When I first knew the country, a quarter of a century ago, it was just

emerging from a revolutionary war, and local relations with foreigners

or even neighbours were capricious. They murdered a German bagman up the

coast in an _argan_ forest, and the "Gefion" landed a flag-flaunting

armed party to impress Mogador, which dropped water-pitchers on them

from upper windows and wondered what on earth the fuss was about.

On the other hand, I was well received by one of the revolted tribes,

which had chased its lawful Kaid into Mogador until checked by old

scrap-iron and bits of bottle-glass from the ancient cannon mounted over

the northern gate of the town.

I was treated with far more hospitality than my absurd and rather rash

enterprise deserved. Imagine a callow youth just out of his teens

dropping in haphazard on a rebel tribe accompanied by a mission-taught

Moor and a large liver-coloured pointer who had far more sense than his

master. My tame Moor was an excellent fellow, who, beside keeping my

tent tidy and cooking, helped me to grapple with the derived forms of

the Arabic verb and the subtleties of Moorish etiquette. I learnt to

drink green tea, syrup-sweet and flavoured with mint, out of ornate

little tumblers of a size and shape usually associated with champagne,

and, after assiduous practice, I could tackle a dish of boiled millet,

meat, and olives with the fingers of my right hand without mishap.

Beyond occasional brushes with adjacent sections of the neighbouring

tribe which had declared for the Fez central Government, I had very

little trouble, except that a peaceful boar-hunt would occasionally

degenerate into an intertribal skirmish if I and my party got too near

the loyalist border. As all concerned had, thanks to Western enterprise,

discarded their picturesque flint-locks in favour of Winchester or

Marlin repeaters, the proceedings required wary handling if we were to

extricate ourselves successfully, but my long-range sporting Martini

usually gave me the weather-gauge.

I dressed as a Moor, and looked the part, but made no attempt to pass

for anything but a Christian, nor did any unpopularity attach thereto; I

was merely expected--as a natural corollary--to have a little medical

knowledge (and it _was_ a little).

I found the attitude of Moors generally towards Christians curiously

inconsistent. In the towns there was a certain amount of formal

fanaticism which found vent in donkey-drivers addressing their beasts as

"_Nasara_" to the accompaniment of whacks and yells, but public

behaviour was tolerant enough, and the attitude of Moorish officialdom

was almost courtly.

Jews had rather a bad time, if local subjects, as their black slippers

and furtive bearing outside their own quarter made them a mark for

naughty little boys, who flung their canary-coloured slippers at them

with curses and imprecations deserving a more direct and personal

application of their footgear. Most of the wealthier Jews had acquired

European or American protection, and were safe enough. They lived in the

Frankish quarter and dressed in ultra-European style. They made rather a

depressing spectacle on Saturdays, when, garbed in black broadcloth,

with bowler hats, they drifted through the sunlit streets on their

Sabbath constitutional from one town gate to the next and back. They

were keen trade competitors, and gained or lost fortunes by gambling in

the almond export-market or catching a grain-famine at the psychological

moment. One of them had retired to a leisured affluence on the proceeds

that a big cargo of almonds had yielded him at a startling turn in the

market. He was a hospitable soul who met me once entering the landward

gate in a travel-stained burnoose and insisted on dragging me into his

gorgeously-carpeted house to drink _aquardiente_ and look at his

"curios." These consisted chiefly of modern firearms, some of

first-class London make, which hung on his walls as ornaments, having

been bought haphazard without ammunition or sporting intent. I nearly

had a fit when he showed me a double .577 Express hopelessly rusted by

the damp sea-air and offered to lend it me if I could find "shots" for

it. The reverse of the shield was illustrated by another acquaintance of

mine who had made a large fortune by importing Russian wheat to Morocco

in famine time and had lost it in a short but striking career in

England, during which he was said to have entertained Royalty,

astonished the racing world and married a well-known actress in light

comedy. He, too, was of hospitable intent, but had generally left his

purse at home when the reckoning came. On the other hand, he always

carried the "stub" of the cheque-book which had seen him to the apogee

of his meteoric career, and a glance at its counterfoils (by his express

invitation) was well worth the price of a drink or two.

The local Islamic attitude toward Moorish Jews was one of contemptuous

tolerance. They could certainly travel, in native dress, where no

Christian could. Once, in the _patio_ or go-down of a European merchant,

I met a greasy, unkempt Jew in a tattered gaberdine watching my

commercial friend as he weighed what I took to be a double handful of

crude brass curtain rings such as traders used to sell by the gross

along the West African coast. They were solid gold and represented the

venture of a Jewish syndicate which had collected it in pinches of

gold-dust from the river beds of southern Soos and hit on this form of

transport. A troop of horse could never have brought it, as gold, a

day's journey through the lawless tribes of the south, but that

tatterdemalion Jew had done it at the price of a few contemptuous

buffets. He had, indeed, offered one truculent gang of highwaymen a few

of the tawdry-looking rings to let him pass, but they had waved such

obvious trash aside in their eager search for actual cash, which they

had taken to the last _rial_.

The only other occasion on which I have known a Moor to be hoisted with

the petard of his own contemptuous fanaticism was an experience of my

own.

I was moving quietly through a belt of timber just before dawn in the

hopes of getting a shot at a boar who was in the habit of feeding till

daybreak among some barley that grew near a caravan route. Before the

light was quite strong enough to shoot by I was more than a little

annoyed and astonished to hear cocks crowing all over the place;

presuming an early caravan with poultry for market, I pushed on to the

track, meaning to pass the time of day and ask if they had glimpsed my

quarry or heard him. I almost ran into a town-bred Moor who was trying

to round up some scattered poultry in the gloom and cursing volubly. He

explained that he was riding his donkey along the track perched between

two light reed cages containing fowls when the donkey baulked as a boar

snorted in the thickets just off the road. He whacked the donkey and

cursed the boar as a pig and a Christian. Thereupon came a rush like

cavalry, the donkey was knocked from under him and he was lying amid

the wreckage of his flimsy crates with his poultry scattered abroad. The

boar, already angry and suspicious, as anyone but a townsman would have

known by the noise he made, had charged like a thunderbolt at the sound

of a human voice so close to him and galloped off with all the honours

of war.

The donkey was badly hurt and the man only escaped because he was

sitting high and just above the point of impact. I helped him secure his

poultry and started back to my village to send him another donkey. He

thanked me in brotherly style as one Moor to another. "I'm a Christian

myself," I remarked at parting, and added in my best beginner's Arabic

as I turned to go, "It is incumbent on me to assist you after the

aggression of my co-religionist."

This conventional attitude of arrogance toward Christendom is perhaps

traceable to Moorish predominance in the Middle Ages and the importation

of Christian slaves by the pirates of the Barbary coast. In any case, it

has been much toned down of late years owing to contact with capable and

well-intentioned Franks as administrators and technical experts.

Morocco should never become a forcing-bed of religious or racial

antipathy, and will not so long as France continues to develop the

country by methods which the natives can assimilate, and is not lured

into over-exploitation of her mineral resources or unwarrantable

interference with her spiritual affairs.

A perfectly justifiable missionary policy would be the inauguration of

industrial schools on the coast and at one or two big inland centres,

also medical missions (with consent of the local authorities) wherever

feasible. Moorish craftsmanship is worth stimulating, and doctors are

welcomed for their science. Both schemes would redound to the credit of

Christendom and be in accordance with the best traditions of the Early

Church.

In the other Barbary states (Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli) a few Catholic

missions have been established, and the North African Protestant Mission

has an advanced post at Kairwan in Tunis. Here many routes converge, for

Kairwan is a great centre of pilgrimage and taps the religious thought

of all the Saharan tribes. Under such conditions, Islam gets ahead every

time, as every caravan traveller is a potential missionary, while

Christian missions are anchored to the spot or have to rely on native

colporteurs, who labour under the initial disadvantage of being

proselytes and seldom have the combination of tact and staunchness which

evangelists require.

It is in Egypt that we first find Moslem and missionary at close grips

arrayed against each other. Cairo is a perfect cockpit of creeds.

Christianity is represented by Catholics, Copts, Orthodox Greeks and

Protestants, these last being subdivided into Anglicans, Presbyterians,

Wesleyans and American Presbyterians and Congregationalists. The main

body of Islam--some of my more fervent missionary friends allude to it

as "the hosts of Midian"--presents a fairly solid front of orthodoxy,

the bulk being Hanifis, Shafeis, Maliki or Hanbalis (chiefly the two

former); but the irregular forces of Shiah are well represented among

non-indigenous Moslems from Yamen, Persia and India, while scattered

groups of Wahabi ascetics, Sufi mystics and esoterics of Bahaism

skirmish on debatable ground between the opposing lines, where range

such free-lance companies as Theosophists, Christian Scientists,

Salvationists, etc., all with local headquarters in Cairo and propaganda

of their own.

