Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-06-23
&c geographic News
Bulletins BY the
National Geographic Society
NEJD AND HASA

NLyD 6ANO HASA
If France has made a treaty with
the Sultan of Nejd and Hasa. as re-
ported. the man who runs a watch
factory in Massachusetts, owns a
cotton plantation in Georgia, or
makes monograph records in New
Jersey has a right to prick up his
ears, say a bulletin from the WASH
ington, ID. C. headquarters of the
National Geographic Society.
The American business man is
alert to news of his customers, even
though that commercial abstraction.
the ultimate consumer Is the wear
err OF a wrist watch who has halted
his camel a under q friendly
palm, an olive Arab maid whose
trousered costume OF American cot
ton cloth is set off by a goats hair
toque, or a band of registering pearl
divers who seek somniferous sur
cease from their work among the
sharks by gazing nightly at the very
ancient contortions OF a drab lady of
Arabia to the tune of a new Ameri-
can graphophone.
A Song for a Mermaid's Tear
ITO note that a prima donna has
traded a song for a mermaid's tear
from the waters OF the mountain of
the mist, does not sound like trade.
But when Nine. Blank, whose voice
commands ten dollars per seat, Is In
the market for a string of Bahrein
pearls. the jewellers on Fifth ave.
nue. or Bond street wax business
like. Yet the first statement is as
literal as the second. If trans
lates Arabic place names into Eng
fish but does not translate commo-
dities into dollar marks he has a
ready antidote for much that seems
mystical. AS for the song. it may
be recorded and produced again for
the ears OF the divers who gather
the pearls.
THE daily life in the oasis patches
of desert trimmed Nejd, with is
dromedaries and dates and horses
of high pedigree Is fascinating
enough. but the Persian Gulf coastal
strip from Keweit down to Katar is
all the stranger for the presence of
customs OF many far away lands.
Here slavery survives in spite OF
international conventions to the
contrary. and nomad sheiks wear
dollar watches. Here the fiea-bitten
camel is the freight car and the
Arabian horse the limousine, though
automobiles have been introduced
and a railway runs down from Bag
dad, through Edenland, to the head
of the Persian Gulf. However, the
shrine of romance OF this new land
which is emerging, along with He
JAZZ, Mesopotamia and Transjorda-
mia. as a political entity, lies in the
waters off the Bahrein Islands.
Depends on Whims OF Pretty Women
Here brown men play with death
so the SWANS of many races may
spell their love of m in pearls.
A pearl buyer at Basra casually let
fall the enduring truth which will
Il. be seized by the slogan writer who
tries to promote" Bahrein-'As long
as there are pretty women their will
be men huying pearls.
THE stalwart, naked diver who
clamps his nostrils with a forked
bone, plugs his cart with beeswax
and ties a stone to his feet. faces
other perils than sharks. Poison
rays may sting him. there is the ever
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 dan
gers but he must not become too alb
sOt Dcu III MS SuDlIidi otufSAi -
jerk the cord which signals his COM
rades to pull him up.
. Night Life is Tumultuous -.
THE diving season lasts from
June to November and the waters
during that period are iecked 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 r many
buyers, traders, and hangers on OF
the night life n writer says:
"a night on this barbaric, tu-
multuous beach Is not readily for
gotten. A long row of mud-walled,
straw covered coffee shops stretches
the length of Menameh's water
front, and from red sunset till far
ing, noisy dawn the revels Of the
careless boatmen run their brawl-
ing course There are cheap, gaudy
native theatres. too. where slovenly
Arab girls. all beads, bracelets
anklets. spangles and tattoo work
wriggle and sway through the sinu-
Gus dances of the Oriental midways.'
From these islands the Phoeni-
clans believed to have gone north to
the Mediterranean. They are only
twenty miles off the coast Of the
Pasa to the south of Ell Katif. city
of underground water which gush-
es from many springs"