PAN-ISLAM

MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITEDLONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA . MADRASMELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANYNEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGODALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO

PAN-ISLAM

BY

G. WYMAN BURY

_Author of "The Land of Us, " "Arabia Infelix. "_

MACMILLAN AND CO. , LIMITEDST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON1919

TO

MY WIFE

PREFACE

I have written this book to present the main factors of a many-sidedproblem--political, social and religious--in a form which the generalpublic can easily grasp. 

Modern democratic principles tend to give the public increasing controlof international and inter-racial affairs, and therefore anycontribution to public knowledge on such questions is in the interestsof sound administration. 

The book is not intended to advise those who actually handle theseaffairs: I give such advice, when required, in more detail and notthrough the medium of a published work. 

"Pan-Islam" is an elementary handbook, not a text-book--still less anexhaustive treatise, but the questions it discusses are real enough. Myqualifications for writing it are based on a quarter of a century'sexperience of the subject in most parts of the Moslem world, and I havestudied the question in areas which I have not actually visited throughintercourse with pilgrims from those parts. 

I have no axe to grind or infallible panacea to advocate; I merely laythe result of my researches before the public for its information, asfailing health has warned me to "pass the ball when collared, " and Iwould like to think that the land where most of my life's work hascentred will not be mishandled by cranks and opportunists after I haveleft the game. 

An arm-chair is a sorry substitute for an Arab pony, and a garden plotfor the highlands of Arabia Felix, but the human mind is not necessarilyconfined by such trammels, and if my environment is narrow I hope mybook is not. 

 G. WYMAN BURY. 

Helouan, 27th July, 1919. 

 CONTENTS

 PAGE

 CHAPTER I

 ITS ORIGIN AND MEANING 11

 CHAPTER II

 ITS BEARING ON THE WAR 24

 CHAPTER III

 ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS 83

 CHAPTER IV

 MOSLEM AND MISSIONARY 110

 CHAPTER V

 A PLEA FOR TOLERANCE 187

PAN-ISLAM

CHAPTER I

ITS ORIGIN AND MEANING

Much has been written about Christianity and Islam, so I hasten toinform my readers that this is not a religious treatise, nor do I classthem with the globe-trotter who searched Benares brass-bazar diligentlyfor "a really nice image of Allah" and pronounced the dread name ofHindustan's avenging goddess like an effervescing drink. 

I presuppose that Christians or Moslems who read this book have gotbeyond the stage of calling each other pagans or _kafirs_, and it willhave served its purpose if it brings about a friendlier feeling betweenthe two great militant creeds whose adherents have confronted togethermany a stricken field. 

Most people have heard of the pan-Islamic movement, especially duringthe War. Some of us have called it a political bogey and some aworld-menace, but these are extremist views--it is really the practicalprotest of Moslems against the exploitation of their spiritual andmaterial resources by outsiders. 

Pan-Islam (as its name implies) is a movement to weld together Moslemsthroughout the world regardless of nationality. The ethics and ideals ofIslam are more attainable to ordinary human beings than those ofChristianity: whether it is better to aim high and score a partialsuccess or aim lower and achieve is a matter of personal opinion andneed not be discussed here, but one tangible fact stands out--thatIslam, with its easier moral standard and frequent physical disciplineof attitudes and observances connected with obligatory prayer, entersfar more into the daily life of its adherents than Christianity doeswith us. Hence pan-Islam is more than a spiritual movement: it is apractical, working proposition which has to be reckoned with whendealing with Moslems even in secular matters. 

Pan-Islam is no new thing--it is as old as the Hejira, and then helpedto knit together Moslem Arabs against their pagan compatriots who werepersecuting them. In the palmy days of the Abbaside Caliphate it wasquiescent enough, and men of all creeds were welcomed at Baghdad fortheir art, learning, or handicraft when we were massacring Jews inLondon as part of a coronation pageant. 

Medieval Moslems never fanned the movement into flame as long as theywere let alone, and even now tribes living beyond the scope ofmissionaries and traders prefer the Christian traveller whom they knowto the Moslem stranger from the coast whom they usually distrust, andwho, to do him justice, seldom ventures among them, unless compelled byparamount self-interest, generally in connection with some Europeanscheme or other. 

Hitherto pan-Islam had been an instinctive and entirely natural_riposte_ to the menace or actual aggression of non-Moslems; it assumedthe character of a definite organisation under the crafty touch of thatwily diplomat Abdul Hamid, once called by harsh critics "the Damned, "though his efforts in that direction have been quite eclipsed by morerecent exponents. 

In extreme evangelical circles it used to be frequently urged thatpan-Islam was a bugbear discovered, if not created, by one of India'smost eminent Viceroys, whose remarks thereon are said to have givenAbdul Hamid the hint. This method of eliminating a danger by denying itsexistence has been discredited, since 1914, as completely as thesomewhat similar one (attributed to Mississippi engineers) of sitting onthe safety-valve just too long for safety. Moreover, in view of Abdul'sundoubted ability, he probably discovered for himself its efficacy as aweapon of reprisal when hard pressed by pertinacious and inquisitiveAmbassadors, for he often found himself much embarrassed in his dealingswith Armenia and other domestic affairs by the intrusions of the moreformidable Christian Powers. 

Great Britain naturally felt the point of this weapon most as governingwide Moslem territories, and one can imagine some such interview asthis:

"Frontier rectifications, my dear Sir Nicholas? By all means--and, talking about frontiers, I do hope affairs are quite quiet now on yournorth-west frontier; I take such an interest in my East Indiancorrespondence. "

And those Britons who have handled Oriental affairs for the last twentyyears can appreciate the extent of that interest when we remember thateven while Yamen Arabs were fighting the Turks, their neighbours on theAden side of the frontier were praying in their mosques that the Sultanand his troops might be victorious "by land and sea. "

All this, however, was merely playing with intrigue as a politicalcounterpoise; it remained for a Christian nation to put pan-Islam on abusiness footing. First we have polite bagmen calling at Stamboul withGerman guns and a German military system. Then "our Mr. William" of thewell-known Potsdam firm of Hohenzollern and Sons made his greatadvertising campaign in the Near East; many of us remembered histheatrical visit to Saladin's tomb and the tawdry wreath with itsbombastic inscription, "From the Emperor of the Franks to the Emperor ofthe Saracens--Greeting. "

That astute "pilgrim" made himself especially affable to the AmericanProtestant missionaries in the Holy Land, preached to a small but selectcongregation at the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and posed alternatelyas a pious but militant Moslem (when Hajji Guiyaum rode in military pompinto Jerusalem) and as a prince of peace. That the hospice of KaiserinAugusta Victoria on the top of the Mount of Olives was loop-holed formusketry and mounted a searchlight in its tower that could signal withHaifa was possibly due to some wayward caprice of the builder, but itcame in very useful later on. So did the scholarly researches of eminentGermans in Sinai, assisted as they were by maps which the Anglo-Egyptianauthorities courteously placed at their disposal, and which formed abasis for a more detailed survey of wells and routes. 

But the old firm at Potsdam excelled itself in its representatives onthe Palestine coast. There was, for example, the German Consul at Haifafamed for his culture and diplomacy (the Teutonic brand), who also spokeArabic, Turkish, French and English fluently. This gifted officialfrequented native cafés, where he fraternised with the local Arabs andconducted a vigorous verbal propaganda against the Entente. Then therewas the German engineer who wrecked the British railway scheme toconnect Haifa and Damascus and re-naturalised as a German citizen afterbeing American Consul. The Belgian Vice-Consul too, that merry Hun, whowas also agent for our Khedivial mail line. When the Turks came inagainst us this good and faithful servant danced on the Belgian andBritish flags and threw himself heart and soul into pan-Islamicpropaganda. 

Nor must we overlook that reverend pastor and Koranic scholar whodistributed anti-Christian and more especially anti-British propagandaby means of native emissaries. Last but not least, the Herr Direktor ofthe Hejaz Railway, who was collecting railway material for Sinai beforewar broke out. Some time before the Turks came in he imported, for thealleged use of the Jewish technical school, so great a quantity of highexplosives that it caused a panic in Haifa. Yet it did not sufficientlyimpress our Levantine Vice-Consul there for him to report it, though theGerman Consul's remarkable activity to get the stuff landed might havegiven him the hint. 

At Jeddah our Khedivial Mail Agency, under the good old English name ofRobinson, was a perfect nest of Germans and pro-German Dutchmen when Icalled there in 1912. They were very active early in the War, but hadwisely disappeared before my last visit, when Jeddah fell to ourblockade and bombardment. 

As for Hodeidah, the chief port of Yamen, it was the happyhunting-ground of a great German firm, and the American Consul washimself a German. 

Decidedly, for people who believed that they had a monopoly of Divineassistance, they had taken a lot of pains that their Holy War should bea success. 

To grasp the world-wide conspiracy which hatched out so many formidableevents during the War and to appreciate the causes which contributed toits final collapse we must take a comprehensive glance at the OttomanCaliphate and how it came about. 

Remember, the Ottoman Turks are not Semitic, as is the bulk of theMoslem world. Tradition derives them from Turk, son of Japhet, and theyare a Turco-Mongol blend which most people agree to call Tartar. Theirlanguage is closely allied to Mongolian, though written in Arabic, orrather Persian, character, and its Arabic words are pronouncedunintelligibly to an Arab. A true Turk learns Arabic with difficulty, and a far higher percentage of Britons in India speak Hindustani thanTurks do Arabic in Turkish Arabia. 

Then, again, look at their early history. Their Mongol-Turkish ancestorswere driven westward because they made Mongolia too hot for them, and wehear of Turks smelting iron for their Mongol masters in what is nowEastern Turkestan until they threw off the Mongol yoke in A. D. 552, whenTurkish history begins. 

At the dawn of Islam (A. D. 632) Turks and Mongols were harrying eachother all over the Caspian countries like rival wolf-packs, sometimescombining for a raid on their neighbours and then fighting over theloot. That is why you find racial Turks in such outlandish places asMerv, Khiva, Samarcand, Bokhara and Cabul, for the Turkish race is notconfined to Asia Minor and Turkey in Europe, but is scattered over partsof Russia and China and Afghanistan. 

Now to consider the Ottoman Turks, with whom we are chiefly concerned. They were superior to their Mongol fellow-wolves in that they couldsmelt iron and had some idea of constructive enterprise. They had alsoadopted Islam, which was a great advance from the Shamanistic wizardryand totem-worship they used to practise, and their contact with theArabs who raided them and afterwards accepted their military service tothe Caliphate had civilised them considerably. Their Seljouk cousinswere already ruling in Asia Minor, whither they had been driven by theMongols when a wandering Turkish band sought similar asylum there in theearlier part of the thirteenth century and intervened most opportunelyto help the Seljouks repulse a Mongol raid; in return, the SeljoukEmperor gave them a grant of land in Bithynia. 

In 1300 the Seljouk Empire was finally smashed by the Mongols, whowithdrew eastward without occupying the country, for they were merelypredatory and destructive and had no gift or desire for permanentcolonisation. So it came about that the Ottoman Empire began in 1326under Othman I in Bithynia and grew by absorption and lack of effectiveopposition until, in 1517, we find it spreading under Selim I (theMagnificent) to the gates of Vienna and extending from Germany to Persiaand from Arabia to the Atlantic. 

The benign sun of the Arabian Caliphate, under which learning andindustry flourished securely, had long since set in blood undercircumstances of treachery and murder which have hardly been surpassedeven in the late war. 

Under the later Abbasides, when the glories of the Caliphate werewaning, there were bitter dissensions between Sunnis and Shiahs (themain orthodox and schismatic sects of Islam) which culminated in fiercerioting at Baghdad in 1258. The then Caliph was foolish enough to appealfor assistance against the schismatic seditionists to his Mongolneighbours. It had been done before under similar conditions, and evenin these days such a manoeuvre seems still to appeal to some types ofreligious fanaticism, judging by certain passages between our sisterisle and the modern Hun. On the above occasion, however, it waspractised once too often. Hulaku Khan, the fierce Mongol chief, had longhad his eye on Baghdad as holding princely loot in all too slack a grip, for the Caliphate had been relying on Tartar mercenaries for years. 

He approached that queen of cities, as she then was, with a great host, lured the Caliph out to meet him by the promise of an alliance, andmurdered the whole party, the Caliph being trampled to death. ThenBaghdad was given over to sack and massacre for more than a month, bywhich time 1, 800, 000 people are said to have perished. 

The Caliphate was transplanted to Cairo, where it dragged out an anæmicexistence until Selim I seized it, with the person of the then Caliph, by right of conquest, and it has been an appanage of the Ottomanreigning house ever since. 

Selim the Magnificent may be called the Turkish top-note. After him theOttoman Empire gradually declined. It has generally taken advantage ofdisaster or dissension to extend its borders--a precarious method ofempire-building unless consolidated by benevolent and soundadministration, which is not a feature of Turkish rule. Add to this thefacts that Turks are slack Moslems, that the national party which oustedAbdul Hamid (himself most orthodox) is not religious at all, with allits barbarian, totemistic nonsense of the "White Wolf, " and that they_would_ pose as conquerors on insufficient grounds, and we begin to seewhy they have been kicked out of their Asiatic empire bit by bit. 

If Turk and Mongol had been capable of dynastic evolution andco-ordinate policy they might have shared most of the Eastern Hemispherebetween them. We have seen the high-water mark of the Ottoman Empire;Marco Polo has told us of Kubla Khan's Chinese Empire, and the Mogulsdid much for India in their prime. But the wolf-taint was in theirblood, and just as a pet wolf gets fat and degenerate, so it has beenwith these Tartars. Their undoubted soldierly qualities are sapped byluxury, and they possess no constructive gifts which peace andprosperity might develop. Hence it is that every empire they havefounded has risen to a culminating point of conquest and then dwindledaway in sloth and corruption. 

The Turk is not fit to be put in charge of any race but his own, for heis at heart a bitter wolf who will turn and rend without ruth orwarning. I have met Turks who have shown tact, humanity, and abilityunder trying conditions, and I have met well-mannered wolves incaptivity, but would not trust the pack ranging in its native forest. Ionce heard a member of our Ottoman Embassy who has unique experience ofthe Turk size him up as follows: "The Turk can be a suave and culturedgentleman till his time comes, and then he will tear your guts out and_dance_ on them. " It was the Seljouk Turks whose persecutions causedthe Crusades. Before them, Arab rule in Palestine was tolerant enough, and the Caliph Omar was scrupulously careful when he entered Jerusalemas a conqueror to respect Christian prejudices and the monuments of ourcreed. 

So it came about that their empire was dropping from them piecemeal evenbefore the War, for a race that can no longer conquer and has neverlearned to conciliate must draw in its borders or cease to exist as aState. 

When war broke out Turkey was just hanging on to the last scrap of herempire in Europe and had lost all but the shadow of sovereignty inEgypt, while Arabia was seething with discontent, where not in actualrevolt, and regarded the belated efforts of local officials to governtactfully as signs of weakness. 

The colossal brigandage of Germany appealed to her freebootinginstincts, although it took a corrupt, self-seeking Government and afinal push from the "Goeben" and the "Breslau" to plunge her into waragainst her best friends. 

To proclaim a _jihad_ was her obvious course, if only to keep Arabiamoderately quiet, apart from its value as a weapon against her Christianfoes. We will now see how she fared in the "Holy War. "

CHAPTER II

ITS BEARING ON THE WAR

Quite early in the War those of us who had to deal with pan-Islamicpropaganda realised that the widespread organisation which Germany hadgrafted on to the original Turkish movement must have existed some timebefore the outbreak of actual hostilities. 

For example, there was a snug, smooth-running concern at San Franciscowhich spread its tentacles all over the Moslem world, but specialised ina seditious newspaper called _El'-Ghadr_, which means treachery ormutiny. This was particularly directed at our Indian Army, but Egypt wasnot forgotten. A gifted censor sent us an early copy, but had, unfortunately, lost the wrapper, so our earnest desire to make theaddressee's closer acquaintance was thwarted. 

Stamboul was naturally an active centre, and, before the Turks enteredthe War, Turkish officers in full uniform, and sometimes even wearingswords, permeated Cairo cafés with espionage and verbal propaganda, trying to fan into flame the military ardour of Egyptian students andmen about town. This last activity was wasted effort, as anyone who knewthe type could have told them; the effendis abstained from the cruditiesof personal service and confined themselves to stirring up the townriffraff, who wanted a safer form of villainy than open riot, and the_fellahin_, who wanted a safe market for their produce and easytaxation, both of which they stood to lose by violence. Many a _fellah_still believes that the War was a myth created by the authorities to putprices up. Even Teuton activity failed to stimulate these placid folk, and the glad tidings preached by the madder type of German missionarythat the Kaiser was the Messiah left them unmoved. 

When the Turks came in against us, and the ex-Khedive, safe among hisnew-found friends, threw off the mask, the Cairene effendis becametremendously active. Forgetting how they had disliked Abbas II andcalled him a huckstering profligate, they mourned for his deposal bywearing black ties, especially the students. Some of these enthusiasticyoung heroes even went so far as to scatter chlorate of potash crackersabout when their school was visited by poor old Sultan Husein (who wasworth six of his predecessor), and he got quite a shock, which wasflagrantly and noisomely accentuated by asafoetida bomblets. 

The ex-Khedive did not share their patriotic grief. He was quitecomfortable while awaiting the downfall of British rule, for, withshrewd prescience that almost seems inspired, he had taken prudentmeasures for his future comfort and luxury before leaving Egypt on hisusual summer tour to Europe. He had mortgaged real estate up to thehilt, realised on immobile property as far as possible, and diverted hisfluid assets through various channels beyond the reach of his sorrowingsubjects and the Egyptian Government. When an official inventory wastaken in Abdin Palace at the accession of the late Sultan Husein, it wasascertained that the famous inlaid and begemmed coffee-service, which, like our Crown jewels, was not supposed to leave the country, had beensent after the ex-Khedive to his new address--truly a man of parts. Ihave often wondered whether his Hunnish friends got him to disgorge bymeans of a forced loan or war-bonds, or something of that sort. If so, they achieved something notable, for he has left behind him, beside hisliabilities, the name of being a difficult man to get money out of. 

When the Turco-Teuton blade was actually drawn in Holy War I was downwith enteric, which I had contracted while working in disguise amongseditious circles in the slums of Old Cairo. I just convalesced in timeto join the Intelligence Staff on the Canal the day before Jemal Pasha'sarmy attacked. His German staff had everything provided for in advancewith their usual thoroughness. From the documents and prisoners thatcame through our hands we learnt that the hotel in Cairo where thevictors were to dine after their triumphant entry had actually beenselected, and some enthusiasts went so far as to insist that the menuhad been prepared. If so, they omitted to get the Canal Army on toast, and for want of this indispensable item the event fell through. All thesame, it was a soldierly enterprise, and if the Senussis had invaded inforce or the population risen behind us, as they hoped would be thecase, the result might have been different. 

As it was they put up a very good fight and their arrangements forgetting across the Sinaitic desert were excellent. For the last tenmiles they man-handled their pontoons to the edge of the Canal. Thesecraft were marvels of lightness and carrying capacity, but, of course, no protection whatever against even a rifle-bullet, and they had notfully reckoned with the Franco-British naval flotilla, which proved aformidable factor. 

The morning after the main fight a little Syrian subaltern passedthrough my hands. He had been slightly wounded in the leg and stillshowed signs of nervous shock, so I made him sit down with a cigarettewhile I questioned him. He had been in charge of a pontoon manned by hisparty and said that they had got halfway across the Canal in perfectsilence when "the mouth of hell opened" and the pontoon was sinking in aswirl of stricken men amid a hail of projectiles. He and two others swamto our side of the Canal, where they surrendered to an Indiandetachment. 

Our Indian troops on the Canal were naturally a mark for pan-Islamicpropaganda reinforced by Hindu literature of the _Bande Mataram_type, --a double-barrelled enterprise to bag both the great creeds ofIndia. The astute propagandists had a pamphlet or two aimed at Sikhism, which they seemed to consider a nation, as they spoke of their nationalaspirations, though an elementary study of the subject might have taughtthem that it was a religious and secular movement originally intended tocurb Moslem power in India during the sway of the later Moguls. Anyonebut a Moslem can be a Sikh. 

Naturally I was on the _qui vive_ for signs of pan-Islamic activity onthe enemy's side, and I questioned my little Syrian very closely toascertain how far the movement was used as a driving force among thetroops engaged against us. He, personally, had rather a grievance on thesubject, for the Indian Moslems who took him had reproached him bitterlyfor fighting on the wrong side. "I fought, " he said, "because it was myduty as an officer of the Ottoman Army. I know that men were invited tojoin as for a _jihad_, but we officers did not deceive ourselves. _Parexemple_, I think myself a better Moslem than any Turk, but what wouldyou?" I consoled the little man while concealing my satisfaction at thefeeling displayed against him. An extraordinarily heterogeneouscollection of prisoners came dribbling through my hands directly afterthe Turks were repulsed. Most were practically deserters who had beenforcibly enrolled, given a Mauser and a bandoleer, and told to go andfight for the Holy Places of Islam. As one of the more intelligentremarked, "If the Holy Places are really in danger, what are we doingdown this way?"

They came from all over the Moslem world. There were one or two Russianpilgrims returning from Mecca to be snapped up by the militaryauthorities at Damascus railway station when they got out of the pilgrimtrain from Medina. There were cabdrivers from Jerusalem, a strandedpilgrim from China, several Tripolitans who had been roped in on thePalestine seaboard while trying to get a passage home, a Moor who triedto embrace my feet when I spoke of the snow-crowned Atlas above MoroccoCity (Marraksh) and told him that he would be landed at Tangier in duecourse--Inshallah. Of course we released, and repatriated as far as wecould, men who were not Ottoman subjects and had obviously been forcedinto service against us. A few days later, when Jemal Pasha's army wasgetting into commissariat difficulties out in the Sinaitic desert (forthe Staff had relied on entering Egypt), we began to get the real Turksamong our prisoners. 

I was very curious to ascertain if they had been worked up withpan-Islamic propaganda or carried any of it on them, for there was noteven a Red Crescent Koran on any of the Arabic-speaking prisoners. Asearch of their effects revealed a remarkable phase of propaganda. Therewas hardly any religious literature except a loose page or two of somepious work like the "Traditions of Muhammad, " but there were quantitiesof rather crude (and very lewd) picture-cards portraying soldiers inTurkish uniform outraging and murdering nude or semi-nude women andchildren, while corpses in priestly garb, shattered crucifixes, andburning churches indicated the creed that was being so harried and gavethe scene a stimulating background. From their appearance I should saythese pictures were originally engraved to commemorate Balkan orArmenian atrocities, but their possessors, on being closely questioned, admitted that the impression conveyed to them was of the joyous licencewhich was to be theirs among the Frankish civilians after forcing theCanal. One Kurdish gentleman had among his kit fancy socks, knittedcraftily in several vivid colours, also ornate slippers to wear in hispromised palatial billet at Cairo. There were some odd articles amongthe kit of these Turkish prisoners, to wit, a brand-new gardenthermometer, which some wag insisted was for testing the temperature ofthe Canal before immersion, and a lavatory towel looted from the Hejazrailway. Still, nothing was quite so remarkable as a white flag with ajointed staff in a neat, compact case which had been carried by a Germanofficer. Among his papers was an indecent post-card not connected, Ithink, with propaganda of any sort, as it portrayed a bright-colouredfemale of ripe figure and Teutonic aspect, wearing a pair of longstockings and high-heeled shoes, and bore the legend "Gruss vonMünchen. "

A certain coyness, or possibly an appreciation of their personal value, kept most of the German officers from actual contact with our line. Onlyone reached the Canal bank, and he is there still. The German touch, however, was much in evidence. There were detailed written orders aboutmanning the pontoons, not to talk, cough, sneeze, etc. , and for each manto move along the craft as far as feasible and then sit down. They seemto have relied entirely on surprise, and ignored the chance of itsoccurring on the wrong side of the Canal. The emergency rations toowhich we found on the earlier batches of prisoners had a distinctlyTeutonic flavour--they were so scientifically nourishing in theory andso vilely inedible in practice. They were a species of flat gluten cakerather like a dog-biscuit, but much harder. An amateur explosive expertof ours tested one of these things by attempting detonation and ignitionbefore he would let his batch of prisoners retain them, which, to dotheir intelligence justice, they were not keen on doing, but offered anyquantity of the stuff for cigarettes. We ascertained from them that youwere supposed to soak it in water before tackling it in earnest, but asthe only supply (except the runlet they still carried on them) was inthe fresh-water canal behind our unshaken line, such a course was notpracticable; the discovery of a very dead Turk some days later in thatcanal led to the ribald suggestion that he had rashly endeavoured to eathis ration. Our scientist laid great stress on its extraordinarynutritive properties, but desisted, after breaking a tooth off hisdenture, in actual experiment. 

German influence, too, was apparent in the relations between officersand men. A Turkish _yuzbashi_ was asked to get a big batch of prisonersto form two groups according to the languages they spoke--Arabic orTurkish. It was not an easy task in the open on a pitch-black night, buthe did it with soldierly promptitude and flung his glowing cigarette endin the face of a dilatory private. As a natural corollary it may bementioned here that one or two of our prisoners had deserted aftershooting officers who had struck them. 

For some days after the battles of Serapeum and Toussoum we expectedanother attempt, but they had been more heavily mauled than we thoughtat first. The dead in the Canal were kept down by the weight of theirammunition for some time, and the shifting sand on the Sinaitic sidewas always revealing hastily-buried corpses on their line of retreat. 

Jemal Pasha hurried back to Gaza and published a grandiloquent reportfor Moslem consumption, to the effect that the Turks were already inCairo (as was indeed the case with many hundreds), and that, of the_giaour_ fleet, one ship had sunk, one had been set on fire, and therest had fled. Two heavy howitzers, as a matter of fact, had managed byindirect fire from a concealed position to land a couple of projectileson the "Hardinge, " which was not originally built for such roughtreatment, being an Indian marine vessel taken over by the Navy. Shegave more than she got when her four-point-sevens found the massedTurkish supports. 

