The Women of the Arabs Part 10

In the year 1847, a Literary Society was formed in Beirut, through the influence of Drs. Thomson, Eli Smith, Van Dyck, De Forest and Mr.

Whiting, which continued in operation for about six years, and numbered among its members the leading men of all the various native communities.

Important papers were read on various scientific and social subjects.

The missionaries had been laboring for years to create an enlightened public sentiment on the subject of female education, contending against social prejudices, profound ignorance, ecclesiastical tyranny and selfish opposition, and at length the fruit of their labors began to appear. In the following articles may be seen something of the views of the better cla.s.s of Syrians. The first was read before the Beirut Literary Society, Dec. 14, 1849, by Mr. Butrus Bistany, who, as stated above, married Raheel, and is now the head of a flourishing Academy in Beirut, and editor of three Arabic journals. I have translated only the salient points of this long and able paper:--

We have already spoken of woman in barbarous lands. The Syrian women, although better off in some respects than the women of barbarous nations, are still in the deepest need of education and elevation, since they stand in a position midway between the barbarous and the civilized. How few of the hundreds of thousands of women in Syria know how to read! How few are the schools ever established here for teaching women! Any one who denies the degradation and ignorance of Syrian women, would deny the existence of the noonday sun. Do not men shun even an allusion to women, and if obliged to speak of them, do they not accompany the remark with "a jellak Allah," as if they were speaking of a brute beast, or some filthy object? Are they not treated among us very much as among the barbarians? To what do they pay the most attention? Is it not to ornament and dress, and refining about styles of tatooing with the "henna" and "kohl?" What do they know about the training of children, domestic economy and neatness of person, and the care of the sick? How many abominable superst.i.tions do they follow, although forbidden by their own religions? Are not the journals and diaries of travellers full of descriptions of the state of our women? Does not every one, familiar with the state of society and the family among us, know all these things, and mourn over them, and demand a reform? Would that I might awaken among the women the desire to learn, that thus they might be worthy of higher honor and esteem!

"Woman should be instructed in _religion_. This is one of her highest rights and privileges and her bounden duty.

"She should be taught in her own vernacular tongue, so as to be able to express herself correctly, and use pure language. Woman should learn to _write_.

"She should be taught to _read_. How is it possible for woman to remember all her duties, religious and secular, through mere oral instruction? But a written book, is a teacher always with her, and in every place and circ.u.mstance. It addresses her without a voice, rebukes her without fear or shame, answers without sullenness and complaint. She consults it when she wishes, without anxiety and embarra.s.sment, and banishes it if not faithful or satisfactory, or even burns it without crime!

"Why forbid woman the use of the only means she can have of sending her views and feelings where the voice cannot reach? _Now_ when a woman wishes to write a letter, she must go, closely veiled to the street, and hire a professional scribe to write for her, a letter which she cannot read, and which may utterly misrepresent her!

"Woman should also have instruction in the _training of children_. The right training of children is not a natural instinct. It is an art, and a lost art among us. It must be learned from the experience and observation of those who have lived before us; and where do we now find the woman who knows how to give proper care to the bodies and souls of her children?"

Mr. Bistany then speaks of the importance of teaching woman domestic economy, sewing, cooking, and the care of the sick, as well as geography, arithmetic, and history, giving as reasons for the foregoing remarks, that the education of woman will benefit herself, her husband, her children and her country.

"How can she be an intelligent wife, a kind companion, a wise counsellor, a faithful spouse, aiding her husband, lightening his sufferings, training his children, and caring for his home, without education? Without education, her taste is corrupt. She will seek only outward ornament, and dress, and painting, as if unsatisfied with her Creator's work; becoming a mere doll to be gazed at, or a trap to catch the men. She will believe in countless superst.i.tions, such as the Evil Eye, the howling of dogs, the crying of foxes, etc., which are too well known to need mention here. He who would examine this subject, should consult that huge unwritten book, that famous volume called "Ketab en Nissa," the "Book of the Women," a work which has no existence among civilized women; or ask the old wives who have read it, and taught it in their schools of superst.i.tion.

