Topsy-Turvy Land | Page 2

the mode of travel strange in Topsy-turvy Land, even the time of the day is all upside down. When the boys and girls of America are going to bed the boys and girls of Arabia are thinking of getting up. As early as four o'clock by western time the muezzin calls out loud from the top of the minaret (for Moslem churches have no steeples and no bells) to come and pray. Arabs count the hours from sunrise. It is noon at six o'clock and they breakfast at one; at three o'clock in the evening all good boys and girls are asleep.
[Illustration: MODES OF TRAVEL.]
In Topsy-turvy Land all the habits and customs are exactly opposite to those in America or England. For instance when a boy enters a room he takes off his shoes but leaves his hat on his head. I do not know whether we should call it a hat, however. His hat has no rim and is not made of felt or straw, but is just a folded handkerchief of a large size and bright colour with a piece of cord to hold it wound round his head--a sort of a hat in two pieces. The girls go without shoes but carefully cover their pretty (or ugly) faces with a black veil.
At home you eat with a spoon or use a knife and fork. Here the Arabs eat with their fingers; nor do they use any plates or butter dishes, but a large piece of flat bread serves as a plate until it is all eaten. So you see in Arabia the children not only eat their rice and meat but their plates also. You read a book from left to right but in Arabia everybody begins at the right-hand cover and reads backward. Even the lines read backward and in Arabic writing there are no commas or capitals and the vowels are written not next to the consonants but stuck up above them. Potato in Arabic would be written with English letters this way:
O A O T T P
Can you read it?
In your country a carpenter stands at his bench to work, but here they sit on the ground. With you he uses a vise to hold the board or stick he is planing; here he uses his bare toes. With you he pushes the saw or, especially, the plane away from him to cut or to smooth a piece of wood, but in Topsy-turvy Land he pulls his tools towards him. Buttons are on the button-hole side and the holes are where you put the buttons. Door keys and door hinges are made of wood, not of iron as in the Occident. The women wear toe-rings and nose-rings as well as earrings and bracelets. Everything seems different from what it is in a Christian country.
One strange sight is to meet people out riding. Do you know that the men ride donkeys side-saddle, but the women ride as men do in your country? When a missionary lady first came to Bahrein in Eastern Arabia and the boys saw her riding a donkey they called out: "Come and see, come and see! The lady has no feet!" Because they saw only one side of her. Then another one called out and said: "Yes she has, and they are both on this side!"
[Illustration: EUROPEAN VISITORS ON DONKEYS.]
Another odd custom is that Arabs always turn the fingers of the hand down as we turn them up in beckoning or calling anybody. Many other gestures seem topsy-turvy as well.
In your country boys learn the lesson of politeness--ladies first; but it is not so over here. It is men first in all grades of society; and not only men first but men last, in the middle, and all the time. Women and girls have a very small place given them in Topsy-turvy Land. The Arabs say that of all animal kinds the female is the most valuable except in the case of mankind! When a girl baby is born the parents are thought very unfortunate. How hard the Bedouin girls have to work! They are treated just like beasts of burden as if they had no souls. They go barefoot carrying heavy loads of wood or skins of water, grind the meal and make fresh bread every morning or spin the camel's hair or goat's hair into one coarse garment. They are very ignorant and superstitious, the chief remedies for sickness being to brand the body with a hot iron or wear charms--a verse from the Koran sewn up in leather or a string of blue beads, which are supposed to drive away evil influences.
How very thankful girls should be that in all Christian lands they have a higher place and a better lot than the poor girls and women of