Volume 2 / Part 2 — CHAPTER XXI. (continued 3)

[p.107] arm. In narrow places he must enter sideways. But it is the mode always to appear in dagger, and the weapon, like the French soldiers coupe-choux, is really useful for such bloodless purposes as cutting wood and gathering grass. In price they vary from one to thirty dollars.

The Badawin boast greatly of sword-play; but it is apparently confined to delivering a tremendous slash, and to jumping away from the return-cut instead of parrying either with sword or shield. The citizens have learned the Turkish scimitar-play, which, in grotesqueness and general absurdity, rivals the East Indian school. None of these Orientals knows the use of the point which characterises the highest school of swordsmanship.

The Hijazi Badawin have no game of chance, and dare not, I am told, ferment the juice of the Daum palm, as proximity to Aden has taught the wild men of Al-Yaman.[FN#44] Their music is in a rude state. The principal instrument is the Tabl, or kettle-drum, which is of two kinds: one, the smaller, used at festivals; the other, a large copper tom-tom, for martial purposes, covered with leather, and played upon, pulpit-like, with fist, and not with stick. Besides which, they have the one-stringed Rubabah, or guitar, that monotonous but charming instrument of the Desert. In another place I have described their dancing, which is an ignoble spectacle.

The Badawin of Al-Hijaz have all the knowledge necessary for procuring and protecting the riches of savage life. They are perfect in the breeding, the training, and the selling of cattle. They know sufficient of astronomy to guide themselves by night, and are acquainted

[p.108] with the names of the principal stars. Their local memory is wonderful. And such is their instinct in the art of asar, or tracking, that it is popularly said of the Zubayd clan, which lives between Meccah and Al-Madinah, a man will lose a she-camel and know her four-year-old colt by its foot. Always engaged in rough exercises and perilous journeys, they have learned a kind of farriery and a simple system of surgery. In cases of fracture they bind on splints with cloth bands, and the patient drinks camels milk and clarified butter till he is cured. Cuts are carefully washed, sprinkled with meal gunpowder, and sewn up. They dress gunshot wounds with raw camels flesh, and rely entirely upon nature and diet. When bitten by snakes or stung by scorpions, they scarify the wound with a razor, recite a charm, and apply to it a dressing of garlic.[FN#45] The wealthy have Fiss or ring-stones, brought from India, and used with a formula of prayer to extract venom. Some few possess the Tariyak (Theriack) of Al-Irakthe great counter-poison, internal as well as external, of the East. The poorer classes all wear the Zaal or Hibas of Al-Yaman; two yarns of black sheeps wool tied round the leg, under the knee and above the ankle. When bitten, the sufferer tightens these cords above the injured part, which he immediately scarifies; thus they act as tourniquets. These ligatures also cure crampsand there is no other remedy. The Badawi knowledge of medicine is unusually limited in this part of Arabia, where even simples are not required by a people who rise with dawn, eat little, always breathe Desert air, and at night make the camels their curfew. The great tonic is clarified butter, and the Kay, or actual cautery, is used even for rheumatism. This counter-irritant, together with a curious and artful phlebotomy,

[p.109] blood being taken, as by the Italians, from the toes, the fingers, and other parts of the body, are the Arab panaceas. They treat scald-head with grease and sulphur. Ulcers, which here abound, without, however, assuming the fearful type of the Helcoma Yemenense, are cauterised and stimulated by verdigris. The evil of which Fracastorius sang is combated by sudorifics, by unguents of oil and sulphur, and especially by the sand-bath. The patient, buried up to the neck, remains in the sun fasting all day; in the evening he is allowed a little food. This rude course of packing lasts for about a month. It suits some constitutions; but others, especially Europeans, have tried the sand-bath and died of fever. Mules teeth, roasted and imperfectly pounded, remove cataract. Teeth are extracted by the farriers pincers, and the worm which throughout the East is supposed to produce toothache, falls by fumigation. And, finally, after great fatigue, or when suffering from cold, the body is copiously greased with clarified butter and exposed to a blazing fire.

Mohammed and his followers conquered only the more civilised Badawin; and there is even to this day little or no religion amongst the wild people, except those on the coast or in the vicinity of cities. The faith of the Badawi comes from Al-Islam, whose hold is weak. But his customs and institutions, the growth of his climate, his nature, and his wants, are still those of his ancestors, cherished ere Meccah had sent forth a Prophet, and likely to survive the day when every vestige of the Kaabah shall have disappeared. Of this nature are the Hijazis pagan oaths, his heathenish names (few being Moslem except Mohammed), his ordeal of licking red-hot iron, his Salkh, or scarification,proof of manliness,his blood revenge, and his eating carrion (i.e., the body of an animal killed without the usual formula), and his lending his wives to strangers. All these I hold to be remnants of some old

[p.110] creed; nor should I despair of finding among the Badawin bordering upon the Great Desert some lingering system of idolatry.

The Badawin of Al-Hijaz call themselves Shafei but what is put into the mouths of their brethren in the West applies equally well here. We pray not, because we must drink the water of ablution; we give no alms, because we ask them; we fast not the Ramazan month, because we starve throughout the year; and we do no pilgrimage, because the world is the House of Allah. Their blunders in religious matters supply the citizens with many droll stories. And it is to be observed that they do not, like the Greek pirates or the Italian bandits, preserve a religious element in their plunderings; they make no vows, and they carefully avoid offerings.

The ceremonies of Badawi life are few and simplecircumcisions, marriages, and funerals. Of the former rite there are two forms, Taharah, as usual in Al-Islam, and Salkh, an Arab invention, derived from the times of Paganism.[FN#46] During Wahhabi rule it was forbidden under pain of death, but now the people have returned to it. The usual age for Taharah is between five and six; among

[p.111] some classes, however, it is performed ten years later. On such occasions feastings and merrymakings take place, as at our christenings.

Women being a marketable commodity in barbarism as in civilisation, the youth in Al-Hijaz is not married till his father can afford to buy him a bride. There is little pomp or ceremony save firing of guns, dancing, singing, and eating mutton. The settlement is usually about thirty sound Spanish dollars,[FN#47] half paid down, and the other owed by the bridegroom to the father, the brothers, or the kindred of his spouse. Some tribes will take animals in lieu of ready money. A man of wrath not contented with his bride, puts her away at once. If peaceably inclined, by a short delay he avoids scandal. Divorces are very frequent among Badawin, and if the settlement money be duly paid, no evil comes of them.[FN#48]

The funerals of the wild men resemble those of the citizens, only they are more simple, the dead being buried where they die. The corpse, after ablution, is shrouded in any rags procurable; and, women and hired weepers

[p.112] not being permitted to attend, it is carried to the grave by men only. A hole is dug, according to Moslem custom; dry wood, which everywhere abounds, is disposed to cover the corpse, and an oval of stones surrounding a mound of earth keeps out jackals and denotes the spot. These Badawin have not, like the wild Sindis and Baluchis, favourite cemeteries, to which they transport their dead from afar.

The traveller will find no difficulty in living amongst the Hijazi Badawin. Trust to their honour, and you are safe, as was said of the Crow Indians; to their honesty and they will steal the hair off your head. But the wanderer must adopt the wild mans motto, omnia mea mecum porto; he must have good nerves, be capable of fatigue and hardship, possess some knowledge of drugs, shoot and ride well, speak Arabic and Turkish, know the customs by reading, and avoid offending against local prejudices, by causing himself, for instance, to be called Taggaa. The payment of a small sum secures to him a Rafik,[FN#49] and this friend, after once engaging in the task, will be faithful. We have eaten salt together (Nahnu Malihin) is still a bond of friendship: there are, however, some tribes who require to renew the bond every twenty-four hours, as otherwise, to use their own phrase, the salt is not in their stomachs. Caution must be exercised in choosing a companion who has not too many blood feuds. There is no objection to carrying a copper watch and a pocket compass, and a Koran could be fitted with secret pockets for notes and pencil. Strangers should especially avoid handsome weapons; these tempt the Badawins cupidity more than gold. The other extreme, defencelessness, is equally objectionable. It is needless to say that the traveller must never be seen writing anything but charms, and must on no account sketch in public. He should be careful in questioning, and rather lead up

[p.113] to information than ask directly. It offends some Badawin, besides denoting ignorance and curiosity, to be asked their names or those of their clans: a man may be living incognito, and the tribes distinguish themselves when they desire to do so by dress, personal appearance, voice, dialect, and accentuation, points of difference plain to the initiated. A few dollars suffice for the road, and if you would be respectable, a taste which I will not deprecate, some such presents as razors and Tarbushes are required for the chiefs.

The government of the Arabs may be called almost an autonomy. The tribes never obey their Shaykhs, unless for personal considerations, and, as in a civilised army, there generally is some sharp-witted and brazen-faced individual whose voice is louder than the generals. In their leonine society the sword is the greater administrator of law.

Relations between the Badawi tribes of Al-Hijaz are of a threefold character: they are either Ashab, Kiman, or Akhwan.

Ashab, or comrades, are those who are bound by oath to an alliance offensive and defensive: they intermarry, and are therefore closely connected.

Kiman,[FN#50] or foes, are tribes between whom a blood feud, the cause and the effect of deadly enmity, exists.

Akhawat, or brotherhood, denotes the tie between the stranger and the Badawi, who asserts an immemorial and inalienable right to the soil upon which his forefathers fed their flocks. Trespass by a neighbour instantly causes war. Territorial increase is rarely attempted, for if of a whole clan but a single boy escape he will one day assert his claim to the land, and be assisted by all the Ashab, or [p.114] allies of the slain. By paying to man, woman, or child, a small sum, varying, according to your means, from a few pence worth of trinkets to a couple of dollars, you share bread and salt with the tribe, you and your horse become Dakhil (protected), and every one must afford you brother-help. If traveller or trader attempt to pass through the land without paying Al-Akhawah or Al-Rifkah, as it is termed, he must expect to be plundered, and, resisting, to be slain: it is no dishonour to pay it, and he clearly is in the wrong who refuses to conform to custom. The Rafik, under different names, exists throughout this part of the world; at Sinai he was called a Ghafir, a Rabia in Eastern Arabia, amongst the Somal an Abban, and by the Gallas a Mogasa. I have called the tax black-mail; it deserves a better name, being clearly the rudest form of those transit-dues and octrois which are in nowise improved by progress. The Ahl Bayt,[FN#51] or dwellers in the Black Tents, levy the tax from the Ahl Hayt, or the People of Walls; that is to say, townsmen and villagers who have forfeited right to be held Badawin. It is demanded from bastard Arabs, and from tribes who, like the Hutaym and the Khalawiyah, have been born basely or have become nidering. And these people are obliged to pay it at home as well as abroad. Then it becomes a sign of disgrace, and the pure clans, like the Benu Harb, will not give their damsels in marriage to brothers.

