CHAPTER IV

HÎT TO KERBELÂ

_March 18-March 30_

History in retrospect suffers an atmospheric distortion. We look upon a

past civilization and see it, not as it was, but charged with the

significance of that through which we gaze, as down the centuries shadow

overlies shadow, some dim, some luminous, and some so strongly coloured

that all the age behind is tinged with a borrowed hue. So it is that the

great revolutions, “predestined unto us and we predestined,” take on a

double power; not only do they turn the current of human action, but to

the later comer they seem to modify that which was irrevocably fixed and

past. We lend to the dwellers of an earlier day something of our own

knowledge; we watch them labouring towards the ineluctable hour, and

credit them with a prescience of change not given to man. At no time

does this sense of inevitable doom hang more darkly than over the years

that preceded the rise of Islâm; yet no generation had less data for

prophecy than the generation of Mohammad. The Greek and the Persian

disputed the possession of western Asia in profitless and exhausting

warfare, both harassed from time to time by the predatory expeditions of

the nomads on their frontiers, both content to enter into alliance with

this tribe or with that, and to set up an Arab satrap over the desert

marshes. Thus it happened that the Benî Ghassân served the emperor of

the Byzantines, and the Benî Lakhm fought in the ranks of the Sassanian

armies. But neither to Justin II nor to Chosroes the Great came the news

that in Mecca a child was born of the Ḳureish who was to found a

military state as formidable as any that the world had seen, and nothing

could have exceeded the fantastic improbability of such intelligence.

I had determined to journey back behind this great dividing line, to

search through regions now desolate for evidences of a past that has

left little historic record, calling upon the shades to take form again

upon the very ground whereon, substantial, they had played their part.

So on a brilliant morning Fattûḥ and I saw the caravan start out in the

direction of Baghdâd, not without inner heart-searchings as to where and

how we should meet it again, and having loaded three donkeys with all

that was left to us of worldly goods, we turned our faces towards the

wilderness. I looked back upon the ancient mound of Hît, the

palm-groves, and the dense smoke of the pitch fires rising into the

clear air, and as I looked our zaptieh came out to join us--a welcome

sight, for the Mudîr might well have repented at the eleventh hour. Now

no one rides into the desert, however uncertain the adventure, without a

keen sense of exhilaration. The bright morning sun, the wide clean

levels, the knowledge that the problems of existence are reduced on a

sudden to their simplest expression, your own wit and endurance being

the sole determining factors--all these things brace and quicken the

spirit. The spell of the waste seized us as we passed beyond the sulphur

marshes; Ḥussein Onbâshî held his head higher, and we gave each other

the salaam anew, as if we had stepped out into another world that called

for a fresh greeting.

“At Hît,” said he, and his words went far to explain the lightness of

his heart, “I have left three wives in the house.”

“Mâshallah!” said Fattûḥ, “you must be deaf with the gir-gir-gir of

them.”

“Eh billah!” assented Ḥussein, “I shut my ears. Three wives, two sons

and six daughters, of whom but two married. Twenty children I have had,

and seven wives; three of these died and one left me and returned to her

own people. But I shall take another bride this year, please God.”

“We Christians,” observed Fattûḥ, “find one enough.”

“You may be right,” answered Ḥussein politely; “yet I would take a new

wife every year if I had the means.”

“We will find you a bride in Kebeisah,” said I.

Hussein weighed this suggestion.

“The maidens of Kebeisah are fair but wilful. There is one among them,

her name is Shemsah--wallah, a picture! a picture she is!--she has had

seven husbands.”

“And the maidens of Hît?” I asked. “How are they?”

“Not so fair, but they are the better wives. That is why I choose to

remain in Hît,” explained Ḥussein. “The bimbâshî would have sent me to

Baghdâd, but I said, ‘No, let me stay here; the maidens of Hît do not

expect much.’ Your Excellency may laugh, but a poor man must think of

these things.”

We rode on through the aromatic scrub until the black masses of the

Kebeisah palm-groves resolved into tall trunks and feathery fronds.[73]

The sun stood high as we passed under the village gate and down the

dusty street that led to the Mudîr’s compound. We tied our mares to some

mangers in his courtyard and were ourselves ushered into his

reception-room, there to drink coffee and set forth our purpose. The

leading citizens of Kebeisah dropped in one by one, and the talk was of

the desert and of the dwellers therein. The men of Kebeisah are not

’Arab, Bedouin; they hold their mud-walled village and their 50,000

palm-trees against the tribes, but they know the laws of the desert as

well as the nomads themselves, and carry on an uneasy commerce with them

in dates and other commodities, with which even the wilderness cannot

dispense, the accredited methods of the merchant alternating with those

of the raider and the avenger of raids. There was no lack of guides to

take me to Khubbâz, for the ruin is the first stage upon the post-road

to Damascus, and half the male population was acquainted with that

perilous way.

“It is the road of death,” said Ḥussein Onbâshî, stuffing tobacco into

the cup of his narghileh.

“Eh billah!” said one who laid the glowing charcoal atop. “Eight days’

ride, and the government, look you, pays no more than fifteen mejîdehs

from Hît and back again.”

An old man, wrapped in a brown cloak edged with gold, took up the tale.

“The government reckons fifteen mejîdehs to be the price of a man’s

life. Wallah! if the water-skins leak between water and water, or if the

camel fall lame, the rider perishes.”

“By the truth, it is the road of death,” repeated Ḥussein. “Twice last

year the Deleim robbed the mail and killed the bearer of it.”

I had by this time spread out Kiepert.

“Inform me,” said I, “concerning the water.”

“Oh lady,” said the old man, “I rode with the mail for twenty years. An

hour and a half from Kebeisah there is water at ’Ain Za’zu’, and in four

hours more there is water in the tank of Khubbâz after the winter, but

this year there is none, by reason of the lack of rain. Twelve hours

from Khubbâz you shall reach Ḳaṣr ’Amej, which is another fortress like

Khubbâz, but more ruined; and there is no water there. But eighteen

hours farther you find water in the Wâdî Ḥaurân, at Muḥeiwir.”

“Is there not a castle there?” I asked. Kiepert calls it the castle of

’Aiwir.

“There is nought but rijm,” said he. (Rijm are the heaps of stones which

the Arabs pile together for landmarks.) “And after nine hours more there

is water at Ga’rah, and then no more till Dumeir, nine hours from

Damascus.”

If this account is exact, there must be four days of waterless desert on

the road of death.

The springs in Kebeisah are strongly charged with sulphur, but half-way

between the town and the shrine of Sheikh Khuḍr, that lifts a conical

spire out of the wilderness, there is a well less bitter, to which come

the fair and wilful maidens night and morning, bearing on their heads

jars of plaited willow, pitched without and within (Fig. 62). We did not

fill our water-skins there when we set out next day for Ḳaṣr Khubbâz,

but rode on to ’Ain Za’zu’, where the water is drinkable, though far

from sweet (Fig. 63). There are

[Illustration: FIG. 64.--ḲAṢR KHUBBÂZ AND RUINS OF THE TANK.]

[Illustration: FIG. 66.--ḲAṢR KHUBBÂZ, THE GATEWAY.]

[Illustration: FIG. 67.--ḲAṢR KHUBBÂZ, A VAULTED CHAMBER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 68.--THEMAIL.]]

two other sulphurous springs, one a little to the north and one to the

south, round each of which, as at ’Ain Za’zu’, the inhabitants of

Kebeisah sow clover, the sole fodder of the oasis in rainless years like

the spring of 1909; so said Fawwâz, the owner of the two camels on which

we had placed our small packs. Fawwâz rode one of them and his nephew,

Sfâga, the other, and they hung the dripping water-skins under the

loads. We followed the course of a shallow valley westwards, and before

we left it sighted a train of donkeys making to the north with an escort

on foot--Arabs of the Deleim. They looked harmless enough, but I

afterwards found that they had caused Fawwâz great uneasiness; indeed

they kept him watchful all through the night, fearing that they might

raid us while we slept. I was too busy observing the wide landscape to

dwell on such matters. The desolate world stretched before us, lifting

itself by shallow steps into long, bare ridges, on which the Arab rijm

were visible for miles away. The first of these steps--it was not more

than fifty feet high--was called the Jebel Muzâhir, and when we had

gained its summit we saw the castle of Khubbâz lying out upon the plain.

To the north the ground falls away into a wâdî, a shallow depression

like all desert valleys, in which are traces of a large masonry tank

that caught the trickle of the winter springs and held their water

behind a massive dam (Fig. 64). The tank is now half full of soil and

the dam leaks, so that as soon as the rains have ceased the water store

vanishes. It had left behind it a scanty crop of grass and flowers,

which seemed luxuriant to us in that dry season; we turned the mares and

camels loose in what Fattûḥ called enthusiastically the rabî’ah (the

herbage of spring), and pitched my light tent in the valley bottom,

where my men could find shelter among the rocks against the chills of

night. I left all these arrangements to Fattûḥ, and with Ḥussein and

Fawwâz to hold the metre tape, measured and photographed the fort till

the sun touched the western horizon.

The walls of Khubbâz are built of stones, either unworked or very

roughly squared, set in a thick bed of coarse mortar.

[Illustration: FIG. 65.--KHUBBÂZ.]

In form the fort is a hollow square with round bastions at the angles,

and except on the side facing towards Kebeisah, where the centre of the

wall is occupied by a gate, there is also a round bastion midway between

the angle towers (Fig. 65). All these bastions are much ruined and I may

be wrong in representing them as if unequal size. Before the door there

has been a vaulted porch, among the ruins of which lies a large block of

stone which looks as if it had served as lintel to the outer door; I

could see no moulding or inscription upon it (Fig. 66). The existing

inner door is arched, the arch being set forward in a curious fashion.

