This is the way he arranged them; every _dot_ stands for an _unbeliever_,
and the strokes for believers--thirty altogether.

[Illustration: PUZZLE OF THE THIRTY MEN.]

You begin to count from the left, as the captain did, and if you mark out
every ninth man you can keep on counting out the ninth men until only
upright strokes are left.

From your knowledge of arithmetic, can you tell me the reason of this
puzzle?

The Arabs remember the puzzle by some verses in which every dotted letter
stands for an unbeliever and those that have no dots stand for Moslems.

You see that even the story of Jonah and the whale is topsy-turvy out in
Arabia!




XVI

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH


In olden times Arabia was a much more important country than it is to-day.
Before there were large seagoing ships, all the trade between India,
Persia, even China, on the east, and Egypt on the west, was carried on