It must not be supposed that all this warlike metaphor indicates actual

strife or even severe friction, any more than "the hosts of Midian"

represents the attitude of missionaries to Moslems here. On the

contrary, relations are for the most part excellent, and the prevailing

animosity is political, not religious, being directed against us

British much as normal schoolboys dislike their form-master until they

get a harsher one.

The Catholic Church confines most of her energies to teaching her own

people, who are very numerous and well looked after; she does not do

much alien mission work in this part of the world. The most formidable

band of gladiators in the Christian ranks is the American Protestant

Mission, and next to them the Anglican C.M.S. (chiefly distinguished in

Egypt for its medical work, which is excellent and has an

extraordinarily wide range). The Americans are great on education and

have done more for the English language in Cairo than any Government

institution. I use the term "gladiators" advisedly, for their most

trenchant work is done on their own side--they concentrate their chief

efforts on the Copts, and make a fairly good bag of proselytes from

them, apart from the great number to whom they teach sound ideals of

duty as well as English and the three "R's." One of their leading

missionaries has left it on record that no one stands more in need of

salvation than the Copts, and as there is a Coptic Reform Society the

Copts must think there is room for improvement too.

It has been found in practice that to convert a _bona-fide_ Moslem

involves segregating him, and that means finding him a living in a new

environment, otherwise he is almost bound to "revert" under local

pressure. Apart from the strain on mission resources which such

procedure would cause if extensively followed, most missionaries rightly

condemn such a system as encouraging conversion for material motives.

Therefore they adopt a policy of "peaceful penetration" against Islam,

encouraging young men to come to them unostentatiously (I call them the

Nicodemus-squad) in order to discuss religious questions, which is

usually done in a temperate and intelligent manner on both sides. Even

if they get no "forrader," it tends to toleration and a better knowledge

of each other's language and ideals. A good deal of teaching is done too

with no expectation of making proselytes, and solid friendships are

formed. I have myself known a convalescing lady missionary of the C.M.S.

to receive repeated calls of friendly inquiry from former pupils; when I

first saw two veiled young girls swing past with a palpably British

terrier and the crisp, vigorous step of occidental emancipation, it

puzzled my ethnological faculties until I was told the object of their

visit.

All this is to the good, and it would be very good indeed if they let

well alone. Unfortunately, there is another cogent factor in the mission

field, and that is the sinews of war in hard cash. Most people, even

those who support missions to Moslem countries, are human enough to like

a fight put up for their money. It is not enough for them that a great

deal of quiet, patient work is being done by missionaries among Moslems

in the name of Christianity and the service of mankind. They want to

hear about storming citadels of sin and campaigning against the devil in

the dark places of the earth; especially is this so in America, where

Moslem prejudice does not have to be considered and religious

organisation, like most other concerns, is on a big scale.

As a natural consequence, missionaries have to play up to this combatant

instinct, and so we read in their books and reports remarks calculated

to engender religious intolerance on both sides, and which do not

conform with the shrewd and kindly work in the field of those devoted

and often scholarly men. I shall have occasion to allude to some of

these statements as we proceed, so think it only fair to mention their

justification here.

Cairo is described as a "strategic centre" in mission parlance, and so

it is, being situated on a great waterway with rail connection far

south into the heart of Africa and converging caravan routes from every

quarter. Along these arteries of traffic many tons of tracts and

propaganda are hurled annually by train, felucca and colporteur. Those

who cannot read accept such matter gladly to wrap things up in and to

show to their literate friends, who read what resembles a bit of the

Koran and find it carries a sting in its tail, like a scorpion, aimed at

Islam. A great deal of this literature consists of the Psalms of David,

the Talmud or the Gospel, all reverenced by Moslems if dished up without

trimmings. Not wishing to impose on that hard-worked word "camouflage,"

I would merely ask, as a naturalist, if such protective mimicry is worth

the irritation it causes. In any case, the system reminds me of an old

Highlander's opening comment on a sword dance by a rock scorpion in a

Tangier saloon. "There is a sairtain elegance aboot yourr grace-steps,

but _get in between the swords_."

No vicarious efforts by propaganda will ever take the place of personal

precept and example. In hunting proselytes among the followers of Islam

it is not advisable to rely too much on the Scriptures, as Moslems doubt

the authenticity of our version and point to our own divergent copies in

proof thereof. Nor is it any use asking them to believe as an act of

faith; if they did they would need no proselytising: an appeal must be

made to their reason, and there is no better appeal than the life,

works, and conduct of one who professes and practises Christianity. Even

if he makes no single convert he has leavened the population around him

with the dignity and prestige of his creed which has produced such a

type. Unfortunately such results cannot be scheduled in mission reports,

though they are real enough and well worth living for, whether a man be

a missionary or not; only they cannot be produced by brilliant

wide-sweeping feats of organisation and enterprise, but by persevering,

consistent lives, which are not easy or spectacular.

Egypt should be a great field of religious warfare by personal

influence, as Christians and Moslems live side by side in daily contact

and reasonable accord, yet few of us take advantage of the fact to

uphold the prestige of our creed or even of our race. We Europeans are

busy with our multifarious interests and duties, while Egyptian Moslems

are either entangled in the web of their environment, as are the

_fellahin_, or eager snatchers at the gifts of civilisation, as are the

more or less cultured effendis, or mere hair-splitters in futile

religious controversy, as are too many of the _ulema_ or sages at the

great collegiate mosque of al-Azhar. In each case, spiritual matters

are apt to get crowded out. The fault lies chiefly with our cosmopolitan

ingredients, which engender feverish living, if not actual vice, and the

over-strained effort on the one side to impart and on the other side to

assimilate a Western system of education which has induced intellectual

dyspepsia. So we hear of students mugging parrot-like to pass

half-yearly examinations, in the hopes of getting Government

appointments for which there are far too many applicants; these young

men besiege the Press with complaints of unfair treatment if they fail,

or even go to the length of attempting suicide with carbolic acid

(fortunately with sufficient caution to ensure it usually being but an

attempt); this latter petulant protest at the temporary thwarting of

their material hopes is dead against all the teaching and tradition of

Islam, but it has become so frequent that a leading educational

authority suggests that no student who attempts suicide shall be allowed

to sit again for a Government examination. Among their seniors up at

al-Azhar are men of real learning and remarkably persevering scholarship

(their theological course makes the average brain reel to contemplate),

but some sheikh started a controversy as to whether Adam was a prophet

or not, which fell among those sages with the disrupting force of a

grenade, causing much litigation in the Islamic courts and culminating

in the divorce of the originator by his wife for _kufr_, or heresy as

ordained by Moslem law. Beneath these troubled waters the _fellah's_

life flows placidly, bounded on the one hand by his crops and on the

other by the market; his spiritual stimulus being supplied by an

occasional religious fair or a visit to the shrine of some local saint.

He toils as patiently as his water-wheel buffalo, and on that toil

depends the wealth of Egypt which supports saints and sinners, schools

and shops, with all our European schemes and enterprises thrown in.

As for us British, if our object is to enhance the prestige of our race

or creed, we fall very short of achievement. We have not even that

reputation for integrity which usually attaches to us in other parts of

the Moslem world. This may be partly due to our anomalous position in

the country, which was thrust upon us, but the pleasure-seeking tourist

of pre-War days has a lot to answer for. Some of them seemed to think

that so far from home their conduct was of no account (at least, that is

the only charitable explanation), and British personal prestige suffered

in consequence. Anglo-Egyptian officials, especially the subordinate

grades, which come into more direct contact with the people, tried to

counteract this by increased dignity of demeanour, but the natives now

knew them _en deshabille_, or thought they did, and declined to keep

them on their pedestals. The result is, familiarity without intimacy and

detachment without dignity, while the pre-War official habit of going

Home every year for some months has prevented even subordinates from

studying their district or department consecutively.

Hence it is that a widespread Nationalist movement gathered force and

perfected its plans for a detailed campaign which blended peaceful

demonstration with sabotage, murder and violence, and took the

Anglo-Egyptian Government completely by surprise, paralysing

communications and intimidating the general public until the weight of

Imperial troops, luckily still quartered in the country, was allowed to

make itself felt and restored order.

This is not the time or the place to discuss these affairs, which are

still _sub judice_, but one salient feature of the movement is pertinent

to our subject, and that is the marked _rapprochement_ between Moslems

and Copts, who fraternised in each other's mosques and churches, carried

flags bearing the device of Cross and Crescent and used American mission

buildings to further their new-found brotherhood. These relations were

somewhat marred by the wholesale devastation of Coptic property

up-country, but the Copts took it very well and paraded the streets with

their Moslem friends, if they could not hide away from them. The local

Jew came in too, and the climax of this religious _entente_ was reached

when an Egyptian Jewess preached in the mosque of al-Azhar on the

ancient relations between Jews and Arabs.

