“They went till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which
mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken.”
PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.
Jobba—An unpleasant dream—We hear strange tales of Ibn Rashid—Romping in
the Nefûd—A last night there—The Zodiacal light—We enter Nejd—The granite
range of Jebel Shammar.
JOBBA is one of the most curious places in the world, and to my mind one
of the most beautiful. Its name Jobba, or rather Jubbeh, meaning a well,
explains its position, for it lies in a hole or well in the Nefûd; not
indeed in a fulj, for the basin of Jobba is on quite another scale, and
has nothing in common with the horse-hoof depressions I have hitherto
described. It is, all the same, extremely singular, and quite as
difficult to account for geologically as the fuljes. It is a great bare
space in the ocean of sand, from four hundred to five hundred feet below
its average level, and about three miles wide; a hollow, in fact, not
unlike that of Jôf, but with the Nefûd round it instead of sandstone
cliffs. That it has once been a lake is pretty evident, for there are
distinct water marks on the rocks which crop up out of its bed just above
the town; and, strange to say, there is a tradition still extant of there
having formerly been water there. The wonder is how this space is kept
clear of sand. What force is it that walls out the Nefûd and prevents
encroachment? As you look across the subbkha or dry bed of the lake, the
Nefûd seems like a wall of water which must overwhelm it, and yet no sand
shifts down into the hollow, and its limits are accurately maintained.
The town itself (or village, for it has only eighty houses) is built on
the edge of the subbkha, 2860 feet above the sea, and has the same sort
of palm gardens we saw at Jôf, only on a very small scale. The wells
from which these are watered are seventy-five feet deep, and are worked,
like all the wells in Arabia, by camels. The village is extremely
picturesque, with its little battlemented walls and its gardens. At the
entrance stand half a dozen fine old ithel-trees with gnarled trunks and
feathery branches. The rocks towering above are very grand, being of
purple sandstone streaked and veined with yellow, and having an upper
facing of black. They are from seven hundred to eight hundred feet high,
and their bases are scored with old water marks. Wilfrid found several
inscriptions in the Sinaïtic character upon them. Jobba is backed by
these hills, and by a strip of yellow sand, like the dunes of Ithery, on
which just now there are brilliantly green tufts of adr in full leaf.
Beyond the subbkha the rocks of Ghota rising out of the Nefûd remind one
of the Aletsch Glacier, as seen from the Simplon Road.
So much for the outer face of Jobba. The interior is less attractive.
The houses are very poor, and less smartly kept than those of Kâf and
Ithery. I can hardly call them dirty, for dirt in this region of sand is
almost an impossibility. It is one of the luxuries of the Nefûd that no
noxious insects are found within its circuit. The Nefûd and, indeed,
Nejd, which lies beyond it, are free from those creatures which make life
a torment in other districts of the East. Even the fleas on our
greyhounds died as soon as they entered the enchanted circle of red sand.
But Jobba would be dirty if it could; and its inhabitants are the least
well-mannered of all the Arabs we saw in Nejd. The fact is, the people
are very poor and have no communication with the outer world, except when
the rare travellers between Haïl and Jôf stop a night among them. At the
time of our passage through Jobba, the Sheykh had lately died, and his
office was being held by a young man of two or three and twenty, who had
no authority with his fellow-youths, a noisy, good-for-nothing set. Ibn
Rashid has no special lieutenant at Jobba, and the young Sheykh Naïf was
unsupported by any representative of the central government, even a
policeman. The consequence was that though entertained hospitably enough
by Naïf, we were considerably pestered by his friends, and made to feel
not a little uncomfortable. I quote this as a single instance of
incivility in a country where politeness is very much the rule.
The style of our entertainment at Naïf’s house requires no special
mention, as it differed in no respect from what we had already received
elsewhere. There was a great deal of coffee drinking, and a great deal
of talk. Wherever one goes in Arabia one only has to march into any
house one pleases, and one is sure to be welcome. The kahwah stands open
all day long, and the arrival of a guest is the signal for these two
forms of indulgence, coffee and conversation, the only ones known to the
Arabs. A fire is instantly lighted, and the coffee cups in due course
are handed round. One curious incident, however, of our stay at Jobba
must be related.
