CHAPTER III

OVER THE DESERT TO MECCA

Now, the yearly caravan from Damascus to the Holy Cities of Arabia was in preparation—a journey which the pious Moslem makes by rail to-day. For, as has been truly remarked, “the unchanging East” is a venerable catchword: the Orient moves on, but slowly. No “unbelieving dog” might plant his foot on Arabian soil; no European Christian had ever seen its sacred fanes. Here was a golden opportunity for one “longing for novelty.” Varthema had learned to speak Arabic. That insinuating smile, persuasive accent, and ingratiating address, so characteristically Italian, were surely his, for we find that he never fails to secure the firm friendship of utter strangers whenever he may require it—nay, he exerts some exceptional fascination on all men, some dæmonic force, as Goethe calls it. He says: “I formed a great friendship with the Captain of the Mamelukes” who were to accompany and protect the caravan. Doubtless, Varthema’s look and bearing were martial; and, as has been said, he may have acquired experience in the Italian wars. To his credentials he added the persuasive argument of a bribe. His new friend accepted him as one of the escort. True, he must profess conversion to the Mohammedan Faith. This was no great strain on the conscience in days when Borgia and Julius della Rovere and the Medici sat in the chair of St. Peter, and when most Christians contented themselves with a half-sceptical observance of habitual forms. Like Henry of Navarre, Varthema thought an apple off another tree than his own a matter of small moment in the fulfilment of his purpose. He repeated the necessary formula and became a Moslem. He had to take a new name. Might it be because he was committed to an unparalleled adventure that he took the name of the son of Amittei? He called himself Jonah.

This bold step was worthy of the Italian Renaissance, when a man had thought it shame not to fashion his own life to his own ends; when he might brush weak scruples aside, and overcome obstacles as the oar turns the wave, converting hindrance into help. Behold our unflinching traveller mounted on a spirited steed, armed to the teeth; ready to encounter all chances of battle, desert-thirst, and unknown peril—one fulfilling old Malory’s test: “he that is gentle will draw him unto gentle tatches.”

The caravan, of pilgrims and merchants, women, children and slaves (about 40,000 souls) and 30,000 camels, was guarded by only 60 Mamelukes, 20 being in the van, 20 midmost, and 20 bringing up the rear. Damascus was left on April 8th 1503, and on the third day El Mezarib was reached, a place on the high land east of the Jordan and about 30 or 40 miles from it. Here the caravan rested 3 days to give the merchants time to buy Arabian steeds. Doughty, that intrepid English traveller and writer of unique English, tells us that, not many years ago, El Mezarib remained the appointed place for gathering up the pilgrim multitude. In Varthema’s time the sheik of the district was both powerful and predatory. He is said to have owned 300,000 camels (50 times the number accorded to Job in the day of recompense), 40,000 horses and 10,000 mares. The number may be exaggerated; but the sheik was able to pounce down on the granaries of Egypt, Syria or Palestine when he was least expected—even believed to be a hundred miles away. “Truly, these folk do not run, but fly, swift as falcons; and they keep close together like a flock of starlings,” Varthema tells us. Their fleet spirited Arabian mares would run a whole day and night without stopping, and be fresh again after a draught of camels’ milk. He describes the marauding Arab very correctly as of dark complexion, small make, effeminate voice, and with long, stiff, black hair.

From El Mezarib, the caravan pursued its ancient course through Syrian and Arabian deserts; but more to the east than in later days. The scheme of travel was to march for about 20 hours; then to halt at a given signal and unload the camels; after resting for a day and night, a signal was again given, and, in a trice all was made ready, and cavalcade and “ships of the desert” were off again over rocky wastes and pathless seas of sand. Then as now, camels were fed on balls of barley-meal and watered every three days. Every eighth day, if no well was found, the ground was dug deeply for water, and the caravan halted a day or two. But it was invariably attacked by Bedouins when this happened. It was their amiable custom to lie in wait for the caravan and carry off women, children or any other unconsidered trifle which might fall within their grasp. Unhappy Joseph Pitts of Exeter (who was captured by Algerine pirates, professed Mohammedanism to escape cruelty, and accompanied his third master on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1680) describes how, between Mecca and Medina, “the skulking thievish Arabs do much mischief to some of the Hagges (pilgrims to Meccah). For in the night-time they steal upon them ... loose a camel before and behind, and one of the thieves leads away the camel with the Hagge upon his back asleep.” And, thirty years ago, Charles Montagu Doughty told us how the Bedouin youth would emulate Spartan boyhood and strain every power to rob a Hadji, for the glory of the feat.