But we must not merely consider Egypt as a sort of religious and racial

clearing house; it is also the main gate of Africa.

Southward, up the Nile valley and across grim deserts, lies Khartoum,

the capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, only four days from Cairo by

rail. This is a very tempting theatre for missionary enterprise, which

is, however, held in check by the authorities, who decline to have their

Sudan spiritually exploited and materially disturbed by futile efforts

to evangelise the country. Missionaries say that this part of the Sudan,

as well as Egypt, was once Christian; that discrimination is being shown

in favour of Islam even to the extent of making pagans become Moslem on

joining the Egyptian Army; that Gordon College is being run on

non-Christian lines and that Islam is getting ahead of them in the race

to convert pagans in this part of the world.

The case against them is that the fact of these regions being once

Christian and now Moslem shows, if anything, that the latter religion is

more suited to local requirements and conditions; Islam is naturally

favoured in a Moslem country, though many Christian missions have been

given facilities too, and have mostly failed owing to climatic

conditions: the Egyptian Army is Moslem and under a Moslem Government;

the conversion of pagan recruits to Islam is encouraged for the sake of

discipline and soldierly conduct; missionaries themselves admit that

even in civil life a Christian convert from Islam must be segregated or

he will lapse under surrounding pressure--perhaps they will explain how

that is to be done in a barrack-room or native infantry lines, or would

they prefer such recruits to remain pagan? Presumably they would, as one

of their complaints is that "it is a thousand times harder to convert a

Moslem to Christianity than a pagan." Comment is superfluous; nothing

could portray their attitude more clearly. As for Islam getting ahead of

them in the race for pagan souls, it is so and will be so always among

the black races unless Christian missions are bolstered up by all the

resources of local authority; the reason is that Islam offers equal

privileges and no colour-line, imposes easy spiritual obligations and is

propagated fervently by its followers without the encumbrance of an

organised priesthood. Just as commercial travellers consider a district

neglected where a rival firm has got ahead of them, so missionaries are

piqued at conditions in the Sudan; but even that does not excuse such

statements as that women in the Sudan are free and not badly treated as

pagans, but slaves and oppressed under Islam. Every student of the

Islamic code knows that the status of women has been enormously improved

thereby as compared with any pagan system. Missionaries must know this,

for they are much better educated about Islam than they were a quarter

of a century ago, yet they do not scruple to raise the partisan cry of a

debased womanhood under Islam wherever local conditions involve domestic

hardship. Such tactics are unworthy of them; an intellectual Moslem does

not reproach Christianity because he has visited districts in the poorer

quarters of our big towns and seen women lead lives of drudgery or being

sometimes knocked about by their husbands.

Outside the Sudan and Nigeria we must keep to the eastern side of Africa

in order to maintain touch with Islam. The negroid people of Italian

Erythrea are Moslems, as are also the Somalis; but their racial cousins,

the Abyssinians, are Christians of the Ethiopian Church, with the Negus

as their temporal and spiritual ruler, who claims descent from King

Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Abyssinia has been Christian ever since the fourth century, but the

missionaries are not happy about the country at all. Here nothing

impedes the entrance of the missionary as an individual, but the people

will not have him as an evangelist at any price. The "fanatical and

debased" priests of the Abyssinian Church and the drastic punishments

inflicted by the local authorities on those suspected of favouring other

forms of Christianity are described as grave hindrances. There is a

large population of "black Jews," who will have no dealings with

Christianity in any form. Meanwhile Islam gains ground steadily,

especially in the south along the trade routes. A German missionary,

writing from Strasburg in 1910, describes the situation as alarming,

because "whole tribes of Abyssinians who still bear Christian names have

become Muhammedans in the last twenty years." There is one Protestant

mission up at Addis Abeba, but it confines its attentions to the

semi-pagan Gallas, having given up Christian Abyssinia as a bad job.

Somaliland is a poor field for missionary enterprise, owing to the

sparse, semi-nomadic population and the difficulties of getting about.

In the French sphere there is connection by rail between Jibuti on the

coast and Dera Dowa near the Abyssinian border; travelling musicians of

the _cafe chantant_ type used to use it a good deal before the War, but

there was not much doing in the missionary line. Italian Somaliland,

east of the British sphere to Cape Guardafui, is left to look after

itself, except for the occasional visit of an Italian man-of-war; but

south of that great headland there are Italian settlements.

In British Somaliland missionary enterprise has hitherto been Catholic,

and even that ceased some years before the War when the authorities had

to tell the mission that it must leave, as they could no longer protect

it from the Mullah's people. It was a pity, as the mission was doing

good work and was much respected in the country. There was a Brotherhood

which taught and doctored, and a teaching Sisterhood. They were

Franciscans and had their local headquarters and a tastefully designed

little chapel in the native town of Berbera, but the Brothers had also

an agricultural settlement up-country, where they tilled the soil and

did their best to teach the natives to do so too. The Somali is much

easier to convert than the Arab, as his versatile and superficial

temperament induces him to imitate, if not to assimilate, alien forms

and ceremonies from the correct procedure at the "Angelus" to the

singing, with appropriate gestures, of "a bicycle made for two."

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to teach him to think, or to do a

day's honest work; he will pull a punkah while you are awake to keep him

at it, or row a boat if allowed to sing, and sometimes he will fish if

hungry and quite near the sea; but agriculture involves the hard work of

digging, and that is too much for him. The object of the mission was to

give Somali boys and girls the rudiments of Catholic Christianity and

habits of industry. The boys were well grounded in English and the three

"R's" in their simplest form, while the girls were taught chiefly sewing

and cooking. The idea was for boys and girls to marry each other in the

fulness of time and beget Christian children, but, as one of the good

Fathers used regretfully to say, it did not work out in practice. The

boys learnt enough to become interpreters or obtain small clerkships in

the post and telegraph offices of Aden and adjacent ports, whereupon

they felt marriage with a "black woman" to be derogatory, and looked

higher, to the less swarthy charms of some half-caste maiden met at Mass

(for they usually remained Catholic, at least in outward form). The

girls, on the other hand, with all their domestic training, were much

sought after by local chiefs, who were prepared to give them a good

allowance in beads, bangles and cloth, plenty of food and a fairly easy

life. In such surroundings they naturally readopted Islam.

Somaliland is not as barren as most people suppose. Of course the

littoral plain is comparatively sterile, as is the case on the Arabian

side, owing to the scanty rainfall, and the maritime scarp of the hills

that back it is not much better, but the country improves as you go

inland; there is good grazing on the intra-montane plateau, and the

watersheds of such massifs as Wagr, Sheikh and Golis (7,000 ft. or so)

are thickly wooded, chiefly with the gigantic cactus tree, which

averages forty feet; timber trees are scarce, being mostly tall

_Coniferae_ in sheltered glens at the higher altitudes. Inland of these

ranges the ground slopes gradually toward the almost waterless Haud--a

vast plateau sparsely covered with tall mimosa bush or actual trees

attaining some thirty feet in height and striking deep to subterranean

moisture, which keeps them remarkably fresh and green. Giraffe feed

eagerly on the tender upper foliage and herds of camel graze there too,

going six months without water, for there is no known supply locally

except in the occasional mud-pans or _ballis_ after a rainburst, which

may happen once a year. These camels are kept for meat and milk only,

and are no use for transport, as they are too "soft" to carry a sack of

flour. They are rounded up and brought in to wells twice a year, where

they water for a week or so. Herdsmen moving with them live on their

milk, which is most sustaining. They must be watered after a maximum

interval of half a year, or they get "poor" and will not put on flesh.

Needless to say, no transport camel could be treated like that. A

caravan camel can go five days without water, but that is about his

limit while working, and he should be allowed to rest and graze for some

days afterwards if he is to regain working condition. The giraffe, as

also antelope of various kinds, can support life without water at all,

though they trek greedily to the _ballis_ after rain. Here lion lie in

wait for them occasionally, and it is a frequent subject of discussion

among naturalists and sportsmen how such heavy, thirsty animals can

subsist in the Haud. The most probable supposition is that they only

enter this region with the rains and trek from one _balli_ to another. I

have met a lioness a long way out of lion country presumably trekking

from one water-hole to the next. What is still more remarkable is that

heavy game sometimes will do so too. Heavy firing was once heard far

south of Burao, and a mounted force pushed out thinking it was the

Mullah's people going for our "friendlies" out grazing. A rhinoceros on

trek for water and nearly mad with thirst had winded the waterskins in a

Somali grazing camp and charged through the zareba to get at them. He

was mobbed to death by the herdsmen with the rifles which a benevolent

Government had given them for protection against the dervishes.

To do them justice, the Somalis fear their fauna very little and have

more than once, when in attendance on a European sportsman, driven off a

lion with spears and a resolute front after the white man had failed to

stop the beast with both barrels.