For some days before our arrival there Mohammed, who was usually careless
enough about the dangers of the road, had betrayed considerable
uneasiness whenever there was a question of meeting Arabs on the way or
making new acquaintances. He had dissuaded us more than once from
looking about for tents; and when we had met the solitary man with the
camels and the man we called the spy, he had given very short answers to
their inquiries of who we were, and where we were going. It was not till
the evening of our arrival at Jobba that he explained the cause of his
anxiety. It then appeared that Radi in the course of conversation had
mentioned the name of a certain Shammar Sheykh, one Ibn Ermal, as being
in the neighbourhood, and Mohammed had remembered that many years ago a
Sheykh of that name had made a raid against Tudmur. There had been some
fighting, and a man or two killed on the Shammar side; and this was
enough to make it extremely probable that a blood-feud might be still
unsettled between his family and the Ibn Ermals. He therefore begged us
not to mention his name in Jobba, or the fact that he and Abdallah were
Tudmur men. He had the more reason for this because he had discovered
that Naïf, our host, was himself related to the Ibn Ermals; and it was
fortunate that Tudmur had not yet been mentioned by any one in
conversation. Later on in the evening he came to us very radiant, with
the news that we need no longer be under any apprehension. He had
managed ingeniously to lead the conversation with Naïf to the subject he
had at heart, and had just learned that the blood-feud was considered at
an end. Mohammed ibn Rashid, before he came to the Sheykhat of Jebel
Shammar, was Emir el-Haj, or Prince of the pilgrimage to Mecca, a
position of honour and profit, under his brother Tellál, and in that
capacity had made acquaintance with several Tudmuri at the holy cities,
and when he succeeded to the Sheykhat he had good-naturedly composed
their difference with his people. He had either paid the blood-money
himself, or had used pressure on Ibn Ermal to forego his revenge, and the
blood-feud had been declared cancelled. Whatever the Emir’s reason for
acting thus as peace maker, it was a very fortunate circumstance for us,
and now Mohammed and Naïf were the best of friends. On the morning,
however, of our departure from Jobba (we stayed there two nights), Naïf
in wishing Mohammed good bye, narrated that he had had a curious dream
that night. He had gone to sleep, he said, thinking of this old feud;
and in his sleep he thought he heard a voice reproaching him with having
neglected his duty of taking just revenge on the man who was his guest,
and he had been much distressed between the conflicting duties of
vengeance and hospitality, so that he had got up in his sleep to feel
about for his sword, and had found himself doing this when he woke. Then
he had remembered that the feud was at an end, and said El hamdu lillah,
and went to sleep again. “What a dreadful thing it would have been,” he
said to Mohammed at the end of this story, “if I had been obliged to kill
you, you, my guest!” Mohammed, however, maintained to us that even if
the blood-feud had not been settled, Naïf would not have been bound to do
anything, once he had eaten and drunk with him in his house. Such, at
least, would be the rule at Tudmur, though morals might be stricter in
Nejd.
We only stayed, as I have said, two nights with Naïf. The young people
of the village were inquisitive and obtrusive, and we were obliged to
make a sort of scene with our host about it, a thing which is
disagreeable, but sometimes necessary. I dare say they meant no harm,
but their manners were bad, and there was something almost hostile in
their tone about Nasrani (Nazarenes or Christians), which it was
advisable to check. I am glad to say that this is the only instance we
have had in Arabia of unpleasant allusions to religion. The Arabs are by
nature tolerant to the last degree on this point, and national or
religious prejudices are exceedingly rare.
This little episode, however, made us rather anxious about our possible
reception at Haïl. No European nor Christian of any sort had penetrated
as such before us to Jebel Shammar, and all we knew of the people and
country was the recollection of Mr. Palgrave’s account of his visit there
in disguise sixteen years before. Ibn Rashid, for all we knew, might be
as ill-disposed towards us as these Jobbites here, and it was clear that,
without his countenance and protection, we should be running considerable
risk in entering Haïl. Still, the die was cast. We had crossed our
Rubicon, the Red Desert, and there was no turning back. There was
nothing to be done but to put a good face on things and proceed on our
way. We cross questioned Radi as to the state of affairs at Haïl, and I
may as well give here the whole of the information he gave us,
corroborated and amplified by subsequent narrators. The main facts we
learned from him.
