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

A few small presents have made Musa very amiable, and he has sent us a guard for our tents. There is, it would seem, some apprehension of attack on the part of the hostile section of the tribe who are not far off, and a ghazú from Mizban is much talked of. So the conference of the two brothers at Amara does not prevent their followers from carrying on the war.

March 27. – Nothing worse happened during the night than a thunderstorm. Wilfrid started early on Job to try and find old Seyd Abbas, of whom nothing was heard yesterday. He went alone, and cantered for about ten miles in the direction of the river, but finding a large marsh between him and it, and, moreover, that Ali Ghurbi was beyond the river, he returned. He met, he tells me, a number of Arabs whom he believes to have been Mizban’s people. They made some show of trying to circumvent him, but were too ill-mounted to be dangerous. At midday the Seyyid arrived with two donkey loads of provisions from the village. We had all but given him up for lost, and in our dearth of friends, we now begin to feel something like affection for him, seeing him return.

We have made so little progress this week that we could not consent to stay another night with Musa, and have come on, in spite of tempestuous skies and alarming rumours of a ghazú, which is said to be on the march from Mizban’s. We have, however, hitherto, escaped all these dangers. The thunderstorms, though rattling like artillery, right, left, in front, and behind us, spared us overhead; and we have seen no living soul all the afternoon. It is a wild, strange piece of country, but covered in places with excellent pasture, so that we have the satisfaction of seeing our dear camels growing fat beneath our eyes. We have stopped for the night at the edge of an enormous red morass, the haunt of innumerable birds. There are two little tells close by, and a pool of rain water good to drink. We have now left the neighbourhood of the Tigris for good, so that these swamps have nothing to do with it. They seem to be caused by small streams running from the Hamrin Hills, and caught in this great flat plain. The railway, in Wilfrid’s opinion, if it is ever made, ought to run along the foot of the hills where the ground is sounder. It is difficult, however, to imagine the use of a railway in such an uninhabited country.

The tells where we are, are called Doheyleh; but there is nothing in the shape of a village anywhere this side the Tigris, nor are there any Bedouins except these Beni Laam.

March 28. – A good morning’s march has brought us safely to Mizban’s. It seems that after all we ran some danger last night, for a ghazú was really out between the two Beni Laam camps, and we find Mizban’s people in commotion. A few miles from the camp we were met by a body of horsemen advancing in open order, who, as soon as they saw us, galloped at full speed towards us, and seemed as if intending to attack. But Seyd Abbas rode forward to meet them on his old grey kadish and waved his cloak and shouted to them to stop. “It is I,” he called, “Seyd Abbas.” Whereupon the horsemen pulled up, and dismounting, kissed the old man’s hand. They were a ghazú, they told us, from Lazim, Mizban’s eldest son, and they were following on the track of some robbers from Musa’s, who had carried off seventeen camels in the night. They cross-questioned Seyd Abbas as to Musa’s whereabouts, but the old man would not let out the secret. It would have been a breach of the hospitality he had just received from Musa. They did not stop long, however, to talk, but went on their way, leaving a couple of the party only to show us to Mizban’s tent.

The tents of the Beni Laam are peculiar. Instead of being, like every other Arab tent we have seen, set on a number of poles each of different height, these are shaped like regular pent-houses, with gable roof and walls. Such, at least, is Mizban’s mudíf, a construction corresponding with the kahwah of a town house, and used only for reception. The living tents are smaller, and the word beyt house here applies only to the harim. The mudíf is a fine airy room, very pleasant in the hot weather we are beginning to have. It is pitched close to the river Tibb in the middle of a very large camp, several hundred tents, and looks imposing enough. The country all round is very bare and trodden down, having been exposed last night to a fearful hail storm, which has wrecked all the vegetation. The hailstones, they say, were as big as dates.

The Tibb is much swollen, and flowing through a deep cutting, looks anything but easy to cross, – a turbid yellow river cutting its way through the alluvial plain without valley of any sort, so that you do not know it is there until you come close to it. It is about fifty yards wide.