A great deal of criticism has been flung at this first series of fightson the Canal, mostly by Anglo-Egyptian civilians. They asked derisivelywhether we were protecting the Canal or the Canal us. The answer is inthe affirmative to both questions. Ordinary steamer traffic was onlysuspended for a day during the first onslaught, and the G. O. C. Was notsuch a fool as to leave the Canal in his rear and forgo the defensiveadvantage. There are some who, in their military ardour, would have hadhim pursue the enemy into the desert, forgetting that to leave a soundposition and pursue a superior force on an ever-widening front in abarren country which they know better than you do and have furnishedwith their own supply-bases is just asking for trouble. Our fewaeroplanes in those days could only reconnoitre twenty miles out, andthere was no evidence that the enemy had not merely fallen back to hisline of wells preparatory to another attempt. We had not then the men, material, or resources for a triumphant advance into Sinai; it wasenough to make sure of keeping the enemy that side of the Canal with theSenussi sitting on the fence and Egypt honeycombed with seditiouspropaganda. 

Anyone at all in touch with native life in Cairo could gauge the extentof propagandist activity by gossip at cafés and in the bazars. TheSenussi was marching against us. India was in revolt and the Indian Armyon the Canal had joined the Turks. The crowning stroke of ingenuity wasa tale that received wide credence among quite intelligent Egyptians. Itwas to the effect that the Turks had commandeered an enormous number ofcamels and empty kerosene tins. This was quite true so far, but the yarnthen rose to the following flight of fancy: These empty tins were to befilled with dry cement and loaded on camels, which were to be marchedwithout water for days until they reached the Canal, when the pangs ofthirst would compel them to rush madly into the water. The cement wouldsolidify and the Faithful would march across on a composite bridge ofcamel and concrete. Our flotilla was to be penned in by similar means. 

There must be something about a Turk that hypnotises an Egyptian. Hiscountry has suffered appallingly under Ottoman rule, and a pure-bloodedTurk can seldom be decently civil to him and considers him almostbeneath contempt. This is the conquering Tartar pose that has earned theTurk such detestation and final ruin in Arabia, but it seems to havefascinated the Egyptian like a rabbit in the presence of a python. Quiteearly in the Turkish invasion of Sinai a detachment of Egyptian camelry, operating in conjunction with the Bikanirs, deserted _en masse_ to theenemy. It was at first supposed that they had been captured, but weafterwards heard of their being fêted somewhere in Palestine. On theother hand, an Egyptian battery did yeoman service on the Canal; I saw apontoon that looked like a carelessly opened sardine-tin as a result ofits attentions. 

The most tragic aspect of this spurious and mischievous propaganda wasits victims from Indian regiments. The Indian Moslem as a rule has noillusions about the Turks, and will fight them at sight, but there willalways be a few misguided bigots to whom a specious and dogmaticargument will appeal. There is no occasion to dwell on these cases, which were sporadic only and generally soon met with the fate incurredby attempted desertion to the enemy. 

We looked on the movement as an insidious and dangerous disease and didour best to trace it to its source and stop the distributing channels. After events on the Canal had simmered down, I was seconded to Cairo tohelp tackle the movement there: to show how little hold it had over theminds of thinking Moslems. I may mention that my colleague was a Pathanmajor who was a very strict Moslem and a first-rate fellow to boot. 

We both served under an Anglo-Indian major belonging to the C. I. D. , oneof the most active little men I have ever met. There were also several"ferrets, " or Intelligence agents, who came into close contact with the"suspects" and could be trusted up to a certain point if you lookedsharply after them. This is as much as can be said for any of these men, though some are better, and some worse, than others. On the Canal weemployed numbers of them to keep us informed of the enemy's movementsand used to check them with the aerial reconnaissance--they needed it. It did not take us long to find out that these sophisticated Sinaiteshad established an Intelligence bureau of their own. They used to meettheir "opposite numbers" employed by the enemy at pre-arranged spotsbetween the lines and swop information, thereby avoiding unnecessarytoil or risk (the Sinaitic Bedouin loathes both) and obtaining news ofinterest for both sides. It was a magnificently simple scheme; its soleflaw was in failing to realise that some of us had played the Great Gamebefore. We used to time our emissaries to their return and cross-checkthem where their wanderings intersected those of others--all weresupposed to be trackers and one or two knew something about it. Ofcourse they were searched and researched on crossing and returning toour outpost line, for they could not be trusted to refuse messages to orfrom the Turks. It was among this coterie that the brilliant ideaoriginated of shaving a messenger's head, writing a despatch on hisscalp, and then letting his hair grow before he started to deliver it. Idoubt if any of our folk were thorough enough for this, but we testedfor it occasionally, and an unpleasant job it was. Generally they wouldincur suspicion by their too speedy return and the nonchalant way inwhich they imparted tidings which would have driven them into ecstasiesof self-appreciation had they obtained such by legitimate methods. Thena purposely false bit of information calculated to cause certaindefinite action on the other side would usually betray them. Somepurists suggested a firing party as a fitting end for these gambits, butthat would have been a waste. Such men have their uses, until they knowthey are suspected, as valuable channels of misinformation. No doubt theenemy knew this too, and that is how an Intelligence Officer earns hispay, by sifting grain from chaff as it comes in and sending out emptyhusks and mouldy news. 

But to return to Cairo. We netted a good deal of small fry, but onlylanded one big fish during the time I was attached. He was aMesopotamian and a very respectable old gentleman, who followed thecalling of astrologer and peripatetic quack--a common combination andadmirably adapted for distributing propaganda. He came from Stamboulthrough Athens with exemplary credentials, and might have got through toIndia, which was the landfall he proposed to make, if his propagandistenergy had not led him to deviate on a small side-tour in Egypt. Herewe got on his track, and I boarded the Port Said express at short noticewhile he and the "ferret" who had picked him up got into a third-classcompartment lower down. As the agent made no signal after the train hadpulled out, I knew our man had not got the bulk of his propaganda withhim, otherwise I had powers to hold up the express, for it was moreimportant to get his stuff than the man himself. At Port Said he had achance of seeing me, thanks to the agent's clumsiness, and I had toshave my beard off and buy a sun-helmet in consequence, for I wastravelling in the same ship along the Canal to see that he did notcommunicate with troops on either side of the bank, and on the slightestsuspicion he would have put his stuff over the side. All went smoothlyand he was arrested in Suez roads by plain-clothes men with a sackful ofseditious literature for printing broadcast in India. Of course theyarrested the "ferret" too, as is usual in these cases. I went ashorewith them in the police-launch as a casual traveller and was amused tohear the agent rating the old man for not having prophesied this mishapwhen telling his fortune the night before. 

The propagandist was merely interned in a place of security--it was notour policy to make martyrs of such men, especially when they were _bonafide_ Ottoman subjects. 

I was rather out of touch with the pan-Islamic movement during thesummer of 1915, as my lungs had become seriously affected on the Canal, and the trouble became so acute that I had to spend two or three monthsin the hills of Cyprus. Before I had been there a week the G. O. C. Troopsin Egypt cabled for me to return and proceed to Aden as politicalofficer with troops. 

I was too ill then to move and had to cable to that effect. My chagrinat missing a "show" was much alleviated when I heard what the show was. As it had a marked effect on the pan-Islamic campaign by enhancingTurkish prestige, it is not out of place to give some account of ithere. 

While I was still on the Canal in February (1915) a "memo" was sent formy information from Headquarters at Cairo to say that the Turks hadinvaded the Aden protectorate at Dhala, where I once served on aboundary commission. 

I noted the fact and presumed that Aden was quite able to cope with thesituation, as the Turks had a most difficult terrain to traverse beforethey could get clear of the hills and reach the littoral, while thehinterland tribes are noted for their combatant instincts and efficiencyin guerilla warfare, besides being anti-Turk. I had, however, in spiteof many years' experience, failed to reckon with Aden apathy. True tothe policy of _laissez faire_ which was inaugurated when our BoundaryCommission withdrew some twelve years ago, Aden had been depending fornews of her own protectorate on office files and native report, especially on that much overrated friend and ally the Lahej sultanate. The Turks knew all about this, for the leakage of Aden affairs whichtrickles through Lahej and over the Yamen border is, and has been foryears, a flagrant scandal. 

The invasion at Dhala was a feint just to test the soundness of officialslumber at Aden; the obvious route for a large force was down the Tibanvalley, owing to the easier going and the permanent water-supply. 

Our border-sultan (the Haushabi) was suborned with leisurelythoroughness all unknown to his next-door neighbour, that purblindsultanate at Lahej, unless the latter refrained from breaking Aden'sholy calm with such unpleasant news. 

In May Aden stirred in her sleep and sent out the Aden troop toreconnoitre. This fine body of Indian cavalry and camelry reported thataffairs seemed serious up the Tiban valley; then inertia reasserteditself and they were recalled. Also the Lahej sultanate, in a spasm ofeconomy, started disbanding the Arab levies collected for the emergencyfrom the tribes of the remoter hinterland which have supplied finemercenaries to many oriental sultanates for many centuries. 

The watchful Turk, with his unmolested spy system, had noted every moveof these pitiful blunders, and, at the psychological moment, camepouring down the Tiban valley some 3, 000 strong with another 5, 000 Arablevies. They picked up the Haushabi on the way, whose main idea was toget a free kick at Lahej, just as an ordinary human boy will serve somesneak and prig to whom a slack schoolmaster has relegated his ownobvious duty of supervision. To do that inadequate sultanate justice, ittried to bar the way with its own trencher-fed troops and such levies asit had, but was brushed aside contemptuously by the hardier leviesopposed to it and the overwhelming fire of the Turkish field batteries. Then a distraught and frantic palace emitted mounted messengers to Adenfor assistance like minute-guns from a sinking ship. 

Aden behaved exactly like a startled hen. She ran about clucking andcollecting motor-cars, camel transport, anything. The authorities darednot leave their pet sultan in the lurch--questions might be asked in theHouse. On the other hand they had made no adequate arrangements toprotect him. Just as a demented hen will leave her brood at the mercy ofa hovering kite to round up one stray chick instead of sitting tight andcalling it in under her wing, so Aden made a belated and insane attemptto save Lahej. 

The Aden Movable Column, a weak brigade of Indians, young Territorials, and guns, marched out at 2 p. M. On July 4, _i. E. _ at the hottest time ofday, in the hottest season of the year and the hottest part of theworld. Motor-cars were used to convey the infantry of the advancedguard, but the main body had to march in full equipment with ammunition. The casualties from sunstroke were appalling. The late G. O. C. Troops inEgypt mentioned them to me in hundreds, and one of the Aden "politicals"told me that not a dozen of the territorial battalion remained effectiveat the end of the day. Many were bowled over by the heat before they hadgone two miles. 

Most of the native camel transport, carrying water, ammunition andsupplies, --and yet unescorted and not even attended by a responsibleofficer--sauntered off into the desert and vanished from the ken of thatill-fated column. 

Meanwhile the advanced guard of 250 men (mostly Indians) and two10-pounder mountain-guns pushed on with all speed to Lahej, which wasbeing attacked by several thousand Turks and Turco-Arabs with 15-pounderfield batteries and machine-guns. They found the palace and part of thetown on fire when they arrived, and fought the Turks hand-to-hand in thestreets. They held on all through that sweltering night, and onlyretired when dawn showed them the hopeless nature of their task and thefact that they were being outflanked. They fell back on the main body, which had stuck halfway at a wayside well (Bir Nasir) marked soobviously by ruins that even Aden guides could not miss it. Shortage ofwater was the natural result of sitting over a well that does not evensupply a settlement, but merely the ordinary needs of wayfarers. 

This well is marked on the Aden protectorate survey map (which isprocurable by the general public) as Bir Muhammad, its full name beingBir Muhammad Nasir. There are five wells supplying settlements withinhalf an hour's walk of it on either side of the track, but when weremember that the column's field-guns got no further owing to heavysand, and that the aforesaid track is frequently traversed by ordinary_tikkagharries_, we realise the local knowledge available. 

The column straggled back to the frontier town of Sheikh Othman, whichthey prepared to defend, but Simla, by this time thoroughly alarmed, ordered them back for the defence of Aden, and they returned withoutdefinite achievement other than the accidental shooting of the Lahejsultan. This was hardly the fault of the heroic little band whichreached Lahej; that ill-starred potentate was escaping with his mountedretinue before dawn and cantered on top of an Indian outpost without theformality of answering their challenge. He was brought away in amotor-car and died at Aden a few days later--another victim to thisdeplorable blunder. Any intelligent and timely grasp of the enemy'sstrength and intention would have given the poor man ample time to packhis inlaid hookahs, Persian carpets, and other palace treasures andwithdraw in safety to Aden while our troops made good the Sheikh Othmanline along the British frontier. I am presuming that Aden was too muchtaken by surprise to have met the Turks in a position of her ownchoosing while they were still entangled in hilly country where leviesof the right sort could have harried them to some purpose, backed bydisciplined, unspent troops and adequate guns. What I wish to impressis that the Intelligence Department at Aden must have been abominablyserved and organised, for I decline to believe that _any_ G. O. C. Wouldhave attempted such an enterprise with such a force and at such a timehad he any information as to the real nature of his task. As it was, theBritish town of Sheikh Othman, within easy sight of Aden across theharbour, was held by the Turks until a reinforcing column came down fromthe Canal and drove them out of it, while the protectorate has beenoverrun by the Turks and the Turco-Arabs until long after the armistice, and the state of British prestige there can be imagined. 

Official attempts to gloze over the incident would have been amusing ifthey were not pathetic. Needless to say they did not deceive Moslems inEgypt or the rest of Arabia. 

Here is the most accurate account they gave the public:

 "TURKS AND ADEN. 

 "ENGAGEMENT AT LAHEJ. 

 "The India Office issued the following _communiqué_ last night through the Press Bureau:

 "'In consequence of rumours that a Turkish force from the Yamen had crossed the frontier of the Aden Hinterland and was advancing towards Lahej, the General Officer Commanding at Aden recently dispatched the Aden Camel Troop to reconnoitre. 

 "'They reported the presence of a Turkish force with field-guns and a large number of Arabs and fell back on Lahej, where they were reinforced by the advance guard of the Aden Movable Column consisting of 250 rifles and two 10-pounder guns. 

 "'Our force at Lahej was attacked by the enemy on July 4 by a force of several thousand Turks with twenty guns and large numbers of Arabs, and maintained its position in face of the enemy artillery's fire until night, when part of Lahej was in flames. During the night some hand-to-hand fighting took place, and the enemy also commenced to outflank us. 

 "'Meanwhile the remainder of the Aden Movable Column was marching towards Lahej, but was delayed by water difficulties and heavy going. It was therefore decided that the small force at Lahej should fall back. 

 "'The retirement was carried out successfully in the early morning of July 5, and the detachment joined the rest of the column at Bir Nasir. Our troops, however, were suffering considerably from the great heat and the shortage of water, and their difficulties were increased by the desertion of Arab transport followers. It was therefore decided to fall back to Aden, and this was done without the enemy attempting to follow up. 

 "'Our losses included three British officers wounded: names will be communicated later. We took one Turkish officer (a major) and thirteen men prisoners. '"

Aden seems to have made no attempt to stem the tide of Turkish influencewhile she could. The best fighting tribe in the protectorate stretchesalong the coast and far inland north-east of Aden, and its capital isonly a few hours' steam from that harbour. The Turks made every effortto win over this important tribal unit, which might have been a gravemenace on their left flank. Its sultan made frequent representations toAden for even a gunboat to show itself off his port, but to no purpose. After the Turks had succeeded in alienating those of his tribe theycould get at, or who could get at them, a tardy political visit was paidby sea from Aden. The indignant old sultan came aboard and spoke hismind. "You throw your friends on the midden, " he said bitterly, anddeparted to establish a _modus vivendi_ on his own account with theTurks. 

The situation at Aden has had a marked effect in bolstering up theTurkish campaign of spurious pan-Islamism, and those of us who have beendealing with chiefs in other parts of Arabia have met it at every turn. It is idle to blame individuals--the whole system is at fault. Thepolicy of non-interference which the Liberal Government introduced, after the Boundary Commission had finished its task and withdrawn, hasbeen over-strained by the Aden authorities to such an extent that theywould neither keep in direct personal touch themselves nor let anyoneelse do so. 

As an explorer and naturalist whose chief work has lain for years inthat country, I have made every effort to continue my researches thereuntil my persistency has incurred official persecution. The seriousaspect of this attitude is that at a time when accurate and up-to-dateknowledge of the hinterland would have been invaluable it was notavailable. The pernicious policy of selecting any one chief (uncheckedby a European) to keep her posted as to affairs in her own protectoratehas been followed blindly by Aden to disaster. The excuse in officialcircles there is that the Haushabi sultan had been suborned by the Turkswithout their knowledge and he had prevented any information fromgetting through Lahej to them. Can there be any more damning indictmentof such a system?

The Aden incident is similar to the Mesopotamian medical muddle, bothbeing due to sporadic dry-rot in high places which the test of warrevealed. The loyalty of its princes and the devotion of its army provethat there is nothing fundamentally wrong with British rule in India tocommand such sentiments, but some of those mandarins who have had widecontrol of human affairs and destinies have ignored a situation until itwas forcibly thrust upon them and have fumbled with it disastrously. Itis difficult to bring such people to book, for they shuffleresponsibility from one to the other or take refuge in the trulyoriental pose of heaven-born officialdom. Such types should be obsoleteeven in India by now, but this war has proved that they are not, andwhen their inanities fritter away gallant lives and trail Britishprestige in the dust they need rebuke. I hope some day, if I live, todeal faithfully with Aden's hinterland policy. 

In the autumn of 1915 I was fit enough to join the Red Sea maritimepatrol as political officer with the naval rank of lieutenant. Ourduties were to harry the Turk without hurting the Arab, to blockade theArabian coast against the Turk while allowing dhow-traffic withfoodstuffs consigned to Arab merchants and steamer-cargoes of food forthe alleged use of pilgrims to go through. Incidentally we had to keepthe eastern highway free of mines and transportable submarines, preventthe passage of spies between Arabia and Egypt, and fetch and carry asthe shore-folk required. 

Taking it all round, it was not an easy job, but I think the blockadepresented the most complex features. You knew where you were withspies--anyone with the necessary experience could spot a doubtfulcustomer as soon as the dhow that carried him came alongside; andirregular but frequent visits at the various ports soon put a stop tothe mine-industry and prevented any materialisation of the submarinemenace except in reports from Aden which caused me a good manyadditional trips in an armed steam-cutter to "go, look, see. "

But the problems presented by the blockade required some solving withvery little time for the operation, and if your solution was notapproved by the authorities on the beach they lost no time in lettingyou know it--usually by wireless, which was picked up by most ships inthe patrol by the time it reached you. 

The basic idea was that if in doubt it was better to let stuff throughto the Turks than pinch Hejazi bellies and get ourselves disliked. Intheory this was perfectly sound, for we wanted the Hejaz to like us wellenough to fight on our side, and only the Huns think you can get peopleto love you by afflicting them. In practice, however, we soon found thatthe Hejazi merchants were selling direct to the Turks and letting theirfellow-countrymen have what was left at the highest possible price. Ontop of it all India started a howl that her pilgrims in the Hejaz werestarving, and we had to defer to this outcry. I have never had tolegislate for highly-civilised Moslems with a taste for agitation, but Ihave always sympathised with those who have, and could quite appreciateIndia's position in the matter. Still, after comparing her reliefcargoes with the number of her pilgrims in the country and finding thateach had enough to feed him for the rest of his natural life, I venturedto ask that this wholesale charity might cease, more especially as thesebig steamer-cargoes were dealt with much as the dhow-borne cereals andchiefly benefited the Turks and local profiteers. 

As regards dhows, our rule was to allow coastal traffic from Jeddah andempties returning there, as it tended to distribute food among the Arabsand get it away from the Turks. Dhows bringing cargo from the Africancoast or from Aden were permitted, provided they did not carrycontraband of war; this permitted native cereals, such as millet, butbarred wheat and particularly barred barley, which the local Arab doesnot eat for choice, but which the Turks wanted very badly for theircavalry. 

In this connection a typical incident may be mentioned as illustratingthe sort of thing we were up against. 

The ship I was serving in at the time lay off Jeddah and had three boatsdown picketing the dhow-channels leading in to that reef-girt harbour, for which dhows were making like homing bees. In such cases my post wasusually on the bridge, while the ship's interpreter and Arab-speakingSeedee-boys went away in the boats. The dhows were reached and theirpapers examined, then allowed to proceed if all was in order. Otherwisethe officer examining signalled the facts and awaited instructions. Usually it was some technical point which I could waive, but on thisoccasion one of the cutters made a signal to the effect that barley inbulk had been found in one dhow. I was puzzled, because all the dhowswere from Suakin or further south, quite outside the barley-belt, excepton very high ground which rarely exports cereals. However, the signalwas repeated, and I had to have the dhow alongside. Meanwhile the"owner" was anxious to get steerage-way, for we were not at anchor andin very ticklish soundings; so I slid off the bridge and had a sample ofthe grain handed up to me: it was a species of millet, looking very likepearl-barley as "milled" for culinary purposes. I shouted to the _reis_to go where he liked as long as he kept clear of our propellers, whichthereupon gave a ponderous flap or two as if to emphasise my remarks, and he bore away from us rejoicing. In the ward-room later on I ralliedthat cutter's officer on his error. "Well, it was just like the barleyone sees in soup, " was his defence. 

In the southern part of the Red Sea, which was handled politically fromAden, the problems of blockade were even more complex, for there evenarms and ammunition were allowed between certain ports to meet theconvenience of the Idrisi chief, who was theoretically at war with theTurks, but rather diffident about putting his principles into practice, especially after the Turkish success outside Aden. 

This meant that the sorely-tried officers responsible for the conductof the blockade in those waters had frequently to decide on a cargo ofillicit-looking rifles and cartridges, not of Government make, butpurchased from private firms and guaranteed by a filthy scrap of paperinscribed with crabbed Arabic which carried no conviction. All they hadto help them was the half-educated ship's interpreter, with no knowledgeof the political situation, for Aden had not an officer available forthis work. To enhance the difficulties of the position, some of thesecoastal chiefs were importing contraband of war to sell to the Turks forprivate gain. Up north there were no difficulties with illicit arms; weallowed a reasonable number per dhow, provided that they were theprivate property of the crew, and when rifles were dished out to ourArab friends the Navy delivered the goods, which were all of Governmentmark and pattern. 

The political aspect of the blockade required delicate handling anywherealong the Arabian littoral of the Red Sea, but especially so on theHejazi coast. We were at war with the Turks but not with the Arabs, whomit was our business to approach as friends if they would let us. TheTurks, however, used Arab levies freely against us whose truculence wasmuch increased on finding they could make hostile demonstrations withimpunity, as the patrol only fired on the Turkish uniform, since fewpeople can distinguish between a Turco-Arab gendarme and an armedtribesman at long range unless they know both breeds intimately. 

The general standard of honour and good faith at most places along theArabian littoral is not high, even from an Oriental point of view, andis nowhere lower than on the Hejazi coast. Frequently an unattachedtribesman would take a shot at a reconnoitring cutter on generalprinciples and then rush off to the nearest Turkish post with theinformation and a demand for bakshish, and there were several attempts(one successful) to lure a landing party on to a well-manned butcarefully hidden position. As for the actual levies, they would solemnlyman prepared positions within easy range of even a 3-pounder when wevisited their tinpot ports, relying on us not to fire, and telling theircompatriots what they would do if we did. 

Even when examining dhows one had to be on one's guard, and it was bestnot to board them to leeward and so run the risk of having their big, bellying mainsail let go on top of you and getting scuppered whileentangled in its folds. African dhows could generally be trusted not toresist search, for when a _reis_ has got his owners or agents at acivilised port like Suakin he likes to keep respectable even if he _is_smuggling. Our chief difficulty with such craft, before we tightened theblockade, was due to the nonchalant manner in which they put to sea andbehaved when at sea. Their skippers had the sketchiest idea of whatconstituted proper clearance papers and why such papers must agree withtheir present voyage. Their confidence too in our integrity, thoughtouching, was often embarrassing. One of our rules was that considerablesums in gold must be given up against a signed voucher realisable atPort Sudan. I was never very brisk at counting large sums of money, andone day when hove to off Jeddah there were five dhows rubbing theirnoses alongside, with about £800 in gold between them and very littletime to deal with them, as we were in shoal water with no way on theship. My operations were not facilitated by the biggest Croesus of thelot producing some £400 in five different currencies from various partsof his apparel and stating that he had no idea how much there was butwould abide by my decision. I believe he expected me to give him areceipt in round hundreds and take the "oddment, " as we call it inWarwickshire, for myself. As it was, I was down half a sovereign or soover the transaction, having given him the benefit of the doubt overtwo measly little gold coins of unascertainable value. 

Some of them were just as happy-go-lucky in their seamanship, thoughskilful enough in handling their outlandish craft. Early one morning, about fifty miles out of Jeddah, I boarded a becalmed dhow and foundthem with the dregs of one empty water-skin between a dozen men. Notcontent with putting to sea with a single _mussick_ of water, they hadhove to and slept all night, and so dropped the night breeze, whichwould have carried them to Jeddah before it died down. We gave themwater and their position, but I told the _reis_ that he was putting morestrain on the mercy of Allah than he was, individually, entitled to. 