Radi, in the first place, confirmed in general terms the account we had
already heard of the history of the Ibn Rashid family. About fifty years
ago, Abdallah ibn Rashid, at that time “a mere _zellem_,” individual, of
the Abde section of the Shammar tribe, took service with the Ibn Saouds
of Upper Nejd, and was appointed lieutenant of Jebel Shammar, by the
Wahhabi Emir. He was a great warrior, and reduced the whole country to
order with the help of his brother Obeyd, the principal hero of Shammar
tradition. Of Obeyd we heard nothing to confirm the evil tales mentioned
by Mr. Palgrave. On the contrary, he has left a great reputation among
the Arabs for his hospitality, generosity, and courage, the three
cardinal virtues of their creed. He was never actually Emir of Jebel
Shammar, but after his brother’s death he virtually ruled the country.
It was he that counselled the destruction of the Turkish soldiers in the
Nefûd. He lived to a great age, and died only nine years ago, having
been paralysed from the waist downwards for some months before his death.
It is related of him that he left no property behind him, having given
away everything during his lifetime—no property but his sword, his mare,
and his young wife. These he left to his nephew Mohammed, ibn Rashid,
the reigning Emir, with the request that his sword should remain undrawn,
his mare unridden, and his wife unmarried for ever afterwards. Ibn
Rashid has respected his uncle’s first two wishes, but he has taken the
wife into his own harim.
Abdallah ibn Rashid died in 1843, and was succeeded in the Sheykhat of
the Shammar and the lieutenancy of Haïl, by his son Tellál, who took the
title of Emir, and made himself nearly independent of the Wahhabi
government. There is not much talk at Haïl now about Tellál. He has
left behind him little of the reputation one would expect from Mr.
Palgrave’s account of him. In his time, his second brother and
successor, Metaab, conquered Jôf and Ithery, and Metaab’s name is much
more frequently mentioned than Tellál’s. About twelve years ago Tellál
went out of his mind and committed suicide. He stabbed himself at Haïl
with his own dagger. He left behind him several sons, the eldest of whom
was Bender, and two brothers, Metaab and Mohammed, besides his uncle
Obeyd, then a very old man, and several cousins. Bender was quite a boy
at the time, and Metaab succeeded Tellál with the approval of all the
family. Metaab, however, only ruled for three years, and dying rather
suddenly, a dispute arose as to the succession. Mohammed, who for some
years had been acting as Emir el-Haj, or leader of the pilgrims, was away
from Haïl, settling a matter connected with his office with Ibn Saoud at
Riad, and Bender, being now twenty years old, was proclaimed Emir. He
was supported by all the family except Mohammed and Hamúd, Obeyd’s eldest
son, who had been brought up with Mohammed as a brother. Mohammed, when
he heard of this, was very angry, and for many days, so Radi told us, sat
with his kefiyeh over his face like one in grief, and refused to speak
with anyone. He remained at Riad, rejecting all Bender’s advances and
invitations until Obeyd was dead, when he consented to return to Haïl,
and resume his post with the Haj. This post brought him in much money,
and he was fond of money. But he plotted all the while for the Sheykhat,
intriguing with the Sherarât and other Bedouins under Bender’s rule. It
was in this way that he ultimately gratified his ambition, for it
happened one day that a caravan of Sherarât came to Haïl to buy dates,
and placed themselves under Mohammed’s protection instead of the Emir’s.
