THE WADI SER AND KABR SALEH
On January 17 we started from Al Koton with only seven of our camels and
two of the sultan's packed with forage, to be away several days. The
sultan wished to lend his horses, but my husband refused. However, he had
to ride one, a grey, for fear of giving offence, and this was given to
him as a present afterwards, and he rode it whenever the rocks allowed
till we reached the coast. We eventually sent this horse, Zubda (butter),
and my Basha back to their respective donors, though they really expected
us to take them to Aden. We had two men of the Nahad tribe as our
_siyara_.
Our start took a very long time, for the sultan, attended by many people,
came a mile on foot. We travelled four hours and a half, partly through
land that would have been cultivated had there been rain, and partly
through salt desert, till we turned north-west into the Wadi Ser, where
there is a sandy desert. From the entrance to Wadi Ser we could see
Shibahm in the distance, an unpromising looking spot among sandhills. We
were all able to find shelter at Hanya under an enormous thorny _b'dom_
tree covered with fruit, and we felt like birds out of a cage, for we
never could walk out at Al Koton without a crowd, and the greasiness and
spiciness of the food was beginning to pall. We had a delightful camp,
but had to be very careful not to drop things in the sand, as they so
quickly disappeared. We had a new man called Iselem, who was to take
care of the horses, pluck chickens, and help in pitching the camp. His
wonder at the unfolding and setting up of the beds, chairs, &c., was
great. There was also an old man called Haidar Aboul. He and one of the
soldiers could talk Hindustani, so with Imam Sharif's help we were
somewhat independent of Saleh, though we had thought it necessary to
bring him, to keep him from working us harm.
We continued our way up the Wadi Ser for about five hours and camped at
Al Had in a field near a house, close to some high banks which radiated
intense heat, and suffered the more that we had to wait a long time for
the tea that we always had with our luncheon, as our water had been
stolen in the night. We always tried to save some to carry on and start
with next day, fearing we might fare worse in the next place we came to.
The well at this spot is the last water in this direction, for we were
reaching the confines of the great central desert. Wadi Ser, being such a
waste of sand, is very sparsely populated. The Bedouin here, like the
Turkomans, live in scattered abodes, little groups of two or three houses
dotted about, and solitary homesteads. It belongs to the Kattiri tribe,
who are at war with the Yafei. They once owned Sheher and Makalla and
took Al Koton, but in a war in 1874 the Yafei were supported by the
English; hence their friendship for England. The animosity still
continues and there is little intercourse between Siwoun and Shibahm,
though only twelve miles apart. The Kattiri have more of the Bedou about
them and the Yafei have more of the Arab. Our _siyar_ was twenty-five
dollars.
The people were preparing for rain, which may never come; they had had
none for two years, but if they get it every three years they are
satisfied, as they get a sufficient crop. As it comes in torrents and
with a rush, each field is provided with a dyke and a dam, which they
cut to let the water off. This dyke is made by a big scraper, like a
dustpan, called _mis'hap_, harnessed by chains to a camel or bullocks.
The camel goes over the existing bank and when the dustpan reaches the
summit the men in attendance upset the surface sand or soil, that has
been scraped off, and carry the scraper down. When this is done the field
is lightly ploughed; there is nothing more to do except to sit and wait
for rain. We saw signs of great floods in some parts.
Whenever we found ruins still visible in or near the Hadhramout we found
them on elevated spots above the sand level, from which we may argue that
all centres of civilisation in the middle of the valleys lie deeply
buried in sand, which has come down in devastating masses from the
highland and the central desert. The nature of the sand in this district
is twofold. Firstly we have the _loess_ or firm sand, which can be
cultivated; and secondly the disintegrated desert sand, which forms
itself into heaps and causes sandstorms when the wind is high.
The mountains diminish in height the farther north one goes. The
character of the valleys is pretty much the same as that of those to the
south of the main valley, only they are narrower and much lower, and thus
the deep indenture of the valley system of the Hadhramout gradually fades
away into the vast expanse of the central desert.
The wazir had been given a bag of money to buy fowls and lambs for us,
but Saleh came and said, 'The wazir wants some money for a lamb,' so it
was sent and returned. It had not been asked for and caused some offence,
but that odious little wretch only wished to make mischief.
