Asiatic Breezes Part 35

"His religion seemed to be firmly established, not only in Arabia, but it had been carried to foreign lands by the sword or by missionaries. He had it in his mind to conquer Syria; but the want of a sufficient army deterred him, and he was forced to content himself with the homage of a few inferior princes. In the tenth year of the new calendar he made his last solemn pilgrimage to Mecca, and then fixed for all future time the ordinance of the pilgrimage with its ceremonial, which is still observed in all Moslem countries.

"On his return from this visit he busied himself again with the project of conquering Syria; for some great scheme seemed to be necessary to keep his followers in alliance, and extend his religion. While so engaged he was taken dangerously sick. He selected the abode of Ayeshah as his home. The house was close to the mosque, and afterwards became a part of it. He continued to attend the public prayers as long as he was able. When he felt that his end was near, he preached once more to the people, recommending Abu Bekr and Osama as the generals of the army whom he had chosen. In the last wanderings of his mind he spoke of angels and heaven only, and died in the arms of Ayeshah. He was buried in the night in the house of his faithful wife, which was for that reason taken into the mosque.

"His death produced great distress and an immense excitement among his followers. Even before he was dead the struggle began, and an influential official had prevented him from naming his successor by preventing him from obtaining the use of writing materials; but Abu Bekr was preferred, and received the homage of the chief men of Medina.

Undoubtedly Mohammed was a man of great ability, and the possessor of some extraordinary gifts. There was much that was good in the person and his religion; much that Christianity preaches as the true faith to-day.

He believed in the one G.o.d, however much he failed to comprehend his attributes.

"He claimed to be the Prophet of G.o.d, and preached piety and righteousness, and recommended chiefly that his followers should protect the weak, the poor, and the women, and to abstain from usury. In his private character he was an amiable man, faithful to his friends, and tender in his family. In spite of the power he finally obtained, he never appeared in any state, with pomp and parade; for he lived in the utmost simplicity, and when at the height of his power he dwelt like the Arabs in general in a miserable hut. He mended his own clothes, and freed his slaves when he had them.

"He was a man of strong pa.s.sions, of a nervous temperament, and his ecstatic visions were perhaps the result of his inherited malady. He is not to be judged by our standard any more than King Solomon is; but there was a great deal of good in him, with a vast deal that was emphatically bad; for he was cunning and deceitful when it suited his purpose, extremely revengeful, as shown in his dealings with the Meccans and the Jews, and a wholesale murderer in the spirit of retaliation.

"He had read the Christian Bible, and not a little of his religion was borrowed from that. Glancing over the world, we cannot help seeing that Christian nations have been the most progressive, while those of the Mohammedan faith have been far behind them, and have borrowed their princ.i.p.al improvements from those whose emblem is the Cross. To the end of time the Crescent will be overshadowed by the Cross."

The pa.s.sengers had been much interested in the story of the Prophet, and the professor was warmly applauded as he gathered up his papers and retired from the stand.

"Unless we slow down I am afraid you will see nothing of Jiddah, which is the port of Mecca, and our nearest point to it," said the commander.

"Though thousands of pilgrims are landed there every year on their way to obey the injunction of Mohammed, there is nothing there to see; and it is not a case of sour grapes."

"I wanted to ask the professor about the coffin of the Prophet being suspended in the air," interposed Mrs. Belgrave.

"That is pure fiction, madam," replied the professor. "The body of Mohammed is believed to rest within the mausoleum in the mosque; and there is no reason to doubt that it is on the spot occupied by Ayeshah's house, added to the sacred building. His body is supposed to lie undecayed at full length, on the right side, the right hand supporting the head, with the face directed towards Mecca."

The professor had to answer many other questions of no great importance.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE AGENT OF THE Pa.r.s.eE MERCHANTS

The ancient kingdoms of the world had been disposed of by the professor, and all the countries of the Red Sea had been treated historically and geographically; and though the pa.s.sengers still occupied the promenade, no more conferences were needed for the present. But it became a place for conversation, and all kinds of subjects were discussed there.

