A Baptist Abroad: Travels and Adventures of Europe and all Bible LandsWhittle, Walter Andrew
Religion
A Baptist Abroad: Travels and Adventures of Europe and all Bible Lands
Whittle, Walter Andrew
Europe -- Description and travel; Middle East -- Description and travel
When they wake in the morning there is great stir, bustle and
confusion. As the merchants curse the camel-drivers, they in turn curse
and fight each other, and beat the camels. From the noise made one
would think that two great armies had met in deadly combat. They slap
and beat and kick each other around like madmen—I had almost said
“like fiends!” They sometimes put as much on one camel as two or three
ought to carry. The poor, faithful brutes can not speak audibly, but as
these double burdens are placed upon them, they lie on the ground and
bellow in a most pathetic manner. The pitiable cries of the dumb brutes
are almost enough to move the surrounding stones to tears, and yet
the heartless Arab is untouched. The more the camels bellow, the more
their masters beat them with sticks, and prick them with sharp spears.
Finally the ships are loaded, and soon you see them strung out across
the hills, some going south to Egypt, others going north to Damascus
and Beyrout, or east to Palmyra and Bagdad.
[Illustration: DANCING GIRL.]
As often as one sees a night like this, and especially when one sees it
near Dothan (the city of two wells), he thinks of the time when Jacob’s
sons stripped Joseph of his coat of many colors, and cast him into the
dry pit. And while yet on the plain of Dothan “they lifted up their
eyes and beheld a company of Ishmaelites, with camels, going down to
Egypt.”
[Illustration: THE SNAKE CHARMER.]
“Then there passed by Midianites, merchant-men, and they drew and
lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for
twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt.” Around me
now are many money-loving Mohammedans, many cunning and crafty Jews,
who, I think, would willingly sell their younger brothers for twenty
pieces of silver, or ten pieces either. Yea, I have seen men in this
country, and in my own country, too, who would gladly sell their souls
for money. As in Joseph’s day, so in ours, “the love of money is the
root of all evil.”
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT SHEEP FOLD.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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