The Women of the Arabs Part 18

Now the Arabs have a proverb, "No tree is cut down but by _one of its own limbs_," _i.e._ the axe handle, and we thought a native only could understand a native, so we took the famous convert around to see Yanni.

He went into Yanni's office, and Mr. L. and myself sat out in the garden under the orange trees. After a few minutes Yanni called out, "Come in, be preferred, your excellencies! I have found it all out. I understand the case." We went in and climbed up upon the platform, next the desk in the office. The Maronite candidate for the church sat smiling, as if he thought he would now be received at once. Yanni went on, "I understand the case exactly. This man is a son of a Sheikh in Dunniyeh. He is in a deadly quarrel with his father and brothers about the property, and says that if we will give him the protection of the American Consulate, he will go home, kill his father and brothers, seize all the property, and then come down and join the church, and live in Tripoli!" We were astounded, but the brutal fellow turned to us and said, "yes, and I will then make all the village Protestants, and if I fail, then cut my head off!" We told him that if he did anything of that kind, we would try to get him hung, and the American Consulate would have nothing to do with him. "Very well," said he, "I have made you a _fair offer_, and if you don't accept it, I have nothing more to say."

We rebuked him sharply, and gave him a sermon which he did not relish, for he said he was in haste, and bade us a most polite good morning. He was what I should call an Adullamite.

A Greek priest in the village of Barbara once took me aside, to a retired place behind his house, and told me that he had a profound secret to tell me. He wished to become a Protestant and make the whole village Protestant, but on one condition, that I would get him a hat, a coat, and pantaloons, put a flag-staff on his house, and have him appointed American Consul. I told him the matter of the hat, coat and pantaloons he could attend to at but slight expense, but I had no right to make Consuls and erect flagstaffs. Then he said he could not become Protestant.

In 1866, a man named Yusef Keram rebelled against the Government of Lebanon and was captured and exiled. The day he was brought into Beirut, a tall rough looking mountaineer called at my house. He was armed with a musket and sword, besides pistols and dirks. After taking a seat, he said, "I wish to become Angliz and American." "What for," said I. "Only that I would be honored with the honorable religion." "Do you know anything about it?" "Of course not. How should I know?" "Don't you know better than to follow a religion you know nothing about?" "But I can learn." "How do you know but what we worship the devil?" "No matter.

Whatever you worship, I will worship." I then asked him what he came for. He said he was in the rebel army, was captured, escaped and fought again, and now feared he should be shot, so he wanted to become Angliz and American. I told him he need have no fear, as the Pasha had granted pardon to all. "Is that so?" "Yes, it is." On hearing this he said he had business to look after, and bade me good evening.

But you will be tired of hearing about the Adullamites. If those who came to David were like the discontented and debtors who come to us, he must have been tired too. So many suspicious characters come to us, that we frequently ask men, when they come professing great zeal for the gospel, whether they have killed anybody, or stolen, or quarrelled with any one? And it is not always easy to find out the truth. If fifty men turn Protestants in a village, perhaps five or ten will stand firm, and the rest go back, and frequently all go back.

But the rain is coming down and we will hasten to the Meena to Uncle S.'s house, where we can rest after this wearisome and hasty journey from Safita. For your sake I am glad that we took comfortable bedding and bedsteads with us. It costs a few piastres more to hire a baggage animal, but it is cheaper in the end. At one time I was going on a hard journey, and I thought I would be economical, so I took only my horse and a few articles in my khurj or saddle bags, with a little boy to show me the road and take care of my horse. When I reached the village, I stopped at the house of a man said to be a Protestant. He lived in the most abject style, and I soon found by his bad language towards his family and his neighbors that he needed all the preaching I could give him that evening. There was only one room in the house, and that was small. By nine o'clock the mother and the children had lain down on a mat to sleep, and the neighbors who came in were beginning to doze. I was very weary with a long ride on a hot August day, and asked mine host where I should lie down to sleep. He led me to a little elevated platform on the back side of the room, where a bed was spread for me.

