synagogues. Of the mosques some, like that of Daood Pasha, are in
fine condition; others are almost in ruins, and remind one of the
remark of Lady Ann Blunt: “A city long past its prime, its hose a
world too wide for its shrunk shanks.” The feature of Bagdad is of
course the river Tigris, with its swift-flowing tide ever washing the
mud banks and watering the gardens for miles around. The houses come
down close to the water’s edge and some of them have pretty gardens
almost overhanging the stream and terraces and verandas—oriental and
picturesque. The British Residency is perhaps most beautiful in its
location and its frontage on the river; but the other consulates vie
with it in displaying to the traveller the strength and hospitality of
European States. The European community is larger than at Busrah.
XIV
A JOURNEY DOWN THE EUPHRATES
Through the kind assistance of Colonel Mockler, at that time the Bagdad
Consul General and Resident, in the autumn of 1892, I was able to make
the journey from Bagdad across to Hillah and down the Euphrates—a route
not often taken by the traveller. After making necessary preparations
and finding a suitable servant we hired two mules and left the city of
the old Caliphs with a caravan for Kerbela. It was in July and we made
our first halt four hours from Bagdad, sleeping on a blanket under the
stars. An hour after midnight the pack-saddles were lifted in place and
we were off again. It was a mixed company; Arabs, Persians, and Turks;
merchants for Hillah and pilgrims to the sacred shrines; women in those
curtained, cage-like structures called _taht-i-vans_,—two portable
zenanas hanging from each beast; dervishes on foot with green turbans,
heavy canes and awful visages: and to complete the picture a number of
rude coffins strapped cross-wise on pack-mules and holding the remains
of some “true believers,” long since ready for the holy ground at Nejf
(Nedjef).
The caravan travelled along the desert road mostly at night to escape
the fearful heat of midday when we sought shelter in public khan.
Nothing could be more uninteresting than the country between Bagdad
and Babylon at this season of the year. The maps mark six khans on
the route, but three of these are in ruins and the others are merely
stages of a caravan rather than villages or centres of cultivation.
The soil appears excellent, but there are no irrigation canals, and
everything has a deserted appearance. A few low shrubs between the
mounds and moles of an ancient civilization; mud-houses near the
khans and some Arab encampments; camel skeletons shining white by the
wayside, under a burning sun; and a troop or two of gazelle making for
the river-banks—that is all you see until you reach the palm-banked
Euphrates at Hillah.
The khans consist of a large enclosure with heavy walls of sun-dried
or Babylonian brick. In the interior are numerous alcoves or niches,
ten by six feet and four feet above ground; you seek out an empty
niche and find a resting-place until the caravan starts at midnight.
In the centre of the enclosure is a well and a large platform for
prayer—utilized for sleeping and cooking by late arrivals who find no
niche reserved as in our case. The rest of the court is for animals and
baggage. Usual Arab supplies were obtainable at these resting-places,
but every comfort is scarce and the innkeepers are too busy to be
hospitable.
Khan el Haswa where we arrived the second day is the centre of a small
village of perhaps 300 people. At three in the morning we left Haswa
but it was nearly noon when we reached the river, because of a delay
on the road. The bazaar and business of Hillah were formerly on the
Babylonian side of the stream, but are now principally on the further
side of the rickety bridge of boats four miles below the ruins of
Babylon. After paying toll we crossed over and found a room in the Khan
Pasha—a close, dirty place, but in the midst of the town and near the
river. Hillah is the largest town on the Euphrates north of Busrah.
Splendid groves of date-trees surround it and stretch along the river
as far as the eye can reach. The principal merchandise of the town is
wheat, barley and dates. Of the Moslem population two-thirds are Shiah,
and the remaining Sunni are mostly Turks. There are one or two native
Christians and many Jews, but it is difficult to estimate correctly the
population of Hillah or of any of the towns on the Euphrates. At Hillah
the river is less than 200 yards wide and has a much more gentle flow
than the Tigris at Bagdad. A short distance northwest of the town is
Kerbela. It is only a village but the spot is visited by thousands of
faithful Moslems every year who venerate the twelve Imams of the Shiah
sect. Here is the tomb of Hosein the grandson of the prophet and the
son of Ali whom they believe the true successor in the Caliphate. By
living or dying here the Shiah devotee has nought to fear for the next
world. So strong is this belief that many leave directions in their
wills to be buried in this hallowed spot. Thousands of corpses are
imported some even from India—after proper drying and salting—and are
laid to rest in the sacred ground. Nejf, south of Hillah, is the place
of Ali’s martyrdom and is no less sacred for the living and the dead.
