A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 2 [of 2]

April 8. – This spot is like a thing in a fairy tale. Our pavilion contains several rooms on the ground-floor, grouped round a central piece where there is a fountain; and above this is a gallery with more empty rooms round it. We live on the ground-floor, and our windows open on to a narrow terrace with a low stone parapet, from which one can throw a stone down into the river. The Karkeria makes a sharp bend just above Shustar, round what looks like the most beautiful park, a level greensward with immense dark green shady trees, standing as if planted for ornament. Here we sit, and late in the evening and early in the morning I see a pair of pelicans swimming or flying below. The terrace communicates with the garden, which is gay with poppies, pink and lilac and white, in full bloom. There is a little tank, and a row of stunted palm-trees, where rollers, green and blue birds like jays, sit, while swifts dart about catching mosquitoes and flies, only a few hundred, alas, out of the millions that torment us. For there is no rose without a thorn, nor is this lovely kiosk and garden full of blooming poppies without its plague. The flies and mosquitoes are maddening, and to-day the heat of summer has burst upon us. After a hot night, the day dawned hotter still, and a sultry wind blew up dark clouds, till now the sky is black all round.

Towards evening we had thunder and lightning, but hardly a drop of rain; and to-night the air is heavy as lead. I am getting anxious now about the heat. I wish we could get away, either to the hills or the sea but I fear we shall be detained some days. The storm has prevented the Shahzade’s wakil from paying us the visit he announced this morning, and we cannot even prepare to go on without seeing him; we are, in fact, dependent on his assistance. We sent him our letter for the Shahzade early this morning, and Hajji Mohammed brought back word that he was coming immediately; but we have been waiting all day, and he has not come. What is still more tiresome is the unfortunate circumstance that no letter has come for us from the British Consul at Bussora. This puts us into an awkward position; we had given out that we expected the letter, and it is worse to say that one expects such a letter and not to get it, than never to have mentioned it.

Several visitors have been to see us, two or three merchants, a doctor, and others; they all, on hearing we had not received the countenance we had expected, looked on us somewhat doubtfully, in spite of our talking about our letter of recommendation to the Shahzade. However, we shall see what the wakil says to-morrow.

April 10. – This is the evening of our fourth day at Shustar, and we are not absolutely sure of starting, though we hope to get away to-morrow morning… Yesterday was a wretched day. The night before last Wilfrid was suddenly taken ill, and though the attack has now passed off, it has left him weak. A serious indisposition makes all minor difficulties seem trifles; but these become important when they cause delay, and we have been in much trouble about getting servants.

This town life is certainly not healthy in the great heat (and summer has come upon us in earnest); and every day wasted will make travelling more difficult, and the heat greater. We hope, however, that we have settled all with the governor, but until we are actually off I shall not be at ease.

The wakil has reluctantly promised us an escort for Bebahan, protesting that the country between it and Shustar is so unsafe, that he cannot guarantee our safety, but he may at the last moment recall his promise. And we are still without a servant, except a little man who takes the camels out to graze in the morning, and brings them home at night. This little man says he will go with us, but I doubt his doing so when the moment comes; so many people have offered their services and then backed out, amongst them the so-called “Sheykh” Mohammed, our acquaintance of the mill and not a sheykh at all, only a zellem of Chaab extraction, and a householder of Shustar. But we do not like him, nor any of the candidates, except two soldiers, and these we cannot have, as they belong to the small garrison of the kalat, and the governor refuses to give them leave.

The governor has been very suspicious of us, and thrown all the obstacles he could in our way. He came yesterday, fortunately not till Wilfrid was better and able to receive him, and was evidently indisposed to further our wishes. His manner, though extremely polite, showed that he was determined we should go to Ahwas, not Bebahan. He strongly urged us to give up all notion of taking the Bebahan road; the country was unsafe; no escort short of a thousand men would suffice to get us through, and that number he had not at his disposal; and besides, we should be wanting in respect to the Shahzade if we did not go and present our letter to him; we were really bound to go to Ahwas, where we should find him. As to a letter from the English balioz (consul) at Bussora, no such communication had been received; and he the wakil, knew nothing about us. He could only repeat that he would do nothing for us except forward us to Ahwas. He positively refused an escort for any other object.