Besides this Akhawat-tax and the pensions by the Porte to chiefs of clans, the wealth of the Badawi consists in his flocks and herds, his mare, and his weapons. Some clans are rich in horses; others are celebrated for camels; and not a few for sheep, asses, or greyhounds. The Ahamidah tribe, as has been mentioned, possesses few animals; it subsists by plunder and by presents from

[p.115] pilgrims. The principal wants of the country are sulphur, lead, cloths of all kinds, sugar, spices, coffee, corn, and rice. Arms are valued by the men, and it is advisable to carry a stock of Birmingham jewellery for the purpose of conciliating womankind. In exchange the Badawin give sheep,[FN#52] cattle, clarified butter, milk, wool, and hides, which they use for water-bags, as the Egyptians and other Easterns do potteries. But as there is now a fair store of dollars in the country, it is rarely necessary to barter.

The Arabs dress marks his simplicity; it gives him a nationality, as, according to John Evelyn, prodigious breeches did to the Swiss. It is remarkably picturesque, and with sorrow we see it now confined to the wildest Badawin and a few Sharifs. To the practised eye, a Hijazi in Tarbush and Caftan is ridiculous as a Basque or a Catalonian girl in a cachemire and a little chip. The necessary dress of a man is his Saub (Tobe), a blue calico shirt, reaching from neck to ankles, tight or loose-sleeved, opening at the chest in front, and rather narrow below; so that the wearer, when running, must either hold it up or tuck it into his belt. The latter article, called Hakw, is a plaited leathern thong, twisted round the waist very tightly, so as to support the back. The trousers and the Futah, or loin-cloth of cities, are looked upon as signs of effeminacy. In cold weather the chiefs wear over the shirt an Aba, or cloak. These garments are made in Nijd and the Eastern districts; they are of four colours, white, black, red, and brown-striped. The best are of camels hair, and may cost fifteen dollars; the worst, of sheeps wool, are worth only three; both are cheap, as they last for years. The Mahramah (head-cloth) comes from Syria; which, with Nijd, supplies also the Kufiyah or headkerchief. The Ukal,[FN#53] fillets bound over

[p.116] the kerchief, are of many kinds; the Bishr tribe near Meccah make a kind of crown like the gloria round a saints head, with bits of wood, in which are set pieces of mother-o-pearl. Sandals, too, are of every description, from the simple sole of leather tied on with thongs, to the handsome and elaborate chaussure of Meccah; the price varies from a piastre to a dollar, and the very poor walk barefooted. A leathern bandoleer, called Majdal, passed over the left shoulder, and reaching to the right hip, supports a line of brass cylinders for cartridges.[FN#54] The other cross-belt (Al-Masdar), made of leather ornamented with brass rings, hangs down at the left side, and carries a Kharizah, or hide-case for bullets. And finally, the Hizam, or waist-belt, holds the dagger and extra cartridge cases. A Badawi never appears in public unarmed.

Women wear, like their masters, dark blue cotton Tobes, but larger and looser. When abroad they cover the head with a Yashmak of black stuff, or a poppy-coloured Burka (nose-gay) of the Egyptian shape. They wear no pantaloons, and they rarely affect slippers or sandals. The hair is twisted into Majdul, little pig-tails, and copiously anointed with clarified butter. The rich perfume the skin with rose and cinnamon-scented oils, and adorn the hair with Al-Shayh (Absinthium), sweetest herb of the Desert; their ornaments are bracelets, collars, ear and nose-rings of gold, silver, or silver-gilt. The poorer classes have strings of silver coins hung round the neck.

The true Badawi is an abstemious man, capable of living for six months on ten ounces of food per diem; the milk of a single camel, and a handful of dates, dry or fried in clarified butter, suffice for his wants. He despises the obese and all who require regular and plentiful meals, sleeps on a mat, and knows neither luxury nor comfort, freezing during one quarter and frying for three quarters of the year. But though he can endure hunger, like all

[p.117] savages, he will gorge when an opportunity offers. I never saw the man who could refrain from water upon the line of march; and in this point they contrast disadvantageously with the hardy Wahhabis of the East, and the rugged mountaineers of Jabal Shammar. They are still acridophagi, and even the citizens far prefer a dish of locusts to the Fasikh, which act as anchovies, sardines, and herrings in Egypt. They light a fire at night, and as the insects fall dead they quote this couplet to justify their being eaten

We are allowed two carrions and two bloods, The fish and locust, the liver and the spleen.[FN#55]

Where they have no crops to lose, the people are thankful for a fall of locusts. In Al-Hijaz the flights are uncertain; during the last five years Al-Madinah has seen but few. They are prepared for eating by boiling in salt water and drying four or five days in the sun: a wet locust to an Arab is as a snail to a Briton. The head is plucked off, the stomach drawn, the wings and the prickly part of the legs are plucked, and the insect is ready for the table. Locusts are never eaten with sweet things, which would be nauseous: the dish is always hot, with salt and pepper, or onions fried in clarified butter, when it tastes nearly as well as a plate of stale shrimps.

The favourite food on the line of march is meat cut into strips and sun-dried. This, with a bag of milk-balls[FN#56]

[p.118] and a little coffee, must suffice for journey or campaign. The Badawin know neither fermented nor distilled liquors, although Ikhs yal Khammar! (Fie upon thee, drunkard!) is a popular phrase, preserving the memory of another state of things. Some clans, though not all, smoke tobacco. It is generally the growth of the country called Hijazi or Kazimiyah; a green weed, very strong, with a foul smell, and costing about one piastre per pound. The Badawin do not relish Persian tobacco, and cannot procure Latakia: it is probably the pungency of the native growth offending the delicate organs of the Desert-men, that caused nicotiana to be proscribed by the Wahhabis, who revived against its origin a senseless and obsolete calumny.

The almost absolute independence of the Arabs, and of that noble race the North American Indians of a former generation, has produced a similarity between them worthy of note, because it may warn the anthropologist not always to detect in coincidence of custom identity of origin. Both have the same wild chivalry, the same fiery sense of honour, and the same boundless hospitality: elopements from tribe to tribe, the blood feud, and the Vendetta are common to the to. Both are grave and cautious in demeanour, and formal in manner,princes in rags or paint. The Arabs plunder pilgrims; the Indians, bands of trappers; both glory in forays, raids, and cattle-lifting; and both rob according to certain rules. Both are alternately brave to desperation, and shy of danger. Both are remarkable for nervous and powerful eloquence; dry humour, satire, whimsical tales, frequent tropes; boasts, and ruffling style; pithy proverbs, extempore songs, and languages wondrous in their complexity. Both, recognising no other occupation but war and the chase, despise artificers and the effeminate people of cities, as the game-cock spurns the vulgar roosters of the poultry-yard.[FN#57] The [p.119] chivalry of the Western wolds, like that of the Eastern wilds, salutes the visitor by a charge of cavalry, by discharging guns, and by wheeling around him with shouts and yells. The brave stamps a red hand upon his mouth to show that he has drunk the blood of a foe. Of the Utaybah Harami it is similarly related, that after mortal combat he tastes the dead mans gore.

Of these two chivalrous races of barbarians, the Badawi claims our preference on account of his treatment of women, his superior development of intellect, and the glorious page of history which he has filled.

The tribes of Al-Hijaz are tediously numerous: it will be sufficient to enumerate the principal branches of the Badawi tree, without detailing the hundred little offshoots which it has put forth in the course of ages.[FN#58]

Those ancient clans the Abs and Adnan have almost died out. The latter, it is said, still exists in the neighbourhood of Taif; and the Abs, I am informed, are to be found near Kusayr (Cosseir), on the African coast, but not in Al-Hijaz. Of the Aus, Khazraj, and Nazir details have been given in a previous chapter. The Benu Harb is now the ruling clan in the Holy Land. It is divided by genealogists into two great bodies, first, the Benu Salim, and, secondly, the Masruh,[FN#59] or roaming tribes.

[p.120]The Benu Salim, again, have eight subdivisions, viz.:

1. Ahamidah (Ahmadi)[FN#60]: this clan owns for chief, Shaykh Saad of the mountains. It is said to contain about 3500 men. Its principal sub-clan is the Hadari. 2. Hawazim (Hazimi), the rival tribe, 3000 in number: it is again divided into Muzayni and Zahiri. 3. Sobh (Sobhi), 3500, habitat near Al-Badr. 4. Salaymah (Salimi), also called Aulad Salim. 5. Saadin (Saadani). 6. Mahamid (Mahmadi), 8000. 7. Rahalah (Rihayli), 1000. 8. Timam (Tamimi).

The Masruh tree splits into two great branches, Benu Auf, and Benu Amur.[FN#61] The former is a large clan, extending from Wady Nakia [Arabic] near Nijd, to Rabigh and Al-Madinah. They have few horses, but many dromedaries, camels, and sheep, and are much feared by the people, on account of their warlike and savage character. They separate into ten sub-divisions, viz.:

1. Sihliyah (Sihli), about 2000 in number. 2. Sawaid (Saidi), 1000. 3. Rukhasah (Rakhis). 4. Kassanin (Kassan): this sub-clan claims origin from the old Gassan stock, and is found in considerable numbers at Wady Nakia and other places near Al-Madinah. 5. Rubaah (Rabai). 6. Khazarah (Khuzayri). 7. Lahabah (Lahaybi), 1500 in number. 8. Faradah (Faradi). 9. Benu Ali (Alawi). 10. Zubayd (Zubaydi), near Meccah, a numerous clan of fighting thieves.

Also under the Benu Amuras the word is popularly pronouncedare ten sub-families.

