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ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE CAMEL COUNTRY
_By
A. E. and S. M. ZWEMER_
Zigzag Journeys in the Camel Country
Arabia in Picture and Story. 12mo, cloth _net $1.00_
Topsy-Turvy Land
Arabia Pictured for Children. Decorated, cloth _net .75_
[Illustration: The Desert Scout]
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN
THE CAMEL COUNTRY
_ARABIA IN PICTURE
AND STORY_
By
SAMUEL M. ZWEMER
_and_
AMY E. ZWEMER
_Authors of “Topsy Turvy Land”_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1911, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
_To the children of missionaries all the world over_
[Illustration: PREFACE]
Here is another book of pictures and stories for the big children and
small grown-up folks who enjoyed reading “Topsy Turvy Land” and want to
know more about Arabia. A great part of this strange Camel Country is
still unknown, and there are wide deserts which only the camel and his
Arab guide have ever crossed. A few travellers and missionaries, however,
have seen something of Arabia on their zigzag journeys along the coasts
and inland. Would you like to hear the story?
The camels are waiting and the caravan is ready to start. You will
not grow weary by the way, we hope. If the desert tracks are long and
tiresome through the following chapters, just refresh yourself in the
oasis of a picture.
S. M. Z.
A. E. Z.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN ARABIA 13
II. THE CAMEL AT HOME 18
III. ALONG UNBEATEN TRACKS IN YEMEN 25
IV. GOING TO MARKET TO SOW SEED 32
V. WHERE THE QUEEN OF SHEBA LIVED 37
VI. THE JEWS OF KHEIBAR 43
VII. AMULETS AND OTHER EVERY-DAY THINGS 48
VIII. THE MOST WONDERFUL STONE IN THE WORLD 54
IX. THE CAMEL DRIVER WHO BECAME A PROPHET 60
X. THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANGELS 66
XI. PEARLS AND PEARL DIVERS 74
XII. A PIONEER JOURNEY ON THE PIRATE COAST 80
XIII. ACROSS THE DESERT OF OMAN 86
XIV. JAIL-BIRDS 95
XV. THE ACORN SCHOOL 101
XVI. THE STORY OF A ROLLER BANDAGE 107
XVII. NAJMA’S LAST CHRISTMAS 115
XVIII. THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD 119
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE DESERT SCOUT _Frontispiece_
THE BIG CAMEL MARKET IN THE CRATER AT ADEN
WHERE WE PREACHED OUR FIRST SERMON, 1891 14
A SWIFT DROMEDARY AND AN ARAB POST-RIDER 20
A CARAVAN FROM YEMEN BRINGING IN HIDES FOR
AMERICAN KID SHOES 22
A PICTURE CARVED IN STONE 2,000 YEARS OLD, WITH
ITS INSCRIPTION, FROM THE LAND OF SHEBA 40
THE CASTLE OF KHEIBAR 45
WATER CARTS USED AT ADEN TO BRING WATER FROM
THE WELLS TO THE CITY 46
A WOMAN OF THE HILL TRIBES, SHOWING VEIL AND
AMULETS WORN 48
EVERY-DAY THINGS IN ARABIA 54
THE BLACK STONE AT MECCA 56
OPENING OF THE HEDJAZ RAILWAY 58
WHEN THE ARABS RETURN FROM PILGRIMAGE, THEY
LOAD THEIR BAGGAGE ON THE POOR, PATIENT CAMEL 64
FIRST CHAPTER OF THE KORAN 68
THE EVOLUTION OF A PEARL BUTTON 76
PRAYER IN THE DESERT 88
MAP OF OMAN 91
BEDOUIN WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN 98
A MECCAN BOY 102
A BEDOUIN GIRL PLAYING PEEK-A-BOO ON A CAMEL 116
“ARABIA” (SONG) 125
Grateful acknowledgment is given to Mr. J. M. Coutinho, photographer at
Aden, for permission to use several full-paged photographs. And gratitude
is also expressed here for the use of other pictures taken by our
missionary friends, the Rev. J. C. Young, M. D., and Dr. Sharon J. Thoms.
I
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN ARABIA
Zigzag are the lines across the deserts of Arabia that mark the weary
journeys of the camel caravans for centuries. Arabia has no straight
roads. The crooked, winding paths through valley and along mountainside
or over sandy tracks are worn smooth by the shuffling feet of the
animal-with-the-long-neck. Every bit of desert thorn or green herb on
either side of the path means a step away from the straight line. The
caravan zigzags towards its destination. The ship of the desert makes
more tacks in its onward course than a sailing-boat with a contrary wind
in a narrow harbour.
The Arab, like the camel, is not in love with straight lines. An Arab
carpenter cannot draw a right angle, and the Arab mason seldom uses a
plummet. An Arab servant has great trouble in laying a table-cloth square
on the table. The old Arab temple at Mecca is called “a Cube” (Kaaba),
and yet has none of its sides and angles equal but is a zigzag building.
Streets are never parallel or at right angles, but go crisscross in all
sorts of ways except the shortest way.
And so it came to pass that when the tribes of men after the deluge
scattered from the Tower of Babel far to the south of the big Arabian
peninsula they too travelled in zigzag lines. Some went to the far east
on the Persian Gulf and began to be pearl-divers at Bahrein. Others took
their best camels all the way across the waterless desert of the interior
and settled in Oman to become the breeders of the finest dromedaries.
