The sand to tired camels is like a prison, and in the sand we should have remained. Mohammed, Abdallah, and the rest all behaved like heroes; even old Hanna, with stray locks of grey hair hanging from under his kefiyeh, for he has grown grey on the journey, and his feet bare, for it is impossible to walk in shoes, trudged on as valiantly as the most robust of the party. All were cheerful and uncomplaining, though the usual songs had ceased, and they talked but little.
Wilfrid and I were the only ones who rode at all, except Hanna, whom Wilfrid forced to ride his mare from time to time, and we were the gloomiest of the party. We felt annoyed at being unable to do our work on foot with the others; though from time to time we walked or rather waded through the sand, until obliged to remount for lack of breath and strength. Neither of us could have kept up on foot; but a European is no match for even a town Arab in the matter of walking.
To-day the _khall Abu Zeyd_ (Abu Zeyd"s road) was distinctly traceable, and we begin to think that it may not have been altogether a romance.
There are regular cuttings in some places, and the track is often well marked for half a mile together. Radi a.s.sures us that there is a road of stone under the sand; of stone brought from Jebel Shammar at, I am afraid to say, what expense of camels and men, who died in the work. I noticed to-day a buzzard and a grey shrike; and a couple of wolves had run along the road, as one could see by their footmarks and the scratching on the sand.
The level of the Nefd had been rising all day, and at one o"clock we were 3300 feet above the sea. From this point we had a large view southwards, sand, all sand still for many a mile; but close before us the group of islands we had so long been steering for, the rocks of Jobba.
The nearest was not two miles off. We could see nothing of the oasis, for it was on the other side of the hills; but we could make out a wide s.p.a.ce bare of sand, which looked like a subbkha, and beyond this a further group of rocks of exceedingly fantastic outline, rising out of the sand. It was like a scene on some great glacier in the Alps. Beyond again, lay a faint blue line of hills. "Jebel Shammar. Those are the hills of Nejd," said Radi. They were what we have come so far to see.
We made haste now to get to the rocks, and reached them at half-past three. They were of the same character as Aalem, sand and ironstone.
There Wilfrid took a map, and I a sketch, and we waited till the camels came up; a doleful string they were as we looked down from the top of our rocky hill at them pa.s.sing below. Shenuan and Amud toiled on with only their saddles, and the poor black delul, absolutely bare and hardly able to walk, was fifty yards behind, urged along by Abdallah. We still had some miles to go to get to Jobba, but on harder ground and all down hill; and Mohammed proposed that we three should ride on, and prepare a place for the camels in the village. On our way we saw what we thought was a cloud of smoke moving from west to east, and the tail of it pa.s.sed over us. We found it was a flight of locusts in the red stage of their existence, which the people here prefer for eating, but we did not care to stop now to gather them, and rode on. It was nearly sunset when we first saw Jobba itself, below us at the edge of the subbkha, with dark green palms cutting the pale blue of the dry lake, and beyond that a group of red rocks rising out of the pink Nefd; in the foreground yellow sand tufted with adr; the whole scene transfigured by the evening light, and beautiful beyond description.
[Picture: Delul Rider]
CHAPTER IX.
"They went till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken."
PILGRIM"S PROGRESS.
Jobba-An unpleasant dream-We hear strange tales of Ibn Rashid-Romping in the Nefd-A last night there-The Zodiacal light-We enter Nejd-The granite range of Jebel Shammar.
JOBBA is one of the most curious places in the world, and to my mind one of the most beautiful. Its name Jobba, or rather Jubbeh, meaning a well, explains its position, for it lies in a hole or well in the Nefd; not indeed in a fulj, for the basin of Jobba is on quite another scale, and has nothing in common with the horse-hoof depressions I have hitherto described. It is, all the same, extremely singular, and quite as difficult to account for geologically as the fuljes. It is a great bare s.p.a.ce in the ocean of sand, from four hundred to five hundred feet below its average level, and about three miles wide; a hollow, in fact, not unlike that of Jof, but with the Nefd round it instead of sandstone cliffs. That it has once been a lake is pretty evident, for there are distinct water marks on the rocks which crop up out of its bed just above the town; and, strange to say, there is a tradition still extant of there having formerly been water there. The wonder is how this s.p.a.ce is kept clear of sand. What force is it that walls out the Nefd and prevents encroachment? As you look across the subbkha or dry bed of the lake, the Nefd seems like a wall of water which must overwhelm it, and yet no sand shifts down into the hollow, and its limits are accurately maintained.
