INTO THE DESERT.
Riding over the ruins on the following day, I realised for the first
time the immense task that I had undertaken. In all directions there
stretched miles and miles of barren land, with here and there low
mounds, ditches, and heaps of rubbish, overgrown with scrub and coarse
grass. Actual ruins, such as walls and the remains of buildings above
ground, there were none, though an occasional long deep trench, dug by
modern excavators, disclosed the presence of a wall at a considerable
depth below the surface. For centuries the place had been ransacked for
bricks to build the towns and villages in the neighbourhood, and even
now I found natives with donkeys loading up the panniers with masses of
broken brickwork.
With the scanty information that I possessed, to attempt to commence
digging for the Golden Girdle was, of course, hopeless--far more
hopeless than looking for a needle in fifty bundles of hay. I, however,
made a thorough exploration of the ruins, and corrected and added to my
maps, deciding that the next step to be taken was to get away among the
Bedouin tribes, and to try to discover some sort of clue as to the
burial-place of the Girdle. Why I thought of the Bedouins as likely to
be of assistance was this; I had among my papers a full-sized drawing of
an Arab horse-shoe, and my uncle had shown me the actual shoe, the
peculiar shape of which at the time interested me a good deal, though I
now found that similar ones were worn by all the Arab horses. It was a
thin disc of metal with a hole in the centre, but it differed from most
shoes in that it had eight nail-holes instead of the usual six. With the
drawing was the translation of a document, and a note to the effect that
the horse-shoe and its description were obtained from the Munshi Abdul
Aziz of Kerbela, and brought to England in 1899 by a certain Captain
Johnson, who was subsequently killed in South Africa. The document
itself ran as follows:-
"_In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate, and, Said
Mohammed, Agent of the High God, and of the Companions of Mohammed.
Praised be the Lord, the Omnipotent Creator._
"This is the Na'l Talisman of the Muntafik, which at one time
adorned the hoof of the beautiful mare Shahzadi, by a Kuhailan
Haifi sire, out of the dam Labadah. The famous mare, known to all
the tribes, was captured by Feyzul, sheik of the Jelas Aeniza, from
the Sheik Jedaan-ibn-Mirshid, who was killed in battle, when a
portion of the Salama tribe of the Shammar was utterly defeated on
the 17th of the month Saphar, A.H. 1281. Of the ill-omened Salama
there escaped but one man, who was riding a brown horse, with four
white feet and a white mark on the forehead, said by some to have
been of the true breed of Saklawi, by others of Ubaiyan. The man
bore away the serpent belt of pure gold, coveted by the desert
tribes."
On the back of the original paper was scribbled in pencil:-
"The shoe and its history were given to me by my old friend, Munshi
Abdul Aziz, on his deathbed, in return for some slight services
which I had rendered him in connection with the annual payment of
pilgrim money. He told me that it had been carried, for many years,
as a talisman, on the neck of the mare ridden by a former sheik of
the Muntafik. How it came into his possession he preferred not to
disclose; but he said that it was well known that the mare Shahzadi
was shod on the off hind foot with an eight nailed shoe (the near
hind, of course, having no shoe). H. J., 8.4.98."
I had already regarded this document as of very great importance, and I
now decided that my first object should be to discover Feyzul, and learn
what he had to say about the golden belt. It was true that Feyzul might
not be alive, and his tribe, in its turn, might have been wiped off the
face of the earth; but still it was the only clue, and it seemed to me
to be worth while following up. So we left Babil and went off to the
town of Hillah, where we imagined we might be able to get the desired
information from the Turkish police officer, whose duty it was to keep
an eye on the Bedouin tribes of the neighbourhood. The officer was most
polite, and, after inspecting my passport and _firman_, sent for his
sergeant, and asked him what was the latest information that he had of
the Jelas sheik.
The sergeant, with much pomp and ceremony, produced a note-book from his
pocket, and rapidly turning over the leaves, at length came to the page
he wanted, when he read out deliberately and in a low voice:--
"Faris-ibn-Feyzul, tribe of Jelas, otherwise Ruwalla, of the Aeniza; 742
men; 428 women; many children; valuable mares and stallions; also camels
and sheep. Blood feud with the Salama of the Shammar; constantly
fighting. The tribe was driven from the Ndjef marshes by the Turkish
troops two months ago, and was reported to have moved about four days
south."
"Is that all?"
"It is all that I know, captain, for, as you are aware, I have been out
in the northern district for the past month."
"What age do you suppose this Faris to be?" I asked.
"Oh, anything over fifty-five, might be seventy, but rides and fights
like a man of thirty."
