Empirical statements sound well and look well in print, but they are no use whatever as sailing directions in the uncharted waters of Arabian politics. Putting them aside, the following facts are worth bearing in mind when the future of Arabia is discussed.
The Hejazi troops were ably led by the Sharifian Emirs and Syrian officers of note, and had the co-operation of the Red Sea flotilla on the coast and British officers of various corps inland to cut off Medina, the last place of importance held by the Turks after the summer of 1916. Yet the town held out until long after the armistice, and its surrender had eventually to be broughtabout by putting pressure on the Turkish Government at Stamboul. On the other hand, the two great provinces which impinge upon the Hejaz, namely, Nejd and Yamen, have given ample proof that they can hammer the Turks without outside assistance. The Nejdis not only cleared their own country of Ottoman rule, 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 the coast, and the rebels of northern Yamen successfully withstood a Hejazi and Turkish column from the north and another Turkish column from the south. The inference is that if the limits of Hejazi rule are to be much extended there had better be a clear understanding with their neighbours and also some definite idea of the extent to which we are likely to be involved in support of ourprotégé.
I know that many otherwise intelligent people have been hypnotised by the 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."
"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 belatedcriticism of a prophecy which the march of events has trodden out of shape, and which could never have been intended as a serious contribution to our knowledge of Arabs and their politics, we must admit that the basic idea of centralising Arabian authority has taken strong hold of avowed statecraft in England. It would, of course, simplify our relations with Arabia and the collateral regions of Mesopotamia and Syria if such authority could establish itself and be accepted by the other Arabian provinces to the extent of enforcing its enactments as regards their foreign affairs,i.e., relations with subjects (national or protected) of European States.
If such authority could be maintained without assistance from us other than a subsidy and the occasional supply, to responsible parties, of arms and ammunition, it would satisfy all reasonable requirements, but if we had to intervene with direct force we should find ourselves defending an unpopularprotégéagainst the united resentment of Arabia.
I believe there is no one ruler or ruling clique in Arabia that could wield such authority, and my reason for saying so is that the experiment has been tried repeatedly on a small scale during the twenty years or so that I have been connected with the country and has failed everytime. Toward the close of last century a sultan of Lahej who had always claimed suzerainty over his turbulent neighbours, the Subaihi, had to enter that vagabond tribeship to enforce one of his decrees, and got held up with his "army" until extricated by Aden diplomacy at the price of his suzerain sway. His successor still claimed a hold over an adjacent clan of the Subaihi known as the Rigai, but when one of our most promising political officers was murdered there, and the murderer sheltered by the clan, he was unable to obtain redress or even assist us adequately in attempting to do so. Early in this century Aden was involved in a little expedition against Turks and Arabs because one of her protected sultans (equipped with explosive and ammunition) could not deal with a small Arab fort himself. This is the same sultanate which let the Turks through against us in the summer of 1915 and whose ruler was prominent in the sacking of Lahej. I have already alluded, in Chapter II, to the inadequacy of the Lahej sultan on that occasion, yet Aden had bolstered up his authority in every possible way and had relied on him and his predecessor for years to act as semi-official suzerain and go-between for other tribes—a withered stick which snapped the first time it was leant upon. I could also pointto 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 on giving instancesad nauseam, but here is one more to clinch the argument, and it is typical of Arab politics. Aden had just cause of offence against a certain reigning sultan of the Abd-ul-Wahid in her eastern sphere of influence. He had intrigued with foreign States, oppressed his subjects, persecuted native trade and played the dickens generally. Therefore Aden rebuked him (by letter) and appointed a relative of his to be sultan and receive his subsidy. The erring but impenitent potentate reduced his relative to such submission that he would sign monthly receipts for the subsidy and meekly hand over the cash: these were his only official acts, as he retired into private life in favour of Aden'sbête noir, who flourished exceedingly until he blackmailed caravans too freely and got the local tribesmen on his track.
When we also consider how early in Islamic history the Caliphate split as a temporal power, and the difficulty which even the early Caliphs (with all their prestige) had to keep order in Arabia, it should engender caution in experiments toward even partial centralisation of control: apart from the fact that they might developalong lines diverging from the recognised principles of self-determination in small States, they could land us into a humiliatingimpasseor an armed expedition.
We parried the Turco-German efforts to turn pan-Islam against us, thanks to our circumspect attitude with regard to Moslems, but a genuine movement based on any apparent aggression of ours in Arabia proper might be a more serious matter.
FOOTNOTES:[B]"Arabia Infelix," Macmillan.
FOOTNOTES:
[B]"Arabia Infelix," Macmillan.
[B]"Arabia Infelix," Macmillan.
Havingweighed the influence which pan-Islam can wield as a popular movement, 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 will compare the activities of Moslems (who do their own proselytising) with those of Christian missionaries, grouping with them our laity so far as their example may be placed in the scales for or against the influence of Christendom.
To do this with the breadth of view which the question demands we will examine these human factors throughout the world wherever they are involved in opposition to each other. We shall thus avoid the confined outlook which teaches Europeans in Asia Minor to look on Turks as typical Moslems to the exclusion of all others, or makes Anglo-Egyptians talk of country-folk in Egypt as Arabs and their language as the standardof Arabic, or engenders the Anglo-Indian tendency of regarding a scantily-dressed paramount chief from the Aden hinterland as an obscurejungliwalabecause, in civilised India, an eminent Moslem dresses in accordance with our conception of the part.
We can leave the western hemisphere out of this inquiry, for though the greatest missionary effort against Islam is engendered in the United States, it manifests itself in the eastern hemisphere, and the Moslem population in both the Americas is too small and quiescent to be considered a factor.
We will begin with England and work eastward to the edge of the Moslem world.
At first glance the idea of England as an arena where two great religious forces meet seems rather far-fetched, but there is more Moslem activity in some of our English towns than people imagine. Turning over some files of theKibla(a Meccan newspaper), one comes across passages 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 lifewhich 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."
"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 lifewhich 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 Muhammad Rauf and others before the Islamic Society in London; they are marked by considerable shrewdness and breadth of view, and though their debatable points may present a few fallacies, their effective controversion requires unusual knowledge of affairs in Moslem countries.
It is not, however, the activities of Moslems in England which damage the prestige of Christendom; it is the behaviour of English alleged Christians themselves. Every missionary, political officer, tutor, or even the importer of a native servant—in short, anyone who has been responsible for an oriental in England—knows what I mean. I do not say that London (for example) is any more vicious than Delhi or Cairo or Cabul or Constantinople or any other large Moslem centre, but vice is certainly more obvious in London to the casual observer, even allowing for the fact that many comparatively harmless customs of ours (such as women wearing low-necked dresses and dancing with men) are apt toshock Moslems until they learn that occidental habit has created an atmosphere of innocence in such cases which even bunny-hugging has failed to vitiate.