The dim oil lamp showed me that the bed and covering were neither of them clean, but I was too weary to spend much time in examining them, and after spreading my linen handkerchief over the pillow, I tried to sleep. But this could not be done. Creeping things, great and small, were crawling over me from head to foot. There was a hole in the wall near my head, and the bright moonlight showed what was going on. Fleas, bugs, ants, (attracted by the bread in my khurj,) and more horrible still, swarms of lice covered the bed, and my clothing. I could stand it no longer. Gathering up my things, and walking carefully across the floor to keep from stepping on the sleeping family, I reached the door.

But it was fastened with an Arab lock and a huge wooden key, and could only be opened by a violent shaking and rattling. This, with the creaking of the hinges, woke up my host, who sprung up to see what was the matter. I told him I had decided to journey on by moonlight. It was then one o'clock in the morning, and on I rode, so weary, that when I reached Jebaa at ten o'clock, I was obliged to go to bed. I did not recover from the onset of the vermin for weeks.

I have known missionaries to travel without beds, tents or bedsteads, and to spend weary days and sleepless nights, so as to be quite unfitted for their great work of preaching to the people. If you ever grow up to become a missionary, I hope you will live as simply as you can, but be careful of your health and try to live as long as you can, for the sake of the people you are working for, and the Lord who sends you forth. It is not good economy for a missionary to become a martyr to studying Arabic, or to poor food, or to exhausting modes of travelling. One can kill himself in a short time, if he wishes, on missionary ground, but he could have done that at home without the great expense of coming here to do it, and besides, that is not what a missionary goes out for. He ought to live as long as he can. He should have a dry house, in a healthy location, good food, and proper conveniences for safe travelling.

How pleasant it is to hear that sweet toned bell! Let us climb up to the roof and read the inscription on it. "From little Sabbath School Children in America to the Mission Church in Tripoli, Syria." It was sent in 1862 by the children in Fourth Avenue Church, New York, and in Newark, Syracuse, Owego, Montrose and other places.

The Moslems abhor bells. They say bells draw together evil spirits. We are not able yet to have a bell in Hums, on account of the Moslem opposition. They do not use bells, but have men called Muezzins stationed on the little balconies around the top of the tall minarets, to call out five times a day to the people to come to prayer. They select men and boys with high clear voices, and at times their voices sound very sweetly in the still evening. They say, "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d." That is true. Then they add, "and Mohammed is the Apostle of G.o.d,"

and that is not true. As the great historian Gibbon said; these words contain an "eternal truth and an eternal lie."

The Moslems are obliged to pray five times every day, wherever they may be. At home, in their shops, in the street, or on a journey, whenever the appointed time arrives, they fall on their knees, and go through with the whole routine of prayers and bodily prostrations. One day several Moslems called on us in Tripoli, at the eighth hour of the day (about 2 o'clock P.M.), and after they had been sitting some time engaged in conversation, one of them arose and said to his companions, "I must pray.". They all asked, "Why? It is not the hour of prayer." "Because," said he, "when I went to the mosque at noon to pray, I had an ink-spot on my finger nail, and did not perceive it until after I came out, and hence my prayer was of no account. I have just now sc.r.a.ped it off, and must repeat my noon prayer." So saying, he spread his cloak upon the floor, and then kneeling upon it with his face towards Mecca, commenced his prayers, while his companions amused themselves by talking about his ceremonial strictness. One of them said to me, "He thinks he is holy, but if you could see the _inside_ of him, you would find it black as pitch!" He kept his head turned to hear what was being said, and after he had finished, disputed a remark one of them had made while he was praying. Such people worship G.o.d with their lips, while their hearts are far from him.

