THE ESCAPE FROM THE CARAVAN
And now, in the spirit of Alexander sighing for new worlds to conquer,
he looked forward with dismay to the return-journey of the caravan. A
perilous surprise awaited him which, with wonted adroitness, he turned
to his purpose. “Having charge from my Captain to buy certain things,
a Moor looked me in the face, knew me and asked me ‘Where are you
from?’ I answered: ‘I am a Moslem.’ His reply was: ‘You lie.’ ‘By the
head of the Prophet,’ I said, ‘I am a Moslem’; whereto he answered:
‘Come to my house’; and I followed him thither. Then he spake to me in
Italian, telling me whence I had come that he knew me to be no Moslem;
and that he had been in Genoa and Venice; whereof he gave me proof.
When I understood this, I told him that I was a Roman, and had become a
Mameluke at Cairo (!) Whereat he rejoiced greatly, and treated me with
much honour.” Varthema now began to ask questions of his host; craftily
affecting ignorance of recent events and pretending to be very hostile
to Christians and greatly indignant at hearing of the appearance of the
Portuguese in Eastern Seas. “At this, he showed me yet greater honour,
and told me everything, point by point. So, when I was well instructed,
I said to him: ‘O friend, I beseech you in the name of the Prophet to
tell me of some way to escape from the Caravan; for I would go to those
who are the Christians’ bitterest foes. Take my word that, if they
knew what I can do, they would search me out, even as far as Mecca.’
Then he: ‘By the faith of our Prophet, tell me, what can you do?’ I
replied that I was the most skilful artificer in large mortars in the
world. Hearing this, he exclaimed: ‘Mohammed be praised for ever, who
has sent such an one to the Moslem and God.’” Whereupon, a bargain was
struck. The Moor was ready to hide Varthema in his house, if Varthema
could induce the Captain of the Caravan to pass fifteen camels, laden
with spices, duty free. Varthema was so confident of having thoroughly
ingratiated himself with the Captain that he was ready to negotiate for
the free passage of a hundred camels, if the Moor owned so many. “And,
when he heard this, he was greatly pleased,” and gave full information
as to how to get to India. There was no difficulty about bribing the
Captain; and the day before the departure of the caravan, Varthema
stole to the Moor’s house and lay there in concealment.
Next morning, two hours before daybreak, bands of men, as was the
usage, went through the city, sounding trumpets and other instruments,
and proclaiming death to all Mamelukes who should not mount for the
journey to Syria. “At this,” says Varthema, “my breast was mightily
troubled, and I pleaded with tears to the merchant’s wife, and I
besought God to save me.” Soon he had the relief of knowing that
the caravan was gone, and the Moorish merchant with it. He had left
instructions with his wife to send Varthema on to Jidda, on the Red
Sea, with the caravan returning to India. It was to start later than
the Syrian caravan. Varthema was a man of winning ways, and he found
no difficulty in fascinating man or woman. He was far from being as
vain as, say, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, but, like that ingenuous
gentleman, he does not neglect to inform us when he has pleased the
fair. “I cannot tell how much kindness I received from this lady, and,
in particular, from her niece of fifteen years. They promised to make
me rich if I would stay on. But I declined their offer by reason of the
pressing peril. I set out at noontide of the following day, with the
caravan, to the no small sorrow of these ladies, who made much lament.”
In due time the caravan arrived at Jidda, which was then a very
important mart and harbour. Varthema immediately made for a mosque,
with thousands of indigent pilgrims, and stayed there a whole fortnight.
“All day long, I lay on the ground, covered up in my garments, and
groaning as if I suffered great pain in my bowels and body. The
merchants would ask: ‘Who is that, groaning so?’ Whereto the poor
people about me would reply: ‘He is a poor Moslem who is dying.’ But
when night came I would leave the mosque to buy food. Judge of what my
appetite became when I could only get food (and that bad) once a day.”
When the caravan had left the port, he contrived to see the master of
a ship bound for Persia who agreed to take him as a passenger; and on
the seventeenth day of hiding at Jidda, the ship put forth on the Red
Sea. To a true Moslem, the whole Eastern world as far as China was
barely more perilous than the Mediterranean was to a Christian. Those
were days when the seas teemed with pirates; but, on land, property
was better safeguarded by the despotic rulers of Asia than it was in
Europe. But the line between Eastern and Western traffic was rigidly
drawn at certain marts of exchange. Such were Aleppo and Beyrout for
commodities forwarded by way of the Persian Gulf; and still more
important were Cairo and Alexandria, the marts of Mediterranean and Red
Sea commerce. The Eastern trade was mainly in the hands of Arabs; but
it was pursued by certain Greeks, Albanians and Circassians also, who,
or their forefathers, had renounced Christianity for gain; and these
were not few. Jidda and other ports of the Red Sea, as well as those of
Somaliland, were crowded with ships, great and small, bearing spices,
drugs, dyes and other Eastern goods for the markets of Western Asia and
Europe. The Arabian coast of the Red Sea was hugged, and often, for
days together, no progress could be made at night; for the multitude
of rocks and sunken reefs rendered navigation perilous enough, even by
day, and a look-out was always kept at the mast-head.
Varthema’s ship visited and made some stay at several ports which are
now decayed. At one place, “coming in sight of dwellings on the shore,
fourteen of us landed to buy victuals. But they were the folk called
Bedouin; there was more than a hundred of them to our fourteen; and
they greeted us with slings and stones. We fought for about an hour;
and then they fled, leaving twenty-four of their number lying slain
on the ground; for they were unclad, and the sling was their only
weapon. We took all we could find, that is to say fowls, calves, oxen
and other things for eating. But, in two or three hours time, the
turmoil increased, and so did the natives of the land—to more than six
hundred, in fact—and we were compelled to draw back to our ships.”