saved the life of one of their kings more than one thousand years ago.
He is really covered with moss, apparently blind and quite feeble. This
is the home of the spotted fawn, of which their babies seem so dear.
In Siam the women and the men wear only a breach cloth. Both sexes wear
their hair cut short, so it is difficult to distinguish one from the
other.
Monkeys here are as tame as robins at home, and lizards two feet long
crawl over one's bed, but they do not bite.
Of the nineteen million inhabitants over one million are priests. It
takes three hundred of them to do the praying in the one temple here
in Bangkok. This is where the eagles, three feet tall, gather from
the mountains to devour the bodies of the dead who had not left money
enough to pay the priests for the cremation ceremony.
The present king has five hundred wives, seventy-five sons and seven
white elephants on his hands, and yet he is not happy. It was from
here that General Grant went into the forest to see wild elephants.
The herds are not feeding here now, so with two French tourists I have
stopped over at Tringano, on the west coast of the Gulf of Siam.
The elephants of India are being rapidly thinned out, as they with the
tigers hold forest lands which when developed are very productive.
The elephant herds move slowly on irregular circuit, eating everything
about them.
We found no great number together as in a herd of cattle; sometimes
only one and never more than five in a group.
It can be no trick for the exultant European sportsmen to shoot them,
for they are not wild and will hurt no one, unless it be an old
defeated bull, who are said to be ferocious at times.
Ivory now in use is not, as a rule, from the now living elephants. The
natives search it out from under the forest debris, where the remains
of elephants who lived thousands of years ago are found.
MESOPOTAMIA
After visiting the interior of Japan, China, Anam, Siam, Ceylon,
India, Persia, Arabia, I found myself, in the evening of November 2,
1899, at Bagdad, Turkey, in close communion with our American consul,
Rudolph Hurner, who had held that position from the United States to
Mesopotamia for about thirty years. Bagdad is about 400 miles from
the Persian gulf, and is now the largest Mesopotamian city of the old
Babylonian empire, whose kings once caused the world to wince.
Mesopotamia, like the valley of the Yangtsekiang, is by nature
very productive. Either, if properly cultivated, would supply rice
sufficient to sustain the world, but here the outrageous taxes,
together with the wild men of the desert scare away all enterprise,
while in China the Yaw-men actually absorb the products of the soil
through the imposition of exchange.
[Illustration: WITH CONSUL HURNER'S SERVANTS IN BAGDAD, MESOPOTAMIA.]
RUD HURNER
"Now, Mr. Richardson," said Consul Hurner, as in the twilight we stood
in his tropical garden, which overlooks the Tigris River, "you had
better take my advice and not go beyond Hille. It is better to take the
course of other travelers. Go to the border of civilization and then
get some well-informed native to give you particulars, which you can
polish up and call it experience, like the assumed traveler in the Star
and Crescent, who boxed our dead in coffins, a custom unknown here.
"I have represented the United States here for years and have probably
entertained every American traveler who has visited Baylon, Nipper
and other biblical landmarks here. None have been so hazardous as
to go among a people who are so bigoted that they consider it their
religious duty to kill those who would interfere with their mode of
worship. From reports of stragglers, or desert herdsmen, there are, I
presume, twenty thousand people in Nazzip or Me-Schwad, mostly children
of Bedouins. They have no schools, no maps of the world, do not know
north from south and their wealth has been gained through wild raids on
the Mohammedan fanatics bringing their dead to the ancient shrine of
Nazzip, mostly from Persia and India."
"I came out to see the elephant, Mr. Hurner," I said, "and while
I appreciate your advice, I am not afraid of those people. I go
open-handed with little money, which they could use, and with a
disposition to appreciate instead of criticize. My experience with
the uncivilized has been that if one mind his own business, and do not
stray from the crowd, their confidence is soon gained, and they soon
show indications of sympathy and love. Do you think my men will back
out of the agreement?"
"Well, let me see. Old Shammo has been acting as cook and guide around
here for twenty-five years. He boasts that he conducted a funeral party
down the Shat-El-Chebar and over to Me-Schwad twenty years ago. He
may be lying about that, but I think for the price you offer he will
stick to you. Then Moses is a daring fellow, whom you can rely upon.
