LADY BLUNT’S PILGRIMAGE TO NEJD.
IN 1878–79, sixteen years after Palgrave’s journey, Lady Anne Blunt, with
her husband and several native servants, accomplished a journey, which,
in many respects was more remarkable than the exploits of any of their
predecessors. Whereas Palgrave and others had travelled in disguise,
believing it impossible to penetrate into the interior otherwise than as
mussulmans, the Blunts made no pretences of the kind, but went as
European travellers, desirous of seeing the country, and visiting its
rulers. They traversed the whole breadth of the peninsula, from Beyrout
on the Mediterranean coast, to Bagdad on the Tigris, crossing the Great
Nefood, or central desert, and visiting Hail, Jebel Shammer, and other
places in Nejd. {279}
On their return Lady Blunt published the remarkably interesting story of
their adventures, under the title of “A Pilgrimage to Nejd,” a book which
added greatly to our knowledge of the Arabian interior, and to which the
compiler of this chapter is largely indebted.
The travellers entered upon their adventurous undertaking with the
advantage of experiences gained on a previous journey among the Arab
tribes of the Euphrates Valley, and a knowledge of the Arab tongue.
Their native servants, who had accompanied them on their previous
expedition, eagerly joined their service for the new venture; camels,
horses, and all necessary supplies for the journey were purchased at
Damascus, and on December 12th, 1879, the start was made.
Though unwilling to travel under false colors as to race or nationality,
the English travellers found it convenient to adopt the Bedouin costume
for the desert journey, to avoid attracting more notice than was
necessary. Their first objective point was Jôf, an important oasis in
the desert, four hundred miles away. Lady Blunt, describing the start
from Damascus, says:
“At first we skirted the city, passing the gate where St. Paul is said to
have entered, and the place where he got over the wall, and then along
the suburb of Maïdan, which is the quarter occupied by Bedouins when they
come to town, and where we had found the Tudmuri and our camels. Here we
were to have met the Jerdeh, and we waited some time outside the Bawâbat
Allah, or ‘Gates of God,’ while Mohammed went in to make inquiries and
take leave of his Tudmuri friends.
“It is in front of this gate that the pilgrims assemble on the day of
their start for Mecca, and from it the Haj road leads away in a nearly
straight line southward. The Haj road is to be our route as far as
Mezárib, and is a broad, well-worn track, though of course not a road at
all according to English ideas. It has, nevertheless, a sort of romantic
interest, one cannot help feeling, going as it does so far and through
such desolate lands, a track so many thousand travellers have followed
never to return. I suppose in its long history a grave may have been dug
for every yard of its course from Damascus to Medina, for, especially on
the return journey, there are constantly deaths among the pilgrims from
weariness and insufficient food.”
A leisurely journey of a week brought the party to Salkhad, a Druse
community at the edge of the desert, where Huseyn, the Sheykh of the
Druses provided them with guides to the Kâf oasis, a five days’ journey
into the desert. On the way to Kâf they passed areas of sand, white as
snow, and encountered violent sand-storms, in one of which they lost a
camel who seized his opportunity to escape back to Mezárib. Beyond Kâf
they met with rather a thrilling adventure, which is thus graphically
described:
“Friday, January 3d.—We have had an adventure at last, and rather a
disagreeable one; a severe lesson as to the danger of encamping near
wells. We started early, but were delayed a whole hour at Jerawi taking
water, and did not leave the wells till nearly eight o’clock. Then we
turned back nearly due east across the wady. The soil of pure white sand
was heavy going, and we went slowly, crossing low undulations without
other landmark than the wells we had left behind us. Here and there rose
little mounds, tufted with ghada. To one of these Wilfrid and I cantered
on, leaving the camels behind us, and dismounting, tied our mares to the
bushes, that we might enjoy a few minutes’ rest and eat our midday
mouthful; the greyhounds meanwhile played about and chased each other in
the sand.
“We had finished, and were talking of I know not what, when the camels
passed us. They were hardly a couple of hundred yards in front, when
suddenly we heard a thud, thud, thud, on the sand, a sound of galloping.
Wilfrid jumped to his feet, looked round, and called out: ‘Get on your
mare. This is a ghazú!’