The Bedouin are rather clever at impromptu verses, and when we were in
Wadi Ser they made night hideous by dancing in our camp. The performers
ranged themselves in two rows, as in Sir Roger de Coverley; time is kept
by a drum and by perpetual hand-clapping and stamping of the feet, whilst
two men execute elaborate capers in the centre, singing as they do so
such words as these: 'The ship has come from Europe with merchandise;
they shot at the minaret with a thousand cannon.' Bedouin women also take
part in these dances, and the Arabs think the dances very impious; it was
very weird by the light of the moon and the camp-fire, but wearisome when
we wanted to sleep, particularly as they kept it up till after we were
all astir in the morning, yelling, bawling, singing, and screeching,
Iselem being the ringleader. The ground was shaken as if horses were
galloping about. A Bedou was playing a flute made of two leg-bones of a
crane bound together with iron.
At a distance of half an hour from our camp there is a stone with an
inscription. This was visited on the day of our arrival, but we went
again next day that I might photograph it, very difficult in the position
in which it is. It is a great rough boulder about 10 feet high, that has
slipped down from the mountain, with large rough Sabæan letters just
punched on the surface, of no depth, but having a whitish appearance. The
letters run in every direction--sometimes side by side, sometimes in
columns.
The central and most important word which my husband was able to make
out, with the help of Professor Hommels' admirable dictionary of hitherto
ascertained Himyaritic words, is _Masabam_ or Caravan road. The stone
seemed to be a kind of sign-post; for as the old Bedou sheikh who was
with us said, there was in olden days, about 500 years ago, a caravan
road this way to Mecca, before the Bahr-Safi made it impassable. The
Bahr-Safi is a quicksand, north of Shabwa, but none of those present had
been there, and they all laughed at Von Wrede's story of King Safi and
his army being engulfed in it.
The Bedou sheikh with his retinue came to see that we took no treasure
out of the stone. There are a good many old stones built into the side of
the stream-bed. Having taken a copy and a photograph, which my husband
sent later to Dr. D. H. Müller, in Vienna, to decipher, we departed. We
were told that the Wadi Ser goes four hours from that stone to the great
desert.
We then turned back and followed our _kafila_ to Alagoum, at the junction
of Wadi Ser and the Wadi Latat, about two hours' journey. Alagoum is a
large cluster of high houses, surrounded by stables and houses excavated
in the sandhills, where the inhabitants and their cattle live in hot
weather. This is quite an idea suited to the Bedouin, who live in caves,
when they can find them. The Bedouin in Southern Arabia never have tents.
We found that Saleh had joined the camel-men in resisting our own people,
who wanted to encamp under trees. They had unloaded in the open and Saleh
and Iselem had then retired into the village till the tents were pitched,
so, as we were to remain in this place two days, we had them moved. We
had by this time some of the Kattiri tribe with us as _siyara_.
At Al Garun the Wadi Ser is entered by a short collateral valley called
the Wadi Khonab, in which valley is the tomb of the prophet Saleh, one of
the principal sacred places of the district. Kabr Saleh is equally
venerated with the Kabr Houd, also called the tomb of the prophet Eber
(for, from what we could gather from the statements of intelligent
natives, Eber and Houd are synonymous terms) which is to be found in the
Tamimi country further up the main valley.
The prophet Houd was sent to reclaim the tribe of Ad. The Mahra tribe are
descended from a remnant of the Addites, as also are the Hadhrami,
according to the legends. Once a man named Kolabeh, when seeking for
camels came upon the beautiful garden of Irem-Dhatul-Imad, which is
supposed to have been in the desert near Aden; he found and brought away
a priceless jewel which came into possession of the first Ommiad Caliph
Nourrijaht. Those who embraced Islamism on the preaching of the prophet
Houd were spared, but the rest either were suffocated by a stifling wind
or survived in the form of apes, whose descendants still inhabit Jebel
Shemshan at Aden.
A remnant are also said to have fled to the Kuria Muria Islands.
We again met with considerable opposition from the Bedouin and our escort
when we proposed to visit the Kabr Saleh next day. However, this was
overcome by threats of reporting the opposition to Sultan Salàh on our
return to Al Koton. So next morning we started. The sultan of Shibahm's
people were just as anxious to go as we were, for they were delighted to
get the chance of making this pilgrimage to so holy a place, which being
in an enemies' country they could not have done but for our escort.
