Part 2 (1/2)
In the accompanying picture of a Moslem boy praying you will see what those forms are and how much _form_ there is to go through. Blind Fatimah stood with her hands clasped, looking upward with those sightless eyes, her lips moving. Then she fell on her knees, with the little, thin hands spread out; then she bowed down until her forehead touched the earth, continuing in that position for a little time; then she got up, and with another upward look and motion of the lips, the devotions were ended.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW A MOSLEM BOY PRAYS.]
I prayed there, too, that her eyes might be opened to see Jesus as her own Saviour, and that she might know Him as the _Son of G.o.d_, and not merely as one of the many prophets mentioned in the Koran. It seemed such a sad sight to see this blind child, doubly blind because her religion is false, and she is resting on a false hope.
She always listens when I tell her, or read to her about G.o.d, and Jesus Christ the Saviour. And if you would help together by your daily prayers, perhaps soon G.o.d will give the answer. Would it not be blessed for you and me if some day blind Fatimah should have opened eyes; not to see the date groves, and the sea, and the beautiful sunsets of Bahrein, but far more--to see Jesus' face and to follow Him by leading others to Him?
”For thousands and thousands who wander and fall, Never heard of that heavenly home; I should like them to know there is room for them all, And that Jesus has bid them to come.
I long for the joy of that glorious time, The sweetest and brightest and best, When the dear little children of every clime Shall crowd to His arms and be blest.”
VII
DATES AND SUGAR-CANE
This is the sweetest chapter in the book. The pictures are enough to make one's mouth water and give one an appet.i.te for Arabian dates. I do not suppose there is a boy or girl in England or America that has not eaten the fruit of the Arabian palm tree; but how many of you know the taste of sugar-cane?
In many parts of Arabia, especially at Busrah and along the river Tigris, you can see the sugar-cane sellers sit by the wayside and dispose of this Arabian stick-candy to the boys and girls in exchange for coppers. The woman in the picture has chosen the shelter of a date tree and beside the tall bundles of cane she has oranges for sale as well. The sugar-cane is cut into pieces and sold ”by the knot”; that is, by the length of the stick from one knot to the next. It is not expensive and I have seen even the very poorest children suck their cane on the way home as happy as sugar can make them. The sugar-cane is a kind of gra.s.s but it grows to twice the height of a boy and is over two inches in circ.u.mference. The stems are smooth, s.h.i.+ning and hard on the outside, but inside they are porous and the pores are full of sugar sap. The sugar-cane first came from India, but the Arabs spread its cultivation as far as Morocco and Sicily; so that it is no wonder that the word ”sugar” itself comes from the Arabic. Yet it shows how ignorant the Arabs are to-day because, although they have sugar-cane, _their_ sugar nearly all comes from Europe. They do not know how to manufacture it and therefore eat the sugar-cane raw.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WOMAN SELLING SUGAR-CANE.]
Sweeter than sugar-cane and much more plentiful is the date. There is no place in all Arabia where you do not see the date palm growing, and seldom can you eat a meal in any part of the country but dates are part of the bill-of-fare. In fact thousands of people in Arabia have nothing but dates to eat from January to December! So plentiful are they that even donkeys and camels are fed on dates in some districts.
Many of the dates you buy in your own country come from Arabia. On the best kind of dates which come in wooden boxes you will find Muscat or Busrah stamped to show from what place they were s.h.i.+pped. There are very many kinds of dates in Arabia, and only a very few sorts are sent abroad.
Some of them are too delicate to stand the long voyage and others are found only in small quant.i.ties. I do not think any of the dates that reach America equal those we pick from the palm tree ourselves here in Arabia--no more than dried apple rings taste as good as ripe juicy sweet apples from the orchard. When the dates ripen in September they are picked, sorted, and then packed in layers by the Arab women and boys who get paid for this work. Large steams.h.i.+ps are loaded down with these boxes and many of them leave Busrah every year with no other cargo than dates.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DATES GROWING ON A DATE PALM.]
The date tree is very beautiful. I think it is the most beautiful of all the palms. It is no wonder that a palm branch is the symbol of victory in the Bible and that the psalmist compares the life of a righteous man to a palm-tree! How straight and beautifully proportioned is the tall trunk of the tree. It is an evergreen and is always flouris.h.i.+ng winter and summer.
It is a lovely sight to see the huge cl.u.s.ters of ripening fruit, golden-yellow or reddish-brown, amid the bright green branches. Along the rivers in the north of Arabia, at Ha.s.sa and in Oman, date orchards stretch for miles and miles as far as you can see. Some of the Arabs have such large date gardens that they do not know the number of their trees. How do you suppose they climb the tree? The Arabs have no ladders and indeed it would be hard to make a ladder long enough to reach to the top of a tall palm tree. So they use a rope band which goes around the trunk of the tree and around their waist; it is shoved up little by little and the Arab puts his bare feet on the rough bark of the tree and so climbs up as easily as a monkey. The palm tree is perhaps the most useful tree in the world.
Every part of it is used for something or other, and I do not see how Arabia could get along without palm trees. The fruit is prepared in many different ways for food. The date stones are used by the Arab children in playing checkers and other games on the smooth sand. They are also ground up into a coa.r.s.e kind of meal and this is good cattle-food. The branches of the date tree are long and strong and thin just like a piece of rattan.
From them the carpenters make beds, tables, chairs, cradles, bird-cages, reading-stands, boats, crates, kites and a dozen other useful things. The leaves are woven into baskets, mats, fans and string. From the bark excellent fibre makes rope of all sizes. Not a bit of the tree is wasted.
Even the blossoms are used to make a kind of drink and the old musty fruit that cannot be eaten is made into date syrup or date vinegar.
In one of the pictures you see the fire wood market at Busrah. The long branches you see are sold for kindling wood and they make a splendid fire.
The heavier parts of the tree are also used for fuel and the donkeys are loaded with these date knots and date sticks in baskets. It is a busy scene and, what with braying of donkeys and shouting of the wood-merchants, there is enough noise too.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRE WOOD MARKET, BUSRAH.]
There is one more blessing that comes from the palm tree and which we have forgotten. That is shade. Arabia is a hot and dry country. The summer sun is much more piercing than in America and the summer is much longer. When you travel a long camel journey across the desert, oh how good it is to come to a grove of palm trees and rest! Such a place is called an _oasis_ and underneath the palms there are always springs of water. I can well understand how happy the children of Israel were after their journey in the desert, when they came to Elim where ”there were twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees.” In summer time many of the town Arabs leave their houses in the city and go to camp out in the date-gardens to enjoy the cool shades. The Arab poets have written many poems in praise of their favourite tree and fruit, but none of them are so funny as these lines which Campbell wrote from Algiers where the date tree also flourishes and with which we will end this chapter:
”Though my letter bears date as you view From the land of the date-bearing palm I will palm no more puns upon you.”