ARABIA PICTURED /"CHILDREN J& A.L. «£ S.M. ZWEMER) v^ rfi'* DS 07 illiii -U S 2.67 Book,_ .2 9R Copyright^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. TOPSY-TURVY LAND TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA PICTURED FOR CHILDREN BY SAMUEL M. ZWEMER and" AMY E. ZWEMER : Fleming H. Revell Company NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copiks Received JUN. 12 1902 Copyright entry CLASS ^XXc. No. 35~/»kc*i. WOMAN SELLING SUGAR-CANE. 48 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA Arabs are to-day because, although they have sugar-cane, their sugar nearly all comes from Europe. They do not know how to manufacture it and therefore eat the sugar- cane raw. Sweeter than sugar-cane and much more plentiful is the date. There is no place in all Arabia where you do not see the date palm growing, and seldom can you eat a meal in any part of the country but dates are part of the bill-of-fare. In fact thousands of people in Arabia have nothing but dates to eat from January to December! So plentiful are they that even donkeys and camels are fed on dates in some districts. Many of the dates you buy in your own country come from Arabia. On the best kind of dates which come in wooden boxes you will find Muscat or Busrah stamped to show from what place they were shipped. There are very many kinds of dates in Arabia, and only a very few sorts are sent abroad. Some of them are too delicate to stand the long voyage and others are found only in small quantities. I do not think any of the dates that reach America equal those we pick from the palm tree ourselves here in Arabia — no more than dried apple rings taste as good as ripe juicy sweet apples from the orchard. When the dates ripen in September they are picked, sorted, and then packed in layers by the Arab women and boys who get paid for this work. Large steamships are loaded down with these boxes and many of them leave Busrah every year with no other cargo than dates. The date tree is very beautiful. I think it is the most 49 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA beautiful of all the palms. It is no wonder that a palm branch is the symbol of victory in the Bible and that the psalmist compares the life of a righteous man to a palm DATES GROWING ON A DATE PALM. tree! How straight and beautifully proportioned is the tall trunk of the tree. It is an evergreen and is always flourish- 50 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA ing winter and summer. It is a lovely sight to see the huge clusters of ripening fruit, golden-yellow or reddish-brown, amid the bright green branches. Along the rivers in the north of Arabia, at Hassa and in Oman, date orchards stretch for miles and miles as far as you can see. Some of the Arabs have such large date gardens that they do not know the number of their trees. How do you suppose they climb the tree? The Arabs have no ladders and in- deed it would be hard to make a ladder long enough to reach to the top of a tall palm tree. So they use a rope band which goes around the trunk of the tree and around their waist; it is. shoved up little by little and the Arab puts his bare feet on the rough bark of the tree and so climbs up as easily as a monkey. The palm tree is perhaps the most useful tree in the world. Every part of it is used for some- thing or other, and I do not see how Arabia could get along without palm trees. The fruit is prepared in many differ- ent ways for food. The date stones are used by the Arab children in playing checkers and other games on the smooth sand. They are also ground up into a coarse kind of meal and this is good cattle-food. The branches of the date tree are long and strong and thin just like a piece of rattan. From them the carpenters make beds, tables, chairs, cradles, bird-cages, reading-stands, boats, crates, kites and a dozen other useful things. The leaves are woven into baskets, mats, fans and string. From the bark excellent fibre makes rope of all sizes. Not a bit of the tree is wasted. Even the blossoms are used to make a kind of drink and the old musty fruit that cannot be eaten is made into date syrup or date vinegar. 51 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA In one of the pictures you see the fire wood market at Busrah. The long branches you see are sold for kindling wood and they make a splendid fire. The heavier parts of the tree are also used for fuel and the donkeys are loaded with these date knots and date sticks in baskets. It is a busy scene and, what with braying of donkeys and shout- ing of the wood-merchants, there is enough noise too. There is one more blessing that comes from the palm FIRE WOOD MARKET, BUSRAH. tree and which we have forgotten. That is shade. Arabia is a hot and dry country. The summer sun is much more piercing than in America and the summer is much longer. When you travel a long camel journey across the desert, oh how good it is to come to a grove of palm trees and rest! Such a place is called an oasis and underneath the palms there are always springs of water. I can well understand how happy the children of Israel were after their journey in the desert, when they came to Elim where "there were 52 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees." In summer time many of the town Arabs leave their houses in the city and go to camp out in the date-gardens to enjoy the cool shades. The Arab poets have written many poems in praise of their favourite tree and fruit, but none of them are so funny as these lines which Campbell wrote from Algiers where the date tree also flourishes and with which we will end this chapter: "Though my letter bears date as you view From the land of the date-bearing palm I will palm no more puns upon you." 53 VIII THE SHEPHERD OF THE SEWING MACHINE In the blue waters of the Persian Gulf there lies a coral island called Bahrein. At a few hundred yards to the northeast of it is a still smaller island shaped like a pack- saddle, where palm trees and white coral rock houses are reflected in the salt water at high tide. The little island town is called Moharrek, that is, the "Burning Place," because it is very hot there in summer. After sailing across in a boat one day, and wending our way through a dirty bazar full of flies and Arabs, we were directed to the house of the man called "The Shepherd of the Sewing Machine." His real name is Mohammed bin Sooltaan, but nobody knows him by any other name or title than Rdee el harhhan, which literally means shepherd of the sewing machine. Let me tell you his story and how he got that queer name. Years ago, as pilot on the native boats that sail from Bahrein to Bombay, Calcutta, Zanzibar and Jiddah, he had experience of a wider world than the little island where he was born. But the life was a hard one and his wages were small. Moreover, the coming of steamships up the Gulf took away the profit of the sailing craft, and so Mo- hammed fared from bad to worse. He loved an Arab lass with plaited, well-greased locks of hair and a pleasant face, 54 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA but her father asked a larger dowry than he could ever pay. An Arab young man must always pay a good price to the father of his sweetheart before he is allowed to marry her. But this Mohammed was too poor to pay the price asked. What a queer topsy-turvy custom it is for a man to buy his wife just as he buys a horse or a camel! The Arabs often ask how much a wife costs in America and wonder that we are not allowed by the Christian laws to send away our wives and marry others. Mohammed could not stay at home so he once more went in a ship to Jiddah, the port to Mecca, where pilgrims from all the Moslem world exchange thought and money for bad bread and fanaticism. And yet even here the civilisation of the West tries to enter. Wandering through the bazars Mohammed for the first time saw a sewing machine in the hands of an Indian tailor. A marvel to the sailor fisherman, indeed! Almost as great a miracle to him as the Koran. The more he looked the more he coveted, and he could not pass the place without reckoning up the possible profits of such an investment should he return with it to his native island. The result was that he forswore the sea and preferred another kind of wheel to that of the pilot. With many mutual wallahs the bargain was concluded and the machine reached Bahrein. It was the first on the islands, and all the sheikhs came to see its marvellous build and wonderful work. Mohammed has a Western head on Eastern shoulders, and there was not a screw or tension from treadle to shuttle, which he did not learn the use of. 55 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA It is unnecessary to state at the cost of how many broken needles he became proficient. Amid cries of ajeeb, ajeeb, the first Arab shirt was stitched together, and even the youngsters on the street imitated the whirrr-clic-whirrr of the machine. As for Mohammed, he sewed on, and while his sandalled feet worked the treadle his mind worked out a problem something like this: Three long-shirts a day and an abba, at one kran per shirt and two for the abba, thirty-five krans per week, how long will it take to pay the dowry ? An abba is a large over-garment worn by both men and women in Arabia. It is like a cape or overcoat but has no sleeves nor buttons. The Arabs in Bahrein put a great deal of pretty embroidery work on these garments and some of them are worth twenty or thirty dollars. But the sewing is done very cheaply. A kran is a Persian coin worth about ten cents; can you figure out how much Mo- hammed earned in a month ? The Shepherd of the Machine kept working away and when his hopes grew strong he sang at his work. In a few months he paid a visit to the Mullah (the Moslem priest or teacher), and that same night the Arab fiddles and drums rang out merry music around the palm-leaf hut of his be- loved bride. But the music of the machine sounded still sweeter next morning. Daily bread, with rice, fish and dates, and on rare occasions even mutton, all came out of the machine. He loved the very iron of it and, as he told us, read a prayer over it every morning: Bismillahi er rah- man er raheem. His "was the only machine, and a small, monopoly soon makes a capitalist. His palm branch hut 56 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA was exchanged for a house of stone; and Allah blessed him greatly. No shepherd was ever, more tender to his little lambs than Mohammed to the old machine. When we entered the house on our first visit, there stood the machine! Not much the worse for wear, and with " Pf a ff- C- Theodosius, Constantinople," still legible on the nickel-plate. But the old machine had found a rival. By its side stood another make of machine which looked strangely familiar to American eyes. It was while compar- ing the machines and drinking Arab coffee that we learned from Mohammed why he prized the old one as better. "Wallah," he said, "I would not sell it for many times its original price. There is blessing in it, and all I have comes from that machine, praise be to Allah." And so we sipped his cups and heard his story and ceased to wonder why he was called the Shepherd of the Sewing machine. The shepherd has a brother who wants to learn English and goes to Bombay every year — but that is another story. There are many other sewing machines in Bahrein now, but Mohammed's was the first, and he introduced the others. Do you not think that he should be called the Christopher Columbus of Bahrein tailors? 