A short ride of two hours brought us nearly to the head of the Wadi
Khonab, and there, situated just under the cliff, in an open wilderness,
is the celebrated tomb. It consists simply of a long uncovered pile of
stones, somewhat resembling a potato-pie, with a headstone at either end,
and a collection of fossils from the neighbouring mountains arranged
along the top. Hard by is a small house where the pilgrims take their
coffee, and the house of the Bedou mollah, who looks after the tomb, is
about a quarter of a mile off. Beyond this there is no habitation in
sight. A more desolate spot could hardly be found. The tomb is from 30 to
40 feet in length, and one of the legends concerning it is that it never
is the same length, sometimes being a few feet shorter, sometimes a few
feet longer. The Bedouin have endless legends concerning this prophet.
He was a huge giant, they said, the father of the prophet Houd, or Eber;
he created camels out of the rock, and hence is especially dear to the
wandering Bedou; and he still works miracles, for if even unwittingly
anyone removes a stone from this grave, it exhibits symptoms of life, and
gives the possessor much discomfort until it is returned. Once a domed
building was erected over the tomb, but the prophet manifested his
dislike of being thus inclosed and it was removed.
Men are said to go blind if they steal anything connected with the tomb;
once a man took a cup from the coffee-house, unaware of the danger he
incurred, tied it to his girdle, and carried it off. It stuck to him till
he restored it. Another man took a stone away and gave it to his children
to play with, but it hopped about till taken back again.
At the time of the _ziara_ or pilgrimage which takes place in November,
crowds of Bedouin, we were told, come from all the valleys and hills
around to worship. All our men treated the grave with the greatest
respect, and said their prayers around it barefoot.
I do not know what they would have done to Imam Sharif if he had not
comported himself as the others did, so that wretched man had to walk
barefoot all round on the sharp stones, and thus we obtained the
measurements. He got dreadfully pricked by thorns and coveted the fossils
very much. The stones of which the tomb is composed are about the size of
cannon-balls, and look just as if newly put together and quite weedless.
People stroke the upright stone at the head and then rub their hands on
their breast and kiss them, and do the same at the foot. The wazir would
have led us up close to it; but the Bedouin hated our being there at all,
and would by no means let us sleep there, as we wished to do. We
overheard our horrid little Saleh Hassan telling the bystanders that we
live on pork.
When we first got there, we were permitted to approach within a few yards
of the tomb, so that we saw it very distinctly; but when, after eating
our luncheon, and taking a siesta under a tree, we again advanced to
inspect it, the Bedou mollah attacked us with fierce and opprobrious
language, and, fearing further to arouse the fanaticism of these wild
people, we speedily mounted our horses and rode away.
We hoped to be able to visit Kabr Houd, the tomb of Nebi Saleh's son, in
the main valley, but, as it will appear, we were to be disappointed. I am
told, on reliable Arab authority, that it is similar in every way to the
Kabr Saleh--just a long pile of stones, about 40 feet in length,
uncovered, and with its adjacent mosque. These two primitive tombs of
their legendary prophets, zealously guarded and venerated by the Bedouin,
are a peculiar and interesting feature of the Hadhramout. It is a curious
fact that when one turns to the tenth chapter of Genesis (the best record
we have of the earliest populations of our globe) we find the patriarchal
names Salah, Eber, and Hazarmaveth (which last, as I previously stated,
corresponds to Hadhramout) following one another in their order, though
not in immediate sequence. I am at a loss to account for these names
being still venerated by the Bedouin, unless one admits a continuity of
legendary history almost too wonderful to contemplate, or else one must
consider that they were heathen sites of veneration, which have, under
Moslem influence, been endowed with orthodox names. Certain it is that
these tombs in the midst of the wilderness are peculiarly the property of
the Bedouin, and, though visited, and to a certain extent venerated, by
the Arabs, the latter do not attach so much importance to them as they do
to the tombs of their own walis or saints, which are always covered
tombs, near or in the centre of the towns. Another curious point I may
mention in connection with these tombs is that the Arab historian, Yaqut,
in his 'Mu'gam,'[12] tells us of a god in the Hadhramout, called Al
Galsad, who was a gigantic man; perhaps this god may have some connection
with the giant tombs of Saleh and Eber. Also Makrisi, who wrote in the
tenth century, a.d., speaks of a giant's grave he saw near Shabwa.