The commander pointed out the location of all the important places, or where any notable event had occurred; but none of them were of any great consequence, and they were too far off to be seen distinctly. The ship had reached the widest part of the sea, and all the rest of the course to the entrance was through the deep water in the middle; for the sh.o.r.es were studded with reefs, reaching out from forty to sixty miles from the land.

"How deep is the water here, Captain Ringgold?" asked Dr. Hawkes, at one of these conversation parties on the third day from Suez.

"The last time I looked at the chart, just on the parallel of 20 of north lat.i.tude, the sounding was 500 fathoms," replied the commander.

"Indeed? That is 3,000 feet; I did not suppose it was so deep as that,"

added the doctor.

"The bottom is very irregular in all parts of the Red Sea; and in some places it is more than double the figure just mentioned. When we were about sixty miles north of Jiddah, the sounding was 1,054 fathoms, or 6,234 feet."

"How deep has the water been found to be in the ocean?"

"As much as 4,000 fathoms of line have been paid out, with no bottom as the result. Soundings of 3,000 fathoms have been obtained. In the library you will find the 'Cruise of the Challenger,' which is the latest authority on this subject."

"I shall refer to it; thank you, Captain."

"On a little rocky island on our right," continued the commander, pointing to the location, "is the town of Suakin, as it is generally called, though the proper word is Sawakin. It is a town of ten thousand inhabitants. It is abreast of Nubia, the Soudan, and is the outlet of its commerce. When the Mahdi War became a serious matter, England took possession of this port; and several battles were fought in the vicinity with the followers of the Mahdi, who seemed to imitate the example of Mohammed to some extent in his crusade. The place is still held by a British garrison, and about seven thousand pilgrims embark here every year for Mecca by the way of Jiddah."

"We all remember the war in the Soudan in which the Mahdi figured so largely," said Uncle Moses. "I should like to know something more about him."

"The meaning of the word is the guide, 'the well-directed one.' There have been at least half a dozen Mahdis in the history of Mohammedans, just as there have been Messiahs in Christian lands, all of them impostors of course. One appeared in Arabia, who claimed to be a successor of Mohammed who had disappeared; another presented himself in the northern part of Africa. One appeared in Egypt during the French invasion, and was killed in battle.

"The last one was Mohammed Ahmed; and like the rest of them he claimed to be a lineal descendant of the Prophet, divinely commissioned to extend his religion, and especially to drive the Christians out of the Soudan. He was in his earlier life an employe of the Egyptian government, but quarrelled with the governor of his province, and became a trader and a slave-dealer. At the age of forty he a.s.sumed the _role_ of the Mahdi; and in that capacity he did a great deal of mischief. He captured the chief city of Kordofan, and made it the capital; he overwhelmed the army of Hicks Pacha, and finally shut up General Gordon in Khartoom, as has been related before. He died in 1885, and was succeeded by Abdallah. But he had deprived Egypt of even the nominal possession of the Soudan."

"He was a terrible fighter," added Uncle Moses.

"Fanatics usually are."

The voyage continued without any unusual incident till the ship was approaching the entrance to the sea. The sh.o.r.es on both sides became more precipitous, and heights of two thousand feet were to be seen. The commander pointed out Mocha, which has the reputation of sending out the finest coffee in the world; but this is said to come from Hodeida, a port north of it.

"Those hills on the left indicate the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, which was written Babelmandel in the old geographies when I went to school. Bab means a gate wherever you find it; and this is the 'Gate of Tears,' so called from the perils it presented to the small craft of the Arabians; and many of them were wrecked here," said the commander when the party were gathered on the promenade as usual if anything was to be seen. "We are now in lat.i.tude 12 30', and I notice that some of the ladies are becoming tolerably diligent in the use of their fans."

