Project Gutenberg's Topsy-Turvy Land, by Samuel M. Zwemer
Amy E. Zwemer
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Title: Topsy-Turvy Land
Arabia Pictured for Children
Author: Samuel M. Zwemer
Amy E. Zwemer
Release Date: April 19, 2005 [EBook #15658]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOPSY-TURVY LAND ***
Produced by Curtis Weyant, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
TOPSY-TURVY LAND
ARABIA PICTURED
FOR CHILDREN
[Illustration: ARAB BOYS.]
TOPSY-TURVY LAND
ARABIA PICTURED
FOR CHILDREN
BY
SAMUEL M. ZWEMER
AND
AMY E. ZWEMER
[Illustration]
Fleming H. Revell Company
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Copyright, 1902 by
Fleming H. Revell Company
(July)
[Transcriber's Note to the text version: in the original images, the word
Hadramaut has a breve above the u.]
DEDICATED
TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS
WHO ARE HELPING TO TURN THE WORLD
UPSIDE DOWN
PREFACE
This is a book of pictures and stories for big children and small grown-up
folks; for all who love Sinbad the sailor and his strange country. It is a
topsy-turvy book; there is no order about the chapters; and you can begin
to read it anywhere. It is intended to give a bird's-eye view to those who
cannot take birds' wings. The stories are not as good as those of the
Arabian Nights but the morals are better--and so are the pictures.
Moreover the stories are true. You must not skip any of the chapters or
the pictures but you may the preface, if you like.
{S.M.Z.
{A.E.Z.
_Bahrein, Arabia._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WHY IS ARABIA TOPSY-TURVY LAND? 15
II. A LESSON IN GEOGRAPHY 21
III. THE SQUARE-HOUSE WITH THE BLACK OVERCOAT 27
IV. SABBACH-KUM BIL KHEIR! 31
V. AT THE CORNER GROCERY 37
VI. BLIND FATIMAH 43
VII. DATES AND SUGAR-CANE 47
VIII. THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEWING-MACHINE 54
IX. THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT 58
X. NOORAH'S PRAYER 64
XI. PICTURES WITH WORDS ONLY 69
XII. THE QUEER PENNIES OF OMAN AND HASSA 73
XIII. ARAB BABIES AND THEIR MOTHERS 79
XIV. BOAT-BUILDERS AND CARPENTERS 85
XV. ARABIC PROVERBS AND ARABIC HUMOUR 92
XVI. GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH 97
XVII. SLAVES AND SLAVE TRADERS 101
XVIII. ABOUT SOME LITTLE MISSIONARIES 108
XIX. TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN 113
XX. TURNING THE WORLD DOWNSIDE UP 118
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ARAB BOYS _Facing Title._
MODES OF TRAVEL 16
EUROPEAN VISITORS ON DONKEYS 18
MAP OF ARABIA 23
READY FOR A CAMEL RIDE 24
THE SQUARE HOUSE WITH THE BLACK OVERCOAT 29
SABBACH-KUM BIL KHEIR! 33
ARAB GROCER 38
ARAB BOY IN A CROCKERY SHOP 41
HOW A MOSLEM BOY PRAYS 45
WOMEN SELLING SUGAR-CANE 48
DATES GROWING ON A DATE PALM 50
FIRE WOOD MARKET, BUSRAH 52
ARAB RIDERS WITH LANCES 60
PEARL MERCHANTS 62
ARABIAN WATER-BOTTLE 63
[From the Sunday School Times, by permission.]
DESIGNS MADE OUT OF ARABIC WRITING 70
ARABIC LETTER FROM A POOR CRIPPLE 72
OMAN COIN 73
HASSA COINS 76
DATE-STICK CRADLE 80
WOMEN GRINDING AT THE MILL 82
BEDOUIN WOMEN EATING THEIR BREAKFAST 84
CARGO BOATS, BAHREIN 86
RIVER BOAT BUSRAH 87
SAWING A BEAM 89
AN ARAB CARPENTER'S TOOLS 90
PUZZLE OF THE THIRTY MEN 96
BRANCH OF THE INCENSE TREE 98
SLAVE GIRL IN ARABIA 102
LIBERATED SLAVES AT BAHREIN 104
MISSION HOUSE AT BUSRAH 110
THE SULTAN'S SOLDIERS 114
MUSCAT HARBOUR 122
AN OLD FRIEND IN A NEW DRESS 124
I
WHY IS ARABIA TOPSY-TURVY LAND?
On this big round earth there are all sorts of countries and peoples. Men
walk on it on every side just like flies crawling over a watermelon and
they do not fall off either. On the next page you can see how they travel
all around the world; some in steamships, some in carriages or on horses,
some in jinrickshaws and some in the railway coaches. In Topsy-turvy Land
they have no railroads and not even waggon-roads or waggons. A horse or a
camel or a donkey is used for passengers and the camel caravan is a
freight train.
Or if you wish, the camel is a topsy-turvy ship which sails in the sand
instead of in the water. It is called the ship of the desert. The masts
point down instead of up; there are four masts instead of three; and
although there are ropes the desert-ship has no sails and no
rudder--unless the rudder be the tail. When the ship lies at anchor to be
loaded it feeds on grass and the four masts are all snugly tucked away
under the hull. In Arabia you generally see these ships of the desert in a
long line like a naval procession, each battleship towing its mate by a
piece of rope fastened from halter to tail! But not only is the mode of
travel strange in Topsy-turvy Land, even the time of the day is all upside
down. When the boys and girls of America are going to bed the boys and
girls of Arabia are thinking of getting up. As early as four o'clock by
western time the muezzin calls out loud from the top of the minaret (for
Moslem churches have no steeples and no bells) to come and pray. Arabs
count the hours from sunrise. It is noon at six o'clock and they breakfast
at one; at three o'clock in the evening all good boys and girls are
asleep.
[Illustration: MODES OF TRAVEL.]
In Topsy-turvy Land all the habits and customs are exactly opposite to
those in America or England. For instance when a boy enters a room he
takes off his shoes but leaves his hat on his head. I do not know whether
we should call it a _hat_, however. His hat has no rim and is not made of
felt or straw, but is just a folded handkerchief of a large size and
bright colour with a piece of cord to hold it wound round his head--a sort
of a hat in two pieces. The girls go without shoes but carefully cover
their pretty (or ugly) faces with a black veil.
At home you eat with a spoon or use a knife and fork. Here the Arabs eat
with their fingers; nor do they use any plates or butter dishes, but a
large piece of flat bread serves as a plate until it is all eaten. So you
see in Arabia the children not only eat their rice and meat but their
plates also. You read a book from left to right but in Arabia everybody
begins at the right-hand cover and reads backward. Even the lines read
backward and in Arabic writing there are no commas or capitals and the
vowels are written not next to the consonants but stuck up above them.
_Potato_ in Arabic would be written with English letters this way:
O A O
T T P
Can you read it?
In your country a carpenter stands at his bench to work, but here they sit
on the ground. With you he uses a vise to hold the board or stick he is
planing; here he uses his bare toes. With you he _pushes_ the saw or,
especially, the plane away from him to cut or to smooth a piece of wood,
but in Topsy-turvy Land he _pulls_ his tools towards him. Buttons are on
the button-hole side and the holes are where you put the buttons. Door
keys and door hinges are made of wood, not of iron as in the Occident. The
women wear toe-rings and nose-rings as well as earrings and bracelets.
Everything seems different from what it is in a Christian country.
One strange sight is to meet people out riding. Do you know that the men
ride donkeys side-saddle, but the women ride as men do in your country?
When a missionary lady first came to Bahrein in Eastern Arabia and the
boys saw her riding a donkey they called out: _"Come and see, come and
see! The lady has no feet!"_ Because they saw only one side of her. Then
another one called out and said: _"Yes she has, and they are both on this
side!"_
[Illustration: EUROPEAN VISITORS ON DONKEYS.]
Another odd custom is that Arabs always turn the fingers of the hand down
as we turn them up in beckoning or calling anybody. Many other gestures
seem topsy-turvy as well.
In your country boys learn the lesson of politeness--ladies first; but it
is not so over here. It is _men first_ in all grades of society; and not
only men first but men last, in the middle, and all the time. Women and
girls have a very small place given them in Topsy-turvy Land. The Arabs
say that of all animal kinds the female is the most valuable except in the
case of mankind! When a girl baby is born the parents are thought very
unfortunate. How hard the Bedouin girls have to work! They are treated
just like beasts of burden as if they had no souls. They go barefoot
carrying heavy loads of wood or skins of water, grind the meal and make
fresh bread every morning or spin the camel's hair or goat's hair into one
coarse garment. They are very ignorant and superstitious, the chief
remedies for sickness being to brand the body with a hot iron or wear
charms--a verse from the Koran sewn up in leather or a string of blue
beads, which are supposed to drive away evil influences.
How very thankful girls should be that in all Christian lands they have a
higher place and a better lot than the poor girls and women of Arabia! For
the greatest contrast is the religion of the inhabitants of Topsy-turvy
Land. That is all upside down too. The Lord Jesus teaches us to pray in
secret not to be seen of men; we are to go quietly alone and tell God
everything. But Mohammed, the prophet of Arabia, taught his followers to
pray openly on any street corner, or on the deck of a ship, in public,
just like the Pharisees whom Jesus condemns. And when these people fast,
as they are supposed to for a whole month, they do not really go without
food, but each day at _sunset_ they begin to eat in larger quantity than
usual!--because they think by such fasting to gain favour with God and do
not know that to fast from sin and evil habits is the fast God wants.
Another thing very sad in this land of Topsy-turvy is that there are no
Sunday-schools--they do not observe our Sabbath--and the boys and girls do
not have bright Sunday-school lesson leaves or a picture-roll. They spend
Sunday and every other day in learning all the evil they see in those that
are grown up. Poor children! They have never heard the sweet words of
Jesus, "Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of
such is the kingdom of God." We tell you all this about them that you may
pray for them that God may soon send more missionaries to preach to them
these precious words. We want you all by prayer and offerings to help put
a silver lining in the dark clouds of their lives.
The other chapters in this little book will tell you more about the land
and its people and as you read them do not forget to pray for them.
If you are faithful and true, always shining for Jesus, your bright light
will reach as far as dark Arabia, and will help to turn that land of
Topsy-turvy right side up. When joy and gladness will take the place of
sorrow and sadness, and ignorance give way to the knowledge of the Truth.
In one place in the Bible it tells how to make these topsy-turvy lands
right side up again. Do you know where that is? Acts 17:6-7. "_These that
have turned the world upside down are come hither also ... saying that
there is another King, even_ JESUS."
II
A LESSON IN GEOGRAPHY
In the atlas Arabia looks like a big mail-pouch hung up by the side of
some railway station, pretty empty of everything. But this queer
mail-pouch country is not as empty as people imagine. It is a country
larger than all of the United States east of the Mississippi. It is longer
than the longest mail-pouch and much wider. From north to south you can
ride a camel one thousand miles and from east to west more than six
hundred. But the geography of the country is topsy-turvy altogether and
that is why it has been so long a neglected peninsula. People kept on
wondering at the queer exterior of the mail-pouch and never opened the
lock to its secrets by looking into the interior.
First of all, Arabia is perhaps the only land that has three of its
boundaries fixed and the other always shifting. Such is the case with the
northern boundary of Arabia. It is different on every map and changes
every year because the inhabitants go about as nomads; that is, they "have
no continuing city."
Arabia has no rivers except underground. It has no railroad and very few
roads at all. Some parts of the country are very green and fertile and in
other parts there is not enough grass the year around to give one square
meal to a single grasshopper. Arabia has four thousand miles of coast and
yet only six harbours where steamers call. There are better maps of the
North Pole and of Mars and of the moon than of southeastern Arabia. The
reason is that men have spent millions of dollars to find the North Pole
and telescopes are all the time looking at the moon; but no one has ever
spent time or money to explore this part of Arabia. The Greek geographers
had a better knowledge of Arabia than we have to-day.
[Illustration: MAP OF ARABIA.]
There are no lakes in Arabia, but there is a large sea of sand called _Al
Ahkaf_, in which the traveller Von Wrede threw a lead and line and found
no bottom! No one has been there since to see whether his story was true.
At Bahrein, in eastern Arabia, there are salt-water wells on shore and
fresh-water springs in the midst of the salt sea from which water is
brought to shore. Arabia has no postage-stamps and no political capital
and no telegraph system. Different coins from different parts of the world
are used in different provinces. It is a land of contradictions and even
the waters that bound it are misnamed. The Red Sea is blue; the Persian
Gulf has no Persian ships and should be called an English lake; and the
_Straits_ of Hormuz are crooked. This topsy-turvy land has no political
divisions. Some say it has five and some seven provinces; no one knows
what is its population as no census was ever taken. In nearly all
countries the mountain ranges run north and south, but in Arabia they run
nearly east and west. There are desert sands six hundred feet deep and
mountain peaks nine thousand feet high. On the coasts it is fearfully hot
and the climate is often deadly. On the highlands it is often bitterly
cold; and yet the people are all of the same race and speech and custom
and language and religion.
[Illustration: READY FOR A CAMEL RIDE.]
