“Then,” Kamil said, “why did you forbid the boys to study the books?”
“We did not,” one of the teachers said. “We would never do such a thing! Look, we will buy some of them for ourselves and read them.” With that the three teachers took money from their pockets, and each purchased a Bible.
Sam was amazed. Once again he felt as though he were in the Book of Acts watching a miracle unfold.
The three teachers left the house happy, and before long the boys returned and brought their school friends to buy Bibles. “Our teachers told us we will study these together,” they explained.
The following day, Sam was asked to go to the home of a man who was very ill with a large tumor in his stomach. Sam tapped into the tumor and drew off the watery liquid inside it. With the pressure released, the patient felt better immediately. Sam and Kamil knelt beside the man’s bed. As they prayed for him in the name of Jesus Christ, men and children crowded around to hear their prayer. They all responded aloud with “amen” at the end of each sentence. Before Sam and Kamil left the house, the owner bought a Bible from them and thanked God for the opportunity to own it.
Many more residents of Makullah invited Sam and Kamil into their homes. At each house the men visited, Kamil read the Lord’s Prayer and then sang hymns. At the close of their prayers, the residents of the house would respond with a chorus of “amen.”
Time passed quickly, and on Tuesday, April 7, 1891, Sam and Kamil boarded a ship to return to Aden. The Sultan insisted on paying for their passage and food, and Sam promised the people of Makullah that they would return one day. Amazingly, the trip straight back to Aden took just four days. Sam spent much of that time writing notes about what he had learned.
Sam and Kamil reached Aden and were delighted to find Jim in good health. Jim was amazed to learn that the men had sold 110 copies of the Scriptures in Arabic on their journey. He was especially interested in the sailors’ invitation to visit Muscat. Perhaps, the three young men concluded, they should see more of Arabia before deciding where God wanted them to plant the Arabian Mission.
Chapter 9
Settling In
Ten weeks after arriving back in Aden, Sam set off on another missionary adventure—to the ancient city of Sana’a. This time he traveled alone since Kamil had gone to East Africa with a colporteur for the British and Foreign Bible Society. Jim was traveling around the coast of the Arabian Peninsula to Muscat to learn more about the possibilities of missionary work there.
On June 27, Sam steamed out of Aden harbor aboard the Tuna. The vessel headed west, through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. It then headed up the Red Sea back to Al Hudaydah, which Sam had visited on his way to Aden from Suez. Al Hudaydah was about one hundred miles west of Sana’a. Sam intended to apply to the Turkish authorities for a permit to travel across Yemen to Sana’a. When he arrived in Al Hudaydah, he realized that this was not possible.
The situation in Sana’a, Sam learned, was tense. Two ships filled with Turkish troops had arrived and were disembarking, on their way to reinforce two thousand Turkish soldiers occupying Sana’a as part of the Ottoman Empire. Six thousand Bedouins were said to be waiting in the mountains outside the city for the right time to attack. Indeed, there had been war in and around Sana’a for months as the Bedouin tribes tried to fight back against their oppressive Ottoman rulers. The Italian consul in Al Hudaydahtold Sam the Turkish authorities would not issue a permit to travel inland. Without alternative options, Sam decided to hire a mule and driver and set off without permission.
Sana’a would be the farthest inland Sam had traveled on the Arabian Peninsula, and he was eager to view its interior. He spent most of the six-day journey on the back of a mule. What he saw fascinated him. Unlike most areas of the world that were lush at the coast and more barren or desertlike in the interior, the countryside on the coast around Al Hudaydah was rocky and barren, although the land became greener and more fertile farther inland. The mountainsides were being cultivated to grow coffee, millet, and grapes and other fruit. Hundreds of camels, cows, and sheep grazed in the green valleys. The scenery was more like what Sam would have expected to see in England than in Arabia.
The temperature had a lot to do with the changes Sam saw. When Sam left Al Hudaydah, the temperature had been nearly one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. As the mule train climbed ever higher on the way inland, however, the temperature began to drop. By the time Sam reached Sana’a, over seven thousand feet above sea level, the temperature was eighty degrees during the day and fell to near sixty at night.
As Sam approached Sana’a, he could not help but imagine himself to be back in Bible times. There seemed to be almost nothing modern around to remind him that he was in the nineteenth century. Sana’a itself was one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Sam had read that according to popular legend, Shem, the son of Noah, had founded the city.
The Italian consul in Al Hudaydah had given Sam the address of an Italian merchant in Sana’a, and Sam made his way through the narrow, winding streets to the house. It was like walking through a maze. The mud-brick houses decorated with white geometric shapes rose three or four stories high on both sides of the street. Sam found the house he was looking for, and the merchant agreed to let him stay for one night only. The merchant explained that it might offend the local government if he were seen entertaining an American missionary.