The town itself (or village, for it has only eighty houses) is built on the edge of the subbkha, 2860 feet above the sea, and has the same sort of palm gardens we saw at Jof, only on a very small scale. The wells from which these are watered are seventy-five feet deep, and are worked, like all the wells in Arabia, by camels. The village is extremely picturesque, with its little battlemented walls and its gardens. At the entrance stand half a dozen fine old ithel-trees with gnarled trunks and feathery branches. The rocks towering above are very grand, being of purple sandstone streaked and veined with yellow, and having an upper facing of black. They are from seven hundred to eight hundred feet high, and their bases are scored with old water marks. Wilfrid found several inscriptions in the Sinatic character upon them. Jobba is backed by these hills, and by a strip of yellow sand, like the dunes of Ithery, on which just now there are brilliantly green tufts of adr in full leaf.
Beyond the subbkha the rocks of Ghota rising out of the Nefd remind one of the Aletsch Glacier, as seen from the Simplon Road.
So much for the outer face of Jobba. The interior is less attractive.
The houses are very poor, and less smartly kept than those of Kaf and Ithery. I can hardly call them dirty, for dirt in this region of sand is almost an impossibility. It is one of the luxuries of the Nefd that no noxious insects are found within its circuit. The Nefd and, indeed, Nejd, which lies beyond it, are free from those creatures which make life a torment in other districts of the East. Even the fleas on our greyhounds died as soon as they entered the enchanted circle of red sand.
But Jobba would be dirty if it could; and its inhabitants are the least well-mannered of all the Arabs we saw in Nejd. The fact is, the people are very poor and have no communication with the outer world, except when the rare travellers between Hal and Jof stop a night among them. At the time of our pa.s.sage through Jobba, the Sheykh had lately died, and his office was being held by a young man of two or three and twenty, who had no authority with his fellow-youths, a noisy, good-for-nothing set. Ibn Rashid has no special lieutenant at Jobba, and the young Sheykh Naf was unsupported by any representative of the central government, even a policeman. The consequence was that though entertained hospitably enough by Naf, we were considerably pestered by his friends, and made to feel not a little uncomfortable. I quote this as a single instance of incivility in a country where politeness is very much the rule.
The style of our entertainment at Naf"s house requires no special mention, as it differed in no respect from what we had already received elsewhere. There was a great deal of coffee drinking, and a great deal of talk. Wherever one goes in Arabia one only has to march into any house one pleases, and one is sure to be welcome. The kahwah stands open all day long, and the arrival of a guest is the signal for these two forms of indulgence, coffee and conversation, the only ones known to the Arabs. A fire is instantly lighted, and the coffee cups in due course are handed round. One curious incident, however, of our stay at Jobba must be related.
For some days before our arrival there Mohammed, who was usually careless enough about the dangers of the road, had betrayed considerable uneasiness whenever there was a question of meeting Arabs on the way or making new acquaintances. He had dissuaded us more than once from looking about for tents; and when we had met the solitary man with the camels and the man we called the spy, he had given very short answers to their inquiries of who we were, and where we were going. It was not till the evening of our arrival at Jobba that he explained the cause of his anxiety. It then appeared that Radi in the course of conversation had mentioned the name of a certain Shammar Sheykh, one Ibn Ermal, as being in the neighbourhood, and Mohammed had remembered that many years ago a Sheykh of that name had made a raid against Tudmur. There had been some fighting, and a man or two killed on the Shammar side; and this was enough to make it extremely probable that a blood-feud might be still unsettled between his family and the Ibn Ermals. He therefore begged us not to mention his name in Jobba, or the fact that he and Abdallah were Tudmur men. He had the more reason for this because he had discovered that Naf, our host, was himself related to the Ibn Ermals; and it was fortunate that Tudmur had not yet been mentioned by any one in conversation. Later on in the evening he came to us very radiant, with the news that we need no longer be under any apprehension. He had managed ingeniously to lead the conversation with Naf to the subject he had at heart, and had just learned that the blood-feud was considered at an end. Mohammed ibn Rashid, before he came to the Sheykhat of Jebel Shammar, was Emir el-Haj, or Prince of the pilgrimage to Mecca, a position of honour and profit, under his brother Tellal, and in that capacity had made acquaintance with several Tudmuri at the holy cities, and when he succeeded to the Sheykhat he had good-naturedly composed their difference with his people. He had either paid the blood-money himself, or had used pressure on Ibn Ermal to forego his revenge, and the blood-feud had been declared cancelled. Whatever the Emir"s reason for acting thus as peace maker, it was a very fortunate circ.u.mstance for us, and now Mohammed and Naf were the best of friends. On the morning, however, of our departure from Jobba (we stayed there two nights), Naf in wishing Mohammed good bye, narrated that he had had a curious dream that night. He had gone to sleep, he said, thinking of this old feud; and in his sleep he thought he heard a voice reproaching him with having neglected his duty of taking just revenge on the man who was his guest, and he had been much distressed between the conflicting duties of vengeance and hospitality, so that he had got up in his sleep to feel about for his sword, and had found himself doing this when he woke. Then he had remembered that the feud was at an end, and said El hamdu lillah, and went to sleep again. "What a dreadful thing it would have been," he said to Mohammed at the end of this story, "if I had been obliged to kill you, you, my guest!" Mohammed, however, maintained to us that even if the blood-feud had not been settled, Naf would not have been bound to do anything, once he had eaten and drunk with him in his house. Such, at least, would be the rule at Tudmur, though morals might be stricter in Nejd.