You ought to know him; he just came up on the boat with you. He has
been to Africa, has he not? He will help you, as he speaks a little
broken English. I think by what I can learn, he is the best fitted
man in Bagdad for you. Alker his half-brother, will probably stick
by you also. Tatus, the wealthy man's son, is anxious to learn about
the south, and will probably go where Moses goes and stay where Moses
stays. I think they are all Shea-Mohammedans, and while they are looked
upon with suspicion they are in much less danger than you are.
"You see, I have your passport signed and sealed by the Turkish
authorities, so you must exhibit that continually, and if the Sheiks
are not able to read one word of it they will recognize the quail
tracks, and think it is an order from Constantinople for you and your
escort to pass through. Then with our arrangements for Nim Burr's old
solid-wood-wheeled stage and the six mounted police, you will get
through to Babylon all right, that is if they do not lay down on you
and make you pay them over again. I think if you furnish, as you seem
to be doing, a quarter of mutton to each man for lunch, they will go
through all right, for it cannot be more than thirty or forty miles to
Babylon.
"From Hille, which is built from the ruins of old Babylon, to Chuffel,
with a good mounted squad, you will make it easily, for they will think
you are rabbinical tourists to Burr's Nimrod and Ezekiel's tomb.
"If you could be satisfied to visit Karbilla, where there is also a
temple for the Mohammedan dead, you could probably run across the
desert from Burr's Nimrod in safety, but if you approach the wealthy
interior city called Me-Schwad or Nazzip, where the temple is, in which
they claim Allah, the brother-in-law of Mohammet, was buried, you may
find a decidedly warm reception and you may not--I do not know. I often
thought I would like to go there myself.
"You may think it strange, Mr. Richardson, that there is no map of that
district, or statistics, or census of the inhabitants of so vast a
country and city, which like the sphinx of the Nile, sits with its face
to the broad valley before it and its back to the great desert, which
is inhabited by roving Bedouins, who respect no law, pay no taxes, and
love their horses more than they do their wives and children, but it is
practically true.
"You see, Mr. Richardson, it is this way: like a Russian Jew who will
spend a life's careful savings for one journey to the tomb of Abraham,
so these Shea-Mohammedans, who are scattered over Arabia, Persia,
Messopotamis and even into India, who have amassed a small fortune,
arrange that when they die their relatives start with their embalmed
bodies--not in coffins, but wound in tarred linen--to carry them on
horses or camels either to Mecca, Me-Schwad or Karbilla.
"When they arrive, the ceremony for the dead is in accordance with the
amount of money they bring. After the funeral, the friends of the dead
stay in town on a protracted spree until their money is spent, then
beg or steal their way home. Thus you see that the sacred temples are
a source of income, and wealth has its influence in the Orient just
the same as in your own Yankeedom. When those mourners are returning
home, either from ignorance or fear, they keep mum as to the city,
conditions, the final disposal of the bodies and everything else.
Simply it is an honor to lug along a putrid carcass and lay it in the
gilded temple of Allah.
"Now, my good friend Richardson, while it may be that Moses will bring
you back safe, still you better take my advice and give up Me-Schwad.
When you get to Babylon get a heavy escort of cavalry and run down to
Nipper, a ruins more ancient than Babylon, where you will find an old
Yankee from Boston rooting around the debris expecting every day to
unearth the private library of Adam with the spinning wheel of Mother
Eve, and place them on exhibition in the world's gallery of fame. Now,
will you give up that trip to Nazzip, or must you go into the stamping
grounds of the dare-devil Mohammedans?"
"Consul," I said, as I laid my hand on his arm and smiled into his
face, "your caution is appreciated, but it does not budge me a hair."
Then we both laughed loud, and he ordered more coffee or something
else, after which I continued: "I have been among the cannibals and
they treated me royally. Of course, it is necessary for one to take
good care not to be ambushed and eat food only from their own cook,
with, of course, a proper guard when on the desert. Now, that isn't
all, Mr. Hurner. I am going to join the big caravan on its way from
Persia to Palestine, and you do not like that either, do you?"
