Various
Harper's Young People, January 25, 1881
A LITTLE ARAB GIRL'S MISSION
BY F. E. FRYATT
Many of the readers of Harper's Young People will be both surprised and sorry to learn that there are parents who are not only willing to sell their baby girls for a few pennies, but when this can not be done, to cast them out upon the highways to perish either by the wild beasts that prowl about at night, or by the fiercely glaring sun that heats the sand so that even a dog will not venture out at noonday for fear of burning his paws.
"Where do these cruel people live, and who are they?" I hear a bright little girl ask.
They are the Arabs who inhabit the deserts of Kabylia and the Sahara, in and south of Algiers, the most northern country in Africa.
"Ah, but the Arabs live in Arabia, don't they?" objects my young friend.
Yes, they do; but centuries ago the Arabians, or Saracens – desert dwellers, as they were then called, Sara meaning desert – sent out large armies to conquer other nations. These Saracens swept victoriously through Northern Africa up to the heart of Spain.
Algiers is now a French province, but the greater part of its people are descendants of its ancient inhabitants, called Moors, and their conquerors, the Arabs, together with negroes from Soudan, French colonists, and a sprinkling of Turks, Maltese, and Spaniards.
Neither the Moors nor the Arabs think much of little girls. The latter – especially the poor ones – are sorry when one is born; but when a boy baby comes, they make him presents, and a bowl of "mughly" – a compound of rice flavored with sugar and spices, and sprinkled with delicious nuts – is given to each relative.
A Moorish girl of even rich parents is considered well enough educated if she can make preserves, and dye her finger-nails with henna leaves. She is not treated as unkindly, however, as the little Arab damsels, who are compelled when quite young to work very hard. They have to draw water from the wells in heavy leathern buckets; to churn; to feed and water the young camels and horses: in fact, they live more like slaves than daughters of the family.
The subject of my sketch, little Maria Immanuel, is a young Arabian girl twelve years of age, who, accompanied by a French Missionary Sister, or nun, has been all through Europe, and is now travelling through this country, on a curious but praiseworthy mission: she is trying to raise money to buy and support little Arabian children who are sold or cast out on the desert.
Maria Immanuel was herself one of these unfortunates. When a mere baby, not yet two years old, she was picked up on the highway by some good women, and taken to their mission-house, where she has lived ever since.
I dare say my readers would like to know just how she looks, so I will describe her to the best of my ability.
Imagine a dark-complexioned, plump young girl, with rather heavy but pleasant features; fluffy, dark, silken hair floating around her head and overshadowing her eyes like a little cloud; red lips and milky-white teeth; and eyes that light up her whole face, so soft are they, yet brilliant and full of mischievous fire.
Immanuel – for so her friends call her – is very like many American girls in disposition, being intensely lively, merry as a cricket, and a great tease when in the society of children of her own age.
She has two accomplishments – she speaks French fluently, and sings sweetly, having a fine contralto voice.
Immanuel dresses just as she did at the mission-house in the desert of Kabylia, wearing an Arab cloak of white wool, called a "burnoose," with a hood for stormy weather, over a white cashmere gown, which hangs in folds to her ankles, and is made with a yoke at the neck, and full flowing sleeves. A double row of scarlet and white beads; a girdle, or sash, of scarlet, blue, and yellow silk, knotted at the waist, and falling in long fringed ends in front; and a scarlet "fez," or cap, ornamented with a band of embroidery and a golden tassel, complete her gay and picturesque costume. Dark or solemn colors offend an Arab's eye, for he regards them as omens of misfortune.
There are two sorts of Arabs among whom the missionaries work – the farmer Arabs, who live in mud villages, and the Bedouins, who dwell in tents, and roam the deserts a little farther south, and keep large flocks of sheep and camels.
These shepherd Arabs despise the milder farmers, but condescend to visit them, after harvest-time, to barter camels and goats for their barley and other grains, for they never stoop to till the soil or do work of any kind; their girls and women – at least such as they see fit to rear – do all their necessary work, such as cooking, sewing tent and saddle cloths, making mats, dyeing wool, and tending the animals, with which they live almost in common, and which are often ranked above them.
