And Laban said to him, “Surely thou art my bone and my flesh.” And
he abode with him the space of a month.—BOOK OF GENESIS.
The Jôf oasis—We are entertained by Ibn Rashid’s lieutenant—A haunch of
wild cow—Dancing in the castle—Prayers—We go on to Meskakeh.
JÔF is not at all what we expected. We thought we should find it a large
cultivated district, and it turns out to be merely a small town. There
is nothing at all outside the walls except a few square patches, half an
acre or so each, green with young corn. These are watered from wells,
and irrigated just like the gardens inside the walls, with little
water-courses carefully traced in patterns, like a jam tart. The whole
basin of Jôf is indeed barely three miles across at its widest, and
looks, what it no doubt is, the empty basin of a little inland sea. How,
or when, or why, it was originally dried up, is beyond me to guess (one
can only say with Mohammed, it is “min Allah”); but the proofs of its
pelagic origin are apparent everywhere. It looks lower than the rest of
the Wady Sirhán, with which it probably communicates; and we thought at
first that it might have been the last water-hole, as it were, of the sea
when it dried up. But this is not really the case, as its lowest part is
exactly on a level with all the hollows of the wady. Its wells are
between 1800 and 1900 feet above the sea. They are shallow, only a few
feet from the surface, and the water is drawn by camels pulling a long
rope with a bucket, which empties itself as it reaches the surface into a
kind of trough. The town, with its gardens, all encircled by a mud wall
ten feet high, is about two miles long from north to south, and half a
mile across. The rest of the plain is nearly a dead flat of sand, with
here and there a patch of hard ground, sandy clay, where the water
collects when it rains, and salt is left when it dries up.
Wherever a well has been sunk, a little garden has been made, fenced in
with a wall, and planted with palms. There are perhaps a dozen of these
outlying farms occupying two or three acres each. In one place there are
four or five houses with their gardens together, which have the look of a
village. The whole of the basin, except these oases, is dazzlingly
white, showing the palm groves as black patches on its surface. Jôf
itself contains not more than six hundred houses, square boxes of mud,
clustering, most of them, round the ruin of Marid, but not all, for there
are half a dozen separate clusters in different parts of the grove. Many
of these houses have a kind of tower, or upper storey, and there are
small towers at irregular intervals all round the outer wall. The chief
feature of the town, besides Marid, is a new castle just outside the
_enceinte_, inhabited by Ibn Rashid’s lieutenant. It stands on rising
ground, and is an imposing building, square, with battlemented walls
forty feet high, flanked with round and square towers tapering upwards
twenty feet higher than the rest. It has no windows, only holes to shoot
from; and each tower has several excrescences like hoods (machicoulis)
for the same purpose.
There is nothing like a bazaar in Jôf, nor even streets, as one generally
understands the word, only a number of narrow tortuous lanes, with mud
walls on either side. As we rode into the town, we found the lanes
crowded with armed men, all carrying swords in the way we had seen at
Kâf, dark-visaged and, we thought, not very pleased to see us. They
answered our “salaam aleykum” simply, without moving, and let us pass on
without any particular demonstration of hospitality. To suppose them
indifferent, however, was a mistake; their apparent coldness was only
Arab formality, and when Mohammed began to inquire after the house of his
relations, they very civilly pointed out the way, and one or two of them
came with us. We were led down a number of narrow byways, and through
the palm-gardens to the other side of the town, and then out by another
gate beyond to one of the isolated farms we had seen from the cliff. It
was close by, not a quarter of a mile, and in a few minutes more we had
dismounted, and were being hospitably entertained in the tidy kahwah of
Huseyn’s house.
What Huseyn’s exact relationship is to Mohammed, I have not yet been able
to discover—Mohammed himself hardly knows—but here it is evident that any
consanguinity, however slight, is considered of high importance. We were
no sooner seated by Huseyn’s fire, watching the coffee roasting, than
another relation arrived, attracted by the news of our arrival, and then
another, both loud in their expostulations at our having accepted
Huseyn’s hospitality, not theirs. Mohammed was kissed and hugged, and it
was all he could do to pacify these injured relatives by promising to
stay a week with each, as soon as our visit to Huseyn should be over.
