This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
[Picture: Portrait of Lady Anne Blunt in Arab Costume]
A PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD,
_THE CRADLE OF THE ARAB RACE_.
* * * * *
A VISIT TO THE COURT OF THE ARAB EMIR, AND
“OUR PERSIAN CAMPAIGN.”
* * * * *
BY LADY ANNE BLUNT.
AUTHOR OF “THE BEDOUIN TRIBES OF THE EUPHRATES.”
* * * * *
IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. I.
* * * * *
WITH MAP, PORTRAITS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
THE AUTHOR’S DRAWINGS.
* * * * *
_SECOND EDITION_.
* * * * *
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,
1881.
[_All Rights reserved_.]
* * * * *
These Volumes Are Dedicated
TO
SIR HENRY CRESWICKE RAWLINSON,
K.C.B., F.R.S.
BY
THE AUTHORESS.
PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.
READERS of our last year’s adventures on the Euphrates will hardly need
it to be explained to them why the present journey was undertaken, nor
why it stands described upon our title page as a “Pilgrimage.” The
journey to Nejd forms the natural complement of the journey through
Mesopotamia and the Syrian Desert; while Nejd itself, with the romantic
interest attached to its name, seems no unworthy object of a religious
feeling, such as might prompt the visit to a shrine. Nejd, in the
imagination of the Bedouins of the North, is a region of romance, the
cradle of their race, and of those ideas of chivalry by which they still
live. There Antar performed his labours of Hercules, and Hatim Taï the
more historical hero entertained his guests. To the Ánazeh and Shammar,
especially, whose northward migrations date only from a few generations
back, the tradition of their birth-place is still almost a recollection;
and even to the Arabs of the earlier invasions, the townsmen of such
places as Bozra, Palmyra, and Deyr, and to the Taï Bedouins, once lords
of Jebel Shammar, it appeals with a fascination more than equal to that
of the Hejaz itself. Nejd is to all of them what Palestine is to the
Jews, England to the American and Australian colonists; but with this
difference, that they are cut off from the object of their filial
reverence more absolutely in practice than these by an intervening gulf
of desert less hospitable than any sea. It is rare to meet anywhere in
the North an Arab who has crossed the Great Nefûd.
To us too, imbued as we were with the fancies of the Desert, Nejd had
long assumed the romantic colouring of a holy land; and when it was
decided that we were to visit Jebel Shammar, the metropolis of Bedouin
life, our expedition presented itself as an almost pious undertaking; so
that it is hardly an exaggeration, even now that it is over, and we are
once more in Europe, to speak of it as a pilgrimage. Our pilgrimage then
it is, though the religion in whose name we travelled was only one of
romance.
Its circumstances, in spite of certain disappointments which the
narrative will reveal, were little less romantic than the idea. Readers
who followed our former travels to their close, may remember a certain
Mohammed Abdallah, son of the Sheykh of Palmyra, a young man who, after
travelling with us by order of the Pasha from Deyr to his native town,
had at some risk of official displeasure assisted us in evading the
Turkish authorities, and accomplishing our visit to the Ánazeh. It may
further be remembered that, in requital of this service and because we
had conceived an affection for him (for he appeared a really high-minded
young fellow), Mohammed had been given his choice between a round sum of
money, and the honour of becoming “the Beg’s” brother, a choice which he
had chivalrously decided in favour of the brotherhood. We had then
promised him that, if all went well with us, we would return to Damascus
the following winter, and go in his company to Nejd, where he believed he
had relations, and that we would help him there to a wife from among his
own people.
The idea and the promise were in strict accordance with Bedouin notions,
and greatly delighted both him and his father Abdallah, to whom they were
in due course communicated. Arab custom is very little changed on the
point of marriage from what it was in the days of Abraham; and it was
natural that both father and son should wish for a wife for him of their
own blood, and that he should be ready to go far to fetch one. Moreover,
the sort of help we proposed giving (for he could hardly have travelled
to Nejd alone) was just such as beseemed our new relationship.
Assistance in the choice of a wife ranks in Bedouin eyes with the gift of
a mare, or personal aid in war, both brotherly acts conferring high
honour on those concerned. Mohammed too had a special reason in the
circumstances of his family history to make the proposal doubly welcome.
He found himself in an embarrassing position at home with regard to
marriage, and was in a manner forced to look elsewhere for a wife. The
history of the Ibn Arûks of Tudmur, the family to which he belonged, will
explain this, and is so curious, and so typical of Arabia, that it
deserves a passing notice here.
It would appear that seven or eight generations ago (probably about the
date of the foundation of the Wahhabi empire) three brothers of the noble
family of Arûk, Sheykhs of the Beni Khaled of south-eastern Nejd,
quarrelled with their people and left the tribe. The Ibn Arûks were then
a very well-known family, exercising suzerain rights over the important
towns of Hasa and Katif, and having independent, even sovereign, power in
their own district. This lay between the Persian Gulf and Harik, an
oasis on the edge of the great southern desert, and they retained it
until they and the rest of their fellow Sheykhs in Arabia were reduced to
insignificance by Mohammed Ibn Saoud, the first Wahhabi Sultan of Nejd.