This made Bender very angry, and he sent for Mohammed, and asked him the
meaning of this insolence. “Are you Sheykh,” he asked, “or am I?” He
then mounted his mare and rode out, threatening to confiscate the
Sherarât camels, for they were encamped under the walls of Haïl. But
Mohammed followed him, and riding with him, a violent dispute arose, in
which Mohammed drew his _shabriyeh_ (a crooked dagger they all wear in
Nejd), and stabbed his nephew, who fell dead on the spot. Then Mohammed
galloped back to the castle, and, finding Hamúd there, got his help and
took possession of the place. He then seized the younger sons of Tellál,
Bender’s brothers, all but one child, Naïf, and Bedr, who was away from
Haïl, and had their heads cut off by his slaves in the courtyard of the
castle. They say, however, that Hamúd protested against this. But
Mohammed was reckless, or wished to strike terror, and not satisfied with
what he had already done, went on destroying his relations. He had some
cousins, sons of Jabar, a younger brother of Abdallah and Obeyd; and
these he sent for. They came in some alarm to the castle, each with his
slave. They were all young men, beautiful to look at, and of the highest
distinction; and their slaves had been brought up with them, as the
custom is, more like brothers than servants. They were shown into the
kahwah of the castle, and received with great formality, Mohammed’s
servants coming forward to invite them in. It is the custom at Haïl,
whenever a person pays a visit, that before sitting down, he should hang
up his sword on one of the wooden pegs fixed into the wall, and this the
sons of Jabar did, and their slaves likewise. Then they sat down, and
waited and waited, but still no coffee was served to them. At last
Mohammed appeared surrounded by his guard, but there was no “salaam
aleykum,” and instantly he gave orders that his cousins should be seized
and bound. They made a rush for their swords, but were intercepted by
the slaves of the castle, and made prisoners. Mohammed then, with
horrible barbarity, ordered their hands and their feet to be cut off, and
the hands and the feet of their slaves and had them, still living,
dragged out into the courtyard of the palace, where they lay till they
died. These ghastly crimes, more ghastly than ever in a country where
wilful bloodshed is so unusual, seem to have struck terror far and wide,
and no one has since dared to raise a hand against Mohammed. Now he is
said to have repented of his crimes, and to be “angry with himself” for
what he has done. But Radi is of opinion that Heaven is at least as
angry, for though Mohammed has married over and over again, he has never
been blessed with a son, nor even with a daughter. His rule, however,
apart from its evil commencement, though firm, has been beneficent. The
only other persons, with one exception, who have suffered death during
his reign, have been highway robbers, and these are now extirpated within
three hundred miles of Haïl. A traveller may go about securely in any
part of the desert with all his gold in his hand, and he will not be
molested. Neither are there thieves in the towns. He has made Jebel
Shammar definitely independent of Riad, and has resisted one or two
attempted encroachments by the Turks. He is munificent to all, and
exercises unbounded hospitality. No man, rich or poor, is ever sent away
from his gate unfed, and seldom without a present of clothes or money;
and hospitality in Arabia covers a multitude of sins. Besides, the Arabs
easily forget, and Mohammed is already half forgiven. “Allah yetowil
omrahu,” God grant him long life, exclaimed Radi, after giving us these
particulars.
The one exception I have alluded to was this. About two years after
Mohammed had gained the Sheykhat, Bedr, the second son of Tellál, who had
escaped the massacre of his brothers, began to grow a beard, and in Arab
opinion was come of age; and being a youth of high spirit and high
principle, resolved to avenge his brothers’ deaths. This was clearly his
duty according to Arab law. He was alone and unaided, except by some
former slaves of his father’s, to whose house at Haïl he returned
secretly. With their assistance, he made a plan, of falling upon
Mohammed one day when he was paying a visit to Hamúd in Hamúd’s house
next the castle. He went with one slave to the house, and asking
admittance was shown into the kahwah, where, if he had found the Emir, he
would have drawn his sword and killed him; but, as it happened, Mohammed
had just gone out into the garden, and only Hamúd was present. Hamúd
asked him what he wanted, and he said he wished to speak to the Emir, but
Hamúd suspecting something, detained him and gave Mohammed warning. When
arrested and recognised, Bedr was cross-questioned again, and then
declared his intention of avenging his brother Bender’s death, nor would
he desist from this. Mohammed, it is said, besought him to hear reason,
and offered to release him if he would be content to let matters alone.