It opened into a vaulted entrance passage which communicated with an

open court in the centre of the building. The court was surrounded by

barrel-vaulted chambers, some of which showed traces of repair or

reconstruction, though the old and the new work are now alike

ruined.[74] All the vaults are set forward about three centimetres

beyond the face of the wall (Fig. 67). Above the outset the first few

courses of stones are laid horizontally, inclining slightly inwards, but

where the curve of the vault makes it impossible to continue this method

without the aid of centering beams, the stone is cut into narrow slabs

which are set upright so as to form slices of the vault, and each slice

has an inclination backwards, the first resting against the head wall

and every succeeding slice resting against the one behind it. This is

the well-known Mesopotamian system of vaulting without a centering,

which is as old as the Assyrians.[75] It is best adapted to brick, but

it can be carried out in stone when the span of the vault is not large,

provided that the stones be cut thin, so as to resemble as nearly as

possible brick tiles. On the south side, which is the best preserved,

there are traces of an upper storey, or possibly of an upper gallery or

_chemin de ronde_. A doorway led from it into a small chamber hollowed

out of the thickness of the central bastion: I imagine that there was a

similar outlook chamber in the other bastions, but in all these the

upper part is ruined. I could find no inscriptions; the Arab tribe marks

(awâsim) were scratched upon the plaster with which the inner side of

the walls had been coated. I do not doubt that Khubbâz belongs to the

Mohammadan period, nor that it is a relic of the great days of the

khalifate when the shortest road from Baghdâd to Damascus was guarded by

little companies of soldiers stationed at Khubbâz and ’Amej, and perhaps

at other points. The plan is that of many of the Roman and Byzantine

lime fortresses upon the Syrian side of the desert,[76] of the

Mohammadan forts and fortified khâns scattered over Syria and

Mesopotamia,[77] and of the modern Turkish guardhouse; the structural

details are Mesopotamian, dictated by the conditions of the land.

At the pleasant hour of dusk I sat among the flowering weeds by my tent

door while Fattûḥ cooked our dinner in his kitchen among the rocks,

Sfâga gathered a fuel of desert scrub, Fawwâz stirred the rice-pot, and

the bubbling of Ḥussein’s narghileh gave a note of domesticity to our

bivouac. My table was a big stone, the mares cropping the ragged grass

round the tent were my dinner-party; one by one the stars shone out in a

moonless heaven and our tiny encampment was wrapped in the immense

silences of the desert, the vast and peaceful night. Next morning, as we

rode back to Kebeisah, Fattûḥ and I, between intervals devoted to

chasing gazelle, laid siege on our companions and persuaded them to

accompany us in our further journey. Fawwâz avowed that he was satisfied

with us and would come where we wished (and as for Sfâga he would do as

he was told) as long as Ḥussein would give a semi-official sanction to

the enterprise by his presence. It was more difficult to win over

Ḥussein, who had received from the Mudîr no permission to absent himself

so long from Hît; but Fattûḥ pointed out that, when you have three

wives, with the prospect of a fourth, to say nothing of six daughters of

whom but two are married, you cannot afford to neglect the opportunity

of earning an extra bakhshîsh. This reasoning was conclusive, and before

we reached ’Ain Za’zu’ we had settled everything, down to the quantity

of coffee-beans we would buy at Kebeisah for the trip. But when we got

to Kebeisah we were greeted by news that went near to overturning our

combinations. There had been alarums and excursions in our absence; the

Deleim had attacked a party of fuel-gatherers two hours from the oasis,

in the very plain we were to cross, and had made off with eight donkeys.

One of the donkeys belonged to Fawwâz; he shook his head over the

baleful activity of the tribe and murmured that we were a small party in

the face of such perils. Moreover, in the Mudîr’s courtyard there stood

a half-starved mare which had been recaptured in a counter-raid from the

seventh husband of the famous Shemsah. He too was of the Deleim. We

gave the mare a feed of corn--her gentle, hungry eyes were turned

appealingly on our full mangers; but to Shemsah I was harder hearted,

though her eyes were more beautiful than those of the mare. She came

suppliant as I sat dining on the Mudîr’s roof at nightfall and begged me

to recover her husband’s rifle, which lay below in the hands of the

government. Her straight brows were pencilled together with indigo and a

short blue line marked the roundness of her white chin; a cloak slipping

backwards from her head showed the rows of scarlet beads about her

throat, and as she drew it together with slender fingers, Fattûḥ,

Ḥussein and I gazed on her with unmixed approval, in spite of the

irregular course of her domestic history. But I felt that to return his

rifle to a Deleimî robber was not part of my varied occupations, though

who knows whether Shemsah’s grace, backed by what few mejîdehs she could

scrape together, did not end by softening the purpose of Ḥussein and the

Mudîr, “the Government,” as in veiled terms we spoke of them?

With the exercise of some diplomacy we induced Fawwâz to hold to his

engagement, but the Mudîr took fright when he heard of our intentions,

and threatened our guides with dire retribution if they led us into the

heart of the desert. I think the threat was only intended to relieve him

of responsibility, for Ḥussein shrugged his shoulders, and said it would

be enough if we rode an hour in the direction of Ramâdî, on the

Euphrates, and then changed our course and made straight for Abu Jîr, an

oasis where we expected to find Arab tents. We set off next morning in

the clear sunlight which makes all projects seem entirely reasonable,

and dropped, after three-quarters of an hour, into a little depression.

When we had crossed the sulphur marsh which lay at the valley bottom, we

altered our direction to the south-west and rode almost parallel to a

long low ridge called the Ga’rat ej Jemâl, which lay about three miles

to the west of us. Four hours from Kebeisah we reached a tiny mound out

of which rose a spring of water, sulphurous but just drinkable. The top

of the mound was lifted only a few feet above the surrounding level,

but that was enough to give us a wide view, and since in all the world

before us there was no shade or shelter from the sun, we sat down and

lunched where we could be sure that a horseman would not approach us

unawares. And as we rested, some one far away opened a bottle into which

Solomon, Prophet of God, had sealed one of the Jinn. Up sprang a

gigantic column of smoke that fanned outwards in the still air and hung

menacingly over the naked, empty plain. I waited spellbound to see the

great shoulders and huge horned head disengage themselves from the

smoke-wreaths that rolled higher and--

“’Ain el ’Awâsil burns,” said Fawwâz. “A shepherd has set it alight.”

There was a small pitch-well an hour away to the south-east, and if

springs that burn when the tinder touches them are more logical than

spirits that issue from a bottle when the seal is broken, then the

explanation of Fawwâz may be accepted. But at that moment I could not

stay to think the problem out, for if it was hot riding, sitting still

was intolerable, and we were not anxious to linger when every

half-hour’s march meant half-an-hour of dangerous country behind us.

From noon to sunset the desert is stripped of beauty. Hour after hour we

journeyed on, while the bare forbidding hills drew away from us on the

right, and the plain ahead rolled out illimitable. We saw no living

creature, man or beast, but an hour from ’Ain el ’As[.]fûrîyeh, where we

had lunched, we came upon a deep still pool in an outcrop of rock, the

water sufficiently sweet to drink. This spot is called Jelîb esh Sheikh;

it contains several such pools, said Fawwâz, and he added that the water

had appeared there of a sudden two years before, but that now it never

diminished, nor rose higher in the rocky clefts. Just beyond the pool we

crossed the Wâdî Muḥammadî, which stretched westwards to the receding

ridges of the Gar’at ej Jemâl, and east to the Euphrates; it was dry and

blotched with an evil-looking crust of sulphur. Fawwâz turned his

camel’s head a little to the east of south and began to look anxiously

for landmarks. We hoped to find at Abu Jîr an encampment of the Deleim,

and, eagerly as we wished to avoid the scattered horsemen of the tribe

by day, it was essential that we should pass the night near their tents.

The desert is governed by old and well-defined laws, and the first of

these is the law of hospitality. If we slept within the circuit of a

sheikh’s encampment he would be “malzûm ’aleinâ” (responsible for us)

and not one of his people would touch us; but if we lay out in the open

we should court the attack of raiders and of thieves. Two hours from the

Wâdî Muḥammadî we reached a little tell, from the top of which we

sighted the ’alâmah (the landmarks) of Abu Jîr, a couple of high-piled

mounds of stones. An hour later they lay to the east of us, and we saw

still farther to the south-east the black line of tamarisk bushes that

indicated the oasis. But it was another hour before we got up to it, and

the sun was very low in the sky when we set foot on the hard black

surface that gives the place its name. There was no time to lose, and we

embarked recklessly on the “Father of Asphalt,” only to be caught in the

fresh pitch that had been spread out upon the wilderness by streams of

sulphurous water. We dismounted and led our animals over the quaking

expanse, coasting round the head-waters of the springs--there are, I

believe, eight of them--and experimenting in our own persons on

half-congealed lakes of pitch before we allowed the camels to venture

across them. The light faded while we were thus engaged, and seeing that

too much caution might well be our undoing, I shouted to Fattûḥ to

follow, and struck out eastwards. Fattûḥ was half inclined to look upon

our case as a result of premeditated treachery on the part of Fawwâz,

but I had noted unmistakable signs of fear and bewilderment in the

bearing of the latter, and at all hazards I was resolved not to sleep in

a pool of tar. We made for a line of tamarisk bushes behind which lay a

thin haze of smoke, and as we broke through the brushwood we beheld a

black tent crouching in the hollow. We rode straight up to the door and

gave the salaam.

“And upon you peace,” returned the astonished owner.

“What Arabs are you, and where is your sheikh’s tent?” said I, in an

abrupt European manner.

He was taken aback at being asked so many questions and answered

reluctantly, “We are the Deleim, and the tent of Muḥammad el ’Abdullah

lies yonder.”