“As I scrambled round the bush to my mare, I saw a troop of horsemen
charging down at full gallop with their lances, not two hundred yards
off. Wilfrid was up as he spoke, and so should I have been but for my
sprained knee and the deep sand, both of which gave way as I was rising.
I fell back. There was no time to think, and I had hardly struggled to
my feet when the enemy was upon us, and I was knocked down by a spear.
Then they all turned on Wilfrid, who had waited for me, some of them
jumping down on foot to get hold of his mare’s halter. He had my gun
with him, which I had just before handed to him, but unloaded, his own
gun and his sword being on his delúl (riding camel). He fortunately had
on very thick clothes, two abbas one over the other, and English clothes
underneath, so the lances did him no harm. At last his assailants
managed to get his gun from him and broke it over his head, hitting him
three times and smashing the stock.
“Resistance seemed to me useless, and I shouted to the nearest horseman,
‘_Ana dahílak_’ (I am under your protection), the usual form of
surrender. Wilfrid hearing this, and thinking he had had enough of this
unequal contest, one against twelve, threw himself off his mare. The
_Khayal_ (horsemen) having seized both the mares, paused, and as soon as
they had gathered breath, began to ask us who we were and where we came
from.
“‘English, and we have come from Damascus,’ we replied, ‘and our camels
are close by. Come with us and you shall hear about it.’
“Our caravan, while all this had happened, and it only lasted about five
minutes, had formed itself into a square, and the camels were kneeling
down, as we could plainly see from where we were. I hardly expected the
horsemen to do as we asked, but the man who seemed to be their leader at
once let us walk on (a process causing me acute pain), and followed with
the others to the caravan. We found Mohammed and the rest of our party
entrenched behind the camels with their guns pointed, and as we
approached, Mohammed stepped out and came forward.
“‘Min entum?’ (Who are you?) was the first question.
“‘Roala min Ibn Debaa.’ ‘Wallah?’ (Will you swear by God?) ‘Wallah!’
(We swear).
“‘And you?’ ‘Mohammed ibn Arûk of Tudmur.’
“‘Wallah?’ ‘Wallah!’ ‘And these are Franjis travelling with you?’
‘Wallah! Franjis, friends of Ibn Shaalan.’
“It was all right; we had fallen into the hands of friends. Ibn Shaalan,
our host of last year, was bound to protect us, even so far away in the
desert, and none of his people dared meddle with us, knowing this.
Besides, Mohammed was a Tudmuri, and as such could not be molested by
Roala, for Tudmur pays tribute to Ibn Shaalan, and the Tudmuris have a
right to his protection. So as soon as the circumstances were made clear
orders were given by the chief of the party to his followers to bring
back our mares, and the gun, and everything which had been dropped in the
scuffle. Even to Wilfrid’s tobacco-bag, all was restored.”
The robbers and the travellers fraternized after the affair was over, and
the former were very much ashamed of themselves for having used their
spears against a woman. Lady Blunt apologizes for them, however, as the
Bedouin dress she wore for riding prevented them distinguishing her sex
in the confusion of the sudden attack.
Two days after the encounter in the desert the party arrived at Jôf,
where they spent three days, and found the people very hospitable. Their
chief servant and camel-driver, Mohammed, was an Arab, who had distant
connections in this part of Arabia; and as tribal kinship, no matter how
remote, is regarded as a matter of great importance, this relationship
was of material aid in securing them the good-will of the inhabitants.
The Blunts were less favorably impressed with Jôf than was Palgrave, who,
however, uses the term “Djowf” in a broader sense, as including a number
of oases situated in “a large oval depression of sixty or seventy miles
long by ten or twelve broad, lying between the northern desert that
separates it from Syria and the Euphrates, and the southern Nefood, or
sandy waste, and interposed between it and the nearest mountains of the
Central Arabian plateau.”
Lady Blunt writes of it: “Jôf is not at all what we expected. We thought
we should find it a large cultivated district, and it turns out to be
merely a small town. There is nothing at all outside the walls except a
few square patches, half an acre or so each, green with young corn,” etc.
How true is it that no two travellers see things with the same eyes.
