SHAYKH NASSAR, a Badawi of Tur (Mount Sinai,) being on his way
homewards, agreed to let me have two dromedaries for the sum of fifty
piastres, or about ten shillings, each.[FN#1] Being desirous to set out
with a certain display of respectability, I accepted these terms: a man
of humble pretensions would have travelled with a single animal, and a
camel-man running behind him. But, besides ostentation, I wanted my
attendant to be mounted, that we might make a forced march in order to
ascertain how much a four years' life of European effeminacy had
impaired my powers of endurance. The reader may believe the assertion
that there are few better tests than an eighty-four mile ride in
mid-summer, on a bad wooden saddle, borne by a worse dromedary, across
the Suez Desert. Even the Squire famed for being copper-sheeted might
not have disdained a trial of the kind.
I started my Indian boy and heavy luggage for Suez two days before the
end of the Id,-laden camels generally taking fifty-five or sixty hours
to do the journey, and I spent the intermediate time with Haji Wali. He
advised me to mount about 3 P.M., so that I might arrive at Suez on the
evening of the next day, and assisted me
[p.142]in making due preparations of water, tobacco, and provisions.
Early on the morning of departure the Afghan Shaykh came to the
Caravanserai, and breakfasted with us, "because Allah willed it." After
a copious meal he bestowed upon me a stately benediction, and would
have embraced me, but I humbly bent over his hand: sad to relate,
immediately that his back was turned, Haji Wali raised his forefinger
to a right angle with the palm (chaff), and burst into a shout of
irreverent laughter. At three o'clock Nassar, the Badawi, came to
announce that the dromedaries were saddled. I dressed myself, sticking
a pistol in my belt, and passing the crimson silk cord of the "Hamail"
or pocket Koran over my shoulder, in token of being a pilgrim. Then
distributing a few trifling presents to friends and servants, and
accompanied by the Shaykh Mohammed and Haji Wali, I descended the
stairs with an important gait. In the courtyard squatted the camels,
(dromedaries they could not be called,) and I found that a second
driver was going to accompany us. I objected to this, as the extra
Badawi would, of course, expect to be fed by me; but Nassar swore that
the man was his brother, and as you rarely gain by small disputes with
these people, he was allowed to have his own way.
Then came the preparatory leave-takings. Haji Wali embraced me
heartily, and so did my poor old Shaykh, who, despite his decrepitude
and my objections, insisted upon accompanying me to the city gate. I
mounted the camel, crossed my legs before the pommel-stirrups are not
used in Egypt[FN#2]-and, preceding my friend, descended
[p.143]the street leading towards the Desert. As we emerged from the
huge gateway of the Caravanserai all the bystanders, except only the
porter, who believed me to be a Persian, and had seen me with the
drunken captain, exclaimed, "Allah bless thee, Y'al-Hajj,[FN#3] and
restore thee to thy country and thy friends!" And passing through the
Bab al-Nasr, where I addressed the salutation of peace to the sentry,
and to the officer commanding the guard, both gave me God-speed with
great cordiality[FN#4]-the pilgrim's blessing in Asia, like the old
woman's in Europe, being supposed to possess peculiar efficacy. Outside
the gate my friends took a final leave of me, and I will not deny
having felt a tightening of heart as their honest faces and forms faded
in the distance.
But Shaykh Nassar switches his camel's shoulder, and appears inclined
to take the lead. This is a trial of manliness. There is no time for
emotion. Not a moment can be spared, even for a retrospect. I kick my
dromedary, who steps out into a jog-trot. The Badawin with a loud
ringing laugh attempt to give me the go-by. I resist, and we continue
like children till the camels are at their speed, though we have
eighty-four miles before us, and above us an atmosphere like a furnace
blast. The road is deserted at this hour, otherwise grave Moslem
[p.144]travellers would have believed the police to be nearer than
convenient to us.
Presently we drew rein, and exchanged our pace for one more seasonable,
whilst the sun began to tell on man and beast. High raised as we were
above the ground, the reflected heat struck us sensibly, and the glare
of a macadamized road added a few extra degrees of caloric.[FN#5] The
Badawin, to refresh themselves, prepare to smoke. They fill my chibuk,
light it with a flint and steel, and cotton dipped in a solution of
gunpowder, and pass it over to me.[FN#6] After a few puffs I return it
to them, and they use it turn by turn. Then they begin to while away
the tedium of the road by asking questions, which passe-temps is not
easily exhausted; for they are never satisfied till they know as much
of you as you do of yourself. They next resort to talking about
victuals; for with this hungry race, food, as a topic of conversation,
takes the place of money in happier lands. And lastly, even this
engrossing subject being exhausted for the moment,
[p.145]they take refuge in singing; and, monotonous and droning as it
is, their Modinha has yet an artless plaintiveness, which admirably
suits the singer and the scenery. If you listen to the words, you will
surely hear allusions to bright verdure, cool shades, bubbling rills,
or something which hereabouts man hath not, and yet which his soul
desires.
And now while Nassar and his brother are chaunting a duet,-the refrain
being,
"W'al arz mablul bi matar,"
"And the earth wet with rain,"-
I must crave leave to say a few words, despite the triteness of the
subject, about the modern Sinaitic race of Arabs.
Besides the tribes occupying the northern parts of the peninsula, five
chief clans are enumerated by Burckhardt.[FN#7] Nassar, and other
authorities at Suez, divided them into six, namely:-
1. Karashi, who, like the Gara in Eastern Arabia, claim an apocryphal
origin from the great Koraysh tribe.
2. Salihi, the principal family of the Sinaitic Badawin.
3. Arimi: according to Burckhardt this clan is merely a sub-family of
the Sawalihahs.
4. Sa'idi. Burckhardt calls them Walad Sa'id and derives them also
from the Sawalihahs.
5. Aliki ; and lastly, the
6. Muzaynah, generally pronounced M'zaynah. This clan claims to be an
off-shoot from the great Juhaynah tribe inhabiting the coasts and inner
barrens about Yambu'. According to oral tradition, five persons, the
ancestors of the present Muzaynah race, were forced by a blood-feud to
fly their native country. They landed at the Shurum,[FN#8] or
creek-ports, and have now spread themselves
[p.146]over the Eastern parts of the so-called "Sinaitic" peninsula. In
Al-Hijaz the Muzaynah is an old and noble tribe. It produced Ka'ab
al-Ahbar, the celebrated poet, to whom Mohammed gave the cloak which
the Ottomans believe to have been taken by Sultan Salim from Egypt, and
to have been converted under the name of Khirkah Sharif, into the
national Oriflamme.
There are some interesting ethnographical points about these Sinaitic
clans-interesting at least to those who would trace the genealogy of
the great Arabian family. Any one who knows the Badawin can see that
the Muzaynah are pure blood. Their brows are broad, their faces narrow,
their features regular, and their eyes of a moderate size; whereas the
other Tawarah[FN#9] (Sinaitic) clans are as palpably Egyptian. They
have preserved that roundness of face which may still be seen in the
Sphinx as in the modern Copt, and their eyes have that peculiar size,
shape, and look, which the old Egyptian painters attempted to express
by giving to the profile, the form of the full, organ. Upon this
feature, so characteristic of the Nilotic race, I would lay great
stress. No traveller familiar with the true Egyptian eye,-long,
almond-shaped, deeply fringed, slightly raised at the outer corner and
dipping in front like the Chinese,[FN#10]-can ever mistake it. It is to
be seen in half-castes, and, as I have before remarked, families
originally from the banks of the Nile, but settled for generations in
the Holy Land of Al-Hijaz, retain the peculiarity.