LAHEJ TO KHOREIBA.
When I awoke the heat of the day was over, so, under the guidance of Saïd
and one of my camel-men, I sauntered out to see the town of Howta. The
place presents, on the whole, an appearance rather of dirt and squalor
than of what one expects the capital of an Arab Sultan to be like. The
streets are narrow, and built without any idea of regularity, turning
and twisting as they do in every direction; nor are the houses even
built in any attempt at being in line. Here one juts out into the narrow
byway, there another stands back off the street behind a thick hedge of
bristling thorns. Nearly all the houses are surrounded by these zarebas
or yards, into which the cattle are driven of a night. Strange mangy dogs
bark at one as one passes along, and their bark is echoed from within
by the yelps of puppies. There is, in fact, but little to see in Howta.
Perhaps the sights best worth noticing are in the market, where under
the shade of an enormous _b’dam_ tree sit women selling bread, while
the surrounding strip of sand is crowded by Arabs with long spears and
their camels. Here also are exposed for sale vegetables, camel and horse
fodder, and many other market products, which are sent on to Aden. Not
far from this market are the bazaars, narrow covered-in streets with
rough little mud-brick shops on either side, filled with cotton goods,
for the most part of European manufacture; a few gaudy muslins from
India, however, giving a brilliant hue to some of these dusky little
box-like shops. A whole bazaar is put aside for the workers in metals.
It forms a thatched square, divided up by low walls, some three feet in
height, like sheep-pens, in which the various metal-workers sit, each
with his forge. The scene is a most picturesque one. The sunlight falling
in through holes in the ill-thatched roofing strikes upon the burnished
metal until the daggers and spear-heads sparkle and glisten like
diamonds. The air is hazy with the fumes of the forges, and rings with
the never-ceasing fall of the hammer upon the metals. And what workers!
Great lithe men, grand in the exposure of their bare limbs; their
raven locks loosely falling upon their shoulders, and waving backwards
and forwards with the motion of the workmen’s bodies. The workmanship
of Howta is rough. In spear-heads they excel; but they fail in the
silver-work of their dagger-sheaths to attain the results reached by the
silversmiths of the larger towns inland.
Returning to the _café_ where I had put up, I found the camels ready to
start, so mounting once more, we set out. Leaving the town behind us,
the way took us for the first few miles through rich cultivated land,
watered by a careful system of irrigation, and gorgeous in its verdure.
Emerging from the fields, we struck into wilder country, torn up into
great ravines by the Wadi Lahej—a river that, in the dry season, is but a
tiny stream, but after rains a series of vast torrents, its many channels
becoming filled with the huge mass of water, often carrying away much of
the cultivated land, and doing no little damage. Sometimes the trunks
of big trees from the far interior are carried over the desert—where at
ordinary times the sand absorbs the water to such an extent that it never
reaches the sea—and cast into the bay at Aden. From this it can be judged
how severe are the rainfalls when such comparatively rare occurrences do
take place.
The river which I mention here under the name of the Wadi Lahej is also
known by the name of the Mobarat. It has two channels to the sea, but, as
already stated, is at most seasons exhausted by the desert sands of the
low-lying coast country. The principal channel is the Wadi el-Kebir, or
great river, which flows out near Hashma, a small village in the Bay of
Aden, the other being the Wadi es-Seghir, or small river, which empties
itself into the Ghubbat Seilan, a bay to the north-east of Aden, and
formed by the peninsula itself and by Ras Seilan, a point some thirty
miles along the coast.
Wild and depressing the scene was. Ahead of us, almost as far as the eye
could reach, stretched the desert, unbroken by even a single bush, and
gradually sloping up to broken rocky peaks, which glowed a dull leaden
crimson under the rays of the setting sun. We were leaving the oasis
behind now, and no longer the peasants returning from the fields stood
to gaze on us as we passed by; no longer their wild songs rang in our
ears—songs sung by the sons of the desert and echoed by its daughters,
as, hoe in hand, or leading the flocks and herds, they wandered back to
the town. Now it was only occasionally that a warrior with spear passed
us, on foot or on camel-back. Then night fell,—night such as we had
experienced on the previous march, and which I have so dismally failed to
describe,—night which fails all description. But we went on, the camels
patiently plodding their way. It was eleven o’clock before we halted and
spread our carpet under a clump of thorny trees, close to the river-bed,
which we had been following since our departure from Howta. Here we
rested for a few hours, our fire twinkling and flickering and bursting
into little flames as we threw the thorny twigs upon it, for the night
was chilly and a heavy dew falling.