Blood here is indeed thicker than water. The sudden appearance of a
twentieth cousin is enough to set everybody by the ears.
A lamb has been killed, and we have each had the luxury of a bath in our
own tent, and a thorough change of raiment. The tent is pitched in a
little palm garden behind the house, and we are quite at peace, and able
to think over all that has happened, and make our plans for the future.
_January_ 6.—Last night, while we were sitting drinking coffee for the
ninth or tenth time since our arrival, two young men came into the kahwah
and sat down. They were very gaily dressed in silk jibbehs, and
embroidered shirts under their drab woollen abbas. They wore red cotton
kefiyehs on their heads, bound with white rope, and their swords were
silver-hilted. Everyone in the kahwah stood up as they entered, and we
both thought them to be the sons of the Sheykh, or some great personage
at Jôf. Wilfrid whispered a question about them to Huseyn, who laughed
and said they were not sons of sheykhs, but “zellemet Ibn Rashid,” Ibn
Rashid’s men, in fact, his soldiers. The red kefiyeh, and the silver
hilted sword, was a kind of uniform. They had come, as it presently
appeared, from Dowass, the acting governor of Jôf, to invite us to the
castle, and though we were sorry to leave Huseyn’s quiet garden and his
kind hospitality, we have thought it prudent to comply. Neither Huseyn
nor anyone else seemed to think it possible we could refuse, for Ibn
Rashid’s government is absolute at Jôf, and his lieutenant’s wishes are
treated as commands, not that there seems to be ill-feeling between the
garrison and the town; the soldiers we saw appear to be on good terms
with everybody, and are indeed so good-humoured, that it would be
difficult to quarrel with them. But Jôf is a conquered place, held
permanently in a state of siege, and the discipline maintained is very
strict. We have moved accordingly with all our camp to the precincts of
the official residence, and are encamped just under its walls. The kasr,
which, as I have said, is outside the town, was built about twelve years
ago by Metaab ibn Rashid, brother of the Emir Tellál (Mr. Palgrave’s
friend), and though so modern a construction, has a perfectly mediæval
look, for architecture never changes in Arabia. It is a very picturesque
building with its four high towers at the corners, pierced with
loopholes, but without windows. There is one only door, and that a small
one in an angle of the wall, and it is always kept locked. Inside it the
entrance turns and twists about, and then there is a small court-yard
surrounded by the high walls, and a kahwah, besides a few other small
rooms, all dark and gloomy like dungeons. Here the deputy governor lives
with six soldiers, young men from Haïl, who, between them, govern and
garrison and do the police work of Jôf. The governor himself is away
just now at Meskakeh, the other small town included in the Jôf district,
about twenty miles from here. He is a negro slave, we are told, but a
person of great consequence, and a personal friend of the Emir.
Jôf, as far as we have been able to learn through Mohammed, for we don’t
like to ask too many questions ourselves, was formally an appanage of the
Ibn Shaalans, Sheykhs of the Roala, and it still pays tribute to Sotamm;
but about twenty years ago Metaab ibn Rashid conquered it, and it has
ever since been treated as part of Nejd. There have been one or two
insurrections, but they have been vigorously put down, and the Jôfi are
now afraid of stirring a finger against the Emir. On the occasion of one
of these revolts, Metaab cut down a great many palm trees, and half
ruined the town, so they are obliged to wait and make the best of it. In
truth, the government can hardly be very oppressive. These six soldiers
with the best will in the world cannot do much bullying in a town of four
or five thousand inhabitants. They are all strong, active, good-humoured
young fellows, serving here for a year at a time, and then being
relieved. They are volunteers, and do not get pay, but have, I suppose,
some advantages when they have done their service. They seem quite
devoted to the Emir.
