vered that they were real pearls!" This story
is told by a Persian poet and although it may not be true yet it teaches a
lesson. To a hungry man a handful of wheat is better than all the pearls
of the ocean.

[Illustration: PEARL MERCHANTS.]

In his tent the Arab is very lazy. His only occupation is feeding his
horses or milking his camels. The Arab girls go out to take care of the
flocks while the wife performs all the domestic duties. She grinds wheat
in the hand-mill; kneads and bakes bread; makes butter by shaking the milk
in a leather bag; fetches water in a skin; works at the loom and is busy
all the time. The Arab smokes his pipe, drinks coffee and talks to his
friends; unless he is on the march or on a robbery excursion his life
seems very lazy.

[Illustration: ARABIAN WATER-BOTTLE.]

Scarcely any of the Bedouin can read, and they have neither schools nor
mosques. The Bedouin sometimes say, "Mohammed's religion cannot have been
intended for us; it demands washings, but we have no water; alms, but we
have no money; pilgrimage to Mecca, but we are always wandering and God is
everywhere." Yet outwardly they observe the Moslem religion of which they
know so little. In our next chapter you will read how earnestly even the
nomad children pray in the desert. And I believe God loves these sons of
Ishmael and will yet bring them back to Abraham's faith. Don't you think
so too?

X

NOORAH'S PRAYER

For many days the sailing craft from Bahrein had been unloading Indian
wares at the port of Ojeir on the Hassa coast, and for many hours the busy
throng of Bedouin drivers and merchants and onlookers were loading the
caravan, emphasising their task or their impatience with great oaths,
almost as guttural and angry as the noise of the camels. At length, with
the pious cry of _Tawakalna_, "we have trusted in God," they are off.

A caravan is composed of companies, and while the whole host numbered
seven hundred camels, with merchants and travellers and drivers, _our_
company from Ojeir to Hofhoof counted only six. There was Salih and Nasir,
a second son of the desert, both from Riad; a poor unfortunate lad with
stumpy hands and feet, who limped about on rag shoes and seemed quite
happy; there was Noorah and her sister, and lastly, the missionary.

But for the shuffling of the desert sand and the whack of a driving stick
the caravan marched in silence. The sun shone full in our faces as it
slowly sank in the wes