_ CHAPTER XXX. SOME ACCOUNT OF MOHAMMED THE PROPHET
The passengers of the Guardian-Mother fell back into their former sea habits when there was nothing particular to be seen, and only the young men appeared on deck before seven o'clock. Mrs. Belgrave and Louis were the first to meet the commander on the second morning. He had been to the pilot-house several times during the night; but he was an early riser, and had already looked over the log slate, and visited every part of the ship.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Belgrave; good-morning, Louis; I hope you have both slept well," said the captain, saluting them.
"I have slept like a rock all night long," replied the lady.
"I have fallen into sailors' ways, so that I go to sleep whenever I lie down," added Louis. "I could sleep my four hours on board of the Maud, and wake at the right time without being called. But where are we now, sir?"
"You see the lighthouse ahead; that is in latitude 25 deg. We are now nearly as far south as the first cataract on the Nile, as far south as we went in Africa."
"I can understand that better than simple figures," said Mrs. Belgrave.
"But we went a little farther south than that off Cuba," suggested Louis.
"We shall cross the Tropic of Cancer while we are at luncheon," added the commander. "You learned at school that this boundary was at twenty-three and a half degrees north of the equator, and it is generally so stated, though it is not quite accurate."
"I wish you would explain this at the next conference, Captain Ringgold, for what you say is a surprise to me," said Louis.
"I will do it in a general way, though I am not an astronomer in the scientific sense of the word," answered the captain. "We are approaching the Daedalus lightship. I suppose you remember the name."
"I know that Daedalus was a very ingenious artist of Athens, who planned the Cretan labyrinth, invented carpentry and some of the tools used in the trade; but I don't know why his name was given to this lighthouse."
"I cannot inform you why it is so called, if there was any reason for doing so; very likely it was given to it for no reason at all, as some of the ships in the British navy are supplied with classical names for the mere sound of the words, as Agamemnon, Achilles, though with some reference to the trade of the originals in war."
"Why is it placed here all alone in the middle of this sea?" asked Louis, who had looked about it for any signs of rocks.
"It is built on a dangerous reef which is never above water, though some small round black rocks are seen at low tide awash. They look like the kettles in which cooks get up a boiled dinner; and for this reason the Arabs call the reef Abu Kizan, which means the 'father of pots.' As you perceive, the ship is now out of sight of land; for the Red Sea is a hundred and twenty miles wide at this point. But there is the gong for breakfast, and we must attend to that."
The usual hour for the conference was nine o'clock when the ship was at sea. So far the weather was remarkably pleasant; the north-west wind was very gentle, and the ship hardly pitched at all. At the regular hour the passengers had assembled on the promenade. The map of Arabia had been placed on the frame as before, and it was understood that Mohammed was to be the subject of the conference.
"What has become of Koser, Captain Ringgold?" asked Mrs. Belgrave, as the commander joined the party.
"We passed it about two o'clock this morning," replied the captain.
"I felt some interest in that town; for when we were on the Nile we came to a place where the Arabs wanted us to take the journey of four days across the desert to Koser on camels," the lady explained.
"It is the first port in Egypt we come to, and was formerly an important place, though the Suez Canal has diverted the greater part of its trade. It was one of the chief outlets for the productions of Egypt, especially grain, while those of Arabia and other Eastern countries passed in by the same route. The poorer Mohammedans of Egypt make their pilgrimage to Mecca this way, journeying across the Arabian Desert on foot or by camel, and by steamers or dhows to Yembo.
"General Sir Ralph Abercromby, who commanded the British army at Abukir when the French had possession of Egypt, landed at this port, marched across the desert to the Nile, which he descended to Cairo, where he found that the French army had surrendered to the English. The population has fallen from seven thousand to twelve hundred. The more wealthy Egyptians and Arabs make their pilgrimage now by the way of Suez, and in the season there are plenty of steamers to take them to Yembo.
"We are now nearing the Tropic of Cancer, and when we have passed it we shall be in the Torrid Zone, in which are situated all those places on the globe where the sun is ever directly overhead. The tropics are generally said to be twenty-three and a half degrees from the equator, which is near enough for ordinary purposes, but it is not quite accurate. When the sun is at the summer solstice, June 21, it is overhead on this tropic, and enters the constellation of Cancer, after which it is named. Nicer calculations than I can follow show that the sun is not precisely overhead at this place every year. In January of this year the tropics were in latitude 23 deg. 27' 11.84'', which places it nearly three miles farther south than the location usually named. I yield the floor to Professor Giroud."
"I am informed by the commander that we shall be off Yembo, the nearest seaport to Medina, at about half-past three this afternoon; and this place is a hundred and thirty-two miles from it. The two cities of Medina and Mecca are the holy places of the Mohammedans. The principal and enjoined pilgrimage of the sect is to the latter, though many devout Moslems visit the other with pious intentions.
"Mecca is the birthplace of Mohammed; but, for reasons which will presently be given, he went to Medina at the age of fifty-two, where he lived the rest of his life, and died there. What I have to say of Medina will come in better after we have followed the prophet through the first portion of his life.
"I give the name according to the best English authorities at the present time, though some call it Mahomet still, as we call it in French. The word means 'praised' in Arabic. Mohammed the Prophet was born at Mecca about A.D. 570; but the precise year is not known, though the date I give is within a year of it. His father's name was Abdallah, a poor merchant, who died about the time of the child's birth. A great many stories have been invented in later years about the mother and the child.