The social life of London in all its grades and phases operates more widely for good or ill on Christian prestige among Moslems than Londoners can possibly imagine. From the young princeling of some native State sauntering about Clubland with his bear-leader to the lascar off a P. and O. boat, among East London drabs, or the middle-class Mohammedan student who compares the civic achievements that surround him with the dingy dining-room of a Bloomsbury boarding-house, all are apostles of life 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 but vivid imagery of the East when spooring boar in Southern Morocco with a native tracker who had been one of a troupe of Soosi jugglers earning good pay at a West-end music-hall, and I once overheard a youngeffendiexplaining to hisconfrèresin a Cairo café exactly the sort of company that would board your hansom when leaving "Jimmy's" in days of yore.
As for the news of London and its ways, as conveyed by its daily Press, educated Egyptians were better posted therein than most Englishmenin Cairo during the War, as their clubs and private organisations subscribed largely to the London dailies, which entered Egypt free of local censorship, while Anglo-Egyptian newspapers were more strictly censored than their vernacular or continental contemporaries, as they presented no linguistic difficulties, but could be dealt with direct and not through an understrapper.
Missionaries would have us judge Islam by the open improprieties and abuses which occur at Mecca, Kerbela, and other great Moslem centres. How should we like Christianity to be judged by the public behaviour of certain classes in London or other big towns? Remember, it is always the scum which floats on top and the superficial vice or indecorum that strike a foreign observer.
It is not my mission to preach—I am merely pointing out a flaw in our harness which causes a lot of administrative trouble out East. It is difficult to check the hashish habit in Egypt when the average educatedeffendireads of drug-scandals in London with mischievous avidity, and the endeavours of a well-meaning Education Department to implant ideals of sturdy manhood are handicapped when the students batten on the weird and unsavoury incidents which are dished upin extensoby London journalism from time to time. Such matters do no harm to a publicwith a sense of proportion, but theeffendiis in the position of a schoolboy who has caught his master tripping and means to make the most of it. He assimilates and disseminates the idea that cocaine is as easily procurable as a cocktail in London clubs, and that the Black Mass is at least as common as thedanse de ventrein Cairo.
We can leave England for our Eastern tour with the conclusion that Islam is welcome to any proselytes it makes there, but that the gravest slur on Christian prestige is cast by our own conduct.
There is only one bone of contention between Moslems and missionaries in Europe now that Turkey and Russia are knocked out of the ring of current politics. Is St. Sophia to remain a mosque or revert to its original purpose as a Christian church? Whatever may be Turkish opinion on the subject, the tradition of Islam is definite enough. When the Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in triumph, after Khaled had defeated the hosts of Heraclius east of Jordan, he withstood the importunate entreaties of his followers to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, saying that if he did so the building wouldde factobecome a mosque, and such a wrong to Christianity was against the ordinance and procedure of the Prophet. It is worthy of note that Christianswere not molested at Jerusalem until after the Seljouk Turks wrested the Holy City from the moribund Arabian Caliphate in 1076: their persecution and the desecration of sacred places by the Turks brought about the first Crusade in 1096. Again it was the Ottoman Turks who stormed Constantinople and turned St. Sophia into a mosque. According to the orthodox tradition of Islam, once a church always a church. When the ex-Khedive had the chance of reacquiring the site of All Saints', Cairo, owing to the increasing noise of traffic in the vicinity, he contemplated building a cinema-theatre there (for he had a shrewd business mind), but he was roundly told by Moslem legalists that it was out of the question. Even if the Turks urge right of conquest, victorious Christendom can claim that too, and if they allege length of tenure as a mosque in support of their case they put themselves out of court, as St. Sophia has been a church 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 on sufferance. Even in Asia Minor signs are not wanting that Turkish rule will be pruned, clipped and trained considerably, as humanity will stand its rampant luxuriance of blood and barbarity no longer. The YoungTurks were given every chance to consolidate their national aspirations and have achieved national suicide. One may feel sorry for the patient, sturdy peasantry and the non-political cultured classes who have been coerced or cajoled into fighting desperately in a cause that meant calamity for them whether they won or lost; but a nation gets the rulers it deserves and must answer for their acts.
Asia Minor will probably be more accessible as a mission-field in due course. The Moslem Turk is not amenable to conversion; in fact, during a quarter of a century's wandering in the East I have never met a Turkish convert. The American Protestant Mission will probably be well to the fore in this area in view of its excellent work on behalf of the Armenians and other distressed Christians during the War. Just as it has concentrated its principal energies on the Copts in Egypt, so it may with advantage devote itself to the education and "uplift" of the Armenians, and if its activities are as successful as with the Copts, even the Armenians cannot but approve, for the more enlightened individuals of that harassed and harassing little nation admit that the Armenian character could be considerably improved, and that, though their 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 Eastern Europe and Asia Minor will be how to safeguard the interests and modify the provocative activities of such subject-races as the Jews and the Armenians where established among ill-controlled nations and numerically inferior, though intellectually superior, to them. With their natural gift for intrigue and finance, they repay public persecution and oppression by undermining the administration and battening on the resources of their unwilling foster-country until active dislike becomes actual violence and outbursts of brutish rage yield ghastly results. Deportation is not only tyrannically harsh but impracticable, for unless they were dumped to die in the waste places of the earth, which is unthinkable, some other nation must receive them, and even the most philanthropic Government would hesitate to upset its economic conditions by admitting unproductive hordes of sweated labour and skilled exploiters. There are only two logical alternatives to such animpasse. One is to treat such subject-races so well that they may be trusted not to use their peculiar abilities against the interests of their adoptive country, which wouldthen be their interests too, and the other is to exterminate them, which is inhuman. There is no middle course.
It is a salutary but humiliating fact that we incur the worst human ills by our lack of human charity. We starved and over-crowded our poor till they bred consumption, and we enslaved negroes till they degenerated our Anglo-Saxon sturdiness of character, then plunged a great nation into civil war, and have finally become one of its most serious social problems. So the Jews were debarred from liberal pursuits and privileges until they concentrated on finance and commerce, being also persecuted until they perfected their defensive organisation. The consequence is that they are individually formidable in those activities and collectively invincible. Similarly the Turks harried the Armenians to their own undoing with even less excuse, for those ill-used people were certainly not interlopers, and so far from ameliorating their condition in the course of time, as we have done with the Jews, the Turks went from bad to worse till they culminated in atrocities which no provocation can palliate or humanity condone.