"Let him who would know the evils of neglecting to educate woman, look at the ignorant, untaught woman in her language and dress, her conduct at home and abroad; her notions, thoughts, and caprices on religion and the world; her morals, inclinations and tastes; her house, her husband, her children and acquaintances, when she rejoices or mourns, when sick or well; and he will agree with us that an uneducated woman is a great evil in the world, not to say the greatest evil possible to be imagined.

"In the reformation of a nation, then, the first step in the ladder is the education of the women from their childhood. And those who neglect the women and girls, and expect the elevation of the people by the mere training of men and boys, are like one walking with one foot on the earth, and the other in the clouds! They fail in accomplishing their purpose and are barely able, by the utmost energy, to repair that which woman has corrupted and destroyed. They build a wall, and woman tears down a castle. They elevate boys one degree, and women depress them many degrees.

"Perhaps I have now said enough on a subject never before written upon by any of our ancestors of the sons of the Arabs. My object has been to prove the importance of the education of woman, based on the maxim, that, 'she who rocks the cradle with her right hand, moves the world with her arm.'"

The next article I have translated from Mr. Bistany's Semi-monthly Magazine, called the "Jenan," for July, 1870. It was written by an Arab _woman_ of Aleppo, the Sitt Mariana Merrash. She writes with great power and eloquence in the Arabic; and her brother, Francis Effendi, is one of the most powerful writers of modern Syria. The paper of the Sitt Mariana is long, and the introduction is most ornate and flowery. She writes on the condition of woman among the Arabs, and refutes an ancient Arab slander against women that they are cowardly and avaricious, because they will not fight, and carefully h.o.a.rd the household stores. She then proceeds:--

"Wo to us Syrian women, if we do not know enough to distinguish and seek after those qualities which will elevate and refine our minds, and give breadth to our thoughts, and enable us to take a proper position in society! We ought to attract sensible persons to us by the charm of our cultivation and refinement, not by the mere phantom of beauty and personal ornament. Into what gulfs of stupidity have we plunged! Do we not know that the reign of beauty is short, and not enough of itself to be worthy of regard? And even supposing that it were enough of itself, in the public estimation, to make us attractive and desirable, do we not know a.s.suredly that after beauty has faded, we should fall at once into a panic of anxiety and grief, since none would then look at us save with the eye of contempt and ridicule, to say nothing of the vain attempts at producing artificial beauty which certain foolish women make, as if they were deaf to the insults and abuse heaped upon them? Shall we settle down in indolence, and never once think of what is our highest advantage and our chiefest good? Shall we forever run after gay attire and ornament? Let us arise and run the race of mental culture and literary adornment, and not listen for a moment to those who insult us by denying the appropriateness of learning to women, and the capacity of women for learning!

"Were we not made of the same clay as men? Even if we are of weaker texture, we have the same susceptibility which they have to receive impressions from what is taught to us. If it is good, we receive good as readily as they; and if evil, then evil. Of what use is a crown of gold on the brow of ignorance, and what loveliness is there in a jewelled star on the neck of coa.r.s.eness and brutality, or in a diamond necklace over a heart of stupidity and ignorance? The great poet Mutanebbi has given us an apothegm of great power on this very subject. He says:

'f.u.kr el jehul bela okl ila adab, f.u.kr el hamar bela ras ila resen,'

'A senseless fool's need of instruction is like a headless donkey's need of a halter.'

"Let us then gird ourselves with wisdom and understanding, and robe ourselves with true politeness and meekness, and be crowned with the flowers of the 'jenan' (gardens) of knowledge (a pun on the name of the magazine) now opened to us. Let us pluck the fruits of wisdom, lifting up our heads in gratulation and true pride, and remain no longer in that cowardice and avarice which were imputed to the women of the Arabs before us!"