We turned away, and I whispered to Fattûḥ not to hasten, and above all

to approach the sheikh’s tent from in front, lest we should be mistaken

for such as come upon an evil errand. He fell behind me, and with as

much dignity as a tired and dusty traveller can muster, I drew rein by

the tent ropes and gave the salaam ceremoniously, with a hand lifted to

breast and lip and brow. A group of men sitting by the hearth leapt to

their feet and one came forward.

“Peace and kinship and welcome,” said he, laying his hand on my bridle.

I looked into his frank and merry face and knew that all was well.

“Are you Muḥammad el ’Abdullah, for whom we seek?”

“Wallah, how is my name known to you?” said he. “Be pleased to enter.”

Ḥussein Onbâshî, when he appeared with the camels a quarter of an hour

later, found a large company round the coffee-pots, listening in

breathless wonder (I no less amazed than the rest) while the sheikh

related the exploits of--a motor!

“And then, oh lady, they wound a handle in front of the carriage, and

lo, it moved without horses, eh billah! And it sped across the plain, we

sitting on the cushions. And from behind there went forth semok.” He

brought out the English word triumphantly.

“Allah, Allah!” we murmured.

Ḥussein took from his lip the narghileh tube which was already between

them and explained the mystery.

“It was the automobile of Misterr X. He journeyed from Aleppo to Baghdâd

in four days, and the last day Muḥammad el ’Abdullah went with him, for

the road was through the country of the Deleim.”

“I saw them start,” said Fattûḥ the Aleppine. “But the automobile lies

now broken in Baghdâd.”

Muḥammad paid no heed to this slur upon the reputation of the carriage.

“White!” said he. “It was all painted white. Wallah, the Arabs wondered

as it fled past. And I was seated within upon the cushions.”

That night Fattûḥ and I held a short council. We had won successfully

through a hazardous day, but it seemed less than wisdom to go farther

without an Arab guide, and I proposed to add Muḥammad el ’Abdullah to

our party, if he would come.

“He will come,” said Fattûḥ. “This sheikh is a man. And your Excellency

is of the English.”

Muḥammad neither demurred nor bargained. I think he would have

accompanied me even if I had not belonged to the race that owned the

carriage. Our adventure pleased him; he was one of those whose blood

runs quicker than that of his fellows, whose fancy burns brighter, “whom

thou, Melpomene, at birth” ... upon many an unknown cradle the Muse

sheds her clear beam.

“But if we were to meet the raiders of the Benî Ḥassan?” I asked,

mindful of the unsuccessful parleyings at Hît.

“God is great!” replied Muḥammad, “and we are four men with rifles.”

There was once a town at Abu Jîr, guarded by a little square fort with

bastioned angles like Ḳaṣr Khubbâz. It was, however, much more ruined;

of the interior buildings nothing remained, while the outer walls were

little better than heaps of stones. But below this later work there were

remains of older foundations, more careful masonry of larger materials,

and outside the walls traces of a pavement, composed of big slabs of

stone, accurately fitted together. All round the fort lay the

foundations of houses, stone walls or crumbling mounds of sun-dried

brick, not unlike the ruins of Ma’mûreh. There must have existed here a

mediæval Mohammadan settlement, if there was nothing older, and the

discovery was sufficiently surprising, for Abu Jîr now lies far beyond

the limits of fixed habitation. The Deleim still turn the abundant water

of the oasis to some profit, planting a few patches of corn and clover

in the low ground below the ruins, but the insecurity of the desert

forbids all permanent occupation. We had not gone far on our way next

morning before Muḥammad stopped short in the ode he was singing and bent

down from his saddle to examine some hoof-prints in the sandy ground.

Two horsemen had travelled that way, riding in the same direction that

we were taking.

“Those are the mares of our enemies,” he observed.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I heard that they had passed Abu Jîr in the night,” he answered and

resumed his song. When he had brought it to an end, he called out--

“Oh lady, I will sing the ode that I composed about the carriage.”

At this the camel-riders and Ḥussein drew near and Muḥammad began the

first ḳaṣîdah that has been written to a motor.

“I tell a marvel the like of which no man has known,

A glory of artifice born of English wit.”

“True, true!” ejaculated Fawwâz ecstatically.

“Eh billah!” exclaimed Ḥussein.

“Her food and her drink are the breath from a smoke-cloud blown,

If her radiance fade bright fire shall reburnish it.”

“Allah, Allah!” cried the enraptured Fawwâz.

“On the desert levels she darts like a bird of prey,

Her race puts to shame a mare of the purest breed;

As a hawk in the dusk that hovers and swoops to slay,

She swoops and turns with wondrous strength and speed.”

“Wallah, the truth!” Ḥussein’s enthusiasm was uncontrollable.

“Eh wallah!” echoed Fawwâz and Sfâga.

“He who mounts and rides her sits on the throne of a king....”

“A king in very truth!” cried Fawwâz.

“If the goal be far, to her the remote is near....”

“Near indeed!” burst from the audience.

“More stealthy than stallions, more swift than the jinn a-wing,

She turns the gazelle that hides from her blast in fear.”

“Allah!” Fawwâz punctuated the stanza.

“Not from idle lips was gathered the wisdom I sing....”

“God forbid!” exclaimed Fawwâz, leaning forward eagerly.

“In the whole wide plain she has not met with her peer.”

“Mâshallah! it is so! it is the truth, oh lady!” said Ḥussein.

“I did not quite understand it all,” said I humbly, feeling rather like

Alice in Wonderland when Humpty Dumpty recited his verses to her.

“Perhaps you will help me to write it down this evening.”

So that night, with the assistance of Fawwâz, who had a bowing

acquaintance with letters, we committed it to paper, and I now know how

the masterpieces of the great singers were received at the fair of ’Ukâẓ

in the Days of Ignorance.

“The truth! it is the truth!” shouted the tribes between each couplet.

“Eh by Al Lât and by Al ’Uzzah!”

Three hours from Abu Jîr we cantered down to the Wâdî Themail and saw

some black tents pitched by a tell on the farther side. Flocks of goats

were scattered over the plain; the shepherds, when they perceived our

party, drew them together and began to drive them towards the tents. At

this Muḥammad pulled up, rose in his stirrups, and waved a long white

cotton sleeve over his head--a flag of truce.

“They take us for raiders,” said he, laughing. “Wallah, in a moment we

should have had their rifles upon us.”

The mound of Themail is crowned by a fort built of mud and unshaped

stones (Fig. 68). It has a single door and round bastions at the angles

of the wall, like Khubbâz, but the figure described by the walls is far

from regular, and there is no trace of construction within. The existing

building looked to me like rough Bedouin work, though I suspect that it

has taken the place of older defences (Fig. 69). A copious sulphur

spring rises below it and flows into the cornfields of the Deleim. With

a supply of water so plentiful Themail must always have been a place

worth holding. We stayed for an hour to lunch, Muḥammad’s kinsmen

supplementing our fare with a bowl of sour curds. Fawwâz was all for

spending the night here, for there would be no tents at ’Asîleh, where

we meant to camp, and the noonday stillness was broken by a loud

altercation between him and the indignant Fattûḥ. I paid no attention

until the case was brought to me for decision--the final court of appeal

should always be silent up to the moment when an opinion is

requested--and then said that we should undoubtedly sleep at ’Asîleh.

[Illustration: FIG. 69.--THEMAIL.]

“God guide us, God guard us, God protect us!” muttered Muḥammad as he

settled himself into the saddle. He never took the road without this

pious ejaculation.

Four hours of weary desert lie between Themail and ’Asîleh, but Muḥammad

diversified the way by pointing out the places where he had attacked and

slain his enemies. These historic sites were numerous. The Deleim have

no friends except the great tribe of the ’Anazeh, represented in these

regions by the Amarât under Ibn Hudhdhâl. To the ’Anazeh he always

alluded as the Bedû, giving me their names for the different varieties

of scanty desert scrub as well as the common titles. Even the

place-names are not the same on the lips of the Bedû; for example El

’Asîleh is known to them as Er Radâf.

“Are not the Deleim also Bedû?” I asked.

“Eh wah,” he assented. “The ’Anazeh intermarry with us. But we would not

take a girl of the Afâḍleh; they are ’Agedât” (base born).

The friendship between the Amarât and the Deleim is intermittent at

best, like all desert alliances. As we neared the Wâdî Burdân, Muḥammad

called our attention to some tamarisk bushes where he and his raiding

party had lain one night in ambush, and at dawn killed four men of the

Amarât and taken their mares.

“Eh billah!” said he with a sigh of satisfaction.

The very rifle he carried had been taken in a raid from Ibn er Rashîd’s

people. He showed me with pride that the name of ’Abdu’l ’Azîz ibn er

Rashîd, lately Lord of Nejd, was scratched upon it in large clear

letters.

“I did not take it from them,” he explained. “I found it in the hands of

one of the Benî Ḥassan.” I fell to wondering how many midnight attacks

it had seen, and how many masters it had served since Ibn er Rashîd’s

agents brought it up from the Persian Gulf.

