[p.396] Assal. Near the rivulet are some olive plantations. At two hours
and three quarters is Ketherabba (Arabic), a village with about eighty
houses. Many of its inhabitants live under tents pitched in the square
open spaces left among the houses of the village. The gardens contain
great numbers of large fig trees. The mountains in the neighbourhood are
cultivated in some parts by the Beni Ammer. The village of Szaffye in
the Ghor bears from hence W.
August 5th.We left Ketherabba early in the morning. Our road lay
through a wild and entirely barren rocky country, ascending and
descending several Wadys. In one hour and a quarter we came to Oerak
(Arabic), a village of the same size as the former, very picturesquely
situated; it is built at the foot of a high perpendicular cliff, down
which a rivulet rushes into the Wady below. Many immense fragments have
separated from the cliff, and fallen down; and amongst these rocks the
houses of the village are built. Its inhabitants cultivate, besides
wheat, barley, and dhourra, olives, figs, and tobacco, which they sell
to advantage. We rested here the greater part of the day, under a large
Kharnoub tree. Our Sheikh had no pressing business, but like all Arabs,
fond of idleness, and of living well at other peoples expense, he by no
means hastened his journey, but easily found a pretext for stopping;
wherever we alighted a couple of sheep or goats were immediately killed,
and the best fruits, together with plenty of tobacco, were presented to
us. Our company increased at every village, as all those Arabs who had
horses followed us, in order to partake of our good fare, so that our
party amounted at last to eighty men. At two hours and a quarter is a
fine spring; two hours and a half, the village Khanzyre (Arabic), which
is larger than Oerak and Ketherabba. Here we stopped a whole day, our
Sheikh having a house in the village, and a wife, whom he dared not
carry to Kerek, having another family there. In the evening he held a
court
[p.397] of justice, as he had done at Ketherabba, and decided a number
of disputes between the peasants; the greater part of these were
concerning money transactions between husbands and the families of their
wives; or related to the mixed property of the Arabs in mares, in
consequence of the Bedouin custom of selling only one-half, or one-third
of those animals.
August 6th.Khanzyre is built on the declivity of one of the highest
mountains on the eastern side of the Dead sea; in its neighbourhood are
a number of springs whose united waters form a rivulet which irrigates
the fields belonging to the village, and an extensive tract of gardens.
The villages of this country are each governed by its own Sheikh, and
the peasants are little better than Bedouins; their manners, dress, and
mode of living are exactly the same. In the harvest time they live in
the mountains under tents, and their cattle is entrusted during the
whole year to a small encampment of their own shepherds. In the
afternoon of this day we were alarmed by loud cries in the direction of
the opposite mountain. The whole of our party immediately mounted, and I
also followed. On reaching the spot from whence the cries came, we found
two shepherds of Khanzyre quite naked; they had been stripped by a party
of the Arabs Terabein, who live in the mountains of Hebron, and each of
the robbers had carried off a fat sheep upon his mare. They were now too
far off to be overtaken; and our people, not being able to engage the
enemy, amused themselves with a sham-fight in their return home. They
displayed superior strength and agility in handling the lance, and great
boldness in riding at full speed over rugged and rocky ground. In the
exercise with the lance the rider endeavours to put the point of it upon
the shoulder of his adversary, thus showing that his life is in his
power. When the parties become heated, they often bear off upon their
lances the turbands of their adversaries, and carry them
[p.398] about with insolent vociferation. Our Sheikh of Kerek, a man of
sixty, far excelled all his people in these youthful, exercises; indeed
he seemed to be an accomplished Bedouin Sheikh; though he proved to be a
treacherous friend to me. As I thought that I had settled matters with
him, to his entire satisfaction, I was not a little astonished, when he
took me aside in the evening to announce to me, that unless he received
twenty piastres more, he would not take charge of me any farther.
Although I knew it was not in his power to hinder me from following him,
and that he could not proceed to violence without entirely losing his
reputation among the Arabs, for ill-treating his guest, yet I had
acquired sufficient knowledge of the Sheikhs character to be persuaded
that if I did not acquiesce in his demand, he would devise some means to
get me into a situation which it would have perhaps cost me double the
sum to escape from; I therefore began to bargain with him; and brought
him down to fifteen piastres. I then endeavoured to bind him by the most
solemn oath used by the Bedouins; laying his hand upon the head of his
little boy, and on the fore feet of his mare, he swore that he would,
for that sum, conduct me himself, or cause me to be conducted, to the
Arabs Howeytat, from whence I might hope to find a mode of proceeding in
safety to Egypt. My precautions, however, were all in vain. Being
satisfied that my cash was reduced to a few piastres, he began his plans
for stripping me of every other part of my property which had excited
his wishes. The day after his oath, when we were about to depart from
Ayme, he addressed me in the presence of the whole company, saying that
his saddle would fit my horse better than my own did, and that he would
therefore change saddles with me. Mine was worth nearly forty piastres,
his was not worth more than ten. I objected to the exchange, pretending
that I was not accustomed to ride upon the low Bedouin saddle; he
replied, by assuring
[p.399] me that I should soon find it much more agreeable than the town
saddle; moreover, said he, you may depend upon it that the Sheikh of the
Howeytat will take your saddle from you, if you do not give it to me. I
did not dare to put the Sheikh in mind of his oath, for had I betrayed
to the company his having extorted from me so much, merely for the sake
of his company, he would certainly have been severely reprimanded by the
Bedouins present, and I should thus have exposed myself to the effects
of his revenge. All the bye-standers at the same time pressed me to
comply with his request: Is he not your brother? said they. Are not
the best morsels of his dish always for you? Does he not continually
fill your pipe with his own tobacco? Fie upon your stinginess. But they
did not know that I had calculated upon paying part of the hire of a
guide to Egypt with the value of the saddle, nor that I had already
handsomely paid for my brotherhood. I at last reluctantly complied; but
the Sheikh was not yet satisfied: the stirrups he had given me, although
much inferior to those he had taken from me, were too good in his eyes,
to form part of my equipment. In the evening his son came to me to
propose an exchange of these stirrups against a pair of his own almost
unfit for use, and which I knew would wound my ankles, as I did not wear
boots; but it was in vain to resist. The pressing intreaties of all my
companions in favour of the Sheikhs son lasted for two whole days;
until tired at length with their importunity, I yielded, and, as had
expected, my feet were soon wounded. I have entered into these details
in order to shew what Arab cupidity is: an article of dress, or of
equipment, which the poorest townsman would be ashamed to wear, is still
a covetable object with the Bedouins; they set no bounds to their
demands, delicacy is unknown amongst them, nor have they any word to
express it; if indeed one persists in refusing, they never take the
thing by force; but it is extremely