"Mr. Richardson, I wish you could see your finish before you start. Of
course, Oriental traders, half-breeds and camel drivers, who sometimes
speak a little English, often take refuge in those caravans, but they
are not like tourists. During my consulship here, no tourist has passed
over the Dier and Tadmore route. You know you will be as lousy as a
badger in three days, and if you die, they may not even bury you in the
sand, but leave you for the vultures to eat."
"Nonsense, if I avoid accidents and do not stray from the camp I shall
be all right, for no well man can get sick in six weeks if he sticks to
his tea, rusk, eggs and mutton."
"All right, my American invincible, just one more word and I am
through. You remember the first night that you came to Bagdad, how I
took you out on the desert to show you where we had a fair two years
ago, and pointed out the spot where the Bedouins came down upon us and
at the point of their daggers took our collection and not one of them
were arrested. I do this to impress upon your mind the fact that the
Sabeans who fell upon the family of Job still linger on the desert
wild. Now as we have argued so long you must be weary, so please join
me again in refreshments before my guard takes you to your room."
OFF FOR BABYLON
At four o'clock in the morning, November 6, 1899, we crossed the Tigris
River in a tropical downpour, and struck out for the ruins of Babylon.
About nine o'clock we halted for breakfast, where the hotel reminded
me of a blacksmith shop, with several fireplaces and no roof. The plan
in that country is for wayfarers to furnish their own food, cook it
themselves, and when they can find the landlord, pay about one-third
cent each for the accommodation, while the lodging is free anywhere on
the ground. Of course, everyone pays their bills there, for the custom
of the Turks and Bedouins is to kill thieves and burn them with their
families and their entire belongings.
No sooner had our squad been filled with eggs and chickens than they
began to grumble that they could not take us to Babylon on the price
paid, but must leave us at Messaya on the Euphrates, where we could
descend the river in a boat.
Moses now showed his teeth. Shammo began to bawl and everyone took a
hand in the row but myself. They all talked so fast and loud that all I
could understand was the profanity of Moses, who was a brave fellow and
stood up for my rights as best as he could.
After the excitement had subsided, Moses explained that he could
force them to take us through, but was afraid they might move slow
and purposely leave us on the desert for the night, so I ordered them
to turn over to Messaya, where we arrived about four o'clock p. m.,
when I decided the safest way was to have boats take us across the
river at dark, and when out of sight of the village, pay the oarsmen
big money, or force them to take us all the way down the river to
Babylon, the distance of which, as near as I could learn, was somewhere
between three and thirty miles. Our offer was gladly accepted, and we
considered ourselves safe, as the Bedouins around Messaya would not
know where we were.
ON THE EUPHRATES
While gliding down the fourth Bible river, the Euphrates, the moon
came up and seemed to turn its soft face upon the silence and as I
began singing "Old Black Joe," the jackals along the shore joined in,
possibly thinking by my voice that we were all descendants from one
father. All were soon asleep but the oarsmen and myself, and I became
lonesome as I thought of the days of the Aecadian priesthood, the
Babylonian kings, Ezekiel and his people, Alexander the Great, who died
here, all felled by the sickle of the reaper, Time, and here in silence
I seemed to ask, "Where have they gone?"
We arrived at Babylon at three o'clock in the morning, when I was given
the bed of Mr. Nelson, the hospitable German explorer, and the next
morning we took in the ruins, and slept in Hille the next night. The
following day we rode on donkeys to Burr's Nimrod, a wonderful ruins
built of pot-shaped bricks, each weighing several tons. The tower
or temple Ziggurat must have been built at the top of an artificial
mountain on the plain, about seven or eight miles from the ruins of
Babylon. Many think that the ancient city like Nineveh extended beyond
Burr's Nimrod. From Burr's Nimrod on camels we rode to Chuffel, a
village on the Chebar River, where we entered Ezekiel's tomb, of which
the Mohammedons allow no Jew to enter. Still around the open space
there were several tents occupied by orthodox Jews, who had come from
afar to worship at the shrine of their beloved ancestors.
