PALGRAVE’S TRAVELS—HIS ESCAPE TO THE EASTERN COAST.
“FOR a foreigner to enter Ri’ad is not always easy, but to get away from
it is harder still; Reynard himself would have been justly shy of
venturing on this royal cave. There exists in the capital of Nedjed two
approved means of barring the exit against those on whom mistrust may
have fallen. The first and readiest is that of which it has been
emphatically said, _Stone-dead hath no fellow_. But should circumstances
render the bonds of death inexpedient, the bonds of Hymen and a Ri’ad
establishment may and occasionally do supply their office. By this
latter proceeding, the more amiable of the two, Abdallah resolved to
enchain us.
“Accordingly, one morning arrived at our dwelling an attendant of the
palace, with a smiling face, presage of some good in reserve, and many
fair speeches. After inquiries about our health, comfort, well-being,
etc., he added that Abdallah thought we might be desirous of purchasing
this or that, and begged us to accept of a small present. It was a fair
sum of money, just twice so much as the ordinary token of good-will,
namely, four rials in place of two. After which the messenger took his
leave. Aboo-’Eysa had been present at the interview: ‘Be on the
look-out,’ said he, ‘there is something wrong.’
“That very afternoon Abdallah sent for me, and with abundance of
encomiums and of promises, declared that he could not think of letting
Ri’ad lose so valuable a physician, that I must accordingly take up a
permanent abode in the capital, where I might rely on his patronage, and
on all good things; that he had already resolved on giving me a house and
a garden, specifying them, with a suitable household, and a fair face to
keep me company; he concluded by inviting me to go without delay and see
whether the new abode fitted me, and take possession.
“Much and long did I fight off; talked about a winter visit to the coast,
and coming back in the spring; tried first one pretext and then another;
but none would avail, and Abdallah continued to insist. To quiet him, I
consented to go and see the house. For the intended Calypso, I had ready
an argument derived from Mahometan law, which put her out of the
question, but its explanation would require more space than these pages
can afford.
“The winter season was now setting in; it was the third week in November;
and a thunder-storm, the first we had witnessed in Central Arabia,
ushered in a marked change for cold in the temperature of Wady Haneefah.
Rain fell abundantly, and sent torrents down the dry watercourses of the
valley, changing its large hollows into temporary tanks. None of the
streams showed, however, any disposition to reach the sea, nor indeed
could they, for this part of Nedjed is entirely hemmed in to the east by
the Toweyk range. The inhabitants welcomed the copious showers, pledges
of fertility for the coming year, while at ’Oneyzah the same rains
produced at least one excellent effect, but which I may well defy my
readers to guess. The hostile armies, commanded by Zamil and
Mohammed-ebn-Sa’ood, were drawn up in face of each other, and on the
point of fierce conflict, when the storm burst on them, and by putting
out the lighted matchlocks of either party, prevented the discharge of
bullets and the effusion of blood.”
Abdallah, who hated his second brother, Sa’ood, and had many other fierce
enmities in the capital, then accidentally learned that Palgrave had
employed a deadly poison (strychnine) in making a remarkable cure.
Thenceforth all his powers of persuasion were employed in endeavoring to
procure some of the drug; but Palgrave, suspecting his real design,
positively refused to let him have any. His rage was suddenly and
strongly expressed on his countenance, foreboding no good to the
traveller, who took the first opportunity of returning to his house.
“There Aboo-’Eysa, Barakat, and myself,” he says, “immediately held
council to consider what was now to be done. That an outbreak must
shortly take place seemed certain; to await it was dangerous, yet we
could not safely leave the town in an over-precipitate manner, nor
without some kind of permission. We resolved together to go on in quiet
and caution a few days more, to sound the court, make our adieus at
Feysul’s palace, get a good word from Mahboob (no difficult matter), and
then slip off without attracting too much notice. But our destiny was
not to run so smoothly.”