Others went meandering southward along the river-beds, called _wadies_,
till they came to the beautiful mountains of Yemen, green with trees and
bright with blossoms. Others loved the dry, clear, keen air of the high
plateau, and making tents of goat-hair they lived with their flocks, and
are the Bedouin tribes of to-day. Still others were driven to the west
and, because the country was barren and dreadfully hot, settled near a
spring called Zem Zem, and built the city of Mecca. The waters of the
spring were good, they said, for fever and pain, and so Mecca became a
health resort and a market-place, and finally a religions centre. Every
year the distant tribes came in great caravans to visit the city and
exchange mares, camel-foals and bits of poetry.
[Illustration: The big Camel Market in the crater at Aden where we
preached our first sermon in 1891]
The children of Ishmael and other grandchildren of “Father Abraham” also
wandered down, and before the time of David the zigzag lines of the
caravans that carried costly merchandise from Persia and India were all
over Arabia. The single-track roads were as thick as the wrinkles on an
old man’s forehead. But the great trunk lines were three: one of them
extended from Aden on the far south, which was the chief harbour, along
the whole western stretch of Arabia to Egypt. This was the road which
the Queen of Sheba took when she came to see Solomon in all his glory.
The other road extended from Babylon across the desert to Damascus,
the oldest city in the world; and the third caravan route, nearly as
important as the other two, went slant-wise from the mouth of the
Euphrates River to the old capital of the Queen of Sheba, Marib. These
three great railroads of the desert were busy day after day and month
after month and year after year for many centuries. Great cities sprang
up beside these camel tracks, and the ruins of Tadmor still show the
wonderful importance of old time Arabia.
But for one reason and another trade chose other channels, and Arabia
lost its importance. When the Wise Men came from the East to Bethlehem’s
Manger the trunk lines were still in existence, but soon after Mohammed’s
birth other parts of the world became more important, and Arabia became
less and less known except to those who live in its deserts.
It had to be rediscovered in the present century, and the story of the
rediscovery of Arabia is full of interest. This story, also, is a story
of zigzag journeys.
Some bold travellers in Europe were anxious to visit the birthplace
of Mohammed and see the holy city of Mecca, and at the risk of their
lives, men like Burckhardt, Burton and others reached Mecca and Medina,
travelling with the Arab caravans and dressed as Moslem pilgrims. In 1862
Palgrave made his celebrated journey across Arabia from west to east.
And in 1876 Doughty, one of the bravest travellers, made his long and
difficult zigzag journeys through Northwest and North Arabia, often in
danger of his life. Suffering hunger and thirst with the Bedouins, he
was driven from place to place until he finally got out of the interior
safely.
Even earlier than these well-known travellers were the journeys of
Cursten Niebuhr in Yemen. In 1763 he was sent by the King of Denmark to
explore the unknown peninsula, and set out with five companions. After
many wonderful adventures he came back, but he was the only one of the
five: the others died in Arabia through fever or on the voyage.
Except for the portion of Arabia seen by those bold travellers and by
others like them, a great part of the country is still unknown. No
missionaries have ever crossed Arabia although they have made journeys
into the interior and along the coasts. It is surprising, but it is true
that the most unknown country in the world to-day is Arabia. We have
better maps of the North Polar regions and even of the moon than we have
of Southeast Arabia and portions of the interior.
The barren desert, fear of the Bedouin, always ready to rob and waylay
the caravan, and the hatred of the Moslem for the Christian have closed
the country for many years against travellers and missionaries; but,
although so long neglected, Arabia is now becoming better known. The
coasts have been explored, and they are actually building a railway
to-day across the desert from Damascus to Mecca and another railway along
the northern borders to Bagdad. A few months ago a British traveller
crossed Arabia in a motor car. How the camels must have been surprised!
In the chapters that follow, we will take some zigzag journeys
together,—sometimes on camels, sometimes on donkey-back, or in the Arab
sailing-boats along the coast. We will not tell you what others have seen
or heard in this wonderful country of the camel, but tell our own story;
and we hope that you will learn to love the Arab, his country, and his
camel as much as we do, and make many a new zigzag track across the map
of Arabia to mark your journeys as future missionaries.
II
THE CAMEL AT HOME
+----------------------------------+
| _Mr. and Mrs. Camel_ |
| |
|_At Home_ _All Over Arabia._ |
| |
| _B. C. 4000 — A. D. 1911._ |
+----------------------------------+
Persia for goats, Egypt for crocodiles, Cashmere for sheep, Thibet for
bulldogs, India for tigers, but Arabia for the camel! To see real live
dromedaries, you must come to Arabia. For although the camel is often
met with elsewhere, no country can show him in all his beauty like that
country which is called by the Arabs themselves “Um-el-Ibl,” mother
of the camel. The Oman dromedary is the prince of all camel breeds,
and is so highly esteemed in the markets of the East as to fetch three
times the price of any other camel. And no wonder that this animal has
reached perfection in Arabia! He has been at home in its deserts and
trained by its tribes for many, many centuries. Arabia and the camel are
so closely connected that one can neither understand the Arab nor his
language without him. Without the camel, life in a large part of Arabia
would at present be impossible. Without the camel, the Arabic language
itself would lose a vast number of words and ideas and possibly also a
great many of its difficult sounds. There is not a page in the Arabic
dictionary which does not have some reference to the camel and the life
of this wonderful ship of the desert. The Arabs give him five thousand,
seven hundred and forty-four different names, but the most common name by
which he is known, not only by the Arabs but in all languages, is that of
“Jemil,” that is to say, “camel.”