At Kerbela the manufacture of _torbat_ is about the only industry. A
_torbat_ is a small piece of baked clay about two inches in length,
generally round or oblong, with the names of Ali and Fatima rudely
engraved on it. Made out of holy-ground, these are carried home by all
pilgrims and are used by nearly every Shiah as a resting-place for
the forehead in their prayer prostrations. According to all reports
Kerbela is similar to Mecca in its loose morals and the character of
its permanent population.
On July 31st we left Hillah and sailed down the river in a native boat
similar to the “bellum” of Busrah, but without awning. The Euphrates
is more muddy than the Tigris, and its course, though less sinuous, is
broken here and there by shallow rapids.[41] We sailed all night and
did not stop until we arrived at Diwaniyeh the following afternoon.
Many of the villages on the way appeared to have a considerable
population; date-groves were plentiful, and we passed two or three
Mathhab or tombs of Arab Sheikhs, including that reputed to be Job’s,
“the greatest of all the sons of the East.”
At Diwaniyeh I was directed to the Serai, or government-house, where
the Muttaserif Pasha of Hillah was forcing taxes from the unwilling
Arabs. I was kindly received, and, probably because of my passport,
was entertained at the Pasha’s table. Diwaniyeh has only a small
population, and its importance is due to its wealth of palms and the
wheat trade, which gives another opportunity for the government to
establish a toll-bridge and custom-house.
The Arabs of this region are notorious for their piracy on native
craft, and in 1836 they even attacked the English surveying expedition.
So I left the place with a guard of two soldiers—Saadeh and Salim,
who were as happy as their names. Patching their uniforms, asleep in
the bottom of the boat, eating of our bread and dates, or polishing
their rifles marked “_U. S. Springfield_, Snider’s Pat. 1863,” we
reached Samawa safely. During the day we passed the hamlets Um Nejis,
Abu Juwareeb, Rumeitha, and Sheweit. But the general scene was that
of narrow morass channels branching out from the river, where forests
of reeds half hid mat-huts and naked Arabs. These river tribes are
not true nomads,[42] but live in one place, on fish and the products
of the river buffalo. It is a strange sight to see a herd of large
black cattle swimming across stream, pursued by shouting, swimming and
swearing herdsmen. And this was once the home of Abraham, the friend of
God.
Near Rumeitha there was a large menzil of the Lamlum tribe. Here we
fastened the boat for the night, as our company was afraid to cross
certain rapids by starlight. Some of the Arabs came to our boat, armed
with flint-locks and the Mikwar—a heavy stick knobbed with sandstone
or hard bitumen—in Arab hands a formidable weapon. Most of the people
were asleep, and we could get no supplies of any kind except two roast
fowl from the Turkish garrison in a mud brick fort opposite. Even one
of these fell to the share of a hungry jackal during the night. We left
early in the morning, and after some difficulty in crossing the shallow
rapids, reached Samawa in four hours. Dismissing the zaptiehs, we found
a room in the Khan of Haj Nasir on the second floor and overlooking the
bazaar.
It was the day before Ashera, the great day of Moharram, and the whole
town was in funereal excitement. All shops were closed. Shiah were
preparing for the great mourning, and Sunni sought a safe place away
from the street. As soon as I came the local governor sent word that
I must not leave the khan under any circumstances, nor venture in the
street, as he would not be responsible for Shiah violence. I remained
indoors, therefore, until the following day, and saw from the window
the confusion of the night of Ashera, the tramp of a mob, the beating
of breasts, the wailing of women, the bloody banners, and mock-martyr
scenes, the rhythmic howling and cries of “Ya Ali! ya Hassan! ya
Hussein!” until throats were hoarse and hands hung heavy for a moment,
only to go at it again. A pandemonium, as of Baal’s prophets on Carmel,
before the deaf and dumb God of Islam,—monotheistic only in its book.
“There is no god but God,” and yet to the Shiah devotees of Moharram,
“He is not in all their thoughts.” The martyr caliphs of Nejf are their
salvation and their hope, the Houris’ lap.
[Illustration: A PUBLIC KHAN IN TURKISH-ARABIA.]