57 IX THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT About one-third of Topsy-turvy Land is desert and is the home of those Arabs that wander about from place to place and are called nomads or Bedouin. The word Bedouin means a desert-dweller. But you must not think that a desert is a flat country covered with a deep layer of sand without trees or shrubs. Oh no! There are such deserts in Arabia too, but the greater part of what is called desert is much more attractive and is only desert because it has no settled population and no villages. The soil is often very good and in springtime after the rains the whole of northern Arabia (where most of the nomads pitch their tents) is one vast prairie of wild flowers and green grass. The Arabs of the North are rich in flocks and herds. I am sure you can still find some who, like Job, have seven thousand sheep and'three thousand camels and a very great household. They all live in tents and the tents of Arabia are not white and round like circus tents but jet black and square or oblong. You remember the Bible always speaks of the black tents of Kedar. They are black because they are woven from goat's hair which is used also for their garments and is almost as good a waterproof covering as india rubber. But when you have to spend a long hot day under such a roof as I have done you feel sorry for the Arabs that they have no better protection against the blazing 58 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA sun. Everything is home-made and clumsy, but shall I tell you what I have found ? There is no warmer hospitality in all the wide world than in these tents of Kedar. A few weeks ago I spent a Sabbath day resting by the way in one of these tents. The women brought water to cool my head; a great bowl of camel's milk was our drink even before they asked our errand; and at night they killed a fat kid and made a guest meal fit for an epicure. The Arabs of the desert are more ignorant than those of the towns, but they are much kinder to strangers and treat their wives and children better. Their life is rather mo- notonous, but they enjoy it. Like the American Indians they prefer a tent to a house, and would rather change their home every day than settle down as farmers. When pasture fails for their flocks of sheep the chief gives notice and on the morrow the whole camp has moved away. Some tribes move every month and go for a long distance to find fresh pastures. The Bedouin are divided into many tribes and clans. Some of them are friendly to each other but nearly all are at war with one another all the year round. Robbery and murder are very frequent. Every one goes armed with a long spear or with a gun, and many carry a war club and a sword as well. The largest Arab tribes and the wealthiest are the Anaeqe and the Shommar. They have 'many fine horses. In the picture you see a group of them armed with their long spears. The spear of the leader is ornamented with a tuft of ostrich feathers; these spears are often over twelve feet long and have a sharp steel lance at the end. 59 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA The Arabs are fond of games, especially galloping, their horses and playing at war. They are very skillful riders and kind to their steeds; they do not spend much time in grooming them and they never use a whip and seldom a bit. Their bridle is like our halter strap, and the horse is so well trained that he needs no iron bit in his mouth. One of the most interesting of all the Arab tribes is called the Suleibi. They are despised by all the other Arabs and seem to be of a different race. The women of this tribe are remarkable for their beauty and the men for their skill as blacksmiths and tinkers. They are always sought after to do the tinkering for the Arabs of all other tribes. They have no camels or horses but ride little donkeys and dress in gazelle skins. Some people think that this tribe is a remnant of the Christian population of Arabia; they have many curious beliefs and their name means, " Those-of-the- Cross." Perhaps some day a missionary will bring them back to a true knowledge of the Crucified One. The nomads of Arabia are happy in springtime when there is enough grass for their flocks and the wells of the desert are full of water. But after the long summer drought there is often a great scarcity of food and even famine in many parts of Arabia. Then the nomads eat anything and drink the brackish water from the bottom of a mud pool with relish. In no country in the world is water so costly as in Arabia; nowhere is it so carefully used: an Arab never wastes a drop of water and looks surprised and pained when an European traveller rinses out a cup before drink- ing! The nomad Arabs eat locusts and wild honey as did 61 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA John the Baptist. But I have also seen them eat the big lizards of the desert and the jerboas — a sort of desert rat. An Arab once stood amidst a circle of jewellers at Busrah and said: "On one occasion I had missed my way in the desert, and having no road-provision left, I had given my- self up for lost, when all at once I found a bag of pearls. Never shall I forget that relish and delight so long as I mis- PEARL MERCHANTS. took them for parched wheat; nor that bitterness and disap- pointment when I discovered that they were real pearls!" This story is told by a Persian poet and although it may not be true yet it teaches a lesson. To a hungry man a handful of wheat is better than all the pearls of the ocean. In his tent the Arab is very lazy. His only occupation is feeding his horses or milking his camels. The Arab girls 62 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA go out to take care of the flocks while the wife performs all the domestic duties. She grinds wheat in the hand-mill; kneads and bakes bread; makes butter by shaking the milk in a leather bag; fetches water in a skin; works at the loom and is busy all the time. The Arab smokes his pipe, drinks coffee and talks to his friends; unless he is on the march or on a robbery excursion his life seems very lazy. Scarcely any of the Bedouin can read, and they have neither schools nor mosques. The Bedouin some- times say, "Mohammed's religion cannot have been intended for us; it demands washings, but we have no water; alms, but we have no money; pilgrimage to Mecca, but we are always wandering and God is every- where." Yet outwardly they ob- serve the Moslem religion of which they know so little. In our next ARAB.AN WATER-BOTTLE. Cha P ter ^ WJ11 ^ h ° W ^neStly even the nomad children pray in the desert. And I believe God loves these sons of Ishmael and will yet bring them back to Abraham's faith. Don't you think so too ? 63 X NOORAHS PRAYER For many days the sailing craft from Bahrein had been unloading Indian wares at the port of Ojeir on the Hassa coast, and for many hours the busy throng of Bedouin drivers and merchants and onlookers were loading the cara- van, emphasising their task or their impatience with great oaths, almost as guttural and angry as the noise of the camels. At length, with the pious cry of Tawahalna, " we have trusted in God," they are off. A caravan is composed of companies, and while the whole host numbered seven hundred camels, with mer- chants and travellers and drivers, our company from Ojeir to Hofhoof counted only six. There was Salih and Nasir, a second son of the desert, both from Riad; a poor unfortu- nate lad with stumpy hands and feet, who limped about on rag shoes and seemed quite happy; there was Noorah and her sister, and lastly, the missionary. But for the shuffling of the desert sand and the whack of a driving stick the caravan marched in silence. The sun shone full in our faces as it slowly sank in the west, its last rays coloured the clouds hanging over the lowlands of Hassa a bright red, and when it disappeared we heard the sheikhs of the companies, one after the other, call to prayer. Only a part of the caravan responded. The Turkish soldiers on horseback kept on their way; the most pious of the mer- 64 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA chants had already urged their beasts ahead of the rest and had finished a duty that interfered with a speedy journey and the first choice of location at the night encampment; some excused themselves by quoting a Koran text, and others took no notice of the call. Not so the Bedouin child Noorah and her younger sister. They had trudged on foot four long hours, armed with sticks to urge on that lazy white camel, always loitering to snatch a bite of desert- thorn with his giant jaws. A short time before sunset I saw the two children mount the animal by climbing up its neck, as only Arabs can, but now, at call to prayer they de- voutly slipped down. Hand in hand they ran ahead a short distance, shuffled aside some sand with their bare feet, rubbed some on their hands, (as do all pious Moslems in the absence of water), faced Mecca, and prayed. As they did then, so at sunrise and at noon and at four o'clock and sunset and when the evening star disappeared — five times a day — they prayed. It is not true, as is generally supposed, that women in Moslem lands do not pray. Only at Mecca, as far as I know, of all Arabia, are they allowed a place in the public mosques, but at home a larger per cent, observe the times of prayer than do the men. When Noorah had ended her prayer and resumed the task of belabouring the white camel, she turned to me with a question, " Laish ma tesully anta ?" which with Bedouin bluntness means, ' ' You, why don't you pray ? " The ques- tion set me musing half the night; not, I confess, about my own prayers, but about hers. Why did Noorah pray ? What did Noorah pray ? Did she understand that 65 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, The upward glancing of the eye when only God is near, as well as the dead formalism of the mosque ? How could I answer her question in a way that she might well under- stand ? And if hers, too, was a sincere prayer, as I believe, — the prayer of an ignorant child of the desert, — did she pray words or thoughts ? What do Noorah and her more than two million Bedouin sisters ask of God five times daily ? Leaving out vain repetitions, this is what they say: "In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate; Praise be to God who the two worlds made; Thee do we entreat and Thee do we supplicate; Lead us in the way the straight, The way of those whom Thou dost compassionate, Not of those on whom is hate Nor those that deviate. Amen." It is the first chapter of the Koran and is used by Moslems as we use the Lord's Prayer. The words are very beautiful I think, don't you ? Whether Noorah understood what she asked I know not; but to me who saw and heard in the desert twilight, (as under like conditions to you), the prayer was full of pathos. The desert! where God is, and where but for His mercy and compassion death and solitude would reign alone; the desert, a world of its own kind, a sea of sand, with no life in it except the Living One, and over it only His canopy of stars— God of the two worlds! And to that God, than whom there is no other, and whom they ignorantly wor- 66 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA ship, these sons and daughters of outcast Ishmael bow their faces in the dust and five times daily entreat and supplicate to be led aright in the way of truth. They ask to be directed into the straight way, but oh how crooked is the way of God which Mohammed taught in his book! Sadder still, what a crooked way it is that the Moslems walk! Impure words, lying lips, hands that steal and feet that run after cruelty — these are what chil- dren in Arabia possess. But I dare say that some of them are really sorry for their sins and when they pray like Noorah in the desert they want to have peace and pardon. Are they looking unconsciously perhaps for the footprints in the desert of One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" ? Alas, Noorah and her many sisters (your sisters, too) have never seen His beauty nor heard of His love! They do not know that the "way of those whom Thou dost compassionate" is the new and living way through Christ's cross and death. They are ignorant of the awful word, "He that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Has God the Merciful then not heard Noorah's prayer? Will He not answer it? Is His mercy to these children of Abraham clean gone forever? How long they have waited and how many of the desert children are now sleeping in little desert graves! Do you not think God wants you to carry the gospel to them and send them teachers to learn the way of Jesus ? Think of Noorah's question, " You, why don't you pray?" Think of Christ's words, "Go tell quickly." 