When the Ishmaelites brought Joseph to Egypt, and when the Queen of Sheba
came to visit Solomon, they travelled on camels. The caravan was the
earliest trunk line across the great lands of the East, and has probably
carried more freight and more passengers than the Pennsylvania Railroad
or the largest ocean liners. Long before wagons were invented, wheat,
barley, wool and spices came across the desert on camels to Nineveh and
Egypt.
Have you ever seen such a desert ship? A large, bony animal, six or seven
feet high to the top of its hump, and rude and ungainly in appearance.
Its neck is long, but curved beautifully. Its ears are ridiculously
small, and the upper lip is cleft nearly to the nose, while the lower lip
hangs down, and gives the whole face the appearance of “having the blues.”
The camel has many uses. When too old to carry a burden, it is used for
food. Camel’s milk is very wholesome. Camel’s hair is used for making
both fine and coarse cloths, and the skin is used for sandals, water-bags
and thongs.
[Illustration: A Swift Dromedary and an Arab Post-rider]
The dromedary is the swift post-camel, which carries its rider on long
journeys seventy miles a day on the stretch. A caravan of ordinary camels
is like a freight train and is intended to go slowly and surely with its
heavy load of merchandise; but a company of dromedary riders is like a
limited express. The ordinary caravan travels six hours a day and about
three miles an hour, but a good dromedary can perform wonders on the
road. A merchant once rode the entire distance from El Kasim to Taif and
back, over seven hundred miles in fifteen days; and a post-rider at Maan
in North Arabia can deliver a message at Damascus, two hundred miles
away, at the end of three days. The ordinary camel is like a packhorse,
but the dromedary by careful breeding has become a race-horse. The camel
is thick-built, heavy footed, ungainly, jolting. The dromedary has more
slender limbs, finer hair, a lighter step, a wonderfully easy pace and
is more enduring of thirst. All the camels in Arabia have a single hump.
The two-humped camel, which you sometimes see in the circus, does not
come from Arabia, but from Central Asia. As for the ordinary camel, his
life is as hard as the desert soil and as barren of all comfort as the
desert is bare of grass. Surely, no animal would have more right to feel
sulky and dull. Always in hard use as a beast of burden, underfed and
overloaded in the desert land where even a thorny bush is considered a
tit-bit, and where water costs money, it is no fun at all to be a camel.
Yet to describe the camel is to describe God’s goodness to the desert
dwellers. The Arabs have a saying that the camel is the greatest of all
blessings given by Allah to mankind; and when Mohammed, the prophet,
wished to call attention to the providence and loving-kindness of God
among the Bedouins, who were not at all religious, he said, “And will
ye not look then at the camel how she is created?” With his long neck
he is able to reach far out among the desert shrubs on both sides of
his pathway and to eat as he trudges along. The skin of his month is so
thick and tough that it enables him to eat hard and thorny plants, the
only herbage of the desert. The camel’s ears are very small so that he
can close them when the desert storm begins and the sand-drifts come like
a snow-storm. But his nostrils are large for breathing and yet can be
closed up tight during the fearful simoom or hot desert winds. His eyes
are protected by heavy, overhanging lids against the direct rays of the
noon sun, and his cushioned feet are adapted for the ease of the rider
and of the animal himself. Five horny pads, one on each knee, and one
under the breast, support the animal when kneeling to receive a burden or
when he rests on the hot sand. The camel’s hump was nature’s pack-saddle
for the commerce of many lands and for many ages. The arched backbone
which supports the hump is constructed, just like the Brooklyn Bridge,
to sustain the greatest weight in proportion to the span. A strong camel
can bear one thousand pounds’ weight, although the usual load is not more
than six hundred pounds. The camel is the most useful of all domestic
animals, as you can see in the pictures. He can carry burdens or draw
water or carry the swift post or bring in fire-wood from the desert,
or grind corn. While still living he provides fuel, milk, excellent
hair for making tents, ropes, and shawls. And when dead the Arabs eat
his flesh for food, use his leather to make sandals, and the big broad
shoulder-blades are used as slates in the day-schools in many parts of
Arabia. A camel march is the standard of distance among the Arabs, and
the price of a milch camel is the standard of value among the Bedouins of
the desert. The camel is the most patient animal in existence, and yet
he often has an ugly temper and is undoubtedly stupid to a degree. He
will never attempt to throw you off his back, but if you fall off he will
never dream of stopping for you; and if turned loose in the desert, it is
a chance of a thousand to one whether he will find his way back to his
accustomed home or pasture. When the camel becomes angry, he bends back
his long, snaky neck and opens his big jaws to bite. Do you notice the
powerful jaws of the camels in the pictures? Yet with all his faults, his
ungainly gait, and his ugly appearance, you cannot help loving this ship
of the desert when once you have made a zigzag journey on camel-back
with the Arab caravans. Perched high in the air you feel as if you were
riding on a church steeple or an aeroplane and the swinging, swaying
motion after you become used to it is as good as that of a pleasure yacht
in New York Bay when the wind is blowing. Then you feel like singing with
the Arab poet:
“Roast meat and milk; the swinging ride
On a camel sure and tried,
Which her master speeds amain
O’er low dale and level plain.”