Between Samawa and Nasariya, the next important town, we passed the
villages: Zahara, El Kidr, Derj Kalat, (where there is a Turkish Mudir
and a telegraph station on the Hillah-Busrah wire) Luptika, El Ain, Abu
Tabr and El Assaniyeh. The river begins to broaden below Samawa, and
its banks are beautiful with palms and willows. We were again delayed
at a toll-bridge; there must be taxes everywhere in Turkey, on ships
and on fishermen, on boats and on bridges, on tobacco and on salt;
but this taxing of the same cargo at every river port is peculiar.
[Illustration: ARAB PILGRIMS ON BOARD A RIVER STEAMER.]
Nasariya is a comparatively modern town and better built than any
on the Euphrates river. Its bazaar is large and wide, and the
government-houses are imposing for Arabdom. A small gunboat lies
near the landing, and this floating tub, with its soldier guard and
bugle-call, represents the only civilization that has yet come to the
Euphrates valley, and is a thing of wonder to the Arabs. Opposite
Nasariya are two large walled enclosures, wheat granaries protected
from Arab robbers. Three hours west are the ruins of Mugheir—Ur of the
Chaldees.
Our meheleh sailed down the river before daylight and five hours later
came to Suk el Shiukh, “the bazaar of old men.” Abd el Fattah, in
whose Persian kahwah we found a place, is a cosmopolitan. He had seen
“Franjees” before, had been to Bombay, Aden and Jiddah, knew something
of books, a little less of the gospel, and spoke two English words, of
which he was very proud, “Stop her” and “Send a geri.” He was a model
innkeeper, and had it not been for his tea and talk, the three days of
stifling heat under a mat-roof would have been less tolerable.
South of Suk el Shiukh the river widens into marshes, where the channel
is so shallow that part of the cargo of all river boats is transferred
to smaller craft. On account of this delay, we ran short of provisions
before reaching Kurna, and our boatmen were such prejudiced sectarians
that it required argument and much backsheesh to bargain for some
rice and the use of their cooking-pot. We were “nejis,” “kafir,” and
what not, and the captain vowed he would have to wash the whole boat
clean at Busrah from the footprints of the unbelievers. Between Suk
and the junction of the two rivers to form the Shatt-el-Arab at Kurna,
there are many wide, waste marshes, growing reeds and pasture for the
buffalo—a breeding place for insect life and the terror of the boatmen
because of the Me’dan pirates. We were three days on this part of the
river, and often all of us were in the water to lift and tug the boat
over some mud-bank. El Kheit is the only village of any size the whole
distance, but the Bedouin of the swamp, who live half the time in the
water and have not arrived at even the loincloth stage of civilization,
are a great multitude. At length we reached Kurna and thence, by the
broad, lordly, Shatt-el-Arab to the mission-house at Busrah.
What is to be the future of this great and wealthy valley, which
once supported myriads and was the centre of culture and ancient
civilization? Will it evermore rest under the blight of the fez and the
crescent? The one curse of the land is the inane government and its
ruthless taxation. The goose with the golden egg is killed every day in
Turkey—at least robbed to its last _nest-egg_. The shepherd-tribes, the
villagers, the nomads, the agricultural communities, all suffer alike
from the same cause. When and whence will deliverance come? Perhaps a
partial reply to these two questions will be found if we read between
the lines in our chapter on the recent politics of Arabia. A _Turkish_
railroad in the Euphrates valley would rust; but a railroad under
any other government would develop a region capable of magnificent
improvement.
XV
THE INTERIOR—KNOWN AND UNKNOWN
“The central provinces of Nejd, the genuine Wahabi country, is to the
rest of Arabia a sort of a lion’s den on which few venture and yet
fewer return.”—_Palgrave._
“A desert world of new and dreadful aspect! black camels, and uncouth
hostile mountains; and a vast sand wilderness shelving toward the dire
impostor’s city.”—_Doughty._
The region which, for want of a more definite name, we may call the
Interior includes four large districts. Three of these have been
comparatively well explored and mapped, but the fourth is utterly
unknown. These districts are: Roba’-el-Khali, Nejran with Wady Dauasir,
Nejd proper, and Jebel Shammar.
It is surprising that at the close of the nineteenth century there
should remain so many portions of our globe still unexplored. We
have better maps of the north pole and of the moon than we have of
Southeastern Arabia and parts of Central Asia. A triangle formed by
lines drawn from Harrara in Oman to El Harik in Southern Nejd, thence
to Marib in Yemen and back to Harrara will measure very nearly 500
miles on each of its upper sides and 800 on the base. This triangle,
with an area of 120,000 square miles is as utterly unknown to the world
at large as if it were an undiscovered continent in some polar sea.
