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

To-night we have had a long and serious talk with Muttlak about the Ketherin tribe, in which we now consider we have an interest. He promises that he will really come north as soon as he can make arrangements with the Sebaa, and we have in return promised him that we will set up a “house of hair” with them, and keep a few nagas and a mare or two, and a small flock of sheep. This would be very agreeable, and serve as a pied à terre in the desert, quite independent of all the world.

February 24. – Another akabah had to be climbed to-day – another long winding road followed across another open plain. The wonder is why the road should wind where there is no obstacle to avoid and no object to reach by a circuit. But such is always the case. Everybody seemed cross with the hard work, enlivened only by an occasional course, in which the hare sometimes ran right in among the pilgrims, when there was a scrimmage with the dervishes for possession of the quarry. The dervishes, who are mostly from Bagdad, are ready to eat hare or anything else they can get, indeed everybody is at starvation point. The only cheerful one of our party is the stalwart Ibrahim, who has come out again now as a wag. To-day, as we were marching along, we passed a fat Persian on a very little donkey, whom Ibrahim began chaffing, but finding the Persian did not understand him, he ran up, and seizing hold, lifted donkey and man in his arms. I could not have believed it possible, had I not seen that the donkey’s four legs were off the ground. The Persian did not seem to understand this joke better than the rest, but they are stolid people, and have had a long breaking in and experience in patience during the last four months.

We have found a peaceful spot for the night, with plenty of pasture and plenty of “jelleh” for fuel. The sun has set, but in the clear cold sky there is a nearly new moon, which gives a certain amount of light.

Wilfrid is making plans for spending the spring in Persia, and the summer in India, regardless of such news as may meet us at Bagdad from England or elsewhere. Such plans, however pleasant as they are in the planning, cannot be counted on. Much may have happened in the three months since we have been cut off from all communication with Europe, or indeed any part of the world out of Arabia, and even the traveller most detached from all affections or thoughts of his distant home is liable to be seized by a sudden longing for green fields with buttercups and daisies. The passing note of a bird or the scent of a flower may be enough to upset a most admirably contrived plan.

February 25. – Twenty-seven miles of march yesterday, and thirty to-day.

The camels cannot last at this pace, but the Haj is pushing on now because the men are starving. It is said that to-morrow we may reach Kasr Ruheym, the first outpost of the Euphrates district, and there they may find supplies, but it must still be a long distance off, if our reckoning is not altogether incorrect. Wilfrid has kept a dead reckoning now ever since we left Damascus, calculating the direction by the compass, and the distance of each day’s march by the pace of the camels, and in the thousand miles we have travelled, it may well be a little out – but according to it we should now be forty-seven miles from Meshhed Ali, which should be to the north-west, not to the north of our present position.

The weather has become cold, and all day long a bitter wind blew in our faces. The vegetation has changed. In one place we saw some acacias, the first trees since we left Haïl, and some of those broom bushes which bear a flower smelling sweet like the flower of the bean, and called here by the Arabs, “gurrtheh.” The acacias have given their name to the wady, Wady Hasheb (the Valley of timber).

We had a good view of the berak unfurled to-day, and a respectable-looking pilgrim, who lives, he tells us, in the mosque of Abd-el-Kader at Bagdad, pointed out to us the motto and device in the centre of it; the sword, he says, is the sword of God, and under it is written “La ilaha ila’llahi, wa Mohammed rasuluhu” (There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet). On the other side of the flag is written “Nasron min Allahi wa fathon karîbon” (Victory is from God and success is near).

February 26. – This has been a long and hard day, over ten hours, and the whole time beating against a wind which cut through everything, the sky darkened with sand, driving right in our faces. We have however reached Kasr Ruheym, and all our camels are still alive. Many of the pilgrims’ camels, sixty or some say seventy, lay down and died on the road. The beautiful thoroughbred delúls cannot stand the cold, which is very unusual at this latitude so late in the season, and their owners are in despair. All the Haj is furious with Ambar, not the Persians only, but the Bedouin escort and the camel owners, for his dawdling marches at first, and his forced ones afterwards. In the last six days we have marched a hundred and seventy miles, the greater part of the Haj on foot, and almost fasting. What would an English army say to that? Yet not one of the men – nor even of the poor women – who have had to trudge along thus, has been left behind. For ourselves we have had no extra fatigue, for the change from camel-back to horse-back and back again is of itself a rest. Khrer, my delúl, has very even paces, so that one is not soon tired riding him.

