Page 593 - Neglected Arabia (1916-1920)

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6 XEGLECTED ARABIA
accomplish would depend entirely on the one man, but it would be a mag­
nificent opportunity.
To the appeal of the spiritual and physical needs of Oman there is to
be added that of its social conditions. Perhaps the largest slave commu­
nity in the world is to be found there. Not all are negToes; many are
from Beloochistan, intellectually and morally sometimes the superiors of
their masters. It is not the physical wrecks, far past medical or surgical r
help, that put a mist over your eyes and fill your throat with a hard lump,
but a visitor must be more calloused of heart than the medical missionary
to listen unmoved when these men tell of hopes long deferred, of manu­
mission papers stolen, of oppression and cruelty, of affection for wife
and children that keeps them from trying to get away or brings them

A CORN FUR OF DEB AI BAZAAR
back after a successful escape. To go down into that country and on the
basis of a really competent medical and surgical work to stand as the one
man who recognizes the chief of the district as no more than a brother
and his meanest slave as no less, is to have an opportunity for real broth­
erhood that is given to few men. To be the mediator between the old and
the new order, a guide of babes who know little of freedom and how to
use it, and of all men who are almost equally helpless in the guidance of a
free state, such a function most kings and presidents have never attained
to. For the new order of things in Oman is coming and probably coming
very soon.
• “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying ‘Whom shall I send and
"'ho will go for us?' Then said I, ‘Here am I, send me. »ft