[Picture: Persian Pilgrims in front of the Haj]
CHAPTER XVI.
"Nos gaillards pelerins Par monts, par vaux, et par chemins, a la fin arriverent."-LA FONTAINE.
The Shrines of the Shias-Bedouin honesty-Legend of the Tower of Babel-Bagdad-Our party breaks up.
MESHHED ALI (the shrine of Ali), or Nejef as it is more correctly called, is an ideal Eastern City, standing as it does in an absolute desert and bare of all surroundings but its tombs. It is nearly square, and the circuit of its walls is broken by only one gate. These walls are of kiln-burnt brick, and date from the time of the Caliphs, and are still in excellent preservation. They are strengthened at intervals by round towers, all very ma.s.sive and stately. So high are they, that they completely hide every building inside them, with the single exception of the great Mosque of Ali, whose glittering dome of gold shows like a rising sun above them.
Inside, the houses are closely packed; but there is more symmetry in their arrangement than in most Asiatic towns, as the bazaar leads in a straight line from the gate to the Mosque, which stands in the centre of the town. The shops are good, or appeared so to our eyes unused to the things of cities. I did not myself venture far inside, as the streets were very crowded, and we did not wish to attract unnecessary notice just then at the time of the pilgrimage; but Wilfrid describes the facade of the Mosque as the richest he has seen, a ma.s.s of gold and mosaic work like some highly chased reliquary. He would not go inside for fear of offending our pilgrim friends, and left it to the rest of our party to recount the splendours of the tomb.
This tomb of Ali is held by the Shias as at least as holy as the Caaba at Mecca, and it is an article of pious belief with them that any Moslem buried within sight of the dome is certain of salvation. The consequence is that pilgrims from all parts of the Shia world, and especially from Persia, come to Nejef to die, and that immense numbers of corpses are sent there for interment. Burial fees in fact const.i.tute the chief revenue of the place.
This city and Kerbela, where there is the sister shrine of Huseyn, are inhabited by a number of Mahometan subjects of Her Majesty, from India, who have settled in them from religious motives, but remain under the protection of the British Resident at Bagdad. They live on good terms with the Arabs, but do not mix much or intermarry with them, and retain their own language. As is natural in cities of pilgrimage, all cla.s.ses are ostentatiously religious, and we were amused at listening to the devout exclamations of the blacksmith who came to shoe our horses. "Ya Ali, ya Huseyn, ya Ali, ya Mohammed," at every stroke of the hammer.
They are all, moreover, bitterly hostile to Turkish rule, having the double motive of national and religious antipathy to support them. Both Meshhed Ali and Kerbela are kept strongly garrisoned, but in spite of everything have constantly revolted within the last forty years. When we were at Meshhed, the Turkish Caimakam had four companies of infantry under his orders; and the garrison of Kerbela, the head quarters of the district, was far larger.
Kerbela, which lies fifty miles north of Meshhed Ali, is physically quite unlike its rival. It is unfortified, and instead of standing in the desert, is surrounded by palm gardens, like the towns of Nejd. It is a richer and more populous city than Meshhed, but to a traveller it is less interesting as having nothing distinctive in its appearance. The Hiudieh ca.n.a.l, which supplies it with water from the Euphrates, makes it the centre of the most considerable agricultural district of the Bagdad pashalik. Meshhed, on the other hand, has little besides its shrine to depend on.
We were now very nearly at the end of our resources, both of money, and strength, and patience; and, without more delay than was absolutely necessary to refit our caravan, we set out for Bagdad. On the evening preceding our departure, a curious incident occurred.
A young Bedouin came to our tent and introduced himself as a Shammar from the Jezireh, one of Faris"s men whom we had met the year before on the Khabur. He hailed the "Beg" at once as brother to his master, and mentioned the incident of the loan of ten pounds made by us to Faris.
This sum he offered on his own responsibility to repay us now, and, seeing that we were rather out at elbows, he pulled out the money from his sleeve, and almost forced it upon us. He had been sent by Faris to buy a mare from the Montefyk, and had the purchase money with him,-he knew Faris would wish him to repay the debt. Though we would not take the money, the honesty and good feeling shown greatly pleased us, and we were glad of an opportunity to send messages to Faris, Tellal, and Rashid ibn Ali, who it appeared was still with the northern Shammar.