“I do not wish to shed more blood,” he said, “but you must promise to
leave Haïl.” Still the young man refused, and at last in despair,
Mohammed ordered his execution. The slave, who accompanied, Bedr, was
not ill-used. Indeed, Mohammed sent him away with gifts, and he now
resides very comfortably at Samawa on the Euphrates.
After this, Mohammed, who seems to have really felt remorse for his
wickedness, sent for Naïf, the remaining son of Tellál, who was still a
boy, and took him to live with him, and treated him as his own son. Only
a year ago, seeing the boy growing up, he exhorted him to marry, offering
him one of his nieces and a fitting establishment. But the boy, they
say, hung back. “What!” he said, “you would treat me as you treat a lamb
or a kid which you fatten before you kill it?” Mohammed wept and
entreated, and swore that he would be as a father to Naïf; and the youth
still lives honourably treated in the Emir’s house. Opinion at Haïl,
however, is very decided that as soon as Naïf is old enough, either he or
his uncle must die. It will be his duty to follow Bedr in his attempt,
and if need be, to end like him
All this, as may be supposed, was anything but agreeable intelligence to
us, as we travelled on to Haïl. We felt as though we were going towards
a wild beast’s den. In the meantime, however, there were four days
before us, four days of respite, and of that tranquillity which the
desert only gives, and we agreed to enjoy it to the utmost. There is
something in the air of Nejd, which would exhilarate even a condemned
man, and we were far from being condemned. It is impossible to feel
really distressed or really anxious, with such a bright sun and such pure
delicious air. We might feel that there was danger, but we could not
feel nervous.
Our last three nights in the Nefûd were devoted to merriment, large
bonfires of yerta, round which we sat in the clear starlight, feasting on
dates bought at Jobba, and feats of strength and games among the
servants. I will give the journal for one day, the 22nd of January: “We
have been floundering along in the deep sand all day leisurely, and with
much singing and nonsense among the men, for we are in no hurry now; it
is only one day on to Igneh, the first village of Jebel Shammar. The
camels, though tired, are not now in any danger of breaking down, and
they have capital _nassí_ grass to eat; the tufts of grass are beginning
to get their new shoots. The Nefûd here is as big as ever, and the
fuljes as deep; and we crossed the track of a bakar wahash or wild cow,
not an hour before we stopped. At half past three, we came upon a
shepherd driving forty sheep to market at Haïl. He is a Shammar from Ibn
Rahis, a sheykh, whose tents we saw to-day a long way off to the
north-east, and he intends selling his flock to the Persian pilgrims who
are expected at Haïl to-day. The pilgrims, he says, are on their way
from Mecca, and will stay a week at Haïl. Who knows if we may not travel
on with them? The sheep, which I took at first for goats, are gaunt,
long legged creatures, with long silky hair, not wool, growing down to
their fetlocks, sleek pendulous ears and smooth faces. They are jet
black with white heads, spots of black round the eyes and noses, which
look as if they had been drinking ink. They are as unlike sheep as it is
possible to conceive, all legs, and tail, and face. But they have the
merit of being able to live on adr for a month at a time without needing
water. They are, I fancy, quite peculiar to Nejd. This meeting was the
signal for a halt, and behold a delightful little fulj, just big enough
to hold us, in the middle of a bed of nassí. We slid our horses down the
sand-slope, the camels followed, Mohammed, the while, bargaining with the
shepherd for the fattest of his flock. Here we unloaded, and the camels
in another ten minutes were scattered all over the hill-side, for there
is a sand-hill at least a hundred feet high, close by above us. Ibrahim,
the short, was set to watch them while the rest were busy with the camp.
