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

Matters of course could not rest there, and on returning home from his interview with Mubarek, Wilfrid upbraided Mohammed with his folly, and then sent to the palace for Mufurraj, the master of ceremonies, and the same dignified old gentleman who had received us on our arrival, and having explained the circumstances bade him in his turn explain them to the Emir. The old man promised to do this, and I have no doubt kept his word, for that very evening we were sent for once more to the palace, and received with the old cordiality. It is, too, I think very creditable to the arrangements of the Haïl court, that no explanations of any sort were entered into. Mohammed, though put in his proper place, was still politely received; and only an increase of amiable attentions made us remember that we had ever had cause to complain. As to Mohammed, I am bound to say, that once the fumes of his vanity evaporated, he bore no kind of malice for what we had been obliged to do, and became once more the amiable, attentive and serviceable friend he had hitherto been. Ill-temper is not an Arab failing. Still the incident was a lesson and a warning, a lesson that we were Europeans still among Asiatics, a warning that Haïl was a lion’s den, though fortunately we were friends with the lion. We began to make our plans for moving on.

I have said little as yet about the Persian pilgrimage which, encamped just outside the walls of Haïl, had all along been a main feature in the goings on of the place. On a certain Tuesday, however, the Emir sent us a message that he expected us to come out riding with him, and that he would meet us at that gate of the town where the pilgrims were. It was a fortunate day for us, not indeed because we saw the pilgrims, but because we saw what we would have come the whole journey to see, and had almost despaired of seeing, – all the best of the Emir’s horses out and galloping about. We were delighted at the opportunity, and made haste to get ready. In half an hour we were on our mares, and in the street. There was a great concourse of people all moving towards the camp, and just outside the town we found the Emir’s cavalcade. This for the moment absorbed all my thoughts, for I had not yet seen any of the Haïl horses mounted. The Emir, splendidly dressed but barefooted, was riding a pretty little white mare, while the chestnut Krushieh followed him mounted by a slave.

All our friends were there, Hamúd, Majid and the two boys his brothers, with a still smaller boy, whom they introduced to us as a son of Metaab, the late Emir, all in high spirits and anxious to show off their horses and their horsemanship; while next the Emir and under his special protection rode the youth with the tragical history, Naïf, the sole remaining son of Tellál, whose brothers Mohammed had killed, and who, it is whispered, will some day be called on to revenge their deaths. Mubarek too, the white slave, was there, a slave in name only, for he is strikingly like the princely family in feature and is one of the richest and most important personages in Haïl. The rest of the party consisted of friends and servants, with a fair sprinkling of black faces among them, dressed in their best clothes and mounted on the Emir’s mares. Conspicuous on his beautiful bay was Hamúd, who, as usual, did us the honours, and pointed out and explained the various persons and things we saw. It was one of those mornings one only finds in Nejd. The air brilliant and sparkling to a degree one cannot imagine in Europe, and filling one with a sense of life such as one remembers to have had in childhood, and which gives one a wish to shout. The sky of an intense blue, and the hills in front of us carved out of sapphire, and the plain, crisp and even as a billiard table, sloping gently upwards towards them. On one side the battlemented walls and towers of Haïl, with the palace rising out of a dark mass of palms almost black in the sunlight; on the other the pilgrim camp, a parti-coloured mass of tents, blue, green, red, white, with the pilgrims themselves in a dark crowd, watching with curious half-frightened eyes the barbaric display of which we formed a part.

Presently the Emir gave a signal to advance, and turning towards the south-west, our whole party moved on in the direction of a clump of palm-trees we could see about two miles off. Hamúd then suddenly put his mare into a gallop, and one after another the rest of the party joined him in a sham fight, galloping, doubling, and returning to the Emir, who remained alone with us, and shouting as though they would bring the sky about their ears. At last the Emir could resist it no longer, and seizing a jerid or palm stick from one of the slaves, went off himself among the others. In a moment his dignity and his town manners were forgotten, and he became the Bedouin again which he and all his family really are. His silk kefiyehs were thrown back, and bare-headed with his long Bedouin plaits streaming in the wind and bare-legged and bare-armed, he galloped hither and thither; charging into the throng, and pursuing and being pursued, and shouting as if he had never felt a care, and never committed a crime in his life.

