ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL
_Archibald Forder_
(Time of Incident 1900-1901)
_The Boy Who Listened_
An eight-year-old schoolboy sat one evening in a crowded meeting in
Salisbury, his eyes wide open with wonder as he heard a bronzed and
bearded man on the platform telling of his adventures in Africa. The
man was Robert Moffat.
It was a hot summer night in August (1874). The walls of the building
where the meeting was held seemed to have disappeared and the boy
Archibald Forder could in imagination see "the plain of a thousand
villages," that Livingstone had seen when this same Robert Moffat had
called him to Africa many years before. As the boy Archibald heard
Moffat he too wished to go out into the foreign field. Many things
happened as he grew up; but he never forgot that evening.
At the age of thirteen he left home and was apprenticed to the grocery
and baking business. In 1888 he married. At this time he read in a
magazine about missionary work in Kerak beyond the River Jordan--in
Moab among the Arabs--where a young married man ready to rough it was
needed. He sailed with his wife for Kerak on September 3, 1891, and
left Jerusalem by camel on September 30, on the four days' journey
across Jordan to Kerak. Three times they were robbed by brigands on
this journey. Mr. Forder worked there till 1896. He then left
and travelled through America to secure support for an attempt to
penetrate Central Arabia with the first effort to carry the Gospel of
Jesus Christ there.
The story that follows tells how Forder made his pioneer journey into
the Arabian desert.
_The Adventure into the Desert_
Two pack-horses were stamping their hoofs impatiently outside a house
in Jerusalem in the early morning a week or two before Christmas.[65]
Inside the house a man was saying good-bye to his wife and his three
children. He was dressed as an Arab, with a long scarf wrapped about
his head and on the top the black rope of twisted goats' hair that the
Arab puts on when he becomes a man.
"Will you be long, Father?" asked his little four-year-old boy.
The father could not answer, for he was going out from Jerusalem for
hundreds of miles into the sun and the thirst of the desert, to the
land of the fiercest Arabs--Moslems whose religion tells them that
they must kill the infidel Christians. It was difficult to tear
himself from his wife and his children and go out to face death in
the desert. But he had come out here to carry to the Arab the story of
Jesus Christ, who Himself had died on a Cross outside this very city.
So he kissed his little boy "good-bye," wrenched himself away, climbed
on top of the load on one of the pack horses and rode out through the
gate into the unknown. He thought as his horses picked their way down
the road from Jerusalem toward Jericho of how Jesus Christ had been
put to death in this very land. Over his left shoulder he saw the
slopes of the Mount of Olives; down below across the ravine on his
right was the Garden of Gethsemane. In a short time he was passing
through Bethany where Mary and Martha lived. Down the steep winding
road amongst the rocks he went, and took a cup of cold water at the
inn of the Good Samaritan.
Then with the Wilderness of Desolation stretching its tawny tumbled
desert hills away to the left, he moved onward, down and down until
the road came out a thousand feet below sea-level among the huts and
sheepfolds of Jericho, where he slept that night.
With his face toward the dawn that came up over the hills of Moab in
the distance, he was off again over the plain with the Dead Sea on
his right, across the swiftly flowing Jordan, and climbing the ravines
that lead into the mountains of Gilead.
That night he stayed with a Circassian family in a little house of
only one room into which were crowded his two horses, a mule, two
donkeys, a yoke of oxen, some sheep and goats, a crowd of cocks and
hens, four small dirty children and their father and mother; and a
great multitude of fleas.
The mother fried him a supper of eggs with bread, and after it he
showed them something that they had never seen before. He took out of
his pack a copy of the New Testament translated into Arabic.[66] He
read bits out of it and talked to them about the Love of God.
Early next morning, his saddle-bag stuffed with a batch of loaves
which the woman had baked first thing in the morning specially for
him, he set out again.
How could a whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one saddle-bag? The
loaves are flat and circular like a pancake. The dough is spread on a
kind of cushion, the woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it,
pushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on the inner wall
of a big mud oven (out of doors) that has been heated with a fire
of twigs, and in a minute or two pushes the cushion in again and the
cooked bread falls on to it.