There are no pumps in Arabia, but plenty of wells. There are no woods in
Arabia, but plenty of trees. The camel is a topsy-turvy ship and the
ostrich a topsy-turvy bird. The Arabs call the former the ship of the
desert; and the latter they say is half camel and half bird. In some parts
of Arabia horses and cows are fed on boiled fish because that is cheaper
than grass! In other parts of the country donkeys are fed on dates. Arabia
has more sultans and princes than any other country of the same size and
yet it is a land without a settled government. The people never meet one
another without saying "Peace to you"; yet there has never been any peace
over the whole land since Christ's birth or even since the days of
Ishmael.
Every one carries a weapon and yet there are very few wild animals. It is
more dangerous to meet a Bedouin than a lion when you are a stranger on
the road. The Arabs are a nation of robbers. Now you will wonder how we
can also say that Orientals are the most hospitable of any people in the
world for the Arabs are Orientals. And yet it is strictly true that these
robbers are more hospitable, in a way, than you people of Western
countries. They have a proverb which says that "Every stranger is an
invited guest"; and another which says, "The guest while in the house is
its lord." If an Arab gets after you to rob or kill you, it is only
necessary to take refuge in his tent for safety. He is bound then, by the
rules of Oriental hospitality, to treat you as his guest. But you must not
stay there too long and you must be careful how you get away! You will
find instances of this respect for the duty of hospitality all through the
Bible story. It was in the earliest Bible times, as later and as now, a
grievous sin to be inhospitable. The cradle of the Mohammedan religion is
Arabia, and yet in no country are they more ignorant of their religion.
How sad to think that when they do worship God they do it in such an
ignorant and idolatrous way! In our next chapter we shall see more about
this.
Arabia has no national flag, no national hymn and no national feeling.
Every one lives for himself and no one cares for his neighbour. This does
not sound strange of robbers but it does of people who are so hospitable.
This queer country we are about to visit together and talk over with each
other.
You will not grow weary by the way, we hope. If the desert tracks are long
and tiresome through the following chapters, just refresh yourself in the
oasis of a picture.
III
THE SQUARE-HOUSE WITH THE BLACK OVERCOAT
You think I am making fun but it is really true that in western Arabia
there is a house that always wears an overcoat. This is a large, square
stone house without windows and with only one door to let in the light and
the air; it is empty inside, although crowds gather around it as you see
in the picture. Yet this house always has on an overcoat of black silk,
very heavy and richly embroidered. Every year the old coat is taken off
and a new one put on. A few days ago a Moslem pilgrim showed me a piece of
the cloth of last year's overcoat and he was very proud of it. It was
indeed a fine piece of heavy silk and the names of God and Mohammed were
prettily woven into the cloth. This man had just come from visiting the
square-house and I will tell you what he saw.
The place he visited with hundreds and thousands of other pilgrims is
called Mecca and the square-house is the _Beit Allah_ or house of God to
all Mohammedans. It is also called the _Kaaba_, which is the Arabic word
for a cube.
The Moslems believe all sorts of foolish things about the Kaaba. They say
Adam built it as soon as he fell down on the earth out of Paradise, and
that Abraham repaired it after it had been ruined by the flood in the days
of Noah. They even show a large white stone on which Abraham and Ishmael
stood when they plastered the walls; the stone still bears the impress of
Abraham's feet, they say. Did you ever hear such a topsy-turvy story?
The building is about twenty-four cubits long and wide and nearly twenty
cubits high. It has no ornaments or beauty except one rain-spout to carry
the water off the flat roof; you can see it on the right side of the Kaaba
on the picture. This spout is said to be of pure gold. In one corner of
the building is a large black stone which is also an object of worship.
The Mohammedans say it came down from heaven with Adam and was once pure
white. By the many kisses of sinful worshippers it has turned black. Not
only is it black but broken. For about three hundred years after
Mohammed's death the stone remained imbedded in the walls of the Kaaba,
but then some wild Arabs from the Persian Gulf came, sacked Mecca and
stole the black stone. It was carried to Katif, a place near Bahrein,
right across Arabia, and they kept it a long time until the people of
Mecca paid a large sum of money and carried it back. On the long journey
it must have fallen from the camel because, at present, it is cracked and
the broken pieces are held together by a silver band. There once were a
great many of these stone idols in the Kaaba, but Mohammed destroyed them
all except this one when he became master of Mecca.
[Illustration: THE SQUARE HOUSE WITH THE BLACK OVERCOAT.]
At present the stone house is empty of idols and yet all the Moslems turn
in the direction of this old heathen temple to pray. The cloth that covers
it comes every year as a present from the Khedive of Egypt, who is a
Mohammedan. It is very costly and is sent on a special camel, beautifully
decked with trappings of gilt, and a large throng of pilgrims go along
to escort the overcoat.
When the wind stirs the heavy folds of cloth, the pious boys and girls of
Mecca say it is the angels that watch around the Kaaba, whose wings lift
the covering. It must be a wonderful sight to see thousands of Moslem
pilgrims stand around this place and kneel and pray.
Besides running around the Kaaba, kissing the black stone and drinking
water from a holy well called _zemzem_, they have one day on which they
sacrifice sheep or other animals. One curious custom on this day of
sacrifice I must tell you of. It is called "stoning the great devil."
Early in the morning thousands of pilgrims go to a place in the valley of
Mina where there are three white pillars made of masonry; the first and
largest is called the Great Devil. The pilgrims cast stones at this
pillar. Each one must stand at the distance of not less than fifteen feet
and say, as he throws seven pebbles: "In the name of God the Almighty I do
this, and in hatred of the devil and his shame." The Moslems fail to
realise that Satan is in the hearts of men and not behind a pillar, nor
that he can be driven away with prayer better than by pebbles.
For thirteen hundred years Moslems have come every year to Mecca, and gone
away, with no one ever to tell them of the Son of God, the Saviour of the
World. Thirteen hundred years! Don't you think it is time to go and tell
them? And will you not pray that even this place may open its doors to
Jesus Christ, and crown Him Lord of all?
IV
SABBACH-KUM BIL KHEIR!
That is to say, "Good-morning!" And the Arabs in the picture do not add,
"have you used Pears' Soap?" but, "have you had your cup of Mocha coffee?"
Soap is a luxury in most parts of Arabia and the vast majority of its
inhabitants never use it; millions would not know it if they saw it.
Perhaps the old Sheikh, however, used a bit of soap to wash his hands and
feet early before sunrise when he went to the mosque to pray. Now he has
returned and sits in the coffee-shop ready to take a sip of coffee and
"drink tobacco" from the long pipe. The Arabs always speak of _drinking_
tobacco when they mean to smoke; I suppose one reason is because they use
the peculiar water-pipes with the long stems in which the smoke passes
through the water and bubbles out to the mouth. Have you time to stop and
study the picture with me?
What a pretty window in the corner! The Arabs call a window _shibaak_,
which means network, because their windows are very much like a fish-net.
Glass is seldom used in Arabia except by Europeans and Arabs who have
become civilised; and so the carpenter or joiner fits little round bars,
one into the other, like marbles or beads on a string and the result is
often very beautiful. Light and air come in (not to speak of clouds of
dust) while no one can look through from the outside; and you know how
afraid Arab girls and women are to show their faces to strangers.
Under the arch is the open fireplace where the big coffee-pots and
water-kettles simmer all day on a charcoal fire. The old man looks quite
cheerful seated on his uncomfortable stool made of date-sticks. You will
read later about our old friend the date-palm and how the tree is used for
nearly every purpose. I wish I could show you how they take the thin
branches and punch holes in them and then deftly, before you can count
ninety, build together a chair or a bedstead. I have often slept soundly
and safely on bedsteads made of these thin leaf-sticks no bigger around
than a child's finger. The sticks are full of "spring" so one does not
need a wire mattress, nor have I ever known one of them, if made honestly,
to become a _folding bed_ under a restless sleeper as they say happens
sometimes in New York hotels!
Although the old man in our picture is waited on by the younger Arab (who
is perhaps the keeper of the café), yet I know he is not rich. Do you
notice his toil-worn hands and the patch on the shoulder of his long
overcoat? I fancy too his pretty vest, so carefully buttoned by more than
a dozen cloth buttons, is a little torn on one side; nor has he a fine
girdle like the rich shopkeepers.
[Illustration: SABBACH-KUM BIL KHEIR!]
Extremes meet in the picture and three countries widely apart on the map
are brought close together. Of course, you know the coffee is the real
Yemen article, which coming first from Mocha on the Red Sea, is still
called by that Arabian name. The curious pipe with its round bottom,
carved head-piece and long stem, is used everywhere in Arabia and is
generally called _"nargeelie,"_ which is the Indian name for cocoanut. The
bowl of the pipe is in fact an empty cocoanut shell; the stem once grew in
the jungle and perhaps tigers brushed past it; now it is pierced to draw
smoke.
The curious pipe is from India, the tobacco first came from America but
the coffee is Arabian. Let us listen to the story of the cup of coffee: In
a book published in 1566 by an Arab scholar on the virtues of coffee it is
stated that a knowledge of coffee was first brought to Arabia from
Abyssinia about the year 1400 by a pious man whose tomb is still venerated
in Yemen. The knowledge of coffee spread from Yemen in south Arabia over
the whole world. In 1690 Van Hoorne, a general of the Dutch East India
company, received a few coffee seeds from the Arabs at Mocha and planted
them in Batavia on the island of Java. In this way Mocha coffee has become
the mother of Java and of all other kinds of coffee sold at your grocers'.
Nothing can be more beautiful than the green hills and fertile gardens in
the Arabian coffee country. The coffee berry grows on an evergreen tree of
about eighteen feet high; its leaves are a beautiful dark, shining green
and the blossom of the tree is pure white with a most delicate and
fragrant odour. Each tree bears an enormous number of coffee-berries; a
single tree is said to have yielded sixteen pounds! Arabia not only
produces the finest coffee in the world, but I think the Arabs know how
to prepare a good cup of coffee better than other peoples. The raw bean is
roasted just before it is used and so keeps all its strength; it is
_pounded_ fine, much finer than you can grind it, in a mortar, with an
iron pestle; lastly two smelling herbs, _heyl_ and saffron are added when
it is boiled just enough to give a flavour. Some fibres of palm bark are
stuck into the spout of the coffee-pot to act as a strainer and then the
clear brown liquid is poured into a tiny cup and handed to you in the
coffee-shop. No wonder the Arab dervishes smack their lips over this,
their only luxury.
But how did the tobacco get into our picture? You can hunt up the story
for yourselves in your school histories. Had not Sir Walter Raleigh in
1586 introduced the weed to the court of Queen Elizabeth from Virginia,
our picture and social life in Arabia would be very different. The custom
of puffing tobacco has spread like a prairie fire and it is now so common
in the East that very few realise it was not always found there. There
they are all together, an Indian pipe, Arabian coffee and American
tobacco! How much faster and further tobacco has travelled than the Bible;
how many people had begun to drink Mocha before Arabia had a missionary!
But, of course, nothing can travel for nothing; and somebody must pay the
travelling expenses. America pays many millions more for tobacco in a year
than it pays for missionaries. It is not surprising, therefore, that all
Arabians smoke and only a very few have ever heard of the Son of God, the
Saviour of the world. As Jesus Himself said, "the children of this world
are wiser in their generation than the children of light." When people
learn to love missions as much and as often as they do a good cigar and a
cup of coffee there will be no need of mite boxes. God hasten the day.
V
AT THE CORNER GROCERY
It is not a very long distance from the Arab coffee-shop where we left our
friend smoking, to the grocer. The streets are very narrow and unless we
are very careful that camel will crowd us to the wall or those water-skins
on the white donkey wet our clothes--see how they drip! Well, one turn
more and here we are. The grocer in the picture on the next page is
leaning on his elbow waiting for a customer. And if he keeps his groceries
as free from flies and ants as he does his spotless white turban we will
buy our day's supplies here. The shops in Arabia are not very large and
they have no place for customers except outside. Sometimes there is a sort
of raised seat or bench on which the purchaser sits when he bargains for
something; but generally you have to stand up outside while the crowds
push and the traffic goes on. One curious custom is that all the shops of
one kind cluster close together in one street or section of the town. You
will see for example in one street a long row of shops where they sell
drugs and perfumery; in another place there are only hardware merchants;
again a whole street of nothing but grocers. I think the reason is that
Arabs love to bargain and to beat down prices and so it is easier to have
all the merchants of one kind close together. At any rate this arrangement
makes it quite convenient for the purchaser. Indeed it is becoming
somewhat customary to group the shops in this way in some of your Western
cities. Occidental civilisation can learn some things from the Orient!
[Illustration: ARAB GROCER.]
Our shopkeeper has a mixed lot of groceries in his shop; many things which
you would find at your grocers' he has never heard of. Everything is
topsy-turvy. Just fancy how strange to hang up the sugar in a row of cones
on strings like sausages! Do you see them on the ceiling of the shop in
our picture? That is the way white sugar comes wrapped from France and is
sold in Arabia. A sugar _barrel_ would soon be full of ants in this
country; but when it hangs up on a string the ants have a hard time
getting it away. Maybe there is a suggestion here for your homes if you
are troubled with ants.
In those big Arab baskets the grocer keeps his carrots and other
vegetables; carrots are white in Arabia and there are curious vegetables
of which you have never heard.
Do you see the bottles and tin boxes on his shelves? Those are for spices;
pepper, cinnamon, nutmegs, curry-powder and such things of which Arab
housewives are very fond.
