WANDERINGS IN
THREE CONTINENTS
[Frontispiece:
Allen & Co. Ph. Sc.
Richard F. Burton
الحاج عباده
]
WANDERINGS IN
THREE CONTINENTS
BY THE LATE
CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD F. BURTON, K.C.M.G.
EDITED, WITH A PREFACE, BY W. H. WILKINS, M.A., F.S.A. EDITOR OF THE
BURTON MSS. AND AUTHOR OF “THE ROMANCE OF ISABEL LADY BURTON,” ETC.
WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT AND
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. D. MᶜCORMICK
[Illustration: Printer’s Logo]
London: HUTCHINSON & CO
Paternoster Row [Illustration: small graphics] 1901
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
EL MEDINAH AND MECCAH 1
I――THE VISITATION OF EL MEDINAH 3
II――THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCAH 35
A RIDE TO HARAR 71
TO THE HEART OF AFRICA 99
I――THE JOURNEY 101
II――THE LAKE REGIONS 127
THE CITY OF THE MORMONS 147
I――THE JOURNEY 149
II――THE CITY AND ITS PROPHET 172
A MISSION TO DAHOMÉ 197
A TRIP UP THE CONGO 225
THE INTERIOR OF BRAZIL 259
THROUGH SYRIA TO PALMYRA 283
PREFACE
Burton was a many-sided man. The following volume of posthumous essays
reveals him in the aspect in which he was best known to the world――as
a traveller and explorer. It will add comparatively little to the
knowledge of the Burton student; to the general reader it will contain
much that is new, for though Burton wrote and published many bulky
volumes of travel in years gone by, none of them assumed a popular
form, and it may be doubted if any, save his “Pilgrimage to Meccah and
El Medinah,” reached the outer circle of the great reading public.
Most of his books are now out of copyright, many are out of print, and
few are easily obtainable. This volume, therefore, will supply a need,
in that it gives in a popular form a consensus of his most important
travels in three continents. It will also, I hope, remind his
countrymen of the achievements of this remarkable man, and bring home
to many a deeper sense of what we have lost in him. This was the view
taken by Lady Burton, who had hoped to incorporate these essays in her
memorial edition of “The Labours and Wisdom of Sir Richard Burton,” a
work cut short by her death. Upon me, therefore, has devolved the task
of editing them and preparing them for publication. They form the
second volume of the Burton MSS. which have been published since Lady
Burton’s death, and I am the more encouraged to give them to the world
by the success which attended the previous volume, “The Jew, the
Gypsy, and El Islam.” The reception of this book, though published
under obvious difficulties, and eight years after the author’s death,
showed that the interest in the great traveller’s work was in no
degree abated.
The essays that follow were all prepared by Burton himself, and most
of them were read by him in the form of lectures before sundry
geographical and scientific societies at different times. For
instance, the description of his expeditions to El Medinah, Meccah,
Harar, and Dahomé were delivered by him as a course of four lectures
before the Emperor and Empress of Brazil at Rio in 1866. The account
of his Central African expedition was read, I believe, at Bath, the
one on Damascus and Palmyra at Edinburgh, the one on the Mormons in
London. I have deleted the local and topical allusions, which arose
from the circumstances under which they were delivered; I have filled
in a word or two where the notes were too sketchy; but that is all.
Otherwise, the manuscript is reproduced exactly as it left the
author’s hands. In his own words, simply and unaffectedly, Burton here
gives an epitome of his principal travels in three continents.
In this condensed form the essays necessarily lose something. On the
other hand, they gain much. Careful and accurate as all Burton’s books
of travel were, his passion for detail sometimes led him into
tediousness. He crammed his notebooks so full that he had occasionally
a difficulty in digesting the large mass of information he had
acquired. He was addicted to excessive annotation. For instance, in
his book on the Mormons, the large text occupied on some pages only
three lines, the rest of the page being broken up by closely printed
notes, extracts from Mormon books and sermons, which can only be
considered as superfluous. Extraneous matter of this kind has been
omitted here, and the result is a clear gain to the narrative.
The book covers the period from 1853 to 1870, the most active years of
Burton’s active life. It opens most fitly with an account of his
pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah. This famous expedition was the
turning-point of Burton’s career; in a sense it may be said to have
been the beginning of it. Though he had already shown much promise and
some performance, and was known to many in India as a linguist,
soldier, writer, and man of unusual ability, he was yet unknown to the
greater world outside. But after his pilgrimage to Meccah his fame
became world-wide and enduring. I say this in no spirit of
exaggeration. When all that Burton wrote and wrought has passed away
into that limbo of forgetfulness which awaits the labours of even the
most distinguished among us, this at least will be remembered to his
honour, that he was the first Englishman to penetrate to the Holy of
Holies at Meccah. I write the first Englishman advisedly. Burckhardt,
a Swiss explorer, had gone part of the way before him, and since his
day one or two have the made the pilgrimage, but, though it was a
sufficiently difficult task when they performed it, it was much more
difficult when Burton did it in 1853. He was not a man to do things by
halves. He made the pilgrimage thoroughly, living absolutely the life
of the Moslems, wearing their clothes, eating their food, joining in
their prayers, sacrifices, and ritual, and speaking their language; he
did all this, carrying his life in his hand, for one false step, one
prayer unsaid, one trifling item of the shibboleth omitted, and the
dog of an infidel who had dared to profane the sanctuary of the
Prophet would have been found out, and his bones would have whitened
the desert sand. Not that Burton went to profane the tomb of the
Prophet. Far from it. From his early manhood he had been a sympathetic
student of the higher aspects of El Islam. He had come to see that in
it, above and beyond all the corruptions and abuses which clung around
the Saving Faith, there existed an occult force which had made it a
power among men. Not only in his achievement, but in the way he did
it, Burton manifested those great qualities which have made the
English race what it is; he showed tenacity, pluck, and strength of
purpose, and, withal, he accomplished his purpose unobtrusively. None
knew until he came back how great a task he had achieved.