But to return to Asia Minor; there the Armenians were first on the ground, and yet the Moslems of Armenia outnumber them by three toone. Any sound form of government would have to give equal rights, but it would have to be strong and farseeing to prevent the greedy exploitation and savage reprisals which such conditions would otherwise evolve.
On entering Asia we shall find a somewhat similar problem confronting the administration in Syria and Palestine. Here we have several mixed races and at least three distinct creeds—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
The Zionist movement looks promising, everyone concerned seems to be in accord, and a Jew millennium looms large in the offing, but——. In Palestine there are normally about 700,000 Moslems and Christians (the latter a very small minority) to 150,000 Jews. The lure of the Promised Land will presumably increase the Jewish population enormously, but they will still be very much in the minority unless the country is over-populated. The Zionist organisation will naturally try to select for emigration agriculturists, mechanics, and craftsmen generally to develop the resources of the country, but that is easier said than done. If Palestine, in addition to the sentimental aspect, is to be a refuge and asylum for the downtrodden and persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe, there would be very few farmers amongthatlot—excepttax-farmers. Even in England, where he labours under no landowning disability, the Jew thinks that farming for a living is a mug's game and confines his agricultural activities to week-ends in the autumn with a "hammerless ejector" and a knickerbocker suit. As for mechanics and skilled labour generally, such Jews as take to it usually excel in such work and do very well where they are. The bulk of the immigrant population—unless Palestine is going to be artificially colonised without regard for the necessitous claims of the very people who should be drawn off there—will be indigent artisans, small shopkeepers, shop assistants, weedy unemployables, and a sprinkling of shrewd operators on the look-out for prey. If the scheme is going to be run entirely on philanthropic lines (and there are ample resources and charity at the back of it to do so) the Zionists will be all right, and will, perhaps, improve immensely in the next generation under the influence of an open-air life—if they adopt it; but the resident majority of Moslems and Christians will not take too kindly to their new compatriots, while the Palestine Jews are already carping at the idea of so many trade rivals and accusing them of not being orthodox. None of this ill-feeling need matter in the long run with a firm but benevolent government, butthe authorities will have to evolve some legislation to check profiteering and over-exploitation, or there will be trouble. It is not only the new-comers who will want curbing, but the present population. During the War the flagrant profiteering of Jew and Christian operators in Palestine and Syria did much to accentuate the appalling distress and was the more disgraceful compared with the magnificent efforts of the American and Anglican Churches to relieve the situation. The Jews nearly incurred a pogrom by their operations, which were only checked by a wealthy Syrian in Egypt starting a co-operative venture of low-priced foodstuffs and necessities with the support of the British authorities. As for the local Syrians, some of them were even worse. French and British officers speak of wealthy Syrians (presumably Christian, certainly not Moslem) giving many and sumptuous balls at Beyrout, at which they lapped Austrian champagne while their wives, blazing in diamonds, whirled with Hunnish officers in the high-pressure, double-action German waltz. And this with thousands of their compatriots starving in the streets and little naked children banding together to drive 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 to succour human destitution which had been largely caused by the callous operations of these soulless parasites. The Christians of Syria have no monopoly of such scandals. Yet there are otherwise intelligent people who speak of modern Christianity as an automatic promoter of ethics, and have 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 any sound religion has been sown, and they depend upon environment and climate more than our spiritual pastors admit; otherwise, why this missionary activity among oriental Christians? If you try to grow garden flowers in the rich, rank irrigation soil of the Nile valley they flourish luxuriantly, but soon develop a marked tendency to revert to their wild type, and it is permissible to suppose that human character is even more sensitive to its mental and physical surroundings. Any observant teacher of oriental youth will tell you that the promise of their precocious ability is seldom fulfilled by their maturity. Even the "country-born" children of British parents are considered precocious at their preparatory school in England, and, if not sent home to be educated, are apt to fall short of their parents'intellectual and moral standard in later years. The Mamelukes knew what they were about when they kidnapped hardy Albanian youths to carry on their rule in Egypt 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 the administrative authorities in Syria and Palestine will have to consider beyond ensuring that each shall follow his religion unmolested. They will have to defend the many from the machinations of the few and the few from the violent reprisals of the many. It is statecraft that is wanted, not politics or religious dogma.
In Mesopotamia there has not been much missionary effort hitherto, and there is not a good case for exploiting it as a missionary field beyond certain limits. The riparian townsfolk are respectable people of some education and grasp of their own affairs, and the country-folk are a harum-scarum set of scallywags who used to attack Turks or British indifferently, whichever happened to be in difficulties for the moment. They are best left to the secular arm for some time to come. Medical missions, staffed by both sexes, could do good work at urban centres, and a few river steamers, or even launches, would extend their efforts considerably.
We now come to Arabia itself, "the Peninsula of the Arabs," where orthodox Islam has its strongholds and missionary enterprise is not encouraged.
Geographers differ somewhat as to what constitutes Arabia proper, but for the purposes of modern practical politics it may be considered as all the peninsula south of a line from the head of the Gulf of Akaba to the head of the Persian Gulf, and consisting of Nejd, the Hejaz,[C]Asir, Yamen, Aden protectorate, Hadhramaut and Oman. Each of these divisions should be dealt with separately in considering Arabian politics nowadays, and it will be well for the "mandatories" concerned if further sub-divisions do not complicate matters; I omit the sub-province of Hasa (once a dependency of the Turkishpashalikat Bussora) because, since the Nejdicoup d'étatin 1912, the Emir ibn Saoud will probably control its policyvis-à-visof missionaries and Europeans generally, though the Sheikh of Koweit may expect to be consulted.