We are here in clover, not actually at the Kasr, but in sight of it, encamped at the edge of a running stream! The stream rises here and is said to be perennial. There is a quantity of coarse sword grass growing beside it, and everything looks green and pretty to eyes wearied of desert scenes. A pair of francolins, disturbed by the sudden invasion of their resting-place, which they doubtless thought safely secluded from the world, are flying backwards and forwards, put up continually by the grazing camels, and are calling to each other from the bushes. This shows that we are approaching the Euphrates.

There is a village near the Kasr, about two miles from where we are; and a good many felláhin on donkeys and horses have arrived with provisions for sale, but they have not brought a twentieth part of what is wanted for the Haj. A cry of “stop thief” already announces that we have returned to the Turkish Empire. It has not been heard since we left Mezárib.

February 27. – No abatement of the wind, but less sand. It appears that our acquaintances, Ali Koli Khan and Abd er-Rahim are missing, lost in yesterday’s storm. They rode with us part of the afternoon, and then, hearing that Ruheym was not far off, they started away on their delúls in front of the Haj at a trot, and of course being Persians, lost their way, for the Persians are helpless people in the desert. The sand was very thick at the time, and they must have got out of the track. Ambar has sent people to look all over the country for them, but without result. They never reached Ruheym, and it is feared that they may have perished of cold in the night.

This delayed the Haj from starting early, and at one time it was given out that no move at all would be made to-day, which would have suited us well, as there was plenty of camel pasture at Ruheym, and two of our animals were quite at the end of their strength. But at eight o’clock the drum beat, and we were obliged to load and be off, for now that we had entered Turkish territory, there was danger on the road, and all must keep together. Ibn Rashid’s protection would no longer avail.

The march was tedious, on account of the weariness of the camels, though cheered by the sight of the gilt dome of Meshhed Ali, shining like a star across the blue sea of Nejef, itself a lovely apparition. The sea of Nejef (or as the Arabs call it, the Sheríet-Ibn Haddal), is the counterpart of the Birket el-Korn in the Egyptian Fayum, an artificial lake, formed by cutting a canal from the Euphrates; it is about twenty miles long, by six or seven broad. It is probably of Babylonian origin, though the Arabs say it was made by an Ibn Haddal ancestor of the present Amarrat Sheykhs, so that his camels might have a drinking pool. The Ibn Haddal were, till comparatively lately, lords of the whole of this district, and levied tribute on Meshhed Ali and Huseyn. The town stands upon the eastern shore above a fine line of limestone cliffs, and remained in sight all day long, as we wound slowly round the lake. It was a beautiful sight as far as nature was concerned, but made horrible by the sufferings of the poor dying camels, which now lay thick upon the road, with their unfortunate owners, poor Bedouins perhaps with nothing else in the world, standing beside them, luggage and bedding strewn about, which the pilgrims were trying to carry off on their heads, seeing the journey so nearly over.

Many of the camels had rushed into the lake, to drink, and lain down there, never to get up again. Others could just move one foot before the other, following at the rate of perhaps a mile an hour, with hopeless glazed eyes, and poor emaciated bodies bare of all burden, even of the shedad. We who started late because we were not ready, and had thought to remain quiet at Ruheym, passed all these, amongst others our friend Izzar, the Shammar boy, who was weeping over his delúls – two out of the three were dead. All were loud in their execrations of Ambar, and one or two of Ibn Rashid himself, whom they held responsible for part of the delay. Ibn Rashid’s government is less popular in the desert than in the towns, especially on account of his conduct of the Haj. He impresses the camels and men at a fixed rate, ten mejidies, and gives no compensation for losses. They say, however, that Ambar runs some risk of losing his head, when all his mismanagement becomes known at Haïl, and I confess I think he deserves it.

At last we got to the akabah, or ascent, where the road leads up the cliff, and here the camels lay down by scores, among the rest our beautiful camel, Amud (the pillar), so called from his great height. He was younger than the rest, except poor Shenuan, and had been out of sorts for several days past. A camel that lies down under such circumstances, seldom rises again. It is not the labour, but the want of food that kills; and unless food can be brought to the exhausted animal, he never gets strength to rise. Between five and six hundred must have perished thus to-day.

At the top of the akabah Meshhed Ali lay close before us, a long line of magnificent old walls with twelve round towers, all of burnt brick, the only building appearing over them being the mosque with its cupola of burnished gold, and its four minarets. The whole was reddened by the afternoon sun, and the dome looked like a sun itself.