1. Marabitah (Murabti). They [nrs. 1-5] principally inhabit the land about Al-Fara [Arabic] a collection of settlements four marches South of Al-Madinah, number about 10,000 men, and have droves of sheep and camels but few horses. 2. Hussar (Hasir). 3. Benu Jabir (Jabiri). [p.121] 4. Rabaykah (Rubayki). 5. Hisnan (Hasuni). 6. Bizan (Bayzani). 7. Badarin (Badrani). 8. Biladiyah (Biladi). 9. Jaham (the singular and plural forms are the same). 10. Shatarah (Shitayri).[FN#62]

The great Anizah race now, I was told, inhabits Khaybar, and it must not visit Al-Madinah without a Rafik or protector. Properly speaking there are no outcasts in Al-Hijaz, as in Al-Yaman and the Somali country. But the Hitman (pl. of Hutaym or Hitaym), inhabiting the sea-board about Yambu, are taxed by other Badawin as low and vile of origin. The unchastity of the women is connived at by the men, who, however, are brave and celebrated as marksmen: they make, eat, and sell cheese, for which reason that food is despised by the Harb. And the Khalawiyah (pl. of Khalawi) are equally despised; they are generally blacksmiths, have a fine breed of greyhounds, and give asses as a dowry, which secures for them the derision of their fellows.

Mr. C. Cole, H. B. M.s Vice-Consul at Jeddah, was kind enough to collect for me notices of the different tribes in Central and Southern Hijaz. His informants divide the great clan Juhaynah living about Yambu and Yambu al-Nakhl into five branches, viz.:

1. Benu Ibrahimah, in number about 5000. 2. Ishran, 700. 3. Benu Malik, 6000. [p.122] 4. Arwah, 5000. 5. Kaunah, 3000. Thus giving a total of 19,700 men capable of carrying arms.[FN#63]

The same gentleman, whose labours in Eastern Arabia during the coast survey of the Palinurus are well known to the Indian world, gives the following names of the tribes under allegiance to the Sharif of Meccah.

1. Sakif (Thakif) al-Yaman, 2000. 2. Sakif al-Sham,[FN#64] 1000. 3. Benu Malik, 6000. 4. Nasirah, 3000. 5. Benu Saad, 4000. 6. Huzayh (Hudhayh), 5000. 7. Bakum (Begoum), 5000. 8. Adudah, 500. 9. Bashar, 1000. 10. Said, 1500. 11. Zubayd, 4000. 12. Aydah, 1000.

The following is a list of the Southern Hijazi tribes, kindly forwarded to me by the Abbe Hamilton, after his return from a visit to the Sharif at Taif.

1. Ghamid al-Badawy (of the nomades), 30,000. 2. Ghamid al-Hazar (the settled), 40,000. 3. Zahran, 38,000. 4. Benu Malik, 30,000. 5. Nasirah, 15,000. 6. Asir, 40,000. 7. Tamum, * 8. Bilkarn, * * together, 80,000. 9. Benu Ahmar, 10,000. 10. Utaybah, living north of Meccah: no number given. 11. Shuabin. 12. Daraysh, 2000. [p.123] 13. Benu Sufyan, 15,000. 14. Al-Hullad, 3000.

It is evident that the numbers given by this traveller include the women, and probably the children of the tribes. Some exaggeration will also be suspected.

The principal clans which practise the pagan Salkh, or excoriation, are, in Al-Hijaz, the Huzayl and the Benu Sufyan, together with the following families in Al-Tahamah:

1. Juhadilah. 2. Kabakah. 3. Benu Fahm. 4. Benu Mahmud. 5. Saramu (?) 6. Majarish. 7. Benu Yazid.

I now take leave of a subject which cannot but be most uninteresting to English readers.

[FN#1] In Holy Writ, as the indigens are not alluded toonly the Noachian race being describedwe find two divisions: 1 The children of Joktan (great grandson of Shem), Mesopotamians settled in Southern Arabia, from Mesha (Musa or Meccah?) to Sephar (Zafar), a Mount of the East,Genesis, x. 30: that is to say, they occupied the lands from Al-Tahamah to Mahrah. 2. The children of Ishmael, and his Egyptian wife; they peopled only the Wilderness of Paran in the Sinaitic Peninsula and the parts adjacent. Dr. Aloys Sprenger (Life of Mohammed, p. 18), throws philosophic doubt upon the Ishmaelitish descent of Mohammed, who in personal appearance was a pure Caucasian, without any mingling of Egyptian blood. And the Ishmaelitish origin of the whole Arab race is an utterly untenable theory. Years ago, our great historian sensibly remarked that the name (Saracens), used by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger sense, has been derived ridiculously from Sarah the wife of Abraham. In Gibbons observation, the erudite Interpreter of the One Primaeval Language,the acute bibliologist who metamorphoses the quail of the wilderness into a ruddy goose,detects insidiousness and a spirit of restless and rancorous hostility against revealed religion. He proceeds on these sound grounds to attack the accuracy, the honesty and the learning of the mighty dead. This may be Christian zeal; it is not Christian charity. Of late years it has been the fashion for every aspirant to ecclesiastical honours to deal a blow at the ghost of Gibbon. And, as has before been remarked, Mr. Foster gratuitously attacked Burckhardt, whose manes had long rested in the good-will of man. This contrasts offensively with Lord Lindsays happy compliment to the memory of the honest Swiss and the amiable eulogy quoted by Dr. Keith from the Quarterly (vol. xxiii.), and thus adopted as his own. It may seem folly to defend the historian of the Decline and Fall against the compiler of the Historical Geography of Arabia. But continental Orientalists have expressed their wonder at the appearance in this nineteenth century of the Voice of Israel from Mount Sinai and the India in Greece[;] they should be informed that all our Eastern students are not votaries of such obsolete vagaries. [FN#2] This is said without any theory. According to all historians of long inhabited lands, the advenaewhether migratory tribes or visitorsfind indigens or [Greek]. [FN#3] They are described as having small heads, with low brows and ill-formed noses, (strongly contrasting with the Jewish feature), irregular lines, black skins, and frames for the most part frail and slender. For a physiological description of this race, I must refer my readers to the writings of Dr. Carter of Bombay, the medical officer of the Palinurus, when engaged on the Survey of Eastern Arabia. With ample means of observation he has not failed to remark the similarity between the lowest type of Badawi and the Indigens of India, as represented by the Bhils and other Jungle races. This, from a man of science who is not writing up to a theory, may be considered strong evidence in favour of variety in the Arabian family. The fact has long been suspected, but few travellers have given their attention to the subject since the downfall of Sir William Jones Indian origin theory. I am convinced that there is not in Arabia one Arab face, cast of features and expression, as was formerly supposed to be the case, and I venture to recommend the subject for consideration to future observers. [FN#4] Of this Mesopotamian race there are now many local varieties. The subjects of the four Abyssinian and Christian sovereigns who succeeded Yusuf, the Jewish Lord of the Pit, produced, in Al-Yaman, the modern Akhdam or Serviles. The Hujur of Al-Yaman and Oman are a mixed race whose origin is still unknown. And to quote no more cases, the Ebna mentioned by the Ibn Ishak were descended from the Persian soldiers of Anushirwan, who expelled the Abyssinian invader. [FN#5] That the Copts, or ancient Egyptians, were Half-caste Arabs, a mixed people like the Abyssinians, the Gallas, the Somal, and the Kafirs, an Arab graft upon an African stock, appears highly probable. Hence the old Nilotic race has been represented as woolly-headed and of negro feature. Thus Leo Africanus makes the Africans to be descendants of the Arabs. Hence the tradition that Egypt was peopled by AEthiopia, and has been gradually whitened by admixture of Persian and Median, Greek and Roman blood. Hence, too, the fancied connection of Aethiopia with Cush, Susiana, Khuzistan or the lands about the Tigris. Thus learned Virgil, confounding the Western with the Eastern Aethiopians, alludes to

Usque coloratos Nilus devexus ad Indos.