It was the same with all that Burton undertook. He did his work
thoroughly, and he did it without any beating of drums or blaring of
trumpets. “Deeds, not words,” was his rule; “Honour, not honours,” his
motto. His expedition to Harar the following year was almost as
arduous as his pilgrimage to Meccah. No European had ever before
passed the gates of the city in Somaliland. But Burton passed them,
and stayed in Harar some days. Again, his long and dangerous
expedition into Central Africa, which occupied nearly three years,
showed in a marvellous manner his resource, his courage, and his
powers of endurance. On the unfortunate controversy which afterwards
arose between himself and Speke it is not necessary to enter here; but
this much, at least, may be said. In the discovery of Lake Tanganyika
Burton was the pioneer; his was the brain which planned and commanded
the expedition, and carried it through to a successful issue. It was
he who first achieved with inadequate means and insufficient escort
what Livingstone, Cameron, Speke, Grant, Baker, and Stanley achieved
later.
Of the remaining essays there is little to be said. Burton’s
description of the Mormons in Great Salt Lake City printed here is, I
think, very much better than his bulky book on the same subject, “The
City of the Saints.” In the larger work Burton ventured on prophecy,
always unsafe, and predicted a great future for Mormondom and
polygamy, a prediction which has not so far been verified by events.
On the other hand, this account of his mission to Dahomé certainly
loses by excessive condensation. “The Trip up the Congo” and “The
Interior of Brazil” are lightning sketches of expeditions which
involved much preparation and trouble to carry them through. “Palmyra”
is a formal survey rather than an account of an expedition. It is
interesting, as it marks an epoch in (one had almost written, the end
of) Burton’s active life. In 1870 he was suddenly recalled from
Damascus by Lord Granville, and his career was broken.
After his appointment to the post of Consul at Trieste he went on some
expeditions, notably to Midian, but they were tame indeed compared
with those to Meccah, Harar, and Central Africa. At Trieste the
eagle’s wings were clipped, and the man who had great energy and
ability, a knowledge of more than a score of languages, and an
unrivalled experience of Eastern life and literature, was suffered to
drag out eighteen years in the obscurity of a second-rate seaport
town. True, it was not all lost time, for ample leisure was given him
at Trieste for his literary labours. If he had been thrown in a more
active sphere, his great masterpiece, “Alf Laylah Wa Laylah” (“The
Arabian Nights”) might never have seen the light.
But when all is said and done, the most fruitful years of Burton’s
career, the richest in promise and performance, were those that began
with the pilgrimage to Meccah and ended with his recall from Damascus.
They were the very heart of his life: they are the years covered by
this book.
W. H. WILKINS.
_October 1901._
_EL MEDINAH AND MECCAH_
1853
I
_THE VISITATION OF EL MEDINAH_
The Moslem’s pilgrimage is a familiar word to the Christian’s ear, yet
how few are acquainted with the nature or the signification of the
rite! Unto the present day, learned men――even those who make a
pretence to some knowledge of the East――still confound Meccah, the
birthplace, with El Medinah, the burial-place, of Mohammed, the Arab
law-giver. “The Prophet’s tomb at Meccah” is a mistake which even the
best-informed of our journals do not disdain to make.
Before, however, entering upon the journey which procured for me the
title “haji,” it is necessary for me to dispose of a few preliminaries
which must savour of the personal. The first question that suggests
itself is, “What course of study enabled an Englishman to pass
unsuspected through the Moslem’s exclusive and jealously guarded Holy
Land?”
I must premise that in the matter of assuming an Oriental nationality,
Nature was somewhat propitious to me. Golden locks and blue eyes,
however _per se_ desirable, would have been sad obstacles to progress
in swarthy Arabia. And to what Nature had begun, art contributed by
long years of laborious occupation.
Finding Oxford, with its Greek and Latin, its mysteries of δε and γαρ,
and its theology and mathematics, exceedingly monotonous, I shipped
myself for India and entered life in the 18th Sepoy Regiment of the
Bombay Presidency. With sundry intervals of travel, my career between
1843 and 1849 was spent in Scinde. This newly conquered province was
very Mohammedan, and the conquerors were compelled, during the work of
organisation, to see more of the conquered than is usual in England’s
East Indian possession. Sir Charles Napier, of gallant memory, our
Governor and Commander-in-Chief, honoured me with a staff appointment,
and humoured my whim by allowing me to wander about the new land as a
canal engineer employed upon its intricate canal system. My days and
nights were thus spent among the people, and within five years I was
enabled to pass examinations in six Eastern languages.