67 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA "Arabia the Loved." There's a land since long neglected, There's a people still rejected, But of truth and grace elected, In His love for them. Softer than their night wind's fleeting, Richer than their starry tenting, Stronger than their sands protecting, Is His love for them. To the host of Islam's leading, To the slave in bondage bleeding, To the desert dweller pleading, Bring His love to them. Through the promise on God's pages, Through His work in history's stages, Through the cross that crowns the ages, Show His love to them. With the prayer that still availeth With the power that prevaileth, With the love that never faileth, Tell His love to them. Till the desert's sons now aliens, Till its tribes and their dominions, Till Arabia's raptured millions, Praise His love of them. — J. G. L. 68 XI PICTURES WITH WORDS ONLY You already know many curious facts about the people of Topsy-turvy Land. Would you like to hear something about their language and their writing? The language of this land is very old, almost as old as its camels or its desert sands. The Moslems even go so far as to say that Adam and Eve spoke Arabic in Paradise and they say it is called the language of the angels. It is written from right to left just in the opposite way of this page of English writing. The Arabic alphabet has twenty-eight letters, all of which are considered consonants. There are marks put above and below the line to show the sounds of the vowels; just as we wrote the word potato in our first chapter. Arabic grammar is much more difficult than English grammar, and even the boys who attend the big Arabic college of El Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, must find its study a bugbear. Just think of learning fifteen conjugations instead of the much smaller number in Latin or Greek! The books used in Moslem schools would look very crude and dull to you who learnt your A, B, C, from an illustrated primer perhaps with coloured pictures. Strict Mohammedans do not allow their boys and girls to have pictures in their books, because they say all pictures are idols. And yet the love for beauty and the desire for ornament on the written or printed page was so strong 69 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA with the Arabs that they began from the earliest times to use their alphabet to make arabesques. Arabesque is a big word and it really means an Arab picture. But these pic- tures of the Arabs (which you find on the arches of old mosques, in books and on tombstones) are ornaments or designs made out of the beautifully curved letters of the alphabet. The old Arab copyists and their sculptors wrote and carved the words of the Koran, or the names of God, etc., in all sorts of ways to make pictures out of words only, lest they break the law of their prophet. Here are two examples of how pictures can be made out of letters. DESIGNS MADE OUT OF ARABIC WRITING. You have all doubtless heard of a " wordless book"; and some of you have books without words and full of pic- tures. Here is a picture made out of the Arabic alphabet, and every curve and dot belongs to the words so curiously written. I copied them out of an Arabic treatise on pen- manship, for you. The face is not at all pretty, and yet Moslem lads think it is very clever to bring this likeness of man out of the four names, Allah, Mohammed, Ali and Hassan. These words you notice are written twice, both 70 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA to the left and to the right. What a disgrace to the holy name of God to put that of three Arabs with it in a mono- graph! It is very sad to hear some Moslems say that they trust in these people to intercede for them with God. If you have read what sinful lives these people led when they were the chief rulers in Arabia, you will almost agree with me in calling this first picture a Moslem idol. There are many Moslems in Bahrein who have hanging up in their rooms these monograms or designs. One favourite I have often seen contains only five names: Allah, Mohammed, Ali, Hassan and Hussein. The people who make so much of these descendants of Mohammed are called Shiahs ; the other Moslems who think they are more orthodox are called Sunnites. What do you think of our second picture ? Is not the design very pretty for an embroidery pattern ? The motto is written twice; once from the right and once ■ backward from the left, the same as in the other picture. The words are taken from the Koran and are as true as they are beautiful. Man yattawakil ala Allah fa hooa hasbahoo ; which means, "Whoever trusts in God will find Him suf- ficient." That surely contradicts the other picture, does it not? And yet they are both from the same copy-book. There are many contradictions in the religion of Mohammed. I only hope that when Christ's gospel has conquered Arabia, the name of Jesus will be written on every mosque and in every heart; then contradiction will give way to the truth, and whoever trusts in Christ will find Him sufficient. Would it not be nice to make something pretty for use in 71 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA the home or in the Sunday-school, and embroider the Arabic words on it •? It would be a constant reminder of Arabia and of the beautiful motto — only an Arabic version of Paul's words, Our sufficiency is of God. Our last illustration to close this chapter is an example of Arabic every-day penmanship. It was written in the moun- tains of Oman, and is a letter from a poor cripple asking for a copy of the Psalms and other books. It was sent to our brother Peter J. Zwemer a year before he died, when he was on a missionary journey in Oman. & ARABIC LETTER FROM A POOR CRIPPLE. 72 XII THE QUEER PENNIES OF OMAN AND OF HASSA If Jesus Himself, on one occasion, said, "Show me a penny," and preached a sermon from it, surely we may follow his example and learn something from these strange coins which you see in the pictures at the beginning and end of this chapter. The coin on this page comes from Oman, the home of the Arabian camel and one of its most fertile provinces. Perhaps some of the boys and girls can tell where Oman is and give its boundaries without looking in the geography, but I am sure none of you can read the inscription on the penny, and tell what it all means. Who is Fessul bin Turkee ? What is an Imam ? How much is OMAN COIN. one-quarter of an Anna ? And when did this queer coin come fresh from the mint ? Let us begin at the beginning. Fessul bin Turkee, the present ruler of Oman, lives in a large, tumble-down old castle in Muscat, and his big red flag waves over the town every Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath. He is not 73 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA much better nor worse than his father, Turkee, or than other rulers in Arabia, but he certainly is far more enter- prising, and is generally liked by the Arabs of Muscat. He is not however in all respects a merciful ruler. When I visited Muscat a few years ago this petty king had a real lion's den, like Nebuchadnezzar, and the story goes that he sometimes used it in the same way to get rid of his enemies. He once had a steam-launch, and even put up an electric light on the top of his castle, but both of these modern improvements came to grief. He also started a small ice factory to supply his household with cold water when the thermometer rises to over one hundred degrees; but the expense was too great and so the project melted away like- wise. His last venture is more successful, and ever since the ice factory added a P to its sign-board and became a "pice factory," copper coins have been plentiful in Oman. A pice is the Indian name for a small copper coin, and the Arabs borrowed the word, with many other words, from the Hindu traders. The Sultan has plenty of wives and horses and retainers; his castle is well-supplied with old cannon and modern rifles; huge coffee-pots pour out cheap hospitality every day; but withal I do not think he is very happy, for he is in debt and his power is not as extensive as it was once. Fessul's proper title is not Sultan, although he is often so called, but Imam, which signifies religious leader. It is the old title given to the political chiefs of Oman and Zanzibar. The word means one " who stands before," and was first used as a title for the leader of prayer in the mosques. In 74 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA Oman the religious chiefs soon took hold of politics, and so the title has a significance now in this part of Arabia that it never had elsewhere. Let us get back to the penny. Its face (although being a Mohammedan coin it really has no human face because their religion forbids pictures) bears an English as well as an Arabic inscription. The opposite side only has the Sultan's name in Arabic. On the side that has the English words is the legend: "Struck at Muscat in the year 1315." Yet the penny is only three years old, for the Moslems begin to date their years from the Hegira, or flight of their prophet from Mecca to Medina. This took place in the year 622 a. d. But we must also remember that their year is several days shorter than ours, because they have lunar months all of equal length and only 360 days in a year. How strange it is to read such an old date for such a recent year as 1899, since we count time from the birth of Christ! But you must remember that the False Prophet has had it all his own way in Arabia for thirteen hundred years, and that the missionaries in this country are very few indeed. Only for a very few years and in a very few places has Christ been preached. Now, however, even this queer little penny can bear witness to the fact that the gospel has come to Oman. It is worth one-quarter of an anna; there are sixteen annas in a rupee, and a rupee is worth about thirty-three cents. Not a big value, is it ? But for four of these coins the poorest boy in Muscat can buy a complete gospel of Matthew. The shopkeeper must take in a great many of them, for last 75 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA year one thousand four hundred and thirty-three such gospels and other portions of the Bible were sold in this part of Arabia and paid for by these coppers. Another interesting fact to notice is that part of the inscription on the coin is English. Coming events cast their shadows before. England's power in checking the cruel slave trade and rooting out piracy on the coasts of Arabia has made its influence felt. An English primer is sure to follow a penny with an English motto, and some day our mission will have a school at Muscat for Arab boys and girls, as well as for rescued slaves. Your American pennies and your prayers will help to bring it about. Moreover, do you not think that if they keep on buying gospels and reading them, Jesus Christ will some time be the true Imam of Muscat and Oman ? The other coin is the only old coin that is at present current in Arabia, and I leave you to decide whether it is not the oddest and queerest penny you have ever seen. The first time I saw these queer black- smith-nail coins was in 1893, when I made a visit to Hof- hoof, the capital of the province of Hassa, in Eastern Arabia. The people used them, as we do pennies, for all 76 HASSA COINS. PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA small purchases, but I fear such a pointed coin must have been harder on their pockets than our round coins. It is called the Taweelah, or long-bit, and consists of a small copper-bar of about an inch in length, split at one end and with the fissure slightly opened. The coin has neither date nor motto, although one can yet occasionally find silver coins of like shape with the Arabic motto: "Honour to the sober man, dishonour to the ambitious." The coin, although it has no date, was undoubtedly made by one of the Carmathian rulers about the year 920 a. d. This was more than five hundred years before Columbus discovered America! The Carmathians were a very fanatical sect of Moslems. You remember reading in chapter three how they took the black stone from Mecca ? Well, these people had this province as the centre of their power and here they struck these peculiar coins. I have heard it said that they were so opposed to images and faces on money that their leader devised this long bar-like shape for his coins to prevent any one from making images on them! At any rate the Carmathians were very brave warriors. When Abu Tahir, their first leader, attacked Bagdad with only 500 horsemen he was met by a messenger from the city saying that 30,000 soldiers were guarding the gates. " Yes," said Abu Tahir, "but among them all there are not three such as these." At the same instant he turned to three of his companions commanding one to plunge a dagger into his own breast, another to leap into the rushing Tigris river and the third to cast himself down a precipice. 