Things were in this position when the wakil left, and we were at our wits’ end, when fortunately, a young gentleman called who belongs to the telegraph office, Mirza Ali Mohammed, of Shiraz, “captain of telegraphs,” who talks a little Arabic, and a little French. It then occurred to Wilfrid to telegraph to the Legation at Teheran, requesting that the government there should be asked to order the wakil of Shustar to give us an escort to Bebahan. The captain of telegraphs carried off this message, which he had written and translated into Persian for us, and the money for its transmission; but this morning he returned the money, with news that the telegram could not be sent. The fact is he dared not send it without informing his superior, who declined to let it go. But it has had its effect. The governor has no pretext now for doubting our respectability, for suspicious characters would not want to communicate with the central government at Teheran. So instead of a thousand, we are to have an escort of six men and a sergeant to accompany us to Bebahan. It has been unwillingly granted, and I shall not be surprised if it should even yet be withdrawn.

Later. – There seems to have been a storm somewhere; the air is clear, and we hope for less oppressive weather. But the foretaste of heat we have had, is a warning. We have talked over our plans, and agreed to give up all idea of pushing on to Bender Abbas, and to be satisfied with reaching Bushire. There can be no difficulty in finding Captain Cameron, for he will be obliged to pass between Bebahan and the sea, but we must make haste or he will have crossed our line before we can get to the coast. His intention was to keep as near to the coast as possible, so that we ought to meet him near or at Bender Dilam.

Three or four respectable merchants of Shustar have waited upon us this evening, and given us much friendly advice about the dangers of travel in which we do not much believe. They shook their heads when Wilfrid remarked, that surely under the administration of the Shahzade and his excellent wakil, the country must be safe, and assured us that the wakil was perfectly justified in dissuading us from our undertaking. It would be much safer to go to Ahwas. Another, Hajji Abdallah, had with him a letter in English from an English firm at Bushire, which he begged us to translate. It was far from complimentary, and we had some difficulty in disguising it under a form of Arabic politeness. He, too, was loud in his dissuasion of our journey.

Our visitors shewed no sign of going away, and I believe they would have sat on all through the night talking, had we not dismissed them. Hajji Abdallah’s last words were an entreaty to reconsider our decision, and abandon the foolish plan of going to Bebahan. He has once been that way he says, and would not for the world go again; there are not only dangerous wild tribes, but mountain passes and impassable rocks. We listened unmoved, and in fact we had no choice.

CHAPTER V

“Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.”

Tacitus.

Illness and misery – A Persian escort – The Shah’s Arab subjects – Ram Hormuz and its nightingales – Night marching – Deserted villages – How they collect taxes in Persia – Bebahan.

Friday, April 11. – It would be easy to quote unlucky starts on Fridays, and I am afraid this is one. Wilfrid is ill again, a passing fatigue we hope, from loading the camels this morning in the hot sun, and riding all day long in it. He is lying down now in the tent and trying to rest, but the flies are intolerable.

Our plan in leaving Shustar was to go with our escort, seven soldiers on foot, armed six with matchlocks and one with a narghileh, to Ram Hormuz, a small town eighty miles on the road to Bebahan, and there get a reinforcement from the Ferraz-bashi or deputy governor of the place for the other eighty miles. This sounded well enough, but already our escort has deserted us, and we are alone.

After delays of all sorts, for till the moment of starting we were still without servants, we got our camels loaded, and about ten o’clock rode out of the palace gate and through the streets of Shustar, and over a stone bridge, which spans the second of the two branches of the river on which the town stands, and into the open country beyond. It was terribly hot, and the whole country is a plague of flies, which buzz about one all day long, and settle on one’s head at night.