So Forder climbed up the mountain track till he came out on the high
plain. He saw the desert in front of him--like a vast rolling ocean of
glowing gold it stretched away and away for close on a thousand miles
eastward to the Persian Gulf. Forder knew that only here and there in
all those blazing, sandy wastes were oases where men could build their
houses round some well or little stream that soon lost itself in the
sand. All the rest was desert across which man and beast must hurry
or die of thirst. He must follow the camel-tracks from oasis to oasis,
where they could find a well of water, therefore drink for man and
camel, and date-palms.
So turning north he pressed on[67] till on the sixth day out from
Jerusalem the clouds came up with the dawn, and hail and rain, carried
by a biting east wind, beat down upon him. Lifting his eyes to the
horizon he saw ahead the sturdy castle and thick walls of the ancient
city of Bosra. Stumbling through the storm, along the narrow winding
streets, he met, to his disgust, a man whose dress showed that he was
a Turkish Government official. He knew that the Turkish Government
would be against a Christian and a foreigner going into their land.
"Who are you?" asked the official, stopping him. "Where are you from?
Where are you going?"
Forder told him, and the man said. "Come with me. I will find you and
your horses shelter at the Governor's house." Forder followed him into
a large room in the middle of which on the floor a fire was burning.
"I must examine all your cases," said the official. "Get up. Open your
boxes."
"Never," said Forder. "This is not a custom-house."
"Your boxes are full of powder for arming the Arabs against the
Turkish Government," replied the official.
"I will not open them," said Forder, "unless you bring me written
orders from the Turkish Governor in Damascus and from the British
Consul."
Off went the official to consult the headman (the equivalent of the
Mayor) of the city. The headman came and asked many questions. At last
he said:
"Well, my orders are to turn back all Europeans and not to let any
stay in these parts. However, as you seem to be almost an Arab, may
God go with you and give you peace."
So Forder and the headman of the ancient city of Bosra got talking
together. Forder opened his satchel and drew out an Arabic New
Testament, and together they read parts of the story of the life of
Jesus Christ and talked about Him till ten o'clock at night. As the
headman rose to go to his own rooms Forder offered to him, and he
gladly took, the copy of the New Testament in Arabic to read for
himself.
_Saved by the Mist_
Next morning early, Forder had his horses loaded and started off with
his face to the dawn. The track now led toward the great Castle of
Sulkhund, which he saw looming up on the horizon twenty-five miles
away, against the dull sky. But mist came down; wind, rain, and hail
buffeted him; the horses, to escape the hail in their faces, turned
aside, and the trail was lost. Mist hid everything. Forder's compass
showed that he was going south; so he turned east again; but he could
not strike the narrow, broken, stony trail.
Suddenly smoke could be seen, and then a hamlet of thirty houses
loomed up. Forder opened a door and a voice came calling, "Welcome!"
He went in and saw some Arabs crouching there out of the rain. A fire
of dried manure was made; the smoke made Forder's eyes smart and the
tears run down his cheeks. He changed into another man's clothes, and
hung his own up in the smoke to dry.
"Where are we?" he asked. The men told him that he was about two and
a half hours' ride from the castle and two hours off the track that he
had left in the mist. The men came in from the other little houses to
see the stranger and sip coffee. Forder again brought out an Arabic
New Testament and found to his surprise that some of the men could
read quite well and were very keen on his books. So they bought some
of the Bibles from him. They had no money but paid him in dried figs,
flour and eggs. At last they left him to curl up on the hard floor;
and in spite of the cold and draughts and the many fleas he soon fell
asleep.
As dawn came up he rose and started off: there (as he climbed out of
the hollow in which the hamlet lay) he could see the Castle Sulkhund.
He knew that the Turks did not want any foreigner to enter that land
of the Arabs, and that if he were seen, he would certainly be ordered
back. Yet he could not hide, for the path ran close under the castle,
and on the wall strode the sentry. The plain was open; there was no
way by which he could creep past.
At last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. At that very
moment a dense mist came down; he walked along, lost the track, and
found it again. Then there came a challenge from the sentry. He could
not see the sentry or the sentry him. So he called back in Arabic that
he was a friend, and so passed on in the mist. At last he was out on
the open ground beyond both the castle and the little town by it.
Five minutes later the mist blew away; the sun shone; the castle was
passed, and the open plains lay before him. The mist had saved him.
In an hour he came to a large town named Orman on the edge of the
desert sandy plains; and here he stayed for some weeks. His horses
were sent back to Jerusalem. Instead of towns and villages of huts,
he would now find only the tents of wandering Arabs who had to keep
moving to find bits of sparse growth for their few sheep and camels.