{xiii}
At the beginning of last century, all Arabia was independent of central
authority, each tribe, and to a certain extent each town, maintaining its
separate existence as a State. Religion, except in its primitive Bedouin
form, had disappeared from the inland districts, and only the Hejaz and
Yemen were more than nominally Mahometan. The Bedouin element was then
supreme. Each town and village in Arabia was considered the property of
one or other of the nomade Sheykhs in its neighbourhood, and paid him
tribute in return for his protection. The Sheykh too not unfrequently
possessed a house or castle within the city walls, as a summer residence,
besides his tent outside. He in such cases became more than a mere
suzerain, and exercised active authority over the townspeople,
administering justice at the gate daily, and enrolling young men as his
body-guard, even on occasion levying taxes. He then received the title
of Emir or Prince. It was in no other way perhaps that the “Shepherd
Kings” of Egypt acquired their position and exercised their power; and
vestiges of the old system may still be found in many parts of Arabia.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, Ibn Abd-el-Wahhab, the
Luther of Mahometanism, preached his religious reform in Nejd, and
converted Ibn Saoud, the Ánazeh Sheykh of Deriyeh, to his doctrines. By
Ibn Abd-el-Wahhab’s help Ibn Saoud, from the mere chief of a tribe, and
sovereign of one city, became Sultan of all Arabia, and reduced one after
another every rival Sheykh to submission. He even ultimately destroyed
the system of tribute and protection, the original basis of his power,
and having raised a regular army from among the townsmen, made these
quite independent of Bedouin rule. Arabia then, for the first time since
Mahomet’s death, became a united empire with a centralised and regular
government. It must have been about the year 1760 that the three Ibn
Arûks, disgusted with the new state of things in Nejd, went out to seek
their fortunes elsewhere. According to the tradition, partly embodied in
an old ballad which is still current in Arabia, they were mounted all
three upon a single camel, and had nothing with them but their swords and
their high birth to gain them credit among strangers. They travelled
northwards and at first halted in Jôf, the northernmost oasis of Central
Arabia, where one of them remained. The other two, quarrelling,
separated; the younger going, tradition knew not whither, while the elder
held on his way still further north, and settled finally at Tudmur
(Palmyra), where he married a woman of the place, and where he ultimately
became Sheykh. At that time Tudmur consisted but of a few houses. His
name was Ali, and from him our friend Mohammed and his father Abdallah,
and his uncle Faris, the real head of the family in Tudmur, are
descended.
Mohammed then had some reason, as far as his male ancestry were
concerned, to boast of his birth, and look high in making a “matrimonial
alliance;” but _par les femmes_ he was of less distinguished blood; and,
as purity of descent on both sides is considered a _sine quâ non_ among
the Arabs, the Ibn Arûks of Tudmur had not been recognized for several
generations as _asil_, or noble. They had married where they could among
the townspeople of no birth at all, or as in the case of Mohammed’s
father, among the Moáli, a tribe of mixed origin. The Ánazeh, in spite
of the name of Arûk, would not give their daughters to them to wife.
This was Mohammed’s secret grief, as it had been his father’s, and it was
as much as anything else to wipe out the stain in their pedigree, that
the son so readily agreed to our proposal.
The plan of our journey was necessarily vague, as it included the search
after two families of relations of whom nothing had been heard for nearly
a hundred years. The last sign of life shewn by the Ibn Arûks of Jôf had
been on the occasion of Abdallah’s father’s death by violence, when
suddenly a member of the Jôf family had appeared at Tudmur as avenger in
the blood feud. This relation had not, however, stayed longer there than
duty required of him, and having slain his man had as suddenly
disappeared. Of the second family nothing at all was known; and, indeed,
to the Ibn Arûks as to the other inhabitants of Tudmur, Nejd itself was
now little more than a name, a country known by ancient tradition to
exist, but unvisited by any one then living connected with the town.
These singular circumstances were, as I have said, the key-note of our
expedition, and will, I hope, lend an interest beyond that of our own
personal adventures to the present volumes. To Mohammed and the Arabs
with whom we travelled, as well as to most of those we met upon our
journey, his family history formed a perpetual romance, and the _kasid_
or ballad of Ibn Arûk came in on every occasion, seasonable and
unseasonable, as a chorus to all that happened. But for it, I doubt
whether the journey could ever have been accomplished; and on more than
one occasion we found ourselves borne easily on by the strength of it
over difficulties which, under ordinary conditions, might have sufficed
to stop us. By extreme good luck, as will be seen in the sequel, we lit
upon both branches of the family we set out in search of, the one
citizens of the Jôf oasis, the other Bedouins in Nejd, while the further
we got the better was the Arûk name known, and relations poured in on us
on all sides, eager to shew us hospitality and assistance. We were thus
passed on from kinsman to kinsman, and were everywhere received as
friends; nor is it too much to say that while in Arabia we enjoyed the
singular advantage of being accepted as members of an Arabian family.
This gave us an unique occasion of seeing, and of understanding what we
saw; and we have only ourselves to blame if we did not turn it to very
important profit.
So much then for the romance. The profit of our expedition may be
briefly summarised.
First as to geography. Though not the only Europeans who have visited
Jebel Shammar, we are the only ones who have done so openly and at our
leisure, provided with compass and barometer and free to take note of all
we saw. Our predecessors, three in number, Wallin, Guarmani, and
Palgrave, travelled in disguise, and under circumstances unfavourable for
geographical observation. The first, a Finnish professor, proceeded in
1848, as a Mussulman divine, from the coast of the Red Sea to Haïl and
thence to the Euphrates. The account of his journey, given in the
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, is unfortunately meagre,
and I understand that, though one more detailed was published in his own
language, he did not live long enough to record the whole body of his
information. The second, Guarmani, a Levantine of Italian origin,
penetrated in disguise to Jebel Shammar, commissioned by the French
Government to procure them horses from Nejd; and he communicated a lively
and most interesting account of his adventures to the “Société de
Géographie” in 1865. He too went as a Turkish mussulman, and, being
rather an Oriental than a European, collected a mass of valuable
information relating chiefly to the Desert Tribes through which he
passed. It is difficult, however, to understand the route maps with
which his account is illustrated, and, though he crossed the Nefûd at
more than one point, he is silent as to its singular physical features.
Guarmani started from Jerusalem in 1863 and visited Teyma, Kheybar,
Áneyzeh, Bereydah, and Haïl, returning thence to Syria by Jôf and the
Wady Sirhán. Mr. Palgrave’s journey is better known. A Jesuit
missionary and an accomplished Arabic scholar, he was entrusted with a
secret political mission by Napoleon III. and executed it with the
permission of his superiors. He entered Nejd, disguised as a Syrian
merchant, from Maan, and passing through Haïl in 1864 reached Riad, the
capital of the Wahhabi kingdom, and eventually the Persian Gulf at Katif.