Four years ago, they tell us, the Turkish Governor of Damascus sent a
military expedition against Jôf (the same we heard of at Kâf), and held
it for a few months; but Ibn Rashid complained to the Sultan of this, and
threatened to turn them out and to discontinue the tribute he pays to the
Sherif of Medina if the troops were not withdrawn, so they had to go
back. This tribute is paid by the Emir on account of his outlying
possessions, such as Kâf, Teyma, and Jôf, which the Turks have on various
occasions attempted to meddle with. He is, however, quite independent of
the Sultan, and acknowledges no suzerain anywhere. The greatness of Ibn
Saoud and the Wahhabis is now a thing of the past, and Mohammed ibn
Rashid is the most powerful ruler in Arabia. We hear a charming account
of Nejd, at least of the northern part of it. You may travel anywhere,
they say, from Jôf to Kasim without escort. The roads are safe
everywhere. A robbery has not been known on the Emir’s highway for many
years, and people found loafing about near the roads have their heads cut
off. Ibn Rashid allows no ghazús against travellers, and when he makes
war it is with his enemies. The Ibn Haddal and Ibn Majil are his
friends, but he is on bad terms with Sotamm and the Sebaa Sheykhs.
There are two twelve pounder cannons of English make in the castle. They
are ancient pieces of no value, but were used, it appears, in the siege
of Jôf by Metaab.
The Jôfi are of a different race from the Shammar of Nejd, being as mixed
in their origin almost as the Tudmuri or the villagers of the Euphrates.
Huseyn our first host here, tells us he belongs to the Taï, and that
others of his neighbours are Sirhán or Beni Laam. He is not really a
cousin of Mohammed’s, but a cousin’s cousin; the real cousins living at
Meskakeh. Though we were very comfortable with him, we are not less well
off here; and it is more interesting being at the kasr. Dowass, the
deputy governor, is a very amiable man, and all his soldiers are
exceedingly civil and obliging. They are a cheerful set of people,
talking openly about everything with us, politics and all. They assure
us Ibn Rashid will be delighted to see us, but we must see Jôhar, the
black governor, first. There are several real slaves in the fort, but no
women. The soldiers leave their wives behind at Haïl when they go away
on service. There are no horses in Jôf, except one two-year-old colt
belonging to Dubejeh, one of the soldiers, who all admire our _shagra_
(chestnut mare) amazingly, saying that there is nothing in Nejd so
beautiful. Neither are there any beasts of burden, not even asses. The
few camels there are in the town are kept for drawing water; and the only
other four-footed creatures I have seen are a few goats and three
half-starved cows at the kasr. There is not an atom of vegetation within
miles of Jôf, and the camels and these cows have to eat chopped straw and
refuse dates.
[Picture: The Oasis of Jôf]
Our dinner to-day consisted of a lamb and three other dishes—one a sort
of paste like the paste used for pasting paper, another merely rancid
butter with chopped onions, and the third, bread sopped in water—all
nasty except the lamb. There was, however, afterwards an extra course
brought to us as a surprise, a fillet of “wild cow” (probably an
antelope) from the Nefûd, baked in the ashes, one of the best meats I
ever tasted.
In the evening we had an entertainment of dancing and singing, in which
Dowass, as well as the soldiers, took part. They performed a kind of
sword dance, one performer beating on a drum made of palm wood and horse
hide, while the rest held their swords over their shoulders and chaunted
in solemn measure, dancing as solemnly. Occasionally the swords were
brandished, and then there was a scream very like what may be heard in
the hunting-field at home. Once or twice there was a distinct who-whoop,
exactly in the proper key, and with the proper emphasis. The tunes were
many of them striking, after the manner of Arabian music. One of them
ran thus:—
[Picture: A line of musical notes]
The dancing ended, a huge bowl of date molasses (dibs) and juice from
_trengs_ (a gigantic sort of lemon) was mixed; and surprising quantities
of this temperance liquid drunk. Now we are quiet, outside the castle,
which is locked up for the night, and are at liberty to write or make
sketches by moonlight, things we dare not do in the daytime.
_January_ 7.—Hamdán, our Sherâri guide, who had disappeared, returned
this morning furtively for the balance of pay due to him. He says he is
afraid of the people at the castle, and cannot stay with us.
