stooped shoulders to stand against the gale; I could not go ahead.
As I brushed the frost from my glasses and squinted upward through
the stinging snow I saw a sight that will haunt me to my dying day.
_The slope above me was no longer steep_! That was all I could see.
What it meant I will never know for certain--all I can say is that we
were close to the top!"
There was no going on in the teeth of that gale. The three chopped a
seat in the ice, trying to find a shelter; but they were not huddled
there a second before they discovered they were freezing. There was
nothing for it but to return, for the snow was obliterating their
back trail. Dead tired and sick at heart they began the journey
back, and found that the steps they had cut had disappeared. It took
them nearly two hours to go down an easy slope of 1,000 feet. They
reached the base of the dome, guiding themselves only by the
direction of the wind, and at last at 7.35 p.m. crawled into their
upper camp. All their apparel down to their underclothes was filled
with ice. They were beaten by the wind, and by the wind only. On a
conservative estimate its pace was fifty-five miles an hour, and the
temperature fifteen degrees below zero. Otherwise they suffered
little from the altitude. Mr. Belmore Browne was able to roll and
smoke a cigarette between 18,000 and 19,000 feet.
They spent a day in their tent, trying to thaw their clothes.
Pemmican they could not touch, their chocolate was finished, and
their food was tea, sugar, hardtack, and raisins. It was a cruel
fate that they had lost ten days' rations in useless pemmican since
leaving their 13,200-feet camp, and they had not only lost the food
but carried useless weight.
They made one more attempt on the summit, and reached the base of the
final dome; but there another storm assailed them, and, after waiting
an hour, they went back. There was now a real risk of being caught
with insufficient food in a blizzard which would destroy life, and
they made haste down the mountain. They had spent seven days above
15,000 feet, six days above 16,000 feet, and four days above 16,650
feet.
As they descended their health improved, and at last they came off
the glacier on to the moraine, and lay down on the bare earth. It
was the first time for thirty days that they had lain on anything but
snow and ice. They slept like logs till the afternoon, and when they
awoke a warm wind was blowing up the pass, carrying with it the smell
of grass and flowers. "Never can I forget," says Mr. Belmore Browne,
"the flood of emotions that swept over me. Professor Parker and La
Voy were equally affected by this first smell of the lowlands, and we
were wet-eyed and chattered like children as we prepared our packs
for the last stage of our journey."
How dangerous was the climatic condition of the mountain may be
judged from what happened on the evening of 6th July. From their
camp in the foothills they saw the sky suddenly turn a sickly green.
There came a deep rumbling from the Alaskan range, and as they looked
the mountains melted into mist and the earth began to heave and roll.
In front of them a boulder weighing 200 lbs. broke loose from the
earth and moved. The surface of the hills seemed to open and the
cracks to spout liquid mud. The whole range was wrapped in dust, and
as it cleared they saw the peaks spouting avalanches. Had this
earthquake overtaken them on the high ground all must have perished.
III
The story has always seemed to me one of the boldest and most patient
adventures in the history of mountaineering. Slowly the travellers
fought their way to the discovery of the only practical route. Mount
McKinley was conquered, though they had failed to cover the hundred
or so feet which would have given them the actual summit. They had
blazed the path to the top and solved its mysteries. Only that
maleficent blizzard at the last moment robbed them of the full fruit
of six years' pioneering.
Next year the actual summit was reached. The late Dr. Hudson Stuck,
the Archdeacon of the Yukon, ever since he came to the country nine
years before, had contemplated an attempt on the mountain. In the
autumn of 1912 he sent on supplies by way of the Kantishna River to a
point fifty miles from the base. In March, 1913, he and Mr. W. P.
Karstens set out to reach the peak from the north. At their base
camp, 4,000 feet up, they made a fresh supply of caribou pemmican
which proved more satisfactory than that used by Professor Parker and
Mr. Belmore Browne. The road taken was the same as that of their
predecessors--up the Muldrow Glacier and then up the central
North-East ridge. They found that the earthquake of 1912 had
completely changed the character of that ridge, and instead of being
a reasonable snow gradient, it had become a confused mass of rock and
ice, most difficult to surmount. Bit by bit they forced their way up
it till they reached the upper basin, and then, being favoured with
clear, bright, still weather, they managed to attain the highest
point, the southern summit. There had been a story of two miners,
called McGonogall and Anderson, who had reached the top in 1910. Dr.