His account of Central Arabia is by far the most complete and life-like
that has been published, and in all matters of town life and manners may
be depended upon as accurate. But his faculty of observation seems
chiefly adapted to a study of society, and the nature he describes is
human nature only. He is too little in sympathy with the desert to take
accurate note of its details, and the circumstances of his journey
precluded him from observing it geographically. He travelled in the heat
of summer and mostly by night, and was besides in no position, owing to
his assumed character and the doubtful company in which he was often
compelled to travel, to examine at leisure what he saw. Mr. Palgrave’s
account of the physical features of the Nefûd, and of Jebel Shammar, the
only one hitherto published, bears very little resemblance to the
reality; and our own observations, taken quietly in the clear atmosphere
of an Arabian winter, are therefore the first of the kind which have
reached Europe. By taking continuous note of the variations of the
barometer while we travelled, we have been able to prove that the plateau
of Haïl is nearly twice the height supposed for it above the sea, while
the granite range of Jebel Shammar exceeds this plateau by about 2000
feet. Again, the great pilgrim-road from the Euphrates, though
well-known by report to geographers, had never before been travelled by
an European, and on this, as on other parts of our route, we have
corrected previous maps. The map of Northern Arabia appended to the
first volume of our work may be now depended upon as within its limits
substantially accurate.
In geology, though possessing a superficial knowledge only of our
subject, we have, I believe, been able to correct a few mistakes, and to
clear up a doubt, much argued by Professor Wetzstein, as to the rock
formation of Jebel Aja; while a short memoir I have appended, on the
physical conformation of the great sand desert, will contain
original—possibly valuable—matter. The sketches, above all, which
illustrate these volumes, may be relied on as conscientious
representations of the chief physical features of Central Arabia.
Botanists and zoologists will be disappointed in the meagre accounts of
plants and animals I am able to give. But the existence now proved of
the white antelope (_Oryx Beatrix_) in Nejd is, I believe, a fact new to
science, as may be that of the _Webber_, a small climbing quadruped
allied to the marmots.
A more important contribution to knowledge will, I hope, be recognised in
a description of the political system to which I have just alluded under
the name of Shepherd rule, and which is now once more found in Central
Arabia. I do not know that it has ever previously been noticed by
writers on Arabia. Neither Niebuhr nor Burckhardt seem to have come
across it in its pure form, and Mr. Palgrave misunderstood it altogether
in his contempt of Bedouin as contrasted with town life. Yet it is
probably the oldest form of government existing in Arabia, and the one
best suited for the country’s needs. In connection with this matter too,
the recent history of Nejd, with an account of the downfall of the Ibn
Saouds, for which I am mainly indebted to Colonel Ross, British Resident
at Bushire, and the decay of Wahhabism in Arabia, will prove of interest,
as may in a lesser degree the imperfect picture given in the second
volume of the extreme results produced in Persia by despotic rule, and
the iniquitous annexation of Hasa by the Turks. The value, however, of
these “discoveries” I leave to our readers to determine, premising only
that they are here pointed out less on account of their own importance,
than as an excuse in matter for the manner of the narrative.
With regard to the sequel of our Arabian journey, the further journey
from Bagdad to Bushire, I should not intrude it on the notice of the
public, but that it serves as an additional proof, if such be wanting, of
the folly of those schemes which, under the name of “Euphrates Valley”
and “Indo-Mediterranean” railway companies, have from time to time been
dangled before the eyes of speculators. A country more absolutely
unsuited for railway enterprise than that between the Mediterranean and
the Persian Gulf, has probably never been selected for such operations;
and, if the recital of our passage through the uninhabited tracts, which
form nine tenths of the whole region, shall deter my countrymen from
embarking their capital in an enterprise financially absurd, I feel that
its publication will not have been in vain.
One word before I end my Preface. It was objected to me at the Royal
Geographical Society’s meeting, where I read a paper on this “Visit to
Nejd,” that though we had crossed the Great Sand Desert, and visited
Jebel Shammar, we had after all not been to Nejd. Nejd, I was told on
the “best authority,” was a term applicable only to that district of
Central Arabia which is bounded by the Jebel Toweykh and the lesser
Nefûds, neither Jebel Shammar nor Kasim being included in it. Strange as
this statement sounded to ears fresh from the country itself, I was
unable at the time to fortify my refusal to believe by any more special
argument than that the inhabitants of the districts in question had
always called them so,—an argument “quod semper et ab omnibus” which to
some seemed insufficient. I have therefore taken pains to examine the
grounds of the objection raised, and to give a reason for the belief
which is still strong within me that Haïl is not only an integral part of
Nejd, but Nejd _par excellence_.
First then, to repeat the argument “quod ab omnibus,” I state
emphatically that according to the Arabs themselves of every tribe and
town I have visited, Nejd is held to include the lands which lie within
the Nefûds. It is a geographical expression including three principal
sub-districts, Jebel Shammar and Kasim in the North, and Aared in the
South. The only doubt I have ever heard expressed was as to the Nefûds
themselves, whether they were included or not in the term. The Bedouins
certainly so consider them, for they are the only part of Nejd which they
habitually inhabit, the stony plateaux of the centre being unfit for
pastoral life. Jôf is considered outside the limit northwards, as are
Kheybar and Teyma to the north-west, while Jobba and Harik are doubtful,
being towns of the Nefûd.
Secondly, I plead written authority:—
1. Abulfeda and Edrisi, quoted by Colonel Ross in his memorandum,
include in the term Nejd all those lands lying between Yemen, Hejaz, and
Irak.
2. Yakut, an Arabian geographer of the thirteenth century, quoted by
Wetzstein, expressly mentions Aja as being in Nejd.
3. Merasid confirms Yakut in his geographical lexicon.
4. Sheykh Hamid of Kasim, also quoted by Wetzstein, says, “Nejd in its
widest sense is the whole of Central Arabia;—in its narrowest and
according to modern usage, only the Shammar Mountains and the Land of
Kasim, with the Great Desert bordering it to the South.”