The next article I shall translate, is a paper on the Training of Children in the East, by an Arab woman of Alexandria, Egypt, the Sitt Wustina Mesirra, wife of Selim Effendi el Hamawy. It was printed in the "Jenan" for Jan., 1871. After a long and eloquent poetical introduction, this lady says:--

"Let us put off the robes of sloth and inertness, and put on the dress of zeal and earnestness. We belong to the nineteenth century, which exceeds all the ages of mankind in light and knowledge. Why shall we not show to men the need of giving us the highest education, that we may at the least contribute to _their_ happiness and advantage, and rightly train our children and babes, not to say that we may pluck the fruits of science, and the best knowledge for ourselves? Let them say to us, you are weak and lacking in knowledge. I reply, by perseverance and patience, we shall attain our object.

"Inasmuch as every one who reaches mature years, must pa.s.s by the road of childhood and youth, everything pertaining to the period of childhood becomes interesting and important, and I beg permission to say a word on the training of children.

"When it pleased G.o.d to give us our first child, I determined to train it according to the old approved modes which I had learned from my family relatives and fellow-countrywomen. So I took the baby boy soon after his birth, and put him in a narrow cradle provided with a tin tube running down through a perforation in the little bed, binding and tying him down, and wrapping and girding him about from his shoulders to his heels, so that he was stiff and unmovable, excepting his head, which rolled and wriggled about from right to left, with the rocking of the cradle, this rocking being deemed necessary for the purpose of inducing sleep and silence in the child. My lord and husband protested against this treatment, proving to me the evil effects of this wrapping and rocking, by many and weighty reasons, and even said that it would injure the little ones for life, even if they survived the outrageous abuse they were subjected to. I was astonished, and said, how can this be? We were all trained and treated in this manner, and yet lived and grew up in the best possible style. All our countrymen have been brought up in this way, and none of them that I know of have ever been injured in the way you suggest. He gave it up, and allowed me to go on in the old way, until something happened which suddenly checked the babe in his progress in health and happiness. He began to throw up his milk after nursing, and to grow ill, giving signs of brain disease, and then my lord said, you must now give up these customs and take my counsel. So, on the spur of the moment, I accepted his advice and gave up the cradle. I unrolled the bindings and wrappings and gave up myself to putting things in due order. I clothed my child with garments adapted to his age and circ.u.mstances, and to the time and place, and regulated the times of his eating and play by day, and kept him awake as much as might be, so that he and his parents could sleep at night. I soon saw a wonderful change in his health and vigor, though I experienced no little trouble from my efforts to wean him from the rocking of the cradle to which he was accustomed. My favorable experience in this matter, led me to use my influence to induce the daughters of my race, and my own family relatives, to give up practices which are alike profitless, laborious and injurious to health. My husband also aided me in getting books on the training of children, and I studied the true system of training, learning much of what is profitable to the mothers and fathers of my country in preserving the health of their children in mind and body. The binding and wrapping of babes in the cradle prevents their free and natural movements, and the natural growth of the body, and injures their health."

The next paper is from the pen of Khalil Effendi, editor of the Turkish official journal of Beirut. It appeared in the columns of the "Hadikat el Akhbar" of January, 1867. It represents the leading views of a large cla.s.s of the more enlightened Syrians with regard to education, and by way of preface to the Effendi's remarks, I will make a brief historical statement.

The Arab race were in ancient times celebrated for their schools of learning, and although the arts and sciences taught in the great University under the Khalifs of Baghdad, were chiefly drawn from Greece, yet in poetry, logic and law the old Arab writers long held a proud preeminence. But since the foundation of the present Ottoman Empire, the Arabs have been under a foreign yoke, subject to every form of oppression and wrong, and for generations hardly a poet worth the name has appeared excepting Sheikh Nasif el Yazijy. Schools have been discouraged, and learning, which migrated with the Arabs into Spain, has never returned to its Eastern home. There are in every Moslem town and city common schools, for every Moslem boy must be taught to read the Koran; but with the exception of the Egyptian school of the Jamea el Azhar in Cairo, there had not been up to 1867 for years even a high school under native auspices, in the Arabic-speaking world. But what the Turks have discouraged and the Arab Moslems have failed to do, is now being done among the nominal Christian sects, and chiefly by foreign educators. During the past thirty years a great work in educating the Arab race in Syria has been done by the American Missionaries. Their Seminary in Abeih, on Mount Lebanon, has trained mult.i.tudes of young men, who are now scattered all over Syria and the East, and are making their influence felt. Other schools have sprung up, and the result is, that the young men and women of Syria are now talking about the "Asur el Jedid," or "New Age of Syria," by which they mean an age of education and light and advancement. The Arabic journal, above referred to, is owned by the Turkish government, or rather subsidized by it, and its editor is a talented young Greek of considerable poetic ability. It is not often that he ventures to speak out boldly on such a theme as education, but the pressure from the people upon the Governor-General was so great at the time, that he gave permission to the editor to utter his mind. I translate what he wrote, quite literally.