Stuck discovered that the top they had reached was the lesser
northern peak, for he saw the remains of their flagstaff.
With this ascent the story of the conquest of Mount McKinley is
complete.*
* Dr. Stuck argued with much reason that the present name of the
mountain is unsuitable, and that the Indian name "Denali"--which
means "the Great One"--should be restored. It is to be feared that
the suggestion comes too late in the day. Ever since the expedition
of 1906 Mount McKinley has become too familiar a name in the Western
Hemisphere to be readily changed for another. The story of the
Parker-Browne expedition is contained in _The Conquest of Mount
McKinley_ (New York, Putnams, 1913), and that of Dr. Stuck in _The
Ascent of Denali_ (New York, Scribners, 1914).
VII
THE HOLY CITIES OF ISLAM
THE HOLY CITIES OF ISLAM
(_Map_, p. 216.)
The "spell of far Arabia" has been a potent thing from the days when
the Egyptians drew wealth from the spice-land of Punt, and Greek
traders brought stories of the gums and jewels of Araby the Blessed.
But ever since it became the Holy Land of Islam a veil of secrecy,
other than that of its stern climate and inhospitable deserts, has
descended upon it. It is one of the oldest of arenas of adventure,
and it is still one of the least exploited; indeed, in its great
Southern Desert it holds one of the few unriddled mysteries of the
globe. Except for the semi-mythical Gregorio, who may be read of in
Albuquerque's Commentaries, no one who did not profess the creed of
Islam has entered its two Holy Cities and lived. But the greatest
tale of Arabian exploration is not concerned with Mecca and Medina.
It is to be found rather in the journeys of the English soldier
Captain Sadlier in Nejd; of Sir Richard Burton in the land of Midian;
of Wallin, who crossed the great Nafud sands; of William Gilford
Palgrave, who may, or may not, have been an agent of Napoleon III.;
and, above all, of Charles Montague Doughty, who, as an avowed
Christian, explored the Northern Hedjaz, and in his _Arabia Deserta_
has written one of the foremost classics of travel in the English
tongue.
Compared with some of these wanderings, a visit to the Holy Cities
was a simple matter, requiring only a firm nerve, a good knowledge of
Arabic and of Mohammedan ritual, and a real or professed adherence to
the creed of Islam. At the beginning of this century the list of
Europeans who had entered Mecca and Medina was a long one. They were
mostly renegades--French, English, Irish, Scottish, and Italian. In
1807 a certain Domingo Badia y Leblich of Cadiz, travelling as a
Moslem prince called Ali Bey, and probably in the pay of Napoleon,
entered Mecca in state; but he had become a genuine Mussulman. In
1815 one Thomas Keith, a deserter from the 72nd Highlanders, was
Governor of Medina--surely one of the strangest posts ever held even
by a Scot! The great European travellers like Burckhardt, Wallin,
and Burton went to the Holy Cities in order that by attaining the
rank and fame of a Hadji they might win an advantage for travelling
in other Moslem lands. More than one of them has described minutely
the interior of both Mecca and Medina and the ritual of the great
ceremonies. The Holy Places, though few Western eyes had seen them,
were sufficiently well known to the Western world. Their true
unveiling may be said to have come about during the Great War, when
Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca, fought as an ally with the British,
and, as King of the Hedjaz, proclaimed his independence of Turkey.
Yet one journey was taken just before the Great War which must rank
by itself. It told the world nothing that was not known before; but
it had the merit of giving a picture of Mecca and Medina under the
latest conditions--a picture drawn with such vigour and in such
detail that it may fairly claim to have revealed the Holy Cities in a
new light to the ordinary man.
