[p.279] and a thousand other such pretty things, have been said by the
Arab poets. It was as "dry as summer's dust," and its "beautiful trees"
appeared in the shape of vegetable mummies. Half an hour after leaving
the "Blessed Valley" we came to a huge flight of steps roughly cut in a
long broad line of black scoriaceous basalt. This is termed the
Mudarraj or flight of steps over the western ridge of the so-called
Al-Harratayn.[FN#20] It is holy ground; for the Apostle spoke well of
it. Arrived at the top, we passed through a lane of dark lava, with
steep banks on both sides, and after a few minutes a full view of the
city suddenly opened upon us.[FN#21]
We halted our beasts as if by word of command. All of us descended, in
imitation of the pious of old, and sat down, jaded and hungry as we
were, to feast our eyes with a view of the Holy City.
"O Allah! this is the Harim (sanctuary) of Thy Apostle; make it to us a
Protection from Hell Fire, and a Refuge from Eternal Punishment! O open
the Gates of Thy Mercy, and let us pass through them to the Land of
Joy!" and "O Allah, bless the last of Prophets, the Seal of Prophecy,
with Blessings in number
[p.280] as the Stars of Heaven, and the Waves of the Sea, and the Sands
of the Waste-bless him, O Lord of Might and Majesty, as long as the
Corn-field and the Date-grove continue to feed Mankind[FN#22]!" And
again, "Live for ever, O Most Excellent of Prophets!-live in the Shadow
of Happiness during the Hours of Night and the Times of Day, whilst the
Bird of the Tamarisk (the dove) moaneth like the childless Mother,
whilst the West-wind bloweth gently over the Hills of Nijd, and the
Lightning flasheth bright in the Firmament of Al-Hijaz!"
Such were the poetical exclamations that rose all around me, showing
how deeply tinged with imagination becomes the language of the Arab
under the influence of strong passion or religious enthusiasm. I now
understood the full value of a phrase in the Moslem ritual, "And when
his" (the pilgrim's) "eyes shall fall upon the Trees of Al-Madinah, let
him raise his Voice and bless the Apostle with the choicest of
Blessings." In al[l] the fair view before us nothing was more striking,
after the desolation through which we had passed, than the gardens and
orchards about the town. It was impossible not to enter into the spirit
of my companions, and truly I believe that for some minutes my
enthusiasm rose as high as theirs. But presently when we
remounted,[FN#23] the traveller returned strong upon me: I made a rough
sketch of the town, put questions about the principal buildings, and in
fact collected materials for the next chapter.
[p.281] The distance traversed that night was about twenty-two miles in
a direction varying from easterly to north-easterly. We reached
Al-Madinah on the 25th July, thus taking nearly eight days to travel
over little more than 130 miles. This journey is performed with camels
in four days, and a good dromedary will do it without difficulty in
half that time.[FN#24]
[FN#1] The natives of Al-Hijaz assured me that in their Allah-favoured
land, the Samum never kills a man. I "doubt the fact." This Arnaut's
body was swollen and decomposing rapidly, the true diagnostic of death
by the poison-wind. (See Ibn Batuta's voyage, "Kabul.") However, as
troopers drink hard, the Arabs may still be right, the Samum doing half
the work, arrack the rest. I travelled during the months of July,
August, and September, and yet never found myself inconvenienced by the
"poison-wind" sufficiently to make me tie my Kufiyah, Badawi-fashion,
across my mouth. At the same time I can believe that to an invalid it
would be trying, and that a man almost worn out by hunger and fatigue
would receive from it a coup de grace. Niebuhr attributes the
extraordinary mortality of his companions, amongst other causes, to a
want of stimulants. Though these might doubtless be useful in the cold
weather, or in the mountains of Al-Yaman, for men habituated to them
from early youth, yet nothing, I believe, would be more fatal than
strong drink when travelling through the Desert in summer heat. The
common beverage should be water or lemonade; the strongest stimulants
coffee or tea. It is what the natives of the country do, and doubtless
it is wise to take their example. The Duke of Wellington's dictum about
the healthiness of India to an abstemious man does not require to be
quoted. Were it more generally followed, we should have less of
sun-stroke and sudden death in our Indian armies, when soldiers, fed
with beef and brandy, are called out to face the violent heat. At the
same time it must be remembered, that foul and stagnant water,
abounding in organic matter, is the cause of half the diarrhoea and
dysentry which prove so fatal to travellers in these regions. To the
water-drinker, therefore, a pocket-filter is indispensable.