There is no water, the Arabs say, more poisonous than this stream of
Lahej, and we had been carefully warned against drinking it; but in
spite of this my servants regaled themselves plenteously from its
feverish stream. There is no fallacy greater than to suppose the average
Arab can go long without water. In cases of hereditary necessity perhaps
they do, but in all my experience of foreign lands I have seen no
thirstier race than the Arabs. They are for ever drinking. All my journey
through the Yemen, my men were constantly alighting from their animals to
drink. In the mountains, where the water as a rule was good, this led to
no bad results; but their constant habit of drinking from slimy pools and
nasty streams brought on attacks of fever in the cases of both Saïd and
Abdurrahman. No more unpleasant position can be imagined than that of a
traveller with two fever-stricken servants, both shouting that they were
going to die, and refusing to take quinine because it tasted so nasty.
The drinking of this water of Lahej brought on fever in both these men. I
provided them with unlimited coffee, which, with boiling the water, does
away with a great part of the risk; but, rather than have the trouble of
making it, they preferred to drink the poisonous liquid. However, they
suffered for their perversity.
It was dawn when we started again, pale-grey dawn, which struck cold and
chilly. An hour or two of desert, unbroken in its monotony; but away
ahead of us we could see the outpost fort of the Sultan of the Houshabi
tribe, whose territory we were soon to enter, and a few miles nearer,
half hidden in thick thorn-trees, the frontier castle of the Sultan of
Lahej.
We had hoped to make a good march, but fate was against us, for after a
few hours on the road a gentle wind rose up. At first it was cool and
refreshing, but as the heat of the day increased it became laden with
fine grains of sand, and by no means so pleasant. At length it became
unbearable, the stinging sensation as the sand struck one’s hands and
face being most painful. Calling a halt, we crawled under some thick
bushes, the men hurriedly arranging a strip of canvas so as to obtain
the most protection from its scanty folds. We were only just in time,
for a few seconds after, having crawled under its shade, the wind
increased in strength and became a veritable gale. The sand, which up
till now had been but thin, commenced whirling up in clouds until the
air became darkened with it. Huddling together, we tied our turbans over
our mouths and waited for a cessation. It required three of us to hold
on to the slender covering of canvas—a mere strip that I used to put
between the carpet and the ground—to prevent its being carried away. The
desert wind was intense in its heat, and the burning, gritty grains of
sand found their way under one’s clothing and into one’s ears and eyes
until life became unendurable. I had seen a sandstorm or two before in
my life, but none like this. The poor grumbling camels lay down and
wagged their necks slowly from side to side, while the Arabs cursed. A
sandstorm is lovely in a picture, and is exciting to read about, but
personally to experience it is quite another thing, and for the three or
four hours that we lay panting for breath under those thorny mimosa-trees
we suffered exceedingly. So strong was the sand-laden wind that it was
impossible for the men to go even as far as the river to get water, and
our throats were parched with thirst. In spite of the suffering, however,
one could not help noticing the extraordinary atmospheric effect. The sky
took a brick-dust red hue, and seemed literally to glow, the fierce sun
burning scarlet and fiery through it all, though at times even the sun
was scarcely visible. Happily it was the only sandstorm we experienced on
the whole journey, and I hope I may never see a second such as it was.
Almost as suddenly as the gale had come on it died down again, and
during the afternoon we were able once more to push on upon our journey.
Reaching El-Amat, a fort of the Sultan of the Houshabi tribe, I delivered
the letter of recommendation I bore from the Political Resident at
Aden, and, refusing the Sheikh’s kind invitation to alight, pushed on.