"There can be no doubt that the strength of every people and the source of their happiness, rest upon the diffusion of knowledge among them.

Science has been in every age the foundation of wealth and national progress, and since science and the arts are the forerunners of popular civilization, and the good of the ma.s.ses and their elevation in the scale of intellectual and physical growth, therefore primary education is the necessary preparation for all scientific progress. And in view of this, the providence of our most exalted government has been turned to the accomplishment of what has been done successfully in other lands, in the multiplication of schools and colleges. And none can be ignorant of the great progress of science and education, under His August Imperial Excellency the Sultan, in Syria, where schools and printing presses have multiplied, especially in the city of Beirut and its vicinity. For in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, there are nearly two thousand male pupils, large and small, in Boarding Schools, learning the Arabic branches and foreign languages, and especially the French language, which is more widely spread than any other. The most noted of these schools are the French Lazarist School at Ain Tura in Lebanon, the American Seminary in Abeih, the Jesuit School at Ghuzir, and the Greek School at Suk el Ghurb, the most of the pupils being from the cities of Syria. Then there are in Beirut the Greek School, the school of the Greek Catholic Patriarch, the Native National College of Mr. Betrus el Bistany, and there are also nearly a thousand _girls_ in the French Lazarist School, the Prussian Protestant Deaconesses, the American Female Seminary and Mrs. Thompson's British Syrian School, and other female schools. And here we must mention that all of these schools, (excepting the Druze Seminary,) are in the hands of _Christians_, and the Mohammedans of Beirut have not a single school other than a common school, although in Damascus and Tripoli they have High Schools which are most successful, and many of their children in Beirut, are learning in Christian schools, a fact which we take as a proof of their anxiety to attain useful knowledge, although they have not as yet done aught to found schools of their own. And though the placing of their children in Christian schools is a proof of the love and fellowship between these two sects in this glorious Imperial Age, we cannot but say that it would be far more befitting to the honor and dignity of the Mussulmen to open schools for their own children as the other sects are doing. And lately the Imperial Governor of Syria has been urging them to this step, and they are now planning the opening of such a school, which will be a means of great benefit and glory to Islam."

The editor then states that the great want of Syria is a school where a high _practical_ education can be given, and says:--

"We now publish the glad tidings to the sons of Syria that such a College has just been opened in Syria, in the city of Beirut, by the liberality of good men in America and England, and called the "Syria Protestant College." It is to accommodate eventually one thousand pupils, will have a large library and scientific apparatus, including a telescope for viewing the stars, besides cabinets of Natural History, Botany, Geology and Mineralogy. It will teach all Science and Art, Law and Medicine, and we doubt not will meet the great want of our native land."

Five years have pa.s.sed since the above was written. Since that time the number of pupils in the various schools in Beirut has trebled, and new educational edifices of stately proportions are being built or are already finished, in every part of the city. It may be safely said that the finest structures in Beirut are those built for educational purposes. The Latins have the Sisters of Charity building of immense proportions, the Jesuit establishment, the Maronite schools, and the French Sisters of Nazareth Seminary, which is to be one of the most commanding edifices of the East. The Greeks have their large High School, and the Papal-Greeks, or Greek-Catholics their lofty College.

The Moslems have built with funds drawn from the treasury of the munic.i.p.ality, a magnificent building for their Reshidiyeh, while the Protestants have the imposing edifices occupied by the American Female Seminary, the British Syrian Schools, the Prussian Deaconesses Inst.i.tute, and most extensive and impressive of all, the new edifices of the Syrian Protestant College at Ras Beirut.