Doubtless both these distinguished travellers are reasonably correct in
their descriptions, but summed up their impressions from opposite
stand-points in a topographical sense; a common enough mistake in Asia,
where the name of a place often indicates, equally accurately, a large
scope of country and the central spot in it. In Central Asia, for
example, there is Merv, which is the name of a city, and also of the
large fertile oasis in which it is situated; also Herat, meaning a broad
area of oases, with a population of probably half a million people, in
which the fortress-city Herat stands, no less than the city itself.
Important political changes had taken place since Palgrave’s visit. The
rule of the Wahabees had been overthrown in Jôf, and the only
representatives of staple authority found there were a Sheykh and six
soldiers, who represented the authority of Mohammed ibn Rashid, Emir of
Jebel Shammar, with his seat of government at Hail.
From Jôf the travellers proceeded toward Hail, crossing the dreaded
Nefood, of which they give a very interesting, and far less gloomy,
account than did Palgrave. They, however, crossed it in January, while
Palgrave crossed it in midsummer; so that, in the case of the Nefood, as
with Jôf, the apparently conflicting accounts are doubtless both fairly
accurate, the one describing the desert in winter, the other in summer.
On January 12th, the travellers found themselves on the edge of the
desert.
“At half-past three o’clock we saw a red streak on the horizon before us,
which rose and gathered as we approached it, stretching out east and west
in an unbroken line. It might at first have been taken for an effect of
mirage, but on coming nearer we found it broken into billows, and but for
its red color not unlike a stormy sea seen from the shore, for it rose
up, as the sea seems to rise, when the waves are high, above the level of
the land. Somebody called out ‘Nefûd,’ and though for a while we were
incredulous, we were soon convinced. What surprised us was its color,
that of rhubarb and magnesia, nothing at all like what we had expected.
Yet the Nefûd it was, the great red desert of Central Arabia. In a few
minutes we had cantered up to it, and our mares were standing with their
feet in its first waves.
“January 13th.—We have been all day in the Nefûd, which is interesting
beyond our hopes, and charming into the bargain.” After taking issue
with Mr. Palgrave, who, Lady Blunt thinks, overlooked its brighter side,
the narrator continues her own observations thus:
“The thing that strikes one first about the Nefûd is its color. It is
not white like the sand dunes we passed yesterday, nor yellow as the sand
is in parts of the Egyptian desert, but a really bright red, almost
crimson in the morning, when it is wet with dew. The sand is rather
coarse, but absolutely pure, without admixture of any foreign substance,
pebble, grit, or earth, and exactly the same in tint and texture
everywhere. It is, however, a great mistake to suppose it barren. The
Nefûd, on the contrary, is better wooded and richer in pasture than any
part of the desert we have passed since leaving Damascus. It is tufted
all over with ghada bushes, and bushes of another kind called _yerta_,
which at this time of the year, when there are no leaves, is exactly like
a thickly matted vine.
“There are, besides, several kinds of camel pasture, especially one new
to us, called _adr_, on which they say sheep can feed for a month without
wanting water, and more than one kind of grass. Both camels and mares
are therefore pleased with the place, and we are delighted with the
abundance of firewood for our camps. Wilfrid says that the Nefûd has
solved for him at last the mystery of horse-breeding in Central Arabia.
In the hard desert there is nothing a horse can eat, but here there is
plenty. The Nefûd accounts for everything. Instead of being the
terrible place it has been described by the few travellers who have seen
it, it is in reality the home of the Bedouins during a great part of the
year. Its only want is water, for it contains but few wells; all along
the edge it is thickly inhabited, and Radi tells us that in the spring,
when the grass is green after rain, the Bedouins care nothing for water,
as their camels are in milk, and they go for weeks without it, wandering
far into the interior of the sand desert.”
In the desert of sand the travellers found many curious hollows, which
the native guide called fulj. Some of these holes were a quarter of a
mile in diameter, and as much as 230 feet deep. They were chiefly of
horse-hoof shape. They took observations, and at one point on the desert
found the elevation to be 3,300 feet above sea-level. After seven days
in the Nefûd, the last two of which tried the endurance of men and
beasts, the party reached the oasis of Jobba, which is described as being
one of the most curious, as also most beautiful, places in the world.