Near Al Agoum we saw a quantity of very ancient stone monuments, situated
on slightly elevated ground, above the sand. At first we imagined them to
be tombs, but on closer inspection we discovered that the erections,
which are large unhewn ones of the cromlech type, are decorated inside
with geometric patterns somewhat similar to those we found in the
Mashonaland ruins, and therefore my husband was more inclined to believe
they were originally used for religious purposes. There are traces of
letters above the pattern. The buildings are about 20 feet square and
several are surrounded by circular walls. They are apparently of extreme
antiquity, and doubtless far anterior in date to any other Himyaritic
remains that we saw in the Hadhramout.
The wazir joined us as usual on our return from Kabr Saleh, as we sat
outside our tent in the moonlight with Imam Sharif and the Indian
interpreters, and we had a pleasant evening. We were perfectly charmed to
see great preparations for sleep going on among the Bedouin. We thought
they really must be tired after dancing the whole night and walking the
whole day. They were busy putting themselves to bed in graves which they
dug in the loose dust, not sand; turbans, girdles, and so forth being
turned into bedclothes. Just as they were still Iselem began capering
about and they all got up shouting and screaming, but the wazir, seeing
my distress, with the greatest difficulty quieted them, as he did when
they broke out again at three o'clock in the morning.
It took us six hours the following day to ride back to Al Koton, where,
not being expected, we could not get a meal of even bread, honey, and
dates for about an hour and a half, and then had to wait till we were
very sleepy indeed for supper. We endured great hunger that day.
Salim-bin-Ali, the other wazir, had not come with us because he was not
well. The day of our reception, in curvetting about, he fell from his
horse and had suffered various pains ever since.
The sultan had had another stone brought for us from Al Gran; we did not
care to take this away as it had very little writing on it, only [Symbol:
script] (_al amin_, to the protection). It is circular, 1 foot 4½ inches
in diameter, 2½ inches high, made of coarse marble. We saw a similar
circular stone at Raidoun.
The wildest reports were going about as to the water-stone we already
had. It was almost the cause of an insurrection against the sultan of
Shibahm. They said 'It was very wrong to give that stone to a
"gavir"'--as they call us (for all the _k_'s are pronounced _g_)--'only
think of our carelessly letting him have it. The Englishman has taken
fifteen jewels of gold and gems out of it,' and named a high value.
'You are sure of this?' said the sultan to the ringleader.
'Oh, yes! quite certain!' he said.
So the sultan led him to our room, where the stone was, and said:
'Do you know the stone again? Look closely at it. Has anything happened
to it but a washing?'
The man looked extremely small. They said my husband's only business was
to extract gold from stones. It is extraordinary how widespread this
belief is. It is firmly rooted in Greece. Many a statue and inscription
has been shivered to atoms because of it, and our interest in
inscriptions was constantly attributed to a wish to find out treasure. We
once saw two men in Asia Minor industriously boring away into a
column--to find gold they told us. They already had made a hole about 8
inches deep and 4 or 5 inches wide. They think that the ancients had a
way of softening marble with acid.
We had again at this time a great many patients; for, as we really had
effected some cures the first time we were at Al Koton, our fame had
spread. We always had Matthaios and Imam Sharif to help us to elicit the
symptoms, and also to consult with as to the cures, because some remedies
which suit Europeans were by no means suited to the circumstances of our
patients. For instance, the worst coughs I ever heard were very
prevalent, but it would be useless to ask the sick to take a hot footbath
and stay in bed. The one blue garment, which in different shapes was all
the men and women wore, was little protection from the chill of the
evening. The women's dresses were always hanging off their backs; and the
men, who had each two pieces of thick blue cotton about 2 yards long by
1½ yard wide, with fringes half a yard long, wore one as a permanent
petticoat and the other as a girdle by day and when cold as a shawl,
often put on in a very uncomfortable way--thrown on in front and left
hanging open behind--forming no protection to the back of the lungs.