Our camels have profited by the mallows in the court of the palace to such an extent that they are all fat and frisky, and we had some trouble in loading them. But, at the last moment, we had an unexpected offer of assistance. A young Arab, dressed in a green calico jibbeh, suddenly appeared upon the scene, and volunteered his services. He had a pleasant face, so that we were taken with him at once. He told us that he was a native of some village on the Tigris near Bagdad, and that he had been impressed by the Turks for their navy, in which he had served three years, that he had then managed to desert while in port at Bussorah, and had fled across the border to Mohamrah. He had since earned his bread by working as horse-keeper for one of the Bawiyeh sheykhs, and later, tiring of that, in service with different Persians at Shustar. His idea now, was to get down to the sea once more, and he begged us to take him with us to Bushire. By accident Hajji Mohammed knew something of some of his relations at Bagdad, and as such a person was exactly what we most wanted, we accepted him at once, on his own terms. This young fellow’s coming has been an advantage to us in more ways than one, for it had the immediate effect of inducing another of the crowd who were witnessing our departure to volunteer, and a little red-haired Persian in blue frock and trowsers, came forward to enlist in our service. Thus we are no longer wholly dependent on our old cavass and on ourselves.

As soon as we were outside the town, our sergeant and the six soldiers began to give themselves airs of military importance, advancing in front of us in skirmishing order, and enjoining us to keep close together, although the country had a quite peaceable appearance, the road much frequented by country people on donkeys, unarmed and peaceable folks. The track led through undulating ground chiefly barren, here and there a patch of cultivation, often between high banks. Our brave defenders here shewed their zeal by running up to the tops of the steepest and highest of these banks, firing off their guns at random, generally in the air, but one of the shots hit a lizard sitting in its hole. Their energy, however, cooled as the heat increased; and towards noon, they were satisfied to trudge along with only an occasional diversion to look out for enemies. By a quarter to one o’clock, they all seemed tired, and we too were glad to halt for three quarters of an hour, under a large shady canora tree, in the midst of a field of oats. Here we ate our luncheon, while the animals fed on the oats. Wilfrid complained a little of the sun, but it was not till we had gone on again for a couple of hours that he acknowledged he felt really ill. We were just turning off the track to the north, to go to the tents of a certain Hassan Khan, known to the soldiers, when he said he could have gone no further. The tents were not a mile from the road, but getting there was almost too much for him. We found them set in a circular enclosure, fenced in by a hedge of branches, like a new made Sussex fence, and evidently intended to last longer than a true Bedouin camp ever does. Here there are about a dozen small tents, half hair, half matting. Outside the enclosure, a few mares and foals grazing, among them one rather nice filly, Wadneh Hursan they say, and animals of all sorts, cows, sheep, and goats have been brought inside the hedge for the night.

Wilfrid is extremely tired. The rest seems to have done him no good. He complains of his head and of pains all over. I hope fatigue and the heat are sufficient to account for his feeling ill. I dread a return of the attack he had at Shustar. I wish we had not left the town. This is a forlorn spot to be ill in, and though at Shustar we should be no better off, as far as concerns getting out of the country, there would be a few more comforts, and a chance of sending for help to Bussora. If he gets worse we shall be in an almost hopeless position. Every place seems frightfully far off the moment there is a difficulty about moving; to get back to Shustar would be almost as impracticable as to go on to Ram Hormuz. Seven hours’ travelling seems now an impassable gulf. I have arranged a sort of mosquito net for Wilfrid against the flies, but it only keeps them out for a time, and then a few manage to get inside it, and it has all to be rearranged. But now it is nearly sundown, and the flies will go to sleep at dark; and if the night is cool he may get some sleep.

Everybody here is fortunately kind. Hassan Khan, the chief, is away at Shustar, but his brother Kambar Aga received us well. He has good manners, speaks Arabic pretty fairly, and has been telling me about his tribe, a section of the Bawiyeh of Ajjem, as distinguished from the Bawiyeh of the Ottoman dominions. The people and their chief seem to be very poor. Kambar professes himself ready to accompany us to-morrow to another camp not far off, and on our line of march, that of Hajji Salman, an Arabic-speaking tribe; this is fortunate, as our escort has deserted. They probably never meant to come further than this, but however that may be, they have in fact abandoned us and gone home to Shustar. In the middle of the day, while we were sitting under the canora tree, they demanded money, and Hajji Mohammed foolishly, without asking us, gave them as much as they ought to have had for the whole journey to Ram Hormuz, and as a consequence, having secured their pay, and with no further motive for taking trouble they departed. Their company is no loss, they were disagreeable and tiresome, but they were of value as a mark of government protection, and in that respect it is unfortunate that they have left us.

Escort or no escort I care not, if only Wilfrid would get better, and he seems no better.

