Almost as great a miracle to him as the Koran.  The more he looked the more he coveted, and he could not pass the place without reckoning up the possible profits of such an investment should he return with it to his native island.  The result was that he forswore the sea and preferred another kind of wheel to that of the pilot.  With many mutual wallahs the bargain was concluded and the machine reached Bahrein.  It was the first on the islands, and all the sheikhs came to see its marvellous build and wonderful work.  Mohammed has a Western head on Eastern shoulders, and there was not a screw or tension from treadle to shuttle, which he did not learn the use of.  It is unnecessary to state at the cost of how many broken needles he became proficient.  Amid cries of ajeeb, ajeeb, the first Arab shirt was stitched together, and even the youngsters on the street imitated the whirrr-clic-whirrr of the machine.  As for Mohammed, he sewed on, and while his sandalled feet worked the treadle his mind worked out a problem something like this:  Three long-shirts a day and an abba, at one kran per shirt and two for the abba, thirty-five krans per week, how long will it take to pay the dowry?  An abba is a large over-garment worn by both men and women in Arabia.  It is like a cape or overcoat but has no sleeves nor buttons.  The Arabs in Bahrein put a great deal of pretty embroidery work on these garments and some of them are worth twenty or thirty dollars.  But the sewing is done very cheaply.  A kran is a Persian coin worth about ten cents; can you figure out how much Mohammed earned in a month?

The Shepherd of the Machine kept working away and when his hopes grew strong he sang at his work.  In a few months he paid a visit to the Mullah (the Moslem priest or teacher), and that same night the Arab fiddles and drums rang out merry music around the palm-leaf hut of his beloved bride.  But the music of the machine sounded still sweeter next morning.  Daily bread, with rice, fish and dates, and on rare occasions even mutton, all came out of the machine.  He loved the very iron of it and, as he told us, read a prayer over it every morning:  Bismillahi er rahman er raheem. His was the only machine, and a small monopoly soon makes a capitalist.  His palm branch hut was exchanged for a house of stone; and Allah blessed him greatly.  No shepherd was ever more tender to his little lambs than Mohammed to the old machine.

When we entered the house on our first visit, there stood the machine!  Not much the worse for wear, and with “Pfaff.  C. Theodosius, Constantinople,” still legible on the nickel-plate.  But the old machine had found a rival.  By its side stood another make of machine which looked strangely familiar to American eyes.  It was while comparing the machines and drinking Arab coffee that we learned from Mohammed why he prized the old one as better.  “Wallah,” he said, “I would not sell it for many times its original price.  There is blessing in it, and all I have comes from that machine, praise be to Allah.”  And so we sipped his cups and heard his story and ceased to wonder why he was called the Shepherd of the Sewing machine.  The shepherd has a brother who wants to learn English and goes to Bombay every year—­but that is another story.