Through a crowd of dirty children perched on the tombs of the vast burying-ground which, on this side, stretches for some distance from the walls of the city, we approached the gate of Meshhed Ali. These disorderly ragamuffins shouted jeers and rude remarks at the pilgrims, and threw stones at our dogs, and we were glad when, turning an angle of the wall, we reached the camping ground, a short distance from the north-eastern corner of the city, and found ourselves at peace, with leisure to reflect that our pilgrimage is over.

CHAPTER XVI

“Nos gaillards pélerinsPar monts, par vaux, et par chemins,À la fin arrivèrent.” – La Fontaine.

The Shrines of the Shias – Bedouin honesty – Legend of the Tower of Babel – Bagdad – Our party breaks up.

Meshhed Ali (the shrine of Ali), or Nejef as it is more correctly called, is an ideal Eastern City, standing as it does in an absolute desert and bare of all surroundings but its tombs. It is nearly square, and the circuit of its walls is broken by only one gate. These walls are of kiln-burnt brick, and date from the time of the Caliphs, and are still in excellent preservation. They are strengthened at intervals by round towers, all very massive and stately. So high are they, that they completely hide every building inside them, with the single exception of the great Mosque of Ali, whose glittering dome of gold shows like a rising sun above them.

Inside, the houses are closely packed; but there is more symmetry in their arrangement than in most Asiatic towns, as the bazaar leads in a straight line from the gate to the Mosque, which stands in the centre of the town. The shops are good, or appeared so to our eyes unused to the things of cities. I did not myself venture far inside, as the streets were very crowded, and we did not wish to attract unnecessary notice just then at the time of the pilgrimage; but Wilfrid describes the façade of the Mosque as the richest he has seen, a mass of gold and mosaic work like some highly chased reliquary. He would not go inside for fear of offending our pilgrim friends, and left it to the rest of our party to recount the splendours of the tomb.

This tomb of Ali is held by the Shias as at least as holy as the Caaba at Mecca, and it is an article of pious belief with them that any Moslem buried within sight of the dome is certain of salvation. The consequence is that pilgrims from all parts of the Shia world, and especially from Persia, come to Nejef to die, and that immense numbers of corpses are sent there for interment. Burial fees in fact constitute the chief revenue of the place.

This city and Kerbela, where there is the sister shrine of Huseyn, are inhabited by a number of Mahometan subjects of Her Majesty, from India, who have settled in them from religious motives, but remain under the protection of the British Resident at Bagdad. They live on good terms with the Arabs, but do not mix much or intermarry with them, and retain their own language. As is natural in cities of pilgrimage, all classes are ostentatiously religious, and we were amused at listening to the devout exclamations of the blacksmith who came to shoe our horses. “Ya Ali, ya Huseyn, ya Ali, ya Mohammed,” at every stroke of the hammer. They are all, moreover, bitterly hostile to Turkish rule, having the double motive of national and religious antipathy to support them. Both Meshhed Ali and Kerbela are kept strongly garrisoned, but in spite of everything have constantly revolted within the last forty years. When we were at Meshhed, the Turkish Caimakam had four companies of infantry under his orders; and the garrison of Kerbela, the head quarters of the district, was far larger.

Kerbela, which lies fifty miles north of Meshhed Ali, is physically quite unlike its rival. It is unfortified, and instead of standing in the desert, is surrounded by palm gardens, like the towns of Nejd. It is a richer and more populous city than Meshhed, but to a traveller it is less interesting as having nothing distinctive in its appearance. The Hiudieh canal, which supplies it with water from the Euphrates, makes it the centre of the most considerable agricultural district of the Bagdad pashalik. Meshhed, on the other hand, has little besides its shrine to depend on.

We were now very nearly at the end of our resources, both of money, and strength, and patience; and, without more delay than was absolutely necessary to refit our caravan, we set out for Bagdad. On the evening preceding our departure, a curious incident occurred.

A young Bedouin came to our tent and introduced himself as a Shammar from the Jezireh, one of Faris’s men whom we had met the year before on the Khabur. He hailed the “Beg” at once as brother to his master, and mentioned the incident of the loan of ten pounds made by us to Faris. This sum he offered on his own responsibility to repay us now, and, seeing that we were rather out at elbows, he pulled out the money from his sleeve, and almost forced it upon us. He had been sent by Faris to buy a mare from the Montefyk, and had the purchase money with him, – he knew Faris would wish him to repay the debt. Though we would not take the money, the honesty and good feeling shown greatly pleased us, and we were glad of an opportunity to send messages to Faris, Tellál, and Rashid ibn Ali, who it appeared was still with the northern Shammar.