77 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA They obeyed without a murmur. " Relate," continued the general, "what you have just seen; before evening your leader shall be chained among my dogs." No wonder that with such absolute obedience, the Carmathians terrified all Arabia with their army. As I handle their old coins and think of the past, I some- times wonder how much Our Great Captain, Christ Jesus would accomplish had He soldiers equally obedient and brave as did the Carmathian general, in redeeming Arabia from its long darkness and bloodshed. It is nineteen hun- dred years ago that He commanded us: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel." But even now there is no one preaching the gospel in Hassa nor in all the interior of Arabia. Why ? 78 XIII ARAB BABIES AND THEIR MOTHERS An Arab baby is such a funny little creature! In Chris- tian lands babies, as soon as possible, are given a warm bath and dressed with comfortable clothing. But in Arabia the babies are not washed for many days, only rubbed over with a brown powder and their tiny eyelids painted round with collyrium. They are wound up in a piece of calico and tied up with a string, just like a package of sugar. Their arms are fastened by the bandage so that they cannot possibly move them. The Arab mothers say that if the arms and legs of babies were left hanging loose the poor things would never sleep. A small, tight bonnet for the head completes the baby's wardrobe. A few blue beads or buttons are sewn on the front of this cap to keep off the evil-eye, for Moslem women all believe that if a stranger looks at a baby it may turn sick and die. On the day when the baby is named a sacrifice is slain and eaten and silver offerings are given to the poor, equal to the weight of hair on the infant's head. The poor baby's hair is all shaved off to be weighed in the balance. Poor people who cannot afford this offering omit the custom. Charms are placed on the arms or around the neck of the child. A few verses from the Koran are written out and put in a leather or silver case and also tied around the arm or neck of the baby. If the child shows signs- of ill- 79 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA ness the mother makes it swallow some of the Koran. That is, a portion is written out and the ink is washed off with water and this dirty water is taken by the patient. A prescription was sent to me once when I was ill by a Mos- lem mullah, or teacher, of this character and he was quite certain I would recover if I drank it. I am glad to say I got better without the ink medicine. When the baby is forty days old and has received its name a new date-stick cradle is triumphantly brought home ]' . : \ • ...... ./• , ,- 1 ?>*«. Kansas V^/^Wv/ \ 1 V 7 ("/, ^ iflPSi .J ***■: '^*^~^$KSi g^teg^S DATE-STICK CRADLE. from the market and the new baby placed in it. And then Master or Miss Arab will get such a violent rocking that no Christian baby could stand. The ground is uneven, for there are no wooden floors in Arabia, and the rockers are nearly straight so that you can imagine it is not the pleas- antest thing in the world to be rocked in an Arab cradle. In the picture you can see just what a date-stick cradle is like. 80 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA Arab babies cry a great deal; what with sand storms and flies and other insects they generally have sore eyes and apparently need strong treatment to make them quiet and give their mothers and sisters time to grind the wheat and churn the butter. Everything is made fresh each day in an Arab household. The rice must be cooked for the daily meal, the wheat ground for bread, and the milk put into the leather churn. These people have no ice chest, not even cupboards, many of them, so the coffee is freshly roasted and pounded in a mortar for breakfast. The flour is taken to the hand-mill and butter comes out of the churn every day fresh. Then the mother will have to draw the daily supply of water and wash the few clothes at the well. The better classes have their slaves to do the hard work but the Bedouin women and the poor have to do all the toil and never get a rest. Rich and poor are alike in not having any intellectual pleasures. Few can read and even those who can read, are able to read only the Koran and the Moslem traditions. The children have no primers or picture-books, and no Arab mother ever has a newspaper or a magazine. She has never heard of such things. Arab women do not know anything of the many interests and pleasures that occupy the time of women in Christian lands. Would you like to know how they make bread in Arabia ? First the wheat is sifted and cleaned and then it is put into one of the hand-mills. It consists of an upper and nether millstone with a hole in the upper one and a wooden handle. Two women usually sit and grind because the stone is heavy and they love to talk 81 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA while they work. One swings it half way and the other pulls it around. Then the coarse flour is taken out and put into a bowl with water and salt and mixed to the right con- '•« HHHHHB : M r : ■ :l : ;^ : ~ ') - i •I— ( , -_ ^E Wk P*r""\ _.- — ->- & :""" ^^^ «HM J WOMEN GRINDING AT THE MILL. 82 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN A R A B I A sistency. A piece of this dough is then taken between the hands and gradually beaten until it is about the thickness of a book cover and twelve inches in diameter — a round, flat cake of dough. The oven is usually under ground and is shaped like a large jar with the mouth above the ground a little. A fire is built inside the oven and when the sides of the oven are quite hot the fire is allowed to die out. Then the large pan cakes of bread are deftly clapped on to the side of the oven until the space is covered and one by one the cakes are taken out when done. In some houses they have a shallow oval pan which is placed over an open fire and on this the cakes are baked. The pan is put on the fire upside down, so even here we are again in Topsy-turvy Land. Twenty or thirty of these flat loaves are baked at one time, for a hungry Arab can eat five or six at one meal. Now the men come in to eat the food that the housewife has prepared. With a short prayer called bismillah they begin and then shove the rice and meat or the bread and gravy into their mouths as fast as they can. Whatever is left when the men get through is for the women. You can see a group of Arab women in the picture eating their meal from one common dish in front of their tent. They use their hands instead of spoons or forks but get along very well and always wash before and after their simple meal. Now the women always have to wait on their husbands and eat by themselves. When things get right side up in this dark land we hope to see the whole family sitting down together and taking their meal with joy and thanks- giving. 84 XIV BOAT-BUILDERS AND CARPENTERS Sinbad the sailor died long ago but the sea he sailed is still called the Persian Gulf and is just as full of curious islands as it was in his time. The boats are also just like Sinbad's and the sailors sing the same songs, I think, for there are very few changes in the almost changeless East. The Bahrein harbour-boat is built on the islands, out of timber from India and masts from Ceylon. But the sail- cloth and the ropes are made on this our island home. All boats of this kind carry a good lot of passengers, draw very little water and are fast sailing craft; so that even the American boy whose father owns a yacht would not speak with contempt of one of these boats. In fact I have heard English sea captains who had drunk salt water for years say that they never saw better harbour boats in a storm than these of Bahrein. In another kind of boat the pearl-divers of the Gulf go out to their hard toil and costly labour. One of them costs about four hundred rupees, that is about one hundred and thirty dollars. You do not think that is dear, do you, for a boat that holds a crew of twenty ? But the cost of diving for pearls is not in the boat or the apparatus; it costs lives. Many of the divers are eaten by sharks before they return with the year's pearl harvest; others lose limbs and health. I wish you could see the odd 85 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA shaped oars the Arabs use in these boats. They consist of a round pole with a sort of barrel-head or spoon shaped board tied to one end. The boat builders always use twine and rope rather than nails or screws to put their boats to- gether. The boys of Bahrein can make beautiful sailing boats to play with out of bits of date-stick and strings. RIVER BOAT, BUSRAH. Each fishing boat has a sort of figure-head and this is generally covered with the skin of a sheep or goat. This animal is sacrificed on the day when the boat is first launched, just as we give the boat a name and put flags on it. It is a very old custom to offer a blood sacrifice when a boat is first put into the water. 87 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA Not only in the villages on the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are there boat builders and sailors; Arabia has two large rivers that help to make its northern boundary and they are highways of traffic. Our picture shows a river boat on the canal at Busrah. It goes the long journey from Busrah to Bagdad over five hundred miles or even to Hillah and the other towns on the Euphrates river. This kind of boat has a cabin in the bow and can carry a large cargo of wheat or wool. It sails by all the interesting country which was once the home of Abraham and is still called Mesopotamia. The largest boats used by the Arabs are called dhozvs or buggalows. You will hear something more about these boats in the chapter on the slave trade. The carpenters of Arabia, like the boat builders, work in a very old-fashioned way. But they are much less skillful in their work. You often see well-built boats but never a well-made door or a window that shuts properly. Perhaps the fault is with their tools and perhaps they are not as skillful as they once were in using them. The Arab carpenter uses no bench or vise; he squats upon the ground in the shade of some old building or tree and carries all his tools in a small basket with him. He has four hands instead of the two hands of an American carpenter, for his feet are bare and he can work as well with his toes as you can with your fingers. It is wonderful to see how an Arab carpenter can hold a board with his toes while his hands are busy sawing or planing it! I never see one of these carpenters using his toes so PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA cleverly without thinking that we who wear shoes and stockings and only use our feet for walking have lost one of the powers that the Arabs still possess, A carpenter's handsome handiwork in Arabia should be called his toesome toey-work] don't you think so ? In the picture at the end of this chapter you see an Arab carpenter's tools. His saw is exactly opposite to an ordinary saw as the teeth all point the wrong way! But you know he pulls the tool so it is SAWING A BEAM. all right. The plane has four handles instead of one. The gimlet is like ours but instead of a brace and bit to make holes, the Arab uses a fiddle-string stretched on a bow 89 TOPSY-TURVY LAND A R A B I A which he twists once or twice around his borer, or auger- bit. Then he fiddles away until he has made a hole. It is very strange to see two Arab carpenters sawing a beam as you find them in the picture. Time is not valuable in the East because the days are long and life is easy and the people are never in a hurry. Never do anything to-day that can be done to-morrow is their motto. So they spend a half hour in fixing the beam on a tripod; then they pull and push and push and pull the great clumsy saw blade up and down and in an hour or so the beam is cut in two. What would such carpenters say if they were to visit an American sawmill and see the gang- saw cut six boards out of a log at once just as easy as your mother cuts a cheese ? Arabia and its carpenters are very far behind us in civilisation. The whole country is in need of schools and industrial missions so that the Arab boys may learn to handle tools and make furniture and build houses. In America there is hardly a boy living but he can drive a AN ARAB CARPENTER'S TOOLS. 