The poor little baby, aged fifteen months, of the Wazir
Salim-bin-Abdullah was brought shrieking in agony, gnawing hard at its
emaciated little arms, and all covered with sores. Our hearts were wrung
at this wretched sight and we longed to help; we even thought of giving
it part of a drop of chlorodyne much diluted, but, fortunately for us,
dared not do so, for my husband said to them, 'I do not think the child
will live long.' It mercifully was released in a few hours. Then an old
man came who 'had a flame in his inside.' My husband examined him and
decided that he had an abscess, and, to please him, gave him a
dessertspoonful of borax and honey, which he swept up with his finger,
and I suppose it did relieve him, for after some minutes he said: 'The
fire is gone out.'
It grieved us sorely when poor souls came to us so hopefully and so
confident of help, with a withered arm or an empty eye-socket. Some with
less serious complaints than these last we recommended to go to Aden
hospital, a building of which we never thought at that time we should be
inmates ourselves. We found the ladies, to whom a plentiful supply of
violent pills had been administered, were better, but the sultan, who had
an attack of indigestion, had to be taken in hand at once by us doctors.
His wife required a tonic, so we got out some citrate of iron and
quinine, a bright, shiny, greenish-yellow, flaky thing, which Imam Sharif
assured us would be more beneficial and better liked if shown and admired
as gold; so after some conversation about pious frauds, I packed the
medicine up neatly and wrote in ornamental letters 'Golden Health Giver,'
and this name being explained and translated gave great satisfaction. We
were glad to be able to give the kind sultan a new bottle of
quinine--more acceptable than gold.
While we were away Mahmoud had found two little hedgehogs. One was dead
and stuffed; the other we kept alive for some time and it always liked to
creep into my clothes and go to sleep--I suppose because I never teased
it. In the little book of directions for zoological collectors we saw,
that 'little is known of the reproduction of lizards, so special
attention is to be paid,' &c. Mahmoud had brought me two little fragile
eggs to keep, about half an inch long, and I had put them in a match-box
with tow and packed them in my trunk, and on my return to Al Koton I
found two little lizards about 1¼ inch long, one alive and the other
dead. Both had to be pickled, as we did not understand how to bring so
small a lizard up by hand. They proved to be new to science, as was also
a large lizard we had found near Haura, whose peculiarity is that he has
no holes along his legs to breathe by, like other lizards. His name is
_Aporosceles Bentii_. The first lizard's egg I had I was determined
should not slip through my fingers; but alack! and well-a-day! my fingers
slipped through it.
In the meantime we were terrible bones of contention, and had the Wadi
Hadhramout all by the ears. We were very anxious indeed as to whether we
could proceed any farther or should have to go back, and whether we could
do either safely. We wanted to go right along the Wadi Hadhramout and to
see Bir Borhut or Barahout, a _solfatare_ as far as we could make out,
but Masoudi in the tenth century speaks of it as the greatest volcano in
the world, and says that it casts up immense masses of fire and that its
thundering noise can be heard miles away. On the heights near is much
brimstone, which the Bedouin find useful for gunpowder. They consider
this place is the mouth of hell and that the souls of Kafirs go there. In
Iceland there is similar accommodation for those souls. Von Wrede thinks
it was the Fons Stygis of Ptolemy, but M. de Goeje thinks that Ptolemy
alluded to some place farther west and south of Mareb. Certainly the
position given by Ptolemy does not coincide with that of Bir Borhut.
From 'Arabian Society in the Middle Ages,' by S. Lane-Poole, I take the
following notices of this place:--
El Kaswini says of Bir Borhut: 'It is a well near Hadhramout and the
Prophet (God bless and save him) said "In it are the souls of infidels
and hypocrites." It is an Addite well in a dry desert and a gloomy
valley, and it is related of Ali (may God be well pleased with him) that
he said, "The most hateful of districts to God (whose name be exalted)
is the valley of Barahout, in which is a well whose waters are black and
foetid, where the souls of infidels make their abode."'
El Asmaï has narrated of a man of Hadhramout that he said: 'We find near
Barahout an extremely disgusting and foetid smell, and then news is
brought to us of the death of a great man of the chiefs of the infidels.'
Ajaïb el Makhloukàt also relates that a man who passed a night in the
valley of Barahout said: 'I heard all night (exclamatives) of "O Roumèh!
O Roumèh!" and I mentioned this to a learned man and he told me that it
was the name of the angel commissioned to keep guard over the souls of
the infidels.'