We only stayed, as I have said, two nights with Naf. The young people of the village were inquisitive and obtrusive, and we were obliged to make a sort of scene with our host about it, a thing which is disagreeable, but sometimes necessary. I dare say they meant no harm, but their manners were bad, and there was something almost hostile in their tone about Nasrani (Nazarenes or Christians), which it was advisable to check. I am glad to say that this is the only instance we have had in Arabia of unpleasant allusions to religion. The Arabs are by nature tolerant to the last degree on this point, and national or religious prejudices are exceedingly rare.
This little episode, however, made us rather anxious about our possible reception at Hal. No European nor Christian of any sort had penetrated as such before us to Jebel Shammar, and all we knew of the people and country was the recollection of Mr. Palgrave"s account of his visit there in disguise sixteen years before. Ibn Rashid, for all we knew, might be as ill-disposed towards us as these Jobbites here, and it was clear that, without his countenance and protection, we should be running considerable risk in entering Hal. Still, the die was cast. We had crossed our Rubicon, the Red Desert, and there was no turning back. There was nothing to be done but to put a good face on things and proceed on our way. We cross questioned Radi as to the state of affairs at Hal, and I may as well give here the whole of the information he gave us, corroborated and amplified by subsequent narrators. The main facts we learned from him.
Radi, in the first place, confirmed in general terms the account we had already heard of the history of the Ibn Rashid family. About fifty years ago, Abdallah ibn Rashid, at that time "a mere _zellem_," individual, of the Abde section of the Shammar tribe, took service with the Ibn Saouds of Upper Nejd, and was appointed lieutenant of Jebel Shammar, by the Wahhabi Emir. He was a great warrior, and reduced the whole country to order with the help of his brother Obeyd, the princ.i.p.al hero of Shammar tradition. Of Obeyd we heard nothing to confirm the evil tales mentioned by Mr. Palgrave. On the contrary, he has left a great reputation among the Arabs for his hospitality, generosity, and courage, the three cardinal virtues of their creed. He was never actually Emir of Jebel Shammar, but after his brother"s death he virtually ruled the country.
It was he that counselled the destruction of the Turkish soldiers in the Nefd. He lived to a great age, and died only nine years ago, having been paralysed from the waist downwards for some months before his death.
It is related of him that he left no property behind him, having given away everything during his lifetime-no property but his sword, his mare, and his young wife. These he left to his nephew Mohammed, ibn Rashid, the reigning Emir, with the request that his sword should remain undrawn, his mare unridden, and his wife unmarried for ever afterwards. Ibn Rashid has respected his uncle"s first two wishes, but he has taken the wife into his own harim.
Abdallah ibn Rashid died in 1843, and was succeeded in the Sheykhat of the Shammar and the lieutenancy of Hal, by his son Tellal, who took the t.i.tle of Emir, and made himself nearly independent of the Wahhabi government. There is not much talk at Hal now about Tellal. He has left behind him little of the reputation one would expect from Mr.
Palgrave"s account of him. In his time, his second brother and successor, Metaab, conquered Jof and Ithery, and Metaab"s name is much more frequently mentioned than Tellal"s. About twelve years ago Tellal went out of his mind and committed suicide. He stabbed himself at Hal with his own dagger. He left behind him several sons, the eldest of whom was Bender, and two brothers, Metaab and Mohammed, besides his uncle Obeyd, then a very old man, and several cousins. Bender was quite a boy at the time, and Metaab succeeded Tellal with the approval of all the family. Metaab, however, only ruled for three years, and dying rather suddenly, a dispute arose as to the succession. Mohammed, who for some years had been acting as Emir el-Haj, or leader of the pilgrims, was away from Hal, settling a matter connected with his office with Ibn Saoud at Riad, and Bender, being now twenty years old, was proclaimed Emir. He was supported by all the family except Mohammed and Hamud, Obeyd"s eldest son, who had been brought up with Mohammed as a brother. Mohammed, when he heard of this, was very angry, and for many days, so Radi told us, sat with his kefiyeh over his face like one in grief, and refused to speak with anyone. He remained at Riad, rejecting all Bender"s advances and invitations until Obeyd was dead, when he consented to return to Hal, and resume his post with the Haj. This post brought him in much money, and he was fond of money. But he plotted all the while for the Sheykhat, intriguing with the Sherarat and other Bedouins under Bender"s rule. It was in this way that he ultimately gratified his ambition, for it happened one day that a caravan of Sherarat came to Hal to buy dates, and placed themselves under Mohammed"s protection instead of the Emir"s.
