SUEZ TO GAZA
THE route over the Desert from Suez to Gaza is not frequented by
merchants, and is seldom passed by a traveller. This part of the country
is less uniformly barren than the tracts of shifting sand that lie on the
El Arish route. The shrubs on which the camel feeds are more frequent,
and in many spots the sand is mingled with so much of productive soil as
to admit the growth of corn. The Bedouins are driven out of this
district during the summer by the total want of water, but before the
time for their forced departure arrives they succeed in raising little
crops of barley from these comparatively fertile patches of ground. They
bury the fruit of their labours, leaving marks by which, upon their
return, they may be able to recognise the spot. The warm, dry sand
stands them for a safe granary. The country at the time I passed it (in
the month of April) was pretty thickly sprinkled with Bedouins expecting
their harvest. Several times my tent was pitched alongside of their
encampments. I have told you already what the impressions were which
these people produced upon my mind.
I saw several creatures of the antelope kind in this part of the Desert,
and one day my Arabs surprised in her sleep a young gazelle (for so I
called her), and took the darling prisoner. I carried her before me on
my camel for the rest of the day, and kept her in my tent all night. I
did all I could to coax her, but the trembling beauty refused to touch
food, and would not be comforted. Whenever she had a seeming opportunity
of escaping she struggled with a violence so painfully disproportioned to
her fine, delicate limbs, that I could not continue the cruel attempt to
make her my own. In the morning, therefore, I set her free, anticipating
some pleasure from seeing the joyous bound with which, as I thought, she
would return to her native freedom. She had been so stupefied, however,
by the exciting events of the preceding day and night, and was so puzzled
as to the road she should take, that she went off very deliberately, and
with an uncertain step. She went away quite sound in limb, but her
intellect may have been upset. Never in all likelihood had she seen the
form of a human being until the dreadful moment when she woke from her
sleep and found herself in the grip of an Arab. Then her pitching and
tossing journey on the back of a camel, and lastly, a _soirée_ with me by
candlelight! I should have been glad to know, if I could, that her heart
was not utterly broken.
My Arabs were somewhat excited one day by discovering the fresh print of
a foot—the foot, as they said, of a lion. I had no conception that the
lord of the forest (better known as a crest) ever stalked away from his
jungles to make inglorious war in these smooth plains against antelopes
and gazelles. I supposed that there must have been some error of
interpretation, and that the Arabs meant to speak of a tiger. It
appeared, however, that this was not the case. Either the Arabs were
mistaken, or the noble brute, uncooped and unchained, had but lately
crossed my path.
The camels with which I traversed this part of the Desert were very
different in their ways and habits from those that you get on a
frequented route. They were never led. There was not the slightest sign
of a track in this part of the Desert, but the camels never failed to
choose the right line. By the direction taken at starting they knew, I
suppose, the point (some encampment) for which they were to make. There
is always a leading camel (generally, I believe, the eldest), who marches
foremost, and determines the path for the whole party. If it happens
that no one of the camels has been accustomed to lead the others, there
is very great difficulty in making a start. If you force your beast
forward for a moment, he will contrive to wheel and draw back, at the
same time looking at one of the other camels with an expression and
gesture exactly equivalent to _après vous_. The responsibility of
finding the way is evidently assumed very unwillingly. After some time,
however, it becomes understood that one of the beasts has reluctantly
consented to take the lead, and he accordingly advances for that purpose.
For a minute or two he goes on with much indecision, taking first one
line and then another, but soon by the aid of some mysterious sense he
discovers the true direction, and follows it steadily from morning to
night. When once the leadership is established, you cannot by any
persuasion, and can scarcely by any force, induce a junior camel to walk
one single step in advance of the chosen guide.
On the fifth day I came to an oasis, called the Wady el Arish, a ravine,
or rather a gully, through which during a part of the year there runs a
stream of water. On the sides of the gully there were a number of those
graceful trees which the Arabs call _tarfa_. The channel of the stream
was quite dry in the part at which we arrived, but at about half a mile
off some water was found, which, though very muddy, was tolerably sweet.
This was a happy discovery, for all the water that we had brought from
the neighbourhood of Suez was rapidly putrefying.
The want of foresight is an anomalous part of the Bedouin’s character,
for it does not result either from recklessness or stupidity. I know of
no human being whose body is so thoroughly the slave of mind as that of
the Arab. His mental anxieties seem to be for ever torturing every nerve
and fibre of his body, and yet with all this exquisite sensitiveness to
the suggestions of the mind, he is grossly improvident. I recollect, for
instance, that when setting out upon this passage of the Desert, my
Arabs, in order to lighten the burthen of their camels, were most anxious
that we should take with us only two days’ supply of water. They said
that by the time that supply was exhausted we should arrive at a spring
which would furnish us for the rest of the journey. My servants very
wisely, and with much pertinacity, resisted the adoption of this plan,
and took care to have both the large skins well filled. We proceeded,
and found no water at all, either at the expected spring or for many days
afterwards, so that nothing but the precaution of my own people saved us
from the very severe suffering which we should have endured if we had
entered upon the Desert with only a two days’ supply. The Arabs
themselves being on foot would have suffered much more than I from the
consequences of their improvidence.