We found ourselves alone with a strange little personage whom we had already noticed riding beside the Emir, and who seemed even more out of place in this fantastic entertainment than ourselves. I hope at least that we looked less ridiculous than he did. Mounted on a sorry little kadish, and dressed in the fashion of European children fifty years ago, with a high waisted coat, well pleated at the skirt, trousers up to his knees, and feet shod with slippers, a little brown skull cap on his head, and a round shaven face, sat what seemed an overgrown boy, but what in reality was a chief person from among the Persian pilgrims. It was Ali Koli Khan, son of the great Khan of the Bactiari, who for his father’s sake was being treated by the Emir with all possible honour. He, with the rest of the Haj, was now on his way back from Mecca, and it was partly to impress him with the Emir’s magnificence that the present party had been arranged.

We did not long stay alone, for in a few minutes the galloping ceased, and we then went on sedately as before, and in due time arrived at the palm trees, which, it turned out, were the Emir’s property, and contained in a garden surrounded by a high wall. Here we were invited to dismount, and a carpet having been spread under the trees, we all sat down. Slaves were soon busy serving a luncheon of sweetmeats, – boys were made to climb the lemon trees, and shake down the fruit, and coffee was handed round. Then all the party said their prayers except ourselves and the Persian, who, as a Shiah, could not join in their devotions, and we mounted again and rode home. This time we too joined in the galloping, which speedily recommenced, our mares fully enjoying the fun, and in this way we scampered back to Haïl.

On the following day Wilfrid called on Ali Koli Khan in his tent, going there with Mohammed, now once more a reasonable companion and follower. Indeed in the Persian camp assumptions of nobility on Mohammed’s part would have been quite thrown away, for the Persians care nothing for Arabian nobility, and treat all alike as Bedouins and barbarians. Ali Koli, though only a younger son, was travelling in state, having his mother with him, and a multitude of servants, male and female, besides his hemeldaria or contractor, and the Arabs managing his beasts. His major-domo and interpreter was a magnificent personage, and his followers, dressed in felt tunics and skull caps, gave him the appearance of being an important chief. His tent was of the Turkish pattern, well lined and comfortable, with fine Persian carpets on the floor, and a divan. There Wilfrid found him sitting with a friend, Abd er-Rahim, the son of a merchant of Kermanshah, who is also British consular agent there. The young Persians were very amiable; but the contrast of their manners with those of the ceremonious Arabs struck Wilfrid at once. There were none of those elaborate compliments and polite inquiries one gets used to at Haïl, but rather a European sans géne in the form of reception. They made Wilfrid comfortable on the divan, called for tea, which was served in a samovar, and at once poured out a long history of their sufferings on the pilgrimage. This they did in very broken Arabic, and with an accent irresistibly absurd, for the Persians speak with a drawl in their intonation, wholly foreign to that of the Arabs. Ali’s natural language, he says, is Kurdish, but being an educated person, and an officer in the Shah’s army, he talks Persian equally well. In Persia, Arabic plays much the part in education which Latin did in Europe before it was quite a dead language. Both he and Abd er-Rahim were loud in complaints of every thing Arabian, and in spite of Mohammed’s presence, abused roundly the whole Arab race, the poverty of the towns, the ignorance of the citizens, and the robberies of the Bedouins, also the extortionate charges of the Arab hemeldarias, contractors for camels, and the miseries of desert travelling. “Was ever anything seen so miserable as the bazaar at Haïl; not a bag of sweetmeats to be had for love or money, the Arabs were mere barbarians, drinkers of coffee instead of tea.” Every now and then, too, they would break out into conversation in their own language. Wilfrid, however, liked Ali Koli, and they parted very good friends, with an invitation from both the young Persians to travel on with them to Meshhed on the Euphrates, where the Persians always end their pilgrimage by a visit to the shrines of Ali and Huseyn. This seemed an excellent opportunity, and having consulted the Emir, who highly approved of the plan, we accordingly decided to travel with the Haj as soon as it should start.