"The father was said to be the handsomest man of his time, and it is claimed that his wife Aminah was of a noble family. She was of a nervous temperament, and fancied she was visited by spirits. She was inclined to epilepsy, which may explain her visions. Mohammed was her only child. As soon as he was born, his mother is said to have raised her eyes to heaven, exclaiming: 'There is no God but God, and I am his Prophet.' It is also declared that the fire of the fire-worshippers, which had burned without going out for a thousand-years, was suddenly quenched, and all the idols in the world dropped from their pedestals."
"Goodness, gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom.
"The mother of the Prophet handed him over to a Bedouin woman to bring up, in order that he might have the benefit of the desert air; but the child appears to have been afflicted with his mother's malady, and the nurse returned him because he was subject to frequent fits. When he was six years old his mother died, and his grandfather adopted him; but the old man lived only two years after, and then he was taken by Abu Talib, his uncle, who, though poor himself, gave him a home, and continued to be his best friend through life.
"At first the boy gained a precarious living by tending the flocks of the Meccans. When he was twenty-five years old he went into the service of a rich widow named Khadija, having the blood of the same ancestors in their veins. Up to this time his position had been in a low grade of poverty. He did not take the advice of Mr. Weller, and 'beware of the vidders,' and his fortunes suddenly changed. Doubtless he was a handsome man, as his father was said to be; and he was too much for the susceptible Khadija, twice widowed, and fifteen years older than her employe, and she offered him her hand and heart, which he accepted.
"They had two sons and four daughters; but both of the former died in early life. He established himself as a merchant after his marriage; and he continued in the business, though he spent most of his time in meditation by himself. Up to the age of forty Mohammed was a strict devotee in the religion of his fathers, which was a species of idolatry. When he was about thirty years old Christianity had made its way into Arabia through Syria on one side, and Abyssinia on the other, and there were Jewish colonies in the peninsula. Though the missionaries of the new faith pervaded Mecca and Medina, the future Prophet was not converted, more is the pity!
"It was at this time that he was moved to teach a new religion which should displace the idolatry of the people, and come into competition, as it were, with the teachings of the missionaries of Judaism and Christianity. He was forty years old when he received what he claimed as his first divine communication, on a mountain near Mecca. He declared that Gabriel appeared to him there, and commanded him to preach the true religion. It is now generally admitted that he was no vulgar and tricky impostor, and it cannot be known to what extent his inherited epilepsy or hysteria governed the alleged revelations.
"After his long and lonely vigils passed in meditation, he proclaimed what he insisted had been revealed to him; and at these times he appears to have been little better than a lunatic, for he was moved to the most frightful fanatical vehemence. He frothed at the mouth, his eyes became red, and the perspiration rained from his head and face. He roared like a camel in his wrath, and such an exhibition could hardly fail to make a strong impression upon his ignorant audience.
"His first revelations were related to Khadija and other members of his household; and they accepted his teachings, while his other relatives rejected them with scorn. His uncle called him a fool; and his adopted father never believed in him as a prophet, though for the honor of the family he remained his friend. After four years of preaching he mustered forty converts, slaves and men of the lowest social rank. Then he spoke more publicly, in response to new revelations commanding him to do so, denouncing boldly the superstitions of his people, exhorting them to lead pious and moral lives, and to believe in the one all-wise, almighty, and all-merciful God, who had chosen him as his Prophet. He held out the reward of paradise to those who accepted his religion, and the penalty of hell to those who rejected it.
"Two of the most sacred objects of the Arabians were the fetich of a black stone and the spring of Zemzem, both of which were believed to be endowed with miraculous powers for the healing of the body and the soul. These imparted a sanctity above any other charms to the Kaaba in which the stone and the fountain were to be visited. In the valley by the city stands the great mosque, in which there is an immense square holding 35,000 people. In the centre of it is the Kaaba, which is not a Mohammedan invention, for it existed ages before the Prophet was born. Pilgrimages had been made to it from Medina for many generations. The stone is perhaps a meteorite, set in a corner at a proper height for kissing.
"The Kaaba was one of the superstitions with which the Prophet had to contend; and he was too politic, as well as too deeply rooted in his own belief, to think of abolishing it. He therefore converted the heathen shrine into an altar of his own faith, inventing the legend that it had been constructed by Abraham when he sent away his son Ishmael to found a nation. Though Mohammed was prudent in many things, he offended the people, particularly by prohibiting certain kinds of food. He condemned the Bedouin for killing their newly born daughters, and for other barbarous practices.
"Though the number of proselytes increased more rapidly, he had raised a fierce opposition against him. About this time his faithful wife Khadija died, and then his devoted uncle. His misery over these events was increased by the fact that his business failed him, and he was reduced to poverty. He tried to improve his fortunes by emigration; but the scheme was a failure. He was so persecuted by the Meccans that he had on occasions narrowly escaped with his life. After his return he married again; and afterwards he had as many as nine wives at one time, though he never took a second while Khadija was living.
"Now, good friends, I think we all need a rest, which the commander instructed me to give you at a convenient place in my remarks."
The professor retired from the rostrum, and the company scattered over the ship. _