The Wâdî Burdân is one of three valleys that are reputed to stretch

across the Syrian desert from the Jebel Ḥaurân to the Euphrates. The

northernmost is the Wâdî Ḥaurân, which joins the river above Hît, and

the southernmost the Wâdî Lebai’ah, on which stands Kheiḍir. When the

snow melts in the Ḥaurân mountains water flows down all three, so I have

heard, but later in the year there is no water in the Wâdî Burdân,

except at ’Asîleh, though Kiepert marks it “quellenreich.” Muḥammad

declared that there was no permanent water west of ’Asîleh save at

Wîzeh, a spring which has often been described to me. It rises

underground, and you approach it by a long passage through the rock,

taking with you a lantern, my informants are careful to add. At the end

of the passage you come to a shallow pool where the mud predominates,

though it is always possible to quench your thirst at it. ’Asîleh is an

autumn camping-ground of the ’Anazeh. The deep fine sand of the valley

is bordered by a fringe of tamarisk bushes, covered, when we were there,

with feathery white flower. Their roots strike down into the water,

which rises into cup-shaped holes scooped out in the sand, and the

deeper you dig the clearer and the colder it is. For four days we had

found no water that was sweet, and the pools under the tamarisk bushes

tasted like nectar. It was a delightful solitary camp. The setting sun

threw a magic cloak of colour and soft shadows over the sandhills of the

Wâdî Burdân, and under the starlight my companions lingered round the

camp fire, smoking a narghileh and telling each other wondrous tales.

When I joined them Fattûḥ was holding forth upon the evil eye, a

favourite topic with him. I knew by heart the tragedy of his three

horses who died in one day because an acquaintance had looked at them in

their stable.

“And if your Excellency doubts,” said Fattûḥ, “I can tell you that there

is a man well known in Aleppo who has one good eye and one evil. And

this he keeps bound under a kerchief. And one day when he was sitting in

the house of friends they said to him, ‘Why do you bind up the left

eye?’ He said, ‘It is an evil eye.’ Then they said, ‘If you were to take

off the kerchief and look at the lamp hanging from the roof, would it

fall?’ ‘Without doubt,’ said he; and with that he unbound the kerchief

and looked, and the lamp fell to the ground.”

“Allah!” said Fawwâz. “There is a man at Kebeisah who has never dared to

look at his own son.”

“At ’Ânah,” observed Ḥussein, letting the narghileh relapse into

silence for a moment, “there is a sheikh who wears a charm against

bullets.”

But Muḥammad knew as much as most men about the ways of bullets, and he

thought nothing of this expedient.

“Whether the bullet hits or misses,” he remarked, “it is all from God.”

He poured me out a cup of coffee. “A double health, oh lady,” said he.

The sun had not risen when we left ’Asîleh, but it fell upon us as we

climbed the sandhills, and gave to every little thorny plant a long

trail of shadow.

“God guide us, God guard us, God protect us!” murmured Muḥammad.

The desert was unbearably monotonous that morning. The ground rose

gradually, level above level in an almost imperceptible slope which was

just enough to prevent us from seeing more than a quarter of an hour

ahead. A dozen times I marked a bush on the top of the rise and promised

myself that when we reached it we should have a wider prospect; a dozen

times the summit melted away into another slope as featureless as the

last. We were journeying in a south-easterly direction, straight into

the sun, and as I rode, with eyes downcast to avoid the glare, I noticed

that the ground was strewn with yellow gourds larger than an orange.

“It is ḥanẓal,” said Muḥammad. “It grows only where the plain is very

dry, and best in rainless years. Wallah, so bitter is the fruit that, if

you hold dates in your hand and crush the ḥanẓal with your foot, they

say you cannot eat the dates for the flavour of the ḥanẓal. God knows.”

His words set loose a host of memories, for though I had never before

seen the bitter colocynth gourds, the great singers of the desert have

drawn many an image from them, and I drifted back through their world of

heroic loves and wars to where Imru’l Ḳais stood weeping, as though his

eyelids were inflamed with the acrid juice.

Five hours from ’Asîleh we dipped into the Wâdî el ’Asibîyeh, where the

marshy bottom still bore footprints of horses and camels that had come

down to drink before the pools had vanished. A steep bank on the south

side gave us a rim of shadow in which we stretched ourselves and

lunched, and from the top of the bank we sighted the palm-trees of

Raḥḥâlîyeh, an hour and a half to the south; we had seen them three

hours earlier from the summit of a little mound and then lost them

again. The oasis is surrounded by stagnant pools that lie rotting in the

sun; at the end of the summer the evil vapours marry with the fresh

dates, with which the inhabitants are surfeited, and breed a horrible

fever that will kill a strong man in a few hours. The air was heavy with

the rank smell of the marsh, and I warned my people to drink no water

but that which we had brought with us from the clear pools of ’Asîleh.

There are sixteen thousand palm-trees at Raḥḥâlîyeh and, buried in their

midst, a village governed by a Mudîr, to whom I hastened to pay my

respects. He gave me glasses of tea while my tent was being pitched--may

God reward him! We camped that night in a palm garden, where we were

entertained by a troop of musicians playing on drums and a double flute,

to which music one of them danced between the sun and shade of the palm

fronds. Their faces were those of negroes, though they had the clear

yellow skin of the Arab, and I noticed that most of the population of

Raḥḥâlîyeh was of this type. “They have always been here,” said Ḥussein

contemptuously, “they and the frogs.” In spite of the flickering shade

of the palm-trees it was stifling hot, and I looked with regret over the

broken mud wall of our garden into the clean stretches of the open

desert. But the splendours of the sunset glowed between the palm trunks;

in matchless beauty a crescent moon hung among the dark fronds, and we

lay down to sleep with the contentment of those who have come safely out

of perilous ways.

The Mudîr had given me useful information concerning some ruins that lie

between Raḥḥâlîyeh and Shetâteh. Next day I sent Fattûḥ and the camels

direct to the second oasis, and, taking with me Ḥussein and Muḥammad,

with a boy for guide, set out to explore the site of an ancient city.

Fawwâz objected loudly to this arrangement, and on reflection I am

inclined to think that we overrated the security

[Illustration: FIG. 70.--MUḤAMMAD EL ’ABDULLAH.]

[Illustration: FIG. 71.--KHEIḌIR, MA’ASHÎ AND SHEIKH ’ALÎ.]

[Illustration: FIG. 73.--BARDAWÎ FROM SOUTH-WEST.]

[Illustration: FIG. 74.--BARDAWÎ, EAST END OF VAULTED HALL.]

of the road, though no harm came of it. About an hour to the south of

Raḥḥâlîyeh, on the northern edge of low-lying marshy ground, rich in

springs, stands the shrine of Sayyid Aḥmed ibn Hâshim, and near it to

the north and west are vestiges of what must have been a large town. We

followed for at least a quarter of a mile the foundations of a fine

masonry wall 150 centimetres thick. Between this wall and the low ground

the surface of the plain is broken by innumerable mounds and heaps of

stone; here, said the boy, after rain, the women of the two oases find

gold ornaments and pictured stones. I saw and bought some of the

pictured stones at Shetâteh; they are Assyrian cylindrical seals; but

without knowing in what quantities and with what other objects they

appear, it would be rash to decide that the site is as old. There was

undoubtedly a mediæval Arab city there; all the ground was strewn with

fragments of Arab coloured pottery, and at the western limit of the ruin

field there are remains of the usual four-square fort; Murrât is its

present name.[78] It is built of uncut stone and unburnt brick; the

doorway in the north wall is covered with a flattened pointed arch that

suggests the thirteenth century or thereabouts.[79] My own belief is

that the town to which this castle belonged stood on the site of an

older city, and I place here ’Ain et Tamr, an oasis that was famous in

the days of the Persian kings. Yâḳût describes it as having lain near

Shetâteh, and observes that Khâlid ibn u’l Walîd took and sacked it in

the year 12 A.H., but he says nothing about a later town on the same

spot, to which the evidence of the ruins points. Perhaps it was absorbed

in Shetâteh.

The interest of these speculations had caused me to forget that we were

still in the desert. Our guide caught us up at Murrât, whither we had

galloped recklessly, and explained that he had had some difficulty in

allaying the suspicions of a small encampment of the Amarât half-hidden

in the valley. The men, seeing us hurrying past, had taken us for

robbers and were preparing to shoot at us. At a soberer pace we turned

back along the valley. It was marshy in places, intersected by little

streams from the springs, and covered with a white crust of

salts--sabkhah, the Arabs call such regions--on which nothing grew but a

malignant-looking thorny shrub, thelleth, useless to man and beast. The

water of the springs was “heavy,” Muḥammad told me, like the water of

Raḥḥâlîyeh. Half-an-hour’s ride down the valley we crossed the

Raḥḥâlîyeh-Shetâteh road at a point where there were traces of good

masonry. Another half-hour ahead stood the mound of Bardawî, our

objective. Being in good spirits we devoted the interval to song.

Muḥammad gave us his ode to the motor, and I obliged with “God save the

King,” translated into indifferent Arabic for the benefit of the

audience.

[Illustration: FIG. 72.--BARDAWÎ.]

“The words are good,” said Muḥammad politely, “but I do not care about

the air.”

So we came to Bardawî, a striking tell with an oval fortress standing

upon it (Fig. 72). There had been at least three storeys of vaulted

rooms lifting the strange tower-like structure high above the level of

the desert (Fig. 73). It suggests a watchtower guarding the eastern

approaches to the city, but I am not prepared to affirm that the present

edifice is earlier than the Mohammadan period. A substructure and the

remains of an upper floor are standing, the ground plan of both being

the same. A small vaulted hall, with three vaulted chambers on either

side, occupied the centre of the building; the door, with traces of a

porch or ante-room, lay to the west; while to the east there were two

much-ruined chambers, which communicated with the hall by means of a

narrow door. The masonry is of undressed stones laid in mortar. The

vaults of the side chambers seem to have been built over a rude

centering; they are much flattened and so irregularly constructed as to

approach in form to a gable roof. These rooms were lighted by a small

round hole in the outer wall, under the apex of the vault. The vault of

the hall springs with a double outset from the wall and terminates at

the eastern end (the west end is ruined) in a semi-dome which was

adjusted to the rectangular corners by means of squinch arches (Fig.