This same night, too, Muttlak left us. It was a grief to us to say good-bye, and he, more visibly touched even than we were, shed tears. He had found, he said, men of the Amarrat at Meshhed, who had promised to arrange his business with the Sebaa for him, and so he would go home. He had come quite two hundred miles with us, and we could not ask him to do more. He had, however, something behind the reasons which he gave us for his going; Mohammed, his cousin, had grown jealous of his position with us, and, we have reason to suspect, made things uncomfortable for the old Sheykh when we were not present, in a way we could not prevent. Besides this, there was a story of a blood-feud between the Ketherin and the Maadan, a tribe which lives between Nejef and Kerbela; this may have helped to deter Muttlak from going on with us, for he is essentially a man of peace, but there could have been no danger for him in our company.
Be it as it may, he came that night to dine with us for the last time, and could eat nothing, and when we asked him why, he said it was from sorrow, and that he must say good-bye. It was evident that he spoke the truth, and I am sure that no word of the blessings which he heaped upon our heads, and of his promises to keep our memory green in his heart, was more than what he felt. Muttlak is not a man of words. Wilfrid kissed the old Sheykh, and his servant kissed our hands, and they got on their old black delul, and rode quietly away the way they came, and we saw them no more.
Three days of easy travelling brought us to Kerbela, for we did not care to push on fast, and four days more to Bagdad. One incident only of our route need be mentioned. As we were pa.s.sing the neighbourhood of Birs Nemrud, the reputed tower of Babel, we stopped for the night at some tents belonging to the Messaoud, a half fellahin tribe of the left bank of the Euphrates, where they were growing barley on some irrigated land.
The Sheykh, Hajji et-Teyma was away, but his son Fuaz entertained us, and after dinner related the history of Nimrod, the founder of the tower.
Nimrod, he said, was an impious man, and thought that the sun was G.o.d.
And in order to make war on him he built this tower, but finding that he could not reach him thus, he had a platform constructed with a pole in the middle, and to each corner of the platform he chained an eagle, and on the pole he hung a sheep, and the eagles wishing to reach the sheep, flew up with the platform and Nimrod who was standing on it. And when Nimrod thought himself near enough, he shot an arrow at the sun. And G.o.d to punish him destroyed the tower. The Yezidis worship Nimrod and Shaytan there to this day.
Beyond Kerbela our road lay through cultivated land till we reached the Euphrates, which we crossed by the bridge of boats at Musseyib. Then we found ourselves among Babylonian mounds, ca.n.a.ls, and abandoned fields, the unvarying features of Irak. These brought us at last to Bagdad, where by a strange fatality we arrived once more in floods of rain, and where, again, we were welcomed in the hospitable four walls of the Residency. On the 6th of March we slept once more in beds, having been without that luxury for almost three months.
Here, therefore, ends our pilgrimage to Nejd, which, in spite of some difficulties and some hardships, was accomplished successfully without any really disagreeable incident, and here, if we had been wise, our winter"s adventures would have ended too. We had been lucky beyond our expectations in seeing and doing all we had proposed as the objects of our journey, and hardly a day of the eighty-four we had spent in Arabia had been uninteresting or unromantic. What followed was neither profitable nor agreeable, and might well have been left undone.
At Bagdad our party necessarily broke up. Among the letters awaiting us at the Consulate, was one for Mohammed ibn Ark which obliged his instant return to Tudmur. Great events had occurred there in his absence, and for a moment we felt a pang of regret at having kept him so long away from his duties and his interests at home. The politics of Tudmur are a little complicated. Mohammed"s father, Abdallah, is not the legitimate Sheykh of the town, the true head of the Ibn Ark family there being his cousin Faris. Abdallah, however, has for some years past enjoyed Government support, and is the Turkish nominee. The town has consequently been divided into two factions, {107} headed respectively by Faris and Mohammed, the latter representing his father, who is too old for such quarrels, and as long as the Turks were supreme at Tudmur, Mohammed"s party had it all their own way. Not, however, that either faction wished any good to the Sultan, for during the Russian war Mohammed was one of the foremost in refusing the contingent demanded of the Tudmuri for the Turkish army, but family quarrels are fierce among the Arabs, and they take advantage of all the help they can get alike from friend or enemy. So Mohammed supported Turkish policy in his native town, and was in turn supported by the Turks. But after the surrender of Plevna, and the destruction of the Sultan"s army in the Balkans, Tudmur was abandoned to its own devices, and Faris once more a.s.serted his right to the sheykhat, though parties were so evenly balanced that nothing serious for some time occurred, and only on one occasion Faris and Mohammed exchanged shots, without serious result. It was in defiance of remonstrances on the part of his father and all his friends that Mohammed had come with us, and the moment he was gone war had broken out. A messenger, it appears, had arrived to recall him not a week after he started with us from Damascus, and now another letter announced that blood had been shed. This was sufficient reason for our journey together coming to an end, and Mohammed, though piously ready to accept accomplished facts with an "Allah kerim," was evidently in a hurry to be off. Even if we had wished it, we could not ask him to go further with us now. But we did not wish it. The episode of his foolish behaviour at Hal, forgive it as we would, had left a certain _gene_ between us, which he was conscious of as well as ourselves, and, though he had done much since then to atone for it, we all felt that it was best to part. Still there was something mournful in his leaving us on so forlorn an errand, and he, as Arabs do, shed tears, owning that he had behaved in that instance ungratefully to us, and protesting his devotion. We on our side made him as comfortable as we could with letters of recommendation to Valys and Consuls, whose protection he might have need of, and with what arms and ammunition we could spare. And so he and Abdallah, and Awwad the robber, went their way on four of our deluls, which we gave them for the journey, and we saw them no more.
We had hoped to induce Hanna to go on with us, for he in all our difficulties had never failed us, and with his cousin the Tawil had helped us loyally when others had been cross or unwilling-but Hanna was home-sick, and the Tawil would not desert him. So one day they joined a caravan of muleteers on the point of starting for Mosul, and left us with many tears and blessings; and the little army with which we had crossed the desert was finally dispersed. {109}
[Picture: Meshhed Ali]
PART II.
OUR PERSIAN CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER I.
"Duo illum sequor? In Persas."-PLAUTUS.
"Halas! diseit-elle, faut-il que je perisse sous les pattes d"une araignee, moi qui viens de me tirer des griffes d"un lion?"-FABLES D"eSOPE.
New plans and new preparations-We leave Bagdad for Persia-Wild boar hunting in the Wudian-A terrible accident-We travel with a holy man-Camps of the Beni Laam-An alarm.
AMONGST the letters awaiting our arrival at Bagdad, we had found an invitation from Lord and Lady Lytton to spend the summer, or part of it, with them at Simla. It seemed that this would be an opportunity, which might never again occur, of going on to India by land, a plan which might be made to include a visit to the Bactiari mountains, where our acquaintance of the pilgrimage, Ali Koli Khan, had his home. Ali had often talked to us of his father, and of a wonderful stud of thoroughbred Arabians possessed by his family, and the prospect of seeing these, and a tribe reputed to be the most powerful in Persia, was an attraction that could not be denied. He had indeed proposed to travel there with us, and introduce us himself to his people, and if circ.u.mstances had been propitious, no doubt we might have accomplished this part of our journey comfortably enough. Unfortunately, when we took leave of the Haj at Meshhed Ali, our friend was not there for us to concert arrangements with him, nor even to wish him good-bye. He had been lost in the sandstorm, already mentioned as having occurred on the last day but one of the pilgrimage; and though before going on to Kerbela we had received news of his safety, we had no opportunity of meeting him. The consequence was that he neither came with us, nor gave us so much as a letter to his father; and in the end we started alone, a mistake we had ample reason to repent. The plan of travelling from Bagdad to India by land appeared to me of doubtful wisdom under the circ.u.mstances; but Wilfrid"s thirst for exploration was not yet slaked. He argued that spring was just beginning, and a spring journey through Persia must of necessity be the most delightful thing in the world, and that we could at any moment get down to some port of the Persian Gulf, if the weather became too hot for us. Our means of transport were ready. We should find some difficulty in disposing of our camels at Bagdad, and had better make use of them; and though we were now without servants, servants might easily be found.
Thus, in an evil day, and without due consideration of the difficulties and dangers which were before us, we determined to go on. A final circ.u.mstance decided the matter beyond recall. Captain Cameron, the African traveller, arrived at Bagdad, with the object of surveying a line for an Indo-Mediterranean railway from Tripoli to Bushire, and thence to the Indus, having already made the first stages of his survey; and Wilfrid now proposed to a.s.sist him in the more serious part of his undertaking. It was agreed between them that they should take different lines from Bagdad, and meet again either at Bushire or Bender Abbas, thus comparing notes as to the most practicable railway line from the Tigris to the Persian Gulf. Captain Cameron was to follow the left bank of the river as far as Amara, and then to strike across the marshy plains to Ahwas and Bender Dilam, while we should keep further east, skirting the Hamrin and Bactiari hills. So presented, the project sounded useful, if not agreeable, and acquired a definite object, which, if it ran us into unnecessary dangers, served also to carry us through them afterwards.
The expedition was accordingly a settled thing.
Our preparations were made, unfortunately, with as little reflection as the decision. On arriving at Bagdad, we had, as has been mentioned, said goodbye to Mohammed and the camel-men, and had, moreover, allowed Hanna and Ibrahim, who were homesick, or tired of travelling, to depart. The difficulty now was how to replace them. It is always a dangerous experiment to begin a serious journey with untried followers, and it was our first misfortune that we were obliged to do this. Colonel Nixon, as he had done last year, kindly lent us a cava.s.s; but, alas! Ali, the intelligent fat man who had been of such a.s.sistance to us in our Mesopotamian tour, was not fit to leave Bagdad. He was lying ill of a fever, and could not be disturbed. The cava.s.s given us was consequently a stranger, and might be good or bad, useful or useless, for anything we knew. It was necessary, too, that somebody should know Persian, and we engaged a Persian cook, Ramazan by name, highly recommended, but equally untried. A young Bagdadi next volunteered as groom, and, lastly, the Sheykh of the Agheyls, an old friend, sent two of his men as camel-drivers.
None, however, of these attendants, the two last excepted, had seen each other before, nor knew anything of our way of travelling or our way of life. We did not even start together, as it would have been wise to do.
The country round Bagdad is bare of pasture for many miles, and we thought to better matters for our camels by sending them on some marches down the river, intending to join them later with our baggage by boat, a most unfortunate arrangement, for the men being stupid timorous fellows, seem, when left to themselves, to have lost their heads, and instead of obeying their orders, which were to travel slowly, pasturing the animals as they went, drove them without halting to the village we had named as a meeting-place, and kept them there, half-starved in dirty stables, till we came, a piece of negligence which cost us dear. When we joined them, one, the black delul was already missing, dead they informed us; and a second, Shayl, a camel which, when we left Damascus, had been a model of strength and good looks, was so reduced as to be unfit for further travelling, while the remaining six were but a shadow of their former selves. Only Hatheran, the giant leader, who had saved our fortunes in the Nefd, was still fit for a full load; and to him once more we had mainly to trust during all that was to come.
It is difficult for those who have never owned camels to imagine how much attached one becomes to these animals on a long journey, and what a variety of character they possess. Each one of ours had its name, which it knew well, and its special quality of courage, or caution, or docility. Wilfrid"s white delul, "Helweh" (sweetmeat), was gentle and obedient; the Meccan, "Hamra," thoughtless and vain; "Ghazal,"
affectionate, but rude and inclined to buck (poor thing, she was far from bucking now); "Hatheran," especially, was a camel of character. He was evidently proud of his strength and his superior understanding, and possessed a singular independence of opinion which compelled respect. It was his pride to march ahead of the rest, who accepted him as guide, and followed his lead on all doubtful occasions. He cared little for the beaten track, choosing his ground as seemed best to him and always for good reasons. He was never impatient or put out, and in difficulties never lost his head. He could carry twice the load of the others, and could walk faster, and go longer without water. At the same time, he considered himself ent.i.tled to extra rations when we made up the evening meal, and would leave us no peace till he was satisfied. I mention these things now, for feeding and driving and tending these camels was to be our chief occupation during the rest of our journey, and on them depended the safety of our march, and, in great measure, of our lives. I say it with no little vanity, that, starting under the unfavourable circ.u.mstances we did, we nevertheless marched our camels without accident five hundred miles over mountain and plain, through swamps and streams never before traversed by camels, and across nine large rivers, one of them bigger than the Rhine; and that we brought them in to their journey"s end fat and well. I must not, however, forestall matters.