But the craft that plied along the Hejazi coast were sinister customersand wanted watching. Some time before I joined the patrol one of ourships was lying a long way out off Um-Lejj, as the water is shallow, andher duty-boat was working close in-shore examining coastal craft. One ofthese had some irregularity about her and was sent out to the ship witha marine and a bluejacket in charge while the cutter continued her task. That dhow stood out to sea as if making for the ship and then proceededalong the coast. The cutter, still busied with other dhows, presumedthat the first craft had reported alongside the ship and been allowed toproceed; the ship naturally regarded her as a craft that had beenexamined and permitted to continue her journey. And that is all we everknew for certain of her or the fate of our two men. Their previousrecord puts desertion out of the question; besides, no sane men woulddesert to a barren, inhospitable coast among semi-hostile fanatics whoselanguage was unknown to them. On the other hand, the men were, ofcourse, fully armed, and there were but five of the dhow's crew alltold, of whom two were not able-bodied. There must have been theblackest treachery--probably the unfortunate men goodnaturedly helpedwith the running gear and were knocked on the head while so engaged. Their bodies would, no doubt, have been put over the side when the dhowwas out of sight, and their rifles sold inland at a fancy price. 

When I first joined the patrol we were not allowed to bombard or land atany point between the mouth of the Gulf of Akaba and the Hejaz southernborder. The Turkish fort up at Akaba had been knocked about a good dealby various ships of the patrol, and the whole place was uninhabited; butwe visited it frequently, as drifting mines were put in up there, having been taken off the rail at Maan and brought down to the head ofthe gulf, in section, by camel. I always suspected the existence of aTurkish observation-post, but no signs of occupation had been seen for along time till H. M. S. "Fox" went up one dark night without a lightshowing. All dead-lights were shipped, and dark blue electric bulbsreplaced the usual ones where a light of some sort was essential andvisible from out-board. The padre, who had opened the "vicarage"dead-light about an inch to get a breath of air, was promptly spotted byan indignant Number One who said that it made the ship look like afloating gin palace. This must have been a pardonable hyperbole, for thesignal-fires ashore which used to herald our approach from afar were notlit. 

We were off Akaba at peep of day, and two armed cutters raced each otherto the beach. I went with the one that made for the stone jetty in themiddle front of the town; we had to jump out into four feet of water, asthe port has deteriorated a good deal since Solomon used it and calledit Eziongeber. A careful search revealed no one in the town, but waterhad been drawn recently from the well inside the fort, and a mud hut outin the desert behind the town seemed a likely covert to draw. 

The cutter's officer accompanied me, leaving the crew ensconced in thecemetery, which was a wise move, for, when we were close to the hut, heavy fire was opened on us from a hidden trench some three hundredyards away. We both dropped and rolled into a shallow depression causedby rain-wash, where we lay as flat as we could while the flat-nosed softlead bullets kicked sand and shingle down the backs of our necks. As wehad only revolvers--expecting resistance, if any, to be made among thehouses--we could not reply, but the ship handed out a few rounds ofpercussion shrapnel which shook the Turks up enough for us to withdraw. Fortunately for us, they were using black powder, and outside fourhundred yards one has time to avoid the bullet by dropping instantly atthe smoke. Otherwise they should have bagged us in spite of the supportof our covering party in the cemetery, for the ground was quite open andso dusty that they could see the break of their heavy picket-bullets toa nicety. 

We landed in force an hour later and turned them out of it. Onreturning, the men who searched the hut (which the ship's guns hadknocked endways) brought me a budget of correspondence. It was chieflyaddressed to the officer in charge and told me that the detachment wasSyrian, which I had already suspected from their using the early patternMauser. It gave other useful information, and the men did well to bringit along; but I would have given much to have found some channel throughwhich I could return it. Most of it was private; there were severalcongratulatory cards crudely illuminated in colours by hand for thefeast of Muled-en-Nebi (the birthday of the Prophet), which correspondswith our Christmas. There was also a letter from the officer's wifeenclosing a half-sheet of paper on which a baby hand had imprinted asmeared outline in ink. It bore the inscription "From your sonAhmed--his hand and greeting. "

Early in the spring of 1916 we managed to persuade the political folk atCairo to extend our sphere of action. I had particularly marked downUm-Lejj as containing a well-manned Turkish fort which could be knockedabout without damaging other buildings in the town if we were careful. It was also a rallying-point for Turkish influence, and it was notconducive to our prestige or politically desirable that it shouldflourish unmolested. 

I was in the "Fox" again for that occasion, she being the senior ship ofthe patrol and the only one that could land an adequate force ifrequired. 

The evening before we anchored far out on the fishing-grounds of HasaniIsland, and I managed to pick up a fisherman who knew where the Turkishhidden position was, outside the town, and, having been held a prisoneronce in their Customs building, could point that out too. Next morningwe stood slowly in for Um-Lejj with the steam-cutter groping ahead forthe channel, which is about as tortuous a piece of navigation as you canget off this coast, and that is saying a good deal. 

When we cleared for action I went to my usual post on the bridge withthe S. N. O. And took my fisherman-friend with me. The civil populationwas streaming out of the town across the open plain in all directionslike ants from an over-turned ant-hill, probably realising that we meantbusiness this time. This was all to the good, as otherwise I should havehad to go close in with the steam-cutter, a white flag and a megaphoneto warn Arab civilians; thus giving the Turks time to clear, besides thechance of a sitting-shot at us if they thought my address to thetownsfolk a violation of the rules of war, which, technically, it mightbe. 

However, the fort was a fixture and our business was first of all withit. Standing close in, the ship turned southwards and moved slowlyabreast of the town. The port battery of four-point-sevens loaded withH. E. And the two six-inchers fore and aft swung out-board and followedsuit. The occasion called for fine shooting, as a minaret rose just tothe right of the fort, and the houses were so massed about it that therewas only one clear shot--up the street leading from the beach past themain gate. 

"At the southern gate of the fort, each gun to fire as it comes to bearup the street from the water-side. "

As I turned my glasses on the big portico of the southern gate, outstepped a Turkish officer who regarded us intently; the next instant thebridge shook to the crashing concussion of our forward six-inch, andthrough a drifting haze of gas-fume I saw him blotted out by the orangeflash of lyddite and an up-flung pall of dust and _débris_. 

There was a pause, cut short by the clap of the bursting shellreverberating like thunder against the foot-hills beyond the town. 

A little naked boy ran in an attitude of terrified dismay up thewater-street just as the first four-point-seven fired. I saw him throughmy glasses duck his head between his arms, then dive panic-strickenthrough a doorway as the fort was smitten again in dust and thunder. "Was the poor little beggar hit?"

"No, sir, only scared. "

While the target was still veiled in its dust the second four-point-sevenspoke, and the minaret disappeared from view behind a dun-colouredshroud. 

"Cease fire" sounded at once. "Who fired that gun? Take him off, " camein tones of stern rebuke from the bridge. Luckily the minaret showedintact as the dust drifted clear and firing continued. 

As the fort crumbled under our guns, Turkish soldiers began to breakcover at various points of the town and fled across the plain. Thecutter, in-shore, opened with Maxim-fire, and so accurately that wecould see the sombre-clad figures lying here and there or seekingfrantically for cover, while an Arab in their vicinity, leading aleisurely camel, continued his stroll inland unperturbed. We drove themain body out of their hidden position and into the hills withwell-timed shrapnel, and finished up by demolishing the Customs (where alot of ammunition blew up), to the temporary satisfaction of myfisherman, who was curled up in a corner of the bridge, nearly stunnedby the shock of modern ordnance in spite of the cotton-wool I had madehim put in his ears. Before we picked up our cutter the civil populationwas already streaming back. 

The incident is worth noting in view of remarks made by a popularfiction-monger in one of his latest works, that indiscriminate aerialraids on civil centres in England are on the same level of humanity asnaval bombardments. 

I visited the fishing-banks off Hasani Island a week or so after to getthe latest news of Um-Lejj, which came from Turkish sources. There wasone civilian casualty--a woman who was in the Turkish concealedposition. No casualties among Turkish officers, but one of them left incharge of the fort had disappeared. There were bits of the fort left, but the Commandant had moved his headquarters to the school-house withinthe precincts of the mosque--sagacious soul. The object-lesson which wegave the Arabs at Um-Lejj put a check to their irresponsible sniping ofboats and landing-parties, though one could always expect a littletrouble with an Arab dhow running contraband for the Turks. In thesecases their guilty consciences usually gave them away. Returning to thecoast toward Jeddah unexpectedly, having played the well-worn ruse of"the cat's away, " we sighted a small dhow close in-shore, and shouldhave left her alone as she was in shoal-water, but, on standing in toget a nearer view of her, she headed promptly for the beach and ranaground, disgorging more men than such a craft should carry. 

I went away in the duty cutter to investigate, and we had barelyrealised that she was heavily loaded with kerosene in tins (a heinouscontraband) when the fact was emphasised by a sputtering rifle-fire fromthe scrub along the beach. The ship very soon put a stop to thatdemonstration with a round or two of shrapnel, while we busied ourselveswith the dhow. There was no hope of salving her, as she had almostripped the keel off her when she took the ground and sat on the bottomlike a dilapidated basket. We broached enough tins to start aconflagration, lit a fuse made of a strip of old turban soaked inkerosene, and backed hard from her vicinity, for the kerosene waslow-flash common stuff as marked on the cases, and to play at snapdragonin half an acre of blazing oil is an uninviting pastime. However, shejust flared without exploding, and we continued our cruise up the coastjust in time to overhaul at racing speed a perfect regatta of dhowsheeling over to every stitch of canvas in their efforts to make Jeddahbefore we could get at them, for they had seen the smoke of that burningoil-dhow and realised that the cat was about. Good money is paid atCowes to see no more spirited sailing--we had to put a shot across thebows of the leading dhow before they would abandon the race. 

There was always trouble off Jeddah--the approaches to that reef-girtharbour lend themselves to blockade-running dhows with sound localknowledge on board. At night, especially, they had an advantage andwould play "Puss-in-the-Corner" until the cutter lost patience, and aflickering pin-point of light stabbed the velvet black of the middlewatch, asking permission to fire; one rifle-shot fired high would stopthe game, and I made them come alongside and take a wigging for annoyingthe cutter and turning me out; there was seldom anything wrong about thedhow--it was sheer cussedness. 

All through the early part of 1916 we were keeping in touch with theSharif of Mecca by means of envoys, whom we landed where they listed, away from the Turks, picking them up at times and places indicated bythem. Sharif Husein had long chafed under Turkish suzerainty, in spiteof his subsidy and the deference which policy compelled them to accordhim. He knew that the Hejaz could never realise its legitimateaspirations under Ottoman rule, which was a blight on all Arab progressand prosperity, as the Young Turkish party was hardly Moslem at heart, being more national (that is Tartar)--certainly not pro-Arab. 

Husein's difficulty was to get his own people to rise together and throwoff the Turkish yoke, for the Hejazi tribesman, especially between thecoast and Mecca, has long been more of a brigand than a warrior, as anypilgrim will tell you. Such folk are apt to jib at hammer-and-tongsfighting, and of course we could not land troops to assist them, as itwould have violated the sacred soil that cradled Islam and merelystiffened the bogus _jihad_ which the Turks had proclaimed against us, besides compromising the Sharif with his own tribesmen. 

The Hejazis' ingenuous idea was to go on taking money from us, the Turksand the Sharif, while--thanks to our lenient blockade--a regulardhow-traffic fed them. We did not approve of this Utopian policy, andthe fall of Kut brought matters to a climax. After certaincommunications had passed between the representatives of His Majesty'sGovernment and the Sharif, it was decided to tighten the blockade and soinduce the gentle Hejazi to declare himself. The day was fixed, May, 15, on and after which date no traffic whatever was to be permitted with theArabian coast other than that specially sanctioned by Government. Inpalaver thereon I managed to get local fishing-craft exempted. Thefisher-folk are not combatants either on empty stomachs or full ones, and could be relied on to consume their own fish in that climate unlessvery close to a market, where the pinch would be great enough to makethem exchange it for foodstuffs, thus helping the situation we wished tobring about. I knew that all _bona fide_ fishing-craft were easilyrecognisable by their rig and comparatively small size, and hoped thatgood will would combine with freedom of movement to make these folkuseful agents for Intelligence. 

I heard with some relief that the movements of the patrol would placeH. M. S. "Hardinge" (a roomy ship of the Indian Marine) on station dutyoff Jeddah, which was to be my post while the enhanced blockade was inforce--there are few more trying seasons than early summer in thosewaters. I joined her from Suez the day after the blockade was closed, and found her keeping guard over a perfect fleet of dhows. There wereabout three dozen craft with over three hundred people on board, formany native passengers were trying to make Jeddah before we shut down. The feckless mariners in charge had made the usual oriental calculationthat a day more or less did not matter, but found to their horror thatthe Navy was more precise on these points--and there they were. 

The first thing to ensure was that the crew, and especially thepassengers, among whom were a good many women and children, did notsuffer from privation. This had already been ably seen to by the ship'sofficers--I merely went round the fleet to sift any genuine complaintsfrom the discontent natural to the situation in which their ownslackness had placed them. I insisted on hearing only one complaint at atime, otherwise it would have been pandemonium afloat, for they wereanchored close enough together to converse with each other; vociferousexcuses for their unpunctuality were brushed aside, legitimate requestsfor more water or food or condensed milk for the children or moreadequate shelter for the women from the sun were attended to at once, and our floating village quieted down. 

The craft were all much the same type of small dhow or _sanbuk_ whichfrequents the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, having little in common withthe big-bellied buggalows which ply with rice and dates between thePersian Gulf and Indian ports but do not come into the Red Sea. Thesewere much smaller and saucier-looking craft, some fifty to eighty feetlong, with a turn of speed and raking masts. All were lugger-riggedwith lateen sails, and only the poop and bows were decked, the bulwarksbeing heightened with strips of matting to prevent seas from breakingin-board. Sanitary arrangements were provided for by a box-likecubby-hole over-hanging the boat's side; inexperienced officers oftentake it for a vantage-point to heave the lead from, and only find outtoo late after attempting to board there, that things are not alwayswhat they seem. 

These little vessels are practically the corsair type of Saracenicsailing-galley which used to infest the Barbary coast in days gone by. They do everything different from our occidental methods. For example, they reef and furl their tall lateens from the peak, and have to send aman up the long tapering gaff to do it. Their masts rake forward and notaft, which enables them to swing gaff, sail, and sheet round in front ofthe mast when they come about, instead of keeping the sheet aft anddipping the butt of the gaff with the sail to the other side of themast, which would be an impossibility for that rig, as the butt of theirenormous mainyard or gaff is bowsed permanently down in the bows, whilethe soaring peak may be nearly a hundred feet above the water. Cookingwas done over charcoal in a kerosene tin half full of sand, and the"first-class" passengers lived under an improvised awning on the poop, the women's quarters being under that gim-crack structure. All the same, they are good sea-boats and remarkably fast, especially _on_ a wind, quite unlike the big-decked buggalows which are built for cargo capacityand have real cabins aft but sail like a haystack on a barge. 

It was inhuman (as well as an infernal nuisance) to keep all thosepeople sweltering indefinitely at sea; on the other hand, our orders asto the strict maintenance of the blockade were explicit. The "owner" andI conferred and decided that the situation could be met by transferringtheir cargo to the ship and letting the dhows beach. This was referredand approved by wireless. The job took us some days, as the weather wasrather unfavourable and all the cargoes had to be checked by manifestwith a view to restitution later. Each dhow as she was cleared had tomake for the shore and dismast or beach so that she could not steal outat night and add to the difficulties of the blockade. None attempted toevade this order, most carried out both alternatives; perhaps a casualreminder that they would be within observation and gun-fire of the shiphad some influence on their action. 

Hitherto the Turco-Teutonic brand of Holy War had been fairlysuccessful. The Allied thrust at the Dardanelles and Gallipoli hadfailed, the Aden Protectorate was in Turkish hands, we had spent a mostunpleasant Easter in Sinai, and Kut had fallen. Still, the Turks weresoon to realise that a wrongly-invoked _jihad_, like a mishandledmusket, can recoil heavily, and, before the end of May, signs were notwanting that trouble was brewing for them in the Hejaz. 

We were in close touch with the shore through fishing-canoes by day andsecret emissaries by night, who brought us news that some German"officers" had been done to death by Hejazi tribesmen some eight hours'journey north of Jeddah. They had evidently been first over-powered andbound, then stabbed in the stomach with the huge two-handed dagger whichthe Hejazis use, and finally decapitated, as a Turkish rescue partywhich hurried to the spot found their headless and practicallydisembowelled corpses with their hands tied behind them. Their effectscame through our hands in due course, and we ascertained that the partyconsisted of Lieut. -Commander von Moeller (late of a German gunboatinterned at Tsing-Tao) and five reservists whom he had picked up inJava. They had landed on the South Arabian coast in March, had visitedSanaa, the capital of Yamen, and had come up the Arabian coast of theRed Sea by dhow, keeping well inside the Farsan bank, which is threehundred miles long and a serious obstacle to patrol work. They had landedat Konfida, north of the bank, and reached Jeddah by camel on May 5. Against the advice of the Turks they continued their journey by land, as they had no chance of eluding our northern patrol at sea. They weremore than a year too late to emulate the gallant (and lucky) "Odyssey"of the Emden's landing-party from Cocos Islands up the Red Sea coast inthe days when our blockade was more lenient and did not interfere withcoasting craft. They hoped to reach Maan and so get on the rail forStamboul and back to Germany, as the Sharif would not sanction theircoming to the sacred city of Medina, which is the rail-head for theDamascus-Hejaz railway. After so staunch a journey they deserved abetter fate. Among their kit was a tattered and blood-stained copy of mybook on the Aden hinterland. [A]

Meanwhile affairs ashore were simmering to boiling-point, and on thenight of June 9 we commenced a bombardment of carefully located Turkishpositions, firing by "director" to co-operate with an Arab attack whichwas due then but did not materialise till early next morning, and wasthen but feebly delivered. We found out later that the rifles andammunition we had delivered on the beach some distance south of Jeddahto the Sharif's agents in support of this attack had been partlydiverted to Mecca and partly hung up by a squabble with their owncamel-men for more cash. 

We continued the bombardment on the night of the 11th and were in actionmost of the day on the 12th, shelling the Turkish positions north ofJeddah, which we had located by glass and the co-operation of friendlyfishing-craft who gave us the direction by signal. During the morningthe Hejazis made an abortive and aimless attack along the beach north ofJeddah, and so masked our own supporting fire, while the Turks gave themmore than they wanted. 

By this time the senior ship and others had joined us, and the S. N. O. Approved of my landing with a party of Indian signallers to maintaincloser touch with their operations, provided that Arab headquarterswould guarantee our safety as regards their own people. This they wereunable to do. 

The bombardment grew more and more strenuous and searching as otherships joined in and our knowledge of the Turkish positions became moreaccurate. On the 15th it culminated with the arrival of a seaplanecarrier and heavy bombing of the Ottoman trenches which ourflat-trajectory naval guns could hardly reach. The white flag went upbefore sunset, and next day there were _pourparlers_ which led to anunconditional surrender on June 17, 1916. 

Mecca had fallen just before, and Taif surrendered soon after, leavingMedina as the only important town still held by the Turks in the Hejaz. 

We began pouring food and munitions into Jeddah as soon as it changedhands; for the rest of this cruise my ship was a sort ofparcels-delivery van, and when the parcel happens to be an Egyptianmountain battery its delivery is an undertaking. 

My personal contact with the Turks and their ill-omened _jihad_ endedsoon after, as I was invalided from service afloat, but I kept in touchas an Intelligence-wallah on the beach and followed the rest of it withinterest. 

They got Holy War with a vengeance. The Sharif's sons (more especiallythe Emirs Feisal and Abdullah, who had been trained at the StamboulMilitary Academy), ably assisted by zealous and skilled British officersas mine-planters and aerial bombers, harried outlying posts and theHejaz railway line north of Medina incessantly. 

The Turkish positions at Wejh fell to the Red Sea flotilla, reinforcedby the flagship. I should like to have been there, if only to have seenthe Admiral sail in to the proceedings with a revolver in his fist andthe _élan_ of a sub-lieutenant. The Hejazis failed to synchronise, asusual, so the Navy dispensed with their support. 

On February 24, 1917, Kut was wrested from the Turks again; on March 11they lost Baghdad; on November 7 their Beersheba-Gaza front wasshattered, and Jerusalem fell on December 9. 

Early next year Jericho was captured (February 21), a British columnfrom Baghdad reached the Caspian in August, and after a final, victorious British offensive in Palestine the unholy alliance of Turkishpan-Islamism and German _Kultur_ got its death-blow when Emir Feisalgalloped into Damascus. 

The Turks had drawn the blade of _jihad_ from its pan-Islamic scabbardin vain; its German trade-mark was plainly stamped on it. There had beenwidespread organisation against us, and the serpent's eggs of seditionand revolt had been hatched in centres scattered all over the easternhemisphere, but their venomous progeny had been crushed before theybecame formidable. 

As a world-force this band of pan-Islamism had failed because it hadbeen invoked by the wrong people for a wrong purpose. Such a movementshould at least have as its driving power some great spiritual crisis:this Turco-German manifestation of it had its origin in self-interest, and if successful would have immolated Arabia on the demoniac altar of_Weltpolitik_. Seyid Muhammed er-Rashid Ridha, a descendant of theProphet and one of the greatest Arab theologians living, has voiced theverdict of Islam on this unscrupulous and self-seeking adventure in atrenchant article published in September, 1916. He showed up Enver andhis Unionist party as an atheist among atheists who had deprived theSultan of his rightful power and Islam of its religious head, andcontrasted their conduct with that of the British, who exempted theHejaz from the blockade enforced against the rest of the Ottoman Empireuntil it became quite clear that the Turks were benefiting chiefly bythat exemption, and who, out of respect for the holy places of Islam, refrained from making that country a theatre of war. 

True to the Teutonic tradition, the movement had been laboriouslyorganised, but lacked psychic insight, for the Turk is too much of aTartar and too little of a Moslem to appreciate the Arab mind, and theGerman ignored it, rooting with eager, guttural grunts among thecarefully cultivated religious prejudices of Islam like a hog huntingtruffles until whacked out of it by the irate cultivators. 

The following incident may serve to illustrate their crude tactics. Soonafter the Turks came into the war the mullah of the principal mosque atDamascus was told to announce _jihad_ against the British from hispulpit on the following Friday in accordance with an order from theGrand Mufti at Stamboul. The poor man appears to have jibbedconsiderably and sent his family over the Nejd border to be out of reachof Turkish persecution. Finally he decided to conform, but when heclimbed the steps of his "minbar" and scanned his congregation he saw agroup of German officers wearing tarboushes with a look of almostporcine complacency. His fear fell from him in a gust of rage and hespoke somewhat as follows: "I am ordered to proclaim _jihad_. A _jihad_, as you know, is a Holy War to protect our Holy Places against infidels. This being so, what are these infidel _pigs_ doing in our mosque?"

There was a most unseemly scuffle; the Turco-German contingent tried toseize the mullah; the Arab congregation defended him strenuously fromarrest. In the confusion that worthy man got clear away and joined hisfamily in Nejd. _Jihad_ is incumbent on all Moslems if against infidelaggression. We stood on the defensive when the Turks first attacked uson the Canal, and when we finally overran Palestine and Syria it was inco-operation with the Arabs, who have more right there than the Turks. 

Those who forged the blade of this counterfeit _jihad_ could not temperit in the flame of religious fervour, and it shattered against theshield of religious tolerance and good faith: we make mistakes, but canhonestly claim those two virtues. 

 FOOTNOTES:

 [Footnote A: "The Land of Uz, " Macmillan. ]

CHAPTER III

ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS

To gauge the strength or weakness of pan-Islam as a world-force we maybest compare it with its great militant rival, the Christian Church, choosing common ground as the only sound basis of comparison, andremembering that it is pan-Islam we are examining rather than Islamitself--the tree, not the root; and though we cannot study the onewithout considering the other, Islam has already been extensivelydiscussed by men better qualified than myself to deal with it: therequirements of this work only call for comparison so far as thedriving-power of pan-Islam is concerned as a material force. 

First of all we must discard common factors. I set the great Shiahschism against the Catholic Church (omitting the word "Roman" as acontradiction in terms) and cancel both for the purposes of comparison. Catholicism, is not, of course, schismatic, otherwise there are pointsof resemblance, such as observances of saints and shrines, which havepermeated the other sects to a certain extent; also the degree ofantagonism is about the same. Therefore we can ignore the CatholicChurch in this chapter, and when we are talking of pan-Islam we shouldconsider it a Sunnite (or Orthodox) movement, and count the Shiites out, as they do not even recognise the same centre of pilgrimage. 

Perhaps the strongest factor in pan-Islam as a political movement or aworld-wide fellowship is the Meccan pilgrimage. I have already alludedto its cosmopolitan nature in the previous chapter, but never realisedit so much till after the surrender of Jeddah, when stately Bokhariots, jabbering Javanese, Malays, Chinese, Russians, American citizens andSouth Africans were among those who beset me as stranded pilgrims. Thisimplies a very wide sphere of influence, against which we can only setthe well-known immorality and greed which pilgrims complain of at Mecca;a huge influx of cosmopolitan visitors to _any_ centre will generallycause such abuses. On the feast of Arafat there are normally 100, 000pilgrims in the Meccan area who represent 100 million orthodox Moslemsthroughout the world, while the actual population of the city is only50, 000. 

The Arabic language is another strong bond of brotherhood in Islam. I donot mean to say that it is generally "understanded of the people, " anymore than Latin is throughout the Catholic world; but it is the languageof most Sunnites and is moderately understood in Somaliland, EastAfrica, Java and the Malay peninsula as the language of the Koran; infact, it is the only written language in Somaliland, and Turkey uses thescript though not the tongue. 

The daily observances of prayer, with their simple but obligatoryceremonial, and the yearly fast for the month of Ramadhan unite Moslemswith the common ties of duty and hardship, as in the comradeship whichsailors and soldiers have for each other throughout the world. 

Then, again, there is no colour-line in Islam; a negro may rise to placeand power (he often does), and usually enjoys the intimate confidence ofhis master as not readily amenable to local intrigue. Difference ofnationality is not stressed except by the Young Turks, who have slightedSemitic Moslems to their own undoing. Contrast this attitude with ourChurch and estimate the precise amount of Christian brotherhood betweenan Orthodox Greek, a Welsh Wesleyan, an Ethiopian priest, a ScotchPresbyterian, and an Anglican bishop (since the Kikuyu heresy). Evenwithin the narrow limits of one sect there is nothing like thefellowship one finds in secular societies. Which is the stronger appeal, "Anglican communicant" or "Freemason"? Is a cross or the quadrant andcompasses the more potent charm?