And Strabo maintains the people of Mauritania to be Indians who had come with Hercules. We cannot but remark in Southern Arabia the footprints of the Hindu, whose superstitions, like the Phoenix which flew from India to expire in Egypt, passed over to Arabia with Dwipa Sukhatra (Socotra) for a resting place on its way to the regions of the remotest West. As regards the difference between the Japhetic and Semitic tongues, it may be remarked that though nothing can be more distinct than Sanscrit and Arabic, yet that Pahlavi and Hebrew (Prof. Bohlen on Genesis) present some remarkable points of resemblance. I have attempted in a work on Sind to collect words common to both families. And further research convinces me that such vocables as the Arabic Taur [Arabic] the Persian Tora [Persian] and the Latin Taurus denote an ancient rapprochement, whose mysteries still invite the elucidation of modern science. [FN#6] The Sharif families affect marrying female slaves, thereby showing the intense pride which finds no Arab noble enough for them. Others take to wife Badawi girls: their blood, therefore, is by no means pure. The worst feature of their system is the forced celibacy of their daughters; they are never married into any but Sharif families; consequently they often die in spinsterhood. The effects of this custom are most pernicious, for though celibacy exists in the East it is by no means synonymous with chastity. Here it springs from a morbid sense of honour, and arose, it is popularly said, from an affront taken by a Sharif against his daughters husband. But all Arabs condemn the practice. [FN#7] I use this word as popular abuse has fixed it. Every Orientalist knows that Badawin (Bedouin) is the plural form of Badawi, an ism al-nisbah, or adjective derived from Badu, a Desert. Some words notoriously corrupt, says Gibbon, are fixed, and as it were naturalised, in the vulgar tongue. The word Badawi is not insulting, like Turk applied to an Osmanli, or Fellah to the Egyptian. But you affront the wild man by mistaking his clan for a lower one. Ya Hitaymi, for instance, addressed to a Harb Badawi, makes him finger his dagger. [FN#8] This coarseness is not a little increased by a truly Badawi habit of washing the locks with[Arabic]. It is not considered wholly impure, and is also used for the eyes, upon which its ammonia would act as a rude stimulant. The only cosmetic is clarified butter freely applied to the body as well as to the hair. [FN#9] Kurun ([Arabic]) properly means horns. The Sharifs generally wear their hair in Haffah ([Arabic]), long locks hanging down both sides of the neck and shaved away about a fingers breadth round the forehead and behind the neck. [FN#10] This traveller describes the modern Mesopotamian and Northern race, which, as its bushy beardunusual feature in pure Arab blooddenotes, is mixed with central Asian. In the North, as might be expected, the camels are hairy; whereas, in Al-Hijaz and in the low parts of Al-Yaman, a whole animal does not give a handful fit for weaving. The Arabs attribute this, as we should, to heat, which causes the longer hairs to drop off. [FN#11] Magnum inter Arabes et Africanos discrimen efficit [Greek]. Arabum parvula membra sicut nobilis aequi. Africanum tamen flaccum, crassum longumque: ita quiescens, erectum tamen parum distenditur. Argumentum validissimum est ad indagandam Egyptorum originem: Nilotica enim gens membrum habet Africanum. [FN#12] Whereas the Saxon thumb is thick, flat, and short, extending scarcely half way to the middle joint of the index. [FN#13] A similar unwillingness to name the wife may be found in some parts of southern Europe, where probably jealousy or possibly Asiatic custom has given rise to it. Among the Maltese it appears in a truly ridiculous way, e.g., dice la mia moglie, con rispetto parlando, &c., says the husband, adding to the word spouse a saving your presence, as if he were speaking of something offensive. [FN#14] Dr. Howe (Report on Idiotcy in Massachusetts, 1848,) asserts that the law against the marriage of relations is made out as clearly as though it were written on tables of stone. He proceeds to show that in seventeen households where the parents were connected by blood, of ninety-five children one was a dwarf, one deaf, twelve scrofulous, and forty-four idiotstotal fifty-eight diseased! [FN#15] Yet the celebrated Flying Childers and all his race were remarkably bred in. There is still, in my humble opinion, much mystery about the subject, to be cleared up only by the studies of physiologists. [FN#16] This sounds in English like an Irish bull. I translate Badu, as the dictionaries do, a Desert. [FN#17] The Sharbat Kajari is the Acquetta of Persia, and derives its name from the present royal family. It is said to be a mixture of verdigris with milk; if so, it is a very clumsy engine of state policy. In Egypt and Mosul, Sulaymani (the common name for an Afghan) is used to signify poison; but I know not whether it be merely euphuistic or confined to some species. The banks of the Nile are infamous for these arts, and Mohammed Ali Pasha imported, it is said, professional poisoners from Europe. [FN#18] Throughout the world the strictness of the Lex Scripta is in inverse ratio to that of custom: whenever the former is lax, the latter is stringent, and vice versa. Thus in England, where law leaves men comparatively free, they are slaves to a grinding despotism of conventionalities, unknown in the land of tyrannical rule. This explains why many men, accustomed to live under despotic governments, feel fettered and enslaved in the so-called free countries. Hence, also, the reason why notably in a republic there is less private and practical liberty than under a despotism. The Kazi al-Arab (Judge of the Arabs) is in distinction to the Kazi al-Shara, or the Kazi of the Koran. The former is, almost always, some sharp-witted greybeard, with a minute knowledge of genealogy and precedents, a retentive memory and an eloquent tongue. [FN#19] Thus the Arabs, being decidedly a parsimonious people, indulge in exaggerated praises and instances of liberality. Hatim Tai, whose generosity is unintelligible to Europeans, becomes the Arab model of the open hand. Generally a high beau ideal is no proof of a peoples practical pre-eminence, and when exaggeration enters into it and suits the public taste, a low standard of actuality may be fairly suspected. But to convince the oriental mind you must dazzle it. Hence, in part, the superhuman courage of Antar, the liberality of Hatim, the justice of Omar, and the purity of Laila and Majnun under circumstances more trying than aught chronicled in Mathilde, or in the newest American novel. [FN#20] At the battle of Bissel, when Mohammed Ali of Egypt broke the 40,000 guerillas of Faisal son of Saud the Wahhabi, whole lines of the Benu Asir tribe were found dead and tied by the legs with ropes. This system of colligation dates from old times in Arabia, as the Affair of Chains (Zat al-Salasil) proves. It is alluded to by the late Sir Henry Elliot in his Appendix to the Arabs in Sind,a work of remarkable sagacity and research. According to the Beglar-Nameh, it was a custom of the people of Hind and Sind, whenever they devote themselves to death, to bind themselves to each other by their mantles and waistbands. It seems to have been an ancient practice in the West as in the East: the Cimbri, to quote no other instances, were tied together with cords when attacked by Marius. Tactic truly worthy of savages to prepare for victory by expecting a defeat! [FN#21] Though differing in opinion, upon one subject, from the Rev. Mr. Robertson, the lamented author of this little work, I cannot refrain from expressing the highest admiration of those noble thoughts, those exalted views, and those polished sentiments which, combining the delicacy of the present with the chivalry of a past age, appear in a style

As smooth as woman and as strong as man.

Would that it were in my power to pay a more adequate tribute to his memory! [FN#22] Even Juno, in the most meaningless of idolatries, became, according to Pausanias (lib. ii. cap. 38), a virgin once every year. And be it observed that Al-Islam (the faith, not the practice) popularly decided to debase the social state of womankind, exalts it by holding up to view no fewer than two examples of perfection in the Prophets household. Khadijah, his first wife, was a minor saint, and the Lady Fatimah is supposed to have been spiritually unspotted by sin, and materially ever a virgin, even after giving birth to Hasan and to Hosayn. [FN#23] There is no objection to intermarriage between equal clans, but the higher will not give their daughters to the lower in dignity. [FN#24] For instance: A certain religious man was so deeply affected with the love of a kings daughter, that he was brought to the brink of the grave, is a favourite inscriptive formula. Usually the hero sickens in consequence of the heroines absence, and continues to the hour of his death in the utmost grief and anxiety. He rarely kills himself, but sometimes, when in love with a pretty infidel, he drinks wine and he burns the Koran. The hated rival is not a formidable person; but there are for good reasons great jealousy of female friends, and not a little fear of the beloveds kinsmen. Such are the material sentiments; the spiritual part is a thread of mysticism, upon which all the pearls of adventure and incident are strung. [FN#25] It is curious that these pastoral races, which supply poetry with namby-pamby Colinades, figure as the great tragedians of history. The Scythians, the Huns, the Arabs, and the Tartars were all shepherds. They first armed themselves with clubs to defend their flocks from wild beasts. Then they learned warfare, and improved means of destruction by petty quarrels about pastures; and, finally, united by the commanding genius of some skin-clad Caesar or Napoleon, they fell like avalanches upon those valleys of the worldMesopotamia, India, and Egyptwhose enervate races offered them at once temptations to attack, and certainty of success. [FN#26] Even amongst the Indians, as a race the least chivalrous of men, there is an oath which binds two persons of different sex in the tie of friendship, by making them brother and sister to each other. [FN#27] Richardson derives our knight from Nikht ([Arabic]), a tilter with spears, and Caitiff from Khattaf, ([Arabic]) a snatcher or ravisher. [FN#28] I am not ignorant that the greater part of Antar is of modern and disputed origin. Still it accurately expresses Arab sentiment. [FN#29] I wish that the clever Orientalist who writes in the Saturday Review would not translate Al-Layl, by lenes sub nocte susurri: the Arab bard alluded to no such effeminacies. [FN#30] The subject of Dakhl has been thoroughly exhausted by Burckhardt and Layard. It only remains to be said that the Turks, through ignorance of the custom, have in some cases made themselves contemptible by claiming the protection of women. [FN#31] It is by no means intended to push this comparison of the Arabs with the Hibernians poetry. The former has an intensity which prevents our feeling that there are too many flowers for the fruit; the latter is too often a mere blaze of words, which dazzle and startle, but which, decomposed by reflection, are found to mean nothing. Witness

The diamond turrets of Shadukiam, And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad!