There is an enormous supply of fire-wood, beautiful white logs which burn
like match wood. We climbed to the top of the hill to take the bearings
of the country, for there is a splendid view now of Jebel Shammar, no
isolated peak, as Dr. Colvill would have it last year, but a long range
of fantastic mountains, stretching far away east and west, reminding one
somewhat of the Sierra Guadarama in Spain. There are also several
outlying peaks distinct from the main chain. Behind us, to the
north-west, the Jobba group, with continuations to the west and
south-west. Eastwards, there is a single point Jebel Atwa. Haïl lies
nearly south-east, its position marked by an abrupt cliff near the
eastern extremity of the Jebel Aja range. The northern horizon only is
unbroken. This done, we both went down to measure a fulj half a mile
off, and found it two hundred and seventy feet deep, with hard ground
below. It is marked very regularly on its steep side with sheep tracks,
showing how permanent the surface of the Nefûd remains, for the little
paths are evidently of old date. {203a} By the time of our return,
Hanna’s good coffee was ready with a dish of flour and curry, to stay
hunger until the sheep is boiled. Awwad, who delights in butcher’s work,
has killed the sheep in the middle of our camp, for it is the custom to
slaughter at the tent door, and has been smearing the camels with gore.
When asked why, he says, “it will look as if we had been invited to a
feast. It always looks well to have one’s camels sprinkled.” He has
rigged up three tent poles, as a stand to hang the sheep from, and is
dismembering in a truly artistic fashion. Ibrahim el-Tawîl and Abdallah
are collecting an immense pile of wood for the night. Hanna is preparing
to cook. Poor Hanna has been having a hard time of it since Meskakeh,
for now that everybody has to walk, he insists upon walking too, “to
prevent trouble,” he says, and probably he is right. A regular Aleppin
Christian like Hanna, in such a country as this, does best by effacing
himself and disarming envy, unless indeed he can fraternize, and at the
same time inspire respect, as Ibrahim seems to have done. Hanna is
patient, and does not complain, endeavouring, though with a rueful
countenance, to be cheerful when the rest tease him. I do my best to
protect him, but he dares not take his own part. Lastly, Mohammed is
sitting darning his shirt, against making his appearance at Court, and
talking to two Jobbites, who are travelling with us, about the virtues of
Ibn Rashid, and the grandeur of the Ibn Arûks. The Ibn Arûk legend, like
a snowball, is gathering as it rolls, and we fully expect Mohammed to
appear in the character of a Prince at Haïl. He talks already of Nejd as
his personal property, and affects a certain air of protection towards
us, as that of a host doing the honours to his guests. His scare about
Ibn Ermal is quite forgotten. Prince or peasant, however, Mohammed has
the great merit of always being good-tempered, and this evening he is
very amusing. He has been telling us the whole history of his relations
with Huseyn Pasha at Deyr, which we never quite understood before (and
which I dare not repeat in detail for fear of bringing him into trouble).
He has been two or three times in prison, but poor Huseyn seems to have
been made a sad fool of. Mohammed also gave us a full, true, and
particular account of Ahmed Beg Moali’s death; and then we had a long
discussion about the exact form in which we are to introduce ourselves at
Haïl. Mohammed will have it that Wilfrid ought to represent himself as a
merchant travelling to Bussorah to recover a debt, but this we will not
listen to. We think it much more agreeable and quite as prudent to be
straightforward, and we intend to tell Ibn Rashid that we are persons of
distinction in search of other persons of distinction; that we have
already made acquaintance with Ibn Smeyr and Ibn Shaalan, and all the
sheykhs of the north, and that each time we have seen a great man, we
have been told that these were nothing in point of splendour to the Emir
of Haïl, and that hearing this, and being on our way to Bussorah, we have
crossed the Nefûd to visit him, as in former days people went to see
Suliman ibn Daoud, and then we are to produce our presents and wish him a
long life. Mohammed has been obliged to admit that this will be a better
plan; and so it is settled. Radi, whom we have taken more or less into
our confidence, thinks that the Emir will be pleased, and promises to
sing our praises “below stairs,” and he talks of a Franji having already
been at Haïl, and having gone away with money and clothes from Ibn
Rashid. Who this can be, we cannot imagine, for Mr. Palgrave was not
known there as a European. So we whiled away the time till dinner was
ready, and when all had well feasted, Mohammed came to invite us to the
servants’ fire, where feats of strength were going on. First, Abdallah
lies flat on the sand, a camel saddle is put upon his back, and then two
gigantic khurjes, weighing each of them about a hundredweight. With
these he struggles to his knees, and then by a prodigious effort to his
feet, staggers a pace, and topples over. Mohammed, not to be outdone,
lifts Ibrahim kasír, who weighs at least twelve stone, on the palm of his
hand off his legs. Then they make wheels, such as are seen at a circus,
and play at a sort of leap-frog, which consists of standing in a row one
close behind the other, when the last jumps on their shoulders and runs
along till he comes to the end, where he has to turn a somersault and
alight as he can on his head or his heels. This is very amusing, and in
the deep sand hurts nobody. All, except Hanna, join in these athletic
sports, but Awwad, who is a Bedouin born, goes through the performance
with a rather wry face. Bedouins never play at games as the town Arabs
do, and they have not the physical strength of the others. Awwad
revenges himself, however, by malignantly hiding bits of hot coal in the
ground, and every now and then somebody steps on these traps with his
bare feet, and there is a scream. Great amusement, too, is caused by
Wilfrid showing them the old game of turning three times round with the
head resting on a short stick, and then trying to walk straight. This is
considered very funny, and they generally manage to tumble over Hanna,
and when they make him try it, arrange that he shall run into the fire.