ON THE SHAT-EL-CHEBAR
At Chuffel our trouble began. The Sheik would not let us stay over
night in the town, we had no tent, even if we had dared to sleep in
the open, and the next city, Koofa, was open only to Mohammedans, on
their way to Nazzip with their dead. I began to laugh, which provoked
even Moses, but we soon found relief in a man with one wall eye, minus
a hat, shoes or pants, who with his helpers was accustomed to conduct
funeral parties down the Chebar River to Koofa. He held us up for the
enormous sum of one silver dollar for the ride, and for another dollar
would venture to land us in the corpse room at Koofa, that is if it was
not already occupied by other corpses. Again I smiled as I thought what
would my son Arthur say if he could step into this boat just now and
learn of the encouraging prospects. Moses and his helpers now became a
trifle alarmed at the situation, and while we were eating our chicken,
fried in camel's tallow, I kept laughing, which made Alkar mad, and he
remarked to Moses that he believed I was a fool, traveling on borrowed
money.
After the owner of the boat and his helpers had paddled us down the
river until about ten o'clock at night, we hove in sight of a few dim
lights, which made me scratch my head a trifle, when I learned it was
Koofa. My men were all wearing a sort of sickly grin since we had
learned that the Sheik of Koofa had never before been imposed upon
in this way, and I was beginning to feel that there might have been
a trifle of virtue in Consul Hurner's advice, but I slapped Moses on
the shoulder and said, "The metal in a man shows up only in cases of
an emergency," to which he smiled complacently, as though he had been
assured that he had all night to live.
KOOFA, ARABIA
At the mud landing, more than fifty had assembled, each hoping to
earn a half-penny by carrying a corpse up the hill where, according
to tradition, the Prophet Ezekiel had probably walked on his bare
feet many times, for Koofa was a city on the west bank of the
Shat-El-Chebar, long before Abraham left this region for the land of
Canaan.
When all was ready for the funeral march and Shammo had been loaded
with the luggage, which consisted of pillows, blankets and cooking
utensils, his face actually did take on the mournful hue of an
undertaker carrying the dead across the dark river.
Our guide sang out something which I supposed indicated that a burial
troop was following as he dashed through the crowd, up the cliff,
dodging this way and that through the dark, alley-like streets and
rooms, where tall men with dark visages sat on high benches and
scowled at our approach, until he landed us in a square cement room,
about 12×12, with no ventilation save a hole over the door, when he
mysteriously disappeared, taking his dim oil light with him.
Soon officers appeared whom, I could see, were confused. Moses tried
to pacify them by saying I was a rich man and would pay much money,
but they did not seem to pacify, because the rich man was neither a
Mohammedan nor a dead man. Their howling was to the effect that the
owner of the room was ruined, as no dead Mohammedan would consent to
be laid in that room after we had occupied it. At last, after Moses had
killed all the time he possibly could, I demanded to see the Sheik,
which request is never refused among the Arabs.
THE SHEIK OF KOOFA
Soon a guard of about twenty appeared and started with Moses and myself
to consult the Sheik; while all the town, men, women and children,
ran on either side of us, eager to get a glimpse of my pants, as,
apparently, neither sex had ever seen before, or much less, donned such
tight-fitting garments.
After walking probably a mile we entered a dark alley, where, on one of
the side walls, our escort began pounding and crying out until a gruff
voice, which came as through a tube back of us, answered, and after a
long wait we saw a dim light right back of where we were standing, but
no one appeared.
While we were waiting Moses jokingly inquired of me, "Do you wish you
were in Chicago?" "No," I replied, "it is eleven o'clock in the morning
there now and they are all working hard, while I am enjoying touring
just waiting here in the shadows for permission to go to bed." "You're
a queer sort of a cuss," was his smiling retort.
At length, after the voice and the officer had talked back and forth
through the hole, of which I overheard them speak the words English,
Christian, Devil, Mohammedan, Bagdad, Nazzip and a few other words
which I could understand, there seemed to be a stir, as some one from
the inside began taking down boards; and with two of the party, Moses
and myself crept up the rickety stairway, feeling our way through a
long, dark hall which opened into a room about 20×40. In this room,
which was the palace of the Sheik, there was no furniture save a bed,
table and a long bench. On the table was burning an oiled rag, one end
soaking in a dish shaped like a wooden shoe.
In the center of the large bed, which was, as near as I could see,
composed of a mass of beautiful soft rugs, sat a sharp featured
man with piercing black eyes and long white hair and whiskers. His
face revealed no form or air of authority, but on the contrary, his
sun-burned features wore a friendly smile while he gazed fixedly at
me, apparently paying no attention to the officers' gabble, who were
apparently over-estimating the enormity of the crime.