[FN#32] I am informed that the Benu Kahtan still improvise, but I never heard them. The traveller in Arabia will always be told that some remote clan still produces mighty bards, and uses in conversation the terminal vowels of the classic tongue, but he will not believe these assertions till personally convinced of their truth. The Badawi dialect, however, though debased, is still, as of yore, purer than the language of the citizens. During the days when philology was a passion in the East, those Stephens and Johnsons of Semitic lore, Firuzabadi and Al-Zamakhshari, wandered from tribe to tribe and from tent to tent, collecting words and elucidating disputed significations. Their grammatical expeditions are still remembered, and are favourite stories with scholars. [FN#33] I say skilful in reading, because the Arabs, like the Spaniards, hate to hear their language mangled by mispronunciation. When Burckhardt, who spoke badly, began to read verse to the Badawin, they could not refrain from a movement of impatience, and used to snatch the book out of his hands. [FN#34] The civilized poets of the Arab cities throw the charm of the Desert over their verse, by images borrowed from its scenerythe dromedary, the mirage, and the wellas naturally as certain of our songsters, confessedly haters of the country, babble of lowing kine, shady groves, spring showers, and purling rills. [FN#35] Some will object to this expression; Arabic being a harsh and guttural tongue. But the sound of language, in the first place, depends chiefly upon the articulator. Who thinks German rough in the mouth of a woman, with a suspicion of a lisp, or that English is the dialect of birds, when spoken by an Italian? Secondly, there is a music far more spirit-stirring in harshness than in softness: the languages of Castile and of Tuscany are equally beautiful, yet who does not prefer the sound of the former? The gutturality of Arabia is less offensive than that of the highlands of Barbary. Professor Willis, of Cambridge, attributes the broad sounds and the guttural consonants of mountaineers and the people of elevated plains to the physical action of cold. Conceding this to be a partial cause, I would rather refer the phenomenon to the habit of loud speaking, acquired by the dwellers in tents, and by those who live much in the open air. The Todas of the Neilgherry Hills have given the soft Tamil all the harshness of Arabic, and he who hears them calling to each other from the neighbouring peaks, can remark the process of broadening vowel and gutturalising consonant. On the other hand, the Gallas and the Persians, also a mountain-people, but inhabiting houses, speak comparatively soft tongues. The Cairenes actually omit some of the harshest sounds of Arabia, turning Makass into Maas, and Sakka into Saa. It is impossible to help remarking the bellowing of the Badawi when he first enters a dwelling-place, and the softening of the sound when he has become accustomed to speak within walls. Moreover, it is to be observed there is a great difference of articulation, not pronunciation, among the several Badawi clans. The Benu Auf are recognised by their sharp, loud, and sudden speech, which the citizens compare to the barking of dogs. The Benu Amr, on the contrary, speak with a soft and drawling sound. The Hutaym, in addition to other peculiarities, add a pleonastic ah, to soften the termination of words, as Aatini hawajiyah, (for hawaiji), Give me my clothes. [FN#36] The Germans have returned for inspiration to the old Eastern source. Ruckert was guided by Jalal al-Din to the fountains of Sufyism. And even the French have of late made an inroad into Teutonic mysticism successfully enough to have astonished Racine and horrified La Harpe. [FN#37] This, however, does not prevent the language becoming optionally most precise in meaning; hence its high philosophical character. The word farz, for instance, means, radically cutting, secondarily ordering, or paying a debt, after which come numerous meanings foreign to the primal sense, such as a shield, part of a tinder-box, an unfeathered arrow, and a particular kind of date. In theology it is limited to a single signification, namely, a divine command revealed in the Koran. Under these circumstances the Arabic becomes, in grammar, logic, rhetoric, and mathematics, as perfect and precise as Greek. I have heard Europeans complain that it is unfit for mercantile transactions.Perhaps! [FN#38] As a general rule there is a rhyme at the end of every second line, and the unison is a mere fringea long a, for instance, throughout the poem sufficing for the delicate ear of the Arab. In this they were imitated by the old Spaniards, who, neglecting the consonants, merely required the terminating vowels to be alike. We speak of the sort of harmonious simple flow which atones for the imperfect nature of the rhyme. But the fine organs of some races would be hurt by that ponderous unison which a people of blunter senses find necessary to produce an impression. The reader will feel this after perusing in Percys Reliques Rio Verde! Rio Verde! and its translation. [FN#39] In our knightly ages the mare was ridden only by jugglers and charlatans. Did this custom arise from the hatred of, and contempt for, the habits of the Arabs, imported into Europe by the Crusaders? Certainly the popular Eastern idea of a Frank was formed in those days, and survives to these. [FN#40] Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, in the Falkner-Klee, calls this bird the Saker-falke. Hence the French and English names sacre and saker. The learned John Beckmann (History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins: sub voce) derives falconry from India, where, as early as the time of Ctesias, hares and foxes were hunted by means of rapacious birds. I believe, however, that no trace of this sport is found in the writings of the Hindus. Beckmann agrees with Giraldus, against other literati, that the ancient Greeks knew the art of hawking, and proves from Aristotle, that in Thrace men trained falcons. But Aristotle alludes to the use of the bird, as an owl is employed in Italy: the falcon is described as frightening, not catching the birds. lian corroborates Aristotles testimony. Pliny, however, distinctly asserts that the hawks strike their prey down. In Italy it was very common, says the learned Beckmann, for Martial and Apuleius speak of it as a thing everywhere known. Hence the science spread over Europe, and reached perfection at the principal courts in the twelfth century. The Emperor Frederic II. wrote De Arte Venandi cum Avibus, and the royal author was followed by a host of imitators in the vulgar tongue. Though I am not aware that the Hindus ever cultivated the art, lian, it must be confessed, describes their style of training falcons exactly similar to that in use among the modern Persians, Sindians, and Arabs. The Emperor Frederic owes the capella, or hood to the Badawi, and talks of the most expert falconers sent to him with various kinds of birds by some of the kings of Arabia. The origin of falconry is ascribed by Al-Masudi, on the authority of Adham bin Muhriz, to the king Al-Haris bin Muawiyah, and in Dr. Sprengers admirable translation the reader will find (pp. 426, 428), much information upon the subject. The Persians claim the invention for their just King, Anushirawan, contemporary with Mohammed. Thence the sport passed into Turkey, where it is said the Sultans maintained a body of 6000 falconers. And Frederic Barbarossa, in the twelfth century, brought falcons to Italy. We may fairly give the honour of the invention to Central Asia. [FN#41] Here called bandukiyah bi ruhayn, or the two-mouthed gun. The leathern cover is termed gushat; it is a bag with a long-ringed tassel at the top of the barrel, and a strap by which it is slung to the owners back. [FN#42] I described elsewhere the Mirzak, or javelin. [FN#43] Ostriches are found in Al-Hijaz, where the Badawin shoot after coursing them. The young ones are caught and tamed, and the eggs may be bought in the Madinah bazar. Throughout Arabia there is a belief that the ostrich throws stones at the hunter. The superstition may have arisen from the pebbles being flung up behind by the birds large feet in his rapid flight, or it may be a mere foolery of fancy. Even in lands which have long given up animal-worship, wherever a beast is conspicuous or terrible, it becomes the subject of some marvellous tale. So the bear in Persia imitates a moolahs dress; the wolf in France is a human being transformed, and the beaver of North America, also a metamorphosis, belts trees so as to fell them in the direction most suitable to his after purpose. [FN#44] Not that the Agrebi of Bir Hamid and other parts have much to learn of us in vice. The land of Al-Yaman is, I believe, the most demoralised country, and Sanaa the most depraved city in Arabia. The fair sex distinguishes itself by a peculiar laxity of conduct, which is looked upon with an indulgent eye. And the men drink and gamble, to say nothing of other peccadilloes, with perfect impunity. [FN#45] In Al-Yaman, it is believed, that if a man eat three heads of garlic in good mountain-samn (or clarified butter) for forty days, his blood will kill the snake that draws it. [FN#46] Circumcisionis causa apud Arabos manifestissima, ulceratio enim endemica, abrasionem glandis aut praeputii, maxima cum facilitate insequitur. Mos autem quem vocant Arabes Al-Salkh ([Arabic] i.e. scarificatio) virilitatem animumque ostendendi modus esse videtur. Exeunt amici paterque, et juvenem sub dio sedentem circumstant. Capit tunc pugionem tonsor et præputio abscisso detrahit pellem [Greek] ab umbilico incipiens aut parum infra, ventremque usque ad femora nudat. Juvenis autem dextra pugionem super tergum tonsoris vibrans magna clamat voce [Arabic] i.e. caede sine timore. Vae si haesitet tonsor aut si tremeat manus! Pater etiam filium si dolore ululet statim occidit. Re confecta surgit juvenis et [Arabic] Gloria Deo intonans, ad tentoria tendit, statim nefando oppressus dolore humi procumbit. Remedia Sal, et [Arabic] (tumerica); cibus lac cameli. Nonnullos occidit ingens suppuratio, decem autem excoriatis supersunt plerumque octo: hi pecten habent nullum, ventremque pallida tegit cutis. [FN#47] The Spanish dollar is most prized in Al-Hijaz; in Al-Yaman the Maria Theresa. The Spanish Government has refused to perpetuate its Pillar-dollar, which at one time was so great a favourite in the East. The traveller wonders how Maria Theresas still supply both shores of the Red Sea. The marvel is easily explained: the Austrians receive silver at Milan, and stamp it for a certain percentage. This coin was doubtless preferred by the Badawin for its superiority to the currency of the day: they make from it ornaments for their women and decorations for their weapons. The generic term for dollars is Riyal Fransah. [FN#48] Torale, sicut est mos Judaicus et Persicus, non inspiciunt. Novae nuptae tamen maritus mappam manu capit: mane autem puellae mater virginitatis signa viris mulieribusque domi ostendit eosque jubilare jubet quod calamitas domestica, sc. filia, intacta abiit. Si non ostendeant mappam, maeret domus, prima enim Venus in Arabia, debet esse cruenta. Maritus autem humanior, etiamsi absit sanguis, cruore palumbino mappam tingit et gaudium fingens cognatis parentibusque ostendit; paululum postea puellae nonnulla causa dat divortium. Hic urbis et ruris mos idem est. [FN#49] An explanation of this term will be found below. [FN#50] It is the plural of Kaum, which means rising up in rebellion or enmity against, as well as the popular signification, a people. In some parts of Arabia it is used for a plundering party. [FN#51] Bayt (in the plural Buyut) is used in this sense to denote the tents of the nomades. Bayt radically means a nighting-place; thence a tent, a house, a lair, &c., &c. [FN#52] Some tribes will not sell their sheep, keeping them for guests or feasts. [FN#53] So the word is pronounced at Meccah. The dictionaries give Aakal, which in Eastern Arabia is corrupted to Igal. [FN#54] Called Tatarif, plural of Tatrifah, a cartridge. [FN#55] The liver and the spleen are both supposed to be congealed blood. Niebuhr has exhausted the names and the description of the locust. In Al-Hijaz they have many local and fantastic terms: the smallest kind, for instance, is called Jarad Iblis, Satans locust. [FN#56] This is the Kurut of Sind and the Kashk of Persia. The butter-milk, separated from the butter by a little water, is simmered over a slow fire, thickened with wheaten flour, about a handful to a gallon, well-mixed, so that no knots remain in it, and allowed to cool. The mixture is then put into a bag and strained, after which salt is sprinkled over it. The mass begins to harden after a few hours, when it is made up into balls and dried in the sun. [FN#57] The North American trappers adopted this natural prejudice: the free trapper called his more civilized confrere, mangeur de lard. [FN#58] Burckhardt shrank from the intricate pedigree of the Meccan Sharifs. I have seen a work upon the subject in four folio volumes in point of matter equivalent to treble the number in Europe. The best known genealogical works are Al-Kalkashandi (originally in seventy-five books, extended to one hundred); the Umdat al-Tullab by Ibn Khaldun; the Tohfat al-Arab fi Ansar al-Arab, a well-known volume by Al-Siyuti; and, lastly, the Sirat al-Halabi, in six volumes 8vo. Of the latter work there is an abridgment by Mohammed al-Banna al-Dimyati in two volumes 8vo.; but both are rare, and consequently expensive. [FN#59] I give the following details of the Harb upon the authority of my friend Omar Effendi, who is great in matters of genealogy. [FN#60]The first word is the plural, the second the singular form of the word. [FN#61] In the singular Aufi and Amri. [FN#62] To these Mr. Cole adds seven other sub-divisions, viz.: 1. Ahali al-Kura (the people of Kura?), 5000. 2. Radadah, 800. 3. Hijlah, 600. 4. Dubayah, 1500. 5. Benu Kalb, 2000. 6. Bayzanah, 800. 7. Benu Yahya, 800. And he makes the total of the Benu Harb about Al-Jadaydah amount to 35,000 men. I had no means of personally ascertaining the correctness of this information. [FN#63] The reader will remember that nothing like exactitude in numbers can be expected from an Arab. Some rate the Benu Harb at 6000; others, equally well informed, at 15,000; others again at 80,000. The reason of this is that, whilst one is speaking of the whole race, another may be limiting it to his own tribe and its immediate allies. [FN#64] Sham which, properly speaking, means Damascus or Syria, in Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa is universally applied to Al-Hijaz.

[p.124] CHAPTER XXVI.

FROM AL-SUWAYRKIYAH TO MECCAH.

WE have now left the territory of Al-Madinah. Al-Suwayrkiyah, which belongs to the Sharif of Meccah, is about twenty-eight miles distant from Hijriyah, and by dead reckoning ninety-nine miles along the road from the Prophets burial-place. Its bearing from the last station was S.W. 11°. The town, consisting of about one hundred houses, is built at the base and on the sides of a basaltic mass, which rises abruptly from the hard clayey plain. The summit is converted into a rude fortalicewithout one, no settlement can exist in Al-Hijazby a bulwark of uncut stone, piled up so as to make a parapet. The lower part of the town is protected by a mud wall, with the usual semicircular towers. Inside there is a bazar, well supplied with meat (principally mutton) by the neighbouring Badawin; and wheat, barley, and dates are grown near the town. There is little to describe in the narrow streets and the mud houses, which are essentially Arab. The fields around are divided into little square plots by earthen ridges and stone walls; some of the palms are fine-grown trees, and the wells appear numerous. The water is near the surface and plentiful, but it has a brackish taste, highly disagreeable after a few days use, and the effects are the reverse of chalybeate.

The town belongs to the Benu Hosayn, a race of

[p.125] schismatics mentioned in the foregoing pages. They claim the allegiance of the Badawi tribes around, principally Mutayr, and I was informed that their fealty to the Prince of Meccah is merely nominal.

The morning after our arrival at Al-Suwayrkiyah witnessed a commotion in our little party: hitherto they had kept together in fear of the road. Among the number was one Ali bin Ya Sin, a perfect old man of the sea. By profession he was a Zemzemi, or dispenser of water from the Holy Well,[FN#1] and he had a handsome palazzo at the foot of Abu Kubays in Meccah, which he periodically converted into a boarding-house. Though past sixty, very decrepit, bent by age, white-bearded, and toothless, he still acted cicerone to pilgrims, and for that purpose travelled once every year to Al-Madinah. These trips had given him the cunning of a veteran voyageur. He lived well and cheaply; his home-made Shugduf, the model of comfort, was garnished with soft cushions and pillows, whilst from the pockets protruded select bottles of pickled limes and similar luxuries; he had his travelling Shishah (water-pipe),[FN#2] and at the halting-place, disdaining the crowded, reeking tent, he had a contrivance for converting his vehicle into a habitation. He was a type of the Arab old man. He mumbled all day and three-quarters of the night, for he had des insomnies. His nerves were so fine, that if any

[p.126] one mounted his Shugduf, the unfortunate was condemned to lie like a statue. Fidgety and priggishly neat, nothing annoyed him so much as a moments delay or an article out of place, a rag removed from his water-gugglet, or a cooking-pot imperfectly free from soot; and I judged his avarice by observing that he made a point of picking up and eating the grains scattered from our pomegranates, exclaiming that the heavenly seed (located there by Arab superstition) might be one of those so wantonly wasted.

Ali bin Ya Sin, returning to his native city, had not been happy in his choice of a companion this time. The other occupant of the handsome Shugduf was an ignoble-faced Egyptian from Al-Madinah. This ill-suited pair clave together for awhile, but at Al-Suwayrkiyah some dispute about a copper coin made them permanent foes. With threats and abuse such as none but an Egyptian could tamely hear, Ali kicked his quondam friend out of the vehicle. But terrified, after reflection, by the possibility that the man, now his enemy, might combine with two or three Syrians of our party to do him a harm, and frightened by a few black looks, the senior determined to fortify himself by a friend. Connected with the boy Mohammeds family, he easily obtained an introduction to me; he kissed my hand with great servility, declared that his servant had behaved disgracefully; and begged my protection together with an occasional attendance of my slave.

This was readily granted in pity for the old man, who became immensely grateful. He offered at once to take Shaykh Nur into his Shugduf. The Indian boy had already reduced to ruins the frail structure of his Shibriyah by lying upon it lengthways, whereas prudent travellers sit in it cross-legged and facing the camel. Moreover, he had been laughed to scorn by the Badawin, who seeing him pull up his dromedary to mount and dismount, had questioned his sex, and determined him to be

[p.127] a woman of the Miyan.[FN#3] I could not rebuke them; the poor fellows timidity was a ridiculous contrast to the Badawis style of mounting; a pull at the camels head, the left foot placed on the neck, an agile spring, and a scramble into the saddle. Shaykh Nur, elated by the sight of old Alis luxuries, promised himself some joyous hours; but next morning he owned with a sigh that he had purchased splendour at the extravagant price of happinessthe seniors tongue never rested throughout the livelong night.

During our half-halt at Al-Suwayrkiyah we determined to have a small feast; we bought some fresh dates, and we paid a dollar and a half for a sheep. Hungry travellers consider liver and fry a dish to set before a Shaykh. On this occasion, however, our enjoyment was marred by the water; even Soyers dinners would scarcely charm if washed down with cups of a certain mineral-spring found at Epsom.

We started at ten A.M. (Monday, 5th September) in a South-Easterly direction, and travelled over a flat, thinly dotted with Desert vegetation. At one P.M we passed a basaltic ridge; and then, entering a long depressed line of country, a kind of valley, paced down it five tedious hours. The Samum as usual was blowing hard, and it seemed to affect the travellers tempers. In one place I saw a Turk, who could not speak a word of Arabic, violently disputing with an Arab who could not understand a word of Turkish. The pilgrim insisted upon adding to the camels load a few dry sticks, such as are picked up for cooking. The camel-man as perseveringly threw off the extra burthen. They screamed with rage, hustled each other, and at last the Turk dealt the Arab a heavy blow. I afterwards heard that the pilgrim was mortally wounded that night, his stomach being ripped

[p.128] open with a dagger. On enquiring what had become of him, I was assured that he had been comfortably wrapped up in his shroud, and placed in a half-dug grave. This is the general practice in the case of the poor and solitary, whom illness or accident incapacitates from proceeding. It is impossible to contemplate such a fate without horror: the torturing thirst of a wound,[FN#4] the burning sun heating the brain to madness, andworst of all, for they do not wait till deaththe attacks of the jackal, the vulture, and the raven of the wild.

At six P.M., before the light of day had faded, we traversed a rough and troublesome ridge. Descending it our course lay in a southerly direction along a road flanked on the left by low hills of red sandstone and bright porphyry. About an hour afterwards we came to a basalt field, through whose blocks we threaded our way painfully and slowly, for it was then dark. At eight P.M. the camels began to stumble over the dwarf dykes of the wheat and barley fields, and presently we arrived at our halting-place, a large village called Al-Sufayna. The plain was already dotted with tents and lights. We found the Baghdad Caravan, whose route here falls into the Darb al-Sharki. It consists of a few Persians and Kurds, and collects the people of North-Eastern Arabia, Wahhabis and others. They are escorted by the Agayl tribe and by the fierce mountaineers of Jabal Shammar. Scarcely was our tent pitched, when the distant pattering of musketry and an ominous tapping of the kettle-drum sent all my companions in different directions to enquire what was the cause of quarrel. The Baghdad Cafilah, though not more than 2000 in number, men, women and children, had been proving to the Damascus Caravan, that, being perfectly ready to fight, they were not going to yield any point of precedence. From that time the two bodies

[p.129] encamped in different places. I never saw a more pugnacious assembly: a look sufficed for a quarrel. Once a Wahhabi stood in front of us, and by pointing with his finger and other insulting gestures, showed his hatred to the chibuk, in which I was peaceably indulging. It was impossible to refrain from chastising his insolence by a polite and smiling offer of the offending pipe. This made him draw his dagger without a thought; but it was sheathed again, for we all cocked our pistols, and these gentry prefer steel to lead. We had travelled about seventeen miles, and the direction of Al-Sufayna from our last halting place was South-East five degrees. Though it was night when we encamped, Shaykh Masud set out to water his moaning camels: they had not quenched their thirst for three days. He returned in a depressed state, having been bled by the soldiery at the well to the extent of forty piastres, or about eight shillings.

After supper we spread our rugs and prepared to rest. And here I first remarked the coolness of the nights, proving, at this season of the year, a considerable altitude above the sea. As a general rule the atmosphere stagnated between sunrise and ten A.M., when a light wind rose. During the forenoon the breeze strengthened, and it gradually diminished through the afternoon. Often about sunset there was a gale accompanied by dry storms of dust. At Al-Sufayna, though there was no night-breeze and little dew, a blanket was necessary, and the hours of darkness were invigorating enough to mitigate the effect of the sand and Samum-ridden day. Before sleeping I was introduced to a namesake, one Shaykh Abdullah, of Meccah. Having committed his Shugduf to his son, a lad of fourteen, he had ridden forward on a dromedary, and had suddenly fallen ill. His objects in meeting me were to ask for some medicine, and for a temporary seat in my Shugduf; the latter I offered with pleasure, as the boy Mohammed was

[p.130] longing to mount a camel. The Shaykhs illness was nothing but weakness brought on by the hardships of the journey: he attributed it to the hot wind, and to the weight of a bag of dollars which he had attached to his waist-belt. He was a man about forty, long, thin, pale, and of a purely nervous temperament; and a few questions elicited the fact that he had lately and suddenly given up his daily opium pill. I prepared one for him, placed him in my litter, and persuaded him to stow away his burden in some place where it would be less troublesome. He was my companion for two marches, at the end of which he found his own Shugduf. I never met amongst the Arab citizens a better bred or a better informed man. At Constantinople he had learned a little French, Italian, and Greek; and from the properties of a shrub to the varieties of honey,[FN#5] he was full of useful knowledge, and openable as a dictionary. We parted near Meccah, where I met him only once, and then accidentally, in the Valley of Muna.

At half-past five A.M. on Tuesday, the 6th of September, we rose refreshed by the cool, comfortable night, and loaded the camels. I had an opportunity of inspecting Al-Sufayna. It is a village of fifty or sixty mud-walled, flat-roofed houses, defended by the usual rampart. Around it lie ample date-grounds, and fields of wheat, barley, and maize. Its bazar at this season of the year is well supplied: even fowls can be procured.

We travelled towards the South-East, and entered a country destitute of the low ranges of hill, which from Al-Madinah southwards had bounded the horizon. After

[p.131] a two miles march our camels climbed up a precipitous ridge, and then descended into a broad gravel plain. From ten to eleven A.M. our course lay southerly over a high table-land, and we afterwards traversed, for five hours and a half, a plain which bore signs of standing water. This days march was peculiarly Arabia. It was a desert peopled only with echoes,a place of death for what little there is to die in it,a wilderness where, to use my companions phrase, there is nothing but He.[FN#6] Nature scalped, flayed, discovered all her skeleton to the gazers eye. The horizon was a sea of mirage; gigantic sand-columns whirled over the plain; and on both sides of our road were huge piles of bare rock, standing detached upon the surface of sand and clay. Here they appeared in oval lumps, heaped up with a semblance of symmetry; there a single boulder stood, with its narrow foundation based upon a pedestal of low, dome-shapen rock. All were of a pink coarse-grained granite, which flakes off in large crusts under the influence of the atmosphere. I remarked one block which could not measure fewer than thirty feet in height. Through these scenes we travelled till about half-past four P.M., when the guns suddenly roared a halt. There was not a trace of human habitation around us: a few parched shrubs and the granite heaps were the only objects diversifying the hard clayey plain. Shaykh Masud correctly guessed the cause of our detention at the inhospitable halting-place of the Mutayr (Badawin). Cook your bread and boil your coffee, said the old man; the camels will rest for awhile, and the gun will sound at nightfall.