The big bowl on the left probably has olives in it or other kind of
pickled vegetables. On the right you can see the big pair of old fashioned
scales on which he weighs his wares. I hope he is an honest man, although
I do not think he looks very honest, do you? The scale hangs true I have
no doubt; but it is in the weights that deception lurks. In Arabia we can
every day see illustrations of the words of Solomon in the book of
Proverbs about "divers weights" and "false balances." The most of the
shopkeepers do not have proper weights of iron or brass, but use ordinary
cobblestones and pebbles. Only a few days ago I bought some walnuts and
the grocer weighed them so many stones' weight! Do you know what a "stone"
weight is. Maybe you had better look it up in your dictionary. That
covered kettle near the scale-pans on top of the little box contains
_semn_, which is the Arabic name for sheep's fat. You would hardly believe
me if I told you what a lot of this greasy yellow stuff the boys and girls
eat on their rice, and how much is used in an Arab kitchen. It is sold by
weight, just as well as all other things, even _milk_ in Arabia. If we
wait long enough you will see Fatimah and Mirjam and the other girls come
with empty bowls to buy so many pennies' worth of grease.
Do you notice that the shop has queer little doors on the lower part of
the front opening? The other part of the shop is closed by a flap-door
that does not show on the picture. This is hinged from the top and is used
when the shop is open as a sort of blind to keep off the sun or the rain.
When the shopkeeper leaves his shop for a half hour or so he hangs a sort
of fish-net over the opening of his shop and never needs to lock it. This
is a curious custom, and I have often wondered how the shops were safe
from stealing boys or robbers in such cases. It is one more instance of
how different the East is from the West.
The shopkeepers generally close their shops at sunset, and only in a very
few places are there people who buy and sell or go about to do shopping
by lamplight. Our grocer on the corner has provided for emergencies, and
the large Arabian lantern ought to light up all his little shop.
Across the street is the place where they sell crockery. The salesman is
out, but his boy, as you see, has taken the opportunity to eat some
apples. I wonder whether he got them at the grocer's?
[Illustration: ARAB BOY IN A CROCKERY SHOP. (Float this image to the
right.)]
His father sells water-jugs and jars made of porous earth. Oh what a
blessing those jars are to all the people of this hot and dry country. We
have no ice in Arabia and so no refrigerators; the wells are never very
deep and the water comes a long distance. So if it were not for the
crockery man and his water-jugs we could never drink _cold_ water. But
just pour the water in one of these earthen pots and hang it in the wind
and then in a few minutes the water gets cold. We missionaries always have
such water-jars hanging or standing in our windows to catch the breeze.
Perhaps this kind of water-cooler is very old, and Solomon himself looked
at one when he wrote the words: "As cold waters to a thirsty soul so is
good news from a far country."
VI
BLIND FATIMAH
It was on a Sunday afternoon that I first met Blind Fatimah and greeted
her with _Salaam aleikum_ and she answered _aleikum es salaam!_ "Peace be
to you and on you be peace." I asked if she could read. She said she could
"read by heart," but could not see anything. She at that time could repeat
twenty-six chapters of the Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedans. Now
I think she can repeat it nearly all; it contains one hundred and fourteen
chapters. Some are very short and others are very long; some parts of the
book are very good, but most of it is a jumble of events and of things
that never happened--all mixed up topsy-turvy.
A slave woman was Fatimah's teacher and now she is helper in the school of
this teacher. She is the prompter, and always begins each sentence of the
recitation, and the other children follow on. If any mistakes are made,
she will instantly correct them.
She is a peculiar looking girl and she is not pretty. Her clothes consist
of cast off garments given her by others. Her head is generally covered
and wrapped up in a black muslin veil; then she has an _abba_ or Arabian
cloak of very green-black cashmere; then under that a many coloured
garment called a _thobe_; it is square in pattern with armholes and
sleeves nearly a yard wide. The ends of these wide sleeves are deftly
taken and thrown over the head to form a sort of tight-fitting cap.
Underneath this garment is a kind of dressing gown with tight-fitting
sleeves. Such is Fatimah's wardrobe. She wears no shoes, not even sandals.
Would you like to walk in the hot sand with no covering for your feet?
Sometimes I visit the school where Fatimah teaches the smaller girls A, B,
C. It is a topsy-turvy school indeed. The object seems to be to make as
much noise as possible; the pupils sit on the floor with a small stand or
trestle (like a saw-buck!) in front of each one to hold their Korans out
of which they read. The first pupil begins a sentence at the top of his,
or her, voice and then in a sort of refrain it is taken up by all the
others. The teacher sits outside the school very often sewing or preparing
a meal or entertaining visitors; for the schoolhouse is an ordinary mat
hut dwelling. If however a pupil makes a mistake in reading she hears
instantly and corrects it.
When the hours of prayer come around (the Moslems you know pray five times
a day) lessons are dropped. One day I called at the school at the time of
afternoon prayer. All the children had run down to the sea, to wash their
faces and hands and feet, so as to be quite pure outwardly, when repeating
Mohammed's prayers.
In the accompanying picture of a Moslem boy praying you will see what
those forms are and how much _form_ there is to go through. Blind Fatimah
stood with her hands clasped, looking upward with those sightless eyes,
her lips moving. Then she fell on her knees, with the little, thin hands
spread out; then she bowed down until her forehead touched the earth,
continuing in that position for a little time; then she got up, and with
another upward look and motion of the lips, the devotions were ended.
[Illustration: HOW A MOSLEM BOY PRAYS.]
I prayed there, too, that her eyes might be opened to see Jesus as her own
Saviour, and that she might know Him as the _Son of God_, and not merely
as one of the many prophets mentioned in the Koran. It seemed such a sad
sight to see this blind child, doubly blind because her religion is false,
and she is resting on a false hope.
She always listens when I tell her, or read to her about God, and Jesus
Christ the Saviour. And if you would help together by your daily prayers,
perhaps soon God will give the answer. Would it not be blessed for you and
me if some day blind Fatimah should have opened eyes; not to see the date
groves, and the sea, and the beautiful sunsets of Bahrein, but far
more--to see Jesus' face and to follow Him by leading others to Him?
"For thousands and thousands who wander and fall,
Never heard of that heavenly home;
I should like them to know there is room for them all,
And that Jesus has bid them to come.
I long for the joy of that glorious time,
The sweetest and brightest and best,
When the dear little children of every clime
Shall crowd to His arms and be blest."
VII
DATES AND SUGAR-CANE
This is the sweetest chapter in the book. The pictures are enough to make
one's mouth water and give one an appetite for Arabian dates. I do not
suppose there is a boy or girl in England or America that has not eaten
the fruit of the Arabian palm tree; but how many of you know the taste of
sugar-cane?
In many parts of Arabia, especially at Busrah and along the river Tigris,
you can see the sugar-cane sellers sit by the wayside and dispose of this
Arabian stick-candy to the boys and girls in exchange for coppers. The
woman in the picture has chosen the shelter of a date tree and beside the
tall bundles of cane she has oranges for sale as well. The sugar-cane is
cut into pieces and sold "by the knot"; that is, by the length of the
stick from one knot to the next. It is not expensive and I have seen even
the very poorest children suck their cane on the way home as happy as
sugar can make them. The sugar-cane is a kind of grass but it grows to
twice the height of a boy and is over two inches in circumference. The
stems are smooth, shining and hard on the outside, but inside they are
porous and the pores are full of sugar sap. The sugar-cane first came from
India, but the Arabs spread its cultivation as far as Morocco and Sicily;
so that it is no wonder that the word "sugar" itself comes from the
Arabic. Yet it shows how ignorant the Arabs are to-day because, although
they have sugar-cane, _their_ sugar nearly all comes from Europe. They do
not know how to manufacture it and therefore eat the sugar-cane raw.
[Illustration: WOMAN SELLING SUGAR-CANE.]
Sweeter than sugar-cane and much more plentiful is the date. There is no
place in all Arabia where you do not see the date palm growing, and seldom
can you eat a meal in any part of the country but dates are part of the
bill-of-fare. In fact thousands of people in Arabia have nothing but dates
to eat from January to December! So plentiful are they that even donkeys
and camels are fed on dates in some districts.
Many of the dates you buy in your own country come from Arabia. On the
best kind of dates which come in wooden boxes you will find Muscat or
Busrah stamped to show from what place they were shipped. There are very
many kinds of dates in Arabia, and only a very few sorts are sent abroad.
Some of them are too delicate to stand the long voyage and others are
found only in small quantities. I do not think any of the dates that reach
America equal those we pick from the palm tree ourselves here in
Arabia--no more than dried apple rings taste as good as ripe juicy sweet
apples from the orchard. When the dates ripen in September they are
picked, sorted, and then packed in layers by the Arab women and boys who
get paid for this work. Large steamships are loaded down with these boxes
and many of them leave Busrah every year with no other cargo than dates.
[Illustration: DATES GROWING ON A DATE PALM.]
The date tree is very beautiful. I think it is the most beautiful of all
the palms. It is no wonder that a palm branch is the symbol of victory in
the Bible and that the psalmist compares the life of a righteous man to a
palm-tree! How straight and beautifully proportioned is the tall trunk of
the tree. It is an evergreen and is always flourishing winter and summer.
It is a lovely sight to see the huge clusters of ripening fruit,
golden-yellow or reddish-brown, amid the bright green branches. Along the
rivers in the north of Arabia, at Hassa and in Oman, date orchards stretch
for miles and miles as far as you can see. Some of the Arabs have such
large date gardens that they do not know the number of their trees. How do
you suppose they climb the tree? The Arabs have no ladders and indeed it
would be hard to make a ladder long enough to reach to the top of a tall
palm tree. So they use a rope band which goes around the trunk of the tree
and around their waist; it is shoved up little by little and the Arab puts
his bare feet on the rough bark of the tree and so climbs up as easily as
a monkey. The palm tree is perhaps the most useful tree in the world.
Every part of it is used for something or other, and I do not see how
Arabia could get along without palm trees. The fruit is prepared in many
different ways for food. The date stones are used by the Arab children in
playing checkers and other games on the smooth sand. They are also ground
up into a coarse kind of meal and this is good cattle-food. The branches
of the date tree are long and strong and thin just like a piece of rattan.
From them the carpenters make beds, tables, chairs, cradles, bird-cages,
reading-stands, boats, crates, kites and a dozen other useful things. The
leaves are woven into baskets, mats, fans and string. From the bark
excellent fibre makes rope of all sizes. Not a bit of the tree is wasted.
Even the blossoms are used to make a kind of drink and the old musty fruit
that cannot be eaten is made into date syrup or date vinegar.
In one of the pictures you see the fire wood market at Busrah. The long
branches you see are sold for kindling wood and they make a splendid fire.
The heavier parts of the tree are also used for fuel and the donkeys are
loaded with these date knots and date sticks in baskets. It is a busy
scene and, what with braying of donkeys and shouting of the
wood-merchants, there is enough noise too.
[Illustration: FIRE WOOD MARKET, BUSRAH.]
There is one more blessing that comes from the palm tree and which we have
forgotten. That is shade. Arabia is a hot and dry country. The summer sun
is much more piercing than in America and the summer is much longer. When
you travel a long camel journey across the desert, oh how good it is to
come to a grove of palm trees and rest! Such a place is called an _oasis_
and underneath the palms there are always springs of water. I can well
understand how happy the children of Israel were after their journey in
the desert, when they came to Elim where "there were twelve wells of
water and threescore and ten palm trees." In summer time many of the town
Arabs leave their houses in the city and go to camp out in the
date-gardens to enjoy the cool shades. The Arab poets have written many
poems in praise of their favourite tree and fruit, but none of them are so
funny as these lines which Campbell wrote from Algiers where the date tree
also flourishes and with which we will end this chapter:
"Though my letter bears date as you view
From the land of the date-bearing palm
I will palm no more puns upon you."
VIII
THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEWING MACHINE
In the blue waters of the Persian Gulf there lies a coral island called
Bahrein. At a few hundred yards to the northeast of it is a still smaller
island shaped like a pack-saddle, where palm trees and white coral rock
houses are reflected in the salt water at high tide. The little island
town is called Moharrek, that is, the "Burning Place," because it is very
hot there in summer. After sailing across in a boat one day, and wending
our way through a dirty bazar full of flies and Arabs, we were directed to
the house of the man called "The Shepherd of the Sewing Machine." His real
name is Mohammed bin Sooltaan, but nobody knows him by any other name or
title than _Räee el karkhan_, which literally means shepherd of the sewing
machine. Let me tell you his story and how he got that queer name.
Years ago, as pilot on the native boats that sail from Bahrein to Bombay,
Calcutta, Zanzibar and Jiddah, he had experience of a wider world than the
little island where he was born. But the life was a hard one and his wages
were small. Moreover, the coming of steamships up the Gulf took away the
profit of the sailing craft, and so Mohammed fared from bad to worse. He
loved an Arab lass with plaited, well-greased locks of hair and a pleasant
face, but her father asked a larger dowry than he could ever pay.
An Arab young man must always pay a good price to the father of his
sweetheart before he is allowed to marry her. But this Mohammed was too
poor to pay the price asked. What a queer topsy-turvy custom it is for a
man to buy his wife just as he buys a horse or a camel! The Arabs often
ask how much a wife costs in America and wonder that we are not allowed by
the Christian laws to send away our wives and marry others.