[Illustration: A caravan from Yemen bringing in hides for American kid
shoes]
There are two lessons we can learn from the camel, and I think all the
boys and girls who read this chapter will like to know them. The first
is, _how to bear a burden_ and never complain. The secret of carrying
this burden you will see when the caravan prepares for the long journey.
Every camel kneels down to receive its load in the morning; every camel
kneels down to have its load taken off in the evening. And that is why
he is able to carry his burden to the end of the desert road. How much
easier the great burden of a lost world in need of the Gospel could
be carried, if we all learned to kneel morning and evening! To kneel
and have the Master’s hand lay the burden on us, and the same hand
take it off. Then we would feel the responsibility, and yet not miss
the quietness and rest of real missionary service. Will you not kneel
to-night, and to-morrow, and ask Jesus to teach you this lesson? Because,
you know, the burden of these heathen lands is _very_ heavy. There is on
all of them, on Arabia too, the burden of sin, and of suffering, and of
sorrow. What an awful burden! And yet the Bible tells us, “Bear ye one
another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
The second lesson is that of _patience_, which is the chief virtue of
the camel, the most necessary virtue for every little missionary, and
absolutely necessary for every big missionary. As the long train of
camels goes on through the narrow sand path and between the thorn-shrubs
of the wilderness, step by step, without sound and without ceasing,
tramp, tramp, tramp, I have often thought of the text: “They shall walk
and not faint.” Patient walking is better than impatient hurrying, in
mission work and everything else. Patient waiting, too, you can learn
from the camel. To wait patiently for results and not to dig up the seed
we have sown before it sprouts. The Great Husbandman has long patience
over every seed that He sows; why should not we?
“Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.”
III
ALONG UNBEATEN TRACES IN YEMEN
Those who think Arabia is a sandy desert with a few nomad tents and
camels and ostriches scattered over it, have never seen Yemen. Yemen is
the most fertile and most beautiful of all the provinces of Arabia. It
means _the right hand_, and this name was given it as one of good omen
by the early Arabs. It was called by the Romans _Arabia Felix_, or Happy
Arabia, to distinguish it from _Arabia Petrea_ (Stony Arabia) and _Arabia
Deserta_ (Desert Arabia).
Those who have never gone inland from Aden cannot imagine how very
different the hill country is from the torrid coast, but a journey of
even thirty miles inland is convincing. Corn never grew more luxuriantly
in Kansas or Iowa than in some of the valleys of Yemen. If the country
had a good government and the people were Christians, it would be one of
the happiest in the world; a country where the orange, lemon, quince,
grape, mango, plum, apricot, peach and apple yield their fruit in their
season; where you can also get pomegranates, figs, dates, plantains and
mulberries; a country where wheat, barley and coffee are staple products,
and where there is a glorious profusion of wild flowers—although the
camel drivers call it grass. Here one can see the nest of the oriole
hanging from the acacia tree, and wild doves chasing each other from
the clefts of the rocks, while farther up in the highlands, wild monkeys
sport among the foliage of the trees.
It was my privilege to make two journeys through Yemen to its beautiful
capital, Sanaa. On my first journey (1891) I went by the usual road from
Hodeida on the coast, but in 1893 I chose the unbeaten tracks from Aden
directly north, in order to see some of the places not yet visited and
meet the people.
At the time of my first and also of my second journey, the Arabs were in
rebellion against the Turks. They have been fighting them now for fifteen
years, trying to secure their independence, and this year the country is
more disturbed than ever, but the Arabs have no unity, no leadership,
and, worst of all, no artillery, and so the Turkish government succeeds
in crushing the rebellion time after time, and holding this province of
Arabia in her grasp.
It was five o’clock on Monday morning, July 2d, that I set off from Aden
with my camel boy Salih, and we did not stop until we reached the village
of Wahat, nearly at noon. Starting again at seven o’clock, we followed
the Arab custom of marching the whole night with the caravan. There was
no breeze, and it was very hot. Vegetation does not begin until you enter
Wady Merga. Here we had fresh dates, and made our camp under a big acacia
tree. The road begins to rise rapidly as we follow the Wady northwards,
and at midnight we pass Suk-el-Juma, or Friday market. This part of the
road, they tell us, is dangerous, and so the Bedouins who accompany our
eighty-two camel caravan swing the lighted wicks which they use to fire
their flint-lock shotguns. Only one man in the party had a Springfield
rifle. On July 4th we fell in with some Arabs who wanted to seize me as a
spy of the British government and keep me as a prisoner until money was
paid for my release. After some difficulty we persuaded them that I was
not a British subject, and that no money would be paid even if they kept
me a prisoner for many days.
The following day we had another adventure. Climbing up the valley and
past fields of verdure, where men were plowing and women were weeding the
gardens, we suddenly stumbled upon a Turkish castle, where an unmannerly
negro official was in charge. He said no strangers were allowed beyond
the Turkish frontier, seized all my baggage, confiscated my books and
maps, and sent me under guard to Taiz, the next important town. On the
afternoon of this same day, a heavy thunderstorm burst upon us from a
clear sky, the wind became a hurricane, some of the camels stampeded,
our umbrellas turned inside out, and, worst of all, a mountain torrent,
swollen by the sudden rains and hail, carried away a donkey and part of
our baggage. Drenched to the skin, we at last forced the camels up the
slope to the house of an Arab, and were hospitably entertained, around a
big fire which he built, on Arab coffee and sweetmeats.