90 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA nail and saw off a board and put up a shelf. In Arabia only carpenters' sons can do these things; the ordinary boy does not even know how to use a jack-knife; he never had one. A short definition of Arabia would be "a land without tools." Ritter, the great geographer, calls Arabia "the anti-industrial centre of the world," which is only the same definition in other words. 91 XV ARABIC PROVERBS AND ARABIC HUMOUR The people of Topsy-turvy Land, like all orientals, are very fond of proverbs and short, bright sayings. You know that even to-day there are men who go about in the coffee shops of Arabia to tell stories, just as you have read in the Arabian Nights. Some of their stories are very interesting and some of their proverbs are wise. Others are not inter- esting and many of their stories are too bad to repeat. Even some of their proverbs bear the mark of their topsy-turvy religion and are only half true. Judge them for yourself. Here are fifty examples; which do you think is the best proverb among them ? Are they all good ? First seek your neighbour, then build your house. First get a companion, then go on the road. Whoever dies in a strange land, dies a martyr. When the judge is oppressive, the very air is, too. Don't cut your head off with your tongue. Keep your dog hungry and he will follow you. Leave off sin, then ask forgiveness,, Every horse knows its rider. Talk is feminine, but a good answer is masculine. With little food a bed tastes good. A trotting dog is better than a sleeping lion. Every girl is beautiful in her father's eyes. 92 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA His tongue is sweeter than dates but his hands are as hard as sticks. There is no perfume after the wedding. Clouds do not fear the barking of dogs. A bird catches a bird. Poverty is the mother of deceptions. The fruit of haste is repentance. That man is like the Kaaba ; he goes nowhere but every one comes to him. The tongue of a fool is the key to his destruction. The needle clothes others but is itself naked. If the owl were game to eat, the gunner would not have passed by the ruined castle. Happy is the man whose enemy is wise. Time is stingy of honour. The best generosity is quick. If your neighbour is honey, don't lick him all up. If you don't know a man's parents look at his appearance. What a strange world if all wool were red! Fall but don't bawl. Your enemy will love you when the ass becomes a doctor. Wait, donkey, till the grass grows. A loaned garment is not warm. He is a hard man; his name is Rock, son of a Cliff. The oppression of a cat is better than the justice of a rat. While I was fishing, I was caught. A blacksmith came to shoe the Pasha's horse and a frog in the pond stuck out her foot too. 93 TOPSY-TURVY LAND A R A B I A One nettle seed will ruin a garden. Who speaks the whole truth will get a broken head. What's the good of a house without food ? Ask experience but don't neglect the doctor. She wears seven veils but has no modesty. He fasted a year and breakfasted on an onion. A false friend is an open enemy. They gave me no food, but the smoke from their kitchen blinded me. When the lion is away, the hyenas play. They said to the blind man, throw away your stick; he replied, why desert an old friend ? Haste is of the devil; deliberation, of God. They put the dog's tail in the press forty years, and when it came out it still had a curl. Lucky days do not come in a bunch. Look for a thing where you lost it. Some of these resemble our own proverbs and others may perplex you at first. Of course they are all better in Arabic than in the translation. The people of Arabia seldom or never engage in practical jokes, but they are often very witty in their remarks. The Caliph Mansur once met an Arab on the desert and said to him: "Give thanks to God who has caused the plague to cease that ravaged thy coun- try." "God is too good," the Arab answered, "to punish us with two such scourges at the same time as the plague and thy government." An Arab poet sent his book to a famous author. " Dost 94 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA thou want fame?" said the latter, "then hang thy book up in the market-place where all can see it." " But how will they know the author ?" "Why, just hang yourself close to the book!" Here is another story that is told about a Moslem preacher. One Friday when the people were gathered in the mosque to pray and to hear the sermon, he got up in the pulpit and asked the audience if they knew what he intended to preach about. "No," they replied. "Well, then, I shall not tell you," and he stepped down. The next Friday he asked the same question, and now, taught by experience, they answered: " Yes, we know." "Well, then, I need not tell you," and again he stepped down. The third Friday when the same question was put, the people said, "Some of us know and some don't know." "In that case," said the preacher-wag, "let those of you who know tell those that don't know." And again there was no sermon. And now to close this chapter here is a very topsy-turvy story with a puzzle in it: The Arabs relate that when the prophet Jonah fled from Joppa to Tarshish, there were thirty passengers, all told, in the ship. The storm grew very fierce, and out of fear, the captain determined to throw half the crew overboard, that is, fifteen men. But he knew that fifteen of the thirty were true believers, and fifteen were infidels, and among them, 95 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA Jonah also. To avoid suspicion and accomplish his purpose he put the thirty men all in a row in such a way that by counting out every ninth man, the believers alone remained and the unbelievers were all of them one by one cast into the sea. This is the way he arranged them ; every dot stands for an unbeliever, and the strokes for believers — thirty alto- gether. IMI -- — JI-f/f-J-*ff — 1 --li- PUZZLE OF THE THIRTY MEN. You begin to count from the left, as the captain did, and if you mark out every ninth man you can keep on counting out the ninth men until only upright strokes are left. From your knowledge of arithmetic, can you tell me the reason of this puzzle ? The Arabs remember the puzzle by some verses in which every dotted letter stands for an unbeliever and those that have no dots stand for Moslems. You see that even the story of Jonah and the whale is topsy-turvy out in Arabia! XVI GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH In olden times Arabia was a much more important country than it is to-day. Before there were large sea- going ships, all the trade between India, Persia, even China, on the east, and Egypt on the west, was carried on camels. The caravans at that time used to cross Arabia in all directions, and the men who drove these camel-trains grew wealthy, as railroad magnates do to-day. We read about this early traffic on these highways of the desert in the Old Testament as well as in the old Greek histories. The prov- ince of Yemen was celebrated for its wealth and civilisation as early as the time of Solomon. It was then called Sheba and the old capital was called Marib, a little northeast of the present city of Sanaa. There are still many extensive ruins and inscriptions which testify to the height of their civilisation. We read of one of the queens of Sheba (the Arabs say she was named Bilkis) who came to prove Solomon with hard questions. She came with a large caravan of camels bearing spices and gold in abundance; her present to Solomon- consisted of "an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance, and precious stones." Gold is no longer found in Arabia but it was undoubtedly once very plentiful there. All the old writers speak of Arabia as a gold country. One of the Greek geographers speaks of a stream in which large 97 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA nuggets of gold were found. Some people think Ophir was in Arabia. However that may be, the traveller Burton explored the northwestern part of the peninsula and found old mines and even traces of gold dust. If Job lived in the land of Midian we can well understand how he could de- scribe mining operations so well as he does in the twenty- eighth chapter of his book. Frankincense and myrrh were also carried across Arabia by the caravans, and both of these precious gums came from Arabia itself and are still found there. One of the oldest articles of commerce was incense. The gum was BRANCH OF INCENSE TREE. used in sacrifices and in all the heathen temple worship as well as by the Jews in their worship. One thousand talents' weight of frankincense was brought every year to Darius, the Persian king, as tribute from Arabia. The present incense country is southern Arabia, especially Hadramaut. 98 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA Here the incense tree (of which you see a small branch in the picture) grows. The young trees are cut with a knife, and from the incisions made in the bark a milk-like juice comes out. When it has had time to harden, the large clear globules are scraped off into baskets and the inferior kind that has run down the bark is collected separately. It is shipped from Arabia to Bombay or goes out from Aden and still commands a good price. In some Roman Catholic churches this incense is burnt every Sunday and if you will go to a large druggist he may be able to show you pieces of Arabian incense. Myrrh and frankincense are frequently mentioned to- gether. Both are sweet-smelling gums and both came originally from Arabia. According to a Greek legend, Myrrha was the daughter of one of the kings of Cyprus who angered her father and when he attempted to stab her, fled to Arabia. Here she was changed into a tree called myrrh! A few of these trees are still found in Yemen, but myrrh is not at all as plentiful as it once was in Arabia. It is a low, thorny, ragged-looking tree with bright green leaves. The gum exudes from cracks in the bark near the root of the plant. When dry it is of a rich brown colour and has a bitter taste. The' word "myrrh" in Arabic means bitter, and I think that is the origin of the name given to the tree* and not the foolish story of the Greek mythology. You must look up all the references in the Bible to myrrh. I wonder whether the myrrh which Nico- demus used to embalm the body of our Saviour for His burial came from Arabia? In Matthew's gospel we read of LofC. " TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA the wise men who came from the East to worship Jesus. "And when they had opened their treasures they presented unto Him gifts; gold and frankincense and myrrh." Do you not think that these wise men came from Arabia, even as the queen of Sheba did, to see the king of the Jews? Perhaps Isaiah prophesied of their coming when he wrote concerning Arabia: "The multitude of camels shall cover thee the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord." At any rate we are quite sure that the frankincense they brought came from Arabia. There is a great deal in the Bible about this country and there are many beautiful promises for the re- demption of its people. Arabs were present at Pentecost and the first missionary to Arabia was the Apostle Paul. God has not forgotten His promises and we must all pray that soon they may be fulfilled. No one has yet been to tell the children of Hadramaut, who gather the incense- gum, the story of Jesus' birth and of His death on the cross. There is not a single missionary in all that country; no one has been to tell the news that the Babe of Bethlehem is the King of Glory. "Thou who in a manger Once hast lowly lain, Who dost now in glory O'er all kingdoms reign, Gather in the heathen Who in lands afar Ne'er have see the brightness Of Thy guiding star." 100 XVII SLAVES AND SLAVE TRADERS The Arabs who in past ages were the merchants of the Orient in gold, frankincense and myrrh, both then and now traded in slaves also. And the cruel trade is not yet ended. Would you like to hear about some boys who have darker skins than yours, and darker hearts, because they do not know the Lord Jesus as their own Saviour? Well, these poor little boys were stolen from their mothers and fathers by wicked men called Arabs, who go from Arabia to Africa in boats to steal boys and girls and bring them here to sell them. Each