“Its name Jobba, meaning a well, explains its position, for it lies in a
hole or well in the Nefûd; not indeed in a fulj, for the basin of Jobba
is quite on another scale, and has nothing in common with the horse-hoof
depressions I have hitherto described. It is, all the same, extremely
singular, and quite as difficult to account for geologically as the
fuljes. It is a great bare space in the ocean of sand, from four to five
hundred feet below its average level, and about three miles wide; a
hollow, in fact, not unlike that of Jôf, but with the Nefûd round it
instead of sandstone cliffs. That it has once been a lake is pretty
evident, for there are distinct water marks on the rocks, which crop up
out of the bed just above the town; and, strange to say, there is a
tradition still extant of there having been formerly water there. The
wonder is how this space is kept clear of sand. What force is it that
walls out the Nefûd and prevents encroachments? As you look across the
subbkha, or dry bed of the lake, the Nefûd seems like a wall of water
which must overwhelm it; and yet no sand shifts down into the hollow, and
its limits are accurately maintained.”
At length the Nefûd was overcome and the travellers approached Hail, not
without apprehensions as to the reception that might await them. Their
guide from Jôf enlightened them in regard to many changes that had
occurred since Palgrave’s visit, changes that will be equally interesting
to readers who have followed Palgrave’s narrative in preceding chapters.
Telal, then despotic ruler at Hail (Ha’yel), had gone insane and
committed suicide by stabbing himself with his own dagger four years
after Palgrave’s visit. He was succeeded by his brother Metaab, who,
however, died suddenly after reigning three years; when a dispute arose
between his brother Mohammed and Telal’s oldest son, Bender, about the
succession. Mohammed being away at the time, Bender, a youth of twenty,
was proclaimed Emir. Mohammed returned, and in a violent quarrel with
his nephew drew his dagger and stabbed him to death.
“Then Mohammed galloped back to the castle, and finding Hamûd (son of
Obeyd, uncle of Telal) there, got his help and took possession of the
palace. He then seized the younger sons of Tellál (Palgrave’s Telal),
Bender’s brothers, all but one child, Naïf, and Bedr, who was away from
Hail, and had their heads cut off by his slaves in the court-yard of the
castle. They say, however, that Hamúd protested against this. But
Mohammed was reckless, or wished to strike terror, and not satisfied with
what he had already done, went on destroying his relations.
“He had some cousins, sons of Jabar, a younger brother of Abdallah and
Obeyd; and these he sent for. They came in some alarm to the castle,
each with his slave. They were all young men, beautiful to look at, and
of the highest distinction; and their slaves had been brought up with
them, as the custom is, more like brothers than servants. They were
shown into the kahwah of the castle, and received with great formality,
Mohammed’s servants coming forward to invite them in. It is the custom
at Hail, whenever a person pays a visit, that before sitting down he
should hang up his sword on one of the wooden pegs fixed into the wall,
and this the sons of Jabar did, and their slaves likewise. Then they sat
down and waited and waited, but still no coffee was served to them. At
last Mohammed appeared, surrounded by his guard, but there was no ‘salaam
aleykum,’ and instantly he gave orders that his cousins should be seized
and bound. They made a rush for their swords, but were intercepted by
the slaves of the castle and made prisoners. Mohammed then, with
horrible barbarity, ordered their hands and their feet to be cut off, and
the hands and feet of their slaves, and had them, still living, dragged
out into the court-yard of the palace, where they lay till they died.
“These ghastly crimes, more ghastly than ever in a country where wilful
bloodshed is so unusual, seem to have struck terror far and wide, and no
one has since dared to raise a hand against Mohammed.”
The knowledge of these terrible doings naturally made the travellers feel
that they were venturing into dangerous quarters as they rode up to the
gates of Hail. The Emir, whose title was Mohammed-ibn-Rashid (Mohammed,
son of Rashid), however, received them kindly; and it was discovered
that, apart from the bloody work of the succession, he had turned out to
be not a bad ruler. In any part of his dominions, it was understood that
a person might travel unarmed, and with any amount of gold on him,
without fear of molestation. Moreover, he seemed to have been deeply
stricken with remorse for his past misdeeds, lived in constant fear of
assassination, and was endeavoring to make what amends he could by
lavishing honors and kindness on the youth Naïf, the only one of his
nephews he had spared—for Bedr, too, had been executed.