Mr. A. J. B. Wavell greatly distinguished himself in command of Arab
scouts in East Africa in the early part of the Great War, and was
responsible for the brilliant affair at Gazi. In that campaign he
gave his life for his country.* He had been at Winchester, and in
1908, when he made the plan for visiting Mecca, had been living for
some time at Mombasa, where he had acquired Arabic and Swahili, and a
considerable knowledge of Moslem customs. His motive was partly
curiosity, partly, as he says, to accustom himself to Arab ways, with
a view to further explorations in Arabia, and partly in order to
obtain the useful prestige of a Hadji. He chose as his companions a
certain Abdul Wahid, an Arab from Aleppo who was established in
Berlin, and Masaudi, a Mombasa native. The three met at Marseilles
on September 23, 1908. They started in good time, for though the
pilgrimage was not to take place till the beginning of the following
January, Mr. Wavell wanted to go first to Medina, and also to prepare
himself by a preliminary discipline in Eastern life. He managed to
secure a Turkish passport, which described him as one Ali bin
Mohammed, aged twenty-five, a subject of Zanzibar on his way to Mecca.
* He fell on January 8, 1916.
The three found a vessel at Genoa which took them to Alexandria,
where they managed, not without trouble, to get their medicine chest,
pistols, and ammunition past the Customs. They then took passages on
a Khedivial mail ship for Beyrout. Mr. Wavell had feared that the
language difficulty would be serious, but he found it less formidable
than he expected, since the dialects of Arabic are many. He
explained to those who found imperfections in his accent that in
Zanzibar the colloquial language was Swahili and that no one talked
Arabic; and on the few occasions when he had to speak Swahili he
inverted the story, announcing that, having been born in Muscat, his
real language was Arabic. As Sir Richard Burton discovered in his
own journey, it was rare indeed to find any one sufficiently well
acquainted with both languages to find him out. Meantime he had
changed at Alexandria into Arab clothes and shaved his head.
[Illustration: Wavell's Journey to Mecca.]
They reached Beyrout safely, and proceeded at once by rail to
Damascus. As they did not propose to start for Medina for some
weeks, they took rooms and settled down, devoting great attention to
the various Moslem ceremonies, and picking up the right kind of
phrases and quotations and greetings. It is on such small things
that the efficacy of a disguise depends. "There are nearly as many
white men at Mecca," Mr. Wavell writes in his account of his
adventures,* "as there are men black or brown in colour. Syrian
'Arabs' not infrequently have fair hair and blue eyes, as likewise
have some of the natives of the Holy Cities themselves. I was once
asked what colour I stained myself for this journey. The question
reveals the curious ignorance that lies at the bottom of the
so-called race prejudice, of which some people are so proud. You
might as well black yourself all over to play Hamlet!"
* _A Modern Pilgrim in Mecca_, by A. J. B. Wavell (Constable, 1912).
Abdul Wahid had brought letters of introduction to a local merchant,
who was most hospitable, and supervised the preparations for the
journey. They passed safely through the period of Ramadan, and so
complete was Mr. Wavell's get-up, and so stalwart his Moslem
respectability, that it was with some difficulty that he prevented a
middle-aged lady and her two daughters from joining his party for the
pilgrimage. He bought the "Ihram," the white robes which are
required when entering Mecca, a full camp equipment, and a certain
number of stores, and deposited his money with his merchant friend,
who gave him two cheques on his agents, one at Medina and one at
Mecca. He proposed to travel to Medina by the Hedjaz railway, a very
different method from those used by earlier adventurers when aiming
at Mecca.
The third-class carriages were desperately crowded, and the train
started to the accompaniment of gramophones--a modern invention which
is very popular in the Hedjaz. On the way Mr. Wavell had a touch of
malaria, and his fellow pilgrims showed him every kindness.
Presently the train reached Medain Salih, the boundary of the Hedjaz,
which no infidel is permitted to pass. On the fourth day the rocky
hills opened, and through a gap appeared the minarets of the
Prophet's mosque. They arrived at Medina in the middle of a battle,
for the Turkish garrison had come to loggerheads with the
neighbouring Bedawin, and the Holy City was more or less in a state
of siege. The railway was spoiling trade for the neighbouring
tribes, and they were demanding compensation, which Constantinople
would not pay.