5. Niebuhr, the oldest and most respectable of European writers,
enumerating the towns of Nejd, says, “Le mont Schamer n’est qu’à dix
journées de Bagdad; il comprend Haïl, Monkek, Kafar, et Bokà. L’on place
_aussi_ dans le Nejdsjed une contrée montagneuse nommée Djof-al-Sirhán
entre le mont Schâmer et Shâm (la Syrie),” etc.; thus showing that all,
and more than all I claim, were in Niebuhr’s day accounted Nejd.
6. Chesney, in his map of Arabia, published in 1838, includes Kasim and
Jebel Shammar within the boundary of Nejd, and gives a second boundary
besides, still further north, including districts “sometimes counted to
Nejd.”
7. Wallin defines Nejd as the whole district where the _ghada_ grows, a
definition taken doubtless from the Bedouins with whom he travelled, and
which would include not only Jebel Shammar, but the Nefûds and even the
Southern half of the Wady Sirhán.
8. In Kazimirski’s dictionary, 1860, I find, “_Ahlu’lghada_, surnom
donné aux habitants de la frontière de Nejd où la plante _ghada_ croit en
abondance.”
Finally, Guarmani gives the following as the result of his inquiries in
the country itself: “Le Gebel est la province la plus septentrionale du
Neged. C’est, comme disent les Arabes, un des sept Negged;” and on the
authority of Zamil, Sheykh of Áneyzeh, explains these seven to be Aared,
Hasa, and Harik, in the south, Woshem in the centre, and Jebel Shammar,
Kasim, and Sudeyr, in the north.
Opposed to this mass of testimony, we find among travellers a single
competent authority, Mr. Palgrave; and even his opinion is much
qualified. After explaining that the name Nejed signifies “highland,” in
contradistinction to the coast and the outlying provinces of lesser
elevation, he sums up his opinion thus: “The denomination ‘Nejed’ is
commonly enough applied to the whole space included between Djebel Shomer
on the north, and the great desert to the south, from the extreme range
of Jebel Toweyk on the east to the neighbourhood of the Turkish
pilgrim-road or Derb-el-Hajj on the west. However, this central
district, forming a huge parallelogram, placed almost diagonally across
the midmost of Arabia from north-east-by-east to south-west-by-west, as a
glance at the map may show, is again subdivided by the natives of the
country into the Nejed-el-aala or Upper Nejed, and the Nejed-el-owta or
Lower Nejed, a distinction of which more hereafter, while Djebel Shomer
is generally considered as a sort of appendage to Nejed, rather than as
belonging to that district itself. But the Djowf is always excluded by
the Arabs from the catalogue of upland provinces, though strangers
sometimes admit it also to the title of Nejed, by an error on their part,
since it is a solitary oasis, and a door to highland or inner Arabia, not
in any strict sense a portion of it.”
The exact truth of the matter I take, then, to be this. Nejd, in its
original and popular sense of “Highlands,” was a term of physical
geography, and necessarily embraced Jebel Shammar, the most elevated
district of all, as well as Kasim, which lay between it and Aared; and so
it was doubtless considered in Niebuhr’s time, and is still considered by
the Bedouins of the North, whose recollections date from an age previous
to Niebuhr’s. With the foundation, however, of the Wahhabi Empire of
Nejd, the term from a geographical became a political one, and has since
followed the fluctuating fortunes of the Wahhabi State. In this way it
once embraced not only the upland plateaux, but Jôf and Hasa; the latter,
though a low-lying district on the coast, retaining in Turkish official
nomenclature its political name of Nejd to the present day. At the time
of Mr. Palgrave’s visit, the Wahhabis, from whom doubtless his
information was acquired, considered Jebel Shammar no longer an integral
part of their State, but, as he expresses it, an appendage. It was
already politically independent, and had ceased in their eyes to be Nejd.
But since his day the Nejd State has seen a still further disruption.
Kasim has regained its independence, and Hasa has been annexed to the
Turkish Empire. Nejd has therefore become once more what it was before
the Empire of Nejd arose, a term of physical geography only, and one
pretty nearly co-extensive with our term Central Arabia.
I hold, then, to the correctness of our title, though in this matter, as
in the rest, craving indulgence of the learned.
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT.
CRABBET PARK,
_August_ 1, 1880.
[Picture: Pilgrim Banner]
CONTENTS TO VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The charm of Asia—A return to old friends—Desert News—The 1
Palmyrene colony at Damascus—New horses and camels—Mrs.
Digby and her husband Mijuel the Mizrab—A blood feud—Abd
el-Kader’s life—Midhat Pasha discourses on canals and
tramways—He raises a loan
CHAPTER II.
Brotherly offices—We prepare for a campaign—Mohammed Dukhi 21
comes to court—A night robber—We start for Nejd—Tale of a
penitent—The duty of revenge—We are entertained by poor
relations—The fair at Mezarib
CHAPTER III.
Beating about—Bozra—We leave the Turkish 46
dominions—Mohammed vows to kill a sheep—The citadel of
Salkhad and the independent Druses—We are received by a
Druse chieftain—Historical notice of the Hauran
CHAPTER IV.
We start in earnest—The Harra—A theory of Mirage—Camp of 64
the Beni Sokkhr—Wady er Rajel—A Christmas Dinner in the
Desert—Sand-storm—We reach Kâf
CHAPTER V.
Kâf and Itheri—More relations—The Wady Sirhán—Locust 84
hunting—Hanna sits down to die—Tales of robbery and
violence—We are surprised by a ghazu and made
prisoners—Sherarat statistics—Jôf
CHAPTER VI.
The Jôf oasis—We are entertained by Ibn Rashid’s 113
lieutenant—A haunch of wild cow—Dancing in the
castle—Prayers—We go on to Meskakeh
CHAPTER VII.