Then the officer suddenly appeared to become inquisitive, and asked me
why I was so anxious to find this particular Arab chief, who had not the
best of reputations. For the moment I was rather nonplussed, but I
satisfied him by saying that I had been told that he and his tribe knew
the ruins of Babylon better than most people, and that they would be
sure to know what parts had been explored by previous excavators. In the
end the sergeant was told to try and find out where the chief had his
headquarters, and during the next few days I and my party were
entertained by the police officer, who showed us all the sights of the
neighborhood--including the so-called Tower of Babel, or Birs Nimroud.
Before the end of the week Faris-ibn-Feyzul had been discovered, and the
sergeant proudly related how one of his men had seen him in the bazaar
at Kerbela, and had tracked him for three days and nights out into the
desert, and had found his tribe encamped barely two days' ride from
Hillah.
So far so good. I knew that the Jelas tribe still existed, and though
Sheik Feyzul was dead, his son Faris reigned in his stead. The next
point was how to open up communications with him.
"It would be perfectly useless my sending for him," said the Turkish
officer, "for he would not come. They are most independent devils, all
these Bedouins, and you cannot even bribe them. You might send a dozen
messages to this Faris, and tell him that you would pay him a thousand
kerans a day for his services, but that would not be an inducement to
him. He would imagine that we had designs on him."
"I must get hold of him somehow," I said; "what do you think I had
better do?"
"There is only one way that I can see," was the reply. "Leave your
zaptiehs here, and ride off with your friend to Faris's camp without an
escort. I will give you a guide to show you the way, but he must leave
you as soon as you are within sight of the camp. It will be somewhat
risky, as, of course, the Jelas people may take you for Turks and make
short work of you, but if you pretend to be simple English travellers
having lost the way, I daresay it will be all right. I shall, however,
have to get you to give me a paper saying that you left Hillah against
my wish, in case you come to grief, as otherwise I might get into
trouble."
Edwards and I agreed that we had better make the plunge into the desert,
and leaving our belongings in charge of the zaptiehs, with strict
injunction that if nothing was heard of us within a week, they were to
follow us up, we gave the Turk his clearance certificate, and rode off
with our guide at daybreak next morning.
After a somewhat uninteresting ride of a long day, with always in front
of us a mirage rising out of the sandy desert, and enticing us to put
spurs to our horses and gallop to the shade of the palm-groves, which
appeared to grow on the edge of a lake surrounding a great city and its
thousand minarets; after halting for the night in a real date garden, we
arrived late in the afternoon of the second day on a low ridge from
which the country around was visible for many miles. Here the guide
stopped, telling us that we would now have to proceed alone. He then
pointed out the line which we were to take--roughly south-west--showing
us, in the far distance, a tiny speck, which he pronounced to be the
encampment of the Jelas sheik. Looking through our field-glasses, we
could just discern the resemblance to an encampment, but the prospect of
reaching it before dark seemed small. The guide, however, assured us
that it was not as far off as we imagined; the country was deceptive;
and we should probably reach our destination before sundown. With hearts
none too light, we parted from the guide, and started in a bee-line for
our goal.
Before going any great distance, we got hung up by a morass, which had
to be circumvented; then the horses showed signs of being fatigued, and
we were obliged to get off and lead them.
"A jolly wild goose chase this seems to be," said Edwards, somewhat
sulkily.
"Not very cheerful, is it?" I replied.
Neither of us spoke again for about half an hour. The sun was gradually
nearing the horizon. It would be pitch dark in less than an hour.
Edwards stopped.
"What are we going to do?" he asked. "We can't possibly reach the
beastly place before dark, and we are not likely to find it when we
can't see where we are going. I vote we chuck it, have some food, and
bivouac here till the morning."
"Don't you believe it," said I, "what sort of a person do you take me
for? Do you suppose I have been looking at this compass of mine ever
since we left the guide simply to amuse myself? I have got the bearing
of old Faris's centre wigwam to a nicety. The compass is a luminous one.
Look at it. Do you see the luminous paint? Well, as soon as it gets
properly dark and the stars are nice and bright, I'll take you along
quite gaily."
Edwards was interested. He had never seen a luminous compass before, and
confessed that he had no idea that anyone could wander about in a desert
at night and discover where he was going. Now, as a matter of fact, I
was not at all confident of my ability to use a compass at night; for,
since leaving Sandhurst, I had never troubled about these matters.
Still, I could see that my companion did not much like the look of the
situation, so I thought it best to reassure him.
The compass worked far better than I expected--indeed so accurately as
to almost result in our coming to an untimely end. The darkness that had
settled in very shortly after sunset was of the blackest, the stars
standing out with remarkable brilliancy. Whether it was that my nerves
were strained to the utmost, or that it was the first night that I had
spent in the absolute solitude of the vast desert, I cannot say, but I
can never remember in all my subsequent travels any night that
approached this one for inky blackness. On we trudged over the hard,
baked sand, still warm to the feet, and making the air warm as high as
one's chest; above that, a cool invigorating breeze blew about our
heads. Under other circumstances, we should have delighted in the night
march; as it was, we were both too jumpy to appreciate it.