While he studied me I studied him, and concluded that in his care
I was all right. Finally he inquired of Moses if I had friends in
America, and why I came to a sacred city without permission, at which
Moses turned to me for explanation. After explaining my position and
truthfully telling him how we came into what we knew was a forbidden
town because we were afraid to stay outside, I then, through Moses,
word for word, explained that Americans always heard that the chiefs of
Arab tribes were great and good men, and were hospitable to strangers;
especially when they did not interfere with their religion. This was
the substance of my drift, although we talked back and forth for more
than an hour.
A skittish scene now took place; he called the chief officer to his
side on the bed and by the dim light they began whispering, so Moses
and I could not hear, occasionally turning their piercing gaze on me.
At the conclusion he dismissed his officer and told Moses to tell
me that at Me-Schwad they had a room for such people, and we must
go there, for which he would send a heavy guard to protect us. Then
it took about ten minutes for him to express his gratitude for my
confidence in him and his protecting power, and he wanted me to feel
that Allah loved upright strangers in all the world.
I then asked him if the guards at Me-Schwad would let us into the city,
as it was now past midnight. To this he replied, "No," but said his
force should furnish blankets and guard us all night.
I hesitated and looked down, which made him inquire of Moses if I was
sorry, at which I looked him kindly in the face as Moses interpreted
each word, and said that I was sorry to go home and tell my people that
the Sheik of Koofa had sent me away in the desert in the dark.
Now he called the guard again, and after another continued whispering
decided we could stay in the room over night, but must be prepared to
leave at sunrise in the morning. As I left the room I felt his powerful
influence on me, and turning quickly, I again met that kindly gaze as
the old chief raised his thin, bloodless hand adieu. That night in my
prayers I thanked God that the magnanimity of Abraham still tinged the
veins of his people, even though they were deprived of the world's
bounties through non-progressive bigotry.
Soon I was peacefully resting in the unventilated room, which my
friends on the other side of the world would have spurned, but to me
it was experience, and I was glad to know that pity, love and sympathy
were not confined to any one people, but were God-given attributes to
humanity.
My sweet dreams, if such they were, were cut short by Shammo, who began
frying camel steak, goat or some other kind of meat close by my head,
and soon we learned that the Sheik had ordered his special body guard
to take us to Me-Schwad, Arabia, which was about twenty-five mile
southwest from Koofa, over the trackless desert.
[Illustration: DESERT LIFE AMONG THE ARABS.]
WILD, YET BEAUTIFUL
At sunrise, leaving Shammo to care for the luggage, we mounted spirited
horses selected for us, and with an escort of about one hundred
cavalry picked our way, Indian file, up through the lane-like streets
of Koofa until we reached the summit, from which we had a view of the
surrounding country, especially ancient Nazzip, now called both Nazzip
and Me-Schwab, which lay on a rise of ground before us, just far enough
away to conceal its grossness.
The morning sun at our backs cast its golden rays across the desert
wild interspersed with clumps of verdure green. Over and beyond lay,
face to us, the silver side-hill city of Nazzip, like the Arab himself,
whose ambition is an array of dashing splendor. The Mohammedan pride
appeared decorated with polished steeples and spires coated with sheets
of silver and polished bronze, while the great Allah temple sat as a
center piece. As we neared the scene it became grotesque, but in the
far away it looked like a dazzling gem, set in soft Oriental drapery.
A thoughtless vision seemed to confuse me with the scene as I said to
myself, "Oh, if my Chicago friends were here to enjoy this enthusiasm."
Now all the horses, with heads high, who could run like greyhounds,
amid the whoops and howls of the braves of the desert, struck out
wildly for the Oriental Silver Shrine. This was too much for me, and
forgetting that I was to avoid all risks I stood in my stirrups and
urged my horse forward in the race, which had broken its ranks, and
soon found myself near the front of the now go-as-you-please, bawling
to my steed like a regular Buffalo Bill, and this was kept up all the
way to Me-Schwab. When I liberally recompensed the chief he kissed me,
and I kissed him; then he put his arm around me and shook me and kissed
me again, then they all cheered and were off.
NAZZIP