There are many ruins to be found in Edom and Arabia Petrea. Like most men of sceptical turn, Varthema tempered a spirit of free enquiry with a little credulity. He saw distant rocks of red sandstone, fantastically shaped; they were “like blood on red wax mingled with soil.” He was told that these were the ruins of the cities of the plain, and writes, probably from conviction, certainly with commendable prudence, seeing that he had posed as an apostate: “Verily, Holy Writ doth not lie, for one beholds how the cities perished by miracle of God. Of a truth, I believe from the witness of my own eyes that these men were evil; for all around the land is wholly dry and barren. The earth may bear no single thing, and of water there is none ... and, by a miracle the whole ruin is there to be seen even yet. That valley was full twenty miles long; and thirty-three of our company died there from thirst, and divers others, not being quite dead, were buried in the sand, their faces being left uncovered.”

One day, when traversing what the Bible calls “the wilderness of Edom,” “we came to a little mountain, and near to it was a cistern; whereat we were well pleased and encamped on the said hill. The next day, early in the morning, 24,000 Arabs rode up to us and demanded payment for their water”—a time-honoured exaction of the Bedouin Arab, which in our own days is said to have supported one third of Arabia.—“We refused, saying that the water was the gift of God. Thereupon they opened battle with us, saying that we had robbed them of their water. We set the camels as a protecting rampart all round us and put the merchants in the midst thereof and we stood siege during two nights and two days; and a constant skirmish went on. By that time both we and our foes had come to an end of our water. The mountain was wholly encompassed by Arabs, and they averred that they would break through our defence. Our leader, finding himself unable to hold on, took counsel with the Moslem traders; and we gave the Arabs 1,200 ducats of gold. But, when they had gotten the money, they said that not even 10,000 ducats of gold should be satisfaction for their water; whereby we perceived what they sought more than money. So our sagacious leader agreed with the caravan that all men capable of battle should not mount on their camels, but look to their arms. In the morning we put the whole caravan forward, and we Mamelukes stayed behind. We made a strength of 300 fighting men; and we had not to wait long for the fray. We lost but one man and one woman, and we killed 600 of them.”

This statement evokes from a French author the ironic wit of his race: he thinks that the two who were slain may be pitied for their remarkably bad luck. Burton, who more than once accuses Varthema of exaggerating numbers, thinks that his statement here may confirm Strabo’s account of Ælius Gallus having lost two soldiers only in a battle with 10,000 Arabs. We must not forget that the Arab’s body was bare and wholly unprotected; he rode his steed bare-back, carried no fire-arms, and his only weapons were lance and bow. He attacked in dense formation. No wonder therefore that Arabs fell in masses as they came on, and that the carnage was still more terrible when they fled, helter-skelter “Come le rane innanzi alla nimica Biscia” as “frogs before their enemy the snake.”[16] And the Mamelukes, few as they were, rode saddled steeds, were disciplined, protected by armour, possessed of fire-arms, and almost unerring of aim. Once Varthema saw one of the Mamelukes perform a feat which recalls the legend of William Tell: At a second attempt, he shot off from the bow a pomegranate poised on the head of a slave at a distance of about twelve or fifteen paces. And they were as expert horsemen as the Arabs. A Mameluke removed his saddle, put it on his head and replaced it while at full gallop.

Thirty days were spent in absolute desert, and the caravan was always attacked when it encamped by a water supply; but the only loss which the foe caused during about six weeks of journeying was in the big battle in which the man and woman were killed. A little later on and up to our own time, the water-cisterns were defended by fortifications. Leaving arid and rocky hills,

“Boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretched far away.”

“Through these,” says Varthema, “we travelled five days and five nights. Now you should understand all about it. It is a great level stretch of white sand, fine as flour, and if by mischance the wind blow from the south, all may be reckoned as dead; even with the wind in our favour we could not see each other ten paces off. Wherefore there are wooden boxes set on the camels, and in these the travellers sleep and eat. The guides go on in front with compasses, even as if they were at sea. Many died here from thirst; and very many, having dug for water and found it, drank it until they burst; and here are mummies made.”