Nejd comes first as we move southward:impinging as it does on Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Hejaz, its politics are involved in theirs to a certain extent and its affairs require careful handling. It is certainly no field for unrestrained missionary effort, but there is no reason why a 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, the former pro-British and the latter (hitherto) pro-Turk; Emir Saoud held ascendancy before the War and should be able to maintain it now that Turco-German influence is a thing of the past. He is an enlightened, energetic man and was a close friend of our gallant "political," the late Captain Shakespeare, who was killed there early in the War during an engagement between the two rival houses. The question of missionary enterprise in Nejd could well be put before the Emir for consideration on its merits. Such procedure may seem weak to an out-and-out missionary, but even he would hesitate to keep poultry in another man's garden, even for economic purposes, without consulting him. Fowls and missionaries 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 its mission to harry exotic creeds and nations, until its conquering progress waschecked decisively by reinvigorated Christendom. In missionary parlance, Arabia generally is referred to as "a Gibraltar of fanaticism and pride which shuts out the messenger of Christ," and it must be admitted that the Hejaz has hitherto justified this description to a certain extent. Even at Jeddah Christians were only just tolerated before the War, and I found it advisable, when exploring its tortuous bazars, to wear a tarboosh, which earned me the respectful salutations then accorded to a Turk. The indigenous townsfolk of Jeddah are the "meanest" set of Moslems I have ever met—I use the epithet in its American sense, as indicating a blend of currishness and crabbedness. They cringed to the Turk when the braver Arabs of the south were hammering the oppressor in Asir and Yamen, but, like pariahs, were ready to fall on them and their women and children when they had surrendered after a gallant struggle, overwhelmed by an intensive bombardment from the sea. The alien Moslems resident in Jeddah—especially the Indians—are not a bad lot, but there is an atmosphere of intolerance brooding over the whole place which even affects Jeddah harbour. I remember being shipmate in 1913 with some eight hundred pilgrims from Aden and the southern ports of the Red Sea. As we were dischargingthem off 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 rapt enthusiasm at sun-scorched Jeddah, which, against the sterile country beyond, 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 was actually carrying his gear in a pigskin valise.
At the same time, it is absurd for missionaries to aver of Christians at Jeddah that "even those who die in the city are buried on an island at sea." The Christian cemetery lies to the south of the town (we had to dislodge the Turks from it with shrapnel during the fighting), and the only island is a small coral reef just big enough to support the ruins of a nondescript tenement once used for quarantine. No one could be buried there without the aid of dynamite and a cold chisel. Presumably missionary report has confused Jeddah with the smaller pilgrim-port of Yenbo, where there are an island and a sandy spit with a Sheikh's tomb and a select burial-ground for certain privileged Moslems of the holy man's family.
The worst indictment of Jeddah (and Meccatoo, for that matter) is made by the pilgrims themselves, though some of it may be exaggerated by men smarting under the extortions of pilgrim-brokers.
A pious Moslem once averred in my presence that the pilgrim-brokers of Jeddah were, in themselves, enough to bring a judgment on the place, and that trenchant opinion is not without foundation. Even to the unprejudiced eye of a travelled European they present themselves as a class of blatant bounders battening on the earnest fervour of their co-religionists and squandering the proceeds on dissipation. I have more than once been shipmate with a gang of them, and it is at sea that they cast off such restraint as the critical gaze of other Moslems might impose. As sumptuous first-class passengers they lounge about the deck in robes of tussore, rich silks and fancy waistcoats, though out of deference to their religious prejudice and Christian table-manners they usually mess by themselves. After dinner they play vociferous poker in the saloon for cut-throat stakes, evading the captain's veto by using tastefully designed little fish in translucent colours to represent heavy cash, and these they invoke from time to time "for luck." As it is usually sweltering weather, the occidental whiskey-and-soda and the aromaticmasticof the Levantare much in evidence, and thus three of Islam's gravest injunctions are set at naught. Their chief fault, to a broad-minded sportsman, is that they lack self-control, whatever their luck may be. I have heard an ill-starred gambler bemoaning his losses with the cries of a stricken animal, and they are still more offensive as winners.
In Mecca such open breaches of the Islamic code are not tolerated, but there are other lapses which neither Moslem nor Christian can condone. It is unfair and out of date to quote Burton's indictment of Meccan morals, nor have we any right to judge the city by its behaviour soon after its freedom from the Turkish yoke, when it may have been suffering from reaction after nervous tension; but, unless the bulk of respectable Moslem opinion is at fault, there is still much in the administration of Mecca which cries for reform. Harsh measures may have been necessary at first, but to maintain a private prison like theKabuin the state it is can redound to no ruler's credit, and for prominent officials to cultivate an "alluring walk" and even practise it in thetawâfor circumambulation of the holy Caaba is beyond comment.
Also the mental standard of officialdom is low, since Syrians of education and training do not seem to be attracted by the Hejaz service forlong, and local men of position and ability are said to have been passed over as likely to be formidable as intriguers.
It may be reasonably urged that it is difficult to improvise a Civil Service on the spur of the moment, and it is permissible to anticipate a better state of affairs now that war conditions are being superseded. At the same time it is no use blinking the fact that reform is indicated at Mecca if that sacred city is to harmonise with its high mission as the religious centre of the Islamic world, and this affects our numerous Moslem fellow-countrymen; otherwise the domestic affairs of the Hejaz are not our concern.
The Hejaz has been very much to the fore lately, and ill-informed or biassed opinion has developed a tendency to credit it with a greater part in Arabian and Syrian affairs than it has played, can play, or should be encouraged to play. Its intolerant tone has, presumably, been modified by co-operation with the civilised forces of militant Christendom, but the new kingdom has got to regenerate itself a good deal before it can cope with wider responsibilities. Emir Feisal is, no doubt, an enlightened prince, but one swallow does not make a summer, and Hejazi troops have not yet evolved enoughmoralto dominate and control a more formidable breed or be trusted with thepeace and welfare of a more civilised population, especially where there are large non-Moslem communities. There has been a great deal of nonsense talked and written about their invincible fighting prowess. They accompanied the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in much the same way as the jackal is said to accompany the lion, with a reversionary interest in his kill, and their faint-hearted fumbling with the Turkish defences outside Jeddah was obvious to any observer. They are what they have been since the fiery self-sacrificing enthusiasm of early Islam died down and left them with the half-warm embers of their racial greed to become hereditary spoilers of the weak, instinctively shunning a doubtful fight. In guerilla warfare, leavened by British officers, they have shown an aptitude for taking advantage of a situation, but they cannot stand punishment and will not face the prospect of it if they can help it. Their own leaders knew that well enough when they refrained from taking Medina by assault, bombardment being out of the question, as buildings of the utmost sanctity would have been inevitably damaged or destroyed.
Prince Feisal has, in a published interview with a representative of the Press, disclaimed all imperialistic ambitions for the Hejaz, but merely demanded Arab independence in what was oncethe Ottoman Empire. That being assured, the new kingdom will be able to devote its energies to internal affairs, and the excellent impression made by the Hejazi prince in Europe should be a favourable augury of the future.
The missionary question should be left to the reigning house for decision; it is not fair to hamper the Hejaz with unnecessary complications, and to allow active missionary propaganda at a pilgrim-port like Jeddah is asking for trouble, apart from the flagrant violation of religious sentiment. Imagine Catholic feeling if an enterprising Moslem mission were established at Lourdes. Tact and expediency are just as necessary in religious as in secular affairs—at least so St. Paul has taught us; but the modern missionary is too apt to regard these qualities in Christianity as insincerity and the lack of them in Islam as fanaticism.