The best game, to my mind, is something like one sometimes played by
sailors on board ship. They all put their cloaks together in one heap,
and one man has to guard it. Then the rest dance round him, and try to
steal the clothes away without getting touched. Ibrahim tawíl is great
at this sport, and defends the heap with his huge hands and feet, dealing
tremendous blows on the unwary, and paying off, I fancy, not a few old
scores. Abdallah especially, who is disliked by the rest on account of
his bad temper, gets shot clean off his legs by a straight kick almost
like a football, and a fight very nearly ensues. But a diversion is made
by the ingenious Awwad, who steals away with a gun and fires it suddenly
from the top of the fulj, and then comes tumbling head over heels down
the sand to represent a ghazú. So the evening passes, and as we go back
to our private lair, we see for the first time the zodiacal light in the
western sky.
This was our last night in the Nefûd, and the recollection of it long
stood as our standard of happiness, when imprisoned within walls at Haïl,
or travelling in less congenial lands. The next day we reached Igneh,
the first village of Jebel Shammar, and the day after the mountains
themselves, the “Happy Mountains,” which had so long been the goal of our
Pilgrim’s progress.
_January_ 23.—It is like a dream to be sitting here, writing a journal on
a rock in Jebel Shammar. When I remember how, years ago, I read that
romantic account by Mr. Palgrave, which nobody believed, of an ideal
State in the heart of Arabia, and a happy land which nobody but he had
seen, and how impossibly remote and unreal it all appeared; and how,
later during our travels, we heard of Nejd and Haïl and this very Jebel
Shammar, spoken of with a kind of awe by all who knew the name, even by
the Bedouins, from the day when at Aleppo Mr. S. first answered our vague
questions about it by saying, “It is _possible_ to go there. Why do
_you_ not go?” I feel that we have achieved something which it is not
given to every one to do. Wilfrid declares that he shall die happy now,
even if we have our heads cut off at Haïl. It is with him a favourite
maxim, that every place is exactly like every other place, but Jebel
Shammar is not like anything else, at least that I have seen in this
world, unless it be Mount Sinaï, and it is more beautiful than that. All
our journey to-day has been a romance. We passed through Igneh in the
early morning, stopping only to water our animals. It is a pretty little
village, something like Jobba, on the edge of the sand, but it has what
Jobba has not, square fields of green barley unwalled outside it. These
are of course due to irrigation, which while waiting we saw at work from
a large well, but they give it a more agricultural look than the walled
palm-groves we have hitherto seen. Immediately after Igneh we came upon
hard ground, and in our delight indulged our tired mares in a fantasia,
which unstiffened their legs and did them good. The soil was beautifully
crisp and firm, being composed of fine ground granite, quite different
from the sandstone formation of Jobba and Jôf. The vegetation, too, was
changed. The yerta and adr and other Nefûd plants had disappeared, and
in their place were shrubs, which I remember having seen in the wadys of
Mount Sinaï, with occasionally small trees of the acacia tribe known to
pilgrims as the “burning bush”—in Arabic “talkh”—also a plant with thick
green leaves and no stalks called “gheyseh,” which they say is good for
the eyes. Every now and then a solitary boulder, all of red granite,
rose out of the plain, or here and there little groups of rounded rocks,
out of which we started several hares. The view in front of us was
beautiful beyond description, a perfectly even plain, sloping gradually
upwards, out of which these rocks and tells cropped up like islands, and
beyond it the violet-coloured mountains now close before us, with a
precipitous cliff which has been our landmark for several days towering
over all. The outline of Jebel Shammar is strangely fantastic, running
up into spires and domes and pinnacles, with here and there a loop-hole
through which you can see the sky, or a wonderful boulder perched like a
rocking stone on the sky line. One rock was in shape just like a camel,
and would deceive any person who did not know that a camel could not have
climbed up there. At half-past one we passed the first detached masses
of rock which stand like forts outside a citadel, and, bearing away
gradually to the left, reached the buttresses of the main body of hills.