This fort, like that of the Sultan of Lahej which we had passed shortly
before, is a large, square, mud building, two storeys in height. Useful
as it may be in times of war as a defence against Arabs armed only with
matchlock-guns and spears, it would not stand a couple of shot from any
field-gun, unless the structure is so soft that the ball would go right
through it, as is not improbable. Near this spot we came across a herd of
gazelle, but they were gone and out of sight long before we came within
range.
The tribe in whose country we now were is the Houshabi. They have always
been on the best of terms with the British, and on the murder of Captain
Milne in 1851, elsewhere referred to, they refused to harbour the
assassin, a fanatical Shereef. By their position they have an advantage
over the Abdali tribe, of which Lahej is the capital, as the river of
the latter is supplied with water from the ravines and mountains of the
interior of the Houshabi territory, and they have on several occasions
in times of war been known to divert its course. However, happily, the
relations of the two tribes are for the most part friendly, so that it is
not often that they have recourse to such extreme measures.
On again over the desert, which, as we approached the rocky hills, showed
more signs of vegetation and life. Here and there were Arabs tending
flocks and herds and cattle, though what there was for them to graze upon
beyond the thorny bushes it was difficult to say. At length we left the
sandy plain and entered a deep narrow gorge at the foot of Jibel Menif,
a high barren mountain. Here the scene entirely changed. Instead of over
the open expanse of desert, our way now led us between walls of rock,
the path often a mere track in the river-bed, in which at places water
was running, and at others had sunk for a time below the surface.
Afternoon was well on, and the change from the sunlight outside to
the cool depths of the gorge was a pleasant one, but the scene looked
sepulchral and gloomy. The rocks with which the river-bed was strewn and
the cliffs on either hand were of a curious black colour; nor did the
scanty vegetation, consisting principally of what the Arabs call _athl_,
a thorny mimosa, do much by their verdure to enliven the scene, for in
spite of their proximity to a stream which made some pretence at running
water, they looked parched and withered and dry.
The gloomy effect increased as the evening came on. Although the sky
above us was still streaked with the radiance of the setting sun, we in
the gorge caught only its barest reflection, and a deep purple gloom
seemed to settle over everything. At one spot by a deep pool in the rock
a caravan was settling in for the night. The wild cries and singing of
the Arabs, and the groaning of the camels as they were being unladen,
added much to the weird effect of their already lit camp-fires, by the
light of which we could catch glimpses of the wild fellows as they
hurried to and fro, spears in hand, preparing for the night. However, we
did not stop, but with an exchange of “Salaam âlikoum,”[36] passed on
into the night. The darkness was complete, but the uneven state of the
ground and the constant ups-and-downs in the path clearly demonstrated
that we had left the river-bed, and were crossing country at right angles
apparently to the streams and nullahs, judging by the constant ascents
and descents.
A few hours later we caught glimpses of fires in the jungle, and one of
the Bedouins creeping on ahead and exchanging a few remarks with the
camel-men who were spending the night there, he called to me to proceed,
and glad I was to cry to my camel to lie down, and a few minutes later
to stretch myself on my carpet before a fire, in the camp of an Arab
caravan, at a spot called Zaida. The villages in this part of the Yemen
are few and far between, and what there are belong almost entirely to
wandering tribes of Bedouins, who are here to-day and who knows where
to-morrow; so that the caravans passing up and down the rough track that
leads into the interior have to camp where best they can, regardless of
the whereabouts of humankind, being dependent upon their own resources
for food and fodder.
We spent the whole of the next day at this spot, for the reason, our men
said, of resting the camels; but I rather think they had fallen in with
fellow-tribesmen and friends amongst the caravan-men with whom we were
sharing camp. However, I was not sorry; for, anxious as I was to push
on into the interior, the rest was by no means unpleasant, and I found
plenty to amuse and interest in the people by whom I was surrounded.