Even a woman will face a leopard with a torch of dry grass to contest

the ownership of a fat-tailed sheep which he has tried to filch from the

zareba by night, fearing his snarling menace far less than the wrath of

her lord and master if the marauder secures his prey.

As for the Midgan, that born hunter and nomadic outcast whom other

Somalis look down upon, but who has more woodcraft in his touzled head

than any of them, he will deliberately hunt the king of beasts, using

some decrepit and almost valueless camel as a stalking-horse. He is

armed with a bow having about as much apparent "give" in it as the

bottom joint of a fishing rod, yet able to propel with surprising force

a stumpy arrow cunningly poisoned with a wizard brew of viper venom and

the root of the tall box tree. His procedure is to drive his camel

slowly grazing toward some island of bush in which he has marked down a

lion, he himself being perched a-straddle behind the hump and directing

the animal's movements with kicks from one or other of his bare heels.

From his lofty observation point he at once spots the crouching approach

of the lion and slips off over the camel's rump to cover, whence he

speeds one of his venomous little shafts at close range. The outraged

monarch attacks the camel and the hunter keeps well aloof from the

subsequent confusion until the poison works and the lion is seized with

muscular convulsions, like those of tetanus, when he may safely approach

to gloat over his quarry. What is really remarkable is that the camel is

not invariably killed. I once met a Midgan on trek who showed me the

unmistakable claw-marks of a lion on his camel's neck and shoulders and

said he had used the animal on three such occasions; compared with

these desperate encounters the exploits of our white shikaris armed with

powerful modern rifles are insignificant.

One beast of prey, however, is feared and hated by every Somali man,

woman or child--hunter, shepherd or townsman--and that is the great,

spotted hyaena which slinks up by night to snap at face or breast of

sleeping folk and bolts into the gloom at the agonised shriek of his

mangled victim. The brute is cowardly enough to refuse encounter with an

able-bodied man awake and on the alert unless rendered desperate by

hunger, but his jaws are as strong as a lion's, and one snapping bite

does the mischief. I once helped the P.M.O. at Berbera to tend some

half-dozen poor wretches who had been frightfully mauled during the

night on the outskirts of the town itself and probably by the same

hyaena. The hot weather had induced many folk to sleep outside their

stifling huts and they _will_ not take the trouble to collect and build

up a few thorny bushes to keep the brutes off.

The Somali is about as incapable of hard work as his "fat" camel, and

the only time he may be seen digging is among the convict gangs who

till, or used to till, the Government garden out at Dubar on the inland

edge of the littoral plain, where the Berbera water supply bubbles out

hot from under the low maritime hills and trickles through ten miles of

surface pipe-line to supply the "Fort," which is supposed to protect the

British cantonment straggling some distance outside Berbera town. He

feels such work dreadfully, not only as an injury to his self-respect

(and he has all the puerile pride of the negroid races), but as an

irksome tax on his physical powers, which are quite unaccustomed to

sustained and strenuous exertion. On the other hand, he will make long

journeys on short commons and keep well and happy if allowed to

punctuate his hardships at long intervals with debauches on meat and

milk and fat. He excuses himself from tilling the ground on the plea

that others might harvest the fruit of his labours, as there is no

individual land-tenure or any definite divisions of land indicating

ownership, but only tribal grazing rights over ill-defined areas and the

parcel of land enclosed by his zareba fence, of which he is but the

tenant, as it is free to anybody as soon as he leaves it to trek to

other pastures. Therefore, vegetables are unattainable by him, and his

cereals (rice, millet and coarse flour) reach him by sea and caravan or

he does without. He appears immune from scurvy and is seldom sick or

sorry unless he over-eats himself. He loves _ghi_ (or clarified butter)

and animal fat, which he swallows in large gulps when he can get it,

also rubbing it in his frizzy hair and using it to sleek his black,

spindly shanks and smear his spear-blades--on shikar he will "gorm" it

all over your spare gun if you do not watch him. His favourite beverage

is strong tea with lots of sugar in it (when procurable) otherwise he

will not touch it, and he will drink water which a thirsty camel would

sniff at suspiciously before imbibing. He dresses in a white sheet worn

toga-wise and not without a certain dignity, and his head is usually

bare except in towns or the partially civilised _entourage_ of a white

man, where he will wear anything on his head from a tarboosh to a topi

as a mark of distinction, but seems to avoid a turban, which he has not

the knack of tying properly.

To meet him and his family on trek is to glimpse an epitome of his life.

First comes the able-bodied though elderly sire carrying a few light

throwing-spears and a knobkerry or a gim-crack stabbing-spear, and close

behind him are the adult males of his house similarly armed or with a

rifle or two supplied by a benevolent Government for protection against

the Mullah, to whom these children of nature frequently offer them for

sale at very reasonable prices. After these come the women-folk in

order of precedence, carrying loads in inverse ratio thereto. The young,

favourite wife walks first, carrying her latest addition to the family

in a cotton shawl at her hip; she is followed by other wives of less

social standing, carrying household utensils, with the smaller children

at foot, and at the tail of the procession stagger the old crones under

heavy burdens of pots, pans, pitchers and unsavoury goat-hair rugs. A

camel or two bring up the rear with the conglomeration of sticks and

hides and matting which makes the home and looks like an untidy bird's

nest. On the flanks and in the rear skirmish the elder children, girls

and boys, with flocks and herds which graze as they go. The big piebald

sheep with their black heads and indecently fat tails are not allowed to

range far afield, where lynx or leopard might stalk them under covert,

as they are valuable, succulent and very foolish. They carry no

wool--their coat feels just like a fox-terrier's--but they have more

meat on them than three average goats, and the huge pendulous flap of

fat which does duty as a tail is a delicacy to make a Somali mouth water

or a European gorge rise.

The only serious occupation a buck Somali will permit himself is to sit

under a tree and watch his grazing flocks. He is fond of conversation,

chiefly of a recriminative character, and gives vent to his _joie de

vivre_ by prancing and singing on two or three simple notes to the

accompaniment of his clapping hands and the thud of his horny heels. His

chief woe is drought and lack of grazing, because he then has to get up

off his butt-end and take long treks to pastures new. His ideas of

earthly Paradise centre round the _cafes_ of Aden, where his countrymen

are numerous and where wages are so high that six grown Somalis can

batten in well-fed ease on the earnings of a seventh, who keeps on till

he wants a holiday and then "goes sick" and sends another of the

syndicate to replace him. Qualifications do not matter, as they all have

sufficient to fumble through their jobs and no more. If he lacks the

capital to start cab-driving and finds boat-rowing or punkah-pulling too

strenuous for him, he sets himself to learn a little English and gets a

job as servant with some new-fledged British subaltern at a minimum rate

of L2 a month, which is fixed by his union, for that is one civilised

device he really _can_ handle. He is the slackest oarsman, the laziest

punkawala and the worst whip east of Suez. His idea of driving is to sit

with knees drawn up toward his chin while he lugs at the reins as if

they were a punkah-cord, urging his staunch little screw along with

ineffectual flaps of his whip and noises like the paroxysms of sea

sickness.

He will ruin any saddle-camel for fast work if allowed to ride one

regularly, such animals not being raised in his country, but he breeds a

small, hardy type of pony which he loves to gallop in wild dashes, with

flapping legs and sawing hands, reining the poor little beast up short

on a bit like a rat-trap to witch beholders with his horsemanship.

As a combatant you never know how to take him. He may put up a hefty

fight or he may outrun the antelope in his precipitate retreat. I was

much impressed by the defences in barbed wire and thorn trees considered

necessary to ward off the onslaught of dervishes by men who knew them

better than I did.

He is a cheery, irresponsible soul and has been called the Irishman of

the East. Missionaries rather like him, because he is very teachable up

to a certain point, fond of learning new tricks if not too difficult,

and without that habit of logical and consecutive thought which makes

the real Arab so difficult to tackle in argument.

No remarks on Somaliland would be complete without some mention of the

Mullah. That astute personage has often been alluded to as "Mad," but

has proved himself far saner than the Government he was up against. In

the early 'nineties he kept the Arabi Pasha coffee-house opposite the

cab-stand in the native town at Aden, where he dispensed tea and

husk-coffee in little bowls of green-glazed earthenware, also

raspberryade and other bright-coloured "minerals" in bottles, with a

small lump of ice thrown in. His establishment was patronised almost

entirely by Somalis and largely by the _ghari-walas_ themselves. At the

same time, he was obliging enough to spare the servant of a neighbouring

sahib like myself a pound or two of ice from his "cold box" on

occasional application to meet an emergency.

