MY FIRST BIVOUAC
THE course of the Jordan is from the north to the south, and in that
direction, with very little of devious winding, it carries the shining
waters of Galilee straight down into the solitudes of the Dead Sea.
Speaking roughly, the river in that meridian is a boundary between the
people living under roofs and the tented tribes that wander on the
farther side. And so, as I went down in my way from Tiberias towards
Jerusalem, along the western bank of the stream, my thinking all
propended to the ancient world of herdsmen and warriors that lay so close
over my bridle arm.
If a man, and an Englishman, be not born of his mother with a natural
Chiffney-bit in his mouth, there comes to him a time for loathing the
wearisome ways of society; a time for not liking tamed people; a time for
not dancing quadrilles, not sitting in pews; a time for pretending that
Milton and Shelley, and all sorts of mere dead people, were greater in
death than the first living Lord of the Treasury; a time, in short, for
scoffing and railing, for speaking lightly of the very opera, and all our
most cherished institutions. It is from nineteen to two or three and
twenty perhaps that this war of the man against men is like to be waged
most sullenly. You are yet in this smiling England, but you find
yourself wending away to the dark sides of her mountains, climbing the
dizzy crags, exulting in the fellowship of mists and clouds, and watching
the storms how they gather, or proving the mettle of your mare upon the
broad and dreary downs, because that you feel congenially with the yet
unparcelled earth. A little while you are free and unlabelled, like the
ground that you compass; but civilisation is coming and coming; you and
your much-loved waste lands will be surely enclosed, and sooner or later
brought down to a state of mere usefulness; the ground will be curiously
sliced into acres and roods and perches, and you, for all you sit so
smartly in your saddle, you will be caught, you will be taken up from
travel as a colt from grass, to be trained and tried, and matched and
run. All this in time, but first come Continental tours and the moody
longing for Eastern travel. The downs and the moors of England can hold
you no longer; with large strides you burst away from these slips and
patches of free land; you thread your path through the crowds of Europe,
and at last, on the banks of Jordan, you joyfully know that you are upon
the very frontier of all accustomed respectabilities. There, on the
other side of the river (you can swim it with one arm), there reigns the
people that will be like to put you to death for _not_ being a vagrant,
for _not_ being a robber, for _not_ being armed and houseless. There is
comfort in that—health, comfort, and strength to one who is dying from
very weariness of that poor, dear, middle-aged, deserving, accomplished,
pedantic, and painstaking governess, Europe.
I had ridden for some hours along the right bank of Jordan when I came to
the Djesr el Medjamé (an old Roman bridge, I believe), which crossed the
river. My Nazarene guide was riding ahead of the party, and now, to my
surprise and delight, he turned leftwards, and led on over the bridge. I
knew that the true road to Jerusalem must be mainly by the right bank of
Jordan, but I supposed that my guide was crossing the bridge at this spot
in order to avoid some bend in the river, and that he knew of a ford
lower down by which we should regain the western bank. I made no
question about the road, for I was but too glad to set my horse’s hoofs
upon the land of the wandering tribes. None of my party except the
Nazarene knew the country. On we went through rich pastures upon the
eastern side of the water. I looked for the expected bend of the river,
but far as I could see it kept a straight southerly course; I still left
my guide unquestioned.
The Jordan is not a perfectly accurate boundary betwixt roofs and tents,
for soon after passing the bridge I came upon a cluster of huts. Some
time afterwards the guide, upon being closely questioned by my servants,
confessed that the village which we had left behind was the last that we
should see, but he declared that he knew a spot at which we should find
an encampment of friendly Bedouins, who would receive me with all
hospitality. I had long determined not to leave the East without seeing
something of the wandering tribes, but I had looked forward to this as a
pleasure to be found in the desert between El Arish and Egypt; I had no
idea that the Bedouins on the east of Jordan were accessible. My delight
was so great at the near prospect of bread and salt in the tent of an
Arab warrior, that I wilfully allowed my guide to go on and mislead me.
I saw that he was taking me out of the straight route towards Jerusalem,
and was drawing me into the midst of the Bedouins; but the idea of his
betraying me seemed (I know not why) so utterly absurd, that I could not
entertain it for a moment. I fancied it possible that the fellow had
taken me out of my route in order to attempt some little mercantile
enterprise with the tribe for which he was seeking, and I was glad of the
opportunity which I might thus gain of coming in contact with the
wanderers.