The Ibn Arûks of Jôf—Mohammed contracts a matrimonial 129
alliance—Leah and Rachel—We cheapen the bride’s dower—A
negro governor and his suite—A thunder-storm
CHAPTER VIII.
Mohammed in love—We enter the red sand desert—Geology of 150
the Nefûd—Radi—The great well of Shakik—Old
acquaintance—Tales of the Nefûd—The soldiers who perished
of thirst—The lovers—We nearly remain in the sand—Land at
last
CHAPTER IX.
Jobba—An unpleasant dream—We hear strange tales of Ibn 187
Rashid—Romping in the Nefûd—A last night there—The
Zodiacal light—We enter Nejd—The granite range of Jebel
Shammar
CHAPTER X.
Haïl—The Emir Mohammed Ibn Rashid—His menagerie—His 213
horses—His courtiers—His wives—Amusements of the ladies of
Haïl—Their domestic life—An evening at the castle—The
telephone
CHAPTER XI.
Political and historical—Shepherd rule in Arabia—An 257
hereditary policy—The army—The Law—Taxation—The finances
of Jebel Shammar—Ibn Rashid’s ambition
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.
PORTRAIT OF LADY ANNE BLUNT IN HER ARAB COSTUME _Frontispiece_
(BY MOLONY)
PAGE
PILGRIM BANNER xxvi
SALKHAD 45
RUN TO EARTH 63
SAND-STORM IN THE WADY ER-RAJEL 80
KÂF 83
GHAZÛ IN THE WADY SIRHÁN 104
CASTLE OF JÔF 112
THE OASIS OF JÔF 120
A NEJD SHEEP 149
THE NEFÛD OR GREAT RED SAND DESERT OF ARABIA 160
A DELÚL RIDER 186
RECEPTION AT HAÏL 212
THE GREAT KAHWAH 214
IBN RASHID’S STABLES AT HAÏL 250
EVENING WITH THE EMIR 256
OUR HOUSE AT HAÏL 273
MAP OF NEJD _At the End_.
CHAPTER I.
“You have been a great traveller, Mercury?”
“I have seen the world.”
“Ah, a wondrous spectacle. I long to travel.”
“The same thing over again. Little novelty and much change. I am
wearied with exertion, and if I could get a pension would retire.”
“And yet travel brings wisdom.”
“It cures us of care. Seeing much we feel little, and learn how very
petty are all those great affairs which cost us such anxiety.”
IXION IN HEAVEN.
The charm of Asia—A return to old friends—Desert news—The Palmyrene
colony at Damascus—New horses and camels—Mrs. Digby and her husband
Mijuel the Mizrab—A blood feud—Abd el-Kader’s life—Midhat Pasha
discourses on canals and tramways—He fails to raise a loan.
DAMASCUS, _Dec._ 6, 1878.—It is strange how gloomy thoughts vanish as one
sets foot in Asia. Only yesterday we were still tossing on the sea of
European thought, with its political anxieties, its social miseries and
its restless aspirations, the heritage of the unquiet race of Japhet—and
now we seem to have ridden into still water, where we can rest and forget
and be thankful. The charm of the East is the absence of intellectual
life there, the freedom one’s mind gets from anxiety in looking forward
or pain in looking back. Nobody here thinks of the past or the future,
only of the present; and till the day of one’s death comes, I suppose the
present will always be endurable. Then it has done us good to meet old
friends, friends all demonstratively pleased to see us. At the coach
office when we got down, we found a little band of dependants waiting our
arrival—first of all Mohammed ibn Arûk, the companion of our last year’s
adventures, who has come from Palmyra to meet and travel with us again,
and who has been waiting here for us, it would seem, a month. Then
Hanna, the most courageous of cowards and of cooks, with his ever ready
tears in his eyes and his double row of excellent white teeth, agrin with
welcome. Each of them has brought with him a friend, a relation he
insists on calling him, who is to share the advantage of being in our
service, and to stand by his patron in case of need, for servants like to
travel here in pairs. Mohammed’s _cousin_ is a quiet, respectable
looking man of about five and thirty, rather thick set and very broad
shouldered. He is to act as head camel man, and he looks just the man
for the place. Hanna’s _brother_ bears no likeness at all to Hanna. He
is a young giant, with a rather feckless face, and great splay hands
which seem to embarrass him terribly. He is dressed picturesquely in a
tunic shaped like the ecclesiastical vestment called the “dalmatic,” and
very probably its origin, with a coloured turban on his head. He too may
be useful, but he is a Christian, and we rather doubt the prudence of
taking Christian servants to Nejd. Only Ferhan, our Agheyl camel-driver,
is missing, and this is a great disappointment, for he was the best
tempered and the most trustworthy of all our followers last year. I
fancy we may search Damascus with a candle before we find his like again.
The evening we spent in giving and receiving news. Mohammed in his
quality of Wilfrid’s “brother,” was invited to dine with us, and a very
pleasant hour or two we had, hearing all that has happened in the desert
during the summer. First of all, the sensation that has been caused
there by our purchase of Beteyen’s mare, which after all we have secured,
and the heart-burnings and jealousies raised thereby. Then there have
been high doings among our friends in the Hamád. Faris and Jedaan have
(wonderful to relate) made peace, {3} and between them have it all their
own way now on the Euphrates, where the caravan road has become quite
unsafe in consequence. Ferhan ibn Sfuk, it seems, marched against his
brother with some Turkish troops to help him, and Faris retreated across
the river; but most of the Shammar have, as we anticipated last year,
come over to him. The Roala war is not yet finished. Ibn Shaalan,
rejecting the proposals made him through us by Jedaan, persisted in
reoccupying the Hama pastures last spring, and Jedaan attacked and routed
him; so that he has retreated southwards to his own country. Mohammed
Dukhi and Jedaan have parted company, the Sebaa having cleared off scores
with the Roala, and being satisfied with the summer’s campaign; while the
Welled Ali are still a long way on the creditor side in their blood feud.