This made Bender very angry, and he sent for Mohammed, and asked him the meaning of this insolence. "Are you Sheykh," he asked, "or am I?" He then mounted his mare and rode out, threatening to confiscate the Sherarat camels, for they were encamped under the walls of Hal. But Mohammed followed him, and riding with him, a violent dispute arose, in which Mohammed drew his _shabriyeh_ (a crooked dagger they all wear in Nejd), and stabbed his nephew, who fell dead on the spot. Then Mohammed galloped back to the castle, and, finding Hamud there, got his help and took possession of the place. He then seized the younger sons of Tellal, Bender"s brothers, all but one child, Naf, and Bedr, who was away from Hal, and had their heads cut off by his slaves in the courtyard of the castle. They say, however, that Hamud protested against this. But Mohammed was reckless, or wished to strike terror, and not satisfied with what he had already done, went on destroying his relations. He had some cousins, sons of Jabar, a younger brother of Abdallah and Obeyd; and these he sent for. They came in some alarm to the castle, each with his slave. They were all young men, beautiful to look at, and of the highest distinction; and their slaves had been brought up with them, as the custom is, more like brothers than servants. They were shown into the kahwah of the castle, and received with great formality, Mohammed"s servants coming forward to invite them in. It is the custom at Hal, whenever a person pays a visit, that before sitting down, he should hang up his sword on one of the wooden pegs fixed into the wall, and this the sons of Jabar did, and their slaves likewise. Then they sat down, and waited and waited, but still no coffee was served to them. At last Mohammed appeared surrounded by his guard, but there was no "salaam aleyk.u.m," and instantly he gave orders that his cousins should be seized and bound. They made a rush for their swords, but were intercepted by the slaves of the castle, and made prisoners. Mohammed then, with horrible barbarity, ordered their hands and their feet to be cut off, and the hands and the feet of their slaves and had them, still living, dragged out into the courtyard of the palace, where they lay till they died. These ghastly crimes, more ghastly than ever in a country where wilful bloodshed is so unusual, seem to have struck terror far and wide, and no one has since dared to raise a hand against Mohammed. Now he is said to have repented of his crimes, and to be "angry with himself" for what he has done. But Radi is of opinion that Heaven is at least as angry, for though Mohammed has married over and over again, he has never been blessed with a son, nor even with a daughter. His rule, however, apart from its evil commencement, though firm, has been beneficent. The only other persons, with one exception, who have suffered death during his reign, have been highway robbers, and these are now extirpated within three hundred miles of Hal. A traveller may go about securely in any part of the desert with all his gold in his hand, and he will not be molested. Neither are there thieves in the towns. He has made Jebel Shammar definitely independent of Riad, and has resisted one or two attempted encroachments by the Turks. He is munificent to all, and exercises unbounded hospitality. No man, rich or poor, is ever sent away from his gate unfed, and seldom without a present of clothes or money; and hospitality in Arabia covers a mult.i.tude of sins. Besides, the Arabs easily forget, and Mohammed is already half forgiven. "Allah yetowil omrahu," G.o.d grant him long life, exclaimed Radi, after giving us these particulars.
The one exception I have alluded to was this. About two years after Mohammed had gained the Sheykhat, Bedr, the second son of Tellal, who had escaped the ma.s.sacre of his brothers, began to grow a beard, and in Arab opinion was come of age; and being a youth of high spirit and high principle, resolved to avenge his brothers" deaths. This was clearly his duty according to Arab law. He was alone and unaided, except by some former slaves of his father"s, to whose house at Hal he returned secretly. With their a.s.sistance, he made a plan, of falling upon Mohammed one day when he was paying a visit to Hamud in Hamud"s house next the castle. He went with one slave to the house, and asking admittance was shown into the kahwah, where, if he had found the Emir, he would have drawn his sword and killed him; but, as it happened, Mohammed had just gone out into the garden, and only Hamud was present. Hamud asked him what he wanted, and he said he wished to speak to the Emir, but Hamud suspecting something, detained him and gave Mohammed warning. When arrested and recognised, Bedr was cross-questioned again, and then declared his intention of avenging his brother Bender"s death, nor would he desist from this. Mohammed, it is said, besought him to hear reason, and offered to release him if he would be content to let matters alone.