Never has it been crossed by any European traveller or entered by an
explorer. It includes all the _hinterland_ of the Mahrah and Gharah
tribes, all western Oman and the so-called Roba’-el-Khali (literally,
“empty abode”) of the Dahna desert, as well as that mysterious region
of El Ahkaf to which the Koran refers and which is said by the Arabs
to be a sea of quicksands, able to swallow whole caravans.
On most maps the region in question is left blank; others designate
it as an uninterrupted desert from Mecca to Oman; while Ptolemy’s map
describes the region as producing myrrh and abounding in Arab tribes
and caravan-routes. Whatever we know of the country at present must be
the result of Arab hearsay booked by travellers in the coast-provinces.
The few names of places given in the Roba’-el-Khali would _not_ lead
one to suppose that “uninterrupted desert” was its only characteristic
feature. In the north are Jebel Athal (the Tamarisk Mountains), and
Wady Yebrin. Wady Shibwan and Wady Habuna seem to extend at least some
distance into the triangle from the west, while, in the very centre
we have the very unusual names for a desert region Belad-ez-Zohur
(Flower-country) and El-Joz (the nut-trees). There is no doubt that a
large part of the region is now desert and uninhabited; but it may not
always have been so and may hold its own secrets, archæological and
geographical.
An Arab of Wady Fatima told Doughty, what the divine partition of the
world was in the following words: “Two quarters Allah divided to the
children of Adam, the third part He gave to Gog and Magog, a manikin
people, parted from us by a wall, which they shall overskip in the
latter days; and then will they overrun the world. Of their kindred be
the gross Turks and the misbelieving Persians; but you, the Engleys
are of the good kind with us. The fourth part of the world is called
Roba’-el-Khali, the empty quarter.” Doughty adds, “I never found any
Arabian who had aught to tell, even by hearsay, of that dreadful
country. Haply it is Nefud, with quicksands, which might be entered
into and even passed with milch dromedaries in the spring weeks. Now my
health failed me; otherwise I had sought to unriddle that enigma.” It
still awaits solution. In Oman they say it is only twenty-seven days’
caravan march overland to Mecca right through the desert; perhaps from
the Oman highlands one could more easily penetrate into the unknown and
get safely to Riad if not to Yemen.
Nejran, celebrated as an ancient Christian province of Arabia and
sacred by the blood of martyrs, lies north of Yemen and east of the
Asir country. Together with the Dauasir-Wady region it forms a strip
of territory about 300 miles long and 100 broad, well-watered and even
more fertile than the best parts of Yemen[43]. The intrepid traveller,
Halévy (1870) first visited this region from Yemen and found a large
Jewish population in the southern part. He visited the towns Mahlaf,
Rijlah and Karyet-el-Kabil, penetrated Wady Habuna but could not
succeed in reaching Wady Dauasir. He describes the fertility of the
Wadys and the extensive date-plantations of this part of Arabia in
terms of greatest admiration. Ruins and inscriptions are plentiful.
In Wady Dauasir the Arabs say that the palm-groves extend three
dromedary-journeys. The people are all agricultural Arabs but, as
in Oman, they live in continual feud and turmoil because of tribal
jealousies and old quarrels.
The region east of Wady Dauasir is called Aflaj or Felej-el-Aflaj, two
days’ journey distant, here there are also palm-oases. It is six days’
journey thence to Riad, but the way is rugged, without villages.[44]
It was along Wady Dauasir that I had hoped to make the overland
journey from Sana to Bahrein in 1894, once beyond Turkish espionage
the way would have been open. According to the testimony of Halévy
the inhabitants of Nejran and Wady Dauasir are not fanatical. Nowhere
in Yemen are the Jews treated so kindly as by the Arabs of Nejran.
This entire region must also be classed with the fertile districts of
Arabia. Water is everywhere abundant coming down from the Jebel Rian,
fifteen days’ journey from Toweyk and from the southern ranges of Jebel
Ban and Jebel Tumra. The inhabitants of Nejran and of Southern Dauasir
are heretical Moslems. They belong to the Bayadhi sect like the people
of Oman,[45] and are supposed to be followers of Abd-Allah-bin-Abad
(746 A. D.).