Suddenly, at a little distance to our right, a dog barked, and almost
instantaneously half a dozen shots were fired. Fortunately, they were
evidently fired haphazard, for none of them came in our direction, but
our reception was far too warm to be pleasant, so I shouted in the best
Arabic that I could command:--
"Salaam Aleikum! We are two English travellers who have lost our way. We
seek hospitality for the night, and to be put on our road in the
morning."
There was no reply, though we could hear voices quite close, and could
now distinguish the form of the tents of the encampment. My compass had
landed us within a hundred yards of the right spot, but I had no thought
for the moment of congratulating myself on its accuracy, or on my skill
in handling it. It was a question whether we should have a volley fired
into us, or whether our account of ourselves would be accepted. All
doubt, however, was soon swept away, when a stentorian voice came out of
the darkness:--
"If you are, as you say, Ingleezee who have lost your way, let one man
advance and the other remain a while behind."
I immediately advanced, while Edwards stood his ground. At the doorway
of a large tent I was received by a handsome young Arab, around whom
clustered a number of wild-looking men and women. Oil wick lamps were
raised to my face, and after a few searching questions, the men
appeared to be satisfied, and told me that my companion could come in.
As soon as Edwards appeared, the young Arab, who was evidently the chief
of the party, looked intently into his face, then, flinging himself on
the ground at his feet, became almost convulsed with emotion.
"It is the great _Hakim_ (doctor)," he exclaimed, "_Alhamdu
l'Illah_--Praise be to Allah--I have met him again. The blessed Hakim
who saved my life when I was left for dead by the accursed Shammar. Oh,
God is great to let me see him again, and befriend him in the desert."
We were soon surrounded by as many of the tribe as were able to crowd
into the tent, and the doorway was blocked with the remainder. Edwards
was the centre of attraction, and his Arab friend regaled his
fellow-tribesmen with countless personal experiences of the Hakim's
skill. But, in the excitement, our wants were not forgotten; our horses
were taken away and cared for; women brought in vessels of sour _leben_,
and dishes of meat and unleavened bread, of which we ate with an
appetite whetted by a hard day's march and by the keen, crisp air of the
desert night. Neither was this all, for the floor of the tent was
rapidly piled up with carpets and rugs, conveyed by numerous eager
hands, and after taking the most affectionate farewell for the night,
Sedjur, our host prepared to leave us to ourselves.
"But, Sedjur," said Edwards, holding the young chief's hand, "you have
not told me why you are here, six days' journey to the west of Baghdad;
when in the hospital, you always said you came from the north, from near
Mosul."
"True, O Hakim," was the reply, "but we of the desert have no fixed
home. We wander hither and thither. Yet I confess that I lied to you
when I said that I came from the north. To have disclosed my identity
would have imperilled the safety of my tribe for the son of Faris would
have been a rare prize for the Turki Spahis (a curse on them!), and they
would have tortured me until they had discovered the movements of my
father and his people."
"Are you, then, Faris's son?" inquired Edwards.
"Even so."
"Where then is the sheik, your father?"
"He left, two days since, with ten picked men, to effect the capture of
the horses of some Shammar robbers who were reported to be at Babil. He
will return before sundown to-morrow, and he will then offer you the
full hospitality of the tribe."
"Well, peace be with you, Sedjur, at any rate for this night, and plenty
of hard fighting before long. That is the greatest joy I can wish you, I
know."
Sedjur's face brightened, and his keen eyes glistened as he turned and
left us. When we were alone, I asked my companion to explain how, in the
middle of the night and in the middle of the desert, he had suddenly
found fame. It was not a long story, because George Edwards was the sort
of person who made a story about himself as short as possible. The
Consul-General, it appeared, was riding out, with a small escort, near
Zobeide's Tomb, one evening about a year before, and came across a man
lying in an exhausted condition under a bush. The man was unable to give
an account of himself, but he was evidently in desperate straits, with
several sword cuts on his body and one or two ugly spear gashes. The
Englishman made his escort carry the wretched Arab into Baghdad and hand
him over to the Residency surgeon, and, as Edwards concluded, "I looked
after him, tinkered up his wounds, and was just going to discharge him
from hospital, when he discharged himself--made a bolt of it one fine
night."
"Edwards," I said, when he had finished, "you are a marvel. There never
was such a stroke of luck. If all accounts of these people be true, you
have secured the everlasting friendship of Faris and all his tribe. We
are made men--that is to say if Faris really knows anything of the
Golden Girdle."
Edwards's reply was a long, loud snore, and it was not many minutes
before I myself sank into that blissful state of oblivion which is
begotten of sheer exhaustion.