Mohammed Dukhi is a long-headed old rogue, but it is difficult to see how
he is to hold his own with Sotamm in spite of a new alliance with Faris
el Meziad, Sheykh of the Mesenneh, who still has some hundred horsemen to
help him with, and of another with Mohammed Aga of Jerúd. The Welled Ali
are at the present moment encamped close to Jerúd, so we shall probably
go there, as the first step on our road to Nejd.
Mohammed of course knows nothing about the roads to Nejd or Jôf, except
that they are somewhere away to the south, and that he has relations
there, and I doubt if anybody in Damascus can give us more information.
The Welled Ali, however, would know where the Roala are, and the Roala
could send us on, as they go further south than any of the Ánazeh. The
difficulty, we fear, this winter will be the accident of no rain having
fallen since last spring, so that the Hamád is quite burnt up and without
water. If it were not for this, our best course would undoubtedly be
outside the Hauran, which is always dangerous, and is said to be
especially so this year. The desert has often been compared to the sea,
and is like it in more ways than one, amongst others in this, that once
well away from shore it is comparatively safe, while there is always a
risk of accidents along the coast. But we shall see. In the meantime we
talk to Mohammed of the Jôf only, for fear of scaring him. Nejd, in the
imagination of the northern Arabs, is an immense way off, and no one has
ever been known to go there from Damascus. Mohammed professes unbounded
devotion to Wilfrid, and he really seems to be sincere; but six hundred
miles of desert as the crow flies will be a severe test of affection. We
notice that Mohammed has grown in dignity and importance since we saw him
last, and has adopted the style and title of Sheykh, at least for the
benefit of the hotel servants; he has indeed good enough manners to pass
very well for a true Bedouin.
There is a small colony of Palmyra people at Damascus, or rather in the
suburb of the town called the Maidan, and with them Mohammed has been
staying. We went there with him this morning to see some camels he has
been buying for us, and which are standing, or rather sitting, in his
friends’ yard. The colony consists of two or three families, who live
together in a very poor little house. They left Tudmur about six years
ago “in a huff,” they say, and have been waiting on here from day to day
ever since to go back. The men of the house were away from home when we
called, for they make their living like most Tudmuri as carriers; but the
women received us hospitably, asked us to sit down and drink coffee,
excellent coffee, such as we had not tasted for long, and sent a little
girl to bring the camels out of the yard for us to look at. The child
managed these camels just as well as any man could have done. Mohammed
seems to have made a good selection. There are four deluls for riding,
and four big baggage camels; these last have remarkably ugly heads, but
they look strong enough to carry away the gates of Gaza, or anything else
we choose to put upon their backs. In choosing camels, the principal
points to look at are breadth of chest, depth of barrel, shortness of
leg, and for condition roundness of flank. I have seen the strength of
the hocks tested by a man standing on them while the camel is kneeling.
If it can rise, notwithstanding the weight, there can be no doubt as to
soundness. One only of the camels did not quite please us, as there was
a suspicion of recent mange; but Abdallah (Mohammed’s cousin) puts it “on
his head” that all is right with this camel, as with the rest. They are
not an expensive purchase at any rate, as they average less than £10 a
piece. One cannot help pitying them, poor beasts, when one thinks of the
immense journey before them, and the little probability there is that
they will all live to see the end of it. Fortunately they do not know
their fate any more than we know ours. How wretched we should be for
them if we knew exactly in what wady or at what steep place they would
lie down and be left to die; for such is the fate of camels. But if we
did, we should never have the heart to set out at all.
Next in importance to the camels are the horses we are to ride. Mohammed
has got his little Jilfeh mokhra of last year which is barely three years
old, but he declares she is up to his weight, thirteen stone, and I
suppose he knows best. Mr. S. has sent us two mares from Aleppo by
Hanna, one, a Ras el Fedawi, very handsome and powerful, the other, a bay
three year old Abeyeh Sherrak, without pretension to good looks, but
which ought to be fast and able to carry a light weight. We rode to the
Maidan, and the chestnut’s good looks attracted general attention.
Everybody turned round to look at her; she is perhaps too handsome for a
journey.
_December_ 7.—We have been spending the day with Mrs. Digby and her
husband, Mijuel of the Mizrab, a very well bred and agreeable man, who
has given us a great deal of valuable advice about our journey. They
possess a charming house outside the town, surrounded by trees and
gardens, and standing in its own garden with narrow streams of running
water and paths with borders full of old fashioned English
flowers—wall-flowers especially. There are birds and beasts too; pigeons
and turtle doves flutter about among the trees, and a pelican sits by the
fountain in the middle of the courtyard guarded by a fierce watch-dog. A
handsome mare stands in the stable, but only one, for more are not
required in town.
The main body of the house is quite simple in its bare Arab furnishing,
but a separate building in the garden is fitted up like an English
drawing-room with chairs, sofas, books, and pictures. Among many
interesting and beautiful sketches kept in a portfolio, I saw some really
fine water-colour views of Palmyra done by Mrs. Digby many years ago when
that town was less known than it is at present.
The Sheykh, as he is commonly called, though incorrectly, for his elder
brother Mohammed is reigning Sheykh of the Mizrab, came in while we were
talking, and our conversation then turned naturally upon desert matters,
which evidently occupy most of his thoughts, and are of course to us of
all-important interest at this moment. He gave us among other pieces of
information an account of his own tribe, the Mizrab, to which in our
published enumeration of tribes we scarcely did justice.
But before repeating some of the particulars we learned from him, I
cannot forbear saying a few words about Mijuel himself, which will
justify the value we attach to information received from him as from a
person entitled by birth and position to speak with authority. In
appearance he shews all the characteristics of good Bedouin blood. He is
short and slight in stature, with exceedingly small hands and feet, a
dark olive complexion, beard originally black, but now turning grey, and
dark eyes and eyebrows. It is a mistake to suppose that true Arabs are
ever fair or red-haired. Men may occasionally be seen in the desert of
comparatively fair complexion, but these _always_ (as far as my
experience goes) have features of a correspondingly foreign type, showing
a mixture of race. No Bedouin of true blood was ever seen with hair or
eyes not black, nor perhaps with a nose not aquiline.