Medina lies in an open plain some 3,000 feet above sea-level. To the
south the country is open, but on the north and west, between five
and ten miles distant, rise rocky mountains. The city, which has a
population of some 30,000, lives entirely on the pilgrims, as an
English watering-place lives on summer visitors. The pilgrims are
classified by their lands of origin, and there are official guides,
called Mutowifs, attached to each group. The first trouble arose
from these guides. If Mr. Wavell went about with the Zanzibar
Mutowifs he was certain to meet some one who knew him in Mombasa,
even if he were not caught out in the language. So it was arranged
that Abdul Wahid should profess to come from Bagdad, while Mr. Wavell
passed as "a Derweish," and Masaudi as his slave. A "Derweish,"
which denotes properly a member of certain monastic orders, is a
title occasionally assumed by pilgrims who do not wish to be
identified with any particular nationality.
Happily, at the station there were no Zanzibar guides, and the party
were able to find rooms in a retired corner at the moderate rate of
£2 a month. The landlord was an Abyssinian called Iman, a man of
some private means, who had been captured as a child by Arab slavers
and sold in Mecca. He proved a most useful friend to the party
during their stay.
So began a curious life of endless religious observations. Apart
from the sacred places, which few European eyes had beheld, there was
a perpetual interest in the study of the pilgrims. "A large caravan
came in from Yembu, bringing crowds of Indians, Javanese, and
Chinamen. Every Eastern race might be identified in the motley
crowd, and every variety of costume, till the whole resembled nothing
so much as a fancy dress ball. In the same line of prayer stand
European Turks, with their frock coats and stick-up collars;
Anatolians, with enormous trousers and fantastic weapons; Arabs from
the West, who look as if they were arrayed for burial; the Bedou
(Bedawin), with their spears and scimitars; and Indians, who, in
spite of their being the richest class there, managed, as usual, to
look the most unkempt and the least clean. Then, besides, were the
Persians, Chinese, Javanese, Japanese, Malayans, a dozen different
African races, Egyptians, Afghans, Baluchies, Swahilis, and 'Arabs'
of every description." Representatives of half the races of the
globe may be picked out in the mosque any day during the month before
the pilgrimage.
The behaviour of the pilgrims, who now saw with their own eyes the
tomb of the Prophet, which from their childhood they had been taught
to regard with awe, was a proof of the living reality of the Islamic
faith. "Many burst into tears and frantically kissed the railings: I
have seen Indians and Afghans fall down apparently unconscious. They
seem to be much more affected here than before the Kaaba itself. At
Mecca the feeling is of awe and reverence; here the personal element
comes in. The onlooker might fancy that they were visiting the tomb
of some dear friend, one whom they had actually known and been
intimate with in his lifetime. With frantic interest they listen to
their guides as they describe the surroundings. Here is the place
where the Prophet prayed, the pulpit he preached from, the pillar
against which he leant; there, looking to the mosque, is the window
of Abu Bakar's house, where for long he stayed as a guest; and beyond
is the little garden planted by his daughter Fatima." Moreover,
there is no suggestion of infidel authority, the Moslem standards
float over the town, Moslem cannon protect its gates, and no
unbeliever may enter. But there are startling touches of modernity.
In the shops you may buy European tinned goods and note
advertisements of Cadbury's chocolates and Huntley and Palmer's
biscuits!
The party had brought introductions from Damascus and Abdul Wahid had
made various friends, so they saw a good deal of society. The time
was just after the rising of the Young Turks and the grant of the
Constitution. Mr. Wavell, who was a staunch Tory, found to his
disgust that every one talked parliamentarianism and Liberal
principles. England and the English were everywhere in high favour
because of our attitude in the recent quarrel with Austria over the
annexation of Bosnia. "I am afraid I managed to give the impression
that Zanzibar is a sadly backward state, or that I myself am
peculiarly stupid. Not to know a word of any European language is to
be held very ignorant, even in Medina. Most people of the class with
whom I associated had at any rate a smattering of French, and
sometimes of English too. I was careful never to know anything."
Their stay in Medina was much enlivened by the Bedawin siege. Mr.
Wavell tried to get enlisted in the defence force, and when that plan
failed, succeeded in getting into a very warm corner just outside the
gates. They visited like industrious tourists every possible place
of interest, and few pilgrims can have spent a more enlightening
three weeks. During the whole time they were never in real danger.