Mohammed could not stay at home so he once more went in a ship to Jiddah,
the port to Mecca, where pilgrims from all the Moslem world exchange
thought and money for bad bread and fanaticism. And yet even here the
civilisation of the West tries to enter. Wandering through the bazars
Mohammed for the first time saw a sewing machine, in the hands of an
Indian tailor. A marvel to the sailor fisherman, indeed! Almost as great a
miracle to him as the Koran. The more he looked the more he coveted, and
he could not pass the place without reckoning up the possible profits of
such an investment should he return with it to his native island. The
result was that he forswore the sea and preferred another kind of wheel to
that of the pilot. With many mutual _wallahs_ the bargain was concluded
and the machine reached Bahrein. It was the first on the islands, and all
the sheikhs came to see its marvellous build and wonderful work. Mohammed
has a Western head on Eastern shoulders, and there was not a screw or
tension from treadle to shuttle, which he did not learn the use of. It is
unnecessary to state at the cost of how many broken needles he became
proficient. Amid cries of _ajeeb, ajeeb_, the first Arab shirt was
stitched together, and even the youngsters on the street imitated the
whirrr-clic-whirrr of the machine. As for Mohammed, he sewed on, and while
his sandalled feet worked the treadle his mind worked out a problem
something like this: Three long-shirts a day and an _abba_, at one _kran_
per shirt and two for the abba, thirty-five krans per week, how long will
it take to pay the dowry? An _abba_ is a large over-garment worn by both
men and women in Arabia. It is like a cape or overcoat but has no sleeves
nor buttons. The Arabs in Bahrein put a great deal of pretty embroidery
work on these garments and some of them are worth twenty or thirty
dollars. But the sewing is done very cheaply. A kran is a Persian coin
worth about ten cents; can you figure out how much Mohammed earned in a
month?
The Shepherd of the Machine kept working away and when his hopes grew
strong he sang at his work. In a few months he paid a visit to the Mullah
(the Moslem priest or teacher), and that same night the Arab fiddles and
drums rang out merry music around the palm-leaf hut of his beloved bride.
But the music of the machine sounded still sweeter next morning. Daily
bread, with rice, fish and dates, and on rare occasions even mutton, all
came out of the machine. He loved the very iron of it and, as he told us,
read a prayer over it every morning: _Bismillahi er rahman er raheem._ His
was the only machine, and a small monopoly soon makes a capitalist. His
palm branch hut was exchanged for a house of stone; and Allah blessed him
greatly. No shepherd was ever more tender to his little lambs than
Mohammed to the old machine.
When we entered the house on our first visit, there stood the machine! Not
much the worse for wear, and with "_Pfaff_. C. Theodosius,
Constantinople," still legible on the nickel-plate. But the old machine
had found a rival. By its side stood another make of machine which looked
strangely familiar to American eyes. It was while comparing the machines
and drinking Arab coffee that we learned from Mohammed why he prized the
old one as better. "Wallah," he said, "I would not sell it for many times
its original price. There is blessing in it, and all I have comes from
that machine, praise be to Allah." And so we sipped his cups and heard his
story and ceased to wonder why he was called the Shepherd of the Sewing
machine. The shepherd has a brother who wants to learn English and goes to
Bombay every year--but that is another story.
There are many other sewing machines in Bahrein now, but Mohammed's was
the first, and he introduced the others. Do you not think that he should
be called the Christopher Columbus of Bahrein tailors?
IX
THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT
About one-third of Topsy-turvy Land is desert and is the home of those
Arabs that wander about from place to place and are called nomads or
_Bedouin_. The word Bedouin means a desert-dweller. But you must not think
that a desert is a flat country covered with a deep layer of sand without
trees or shrubs. Oh no! There are such deserts in Arabia too, but the
greater part of what is called desert is much more attractive and is only
_desert_ because it has no settled population and no villages. The soil is
often very good and in springtime after the rains the whole of northern
Arabia (where most of the nomads pitch their tents) is one vast prairie of
wild flowers and green grass. The Arabs of the North are rich in flocks
and herds. I am sure you can still find some who, like Job, have seven
thousand sheep and three thousand camels and a very great household. They
all live in tents and the tents of Arabia are not white and round like
circus tents but jet black and square or oblong. You remember the Bible
always speaks of the _black_ tents of Kedar. They are black because they
are woven from goat's hair which is used also for their garments and is
almost as good a waterproof covering as india rubber. But when you have to
spend a long hot day under such a roof as I have done you feel sorry for
the Arabs that they have no better protection against the blazing sun.
Everything is home-made and clumsy, but shall I tell you what I have
found? There is no warmer hospitality in all the wide world than in these
tents of Kedar. A few weeks ago I spent a Sabbath day resting by the way
in one of these tents. The women brought water to cool my head; a great
bowl of camel's milk was our drink even before they asked our errand; and
at night they killed a fat kid and made a guest meal fit for an epicure.
The Arabs of the desert are more ignorant than those of the towns, but
they are much kinder to strangers and treat their wives and children
better. Their life is rather monotonous, but they enjoy it. Like the
American Indians they prefer a tent to a house, and would rather change
their home every day than settle down as farmers. When pasture fails for
their flocks of sheep the chief gives notice and on the morrow the whole
camp has moved away. Some tribes move every month and go for a long
distance to find fresh pastures.
[Illustration: ARAB RIDERS WITH LANCES.]
The Bedouin are divided into many tribes and clans. Some of them are
friendly to each other but nearly all are at war with one another all the
year round. Robbery and murder are very frequent. Every one goes armed
with a long spear or with a gun, and many carry a war club and a sword as
well. The largest Arab tribes and the wealthiest are the _Anaeze_ and the
_Shommar_. They have many fine horses. In the picture you see a group of
them armed with their long spears. The spear of the leader is ornamented
with a tuft of ostrich feathers; these spears are often over twelve feet
long and have a sharp steel lance at the end. The Arabs are fond of
games, especially galloping their horses and playing at war. They are very
skillful riders and kind to their steeds; they do not spend much time in
grooming them and they never use a whip and seldom a bit. Their bridle is
like our halter strap, and the horse is so well trained that he needs no
iron bit in his mouth.
One of the most interesting of all the Arab tribes is called _the
Suleibi_. They are despised by all the other Arabs and seem to be of a
different race. The women of this tribe are remarkable for their beauty
and the men for their skill as blacksmiths and tinkers. They are always
sought after to do the tinkering for the Arabs of all other tribes. They
have no camels or horses but ride little donkeys and dress in gazelle
skins. Some people think that this tribe is a remnant of the Christian
population of Arabia; they have many curious beliefs and their name means,
"Those-of-the-Cross." Perhaps some day a missionary will bring them back
to a true knowledge of the Crucified One.
The nomads of Arabia are happy in springtime when there is enough grass
for their flocks and the wells of the desert are full of water. But after
the long summer drought there is often a great scarcity of food and even
famine in many parts of Arabia. Then the nomads eat anything and drink the
brackish water from the bottom of a mud pool with relish. In no country in
the world is water so costly as in Arabia; nowhere is it so carefully
used; an Arab never wastes a drop of water and looks surprised and pained
when an European traveller rinses out a cup before drinking! The nomad
Arabs eat locusts and wild honey as did John the Baptist. But I have also
seen them eat the big lizards of the desert and the jerboas--a sort of
desert rat. An Arab once stood amidst a circle of jewellers at Busrah and
said: "On one occasion I had missed my way in the desert, and having no
road-provision left, I had given myself up for lost, when all at once I
found a bag of pearls. Never shall I forget that relish and delight so
long as I mistook them for parched wheat; nor that bitterness and
disappointment when I discovered that they were real pearls!" This story
is told by a Persian poet and although it may not be true yet it teaches a
lesson. To a hungry man a handful of wheat is better than all the pearls
of the ocean.
[Illustration: PEARL MERCHANTS.]
In his tent the Arab is very lazy. His only occupation is feeding his
horses or milking his camels. The Arab girls go out to take care of the
flocks while the wife performs all the domestic duties. She grinds wheat
in the hand-mill; kneads and bakes bread; makes butter by shaking the milk
in a leather bag; fetches water in a skin; works at the loom and is busy
all the time. The Arab smokes his pipe, drinks coffee and talks to his
friends; unless he is on the march or on a robbery excursion his life
seems very lazy.
[Illustration: ARABIAN WATER-BOTTLE.]
Scarcely any of the Bedouin can read, and they have neither schools nor
mosques. The Bedouin sometimes say, "Mohammed's religion cannot have been
intended for us; it demands washings, but we have no water; alms, but we
have no money; pilgrimage to Mecca, but we are always wandering and God is
everywhere." Yet outwardly they observe the Moslem religion of which they
know so little. In our next chapter you will read how earnestly even the
nomad children pray in the desert. And I believe God loves these sons of
Ishmael and will yet bring them back to Abraham's faith. Don't you think
so too?
X
NOORAH'S PRAYER
For many days the sailing craft from Bahrein had been unloading Indian
wares at the port of Ojeir on the Hassa coast, and for many hours the busy
throng of Bedouin drivers and merchants and onlookers were loading the
caravan, emphasising their task or their impatience with great oaths,
almost as guttural and angry as the noise of the camels. At length, with
the pious cry of _Tawakalna_, "we have trusted in God," they are off.
A caravan is composed of companies, and while the whole host numbered
seven hundred camels, with merchants and travellers and drivers, _our_
company from Ojeir to Hofhoof counted only six. There was Salih and Nasir,
a second son of the desert, both from Riad; a poor unfortunate lad with
stumpy hands and feet, who limped about on rag shoes and seemed quite
happy; there was Noorah and her sister, and lastly, the missionary.
But for the shuffling of the desert sand and the whack of a driving stick
the caravan marched in silence. The sun shone full in our faces as it
slowly sank in the west, its last rays coloured the clouds hanging over
the lowlands of Hassa a bright red, and when it disappeared we heard the
sheikhs of the companies, one after the other, call to prayer. Only a part
of the caravan responded. The Turkish soldiers on horseback kept on their
way; the most pious of the merchants had already urged their beasts ahead
of the rest and had finished a duty that interfered with a speedy journey
and the first choice of location at the night encampment; some excused
themselves by quoting a Koran text, and others took no notice of the call.
Not so the Bedouin child Noorah and her younger sister. They had trudged
on foot four long hours, armed with sticks to urge on that lazy white
camel, always loitering to snatch a bite of desert-thorn with his giant
jaws. A short time before sunset I saw the two children mount the animal
by climbing up its neck, as only Arabs can, but now, at call to prayer
they devoutly slipped down. Hand in hand they ran ahead a short distance,
shuffled aside some sand with their bare feet, rubbed some on their hands,
(as do all pious Moslems in the absence of water), faced Mecca, and
prayed.
As they did then, so at sunrise and at noon and at four o'clock and sunset
and when the evening star disappeared--five times a day--they prayed. It
is not true, as is generally supposed, that women in Moslem lands do not
pray. Only at Mecca, as far as I know, of all Arabia, are they allowed a
place in the _public mosques_, but at home a larger per cent. observe the
times of prayer than do the men.
When Noorah had ended her prayer and resumed the task of belabouring the
white camel, she turned to me with a question, _"Laish ma tesully anta?"_
which with Bedouin bluntness means, "_You_, why don't you pray?" The
question set me musing half the night; not, I confess, about my own
prayers, but about hers. Why did Noorah pray? What did Noorah pray? Did
she understand that
Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of the eye when only God is near,
as well as the dead formalism of the mosque? How could I answer her
question in a way that she might well understand? And if hers, too, was a
sincere prayer, as I believe,--the prayer of an ignorant child of the
desert,--did she pray words or thoughts? What do Noorah and her more than
two million Bedouin sisters ask of God five times daily? Leaving out vain
repetitions, this is what they say:
"In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate;
Praise be to God who the two worlds made;
Thee do we entreat and Thee do we supplicate;
Lead us in the way the straight,
The way of those whom Thou dost compassionate,
Not of those on whom is hate
Nor those that deviate. Amen."
It is the first chapter of the Koran and is used by Moslems as we use the
Lord's Prayer. The words are very beautiful I think, don't you?
Whether Noorah understood what she asked I know not; but to me who saw and
heard in the desert twilight, (as under like conditions to you), the
prayer was full of pathos. The desert! where God is, and where but for His
mercy and compassion death and solitude would reign alone; the desert, a
world of its own kind, a sea of sand, with no life in it except the Living
One, and over it only His canopy of stars--God of the two worlds! And to
that God, than whom there is no other, and whom they ignorantly worship,
these sons and daughters of outcast Ishmael bow their faces in the dust
and five times daily entreat and supplicate to be led aright in the way of
truth.
They ask to be directed into the _straight_ way, but oh how crooked is the
way of God which Mohammed taught in his book! Sadder still, what a crooked
way it is that the Moslems walk! Impure words, lying lips, hands that
steal and feet that run after cruelty--these are what children in Arabia
possess. But I dare say that some of them are really sorry for their sins
and when they pray like Noorah in the desert they want to have peace and
pardon. Are they looking unconsciously perhaps for the footprints in the
desert of One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life"?
Alas, Noorah and her many sisters (your sisters, too) have never seen His
beauty nor heard of His love! They do not know that the "way of those whom
Thou dost compassionate" is the new and living way through Christ's cross
and death. They are ignorant of the awful word, "He that believeth not on
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Has God
the Merciful then not heard Noorah's prayer? Will He not answer it? Is His
mercy to these children of Abraham clean gone forever? How long they have
waited and how many of the desert children are now sleeping in little
desert graves! Do you not think God wants _you_ to carry the gospel to
them and send them teachers to learn the way of Jesus?