We were now three thousand feet above sea level, and it was very cold
at night even in July. We pressed on the next day, travelling through a
country where every one fears his neighbour. I asked my guide why he had
not prayed since we left Wahat, and his answer was, “If I pray on the
road, my heart gets soft, and I fear to shoot an Arab robber because he
may be a Moslem.” We saw many centipedes and scorpions sleeping after
their rain bath, and warming themselves on the rocks. Every turn of the
road brought us in sight of new villages, and everywhere the peasants
have done their best to cultivate the soil by irrigation, until you
can count a dozen terraces one above the other up the mountainside, in
various shades of green of the different crops. Once and again we met
caravans going down to the coast, carrying coffee or sheep-hides, as you
see in the picture. One could hear the approach of a caravan by the camel
drivers’ song. In a high, monotonous key and with endless repetition,
they would sing verses like this about their camels:
“O Lord, keep them from all dangers that pass,
And make their long legs pillars of brass.”
Two days later we arrived at the interesting old town of Taiz, and I
think I was the first Western traveller to visit it since the days of
Niebuhr in 1763. While waiting for the governor to investigate the
seizure of my baggage and the question of my passport, I had a good
opportunity to study the town. Taiz has a population of about seven
thousand people; two or three very old mosques with minarets, a Jewish
synagogue, and a very respectable market. Just back of the town rises a
mountain called the Bride’s Castle, from the top of which you can see
clear across to the African coast. The Turkish government takes its own
time about such a little matter as the inspection of baggage and the
granting of a passport, and it was July 26th before I left Taiz. Even
then I was not released, but sent on from the local governor to the
capital under guard of a mounted trooper, who rode a beautiful horse,
while I followed on a mule. It was no hardship, however, to get away from
Taiz, and once more to breathe the country air and climb the mountain
passes.
A long day’s journey, always climbing up the mountainside, brought us to
Ibb, where my servant was imprisoned because he had told me the names of
the villages. After some difficulty he was released, but the incident
shows how suspicious the Turks are of strangers who travel in their
country. Twelve hours farther on we came to Yerim, an unhealthy town
situated near a marsh. It was July 29th, but the high elevation and the
rain-storms brought the temperature down to fifty-two degrees, which
was a great change from the temperature at Aden which, when I left, was
105 degrees in the shade. At another village, Maaber, even at noon the
temperature was not over fifty-six degrees, and we wrapped ourselves up
as though we were on a polar expedition. In these highlands of Yemen
snow falls during the winter season, and frost is common. Just after
leaving Yerim, we passed a large boulder on the road with an impression
in it as though it were of some one’s foot. The Arabs say it is that of
Ali, the grandson of Mohammed, who came along this road, and whenever
they pass it they anoint it with oil and stop to pray.
From Yerim on to Sanaa the plateau is more level. Wide fields of barley
and wheat took the place of coffee plantations, and the funniest sight
we saw was camels hitched up for plowing. What with their long necks and
queer harness, so much too big for the job, it was an odd sight. Damar,
a large town with three mosques and houses built of stone, was our next
stopping place. From Damar to Waalan was thirty-five miles, and then to
Sanaa eighteen miles more. The roads here are splendid and are kept in
good repair for the sake of the Turkish artillery, although there are no
carriages nor horses in use.
On Thursday, August 2d, I entered Sanaa by the Yemen gate. Three years
before I entered the same city from the other side, coming from Hodeida.
Handed over to the care of a policeman, I waited for the governor to hear
my case, and after finding an old Greek friend who knew me in Aden, and
offered to go bail, I was allowed liberty, and for nineteen days was busy
seeing the city and visiting the Arabs. We shall hear more of Sanaa in
a following chapter. I forgot to say that at Yerim, while sleeping in
the coffee shop, I was robbed of all my money, and so I ended my zigzag
journey not only tired out, but a pauper; and if I had not pawned my
watch and coat, I would have been in debt to the hotel keeper. Pioneer
journeys in Topsy Turvy Land are not without difficulty.
IV
GOING TO MARKET TO SOW SEED
The Arabs are a very old-fashioned people. In fact, their customs have
not changed since the time that Ishmael as a boy went with his mother
Hagar on the camels and landed somewhere in Arabia. I suppose that even
in those old times the Arabs and the Syrians kept a weekly market where
all the people from all the villages came together to barter their wares,
to shake hands and make acquaintance and go back with a larger idea of
their small world. The custom of holding weekly markets on a special day
of the week even in the smallest villages is still common in Arabia. In
fact, there are villages that take their name from a market day, and
are called “Thursday” or “Saturday” because on those days of the week
the village takes on an air of importance and doubles in population.
The Arabs, however, do not have the same names for the days of the week
that we have. Instead of naming them after idols, Thursday after Thor
and Wednesday after the old god Woden, they number the days of the week
just as in the first chapter of Genesis, and have “The First Day,” “The
Second Day,” etc. The only exception is Friday which is the sacred day
of the week and the Mohammedan Sabbath and is named “The Day of the
Congregation” because then they all go to the markets to pray and hear a
sermon.