While he was at Orman he managed to make friends with many of the
Arabs and with their Chief. He asked the Chief to help him on toward
Kaf--an oasis town across the desert.
"Don't go," the Chief and his people said, "the Arabs there are bad:
when we go we never let our rifles out of our hands."
So the old Chief told him of the dangers of the desert; death from
thirst or from the fiery Arabs of Kaf.
"I am trusting God to protect and keep me," said Forder. "I believe He
will do so."
So Forder handed the Chief most of his money to take care of, and
sewed up the rest into the waistband of his trousers. (It is as safe
as a bank to hand your money to an Arab chief who has entertained you
in his tent. If you have "eaten his salt" he will not betray or rob
you. Absolute loyalty to your guest is the unwritten law that no true
Arab ever breaks.)
_The Caravan of Two Thousand Camels_
At last the old Chief very unwillingly called a man, told him to get
a camel, load up Forder's things on it, and pass him on to the first
Arab tent that he found. Two days passed before they found a group
of Bedouin tents. He was allowed to sleep in a tent: but early in the
morning he woke with a jump. The whole of the tent had fallen right
on him; he crawled out. He saw the Arab women standing round; they had
pulled the tent down.
"Why do you do this so early?" he asked.
"The men," they replied, "have ordered us to move to another place;
they fear to give shelter to a Christian--one that is unclean and
would cause trouble to come on us."
So the tribesmen with their women and flocks made off, leaving Forder,
his guide, and the camel alone in the desert. That afternoon he found
a tent and heard that a great caravan was expected to pass that night
on the way to Kaf to get salt. Night fell; it was a full moon. Forder
sat with the others in the tent doorway round the fire. A man ran up
to them.
"I hear the bells of the camels," he said. Quickly Forder's goods
were loaded on a camel. He jumped on top. He was led off into the open
plain. Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark
mass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells.
Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up their horses
shouting, "Who are you? What do you want?" Then came fifty horsemen
with long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders,
swords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes.
They were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels.
There were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors.
As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends
of his who--he thought--would be in the caravan. Sixteen hundred
camels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the
last section began to pass. The cry went up again of the names of the
men. At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were
found. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to
Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a
few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two
thousand others into the east.
For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts
on a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky
in which a million stars sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them;
ahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed
on. At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped. Forder flung
himself on the sand wrapped in his _abba_ (his Arab cloak) and in a
few seconds was asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened
him. Already most of the camels had moved on. From dawn till noon,
from noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon,
the camels moved on and on, "unhasting, unresting." As the camels were
kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking up saw ten
robbers on horseback on a mound. Like the wind the caravan warriors
galloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and
dragged them back to the camp.
"Start again," the command went round, and in fifteen minutes the two
thousand camels swung grumbling and groaning out on the endless trail
of the desert. The captured Arabs were marched in the centre. All
through the night the caravan went on from moonrise to moonset, and
through the morning from dawn till ten o'clock--for they dared not
rest while the tribe from whom they had captured the prisoners could
get near them. Then they released the captives and sent them back,
for on the horizon they saw the green palms of Kaf, the city that they
sought.
The camels had only rested for thirty minutes in forty hours.[68] With
grunts of pleasure they dropped on their knees and were freed from
their loads, and began hungrily to eat their food.
Forder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that he ran into some
palm gardens close by and sang "Praise God from Whom all blessings
flow," jumped for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from
himself in a hot spring of sulphur water.
Lying down on the floor of a little house to which he was shown, he
slept, with his head on his saddlebags, all day till nearly sunset.
At sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting on its return
journey. Forder's companions on the caravan came to him.
"Come back with us," they said. "Why will you stay with these cursed
people of Kaf? They will surely kill you because you are a Christian."
It was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had ever been in that
land before carrying the Good News of Jesus, and Forder had come out
to risk his life for that very purpose. So he stayed.
What made Forder put his life in peril and stand the heat, vermin, and
hate? Why try to make friends with these wild bandits? Why care about
them at all? He was a baker in his own country in England and might
have gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ that gave him
the love of all men, and, in obeying His command to "Go into all the
world," he found adventure, made friends, and left with them the Good
News in the New Testament.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 65: Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.]
[Footnote 66: Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.]
[Footnote 67: Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in
Bashan.]
[Footnote 68: It took the caravan six days to go back.]