or overcoat but has no sleeves
nor buttons. The Arabs in Bahrein put a great deal of pretty embroidery
work on these garments and some of them are worth twenty or thirty
dollars. But the sewing is done very cheaply. A kran is a Persian coin
worth about ten cents; can you figure out how much Mohammed earned in a
month?

The Shepherd of the Machine kept working away and when his hopes grew
strong he sang at his work. In a few months he paid a visit to the Mullah
(the Moslem priest or teacher), and that same night the Arab fiddles and
drums rang out merry music around the palm-leaf hut of his beloved bride.
But the music of the machine sounded still sweeter next morning. Daily
bread, with rice, fish and dates, and on rare occasions even mutton, all
came out of the machine. He loved the very iron of it and, as he told us,
read a prayer over it every morning: _Bismillahi er rahman er raheem._ His
was the only machine, and a small monopoly soon makes a capitalist. His
palm branch hut was exchanged for a house of stone; and Allah blessed him
greatly. No shepherd was ever more tender to his little lambs than
Mohammed to the old machine.

When we entered the house on our first visit, there stood the machine! Not
much the worse for wear, and with "_Pfaff_. C. Theodosius,
Constantinople," still legible on the nickel-plate. But the old machine
had found a rival. By its side stood another make of machine which looked
strangely familiar to American eyes. It was while comparing the machines
and drinking Arab coffee that we learned from Mohammed why he prized the
old one as better. "Wallah," he said, "I would not sell it for many times
its original price. There is blessing in it, and all I have comes from
that machine, praise be to Allah." And so we sipped his cups and heard his
story and ceased to wonder why he was called the Shepherd of the Sewing
machine. The shepherd has a brother who wants to learn English and goes to
Bombay every year--but that is another story.

There are many other sewing machines in Bahrein now, but Mohammed's was
the first, and he introduced the others. Do you not think that he should
be called the Christopher Columbus of Bahrein tailors?

IX

THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT

About one-third of Topsy-turvy Land is desert and is the home of those
Arabs that wander about from place to place and are called nomads or
_Bedouin_. The word Bedouin means a desert-dweller. But you must not think
that a dese