They had, indeed, a scuffle with a Persian Mutowif, who would insist
that Mr. Wavell was a Persian; but by vigorous bluffing they made him
apologize, and afterwards employed him as a guide. Once only was
there a hint of trouble. Masaudi, standing in the mosque one day
before the noonday prayer, found himself face to face with five
Mombasa Swahilis who knew him intimately, and, what was worse, knew
Mr. Wavell. Masaudi showed remarkable gifts of mendacity. He said
he had left Mr. Wavell in England, and having saved a little money
thought the present was a good time to perform the pilgrimage. He
was in Medina, he said, as a servant of some rich Egyptian pilgrims.
As he walked back after prayer he dropped his string of beads. The
Swahilis asked where his house was, and he promised to show it them;
but half-way up the street he suddenly remembered the beads, bolted
back, and lost himself in the crowd.
The incident convinced Mr. Wavell that he had better start without
delay for Mecca. Their plan was to go to the coast at Yembu, for
which a caravan was starting at once. They arranged for three
camels, one to carry a _shugduf_, which is a cross between a pannier
and a howdah, and the other two for luggage; and they bought the
necessary food. They took with them a Persian called Jaffa as cook,
and his brother Ibrahim as general servant. The luggage was carried
down to the big square where the caravan was parked, and where the
travellers had to pass the night. That evening there occurred an
untoward event. Mr. Wavell was going to a shop for some small
purchase, when he met two Mutowifs who demanded to know his
nationality. The Mutowifs, being a strict trades union, were
convinced that he was defrauding the brotherhood. He took a high
line and showed his pistol, and, fortunately, his late landlord came
down the street at the moment and took his side. What might have
been an ugly experience ended in a minor street brawl.
[Illustration: View of Medina. (_By permission of Messrs. Arch.
Constable & Co., Ltd._)]
The journey to Yembu was little better than a nightmare. The
fashionable road from Medina to Mecca is overland, or back to
Damascus and so direct to Jiddah by the Suez Canal. Only poor people
go by the Yembu route, which is supposed to be the most hazardous and
the roughest in the Hedjaz. There were no escort or police
arrangements, no daily market, and each traveller had to carry his
own provisions and water. The Bedawin hired out the camels, which
numbered about 5,000, and a Bedawi sheikh was in charge. The
countryside was infested by robbers who constantly cut off
stragglers. The ground, too, was difficult going, being a rough
mountain-land, and, while the noons were scorching, the nights were
bitterly cold. Every night an encampment was made, roughly circular
in shape, into which the whole caravan was packed in the smallest
possible space. "While I was trying to get warm a man stumbled
against me and nearly knocked me into the fire. Turning round, I was
shocked to see a figure, stained almost from head to foot with blood
from a tremendous gash in the head, obviously a sword cut. He asked
for water, and I went into the tent to get him some, but returning,
found him gone. We heard the next day that no less than six men had
been murdered that night and many others wounded; and so it went on
till we reached Yembu. These unfortunates were mostly people who
could not afford camels, and so had to perform the journey on foot.
Straying from the main body in search of firewood they got picked up
by the marauders hanging on the flanks, who seized every opportunity
to plunder such stragglers of their miserable possessions, and killed
unhesitatingly any who resisted."
It was in this country that Charles Doughty spent part of his time,
and Mr. Wavell thinks that one reason of his success was that he
carried nothing worth stealing. The fact that Doughty denied neither
his religion nor his nationality seemed to him not the most
remarkable fact about the achievement. "The Bedou themselves are not
fanatical on these points, and he did not attempt to enter the
forbidden cities. Of course, the fact of a stranger being a
Christian is always a good excuse for knocking him on the head; but
failing it they will soon find another if they want to do so, and
will be quite uninfluenced by it if they don't."
They had one row with their camel man, Saad, who tried to extort
bakhsheesh. Suddenly he quieted down, and became all politeness to
the end of the journey. The reason for this was that that
resourceful liar Ibrahim had told him that Mr. Wavell was a nephew of
the Governor of Yembu. This story served the travellers well. It
spread through the caravan, and many of the pilgrims who were being
blackmailed by their camel-men came to him and begged his protection,
and received it. At last, on the dawn of the sixth day, after
trekking without a stop for the last twenty hours, they reached the
gates of Yembu.