A busy market is held at “Suk el Khamis” every Thursday all the year
round, rain or shine (and it generally is shine in Arabia), out in the
open air near the ruins of an old mosque about three miles distant from
Menama village at Bahrein where the missionaries live. The two tall
minarets on the mosque can be seen from the market. It is one of the
oldest mosques in East Arabia, and was built several hundred years ago
and rebuilt several times. Now it is no longer used to pray in nor does
the call to prayer ever ring out from the minarets. The fret is that one
Moslem sect after another took possession of the building, and in the
religious disputes that arose the building itself went into decay. One
part of the mosque is now used for a goat pen. The gray square stones of
which the mosque was once built are scattered about and serve as seats
for visitors, and every traveller who visits Bahrein climbs up one of the
minarets and gets a fine view of the islands. If you can read the old
writing carved on the stones in Arabic script, you can see how often this
mosque has changed hands between the rival parties in the Moslem world
called Shiahs and Sunnis, and if you should ever visit the missionary
rooms of the Reformed Church in New York, the secretary there can show
you a gavel or mallet made from a beam of wood which was once in the roof
of this very mosque. A piece of the old beam fell to the ground and
was made into a mallet to show that the religion of Islam in Arabia is
decaying and that missionaries to Moslems need not be afraid to enter the
country of Mohammed.
Every Thursday morning the plain around this mosque is a busy scene. How
often I have ridden down to this market on a donkey or walked in the heat
of the sun and have seen a thousand or more people crowded together in
all their bright coloured garments, men and women and children, busily
engaged in trade, in play, or in quarrels over the price of an article!
One man, perhaps, brings a load of water jars from the village of Ali.
Another has a big donkey load of ropes or mats for sale, and still
another brings great baskets of melons, pomegranates, dates, limes and
vegetables. Women, covered over with their heavy black veils and looking
very mischievously through little peep holes for their eyes, crouch on
the ground before their little open-air stands where they sell cheap
jewelry and trinkets or tiny bottles of perfume and black antimony
powder, which the Arab girls use for their eyes.
The barber is also busy and plies his razor with a deft hand while he
shaves the heads and beards of those who come, charging only a few
coppers for the job. The breadmaker arrives on the scene very early, and
builds his small open oven to bake his flap-cakes. He rolls the dough
on a board, flattens it out with his fingers and then tosses it against
the sides of the hot oven where it sticks fast and bakes into a large,
light, palatable cake. Oh, how good such Arab bread is when you are
hungry, or when you sit down to an Arab guest meal and have it served
with fresh butter and honey!
More numerous and more loud than all the others who come are the
half-naked Bedouins who come to sell a drove of sheep or barter for a
couple of camels. They are all there this morning:
“Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief;
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief;
Butcher, baker and candlestick maker.”
And if the candlestick maker, who sells more candles than candlesticks,
is present, why should the missionary, who is sent to bring the Light of
Life to men, be absent?
As often as possible therefore we visit this market-place, and sell
books and Bibles or preach to those who will listen. It is not at all an
easy place to sell or to preach, but those who come there witness fine,
splendid opportunities to meet men face to face, to get acquainted and to
renew old acquaintance with villagers who come from distant parts of the
Bahrein Island group. Here it is that many a gospel portion has exchanged
hands and many a story of the power of Christ has been sowed as good seed
in the hearts of the Arabs in the hope that God would use it to make
them think of Jesus Christ as their Saviour. If books are sold they are
often carried from here to distant villages, and it is possible to make
acquaintance here with Arabs who come from the mainland and are visiting
the islands, while one is sure to meet old friends who have not been able
to come to see you for a long time.
One merchant used to keep a dry-goods stand and was one of the few
Moslems in the early days of our work who was always glad to welcome a
missionary. When the sun was very hot the shelter of his mat-screen was
a nice shady nook to sit down in and talk with wayfarers. Right near
the tall minarets we sometimes discuss the Koran and its teachings, and
tell the Arabs how the book of Mohammed is really a finger-post pointing
them to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ, the Great Prophet Who is alive
forevermore. Will you not pray that every Thursday God will bless this
little acre, the market-place of Suk el Khamis, where we sow the seed of
God’s Own Word, waiting for the harvest?
“Sowing the seed with an aching heart,
Sowing the seed while the tear-drops start,
Sowing the seed till the reapers come
Gladly to gather the harvest home;
Gathered in time or eternity,
Sure, ah sure, will the harvest be.”
V
WHERE THE QUEEN OF SHEBA LIVED
You have all read the story given in 1 Kings x. of the Queen of Sheba and
her visit to Solomon of whose fame she had heard in her distant kingdom
in Southwest Arabia, but the story as told in Mohammed’s Bible, the
Koran, is very different, and has many curious fables mixed up with it.
It is found in the chapter called “The Ant,” and this is how he tells it.
“We heretofore bestowed knowledge on David and Solomon: and they said,
Praise be unto God, who hath made us more excellent than many of His
faithful servants! And Solomon was David’s heir; and he said, O men, we
have been taught the speech of birds, and have had all things bestowed
on us; this is manifest excellence. And his armies were gathered
together unto Solomon, consisting of genii, and men and birds; and they
were led in distinct bands, until they came unto the valley of ants.