Think of Noorah's question, "_You_, why don't you pray?" Think of Christ's
words, _"Go tell quickly."_
"ARABIA THE LOVED."
There's a land since long neglected,
There's a people still rejected,
But of truth and grace elected,
In His love for them.
Softer than their night wind's fleeting,
Richer than their starry tenting,
Stronger than their sands protecting,
Is His love for them.
To the host of Islam's leading,
To the slave in bondage bleeding,
To the desert dweller pleading,
Bring His love to them.
Through the promise on God's pages,
Through His work in history's stages,
Through the cross that crowns the ages,
Show His love to them.
With the prayer that still availeth
With the power that prevaileth,
With the love that never faileth,
Tell His love to them.
Till the desert's sons now aliens,
Till its tribes and their dominions,
Till Arabia's raptured millions,
Praise His love of them.
--J.G.L.
XI
PICTURES WITH WORDS ONLY
You already know many curious facts about the people of Topsy-turvy Land.
Would you like to hear something about their language and their writing?
The language of this land is very old, almost as old as its camels or its
desert sands. The Moslems even go so far as to say that Adam and Eve spoke
Arabic in Paradise and they say it is called the language of the angels.
It is written from right to left just in the opposite way of this page of
English writing. The Arabic alphabet has twenty-eight letters, all of
which are considered consonants. There are marks put above and below the
line to show the sounds of the vowels; just as we wrote the word _potato_
in our first chapter.
Arabic grammar is much more difficult than English grammar, and even the
boys who attend the big Arabic college of El Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, must
find its study a bugbear. Just think of learning _fifteen_ conjugations
instead of the much smaller number in Latin or Greek! The books used in
Moslem schools would look very crude and dull to you who learnt your A, B,
C, from an illustrated primer perhaps with coloured pictures.
Strict Mohammedans do not allow their boys and girls to have pictures in
their books, because they say all pictures are idols. And yet the love for
beauty and the desire for ornament on the written or printed page was so
strong with the Arabs that they began from the earliest times to use
their alphabet to make arabesques. Arabesque is a big word and it really
means an Arab picture. But these pictures of the Arabs (which you find on
the arches of old mosques, in books and on tombstones) are ornaments or
designs made out of the beautifully curved letters of the alphabet. The
old Arab copyists and their sculptors wrote and carved the words of the
Koran, or the names of God, etc., in all sorts of ways to make pictures
_out of words only_, lest they break the law of their prophet. Here are
two examples of how pictures can be made out of letters. You have all
doubtless heard of a "wordless book"; and some of you have books without
words and full of pictures. Here is a picture made out of the Arabic
alphabet, and every curve and dot belongs to the words so curiously
written. I copied them out of an Arabic treatise on penmanship, for you.
The face is not at all pretty, and yet Moslem lads think it is very clever
to bring this likeness of man out of the four names, _Allah, Mohammed,
Ali_ and _Hassan_. These words you notice are written twice, both to the
left and to the right. What a disgrace to the holy name of God to put that
of three Arabs with it in a monograph! It is very sad to hear some Moslems
say that they trust in _these_ people to intercede for them with God. If
you have read what sinful lives these people led when they were the chief
rulers in Arabia, you will almost agree with me in calling this first
picture a Moslem idol.
[Illustration: DESIGNS MADE OUT OF ARABIC WRITING.]
There are many Moslems in Bahrein who have hanging up in their rooms these
monograms or designs. One favourite I have often seen contains only five
names: _Allah, Mohammed, Ali, Hassan and Hussein_. The people who make so
much of these descendants of Mohammed are called _Shiahs_; the other
Moslems who think they are more orthodox are called _Sunnites_.
What do you think of our second picture? Is not the design very pretty for
an embroidery pattern? The motto is written twice; once from the right and
once _backward_ from the left, the same as in the other picture. The words
are taken from the Koran and are as true as they are beautiful. _Man
yattawakil ala Allah fa hooa hasbahoo_; which means, "Whoever trusts in
God will find Him sufficient." That surely contradicts the other picture,
does it not? And yet they are both from the same copy-book. There are many
contradictions in the religion of Mohammed. I only hope that when Christ's
gospel has conquered Arabia, the name of Jesus will be written on every
mosque and in every heart; then contradiction will give way to the truth,
and whoever trusts in Christ will find Him sufficient.
Would it not be nice to make something pretty for use in the home or in
the Sunday-school, and embroider the Arabic words on it? It would be a
constant reminder of Arabia and of the beautiful motto--only an Arabic
version of Paul's words, _Our sufficiency is of God._
Our last illustration to close this chapter is an example of Arabic
every-day penmanship. It was written in the mountains of Oman, and is a
letter from a poor cripple asking for a copy of the Psalms and other
books. It was sent to our brother Peter J. Zwemer a year before he died,
when he was on a missionary journey in Oman.
[Illustration: ARABIC LETTER FROM A POOR CRIPPLE.]
XII
THE QUEER PENNIES OF OMAN AND OF HASSA
If Jesus Himself, on one occasion, said, "Show me a penny," and preached a
sermon from it, surely we may follow his example and learn something from
these strange coins which you see in the pictures at the beginning and end
of this chapter. The coin on this page comes from Oman, the home of the
Arabian camel and one of its most fertile provinces. Perhaps some of the
boys and girls can tell where Oman is and give its boundaries without
looking in the geography, but I am sure none of you can read the
inscription on the penny, and tell what it all means. Who is Fessul bin
Turkee? What is an Imam? How much is one-quarter of an Anna? And when did
this queer coin come fresh from the mint?
[Illustration: OMAN COIN.]
Let us begin at the beginning. Fessul bin Turkee, the present ruler of
Oman, lives in a large, tumble-down old castle in Muscat, and his big red
flag waves over the town every Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath. He is not
much better nor worse than his father, Turkee, or than other rulers in
Arabia, but he certainly is far more enterprising, and is generally liked
by the Arabs of Muscat. He is not however in all respects a merciful
ruler. When I visited Muscat a few years ago this petty king had a real
lion's den, like Nebuchadnezzar, and the story goes that he sometimes used
it in the same way to get rid of his enemies. He once had a steam-launch,
and even put up an electric light on the top of his castle, but both of
these modern improvements came to grief. He also started a small ice
factory to supply his household with cold water when the thermometer rises
to over one hundred degrees; but the expense was too great and so the
project melted away likewise. His last venture is more successful, and
ever since the ice factory added a P to its sign-board and became a "pice
factory," copper coins have been plentiful in Oman. A _pice_ is the Indian
name for a small copper coin, and the Arabs borrowed the word, with many
other words, from the Hindu traders. The Sultan has plenty of wives and
horses and retainers; his castle is well-supplied with old cannon and
modern rifles; huge coffee-pots pour out cheap hospitality every day; but
withal I do not think he is very happy, for he is in debt and his power is
not as extensive as it was once. Fessul's proper title is not Sultan,
although he is often so called, but _Imam_, which signifies religious
leader. It is the old title given to the political chiefs of Oman and
Zanzibar.
The word means one "who stands before," and was first used as a title for
the leader of prayer in the mosques. In Oman the religious chiefs soon
took hold of politics, and so the title has a significance now in this
part of Arabia that it never had elsewhere.
Let us get back to the penny. Its face (although being a Mohammedan coin
it really has no human _face_ because their religion forbids pictures)
bears an English as well as an Arabic inscription. The opposite side only
has the Sultan's name in Arabic. On the side that has the English words is
the legend: "Struck at Muscat in the year 1315." Yet the penny is only
three years old, for the Moslems begin to date their years from the
_Hegira_, or flight of their prophet from Mecca to Medina. This took place
in the year 622 A.D. But we must also remember that their year is several
days shorter than ours, because they have lunar months all of equal length
and only 360 days in a year.
How strange it is to read such an old date for such a recent year as 1899,
since we count time from the birth of Christ! But you must remember that
the False Prophet has had it all his own way in Arabia for thirteen
hundred years, and that the missionaries in this country are very few
indeed. Only for a very few years and in a very few places has Christ been
preached.
Now, however, even this queer little penny can bear witness to the fact
that the gospel has come to Oman. It is worth one-quarter of an anna;
there are sixteen annas in a rupee, and a rupee is worth about
thirty-three cents. Not a big value, is it? But for four of these coins
the poorest boy in Muscat can buy a complete gospel of Matthew. The
shopkeeper must take in a great many of them, for last year one thousand
four hundred and thirty-three such gospels and other portions of the Bible
were sold in this part of Arabia and paid for by these coppers.
Another interesting fact to notice is that part of the inscription on the
coin is English. Coming events cast their shadows before. England's power
in checking the cruel slave trade and rooting out piracy on the coasts of
Arabia has made its influence felt. An English primer is sure to follow a
penny with an English motto, and some day our mission will have a school
at Muscat for Arab boys and girls, as well as for rescued slaves. Your
American pennies and your prayers will help to bring it about. Moreover,
do you not think that if they keep on buying gospels and reading them,
Jesus Christ will some time be the true _Imam of Muscat and Oman_?
[Illustration: HASSA COINS.]
The other coin is the only _old_ coin that is at present current in
Arabia, and I leave you to decide whether it is not the oddest and
queerest penny you have ever seen. The first time I saw these queer
blacksmith-nail coins was in 1893, when I made a visit to Hofhoof, the
capital of the province of Hassa, in Eastern Arabia. The people used them,
as we do pennies, for all small purchases, but I fear such a _pointed_
coin must have been harder on their pockets than our round coins. It is
called the _Taweelah_, or long-bit, and consists of a small copper-bar of
about an inch in length, split at one end and with the fissure slightly
opened. The coin has neither date nor motto, although one can yet
occasionally find silver coins of like shape with the Arabic motto:
_"Honour to the sober man, dishonour to the ambitious."_ The coin,
although it has no date, was undoubtedly made by one of the Carmathian
rulers about the year 920 A.D. This was more than five hundred years
before Columbus discovered America! The Carmathians were a very fanatical
sect of Moslems. You remember reading in chapter three how they took the
black stone from Mecca?
Well, these people had this province as the centre of their power and here
they struck these peculiar coins. I have heard it said that they were so
opposed to images and faces on money that their leader devised this long
bar-like shape for his coins to prevent any one from making images on
them!
At any rate the Carmathians were very brave warriors. When Abu Tahir,
their first leader, attacked Bagdad with only 500 horsemen he was met by a
messenger from the city saying that 30,000 soldiers were guarding the
gates. "Yes," said Abu Tahir, "but among them all there are not three such
as these." At the same instant he turned to three of his companions
commanding one to plunge a dagger into his own breast, another to leap
into the rushing Tigris river and the third to cast himself down a
precipice. They obeyed without a murmur. "Relate," continued the general,
"what you have just seen; before evening your leader shall be chained
among my dogs." No wonder that with such absolute obedience, the
Carmathians terrified all Arabia with their army.
As I handle their old coins and think of the past, I sometimes wonder how
much Our Great Captain, Christ Jesus would accomplish had He soldiers
equally obedient and brave as did the Carmathian general, in redeeming
Arabia from its long darkness and bloodshed. It is nineteen hundred years
ago that He commanded us: "Go ye into all the world and preach the
gospel."
But even now there is no one preaching the gospel in Hassa nor in all the
interior of Arabia. Why?
XIII
ARAB BABIES AND THEIR MOTHERS
An Arab baby is such a funny little creature! In Christian lands babies,
as soon as possible, are given a warm bath and dressed with comfortable
clothing. But in Arabia the babies are not washed for many days, only
rubbed over with a brown powder and their tiny eyelids painted round with
collyrium. They are wound up in a piece of calico and tied up with a
string, just like a package of sugar. Their arms are fastened by the
bandage so that they cannot possibly move them. The Arab mothers say that
if the arms and legs of babies were left hanging loose the poor things
would never sleep. A small, tight bonnet for the head completes the baby's
wardrobe. A few blue beads or buttons are sewn on the front of this cap to
keep off the evil-eye, for Moslem women all believe that if a stranger
looks at a baby it may turn sick and die.
On the day when the baby is named a sacrifice is slain and eaten and
silver offerings are given to the poor, equal to the weight of hair on the
infant's head. The poor baby's hair is all shaved off to be weighed in the
balance. Poor people who cannot afford this offering omit the custom.
Charms are placed on the arms or around the neck of the child. A few
verses from the Koran are written out and put in a leather or silver case
and also tied around the arm or neck of the baby. If the child shows signs
of illness the mother makes it swallow some of the Koran. That is, a
portion is written out and the ink is washed off with water and this dirty
water is taken by the patient. A prescription was sent to me once when I
was ill by a Moslem _mullah_, or teacher, of this character and he was
quite certain I would recover if I drank it. I am glad to say I got better
without the ink medicine.
[Illustration: DATE-STICK CRADLE.]
When the baby is forty days old and has received its name a new date-stick
cradle is triumphantly brought home from the market and the new baby
placed in it. And then Master or Miss Arab will get such a violent rocking
that no Christian baby could stand. The ground is uneven, for there are no
wooden floors in Arabia, and the rockers are nearly straight so that you
can imagine it is not the pleasantest thing in the world to be rocked in
an Arab cradle. In the picture you can see just what a date-stick cradle
is like.
