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 God but God." That is true. Then they add, "and Mohammed is the Apostle of God," 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 scraped 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 God 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 Beirût 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 Beirût 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 Beirût 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 Assur 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 shells, 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 shells, 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 Beirût will be in quarantine. It will not be pleasant to spend a week in the Beirût 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 God'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.