Moslems have a great horror of swine. They think us barbarians to eat ham or pork. In February, 1866, the Moslems of Beirut were keeping the Fast of Ramadan. For a whole month of each year they can eat and drink nothing between sunrise and sunset, and they become very cross and irritable. In Hums, some Moslems saw a dog eating a bone in Ramadan, and killed him because he would not keep the fast. They fast all day, and feast all night. Ramadan is really a great nocturnal feast, but it is hard for the working people to wait until night before beginning the feast. During that fast of 1866, a Maronite fellah came into Beirut driving a herd of swine to the market. Now of all sights in the world, the sight of swine is to an orthodox Moslem the most intolerable, and especially in the holy month of Ramadan. Even in ordinary times, when swine enter the city, the Moslems gather up their robes, turn their backs and shout, "hub hub," "hub hub," and if the hogs do not hasten along, the "hub hub," is very apt to become a hubbub. On the 28th of that holy month, a large herd entered Beirut on the Damascus road. The Moslems saw them, and forthwith a crowd of Moslem young men and boys hastened to the fray. A few days before, the Maronite Yusef Keram had entered the city amid the rejoicings of the Maronites. These swine, whom the Moslems called "Christian Khanzir," should meet a different reception. Their wrath overcame their prejudice. The Maronite swine-drivers were dispersed and the whole herd were driven on the run up the a.s.sur with shouts of derision, and pelted with stones and clubs.

"You khanzir, you Maronite, you Keram, out with you!" and the air rang with shouts mingled with squeals and grunts. I saw the crowd coming. It gathered strength as it approached Bab Yakoob, where the white turbaned faithful rose from their shops and stables to join in the persecution of the stampeding porkers. "May Allah cut off their days! Curses on their grandfather's beard! Curses on the father of their owner! Hub hub! Allah deliver us from their contamination!" were the cries of the crowd as they rushed along. The little boys were laughing and having a good time, and the men were breathing out wrath and tobacco smoke. Alas, for the poor swine! What became of them I could not tell, but the last I saw, was the infuriated crowd driving them into the Khan of Muhayeddin near by, where one knows not what may have happened to them. I hope they did not steal the pork and eat it "on the sly," as the Bedawin did at Mt.

Sinai, who threw away the hams the travellers were carrying for provisions, and declared that their camels should not be defiled with the unclean beast! The travellers were _very_ indignant at such a loss, but thought it was too bad to injure the feelings of the devout Moslems, and said no more. What was their horror and wrath to hear the next night that the Bedawin were seen cooking and eating their hams at midnight, when they thought no one would see them!

Do the Syrian people all smoke? Almost all of them. They speak of it as "drinking a pipe, drinking a cigar," and you would think that they look upon tobacco as being as necessary to them as water. Old and young men, women and even children smoke, smoke while they work or rest, while at home or journeying, and measure distances by their pipes. I was travelling, and asked a man how far it was to the next village. He said about two pipes of tobacco distant! I found it to be nearly an hour, or three miles. The Orientals spend so much time in smoking, that some one has said "the Moslems came into power with the Koran in one hand, and the sword in the other, but will go out with the Koran in one hand and the pipe in the other!"

Here we are on the sandy beach. What myriads of sea sh.e.l.ls, and what beautiful colors they have. And here are sponges without number, but they are worthless. There on the sea are the little sloops of the sponge fishers. They are there through the whole summer and the fishers dive down into the sea where the water is from 100 to 200 feet deep, and walk around on the bottom holding their breath, and when they can bear it no longer pull the cord which is tied around the waist, and then their companions draw them up. They do not live long, as it is very hard and unnatural labor. Sometimes they are killed by sharks or other sea monsters. One of them told me that he was once on the bottom, and just about to pick up a beautiful white sponge, when he saw a great monster with huge claws and arms and enormous eyes coming towards him, and he barely escaped being devoured. At another time, the men in the boat felt a sudden jerk on the rope and pulled in, when they found only the man's head, arms and chest on it, the rest of his body having been devoured by some great fish or sea animal. The sponges grow on rocks, pebbles or sh.e.l.ls, and some of them are of great value. It is difficult to get the best ones here, as the company who hire the divers export all the good ones to Europe.

PART V.

Word has come that there is cholera in Odessa, so that all the Russian steamers going to Beirut will be in quarantine. It will not be pleasant to spend a week in the Beirut quarantine, so we will keep our baggage animals and go down by land. It is two long days of nine hours each, and you will be weary enough. Bidding good-bye to our dear friends here and wishing them G.o.d's blessing in their difficult work among such people, away we go! Yanni and Uncle S. and some of the teachers will accompany us a little way, according to the Eastern custom, and then we dismount and kiss them all on both cheeks, and pursue our monotonous way along the coast, sometimes riding over rocky capes and promontories and then on the sand and pebbles close to the roaring surf.

