OUR VISIT TO RUFA'A
During the time that we spent at Ali we had numerous visitors. The first
day came five camels with two riders apiece, and a train of donkeys,
bringing rich pearl merchants from the capital; these sat in a circle and
complacently drank our coffee and ate our mixed biscuits, without in any
way troubling us, having apparently come for no other object than to get
this slender refreshment.
Next day came Sheikh Mohammed, a young man of seventeen, a nephew of
Sheikh Esau, who was about to wed his uncle's daughter, and was talked of
as the heir-apparent to the throne; he was all gorgeous in a white
embroidered robe, red turban, and head rings bound in royal gold. He
played with our pistols with covetous eyes, ate some English cake, having
first questioned the bazaar-master as to the orthodoxy of its
ingredients, and then he promised us a visit next day.
He came on the morrow, on a beautifully caparisoned horse, with red
trappings and gold tassels. He brought with him many followers and
announced his intention of passing the day with us, rather to our
distress; but we were appeased by the present of a fat lamb with one of
those large bushy tails which remind one forcibly of a lady's bustle, and
suggests that the ingenious milliner who invented these atrocities must
have taken for her pattern an Eastern sheep. This day 'Prince' Mohammed
handled the revolver more covetously than ever, and got so far as
exchanging his scarlet embroidered case, with red silk belt and silver
buckle, for my leathern one.
Sheikh Mohammed was very anxious to see how I could shoot with my
revolver, so a brown pot containing about half a pint of water was put on
a lump of rock as a mark. I was terrified; for I knew if I missed, as I
surely expected, I should bring great discredit on myself and my nation,
and there was such a crowd! My husband said I must try, and I am sure no
one was more astonished than I was that I shattered the pot. If I had not
it would have been said that I only carried the revolver for show.
That afternoon a great cavalcade of gazelle huntsmen called upon us. The
four chief men of these had each a hooded falcon on his arm, and a tawny
Persian greyhound, with long silky tail, at his side. They wore their
sickle-like daggers in their waistbands; their bodies were enveloped in
long cloaks, and their heads in white cloths bound round with the
camel-hair straps; they were accompanied by another young scion of the El
Khalifa family, who bestrode a white Arab steed with the gayest possible
trappings. Thus was this young prince attired: on his head a cashmere
kerchief with gold akkal; he was almost smothered in an orange cloth gown
trimmed with gold and lined with green, the sleeves of which were very
long, cut open at the ends and trimmed; over this robe was cast a black
cloth cloak trimmed with gold on the shoulders, and a richly inlaid sword
dangled at his side, almost as big as himself, for he was but an
undersized boy of fifteen. The sportsmen made a very nice group for our
photography, as did almost everything around us on Bahrein.
Any excavator would have lost patience with the men of Bahrein with whom
we had to deal; tickets had to be issued to prevent more men working than
were wanted, and claiming pay at the end of the day; ubiquity was
essential, for they loved to get out of sight and do nothing; with
unceasing regularity the pipe went round and they paused for a 'drink' at
the bubble-bubble, as the Arabs express it; morning, noon-tide, and
evening prayers were, I am sure, unnecessarily long. Accidents would
happen, which alarmed us at first, until we learnt how ready they were to
cry wolf: one man was knocked over by a stone; we thought by his
contortions some limb must be broken, and we applied vaseline, our only
available remedy, to the bruise; his fellow-workmen then seized him by
the shoulders, he keeping his arms crossed the while, shook him well 'to
put the bones right again,' as they expressed it, and he continued his
work as before.
The bazaar-master and the policeman would come and frantically seize a
tool, and work for a few seconds with herculean vigour by way of example,
which was never followed. 'Yallah!' 'hurry on' (_i.e._ Oh God);
'Marhabbah!' 'very good,' the men would cry, and they would sing and
scream with a vigour that nearly drove us wild. But for the occasional
application of a stick by the bazaar-master and great firmness, we should
have got nothing out of them but noise.
One day we had a mutiny because my husband dismissed two men who came
very late; the rest refused to work, and came dancing round us, shouting
and brandishing spades. One had actually got hold of a naked sword, which
weapon I did not at all like, and I was thankful 'Prince' Mohammed had
not yet got the revolver. For some time they continued this wild weird
dance, consigning us freely to the lower regions as they danced, and then
they all went away, so that the bazaar-master had to be sent in search of
other and more amenable men. Evidently Sheikh Esau, when he entrusted us
to the charge of the bazaar-master and sent policemen with us, was afraid
of something untoward happening. Next day we heard that his majesty was
coming in person with his tents to encamp in our vicinity, and I fancy we
were in more danger from those men than we realised at the moment, fanned
as they are into hatred of the infidel by the fanatical Wahabi; thirty
years ago, I was told, no infidel could have ventured into the centre of
Bahrein with safety.