In 1849 (March 30th-September 5th) an obstinate rheumatic ophthalmia,
the result of overwork, sent me back to Europe, where nearly three
years were passed before I was pronounced cured. Then, thoroughly
tired of civilisation and living “dully sluggardised at home,” and
pining for the breath of the desert and the music of the date-palm, I
volunteered in the autumn of 1852 to explore the great waste of
Eastern and Central Arabia――that huge white blot which still disgraces
our best maps. But the Court of Directors of the then Honourable East
India Company, with their mild and amiable chairman, after
deliberation, stoutly refused. They saw in me only another victim,
like Stoddard Connolly and the brave brothers Wyburd, rushing on his
own destruction and leaving behind him friends and family to trouble
with their requisitions the peace and quiet of the India House.
What remained to me but to prove that what might imperil others was to
me safe? Supplied with the sinews of travel by the Royal Geographical
Society, curious to see what men are mostly content to hear of
only――namely, Moslem inner life in a purely Mohammedan land――and
longing to set foot within the mysterious Meccah which no vacation
tourist had ever yet measured, sketched, photographed, and described,
I resolved, _coûte qu’il coûte_, to make the attempt in my old
character of a dervish. The safest as well as the most interesting
time would be during the pilgrimage season.
The Moslem’s hajj, or pilgrimage, means, I must premise, “aspiration,”
and expresses man’s conviction that he is but a wayfarer on earth
wending towards a nobler world. This explains the general belief of
the men in sandaled shoon that the greater their hardships, the sorer
to travel the road to Jordan, the higher will be their reward in
heaven. The pilgrim is urged by the voice of his soul――“O thou,
toiling so fiercely for worldly pleasure and for transitory profit,
wilt thou endure nothing to win a more lasting boon?” Hence it is that
pilgrimage is common to all ancient faiths. The Sabæans, or old
Arabians, visited the Pyramids as the sepulchres of Seth and his son
Sabi, the founder of their sect. The classical philosophers wandered
through the Valley of the Nile. The Jews annually went up to
Jerusalem. The Tartar Buddhists still journey to distant Lamaserais,
and the Hindus to Egypt, to Tibet, to Gaya, on the Ganges, and to the
inhospitable Caucasus. The spirit of pilgrimage animated mediæval
Europe, and a learned Jesuit traveller considers the processions of
the Roman Catholic Church modern vestiges of the olden rite.
El Islam――meaning the covenant in virtue of which men earn eternal
life by good works in this world――requires of all its votaries daily
ablution and prayer, almsgiving on certain occasions, one month’s
yearly fast, and at least one pilgrimage to the House of Allah at
Meccah and the mountain of Ararat. This first, and often the single,
visit is called Hajjat el Islam, or pilgrimage of being a Moslem, and
all those subsequently performed are regarded as works of
supererogation. The rite, however, is incumbent only upon those who
possess a sufficiency of health or wealth. El Islam is a creed
remarkable for common sense.
The journey to El Medinah is not called hajj, but ziyarat, meaning a
ceremonial visitation. Thus the difference between worship due to the
Creator and homage rendered to the creature is steadily placed and
kept before the Moslem’s eyes. Some sects――the Wahhabi, or Arabian
Puritans, for instance――even condemn as impious all intercessions
between man and his Maker, especially the prayers at the Prophet’s
grave. The mass, however, of the Mohammedan Church, if such expression
be applicable to a system which repudiates an ecclesiastical body,
considers this visitation a “practice of the faith, and the most
effectual way of drawing near to Allah through the Prophet Mohammed.”
The Moslem’s literature has many a thick volume upon the minutiæ of
pilgrimage and visitation. All four Sumni, or orthodox schools――viz.,
Hunafi, Shafli, Maliki, and Hanbali――differ in unimportant points one
with the other. Usually pilgrims, especially those performing the rite
for the first time, begin with Meccah and end with El Medinah. But
there is no positive command on the subject. In these days pilgrims
from the north countries――Egypt and Syria, Damascus and Bagdad――pass
through the Prophet’s burial-place going to and coming from Meccah,
making a visitation each time. Voyagers from the south――as East
Africa, India, and Java――must often deny themselves, on account of
danger and expense, the spiritual advantages of prayer at Mohammed’s
tomb.
I have often been asked if the pilgrim receives any written proof that
he has performed his pilgrimage. Formerly the Sherif (descendant of
Hasan), or Prince, of Meccah gave a certificate to those who could
afford it, and early in the present century the names of all who paid
the fee were registered by a scribe. All that has passed. But the
ceremonies are so complicated and the localities so peculiar that no
book can thoroughly teach them. The pretended pilgrim would readily be
detected after a short cross-questioning of the real Simon Pure. As
facilities of travel increase, and the rite becomes more popular, no
pilgrim, unless he comes from the edge of the Moslem world, cares to
bind on the green turban which his grandfather affected. Few also
style themselves haji, unless for an especial reason――as an evidence
of reformed life, for instance, or a sign of being a serious person.