Late in the evening of November 21st, Palgrave was summoned to Abdallah’s
palace. The messenger refused to allow Barakat or Aboo-’Eysa to
accompany him. The occasion seemed portentous, but disobedience was out
of the question. Palgrave followed the messenger. On entering the
reception-room, he found Abdallah, Abd-el-Lateef, the successor of the
Wahabee, Mahboob, and a few others. All were silent, and none returned
his first salutation. “I saluted Abdallah,” says Palgrave, “who replied
in an undertone, and gave me a signal to sit down at a little distance
from him, but on the same side of the divan. My readers may suppose that
I was not at the moment ambitious of too intimate a vicinity.
“After an interval of silence, Abdallah turned half round toward me, and
with his blackest look and a deep voice said, ‘I now know perfectly well
what you are; you are no doctors, you are Christians, spies, and
revolutionists, come hither to ruin our religion and state in behalf of
those who sent you. The penalty for such as you is death, that you know,
and I am determined to inflict it without delay.’
“‘Threatened folks live long,’ thought I, and had no difficulty in
showing the calm which I really felt. So looking him coolly in the face,
I replied, ‘_Istagh-fir Allah_,’ literally, ‘Ask pardon of God.’ This is
the phrase commonly addressed to one who has said something extremely out
of place.
“The answer was unexpected: he started, and said, ‘Why so?’
“‘Because,’ I rejoined, ‘you have just now uttered a sheer absurdity.
“Christians,” be it so; but “spies,” “revolutionists”—as if we were not
known by everybody in your town for quiet doctors, neither more nor less!
And then to talk about putting me to death! You cannot, and you dare
not.’
“‘But I can and dare,’ answered Abdallah, ‘and who shall prevent me? You
shall soon learn that to your cost.’
“‘Neither can nor dare,’ repeated I. ‘We are here your father’s guests,
and yours for a month and more, known as such, received as such. What
have we done to justify a breach of the laws of hospitality in Nedjed?
It is impossible for you to do what you say,’ continued I, thinking the
while that it was a great deal too possible, after all; ‘the obloquy of
the deed would be too much for you.’
“He remained a moment thoughtful, then said, ‘As if anyone need know who
did it. I have the means, and can dispose of you without talk or rumor.
Those who are at my bidding can take a suitable time and place for that,
without my name being ever mentioned in the affair.’
“The advantage was now evidently on my side; I followed it up, and said
with a quiet laugh, ‘Neither is that within your power. Am I not known
to your father, to all in his palace? to your own brother Sa’ood among
the rest? Is not the fact of this my actual visit to you known without
your gates? Or is there no one here?’ added I, with a glance at Mahboob,
‘who can report elsewhere what you have just now said? Better for you to
leave off this nonsense; do you take me for a child of four days old?’
“He muttered a repetition of his threat. ‘Bear witness, all here
present,’ said I, raising my voice so as to be heard from one end of the
room to the other, ‘that if any mishap befalls my companion or myself
from Ri’ad to the shores of the Persian Gulf, it is all Abdallah’s doing.
And the consequences shall be on his head, worse consequences than he
expects or dreams.’
“The prince made no reply. All were silent; Mahboob kept his eyes
steadily fixed on the fireplace; ’Abd-el-Lateef looked much and said
nothing.
“‘Bring coffee,’ called out Abdallah to the servants. Before a minute
had elapsed, a black slave approached with one, and only one, coffee-cup
in his hand. At a second sign from his master he came before me and
presented it.
“Of course the worst might be conjectured of so unusual and solitary a
draught. But I thought it highly improbable that matters should have
been so accurately prepared; besides, his main cause of anger was
precisely the refusal of poisons, a fact which implied that he had none
by him ready for use. So I said ‘_Bismillah_,’ took the cup, looked very
hard at Abdallah, drank it off, and then said to the slave, ‘Pour me out
a second.’ This he did; I swallowed it, and said, ‘Now you may take the
cup away.’
“The desired effect was fully attained. Abdallah’s face announced
defeat, while the rest of the assembly whispered together. The prince
turned to ’Abd-el-Lateef and began talking about the dangers to which the
land was exposed from spies, and the wicked designs of infidels for
ruining the kingdom of the Muslims. The Kadee and his companions chimed
in, and the story of a pseudo-Darweesh traveller killed at Derey’eeyah,
and of another (but who he was I cannot fancy; perhaps a Persian, who
had, said Abdallah, been also recognized for an intriguer, but had
escaped to Muscat, and thus baffled the penalty due to his crimes), were
now brought forward and commented on. Mahboob now at last spoke, but it
was to ridicule such apprehensions. ‘The thing is in itself unlikely,’
said he, ‘and were it so, what harm could they do?’ alluding to my
companion and myself.