He had a good deal of property in flocks and herds over in British

Somaliland, which he visited from time to time. In the late 'nineties he

got involved in some suit or other and the local authorities mulcted him

of many camels. He very much resented this decision and raised some

friends and sympathisers to resist its execution by the police. An

inadequate force was sent and sustained a reverse, after which his

following grew enormously. Early in this century, when I again had news

of him, he had craftily cut in between the Italian, Abyssinian and

British converging columns and annihilated Colonel Plunkett's gallant

little band at Gumburu, but sustained a severe defeat at Jidballi,

where his red flannel dressing-gown was sighted in early and headlong

retirement as his dervishes recoiled from the embattled square.

All the same, he was still going strong long after the South African War

was over, and we had more leisure to attend to him. When the British

frontier was drawn in to enable the statement to be made in Parliament

that "the Mullah's troops were no longer within protectorate limits," he

took advantage of it to deal ruthlessly with those tribes which had

refused to join him on the solemn and definite promise that Government

would protect them from his vengeance. The unhappy Dolbahuntas were

almost wiped out as a tribal unit; their zarebas and flimsy villages

were surrounded by the Mullah's men and fired, leaving the

occupants--men, women and children--the choice of a dreadful end among

blazing thorns or red death on the spears of their fellow-countrymen and

co-religionists. A prominent Nationalist has alluded to the Mullah and

his dervishes as "brave men striving to be free."

In 1910 British prestige had shed its last rag in Somaliland: we had

withdrawn to the coast and the Mullah's horsemen actually rode through

Berbera bazar on one of their raids and withdrew unscathed. In 1912 it

was found necessary to form a company of Somali police on camels to keep

the peace between "friendlies" who, to allay a certain amount of

indignation at home, had been armed with rifles to protect themselves

against the Mullah's people, but were using these weapons, in their

light-hearted way, to argue questions of grazing as they arose. Early in

1913 "a small dervish outpost" was reported to be preventing our

friendlies from grazing in the Ain valley south of Burao at a time when

no other pasturage was locally available, and the Somali camel-corps,

about a hundred strong with three white officers, was sent to occupy

Burao as its base and from there to afford moral and material support

enabling the friendlies to graze unmolested in the threatened area. This

cheery opportunism was the Government's wobbling attempt at equilibrium

between the barefaced desertion of our protected tribes and its avowed

policy of non-intervention unless on the cheap. It was done too much on

the cheap; that little force was attacked by an overwhelming force of

dervishes while out on the grazing grounds affording moral and material

support. The Maxim was put out of action by an unlucky bullet, and the

friendlies skedaddled with their Government rifles at the first shot,

but returned later to loot the dead. The half-trained Somali camelry

suffered severely and were most unsteady, but the two white officers

surviving managed to extricate the remnant with difficulty, the gallant

commandant having died for his trust early in the fight. He was blamed

posthumously for having exceeded his orders; whether he ought to have

exercised his moral and material support at a safe distance from the

place where it was needed or have led his command in headlong flight was

not made clear, and they were the only two military alternatives to the

action he _did_ take. At all events the incident shamed the Government

into taking more adequate measures to protect its friendlies in spite of

bitter Nationalist opposition.

Missionaries point to our long and fruitless struggle in Somaliland as

an illustration of the force of fanaticism. It is nothing of the sort;

the Mullah was a man with a grievance who was driven into outlawry by

the sequence of events, and the movement was entirely political. Having

once tasted the sweets of temporal power, he wanted to expand it, and

used his spiritual and material influence to that end, not hesitating to

order the wholesale massacre of other equally orthodox Moslems when it

seemed to him politically expedient. He owed his success to his ruthless

treatment of his compatriots, the difficult and scantily watered

terrain, our lack of co-ordination with the Italians and Abyssinians,

but above all to our parsimonious method of cadging and scraping a

little money together for an expedition and stopping when the funds gave

out, like a small boy with fireworks. Somaliland, with its insignificant

caravan trade, its wide, waterless tracts and its sparse population of

shiftless, unproductive semi-nomads, is a bad business proposition, and

no Government can be blamed for hesitating to spend money on it; but if

half the expenditure had been concentrated on one scheme at one time

instead of being frittered away on several divergent schemes over a

lengthy period the Mullah would have been brought to book and the

resources of the country developed considerably.

South of Somaliland in British, and what was once German, East Africa

the missionary has comparative freedom of movement, whereas in

Somaliland no white man has ever been allowed to travel without the

sanction of the local authorities. He, however, complains that he is not

encouraged by the Administration in either colony, and certainly makes

no headway against Islam, which has a very strong hold, especially in

British East Africa, with the Swahilis. Still, he can point to the

inland kingdom of Uganda as one of his successes, and it would be more

so if the various Christian sects would refrain from wrangling among

themselves.

We have now reached the southern limit of Moslem activity in Africa, for

we are getting among native races who do not take kindly to asceticism

in any form, and beyond them are the sturdy white Christians of South

Africa. Curiously enough, there is a flourishing little colony of

Moslems at Salt River, the railway suburb of Cape Town, where imported

East Indian and Arab mechanics have settled. They muster about 7,000

souls and have founded a school to educate their children. An unbiassed

English resident states that they are far better citizens than native

Christians of the same class, owing to their temperate habits. Drink is

the undoubted curse of the non-Moslem African. In South Africa no native

in white employ can get alcoholic drink without the written authority of

his employer, but there are many illicit sources of supply. South

African colonists insist that the native Christians are the worst--this

should not be set down to Christianity, but to the civilisation which

goes with it, and, in place of Kaffir beer and such like home-fermented

brews of comparatively mild exhilarant character, introduces the

undisciplined native mind to the furious joys of trade fire-water.

Africa is the main battle-ground between Moslem and missionary, for it

is in that continent that the forces of Islam and Christianity are most

nearly balanced. The American Protestant Mission, which is, as we have

seen, one of the principal belligerents, complains loudly on behalf of

Christendom that in Africa especially our colonial administrations do

not give the support to Christian missions that Christian Governments

should.

Apart from the fact that we administer these countries in trust for

their indigenous population and have no right to thrust our own creed

upon them to the exclusion of any other with a sound system of ethics,

it can most cogently be urged that Islam is the only religion which

insists on total abstinence, and that seems to be the only way in which

the native African can avoid alcoholic excess.

I have in front of me a letter written by an American of Boston, Mass.,

to the _Spectator_ of February 15th, 1919. In it he alludes to a report

of the Committee for preventing the demoralisation of native races by

the liquor traffic which is said to be "making Africa a cesspool of

alcohol, and statistics show that in this devil's work Holland with her

gin and, I regret to say, the United States with its trade rum have been

the conspicuously worst offenders." The writer goes on to say that the

native races are morally and intellectually children, and that has been

recognised in the States where it is a penal offence to introduce

alcoholic drink within the Indian reservations.

This being so, the attitude of American Protestants in attacking the

only teetotal creed which is working among natives in a continent where

total abstinence is unanimously declared to be essential to native

welfare indicates loose thinking. It is still more extraordinary when we

remember that the teetotal party in the United States have moved heaven

and earth and every device, legitimate or otherwise, to secure national

prohibition, about which, to put it mildly, there appear to be two

opinions among American citizens. We are told that the South adopted

prohibition as a measure of protection against the negro. Apart from the

safety of white colonists in Africa, is the welfare of African negroes

beneath the consideration of a free-born American? If so, why does he

(or she) subscribe so liberally to support missions in Africa? Such an

attitude is incongruous, even if we adopt the preposterous view that

Christianity alone can make a sober man of a negro. Imagine a

municipality which allowed a gang of hooligans to scatter incendiary

bombs broadcast and encouraged its inadequate fire brigade to fight a

rival organisation tooth and nail. Its avowed intention of prohibiting

the use of matches on its own premises would not be considered a

satisfactory _amende_.

I lay no more stress on American Protestant activities against Islam

than is their due. There may be some opinions among Europeans that their

evangelising fervour might find a mission field nearer home in South

America or even in Mexico. Such a criticism is not only ungrateful but

unreasonable. American missions have done much for humanity in the East,

while as regards their own sub-continent the Catholic Church has held

that field for centuries, and no reasonable being wants to see the two

great divisions of Christianity sparring with each other about the

spiritual education of greasers.

The Monroe Doctrine does not apply to missionaries, but I would point

out to them that in wrestling against Islam they are fanning the fires

of fanaticism and causing much material trouble, and the net spiritual

result is to lessen their own power for good and embitter Islam for ill

while widening the breach between Christian and Moslem.

This chapter is an attempt to give an impartial glimpse at the relations

between Moslem and missionary throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. With

regard to their activities, it is neither a detailed account nor an

apology. No sincere religious effort requires an apology, and if it is

not sincere no apology suffices.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote C: The definite article precedes most Arabic place-names,

but is only retained in ordinary local speech as above, presumably

to denote respect. I hold to native pronunciation, except in cases

of long-established custom, and consider "the Yamen" as clumsy as

"the Egypt"--both take the definite article in Arabian script.]