It all reads much like a tale from the “Arabian Nights;” and that Arabia
is still the land of romance and poetry is confirmed by a curious bit of
news learned of Obeyd, about whom it will be remembered Mr. Palgrave had
also a good deal to say.
“He (Obeyd) lived to a great age, and died only nine years ago (_i.e._
1869). It is related of him that he left no property behind him, having
given away everything during his lifetime—no property but his sword, his
mare, and his young wife. These he left to his nephew
Mohammed-ibn-Rashid, the reigning Emir, with the request that his sword
should remain undrawn, his mare unridden, and his wife unmarried forever
after.”
The travellers give an interesting account of the Emir’s horses, the most
famous stud in Nejd.
Though interested, they were, on the whole, disappointed with the horses
of Nejd as compared with those of Northern Arabia. “In comparing what we
see here with what we saw last year in the north, the first thing that
strikes us is that these are ponies, the others horses. It is not so
much the actual difference in height, though there must be quite three
inches on an average, as the shape, which produces this impression.”
The average height was found to be under fourteen hands; and though great
care was taken to obtain and preserve pure strains of blood, in the
matter of feeding and grooming, gross negligence seemed to be the rule,
even in the royal stud. The stables were mere open yards, in which the
animals stood, each tethered to a manger. No shelter was provided, but
each horse was protected by a heavy rug. They wore no headstalls, being
fastened solely with ropes or chains about the fetlocks. No regular
exercise was given them, their food was almost exclusively dry barley,
and their appearance generally was far different from what Europeans
would naturally expect of the finest stable of horses in the “horse
peninsula.”
The travellers also enlighten us, on the subject of horses, in other
directions. Except in the north, horses were found to be exceedingly
rare. It is possible to travel vast distances without meeting a single
horse, or even crossing a horse-track; on the whole journey across the
Nefûd, and on to the Euphrates, they scarcely saw a horse, apart from the
stables of the rich and great in the cities. The horse is a luxury to be
afforded only by people of wealth or position. Journeys and raids and
wars are all made on camels; the Sheykhs who have horses, when going to
war save them to mount at the moment of actual engagement with the enemy.
It was considered a great boast by a Nejd tribe of Bedouins that they
could mount one hundred horsemen; while the Muteyr tribe, reputed to be
the greatest breeders of thoroughbred stock in Central Arabia, would be
expected to muster not more than four hundred mares.
Mohammed-ibn-Rashid recruited his stables by compelling the Sheykhs of
tributary tribes to sell him their best animals, an improvement on some
of his predecessors, who kept their studs up to the proper mark becoming
Arab royalty by making raids against the tribes for the purpose of
bringing in celebrated mares, waiving the matter of payment.
In the spring the horses of the Emir’s stables are distributed among the
neighboring Bedouins to be pastured on the Nefûd, which at that period
affords excellent grazing. Had the visitors seen the herd after a month
on the Nefûd, they would likely have carried away a much more favorable
impression. During the winter quartering the colts seemed to fare even
worse than their dams and sires, from the following:
“Besides the full-grown animals, Ibn Rashid’s yards contain thirty or
forty foals and yearlings, beautiful little creatures, but terribly
starved and miserable. Foals bred in the desert are poor enough, but
those in town have a positively sickly appearance. Tied all day long by
the foot, they seem to have quite lost heart, and show none of the
playfulness of their age. Their tameness, like that of the ‘fowl and the
brute,’ is shocking to see.”
The contrast between the actual treatment of these royal animals and the
following Arab recipe for rearing a colt is sufficiently striking:
“During the first month of his life let him be content with his mother’s
milk; it will be sufficient for him. Then, during five months, add to
this natural supply goats’ milk, as much as he will drink. For six
months more give him the milk of camels, and besides a measure of wheat
steeped in water for a quarter of an hour and served in a nose-bag. At a
year old the colt will have done with milk; he must be fed on wheat and
grass, the wheat dry from a nose-bag, the grass green, if there is any.
