Page 197 - Neglected Arabia (1911-1915)(Vol 1)

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as vegetables and fruit, in Bahrein, and the things you can get are
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almost always very dirty. One dislikes finding sticks, feathers and
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! other odds and ends in one's sugar. So on the whole it is cheaper
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\ and cleaner to get one's stores from India or London. When stores ti i
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are due, you do not feel quite sure they have arrived until you see i
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them come in the gate on a donkey's back. The possibilities are that
l the steamer did not discharge all her cargo, and so your provisions !
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i have gone down to Bombay again, or the boxes have been broken and
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a great deal of your stuff stolen. But I am glad to say that more
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1 often than not one's stores come through undamaged. It is an anxious 11
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: time in the winter when you know the steamer has brought you a
bag of flour. You send a man to get it from the custom house, but
he comes back with the information that it has not been landed, but v
is in one of the small boats. That night it thunders and lightnings and
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rains, and you lie awake wondering whether or not your flour is under
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\ cover. And oh! how you rejoice when you hear the jingle of a ;
I donkey's bell in the morning and see your bag of flour being brought l
! into the yard as dry as if it had just left the flour mill.
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On the whole the missionary has more to rejoice over and more
thanksgivings for what might have happened but did not, than causes
to mourn and be downcast. We are glad for the rejoicings and thank­ i
ful for the trials, as you can see for yourselves in this short page on s
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the domestic life of the missionary.
Mrs. C. Stanley G. Mylrea.
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