Our last days at Haïl were by no means the least pleasant. As a final proof of his goodwill and confidence, the Emir announced that we might pay a visit to Agde, a fortress in the mountains some miles from Haïl, and which he had never before shown to any stranger. I do not feel at liberty to say exactly where this is, for we were sent to see it rather on parole, and though I hope Ibn Rashid runs no danger of foreign invasion, I would not give a clue to possible enemies. Suffice it to say that it lies in the mountains, in a position of great natural strength, made stronger by some rude attempts at fortification, and that it is really one of the most curious places in the world.

One approaches it from the plain by a narrow winding valley, reminding one not a little of the wadys of Mount Sinai, where the granite rocks rise abruptly on either hand out of a pure bed of sand. On one of these is engraved an inscription in Arabic which we copied and which though not very legible may be read thus: —

“Hadihi kharâbat Senhârib.”“This (is) the ruin of Senacherib (’s building).”

Such at least is its meaning in the opinion of Mr. Sabunji, a competent Arabic scholar, though I will not venture to explain on what occasion Senacherib made his way to Nejd, nor why he wrote in Arabic instead of his own cuneiform.

Inside the defences, the valley broadens out into an amphitheatre formed by the junction of three or four wadys in which there is a village and a palm garden. Besides which, the wadys are filled with wild palms watered, the Arabs say, “min Allah,” by Providence, at least by no human hand. They are very beautiful, forming a brilliant contrast of green fertility with the naked granite crags which overhang them on all sides. These are perhaps a thousand feet in height, and run down sheer into the sandy floor of the wadys, so that one is reminded in looking at them of that valley of diamonds where the serpents lived, and down which the merchants threw their pieces of meat for the rocs to gather, in the tale of Sinbad the Sailor. No serpents however live in Agde, but a population of very honest Shammar, who entertained us with a prodigality of dates and coffee, difficult to do justice to. We had been sent in the company of two horsemen of the Emir’s, Shammar, who did the honours, as Agde and all in it are really Ibn Rashid’s private property. These and the villagers gave us a deal of information about the hills we were in, and showed us where a great battle had been fought by Mohammed’s father and his uncle Obeyd against the Ibn Ali, formerly Emirs of the Jebel. It would seem that Agde was the oldest possession of the Ibn Rashids, and that on their taking Haïl the Ibn Alis marched against them, when they retreated to their fortress, and there gave battle and such a defeat to the people of Kefar that it secured to the Ibn Rashids supreme power ever after. They also showed us with great pride a wall built by Obeyd to block the narrow valley, and made us look at everything, wells, gardens, and houses, so that we spent nearly all the day there. They told us too of a mysterious beast that comes from the hills by night and climbs the palm trees for sake of the dates. “As large as a hare, with a long tail, and very good to eat.” They describe it as sitting on its hind-legs, and whistling, so that Wilfrid thinks it must be a marmot. Only, do marmots climb? They call it the Webber.

We had a delightful gallop home with the two Bedouins, (Mohammed was not with us,) of whom we learned one of the Shammar war songs, which runs thus: —

“Ma arid ana erkobu delúl,Lau zeynuli shedadeha,Aridu ana hamra shenûf,Hamra seryeh aruddeha.”

thus literally translated: —

“I would not ride a mere delúl,Though lovely to me her shedad (camel-saddle);Let me be mounted on a mare,A bay mare, swift and quick to turn.”

They were mounted on very pretty ponies, but could not keep up with us galloping. If we had been in Turkey, or indeed anywhere else but in Arabia, we should have had to give a handsome tip after an expedition of this kind; but at Haïl nothing of the sort was expected. Both these Shammar were exceedingly intelligent well mannered men, with souls above money. They were doing their duty to the prince as Sheykh, and to us as strangers, and they did it enthusiastically.

The level of Agde is 3,780 feet above the sea, that of Haïl 3,500.

