200 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [!&"•> 



will you please tell me what is the sense of sending a missionary 

 here if you do not make converts? He said, "I am -here to 

 save their eyes, to cure them when they get ill, and I am here 

 to show them the practical superiority of the Christian religion. 

 I am not doing anything to convert them. When they see how 

 much superior the Christian religion is to the Mohammedan 

 that may come. Our initial effort is directed to treating the 

 diseases of their bodies. We put ourselves upon a friendly 

 footing among them by doing whatever they need, but at 

 present a Mohammedan rarely thinks of changing his religion." 

 He said, " of course, in time they will come to see it. It is 

 a very slow process, and probably in my lifetime I shall see 

 very little result of that kind. The process is very slow, but 

 it pays to do it, because in two or three generations there will 

 probably be a change, and they will be glad to do it." As 

 many of you know, the religion of the average Mohammedan 

 is a very real thing to him. They look with very great sus- 

 picion and even hatred upon the Christian faith. There is a 

 race of people, one of the tribes there, who live upon the border 

 of the desert, among whom there is such an intense hatred of 

 all Christians, that they will never, if they can help it, meet a 

 Christian face to face. If they see one of the hated persons 

 within the range of their eyes, they will immediately pull the 

 black veil over their faces, and will not allow their eyes to 

 come into contact with your eyes. They are so fanatical that 

 unless one were surrounded by friends and backed by the 

 power of the government it might be a dangerous affair. 



I was in Tripoli when one of the great caravans which 

 traverse the Sahara came up from the desert. It was a most 

 picturesque sight. I wish I could adequately describe it. 

 They had been four months on their way. There were 260 

 persons in the caravan. They were all travel-stained, dirty, 

 and worn out from that long trip from the interior, and what 

 really seemed to me so pathetic, they had no water except a 

 little in their water bottles. An interesting thing in that con- 

 nection is the way that they sometimes wash dishes. Many 

 of the servants are instructed, especially those who come from 

 the desert, not to waste water in washing dishes. We often 

 went on picnics with our Arab servant who came from the 

 desert, and instead of having the dishes washed in water they 

 would rub them in the sand, and they came up perfectly clean. 



