Photograph from Charles K. Moser 



THREE WISE MEN OE ARABIA 



Merchants and scholars of Aden may be crotchety in the forenoon, but after they have 

 partaken of their daily sprig of khat they are geniality personified, and any one of them 

 would buy your horse for the price of an elephant. 



whips waving and turbans awry ; there 

 are flashes of color from rich men's 

 gowns, as they hurry to select the choic- 

 est morsels, the clack of oryx-hide san- 

 dals, and the blunt beating of tomtoms. 

 When the camels arrive, the market is 

 filled with a restless, yelling mob. Bed- 

 lam has broken loose, but it is a merry, 

 good-natured bedlam. 



LIVELY SCENES AT THE AUCTION 



After the khat is weighed on the gov- 

 ernment scales and duly taxed again, it 

 is divided into bundles the thickness of 

 a man's forearm. Then the sellers mount 

 tables and auction it off. Each bundle 

 fetches its own price. "Min kam! Min 

 kam!" cries the auctioneer, waving a 

 bunch above the outstretched hands of 

 the crowd. "How much ! How much ! 

 will you give for this flower of paradise? 

 "Tis sweet as a maiden's eyes ; 'tis like 

 bees' breath for fragrance ; 'tis — " 



"One anna" (two cents) yells a con- 

 temptuous voice. 



"Thou scum ! O thou miserable little 

 tick on a sick camel," shrieks back the 

 seller, "may my nose grow a beard if it 

 is not worth two rupees at the very least." 



"Bisuiallah! There is not two rupees' 

 worth in all thy filthy godown, budmash." 



So go auctions the world over. Back 

 and forth they hurl revilings, other voices 

 break in with farthing bids, and the 

 "flower of paradise" sells at last for six 

 cents. Sometimes two merchants fancy 

 the same bunch of sabari. It is worth 

 perhaps a rupee, but they bid the price 

 up and up till every one else stands by to 

 keep the fires of their rivalry alive with 

 cheers. Finally one is silent, and the 

 other, crowing like a cock over his vic- 

 tory, pays his six or maybe ten rupees 

 and passes out with the prize under his 

 arm. 



In an hour the place is all but deserted 

 and the foot-marked, earthen floor lit- 

 tered with debris. Now come the hadjis. 

 the venders of firewood, all the despised 

 castes, like scavengers, to buy the refuse 



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