"I do not wish to shed more blood," he said, "but you must promise to leave Hal." Still the young man refused, and at last in despair, Mohammed ordered his execution. The slave, who accompanied, Bedr, was not ill-used. Indeed, Mohammed sent him away with gifts, and he now resides very comfortably at Samawa on the Euphrates.
After this, Mohammed, who seems to have really felt remorse for his wickedness, sent for Naf, the remaining son of Tellal, who was still a boy, and took him to live with him, and treated him as his own son. Only a year ago, seeing the boy growing up, he exhorted him to marry, offering him one of his nieces and a fitting establishment. But the boy, they say, hung back. "What!" he said, "you would treat me as you treat a lamb or a kid which you fatten before you kill it?" Mohammed wept and entreated, and swore that he would be as a father to Naf; and the youth still lives honourably treated in the Emir"s house. Opinion at Hal, however, is very decided that as soon as Naf is old enough, either he or his uncle must die. It will be his duty to follow Bedr in his attempt, and if need be, to end like him
All this, as may be supposed, was anything but agreeable intelligence to us, as we travelled on to Hal. We felt as though we were going towards a wild beast"s den. In the meantime, however, there were four days before us, four days of respite, and of that tranquillity which the desert only gives, and we agreed to enjoy it to the utmost. There is something in the air of Nejd, which would exhilarate even a condemned man, and we were far from being condemned. It is impossible to feel really distressed or really anxious, with such a bright sun and such pure delicious air. We might feel that there was danger, but we could not feel nervous.
Our last three nights in the Nefd were devoted to merriment, large bonfires of yerta, round which we sat in the clear starlight, feasting on dates bought at Jobba, and feats of strength and games among the servants. I will give the journal for one day, the 22nd of January: "We have been floundering along in the deep sand all day leisurely, and with much singing and nonsense among the men, for we are in no hurry now; it is only one day on to Igneh, the first village of Jebel Shammar. The camels, though tired, are not now in any danger of breaking down, and they have capital _na.s.si_ gra.s.s to eat; the tufts of gra.s.s are beginning to get their new shoots. The Nefd here is as big as ever, and the fuljes as deep; and we crossed the track of a bakar wahash or wild cow, not an hour before we stopped. At half past three, we came upon a shepherd driving forty sheep to market at Hal. He is a Shammar from Ibn Rahis, a sheykh, whose tents we saw to-day a long way off to the north-east, and he intends selling his flock to the Persian pilgrims who are expected at Hal to-day. The pilgrims, he says, are on their way from Mecca, and will stay a week at Hal. Who knows if we may not travel on with them? The sheep, which I took at first for goats, are gaunt, long legged creatures, with long silky hair, not wool, growing down to their fetlocks, sleek pendulous ears and smooth faces. They are jet black with white heads, spots of black round the eyes and noses, which look as if they had been drinking ink. They are as unlike sheep as it is possible to conceive, all legs, and tail, and face. But they have the merit of being able to live on adr for a month at a time without needing water. They are, I fancy, quite peculiar to Nejd. This meeting was the signal for a halt, and behold a delightful little fulj, just big enough to hold us, in the middle of a bed of na.s.si. We slid our horses down the sand-slope, the camels followed, Mohammed, the while, bargaining with the shepherd for the fattest of his flock. Here we unloaded, and the camels in another ten minutes were scattered all over the hill-side, for there is a sand-hill at least a hundred feet high, close by above us. Ibrahim, the short, was set to watch them while the rest were busy with the camp.
There is an enormous supply of fire-wood, beautiful white logs which burn like match wood. We climbed to the top of the hill to take the bearings of the country, for there is a splendid view now of Jebel Shammar, no isolated peak, as Dr. Colvill would have it last year, but a long range of fantastic mountains, stretching far away east and west, reminding one somewhat of the Sierra Guadarama in Spain. There are also several outlying peaks distinct from the main chain. Behind us, to the north-west, the Jobba group, with continuations to the west and south-west. Eastwards, there is a single point Jebel Atwa. Hal lies nearly south-east, its position marked by an abrupt cliff near the eastern extremity of the Jebel Aja range. The northern horizon only is unbroken. This done, we both went down to measure a fulj half a mile off, and found it two hundred and seventy feet deep, with hard ground below. It is marked very regularly on its steep side with sheep tracks, showing how permanent the surface of the Nefd remains, for the little paths are evidently of old date. {203a} By the time of our return, Hanna"s good coffee was ready with a dish of flour and curry, to stay hunger until the sheep is boiled. Awwad, who delights in butcher"s work, has killed the sheep in the middle of our camp, for it is the custom to slaughter at the tent door, and has been smearing the camels with gore.