Arab babies cry a great deal; what with sand storms and flies and other
insects they generally have sore eyes and apparently need strong treatment
to make them quiet and give their mothers and sisters time to grind the
wheat and churn the butter. Everything is made fresh each day in an Arab
household. The rice must be cooked for the daily meal, the wheat ground
for bread, and the milk put into the leather churn. These people have no
ice chest, not even cupboards, many of them, so the coffee is freshly
roasted and pounded in a mortar for breakfast. The flour is taken to the
hand-mill and butter comes out of the churn every day fresh. Then the
mother will have to draw the daily supply of water and wash the few
clothes at the well. The better classes have their slaves to do the hard
work but the Bedouin women and the poor have to do all the toil and never
get a rest. Rich and poor are alike in not having any intellectual
pleasures. Few can read and even those who can read, are able to read only
the Koran and the Moslem traditions. The children have no primers or
picture-books, and no Arab mother ever has a newspaper or a magazine. She
has never heard of such things. Arab women do not know anything of the
many interests and pleasures that occupy the time of women in Christian
lands.
[Illustration: WOMEN GRINDING AT THE MILL.]
Would you like to know how they make bread in Arabia? First the wheat is
sifted and cleaned and then it is put into one of the hand-mills. It
consists of an upper and nether millstone with a hole in the upper one and
a wooden handle. Two women usually sit and grind because the stone is
heavy and they love to talk while they work. One swings it half way and
the other pulls it around. Then the coarse flour is taken out and put into
a bowl with water and salt and mixed to the right consistency. A piece
of this dough is then taken between the hands and gradually beaten until
it is about the thickness of a book cover and twelve inches in diameter--a
round, flat cake of dough. The oven is usually under ground and is shaped
like a large jar with the mouth above the ground a little. A fire is built
_inside_ the oven and when the sides of the oven are quite hot the fire is
allowed to die out. Then the large pan cakes of bread are deftly clapped
on to the side of the oven until the space is covered and one by one the
cakes are taken out when done. In some houses they have a shallow oval pan
which is placed over an open fire and on this the cakes are baked. The pan
is put on the fire upside down, so even here we are again in Topsy-turvy
Land. Twenty or thirty of these flat loaves are baked at one time, for a
hungry Arab can eat five or six at one meal.
[Illustration: BEDOUIN WOMEN EATING THEIR BREAKFAST.]
Now the men come in to eat the food that the housewife has prepared. With
a short prayer called _bismillah_ they begin and then shove the rice and
meat or the bread and gravy into their mouths as fast as they can.
Whatever is left when the men get through is for the women. You can see a
group of Arab women in the picture eating their meal from one common dish
in front of their tent. They use their hands instead of spoons or forks
but get along very well and always wash before and after their simple
meal.
Now the women always have to wait on their husbands and eat by themselves.
When things get right side up in this dark land we hope to see the whole
family sitting down together and taking their meal with joy and
thanksgiving.
XIV
BOAT-BUILDERS AND CARPENTERS
Sinbad the sailor died long ago but the sea he sailed is still called the
Persian Gulf and is just as full of curious islands as it was in his time.
The boats are also just like Sinbad's and the sailors sing the same songs,
I think, for there are very few changes in the almost changeless East. The
Bahrein harbour-boat is built on the islands, out of timber from India and
masts from Ceylon. But the sailcloth and the ropes are made on this our
island home. All boats of this kind carry a good lot of passengers, draw
very little water and are fast sailing craft; so that even the American
boy whose father owns a yacht would not speak with contempt of one of
these boats. In fact I have heard English sea captains who had drunk salt
water for years say that they never saw better harbour boats in a storm
than these of Bahrein.
[Illustration: CARGO BOATS, BAHREIN.]
In another kind of boat the pearl-divers of the Gulf go out to their hard
toil and costly labour. One of them costs about four hundred _rupees_,
that is about one hundred and thirty dollars. You do not think that is
dear, do you, for a boat that holds a crew of twenty? But the cost of
diving for pearls is not in the boat or the apparatus; it costs lives.
Many of the divers are eaten by sharks before they return with the year's
pearl harvest; others lose limbs and health. I wish you could see the odd
shaped oars the Arabs use in these boats. They consist of a round pole
with a sort of barrel-head or spoon shaped board tied to one end. The boat
builders always use twine and rope rather than nails or screws to put
their boats together. The boys of Bahrein can make beautiful sailing boats
to play with out of bits of date-stick and strings.
[Illustration: RIVER BOAT, BUSRAH.]
Each fishing boat has a sort of figure-head and this is generally covered
with the skin of a sheep or goat. This animal is sacrificed on the day
when the boat is first launched, just as we give the boat a name and put
flags on it. It is a very old custom to offer a blood sacrifice when a
boat is first put into the water.
Not only in the villages on the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf are there boat builders and sailors; Arabia has two large rivers that
help to make its northern boundary and they are highways of traffic.
Our picture shows a river boat on the canal at Busrah. It goes the long
journey from Busrah to Bagdad over five hundred miles or even to Hillah
and the other towns on the Euphrates river. This kind of boat has a cabin
in the bow and can carry a large cargo of wheat or wool. It sails by all
the interesting country which was once the home of Abraham and is still
called Mesopotamia.
The largest boats used by the Arabs are called _dhows_ or _buggalows_. You
will hear something more about these boats in the chapter on the slave
trade.
The carpenters of Arabia, like the boat builders, work in a very
old-fashioned way. But they are much less skillful in their work. You
often see well-built boats but never a well-made door or a window that
shuts properly. Perhaps the fault is with their tools and perhaps they are
not as skillful as they once were in using them.
The Arab carpenter uses no bench or vise; he squats upon the ground in the
shade of some old building or tree and carries all his tools in a small
basket with him. He has four hands instead of the two hands of an American
carpenter, for his feet are bare and he can work as well with his toes as
you can with your fingers. It is wonderful to see how an Arab carpenter
can hold a board with his toes while his hands are busy sawing or planing
it!
I never see one of these carpenters using his toes so cleverly without
thinking that we who wear shoes and stockings and only use our feet for
walking have lost one of the powers that the Arabs still possess. A
carpenter's handsome handiwork in Arabia should be called his _toe_some
_toey_-work; don't you think so? In the picture at the end of this chapter
you see an Arab carpenter's tools. His saw is exactly opposite to an
ordinary saw as the teeth all point the wrong way! But you know he _pulls_
the tool so it is all right. The plane has four handles instead of one.
The gimlet is like ours but instead of a brace and bit to make holes, the
Arab uses a fiddle-string stretched on a bow which he twists once or
twice around his borer, or auger-bit. Then he fiddles away until he has
made a hole.
[Illustration: SAWING A BEAM.]
It is very strange to see two Arab carpenters sawing a beam as you find
them in the picture.
Time is not valuable in the East because the days are long and life is
easy and the people are never in a hurry. Never do anything to-day that
can be done to-morrow is their motto. So they spend a half hour in fixing
the beam on a tripod; then they pull and push and push and pull the great
clumsy saw blade up and down and in an hour or so the beam is cut in two.
What would such carpenters say if they were to visit an American sawmill
and see the gang-saw cut six boards out of a log at once just as easy as
your mother cuts a cheese? Arabia and its carpenters are very far behind
us in civilisation. The whole country is in need of schools and industrial
missions so that the Arab boys may learn to handle tools and make
furniture and build houses.
[Illustration: AN ARAB CARPENTER'S TOOLS.]
In America there is hardly a boy living but he can drive a nail and saw
off a board and put up a shelf. In Arabia only carpenters' sons can do
these things; the ordinary boy does not even know how to use a jack-knife;
he never had one. A short definition of Arabia would be "a land without
tools." Ritter, the great geographer, calls Arabia "the anti-industrial
centre of the world," which is only the same definition in other words.
XV
ARABIC PROVERBS AND ARABIC HUMOUR
The people of Topsy-turvy Land, like all orientals, are very fond of
proverbs and short, bright sayings. You know that even to-day there are
men who go about in the coffee shops of Arabia to tell stories, just as
you have read in the Arabian Nights. Some of their stories are very
interesting and some of their proverbs are wise. Others are not
interesting and many of their stories are too bad to repeat. Even some of
their proverbs bear the mark of their topsy-turvy religion and are only
half true. Judge them for yourself. Here are fifty examples; which do you
think is the best proverb among them? Are they all good?
First seek your neighbour, then build your house.
First get a companion, then go on the road.
Whoever dies in a strange land, dies a martyr.
When the judge is oppressive, the very air is, too. Don't cut your head
off with your tongue.
Keep your dog hungry and he will follow you.
Leave off sin, then ask forgiveness.
Every horse knows its rider.
Talk is feminine, but a good answer is masculine.
With little food a bed tastes good.
A trotting dog is better than a sleeping lion.
Every girl is beautiful in her father's eyes.
His tongue is sweeter than dates but his hands are as hard as sticks.
There is no perfume after the wedding.
Clouds do not fear the barking of dogs.
A bird catches a bird.
Poverty is the mother of deceptions.
The fruit of haste is repentance.
That man is like the _Kaaba_; he goes nowhere but every one comes to him.
The tongue of a fool is the key to his destruction.
The needle clothes others but is itself naked.
If the owl were game to eat, the gunner would not have passed by the
ruined castle.
Happy is the man whose enemy is wise.
Time is stingy of honour.
The best generosity is quick.
If your neighbour is honey, don't lick him all up.
If you don't know a man's parents look at his appearance.
What a strange world if all wool were red!
Fall but don't bawl.
Your enemy will love you when the ass becomes a doctor.
Wait, donkey, till the grass grows.
A loaned garment is not warm.
He is a hard man; his name is Rock, son of a Cliff.
The oppression of a cat is better than the justice of a rat.
While I was fishing, I was caught.
A blacksmith came to shoe the Pasha's horse and a frog in the pond stuck
out her foot too.
One nettle seed will ruin a garden.
Who speaks the whole truth will get a broken head.
What's the good of a house without food?
Ask experience but don't neglect the doctor.
She wears seven veils but has no modesty.
He fasted a year and breakfasted on an onion.
A false friend is an open enemy.
They gave me no food, but the smoke from their kitchen blinded me.
When the lion is away, the hyenas play.
They said to the blind man, throw away your stick; he replied, why desert
an old friend?
Haste is of the devil; deliberation, of God.
They put the dog's tail in the press forty years, and when it came out it
still had a curl.
Lucky days do not come in a bunch.
Look for a thing where you lost it.
Some of these resemble our own proverbs and others may perplex you at
first. Of course they are all better in Arabic than in the translation.
The people of Arabia seldom or never engage in practical jokes, but they
are often very witty in their remarks. The Caliph Mansur once met an Arab
on the desert and said to him: "Give thanks to God who has caused the
plague to cease that ravaged thy country."
"God is too good," the Arab answered, "to punish us with two such scourges
at the same time as the plague and thy government."
An Arab poet sent his book to a famous author. "Dost thou want fame?"
said the latter, "then hang thy book up in the market-place where all can
see it."
"But how will they know the author?"
"Why, just hang yourself close to the book!"
Here is another story that is told about a Moslem preacher. One Friday
when the people were gathered in the mosque to pray and to hear the
sermon, he got up in the pulpit and asked the audience if they knew what
he intended to preach about.
"No," they replied.
"Well, then, I shall not tell you," and he stepped down. The next Friday
he asked the same question, and now, taught by experience, they answered:
"Yes, we know."
"Well, then, I need not tell you," and again he stepped down.
The third Friday when the same question was put, the people said, "Some of
us know and some don't know."
"In that case," said the preacher-wag, "let those of you who know tell
those that don't know." And again there was no sermon.
And now to close this chapter here is a very topsy-turvy story with a
puzzle in it:
The Arabs relate that when the prophet Jonah fled from Joppa to Tarshish,
there were thirty passengers, all told, in the ship. The storm grew very
fierce, and out of fear, the captain determined to throw half the crew
overboard, that is, fifteen men. But he knew that fifteen of the thirty
were true believers, and fifteen were infidels, and among them, Jonah
also. To avoid suspicion and accomplish his purpose he put the thirty men
all in a row in such a way that by counting out every ninth man, the
believers alone remained and the unbelievers were all of them one by one
cast into the sea.
This is the way he arranged them; every _dot_ stands for an _unbeliever_,
and the strokes for believers--thirty altogether.
[Illustration: PUZZLE OF THE THIRTY MEN.]
You begin to count from the left, as the captain did, and if you mark out
every ninth man you can keep on counting out the ninth men until only
upright strokes are left.
From your knowledge of arithmetic, can you tell me the reason of this
puzzle?
The Arabs remember the puzzle by some verses in which every dotted letter
stands for an unbeliever and those that have no dots stand for Moslems.
You see that even the story of Jonah and the whale is topsy-turvy out in
Arabia!
XVI
GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH
In olden times Arabia was a much more important country than it is to-day.
Before there were large seagoing ships, all the trade between India,
Persia, even China, on the east, and Egypt on the west, was carried on
camels. The caravans at that time used to cross Arabia in all directions,
and the men who drove these camel-trains grew wealthy, as railroad
magnates do to-day. We read about this early traffic on these highways of
the desert in the Old Testament as well as in the old Greek histories. The
province of Yemen was celebrated for its wealth and civilisation as early
as the time of Solomon. It was then called Sheba and the old capital was
called Marib, a little northeast of the present city of Sanaa. There are
still many extensive ruins and inscriptions which testify to the height of
their civilisation. We read of one of the queens of Sheba (the Arabs say
she was named _Bilkis_) who came to prove Solomon with hard questions. She
came with a large caravan of camels bearing spices and gold in abundance;
her present to Solomon consisted of "an hundred and twenty talents of
gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones." Gold is no
longer found in Arabia but it was undoubtedly once very plentiful there.