Some also have inquired if I was not the first “Christian” who ever
visited the Moslem’s Holy Land. The learned Gibbon asserted――“Our
notions of Meccah must be drawn from the Arabians. As no unbeliever is
permitted to enter the city, our travellers are silent.”[1] But Haji
Yunus (Ludovico di Bartema) performed the pilgrimage in A.D. 1503;
Joseph Pitts, of Exeter, in 1680, Ali Bey el Abbasi (the Catalonian
Badia) in 1807, Haji Mohammed (Giovanni Finati, of Ferrara) in 1811,
and the excellent Swiss traveller Burckhardt in 1814, all passed
safely through the Hejaz, or Holy Land. I mention those only who have
written upon the subject. Those who have not must be far more
numerous. In fact, any man may become a haji by prefacing his
pilgrimage with a solemn and public profession of faith before the
Kazi in Cairo or Damascus; or, simpler still, by applying through his
Consulate to be put under the protection of the Amir el Haji, or
Commander of the Pilgrim Caravan.
If I did anything new, it was this――my pilgrimage was performed as by
one of the people. El Islam theoretically encourages, but practically
despises and distrusts, the burma, or renegade. Such a convert is
allowed to see as little as possible, and is ever suspected of being a
spy. He is carefully watched night and day, and in troublous times he
finds it difficult to travel between Meccah and El Medinah. Far be it
from me to disparage the labours of my predecessors. But Bartema
travelled as a Mameluke in the days when Mamelukes were Christian
slaves, Pitts was a captive carried to the pilgrimage by his Algerine
master, Badia’s political position was known to all the authorities,
Finati was an Albanian soldier, and Burckhardt revealed himself to the
old Pacha Mohammed Ali.
As regards the danger of pilgrimage in the case of the non-Moslem,
little beyond the somewhat extensive chapter of accidents is to be
apprehended by one conversant with Moslem prayers and formulæ, manners
and customs, and who possesses a sufficient guarantee of orthodoxy. It
is, however, absolutely indispensable to be a Mohammedan in externals.
Neither the Koran nor the Sultan enjoins the killing of Hebrew or
Christian intruders; nevertheless, in 1860, a Jew, who refused to
repeat the Creed, was crucified by the Meccan populace, and in the
event of a pilgrim declaring himself to be an infidel the authorities
would be powerless to protect him.
The question of _Cui bono?_――of what good I did to others or to myself
by the adventure――is not so easily answered. My account of El Medinah
is somewhat fuller than that of Burckhardt, whose health was breaking
when he visited it. And our caravan’s route between the Holy Cities
was not the beaten track along the Red Sea, but the little-known
eastern or desert road. Some critics certainly twitted me with having
“turned Turk”; one might turn worse things. For the rest, man is ever
most tempted by the useless and the impossible.
To appear in character upon the scene of action many precautions were
necessary. Egypt in those days was a land of passports and policemen;
the _haute-police_ was not inferior to that of any European country.
By the advice of a brother-officer, Captain Grindley, I assumed the
Eastern dress at my lodgings in London, and my friend accompanied me
as interpreter to Southampton. On April 4th, 1853, a certain Shaykh
Abdullah (to wit, myself) left home in the P. & O. Company’s steamer
_Bengal_, and before the end of the fortnight landed at Alexandria. It
was not exactly pleasant for the said personage to speak broken
English the whole way, and rigorously to refuse himself the pleasure
of addressing the other sex; but under the circumstances it was
necessary.
Fortunately, on board the _Bengal_ was John Larking, a well-known
Alexandrian. He was in my secret, and I was received in his house,
where he gave me a little detached pavilion and treated me as a
munshi, or language-master. My profession among the people was that of
a doctor. The Egyptians are a medico-ridden race; all are more or less
unhealthy, and they could not look upon my phials and pill-boxes
without yearning for their contents. An Indian doctor was a novelty to
them; Franks they despised; but how resist a man who had come so far,
from east and west? Men, women, and children besieged my door, by
which means I could see the people face to face, especially that
portion of which Europeans as a rule know only the worst. Even learned
Alexandrians, after witnessing some of my experiments in mesmerism and
the magic mirror, opined that the stranger was a manner of holy man
gifted with preternatural powers. An old man sent to offer me his
daughter in marriage――my sanctity compelled me to decline the
honour――and a middle-aged lady offered me a hundred piastres (nearly
one pound sterling) to stay at Alexandria and superintend the
restoration of her blind left eye.
After a month pleasantly spent in the little garden of roses, jasmine,
and oleanders, I made in early June a move towards Cairo. The first
thing was to procure a passport; I had neglected, through ignorance,
to bring one from England. It was not without difficulty, involving
much unclean dressing and expenditure of horrible English, that I
obtained from H.B.M.’s Consul at Alexandria a certificate declaring me
to be an Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor,
and, to judge from frequent blanks in the document, not distinguished
by any remarkable conformation of eyes, nose, or cheek. This paper,
duly countersigned by the zabit, or police magistrate, would carry me
anywhere within the Egyptian frontier.
At Alexandria also I provided a few necessaries for the pilgrimage:
item――a change or two of clothing; a substantial leather money belt to
carry my gold in; a little cotton bag for silver and small change,
kept ready for use in the breast pocket; a zemzimiyah, or water-bag of
goatskin; a huge cotton umbrella of Cairene make, brightly yellow,
like an overgrown marigold; a coarse Persian rug, which acted as bed,
table, chair, and oratory; a pea-green box, with red and yellow
flowers, capable of standing falls from a camel twice a day, and
therefore well fitted for a medicine chest; and, lastly, the only
peculiar article――viz., the shroud, without which no one sets out _en
route_ to Meccah. This _memento mori_ is a piece of cotton six feet
long by five broad. It is useful, for instance, when a man is
dangerously sick or wounded; the caravan, of course, cannot wait, and
to loiter behind is destruction. The patient, therefore, is
ceremonially washed, wrapped up in his kafan, partly covered with
sand, and left to his fate. It is hard to think of such an end without
horror; the torturing thirst of a wound, the sun heating the brain to
madness, and, worst of all――for they do not wait for death――the
attacks of the jackal, the vulture, and the ravens of the wilds. This
shroud was duly sprinkled, as is the custom, with the holy water of
the Zemzem well at Meccah. It later came to a bad end amongst the
villainous Somal in Eastern Africa.