Mijuel’s father, a rare exception among the Ánazeh, could both read and
write, and gave his sons, when they were boys, a learned man to teach
them their letters. But out of nine brothers, Mijuel alone took any
pains to learn. The strange accident of his marriage with an English
lady has withdrawn him for months at a time, but not estranged him, from
the desert; and he has adopted little of the townsman in his dress, and
nothing of the European. He goes, it is true, to the neighbouring
mosque, and recites the Mussulman prayers daily; but with this exception,
he is undistinguishable from the Ibn Shaalans and Ibn Mershids of the
Hamád. It is also easy to see that his heart remains in the desert, his
love for which is fully shared by the lady he has married; so that when
he succeeds to the Sheykhat, as he probably will, for his brother appears
to be considerably his senior, I think they will hardly care to spend
much of their time at Damascus. They will, however, no doubt, be
influenced by the course of tribal politics, with which I understand
Mijuel is so much disgusted, that he might resign in favour of his son
Afet; in that case, they might continue, as now, living partly at
Damascus, partly at Homs, partly in tents, and always a providence to
their tribe, whom they supply with all the necessaries of Bedouin life,
and guns, revolvers, and ammunition besides. The Mizrab, therefore,
although numbering barely a hundred tents, are always well mounted and
better armed than any of their fellows, and can hold their own in all the
warlike adventures of the Sebaa.
According to Mijuel, the Mizrab, instead of being, as we had been told, a
mere section of the Resallin, are in fact the original stock, from which
not only the Resallin but the Moáhib and the Gomussa themselves have
branched off. In regard to the last-mentioned tribe he related the
following curious story:—
An Arab of the Mizrab married a young girl of the Suellmat tribe and soon
afterwards died. In a few weeks his widow married again, taking her new
husband from among her own kinsmen. Before the birth of her first child
a dispute arose as to its parentage, she affirming her Mizrab husband to
be the father while the Suellmat claimed the child. The matter, as all
such matters are in the desert, was referred to arbitration, and the
mother’s assertion was put to the test by a live coal being placed upon
her tongue. In spite of this ordeal she persisted in her statement, and
got a judgment in her favour. Her son, however, is supposed to have been
dissatisfied with the decision, for as soon as born he turned angrily on
his mother, from which circumstance he received the name of Gomussa or
the “scratcher.” From him the Gomussa tribe are descended. They first
came into notice about seventy years ago when they attacked and plundered
the Bagdad caravan which happened to be conveying a large sum of money.
With these sudden riches they acquired such importance that they have
since become the leading section of the tribe, and they are now
undoubtedly the possessors of the best mares among the Ánazeh. The
Mizrab Sheykhs nevertheless still assert superiority in point of birth,
and a vestige of their old claims still exists in their titular right to
the tribute of Palmyra.
Mijuel’s son, Afet, or Japhet, whom we met at Beteyen’s camp last spring,
has taken, it would appear, an active part in the late fighting. During
the battle where Sotamm was defeated by the Sebaa and their allies, the
head of the Ibn Jendal {11} family, pursued by some Welled Ali horsemen,
yielded himself up a prisoner to Afet whose father-in-law he was, and who
sought to give him protection by covering him with his cloak. But the
Ibn Smeyr were at blood feud with the Ibn Jendals, and in such cases no
asylum is sacred. One of Mohammed Dukhi’s sons dragged Ibn Jendal out of
his hiding-place and slew him before Afet’s eyes. On that day the Sebaa
took most of the mares and camels they had lost in the previous fighting,
and our friend Ferhan Ibn Hedeb is now in tolerable comfort again with
tents and tent furniture, and coffee-pots to his heart’s content. I hope
he will bear his good fortune as well as he bore the bad.
Mijuel can of course give us better advice than anybody else in Damascus,
and he says that we cannot do better in the interests of our journey than
go first to Jerúd and consult Mohammed Dukhi. The Welled Ali after the
Roala are the tribe which knows the western side of the desert best, and
we should be sure of getting correct information from them, if nothing
more. The Sebaa never go anywhere near the Wady Sirhán, as they keep
almost entirely to the eastern half of the Hamád; and even their ghazús
hardly ever meddle with that inhospitable region. Mijuel has once been
as far south as to the edge of the Nefûd, which he describes as being
covered with grass in the spring. The Wady Sirhán, he believes, has
wells, but no pasturage.
Another interesting visit which we paid while at Damascus was to Abd
el-Kader, the hero of the French war in Algiers. This charming old man,
whose character would do honour to any nation and any creed, is ending
his days as he began them, in learned retirement and the exercises of his
religion. The Arabs of the west, “Maghrabi” (Mogrebins), are
distinguished from those of the Peninsula, and indeed from all others, by
a natural taste for piety and a religious tone of thought. Arabia
proper, except in the first age of Islam and latterly during the hundred
years of Wahhabi rule, has never been a religious country. Perhaps out
of antagonism to Persia, its nearest neighbour, it neglects ceremonial
observance, and pays little respect to saints, miracles, and the
supernatural world in general. But with the Moors and the Algerian Arabs
this is different. Their religion is the reason of their social life and
a prime mover in their politics. It is the fashion there, even at the
present day, for a rich man to spend his money on a mosque, as elsewhere
he would spend it on his stud and the entertainment of guests, and
nothing gives such social distinction as regular attendance at prayer.
There is too, besides the lay nobility, a class of spiritual nobles held
equally high in public estimation. These are the marabous or descendants
of certain saints, who by virtue of their birth partake in the sanctity
of their ancestors and have hereditary gifts of divination and miraculous
cure. They hold indeed much the same position with the vulgar as did the
sons of the prophets in the days of Saul.