South of the Hejaz lies that rather vague area known as Asir. For geographical purposes we may consider it as the country between two parallels of latitude drawn through the coastal towns of Lith and Loheia, with the Red Sea on the west and an ill-defined inland border merging eastward into the desert plateau of Southern Nejd. Politically, it is that territory of Western Arabia between the Hejaz and Yamen in whichthe Idrisi has more control than anyone since his successful revolt against the Turks a year or two before the War. In all probability its northern districts with Lith will go to the Hejaz, and the southern ones with Loheia to the Idrisi; but Western diplomacy will be well advised to leave those two rulers to settle it between themselves and the local population, especially inland, as tribal boundaries between semi-nomadic and pastoral people are not for intelligent amateurs to trifle with. Nor should the missionary be encouraged; Asir is not a suitable field for his activities, and the trouble he would probably cause is out of all proportion to the good he could possibly do. The Asiri is a frizzy-haired fanatic with a short temper and a serious disposition, addicted to sword-play and the indiscriminate use of firearms. I doubt if he would see the humour of missionary logic. As for the Idrisi himself, he is a tall, well set up man of negroid aspect (being of Moorish and Soudani descent), and has shown shrewdness as an administrator, though his operations in the War have lacked "punch." He is very orthodox, and from what I know of him I should not say that religious tolerance was his strong point. His capital is at Sabbia, in the maritime foot-hills, with a very trying climate. Asir might suit the naturalist or explorer whocould adapt himself to his environment and respect local prejudice. No one has yet entered the country in either capacity, but, from what has been told me before the War by intelligent Turkish officers who campaigned there, I think that the birds and smaller mammals would repay research, while the great Dawasir valley and other geographical problems inland might be investigated with advantage under theægisof local chiefs. All that is required, besides the necessary scientific knowledge and Arabic, is a certain amount of perseverance and resolution blended with a reasonable regard for other people's convictions. Most Arabian expeditions fail through lack of time spent in preliminary steps. I have tripped up in that way myself, but it was owing to the restrictions of a paternal Government, and not through lack of patience. Before I started serious exploration in the Aden hinterland I spent a year on the littoral plain getting in touch with the people and mastering the dialect. Any success I may have had up-country was due to the foundation I laid in those early days, and it was not until the Aden authorities closed their sphere of influence against exploration in general and myself in particular that my expeditions began to miss fire, as I had to land at remote places along the coast and hasten up-country before theirfostering care could set the tribes on me. He who would explore Asir should take a Khedivial mail steamer from Suez to Jeddah, and there show his credentials and explain his purpose to his consul and the local authorities. The Idrisi has an agent there, and it should not be difficult 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 got the Idrisi's permit and an escort, without which he would be held up to a certainty. In any case, no such enterprise need be contemplated until Asiri affairs have settled down a good deal.
In Yamen proper it should be feasible to travel again within certain limits as soon as the Imam can come to an understanding with the tribal chiefs. There is not much left for the explorer or naturalist to do, unless he goes very far inland toward the great central desert, which project is not likely to be encouraged by the local authorities. There is, however, a possible field for the mineralogist and prospector east and south-east of Sanaa, which area also contains Sabæan ruins and inscriptions of interest to the archæologist.
The northern boundary of Yamen may be said nowadays to trend north-east from Loheia inland through highland country to the desert borders of Nejran (once a Christian diocese). Its easternborder is very vague, but may be said to coincide approximately with the 45th parallel of longitude. Southward the limit has been clearly defined by the Anglo-Turkish Boundary Commission of 1902-5 inland from the Bana valley, about a hundred map-miles north of Aden, to the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.
Within these limits the two great divisions of Islam are represented in force—the orthodoxSunnison the littoral plain and far inland along the upland deserts, while the highlanders among the lofty fertile ranges separating these two areas and forming the backbone of the country follow theShiahschism, being Zeidis, which of all the schismatic sects approaches most nearly to orthodox Islam and regards Mecca as its pilgrim-centre. The feeling between these two religious divisions may be compared with that existing between Anglicans and Catholics. They will occasionally use each other's places of worship—more especially the upper or governing classes—and seldom come to open loggerheads; when they do, it is usually about politics, and not religion. At the same time, if you, as a Christian traveller among both parties, want a scathing opinion of a Zeidi, you will get it from an orthodox lowlander, and the men of the mountains reciprocate with point and weight, for the balance ofreligious culture and position is with them among the big hill-centres; including Sanaa, the political capital where the Imam holds, or should hold, his court as hereditary ruler spiritual and temporal. This ecclesiastical potentate has backed the Turk in a non-committal but flamboyant manner during the War up to the turning of the tide against them, when he sat on the fence until his Turkish subsidy ceased. He now looks to Western diplomacy in general and the British Government in particular not only to continue but to enhance this subsidy, in order that he may really govern in Yamen. His attitude throughout is natural and, indeed, justifiable in the interests of himself and his dynasty; at least occidental politicians cannot cavil at his motives; but what they ought to ascertain is how far he can fill the bill as a ruler in Yamen and the extent to which he should be backed. Without a considerable subsidy his administrative powers (not hitherto very marked) will not carry far even in the highlands.
Missionaries were allowed to enter Yamen before the War, but did not establish themselves, even on the coast. Some of them went up-country and stayed there some time without being molested. The average Yameni is not fanatical by temperament; there is more bigotry amongthe urban Jew colonies than in the whole Moslem countryside.
In the Aden protectorate there has been long established the Falconer Medical Mission, which, though actually at Sheikh Othman, just inside the British border, has done splendid work among natives of the hinterland, who visit it from all parts. Its relations with the Arabs have always been excellent, though the local ruffians looted the Mission when the Turks held Sheikh Othman temporarily.
The province of Hadhramaut, politically, includes not only the vast valley of that name with its tributaries, but the whole of the western part of Southern Arabia outside the Aden protectorate from the Yamen border to the confines of Oman near longitude 55. Mokalla is the capital and principal port. Missionaries have been well received there by the enlightened ruler—a member of the Kaaiti house with the local title of Jemadar, inherited from an ancestor who soldiered in the Arab bodyguard of a former Nizam at Haiderabad. The interior is not suited to missionary 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 on the islands of Bahrein, which are under British protection.
