Page 371 - Neglected Arabia Vol 1 (2)

NEGLECTED A KAMA 7

Utii permitted to reside in the place as agent for the steamship company
was anxious to bring in a motor boat. Permission was emphatically
refused. The real reason was their fear that even a motor boat might
%crve as the thin end of the wedge and through it in some way western
|Hililical power gain an entrance. So the man was informed that such
a noisy affair would frighten away the fish and therefore it would be
nu|>ossible to allow him to bring it. This is the reason why the Mission
lus found it so difficult to get in. “Why won’t we let you come and
establish a hospital here?” This with some asperity from one of the
prominent merchants, “Because if we do just behind you will come the
English with a consulate and a telegraph office and we after that, nothing
but slaves.”
The lovable mill splendid qualities that the visitor sees uu ilia Pintle .!
Omul ure only half the appeal of that district. The other half is their
>cry greut need. No community in Arabia is in greater physical need.
| c\v are as badly off. Debai is a community of perhaps thirty thousand.
It lias access to no medical help whatever. During our recent visit we
ticaled a hundred and fifty people and over every day, and the only
reason why the figure was not twice as large was the limit of the
Jm’tur's capacity. We did thirty major operations and many more
minor ones. All this was inside a period of about two weeks. One of
,|IC prominent merchants of that district had suffered severely from
4 strangulated hernia. He was fortunate in that the attack subsided
*i:d he was able to wait for surgical attention until the doctor could get
from Kuweit. It was quite the expected thing that during the
li
• mu weeks of the doctor’s stay lie should invite in all the world for
treatment, and the women of the house were driven almost to despair
the mobs which overran the whole place. It was this merchant’s
jilt to the community, and made at a considerable cost of i inconvenience
^*1 trouble.
put their physical need is by no means the most desperate thing
tlui is encountered on that coast. The one remaining nest’ of slavery
ja Arabia is there and the slaves are badly treated. Some experiences
m that coast will remain in my memory as long as I have any memory. a
St^lit visits by desperate slaves begging for assistance in running away
liarrowing affairs. I remember one splendid Beloochee boy of per-
\*\» twenty. Intelligent and educated he acted as the confidential
rfvrctary of his owner whom he far surpassed in intelligence. But his
vm licr was unreasonable and abusive, and he felt his position to be
liulcrablo. I would have given a good deal to be placed in a position
h> help that hov, but the best that could be done was to tell him to
•ait tit iKitionce and hope till slavery should be abolished in his
jvuntry also. He is still down there waiting, I suppose.
The Arab community has paid a heavy price for the sin of slavery.
e^YC women are the playthings of their owners. The simplest ideas
^ common morality disappear in that relationship, and the sins of the
iiiltcrs are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation,
jfccfc is no section in all Arabia where immorality is so flagrant and
^<11 as in this district. Surely if the people of Arabia need the Gospel
juywhere, they need it here.
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