"It is time for us to begin to reduce our clothing," suggested Mrs.

Belgrave.

"Be prudent about that, ladies; for I think we shall have some cool weather again when we get out from the land, though it has been growing warmer since yesterday," added the doctor.

"There is a strong current here, and some of the water comes up from the region of the equator; and, as you have been informed before, the temperature of it runs up to a hundred degrees," said the captain. "Here is the Island of Perim, a barren rock, three miles and a half long by two and a half wide, shaped like a crescent, with a good harbor between the two horns. The English took possession of it and held it for a year in 1799, and again occupied it in 1857, and later it was made into a coaling-station.

"As you perceive, it is fortified, and it has a British garrison. It has hardly any other population than coolie coal-heavers. It is a desolate-looking place, and there does not appear to be even a blade of gra.s.s growing upon it."

"Is it still Egypt on the other side of the strait?" asked Mrs.

Belgrave.

"No; it is Abyssinia," replied the captain. "It is a country containing 200,000 square miles, nearly three-fourths of the size of Texas. It consists of tableland about 7,000 feet high, and there are peaks within its borders 15,000 feet high. It has a lake sixty miles long, and you have been told something about its rivers in connection with the sources of the Nile. It is rich in minerals, but the mines are hardly worked at all.

"There has been the usual amount of quarrelling as in former times among the chiefs of the various tribes in Abyssinia; but finally an adventurer named Ka.s.sa, after defeating various chiefs, caused himself to be crowned as King Theodore. He tried to form an active alliance with England and France; but no notice was taken of his propositions. He was so enraged at this neglect on the part of England, that he began to maltreat the missionaries and consuls of that country. The British sent agents to treat for the release of the prisoners; but the king shut them up in the fortress of Magdala, though they brought a royal letter and presents.

"Of course England could not stand this, and she sent an army of 16,000 men to attend to the matter. They landed on the coast, and marched to Magdala. Theodore occupied a fort on a height with 6,000 men, and he hurled nearly the whole of his force upon a detachment of 1,700 British encamped on the plain below. The repeated attacks were repulsed every time, and the king was beaten. Then he sued for peace, and released the prisoners he held in the castle; but as he refused to surrender, the fortress was stormed and captured. Theodore was found dead where he had shot himself. The fort was demolished, and the British retired from the country. The expedition cost 45,000,000 dollars; but England always protects her citizens, wherever they are."

"Is it a Mohammedan country, like Egypt?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.

"It is not; it is nominally a Christian country, though its religion is of the very lowest type that ever was called by that name, wholly external, and morals are at a very low ebb. After the British left, a prince defeated his rival, and was crowned as Emperor John; but it is a single-horse monarchy. It has been at war with Egypt, which never got possession of the country as it desired. In 1885 Italy occupied Ma.s.sowah, though for what purpose was never definitely stated. Three companies of its army were attacked by the Abyssinians, and nearly the whole of them were ma.s.sacred; but the Italians did not avenge this a.s.sault."

The ship continued on her course along the coast of Yemen ninety miles to Aden, which the commander had before given out as his first stopping-place. Steam had been reduced so that the arrival should not be in the night. The pa.s.sage had been made in about four days. The pilot came on board at six o'clock in the morning, and the pa.s.sengers were already on the promenade. Two large steamers were at anchor in the roads, and were engaged in coaling and watering. A boat came off as soon as the ship anch.o.r.ed, containing an agent of the great Pa.r.s.ee merchants, who do most of the business of the town. He wished to see the captain, who was in his cabin.

"Good-morning, Captain," said the man, speaking very good English. "I have taken the liberty to bring off some newspapers."

"I am greatly obliged to you, for we are getting hungry for newspapers,"

replied Captain Ringgold as he took the package. "Excuse me for a moment and I will send them to the pa.s.sengers, for I have not time to look at them now."

He tossed the bundle of papers up to Dr. Hawkes, and returned to his cabin.