All the old writers speak of Arabia as a-gold country. One of the Greek
geographers speaks of a stream in which large nuggets of gold were found.
Some people think Ophir was in Arabia. However that may be, the traveller
Burton explored the northwestern part of the peninsula and found old mines
and even traces of gold dust. If Job lived in the land of Midian we can
well understand how he could describe mining operations so well as he does
in the twenty-eighth chapter of his book.
[Illustration: BRANCH OF INCENSE TREE.]
Frankincense and myrrh were also carried across Arabia by the caravans,
and both of these precious gums came from Arabia itself and are still
found there. One of the oldest articles of commerce was incense. The gum
was used in sacrifices and in all the heathen temple worship as well as by
the Jews in their worship. One thousand talents' weight of frankincense
was brought every year to Darius, the Persian king, as tribute from
Arabia. The present incense country is southern Arabia, especially
Hadramaut. Here the incense tree (of which you see a small branch in the
picture) grows. The young trees are cut with a knife, and from the
incisions made in the bark a milk-like juice comes out. When it has had
time to harden, the large clear globules are scraped off into baskets and
the inferior kind that has run down the bark is collected separately. It
is shipped from Arabia to Bombay or goes out from Aden and still commands
a good price. In some Roman Catholic churches this incense is burnt every
Sunday and if you will go to a large druggist he may be able to show you
pieces of Arabian incense.
Myrrh and frankincense are frequently mentioned together. Both are
sweet-smelling gums and both came originally from Arabia. According to a
Greek legend, Myrrha was the daughter of one of the kings of Cyprus who
angered her father and when he attempted to stab her, fled to Arabia. Here
she was changed into a tree called myrrh! A few of these trees are still
found in Yemen, but myrrh is not at all as plentiful as it once was in
Arabia. It is a low, thorny, ragged-looking tree with bright green leaves.
The gum exudes from cracks in the bark near the root of the plant. When
dry it is of a rich brown colour and has a bitter taste. The word "myrrh"
in Arabic means bitter, and I think that is the origin of the name given
to the tree and not the foolish story of the Greek mythology. You must
look up all the references in the Bible to myrrh. I wonder whether the
myrrh which Nicodemus used to embalm the body of our Saviour for His
burial came from Arabia? In Matthew's gospel we read of the wise men who
came from the East to worship Jesus. "And when they had opened their
treasures they presented unto Him gifts; gold and frankincense and myrrh."
Do you not think that these wise men came from Arabia, even as the queen
of Sheba did, to see the king of the Jews? Perhaps Isaiah prophesied of
their coming when he wrote concerning Arabia: "The multitude of camels
shall cover thee the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba
shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth
the praises of the Lord." At any rate we are quite sure that the
frankincense they brought came from Arabia. There is a great deal in the
Bible about this country and there are many beautiful promises for the
redemption of its people. Arabs were present at Pentecost and the first
missionary to Arabia was the Apostle Paul. God has not forgotten His
promises and we must all pray that soon they may be fulfilled. No one has
yet been to tell the children of Hadramaut, who gather the incense-gum,
the story of Jesus' birth and of His death on the cross. There is not a
single missionary in all that country; no one has been to tell the news
that the Babe of Bethlehem is the King of Glory.
"Thou who in a manger
Once hast lowly lain,
Who dost now in glory
O'er all kingdoms reign,
Gather in the heathen
Who in lands afar
Ne'er have see the brightness
Of Thy guiding star."
XVII
SLAVES AND SLAVE TRADERS
The Arabs who in past ages were the merchants of the Orient in gold,
frankincense and myrrh, both then and now traded in slaves also. And the
cruel trade is not yet ended. Would you like to hear about some boys who
have darker skins than yours, and darker hearts, because they do not know
the Lord Jesus as their own Saviour? Well, these poor little boys were
stolen from their mothers and fathers by wicked men called Arabs, who go
from Arabia to Africa in boats to steal boys and girls and bring them here
to sell them. Each boy is sold for nearly ten pounds ($50). These men know
it is wrong in their hearts, but you see what a lot of money they make!
What does St. Paul say? "The _love_ of money is the root of all evil." And
then the religion of the Arab permits him to do this work of stealing and
selling boys and girls.
One night about two or three years ago, just as the sun was setting, some
little black boys were playing and fishing near the water on the coast of
Zanzibar, in East Africa; a man came up to them and offered them some
dates. Little black _and white_ boys are always ready to eat, are they
not? These boys took the dates and while they were eating, the man threw a
cloth over their heads and carried them off to a boat standing near. The
Arabs caught a great many in this way, and when the boat had as many as it
could carry they moved away and began to travel towards Arabia. The poor
children were kept in the bottom of the boat, all huddled together, and
given very little to eat and drink. Sometimes the sea was rough and they
were sick, so altogether their voyage in an open boat was not a pleasant
one. But "Some One" was taking notice of these children and He was going
to deliver them. Do _you_ know who was watching over them? After many days
at sea the boat came near Muscat. A servant of the British Consul saw the
boat and knew there were slaves in it. Then the Consul got ready in a
small boat and went after the big one. They had to follow nearly all night
and at last overtook the slave-dhow. The Consul pulled alongside in a
Bedden (native boat) and demanded the firearms of the Arabs. Then he bound
them and put his own sailors on board, and brought the precious cargo of
souls into Muscat harbour.
[Illustration: SLAVE GIRL IN ARABIA.]
The owner of the slave-dhow was sent to prison, and the boys and girls
were given away to Christian people to train, the missionary in Muscat
getting the largest share.
This was the origin of the rescued-slave school at Muscat. Other slaves
are caught from time to time and liberated. Sometimes they are sent to
Bombay or other places in India; a large number were once liberated at
Aden and are now in a school at Lovedale in Africa. When these poor slave
children first come from the slave ships they are very ignorant and almost
like wild animals. They need to learn everything, and even their language
is of little use to them, as they need to learn Arabic before they can get
along in Arabia. The Muscat boys first learned English from the
missionary, but it was not easy for them.
They only knew a few words when I first went to Muscat. For instance, they
called all lights, such as lamps, candles, etc., _fire_. Well, one night
we were sitting on the verandah with the lamp, reading, and Suliman came
and said _"big fire!"_ We jumped up and said "where?" Looking all around
we could not see a sign of fire. Then he said, "big fire on table." We ran
into the dining-room--still no fire. Suliman then pointed to the lamp and
said again "big fire"; so we learned by that time he wanted the lamp for
the table, as dinner was ready.
[Illustration: LIBERATED SLAVES AT BAHREIN.]
Would you like to hear how a day was spent in this Muscat school when the
boys were beginning to learn? Now the boys are all big and have scattered;
they are working as servants in different places and some are learning a
trade. But here is a description of the early days of their training: "We
are up before dawn almost, and yet the boys are up before us, and have
taken in their mats (beds), and are splashing about in the big cement bath
in the yard. They do not use towels; the sun soon dries the skin, and then
they dress with one article only, a _wazeera,_ a piece of cloth. After the
bath they clean up the schoolroom, sweep the yard; then they eat bread and
dates and drink water. When the meal is finished all the boys wash their
hands and put on their coats to come up-stairs. See how nicely they march
forward, two and two, just like the animals going into Noah's Ark. They
_halt_ in front of the harmonium 'single file'--'face about'--'toes to
line!' Now we are ready for prayers. Look, boys and girls, how quietly
these black boys stand; now we are going to sing:' 'Jesus loves me, this I
know.' They love the singing, and all make as much noise as possible.
Singing finished, we read a short passage of Scripture, and tell very
simply how Jesus loved them and died for them. They are beginning to learn
about God and who the Lord Jesus is. One morning I held up the Bible and
asked them, 'What is this?'
"They answered, 'God's Book.'
"'And what do we read about in God's Book?'
"They all answered, 'The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.' I had been
teaching them this Psalm, but I did not know how well they knew it; it was
a nice answer, do not you think so? After the scripture lesson we kneel
and pray, all the boys repeating, 'O God, wash me from all my sins in the
blood of my Saviour, and I shall be whiter than snow; give me Thy Holy
Spirit, for Jesus' sake. Amen.' Will you ask God to make the boys pray
this prayer from their hearts? You see they are only just beginning to
learn about God. Before they came to us they were quite heathen. Prayer
ended we all march into another room,--you may come too, and begin
lessons. The big boys are learning sentences now; the little ones are
still at A, B, C, 1, 2, 3. At the end of two hours of spelling, reading
and writing, a little simple drill and the morning school is ended. Some
of the boys help prepare their fish and rice for dinner, and others make
baskets. At three o'clock all march up again for sewing. And let me tell
you a secret; the smallest boy of all sews the neatest. After this the
boys get ready to go for a bath in the sea, or for a walk. When we return
we have evening prayers, and then the boys eat their supper of rice and
fish, take their mats into the garden and go to sleep."
That was the way in which eighteen rescued slave boys began to live a life
with more light, and therefore also more responsibility than their former
life as savage children in Africa.
But what of the thousands who are _not_ rescued, but are taken to places
along the coast of Arabia and sold? Their lot is miserable. In Mecca there
is a slave market where boys and girls are sold to the highest bidder. At
Sur, in South Arabia, there are still many Arabs who make money by buying
and selling poor negro children. Only last month a little negro lad called
"Diamond" told me how he had been captured and sold to a merchant in
Persia. I am very glad that I can tell you that the little lad escaped to
a British ship and is now free.
A writer who travelled in the Red Sea says that he passed hundreds of
slave-dhows. What a lot of misery that means; not only misery to the
parents of these stolen children in Africa, but to the children
themselves. There may be many slaves in Arabia who get enough to eat and
have good clothing to wear, but they always remain slaves at the best, and
are taught a false religion by their masters. I think dearly all of them
were happier at home in Africa than in dark Arabia.
It is hard to love the cruel slave trader, is it not? Yet Jesus told us to
"love our enemies." The way to root out the slave trade is to evangelise
the slave trader. The entire west coast of Arabia has not a single
missionary; no wonder that here the slave trade is carried on without
hindrance! Will you not pray for western Arabia, and also for the Arab
slave dealers that God may soften their hearts and make them stop their
bad work? And will not all the girls pray for their enslaved black sisters
in Arabia, whose lot is very miserable?
XVIII
ABOUT SOME LITTLE MISSIONARIES
Some little missionaries came to Arabia a few years before any of the
American missionaries did, and have been coming ever since. Most of them
were born in a country not far from Arabia, and yet only one of them
visited Arabia before Mohammed was born. Although they never write reports
of their work in the papers, yet I have seen a few splendid little
accounts of their work written on tablets of flesh with tears for ink. It
is just because their work is done so much in secret and in out-of-the-way
places, that they are generally overlooked and often underestimated. They
receive only bare support and no salary, and get along in the most
self-denying way by fasting and living all together, packed like herring
in a dark, close room, except when they go out into the sunshine on their
journeys.
Most of them came out in the steerage of the big ships from London, but
none of them were seasick at all throughout the entire voyage. They do not
go about two and two unless it is that one of the old ones goes hand in
hand with a younger brother for support. Generally a score or more travel
together. They never complain of being tired or discouraged, and never get
fever or cholera, although I have talked and slept with them at Bahrein
when I had fever myself. Never yet has one of them died on a sick-bed,
although they often hide away and disappear for months. On one or two
occasions I have heard of a small company of them being burned at the
stake, but I was told that not a groan escaped from their lips, nor were
their companions frightened the least bit. With my own eyes I have seen
one or two of them torn asunder and trampled upon by those who hate Jesus
Christ and His kingdom and His little missionaries. Yet the only sound to
be heard was the blasphemies of their persecutors, who could not answer
them in any other way.
It is very strange indeed, that when once one or two of them get
acclimatised and learn the language, they are bound to their work by so
many tiny cords of love that they seldom fall apart from their work or
fall out one with the other. There are more than sixty different names and
ages among them, and yet they all have one family accent. Some of them are
medical missionaries and can soothe and heal even broken hearts and
prevent broken heads. There are two ladies among them, but they seldom go
about alone, and, especially in Arabia, the men do most of the preaching.
Most of them are evangelists or apostles and teachers. And their
enterprise and push! why one of them told me the other day that he wanted
_"to preach the gospel in the regions beyond"_ Mecca, and that even there
_"every knee should bow to Jesus."_ Why, you begin to see them everywhere
in the Persian Gulf and around Muscat and Aden. Last year a few of them
went to Jiddah with the pilgrims. They dress very plainly, but often in
bright Oriental colours (one just came in all in green); on one or two
occasions I have seen them wear gold when visiting a rich man, but there
was no pride about them, and they put on no airs in their talk.
[Illustration: MISSION HOUSE AT BUSRAH.]