Equipped in a dervish’s frock, I took leave of my kind host and set
out, a third-class passenger, upon a steamer facetiously known as the
_Little Asthmatic_. In those days the rail had not invaded Egypt. We
had an unpleasant journey up the Mahmadiyah Canal and the Nile, which
is connected by it with Alexandria. The usual time was thirty hours.
We took three mortal days and nights. We were nearly wrecked at the
then unfinished Barage, we saw nothing of the Pyramids but their tops,
and it was with a real feeling of satisfaction that we moored
alongside of the old tumble-down suburb, Bulak.
My dervishhood was perfectly successful. I happened by chance to touch
the elbow of an Anglo-Indian officer, and he publicly and forcibly
condemned my organs of vision. And I made an acquaintance and a friend
on board. The former was a shawl and cotton merchant, Meyan Khudabaksh
Namdar, of Lahore, who, as the caravanserais were full of pilgrims,
lodged me at his house for a fortnight. The conversations that passed
between us were published two years later in 1855.[2] They clearly
pointed to the mutiny which occurred two years afterwards, and this,
together with my frankness about the Suez Canal,[3] did not tend to
make me a favourite with the then effete Government of India.
My friend was a Turkish trader, named Haji Wali-el-din. He was then a
man about forty-five, of middle stature, with a large round head
closely shaven, a bull neck, limbs sturdy as a Saxon’s, a thin red
beard, and handsome features beaming benevolence. A curious dry humour
he had, delighting in “quizzing,” but in so quiet, quaint, and solemn
a way that before you knew him you could scarce divine his drift. He
presently found for me rooms next his own at the wakalah, or
caravanserai, called Jemeliyah, in the Greek quarter, and I tried to
repay his kindness by counselling him in an unpleasant Consular suit.
When we lived under the same roof, the haji and I became inseparable.
We walked together and dined together, and spent the evening at a
mosque or other place of public pastime. Sometimes we sat among the
dervishes; but they are a dangerous race, travelled and inquisitive.
Meanwhile I continued to practise my profession――the medical――and
devoted myself several hours a day to study in the Azhar Mosque,
sitting under the learned Shaykh Mohammed Ali Attar. The better to
study the “humours,” I also became a grocer and druggist, and my
little shop, a mere hole in the wall, was a perfect gem of Nilotic
groceries. But although I sold my wares under cost price to fair
customers, my chief clients were small boys and girls, who came,
halfpence in hand, to buy sugar and pepper; so one day, determining to
sink the thirty shillings which my stock in trade had stood me, I
locked the wooden shutter that defended my establishment and made it
over to my shaykh.
The haji and I fasted together during the month of Ramazan. That year
it fell in the torrid June, and it always makes the Moslem unhealthy
and unamiable. At the end preparations were to be made for departure
Meccah-wards, and the event was hastened by a convivial _séance_ with
a bacchanalian captain of Albanians, which made the gossips of the
quarter wonder what manner of an Indian doctor had got amongst them.
I was fortunate enough, however, to hire the services of Shaykh Nur, a
quiet East Indian, whose black skin made society suppose him to be my
slave. Never suspecting my nationality till after my return from
Meccah, he behaved honestly enough; but when absolved by pilgrimage
from his past sins, Haji Nur began to rob me so boldly that we were
compelled to part. I also made acquaintance with certain sons of the
Holy Cities――seven men from El Medinah and Meccah――who, after a
begging-trip to Constantinople, were returning to their homes. Having
doctored them and lent them some trifling sums, I was invited by
Shaykh Hamid El Shamman to stay with him at El Medinah, and by the boy
Mohammed El Basyuni to lodge at his mother’s house in Meccah.
They enabled me to collect proper stores for the journey. These
consisted of tea, coffee, loaf sugar, biscuits, oil, vinegar, tobacco,
lanterns, cooking-pots, and a small bell-shaped tent costing twelve
shillings. The provisions were placed in a kafas, or hamper, of palm
sticks, my drugs and dress in a sahharah, or wooden box measuring some
three and a half feet each way, covered with cowskin, and the lid
fitting into the top. And finally, not wishing to travel by the vans
then allotted to the overland passengers, I hired two dromedaries and
their attendant Bedouins, who for the sum of ten shillings each agreed
to carry me across the desert between Cairo and Suez.
At last, after abundant trouble, all was ready. At 3 p.m., July 1st,
1853, my friend Haji Wali embraced me heartily, and so did my poor old
shaykh, who, despite his decrepitude and my objections, insisted upon
accompanying me to the city gate. I will not deny having felt a
tightening of the heart as their honest faces and forms faded in the
distance. All the bystanders ejaculated, “Allah bless thee, Y’all Hajj
(O pilgrim!), and restore thee to thy family and thy friends.”