74). The partition walls are carried up above the level of the upper

vaults, apparently for another storey. The lower part of a strong facing

of masonry is still in existence on the south side, and I conjecture

that it was continued originally to the top of the tower. Having

photographed and planned this singular building, we dismissed our guide,

whose services we no longer needed, and set out over broken sabkhah in

the direction of Shetâteh. We were jogging along between hummocks of

thorn and scrub, Muḥammad as usual singing, when suddenly he broke off

at the end of a couplet and said:

“I see a horseman riding in haste.”

I looked up and saw a man galloping towards us along the top of a ridge;

he was followed closely by another and yet another, and all three

disappeared as they dipped down from the high ground. In the desert

every newcomer is an enemy till you know him to be a friend. Muḥammad

slipped a cartridge into his rifle, Ḥussein extracted his riding-stick

from the barrel, where it commonly travelled, and I took a revolver out

of my holster. This done, Muḥammad galloped forward to the top of a

mound; I followed, and we watched together the advance of the three who

were rapidly diminishing the space that lay between us. Muḥammad jumped

to the ground and threw me his bridle.

“Dismount,” said he, “and hold my mare.”

I took the two mares in one hand and the revolver in the other. Ḥussein

had lined up beside me, and we two stood perfectly still while Muḥammad

advanced, rifle in hand, his body bent forward in an attitude of

strained watchfulness. He walked slowly, alert and cautious, like a

prowling animal. The three were armed and our thoughts ran out to a

possible encounter with the Benî Ḥassan, who were the blood enemies of

our companion. If, when they reached the top of the ridge in front of

us, they lifted their rifles, Ḥussein and I would have time to shoot

first while they steadied their mares. The three riders topped the

ridge, and as soon as we could see their faces Muḥammad gave the salaam;

they returned it, and with one accord we all stood at ease. For if men

give and take the salaam when they are near enough to see each other’s

faces, there cannot, according to the custom of the desert, be any

danger of attack. The authors of this picturesque episode turned out to

be three men from Raḥḥâlîyeh. One of them had lent a rifle to the boy

who had guided us and, repenting of his confidence, had come after him

to make sure that he did not make off with it. We pointed out the

direction in which he had gone and turned our horses’ heads once more in

the direction of Shetâteh.

“Lady,” said Muḥammad reflectively, “in the day of raids I do not trust

my mare to the son of my uncle and not to my own brother, lest they

should see the foe and fear, and ride away. But to you I gave her

because I know that the heart of the English is strong. They do not

flee.”

“God forbid!” said I, but my spirit leapt at the compliment paid to my

race, however lightly it had been evoked.

The incident led to some curious talk concerning the rules that govern

desert wars. You do not invariably raid to kill; on the contrary, you

desire, as far as possible, to avoid bloodshed, with all its tiresome

and dangerous consequences of feud.

“Many a day,” explained Muḥammad, “we are out only to rob. Then if we

meet a few horsemen who try to escape from us, we pursue, crying, ‘Your

mount, lad!’ And if they surrender and deliver to us their mares, their

lives are safe, even if they should prove to be blood enemies.”

It is usual to hold in small esteem the courage called forth by Arab

warfare, and I do not think that the mortality is,

[Illustration: FIG. 75.--SHETÂTEH, SULPHUR SPRING.]

[Illustration: FIG. 76.--ḲAṢR SHAM’ÛN, OUTER WALL.]

[Illustration: FIG. 77.--UKHEIḌIR FROM NORTH-WEST.]

[Illustration: FIG. 78.--UKHEIḌIR, INTERIOR FROM SOUTH-EAST.]

as a rule, high; but I have on one or two occasions found myself with an

Arab guide under conditions that might have proved awkward, and I have

never yet seen him give signs of fear. It is only to town-dwellers like

Fawwâz that the wilderness is beset with terrors.

Shetâteh is an oasis of 160,000 palms. The number is rapidly

diminishing, and on every side there are groups of headless trunks from

which the water has been turned off. This is owing to the iniquitous

exactions of the tax-gatherers, who levy three and four times in the

year the moneys due from each tree, so that the profits on the fruit

vanish and even turn to loss. The springs are sulphurous, but very

abundant. The palm-trees rise from a bed of corn and clover; willows and

pomegranates edge the irrigation streams, and birds nest and sing in the

thickets. To us, who had dropped out of the deserts of the Euphrates, it

seemed a paradise. The glimmering weirs, the sheen of up-turned willow

leaves, the crinkled beauty of opening pomegranate buds were so many

marvels, embraced in the recurring miracle of spring, that grows in

wonder year by year.

Through these enchanted groves we rode from our camp to the castle of

Sham’ûn, the citadel of the oasis. Its great walls, battered and very

ancient, tower above the palm-trees, and within their circuit nestles a

whole village of mud-built houses (Fig. 76). There is an arched gateway

to the north, but the largest fragment of masonry lies to the east, a

massive, shapeless wall of stone and unburnt bricks, seamed from top to

bottom by a deep fissure, which the khalif, ’Alî ibn Abi Tâlib, said my

guide, made with a single sword cut. Among the houses there are many

vestiges of old foundations, and a few vaulted chambers, now

considerably below the level of the soil. It was impossible to plan the

place in its present state; I can only be sure that it was square with

bastioned corners. My impression is that it is pre-Mohammadan, repaired

by the conquerors, and local tradition, to which, however, it would be

unwise to attach much value, bears out this view. Possibly Sham’ûn was

the main fortress of ’Ain et Tamr before the Mohammadan invasion.

At Shetâteh I parted from Ḥussein, Muḥammad, and the camel riders.

Kheiḍir was reported to be four hours away, a little to the south of the

Kerbelâ road. The Ḳâimmaḳâm could supply me with two zaptiehs, and

Fattûḥ had hired a couple of mules to carry our diminished packs. The

four men intended to travel back together, making a long day from

Raḥḥâlîyeh to Themail so as to avoid a night in the open desert. They

started next morning in good heart, fortified by presents of quinine, a

much-prized gift, and other more substantial rewards. Muḥammad would

gladly have come with us to Kerbelâ, but we remembered the Benî Ḥassan

and decided that it would be wiser for him to turn back, though before

he left we had laid plans for a longer and a more adventurous journey to

be undertaken another year, please God! We had not gone more than an

hour from Shetâteh before we met a company of the Benî Ḥassan coming in

to the oasis for dates, a troop of lean and ragged men driving donkeys.

They asked us anxiously whether we had seen any of the Deleim at

Shetâteh.

“No, wallah!” said Fattûḥ with perfect assurance, and I laughed, knowing

that Muḥammad was well on his way to Raḥḥâlîyeh.

We had ridden to the south-east for about three hours, through a most

uncompromising wilderness, when, in the glare ahead, we caught sight of

a great mass which I took for a natural feature in the landscape. But as

we approached, its shape became more and more definite, and I asked one

of the zaptiehs what it was.

“It is Kheiḍir,” said he.

“Yallah, Fattûḥ, bring on the mules,” I shouted, and galloped forward.

Of all the wonderful experiences that have fallen my way, the first

sight of Kheiḍir is the most memorable. It reared its mighty walls out

of the sand, almost untouched by time, breaking the long lines of the

waste with its huge towers, steadfast and massive, as though it were, as

I had at first thought it, the work of nature, not of man. We approached

it from the north, on which side a long low building runs out towards

the sandy depression of the Wâdî Lebai’ah (Fig. 77). A zaptieth caught

me up as I reached the first of the vaulted rooms, and out of the

northern gateway a man in long robes of white and black came trailing

down towards us through the hot silence.

“Peace be upon you,” said he.

“And upon you peace, Sheikh ’Alî,” returned the zaptieh. “This lady is

of the English.”

“Welcome, my lady Khân,” said the sheikh; “be pleased to enter and to

rest.”

He led me through a short passage and under a tiny dome. I was aware of

immense corridors opening on either hand, but we passed on into a great

vaulted hall where the Arabs sat round the ashes of a fire.

“My lady Khân,” said Sheikh ’Alî, “this is the castle of Nu’mân ibn

Mundhir.”

Whether it were a Lakhmid palace or no, it was the palace which I had

set forth to seek. It belongs architecturally to the group of Sassanian

buildings which are already known to us, and historically it is related

to the palaces, famous in pre-Mohammadan tradition, whose splendours had

filled with amazement the invading hordes of the Bedouin, and still

shine with a legendary magnificence, from the pages of the chroniclers

of the conquest. Even for the Mohammadan writers they had become nothing

but a name. Khawarnaḳ, Sadîr, and the rest, fell into ruin with Ḥîrah,

the capital of the small Arab principality that occupied the frontiers

of the desert, and their site was a matter of hearsay or conjecture.

“Think on the lord of Khawarnaḳ,” sang ’Adî ibn Zaid prophetically--

“---- eyes guided of God see clear--

He rejoiced in his might and the strength of his hands, the encompassing

wave and Sadîr;

And his heart stood still and he spake: ‘What joy have the living to

death addressed?

For the open cleft of the grave lies close upon pleasure and power

and rest.

Like a withered leaf they fall, and the wind shall scatter them

east and west.’”