At the door of the mudíf we alighted, and presently made the acquaintance of our host – not Mizban, for he, as we heard before, is away at Amara, but his son Beneyeh – a rather handsome but not quite agreeable looking youth, whose forward, almost rude manners show him to be, what he no doubt is, a spoilt child. We have been rather reserved with him in consequence, and have left to Hajji Mohammed the task of explaining our name and quality, and delivering the letters which we have with us for his father. Beneyeh is not the eldest son, and I do not quite understand why he does the honours of his father’s tent instead of Lazim. It is difficult to know exactly how to treat him; but we think it better to be on the side of politeness, so we have sent him the cloak intended for the Sheykh, and have added to it a revolver, with which he seems pleased. We are so completely in his hands for our further progress, that we must do what we can to secure his good will. I have paid a visit to the harim, and have been well received by Beneyeh’s mother, Yeddi, a fat jovial person, young-looking for her age. She is very proud of her son, and the evident cause of his spoiling. Her stepdaughter Hukma, and daughter-in-law Rasi, are both rather pretty; though the latter, like the mother-in-law, shows signs of foreign blood, being inclined to fat, and being red-haired and fair complexioned. The occasion of my visit to them was a distressing one. We had hardly retired to our own tent when a loud explosion was heard, and immediately afterwards a man came running to us to beg us to come, for an accident had happened. In the storm last night some gunpowder belonging to Beneyeh had got wet, and a slave had been set to dry it at the fire in the women’s tent, with the result of a blow up and fearful burning of the unfortunate creature. They wanted us, of course, to cure him; and we gave what advice we could, but with little chance of success. The poor slave lay groaning there behind a matting all the time I was in the tent, but Yeddi and the rest chattered, and laughed, and screamed, regardless as children. Sick people get little peace in the Desert.

* * * * *

Wilfrid believes he has arranged matters with Beneyeh, who came to dine with us this evening, and talked matters over afterwards with Seyd Abbas. He declared at first that a journey across the frontier into Persia was out of the question, that nobody had ever been that way, that the Beni Laam were at war with the Ajjem (Persians) and could not venture into the neighbourhood of Dizful, or any town of Persia, and that his father was away, and he had no men to spare as escort. After much talking, however, and persuasion on the Seyyid’s part, he has agreed to start with us to-morrow with thirty horsemen and see us safely to the camp of one Kerim Khan, chief of a Kurdish tribe, which lives on the river Karkeria, beyond which Persia proper begins, and that he will take £10 for his trouble. The sum is hardly excessive if he fulfils his part of the bargain, for the country between Turkey and Persia has the reputation of being quite impracticable, not only from the robber bands which inhabit it, but from the rivers which must be crossed. Hajji Mohammed is very gloomy about the whole matter.

In the middle of our conversation a fearful hubbub arose in the camp round, followed by some shots and the galloping of horses, and Beneyeh exclaiming, “A ghazú, a ghazú!” jumped up and rushed out of the tent. Our first thought was to put out the candle, and our second to stand to our arms and look outside. In the dim starlight we could see what seemed to be a fight going on inside and round the mudíf; and though night attacks are very unusual in the desert, we were convinced an enemy was sacking the camp. Though the quarrel was no affair of ours, and we should probably be in little danger had it been daylight, now in the darkness we could not help feeling alarmed. Wilfrid served out cartridges, and gave the order that all should kneel down so as to be prepared for action if the tide of battle should come our way, an arrangement which resulted only in Hajji Mohammed’s letting off his gun by accident, and very nearly shooting one of the Agheyls. The mares had their iron fetters on, and with the keys in our pockets we knew they could not be lost. Still it was an anxious moment. At the end of a quarter of an hour, however, Beneyeh came back in great excitement to say that a ghazú had come from Musa’s, and that some camels had been driven away; that the hubbub in the tent was not fighting, but preparation to fight; and that he was come to borrow a rifle as he and his friends were starting in pursuit. Wilfrid gave him one of the guns and offered to ride with him on his expedition, but Seyd Abbas, who had all the time been cheering us with an assurance that “it was not our affair,” would not hear of this; and, after a long discussion, it was decided that we should all stay together, as indeed is only prudent. I do not believe the ghazú has been anything very serious; for, though Beneyeh and some of his men have galloped off in the supposed direction of the enemy, by far the greater number have remained, preferring shouting and singing to actual fighting. They are now chaunting in chorus “Aduan – Mizban (enemies – Mizban) – Aduan – Mizban,” and striking their spears on the ground to beat time. A great fire has been lit and is blazing in the mudíf, and the dark figures passing and repassing in front of it make the whole thing wild and savage in the extreme.

CHAPTER II

Gloucester. “’Tis true that we are in great danger,The greater therefore should our courage be.”Shakespeare.

“La plus mauvaise rencontre dans le désert est celle de l’homme.”

Guarmani.

We are betrayed into the hands of robbers – Ghafil and Saadun – We diplomatise – A march across “No-man’s-land” – Night terrors – We claim protection of a Persian prince.

March 29. – The event of last night, though in truth it was less alarming than it seemed, made us anxious not to remain longer at Mizban’s than could be helped. Wilfrid accordingly no sooner saw Beneyeh this morning, than he began to urge our departure on him, as it had been arranged over-night. The young man was in a bad humour, his pursuit of the ghazú having been either unsuccessful, or, as we suspect, never seriously made; and at first he would hear of nothing but that we should go back to Amara, instead of crossing the frontier, which he again declared to be impracticable. He was put out, moreover, because we did not allow him to keep the gun which he had borrowed in the night; and but for old Seyd Abbas, whom he is bound to treat with respect, I doubt if he would have kept to his bargain with us. I begin to regret now that he at last allowed himself to be persuaded, for we seem to have got into a very awkward pass.

Our troubles to-day began early. First of all we had to say farewell to Seyd Abbas, our last connecting link with respectability. The old man said he dared not go further; that in the country where we were going his condition as a seyyid would not be respected, nor could he do more for us than wish us well through it. He washed his hands, in fact, of the whole proceeding, and protested that he had gone farther than he ought in bringing us thus far. We could not indeed find fault with him for wishing to return, and thanking him heartily for all, and so recommending him once more to see to Ariel, we let him go. Since then all has gone wrong. We had first the river to cross, a not very easy proceeding, for the banks were of mud, and the water up to our horses’ shoulders. Still, nothing untoward happened till we had all got over. Then the two Agheyls, our camel-drivers, declared that they too would go no further. The journey into Persia frightened them, they said, as well as Seyd Abbas, and though they gave a variety of reasons besides, it always came back to this, that they did not like to die in a foreign land. It was no use arguing with them that they should not die, and that we would provide handsomely for their return to Bagdad by sea; no offers could move them, nor even the threat of their Sheykh’s displeasure, which we held in terrorem over them. It was impossible to be really angry, yet our case is a forlorn one without them. To-day we and Hajji Mohammed have had to load and drive the camels ourselves, for he is the only servant left us, and Beneyeh and his Arabs would do nothing, contenting themselves with galloping about and shouting out their unasked-for advice. It was very annoying.

Beneyeh’s manner has changed alarmingly. Finding us practically in his power, now we have crossed the Tibb and cannot retreat, he has become most insolent, trying all day to pick a quarrel with us about the revolver we gave him, and which he has put out of order by his clumsiness, and asking for one thing and another belonging to us exactly like a rude, ill-bred child. Wilfrid was obliged to speak sharply to him and bid him be ashamed of himself, as his manners are those of an Iraki fellah, not of a Sheykh’s son. Still he went on, now asking for Wilfrid’s sword, now proposing to buy my mare, impertinences both, till, on being told he was a fool, he rode on in a huff with his men. There were nine of them, and one only remained with us, an older man who seemed ashamed of his young chief, and with whom we got on more pleasantly. Still it is a disagreeable prospect to have to travel with such rascals all the way to Persia. The party are tolerably mounted, the Beni Laam having a few asil mares, principally of the Wadnan breed, and at Mizban’s camp there was a horse which they called a Nusban, a name new to us.

The country, after passing the Tibb, is a fine rolling down, with capital pasture in the hollows, so that to our other difficulties we are fortunately spared that of anxiety about our camels. It is worth something to see them feeding on rich green grass as they go, making up at last for their long winter’s fast.

At two o’clock we sighted some tents, where we found Beneyeh with his men, waiting for a dinner of lamb which was being prepared. Hungry as we were, we should have much preferred passing on unfeasted, for we are now suspicious of our host, and feel anxious when away from our horses. Still there was no refusing, or seeming to doubt or be afraid, and we joined with as good a grace as we could in the rather rude entertainment. The meal lasted upwards of an hour, and when we were ready to start there were still delays, so that it was dark before we reached the camp which was to be our resting-place for the night. The late rains have put much of the low-lying country under water, and we are now in a broad valley, formerly, one may guess, a rich agricultural district, but long deserted. We passed about sunset the mounds of an ancient city, which are not marked on any of our maps, and which the people here call Jeréysiat; and near these we came upon the camp where we now are.

What its inhabitants are we do not yet know. Dakher, the chief man, is, it would seem, a Beni Laam, but the rest have more the appearance of outlaws than of respectable Bedouins. They have the most evil countenances of any people we have met on any of our travels, and Hajji Mohammed says roundly they are Kurdish robbers. Dakher and his brother Ghafil look capable of any treachery. They have a soft manner, with great flabby faces, and a black look in their eyes, which, with their rows of glittering white teeth, give one a shudder. They received us at first with some show of hospitality in their “mudíf,” which was a large one; but though a fire of logs was blazing in the middle, and pots were standing round, nobody gave us coffee, a very disagreeable omen; and when I asked just now for water, they would not bring it me in one of their own pans, but took ours. They are Shias, probably, and rude on principle. We have pitched our tent the best way we could in the dark, and piled up all our luggage inside, for every man here looks like a thief – I might say like a murderer.

March 30. – Last night, before we lay down to sleep, Beneyeh came to our tent with Dakher, and began bullying again and begging, but Wilfrid would give him nothing except the sum of £10 agreed on, for which he promised, and Dakher promised, that thirty khayal should go on with us to Dizful, a distance of about ninety miles. Beneyeh himself refused to go, saying that Ajjem (Persia) was not his country, but Dakher should go for him, or Ghafil. This was a distinct breach of agreement, but we were only too pleased to get rid of him, and Wilfrid, after some show of expostulation, accepted the substitute. Then Beneyeh made a pretence of writing letters to certain khans or chiefs of the frontier tribes, but I suspect these are not worth much, for having no seal of his own with him, the young jackanapes signed the letters with a seal lent him by a bystander, an irregular and rather suspicious proceeding, but we made no remark, being thankful at any price to be freed from his company. With the grimace of one who has played a successful trick he pocketed the money, and then, without saying good-bye, mounted and rode off, our only friend, the middle-aged man, to our sorrow following him.

We were now left alone with Dakher and his crew, who sat round us while with infinite labour we loaded our camels. Poor old Hajji Mohammed in his rusty uniform, with his sword dangling between his legs, was anything but an efficient camel-man, and in spite of the best will in the world things proceeded slowly. It was as much as we could get out of Dakher that he should tell one of his sulky fellows to lend an occasional hand to the work, and keep the rest from getting in our way. The help was given grudgingly, and in obedience rather to Wilfrid’s command, for he was now obliged to talk loud, than of good-will. Dakher, however, kept up a semblance of politeness, being still our host, a position sacred even in the eyes of the most abandoned, and when his brother Ghafil appeared, announcing himself as our escort, we were suffered to depart.

Once on our horses, and with the camels driven in front of us, we felt more at ease; yet all were not a little anxious. We should, I think, have turned back now but for the recollection of Beneyeh and the river Tibb behind us, evils we knew of while the unknown evils before us seemed preferable. For a while, too, we flattered ourselves with the idea that Ghafil was to be our only company, and for a mile or two the illusion lasted, and we were reassured. There is something, besides, in a very bright morning’s march through a beautiful country, for we were close to the hills, which prevents one feeling anxious, and whatever its inhabitants may be, this frontier-land of Persia looks like a Garden of Eden, with its grass and flowers knee deep in every hollow.