See how many monasteries there are on the sides of Lebanon! Between Tripoli and Beirut there are about a hundred. The men who live in them are called monks, who make a vow never to marry, and spend their lives eating and drinking the fruits of other men's labors. They own almost all the valuable land in this range of mountains for fifty miles, and the fellaheen live as "tenants at will" on their estates. When a man is lazy or unfortunate, if he is not married, his first thought is to become a monk. They are the most corrupt and worthless vagabonds in the land, and the day must come before long, when the monasteries and convents will be abolished and their property be given back to the people to whom it justly belongs.

We are now riding along by the telegraph wires. It seems strange to see Morse's telegraph on this old Phenician coast, and it will seem stranger still when we reach Beirut, to receive a daily morning paper printed in Arabic, with telegrams from all parts of the world!

In July, a woman came to the telegraph office in Beirut, asking, "Where is the telegraph?" The Clerk, Yusef Effendi, asked her, "Whom do you want, the Director, the Operator, or the Kawa.s.s?" She said, "I want Telegraph himself, for my husband has sent me word that he is in prison in Zahleh and wants me to come with haste, and I heard that Telegraph takes people quicker than any one else. Please tell me the fare, and send me as soon as possible!" The Effendi looked at her, and took her measure, and then said, "You are too tall to go by telegraph, so you will have to go on a mule." The poor ignorant woman went away greatly disappointed.

Another old woman, whose son was drafted into the Turkish army, wished to send him a pair of new shoes, so she hung them on the telegraph wire.

A way-worn foot traveller coming along soon after took down the new shoes and put them on, and hung his old ones in their place. The next day the old lady returned and finding the old shoes, said, "Mashallah, Mohammed has received his new shoes and sent back his old ones to be repaired."

The telegraph has taught all the world useful lessons, and the Syrians have learned one lesson from it which is of great value. When they write letters they use long t.i.tles, and flowery salutations, so that a whole page will be taken up with these empty formalities, leaving only a few lines at the end, or in a postscript, for the important business. But when they send a telegram and have to pay for every word, they leave out the flowery salutations and send only what is necessary.

The following is a very common way of beginning an Arabic letter:

"To the presence of the affectionate and the most distinguished, the honorable and most ingenuous Khowadja, the honored, may his continuance be prolonged!"

"After presenting the precious pearls of affection, the aromatic blossoms of love, and the increase of excessive longing, after the intimate presence of the light of your rising in prosperity, we would say that in a most blessed and propitious hour your precious letter honored us," etc.

That would cost too much to be sent by telegraph. Precious pearls and aromatic blossoms would become expensive luxuries at two cents a word.

So they have to be reserved for letters, if any one has time to write them.

Here we come to the famous Dog River. You will read in books about this river and its old inscriptions. If you have not forgotten your Latin, you can read a lesson in Latin which was written here nearly two thousand years ago. There you can see the words.

Imp. Caes. M. Aurelius Antoninus Pius Felix Augustus Par. Max. Brit. Max. Germ. Maximus Pontifex Maximus Montibus Imminentibus etc. etc.

This Emperor Marcus Aurelius, must have cut this road through the rocks about the year 173 A.D. But there is another inscription higher up, with arrow-headed characters and several other tablets. They are a.s.syrian and Egyptian. One of the a.s.syrian tablets was cut by Sennacherib 2500 years ago, and one of the Egyptian by Sesostris, king of Egypt, 3100 years ago. Don't you feel very young and small in looking at such ancient monuments? All of those men brought their armies here, and found the path so bad along the high precipice overhanging the sea, that they cut a road for their horses and chariots in the solid limestone rock. Just think of standing where Sennacherib and Alexander the Great pa.s.sed along with their armies!