Fortunately, too, there were Bedouin shepherds in the neighbourhood,
and fresh food was procurable, while a few thorn-trees gave a little
shade from the sun’s fierce rays. Amongst the caravan-men was a Turkish
soldier, fleeing from the starvation and cruelty and misery then existing
amongst the Osmanli troops engaged in crushing the rebellion in the
Yemen. His neck and wrists and ankles were deeply wounded by the fetters
he had been made to wear, for once before he had deserted but been
recaptured. A very considerable number of these deserters from time to
time reach Aden, whence, after they have made a little money—for they are
always ready to work—they embark once more for their native lands, often
some hill-tribe of Asia Minor. In no way was the hospitable character
of the Arabs better shown than by their kindness to these Turkish
runaways. As long as they were soldiers in the service of the Osmanli
Government they were looked upon as lawful game by the Arabs, and any
who bore a weapon was liable to be shot at any time; but as soon as they
threw down their arms and sought the protection of the Arabs and their
aid in assisting them to escape, they became their brother-men, their
co-religionists, and the poor half-starved fellows were fed by their
_quondam_ enemies, and often given money to help them on their road to
places where their recapture would be improbable. I saw many instances
of this during the time I was in the country, and quite a number of the
Turkish deserters spoke to me with tears of gratitude of the kindness
they had received from the Arabs. Happily there were less melancholy
sights to see and less doleful stories to listen to during the day we
lay under the shade of the thorn-trees. A number of young Arabs, youths
learning the art of becoming caravan-men, had brought with them their
pets, for the most part apes and monkeys, with which the valleys of the
Yemen abound, and great fun it was watching them playing and jumping on
the backs of the camels. They were very tame, and confined by no chains,
being quite loose to go and wander where they pleased, but never leaving
their friends the camels, which munched their fodder regardless of the
antics being carried on upon their backs. It was difficult to say which
were the most active, the monkeys or their masters.
But still more amusing were the strolling musicians, dancers, and players
on pipes and drums, who, finding a little piece of level sand, exhibited
their strange dances before me. There were three of these mummers amongst
the Arabs. Standing in line, they struck up their music, one beating a
rough drum, one playing on a double pipe, the other singing. As they
sang they stepped slowly backwards and forwards, at periods turning and
twisting round. Strange nude creatures they were, with long silky hair
and silver daggers, and the eye never tired of watching their graceful
movements.
Saïd and Abdurrahman took advantage of our delay to cook bread. However,
owing to the fact that we had no baking-powder nor anything to take its
place, and that it had to be cooked in Arab fashion by rolling the dough
round a heated stone, it was not altogether a great success. Hunger,
nevertheless, rendered it palatable. As for butter, we had not yet
broached the pot of ghee that Saïd had purchased before we left Aden.
It was rancid then, and the few days of hot sun on the back of a camel
had not added to its charm, though it had added very considerably to
its flavour. When we opened the clay with which the jar was sealed the
whole valley became full of its odours. One could have run a drag with
only a crust and three drops of it. Once having opened the jar, the
Arabs went for it wholesale. It served them for two purposes—for fodder,
and as pomade for their raven locks. The manner in which they applied
it did not make its consumption more appetising, for they dipped their
long fingers into the jar and then ran them through their hair until the
effect was gorgeously shiny—at a distance. At close quarters the odour
rather negatived the picturesqueness. Of course I could have brought
stores from Aden; but to have attempted to enter Yemen with anything like
a caravan would have been impossible, as the suspicions of the Turks on
the frontier would have been excited. I had decided to take as little as
possible, so as to be able to pass as a poor Greek trader; nor had I laid
my plans unsuccessfully, for the scarcity of stores was well compensated
by the facilities I gained on account of having so small a quantity of
baggage.