On the 20th of March, having thus sent on our camels with the Agheyls, we embarked on board an English river steamer, with our servants, our horses, our greyhounds, and Rasham, the falcon who had followed our march from Hal, and were taken down about eighty miles to a point of the river below Kut, where several streams run into the Tigris from the east, thus giving the district the name of Wudian (streams).
It was a cheerless start, for all down the river we steamed through driving rain, till at last the steamer was brought to, amid the downpour, in front of a bare round bank, and we were invited to descend. There was nothing but mud and a few bushes to be seen for miles, and it seemed impossible we should step out of the luxury of a civilised English cabin into what seemed a mere slough, and that without means of transport further than the bank, for of camels and men there was nothing at all to be seen. But the die was cast; this was the place we had agreed on, and, without more ado, we landed, first our horses and then our baggage, and then ourselves. While this was in operation, some Arabs had appeared on the scene, and to one of them, an old man in a green turban, Captain Clements, before he said good-bye, confided us. Seyd Abbas, he told us, was an old acquaintance, and an honest man; and though the rest, it was easy to see, were of the lowest order of fellahin Arabs, we were fain to be content with this a.s.surance and make what friends we could, at least with the old man. Sitting disconsolately on our camel bags in the rain, we then made our last farewell to all on board, and having watched the steamer till it steamed out of sight, set ourselves in earnest to the work that was before us. {119} I resume my journal:
"The tent was soon rigged up on a piece of sounder ground than the rest, and the horses fettered and turned out to graze. My new mare, Canora, so called after the Canora or Nebbuk tree which grows in the Residency yard, is certainly a great beauty, and attracts much, too much, attention, from the rather thievish-looking people of this place. Wilfrid has been to the encampment, which is about half a mile off, with Seyd Abbas, and has made friends with their chief people, but he has no agreeable impression of those he has seen. They appear to be, he says, a mixed collection of fellahin from all the Iraki tribes, and can lay no claim at all to good birth. Their Sheykh alone, for Seyd Abbas is not their Sheykh, claims gentility as coming from the Beni Laam, but we do not like his looks.
The Beni Laam, Seyd Abbas tells us, are three days" journey from here, and there is war going on amongst them just now, owing to a quarrel between their Sheykh, Mizban, and one of his brothers. He gives rather a terrible picture of them, and has been trying to dissuade us from going further; but we think that with the letters we have for Mizban, there can be no difficulty. The Beni Laam are, at any rate, a true Bedouin tribe, not fellahin, like the people here. Old Hajji Mohammed (the cava.s.s) stayed with me while Wilfrid was away. He was once in the army, and insisted on standing sentry in the rain in spite of all I could do to make him sit down under the flap of the tent. He has evidently small confidence in the people here.
Some fowls have been brought from the camp, and there are sticks enough to make a fire. Now we shall see what our Persian cook can do. If the camels were here, our being detained would not so much matter. We heard of them at Kut as we pa.s.sed by in the steamer, but that is twenty-five miles off; and with this rain it is impossible to say when they may arrive.
_March_ 22.-The weather has cleared, and we can see the Hamrin hills to the east, not so very far off. The country is less hideous than it seemed yesterday in the rain. This place is a sort of peninsula or island, formed by two rivers, which come from the Hamrin hills and fall into the Tigris. These seemed to be joined higher up by a ca.n.a.l, so that the s.p.a.ce inside is cut off from the desert. It is partly a swamp, partly a thicket of guttub bushes, with here and there patches of cultivation made by fellahin. These call themselves Saadeh, but Seyd Abbas says they come from all parts. He himself is brother to the Sheykh of Ali Ghurbi, a village on the other side of the Tigris. There are no villages at all on this side after Kut, and this island of Wudian is the only inhabited spot. The fellahin are very poor, and complain bitterly of the government, which ruins them. They are completely under the thumb of the Turks, now that the government has steamers on the river, and the tax-gatherers take (if we may believe them), about two-thirds of their crops. They have also to pay ten beshliks (francs) for each tent, half a beshlik for each sheep, two beshliks for each buffalo they keep, and a capitation tax of two and a half beshliks besides. Moreover, they are visited now and then by zaptiehs, who take their horses from them if they do not manage to hide them away, on the pretence that they cannot afford to keep them, while Mizban makes them pay tribute for protection too, or rather for the right of being left alone. The government does absolutely nothing in return for what it takes. They are indeed in a wretched plight, and one wonders why they take all this trouble of cultivation for so little, but perhaps it is a choice between that and starvation.
