masts from Ceylon. But the sailcloth and the ropes are made on this our
island home. All boats of this kind carry a good lot of passengers, draw
very little water and are fast sailing craft; so that even the American
boy whose father owns a yacht would not speak with contempt of one of
these boats. In fact I have heard English sea captains who had drunk salt
water for years say that they never saw better harbour boats in a storm
than these of Bahrein.

[Illustration: CARGO BOATS, BAHREIN.]

In another kind of boat the pearl-divers of the Gulf go out to their hard
toil and costly labour. One of them costs about four hundred _rupees_,
that is about one hundred and thirty dollars. You do not think that is
dear, do you, for a boat that holds a crew of twenty? But the cost of
diving for pearls is not in the boat or the apparatus; it costs lives.
Many of the divers are eaten by sharks before they return with the year's
pearl harvest; others lose limbs and health. I wish you could see the odd
shaped oars the Arabs use in these boats. They consist of a round pole
with a sort of barrel-head or spoon shaped board tied to one end. The boat
builders always use twine and rope rather than nails or screws to put
their boats together. The boys of Bahrein can make beautiful sailing boats
to play with out of bits of date-stick and strings.

[Illustration: RIVER BOAT, BUSRAH.]

Each fishing boat has a sort of figure-head and this is generally covered
with the skin of a sheep or goat. This animal is sacrificed on the day
when the boat is first launched, just as we give the boat a name and put
flags on it. It is a very old custom to offer a blood sacrifice when a
boat is first put into the water.