Evening star., 1922-06-19
WHERE MEN BRAVE
DEATH FOR PEARLS
Geographic Society's Com
ment on Domain of Sultan
of Neid and Hasa.

If France has made a treaty with
the Sultan of Nejd and Hasa, as re-
ported, the man who runs watch
factory in Massachusetts,, owns cot
ton plantation in Georgia or makes
phonograph records in New Jersey
has a right to prick up his ears. says
bulletin from the Washington
headquarters of the National Geo
graphic Society.
Tho American business man Is alert
to news OF his customers. even though
that commercial abstraction. the 'ulti-
mate consumer is the wearer of
wrist watch who has halted his camel
caravan under a friendly palm, an
olive Arab maid whose trousered
costume of American cotton cloth Is
set of by goats hair toque. or d
band OF registering pearl divers who
seek somniferous surcease from their
work among the sharks by gazing
nightly at the very ancient contor-
tune OF a new American graphophone.
Song for Mermaid's Tear.
ITO note that a prima donna has
traded a song for mermaid's tear
from the waters off the mountain of
the mist does not sound like trade.
But when Mime. Blank, whose voice
commands ten dollars per seat. is in
the market for string of Bahrein
pearls. the jewelers. on 5th avenue
or Bond street wax businesslike. Yet
the first statement is as literal as
the second. If one translates Arabic
place names into English. but does
not translate commodities into dol
lar marks, he has a ready antidote
for much that seems mystical AS
Tor the song, IL may be recorded
and produced again for the ears of
the divers who gathered the pearls.
The daily life in the oasis patches
of trimmed Nejd, with its
dromedaries and dates and horses of
high pedigree, is fascinating enough,
but the Persian gulf costal strip from
keweit down to Katar is all the
stranger for the presence Of customs
CT many far away lands.
Here slavery survives in spite of
international conventions to the con-
trary. and nomad sheiks wear dol
lar watches. Here the bitten
Arabian horse the limousine. though
automobiles have been introduced and
q railway runs down from Bagdad.
through Eden-land. to the head of
the Persian gulf. However. the
shrine of romance of this new land
which is emerging. along with Hejaz.
Mesopotamia and TranSjordania. as a
political entity. lies in the waters off
the BahreiE islands.
Brown Men Play With Death.
Here brown men play with death
SO the swains OF many races may
A pearl buyer at Basra casually let
fall the enduring truth which will be
seized by the slogan writer who tries
TO promote Bahrein, AS long as
there are pretty women there will be
men buying pearls
The Stalwarf nakAd dfyar
clamps his nostrils with a forked
bone, plugs his ears with beeswax
and ties a stone to his feet. faces
other perils than sharks. Poison rays
present danger of staying under
water too long, and the slower death
from successive bleedings OF the nose.
caused by deep diving. The diver
has little time to think of dangers,
but he must not become too absorbed
in his submarine search to jerk the
cord which signals his comrades to
pull him up.
Night Life IL Tumultuous.
The diving season lasts from June
TO November and the waters during
that period are fecked with several
thousand boats from which the divers
work. In each Of these boats are
from half a dozen to a dozen men
and ashore are many buyers, traders
and hangers on OF the night life
one writer says:
a night on this barbaric tumul-
tuous beach Is not readily frogotten.
A long row of mud-walled. straw
covered coffee shops stretches the
length of Menameh's water front. and
from red sunset until faring. noisy
dawn the revels of the careless boat
men run their brawling course. There
are cheap. gaudy native theaters, too,
where slovenly Arab girls. all beads,
bracelets, anklets, spangles and tat
100 work, wriggle and sway through
the stnuous dances of the oriental
midways.'
From these islands the Phoenicians
are believed to have gone north to
the Mediterranean. They are only
twenty miles or the coast OF Hasa
to the south of Ell Katif, city of
underground water which gushes
from many springs"