This same night, too, Muttlak left us. It was a grief to us to say good-bye, and he, more visibly touched even than we were, shed tears. He had found, he said, men of the Amarrat at Meshhed, who had promised to arrange his business with the Sebaa for him, and so he would go home. He had come quite two hundred miles with us, and we could not ask him to do more. He had, however, something behind the reasons which he gave us for his going; Mohammed, his cousin, had grown jealous of his position with us, and, we have reason to suspect, made things uncomfortable for the old Sheykh when we were not present, in a way we could not prevent. Besides this, there was a story of a blood-feud between the Ketherin and the Maadan, a tribe which lives between Nejef and Kerbela; this may have helped to deter Muttlak from going on with us, for he is essentially a man of peace, but there could have been no danger for him in our company. Be it as it may, he came that night to dine with us for the last time, and could eat nothing, and when we asked him why, he said it was from sorrow, and that he must say good-bye. It was evident that he spoke the truth, and I am sure that no word of the blessings which he heaped upon our heads, and of his promises to keep our memory green in his heart, was more than what he felt. Muttlak is not a man of words. Wilfrid kissed the old Sheykh, and his servant kissed our hands, and they got on their old black delúl, and rode quietly away the way they came, and we saw them no more.

Three days of easy travelling brought us to Kerbela, for we did not care to push on fast, and four days more to Bagdad. One incident only of our route need be mentioned. As we were passing the neighbourhood of Birs Nemrud, the reputed tower of Babel, we stopped for the night at some tents belonging to the Messaoud, a half felláhin tribe of the left bank of the Euphrates, where they were growing barley on some irrigated land. The Sheykh, Hajji et-Teyma was away, but his son Fuaz entertained us, and after dinner related the history of Nimrod, the founder of the tower. Nimrod, he said, was an impious man, and thought that the sun was God. And in order to make war on him he built this tower, but finding that he could not reach him thus, he had a platform constructed with a pole in the middle, and to each corner of the platform he chained an eagle, and on the pole he hung a sheep, and the eagles wishing to reach the sheep, flew up with the platform and Nimrod who was standing on it. And when Nimrod thought himself near enough, he shot an arrow at the sun. And God to punish him destroyed the tower. The Yezidis worship Nimrod and Shaytan there to this day.

Beyond Kerbela our road lay through cultivated land till we reached the Euphrates, which we crossed by the bridge of boats at Musseyib. Then we found ourselves among Babylonian mounds, canals, and abandoned fields, the unvarying features of Irak. These brought us at last to Bagdad, where by a strange fatality we arrived once more in floods of rain, and where, again, we were welcomed in the hospitable four walls of the Residency. On the 6th of March we slept once more in beds, having been without that luxury for almost three months.

Here, therefore, ends our pilgrimage to Nejd, which, in spite of some difficulties and some hardships, was accomplished successfully without any really disagreeable incident, and here, if we had been wise, our winter’s adventures would have ended too. We had been lucky beyond our expectations in seeing and doing all we had proposed as the objects of our journey, and hardly a day of the eighty-four we had spent in Arabia had been uninteresting or unromantic. What followed was neither profitable nor agreeable, and might well have been left undone.

At Bagdad our party necessarily broke up. Among the letters awaiting us at the Consulate, was one for Mohammed ibn Arûk which obliged his instant return to Tudmur. Great events had occurred there in his absence, and for a moment we felt a pang of regret at having kept him so long away from his duties and his interests at home. The politics of Tudmur are a little complicated. Mohammed’s father, Abdallah, is not the legitimate Sheykh of the town, the true head of the Ibn Arûk family there being his cousin Faris. Abdallah, however, has for some years past enjoyed Government support, and is the Turkish nominee. The town has consequently been divided into two factions, 11 headed respectively by Faris and Mohammed, the latter representing his father, who is too old for such quarrels, and as long as the Turks were supreme at Tudmur, Mohammed’s party had it all their own way. Not, however, that either faction wished any good to the Sultan, for during the Russian war Mohammed was one of the foremost in refusing the contingent demanded of the Tudmuri for the Turkish army, but family quarrels are fierce among the Arabs, and they take advantage of all the help they can get alike from friend or enemy. So Mohammed supported Turkish policy in his native town, and was in turn supported by the Turks. But after the surrender of Plevna, and the destruction of the Sultan’s army in the Balkans, Tudmur was abandoned to its own devices, and Faris once more asserted his right to the sheykhat, though parties were so evenly balanced that nothing serious for some time occurred, and only on one occasion Faris and Mohammed exchanged shots, without serious result. It was in defiance of remonstrances on the part of his father and all his friends that Mohammed had come with us, and the moment he was gone war had broken out. A messenger, it appears, had arrived to recall him not a week after he started with us from Damascus, and now another letter announced that blood had been shed. This was sufficient reason for our journey together coming to an end, and Mohammed, though piously ready to accept accomplished facts with an “Allah kerim,” was evidently in a hurry to be off. Even if we had wished it, we could not ask him to go further with us now. But we did not wish it. The episode of his foolish behaviour at Haïl, forgive it as we would, had left a certain gêne between us, which he was conscious of as well as ourselves, and, though he had done much since then to atone for it, we all felt that it was best to part. Still there was something mournful in his leaving us on so forlorn an errand, and he, as Arabs do, shed tears, owning that he had behaved in that instance ungratefully to us, and protesting his devotion. We on our side made him as comfortable as we could with letters of recommendation to Valys and Consuls, whose protection he might have need of, and with what arms and ammunition we could spare. And so he and Abdallah, and Awwad the robber, went their way on four of our delúls, which we gave them for the journey, and we saw them no more.