Another important visitor came on Saturday in the shape of Sheikh
Khallet, a cousin of the ruling chief, with a retinue of ten men, from
Rufa'a, an inland village. We sat for awhile on our heels in rows,
conversing and smiling, and finally accepted an invitation from Sheikh
Khallet to visit him at his village, and make a little tour over the
island. Accordingly, on Sunday morning we started, accompanied by the
bazaar-master, for Rufa'a, and we were not a little relieved to get away
before Sheikh Esau was upon us, and escape the formalities which his
royal presence in our midst would have necessitated.
We had an exceedingly hot ride of it, and the wind was so high that our
position on our donkeys was rendered even more precarious than usual. The
desert sand whirled around us: we shut our eyes, tied down our hats, and
tried to be patient; for miles our road led through the tumuli of those
mysterious dead, who once in their thousands must have peopled Bahrein;
their old wells are still to be seen in the desert, and evidences of a
cultivation which has long ago disappeared. As we approached the edge of
this vast necropolis the mounds grew less and less, until mere heaps of
stones marked the spot where a dead man lay, and then we saw before us
the two villages of Rufa'a. Of these, one is known as Rufa'a Shergeh, or
South-western Rufa'a; the other, which belongs to the young Prince
Mohammed, is called Rufa'a Jebeli. The Rufa'a are much older than
Moharek, or Manamah; they are fortified with castellated walls of mud
brick. Many of the El Khalifa family reside here in comfortable houses.
South-western Rufa'a is quite a big place, and as our arrival became
known all the village turned out to see us. The advent of an English lady
among them was something too excessively novel: even close-veiled women
forgot their prudery, and peered out from their blue coverings, screaming
with laughter, and pointing as they screamed to the somewhat appalled
object of their mirth. 'Hade bibi!' ('there goes the lady'), shouted they
again and again. No victorious potentate ever had a more triumphant entry
into his capital than the English 'bibi' had on entering South-western
Rufa'a.
Sheikh Khallet was ready to receive us in his _kahwa_ or reception-room,
furnished solely by strips of matting and a camel-hair rug with coarse
embroidery on it; two pillows were produced for us, and Arabs squatted on
the matting all round the wall, for it was Sheikh Khallet's morning
reception, or _majilis_, just then, and we were the lions of the
occasion. Our host, we soon learnt, rather to our dismay, was a most
rigid ascetic--a Wahabi to the backbone. He allows of no internal
decorations in his house; no smoking is allowed, no wine, only perpetual
coffee and perpetual prayers; our prospects were not of the most
brilliant. Some of the Wahabi think even coffee wrong. After a while all
the company left, and Sheikh Khallet intimated to us that the room was
now our own. Two more large pillows were brought, and rugs were laid
down; as for the rest we were dependent on our own very limited
resources. We had brought our own sheets with us.
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF SHEIKH SABA'S HOUSE AT RUFA'A, BAHREIN]
Sheikh Saba, who had married Sheikh Khallet's sister, was a great
contrast to our host; he had been in Bombay and had imbibed in his
travels a degree of worldliness which ill became a Wahabi. He had filled
his house, to which he took us, with all sorts of baubles--gilt
looking-glasses hanging on the walls; coloured glass balls in rows and
rows up to the ceiling, each on a little looking-glass; lovely pillows
and carpets, Zanzibar date baskets, Bombay inlaid chests, El Hasa
coffee-pots, and a Russian tea-urn--a truly marvellous conglomeration of
things, which produced on us a wonderful sense of pleasure and repose
after the bareness of our host's abode. Sheikh Saba wore only his long
white shirt and turban, and so unconventional was he that he allowed his
consort to remain at one end of the room whilst my husband was there.
The courtyards of these houses are architecturally interesting: the
Saracenic arch, the rosettes of open-work stucco, the squares of the same
material with intricate patterns--great boons in a hot land to let in the
air without the sun. There is also another contrivance for obtaining air;
in building the house a niche three feet wide is left in the outer wall,
closed in on the inner side except for about a foot. It is funny to see
the heads of muffled women peering out of these air-shafts, into which
they have climbed to get an undisturbed view. Here some of the women wear
the Arabian _buttra_ or mask, which, while it hides their features, gives
their eyes full play. They are very inquisitive. Some of the women one
meets on Bahrein are highly picturesque when you see them without the
dark-blue covering.