As another ill.u.s.tration of public sentiment in Syria with regard to evangelical work, I will translate another paragraph from this official newspaper:

"We have been writing of the progress of the Press in Syria, and of Arabic literature in Europe, but we have another fact to mention which will no doubt fill the sons of our country with astonishment. You know well the efforts which were put forth some time since in the printing of the Old and New Testaments in various editions in the Arabic language, in the Press of the American Mission in Beirut. This work is under the direction of the distinguished scholar Dr. Van Dyck, who labored a.s.siduously in the completion of the translation of the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek languages, which was commenced by the compa.s.sionated of G.o.d, Dr. Eli Smith. They had printed from time to time large editions of this Bible with great labor and expense, and sold them out, and then were obliged to set up the types again for a new edition. But Dr. Van Dyck thought it best, in order to find relief from the vast expenditure of time and money necessary to reset the types, to prepare for every page of the Bible a plate of copper, on whose face the letters should be engraved. He therefore proceeded to New York, and undertook in co-operation, with certain men skilled in the electrotyping art, to make plates exactly corresponding to the pages of the Holy Book, and he has sent to us a specimen page taken from the first plate of the vowelled Testament, and on comparison with the page printed here, we find it an exact copy of the Beirut edition which is printed in the same type with our journal. We regard it as far clearer and better than the sheets printed from movable types, and we congratulate Dr. Van Dyck, and wish him all success in this enterprise."

Such statements as these derive their value from the fact that they appear in the official paper of a Mohammedan government, and are a testimony to the value of the Word of G.o.d.

The next article is a literal translation of an address delivered in June, 1867, at the Annual Examination of the Beirut Female Seminary.

This Seminary was the first school in Syria for girls, which was established on the paying principle, and in the year 1867 its income from Syrian girls who paid their own board and tuition was about fifteen hundred dollars in gold. It commenced with six pupils, and now has fifty boarders. A crowded a.s.sembly attended the examination in the year above mentioned, and at its close, several native gentlemen made addresses in Arabic. The most remarkable address was made by a Greek Priest, Ghubrin Jebara, the Archimandrite and agent of the Patriarch. When it is remembered that in the days of Bird, Goodell and Fisk, the Greek clergy were among the most bitter enemies of the missionaries, it will be seen that this address indicates a great change in Syria. Turning to the great congregation of three or four hundred people who were a.s.sembled in the American Chapel, Greeks, Maronites, Mohammedans, Catholics and Protestants, he said:

"You know my friends, into what a sad state our land and people had fallen, morally, socially and intellectually. We had no schools, no books, no means of instruction, when G.o.d in His Providence awakened the zeal of good men far across two seas in distant America, of which many of us had never heard, to leave home and friends and country to spend their lives among us, yes even among such as I am. In the name of my countrymen in Syria, I would this day thank these men, and those who sent them. They have given us the Arabic Bible, numerous good books, founded schools and seminaries, and trained our children and youth. But for the American Missionaries the Word of G.o.d would have well nigh died out of the Arabic language. But now through the labors of the lamented Eli Smith and Dr. Van Dyck, they have given us a translation so pure, so exact, so clear and so cla.s.sical as to be acceptable to all cla.s.ses and all sects. But for their labors, education would still be where it was centuries ago, and our children would still have continued to grow up like wild beasts. Is there any one among us so bigoted, so ungrateful, as not to appreciate these benevolent labors; so blind as not to see their fruits? True, other European Missionaries have come here from France and Italy, and we will not deny their good intentions. But what have they brought us? And what have they taught? A little French. They tell us how far Lyons is from Paris, and where Napoleon first lived, and then they forbid the Word of G.o.d, and scatter broadcast the writings of the accursed infidel Voltaire. But these Americans have come thousands of miles, from a land than which there is no happier on earth, to dwell among such as we are, yes, I repeat it, such as I am, to translate G.o.d's word, to give us schools and good books, and a goodly example, and I thank them for it. I thank them and all who are laboring for us. I would thank Mr. Mikhaiel Araman, the Princ.i.p.al of this Female Seminary, who is a son of our land, and Miss Rufka Gregory, the Preceptress, who is a daughter of our own people, for the wonderful progress we have witnessed during these three days among the daughters of our own city and country, in the best kind of knowledge. Allah grant prosperity to this Seminary, and all its teachers and pupils, peace and happiness to all here present to-day and long life to our Sultan Abdul Aziz."

