God, peace and righteousness and joy, which Jesus Christ purchased for us at the cost of His own life and now offers freely to all who will believe in Him, they understand something of the message.

Will you not pray for the pearl divers of Bahrein that many of them may find the Pearl of great price, and that their humble homes,—mat-huts along the shore of the great sea—may be made glad by the joy of a Christian civilization and the knowledge of our Saviour? It is not hard to love them for their own sake, and I well remember many a happy hour spent with them in their boats or sitting on the beach, talking over their work. Sir Edwin Arnold referred to them in these lines:

“Dear as the wet diver to the eyes
Of his pale wife, who waits and weeps on shore,
By sands of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf;
Plunging all day in the blue waves; at night,
Having made up his toll of precious pearls,
Rejoins her in their hut upon the shore.”

XII

A PIONEER JOURNEY ON THE PIRATE COAST

It was on Saturday morning, February 9, 1901, that Elias, our colporteur, and I started for a journey along the eastern coast of Arabia, and, as we hoped, inland. Our expectations of a long camel journey and the sight of villages not yet marked on the map between the coast and Muscat were disappointed. But the result was a journey of 440 miles and more along the coast to the rocky cape that guards the narrow entrance to the Gulf. Our experiences were so interesting that I will relate some of them to you.

Did you ever read the droll story, “Three Men in a Boat”? Well, we were eleven men in a boat, not to speak of a fine Arab horse and a yelping greyhound, presents from the Ruler of Bahrein to the Ruler of Abu Thabi. Our boat was of the usual native style without any cabin or even an awning, and measured twenty feet across the beam and fifty from bowsprit to poop. The noble quadruped had the largest share of the scanty space midships; the dog was confined to the forecastle lest prayers be impossible; for the Mohammedans believe that the dog is an unclean animal, and that it is impossible to pray in any place where a dog has walked or sat without first washing it. The two first-class passengers and their boxes were on the left side of the poop; the crew slept, smoked, washed themselves, and ate their dried fish and rice anywhere; and the captain with a priest and a merchant squatted at our right. I will not weary your patience to relate how many days after we intended to start the sail was hoisted and we were off. One never expects a native sailing craft to leave until the three days of grace (and grumbling impatience) are twice over. But good Abdullah bin Kambar was not altogether to blame; two of his sailors ran away, and he had to look them up and urge them on board. With a fair, brisk wind filling the huge sail we were all happy to start and forgot the delays and our dried bread baked three days too early.

Our boat was bound for Abu Thabi, the first important town on the coast south. The wind continued favourable, and on Monday we were sailing between two islands, mere rocks and uninhabited except by a few fishermen during the season. A little further towards the mainland is the large island of Dalma, and there was a long dispute between the captain and the mate as to which island we were passing. When the words waxed warm between them my chart decided the dispute. This island is an old centre for the pearl-fishers, and every season there is a large gathering here of merchants and divers; a sort of market-place on the highway of the sea.

The weariness of five days and nights in the boat was relieved in many ways. There was opportunity to read and plenty of interruption.

We had our meals to cook and tried to fish with a line and hook; once the captain hit a wild duck with his rusty gun, but although all helped to lower the boat and they pursued the wounded bird, she escaped. One day we saw a large shark, and that afternoon there were some good fish stories. At night the black slave Abdullah sat at the wheel and told stories as only a Negro-Arab can tell them; stories of the new Arabian Nights, and of how an Arab sharper stole a favourite horse by putting the bridle on his own neck and having his mate run off with the horse! Several times it was our turn to lead the conversation, and we had a splendid opportunity to give “line upon line and precept upon precept.” One can judge at once of the ignorance and open-heartedness of the Arab sailors by the remark they commonly make after they have had a missionary or colporteur for passenger: “We had no idea that Christians were such decent folk and even prayed to Allah.”

At three o’clock on Thursday afternoon we were in sight of Abu Thabi, or “father-of-the-gazelle.” It was my first visit to this town, although Elias had been there before. We found the ruler kind, friendly and very intelligent. We were assigned to a large room in one of his houses, and during our stay of four days there was abundance of food sent to us from the ruler’s table, and all our wants were supplied from his beneficence,—huge dishes piled with rice, steeped with gravy and crowned with several pounds of prime roast mutton, the whole surrounded with dates and bread loaves, on a large circular mat, and washed down with perfumed water. We were never hungry.

When the dwellers in the mat-huts heard of the arrival of foreigners with a medicine chest and books our room was filled with the curious or the ailing from early dawn until after sunset. That is the only drawback to their kindness; the Arab idea of hospitality does not include the blessing of privacy for their guest. One is never left alone, and if you seek solitude they set you down as a magician, or delver into the hidden things of nature which are forbidden to all true believers. So we had to forego meditation, reading, and even the change of clothing until nightfall, after our long sea journey.

It was a queer crowd that collected in the court and filled our little room; a long row of Arabs sitting on the mats all around the four sides of the court. Most of them were Oman Arabs, but there was one priest from Mecca who had more to say than all the rest. He was a wanderer who wore a spotless white turban and a sneering smile. His present residence, he said, was on the Island of Kais, in the Gulf, and he lived as do all of his kind by teaching school and copying charms for the ignorant. We had some discussions and more quiet talks together after the crowd left. It was sad to hear from him what dense ignorance there is regarding our religion. The news of Queen Victoria’s death had just reached there and the sage from Mecca told fabulous stories of how and why Christians were ruled by women! Our sales of Scripture were not large, but there was a demand for other books. One poor but learned man brought a manuscript copy of Al Hariri (the Arabian Shakespeare) in exchange for other books.

We left Abu Thabi by sailing-boat for Debai, eighty miles up the coast in a straight line. The wind compelled us to go zigzag.

This place has become the metropolis of Western Oman, and in population, progress, commerce and architecture far surpasses all the other towns. Between Abu Thabi and Debai the coast is desert and neither date-tree nor hut is seen; so flat is the country that a hill two hundred feet high (the only landmark for sailors) is called “the High Mountain.”

We did not tarry long at Debai, although we had a pleasant morning at the house of the ruler and met some Arabs from the interior. One of them said he was willing for a proper consideration to take me all the way across Arabia to Jiddah, the port of Mecca. In the afternoon we started selling Scriptures on the outskirts of the town and in a very short time the crowd collected. Women came with copper coins and bright boys brought their savings to purchase Gospels—in the language of our trade, “the true story of the Living Prophet Jesus.” After we left Debai on donkeys two boys who were late ran after us and overtook us a mile from the town; they brought money and paid for three more books. The captain of our boat took us to his house for breakfast on our arrival, and showed us some poetry his wife had written. She talked with us and seemed versed in the Koran; we left her a Gospel.