Later in the afternoon we made a start. The road was dreary and desolate,
continually ascending and descending, and strewn with black stones and
rocks that rendered our progress very slow. Almost the only level piece
we crossed was a great circle of rocky ground enclosed on all sides by
hills, the whole bearing the appearance of having been the crater of a
volcano; and as all the surrounding mountains show signs of volcanic
action, this hypothesis is not at all improbable. Late at night we
reached the village of El-Melh, where were a few miserable Bedouin huts;
but on the inhabitants assuring us that they possessed neither water nor
provisions to spare, and evidently looking upon us with some suspicion,
we proceeded on our way. The track was rough, and one had to clutch on to
the ropes that held our scanty baggage to the camel’s backs to prevent
being hurled bodily off down the steep sides of some nullah. At long
length, camp-fires ahead told of some caravan bivouacking there, a sure
sign of water, and our camels hurried forward, and without even a call to
make them lie down, wearily deposited us amongst a group of Arabs seated
round a few blazing fires. Their spears, stuck in the ground before them,
flashed and flashed again in the dancing firelight; but the appearance of
fierceness was belied by their kindly welcome, and an invitation to dip
my fingers with them in the steaming pots of food. Watering the camels
and giving them fodder, we returned once more to the fires, and spent the
night in songs and story-telling.
Before daylight we were on our road again, following for a little way
the course of the river Sailet el-Melh. The country here had become
more mountainous, one flat-topped peak being particularly noticeable.
The natives call it Dhu-biyat, but I can find no mention of this name
elsewhere. On the summit is a tomb, that of a certain Seyed Hasan, about
whom there seemed to be traditions of his having possessed remarkable
powers, but as to whose history apparent ignorance prevailed, nor can I
find any records of any powerful Imam having been buried on this spot. It
is probable that he was merely some local Seyed or Shereef, and that his
repute has not reached the centres of Arabian civilisation. The summit of
this mountain is said to be quite flat and rich in pasture, and Bedouins
of the Houshabi tribe have built a village there, and graze their flocks
and herds. Near this spot the valley opens out, and one enters the Beled
Alajioud, a level plain of green fields, with a river flowing through its
centre. Here one leaves the wandering Bedouin tribes and enters a land
of fixed abodes, for houses well built of rough stone stand about the
valley; and at one spot is a village perched on a slight eminence, and
crowned with a square tower. This turned out to be the border village
of the Aloui tribe, to the representative of whom—a village Sheikh—I
presented my credentials. There was the usual group of men and women and
children and dogs, the usual exchange of compliments and banter; and
although at first they had appeared a little high-handed, we parted the
best of friends.
The country hereabouts shows signs of cultivation, large fields being
green with the durra. As the sun was very hot, we halted in the middle
of the wide bed of the Khoreiba river, and settled ourselves down under
a clump of oleander-bushes. The scenery was prettier here than any we
had seen, as there were more trees to vary the dull monotony of the
reddish-black rock and the yellow land. We had been seated about an hour
when there came skimming along the river-bed, mounted on a beautiful
camel, a veritable Apollo of an Arab, a specimen of the finest type of
the Yemen race, whom perhaps it is scarcely justifiable to call Arabs at
all, so much has their blood become mixed since the days of Kahtan, the
founder of the Yemenite tribes, and Adnan, that of the Arab. However, the
term Arab can be generally used, as there are scarcely any discernible
differences, except in traditions, between the Arab and the Yemen blood.
Noticing us, the man alighted from his camel and crawled into the shade
in which we were sitting. After coffee, wishing to give the new-comer
an example of the powers of the Christian tribes—as he called them—I
unpacked an electric machine I had with me in my sack of bedding, and
administered a gentle shock to the beautiful Arab. He never lost his
presence of mind,—he merely smiled, rose and girded up his loins, mounted
his camel, and sped as fast as the slight little desert dromedary could
carry him down the river-bed.
The camels of the southern district of the Yemen are famous for their
breed and fleetness. They are slightly built, with fine legs, the very
opposite to the heavy slow-paced camels of North Africa. Many are
especially kept and trained for riding purposes, and their fleetness
is extraordinary. However, this breed seems not to exist any farther
in the interior than about eighty miles, as where the country becomes
mountainous we find a heavy, shaggy, black camel, the very opposite to
his brother of the Teháma, as the plains which divide the highlands of
the Yemen from the sea are called.