A messenger has come from Meskakeh with an invitation from Jóhar for us,
so we are going on there to-morrow. We are not, however, to stay with
Jóhar, as he has no house of his own there, but with our relations, the
Ibn Arûks, who have at last been really discovered. Nassr ibn Arûk, the
head of the family, hearing of our arrival, has sent his son with every
sort of polite message, and it is to his house we shall go. The young
man is modest, and well-mannered, without pretension, honest and
straightforward, if one can read anything in faces; and evidently much
impressed with the honour done him by our intended visit.
We have been making calls all the morning, first on our former host,
Huseyn el-Kelb, and the other relatives, and then on one or two notables
of the town. Huseyn says that the Beyt Habûb, mentioned by Mr. Palgrave,
exists, but that the noblest of all the families is that of Mehsin ibn
Dirra, formerly Sheykh of Jôf, but now reduced to the condition of one of
the Emir’s subjects. Ibn Dirra is not (Mohammed tells us) by any means
pleased at the political changes in Jôf; but he is afraid to show more
than a half-smothered discontent, for Mohammed ibn Rashid keeps a hostage
for his good conduct in the person of his eldest son. This youth resides
at Haïl, where he is not exactly a prisoner, but cannot return to his
friends. At all the houses we were fed and entertained, having to drink
endless cups of coffee flavoured with cloves (heyl), and eat innumerable
dates, the _helwet el Jôf_, which they say here are the best in Arabia;
they are of excellent flavour, but too sweet and too sticky for general
use. The people of Jôf live almost entirely on dates; not, however, on
the _helwet_, which are not by any means the common sort. There are as
many varieties here of dates as of apples in our orchards, and quite as
different from each other. The kind we prefer for ordinary eating is
light coloured, crisp, and rounder than the helwet; while these are
shapeless, and of the colour of a horse chestnut. It is a great mistake
to suppose that dates are better for being freshly gathered; on the
contrary, they mellow with keeping. The sweeter kinds contain so much
sugar, that when placed in an open dish they half dissolve into a syrup,
in which the sugar forms in large lumps. I have no doubt that regular
sugar could be manufactured from them.
The coffee making is much the same process here as among the Bedouins of
the north, except that it is more tedious. First, there is an
interminable sorting of the beans, which are smaller and lighter in
colour than what one gets in Europe; then, after roasting, a long
pounding in a mortar, though the coffee is never pounded quite fine; then
an extraordinary amount of washing and rinsing of coffee-pots, five or
six of them; and lastly, the actual boiling, which is done three times.
The Jôf mortars are very handsome, of red sandstone, the common stone of
the country, and are, I believe, an article of export. I should like to
take one away with me but they are too heavy, a quarter of a camel load
each. The design on them is simple but handsome, and I should not be
surprised if it were very ancient. The only other manufactures of Jôf
that I heard of, are cartridge belts and woollen abbas. The former are
showy and tipped with silver, and all the servants have purchased them;
the latter are made of wool brought from Bagdad. Awwad bought one for
six and a half mejidies.
We next had a look at the castle of Marid, the only building of stone in
Jôf. Its construction dates, I should say, from mediæval times,
certainly it is not classic, and it has no particular feature to make it
interesting. It looks best at a distance. I find the map places it a
long way from Jôf, but in reality it is within the walls of the town, on
the western edge. It stands about 2000 feet above the sea.
While sitting in Ibn Dirra’s house, we saw an instance of Ibn Rashid’s
paternal government, and the first sign of Wahhabism. The midday prayer
was called from the roof of the mosque close by, for there is no minaret
in Jôf, but for some time nobody seemed inclined to move, taking our
visit as an excuse. Then an old man with a sour face began lecturing the
younger ones, and telling them to get up and go to pray, and finding
precept of no avail, at last gave them the example. Still the main body
of the guests sat on, till suddenly up jumped the two young soldiers who
had come with us, and shouting “kum, kum,” get up, get up, set to with
the flats of their swords on the rest and so drove them to the mosque,
all but our host, whose position as such made him sacred from assault.