When asked why, he says, "it will look as if we had been invited to a feast. It always looks well to have one"s camels sprinkled." He has rigged up three tent poles, as a stand to hang the sheep from, and is dismembering in a truly artistic fashion. Ibrahim el-Tawil and Abdallah are collecting an immense pile of wood for the night. Hanna is preparing to cook. Poor Hanna has been having a hard time of it since Meskakeh, for now that everybody has to walk, he insists upon walking too, "to prevent trouble," he says, and probably he is right. A regular Aleppin Christian like Hanna, in such a country as this, does best by effacing himself and disarming envy, unless indeed he can fraternize, and at the same time inspire respect, as Ibrahim seems to have done. Hanna is patient, and does not complain, endeavouring, though with a rueful countenance, to be cheerful when the rest tease him. I do my best to protect him, but he dares not take his own part. Lastly, Mohammed is sitting darning his shirt, against making his appearance at Court, and talking to two Jobbites, who are travelling with us, about the virtues of Ibn Rashid, and the grandeur of the Ibn Arks. The Ibn Ark legend, like a s...o...b..ll, is gathering as it rolls, and we fully expect Mohammed to appear in the character of a Prince at Hal. He talks already of Nejd as his personal property, and affects a certain air of protection towards us, as that of a host doing the honours to his guests. His scare about Ibn Ermal is quite forgotten. Prince or peasant, however, Mohammed has the great merit of always being good-tempered, and this evening he is very amusing. He has been telling us the whole history of his relations with Huseyn Pasha at Deyr, which we never quite understood before (and which I dare not repeat in detail for fear of bringing him into trouble).
He has been two or three times in prison, but poor Huseyn seems to have been made a sad fool of. Mohammed also gave us a full, true, and particular account of Ahmed Beg Moali"s death; and then we had a long discussion about the exact form in which we are to introduce ourselves at Hal. Mohammed will have it that Wilfrid ought to represent himself as a merchant travelling to Bussorah to recover a debt, but this we will not listen to. We think it much more agreeable and quite as prudent to be straightforward, and we intend to tell Ibn Rashid that we are persons of distinction in search of other persons of distinction; that we have already made acquaintance with Ibn Smeyr and Ibn Shaalan, and all the sheykhs of the north, and that each time we have seen a great man, we have been told that these were nothing in point of splendour to the Emir of Hal, and that hearing this, and being on our way to Bussorah, we have crossed the Nefd to visit him, as in former days people went to see Suliman ibn Daoud, and then we are to produce our presents and wish him a long life. Mohammed has been obliged to admit that this will be a better plan; and so it is settled. Radi, whom we have taken more or less into our confidence, thinks that the Emir will be pleased, and promises to sing our praises "below stairs," and he talks of a Franji having already been at Hal, and having gone away with money and clothes from Ibn Rashid. Who this can be, we cannot imagine, for Mr. Palgrave was not known there as a European. So we whiled away the time till dinner was ready, and when all had well feasted, Mohammed came to invite us to the servants" fire, where feats of strength were going on. First, Abdallah lies flat on the sand, a camel saddle is put upon his back, and then two gigantic khurjes, weighing each of them about a hundredweight. With these he struggles to his knees, and then by a prodigious effort to his feet, staggers a pace, and topples over. Mohammed, not to be outdone, lifts Ibrahim kasir, who weighs at least twelve stone, on the palm of his hand off his legs. Then they make wheels, such as are seen at a circus, and play at a sort of leap-frog, which consists of standing in a row one close behind the other, when the last jumps on their shoulders and runs along till he comes to the end, where he has to turn a somersault and alight as he can on his head or his heels. This is very amusing, and in the deep sand hurts n.o.body. All, except Hanna, join in these athletic sports, but Awwad, who is a Bedouin born, goes through the performance with a rather wry face. Bedouins never play at games as the town Arabs do, and they have not the physical strength of the others. Awwad revenges himself, however, by malignantly hiding bits of hot coal in the ground, and every now and then somebody steps on these traps with his bare feet, and there is a scream. Great amus.e.m.e.nt, too, is caused by Wilfrid showing them the old game of turning three times round with the head resting on a short stick, and then trying to walk straight. This is considered very funny, and they generally manage to tumble over Hanna, and when they make him try it, arrange that he shall run into the fire.