Arabs credit us Christians with a much stronger bond of sympathy betweenco-religionists than is actually the case. It is true that those whocome into any sort of contact with us realise that there is a distinctdifference in form of worship and sentiment between Catholics (whom theycall _Christyân_) and Protestants (or _Nasâra_), but I shall not readilyforget the extraordinary conduct of a Hejazi who boarded us off Jeddahwith some of the effects belonging to the murdered Germans mentioned inthe previous chapter. He must have had the firm conviction that weChristians would avenge the killing of other Christians by Moslems, forhe merely told me that he had in his possession certain property of the_Allemani_, and I told him that he would be suitably rewarded onproducing it; I found out later that he had boasted to our ship'sinterpreter (a Mussulman) that he was one of the slayers, and itoccurred to me that if that were the case he might be able to give mefurther information, or perhaps produce papers of theirs which mightappear valueless to him but would be of interest to us. I interviewedhim on deck and suggested this, reminding him of what he had told theinterpreter, but laying no stress on the deed he had confessed, for itwas outside our jurisdiction and no concern of mine. 

"Papers?" he said. "By all means, I will go and fetch them, " andbreaking from my light hold of his sleeve he flickered over the rail anddropped into the sea some thirty feet below. Two armed marines steppedto the rail with a clatter of breech-bolts and looked inquiringly at me. Meanwhile my bold murderer was calling on his God, for he wore a fullbandoleer, which was weighing him down. Out darted a fishing-canoe fromunder our quarter and made for him, but its occupants took the hint Iconveyed through a megaphone and confined their efforts to saving himfor the duty-cutter to pick up. 

He was brought before me dripping wet, with the fear of death in hiseyes. I thought this was due to the foolish risk he had taken, and spokein gentle reproof of his conduct, pointing out that if any boat had beenalongside where he leaped he would have met with a bad accident. To mysurprise he fell at my feet and scrabbled at my clean white shoes, imploring me to spare his life. I put him down as somewhat mad, andasked "Number One" to put a sentry over him to see that he did notrepeat his attempt to avoid our acquaintance. He clung to me like alimpet and had to be removed by force, with despairing entreaties formercy, disregarding my still puzzled assurances as to his personalsafety. I learned afterwards his true reason for alarm; he thought thatafter leaving my presence he would be quietly made away with intraditional Eastern style. 

Another very strong feature of pan-Islam is the consistency of the creedfrom which it grows. I do not necessarily imply that Islam itself isbenefited thereby, for consistency sometimes means narrowness, and weare not considering creeds; but there is no doubt about the dynamicforce of a movement based on a religion which is sure of itself. AMoslem has one authorised version of the Koran, and only one; his simplecreed is contained in its first chapter and is as short as the Lord'sPrayer, which it somewhat resembles in style. Praising God as the Lordof the worlds (not only of this world of ours), it attributes to Himmercy and clemency with supreme power over the Day of Judgment and is anavowal of worship and service. Its only petition is to be led in the wayof the righteous, avoiding errors that incur His wrath. Contrast thiswith the many confusing aspects of Christianity. Perhaps diverseopinions tend to purify and invigorate a creed, but they certainly donot strengthen the cohesion of any secular movement based on it. 

Then, again, the Moslem conception of God and the hereafter stiffens thebackbone of pan-Islam in adversity. They are taught to believe that He is_really_ omnipotent and that His actions are beyond criticism--welfareand affliction being alike acceptable as His will. We, on the other hand, seem to be developing the theory of a finite God warring against, andoccasionally overcome by, evil, which includes (in this new thesis) humansuffering and sorrow as well as sin. There is a growing idea, pioneeredpartly by Mr. H. G. Wells and apparently supported by many of the clergy, that the acts of God must square with human ideals of mercy or justice, and as many occurrences do not, the inference is that evil gets the bestof it sometimes. Now the Moslem slogan is "Allah Akbar" (God is Greatest), and that seems to me a better battle-cry than, for example, "Gott mituns, " as God will still be great and invincible to Moslems in theirvictory or defeat; but the finite idea presumes, in disaster, that youand your God have been defeated together. It is not my business tocriticise either conception from a religious point of view, but inmundane affairs it is the former that will make for fighting force, especially as we still insist that our God is a jealous God, visiting thesins of the fathers, etc. : surely this is not a human ideal of justice;the obvious deduction is that our modern Deity is stronger to punish thanprotect--hardly an encouraging attribute. 

Whether a religion is the better for an organised priesthood or not isirrelevant to our subject, but the absence of it in Islam certainlystrengthens the pan-Islamic movement, as each Moslem may considerhimself a standard-bearer of his faith, while we are apt to leave toomuch to our priests, thus engendering slackness on our part andmeticulous dogma on theirs; both undermine Christian brotherhood. Thefact that priestly stipends seem to the ordinary layman as in inverseratio to the duties performed also widens the breach between clergy andlaity, besides sapping clerical _moral_. This is not the particularfeature of any one sect--the reader can supply cases within his ownexperience, but here is one that is probably outside it and showing howwidespread the system is. The rank and file of the Greek Orthodox clergyare notoriously ill-paid. Yet their monastery at Jerusalem costs£E. 15, 000 per annum to maintain and pays £E. 40, 000 annually in clericalsalaries to archbishops and clergy who control the spiritual affairs ofless than fifteen thousand people. It derives £E. 30, 000 from itsproperty in Russia, £E. 25, 000 from the property of the Holy Sepulchre, and as much again from visitors and other sources; and this in a regionwhere the Founder of our faith was content to wander with less certaintyof shelter than the wild creatures of the countryside. 

Incidentally, the monastery seems to have been unable to curtail itsexpenditure during the War, for it has accumulated debts to the amountof £E. 600, 000, most of its sources of income having ceased for the time. I quote from current newspapers. Blame does not necessarily attach tothe monastery or its administrators, who may have done their best tofulfill their obligations under adverse circumstances; I would merelydraw attention to the incongruity of the whole system as regards auniversal brotherhood based on Christian teaching. There are no suchexotic growths to impede the march of pan-Islam. 

So much for the strength of the pan-Islamic movement. Now let usconsider its weak points. 

To begin with, the gross abuse of pan-Islam by interested parties fornon-spiritual ends during the War has done the genuine movement harm. That lying, political appeal to _jihad_ has made thinking Moslemsmistrust the infallibility of organised pan-Islam, of which theculminating expression is Holy War, one of the most sacred Mussulmanduties if justly invoked. We Christians do not make such mistakes. WhenItaly was fighting the Turks in Tripoli the Pope himself warnedChristian soldiers against regarding the campaign as a Crusade, and whenwe took Jerusalem we took it side by side with our Mussulman allies andforthwith placed an orthodox Moslem guard on Omar's mosque. In thisconnection it may be of interest to note that the officer commanding amixed Christian guard at the Holy Sepulchre was a Jew. 

Another source of weakness, so far as a united Moslem world isconcerned, may be found in the antagonistic points of view betweencivilised and uncivilised Moslems (I use the attribute in its modernsense). Uncivilised Moslems view with suspicion and, in fact, derisionthe dress and customs of their civilised co-religionists, insisting thatEuropean coats and trousers display the figure indecently and that theirFrankish luxuries and amusements are snares of Eblis. The enlightenedMoslem, on the other hand, regards the tribesman as a _jungliwala_, orwild man of the woods, derides his illiteracy, and is revolted by theharsh severity of the old Islamic penal code as practised still insemi-barbaric Moslem States. Now we Christians are fairly lenient asregards each other's customs, and still more so with regard to dress(judging by the garb we tolerate), while we have quite outgrown our oldplayful habits of boiling, burning, or torturing our fellow-men excepton the battle-fields of civilised warfare. 

Civilisation (as we understand it) is a two-edged weapon and toolsmiting or serving pan-Islam and Christendom, but on the whole it servesthe latter rather than the former, as the superior resources ofChristendom can take fuller advantage of it as a tool or a weapon, though both turn to scourges when used against each other in battle. Also its handmaid, Education, though in itself a foe to no religion, _does_ tend to tone down dogma and engender tolerance, thus minimisingthe dynamic force of bigotry in pan-Islam, though consolidating the realstability of religion on its own base. Moreover, some gifts ofcivilisation can do a lot of harm if wrongly used; I refer moreespecially to drink, drugs, and dress. Just as hereditary exposure tothe infection of certain diseases is said to confer, by survival of thefittest, a certain immunity therefrom--for example, consumption among usEuropeans and typhoid among Asiatics--so moral ills seem to affecthumanity to a greater or less extent in inverse proportion to thetemptation in that particular respect which the individual and hisforebears have successfully resisted. The average European and hisancestors have been accustomed to drink fermented liquor for manycenturies, and in moderation as judged by the standard of his time, buthe has always been taught to avoid opium and has not known the drug forlong. The oriental Moslem, on the other hand, has used opium as a remedyand prophylactic against malaria for generations, but is strictlyordered by his creed to consider the consumption, production, gift orsale of alcohol a deadly sin. In consequence, the European can usuallytake alcohol in moderation, but almost invariably slips into a pit ofhis own digging when he tries to do the same with opium, while theoriental Moslem can use opium in moderation (provided that he confineshimself to swallowing it and does not smoke it), but when he drinks, usually drinks to excess because he has not learned to do otherwise. Itis a melancholy fact that hitherto in countries opened up by our Westerncivilisation drink has got in long before education, unlessextraordinary precautions have been taken to prevent it; that is onereason why Moslem States are so wary of civilised encroachment. As fordrugs other than opium (and far more dangerous), civilised Moslems, especially in Egypt, are alarmed at the spread of hashish-smoking amongtheir co-religionists, while the cultured classes, including women-folk, are taking to cocaine: the material for both vices is supplied fromEuropean sources, mostly Greek. Dress, compared with the other twodemons, is merely a fantastic though mischievous sprite and can be quiteattractive, but it breaks up many a Moslem home when carried to excessin the harem, as it frequently is in civilised circles, while theyounger men vie with each other in the more flagrant extravagances ofoccidental garb: prayers and ablutions do not harmonise withwell-creased trousers and stylish boots any more than a veil does with adivided skirt. The native Press is always attacking the above abuses, but they are firmly rooted. All three undermine the pan-Islamicstructure by causing cleavage in public opinion. European dress hasalready been mentioned as widening the gap between civilised anduncivilised Moslems, but it also tends to disintegrate cultured Moslemcommunities, for the older men are apt to regard it with suspicion ordownright condemnation. I once asked an eminent and learned Moslemwhether he thought modern European dress impeded regular observance ofprayers and ablutions. He replied, "Perhaps so, but those Moslems whowear such clothes indicate by so doing that the observances of Islamhave little hold upon them. "

All these defects, however, are mere cracks in the inner walls of thepan-Islamic structure and can be repaired from within, but the TurkishGovernment, which represented the Caliphate, and should have consideredthe integrity of Islam as a sacred trust, has managed to split the outerwall and divide the house against itself, just as the unity ofChristendom (such as it was) has been rent asunder by one of its mostprominent exponents. Pan-Islam has received the more serious damagebecause the wreckers still hold the Caliphate and the prestige attachedthereto; it is for Moslems (and Moslems only) to decide what action totake; but in any case, the breach is a serious one and has been muchwidened by the action of Turkish troops at the Holy Places. Theyactually shelled the Caaba at Mecca (luckily without doing materialdamage), and their action in storing high explosives close to theProphet's tomb at Medina may have saved them bombardment, but hascertainly not improved their reputation as Moslems. Even before the WarI often heard Yamen Arabs talking of "Turks and Moslems"--a distinctlydamning discrimination--and the situation has not been improved byOttoman slackness in religious observances and their inconsistentnational movement. 

At the same time, their rule in Arabia will be awkward to replace atfirst. I described the Turks in the final chapter of a book[B] publishedearly in the War as pre-eminently fitted to govern Moslems bybirthright, creed, and temperament, summing them up as individuallygifted but collectively hopeless as administrators because they lacked astable and consistent central Government. They have proved theindictment up to the hilt, but that does not dower any of us Christianswith their inherent qualifications as rulers in Islam. If any of us arecalled upon to face fresh responsibilities in this direction, it wouldtake us all our time to make up for these qualities by tact, soundadministration, and strict observance of local religious prejudice. Eventhen there is a Mussulman proverb to this effect: "A Moslem ruler thoughhe oppress me and not a _kafir_ though he work me weal"--it explainsmuch apparent ingratitude for benefits conferred. 

The lesson we have to learn from pan-Islamic activities of the lastdecade or two is that countries which are mainly Moslem should haveMoslem rulers, and that Christian rule, however enlightened andbenevolent, is only permissible where Islam is outnumbered by othercreeds. At the same time, in countries where Christian methods ofcivilisation and European capital have been invited we have a right tocontrol and advise the Moslem ruler sufficiently to ensure the fairtreatment of our nationals and their interests. But with purely Moslemcountries which have expressed no readiness to assimilate the methods ofmodern civilisation or to invite outside capital we have no right tointerfere beyond the following limit: if the local authorities allowforeign traders to operate at their ports their interests should besafeguarded, if important enough, by consular representation on thespot, or, if not, by occasional visits of a man-of-war to keep nationalsin touch with their own Government, presuming that the place is toosmall to justify any mail-carrying vessel calling there except at verylong intervals. 

There should always be a definite understanding as to foreignersproceeding or residing up-country for any purpose. If the local rulerdiscourages but permits such procedure, all we should expect him to doin case of untoward incidents is to take reasonable action toinvestigate and punish, but if he has guaranteed the security of foreignnationals concerned, he must redeem his pledge in an adequate manner ortake the consequences. There should seldom be occasion for an inlandpunitive expedition; in these days, when many articles of seaborne tradehave become, from mere luxuries, almost indispensable adjuncts of nativelife in the remotest regions, a maritime blockade strictly enforcedshould soon exact the necessary satisfaction. 

Such rulers should bear in mind that if they accept an enterprise offoreign capital they must protect its legitimate operations, just as aschool which has accepted a Government grant has to conform tostipulated conditions. 

Where no such penetration has occurred, all we should concern ourselveswith is that internal trouble in such regions shall not slop over intoterritory protected or occupied by us, and this is where our mostserious difficulties will occur in erstwhile Turkish Arabia. 

The Turk, with all his faults, could grapple with a difficult situationin native affairs by drastic methods which might be indefensible inthemselves, but were calculated to obtain definite results. At any rate, we had a responsible central Government to deal with and one that wecould get at. Now we shall have to handle such situations ourselves orrely on the local authorities doing so. The former method is costly anddangerous, yielding the minimum of result to the maximum of effort andexpense, while involving possibilities of trouble which might compromiseour democratic yearnings considerably: the latter alternativepresupposes that we have succeeded in evolving out of the presentimbroglio responsible rulers who are well-disposed to us and prepared totake adequate action on our representations. 

In Syria and Mesopotamia, where communications are good and Europeanpenetration an established fact, there should not be much difficulty, but in Arabia proper the problem is a very prickly one. 

Beginning with Arabia Felix, which includes Yamen, the Adenprotectorate, and the vague, sprawling province of Hadhramaut, we may bepermitted to hope that nothing worse can happen in the Aden protectoratethan has happened already; the remoter Hadhramaut has always lookedafter its own affairs and can continue to do so; but Yamen bristles withpolitical problems which will have to be solved, and solved correctly, if she is going to be a safe neighbour or a reliable customer to havebusiness dealings with. Hitherto none of her local rulers have inspiredany confidence in their capacity for initiative or independent action. During the War the Idrisi, who had long been in revolt against the Turksin northern Yamen, kept making half-hearted and abortive dabs atLoheia--like a nervous child playing snapdragon--but his only success(and temporary at that) was when he occupied the town after the Red SeaPatrol had shelled the Turks out of it. As for the Imam, he has beensitting on a very thorny fence ever since the Turks came into the War. We have been in touch with him for a long time, but all he has done upto date is to wobble on a precarious tripod supported by the opposingstrains of Turks, tribesmen, and British. Now one leg of the tripod hasbeen knocked away he has yet to show if he can maintain stability on hisown base, and, if so, over what area. The undeniable fighting qualitiesof the Yamen Arab, which might be a useful factor in a stablegovernment, will merely prove a nuisance and a menace under a weak_régime_, and tribal trouble will always be slopping over into our Adensphere of influence. Then the question will arise, What are we going todo about it? We cannot bring the Yamenis to book by blockading theircoast and cutting off caravan traffic with Aden, because, in view of ourtrade relations with the country by sea and land, we should only becutting our nose off to spite our face. Moreover, the punishment wouldfall chiefly on the respectable community, traders, the culturedclasses, etc. , to whom seaborne trade is essential, while it wouldhardly affect the wild tribesmen, except as regards ammunition, and toprevent them getting what they wanted through the Hejaz is outside thesphere of practical politics. 

In the Hejaz itself we can at least claim that authority is suitablyrepresented and accessible to us. Before the War we kept a Britishconsul at Jeddah with an Indian Moslem vice-consul who went up to Meccain the pilgrim season. A responsible consular agent (Moslem of course)to reside at Medina, also another to understudy the Jeddah vice-consulwhen he went to Mecca and to look after the Yenbo pilgrim traffic, wouldsafeguard the interests of our nationals, who enormously outnumber thepilgrims of any other nation. Further interference with the Hejaz, unless invited, would be unjustifiable. 

Trouble for us does not lie in the Hejaz itself, but in its possibleexpansion beyond its powers of absorption, or, in homely metaphor, if itbites off more than it can chew. There is a certain tendency just now tooverrate Hejazi prowess in war and policy; in fact, King Husein is oftenalluded to vaguely as the "King of Arabia, " and there is a sporadic cropof ill-informed articles on this and other Arabian affairs in theEnglish Press. One of the features of the War as regards this part ofthe world is the extraordinary and fungus-like growth of "Arabianexperts" it has produced, most of whom have never set foot in Arabiaitself, while the few now living who have acquired real first-handknowledge of any part of the Arabian peninsula before the War may becounted on the fingers of one hand. Yet the number of people who rushinto print with their opinions on the most complex Arabian affairs wouldastonish even the Arabs if they permitted themselves to show surprise atanything. These opinions differ widely, but have one attribute incommon--their emphatic "cock-sureness. " Each one presents the one andonly solution of the whole Arabian problem according to the facet whichthe writer has seen, and there are many facets. They are amusing andeven instructive occasionally, but there is a serious side tothem--their crass empiricism. Each writer presents (quite honestly, perhaps) his point of view of one or two facets in the rough-cut, many-sided and clouded crystal of Arabian politics without consideringits possible bearing on other parts of the peninsula or even otherfactors in the district he knows or has read about. The net result is anappallingly crude patchwork, no one piece harmonising with another, and, in view of the habit Government has formed in these cases ofaccepting empirical opinions if they are shouted loud enough or at closerange, there is more than a possibility that our Arabian policy mayresemble such a crazy quilt. If it does, we shall have to harvest athistle-crop of tribal and intertribal trouble throughout the Arabianpeninsula, and the seed-down of unrest will blow all over Syria andMesopotamia just at the most awkward time when reconstruction and soundadministration are struggling to establish themselves. Weeds growquicker and stronger than useful plants in any garden. 

Empirical statements sound well and look well in print, but they are nouse whatever as sailing directions in the uncharted waters of Arabianpolitics. Putting them aside, the following facts are worth bearing inmind when the future of Arabia is discussed. 

The Hejazi troops were ably led by the Sharifian Emirs and Syrianofficers of note, and had the co-operation of the Red Sea flotilla onthe coast and British officers of various corps inland to cut offMedina, the last place of importance held by the Turks after the summerof 1916. Yet the town held out until long after the armistice, and itssurrender had eventually to be brought about by putting pressure on theTurkish Government at Stamboul. On the other hand, the two greatprovinces which impinge upon the Hejaz, namely, Nejd and Yamen, havegiven ample proof that they can hammer the Turks without outsideassistance. The Nejdis not only cleared their own country of Ottomanrule, but drove the Turks out of Hasa a year or two before the War, while the Yamenis have more than once hurled the Turks back on to thecoast, and the rebels of northern Yamen successfully withstood a Hejaziand Turkish column from the north and another Turkish column from thesouth. The inference is that if the limits of Hejazi rule are to be muchextended there had better be a clear understanding with their neighboursand also some definite idea of the extent to which we are likely to beinvolved in support of our _protégé_. 

I know that many otherwise intelligent people have been hypnotised bythe prophecy in "The White Prophet":

 "The time is near when the long drama that has been played between Arabs and Turks will end in the establishment of a vast Arabic empire, extending from the Tigris and the Euphrates valley to the Mediterranean and from the Indian Ocean to Jerusalem, with Cairo as its Capital, the Khedive as its Caliph, and England as its lord and protector. "

While refraining from obvious and belated criticism of a prophecy whichthe march of events has trodden out of shape, and which could never havebeen intended as a serious contribution to our knowledge of Arabs andtheir politics, we must admit that the basic idea of centralisingArabian authority has taken strong hold of avowed statecraft in England. It would, of course, simplify our relations with Arabia and thecollateral regions of Mesopotamia and Syria if such authority couldestablish itself and be accepted by the other Arabian provinces to theextent of enforcing its enactments as regards their foreign affairs, _i. E. _, relations with subjects (national or protected) of EuropeanStates. 

If such authority could be maintained without assistance from us otherthan a subsidy and the occasional supply, to responsible parties, ofarms and ammunition, it would satisfy all reasonable requirements, butif we had to intervene with direct force we should find ourselvesdefending an unpopular _protégé_ against the united resentment ofArabia. 

I believe there is no one ruler or ruling clique in Arabia that couldwield such authority, and my reason for saying so is that the experimenthas been tried repeatedly on a small scale during the twenty years or sothat I have been connected with the country and has failed every time. Toward the close of last century a sultan of Lahej who had alwaysclaimed suzerainty over his turbulent neighbours, the Subaihi, had toenter that vagabond tribeship to enforce one of his decrees, and gotheld up with his "army" until extricated by Aden diplomacy at the priceof his suzerain sway. His successor still claimed a hold over anadjacent clan of the Subaihi known as the Rigai, but when one of ourmost promising political officers was murdered there, and the murderersheltered by the clan, he was unable to obtain redress or even assist usadequately in attempting to do so. Early in this century Aden wasinvolved in a little expedition against Turks and Arabs because one ofher protected sultans (equipped with explosive and ammunition) could notdeal with a small Arab fort himself. This is the same sultanate whichlet the Turks through against us in the summer of 1915 and whose rulerwas prominent in the sacking of Lahej. I have already alluded, inChapter II, to the inadequacy of the Lahej sultan on that occasion, yetAden had bolstered up his authority in every possible way and had reliedon him and his predecessor for years to act as semi-official suzerainand go-between for other tribes--a withered stick which snapped thefirst time it was leant upon. I could also point to the Imam of Yamen, strong in opposition to the Turks as a rallying point of tribal revolt, but weak and vacillating on the side of law and order. I might go ongiving instances _ad nauseam_, but here is one more to clinch theargument, and it is typical of Arab politics. Aden had just cause ofoffence against a certain reigning sultan of the Abd-ul-Wahid in hereastern sphere of influence. He had intrigued with foreign States, oppressed his subjects, persecuted native trade and played the dickensgenerally. Therefore Aden rebuked him (by letter) and appointed arelative of his to be sultan and receive his subsidy. The erring butimpenitent potentate reduced his relative to such submission that hewould sign monthly receipts for the subsidy and meekly hand over thecash: these were his only official acts, as he retired into private lifein favour of Aden's _bête noir_, who flourished exceedingly until heblackmailed caravans too freely and got the local tribesmen on histrack. 

When we also consider how early in Islamic history the Caliphate splitas a temporal power, and the difficulty which even the early Caliphs(with all their prestige) had to keep order in Arabia, it shouldengender caution in experiments toward even partial centralisation ofcontrol: apart from the fact that they might develop along linesdiverging from the recognised principles of self-determination in smallStates, they could land us into a humiliating _impasse_ or an armedexpedition. 

We parried the Turco-German efforts to turn pan-Islam against us, thanksto our circumspect attitude with regard to Moslems, but a genuinemovement based on any apparent aggression of ours in Arabia proper mightbe a more serious matter. 

 FOOTNOTES:

 [Footnote B: "_Arabia Infelix_, " Macmillan. ]

CHAPTER IV

MOSLEM AND MISSIONARY

Having weighed the influence which pan-Islam can wield as a popularmovement, we will now consider the human factors which have built it up. 

Just as we used Christendom as a test-gauge of pan-Islam, so now we willcompare the activities of Moslems (who do their own proselytising) withthose of Christian missionaries, grouping with them our laity so far astheir example may be placed in the scales for or against the influenceof Christendom. 

To do this with the breadth of view which the question demands we willexamine these human factors throughout the world wherever they areinvolved in opposition to each other. We shall thus avoid the confinedoutlook which teaches Europeans in Asia Minor to look on Turks astypical Moslems to the exclusion of all others, or makes Anglo-Egyptianstalk of country-folk in Egypt as Arabs and their language as thestandard of Arabic, or engenders the Anglo-Indian tendency of regardinga scantily-dressed paramount chief from the Aden hinterland as anobscure _jungliwala_ because, in civilised India, an eminent Moslemdresses in accordance with our conception of the part. 

We can leave the western hemisphere out of this inquiry, for though thegreatest missionary effort against Islam is engendered in the UnitedStates, it manifests itself in the eastern hemisphere, and the Moslempopulation in both the Americas is too small and quiescent to beconsidered a factor. 

We will begin with England and work eastward to the edge of the Moslemworld. 