It is interesting to know that, up to 1908, when the railway for the conveyance of pilgrims from Damascus to Mecca was completed, those of the richer sort still used the wooden protection which our author describes. Possibly the mummies of which he speaks were merely corpses dried in the sun; but the preservation of the dead body by embalming was a very ancient practice in these parts. Doughty found no actual mummies in the Nabatean temples; but he collected and brought back, from the funeral chambers at El Khreby, resinous matters of the same character as those found in Egyptian sarcophagi. Presently, Varthema shall see powders for the mummification of the dead sold outside the Mosque at Mecca. Dried human flesh was an important part of the stock in trade of an Arabian physician whom Burton came across. But faith in the efficacy of pulverised mummy has been by no means confined to Arabia. In the Seventeenth Century, Sir Thomas Browne, tells us in his “Urn Burial” that: “Mummy is become merchandise, Miriam cures wounds and Pharaoh is sold for Balsams”; and even within the last few years Harry de Wint found the repulsive drug on sale as a cure for cancer at Serajevo in Bosnia.

It so happened that the usual discomposing sounds, made by the movements of unstable sand-hills, broke the silence of the desert just where the Prophet had once stopped to pray. The superstitious Moslems must have been wholly dismayed and demoralized, for even the iron nerve of Varthema was strained; he tells us that he “passed on with great danger, and never thought to escape.” At last, a thorn bush or two broke the monotony of this “sea of sand,” and the travellers knew that Medina was now only three days off. Even more pleasing than the sight of vegetation to those pilgrims, who had “seen neither beast, bird, reptile, no, nor insect, for fifteen days,” was the pair of turtledoves that lodged in the branches of the thorn bush. And, most delightful of all was the well of water which gave being to this miniature oasis. The water-skins were refilled; and, so copious was the supply that sixteen thousand camels were re-laden with the precious burden. Hard by, on a mountain, dwelt a curious colony, who depended on the well for their water. Varthema could see them in the far distance, “leaping about the rocks like wild goats.” And one does not wonder at their excitement; for the cistern would not fill up again until the rains should come. Varthema learned that these people were Jews, who burned with hatred of all Mohammedans, probably not without very just cause. “If they catch a Moor, they flay him alive.” They had the shrill voice of a woman, were swarthy, and went about naked. Probably their “nakedness” really amounted to their wearing a simple loose robe or a loin-cloth only. That they lived on goats’ flesh is not remarkable; for it is the staple food of the Bedouin Arab. Probably they were of small stature; but Varthema dwarfs then into comicality: he gives them but five or six spans of height. But he only saw them from afar. That they were Jews is no fable. In spite of the general expulsion of Jews from Arabia with the first successes of Islam, the existence of a remnant of the Chosen People in this district has been well authenticated by Arabian writers; they were to be found there nearly three centuries after Varthema saw them, and towards the close of the past century Doughty heard tradition of them. By some accident Varthema, or more likely, his printer, places them between Medina and Mecca; but he came across them before he reached Medina. It is hard to account for their presence in this isolated and desolate district; and many are the explanations which have been offered, and varied are the legends which have grown up. Badger thought “that their immigration occurred after the devastation of Judea by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, and that the colony was enlarged by successive bands of refugees down to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and the persecutions to which they were subjected under the Emperor Hadrian.” Here is one of the many problems of History which are “beyond conjecture and hopeful expectation.”

Two days after this event, the pilgrims came up to another cistern of water; they were now only four miles from Medina. Everyone thoroughly cleansed himself thereat from all the grime and sweat of the hot, dusty desert, and put on fresh linen, in order that he might present himself purified before the sepulchre of the Prophet on the morrow. All around, the land “lay barren and under the curse of God”; but, two stones’ cast from the city there was a grove of date-trees and a refreshing conduit.

Our traveller found Medina to be but a poor place of about 300 hearths. Food was brought thither from Arabia Felix, Cairo and Ethiopia; first, to a port on the Red Sea, and thence overland by caravan—a journey which occupied four days. He found the inhabitants “scum”; a character which all travellers of all ages agree in giving them, and which they shared with the people of Rome and of all places whither pilgrims and the folk of many nations were wont to congregate. The Sunnites and Shiites there, the two great sects which divide the Moslem world “kill each other like beasts anent their heresies.” And Varthema, the pretended proselyte, suddenly remembers that he is writing for a Christian world, and is careful to assure it of his own conviction that “these (beliefs) are false—all of them.”