The shepherd Arabs live in tents, removing in winter to the farther south, but the farmer Arabs live in mud houses, called "gourbis." The "gourbis," like all native dwellings, are only one story high, on account of earthquakes; they are made of branches of trees and stones, cemented together by mud, a thick layer of which covers the roof. Sometimes forty or more of these houses are united in a village, and hedged in by tall cactus plants armed with sharp thorns.
The animals live under the same roof with the family; so what with this and the smoke, the smell of cookery, and the want of ventilation, you may imagine the "gourbis" anything but a pleasant place to visit.
The mission-houses, some of them in the neighborhood of these miserable villages, and some farther south, are square wooden buildings, with a court-yard in the middle, on which the windows and doors of all the rooms open. There are small doors on the outside of the building, but these are carefully guarded, on account of robbers and wild beasts, either of which may make attacks at night.
Now I must explain about the little Arab boys who are being educated and taken care of by the Missionary Brothers.
The Arabs, as I have said, love their boys very much indeed, but some families are so wretchedly poor that they have to dispose of the boys as well as the girls, when there are too many of them.
The Brothers, when they pick them up or buy them, teach them to read and write, and to till the ground, so that they may become farmers.
The Missionary Sisters teach the girls to read and write, to do plain sewing and house-work.
The work of the missions does not stop when the children have grown to be men and women; they are then allowed to visit each other socially under proper supervision. If a young couple fall in love with each other, and wish to marry, the consent of the Superior is asked, and given; for she knows the youth has been well brought up, and is worthy to have her young charge for a wife.
In speaking of these weddings, which are quite festive occasions, little Maria Immanuel recently said to a lady, in her lively French, which I will translate: "I do love to have weddings going on, we have such a good time. Oh, the music! it is fine; and then there is such feasting!"
No wonder she laid such stress on feasting, for the mission people live only on the very plainest fare, never seeing butter, meat, or any of the delicacies American children have every day.
At weddings – and they generally manage to have them double, triple, or quadruple weddings – I suppose they have fruit and honey and other fine dishes for the great occasion.
To each newly married couple a house, an inclosed acre of land, a horse, an ass, and a pair of goats are given; also some farming implements; six each of dishes and bowls, knives and wooden spoons; a bed; and the few other necessaries for simple housekeeping.
They now commence life as farmers, and, what is still better, as Christian young people. Already two Christian Arab villages have sprung up on the desert, while a third is being built.
Are the young fathers and mothers sorry when a dear little girl baby comes into the world? No, they are glad, and love it tenderly, as you may tell by this little nursery song here translated. I wish I could give you the wild, sweet music too. Listen – a young Arab mother sings:
"Come, Cameleer, as quick as you can,
And make us some soap from green Shenan,
To bathe our Lûlû dear;
We'll wash her and dress her,
And then we'll caress her:
She'll sleep in her little screer."1
LUCKY TOM'S SHADOW; OR, THE SEA-GULLS' WARNING
BY FRANK H. TAYLOR
"Be still, Meg, be still. Don't trouble me. Go and play. Young 'uns like you are good for naught else;" and so saying, Meg's grandmother turned fretfully toward the window of the cottage, and resumed her listless watching of the sea-gulls across the inlet, as they fluttered, dipped, and arose over the wavelets, picking their dinner from the shoals of little fish the mackerel had chased inshore.
"But I'm of some use, granny; you said so yesterday, when I fetched the blueberries. An' I'll go fur some more if you like. I know where there's lots of 'em – acres of 'em."
"Do as you please, child, but don't tease your granny," replied the old woman.
There was little need to tell Maggie, or "Meg," as she was generally called, to "do as she pleased," for in all of her short life of ten years she had never done otherwise. She had roamed unmissed all the days among the sand-hills of the beach, wading in the "mash" for lily pods, or hunting in the scrub for birds' eggs. Such a place as school had never been named to her. The alphabet was unknown to her, but she understood the rough talk of the fishermen, and could mend a net or 'tend a line with the best man among them.
Meg lived with her "granny" in a little unpainted hut made from ships' planking, and set among a few low twisted pines, within a short distance of a cove where Lucky Tom, her father, who was a pilot, kept his boats and moored his sloop, when not sailing out on the blue sea watching for ships to give him employment.
Meg's mother had died while she was a baby; her "granny" was almost always cross; so the child had grown up with but a single affection. It was all for her father, and he returned it in a rough, good-natured way. So these two were seldom apart when the pilot was ashore, and Meg came to be known among the beach people as "Lucky Tom's Shadow."