But for all its total disappearance under the wave of Islâm, the Lakhmid

state had played a notable part in the development of Arab culture. It

was at Ḥîrah that the desert came into contact with the highly organized

civilization of the Persians, with the wealth of cultivated lands and

the long-established order of a settled population; there, too, as among

the Ghassânids on the Syrian side of the wilderness, they made

acquaintance with the precepts of Christianity which exercised so marked

an influence on the latest poets of the Age of Ignorance, some of whom,

like ’Adî ibn Zaid himself, are known to have been Christians, and

prepared the way for the Prophet’s teaching.[80] So little have the

eastern borders of the Syrian desert been explored that except for the

ruin field of Ḥîrah, a town which was destroyed in order to furnish

building materials for the Moslem city of Kûfah, and a cluster of

mouldering vaults, said to represent the castle of Khawarnaḳ,[81] not

one of the famous pre-Mohammadan sites has been identified, and it is

possible that important vestiges of the Lakhmid age may lie unsuspected

within a few days’ journey from regions familiar to travellers and even

to tourists. Meanwhile Kheiḍir (the name is the colloquial abbreviation

of Ukheiḍir = a small green place) is the finest example of Sassanian

architecture which has yet been discovered. Its wonderful state of

preservation is probably due to the fact that it was some distance

removed from the nearest inhabited spot. Shetâteh is separated from it

by three hours of naked desert; the canals that feed Kerbelâ are yet

further away, and the water supply of Ukheiḍir, derived from wells in

the Wâdî Lebai’ah, is too small to have tempted the fellaḥîn to

establish themselves there. Nowhere in the vicinity, so far as I could

learn, are

[Illustration: FIG. 83.--UKHEIḌIR, NORTH-EAST ANGLE TOWER.]

[Illustration: FIG. 84.--UKHEIḌIR, STAIR AT SOUTH-EAST ANGLE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 85.--UKHEIḌIR, INTERIOR OF SOUTH GATE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 86.--UKHEIḌIR, CHEMIN DE RONDE OF EAST WALL.]

[Illustration: FIG. 87.--UKHEIḌIR, NORTH GATE, FROM OUTSIDE.]

there more abundant springs, and the palace has therefore been allowed

to drop into a slow decay, forgotten in the midst of its wildernesses,

save when a raiding expedition brings the Bedouin into the neighbourhood

of Shetâteh.

Most of us who have had opportunity to become familiar with some site

that has once been the theatre of a vanished civilization have passed

through hours of vain imaginings during which the thoughts labour to

recapture the aspect of street and market, church or temple enclosure,

of which the evidences lie strewn over the surface of the earth. And

ever, as a thousand unanswerable problems surge up against the

realization of that empty hope, I have found myself longing for an hour

out of a remote century, wherein I might look my fill upon the walls

that have fallen and stamp the image of a dead world indelibly upon my

mind. The dream seemed to have reached fulfilment at Ukheiḍir. There the

architecture of a by-gone age presented itself in unexampled perfection

to the eye. It was not necessary to guess at the structure of vaults or

the decorative scheme of niched façades--the camera and the

measuring-tape could register the methods of the builder and the results

which he had achieved. But it was evident that no satisfactory record of

Ukheiḍir could be made within the limits of the day which I had allowed

myself for the expedition. We had exhausted our small stock of

provisions, and the materials necessary for carrying out so large a

piece of work as the planning of the palace were at Kerbelâ with the

caravan. Fattûḥ disposed of these difficulties at once by declaring that

he intended to ride into Kerbelâ that night and bring out the caravan

next day. The truth was that he yearned for the sight of the baggage

horses, and for my part I longed for a bed and for a table more than I

could have thought it possible. I was weary of sleeping on the stony

face of the desert, of sitting in the dust and eating my meals with a

seasoning of sand--so infirm is feminine endurance. An Arab called

Ghânim, clean-limbed and spare, like all his half-fed tribe, offered

himself as guide, and ’Alî assured us that he knew every inch of the

way. But when the zaptiehs heard that one of them was to accompany the

expedition they turned white with fear. To ride through the desert at

night, they declared, was a venture from which no man was likely to come

out alive. I hesitated--it requires much courage to face risks for

others--but Fattûḥ stood firm, ’Alî laughed, and the thought of the bed

carried the day. They started at eight in the evening, and I watched

them disappear across the sands with some sinking of heart. All next day

I was too well occupied to give them much thought, but when six o’clock

came and ’Alî set watchers upon the castle walls, I began to feel

anxious. Half-an-hour later Ma’ashî, the sheikh’s brother and my

particular friend, came running down to my tent.

“Praise God! my lady Khân, they are here.”

The Arabs gathered round to offer their congratulations, and Fattûḥ rode

in, grey with fatigue and dust, with the caravan at his heels. He had

reached Kerbelâ at five in the morning, found the muleteers, bought

provisions, loaded the animals, and set off again about ten.

“And the oranges are good in Kerbelâ,” he ended triumphantly. “I have

brought your Excellency a whole bag of them.”

It was a fine performance.

The Arabs who inhabited Kheiḍir had come there two years before from Jôf

in Nejd: “Because we were vexed with the government of Ibn er Rashîd,”

explained ’Alî, and I readily understood that his could not be a

soothing rule. The wooden howdahs in which the women had travelled

blocked one of the long corridors, and some twenty families lodged upon

the ground in the vaulted chambers of princes. They lived and starved

and died in this most splendid memorial of their own civilization, and

even in decay Kheiḍir offered a shelter more than sufficient for their

needs to the race at whose command it had been reared. Their presence

was an essential part of its proud decline. The sheikh and his brothers

passed like ghosts along the passages, they trailed their white robes

down the stairways that led to the high chambers where they lived with

their women, and at night they gathered round the hearth in the great

hall where their forefathers had beguiled the hours with tale and song

in the same rolling tongue of Nejd. Then they would pile up the desert

scrub till the embers glowed under the coffee-pots, while Ma’ashî handed

round the delicious bitter draught which was the one luxury left to

them. The thorns crackled, a couple of oil wicks placed in holes above

the columns, which had been contrived for them by the men-at-arms of

old, sent a feeble ray into the darkness, and Ghânim took the rebâbah

and drew from its single string a wailing melody to which he chanted the

stories of his race.

“My lady Khân, this is the song of ’Abdu’l ’Azîz ibn er Rashîd.”

He sang of a prince great and powerful, patron of poets, leader of

raids, and recently overwhelmed and slain in battle; but old or new, the

songs were all pages out of the same chronicle, the undated chronicle of

the nomad. The thin melancholy music rose up into the blackness of the

vault; across the opening at the end of the hall, where the wall had

fallen in part away, was spread the deep still night and the unchanging

beauty of the stars.

“My lady Khân,” said Ghânim, “I will sing you the song of Ukheiḍir.”

But I said, “Listen to the verse of Ukheiḍir”--

“We wither away but they wane not, the stars that above us rise;

The mountains remain after us, and the strong towers when we are gone.”

“Allah!” murmured Ma’ashî, as he swept noiselessly round the circle with

the coffee cups, and once again Labîd’s noble couplet held the company,

as it had held those who sat in the banqueting-hall of the khalif.

One night I was provided with a different entertainment. I had worked

from sunrise till dark and was too tired to sleep. The desert was as

still as death; infinitely mysterious, it stretched away from my camp

and I lay watching the empty sands as one who watches for a pageant.

Suddenly a bullet whizzed over the tent and the crack of a rifle broke

the silence. All my men jumped up; a couple more shots rang out, and

Fattûḥ hastily disposed the muleteers round the tents and hurried off to

join a band of Arabs who had streamed from the castle gate. I picked up

a revolver and went out to see them go. In a minute or two they had

vanished under the uncertain light of the moon, which seems so clear and

yet discloses so little. A zaptieh joined me and we stood still

listening. Far out in the desert the red flash of rifles cut through the

white moonlight; again the quick flare and then again silence. At last

through the night drifted the sound of a wild song, faint and far away,

rhythmic, elemental as the night and the desert. I waited in complete

uncertainty as to what was approaching, and it was not until they were

close upon us that we recognized our own Arabs and Fattûḥ in their

midst. They came on, still singing, with their rifles over their

shoulders; their white garments gleamed under the moon; they wore no

kerchiefs upon their heads, and their black hair fell in curls about

their faces.

“Ma’ashî,” I cried, “what happened?”

Ma’ashî shook his hair out of his eyes.

“There is nothing, my lady Khân. ’Alî saw some men lurking in the desert

at the ’aṣr” (the hour of afternoon prayer), “and we watched after dark

from the walls.”

“They were raiders of the Benî Ḍafî’ah,” said Ghânim, mentioning a

particular lawless tribe.

“Fattûḥ,” said I, “did you shoot?”

“We shot,” replied Fattûḥ; “did not your Excellency hear?--and one man

is wounded.”

A wild-looking boy held out his hand, on which I detected a tiny

scratch.

“There is no harm,” said I. “Praise God!”

“Praise God!” they repeated, and I left them laughing and talking

eagerly, and went to bed and to sleep.

Next morning I questioned Fattûḥ as to the events of the night, but he

was exceptionally non-committal.

“My lady,” said he, “God knows. ’Alî says that they

[Illustration: FIG. 88.--UKHEIḌIR, FLUTED DOME AT A.]

[Illustration: FIG. 89.--UKHEIḌIR, FLUTED NICHE, SOUTH-EAST CORNER OF

COURT D.]

[Illustration: FIG. 90.--UKHEIḌIR, GREAT HALL.]

were men of the Benî Ḍafî’ah.” Then with a burst of confidence he added,

“But I saw no one.”

“At whom did you shoot?” said I in bewilderment.

“At the Benî Ḍafî’ah,” answered Fattûḥ, surprised at the stupidity of

the question.

I gave it up, neither do I know to this hour whether we were or were not

raided in the night.

Two days later my plan was finished. I had turned one of the vaulted

rooms of the stable into a workshop, and spreading a couple of

waterproof sheets on the sand for table, had drawn it out to scale lying

on the ground. Sometimes an Arab came in silently and stood watching my

pencil, until the superior attractions of the next chamber, in which sat

the muleteers and the zaptiehs, drew him away. As I added up metres and

centimetres I could hear them spinning long yarns of city and desert.

Occasionally Ma’ashî brought me coffee.

“God give you the reward,” said I.

“And your reward,” he answered gravely.