Bir Borhut is not far from Kabr Houd, which is said by some to be even
longer and wider than Kabr Saleh. The route lies through the territory of
the Kattiri, and the Yafei are quite ignorant of it; it would be quite
unsafe for them to go to the sea along the valley, and they always use
the road over the tableland. The Kattiri tyrannise over the sultan of
Siwoun and are enemies to the sultan of Shibahm; beyond them are the
Minhali, who are also enemies; then the Amri and the Tamimi, who are
friendly, and then come the Mahri. The sultan told us that not even he
could prevent us going along the _kafila_ path, but we should not be
admitted into any villages and should probably be denied water. One
source of enmity between the Kattiri and the Yafei is, I believe, a debt
which the Kattiri owe and will not pay. The sultan of Siwoun borrowed
three lacs of rupees from the grandfather of the present sultan of
Makalla; he would not repay them, so after much squabbling the case was
referred to the English at Aden, who, after duly considering the papers,
gave Makalla and Sheher (bombarding them first) to the Yafei.
In answer to the seven letters there was nothing from the sultan of
Siwoun, and the sultan of Terim sent a verbal answer--'Do as you please,'
taking no responsibility--to which Sultan Salàh replied, 'I have sent you
a letter, send me a letter.' The sheikh of the Kattiri tribe came to Al
Koton and said he would take us, but on January 23 we heard that the
sultan of Siwoun had made a proclamation in the mosque there, forbidding
the people to admit the unbelievers to the town. Though we could easily
go by the _kafila_ road, leaving the town of Siwoun two miles on one
side, the sultan deemed it wiser for us not to attempt it, as brawls
might arise, the two tribes being at war; so we then decided to mount on
to the akaba, pass the inhospitable Siwoun and Terim, and reach the
friendly Tamimi tribe. The Kattiri _kabila_, or tribe, really came to
Siwoun to be ready for us, but the seyyids had collected a large sum of
money and bribed the sultan to send them away.
We were hoping to get off to Shibahm, but as the sultan was neither well
nor in a very good humour, we had to resign ourselves to settling down in
Al Koton in all patience. He said he must accompany us, as he could not
depend on his wazirs for they were too stupid.
My husband and I were always occupied. He used to sketch in
water-colours, and I had plenty of work developing photographs in a
delightful little dark room, where I lived and enjoyed as many skins of
water as I could use, till I had to stop and pack my celluloid negatives
like artificial flowers, for they curled up and the films contracted and
split, from the alkaline water. I had to put glycerine on them when I
reached Aden. Our botanist nearly died of dulness and impatience; Mahmoud
was quite contented to sit quite still, and I do not think the Indian
servants minded much. Poor Imam Sharif used to gaze up at half a dozen
stars from a yard, but he dared not venture on the roof to see more.
We took a stroll with the sultan one day, no crowd being allowed, and
remarked how many things were grown for spices, those spices which were
becoming rather wearisome to us. There was _zamouta_, an umbelliferous
plant, the seed of which is used in coffee, and _habat-assoba_ for
putting in bread; coriander, chili, fennel, and _helf_, a plant very like
tall cress, which is used in cookery and also raw, and which we liked as
a salad; also _attar_, a purple creeping bean, very pretty and good to
eat. There was also another low-growing bean, _brinjol_ (egg plant),
cucumber, water-melon, henna, and indigo. The sultan has besides a
private inclosure where he has some lime-trees, not our kind of lime-tree
of course, but the one which bears fruit; and I must not forget cotton,
from which the place originally took its name, as it is abundant in a
wild state.
At last another polite letter came from the Kattiri, and a letter from
the sultan of Terim. 'I have both your letters _and you can do as you
like_, my answer is the same.' This did away with all hope of progress in
that direction.
Our spirits, however, were much cheered by hearing that the sultan had
received a letter from a seyyid at Meshed (probably the nice one who had
been in India and had leprosy in his legs), telling him how very badly
the sultan of Hagarein had behaved about us. As this was spontaneous, we
hoped that the negotiation our sultan was going to undertake about our
making excavations at Meshed, Raidoun, or Kubar al Moluk (for some part
of the ruins is called Tombs of the Kings), would turn out successfully.
The sultan of Hagarein was summoned to Al Koton, but we were away before
he came. I believe in the end he was turned out of his place, former
misdeeds counting against him.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: II., 100.]