These all rise abruptly from the smooth sloping surface of the plain,
and, unlike the mountains of most countries, with no interval of broken
ground. Mount Sinaï is the only mountain I have seen like this. In both
cases you can stand on a plain, and touch the mountain with your hand.
Only at intervals from clefts in the hills little wadys issue, showing
that it sometimes rains in Jebel Shammar. Indeed to-night, we shall
probably have a proof of this, for a great black cloud is rising behind
the peaks westwards, and every now and then it thunders. All is tight
and secure in our tent against rain. There is a small ravine in the rock
close to where we are encamped, with a deep natural tank full of the
clearest water. We should never have discovered it but for the shepherd
who came on with us to-day, for it is hidden away under some gigantic
granite boulders, and to get at it you have to creep through a hole in
the rock. A number of bright green plants grow in among the crevices
(capers?), and we have seen a pair of partridges, little dove-coloured
birds with yellow bills.
We passed a small party of Bedouin Shammar, moving camp to-day. One of
them had a young goshawk {210} on his delúl. They had no horses with
them, and we have not crossed the track of a horse since leaving Shakik.
I forgot to say that yesterday we saw a Harb Bedouin, an ugly little
black faced man, who told us he was keeping sheep for the Emir. The Harb
are the tribe which hold the neighbourhood of Medina, and have such an
evil reputation among pilgrims.
_January_ 24.—Thunderstorm in the night. We sent on Radi early this
morning, for we had only a few miles to go, with our letters to Haïl. It
was a lovely morning after the rain, birds singing sweetly from the
bushes, but we all felt anxious. Even Mohammed was silent and
preoccupied, for none knew now what any moment might bring forth. We put
on our best clothes, however, and tried to make our mares look smart. We
had expected to find Haïl the other side of the hills, but this was a
mistake. Instead of crossing them, we kept along their edge, turning
gradually round to the right, the ground still rising. The barometer at
the camp was 3370, and now it marks an ascent of two hundred feet.
We passed two villages about a mile away to our left, El Akeyt and El
Uta; and from one of them we were joined by some peasants riding in to
Haïl on donkeys. This looked more like civilisation than anything we had
seen since leaving Syria. We were beginning to get rather nervous about
the result of our message, when Radi appeared and announced that the Emir
had read our letters, and would be delighted to see us. He had ordered
two houses to be made ready for us, and nothing more remained for us to
do, than to ride into the town, and present ourselves at the kasr. It
was not far off, for on coming to the top of the low ridge which had been
in front of us for some time, we suddenly saw Haïl at our feet not half a
mile distant. The town is not particularly imposing, most of the houses
being hidden in palm groves, and the wall surrounding it little more than
ten feet high. The only important building visible, was a large castle
close to the entrance, and this Radi told us was the kasr, Ibn Rashid’s
palace.
In spite of preoccupations, I shall never forget the vivid impression
made on me, as we entered the town, by the extraordinary spick and span
neatness of the walls and streets, giving almost an air of unreality.
[Picture: Reception at Haïl]