It is very evident that religion is not appreciated here, and except the
sour looking old man nobody seemed to take the praying seriously, for the
soldiers when they had done their duty of driving in the others, came
back without ceremony from the mosque. The outward show of religion does
not seem natural among the Arabs.
Another sword dance to-night, and another carouse on lemonade.
_January_ 8.—A cloudy, almost foggy morning, and a shower of rain. We
wished Dowass and his soldiers good-bye, and they really seemed sorry to
part with us. They are extraordinarily good-tempered, honest people, and
have treated us with great kindness. Dowass’s last attention to me was
the present of an enormous treng as big as a large cocoanut. The trengs
are sour not sweet lemons, but they have a rind an inch thick, sweet
enough to be eaten though very woolly.
Meskakeh, where we have come to-day, is about twenty miles from Jôf, and
there is a well-beaten track between the two places. We were a rather
numerous party, as several Jôfi came with us for company, and we have
Areybi ibn Arûk, Nassr’s son, and another Arûk, a cousin of his, and a
man with a gun who is by way of going on with us to Haïl. All the party
but ourselves were on foot, for the Jôfi never ride, having neither
horses nor camels nor even donkeys. One of the men had with him an
ostrich eggshell slung in a sort of network, and used like a gourd to
hold water. He told me that ostriches are common in the Nefûd, which is
now close by. The scenery all the way was fantastic, sometimes
picturesque. First we crossed the punchbowl of Jôf to the other side,
passing several ruined farms, the ground absolutely barren, and the
lowest part of it covered with salt. The whole of this depression is but
a mile across. Then our road rose suddenly a hundred feet up a steep
bank of sand, and then again a hundred and sixty feet over some stony
ridges, descending again to cross a subbkha with a fringe of tamarisks
just now in flower, then tracts of fine ironstone gravel,
undistinguishable from sheep’s droppings. About two hours from Jôf is a
large water-hole, which the Jôfi call a spring, the water about eight
feet below ground. In the wadys where water had flowed (for it rained
here about a month ago), there were bright green bulbous plants with
crocus flowers, giving a false look of fertility. In other places there
were curious mushroom rocks of pink sandstone topped with iron, and in
the distance northwards several fine masses of hill, Jebel Hammamíyeh or
the pigeon mountains being the most remarkable. These may have been a
thousand feet higher than Jôf. Far beyond, to the north-east and east,
there ran a level line of horizon at about an equal height, the edge of
the Hamád, for all the country we have been crossing is within the area
of the ancient sea, which, we suppose, must have included the Wady
Sirhán, Jôf and Meskakeh.
On one of the rocks I noticed an inscription, or rather pictures of
camels and horses, cut on a flat surface about five feet across. We
could not, however, under the circumstances, copy it.
Meskakeh, though not the seat of Jóhar’s government, is a larger town
than Jôf—seven hundred houses they say, and palm gardens at least twice
as extensive as the other’s. The position of the two towns is much the
same, a broad hollow surrounded by cliffs of sandstone, but the Meskakeh
basin is less regular, and is broken up with sandhills and outlying tells
of rock. Meskakeh, like Jôf, has an ancient citadel perched on a cliff
about a hundred feet high, and dominating the town. The town itself is
irregularly built, and has no continuous wall round its gardens. There
are many detached gardens and groups of houses, and these have not been
ruined as those of Jôf have been by recent wars. Altogether, it has an
exceedingly flourishing look, not an acre of irrigable land left
unplanted. Everything is neat and clean, the walls fresh battlemented,
and every house trim as if newly built. The little square plots of
barley are surrounded each by its hedge of wattled palm branches, and the
streets and lanes are scrupulously tidy. Through these we rode without
stopping, and on two miles beyond, to Nassr’s farm. We are now in the
bosom of the Ibn Arûk family, after all no myth, but a hospitable
reality, receiving us with open arms, as if they had been expecting us
every day for the last hundred years. They know the Ibn Arûk ballad and
Mohammed’s genealogy far better than he knows it himself, so for the time
at least we may hope to be in clover, and if after all we get no further,
we may feel that we have travelled not quite in vain.