I was fetched to one harem after the other, always followed by a dense
crowd, to the apparent annoyance of my hostesses, who, however, seemed
powerless to prevent the intrusion. I saw one woman holding on to the top
of the door and standing on the shoulders of one who was squatting on the
floor. One good lady grew enraged at the invasion, and threw a cup of hot
coffee in an intruder's face.
In the afternoon we rode over to Mountainous (and, it might be added,
ruinous) Rufa'a.
It is built on a cliff, 50 feet above the lowest level of the desert;
from here there is a view over a wide, bleak expanse of sand,
occasionally relieved by an oasis, the result of a well and irrigation,
and beyond this the eye rests on Jebel Dukhan, 'the mountain of mist,'
which high-sounding name has been given to a mass of rocks in the centre
of Bahrein, rising 400 feet above the plain, and often surrounded by a
sea-fog; for Bahrein, with its low-lying land, is often in a mist. Some
mornings on rising early we looked out of our tent to find ourselves
enveloped in a perfect London fog--our clothes were soaking, the sand on
the floor of our tent was soft and adhesive; then in an hour the bright
orb of heaven would disperse all this, for we were very far south indeed,
on the coast of Arabia. Alas! on arrival we found that our young friend
Sheikh Mohammed was out, for he had to be in attendance on his uncle,
Sheikh Esau, who had just arrived at his tent near our encampment, and he
had to provide all his uncle's meals; we saw a donkey with a cauldron on
its back large enough to boil a sheep in, large copper trays, and many
other articles despatched for the delectation of the sovereign and his
retinue. Sheikh Mohammed's mother, quite a queenly-looking woman, was
busying herself about the preparation of these things, and when she had
finished she invited us to go into the harem. My husband felt the honour
and confidence reposed in him exceedingly, but, alas! all the women were
veiled; all he could contemplate was their lovely hands and feet dyed
yellow with henna, their rich red shirts, their aprons adorned with
coins, their gold bracelets and turquoise rings. However I assured him
that with one solitary exception he had lost nothing by not seeing their
faces. In one corner of the women's room was the biggest bed I ever saw:
it had eight posts, a roof, a fence, a gate, and steps up to it; it is a
sort of daïs, in fact, where they spread their rugs and sleep, and high
enough to lay beds under it too. Occasionally we got a good peep at the
women as they were working in the fields, or cutting with semi-circular
saws the scrub that grows in the desert for their cattle.
Half-way between the two Rufa'as we halted at a well, the great point of
concourse for the inhabitants of both villages. It was evening, and
around it were gathered crowds of the most enchanting people in every
possible costume. Women and donkeys were groaning under the weight of
skins filled with water; men were engaged in filling them, but it seems
to be against the dignity of a male Arab to carry anything. With the
regularity of a steam crane the woodwork of the well creaked and groaned
with a sound like a bagpipe, as the donkeys toiled up and down their
slope, bringing to the surface the skins of water. It was a truly Arabian
sight, with the desert all around us, and the little garden hard by which
Sheikh Saba cultivates with infinite toil, having a weary contest with
the surrounding sand which invades his enclosure.
The sun was getting low when we returned to our bare room at Sheikh
Khallet's, and to our great contentment we were left alone, for our day
had been a busy one, and a strain on our conversational powers. Our host
handed us over to the tender mercies of a black slave, Zamzam by name,
wonderfully skilled at cooking with a handful of charcoal on circular
stoves coloured red, and bearing a marked resemblance to the altars of
the Persian fire-worshippers. He brought us in our dinner: first he
spread a large round mat of fine grass on the floor; in the centre of
this he deposited a washing basin filled with boiled rice and a bowl of
_ghi_ or rancid grease to make it palatable; before us were placed two
tough chickens, a bowl of dates, and for drink we had a bowl of milk with
delicious fresh butter floating in it. Several sheets of bread about the
size and consistency of bath towels were also provided, but no implements
of any kind to assist us in conveying these delicacies to our mouths.
With pieces of bread we scooped up the rice, with our fingers we managed
the rest, and we were glad no one was looking on to witness our struggles
save Zamzam with a ewer of water, with which he washed us after the
repast was over, and then we put ourselves away for the night.