As my object in giving these extracts from Arab writers and orators of the present day, is to give some idea of the change going on in Syrian public sentiment with regard to education, the dignity of woman, and the abolition of superst.i.tious social usages, I cannot do better than to translate from the official journal of Daud Pasha, late governor of Mt.

Lebanon, an article on the customs of the Lebanon population. This paper was styled "Le Liban," and printed both in Arabic and French in July, 1867. It gives us a glimpse of the civilizing and Christianizing influences which are at work in Syria.

"In Mount Lebanon there exist certain customs, which had their origin in kindly feeling and sympathy, but have now pa.s.sed beyond the limits of propriety, and lost their original meaning. For example, when one falls sick, his relatives and friends at once begin to pour in upon him. The whole population of the town will come crowding into the house, each one speaking to the sick a word of comfort and encouragement, and then sitting down in the sick room. The poor invalid must respond to all these salutations, and even be expected to rise in bed and bow to his loving friends. Then the whole company must speak a word to the family, to the wife and children, a.s.suring them that the disease is but slight, and the sick man will speedily recover. Then they crowd into the sick room (and _such_ a crowd it is!) and the family and servants are kept running to supply them with cigars and narghilehs, by means of which they fill the room with a dense and suffocating smoke. Meantime, they talk all at once and in a loud voice, and the air soon becomes impure and suffocating, and all these things as a matter of course injure the sick man, and he becomes worse. Then the childish doctors of the town are summoned, and in they come with grave faces, and a great show of wisdom, and each one begins to recount the names of all the medicines he has heard of, and describes their effects in working miraculous cures.

Then they enter into ignorant disputes on learned subjects, and talk of the art of medicine of which they know nothing save what they have learned by hearsay. One will insist that this medicine is the best, because his father used it with great benefit just before he died, and another will urge the claims of another medicine, of a directly opposite character, and opinions will clash, and all in the presence of the sick man, who thus becomes agitated and alarmed. He takes first one medicine and then its opposite, and then he summons other doctors and consults his relatives. Then all the old women of the neighborhood take him in hand and set at naught all that the doctors have advised, give him medicines of whose properties they are wholly ignorant, and thus they hasten the final departure of their friend on his long last journey. And if he should die, the whole population of the town a.s.sembles at once at the house and the relatives, friends, and people from other villages come thronging in. They fill the house with their screams and wails of mourning. They recount the virtues of the departed with groans and shrieks, and lamentations in measured stanzas. This all resembles the customs of the old Greeks and Romans who hired male and female mourners to do their weeping for them. After this, they proceed at once to bear the corpse to the grave, without one thought as to proving whether there be yet life remaining or not, not leaving it even twelve hours, and never twenty-four hours. It is well known that this custom is most brutal and perilous, for they may suppose a living man to be dead, and bury him alive, as has, no doubt, often been done. Immediately after the burial, the crowd return to the house of the deceased, where a sumptuous table awaits them, and all the relatives, friends, and strangers eat their fill. After eight days, the wailing, a.s.sembling, crowding, and eating are repeated, for the consolation of the distracted relatives.

And these crowds and turbulent proceedings occur, not simply at Syrian funerals, but also at marriages and births, in case the child born is a _boy_, for the Syrians are fond of exhibiting their joy and sorrow. But it should be remembered, that just as in civilized lands, all these demonstrations of joy and sorrow are tempered by moderation and wisdom, and subdued by silent acquiescence in the Divine will, so in uncivilized lands, they are the occasion for giving the loose rein to pa.s.sion and tumult and violent emotion. How much in conformity with true faith in G.o.d, and religious principle, is the quiet, well-ordered and moderate course of procedure among civilized nations!