Abd el-Kader was the representative of such a family, and not, as I think
most people suppose, a Bedouin Sheykh. In point of fact he was a
townsman and a priest, not by birth a soldier, and though trained, as
nobles of either class were, to arms, it was only the accident of a
religious war that made him a man of action. He gained his first
victories by his sermons, not by his sword; and, now that the fight is
over, he has returned naturally to his first profession, that of saint
and man of letters. As such, quite as much as for his military renown,
he is revered in Damascus.
To us, however, it is the extreme simplicity of his character and the
breadth of his good sense, amounting to real wisdom, which form his
principal charm. “Saint” though he be “by profession,” as one may say,
for such he is in his own eyes as well as those of his followers, he is
uninjured by his high position. It is to him an obligation. His charity
is unbounded, and he extends it to all alike; to be poor or suffering is
a sufficient claim on him. During the Damascus massacres he opened his
doors to every fugitive; his house was crowded with Christians, and he
was ready to defend his guests by force if need were. To us he was most
amiable, and talked long on the subject of Arab genealogy and tradition.
He gave me a book which has been lately written by one of his sons on the
pedigree of the Arabian horse, and took an evident interest in our own
researches in that direction. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca many years
ago, travelling the whole way from Algeria by land and returning through
Nejd to Meshhed Ali and Bagdad. This was before the French war.
Abd el-Kader returned our visit most politely next day, and it was
strange to see this old warrior humbly mounted on his little Syrian
donkey, led by a single servant, riding into the garden where we were.
He dresses like a mollah in a cloth gown, and with a white turban set far
back from his forehead after the Algerian fashion. He never, I believe,
wore the Bedouin kefiyeh. His face is now very pale as becomes a
student, and his smile is that of an old man, but his eye is still bright
and piercing like a falcon’s. It is easy to see, however, that it will
never flash again with anything like anger. Abd el-Kader has long
possessed that highest philosophy of noble minds according to Arab
doctrine, patience.
A man of a very different sort, but one whom we were also interested to
see, was Midhat Pasha, just arrived at Damascus as Governor-General of
Syria. He had come with a considerable flourish of trumpets, for he was
supposed to represent the doctrine of administrative reform, which was at
that time seriously believed in by Europeans for the Turkish Empire.
Midhat was the protégé of our own Foreign Office, and great things were
expected of him. For ourselves, though quite sceptical on these matters
and knowing the history of Midhat’s doings at Bagdad too well to have any
faith in him as a serious reformer, we called to pay our respects, partly
as a matter of duty, and partly it must be owned out of curiosity. It
seemed impossible that a man who had devised anything so fanciful as
parliamentary government for Turkey should be otherwise than strange and
original. But in this we were grievously disappointed, for a more
essentially commonplace, even silly talker, or one more naïvely pleased
with himself, we had never met out of Europe. It is possible that he may
have adopted this tone with us as the sort of thing which would suit
English people, but I don’t think so. We kept our own counsel of course
about our plans, mentioning only that we hoped to see Bagdad and Bussora
and to go on thence to India, for such was to be ultimately our route.
On the mention of these two towns he at once began a panegyric of his own
administration there, of the steamers he had established on the rivers,
the walls he had pulled down and tramways built. “Ah, that tramway,” he
exclaimed affectionately. “It was I that devised it, and it is running
still. Tramways are the first steps in civilisation. I shall make a
tramway round Damascus. Everybody will ride in the trucks. It will pay
five per cent. You will go to Bussora. You will see my steamers there.
Bussora, through me, has become an important place. Steamers and
tramways are what we want for these poor countries. The rivers of
Damascus are too small for steamers, or I should soon have some afloat.
But I will make a tramway. If we could have steamers and tramways
everywhere Turkey would become rich.” “And canals,” we suggested,
maliciously remembering how he had flooded Bagdad with his experiments in
this way. “Yes, and canals too. Canals, steamers, and tramways, are
what we want.” “And railways.” “Yes, railways. I hope to have a
railway soon running alongside of the carriage road from Beyrout.
Railways are important for the guaranteeing of order in the country. If
there was a railway across the desert we should have no more trouble with
the Bedouins. Ah, those poor Bedouins, how I trounced them at Bagdad. I
warrant my name is not forgotten there.” We assured him it was not.
He then went on to talk of the Circassians, “_ces pauvres Circassiens_,”
for he was speaking in French, “_il faut que je fasse quelque chose pour
eux_.” I wish I could give some idea of the tone of tenderness and
almost tearful pity in Midhat’s voice as he pronounced this sentence; the
Circassians seemed to be dearer to him than even his steamers and
tramways. These unfortunate refugees are, in truth, a problem not easy
of solution: they have been a terrible trouble to Turkey, and, since they
were originally deported from Russia after the Crimean war, they have
been passed on from province to province until they can be passed no
further. They are a scourge to the inhabitants wherever they go, because
they are hungry and armed, and insist on robbing to get a livelihood. To
the Syrian Arabs they are especially obnoxious, because they shed blood
as well as rob, which is altogether contrary to Arab ideas. The
Circassians are like the foxes which sportsmen turn out in their covers.
It is a public-spirited act to have done so, but they cannot be made to
live in peace with the hares and rabbits. Midhat, however, had a notable
scheme for setting things to rights. He would draft all these men into
the corps of zaptiehs, and then, if they did rob, it would be in the
interests of Government. Some score of them were waiting in the
courtyard at the time of our visit, to be experimented on; and a more
evil-visaged set it would have been difficult to select.
On the whole, we went away much impressed with Midhat, though not as we
had hoped. He had astonished us, but not as a wise man. To speak
seriously, one such reforming pasha as this does more to ruin Turkey than
twenty of the old dishonest sort. Midhat, though he fails to line his
own purse, may be counted on to empty the public one at Damascus, as he
did at Bagdad, where he spent a million sterling on unproductive works
within a single year. As we wished him good-bye, we were amused to
notice that he retained Mr. Siouffi, the manager of the Ottoman Bank, who
had come with us, with him for a private conference, the upshot of which
was his first public act as Governor of Syria, the raising of a loan.
{18}