The language of these little angels and the grown-up ones in Arabia is very poetical. The Arabs, because they live in the desert and look up into the big, blue sky and far out to the horizon where the mirage paints desert pictures every day, are full of imagination and live in an atmosphere of poetry. They love jingling words and proverbs and pretty sayings and figures of speech. A mosquito has only a sting in New Jersey. In Arabia they call him _aboo fas_, which means “father-of-an-ax”! In America a tramp is a tramp, but the Arabs call him a _son-of-the-road_. And what could be prettier than their name for echo, _bint-el-jebel_, “daughter of the mountain”? Why, there is a whole fairy story in that one word! And if you go down the columns of the Arabic dictionary you can find many a story locked up in some word and only waiting to be opened. In North Arabia when they say, “How-do-you-do,” the proper expression is, “What is the colour of your condition?” This may be philosophical, but it does not make good sense in English. Strawberries are called _French mulberries_, and the name given to potatoes when first brought to Bahrein was _aliyeywellam_; why this name was given, I cannot tell. Where could you find a better name for wine than the Arab _um-el-khabaith_, “mother of vices”? No wonder all the Arab children are staunch prohibitionists. And you will know more about the nights in Arabia when I tell you that the common name for jackal is “_son-of-howling_”! “The language of the angels” is not altogether lovely and beautiful; alas, it bears the marks of a false religion all over it like scratches on marble or ink-stains on a beautiful piece of handwriting. Mohammed’s life and Mohammed’s teaching were not like the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, and so the Arabic language abounds in words that are not pure and not lovely. The missionaries in Egypt and in Syria have done much to purify and elevate the language of the Arabs by giving them Christian books and papers and above all the Holy Bible in their own tongue. The Arab children in the mission schools now sing Christian hymns and many of the stories that you love to read, such as “Ben Hur” and “Black Beauty” and “Robinson Crusoe,” have been translated into Arabic. At the Beirut press alone about twenty-five million pages of Christian books are printed every year. When the Bible takes the place of the Koran, the Arab speech with all its beauty and strength will become more than ever “the language of the angels.” XI PEARLS AND PEARL DIVERS