Topsy-Turvy Land Part 2

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 G.o.d_, 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 G.o.d, and Jesus Christ the Saviour. And if you would help together by your daily prayers, perhaps soon G.o.d 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 appet.i.te 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 gra.s.s but it grows to twice the height of a boy and is over two inches in circ.u.mference. The stems are smooth, s.h.i.+ning 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 s.h.i.+pped. 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 quant.i.ties. 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 steams.h.i.+ps are loaded down with these boxes and many of them leave Busrah every year with no other cargo than dates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 flouris.h.i.+ng winter and summer.

It is a lovely sight to see the huge cl.u.s.ters of ripening fruit, golden-yellow or reddish-brown, amid the bright green branches. Along the rivers in the north of Arabia, at Ha.s.sa 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 coa.r.s.e 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 n.o.body knows him by any other name or t.i.tle than _Raee 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 steams.h.i.+ps up the Gulf took away the profit of the sailing craft, and so Mohammed fared from bad to worse. He loved an Arab la.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+rt was st.i.tched 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-s.h.i.+rts a day and an _abba_, at one _kran_ per s.h.i.+rt 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 b.u.t.tons. 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 gra.s.s. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 gra.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 b.u.t.ter 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 was.h.i.+ngs, but we have no water; alms, but we have no money; pilgrimage to Mecca, but we are always wandering and G.o.d 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 G.o.d loves these sons of Ishmael and will yet bring them back to Abraham's faith. Don't you think so too?