Continuing our journey eastward, we can dismiss the Shiahs of Persia as outside our pan-Islamic calculations, for their pilgrim-centre is at Kerbela, some twenty odd miles west of the Euphrates and the site of ancient 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, near the Afghan border. They do good hospital work, otherwise their evangelising activities over the border are confined to native colporteurs and the circulation of vernacular Scriptures. There is a fierce and barbarous Turcoman spirit in both countries which their respective rulers (the Khan of Kelat and the Emir at Cabul) do their best to keep within bounds, aided by British Residents. Missionaries seem to think this spirit can be exorcised by their entrance into the arena. 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. There is no restriction on the activities of eitherwithin the four corners of the King-Emperor's peace, and there is very little antagonism between the two in so big a field, where both are doing good work. Although the Moslems outnumber the Christians by seven to one, the honours of war go to the missionaries. Their highly-organised medical and educational missions do excellent work—the Zenana Mission is, in itself, a justification of Christian mission work in India to any humanitarian with some knowledge ofzenanaconditions. The Moslems, on the other hand, in spite of their high standard of education, in India show a tendency among their less educated classes toward the caste prejudices of Hinduism, which are dead against the teaching of Islam and a handicap to any social organisation.
Few people realise what a huge proposition the Indian Empire is to solve in its entirety, with its population of 315 millions, of whom over 90 per cent. are illiterate. Of the more or less educated residuum, not quite 90 per cent. are Brahmins having little in common with the huge uneducated bulk of the population, which is chiefly agricultural and, by its patient toil, supplies most of the wealth of India. Yet it is the cultured but unproductive Brahmin (organised by a brainy old lady) who wants to control the native affairs of India—and probably will.
In Farther India the Brahmin is at a discount and the Buddhist is to the fore, while Moslem and missionary are far too busy among the heathen to bother about each other; as also in Malay, where there is field enough and to spare for both of them.
The only other debatable field in Asia is that vast area which we call China, comprising China proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Eastern Turkestan. Moslem and missionary can hardly be said to meet face to face, as missionary enterprise is chiefly in China itself, where the great waterways have been of much assistance to Christian activities, while Moslem efforts are concentrated on Chinese Turkestan. Here there are two Christian missions, at Yarkand and Kashgar, under the protection (as elsewhere in China) of the Chinese Government. Moslem propaganda is spread by traders and others working from centres of Islamic learning outside Chinese territory, such as Bokhara and Samarkand in Russian Turkestan, and Cabul, the Afghan capital. In addition, there is a wave of Chinese secular culture lapping in from the East, and missionaries ask that existing missions be reinforced with funds to take a more effective part in this battle for souls (as they express it). They complain bitterly that the upper classeswillsend 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 in Russian Turkestan, as it is permeating Christian Russia. This missionary point of view is natural enough; how far it is justifiable is for the contributing public to decide. To the ordinary mind Christian villages which can become Moslem by the leavening influence of a few inhabitants who have been to work in Moslem centres convey one of two impressions, or both: either Christianity is not adapted to their requirements so much 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 of them if it can. Moslem and missionary activities in Chinese Asia remind one of cheese-mites gnawing away on opposite sides of a Double Gloucester. They are very active, and if they keep at it may get through some day; but meanwhile the cheese seems much the same as ever, apart from its own internal changes which the mites cannot control or affect.
We will now turn to Africa, the main theatre of war between Moslem and missionary, who battle with each other for pagan souls and each other's proselytes.
We will first visit Morocco, the most westerly ofMoslem countries. Here there is not much missionary activity, either Protestant or Catholic, but the French have been doing some excellent secular work there, and under their tutelage the country is developing on lines of moderate progress.
There is little antipathy shown to missionaries here, at any rate on the coast, and medical missionaries have been welcomed inland. Education does not flourish, but the country might be described by an unbiassed observer as enlightened at least as far south as a line joining Mogador and Morocco City (Marrakesh). In this northern area you will find an industrious agricultural population of small farmers scattered about the countryside, which consists of wide, open tracts of arable land under millet, maize, and other cereals, dotted here and there with groves of olive and orange and interspersed with large forests ofarganand other small trees. Desert country encroaches more and more toward the south, and in spite of several large streams draining into the Atlantic from the snowcapped Atlas range, the country becomes very wild and sterile the farther south you go from Mogador until it merges in the Sahara, across which lies the great, bone-whitened highway that leads to Timbuctoo.
Whatever the indigenous Berber of the Atlasmay be, the northern Moor has never been a mere barbarian, and Spain owes much to his culture and industry. He certainly used to have a bizarre conception of international amenities, and got himself very much disliked in the Mediterranean and even northern waters in consequence. That phase, however, has long since passed; the last corsair has rotted at its moorings in Sallee harbour, and I am told that to put a wealthy Jew in a thing like a giant trouser-press and extort money under pressure is considered now an anachronism.
When I first knew the country, a quarter of a century ago, it was just emerging from a revolutionary war, and local relations with foreigners or even neighbours were capricious. They murdered a German bagman up the coast in anarganforest, and the "Gefion" landed a flag-flaunting armed party to impress Mogador, which dropped water-pitchers on them from 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 old scrap-iron and bits of bottle-glass from the ancient cannon mounted over the northern gate of the town.
I was treated with far more hospitality than my absurd and rather rash enterprise deserved. Imagine a callow youth just out of his teens dropping in haphazard on a rebel tribe accompanied by a mission-taught Moor and a large liver-coloured pointer who had far more sense than his master. My tame Moor was an excellent fellow, who, beside keeping my tent tidy and cooking, helped me to grapple with the derived forms of the Arabic verb and the subtleties of Moorish etiquette. I learnt to drink green tea, syrup-sweet and flavoured with mint, out of ornate little 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 neighbouring tribe which had declared for the Fez central Government, I had very little trouble, except that a peaceful boar-hunt would occasionally degenerate into an intertribal skirmish if I and my party got too near the loyalist border. As all concerned had, thanks to Western enterprise, discarded their picturesque flint-locks in favour of Winchester or Marlin repeaters, the proceedings required wary handling if we were to extricate ourselves successfully,but my long-range sporting Martini usually gave me the weather-gauge.
I dressed as a Moor, and looked the part, but made no attempt to pass for anything but a Christian, nor did any unpopularity attach thereto; I was merely expected—as a natural corollary—to have a little medical knowledge (and itwasa little).
I found the attitude of Moors generally towards Christians curiously inconsistent. In the towns there was a certain amount of formal fanaticism which found vent in donkey-drivers addressing their beasts as "Nasara" to the accompaniment of whacks and yells, but public behaviour was tolerant enough, and the attitude of Moorish officialdom was almost courtly.