[FN#2] Al-Shark, "the East," is the popular name in the Hijaz for the
Western region as far as Baghdad and Bassorah, especially Nijd. The
latter province supplies the Holy Land with its choicest horses and
camels. The great heats of the parts near the Red Sea appear
prejudicial to animal generation; whereas the lofty table-lands and the
broad pastures of Nijd, combined with the attention paid by the people
to purity of blood, have rendered it the greatest breeding country in
Arabia.
[FN#3] I mean a civilised column. "Herse" is the old military name for
a column opposed to "Haye," a line. So we read that at far-famed Cressy
the French fought en battaille a haye, the English drawn up en herse.
This appears to have been the national predilection of that day. In
later times, we and our neighbours changed style, the French preferring
heavy columns, the English extending themselves into lines.
[FN#4] The Albanians, delighting in the noise of musketry, notch the
ball in order to make it sing the louder. When fighting, they often
adopt the excellent plan-excellent, when rifles are not procurable-of
driving a long iron nail through the bullet, and fixing its head into
the cartridge. Thus the cartridge is strengthened, the bullet is
rifled, and the wound which it inflicts is death. Round balls are apt
to pass into and out of savages without killing them, and many an
Afghan, after being shot or run through the body, has mortally wounded
his English adversary before falling. It is false philanthropy, also,
to suppose that in battle, especially when a campaign is commencing, it
is sufficient to maim, not to kill, the enemy. Nothing encourages men
to fight so much, as a good chance of escaping with a wound-especially
a flesh wound. I venture to hope that the reader will not charge these
sentiments with cruelty. He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in
it will be the greatest benefactor the world has yet known.
[FN#5] The late Captain Nolan.
[FN#6] The first symptom of improvement will be a general training to
the Bayonet exercise. The British is, and for years has been, the only
army in Europe that does not learn the use of this weapon: how long
does it intend to be the sole authority on the side of ignorance? We
laughed at the Calabrese levies, who in the French war threw away their
muskets and drew their stilettos; and we cannot understand why the
Indian would always prefer a sabre to a rifle. Yet we read without
disgust of our men being compelled, by want of proper training, to
"club their muskets" in hand-to-hand fights,-when they have in the
bayonet the most formidable of offensive weapons,-and of the Kafirs and
other savages wresting the piece, after drawing off its fire, from its
unhappy possessor's grasp.
[FN#7] I began to treat it hydropathically with a cooling bandage, but
my companions declared that the water was poisoning the wound, and
truly it seemed to get worse every day. This idea is prevalent
throughout Al-Hijaz; even the Badawin, after once washing a cut or a
sore, never allow air or water to touch it.
[FN#8] Hawamid is the plural of Hamidah, Shaykh Sa'ad's tribe.
[FN#9] Shuab properly means a path through mountains, or a watercourse
between hills. It is generally used in Arabia for a "Valley," and
sometimes instead of Nakb, or the Turkish Bughaz, a "Pass."
[FN#10] Others attribute these graves to the Beni Salim, or Salmah, an
extinct race of Hijazi Badawin. Near Shuhada is Jabal Warkan, one of
the mountains of Paradise, also called Irk al-Zabyat, or Thread of the
Winding Torrent. The Prophet named it "Hamt," (sultriness), when he
passed through it on his way to the Battle of Badr. He also called the
valley "Sajasaj," (plural of Sajsaj, a temperate situation), declared
it was a valley of heaven, that 70 prophets had prayed there before
himself, that Moses with 70,000 Israelites had traversed it on his way
to Meccah, and that, before the Resurrection day, Isa bin Maryam should
pass through it with the intention of performing the Greater and the
Lesser Pilgrimages. Such are the past and such the future honours of
the place.
[FN#11] The Indians sink wells in Arabia for the same reason which
impels them to dig tanks at home,-"nam ke waste,"-"for the purpose of
name"; thereby denoting, together with a laudable desire for posthumous
fame, a notable lack of ingenuity in securing it. For it generally
happens that before the third generation has fallen, the well and the
tank have either lost their original names, or have exchanged them for
others newer and better known.