Not long after passing the village a horseman met us. It appeared that
some of the cavalry of Ibrahim Pasha had crossed the river for the sake
of the rich pastures on the eastern bank, and that this man was one of
the troopers. He stopped and saluted; he was obviously surprised at
meeting an unarmed, or half-armed, cavalcade, and at last fairly told us
that we were on the wrong side of the river, and that if we proceeded we
must lay our account with falling amongst robbers. All this while, and
throughout the day, my Nazarene kept well ahead of the party, and was
constantly up in his stirrups, straining forward and searching the
distance for some objects which still remained unseen.
For the rest of the day we saw no human being; we pushed on eagerly in
the hope of coming up with the Bedouins before nightfall. Night came,
and we still went on in our way till about ten o’clock. Then the
thorough darkness of the night, and the weariness of our beasts (which
had already done two good days’ journey in one), forced us to determine
upon coming to a standstill. Upon the heights to the eastward we saw
lights; these shone from caves on the mountain-side, inhabited, as the
Nazarene told us, by rascals of a low sort—not real Bedouins, men whom we
might frighten into harmlessness, but from whom there was no willing
hospitality to be expected.
We heard at a little distance the brawling of a rivulet, and on the banks
of this it was determined to establish our bivouac. We soon found the
stream, and following its course for a few yards, came to a spot which
was thought to be fit for our purpose. It was a sharply cold night in
February, and when I dismounted I found myself standing upon some wet
rank herbage that promised ill for the comfort of our resting-place. I
had bad hopes of a fire, for the pitchy darkness of the night was a great
obstacle to any successful search for fuel, and, besides, the boughs of
trees or bushes would be so full of sap in this early spring, that they
would not be easily persuaded to burn. However, we were not likely to
submit to a dark and cold bivouac without an effort, and my fellows
groped forward through the darkness, till after advancing a few paces
they were happily stopped by a complete barrier of dead prickly bushes.
Before our swords could be drawn to reap this welcome harvest it was
found to our surprise that the fuel was already hewn and strewed along
the ground in a thick mass. A spot for the fire was found with some
difficulty, for the earth was moist and the grass high and rank. At last
there was a clicking of flint and steel, and presently there stood out
from darkness one of the tawny faces of my muleteers, bent down to near
the ground, and suddenly lit up by the glowing of the spark which he
courted with careful breath. Before long there was a particle of dry
fibre or leaf that kindled to a tiny flame; then another was lit from
that, and then another. Then small crisp twigs, little bigger than
bodkins, were laid athwart the glowing fire. The swelling cheeks of the
muleteer, laid level with the earth, blew tenderly at first and then more
boldly upon the young flame, which was daintily nursed and fed, and fed
more plentifully when it gained good strength. At last a whole armful of
dry bushes was piled up over the fire, and presently, with a loud cheery
crackling and crackling, a royal tall blaze shot up from the earth and
showed me once more the shapes and faces of my men, and the dim outlines
of the horses and mules that stood grazing hard by.
My servants busied themselves in unpacking the baggage as though we had
arrived at an hotel—Shereef and his helpers unsaddled their cattle. We
had left Tiberias without the slightest idea that we were to make our way
to Jerusalem along the desolate side of the Jordan, and my servants
(generally provident in those matters) had brought with them only, I
think, some unleavened bread and a rocky fragment of goat’s-milk cheese.
These treasures were produced. Tea and the contrivances for making it
were always a standing part of my baggage. My men gathered in circle
round the fire. The Nazarene was in a false position from having misled
us so strangely, and he would have shrunk back, poor devil, into the cold
and outer darkness, but I made him draw near and share the luxuries of
the night. My quilt and my pelisse were spread, and the rest of my party
had all their capotes or pelisses, or robes of some sort, which furnished
their couches. The men gathered in circle, some kneeling, some sitting,
some lying reclined around our common hearth. Sometimes on one,
sometimes on another, the flickering light would glare more fiercely.