Jews had rather a bad time, if local subjects, as their black slippers and furtive bearing outside their own quarter made them a mark for naughty little boys, who flung their canary-coloured slippers at them with curses and imprecations deserving a more direct and personal application of their footgear. Most of the wealthier Jews had acquired European or American protection, and were safe enough. They lived in the Frankish quarter and dressed in ultra-European style. They made rather a depressing spectacle on Saturdays, when, garbed in black broadcloth,with bowler hats, they drifted through the sunlit streets on their Sabbath constitutional from one town gate to the next and back. They were keen trade competitors, and gained or lost fortunes by gambling in the almond export-market or catching a grain-famine at the psychological moment. One of them had retired to a leisured affluence on the proceeds that a big cargo of almonds had yielded him at a startling turn in the market. He was a hospitable soul who met me once entering the landward gate in a travel-stained burnoose and insisted on dragging me into his gorgeously-carpeted house to drinkaquardienteand look at his "curios." These consisted chiefly of modern firearms, some of first-class London make, which hung on his walls as ornaments, having been bought haphazard without ammunition or sporting intent. I nearly had a fit when he showed me a double .577 Express hopelessly rusted by the damp sea-air and offered to lend it me if I could find "shots" for it. The reverse of the shield was illustrated by another acquaintance of mine who had made a large fortune by importing Russian wheat to Morocco in famine time and had lost it in a short but striking career in England, during which he was said to have entertained Royalty, astonished the racing world and married a well-knownactress in light comedy. He, too, was of hospitable intent, but had generally left his purse at home when the reckoning came. On the other hand, he always carried the "stub" of the cheque-book which had seen him to the apogee of his meteoric career, and a glance at its counterfoils (by his express invitation) was well worth the price of a drink or two.
The local Islamic attitude toward Moorish Jews was one of contemptuous tolerance. They could certainly travel, in native dress, where no Christian could. Once, in thepatioor go-down of a European merchant, I met a greasy, unkempt Jew in a tattered gaberdine watching my commercial friend as he weighed what I took to be a double handful of crude brass curtain rings such as traders used to sell by the gross along the West African coast. They were solid gold and represented the venture of a Jewish syndicate which had collected it in pinches of gold-dust from the river beds of southern Soos and hit on this form of transport. A troop of horse could never have brought it, as gold, a day's journey through the lawless tribes of the south, but that tatterdemalion Jew had done it at the price of a few contemptuous buffets. He had, indeed, offered one truculent gang of highwaymen a few of the tawdry-looking rings to let him pass, but theyhad waved such obvious trash aside in their eager search for actual cash, which they had taken to the lastrial.
The only other occasion on which I have known a Moor to be hoisted with the petard of his own contemptuous fanaticism was an experience of my own.
I was moving quietly through a belt of timber just before dawn in the hopes of getting a shot at a boar who was in the habit of feeding till daybreak among some barley that grew near a caravan route. Before the light was quite strong enough to shoot by I was more than a little annoyed and astonished to hear cocks crowing all over the place; presuming an early caravan with poultry for market, I pushed on to the track, meaning to pass the time of day and ask if they had glimpsed my quarry or heard him. I almost ran into a town-bred Moor who was trying to round up some scattered poultry in the gloom and cursing volubly. He explained that he was riding his donkey along the track perched between two light reed cages containing fowls when the donkey baulked as a boar snorted in the thickets just off the road. He whacked the donkey and cursed the boar as a pig and a Christian. Thereupon came a rush like cavalry, the donkey was knocked from under him and he was lying amidthe wreckage of his flimsy crates with his poultry scattered abroad. The boar, already angry and suspicious, as anyone but a townsman would have known by the noise he made, had charged like a thunderbolt at the sound of a human voice so close to him and galloped off with all the honours of war.
The donkey was badly hurt and the man only escaped because he was sitting high and just above the point of impact. I helped him secure his poultry and started back to my village to send him another donkey. He thanked me in brotherly style as one Moor to another. "I'm a Christian myself," I remarked at parting, and added in my best beginner's Arabic as I turned to go, "It is incumbent on me to assist you after the aggression of my co-religionist."
This conventional attitude of arrogance toward Christendom is perhaps traceable to Moorish predominance in the Middle Ages and the importation of Christian slaves by the pirates of the Barbary coast. In any case, it has been much toned down of late years owing to contact with capable and well-intentioned Franks as administrators and technical experts.
Morocco should never become a forcing-bed of religious or racial antipathy, and will not so long as France continues to develop the countryby methods which the natives can assimilate, and is not lured into over-exploitation of her mineral resources or unwarrantable interference with her spiritual affairs.
A perfectly justifiable missionary policy would be the inauguration of industrial schools on the coast and at one or two big inland centres, also medical missions (with consent of the local authorities) wherever feasible. Moorish craftsmanship is worth stimulating, and doctors are welcomed for their science. Both schemes would redound to the credit of Christendom and be in accordance with the best traditions of the Early Church.
In the other Barbary states (Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli) a few Catholic missions have been established, and the North African Protestant Mission has an advanced post at Kairwan in Tunis. Here many routes converge, for Kairwan is a great centre of pilgrimage and taps the religious thought of all the Saharan tribes. Under such conditions, Islam gets ahead every time, as every caravan traveller is a potential missionary, while Christian missions are anchored to the spot or have to rely on native colporteurs, who labour under the initial disadvantage of being proselytes and seldom have the combination of tact and staunchness which evangelists require.
It is in Egypt that we first find Moslem and missionary at close grips arrayed against each other. Cairo is a perfect cockpit of creeds. Christianity is represented by Catholics, Copts, Orthodox Greeks and Protestants, these last being subdivided into Anglicans, Presbyterians, Wesleyans and American Presbyterians and Congregationalists. The main body of Islam—some of my more fervent missionary friends allude to it as "the hosts of Midian"—presents a fairly solid front of orthodoxy, the bulk being Hanifis, Shafeis, Maliki or Hanbalis (chiefly the two former); but the irregular forces of Shiah are well represented among non-indigenous Moslems from Yamen, Persia and India, while scattered groups of Wahabi ascetics, Sufi mystics and esoterics of Bahaism skirmish on debatable ground between the opposing lines, where range such free-lance companies as Theosophists, Christian Scientists, Salvationists, etc., all with local headquarters in Cairo and propaganda of their own.
It must not be supposed that all this warlike metaphor indicates actual strife or even severe friction, any more than "the hosts of Midian" represents the attitude of missionaries to Moslems here. On the contrary, relations are for the most part excellent, and the prevailing animosity ispolitical, not religious, being directed against us British much as normal schoolboys dislike their form-master until they get a harsher one.
