CHAPTER XIV.
BEDAWIN ARABS.
There is one class 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 destitute 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 constitute a most ancient, attractive class 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 pronunciation of the Arabic so different from the correct pronunciation, that he would be constantly embarrassed. 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 Beirût 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 Beirût 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 principal Sheikh on the Damascus border is Mohammed ed Dûkhy, the warlike and successful leader of ten thousand Arab horsemen, 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 horsemen, and is under bonds to keep the Arabs quiet.
In February, 1871, he came to Beirût on business, and was the guest of a Maronite merchant, who brought him at our invitation to visit the Female Seminary, the College and the Printing Press. After looking through the Seminary, examining the various departments, and inquiring into the course of study he turned to the pupils and said, "Our Bedawin girls would learn as much in six months as you learn in two years." I told him we should like to see the experiment tried, and that if he would send on a dozen Bedawin girls, we would see that they had every opportunity for improvement. He said, "Allah only knows the future. Who knows but it may yet come to pass?" The Sheikh himself can neither read nor write, but his wife, the Sitt Harba, or Lady Spear, who came from the vicinity of Hamath, can read and write well, and she is said to be the only Bedawîyeh woman who can write a letter. With this in view we prepared an elegant copy of the Arabic Bible, enclosed in a waterproof case made by the girls of the Seminary, and presented it to him at the Press. He expressed great interest in it, and asked what the book contained. We explained the contents, and he remarked, "I will have the Sitt Harba read to me of Ibrahim, Khalil Allah, (the Friend of God), and Ismaeel, the father of the Arabs, and Neby (prophet) Moosa, and Soleiman the king, and Aieesa, (Jesus,) the son of Mary." The electrotype apparatus deeply interested him, but when Mr. Hallock showed him the steam cylinder press, rolling off the sheets with so great rapidity and exactness, he stood back and remarked in the most deliberate manner, "the man who made that press can conquer anything but death!" It seemed some satisfaction to him that in the matter of death the Bedawin was on a level with the European.
From the Press, the Sheikh went to the Church, and after gazing around on the pure white walls, remarked, "There is the Book, but I see no pictures nor images. You worship only God here!" He was anxious to see the Tower Clock, and although he had lost one arm, and the other was nearly paralyzed by a musket shot in a recent fight in the desert, he insisted on climbing up the long ladders to see the clock whose striking he had heard at the other end of the city, and he gazed long and admiringly at this beautiful piece of mechanism. On leaving us, he renewedly thanked us for The Book, and the next day he left by diligence coach for Damascus.
In the summer we sent, at Mr. Arthington's expense, a young man from the Beirût Medical College, named Ali, as missionary to itinerate among the Bedawin, with special instructions to persuade the Arabs if possible to send their children to school. He remained a month or two among them, by day and by night, sleeping by night outside the tents with his horse's halter tied to his arms to prevent its being stolen, and spending the evenings reading to the assembled crowd from the New Testament. He was present as a spectator at a fight between Mohammed's men and the Ruella Arabs east of the Sea of Galilee, in which the Ruella were defeated, but Mohammed's son Faûr was wounded, and Ali attended him. The Sitt Harba told Ali that a papist named Shwiry, in Damascus, had taken the Arabic Bible from them! So Ali gave them another. This Bible-hating spirit of the Papacy is the same the world over. How contemptible the spirit of a man professing the name of Christian, and yet willing to rob the only woman among the Bedawin who can read, of the word of everlasting life! The whole family of the Sheikh were interested in reading an illustrated book for children of folio size, styled "Lilies of the Field," which we printed in Beirût last year. When Ali set out on this journey, I gave him a letter to the Sheikh, reminding him of his visit to Beirût, and urging again upon him the sending of his children to school. The Sheikh sent me the following reply, written by his wife, the Sitt Harba, and sealed with his own signet ring. I value the letter highly as being written by the only Bedawin woman able to write: