KHAT

“O, thou blessed that contains no demon, but a fairy! When I follow

thee thou takest me into regions overlooking Paradise. My sorrows are

as nothing. My rags are become as robes of silk. My feet are shod, not

worn and bleeding. I lift up my head——O Flower of Paradise! O Flower

of Paradise!”

_Old Arabian Song._

“When the European is weary he calls for alcohol to revive him; when

he is joyful he thinks of wine that he may have more joy. In like

manner the Chinese wooes his ‘white lady,’ the poppy flower. The

Indian chews bhang, and the West African seeks surcease in kola.

To the Yemen Arab, khat, the poor man’s happiness, his ‘flower of

paradise,’ is more than any of these to its devotees. It is no

narcotic compelling sleep, but a stimulant like alcohol, a green

shrub that grows upon the hills in moist places. On the roads leading

to the few cities of Arabia, and in the cities themselves, it may

be seen being borne on the backs of camels to the market-place or

the wedding feast—the wet and dripping leaves of the shrub. The poor

and the well-to-do at once crave and adore it. They speak of it as

‘the strength of the weak,’ ‘the inspiration of the depressed,’ ‘the

dispeller of sorrow and too deep care.’ All who may, buy and chew it,

the poor by the anna’s worth, the rich by the rupee. The beggar when

he can beg or steal it—even he is happy too.”

_American Consular Report._

The dawn had long since broken over the heat-weary cup and slopes of

the Mugga Valley, in which lies Hodeidah. In the centre of the city,

like a mass of upturned yellow cups and boxes surrounded by a ring of

green and faced by the sea, were the houses, with their streets and

among and in them the shopkeepers of streets or ways busy about the

labors of the day. Al Hajjaj, the cook, whose place was near the mosque

in the centre of the public square, had already set his pots and pans

over the fire and washed his saucers and wiped his scales and swept his

shop and sprinkled it. And indeed his fats and oils were clear and his

spices fragrant, and he himself was standing behind his cooking pots

ready to serve customers. Likewise those who dealt in bread, ornaments,

dress goods, had put forth such wares as they had to offer. In the

mosque a few of the faithful had entered to pray. Over the dust of the

ill-swept street, not yet cleared of the rubbish of the day before, the

tikka gharries of the better-to-do dragged their way along the road

about various errands. The same was speckled with natives in bright

or dull attire, some alive with the interest of business, others dull

because of a life that offered little.

In his own miserable wattle-covered shed or hut, no more than an

abandoned donkey’s stall at the edge of the city, behold Ibn Abdullah.

Beggar, ne’er-do-well, implorer of charity before the mosque,

ex-water-carrier and tobacco seller in Mecca and Medina, from whence he

had been driven years before by his extortions and adulterations, he

now turned wearily, by no means anxious to rise although it was late.

For why rise when you are old and weary and ragged, and life offers

at best only a little food and sleep—or not so much food as (best and

most loved of all earthly blessings) khat, the poor man’s friend? For

that, more than food or drink, he craved. Yet how to come by it was a

mystery. There was about him not a single anna wherewith to sate his

needs—not so much as a pice!

Indeed, as Ibn Abdullah now viewed his state, he had about reached

the end of his earthly tether. His career was and had been a failure.

Born in the mountain district back of Hodeidah, in the little village

of Sabar, source of the finest khat, where formerly his father had

been a khat farmer, his mother a farmer’s helper, he had wandered

far, here and there over Arabia and elsewhere, making a living as best

he might: usually by trickery. Once for a little while he had been a

herdsman with a Bedouin band, and had married a daughter of the tribe,

but, restlessness and a lust of novelty overcoming him, he had, in

time, deserted his wife and wandered hence. Thence to Jiddah, the port

of debarkation for pilgrims from Egypt and Central Africa approaching

Mecca and Medina, the birthplace and the burialplace of the Prophet.

Selling trinkets and sacred relics, water and tobacco and fruit and

food, and betimes indulging in trickery and robbery, he had finally

been taken in the toils of the Cadis of both Mecca and Medina, by whose

henchmen he had been sadly drubbed on his back and feet and ordered

away, never to return. Venturing once more into the barren desert,

a trailer of caravans, he had visited Taif, Taraba and Makhwa, but

finding life tedious in these smaller places he had finally drifted

southward along the coast of the Red Sea to the good city of Hodeidah,

where, during as many as a dozen years now, he had been eking out a

wretched existence, story-telling, selling tobacco (when he could get

it) or occasionally false relics to the faithful. Having grown old in

this labor, his tales commonplace, his dishonesty and lack of worth

and truth well known, he was now weary and helpless, truly one near an

unhonored end.

Time was, in his better days and greater strength, as he now bethought

him on this particular morning, when he had had his full share of khat,

and food too. Ay-ee! There had been some excellent days in the past,

to be sure! Not even old Raschid, the khat drunkard, or Al Hajjaj, the

cook, who might be seen of a late afternoon before his shop, his pillow

and carpets and water chatties about him, his narghili lit, a bunch of

khat by his side, his wife and daughter at the window above listening

to him and his friends as they smoked or chewed and discoursed, had

more of khat and food than had he. By Allah, things were different

then! He had had his girls, too, his familiar places in the best of the

mabrazes, where were lights and delightful strains of song, and dancing

betimes. He had sung and applauded and recounted magnificent adventures

with the best of them. Ay-ee!

But of late he had not done well—not nearly as well as in times past.

He was very, very old now, that was the reason; his bones ached

and even creaked. An undue reputation for evil things done in the

past—Inshallah! no worse than those of a million others—pursued him

wherever he went. It was remembered of him, unfortunately, here in

Hodeidah, as in Mecca and Medina (due no doubt to the lying, blasting

tongue—may it wither in his mouth!—of Tahrbulu, the carrier, whom he

had known in Mecca)—that he had been bastinadoed there for adulterating

the tobacco he sold—a little dried goats’ and camels’ dung, wind-blown

and clean; and as for Taif, to which place he had gone after Mecca,

Firaz, the ex-caravan guard who had known him in that place—the

dog!—might his bones wither in the sun!—had recalled to various and

sundry that at Mecca he had been imprisoned for selling water from a

rain-pit as that of the sacred well of Jezer! Be it so; he was hard

pressed at the time; there was no place to turn; business was poor—and

great had been his yearning for khat.

But since then he had aged and wearied and all his efforts at an

honest livelihood had served him ill. Betimes his craving for khat had

grown, the while his ability to earn it—aye, even to beg it with any

success!—had decreased. Here in Hodeidah he was too well known (alas,

much too well known!), and yet where else was he to go? By sea it was

all of three hundred miles to Aden, a great and generous place, so it

was said, but how was he to get there at his time of life? No captain

would carry him. He would be tossed into the sea like a rat. Had he not

begged and been roundly cursed? And to Jiddah, whereby thousands came

to Mecca, a full five hundred miles north, he dare not return. Were he

there, no doubt he would do better: the faithful were generous.... But

were he caught in the realm of the Grand Sherif— No; Hodeidah had its

advantages.

He arose after a time, and, without ablutions, prostrating himself

weakly in the direction of Mecca, adjusted his ragged loin- and

shoulder-cloths and prepared to emerge for the day. Although hungry

and weak, it was not food but khat that he desired, a few leaves of

the green, succulent, life-giving plant that so restored his mood and

strength and faculties generally. By Allah, if he had but a little, a

handful, his thoughts concerning life would be so much more endurable.

He might even, though cracked and wretched was his voice, tell a tale

or two to idlers and so earn an honest anna. Or he would have more

courage to beg, to lie, to mourn before the faithful. Yea, had he not

done so often? With it he was as good as any man, as young, as hopeful;

without it—well, he was as he was: feeble and worn.

As he went forth finally along the hot, dusty road which led into the

city and the public market and mosque, lined on either side by low

one-story mud houses of the poor, windowless, and with the roadway

in front as yet unswept, his thoughts turned in eager seeking to the

khat market, hard by the public square and beyond the mosque, whose

pineapple-shaped dome he could even now see rising in the distance over

the low roofs before him. Here it was that at about eleven o’clock

in the morning the khat camels bearing their succulent loads would

come winding along the isthmus road from the interior. He could see

them now, hear their bells, the long striding camels, their shouting

drivers, the green herb, wet and sweet, piled in refreshing masses

upon their backs! How well he knew the process of its arrival—the

great rock beyond the Jiddah gate casting a grateful shade, the two

little black policemen ready to take custom toll of each load and

give a receipt, the huge brutes halting before the door of the low

kutcha-thatched inn, there to pick at some wisps of grass while their

masters went inside to have a restful pull at a hubbuk (water-pipe)

and a drink of kishr, or maybe a bowl of curds. Meanwhile, a flock of

shrewd youngsters, bribelings of the merchants of the bazaars within

the city, would flit about the loaded animals, seeking to steal a leaf

or to thrust an appraising glance into the closely wrapped bundles, in

order that they might report as to the sweetness and freshness of their

respective loads.

“What, O _kowasji_, is the quality of your khat to-day? Which beast

carries the best, and has thy driver stinted no water on the journey to

keep it fresh?”

To find true answers to these questions had these urchins taken their

bribe-money in the bazaars. But the barefoot policeman would chase them

away, the refreshed drivers would come out again, fiercely breathing

calumnies against the grandmothers of such brats, and the little

caravan would pick its way upward and downward again into the market.

But to-day, too weary to travel so far, even though by sighs and groans

and many prayers for their well-being he might obtain so little as a

leaf or two from the comfortable drivers, he betook himself slowly

toward the market itself. En route, and especially as he neared a

better portion of the city, where tikka gharries might be seen, he was

not spareful of “Alms, in the name of Allah! Allah! Alms!” or “May thy

hours in paradise be endless!” But none threw him so much as a pice.

Instead, those who recognized his familiar figure, the sad antithesis

of all industry and well-being, turned away or called: “Out of the way,

thou laggard! To one side, dog!”

When he reached the market, however, not without having cast a wishful

eye at the shining pots and saucers of Al Hajjaj en route, the

adjoining bazaar had heard of the coming of the green-laden caravan,

and from the dark shops, so silent until now, cheerful cries were

beginning to break forth. Indeed the streets were filled with singing

and a stream of lean figures all headed one way. Like himself they

were going to the khat market, only so much better equipped for the

occasion—rupees and anna in plenty for so necessary and delectable

an herb. Tikka gharries rattled madly past him, whips were waved and

turbans pushed awry; there were flashes of color from rich men’s gowns,

as they hurried to select the choicest morsels, the clack of oryx-hide

sandals, and the blunt beating of tom-toms. As the camels arrived in

the near distance, the market was filled with a restless, yelling mob.

Bedlam had broken loose, but a merry, good-natured bedlam at that. For

khat, once obtained, would ease whatever ill feeling or morning unrest

or weariness one might feel.

Although without a pice wherewith to purchase so much as a stalk,

still Ibn could not resist the temptation of entering here. What, were

none of the faithful merciful? By Allah, impossible! Perchance—who

knows?—there might be a stranger, a foreigner, who in answer to his

appealing glance, his outstretched hands, an expression of abject

despair which long since he had mastered, would cast him an anna, or

even a rupee (it had happened!), or some one, seeing him going away

empty-handed or standing at the gate outside, forlorn and cast down,

and asking always alms, alms, would cast him a delicious leaf or spray

of the surpassing delight.

But no; this day, as on the day previous, and the one before that, he

had absolutely no success. What was it—the hand of fate itself? Had

Allah truly forsaken him at last? In a happy babel, and before his very

eyes, the delicious paradisiacal stimulant was weighed on government

scales and taxed again—the Emir must live! And then, divided into

delicious bundles the thickness of a man’s forearm, it was offered for

sale. Ah, the beauty of those bundles—the delight therein contained—the

surcease even now! The proud sellers, in turban and shirt, were

mounting the small tables or stands about the place and beginning to

auction it off, each bundle bringing its own price. “Min kam! Min

kam!” Hadji, the son of Dodow, was now crying—Hadji, whom Ibn had

observed this many a day as a seller here. He was waving a bunch above

the outstretched hands of the crowd. “How much? How much will you give

for this flower of paradise, this bringer of happiness, this dispeller

of all weakness? ’Tis as a maiden’s eyes. ’Tis like bees’ breath for

fragrance. ’Tis—”

“That I might buy!” sighed Ibn heavily. “That I might buy! Who will

give me so much as a spray?”

“One anna” (two cents), yelled a mirthful and contemptuous voice,

knowing full well the sacrilege of the offer.

“Thou scum! O thou miserable little tick on the back of a sick camel!”

replied the seller irritably. “May my nose grow a beard if it is not

worth two rupees at the very least!”

“Bismillah! There is not two rupees’ worth in all thy filthy godown,

_budmash_!”

“Thou dog! Thou detractor! But why should one pay attention to one who

has not so much as an anna wherewith to ease himself? To those who have

worth and many rupees—look, behold, how green, how fresh!”

And Al Hajjaj, the cook, and Ahmed, the carpet-weaver, stepped forward

and took each a bunch for a rupee, the while Ibn Abdullah, hanging upon

the skirt of the throng and pushed contemptuously here and there, eyed

it all sadly. Other bundles in the hands of other sellers were held up

and quickly disposed of—to Chudi, the baker, Azad Bakht, the barber,

Izz-al-Din, the seller of piece goods, and so on, until within the hour

all was exhausted and the place deserted. On the floor was now left

only the litter and débris of stems and deadened leaves, to be haggled

over by the hadjis (vendors of firewood), the sweepers, scavengers and

beggars generally, of whom he was one; only for the want of a few pice,

an anna at the most, he would not even now be allowed to carry away so

much as a stem of this, so ill had been his fortunes these many, many

days. In this pell-mell scene, where so many knew him and realized the

craving wherewith he was beset, not one paused to offer him a sprig.

He was as wretched as before, only hungrier and thirstier.

And then, once the place was finally deserted, not a leaf or a stem

upon the ground, he betook himself slowly and wearily to his accustomed

place in the shadow of one of the six columns which graced the entryway

of the mosque (the place of beggars), there to lie and beseech of all

who entered or left that they should not forget the adjuration of the

Prophet “and give thy kinsman his due and the poor and the son of the

road.” At noon he entered with others and prayed, for there at least he

was welcome, but alas, his thoughts were little on the five prescribed

daily prayers and the morning and evening ablutions—no, not even upon

food, but rather upon khat. How to obtain it—a leaf—a stem!

Almost perforce his thoughts now turned to the days of his youth,

when as a boy living on the steep terraced slope of the mountains

between Taiz and Yerim, he was wont literally to dwell among the small

and prosperous plantations of the khat farmers who flourished there

in great numbers. Indeed, before his time, his father had been one

such, and Sabar and Hirwa, two little villages in the Taiz district,

separated only by a small hill, and in the former of which he was born,

were famous all over Arabia for the khat that was raised there. Next

to that which came from Bokhari, the khat of Sabar, his home town, was

and remained the finest in all Yemen. Beside it even that of Hirwa

was coarse, thin and astringent, and more than once he had heard his

mother, who was a khat-picker, say that one might set out Sabari plants

in Hirwa and that they quickly became coarse, but remove Hirwa plants

to Sabar, and they grew sweet and delicate.

And there as a child he—who could not now obtain even so much as a

leaf of life-giving khat!—had aided his mother in picking or cutting

the leaves and twigs of khat that constituted the crops of this

region—great camel-loads of it! In memory now he could see the tasks

of the cooler months, where, when new fields were being planted, they

were started from cuttings buried in shallow holes four to six inches

apart with space enough between the rows for pickers to pass; how the

Yemen cow and the sad-eyed camel, whose maw was never full, had to be

guarded against, since they had a nice taste in cuttings, and thorn

twigs and spiny cactus leaves had to be laid over the young shoots to

discourage the marauders.

At the end of a year the young shrubs, now two feet high, had a spread

of thick green foliage eighteen inches in diameter. Behold now the

farmer going out into the dawn of each morning to gaze at his field

and the sky, in the hope of seeing the portents of harvest time. On a

given morning the air would be thick with bulbuls, sparrows, weaver

birds, shrilly clamoring; they would rise and fall above the plants,

picking at the tenderest leaves. “Allah be praised!” would cry the

farmer in delight. “The leaves are sweet and ripe for the market!”

And now he would call his women and the wives of his neighbors to the

crop-picking. Under a bower of jasmine vines, with plumes of the sweet

smelling _rehan_, the farmer and his cronies would gather to drink

from tiny cups and smoke the hubbuk, while the womenfolk brought them

armfuls of the freshly cut khat leaves. What a joyous time it was for

all the village, for always the farmer distributed the whole of his

first crop among his neighbors, in the name of Allah, that Allah’s

blessings might thus be secured on all the succeeding ones. Would that

he were in Sabar or Hirwa once more!

But all this availed him nothing. He was sick and weary, with little

strength and no money wherewith to return; besides, if he did, the

fame of his evil deeds would have preceded him perhaps. Again, here in

Hodeidah, as elsewhere in Arabia, the cities and villages especially,

khat-chewing was not only an appetite but a habit, and even a social

custom or function, with the many, and required many rupees the year

to satisfy. Indeed one of the painful things in connection with all

this was that, not unlike eating in other countries, or tea at least,

it had come to involve a paraphernalia and a ritual all its own, one

might say. At this very noon hour here in Hodeidah, when, because of

his luck, he was here before the temple begging instead of having

a comfortable home of his own, hundreds—aye, thousands—who an hour

earlier might have been seen wending their way happily homeward from

the market, their eyes full of a delicious content, their jaws working,

a bundle of the precious leaves under their arms, might now be found in

their private or public mabraz making themselves comfortable, chewing

and digesting this same, and not until the second hour of the afternoon

would they again be seen. They all had this, their delight, to attend

to!

Aye, go to the house of any successful merchant, (only the accursed

Jews and the outlanders did not use khat) between these hours and say

that you had urgent news for him or that you had come to buy a lakh of

rupees’ worth of skins.... His servant would meet you on the verandah

(accursed dogs! How well he knew them and their airs!) and offer the

profoundest apologies ... the master would be unutterably sick (here

he would begin to weep), or his sister’s husband’s aunt’s mother had

died this very morning and full of unutterable woe as he was he would

be doing no business; or certainly he had gone to Tawahi but assuredly

would return by three. Would the caller wait? And at that very moment

the rich dog would be in his mabraz at the top of his house smoking his

hubbuk and chewing his leaves—he who only this morning had refused Ibn

so much as a leaf! Bismillah! Let him rot like a dead jackal!

Or was it one who was less rich? Behold the public mabraz, such as

he—Ibn—dared not even look into save as a wandering teller of tales,

or could only behold from afar. For here these prosperous swine could

take their ease in the heat of the day, cool behind trellised windows

of these same, or at night could dream where were soft lights and faint

strains of song, where sombre shadow-steeped figures swayed as though

dizzy with the sound of their own voices, chanting benedictions out of

the Koran or the Prophets. Had he not told tales for them in his time,

the uncharitable dogs? Even now, at this noon hour, one might see them,

the habitués of these same well-ventilated and well-furnished public

rooms, making off in state for their favorite diversion, their khat

tied up in a bright shawl and conspicuously displayed—for whom except

himself, so poor or so low that he could not afford a little?—and

all most anxious that all the world should know that they went thus

to enjoy themselves. In the mabraz, each one his rug and pillow

arranged for him, he would recline, occupying the space assigned him

and no more. By his side would be the tall narghili or hubbuk, the

two water-pots or chatties on copper stands, and a bowl of sweets.

Bismillah, he was no beggar! When the mabraz was comfortably filled

with customers a servant would come and light the pipes, some one would

produce a Koran or commence a story—not he any more, for they would

not have him, such was his state—and the afternoon’s pleasure would

begin. Occasionally the taraba (a kind of three-stringed viol) would be

played, or, as it might happen, a favorite singer be present. Then the

happy cries of “_Taieeb!_” or “_Marhabba! Marhabba!_” (Good!), or the

more approbative “O friend, excellent indeed!” would be heard. How well

he remembered his own share in all this in former years, and how little

the knowledge of it all profited him now—how little! Ah, what a sadness

to be old and a beggar in the face of so much joy!

But as he mused in the shade, uttering an occasional “Alms, alms, in

the name of Allah!” as one or another of the faithful entered or left

the mosque, there came from the direction of the Jiddah gate, the

regular khat-bearing camel route, shrill cries and yells. Looking up

now, he saw a crowd of boys racing toward the town, shouting as they

ran: “Al khat aja!” (the khat has come), a thing which of itself boded

something unusual—a marriage or special feast of some kind, for at this

late hour for what other reason would khat be brought? The market was

closed; the chewers of khat already in their mabrazes. From somewhere

also, possibly in the house of a bridegroom, came the faint tunk-a-lunk

of a tom-tom, which now seemed to take up the glad tidings and beat out

its summons to the wedding guests.

“Bismillah! What means this?” commented the old beggar to himself, his

eyes straining in the direction of the crowd; then folding his rags

about him he proceeded to limp in the direction of the noise. At the

turn of a narrow street leading into the square his eye was gladdened

truly enough by the sight of a khat-bearing camel, encompassed by

what in all likelihood, and as he well knew was the custom on such

occasions, a cloud of “witnesses” (seekers of entertainment or food

at any feast) to the probable approaching marriage. Swathed round the

belly of the camel as it came and over its load of dripping green

herbs, was laid a glorious silken cloth, blazing with gold and hung

with jasmine sprays; and though tom-toms thumped and fifes squealed a

furious music all about him, the solemn beast bore his burden as if it

were some majesty of state.

“By Allah,” observed the old beggar wearily yet eyeing the fresh green

khat with zest, “that so much joy should be and I have not a pice, let

alone an anna! Would that I might take a spray—that one might fall!”

“Friend,” he ventured after a moment, turning to a water-carrier who

was standing by, one almost as poor as himself if more industrious,

“what means this? Has not Ramazan passed and is not Mohorrum yet to

come?”

“Dost thou address me, thou bag of bones?” returned the carrier,

irritated by this familiarity on the part of one less than himself.

“Sahib,” returned the beggar respectfully, using a term which he knew

would flatter the carrier, no more entitled to a “Sir” than himself,

“use me not ill. I am in sore straits and weak. Is it for a marriage or

a dance, perhaps?”

“Thou hast said,” replied the carrier irritably, “—of Zeila, daughter

of old Bhori, the tin-seller in the bazaar, to Abdul, whose father is

jemidar of chaprassies at the burra bungalow.”

At the mere mention of marriage there came into the mind of Ibn the

full formula for any such in Hodeidah—for had he not attended them in

his time, not so magnificent as this perhaps but marriages of sorts?

From noon on all the relatives and friends invited would begin to

appear in twos and threes in the makhdara, where all preparations for

the entertainment of the guests had no doubt been made. Here for them

to sit on in so rich a case as this (or so he had heard in the rumored

affairs of the rich), would be long benches of stone or teak, and upon

them beautiful carpets and pillows. (In all the marriages he had been

permitted to attend these were borrowed for the occasion from relatives

or friends.) Madayeh, or water-bubbles, would be ready, although those

well enough placed in the affairs of this world would prefer to bring

their own, carried by a servant. A lot of little chatties for the

pipes would be on hand, as well as a number of fire-pots, these latter

outside the makhdara with a dozen boys, fan in hand, ready to refill

for each guest his pipe with tobacco and fire on the first call of

“_Ya yi-yall!_” How well he remembered his services as a pipe-filler

on occasions of this kind in his youth, how well his pleasure as guest

or friend, relative even on one occasion, in his earlier and more

prosperous years and before he had become an outcast, when his own pipe

had been filled. Oh, the music! the bowls of sweets! the hot kishr,

the armful of delicious khat, and before and after those little cakes

of wheat with butter and curds! When the makhdara was full and all the

guests had been solemnly greeted by the father of the bride, as well as

by the prospective husband, khat would be distributed, and the pleasure

of chewing it begin. Ah! Yes, weddings were wonderful and very well in

their way indeed, provided one came by anything through them.

Alas, here, as in the case of the market sales, his opportunities for

attending the same with any profit to himself, the privilege of sharing

in the delights and comforts of the same, were over. He had no money,

no repute, not even respect. Indeed the presence of a beggar such as he

on an occasion of this kind, and especially here in Hodeidah where were

many rich, would be resented, taken almost as an evil omen. Not only

the guests within but those poorer admirers without, such as these who

but now followed the camel, would look upon his even so much as distant

approach as a vile intrusion, lawless, worthless dog that he was, come

to peek and pry and cast a shadow upon what would otherwise be a happy

occasion.

Yet he could not resist the desire to follow a portion of the way,

anyhow. The escorted khat looked too enticing. Bismillah! There must be

some one who would throw him a leaf on so festal an occasion, surely!

By a slow and halting process therefore he came finally before the gate

of the residence, into which already the camel had disappeared. Before

it was the usual throng of those not so vastly better than himself who

had come to rejoice for a purpose, and within, the sound of the tom-tom

and voices singing. Over the gate and out of the windows were hung

silken carpets and jasmine sprays, for old Bhori was by no means poor

in this world’s goods.

While recognizing a number who might have been tolerant of him, Ibn

Abdullah also realized rather painfully that of the number of these who

were most friendly, having known him too long as a public beggar, there

were few.

“What! Ne’er-do-well!” cried one who recognized him as having been

publicly bastinadoed on one occasion here years before, when he

had been younger and healthy enough to be a vendor of tobacco, for

adulterating his tobacco. “Do you come here, too?” Then turning to

another he called: “Look who comes here—Ibn, the rich man! A friend of

the good Bhori, no doubt, mayhap a relative, or at least one of his

invited guests!”

“Ay-ee, a friend of the groom at least!” cried another.

“Or a brother or cousin of the bride!” chaffed still a third.

“A rich and disappointed seeker after her hand!” declared a fourth

titteringly.

“He brings rich presents, as one can see!” proclaimed a fifth. “But

look now at his hands!” A chortle followed, joined in by many.

“And would he be content with so little as a spray of khat in return?”

queried a sixth.

“By Allah, an honest tobacco-merchant! Bismillah! One whom the Cadi

loves!” cried a seventh.

For answer Ibn turned a solemn and craving eye upon them, thinking only

of khat. “Inshallah! Peace be with thee, good citizens!” he returned.

“Abuse not one who is very low in his state. Alms! Alms! A little khat,

of all that will soon generously be bestowed upon thee! Alms!”

“Away, old robber!” cried one of them. “If you had ever been honest you

would not now be poor.”

“What, old jackal, dost thou come here to beg? What brings thee from

the steps of the mosque? Are the praying faithful so ungenerous? By

Allah! Likely they know thee—not?”

“Peace! Peace! And mayst thou never know want and distress such as

mine! Food I have not had for three days. My bones yearn for so much

as a leaf of khat. Be thou generous and of all that is within, when a

portion is given thee give me but a leaf!”

“The Cadi take thee!”

“Dog!”

“Beggar!”

“Come not too near, thou bag of decay!”

So they threatened him and he came no closer, removing rather to a safe

distance and eyeing as might a lorn jackal a feast partaken of by lions.

Yet having disposed of this objectionable intruder in this fashion, no

khat was as yet forthcoming, the reason being that it was not yet time.

Inside, the wedding ceremony and feast, a matter of slow and ordered

procedure, was going forward with great care. Kishr was no doubt now

being drunk, and there were many felicitations to be extended and

received. But, once it was all over and the throng without invited to

partake of what was left, Ibn was not one of those included. Rather,

he was driven off with curses by a servant, and being thus entirely

shut out could only wait patiently in the distance until those who had

entered should be satisfied and eventually come forth wiping their lips

and chewing khat—in better humor, perchance—or go his way. Then, if he

chose to stay, and they were kind—

But, having eaten and drunk, they were in no better mood in regard to

him. As they came forth, singly or in pairs, an hour or more later,

they saw in him only a pest, one who would take from them a little of

that which they themselves had earned with difficulty. Therefore they

passed him by unheeding or with jests.

And by now it was that time in the afternoon when the effect on the

happy possessor of khat throughout all Arabia was only too plainly

to be seen. The Arab servant who in the morning had been surly and

taciturn under the blazing sun was now, with a wad of the vivifying

leaves in his cheek, doing his various errands and duties with a smile

and a light foot. The bale which the ordinary coolie of the waterfront

could not lift in the morning was now but a featherweight on his back.

The coffee merchant who in the morning was acrid in manner and sharp at

a bargain, now received your orders gratefully and with a pleasantry,

and even a bid for conversation in his eye. Abdullah, the silk

merchant, dealing with his customers in sight of the mosque, bestowed

compliments and presents. By Allah, he would buy your horse for the

price of an elephant and find no favor too great to do for you. Yussuf,

the sambuk-carrier, a three-hundred-weight goatskin on his back, and

passing Ibn near the mosque once more, assured Ali, his familiar of

the same world and of equal load, as they trudged along together,

“Cut off my strong hand, and I will become Hadji, the sweeper” (a

despised caste), “but take away my khat, and let me die!” Everywhere

the evasive, apathetic atmosphere of the morning had given way to the

valor of sentient life. Chewing the life-giving weed, all were sure

that they could perform prodigies of energy and strength, that life was

a delicious thing, the days and years of their troubles as nothing.

But viewing this and having none, and trudging moodily along toward his

waiting-place in front of the mosque, Ibn was truly depressed and out

of sorts. The world was not right. Age and poverty should command more

respect. To be sure, in his youth perhaps he had not been all that he

might have been, but still, for that matter, had many others so been?

Were not all men weak, after their kind, or greedy or uncharitable?

By Allah, they were, and as he had reason to know! Waidi, the

water-seller? A thief really, no whit better than himself, if the world

but knew. Hussein, the peddler of firewood; Haifa, the tobacco tramp—a

wretched and swindling pack, all, not a decent loin- or shoulder-cloth

among them, possessed of no better places of abode than his own really,

yet all, even as the richest of men, had their khat, could go to their

coffee places this night and enjoy it for a few anna. Even they! And he!

In Hodeidah there was still another class, the strictly business or

merchant class, who, unlike men of wealth or the keepers of the very

small shops, wound up their affairs at four in the afternoon and

returning to their homes made a kind of public show of their ease and

pleasure in khat from then on until the evening prayers. Charpoys,

water-pipes and sweetmeats were brought forth into the shade before

the street door. The men of the household and their male friends

sprawled sociably on the charpoys, the ingredients for the promotion of

goodly fellowship ready to their hands. A graybeard or two might sit

among them expounding from the sacred book, or conversation lively in

character but subdued in tone entertained the company. Then the aged,

the palsied, even the dying of the family, their nearest of kin, were

brought down on their beds from the top of the house to partake of this

feast of reason and flow of wit. Inside the latticed windows the women

sat, munching the second-best leaves and listening to the scraps of

wisdom that floated up to them from the company below.

It was from this hour on that Ibn found it most difficult to endure

life. To see the world thus gay while he was hungry was all but too

much. After noting some of this he wandered wearily down the winding

market street which led from the mosque to the waterfront, and where in

view of the sea were a few of the lowest coffee-houses, frequented by

coolies, bhisties and hadjis. Here in some one of them, though without

a single pice in his hand, he proposed to make a final effort before

night should fall, so that thereafter in some one of them, the very

lowest of course, he himself might sit over the little khat he would

(if fortunate) be permitted to purchase, and a little kishr. Perhaps

in one of these he would receive largess from one of these lowest of

mabraz masters or his patrons, or be permitted to tell an old and

hoarse and quavering tale. His voice was indeed wretched.

On his way thence, however, via the Street of the Seven Blessings, he

came once more before the door of Al Hajjaj, the cook, busy among his

pots and pans, and paused rather disconsolately in the sight of the

latter, who recognized him but made no sign.

“Alms, O Hajjaj, in the name of the Prophet, and mayst thou never look

about thy shop but that it shall be full of customers and thy profit

large!” he voiced humbly.

“Be off! Hast thou no other door than mine before which to pause and

moan?”

“Ever generous Hajjaj,” he continued, “’tis true thou hast been kind

often, and I deserve nothing more of thee. Yet wilt thou believe me

that for days I have had neither food nor drink—nor a leaf of khat—nay,

not so much as an wheaten cake, a bowl of curds or even a small cup of

kishr. My state is low. That I shall not endure another day I know.”

“And well enough, dog, since thou hast not made more of thy life than

thou hast. Other men have affairs and children, but thou nothing. What

of all thy years? Hast thou aught to show? Thou knowest by what steps

thou hast come so. There are those as poor as thyself who can sing in a

coffee-house or tell a tale. But thou—Come, canst thou think of nothing

better than begging? Does not Hussein, the beggar, sing? And Ay-eeb

tell tales? Come!”

“Do thou but look upon me! Have I the strength? Or a voice? Or a heart

for singing? It is true; I have sung in my time, but now my tales are

known, and I have not the strength to gather new ones. Yet who would

listen?”

The restaurant-keeper eyed him askance. “Must I therefore provide for

thee daily? By Allah, I will not! Here is a pice for thee. Be off, and

come not soon again! I do not want thee before my door. My customers

will not come here if thou dost!”

With slow and halting steps Ibn now took himself off, but little the

better for the small gift made him. There was scarcely any place where

for a pice, the smallest of coins, he could obtain anything. What,

after all, was to be had for it—a cup of kishr? No. A small bowl of

curds? No. A sprig of khat? No. And so great was his need, his distress

of mind and body, that little less than a good armful of khat, or at

least a dozen or more green succulent sprays, to be slowly munched and

the juice allowed to sharpen his brain and nerves, would have served to

strengthen and rest him. But how to come by so much now? How?

The character of the places frequented by the coolies, bhisties

(water-carriers), hadjis and even beggars like Ibn, while without any

of the so-called luxuries of these others, and to the frequenters of

which the frequenters of these were less than the dust under their

feet, were still, to these latter, excellent enough. Yea, despised as

they were, they contained charpoys on which each could sit with his

little water-chatty beside him, and in the centre of the circle one

such as even the lowly Ibn, a beggar, singing his loudest or reciting

some tale—for such as they. It was in such places as these, before

his voice had wholly deserted him, that Ibn had told his tales. Here,

then, for the price of a few anna, they could munch the leavings of the

khat market, drink kishr and discuss the state of the world and their

respective fortunes. Compared to Ibn in his present state, they were

indeed as lords, even princes.

But, by Allah, although having been a carrier and a vendor himself in

his day, and although born above them, yet having now no voice nor any

tales worth the telling, he was not even now looked upon as one who

could stand up and tell of the wonders of the Jinn and demons and the

great kings and queens who had reigned of old. Indeed, so low had he

fallen that he could not even interest this despised caste. His only

gift now was listening, or to make a pathetic picture, or recite the

ills that were his.

Nevertheless necessity, a stern master, compelled him to think better

of his quondam tale-telling art. Only, being, as he knew, wholly

unsuited to recite any tale now, he also knew that the best he could

do would be to make the effort, a pretense, in the hope that those

present, realizing his age and unfitness, would spare him the spectacle

he would make of himself and give him a few anna wherewith to ease

himself then and there. Accordingly, the hour having come when the

proffered services of a singer or story-teller would be welcomed in

any mabraz, he made his way to this region of many of them and where

beggars were so common. Only, glancing through the door of the first

one, he discovered that there were far too few patrons for his mood.

They would be in nowise gay, hence neither kind nor generous as yet,

and the keeper would be cold. In a second, a little farther on, a

tom-tom was beginning, but the guests were only seven in number and but

newly settled in their pleasure. In a third, when the diaphanous sky

without was beginning to pale to a deep steel and the evening star was

hanging like a solitaire from the pure breast of the western firmament,

he pushed aside the veiling cords of beads of one and entered, for here

was a large company resting upon their pillows and charpoys, their

chatties and hubbuks beside them, but no singer or beater of a tom-tom

or teller of tales as yet before them.

“O friends,” he began with some diffidence and imaginings, for well

he knew how harsh were the moods and cynical the judgments of some

of these lowest of life’s offerings, “be generous and hearken to the

tale of one whose life has been long and full of many unfortunate

adventures, one who although he is known to you—”

“What!” called Hussein, the peddler of firewood, reclining at his ease

in his corner, a spray of all but wilted khat in his hand. “Is it not

even Ibn Abdullah? And has he turned tale-teller once more? By Allah, a

great teller of tales—one of rare voice! The camels and jackals will be

singing in Hodeidah next!”

