The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-08-24 00:00:00

THE AMERICAN HOTEL KEEPERS'
COMPLAIET.

Every dog has his day. Autlorities are not quite
agreed as to whether it is a good day or a bad one;
and, in truth, it is obvious that were this secondary
limitation too closely lard down, the proverb itself
would lose much of that universal application which
is a proverb's most especial boast. But assuming
it for the nonce to be the latter, the American
watering-place hotel-keeper must at this moment
be quoting it—or its American equivalent—with
considerable appreciation. We do not quite know
how many hotels there are it Europe; though at
the rate the world wags just now the page of the
Directory on which occur the names of these nine-
teenth century monarchs who rule over them, will
probably ere long supersede in our schools the old-
fashioned catalogue of Kings and Queens. But it
would be pretty sate to assume that whatever their
number there will be found in fully two-thirds of
them, at any hour of the working day or night, at
least two people "writing to the papers" to complain
of the exorbitance of their charges. In America,
they have hit on the happy idea of reversing this
process. It is the American hotel-keeper who writes
to the papers to complain of the lowness of his
own poor little bill! Their landlords charge them
as much rent to-day as they paid five years ago.
Their patrons expect to get the same extravagant
table, and still demand that they shall be accomo-
dated at a reduction of 50 per cent. And how much it
costs to supply the average healthy eater in a first-
class sea-side hotel will doubtless, he piteously exclaims,
be a surprise to those who are not familiar with the
matter. At breakfast the ordinary boarder drinks two
cups of tea or coffee, which, with milk and sugar,
actually cost five cents; bread and butter, five cents;
broiled chicken, twenty cents; beefsteak, fifteen cents;
omelette, ten cents; making a total of fifty-five cents.
At lunch the same boarder will eat "chowder," six cents;
fish, five cents; bread and butter, five cents ; cold meats,
five cents; total, twenty-one cents. At dinner he or she
will consume soup valued at five cents; fish, five cents;
roast meat, twenty-five cents; entrées, twenty-five
cents; vegetables, ten cents; dessert, Ace., fifteen
cents; or a total of eighty-five cents. Supper costs
about eight cents for each person, so that the meals of
the entire day—breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper—
actually coat the hotel-keepers, one dol. sixty-nine
cents. When it is remembered that this. does not in-
clude service, light, rent, furniture, washing, &c., "it
will be seen that the lintel-keeper does not make a for-
tune out of the permanent guest who does him the
honour to pay a fraction over two dole. a day for his
board." We really bad no idea what a poor helpless
victim the American hotel-keeper was. If he would
only come and set up here !—Evening Standard.

A handsome marble tablet, surmounted by a large
size medallion profile of the late Miss Mary Carpenter, has
been fixed in the transept of Bristol Cathedral. The memorial
bears an inscription recording Miss Carpenter's philanthropic
labours in England aadintila.

Al(!otiUlt&f:-;,7

THE LAND OF MIDIAN.

At the British Association on Monday, Captain
Burton read a paper on the land of Midian. All who read
their Bible, he remarked, are familiar with such phrases
as "vexing the Midianites "and "Midianitish women,"
but they did not know how hazy on the subject of this
grand old land the public of England was before the
spring of 1877. About 1,249 2.c. the Midianites re-
gained their former power, but after the crushing
blow they subsequently sustained, they fade out of
Holy Writ, and their land becomes almost unknown.
JoEephus's mappers recognized two Midiarxs, whereas
there has never been more than one. Voltaire, the
noble Frenchman who created religious liberty in
France, made a mistake about Midian, placing it on
the mate= half of the Dead Sea, and considering it a
little canton of Idumrea about eight leagues long. Capt.
Burton described the exact limits of the country,
and then proceeded to narrate his expeditions and
discoveries, a detailed account of which he said he
would publish about next November. Both expedi-
tions which he had the honour to lead were sent out
by the Khedive of Egypt, a Prince to whom the future
will be more just than the present is, and to whom
we are indebted for our present knowledge of a
neglected and most mythical country. In 1877 the
Khedive placed under his command the first expedi-
tion. This preliminary visit lasted little more than a
fortnight, but it gave him a fair general view of the
country, and he brought back specimens of most of the
metals mentioned in the Book of Numbers. In Feb-
ruary, 1878, he returned to Cairo, and organized a
second expedition on a larger scale. They first explored
Northern Midian and discovered a number of cata-
combs and many inscriptions very deeply cut, but not
easy to decipher. One cutting he found was like St.
George and the Dragon, but St. George was without
his horse. Photographs of the catacombs and inscrip-
tions were exhibited by Captain Burton. On the
Gulf of Akabah the expedition was very nearly
wrecked, the wretched boiler of their steamer having
struck work, and they were only saved by the exer-
tions of their Scotch engineer, David Dougall, who
managed to start the engine again when they were
drifting rapidly on to a reef of sharp rocks and were
just 50 yards off. But after this the Khedive was good
enough to supply them with a better ship. Their ex-
plorations in the interior were at one place interrupted
by the hostility of the tribes, who would not permit
the expedition to enter their territory without paying
a fine equal to about £lOO each per diem. On the
25th of February, therefore, they were obliged to re-
trace their footsteps. Proceeding in another direction
they found old smelting furnaces and caves which•
might have been catacombs, and a great aqueduct.
They were astonished by traces of immense labour,
which yielded not a single line of inscription, nor
even a mason's mark, to determine the race of the
labourers. He was able to identify some of the
places with those mentioned by Ptolemy. Turquoise
was a favourite gem among the Bedouins, and i
judging from a large one he had seen inserted n the
stock of a matchlock, which had probably been there
for 50 years, they were not liable to change colour.
The exploration of South Midian was the most interest-
ing. Photographs were taken of old mining works, and
in some of the minerals they found silver visible to the
naked eye. Pathetic indeed is the view of the
desolation of Midian. Once the Arabia Felix of the
ancients, it has now become Arabia Petrma, Arabia
Deserta. Under Roman rule it contained 20,000,000
of souls. Now the population was reduced to 2,000.000,
but the Anglo-Turkish convention puts England
nearly in the same position as that occupied by Rome
after the days of Augustus. (Applause.) He had full
I and perfect faith that Midian, like many other pro-
vinces, would presently awake from her trance—from
her sleep of ages. Midian contained a mining region
300 miles in length, and of equal depth, and he had
but little doubt that what the ancients worked so well
we moderns could work better still, so that Midian
might look forward to the development of her mineral
wealth under the fostering care of European and
especially of English companies, and the howling
wilderness become turned into a rich and fruitful
land. .