CHAPTER V

A PLEA FOR TOLERANCE

The world just now appears to be awaiting a millennium resulting from a

concourse of more or less brilliant and assertive folk with divergent

views. Presuming that the necessary change in human nature will be

wrought by enactment, we have still to acquire more religious tolerance

if we are to live together in unity with our Moslem fellow-subjects and

neighbours.

What is the use of talking about a League of Nations and the

self-decision of small States if we still seek to impose our religious

views on people who do not want them and encroach on the borders of

other creeds? Are other people's spiritual affairs of no account, or do

we arrogate to ourselves a monopoly of such matters? Both positions are

untenable.

The justification of missionary enterprise is based on Christ's last

charge to His disciples: "Go ye into all the world and preach the

gospel to every creature." He clearly defined that gospel as "the

tidings of the kingdom," and what that kingdom was He has repeatedly

told us in the Sermon on the Mount, frequent conversations with His

disciples and others and the example of His daily life. He never sought

to change a man's religious belief (such as it was) or his method of

livelihood (however questionable it might be), but to reform him within

the limits of his convictions and his duties. He has also left on record

an indictment of proselytisers that will endure for all time. Of course,

if the Gospel narrative is unreliable throughout (as the reverend and

scholarly compiler of the "Encyclopedia Biblica" would appear to imply)

then these arguments fall to the ground, but so does any possible

justification of missionary enterprise. On the other hand, Moslems _do_

believe and reverence the _Engil_ or Gospel, though they follow the

doctrine and dogma of a later revelation.

The logical deduction from these facts is that moral training, education

and charitable works among Moslems are permissible and justifiable

features of missionary endeavour, if not forced upon an unwilling

population, but attacks on Islam itself are not only unmerited but

unauthorised and impertinent.

Many missionaries of undoubted scholarship and breadth of view see this

and model their field work accordingly, with good results; in fact, most

real success in the mission field has been achieved by practical,

Christian work on the above lines, and not by religious propaganda; but

the flag which missionary societies flaunt before a subscribing

Christian public is quite a different banner, as can be easily

ascertained from their own published literature, which is very prolific

and accessible to all.

In writing about Islam the authors or compilers of these works too

frequently allow their zeal to involve them in a web of inconsistency

and misstatement, or else they let their religious terminology take

liberties with their intellect and that of the public.

We will glance briefly at their indictment of Islam as presented in

their quasi-geographical works, disregarding their public utterances and

tracts as privileged, like the platform-speeches and vote-catching

pamphlets of a General Election; also we will keep to their own

terminology and expressions as far as possible.

First and foremost, especially in the United States, where knowledge of

non-Christian creeds is not so general as with us, the literature of

foreign missions insists on grouping together all regions as yet

unexploited by them (whether populated by heathen, Moslems, Buddhists

or any other non-Christian race) and describing them indiscriminately as

Gibraltars of Satan's power, a challenge to Christendom and a reproach

to Zion (whatever that may mean). Yet the four great Christian

Churches--Greek, Russian, Catholic and Protestant--seem powerless to

check the reign of hell in Bolshevist Europe, where the liberty of man

is demonstrated by murder, rapine, torture and every fiendish orgy or

bestial lust which mortal mind can conceive. The people among whom these

devilries are being enacted are Christians ruled by Christians, and have

been Christian for centuries. They are still Christian so far as a

blood-besotted clique will let them be anything. And in the face of such

facts there are missionaries who enunciate in cold print that without

Christianity there could be no charitable or humane organisation of any

sort, or good government, or security of property, and--clinching

argument--trade would suffer. Could there be any more glaring example of

the cart before the horse? Does a dog wag his tail or the tail wag the

dog? Is Japan hopelessly benighted and devoid of the activities

described as the monopoly of Christianity? Moreover: Can Christian

teaching or preaching pacify the embittered struggle between labour and

capital which threatens yet to wreck civilisation? Does it even try?

There is no more ridiculous or extravagant boast among a certain class

of self-appointed evangelists than the oft-repeated statement that all

the modern blessings of Western civilisation are the fruit of

Christianity and that the backward state of oriental Moslems is due to

the absence of Christianity.

Any thoughtful schoolboy knows that it was the exploitation of coal and

iron which lifted us Western nations out of the ruck, backed by the

natural hardihood due to a bracing climate, otherwise the Mediterranean

might still be harried by corsairs. Steam transport by land and sea was

the direct offspring of these two minerals. Even then Western supremacy

was gradual and only recently completed by the exploitation of

petroleum, rubber and high explosives. Brown Bess, as a shooting weapon,

was far inferior to the long-barrelled flint-lock of Morocco, and the

Arabian match-lock could out-range any firearm in existence till sharp

cutting tools made the rifle possible. What does modern surgery, or any

other science of accurate manipulation, not owe to modern steel? When we

turn from metallurgy to medicine, let us not forget that Avicenna was

writing his pharmacopoeia when Christian apothecaries were selling

potions and philtres under the sign of a stuffed crocodile.

Some exponents of Christianity would go further and arrogate to her the

inception of all arts and handicrafts. Damascus blades, Cordovan

leather, Moorish architecture, Persian carpets, Indian filagree, Chinese

carvings and Japanese paintings all give the lie to such claims.

If we are to measure Christianity by the material progress of her

adherents, what conclusions are we to draw from the history of the Roman

Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Copts? Fourteen hundred years after

the birth of Christianity in Palestine the fall of Constantinople

shattered her last vestige of sovereignty in the East after she had gone

through centuries of decadence, debauch and intrigue such as anyone can

find recorded by Gibbon or even in historical novels like "Hypatia."

Islam, to-day, is about the same age as Christianity was then, and has

gone through similar stages, except that it has been spared the

intrigues of an organised priesthood and its comparative frugality has

protected it from oriental enervation to a certain extent.

Compared with Western Christianity its present epoch coincides with the

era preceding the Reformation, when religious teaching had become

stereotyped and lacked vitality, as is now the case with Moslem teaching

as a rule. There is no reason why Islam should not recover as

Christianity did, and if it does not it will not be due to any intrinsic

defect, but to its oriental environment, which has already debased and

wrecked Eastern Christendom.

The respective ages of the two religions induces another comparison. We

are now in the fourteenth century of the Hejira; glance at European

Christendom of that period in the Christian era, or even much later, and

reflect on the Sicilian Vespers, the Inquisition, the massacre of the

Huguenots, the atrocious witchfinders who served that pedantic

Protestant prig, James I, and all the burnings, hackings and slayings

perpetrated in the name of Christendom. We must admit that no Moslems

anywhere, even in the most barbarous regions, are any worse than the

Christians of those days, while the vast majority are infinitely better,

viewed by any general standard of humanity. Christendom's only possible

defence is that civilisation has influenced Christianity for good, and

not the other way about. There is one other loophole which I, for one,

refuse to crawl through--that Christianity is a greater moral force than

Islam or more rapid in its action. Missionaries say that Islam is

incapable of high ideals owing to its impersonal and inhuman conception

of the Deity, whom it does not limit by any human standards of justice.

They complain that there is no fatherhood in the Moslem God;

but--pursuing their own metaphor--what would an earthly father think if

his acts of correction were criticised by his children from their own

point of view? He might be angry, but would probably just smile, and I

hope the Almighty does the same. A child thinks it most unjust to be

rebuked or perhaps chastised for playing at trains with suitable noises

at unsuitable seasons but it is that, and similar parental correction,

which makes him become a decent member of society and not a self-centred

nuisance.

Moslems shrink from applying _any_ human standards to the Deity,

regarding Him as the Lord of the Universe and not a popularly-elected

premier. "Whatever good is from God, whatever ill from thyself," is a

Koranic aphorism. Nor do they seek to drive bargains with Him, as do

many pious Christians, and their supplications are limited (as in our

Lord's Prayer) to the bare necessities of life--food and water to

support existence, and clothing to cover their nakedness.

The application of human ideals to the Almighty places Him on a level

with Kipling's "wise wood-pavement gods" or the Teutonic conception of

a deity who sent the Entente bad harvests to help German submarine

activities. Such absurdities incur the rebuke of the staunch old

patriarch, "Though he slay me yet will I trust in him"; there is no

excuse for seeking to inflict them on the austerities of Islam.

Climate and terrain have a marked influence on the form religion takes

in its human manifestation. Missionary literature asserts this clearly

with regard to Islam, describing it, aptly enough, as a religion of

desert and oasis thence deriving its austere and sensual features, but

the thesis applies with equal force to Christianity. The marked cleavage

of hermit-like asceticism and gross sensuality which rock-bound deserts

and the lush Nile valley wrought in Egyptian Christendom has been

described by every writer dealing with that subject, and Arabian

Christianity drooped, and finally died, in the arid pastoral uplands of

Jauf and Nejran long before it succumbed in fertile, hard-working Yamen.