Saturday evening, April 12. – Wilfrid alarmingly ill all night. He got rapidly worse, and then seemed unconscious of all around; it seemed hopeless, but now he has rallied, and I think the worst is over. Still I have made up my mind not to look beyond the necessity of the moment, and indeed these twenty-four hours blot out past and future. I don’t know why I write a journal. He cannot sit up yet, though he says he shall be able to travel to-night. I don’t know what to think, but the wish to move is something gained; a short time ago he could hardly speak, and if he really has turned the corner, a few hours may make a great difference. He now says that by travelling at night only, he shall be able to go on.

Ghada, our new Arab, has behaved very well. I hardly know what I should have done without him to keep the fire up all night, and help to make medicines and beef-tea. In the evening and night I tried everything I could think of out of our small stock of medicines, and in vain. The sun rose and blazed fiercely, and the flies swarmed as before. But in the afternoon the illness took another turn, and now, at any rate, the danger seems to be past.

To please Wilfrid, though I doubt his being able to travel, I have packed up everything and got the tents down, and each separate load put ready; for to carry out the plan of night-travelling, we must load after dark, that is, by the light of a very small moon, when it rises about one o’clock. We are then to be off, Wilfrid to ride his delúl, and we are to get as far as we can; I have got cold tea and beef-tea in bottles, to be accessible at any moment. He has remained lying down on his rugs and pillow, the only things not yet packed, which, when the time comes, will be put on his delúl.

Kambar Aga and his tribe are good people. Nothing could be kinder than they have been. Hassan Khan has sent a third brother from Shustar, Aga Ibrahim, who is to accompany us with six of his men to Hajji Salman’s camp.

April 13. – Wilfrid was able to travel for four hours, and though much exhausted seems really none the worse. We reached the Salamat camp about six this morning. We hope to set out presently – about sunset.

The moon rose last night towards one o’clock, but owing to the slowness of everybody the loading took more than an hour. They all wanted to wait till the moon should be high in the sky before starting. We first struck across the plain of pasture and scrub to get back to the track, and then pursued our way along it eastwards. At half-past five we saw some tents to the south, but these our guides said were the wrong ones. An hour later met two zellems, who told us the contrary, but too late for us to return; and they added that they came from a camp of Salamat Arabs an hour or so further east. It was already hot, but we pushed on, the road good and level, splendid pasture, hills to the left, an interminable plain in front and to the right, extending to the Karkeria and beyond it. Some tents were pointed out to us, said to be on the opposite bank of the river. We reached the Salamat camp, Sheykh Abeyeh, at eight o’clock.

A few fairly good-looking but very small mares are to be seen. The camp has been evidently on the spot for weeks, and is accordingly unsavoury, more like a village than a camp.

We have, or rather had, for I write while waiting to start, our tent on a small tell separated by a dip in the ground from the Salamat encampment. The ground here is covered with a horrid little spiked grass, like miniature barley to look at, which pricks through everything. Its barbed thorns are like fish-hooks, very difficult to extract, and all our clothes and bedding are full of them.

Wilfrid spent the day lying down in the tent, able to talk though tired. The people here are not ill-bred, and they have even been kind to us. Their Sheykh, Abeyeh, with several of his friends, and relations, came to see us soon after our arrival. Abeyeh told us that his tribe belongs to the Ahl es-Shimal, and he knows all about the tribes of the Hamád and their horses. His brother Rashid showed us a very beautiful grey colt, which he offered to exchange for our hamra mare, who is suffering from a sore back. The colt is too young, or might have been worth taking; the owner says he would not part with it but that the Shahzade has intimated an intention of buying it. The Shahzade is, it seems, in the habit of purchasing all the good-looking horses he hears of, and does not pay for them, but he does not take mares; this, at least, is the tale told to us. Our mare, though thoroughbred, is in such wretched condition that the Shahzade would hardly care to seize her.

Abeyeh readily agreed to escort us to Ram Hormuz with six khayal, Rashid proposed to accompany us on foot as camel driver, and Aga Ibrahim (from Hassan Khan’s), also offers to go on. It is five o’clock, time to pack.

* * * * *

Eight o’clock. Wilfrid felt so ill an hour ago that all these arrangements seemed to be vain. But he is better, and now we are off.