The President (Sir Wyville Thomson) in moving a
vote of thanks to Captain Burton, referred to the
assistance given by Mrs. Burton to her husband in his
travels and researches. The vote was passed with
acclamation.

The Rev. Mr. Holland recognised as Siniatic some
inscriptions, photographs of which had just been placed
in his hands by Captain Burton.
Mr. Hamilton said he had found the name of Captain
Burton, whom he regarded as the greatest of all living
travellers (applause), extolled in every portion of the
earth. With reference to the mineral wealth of
Midian, he thought there must be some regions there
where the Arabs get their most magnificent gold
ornaments.

Captain Burton said his conviction was that gold
working is continued to the present day in Midian.
He had found an old man in Suez who, in his youth,
used to wash gold there.
The Rev. Mr. Holland said the Siniatic peninsula
was full oi the traditions of the passage of the children
of Israel, but as there had been monks there for
hundreds of years, it was probable that the traditions
had been introduced by the monks. It would be
interesting to know if such traditions existed in Midi an,
on the other side of the Gulf.

Captain Burton said he had found no trace whatever
of the passage of the Israelites, but great traces of
Moses having lived there. In that part of Midian
where Moses is supposed to have married the daughter
of Jethro, they show his praying-place on the top of a
hill. The tradition of Moses can be traced back to the
remotest days of Mahomedanism.
Consul Hutchinson welcomed Captain Burton as
an Irishman back to Dublin. His name was known in
Africa long laGfore that of Spekw or gt..nloy
Cameron, or other great men. Mr. Hutchinson did
not seek to disparage their merits, but his principle
was Paimam qui meruit ferat, and he regarded Captain
Burton as our greatest discoverer. He might men-
tion that Captain Burton was the only one who had
ever entered the shrine of the Prophet Mahomet at
Mecca. ( Applause.)

On Tuesday, Captain F. R. Burton read a paper en-
titled " Notes on the Tribes of Midian." The country,
he said, once belonged to the Moabites, Ammonites,
and Amalekites of Scripture; but the tribes now
inhabiting it were comparatively modern. They
were a mixed race, and the tribes were given to
exaggerating their numbers, with the view of extorting
the more black-mail from pilgrims. The whole
land of Arabia was supposed to belong to some
one tribe or another of Bedouins, so that if all
the members of a tribe save one boy should be de-
stroyed, he would be deemed entitled to the land of
his forefathers. The history of these tribes was a
history of plundering and quarrelling with each
other, although it would not be true to say that they
were habitual thieves and murderers. The custom
prevailed of pressing the heads of children after birth.
On the seventh day after a birth there was a feast if
the child was a boy, but girls did not count. The
practice of tatooing existed among them. He believed
it to be a practice used by nations which had not much
clothing for the purpose of hardening the skin. The
paper described the manner in which young girls were
given in marriage, and stated that girls had been known
to commit suicide rather than marry men whom they
disliked. Some of the higher classes were decidedly
handsome. Longevity was rare among them, in con-
sequence of incessant fatigue, indifferent nourishment,
and want of cleanliness. Their characteristics were
strong social affections, eternal suspiciousness, extreme
pugnacity, and proportionate revengefulness. Their
sociability was extreme, and they made great sacrifices
for one another. The smallpox had replaced the plague
among them, and when a man was attacked he was
interred in a solitary hut, and food and water were
pushed into him with a stick. But in many cases the
female relations and friends joined in the quarantine.
Murder, as among all the primitive races, was a private
and not a public wrong; the price of a man's blood
was about £l6O. The races in question were mar-
vellously ready to quarrel, without the excuse of being
in their cups, for they had nothing to drink; but they
tried to avoid killing each other lest they should have
to pay blood money. They were excessively cere-
monious. If they hated Christians it was more on
theoretical than on other grounds. Nature put it
out of their power to obey the Koran. They did not
fast, they said, because they were half starved *the
year round. Englishmen could manage there, ,but
the Ottomans never could, for the. Bedouin i hated
the Turks and Egyptians, and were, in turn, despised
by them. Those who lived on the coast fished
for pearl and black coral. They eat the flesh of the
shark, but he had tried it boiled, roasted, and
stewed, and found it anything but good. As to their
cooking, all he could say about it was that they never
washed anything. They were unalphabetical, and,
consequently, had no literature. They improvised a
verse, and the circumstance of his having a fur coat
made him the subject of the following stanza:—

"0 Sheik, wearer of a costly fur,
Whither thou leadest us, thither we will go."