We had hoped to induce Hanna to go on with us, for he in all our difficulties had never failed us, and with his cousin the Tawíl had helped us loyally when others had been cross or unwilling – but Hanna was home-sick, and the Tawíl would not desert him. So one day they joined a caravan of muleteers on the point of starting for Mosul, and left us with many tears and blessings; and the little army with which we had crossed the desert was finally dispersed. 12

PART II

OUR PERSIAN CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER I

“Duo illum sequor? In Persas.” – Plautus

“Halas! diséit-elle, faut-il que je périsse sous les pattes d’une araignée, moi qui viens de me tirer des griffes d’un lion?” – Fables d’Ésope.

New plans and new preparations – We leave Bagdad for Persia – Wild boar hunting in the Wudian – A terrible accident – We travel with a holy man – Camps of the Beni Laam – An alarm.

Amongst the letters awaiting our arrival at Bagdad, we had found an invitation from Lord and Lady Lytton to spend the summer, or part of it, with them at Simla. It seemed that this would be an opportunity, which might never again occur, of going on to India by land, a plan which might be made to include a visit to the Bactiari mountains, where our acquaintance of the pilgrimage, Ali Koli Khan, had his home. Ali had often talked to us of his father, and of a wonderful stud of thoroughbred Arabians possessed by his family, and the prospect of seeing these, and a tribe reputed to be the most powerful in Persia, was an attraction that could not be denied. He had indeed proposed to travel there with us, and introduce us himself to his people, and if circumstances had been propitious, no doubt we might have accomplished this part of our journey comfortably enough. Unfortunately, when we took leave of the Haj at Meshhed Ali, our friend was not there for us to concert arrangements with him, nor even to wish him good-bye. He had been lost in the sandstorm, already mentioned as having occurred on the last day but one of the pilgrimage; and though before going on to Kerbela we had received news of his safety, we had no opportunity of meeting him. The consequence was that he neither came with us, nor gave us so much as a letter to his father; and in the end we started alone, a mistake we had ample reason to repent. The plan of travelling from Bagdad to India by land appeared to me of doubtful wisdom under the circumstances; but Wilfrid’s thirst for exploration was not yet slaked. He argued that spring was just beginning, and a spring journey through Persia must of necessity be the most delightful thing in the world, and that we could at any moment get down to some port of the Persian Gulf, if the weather became too hot for us. Our means of transport were ready. We should find some difficulty in disposing of our camels at Bagdad, and had better make use of them; and though we were now without servants, servants might easily be found. Thus, in an evil day, and without due consideration of the difficulties and dangers which were before us, we determined to go on. A final circumstance decided the matter beyond recall. Captain Cameron, the African traveller, arrived at Bagdad, with the object of surveying a line for an Indo-Mediterranean railway from Tripoli to Bushire, and thence to the Indus, having already made the first stages of his survey; and Wilfrid now proposed to assist him in the more serious part of his undertaking. It was agreed between them that they should take different lines from Bagdad, and meet again either at Bushire or Bender Abbas, thus comparing notes as to the most practicable railway line from the Tigris to the Persian Gulf. Captain Cameron was to follow the left bank of the river as far as Amara, and then to strike across the marshy plains to Ahwas and Bender Dilam, while we should keep further east, skirting the Hamrin and Bactiari hills. So presented, the project sounded useful, if not agreeable, and acquired a definite object, which, if it ran us into unnecessary dangers, served also to carry us through them afterwards. The expedition was accordingly a settled thing.