WHERE DRUGS ARE) SOLD: BEERSHEBA, ARABIA 



"Gum tragacanth — used as a substitute for gum arabic in medicine and the arts, of which 

 Aleppo, an ancient Syrian drug market, where Venice had warehouses in her golden days, is 

 the trade center, is shipped through Aden or the ports of India" (see text, page 235). 



ered together to discuss the strange hap- 

 penings unknown before in their lives, 

 there came forth strange tales of the 

 deadly perils to ships on the seas — since 

 across the far deserts, in the Persian 

 Gulf, strange sea monsters lay in wait for 

 peaceful traders and destroyed them 

 from below. And Morgab, because he 

 was weary and penniless and very sick 

 at heart, cursed Something — he did not 

 know what — for the calamity that had 

 come to him unbidden. 



THE FIRST PINCH 



It was fully a year later when Moe 

 Klipstick, who resided in Manhattan, 

 hurried to the drug store at the corner of 

 Third avenue to buy a remedy beloved of 

 his fathers, so that his little daughter — 

 one of the myriad that swarmed in a 

 reeking tenement — might be protected 

 against infection from infantile paralysis. 

 (Such is the pathos of ignorance! For 

 did not pharmakon originally mean 

 magic ?) 



But lo ! when he asked for five cents' 

 worth of asafcetida, which was to be put 

 in a bag and suspended about his daugh- 

 ter's neck, the drug-store "doctor" told 

 him abruptly that he could not sell such 

 a small quantity, since asafcetida had 

 gone up "on account of the war." Stag- 

 gered and humiliated by this unexpected 

 catastrophe, Moe Klipstick slunk from 

 the store, nervously fingering his solitary 

 coin. 



When the tiny girl was taken sick a 

 few days later and her restless little feet 

 grew limp and inert, Moe Klipstick raised 

 up his patient voice in puzzled protest at 

 the militant Russia from which he had 

 fled, but which still pursued him and de- 

 nied him strong-smelling medicines to 

 save the life of his baby. 



THE FAR-REACHING TIDE OF WAR 



So the many strange conveyances for 

 drugs — dromedary caravans in Persia 

 and Arabia, side-wheel steamers in the 

 reaches of the Amazon, spice trains in 



2x5 