The day we left Kheiḍir, the desert was wrapped in the stifling dust of

a west wind. I have no notion what the country is like through which we

rode for seven hours to Kerbelâ, and no memory, save that of the castle

walls fading like a dream into the haze, of a bare ridge of hill to our

right hand and the bitter waves of a salt lake to our left, and of deep

sand through which we were driven by a wind that was the very breath of

the Pit. Then out of the mist loomed the golden dome of the shrine of

Ḥussein, upon whom be peace, and few pious pilgrims were gladder than I

when we stopped to drink a glass of tea at the first Persian tea-shop of

the holy city.

THE PALACE OF UKHEIḌIR

I do not propose to enter here into a detailed account of the palace of

Ukheiḍir, which must be reserved for a subsequent publication, but it is

well to give a short elucidation of the plan, and to consider briefly

the theories which have been formed with regard to the origin of the

building.[82]

The palace consists of a rectangular fortification wall set with round

bastions, with larger round bastions at the angles, and of an oblong

building surrounded on three sides by a court, together with a small

annex in the eastern part of the court (Fig. 79). That part of the

oblong building which adjoins the northern fortification wall is three

storeys high; the remainder of the palace is one storey high. Outside

the enclosing fortification wall there is a structure composed of

fourteen vaulted parallel chambers, with a small open court at the

southern end. To the west of the small court and of the first five

chambers lies a larger court with round bastions on its western side.

Between each of these bastions there is a door and either one or two

groups of windows, each group consisting of three narrow lights. I

noticed foundations of masonry which ran down from near the northern end

of this

[Illustration: FIG. 91.--UKHEIḌIR, COURT D AND NICHED FAÇADE OF

THREE-STOREYED BLOCK.]

[Illustration: FIG. 92.--UKHEIḌIR, VAULT OF ROOM I.]

[Illustration: FIG. 93.--UKHEIḌIR, ROOM I.]

[Illustration: FIG. 79.--UKHEIḌIR, GROUND PLAN.]

out-building towards the valley. To the N.W. of the palace there is

another small detached building called by the Arabs the Bath (Fig. 80).

Near it the surface of the ground is broken by low mounds which may

indicate the presence of ruins. The Arabs assured me that by digging

here brackish water could be obtained; there is also a well of brackish

water in the western part of the palace court, but it is not used for

drinking purposes. The water supply of Ukheiḍir is derived from the Wâdî

Lebai’ah. It is obtained by digging holes in the sandy bed of the

valley.

[Illustration: FIG. 80.--UKHEIḌIR, THE BATH.]

The fortification wall is arcaded without and within up to two-thirds of

its height. These blind arcades support the walls of the _chemin de

ronde_. The outer arcade serves the purpose of a machicoulis, a narrow

space between its arches and the outer face of the main wall enabling

the defenders in the _chemin de ronde_ to protect with missiles the foot

of the wall below them (Fig. 83). The _chemin de ronde_ could be reached

from the uppermost floor of the three-storeyed block of the palace, as

well as by means of four staircases, one in each of the angles of the

court (Fig. 84). Two of these staircases have now fallen completely. The

_chemin de ronde_ had been covered by a vault (Fig. 86). Arched doorways

led into outlook chambers hollowed in the thickness of the bastions.

Arched windows open on to the court. In the centre of each side of the

fortification wall there is a gate (Fig. 85), that which stands on the

northern side being the most important, since it communicates directly

with the palace (Fig. 87). It opens into a passage with a guard-room on

either side. The passage leads into a small rectangular chamber, A in

the plan, covered with a fluted dome (Fig. 88). From this chamber an

arched doorway communicates with a vaulted hall, B, which runs up to a

height of two storeys and is the largest room in the palace (Fig. 90).

The vault, borne on projecting engaged piers, spans seven metres. Beyond

the hall vaulted corridors, C C C C, C´ C´ C´ C´, surround an open

[Illustration: FIG. 94.--UKHEIḌIR, CUSPED DOOR OF COURT S.]

[Illustration: FIG. 95.--UKHEIḌIR, VAULTED END OF P, SHOWING TUBE.]

[Illustration: FIG. 96.--UKHEIḌIR, CORRIDOR Q.]

[Illustration: FIG. 97.--UKHEIḌIR, VAULTED CLOISTER O´.]

[Illustration: FIG. 98.--UKHEIḌIR, GROIN IN CORRIDOR C.]

[Illustration: FIG. 99.--UKHEIḌIR, SQUINCH ARCH ON SECOND STOREY.]

court, D, as well as a block of rooms lying to the south of the court.

The court D is set round with engaged columns forming vaulted niches

(Fig. 91). At the S.E. corner the vault of one of these niches is fluted

(Fig. 89). The bracketed setting of these small semi-domes over the

angles is to be noted. The block of chambers south of court D is more

carefully built than any other part of the palace. It consists of an

oblong antechamber, E, leading into a square room, F. On either side of

the antechamber there are a pair of rooms, the walls and vaults of those

lying to the west, G´ and H´, being finished with stucco decorations and

small columned niches. On either side of the square chamber, F, is a

room containing four masonry columns which support three parallel barrel

vaults (Figs. 92 and 93). South of room F stretches a cloister, J, which

was covered with a barrel vault, now fallen. It opens into an unroofed

court, K. The corridor C C´ runs to the south of court K, and still

further to the south is another open court, L, with vaulted rooms round

it.

To east and west of the corridor C C, C´ C´, lie four courts, M M´ and N

N´. To north and south of each of these courts there are three vaulted

rooms, but in M and M´ small antechambers in the shape of a narthex

separate the rooms from the court, whereas in N and N´ the rooms open

directly on to the court. In every case there are traces of a vaulted

cloister, O O and O´ O´, between the court and the outer wall (Fig. 97).

Behind each block of rooms there is a rectangular space, P P P P and P´

P´ P´ P´, two-thirds of which are vaulted, while the central part is

left open (Fig. 95). Similar open spaces are left in the corridor C C,

C´ C´, which would otherwise be exceedingly dark.

To return to the north gate. On either side of the small domed chamber,

A, long vaulted corridors, Q Q´, lead to the outer court (Fig. 96). A

door on the south side of corridor Q communicates with a small court, R,

with chambers to north and south of it and vaulted cloisters to east and

west. A group of vaulted chambers is placed between court R and the

great hall B. West of hall B there is a smaller group of vaulted

chambers. In the south wall of corridor Q´, two doors lead into an open

court surrounded on three sides by a vaulted cloister, the vault of

which has now fallen except for fragments in the south-east and

south-west corners. These fragments are adorned with stucco decorations.

I have suggested (in the _Hellenic Journal_, loc. cit.) that this court

may be a mosque of a primitive type. (See, too, _Der Islâm_, vol. i.

part ii. p. 126, where Dr. Herzfeld points out that a chamber somewhat

similarly placed in the palace of Mshatta may also be a mosque.)

[Illustration: FIG. 81.--UKHEIḌIR, SECOND STOREY.]

[Illustration: FIG. 82.--UKHEIḌIR, THIRD STOREY.]

No difficulty will be found in following on the plan the arrangement of

the upper floors in the northern part of the palace. In the second

storey, the space marked B^{2} is occupied by the vault of the great

hall B (Fig. 81). At A^{2} three windows open into the hall from the

room in the second storey. R^{2} and S^{2} correspond with the two

courts R and S. In the third storey the rectangular space A^{3} is

unroofed, and the space B^{3}, below which lies the vault of the great

hall, is also unroofed (Fig. 82). The eastern part of this storey is

completely ruined, but there would appear to have been rooms

[Illustration: FIG. 100.--UKHEIḌIR, NORTH SIDE OF COURT M.]

[Illustration: FIG. 101.--UKHEIḌIR, SOUTH-EAST ANGLE OF COURT S.]

[Illustration: FIG. 102.--UKHEIḌIR, WEST SIDE OF B^{3}.]

[Illustration: FIG. 103.--UKHEIḌIR, DOOR LEADING FROM V TO W, SEEN FROM

SOUTH.]

round R^{3} similar to the rooms round R^{2}. The _chemin de ronde_, T

T´, is on a level with this storey.

Between the main palace block and the eastern fortification wall there

lies a group of rooms which is clearly an addition to the original

scheme. It is interesting to observe that these rooms are in all

essentials of their plan a repetition of the group of rooms to the south

of court D. Room U corresponds with the antechamber E; room V with the

square room F; W with the cloister J; X, Y, and Z to G, H, and T. But

the columns in I I´ are not repeated in the small rooms, Z Z´; room V is

covered with a groined vault instead of the barrel vault of F, and the

court A is not closed with a wall like the court K. I make no doubt that

both these groups of rooms, which are so strikingly similar in

arrangement, were intended for the same purposes, and I conjecture that

they were ceremonial reception rooms. Herzfeld has compared E and F with

the throne room of Mshatta (_Der Islâm_, loc. cit.).

All the rooms and corridors of the palace are vaulted. Some of the finer

vaults are built of brick tiles (for example, over the great hall B and

over rooms E, F, I, and I´), but as a rule the vaults are constructed

with stones set in mortar, the stones being cut into thin slabs so as to

resemble bricks as closely as possible. (_Cf._ the Sassanian palace of

Firûzâbâd, Dieulafoy, _L’Art Ancien de la Perse_, vol. iv.) All the

vaults, whether of brick or stone, are built without centering, and all

are set forward slightly from the face of the wall. (The same

construction is found at Ctesiphon, see below, Fig. 109.)[83] The

groined vault occurs seven times in the corridor C C´ (Fig. 98), and it

is also found in room V. (See my article in the _Hellenic Journal_ above

cited.) The fluted dome over room A is bracketed across the corners of

the rectangular substructure (Fig. 88). In several cases where a barrel

vault terminates not against a head wall, but against another section of

barrel vault, it is adjusted to the angles of the substructure by means

of squinch arches (Fig. 99). A noticeable feature of the vault

construction of Ukheiḍir is the presence of masonry tubes running

between the parallel barrel vaults (Fig. 100). The structural purpose of

these tubes is to diminish the mass of masonry between the barrel

vaults. Whenever two barrel vaults lie parallel to one another, a tube

will be found between them, and similar tubes exist between the vault of

the cloister O O and O´ O´ and the outer wall. (See too Fig. 95, which

shows a tube between a barrel vault and a straight wall.) Over the

vaults of the rooms of the annex in the eastern part of the court, and

also over the vaults of the fourteen parallel chambers outside the

enclosing wall to the north, a false roof is laid (Fig. 103). It serves

as a protection against the heat of the sun. Under the eastern annex

there are some much-ruined subterranean chambers. A staircase at the

south-eastern angle of court D leads down into similar cellars

(serâdîb).