At first glance the idea of England as an arena where two greatreligious forces meet seems rather far-fetched, but there is more Moslemactivity in some of our English towns than people imagine. Turning oversome files of the _Kibla_ (a Meccan newspaper), one comes acrosspassages like the following:--

 "The honourable Cadi Abdulla living in London reports that six noted English men and women have embraced the Moslem religion in the cities of Oxford, Leicester, etc. The meritorious Abdul Hay Arab has established a new centre in London for calling to Islam, and the Mufti Muhammad Sadik has delivered a speech in English in the mosque on 'the object of human life which can only be attained through Moslem guidance. ' Many English men and women were present and put questions which were answered in a conclusive manner. At the close of the meeting a young lady of good family embraced Islam and was named Maimuna. "

Then we have the scholarly and temperate addresses of Seyid MuhammadRauf and others before the Islamic Society in London; they are marked byconsiderable shrewdness and breadth of view, and though their debatablepoints may present a few fallacies, their effective controversionrequires unusual knowledge of affairs in Moslem countries. 

It is not, however, the activities of Moslems in England which damagethe prestige of Christendom; it is the behaviour of English allegedChristians themselves. Every missionary, political officer, tutor, oreven the importer of a native servant--in short, anyone who has beenresponsible for an oriental in England--knows what I mean. I do not saythat London (for example) is any more vicious than Delhi or Cairo orCabul or Constantinople or any other large Moslem centre, but vice iscertainly more obvious in London to the casual observer, even allowingfor the fact that many comparatively harmless customs of ours (such aswomen wearing low-necked dresses and dancing with men) are apt to shockMoslems until they learn that occidental habit has created an atmosphereof innocence in such cases which even bunny-hugging has failed tovitiate. 

The social life of London in all its grades and phases operates morewidely for good or ill on Christian prestige among Moslems thanLondoners can possibly imagine. From the young princeling of some nativeState sauntering about Clubland with his bear-leader to the lascar off aP. And O. Boat, among East London drabs, or the middle-class Mohammedanstudent who compares the civic achievements that surround him with thedingy dining-room of a Bloomsbury boarding-house, all are apostles oflife in London as it seems to them. I have had the hospitality of"family hotels" in the Euston Road portrayed to me in the crude butvivid imagery of the East when spooring boar in Southern Morocco with anative tracker who had been one of a troupe of Soosi jugglers earninggood pay at a West-end music-hall, and I once overheard a young_effendi_ explaining to his _confrères_ in a Cairo café exactly the sortof company that would board your hansom when leaving "Jimmy's" in daysof yore. 

As for the news of London and its ways, as conveyed by its daily Press, educated Egyptians were better posted therein than most Englishmen inCairo during the War, as their clubs and private organisationssubscribed largely to the London dailies, which entered Egypt free oflocal censorship, while Anglo-Egyptian newspapers were more strictlycensored than their vernacular or continental contemporaries, as theypresented no linguistic difficulties, but could be dealt with direct andnot through an understrapper. 

Missionaries would have us judge Islam by the open improprieties andabuses which occur at Mecca, Kerbela, and other great Moslem centres. How should we like Christianity to be judged by the public behaviour ofcertain classes in London or other big towns? Remember, it is always thescum which floats on top and the superficial vice or indecorum thatstrike a foreign observer. 

It is not my mission to preach--I am merely pointing out a flaw in ourharness which causes a lot of administrative trouble out East. It isdifficult to check the hashish habit in Egypt when the average educated_effendi_ reads of drug-scandals in London with mischievous avidity, andthe endeavours of a well-meaning Education Department to implant idealsof sturdy manhood are handicapped when the students batten on the weirdand unsavoury incidents which are dished up _in extenso_ by Londonjournalism from time to time. Such matters do no harm to a public witha sense of proportion, but the _effendi_ is in the position of aschoolboy who has caught his master tripping and means to make the mostof it. He assimilates and disseminates the idea that cocaine is aseasily procurable as a cocktail in London clubs, and that the Black Massis at least as common as the _danse de ventre_ in Cairo. 

We can leave England for our Eastern tour with the conclusion that Islamis welcome to any proselytes it makes there, but that the gravest sluron Christian prestige is cast by our own conduct. 

There is only one bone of contention between Moslems and missionaries inEurope now that Turkey and Russia are knocked out of the ring of currentpolitics. Is St. Sophia to remain a mosque or revert to its originalpurpose as a Christian church? Whatever may be Turkish opinion on thesubject, the tradition of Islam is definite enough. When the Caliph Omarentered Jerusalem in triumph, after Khaled had defeated the hosts ofHeraclius east of Jordan, he withstood the importunate entreaties of hisfollowers to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, saying that if hedid so the building would _de facto_ become a mosque, and such a wrongto Christianity was against the ordinance and procedure of the Prophet. It is worthy of note that Christians were not molested at Jerusalemuntil after the Seljouk Turks wrested the Holy City from the moribundArabian Caliphate in 1076: their persecution and the desecration ofsacred places by the Turks brought about the first Crusade in 1096. Again it was the Ottoman Turks who stormed Constantinople and turnedSt. Sophia into a mosque. According to the orthodox tradition of Islam, once a church always a church. When the ex-Khedive had the chance ofreacquiring the site of All Saints', Cairo, owing to the increasingnoise of traffic in the vicinity, he contemplated building acinema-theatre there (for he had a shrewd business mind), but he wasroundly told by Moslem legalists that it was out of the question. Evenif the Turks urge right of conquest, victorious Christendom can claimthat too, and if they allege length of tenure as a mosque in support oftheir case they put themselves out of court, as St. Sophia has been achurch for more than nine centuries and a mosque for less than five. 

If Turkey is allowed to remain in Europe at all it will be onsufferance. Even in Asia Minor signs are not wanting that Turkish rulewill be pruned, clipped and trained considerably, as humanity will standits rampant luxuriance of blood and barbarity no longer. The YoungTurks were given every chance to consolidate their national aspirationsand have achieved national suicide. One may feel sorry for the patient, sturdy peasantry and the non-political cultured classes who have beencoerced or cajoled into fighting desperately in a cause that meantcalamity for them whether they won or lost; but a nation gets the rulersit deserves and must answer for their acts. 

Asia Minor will probably be more accessible as a mission-field in duecourse. The Moslem Turk is not amenable to conversion; in fact, during aquarter of a century's wandering in the East I have never met a Turkishconvert. The American Protestant Mission will probably be well to thefore in this area in view of its excellent work on behalf of theArmenians and other distressed Christians during the War. Just as it hasconcentrated its principal energies on the Copts in Egypt, so it maywith advantage devote itself to the education and "uplift" of theArmenians, and if its activities are as successful as with the Copts, even the Armenians cannot but approve, for the more enlightenedindividuals of that harassed and harassing little nation admit that theArmenian character could be considerably improved, and that, thoughtheir hideous persecution is indefensibly damnable, their covetousinstincts and parasitic activities are an incentive to maltreatment. 

One of the most difficult minor problems of reconstruction in EasternEurope and Asia Minor will be how to safeguard the interests and modifythe provocative activities of such subject-races as the Jews and theArmenians where established among ill-controlled nations and numericallyinferior, though intellectually superior, to them. With their naturalgift for intrigue and finance, they repay public persecution andoppression by undermining the administration and battening on theresources of their unwilling foster-country until active dislike becomesactual violence and outbursts of brutish rage yield ghastly results. Deportation is not only tyrannically harsh but impracticable, for unlessthey were dumped to die in the waste places of the earth, which isunthinkable, some other nation must receive them, and even the mostphilanthropic Government would hesitate to upset its economic conditionsby admitting unproductive hordes of sweated labour and skilledexploiters. There are only two logical alternatives to such an_impasse_. One is to treat such subject-races so well that they may betrusted not to use their peculiar abilities against the interests oftheir adoptive country, which would then be their interests too, andthe other is to exterminate them, which is inhuman. There is no middlecourse. 

It is a salutary but humiliating fact that we incur the worst human illsby our lack of human charity. We starved and over-crowded our poor tillthey bred consumption, and we enslaved negroes till they degenerated ourAnglo-Saxon sturdiness of character, then plunged a great nation intocivil war, and have finally become one of its most serious socialproblems. So the Jews were debarred from liberal pursuits and privilegesuntil they concentrated on finance and commerce, being also persecuteduntil they perfected their defensive organisation. The consequence isthat they are individually formidable in those activities andcollectively invincible. Similarly the Turks harried the Armenians totheir own undoing with even less excuse, for those ill-used people werecertainly not interlopers, and so far from ameliorating their conditionin the course of time, as we have done with the Jews, the Turks wentfrom bad to worse till they culminated in atrocities which noprovocation can palliate or humanity condone. 

But to return to Asia Minor; there the Armenians were first on theground, and yet the Moslems of Armenia outnumber them by three to one. Any sound form of government would have to give equal rights, but itwould have to be strong and farseeing to prevent the greedy exploitationand savage reprisals which such conditions would otherwise evolve. 

On entering Asia we shall find a somewhat similar problem confrontingthe administration in Syria and Palestine. Here we have several mixedraces and at least three distinct creeds--Christianity, Islam, andJudaism. 

The Zionist movement looks promising, everyone concerned seems to be inaccord, and a Jew millennium looms large in the offing, but----. InPalestine there are normally about 700, 000 Moslems and Christians (thelatter a very small minority) to 150, 000 Jews. The lure of the PromisedLand will presumably increase the Jewish population enormously, but theywill still be very much in the minority unless the country isover-populated. The Zionist organisation will naturally try to selectfor emigration agriculturists, mechanics, and craftsmen generally todevelop the resources of the country, but that is easier said than done. If Palestine, in addition to the sentimental aspect, is to be a refugeand asylum for the downtrodden and persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe, there would be very few farmers among _that_ lot--except tax-farmers. Even in England, where he labours under no landowning disability, theJew thinks that farming for a living is a mug's game and confines hisagricultural activities to week-ends in the autumn with a "hammerlessejector" and a knickerbocker suit. As for mechanics and skilled labourgenerally, such Jews as take to it usually excel in such work and dovery well where they are. The bulk of the immigrant population--unlessPalestine is going to be artificially colonised without regard for thenecessitous claims of the very people who should be drawn offthere--will be indigent artisans, small shopkeepers, shop assistants, weedy unemployables, and a sprinkling of shrewd operators on thelook-out for prey. If the scheme is going to be run entirely onphilanthropic lines (and there are ample resources and charity at theback of it to do so) the Zionists will be all right, and will, perhaps, improve immensely in the next generation under the influence of anopen-air life--if they adopt it; but the resident majority of Moslemsand Christians will not take too kindly to their new compatriots, whilethe Palestine Jews are already carping at the idea of so many traderivals and accusing them of not being orthodox. None of this ill-feelingneed matter in the long run with a firm but benevolent government, butthe authorities will have to evolve some legislation to checkprofiteering and over-exploitation, or there will be trouble. It is notonly the new-comers who will want curbing, but the present population. During the War the flagrant profiteering of Jew and Christian operatorsin Palestine and Syria did much to accentuate the appalling distress andwas the more disgraceful compared with the magnificent efforts of theAmerican and Anglican Churches to relieve the situation. The Jews nearlyincurred a pogrom by their operations, which were only checked by awealthy Syrian in Egypt starting a co-operative venture of low-pricedfoodstuffs and necessities with the support of the British authorities. As for the local Syrians, some of them were even worse. French andBritish officers speak of wealthy Syrians (presumably Christian, certainly not Moslem) giving many and sumptuous balls at Beyrout, atwhich they lapped Austrian champagne while their wives, blazing indiamonds, whirled with Hunnish officers in the high-pressure, double-action German waltz. And this with thousands of their compatriotsstarving in the streets and little naked children banding together todrive pariah dogs with stones from the street offal they were worrying, if perchance it might yield a meal. Meanwhile decent Anglo-SaxonChristendom was battling in that very town under adverse conditions tosuccour human destitution which had been largely caused by the callousoperations of these soulless parasites. The Christians of Syria have nomonopoly of such scandals. Yet there are otherwise intelligent peoplewho speak of modern Christianity as an automatic promoter of ethics, andhave the effrontery to try to thrust it on the East as a moral panacea. It is human ideals which make or mar a soul when once the seed of anysound religion has been sown, and they depend upon environment andclimate more than our spiritual pastors admit; otherwise, why thismissionary activity among oriental Christians? If you try to grow gardenflowers in the rich, rank irrigation soil of the Nile valley theyflourish luxuriantly, but soon develop a marked tendency to revert totheir wild type, and it is permissible to suppose that human characteris even more sensitive to its mental and physical surroundings. Anyobservant teacher of oriental youth will tell you that the promise oftheir precocious ability is seldom fulfilled by their maturity. Even the"country-born" children of British parents are considered precocious attheir preparatory school in England, and, if not sent home to beeducated, are apt to fall short of their parents' intellectual andmoral standard in later years. The Mamelukes knew what they were aboutwhen they kidnapped hardy Albanian youths to carry on their rule inEgypt and passed over their own progeny. Kingsley has shown us in"Hypatia" what the Nile valley did for the Christian Church. 

It is not a question of Jew, Christian, or Moslem that theadministrative authorities in Syria and Palestine will have to considerbeyond ensuring that each shall follow his religion unmolested. Theywill have to defend the many from the machinations of the few and thefew from the violent reprisals of the many. It is statecraft that iswanted, not politics or religious dogma. 

In Mesopotamia there has not been much missionary effort hitherto, andthere is not a good case for exploiting it as a missionary field beyondcertain limits. The riparian townsfolk are respectable people of someeducation and grasp of their own affairs, and the country-folk are aharum-scarum set of scallywags who used to attack Turks or Britishindifferently, whichever happened to be in difficulties for the moment. They are best left to the secular arm for some time to come. Medicalmissions, staffed by both sexes, could do good work at urban centres, and a few river steamers, or even launches, would extend their effortsconsiderably. 

We now come to Arabia itself, "the Peninsula of the Arabs, " whereorthodox Islam has its strongholds and missionary enterprise is notencouraged. 

Geographers differ somewhat as to what constitutes Arabia proper, butfor the purposes of modern practical politics it may be considered asall the peninsula south of a line from the head of the Gulf of Akaba tothe head of the Persian Gulf, and consisting of Nejd, the Hejaz, [C]Asir, Yamen, Aden protectorate, Hadhramaut and Oman. Each of thesedivisions should be dealt with separately in considering Arabianpolitics nowadays, and it will be well for the "mandatories" concernedif further sub-divisions do not complicate matters; I omit thesub-province of Hasa (once a dependency of the Turkish _pashalik_ atBussora) because, since the Nejdi _coup d'état_ in 1912, the Emir ibnSaoud will probably control its policy _vis-à-vis_ of missionaries andEuropeans generally, though the Sheikh of Koweit may expect to beconsulted. 

Nejd comes first as we move southward: impinging as it does on Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Hejaz, its politics are involved in theirs to acertain extent and its affairs require careful handling. It is certainlyno field for unrestrained missionary effort, but there is no reason whya medical mission should not be posted at Riadh if the Emir is willing. There are two rival houses in Nejd--the ibn Saoud and ibn Rashid, theformer pro-British and the latter (hitherto) pro-Turk; Emir Saoud heldascendancy before the War and should be able to maintain it now thatTurco-German influence is a thing of the past. He is an enlightened, energetic man and was a close friend of our gallant "political, " thelate Captain Shakespeare, who was killed there early in the War duringan engagement between the two rival houses. The question of missionaryenterprise in Nejd could well be put before the Emir for considerationon its merits. Such procedure may seem weak to an out-and-outmissionary, but even he would hesitate to keep poultry in another man'sgarden, even for economic purposes, without consulting him. Fowls andmissionaries are useful and even desirable in a suitable environment, otherwise they can be a nuisance. 

Next in order as we travel is the Hejaz, where Islam started on itsmission to harry exotic creeds and nations, until its conqueringprogress was checked decisively by reinvigorated Christendom. Inmissionary parlance, Arabia generally is referred to as "a Gibraltar offanaticism and pride which shuts out the messenger of Christ, " and itmust be admitted that the Hejaz has hitherto justified this descriptionto a certain extent. Even at Jeddah Christians were only just toleratedbefore the War, and I found it advisable, when exploring its tortuousbazars, to wear a tarboosh, which earned me the respectful salutationsthen accorded to a Turk. The indigenous townsfolk of Jeddah are the"meanest" set of Moslems I have ever met--I use the epithet in itsAmerican sense, as indicating a blend of currishness and crabbedness. They cringed to the Turk when the braver Arabs of the south werehammering the oppressor in Asir and Yamen, but, like pariahs, were readyto fall on them and their women and children when they had surrenderedafter a gallant struggle, overwhelmed by an intensive bombardment fromthe sea. The alien Moslems resident in Jeddah--especially theIndians--are not a bad lot, but there is an atmosphere of intolerancebrooding over the whole place which even affects Jeddah harbour. Iremember being shipmate in 1913 with some eight hundred pilgrims fromAden and the southern ports of the Red Sea. As we were discharging themoff Jeddah, a plump and respectable Aden merchant whom I knew by sight, but who did not know me in the guise I then wore, was gazing in raptenthusiasm at sun-scorched Jeddah, which, against the sterile countrybeyond, looked like a stale bride-cake on a dust heap. "A sacred land, "he crooned. "A blessed land where pigs and Christians cannot live. "Incidentally he made a very good living out of Christians and wasactually carrying his gear in a pigskin valise. 

At the same time, it is absurd for missionaries to aver of Christians atJeddah that "even those who die in the city are buried on an island atsea. " The Christian cemetery lies to the south of the town (we had todislodge the Turks from it with shrapnel during the fighting), and theonly island is a small coral reef just big enough to support the ruinsof a nondescript tenement once used for quarantine. No one could beburied there without the aid of dynamite and a cold chisel. Presumablymissionary report has confused Jeddah with the smaller pilgrim-port ofYenbo, where there are an island and a sandy spit with a Sheikh's tomband a select burial-ground for certain privileged Moslems of the holyman's family. 

The worst indictment of Jeddah (and Mecca too, for that matter) is madeby the pilgrims themselves, though some of it may be exaggerated by mensmarting under the extortions of pilgrim-brokers. 

A pious Moslem once averred in my presence that the pilgrim-brokers ofJeddah were, in themselves, enough to bring a judgment on the place, and that trenchant opinion is not without foundation. Even to theunprejudiced eye of a travelled European they present themselves as aclass of blatant bounders battening on the earnest fervour of theirco-religionists and squandering the proceeds on dissipation. I have morethan once been shipmate with a gang of them, and it is at sea that theycast off such restraint as the critical gaze of other Moslems mightimpose. As sumptuous first-class passengers they lounge about the deckin robes of tussore, rich silks and fancy waistcoats, though out ofdeference to their religious prejudice and Christian table-manners theyusually mess by themselves. After dinner they play vociferous poker inthe saloon for cut-throat stakes, evading the captain's veto by usingtastefully designed little fish in translucent colours to representheavy cash, and these they invoke from time to time "for luck. " As it isusually sweltering weather, the occidental whiskey-and-soda and thearomatic _mastic_ of the Levant are much in evidence, and thus three ofIslam's gravest injunctions are set at naught. Their chief fault, to abroad-minded sportsman, is that they lack self-control, whatever theirluck may be. I have heard an ill-starred gambler bemoaning his losseswith the cries of a stricken animal, and they are still more offensiveas winners. 

In Mecca such open breaches of the Islamic code are not tolerated, butthere are other lapses which neither Moslem nor Christian can condone. It is unfair and out of date to quote Burton's indictment of Meccanmorals, nor have we any right to judge the city by its behaviour soonafter its freedom from the Turkish yoke, when it may have been sufferingfrom reaction after nervous tension; but, unless the bulk of respectableMoslem opinion is at fault, there is still much in the administration ofMecca which cries for reform. Harsh measures may have been necessary atfirst, but to maintain a private prison like the _Kabu_ in the state itis can redound to no ruler's credit, and for prominent officials tocultivate an "alluring walk" and even practise it in the _tawâf_ orcircumambulation of the holy Caaba is beyond comment. 

Also the mental standard of officialdom is low, since Syrians ofeducation and training do not seem to be attracted by the Hejaz servicefor long, and local men of position and ability are said to have beenpassed over as likely to be formidable as intriguers. 

It may be reasonably urged that it is difficult to improvise a CivilService on the spur of the moment, and it is permissible to anticipate abetter state of affairs now that war conditions are being superseded. Atthe same time it is no use blinking the fact that reform is indicated atMecca if that sacred city is to harmonise with its high mission as thereligious centre of the Islamic world, and this affects our numerousMoslem fellow-countrymen; otherwise the domestic affairs of the Hejazare not our concern. 

The Hejaz has been very much to the fore lately, and ill-informed orbiassed opinion has developed a tendency to credit it with a greaterpart in Arabian and Syrian affairs than it has played, can play, orshould be encouraged to play. Its intolerant tone has, presumably, beenmodified by co-operation with the civilised forces of militantChristendom, but the new kingdom has got to regenerate itself a gooddeal before it can cope with wider responsibilities. Emir Feisal is, nodoubt, an enlightened prince, but one swallow does not make a summer, and Hejazi troops have not yet evolved enough _moral_ to dominate andcontrol a more formidable breed or be trusted with the peace andwelfare of a more civilised population, especially where there are largenon-Moslem communities. There has been a great deal of nonsense talkedand written about their invincible fighting prowess. They accompaniedthe Egyptian Expeditionary Force in much the same way as the jackal issaid to accompany the lion, with a reversionary interest in his kill, and their faint-hearted fumbling with the Turkish defences outsideJeddah was obvious to any observer. They are what they have been sincethe fiery self-sacrificing enthusiasm of early Islam died down and leftthem with the half-warm embers of their racial greed to becomehereditary spoilers of the weak, instinctively shunning a doubtfulfight. In guerilla warfare, leavened by British officers, they haveshown an aptitude for taking advantage of a situation, but they cannotstand punishment and will not face the prospect of it if they can helpit. Their own leaders knew that well enough when they refrained fromtaking Medina by assault, bombardment being out of the question, asbuildings of the utmost sanctity would have been inevitably damaged ordestroyed. 

Prince Feisal has, in a published interview with a representative of thePress, disclaimed all imperialistic ambitions for the Hejaz, but merelydemanded Arab independence in what was once the Ottoman Empire. Thatbeing assured, the new kingdom will be able to devote its energies tointernal affairs, and the excellent impression made by the Hejazi princein Europe should be a favourable augury of the future. 

The missionary question should be left to the reigning house fordecision; it is not fair to hamper the Hejaz with unnecessarycomplications, and to allow active missionary propaganda at apilgrim-port like Jeddah is asking for trouble, apart from the flagrantviolation of religious sentiment. Imagine Catholic feeling if anenterprising Moslem mission were established at Lourdes. Tact andexpediency are just as necessary in religious as in secular affairs--atleast so St. Paul has taught us; but the modern missionary is too apt toregard these qualities in Christianity as insincerity and the lack ofthem in Islam as fanaticism. 

South of the Hejaz lies that rather vague area known as Asir. Forgeographical purposes we may consider it as the country between twoparallels of latitude drawn through the coastal towns of Lith andLoheia, with the Red Sea on the west and an ill-defined inland bordermerging eastward into the desert plateau of Southern Nejd. Politically, it is that territory of Western Arabia between the Hejaz and Yamen inwhich the Idrisi has more control than anyone since his successfulrevolt against the Turks a year or two before the War. In allprobability its northern districts with Lith will go to the Hejaz, andthe southern ones with Loheia to the Idrisi; but Western diplomacy willbe well advised to leave those two rulers to settle it betweenthemselves and the local population, especially inland, as tribalboundaries between semi-nomadic and pastoral people are not forintelligent amateurs to trifle with. Nor should the missionary beencouraged; Asir is not a suitable field for his activities, and thetrouble he would probably cause is out of all proportion to the good hecould possibly do. The Asiri is a frizzy-haired fanatic with a shorttemper and a serious disposition, addicted to sword-play and theindiscriminate use of firearms. I doubt if he would see the humour ofmissionary logic. As for the Idrisi himself, he is a tall, well set upman of negroid aspect (being of Moorish and Soudani descent), and hasshown shrewdness as an administrator, though his operations in the Warhave lacked "punch. " He is very orthodox, and from what I know of him Ishould not say that religious tolerance was his strong point. Hiscapital is at Sabbia, in the maritime foot-hills, with a very tryingclimate. Asir might suit the naturalist or explorer who could adapthimself to his environment and respect local prejudice. No one has yetentered the country in either capacity, but, from what has been told mebefore the War by intelligent Turkish officers who campaigned there, Ithink that the birds and smaller mammals would repay research, while thegreat Dawasir valley and other geographical problems inland might beinvestigated with advantage under the _ægis_ of local chiefs. All thatis required, besides the necessary scientific knowledge and Arabic, is acertain amount of perseverance and resolution blended with a reasonableregard for other people's convictions. Most Arabian expeditions failthrough lack of time spent in preliminary steps. I have tripped up inthat way myself, but it was owing to the restrictions of a paternalGovernment, and not through lack of patience. Before I started seriousexploration in the Aden hinterland I spent a year on the littoral plaingetting in touch with the people and mastering the dialect. Any successI may have had up-country was due to the foundation I laid in thoseearly days, and it was not until the Aden authorities closed theirsphere of influence against exploration in general and myself inparticular that my expeditions began to miss fire, as I had to land atremote places along the coast and hasten up-country before theirfostering care could set the tribes on me. He who would explore Asirshould take a Khedivial mail steamer from Suez to Jeddah, and there showhis credentials and explain his purpose to his consul and the localauthorities. The Idrisi has an agent there, and it should not bedifficult to pick up an Asiri dhow returning down the coast to Gîzân, which is the port for Sabbia. He would have to stay there until he gotthe Idrisi's permit and an escort, without which he would be held up toa certainty. In any case, no such enterprise need be contemplated untilAsiri affairs have settled down a good deal. 

In Yamen proper it should be feasible to travel again within certainlimits as soon as the Imam can come to an understanding with the tribalchiefs. There is not much left for the explorer or naturalist to do, unless he goes very far inland toward the great central desert, whichproject is not likely to be encouraged by the local authorities. Thereis, however, a possible field for the mineralogist and prospector eastand south-east of Sanaa, which area also contains Sabæan ruins andinscriptions of interest to the archæologist. 