“On this I took up the word, and a general conversation ensued, in which
I did my best to explode the idea of spies and spymanship, appealed to
our own quiet and inoffensive conduct, got into a virtuous indignation
against such a requital of evil for good after all the services which we
had rendered court and town, and quoted verses of the Koran regarding the
wickedness of ungrounded suspicion, and the obligation of not judging ill
without clear evidence. Abdallah made no direct answer, and the others,
whatever they may have thought, could not support a charge abandoned by
their master.
“What amused me not a little was that the Wahabee prince had after all
very nearly hit the right nail on the head, and that I was snubbing him
only for having guessed too well. But there was no help for it, and I
had the pleasure of seeing that, though at heart unchanged in his opinion
about us, he was yet sufficiently cowed to render a respite certain, and
our escape thereby practicable.
“This kind of talk continued a while, and I purposely kept my seat, to
show the unconcern of innocence, till Mahboob made me a sign that I might
safely retire. On this I took leave of Abdallah and quitted the palace
unaccompanied. It was now near midnight, not a light to be seen in the
houses, not a sound to be heard in the streets; the sky too was dark and
overcast, till, for the first time, a feeling of lonely dread came over
me, and I confess that more than once I turned my head to look and see if
no one was following with ‘evil,’ as Arabs say, in his hand. But there
was none, and I reached the quiet alley and low door where a gleam
through the chinks announced the anxious watch of my companions, who now
opened the entrance, overjoyed at seeing me back sound and safe from so
critical a parley.
“Our plan for the future was soon formed. A day or two we were yet to
remain in Ri’ad, lest haste should seem to imply fear, and thereby
encourage pursuit. But during that period we would avoid the palace,
out-walks in gardens or after nightfall, and keep at home as much as
possible. Meanwhile Aboo-’Eysa was to get his dromedaries ready, and put
them in a courtyard immediately adjoining the house, to be laden at a
moment’s notice.
“A band of travellers was to leave Ri’ad for Hasa a few days later.
Aboo-’Eysa gave out publicly that he would accompany them to Hofhoof,
while we were supposed to intend following the northern or Sedeyr track,
by which the Na’ib, after many reciprocal farewells and assurances of
lasting friendship, should we ever meet again, had lately departed.
Mobeyreek, a black servant in Aboo-’Eysa’s pay, occupied himself
diligently in feeding up the camels for their long march with clover and
vetches, both abundant here; and we continued our medical avocations, but
quietly, and without much leaving the house.
“During the afternoon of the 24th we brought three of Aboo-’Eysa’s camels
into our courtyard, shut the outer door, packed, and laded. We then
awaited the moment of evening prayer; it came, and the voice of the
Mu’eddineen summoned all good Wahabees, the men of the town-guard not
excepted, to the different mosques. When about ten minutes had gone by,
and all might be supposed at their prayers, we opened our door.
Mobeyreek gave a glance up and down the street to ascertain that no one
was in sight, and we led out the camels. Aboo-’Eysa accompanied us.
Avoiding the larger thoroughfares, we took our way by by-lanes and
side-passages toward a small town-gate, the nearest to our house, and
opening on the north. A late comer fell in with us on his way to the
Mesjid, and as he passed summoned us also to the public service. But
Aboo-’Eysa unhesitatingly replied, ‘We have this moment come from
prayers,’ and our interlocutor, fearing to be himself too late and thus
to fall under reprehension and punishment, rushed off to the nearest
oratory, leaving the road clear. Nobody was in watch at the gate. We
crossed its threshold, turned southeast, and under the rapid twilight
reached a range of small hillocks, behind which we sheltered ourselves
till the stars came out, and the ‘wing of night,’ to quote Arab poets,
spread black over town and country.
