THE RISE OF THE NEW ARAB NATION 



385 



Photograph from Frederick Simpich 

 FISH CAUGHT IN MASKAT HARBOR! NOTE THF METHOD OF PACKING HAMPERS ON 



THE DONKEY 



This picture belongs under the head of food-supply rather than fisherman's luck, for it 

 is only in countries where tired business men outnumber hungry stomachs that fishing becomes 

 a recreation rather than a business. So plentiful are fish around Maskat that in times of 

 drought dried fish are fed to cattle. 



masons, and there is nothing in the mud- 

 walled architecture and ugly brick houses 

 of Arab towns to show any national 

 standard of architecture. 



The Koran also forbids an Arab to 

 paint, hew. or carve anything representa- 

 tive of the human body or of any other 

 living creature ; so in all their crude paint- 

 ing and sculpture they limit their designs 

 to figures of flowers, trees, vegetables, the 

 heavenly bodies, or to fantastic patterns 

 and color combinations. 



ROMANCE AND WEALTH OF ARABIANS PEARE 

 FISHERIES 



Bahrein, the remote Arab isle in the 

 Persian Gulf, which is the reputed birth- 

 place of the Phoenicians, has played an 

 important part in the eventful history of 

 the Middle East. Tradition says the lus- 

 trous pearls that gleamed on the breast of 



the Queen of Sheba were fished up from 

 the hot. dangerous depths of these wa- 

 ters. And long before the flood, says 

 Babylonian mythology, a great creature, 

 half man and half fish, called "Oannes," 

 came up from the waters of Bahrein, 

 strode ashore, and went north to teach 

 culture to the Chaldeans! Here, too, are 

 strange, mysterious ruins awaiting the 

 pick and spade of exploring antiquarians. 

 But it is the big, high-priced pearls 

 rather than ruined cities that make mod- 

 ern Bahrein a coveted prize in the break- 

 up of the Turkish Empire. For centuries 

 fortunes have been fished up from these 

 seas each year. On the adjacent Arab 

 coast are certain sheiks in whose tribes 

 pearls of great price have been handed 

 down for generations, and Ishtar, the dis- 

 solute Babylonian princess, is said to have 

 worn a necklace of Bahrein pearls which 