This unaccountable want of foresight prevents the Bedouin from
appreciating at a distance of eight or ten days the amount of the misery
which he entails upon himself at the end of that period. His dread of a
city is one of the most painful mental affections that I have ever
observed, and yet when the whole breadth of the Desert lies between him
and the town to which you are going, he will freely enter into an
agreement to _land_ you in the city for which you are bound. When,
however, after many a day of toil the distant minarets at length appear,
the poor Bedouin relaxes the vigour of his pace, his steps become
faltering and undecided, every moment his uneasiness increases, and at
length he fairly sobs aloud, and embracing your knees, implores with the
most piteous cries and gestures that you will dispense with him and his
camels, and find some other means of entering the city. This, of course,
one can’t agree to, and the consequence is that one is obliged to witness
and resist the most moving expressions of grief and fond entreaty. I had
to go through a most painful scene of this kind when I entered Cairo, and
now the horror which these wilder Arabs felt at the notion of entering
Gaza led to consequences still more distressing. The dread of cities
results partly from a kind of wild instinct which has always
characterised the descendants of Ishmael, but partly too from a
well-founded apprehension of ill-treatment. So often it happens that the
poor Bedouin, when once jammed in between walls, is seized by the
Government authorities for the sake of his camels, that his innate horror
of cities becomes really justified by results.
The Bedouins with whom I performed this journey were wild fellows of the
Desert, quite unaccustomed to let out themselves or their beasts for
hire, and when they found that by the natural ascendency of Europeans
they were gradually brought down to a state of subserviency to me, or
rather to my attendants, they bitterly repented, I believe, of having
placed themselves under our control. They were rather difficult fellows
to manage, and gave Dthemetri a good deal of trouble, but I liked them
all the better for that.
Selim, the chief of the party, and the man to whom all our camels
belonged, was a fine, savage, stately fellow. There were, I think, five
other Arabs of the party, but when we approached the end of the journey
they one by one began to make off towards the neighbouring encampments,
and by the time that the minarets of Gaza were in sight, Selim, the owner
of the camels, was the only one who remained. He, poor fellow, as we
neared the town began to discover the same terrors that my Arabs had
shown when I entered Cairo. I could not possibly accede to his
entreaties and consent to let my baggage be laid down on the bare sands,
without any means of having it brought on into the city. So at length,
when poor Selim had exhausted all his rhetoric of voice and action and
tears, he fixed his despairing eyes for a minute upon the cherished
beasts that were his only wealth, and then suddenly and madly dashed away
into the farther Desert. I continued my course and reached the city at
last, but it was not without immense difficulty that we could constrain
the poor camels to pass under the hated shadow of its walls. They were
the genuine beasts of the Desert, and it was sad and painful to witness
the agony they suffered when thus they were forced to encounter the fixed
habitations of men. They shrank from the beginning of every high, narrow
street as though from the entrance of some horrible cave or bottomless
pit; they sighed and wept like women. When at last we got them within
the courtyard of the khan they seemed to be quite broken-hearted, and
looked round piteously for their loving master; but no Selim came. I had
imagined that he would enter the town secretly by night in order to carry
off those five fine camels, his only wealth in this world, and seemingly
the main objects of his affection. But no; his dread of civilisation was
too strong. During the whole of the three days that I remained at Gaza
he failed to show himself, and thus sacrificed in all probability not
only his camels, but the money which I had stipulated to pay him for the
passage of the Desert. In order, however, to do all I could towards
saving him from this last misfortune I resorted to a contrivance
frequently adopted by the Asiatics: I assembled a group of grave and
worthy Mussulmans in the courtyard of the khan, and in their presence
paid over the gold to a Sheik who was accustomed to communicate with the
Arabs of the Desert. All present solemnly promised that if ever Selim
should come to claim his rights, they would bear true witness in his
favour.
I saw a great deal of my old friend the Governor of Gaza. He had
received orders to send back all persons coming from Egypt, and force
them to perform quarantine at El Arish. He knew so little of quarantine
regulations, however, that his dress was actually in contact with mine
whilst he insisted upon the stringency of the orders which he had
received. He was induced to make an exception in my favour, and I
rewarded him with a musical snuff-box which I had bought at Smyrna for
the purpose of presenting it to any man in authority who might happen to
do me an important service. The Governor was delighted with his toy, and
took it off to his harem with great exultation. He soon, however,
returned with an altered countenance; his wives, he said, had got hold of
the box and put it out of order. So shortlived is human happiness in
this frail world!
The Governor fancied that he should incur less risk if I remained at Gaza
for two or three days more, and he wanted me to become his guest. I
persuaded him, however, that it would be better for him to let me depart
at once. He wanted to add to my baggage a roast lamb and a quantity of
other cumbrous viands, but I escaped with half a horse-load of leaven
bread, which was very good of its kind, and proved a most useful present.
The air with which the Governor’s slaves affected to be almost breaking
down under the weight of the gifts which they bore on their shoulders,
reminded me of the figures one sees in some of the old pictures.