We had passed over about eighteen miles of ground; and our present direction was South-west twenty degrees of Al-Sufayna.

At half-past ten that evening we heard the signal for

[p.132] departure, and, as the moon was still young, we prepared for a hard nights work. We took a south-westerly course through what is called a Waarrough ground covered with thicket. Darkness fell upon us like a pall. The camels tripped and stumbled, tossing their litters like cockboats in a short sea; at times the Shugdufs were well nigh torn off their backs. When we came to a ridge worse than usual, old Masud would seize my camels halter, and, accompanied by his son and nephew bearing lights, encourage the animals with gesture and voice. It was a strange, wild scene. The black basaltic field was dotted with the huge and doubtful forms of spongy-footed camels with silent tread, looming like phantoms in the midnight air; the hot wind moaned, and whirled from the torches flakes and sheets of flame and fiery smoke, whilst ever and anon a swift-travelling Takht-rawan, drawn by mules, and surrounded by runners bearing gigantic mashals or cressets,[FN#7] threw a passing glow of red light upon the dark road and the dusky multitude. On this occasion the rule was every man for himself. Each pressed forward into the best path, thinking only of preceding his neighbour. The Syrians, amongst whom our little party had become entangled, proved most unpleasant companions: they often stopped the way, insisting upon their right to precedence. On one occasion a horseman had the audacity to untie the halter of my dromedary, and thus to cast us adrift, as it were, in order to make room for some excluded friend. I seized my sword; but Shaykh Abdullah stayed my hand, and addressed the intruder in terms sufficiently violent to make him slink away. Nor was this the only occasion on which my

[p.133] companion was successful with the Syrians. He would begin with a mild Move a little, O my father! followed, if fruitless, by Out of the way, O Father of Syria[FN#8]! and if still ineffectual, advancing to a Begone, O he! This ranged between civility and sternness. If without effect, it was supported by revilings to the Abusers of the Salt, the Yazid, the Offspring of Shimr. Another remark which I made about my companions conduct well illustrates the difference between the Eastern and the Western man. When traversing a dangerous place, Shaykh Abdullah the European attended to his camel with loud cries of Hai! Hai[FN#9]! and an occasional switching. Shaykh Abdullah the Asiatic commended himself to Allah by repeated ejaculations of Ya Satir! Ya Sattar[FN#10]!

[p.134]The morning of Wednesday (September 7th) broke as we entered a wide plain. In many places were signs of water: lines of basalt here and there seamed the surface, and wide sheets of the tufaceous gypsum called by the Arabs Sabkhah shone like mirrors set in the russet framework of the flat. This substance is found in cakes, often a foot long by an inch in depth, curled by the suns rays and overlying clay into which water had sunk. After our harassing night, day came on with a sad feeling of oppression, greatly increased by the unnatural glare:

In vain the sight, dejected to the ground, Stoopd for relief: thence hot ascending streams And keen reflection paind.

We were disappointed in our expectations of water, which usually abounds near this station, as its name, Al-Ghadir, denotes. At ten A.M. we pitched the tent in the first convenient spot, and we lost no time in stretching our cramped limbs upon the bosom of mother Earth. From the halting-place of the Mutayr to Al-Ghadir is a march of about twenty miles, and the direction south-west twenty-one degrees. Al-Ghadir is an extensive plain, which probably presents the appearance of a lake after heavy rains. It is overgrown in parts with Desert vegetation, and requires nothing but a regular supply of water to make it useful to man. On the East it is bounded by a wall of rock, at whose base are three wells, said to have been dug by the Caliph Harun. They are guarded by a Burj, or tower, which betrays symptoms of decay.

In our anxiety to rest we had strayed from the Damascus Caravan amongst the mountaineers of Shammar. Our Shaykh Masud manifestly did not like the company; for shortly after three P.M. he insisted upon our striking the tent and rejoining the Hajj, which lay encamped about two miles distant in the western part of the basin. We

[p.135] loaded, therefore, and half an hour before sunset found ourselves in more congenial society. To my great disappointment, a stir was observable in the Caravan. I at once understood that another night-march was in store for us.

At six P.M. we again mounted, and turned towards the Eastern plain. A heavy shower was falling upon the Western hills, whence came damp and dangerous blasts. Between nine P.M. and the dawn of the next day we had a repetition of the last nights scenes, over a road so rugged and dangerous, that I wondered how men could prefer to travel in the darkness. But the camels of Damascus were now worn out with fatigue; they could not endure the sun, and our time was too precious for a halt. My night was spent perched upon the front bar of my Shugduf, encouraging the dromedary; and that we had not one fall excited my extreme astonishment. At five A.M. (Thursday, 8th September) we entered a wide plain thickly clothed with the usual thorny trees, in whose strong grasp many a Shugduf lost its covering, and not a few were dragged with their screaming inmates to the ground. About five hours afterwards we crossed a high ridge, and saw below us the camp of the Caravan, not more than two miles distant. As we approached it, a figure came running out to meet us. It was the boy Mohammed, who, heartily tired of riding a dromedary with his friend, and possibly hungry, hastened to inform my companion Abdullah that he would lead him to his Shugduf and to his son. The Shaykh, a little offended by the fact that for two days not a friend nor an acquaintance had taken the trouble to see or to inquire about him, received Mohammed roughly; but the youth, guessing the grievance, explained it away by swearing that he and all the party had tried in vain to find us. This wore the semblance of truth: it is almost impossible to come upon any one who strays from his place in so large and motley a body.

[p.136]At eleven A.M. we had reached our station. It is about wenty-four miles from Al-Ghadir, and its direction is South-east ten degrees. It is called Al-Birkat (the Tank), from a large and now ruinous cistern built of hewn stone by the Caliph Harun.[FN#11] The land belongs to the Utaybah Badawin, the bravest and most ferocious tribe in Al-Hijaz; and the citizens denote their dread of these banditti by asserting that to increase their courage they drink their enemys blood.[FN#12] My companions shook their heads when questioned upon the subject, and prayed that we might not become too well acquainted with theman ill-omened speech!

The Pasha allowed us a rest of five hours at Al-Birkat: we spent them in my tent, which was crowded with Shaykh Abdullahs friends. To requite me for this inconvenience, he prepared for me an excellent water-pipe, a cup of coffee, which, untainted by cloves and by cinnamon, would have been delicious, and a dish of dry fruits. As we were now near the Holy City, all the Meccans were busy canvassing for lodgers and offering their services to pilgrims. Quarrels, too, were of hourly occurrence. In our party was an Arnaut, a white-bearded old man, so

[p.137] decrepit that he could scarcely stand, and yet so violent that no one could manage him but his African slave, a brazen-faced little wretch about fourteen years of age. Words were bandied between this angry senior and Shaykh Masud, when the latter insinuated sarcastically, that if the former had teeth he would be more intelligible. The Arnaut in his rage seized a pole, raised it, and delivered a blow which missed the camel-man, but, which brought the striker headlong to the ground. Masud exclaimed, with shrieks of rage, Have we come to this, that every old-woman Turk smites us? Our party had the greatest trouble to quiet the quarrel[l]ers. The Arab listened to us when we threatened him with the Pasha. But the Arnaut, whose rage was like red-hot steel, would hear nothing but our repeated declarations, that unless he behaved more like a pilgrim, we should be compelled to leave him and his slave behind.

At four P.M. we left Al-Birkat, and travelled Eastwards over rolling ground thickly wooded. There was a network of footpaths through the thickets, and clouds obscured the moon; the consequence was inevitable loss of way. About 2 A.M. we began ascending hills in a south-westerly direction, and presently we fell into the bed of a large rock-girt Fiumara, which runs from east to west. The sands were overgrown with saline and salsolaceous plants; the Coloquintida, which, having no support, spreads along the ground[FN#13]; the Senna, with its small green leaf; the Rhazya stricta[FN#14]; and a large luxuriant variety of the Asclepias gigantea,[FN#15] cottoned over with

[p.138] mist and dew. At 6 A.M. (Sept. 9th) we left the Fiumara, and, turning to the West, we arrived about an hour afterwards at the station. Al-Zaribah, the valley, is an undulating plain amongst high granite hills. In many parts it was faintly green; water was close to the surface, and rain stood upon the ground. During the night we had travelled about twenty-three miles, and our present station was south-east 56° from our last.

Having pitched the tent and eaten and slept, we prepared to perform the ceremony of Al-Ihram (assuming the pilgrim-garb), as Al-Zaribah is the Mikat, or the appointed place.[FN#16] Between the noonday and the afternoon prayers a barber attended to shave our heads, cut our nails, and trim our mustachios. Then, having bathed and perfumed ourselves,the latter is a questionable

[p.139] point,we donned the attire, which is nothing but two new cotton cloths, each six feet long by three and a half broad, white, with narrow red stripes and fringes: in fact, the costume called Al-Eddeh, in the baths at Cairo.[FN#17] One of these sheets, technically termed the Rida, is thrown over the back, and, exposing the arm and shoulder, is knotted at the right side in the style Wishah. The Izar is wrapped round the loins from waist to knee, and, knotted or tucked in at the middle, supports itself. Our heads were bare, and nothing was allowed upon the instep.[FN#18] It is said that some clans of Arabs still preserve this religious but most uncomfortable costume; it is doubtless of ancient date, and to this day, in the regions lying west of the Red Sea, it continues to be the common dress of the people.