We rode hard over the stretch of rock and hard clay which has since
yielded to that monumental work, the Suez Canal. There was no _ennui_
upon the road: to the traveller there was an interest in the
wilderness――
Where love is liberty and Nature law――
unknown to Cape seas and Alpine glaciers and even the boundless
prairie. I felt as if looking once more upon the face of a friend, and
my two Bedouins――though the old traveller described their forefathers
as “folke full of all evylle condiciouns”――were excellent company. At
midnight we halted for a little rest near the Central Station, and
after dark on the next evening I passed through the tumble-down
gateway of Suez and found a shelter in the Wakalah Tirjis――the George
Inn. My Meccan and Medinah friends were already installed there, and
the boy Mohammed El Basyuni had joined me on the road.
It was not so easy to embark at Suez. In those days the greater body
of pilgrims marched round the head of the Red Sea. Steamers were rare,
and in the spirit of protection the Bey, or Governor, had orders to
obstruct us till near the end of the season. Most Egyptian high
officials sent their boats laden with pious passengers up the Nile,
whence they returned freighted with corn. They naturally did their
best to force upon us the delays and discomforts of what is called the
Kussayr (Cosseir) line. And as those who travelled by the land route
spent their money fifteen days longer in Egyptian territory than they
would have done if allowed to embark at Suez, the Bey assisted them in
the former and obstructed them in the latter case.
We were delayed in the George Inn four mortal days and nights amidst
all the plagues of Egypt. At last we found a sambuk, or small-decked
vessel, about to start, and for seven dollars each we took places upon
the poop, the only possible part in the dreadful summer months. The
_Silk El Zahab_, or _Golden Thread_, was probably a lineal descendant
from the ships of Solomon harboured in Ezion Geber. It was about fifty
tons burden, and we found ninety-seven, instead of sixty, the proper
number of passengers. The farce of a quarter-deck ten feet by eight
accommodated eighteen of us, and our companions were Magribis, men
from North-Western Africa――the most quarrelsome and vicious of
pilgrims.
We sailed on July 6th, and, as in an Irish packet of the olden time,
the first preliminary to “shaking down” was a general fight. The rais
(captain) naturally landed and left us to settle the matter, which
ended in many a head being broken. I played my poor part in the
_mêlée_ by pushing down a heavy jar of water upon the swarm of
assailants. At last the Magribis, failing to dislodge us from the
poop, made peace, and finding we were sons of the Holy Cities, became
as civil as their unkindly natures permitted. We spent twelve days,
instead of the normal five, in beating down the five hundred and fifty
direct miles between Suez and Yambu.
Every second day we managed to land and stretch our limbs. The
mornings and evenings were mild and balmy, whilst the days were
terrible. We felt as if a few more degrees of heat would be fatal to
us. The celebrated coral reefs of the Red Sea, whence some authors
derive its name, appeared like meadows of brilliant flowers resembling
those of earth, only far brighter and more beautiful. The sunsets were
magnificent; the zodiacal light, or after-glow, was a study; and the
cold rays of the moon, falling upon a wilderness of white clay and
pinnacle, suggested a wintry day in England.
[Illustration: THE FIGHT ON THE _SILK EL ZAHAB_. [_See Page 18._]
At last, after slowly working up a narrow creek leading to the Yambu
harbour, on July 17th we sprang into a shore-boat, and felt new life
when bidding eternal adieu and “sweet bad luck” to the _Golden
Thread_, which seemed determined to wreck itself about once per diem.
Yambu, the port of El Medinah, lies S.S.W. of, and a little over a
hundred and thirty miles from, its city. The road was infamous――rocky,
often waterless, alternately fiery and freezing, and infested with the
Beni Harb, a villainous tribe of hill Bedouins. Their chief was one
Saad, a brigand of the first water. He was described as a little brown
man, contemptible in appearance but remarkable for courage and for a
ready wit, which saved him from the poison and pistol of his enemies.
Some called him the friend of the poor, and all knew him to be the foe
of the rich.
There was nothing to see at Yambu, where, however, we enjoyed the
hammam and the drinking-water, which appeared deliciously sweet after
the briny supplies of Suez. By dint of abundant bargaining we hired
camels at the moderate rate of three dollars each――half in ready
money, the rest to be paid after arrival. I also bought a shugduf, or
rude litter carrying two, and I chose the boy Mohammed as my
companion. The journey is usually done in five days. We took eight,
and we considered ourselves lucky fellows.
On the evening of the next day (July 18th) we set out with all the
gravity of men putting our heads into the lion’s jaws. The moon rose
fair and clear as we emerged from the shadowy streets. When we
launched into the desert, the sweet, crisp air delightfully contrasted
with the close, offensive atmosphere of the town.
My companions all, as Arabs will do on such occasions, forgot to think
of their precious boxes full of the plunder of Constantinople, and
began to sing. We travelled till three o’clock in the morning (these
people insist upon setting out in the afternoon and passing the night
in travelling). And the Prophet informs us that the “calamities of
earth,” meaning scorpions, serpents, and wild beasts, are least
dangerous during the dark hours.