"So in former times, the man was everywhere the absolute tyrant of the family. The wife was the slave, never to be seen by others. And if, in conversation, it became necessary to mention her name, it would be by saying this was done by my wife 'ajellak Allah.' But now, there is a change, and woman is no longer so generally regarded as worthy of contempt and abuse, and the progress being made in the emanc.i.p.ation and elevation of woman, is one of the n.o.blest and best proofs of the real progress of Lebanon in the paths of morality and civilization."

This is the language of the official paper of the Lebanon government.

Yet how difficult to root out superst.i.tious and injurious customs by official utterances! At the very time that article was written, these customs continued in full force. A woman in Abeih, whose husband died in 1866, refused to allow her house or her clothes to be washed for more than a whole year afterward, just as though untidiness and personal uncleanliness would honor her deceased husband!

CHAPTER XIV.

BEDAWIN ARABS.

There is one cla.s.s of the Arab race, of which little or nothing has been said in the preceding pages, for the simple reason that there is little to be said of missionary work or progress among them. We refer to the Bedawin Arabs. The true sons of Ishmael, boasting of their descent from him, living a wild, free and independent life, rough, untutored and warlike, plundering, robbing and murdering one another as a business; roaming over the vast plains which extend from Aleppo to Baghdad, and from Baghdad to Central Arabia, and bordering the outskirts of the more settled parts of Syria and Palestine; ignorant of reading and writing, and yet transacting extensive business in wool and live-stock with the border towns and cities; nominally Mohammedans, and yet disobeying every precept of Moslem faith and practice; subjects of the Ottoman Sultan, and yet living in perpetual rebellion or coaxed by heavy bribes into nominal submission; suffering untold hardships from their life of constant exposure to winter storms and summer heats; without proper food, clothing or shelter, and utterly dest.i.tute of medical aid and relief, and yet despising the refinements of civilized life, and regarding with contempt the man who will sleep under a roof; they const.i.tute a most ancient, attractive cla.s.s of men, interesting to every lover of his race, and especially to the Missionary of the Cross.

European missionaries can do little among them. To say nothing of the rough, nomadic, unsettled and perilous life they lead, any European would find himself so much an object of curiosity and suspicion among them, and the peculiar Bedawin p.r.o.nunciation of the Arabic so different from the correct p.r.o.nunciation, that he would be constantly embarra.s.sed.

Native missionaries, on the other hand, can go among them freely, and if provided with a supply of vaccine virus and simple medicines, can have the most unrestrained access to them. During the last ten years, several native colporteurs have been sent among the Bedawin, and lately the Native Missionary Society in Beirut has sent out one of its teachers as a missionary to the Arabs. There is little use in taking books among them, as very few can make use of them. Mr. Arthington of Leeds, England, has been making earnest efforts to induce the Bedawin to send their children to schools in the towns, or allow schools to be opened among their own camps. We have tried every means to induce their leading Sheikhs to send their sons and daughters to Beirut for instruction, but the Arabs all dread sending their children to any point within the jurisdiction of the Turks, lest they be suddenly seized by the Turks as hostages for the good behavior of their parents. The latter course, _i.e._, sending teachers to live among them, to migrate with them and teach their children as it were "on the wing," seems to be the one most practicable, as soon as teachers can be trained. Until the Turkish government shall compel the Bedawin to settle down in villages and till the soil, there can be little done in the way of instructing them. And when that step is taken, it is quite doubtful whether the Moslem government will not send its Khoteebs or religious teachers, and compel them all to embrace the religion of Islam. If that should be done, Christian teachers will have but little opportunity of opening schools among them.

One of the leading tribes of the Bedawin is the Anazy, who are more numerous, powerful and wealthy than any other Kobileh of the Arabs.

Their princ.i.p.al Sheikh on the Damascus border is Mohammed ed Dukhy, the warlike and successful leader of ten thousand Arab hors.e.m.e.n, of the Weled Ali. He is now an officer of the Turkish government, with a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, employed to protect the great Haj or Pilgrim Caravan, which goes annually from Damascus to Mecca. He furnishes camels for the Haj, and a powerful escort of hors.e.m.e.n, and is under bonds to keep the Arabs quiet.