If the East became Christian next week there would be the same rank

growth and final atrophy or disintegrating schism for lack of outside

opposition. Missionaries are quick enough to remark on this process in

Arabia where Islam is practically unopposed, but will not apply it to

Christianity. They do not seem to realise that healthy competition

maintains the vitality of religion no less than trade or any other form

of human effort requiring continuous energy and application. Islam

revivified a decadent Christianity, and the attacks of modern

missionaries are strengthening Islam. They justify these attacks and

urge further support for them on the grounds that Islam is moribund and

now is the time to give it the _coup de grace_, or that Islam is the

most dangerous foe to Christendom in the world and must be fought to a

finish lest it unite three hundred million Moslems against us. I have

seen both reasons given in the same missionary book; both are absurd.

The latter is a mere red herring drawn across the trail of existing

facts, more so, indeed, than the ex-Kaiser's Yellow Peril, for that at

least was trailed from a vast country enclosing within a ring fence a

huge population of homogeneous race and creed. As for crushing Islam by

missionary enterprise, you cannot kill a great religion with pin-pricks,

however numerous and frequent; you can only cause superficial hurts and

irritation, as in a German student's duel. Every religion contains the

germs of its own destruction within itself (which it can resist

indefinitely so long as it is healthy and vigorous), but no outside

efforts, however overwhelming, can do aught but stiffen its adherents.

The early Christian Church was driven off the face of the earth into

catacombs, but emerged to rule supreme in the very city which had driven

her underground; Muhammad barely escaped from Mecca with his life, but

returned to make it the centre of his creed, and Crusaders died in

hopeless defeat at Hattin cursing "Mahound" with their last breath as

the enemy of their faith, yet their very presence there showed how Islam

had revived Christianity.

_Per aspera ad astra:_ there is no easy road or short cut to collective,

spiritual progress. I am not arguing against possible "acts of grace"

working on individuals, but the uplift of a race, a class or even a

congregation cannot be done by a sort of spiritual legerdemain based on

hypnotic suggestion. Individuals may be so swayed for the time being,

and, in a few favourable cases, the initial impetus will be carried on,

but most human souls are like locusts and flutter earthward when the

wind drops. They may have advanced more or less, but are just as likely

to be deflected or even swept back again by a change in the wind.

Revivalist campaigns and salvation by a _coup de theatre_ do not

encourage consecutive religious thought, which is the only stable

foundation of religious belief; second-hand convictions do not wear well

in the storm and sunshine of unsheltered lives, and a creed that has to

be treated like an orchid is no use to anybody.

If the same amount of earnest, consecutive effort and clear thinking had

been applied to religion as has gone to build up civilisation we should

all be leading harmonious spiritual lives to-day and sin and sorrow

would probably have been banished from the earth, but few people think

of applying their mental faculties to religion, and its exploitation by

modern mercantile methods is not the same thing at all. Civilisation is

an accretion of countless efforts and ceaseless striving to ameliorate

existing conditions, whereas religion started as a perfect thesis and

has since got overgrown with human bigotry and fantasies while absorbing

very little of the vast, increasing store of human knowledge. That is

why civilisation has got so much in advance of religion that the latter

cannot lead or guide the former, but only lags behind, like a horse

hitched to a cart-tail. Missionary writers are rather apt to confuse the

gifts of civilisation with the thing itself. A savage can be taught to

use a rifle or an electric switch or even a flame-projecter, but this is

no proof that he is really civilised. On the other hand, the scholarly

recluse and philosopher whose works uplift and refine humanity may

bungle even with the "fool-proof" lift which takes him up to his own

eyrie in Flat-land, but he is none the less civilised.

They would have us believe that petticoats and pantaloons are the

hall-mark of Christian civilisation, and one of their favourite sneers

at Arabia (as a proof of its benighted condition and need of their

ministrations) is "a land without manufacture where machinery is looked

on as a sort of marvel." As a matter of fact, Arabia can manufacture all

she really wants, and did so when we blockaded her coasts; nor is

machinery any more of a marvel to the average Arabian Arab than it is to

the average Occidental. Both use intelligently such machinery as they

find necessary in their pursuits and occupations, though neither can

make it or repair it except superficially, and both fumble more or less

with unfamiliar mechanical appliances. The young man from the country

blows the gas out or tries to light his cheroot at an incandescent bulb,

and may be considered lucky if he does not get some swift, silent form

of vehicular traffic in the small of his back when he is gaping at an

electric advertisement in changing-coloured lights. It has been my

object, and to a certain extent my duty, on several occasions to try to

impress a party of chiefs and their retinue when visiting Aden from the

wildest parts of Arabia Felix (which can be very wild indeed). On the

same morning I have taken them over a man-of-war, on the musketry-range

to see a Maxim at practice and down into a twelve-inch casemate when the

monster was about to fire. They never turned a hair, but asked many

intelligent questions and a few amusing ones, tried to cadge a rifle or

two from the officer showing them the racks for small arms, condemned

the Maxim for "eating cartridges too fast" and were much tickled by the

gunner-officer's joke that they could have the big cannon if they would

take it away with them.

These wild Arabians, when trained, make the most reliable machine-tenders

in the East, as they have a _penchant_ for mechanism of all sorts and

will not neglect their charge when unsupervised.

We are all inclined to boast too personally of our enlightened

civilisation with its marvellous mechanical appliances, but what is it

after all but the specialist training of the few serving the wants of

the many? If the average missionary swam ashore with an Arab fireman

from a shipwreck and landed on an uninhabited island of ordinary

tropical aspect, the Arab would know the knack of scaling coco-nut palms

(no easy task), the vegetation which would supply him with fibre for

fishing-lines and what thorns could be used to make an effective hook,

while the missionary would probably be unable to get fire by friction

with the aid of a bow-string and spindle.

Missionary literature is very severe on Arabia as a stiff-necked country

which has hitherto discouraged evangelical activities. "Hence the low

plane of Arabia morally. Slavery and concubinage and, nearly everywhere,

polygamy and divorce are fearfully common and fatalism has paralysed

enterprise."

This indictment is not only unjust, but it recoils on Western

civilisation. Arabia is on a high enough moral plane to refuse drink,

drugs and debauchery generally, while prostitution is unknown outside

large centres overrun by foreigners, which are more cosmopolitan than

Arab. Sanaa, which is a pure Arab city with little or no foreign

element, is much more moral than London or New York. To adduce slavery

and concubinage coupled with polygamy and divorce as further evidence

against Arabia is crass absurdity; slaves are far better treated

anywhere in Arabia than they were in the States or the West Indies;

concubinage and polygamy, as practised by the patriarchs of Holy Writ,

are still legal in that part of the world; there is nothing sinful

about them in themselves--a Moslem might as well rebuke Western society

for being addicted to whisky and bridge. He might even remind us that

divorce is easier in the States than in Arabia and quote the Prophet's

words on the subject: "Of all lawful acts divorce is the most hateful in

the sight of God." With us a woman can be convicted of adultery in the

eyes of the world on evidence that would not hang a cat for stealing

cream, but in Islam the act must be proved beyond doubt by two

witnesses, who are soundly flogged if their evidence breaks down, and

their testimony is declared invalid for the future. This places the

accusation under a heavy disability, but it is better than putting a

woman's most cherished attribute at the mercy of a suborned servant or

two--a far greater injustice to womanhood than bearing a fair share of a

naturally hard and toilsome life, which is also a missionary complaint

against Arabia. As for fatalism paralysing enterprise there, perhaps it

does to a certain extent, but it cannot compare with our own organised

strikes in that direction.

Another charge is that Arabia has no stable government and people go

armed against each other. Tribal Arabia has the only true form of

democratic government, and the Arab tribesman goes armed to make sure

that it continues democratic--as many a would-be despot knows to his

cost. They use these weapons to settle other disputes occasionally, but

Christian cowboys still do so at times unless they have acquired grace

and the barley-water habit.

These deliberate misstatements and the distortion of known facts are

unworthy of the many earnest workers in recognised mission fields, and

they become really mischievous when they culminate in an appeal to the

general public calling for resources and _personnel_ to "win Mecca for

Christ," and use it and the Arabic language to disseminate Christianity

and so win Arabia and, eventually, the Moslem world.

Christianity had a very good start in Arabia long before Muhammad's day,

and (contrary to missionary assertion) was in existence there for

centuries after his death. Not long before the dawn of Islam, Christian

and pagan Arabs fought side by side to overthrow a despotic Jew king in

Yamen who was trying to proselytise them with the crude but convincing

contrivance of an artificial hell which cost only the firewood and

labour involved and beat modern revivalist descriptions of the place to

a frazzle as a means of speedy conversion--to a Jew or a cinder.