“One wished to see everything,” he says, so the pilgrims passed three days at Medina, “Some guide took each pilgrim by the hand and led him to the place where Mohammed was buried.” Varthema gives a description of the Mosque, than which, says Burton, nothing could be more correct. “It is surmounted,” writes the English traveller, “by a large gilt crescent, springing from a series of globes. The glowing imagination of the Moslems crown this gem of the building with a pillar of heavenly light, which directs, from three days’ distance, the pilgrim’s steps towards El Medinah.” Varthema avers that the marvellous light had a real matter of fact basis, being due to a cunning deception. Whether due to trickery, or to the suggestive efficacy of faith and expectant attention, the miracle once had a rival in the more ancient supernatural outburst, every Eastertide, of the holy fire at the altar of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Neither Varthema nor his friend the Captain of the Mamelukes was a man easy to dupe, or given to the conjuring up of visions. “At the third hour of the night,” we read, “ten or twelve greybeards came to our camp, which was pitched two stones’ throw from the gate, crying, some here, some there, ‘There is no God but God! Mohammed is the Prophet of God! O Prophet! Do obeisance to God! Do obeisance to the Prophet! We implore forgiveness of sin.’ Our captain and we ran out at this clamour; for we thought the Arabs were on us to rob the caravan. We demanded why they were crying out; for they made the same sort of din which may be heard among us Christians when a saint works a miracle.” (Varthema cannot conceal his sceptical temper!) “These elders answered: ‘Do ye not see the splendour coming forth from the tomb of the Prophet?’ Our Captain replied that, for his part, he could see nothing, and asked us if anyone had seen anything; but we all said, ‘No.’ Then one of the old men demanded: ‘Are you slaves?’ Which is to say, Mamelukes. Our Captain replied, ‘Yes, we are slaves.’ To which the old man responded: ‘O, sirs, it is not given to you to see these heavenly things; for you are not yet well grounded in the faith.’” Now, in the morning of the same day, the Captain had offered the Sherîf of the Mosque 3,000 ducats to see the body of the Prophet, telling him that he had neither father nor mother, brothers nor sisters, wife nor children, and had come thither to save his soul. Whereupon the Sherîf had fallen into a rage and demanded how he dared desire to behold him for whom God made the heavens and the earth. Since the body was entombed within closed-up, solid walls, such an audacious request marks the sceptical irreverence and haughty insolence of the Mameluke, even before one of the most sacred temples of Islam. The Mamaluke had declared himself ready to pluck out his own unholy eyes for love of the Prophet, if only he might see his body first. The Sherîf, probably in order to silence him, then said that Mohammed had been translated to Heaven by angels. So now, the Captain shouted contemptuously to the reverend greybeard who had told him that it was denied him to see the vision by reason of imperfect faith: ‘You fool! Shall I give thee three thousand ducats? By God, I will not. You dog, son a dog!’.... The Captain thought that enough; and said so; and, turning round to his comrades, exclaimed: ‘See where I wanted to throw away 3,000 seraphim!’ And he mulcted the Mosque by forbidding any of his men to visit it again.

Varthema dispels the popular belief that Mohammed’s coffin was suspended in mid-air by the attraction of a magnet. “I tell you truth when I affirm that there is no coffin of iron or steel, or any loadstone, or any loadstone mountain within four miles.”

The journey from Medina to Mecca was at this particular time beset with more than usual difficulty and peril. The Hejaz was nominally a vassaldom of Cairo; really, it was under the almost absolute rule of its own despot; and we learn from Arabian Chroniclers that the despotism was being fought for by rival brethren. Indeed, throughout Eastern lands, war between sons for succession to the throne rendered vacant by the death of a father was the rule. And, in the long run, this bloody business usually ended in the success of the most capable competitor; so that, however horrible, it did not work out badly; for what can be more fatal to a weak, subservient people than an incompetent ruler? “There was a very great war,” says Varthema, “one brother being against another; four brethren contended for the lordship of Mecca; so that we travelled for the space of ten days; and twice on our way we fought with 50,000 Arabs.” Probably Varthema habitually over-estimated numbers; but there is no doubt that he had cause for alarm before he reached the second of the two sacred goals.