April 14. – Our new plan of travelling by night seems to answer well. Wilfrid was able to go on from nine till five o’clock. He is recovering, though reduced to the extreme of thinness. The heat during the day is insufferable, and even if there had been no cause of anxiety, we could hardly have continued marching by day. The flies are intolerable, they follow us, and are found everywhere; at night when we are riding they are sitting in swarms upon our heads, and if driven off, perch again in spite of darkness. However, in the dark they are quiet unless disturbed, which is some small relief. Last night our track went a good deal up and down, crossing small ravines and watercourses, and pools and ditches full of water. Sometimes we waded through tall grass, splendid stuff, growing quite wild and uncared for. The moon serves us hardly at all, but we could see dimly by starlight. The constellation of the Scorpion is now our guide, rising as it does in the south-east. I have slept little lately, and once last night I fell fast asleep on horseback, and woke with a start at a sound of munching. It was my mare grazing eagerly knee-deep in wild oats. Where the camels were I could not see, but heard them soon afterwards some way off ahead. Wilfrid bore up as long as he could, till at five o’clock he said he could not go a yard further, and we camped for the day, pitching the tent on a tell commanding all surrounding tells. Our escort objected to this halt. “The Shirazi will come down from those hills and rob us,” said Abeyeh, “and the town of Ram Hormuz is only three or four hours further. Let us go on.” His objection was natural; this is very exposed ground, and close to us on the north rises a range of crags, from which the Shirazi robbers may be watching us. But perched on the tell we get a little air, and this is worth some risk. Besides, they have not come yet, and we shall he gone presently. Abeyeh argued in vain; if there had been legions of robbers in sight, I don’t think Wilfrid would have moved. He was indeed unfit to stir, and has been lying on the ground under the shade of the tent ever since. A halt like this is not much of a rest; the heat is too overpowering, the flies too troublesome. Beyond the rocky range we see high snow peaks, very tantalising in this furnace, and looking the other way, there is just below us a fine piece of meadow land on the banks of a running stream. In all the hollows there is rich pasture. Abeyeh and his men have kept a good look-out, some posted about on heights, and the rest watching the mares hobbled, and turned loose to graze.

It is four o’clock; the heat lessening, and Wilfrid says he is ready to go on. We must pack.

* * * * *

April 15. – We have at last reached Ram Hormuz, or as it is pronounced “Ramuz.” We left our bivouac on the tell at five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Wilfrid tried riding on horseback, but found the effort too great, and had to give it up and mount his delúl. Our way lay through more long grass, and ditches, and water. I, as sleepy as the night before, was constantly dozing off and waking suddenly in the middle of some long dream, unable to remember where I was. There is nothing so painful as this struggle with sleep, and it lasted all night long. At last we came suddenly in sight of some camp fires about half a mile away to our right, and Abeyeh, fearing to advance further, ordered a halt. There was danger, he said, in coming on an encampment unawares, lest we should be taken for enemies. We did not stop to argue, but with delight obeyed, and in a few minutes were sound asleep upon the ground – nor did we wake till day was already breaking.

A discussion now arose what further was to be done. The tents, we were informed, belonged to the Khamis, an Arab tribe, half Bedouin, half fellah, and Abeyeh was for spending the day with them. But the sound sleep had done Wilfrid good, and as it grew light we could see the palm groves of Ram Hormuz, apparently ten miles off, and we knew that there we should get refuge from the sun. So leaving the rest to follow or not as they would – we got on our horses and started at a gallop, Shiekha and Sayad bounding on in front of us delighted at this unexpected run. At first there was no road, and we got entangled in a series of watercourses, but scrambling through these we reached a footpath where the going was good, and presently overtook a party of Arabs, men and women, riding in on donkeys to market at the town. They all expressed themselves much pleased to see us, taking us to be Arabs like themselves, and here in Persia they always seem delighted to meet their countrymen. They pointed us out the town, for there was more than one grove of palms, and in the mirage which hid everything as the sun rose, we had lost sight of it. At half-past six we stopped at the ferraz-bashi’s door, and in another minute were sitting in a cool court-yard under the shade of a wall, waiting till the respectable functionary, our host, had finished his devotions.