From Debai to Sharkeh we rode on asses, and as our two chests were heavy they were put, one each, on the backs of two other asses; the distance is about ten miles. At Sharkeh we met old friends and were glad that even after a previous visit we were welcomed. An Arab merchant showed us much kindness and offered us a shop with a prophet’s chamber above it for rent. Since this visit our missionaries often come here. From Sharkeh we crossed over to Lingah, and thence back to Bahrein by the mail steamer, but Elias went on visiting Ajman and the villages beyond all the way to Ras-el-Jebel, which means “the top of the mountain.” The Arabic version of the seventy-second Psalm gives the promise in this way: “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth on Ras-el-Jebel; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.” XIII ACROSS THE DESERT OF OMAN Oman is a little peninsula that sticks out eastward from the big peninsula of Arabia, and it might almost be called an island. On three sides are the waters of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, and on the west is the great sea of sand which the Arabs call the “empty abode,” and which has never been crossed by any traveller as far as we know. The Arabs themselves are afraid to venture beyond the limits of the oases that touch its borders, and on all the maps of Arabia this desert is marked “blank and unexplored.” Because the people of Oman for centuries past lived on such an island with the sea on one side and the desert on the other, they are quite distinct from the other Arabs. The language they speak has a peculiar accent, and their religion, although they are Mohammedans, is in many respects different from that of the other parts of Arabia. I want to tell you of two journeys taken across this province. Many others have been made since, and our medical missionaries can now visit all the villages in the mountains back of the coast. On May 9, 1900, a colporteur and I put our two chests of books and medicines on board a small sailing-boat, and at four o’clock the wind was favourable to leave Bahrein harbour. We intended to visit the pirate coast, and thence, if the way proved open, to cross the horn of Oman to Muscat, overland. The captain and crew of our boat were all strict Moslems, and made no secret of the fact that formerly they were slave-traders. Crossing by zigzag lines to the Persian coast to avoid shoals and catch the wind, we reached Bistana and then sailed across the Gulf direct for Sharkeh. Half-way across is the little island of Abu Musa, with a small Arab population, but splendid pasturage, good milk and water. The chief export is red oxide, of which there are two hills with a boundless supply. Steamers occasionally call here for this cheap, marketable ballast; we left our witness in the shape of Arabic Gospels.