The great feature of Wudian is its wild-boars. These literally swarm in the fields, trotting about in open day-light, and doing exactly as they like. The people are afraid of them, and keep out of their way, and no wonder, for they are gigantic beasts. A man who was at our tents to-day, shewed us a terrible wound he had received from one which charged him quite without provocation. The people have only their short spears to protect themselves with. The beasts come almost inside the camp, and Wilfrid found one this afternoon fast asleep under a bush, within ten yards of the path which leads to the tents. The people pa.s.sing along, went a long way round so as not to disturb it, for it lay quite exposed to view. Seyd Abbas begged him to destroy some of them, and Wilfrid has ridden out on Ariel, and taken the Winchester rifle to see what he can do. I have felt feverish, and have stayed at home drying the things which had got wet.
The people here are all Shias, and very fanatical, and Seyd Abbas as a descendant of the Prophet enjoys a high position among them. Among the anazeh and Shammar, the Bedouins think nothing of saints and seyyids, but here they have everybody at their feet. Bas.h.a.ga, the Sheykh, though a Beni Laam and, as such, a "gentleman," is not nearly so important as the old man in the green turban. The latter has been talking to me this morning and promises to take us to Mizban"s camp, if we insist on going, though he advises strongly not. He says that with him we shall be safe, as they also have a great respect for Seyyids, and besides he has married into Mizban"s family. Seyyid or not, he eats and drinks with us freely; so we feel a certain amount of confidence in him.
Wilfrid has returned triumphant. He was not more than two hours and a half away, and he has killed five boars and a sow. Ariel behaved wonderfully, following the pigs without any need of urging, and without flinching when they charged. It seems to have been splendid sport.
Amongst the victims was the old boar that had been seen asleep, and which charged most viciously. It is lucky the dogs were not taken, as they would certainly have got hurt. The Arabs are highly delighted at the result, and we hope it may put us on better terms with them. They have dragged one of the corpses, a disgusting object, to the bank of the river, intending, they say, to send it to the British Resident at Bagdad by the next steamer. No news, alas, of the camels.
_March_ 23.-A fearful storm in the night, and the whole place under water. Wilfrid went out early to try and get news of the camels, riding Job, the grey horse we bought of Col. Nixon. He did not get far, for the streams are so swollen that they are impa.s.sable, at least for one who does not know the fords; and Job is a rather timid horse to get into difficulties with. He is young, and fairly bolted when a pig jumped up from out of a bush near him. We are both going out now for some more boar-hunting. I should enjoy it better if I was sure we should ever get away from this swampy place.
We have had a great misfortune. Ariel is badly wounded. We went out to-day, a large party, people on foot with spears and hoes, and one or two on sorry little mares. It was a beautiful day after the rain, birds singing in all the bushes, francolins calling, hoopoes flying about, and woodc.o.c.ks starting from guttub thickets. The island was half under water, and droves of pigs, boars, sows and little ones, turned out of the bushes, where they generally lie in the day-time, were grunting and trotting and splashing about everywhere. We singled out a great red boar, and all gave chase, but the ground was heavier than yesterday, and we had a longish gallop to come up to him. It was difficult, too, to keep to the boar we had chosen, where there were so many. At last he charged, and was. .h.i.t, but not enough to stop though it turned him, and then we had another gallop, and another shot rolled him over. The people on foot, who were following them, rushed in, but just as they got near him up he jumped, and bolted towards some deep water, where there was a high guttub bush. I was in front, and Wilfrid shouted to me to turn him, which I would have done if I could, but instead, he turned me, coming at me with a savage grunt and a toss of his head which I knew was dangerous.
Then he plunged into the deep water, but instead of going on, suddenly changed his mind, and came back to where the bush was on the land, and before we were aware, had charged right in among us. Wilfrid turned his mare, but, alas, not fast enough, firing as he turned. To my horror, I saw the hideous beast catch Ariel and give her a toss, such as I have seen in the bull-ring given by a bull. He seemed to lift horse and rider clean off the ground. Ariel staggered away, while the boar lay down, and was soon after dispatched by the Arabs.