Our traveller descended one of the two passes cut through the hills which girdle and defend Mecca, and found himself in a “very famous, fair and well-peopled” city. The caravan from Cairo had arrived eight days before. Joseph Pitts, the Exeter sailor, also tells us how the “caravans do even jump all into Mecca together.” “Verily,” says Varthema, “never did I see such a multitude gathered together in one place as during the twenty days I stayed thereat.” He writes us at some length, though not so minutely or correctly as Burckhardt, of the great house of Allah and of the Ka’abah within it—a building which conserves the form of the old heathen temple and which was a place of pilgrimage for ages before Mohammed; but this he did not know. He speaks of the sacred pigeons of the precincts; of the seven circuits made by the pilgrims; of the sacred well Zemzem, in whose brackish waters the Moslem cleanse themselves both spiritually and physically; for did not Hagar quench the dying Ishmael’s thirst therewith? of the sacrifice of sheep, and how the flesh was cooked over a fire made of camels’ dung; of elaborate rituals; of the gift of what was superfluous in the feast to the many famished poor among the pilgrims; of the ascent to Arafat, where Gabriel taught Adam to erect an altar; and of that strange, ancient relic of heathen times, the casting of stones at the devil. But he says not one word of the “Black Stone” of the Ka’abah, once the fetish of ancient Arabian worship, and kissed to-day by the Hadji (pilgrim). We learn that Mecca, like Medina, was fed from Arabia Felix and Africa. It was a mart as well as a place of pilgrimage.

Now for a marvel. In an enclosure of the Mosque were two unicorns! They were presents from an Ethiopian monarch to the Sultan of Mecca as the finest thing that could be found in the world ... the richest treasure ever sent. “Now, I will tell you of their make,” writes our author; “the elder is shaped like a colt of 30 months, and he has a horn on his forehead of about 3 arm lengths. The other is like a colt of one year, and his horn is the length of 3 hands. The colour is dark bay; the head like a hart’s, but no long neck; a thin short mane hangs over one side; the legs are slender and lean, like a goat’s; the foot, a little cloven, long, and much like a goat’s, with some hair at the back of the legs. Truly, this monster must be a very fierce and rare animal.”

Whatever our interpretation, this is no “traveller’s tale” of Varthema’s making. His painstaking veracity, except in the “practical politics” of life, has been confirmed a hundred times over. Later on in his book, we come across a description of the structure and habits of the elephant which is a triumph of sharp prose-vision and detailed matter of fact. One cannot doubt that he saw a beast at Mecca which resembled, not remotely, the Unicorn supporter of our Royal Coat of Arms. It is remarkable that Pliny describes a similar animal, and that Ctesias, Aristotle and Strabo speak of the Unicorn. The name occurs nine times in the Bible; but it is commonly supposed to refer to the Rhinoceros. Varthema’s strange beast was a very different animal, apparently resembling the horse-like creature with a solitary central horn which Niebuhr found repeatedly sculptured on the ruins of Persepolis. Similar beasts have been reported from Abyssinia and Cape Colony; and at one time the unicorn was believed in India to inhabit that refuge of the rare, inaccessible Thibet. Yet a generation that is still with us regarded the gorillas and pygmy men of Hanno as Carthaginian fables, until Du Chaillu brought back carcasses of the one and Stanley gave authentic word of the other. But scientists leave us no hope that some happy traveller shall come across a unicorn dead or alive. For the stumpy protuberance of the rhinoceros is an epidermal tissue, and the true bony horns of the deer tribe are developments which grow from, or correspond to, two frontal bones; and it would be impossible for a bony outgrowth to proceed from the mesian line. Varthema’s statement must be deemed by all who know anything of comparative anatomy to be incorrect. The great Owen thought that one of the two horns of the animal must have been broken off or remained undeveloped. Mr. Dollman, of South Kensington Museum, whose opinion the author sought through the kind agency of Mr. S. le Marchant Moore, thinks the creature was an onyx, with one of its horns suppressed and both gentlemen suggest “that Varthema saw the creature in profile, and having ascertained as well as he could under the circumstances, the existence of one horn, did not trouble himself much further about it: possibly the horn might have become more or less incurved.” We must leave the question there, until someone shall give us ocular evidence that Varthema made not the slightest blunder: truly _his_ “horn shall be exalted!”

Varthema had now been signally successful in gratifying the passion to penetrate unknown and mysterious regions which Spanish and Portuguese discovery had aroused in him. So far as is known, he was the first European Christian to reach the holy cities of Arabia; and since his day no traveller ventured on the long and perilous route which he took. At least six Europeans managed to visit Mecca in the last century; but they all took the short route from the Red Sea.