After a pleasant sleep in the wilderness, we joined for the next day’s
march a caravan of grain carriers, about two hundred camels escorted
by seven Turkish Bashi Buzuk, or Irregular Cavalry. They confirmed the
report that the Bedouins were “out,” and declared that Saad, the Old
Man of the Mountain, had threatened to cut every throat venturing into
his passes. That night the robbers gave us a mild taste of their
quality, but soon ran away. The third march lay over an iron land and
under a sky of brass to a long straggling village called, from its
ruddy look, El Hamra (the Red); it is the middle station between Yambu
and El Medinah. The fourth stage placed us on the Sultan’s high-road
leading from Meccah to the Prophet’s burial-place, and we joined a
company of pious persons bound on visitation.
The Bedouins, hearing that we had an escort of two hundred troopers,
manned a gorge and would not let us advance till the armed men
retired. The fifth and sixth days were forced halts at a vile place
called Bir Abbas, where we could hear the distant dropping of the
musketry, a sign that the troops and the hill-men were settling some
little dispute. Again my companions were in cold perspirations about
their treasures, and passed the most of their time in sulking and
quarrelling.
About sunset on July 23rd, three or four caravans assembled at Bir
Abbas, forming one large body for better defence against the dreaded
Bedouins. We set out at 11 p.m., travelling without halting through
the night, and at early dawn we found ourselves in an ill-famed narrow
known as Shuab El Haji, or the Pilgrim’s Pass. The boldest looked
apprehensive as we approached it. Presently, from the precipitous
cliff on our left, thin puffs of blue smoke rose in the sultry morning
air, and afterwards the sharp cracks of the hill-men’s matchlocks were
echoed by the rocks on the right. A number of Bedouins could be seen
swarming like hornets up the steeper slopes, carrying huge weapons and
“spoiling for a fight.” They took up comfortable positions on the
cut-throat embankment and began practising upon us from behind their
breastworks of piled stones with perfect convenience to themselves. We
had nothing to do but to blaze away as much powder and to veil
ourselves in as dense a smoke as possible. The result was that we lost
twelve men, besides camels and other beasts of burden. My companions
seemed to consider this questionable affair a most gallant exploit.
The next night (July 24th) was severe. The path lay up rocky hill and
down stony vale. A tripping and stumbling dromedary had been
substituted for my better animal, and the consequences may be
imagined.
The sun had nearly risen before I shook off the lethargic effects of
such a march. All around me were hurrying their beasts, regardless of
rough ground, and not a soul spoke a word to his neighbour. “Are there
robbers in sight?” was the natural question. “No,” responded the boy
Mohammed. “They are walking with their eyes; they will presently sight
their homes.”
Half an hour afterwards we came to a huge mudarrij, or flight of
steps, roughly cut in a line of black scoriaceous basalt. Arrived at
the top, we passed through a lane of dark lava with steep banks on
both sides, and in a few minutes a full view of the Holy City suddenly
opened upon us. It was like a vision in “The Arabian Nights.” We
halted our camels as if by word of command. All dismounted, in
imitation of the pious of old, and sat down, jaded and hungry as we
were, to feast our eyes on the “country of date-trees” which looked so
passing fair after the “salt stony land.” As we looked eastward the
sun rose out of the horizon of blue and pink hill, the frontier of
Nejd staining the spacious plains with gold and purple. The site of El
Medinah is in the western edge of the highlands which form the plateau
of Central Arabia. On the left side, or north, was a tall grim pile of
porphyritic rock, the celebrated Mount Ohod, with a clump of verdure
and a dome or two nestling at its base. Round a whitewashed fortalice
founded upon a rock clustered a walled city, irregularly oval, with
tall minarets enclosing a conspicuous green dome. To the west and
south lay a large suburb and long lines of brilliant vegetation
piercing the tawny levels. I now understood the full value of a phrase
in the Moslem ritual――“And when the pilgrim’s eyes shall fall upon the
trees of El Medinah, let him raise his voice and bless the Prophet
with the choicest blessings.”
In all the panorama before us nothing was more striking, after the
desolation through which we had passed, than the gardens and orchards
about the town. My companions obeyed the command with the most
poetical exclamations, bidding the Prophet “live for ever whilst the
west wind bloweth gently over the hills of Nejd and the lightning
flasheth bright in the firmament of El Hejaz.”
We then remounted and hurried through the Bab El Ambari, the gate of
the western suburb. Crowded by relatives and friends, we passed down a
broad, dusty street, pretty well supplied with ruins, into an open
space called Barr El Manakhah, or “place where camels are made to
kneel.” Straight forward a line leads directly into the Bab El Misri,
the Egyptian gate of the city. But we turned off to the right, and
after advancing a few yards we found ourselves at the entrance of our
friend Shaykh Hamid’s house. He had preceded us to prepare for our
reception.
No delay is allowed in the ziyarat, or visitation of the haram, or
holy place, which received the mortal remains of the Arab Prophet. We
were barely allowed to breakfast, to perform the religious ablution,
and to change our travel-soiled garments. We then mounted asses,
passed through the Egyptian, or western, gate, and suddenly came upon
the mosque. It is choked up with ignoble buildings, and as we entered
the “Dove of Mercy” I was not impressed by the spectacle.