What a steep and narrow road! We will dismount and walk over this dangerous pa.s.s. It is not pleasant to meet camels and loaded mules on such a dizzy precipice, with the high cliff above, and the roaring waves of the sea far below! It is well we dismounted. Our horses are afraid of those camels carrying long timbers balanced on their backs. Let us turn aside and wait until they pa.s.s.

Seeing these camels reminds me of what I saw here in 1857. I was coming down the coast from Tripoli and reached the top of this pa.s.s, in the narrowest part, just as a caravan of camels were coming from the opposite direction. I turned back a little, and stood close under the edge of the cliff to let the camels go by. They were loaded with huge canvas sacks of tibn, or cut straw, which hung down on both sides, making it impossible to pa.s.s them without stooping very low. Just then I heard a voice behind me, and looking around, saw a shepherd coming up the pa.s.s with his flock of sheep. He was walking ahead, and they all followed on. I called to him to go back, as the camels were coming over the pa.s.s. He said, "Ma ahlaik," or "don't trouble yourself," and on he came. When he met the camels, they were in the narrowest part, where a low stone wall runs along the edge of the precipice. He stooped down and stepped upon the narrow wall, calling all the time to his sheep, who followed close upon his heels, walking in single file. He said "tahl, tahl," "come, come," and then made a shrill whirring call, which could be heard above the roaring of the waves on the rocks below. It was wonderful to see how closely they followed the shepherd. They did not seem to notice the camels on the one side, or the abyss on the other side. Had they left the narrow track, they would either have been trodden down by the heavily laden camels, or have fallen off into the dark waters below. But they were intent on following their shepherd.

They heard his voice, and that was enough. The cameleers were shouting and screaming to their camels to keep them from slipping on these smooth rocks, but the sheep paid no attention to them. They knew the shepherd's voice. They had followed him before, through rivers and thickets, among rocks and sands, and he had always led them safely. The waves were dashing and roaring on the rocks below, but they did not fear, for the shepherd was going on before. Had one of those sheep turned aside, he would have lost his footing and been destroyed and thrown the whole flock into confusion.

You know why I have told you this story. You know that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me." Wherever Jesus leads it is safe for us to go. How many boys and girls there are who think they know a better path than the one Jesus calls them to follow. There are "stranger" voices calling on every side, and many a child leaves the path of the Good Shepherd, and turns aside to hear what they would say. If they were truly lambs of Jesus' fold, they would love Him, and follow Him in calm and storm, and never heed the voice of strangers.

I was once travelling from Duma to Akura, high up on the range of Lebanon. It was a hot summer's day, and at noon I stopped to rest by a fountain. The waste water of the fountain ran into a square stone birkeh or pool, and around the pool were several shepherds resting with their flocks of sheep and goats. The shepherds came and talked with me, and sat smoking for nearly an hour, when suddenly one of them arose and walked away calling to his flock to follow him. The flocks were all mixed together, but when he called, his sheep and goats began to raise their heads and start along together behind him. He kept walking along and calling, until all his flock had gone. The rest of the sheep and goats remained quietly as though nothing had happened. Then another "Rai," or shepherd, started up in another direction, calling out in a shrill voice, and _his sheep_ followed him. They knew their shepherd's voice. Our muleteers were talking all the time, but the sheep paid no attention to them. They knew one voice, and would follow no other.

We will now hasten on to Beirut. You will wish to see the Female Seminary, and the Sabbath School and the Steam Printing Press, and many of the Beirut Schools, before we start to Abeih again.

Here is the Female Seminary. There are a hundred girls here, studying Arabic reading and writing geography, arithmetic, grammar, botany, physiology and astronomy, and a few study English, French and music. But the great study is the _Bible_. I am afraid that very few schools in America have as much instruction in the Bible, as the girls in this Seminary and the Sidon Seminary receive. You would be surprised to hear the girls recite correctly the names of all the patriarchs; kings and prophets of the Old Testament, with the year when they lived, and the date of all the important events of the Old and New Testament History, and the Life of Christ, and the travels of the Apostle Paul, and the prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament, and then recite the whole Westminster a.s.sembly's Catechism in Arabic! I have given out _one hundred and twenty_ Bibles and Hymn Books as rewards to children in the schools in Beirut, who have learned the Shorter Catechism perfectly in Arabic.