While we were still laughing over the flight of the Arab on coming in
contact with civilisation in the guise of a small electric machine,
two Englishmen appeared in view, riding horses, and guarded by a
considerable number of Indian troopers and a few of the Aden corps, and
followed by a large train of baggage-animals. I had been told before
leaving Aden that I might meet a surveying-party under Captains Domville
and Wahab, who had been told off by the Indian Government to organise a
survey of the tribe-lands lying between the Turkish frontier and Aden.
Although they had been successful up to this point, they began here to
meet with difficulties on the part of the natives, which at length, after
I had passed on into Turkish Yemen, became so demonstrative that guns
were once or twice resorted to by the natives, and the scheme had to be
abandoned before it was completely carried out. I spent the afternoon
with them, and very pleasant it was. I was able also to obtain from them
the correction of my aneroid barometer, for so far I had not resorted to
boiling-point tubes, keeping what few instruments I had with me as much
as possible in the dark, so as to excite as little suspicion as possible.
After dinner in the luxurious camp of Captains Wahab and Domville, I
sauntered back to find my men already preparing to load the camels, and
soon after midnight we made a start. It was a bright, clear, moonlight
night, but chill and cold, a sure sign that we were ascending to the
highlands, which an altitude of nearly two thousand feet on my barometer
showed to be the case. The Arabs shivered and chattered as we pushed
along through the valley. Presently the road ascended on the left side
of the stream, and we crossed a plateau at an elevation of a few hundred
feet above the river. The cold as dawn appeared became almost intense,
and I was glad to alight from my camel and run races with my men, getting
often a long way ahead of the caravan. Then we would sit down and light a
little fire of mimosa-twigs, over which we would huddle together to keep
warm until the camels caught us up again.
[Illustration: _A Valley in Yemen_.]
Dawn changed to sunset, and the world became alive again. The scenery
had altered. We had once more entered the valley of the Khoreiba river,
and still the great, bare, rocky mountains rose on either side; but
the valley itself was green and fresh, and the banks of the stream,
which appeared in places tumbling and dancing over the rocks, again to
disappear below the surface, were covered with thick jungle of dense
tropical vegetation, the trees hung with garlands of creepers. Birds
chirruped and hopped from bough to bough; great painted butterflies
sailed by, rivalling the sunrise sky in gorgeousness; and monkeys and
apes chattered and grunted on the steep mountain-sides. After the journey
of desert and rock, the change was a delightful one. Spying a few female
camels grazing in the jungle, we surmised that there must be a Bedouin
encampment near, so, alighting from my lofty perch, I set out with a
couple of the men to find them—no difficult task, as we came across them
within the first half-hour. They had pitched their little mat huts in a
natural clearing in the thick vegetation, where they sat idly about, the
women carrying firewood and milking the cows, the men, each armed with
his dagger and spear, smoking long wooden-stemmed pipes with clay bowls.
They received us kindly, and we had soon joined their little circle,
and were chatting away as if we had known each other for years. Great
laughter was caused by a very elderly female, with buttered hair—rancid
butter, if you please—and greasy saffron-dyed cheeks, kissing me. The
joke I could not for a time understand; but it finally turned out that
the fact that I was clean shaven and in breeches led her to suppose that
I was of the female gender, as in the Yemen the men wear loin-cloths and
allow their beards to grow on the points of the chin, while the women
decorate their lower limbs in tight-fitting trousers. The old hag, on
being pointed out her mistake, laughed as much as any; and while I was
engaged in scraping the saffron and butter off my blushing cheeks, went
off to fetch us a big bowl of fresh goat’s milk.
Shouts from our camel-men in the river warned us that we must not remain
any longer, so pushing our way through the thick brushwood, we resought
the river-bed and mounted once again.
[Illustration: _Castle of Amir of Dhala._]
At nine o’clock, the sun being very hot, we unloaded under the shade of
some big umbrageous trees, and settled in for the heat of the day. At our
feet ran the river, dancing and rippling over its pebbly bed, for all the
world like some Highland trout-stream, except for the fact that above
and around it twined masses of flowering creepers and strange aloes,
while a palm-tree here and there raised its feathery head above the dense
undergrowth. Away on the opposite side of the river, about half a mile
distant, and perched on the summit of a high rock, loomed the frontier
fort of the Amir of Dhala, a square tower surrounded by some lower
buildings. The place looked a regular acropolis, and seemed impregnable.