And an ant, seeing the hosts approaching, said, O ants, enter ye into
your habitations, lest Solomon and his army tread you under feet, and
perceive it not. And Solomon smiled, laughing at her words, and said,
O Lord, excite me that I may be thankful for Thy favour wherewith Thou
hast favoured me and my parents; and that I may do that which is right
and well-pleasing unto Thee; and introduce me, through Thy mercy, into
Paradise, among Thy servants the righteous. And he viewed the birds,
and said, What is the reason that I see not the lapwing? Is she absent?
Verily I will chastise her with a severe chastisement, or I will put
her to death, unless she bring me a just excuse. And she tarried not
long before she presented herself unto Solomon, and said, I have viewed
a country which thou hast not viewed; and I come unto thee from Saba,
with a certain piece of news. I found a woman to reign over them, who is
provided with everything requisite for a prince, and hath a magnificent
throne. I found her and her people to worship the sun, besides God.”
The Koran then goes on to tell how Solomon sent her a letter, and she
sent ambassadors to him, and finally asked one of his terrible jinn to
bring her to him, throne and all, from Southwest Arabia. He did it in
the twinkling of an eye, and after she saw Solomon and his glory she was
converted to his religion!
Although this latter story of the Queen of Sheba is evidently fabulous,
there is no doubt that the Bible story is true, because recent explorers
have visited the country of the Queen of Sheba and her old capital Marib,
a short distance east of Sanaa, and have brought back inscriptions which
tell of the ancient glory of her kingdom. In the Old Testament the
Sabaeans lived in Sheba, and their caravans brought gold and precious
stones and spices into distant lands. (See Job vi. 19; Ezek. xxvii. 22,
and Psalm lxxii. 10.)
On my first and second visit to Sanaa, the high mountain capital of
all Yemen, I was privileged to look over into the borders of the
country where the Queen of Sheba lived, and on the journey described
in Chapter III I probably travelled from the coast by the same road
which was used in the days of Solomon. It is not easy to build roads in
so mountainous a country. Everywhere one can see the ruins of the old
Himyarite civilization which flourished here from the time of Solomon
until the Christian era. Some of the roads undoubtedly have been kept in
repair ever since they were built along the mountainside by these early
engineers. Stone bridges across torrent beds, tanks for holding water,
and old castles with inscriptions in the strange language, still witness
to the strength and vigour of this old empire. The accompanying picture
is not that of the Queen of Sheba herself, but is undoubtedly that of
a princess in the Sheba country. It was found among many, many other
inscriptions and carvings in the land south of Marib, the old capital,
where the famous dyke was built which was destroyed by a flood. When
you study the picture, you will notice that the woman’s dress, with its
ornaments and without a veil, the use of a throne, the carved pillars,
and the page boys (or are they girls?) in waiting, are all so very
different from the Arabia of to-day. The picture is also interesting
when we remember how the early travellers and scientists who copied or
brought back these famous inscriptions have confirmed the history of the
Old Testament and its many references to South Arabia. One of them says:
“The Queen of Sheba proved Solomon with hard questions, all of which in
his wisdom he answered her. Now we who study the Old Testament, reversing
the process, go to the wonderland of that queen with a multitude of
inquiries, to many of which it has already given us a satisfactory reply.”
The capital of the Queen of Sheba, Marib, is largely in ruins, but
something of the glory of the old civilization still lingers at Sanaa,
which is at once one of the most beautiful and one of the most ancient
cities of Arabia, built before the time of Solomon. It lies in a wide
valley 7,250 feet above sea level. Jebel Nakum, with its marble quarries,
rises abruptly like a fortress, just east of the city. The town is
surrounded by a high wall, and has four gates. The houses are many of
them four and five stories high, built of stone, and as they have no
window-glass, they use slabs of alabaster instead. The population of the
city is about fifty thousand, of whom more than twenty thousand are Jews.
[Illustration: A picture carved in stone 2,000 years old, with its
inscription, from the land of Sheba]
My first visit to the city was in 1891, and the second in 1894. The first
time I came straight up from Hodeida through Menakha, and in four days
reached the city. The second journey was from Aden northward, leaving on
July 2d, but what with delays and accidents and imprisonment by the Turks
at Taiz, I did not reach Yemen’s capital until the 2d of August. The most
surprising thing about Sanaa is not its old ruins, nor the wonderful
fertility of the country round about, but the interesting character of
its population. Here was a large city full of Jews who came to this part
of the world, as they themselves testified, long before the destruction
of Jerusalem; Greek merchants were carrying on a brisk trade in all the
manufactured articles of Europe with the Arabs of the interior; Turkish
army officials in splendid uniform trying in vain, as they are to-day,
with their regiments of Turkish troops to put down Arab rebellions; and
then the Arabs themselves, men, women and children, strong mountaineers,
with love for liberty and heartily despising the government of which they
are unwilling subjects.
Looking northward from this city you can see the highlands of Asir and
the distant road that leads through Nejran. All this country was once
Christian, and in Sanaa itself stood the great cathedral built by the
Abyssinian king, Abraha, about the time when Mohammed was born. From
Sanaa he led his army to Mecca, hoping to take the city and convert it
to the Christian faith, but he was not successful. In the Koran chapter
of “The Elephant,” you may read how the Christians were defeated when
smallpox broke out among them. Standing on the slopes of Jebel Nakum
and looking eastward, the country of the Queen of Sheba is spread out
before you. You can imagine I was very sorry that, having been robbed
of all my money on the way, it was impossible to carry out my plan of
going from Sanaa to Marib, and from there right across Arabia to Bahrein.