The northern boundary of Yamen may be said nowadays to trend north-eastfrom Loheia inland through highland country to the desert borders ofNejran (once a Christian diocese). Its eastern border is very vague, but may be said to coincide approximately with the 45th parallel oflongitude. Southward the limit has been clearly defined by theAnglo-Turkish Boundary Commission of 1902-5 inland from the Bana valley, about a hundred map-miles north of Aden, to the straits ofBab-el-Mandeb. 

Within these limits the two great divisions of Islam are represented inforce--the orthodox _Sunnis_ on the littoral plain and far inland alongthe upland deserts, while the highlanders among the lofty fertile rangesseparating these two areas and forming the backbone of the countryfollow the _Shiah_ schism, being Zeidis, which of all the schismaticsects approaches most nearly to orthodox Islam and regards Mecca as itspilgrim-centre. The feeling between these two religious divisions may becompared with that existing between Anglicans and Catholics. They willoccasionally use each other's places of worship--more especially theupper or governing classes--and seldom come to open loggerheads; whenthey do, it is usually about politics, and not religion. At the sametime, if you, as a Christian traveller among both parties, want ascathing opinion of a Zeidi, you will get it from an orthodox lowlander, and the men of the mountains reciprocate with point and weight, for thebalance of religious culture and position is with them among the bighill-centres; including Sanaa, the political capital where the Imamholds, or should hold, his court as hereditary ruler spiritual andtemporal. This ecclesiastical potentate has backed the Turk in anon-committal but flamboyant manner during the War up to the turning ofthe tide against them, when he sat on the fence until his Turkishsubsidy ceased. He now looks to Western diplomacy in general and theBritish Government in particular not only to continue but to enhancethis subsidy, in order that he may really govern in Yamen. His attitudethroughout is natural and, indeed, justifiable in the interests ofhimself and his dynasty; at least occidental politicians cannot cavil athis motives; but what they ought to ascertain is how far he can fill thebill as a ruler in Yamen and the extent to which he should be backed. Without a considerable subsidy his administrative powers (not hithertovery marked) will not carry far even in the highlands. 

Missionaries were allowed to enter Yamen before the War, but did notestablish themselves, even on the coast. Some of them went up-countryand stayed there some time without being molested. The average Yameni isnot fanatical by temperament; there is more bigotry among the urban Jewcolonies than in the whole Moslem countryside. 

In the Aden protectorate there has been long established the FalconerMedical Mission, which, though actually at Sheikh Othman, just insidethe British border, has done splendid work among natives of thehinterland, who visit it from all parts. Its relations with the Arabshave always been excellent, though the local ruffians looted the Missionwhen the Turks held Sheikh Othman temporarily. 

The province of Hadhramaut, politically, includes not only the vastvalley of that name with its tributaries, but the whole of the westernpart of Southern Arabia outside the Aden protectorate from the Yamenborder to the confines of Oman near longitude 55. Mokalla is the capitaland principal port. Missionaries have been well received there by theenlightened ruler--a member of the Kaaiti house with the local title ofJemadar, inherited from an ancestor who soldiered in the Arab bodyguardof a former Nizam at Haiderabad. The interior is not suited tomissionary enterprise. 

Muscat, the capital of Oman, has already been occupied by missionaries. The Sultan (at whose court there is a British Resident) is well-disposed, but has lost most of his influence inland. 

Further up the Persian Gulf missionaries have long been established onthe islands of Bahrein, which are under British protection. 

Continuing our journey eastward, we can dismiss the Shiahs of Persia asoutside our pan-Islamic calculations, for their pilgrim-centre is atKerbela, some twenty odd miles west of the Euphrates and the site ofancient Babylon. This centre has been visited by missionaries. 

Afghanistan and Beluchistan both bar missionaries, but there are C. M. S. Frontier posts from Quetta, in British Beluchistan, to Peshawar, nearthe Afghan border. They do good hospital work, otherwise theirevangelising activities over the border are confined to nativecolporteurs and the circulation of vernacular Scriptures. There is afierce and barbarous Turcoman spirit in both countries which theirrespective rulers (the Khan of Kelat and the Emir at Cabul) do theirbest to keep within bounds, aided by British Residents. Missionariesseem to think this spirit can be exorcised by their entrance into thearena. You might as well throw squibs into a cage full of tigers. 

On entering India (that vast hunting-ground of many sects and creeds), Moslem and missionary are almost swamped in the flood of Hinduism. Thereis no restriction on the activities of either within the four cornersof the King-Emperor's peace, and there is very little antagonism betweenthe two in so big a field, where both are doing good work. Although theMoslems outnumber the Christians by seven to one, the honours of war goto the missionaries. Their highly-organised medical and educationalmissions do excellent work--the Zenana Mission is, in itself, ajustification of Christian mission work in India to any humanitarianwith some knowledge of _zenana_ conditions. The Moslems, on the otherhand, in spite of their high standard of education, in India show atendency among their less educated classes toward the caste prejudicesof Hinduism, which are dead against the teaching of Islam and a handicapto any social organisation. 

Few people realise what a huge proposition the Indian Empire is to solvein its entirety, with its population of 315 millions, of whom over 90per cent. Are illiterate. Of the more or less educated residuum, notquite 90 per cent. Are Brahmins having little in common with the hugeuneducated bulk of the population, which is chiefly agricultural and, byits patient toil, supplies most of the wealth of India. Yet it is thecultured but unproductive Brahmin (organised by a brainy old lady) whowants to control the native affairs of India--and probably will. 

In Farther India the Brahmin is at a discount and the Buddhist is to thefore, while Moslem and missionary are far too busy among the heathen tobother about each other; as also in Malay, where there is field enoughand to spare for both of them. 

The only other debatable field in Asia is that vast area which we callChina, comprising China proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and EasternTurkestan. Moslem and missionary can hardly be said to meet face toface, as missionary enterprise is chiefly in China itself, where thegreat waterways have been of much assistance to Christian activities, while Moslem efforts are concentrated on Chinese Turkestan. Here thereare two Christian missions, at Yarkand and Kashgar, under the protection(as elsewhere in China) of the Chinese Government. Moslem propaganda isspread by traders and others working from centres of Islamic learningoutside Chinese territory, such as Bokhara and Samarkand in RussianTurkestan, and Cabul, the Afghan capital. In addition, there is a waveof Chinese secular culture lapping in from the East, and missionariesask that existing missions be reinforced with funds to take a moreeffective part in this battle for souls (as they express it). Theycomplain bitterly that the upper classes _will_ send their sons away toplaces like Bokhara to be educated, and that they come back Moslems. They also call for ample funds to attack Islam on its own ground inRussian Turkestan, as it is permeating Christian Russia. This missionarypoint of view is natural enough; how far it is justifiable is for thecontributing public to decide. To the ordinary mind Christian villageswhich can become Moslem by the leavening influence of a few inhabitantswho have been to work in Moslem centres convey one of two impressions, or both: either Christianity is not adapted to their requirements somuch as Islam, or they are too weak-kneed to be a credit to any faith, and the one with the most virile methods may take them and make men ofthem if it can. Moslem and missionary activities in Chinese Asia remindone of cheese-mites gnawing away on opposite sides of a DoubleGloucester. They are very active, and if they keep at it may get throughsome day; but meanwhile the cheese seems much the same as ever, apartfrom its own internal changes which the mites cannot control or affect. 

We will now turn to Africa, the main theatre of war between Moslem andmissionary, who battle with each other for pagan souls and each other'sproselytes. 

We will first visit Morocco, the most westerly of Moslem countries. Here there is not much missionary activity, either Protestant orCatholic, but the French have been doing some excellent secular workthere, and under their tutelage the country is developing on lines ofmoderate progress. 

There is little antipathy shown to missionaries here, at any rate on thecoast, and medical missionaries have been welcomed inland. Educationdoes not flourish, but the country might be described by an unbiassedobserver as enlightened at least as far south as a line joining Mogadorand Morocco City (Marrakesh). In this northern area you will find anindustrious agricultural population of small farmers scattered about thecountryside, which consists of wide, open tracts of arable land undermillet, maize, and other cereals, dotted here and there with groves ofolive and orange and interspersed with large forests of _argan_ andother small trees. Desert country encroaches more and more toward thesouth, and in spite of several large streams draining into the Atlanticfrom the snowcapped Atlas range, the country becomes very wild andsterile the farther south you go from Mogador until it merges in theSahara, across which lies the great, bone-whitened highway that leads toTimbuctoo. 

Whatever the indigenous Berber of the Atlas may be, the northern Moorhas never been a mere barbarian, and Spain owes much to his culture andindustry. He certainly used to have a bizarre conception ofinternational amenities, and got himself very much disliked in theMediterranean and even northern waters in consequence. That phase, however, has long since passed; the last corsair has rotted at itsmoorings in Sallee harbour, and I am told that to put a wealthy Jew in athing like a giant trouser-press and extort money under pressure isconsidered now an anachronism. 

When I first knew the country, a quarter of a century ago, it was justemerging from a revolutionary war, and local relations with foreignersor even neighbours were capricious. They murdered a German bagman up thecoast in an _argan_ forest, and the "Gefion" landed a flag-flauntingarmed party to impress Mogador, which dropped water-pitchers on themfrom upper windows and wondered what on earth the fuss was about. 

On the other hand, I was well received by one of the revolted tribes, which had chased its lawful Kaid into Mogador until checked by oldscrap-iron and bits of bottle-glass from the ancient cannon mounted overthe northern gate of the town. 

I was treated with far more hospitality than my absurd and rather rashenterprise deserved. Imagine a callow youth just out of his teensdropping in haphazard on a rebel tribe accompanied by a mission-taughtMoor and a large liver-coloured pointer who had far more sense than hismaster. My tame Moor was an excellent fellow, who, beside keeping mytent tidy and cooking, helped me to grapple with the derived forms ofthe Arabic verb and the subtleties of Moorish etiquette. I learnt todrink green tea, syrup-sweet and flavoured with mint, out of ornatelittle tumblers of a size and shape usually associated with champagne, and, after assiduous practice, I could tackle a dish of boiled millet, meat, and olives with the fingers of my right hand without mishap. 

Beyond occasional brushes with adjacent sections of the neighbouringtribe which had declared for the Fez central Government, I had verylittle trouble, except that a peaceful boar-hunt would occasionallydegenerate into an intertribal skirmish if I and my party got too nearthe loyalist border. As all concerned had, thanks to Western enterprise, discarded their picturesque flint-locks in favour of Winchester orMarlin repeaters, the proceedings required wary handling if we were toextricate ourselves successfully, but my long-range sporting Martiniusually gave me the weather-gauge. 

I dressed as a Moor, and looked the part, but made no attempt to passfor anything but a Christian, nor did any unpopularity attach thereto; Iwas merely expected--as a natural corollary--to have a little medicalknowledge (and it _was_ a little). 

I found the attitude of Moors generally towards Christians curiouslyinconsistent. In the towns there was a certain amount of formalfanaticism which found vent in donkey-drivers addressing their beasts as"_Nasara_" to the accompaniment of whacks and yells, but publicbehaviour was tolerant enough, and the attitude of Moorish officialdomwas almost courtly. 

Jews had rather a bad time, if local subjects, as their black slippersand furtive bearing outside their own quarter made them a mark fornaughty little boys, who flung their canary-coloured slippers at themwith curses and imprecations deserving a more direct and personalapplication of their footgear. Most of the wealthier Jews had acquiredEuropean or American protection, and were safe enough. They lived in theFrankish quarter and dressed in ultra-European style. They made rather adepressing spectacle on Saturdays, when, garbed in black broadcloth, with bowler hats, they drifted through the sunlit streets on theirSabbath constitutional from one town gate to the next and back. Theywere keen trade competitors, and gained or lost fortunes by gambling inthe almond export-market or catching a grain-famine at the psychologicalmoment. One of them had retired to a leisured affluence on the proceedsthat a big cargo of almonds had yielded him at a startling turn in themarket. He was a hospitable soul who met me once entering the landwardgate in a travel-stained burnoose and insisted on dragging me into hisgorgeously-carpeted house to drink _aquardiente_ and look at his"curios. " These consisted chiefly of modern firearms, some offirst-class London make, which hung on his walls as ornaments, havingbeen bought haphazard without ammunition or sporting intent. I nearlyhad a fit when he showed me a double . 577 Express hopelessly rusted bythe damp sea-air and offered to lend it me if I could find "shots" forit. The reverse of the shield was illustrated by another acquaintance ofmine who had made a large fortune by importing Russian wheat to Moroccoin famine time and had lost it in a short but striking career inEngland, during which he was said to have entertained Royalty, astonished the racing world and married a well-known actress in lightcomedy. He, too, was of hospitable intent, but had generally left hispurse at home when the reckoning came. On the other hand, he alwayscarried the "stub" of the cheque-book which had seen him to the apogeeof his meteoric career, and a glance at its counterfoils (by his expressinvitation) was well worth the price of a drink or two. 

The local Islamic attitude toward Moorish Jews was one of contemptuoustolerance. They could certainly travel, in native dress, where noChristian could. Once, in the _patio_ or go-down of a European merchant, I met a greasy, unkempt Jew in a tattered gaberdine watching mycommercial friend as he weighed what I took to be a double handful ofcrude brass curtain rings such as traders used to sell by the grossalong the West African coast. They were solid gold and represented theventure of a Jewish syndicate which had collected it in pinches ofgold-dust from the river beds of southern Soos and hit on this form oftransport. A troop of horse could never have brought it, as gold, aday's journey through the lawless tribes of the south, but thattatterdemalion Jew had done it at the price of a few contemptuousbuffets. He had, indeed, offered one truculent gang of highwaymen a fewof the tawdry-looking rings to let him pass, but they had waved suchobvious trash aside in their eager search for actual cash, which theyhad taken to the last _rial_. 

The only other occasion on which I have known a Moor to be hoisted withthe petard of his own contemptuous fanaticism was an experience of myown. 

I was moving quietly through a belt of timber just before dawn in thehopes of getting a shot at a boar who was in the habit of feeding tilldaybreak among some barley that grew near a caravan route. Before thelight was quite strong enough to shoot by I was more than a littleannoyed and astonished to hear cocks crowing all over the place;presuming an early caravan with poultry for market, I pushed on to thetrack, meaning to pass the time of day and ask if they had glimpsed myquarry or heard him. I almost ran into a town-bred Moor who was tryingto round up some scattered poultry in the gloom and cursing volubly. Heexplained that he was riding his donkey along the track perched betweentwo light reed cages containing fowls when the donkey baulked as a boarsnorted in the thickets just off the road. He whacked the donkey andcursed the boar as a pig and a Christian. Thereupon came a rush likecavalry, the donkey was knocked from under him and he was lying amidthe wreckage of his flimsy crates with his poultry scattered abroad. Theboar, already angry and suspicious, as anyone but a townsman would haveknown by the noise he made, had charged like a thunderbolt at the soundof a human voice so close to him and galloped off with all the honoursof war. 

The donkey was badly hurt and the man only escaped because he wassitting high and just above the point of impact. I helped him secure hispoultry and started back to my village to send him another donkey. Hethanked me in brotherly style as one Moor to another. "I'm a Christianmyself, " I remarked at parting, and added in my best beginner's Arabicas I turned to go, "It is incumbent on me to assist you after theaggression of my co-religionist. "

This conventional attitude of arrogance toward Christendom is perhapstraceable to Moorish predominance in the Middle Ages and the importationof Christian slaves by the pirates of the Barbary coast. In any case, ithas been much toned down of late years owing to contact with capable andwell-intentioned Franks as administrators and technical experts. 

Morocco should never become a forcing-bed of religious or racialantipathy, and will not so long as France continues to develop thecountry by methods which the natives can assimilate, and is not luredinto over-exploitation of her mineral resources or unwarrantableinterference with her spiritual affairs. 

A perfectly justifiable missionary policy would be the inauguration ofindustrial schools on the coast and at one or two big inland centres, also medical missions (with consent of the local authorities) whereverfeasible. Moorish craftsmanship is worth stimulating, and doctors arewelcomed for their science. Both schemes would redound to the credit ofChristendom and be in accordance with the best traditions of the EarlyChurch. 

In the other Barbary states (Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli) a few Catholicmissions have been established, and the North African Protestant Missionhas an advanced post at Kairwan in Tunis. Here many routes converge, forKairwan is a great centre of pilgrimage and taps the religious thoughtof all the Saharan tribes. Under such conditions, Islam gets ahead everytime, as every caravan traveller is a potential missionary, whileChristian missions are anchored to the spot or have to rely on nativecolporteurs, who labour under the initial disadvantage of beingproselytes and seldom have the combination of tact and staunchness whichevangelists require. 

It is in Egypt that we first find Moslem and missionary at close gripsarrayed against each other. Cairo is a perfect cockpit of creeds. Christianity is represented by Catholics, Copts, Orthodox Greeks andProtestants, these last being subdivided into Anglicans, Presbyterians, Wesleyans and American Presbyterians and Congregationalists. The mainbody of Islam--some of my more fervent missionary friends allude to itas "the hosts of Midian"--presents a fairly solid front of orthodoxy, the bulk being Hanifis, Shafeis, Maliki or Hanbalis (chiefly the twoformer); but the irregular forces of Shiah are well represented amongnon-indigenous Moslems from Yamen, Persia and India, while scatteredgroups of Wahabi ascetics, Sufi mystics and esoterics of Bahaismskirmish on debatable ground between the opposing lines, where rangesuch free-lance companies as Theosophists, Christian Scientists, Salvationists, etc. , all with local headquarters in Cairo and propagandaof their own. 

It must not be supposed that all this warlike metaphor indicates actualstrife or even severe friction, any more than "the hosts of Midian"represents the attitude of missionaries to Moslems here. On thecontrary, relations are for the most part excellent, and the prevailinganimosity is political, not religious, being directed against usBritish much as normal schoolboys dislike their form-master until theyget a harsher one. 

The Catholic Church confines most of her energies to teaching her ownpeople, who are very numerous and well looked after; she does not domuch alien mission work in this part of the world. The most formidableband of gladiators in the Christian ranks is the American ProtestantMission, and next to them the Anglican C. M. S. (chiefly distinguished inEgypt for its medical work, which is excellent and has anextraordinarily wide range). The Americans are great on education andhave done more for the English language in Cairo than any Governmentinstitution. I use the term "gladiators" advisedly, for their mosttrenchant work is done on their own side--they concentrate their chiefefforts on the Copts, and make a fairly good bag of proselytes fromthem, apart from the great number to whom they teach sound ideals ofduty as well as English and the three "R's. " One of their leadingmissionaries has left it on record that no one stands more in need ofsalvation than the Copts, and as there is a Coptic Reform Society theCopts must think there is room for improvement too. 

It has been found in practice that to convert a _bonâ-fide_ Mosleminvolves segregating him, and that means finding him a living in a newenvironment, otherwise he is almost bound to "revert" under localpressure. Apart from the strain on mission resources which suchprocedure would cause if extensively followed, most missionaries rightlycondemn such a system as encouraging conversion for material motives. Therefore they adopt a policy of "peaceful penetration" against Islam, encouraging young men to come to them unostentatiously (I call them theNicodemus-squad) in order to discuss religious questions, which isusually done in a temperate and intelligent manner on both sides. Evenif they get no "forrader, " it tends to toleration and a better knowledgeof each other's language and ideals. A good deal of teaching is done toowith no expectation of making proselytes, and solid friendships areformed. I have myself known a convalescing lady missionary of the C. M. S. To receive repeated calls of friendly inquiry from former pupils; when Ifirst saw two veiled young girls swing past with a palpably Britishterrier and the crisp, vigorous step of occidental emancipation, itpuzzled my ethnological faculties until I was told the object of theirvisit. 

All this is to the good, and it would be very good indeed if they letwell alone. Unfortunately, there is another cogent factor in the missionfield, and that is the sinews of war in hard cash. Most people, eventhose who support missions to Moslem countries, are human enough to likea fight put up for their money. It is not enough for them that a greatdeal of quiet, patient work is being done by missionaries among Moslemsin the name of Christianity and the service of mankind. They want tohear about storming citadels of sin and campaigning against the devil inthe dark places of the earth; especially is this so in America, whereMoslem prejudice does not have to be considered and religiousorganisation, like most other concerns, is on a big scale. 

As a natural consequence, missionaries have to play up to this combatantinstinct, and so we read in their books and reports remarks calculatedto engender religious intolerance on both sides, and which do notconform with the shrewd and kindly work in the field of those devotedand often scholarly men. I shall have occasion to allude to some ofthese statements as we proceed, so think it only fair to mention theirjustification here. 

Cairo is described as a "strategic centre" in mission parlance, and soit is, being situated on a great waterway with rail connection farsouth into the heart of Africa and converging caravan routes from everyquarter. Along these arteries of traffic many tons of tracts andpropaganda are hurled annually by train, felucca and colporteur. Thosewho cannot read accept such matter gladly to wrap things up in and toshow to their literate friends, who read what resembles a bit of theKoran and find it carries a sting in its tail, like a scorpion, aimed atIslam. A great deal of this literature consists of the Psalms of David, the Talmud or the Gospel, all reverenced by Moslems if dished up withouttrimmings. Not wishing to impose on that hard-worked word "camouflage, "I would merely ask, as a naturalist, if such protective mimicry is worththe irritation it causes. In any case, the system reminds me of an oldHighlander's opening comment on a sword dance by a rock scorpion in aTangier saloon. "There is a sairtain elegance aboot yourr grace-steps, but _get in between the swords_. "

No vicarious efforts by propaganda will ever take the place of personalprecept and example. In hunting proselytes among the followers of Islamit is not advisable to rely too much on the Scriptures, as Moslems doubtthe authenticity of our version and point to our own divergent copies inproof thereof. Nor is it any use asking them to believe as an act offaith; if they did they would need no proselytising: an appeal must bemade to their reason, and there is no better appeal than the life, works, and conduct of one who professes and practises Christianity. Evenif he makes no single convert he has leavened the population around himwith the dignity and prestige of his creed which has produced such atype. Unfortunately such results cannot be scheduled in mission reports, though they are real enough and well worth living for, whether a man bea missionary or not; only they cannot be produced by brilliantwide-sweeping feats of organisation and enterprise, but by persevering, consistent lives, which are not easy or spectacular. 

Egypt should be a great field of religious warfare by personalinfluence, as Christians and Moslems live side by side in daily contactand reasonable accord, yet few of us take advantage of the fact touphold the prestige of our creed or even of our race. We Europeans arebusy with our multifarious interests and duties, while Egyptian Moslemsare either entangled in the web of their environment, as are the_fellahin_, or eager snatchers at the gifts of civilisation, as are themore or less cultured effendis, or mere hair-splitters in futilereligious controversy, as are too many of the _ulema_ or sages at thegreat collegiate mosque of al-Azhar. In each case, spiritual mattersare apt to get crowded out. The fault lies chiefly with our cosmopolitaningredients, which engender feverish living, if not actual vice, and theover-strained effort on the one side to impart and on the other side toassimilate a Western system of education which has induced intellectualdyspepsia. So we hear of students mugging parrot-like to passhalf-yearly examinations, in the hopes of getting Governmentappointments for which there are far too many applicants; these youngmen besiege the Press with complaints of unfair treatment if they fail, or even go to the length of attempting suicide with carbolic acid(fortunately with sufficient caution to ensure it usually being but anattempt); this latter petulant protest at the temporary thwarting oftheir material hopes is dead against all the teaching and tradition ofIslam, but it has become so frequent that a leading educationalauthority suggests that no student who attempts suicide shall be allowedto sit again for a Government examination. Among their seniors up atal-Azhar are men of real learning and remarkably persevering scholarship(their theological course makes the average brain reel to contemplate), but some sheikh started a controversy as to whether Adam was a prophetor not, which fell among those sages with the disrupting force of agrenade, causing much litigation in the Islamic courts and culminatingin the divorce of the originator by his wife for _kufr_, or heresy asordained by Moslem law. Beneath these troubled waters the _fellah's_life flows placidly, bounded on the one hand by his crops and on theother by the market; his spiritual stimulus being supplied by anoccasional religious fair or a visit to the shrine of some local saint. He toils as patiently as his water-wheel buffalo, and on that toildepends the wealth of Egypt which supports saints and sinners, schoolsand shops, with all our European schemes and enterprises thrown in. 

As for us British, if our object is to enhance the prestige of our raceor creed, we fall very short of achievement. We have not even thatreputation for integrity which usually attaches to us in other parts ofthe Moslem world. This may be partly due to our anomalous position inthe country, which was thrust upon us, but the pleasure-seeking touristof pre-War days has a lot to answer for. Some of them seemed to thinkthat so far from home their conduct was of no account (at least, that isthe only charitable explanation), and British personal prestige sufferedin consequence. Anglo-Egyptian officials, especially the subordinategrades, which come into more direct contact with the people, tried tocounteract this by increased dignity of demeanour, but the natives nowknew them _en déshabillé_, or thought they did, and declined to keepthem on their pedestals. The result is, familiarity without intimacy anddetachment without dignity, while the pre-War official habit of goingHome every year for some months has prevented even subordinates fromstudying their district or department consecutively. 

Hence it is that a widespread Nationalist movement gathered force andperfected its plans for a detailed campaign which blended peacefuldemonstration with sabotage, murder and violence, and took theAnglo-Egyptian Government completely by surprise, paralysingcommunications and intimidating the general public until the weight ofImperial troops, luckily still quartered in the country, was allowed tomake itself felt and restored order. 

This is not the time or the place to discuss these affairs, which arestill _sub judice_, but one salient feature of the movement is pertinentto our subject, and that is the marked _rapprochement_ between Moslemsand Copts, who fraternised in each other's mosques and churches, carriedflags bearing the device of Cross and Crescent and used American missionbuildings to further their new-found brotherhood. These relations weresomewhat marred by the wholesale devastation of Coptic propertyup-country, but the Copts took it very well and paraded the streets withtheir Moslem friends, if they could not hide away from them. The localJew came in too, and the climax of this religious _entente_ was reachedwhen an Egyptian Jewess preached in the mosque of al-Azhar on theancient relations between Jews and Arabs. 

