THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB
Archibald Forder
(Date of Incident, 1901)
The Lone Trail of Friendship
So the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward trail. Forder now was alone in Kaf.
"Never," he says, "shall I forget the feeling of loneliness that came over me as I made my way back to my room. The thought that I was the only Christian in the whole district was one that I cannot well describe."
As Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them muttering to one another, "Nisraney[69]—one of the cursed ones—the enemy of Allah!" He remembered that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were fierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at sight. But he put on a brave front and went to the Chief's house. There he sat down with the men on the ground and began to eat with them from a great iron pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee with them.
"Why have you come here?" they asked him.
"My desire is," he replied, "to pass on to the Jowf."
Now the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert—the most important in all Northern Arabia. From there camel caravans go north, south, east, and west. Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments would be carried from that city to all the camel tracks of Arabia.