“So far so good. But further difficulties remained before us. It was
now more than ever absolutely essential to get clear of Nedjed
unobserved, to put the desert between us and the Wahabee court and
capital; and no less necessary was it that Aboo-’Eysa, so closely
connected as he was with Ri’ad and its government, should seem nohow
implicated in our unceremonious departure, nor any way concerned with our
onward movements. In a word, an apparent separation of paths between him
and us was necessary before we could again come together and complete the
remainder of our explorations.
“In order to manage this, and while ensuring our own safety to throw a
little dust in Wahabee eyes, it was agreed that before next morning’s
sunrise Aboo-’Eysa should return to the town, and to his dwelling, as
though nothing had occurred, and should there await the departure of the
great merchant caravan, mentioned previously, and composed mainly of men
from Hasa and Kateef, now bound for Hofhoof. This assemblage was
expected to start within three days at latest. Meanwhile our friend
should take care to show himself openly in the palaces of Feysul and
Abdallah, and if asked about us should answer vaguely, with the off-hand
air of one who had no further care regarding us. We ourselves should in
the interim make the best of our way, with Mobeyreek for guide, to Wady
Soley’, and there remain concealed in a given spot, till Aboo-’Eysa
should come and pick us up.
“All this was arranged; at break of dawn, Aboo-’Eysa took his leave, and
Barakat, Mobeyreek, and myself were once more high-perched on our
dromedaries, their heads turned to the southeast, keeping the hillock
range between us and Ri’ad, which we saw no more. Our path led us over
low undulating ground, a continuation of Wady Haneefah, till after about
four hours’ march we were before the gates of Manfoohah, a considerable
town, surrounded by gardens nothing inferior in extent and fertility to
those of Ri’ad; but its fortifications, once strong, have long since been
dismantled and broken down by the jealousy of the neighboring capital.
“After winding here and there, we reached the spot assigned by Aboo-’Eysa
for our hiding-place. It was a small sandy depth, lying some way off the
beaten track, amid hillocks and brushwood, and without water; of this
latter article we had taken enough in the goat-skins to last us for three
days. Here we halted, and made up our minds to patience and expectation.
“Two days passed drearily enough. We could not but long for our guide’s
arrival, nor be wholly without fear on more than one score. Once or
twice a stray peasant stumbled on us, and was much surprised at our
encampment in so droughty a locality. So the hours went by, till the
third day brought closer expectation and anxiety, still increasing while
the sun declined, and at last went down; yet nobody appeared. But just
as darkness closed in, and we were sitting in a dispirited group beside
our little fire, for the night air blew chill, Aboo-’Eysa came suddenly
up, and all was changed for question and answer, for cheerfulness and
laughter.
“Early on November 28th we resumed our march through a light valley-mist,
and soon fell in with our companions of the road.
“Next morning the whole country, hill and dale, trees and bushes, was
wrapped in a thick blanket of mist, fitter for Surrey than for Arabia.
So dense was the milky fog, that we fairly lost our way, and went on at
random, shouting and hallooing, driving our beasts now here, now there,
over broken ground and amid tangling shrubs, till the sun gained strength
and the vapor cleared off, showing us the path at some distance on our
right. Before we had followed it far, we saw a black mass advancing from
the east to meet us. It was the first division of the Hasa troops on
their way to Ri’ad; they were not less than four or five hundred in
number. Like true Arabs, they marched with a noble contempt of order and
discipline—walking, galloping, ambling, singing, shouting, alone or in
bands, as fancy led. We interchanged a few words of greeting with these
brisk boys, who avowed, without hesitation or shame, that they should
much have preferred to stay at home, and that enforced necessity, not any
military or religious ardor, was taking them to the field. We laughed,
and wished them Zamil’s head, or him theirs, whereon they laughed also,
shouted, and passed on.
“On we went, but through a country of much more varied scenery than what
we had traversed the day before, enjoying the ‘pleasure situate in hill
and dale,’ till we arrived at the foot of a high white cliff, almost like
that of Dover; but these crags, instead of having the sea at their foot,
overlooked a wide valley full of trees, and bearing traces of many
violent winter torrents from east to west; none were now flowing. Here
we halted, and passed an indifferent night, much annoyed by ‘chill
November’s surly blast,’ hardly less ungenial here than on the banks of
Ayr, though sweeping over a latitude of 25°, not 56°.