Now just why the pilot was called "Lucky Tom" does not appear: but it was said among the folks on the coast that fish would nibble at his hooks, and obligingly allow themselves to be caught by the dozen, when nobody else could catch even a porgy.
Near the cottage, Lucky Tom had raised the mast of a ship once wrecked on the bar, and made a platform at the top, with steps leading to it; and Meg was never so happy as when she sat high up in her "bird's nest," as she called it, with her father, and listened to his surprising yarns about foreign ports, while they scanned the horizon with a glass for incoming ships.
Meg tried hard to behave kindly toward her grandmother; but the old woman never smiled, and seldom troubled herself about Meg's goings or comings.
"She's purty certain to git 'round at meal-times, an' that's often enough," was about all she would say when Lucky Tom scolded about the child's "bringin' up."
Nearly twenty years before, Lucky Tom's father, Jack Bolden, had gone off in his schooner, the Petrel, to catch cod, and from that day neither the Petrel nor her crew were ever seen. After months had gone by, poor Mrs. Bolden fell into a fever, and when she was able to move about, she sat all day by the window, looking out upon the waves, and the neighbors gazed at her sorrowfully, for they said she had lost her reason; but in Meg's eyes, to whom she had always been the same, she was a very wise and mysterious person, and the tales she repeated to the little girl, woven from her deranged fancy, were full of strange sea-monsters, talking fish, and birds that whispered secrets to those who watched for long-absent friends. All these were listened to and believed with the full confidence of childish innocence.
Meg tied on her old and faded bonnet, picked up her basket, and walked away with a light step to the blueberry pasture.
She soon became so busy picking the clusters of round little fruit, as they peeped from beneath the dark and glossy leaves, that she did not see how dark the eastern sky had become, until a cool gust of wind caught her sun-bonnet, and sent it half across the field. Then she noticed that the sun was already hidden by the advancing clouds, and away out across the black fretted sea a long line of foam revealed the white-caps leaping in great haste over each other, just like a flock of sheep, in their race to reach the sands.
The only near refuge for poor Meg was the Life-saving Station – one of those lonely buildings that the government has placed along the coast, with boats and crews, whose duty keeps them on the watch all winter for shipwrecks. It was midsummer now, and the station was locked up tight; but Meg knew how to get the better of locks and bars. She reached the building just in time to escape a wetting from the thick rain that now shut out the sea and land alike, beating fiercely against the stout structure, and running in many little rivulets down the sand, to be swallowed up, as all water is at last, by the great ocean.
At one corner the winds had blown away the sand, so Meg found room to crawl with her basket beneath the floor, and a loose board she had long ago discovered admitted her to the interior. What a gloomy, close place in contrast with the wildness of the scene outside! Have you ever visited a station of the Life-saving Service? No? Well, then, I'll try, with the aid of the picture, to explain what it is like.
First, there is the life-boat, light but very strong, and shaped so it will rise over the tops of the waves rather than go through them. This one is handled by about six men; one, the captain, to steer, four men to row, and one with a pike-staff and lines in the bow. You notice that the wheels of the truck holding the boat are very wide; that allows them to roll over the sand without sinking into it. Under the boat is a leathern bucket, a coil of rope, and a grapnel or hook, and in front an ingenious device, consisting of a board with a row of pegs about the edge, upon which a line many hundreds of feet in length is placed, with the end tied to a projectile in the queer-looking cannon above. This is intended to be shot over the rigging of ships ashore, and used to haul out the larger rope upon the cart to the left of the picture, and to which the canvas bags hanging from the ceiling are fastened, to bring people from the wreck. Back of the cart you see rockets and signal torches, with a long tin trumpet, all neatly kept in a rack. There are lanterns too, and against the partition a mortar and some balls, two axes, and many other tools. With all of these and their uses Meg was well acquainted. Sometimes she had seen the crew run with the boat down to the water, and go through with their drill, when the Superintendent came there; and once the men hauled it out in the night, everybody greatly excited, and put out into the waves to pick up the crew of a sinking steamer; but a schooner was there first, and they only brought back a woman and little girl. How scared they did look, the poor things! and how thankful the child was for the use of Meg's only spare frock!