The best game, to my mind, is something like one sometimes played by sailors on board ship. They all put their cloaks together in one heap, and one man has to guard it. Then the rest dance round him, and try to steal the clothes away without getting touched. Ibrahim tawil is great at this sport, and defends the heap with his huge hands and feet, dealing tremendous blows on the unwary, and paying off, I fancy, not a few old scores. Abdallah especially, who is disliked by the rest on account of his bad temper, gets shot clean off his legs by a straight kick almost like a football, and a fight very nearly ensues. But a diversion is made by the ingenious Awwad, who steals away with a gun and fires it suddenly from the top of the fulj, and then comes tumbling head over heels down the sand to represent a ghazu. So the evening pa.s.ses, and as we go back to our private lair, we see for the first time the zodiacal light in the western sky.
This was our last night in the Nefd, and the recollection of it long stood as our standard of happiness, when imprisoned within walls at Hal, or travelling in less congenial lands. The next day we reached Igneh, the first village of Jebel Shammar, and the day after the mountains themselves, the "Happy Mountains," which had so long been the goal of our Pilgrim"s progress.
_January_ 23.-It is like a dream to be sitting here, writing a journal on a rock in Jebel Shammar. When I remember how, years ago, I read that romantic account by Mr. Palgrave, which n.o.body believed, of an ideal State in the heart of Arabia, and a happy land which n.o.body but he had seen, and how impossibly remote and unreal it all appeared; and how, later during our travels, we heard of Nejd and Hal and this very Jebel Shammar, spoken of with a kind of awe by all who knew the name, even by the Bedouins, from the day when at Aleppo Mr. S. first answered our vague questions about it by saying, "It is _possible_ to go there. Why do _you_ not go?" I feel that we have achieved something which it is not given to every one to do. Wilfrid declares that he shall die happy now, even if we have our heads cut off at Hal. It is with him a favourite maxim, that every place is exactly like every other place, but Jebel Shammar is not like anything else, at least that I have seen in this world, unless it be Mount Sina, and it is more beautiful than that. All our journey to-day has been a romance. We pa.s.sed through Igneh in the early morning, stopping only to water our animals. It is a pretty little village, something like Jobba, on the edge of the sand, but it has what Jobba has not, square fields of green barley unwalled outside it. These are of course due to irrigation, which while waiting we saw at work from a large well, but they give it a more agricultural look than the walled palm-groves we have hitherto seen. Immediately after Igneh we came upon hard ground, and in our delight indulged our tired mares in a fantasia, which unstiffened their legs and did them good. The soil was beautifully crisp and firm, being composed of fine ground granite, quite different from the sandstone formation of Jobba and Jof. The vegetation, too, was changed. The yerta and adr and other Nefd plants had disappeared, and in their place were shrubs, which I remember having seen in the wadys of Mount Sina, with occasionally small trees of the acacia tribe known to pilgrims as the "burning bush"-in Arabic "talkh"-also a plant with thick green leaves and no stalks called "gheyseh," which they say is good for the eyes. Every now and then a solitary boulder, all of red granite, rose out of the plain, or here and there little groups of rounded rocks, out of which we started several hares. The view in front of us was beautiful beyond description, a perfectly even plain, sloping gradually upwards, out of which these rocks and tells cropped up like islands, and beyond it the violet-coloured mountains now close before us, with a precipitous cliff which has been our landmark for several days towering over all. The outline of Jebel Shammar is strangely fantastic, running up into spires and domes and pinnacles, with here and there a loop-hole through which you can see the sky, or a wonderful boulder perched like a rocking stone on the sky line. One rock was in shape just like a camel, and would deceive any person who did not know that a camel could not have climbed up there. At half-past one we pa.s.sed the first detached ma.s.ses of rock which stand like forts outside a citadel, and, bearing away gradually to the left, reached the b.u.t.tresses of the main body of hills.
These all rise abruptly from the smooth sloping surface of the plain, and, unlike the mountains of most countries, with no interval of broken ground. Mount Sina is the only mountain I have seen like this. In both cases you can stand on a plain, and touch the mountain with your hand.
Only at intervals from clefts in the hills little wadys issue, showing that it sometimes rains in Jebel Shammar. Indeed to-night, we shall probably have a proof of this, for a great black cloud is rising behind the peaks westwards, and every now and then it thunders. All is tight and secure in our tent against rain. There is a small ravine in the rock close to where we are encamped, with a deep natural tank full of the clearest water. We should never have discovered it but for the shepherd who came on with us to-day, for it is hidden away under some gigantic granite boulders, and to get at it you have to creep through a hole in the rock. A number of bright green plants grow in among the crevices (capers?), and we have seen a pair of partridges, little dove-coloured birds with yellow bills.