boy is sold for nearly ten pounds ($50). These men know it is wrong in their hearts, but you see what a lot of money they make! What does St Paul say ? " The love of money is the root of all evil." And then the religion of the Arab permits him to do this work of stealing and selling boys and girls. One night about two or three years ago, just as the sun was setting, some little black boys were playing and fishing near the water on the coast of Zanzibar, in East Africa; a man came up to them and offered them some dates. Little black and white boys are always ready to eat, are they not ? These boys took the dates and while they were eating, the man threw a cloth over their heads and carried them off to a boat standing near. The Arabs caught a great many in this way, and when the boat had as many as it could carry they 101 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA moved away and began to travel towards Arabia. The poor children were kept in the bottom of the boat, all huddled together, and given very little to eat and drink. Sometimes the sea was rough and they were sick, so altogether their voyage in an open boat was not a pleasant one. But "Some One" was taking notice of these children and He was going to deliver them. Do you know who was watching over them ? After many days at sea the boat came near Muscat. A servant of the British Consul saw the boat and knew there were slaves in it. Then the Consul got ready in a small boat and went after the big one. They had to follow nearly all night and at last over- took the slave-dhow. The Consul pulled alongside in a 102 SLAVE GIRL IN ARABIA. PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA Bedden (native boat) and demanded the firearms of the Arabs. Then he bound them and put his own sailors on board, and brought the precious cargo of souls into Muscat harbour. The owner of the slave-dhow was sent to prison, and the boys and girls were given away to Christian people to train, the missionary in Muscat getting the largest share. This was the origin of the rescued-slave school at Muscat. Other slaves are caught from time to time and liberated. Sometimes they are sent to Bombay or other places in India; a large number were once liberated at Aden and are now in a school at Lovedale in Africa. When these poor slave children first come from the slave ships they are very ignorant and almost like wild animals. They need to learn everything, and even their language is of little use to them, as they need to learn Arabic before they can get along in Arabia. The Muscat boys first learned English from the missionary, but it was not easy for them. They only knew a few words when I first went to Mus- cat. For instance, they called all lights, such as lamps, candles, etc., fire. Well, one night we were sitting on the verandah with the lamp, reading, and Suliman came and said "big fire/" We jumped up and said "where?" Looking all around we could not see a sign of fire. ' Then he said, "big fire on table." We ran into the dining-room — still no fire. Suliman then pointed to the lamp and said again "big fire"; so we learned by that time he wanted the lamp for the table, as dinner was ready. Would you like to hear how a day was spent in this Mus- 103 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA cat school when the boys were beginning to learn ? Now the boys are all big and have scattered; they are working as ? LIBERATED SLAVES AT BAHREIN. servants in different places and some are learning a trade. But here is a description of the early days of their training: " We are up before dawn almost, and yet the boys are up 104 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA before us, and have taken in their mats (beds), and are splashing about in the big cement bath in the yard. They do not use towels; the sun soon dries the skin, and then they dress with one article only, a wa^eera, a piece of cloth. After the bath they clean up the schoolroom, sweep the yard; then they eat bread and dates and drink water. When the meal is finished all the boys wash their hands and put on their coats to come up-stairs. See how nicely they march forward, two and two, just like the animals going into Noah's Ark. They halt in front of the harmonium 'single file' — 'face about' — 'toes to line!' Now we are ready for prayers. Look, boys and girls, how quietly these black boys stand; now we are going to sing: 'Jesus loves me, this I know.' They love the singing, and all make as much noise as possible. Singing finished, we read a short passage of Scripture, and tell very simply how Jesus loved them and died for them. They are beginning to learn about God and who the Lord Jesus is. One morning I held up the Bible and asked them, ' What is this ? ' " They answered, ' God's Book.' " 'And what do we read about in God's Book ?' "They all answered, ' The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.' I had been teaching them this Psalm, but I did not know how well they knew it; it was a nice answer, do not you think so? After the scripture lesson we kneel and pray, all the boys repeating, 'O God, wash me from all my sins in the blood of my Saviour, and I shall be whiter than snow; give me Thy Holy Spirit, for Jesus' sake. Amen.' Will you ask God to make the boys pray this prayer from 105 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA their hearts ? You see they are only just beginning to learn about God. Before they came to us they were quite heathen. Prayer ended we all march into another room,— you may come too, and begin lessons. The big boys are learning sentences now; the little ones are still at A, B, C, I, 2, 3. At the end of two hours of spelling, reading and writing, a little simple drill and the morning school is ended. Some of the boys help prepare their fish and rice for dinner, and others make baskets. At three o'clock all march up again for sewing. And let me tell you a secret; the smallest boy of all sews the neatest. After this the boys get ready to go for a bath in the sea, or for a walk. When we return we have evening prayers, and then the boys eat their supper of rice and fish, take their mats into the garden and go to sleep." That was the way in which eighteen rescued slave boys began to live a life with more light, and therefore also more responsibility than their former life as savage children in Africa. But what of the thousands who are not rescued, but are taken to places along the coast of Arabia and sold ? Their lot is miserable. In Mecca there is a slave market where boys and girls are sold to the highest bidder. At Sur, in South Arabia, there are still many Arabs who make money by buying and selling poor negro children. Only last month a little negro lad called "Diamond" told me how he had been captured and sold to a merchant in Persia. I am very glad that I can tell you that the little lad escaped to a British ship and is now free. 106 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA A writer who travelled in the Red Sea says that he passed hundreds of slave-dhows. What a lot of misery that means ; not only misery to the parents of these stolen children in Africa, but to the children themselves. There may be many slaves in Arabia who get enough to eat and have good clothing to wear, I3ut they always remain slaves at the best, and are taught a false religion by their masters. 1 think nearly all of them were happier at home in Africa than in dark Arabia. It is hard to love the cruel slave trader, is it not ? Yet Jesus told us to " love our enemies." The way to root out the slave trade is to evangelise the slave trader. The entire west coast of Arabia has not a single missionary; no wonder that here the slave trade is carried on without hindrance! Will you not pray for western Arabia, and also for the Arab slave dealers that God may soften their hearts and make them stop their bad work ? And will not all the girls pray for their enslaved black sisters in Arabia, whose lot is very miserable ? 107 XVIII ABOUT SOME LITTLE MISSIONARIES Some little missionaries came to Arabia a few years before any of the American missionaries did, and have been coming ever since. Most of them were born in a country not far from Arabia, and yet only one of them visited Arabia before Mohammed was born. Although they never write reports of their work in the papers, yet I have seen a few splendid little accounts of their work written on tablets of flesh with tears for ink. It is just because their work is done so much in secret and in out-of-the-way places, that they are gener- ally overlooked and often underestimated. They receive only bare support and no salary, and get along in the most self-denying way by fasting and living all together, packed like herring in a dark, close room, except when they go out into the sunshine on their journeys. Most of them came out in the steerage of the big ships from London, but none of them were seasick at all through- out the entire voyage. They do not go about two and two unless it is that one of the old ones goes hand in hand with a younger brother for support. Generally a score or more travel together. They never complain of being tired or dis- couraged, and never get fever or cholera, although I have talked and slept with them at Bahrein when I had fever my- self. Never yet has one of them died on a sick-bed, al- though they often hide away and disappear for months. 108 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA On one or two occasions I have heard of a small company of them being burned at the stake, but I was told that not a groan escaped from their lips, nor were their companions frightened the least bit. With my own eyes I have seen one or two of them torn asunder and trampled upon by those who hate Jesus Christ and His kingdom and His little missionaries. Yet the only sound to be heard was the blasphemies of their persecutors, who could not answer them in any other way. It is very strange indeed, that when once one or two of them get acclimatised and learn the language, they are bound to their work by so many tiny cords of love that they seldom fall apart from their work or fall out one with the other. There are more than sixty different names and ages among them, and yet they all have one family accent. Some of them are medical missionaries and can soothe and heal even broken hearts and prevent broken heads. There are two ladies among them, but they seldom go about alone, and, especially in Arabia, the men do most of the preaching. Most of them are evangelists or apostles and teachers. And their enterprise and push! why one of them told me the other day that he wanted "to preach the gospel in the regions beyond" Mecca, and that even there "every knee should bow to Jesus." Why, you begin to see them everywhere in the Persian Gulf and around Muscat and Aden. Last year a few of them went to Jiddah with the pilgrims. They dress very plainly, but often in bright Oriental colours (one just came in all in green); on one or two occasions I have seen them wear gold when visiting a 109 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA rich man, but there was no pride about them, and they put on no airs in their talk. How many are there of these little missionaries, do you ask ? Over three thousand eight hundred and forty visited and left the three stations of the Arabian Mission in the Persian Gulf last year. But, as I told you, they are so modest that only a score of them perhaps sent in any MISSION HOUSE AT BUSRAH. account of their work, and that even was sent through a third party by word of mouth. I have heard it whispered that a faithful record of all their journeys and speeches is kept, but that these are put on file to be published all at once on a certain great day, when missionaries all get their permanent discharge. What a quiet, patient, faithful, loving body of workers they are. Even when it is very, very hot, and after a hard day's work, they never get out of temper as other missionaries sometimes do when in hot discussion 110 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA with a bigoted Moslem. And yet how plainly they tell the truth — they do not even fear a Turkish Pasha; but that is because they have very cunningly all obtained a Turkish passport and a permit to preach anywhere unmolested. Of course, you have guessed my riddle, or else you will want to know what these missionaries cost and why we do not employ more