The Catholic Church confines most of her energies to teaching her own people, who are very numerous and well looked after; she does not do much alien mission work in this part of the world. The most formidable band of gladiators in the Christian ranks is the American Protestant Mission, and next to them the Anglican C.M.S. (chiefly distinguished in Egypt for its medical work, which is excellent and has an extraordinarily wide range). The Americans are great on education and have done more for the English language in Cairo than any Government institution. I use the term "gladiators" advisedly, for their most trenchant work is done on their own side—they concentrate their chief efforts on the Copts, and make a fairly good bag of proselytes from them, apart from the great number to whom they teach sound ideals of duty as well as English and the three "R's." One of their leading missionaries has left it on record that no one stands more in need of salvation than the Copts, and as there is a Coptic Reform Society the Copts must think there is room for improvement too.
It has been found in practice that to convertabonâ-fideMoslem involves segregating him, and that means finding him a living in a new environment, otherwise he is almost bound to "revert" under local pressure. Apart from the strain on mission resources which such procedure would cause if extensively followed, most missionaries rightly condemn 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 the Nicodemus-squad) in order to discuss religious questions, which is usually done in a temperate and intelligent manner on both sides. Even if they get no "forrader," it tends to toleration and a better knowledge of each other's language and ideals. A good deal of teaching is done too with no expectation of making proselytes, and solid friendships are formed. I have myself known a convalescing lady missionary of the C.M.S. to receive repeated calls of friendly inquiry from former pupils; when I first saw two veiled young girls swing past with a palpably British terrier and the crisp, vigorous step of occidental emancipation, it puzzled my ethnological faculties until I was told the object of their visit.
All this is to the good, and it would be verygood indeed if they let well alone. Unfortunately, there is another cogent factor in the mission field, and that is the sinews of war in hard cash. Most people, even those who support missions to Moslem countries, are human enough to like a fight put up for their money. It is not enough for them that a great deal of quiet, patient work is being done by missionaries among Moslems in the name of Christianity and the service of mankind. They want to hear about storming citadels of sin and campaigning against the devil in the dark places of the earth; especially is this so in America, where Moslem prejudice does not have to be considered and religious organisation, like most other concerns, is on a big scale.
As a natural consequence, missionaries have to play up to this combatant instinct, and so we read in their books and reports remarks calculated to engender religious intolerance on both sides, and which do not conform with the shrewd and kindly work in the field of those devoted and often scholarly men. I shall have occasion to allude to some of these statements as we proceed, so think it only fair to mention their justification here.
Cairo is described as a "strategic centre" in mission parlance, and so it is, being situated on a great waterway with rail connection far southinto the heart of Africa and converging caravan routes from every quarter. Along these arteries of traffic many tons of tracts and propaganda are hurled annually by train, felucca and colporteur. Those who cannot read accept such matter gladly to wrap things up in and to show to their literate friends, who read what resembles a bit of the Koran and find it carries a sting in its tail, like a scorpion, aimed at Islam. A great deal of this literature consists of the Psalms of David, the Talmud or the Gospel, all reverenced by Moslems if dished up without trimmings. Not wishing to impose on that hard-worked word "camouflage," I would merely ask, as a naturalist, if such protective mimicry is worth the irritation it causes. In any case, the system reminds me of an old Highlander's opening comment on a sword dance by a rock scorpion in a Tangier saloon. "There is a sairtain elegance aboot yourr grace-steps, butget in between the swords."
No vicarious efforts by propaganda will ever take the place of personal precept and example. In hunting proselytes among the followers of Islam it is not advisable to rely too much on the Scriptures, as Moslems doubt the authenticity of our version and point to our own divergent copies in proof thereof. Nor is it any use askingthem to believe as an act of faith; if they did they would need no proselytising: an appeal must be made to their reason, and there is no better appeal than the life, works, and conduct of one who professes and practises Christianity. Even if he makes no single convert he has leavened the population around him with the dignity and prestige of his creed which has produced such a type. Unfortunately such results cannot be scheduled in mission reports, though they are real enough and well worth living for, whether a man be a missionary or not; only they cannot be produced by brilliant wide-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 personal influence, as Christians and Moslems live side by side in daily contact and reasonable accord, yet few of us take advantage of the fact to uphold the prestige of our creed or even of our race. We Europeans are busy with our multifarious interests and duties, while Egyptian Moslems are either entangled in the web of their environment, as are thefellahin, or eager snatchers at the gifts of civilisation, as are the more or less cultured effendis, or mere hair-splitters in futile religious controversy, as are too many of theulemaor sages at the great collegiate mosque ofal-Azhar. In each case, spiritual matters are apt to get crowded out. The fault lies chiefly with our cosmopolitan ingredients, which engender feverish living, if not actual vice, and the over-strained effort on the one side to impart and on the other side to assimilate a Western system of education which has induced intellectual dyspepsia. So we hear of students mugging parrot-like to pass half-yearly examinations, in the hopes of getting Government appointments for which there are far too many applicants; these young men 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 an attempt); this latter petulant protest at the temporary thwarting of their material hopes is dead against all the teaching and tradition of Islam, but it has become so frequent that a leading educational authority suggests that no student who attempts suicide shall be allowed to sit again for a Government examination. Among their seniors up at al-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 prophet or not, which fell among thosesages with the disrupting force of a grenade, causing much litigation in the Islamic courts and culminating in the divorce of the originator by his wife forkufr, or heresy as ordained by Moslem law. Beneath these troubled waters thefellah'slife flows placidly, bounded on the one hand by his crops and on the other by the market; his spiritual stimulus being supplied by an occasional religious fair or a visit to the shrine of some local saint. He toils as patiently as his water-wheel buffalo, and on that toil depends the wealth of Egypt which supports saints and sinners, schools and shops, with all our European schemes and enterprises thrown in.
As for us British, if our object is to enhance the prestige of our race or creed, we fall very short of achievement. We have not even that reputation for integrity which usually attaches to us in other parts of the Moslem world. This may be partly due to our anomalous position in the country, which was thrust upon us, but the pleasure-seeking tourist of pre-War days has a lot to answer for. Some of them seemed to think that so far from home their conduct was of no account (at least, that is the only charitable explanation), and British personal prestige suffered in consequence. Anglo-Egyptian officials, especially the subordinate grades, which come intomore direct contact with the people, tried to counteract this by increased dignity of demeanour, but the natives now knew themen déshabillé, or thought they did, and declined to keep them on their pedestals. The result is, familiarity without intimacy and detachment without dignity, while the pre-War official habit of going Home every year for some months has prevented even subordinates from studying their district or department consecutively.