Very early next morning we were on the move for our trip across the
island. The journey would be too long for donkeys, they said, so Sheikh
Khallet mounted us on three of his best camels, with lovely saddles of
inlaid El Hasa work, with two pommels, one in front and one behind, like
little pillars, capped and inlaid with silver. We--that is to say my
husband and I and the bazaar-master--ambled along at a pretty smart pace
across the desert in the direction of a fishing village called Asker, on
the east coast of the island, near which were said to exist ancient
remains; these, of course, turned out to be myths, but the village was
all that could be desired in quaintness; the houses were all of bamboo,
and the floors strewn over with little white helix shells; in one of them
we were regaled with coffee, and found it delicious after our hot ride;
then we strolled along the shore and marvelled at the bamboo skiffs, the
curiously-fashioned oars and water casks, the stone anchors, and other
primitive implements used by this seafaring race. The bazaar-master would
not let us tarry as long as we could have wished, for he was anxious for
us to arrive before the midday heat at a rocky cave in the 'mountain of
mist,' in the centre of the island. We dismounted from our camels, and
proceeded to examine Jebel Dukhan, an escarped mass of limestone rocks
with rugged outline and deep caves. From the gentle elevation of the
misty mountain one gets a very fair idea of the extent and character of
Bahrein. The island has been likened to a sheet of silver in a sea of
pearl, but it looked to us anything but silvery, and for all the world
like one of the native sheets of bread--oval and tawny. It is said to be
twenty-seven miles long and twelve wide at its broadest point. From the
clearness of the atmosphere and the distinctness with which we saw the
sea all around us, it could not have been much more. There are many tiny
villages dotted about here and there, recognisable only by their nest of
palm trees and their strips of verdure. In the dim distance, to our left,
arose the mountains of Arabia; beyond, the flat coast-line of El Hasa,
encircling that wild, mysterious land of Nejd, where the Wahabi dwell--a
land forbidden to the infidel globe-trotter.
Yet another sheikh of the El Khalifa family was introduced to us, by name
Abdullah; he owns the land about here, and having been advised of our
coming, had prepared a repast for us, much on the lines of the one we had
had the evening before.
We much enjoyed our cool rest and repast in Abdullah's cave, and for two
hours or more our whole party lay stretched on the ground courting
slumber, whilst our camels grazed around. Another sheikh was anxious to
take us to his house for the night, but we could not remain, as our work
demanded our return to camp that night, so we compromised matters by
taking coffee with him on a green oasis near his house, under a blazing
sun, without an atom of shade, and without a thing against which to lean
our tired backs. Then we hurried back to Rufa'a, to take leave of our
friend, Sheikh Khallet, and started off late in the evening for our home.
Soon we came in sight of Sheikh Esau's tent; his majesty was evidently
expecting us, for by his side in the royal tent were placed two high
thrones, formed of camel saddles covered with sheepskins, for us to sit
upon, whilst his Arabian majesty and his courtiers sat on the ground. As
many as could be accommodated sat round within the walls of the tent.
Those for whom there was no room inside continued the line, forming a
long loop which extended for some yards outside the tent. Here all his
nephews and cousins were assembled. That gay youth Sheikh Mohammed, on
ordinary occasions as full of fun as an English schoolboy, sat there in
great solemnity, incapable of a smile though I maliciously tried to raise
one. When he came next morning to visit us he was equally solemn, until
his uncle had left our tent; then his gaiety returned as if by magic, and
with it his covetousness for my pistol. Eventually an exchange was
effected, he producing a coffee-pot and an inlaid bowl, which had taken
our fancy, as the price.
On the surrounding desert a small gazelle is abundant. One day we came
across a cavalcade of Bahreini sportsmen, who looked exceedingly
picturesque in their flowing robes and floating red kaffiehs, and riding
gaily caparisoned horses, with crimson trappings and gold tassels. Each
had on his arm a hooded falcon and by his side a Persian greyhound. When
the gazelle is sighted the falcon is let loose; it skims rapidly along
the ground, attacks the head of the animal, and so confuses it that it
falls an easy prey to the hounds in pursuit. Albuquerque in his
'Commentaries' says: 'There are many who hunt with falcons about the size
of our goshawks, and take by their aid certain creatures smaller than
gazelles, training very swift hounds to assist the falcon in catching the
prey.'
In their ordinary life the Bahrein people still retain the primitiveness
of the Bedouin.
