Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1905-03-10

every morning last spring and sum-
mer on a magnificent cream-white
Arabian stallion Be that as it may,
it is certain his advent caused quite
fiutter of curiosity. | have known
him since we were boys together
boys in little North Of England town.
He's in South Africa now and will
hardly resent what | am going to tell
the readers of the Pathfinder about
him. His name is Ford-Charlmers
Ford. 1t is a name not unknown
among artists. If you have attended
the exhibitions you have probably seen
it at the bottom of more than one wat
er color.
/ happened in at his coy studio one
evening last August, only day or
two before he sailed The walls of
the room were covered with the tro-
phies of his travels. My attention was
| fixed by a sketch in water colors OF
a young girl of the dark-haired Eastern
type. On it read the name 'Zuleika. .
You world-royers gather good
many barnacles in your wanderings.
l remarked. Il suppose, too, many of
these relics Of yours have history
added, DESTROYS of drawing him out
Eyes, that's so. That sketch, for
instance could tell story, and this old
thing here could corroborate it, he
answered, handing me venerable pis-
toll with long barrel of large caliber
THAT ancient piece of ordnance not
only saved my own life, but was the
chief instrument in the rescue of one
of her majesty's vessels out in the Per-
sian Gulf last December
Ford is a man singularly reticent
about his own exploits, though he has
had enough of them. But the cigar
handed him made him communicative.
l only wish | might have taken his
story down in shorthand, for he told it
infinitely better than | can. However,
this is about what he said:
II had taken passage on the British
India Gompany's steamer Kilwa at
Bassorah, for Bombay. was just
reaching comparative civilization
again after more than six months of
| PRIV enQ dQN CuIuA Al l1AO AASOA AOt
of Asiatic Turkey. With much Difficult
ty had made my way overland all the
way from Trebizond, on the Black sea.
Part of the distance l had followed the
route traversed by Xenophon and his
devoted 10000 in their disastrous ''Ka-
tabasis" / had visited the squalid city
of Mosul-once renowned for it's mus
Inns and like fabrics, and whence, in
fact, the name muslin Is derived
to make some drawings in the excavat-
ed ruins of ancient Nineveh, near by.
1t is there, by the way that the royal
palaces of Sennacherib and Sardan-
apalus, after twenty-six centuries of OBJ
! liyion, have been laid bare. After STOP
ping en- route at now decayed and in
glorious Bagdad, | had completed my
arduous journey at Hillah, modern
town built near the site and from the
ancient brick of Babylon. Finally
having finished some further archaeo-
logical observations in the neighbor-
hood, respecting some ancient irriga-
ing works, | had caught passage on a
small dhow loaded with dates and
doated down the lazily-iowing, mystic
Euphrates. At first, beyond the will
low and plane-lined banks of the great
river, stretched the once poisoning
levels of Yrak, the very cradle of his
tory; then came lagoons which merged
ultimately into a pestilential swamp.
Thus had reached Bassorah, the mod
ern Balsora of the Arabian Nights
tales-once, during the ascendency of
the Caliphs, the port and entrepot of
Bagdad, but now. like that city, dilapi-
dated and dwindled into insignificance.
/, 1.-THE Kilwa had sailed from Bassor-
all at midnight 1t was late in the af
ternoon of the next day when, after
touching at Bushire, an important
town about 200 miles down the Persian
coast we headed for the small Arab
port of Linga, where we were to leave
some cargo.
"As the SUN sank toward the watery
horizon and dissolved in the purplish
vapors of the west, Parsee merchant,
so-called 'fire-worshipper,' first re-
moving his odd-looking, shining oil
cloth hat, paced the deck, repeating de-
youtly his alteration of the orb that he
| looked upon, not as an intrinsic deity,
but as the highest manifestation of
God A crowd of Musselmans kneeled
on their praying carpets, with their
| faces turned toward Mecca, and, with
swaying bodies and changing intona-
| ton of voice, invoked the Prophet,
careless of public gaze and laudabIy
courageous in the faith. One -old man
in particular, white bearded patri-
archial parsonage, prolonged his de.
votions till late in the evening, first
reading half aloud from an ancient
copy of the Koran, Illuminated with
characters in colors and gold, then
! praying, then amounting his loins with
oil, then lighting his 'bubble-bubble,
or water pipe, aromatic of sandal and
rose water, and putting refiectively for
an interval, then finally praying again.
1t was much like a protracted meeting.
Our cargo consisted mainly of
horses-nDDfe Arabian animals-for
Kurrachee and Bombay; and they near
| ly monopolized the deck space. There
were. as it proved. eleven Arab horse
dealers in charge of the drove, to a
man admirable fellows physically, with
the fierce, untamed look of a tiger
when pressed to bay by the elephants
A few Koords, dead-black Nubians,
dusky Hindoos and dignified Afghans,
an Armenian Immigrant or two, and a
motley contingent of natives from the
Persian interior brought the number
of deck passengers up to about twenty
five. These passengers lived entirely
on deck. They boiled their rice them
selves, which, with few dates or other
fruit and frequent potations OF black
coffee, furnished the simple diet of
most of them. They slep in the open
air along the scuppers or on some con
venient hatch. What with the horses
| and the bales of forage, the passengers
! and their always multifariOuS effects