The site of the Prophet’s mosque――Masjid el Nabashi, as it is
called――was originally a graveyard shaded by date-trees. The first
walls were of adobe, or unbaked brick, and the recently felled
palm-trunks were made into pillars for the leaf-thatched roof. The
present building, which is almost four centuries old, is of cut stone,
forming an oblong of four hundred and twenty feet by three hundred and
forty feet. In the centre is a spacious uncovered area containing the
Garden of Our Lady Fatimah――a railed plot of ground bearing a
lote-tree and a dozen palms. At the south-east angle of this
enclosure, under a wooden roof with columns, is the Prophet’s Well,
whose water is hard and brackish. Near it meets the City Academy,
where in the cool mornings and evenings the young idea is taught to
shout rather than to shoot.
Around the court are four riwaks, or porches, not unlike the cloisters
of a monastery; they are arched to the front, backed by the wall and
supported inside by pillars of different shape and material varying
from dirty plaster to fine porphyry. When I made my visitation, the
northern porch was being rebuilt; it was to be called after Abd El
Majid, the then reigning Sultan, and it promised to be the most
splendid. The main colonnade, however, the sanctum containing all that
is venerable in the building, embraces the whole length of the
southern short wall, and is deeper than the other three by nearly
treble the number of columns. It is also paved with handsome slabs of
white marble and marquetry work, here and there covered with coarse
matting and above this by unclean carpets, well worn by faithful feet.
To understand the tomb a few preliminary remarks are necessary.
Mohammed, it must be remembered, died in the eleventh year of his
mission and the sixty-third of his age, corresponding with A.D. 623.
He was accustomed to say, “In whatsoever spot a prophet departs this
life, there also should he be buried.” Accordingly his successor
ordered the grave to be dug in the house of the young widow Ayisha,
who lived close to the original mosque. After her husband’s burial she
occupied an adjoining room partitioned off from the tomb at which men
were accustomed to pray. Another saying of the Prophet’s forbade tombs
to be erected in mosques; it therefore became necessary so to contrive
that the revered spot should be in, and yet not in, the place of
worship.
Accordingly they built a detached tower in the south-eastern corner of
the mosque, and called it the hujrah, or chamber. It is from fifty to
fifty-five feet square, with a passage all round, and it extends from
floor to roof, where it is capped by the green dome which strikes the
eyes on approaching the city. The external material of the closet,
which also serves to protect the remains from infidels and
schismatics, is metal filagree painted a vivid grey green, relieved by
the brightly gilt or burnished brass-work forming the long and
graceful Arabic characters. On the south side, for greater honour, the
railing is plated over in parts with silver, and letters of the same
metal are interlaced with it.
Entering by the western Door of Safety, we paced slowly towards the
tomb down a line of wall about the height of a man, and called the
“illustrious fronting.” The barrier is painted with arabesques and
pierced with small doors. There are two niches richly worked with
various coloured marble, and near them is a pulpit, a graceful
collection of slender columns, elegant tracery, and inscriptions
admirably carved. Arrived at the western small door in the dwarf wall,
we entered the famous spot called El Ranzah (the “Garden”), after a
saying of Mohammed: “Between my grave and my pulpit is a garden of the
gardens of Paradise.” On the north and west sides it is not divided
from the rest of the porch, to the south rises the dwarf wall, and
eastward it is bounded by the west end of the filagree tower
containing the tomb.
The “Garden” is the most elaborate part of the mosque. It is a space
of about eighty feet in length tawdrily decorated to resemble
vegetation: the carpets are flowered, and the pediments of columns are
cased with bright green tiles, and the shafts are adorned with gaudy
and unnatural growths in arabesques. It is further disfigured by
handsome branched candelabra of cut crystal, the work, I believe, of
an English house. Its peculiar background, the filagree tower, looks
more picturesque near than at a distance, where it suggests the idea
of a gigantic birdcage. The one really fine feature of the scene is
the light cast by the window of stained glass in the southern wall.
Thus little can be said in praise of the “Garden” by day. But at night
the eye, dazzled by oil lamps suspended from the roof, by huge wax
candles, and by minor illuminations, whilst crowds of visitors in the
brightest attire, with the richest and noblest of the citizens, sit in
congregation to hear services, becomes far less critical.
Entering the “Garden” we fronted towards Meccah, prayed, recited two
chapters of the Koran, and gave alms to the poor in gratitude to Allah
for making it our fate to visit so holy a spot. Then we repaired to
the southern front of the chamber, where there are three dwarf
windows, apertures half a foot square, and placed at eye’s height from
the ground. The westernmost is supposed to be opposite to the face of
Mohammed, who lies on the right side, facing, as is still the Moslem
custom, the House of Allah at Meccah. The central hill is that of
Abubaki, the first Caliph, whose head is just behind the Prophet’s
shoulder. The easternmost window is that of Omar, the second Caliph,
who holds the same position with respect to Abubaki. In the same
chamber, but decorously divided by a wall from the male tenants,
reposes the Lady Fatimah, Mohammed’s favourite daughter. Osman, the
fourth Caliph, was not buried after his assassination near his
predecessors, but there is a vacant space for Isa bin Maryam when he
shall return.
We stood opposite these three windows, successively, beginning with
that of the Prophet, recited the blessings, which we were directed to
pronounce “with awe and fear and love.” The ritual is very
complicated, and the stranger must engage a guide technically called a
muzawwir, or visitation-maker. He is always a son of the Holy City,
and Shaykh Hamid was mine. Many a piercing eye was upon me: the people
probably supposed that I was an Ajemi or Persian, and these heretics
have often attempted to defile the tombs of the two Caliphs.