On a gorgeous Sheikh arriving, I presented the last of the letters
which I had brought from Aden, for the Dhala territory was the farthest
in touch with the British authorities, and beyond lay Turkish Yemen.
Evidently he considered the epistle satisfactory, although he was unable
to read it, and he spent the day with us there. A right good fellow he
was; but his reports of the turbulent state of the tribes beyond, and of
the murder and plunder with which the mountaineers were daily amusing
themselves, were anything but reassuring. He informed me that the name of
our halting-place was Mjisbeyeh, of which I found the altitude to be two
thousand five hundred feet above the sea-level.
Off again in the afternoon, passing the picturesque village of Thoba,
above which to the left we caught another glimpse of Jibel Dhu-biyat,
with its white-domed tomb. The fact that we had now entered the land
of fixed abodes became every hour more apparent. At places were signs
of skilful irrigation, while ever and anon villages of stone houses
piled on to the summits of rocks peeped from amongst the green fields
and the mimosa-trees. One of these, by name Aredoah, was particularly
picturesque, although the surrounding country was more barren than it
had been. The scenery, too, became very fine. The black volcanic rocky
hills had given place to mountains of limestone, which towered above the
surrounding country. Principal amongst these were Jibál Ahurram and
Ashari.
At one spot a charming scene met our eyes. Under the shade of a great
creeper-clad rock sat an old schoolmaster, book and rod in hand, while
at his feet squatted a number of small boys, into whose heads he was
apparently beating verses from the Koran. A regular stampede occurred at
our approach, and the young _tholba_[37] rushed alongside our animals
clamouring for alms. I got one or two to show me the books from which
they were studying, and found them to be excellently printed copies of
the Koran from Beyrout.
As evening came on we kept passing the flocks and herds, lowing as they
came in from pasture, driven by, or more often following, some child,
who, with wide-open eyes, would stand still and cease the music of its
cane pipe to watch our little cavalcade go by. Not a breath of wind was
stirring, and the smoke from the evening fires of the little stone houses
curled up and up, all mauve and purple, into the cloudless sky. In groups
the men sat about, under the shade of the trees, idly listening to the
hum of the insects and the song of many a tiny stream. The whole scene
was one of perfect peace.
The track then entered a narrow gorge between high precipices of rock,
from which echoed and re-echoed the cries of the apes and monkeys. We
were entering the country known as Beled Ashari, under the rule of the
Amir of Dhala,—quiet, peaceable folk, shepherds and tenders of flocks.
As we proceeded, the gorge narrowed until the scenery in the dusky
evening light became almost oppressive. Just before darkness set in we
arrived at our halting-place, at Khoreiba, below the village of the Amir
of Bishi, where, under the shelter of a great _b’dam_ tree, we settled
in for the night. The village is built of stone, and situated on the
left bank of the river, the collection of stone houses being overlooked
by a strange pile of natural rock crowned with a still stranger tower,
a position that completely commands the valley. The altitude of this
spot I made to be four thousand feet above the sea-level. The spot was a
charming one, with the green valley below us, and above the perpendicular
precipices, too steep almost for any scrub to hang to. Here and there
along the river-bed were shade-giving trees, which stood out black
against the fields of young corn, as yet only a few inches in height.
[Illustration: KHOREIBA.]
The success of my journey depended on the next day or two. We were fast
nearing the Turkish frontier. Should I be allowed to pass? To have to
turn back would mean the most bitter disappointment. Each day’s march was
interesting me more and more in the country I was passing through, and
very keen I was to carry my journey to a successful issue, and to reach
Sanaa, the capital; especially keen, perhaps, as, with but one exception,
every one at Aden had prophesied failure, and told me I was insane to
venture into the Yemen at the time of the rebellion, when even in days of
peace it was rash and unsafe.