Historically, Nejran is of special interest because here it was that
the Roman army of 11,000 men sent by Augustus Cæsar under Ælius Gallus
to make a prey of the chimerical riches of Arabia Felix came to grief.
The warriors did not fall in battle but, purposely misled by the
Nabateans, their allies, they marched painfully over the waterless
wastes in Central Arabia six months; the most perished in misery and
only a remnant returned. Strabo, writing from the mouth of Gallus
himself, who was his friend and prefect of Egypt, gives a description
of the Arabian desert that cannot be improved: “It is a sandy waste
with only a few palms and pits of water; the acacia thorn and the
tamarisk grow there; the wandering Arabs lodge in tents and are camel
graziers.”
Nejd—the heart of Arabia, the genuine Arabia, the Arabia of the
poets—is properly bounded,—on the east, by the Turkish province of
Hasa; on the south by the border of the desert near Yemama; on the
west by Hejaz in its widest extent to Khaibar; and on the north by
Jebel Shammar. Thus defined it includes the regions of El-Kasim,
El-Woshem, El-Aared, and Yemama. The “Zephyrs of Nejd” are the pregnant
theme of many an Arab poet and in these highlands, the air is crisp and
dry and invigorating, especially to the visitors from the hot and moist
coast provinces. It was such a poet who wrote in raptures of the Nejd
climate:
“Then said I to my companion while the camels were hastening
To bear us down the pass between Menifah and Demar.
‘Enjoy while thou canst the sweets of the meadows of Nejd;
With no such meadows and sweets shalt thou meet after this evening.’
Ah! heaven’s blessing on the scented gales of Nejd,
And its greensward and groves glittering from the spring showers;
And thy dear friends when thy lot was cast in Nejd—
Months flew past, they passed and we knew not,
Nor when their moons were new nor when they waned.”
As to the real and prosaic features of the country, Nejd is a plateau
of which Jebel Toweyk is the centre and backbone. Its general height
above the sea is about 4,000 feet, but there are more lofty ledges and
peaks, some as high as 5,500 feet. These highlands are for the most
clothed with fine pasture; trees are common, solitary or in little
groups; and the entire plateau is intersected by a maze of valleys
cut out of the sandstone and limestone. In these countless hollows is
concentrated the fertility and the population of Nejd. The soil of the
valleys is light, mixed with marl sand and pebbles washed down from the
cliffs. Water is found everywhere in wells at a depth of not much over
fifteen feet and often less; in Kasim it has a brackish taste, and the
soil is salty, but in other parts of Nejd there are traces of iron in
it. The climate of all Nejd, according to Palgrave, is perhaps one of
the healthiest in the world. The air is dry, clear and free from all
the malarial poison of the coast; the summers are warm but not sultry,
and the winter air is biting cold. The usual monotony of an Arabian
landscape is not only enlivened by the presence of the date-palm near
the villages, but by groups of Talh, Nebaa’ and Sidr, the Ithl and
Ghada Euphorbia—all of them good-sized shrubs or trees.[46]
Nejd is pasture land, so that its breed of sheep are known all over
Arabia; their wool is remarkably fine, almost equal to Cashmire in
softness and delicacy. Camels abound; according to Palgrave, Nejd is
“a wilderness of camels.” The color is generally brownish white or
grey; black camels are found westward and southward in the inhospitable
Harra-country toward Mecca. Oxen and cows are not uncommon. Game is
plenty, both feathered and quadruped. Partridges, quail, a kind of
bustard; gazelle, hares, jerboa, wild-goat, wild-boars, porcupine,
antelope, and a kind of wild-ox (wathyhi) with beautiful horns. Snakes
are not common, but lizards, centipedes and scorpions abound. The
ostrich is also found in western Nejd as well as in Wady Dauasir. The
Bedouin hunt them to sell the skins to the Damascus feather merchants
who come down with the Haj every year to Mecca; forty reals (dollars)
was the price paid in Doughty’s time for a single skin—a small fortune
to the poor nomad. Mounted on their dromedaries they watch for the
bird and then waylay it, matchlock ready to hand. The Arabs esteem the
breast of the ostrich good food; the fat is a sovereign remedy with
them and half a _finjan_ (the measure of an Arab coffee-cup), is worth
half a Turkish mejidie. The ostrich is no longer as common in Arabia as
formerly, and in many parts of the peninsula the bird is unknown even
by name.