“Before the starlight had faded from the cold morning sky, we were up and
in movement, for a long march was before us. At sunrise we stood on the
last, and here the highest, ledge of Toweyk, that long chalky wall which
bounds and backs up Nedjed on the east; beyond is the desert, and then
the coast.
“After about three hours of level route we began to descend, not rapidly,
but by degrees, and at noon we reached a singular depression, a huge
natural basin, hollowed out in the limestone rock, with tracks resembling
deep trenches leading to it from every side. At the bottom of this
crater-like valley were a dozen or more wells, so abundant in their
supply that they not unfrequently overflow the whole space, and form a
small lake; the water is clear and good, but no other is to be met with
on the entire line hence to Hasa.
“For the rest of the day we continued steadily to descend the broad even
slope, whose extreme barrenness and inanimate monotony reminded me of the
pebbly uplands near Ma’an on the opposite side of the peninsula,
traversed by us exactly seven months before. The sun set, night came on,
and many of the travellers would gladly have halted, but Aboo-’Eysa
insisted on continuing the march. We were now many hundred feet lower
than the crest behind us, and the air felt warm and heavy, when we
noticed that the ground, hitherto hard beneath our feet, was changing
step by step into a light sand, that seemed to encroach on the rocky
soil. It was at first a shallow ripple, then deepened, and before long
presented the well-known ridges and undulations characteristic of the
land ocean when several fathoms in depth. Our beasts ploughed
laboriously on through the yielding surface; the night was dark, but
starry, and we could just discern amid the shade a white glimmer of
spectral sand-hills, rising around us on every side, but no track or
indication of a route.
“It was the great Dahna, or ‘Red Desert,’ the bugbear of even the
wandering Bedouin, and never traversed by ordinary wayfarers without an
apprehension which has too often been justified by fatal incidents. So
light are the sands, so capricious the breezes that shape and reshape
them daily into unstable hills and valleys, that no traces of preceding
travellers remain to those who follow; while intense heat and glaring
light reflected on all sides combine with drought and weariness to
confuse and bewilder the adventurer, till he loses his compass and
wanders up and down at random amid a waste solitude which soon becomes
his grave. Many have thus perished; even whole caravans have been known
to disappear in the Dahna without a vestige, till the wild Arab tales of
demons carrying off wanderers, or ghouls devouring them, obtain a half
credit among many accustomed elsewhere to laugh at such fictions.
“For, after about three hours of night travelling, or rather wading,
among the sand-waves, till men and beasts alike were ready to sink for
weariness, a sharp altercation arose between Aboo-’Eysa and El-Ghannam,
each proposing a different direction of march. We all halted a moment,
and raised our eyes, heavy with drowsiness and fatigue, as if to see
which of the contending parties was in the right. It will be long before
I forget the impression of that moment. Above us was the deep black sky,
spangled with huge stars of a brilliancy denied to all but an Arab gaze,
while what is elsewhere a ray of the third magnitude becomes here of the
first amid the pure vacuum of a mistless, vaporless air; around us loomed
high ridges, shutting us in before and behind with their white,
ghost-like outlines; below our feet the lifeless sand, and everywhere a
silence that seemed to belong to some strange and dreamy world where man
might not venture.
“When not far from the midmost of the Dahna, we fell in with a few
Bedouins, belonging to the Aal-Morrah clan, sole tenants of this desert.
They were leading their goats to little spots of scattered herbage and
shrubs which here and there fix a precarious existence in the hollows of
the sands.
“Theirs is the great desert from Nedjed to Hadramaut. Not that they
actually cover this immense space, a good fourth of the peninsula, but
that they have the free and undisputed range of the oases which it
occasionally offers, where herbs, shrubs, and dwarf-palms cluster round
some well of scant and briny water. These oases are sufficiently
numerous to preserve a stray Bedouin or two from perishing, though not
enough so to become landmarks for any regular route across the central
Dahna, from the main body of which runs out the long and broad arm which
we were now traversing.