“At two years old he must work or he will be worthless. Feed him now,
like a full-grown horse, on barley; but in summer let him also have gruel
daily at mid-day. Make the gruel thus: Take a double-handful of flour
and mix it in water well with your hands till the water seems like milk,
then strain it, leaving the dregs of the flour, and give what is liquid
to the colt to drink.
“Be careful, from the hour he is born, to let him stand in the sun; shade
hurts horses; but let him have water in plenty when the day is hot. The
colt must now be mounted and taken by his owner everywhere with him, so
that he shall see everything and learn courage. He must be kept
constantly in exercise, and never remain long at his manger. He should
be taken on a journey, for the work will fortify his limbs. At three
years old he should be trained to gallop; then, if he be true blood, he
will not be left behind. Yalla!”
Lady Blunt thinks this represents a traditional practice of rearing colts
in Arabia since the days of the Prophet Mohammet.
From Hail, the party joined the Haj, or caravan of Persian pilgrims,
returning home from Mecca and Medina; and after eighty-four days’ travel
from Damascus their Arabian journey came to an end at Bagdad. Their
route from Hail took them far north of Palgrave’s route, so that they did
not visit Ri’ad, the headquarters, in Palgrave’s time, of the Wahabee
ruler Feysul. Lady Blunt, however, in an appendix to her narrative
enlightens us in regard to the end of Feysul, and the continued decline
of the Wahabee regime after the visit of Palgrave.
Three years after Palgrave’s visit Feysul died, and the Wahabee state,
which under him had regained much of its power and influence (which had
been all but crushed by the Turks after the Crimean war) was again
weakened by internal dissensions. Feysul left two sons, Abdallah and
Saoud, who quarrelled and put themselves at the head of their respective
adherents. Saoud proved himself the stronger party, and in 1871 Abdallah
fled to Jebel Shammar and sought the aid of Midhat Pasha, Turkish
governor at Bagdad.
The result was that a Turkish expedition of 5,000 regular troops occupied
the seaboard territory of Hasa, and took possession of Hofhoof (mentioned
by Palgrave); whilst Abdallah and his adherents, and a third rival,
Abdallah-ibn-Turki, attacked Saoud at Ri’ad. Saoud was defeated, and
Abdallah essayed to govern at Ri’ad; but in the following year he was
again ejected by Saoud who reigned till 1874, when he died, not without
suspicion of poison.
Lady Blunt’s account of affairs at the Wahabee capital ends with the
information that Abdallah and a half-brother, Abderrahman, were in joint
and amicable control, Abdallah as Emir, the latter as his chief minister.
Hasa and the seaboard was held by the Turks, whose policy was the
stirring up of strife and feudal enmity among the Arabs, with a view to
weakening the power and authority of the Emir at Ri’ad, and so making the
country easy prey whenever opportunity arrives for its incorporation in
the Ottoman dominions. The power and fanaticism of the once powerful
Wahabee Empire, has become but little more than a name and a remembrance
among the Bedouin tribes, who once paid tribute to its Emirs; and
whatever was national in thought and respectable in inspiration in
Central Arabia seemed to be grouping itself around the new dynasty of the
Emir of Jebel Shammar, Mohammed-ibn-Rashid of Hail.
* * * * *
THE END.
NOTES.
{59} The inscription, which is copied in Lieutenant Wellsted’s work,
appears to be in the Himyaritic character. If any translation of it has
ever been made, the compiler is unable to say where it can be found.
{201} “The Na’ib” was a Persian official, despatched by the Persian
pilgrims to lay before Feysul, the ruler of Nedjed, a statement of the
extortions to which they had been compelled to submit at Bereydah. He
was thus equally under Aboo-’Eysa’s charge, and his company was rather an
advantage to Palgrave, since his mission was another cause of
removing—or, at least, lessening—the prominence of the latter, after his
arrival at Ri’ad.
{279} It is well to point out here that Palgrave and Lady Blunt spell
the names of places quite differently, which makes it rather difficult at
times to identify them as referring to places mutually visited. Thus,
Blunt’s “Hail” and Palgrave’s “Ha’yel” are one; as are also “Jôf” and
“Djowf.” Other differences are “Nejd,” “Nejed,” “Djebel Shomer,” “Jebel
Shammer,” etc.