This was, perhaps, the pleasantest day of all those we spent at Haïl, and will live long with us as a delightful remembrance. On the following day we were to depart. Mohammed, while we were away, had been making preparations. Two new camels had been bought, and a month’s provision of dates and rice purchased, in addition to a gift of excellent Yemen coffee sent us by the Emir. Our last interview with Ibn Rashid was characteristic. He was not at the kasr, but in a house he has close to the Mecca gate, where from a little window he can watch unperceived the goings on of the Haj encamped below him. We found him all alone, for he has lost all fear of our being assassins now, at his window like a bird of prey, calculating no doubt how many more silver pieces he should be able to make out of the Persians before they were well out of his clutches. Every now and then he would lean out of the window, which was partly covered by a shutter, and shout to one of his men who were standing below some message with regard to the pilgrims. He seemed to be enjoying the pleasure of his power over them, and it is absolute.

To us he was very amiable, renewing all his protestations of friendship and regard, and offering to give us anything we might choose to ask for, dromedaries for the journey, or one of his mares. This, although we should have liked to accept the last offer, we of course declined, Wilfrid making a short speech in the Arab manner, saying that the only thing we asked was the Emir’s regard, and wishing him length of days. He begged Mohammed ibn Rashid to consider him as his vakil in Europe in case he required assistance of any kind, and thanked him for all the kindness we had received at his hands. The Emir then proposed that we should put off our departure, and go with him instead on a ghazú or warlike expedition he was starting on in a few days, a very attractive offer which might have been difficult to refuse had it been made earlier, but which we now declined. Our heads, in fact, had been in the jaws of the lion long enough, and now our only object was to get quietly and decorously out of the den. We therefore pleaded want of time, and added that our camels were already on the road; we then said good-bye and took our leave.

There was, however, one more visit to be paid, this time of friendly regard more than of ceremony. As we rode through the town we stopped at Hamúd’s house and found him and all his family at home. To them our farewells were really expressions of regret at parting, and Hamúd gave us some very sound advice about going on with the Haj to Meshhed Ali, instead of trying to get across to Bussora. There had been rain, he said, on the pilgrim road, and all the reservoirs (those marked on the map as the tanks of Zobeydeh) were full, so that our journey that way would be exceptionally easy, whereas between this and Bussorah, we should have to pass over an almost waterless region, without anything interesting to compensate for the difficulty. But this we should see as we went on – the first thing, as I have said, was to get clear away, and it would be time enough later to settle details about our course.

Majid was there, and received from Wilfrid as a remembrance a silver-handled Spanish knife, whereupon he sent for a black cloth cloak with a little gold embroidery on the collar and presented it to me. It was a suitable gift, for I had nothing of the sort, indeed no respectable abba at all, and this one was both dignified and quiet in appearance. Majid at least, I am sure, regrets us, and if circumstances ever take us again to Haïl, it would be the best fortune for us to find him or his father on the throne. They are regarded as the natural heirs to the Sheykhat, and Ibn Rashid’s does not look like a long life.

After this we mounted, and in another five minutes were clear of the town. Then looking back, we each drew a long breath, for Haïl with all the charm of its strangeness, and its interesting inhabitants, had come to be like a prison to us, and at one time when we had had that quarrel with Mohammed, had seemed very like a tomb.

We left Haïl by the same gate at which we had entered it, what seemed like years before, but instead of turning towards the mountains, we skirted the wall of the town and further on the palm gardens, which are its continuation, for about three miles down a ravine-like wady. Then we came out on the plain again, and at the last isolated group of ithel trees, halted for the last time to enjoy the shade, for the sun was almost hot, before joining the pilgrim caravan, which we could see like a long line of ants traversing the plain between us and the main range of Jebel Shammar.

