THE LAND OF THE STALKING DEATH 



393 



tions, trade will no doubt increase con- 

 siderably, especially our export sales of 

 such necessaries as cloth, oil, glassware, 

 tools, and perhaps firearms. 



Moslem political power centered in 

 Mecca, under a British protectorate, sig- 

 nifies the end of Islam's old policy of 

 bigotry and exclusiveness. It may even 

 banish forever the specter of a holy war 

 in the Middle East, notwithstanding the 

 Prophet's warning that "Paradise lies 

 under the shadow of the Sword." 



Arabia's liF£ a see-saw 



It is not easy to believe that the mighty 

 Moslem faith will lose adherents because 

 of the world war. But perchance the 

 break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the 

 passing of its hermit spirit will bring 

 trade and the quickening influence of the 

 Western World to these long somnolent 

 regions. 



"When Othman falls, Islam falls" is 

 an old saying in the Levant. Certainly 

 the founding of the new Arab State, 

 under British control, marks the begin- 

 nine of closer and more confidential re- 



lations between Christian and Moslem 

 nations ; and it means a tremendous gain 

 to civilization in Britain's increased pres- 

 tige over Moslem peoples in India, Asi- 

 atic Russia, Persia, Egypt, and elsewhere. 



Possibly the Moslems of the Russian, 

 French, and British territories can even 

 be gradually assimilated politically, to 

 emerge eventually from this melting pot 

 as citizens and loyal subjects first and 

 good Moslems afterward. 



The Koranic faith withstood a terrific 

 blow in the loss of the Sultan's power 

 and standing-, and it is a most significant 

 fact that, whether he resides at Cairo or 

 Mecca, the new head of the faith will be 

 under Christian British influence, and 

 Arabia will be open to the trade and 

 travel of all nations. 



In the long ago Arabia conquered 

 Egypt, Syria, and Persia, and the Om- 

 miad dynasty spread the conquest from 

 India to Spain. Till the twelfth century, 

 Arab rule in the Orient was supreme, 

 and art, literature, and science flourished. 



Freed of the Turkish yoke, Arabia 

 may rise again. 



THE LAND OF THE STALKING DEATH * 



A Journey Through Starving Armenia on an American 



Relief Train 



By Melville Chater 



iSK the average American what he 

 Z\ knows about the Transcaucasus, 

 / \ and he will probably draw from 

 his boyhood memories the fact that it 

 produced those blonde-haired beauties 

 who used to be headline curiosities in 

 dime museums. And if you particular- 

 ize in Transcaucasian topography by ask- 

 ing "What do you know about Geor- 

 gia?" it is ten to one that he will answer 

 promptly, "Sherman marched through it." 

 And so, it was not without curiosity 

 that I, as an average American, caught 

 from a British transport's deck my first 



*For a map of the territory described by Mr. 

 Chater in this article, see page 374. 



glimpse of those mountain-ringed shores 

 which the maps of one's childhood de- 

 picted as a pea-green isthmus lying be- 

 tween the Black and Caspian Seas. 



Everyone was on deck for the night — 

 British Tommies and their officers, the 

 little Mongol-faced Ghurkas, the tall and 

 dignified Sikhs, the gray-clad nursing 

 sisters — and even the Punjabi cooks in 

 our fore hatchway ceased work on the 

 flour-and-water cakes, which they had 

 been baking incessantly for four days, 

 and shaded their eyes toward the wide, 

 squat port of Batum, with its foreground 

 of British warcraft and its sky-line where 

 the pear-shaped church domes of Russian 

 civilization spired upward. 