After the toilette, we were placed with our faces in the direction of Meccah, and ordered to say aloud,[FN#19] I vow this Ihram of Hajj (the pilgrimage) and the Umrah (the Little pilgrimage) to Allah Almighty! Having thus performed a two-bow prayer, we repeated, without rising from the sitting position, these words, O Allah! verily I purpose the Hajj and the Umrah, then enable me to accomplish the two, and accept them both of me, and make both blessed to me! Followed the Talbiyat, or exclaiming

Here I am! O Allah! here am I No partner hast Thou, here am I; Verily the praise and the grace are Thine, and the empire

[p.140] No partner hast Thou, here am I[FN#20]! And we were warned to repeat these words as often as possible, until the conclusion of the ceremonies. Then Shaykh Abdullah, who acted as director of our consciences, bade us be good pilgrims, avoiding quarrels, immorality, bad language, and light conversation. We must so reverence life that we should avoid killing game, causing an animal to fly, and even pointing it out for destruction[FN#21]; nor should we scratch ourselves, save with the open palm, lest vermin be destroyed, or a hair uprooted by the nail. We were to respect the sanctuary by sparing the trees, and not to pluck a single blade of grass. As regards personal considerations, we were to abstain from all oils, perfumes, and unguents; from washing the head with mallow or with lote leaves; from dyeing, shaving, cutting, or vellicating a single pile or hair; and though we might take advantage of shade, and even form it with upraised hands, we must by no means cover our sconces. For each infraction of these ordinances we must sacrifice a sheep[FN#22]; and it is commonly said by Moslems that none

[p.141] but the Prophet could be perfect in the intricacies of pilgrimage. Old Ali began with an irregularity: he declared that age prevented his assuming the garb, but that, arrived at Meccah, he would clear himself by an offering.

The wife and daughters of a Turkish pilgrim of our party assumed the Ihram at the same time as ourselves. They appeared dresse in white garments; and they had exchanged the Lisam, that coquettish fold of muslin which veils without concealing the lower part of the face, for a hideous mask, made of split, dried, and plaited palm-leaves, with two bulls-eyes for light.[FN#23] I could not help laughing when these strange figures met my sight, and, to judge from the shaking of their shoulders, they were not less susceptible to the merriment which they had caused.

At three P.M. we left Al-Zaribah, travelling towards the South-West, and a wondrously picturesque scene met the eye. Crowds hurried along, habited in the pilgrim-garb, whose whiteness contrasted strangely with their black skins; their newly shaven heads glistening in the sun, and their long black hair streaming in the wind. The rocks rang with shouts of Labbayk! Labbayk! At a pass we fell in with the Wahhabis, accompanying the Baghdad Caravan, screaming Here am I; and, guided by a large loud kettle-drum, they followed in double file the camel of a standard-bearer, whose green flag bore in huge white letters the formula of the Moslem creed. They were wild-looking mountaineers, dark and fierce, with hair twisted into thin Dalik or plaits: each was armed with a long spear, a matchlock, or a dagger. They were seated upon coarse wooden saddles, without cushions or stirrups, a fine saddle-cloth alone denoting a

[p.142] chief. The women emulated the men; they either guided their own dromedaries, or, sitting in pillion, they clung to their husbands; veils they disdained, and their countenances certainly belonged not to a soft sex. These Wahhabis were by no means pleasant companions. Most of them were followed by spare dromedaries, either unladen or carrying water-skins, fodder, fuel, and other necessaries for the march. The beasts delighted in dashing furiously through our file, which being lashed together, head and tail, was thrown each time into the greatest confusion. And whenever we were observed smoking, we were cursed aloud for Infidels and Idolaters.

Looking back at Al-Zaribah, soon after our departure, I saw a heavy nimbus settle upon the hill-tops, a sheet of rain being stretched between it and the plain. The low grumbling of thunder sounded joyfully in our ears. We hoped for a shower, but were disappointed by a dust-storm, which ended with a few heavy drops. There arose a report that the Badawin had attacked a party of Meccans with stones, and the news caused men to look exceeding grave.

At five P.M. we entered the wide bed of the Fiumara, down which we were to travel all night. Here the country falls rapidly towards the sea, as the increasing heat of the air, the direction of the watercourses, and signs of violence in the torrent-bed show. The Fiumara varies in breadth from a hundred and fifty feet to three-quarters of a mile; its course, I was told, is towards the South-West, and it enters the sea near Jeddah. The channel is a coarse sand, with here and there masses of sheet rock and patches of thin vegetation.

At about half-past five P.M. we entered a suspicious-looking place. On the right was a stony buttress, along whose base the stream, when there is one, swings; and to this depression was our road limited by the rocks and thorn trees which filled the other half of the channel.

[p.143] The left side was a precipice, grim and barren, but not so abrupt as its brother. Opposite us the way seemed barred by piles of hills, crest rising above crest into the far blue distance. Day still smiled upon the upper peaks, but the lower slopes and the Fiumara bed were already curtained with grey sombre shade.

A damp seemed to fall upon our spirits as we approached this Valley Perilous. I remarked that the voices of the women and children sank into silence, and the loud Labbayk of the pilgrims were gradually stilled. Whilst still speculating upon the cause of this phenomenon, it became apparent. A small curl of the smoke, like a ladys ringlet, on the summit of the right-hand precipice, caught my eye; and simultaneous with the echoing crack of the matchlock, a high-trotting dromedary in front of me rolled over upon the sands,a bullet had split its heart,throwing the rider a goodly somersault of five or six yards.

Ensued terrible confusion; women screamed, children cried, and men vociferated, each one striving with might and main to urge his animal out of the place of death. But the road being narrow, they only managed to jam the vehicles in a solid immovable mass. At every match-lock shot, a shudder ran through the huge body, as when the surgeons scalpel touches some more sensitive nerve. The Irregular horsemen, perfectly useless, galloped up and down over the stones, shouting to and ordering one another. The Pasha of the army had his carpet spread at the foot of the left-hand precipice, and debated over his pipe with the officers what ought to be done. No good genius whispered Crown the heights.

Then it was that the conduct of the Wahhabis found favour in my eyes. They came up, galloping their camels,

Torrents less rapid, and less rash,

with their elf-locks tossing in the wind, and their flaring

[p.144] matches casting a strange lurid light over their features. Taking up a position, one body began to fire upon the Utaybah robbers, whilst two or three hundred, dismounting, swarmed up the hill under the guidance of the Sharif Zayd. I had remarked this nobleman at Al-Madinah as a model specimen of the pure Arab. Like all Sharifs, he is celebrated for bravery, and has killed many with his own hand.[FN#24] When urged at Al-Zaribah to ride into Meccah, he swore that he would not leave the Caravan till in sight of the walls; and, fortunately for the pilgrims, he kept his word. Presently the firing was heard far in our rear, the robbers having fled. The head of the column advanced, and the dense body of pilgrims opened out. Our forced halt was now exchanged for a flight. It required much management to steer our Desert-craft clear of danger; but Shaykh Masud was equal to the occasion. That many were not, was evident by the boxes and baggage that strewed the shingles. I had no means of ascertaining the number of men killed and wounded: reports were contradictory, and exaggeration unanimous. The robbers were said to be a hundred and fifty in number; their object was plunder, and they would eat the shot camels. But their principal ambition was the boast, We, the Utaybah, on such and such a [p.145] night, stopped the Sultans Mahmil one whole hour in the Pass.

At the beginning of the skirmish I had primed my pistols, and sat with them ready for use. But soon seeing that there was nothing to be done, and wishing to make an impression,nowhere does Bobadil now go down so well as in the East,I called aloud for my supper. Shaykh Nur, exanimate with fear, could not move. The boy Mohammed ejaculated only an Oh, sir! and the people around exclaimed in disgust, By Allah, he eats! Shaykh Abdullah, the Meccan, being a man of spirit, was amused by the spectacle. Are these Afghan manners, Effendim? he enquired from the Shugduf behind me. Yes, I replied aloud, in my country we always dine before an attack of robbers, because that gentry is in the habit of sending men to bed supperless. The Shaykh laughed aloud, but those around him looked offended. I thought the bravado this time mal place; but a little event which took place on my way to Jeddah proved that it was not quite a failure.

As we advanced, our escort took care to fire every large dry Asclepias, to disperse the shades which buried us. Again the scene became wondrous wild:

Full many a waste Ive wanderd oer, Clomb many a crag, crossd many a shore, But, by my halidome, A scene so rude, so wild as this, Yet so sublime in barrenness, Neer did my wandering footsteps press, Whereer I chanced to roam.

On either side were ribbed precipices, dark, angry, and towering above, till their summits mingled with the glooms of night; and between them formidable looked the chasm, down which our host hurried with shouts and discharges of matchlocks. The torch-smoke and the night-fires of flaming Asclepias formed a canopy, sable

[p.146] above and livid red below; it hung over our heads like a sheet, and divided the cliffs into two equal parts. Here the fire flashed fiercely from a tall thorn, that crackled and shot up showers of sparks into the air; there it died away in lurid gleams, which lit up a truly Stygian scene. As usual, however, the picturesque had its inconveniences. There was no path. Rocks, stone-banks, and trees obstructed our passage. The camels, now blind in darkness, then dazzled by a flood of light, stumbled frequently; in some places slipping down a steep descent, in others sliding over a sheet of mud. There were furious quarrels and fierce language between camel-men and their hirers, and threats to fellow-travellers; in fact, we were united in discord. I passed that night crying, Hai! Hai! switching the camel, and fruitlessly endeavouring to fustigate Masuds nephew, who resolutely slept upon the water-bags. During the hours of darkness we made four or five halts, when we boiled coffee and smoked pipes; but man and beasts were beginning to suffer from a deadly fatigue.

Dawn (Saturday, Sept. 10th) found us still travelling down the Fiumara, which here is about a hundred yards broad. The granite hills on both sides were less precipitous; and the borders of the torrent-bed became natural quays of stiff clay, which showed a water-mark of from twelve to fifteen feet in height. In many parts the bed was muddy; and the moist places, as usual, caused accidents. I happened to be looking back at Shaykh Abdullah, who was then riding in old Ali bin Ya Sins fine Shugduf; suddenly the camels four legs disappeared from under him, his right side flattening the ground, and the two riders were pitched severally out of the smashed vehicle. Abdullah started up furious, and with great zest abused the Badawin, who were absent. Feed these Arabs, he exclaimed, quoting a Turkish proverb, and

[p.147] they will fire at Heaven! But I observed that, when Shaykh Masud came up, the citizen was only gruff.

We then turned Northward, and sighted Al-Mazik, more generally known as Wady Laymun, the Valley of Limes. On the right bank of the Fiumara stood the Meccan Sharifs state pavilion, green and gold: it was surrounded by his attendants, and he had prepared to receive the Pasha of the Caravan. We advanced half a mile, and encamped temporarily in a hill-girt bulge of the Fiumara bed. At eight A.M. we had travelled about twenty-four miles from Al-Zaribah, and the direction of our present station was South-west 50°.

Shaykh Masud allowed us only four hours halt; he wished to precede the main body. After breaking our fast joyously upon limes, pomegranates, and fresh dates, we sallied forth to admire the beauties of the place. We are once more on classic groundthe ground of the ancient Arab poets,