[FN#12] Suwaykah derives its name from the circumstance that in the
second, or third, year of the Hijrah (Hegira), Mohammed here attacked
Abu Sufiyan, who was out on a foray with 200 men. The Infidels, in
their headlong fight, lightened their beasts by emptying their bags of
"Sawik." This is the old and modern Arabic name for a dish of green
grain, toasted, pounded, mixed with dates or sugar, and eaten on
journeys when it is found difficult to cook. Such is the present
signification of the word: M.C. de Perceval (vol. iii., p. 84) gives it
a different and a now unknown meaning. And our popular authors
erroneously call the affair the "War of the Meal-sacks."
[FN#13] A popular but not a bad pun-"Harb" (Fight), becomes, by the
alteration of the H, "Harb" (Flight).
[FN#14] The old Arabic proverb is "A greater wiseacre than the goat of
Akhfash"; it is seldom intelligible to the vulgar.
[FN#15] That is to say, "I will burn them (metaphorically) as the fiery
wick consumes the oil,"-a most idiomatic Hijazi threat.
[FN#16] A "cold-of-countenance" is a fool. Arabs use the word "cold" in
a peculiar way. "May Allah refrigerate thy countenance!" i.e. may it
show misery and want. "By Allah, a cold speech!" that is to say, a
silly or an abusive tirade.
[FN#17] That is to say, they would use, if necessary, the dearest and
noblest parts of their bodies (their eyes) to do the duty of the basest
(i.e. their feet).
[FN#18] Writers mention two Al-Akik. The superior comprises the whole
site of Al-Madinah, extending from the Western Ridge, mentioned below,
to the cemetery Al-Bakia. The inferior is the Fiumara here alluded to;
it is on the Meccan road, about four miles S.W. of Al-Madinah, and its
waters fall into the Al-Hamra torrent. It is called the "Blessed
Valley" because the Prophet was ordered by an angel to pray in it.
[FN#19] The esoteric meaning of this couplet is, "Man! this is a lovely
portion of God's creation: then stand by it, and here learn to love the
perfections of thy Supreme Friend."
[FN#20] Al-Harratayn for Al-Harratani, the oblique case of the dual and
plural noun being universally used for the nominative in colloquial
Arabic. The other one of the Two Ridges will be described in a future
part of this Book.
[FN#21] The city is first seen from the top of the valley called Nakb,
or Shuab Ali, close to the Wady al-Akik, a long narrow pass, about five
miles from Al-Madinah. Here, according to some, was the Mosque Zu'l
Halifah, where the Prophet put on the Pilgrim's garb when travelling to
Meccah. It is also called "The Mosque of the Tree," because near it
grew a fruit tree under which the Prophet twice sat. Ibn Jubayr
considers that the Harim (or sacred precincts of Al-Madinah) is the
space enclosed by three points, Zu'l Halifah, Mount Ohod, and the
Mosque of Kuba. To the present day pilgrims doff their worldly garments
at Zu'l Halifah.
[FN#22] That is to say, "throughout all ages and all nations." The
Arabs divide the world into two great bodies: first themselves, and,
secondly, "'Ajami," i.e. all that are not Arabs. Similar bi-partitions
are the Hindus and Mlenchhas, the Jews and Gentiles, the Greeks and
Barbarians, &c., &c.
[FN#23] Robust religious men, especially those belonging to the school
of Al-Malik, enter into Al-Madinah, after the example of Ali, on foot,
reverently, as the pilgrims approach Meccah.
[FN#24] Barbosa makes three days' journey from Yambu' to Al-Madinah,
D'Herbelot eight, and Ovington six. The usual time is from four to five
days. A fertile source of error to home geographers, computing
distances in Arabia, is their neglecting the difference between the
slow camel travelling and the fast dromedary riding.
The following is a synopsis of our stations:-
----------------------------------------------------Miles.
1. From Yambu', 18th July, to Musahhal, N.E.----------16
2. From Musahhal, 19th July, to Bir Sa'id, S. and E.--34 64 miles
3. From Bir Sa'id, 20th July, to Al-Hamra, N.E.-------14
4. From Al-Hamra, 21st July, to Bir Abbas, E.---------24
5. From Bir Abbas, 23rd July, to Suwaykah, E.---------22 68 miles
6. From Suwaykah, 24thJuly, to Al-Madinah, N. and E.--22