There are about fifty villages scattered over the islands, recognisable
from a distance by their patch of cultivation and groups of date-palms.
Except at Manamah and Moharek they have little or nothing to do with the
pearl fisheries, but are an exceedingly industrious race of peasants who
cultivate the soil by means of irrigation from the numerous wells with
which the island is blessed. There are generally three to six small
wheels attached to the beam, which is across the well, over which the
ropes of as many large leathern buckets pass. When these buckets rise
full they tilt themselves over, the contents is then taken by little
channels to a reservoir which feeds the dykes, transferred thence to the
palms in buckets raised by the leverage of a date-trunk lightly swung by
ropes to a frame, and balanced at one end by a basket of earth into which
it is inserted; it is so light to lift that women are generally employed
in watering the trees.
To manure their date-groves they use the fins of a species of ray fish
called _awwal_, steeped in water till they are putrid; _awwal_, by the
way, was an ancient name of the Island of Bahrein, perhaps because it was
the first island of the group in size, _awwal_ in Arabic meaning _first_.
The area of fertility is very rich and beautiful; it extends all along
the north coast of the island, and the fishing village of Nayim, with its
bamboo huts nestling beneath the palm-trees, is highly picturesque; and
all this fertility is due to the number of fresh-water springs which
burst up here from underground, similar, no doubt, to those before
alluded to which spring up in the sea. The Arabs will tell you that these
springs come straight from the Euphrates, by an underground channel
through which the great river flows beneath the Persian Gulf, doubtless
being the same legend alluded to by Pliny when he says, 'Flumen per quod
Euphratem emergere putant.' There are many of them--the Garsari well,
Um-i-Shaun, Abu Zeidan, and the Adari, which last supplies many miles of
date-groves through a canal of ancient workmanship. The Adari well is one
of the great sights of Bahrein, being a deep basin of water 22 yards wide
by 40 long, beautifully clear, and full of prismatic colours. It is said
to come up with such force from underground that a diver is driven back,
and all around it are ruins of ancient date, proving that it was prized
by former inhabitants as a bath. The water is slightly brackish, as is
that of all these sources, so that those who can afford it send for water
to a well between Rufa'a Jebeli and Rufa'a Shergeh--called Haneini, which
is exceedingly good, and camels laden with skins may be seen coming into
Manamah every morning with this treasure. We obtained our water supply
thence. The other well, Abu Zeidan, is situated in the midst of the ruins
known as Beled-al-Kadim, or 'old town.'
Two days later our camp was struck, and our long cavalcade, with
Seid-bin-Omar, the bazaar-master, at its head, returned to Manamah. He
had ordered for us quite a sumptuous repast at his mansion by the sea,
and having learnt our taste for curiosities, he brought us as presents a
buckler of camel-skin, his 8-foot-long lance, and a lovely bowl of El
Hasa work--that is to say, minute particles of silver inlaid in wonderful
patterns in wood. This inlaying is quite a distinctive art of the
district of Arabia along the north-eastern coast known as El Hasa;
curious old guns, saddles, bowls, and coffee-pots, in fact everything
with an artistic tendency, comes from that country.
The day following was the great Thursday's Market at Beled-al-Kadim, near
the old minarets and the wells. Mounted once more on donkeys, we joined
the train of peasants thither bound; I being as usual the object of much
criticism, and greatly interfering with the business of the day. One male
starer paid for his inquisitiveness, by tumbling over a stall of
knick-knacks, and precipitating himself and all the contents to the
ground.
The minarets and pillars of the old mosques looked down on a strange
scene that day. In the half-ruined, domed houses of the departed race,
stall-holders had pitched their stalls: lanes and cross lanes of
closely-packed vendors of quaint crockery, newly-cut lucerne, onions,
fish, and objects of European fabric such as only Orientals admire, and
amongst all was a compact mass of struggling humanity; but it was easy to
see that the date-palm and its produce formed the staple trade of the
place. There were all shapes and sizes of baskets made of palm-leaves,
dates in profusion, fuel of the dried spathes, the male spathes for
fructifying the palm, and palm-leaf matting--the only furniture, and
sometimes the only roofing of their comfortless huts.
The costumes were dazzling in their brilliancy and quaintness. It was a
scene never to be forgotten, and one of which a photograph, which I took
from a gentle eminence, gives but a faint idea. It was our last scene on
Bahrein--a fitting conclusion to our sojourn thereon.
MASKAT