EARLY EXPLORERS OF ARABIA.
WHEN the habit of travel began to revive in the Middle Ages, its
character was either religious or commercial, either in the form of
pilgrimages to Rome, Palestine, (whenever possible), and the shrines of
popular saints, or of journeys to the Levant, Persia and the Indies, with
the object of acquiring wealth by traffic, the profits of which increased
in the same proportion as its hazards. From the time of Trajan’s
expedition to Arabia, (in A.D. 117) down to the sixteenth century, we
have no report of the history or condition of the country except such as
can be drawn from the earlier Jewish and Christian traditions and the
later Mohammedan records.
The first account of a visit to Arabia which appears to be worthy of
credence, is that given by Ludovico Bartema, of Rome. After visiting
Egypt, he joined the caravan of pilgrims at Damascus, in 1503, in the
company of a Mameluke captain, himself disguised as a Mameluke renegade.
After several attacks from the Bedouins of the desert, the caravan
reached Medina, which he describes as containing three hundred houses.
Bartema gives a very correct description of the tomb of the Prophet, and
scoffs at the then prevalent belief that the latter’s coffin is suspended
in the air, between four lodestones.
He thus describes an adventure which befell his company the same evening
after their visit to the mosque. “At almost three of the night, ten or
twelve of the elders of the sect of Mohammed entered into our caravan,
which remained not past a stone’s cast from the gate of the city. These
ran hither and thither, crying like madmen with these words: ‘Mohammed,
the messenger and apostle of God, shall rise again! O Prophet, O God,
Mohammed shall rise again! Have mercy on us, God!’ Our captain and we,
all raised with this cry, took weapon with all expedition, suspecting
that the Arabs were come to rob our caravan. We asked what was the cause
of that exclamation, and what they cried? For they cried as do the
Christians when suddenly any marvellous thing chanceth. The elders
answered: ‘Saw you not the lightning which shone out of the sepulchre of
the Prophet Mohammed?’ Our captain answered that he saw nothing, and we
also being demanded, answered in like manner. Then said one of the old
men: ‘Are you slaves?’ This to say bought men, meaning thereby,
Mamelukes. Then said our captain: ‘We are indeed Mamelukes.’ Then again
the old man said: ‘You, my lords, cannot see heavenly things, as being
_neophiti_, that is, newly come to the faith, and not yet confirmed in
our religion.’ It is therefore to be understood that none other shining
came out of the sepulchre than a certain flame, which the priests caused
to come out of the open place of the tower, whereby they would have
deceived us.”
Leaving Medina, the caravan travelled for three days over a “broad
plain,” all covered with white sand, in manner as small as flour. Then
they passed a mountain, where they heard “a certain horrible noise and
cry,” and after journeying for ten days longer, during which time they
twice fought with “fifty thousand Arabians,” they reached Mecca, of which
Bartema says: “The city is very fair, and well inhabited, and containeth
in round form six thousand houses as well builded as ours, and some that
cost three or four thousand pieces of gold: it hath no walls.”
Bartema describes the ceremonies performed by the pilgrims, with
tolerable correctness. His fellowship with the Mamelukes seems to have
been a complete protection up to the time when the caravan was ready to
set out on its return to Damascus, and the members of the troop were
ordered to accompany it, on pain of death. Then he managed to escape by
persuading a Mohammedan that he understood the art of casting cannon, and
wished to reach India, in order to assist the native monarchs in
defending themselves against the Portuguese. Reaching Jedda in safety,
Bartema sailed for Persia, visiting Yemen on the way; made his way to
India, and after various adventures, returned to Europe by way of the
Cape of Good Hope.
The second European who made his way to the holy cities was Joseph Pitts,
an Englishman, who was captured by an Algerine pirate, as a sailor-boy of
sixteen, and forced by his master to become a Mussulman. After some
years, when he had acquired the Arabic and Turkish languages, he
accompanied his master for a pilgrimage to Mecca, by way of Cairo, Suez
and the Red Sea. Here he received his freedom; but continued with the
pilgrims to Medina, and returned to Egypt by land, through Arabia Petræa.
After fifteen years of exile, he succeeded in escaping to Italy, and
thence made his way back to England.
Pitts gives a minute and generally correct account of the ceremonies at
Mecca. He was not, of course, learned in Moslem theology, and his
narrative, like that of all former visitors to Mecca, has been superseded
by the more intelligent description of Burckhardt; yet it coincides with
the latter in all essential particulars. His description of the city and
surrounding scenery is worth quoting, from the quaint simplicity of its
style.
“First, as to Mecca. It is a town situated in a barren place, (about one
day’s journey from the Red Sea), in a valley, or rather in the midst of
many little hills. It is a place of no force, wanting both walls and
gates. Its buildings are, as I said before, very ordinary, insomuch that
it would be a place of no tolerable entertainment, were it not for the
anniversary resort of so many thousand Hagges (Hadjis), or pilgrims, on
whose coming the whole dependence of the town (in a manner) is; for many
shops are scarcely open all the year besides.
“The people here, I observed, are a poor sort of people, very thin, lean
and swarthy. The town is surrounded for several miles with many
thousands of little hills, which are very near one to the other. I have
been on the top of some of them near Mecca, where I could see some miles
about, yet was not able to see the farthest of the hills. They are all
stony-rock and blackish, and pretty near of a bigness, appearing at a
distance like cocks of hay, but all pointing towards Mecca. Some of them
are half a mile in circumference, but all near of one height. The people
here have an odd and foolish sort of tradition concerning them, viz.,
That when Abraham went about building the Beat-Allah (Beit-Allah, or
‘House of God’), God by his wonderful providence did so order it, that
every mountain in the world should contribute something to the building
thereof; and accordingly every one did send its proportion, though there
is a mountain near Algier which is called Corradog, _i.e._, Black
Mountain, and the reason of its blackness, they say, is because it did
not send any part of itself towards building the temple at Mecca.
Between these hills is good and plain travelling, though they stand one
to another.
“There is upon the top of one of them a cave, which they term Hira,
_i.e._, Blessing, into which, they say, Mahomet did usually retire for
his solitary devotions, meditations and fastings; and here they believe
he had a great part of the Alcoran brought him by the angel Gabriel. I
have been in this cave, and observed that it is not at all beautified, at
which I admired.
“About half a mile out of Mecca is a very steep hill, and there are
stairs made to go to the top of it, where is a cupola, under which is a
cloven rock; into this, they say, Mahomet when very young, viz., about
four years of age, was carried by the angel Gabriel, who opened his
breast and took out his heart, from which he picked some black blood
specks, which was his original corruption; then put it into its place
again, and afterward closed up the part; and that during this operation
Mahomet felt no pain.”
The next account of the same pilgrimage is given by Giovanni Tinati, an
Italian, who deserted from the French service on the coast of Dalmatia,
and became an Albanian soldier. Making his way to Egypt, after various
adventures, he became at last a corporal in Mohammed Ali’s body-guard,
and shared in several campaigns against the Wahabees. He did not,
however, penetrate very far inland from the coast, and his visit to Mecca
was the result of his desertion from the Egyptian army after a defeat.
His narrative contains nothing which has not been more fully and
satisfactorily stated by later travellers.
By this time, however, the era of careful scientific exploration had
already commenced, and the descriptions which have since then been
furnished to us are positive contributions to our knowledge of Arabia.
With the exception of the journey of Carsten Niebuhr, which embraces only
the Sinaitic Peninsula and Yemen, the important explorations—all of which
are equally difficult and daring—have been made since the commencement of
this century.