It was, without exception, the most beautiful view I ever saw in my life, and I will try to describe it. To begin with, it must be understood that the air, always clear in Jebel Shammar, was this day of a transparent clearness, which probably surpasses anything seen in ordinary deserts, or in the high regions of the Alps, or at the North Pole, or anywhere except perhaps in the moon. For this is the very centre of the desert, four hundred miles from the sea, and nearly four thousand feet above the sea level. Before us lay a foreground of coarse reddish sand, the washing down of the granite rocks of Jebel Aja, with here and there magnificent clumps of ithel, great pollards whose trunks measure twenty and thirty feet 2 in circumference, growing on little mounds showing where houses once stood – just as in Sussex the yew trees do – for the town seems to have shifted from this end of the oasis to where it now is. Across this sand lay a long green belt of barley, perhaps a couple of acres in extent, the blades of corn brilliantly green, and just having shot up high enough to hide the irrigation furrows. Beyond this, for a mile or more, the level desert fading from red to orange, till it was again cut by what appeared to be a shining sheet of water reflecting the deep blue of the sky – a mirage of course, but the most perfect illusion that can be imagined. Crossing this, and apparently wading in the water, was the long line of the pilgrim camels, each reflected exactly in the mirage below him with the dots of blue, red, green, or pink, representing the litter or tent he carried. The line of the procession might be five miles or more in length; we could not see the end of it. Beyond again rose the confused fantastic mass of the sapphire coloured crags of Jebel Aja, the most strange and beautiful mountain range that can be imagined – a lovely vision.

When we had sufficiently admired all this, and I had made my sketch of it, for there was no hurry, we got on our mares again and rejoicing with them in our freedom, galloped on singing the Shammar song, “Ma arid ana erkobu delúl lau zeynoli shedadeha, biddi ana hamra shenûf, hamra seriyeh arruddeha,” a proceeding which inspired them more than any whip or spur could have done, and which as we converged towards the Haj caravan, made the camels caper, and startled the pilgrims into the idea that the Harb Bedouins were once more upon them. So we went along with Mohammed following us, till we reached the vanguard of the Haj, and the green and red banner which goes in front of it. Close to this we found our own camels, and soon after camped with them, not ten miles from Haïl in a bit of a wady where the standard was planted.

Our tents are a couple of hundred yards away from the Haj camp, which is crowded together for fear of the dangers of the desert. The pilgrim mueddins have just chanted the evening call to prayers, and the people are at their devotions. Our mares are munching their barley, and our hawk (a trained bird we bought yesterday for six mejidies of a Bedouin at Haïl), is sitting looking very wise on his perch in front of us. It is a cold evening, but oh how clean and comfortable in the tent!

February 2. – It appears after all that only about half the Haj left Haïl yesterday. There has been a difficulty about camels some say, others that Ibn Rashid will not let the people go, an affair of money probably in either case. So we had hardly gone more than two miles before a halt was ordered by the emir el-haj, one Ambar, a black slave of Ibn Rashid’s, and the camels and their riders remained massed together on a piece of rising ground for the purpose we think of being counted. The dervishes, however, and other pilgrims on foot went on as they liked, and so did we, for we do not consider ourselves bound by any of the rules of the Haj procession, and Abdallah has orders to march our camels well outside the main body. There was no road or track at all to-day, and we went forward on the look-out for water which we heard was somewhere on ahead, crossing some very rough ground and wadys which were almost ravines. We have become so used to the desert now, that from a long distance we made out the water, guessing its position from the white colour of the ground near it. The whiteness is caused by a stonelike deposit the water makes when it stands long anywhere; and in this instance it lay in a sort of natural reservoir or series of reservoirs in the bed of a shallow wady. These must have been filled some time during the winter by rain, and we hurried on to fill our goat skins at them while they were still clean, for the pilgrims would soon drink up and pollute them. They are but small pools. We found Awwad already there, he having been sent on in front with a delúl to make sure of our supply, and the process of filling the skins was hardly over before the dervishes who always march ahead of the Haj began to arrive. They have an unpleasant habit of washing in the water first, and drinking it afterwards, which we are told is part of their religious ritual.

The wind has been very violent all day with a good deal of sand in it, but it has now gone down. Our course since leaving Haïl has been east by north, and is directed towards a tall hill, Jebel Jildiyeh, which is a very conspicuous landmark. Our camp to-night is a pleasanter one than yesterday’s, being further from the pilgrims, and we have a little wady all to ourselves, with plenty of good firewood, and food for the camels.

February 3. – Though fires were lit this morning at four o’clock as if in preparation of an early start, no move has been made to-day. Half the pilgrimage they tell us is still at Haïl, and must be waited for. Wilfrid went to-day into the camp to find our friend Ali Koli Khan, but neither he nor Abd er-Rahim, nor anyone else he knew had arrived.