Sometimes it was the good Shereef that seemed the foremost, as he sat
with venerable beard the image of manly piety—unknowing of all geography,
unknowing where he was or whither he might go, but trusting in the
goodness of God and the clinching power of fate and the good star of the
Englishman. Sometimes, like marble, the classic face of the Greek
Mysseri would catch the sudden light, and then again by turns the
ever-perturbed Dthemetri, with his old Chinaman’s eye and bristling,
terrier-like moustache, shone forth illustrious.
I always liked the men who attended me on these Eastern travels, for they
were all of them brave, cheery-hearted fellows; and although their
following my career brought upon them a pretty large share of those toils
and hardships which are so much more amusing to gentlemen than to
servants, yet not one of them ever uttered or hinted a syllable of
complaint, or even affected to put on an air of resignation. I always
liked them, but never perhaps so much as when they were thus grouped
together under the light of the bivouac fire. I felt towards them as my
comrades rather than as my servants, and took delight in breaking bread
with them, and merrily passing the cup.
The love of tea is a glad source of fellow-feeling between the Englishman
and the Asiatic. In Persia it is drunk by all, and although it is a
luxury that is rarely within the reach of the Osmanlees, there are few of
them who do not know and love the blessed _tchäi_. Our camp-kettle,
filled from the brook, hummed doubtfully for a while, then busily bubbled
under the sidelong glare of the flames; cups clinked and rattled; the
fragrant steam ascended, and soon this little circlet in the wilderness
grew warm and genial as my lady’s drawing-room.
And after this there came the _tchibouque_—great comforter of those that
are hungry and wayworn. And it has this virtue—it helps to destroy the
_gêne_ and awkwardness which one sometimes feels at being in company with
one’s dependants; for whilst the amber is at your lips, there is nothing
ungracious in your remaining silent, or speaking pithily in short
inter-whiff sentences. And for us that night there was pleasant and
plentiful matter of talk; for the where we should be on the morrow, and
the wherewithal we should be fed, whether by some ford we should regain
the western bank of Jordan, or find bread and salt under the tents of a
wandering tribe, or whether we should fall into the hands of the
Philistines, and so come to see death—the last and greatest of all “the
fine sights” that there be—these were questionings not dull nor wearisome
to us, for we were all concerned in the answers. And it was not an
all-imagined morrow that we probed with our sharp guesses, for the lights
of those low Philistines, the men of the caves, still hung over our
heads, and we knew by their yells that the fire of our bivouac had shown
us.
At length we thought it well to seek for sleep. Our plans were laid for
keeping up a good watch through the night. My quilt and my pelisse and
my cloak were spread out so that I might lie spokewise, with my feet
towards the central fire. I wrapped my limbs daintily round, and gave
myself positive orders to sleep like a veteran soldier. But I found that
my attempt to sleep upon the earth that God gave me was more new and
strange than I had fancied it. I had grown used to the scene which was
before me whilst I was sitting or reclining by the side of the fire, but
now that I laid myself down at length it was the deep black mystery of
the heavens that hung over my eyes—not an earthly thing in the way from
my own very forehead right up to the end of all space. I grew proud of
my boundless bedchamber. I might have “found sermons” in all this
greatness (if I had I should surely have slept), but such was not then my
way. If this cherished self of mine had built the universe, I should
have dwelt with delight on “the wonders of creation.” As it was, I felt
rather the vain-glory of my promotion from out of mere rooms and houses
into the midst of that grand, dark, infinite palace.
And then, too, my head, far from the fire, was in cold latitudes, and it
seemed to me strange that I should be lying so still and passive, whilst
the sharp night breeze walked free over my cheek, and the cold damp clung
to my hair, as though my face grew in the earth and must bear with the
footsteps of the wind and the falling of the dew as meekly as the grass
of the field. Besides, I got puzzled and distracted by having to endure
heat and cold at the same time, for I was always considering whether my
feet were not over-devilled and whether my face was not too well iced.
And so when from time to time the watch quietly and gently kept up the
languishing fire, he seldom, I think, was unseen to my restless eyes.
Yet, at last, when they called me and said that the morn would soon be
dawning, I rose from a state of half-oblivion not much unlike to sleep,
though sharply qualified by a sort of vegetable’s consciousness of having
been growing still colder and colder for many and many an hour.