Ghafil is another and a worse edition of Dakher, having, over and above his brother’s vices of countenance, a most abominable squint. His face looks always like a thunder-cloud, and the smiles on it, (for he smiles sometimes, showing a wonderful set of white teeth from ear to ear) are like the smiles of a wild beast. He has, too, a sort of cat’s manner, soft and cowardly, but very offensive. At starting, and as long as he was alone with us, he seemed amiable enough, but at the end of about an hour we came up with the rest of the party in whose company we were to travel, and then his demeanour changed. These were not horsemen, or an escort at all, but a collection of the most extraordinary vagabonds we have ever seen. There were about forty of them, with about twice as many beasts, camels, and oxen, which they were driving before them loaded with empty sacks. Amongst them were two women on foot, and there was a single horseman heading the procession, mounted on a little white mare. We asked them where they were going, and they answered, “To Dizful, to buy corn,” and then in return plied us with a hundred questions. Many of these were not a little impertinent, but by parrying some, and affecting not to understand the rest, we managed to hold our own, even returning some of their small wit with interest on themselves. Hajji Mohammed, however, poor man, was soon singled out as a special butt for their mirth. His old uniform coat they found supremely absurd, and he was as mercilessly chaffed about his tailor as if he had been amongst a party of roughs on the Epsom Downs, while he had not the sense always to keep his temper. There was, besides, something more than mere high spirits in their wit. He was a Suni, and they were Shias, and religious bitterness made them bitter. From words at last they seemed rapidly coming to blows, when Wilfrid interfered, making his horse curvet amongst them, and dispersing them for a while. But they soon returned, and it was all we could do to prevent the poor cavass from being maltreated. One called on him to dismount and give him a ride, another to let him have a shot with his gun, and a third to fill him a pipe of tobacco, to none of which demands the unfortunate Hajji knew how to give the proper refusal. “Ya Hajji,” “Ya Hajji,” was the perpetual cry all the morning long; “Where is your pipe? where is your tobacco? Quick, I am thirsting for a smoke.” Ghafil in the meanwhile would do nothing or could do nothing in the way of control, sitting on his camel gloomily in silence, or talking in an undertone with a great one-eyed rascal, more villainously hideous than himself. The position was often almost unbearable, and only the doctrine of patience which we had learned in Arabia, and a constant show of good humour to the crowd, made it tolerable. In the course of the afternoon, however, we managed to get upon some sort of friendly terms with two or three of the rabble, so that by the evening, when we stopped, we had established a little party among them in our favour. This, I believe, was the means of preventing a worse disaster, for it is nearly certain that Ghafil and the more serious of the party meant us deliberate mischief.

About an hour before sunset we came to a broad river, broader and deeper than the Tibb, and here Ghafil decreed a halt. If we had been a strong enough party to shift for ourselves, and if we could have crossed the river alone, we should now have gone on and left our persecutors behind; but in our helpless state this was impossible, and we had no choice but to dismount. It was an anxious moment, but I think we did what was wisest in showing no sign of distrust; and we had no sooner stopped than we gave one a horse to hold, and another a gun, while we called on others to help us unload the camels, and get out coffee and provisions for a general feast. This seemed to most of them too good an offer to be declined, and we had already distributed a sack of flour and a sack of rice amongst them, which the two women had promised to bake into loaves for the whole party, when Ghafil and the one-eyed man, who had been down to look for a ford, arrived upon the scene. They were both very angry when they saw the turn things had taken, and were at first for forbidding the people to eat with us, alleging that we were kaffirs (infidels), so at least the people informed us later, but this was more than they could insist on. They would not, however, themselves eat with us or taste our coffee, and remained apart with those of the party which had not made friends with us. The women were on our side, and the better sort of the young men. Still it was a terribly anxious evening, for even our friends were as capricious as the winds, and seemed always on the point of picking an open quarrel. Later, they all went away and left us to our own devices, sitting round a great bonfire of brushwood they had built up, “to scare away lions,” they said. We managed to rig up our tent, and make a barricade of the camel-bags in such a way that we could not be surprised and taken at a disadvantage. I did not shut my eyes all night, but lay watching the bonfire, win my hand on my gun. Hajji Mohammed once in the darkness crept out and got near enough to overhear something of their talk, and he assures us that there was a regular debate as to whether and when and how we should be murdered, in which the principal advocate of extreme measures was the one-eyed man, a great powerful ruffian who carried a sort of club, which he told us he used to frighten the lions, beating it on the ground. The noise, he declared, sounded like a gun and drove them away. With this tale of horror Hajji Mohammed returned to comfort us; nor was it wholly a delusion, for in the middle of the night, Wilfrid being asleep, and Hajji Mohammed, whose watch it was, having fallen into a doze, I distinctly saw Ghafil, who had previously come under pretext of lions or robbers to reconnoitre, prowl stealthily round, and seeing us all as he thought asleep, lift up the flap of the tent and creep under on Wilfrid’s side. I had remained motionless, and from where I lay I could see his figure plainly against the sky. As he stooped I called out in a loud voice, “Who goes there?” and at the sound he started back, and slunk away. This woke Hajji Mohammed, and nobody slept again, but I could see Ghafil prowling like an hyæna round us the best part of the night. 15