Five years ago there was a girl in the school who was once very rude and self-willed, and very hard to control. She had a poor bed-ridden brother who had been a cripple for years, and was a great care to the family.

They used to carry him out in the garden in fine weather and lay him on a seat under the trees, and sometimes his sister would come home from the school and read to him from the Bible, to which he listened with great delight. Not long after this he died, and his sister was sent for to come home to the funeral. On reaching home she found a large crowd of women a.s.sembled from all that quarter of the city, shrieking and wailing over his death, according to the Oriental custom. When A. the little girl came in, one of the women from an aristocratic Greek family was talking in a loud voice and saying that it was wrong for any person to go from the house of mourning to another house before first going home, because one going from a house of mourning would carry an _evil influence_ with her. A. listened and then spoke out boldly before the seventy women, "How long will you hold on to these foolish superst.i.tions? Beirut is a place of light and civilization. Where can you find any such teaching as this in the gospel? It is time for us to give up such superst.i.tions." The old woman asked, "Where did that girl learn these things? Truly she is right. These things _are_ superst.i.tions, but they will not die until _we old women die_." It required a great deal of courage in A. to speak out so boldly, when her own brother had died, but all felt that she spoke the truth, and no one rebuked her.

Near by the house of A. is another beautiful house surrounded by gardens, and ornamented in the most expensive manner. A little girl from this family was attending the school in 1867. Her name was Fereedy. She was a boarder and the best behaved girl in the school. One day during vacation, her mother came to Rufka and said, "What have you done to my little daughter Fereedy? She came home last Sat.u.r.day with her sister, and at once took the whole care of the little children, so that I had no trouble with them. And when night came she put her little sisters to bed and prayed with them all, and then in the morning she prayed with them again. I never saw such a child. She is like a little angel." The mother is of the Greek sect, and the little girl was only twelve years old.

And here is a story about another of the superst.i.tions of the fellaheen, and what a little girl taught the people about them. This little girl named L. went with her father to spend the summer in a mountain village, where the people had a strange superst.i.tion about an oak tree. One day she went out to walk and came to the great oak tree which stood alone on the mountain side. You know that the Canaanites used to have idols under the green trees in ancient times. When L. reached the tree, she found the ground covered with dead branches which had fallen from the tree.

Now, wood is very scarce and costly in Syria, and the people are very poor, so that she wondered to see the wood left to rot on the ground, and asked the people why they did not use it for fuel. They said they dared not, as the tree belonged to Moses the Prophet, and he protected the tree, and if any one took the wood, they would _fall dead_. She said, "Moses is in heaven, and does not live in oak trees, and if he did, he is a good man, and would not hurt me for burning up old dry sticks." So she asked them if she might have the wood? They said, "yes, if you _dare_ to take it, for we are afraid to touch it." So she went to the tree and gathered up as much as she could carry, and took it home.

The people screamed when they saw her, and told her to drop it or it would kill her, but on she went, and afterwards went back and brought the rest. She then talked with the ignorant women, and her father told them about the folly of their superst.i.tions, and read to them in the Bible about Moses, and they listened with great attention. I have often thought I should like to go to that village, and see whether the people now leave the dead branches under Moses' oak, or use them for fuel during the heavy snow storms of winter.

PART VI.

Here we are, home again at Abeih. Here are Asaad and Khalil, and several others. I asked Khalil one day to write out for me a list of all the games the boys play in Abeih, and he brought me a list of _twenty-eight_ different ones, and said there were many more.

I. The first is called Khatim or the Ring. A boy puts a ring on the back of his hand, tosses it and catches it on the back of his fingers. If it falls on the middle finger, he shakes it to the forefinger, and then he is Sultan, and appoints a Vizier, whom he commands to beat the other boys. Then the boys all sing,

Ding, dong, turn the wheel, Wind the purple thread: Spin the white and spin the red, Wind it on the reel: Silk and linen as well as you can, Weave a robe for the Great Sultan.