How many are there of these little missionaries, do you ask? Over three
thousand eight hundred and forty visited and left the three stations of
the Arabian Mission in the Persian Gulf last year. But, as I told you,
they are _so_ modest that only a score of them perhaps sent in any account
of their work, and that even was sent through a third party by word of
mouth. I have heard it whispered that a faithful record of all their
journeys and speeches is kept, but that these are put on file to be
published all at once on a certain great day, when missionaries all get
their permanent discharge. What a quiet, patient, faithful, loving body of
workers they are. Even when it is very, very hot, and after a hard day's
work, they never get out of temper as other missionaries sometimes do when
in hot discussion with a bigoted Moslem. And yet how plainly they tell
the truth--they do not even fear a Turkish Pasha; but that is because they
have very cunningly all obtained a Turkish passport and a permit to preach
anywhere unmolested.
Of course, you have guessed my riddle, or else you will want to know what
these missionaries cost and why we do not employ more of them; and who
sent them out, and to what Board they are responsible; and who buys them
new clothes of leather and cloth; and what happens to them when their
backs are bent with age and their faces furrowed with care, and when only
they themselves can read their title clear?
I think no one will have to help you guess my riddle or tell you that the
four missionaries who go about the most are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
and that the two ladies are Esther and Ruth. Now you have guessed that the
Little Missionaries are the Books of the Bible. Do you know how many there
are? How many in the Old Testament? How many in the New Testament? Perhaps
some of you know the names of _all_ the sixty-six! But it is not enough to
know the names of these Books that we have called Little Missionaries. We
must know what is in them, we must know the message they bear to this
sinful and troubled world. And we must all do our part to send out this
blessed message of peace, comfort, and eternal life. It may not be your
work to go to Arabia, but yet you have a work to do of one kind or another
for Arabia. The Bible must be sent there. And now may I ask all the boys
and girls who read this to pray for the Little Missionaries? Pray that
they may go ahead and prepare the way of the Lord all over this dark
peninsula, from the palm groves of Busrah to the harbour of Aden, and from
the sea of Oman to the unholy cities,--Mecca and Medina.
"Jesus, tender Shepherd
Thou hast other sheep
Far away from shelter
Where dark shadows creep.
Seeking Saviour, bring them home
That they may no longer roam.
"Jesus, tender Shepherd
While Thou leadest me,
As Thy little helper
Faithful may I be.
Seeking others far and wide
Drawing lost ones to Thy side."
XIX
TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN
About eighteen hundred and fifty years ago two missionaries came to a town
in Greece, called Thessalonica, and began to preach. They did nobody any
harm and only talked about the love of Jesus Christ for sinners. A great
number of people believed and attended their meetings. Some of the noble
and wealthy women of the town also became Christians and for about three
weeks the preaching went on unhindered. However, as soon as the enemies of
the gospel saw that Paul and Silas were meeting with success they did
their best to stir up trouble. A mob collected and with a great deal of
noise and shouting pulled some of the new believers through the streets,
crying: _"They that have turned the world upside down are come hither
also!"_ Just as it was in Thessalonica so it has been in every place where
the gospel has been preached. The word of God does turn the world upside
down. The gospel is powerful and its effect is often at first to stir up
the envy and hatred of men who love not God. When the heathen are
worshipping idols and enjoying sinful pleasures they like to be let alone.
A thief does not like the policeman's lantern. Those who do dark things
hate the light. The Moslem's idea of right and wrong is so crooked that he
does not like to have it exposed.
[Illustration: THE SULTAN'S SOLDIERS.]
Supposing there was a country where all the people wore their garments
wrong side out because they knew no better, and then some one came wearing
his clothes properly and trying to teach these ignorant people, would they
not think _him_ mad and say why do _you_ not turn your coat inside out?
That is the very way Moslems regard the missionary. They often tell us,
"You are so good and kind why don't you accept the true religion and
become a believer?" You must not think that the heathen or the Mohammedans
are anxious to hear the gospel. They do not know of its value and so do
not know what they miss. When they hear that the gospel demands a holy
life and forbids all swearing and lying and uncleanness, they think such a
religion too difficult and prefer their own. All their topsy-turvy ways
and thoughts seem perfectly correct to themselves until God's Spirit
enlightens them.
It is no wonder therefore that there is always opposition and trouble when
missionaries (even such quiet _little_ missionaries as we read about),
come to a village. When you want to put a thing straight that is upside
down there is sure to be an overturning. The farmer is not sorry because
his rude plow breaks the hard soil and bruises the weeds and turns all the
greensward under. Oh no; he does that to make some better green grow. Wait
three months and you will see the whole field covered with a waving
harvest of wheat. Ploughing is pretty rough work on weeds. Opening a new
mission station is pretty rough, I admit, on a false religion. And the
wise men cannot help knowing this and so they repeat the words of the old
Greeks when they see a missionary settle down in their village: "Those
that have turned the world upside down are come hither also ... saying
that there is another King, _Jesus_."
The king of all hearts in the Mohammedan world is their prophet Mohammed.
They love his name and imitate his acts to the least particular. Much more
faithfully, I fear, than we imitate Jesus, our example. The great question
in Arabia is whether Mohammed or Jesus is to rule the country. Mohammed
has had it very much his own way for thirteen hundred years, but now his
dominion is being disputed. God's providence is working in many ways to
help His gospel. I sometimes think that we might call His providence the
plow and His gospel the good seed. For example, what a strange thing it is
for the Arabs to find Christian governments interfering with their slave
trade. Does not the Koran approve of slave holders and did not Mohammed
buy and sell slaves? And then when the big merchant ships come to the
coasts of Arabia and the ignorant Arabs learn of other lands and peoples
and civilisation they cannot help losing some of their pride and
prejudice. They compare the government of England in Aden with that of the
Turks in Sanaa and then--well they feel like turning the world upside down
themselves!
The Mohammedan religion has such a strong hold in Arabia that it will not
be overcome in one day or by one battle. We must expect a long and hard
fight. Before Topsy-turvy Land becomes a Christian land there will be
martyrs in Arabia. Every Moslem who accepts Christ does so at his peril,
and yet there are those who dare to confess Christ before men. When you
read in mission reports of troubles and opposition, of burning up books,
imprisoning colporteurs and expelling missionaries you must not think that
the gospel is being defeated. It is conquering. What we see under such
circumstances is only the dust in the wake of the ploughman. God is
turning the world upside down that it may be right side up when Jesus
comes. He that plougheth should plough in hope. We may not be able to see
a harvest yet in this country but, furrow after furrow, the soil is
getting ready for the seed.
Don't some of you want to come and do a day's ploughing for the King?
There are some splendid stretches of virgin prairie yet untouched between
Bahrein and Mecca.
XX
TURNING THE WORLD DOWNSIDE UP
The story of mission work in Arabia is not very long, but it is full of
interest. From the day when Mohammed proclaimed himself an apostle in
Mecca until about sixteen years ago when Ion Keith Falconer came to Aden
as a missionary, all of Topsy-turvy Land lay in darkness as regards the
gospel. For thirteen hundred years Mohammed had it all his own way in
Arabia. Now his dominion over the hearts of men, is in dispute, and there
is no doubt that the final, full victory will rest with Jesus the Son of
God, the Saviour of the world.
Would you like to hear something, before we close this book about the
missions that are now working in this country? There are _three_ missions.
The missionaries of the Church of England began work in Bagdad about the
year 1882. Bagdad is not at all a small town. It has a population of one
hundred and eighty thousand people, and it was once a very important city.
You can read all about its ancient beauty and wealth and commerce in the
Arabian Nights. Some of the palaces that Harouner Rashid visited are still
standing. In the city there are at present sixty-four mosques, six
churches and twenty-two synagogues. One-third of the population are Jews,
and there are over five thousand Christians. Most of the latter belong to
the Roman Catholic faith, or to other twilight churches. The Roman
Catholic cathedral, which you see in the picture, is the only church in
all Northern Arabia that has a bell. Moslems do not like to hear
church-bells, and they were forbidden by some rulers of the Moslem world
long ago. The Protestant Christians meet for worship in a dwelling-house.
The Bagdad mission has a large dispensary for the sick where thousands of
Moslems and Jews and Christians come every year for treatment. Books are
sold to the people, and there is a school for boys and girls which is also
helping to _turn down_ old prejudices and _turn up_ the right side of
child-life. The Moslem children are beginning to believe that the world is
_round_ and that Constantinople is not the capital of all Europe.
The British and Foreign Bible Society is also helping to turn this part of
the world downside up. The gospel which has been buried under many
superstitions and traditions so long, is again showing its power.
_Colporteurs_ are men who carry the Bible about, offer it to the people
and read and explain it to those whose hearts are open. They have a hard
task, but if it were not for them the "Little Missionaries" would not get
along at all.
On the way from Bagdad to Busrah, we pass Amara, an enterprising village
where the people once burned books and threw stones at the missionary, but
where now the little Bible-shop of the American Mission shines unhindered,
"Like a little candle, burning in the night."
At Busrah, Rev. James Cantine began mission work in 1891, and ever since
that time he and others have been ploughing and sowing seed and waiting
for the showers that come before the harvest. It was at Busrah that Kamil
Abd el Messiah, the Moslem convert from Syria, died a witness for Christ.
Have you read the wonderful story of his life? It is full of pathos and
shows how in the heart and life of at least one Moslem the Holy Spirit
made topsy-turvy things straight. There are others like Kamil in Arabia,
but many of them are still following the Master afar off, because they
fear the persecutions of men. At Busrah, there is also a dispensary, and
here too the gospel is sold and preached and lived before the people.
Bahrein, you know, is a group of islands, and it is about six years ago
that the people first saw a missionary. Nearly three-fourths of the
population are pearl-merchants or pearl-fishers. Will you not pray that
they may learn to value the Pearl of Great Price?
A visit any morning in the week to the dispensary at Bahrein, would soon
convince you that here too the Arab world is slowly but surely turning
downside up. Women learn to their delight that they have equal right to
sympathy with men, and they need not wait until the men are helped first.
The Arabs are very ignorant of medicine and their remedies are either
foolish or cruel. To "let out the pain" in rheumatism, they burn the body
with a hot iron. All their ideas are upside down, and very few know on
which side of their body the liver is located. Now when our mission
doctors perform miracles of surgery on the maimed, and miracles of mercy
on the suffering, the result is to prepare their hearts for Christ's
message. To the fanatic Moslem a Christian is "an ignorant unbeliever."
But we may put a parody on Pope's lines and say, in their case:
"A Christian is a monster of such frightful mien
That to be hated needs but to be seen.
But seen too oft familiar with his face
They first endure, then pity, then embrace."
Many of the Moslems who in gratitude are ready to embrace a Christian
physician may yet learn to embrace Christian teaching.
Muscat in Arabic, means "the place where something falls." And the
surroundings are so rocky and steep that everything has a chance to tumble
down except the mercury in the thermometer. That is always up high. In
this hot, crowded town, the Arabian Mission opened its third station in
the year 1893. Two years before the veteran missionary-bishop, Thomas
Valpy French laid down his life here, and the fallen standard was taken up
by Peter J. Zwemer. After five years of toil in Oman, he also entered into
rest. George E. Stone, his successor in Oman, was also worthy of the
martyr's crown, and his simple grave at Muscat tells how "he arose,
forsook all, and followed Christ."
This part of Arabia is sacred because of what these three pioneers
suffered to open the door for the gospel. I do not think the King will
leave a province where He has buried so much treasure in the hands of the
enemy, do you? The work of preaching in Oman is at present full of
promise, and the people seem willing to hear. The American Bible Society
is sending the Scriptures all over Eastern Arabia.
[Illustration: MUSCAT HARBOUR.]
The last mission station in Arabia we mention, is the first that people
generally visit. Aden is a coaling station as well as a missionary centre
and passengers travelling to the Orient nearly always stop here on the
way. There are Christian churches and hospitals and government schools. At
Sheikh Ottoman, a short distance from Aden, Ion Keith Falconer, the first
modern missionary to this land, began his work. He died here also, but his
life was so full of love and sacrifice that his _work_ is still going on.
The Free Church of Scotland mission has medical work, an industrial school
for waifs and a memorial chapel. From a great distance patients come to be
cured, and Moslems to buy the Bible.
The great lighthouse on the island of Perim, near Aden, throws its light
for ten miles out on the dark sea and saves ships from the breakers. But
the light of the gospel in the Bible depot at Aden, shines two hundred
miles to the north as far as Sanaa, and three hundred miles east to
Makalla on the coast. Yet I dare say it costs more to keep up the
lighthouse at Perim (not to speak of building it) than it does to keep
open all the Bible lighthouses of all Arabia. Perhaps Keith Falconer
thought of this when he said in his farewell address:
_"We Christians have a great and imposing war office, but a very small
army. While vast continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness and
hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of heathenism and Islam, the
burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God
has placed you, were meant by Him to keep you out of the foreign mission
field."_
_Before you lay aside this book, will you not ask yourself why you should
not go out to Arabia, or to some other land yet shrouded in darkness, and
shine for Jesus?_
An Old Friend in a New Dress.
ARABIC. LITERAL TRANSLATION.
Seyyidi-'l-Fadi-'l Gani, Our Lord, the rich Saviour,
Kalbehoo yuhibbooni, His heart loves me,
Fa lahoo kooloo saghier. And to Him all little ones belong.
Yaltajee wahoo'l kadeer. He protects us and is strong.
Kad faaka hubban. Yes His love exceeds all.
Kad faaka hubban. Yes His love exceeds all.
Kad faaka hubban. Yes His love exceeds all.
Yuhibbuna Yasooa. Jesus loves you.
[Illustration: musical score]
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End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Topsy-Turvy Land
by Samuel M. Zwemer
Amy E. Zwemer
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