The arches over the doorways are usually of an ovoid shape, sometimes

slightly pointed. When the door-jambs take the form of engaged columns,

the capitals of the columns, roughly blocked out in masonry, carry an

arch slightly narrower in width than the opening of the doorway beneath

it. But when the door-jambs are formed merely by the straight section of

the wall, the span of the arch is wider than the opening of the doorway

(Fig. 102 illustrates both types). This set-back of the arch was

doubtless employed in order to facilitate the placing of centering

beams. Three wide doorways with round arches, b b´ and c, lead from the

main block of the palace building into the surrounding court. The arches

are usually characterized by double rings of voussoirs (_cf._ Ctesiphon

and other buildings of the Sassanian and early Mohammadan period), the

inner ring laid so as to show the broad face of the stones or tiles,

while the narrow end shows in the outer ring. (See the arch in Fig.

102.) The arch construction in the eastern annex is, however, much

rougher in style. The outer ring of voussoirs is omitted there, nor is

it invariable in other parts of the palace.

The niche plays a large part in the decoration of Ukheiḍir. A row of

narrow niches runs along the top of the outer face of the northern

enclosing wall, but very little of it is now left (Fig. 87). The

southern face of the three-storeyed block bears an elaborate niche

decoration (Fig. 91). Here the lowest row of niches forms part of the

series already mentioned which runs round court D. Above these, on the

second storey, are remains of another row of arched niches, each of

which contains three small niches. So far as I know, this feature of a

large niche enclosing groups of smaller niches has not yet been observed

in Sassanian architecture. It is found, however, in a certain well-known

type of early Christian church (see, for instance, Ala Klisse, published

by me in the _Thousand and One Churches_, p. 403). On the third storey

of the palace the face of the wall has been left blank, but above the

windows there are still traces of a third order of small niches. Pairs

of niches flanked by engaged columns are to be seen in room G´. They are

set high up in the wall between the transverse arches. On these

transverse arches there is a plaster decoration, the same in character

as that which occurs in the semi-domes at the ends of the vault in Court

S (Fig. 101). The motives there used are the flute (in the squinch arch

and in the conical segment of the semi-dome above it), and a pattern

which resembles a tiny battlemented motive. Upon the transverse arches

the battlemented motive is doubled so as to form diamond-shaped

patterns. In the centre of each of these diamonds, and in the centre of

the tiny arched niches at the bottom of the vault, and also between

those niches, there are small funnel-shaped motives formed of concentric

rings. Between the transverse arches there is a boldly worked ribbing.

The arch round the eastern of the two doors that leads into corridor Q´

is surrounded by cusps (Fig. 94). (_Cf._ Ctesiphon, Dieulafoy, _op.

cit._, vol. v. plate 6.) A blind arcade, borne by pilasters, is to be

seen in courts M M´ and N N´. In the antechamber U there are shallow

niches on either side of the doors.

With regard to the date of Ukheiḍir there are three possible hypotheses.

It may belong--

1. To the Sassanian or Lakhmid period prior to the Mohammadan conquest.

2. To the 150 years after the Mohammadan conquest.

3. To the Abbâsid period, _i. e._ after A.D. 750.

1. In defence of the first theory can be urged the close relationship

between Ukheiḍir and other places of the Sassanian age, not only in plan

(_cf._ Ḳaṣr-i-Shîrîn, de Morgan, _Mission Scientifique en Perse_, vol.

iv., part 2), but also in the technique of brick and stone masonry and

in the principles of vault construction (_cf._ Ctesiphon, Firûzâbâd, and

Sarvistân, Dieulafoy, _op. cit._). But since it is certain that the arts

of the early Moslem era were dominated in Mesopotamia by Sassanian

influence, these affinities do not offer a convincing proof of a

pre-Mohammadan date. Even if Ukheiḍir belonged to the early Moslem age,

it might, and probably would, have been built by Persian workmen. At the

same time certain architectural features, such as the groined vault and

the fluted dome, have not hitherto been observed in any Sassanian

building. The earliest Mesopotamian example of the groined vault known

to me, besides the groins of Ukheiḍir, is that of which fragments can be

seen in the Baghdâd Gate at Raḳḳah.

There is, further, a passage in Yâḳût’s Dictionary which might help to

support the theory of a pre-Mohammadan origin (vol. ii., p. 626, under

Dûmat ej Jandal). In the accounts given by the Arab historians of the

invasion of Mesopotamia in 12 A.H. (A.D. 633-4), by Khâlid ibn u’l

Walîd, frequent mention is made of ’Ain et Tamr, which Yâḳût expressly

states to be the same as Shefâthâ (Shetâteh is the modern colloquial

form of the name). When Khâlid ibn u’l Walîd had taken the oasis, which

was inhabited by Christian Arabs, and appears to have been the one place

that offered him serious resistance (Teano: _Annali dell’Islam_, vol.

ii., p. 940), he is said to have marched on Dûmat ej Jandal, which he

captured, putting to death its defender, Ukeidir ’Abdu’l Malik el

Kindî.[84] It is generally admitted that the name Dûmat ej Jandal in

this account is an error, and that the fortress which was taken by the

Mohammadans in the year 12 A.H. was Dûmat el Ḥîrah. (For the reasons

for substituting Dûmat el Ḥîrah for Dûmat ej Jandal in Ṭabarî’s text,

see Teano, _op. cit._, vol. ii., p. 991.) Now Yâḳût gives two

conflicting traditions concerning the foundation of Dûmat el Ḥîrah, but

he expresses no uncertainty as to its position. It was near to ’Ain et

Tamr, and its ruins were known in Yâḳût’s day (thirteenth century).

According to the first tradition given by Yâḳût, the Prophet sent Khâlid

ibn u’l Walîd in the year 9 A.H. against Ukeidir, who was lord of Dûmat

ej Jandal. Khâlid captured Dûmat ej Jandal and made a treaty with

Ukeidir, but after the death of Mohammad, Ukeidir broke the treaty,

whereupon the Khalif ’Umar expelled him from Dûmat ej Jandal. He retired

to Ḥîrah and built himself a palace near to ’Ain et Tamr, which he

called Dûmah. This Dûmah, near ’Ain et Tamr, is no doubt Dûmat el Ḥîrah

which Khâlid besieged and took in the year 12 A.H. The second tradition

is substantially the same as the first as far as the Mohammadan invasion

is concerned, but Yâḳût here implies that Ukeidir dwelt in the first

instance at Dûmat el Ḥîrah, and was accustomed to resort to Dûmat ej

Jandal for the purposes of the chase, and he adds that Ukeidir named

Dûmat ej Jandal after Dûmat el Ḥîrah. Prince Teano (_op. cit._, vol. ii.

p. 262) has exposed the improbabilities which attend this explanation,

and he concludes that both traditions are equally untrustworthy, and

doubts the authenticity of any part of the story of Ukeidir. It does,

however, appear to me to be possible that the ruins of Dûmat el Ḥîrah

which were standing in Yâḳût’s day were no other than the abandoned

palace of Ukheiḍir, though it is not necessary to accept either of

Yâḳût’s versions of the story of its foundation.

2. If the palace is to be ascribed to the period immediately succeeding

the conquest, it would be a Mesopotamian representative of the group of

pleasure palaces which were built upon the Syrian side of the desert by

the Umayyad princes (Lammens: _La Badia et la Ḥîra, Mélanges de la

faculté orientale_, Beyrout, vol. iv., p. 91). But whereas it was

natural that the Umayyad khalifs should have constructed hunting

palaces in that part of the desert which lay on the direct road between

their capital of Damascus and the spiritual capitals of their empire,

Mecca and Medina, it is difficult to see why they should have selected a

site so far from any of their habitual residences as Ukheiḍir. It is

true that the Khalif ’Alî made Kûfah his capital for five years. He was

assassinated there in A.D. 661. But during those years he was

ceaselessly occupied in quelling rebellions, and I dismiss the

possibility that he should have found leisure to build or to use the

palace of Ukheiḍir.

3. I am not disposed to place Ukheiḍir as late as the Abbâsid period.

The Abbâsid princes had lost the habit of the desert which was so strong

a characteristic of their Umayyad predecessors. When they moved away

from their capital of Baghdâd they built themselves cities like Raḳḳah

and Sâmarrâ. Moreover, the architectural features of Ukheiḍir, both

structural and decorative, present marked differences from those of the

ruins at Raḳḳah and at Sâmarrâ, and on architectural as well as on

historical grounds I am inclined to ascribe Ukheiḍir to an earlier age.

Whether that age be immediately before the Mohammadan conquest, or

whether it fall shortly after the conquest, during the Umayyad period, I

do not think we are as yet in a position to determine. It is to be borne

in mind that the ruins of the palace bear witness to two different dates

of building. The eastern annex and probably the edifice outside the

enclosing wall to the north are an addition to the original plan and

must be of a slightly later date.