Perhaps some of you who read these lines will be privileged to make this
journey. If you are, you will pass through some of the most interesting
ruins in the world, and the hardships of a camel journey will be
abundantly compensated by what you see on the road.
VI
THE JEWS OF KHEIBAR
Nearly all of the people who live in the country of the camel are
Mohammedans, but it was not always so. Before the days of Mohammed, the
prophet, there were very many Christians in Arabia and also many Jews.
The former lived mostly in the southern part of the great peninsula,
but the Jews had large settlements not only in the country of the Queen
of Sheba—of which we have heard—but also at Mecca and Medina, which
are now the two sacred cities, and especially in the country north of
Medina, Kheibar. Some of these children of Israel came to Arabia at the
time of the captivity when they were driven from their own country by
persecution, and settled down in the rich and fertile valleys of Nejran
and on the hills of Yemen. Others came to Arabia about the time when
Jesus Christ was born.
There are Jews in Arabia still but not nearly as many as in the olden
time. Their condition, too, is very sad and they are often sorely
oppressed by the Moslems. There is no missionary working among them at
present, although they have been visited by colporteurs who brought
them the New Testament in the Hebrew language so that they might read
for themselves the story of the Saviour Jesus Christ. I once had the
pleasure of talking to a large company of Jews in the capital city of
Yemen, Sanaa, and it was very touching to realize that these Jews were
not of the number whose ancestors rejected Jesus and led Him out to be
crucified, because as they themselves told me their forefathers had left
the Holy Land many, many years before Jesus was born at Bethlehem.
But I want to tell you about the Jews of Kheibar. Northeast of the city
where Mohammed lies buried, Medina, there is a barren stretch of rocky
country and in the midst of it a valley where there are some springs
of water and where with great toil it is possible to produce some
vegetation. Here it was that thousands of Jews settled in the days before
Mohammed, tilled the soil and lived happily until the Arabian prophet
with his fierce warriors came preaching a new religion and filling the
valley with the dead bodies of those who would not accept it.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF KHEIBAR.]
You may read the story of this expedition of Mohammed in the history
of his life. So bloody was the battle fought between the Jews and the
Moslems that the Bedouins of that region when they see the iron rust
on the banks of the brooks still say: “Look how the earth is purging
itself of the much blood of the Jews that was spilled in the conquest
of Kheibar.” According to the stories told by the Arab writers it was
a desperate struggle. The Jews did not give Mohammed, the prophet, any
easy victory. To defend themselves against Bedouin robbers and against
assault they had built in the midst of their valley several castles
or forts, one of which was so wonderful that it has very often been
celebrated among the Arabs. It was called the Castle of Kheibar or
Kamoos. An old Jewish warrior told the people that if they would build
a fort in exact obedience to his written command it would be so strong
that no enemy could overcome them or enter the fort. And these were his
instructions: “Build the castle with eight gates and only one entrance;
the walls eightfold and square; the entrance from the fifth; the second,
the fourth; the third, the first; the fourth, the second; the fifth, the
third; the sixth and seventh and eighth unchanged.” I will not leave
you to puzzle over these strange instructions. An Arab friend of mine
who told me the story drew the castle for me and here you have it. If
you will try to find your way to the keep of the castle where the Jews
defended themselves, you will agree that it is not surprising that it
took Mohammed twenty days to storm it. When the castle was taken, the
booty divided and the captives slain in a most cruel manner, Mohammed
took Safia, the widow of the chief of Kheibar to his tent as his captive.
Zainab, the sister of the warrior who fought against Mohammed and who
herself had lost her brother, her husband and her father in the battle,
tried the next day to kill the prophet of Arabia by sending him some
mutton into which she had put poison, but her attempt at vengeance was
not successful. The Moslems say it was a miracle that their prophet
escaped.
The conquest of the Jews was complete, for all the Jews that escaped
from the siege of Kheibar were obliged to turn Moslems and there never
was freedom for the Jew again in all Arabia. They are generally heavily
taxed, have no redress against abuse and repression and are looked down
upon by all the Moslem population. In the capital city of Sanaa they are
not even allowed to carry arms or to ride in the streets. They must live
in a separate part of the town and draw water from wells of their own.
[Illustration: Water carts used at Aden to bring water from the wells to
the city]
At Aden and in other parts of British Arabia the Jews are prosperous, but
everywhere else their lot is not a happy one. The total number of Jews in
Arabia is perhaps two hundred thousand. One half of them at present live
in Yemen and the rest mostly in Bagdad and Busrah.
The traveller who goes on shore at Aden on his way to India never fails
to meet the Jews. In fact, they besiege every passing steamer and are
anxious to sell their wares, ostrich eggs, ostrich feathers, coins, and
curios. You can at once tell them from their peculiar habit of wearing
two locks of hair in front of their ears. Many of the Jews in Arabia are
utterly given over to money getting and worldly pleasures, but others are
strong in their religion and look forward still for the hope of Israel.
They are always glad to purchase the Hebrew Bible and to send their
children to school.