But we must not merely consider Egypt as a sort of religious and racialclearing house; it is also the main gate of Africa. 

Southward, up the Nile valley and across grim deserts, lies Khartoum, the capital of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, only four days from Cairo byrail. This is a very tempting theatre for missionary enterprise, whichis, however, held in check by the authorities, who decline to have theirSudan spiritually exploited and materially disturbed by futile effortsto evangelise the country. Missionaries say that this part of the Sudan, as well as Egypt, was once Christian; that discrimination is being shownin favour of Islam even to the extent of making pagans become Moslem onjoining the Egyptian Army; that Gordon College is being run onnon-Christian lines and that Islam is getting ahead of them in the raceto convert pagans in this part of the world. 

The case against them is that the fact of these regions being onceChristian and now Moslem shows, if anything, that the latter religion ismore suited to local requirements and conditions; Islam is naturallyfavoured in a Moslem country, though many Christian missions have beengiven facilities too, and have mostly failed owing to climaticconditions: the Egyptian Army is Moslem and under a Moslem Government;the conversion of pagan recruits to Islam is encouraged for the sake ofdiscipline and soldierly conduct; missionaries themselves admit thateven in civil life a Christian convert from Islam must be segregated orhe will lapse under surrounding pressure--perhaps they will explain howthat is to be done in a barrack-room or native infantry lines, or wouldthey prefer such recruits to remain pagan? Presumably they would, as oneof their complaints is that "it is a thousand times harder to convert aMoslem to Christianity than a pagan. " Comment is superfluous; nothingcould portray their attitude more clearly. As for Islam getting ahead ofthem in the race for pagan souls, it is so and will be so always amongthe black races unless Christian missions are bolstered up by all theresources of local authority; the reason is that Islam offers equalprivileges and no colour-line, imposes easy spiritual obligations and ispropagated fervently by its followers without the encumbrance of anorganised priesthood. Just as commercial travellers consider a districtneglected where a rival firm has got ahead of them, so missionaries arepiqued at conditions in the Sudan; but even that does not excuse suchstatements as that women in the Sudan are free and not badly treated aspagans, but slaves and oppressed under Islam. Every student of theIslamic code knows that the status of women has been enormously improvedthereby as compared with any pagan system. Missionaries must know this, for they are much better educated about Islam than they were a quarterof a century ago, yet they do not scruple to raise the partisan cry of adebased womanhood under Islam wherever local conditions involve domestichardship. Such tactics are unworthy of them; an intellectual Moslem doesnot reproach Christianity because he has visited districts in the poorerquarters of our big towns and seen women lead lives of drudgery or beingsometimes knocked about by their husbands. 

Outside the Sudan and Nigeria we must keep to the eastern side of Africain order to maintain touch with Islam. The negroid people of ItalianErythrea are Moslems, as are also the Somalis; but their racial cousins, the Abyssinians, are Christians of the Ethiopian Church, with the Negusas their temporal and spiritual ruler, who claims descent from KingSolomon and the Queen of Sheba. 

Abyssinia has been Christian ever since the fourth century, but themissionaries are not happy about the country at all. Here nothingimpedes the entrance of the missionary as an individual, but the peoplewill not have him as an evangelist at any price. The "fanatical anddebased" priests of the Abyssinian Church and the drastic punishmentsinflicted by the local authorities on those suspected of favouring otherforms of Christianity are described as grave hindrances. There is alarge population of "black Jews, " who will have no dealings withChristianity in any form. Meanwhile Islam gains ground steadily, especially in the south along the trade routes. A German missionary, writing from Strasburg in 1910, describes the situation as alarming, because "whole tribes of Abyssinians who still bear Christian names havebecome Muhammedans in the last twenty years. " There is one Protestantmission up at Addis Abeba, but it confines its attentions to thesemi-pagan Gallas, having given up Christian Abyssinia as a bad job. 

Somaliland is a poor field for missionary enterprise, owing to thesparse, semi-nomadic population and the difficulties of getting about. In the French sphere there is connection by rail between Jibuti on thecoast and Dera Dowa near the Abyssinian border; travelling musicians ofthe _café chantant_ type used to use it a good deal before the War, butthere was not much doing in the missionary line. Italian Somaliland, east of the British sphere to Cape Guardafui, is left to look afteritself, except for the occasional visit of an Italian man-of-war; butsouth of that great headland there are Italian settlements. 

In British Somaliland missionary enterprise has hitherto been Catholic, and even that ceased some years before the War when the authorities hadto tell the mission that it must leave, as they could no longer protectit from the Mullah's people. It was a pity, as the mission was doinggood work and was much respected in the country. There was a Brotherhoodwhich taught and doctored, and a teaching Sisterhood. They wereFranciscans and had their local headquarters and a tastefully designedlittle chapel in the native town of Berbera, but the Brothers had alsoan agricultural settlement up-country, where they tilled the soil anddid their best to teach the natives to do so too. The Somali is mucheasier to convert than the Arab, as his versatile and superficialtemperament induces him to imitate, if not to assimilate, alien formsand ceremonies from the correct procedure at the "Angelus" to thesinging, with appropriate gestures, of "a bicycle made for two. "Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to teach him to think, or to do aday's honest work; he will pull a punkah while you are awake to keep himat it, or row a boat if allowed to sing, and sometimes he will fish ifhungry and quite near the sea; but agriculture involves the hard work ofdigging, and that is too much for him. The object of the mission was togive Somali boys and girls the rudiments of Catholic Christianity andhabits of industry. The boys were well grounded in English and the three"R's" in their simplest form, while the girls were taught chiefly sewingand cooking. The idea was for boys and girls to marry each other in thefulness of time and beget Christian children, but, as one of the goodFathers used regretfully to say, it did not work out in practice. Theboys learnt enough to become interpreters or obtain small clerkships inthe post and telegraph offices of Aden and adjacent ports, whereuponthey felt marriage with a "black woman" to be derogatory, and lookedhigher, to the less swarthy charms of some half-caste maiden met at Mass(for they usually remained Catholic, at least in outward form). Thegirls, on the other hand, with all their domestic training, were muchsought after by local chiefs, who were prepared to give them a goodallowance in beads, bangles and cloth, plenty of food and a fairly easylife. In such surroundings they naturally readopted Islam. 

Somaliland is not as barren as most people suppose. Of course thelittoral plain is comparatively sterile, as is the case on the Arabianside, owing to the scanty rainfall, and the maritime scarp of the hillsthat back it is not much better, but the country improves as you goinland; there is good grazing on the intra-montane plateau, and thewatersheds of such massifs as Wagr, Sheikh and Golis (7, 000 ft. Or so)are thickly wooded, chiefly with the gigantic cactus tree, whichaverages forty feet; timber trees are scarce, being mostly tall_Coniferæ_ in sheltered glens at the higher altitudes. Inland of theseranges the ground slopes gradually toward the almost waterless Haud--avast plateau sparsely covered with tall mimosa bush or actual treesattaining some thirty feet in height and striking deep to subterraneanmoisture, which keeps them remarkably fresh and green. Giraffe feedeagerly on the tender upper foliage and herds of camel graze there too, going six months without water, for there is no known supply locallyexcept in the occasional mud-pans or _ballis_ after a rainburst, whichmay happen once a year. These camels are kept for meat and milk only, and are no use for transport, as they are too "soft" to carry a sack offlour. They are rounded up and brought in to wells twice a year, wherethey water for a week or so. Herdsmen moving with them live on theirmilk, which is most sustaining. They must be watered after a maximuminterval of half a year, or they get "poor" and will not put on flesh. Needless to say, no transport camel could be treated like that. Acaravan camel can go five days without water, but that is about hislimit while working, and he should be allowed to rest and graze for somedays afterwards if he is to regain working condition. The giraffe, asalso antelope of various kinds, can support life without water at all, though they trek greedily to the _ballis_ after rain. Here lion lie inwait for them occasionally, and it is a frequent subject of discussionamong naturalists and sportsmen how such heavy, thirsty animals cansubsist in the Haud. The most probable supposition is that they onlyenter this region with the rains and trek from one _balli_ to another. Ihave met a lioness a long way out of lion country presumably trekkingfrom one water-hole to the next. What is still more remarkable is thatheavy game sometimes will do so too. Heavy firing was once heard farsouth of Burao, and a mounted force pushed out thinking it was theMullah's people going for our "friendlies" out grazing. A rhinoceros ontrek for water and nearly mad with thirst had winded the waterskins in aSomali grazing camp and charged through the zareba to get at them. Hewas mobbed to death by the herdsmen with the rifles which a benevolentGovernment had given them for protection against the dervishes. 

To do them justice, the Somalis fear their fauna very little and havemore than once, when in attendance on a European sportsman, driven off alion with spears and a resolute front after the white man had failed tostop the beast with both barrels. 

Even a woman will face a leopard with a torch of dry grass to contestthe ownership of a fat-tailed sheep which he has tried to filch from thezareba by night, fearing his snarling menace far less than the wrath ofher lord and master if the marauder secures his prey. 

As for the Midgan, that born hunter and nomadic outcast whom otherSomalis look down upon, but who has more woodcraft in his touzled headthan any of them, he will deliberately hunt the king of beasts, usingsome decrepit and almost valueless camel as a stalking-horse. He isarmed with a bow having about as much apparent "give" in it as thebottom joint of a fishing rod, yet able to propel with surprising forcea stumpy arrow cunningly poisoned with a wizard brew of viper venom andthe root of the tall box tree. His procedure is to drive his camelslowly grazing toward some island of bush in which he has marked down alion, he himself being perched a-straddle behind the hump and directingthe animal's movements with kicks from one or other of his bare heels. From his lofty observation point he at once spots the crouching approachof the lion and slips off over the camel's rump to cover, whence hespeeds one of his venomous little shafts at close range. The outragedmonarch attacks the camel and the hunter keeps well aloof from thesubsequent confusion until the poison works and the lion is seized withmuscular convulsions, like those of tetanus, when he may safely approachto gloat over his quarry. What is really remarkable is that the camel isnot invariably killed. I once met a Midgan on trek who showed me theunmistakable claw-marks of a lion on his camel's neck and shoulders andsaid he had used the animal on three such occasions; compared withthese desperate encounters the exploits of our white shikaris armed withpowerful modern rifles are insignificant. 

One beast of prey, however, is feared and hated by every Somali man, woman or child--hunter, shepherd or townsman--and that is the great, spotted hyæna which slinks up by night to snap at face or breast ofsleeping folk and bolts into the gloom at the agonised shriek of hismangled victim. The brute is cowardly enough to refuse encounter with anable-bodied man awake and on the alert unless rendered desperate byhunger, but his jaws are as strong as a lion's, and one snapping bitedoes the mischief. I once helped the P. M. O. At Berbera to tend somehalf-dozen poor wretches who had been frightfully mauled during thenight on the outskirts of the town itself and probably by the samehyæna. The hot weather had induced many folk to sleep outside theirstifling huts and they _will_ not take the trouble to collect and buildup a few thorny bushes to keep the brutes off. 

The Somali is about as incapable of hard work as his "fat" camel, andthe only time he may be seen digging is among the convict gangs whotill, or used to till, the Government garden out at Dubar on the inlandedge of the littoral plain, where the Berbera water supply bubbles outhot from under the low maritime hills and trickles through ten miles ofsurface pipe-line to supply the "Fort, " which is supposed to protect theBritish cantonment straggling some distance outside Berbera town. Hefeels such work dreadfully, not only as an injury to his self-respect(and he has all the puerile pride of the negroid races), but as anirksome tax on his physical powers, which are quite unaccustomed tosustained and strenuous exertion. On the other hand, he will make longjourneys on short commons and keep well and happy if allowed topunctuate his hardships at long intervals with debauches on meat andmilk and fat. He excuses himself from tilling the ground on the pleathat others might harvest the fruit of his labours, as there is noindividual land-tenure or any definite divisions of land indicatingownership, but only tribal grazing rights over ill-defined areas and theparcel of land enclosed by his zareba fence, of which he is but thetenant, as it is free to anybody as soon as he leaves it to trek toother pastures. Therefore, vegetables are unattainable by him, and hiscereals (rice, millet and coarse flour) reach him by sea and caravan orhe does without. He appears immune from scurvy and is seldom sick orsorry unless he over-eats himself. He loves _ghi_ (or clarified butter)and animal fat, which he swallows in large gulps when he can get it, also rubbing it in his frizzy hair and using it to sleek his black, spindly shanks and smear his spear-blades--on shikar he will "gorm" itall over your spare gun if you do not watch him. His favourite beverageis strong tea with lots of sugar in it (when procurable) otherwise hewill not touch it, and he will drink water which a thirsty camel wouldsniff at suspiciously before imbibing. He dresses in a white sheet worntoga-wise and not without a certain dignity, and his head is usuallybare except in towns or the partially civilised _entourage_ of a whiteman, where he will wear anything on his head from a tarboosh to a topias a mark of distinction, but seems to avoid a turban, which he has notthe knack of tying properly. 

To meet him and his family on trek is to glimpse an epitome of his life. First comes the able-bodied though elderly sire carrying a few lightthrowing-spears and a knobkerry or a gim-crack stabbing-spear, and closebehind him are the adult males of his house similarly armed or with arifle or two supplied by a benevolent Government for protection againstthe Mullah, to whom these children of nature frequently offer them forsale at very reasonable prices. After these come the women-folk inorder of precedence, carrying loads in inverse ratio thereto. The young, favourite wife walks first, carrying her latest addition to the familyin a cotton shawl at her hip; she is followed by other wives of lesssocial standing, carrying household utensils, with the smaller childrenat foot, and at the tail of the procession stagger the old crones underheavy burdens of pots, pans, pitchers and unsavoury goat-hair rugs. Acamel or two bring up the rear with the conglomeration of sticks andhides and matting which makes the home and looks like an untidy bird'snest. On the flanks and in the rear skirmish the elder children, girlsand boys, with flocks and herds which graze as they go. The big piebaldsheep with their black heads and indecently fat tails are not allowed torange far afield, where lynx or leopard might stalk them under covert, as they are valuable, succulent and very foolish. They carry nowool--their coat feels just like a fox-terrier's--but they have moremeat on them than three average goats, and the huge pendulous flap offat which does duty as a tail is a delicacy to make a Somali mouth wateror a European gorge rise. 

The only serious occupation a buck Somali will permit himself is to situnder a tree and watch his grazing flocks. He is fond of conversation, chiefly of a recriminative character, and gives vent to his _joie devivre_ by prancing and singing on two or three simple notes to theaccompaniment of his clapping hands and the thud of his horny heels. Hischief woe is drought and lack of grazing, because he then has to get upoff his butt-end and take long treks to pastures new. His ideas ofearthly Paradise centre round the _cafés_ of Aden, where his countrymenare numerous and where wages are so high that six grown Somalis canbatten in well-fed ease on the earnings of a seventh, who keeps on tillhe wants a holiday and then "goes sick" and sends another of thesyndicate to replace him. Qualifications do not matter, as they all havesufficient to fumble through their jobs and no more. If he lacks thecapital to start cab-driving and finds boat-rowing or punkah-pulling toostrenuous for him, he sets himself to learn a little English and gets ajob as servant with some new-fledged British subaltern at a minimum rateof £2 a month, which is fixed by his union, for that is one civiliseddevice he really _can_ handle. He is the slackest oarsman, the laziestpunkawala and the worst whip east of Suez. His idea of driving is to sitwith knees drawn up toward his chin while he lugs at the reins as ifthey were a punkah-cord, urging his staunch little screw along withineffectual flaps of his whip and noises like the paroxysms of seasickness. 

He will ruin any saddle-camel for fast work if allowed to ride oneregularly, such animals not being raised in his country, but he breeds asmall, hardy type of pony which he loves to gallop in wild dashes, withflapping legs and sawing hands, reining the poor little beast up shorton a bit like a rat-trap to witch beholders with his horsemanship. 

As a combatant you never know how to take him. He may put up a heftyfight or he may outrun the antelope in his precipitate retreat. I wasmuch impressed by the defences in barbed wire and thorn trees considerednecessary to ward off the onslaught of dervishes by men who knew thembetter than I did. 

He is a cheery, irresponsible soul and has been called the Irishman ofthe East. Missionaries rather like him, because he is very teachable upto a certain point, fond of learning new tricks if not too difficult, and without that habit of logical and consecutive thought which makesthe real Arab so difficult to tackle in argument. 

No remarks on Somaliland would be complete without some mention of theMullah. That astute personage has often been alluded to as "Mad, " buthas proved himself far saner than the Government he was up against. Inthe early 'nineties he kept the Arabi Pasha coffee-house opposite thecab-stand in the native town at Aden, where he dispensed tea andhusk-coffee in little bowls of green-glazed earthenware, alsoraspberryade and other bright-coloured "minerals" in bottles, with asmall lump of ice thrown in. His establishment was patronised almostentirely by Somalis and largely by the _ghari-walas_ themselves. At thesame time, he was obliging enough to spare the servant of a neighbouringsahib like myself a pound or two of ice from his "cold box" onoccasional application to meet an emergency. 

He had a good deal of property in flocks and herds over in BritishSomaliland, which he visited from time to time. In the late 'nineties hegot involved in some suit or other and the local authorities mulcted himof many camels. He very much resented this decision and raised somefriends and sympathisers to resist its execution by the police. Aninadequate force was sent and sustained a reverse, after which hisfollowing grew enormously. Early in this century, when I again had newsof him, he had craftily cut in between the Italian, Abyssinian andBritish converging columns and annihilated Colonel Plunkett's gallantlittle band at Gumburu, but sustained a severe defeat at Jidballi, where his red flannel dressing-gown was sighted in early and headlongretirement as his dervishes recoiled from the embattled square. 

All the same, he was still going strong long after the South African Warwas over, and we had more leisure to attend to him. When the Britishfrontier was drawn in to enable the statement to be made in Parliamentthat "the Mullah's troops were no longer within protectorate limits, " hetook advantage of it to deal ruthlessly with those tribes which hadrefused to join him on the solemn and definite promise that Governmentwould protect them from his vengeance. The unhappy Dolbahuntas werealmost wiped out as a tribal unit; their zarebas and flimsy villageswere surrounded by the Mullah's men and fired, leaving theoccupants--men, women and children--the choice of a dreadful end amongblazing thorns or red death on the spears of their fellow-countrymen andco-religionists. A prominent Nationalist has alluded to the Mullah andhis dervishes as "brave men striving to be free. "

In 1910 British prestige had shed its last rag in Somaliland: we hadwithdrawn to the coast and the Mullah's horsemen actually rode throughBerbera bazar on one of their raids and withdrew unscathed. In 1912 itwas found necessary to form a company of Somali police on camels to keepthe peace between "friendlies" who, to allay a certain amount ofindignation at home, had been armed with rifles to protect themselvesagainst the Mullah's people, but were using these weapons, in theirlight-hearted way, to argue questions of grazing as they arose. Early in1913 "a small dervish outpost" was reported to be preventing ourfriendlies from grazing in the Ain valley south of Burao at a time whenno other pasturage was locally available, and the Somali camel-corps, about a hundred strong with three white officers, was sent to occupyBurao as its base and from there to afford moral and material supportenabling the friendlies to graze unmolested in the threatened area. Thischeery opportunism was the Government's wobbling attempt at equilibriumbetween the barefaced desertion of our protected tribes and its avowedpolicy of non-intervention unless on the cheap. It was done too much onthe cheap; that little force was attacked by an overwhelming force ofdervishes while out on the grazing grounds affording moral and materialsupport. The Maxim was put out of action by an unlucky bullet, and thefriendlies skedaddled with their Government rifles at the first shot, but returned later to loot the dead. The half-trained Somali camelrysuffered severely and were most unsteady, but the two white officerssurviving managed to extricate the remnant with difficulty, the gallantcommandant having died for his trust early in the fight. He was blamedposthumously for having exceeded his orders; whether he ought to haveexercised his moral and material support at a safe distance from theplace where it was needed or have led his command in headlong flight wasnot made clear, and they were the only two military alternatives to theaction he _did_ take. At all events the incident shamed the Governmentinto taking more adequate measures to protect its friendlies in spite ofbitter Nationalist opposition. 

Missionaries point to our long and fruitless struggle in Somaliland asan illustration of the force of fanaticism. It is nothing of the sort;the Mullah was a man with a grievance who was driven into outlawry bythe sequence of events, and the movement was entirely political. Havingonce tasted the sweets of temporal power, he wanted to expand it, andused his spiritual and material influence to that end, not hesitating toorder the wholesale massacre of other equally orthodox Moslems when itseemed to him politically expedient. He owed his success to his ruthlesstreatment of his compatriots, the difficult and scantily wateredterrain, our lack of co-ordination with the Italians and Abyssinians, but above all to our parsimonious method of cadging and scraping alittle money together for an expedition and stopping when the funds gaveout, like a small boy with fireworks. Somaliland, with its insignificantcaravan trade, its wide, waterless tracts and its sparse population ofshiftless, unproductive semi-nomads, is a bad business proposition, andno Government can be blamed for hesitating to spend money on it; but ifhalf the expenditure had been concentrated on one scheme at one timeinstead of being frittered away on several divergent schemes over alengthy period the Mullah would have been brought to book and theresources of the country developed considerably. 

South of Somaliland in British, and what was once German, East Africathe missionary has comparative freedom of movement, whereas inSomaliland no white man has ever been allowed to travel without thesanction of the local authorities. He, however, complains that he is notencouraged by the Administration in either colony, and certainly makesno headway against Islam, which has a very strong hold, especially inBritish East Africa, with the Swahilis. Still, he can point to theinland kingdom of Uganda as one of his successes, and it would be moreso if the various Christian sects would refrain from wrangling amongthemselves. 

We have now reached the southern limit of Moslem activity in Africa, forwe are getting among native races who do not take kindly to asceticismin any form, and beyond them are the sturdy white Christians of SouthAfrica. Curiously enough, there is a flourishing little colony ofMoslems at Salt River, the railway suburb of Cape Town, where importedEast Indian and Arab mechanics have settled. They muster about 7, 000souls and have founded a school to educate their children. An unbiassedEnglish resident states that they are far better citizens than nativeChristians of the same class, owing to their temperate habits. Drink isthe undoubted curse of the non-Moslem African. In South Africa no nativein white employ can get alcoholic drink without the written authority ofhis employer, but there are many illicit sources of supply. SouthAfrican colonists insist that the native Christians are the worst--thisshould not be set down to Christianity, but to the civilisation whichgoes with it, and, in place of Kaffir beer and such like home-fermentedbrews of comparatively mild exhilarant character, introduces theundisciplined native mind to the furious joys of trade fire-water. 

Africa is the main battle-ground between Moslem and missionary, for itis in that continent that the forces of Islam and Christianity are mostnearly balanced. The American Protestant Mission, which is, as we haveseen, one of the principal belligerents, complains loudly on behalf ofChristendom that in Africa especially our colonial administrations donot give the support to Christian missions that Christian Governmentsshould. 

Apart from the fact that we administer these countries in trust fortheir indigenous population and have no right to thrust our own creedupon them to the exclusion of any other with a sound system of ethics, it can most cogently be urged that Islam is the only religion whichinsists on total abstinence, and that seems to be the only way in whichthe native African can avoid alcoholic excess. 

I have in front of me a letter written by an American of Boston, Mass. , to the _Spectator_ of February 15th, 1919. In it he alludes to a reportof the Committee for preventing the demoralisation of native races bythe liquor traffic which is said to be "making Africa a cesspool ofalcohol, and statistics show that in this devil's work Holland with hergin and, I regret to say, the United States with its trade rum have beenthe conspicuously worst offenders. " The writer goes on to say that thenative races are morally and intellectually children, and that has beenrecognised in the States where it is a penal offence to introducealcoholic drink within the Indian reservations. 

This being so, the attitude of American Protestants in attacking theonly teetotal creed which is working among natives in a continent wheretotal abstinence is unanimously declared to be essential to nativewelfare indicates loose thinking. It is still more extraordinary when weremember that the teetotal party in the United States have moved heavenand earth and every device, legitimate or otherwise, to secure nationalprohibition, about which, to put it mildly, there appear to be twoopinions among American citizens. We are told that the South adoptedprohibition as a measure of protection against the negro. Apart from thesafety of white colonists in Africa, is the welfare of African negroesbeneath the consideration of a free-born American? If so, why does he(or she) subscribe so liberally to support missions in Africa? Such anattitude is incongruous, even if we adopt the preposterous view thatChristianity alone can make a sober man of a negro. Imagine amunicipality which allowed a gang of hooligans to scatter incendiarybombs broadcast and encouraged its inadequate fire brigade to fight arival organisation tooth and nail. Its avowed intention of prohibitingthe use of matches on its own premises would not be considered asatisfactory _amende_. 

I lay no more stress on American Protestant activities against Islamthan is their due. There may be some opinions among Europeans that theirevangelising fervour might find a mission field nearer home in SouthAmerica or even in Mexico. Such a criticism is not only ungrateful butunreasonable. American missions have done much for humanity in the East, while as regards their own sub-continent the Catholic Church has heldthat field for centuries, and no reasonable being wants to see the twogreat divisions of Christianity sparring with each other about thespiritual education of greasers. 

The Monroe Doctrine does not apply to missionaries, but I would pointout to them that in wrestling against Islam they are fanning the firesof fanaticism and causing much material trouble, and the net spiritualresult is to lessen their own power for good and embitter Islam for illwhile widening the breach between Christian and Moslem. 

This chapter is an attempt to give an impartial glimpse at the relationsbetween Moslem and missionary throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. Withregard to their activities, it is neither a detailed account nor anapology. No sincere religious effort requires an apology, and if it isnot sincere no apology suffices. 