“An my eyes deceive me not,” cried Waidi, the water-carrier, at his

ease also, a cup of kishr in his hands, “this is not Ibn Abdullah, but

Sindbad, fresh from a voyage!”

“Or Ali Baba himself,” cried Yussuf, the carrier, hoarsely. “Thou hast

a bag of jewels somewhere about thee? Now indeed we shall hear things!”

“And in what a voice!” added Haifa the tobacco-tramp, noting the husky,

wheezy tones with which Ibn opened his plea. “This is to be a treat,

truly. And now we may rest and have wonders upon wonders. Ibn of Mecca

and Jiddah, and even of marvelous Hodeidah itself, will now tell us

much. A cup of kishr, ho! This must be listened to!”

But now Bab-al Oman, the keeper, a stout and cumbrous soul, coming

forth from his storeroom, gazed upon Ibn with mingled astonishment

and no little disfavor, for it was not customary to permit any of

his customers of the past to beg in here, and as for a singer or

story-teller he had never thought of Ibn in that light these many

years. He was too old, without the slightest power to do aught but

begin in a wheezy voice.

“Hearken,” he called, coming over and laying a hand on him, the while

the audience gazed and grinned, “hast thou either anna or rupee

wherewith to fulfill thy account in case thou hast either khat or

kishr?” The rags and the mummy-like pallor of the old man offended him.

“Do but let him speak,” insisted Hussein the peddler gaily, “or sing,”

for he was already feeling the effects of his ease and the restorative

power of the plant. “This will be wonderful. By the voices of eleven

hundred elephants!”

“Yea, a story,” called Waidi, “or perhaps that of the good Cadi of Taiz

and the sacred waters of Jezer!”

“Or of the Cadi of Mecca and the tobacco that was too pure!”

Ibn heard full well and knew the spectacle he was making of himself.

The references were all too plain. Only age and want and a depressing

feebleness, which had been growing for days, caused him to forget, or

prevented, rather, his generating a natural rage and replying in kind.

These wretched enemies of his, dogs lower than himself, had never

forgiven him that he had been born out of their caste, or, having

been so, that he had permitted himself to sink to labor and beg with

them. But now his age and weakness were too great. He was too weary to

contend.

“O most generous Oman, best of keepers of a mabraz—and thou, O

comfortable and honorable guests,” he insisted wheezily, “I have here

but one pice, the reward of all my seekings this day. It is true that I

am a beggar and that my coverings are rags, yet do but consider that I

am old and feeble. This day and the day before and the day before that—”

“Come, come!” said Oman restlessly and feeling that the custom and

trade of his mabraz were being injured, “out! Thou canst not sing and

thou canst not tell a tale, as thou well knowest. Why come here when

thou hast but a single pice wherewith to pay thy way? Beg more, but not

here! Bring but so much as half a rupee, and thou shalt have service in

plenty!”

“But the pice I have here—may not I—O good sons of the Prophet, a spray

of khat, a cup of kishr—suffer me not thus be cast forth! ‘—and the

poor and the son of the road!’ Alms—alms—in the name of Allah!”

“Out, out!” insisted Oman gently but firmly. “So much as ten anna, and

thou mayst rest here; not otherwise.”

He turned him forth into the night.

And now, weak and fumbling, Ibn stood there for a time, wondering where

else to turn. He was so weak that at last even the zest for search

or to satisfy himself was departing. For a moment, a part of his old

rage and courage returning, he threw away the pice that had been given

him, then turned back, but not along the street of the bazaars. He was

too distrait and disconsolate. Rather, by a path which he well knew,

he circled now to the south of the town, passing via the Bet-el-Fakin

gate to the desert beyond the walls, where, ever since his days as a

pack servant with the Bedouins, he had thought to come in such an hour.

Overhead were the stars in that glorious æther, lit with a light which

never shines on other soils or seas. The evening star had disappeared,

but the moon was now in the west, a thin feather, yet transfiguring and

transforming as by magic the homely and bare features of the sands.

Out here was something of that beauty which as a herdsman among the

Bedouins he had known, the scent of camels and of goats’ milk, the

memory of low black woolen tents, dotting the lion-tawny sands and

gazelle-brown gravels with a warm and human note, and the camp-fire

that, like a glowworm, had denoted the village centre. Now, as in a

dream, the wild weird songs of the boys and girls of the desert came

back, the bleating of their sheep and goats in the gloaming. And the

measured chant of the spearsmen, gravely stalking behind their charges,

the camels, their song mingling with the bellowing of their humpy herds.

“It is finished,” he said, once he was free of the city and far into

the desert itself. “I have no more either the skill nor the strength

wherewith to endure or make my way. And without khat one cannot endure.

What will be will be, and I am too old. Let them find me so. I shall

not move. It is better than the other.”

Then upon the dry, warm sands he laid himself, his head toward Mecca,

while overhead the reremouse circled and cried, its tiny shriek

acknowledging its zest for life; and the rave of a jackal, resounding

through the illuminated shade beyond, bespoke its desire to live also.

Most musical of all music, the palm trees now answered the whispers of

the night breeze with the softest tones of falling water.

“It is done,” sighed Ibn Abdullah, as he lay and wearily rested.

“Worthless I came, O Allah, and worthless I return. It is well.”