“Another night’s bivouac, and then again over the white down-sloping
plain.
“It was now three days and a half since our last supply of water, and
Aboo-’Eysa was anxious to reach the journey’s end without delay. As
darkness closed around we reached the farthermost heights of the
coast-range of Hasa. Hence we overlooked the plains of Hasa, but could
distinguish nothing through the deceptive rays of the rising moon; we
seemed to gaze into a vast milky ocean. After an hour’s halt for supper
we wandered on, now up, now down, over pass and crag, till a long,
corkscrew descent down the precipitous sea-side of the mountain, for a
thousand feet or near it, placed us fairly upon the low level of Hasa,
and within the warm, damp air of the sea-coast.
“The ground glimmered white to the moon, and gave a firm footing to our
dromedaries, who, by their renewed agility, seemed to partake in the joy
of their riders, and to understand that rest was near. We were, in fact,
all so eager to find ourselves at home and homestead, that although the
town of Hofhoof, our destined goal, was yet full fifteen miles to the
northeast, we pressed on for the capital. And there, in fact, we should
have all arrived in a body before day-dawn, had not a singular occurrence
retarded by far the greater number of our companions.
“Soon after, the crags in our rear had shut out, perhaps for years,
perhaps forever, the desert and Central Arabia from our view, while
before and around us lay the indistinct undulations and uncertain breaks
of the great Hasa plain, when on a sloping bank at a short distance in
front we discerned certain large black patches, in strong contrast with
the white glister of the soil around, and at the same time our attention
was attracted by a strange whizzing like that of a flight of hornets,
close along the ground, while our dromedaries capered and started as
though struck with sudden insanity. The cause of all this was a vast
swarm of locusts, here alighted in their northerly wanderings from their
birthplace in the Dahna; their camp extended far and wide, and we had
already disturbed their outposts. These insects are wont to settle on
the ground after sunset, and there, half stupefied by the night chill, to
await the morning rays, which warm them once more into life and movement.
This time our dromedaries did the work of the sun, and it would be hard
to say which of the two were the most frightened, they or the locusts.
It was truly laughable to see so huge a beast lose his wits for fear at
the flight of a harmless, stingless insect; of all timid creatures none
equals the ‘ship of the desert’ for cowardice.
“The swarm now before us was a thorough godsend for our Arabs, on no
account to be neglected. Thirst, weariness, all was forgotten, and down
the riders leapt from their starting camels; this one spread out a cloak,
that one a saddle-bag, a third his shirt, over the unlucky creatures
destined for the morrow’s meal. Some flew away whirring across our feet,
others were caught and tied up in cloths and sacks. Cornish wreckers at
work about a shattered East Indiaman would be beaten by Ghannam and his
companions with the locusts. However, Barakat and myself felt no special
interest in the chase, nor had we much desire to turn our dress and
accoutrements into receptacles for living game. Luckily Aboo-’Eysa still
retained enough of his North Syrian education to be of our mind also.
Accordingly we left our associates hard at work, turned our startled and
still unruly dromedaries in the direction of Hofhoof, and set off full
speed over the plain.
“It was not till near morning that we saw before us in indistinct row the
long black lines of the immense date-groves that surround Hofhoof. Then,
winding on amid rice-grounds and cornfields, we left on our right an
isolated fort (to be described by daylight), passed some scattered
villas, with their gardens, approached the ruined town walls, and entered
the southern gate, now open and unguarded. Farther on a few streets
brought us before the door of Aboo-’Eysa’s house, our desired
resting-place.
“It was still night. All was silent in the street and house, at the
entrance of which we now stood; indeed, none but the master of a domicile
could think of knocking at such an hour, nor was Aboo-’Eysa expected at
that precise moment. With much difficulty he contrived to awake the
tenants; next the shrill voice of the lady was heard within in accents of
joy and welcome; the door at last opened, and Aboo-’Eysa invited us into
a dark passage, where a gas-light would have been a remarkable
improvement, and by this ushered us into the k’hawah. Here we lighted a
fire, and after a hasty refreshment all lay down to sleep, nor awoke till
the following forenoon.”