Sam accepted the offer and set about exploring Sana’a. He soon found himself on the edge of the old fortified city, surrounded by ancient clay walls about thirty-five feet high. As he made his way through the thousand-year-old Yemen Gate into the old city, he marveled at the houses. Unlike any he had seen in Aden or even in Al Hudaydah, they were tall and narrow and decorated with elaborate frescoes and stained-glass windows. Mosques seemed to be everywhere in the old city. None was more impressive than the thirteen-hundred-year-old Great Mosque of Sana’a, with its towering minaret. The streets of Sana’a thronged with people. Numerous markets sold bread, spices, raisins, cotton, copper, pottery, and silverware.
Sam spent a comfortable night with his Italian merchant host. The next day he went to a kahwah (coffee shop) to inquire about finding another place to stay. One of the men at the coffee shop offered Sam a room. Sam gratefully accepted. During the night, Turkish officers came to the house and demanded Sam’s passport. They told Sam he would have to pay a fee to have it returned. Sam had expected this, and after he paid the fee, his passport was returned to him.
Following this experience, Sam decided that it was better to work with the Turks than against them. Before leaving Aden for East Africa, Kamil had given Sam the name of a friend in Sana’a who was a Turkish army officer. Sam decided it was a good time to pay the officer a visit.
The Turkish officer turned out to be friendly and helpful. He listened with interest as Sam described his adventure so far, and he invited Sam to stay at his home. But that lasted only one night. The next day the officer received a letter from his superior officer. The letter stated that given the present state of the country and the danger from war, it was undesirable for a Turkish officer to entertain an American missionary in his house. Sam returned to the kahwah to find another room to rent.
Sam’s presence in Sana’a drew attention, and a small crowd followed him wherever he went. He realized that it was too dangerous to speak openly about Christianity out of doors, but Sam felt safe reading chapters from the Gospel of John to the men curious enough to venture into his rented room. He even sold a few copies of the Gospel of John and gave away a half dozen others to Arabs in Sana’a. He was pleased that every person who received a copy was grateful. One old sheikh even kissed the New Testament Sam gave to him.
One of the more interesting areas Sam wandered around was the Jewish section of Sana’a. Sam was surprised to learn that Jews had lived in Sana’a for centuries and existed happily side by side with the Muslim population of the city.
After a week in Sana’a, Sam decided to return to Aden. Given the presence of so many Turkish troops and the constant threat of war, he didn’t think Sana’a was a good place to start the mission.
Back in Al Hudaydah Sam boarded a steamer bound for Aden. Several British military officers and government officials were aboard ship on their way to Bombay, India. As the ship steamed down the Red Sea, Sam told the men he was on his way back from an expedition to Sana’a. At first the British officials didn’t believe him. “You don’t just wander into Sana’a. It’s nearly impossible to get a visa to visit there,” one of the officials declared. Another added, “I don’t know a single white person who has ever set foot in the place. It takes years to get permission to go there.”
As Sam described the things he had seen in Sana’a and showed them the pictures he had sketched, the British officials eventually believed his story. “That’s extraordinary,” one of the officials told him. “You should write up your observations and apply to become a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. With your kind of adventurous spirit, they would love to have you.”
At first Sam laughed at the idea—and at the application fee of twenty pounds. But the more he thought about it, the more he liked the notion. Who could tell what doors being a member of the Royal Geographic Society might open for him in Arabia and even at home in the United States?
Back in Aden, Sam found himself alone. Kamil was still in East Africa, and Jim had not yet returned from Muscat, though he had sent Sam a letter. When he opened the letter, Sam was surprised to learn that Jim was not in Muscat but in Basrah, at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. According to Jim, an Irish doctor and his wife had heard that two young Americans were looking for a place to start a mission and had sent a letter inviting him to visit them in Basrah. Jim wrote that he was impressed by what he had seen of Basrah. He urged Sam to join him there.
The letter also contained some sad news. While he was in Muscat, Jim had learned that Thomas Valpy French had died of heatstroke shortly after arriving there. Although Sam had gotten to know the bishop only recently, the man’s tenacity and focus on sharing the gospel with Muslims had left an indelible imprint.
Sam made all the necessary arrangements and set sail for Basrah on October 1. To get to his destination, he had to sail to Karachi, Pakistan, and change to a steamer headed for ports in the Persian Gulf. On October 18 the ship stopped for a day at Muscat, on the southwestern edge of the Arabian Peninsula. Sam used the occasion to visit the grave of Thomas Valpy French at Cemetery Cove.
From Muscat the steamer sailed in a northwesterly direction across the Gulf of Oman, through the Strait of Hormuz, and then over five hundred miles up to the end of the Persian Gulf. It entered Shatt-el-Arab (River of the Arabs) and sailed sixty miles upstream to Basrah, where Sam arrived on October 26.
Basrah was situated just below the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. It had a population of about sixty thousand and was loosely controlled by the Turks. The area was famous for the dates it produced, and groves of date palms surrounded the city. Upriver from Basrah was the location of Ur of the Chaldeans, from which God had told Abraham to set out on his journey.
Sam was glad to see Jim again, and he appreciated the hospitality of Dr. Marcus Eustace and his wife. The house the Eustaces were renting was large and comfortable and felt to Sam more like home than anything he had experienced so far in Arabia. As Jim showed Sam around Basrah, the two of them prayed that God would either open or close the door for them to work in the city.