of them; and who sent them out, and to what Board they are responsible; and who buys them new clothes of leather and cloth; and what happens to them when their backs are bent with age and their faces furrowed with care, and when only they themselves can read their title clear? I think no one will have to help you guess my riddle or tell you that the four missionaries who go about the most are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and that the two ladies are Esther and Ruth. Now you have guessed that the Little Missionaries are the Books of the Bible. Do you know how many there are ? How many in the Old Testa- ment ? How many in the New Testament ? Perhaps some of you know the names of all the sixty-six! But it is not enough to know the names of these Books that we have called Little Missionaries. We must know what is in them, we must know the message they bear to this sinful and troubled world. And we must all do our part to send out this blessed message of peace, comfort, and eternal life. It may not be your work to go to Arabia, but yet you have a work to do of one kind or another for Arabia. The Bible must be sent there. And now may I ask all the boys and girls who read this to pray for the Little Missionaries? ill TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA Pray that they may go ahead and prepare the way of the Lord all over this dark peninsula, from the palm groves of Busrah to the harbour of Aden, and from the sea of Oman to the unholy cities, — Mecca and Medina. "Jesus, tender Shepherd Thou hast other sheep Far away from shelter Where dark shadows creep. Seeking Saviour, bring them home That they may no longer roam. "Jesus, tender Shepherd While Thou leadest me, As Thy little helper Faithful may I be. Seeking others far and wide Drawing lost ones to Thy side." 112 XIX TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN About eighteen hundred and fifty years ago two mission- aries came to a town in Asia Minor, called Thessalonica, and began to preach. They did nobody any harm and only talked about the love of Jesus Christ for sinners. A great number of people believed and attended their meet- ings. Some of the noble and wealthy women of the town also became Christians and for about three weeks the preaching went on unhindered. However, as soon as the enemies of the gospel saw that Paul and Silas were meeting with success they did their best to stir up trouble. A mob collected and with a great deal of noise and shouting pulled some of the new believers through the streets, crying: " They that have turned the world upside dozen are come hither also! " Just as it was in Thessalonica so it has been in every place where the gospel has been preached. The word of God does turn the world upside down. The gospel is powerful and its effect is often at first to stir up the envy and hatred of men who love not God. When the heathen are worshipping idols and enjoying sinful pleasures they like to be let alone. A thief does not like the police- man's lantern. Those who do dark things hate the light. The Moslem's idea of right and wrong is so crooked that he does not like to have it exposed. Supposing there was a country where all the people wore 113 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA THE SULTAN'S SOLDIERS. PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA their garments wrong side out because they knew no better, and then some one came wearing his clothes properly and trying to teach these ignorant people, would they not think him mad and say why do you not turn your coat inside out ? That is the very way Moslems regard the missionary. They often tell us, "You are so good and kind why don't you accept the true religion and become a be- liever?" You must not think that the heathen or the Mohammedans are anxious to hear the gospel. They do not know of its value and so do not know what they miss. When they hear that the gospel demands a holy life and forbids all swearing and lying and uncleanness, they think such a religion too difficult and prefer their own. All their topsy-turvy ways and thoughts seem perfectly correct to themselves until God's Spirit enlightens them. It is no wonder therefore that there is always opposition and trouble when missionaries (even such quiet little missionaries as we read about), come to a village. When you want to put a thing straight that is upside down there is sure to be an overturning. The farmer is not sorry because his rude plow breaks the hard soil and bruises the weeds and turns all the greensward under. Oh no; he does that to make some better green grow. Wait three months and you will see the whole field covered with a waving harvest of wheat. Ploughing is pretty rough work on weeds. Opening a new mission station is pretty rough, I admit, on a false religion. And the wise men cannot help knowing this and so they repeat the words of the old Greeks when they see a missionary settle down in their 115 TOPSY-TURVY LAND A R A B I A village: "Those that have turned the world upside down are come hither also . . . saying that there is another King, Jesus." The king of all hearts in the Mohammedan world is their prophet Mohammed. They love his name and imitate his acts to the least particular. Much more faithfully, I fear, than we imitate Jesus, our example. The great ques- tion in Arabia is whether Mohammed or Jesus is to rule the country. Mohammed has had it very much his own way for thirteen hundred years, but now his dominion is being disputed. God's providence is working in many ways to help His gospel. I sometimes think that we might call His providence the plow and His gospel the good seed. For example, what a strange thing it is for the Arabs to find Christian governments interfering with their slave trade. Does not the Koran approve of slave holders and did not Mohammed buy and sell slaves ? And then when the big merchant ships come to the coasts of Arabia and the ignorant Arabs learn of other lands and peoples and civili- sation they cannot help losing some of their pride and prejudice. They compare the government of England in Aden with that of the Turks in Sanaa and then — well they feel like turning the world upside down themselves! The Mohammedan religion has such a strong hold in Arabia that it will not be overcome in one day or by one battle. We must expect a long and hard fight. Before Topsy-turvy Land becomes a Christian land there will be martyrs in Arabia. Every Moslem who accepts Christ does so at his peril, and yet there are those who dare to confess 116 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA Christ before men. When you read in mission reports of troubles and opposition, of burning up books, imprisoning colporteurs and expelling missionaries you must not think that the gospel is being defeated. It is conquering. What we see under such circumstances is only the dust in the wake of the ploughman. God is turning the world upside down that it may be right side up when Jesus comes. He that plougheth should plough in hope. We may not be able to see a harvest yet in this country but, furrow after furrow, the soil is getting ready for the seed. Don't some of you want to come and do a day's plough- ing for the King? There are some splendid stretches of virgin prairie yet untouched between Bahrein and Mecca. 117 XX TURNING THE WORLD DOWNSIDE UP The story of mission work in Arabia is not very long, but it is full of interest. From the day when Mohammed pro- claimed himself an apostle in Mecca until about sixteen years ago when Ion Keith Falconer came to Aden as a mis- sionary, all of Topsy-turvy Land lay in darkness as regards the gospel. For thirteen hundred years Mohammed had it all his own way in Arabia. Now his dominion over the hearts of men, is in dispute, and there is no doubt that the final, full victory will rest with Jesus the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. Would you like to hear something, before we close this book about the missions that are now working in this coun- try ? There are three missions. The missionaries of the Church of England began work in Bagdad about the year 1882. Bagdad is not at all a small town. It has a popula- tion of one hundred and eighty thousand people, and it was once a very important city. You can read all about its ancient beauty and wealth and commerce in the Arabian Nights. Some of the palaces that Harouner Rashid visited are still standing. In the city there are at present sixty-four mosques, six churches and twenty-two synagogues. One- third of the population are Jews, and there are over five thousand Christians. Most of the latter belong to the Ro- man Catholic faith, or to other twilight churches. The Ro- ns PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA man Catholic cathedral, which you see in the picture, is the only church in all Northern Arabia that has a bell. Moslems do not like to hear church-bells, and they were forbidden by some rulers of the Moslem world long ago. The Prot- estant Christians meet for worship in a dwelling-house. The Bagdad mission has a large dispensary for the sick where thousands of Moslems and Jews and Christians come every year for treatment. Books are sold to the people, and there is a school for boys and girls which is also helping to turn down old prejudices and turn up the right side of child- life. The Moslem children are beginning to believe that the world is round and that Constantinople is not the capital of all Europe. The British and Foreign Bible Society is also helping to turn this part of the world downside up. The gospel which has been buried under many superstitions and tradi- tions so long, is again showing its power. Colporteurs are men who carry the Bible about, offer it to the people and read and explain it to those whose hearts are open. They have a hard task, but if it were not for them the " Lit- tle Missionaries " would not get along at all. On the way from Bagdad to Busrah, we pass Amara, an enterprising village where the people once burned books and threw stones at the missionary, but where now the little Bible-shop of the American Mission shines unhindered, " Like a little candle, burning in the night." At Busrah, Rev. James Cantine began mission work in 1891, and ever since that time he and others have been 119 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA ploughing and sowing seed and waiting for the showers that come before the harvest. It was at Busrah that Kamil Abd el Messiah, the Moslem convert from Syria, died a wit- ness for Christ. Have you read the wonderful story of his life ? It is full of pathos and shows how in the heart and life of at least one Moslem the Holy Spirit made topsy-turvy things straight. There are others like Kamil in Arabia, but many of them are still following the Master afar off, because they fear the persecutions of men. At Busrah, there is also a dispensary, and here too the gospel is sold and preached and lived before the people. Bahrein, you know, is a group of islands, and it is about six years ago that the people first saw a missionary. Nearly three-fourths of the population are pearl-merchants or pearl- fishers. Will you not pray that they may learn to value the Pearl of Great Price ? A visit any morning in the week to the dispensary at Bahrein, would soon convince you that here too the Arab world is slowly but surely turning downside up. Women learn to their delight that they have equal right to sympathy with men, and they need not wait until the men are helped first. The Arabs are very ignorant of medicine and their remedies are either foolish or cruel. To " let out the pain " in rheumatism, they burn the body with a hot iron. All their ideas are upside down, and very few know on which side of their body the liver is located. Now when our mission doctors perform miracles of surgery on the maimed, and miracles of mercy on the suffering, the result is to pre- pare their hearts for Christ's message. To the fanatic Mos- 120 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA lem a Christian is "an ignorant unbeliever." But we may put a parody on Pope's lines and say, in their case: " A Christian is a monster of such frightful mien That to be hated needs but to be seen. But seen too oft familiar with his face They first endure, then pity, then embrace." Many of the Moslems who in gratitude are ready to em- brace a Christian physician may yet learn to embrace