Christianity lasted in Yamen up to the tenth century A.D. It paid

tribute as a subordinate creed, like Judaism, but had far more equable

charters and greater respect among Moslems. In fact, it was never driven

out, but gradually merged into Islam, as is indicated by the

inscriptions found on the lintel of ruined churches here and there,

"There is but one God."

The published statement of a travelled missionary that the Turks stabled

their cavalry horses in the ruins of Abraha's "cathedral" at Sanaa is

misleading. The church which that Abyssinian general built when he came

over to help the Arabs against the Jew king of proselytising tendencies

has nothing left of it above ground except a bare site surrounded by a

low circular wall which would perhaps accommodate the horses of a

mounted patrol in bivouac. The Turks probably used it for that purpose

without inquiry.

What is the use of bolstering up a presumably sincere religious movement

with these puerile and mischievous statements? Apart from the rancour

they excite among educated Moslems (who are more familiar with this

class of literature than the writers perhaps imagine) they deceive the

Christian public and place conscientious missionaries afield in a false

position, for most practical mission workers know and admit that the

wholesale conversion of Moslems is not a feasible proposition and that

sporadic proselytes are very doubtful trophies. Knowing this, they

concentrate their principal efforts on schools, hospitals and charitable

relief, all based on friendly relations with the natives which have been

patiently built up. These relations are jeopardised by the wild-cat

utterances which are published for home consumption. If a Christian

public cannot support legitimate missionary enterprise without having it

camouflaged by all this spiritual swashbuckling, then it is in urgent

need of evangelical ministrations itself.

Missionaries in the field have, of course, a personal view which we must

not overlook, as it is entirely creditable to all parties concerned. The

more strenuous forms of mission work in barbarous countries demand, and

get, the highest type of human devotion and courage. It is a healthy

sign that the public should support such enterprise and that men and

women should be readily found to undertake it gladly. There is a great

gulf between such gallantry and the calculating spirit which works from

a "strategic centre," to bring about a serious political situation which

others have to face.

Let us now examine the Islamic attitude toward Christianity.

The thoughtful Moslem generally admits the excellence of occidental

principles and methods in the practical affairs of life, but insists

that even earthly existence is made up of more than civilised amenities,

economics and appliances for luxury, comfort and locomotion. It is when

he comes to examine our social life that he finds us falling very short

of our Christian ideals, and he argues to himself that if that is all

Christianity can do for us it is not likely to do more for him, but

rather less. He admits that his less civilised co-religionists in

Arabia, Afghanistan, etc., lack half-tones in their personalities, which

are black and white in streaks instead of blending in various shades of

grey. He considers that Islam with its simple austerities is better

suited to such characters than Christianity with its unattainable

ideals. He himself has visited Western cities and observed their

conditions shrewdly. He regards missionaries as zealous bagmen

travelling with excellent samples for a chaotic firm which does not

stock the goods they are trying to push. The missionary may say that he

has no "call" to reform existing conditions in his own country, just as

the bagman may disclaim responsibility for his firm's slackness; but

such excuses book no orders. The travelled Moslem will shake his head

and say that he has seen the firm's showrooms, and their principal

lines appeared to be Labour trouble, profiteering and diluted

Bolshevism, with a particularly tawdry fabric of party politics. He

respects the spiritual commercial traveller and his opinions, if sincere

(he is a judge of sincerity, being rather a casuist himself), but

wherever he has observed the workings of Christianity in bulk it has not

had the elevating and transcendental effect which it is said to have;

that is, he has not found the goods up to sample and will have none of

them.

He seldom realises (to conclude our commercial metaphor) that most

Christian folk in countries which export missionaries are born with

life-members' tickets entitling them to sound, durable goods which are

not displayed in our spiritual shop-windows or in the missionary

hand-bag:--the prayers of childhood and the mother's hymn, the distant

bells of a Sabbath countryside, the bird-chorus of Spring emphasising

the magic hush of Communion on Easter morning, the holly-decked church

ringing with the glad carols of Christmastide and the tremendous promise

which bids us hope at the graveside of our earthly love. It is such

memories as these, and not the stentorian eloquence of some popular

salvation-monger in an atmosphere of over-crowded humanity, which go to

make staunch Christian souls.

The possible proselyte from Islam has to rely on what the missionary has

in his bag. Large quantities of faith are pressed upon him which do not

quite meet his requirements, as it is his reason which should be

satisfied first; no one can believe without a basis of belief.

There is also a great deal of slaughter-house metaphor which does not

appeal to him at all, as he looks on blood as a defilement and a sheep

as the silliest animal in existence--except a lamb. These metaphors were

used by our Lord in speaking to a people who readily understood them,

but for some obscure reason they have not only been retained but

amplified extensively to the exclusion of much beautiful imagery which

is still apposite. We Christians reverence such similes for their

associations, but a Moslem misses the point of them, just as we miss the

stately metre of the Koran in translation.

The would-be convert from Islam must, of course, learn to stifle any

fond memories of the virile, vivid creed he is invited to renounce. No

longer must he give ear to the far-flung call proclaiming from lofty

minarets the unity of God and the Prophet's mission or its cheery,

swinging reiteration as the dead are carried to the _magenna_ or "gate

of Heaven." Certainly not; the less he contemplates their fate the

better for his peace of mind, since (if the effort to convert him is

anything more than an outrageous piece of impudence) their lot in the

hereafter must be appalling and his own depends on the thoroughness with

which he steels his heart against all he ever knew and loved before he

met that pious man and his little picture pamphlets.

Do proselytising missionaries in the Islamic field ever sit down and

think what they are really trying to do? Does the social ostracism of a

human being, the damnation of his folk and the salvation of none but a

remnant of mankind mean anything to them? If so they ought to be

overcome with horror--unless it is their idea of humour, which I cannot

believe.

To pester a man into abandoning a perfectly sound and satisfying

religion for one which may not suit him so well is more reprehensible

than badgering a man to go to your doctor when his own physician

understands his case and has studied it for a long time. At least his

discarded medical adviser will not make his life a burden to him--a

burden which the proselytiser does not have to share.

On the other hand, Moslems are often glad enough to avail themselves of

such Christian works as mission education, medical treatment and

organised charity, so they should tolerate the proselytising propaganda

which seems inseparable from these enterprises.

Missionaries afield are usually justified by their works; it is the

aggressive policy blazoned abroad from mission headquarters which does

so much mischief. Islam was never intended to overthrow Christianity,

but to bring back pagan Arabs to the true worship of God. Mission policy

clamours for attack on it as if it were an invention of the devil and

then complains of Moslem fanaticism, forgetting that if it were an

artifice of Satan they cast doubts on the omnipotence, omniscience or

beneficence of God for permitting it to exist and flourish. Otherwise,

they infer that they are in a position to correct the Almighty in this

matter. It is their complacent pedagogy which exasperates Moslems so. It

is not the way to treat people who believe in the Immaculate Conception,

who call Christmas Day "_the_ Birthday" and respect us as "People of the

Book."

It is time some protest was lodged against this policy if only on behalf

of Christian administrations in Moslem countries, which are always being

attacked by it and urged to give more facilities of spiritual

aggression, especially just at present when Turkey's power has been

shattered and mission strategy thinks it sees an opening.

There was never a less desirable moment for unchecked religious

exploitation than now, when the war-worn nations of Christendom are

trying to reconstruct themselves, and the world is seething with unrest

and overstocked with discarded weapons of precision.

There is no compromise in religion, nor should there be; you cannot go

halfway in any faith, and no one wants a mongrel strain begotten of the

two great militant creeds such as our leading exponent of paradox

wittily describes as "Chrislam." Yet surely there is a reasonable basis

for a religious _entente_ between Islam and Christianity.

Think what Islam has done to advance the knowledge of humanity long

before the dawn of modern science. Moslems, too, would do well to

remember what Christian civilisation has done for them in trade,

agriculture and industries. If you accept gifts from others you should

tolerate their ways; it is but an ill-conditioned cur that bolts the

food proffered and then snarls.

A Moslem or a Christian worthy of the name will remain so. He may expand

or (more rarely) contract his views, but will still be a Moslem or a

Christian, as the case may be.

No human being has the right to say that his conception of the Deity is

correct and all others wrong, nor is such a conclusion supported by the

Gospel or the Koran.

It is the alchemy of the human soul which can transmute the dross of a

sordid environment to the gold of self-sacrifice, and the gold of

inspired religion to the dross of bigotry.

Whether we believe, as Christians, that Christ died on the Cross and

rose the third day, or, as Moslems, that He escaped that fate by an

equally stupendous miracle, we know that He faced persecution and death

for mankind and His ideals, and that both creeds are based on the same

great doctrine--"God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship

him in spirit and in truth."

FINIS

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