 FOOTNOTES:

 [Footnote C: The definite article precedes most Arabic place-names, but is only retained in ordinary local speech as above, presumably to denote respect. I hold to native pronunciation, except in cases of long-established custom, and consider "the Yamen" as clumsy as "the Egypt"--both take the definite article in Arabian script. ]

CHAPTER V

A PLEA FOR TOLERANCE

The world just now appears to be awaiting a millennium resulting from aconcourse of more or less brilliant and assertive folk with divergentviews. Presuming that the necessary change in human nature will bewrought by enactment, we have still to acquire more religious toleranceif we are to live together in unity with our Moslem fellow-subjects andneighbours. 

What is the use of talking about a League of Nations and theself-decision of small States if we still seek to impose our religiousviews on people who do not want them and encroach on the borders ofother creeds? Are other people's spiritual affairs of no account, or dowe arrogate to ourselves a monopoly of such matters? Both positions areuntenable. 

The justification of missionary enterprise is based on Christ's lastcharge to His disciples: "Go ye into all the world and preach thegospel to every creature. " He clearly defined that gospel as "thetidings of the kingdom, " and what that kingdom was He has repeatedlytold us in the Sermon on the Mount, frequent conversations with Hisdisciples and others and the example of His daily life. He never soughtto change a man's religious belief (such as it was) or his method oflivelihood (however questionable it might be), but to reform him withinthe limits of his convictions and his duties. He has also left on recordan indictment of proselytisers that will endure for all time. Of course, if the Gospel narrative is unreliable throughout (as the reverend andscholarly compiler of the "Encyclopedia Biblica" would appear to imply)then these arguments fall to the ground, but so does any possiblejustification of missionary enterprise. On the other hand, Moslems _do_believe and reverence the _Engîl_ or Gospel, though they follow thedoctrine and dogma of a later revelation. 

The logical deduction from these facts is that moral training, educationand charitable works among Moslems are permissible and justifiablefeatures of missionary endeavour, if not forced upon an unwillingpopulation, but attacks on Islam itself are not only unmerited butunauthorised and impertinent. 

Many missionaries of undoubted scholarship and breadth of view see thisand model their field work accordingly, with good results; in fact, mostreal success in the mission field has been achieved by practical, Christian work on the above lines, and not by religious propaganda; butthe flag which missionary societies flaunt before a subscribingChristian public is quite a different banner, as can be easilyascertained from their own published literature, which is very prolificand accessible to all. 

In writing about Islam the authors or compilers of these works toofrequently allow their zeal to involve them in a web of inconsistencyand misstatement, or else they let their religious terminology takeliberties with their intellect and that of the public. 

We will glance briefly at their indictment of Islam as presented intheir quasi-geographical works, disregarding their public utterances andtracts as privileged, like the platform-speeches and vote-catchingpamphlets of a General Election; also we will keep to their ownterminology and expressions as far as possible. 

First and foremost, especially in the United States, where knowledge ofnon-Christian creeds is not so general as with us, the literature offoreign missions insists on grouping together all regions as yetunexploited by them (whether populated by heathen, Moslems, Buddhistsor any other non-Christian race) and describing them indiscriminately asGibraltars of Satan's power, a challenge to Christendom and a reproachto Zion (whatever that may mean). Yet the four great ChristianChurches--Greek, Russian, Catholic and Protestant--seem powerless tocheck the reign of hell in Bolshevist Europe, where the liberty of manis demonstrated by murder, rapine, torture and every fiendish orgy orbestial lust which mortal mind can conceive. The people among whom thesedevilries are being enacted are Christians ruled by Christians, and havebeen Christian for centuries. They are still Christian so far as ablood-besotted clique will let them be anything. And in the face of suchfacts there are missionaries who enunciate in cold print that withoutChristianity there could be no charitable or humane organisation of anysort, or good government, or security of property, and--clinchingargument--trade would suffer. Could there be any more glaring example ofthe cart before the horse? Does a dog wag his tail or the tail wag thedog? Is Japan hopelessly benighted and devoid of the activitiesdescribed as the monopoly of Christianity? Moreover: Can Christianteaching or preaching pacify the embittered struggle between labour andcapital which threatens yet to wreck civilisation? Does it even try?

There is no more ridiculous or extravagant boast among a certain classof self-appointed evangelists than the oft-repeated statement that allthe modern blessings of Western civilisation are the fruit ofChristianity and that the backward state of oriental Moslems is due tothe absence of Christianity. 

Any thoughtful schoolboy knows that it was the exploitation of coal andiron which lifted us Western nations out of the ruck, backed by thenatural hardihood due to a bracing climate, otherwise the Mediterraneanmight still be harried by corsairs. Steam transport by land and sea wasthe direct offspring of these two minerals. Even then Western supremacywas gradual and only recently completed by the exploitation ofpetroleum, rubber and high explosives. Brown Bess, as a shooting weapon, was far inferior to the long-barrelled flint-lock of Morocco, and theArabian match-lock could out-range any firearm in existence till sharpcutting tools made the rifle possible. What does modern surgery, or anyother science of accurate manipulation, not owe to modern steel? When weturn from metallurgy to medicine, let us not forget that Avicenna waswriting his pharmacopoeia when Christian apothecaries were sellingpotions and philtres under the sign of a stuffed crocodile. 

Some exponents of Christianity would go further and arrogate to her theinception of all arts and handicrafts. Damascus blades, Cordovanleather, Moorish architecture, Persian carpets, Indian filagree, Chinesecarvings and Japanese paintings all give the lie to such claims. 

If we are to measure Christianity by the material progress of heradherents, what conclusions are we to draw from the history of the RomanEmpire, the Byzantine Empire and the Copts? Fourteen hundred years afterthe birth of Christianity in Palestine the fall of Constantinopleshattered her last vestige of sovereignty in the East after she had gonethrough centuries of decadence, debauch and intrigue such as anyone canfind recorded by Gibbon or even in historical novels like "Hypatia. "

Islam, to-day, is about the same age as Christianity was then, and hasgone through similar stages, except that it has been spared theintrigues of an organised priesthood and its comparative frugality hasprotected it from oriental enervation to a certain extent. 

Compared with Western Christianity its present epoch coincides with theera preceding the Reformation, when religious teaching had becomestereotyped and lacked vitality, as is now the case with Moslem teachingas a rule. There is no reason why Islam should not recover asChristianity did, and if it does not it will not be due to any intrinsicdefect, but to its oriental environment, which has already debased andwrecked Eastern Christendom. 

The respective ages of the two religions induces another comparison. Weare now in the fourteenth century of the Hejira; glance at EuropeanChristendom of that period in the Christian era, or even much later, andreflect on the Sicilian Vespers, the Inquisition, the massacre of theHuguenots, the atrocious witchfinders who served that pedanticProtestant prig, James I, and all the burnings, hackings and slayingsperpetrated in the name of Christendom. We must admit that no Moslemsanywhere, even in the most barbarous regions, are any worse than theChristians of those days, while the vast majority are infinitely better, viewed by any general standard of humanity. Christendom's only possibledefence is that civilisation has influenced Christianity for good, andnot the other way about. There is one other loophole which I, for one, refuse to crawl through--that Christianity is a greater moral force thanIslam or more rapid in its action. Missionaries say that Islam isincapable of high ideals owing to its impersonal and inhuman conceptionof the Deity, whom it does not limit by any human standards of justice. They complain that there is no fatherhood in the Moslem God;but--pursuing their own metaphor--what would an earthly father think ifhis acts of correction were criticised by his children from their ownpoint of view? He might be angry, but would probably just smile, and Ihope the Almighty does the same. A child thinks it most unjust to berebuked or perhaps chastised for playing at trains with suitable noisesat unsuitable seasons but it is that, and similar parental correction, which makes him become a decent member of society and not a self-centrednuisance. 

Moslems shrink from applying _any_ human standards to the Deity, regarding Him as the Lord of the Universe and not a popularly-electedpremier. "Whatever good is from God, whatever ill from thyself, " is aKoranic aphorism. Nor do they seek to drive bargains with Him, as domany pious Christians, and their supplications are limited (as in ourLord's Prayer) to the bare necessities of life--food and water tosupport existence, and clothing to cover their nakedness. 

The application of human ideals to the Almighty places Him on a levelwith Kipling's "wise wood-pavement gods" or the Teutonic conception ofa deity who sent the Entente bad harvests to help German submarineactivities. Such absurdities incur the rebuke of the staunch oldpatriarch, "Though he slay me yet will I trust in him"; there is noexcuse for seeking to inflict them on the austerities of Islam. 

Climate and terrain have a marked influence on the form religion takesin its human manifestation. Missionary literature asserts this clearlywith regard to Islam, describing it, aptly enough, as a religion ofdesert and oasis thence deriving its austere and sensual features, butthe thesis applies with equal force to Christianity. The marked cleavageof hermit-like asceticism and gross sensuality which rock-bound desertsand the lush Nile valley wrought in Egyptian Christendom has beendescribed by every writer dealing with that subject, and ArabianChristianity drooped, and finally died, in the arid pastoral uplands ofJauf and Nejran long before it succumbed in fertile, hard-working Yamen. 

If the East became Christian next week there would be the same rankgrowth and final atrophy or disintegrating schism for lack of outsideopposition. Missionaries are quick enough to remark on this process inArabia where Islam is practically unopposed, but will not apply it toChristianity. They do not seem to realise that healthy competitionmaintains the vitality of religion no less than trade or any other formof human effort requiring continuous energy and application. Islamrevivified a decadent Christianity, and the attacks of modernmissionaries are strengthening Islam. They justify these attacks andurge further support for them on the grounds that Islam is moribund andnow is the time to give it the _coup de grâce_, or that Islam is themost dangerous foe to Christendom in the world and must be fought to afinish lest it unite three hundred million Moslems against us. I haveseen both reasons given in the same missionary book; both are absurd. The latter is a mere red herring drawn across the trail of existingfacts, more so, indeed, than the ex-Kaiser's Yellow Peril, for that atleast was trailed from a vast country enclosing within a ring fence ahuge population of homogeneous race and creed. As for crushing Islam bymissionary enterprise, you cannot kill a great religion with pin-pricks, however numerous and frequent; you can only cause superficial hurts andirritation, as in a German student's duel. Every religion contains thegerms of its own destruction within itself (which it can resistindefinitely so long as it is healthy and vigorous), but no outsideefforts, however overwhelming, can do aught but stiffen its adherents. The early Christian Church was driven off the face of the earth intocatacombs, but emerged to rule supreme in the very city which had drivenher underground; Muhammad barely escaped from Mecca with his life, butreturned to make it the centre of his creed, and Crusaders died inhopeless defeat at Hattin cursing "Mahound" with their last breath asthe enemy of their faith, yet their very presence there showed how Islamhad revived Christianity. 

_Per aspera ad astra:_ there is no easy road or short cut to collective, spiritual progress. I am not arguing against possible "acts of grace"working on individuals, but the uplift of a race, a class or even acongregation cannot be done by a sort of spiritual legerdemain based onhypnotic suggestion. Individuals may be so swayed for the time being, and, in a few favourable cases, the initial impetus will be carried on, but most human souls are like locusts and flutter earthward when thewind drops. They may have advanced more or less, but are just as likelyto be deflected or even swept back again by a change in the wind. Revivalist campaigns and salvation by a _coup de théâtre_ do notencourage consecutive religious thought, which is the only stablefoundation of religious belief; second-hand convictions do not wear wellin the storm and sunshine of unsheltered lives, and a creed that has tobe treated like an orchid is no use to anybody. 

If the same amount of earnest, consecutive effort and clear thinking hadbeen applied to religion as has gone to build up civilisation we shouldall be leading harmonious spiritual lives to-day and sin and sorrowwould probably have been banished from the earth, but few people thinkof applying their mental faculties to religion, and its exploitation bymodern mercantile methods is not the same thing at all. Civilisation isan accretion of countless efforts and ceaseless striving to ameliorateexisting conditions, whereas religion started as a perfect thesis andhas since got overgrown with human bigotry and fantasies while absorbingvery little of the vast, increasing store of human knowledge. That iswhy civilisation has got so much in advance of religion that the lattercannot lead or guide the former, but only lags behind, like a horsehitched to a cart-tail. Missionary writers are rather apt to confuse thegifts of civilisation with the thing itself. A savage can be taught touse a rifle or an electric switch or even a flame-projecter, but this isno proof that he is really civilised. On the other hand, the scholarlyrecluse and philosopher whose works uplift and refine humanity maybungle even with the "fool-proof" lift which takes him up to his owneyrie in Flat-land, but he is none the less civilised. 

They would have us believe that petticoats and pantaloons are thehall-mark of Christian civilisation, and one of their favourite sneersat Arabia (as a proof of its benighted condition and need of theirministrations) is "a land without manufacture where machinery is lookedon as a sort of marvel. " As a matter of fact, Arabia can manufacture allshe really wants, and did so when we blockaded her coasts; nor ismachinery any more of a marvel to the average Arabian Arab than it is tothe average Occidental. Both use intelligently such machinery as theyfind necessary in their pursuits and occupations, though neither canmake it or repair it except superficially, and both fumble more or lesswith unfamiliar mechanical appliances. The young man from the countryblows the gas out or tries to light his cheroot at an incandescent bulb, and may be considered lucky if he does not get some swift, silent formof vehicular traffic in the small of his back when he is gaping at anelectric advertisement in changing-coloured lights. It has been myobject, and to a certain extent my duty, on several occasions to try toimpress a party of chiefs and their retinue when visiting Aden from thewildest parts of Arabia Felix (which can be very wild indeed). On thesame morning I have taken them over a man-of-war, on the musketry-rangeto see a Maxim at practice and down into a twelve-inch casemate when themonster was about to fire. They never turned a hair, but asked manyintelligent questions and a few amusing ones, tried to cadge a rifle ortwo from the officer showing them the racks for small arms, condemnedthe Maxim for "eating cartridges too fast" and were much tickled by thegunner-officer's joke that they could have the big cannon if they wouldtake it away with them. 

These wild Arabians, when trained, make the most reliable machine-tendersin the East, as they have a _penchant_ for mechanism of all sorts andwill not neglect their charge when unsupervised. 

We are all inclined to boast too personally of our enlightenedcivilisation with its marvellous mechanical appliances, but what is itafter all but the specialist training of the few serving the wants ofthe many? If the average missionary swam ashore with an Arab firemanfrom a shipwreck and landed on an uninhabited island of ordinarytropical aspect, the Arab would know the knack of scaling coco-nut palms(no easy task), the vegetation which would supply him with fibre forfishing-lines and what thorns could be used to make an effective hook, while the missionary would probably be unable to get fire by frictionwith the aid of a bow-string and spindle. 

Missionary literature is very severe on Arabia as a stiff-necked countrywhich has hitherto discouraged evangelical activities. "Hence the lowplane of Arabia morally. Slavery and concubinage and, nearly everywhere, polygamy and divorce are fearfully common and fatalism has paralysedenterprise. "

This indictment is not only unjust, but it recoils on Westerncivilisation. Arabia is on a high enough moral plane to refuse drink, drugs and debauchery generally, while prostitution is unknown outsidelarge centres overrun by foreigners, which are more cosmopolitan thanArab. Sanaa, which is a pure Arab city with little or no foreignelement, is much more moral than London or New York. To adduce slaveryand concubinage coupled with polygamy and divorce as further evidenceagainst Arabia is crass absurdity; slaves are far better treatedanywhere in Arabia than they were in the States or the West Indies;concubinage and polygamy, as practised by the patriarchs of Holy Writ, are still legal in that part of the world; there is nothing sinfulabout them in themselves--a Moslem might as well rebuke Western societyfor being addicted to whisky and bridge. He might even remind us thatdivorce is easier in the States than in Arabia and quote the Prophet'swords on the subject: "Of all lawful acts divorce is the most hateful inthe sight of God. " With us a woman can be convicted of adultery in theeyes of the world on evidence that would not hang a cat for stealingcream, but in Islam the act must be proved beyond doubt by twowitnesses, who are soundly flogged if their evidence breaks down, andtheir testimony is declared invalid for the future. This places theaccusation under a heavy disability, but it is better than putting awoman's most cherished attribute at the mercy of a suborned servant ortwo--a far greater injustice to womanhood than bearing a fair share of anaturally hard and toilsome life, which is also a missionary complaintagainst Arabia. As for fatalism paralysing enterprise there, perhaps itdoes to a certain extent, but it cannot compare with our own organisedstrikes in that direction. 

Another charge is that Arabia has no stable government and people goarmed against each other. Tribal Arabia has the only true form ofdemocratic government, and the Arab tribesman goes armed to make surethat it continues democratic--as many a would-be despot knows to hiscost. They use these weapons to settle other disputes occasionally, butChristian cowboys still do so at times unless they have acquired graceand the barley-water habit. 

These deliberate misstatements and the distortion of known facts areunworthy of the many earnest workers in recognised mission fields, andthey become really mischievous when they culminate in an appeal to thegeneral public calling for resources and _personnel_ to "win Mecca forChrist, " and use it and the Arabic language to disseminate Christianityand so win Arabia and, eventually, the Moslem world. 

Christianity had a very good start in Arabia long before Muhammad's day, and (contrary to missionary assertion) was in existence there forcenturies after his death. Not long before the dawn of Islam, Christianand pagan Arabs fought side by side to overthrow a despotic Jew king inYamen who was trying to proselytise them with the crude but convincingcontrivance of an artificial hell which cost only the firewood andlabour involved and beat modern revivalist descriptions of the place toa frazzle as a means of speedy conversion--to a Jew or a cinder. 

Christianity lasted in Yamen up to the tenth century A. D. It paidtribute as a subordinate creed, like Judaism, but had far more equablecharters and greater respect among Moslems. In fact, it was never drivenout, but gradually merged into Islam, as is indicated by theinscriptions found on the lintel of ruined churches here and there, "There is but one God. "

The published statement of a travelled missionary that the Turks stabledtheir cavalry horses in the ruins of Abraha's "cathedral" at Sanaa ismisleading. The church which that Abyssinian general built when he cameover to help the Arabs against the Jew king of proselytising tendencieshas nothing left of it above ground except a bare site surrounded by alow circular wall which would perhaps accommodate the horses of amounted patrol in bivouac. The Turks probably used it for that purposewithout inquiry. 

What is the use of bolstering up a presumably sincere religious movementwith these puerile and mischievous statements? Apart from the rancourthey excite among educated Moslems (who are more familiar with thisclass of literature than the writers perhaps imagine) they deceive theChristian public and place conscientious missionaries afield in a falseposition, for most practical mission workers know and admit that thewholesale conversion of Moslems is not a feasible proposition and thatsporadic proselytes are very doubtful trophies. Knowing this, theyconcentrate their principal efforts on schools, hospitals and charitablerelief, all based on friendly relations with the natives which have beenpatiently built up. These relations are jeopardised by the wild-catutterances which are published for home consumption. If a Christianpublic cannot support legitimate missionary enterprise without having itcamouflaged by all this spiritual swashbuckling, then it is in urgentneed of evangelical ministrations itself. 

Missionaries in the field have, of course, a personal view which we mustnot overlook, as it is entirely creditable to all parties concerned. Themore strenuous forms of mission work in barbarous countries demand, andget, the highest type of human devotion and courage. It is a healthysign that the public should support such enterprise and that men andwomen should be readily found to undertake it gladly. There is a greatgulf between such gallantry and the calculating spirit which works froma "strategic centre, " to bring about a serious political situation whichothers have to face. 

Let us now examine the Islamic attitude toward Christianity. 

The thoughtful Moslem generally admits the excellence of occidentalprinciples and methods in the practical affairs of life, but insiststhat even earthly existence is made up of more than civilised amenities, economics and appliances for luxury, comfort and locomotion. It is whenhe comes to examine our social life that he finds us falling very shortof our Christian ideals, and he argues to himself that if that is allChristianity can do for us it is not likely to do more for him, butrather less. He admits that his less civilised co-religionists inArabia, Afghanistan, etc. , lack half-tones in their personalities, whichare black and white in streaks instead of blending in various shades ofgrey. He considers that Islam with its simple austerities is bettersuited to such characters than Christianity with its unattainableideals. He himself has visited Western cities and observed theirconditions shrewdly. He regards missionaries as zealous bagmentravelling with excellent samples for a chaotic firm which does notstock the goods they are trying to push. The missionary may say that hehas no "call" to reform existing conditions in his own country, just asthe bagman may disclaim responsibility for his firm's slackness; butsuch excuses book no orders. The travelled Moslem will shake his headand say that he has seen the firm's showrooms, and their principallines appeared to be Labour trouble, profiteering and dilutedBolshevism, with a particularly tawdry fabric of party politics. Herespects the spiritual commercial traveller and his opinions, if sincere(he is a judge of sincerity, being rather a casuist himself), butwherever he has observed the workings of Christianity in bulk it has nothad the elevating and transcendental effect which it is said to have;that is, he has not found the goods up to sample and will have none ofthem. 

He seldom realises (to conclude our commercial metaphor) that mostChristian folk in countries which export missionaries are born withlife-members' tickets entitling them to sound, durable goods which arenot displayed in our spiritual shop-windows or in the missionaryhand-bag:--the prayers of childhood and the mother's hymn, the distantbells of a Sabbath countryside, the bird-chorus of Spring emphasisingthe magic hush of Communion on Easter morning, the holly-decked churchringing with the glad carols of Christmastide and the tremendous promisewhich bids us hope at the graveside of our earthly love. It is suchmemories as these, and not the stentorian eloquence of some popularsalvation-monger in an atmosphere of over-crowded humanity, which go tomake staunch Christian souls. 

The possible proselyte from Islam has to rely on what the missionary hasin his bag. Large quantities of faith are pressed upon him which do notquite meet his requirements, as it is his reason which should besatisfied first; no one can believe without a basis of belief. 

There is also a great deal of slaughter-house metaphor which does notappeal to him at all, as he looks on blood as a defilement and a sheepas the silliest animal in existence--except a lamb. These metaphors wereused by our Lord in speaking to a people who readily understood them, but for some obscure reason they have not only been retained butamplified extensively to the exclusion of much beautiful imagery whichis still apposite. We Christians reverence such similes for theirassociations, but a Moslem misses the point of them, just as we miss thestately metre of the Koran in translation. 

The would-be convert from Islam must, of course, learn to stifle anyfond memories of the virile, vivid creed he is invited to renounce. Nolonger must he give ear to the far-flung call proclaiming from loftyminarets the unity of God and the Prophet's mission or its cheery, swinging reiteration as the dead are carried to the _magenna_ or "gateof Heaven. " Certainly not; the less he contemplates their fate thebetter for his peace of mind, since (if the effort to convert him isanything more than an outrageous piece of impudence) their lot in thehereafter must be appalling and his own depends on the thoroughness withwhich he steels his heart against all he ever knew and loved before hemet that pious man and his little picture pamphlets. 

Do proselytising missionaries in the Islamic field ever sit down andthink what they are really trying to do? Does the social ostracism of ahuman being, the damnation of his folk and the salvation of none but aremnant of mankind mean anything to them? If so they ought to beovercome with horror--unless it is their idea of humour, which I cannotbelieve. 

To pester a man into abandoning a perfectly sound and satisfyingreligion for one which may not suit him so well is more reprehensiblethan badgering a man to go to your doctor when his own physicianunderstands his case and has studied it for a long time. At least hisdiscarded medical adviser will not make his life a burden to him--aburden which the proselytiser does not have to share. 

On the other hand, Moslems are often glad enough to avail themselves ofsuch Christian works as mission education, medical treatment andorganised charity, so they should tolerate the proselytising propagandawhich seems inseparable from these enterprises. 

Missionaries afield are usually justified by their works; it is theaggressive policy blazoned abroad from mission headquarters which doesso much mischief. Islam was never intended to overthrow Christianity, but to bring back pagan Arabs to the true worship of God. Mission policyclamours for attack on it as if it were an invention of the devil andthen complains of Moslem fanaticism, forgetting that if it were anartifice of Satan they cast doubts on the omnipotence, omniscience orbeneficence of God for permitting it to exist and flourish. Otherwise, they infer that they are in a position to correct the Almighty in thismatter. It is their complacent pedagogy which exasperates Moslems so. Itis not the way to treat people who believe in the Immaculate Conception, who call Christmas Day "_the_ Birthday" and respect us as "People of theBook. "

It is time some protest was lodged against this policy if only on behalfof Christian administrations in Moslem countries, which are always beingattacked by it and urged to give more facilities of spiritualaggression, especially just at present when Turkey's power has beenshattered and mission strategy thinks it sees an opening. 

There was never a less desirable moment for unchecked religiousexploitation than now, when the war-worn nations of Christendom aretrying to reconstruct themselves, and the world is seething with unrestand overstocked with discarded weapons of precision. 

There is no compromise in religion, nor should there be; you cannot gohalfway in any faith, and no one wants a mongrel strain begotten of thetwo great militant creeds such as our leading exponent of paradoxwittily describes as "Chrislam. " Yet surely there is a reasonable basisfor a religious _entente_ between Islam and Christianity. 

Think what Islam has done to advance the knowledge of humanity longbefore the dawn of modern science. Moslems, too, would do well toremember what Christian civilisation has done for them in trade, agriculture and industries. If you accept gifts from others you shouldtolerate their ways; it is but an ill-conditioned cur that bolts thefood proffered and then snarls. 

A Moslem or a Christian worthy of the name will remain so. He may expandor (more rarely) contract his views, but will still be a Moslem or aChristian, as the case may be. 

No human being has the right to say that his conception of the Deity iscorrect and all others wrong, nor is such a conclusion supported by theGospel or the Koran. 

It is the alchemy of the human soul which can transmute the dross of asordid environment to the gold of self-sacrifice, and the gold ofinspired religion to the dross of bigotry. 

Whether we believe, as Christians, that Christ died on the Cross androse the third day, or, as Moslems, that He escaped that fate by anequally stupendous miracle, we know that He faced persecution and deathfor mankind and His ideals, and that both creeds are based on the samegreat doctrine--"God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worshiphim in spirit and in truth. "

FINIS

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