Chris- tian teaching. Muscat in Arabic, means "the place where something falls." And the surroundings are so rocky and steep that everything has a chance to tumble down except the mer- cury in the thermometer. That is always up high. In this hot, crowded town, the Arabian Mission opened its third station in the year 1893. Two years before the veteran missionary-bishop, Thomas Valpy French laid down his life here, and the fallen standard was taken up by Peter J. Zwemer. After five years of toil in Oman, he also entered into rest. George E. Stone, his successor in Oman, was also worthy of the martyr's crown, and his simple grave at Muscat tells how "he arose, forsook all, and followed Christ." This part of Arabia is sacred because of what these three pioneers suffered to open the door for the gospel. I do not think the King will leave a province where He has buried so much treasure in the hands of the enemy, do you? The work of preaching in Oman is at present full of promise, and the people seem willing to hear. The 121 PICTURED FOR CHILDREN ARABIA American Bible Society is sending the Scriptures all over Eastern Arabia. The last mission station in Arabia we mention, is the first that people generally visit. Aden is a coaling station as well as a missionary centre and passengers travelling to the Orient nearly always stop here on the way. There are Christian churches and hospitals and government schools. At Sheikh Ottoman, a short distance from Aden, Ion Keith Falconer, the first modern missionary to this land, began his work. He died here also, but his life was so full of love and sacrifice that his work is still going on. The Free Church of Scotland mission has medical work, an industrial school for waifs and a memorial chapel. From a great dis- tance patients come to be cured, and Moslems to buy the Bible. The great lighthouse on the island of Perim, near Aden, throws its light for ten miles out on the dark sea and saves ships from the breakers. But the light of the gospel in the Bible depot at Aden, shines two hundred miles to the north as far as Sanaa, and three hundred miles east to Makalla on the coast. Yet I dare say it costs more to keep up the light- house at Perim (not to speak of building it) than it does to keep open all the Bible lighthouses of all Arabia. Perhaps Keith Falconer thought of this when he said in his farewell address: " We Christians have a great and imposing war office, but a very small army. While vast continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness and hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of heathenism and Islam, the burden of proof lies 123 TOPSY-TURVY LAND ARABIA upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you, were meant by Him to keep you out of the for- eign mission field." Before you lay aside this book, will you not ash yourself why you should not go out to Arabia, or to some other land yet shrouded in darkness, and shine for Jesus ? An Old Friend in a New Dress. ARABIC. LITERAL TRANSLATION. Seyyidi-'l-Fadi-'l Gani, Our Lord, the rich Saviour, Kalbehoo yuhibbooni, His heart loves me, Fa lahoo kooloo saghier. And to Him all little ones belong. Yaltajee wahoo'l kadeer. He protects us and is strong. Kad faaka hubban. Kad faaka hubban. Kad faaka hubban. Yuhibbuna Yasooa. Yes His love exceeds alL Yes His love exceeds all. Yes His love exceeds all Jesus loves you. "V^V ^^AlHtfjj. iiiil^Sli^^l^^ J^gJ^^IS* iiiSi^s^ V lllllll 2£:S "<* 124 "Will Delight B-Very Child LcOer" the CHINESE 'BOy r AND GI*RL By Isaac Taylor Headland Illustrated. 4to, $1.00 Net "CVEN more interesting and quaint than Dr. Head- Ci land's 'Chinese Mother Goose' rhymes of last year. The almond-eyed boys and girls have a great variety of games, many resembling those of Western lands, others different but queer and funny, and some of these latter our boys and girls may like to learn. The pictures and page-decoration are of the same jolly and curious kind found in the ' Mother Goose ' book. The two books together really contain the results of a thorough study of Chinese child-life, and are at the same time immensely entertaining!" — The Outlook. "Whoever argues from the solemnity of the adult, 'Mongolian in a strange land,' that the Chinese at home must have a sad boyhood will be undeceived on reading this pleasing book. It is as full of fun, in its way, as the preceding ' Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes ' of the same observing and careful scholar. For chil- dren of any growth this book will afford endless amusement and reveal a new and unsuspected China. It makes two worlds kin." — New York Evening Post. CHINESE MOTHE'R GOOSE Translated and Illustrated by Isaac ZSaylor Headland Small quarto, Boards, Fully Illustrated, 160 Pages, $1.25 "We have rarely seen a more charming book for children than this. Certainly it is in the fullest sense unique. Here he has translated many rhymes common in the Chinese nursery, and each page presents one of these rhymes, both in the Chinese characters and in an English translation into verse, while each is accom- panied by a little picture of Chinese life directly repro- duced from a photograph. In every respect the book is at the same time thoroughly Chinese and yet attract- ive to the eyes of American children." — The Out/ook. "They M aK.e Ttvo Worlds Kin" By AMY LE FEUVRE BUNNY'S FRIENDS i2mo, decorated boards, 30c. " Bunny is a little girl, and her friends are a rabbit, a pony and a lark. Each one narrates his experiences to the child as she is alone with him in the open room. Children will listen eagerly to the reading of these little tales, and will doubtless be profited by them." — IV. Y. Observer, " 'Bunny' herself was not a rabbit, as one might suspert. She was a little lonely girl, and her name was Dora. She had a little, dark, silky head, and big, blue eyes, which were always staring out at the world with big thoughts behind them, and she was still only when some one told her a story." — Western Christian Advocate. JTRIC'S GOOD NEWS Illustrated, 121110, decorated boards, 30c, " Eric Wallace is an invalid lad, delicate, sweet and winsome, who by precept and example leads erring and scoffing men to faith in Christ. The good work is done in a natural and perfectly childish way, without any painful exhibitions of precocity or goodishness. The story is simply a glimpse here and there into the life of a pure hearted, sweet natured, happy soul who leads others into the light because he is in the light himself. It is a tender and beautiful story of Christian influence, conduct and example." — Christian Work. WHAT THE WIND DID 121110, decorated boards, 30c. "Miss Le Feuvre's stories about child life are charmingly well written and suggestive." — Christian Advocate. " Her stories are as bright and interesting and touching as if Juliana ^wing or I aura Richards had written them." — Evangelist. "A clever tale, written with a high purpose. ... A suc- cessful endeavor of one whose pen has found its highest employ, ment in the realistic sketching of child life." — Christian Advocate. JJULBS AND BLOSSOMS An Easter Booklet. With illustrations by Eveline Lance, i2mo, cloth, 50c. " Many sweet lessons of faith and love drop from the lips of these little ones, and how they brought forth fruit in the heart of one of the aunts is impressively brought out. The book is daintily bound, and pretty illustrations brighten it" — Louisville Observer. " An engaging Easter story in relation to two children who are sent from India to their aunt in England to acquire strength and vigor from a cool climate and other benefits from association with English people." — Christian Intelligencer ■■ By AMY LE FEUVRE PROBABLE SONS both thousand. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, 35c. New illustrated edition. Small 4to, decorated cloth, 50c. " We do not know the author of this very touching tale. It is equal to ' Fishin' Jimmy ' in its way, while as an illustration of the text, 'A little child shall le^d them,' it is the most irresistibly pa- thetic tale we remember to have seen. Among the brightest, most charming and irresistible of child-creations in our recent literature." — The Independence" "One of the brightest, sweetest, most helpful little books for young and old that we have seen for many a day. It is alive with that sort of humor that is so close to pathos that one laughs and cries in the same breath. It speaks to the very heart, and appeals strongly to all 'probable sons.' in whatever station or con- dition, in an irresistible way; and with winning simplicity and confidence shows the readiness of the Father to forgive and to receive." — Christian Work. TEDDY'S BUTTON Illustrated. Small Jto, decorated cloth, 50c. "A captivating story. Teddy and Nancy win our hearts. Tedd'ys brave fight with himself commands admiration, and stout- hearted, handsome Nancy, a real girl in all her doings, conquers the heart. A very good story is this for the children." — The Christian Intelligencer. "'Teddy's Button' was taken from the coat of his dying sol- dier father, and in the hands of the boy became a sort of talisman and an incentive to valiant service as a soldier of Jesus Christ. The story is one of fascinating interest, and the moral of it is not far to seek. The little folks will need no urging to read it." — The Evangelist. A THOUGHTLESS SEVEN Profusely illustrated. Small 410, decorated cloth, 50c. " Thunder," "Li" (Lightning), "Taters," " Honey," "Pat," "Pixie," and "Doodle-doo," make up the rollicking group whose adventures and chatter are here recorded. They are mercurial and insurrectionary to the last degree, and fly in a perpetual "merry- go-round." But a strain of seriousness early begins to develop, leading up into large and noble Christian exper ence and ambition. The incarnation of religion in daily life where it is " not too good for human nature's daily food," is admirably exemplified and com- mended." — Watchman. "A big and a bright and interesting family is here set before us. How one of them began to think, and then by acting on her thinking led the others into the right way ihe little sketch tells. —Pilgrim Teacher. By AMY LE FEUVRE O n THE EDGE OF THE MOOR Illustrated. 12 mo, cloth, $1.00. "A delightful story of a quiet country life, of one who was eager to do good to her fellow-beings, and who improved every op- portunity to do so. Especially may those whose home is in the quiet country,and who think that there is no opportunities for doing good to be found there, find hints of ways in which much good may be done. The lives into which the least sunshine comes — these are the ones which need our help the most." — Christian Herald. " This is another of those charming and healthy stories for young people for which this author has become distinguished. It is a good book for the home or the Sunday-school library." — Ziov's Herald. £)WELL DEEP Illustrated, i6mo, cloth, 75 c. " A story of a girl who, being left without a home, went to live with her guardian, who had a number of children. Hilda Thorn was trying to be a Christian, and her associates were very worldly, which made it hard for her. It is an interesting story, with the reality of experience." — The Religious Herald. "An intensely interesting story. The author plainly illustrates the possibility of magnifying Christian life and character amid the whirl of gayety and pleasure in social life. Character speaks with effectiveness, and the world bows in acknowledgment to practical Christianity in a positive religious character. The author evidently has succeeded in making her characters seem to be real and pos- sible." — Christian Intelligencer. fJIS BIG OPPORTUNITY Illustrated. i2mo, cloth, 75c. "Aside from its lively interest, this story will be good for boys to read. It does not preach, but its influence is strong for the right, and it leaves a smack of hearty encouragement in the youth- ful mind."— The Independent. " Here is a capital little story for boys, for girls, or for grown people. Of course, it is a story with a moral, and the moral is al- ways obvious ; but it does not interrupt the story, which is good." — Church Standard. The story is a very pretty one, and nice to give little children or to put in a Sunday-school library. The sentiment is not mawk- ish nor the religious element overdone. \$fc llOn ull. lOCAT.DIY. JUN. 12 1902 JUN. 17 1902 CD CO CD CO ' UBRARYOFCONGRES 005 772 669 6