We pa.s.sed a small party of Bedouin Shammar, moving camp to-day. One of them had a young goshawk {210} on his delul. They had no horses with them, and we have not crossed the track of a horse since leaving Shakik.
I forgot to say that yesterday we saw a Harb Bedouin, an ugly little black faced man, who told us he was keeping sheep for the Emir. The Harb are the tribe which hold the neighbourhood of Medina, and have such an evil reputation among pilgrims.
_January_ 24.-Thunderstorm in the night. We sent on Radi early this morning, for we had only a few miles to go, with our letters to Hal. It was a lovely morning after the rain, birds singing sweetly from the bushes, but we all felt anxious. Even Mohammed was silent and preoccupied, for none knew now what any moment might bring forth. We put on our best clothes, however, and tried to make our mares look smart. We had expected to find Hal the other side of the hills, but this was a mistake. Instead of crossing them, we kept along their edge, turning gradually round to the right, the ground still rising. The barometer at the camp was 3370, and now it marks an ascent of two hundred feet.
We pa.s.sed two villages about a mile away to our left, El Akeyt and El Uta; and from one of them we were joined by some peasants riding in to Hal on donkeys. This looked more like civilisation than anything we had seen since leaving Syria. We were beginning to get rather nervous about the result of our message, when Radi appeared and announced that the Emir had read our letters, and would be delighted to see us. He had ordered two houses to be made ready for us, and nothing more remained for us to do, than to ride into the town, and present ourselves at the kasr. It was not far off, for on coming to the top of the low ridge which had been in front of us for some time, we suddenly saw Hal at our feet not half a mile distant. The town is not particularly imposing, most of the houses being hidden in palm groves, and the wall surrounding it little more than ten feet high. The only important building visible, was a large castle close to the entrance, and this Radi told us was the kasr, Ibn Rashid"s palace.
In spite of preoccupations, I shall never forget the vivid impression made on me, as we entered the town, by the extraordinary spick and span neatness of the walls and streets, giving almost an air of unreality.
[Picture: Reception at Hal]
CHAPTER X.
"There"s daggers in men"s smiles."-SHAKESPEARE.
Hal-The Emir Mohammed Ibn Rashid-His menagerie-His horses-His courtiers-His wives-Amus.e.m.e.nts of the ladies of Hal-Their domestic life-An evening at the castle-The telephone.
AS we stayed some time at Hal, I will not give the detail of every day.
It would be tedious, and would involve endless repet.i.tions, and not a few corrections, for it was only by degrees that we learned to understand all we saw and all we heard.
Our reception was everything that we could have wished. As we rode into the courtyard of the kasr, we were met by some twenty well-dressed men, each one of whom made a handsomer appearance than any Arabs we had previously seen in our lives. "The sons of Sheykhs," whispered Mohammed, who was rather pale, and evidently much impressed by the solemnity of the occasion. In their midst stood a magnificent old man, clothed in scarlet, whose tall figure and snow-white beard gave us a notion of what Solomon might have been in all his glory. He carried a long wand in his hand-it looked like a sceptre-and came solemnly forward to greet us.
"The Emir," whispered Mohammed, as we all alighted. Wilfrid then gave the usual "salam aleyk.u.m," to which every one replied "aleyk.u.m salam," in a loud cheerful tone, with a cordiality of manner that was very rea.s.suring. I thought I had never seen so many agreeable faces collected together, or people with so excellent a demeanour. The old man, smiling, motioned to us to enter, and others led the way. We were then informed that these were the servants of the Emir, and the old man his chamberlain. They showed us first through a dark tortuous entrance, constructed evidently for purposes of defence, and then down a dark corridor, one side of which was composed of pillars, reminding one a little of the entrance to some ancient Egyptian temple. Then one of the servants tapped at a low door, and exchanged signals with somebody else inside, and the door was opened, and we found ourselves in a large kahwah, or reception room. It was handsome from its size, seventy feet by thirty, and from the row of five pillars, which stood in the middle, supporting the roof. The columns were about four feet in diameter, and were quite plain, with square capitals, on which the ends of the rafters rested. The room was lighted by small square air-holes near the roof, and by the door, which was now left open. The whole of the inside was white, or rather, brown-washed, and there was no furniture of any sort, or fittings, except wooden pegs for hanging swords to, a raised platform opposite the door where the mortar stood for coffee-pounding, and a square hearth in one corner, where a fire was burning.
[Picture: The Emir"s Palace at Hal]